Originally posted by Diovidius

Originally posted by Lord.Bachus

Personally i think its enough for a new game, and i am sure that the number of skills and traits will grow over time, beyound anything current MMo's with the exception of GW1 have to offer....

 

Personally i am hoping that in future upgrades, there will be a 6th weapon skill which can be choosen from its own pool of skills and which also changes when people switch weapons...  and a 4th utillity skill... which would allow for more diversity over time... 3 utillity skills to choose from is just not enough in my opinion... by allowing 2 more skillchoices, people would get more freedom as the game gest more and more skills avaialble..

That sounds like the wrong way of doing it. Everything, from years before release to the time after release before those upgrades will have been about balancing the game around 10 skill slots. If you would then add more skill slots, the entire balance would become upset. More skills for those 10 skill slots is fine, but adding more skill slots is not.

its not only ballanced around 10 skills...

They have a system in place that ballances all skills equally.... just mathematics... and its up to the players to find which skills work well together and which don't... it will not be hard to ballance this with the GW2 system.

Love it.

Also love that my screen will be filled with some beautiful art instead of looking something like this:

While I liked the skill system in GW1 in Prophecies and Factions, it got ridiculous after Nightfall and EotN. Too many duplicate skills, too many skills that relied on a combination of other skills to be effective, balancing became a nightmare, etc.

Gw2 is much more streamlined while still providing a huge variety of skills. You can't say there isn't enough:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_warrior_skills

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_engineer_skills

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_elementalist_skills

I really hope it is expanded over time, but for initial launch it seems sufficient.

I would like to see more variety to use the same weapons in different ways and as such have different builds.

But it is something they can build over time easily, as well as adding new weapons.

I'd rather have really balanced combat for PvE/PvP than dozens of useless and/or overpowered skills.

Give it time...

Agreed. I do miss the GW1 variety and approach to skills, as well as the multi-classing approach.

On the flip side, I love the weapons = abilities and skills approach. Now if they expanded this to armor and other items providing skills, and since such items are found or made, it could then really increase the player's combat options and variety.

Really hope they build upon it rather than keep it simple.

Still trying to wrap my head around how every race is also accessing all professions.  Would have prefered at least 1 or 2 race specific professions. Salad people + engineer just seems off to me, especially since the race is supposedly only what, 25 years old?

It's interesting because if you look at "themepark MMO history" you will find that there has basically been a trend of reducing the number of skills by elminating duplicate or unnecessary skills over time.

Everquest, widely regarded as the first themepark, had TONS of spells.  This was because spells never "ranked up" so in order to get a more powerful "DD" spell, you would have to learn an entirely new spell that basically did the same thing just more damage.  Like "shock of frost" and "shock of lightning."

Later MMO's like WoW (and I think DAoC) introduced the concept of "ranking up" skills.  So that now you would have just ONE skill that did DD fire damage, but this skill would get more powerful by increasing in rank as you level.

However, these MMO's still had a lot of skills that either were extremely similar to others, like a skill that does more damage with a slightly longer cool-down, or extremely limited in scope, like 6 separate spells for buffs that you just apply one time.  So you still wound up having like 4 skillbars full of skills even though many of them were hardly ever used.

I think in GW2 we're seeing another "reduction" of duplicate or limited skills.  Most skills in GW2 seem to have a wide variety of applications and to be fairly useful and/or unique from what I've seen so far.  So with any luck, GW2 will have less skills, but the gameplay will remain just as complex if not more complex than other MMORPGs.

To me, this smaller skill set is a better fit, for this particular game, as opposed to GW1. Honestly, quite a few of the skills in GW1 had a few, similar, "cousins" that basically did the same thing, but in slightly different ways. To me, some of these similar skills just weren't worth the bother of buying or collecting. I don't see that happening (at least very much) with GW2. With a smaller set of skills, each skill has a bit more "uniqe-ness" to it and a higher overall value to the player. I'm not saying GW1 did anything wrong...going out and finding better "versions" of skills was part of the adventure, it's just not the case anymore.

I'm fine with it. People keep bringing up the huge amounts of skills in GW1 you had access to, but that's completely irrelevant.

Hundreds, maybe even a thousand individual skills, and people only ever use the same ones. To this day, you still see Protective Spirit in farming builds, you still see specific Assassin skills in damn near every PvP build, and people LOL at you if you don't use specific PVXWiki builds for those harder dungeons or solo play. There's no point to all those skills because there are pre-prescribed skillsets that people only ever use in the first place.

The people who do this are either a) metagamers who have worked hard on finding the perfect build and know what they're doing or b) overwhelmed at the skill choices and just want to play the damned game, so they use one of the builds someone smarter than them has made (this one would be me). Yes, you can play around with the skills and create your own build, but nine times out of ten you're either going to end up with some slight variation of those same meta-builds or you're just not going to be as effective.

I also dislike the game trend of today where I have like 6 skill bars on my UI on the slight chance I need something even though, generally, I only ever use buttons 1-5. The rest are almost always situational. I'm happy to be done with the clutter, personally.

Originally posted by Rabenwolf

Agreed. I do miss the GW1 variety and approach to skills, as well as the multi-classing approach.

On the flip side, I love the weapons = abilities and skills approach. Now if they expanded this to armor and other items providing skills, and since such items are found or made, it could then really increase the player's combat options and variety.

Really hope they build upon it rather than keep it simple.

 

Still trying to wrap my head around how every race is also accessing all professions.  Would have prefered at least 1 or 2 race specific professions. Salad people + engineer just seems off to me, especially since the race is supposedly only what, 25 years old?

Not to get off-topic, but that shouldn't really be a surprise. They're like the fantasy version of the Borg, really. The memories, thoughts, learning experiences, etc., of every Sylvari are concentrated in one tree that spits out more Sylvari that, with each new birth, is smarter and knows more than the the last. 25 years of exponential learning seems sufficient for learning how to shoot a gun and throw a bomb in that case, to me at least.

Originally posted by DeaconX

Love it.

 

Also love that my screen will be filled with some beautiful art instead of looking something like this:

NOOOOO MY EYES!!! TAKE IT AWAY!!! 

oh the not so fond memories >.<

Originally posted by DeaconX

Love it.

 

Also love that my screen will be filled with some beautiful art instead of looking something like this:

Totally optional, extreme end of scope.

I'm mostly happy with this because the skill set is large, but the active skills are concise.  It looks as though I'll have access to a lot of skills and be able to change my approach dynamically.  That is a good thing to me.

I don't like that in GW1 I'm locked into a single skill set and build until I go back to an outpost.  I don't like that in RIFT, EQ2, LotRO, WoW, and other large skill set games that I have so many useless skills cluttering my skill bar.  This approach looks like it will be  a nice balance between the two extremes.

One thing I love about RIFT is the macro system that lets me clear clutter from my skill bar and create custom skill attacks/chains/combos.  GW2 seems to be taking this concept to the next level with weapon sets, skill chains, and combos so I won't need to create macros, but will have dynamic combos.  More action and choice seem to be the idea here and that is a good thing for me.

Originally posted by Lobotomist

I really enjoyed GW1 skill system. The huge variety , endless build combinations , fact that you had to adventure and hunt for skills (kind of like pokemon ;) )

Now in GW2 we have weapon skills - which you unlock all in 40 minutes per weapon. And Around (rough estimate) 20 utility/elite skills. Which you unlock by leveling.

I am not saying its not lot.

But its far cry from variety in GW1.

All the amazing build combinations people was comming up with.

 

How do you guys feel about that ?

I see where you are coming from, however, i believe this will be much easier to balance.  There will be plentiful builds with this system, but i feel it will focus more on weapon sets which i feel will be truly fun.  Sword weilding mesmer builds and the like combined with a certain combinations of mesmer skills yet they can vary between weapon sets; it adds plenty of variety.  

Now you may not see something as unique as the infamous 55 monk build from back in the original. That build was terribly difficult to master, but once i did i picked up my friend who was a necro and we went and farmed the Underworld for some great stuff.  It was terribly overpowered and invincible when properly utilized. I doubt we'll see anything like that, but there will be plenty of room for uniqueness in GW2 :)

Originally posted by Fusion

Originally posted by DeaconX

Love it.

 

Also love that my screen will be filled with some beautiful art instead of looking something like this:

 

Totally optional, extreme end of scope.

Extreme end? That? Gods no. That's about average for a raider in WoW. Take a look at some of the extreme healer UIs and you'll wonder how they ever played the game.

I'm looking forward to the managable skill bar.

Originally posted by Volkon

Originally posted by Fusion

Originally posted by DeaconX

Love it.

 

Also love that my screen will be filled with some beautiful art instead of looking something like this:

 

Totally optional, extreme end of scope.

Extreme end? That? Gods no. That's about average for a raider in WoW. Take a look at some of the extreme healer UIs and you'll wonder how they ever played the game.

I never used any healer UI's and i managed just fine, even in 40-mans.

Just wait until they start adding expansions to GW2, and then watch the number of skills go back up.

My expectations from playing GW1 is that a variety of skill combinations are viable and not a single cookie cutter if you have this weapon then only this elite skill and these options work well. 

How do you feel about considerably smaller skill set in GW2

doesnt matter if game needs larger skill set from  player.

The skill-set is a major reason why I'm interested in this game.

I'm tired of the repetitive and cookie-cutter build like in WoW.

Even if they try to change it, It's still the same boring and basic skill tree over and over again.

And it's the same with so many games....

Now I know if I want to just have fun and go with a Bow warrior, I can.

I'm tired after 10 level ? No prob, I have have to CHANCE MY WEAPON to change my gameplay.

And I can come back to my bow anytime I want.

Yes, I'm sure there's some build that will be "better".  But unlike in other games, if I want to get diversity I don't have to lose time going to search for skills or pay for a boring re-spec.

I just have to bring another weapon.

And I think the big role here will be the "passive" skill on the right where you have alot of choice to customize.