22 replies to this topic

[Spite22]

Hi all, I have been using this site for over a year now, and I thought it is time to make an account. Please correct me if I am posting in the wrong section I have searched for this topic but haven't found it before.

The weapon skills (1-5) I feel are too easy to unlock. Using a sword for example, it is meant to take practice to learn how to use a new skill. Not hacking the same level 2 creature to death over and over to quickly unlock the next skill. Higher level foes, who have a more advanced combat style should reward players with more of a skill unlock progress as the character learns more advanced combat techniques from a more advanced foe. Also, you should feel as if you have achieved something great when you unlock a new skill. A new way to survive etc

In summary, what I am suggesting is that if a player kills an enemy that is higher than or equal to the current level of the player, they should get x amount of skill unlock. For this example, say 5%.
If they kill an enemy that is 1 level below, 4% of the next skill should be unlocked, 2 levels lower, 3% etc all the way to 5 levels lower+ would unlock 1% of the next skill.

This would encourage players to continue along their adventures and story line while trying to unlock all of their skills, rather than sitting back and hacking level 2's over and over again to quickly unlock all of their 5 skills, then swtiching weapons and doing it all over again.

Players can do what they want after all, but eliminating some more grinding aspects couldn't hurt right? What are your thoughts? Thanks for reading

[dawnq]

Doesnt that introduce a grind?

From an ele point of view, trying to kill anything with the water attunement #1 made me want to /wrists.

Edited by dawnq, 11 August 2012 - 03:44 PM.

[Merryem]

Um, no thanks. I honestly don't wanna go through an hour just trying to unlock more skills as a clone factory using the Mesmer. I mean honestly, starting off as a Scepter as the Mesmer has got to be the most boring thing in the game.

[Itheyln]

I understand what your saying, and I do agree that there should be more rewards for progress in this game...
But that would honestly just make the game boring... I don't want to spend a hour only using my #1 skill...

What I think would be cool is if you kill a veteran mob, you automatically unlock the next skill.

[dss_live]

The time it took to unlock skills has been lowered on demand of people who did not like 'grinding' for skills (personally i do not see it as grind) but this does give a hint that they aren't going to change it back.

[chuckles79]

I think you miss the point.  If you are spending time unlocking skills with your weapons, you are not advancing in the game and not getting meaningful rewards.

From a RP perspective, it's realistic because a real adventurer would not rush into a great battle with untested weapons.

An adventurer would train in an area like Queensdale (random example) before heading off to more dangerous lands, honing their skills while helping the locals with local concerns.

Just doing the farm DE's can unlock 1-5 on any weapon.


A little note, not directed at the OP per se, but more towards the concern of the ease of play.   Levelling in this game is not hard, I think your level progression is the matter of least concern to the dev team; instead of rushing you to max level as they did in GW1, they artificially lower your level to the zone you are in.   You can max out to 15 in your starting zone, then go to another starter zone and continue to progress at exactly the same rate (tested in BWEs and during yesterday's ST).

The challenge will be in the more advanced content.  All reports say that Orr is full of insta-kill creatures and just being lvl 80 with standard gear is not going to do you any good.

Think about how often you get downed by mini-bosses?  Imagine an area where every single enemy packs that kind of punch?

I think those of us who go on about how easy Kessex Hills/Brisban Wilderlands/etc. are, will be in for a nasty shock once we hit more wild lands.

Edited by chuckles79, 11 August 2012 - 04:19 PM.

[jonnique]

I like the current rate on which skills are unlock and there are much stuff to do in game I don't want to be thinking about grinding my skills I rather think on what weapon is best used in this scenario.

[Angelodeath]

The are at which the skills get unlocked seem satisfactory to me too.. And im an elementalist..

[VagabondLife]

I prefer it to be easy to unlock because with all the weapons some of the professions have available, I would prefer to spend my time learning how to use the weapons/combinations and skills I have unlocked on them while I am leveling....rather than spending my leveling time just unlocking the skills.

[jx1590]

Well i play elementalist, so it is 4 times more difficult to unlock skills, and i thought it was kinda boring.

Specially in WvW.. its almost impossible to unlock all elementalist skills there.

[ProudPlatypus]

It seems it’s more of an aid to teach players about the skills of each of their weapons as they introduce themselves to them, rather than something to accomplish. It's tutorial stuff.

[xphenox123]

i dont agree whit ur lvl thing because u get downscale when u go fight monster lower than u so its still challenging

[Korra]

>Skills takes Long time to unlock
>Complain

>Skills are easy to unlock
>Complain

[Yllibas]

I like the way it is now. When you've got a profession that can use around 5 to 11 different weapons (including offhand), it becomes a chore to have to keep hacking and slashing at things all the time. Skills 1, 2 and 3 are pretty easy to lock but I've noticed that offhand skills take a bit more time. I hate grind, and no matter how you slice it, whether you make unlocking weapon skills depend on the monster's level, players still have to hack and slash at things. There's not much different in that concept. I like how it is now.

With so much other stuff to do in the game, it's nice to have something that pretty much unlocks itself as you play. That is definitely one of the better designs of the game.

[samd227]

Merryem, on 11 August 2012 - 03:57 PM, said:

Um, no thanks. I honestly don't wanna go through an hour just trying to unlock more skills as a clone factory using the Mesmer. I mean honestly, starting off as a Scepter as the Mesmer has got to be the most boring thing in the game.

I agree with this, i do everything i can to get to a point where i can either get GS or sword/pistol... That little lob of an attack with the scepter drives me crazy >.< like mesmer tennis

[Alaroxr]

That's just an unnecessary grind that forces players into monotonous combat because it assumes players are too incompetent to handle 5 abilities unless they "prove they are worthy" by spamming the auto-attack 50,000 times until they level.

As it is now, the game quickly gives you all of the abilities, but still only gives them to you one at a time. This way you learn how the weapon works slowly, but still in a timely fashion. Giving all the abilities instantly doesn't help teach players about how to optimize their use of the weapon, and giving them the abilities ridiculously slow just makes it incredibly annoying. Current speed is fine.

Edited by Alaroxr, 12 August 2012 - 12:44 AM.

[Sqiud]

Spite22, on 11 August 2012 - 03:22 PM, said:

Hi all, I have been using this site for over a year now, and I thought it is time to make an account. Please correct me if I am posting in the wrong section I have searched for this topic but haven't found it before.

The weapon skills (1-5) I feel are too easy to unlock. Using a sword for example, it is meant to take practice to learn how to use a new skill. Not hacking the same level 2 creature to death over and over to quickly unlock the next skill. Higher level foes, who have a more advanced combat style should reward players with more of a skill unlock progress as the character learns more advanced combat techniques from a more advanced foe. Also, you should feel as if you have achieved something great when you unlock a new skill. A new way to survive etc

In summary, what I am suggesting is that if a player kills an enemy that is higher than or equal to the current level of the player, they should get x amount of skill unlock. For this example, say 5%.
If they kill an enemy that is 1 level below, 4% of the next skill should be unlocked, 2 levels lower, 3% etc all the way to 5 levels lower+ would unlock 1% of the next skill.

This would encourage players to continue along their adventures and story line while trying to unlock all of their skills, rather than sitting back and hacking level 2's over and over again to quickly unlock all of their 5 skills, then swtiching weapons and doing it all over again.

Players can do what they want after all, but eliminating some more grinding aspects couldn't hurt right? What are your thoughts? Thanks for reading

Sounds like you're over thinking a small part of the game that already works.

[FateAnomaly]

Whether the player wants to "delay advancement" unlocking skills by killing easy mobs or "continue advance" by using untrained weapons, it is up to the choice of the player. Lets keepe it that way. Either way, it wouldn't take the player very long to unlock all weapon skills anyway, even the elementalist.

[Da-Noob]

I feel that the current rate is just fine.  A good chunk of the players who are deciding to play GW2 are doing so because they didn't like that in other games you had to grind out stuff and being limited to only 1-2 abilities, maybe 3 if you have reached the level for the first utility unlock, would be incredibly tedious.  I'm sure some classes would have it not as rough but as someone who played primarily on a mesmer with a little bit of elementalist, the mesmer scepter and the water attunement elementalist became fairly tedious at its present pace and increasing the rate at which skills would unlock will increase the probability of players being turned off by the setup.

[gustavxiii]

Da-Noob, on 12 August 2012 - 05:25 AM, said:

I feel that the current rate is just fine.  A good chunk of the players who are deciding to play GW2 are doing so because they didn't like that in other games you had to grind out stuff and being limited to only 1-2 abilities, maybe 3 if you have reached the level for the first utility unlock, would be incredibly tedious.  I'm sure some classes would have it not as rough but as someone who played primarily on a mesmer with a little bit of elementalist, the mesmer scepter and the water attunement elementalist became fairly tedious at its present pace and increasing the rate at which skills would unlock will increase the probability of players being turned off by the setup.

mesmer scepter is nothing compare to ele.  scepter only has 3 skills.  the first 3 skills are easy to unlock.  the 4th and 5th takes significantly longer.  mesmer only has to level up scepter once, on 3 skills.  ele has to level up water on 5 skills, on every single weapon.

and air and earth isn't exactly the heavy damage dealer that fire is either.

[Esorono Osuiger]

No thanks, I've been through enough situations where I was spamming 4 for a knockback to save my butt just to realize I didn't have it yet. I don't want to be stuck with spamming 1 skill for 10 levels because someone can't figure out that it does damage yet. If someone who hasn't learned what a skill does by reading the description and using it over three times deserves to die on the field.

[Majic]

I think the current system is about right. It serves as a tutorial mechanic with a modest sense of progress and reward, but I think unlocking skills should come as a natural consequence of playing the game, not a goal in itself.

As things stand, you can sit back and hack level 2's over and over again to unlock skills, but it's far from necessary, and far more fun to just play the game.

[Spite22]

chuckles79, on 11 August 2012 - 04:18 PM, said:

I think you miss the point.  If you are spending time unlocking skills with your weapons, you are not advancing in the game and not getting meaningful rewards.

From a RP perspective, it's realistic because a real adventurer would not rush into a great battle with untested weapons.

An adventurer would train in an area like Queensdale (random example) before heading off to more dangerous lands, honing their skills while helping the locals with local concerns.

Just doing the farm DE's can unlock 1-5 on any weapon.


A little note, not directed at the OP per se, but more towards the concern of the ease of play.   Levelling in this game is not hard, I think your level progression is the matter of least concern to the dev team; instead of rushing you to max level as they did in GW1, they artificially lower your level to the zone you are in.   You can max out to 15 in your starting zone, then go to another starter zone and continue to progress at exactly the same rate (tested in BWEs and during yesterday's ST).

The challenge will be in the more advanced content.  All reports say that Orr is full of insta-kill creatures and just being lvl 80 with standard gear is not going to do you any good.

Think about how often you get downed by mini-bosses?  Imagine an area where every single enemy packs that kind of punch?

I think those of us who go on about how easy Kessex Hills/Brisban Wilderlands/etc. are, will be in for a nasty shock once we hit more wild lands.

Ahhh ok, I understand where you are coming from. I didn't view it like that at first, but that's what discussion forums are for, right?!

Thanks for all the responses, a bit too much hate coming from the mesmer players though - during the latest laggy stress test I was able to unlock all mesmer skills with all weapons available to mesmers in ~40 minutes.

I understand the water elementalist though, maybe it would be a good idea to get some skill% unlock for healing with water spells as that took heaps of time while all other ele skills combined with all ele weapons took ~2 hours.

Also to clear things up, the 5% I originally used was just an example, I was going to say e.g 30% for skill 2, 20% for skill 3, 15% for skills 4 etc, but I thought you would all understand, sorry if it was unclear.