24 replies to this topic

[antoninusthepious]

The main reason I like cross professions is the ability to create unique and ingenious builds to face the different challenges of PVE.  As it is right now I feel like there is less creativity with the traits / builds and the choices are far too few in terms of different character playstyles.  GW1 simply offered more chances to diversify your character with cross professions and everyday you would see people trying different things (for fun) in both PvE and PvP.  Although yes cookie cutter builds still arose and are there for those min maxing farming groups, but I think overall, cross professions gave the game "replayability," fun factor and class diversity by a hundred fold.  And the main reason why I loved that aspect of the game is it that it fosters creativity. Not that the traits and utlity skills we have right now do not but imo, the choices are too few or not viable at all.  

Let's put my Guardian as an example.  You can either be with Utility Skills a:

1) Spirit Weapon Guardian (not really very good in dungeons)
2) Shout Guardian (viable in dungeon)
3) Consecration Guardian (viable in dungeon)
4) Meditation Guardian (viable in dungeon)

It may seem like a good amount of choices to play your Guardian but really, the differences aren't really that distinct.  That and the fact that you can change your utility skills on the go means that you aren't stuck with your utlity skills.  The same thing can be said for Traits.  The different traits give you some little perks here and there but it does not drastically change the way your character is played.  The choices are limited.  In fact if anything, you just tend to realize how one trait line is inferior to another trait line (e.g. Power < Honor) and how you will never trait that way again, thus making your choices for a viable but a more diverse play style even more limited.

If Anet would make the other traits / weapon skills on par with the the other traits / weapon skills that are extremely popular then that would be great!  I am sure they are working on it and we will see some changes in the future!  

But going back to cross professions.. i guess you can call me nostalgic but the idea of creating something NEW by studying and looking at how 2 professions can meld together to create a unique build (GW1) is something that really appeals to me.  Think DISCOVERY TAB in crafting but instead of crafting, you are discovering new skill combinations for your class that you can apply in PvE and PvP.  

In GW1 there were at least a hundred active skills for one single profession.  I bolden active skills because unlike GW2 (which give the illusion of choices via traits but are actually just minor perks), GW1 did the job better when it comes to being able to diversify and play your character in different ways.

I  stopped counting at 80 Elementalist skills in the GW1 wiki and i'm only 3/4 through the page.  You can mix that with the other 100 that the other 10 professions have >_<!  The possibilities were endless!  But it wasn't as easy as picking a skill and putting them into your skill bar.  Skills in GW1 we're quest rewards that you need to accomplish in PvE (much like going out to collect Vista Pts / Skill Pts/ PoIs)

Anet will make my ovaries burst in ecstasy if they:

1) Bring back cross professions (i doubt it because this will obviously break the game.  Perhaps something more sublte like)
2) Adding maybe an extra slot for a cross profession skill or being able to use some of your utility slots for a cross profession skill.

Edited by antoninusthepious, 23 October 2012 - 07:14 PM.

[Italyguy08]

I just feel like any change like that would make the game a nightmare to balance, Anet is pushing for GW2 to become an e-sport and so they want to keep the difficulty of balancing the game to be relatively easy. Although it looks like they are starting to split abilities between PvE and PvP, who knows show far they will take it though.

[Ncyphe]

While I can say, "Yeah, I do miss Profession-Combos," I fully understand why ANet did what they did.

Remember, there's a reason ANet decided to develop Guild Wars 2 and not more GW1 expansions.  I saw an interview with them, a while back, asking them, "Why Guild Wars 2?"  They responded that it was because the road they saw GW1 going down was a road leading to massive problems, broken game that would become a nightmare to develop, a nightmare to play, and a game that segregates its community.

The major reason they broke combos is simple, they like releasing new professions.  With each new profession, they have to design that profession to interlock with every other profession combination, and for every expansion, the work in balancing increases ever more.  That was one of the major broken features.  The idea was cool and unique, but it's just a plain game breaking element, just like how raising a level cap in other games leads to a broken game, creating a barrier to entry.

On that note, I can already see where ANet is going with expansions.  I foresee new continents, like they did with GW1, with new professions, and NO LEVEL CAP INCREASE.  You can tell this simply because all zones are designed to scale with level.  This insinuates that new content will simply be targets toward everyone on entry with a raising curve.  people are already doing that now to get karma and legendary mats.

[SpelignErrir]

Splitting GUARDIAN skills...instead of a class like, idk, mesmer? Which is average in pve and overpowered in pvp.

#anetlogic

And there's plenty of choices, right now. I hope they release stuff in the future like expansion packs or whatever that have more classes or cross professions.

[matsif]

I loved the system in GW1.  The variety it offered was awesome when creating builds.

That said, you can't do it in GW2.  Half of your skill bar isn't able to be determined by the user, it is linked to a weapon.  Then you have a special utility slot that can only be used for a healing skill...now we're down to 4, one limited to an elite...down to 3.  There is not a selection of 3 skills for those utility slots from other classes that I want on my warrior, or engineer, or necro right now, mainly because the class mechanic is so different than it was in GW1.

besides if they did do this and allowed engineer kits to be placed on other professions, no one would use underwater weapons ever again because they would all use the grenade kit.

[Fenice_86]

i miss GW1 so much... this game is so different... i like it, but not as much as i liked Guild Wars 1

[Highlander of Alba]

wel I liked gw1 not for the cross professions as such as if you thought out of the box and had a good enough synergy as a team but, you had heros hence you could build your own team as to suit your playstyle.

I think the limitations are on the set skills for your wepon choice so its 50% split so you are limited by your utility I have to add gw1 to me personally gave yourself a wave of achivement when you could try builds, and have an opportunity to save your builds and swop in 1 click in town to play with others to balance it out.

we have to think of newer people coming into the game and not of a game although I think gw1 was superior in many ways they have tried to cater for everyones taste. I still think they should split a lot more pve/pvp skills but, that leads to more work so they will not do it very often,

I think they have added to much at one time instead of updates on a gradual basis but thats my opinion only,you can see this with the outcry thats on at the moment on the BLT ect. They have drifted somewhat away from what they said it will be to become a game of buy/sell mabe thats why nexon has a hand in this drift away from the way it was supposed to be

[jondifool]

i also understand why the did the change. But to face the fact , as a pve player GW2 offer me so little compared to gw1 in terms of interesting and efficient builds.

But alot of that simply comes from the fact that all encounters in GW1 was group encounters, and as such builds and the roles you could have could be very varied.

the open world of GW2 with the way it mostly rewards dps as every encounter flux with the random number of players involved, sadly doesn't give alot of reason to play anything but tag.

IMHO GW2 have such a long way to go to provide open world PvE with a reason to use all the variation the game provides. And thats a shame

[Fenice_86]

Tbh i would be happy at least if they could allow us to choose the whole skillbar instead of 5 only (and anyway the variety is so small with those 5 slots that only 5-6 builds are viable per class)

I remind when Guild Wars was also funny named "Build Wars" ... and i miss it!

I also dont like much many of the dungeon fights... involving in shooting to 1 single big guy for 10 mins...
More trash mobs slaying would add more fun (AoE dmg is the coolest & funniest to use imho!)

[antoninusthepious]

Exactly I'd have to agree with everything here so far.  And yes i understand why they can not do cross professions at all..

On a different note:

Quote

the open world of GW2 with the way it mostly rewards dps as every encounter flux with the random number of players involved, sadly doesn't give alot of reason to play anything but tag.

you could start a new thread right there.  I was just thinking about how my biggest gripe with GW2 was that farming for legendary weapon / "obsidian armor" involves at least 300 hours of escorting phlinx (which is just  for the pre-req. 1 million karma).  

Where have the fun and epic days of (oh i hope my world wins in WvWvW so i can enter the dungeon!) UW and FOW gone? Mind you UW and FOW are much less brain deadening than escorting phlinx or killing tar..

Edited by antoninusthepious, 24 October 2012 - 06:04 PM.

[Cowmonaut]

GW1 was fun, but I'm like GW2 better myself.  I feel that the build design is more involved than in GW1.  There are so many thing to factor in compared to GW1, and so many different ways to do things.  Just for the Warrior alone there are a dozen builds I want to try out that all are wildly different than one another, both in how they play and in how the build is laid out.

I find most people just get locked in that X is the only way to play a profession.

I just wish Karma was slightly easier to get a hold of.  I don't have much time during the week to play and so I don't get to hammer out Events constantly, I'm busy trying to get a Dungeon run or twelve done quickly.

[Soki]

I miss them - Cross-classing was the main draw gameplay-wise for FF11 and GW1 for me - but it just couldn't work for GW2. The choices are too narrow to allow for inter-class flexibility.

If GW2 were designed again with mixed classes in mind, I'm still not sure if I'd prefer it. There are a lot of variables to take into account for balancing - and it seems ANet has their hands full just play-testing their content.

[syrin]

Don't miss them personally, I never really used them myself.

[CepaCepa]

Too much freedom is a shackle.

[Tregarde]

Nope. It was complicated enough with just one profession, having a second one only made things more so. Not to mention that I pretty much ignored the secondary profession anyway, so why have it?

[licho]

I dont think that its good idea.
Cross profesion combo creates a lot of problem to balance, since devs need to consider anything with anything consequences, and with each patch players will find a new abuse, or sweet spot.
And in the end its not worth as much, since cross combo do not create lots of creativity, in theory its possible to do anything, but in practice players are sticking to few best choices.
So as well Devs can make this best choices a option for a class, or decide that this class should never get such a option.

[infymys]

Not signed.  Mesmer/Thief.  Thief/Mesmer.  PvP instagib.  Enough said.

Edited by infymys, 07 November 2012 - 06:01 PM.

[Red_Falcon]

I'd like to be able to use utilities from other professions, but that would create major imbalance and give Anet a lot of unnecessary work.

[Featherman]

More weapons>cross professions. More weapons have been confirmed.

For PvE/Wv3 I'd like to see something along the lines of collectible racial skills just to spice up the combat and make racial choice more meaningful.

[Serris]

yeah you can use whatever skills you want in your build with crossprofession.
and you have 2 or 3 viable builds.

i prefer the way it is now, where the choices i make matter in gameplay and are all more or less viable.

[NachyoChez]

At first?
Absolutely.

My ranger could become almost any class (but ele) effectively, and gave me sooooo many options.  Using the dual class system really let me flex my legs on occasion, and I took FULL advantage.  But then I began to think on it... how much did I use it for uniqueness and how much of it was gimmick?  UW trappers anyone?  Running builds?  That-one-spirit-that-made-titans-faceroll?  The way it was so easily abused drained some joy out of the game... 1hp minionmancer? While fun to build, that kind of game is on the borderline of exploit, and while fun, I enjoy getting to play ANY class, MY way...instead of IWAY.

[turbo234]

Nope, the only thing I miss is dedicated healers/monks. Each profession can already play multiple roles so there's no reason for me to miss it.

[FrancisCrawford]

I loved the build flexibility of GW1.

I understand why the same mechanics don't work in GW2.

I hate the build flexibility limitations that AREN'T necessary, such as hassle and cost to retrait, or lack of an easy way to switch weapons and builds out of combat.

[Firstborn12]

while I like the options dual-class gave, I wouldnt want them back. Instead just add more skills to current professions that improve there Damage, Support & Crowd control ability. for example, lets take the ranger:

Poison Apple (survival) adds poison to your next 5 attacks,

Pit Trap (traps) lays Traps that knock down foes

Nature Spirit (Spirits)  20% chance to remove a condition from you and your nearby allies-->release your nature spirit, remove all conditions from you and your nearby aliies

and so forth. more skills adding more options to your profession.

[Xunlai Agent]

I miss it because it was such an interesting system but I most certainly do not want it back. I find the system they came up with to be an excellent replacement