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GW2 and its in-game shop
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Normally i can get a new character to max level, equiped it and hunt down the 8 skill i want all in 1 day time.
So go figure...
A shortcut...is an advantage.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
You confirmed that it is an advantage... which is what I said... but did so in an aggressive manner, because...why?
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
Well that depends on your objective. If your objective is to get every skill and all maxed-out gear unlocked, then the advantage is HUGE. But if you're going just for the usable builds, it is not that much, and you can unlock skills for your next build while playing with one.
Combination of PvE and PvP characters is the most efficient way to unlock stuff. It is fairly easy to get all the more useful builds unlocked with some specialization (for example you can play all the more common warrior builds).
I'm so out of touch with the game to say any estimate... But like I said earlier, it is subjective. I think it is fairly easy. I'd use PvE for the core skills and most of the elites and PvP for the equipment and rest of the elite skills.
There may be a lot to unlock initially since there are different armor and weapon mods to unlock, but later it becomes more and more about the skills since many builds use the same equipment.
Without the equipment, I'd say one build (7 skills plus 1 elite) could be unlocked with one night in PvP. -Anyone can confirm that? Ofcourse that also depends on your prowess in PvP.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
By the way, I'm not saying it is a huge advantage. It is an advantage though. Call it what it is. It's better to say that you can buy a small advantage in the way of a shortcut than to say you cannot buy any advantage when you can. It changes the feel. It creates an air of dishonesty. It plants the seed of doubt. Causes all sorts of problems...
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
Kind of like how gear is going to be of greater importance in GW2 than in GW1...yet, when it comes to the instanced PvP - it is still going to be artificially balanced - so the gear will not be of greater importance there.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
I would still call it a shortcut.
It is a whole different matter from buying a concrete advantage (e.g. more dmg / stat bonus / shop-exclusive items) or something mandatory to play the game properly (e.g. intentory space), which are things most people are against, myself included.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
So now we've arrived at the truth, I guess. After plenty of squirming and wiggling, we've settled on the fact that they DID sell advantage in the GW1 cash shop. We're now just quibbling over HOW MUCH advantage they were selling.
That bothers me, because it is expressly what ArenaNet said they hadn't done, and wouldn't do. Seems like they are splitting hairs and using some very tricky semantics in order to make very bold and concrete statements. Surely they must realize that people are going to discover the inconsistency?
Again, I'm not going to go off half-cocked here since we don't yet know what's going to be offered in the GW2 cash shop. I'll wait and see.
This is definitely a dent in the armor, though. If they use the same slippery rationale in order to sell advantage in GW2...I'm likely not going to buy their game. Bypassing game play with real life cash is where I draw my line. It's no longer an MMORPG in my book if you sell shortcuts, because the point of the genre is advance and develop your character by PLAYING THE GAME.
No, skillpacks do not offer better skills, more skills, or better versions of skills, they simply unlock skills on the account. The same skills are unlocked by buying them with in-game coin at a skilltrader, by capturing them from bosses or by unlocking them with a PvP variant of the skilltrader for PvP 'coin' (faction). Any PvP character you make can use all unlocked skills on an account, as well as heroes.
For PvE, skill packs do not matter, player characters still have to buy the skills, for the same amount of in-game coin as player characters from accounts without the skill packs.
Quess what, I do understand because I am a former Guild Wars player.
Actually I did a lot of unlocking with skill capture and pvp also.
Guild Wars 2 don't have skill capture system and you can learn all of your
skills from an npc so I doubt they are going to sell skill packs this time.
These packs never was real advantage in pvp & pve from my experience.
SexuaLobster's Grease Portal
So what you are saying is I can trade real world money for in game currency in the form of not having to buy those skill packs or as a way to cut down the amount of time it takes to aquire all those skills via other means?
That sure sounds like F2P to me.
I never thought of it as an advantage and neither did any of my guildies (or that I know of), although I can see how someone else might see it as an advantage. Atleast you admit it is in the gray area.
Anyway, Anet has already stated that all the skills and equipment will be unlocked etc. for structured PvP so similar packs wont be sold in GW2. There wont be separate PvP and PvE characters either.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Except that there is no advantage to having every skill and none missing, that would be a collector's objective without advantages to game-play. There isn't even a title for having all skills on a character (or account), only a PvE title for elite skills, but these are way easier to capture from bosses then learned from (expensive) elite tomes.
I think this is common for all Guild Wars veterans. Those packs sure sound bad, but once you play the game and know how easy skills and equipment are to unlock, it doesn't really bother you.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I want to address the issue of PVP skill packs, but first I want to back up a second and speak more generally.
There's no morality or absolute correct/incorrect when it comes to a business and what it's offering (other than legal/illegal). Businesses exist to make money. A cash shop exists to generate extra revenue and what is in it is going to depend on what people are willing to pay for. Costumes and such are in the shop because the vast majority of people don't object to them. If people did object, they wouldn't be there. People generally do object to P2W items, so they're not there. I know ArenaNet wants to be all "for gamers, by gamers" but a lot of it does come down to money. Having GW2 be an e-sport in PVP will generate interest and therefore money. It's important to them for that reason to have a level playing field.
As far as GW1 goes, yes, there's PVP unlock packs that offer timesaving, but you have to take everything into account. The wiki page for that pack was created in November 2007, so all the expansions had already been out, EOTN for only a few months, but the standalones for over a year. One of the reasons they did away with Utopia was because their standalone expansion style kept adding complexity to new players, with hundreds of new skills each time. It seems clear to me that the intention of this pack is not to provide an advantage to players (though it does, through timesaving), but really to allow new players a quick way to catch up to the people who had already been playing for two years.
Furthermore, it's not actually that bad. It allows ACCESS to all the skills, but it only UNLOCKS 60 of them. You'd still need to earn points or whatever. So it really only gives you a baseline for being able to jump in and compete with a handful of builds.
While we're on the subject of power, Mercenary Heroes actually do provide an advantage in some cases. For instance, the game only has 2 necromancer heroes. Leveling a necromancer and making them a mercenary hero would allow for you to have three necromancer heroes in your party (or more). But again, this is mostly a single player game by the time they came out, it's possible to have any number of heroes be secondary class necromancers, personally it's hard for me to get upset about them.
What it comes down to for me is that there's no blueprint for a B2P ORPG cash shop. They're going to try costumes, bank slots, makeovers, they even tried a DLC. People will let them know that they want and what they will not stand for. There are going to be missteps along the way. I believe they've made it very clear that in GW2 they won't make the game uncomfortable or otherwise force you to use the cash shop. If they go back on that, let's raise hell.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
I don't like gray areas, especially not when they are used to justify bold, black-and-white statements like "We do not sell advantage."
So ok, I'm beginning to understand a little better I think. The system is obviously pretty complex. So buying skill unlock packs only provides a wider pool of skills to your PvP character, not your PvE character. I'm probably still not getting it totally.
To me, it seems like having a wider pool of skills would be an advantage in PvP. I would be able to try any build I wanted from day one without having to play the game at all. Am I still not understanding? Isn't gaining those skills basically the point of playing? I understand that the skills are more of a horizontal advancement system rather than vertical, and that it's a matter of having more choices, not higher damage or whatever. But it seems like in a game where having more choices is the goal, being able to buy ALL the choices right of the bat is a pretty fricken big advantage.
Oh and those packs weren't available at launch. Those packs were part of a solution to make top level PvP more accessible for new players later in the game's lifespan.
You can buy all three campaigns from e.g. Steam for 30€ (around $42). We payed 40-50€ for each back in the day. Even if you bought all the packs, I'm sure you've spent less money than some of us.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Thanks very much, that's quite helpful.
I'm still somewhat bothered by the skill packs, but with a better understanding of the system and the context, it is slightly less off-putting.
You better believe I will raise hell if they aren't careful with their cash shop. This is the only game anywhere close to release that has a remote chance of being something I want to play for more than a month. If I end up having to vote "No" with my wallet, I'm going to be spending another year or something waiting for Copernicus or Wildstar or whatever else might be on the horizon. That would damage my calm.
Actually, the game has 3 Necro heroes:
Olias, who is a cross-expansion hero
Master of Whispers, who is from Nightfall
and Livia, who you get during Eyes of the North.
Then of course there is Razh, who is the (now) wildcard hero, who can become any class like he was originally intended to do. So he can become a necro for the 4th necro hero.
Yep, now you get it. One of the charms of GW1 was that there was no, Fireball 1, Fireball 2, Fireball 3 etc. but skills were, like you said, horizontal advancement.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
In GW in the cash shop the only thing that could help out your toon was increasing the storage and that you did have to buy if you needed to increase the size of it. Other then that the cash-shop was for cosmetic purchases.
ArenaNet has already stated that the Cash Shop will not have anything in there that will give you any advantage, it is for cosmetic items only. Of course they could add pet buys and other things down the road, but nothing that would make your character better then anyone else, ...you may just look a bit cooler.
GW2 + CashShop = Not P2W
Wildstar (2013) & Elder Scroll Online (2013)
Playing: Diablo 3, WOW, Far Cry 3 & X-Com.
Enjoyed: WOW 5 1/2 yrs, LOTRO 3yrs, GW 1/2yr, DFO 1yr, EVE Online 3yrs, and Huxley (Beta).
Failed to impress: GW2 3months, Tera Online 6 months (best combat system in any MMO I've played) STO 1/4yr, Aion 1/2yr, AoC 1yr, CO, Fallen Earth, DDO, EQ2 1/2yr, WAR 1/2yr, Lineage 2 and FF XI 1/2yr, FF XIV.
PvP characters can use the unlocked skills immediately. It's usefull for those who have no interest in PvE as playing the game normally would unlock a fair amount of skills. Even then, 30 minutes of casual PvP with a prefab will net you enough faction to get 8 skills and one or two elites for your preferred bar. The shortcut is that in, PvP, with the pack you can put anything on your bar, at any time, while
People buy outfits for their characters to wear in towns. If that is an incentive for people to spend cash on, why is it so hard to believe that skill packs are bought for convenience?
I don't care much for 'achievements', really, if someone buys a sparkling pony that others have had to grind on for weeks, smart move from him, his time is worth more then the dimes he spend to have fun with his game.
I couldn't care less if the guy who's warrior I am beating up bought the skills through a skill pack. My characters have always been able to buy any skills I thought they needed whenever I wanted.
So, to sum up -
Skill unlock packs were added later in GW1's life as a way to allow new players who came late to the party to bypass the horizontal advancement necessary to gain basic competitiveness in PvP.
I can't say I like it totally, but I understand the reasoning and perhaps the necessity. I'm glad GW2's design will make those types of "fixes" moot.
pvp character = new character created, instantly max leveled, cannot move in pve area (they're lock in pvp waiting area)
my typical gw build = choose a elite skill, 4-5 skill to support the elite skill, 2-3 utilities skill(escape, heal). Equipment need to be heavily customize for each build.
Basically unless your very rich in game or doing hardcore pvp, normal player will not change their build much, i'd rather create another character to play another build.
The point of so much debate and confuse in this thread is that most actual guild war player will know that those skill unlock pack doesn't offer much advantage to a normal player. As i stated in earlier post, i can get a new character and build up to max with equipment in 1 day so do i need the skill unlock pack to hasten this already fast process by another 2-3 hour? For me the answer is no.
They've made it very clear that GW2 will make the game uncomfortable? will ==> won't maybe?