@ those saying there will be a lack of skill required

[Iselde]

Correlating skill with effective usage of a quantity of spells or attacks is dumb. I have not seen such criticism (yet), but I would not be surprised to hear of it after launch. This type of criticism will likely come from people who do not know of the weapon/attunement swapping system — to outsiders, the ten-slot bar can be deceptive.

It's safe to say that on average, most professions will have twenty skills at their disposal at any time. Arguably, the addition of weapon → skill swapping takes more skill than making use of a simple collection of skills on three or four bars. Often I find that around 40% of the skills are useless 95% of the time and a lot of people just like to say that they have those skills available should they need them.

Switching weapons to your situation's advantage takes away some weapon skills (1-5) and replaces them with different skills, which makes the whole situation a big mind game. This cannot be said for games that use systems that allow for mass skill availability, where choice is often a non-issue. It is likely that gamers that have played MMOs as a class with stances or forms will be a bit more inclined towards GW2's combat. Weapon swapping forces choices and makes the player adapt to situations, creating a noticeable skill disparity in players that utilize the adaptive system and players that limit themselves to their preferred weapon.

This dynamic weapon/skill system combined with reactionary, fluid combat provides for a game that should require far more skill than what we are expected of in traditional rotation driven MMOs. At this point I can't imagine any informed gamer dismissing Guild Wars 2 as a game that requires little skill.

[Lucky_]

Lets not compared WoW PvP to any game with half decent PvP now.

Considering the 2011 blizzcon arena finals, I would call it "excellent" at the moment. It's at the level of GW1's GvG in terms of balance, more or less.

Quite a recovery after the mess early in expansion.


More on topic, I believe the "lack of skill" was about the only PvP mode being shown, which was mostly about running around capping points. With three points and a handful of players, you spent more time running, and fights seemed mostly about "who can burst other one faster".

Arenanet largely admitted this, but noted that this is just one form of PvP, and there will be other, more skill-based forms.

[Necrologic]

Just need to operate on the basic premise than anything with the ncsoft logo on it is not only a game not worth sinking your time into, but also not worth mentioning.

Infracted.
Don't troll.

[Lucky_]

Just need to operate on the basic premise than anything with the ncsoft logo on it is not only a game not worth sinking your time into, but also not worth mentioning.

Notably there are tens of millions of people buying their games who disagree with you. But to each their own.

[Wynnyelle]

Just need to operate on the basic premise than anything with the ncsoft logo on it is not only a game not worth sinking your time into, but also not worth mentioning.

Even though NCSoft has nothing to do with the development of the game.

[Digglett]

Just need to operate on the basic premise than anything with the ncsoft logo on it is not only a game not worth sinking your time into, but also not worth mentioning.

Wish people would look more into the game before making comments like this.

[Klur]

If anyone seriously tries to argue that less class skills = less player skill then ask them this: which game has a greater skill cap, WoW or a fps like CoD? Then ask which has more skills in game. Then /end argument.

While it's dependent on the game devs to do it right, generally simpler gameplay allows for greater player skill to shine through.

[Deleted]

If anyone seriously tries to argue that less class skills = less player skill then ask them this: which game has a greater skill cap, WoW or a fps like CoD? Then ask which has more skills in game. Then /end argument.

While it's dependent on the game devs to do it right, generally simpler gameplay allows for greater player skill to shine through.

While I agree with the basic idea you're saying ( ie. less useable abilities does not equal less player skill needed ) comparing WoW and CoD is a HORRIBLE example.

[Wynnyelle]

While I agree with the basic idea you're saying ( ie. less useable abilities does not equal less player skill needed ) comparing WoW and CoD is a HORRIBLE example.

Yeah, they're waaaay too different to really be compared since their playstyles and goals are very different. You'd probably be better off comparing something like LoL to it since they use hotkeys (although still, not a superb example, they're still really different). There are only 6 hotkeys that you have to worry about in LoL but you have to worry about positioning and a bunch of other factors more so than your abilities. And the skillcap is certainly higher than WoW's (in my opinion). GW2 PvP skill will not be based off of your number of abilities, but how you use them.

[Merendel]

Tbh, I often use that much, both PvE and PvP. That's what separates the good from the bad: you use your whole arsenal depending on what you need.

PVE as a tank for me its about 5 attacks, 3-4 CD's and a debuff or two. I might sneak off a clutch BR depending on the fight but its normaly suicide to shift out long enough to do anything else. Most DPS specs have 3-6 rotaional abilities, a buff or two to maintain, and a couple of CD's to pop every 2-5 minutes. The dot classes have a bit more in haveing to refresh several dots on top of everything else. Healers 4-5 single target heals, a couple AOE heals and a couple oh shit buttons. You can add a few more abilities to any class in the realm of pre fight buffs but its rare to recast them in a fight.

I can buy your argument in PVP as roles are more fluid and specs branch out more but for PVE each class has alot of abilities that either only get used when things go catastrophly wrong or the fight is weird enough that your role becomes redundant for stretches of time (tank/healer DPSing) and even then some abilities are just not worth the time to use such as a feral tossing boomer nukes. Useing your tools well and with proper timeing is key but there are alot of tools in those toolboxes that are worthless if your not in a spec that uses them because the trinity moddle shoehorns classes far to much.

[Klur]

While I agree with the basic idea you're saying ( ie. less useable abilities does not equal less player skill needed ) comparing WoW and CoD is a HORRIBLE example.

Two things:

1st. Generally the people who think skills must equal higher skill cap probably wouldn't make the logical jump that ones an mmo and the other is a fps.

2nd. While the overall game mechanics can be quite different the skills that a player needs to succeed are largely the same with all games, namely the ability to quickly assess targets of priority, which abilities/ weapons are most suited for the situation, and whether to engage or retreat and regroup.

3rd(I lied about only having 2 points). While comparing game mechanics and general playstyles between WoW and COD may have plenty problems, the way that player skills and overall skill cap play into it does not. I'm making the assumption that we're talking about pvp for all points, and Wow has a much lower skill cap in nearly all regards. There are many more limits to a players skill, cd's, resources, etc that limit a players skill in Wow that simpler systems simply do not have. Essentially there is less of a skill gap between good and great wow players vs good and great CoD players.

[Deleted]

Wasn't GW1 PvP very skillbased despite having only 8 spells available at once?

[Fernling306]

I think the game will be easy to get good at, but will it will be hard to be very good.

[Deleted]

Should we just add another 40 skills to every class in wow then, I bet that would make the game much more enjoyable.

[Durzlla]

Wasn't GW1 PvP very skillbased despite having only 8 spells available at once?

lol yes it is, i learned that within like 5 minutes of pvping for my first time... and now that i've gotten the hang of it am very sad when i get stupid people in RA's

[Malthurius]

Wasn't GW1 PvP very skillbased despite having only 8 spells available at once?

Mainly because your skills had a lot of synergy with each other. If you didn't know the intricacies of your skills on your bars you would be sub-par in comparison to someone who does. There was also an art to putting abilities on your bars, since you couldn't put every ability you owned on your bars at once you had to be very methodical in what abilities you chose.

GW2 is going to be like that (More or less, The weapon system kind of changes that, but the right side of the bars are up to choice and are still synergistic most of the time. Good example is Scorpion Wire for Thieves.) plus the addition of dodging and no auto attack, you have much more input as to whether you're good or not. Or in other words: You need to be skilled to be good.

Not to mention the addition of Cross Profession Combos. Surely a pair of good friends could master these to use effectively. These combos can also be used by anyone that sees the opportunity. A good ranger would see a wall of flame and shoot through it for more damage, while a noobie would ignore it.

There was skill synergy in GW1 too. If a group of people planned around each others skill sets, they'd be much better off than otherwise.