Vyn wrote:
Eh, that's the reason I have difficulty with it. First, giving you a bunch of skills and then saying you can't use them all at once is incredibly irritating to me. That's like giving a scientist a huge lab for their work and then saying "Oh you can only this one room out of the 20 in the building." Why?!? The only parallel I can see for this in the real world is that a single soldier can only carry so many weapons. But a wizard only able to cast 8 spells when they know dozens more? Why do they take selective amnesia pills before they go outside? Does it get them high or something?
The fact you're supposed to combine with groups and set up your abilities in coordination of theirs is both good and bad. Bad because it means soloing gets harder and harder, good because it forces you to socialize. However that good can also be a bad, and it is for me. If I want to play and I just don't feel like grouping I should be able to. But no, that's not possible here. Same thing in FFXI, and that's what made me quit that game as well. Just incredibly frustrating to go against a nameless mob that's the same level as your "Hero" and get your a$$ whooped.
You can use bots that you choose the skills of and control instead of people, was the last time you played when there were only henchies? The teamwork doesn't need other people now because they have really improved their npcs, you just need the other characters for their class skills.
It is limited to 8 because it is meant to be like chess, it isn't comparable to real life combat because... it isn't real life and is a strategy game more than it is an rpg reaaalllyy. For example, where you stand is extremely important.
There would also be a very biased and predictable metagame if you could use them all because there would be a "best" set of skills. The dual class system adds to your restriction even more, which is nice.
It is kind of like the card game Magic: The Gathering. You wouldn't think "I have all these cards, why don't I just use them all" and guildwars is more like that.
It would be too easy if you could pull any skill out at anytime and you'd lose a layer of the game. One of the best parts is strategising -before- you go to take on a mission, or enter a pvp arena (there is an arena for 1v1 with npc allies). Like chess, there are many stock setups and you sort of have to study it because the metagame is more important than anything else.
You can view it as being that the 8 skills are your characters battle plan, like in sports where teams have specific manouvers they will agree on before the game. They don't plan and then do whatever else they want randomly. You are going into a conflict and it would be dangerous to think it up on the spot because it is large scale.
DDO, on the other hand, has much smaller scale battles and uses the system where you can make use of anything your character knows from the P+P game but that's because it's combat isn't based on war, it is based much more on the roleplaying side of things.
Both ways have their reasons, but I prefer GW because it is competitive.
And EQII was ruined for me when they made it simple and the PvP was hilarious.Especially if you played an assassin back at the time I was playing lol.
Edit:
And there are certain long skill combinations that if allowed in a bar together would make you invulnerable. SO it wouldn't work if you were allowed to do that hehe.
04 Oct 2009, 7:29 am
