Overly complex skills Vs No more skils or what??

"Speaking of running around the world, that's something you'll actually be able to do; run, jump, basically just dork around however you like. When you land in a new world, O'Brien explained, you don't want to have to read a bunch of skill descriptions, you want to run around and jump and swing, so that's what you'll be able to do in Guild Wars 2. It's meant to be a learn-by-doing sort of situation--rather than have overly complex skills that take an excessive amount of brain matter to understand, players will learn less complicated skills that they will be encouraged to test out in any situation they can think of. What happens if you use this skill while jumping, or that one while surrounded by monsters? Who knows? Give it a whirl and find out! Strain referred to it as "emergent complexity," and if it works the way they say it will, I shall personally send them each a fruit basket. Having a wide variety of skills in a game is great, but the amount of reading and memorizing you usually have to do to have even the most functional ability in an MMO is enough to drop me into a deep state of catatonia." (don't know why this interview keep coming back to haunt me :P)

This is great you know, being able to use skills while you are moving around. For instant, your ranger character swinging from tree to tree and be able to shoot at the foes on the ground below. Or be able to kick foes off a cliff while you are climbing it. It all sound wonderful, until....

I bought another character slots and started a mesmer from Pre-Searing Ascalon. I have a Mesmer on my other account, she's going to be 2 years old, why do I tell you this, because , when I created her, I just wanted to have a mesmer, without knowing how powerful mesmer can be, and also did not know you can kill a foe with 3 skills before it reaches you :P~ but now i do!

Now, 2 years later, while playing my new Mesmer, I come to realize that the above quotes, an interview Life from Wired with O'Brien and Strain, they are talking about taking out the need to read and understand skills and players will be able to not have to look at skills bars and be albe to play the game and try out stuffs as they go, so what now? no more energy tapping? no more summoning meteor showers on your foes? Are we going to jump around???

I know there are lots of skills that are currently not even being use by players. but that is whats fun about guild wars, the non-set attribute points, and the ability to mix and match different profession and come up with different builds, am I to understand that all that will be no more in GW2?

Because, that would mean taking a great deal of fun out of the game since, beside looking for the last remaining 0.3% of tyria maps, I experience the most joy from making builds and testing them out and comparing which one is the best for which maps.

I would have post this under GW2 Q&A but its kinda GRRR that i need to post a new thread about it, but if mod thinks it should be together with that please move, thanks.

To much assumption and speculation.

I'd place little merit on an article that states:

HoM and titles are just a tad more than finishing some "gnarly" quest.

I'd be happy to be proved wrong but I've seen nothing stated by Anet concerning HoM rewards other than them being purely vanity rewards.

Companions, armor and weapons?

I'll assume this guy has no idea what he's talking about.

Meh, easier skills means easier brainless grind.

Guild Wars 2 might end up like a Korean F2P MMO.

Huh, what has it got to do with HoM?

i want to know if we still have the ability to mix and match skills and second professions and non-fix attributes... and making up a group with builds supporting each other or we going to be figithing like assassin creed/prince of persia ???. eepness!

return of the nUrsan?

Sounds like they are taking out all of the things that make GWs, GWs. Yeah games that require thought are a very bad thing. Why even make it then. There's 1000s of other button mashers, just go play Tekken, least with Eddy you might make some money.

Oh and its posted on March 26, 2007 | 4:24:22 PM, so doubt it holds up still.

if you can jump in GW2, ursans will fly.... (as part of the "emergent complexity", hahaha)

Nothing.

What I'm saying is that your speculating over information in an article written by what appears to be a highly ignorant author, not to mention:

We don't even know if it's even relevant of debate in terms of possible implementation.

Still have fun I guess.

ah, okay, i thought you totally miss my point , sorry !

Half of the fun for me in GW is coming up with a decent team-build (PvE-wise). Therefore you surely need to read the skill descriptions, figure out the synergy between them and your party members.

Slapping some skill on your skillbar and be 'encouraged to test out in any situation they can think of' sounds too much like Ursan to me.

I don't want to think about what this means PvP-wise. Are we just going to hack each other with the same skills, only they are doing something different when you are jumping/climbing/running?

Ah well, time will tell.

I've started playing this game: Perfect World.
I think Guild Wars 2 will be a lot like it.
It's completely free to download and immense.
Graphics are like Guild Wars 1, lots of quests and people.

You can download it here, it's 2,2GB. http://www.perfectworld.com.my/

Honestly I like the idea that players won't be able to know right away all the things each skill can do. It keeps things fresh and also developers might add new effects from time to time and not tell anyone. then ppl will be as skillful as they are observant and/or creative in trying out new manouvers with skills.

There are tons of skills that just aren't useful. Fetid ground, Swirling Aura, and Primal Rage to name a few. Less, more useful skills is a better concept and much easier to balance.

It sounds to me as if, instead of making skills with a set outcome when you use them, they'll have multiple possible outcomes depending on the situation you are in. Nowhere in that article did it say that there would be less skills in the game, just that they wouldn't be overly complex (although I'm wondering how they're going to avoid that if one skill can have multiple outcomes).

However, it is just one article. I think, as always, you should not panic until you get official, concrete information. And let's face it, it'll be awhile till we get that. Speculation is all well and good. I like to speculate a bit myself. But there's a problem when you start to get yourself worked up over next to no information.

Although I do see your point, you've missed one critical detail that was in the article about the HoM awards. That is the use of the phrase "have access to". This means that, if the article is correct, we will have the opportunity to obtain armour and weapons at some point along the way, not necessarily given to us right away. That is exactly how I'd imagine it to be handled. For example, you put a certain set of armour in the HoM in GW1, and in GW2, you have the opportunity to have a unique armour set crafted for your character at some point (when I say unique, I mean it looks unique. It'll probably be no more powerful than those armour sets that non-veteran players will be able to obtain).

After reading this I was a bit afraid too. I like how GW is atm (few changes needed apart) Designing a build, testing it, optimizing it is a big part of my fun. Being good at using it is another part of my fun, I do not want to hit buttons without thinking. To me the complexity of the skills is perfect. (Note again, few changes needed apart)

I think people, and in particular GW players, will be surprised by GW2. Even if some GW players think that EotN tested and paved the way for GW2 features. I'm convinced that this idea of emergent complexity will bring us tremendous fun and dozens of hours of challenges. Of course, as the OP suggests, it's not going to look like the fun we have now, but change is good, though this change will be radical. GW was too mechanical to many people, and less "organic", in the sense that you intuitively play the game as you progress. But we'll have to see, all we do now is extrapolate from a few words.

This "emergent complexity" sounds like a test...just like gw1 was... so am I to expect gw3, 3 yrs after gw2 release because emergent complexity fails GG?

There has been a "dumbing down" of some games recently, its made many of the newer first person shooter games no longer of any interest to me.

It seems some game companies believe that although there is an active hard core gamer crowd out there that enjoy detail and complex game mechanics they are small in number.

Small compared to the much larger pool of gamers who want to play the game with the minimum or reading and learning of skills.
At least that's the way some have moved with their latest games.

Complexity has gone as has realism all in favour of the "game experience"
If that happened in gw2 I would be most disappointed.

However we just don't know so I still hope for the best.

This completely scares me about GW2. I can imagine the situation at 1st level...

"OK, we need to figure out how to attack something. Let me try running forward, and hit shift-G on the keyboard, and see what it does...

Now I'll try running, and hit shift-control-G... And now alt-shift-G... Alt-control-shift-G... Alt-control-G... Control-G... Alt-G... Ok, what about all of those moves while moving the mouse to the left...

What? The party is dead? And we didn't do anything but the Thriller dance spin move? Well, we have a bunch more keys to press. Let's keep mashing them until we do something. Yes, yes, I know, after we do some damage, then we will try to figure out how to maximize our damage, and actually kill something (besides our fun!)..."

On the up-side for A-Net, if we never get to figure out *exactly* what a skill does, we'll have no way to bitch when they nerf it!! I guess that's one way to balance skills without all of the QQing...

Again, I am reading more and more about the ideas of GW2 that are so far disappointing to me. I really don't like the idea of changing GW as a whole, and making it a completely different game... No auto-attacks, No complex skills... WTF, I mean is there anything that we like in GW1 going to be in GW2? I startin to feel like there is not going to be Solo farming like there is in GW1, no chest running, and everything else we all love about gw won't be in GW2. I really don't understand this, I think they are taking ideas way too far to the point where gw won't be the same at all... Looks like we won't be seeing Invinci Farming builds in GW2, no 55/105hp, no 600hp dualin, no SF farming, and especially no 330hp rt/mo

The shitty part about all this... is that they are pretty much going to abandon GW1 when GW2 is released, even though they pretty much are already doing that as we speak. No more GW1 campaigns or expansions blows. What happens if we don't like the concept of gw2, and hate the whole feel and gameplay? Mainly cause it won't be nothing like gw1... If we don't like it, and go back to playing gw1, everything will be the same as it is now... Then we are pretty much F**ked as GW fans, and have waited too long for nothing.

I really think they are makin a great game into something less, but I guess thats all I can expect at this point. I really was lookin forward to GW2, but seems more and more I read about it, the less excited I am. But I dunno, guess that is just me... or does anyone else feel the same way? Games like AoC look great and cuttin end and all, but still something I wouldn't like to play over GW1... seems like it will be the same way with GW2.

Guild Wars 1 will die, and never be the same. How exciting