Upkeeps

I often feel that switching an upkeep on dumbs down gameplayBecause it restricts your other options due to energy limitations

Wouldn’t it be much more fun if the upkeeps where an integral part of the legend?Allowing players to. Concentrate on the more fun part of combat?

Maybe add a grandmaster trait that reduces skill use cost by .5e (rounded up) / pip of upkeep being used.

Skill Cost Reduction(1 pip upkeep = -.5e rounded up)*1 pip = -1 e

• 2 pip = -1e
• 3 pip = -2e
• 4 pip = -2e
• 5 pip = -3e
• 6 pip = -3e
• 7 pip = -4e
• 8 pip = -4e
• 9 pip = -5e
• 10 pip = -5e

Not really. For starters, one can not really say upkeep skills "dumbs down" gameplay since it will require the person to pay attention to how many upkeep skills they have going vs how much Energy they have vs how much Energy they think they will need vs their weapon abilities. That's a fair amount of micromanagement. I think the opposite would be true, that removing upkeep skills would constitute a dumbing down of gameplay as you are essentially making it easier to play and manage. When people, normally, talk about dumbed down gameplay they talk about how a developer made things easier to do, not harder. It also wouldn't be much more fun. Revenant is a very skill intensive profession. You have a lot of micromanagement going on and that's what makes it appealing and fun. Some folks are drawn to professions that are more complicated in nature, that require them to be paying attention to more than just spamming #2. That's why folks enjoy Elementalist, it's a micromanagement profession.

The fun part of combat is also a subjective term. What I find fun you may not find fun. Clearly, you do not find the level of micromanagement involved fun. I and others do find it fun and that's what draws us to the Revenant. I get a thrill when I win with Revenant that I don't get with other professions, save possibly Elementalist (though not in the same way). Combat is more interesting because everything I do has to be timed very well or I don't win. I will admit, Revenant is not very forgiving of mistakes, something not everyone enjoys in a profession. There are, however, very few professions that handle like Revenant in the game. I would say that Elementalist, and possibly Engineer, are the closest to Revenant in terms of what it is requiring you to pay attention to in order to play the profession well. Removing that for folks would be bad in my opinion as people who don't enjoy that level of micromanagement have six to seven (depends on whether you want to lump Engineer in) professions they can play that allow folks to focus on the "fun part of combat." For folks like me, who enjoy micromanagement, we don't have that many options.

I also do not feel like the profession would play the same way. It's hard to imagine using skills like Impossible Odds as anything but an upkeep skill. However, it's not that big of a deal, upkeep skills are in the minority. In core Revenant play you only have four such skills. Renegade adds one more. It is only Herald that actually makes frequent use of them and I can't picture Herald being as useful of an Elite if it wasn't constantly spamming its boons. It isn't exactly keeping up with its peers when it comes to such things.

@Justine.6351 said:Maybe add a grandmaster trait that reduces skill use cost by .5e (rounded up) / pip of upkeep being used.

Skill Cost Reduction(1 pip upkeep = -.5e rounded up)*1 pip = -1 e

• 2 pip = -1e
• 3 pip = -2e
• 4 pip = -2e
• 5 pip = -3e
• 6 pip = -3e
• 7 pip = -4e
• 8 pip = -4e
• 9 pip = -5e
• 10 pip = -5e

I think this would do more harm than good as Energy costs would have to be determined in such a way that they are accounting for the possibility that the Energy costs can be driven down. This may lead them to raise Energy costs in the long run since players who don't want to pay the higher Energy drain would have that option to make it less. On the other hand, if it's not really driving down Energy costs in a meaningful way it then the trait would be pointless and a waste. It would require them to be very precise in finding a happy middle ground.

@Dace.8173 said:

@Justine.6351 said:Maybe add a grandmaster trait that reduces skill use cost by .5e (rounded up) / pip of upkeep being used.

Skill Cost Reduction(1 pip upkeep = -.5e rounded up)*1 pip = -1 e

• 2 pip = -1e
• 3 pip = -2e
• 4 pip = -2e
• 5 pip = -3e
• 6 pip = -3e
• 7 pip = -4e
• 8 pip = -4e
• 9 pip = -5e
• 10 pip = -5e

?It scales reduction with upkeep cost. 5e or more per second upkeep is expensive all on its own. Cant really think of a scenario where utilizing heavy upkeep to reduce skill energy costs would justify the upkeep's drain; but it would allow the use of some of the cheap skills more freely rather than thinking of them as energy wasting buttons.

@Justine.6351 said:

@Dace.8173 said:

@Justine.6351 said:Maybe add a grandmaster trait that reduces skill use cost by .5e (rounded up) / pip of upkeep being used.

Skill Cost Reduction(1 pip upkeep = -.5e rounded up)*1 pip = -1 e

• 2 pip = -1e
• 3 pip = -2e
• 4 pip = -2e
• 5 pip = -3e
• 6 pip = -3e
• 7 pip = -4e
• 8 pip = -4e
• 9 pip = -5e
• 10 pip = -5e

Well, my overall concern is just that ANet would need to find a happy medium. With so much that ANet needs to fix for Revenant it's just one of those things where I wonder if ANet would get it right. You could be right and it's no big deal but I felt like voicing my concern with the idea. However, I think the OP is coming at this wrong anyway. As I stated in my post outside of Herald there are not much in the way of upkeep demands. Therefore, I find it hard to believe that in a general sense upkeep is a true issue. Two of the four on core are actually elite abilities so their cost may be appropriate considering their power. So what we're really talking about is Herald and whether or not its upkeeps cost too much. If the answer is yes then the issue would be better served with just adjusting their Energy costs as opposed to creating a new trait. However, considering how few upkeep skills are on Revenant is there really a problem with them?