Please stop with the special items that replace players skills

[Knight In Shining Armor.17]

I don't want to learn them. Half of them you use for one mission and never again, making learning them redundant and a waste of time. If you wanted me to be stealthy, give me a stealth skill I can use in open world so I can learn how it works besides your uniquely crafted mission. In other words, let the player dictate their style of play, not the devs. I am sick of not being a hero. I don't want your artificially difficult missions. You discourage play when you make this stuff mandatory.

[sigur.9453]

special action key is a smart way to impliment mechanics in the LS and other content. otherwise (im taking your example) you would need to add a stealth skill for every class, which wouldn´t work since most of the times its against the class design/philiosphy.devs quite literally dictate your style of play at anytime.im sorry that you are having problems with that skills it seams, but whats to learn other to read it? a hero is defined by overcoming a challenge, so no idea what you are trying to say.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I didn't get the impression the OP was talking about 'Special Action' skills, but those Episodes (or parts thereof) where one's entire skill bar changes (such as the one where one becomes Caithe[?] in LW Season Two).

Those kinds certainly aren't my favorite, but, to me, it's not that big a deal as infrequently as they are encountered.

[sigur.9453]

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:I didn't get the impression the OP was talking about 'Special Action' skills, but those Episodes (or parts thereof) where one's entire skill bar changes (such as the one where one becomes Caithe[?] in LW Season Two).

Those kinds certainly aren't my favorite, but, to me, it's not that big a deal as infrequently as they are encountered.

ah my bad then. my points still stand though.

[Henry.5713]

Pretty sure the reason they keep adding stuff like that to the LS is the fact that many continued to complain about the dfficulty of even the easiest missions which of course mostly came down to "their" builds being quite bad in terms of damage or any efficiency.Or simple said, having to swap your builds and possibly gear around to be able to fit the requirements of different missions isn't something most players are into. They pretty much expect the game to run on autopilot these days. The developers throw easy stealth at you if that is required, or special weapons to make up for some of the weaker builds and players (think about the sword during the Balthazar fight). They provide special defenses, free resses or anything else really which removes any need to plan or figure out ways to beat any of the supposedly harder parts.That said, I am not saying I like it but that seems to be the prefered design nowadays.

[Danikat.8537]

If the OP is talking about the living story episodes where you become Caithe then I think it would be inaccurate to say Anet "keeps adding them" for any reason because as far as I remember those are the exception. I suspect some people at Anet thought it was a cool idea at the time, but so many people complained they've not done it again.

There was that step during Long Live The Lich where you get a new gadget with stealth skills, but you can switch between that and your normal skill bar any time you like, so if you wanted to you could do the entire thing just using your normal skills. But there's also a tutorial to make sure you know how each one works.

Personally I don't mind them, but then I have 11 different characters, all with different builds, so I'm used to switching between different sets of skills and having to remember how they work. Whenever I log into a character I've not played for a while I have to take a minute to remind myself which skills I've picked and why.

[Knight In Shining Armor.17]

I am indeed talking about that stealth mission in LLTL. For example, i'm trying to use the teleport skill for some achievement, I get teleported outside the mission boundries and insta kicked. Lose all progress. Wooo ya what fun. Ragequit.

It feels as though whoever it is that's supposed to be checking for these things, is asleep at the computer. Nobody double checks this stuff. It's like one department insists on adding this crap and nobody says a thing. Hey you know this could break the whole mission? Hello?

I am just typing spontaneously here but you get the idea.

[Tanner Blackfeather.6509]

@"Knight In Shining Armor.1708" said:I am indeed talking about that stealth mission in LLTL. For example, i'm trying to use the teleport skill for some achievement, I get teleported outside the mission boundries and insta kicked. Lose all progress. Wooo ya what fun. Ragequit.

It feels as though whoever it is that's supposed to be checking for these things, is asleep at the computer. Nobody double checks this stuff. It's like one department insists on adding this kitten and nobody says a thing. Hey you know this could break the whole mission? Hello?

I am just typing spontaneously here but you get the idea.

I definitely understand your frustration, I had to restart it due to bugs, unrelated to Blish's arm.

What happened to you seems more a problem with how the boundaries function, though. The same thing happens with unfortunate Raptor-leaps, or with boundry changes when more than one player.

I think the use of the arm skills were handled very well - we learn them one or two at a time, get to practice them before adding new skills, and they were to a large part quite optional to complete the mission. Drastically different from Caithe in the L2.7 instances or the Glint skills in HoT Act 2.

Requiring learning a bundle skillbar to get the achievements seems perfectly fine, but the "confuse with teleports" achievement could have used a bit more hints on what to do, exactly!

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

The skills used in Long Live the Lich is likely took a bit of resources and time to develop and could possibly never be used ever again. That's frustration.

[Turkeyspit.3965]

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:

@"Knight In Shining Armor.1708" said:I am indeed talking about that stealth mission in LLTL. For example, i'm trying to use the teleport skill for some achievement, I get teleported outside the mission boundries and insta kicked. Lose all progress. Wooo ya what fun. Ragequit.

It feels as though whoever it is that's supposed to be checking for these things, is asleep at the computer. Nobody double checks this stuff. It's like one department insists on adding this kitten and nobody says a thing. Hey you know this could break the whole mission? Hello?

I am just typing spontaneously here but you get the idea.

I definitely understand your frustration, I had to restart it due to bugs, unrelated to Blish's arm.

What happened to you seems more a problem with how the boundaries function, though. The same thing happens with unfortunate Raptor-leaps, or with boundry changes when more than one player.

I think the use of the arm skills were handled very well - we learn them one or two at a time, get to practice them before adding new skills, and they were to a large part quite optional to complete the mission. Drastically different from Caithe in the L2.7 instances or the Glint skills in HoT Act 2.

Requiring learning a bundle skillbar to get the achievements seems perfectly fine, but the "confuse with teleports" achievement could have used a bit more hints on

what

to do, exactly!

Let's not forget PoF Balthazar fight. Sure there is an achievement for not using the sword, but given it's a boss fight, it's a bad time to be introduced to something for the first time.

I'm also stuck at the LLTL episode with the stealth arm. I tried to do it quickly before work, but 30mins wasn't enough time so had to quit. Haven't been back to it since. Since a poster above said you can do the episode without using the arm, I might just do that.

[Khisanth.2948]

@Turkeyspit.3965 said:

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:

@"Knight In Shining Armor.1708" said:I am indeed talking about that stealth mission in LLTL. For example, i'm trying to use the teleport skill for some achievement, I get teleported outside the mission boundries and insta kicked. Lose all progress. Wooo ya what fun. Ragequit.

It feels as though whoever it is that's supposed to be checking for these things, is asleep at the computer. Nobody double checks this stuff. It's like one department insists on adding this kitten and nobody says a thing. Hey you know this could break the whole mission? Hello?

I am just typing spontaneously here but you get the idea.

I definitely understand your frustration, I had to restart it due to bugs, unrelated to Blish's arm.

What happened to you seems more a problem with how the boundaries function, though. The same thing happens with unfortunate Raptor-leaps, or with boundry changes when more than one player.

I think the use of the arm skills were handled very well - we learn them one or two at a time, get to practice them before adding new skills, and they were to a large part quite optional to complete the mission. Drastically different from Caithe in the L2.7 instances or the Glint skills in HoT Act 2.

Requiring learning a bundle skillbar to get the achievements seems perfectly fine, but the "confuse with teleports" achievement could have used a bit more hints on

what

to do, exactly!

Let's not forget PoF Balthazar fight. Sure there is an achievement for not using the sword, but given it's a boss fight, it's a bad time to be introduced to something for the first time.

I'm also stuck at the LLTL episode with the stealth arm. I tried to do it quickly before work, but 30mins wasn't enough time so had to quit. Haven't been back to it since. Since a poster above said you can do the episode without using the arm, I might just do that.

first time? you forgot the entire thing before it ...

it even starts with a very target rich environment for you to practice on

[Ashen.2907]

@"Knight In Shining Armor.1708" said:I don't want to learn them. Half of them you use for one mission and never again, making learning them redundant and a waste of time. If you wanted me to be stealthy, give me a stealth skill I can use in open world so I can learn how it works besides your uniquely crafted mission. In other words, let the player dictate their style of play, not the devs. I am sick of not being a hero. I don't want your artificially difficult missions. You discourage play when you make this stuff mandatory.

Agreed.

The approach taken by ANet ensures that I feel less connected to my character.

[FrizzFreston.5290]

I'm personally completely okay with things that replace your skillbar for a bit.

They usually are fun to play with in my opinion, especially as i know all the weaponskills back and forth.

Ofcourse, some are better than others. There's a balance between too complicated, how much you require it and doesnt add anything and really shouldnt use it at all.

[Locce.8405]

Yeah, I am not a big fan of those either. Worst part about them is that they often suffer from one or more of these problems:

1. You get the skills in the middle of the action. No chance to even get a glimpse of the tooltip description let alone understand what they do without trial & error.
2. They are disconnected from your usual profession's hp pool and build. A warrior might do fine with a given skill swap while an elementalist might feel royally shafted. (To be fair, the same applies to some other special conditions, for example the "no healing" phase of the Tarir trials mission.)
3. Bugs are hard to notice, because players don't actually know how these skills are supposed to work. (That's even true for minor cases like the "kicking" the inside of the big spider in the most recent episode; if you click the skill it disappears, but only skill 1 and 5 do when you use the keybinds, so I suspect the skills 2-4 do nothing when you use keybinds, but I can't be sure since I don't even know if the kicking really does anything.)
4. In the open world this can keep you from actually doing what you want to do. I am looking intently at PoF events that force a special skill onto you (or specifically your mount) even when you were doing a treasure hunt, forcing you to either abandon the treasure hunt or do it on foot. :#

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

The reason I don't like playing as Caithe or various other incarnations of "skills replaced for a story" is that it invalidates what some of the few progression choices I can make in this game: race & class (and, for that matter, build). I appreciate the idea of seeing the world from another character's point of view. I just think it needs to be done sparingly.

Fortunately, the OP's request has already been fulfilled. ANet has largely given up on replacing the entire bar, instead adding the special action key as needed to parts of the story. (This might have its own issues, as others have noted, but not the one the OP raised originally.)

[Jski.6180]

I like to see an reaction bar that just above the main bar that only shows up when there is an passive skill you can chose to trigger or a rune effect etc.. I think that would free up a lot of the rng as well as letting these special items or effect not become too much of a problem.

[Vancho.8750]

Do not forget that these skills from events and missions are way to test new tech, which will find its way in elite specks and mounts.If you look at the mount system you can notice that the novelty system came from it and so on.

[Dante.1763]

@Vancho.8750 said:Do not forget that these skills from events and missions are way to test new tech, which will find its way in elite specks and mounts.If you look at the mount system you can notice that the novelty system came from it and so on.

Nothing ever came of the Caithe mission line, its entire concept was frustrating, unfun and pulled me straight out of the story. Thank god they nerfed it, repeatedly as my ele would never have gotten through it.

[Rauderi.8706]

I've been griping about this since the start of the game. The Ghostbusters thing in Ascalonian Catacombs is probably my prime example. Build doesn't matter, and working around those skills is super frustrating. Didn't care for it in Season 2, either.

[Hashberry.4510]

This stuff drives me nuts as well. The game has this wonderful combat system that gets overridden by some silly gimmick. It makes story missions a chore.

[Blocki.4931]

Every time this happens they make sure the spells are so insanely OP that it doesn't even matter if you can't use them perfectly lol

[Dante.1763]

@Blocki.4931 said:Every time this happens they make sure the spells are so insanely OP that it doesn't even matter if you can't use them perfectly lol

Not all the time, i give you the caithe story line for an example(before the changes to the mobs in the instances.)

[Gehenna.3625]

@sigur.9453 said:

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:I didn't get the impression the OP was talking about 'Special Action' skills, but those Episodes (or parts thereof) where one's entire skill bar changes (such as the one where one becomes Caithe[?] in LW Season Two).

Those kinds certainly aren't my favorite, but, to me, it's not that big a deal as infrequently as they are encountered.

ah my bad then. my points still stand though.

Not really. The point is that when you choose a class and skills, this is supposed to determine how you play. There is a reason why there are many classes because people like different things and variation. It's also about mastering a certain class and overcoming challenges with what you have.

These types of things where you get your skill bar replaced has a few issues. First of all, you as a player are forced to play in certain style that you may not enjoy. I personally play games to enjoy them. I like challenges but not if the challenge is being forced to play a skill set that I do not enjoy. Secondly it makes it that the experience is the same for everybody regardless of class and skill choice. This sort of one-size-fits-all approach goes directly against the variety in choice you have for your characters. That also is annoying for replay value because playing a different class is no longer a different experience. And finally there's the problem with the deus ex machina approach. It just feels cheap to just get slapped with certain special abilities that is only needed because they created some artificial obstacle for the sake of giving people that temporary ability...I mean what's the point if it never is used for anything again? With masteries at least you learn extra abilities that you will use again. Even the special skills in certain daily areas you will use more often when farming those areas for trinkets or whatnot.

And overcoming challenges as a hero is one thing, but challenging the player's enjoyment is another. I understand challenge in the sense of figuring things out like puzzles or combat that has varying degrees of difficulty but to force every class down the same path is not fun for everybody and that's not the type of challenge they should be creating. That's like boring leveling and grinding which are challenging only because you don't want to fall asleep or go braindead.

So no, from my point of view your point doesn't stand at all. But hey, we all have our opinions.

[Haishao.6851]

I think those are pretty fun and break from the routine and are part of what make the game interesting. I hope they keep adding them.

[BlueJin.4127]

Even in GW1, I've never been a fan of anything where I don't get to use my own skills. Actually, I'm not a fan of mini games in general. Still, I don't think there's anything wrong with adding a little bit of variety, as long as it's not overused (thinks of batmobile fights in Batman Arkham Knight -_-).