Character customization through content

[zabandija.9623]

I'm posting this to contribute this idea to the devs, have some discussion around it (maybe you've seen other games implement similar concepts). Also, I think ArenaNet is awesome taking bold moves as we've seen with Mounts for example.Another reason behind this post is that I'm sick of chasing skins and farm trains, it really seems about time to go one step forward. I also hope this helps Anet realize they don't really need to go and develop further class specializations to provide quality class customizations and offer variants of play styles on the same class.

So the idea is that while doing any content on the game, depending on the mobs, maybe zone and mob type you get a chance after lvl 80 to be dropped an skill page.Once you completed the skill tome, let's take for example Fire Ball (Staff 1 of Elementalists). You can learn it and apply it whenever you want.This skill tome can be variants of the former staff one skill, for example:

• charged fireball (increase the AOE at the cost of holding the fireball for a bit after releasing)
• thunder bolt (change element of the skill) -> yeah this messes skill bar and elemental atunements, but who cares we are looking for customization of the skill bar here, not the Mona Lisa of atunements.
• meteor ball (just change the skill animation, instead of casting the ball, it drops from sky to the poor little Moha fella)

And so on, you get the point.

As I said, this skill pages drop from any boss, dungeon dudes, raid, fractals, open world events, some can drop from story episodes. The theme of the mob can match the theme of the skill tome.This can bring replayability, customization (at last!!) that makes each character on your account unique, and also is a base system that can be expanded further with other mechanics like skill leveling (keeping close watch to the damage scale).

Anyway, I really hope this idea inspires someone, even if it's not ArenaNet itself, anyone out there should know that character customization by skins is a dead end.

Cheers and stay safe!!

[Orthonen.9470]

So changing the animation of a skill as you progress? Not a bad idea. I mean you're always going to have that one person complaining from his windows 95 PC with 1GB of ram that it's too much for his PC to handle, but it's not a bad idea.

[ScyeRynn.4218]

This is a great idea and I like that you pointed out Anet's bold moves. There is much they can be bolder on and this is definitely something they could do in some variation. It feels a lot like Diablo III's skills and abilities model which I always did want to see in GW 2 in some way.