Fansite Friday/Tactics

Fansite:  GW Tactics

Date:  10 September 2004

Number:  14

url:  http://www.gwtactics.com/staticpages/index.php?page=fansite (moved from original link)

Q&A
Question: Recently, the way you acquire skills in Guild Wars has been altered considerably. As far as we know you will be able to capture a skill from an enemy boss as long as it uses that skill. You have mentioned there will be other ways to obtains skills that bosses will rarely use or not at all, such as: Charm Lynx and Resurrection type spells. So the question at hand is, may you give us an example of a different way of obtaining a skill such as one of these? Will it be a reward for completing a quest of some sort?

Answer: The successful completion of quests as well as exploration of the Guild Wars world will give you access to new trainers, and each trainer will have a small set of skills on offer. If you have a Skill Point to spend, you can visit the trainer and use that Skill Point to acquire a skill from those that are offered by that particular trainer.

Concerned testers have done an excellent job of pointing out which skills have the potential to be difficult to capture from a boss, and there are additional skills that we feel you will definitely need to be able to acquire pretty readily or which aren’t conducive to capturing. The “must have” skills include Tongue Biter, Revive Animal, Mend Condition, Blackout, and several others. These skills are offered through the trainers.

What really sounds fun about this concept is that while some trainers and their locations will be out in the open and expected, some will be more challenging to find. These remote or hidden trainers will add a special objective to the exploration of Tyria and make it exciting to obtain some of the exceptional skills that they offer.

Question: Will players be able to dodge melee and ranged attacks using strafing (dodging techniques) or will your being hit be pre-determined by the fact that you are visible due to no cover by nearby trees or walls?

Answer: Dodging is definitely a factor in avoiding damage, and the strafing keys are in place for that. Q and E work if you’re a keyboarder. Holding the right mouse button allows you to use the left and right arrows for strafing. And of course, now that the keys are personally mapable, you can choose how you want strafe and sidestepping to work for you.

In addition, some professions have a specific skill that performs a character-specific avoidance maneuver. Just one example is the ranger’s Dodge Skill. This is from her Survival school of training, which currently lasts for 5 seconds, and gives her a 33% faster movement rate and allows her a +27% change of evading incoming arrows. The nice thing about Dodge is that it’s very reasonable in Energy costs, at only 5 Energy per usage, so you can use it repeatedly. Of course, the ability only endures if you do not attack, so you must choose wisely in layering this avoidance skill in conjunction with your chosen attacks.

Other skills of this type – the type that offer bonuses with balancing drawbacks – include Shield Stance, Mantra of Distortion, and Bonetti's Defense, to name just a few. Each has its advantages and its balancing drawbacks: Shield Stance slows movement, Mantra of Distortion causes you to lose energy, and Bonetti's Defense is another skill that is cancelled upon making an attack. As with so much in Guild Wars, it will take strategic thinking and player ingenuity to use skills in the most meaningful way.

Question: In the E3 for Everyone Alpha Demo Test Event (boy that's a lot to say!), Gold, for the most part, was used to purchase skill gems and was attained via selling skill gems. With this newly changed system, will Gold still continue to be a valued product?

Answer: It is our intent that gold will always be valuable in Guild Wars. It goes back to all of us being long-time gamers who know how important it is to maintain the economic integrity of a game, whether it’s a gold economy or one based on trade goods or another kind of currency. We don’t ever want Guild Wars to get to the state where you don’t stop to pick up gold because it has no value.

Right now, there are certain elements of the skill capture system that have not yet been announced that will make the game economy more balanced and make gold of consistent value as one plays. Further, the need for gold sinks or the need to create in-game uses for gold is still being examined and solutions to the challenge of economic balance at every level of the game will be implemented over the coming weeks.

We’ve heard a few suggestions on this subject, including having some form of gambling in the game where you can put up substantial sums of gold for the small chance of getting a special item, or a rare dye, or an unusual type of armour or clothing. Another suggestion has been to allow tournament wagering between guilds. And a third has been to offer a whole laundry list of guild hall modifications – furnishings, decorations, functional extras, or customized features. We’ll have to see if any or all of these are included in Guild Wars.

Thanks to Guild Wars Tactics for taking part in Fansite Friday Fourteen!