ArenaNet:Guild Wars 2 suggestions/Classless System

Classless system (Discussion)
Professions should be eliminated altogether. Realism is sometimes seen as a barrier, or a burden, but in this case, it makes so much more sense. Players should pick their race of preference, and then start at that baseline, building up areas of skill as they play. This way, the character they have will reflect everything they've done to that point.

It doesn't really make much sense for someone to just "be a warrior". I'm assuming that warriors don't have warrior genes, but instead, that they are trained (i.e. have gained experience) in that profession. It seems to me that warriors are warriors because they worked to become them, and practiced fighting as warriors, not just because someone gave them a label and said "this is what you are now". If an elementalist picks up a sword, he can swing it and hit, although initially, he may do less damage or hit less frequently. But after repeating these actions (i.e. gaining experience) the character should be proficient in sword use.

Instead of choosing a character, players will be creating a character.

To some extent, anet has incorporated this aspect into GW1 with the secondary classes. I am suggesting that skill points go into allotted areas as various skills are used, or different actions are performed, such as melee, ranged, and casting, healing etc etc. For example, during a warrior's third or fourth fight, the player will see a message pop up on the screen stating "(character name) has reached level 2 in swordsmanship."

The idea of allotting your own attribute points into areas is a complete break in the reality of the game. The ability to add points, let alone subtract points, into certain areas needs to be eliminated.

One counter-argument to this idea is that super-active players who basically live on the game would be able to max every profession on one character. The counter-argument to THAT point is that doing so would take the same amount of time as maxing one character for each profession.

Most players want more customization for their characters. Of course, none of us yet know how much there will be, but in addition to height, body types (heavy or thin) are being discussed. Based on what is in this forum, people are looking for more flexibility in professions, wanting to be able to change them, wanting skills to not be linked to a certain profession, and wondering why certain body types are linked to certain professions.

All of these suggestions are pointing to the one HUGE change that is essential. To begin with a character that has no profession or class, and watch him/her grow and adapt with every action or decision that you undertake in the game.


 * Why it will work
 * Players would need less characters.
 * Put more control into players' hands
 * Players can choose to either invest into one character, or create specialized characters, rather than be limited to pre-made categories
 * Gives more power to casual players: right now if you have, say, a mes you're useless for a speed clear and have to go create a new monk and play up to the area you want to SC; in this system you could just teach your primary char smiting prayers


 * Why it may not work out
 * Depending on implementation a level cap would need to be removed, or levels alltogether eliminated.
 * Players would need fewer characters.
 * Players either have to grind massively or everyone has everything maxed out, making all characters identical (not true, because the different races will create character variety).
 * Might break PvP (I.E. having someone with every skill maxed out have a super build [this shouldn't be a problem if active skills are limited as in GW1])
 * That's actually a different game entirely.
 * This would encourage skill-grinding if skills were not capped relatively low.