Guild Wars 2

…It’s interesting to see the direction ArenaNet has been going to.

Right now, a Necromancer in the original Guild Wars has access to more or less 150 skills. But, in the original Guild Wars, our characters have access to two professions at once (and it’s rather easy to switch which second profession you have access to), so that Necromancer has access to more 150 Monk skills, or 150 Warior skills, and so on. Not to mention more or less 50 PvE only skills that are common between all professions.

And, while the skill bar has 8 skill lots (unlike the 10 we have today), the only restriction is that you can only have at most one Elite skill – you are free to to whatever you want with the rest of the skill bar. Unlike the GW2 system, in which you have 5 weapon skills, 1 healing skill, and so on.

We also get to control not only our build, but also our heroes’ builds. Heroes are NPC companions you can add to your party, and you can fully customize their builds within their professions. With 7 heroes in a party of 8 characters, you can pick 64 skills from a pool of more than one thousand skills and be as unique as you want to be.

That’s, though, in the past.

When ArenaNet was talking about Guild Wars 2, long before release, they mentioned they would remove the ability of having two professions, as well as reducing considerably the number of available skills, and locking skill slots for specific purposes – some skills are linked to weapons, some to utility slots, and so on.

That, they said, because they learned they couldn’t properly balance all skills within the original Guild Wars. Which is true – although it’s a sign of bad long term planning, more than anything else, that they only figured out they couldn’t balance that many skills after those had been added to the game. A more restrictive system, ArenaNet claimed, would lead to a more balanced system – so we would have less choices, but they would be more balanced, better choices.

Only, they weren’t.

We all know the balance mess that the game is right now. Even decimating diversity in Guild Wars 2 compared to the original Guild Wars, ArenaNet still was not able to balance the game. That, despite how combat in the original GW was more complex, with a lot more variables, and focused on parties of 8 characters (as opposed to 5 characters as we have right now).

So what is ArenaNet going to do?

Try to improve how they balance the game?

Nooooooooooooooo. They will cut diversity even more.

By ArenaNet’s own words:

ArenaNet

We like to describe builds using the new system in two ways:

1. I am a(n) {profession name} specializing in {Spec #1}, {Spec #2}, and {Spec #3}. i.e., I am a ranger specializing in Marksmanship, Wilderness Survival, and Beastmastery.

2. I am a(n) {elite spec} specializing in {Spec #2}, and {Spec #3}. i.e., I am a druid specializing in Nature Magic and Skirmishing.

So that’s how they see the diversity within builds. If you are a ranger in the current GW2, you will be defined by having chosen 3 out of 5 spec lines. And that’s all the diversity you are going to have.

It will likely be slightly better than that – we do have (very) few options of different traits within a given specialization line. It reminds me of Talent trees from other MMORPGs at this point.

I do wonder, though, if this “new” ArenaNet – twice, at least, the size of the ArenaNet that made the original Guild Wars games – will actually balance GW2 now (or what remains of it, anyway).

Or if they will realize they also cannot balance the system they are about to introduce, and just remove the trait system so all characters from a given profession are basically the same, not unlike pre-made characters from MOBAs.

I’ve been pondering this very topic for a couple of days now, but instead of writing a thousand words about it, I decided to devise a very simple image to illustrate precisely and without question how I feel about GW2’s development, particularly over the past year. I hope you all enjoy it.

And how many of those 150 skills were ever actively used?
There were about 2-3 viable builds for each profession in Guild Wars 1. The vast majority of skills were never used, and plenty of them were more or less identical.

I’m not seeing this balance mess at all. In fact I’ve asked in my guild and they have no idea what you mean either. Everyone seems quite happy with the diversity that exists for them now and post change. Certainly we feel it is better balanced than the chaos of GW1, as great as the game was/is.

Perhaps some constructive feedback on what is wrong and suggestions on how you would fix it. Right now, you have given nothing helpful to the community or the dev team to work on or discuss

That’s right out of the 150 skills some where duplicates from the other expansions, but the fact remains, they where adding skills etc, GW2 is very restrictive in this case, for over 2 1/2 years they have gotten away without adding a new skill and or weapons skills, this has to be unheard of, but they have managed to do it,

Your point on the identical skills is a mute point, some of the skills where the same depending on what expansion you played, as GW1 had 3 expansions that where stand alone games in there own right, they just gave people the same options that others had.

I REALLY wish they would allow us to drop the elite skill in GW2 and just give us 5 util skills, being forced to play how Anet wants us to play is getting boring, I could think of a few cases where id love another util skill over an elite that may or may not make a difference to a fight…..

They seem to be having a really hard time with balancing there own game, they reworked a trait system that didn’t need it, forced the NPE that wasn’t needed, and now they are doing the traits again in the sake of balance…

The would be better just saying ok you play a warrior here are the builds available to you

Sword build
Great Sword build
Longbow build

you get the idea, as this is where it is heading, everyone can see it, the less builds we have the ability to make the less balance they have to worry about, win win for them…..

I personally would rather they just did that actually, be like you play x class, heres the build you must play, that way if I don’t like it I can just leave the game, instead of being continuously beat down patch after patch to the point where I absolutely hate the game and leave and never want to return, so many of my friends have already hit this point, its just sad.

Tachenon.5270:

I’ve been pondering this very topic for a couple of days now, but instead of writing a thousand words about it, I decided to devise a very simple image to illustrate precisely and without question how I feel about GW2’s development, particularly over the past year. I hope you all enjoy it.

Nice. Too bad most people under 30 won’t get that reference.

Less options is good right? That’s what we want right?

~doesn’t want to get wished to the cornfield~

There’s a post exactly like this literally (at least) twice a day. Now, okay, to be fair, that alone shows how concerned some members of the community are. But every single one of the posts is met with “id rather have 3 viable options than 1 out of 10” which is exactly the right answer, and the precise reason ANet is doing this. ANet WANTS us to have build diversity, they’re just realizing that with the current system, they are so many useless traits that people get pigeon-holed into the same builds. If you think there is a lot of diversity around right now, you’re not paying attention.

Yes, there will always be a meta, and there will always be a build/prof that’s at least slightly better than the rest, but I think this majorly increases diversity, especially giving us only three specs to go in.

My idea (and maybe the devs, speculating) with the traits, with ele for example, was always like “hmm…well I like ele, but I wanna be a fire mage primarily!” With the current setup, I’d probably put traits and 4-5 lines. There’s nothing special about that. Now, if I want to be a fire mage, I’ll choose fire magic, a spec line to support it, and a spec line to complement/fill in weaknesses.

So, as mentioned above, from a balance and viable option perspective, we’re getting a much better deal now. From a thematic perspective of character customization and specialization, we’re getting an opportunity to define who are characters are even more.

lordkrall.7241:

There were about 2-3 viable builds for each profession in Guild Wars 1. The vast majority of skills were never used, and plenty of them were more or less identical.

See, the original Guild Wars had the same issue the current one does: it was, and is, too easy.

Which also means, it’s very hard for a build to not be viable, unless you are an extremely bad player.

In the original Guild Wars, if you worked really hard, you could make a build that would actually help your enemies more than yourself. But for each build like that, there were literally thousands of builds that were perfectly viable in an easy game as PvE was there.

The same pretty much applies to GW2. Take a character in exotics and zero trait points, send him to do any kind of PvE content other than high level Fractals, and that character will succeed, unless it’s a very bad player playing.

So no, the “few viable builds” excuse doesn’t really fit. For PvP? Sure. For PvE? The only ones who claim a build is viable or not are the speed runners who farm dungeons, and even them what they’re really saying is if a build is optimal or not, not if it’s viable to finish the dungeon or not; and ArenaNet cares so much about the dungeon speed runners that they are not even to bother adding a new dungeon to HoT.

So what do you want them to do, OP? Churn out a bunch of skills that nobody will use?
That would be a colossal waste of time and effort for things that nobody would use (and doubtless, the usual people would come here and complain about it. :p)

Randulf sums it up my feelings on this whole diatribe here…

Randulf.7614:

Perhaps some constructive feedback on what is wrong and suggestions on how you would fix it. Right now, you have given nothing helpful to the community or the dev team to work on or discuss.

I fully agree with the OP.

ArenaNet have for sometime now been moving GW2 were all players, no matter what class have a very, very narrow range to operate in. It’s like they have no faith in players to understand the simplist of systems or they can’t be bothered with balancing much so desire to make everything nearly the same. Or perhaps its to help promote Esports.

But, putting straitjackets on what players can do with there characters will cause them to lose players but perhaps they just don’t care or don’t want those type of players. Or perhaps players today just don’t want diversity, just a liner, straight simples path.

+1s everywhere.

ShinjoNaomi.1896:

So what do you want them to do, OP? Churn out a bunch of skills that nobody will use?

I’d rather that they built the game to accommodate more build variety than reduce the variety of builds to accommodate the game. How about that?

“And, while the skill bar has 8 skill lots (unlike the 10 we have today)”

9 skills in skill bar in GW2^^

first weapon “skill” is an auto-attack and work excalty like the space bar in Guild Wars.
Grenades kit is the only exception.

actually, we only have about 4 skills like GW1, we are forced to have a healing skill and weapon skills can’t be changed.(most in GW1 uses an elite skill anyway that’s why i don’t see that as forced)

Test.8734:

Right now, a Necromancer in the original Guild Wars has access to more or less 150 skills. But, in the original Guild Wars, our characters have access to two professions at once (and it’s rather easy to switch which second profession you have access to), so that Necromancer has access to more 150 Monk skills, or 150 Warior skills, and so on. Not to mention more or less 50 PvE only skills that are common between all professions.

I was playing an Elementalist main back in GW1, started with Prophecies near release date. When Factions was released I used a grand total of 0 Elementalist skills from Factions for any of my builds. There is a reason every single Factions elite skill was revamped at least 2-3 times over the lifetime of GW1, that’s how pathetic they were at Factions release. They added so many skills for an Elementalist with that expansion yet I found use for none, zero, nothing. Adding more skills just to add them isn’t good for a game. I know it’s extreme example, but it shows how adding more skills doesn’t always bring new builds or new abilities to a game.

And, while the skill bar has 8 skill lots (unlike the 10 we have today), the only restriction is that you can only have at most one Elite skill – you are free to to whatever you want with the rest of the skill bar. Unlike the GW2 system, in which you have 5 weapon skills, 1 healing skill, and so on.

How can you compare the 8 skills of GW1 with the 10 in GW2 is beyond me. Yes it’s true there are restrictions in GW2, but at least in GW2 you have access to a lot more than 8 or 10 skills, in GW1 chain skills had to take slots on your skillbar, in GW2 they don’t. In GW1 pet skills had to take slots on the skillbar, in GW2 they don’t. In GW2 you have much more freedom of choice with your character, with a press of a few buttons you can change to any build you wish, to fit any situation you might encounter. In GW1 you had to equip a useless skill on your skillbar just because it is essential for some certain boss encounters (Recall in the Deep for example)

You also have banners, transforms, kits, conjures, steal, tomes and other skills that change your skillbar. Although many people claim that GW1 had way more skills than GW2, in reality it didn’t. GW2 has nearly the same amount of skills Core + Prophecies + Factions had if you bother to count them all. I’d take the freedom of changing builds when I want and the ability to use a vast amount of skills at any given point over having a very restrictive 8-skill bar that I can never change.

So which one is the restricting system here? In GW1 you were restricted to 8 skills for any given run, in GW2 you have access to all your skills at any time, PLUS way more than 8 skills available at any given moment. GW1 was way more restricting for builds.

We also get to control not only our build, but also our heroes’ builds. Heroes are NPC companions you can add to your party, and you can fully customize their builds within their professions. With 7 heroes in a party of 8 characters, you can pick 64 skills from a pool of more than one thousand skills and be as unique as you want to be.

And heroes can’t work in an open world game, not to mention, an action based game that requires proper movement and active defenses (dodging) unlike GW1 which didn’t require any at all. Action based + open world vs static + instanced, completely different things. You might had 8 builds for yourself and your heroes in GW1, I have 8 builds (at least) for any of my characters to change to during any run.

We all know the balance mess that the game is right now. Even decimating diversity in Guild Wars 2 compared to the original Guild Wars, ArenaNet still was not able to balance the game. That, despite how combat in the original GW was more complex, with a lot more variables, and focused on parties of 8 characters (as opposed to 5 characters as we have right now).

First, the game isn’t in a balance mess and second GW2 is way more complex in combat than GW1. There are way more variables in the actual combat (action gameplay), sure it doesn’t offer the vast amount of synergy they had in GW1 with all those skill types, but that’s why it’s more balanced.

During the AMA, dev’s said that the condensing of the traits would reduce the number of possible permutations to a little over 200 per profession. That’s not including the skill and weapon slots.

The condensing and limiting of options isn’t limiting players, sure the number of permutations decreased. BUT the number of playable builds increased by a large margin.

ShinjoNaomi.1896:

So what do you want them to do, OP? Churn out a bunch of skills that nobody will use?
That would be a colossal waste of time and effort for things that nobody would use (and doubtless, the usual people would come here and complain about it. :p)

Randulf sums it up my feelings on this whole diatribe here…

Randulf.7614:

Perhaps some constructive feedback on what is wrong and suggestions on how you would fix it. Right now, you have given nothing helpful to the community or the dev team to work on or discuss.

Pretty , much this.

The OP apparently has a bone to pick with Anet. According to him everything Anet says or does is little more than a bid to destroy their game and upset their players. He rarely offers usefull suggestions, but rather just attacks Anet in general claiming everything they do and say is a lie. In fact im surprised that wasnt in the OP.

In any event, things are different than GW1. But thats not a bad thing. Yeah we have less skills, but there is still a lot we can do with those skills, making a bunch of different builds and ways to do things. Dont forget that GW1 was an entirely different game. The only thing that carried over was the name and the world. Everything else was redone. Not only that but GW1 was not an MMO. Balance is much harder to achieve than in an essentially single player game.

But weve gotten sneak peaks into whats coming, and until its launched we can only really speculate on how its going to effect anything. So calm down and wait.

maddoctor.2738:

So which one is the restricting system here? In GW1 you were restricted to 8 skills for any given run, in GW2 you have access to all your skills at any time, PLUS way more than 8 skills available at any given moment. GW1 was way more restricting for builds.

Hmm, let me see your GW2 elementalist whip out some ranger skills. No? How about some warrior skills. Okay, fine. Let’s try skills from some other caster profession. How about… mesmer? Not even that, huh? Forget the skills, then. Let’s see that GW2 ele equip a dry land spear and a shield!

Well, shucks.

What else ya got?

Tachenon.5270:

Hmm, let me see your GW2 elementalist whip out some ranger skills. No? How about some warrior skills. Okay, fine. Let’s try skills from some other caster profession. How about… mesmer? Not even that, huh? Forget the skills, then. Let’s see that GW2 ele equip a dry land spear and a shield!

Well, shucks.

What else ya got?

Good ole defensive weapon set for casters. I wish GW2 had GW1’s weapon swapping system.

Tachenon.5270:

ShinjoNaomi.1896:

So what do you want them to do, OP? Churn out a bunch of skills that nobody will use?

I’d rather that they built the game to accommodate more build variety than reduce the variety of builds to accommodate the game. How about that?

It’s amazing, isn’kitten

ArenaNet has had THREE YEARS to fix the current balance of the game. Three years with barely any new skill or trait in which they could have worked to make balance better.

And yet, even after all that time, they are still so bad at balance that even people trying to defend ArenaNet claim if they added new skills they would likely be useless; and that ArenaNet has left the game in a state in which there are very few viable builds.

The answer here is obvious – ArenaNet is not doing enough to balance the game. If they plan on introducing new specializations in the future, and that’s what they claim they are going to do, soon they will find themselves in a situation like today, with more than they can handle. The solution isn’t for ArenaNet to remove choice from the players, so eventually we would end with MOBA-like characters, but rather for them to do their jobs properly and work more at making balance better.

There are times when hundreds of overlaping options isn’t a good thing (at least in regards to balance)

Perfect GW1 example? Touch Rangers. A once OP build that, in fixing it, caused a whole set of Necromancer touch spells to be effectively worthless for Necromancers, the primary profession they were made for!