Consider bringing the old trait system back

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Posted by: Kal Spiro.9745

Kal Spiro.9745

They both have potential. I like being able to will out a trait line immediately instead of having to gradually work my way through it. I like being able to fill out to GrandMaster three whole lines.

I miss being able to mix and match. That is pretty much the only thing the old system had going for it. The ability to forgo higher tier traits for lower tier traits of a different line. Or to replace higher tier traits with lower tier traits of the same line.

Mostly, though, that was emblematic of those higher tier traits being not good. I find that in most cases, though not nearly all, the traits are universally useful. Some are explicitly for builds I’m not interested in, but all of them seem like something that would be useful, while many of the previous traits simply were trash.

Tarnished Coast Kal Spiro – Ranger (80), LB/S-D, Eagle/Wolf, Signet, M/S/WS #SABorRiot
|Daredevil|Ranger|Guardian|Scrapper|Necromancer|Berserker|Dragonhunter|Mesmer|Elementalist
|Deadeye|Warrior|Herald|Daredevil|Reaper|Spellbreaker

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Posted by: aophts.9862

aophts.9862

Yes, it is terrible.

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Posted by: binidj.5734

binidj.5734

C’mon, really? Just two days with a new system, and you’re asking for going back to the old one?

Well yeah, there’s much to recommend the new one like getting rid of all the “improvements” we got in the last big update, and divorcing trait lines from stats; but what makes me hate it is that it has destroyed a few of my builds for no better reason than ANet thinks I should play a profession in a certain way. I miss the flexibility (and UI where I could see everything on one page) of the old system because contrary to popular belief, not all of us made characters according to the current meta. They may not have been super-efficient builds but they were fun.

An example of ANet deciding how I play is making all necro wells ground targeted thus getting rid of the trait that made them that way, I mean that’s an improvement right? Wrong. I would gladly spend a grandmaster trait, hell an entire trait line, just to make wells PBAE again. Before consolidation I had the choice, now I do not.

Prior to the change I was happy with the builds of almost all my characters, now I’m happy with just under half of them.

Glad to be [Grey] – http://thegrey.enjin.com/home
Piken Square

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Posted by: nathanjameson.3542

nathanjameson.3542

The transition to the new system really didn’t center on no longer earning traits at specific locations or divorcing traits from stats…they could have made those changes without changing the trait system itself.

What the new system does is prevent you from spreading your points across more than three lines. On the plus side, you get 3 full trait lines. On the downside, you don’t get to “dabble”…something I was able to do on my duelist pvp mesmer.

On the neither good-nor-bad side, I have to spend a lot more time now thinking about each trait choice, and the potential synergies. Before, if I had an idea what I wanted to do with my character, the trait choices were mostly self-evident. Now, there’s more than one way to fill a particular role, and that could be very very good for the game.

Karma Express – Norn Guardian commander

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Posted by: briggah.7910

briggah.7910

Yes, it is terrible.

Thanks for the feedback. I’m sure anet will jump right in and try to make it not terrible.

Player Vs Everyone
youtube channel - twitch channel

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Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

I don’t feel it’s disastrous, but it most definitely lacks the scope for creativity and subtlety that the previous system had. By a HUGE margin.

Under the old system, I make it that there were no less than 30258000 different variations on allocating points on a 6/6/2 spread alone for players to choose from. (Yes, that really does say “Over 30 million”. And, yes, that’s combinations, not permutations, for anyone who thinks that I may have forgotten such things.) And that’s only one of many ways I could have chosen to spread my points out.

One pattern among many; 30 million variations. I’m not going to put the effort to work out the actual answer, because whilst the maths is trivial it’s also tedious, and I’d rather be playing; I only worked out the first number because I’m a maths nerd at heart. But the message is clear, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the final total were well over half a billion.

And, sure, most of those specs were probably obvious rubbish. And lots of good ones were near-identical. But what it meant was that there was a HUGE specification space out there for inventive, creative players to explore for something that suited their play style. That has now gone.

What are we left with? 270 distinct builds (27 different permutations of major trait per Core Specialization; 10 possible combinations of 3 Core Specializations. That’s yer lot).

270 versus maybe half a billion. In any profession, excluding incomplete builds, there are now exactly 270 different ways to fully spec your traits. That’s it. Probability that your “clever” new build is actually simply a carbon copy of lots of others running around out there – 100%. Room for creativity? Pretty much none. We’re going to be running cookie-cutter builds now, whether we want to or not. And, while I don’t dislike the new system per se – that’s a real shame.

(I’m sure that ANet are relying on HoT putting a little bit of variety back in. Undoubtedly it could, to some degree – but not to anything remotely resembling the scope we had before.)

Edit: OK, I revisited this and plugged the numbers into a spreadsheet, and that first number is wrong – I factored in the wrong number of Master traits, for a start. At a recalculate, I make 6/6/2 to have 22 million distinct variations. And a full, 14 trait point spec seems to work out at 138.6 million distinct variations across all such patterns in total (138640290 is the exact number I get) – not quite the half-billion I guessed. But the scale of change remains of the same order of magnitude.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

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Posted by: rajule.8054

rajule.8054

I feel they could have consolidated old unused traits like they did, or change the system to let us pick 3 full trees instead spreading points around as many as we liked, but they didn’t need to do both.

For me if feels too simplified. the right balance for me would have been to keep the point distribution system from before but group up the weak traits, and still let us pick from a lower tier if we don’t like any traits in the current tier.

There are at least 2 trait lines I’ve come across that have a tier with no traits I like. and its not a case of “eh I wish this was a little better” its more like these are all of absolutely zero use to me, I guess I’ll pick the one that sucks the least. (looking at you adept honor traits…)

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Posted by: phys.7689

phys.7689

The new system is inelastic and for many jobs doesnt have enough options.

They simply dont have enough space for jobs with diverse builds.

Also there wont be mich variation once people play with it a bit.

It really will come down to specializations for for diversity, i hope they can release at least 2 more per class fairly quickly, but i doubt it.

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Posted by: JoaoFA.8475

JoaoFA.8475

TheGuy.3568 speak for yourself. YOU liked it more. I prefer the new system to the old one, 10x better in my opinion.

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Posted by: Purple Miku.7032

Purple Miku.7032

I agree with the OP.

This game would be better off with the old system.

There’s less build diversity, way too high of damage, way too much simplification of core game mechanics and too much has been broken.

The changes that I liked were the new LA, the new jumping puzzle, and the new wallet. Everything else is horrible.

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Posted by: bob.5680

bob.5680

Well, a quick review of the responses here seems to support more like the changes than didn’t. So, OP, who exactly were you speaking for in your original post? Seems like it may simply be the minority from what I see here.

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Posted by: Loboling.5293

Loboling.5293

So far, I like the new changes. I’ve played around, and really enjoyed making builds. However, there is still an issue of limited build diversity. This issue will be best remedied by adjusting the underused traits. For now I don’t mind, but I expect that 6 months from now, you will have to do a serious pass at the numbers for some traits. Eventually leading to them all being competitive. I really hope we get there this year, but I’m not opposed to waiting until early 2016 before trait balance is achieved. For now, diversity feels about equal to previously.

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Posted by: phys.7689

phys.7689

Well, a quick review of the responses here seems to support more like the changes than didn’t. So, OP, who exactly were you speaking for in your original post? Seems like it may simply be the minority from what I see here.

Yea i think he will be a minority, because this change boosted peoples power greatly. It also made herds people into more powerful builds. Aaand any player who started in the last year was suffering from an oppressive trait aquisition system.

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Posted by: ASP.8093

ASP.8093

What are we left with? 270 distinct builds (27 different permutations of major trait per Core Specialization; 10 possible combinations of 3 Core Specializations. That’s yer lot).

270 versus maybe half a billion. In any profession, excluding incomplete builds, there are now exactly 270 different ways to fully spec your traits. That’s it. Probability that your “clever” new build is actually simply a carbon copy of lots of others running around out there – 100%. Room for creativity? Pretty much none. We’re going to be running cookie-cutter builds now, whether we want to or not. And, while I don’t dislike the new system per se – that’s a real shame.)

You’re forgetting:
1. Weapon choices
2. Stats from gear
3. Rune pick (possibly picks, though you basically always want all 6 to be the same)
4. Sigil picks for weapons
5. Food and similar buffs (outside SPvP)

All this stuff can totally make or break a build, and not just in the trivial ways (look at how many builds are relying on very specific sigils to do some heavy lifting for them).

Nemain The Eyeless · [JOY] · Tarnished Coast · http://tcwvw.com

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Posted by: Phyrex.5174

Phyrex.5174

My only grievance right now with the new system is how it forcefully spent my hero points the way they thought was right on my lvl31 necro

How that went was basicly catastrophic and left me in a really akward spot where i have skills that dont match the core spec they gave me.

I find it really dumb that they didint just give us a reset

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Posted by: kleisthenes.6247

kleisthenes.6247

There are some things I don’t like with the new system:

- If you don’t have maxed out points for skills you will lose some utility skills (meaning it messes with the builds you used, NOT COOL).
- Being forced into a certain kind of trait wheel (got wilderness survival but wanted markmanship, again NOT COOL).
- The higher traits and skills in the wheels aren’t necessarily better. Feels like some of it is just “thrown in there”.
- Horrible UI, very disorganized (at least the utility skills just slapped together on the left side).

I’m just wondering when people will get respec so they can take the utility skills they want while considering the new system and picking the trait spec line they actually want.

“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”

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Posted by: Naliandra.2705

Naliandra.2705

I personally enjoyed the buffet style mix-n-match of the older trait system and skill sets. I flipped through the effects and looked for good matches to decide how to build up a specific characteristic and enjoyed seeing how effective it was in combat, it was time consuming but if I didn’t have time I wouldn’t be playing a game right?

I feel that being limited to three trait classes (some of my builds used 4) and having a choice of only three skills per trait level (instead of being able to backtrack if you like two choices from a lower level tier and nothing from the mid level for example) really limits build options and dumbs down the whole process. Skills are, sadly, a linear progression now (instead of going “these are the BEST 5 skills from this level, I’ll never use those other ones so I won’t waste the points just to get the one good skill they would eventually grant. I’ll save my points for the next level!” players are forced to buy all the skills that are arbitrarily grouped together under the same classification and can’t have the range of choice they used to have until they’ve basically finished the game and have enough skill points to cover EVERYTHING).

I do love the new weapons I can use, and look forward to guild halls and the new explorable areas so HoT ain’t all bad, so far this is my only concern.

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Posted by: Voraxas.2391

Voraxas.2391

Who is “we”?

To be honest, I really like the new system. More possible builds due to the circumstance, that the limitation of using three lines offers safer options to balance.

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Posted by: phys.7689

phys.7689

There are some things I don’t like with the new system:

- If you don’t have maxed out points for skills you will lose some utility skills (meaning it messes with the builds you used, NOT COOL).
- Being forced into a certain kind of trait wheel (got wilderness survival but wanted markmanship, again NOT COOL).
- The higher traits and skills in the wheels aren’t necessarily better. Feels like some of it is just “thrown in there”.
- Horrible UI, very disorganized (at least the utility skills just slapped together on the left side).

I’m just wondering when people will get respec so they can take the utility skills they want while considering the new system and picking the trait spec line they actually want.

You wont get a reset, but leveling or getting hero challenges will allow you to unlock everything

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Posted by: kleisthenes.6247

kleisthenes.6247

Btw, ain’t you supposed to get hero point for every odd level after 11?

You wont get a reset, but leveling or getting hero challenges will allow you to unlock everything

You do realise that it will take a long time to get enough hero points to unlock the trait tree I wanted?

I got a full wilderness survival instead of marksmanship.

Wouldn’t be too hard to give people the choice of which trait line to pick after the patch.

“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”

(edited by kleisthenes.6247)

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Posted by: Doghouse.1562

Doghouse.1562

You’re forgetting:
1. Weapon choices
2. Stats from gear
3. Rune pick (possibly picks, though you basically always want all 6 to be the same)
4. Sigil picks for weapons
5. Food and similar buffs (outside SPvP)

All this stuff can totally make or break a build, and not just in the trivial ways (look at how many builds are relying on very specific sigils to do some heavy lifting for them).

I’m not forgetting it, because it’s not what we’re discussing. I entirely agree that there are further dimensions to an overall spec, and that they’re still available for people to explore. Indeed, they’ve become even more important now, given that trait choice has been hacked back in such a ruthless manner. My point, on the trait component of a potential build, stands.

(edited by Doghouse.1562)

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Posted by: Shadow.1345

Shadow.1345

I don’t feel it’s disastrous, but it most definitely lacks the scope for creativity and subtlety that the previous system had. By a HUGE margin.

Under the old system, I make it that there were no less than 30258000 different variations on allocating points on a 6/6/2 spread alone for players to choose from. (Yes, that really does say “Over 30 million”. And, yes, that’s combinations, not permutations, for anyone who thinks that I may have forgotten such things.) And that’s only one of many ways I could have chosen to spread my points out.

One pattern among many; 30 million variations. I’m not going to put the effort to work out the actual answer, because whilst the maths is trivial it’s also tedious, and I’d rather be playing; I only worked out the first number because I’m a maths nerd at heart. But the message is clear, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the final total were well over half a billion.

And, sure, most of those specs were probably obvious rubbish. And lots of good ones were near-identical. But what it meant was that there was a HUGE specification space out there for inventive, creative players to explore for something that suited their play style. That has now gone.

What are we left with? 270 distinct builds (27 different permutations of major trait per Core Specialization; 10 possible combinations of 3 Core Specializations. That’s yer lot).

270 versus maybe half a billion. In any profession, excluding incomplete builds, there are now exactly 270 different ways to fully spec your traits. That’s it. Probability that your “clever” new build is actually simply a carbon copy of lots of others running around out there – 100%. Room for creativity? Pretty much none. We’re going to be running cookie-cutter builds now, whether we want to or not. And, while I don’t dislike the new system per se – that’s a real shame.

(I’m sure that ANet are relying on HoT putting a little bit of variety back in. Undoubtedly it could, to some degree – but not to anything remotely resembling the scope we had before.)

Those ultra creative one of kind of those half-billion builds are what are referred to as “scrub builds”. Some build somebody made to be a special snowflake that is absolutely worthless because they thought it would be fun but spent most of the time in the downed state. Nobody in your dungeon party or on your sPvP team wants your special snowflake build bringing the team down.

Also a sizable portion of those builds that have one or more of those traits now as baseline or had the traits consolidated because they went well together. Keeping in mind that we only get three non-elite utility skills means that you are picking traits to support those you chose. It’s not like you’d take 20% reduced recharge on traps and not have any traps. Then if you are running with traps and did take that trait it’s likely you picked some other trait that made your traps better. Now those traits are consolidated.

With some traits made baseline + consolidated traits actually reduces those half-billion builds greatly because they get removed from the choices. Since combinations are C(n, r) = n!/[(n! – r!)r!] that means removing even 1 selection of a sizable enough group to give combinations in excess of even 1 million is going to result in a much smaller number due to the nature of factorials. So as impressive as 30+ million vs. 270 sounds it was done without taking in consolidation and traits being made baseline into consideration. That’s negligent math.

Also those traits being consolidated and baselined means getting those same traits plus choices in addition as well to what you would take for the synergy or even getting traits that people didn’t pick in favor of better choices, like extra downed state damage.

(edited by Shadow.1345)

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Posted by: McWolfy.5924

McWolfy.5924

Old unlock system was a nightmare, but they need to polish this one

WSR→Piken→Deso→Piken→FSP→Deso
Just the WvW
R3200+

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Posted by: binidj.5734

binidj.5734

Out of curiosity, of those people who like the new system, how many played from launch? I ask because a lot of the “I love it” posts appear to be people who fell victim to the horrible trait acquisition changes made (relatively) recently.

Glad to be [Grey] – http://thegrey.enjin.com/home
Piken Square

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Posted by: Zee artificer.3671

Zee artificer.3671

OP, speak for yourself please. I like the new trait system. I love how stats are no longer associated with it and I can pick my traits based on what traits I want rather than what stats I need. Finally I think they’ve done something right.

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Posted by: Ohoni.6057

Ohoni.6057

I would like to be able to put points into 4+ lines again. I don’t like being stuck in a line just because I want 1-2 adept or master-level traits.

I’d also like to be able to put adept/master traits into master/GM slots if I find them more useful to my build, I don’t like being forced to choose between two really good adepts when none of the masters seem as interesting.

If they can fix those two things then I’m fine with the new system, and the unlocking method is a huge improvement over those lame unlocking missions.

“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”

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Posted by: briggah.7910

briggah.7910

How is there less build diversity? Its a question don’t rage on me. I actually now have 2 builds for my elementalist when before I’d set it and forget it and just use 1 build. I also only tried 2 different trait lines so far. earth/water/arcane and fire/water/arcane. I came up with 2 builds that are just as fun. So I would guess if I tried a lightning I’d actually have 3 viable builds or even try more combos and come up with more builds that work as well. Way I see it is almost all the traits have some use to them and it really comes down to personal preference. Everyone has a different personal preference so it should make more builds being used. Old way most ran same builds because there was a lot of useless traits.

To answer the question about newer players like it over old players well been playing a long time. 2+ years I guess since I have the birthday blaster. My hours played across all toons is 7k+ and I prefer this new system.

edit: Oh and I did run weird builds before hand. like 0/1/2/6/5 and thought it would suck now since I could no longer use those builds. I did find a new build for those toons though and even with just 3 trait lines they seem better than my old build.

Player Vs Everyone
youtube channel - twitch channel

(edited by briggah.7910)

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Posted by: vincecontix.1264

vincecontix.1264

They just need to allow for diversity by allowing us to substitute higher tiered triats for lower ones.

Shikamaru X Thief, Warrior, Mesmer, Engi(FT leader)
Highest ranked reached 28 soloq
Isle of Janthir

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Posted by: Fernling.1729

Fernling.1729

My only concern is that Anet forced me to spend a lot of hero points on specializations that I never would have used and I could have saved those points to go towards unlocking the elite specializations instead.
From what I know they haven’t really gone into detail other than there will be an unlock track reward for the elite specializations. If we need to use hero points on top of that hasn’t been mentioned. If that’s the case, I will be slightly unhappy about this.

If I don’t have to worry about the hero points being used for elite specializations I will be overall happy with the new trait system and would like it to stay the way it is now.

(edited by Fernling.1729)

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Posted by: misterman.1530

misterman.1530

Maybe, just maybe, the OP didn’t mean the actual Traits. What he meant was the ability to pick traits in more than 3 lines? Just maybe that is what he meant. I don’t think OP was defending the old trait acquisition system, nor the actual Trait/Skill combinations.

I, for one, hate the fact I am locked into 3 trait lines. I also hate that I have to take a 3 of each level (adept, master, and grandmaster) – I can’t take 1 Adept and 2 Master traits, for example. So…those arguing that this new system has more diversity…I think you need to look up what “diversity” means.

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Posted by: Brother Grimm.5176

Brother Grimm.5176

Op should speak for themselves on what "we" like and don’t like.

You are totally delusional if you think they are going to revert this system when their entire HoT development is built on these changes. NOT GONNA HAPPEN.

Now a possible alteration to allow for a 4th Specialization (with the same number of Trait points) might be a decent compromise (not sure if this is technically feasible).

We go out in the world and take our chances
Fate is just the weight of circumstances
That’s the way that lady luck dances

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Posted by: phys.7689

phys.7689

How is there less build diversity? Its a question don’t rage on me. I actually now have 2 builds for my elementalist when before I’d set it and forget it and just use 1 build. I also only tried 2 different trait lines so far. earth/water/arcane and fire/water/arcane. I came up with 2 builds that are just as fun. So I would guess if I tried a lightning I’d actually have 3 viable builds or even try more combos and come up with more builds that work as well. Way I see it is almost all the traits have some use to them and it really comes down to personal preference. Everyone has a different personal preference so it should make more builds being used. Old way most ran same builds because there was a lot of useless traits.

To answer the question about newer players like it over old players well been playing a long time. 2+ years I guess since I have the birthday blaster. My hours played across all toons is 7k+ and I prefer this new system.

edit: Oh and I did run weird builds before hand. like 0/1/2/6/5 and thought it would suck now since I could no longer use those builds. I did find a new build for those toons though and even with just 3 trait lines they seem better than my old build.

Most builds will be better now, because in order to fit so many traits into 9 slots they had to give them out as baseline.

They also made trait selection more obvious with less realistic choices so you are more likely to find the builds they designes for you.

Chances are whatever builds you are using now existes before, you just didnt see it.

These are part of the reasons they redesigned the trait system. However its also the flaw of the system. They have to limit possible playstyles. They cant be as creative and they cant expand much. They need new specs to create new styles, which will probably be rare, and wont be core.
For example the only way they could bring back a pistol pistol thf is via specialization or by taking something out. But since pp is a core playstyle you shouldnt need a spec to play it well.

Its not the end of the world but people gave up a lot for the primary purpose of being easier to start.

Easy to start easy to master.

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Posted by: jeezlaweez.6810

jeezlaweez.6810

OP is speaking for himself. I love the new specialization system.

- no ties between traits and stats anymore: the armor is more important now and you can freely choose your build.
- no useless or meh traits like “this only do this” or “I work only with one skill you use”. Neither placeholders traits only to get Grandmaster or Master ones.
- I don’t need to grind gold or time to unlock the traits, I choose what to unlock anytime I want.
- Builds are more tied to the character now than ever. I can grab two of the same profession and not feeling I’m running a clone.
- Elite Specializations NEED this new system to work and not break the game. You sacrifice one line to get the new benefits, a fair trade.

EDIT:
I have 16 characters, 2 leveling right now, 2 of each profession. From the 14 ones I have at level 80, 12 maintained the old build with better traits (since now they have 3 Grandmaster), 1 I had to change the armor because he needed, not because the new system per se, his build became viable, in fact. 1 I had to change because 2 of the traits were misplaced before (like… why would you spread Flamethrower traits?!?!) and now they belong to the right specialization.

Samuel Hart – lvl 80 Necro and 20 more toons… well. Yeah.

(edited by jeezlaweez.6810)

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Posted by: PookieDaWombat.6209

PookieDaWombat.6209

Teh only major misstep I see with this new trait system was Anet taking it upon themselves to assign any trait points to anyone, thereby forcing them to play builds and in ways they don’t want to without giving them any recourse to reassign the auto assigned hero points.

That was rude and basically was Anet telling players to literally play the way Anet thinks you should play.

They need to give sub 80 characters the ability (even if its a one time thing) to reassign the hero points on their trait lines. It literally ruined the game for many people, my wife included and I can understand her rage at the game and at Anet for this one.

We already knew some builds would be broken and boy howdy did they break them. I’m sure there are others that can be made, but right now I’m just seeing a lot of the same builds being used (same as before) only this time there is less diversity in those builds.

Maybe the meta will change some more in the coming weeks, but as of right now, meh. About half my toons are shelved because they aren’t viable and I might be forced to buy new armor and trinkets just to make them valid again and i don’t have the gold or the time to grind it out at the moment.

[OTR] – Greck Howlbane – Guardian
Soraya Mayhew – Thief
Melissa Koris – Engie – SF for Life!

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Posted by: SyllyReth.2495

SyllyReth.2495

I am enjoying the new trait system so much better than the previous one. It’s going to take me a while to figure out how I want to play again – no doubt, but I am actually enjoying my period of experimentation. I hadn’t done that at all because of the way we had to unlock traits before now. I unlocked what I needed for my “main” build on each character and that was it. Now I can actually change things up and play around.

Unbridled Dynasty [UND]

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Posted by: Shadow.1345

Shadow.1345

Maybe, just maybe, the OP didn’t mean the actual Traits. What he meant was the ability to pick traits in more than 3 lines? Just maybe that is what he meant. I don’t think OP was defending the old trait acquisition system, nor the actual Trait/Skill combinations.

I, for one, hate the fact I am locked into 3 trait lines. I also hate that I have to take a 3 of each level (adept, master, and grandmaster) – I can’t take 1 Adept and 2 Master traits, for example. So…those arguing that this new system has more diversity…I think you need to look up what “diversity” means.

The ones in favor of this system mean the diversity of more viable builds instead of being locked into a stale meta where one or two builds worked and the rest were scrub builds.

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Posted by: Blockhead Magee.3092

Blockhead Magee.3092

I find little value in the change. Most people are going to end up using the same meta builds (as they are devised) just like last time. No real gain, but a loss of valuable development time.

SBI

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Posted by: PookieDaWombat.6209

PookieDaWombat.6209

The ones in favor of this system mean the diversity of more viable builds instead of being locked into a stale meta where one or two builds worked and the rest were scrub builds.

Here’s the thing though, I felt there was TONS of diversity and room to experiment in the other system.

While some might consider certain builds non-viable, they still allowed people to play the game their way. Also, people geared up with respect to the stat points they gained through traits as well.

Now while I’m glad they removed that from being tied to trait lines, they also made certain other builds categorically impossible to make, and the closest ones to the those builds that you can make now also require reinvestment in new gear, which is ridiculous.

I feel really bad for my wife because she had a kind of hybrid damage/heal support build she did with her pet that actually worked really well for her and in group play, and now that build is gone and this toon was her main since the start.

[OTR] – Greck Howlbane – Guardian
Soraya Mayhew – Thief
Melissa Koris – Engie – SF for Life!

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Posted by: Phyrex.5174

Phyrex.5174

Teh only major misstep I see with this new trait system was Anet taking it upon themselves to assign any trait points to anyone, thereby forcing them to play builds and in ways they don’t want to without giving them any recourse to reassign the auto assigned hero points.

That was rude and basically was Anet telling players to literally play the way Anet thinks you should play.

They need to give sub 80 characters the ability (even if its a one time thing) to reassign the hero points on their trait lines. It literally ruined the game for many people, my wife included and I can understand her rage at the game and at Anet for this one.

We already knew some builds would be broken and boy howdy did they break them. I’m sure there are others that can be made, but right now I’m just seeing a lot of the same builds being used (same as before) only this time there is less diversity in those builds.

Maybe the meta will change some more in the coming weeks, but as of right now, meh. About half my toons are shelved because they aren’t viable and I might be forced to buy new armor and trinkets just to make them valid again and i don’t have the gold or the time to grind it out at the moment.

This, so much this.
With such a huge overhaul with the trait system, some builds were bound to be scrapped, some were bound to change and so on.

Many people were bound to want to change build or experiment with this new system.
That we were not even given the OPTION of a reset is insulting

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Posted by: briggah.7910

briggah.7910

Lots of good points and I know I keep using ele as my example but it is a profession that I started to learn not too long ago. Talking about d/d ele’s.

Now I’m sure there were other builds before but from what I saw most ran 0/0/2/6/6 or 0/2/0/6/6 one build gave fury while other gave protection. Since I’m more WvW guy I chose the protection build before this change and never changed it.

Now though I have tried it 2 different ways so far. I went earth/water/arcane since that was the closest to my other build but I also tried fire/water/arcane and that is just as good. While I lose some survivability I gain more damage from what I’ve seen. I also checked the metabattle site and top build is a air/water/arcane build but I haven’t tried that one yet.

That just shows me that it comes down to personal preferences really but before you had to run certain builds yet now you can run different builds and those builds are still viable builds. Also can have trait variations as well on builds but that is more of a personal preference really.

To sum it up I think over time there will be many more viable builds as per before this change there were a few viable builds. Not saying them hybrid builds were not viable before but in many peoples eyes they weren’t. I had hybrid builds as well so I see why some people are upset.

Player Vs Everyone
youtube channel - twitch channel

(edited by briggah.7910)

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Posted by: Donari.5237

Donari.5237

Out of curiosity, of those people who like the new system, how many played from launch? I ask because a lot of the “I love it” posts appear to be people who fell victim to the horrible trait acquisition changes made (relatively) recently.

I’ve played since beta and I like this system. I’m likely to level alts again (I only made one post NPE). I think the divide may not be between vets and new players so much as between people who heavily invest in theorycrafting and specific builds with intense focus on what every stat point does and those players who just take what feels fun even if they are reduced in effectiveness as a result.

I’m the latter, if that wasn’t obvious

edit because the feline filter didn’t like a slang term for being made lame.

(edited by Donari.5237)

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Posted by: Ohoni.6057

Ohoni.6057

I just want to be about to pick up the Thief fall damage trait without having to go all-in on the Shadows line.

“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”

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Posted by: Aenaos.8160

Aenaos.8160

I’d say forget about it.
The faster you get to like the new system the happier a
GW2 player you will be.
The most important advantage of the new traits system
is that it is much more streamlined and expandable,aka
it is a lot easier to add new specializations now.
Learn to like the new traits and they will like you back.

-Win a pip,lose a pip,win a pip,lose a pip,lose a pip,
lose a pip,win 2 pips,lose a pip,lose a pip…………..-
-Go go Espartz.-

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Posted by: Ringsound.7806

Ringsound.7806

i start playing GW2 from beta
and I LOVE the new system
I LOVE running 3 complete lines together
so there are no “WE”

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Posted by: phys.7689

phys.7689

I think they will probably have to iterate on it before the next round of specializations comes out.
Its very rigid

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Posted by: Dave.6819

Dave.6819

just change 1 minor thing and ill be totally happy then. Stealth removes ALL conditions (like it used to be). and whenever u Stealth u regain 3 initiative (like it used to be). and then im happy til the end of time.

kthnxbai. srsly tho… change it :x

Thief prof. really needs your attention
#dyingbreed

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Posted by: Einlanzer.1627

Einlanzer.1627

It’s definitely not that bad when you get used to it. In some respects you could argue there’s more diversity simply because they untied stats from traits.

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Posted by: Sizer.5632

Sizer.5632

As far as unlocking stuff goes, this system is WAY better. I had alts that only had like 3 traits total unlocked before, and now they can get everything right away. So much better.

Still needs a lot of work as far as balance goes and the UI could be better. Also disappointing we only get 3 choices for adept/master traits, but maybe in the future there will be more (i doubt it though).

Also people need to stop using “we” when telling us their personal opinions. Unless you are literally the member of the royal family, please start using “I”.

Borolis Pass – [TOVL]
Aeneaaa – 80 engineer
Aeeneaa – 80 Ele

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Posted by: Tent.6829

Tent.6829

Absolutely NO. This system is leagues better than the old one.

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Posted by: Tigaseye.2047

Tigaseye.2047

If anything, I feel they didn’t go far enough.

They should have divorced weapon type effectiveness from traitlines.

So you could have, just as effectively, used any weapon with any traitline and didn’t have to sacrifice a useful trait, for another one that just boosts a certain type of weapon.

Also, I would have scrapped the whole 6bn different types of armour thing and just worked things like condition damage into skills, as standard.

Far easier to manage and balance.

“Turns out when people play the game, they don’t admire your feet at all.” sephiroth

(edited by Tigaseye.2047)