Guild Wars 2

Nike.2631:

So what if the game gets a little tougher while leveling up? The game is mind-numbingly EASY.

(and yes, downscaling needs to be quite a bit more savagely applied than it is now)

It’s not about tougher, it’s about boring. Getting an option to look at your traits and make a decision and spending a point every time you level, that’s interesting. Not having anything to do with traits until level 30, that’s boring.

Having access to new skills early on, that diversifies your playstyle — interesting. Playing exactly the same way as every other thief / mesmer / … until level 30? Boring.

Traits are so easy to understand, I had no idea what they were talking about with making them easier for new players. This new system doesn’t seem to make anything simpler, it just means traits start later and you get them a lot less often. Don’t see how that equates to “easier.”

Celtic Lady.3729:

Traits are so easy to understand, I had no idea what they were talking about with making them easier for new players. This new system doesn’t seem to make anything simpler, it just means traits start later and you get them a lot less often. Don’t see how that equates to “easier.”

Considering the several million players (it must be in the double digit millions now?) that have played GW2 or beta tested it, it’s understandable if a single item does not relate to you. Anet has the stats.

FTR, I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with you, I’m saying you are less than 1 percent of 1 percent of the GW population.

Your post (which has nothing to do with mine, anyway) doesn’t change the fact that this isn’t making anything “easier.” “Less often” doesn’t mean “easier.”

Celtic Lady.3729:

Your post (which has nothing to do with mine, anyway) doesn’t change the fact that this isn’t making anything “easier.” “Less often” doesn’t mean “easier.”

It does. You said you don’t understand why it’s simpler. However, having read feedback from the Chinese beta tests, it’s too confusing. You’re coming from a position of knowing how this simple game works. 10 million (or whatever) players that Anet has contact and feedback and in-game stats from are saying something different. It’s human nature to assume people like things exactly as we do, and that’s why internet forums are nothing but rage.

For certain classes, moving these to 30 and 60 makes levlling them up a lot less enjoyable.

Of course, heavy armor classes won’t notice that much but for eles it’s going to become even more of a drag.

Hunting for new skills/traits doesn’t really appeal that much as I only wvw/eotm when i actually log in to play.

I’m so happy for more traits and especially happy about the free trait reset feature that PvP currently has. It is much easier to use.

Only concern is, as others have pointed out, levelling low level characters will become a lot harder until they’re 80 :-/

Overall though, quite happy about the changes.

I love every thing I read in that post except for the delay in getting access to traits until level 30. I appreciate that they’re trying to give more of a sense of progression from level 30 to level 80 but I don’t think this is the way to do it: taking away what we already had in order to give it back “later” won’t feel like progression.

I think it’d be better to start at level 15 and give one every 5 levels like it is now. The sense of progression can come from hunting out all the traits (1 to 12) in the world. That would be cool.

I hope they reconsider.

Looks like another low blow for rangers. I’m starting to think Anet really does hold something against them at this point.

Faster arrows? Yeah, ok, good luck finding anyone who will use that over another trait.

It really is a kitten move. That trait should be free for all players “your arrows will actually hit things and do damage now!,” not something that you have to trait into. At absolute maximum it should be a 25-point minor trait.

Seriously, 100g per trait…even suggesting that seems ludicrous to me. Maybe 10g a trait, max.

10g? What, are we rolling in money like TP farmers now? No, 1g, maximum, and that’s only for the GM ones. The master traits should be 25s, the Adept ones 1s. If they plan on charging more than that then they’ll need to overhaul the economy to be more rewarding for those that don’t play the markets.

So if I understand right, characters, regardless of level, will have 1-12 unlocked unless they are created after April 15th. For those characters created pre-April 15th, will doing those challenges be available or provide any reward upon completion? If not, well trait hunting sounds fun enough for me to want to delete my low-levels and restart!

fellyn.5083:

I had this thought too. People will usually leave if some one who isn’t 80 joins a dungeon party. This is only going to enforce that idea.

They should just make all dungeons level 80 and save everyone a bit of time.

That’s only for LFG tool. My guild runs dungeons for lowbies all the time to help them level. Not sure why Anet should remove it if guilds are using it.

Cool, I look forward to making new builds

Dave Pare.2069:

I did not mention that on purpose: adding the possibility to buy traits is clearly a manouvre to suck up in-game money from players in order to influence the in-game economy. I bet that every major adept trait will cost 10 silver each; every major master trait will cost 1 gold each and every major grandmaster trait will cost 2 gold each at least. I hope Anet will surprise me in a positive way.

I hope grandmasters are only 2 gold I’m afraid it will be something stupid like 10 gold or more.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Your post (which has nothing to do with mine, anyway) doesn’t change the fact that this isn’t making anything “easier.” “Less often” doesn’t mean “easier.”

It’s easier because points aren’t split.

A person who doesn’t “get it” and I’ve met plenty, might put 1 point in each trait as they’re leveling would mean they don’t get their minor traits for much longer than it takes.

I’m pretty sure most people keep putting one point in one line until they have five saved up, so every level for five levels. If your’e doing that, you’re doing it the way it was supposed to be done.

People who don’t get traits, don’t understand this has to be done, so they don’t do it.

By putting on trait point in to unlock one skill you make the system more intuitive.

For me using trait points is second nature. But I’ve encountered too many who don’t understand the concept.

Any news on when we will get a quick-swap UI for builds? Now that trait refunds are free, there should be no mechanical considerations left in the way.

Also, on the subject of purchasing traits, what is the cost projection compared to the current tier unlocking system? Can you say whether it will be more or less, and give us an idea of how much of a difference?

I know a lot of people like the change and a lot of people will dislike that means more builds

Ohoni.6057:

Seriously, 100g per trait…even suggesting that seems ludicrous to me. Maybe 10g a trait, max.

10g? What, are we rolling in money like TP farmers now? No, 1g, maximum, and that’s only for the GM ones. The master traits should be 25s, the Adept ones 1s. If they plan on charging more than that then they’ll need to overhaul the economy to be more rewarding for those that don’t play the markets.

That sounds about right because currently you get access to all three tiers and 60 traits for a total of 3g 10s (I know it’s not quite the same but killing the risen priest outside Arah does not have a 10g value much less a 100g value)

I really love the idea of the traits but starting at 30 is too late I think, I don’t think it’d be too bad to spread them out as normal rather than crunching some up near the max level.

Getting traits is a fun thing afterall. If I had to grind 30 levels before getting any I would have been so bored and probably not made it past 30.

Well, I’m in favor of these changes, naturally.
It’s a little late, but better late then never.
I just hope Anet don’t decide to sit on their hands for the next 8 months before they decide to put new skills into the game.
If your not working on new skills in the background, you bloody well should be.

They don’t have to be perfect, just decent and iterate after the fact.
Traits for example, the entire system evidently wasn’t perfect, and yet your fixing it, and you will probably continue to do so. And I would wager we are going to find plenty of problems with this new system too, and that’s ok.

It’s more important to iterate and throw ideas out there quickly so they can fail faster, rather then hum and har, aiming for some pie in the sky perfect system that doesn’t exist, and simply waste a lot of time in the meanwhile.
Fail faster.

Best patch ever. As bad as I want new content, being able to switch builds and having something like GW-1 elite skills is awesome. Having PvE skills that ranked up like the ones in EotN would be great too.

Leveling up a new char in GW2 isn’t all that fun alone already, I had friends who couldn’t get into it. But I guess being a veteran player I don’t really care about that.

Tigerlily.3765:

Best patch ever. As bad as I want new content, being able to switch builds and having something like GW-1 elite skills is awesome. Having PvE skills that ranked up like the ones in EotN would be great too.

Leveling up a new char in GW2 isn’t all that fun alone already, I had friends who couldn’t get into it. But I guess being a veteran player I don’t really care about that.

After the update it looks like it would be fun to play from level 1 to 80 as if it was GW1 so you must quest for every thing and no TP use at all.

I like the changes, even thought they could start a bit earlier than 30.

The Grandmaster Traits should be fun, but I hope we will have more than one option per trait line.

What this is really about is control and money! First the devs wish to force us to play the game they want us to play instead of the game we want to play, ( which is in contradiction) to the purpose of the game as stated at launch. Second, for those that balk or have no interest in being manipulated, they can buy at exorbitant prices the right to be excused from the common lot of everyone else. Anet dresses this extortion in language expressing concern for the suckers they are about to take. This is really shabby and will prolly influence my decision to find my entertainment elsewhere. And btw, I can’t believe the number of idiots lining up in order to be fleeced LoL.

I was pretty hyped on the trait changes, although the system is still nowhere near where it needs to be for it to feel meaningful. Unfortunately, that all changed once I scrolled down to the new grandmaster trait examples and saw Read the Wind.

Seriously? Does any of the developers even play a ranger or do they just make up this stuff at random and hope for the best? I don’t think I’ve ever missed a single shot with an arrow. Most of that is on account of the fact that you don’t want to be standing far away from your enemy. When are you gonna get this into your head? The only time you wanna be standing far away is when you’re pulling enemies (which is virtually never), in every single other instance, you want to be as close to the rest of your team as possible (which is generally in melee or close by).

Even if you’re going solo, there’s really no effective way to keep your distance anyway, so the whole “be effective at range” thing you’re trying to sell people on is completely moot.

Rangers are bad enough as it is. Please don’t teach players how not to play a ranger by making these ridiculously counterproductive traits and skills.

These trait changes sound really cool, but one thing kind of worried me a bit and I couldn’t find it asked/answered already in this thread:

“Refunding traits is now free across the game: refund your traits any time you’re not in combat or in a competitive PvP match!”

Is there going to be a new cooldown on this? Or is the new meta for fractals/dungeons going to be to swap traits for every boss?

One thing I definitely want to see if they make these changes is a “trait digest” in the game. Their idea seems to be that they want you to change out traits more often, but whenever I change out even just slottable traits within my current build, I lose track of which effects I’ll have on, and that can really change up how I play.

What I’d like to see is a simple, at a glance digest of all the active traits I have. Not mousing over a roman numeral so that a pop-up tells me what I can do, but just a straight, vertical, all at once listing of every effect on me due to traiting, like so:

Stealing Inflicts Poison
Deal Damage and Gain Life when Stealing
Weaken targets when you Poison them.
Increase Poison duration.
Deal more damage if your target has a Condition.
Gain Swiftness on Dodging.
Gain Might whenever you Dodge.
Dodging returns some of the Endurance used.
Gain Bonus Initiative over time.
Damage is increased while Endurance is not full.
Stealing gives you Initiative.
When you Steal, you and those around you gain Might, Fury, and Swiftness.
Increases Max Initiative by 3.
Stealing grants you and nearby allies Vigor and steals boons from your target.

There, a full listing of the assigned traits, you can just read it all down in order and know what’s going on all at once, rather than having to mouse over each icon. Ideally it would even be so smart as to group the similar effects as shown below, but I understand that would not be trivial.

• Stealing deals damage, heals you, Inflicts Poison, regains Initiative, grants Might, Fury, Vigor, and Swiftness to yourself and allies, and passed Boons from the target to them.
• Posion Weakens targets and lasts longer.
• When you Dodge you gain Swiftness and Might, and restore a portion of the Endurance used.
• Deal more damage if your target has a Condition.
• Damage is increased while Endurance is not full.
• Increases Max Initiative by 3, Gain Bonus Initiative over time..

It’s a good start I guess but with the new system and being able to easily refund traits are we going to get skill templates finally? This was a thing years ago in the original Guild Wars and I’m really amazed it’s not a thing already, but I guess I’m not surprised either considering how little else from the original game made it in; that’s a bad thing if you can’t take a hint by the way.

Great to allow more flexibility in builds on the fly. It was one of the beauties gw1 had and makes life much more easier for players loving wvw, pve and dungeons, since different situations asks for different builds.

that being said: Any chance to also introduce templates like gw1 had so you can not only change on the fly, but also can get it as you like instantly?

Zoid.2568:

Turgut.4397:

Zoid.2568:

Storm of the Ages.9076:

Zoid.2568:

Storm of the Ages.9076:

First thing I thought of =o But we would need a lot more than 2 free slots. Once you can save builds, people will start trying crazy things. It will really open up diversity ^.^

Buy in gem store if you need more than two. Simple as that.

In gw1, I had a minimum of 10 specs for each class, and almost everyone that I knew that played did. Just 2 spots for free would be a huge mistake, and I think anet would already know that. IF a restriction was to be added, it should be much larger, as there will be dozens of builds a person will want to save on their main.

I expect the temple unlock in the gem store would be account wide, so if you really want more than two, you can convert gold to gems and buy a few slots. I expect them to be about 200-400 gems for each unlock.

Why should this feature cost us money? And why are people discussing it’s prices? Such a basic feature was 100% free in GW1 and accessible with the click of a button. You can save dozens maybe hundreds of builds. I don’t see why people jump straight to the payment options before really thinking it through. We’re already being bombarded with gem store items and restrictions (the account-wide bank space is a good example).

GW1 is a totally different game. In a totally different age of gaming.

GW1 was a step in the right direction for gaming. GW2 was a step back. Looks like they caught on as they need incentive to do a patch like this such as most of the player base wanted this to happen. As a GW1 vet I am a little giddy to see GW2 players who have hated on GW1 since this games release get a gw1 mechanic forced on them. So to take a page out of the haters book, “Suck it up. This isn’t the game you thought it would be. Boo hoo.”

TLDR at the bottom.

Being a new player I can say for certain that these changes are bumming me out. I can’t understand why they are pushing back traits. into lvl 30+ and the final tier lvl 80+ unless they only want to award the ‘books’ for content at that level.

Do they perhaps feel that level 11-~45 are to easy and are pushing the traits back? I included the post 30 levels since currently you already have many points in there at that level, you would only start ‘feeling’ a leveling off of content vs nerfed characters at around ~55/60 probably.

So I just got my first character up to level 60 and thought I should experiment a bit to see what I like and what works etc. This goes completely out the window if you are going to have to unlock over a 140 traits. Let me tell you plainly what is going to happen, people are going to go to Google type search for ‘best build’ and that’s what they are going to complete. Which many are already doing without experimenting. It’s going to be even worse for dungeons “oh your the wrong type of build sorry we aren’t looking for your type” ‘poof’ kicked – bearing in mind that this is indeed the current mindset. This is the destiny of it all unless they let you buy it for 5 copper or something; after all new players aren’t loaded… unless they buy tons of gems and convert to gold…

Thinking about this more I can only imagine this is implemented to force more players into PvP where you can still get everything?

TLDR; IMO this will hurt good build diversity, increase the amount of new players with broken builds, and at the same time make getting to level 80 more difficult and worth less – since the final tier’s ‘quests’ would be level 80 content that you only now get to start to complete, lol or buy.

Good idea to add the ability to change traits, almost on the fly. Thanks for implementing it.

I was going to express my concerns over the trait acquisition but then I realized that there will likely be no new traits for Rangers that I would ever use.

I was going to comment on the level 30 requirement for traits but then I realized that
now, I probably wont level those other characters to 80 and deck them out with the cash shop so I consider myself……..richer.

This is Anet doing right. Announcing stuff before they inplament it. There is serious nerd tears coming from my eyes atm. They are taking some major steps in the right directions. I got no bad things to say about this upcoming change in the trait system. It give me this fyzzie gw1 feeling all over again. I can only wait and see what they are having planed for us in the future.

Mishee.5719:

This is Anet doing right. Announcing stuff before they inplament it. There is serious nerd tears coming from my eyes atm. They are taking some major steps in the right directions. I got no bad things to say about this upcoming change in the trait system. It give me this fyzzie gw1 feeling all over again. I can only wait and see what they are having planed for us in the future.

I need to quote this because it’s exactly what I wanted to say here.

Announcing prior to change
Add variety instead of add raw power
Tie advancing with content
Make it easier to toy with the trait system, instead of restricting it.

Nothing bad to say here

I don’t think making the early game harder is an intelligent way to go. The early levels tend to be the most lonely as this game has aged and its’ population is mostly at “endgame”. Making early level characters weaker as they are forced to tackle content designed for multiple people by themselves is absolutely a recipe for frustration.

Experimentation is not encouraged by locking all the tools for experimentation behind a level 30 gate.

*EDIT: Unless you are going to take another page from GW1 and add in Henchmen/Hero’s? Why shouldn’t Logan Thackery be forced to follow me around and do my bidding, after all.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Glenstorm.4059:

Thanks for the updates! Really excited about these changes!

Could you please also address concerns regarding early leveling difficulties for new players (especially for classes like Ele and Mesmers) since important defensive traits are now only obtainable starting at level 30 rather than at level 15?

We have done some tuning on monster stats pre-80 to account for players having less traits, and stats from traits. We wanted to push back traits to give characters more meaningful progression up to 80 and keep things simpler for a new player to learn over time.

It means that the difference between players with levels correct for the zone and downscaled 80’s will get even bigger than it is currently.

This will make returning to early zones more boring (and make farming in those zones easier). It will also create a problem with the world bosses and some dungeons.
If they get rebalanced for correct level players, downscaled 80’s will steamroll them. If they won’t get rebalanced, we’re back at the “new people will have it harder” problem we started this discussion with.

This is especially visible with current top tier world boss practices of requiring a full map. Both Tequatl and 3H Wurm events, if not rebalanced for new (and weakened) players, will be a clear message, telling them to GTFO from the zone because the big boys want to play.

The same applies for Living Story content. Just imagine having to do Marionette, knowing that some of players on warden platforms will not have even one master trait (let alone grandmaster).

TL/DR: original announced plan was to make it possible for new and old players to play together. The whole scaling system was supposedly devoted to this. Moving traits up towards higher levels runs counter to that idea.

I really, really hope you can still reconsider that part of the trait change.

So, with every trait line having 12 major traits to unlock, and every profession having 5 trait lines, that’s 480 traits to unlock across Tyria.

What I would be interested to see is if they actually tie each trait to an individual event/challenge, or if, say, all the traits from the first line (across all professions) are available from one.

So, to make it clearer, is it finishing the Balthazaar temple event gains you a Grandmaster trait, say trait XII, in the first trait line for your profession no matter what profession (so a Ranger and an Ele could both go and do the event and come away with that trait slot unlocked – though obviously it will be a different trait for each); or is it that if the Ranger wants trait XII in the first trait line he’ll have to go and finish the temple of Lyssa event because the temple of Balthazaar only awards trait XII in the first trait line for the Ele?

Hopefully that makes sense?

EDIT: Also, with the current system, you unlock 5 points and get a minor slot and then 10 and get a major … and you have to do this before progressing to the next tier. I’d like to know in the new system whether you still have to continue in this way – so, I unlock one trait point (taking me to the minor trait), but then do I have to go and unlock a major trait somewhere in the world (or buy it) in that trait line in order to get to the next minor? What if, in 6 levels, I haven’t gone and done that but now have a trait point? Will I have to go into another line to spend it, or wait until I can spend it on a trait I have unlocked?

It would make sense to do the latter in terms of progression, but if the latter is the way it will go, then the next tier (despite not being “locked” by us having to buy a book) is more effectively gated to us than previously because you still have to pay for a trait (in which case you still have to visit a vendor and buy a book), or you have to go and do some content. So just curious as to how this will work.

Healix.5819:

They have to give an alternative method. They can’t force people into doing dungeon, PvP, hard solo content, etc. It would only cause even more problems. In a system where everyone is meant to be at relatively the same power, not offering an alternative would simply be unfair.

For example, imagine having the best trait locked behind Liadri without offering an alternative.

I have been thinking about on this new system and must agree here. It definitely seems to go against the “play how you want” philosophy. They will do what they want of course, but I now see this as , in the end, forcing players to do content they dislike just to have their traits ( no telling what the cost would be to unlock them at this point, it could be very high for all we know).

Maybe too early to know of course, but this seems like a big step away from “play how you like”. This is not about cosmetic items but about traits. I do not like this idea so far.

There is much in the game I dislike, and some that I really like. I do nothing I dislike and spend my time doing that which I enjoy. THIS is what has kept me playing the game. If this becomes “one must do ‘event a’ simply to unlock this trait….for this trait ‘event b’….‘dungeon 1’….” it is quite a turn off for me.

At the very least it would mean no more alts for me certainly.

So far, not really thrilled.

This will no doubt please those who like the idea of making players run all content regardless. I just see it as a negative overall, unless good alternatives are feasible.

But we will see.

Brtiva.9721:

Healix.5819:

They have to give an alternative method. They can’t force people into doing dungeon, PvP, hard solo content, etc. It would only cause even more problems. In a system where everyone is meant to be at relatively the same power, not offering an alternative would simply be unfair.

For example, imagine having the best trait locked behind Liadri without offering an alternative.

I have been thinking about on this new system and must agree here. It definitely seems to go against the “play how you want” philosophy. They will do what they want of course, but I now see this as , in the end, forcing players to do content they dislike just to have their traits ( no telling what the cost would be to unlock them at this point, it could be very high for all we know).

Maybe too early to know of course, but this seems like a big step away from “play how you like”. This is not about cosmetic items but about traits. I do not like this idea so far.

There is much in the game I dislike, and some that I really like. I do nothing I dislike and spend my time doing that which I enjoy. THIS is what has kept me playing the game. If this becomes “one must do ‘event a’ simply to unlock this trait….for this trait ‘event b’….‘dungeon 1’….” it is quite a turn off for me.

At the very least it would mean no more alts for me certainly.

So far, not really thrilled.

This will no doubt please those who like the idea of making players run all content regardless. I just see it as a negative overall, unless good alternatives are feasible.

But we will see.

What are you people smoking?
They did give you an alternative to unlocking traits, you can buy them at the old profession trainers, they state that outright.

You can either play to unlock them, or just buy them. PvP even has it’s own system to unlock traits, and once you unlock it in one mode it’s unlocked for all of them.
Geez, people need to learn reading comprehension.

Ohoni.6057:

Looks like another low blow for rangers. I’m starting to think Anet really does hold something against them at this point.

Faster arrows? Yeah, ok, good luck finding anyone who will use that over another trait.

It really is a kitten move. That trait should be free for all players “your arrows will actually hit things and do damage now!,” not something that you have to trait into. At absolute maximum it should be a 25-point minor trait.

Seriously, 100g per trait…even suggesting that seems ludicrous to me. Maybe 10g a trait, max.

10g? What, are we rolling in money like TP farmers now? No, 1g, maximum, and that’s only for the GM ones. The master traits should be 25s, the Adept ones 1s. If they plan on charging more than that then they’ll need to overhaul the economy to be more rewarding for those that don’t play the markets.

Are you joking? 1g would trivialise the whole thing. 10 gold at least will make some people actually do things, instead of buying them all.

My concerns are based on how they are acquired. How much they will cost in gold or effort and if they are RNG.

Unlocking skills for gold worked in GW because they were the primary progression. Max gear was easily obtained, even 40/40’s that could cost a bit had easy avenues of acquisition via content rewards. Here the gear grind is already ridiculous and adding more gold costs to progression worries me.

This might not be an issue depending on how we obtain trait guides. For instance, if they are purchasable via dungeon vendors for a reasonable amount of the appropriate tokens. However if they’re RNG based or the cost/effort to obtain them is large I’ll just see it as a move to “encourage” gems->gold, like what we know so far of the changes to pvp rewards and progression can easily be seen as a move to overly monetize pvp progression.

Considering it purely as a method to increase horizontal progression however, I like it. It’s not as good as new unlockable weapon skills and it seems new additions will come slowly, but it’s something. There is also still the issue that the horizontal progression is locked behind the gear grind needed to support some different builds.

Nike.2631:

On the whole I look forward to the changes.

Yes, leveling will be a little tougher, but this game could probably use an injection of challenge.

But……fighting all the snooze impulses while lvling up was a challenge in its own right up to now already. Adding a HM on top will be too much to handle.

The trait hunting sounds like nothing more than a giant incovenience tbh. “Hey mesmer you want to make a PU based build for WvW roaming well i hope your server does the Arah meta event cause otherwise you are not getting it” Hey do you want all these build/ profession defining traits that without the profession is basically unplayable?
Well i hope you compiled your to do list from dulfy cause it may takes a few weeks to get them, more or less, depends on how active your community is, and how many metas they run, if they run them at all, and how much personal story, missions, wvw and dungeons you can stomach (let alone finding a competent group for all that), so you can actually play your profession.

Oh yeah also don’t forget you’ll have to run dungeons, fractals, etc using underpowered or unworkable builds because you are missing the traits you are doing the dungeons for, in the first place.
Also thanks to the new level cap trait aquisition, levelling up becomes even more of a chore.

PS: Whatever class gets their gm behind Arah p4 i’ll weep for you

PSS: but wait… you can avoid all the bullkitten by just straight up buying them. Gee this will not push players, especially new players, who don’t have the funds (or are unwilling to play circus pets and jump through all these hoops) to farm for gold even more, amirite. Viva le champ farms, running Queensdale 24/7

Just…YAY
Sounds very good to me!

Don’t be so dramatic. There is no indication you’ll have to do dungeons or whatnot for the traits. In fact there are plenty of powerful monsters/bosses in the open world to add a trait to their defeat.

This might actually be a reason for people to kill a specific spawn or do a specific event chain for a change.

Evans.6347:

Don’t be so dramatic. There is no indication you’ll have to do dungeons or whatnot for the traits. In fact there are plenty of powerful monsters/bosses in the open world to add a trait to their defeat.

This might actually be a reason for people to kill a specific spawn or do a specific event chain for a change.

How many times you think ppl are gonna kill them after they get their traits from them? Do you think ppl will be running trait champ farms or that the areas will be just as deserted as before, now with the added necessity for you to kill the mobs, etc by yourself cause you need the trait but nobody is around? I mean, my server barely does the Arah meta chain once in a blue moon and if you look at the ranger trait screenshot they provided, one of the traits is aquired by killing the High risen priest. Yai for guesting i guess. Also double yai for gw2state.com/temples.
But a new player won’t know how the circumvent this or have the resources to buy them off. Eh this sytem may have worked in gw1 (somewhat, it was horribly annoying there as well) but gw2 is a different beast all together and all i’m seeing here is a source of fustration for new players if they don’t balance out the aquisition.

Ohoni.6057:

Looks like another low blow for rangers. I’m starting to think Anet really does hold something against them at this point.

Faster arrows? Yeah, ok, good luck finding anyone who will use that over another trait.

It really is a kitten move. That trait should be free for all players “your arrows will actually hit things and do damage now!,” not something that you have to trait into. At absolute maximum it should be a 25-point minor trait.

Seriously, 100g per trait…even suggesting that seems ludicrous to me. Maybe 10g a trait, max.

10g? What, are we rolling in money like TP farmers now? No, 1g, maximum, and that’s only for the GM ones. The master traits should be 25s, the Adept ones 1s. If they plan on charging more than that then they’ll need to overhaul the economy to be more rewarding for those that don’t play the markets.

I hope this is a joke… you can get 10g is like 45 minutes. If it is anything less than 20g there will be no point in doing the activities since it will be faster and cheaper to just buy it from the vendor.

Master traits can be 1g, those aren’t that important, but grandmaster need to be 20g minimum or the change is completely pointless.

I would say 50g puts it at a nice price point where most people will want to go out and hunt for them, but if you are lazy you can still save up for a week and buy it.

One of the things that is fun about visiting lower level areas in this game when youre lvl 80 is having your completed character, having all the moves that youre used to. If traits are taken away from my lvl 80 warrior then i wont want to do lower lvl areas, because ill be playing with only half of my toons abilities, ie less fun. This would be very weird to get used to as (depending on what area youre in) your toon would be at differing lvls of completeness. (many of my traits depend on other traits to give me the final build with its abilities).

I really hope they dont do this, so please stop asking for it.

Also why only new Grand Master traits?

My warrior isnt GM in any of them, (ive rounded him out so hes got points in precision, strength and defence, then the remainder points going into discipline to get the faster weapon swap). Surely im not the only person to do this, so me and many like me will be unable to make use of these new traits and to do so we would have to fully change our toons.

Also to me it seems like they are leaning more towards the holy trinity, with the best healing class getting another boost to healing, and the guardian getting a hp boost making him more tank-like.

I like that they are doing things to improve the game but i really hope they arent expecting me to go to other things to earn these traits (like wvw or pvp). Yeah i could just buy the moves/traits but im hoping that it wont just be a gold sink.

Keneth.6490:

I was pretty hyped on the trait changes, although the system is still nowhere near where it needs to be for it to feel meaningful. Unfortunately, that all changed once I scrolled down to the new grandmaster trait examples and saw Read the Wind.

Seriously? Does any of the developers even play a ranger or do they just make up this stuff at random and hope for the best? I don’t think I’ve ever missed a single shot with an arrow. Most of that is on account of the fact that you don’t want to be standing far away from your enemy. When are you gonna get this into your head? The only time you wanna be standing far away is when you’re pulling enemies (which is virtually never), in every single other instance, you want to be as close to the rest of your team as possible (which is generally in melee or close by).

Even if you’re going solo, there’s really no effective way to keep your distance anyway, so the whole “be effective at range” thing you’re trying to sell people on is completely moot.

Rangers are bad enough as it is. Please don’t teach players how not to play a ranger by making these ridiculously counterproductive traits and skills.

Rangers are not bad at all. This is but another option. And of course besides personal preference, it may be helpful for other formats other then Dungeons, which is all what you are thinking about above.

In short, avoid thinking that what doesn’t benefit you or the way you see things won’t benefit someone else (ANet has plenty of Ranger players among them.) The main logical flaw in this forum: “ANet is wrong because they don’t cater to my playstyle-to hell with everyone else that plays differently than I do (or plays a different format than I do).” That applies to both bow lovers, who refuse to melee at all (though it is an option) and to people who belittle others for using bears and longbows.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

you can get 10g is like 45 minutes.

Care to reveal how, exactly? Because I don’t even come close to that kind of rate.

Can I turn in those instant trait reset things I got from Black Lion Chests for some other sort of booster >.<

I so rarely change my builds that I don’t even think about using them because I can’t save my current build I don’t want to forget what I was using.