Guild Wars 2

“Any character that was created before the feature pack build will be grandfathered into the system; meaning that they will have traits 1 through 12 of each line unlocked. The new 13 traits will need to be unlocked by everyone. Any character created after the build will be required to unlock all of their traits via content or purchasing trait guides.”

You used the word required so, sorry but I have to ask.

How are you going to force players to unlock or buy traits? As a current character, I don’t expect to see any new traits that I will use, yet I’m required to get them???

Tumult.2578:

“Any character that was created before the feature pack build will be grandfathered into the system; meaning that they will have traits 1 through 12 of each line unlocked. The new 13 traits will need to be unlocked by everyone. Any character created after the build will be required to unlock all of their traits via content or purchasing trait guides.”

You used the word required so, sorry but I have to ask.

How are you going to force players to unlock or buy traits? As a current character, I don’t expect to see any new traits that I will use, yet I’m required to get them???

It’s going to work like this: All characters you have now remain the same. They still have the “old” system, except when you want to get the 40 new traits.

All characters you make after the patch will start at level 1 (obviously), and then they don’t have any traits at all. That’s how you’ll be required to follow the new system by either acquiring through doing the events or buying them. Unless you want a character without any traits at all.

As someone who’s leveled six characters to 80, I think this change seems detrimental to new players. Why make people wait longer to start getting traits? I’ve tended to wish I could see more effects from traits earlier than I do now in the current system, not later. Low leveled characters never felt too powerful to me from having too many traits, if anything it feels like characters are a little too crippled in that way until getting past level 40. And it just sounds boring to have to grind through the first 35 levels before getting to choose and use any major traits at all.

I like all the other ideas about this that ArenaNet posted in their blog post, but this change to the level-to-traits ratio disturbs me, and I really hope ArenaNet will re-consider it.

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.

Maybe you can afford 10g per trait, I’m sure plenty of TP tycoons can, but I can’t, and until they fix the economy they can’t expect players to have that kind of money. All that would lead to is “Pay to Win” in which TP tycoons and gold buyers have all the traits and everyone else is left without.

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.

That’s nonsense.

Doesn’t this end up making the lv1-30 zones even easier for lv80 characters?

Note: I am not one of those people who are looking for “everything must be able to kill me if they just look at me funny” type of difficulty. Just something that came to mind while doing today’s daily.

Yeah, I hope they don’t make low level zones even easier for level 80 characters. I enjoy playing in them and worry that if they did make it easier, they would also nerf the rewards for playing in them, and given that a lot of the better world event encounters are in low level zones (more relaiable timers, more entertaining sequences), if they killed off the low level world events I would have almost no reason to play anymore.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

This is a good change. Players just steamroll low level content at the moment. This will actually mean they will have to learn how to play in the early levels and then they will quickly ramp up in power at the later levels when they already know how to play the game.

Pre-80 content will be nerfed, so steamrolling through early content will still be a problem during early leveling. Moreover, the proposed “tuning” on pre-80 content to account for players having less traits will make such zones even more laughably trivial for fully-traited/kitted level 80 characters.

Source:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Dev-Blog-Changes-to-Traits/page/7

Scroll down do Roy Cronacher’s quote on this page…

" All major traits will be locked on new characters.
Players now have to hunt for Major Traits in the world (a la Skill Hunting in GW1).
Players also have theoption of buying these traits from a guide."
This is a fantastic change IMO, though I’d get rid of #3, or limit it to just one or two traits at each tier.

Too bad I have all the 80s I’d ever want.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Lambent.6375:

Smells like Maplestory’s skill system.

:(

/shrug.

Smells like GW1’s elite skill hunting or Final Fantasy’s blue magic hunting.

It would be like GW1 if you can acquire tomes by killing boss (with a fair droprate) and you will be able to resell them to orther players… I really hope this will have nothing to do with the gemstore.
The rate gold/gem is already pretty bad, if people start converting gold into gems to buy things like tomes/tomes pack I fear it will be impossible to play the cosmetic endgame anymore (at least without a huge amount of grind) considering that almost every new armor is usually sold inside the store.
I really hope this new system is really like the gw1 system.

edit: I just read that it will probably be similar to the unlocking for the skills, so we will just have to spend some skillpoints? If so I like it, I would still explore and hunt, but you can gain skillpoint by playing, so it would be a nice implementation.

Well. First set of levels just got a lot less fun. Too bad I enjoy the traits a lot more than I used to. Mind you, I like being able to change them more readily, but waiting until level 30 to get them? Does that actually serve a useful purpose? Was anyone being overwhelmed by the traits? Maybe it’ll help some people, but I’m not a fan, that’s for sure. I guess it gets to be even more like needing to be higher level to ‘really’ play the game. Bleh. Good thing I have some of those instant level-20 scrolls, I guess, since I’ll actually feel like using them.

Oh, and now we have to unlock our traits. I’m reserving my judgement on how well that will go; it might work out all right. But I love how there’s the side thingy with the quote right next to it “We want it to be much easier to experiment with and learn new builds as you explore the world of Tyria.” Well, the refunding helps, but the unlocking doesn’t. I hope buying the guides isn’t too expensive, so that those who don’t want to do whatever it is to get it aren’t too bad off…

And does anyone else think that 50% chance for fear on being hit sounds OP? They’ll probably give it a cooldown, which would help, but then it gets to be unreliable. Oh well. I can’t really expect ANet to have the same idea of what’s actually good in a game as me, I guess…

On the live stream they said we could post our concerns and they would be read. Not sure how true that is but here I go.

I am a clutz. Because of this I do not join Parties. I do the open world DEs and I happily participated in the LA activities, but, in a group of five I fear I would be a hinderance and not a help.

Going out into the Open world and earning unlocks sounds like a lot of fun…if it can be done solo or in a Dynamic Event like situation.

A lot of people here say selling the trait unlocks is a bad thing to do, but these people are probably young whipersnapper gaming gods who have never suffered from poor hand eye coordination…so, please, in the name of the six gods, when you plan out the events for the unlocks….keep players such as I in mind…please.

Lisa-fingers, toes, and eyes crossed in hope that I don’t have to quit this game. I love it so much.

Mattargul.9235:

" All major traits will be locked on new characters.
Players now have to hunt for Major Traits in the world (a la Skill Hunting in GW1).
Players also have theoption of buying these traits from a guide."
This is a fantastic change IMO, though I’d get rid of #3, or limit it to just one or two traits at each tier.

Too bad I have all the 80s I’d ever want.

Sad sigh. You, Mattargul. 9235,must be one of those young whippersnapper gaming gods I wrote about in my post. Please don’t ruin things for those of us who are uncoordinated, not lazy.

Lisa-writing this wistfully

This change has both very good and exceedingly bad in it.

Why does Anet just hate people who like to tinker with builds and change it up all the time? First Ascended gear and now needing to unlock each individual trait.

I’m not against horizontal rewards for exploring and doing things, but forcing people to race off and do X in WvW or some other thing they have no interest in doesn’t seem like the solution for me. Beyond that, this system adds nothing to the people who complain they are bored and only ever play one class and build. Meanwhile, those of us who are always switching things around and get a good portion of our fun tinkering, will be forced to grind out the new skills (or pay, probably a goodly sum) to do it.

That’s the bad. Then there is the borderline idiotic. I agree in principle with changing trait points so they must go in blocks of 5. This makes good sense to keep players from investing say 13 points in something.

However, pushing traits back to level 30, Master unlocked to 60 and Grandmaster back to 80 is insane. This makes an already slow and boring start to the game 19 levels longer, and will cause large issues with upscaled and dungeon content.

Currently, other than gear a level 75+ player is not so different from a level 80 in a level 70 dungeon say. With the new system, that 75-79 player will have no traits above 20, even if they are central to their playstyle.

This is a ludicrous change which goes against the nature of the game, which is to play through things as you level. Not magically become a lot more powerful for dinging 80. How many pug groups are going to keep running dungeons with people on sub-level 80 characters after this?

Okay there is some good.

The trait unlocks might be fun and interesting, though I still think it is a punishment for people who play multiple characters and builds.

Adding more traits, for more potential build diversity is awesome! But give them some thought. The last thing Warrs need is more DPS in the Arms tree and faster Longbow arrows for Ranger in a slot which competes with Remorseless is laughably bad.

So looking forward to all the new traits, but please think them through!

Wow, ANet really hates rangers

Helequin.2608:

Why does Anet just hate people who like to tinker with builds and change it up all the time? First Ascended gear and now needing to unlock each individual trait.
…

I’m not against horizontal rewards for exploring and doing things, but forcing people to race off and do X in WvW or some other thing they have no interest in doesn’t seem like the solution for me.

…

However, pushing traits back to level 30, Master unlocked to 60 and Grandmaster back to 80 is insane. This makes an already slow and boring start to the game 19 levels longer, and will cause large issues with upscaled and dungeon content.

These are pretty much my major concerns as well.

Going out and acquiring the skills/traits/etc. in a more heroic way than picking them off a menu sounds good on paper but will seriously inhibit theory and build crafting for those who are into it. It also, as stated, seems likely to be the sort of thing that will, rather than enhance player freedom, force players into doing things they don’t want to do or have no interest in. It could be that traits are locked behind logical activities for why they do, like a group benefit reward being locked behind group content, but ANet has a pretty poor track record on this sort of planning. (Hello, forcing players to craft for Ascended gear or pushing players into PvP/group content just to follow the storyline). You can always say “well, just buy the traits then!” but that sort of thinking just enforces the Gold Is King sort of miasma that GW2 is already embroiled in and should be working to move away from not further into.

I also do fear that these changes really make the levelling game sound like a major hassle. I actually don’t mind the levelling in GW2 as it stands now, and that’s largely because it’s a pretty steady progress curve (even if it is unfortunately pretty front loaded weapon skill wise). While levelling, I don’t really feel like anything I do is worthless bu with the next system not really starting until level 30 and being even more spread out between when you get useful stuff? Yeah, let’s just say I’m glad I’ve already got 3 80s in the classes I’m interested in.

For those that keep bringing up cost; they said in the live blog that you’d buy traits from the same vendors you currently get your manuals from and they’ll cost gold and skill points.

I just hope that they don’t force us to do wvw if we wanna unlock things in pve or pvp.. I seriously can’t stand to play wvw anymore

Look, I have 11 lv. 80 characters. I’ve already done all my unlocking. I’m sure not gonna go do content I’d rather not play 11 times over just to unlock traits I should already have by virtue of all the effort I’ve already put in. I’ve been here since early access, and I’m done jumping through hoops. These new traits should be unlocked by default, at least on all toons that hit lv. 80 more than one year ago.

One more nail in the coffin.

Devs,

Maybe you should focus on making an in-depth, in-game manual explaining how your combat system and it’s respective values synchronize? I mean, being developers shouldn’t you guys document your software? (Maybe that’s a little too old school, who knows?)

At any rate, ask yourselves the following question (or perhaps pass it off to upper management);

“What’s the point of introducing something new when everything old is still vague and poorly defined?”

aladore.3945:

Devs,

Maybe you should focus on making an in-depth, in-game manual explaining how your combat system and it’s respective values synchronize? I mean, being developers shouldn’t you guys document your software? (Maybe that’s a little too old school, who knows?)

At any rate, ask yourselves the following question (or perhaps pass it off to upper management);

“What’s the point of introducing something new when everything old is still vague and poorly defined?”

I think your final quote pretty much asks a very important question about combat in general. There’s another old saying that I’d like to use concerning combat simply because combat will still remain broken even with these trait changes coming down the bend.

“You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig” referring of course to the problems inherent in their current incarnation of combat where CC/Healing/Condition damage roles are all still very much useless in PVE.

And until they fix combat bringing up the usefulness of those roles by affecting their actual values and removing long time nerfs, they will still have the same issues, fancy new traits or not.

Hmmm…. seems a bit obtuse really.
A new point every 6 levels, sometimes 2 points and then another 2 points at 80 since the math doesn’t line up.

A much simpler way would have been just start trait gains at level 15 and earn 1 point every 5 levels which works out to 14 at 80 like they intended. Coincendently the starter zones are levels 1 -15 so it would work out to the player completing their respective starter zone before earning a single trait point.

If you use the aquirement rate they have provided it would seem level 90 is in the future. …

….

Not sure what to think at this point. I kinda need to know more.

If this was the system at launch I think I’d like it more than what we have currently.

As an aside there is so much changing in this upcoming ‘feature’ patch it kinda gives me the feeling that I’ve been playing something between a beta and an actual release…

Bitoku Kishi.8346:

As someone who’s leveled six characters to 80, I think this change seems detrimental to new players. Why make people wait longer to start getting traits? I’ve tended to wish I could see more effects from traits earlier than I do now in the current system, not later. Low leveled characters never felt too powerful to me from having too many traits, if anything it feels like characters are a little too crippled in that way until getting past level 40. And it just sounds boring to have to grind through the first 35 levels before getting to choose and use any major traits at all.

I like all the other ideas about this that ArenaNet posted in their blog post, but this change to the level-to-traits ratio disturbs me, and I really hope ArenaNet will re-consider it.

Heh … I’ve actually held off getting the grandmaster books on two of my characters for a while. On my warrior and mesmer. In both cases because 20 in 3 trait lines was working fine for me. In the case of mesmer it was also because none of the grandmaster traits appealed to me.

Jareth.4813:

I love the idea of unlocking traits by doing things in the world. I can see these traits indirectly boosting population in many areas, since there’ll always be someone looking to unlock a new one.

That said, being able to skip those challenges and simply buy them outright…that is a slight concern.

Hopefully the cost will be high, so as to encourage players to actually play the game. A gold or two (plus maybe a laurel) for each might be enough.

Hopefully not overly-so… if the “trait token” -or whatever- is in content I don’t like, I will pay REASONABLE in-game gold not to have to do it. But if that price is too high or store-only, it’ll alienate people.

KarateKid.5648:

Jareth.4813:

Hopefully the cost will be high, so as to encourage players to actually play the game. A gold or two (plus maybe a laurel) for each might be enough.

Hopefully not overly-so… if the “trait token” -or whatever- is in content I don’t like, I will pay REASONABLE in-game gold not to have to do it. But if that price is too high or store-only, it’ll alienate people.

Agreed. If people would rather pay for the trait than do the content, the problem isn’t with the price of the trait book. The problem is that people don’t want to do that content, attaching a trait to it just makes it obvious.

I suspect ANet will attach traits to plenty of “unfun” content. Either people will then do that content (doubtful) so that it’s no longer “dead” content, or they’ll pay (likely). The more that pay, the more effective it is as a gold sink.

I still do not know why they attached this to traits and not skills. I can’t understand why they would do this, unless it’s a purely mechanical response. Building player connections to the world, and expanding for the future, would have worked much better with new skills being gained this way.

Xar.6185:

Hmmm…. seems a bit obtuse really.
A new point every 6 levels, sometimes 2 points and then another 2 points at 80 since the math doesn’t line up.

A much simpler way would have been just start trait gains at level 15 and earn 1 point every 5 levels which works out to 14 at 80 like they intended. Coincendently the starter zones are levels 1 -15 so it would work out to the player completing their respective starter zone before earning a single trait point.

If you use the aquirement rate they have provided it would seem level 90 is in the future. …

….

Not sure what to think at this point. I kinda need to know more.

If this was the system at launch I think I’d like it more than what we have currently.

As an aside there is so much changing in this upcoming ‘feature’ patch it kinda gives me the feeling that I’ve been playing something between a beta and an actual release…

The bolded part, so much. I can’t wrap my head around why Anet felt that players would love to spend their first 30 levels not being able to trait and experiment with builds. Seriously, 30 levels.

Hopefully the challenges required to unlock the traits can be started prior to 30. This way, when traits are finally available, the player will have a couple to choose from. Otherwise, it’s an even longer wait, making traits available at 30, and then having to accomplish the associated challenges to unlock them.

And if they require skill points to purchase, that puts traits in direct competition with unlocking utility/healing/elite skills.

I have to agree with the general sentiment here. Unlocking traits in the world is great; this is exactly what we came up with in the CDI, and they’re applying it brilliantly. However, the trait point and tier scaling is bonkers.

Character below 30 will have nothing to play with but skills and equipment, and will have virtually no access to secondary attributes, (and their profession’s unique primary attribute), outside of runes. This strips out too much of what makes the game tick, not to mention taking away the fun of having points to allocate when you level.

As for Grandmaster being on 80, no thank you. We already have enough to concern ourselves with at that critical point. Let us grow into our GM traits, instead of suddenly having full access right at the end.

Here’s my suggestion for a middle ground:

• Adept @ 20
• Master @ 45
• Grandmaster @ 70
• 1 point every 5 levels until Lv60, then 1 every 4

There’s too much pointless busywork in GW2’s levelling system as it stands, and this just ends up delaying things.
The way they SHOULD have done things?

Okay, let’s start with the utter pointlessness of single trait points to give you a concrete grounding in the theory for my way they could drastically improve the levelling experience while reducing the amount of levels.

Trait points are only useful in fives.

There’s nothing you can do with individual trait points if the total doesn’t amount to a multiple of five.

This means that after 30, you only hit a true milestone every five levels.
Levelling in RPGs should be meaningful, but post-30, 4 in every five offer no sense of progression at all.

I contend that in order to make every level feel meaningful, they consolidate.

Currently, at maximum level there are a total of 70 trait points available. Nobody ever puts less than multiples of five into a traitline. Who has ever found a use for a 14/16/21/19 build?

I propose they reduce that number to 14 and that minor and major traits in traitlines only cost a point each.
Next, reduce the number of levels in the game from a mind numbing 80 to a meaningful 15.
You start at level 1 with no trait points, then gain one every level up until 15.
This means that every level is a milestone, unlocking a new ability for your character instead of adding mindless filler levels in between.

I mean, that’s essentially how it works at the moment, but it’s just disguised with pointless filler levels.

GET RID OF THE POINTLESS FILLER.

Mungrul.9358:

There’s too much pointless busywork in GW2’s levelling system as it stands, and this just ends up delaying things.
The way they SHOULD have done things?

Okay, let’s start with the utter pointlessness of single trait points to give you a concrete grounding in the theory for my way they could drastically improve the levelling experience while reducing the amount of levels.

Trait points are only useful in fives.

There’s nothing you can do with individual trait points if the total doesn’t amount to a multiple of five.

This means that after 30, you only hit a true milestone every five levels.
Levelling in RPGs should be meaningful, but post-30, 4 in every five offer no sense of progression at all.

I contend that in order to make every level feel meaningful, they consolidate.

Currently, at maximum level there are a total of 70 trait points available. Nobody ever puts less than multiples of five into a traitline. Who has ever found a use for a 14/16/21/19 build?

I propose they reduce that number to 14 and that minor and major traits in traitlines only cost a point each.
Next, reduce the number of levels in the game from a mind numbing 80 to a meaningful 15.
You start at level 1 with no trait points, then gain one every level up until 15.
This means that every level is a milestone, unlocking a new ability for your character instead of adding mindless filler levels in between.

I mean, that’s essentially how it works at the moment, but it’s just disguised with pointless filler levels.

GET RID OF THE POINTLESS FILLER.

I’m not sure how you think trait points are only useful in groups of five. In relation to unlocking traits, yes. However, trait points are quite useful singularly as each point spent increases the chosen stats of the area they are placed into. Not getting them at each level will bunch up an increase to a leveling character’s stats to a larger jump every 6 levels instead of little increases every level. I do not like that change, ANet. Also, on the subject of levels, I personally do not understand why there are “levels” in the first place. They are not needed.

StinVec.3621:

I’m not sure how you think trait points are only useful in groups of five. In relation to unlocking traits, yes. However, trait points are quite useful singularly as each point spent increases the chosen stats of the area they are placed into.

Name me one build that doesn’t consist of trait assignments divisible by 5.

Mungrul.9358:

StinVec.3621:

I’m not sure how you think trait points are only useful in groups of five. In relation to unlocking traits, yes. However, trait points are quite useful singularly as each point spent increases the chosen stats of the area they are placed into.

Name me one build that doesn’t consist of trait assignments divisible by 5.

Why should I? That has nothing to do with my statement.
The comment I was responding to stated:
“Trait points are only useful in fives.
There’s nothing you can do with individual trait points if the total doesn’t amount to a multiple of five.”

I pointed out that there are, in fact, things to to do with individual points and they are quite useful individually.

The point being, nobody uses that degree of fine-grain control when assigning trait points. To do so is sub-optimal. It’s a false illusion of flexibility, when in reality, only the assignment of five points at a time is EVER used.
As that is the case, there may as well not be the individual points in between.

Mungrul.9358:

The point being, nobody uses that degree of fine-grain control when assigning trait points. To do so is sub-optimal. It’s a false illusion of flexibility, when in reality, only the assignment of five points at a time is EVER used.
As that is the case, there may as well not be the individual points in between.

So you are saying that you do not allocate individual trait points as you earn them while leveling, that you do not allocate any trait points until you have earned 5 of them despite the fact that you forgo the increased stats you would gain by allocating every single point as you earn them?

If not, then obviously you agree that there is value in allocating individual trait points which was the entire point of my comment that you replied to.

I’m talking about individual points having worth, you are talking about builds or something relating to unlocked traits. You are making an argument that has no attachment to the subject of my comment.

They said single trait points are worthless.
I showed that they are not.
You replied talking about builds and demanding evidence of…something, I don’t know.

Why you are trying to bring up unrelated matters I do not know and I will not continue simply to please you.
/wave

Roy Cronacher.1576:

ipan.4356:

Unlocking traits through content is a great idea though.

I’d even remove the option to buy them from vendors.

While we think going out into the world to unlock traits is a cool reward for completing specific content, we wanted to have an alternative option in case that wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea. There are many different kinds of players. =)

So since there is many kind of player, i hope you are not selling them at high price….
Dont forget that the majority arent HV farmer or hardcore gold farmer…

Ohoni.6057:

• The more GM traits, but no more Adept/Master traits. More traits is good, but you can typically only slot 2-3 GM traits at a time, and even doing that means limiting your other trait choices. Having 5 new GM traits means always having 5 GM traits you can’t slot at any given time. I would much prefer having more Adept and Master traits available, allowing you to slot more of these new traits at once, and without having to focus on maxing out individual lines.

Needs:

• If they are adding in the ability to swap traits around on the fly like this, then they also definitely need the ability to “store” trait builds, so that you can swap between several builds at a button press, rather than having to move the points around and swap out the abilities individually. If they allow you to swap traits then you’ll be expected to swap traits, and doing so manually each time is just tedious.

Agree . especialy when there is a lot of build that dont even go futher that 20point in a stat…

There is also a lot of traits that should be removed to apply thoses effect by default to the skills – weapons ( like the -20% CD – turn the skill as targetable – increase range .. and stuff like that )
Remove thoses traits would allow everyone to use more “usefull” traits that add somes effect – bonus

That’s a pretty shy start to take care of the core gameplay, but as long as its just the begning to go more back to the greatest GW1 roots…

Also, the ability to store “builds” & stuff.. was there in GW1.. its VERY surprising they dont even though to include that from the begning…
( exactly like the “easy restat” in GW2 where we had to wait nearly 2years to have it, when a such system was in GW1 since prophecie…. and now they present that like a revolution… that’s so… funny… )

Need now a easy way to swap stat from our gear without having to waste 342634hours to collect many different armor – weapons – runes – sigils now…..
And maybe like that its going to look like something interesting…
( well there is still a lot of issues in this game, like the OP food allowed in mcm – the difference between ascended and exotic.. all that creating a total unbalanced wvw pvp.. etc )

Okay, my overall point here is that the act of levelling should include a significant milestone at every level. Assigning a single trait point to a trait line that has no other effect than making a number slightly higher isn’t a significant milestone. The levels between 30 and 80 that aren’t multiples of five solely consist of this kind of unsatisfying progression. It’s busy work that could very easily be consolidated down.
This is emphasised by the fact that once at top level with all trait points available, no trait points are ever assigned on an individual basis but rather assigned in groups of five.

This is why people with multiple characters quite often find the game a drag between 30 and 80. The process has been needlessly extended and levelling rewards needlessly stretched out to simply occupy time.

If ArenaNet reduced the amount of levels as I proposed, they could relatively easily rebalance the maps so that more of the game would be balanced towards top-level play.