Guild Wars 2

I was looking for a while, but didn’t see any topics of the like, so I apologize if it’s already addressed.

To me I like making builds and I did so very much too in GW1, no I even loved it, with all my heart. I love playing PvP or even PvE knowing that not many people have this build and still it is viable.
That being said. I feel very sad to see the new trait system, so sad that I even go to write it here in hopes some ANet developer would care to take it up at a board meeting or even just have it as a thought.

I personally see the new trait system more like a prefix or simplistic system rather than a way of being creative with your build.
I know the current trait system is not the best either, but at least it feels more creative than what the new system looks like. (there will always be something to complain about no matter what they implement because of personal preferences)
I do see how specializations might go around this, but it does still feel very much like my creativity in builds are being imprisoned within the confinements of the simplistic system ANet are bringing into the game with HoT (Heart of Thorns).

I don’t know why the change is so important to implement, but I’m gonna assume it’s to make it easier for newer players to understand or for the fancy interface with the lightning chain. But even if it’s for new players, I don’t think it will help much in the end since you will learn a new interface very fast once you start playing a new game. it always looks confusing when you start to play a new game until you have figured it out right?

Anyway thanks for reading, hopefully I’m not alone out there.

Best Regards
Folsted

Folsted.8647:

I don’t know why the change is so important to implement, but I’m gonna assume it’s to make it easier for newer players to understand[…]

I don’t think it’s a real case. Or at least not the biggest one. It’s just easier for them to maintain simpler system. In GW1 there is a lot of choices but ArenaNet said many times how problematic that was for them. Even little change to one skill could cascade through entire system. That’s why in GW2 they try to make everything they can to make game as simple as possible with illusion that we have mane possibilities.

Well I can see the point in that. Although it is still making me really sad that we more or less are gonna look like clones of each other skill wise.

I have to disagree to your reasoning of what the new system will bring.

More choice does not a better system make. Currently, though you have more choices, most classes have a limited amount of optimum meta builds which most people run. Chaning the trait system (and removing the stats from it) will allow anet to better balance traits against each other and against other classes. If done right the result could be more viable builds and combinations.

You already mentioned the addition of elite specializations which will be a method of progressing characters without unbalancing to much and will result in even more diversity.

I guess the best we can hope for is that anet succeed in their attempt, but I would not judge the change to harshly before actually getting to try it out.

There’s a fine line between creative builds and sub par builds. Having stats attached to trait lines has a negative impact “creative” builds. Removing stats from the trait lines means berserker gear with support builds will be more effective than they currently are, and likewise for other combos.

I don’t think it ever was going simple, it started simple and from a player PoV was needlessly complicated.

Traits 2.0 simplified using traits, while making unlocking them a pain, and Traits 3.0 takes it one step further by combining like/synergistic traits. Plus it gives them the ability to add additional specializations in the future (if you believe that will ever happen short of another paid expansion but who knows).

Cyninja.2954:

More choice does not a better system make. Currently, though you have more choices, most classes have a limited amount of optimum meta builds which most people run. Chaning the trait system (and removing the stats from it) will allow anet to better balance traits against each other and against other classes. If done right the result could be more viable builds and combinations.

This! There are so many things that aren’t used because they can’t be traited right or viably. I don’t think a build should be based on whether or not I can trait an ability to be viable but by whether or not I LIKE the ability.

See, I’m a MTG player with what amounts to an astronomical amount of cards from to choose from, and if you talk to any pro player there’s only a minute subset which are considered good enough to play.

(Funnily enough, one of the cards later described as ‘just shy of broken-overpowered’ was originally considered too weak until someone put a deck together for it. I could, naturally, be talking about a dozen or so cards – that’s how big this game is with choices.)

And then there’s the Pokemon games, where if you’re not using a team of a couple dozen non-Legendary critters, you might as well forget about competition. Or so the pros say.

. . . so I’m used to hearing the argument of “can’t make viable things out of anything”. I call dolyak droppings consistently on that.

Guild Wars 2 is incredibly possible to play with nigh anything in your bar (sensibly) and still be entertaining. I think that’s more important – will it be fun. Some people find it the height of entertainment to find a build which can shred anything in under twenty seconds. Some people find it fun to forget about skills and try to dress up like Link or Zelda, or any couple hundred other fictional characters.

Viable builds shouldn’t be a concern of every player, nor should it be a consideration forced on them. On the same token, neither should they be forced to have an incredible wealth of choices and wind up mocked for not knowing better than Frenzy/HealSig in the time of GW1.

At least, these are my thoughts. I’ll note I spent a year trying things out in the days of Prophecies and then Nightfall but after completing Nightfall I rarely changed up my build on my main – because it was fun. Did it work? Ffft, not on everything. (Mostly fleshless things were the pain.)

And love it or hate it, GW1 had too much choice when it came to builds, and unlike GW2 there are definitely ways to build which aren’t really possible to get through places without a major helping hand. I’m not missing that at all.

GW1 : Alot of choice,, alot of fun,, pretty balanced game
GW2 : Not much choice,, meta game,, totally unbalanced

Although,, people say with less skills you have more balance… Well.. from what i have seen… GW2 is the most unbalanced game i’ve ever seen. Not even joking.

EDIT: It’s not the amount of skills that make gw2 so unbalanced. It’s more because there are no roles in gw2. Everyone does the same thing,, only different. But only 1 does it the best (with a few exceptions in certain situations)

Folsted.8647:

I know the current trait system is not the best either, but at least it feels more creative than what the new system looks like.

The reason they went with this system is because they wanted to create a horizontal progression system so you wouldn’t need to constantly build up the amount of traits and utilities you can use to swap to at any given situation. That is, they wanted to create their Elite Specialization system which I don’t think would ever work with the old system unless you force the player to use an entire trait line if they want to use their Chronomancer/Druid/etc. Instead, they altered the system so you have to make more tough choices but they have a more significant effect on your build.

The way the system is now, there is more flexibility in builds but ultimately, you’re going to gravitate to specific traits that you always use for specific situations while other points in your build are the “swap ins”. Most of the choices we have in builds range from insignificant to mandatory which increase the opportunity cost of other picks. It’s not literally limiting your build but it is figuratively. The new system kind of does the reverse. It literally limits your build but it gives you more figurative freedom because more options will (hopefully) be as viable to choose as the specific ones you already gravitate to.

But ultimately, we can’t say for sure until we see more final versions of the traits they have in mind. It sort of hurts being limited to only master traits in master slots and such but I’m hoping their changes to the Grandmasters make it worthwhile in the long run. I’m tired of GM traits that are boring and boarderline useless or extremely niche.

ok I admit i haven’t looked at the new up and coming system (i am afraid of it and know anything as a rule it just gives more frustration time)

IF they are dumbing it down though I would NOT be surprised as EVERY MMO is trying to follow WoWs idea to do this regardless of the fact that their talent system has caused what is already a declining population to decrease even faster ..

Likewise SWToR has done the same thing to make “balancing” easier BUT it has had a terrible effect on population numbers as well ..

Sadly everyone seems to see WoW as the game that has it figures out AND yet their subs are declining faster and faster ..

IF this is the thought that caused this I HOPE they STOP .. WE don’t need WoW imitators we need a game that is worth playing

It’ll get better as they add more specializations.

CoRtex.2157:

GW1 : Alot of choice,, alot of fun,, pretty balanced game
GW2 : Not much choice,, meta game,, totally unbalanced

Although,, people say with less skills you have more balance… Well.. from what i have seen… GW2 is the most unbalanced game i’ve ever seen. Not even joking.

EDIT: It’s not the amount of skills that make gw2 so unbalanced. It’s more because there are no roles in gw2. Everyone does the same thing,, only different. But only 1 does it the best (with a few exceptions in certain situations)

I don’t know what you were playing, there really was less balance to GW1. What it did instead for balancing was continually alter skills in PvP zones so the meta kept changing. In theory.

In practice? You could roll through the PvE with a specific set of heroes and never have to adapt. You could facetank the Great Destroyer in less than 5 minutes. Every final boss mission could seriously be cheesed easier than anything in GW2. Yes, even “Poor Shatterer can’t turn right”.

This game is also not the most imbalanced game I’ve ever played. It barely comes close to things like the original “UFO: Enemy Unknown” or any mission in “TIE Fighter” you got the T/D for. And that’s not even dipping into my closet to retrieve “Panzer Blitz”.

. . . by the way, even if they did find a way to flesh out roles in this game? I’d wager cash players would ignore that if there was even a potential to simply DPS it down until it died. It’s not that the game needs more roles, it’s that the players really won’t let there be more roles than “for the swarm”.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

See, I’m a MTG player with what amounts to an astronomical amount of cards from to choose from, and if you talk to any pro player there’s only a minute subset which are considered good enough to play.

(Funnily enough, one of the cards later described as ‘just shy of broken-overpowered’ was originally considered too weak until someone put a deck together for it. I could, naturally, be talking about a dozen or so cards – that’s how big this game is with choices.)

And then there’s the Pokemon games, where if you’re not using a team of a couple dozen non-Legendary critters, you might as well forget about competition. Or so the pros say.

. . . so I’m used to hearing the argument of “can’t make viable things out of anything”. I call dolyak droppings consistently on that.

Guild Wars 2 is incredibly possible to play with nigh anything in your bar (sensibly) and still be entertaining. I think that’s more important – will it be fun. Some people find it the height of entertainment to find a build which can shred anything in under twenty seconds. Some people find it fun to forget about skills and try to dress up like Link or Zelda, or any couple hundred other fictional characters.

Viable builds shouldn’t be a concern of every player, nor should it be a consideration forced on them. On the same token, neither should they be forced to have an incredible wealth of choices and wind up mocked for not knowing better than Frenzy/HealSig in the time of GW1.

At least, these are my thoughts. I’ll note I spent a year trying things out in the days of Prophecies and then Nightfall but after completing Nightfall I rarely changed up my build on my main – because it was fun. Did it work? Ffft, not on everything. (Mostly fleshless things were the pain.)

And love it or hate it, GW1 had too much choice when it came to builds, and unlike GW2 there are definitely ways to build which aren’t really possible to get through places without a major helping hand. I’m not missing that at all.

When I in PvP play guardian I’m mostly playing spirit weapon guardian simply because I have a ton of fun with it. I have destroyed meta builds lots of times simply by the fact that they didn’t know how to handle the build, so learned, so kept dying because they were confused.
I yesterday tried to make a viable condi guardian, which admittedly went horrible and ended up being a hybrid build. And even so, the lack of different conditions on a guardian makes it hard to make viable I have to admit.

As I mentioned in my first post, I love making builds I love to play while having fun, if they can surprise my enemy or confuse them, well then my mission has succeeded.
The new trait system they wanna implement looks like it will threaten this train of thought, but I have already read some comments in here with some thoughts I didn’t have that slightly reassures me that ANet might make this a good thing.

CoRtex.2157:

GW1 : Alot of choice,, alot of fun,, pretty balanced game
GW2 : Not much choice,, meta game,, totally unbalanced

Although,, people say with less skills you have more balance… Well.. from what i have seen… GW2 is the most unbalanced game i’ve ever seen. Not even joking.

EDIT: It’s not the amount of skills that make gw2 so unbalanced. It’s more because there are no roles in gw2. Everyone does the same thing,, only different. But only 1 does it the best (with a few exceptions in certain situations)

Did you ever actually play GW1?

Even years after release the game was far from balanced.
GW2 is MUCH more balanced in comparison.

There were very little actual choices in GW1. Either you played the going meta-build or you basically didn’t play. No one would take anyone that didn’t play meta. Simple as that.

I think this is fair criticism, but keep in mind a system with tons of possibilities can actually be more restricting than a simpler one, if it is not balanced propperly. We may actually start to see more build variety despite the simplification.

I believe in choices over complexity. While the current system may have more traits to choose from, many trait combinations don’t work as a lack of synergy between them renders them sub par to meta builds.

There will always be meta builds. That said, by encapsulating all of the bonuses associated with a certain play theme into one trait (and limiting direct synergy across different traits), designers should be able to mitigate the differences in power between the different play styles.

You like dagger? This trait makes faster run and pokier dagger. You like staff? This trait makes your staff… err… staffier. The fact that you may only be able to choose one of these two traits prevents potential OP synergies between the boons meant for daggers and boons meant staves – meaning that buffs or nerfs can be directly applied to a single play theme (encapsulated in a single trait) without worrying about knock-on effects to other builds (which use different traits).

Not as simple as I portray it, but these are my feelings on the subject. How well Anet manages to pull it off is another topic entirely though.

Draghmar.2594:

That’s why in GW2 they try to make everything they can to make game as simple as possible with illusion that we have mane possibilities.

True.

Before release, ArenaNet said: “Hey guys, we couldn’t balance all the options in the original Guild Wars, so you will have less options. You will have no dual professions, you won’t be able to equip skills in whatever way you want, and you will have a lot less skills, but we will balance the game a lot better!”

Result: the game is an imbalanced mess in which you either don’t play in a group or you follow the meta. That, after three years of barely any skill or trait, so they have had plenty of time to make balance better.

So now, ArenaNet says: “Hey guys, we couldn’t balance all the options in Guild Wars 2, so you will have less options. You will have less traits and less variations, but we will balance the game a lot better!”

I can’t help but think if the issue is that we have been given too many options… Or if the issue is internal to ArenaNet.

lordkrall.7241:

There were very little actual choices in GW1. Either you played the going meta-build or you basically didn’t play. No one would take anyone that didn’t play meta. Simple as that.

I take it you never played GW1. What you described is exactly how GW2 works. If you are trying to play group PvE (aka dungeons), no one takes anyone that doesn’t play meta.

In GW1? You can play whatever you wanted. Even if you didn’t find a party to play with you (which wasn’t much of an issue, considering how the GW1 dungeon community was far less based on speed runs than the GW2 dungeon community), you could simply play with your heroes and beat whatever content you were against. There’s not a single ounce of truth in saying “Either you played the going meta-build or you basically didn’t play” regarding GW1. Regarding GW2, though…

Test.8734:

I take it you never played GW1. What you described is exactly how GW2 works. If you are trying to play group PvE (aka dungeons), no one takes anyone that doesn’t play meta.

No one. No one? Sorry, that’s wrong. I’ve gone along more than a few times with groups wanting a fifth member, and the only thing they asked is I not use Point Blank Shot irresponsibly, and to keep my ears open if they ask me to do something. (Like run through rather than engage things.)

In GW1? You can play whatever you wanted. Even if you didn’t find a party to play with you (which wasn’t much of an issue, considering how the GW1 dungeon community was far less based on speed runs than the GW2 dungeon community), you could simply play with your heroes and beat whatever content you were against. There’s not a single ounce of truth in saying “Either you played the going meta-build or you basically didn’t play” regarding GW1. Regarding GW2, though…

. . . and again, not the case demonstrably. My monk character was accepted a lot more often than my ranger to doing EOTN dungeons, outside guild play. Nobody wanted my warrior character, at all. (“We already have enough.”)

There is an ounce of truth in “either you played the meta builds for your class or basically didn’t play”. It’s far from being universal, because then you have to add “if you’re doing Heroes’ Ascent”.

And then, of course, there’s the builds more or less specifically for dealing with Slavers’ Exile due to how crazy that place was built.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Test.8734:

I take it you never played GW1. What you described is exactly how GW2 works. If you are trying to play group PvE (aka dungeons), no one takes anyone that doesn’t play meta.

No one. No one? Sorry, that’s wrong. I’ve gone along more than a few times with groups wanting a fifth member, and the only thing they asked is I not use Point Blank Shot irresponsibly, and to keep my ears open if they ask me to do something. (Like run through rather than engage things.)

In GW1? You can play whatever you wanted. Even if you didn’t find a party to play with you (which wasn’t much of an issue, considering how the GW1 dungeon community was far less based on speed runs than the GW2 dungeon community), you could simply play with your heroes and beat whatever content you were against. There’s not a single ounce of truth in saying “Either you played the going meta-build or you basically didn’t play” regarding GW1. Regarding GW2, though…

. . . and again, not the case demonstrably. My monk character was accepted a lot more often than my ranger to doing EOTN dungeons, outside guild play. Nobody wanted my warrior character, at all. (“We already have enough.”)

There is an ounce of truth in “either you played the meta builds for your class or basically didn’t play”. It’s far from being universal, because then you have to add “if you’re doing Heroes’ Ascent”.

And then, of course, there’s the builds more or less specifically for dealing with Slavers’ Exile due to how crazy that place was built.

Honestly I didn’t have the biggest issue ever finding a group. I think I once was asked to change char to a monk, but usually it was no problem unless we kept wiping.

But I think this is going a bit off topic nevertheless ^^

I have a lot less trouble finding a group if I ping alliance chat / guild chat with “so, what’s going on I can jump in on?” . . .

lordkrall.7241:

CoRtex.2157:

GW1 : Alot of choice,, alot of fun,, pretty balanced game
GW2 : Not much choice,, meta game,, totally unbalanced

Although,, people say with less skills you have more balance… Well.. from what i have seen… GW2 is the most unbalanced game i’ve ever seen. Not even joking.

EDIT: It’s not the amount of skills that make gw2 so unbalanced. It’s more because there are no roles in gw2. Everyone does the same thing,, only different. But only 1 does it the best (with a few exceptions in certain situations)

Did you ever actually play GW1?

Even years after release the game was far from balanced.
GW2 is MUCH more balanced in comparison.

There were very little actual choices in GW1. Either you played the going meta-build or you basically didn’t play. No one would take anyone that didn’t play meta. Simple as that.

He is right though…. Gw2 enforces the metas even more than gw1 did, and with such little build diversity you are almost forced to run the same cookie cutter “cheese builds” as everyone else if you want to do well…

If you don’t, you will be at a disadvantage.

…also idk what you mean by gw1 not being balanced.

The game was balanced quite regularly for pvp, and thanks to the Hall of Heroes, everyone was able to see what was meta and copy it until nerfs happened.

…if you are talking about pve on the other hand…. gw2 still has it worse than gw1 did….. but its not as bad as it is in pvp.

There are still classes that get no love in PVE, and from a developer’s standpoint I wouldn’t let that sit the way it has for as long as it has..

TheBlackLeech.9360:

lordkrall.7241:

CoRtex.2157:

GW1 : Alot of choice,, alot of fun,, pretty balanced game
GW2 : Not much choice,, meta game,, totally unbalanced

Although,, people say with less skills you have more balance… Well.. from what i have seen… GW2 is the most unbalanced game i’ve ever seen. Not even joking.

EDIT: It’s not the amount of skills that make gw2 so unbalanced. It’s more because there are no roles in gw2. Everyone does the same thing,, only different. But only 1 does it the best (with a few exceptions in certain situations)

Did you ever actually play GW1?

Even years after release the game was far from balanced.
GW2 is MUCH more balanced in comparison.

There were very little actual choices in GW1. Either you played the going meta-build or you basically didn’t play. No one would take anyone that didn’t play meta. Simple as that.

He is right though…. Gw2 enforces the metas even more than gw1 did, and with such little build diversity you are almost forced to run the same cookie cutter “cheese builds” as everyone else if you want to do well…

If you don’t, you will be at a disadvantage.

…also idk what you mean by gw1 not being balanced.

The game was balanced quite regularly for pvp, and thanks to the Hall of Heroes, everyone was able to see what was meta and copy it until nerfs happened.

…if you are talking about pve on the other hand…. gw2 still has it worse than gw1 did….. but its not as bad as it is in pvp.

There are still classes that get no love in PVE, and from a developer’s standpoint I wouldn’t let that sit the way it has for as long as it has..

Except for the fact that Guild Wars 1 really did require better builds to clear content. You can use less efficient builds and still clear content if you have decent technique in this game. That’s the difference.

Vayne.8563:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

lordkrall.7241:

CoRtex.2157:

GW1 : Alot of choice,, alot of fun,, pretty balanced game
GW2 : Not much choice,, meta game,, totally unbalanced

Although,, people say with less skills you have more balance… Well.. from what i have seen… GW2 is the most unbalanced game i’ve ever seen. Not even joking.

EDIT: It’s not the amount of skills that make gw2 so unbalanced. It’s more because there are no roles in gw2. Everyone does the same thing,, only different. But only 1 does it the best (with a few exceptions in certain situations)

Did you ever actually play GW1?

Even years after release the game was far from balanced.
GW2 is MUCH more balanced in comparison.

There were very little actual choices in GW1. Either you played the going meta-build or you basically didn’t play. No one would take anyone that didn’t play meta. Simple as that.

He is right though…. Gw2 enforces the metas even more than gw1 did, and with such little build diversity you are almost forced to run the same cookie cutter “cheese builds” as everyone else if you want to do well…

If you don’t, you will be at a disadvantage.

…also idk what you mean by gw1 not being balanced.

The game was balanced quite regularly for pvp, and thanks to the Hall of Heroes, everyone was able to see what was meta and copy it until nerfs happened.

…if you are talking about pve on the other hand…. gw2 still has it worse than gw1 did….. but its not as bad as it is in pvp.

There are still classes that get no love in PVE, and from a developer’s standpoint I wouldn’t let that sit the way it has for as long as it has..

Except for the fact that Guild Wars 1 really did require better builds to clear content. You can use less efficient builds and still clear content if you have decent technique in this game. That’s the difference.

that’s only because we can swap our weapons not our skills.

Basically giving us half a build at a time.

We are forced to have a heal skill on our bar.

…and you have like 4 elites to choose from.

Everything is viable simply because you have no freedom to really customize anything.

GW1 had options.

of course there were optimal builds to run…. but at the same time, you could change your party comp to have whatever you wanted…. as long as you had the elements of the holy trinity (something absent in gw2).

Just because people found out what the best builds were for PvE doesn’t mean that they were the only ones you could use.

I think you are mistaking the need to fill the roles of the trinity in a teamcomp with imbalance.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Vayne.8563:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

lordkrall.7241:

CoRtex.2157:

GW1 : Alot of choice,, alot of fun,, pretty balanced game
GW2 : Not much choice,, meta game,, totally unbalanced

Although,, people say with less skills you have more balance… Well.. from what i have seen… GW2 is the most unbalanced game i’ve ever seen. Not even joking.

EDIT: It’s not the amount of skills that make gw2 so unbalanced. It’s more because there are no roles in gw2. Everyone does the same thing,, only different. But only 1 does it the best (with a few exceptions in certain situations)

Did you ever actually play GW1?

Even years after release the game was far from balanced.
GW2 is MUCH more balanced in comparison.

There were very little actual choices in GW1. Either you played the going meta-build or you basically didn’t play. No one would take anyone that didn’t play meta. Simple as that.

He is right though…. Gw2 enforces the metas even more than gw1 did, and with such little build diversity you are almost forced to run the same cookie cutter “cheese builds” as everyone else if you want to do well…

If you don’t, you will be at a disadvantage.

…also idk what you mean by gw1 not being balanced.

The game was balanced quite regularly for pvp, and thanks to the Hall of Heroes, everyone was able to see what was meta and copy it until nerfs happened.

…if you are talking about pve on the other hand…. gw2 still has it worse than gw1 did….. but its not as bad as it is in pvp.

There are still classes that get no love in PVE, and from a developer’s standpoint I wouldn’t let that sit the way it has for as long as it has..

Except for the fact that Guild Wars 1 really did require better builds to clear content. You can use less efficient builds and still clear content if you have decent technique in this game. That’s the difference.

that’s only because we can swap our weapons not our skills.

Basically giving us half a build at a time.

We are forced to have a heal skill on our bar.

…and you have like 4 elites to choose from.

Everything is viable simply because you have no freedom to really customize anything.

GW1 had options.

of course there were optimal builds to run…. but at the same time, you could change your party comp to have whatever you wanted…. as long as you had the elements of the holy trinity (something absent in gw2).

Just because people found out what the best builds were for PvE doesn’t mean that they were the only ones you could use.

I think you are mistaking the need to fill the roles of the trinity in a teamcomp with imbalance.

Actually in Guild Wars 1 you couldn’t change anything whenever you wanted. If you wanted to change your build you had to go back to an outpost and start over. If you were going through a huge area in hard mode to get to a hard mode dungeon, you had to have a build to handle both the area and the dungeon.

It wasn’t called build wars for nothing.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

that’s only because we can swap our weapons not our skills.

Basically giving us half a build at a time.

We are forced to have a heal skill on our bar.

…and you have like 4 elites to choose from.

You’re not putting me to confidence in your ability to talk about the game when you fail to string this together and really . . . grasp what you just said. Four Elites? Can swap weapons and those accompanied skills but can’t change skills? And being forced to have a heal skill as though you refused to run one in GW1? (Even I ran Troll Unugent some times.)

I . . . don’t think you are grasping things quite right. The weapon swapping allows us to have many different types of builds available offensively without necessarily having to duck into an outpost/city to respec to a saved build. We can do so on the fly in the field, in fact.

We may not have as many options as GW1 (I’m hard pressed to find a game other than a card game where you can have as many options open) but we do have a good amount more flexibility with the options we do have.

Everything is viable simply because you have no freedom to really customize anything.

GW1 had options.

of course there were optimal builds to run…. but at the same time, you could change your party comp to have whatever you wanted…. as long as you had the elements of the holy trinity (something absent in gw2).

Just because people found out what the best builds were for PvE doesn’t mean that they were the only ones you could use.

I think you are mistaking the need to fill the roles of the trinity in a teamcomp with imbalance.

No, no there was imbalance. For instance, did you know the role of healer could be filled much better by a Restoration Ritualist than a Healing Prayers Monk? Or that Paragon was probably the least useful of the classes? Or that Rangers who were really . . . really . . . good at timing and placing traps could do some pretty sick solo farming?

Then there was how it was almost criminal how fast you could make Shiro hit the dirt with a couple Necromancers properly set up. Everyone else would have to work for their ending. Bring Spoil Victor? Halfway home. How about how some of those solo quests were not nearly so easy if you were a certain class? Or how Doppleganger was “press X to win” easy with a Ranger?

There was an imbalance. The wonderful part was how it almost always wasn’t important or didn’t get in the way. Those times it did stand out all the more. (“Cold as Ice”, my Monk had a rough time of it.)

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

[…]There was an imbalance. The wonderful part was how it almost always wasn’t important or didn’t get in the way.[…]

I really like that part. It’s almost impossible to balance out something with some many possible combinations. That’s why MtG has its balance problems as well.
I was playing PvP, GvG and PvE in GW1. I played a lot in each of these modes. I know that there were meta builds (especially after introduction of spectator mode) but there was always plenty of room for innovation that worked. And of course there were many builds that didn’t work at all…but until you try and test that you wouldn’t know.

Unfortunately people that liked to play with their build are only minority – AN said that most player didn’t change there skillbar or played only cookie-cutter builds. So we will always see simplification in every aspect of GW2 as there no reason to make it otherwise.

Draghmar.2594:

Unfortunately people that liked to play with their build are only minority – AN said that most player didn’t change there skillbar or played only cookie-cutter builds. So we will always see simplification in every aspect of GW2 as there no reason to make it otherwise.

This. For everyone refering to GW1 with their pink tinted glasses (and don’t get me wrong, I love GW1 even though I had no one to play with since every one was stuck in WoW).

Only a very small fraction of the player base actually made their own builds. And I’m not talking about that “I created my own leveling build all the way through Prophecies” builds. I’m talking endgame viable or GvG viable builds that were amazing. Most people went with 1 of 2.5 options:

Option 1:
- made a build with skills that seemed fun and threw in a random or somewhat appropriate elite

Option 1.5:
- same as option 1 but with actual synergy between skills

Option 2:
- went on pvx wiki (http://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/PvX_wiki) and copy pasted the latest cookie cutter build for their class which they then kept until it got nerfed or forever

Cyninja.2954:

Draghmar.2594:

Unfortunately people that liked to play with their build are only minority – AN said that most player didn’t change there skillbar or played only cookie-cutter builds. So we will always see simplification in every aspect of GW2 as there no reason to make it otherwise.

This. For everyone refering to GW1 with their pink tinted glasses (and don’t get me wrong, I love GW1 even though I had no one to play with since every one was stuck in WoW).

Only a very small fraction of the player base actually made their own builds. And I’m not talking about that “I created my own leveling build all the way through Prophecies” builds. I’m talking endgame viable or GvG viable builds that were amazing. Most people went with 1 of 2.5 options:

Option 1:
- made a build with skills that seemed fun and threw in a random or somewhat appropriate elite

Option 1.5:
- same as option 1 but with actual synergy between skills

Option 2:
- went on pvx wiki (http://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/PvX_wiki) and copy pasted the latest cookie cutter build for their class which they then kept until it got nerfed or forever

You see, that is where I like to be the 1.5 kind of person.
I like going through the traits over and over again to all of a sudden realize that 2 traits work very well together. Then I try it out a couple of times to see how I like it in play and adjust it once again. I keep doing this until I’m happy with it or I give up on making it work.
That is the fun part for me in the game, to play something I have been thinking up “myself”. Okay fair enough, there’s always someone who have thought of it before, or maybe I even happen to play the meta build, but to me it’s a matter of me making it up myself because I was creative in the process than it is to go onto a site and copy the build.

I have seen some good replies here which makes me think that Anet might actually pull it off, but we have to see. I’m just afraid that they are trying to dummify the whole trait system and make it so simplistic that you feel like every class is just clones of themselves.

I have different worries.

- I worry they’ll add some neat stuff then watch nobody actually use it because it doesn’t work as awesome as what’s established.

- I worry they’ll add some neat stuff which everyone will use because it gets viewed as that much better than what’s already been established.

- I worry people will stick around for the expansion then quit loudly and with much fanfare over X issue not being solved, causing them to drop everything to try to fix it and entice those who leave back. (You know, the Fractals gambit.)

Whatever happens, I can be assured of one thing. No matter what, I will always have the GW2 forums to tell me the game sucks the big one and everything was more awesome in GW1.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Whatever happens, I can be assured of one thing. No matter what, I will always have the GW2 forums to tell me the game sucks the big one and everything was more awesome in GW1.

Because Memories of a good Game are better than playing a good Game right now.

And sry but GW1 was far from balanced. There were a few skills that were ridiculous, but the imbalance was hidden much better due to the thousand of skills ( Which, most were just crap )
Also you couldn’t get into content with every class in GW1 because Random Groups were really Triggerhappy with the Kicks. Being Wa/Mo? Kick. Being Assassin? Kick. I saw more hate against these “two” Classes than I see against Bearbows or Necros ( Yes, you Necros have it easy compared to the Assassins in Gw1 to find a Group )
We had also some Skills that were just beyond Broken. First was Ursan Blessing which created a Debate on how this was OP. ( Many Groups there were, 1 or two 2 Healers and the rest Ursan ) and some Arguments were just Silly " You should be Happy Assassins, now you won’t be kicked for playing that kitten class "
But the most Broken Skill was Pain Inverter. You see how fast Lupi can be melted with a “well placed” Barrier? Thats how fast Bosses could melt after using Pain Inverter if done right.

Also we had some Builds that were definetly not Balanced. Shadow Form Ele to farm up to 80 Mobs at the same Time ( Shadow Form was completely changed to nerf it ), 55HP Monks for farming Underworld ( starting Area had a change to Nerf the 55HP Monk a bit ). BiP Necros (ever saw a Character with Maximum 1 HP just to spam a skill that otherwise would take up some HP? ) just to name a few things that are ridiculous balance wise.

So while GW2 is far from balanced, GW1 wasn’t really better in this case and sometimes even worse.

Vayne.8563:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Vayne.8563:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

lordkrall.7241:

CoRtex.2157:

GW1 : Alot of choice,, alot of fun,, pretty balanced game
GW2 : Not much choice,, meta game,, totally unbalanced

Although,, people say with less skills you have more balance… Well.. from what i have seen… GW2 is the most unbalanced game i’ve ever seen. Not even joking.

EDIT: It’s not the amount of skills that make gw2 so unbalanced. It’s more because there are no roles in gw2. Everyone does the same thing,, only different. But only 1 does it the best (with a few exceptions in certain situations)

Did you ever actually play GW1?

Even years after release the game was far from balanced.
GW2 is MUCH more balanced in comparison.

There were very little actual choices in GW1. Either you played the going meta-build or you basically didn’t play. No one would take anyone that didn’t play meta. Simple as that.

He is right though…. Gw2 enforces the metas even more than gw1 did, and with such little build diversity you are almost forced to run the same cookie cutter “cheese builds” as everyone else if you want to do well…

If you don’t, you will be at a disadvantage.

…also idk what you mean by gw1 not being balanced.

The game was balanced quite regularly for pvp, and thanks to the Hall of Heroes, everyone was able to see what was meta and copy it until nerfs happened.

…if you are talking about pve on the other hand…. gw2 still has it worse than gw1 did….. but its not as bad as it is in pvp.

There are still classes that get no love in PVE, and from a developer’s standpoint I wouldn’t let that sit the way it has for as long as it has..

Except for the fact that Guild Wars 1 really did require better builds to clear content. You can use less efficient builds and still clear content if you have decent technique in this game. That’s the difference.

that’s only because we can swap our weapons not our skills.

Basically giving us half a build at a time.

We are forced to have a heal skill on our bar.

…and you have like 4 elites to choose from.

Everything is viable simply because you have no freedom to really customize anything.

GW1 had options.

of course there were optimal builds to run…. but at the same time, you could change your party comp to have whatever you wanted…. as long as you had the elements of the holy trinity (something absent in gw2).

Just because people found out what the best builds were for PvE doesn’t mean that they were the only ones you could use.

I think you are mistaking the need to fill the roles of the trinity in a teamcomp with imbalance.

Actually in Guild Wars 1 you couldn’t change anything whenever you wanted. If you wanted to change your build you had to go back to an outpost and start over. If you were going through a huge area in hard mode to get to a hard mode dungeon, you had to have a build to handle both the area and the dungeon.

It wasn’t called build wars for nothing.

Thanks…. I played gw1 since launch, i know how it works.

I was not saying you could literally change what you wanted wherever you wanted…. but you could literally change your build to whatever you wanted and as long as you had your roles filled (dps support or tank) you were fine.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

that’s only because we can swap our weapons not our skills.

Basically giving us half a build at a time.

We are forced to have a heal skill on our bar.

…and you have like 4 elites to choose from.

You’re not putting me to confidence in your ability to talk about the game when you fail to string this together and really . . . grasp what you just said. Four Elites? Can swap weapons and those accompanied skills but can’t change skills? And being forced to have a heal skill as though you refused to run one in GW1? (Even I ran Troll Unugent some times.)

I . . . don’t think you are grasping things quite right. The weapon swapping allows us to have many different types of builds available offensively without necessarily having to duck into an outpost/city to respec to a saved build. We can do so on the fly in the field, in fact.

We may not have as many options as GW1 (I’m hard pressed to find a game other than a card game where you can have as many options open) but we do have a good amount more flexibility with the options we do have.

Everything is viable simply because you have no freedom to really customize anything.

GW1 had options.

of course there were optimal builds to run…. but at the same time, you could change your party comp to have whatever you wanted…. as long as you had the elements of the holy trinity (something absent in gw2).

Just because people found out what the best builds were for PvE doesn’t mean that they were the only ones you could use.

I think you are mistaking the need to fill the roles of the trinity in a teamcomp with imbalance.

No, no there was imbalance. For instance, did you know the role of healer could be filled much better by a Restoration Ritualist than a Healing Prayers Monk? Or that Paragon was probably the least useful of the classes? Or that Rangers who were really . . . really . . . good at timing and placing traps could do some pretty sick solo farming?

Then there was how it was almost criminal how fast you could make Shiro hit the dirt with a couple Necromancers properly set up. Everyone else would have to work for their ending. Bring Spoil Victor? Halfway home. How about how some of those solo quests were not nearly so easy if you were a certain class? Or how Doppleganger was “press X to win” easy with a Ranger?

There was an imbalance. The wonderful part was how it almost always wasn’t important or didn’t get in the way. Those times it did stand out all the more. (“Cold as Ice”, my Monk had a rough time of it.)

You clearly have no grasp on how gw1 was played.

How often did you use a restoration ritualist to heal on a DoA run?
How many times did you use a restoration ritualist to cast life bond on the tank?
Healing seed most OP skill in the entire game when used properly.

Every little skill and every little aspect of the skills available could combine with other skills on your bar or being used by others to create insane effects.

Using healing seed on the ele bonder, who has the tank bonded, healed the entire party every time the tank got hit.

Have your casters maintain enchants that return energy on hit on the bonder, and your caster now has infinite energy.

That’s using 11 skills in combination to create a sustainable invincible tank in the hardest area of the game.

… resto rit better than monk… LOL.

Every class has its place…. every class had builds that no other class could bring to the table.

Every class had different ways to fill the roles of the trinity.

Gw2… almost everyone is the same… and you bring what your class has, you use timing reflects/stabos/blinds and combo fields… and that is as much synergy as we get.

…also name one HA meta that didn’t have at least one paragon secondary.

How is opening up tons of specs taht ive never been able to use making the game simpler? Removing stats from the trait lines literally opens up tons of possiblities for specs.

The fact that they removing tons of bad traits is fine by me since it’s pretty much impossible to have more than 3 good traits per choice anyways.

Tons of specs aren’t even changing at all. My main condi mesmer spec is staying pretty much exactly the same. I’m not sure how we’ll all be cookie cutter once the initial newness wears off. Sure I’ll try chronomancer but i know i’ll go back to my shatter specs because that’s the playstyle i like.

As long as I don’t have to depend on events that no one does for my traits or spend a ton of gold to buy them, I’m going to be happy.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Vayne.8563:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Vayne.8563:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

lordkrall.7241:

CoRtex.2157:

GW1 : Alot of choice,, alot of fun,, pretty balanced game
GW2 : Not much choice,, meta game,, totally unbalanced

Although,, people say with less skills you have more balance… Well.. from what i have seen… GW2 is the most unbalanced game i’ve ever seen. Not even joking.

EDIT: It’s not the amount of skills that make gw2 so unbalanced. It’s more because there are no roles in gw2. Everyone does the same thing,, only different. But only 1 does it the best (with a few exceptions in certain situations)

Did you ever actually play GW1?

Even years after release the game was far from balanced.
GW2 is MUCH more balanced in comparison.

There were very little actual choices in GW1. Either you played the going meta-build or you basically didn’t play. No one would take anyone that didn’t play meta. Simple as that.

He is right though…. Gw2 enforces the metas even more than gw1 did, and with such little build diversity you are almost forced to run the same cookie cutter “cheese builds” as everyone else if you want to do well…

If you don’t, you will be at a disadvantage.

…also idk what you mean by gw1 not being balanced.

The game was balanced quite regularly for pvp, and thanks to the Hall of Heroes, everyone was able to see what was meta and copy it until nerfs happened.

…if you are talking about pve on the other hand…. gw2 still has it worse than gw1 did….. but its not as bad as it is in pvp.

There are still classes that get no love in PVE, and from a developer’s standpoint I wouldn’t let that sit the way it has for as long as it has..

Except for the fact that Guild Wars 1 really did require better builds to clear content. You can use less efficient builds and still clear content if you have decent technique in this game. That’s the difference.

that’s only because we can swap our weapons not our skills.

Basically giving us half a build at a time.

We are forced to have a heal skill on our bar.

…and you have like 4 elites to choose from.

Everything is viable simply because you have no freedom to really customize anything.

GW1 had options.

of course there were optimal builds to run…. but at the same time, you could change your party comp to have whatever you wanted…. as long as you had the elements of the holy trinity (something absent in gw2).

Just because people found out what the best builds were for PvE doesn’t mean that they were the only ones you could use.

I think you are mistaking the need to fill the roles of the trinity in a teamcomp with imbalance.

Actually in Guild Wars 1 you couldn’t change anything whenever you wanted. If you wanted to change your build you had to go back to an outpost and start over. If you were going through a huge area in hard mode to get to a hard mode dungeon, you had to have a build to handle both the area and the dungeon.

It wasn’t called build wars for nothing.

Thanks…. I played gw1 since launch, i know how it works.

I was not saying you could literally change what you wanted wherever you wanted…. but you could literally change your build to whatever you wanted and as long as you had your roles filled (dps support or tank) you were fine.

Right as long as you had your roles filled, so less freedom, in the guise of more freedom. Put it another way.

It’s much easier for me to find a casual group for a dungeon here taking a build I enjoy and find fun than it was to find a casual group for DOA or the Underworld. I can’t tell you about how many times I wanted to run one of those things without having to have the build of the week.

Here they tell you we want you in zerker armor. There they wanted to tell you every single skill and rune you needed to have. I never felt as free there to play as I want as I do here.

And you know, I get the whole you’re in a group, you have to play this way thing. Some groups, however, aren’t as interested in tell you what to do, or even in being efficient. There was a lot more of that in Guild Wars 1.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

…also name one HA meta that didn’t have at least one paragon secondary.

All of the HA metas before Nightfall?

TheBlackLeech.9360:

You clearly have no grasp on how gw1 was played.

. . . (looks at titles, looks back, looks at ages of characters in GW1).

Nope, not at all.

How often did you use a restoration ritualist to heal on a DoA run?

Wouldn’t know, I was never invited on any other than alliance ones. Where I was a ranger.

How many times did you use a restoration ritualist to cast life bond on the tank?
Healing seed most OP skill in the entire game when used properly.

Don’t apply. Main was ranger, secondary was monk and rarely played after a while. Except maybe to just RoJ stuff in Jade Quarry.

Every little skill and every little aspect of the skills available could combine with other skills on your bar or being used by others to create insane effects.

55 Monk, Bunny Thumper, IWAY rangers . . . yeah, saw quite a few of the early ones. Then it started getting more stupid.

Every class has its place…. every class had builds that no other class could bring to the table.

Every class had different ways to fill the roles of the trinity.

. . . ah, rangers weren’t exactly known for being healers. I mean, they could do it. They weren’t all that good at it – it was always more advantageous to take something else.

And I don’t think Warriors could fulfill a healer role at all. You’ll have to use your superior knowledge to clue me in.

Gw2… almost everyone is the same… and you bring what your class has, you use timing reflects/stabos/blinds and combo fields… and that is as much synergy as we get.

Hmm. Sure, if you say so.

…also name one HA meta that didn’t have at least one paragon secondary.

Wouldn’t know, I didn’t do that high a level of PvP after a miserable time trying to get into it. I just take the word of those who know more than me.

IndigoSundown.5419:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

…also name one HA meta that didn’t have at least one paragon secondary.

All of the HA metas before Nightfall?

More than a few after, as well, I’m 90% sure.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

IndigoSundown.5419:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

…also name one HA meta that didn’t have at least one paragon secondary.

All of the HA metas before Nightfall?

More than a few after, as well, I’m 90% sure.

You would probably have a difficult time actually winning the tournament without it….. next to impossible.

The ghostly hero, the NPC required to win the hall of heroes (and therefore the tournament) had to cast claim resource on the altar for your team to capture it.

If you did not have a way of preventing the interrupts on your ghostly hero, he would never cap the altar, and you would never win.

So nope.

…also what was the point of talking about gw1 like you actually had a clue…. then going on to say that all you ever did was play ranger?

lol

IndigoSundown.5419:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

…also name one HA meta that didn’t have at least one paragon secondary.

All of the HA metas before Nightfall?

…yeah before paragons existed, lol

TheBlackLeech.9360:

…also what was the point of talking about gw1 like you actually had a clue…. then going on to say that all you ever did was play ranger?

lol

. . . and I still beat everything which wasn’t PvP. I at least gave a shot at the PvP sections, I just didn’t get anywhere.

So I mean, sure, I know nothing about the game. I only played it regularly until GW2 came out, from a point two weeks after it was released in the first place. But I don’t know anything.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

…also what was the point of talking about gw1 like you actually had a clue…. then going on to say that all you ever did was play ranger?

lol

. . . and I still beat everything which wasn’t PvP. I at least gave a shot at the PvP sections, I just didn’t get anywhere.

So I mean, sure, I know nothing about the game. I only played it regularly until GW2 came out, from a point two weeks after it was released in the first place. But I don’t know anything.

Yeah you played gw1. but…
How can you even make any statements credibly about balance if you have only ever played one class? …and never played pvp?

Almost every statement you made (save for rangers tanking) are just ignorant farces. You have no grasp on any of the other 9 professions, let alone how they can be used to conquer elite endgame pve, or what applications any of the classes have in pvp… and yet you still feel the need to tell me I am the one who is wrong.

Anet cared about balance so much in Gw1, they went as far as splitting pvp/pve functionality for many skills.

Saying Guild Wars 2 allows players to create more flexible builds than a player in guild wars 1 is a joke.

Yes, you can “change builds” wherever you want…. and you call this flexibility… but how much did you actually change? Situationally you might not have need for a certain skill or traitline once you get to a certain area in a dungeon…. so you change it out… but you are still playing the same role on the team as you were before you changed your skills.

There is no trinity…. its not like you switched from DPS to tank mid run.

There is no division of roles in gw2.
(yes certain classes that add reflects, stealth, blinds, aegis, etc.)

If you aren’t doing DPS while providing your utilities…. and keeping yourself alive… you are doing it wrong.

Everyone works together as a team and is playing almost the same role damage/support hybrid.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Yeah you played gw1. but…
How can you even make any statements credibly about balance if you have only ever played one class? …and never played pvp?

Almost every statement you made (save for rangers tanking) are just ignorant farces. You have no grasp on any of the other 9 professions, let alone how they can be used to conquer elite endgame pve, or what applications any of the classes have in pvp… and yet you still feel the need to tell me I am the one who is wrong.

Yes. I do.

And let me point to this, right here, this attitude of “if you didn’t rank in my personal measuring stick you don’t know jack crap” is why I really disliked dealing with most people late in GW1’s lifestyle.

It’s why I currently stick to pretty much my guild for doing anything, because this attitude prevails everywhere. Either you’re awesome or you’re junk. There’s no middle ground.

And there’s no chance I could possibly know anything about the game because I don’t measure up to your personal metrics. And because of that, I have no right to call you on your BS.

Yeah.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Yeah you played gw1. but…
How can you even make any statements credibly about balance if you have only ever played one class? …and never played pvp?

Almost every statement you made (save for rangers tanking) are just ignorant farces. You have no grasp on any of the other 9 professions, let alone how they can be used to conquer elite endgame pve, or what applications any of the classes have in pvp… and yet you still feel the need to tell me I am the one who is wrong.

Yes. I do.

And let me point to this, right here, this attitude of “if you didn’t rank in my personal measuring stick you don’t know jack crap” is why I really disliked dealing with most people late in GW1’s lifestyle.

It’s why I currently stick to pretty much my guild for doing anything, because this attitude prevails everywhere. Either you’re awesome or you’re junk. There’s no middle ground.

And there’s no chance I could possibly know anything about the game because I don’t measure up to your personal metrics. And because of that, I have no right to call you on your BS.

Yeah.

Why are you even refuting what I said?

You are the one who chose to put in your two cents based on your extremely limited knowledge. You attacked my statements (insisted they were wrong based solely on your own limited personal observations) and came off like a fool. I provided facts to support my claims, and all you could come up with is a sarcastic “Yeah… I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
…and now you are accusing me of having some sort of “attitude that’s everywhere?”

This “attitude” is called logic.

It would be different if you disagreed by providing information that was actually factual like some of the other posters in this thread. Everyone is of course entitled to their own opinions….. but the bottom line is, you clearly missed out on the vast majority of the guild wars experience, and therefore I can only dismiss your comparisons between GW1 and GW2 as invalid.

Vayne.8563:

If you were going through a huge area in hard mode to get to a hard mode dungeon, you had to have a build to handle both the area and the dungeon.

It wasn’t called build wars for nothing.

That’s not why some people called it “build wars”.

Vayne.8563:

It’s much easier for me to find a casual group for a dungeon here taking a build I enjoy and find fun than it was to find a casual group for DOA or the Underworld. I can’t tell you about how many times I wanted to run one of those things without having to have the build of the week.

Here they tell you we want you in zerker armor. There they wanted to tell you every single skill and rune you needed to have. I never felt as free there to play as I want as I do here.

You could actually do pretty much the opposite, and solo the great majority of the content in the game (not to mention everything but less than a handful of end game areas), playing as whatever you wanted plus heroes.

Meanwhile, in GW2, you can… Play dungeons with people, or play dungeons with people. Who, more often than not, want to tell you how to play. The fact we don’t even have the option to solo already removes a massive amount of the freedom we had in the original GW; considering how much more toxic the GW2 community is (which is to be expected, given who GW2 is catering to), it’s actually far more likely you will find elitists when trying to join a low level dungeon in GW2 than if you were trying to join an endgame mission in the original GW.

Meanwhile, in GW2, you can… Play dungeons with people, or play dungeons with people. Who, more often than not, want to tell you how to play.

I guess I must have imagined all the other soloable PvE content in GW2 since all we have are dungeons. I don’t play dungeons, or fractals, because of that prevailing attitude of the one true way to play but that does not negate the rest of the game.

Behellagh.1468:

I don’t play dungeons, or fractals, because of that prevailing attitude of the one true way to play but that does not negate the rest of the game.

Meanwhile, in the original Guild Wars you could play dungeons even if a few players had the attitude of “the one true way to play”, since you could solo almost 100% of them.

Just one more way in which the original was superior to the sequel, I guess. Too bad ArenaNet has designed content in such a way that people avoid playing in it, just like you avoid dungeons, just to not party with elitists.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Why are you even refuting what I said?

Because you’re wrong?

TheBlackLeech.9360:

that’s only because we can swap our weapons not our skills.

Basically giving us half a build at a time.

We are forced to have a heal skill on our bar.

…and you have like 4 elites to choose from.

I pointed out, early, the weapon swaps do indeed affect how to alter the play of characters. Rangers go from ranged combat (longbow, shortbow, axe main) to an evasive melee style (sword, greatsword). Elementalists have different styles of skills depending on what they are holding.

Now, contrast how in GW1 your weapon was mostly tied to whatever class/subclass you were using. Not a W/any or Any/W? Axes and swords are a waste to use. Not D/any or Any/D? Why are you holding a scythe? Your class much more narrowly defined what weapons you would be using than it does here. And splashing in another class often didn’t really affect how they were used – Crossfire still behaved the same for everyone. Crip Slash was always the same, even if it was a D/W using it. Using sword skills was the same for everyone because you only had the skills from a particular class to call on.

That means if you want to be using a sword, there’s no options. You’re going Swordsmanship 9+. That’s 48 Attribute Points you have to sink into it to get good mileage out of the skills if you want sword skills as your main focus. And that’s assuming you’re not looking into skills which function for “melee attack” in other attribute lines.

Now, that sort of limits options on weaponry. It means you must take a specific class or subclass to use it instead of what your main class is intended to be using.

And you also mention about needing to have a healing skill on bar at all times. I raised the question, even if it wasn’t clear . . . does that mean you never ran with something self-heal related? I know I always kept a heal skill on my bar if I could find a spot for it. The only times it didn’t happen was when all eight skills were required for something else (Slaver’s Exile).

On the topic of Elites . . . I had it said to me, repeatedly, there were “only” a half-dozen Elite Skills any profession should be using. In the sense of “There is never a reason you would want Archer Signet as your Elite over Burning Arrow. Ever.” I peeked at Ranger elites and could discard about six more, because they don’t do the job as well as non-Elites.

I don’t see how more choices (including ones you wouldn’t use) was empirically better than narrowing it down to a few Elites which have broader uses. Entangle, Rampage as One, and Spirit of Nature, plus whatever 3 racials you have.

I think you are mistaking the need to fill the roles of the trinity in a teamcomp with imbalance.

By definition imbalanced, but in a way which means “if you’re not going with the roles filled, you’re not in balance”. Not to say it was impossible to run some Missions with no dedicated healer. Also, there’s less choice if you need a dedicated healer or tank, because that means someone needs to be filling that role. Someone is playing the Monk (or Rit) and there’s no way around that.

(Also, up until the end of 2011, if you were doing Urgoz’s Warren? Necro with Necrotic Traversal / Consume Corpse. No way around that.)

That’s not to say it’s a bad thing it wasn’t perfectly balanced. There’s only a few games which are and they’re not always very exciting to play.

It honestly does my head in the fact that Anet could make a skill system like gw1 then make the sequel and completely dismiss what made them so popular in the first place???? Anet wake up because your stuffing it up. In gw1 there was hundreds of skills each unique and the slightest change in armour could take you from being invincible in Hard Mode to being slaughtered in seconds!!!

That is why you have loyal long term supporters Arenanet! Why the hell do you make a system 1/4 of as impressive as you already had? Fire the the simpleton that hard the idea to simplify, people already have games they can play if they want basic combat. The new system has only 1 build worth running for each class, Zerk Wars 2.