Guild Wars 2

Calling out my blog post.

The trait system needs to be purged of some very boring/mandatory talents. There are too many that are so powerful, that you’re pigeon-holed into using them if you pick a certain weapon or slot skill. These are traits that do things like; +20% recharge reduction on x-weapon skill, or the even more powerful ones like the Warrior has that give the cooldown reduction AND a second effect.

Additionally, there are too many frivolous talents like “+5% dagger damage” that are not only made for min-maxers, but prove to be less effective in the long-term, AND are boring to boot!

Traits should represent actual choices made by the player, that compliment how they want to play, rather than forcing a play-style on them. If you can say “they chose X weapon so they naturally took X trait, since it’s the only complimenting trait in that tree”, than you’re doing a great disservice to the players here looking for “FUN”.

Presenting my favorite example with Engineers:

Current ‘Fireforged Trigger’ – +15% damage with flamethrowers and elixir guns

My idea ‘Stay Out Of The Fire’ – Enemies that are burning due to Flamethrower will pass burning to their nearby allies

OR

’It’s Raining Fire’ – Flamethrower skills are now ground-targettable, and have a significantly increased range

Just like that, I’ve taken a boring flat-damage trait, and turned it into a CHOICE that the player will have to make. They can’t take both, but they can take one, and it will make a noticeable impact on the play-style.

Let me know if you’re listening ANet, I can redo all the trait trees for you if you want!

Thanks for reading,
-LoreChief

I’ll be compiling a list of these traits for each class tomorrow to add to my previous blog post.

However, I’m surprised by the lack of any response to this posting…

Does anyone agree with or disagree with the idea that the boring and over-emphasized traits should be re-worked to create a tree of choices, rather than pigeon-holed builds?

LoreChief.8391:

I’ll be compiling a list of these traits for each class tomorrow to add to my previous blog post.

However, I’m surprised by the lack of any response to this posting…

Does anyone agree with or disagree with the idea that the boring and over-emphasized traits should be re-worked to create a tree of choices, rather than pigeon-holed builds?

I agree with you in the sense the trait system on this game leaves a lot to be desired. I find most of the choices it offers bland and uninteresting. It’s just not a very intriguing or rewarding system generally.

This game could really benefit from more complexities and meaningful decesion-making mixed in to the gameplay.

I hope I can count your support in tomorrow then when I post a list of traits that I’ve targeted for elimination. I’ll do a follow-up soon after that with my ideas for re-doing and replacing those that are left~