Guild Wars 2

so I have tried talking with other players on this subject but there appears to be this attitude out there of “this is the way it is, shut up and deal” so I will calmly show here why the new system was a deathblow to the creative player population. I have an insane amount of alts(2 of every class+4 eles+4wars), all with varying builds. I enjoyed creating, play testing and finalizing my own builds. I never copied anyone’s, went onto a web site and used theirs. they were my characters with my own builds that I was proud of. One thing they all shared was a great point spread that almost never landed a grandmaster trait. The lines were used for their stat bonuses or a trait here and a trait there to fine tune the build. now all my stats are in my gear and so all my stats must be in the combination that gear produces so no High toughness/healing power/vitality with medium precision and power is possible under the new system as an example. When you take away these fine tuning techniques what you get is a reduction in the variety of builds available. I.e. signet war for example is now basically trash. Not a single build I had was transferrable to the new system. Now all characters are forced into this max trait line/max trait line/max trait line min. maxer format. All the varying shades of color are gone from the system. There is no way to just grab a few traits from this trait line and a few from that. I have been with gw sense the initial north American release of prophecies. I have seen a lot of change over the years and though I have not liked all of it(though I did most of it) I have understood WHY they did it. But this new system of limited builds and all stat control on the gear is the first thing I have not understood. All this update has done is reduce the control the player has on making a build. I fear this is a turn down a path where people will cancel their HoT reservations and just go play something on console. When trying to recreate my builds I became frustrated at not being able to grab this one trait or that one trait from several lines. I feel like I should delete at least half my characters even though they are max level. As with very few characters in a class I can now play all that is available and interesting to play in that class. Old table top gamers had a term for this. They called them “cookie cutter characters” that is to say all wars were repeats of other wars etc. This is what the new system encourages. when every character is forced to max every trait line they have, then every character is basically the same. I’ve said my piece, you may now unleash your hate posts.

Well, I for one, have a different opinion from yours. I have 31 lvl 80 characters (multiples of all classes and races, except for Sylvarie…not too crazy about them I guess) that are mostly all configured differently from one another and found the previous trait system to be a big pain. No matter what I did to configure my toons I felt that I was forced into serious, unwanted, compromises.

For example, having the stats (power, vitality, etc) tied to trait lines always seemed like an undesireable setup. If I wanted to increase vitality (for example) I had to put trait points into the necessary trait line for vitality even though I might not want most or any of the traits in that line.

Personally, I feel that now I have greater flexibility, not less, and not so compelled to make those undesirable compromises.

It’s true, you can’t do whatever you want anymore. They did their best at bringing the core values of the professions over.

But the fun of gw2 as a new player, part of it was discovering new builds, thinking it’s amazing, then find out something better later.

But it depends on the game type, if you look at a moba like Dota, there’s pretty much 0 variety either. Then if you look at Path of Exile, its build variety is through the roof, and people love it.

So I don’t know what expectation I have for MMOs, builds are meaningless if the PVE maps are boring as heck.

Susulemon.3204:

It’s true, you can’t do whatever you want anymore. They did their best at bringing the core values of the professions over.

But the fun of gw2 as a new player, part of it was discovering new builds, thinking it’s amazing, then find out something better later.

But it depends on the game type, if you look at a moba like Dota, there’s pretty much 0 variety either. Then if you look at Path of Exile, its build variety is through the roof, and people love it.

So I don’t know what expectation I have for MMOs, builds are meaningless if the PVE maps are boring as heck.

I agree PoAs system is nice, but anyone looking at it the first time just head explodes.

Back on topic, there will always always always be unbalance and a perfect way to deal the most damage. If your goal in the game is to want to do that, you’ll find it. If you just want to experiment and have fun, then do that. But don’t expect your build with no damage armor and traits to be on par with glass cannons.

How is this system fairing out so far? Too soon to tell. Still need bug fixes, tweaking (dots), and continual build ideas.

As for me, I’m enjoying my plague support necro. DISEASES AND HEALING FOR EVERYONE!

Warlock.7136:

The lines were used for their stat bonuses or a trait here and a trait there to fine tune the build. n

That how you used them. Most players have 1 of each character and went with the required traits since over 2/3rds of the traits were either subpar or buged.

Warlock.7136:

now all my stats are in my gear and so all my stats must be in the combination that gear produces so no High toughness/healing power/vitality with medium precision and power is possible under the new system as an example.

Almost every stat combination that was possible before is possible now with minor deductions for the stats that were split and added to base stats. Yes, customization is now more done via armor.

Warlock.7136:

When you take away these fine tuning techniques what you get is a reduction in the variety of builds available. I.e. signet war for example is now basically trash. Not a single build I had was transferrable to the new system.

That is correct, there are mathematically now less builds possible than before and the new system demands the design of new builds.

Warlock.7136:

All this update has done is reduce the control the player has on making a build.

I highly disagree. Now people are not forced to decide between traits and stats (where usually traits would wonout). Now traits can get better balanced and people can decide what stats they want to have split from the traits they want to run with said stats. That is a big gain in my book. Also don’t overhype the old system. As mentioned a LOT of traits were trash or serverely underused.

Warlock.7136:

As with very few characters in a class I can now play all that is available and interesting to play in that class. Old table top gamers had a term for this. They called them “cookie cutter characters” that is to say all wars were repeats of other wars etc. This is what the new system encourages. when every character is forced to max every trait line they have, then every character is basically the same. I’ve said my piece, you may now unleash your hate posts.

I get that people who had 1 character for every build might feel overrun. You just have to realize that you now don’t seperate characters/twinks via builds, but armor+weapons they wear. Overall the new system is more firendly to try different classes and encourages different playstyles within one class.

Finally a small advice, use spaces. Reading through that block of text was no pleasure.

OP, I think you missed the boat on this one. When the news of the new trait system first came out these forums exploded with outcries from people complaining about it destroying diversity. And mathematically, there is no denying it does.

Unfortunately, this is the path most MMOs go as it’s easier to balance. WOW is a perfect example. WOW used to have a big talent tree that at least gave the illusion of diversity, now its just a shell of its former self where each class has like one or two builds. It sucks I know, and I feel your pain.

Personally, I think that Efficiency > Diversity. There were loads of build options, and most of them sucked or had very few functional differences. In both PvE and PvP the majority of players built around the meta anyway. It’s not quite the loss it seems to be.