Guild Wars 2

There’s little point having 66M different builds if only 2 are remotely viable.

stof.9341:

There’s little point having 66M different builds if only 2 are remotely viable.

I agree completely. They made these changes so that you could alter your build to accommodate your play style better and not punish you for taking that Grandmaster you needed in that one line but had nothing else you wanted, or for losing attribute points because you didn’t take the berserker line 1 and line 2 all the time.

I would bet that there is at least the same number of more-significantly varying builds if not more now than there was prior to the update.

MiniEquine.6014:

stof.9341:

There’s little point having 66M different builds if only 2 are remotely viable.

I agree completely. They made these changes so that you could alter your build to accommodate your play style better and not punish you for taking that Grandmaster you needed in that one line but had nothing else you wanted, or for losing attribute points because you didn’t take the berserker line 1 and line 2 all the time.

I would bet that there is at least the same number of more-significantly varying builds if not more now than there was prior to the update.

Yes, but the reason for that isn’t the new trait-system, but the fact that condi-builds are now viable as well and the fact that some traits were buffed. Learn to keep those apart!!!

Yippee for thread merging while trying to submit a post.

stof.9341:

There’s little point having 66M different builds if only 2 are remotely viable.

There’s little point having >50m builds when a lot of the trait selections were useless entirely, or useless by themselves (requiring other traits to really be effective). It meant a large majority of those builds were utter trash. The changes they did to traits, particularly with merging traits here and there, might mean there’s fewer builds total to select, yet there’s vastly more builds overall that are good now.

BunjiKugashira.9754:

MiniEquine.6014:

stof.9341:

There’s little point having 66M different builds if only 2 are remotely viable.

I agree completely. They made these changes so that you could alter your build to accommodate your play style better and not punish you for taking that Grandmaster you needed in that one line but had nothing else you wanted, or for losing attribute points because you didn’t take the berserker line 1 and line 2 all the time.

I would bet that there is at least the same number of more-significantly varying builds if not more now than there was prior to the update.

Yes, but the reason for that isn’t the new trait-system, but the fact that condi-builds are now viable as well and the fact that some traits were buffed. Learn to keep those apart!!!

Condi builds were ALWAYS viable, even before the update. Good? Not always. But definitely viable. This update merely made them stronger.

I love it.

/thread

Basandra Skye.4031:

BunjiKugashira.9754:

MiniEquine.6014:

stof.9341:

There’s little point having 66M different builds if only 2 are remotely viable.

I agree completely. They made these changes so that you could alter your build to accommodate your play style better and not punish you for taking that Grandmaster you needed in that one line but had nothing else you wanted, or for losing attribute points because you didn’t take the berserker line 1 and line 2 all the time.

I would bet that there is at least the same number of more-significantly varying builds if not more now than there was prior to the update.

Yes, but the reason for that isn’t the new trait-system, but the fact that condi-builds are now viable as well and the fact that some traits were buffed. Learn to keep those apart!!!

Condi builds were ALWAYS viable, even before the update. Good? Not always. But definitely viable. This update merely made them stronger.

If that’s the case then I can no longer see any increase in viable builds. While I had the choice between about 10 or 20 slightly different builds depending on the situation I’m down to 2 now. Either because the other traits are in lines that I don’t have active or because the traits that were different before are now merged, baseline or removed.

BunjiKugashira.9754:

Basandra Skye.4031:

BunjiKugashira.9754:

MiniEquine.6014:

stof.9341:

There’s little point having 66M different builds if only 2 are remotely viable.

I agree completely. They made these changes so that you could alter your build to accommodate your play style better and not punish you for taking that Grandmaster you needed in that one line but had nothing else you wanted, or for losing attribute points because you didn’t take the berserker line 1 and line 2 all the time.

I would bet that there is at least the same number of more-significantly varying builds if not more now than there was prior to the update.

Yes, but the reason for that isn’t the new trait-system, but the fact that condi-builds are now viable as well and the fact that some traits were buffed. Learn to keep those apart!!!

Condi builds were ALWAYS viable, even before the update. Good? Not always. But definitely viable. This update merely made them stronger.

If that’s the case then I can no longer see any increase in viable builds. While I had the choice between about 10 or 20 slightly different builds depending on the situation I’m down to 2 now. Either because the other traits are in lines that I don’t have active or because the traits that were different before are now merged, baseline or removed.

Doesnt mean you have less builds open to you unless you dont take the effort to figure out what the new trait selections you’d use would be.

Basandra Skye.4031:

BunjiKugashira.9754:

Basandra Skye.4031:

BunjiKugashira.9754:

MiniEquine.6014:

stof.9341:

There’s little point having 66M different builds if only 2 are remotely viable.

I agree completely. They made these changes so that you could alter your build to accommodate your play style better and not punish you for taking that Grandmaster you needed in that one line but had nothing else you wanted, or for losing attribute points because you didn’t take the berserker line 1 and line 2 all the time.

I would bet that there is at least the same number of more-significantly varying builds if not more now than there was prior to the update.

Yes, but the reason for that isn’t the new trait-system, but the fact that condi-builds are now viable as well and the fact that some traits were buffed. Learn to keep those apart!!!

Condi builds were ALWAYS viable, even before the update. Good? Not always. But definitely viable. This update merely made them stronger.

If that’s the case then I can no longer see any increase in viable builds. While I had the choice between about 10 or 20 slightly different builds depending on the situation I’m down to 2 now. Either because the other traits are in lines that I don’t have active or because the traits that were different before are now merged, baseline or removed.

Doesnt mean you have less builds open to you unless you dont take the effort to figure out what the new trait selections you’d use would be.

Then please enlighten me what the new traits for elementalist are. All I can see are old traits that were slightly altered or merged. There is nothing new that I didn’t try already.

Btw: I’m not saying that the new system is bad, I’m merely saying that both the number of total and the number of viable builds is lower now. The main reason for that is, that by merging traits the corresponding different builds were also merged. You don’t have do decide for build A or B now. You can simply have build C, which is the combination of both. But don’t tell me now that |{C}| > |{A, B}|

BunjiKugashira.9754:

Basandra Skye.4031:

BunjiKugashira.9754:

Basandra Skye.4031:

BunjiKugashira.9754:

MiniEquine.6014:

stof.9341:

There’s little point having 66M different builds if only 2 are remotely viable.

I agree completely. They made these changes so that you could alter your build to accommodate your play style better and not punish you for taking that Grandmaster you needed in that one line but had nothing else you wanted, or for losing attribute points because you didn’t take the berserker line 1 and line 2 all the time.

I would bet that there is at least the same number of more-significantly varying builds if not more now than there was prior to the update.

Yes, but the reason for that isn’t the new trait-system, but the fact that condi-builds are now viable as well and the fact that some traits were buffed. Learn to keep those apart!!!

Condi builds were ALWAYS viable, even before the update. Good? Not always. But definitely viable. This update merely made them stronger.

If that’s the case then I can no longer see any increase in viable builds. While I had the choice between about 10 or 20 slightly different builds depending on the situation I’m down to 2 now. Either because the other traits are in lines that I don’t have active or because the traits that were different before are now merged, baseline or removed.

Doesnt mean you have less builds open to you unless you dont take the effort to figure out what the new trait selections you’d use would be.

Then please enlighten me what the new traits for elementalist are. All I can see are old traits that were slightly altered or merged. There is nothing new that I didn’t try already.

Btw: I’m not saying that the new system is bad, I’m merely saying that both the number of total and the number of viable builds is lower now. The main reason for that is, that by merging traits the corresponding different builds were also merged. You don’t have do decide for build A or B now. You can simply have build C, which is the combination of both. But don’t tell me now that |{C}| > |{A, B}|

But you get more of what you primarily need for your build with less of your point allocation. This means that a Fresh Air ele has to take Fresh Air, but they could spec into the Water and Arcane tree and take combinations from those because they already have most or all the tool for Fresh Air from their first specialization choice.

You get to customize your build more in the sense that varying build options either don’t hurt you as much or they simply benefit you more now than before.

I agree with the above poster; if you think there are only 2 builds then you are sadly mistaken. I don’t play Ele, so I can’t help you find them, but your choice to limit yourself to 2 builds is a choice.

It seems alright, but also doesn’t appear to be well thought out either.

^

Sure there’s going to be a handful of primary builds, most of which would be dictated by a SINGLE trait line, but being able to use THREE trait lines means you’re going to have many many sub-builds of that primary. Sometimes a single trait line will have the potential for 2 or 3 builds in it too.

Total is such a nice term, it can be calculated, proven and only one result is right. Viable on the other hand is such a subjective term. What might be viable for one person is utter trash to the other. Let’s talk again in a year, when the meta has settled and the number of “viable” builds is down to a select few.

Edit: A “viable” build utilizes all 3 trait-lines to their full potential, leaving no space for different trait-choices. While there are more builds now that are on the same level as the best builds in the old system, the new system has created a few builds that stand out much more, raising the limit of what can be called “viable”.

BunjiKugashira.9754:

Total is such a nice term, it can be calculated, proven and only one result is right. Viable on the other hand is such a subjective term. What might be viable for one person is utter trash to the other. Let’s talk again in a year, when the meta has settled and the number of “viable” builds is down to a select few.

Edit: A “viable” build utilizes all 3 trait-lines to their full potential, leaving no space for different trait-choices. While there are more builds now that are on the same level as the best builds in the old system, the new system has created a few builds that stand out much more, raising the limit of what can be called “viable”.

You just stated that “viable” was subjective, but here you are defining it incorrectly as an objective thing. A viable build is “content can be completed with this build”. That’s it. You could run an entire dungeon solo in Cleric gear with all healing and power stats, because it’s viable.

The word you are looking for is ideal, not viable. And don’t think that these builds didn’t exist before. If anything is going to happen, we will just fall back to where we were where there were only 1-2 ideal builds per game mode (sometimes even less!) for each class.

MiniEquine.6014:

BunjiKugashira.9754:

Total is such a nice term, it can be calculated, proven and only one result is right. Viable on the other hand is such a subjective term. What might be viable for one person is utter trash to the other. Let’s talk again in a year, when the meta has settled and the number of “viable” builds is down to a select few.

Edit: A “viable” build utilizes all 3 trait-lines to their full potential, leaving no space for different trait-choices. While there are more builds now that are on the same level as the best builds in the old system, the new system has created a few builds that stand out much more, raising the limit of what can be called “viable”.

You just stated that “viable” was subjective, but here you are defining it incorrectly as an objective thing. A viable build is “content can be completed with this build”. That’s it. You could run an entire dungeon solo in Cleric gear with all healing and power stats, because it’s viable.

The word you are looking for is ideal, not viable. And don’t think that these builds didn’t exist before. If anything is going to happen, we will just fall back to where we were where there were only 1-2 ideal builds per game mode (sometimes even less!) for each class.

Well, let me tell you something: The old system had more playable builds than the new system has total builds.

BunjiKugashira.9754:

MiniEquine.6014:

BunjiKugashira.9754:

Total is such a nice term, it can be calculated, proven and only one result is right. Viable on the other hand is such a subjective term. What might be viable for one person is utter trash to the other. Let’s talk again in a year, when the meta has settled and the number of “viable” builds is down to a select few.

Edit: A “viable” build utilizes all 3 trait-lines to their full potential, leaving no space for different trait-choices. While there are more builds now that are on the same level as the best builds in the old system, the new system has created a few builds that stand out much more, raising the limit of what can be called “viable”.

You just stated that “viable” was subjective, but here you are defining it incorrectly as an objective thing. A viable build is “content can be completed with this build”. That’s it. You could run an entire dungeon solo in Cleric gear with all healing and power stats, because it’s viable.

The word you are looking for is ideal, not viable. And don’t think that these builds didn’t exist before. If anything is going to happen, we will just fall back to where we were where there were only 1-2 ideal builds per game mode (sometimes even less!) for each class.

Well, let me tell you something: The old system had more playable builds than the new system has total builds.

There were not 196,000 different playable builds in the old system.

MiniEquine.6014:

States.6387:

~snippy snip~

There was a thread I participated a while back that calculated all the different trait combinations possible and the number of builds available.

The old system had ~66,700,00 different, unique build combinations per class
The new system has ~196,000 different, unique build combinations per class

Most of these variants were lost from the 6/4/2/2 variant no longer being able to be made, which accounted for over 19 million of the 66.7 million by itself.

There are far fewer options now, but having that many options is not at all ideal from a balance perspective. You also can’t just ignore the effects of the traits. Many of the traits got merged together, so if you want to get really technical, what was once in the old system may amount to certain builds now having “more” traits than before. Numbers alone mean nothing without context.

Also, your opinion on Necromancer survival is merely that; an opinion (backed by mere anecdotal evidence at best). There are indeed Necromancers that can still keep Death Shroud maxed, popping in and out as needed and never dying on point. Unless you go out and try the builds they listed, then it would be hard for anybody to take what you said seriously.

Edit: Here is the link to the Google Doc where is have the calculations:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1H9KAc7ghxmrxsq0bkWNALddKMkETmdQ1dW-eS7Xa8Hc/edit?usp=sharing

As far as the necro goes i have tried those builds, i spent all day yesterday playing with them and creating new ones to try and match what i had before. Yes it is my opinion that they are not nearly as good but my comment about minionmancers is based off the facts that the build relies on minions to stay alive and it relies on their AI to work properly and attack enemies yet they are unable to do either of these during pvp. (few aoes will take out your minions and ai is still buggy) As far as the other necro tank builds that are available now; they use different playstyles. This might be why i found them to be weaker than the previous d/d spectral necro tank since it’s requiring me to play it a different way. Either way though it is unenjoyable for me and has caused me to give up on my necro for now (which is bad game design in my opinion since as a consumer i no longer play the class due to the removal of a playstyle i grew fond of and played frequently was removed)

As far as the diversity reduction i can agree that reducing it helps the balance team get things in order which is fine however i still dont agree with the way they approached it. Forcing us into 3 trees with only 3 options per tier is a huge nerf to the creativity we had before which is one of the things that was so great about this game. Yes the traits do need to be taken into account for how they work but my reference to ignore them in my previous comment was to point out that there was in fact less customization with the new trait system.

Also as far as merging them it seems that a lot of them were merged for specific builds rather than the ability to be useful for a variety of builds. That is what i have an issue with. If they were to remove the restriction of being able to spec into 3 trees only then a lot of problems would be solved with certain builds. Right now were still seeing the issue as before where were forced into a trait tree for one specific trait on some builds.

How i believe they can alter the new trait system to better accommodate more players:

1.) Allow us to spec into more than 3 trees while still being able to spec with only 18 points

2.) Keep the way each tier works making us choose between 1 of the 3 traits

This way traits could still be balanced out easier and hybrid / lost builds could be created again

depends. It’s better for people with more focus builds because they get more traits for a particular subject, i.e. shouts, shatter etc.. Those previously had their trait scattered over more than 3 branches are sorta screwed.

MiniEquine.6014:

They made these changes so that you could alter your build to accommodate your play style better and not punish you for taking that Grandmaster you needed in that one line but had nothing else you wanted, or for losing attribute points because you didn’t take the berserker line 1 and line 2 all the time.

I agree that untying stats from traits created more freedom. However, I disagree that the new system does not punish one for wanting any one trait in a line that features nothing else one wants. Now one must take the whole line no matter which tier that one desired trait is in.

Still, I prefer the new system to the old. Any system rework is going to bother some players, and imo this one has way more good than bad.

From a level 80 standpoint the trait system is just fine IMO. Sure some builds were completely wrecked, but for the most part most classes came out with more ways to build up their toons, and for the most part, more powerful at the end of the day.

I think it might make for some wonky leveling, but i’ve not fully tested that yet.

All in all I think its in a better place over all and has the potential to improve. Let’s just hope there is no more throwing the baby out with the bathwater when anyone critiques the system. We had over a year of that kind of nonsense, and I’d rather not a repeat of the traits 2.0 fiasco.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

From a level 80 standpoint the trait system is just fine IMO. Sure some builds were completely wrecked, but for the most part most classes came out with more ways to build up their toons, and for the most part, more powerful at the end of the day.

I think it might make for some wonky leveling, but i’ve not fully tested that yet.

So far, the changes seem to have made leveling a touch easier. I deleted an L21 Ele the day after the patch rather than play it with a full Earth line I did not want. I’ve gotten the replacement to L22, and was able to slot through Master as soon as specs became available and got the full line partway through L22. With what passes for glass gear, I’m blowing through mobs as fast or faster than my L80 Ele does now in those zones and have a lot of sustain with the Water line.

Not sure if that qualifies as wonky, but that’s what I’m experiencing.

The new system is alright, I just feel like the trait distribution (and lack of take-lower-tier-instead) makes a few slots feel “wasted”.
For example if you play mesmer in PvE, you’ll want to go into Domination for +%dmg and vuln stacking. Yet there are no Master or GM majors genuinely “worth” taking, interrupt straight-up doesn’t work on bosses (or messes with ice bow 5 timing), shatter neuters your dps and running signets or GS will probably get you kicked. Except ether signet, but you won’t benefit much from the trait since you cast that as an opener.
Similarly Illusions has no GM worth taking in a power PvE build, not even +shatter damage (only crit chance, which you should have enough of anyway)
And if you try to go condi there’s no decent Chaos GM (shatter, interrupt or PU, aka useless, even more useless, trololol skip)

Engineer has no decent Explosives Adept for bombs (try and stay above 90% health in melee range for a paltry damage boost, yay!), the “burn” trait conflicts with traiting the freakin’ flamethrower!!!

The Guardian trait for Scepter, one of only 2 MH weapons without a symbol, is in the “symbol” trait line!, also no decent GM for symbol-less weapons. Radiance has 2 condi GMs, but none worth taking for PvE group play (or personal damage for that matter)

Basically, they took away our ability to compensate for sub-optimal design decisions on their part, without improving upon said decisions first.

For everyone that believes the new trait system is ok; do you realize that the issues it solved from the last trait system were just replaced with new ones?

We had forced stat distribution. The new trait system removed this.
Now we have forced trait distribution. The new trait system added this.

How you decide which trait system is better is going to be determined by how you determine which is the lesser evil. What would you rather be limited on?

Dont judge the trait system by the traits it offers. The new traits both good and bad offered now could be included in any trait system. The way the traits work have to do with a separate balance than how the actual traiting system works.

1.) So would you rather have forced stat distribution?
2.) Would you rather have forced trait distribution?
3.) Or would you rather NOT be forced into either?

The traits inside the system are part of it, in the previous system you had better chances of finding something that wasn’t completely useless, even if it meant taking 2 Adept and one Master trait.

Ideally I would like Anet to simply give actual, viable choices for each trait slot, but having a larger pile of junk to pick from was a workable band-aid.

The system framework, picking 3 lines each matching a specific “theme” or two regardless of stats, actually is pretty good. The tier-lock would be good if all 3 options were viable under the same circumstances (providing style/flavour rather than having a clear best-in-slot for everything); or to gate certain OP combos without kicking everything up to GM.

Sadly 3 options simply isn’t enough to cover the many facets of this game. In its current state we’d be better off with a full split between game modes: dps+active defense for PvE, group/synergy effects for WvW (plus a PU/Thief rework to stop the whining), burst damage+control+personal sustain for sPvP. There is simply no place for healing “bunkers” outside capture point matches, or stealth-camping within them.

Pretty bad depending on the class. Ranger got shafted in a lot of ways. It seems like things were changed around and removed without any consideration to how the community plays or enjoys using ranger. One of our traits now converts 7% healing power into power. It’s like “do you even ranger?”
Rangers were heavily trait dependent to be able to pull good dps in PVP and adequate dps in dungeons. Those traits are gone.

States.6387:

For everyone that believes the new trait system is ok; do you realize that the issues it solved from the last trait system were just replaced with new ones?

We had forced stat distribution. The new trait system removed this.
Now we have forced trait distribution. The new trait system added this.

How you decide which trait system is better is going to be determined by how you determine which is the lesser evil. What would you rather be limited on?

Dont judge the trait system by the traits it offers. The new traits both good and bad offered now could be included in any trait system. The way the traits work have to do with a separate balance than how the actual traiting system works.

1.) So would you rather have forced stat distribution?
2.) Would you rather have forced trait distribution?
3.) Or would you rather NOT be forced into either?

Your first post mentioned the whole adept cherry-picking thing, as well as the loss of pick-an-adept-in-a-master-slot-etc. The loss of those choices is indeed accurate. That was a better analysis than this post.

In the old system, one was indeed forced into stats if one wanted a certain trait. However, the outgoing iteration also had forced trait distribution in two ways. One, if you wanted certain stats, your choices were limited to the traits that line offered. Two, if you wanted to cherry pick a trait, you were forced into choosing from the Adepts and Masters from that line if the trait was GM. If you wanted a certain Master trait, you were forced to pick one of the adepts from that line. Only if you cherry-picked an adept trait were you free of forced choice.

In the current iteration, there are both more and less choice. More in the sense that you get the equivalent in the old system of 18 points rather than 14. More in the sense that by combining traits, one choice can provide benefits equivalent to two (or more) traits in the old iteration.

Less choice manifests in the ways you pointed out in your earlier post, as well as the reduction in traits to 3/tier. However, choice-based systems in game require that there be opportunity costs. The opportunity costs in the current iteration are much clearer and cleaner than in the old one. A choice system with no limitations is a poor system.

As someone pointed out to me earlier, the only time trait tier matters in the new iteration is while leveling. Once you’ve unlocked everything, the apparently skewed opportunity cost for picking an adept trait is an illusion, Once you’ve unlocked everything tier only matters in that it limits which trio of traits you’re choosing from. Thus, the cost for cherry-picking any trait is the same as picking any other trait— it costs taking the whole line.

Not writing a book on this, I’ll leave that to you who are more versed in the forums.
Bad, the removal of trait attributes and forcing of three trait lines decreases diversity, something that’s been under attack for awhile.

I do NOT like the new trait system. All of my characters had the falling damage trait selected because I liked never having to worry about jumping (within reason) and now I am forced to choose a whole trait line that I may want nothing to do with just to get that trait. The old system let me pick up that low level trait with very little penalty, but now I am stuck with essentially four points of traits I am not thrilled about. They really need to let us choose more than three trait lines, but that would mess up the layout of the screen forcing a scroll bar.

States.6387:

Either way though it is unenjoyable for me and has caused me to give up on my necro for now (which is bad game design in my opinion since as a consumer i no longer play the class due to the removal of a playstyle i grew fond of and played frequently was removed)

That isn’t even remotely close to bad game design. Basically your entire point boils down to: they changed it in a way I don’t like, so it must be bad.

No game will ever satisfy everyone all the time ever. Game devs (or any customer service based industry) never try to satisfy everyone. They do what they believe and hope is the best thing for the game overall. There were always going to be people who hated these changes, they knew that going in. There will be changes in the future which will anger others as well. They will still make them if they think that it is the best thing for the game at the time. If this is something you can’t deal with, then online games are not for you.

half bad in a point that we cannot choose 2 master or 2 adept stuffs

Teevell.1684:

States.6387:

Either way though it is unenjoyable for me and has caused me to give up on my necro for now (which is bad game design in my opinion since as a consumer i no longer play the class due to the removal of a playstyle i grew fond of and played frequently was removed)

That isn’t even remotely close to bad game design. Basically your entire point boils down to: they changed it in a way I don’t like, so it must be bad.

No game will ever satisfy everyone all the time ever. Game devs (or any customer service based industry) never try to satisfy everyone. They do what they believe and hope is the best thing for the game overall. There were always going to be people who hated these changes, they knew that going in. There will be changes in the future which will anger others as well. They will still make them if they think that it is the best thing for the game at the time. If this is something you can’t deal with, then online games are not for you.

Removing a gameplay style isnt bad game design? Dev’s dont try to satisfy everyone? Lol i think you have a lot to learn bud.

Any time a game completely removes a gameplay style from their game; it is bad. The said gameplay is what drew in certain players attracted to it. By removing it you are simply detracting a group of players from your game which in return is going to remove a portion of your profits. If a simpler mmo removed a character class half way through the games life; would that be ok?

And Dev’s know they cant satisfy everyone, every dev team for every game realizes this. However it does not mean that they just say “screw it, if they dont like it they can leave”. When they make changes to a game it almost always done to try and appease their playersbase and either hold the current players in or attract new ones to it. The way the new trait system has removed builds and playstyles; it is doing quite the opposite.

So no its not me being “unable to play online games” in this scenario, i think its you who just needs to get more experience with them. That or be a little more conservative on forums before making childish accusations.

i’ve tried 195,000 of those builds and only 4 worked.

just fatten up some trait tiers to compensate for any losses. what’s the big deal…
in time. this may unbad any bads.

BunjiKugashira.9754:

MiniEquine.6014:

stof.9341:

There’s little point having 66M different builds if only 2 are remotely viable.

I agree completely. They made these changes so that you could alter your build to accommodate your play style better and not punish you for taking that Grandmaster you needed in that one line but had nothing else you wanted, or for losing attribute points because you didn’t take the berserker line 1 and line 2 all the time.

I would bet that there is at least the same number of more-significantly varying builds if not more now than there was prior to the update.

Yes, but the reason for that isn’t the new trait-system, but the fact that condi-builds are now viable as well and the fact that some traits were buffed. Learn to keep those apart!!!

If anything comes to mind, it’s that such changes always are interconnected. Sure, conditionbuilds brcome stronger with a buff to them, but that doesn’t mean the trait changes suddenly had no effect at all. (As little as that may be)

States.6387:

Teevell.1684:

States.6387:

Either way though it is unenjoyable for me and has caused me to give up on my necro for now (which is bad game design in my opinion since as a consumer i no longer play the class due to the removal of a playstyle i grew fond of and played frequently was removed)

That isn’t even remotely close to bad game design. Basically your entire point boils down to: they changed it in a way I don’t like, so it must be bad.

No game will ever satisfy everyone all the time ever. Game devs (or any customer service based industry) never try to satisfy everyone. They do what they believe and hope is the best thing for the game overall. There were always going to be people who hated these changes, they knew that going in. There will be changes in the future which will anger others as well. They will still make them if they think that it is the best thing for the game at the time. If this is something you can’t deal with, then online games are not for you.

Removing a gameplay style isnt bad game design? Dev’s dont try to satisfy everyone? Lol i think you have a lot to learn bud.

Any time a game completely removes a gameplay style from their game; it is bad. The said gameplay is what drew in certain players attracted to it. By removing it you are simply detracting a group of players from your game which in return is going to remove a portion of your profits. If a simpler mmo removed a character class half way through the games life; would that be ok?

And Dev’s know they cant satisfy everyone, every dev team for every game realizes this. However it does not mean that they just say “screw it, if they dont like it they can leave”. When they make changes to a game it almost always done to try and appease their playersbase and either hold the current players in or attract new ones to it. The way the new trait system has removed builds and playstyles; it is doing quite the opposite.

So no its not me being “unable to play online games” in this scenario, i think its you who just needs to get more experience with them. That or be a little more conservative on forums before making childish accusations.

Let’s see, 10+ years with customer service experience, 20+ playing games both on and offline, including this one since beta and GW1. I write professionally about video games. Yup, I need more experience.

No where did I say that the devs said “screw it”, but there was no way they would please everyone. They did what they thought would be best for the game overall. They knew some people wouldn’t like it, that’s just how it works whether you’re creating a video game, movie, book etc.

This change made some builds go away, yeah…but it also created new ones. MMOs change all the time. When HoT comes out, things will change again. Some people will like it, some won’t. They’ll lose some customers, they hope to gain even more. I just came back to GW2 because of these changes, so did a couple of my friends, so clearly these changes are bringing players back, not only driving them away.

Again, this is just you being unhappy that your exact build isn’t there anymore. You are not their only customer. If you can’t handle that there will be more change ahead which will not take you and your playstyle into consideration, but instead what is (hopefully) good for the game as a whole, then online games may not be for you. There are plenty of RPGs on consoles that don’t change from the way they shipped on release. You would probably find those more enjoyable.

HATE.

…the end.

EDIT: Just to be clear, my main grievance with the new system is that most of the time, I find my self with zero choices for one of the traits in otherwise fine line.

EDIT: And no, I’m not saying “Roll it back” I’m saying “Keep improving it. Maybe with bit more diversity next? Pretty please?”

EDIT: For example, in old system we had traits in inconvenient locations. Now we have locations with no convenient traits. I’d love if this was addressed by either ensuring that each trait is always viable and not bound to a weapon or skill type, OR if we could still choose other traits from the entire trait line incase we can’t find “grandmaster” trait that is usable for our build.

I know, it’s been some time since the trait update. I was having a break, and when I come back… How… why did you guys let ANet get away with this?

I’m not going to calculate every possible build for the old system, just interested in the more viable ones, that is, 2 maxed out with one major trait in third line, and 1 maxed out with 2 major traits in 2 lines. So there are some hundred million more builds than I’m numbering here. I also used quite a few builds with one maxed out traitline and rest at the first major trait each, but some would argue those builds are useless. Still, freedom to choose is freedom to choose.

So, the calculation for one traitline in the old system, is that you get to choose 1 out of 6 for the first trait, 1 out of 10 for the second except for the one you already picked, and 1 out of 12 for the third, except for the 2 you already picked. So the calculation is:
6*(10-1)(12-2) = 540
A traitline with 2 traits would be:
6*(10-1) = 54
A traitline with 1 trait would be:
6

For both cases, you get to pick 3 out of 5 traitlines:
(5 nCr 3) = 10
For both cases, you get to choose which of the 3 traitlines is the one with different amount of traits:
3

So, for the 2 maxed out, we’ll get:
10*3*6*540*540 = 52488000
And for the one with 1 maxed out:
10*3*54*54*540 = 47239200
So the old system with 3 trait lines chosen had
99727200 builds. Or, actually more since we’re not counting in cases where two lines have minor trait as their last choice.

So the old system with just 3 traitlines with points in them had 99727200 builds. That’s not even counting the builds with 4 or 5 chosen traitlines, or counting the builds with minor traits as last chosen traits, as people argue those are less viable builds. (They’re still a choice tho, but a figure as high as 99727200 is quite enough for this thread.)

Now the new system:
So the new system lets you select 3 traitlines out of 5.
(5 nCr 3) = 10
The new system let’s you select 1 out of 3 traits, then 1 out of 3 traits, and then 1 out of 3 traits for each trait line. That is
3*3*3 = 27
So the total number of builds available for the new system is…
10 * 27 * 27 * 27 = 196830
196830 total. The absolute total. There is no other possible trait combinations than that. Just 196830.

So now we have (1 – 196830 / 99727200) * 100 = 99.80 % reduction in freedom to choose. Actually, MORE than 99.8% due to all the builds I did not count. But they were a bit less viable, so who cares, right?

I’m not sure how I’m going to get over this. 99.8%? We have 0.2% of the freedom we used to have when it comes to builds. Now, I know, HoT will double the amount of possible builds there will be since they’re adding a whole new trait line. So we really lost “only” (more than) 99.6% of possible builds.

Couple that with the update to dailies and the fact that HoT will now have some weapons and F# abilities bound to traits… I’m starting to be worried that we’ll eventually just have 3 ways to play each profession in the future.

Ability to choose bad traits reduced by 99.8%.

Fred Fargone.3127:

Just 196830.

Just quoting this, as it’s pretty rare to see the word “just” next to a 6 figure number…

I don’t think they went far enough.

I don’t think they can even hope to maintain balance with the number of potential combinations they have now (let alone, the number they had before).

…and if you can’t keep control of the balance in your own game, what do you have?

Chaos.

The thing you aren’t including in your analysis here is that 99727199 of those distributions are useless and there’s only 1 that you should ever consider using because it’s objectively better.

Coulter.2315:

Ability to choose bad traits reduced by 99.8%.

If the traits were bad, just fix the traits. Don’t cripple the system.

Coldtart.4785:

The thing you aren’t including in your analysis here is that 99727199 of those distributions are useless and there’s only 1 that you should ever consider using because it’s objectively better.

Based on what? You like one, so you choose one. That’s all fine and dandy.
In the new system, you can like one, and choose one all you like. But there are 99.8% less ones to choose. That’s the problem.

Fred Fargone.3127:

Coulter.2315:

Ability to choose bad traits reduced by 99.8%.

If the traits were bad, just fix the traits.

They did.

Fred Fargone.3127:

Coulter.2315:

Ability to choose bad traits reduced by 99.8%.

If the traits were bad, just fix the traits. Don’t cripple the system.

That was the whole point of the change, its easier to balance now.

Seriously? Mathematically you are right, didn’t run the calc my self, but the number is plausible.
Still, in that 100% you are counting 90% of utterly useless and non-sense builds (someone recall GW1 second class system? Same issue there)

Current system is FAR better…higher numbers mean squat if you can’t build, play and balance with ease.
So yeah 0,2% anyday.

Now we can argue that new traits need fix, but this is another story.

Tigaseye.2047:

Fred Fargone.3127:

Just 196830.

Just quoting this, as it’s pretty rare to see the word “just” next to a 6 figure number…

I don’t think they went far enough.

I don’t think they can even hope to maintain balance with the number of potential combinations they have now (let alone, the number they had before).

…and if you can’t keep control of the balance in your own game, what do you have?

Chaos.

Yeah, if I wanted a game with just 3 choices, I’d do rock-paper-scissors all day.

Besides, if they still have no chance to maintain balance, maybe it’s not about the number of choices, but the overlapping/op traits?

Gaaroth.2567:

Seriously? Mathematically you are right, didn’t run the calc my self, but the number is plausible.
Still, in that 100% you are counting 90% of utterly useless and non-sense builds (someone recall GW1 second class system? Same issue there)

Current system is FAR better…higher numbers mean squat if you can’t build, play and balance with ease.
So yeah 0,2% anyday.

Now we can argue that new traits need fix, but this is another story.

I specifically didn’t include the 200mil less viable builds. The 100 mil are each quite viable with max number of major traits and max number of synenergy between traits (due to being from the same line). Sure, there are some more viable builds and less viable builds, but in the new system, we don’t 200k equally viable builds either.

mtpelion.4562:

Fred Fargone.3127:

Coulter.2315:

Ability to choose bad traits reduced by 99.8%.

If the traits were bad, just fix the traits.

They did.

So why did they change the trait system then? Just for the fun of it?

How is having ‘only’ 196830 options a ‘problem’? If you spent 1 hour playing each possible combination you would be playing 24/7 for 22.47 years. Are you seriously trying to say that there’s any difference in meaningful choices between 10^5 combinations and 10^7 combinations?

Fred Fargone.3127:

Tigaseye.2047:

Fred Fargone.3127:

Just 196830.

Just quoting this, as it’s pretty rare to see the word “just” next to a 6 figure number…

I don’t think they went far enough.

I don’t think they can even hope to maintain balance with the number of potential combinations they have now (let alone, the number they had before).

…and if you can’t keep control of the balance in your own game, what do you have?

Chaos.

Yeah, if I wanted a game with just 3 choices, I’d do rock-paper-scissors all day.

Besides, if they still have no chance to maintain balance, maybe it’s not about the number of choices, but the overlapping/op traits?

When did anyone say 3 choices?

Maybe it is, to an extent.

I have said, myself, that IMO every trait choice should be about the same thing (i.e. either a DPS boost, or a defence boost, or whatever) and be equally viable.

As opposed to the current situation, where they’re still (largely) all mixed up.

However, the sheer number of combinations will, also, play a part, surely?