Guild Wars 2

I’m right now doing a research paper on game improvement practices, needless to say, it’s been unbelievably challenging, up to 20 pages and most of it is unorganized gibber-gabber.
I need a focus so I wonder if the community can aid me on this one.

You are a designer for ArenaNet working together with the balance and design team.

- You are given the task to change every trait in the game that is underwhelming in performance (weak in damage or defense) and traits that are boring and don’t do much (Dealing X more damage with non-max endurance etc.)

• Revised traits MUST have some fun-factor.
• Revised traits MUST have ease of use.
• Revised traits MUST have a variety of uses.
• Revised traits MUST be useful in some form.

In other words, it’s your job to give high quality to the entire trait system.

I’ve already made a thread regarding improving something useless, but I quickly came to terms it’s significantly deeper than that.

As a designer for Guild Wars 2 with a job of improving most of the traits in Guild Wars 2, what do you do?
What do you determine is fun? What factors determines the quality? Is quality measured by personal taste? Experiences with others? Should it be up to a single person? Should there be numerous tests? Compare it to other games?

At the core of game designing and improving the base of your game, what is the ultimate factor of quality?

We have big plans for the trait revision that we think will be fun for the community.

Due to policy, I can’t reveal anymore until we feel its ready

Edit: I’m not trying to sound like a jerk. Roleplaying as a Dev in anet, sadly the policy I feel constricts our devs more than helps.

10 Take drink.
20 Look at next line on chart.
30 Flip coin.
40 If heads buff trait, else nerf.
50 If still sober goto 10.
60 Call it done, it’s not like people will like anything you do anyway.
70 Let Chris and Gaile deal with the mess.
80 End.

10 Enter office at morning
20 Go take coffee
30 Think about trait A
40 Open SAB for yourself locally, play a session, close it
50 Return empty cup of coffee to kitchen
60 Submit a fix to trait A’s tooltip, claim credit for development
70 Pick random trait B != A, call it A, goto 30 unless its 4:59pm
80 If asked for status, reply Soon™
90 End.

I’m right now doing a research paper on game improvement practices.

Just do an Anet. When you turn in your paper just turn in nothing printed on an a4 sheet except for coffee stains and good will

Guys, this my come as a big surprise but I’m actually taking this seriously!!

`

Don’t troll on ArenaNet like they don’t know; if you don’t know the answer yourself. Follow my bad role-model example, state your opinion then back up your reasons. Just don’t fail like I do and say insulting and cruel remarks.

Otherwise, shut it, the question is simple with a not so simple answer.
How would you get quality traits in Guild Wars 2?

So, if I get that right, you want us to come up with ideas to improve the trait system. Ill bite.

Although they dont seem fun to most people I guess, I LOVE % stacking traits and combinations of them. Sadly they don’t always work the way they should imo.
Ie: Gain -?-% of X as Y

Traits that don’t work properly:
-Warrior-

Armored Attack – 3rd Minor trait – Defense
Gain power based on your toughness. 10%
- The added toughness of the Dolyak signet does not provide me with extra power.
It does so in the gw2skills.net editor, but not ingame.
- Strength in Numbers trait of the guardian no effect on power by observation. (will test again to confirm tomorrow)

Great Fortitude – Adept Trait – Attack
A percentage of power is given as a bonus to vitality. 7%
Multiple sources of power have currently no effect on vitality.
- Buff food and sharpening stones.
- WvW Guard stacks.
- Regular Might stacks (Bloodlust stacks work)
- 150 power of ‘Empower Allies’ trait has no effect on vitality.

- The added power of the Dolyak signet if Armored attack is traited and fixed.

I’m the opposite. I HATE % stacking traits.
I feel like they don’t add anything to combat, just allow you to stack one stat and it builds another.
They should be more in Runes or Sigils than Traits in my opinion.

I’m a bit of a dev at heart with some time to kill, so I’ll give it a go.

First of all, it’s difficult to say with confidence which traits are “underwhelming in performance.” It’s kind of a shifting-goalposts problem to address. Opinions are going to vary on the usefulness and “fun factor” of certain traits. I would need a lot of time/information to get acquainted with the various traits, or at least a list of which ones to improve.

What do you determine is fun? Fun is unfortunately highly subjective. I would say usefulness of some kind is going to be a strong indicator that a trait has the potential for fun. But I cannot predict all of the ways that a trait is going to be used.

What factors determines the quality? At the core of game designing and improving the base of your game, what is the ultimate factor of quality? I’d say quality in this context is largely measured in usefulness to the player and keeping in line with baseline goals for the class. Fun helps too, but because the design of traits is so mathematical (for lack of a better word) it’s largely going to come down to what kind of purpose the trait is serving for the class’s capabilities and whether that purpose is in line with where we want the class to be.

I would be happy to play dev with a list of specific traits if you give me one, but I would need a lot of time to come up with a list of my own, without more information.

Okay, fine.

Nova Stiker.8396:

- You are given the task to change every trait in the game that is underwhelming in performance (weak in damage or defense) and traits that are boring and don’t do much (Dealing X more damage with non-max endurance etc.)

• Revised traits MUST have some fun-factor.
• Revised traits MUST have ease of use.
• Revised traits MUST have a variety of uses.
• Revised traits MUST be useful in some form.

In other words, it’s your job to give high quality to the entire trait system.

---

I’ve already made a thread regarding improving something useless, but I quickly came to terms it’s significantly deeper than that.

---

As a designer for Guild Wars 2 with a job of improving most of the traits in Guild Wars 2, what do you do?
What do you determine is fun? What factors determines the quality? Is quality measured by personal taste? Experiences with others? Should it be up to a single person? Should there be numerous tests? Compare it to other games?

At the core of game designing and improving the base of your game, what is the ultimate factor of quality?

Right off the bat, you’ve got a problem. The two first examples you give are actually often the core of what makes the “fun” ones work. A weak increase in attack or defense may by itself feel worthless, but you have to consider how it works with the other traits. A non-weak increase may quickly blow apart your numbers if other traits are taken into account.

Looking at Engineers, for example, you have Invigorating Speed: When you gain swiftness, you also gain vigor. By itself, that’s not really that big of a boost. But, Engineers have a couple of traits that grant swiftness, such as Infused Precision: You have a chance to gain swiftness on critical hits. (50%, 5 sec recharge) Put those two traits on a high Precision character delivering a lot of hits (aka: Flamethrower Kit), and you have someone that can dodge and run around like a cheetah on crack compared to most other characters.

The second one (Dealing X more damage with non-max endurance), is also a good example of a good trait, though it doesn’t seem like it at first. It rewards good play (dodging instead of just tanking all the hits) by making the character more powerful. It can also be seen as an exchange, trading a dodge you may want more later for more damage now.

If I had to do this, I’d instead look at the triggers for traits, and make possible chains. If doing or using A can cause B and C to happen, and B can cause D or E to happen, then you have an interesting chain of traits to play with. And because it’s D or E, you also have choices to make.

Looking again at Engineer, the Explosives trait line has 4 traits that are good for someone running with bombs. 2 Adept, and 2 Master. You can only have three of them, though, so that creates choices that have to be made. And some of the other traits may not play to bombs directly, but they’d still be useful…

What I’d really target is “stand alone” traits, that don’t really link into other things, and traits that reward bad play (such as the Warrior trait that rewarded added damage for never using your Adrenaline, though that’s been nerfed in other ways now). Energized Armor would be one I’d be looking at for Engineers, trying to find a way to replace that with something more interesting than a bonus to power based on toughness.

Does that answer the question?

You got a point there Palador and definitely something to expand upon.
As for ease of use and variety of uses, they are just factors to consider to KEEP the fun factor. They are not something to dismiss and you can easily forget how important those factors are.

After reading what you said, you think combinations make the most interesting traits?
Because I believe that might be the answer.

`

In other words, the fun factor in traits is building their use with something else. After all, we love to create.

`

I now firmly believe that fun in traits is comboing and chaining abilities one to the next in different ways is the key to fun. Taking something worthless by itself and combining it to something spectacular and unique. Not only that, it can be combined in different ways, creating something different. The building block of… Well… Fun?

But is it something we can all agree on? Does anyone not care for combo’s and find the fun in something else?

Nova Stiker.8396:

I’m right now doing a research paper on game improvement practices, needless to say, it’s been unbelievably challenging, up to 20 pages and most of it is unorganized gibber-gabber.
I need a focus so I wonder if the community can aid me on this one.

---

You are a designer for ArenaNet working together with the balance and design team.

- You are given the task to change every trait in the game that is underwhelming in performance (weak in damage or defense) and traits that are boring and don’t do much (Dealing X more damage with non-max endurance etc.)

• Revised traits MUST have some fun-factor.
• Revised traits MUST have ease of use.
• Revised traits MUST have a variety of uses.
• Revised traits MUST be useful in some form.

In other words, it’s your job to give high quality to the entire trait system.

---

I’ve already made a thread regarding improving something useless, but I quickly came to terms it’s significantly deeper than that.

---

As a designer for Guild Wars 2 with a job of improving most of the traits in Guild Wars 2, what do you do?
What do you determine is fun? What factors determines the quality? Is quality measured by personal taste? Experiences with others? Should it be up to a single person? Should there be numerous tests? Compare it to other games?

At the core of game designing and improving the base of your game, what is the ultimate factor of quality?

I don’t like your brief. Now that’s out of the way, I’ll explain.

Fun traits will differ between people. As you’ve just seen, some people want to stack % to get some effect as high as possible; usually raw DPS, but can be permanent vigour, might, burning or anything really.

Other people look for bonus effects that give them some functionality they wouldn’t already have. That’s a very different sort of trait but both have a place in some builds.

There are some traits in any class, falling under both categories, that aren’t used. They’re out-competed by other traits that are just more useful, or they achieve an effect that players aren’t looking for.

You’ve got 65 traits per class. That’s variety already; you don’t need each trait to have a large variety of uses. What you need to do is figure out what players would like to do with their characters and open some options up (there’s a progression CDI with a lot of discussion on this – huge amounts of reading but trust me, it beats trying to wrap your head around academic papers).

Identify some archetypes, essentially, and think of how you could add traits that make those archetypes more effective. Figure out which lines to put them in – often you can’t get everything into 3 traits, but that’s why you can split them up along different lines. Imagine the offensive, support, and control aspects of the archetype.

Suddenly, it becomes pretty clear that this is what Arenanet has been trying to do all along. hehe

Of course every trait has to be balanced against the others, and that’s where things get rough – some archetypes end up watered down so much you can’t really play them anymore, and you’ll never find all the overpowered combinations until they’re released for players to use them. But fortunately we’ve had two years of observation to figure out which ones need some adjustments and which other archetypes players would like to be added.

So my problem with your brief is that it expects all traits to do all things. As far as I see it, the trait system is not designed for that and nor should it be. It’s meant to give flavour that makes a class more interesting to its player, and some players will get that out of flat 15% bonuses. Others love something that’s tricky to use but works wonders when you nail it.

So what I’d do in that role, at this stage in the game’s lifecycle, would be look for player feedback on what they want to achieve with the trait system, and covertly sample some players’ opinions on what other fun stuff they’d like to do with their classes (in this case, plagiarism is totally allowed ). Specifically, I’d bribe Izzy with cookies for a Kamohoali’i Kotaki start with making sure players always have a functional, if not always compelling, choice in the Adept trait lines – sometimes you just can’t find one that adds much to your build – and think about niche roles for the Grandmaster ones, e.g. what would players expect a beastmaster ranger’s special ability to be?

I’m sorry if this comes off a little rambly but with any luck it gives you one or two ideas.

There are some tricks of the trade that you could use to compact the workload considerably.

Make your problems fight each other: most elegant solutions make themselves known by solving 2-4 issues simultaneously. There are ten ways to solve problem A, there are 4 ways to solve problem B, and 5 that solve problem C. Recognize only 2 things solve all three at the same time and you can kill off a lot of faulty solutions fast.

Solutions that you can iterate are solutions to more than one problem. Linked attributes are a simple, incredibly powerful solution: “N% of Stat A is added to Stat B.” Once you have the tech once, you have the solution to all kinds of situations. By extension, THE first place to look for a new mechanic is to review what you already have in the tool box, applying only the smallest of twists when possible.

The deep dark secret of game design is you want everyone to Be AVERAGE while Feeling AWESOME. Nineteen times out of twenty the way you achieve that is with a quirky corner-case touch of the unique rather than raw power.

Multiple designers with different outlooks is high speed error checking. I have a friend who designs new effects very slowly… but he can see how to weasel-bust almost anything instantly. I run everything past him and its amazing how often things I think are innocuous turn into smoldering nuclear craters in his hands. Build a team that has that kind of multi-axis raport and respect rather than a squad of group thinkers, because the old saw “you are your own worst critic” is bullkitten where game design is concerned – its very hard to proof your own work.

As a designer for Guild Wars 2 with a job of improving most of the traits in Guild Wars 2, what do you do?
What do you determine is fun?
In this situation we will determine fun to be unique and impactful, a tangible benefit, via either mechanic or a number increase large enough to immediately be apparent.

What factors determines the quality?
How successfully is meets the above guidelines.

Is quality measured by personal taste?
To some extent, but it is largely irrelevant given the guidelines set in the first question. It is very easy to determine whether or not the trait is providing a unique mechanic not already present in the class’ existing skills or a noticeable increase in damage/condition duration/survivability etc.

Experiences with others? Should it be up to a single person? Should there be numerous tests? Compare it to other games?
If you have teams of people at your disposal of course you should have more than one person work on it at least at some point in the development and as with anything else it should be play-tested.

At the core of game designing and improving the base of your game, what is the ultimate factor of quality?
Ever trait choice should be a difficult one due to all the awesomeness packed into the newly revised system.

I play engineer so I will give you one example trait.
Inventions – Grandmaster – Quantum Displacement
Detonating a turret causes you to be teleported to that turret’s location.
Fun lore-ish explanation: The energy released when the turret explodes is re-purposed to fuel the teleportation.

Does it pass the fun test?
Immediately noticeable power increase: No.
Unique mechanic: Yes.

Ben K.6238:

I don’t like your brief. Now that’s out of the way, I’ll explain.

Fun traits will differ between people. As you’ve just seen, some people want to stack % to get some effect as high as possible; usually raw DPS, but can be permanent vigour, might, burning or anything really.

Other people look for bonus effects that give them some functionality they wouldn’t already have. That’s a very different sort of trait but both have a place in some builds.

There are some traits in any class, falling under both categories, that aren’t used. They’re out-competed by other traits that are just more useful, or they achieve an effect that players aren’t looking for.

You’ve got 65 traits per class. That’s variety already; you don’t need each trait to have a large variety of uses. What you need to do is figure out what players would like to do with their characters and open some options up (there’s a progression CDI with a lot of discussion on this – huge amounts of reading but trust me, it beats trying to wrap your head around academic papers).

Identify some archetypes, essentially, and think of how you could add traits that make those archetypes more effective. Figure out which lines to put them in – often you can’t get everything into 3 traits, but that’s why you can split them up along different lines. Imagine the offensive, support, and control aspects of the archetype.

Suddenly, it becomes pretty clear that this is what Arenanet has been trying to do all along. hehe

Of course every trait has to be balanced against the others, and that’s where things get rough – some archetypes end up watered down so much you can’t really play them anymore, and you’ll never find all the overpowered combinations until they’re released for players to use them. But fortunately we’ve had two years of observation to figure out which ones need some adjustments and which other archetypes players would like to be added.

So my problem with your brief is that it expects all traits to do all things. As far as I see it, the trait system is not designed for that and nor should it be. It’s meant to give flavour that makes a class more interesting to its player, and some players will get that out of flat 15% bonuses. Others love something that’s tricky to use but works wonders when you nail it.

So what I’d do in that role, at this stage in the game’s lifecycle, would be look for player feedback on what they want to achieve with the trait system, and covertly sample some players’ opinions on what other fun stuff they’d like to do with their classes (in this case, plagiarism is totally allowed ). Specifically, I’d bribe Izzy with cookies for a Kamohoali’i Kotaki start with making sure players always have a functional, if not always compelling, choice in the Adept trait lines – sometimes you just can’t find one that adds much to your build – and think about niche roles for the Grandmaster ones, e.g. what would players expect a beastmaster ranger’s special ability to be?

I’m sorry if this comes off a little rambly but with any luck it gives you one or two ideas.

Actually, 80 traits per class including minor traits. And while fun is opinionated, it’s ideal to find a common ground. As a game designer, you want to design with fun in mind, you can’t successfully do that with the mindset of, ‘everyones idea of fun is different.’

I stated to Palador the base of fun is building, using one things to combine it with the next. A lot of games have this foundation, even card games follow this model.

But I’d like to point out a good point you had. Maybe an entire trait system where everything can be used with something else isn’t ideal. After all, filling those play styles is a good idea. So perhaps some traits that grant flat % modifiers aren’t all bad. Splitting traits with fun and roles.

If I were to classify it:

• Fun traits are building blocks, traits that can be used with other traits, runes, sigils and class skills for different effects.
• Role traits strength the building blocks, giving extra defense and extra damage where its wanted.

One problem solved, another one created.

How many ‘fun’ vs. ‘role’ traits should classes get?

First thing I would do is go back to basics, probably.

For starters, what is a trait? A trait is a means of providing character customization, a method by which a player can change the way that his character interacts with the game world.

Traits allow an element of freedom to players in addition to armor, weapon(s), healing and utility skills, rune, sigil, and consumable choices. Traits are mostly focused around combat, but some (mainly movement related) also provide additional utility outside it.

What I say below may not be technically feasible, but keeping in mind that traits are key choices in both PVE and PVP settings, let’s think about what characteristics an ideal trait might have:

-Visual customization is a large component of guild wars 2. I would propose that ideally, chosen traits should add a subtle visual or aural cue to affected player actions so that the traits chosen by a player affect their in combat appearance slightly for the sake of both individuality and counter-play in PVP. Many existing traits already do this (for example, traited warrior stances which show the skill effect, or traits which automatically apply boons) but I would argue that this should apply universally for all traits in some way.

-Traits on one class should never be an inferior or more investment expensive version of a trait of another class. There must be a huge effort to create true variety in traits.

-Trait choices should offer significant changes to the gameplay experience of players where possible to make these choices meaningful. Trait changes should tie in with, make use of or align with any unique class mechanics to provide variety between classes as often as feasible.

-In line with the above, I would argue that traits which reduce skill cool-downs, increase damage, and randomly proc damage or debuff effects should be re-evaluated. These traits are an efficient way to improve your character, but don’t offer value in terms of character customization or individuality, nor do they significantly change a players game-play experience. Flat +%Damage increase modifiers for example are effectively just a stat increase represented slightly differently from a straight increase in the power stat. Utility and weapon skills should be balanced without requiring cooldown reduction, and traits should instead grant more bonus effects – for example, traits could unlock skill new chains (much like weapon autoattacks) which grant those skills true additional utility and promote more active gameplay. Imagine for example if there was a necromancer trait which allowed spectral wall to be cast, and then chained into a reflect wall, or that added the option to perform a dashing uppercut after a warriors kick attack.

-Traits now need to be designed with the mindset that players can retrait and re-equip at any time in the majority of the game environment when out of combat. Traits should therefore be more about choice rather than necessity. While it may be difficult to balance this with the above point, this still needs to be considered as almost all current traits were designed at a base point with players being locked into specific trait lines except when talking to a vendor or using an item to reset them in the past.

-Essentially I personally would be looking at entirely overhauling the traits system, maybe even removing the ties to stat points in favour of some other allocation system. Objectively I doubt such a rework would ever happen – it would require a huge amount of work. In fact I would suggest that any ideas we might have would probably already have been evaluated and rejected, probably pre beta. The game has been built around a certain set of rules and I think it’s probably far too big and well established to make these kinds of big changes.

But the thread was an interesting distraction, I’m looking forward to reading the communities ideas and points of debate.

I would test any individual element for “baseline fun” using two metrics~

“How much does this effect make me feel like I’m bringing something unique to the field” Players want to stand out. Example: Quite a few ranger weapon attacks are incredibly fun not by being the mathematically most optimum but because the glowing animal FX surrounding you as you strike sets you apart from all other (non-Ranger) players. Fun is closely tied to identity.

“How well does this this effect allow me to feel like I am mimicking my idol/inspiration for this character.” This one is where you tap into strong archetypes to shorthand. Whan a character can kick another character in the balls and hold up his weapons in an obvious “Are you not entertained” pose and a thousand different player all simultaneously squee “dude! I’m Maximus from Gladiator!” you’ve connected without having to pile some grossly out of line damage on the button like tying a pork chop around it’s neck to get the dog to play with it. Players will build their own identity as they gain experience with the game but they generally start from very recognizable archetypes (and frequently from pop culture icons).

“Does this effect synergize?” is a decent second tier hook for fun, but understand rewarding system mastery only appeals to players who seek out system mastery…