though it’s way too soon to make a final statement about the new trait system (or specializations, what ever it’s named right now), I want to suggest a QoL change.
Right now what you see is a flood of colors and symbols.
What I’d like to see is a more clean approach, using a clearly reckognizable symbol for the trait line and for the adept, master and grandmaster traits them good old roman numbers. Since there’s still no way to save builds, I feel changing / adapting builds would be more comfortable this way (at least for me it’s easier to remember a few numbers than some symbols that look like some piece of Picasso).
In addition, having all 5 trait lines being visible in the window on the right with a checkbox allowing you to select the three lines you want to use (if three are selected already and you want to change one, you have to uncheck the one you want to drop and then you can check another one).
Thinking about sth. like (taken Elementalist for example) :
…………….. I – IV – VII
[x] Fire…… II – V – VIII
…………….. III – VI – IX
…………….. I – IV – VII
[x] Air …… II – V – VIII
…………….. III – VI – IX
……………… I – IV – VII
[ ] Earth…. II – V – VIII
…………….. III – VI – IX
……………… I – IV – VII
[ ] Water…. II – V – VIII
…………….. III – VI – IX
…………….. I – IV – VII
[x] Arcane. II – V – VIII
…………….. III – VI – IX
I hope you get the idea. Any chance this will happen? Or may be just add an option to toggle between “new school” and “old school” looks?
I agree, it looks like they took WoW’s old trait system and made it horizontal…then multiplied it by 3. All the icons look very similar. It’ll be a major pain having to mouse over every icon whenever you alter your build.
It needs cleaning up across the board. S showing in the left hand panel what specialisations are already equipped so you can quick reference
Also, someone in my guild pointed out that the specialisations are fairly meaningless without an overview of what each is trying to achieve. The Warrior is a good case in point since there is no obvious synergy there
Yeah, you got my point. Even though we got less traits now, it took me much longer to get an overview and figure out what would prbly suit my playstyle than with the old, pretty much self-explainatory (pre-NPE!) system back in the old days.
I think many are just used to the old numbering system. To me it seems easier to remember builds. Before I had to reference back to my build sheet because there were many builds where you could use two adept or major traits. Once you got into the Master/Grand Master trait line I could see where some people would get overwhelmed because they had 10-30 possible trait options.
Now when I look at a build it seems much simpler. Instead of 00464 or 60044 AND having to remember what I-XIII trait goes in each tier the builds are:
I think many are just used to the old numbering system. To me it seems easier to remember builds. Before I had to reference back to my build sheet because there were many builds where you could use two adept or major traits. Once you got into the Master/Grand Master trait line I could see where some people would get overwhelmed because they had 10-30 possible trait options.
Now when I look at a build it seems much simpler. Instead of 00464 or 60044 AND having to remember what I-XIII trait goes in each tier the builds are:
(assigned from top down, 1-3)
2,1,2
2,2,2
1,3,3
+1.
This is what I did yesterday.
Giving an example for Guardian (keep in mind I’m just making stuff here, these aren’t real builds).
Before you had something like:
“00266: III, II-VIII-XII, IV-VI-XI”
Now we have something like this:
“Radiance 2-1-3, Valor 3-1-2, Virtues 1-1-1”.
And you want to do something like this:
“Radiance II-IV-IX Valor III-IV-VIII, Virtues I-IV-VII”.
The former was too confusing and it’s not so easy to remember (that’s why you wrote them). What you want will lead to the same problems.
With the current system it’s much easier to understand, to communicate and to remember.
I think the check box panel is a very usefull idea though.
Interesting, looks like our brains work totally differently (100% no offense!)
For me, it’s way easier to remember a number scheme like 60026 with attached roman numbers to each line (never had to write any build down for any of my 8 toons) than the position of meaningless symbols, even if it’s only 3×3.
So I conclud thus far:
- there are people considering the new trait line display being more comfortable and easier to remember than the old one
- for others it’s easier to remember some number schemes
- so my suggestion to “add an option to toggle between “new school” and “old school” looks” seems to be a good compromise
- everyone seems to agree that having all 5 trait lines displayed at once and selecting the needed ones via a checkbox or sth. alike would be an improvement
- being able to save and reload build (thinking of a drop down menu above the trait line window similar to the “select stats for your item” for quick changing) would be a superior solution for everyone
while I think with the current options it would be nicer to have all 5 displayed and then you use some form of checkbox to pick three, this won’t work in the future as more and more elite specializations will be added. The current form on the other hand is pretty good as far as scalability is concerned.
I think pretty much every single player supports build saving though.
Since gw2skills.net updated their editor and made it pretty much the way I’d love it to look ingame, I just leave an example link here: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQBYAAAQY4AA-e (if you’re not familiar with this site: you have to toggle to the specializations view by clicking the button in the middle)
Now make it with all specialization lines visible at once (including a blank bar for the upcoming elite specs) and adding a checkbox to select and de-select the desired lines would be a huge QoL improvement imo. No matter which you tend to remind better, be it patterns or numbers, this design would work just fine.
cough Ofc, saving templates would make all of the above quite obsolete, or at least much less to care about… cough
slightly tangential, but i’d like it if we could get a little pop out bar for hotswitching traits (if we are confirmed never gonna get a trait save system ala GW1)
so, say, just above your chat window, on the side of the screen, there is a panel of 3 arrows, which you can click to quickly open up JUST the traits part of the build window (miniaturized a little for unobtrusiveness).
click the arrow to extend your trait panel, quickly switch to the new traits you need (say, the fall damage one if you’re about to start a JP) and then click the arrows to hide it again.
Thanks for contributing Narrrz.7532. I really like your idea and consider it an excellent addition to the whole suggestion! Great example of a big QoL change that can be done with a clean design and comfortable usability. Cheers!
