Guild Wars 2

Just curious, how do you guys feel about GW2’s skill tree?
Does it lack complexity? Should we be able to add points to each skill to strengthen them, etc? Too flexible in terms of being able to access all skills overtime through leveling?

70 skill points will give you 14 separate benefits, some of which are fixed and some which come from a pool of 12 skills. There’s plenty of customization there.

In one sense you are looking at the design backwards. All skills are available for SPvP. That is the design. Leveling up in PvE (or WvW) is just a process to take you to the SPvP level.

I feel like the trait system is more restrictive to the developers than the players.

As it is designed, it works. You have 5 lines, each with certain specializations. By putting the truly significant traits at higher tiers, you limit how many of them you can take and what you have to give up to get them. By having a single line specialize in a certain area, you put a cap on the amount of synergy you can carve out of the system. If all of the signet traits are in one line, you’re limited to 3 of them, which means you pick how you want to specialize in signets, not simply that you specialize in signets.

But, the rigid structure has kept the developers from fully realizing its capabilities. Each line must have exactly 12 major traits and 3 minor traits. When you have too many or not enough ideas for that line, you get junk traits and traits that wander off into other lines. There’s a lot of filler traits that no one will ever use, just to meet that quota. The tiered system also means that you must have 6 adept traits, 4 master traits and 2 grandmaster traits. Often, traits end up outside of their appropriate tier, just because it had to make room for another to move.

The system’s moving parts just don’t hinge and shift on the same axes that the developers need them to and so you end up with changes made just to appease those arbitrary demands. It definitely doesn’t need to be made anymore complex until some of these inhibiting design choices are trimmed away and made more open and transparent.

(edit) Random improvement thoughts:

• Do away with the 12 trait restriction. If you have more support traits for warriors, let the Tactics line blossom and have more than 12. Put them in the tiers they belong in, numbers be kitten ed. I’m still going to be restricted to 3 of them.
• For traits that are more “filler”, make them line-agnostic. Have a pool of traits I can plug into any tree. None of the Tactics adept tier traits appeals to me? That’s where I’ll plug my 50% falling damage trait. It doesn’t need to be in the Strength tree. Though, if you wanted to get real fancy, it could have a different impact effect based on the tree I socket it into.