Guild Wars 2

if the new skills and the new weapon would not be linked to the new traids.

Can someone explain why it is like this?
Is there a masterplan or is it just lazyness to balance the pvp part?

??? What new skills and new weapons are linked to new raids?

Just a flesh wound.3589:

??? What new skills and new weapons are linked to new raids?

I think they meant ‘traits.’

~EW

I think he means is that if you didn’t have to unlock hero points to use the stuff, it would be more fun.

It’s intentional because some people seem to think progression is important to the game..not just account progression but character progression.

Masteries progress your account and the new traits/skills progress each character.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

??? What new skills and new weapons are linked to new raids?

I think they meant ‘traits.’

~EW

Ohhhh. New traits.

But not new traits but the traits we’ve had for a year now. And not new weapons and new skills but year old weapons and skills. The OP must be a new to HoT if he’s calling them new. Lol. I was searching the announcement page for new skills and weapons.

They’re tied for balance reasons obviously,. To keep people from discovering overpowered builds that will have to be nerfed.

And I think he wants to use the new weapons and skills without having to choose the elite trait lines, thus increasing options in build design.

If so, the “master plan” as it were is to limit choice to make the game easier to balance. They also plan to be introducing more elite specs later, and since only one elite line can be chosen at a time, this will prevent mixing things from different elite lines.

ANet is concerned about players discovering “unintended synergy” as they introduce more options. In the original GW game, many popular builds involved mix/match choices to take advantage of such synergies. That made that game, by dev admission, problematic to balance.

I dont think its fair to call it lazyness. Yes it is most likely to make it simpler to balance but it is probably just the difference between hard and nightmarish.

Already with all the default weaponsets, utilities and traits available across 9 different classes that is a lot to take into account especially if you are also thinking of group play and synergies that can happen between different classes.

Adding another traitline, 2-5 weapon skills and a full set of utility skills to the mix all per class (so x9) already adds a whole lot more to consider in regards to balance.

If they did not make such a limitation I think they would find that balancing would become exponentially more work with each lot of elite specs that got added

IndigoSundown.5419:

In the original GW game, many popular builds involved mix/match choices to take advantage of such synergies. That made that game, by dev admission, problematic to balance.

And yet, loads more fun for the players.

My main is an ele and, for me, an ele needs to use a staff. I can’t get very excited about an ele with a war horn so I end up with the same ol’, same ol’ skills.

DoctorDing.5890:

IndigoSundown.5419:

In the original GW game, many popular builds involved mix/match choices to take advantage of such synergies. That made that game, by dev admission, problematic to balance.

And yet, loads more fun for the players.

My main is an ele and, for me, an ele needs to use a staff. I can’t get very excited about an ele with a war horn so I end up with the same ol’, same ol’ skills.

But that’s entirely your choice. I do play all of my eles as staff tempest whenever it suits me. Nobody’s keeping you from utilizing other aspects of the elite spec (overloads, utility skills, traits) if you don’t want to use the new weapon. Staff tempest plays quite differently than staff ele depending on how you’ve traited and skilled them.

To the op, the reson for restricting all aspects of the elite specialization to using that traitline seems to really be balance. Imagine a guardian with longbow but without dragonhunter traitline. Along comes a new specialization, and the devs will effectively be restricted from putting in goodies to that specialization that would synergise too well with the longbow. If on the other hand elites are mutually exclusive, they have much more freedom in designing traits and skills for each elite as they won’t have to worry about synergy with other elite traitlines.

DoctorDing.5890:

IndigoSundown.5419:

In the original GW game, many popular builds involved mix/match choices to take advantage of such synergies. That made that game, by dev admission, problematic to balance.

And yet, loads more fun for the players.

My main is an ele and, for me, an ele needs to use a staff. I can’t get very excited about an ele with a war horn so I end up with the same ol’, same ol’ skills.

Careful about talking about what’s more fun for “the players”. I loved the build system in Guild Wars 1, but over the years I met many players frustrated by it. People who didn’t enjoy builds, and just wanted to load up and play a game. Some of my friends didn’t get into Guild Wars 1 particularly because of the complexity of the build system.

Others went to PVX wiki to get a build. Many people used to ask for builds in map chat rather than try to think of one for themselves. Surely you remember people asking anyone got a build for a ranger?

Then there were people like me who wanted to use our own builds who tried to pug underworld or DOA and couldn’t get into groups because we weren’t using I-way or we weren’t using sabway or we didn’t have a rank 8 ursan.

There were certainly advantages to the build system in Guild Wars 1 for some players, but I wouldn’t assume the build system was universally adored.

Vayne.8563:

DoctorDing.5890:

IndigoSundown.5419:

In the original GW game, many popular builds involved mix/match choices to take advantage of such synergies. That made that game, by dev admission, problematic to balance.

And yet, loads more fun for the players.

My main is an ele and, for me, an ele needs to use a staff. I can’t get very excited about an ele with a war horn so I end up with the same ol’, same ol’ skills.

Careful about talking about what’s more fun for “the players”. I loved the build system in Guild Wars 1, but over the years I met many players frustrated by it. People who didn’t enjoy builds, and just wanted to load up and play a game. Some of my friends didn’t get into Guild Wars 1 particularly because of the complexity of the build system.

Others went to PVX wiki to get a build. Many people used to ask for builds in map chat rather than try to think of one for themselves. Surely you remember people asking anyone got a build for a ranger?

Then there were people like me who wanted to use our own builds who tried to pug underworld or DOA and couldn’t get into groups because we weren’t using I-way or we weren’t using sabway or we didn’t have a rank 8 ursan.

There were certainly advantages to the build system in Guild Wars 1 for some players, but I wouldn’t assume the build system was universally adored.

Thanks for taking off my rose tinted glasses. Now that you mention those things, I did in fact start to remember it all. I loved GW1 build making, but I do now remember all the examples of people who loved playing the game, but hated build making.

We have some of those undesirable things in GW2 as well — just comes with the territory.

The only way you could uncouple the new weapons from the elite spec would be to rebalance all trait lines so that the elites are not more powerful. As it stands, if another elite spec were released you would effectively make it so that players double-dip. Who doesn’t want access to 2 or more new weapons and associated OP trait lines? It makes sense in that scenario to make elite specs exclusive so that players must choose 1 out of however many options.