Guild Wars 2

Watching the stream on another screen – Welcome to GW3.

This is a MASSIVE do-over. Dumbed down in the extreme… but hopefully the gameplay will remain fun.

This reminds me of SWTOR spec changes. I didn’t like them.

I don’t have a judgment to make yet. Their goals in the mixing/combining/balancing are noble. The beta test will be intriguing.

And yeah, my guild left SWtoR over one of the big rounds of class changes – wasn’t the main complain but it was the straw that broke the bantha’s back.

Rauderi.8706:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Better options – maybe, we’ve yet to see.
Less options – 100% fact.

I’m a quantitive guy:>

Well, yes, we are, statistically, getting fewer permutations. (I refuse to call them “options” based on how they’re used now.) :P And 390k combinations per class is still plenty to explore.

It does kinda suck that we’re losing lower trait selections in higher slots, but before panic, let’s see what they do with the trait combinations.

It really is going to be 100% dependent on what they do with the trait combinations and if they have appropriate traits in each tier. Their combinations and options are going to have to be amazing to compensate for not being able to use lower trait selections in higher trait slots. There’s nothing worse than having to take a garbage trait (due to lack of options on that tier) to get to the next tier where there is an amazing option.

every complex mmorpg has only a semblance of diversity in character building as there will always be builds outperforming others. Some people come up with optimal builds themselves, others copy them from the net. Some people explore really strange offbeat builds that turn out to be successful for them. In a game where you can change builds on the fly you can even adapt to situations at hand. This here, this here is probably an act of dumbing down, making character building as easy as possible, everyone has to be a winner, regardless of how willing a player is to spend time on thinking or/and researching. This game finally has become a disgrace to the name Guild Wars.

Rauderi.8706:

Well, yes, we are, statistically, getting fewer permutations. (I refuse to call them “options” based on how they’re used now.) :P And 390k combinations per class is still plenty to explore.

Excellent use of the word ‘permutations’ .

It does kinda suck that we’re losing lower trait selections in higher slots, but before panic, let’s see what they do with the trait combinations.

Having seen all the traits/trait lines now I’m seeing the exact problems I expected – namely that you get locked into a lot of unrelated stuff just because you wanted to take a specific utility-type “cooldown trait” or buff a particular weapon. But there’s also some good re-positioning of effects to more appropriate lines and a lot of trash traits are being bundled into traits that were merely sub-par to make a package that’s got some potential to be interesting.

We also are finally seeing why the three Revenant lines that we revealed only had 9 traits each and why those traits were all decidedly on the butch side – they fit into the new paradigm a lot more equitably.

The changes being made aren’t solely for the player base. Part of the reason for the overhaul is for the devs to be able to more easily add and balance new skill/trait content in the future. While that may eliminate certain options in the short term, it could open up more in the long term.

I see people are sad because there are less traits. People should look at the future instead of the present. Specialization is a groundwork for future updates after all.

Elite Specialization takes care of new trait/skill addition while not screwing up the entire balance.

In 5 years, there could be 5 new elite specialization for each class meaning 45 new traits and 25 new skills. Now if ANet kept adding traits to the current system, it will fundamentally change the game and screw up balance worse than before. With the new system, they can add new meaningful traits and skills while keeping damage controlled.

If ANet decided to add 10 more traits and 10 more skills to the current system, each skills and trait would either be useless or game-breaking. Everything will be nerfed and buffed all around. It is a big waste of time.

maddoctor.2738:

If by “unique” you mean using traits that are completely useless then you are right. But by limiting worthless choices and making more builds viable it will improve variety, not reduce it.

The change will not make “more builds viable.” It cannot. Currently 100% of all builds are viable (though some are obviously much more powerful than others). The number of options currently are greater than will be the case after the changes. 100% of X, when X is greater than Y, is greater than 100% of Y.

Remember that viable does not mean optimal and that people can/have/do play builds without even choosing traits. If a no trait build is viable then any build with any combination of traits will be as well.

Question: I’ll have to do map completion on all characters to get to unlock everything for all characters?

It seems you will need to do some of the skill challenges. Not hearts, not vistas, not PoIs, not total map completion.

Looking at the traits on dulfy, I am wholly confident that this system is better than the previous one and the new traits that have come with it are largely better and more interesting than current ones.

That said, they still need to remove the falling damage traits (making that reduction baseline) and use these slots for more compelling choices in those Adept slots.

I really like the new traits. Though I have a feeling Anet is only getting away with this because they’re just buffing everyone instead of making trade-offs in the new system from the old.

There are almost no “junk” traits with a few exceptions (who invited you fall damage traits?!) where in the old system there were plenty and almost every “set” of traits I was locked into of the same type (like the Meditation traits) is simply one Grandmaster most of the time meaning your free to choose a new complimentary adapt and master.

As a Guardian I do notice a couple trait combos that are eliminated such as having UC and Master of Concencration in the same build and being able to bring Superior Aria for shorter “stand your ground” recharge but overall I welcome this change and I think over time they’ll be more builds that reach the “good” rating on Metabattle if you catch my drift.