Is HoT Destroying Build Diversity?
Another imaginary “traits no one used anyway”. What exactly do you think the people opposed are actually complaining about, since they apparently don’t exist?
Making a build “easier” does not make there more of it. That’s not an increase in diversity.
If you feel meta builds were ruining diversity, I have bad news for you. This system will not remove or even reduce that effect. There might be fewer meta builds total as a result of there being so much fewer builds in general, but for people only interested in maximizing DPS, that will only get easier. Their trait choice will no longer be restricted by trait line stats, so they will be free to choose entirely based on what traits give them more damage. Since there’s less flexibility, there will be even less variety in meta builds, as fewer choices will make the “best” choice that much more obvious. They’ll then keep their berserker gear and be even more DPS-focused than ever.
Just doing a quick check- where did Eagle Eye go for Rangers? No more range increase for rangers?
I might have to do a complete check and see if any of my builds have survived at all under this new system of restricted choices and limited trait lines.
Keep in mind that many traits were combined and that some traits have become baseline. For example, the Elementalist trait blasting staff is now the default. The same goes for Eagle Eye (at least according to Dulfy: http://dulfy.net/2015/04/25/gw2-core-specializations/#Ranger).
In terms of build diversity, I don’t care for having some insane number of available build options but only using maybe a handful of genuinely useful builds. I would rather have a smaller number of manageable and more useful builds. If HoT were to reduce the amount of possible builds down by a factor of 10 or so, then I would expect the each of the remaining build possibilities to be incredibly useful. In short, I want quality, not quantity.
not clear here, are you saying you would rather have 10 good builds out of 20 than 20 good builds out of 100?
Well I did say “each of the remaining build possibilities” so that would mean (hypothetically) instead of having 5 good builds out of 1000 with the current system, I would expect the new system to provide perhaps 20-30 builds max, but every single one of the 20-30 builds would be useful or just as good as the 5 or so builds from the old system (the old system being the current system).
Just doing a quick check- where did Eagle Eye go for Rangers? No more range increase for rangers?
I might have to do a complete check and see if any of my builds have survived at all under this new system of restricted choices and limited trait lines.
Keep in mind that many traits were combined and that some traits have become baseline. For example, the Elementalist trait blasting staff is now the default. The same goes for Eagle Eye (at least according to Dulfy: http://dulfy.net/2015/04/25/gw2-core-specializations/#Ranger).
Thanks.
I love this for a GM trait:
Your pet heals allies in an area when executing a command [F2] ability.
Are they speeding up all F2 abilities? Making pets actually be able to finish casting one before they die in wvw?
Sounds like typical 5 man design thoughts with no thought as to what will happen in wvw at all.
I’ll spell it out for the devs: pets die before they can finish casting. Players can move 50 yards by the time they finish casting. Most F2 skills are attacks- pretty useless to heal next to a pile of enemies. Hell, I can be standing next to my pet, press f2, and by the time it finishes it’s regen skill I’m so far out of range it may as well be back in our keep for all the use it is.
Any news on making pets viable in wvw, or will it be ignored in favour of the spvp ‘e-sport’ (lol).
WvW player. Doing another world completion for my next Legendary. Hater of mini-games.
In terms of build diversity, I don’t care for having some insane number of available build options but only using maybe a handful of genuinely useful builds. I would rather have a smaller number of manageable and more useful builds. If HoT were to reduce the amount of possible builds down by a factor of 10 or so, then I would expect the each of the remaining build possibilities to be incredibly useful. In short, I want quality, not quantity.
not clear here, are you saying you would rather have 10 good builds out of 20 than 20 good builds out of 100?
Well I did say “each of the remaining build possibilities” so that would mean (hypothetically) instead of having 5 good builds out of 1000 with the current system, I would expect the new system to provide perhaps 20-30 builds max, but every single one of the 20-30 builds would be useful or just as good as the 5 or so builds from the old system (the old system being the current system).
Maybe just need to mix all traits and leave by 1 grandtrait in every core specialization?! Its so cooool. This will make the “builds” Ultrauseful. 20-30 builds?!…..Really?! And now imagine – developers strain their brain and start working on the current system and would make at least 50% from 1000 pos.builds useful. That would be the RESULT?!!
(edited by Vorch.1807)
In terms of build diversity, I don’t care for having some insane number of available build options but only using maybe a handful of genuinely useful builds. I would rather have a smaller number of manageable and more useful builds. If HoT were to reduce the amount of possible builds down by a factor of 10 or so, then I would expect the each of the remaining build possibilities to be incredibly useful. In short, I want quality, not quantity.
not clear here, are you saying you would rather have 10 good builds out of 20 than 20 good builds out of 100?
Well I did say “each of the remaining build possibilities” so that would mean (hypothetically) instead of having 5 good builds out of 1000 with the current system, I would expect the new system to provide perhaps 20-30 builds max, but every single one of the 20-30 builds would be useful or just as good as the 5 or so builds from the old system (the old system being the current system).
Lets be realistic. There will still be meta builds better than others. Just will take time to figure those out. And when that happens, the less options would pretty much force us to play the meta…
In terms of build diversity, I don’t care for having some insane number of available build options but only using maybe a handful of genuinely useful builds. I would rather have a smaller number of manageable and more useful builds. If HoT were to reduce the amount of possible builds down by a factor of 10 or so, then I would expect the each of the remaining build possibilities to be incredibly useful. In short, I want quality, not quantity.
not clear here, are you saying you would rather have 10 good builds out of 20 than 20 good builds out of 100?
Well I did say “each of the remaining build possibilities” so that would mean (hypothetically) instead of having 5 good builds out of 1000 with the current system, I would expect the new system to provide perhaps 20-30 builds max, but every single one of the 20-30 builds would be useful or just as good as the 5 or so builds from the old system (the old system being the current system).
Lets be realistic. There will still be meta builds better than others. Just will take time to figure those out. And when that happens, the less options would pretty much force us to play the meta…
Yeah surely some meta builds will emerge but the point is that all other build shouldnt fall way behind like now, and that’s a good thing
Tempest & Druid
Wat r u, casul?
Wat r u, casul?
Well I did say “each of the remaining build possibilities” so that would mean (hypothetically) instead of having 5 good builds out of 1000 with the current system, I would expect the new system to provide perhaps 20-30 builds max, but every single one of the 20-30 builds would be useful or just as good as the 5 or so builds from the old system (the old system being the current system).
Too bad we can already see this won’t be the case, right?
Yeah surely some meta builds will emerge but the point is that all other build shouldnt fall way behind like now, and that’s a good thing
I don’t think you looked too closely at the traits of all the classes in what was revealed of the new system.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Any news on making pets viable in wvw, or will it be ignored in favour of the spvp ‘e-sport’ (lol).
Zerg combat, whether in PvE or in WvW, is inherently difficult and inherently unimportant to balance. I agree with Anet’s decision to focus balance around 5-man PvP and around 5-man dungeons/fractals. Be glad things like the AoE cap exist.
Well I did say “each of the remaining build possibilities” so that would mean (hypothetically) instead of having 5 good builds out of 1000 with the current system, I would expect the new system to provide perhaps 20-30 builds max, but every single one of the 20-30 builds would be useful or just as good as the 5 or so builds from the old system (the old system being the current system).
Too bad we can already see this won’t be the case, right?
Yeah surely some meta builds will emerge but the point is that all other build shouldnt fall way behind like now, and that’s a good thing
I don’t think you looked too closely at the traits of all the classes in what was revealed of the new system.
I can’t speak for all classes since I main only engi and elem and I’ve looked deeply only for those. I see at least 4-5 equally good builds each that can all be meta at the same time, instead of 1-2 we have now. If that’d not diversity…
Anyway until the system is out we cant really say
Tempest & Druid
Wat r u, casul?
Wat r u, casul?
Well I did say “each of the remaining build possibilities” so that would mean (hypothetically) instead of having 5 good builds out of 1000 with the current system, I would expect the new system to provide perhaps 20-30 builds max, but every single one of the 20-30 builds would be useful or just as good as the 5 or so builds from the old system (the old system being the current system).
Too bad we can already see this won’t be the case, right?
Yeah surely some meta builds will emerge but the point is that all other build shouldnt fall way behind like now, and that’s a good thing
I don’t think you looked too closely at the traits of all the classes in what was revealed of the new system.
I can’t speak for all classes since I main only engi and elem and I’ve looked deeply only for those. I see at least 4-5 equally good builds each that can all be meta at the same time, instead of 1-2 we have now. If that’d not diversity…
Anyway until the system is out we cant really say
It kinda backwards for ele atm. You have 4-5 good builds and if anet will not rethink some of their decisions we will end up with 1-2 good builds.
This is just another case of ArenaNet being lazy. They created a system where there was huge potential for a variety of builds, however they lacked follow through to actually balance traits. There are traits that were absolutely useless or even negatively impacted the class. Even after months or even years of telling them they still didn’t get a clue. Two that I know off the top of my head are the thief stealth at 25% hp and the Necro minion when you kill something. The necro one was hilarious because no only did necros know it was useless, it was also broken. It took big threads in the necro forums to even get a dev response of “working as intended”, then more big threads showing that was indeed not the case. Eventually it was fixed but still useless. In beta you could select from all the traits in the line, which was awesome and allowed you to customize they way you wanted. Then they forced you into certain traits and that killed more build variety so they didn’t have to balance things.
So yes, this certainly kills diversity by further simplifying choices. They should have given more choices, that’s what this game needed. Don’t get me wrong, the trait system was terrible to start, but every change since beta has been in the wrong direction. This game needs depth, they are just making it shallower and shallower. It’s downright boring.
Well I did say “each of the remaining build possibilities” so that would mean (hypothetically) instead of having 5 good builds out of 1000 with the current system, I would expect the new system to provide perhaps 20-30 builds max, but every single one of the 20-30 builds would be useful or just as good as the 5 or so builds from the old system (the old system being the current system).
Too bad we can already see this won’t be the case, right?
Yeah surely some meta builds will emerge but the point is that all other build shouldnt fall way behind like now, and that’s a good thing
I don’t think you looked too closely at the traits of all the classes in what was revealed of the new system.
I can’t speak for all classes since I main only engi and elem and I’ve looked deeply only for those. I see at least 4-5 equally good builds each that can all be meta at the same time, instead of 1-2 we have now. If that’d not diversity…
I seem to see something opposite with ele (won’t speak about engi as it is not my favourite class), but that’s not the point i was bringing up.
What i meant was that this system neither removed an ability to make atrocious builds, that will be way behind the meta ones, nor made all trait options worth taking. In the preview shown to us there were still trait options where choosing one of the 3 traits of the same tier was hard not because they were all good, but because they were all equally useless.
So, not only not all possible builds will be useful, as DanteZero hopes, but the gap between the good and the bad ones will not become smaller as you assumed.
Unless, of course, these traits will yet see a major overhaul. And i mean from grounds up, not just some balance touches.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Well I did say “each of the remaining build possibilities” so that would mean (hypothetically) instead of having 5 good builds out of 1000 with the current system, I would expect the new system to provide perhaps 20-30 builds max, but every single one of the 20-30 builds would be useful or just as good as the 5 or so builds from the old system (the old system being the current system).
Too bad we can already see this won’t be the case, right?
Yeah surely some meta builds will emerge but the point is that all other build shouldnt fall way behind like now, and that’s a good thing
I don’t think you looked too closely at the traits of all the classes in what was revealed of the new system.
I can’t speak for all classes since I main only engi and elem and I’ve looked deeply only for those. I see at least 4-5 equally good builds each that can all be meta at the same time, instead of 1-2 we have now. If that’d not diversity…
Anyway until the system is out we cant really say
are you talking pve or pvp?
because people have already theorycrafted that ele will be dominantly staff for effeciency now, and not impressed by any new builds.
engineer, things will probably change a bit, mostly because they changed a lot of the traits, and added new class mechanices, more options? i dont see it. especially with so many to be determined traits, and a few traits that have no data.
there is only one facet of this change that seems to promote more builds, and thats removing stats from the equation.
This is just another case of ArenaNet being lazy. They created a system where there was huge potential for a variety of builds, however they lacked follow through to actually balance traits. There are traits that were absolutely useless or even negatively impacted the class. Even after months or even years of telling them they still didn’t get a clue. Two that I know off the top of my head are the thief stealth at 25% hp and the Necro minion when you kill something. The necro one was hilarious because no only did necros know it was useless, it was also broken. It took big threads in the necro forums to even get a dev response of “working as intended”, then more big threads showing that was indeed not the case. Eventually it was fixed but still useless. In beta you could select from all the traits in the line, which was awesome and allowed you to customize they way you wanted. Then they forced you into certain traits and that killed more build variety so they didn’t have to balance things.
So yes, this certainly kills diversity by further simplifying choices. They should have given more choices, that’s what this game needed. Don’t get me wrong, the trait system was terrible to start, but every change since beta has been in the wrong direction. This game needs depth, they are just making it shallower and shallower. It’s downright boring.
i agree with most of what you said here.
people dont realize that the problem with the old trait system wasnt too much choice, it was lack creating interesting/useful traits. Nothing about reducing your options increases viability.
The only thing that increases viability, is creating more interesting/useful traits, marrying themselves to only having 3 choices per slot does not increase the chances, or future chances of interesting traits.
I’m not saying it IS doing this. I’m legitimately asking, curious whether others think this may be true.
I ask the question because, first of all, the Revenant: isn’t getting much skill selection from what we have seen. Weapon sets, and two legendaries which pretty much seem to fill slots 6-10 for you.
Second of all: it was that you could mix and match traits from several lines. Now, you get three. Or, two and an elite specialization. So I can essentially have three trees fully chosen, not 6 that I can pick and choose (to some extent anyway)
As such, it concerns me; it looks to me at first glance that we are having our build choices reduced for all classes, and very little choice for the Revenant at all.
But I’m not saying I’m right here, and I’d love to be proven wrong. So tell me, what do you think about this?
Er… What build diversity? you have to have it first to destroy it.
The term Exploit means nothing in GW2 –
Vials Maize Balm Exploit(Halloween) 2014
Locked out of JP (Wintersday) 2015
Vials Maize Balm Exploit(Halloween) 2014
Locked out of JP (Wintersday) 2015
there is only one facet of this change that seems to promote more builds, and thats removing stats from the equation.
Unfortunately even that will probably end up doing the opposite, because none of this changes the reasons people take berserker stats in the first place. Before the desire to pick certain traits in non-damage lines diluted stats at least a tiny bit, but now people will just condense their stats even further with equipment.
Adequacy simply means “good enough to get the job done.” So yes, very nearly every build, even deliberately random ones, would be adequate. In PvP yesterday I joined a match with a ranger whose build was something like 0/0/6/0/6. I forget the exact placement but the last 2 weren’t even allocated. One of his two adept trait slots was completely empty. Yet at the time I joined he had the highest score on his team and appeared the most effective in combat.
I’m sorry, I don’t buy that this is a proper use of the term adequacy in this context, because by the same logic, a 0/0/0/0/0 build is adequate. If the skill differential between players is big enough, he will beat meta players, sure. Of course with a meta build, he’s going to own even harder against the same, unskilled opponents. Whereas if he is against equally skilled opponents, he will get rolled, repeatedly, with his 0/0/0/0/0 build.
So you literally have to take skill out of the equation if you want to get any meaningful results. If you don’t, you’re failing at logic/math.
Once we’re dealing with players of EQUAL skill, then we can talk, and it’s obvious that a meta build will provide a very significant advantage over an “average” build, which will produce a very significant advantage over 0/0/0/0/0, etc. – so yeah, some builds are clearly better than others, and many won’t even be “adequate”. You will NOT be able to “get the job” done against equally skilled players with many builds.
Unfortunately, I do believe it’s about money, but not because balance = money. Because simplicity is money. It’s the same reason that game in general have fewer options and complications than earlier installments in the series, because they want to appeal to the broader market that isn’t as willing to put in the time or effort. It’s the same reason the NPE patch came into existence, an update that seemed to confuse and annoy much of the player base with changes nobody was asking for, but instead was clearly meant to make things “simpler” for new players. This specialization system is no different; it’s not about whether the gain is better than the loss, but about one group of players being shot in the back to make room for a group with more money to give.
This is just over-dramatic rubbish.
As I said, other games doing this have produced better games for everyone. People who moan about the good old days are generally moaning about the fact that they can no longer use out-of-game knowledge and tricksy builds to gain an advantage over other players.
Also, no-one is getting “shot in the back”. That’s drama-student nonsense of the worst kind. The game is being improved for everyone, and more genuinely competitive (let’s use that word, as you seem keen to run “viable” into the floor) builds are being made.
I’m sorry, I don’t buy that this is a proper use of the term adequacy in this context, because by the same logic, a 0/0/0/0/0 build is adequate. If the skill differential between players is big enough, he will beat meta players, sure. Of course with a meta build, he’s going to own even harder against the same, unskilled opponents. Whereas if he is against equally skilled opponents, he will get rolled, repeatedly, with his 0/0/0/0/0 build.
So you literally have to take skill out of the equation if you want to get any meaningful results. If you don’t, you’re failing at logic/math.
Once we’re dealing with players of EQUAL skill, then we can talk, and it’s obvious that a meta build will provide a very significant advantage over an “average” build, which will produce a very significant advantage over 0/0/0/0/0, etc. – so yeah, some builds are clearly better than others, and many won’t even be “adequate”. You will NOT be able to “get the job” done against equally skilled players with many builds.
I never claimed meta builds weren’t “better” performance-wise; that’s the whole point of them being meta builds. What makes a non-meta “adequate” is that a player doesn’t NEED a new build to play the game. If players were all of equal skill, using stronger builds for an advantage would only really matter in competitive PvP. But it also wouldn’t matter at all, because everyone has the same skill level, and once they have the same builds it’s an infinite standstill. I’m not sure what your point here was other than disagreeing with me for the sake of disagreeing? Yes, from a purely mathematical standpoint higher numbers are higher than lower numbers. That wasn’t really disputed.
This is just over-dramatic rubbish.
As I said, other games doing this have produced better games for everyone. People who moan about the good old days are generally moaning about the fact that they can no longer use out-of-game knowledge and tricksy builds to gain an advantage over other players.
Also, no-one is getting “shot in the back”. That’s drama-student nonsense of the worst kind. The game is being improved for everyone, and more genuinely competitive (let’s use that word, as you seem keen to run “viable” into the floor) builds are being made.
“Better games for everyone”, except for the people arguing against it who apparently aren’t part of everyone? Moaning about no longer having tricksy builds to take advantage, which would make more sense if this were about the loss of meta builds instead of the loss of everything else?
Competitive builds have little point outside of competitive PvP. In large-scale PvE or WvW, or small-scale solo play and story instances, you don’t need a competitive build; at that stage you’re simply talking about balance. If they were making this change for PvP only, I’d drop my complaints right there, but applying large changes universally to very different game modes is not “improvements for everyone.”