Guild Wars 2

Currently picking the Elite Spec unlocks the new profesion mechanic , new weapon and new utility skills, why?
I feel like this too limiting. Profesion mechanic should be the only thing locked by picking the Elit Spec i see no point in skills and weapons to be locked by picking a trait line, none of the skills so far act like this .
It only limits build diversity and it will become even worse with the adding of new specialisations as it means every time we get new skill will only be able to use a set of new skills and the old ones and never more tha that.
For example last beta i really wanted to try out a GS Necro with the normal Death Shroud , but you can’t do that as you need to equip Reaper Specialisation and that changes your death shroud.
This really bothers me, but i dont see anyone talikng about it? So what do you guys think?
Why not make new weapons and skills unlocked no matter if you have equiped the elite specialisation trait line or not? We will still have incentive to use them with their thematic weapons and skills as the traits to improve them are in that trait line, but we will have far more build diversity and choices to make .

I agree utility skills and weapons should definitely not be locked behind the specialisation. The traits should be incentive enough to specialise.

It makes no sense to be locked out of weapons and utilities.

I put this in my Survey about the Beta. The weapons aren’t tied to the new heals, utilities, or elites in any way. You can use the new weapon with any of the other skills and vice versa, so why is the weapon locked into a certain Spec? The lock basically kills the weapon’s playability.

So obviously weapon diversity wasn’t a goal.

Amongst other things, isolating weapons in an elite spec allows them to use the same additional weapon more than once (a real issue for Warriors who already use almost everything) & it allows them to create elite-Specs that overwrite an existing weapon’s skills with new skills. Structure creates opportunity in design.

But, there’s almost no reason to even bother with the weapon, which is my whole issue. To give a bit of background: When I was testing the Tempest, I didn’t even bother with the Warhorn. I had no need of it. I paired my Staff with the new skills and felt that worked much better for me.

I feel like I could have paired the Warhorn with other Trait Lines and had it work out better than using it with the Tempest spec.

Angel.7294:

Currently picking the Elite Spec unlocks the new profesion mechanic , new weapon and new utility skills, why?

The answer is that doing so prevents the number of combinations of skills from growing exponentially with each added elite specialization (as happened in GW1 with each added expansion).

And there’s no other weapons on Elementalists you just ignore? That some sets of weapon skills don’t work for you really has no bearing on whether or not another weapon that doesn’t work for you is locked or not. Your not required to use the new weapon.

Nike.2631:

And there’s no other weapons on Elementalists you just ignore? That some sets of weapon skills don’t work for you really has no bearing on whether or not another weapon that doesn’t work for you is locked or not. Your not required to use the new weapon.

You just made my point for me. You’re not required to use it, so why is it locked?

Nike.2631:

So obviously weapon diversity wasn’t a goal.

Amongst other things, isolating weapons in an elite spec allows them to just the same additional weapon more than once (a real issue for Warriors who already use almost everything) & it allows them to create elite-Specs that overwrite an existing weapon’s skills with new skills. Structure creates opportunity in design.

Thats a good point, but i dont see why they cant add different weapon skill sets without locking them behind the Elite Trait Line ? I get you’re point of view though they didn’t look at them as will add a new weapon and new utility skills for the class but went for picking Reaper gives you access to Reaper skills. Which indeed keeps the skills more thematic , but i still don’t like the aproach they took it just feels like too many skills locked behind the elite specialisation.

videoboy.4162:

You just made my point for me. You’re not required to use it, so why is it locked?

Its locked for the reasons I mentioned and your desire to use it or not doesn’t override that consideration.

Angel.7294:

Thats a good point, but i dont see why they cant add different weapon skill sets without locking them behind the Elite Trait Line ? I get you’re point of view though they didn’t look at them as will add a new weapon and new utility skills for the class but went for picking Reaper gives you access to Reaper skills. Which indeed keeps the skills more thematic , but i still don’t like the aproach they took it just feels like too many skills locked behind the elite specialization.

The horizontal progression CDI included a long, LONG discussion about sub-classes and how they could work (or wreck things) in GW2. If you want to see why we have what we have coming in HoT, you really should take the time to read it. Sub-classes (what became elite specs) starts on about page 40.

Also, if I go to the trouble to get and equip a legendary or ascended weapon, that weapon is ONLY usable on the elite-spec build. If I run different builds in PvE, WvW and dungeons, then the elite-locked weapon is dead weight when I change off the elite spec. That’s a big disincentive to even trying the elite spec.

I’d suggest that when a character has the elite spec line fully unlocked, then the elite weapon should become usable on all specs for that character.

Nike.2631:

videoboy.4162:

You just made my point for me. You’re not required to use it, so why is it locked?

Its locked for the reasons I mentioned and your desire to use it or not doesn’t override that consideration.

Actually, no. Your reasons only addressed the reasons for locking Elites, Heals, and Utilities behind a spec (and I totally agree with that). You didn’t really give a good reason for the weapon being locked, which is the only thing my posts refer to.

To continue with my Tempest example, if I want to use a Warhorn (and none of the other new skills) alongside my Dagger or Scepter, I’m forced into an entire Trait Line, for two weapon skills. That’s ridiculous.

Obviously, if I want to use all the new stuff but not the Warhorn, that is completely doable. It makes no sense.

Nike.2631:

Angel.7294:

Thats a good point, but i dont see why they cant add different weapon skill sets without locking them behind the Elite Trait Line ? I get you’re point of view though they didn’t look at them as will add a new weapon and new utility skills for the class but went for picking Reaper gives you access to Reaper skills. Which indeed keeps the skills more thematic , but i still don’t like the aproach they took it just feels like too many skills locked behind the elite specialization.

The horizontal progression CDI included a long, LONG discussion about sub-classes and how they could work (or wreck things) in GW2. If you want to see why we have what we have coming in HoT, you really should take the time to read it. Sub-classes (what became elite specs) starts on about page 40.

I will take a look at this thank you Nike. I kind of understand what they are trying to achieve with the elite spec locking the skill thanks to you and Diovid.9506 now.

I still have a feeling that they are going a bit too paranoid about having too much skill combinations , but I can understand their concerns with it especially looking at it from a future point of view.

Example:
This expansion, Thief gets the Monk trait line, with Staff and Meditations.
Next expansion, Thief gets Sniper trait line, with Rifle and Banners.

On next expansion, people will want a Staff/Rifle Thief, but they cannot have it. In addition, a Thief cannot have both Meditations and Banners on the same skill bar. Thief can only equip one of Monk or Sniper trait line, because both are Elite spec.

We end up with this question to the devs:
To which point should Specs be restricted?
1. The Trait line, the Utilities and the Weapon locked.
2. The Trait line and the Utilities locked. (or 2. The Trait line and the Weapon locked)
3. The Trait line only locked.
and how game breaking would it be to have 2 or 3 as restrictions instead?

(How game breaking is a Meditations + Banners Thief?)
(How game breaking is a Staff/Rifle Thief?)

1 Because this forces a choice and otherwise all classes would eventually have all weapons all the time.
2 Because it is way way easier to balance. If you add a weapon and utility catergory with each elite spec, and you constantly have to balance that weapon and utility line with all the previous specs, that would just add and add and add, wich is eventually a mess to balance. When they are bound to eachother, you basicly have to only considder adding to the base class.
So basicly when they do it like this you’ll get more elite specs, as they are easier to put out and balance.

I really don’t see how this is hard to understand.

Fox.3469:

1 Because this forces a choice and otherwise all classes would eventually have all weapons all the time.
2 Because it is way way easier to balance. If you add a weapon and utility catergory with each elite spec, and you constantly have to balance that weapon and utility line with all the previous specs, that would just add and add and add, wich is eventually a mess to balance. When they are bound to eachother, you basicly have to only considder adding to the base class.
So basicly when they do it like this you’ll get more elite specs, as they are easier to put out and balance.

I really don’t see how this is hard to understand.

Because it doesn’t make sense. The weapon you take when build crafting, at least in PvP, depends on your traits. I.e as a necro who doesn’t have access to any good mobility buffs, they are usually forced to take warhorn, and vice versa if I have mobility buffs I can drop warhorn because I don’t need the extra swiftness. So once again to reiterate, the weapon heavily depends on the traits you take. We shouldn’t be locked out of weapons. It really isn’t harder to balance.

Why? Quick answer: Balance. Long answer: Balance.

They’ve been doing internal balance passes until they got to this framework. Undoing it would require a whole lot more balance, and could give a lot of headache to the devs.

What surprises me the most is that they chose the easiest way, and still made two elite specs quite subpar. Oh well…

Angel.7294:

Currently picking the Elite Spec unlocks the new profesion mechanic , new weapon and new utility skills, why?
I feel like this too limiting. Profesion mechanic should be the only thing locked by picking the Elit Spec i see no point in skills and weapons to be locked by picking a trait line, none of the skills so far act like this .
It only limits build diversity and it will become even worse with the adding of new specialisations as it means every time we get new skill will only be able to use a set of new skills and the old ones and never more tha that.
For example last beta i really wanted to try out a GS Necro with the normal Death Shroud , but you can’t do that as you need to equip Reaper Specialisation and that changes your death shroud.
This really bothers me, but i dont see anyone talikng about it? So what do you guys think?
Why not make new weapons and skills unlocked no matter if you have equiped the elite specialisation trait line or not? We will still have incentive to use them with their thematic weapons and skills as the traits to improve them are in that trait line, but we will have far more build diversity and choices to make .

I can answer this pretty easily. By allowing the use of the weapon(s), skill(s), and utilities with other combinations means more balance work = longer wait for release. I would love the weapon(s) to be usable outside of the spec though…

videoboy.4162:

Nike.2631:

videoboy.4162:

You just made my point for me. You’re not required to use it, so why is it locked?

Its locked for the reasons I mentioned and your desire to use it or not doesn’t override that consideration.

Actually, no. Your reasons only addressed the reasons for locking Elites, Heals, and Utilities behind a spec (and I totally agree with that). You didn’t really give a good reason for the weapon being locked, which is the only thing my posts refer to.

To continue with my Tempest example, if I want to use a Warhorn (and none of the other new skills) alongside my Dagger or Scepter, I’m forced into an entire Trait Line, for two weapon skills. That’s ridiculous.

Obviously, if I want to use all the new stuff but not the Warhorn, that is completely doable. It makes no sense.

Okay, here’s a reason why:

Let’s continue to use Tempest as an example. Let’s say that in a year’s time the devs finally admit that the elite spec is a soggy pile of dog excrement. And, they actually liked the idea people had for having the horn call up storms. So, they want to try again.

New elite spec called “Stormcaller” is made. It too uses the warhorn, but this time it has entirely different skills on it.

Now, if weapons are not tied to the elite specs, there’s a problem. They can’t make the second spec use warhorn, because the game will not know which set of skills to give you. With them tied to the specs, however, then the game knows right away which set you get.

Now, this may not seem important to an elementalist, but consider a class like warrior for a moment. They already use most of the weapons, and it’s a natural that some of their elite specs will be about using old weapons in new ways. The only way that’s doable is if they link the weapon to the elite spec.

Palador.2170:

videoboy.4162:

Nike.2631:

videoboy.4162:

You just made my point for me. You’re not required to use it, so why is it locked?

Its locked for the reasons I mentioned and your desire to use it or not doesn’t override that consideration.

Actually, no. Your reasons only addressed the reasons for locking Elites, Heals, and Utilities behind a spec (and I totally agree with that). You didn’t really give a good reason for the weapon being locked, which is the only thing my posts refer to.

To continue with my Tempest example, if I want to use a Warhorn (and none of the other new skills) alongside my Dagger or Scepter, I’m forced into an entire Trait Line, for two weapon skills. That’s ridiculous.

Obviously, if I want to use all the new stuff but not the Warhorn, that is completely doable. It makes no sense.

Okay, here’s a reason why:

Let’s continue to use Tempest as an example. Let’s say that in a year’s time the devs finally admit that the elite spec is a soggy pile of dog excrement. And, they actually liked the idea people had for having the horn call up storms. So, they want to try again.

New elite spec called “Stormcaller” is made. It too uses the warhorn, but this time it has entirely different skills on it.

Now, if weapons are not tied to the elite specs, there’s a problem. They can’t make the second spec use warhorn, because the game will not know which set of skills to give you. With them tied to the specs, however, then the game knows right away which set you get.

Now, this may not seem important to an elementalist, but consider a class like warrior for a moment. They already use most of the weapons, and it’s a natural that some of their elite specs will be about using old weapons in new ways. The only way that’s doable is if they link the weapon to the elite spec.

This is a horrible reason. GW2 has never had a class that could use a weapon with two completely different skill sets. They haven’t even hinted at doing this. You’re basing your entire argument off of zero evidence.

So far, in this thread, we’ve seen logical reasons, complete with evidence, for why the heals, utilities, and elites need to be locked into a specialization. However, not a single logical reason has been given for locking the weapons.
The bulk of the balancing for a class, revolves around the traits and skills. A much smaller amount goes to the individual weapons. Even in a worst case scenario, weapons balancing won’t be anywhere near the headache that skill balancing became in GW1. We’d be comparing a single class having access to 2-5 weapon skills in GW2 vs a single class hacing access to hundreds of skills/traits in GW1.

videoboy.4162:

This is a horrible reason. GW2 has never had a class that could use a weapon with two completely different skill sets. They haven’t even hinted at doing this. You’re basing your entire argument off of zero evidence.

Yeah. They have. This entire conversation took place with Devs actively participating and SET THE COURSE OF THE GW2’s DESIGN GOING FORWARD about 21 months ago. Please: go read the thread. It takes a while but you’ll see the arguments laid out long form and understand why we are where we are today.

The game is constantly about things “GW2 has never had”. That’s how adding new stuff works. And people good at adding new stuff leave themselves room to work within in the future. This structure we see now was specifically proposed so that existing weapons could have their skills replaced with a different set without crashing the game. I know — I proposed the solution they went with.

“You should read this thread” Doesn’t link thread…

And, yes, I searched Google.

There is one link in this thread. Click it .

Well after thinking about it , it seems I just missed the bigger picture a bit. It’s an ok system and it servers its purpose. You have your core skill set and your specialisation skill sets. Currently the specialisation skills are too few and you feel like your picking an extra weapon , but in the future they will probably add more to it: an extra weapon an extra utility skills type, the same way they can add to the core profesion. So although now they add a warhorn to the Tempest sepcialisation in the future they may add it to the core Elementalist weapons, as the system they have set up allows them to do that.

Still not sure how i fell about them locking specialisations to the trait line though.

When I heard each class was getting a new weapon I figured they would act just as the existing weapons. I also found it odd that you have to take the traitline to get the new wep. These weps aren’t supposed to be more powerful then the others or anything so I don’t see why they shouldn’t be just new weapons useable just like existing weps.

Nike.2631:

There is one link in this thread. Click it .

Can you be more specific than somewhere around page 40? Because locking classes out of weapons has got to be the dumbest kittening thing I’ve ever heard of. IT DOESNT MAKE SENSE /CAPS.

You balance your build off of your traits which decides what weapon you should take. The whole point of Guild Wars 2 build system is to be diverse that is why we can take 3 full traitline now instead of 2.15.

So please show me where this system is proposed and show me where the devs reply to it because telling us to go to a 70 page thread and asking us to find the answer seems like a good way to get out of providing a straight forward answer that supports your claims.

Nike.2631:

There is one link in this thread. Click it .

Would have helped had you not called that thread one thing in your link, then told me to search something else. Especially since I participated in almost all of Whiteside’s CDIs.

Chuck Zitto and Jelzouki make excellent points.

It’s a balancing mechanism intended more for ongoing use of the system in a world where classes have more than 1 e-spec than its current introductory one.

Basically, it allows them to design elite specs in a bubble, so that they only have to balance their skill and trait synergies against the base class. This lets them avoid the balance hell of the GW1 system, in which every time they added skills they had to balance those skills against every other skill in the game, which got harder and harder to do as time went on because the list of skills they had to balance against got exponentially bigger.

The e-spec system means that they can continue to add e-specs without ever worrying that, say, the mechanic from 1 e-spec would make the utilities from another overpowered, or combining the utilities from two separate e-specs would be overpowered, etc.

This makes it much easier to balance and update, and allows them to make the unique skills and mechanics of each spec much more impactful.

videoboy.4162:

This is a horrible reason.

While I disagree with you and others have pointed out why, I can give you another reason.

The range of weapons available to some classes (and the restriction of weapons available to others) is a part of class balance. If they were to add more and more weapons to all classes, the ones with the larger starting pool of weapons would soon run out of new weapons to gain, and then slowly lose that advantage as the other classes catch up to them. (And the more limited classes would slowly lose that disadvantage.)

By limiting the new weapons to being tied to an elite spec, they avoid this problem while still being able to bring new weapons to all of the classes. Engineers will never have all the weapons at once, they’ll have their current three picks plus one from the elite. The “plus one” can change, but they’ll never be on par with warriors or thieves.

Jelzouki.4128:

Nike.2631:

There is one link in this thread. Click it .

So please show me where this system is proposed and show me where the devs reply to it because telling us to go to a 70 page thread and asking us to find the answer seems like a good way to get out of providing a straight forward answer that supports your claims.

Here’s the deal. I’m NOT going to treat you like a baby bird. I’m not going to chew your food for you and throw up in your waiting beak. If you’d like to know, I’ve pointed you to the right area. I’m not going to point to specific posts because it was a discussion. There were counter-arguments and some of them were good and you should read those too to understand what the idea had to overcome to gain acceptance. If you don’t want to know badly enough to read for a bit, that’s not my problem. I’ll content myself with the knowledge the Devs listened and liked it enough to implement my plan almost verbatim.

Nike.2631:

Jelzouki.4128:

Nike.2631:

There is one link in this thread. Click it .

So please show me where this system is proposed and show me where the devs reply to it because telling us to go to a 70 page thread and asking us to find the answer seems like a good way to get out of providing a straight forward answer that supports your claims.

Here’s the deal. I’m NOT going to treat you like a baby bird. I’m not going to chew your food for you and throw up in your waiting beak. If you’d like to know, I’ve pointed you to the right area. I’m not going to point to specific posts because it was a discussion. There were counter-arguments and some of them were good and you should read those too to understand what the idea had to overcome to gain acceptance. If you don’t want to know badly enough to read for a bit, that’s not my problem. I’ll content myself with the knowledge the Devs listened and liked it enough to implement my plan almost verbatim.

OK, no, that’s not how this works. You do not get to say “I have evidence to prove I’m right” then refuse to show people where it is. You especially don’t get to speak down to someone that calls you out on it.

That said, I was in that CDI and at no point in time did any red tag say that they were thinking about giving a single class a weapon, that could do two entirely different things. The closest Whiteside came, was acknowledging that people wanted to weapon skills to apply to existing weapons.

Palador.2170:

videoboy.4162:

This is a horrible reason.

While I disagree with you and others have pointed out why, I can give you another reason.

The range of weapons available to some classes (and the restriction of weapons available to others) is a part of class balance. If they were to add more and more weapons to all classes, the ones with the larger starting pool of weapons would soon run out of new weapons to gain, and then slowly lose that advantage as the other classes catch up to them. (And the more limited classes would slowly lose that disadvantage.)

By limiting the new weapons to being tied to an elite spec, they avoid this problem while still being able to bring new weapons to all of the classes. Engineers will never have all the weapons at once, they’ll have their current three picks plus one from the elite. The “plus one” can change, but they’ll never be on par with warriors or thieves.

Anet has stated that they’re working towards making sure all classes can use all weapons. Therefore, this reason is as flawed as your first. And, unlike Nike, I’ll actually give a direct source.

“What’s more is that the team is also working very kitten finding a way to make it so that every profession has access to every weapon and their own weapon skills for those previously locked weapons.”

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/7597/Guild-Wars-2-ArenaNets-Master-Plan-for-2013.html

That quote is actually from Anet and not some random player making suggestions on the forum.

videoboy.4162:

Palador.2170:

videoboy.4162:

This is a horrible reason.

While I disagree with you and others have pointed out why, I can give you another reason.

The range of weapons available to some classes (and the restriction of weapons available to others) is a part of class balance. If they were to add more and more weapons to all classes, the ones with the larger starting pool of weapons would soon run out of new weapons to gain, and then slowly lose that advantage as the other classes catch up to them. (And the more limited classes would slowly lose that disadvantage.)

By limiting the new weapons to being tied to an elite spec, they avoid this problem while still being able to bring new weapons to all of the classes. Engineers will never have all the weapons at once, they’ll have their current three picks plus one from the elite. The “plus one” can change, but they’ll never be on par with warriors or thieves.

Anet has stated that they’re working towards making sure all classes can use all weapons. Therefore, this reason is as flawed as your first. And, unlike Nike, I’ll actually give a direct source.

“What’s more is that the team is also working very kitten finding a way to make it so that every profession has access to every weapon and their own weapon skills for those previously locked weapons.”

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/7597/Guild-Wars-2-ArenaNets-Master-Plan-for-2013.html

That quote is actually from Anet and not some random player making suggestions on the forum.

But this quote is BS anyway. By the time the Engineer has all the weapons, the warrior will have had nearly twice the full weapon set in elite specs.

It is highly likely that sooner or later the warrior will receive an elite spec that actually changes the skills of an already existing weapon of his instead of adding a new one. Just cause that class is very close to have all the weapons in the first place.

stof.9341:

videoboy.4162:

Palador.2170:

videoboy.4162:

This is a horrible reason.

While I disagree with you and others have pointed out why, I can give you another reason.

The range of weapons available to some classes (and the restriction of weapons available to others) is a part of class balance. If they were to add more and more weapons to all classes, the ones with the larger starting pool of weapons would soon run out of new weapons to gain, and then slowly lose that advantage as the other classes catch up to them. (And the more limited classes would slowly lose that disadvantage.)

By limiting the new weapons to being tied to an elite spec, they avoid this problem while still being able to bring new weapons to all of the classes. Engineers will never have all the weapons at once, they’ll have their current three picks plus one from the elite. The “plus one” can change, but they’ll never be on par with warriors or thieves.

Anet has stated that they’re working towards making sure all classes can use all weapons. Therefore, this reason is as flawed as your first. And, unlike Nike, I’ll actually give a direct source.

“What’s more is that the team is also working very kitten finding a way to make it so that every profession has access to every weapon and their own weapon skills for those previously locked weapons.”

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/7597/Guild-Wars-2-ArenaNets-Master-Plan-for-2013.html

That quote is actually from Anet and not some random player making suggestions on the forum.

But this quote is BS anyway. By the time the Engineer has all the weapons, the warrior will have had nearly twice the full weapon set in elite specs.

It is highly likely that sooner or later the warrior will receive an elite spec that actually changes the skills of an already existing weapon of his instead of adding a new one. Just cause that class is very close to have all the weapons in the first place.

Well, to be fair, the Warrior already does have twice as many weapons as the Engi. Also, keep in mind that my stance is discussing weapons only. I agree that the Elites and Utilities should be locked into a Specialization, just not the ability to use a new weapon.

Scroll down to the Weapon Usability section and you can see that the problem already exists.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Weapon

stof.9341:

videoboy.4162:

Palador.2170:

videoboy.4162:

This is a horrible reason.

While I disagree with you and others have pointed out why, I can give you another reason.

The range of weapons available to some classes (and the restriction of weapons available to others) is a part of class balance. If they were to add more and more weapons to all classes, the ones with the larger starting pool of weapons would soon run out of new weapons to gain, and then slowly lose that advantage as the other classes catch up to them. (And the more limited classes would slowly lose that disadvantage.)

By limiting the new weapons to being tied to an elite spec, they avoid this problem while still being able to bring new weapons to all of the classes. Engineers will never have all the weapons at once, they’ll have their current three picks plus one from the elite. The “plus one” can change, but they’ll never be on par with warriors or thieves.

Anet has stated that they’re working towards making sure all classes can use all weapons. Therefore, this reason is as flawed as your first. And, unlike Nike, I’ll actually give a direct source.

“What’s more is that the team is also working very kitten finding a way to make it so that every profession has access to every weapon and their own weapon skills for those previously locked weapons.”

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/7597/Guild-Wars-2-ArenaNets-Master-Plan-for-2013.html

That quote is actually from Anet and not some random player making suggestions on the forum.

But this quote is BS anyway. By the time the Engineer has all the weapons, the warrior will have had nearly twice the full weapon set in elite specs.

It is highly likely that sooner or later the warrior will receive an elite spec that actually changes the skills of an already existing weapon of his instead of adding a new one. Just cause that class is very close to have all the weapons in the first place.

Unless they add new weapon types. Even before GW2’s release they mentioned possibly adding polearms at some point.

Diovid.9506:

Unless they add new weapon types. Even before GW2’s release they mentioned possibly adding polearms at some point.

You do understand that each new weapon they add is one more weapon that engineer needs an elite spec for :p So the net result is the same.

videoboy.4162:

OK, no, that’s not how this works. You do not get to say “I have evidence to prove I’m right” then refuse to show people where it is. You especially don’t get to speak down to someone that calls you out on it.

You’re proceeding from a false assumption – that I’m trying to prove anything. I’m not. People wanted to know why something works the way it does. I happen to know why it works that way because I designed it. Which was a process. It took days/weeks of contemplation and multiple rounds of defending it or incorporating good points against it put forward. And rather than rehash arguments it’s already faced and overcome, those arguments are right there in line in the discussion. If you are interested in knowing how it happened, now you have the means to find out. And if reading one or two dozen pages is too much trouble then you don’t want to know badly enough for me to care. I’m happy to talk game design… with people who are sincerely interested.

There’s nothing I can say in this thread that will be more convincing than seeing the Devs responding to the process as it was going on. Then compare it to what actually has manifested. Yes, the punch-line came 14 months later, when most people had forgotten the joke, but the two are still intimately connected. Go to the thread with red names in it. That’s the only “proof” people are really going to accept anyway so why waste all our time trying to prove the unprovable here? And even then people are going to say “Well yes, they did exactly what you suggested, but maybe they just threw all the plans in a hat and picked one at random… I mean, you can’t prove what they were thinking!”

That said, I was in that CDI and at no point in time did any red tag say that they were thinking about giving a single class a weapon, that could do two entirely different things. The closest Whiteside came, was acknowledging that people wanted to weapon skills to apply to existing weapons.

The system they chose to use was designed to have that capacity. Whether they ever use that capacity remains to be seen. But it’s there. There are other ways they could have done it, but they chose to go with that. Other ways that would have been easier to implement or would have added weapons to the base classes directly (something I argued for passionately, I might add). But they had a goal and I tried to offer what I thought was the least destructive way of reaching it. I don’t need to prove WHY they chose to go that way when I understand what the benefits of going that way are.

stof.9341:

Diovid.9506:

Unless they add new weapon types. Even before GW2’s release they mentioned possibly adding polearms at some point.

You do understand that each new weapon they add is one more weapon that engineer needs an elite spec for :p So the net result is the same.

Except I do not take their statement about giving all professions all weapons literally. If only for the fact that 17 elite specs would have to be added to get there. I don’t think GW2 will live that long. I also think Anet will sooner add new weapon types than giving two elite specializations with the same weapon type to a profession.

Oh well, for now it’s all daydreaming anyway.

Just because you suggested it, Nike, doesn’t mean there aren’t flaws to it. You have yet to provide a good reason for the Weapons to be locked behind a Spec.

Weapons don’t need Elites and Utilities added to go with them. They do not need a new Specialization to use them. That is something else entirely.

And, yes, you were trying to prove something. I said that Anet has never even hinted at letting a single class use the same weapon, with two totally different sets of weapon skills. You claimed that it was said and the directed us to that CDI (where it still wasn’t said by Anet).

videoboy.4162:

Just because you suggested it, Nike, doesn’t mean there aren’t flaws to it. You have yet to provide a good reason for the Weapons to be locked behind a Spec.

Weapons don’t need Elites and Utilities added to go with them. They do not need a new Specialization to use them. That is something else entirely.

And, yes, you were trying to prove something. I said that Anet has never even hinted at letting a single class use the same weapon, with two totally different sets of weapon skills. You claimed that it was said and the directed us to that CDI (where it still wasn’t said by Anet).

Well why would a weapon be unlocked but not utilities? Weapons are basically skills you equip.

I see no reason why elite utilities and weapons should be treated differently : either all alaways available or all locked behind the elite spec.

Also the reason was given : ANet doesn’t want to have to do exponentially more work to balance each new elite spec in the chance that someone will want a 3 elite spec build. And this is the same for the weapons.

stof.9341:

videoboy.4162:

Just because you suggested it, Nike, doesn’t mean there aren’t flaws to it. You have yet to provide a good reason for the Weapons to be locked behind a Spec.

Weapons don’t need Elites and Utilities added to go with them. They do not need a new Specialization to use them. That is something else entirely.

And, yes, you were trying to prove something. I said that Anet has never even hinted at letting a single class use the same weapon, with two totally different sets of weapon skills. You claimed that it was said and the directed us to that CDI (where it still wasn’t said by Anet).

Well why would a weapon be unlocked but not utilities? Weapons are basically skills you equip.

I see no reason why elite utilities and weapons should be treated differently : either all alaways available or all locked behind the elite spec.

Also the reason was given : ANet doesn’t want to have to do exponentially more work to balance each new elite spec in the chance that someone will want a 3 elite spec build. And this is the same for the weapons.

Seriously, get off the Elite Specs. Pretty much everyone in the thread agreed that the Heals, Utilities, and Elites needed to be locked.

The weapons themselves are far easier to balance and take far less work than trying to go the GW1 route and give everyone access to every single spell (heals, utilities, and elites).

Also, if you played the Beta, you’ll have seen that the weapons are actually tied to anything in the Specializations. You can either use the Warhorn with all the new spells, use all the new spells without the warhorn, or use the warhorn and none of the new spells.

If you want to use the former option, you still HAVE to spec into Tempest and that doesn’t make sense. The weapon should always be available. Especially since there’s already a major unbalance in how many weapons each class can use.

Why do you say that? Weapons are basically skills you equip. Look, the chronomancer and the warrior basically have just 2 new weapon skills XD

Why would it be easy to balance giving those two skills in the core spec and hard to balance giving the utilities?

You could very well say : I want the elite spec heal in the core. After all, it’s just one skill, it’s easy to balance!

With the exception of a couple of good points brought up, the thread mostly sounds like a way of bypassing purchasing the expansion o.O

E.g. Using Great Sword on Necromancer without being a Reaper.
Jim who doesn’t buy the expansion but has necro
Jill who did buy the expansion but has necro
Under the purposed system, both necros will be able to use Great Sword

I may have missed something, i sort of just skimmed over most of the thread.

Totally agree its fine that the profession mechanic change is bound to it. But weapons and skills? Why? Please remove it and offer us more build variety.

At wolfey they could add a panel for unlocking weapon types. By hero points for example. And if you don’t have HoT you can’t unlock that weapon type.

Wolfey.3407:

With the exception of a couple of good points brought up, the thread mostly sounds like a way of bypassing purchasing the expansion o.O

E.g. Using Great Sword on Necromancer without being a Reaper.
Jim who doesn’t buy the expansion but has necro
Jill who did buy the expansion but has necro
Under the purposed system, both necros will be able to use Great Sword

I may have missed something, i sort of just skimmed over most of the thread.

My personal opinion is, once you unlock that new content in HoT, then the weapon should be usable whenever you want to use it.

Jelzouki.4128:

Fox.3469:

1 Because this forces a choice and otherwise all classes would eventually have all weapons all the time.
2 Because it is way way easier to balance. If you add a weapon and utility catergory with each elite spec, and you constantly have to balance that weapon and utility line with all the previous specs, that would just add and add and add, wich is eventually a mess to balance. When they are bound to eachother, you basicly have to only considder adding to the base class.
So basicly when they do it like this you’ll get more elite specs, as they are easier to put out and balance.

I really don’t see how this is hard to understand.

Because it doesn’t make sense. The weapon you take when build crafting, at least in PvP, depends on your traits. I.e as a necro who doesn’t have access to any good mobility buffs, they are usually forced to take warhorn, and vice versa if I have mobility buffs I can drop warhorn because I don’t need the extra swiftness. So once again to reiterate, the weapon heavily depends on the traits you take. We shouldn’t be locked out of weapons. It really isn’t harder to balance.

Yes it does, and it’s far harder to balance. If you lock them to the elite spec, then you only have to balance the weapon and utility skills around that elite spec. If they add another elite spec, then you only have to balance those utility’s and weapon around that elite spec. If you would have the weapon available all the time, then suddenly your old added utility skills and weapon have to work with the new elite spec, and the new utility skills and weapon have to work with the old elite spec. So basicly a mix of them has to work. As to when you lock it, balance them when you are using that elite spec. It’s about making a choice, once more specs have come out.

Let’s take warrior for example, cause it’s a very clear one. You have those new fancy rage skills, that basicly help you build adrenaline right? This is all based around the fact that berserker is a fast paced monster rushing in and building up as fast as possible. Let’s say the next elite spec for warrior is a spec where instead of your bursts changing your adrenaline mechanic changes somehow. If it wasn’t locked, you’d have to balance that new mechanic around the rage skills, wich directly limits the way you can design the new elite spec. The freedom to design elite specs around a base class, is way way higher then to design elite specs around the base class and the 3 or 4 extra utility category’s and weapons already out for that class coming from elite specs..

I think it’s obvious that when designing the second warrior elite spec, let’s call it “Knight” for now, you don’t want to design those utility’s or weapons with “but wait how will this effect the Berserker?” and “but wait how will the Berserker weapon and utility’s effect this spec.” in mind, if you want unique ways to play the class.
And then when you come to the 3rd elite spec, you suddenly have to wonder how your new weapon and utilities will affect both the Berserker and the Knight spec, and how these specs weapons and utilities will affect the new spec you are designing.

Each elite spec then adds weapons and utilities, wich all have to be balanced with eachother. Wich will become the biggest mess and will seriously cut the way the elite specs feel different from eachother, aswell as the work needed to balance and design them.

When you bind them to the trait line however, you can basicly totally ignore what another elite spec does, and design skills in a way that they don’t have to work with all the specs, just the one you are using at that time. Wich gives way more room to be creative with the design itself.

Again i cannot see how people do not understand this.
When you have 5 elite specs, if weapons and utilities aren’t locked to trait lines, then all the added weapons and utility skills would have to be balanced around the 5 different F1 effects. While with this system you only have to balance each weapon and utility line around it’s 1 F1 ability. (note when i’m saying F1 i mean the elite spec ability, i know some specs don’t have this on F1)

videoboy.4162:

Just because you suggested it, Nike, doesn’t mean there aren’t flaws to it. You have yet to provide a good reason for the Weapons to be locked behind a Spec.

Same reason, weapons are tied to elite specs because then you only have to balance that certain weapon with that spec. If they weren’t, let’s say 5 elite specs in you have to design a weapon, that doesn’t suddenly make a certain elite spec op, and have to design an elite spec, that suddenly has to work with 5 more weapons then the first one had to.
I really cannot see how people think that this wouldn’t make it 10 times harder to design elite specs, let alone balance them.

videoboy.4162:

Just because you suggested it, Nike, doesn’t mean there aren’t flaws to it.

So what? I mean literally SO WHAT? Perfection is not the threshold required to get a plan accepted and implemented. Obviously. Because clearly you didn’t catch the part where I just said I was one of the people arguing for new weapons to be attached directly to the base classes rather than being gated behind sub-classes. Maybe that would have been more obvious if you read the discussion where I said over and over “Sub-classes are a terrible, toxic idea… and if you insist on doing them here’s my best attempt at minimizing the damage” Minimizing… not eliminating. Not perfect. The lesser of 77 evils.

You have yet to provide a good reason for the Weapons to be locked behind a Spec.

Because by doing it this way they can re-uses weapons with different skills. No, they haven’t yet. They may never. But that’s WHY its the way it is. Because it’s a plan that lets them not paint themselves into a corner when they run out of new weapons for every class and they really, REALLY don’t want to have to take on the art-burden required for adding new weapon types.

So lets review. If they attach new weapons to base classes in waves they can do 6 waves before Warriors run out of options and they MUST create a new weapon and all the work that entails. Or they can do it this way and they can do an infinite number of especs without generating a conflict or having to do new weapon types.

Six.

Infinite.

videoboy.4162:

Wolfey.3407:

With the exception of a couple of good points brought up, the thread mostly sounds like a way of bypassing purchasing the expansion o.O

E.g. Using Great Sword on Necromancer without being a Reaper.
Jim who doesn’t buy the expansion but has necro
Jill who did buy the expansion but has necro
Under the purposed system, both necros will be able to use Great Sword

I may have missed something, i sort of just skimmed over most of the thread.

My personal opinion is, once you unlock that new content in HoT, then the weapon should be usable whenever you want to use it.

Let’s go to the extreme with this convo…
“Why do we have different professions?”
“Why does different professions have different skills?”
“Why does different skills do different things?”
“Why can’t we pick what ever skills we want?”
“Why do we have different specialization lines?”
“Why do we have traits?”
“Why do we have elite specialization?”

Answer: Because ANet wants us to!!

Just joking… the real answer is because ANet wants us to be able to create characters that fits a theme or archetype, where each archetype has abilities that reflect a diverse range, to allow flexibility of concept and play style, while still fitting with the theme.

Having different skills allows personalization of what your character can do different from others. Traits establishes how, what you do is different from others that can do the same thing. There used o be trait lines, but it was changed to Specializations, to ensure that players can make an effective character.

Elite Specializations are intended to augment the profession from it’s typical play style by tilting the theme, adding new skills, weapons, and altering the professional mechanics.

To sum this all up… you can’t get what ever skills and weapons you want because it won’t fit with the theme of the profession or elite specialization and it wouldn’t ensure being an effective player. Although ANet wants us to have some flexibility, they also want us to have some boundaries.