Whenever you, Arena Net, decide it be fitting to do a serious expansion with new classes and such, I would like to see:
An Alternative Trait-Line Branch
Thus, letting us put up to 60 points into a trait-line choose TWO adept / master / grandmaster traits and really specializing into a specific stat if we so desire.
This would raise the diversity in builds with to-scale trade-offs that keep things from going out of control.
Note: I make this suggestion under the assumption that, in an expansion, at least 1 new grandmaster trait will be introduced for each trait-line (for a total of 3), so that full 60-into-1-line builds won’t all be pigeonholed into the same formats.
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Open to Criticism:
Please post if you support this idea, and do explain why you don’t, I will do my best to defend or adjust. Un-constructive subjective opinions will be ignored.
(edited by DreamOfACure.4382)
I’d be surprised if it happened.
First, because putting 60 out of your 70 attribute points in one trait would likely lead to attribute values outside the scope ArenaNet has balanced the game for, as you could get an additional +300 to any of the primary trait lines’ stats, or an additional +30% critical damage.
Additionally, other aspects of the game lead me to believe they want some variety in the trait point distribution – the restrictions on the maximum amount you can put it during the early levels are there to ensure you “spread out” a bit, which goes against the hyper-focus on one trait line that you’re advocating.
There’s also the UI/balance work that would be required. The traits UI would have to be re-done, and the training manuals would have to be adjusted to account for the new point maximums – do you change the earlier manuals to 20, 40, 60 or does it become 10, 20, 60, or maybe 10, 30, 60? What are the balance implications?
Finally, doing so would amount to much of the work needed to make and balance the trait lines of the class in the first place. Three new “automatic” traits and four new “selectable” traits make seven of the fifteen traits they had to come up with in the first place for each line. They could add two new complete trait lines to each class with less work, and likely add more build variety to boot.
So I don’t suspect ArenaNet is looking to expand classes in the direction you’re suggesting.
Summary / TL;DR version:
First, because putting 60 out of your 70 attribute points in one trait would likely lead to attribute values outside the scope ArenaNet has balanced the game for, as you could get an additional +300 to any of the primary trait lines’ stats, or an additional +30% critical damage.
Finally, doing so would amount to much of the work needed to make and balance the trait lines of the class in the first place.
Extending the possible stats beyond current single-line limits and the necessary work why this is an expansion-only suggestion.
This is only outside of their scope now. A year from now, with a major expansion, that’s a completely different story.
The “scope” balance and inherent workload is pretty irrelevant given the scope that expansions can cover.
other aspects of the game lead me to believe they want some variety in the trait point distribution – the restrictions on the maximum amount you can put it during the early levels are there to ensure you “spread out” a bit, which goes against the hyper-focus on one trait line that you’re advocating.
I see this as a game design flaw.
They’re essentially encouraging everyone into bunker builds and jack-of-all-trade builds.
Even glass-cannon builds spread out their points.
It is my belief that the game is limited in such a fashion simply because, like with many other features in the game, Arena Net was crunched for time and could not give the system as much polish as they would have liked.
There’s no reason to limit the builds this way, hence also why I’m making this suggestion.
the training manuals would have to be adjusted to account for the new point maximums – do you change the earlier manuals to 20, 40, 60 or does it become 10, 20, 60, or maybe 10, 30, 60? What are the balance implications?
The simplest and least restrictive would be to make one manual unlock 10 points on each branch (20 points on each line), so the 20/40/60 route you named.
And the issues with balance aren’t relevant here.
They would be exactly as I would want them to be – To let a player before level40 put up to 20 points in a specific line for specialized build results.
Three new “automatic” traits and four new “selectable” traits make seven of the fifteen traits they had to come up with in the first place for each line.
The “selectable” traits would only be three (1 adept, 1 master, 1 grandmaster), and none of them would be new. They would only be additional slots – So you could pick Trait 1 and Trait 3 using 2 adept slots instead of an adept slot and master slot.
So, no. They would only need to make 15 new minor traits.
(20 if you include the grandmaster major traits I presume will be added with an expansion)
They could add two new complete trait lines to each class with less work, and likely add more build variety to boot.
Adding two new trait lines would not increase diversity for less work. It would be more.
It would mean introducing multiple stats (at least 4) to the profession, and coming up with entirely new and fresh play-styles to tailor those stats to for each profession, so that they could produce the 12 new major traits and 3 new minor traits for each trait-line.
2 trait-lines would be equivalent to adding 30 new traits onto a profession.
And that’s on top of the new traits I presume they would add to the existing trait-lines.
15~20 (without new play-styles to make) is less work then 30 (with new play styles to make).
(edited by DreamOfACure.4382)
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I see this as a game design flaw.They’re essentially encouraging everyone into bunker builds and jack-of-all-trade builds.
Even glass-cannon builds spread out their points.It is my belief that the game is limited in such a fashion simply because, like with many other features in the game, Arena Net was crunched for time and could not give the system as much polish as they would have liked.
There’s no reason to limit the builds this way, hence also why I’m making this suggestion.
I understand you deem it a flaw – I don’t believe that ArenaNet deems it one. I believe that the fact that glass cannon builds must spend points outside power/precision is ArenaNet’s explicit intent, and not the result of a lack of time and/or polish.
The reason I believe that is the limits on points as you level. You have 30 points to spend long before you can put 30 points in one trait line. If they’d intended/desired to allow total focus on one line, they could easily have allowed for it.
Personally, I believe you proposal would reduce build diversity, as “Glass Cannon” and “Bunker” builds would spend even more of their points in the “effective” traits, and what little is spent outside them would vanish. But I’ve no axe to grind here – I was trying to express two fundamental reasons I’d be surprised if this happened.
1) It’s a lot of work.
2) I think that ArenaNet doesn’t view this as a flaw.
Since it’s a lot of work, doing this would mean not doing something else. Since they don’t see it as a flaw, they’re not likely to put it on the list of things-to-do in the first place.
If you want this to happen, saying “it’s not a lot of work for an expansion” and “the current state of the game is a design flaw” isn’t likely to aid your cause with the folks who matter – the development team.
What you need to demonstrate is “Why this is better for the game than anything else you could spend this much effort on” and “this is why you should change your design goals”.
This isn’t easy for an outsider to do; You need to discover why the system is the way it is – what goals the current system meets, what problems it was designed to avert, and then you can ensure your proposal cogently addresses them.
I’ve got a lot of level 80 characters in GW2, and I’m sure I’d like to put more than 30 points in a trait line here or there (although I don’t see myself putting 60 in one spot, regardless) – but I don’t see it happening.
I’ve got a lot of level 80 characters in GW2, and I’m sure I’d like to put more than 30 points in a trait line here or there (although I don’t see myself putting 60 in one spot, regardless) – but I don’t see it happening.
Arena Net has proven to be willing to listen to the community.
Example: Trading-Post-Preview.
This discussion is not an instance to get stuck on what Arena Net thinks, but to express what you want.
Whether or not you see it happening is a subjective matter independent to if Arena Net would be willing to listen to player demand while the limitations are purely due to scarcity of resources between patches which don’t apply for a real expansion.
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None of my builds would change if this were implemented (barring a really cool new minor trait).
I just want more choice for players in general.
And player-choice is something Arena Net is constantly talking about.
(edited by DreamOfACure.4382)
I thought I was reasonably clear in my opinion; I disagree that it would create greater build diversity, and I wouldn’t likely take advantage of the feature were it implemented.
Therefore, I’d prefer they spend their time and effort elsewhere.
But as I said, simply having lots of folks declare they want something is unlikely to influence ArenaNet’s development priorities if they disagree with the goals of the movement.
The trading post is a good example; ArenaNet didn’t implement preview in the trading post because it was against their internal vision of how the trading post should work, they did so because the technical underpinnings of the trading post were sufficiently different from those of the inventory/hero screen/stores that it wasn’t practicable to do so before launch.
Player demand is much more likely to influence the order of things ArenaNet would do, than to add an item ArenaNet would not do on their own. The very nature of things is that there’s always more to do on a game like this than ArenaNet has time/resources to accomplish. Putting something like this on the schedule means removing something else – something ArenaNet has already decided would be good for the game to do.
As such, you’ve got a much higher bar to pass for this than we did for the trading post preview.
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