Guild Wars 2

I just had a thought this morning that I wanted to share with everyone. I see quite a few posts referring to the professions being “walled in” to a limited number of viable builds. What if our trait point budget was increased to 90? This would allow three full trait lines, if we so choose, or more points for diversification. For the extra 20 trait points, how about “cashing in” skill points for trait points, but permitted only at level 80?

Thanks for taking the time to read my post and I look forward to seeing what some of you think about this!

No. The game is balanced around 70 which works perfectly fine.

Sure I sometimes wish I could have that one trait, but that wish only ceases to exist at 150 trait points, at which point there isn’t build diversity at all. Increasing to 90 would really reduce build diversity since everyone will go for the crit/power/condi cookie cutter lines.

Just wait till they increase level cap by another 20 levels. Should be 2 expansions from now.

I actually prefer te way it is now. We can fully specialize in up to two trait lines and then dip into another for a slight bonus. Or we can fully specialize in one trait line and dip into muliple others for a spread of bonuses. I would actually prefer if we were limited to just one Grand Master trait line.

What is the point of specializing if you are not limited in some way for doing it?

Personally I wouldn’t mind if they gave us enough points to have all trait lines open. Even if they did this we would still be limited as we can’t change traits during combat etc.

I wouldn’t think they would have to give us the extra bonuses such as the extra toughness etc. Perhaps just a way to unlock a few more of the traits from the other lines without fully opening up the line, I don’t know but I feel it would help somewhat.

If they raised the level cap, chances are that they would add another tier to the traitlines.

“What is the point of specializing if you are not limited in some way for doing it?”

In reply to this question I can give a small example. Specializing at the moment for some things requires you to have 2 complete full trait lines to do so effectively. An example is for an Engineer who wants to specilize for the flamethrower. You want Juggernaught for the extra defence you also want the extra 15% damage for the weapon. Having those I’m pretty sure you need 2 trait lines maxed at 30.

Also going for the extra 15% damage you then lose the chance to build up the toughness trait line. So in effect you really are not getting the full benefit from the extra defence from the juggernaught trait. In the end you are still -100 toughness than you would be if you went with toughness instead.

Perhaps they just need to alter a few trait lines for some classes to better suit certain weapons, kits, builds etc…….

Toxyn.9608:

I actually prefer te way it is now. We can fully specialize in up to two trait lines and then dip into another for a slight bonus. Or we can fully specialize in one trait line and dip into muliple others for a spread of bonuses. I would actually prefer if we were limited to just one Grand Master trait line.

What is the point of specializing if you are not limited in some way for doing it?

Yes I agree.
The whole point now with specialization is that you must choose which way you want your character to develop.
You can choose to re-spec of course but it makes for more build options and different play styles really.
This is why I can have two mesmers :P

Astralporing.1957:

Just wait till they increase level cap by another 20 levels. Should be 2 expansions from now.

They might extend the trait lines with that as well, so I doubt they will just add more points and leave the trait lines the same.

The other problem with going from 70 to 90 in the current set up is that it makes diversity less between builds. You won’t have to make choices.

Right now the problem is that you do have to make choices but the choices hardly matter for most content.

So my solution is not to increase the amount of trait points but to make the trait lines more meaningful than they are now. I think that’s also the reason why some people want more trait points because the current trait lines aren’t…well, let’s say they aren’t exciting.

I like the choices that you make with 70… I think giving more points would actually make characters more similar because now you wouldn’t have some of the tough decisions of what you’re gonna give up for something that you want… you would be able to get most the things that you want…

Your argument might work if we had an unlimited things to spend those points on… but with a limited amount of traits to spend it on, you’re actually making characters more similar

No. The game is balanced around 70 traits. Everyone would be able to do everything, some incredibly strong cohesions between traits would come out, and all builds would become more samey.

Why do people want the level cap to increase, btw? It’s just the same game with bigger numbers

Writetyper.1985:

Why do people want the level cap to increase, btw? It’s just the same game with bigger numbers

Because for most people character progression stops at the level cap; forget phat lewt and gear, I’m talking about character abilities and skill, the continued evolution of playstyle for the class you’re playing, gear generally just makes you more ‘powerful’ without changing the way you play.

And I suggest most games players want more than arriving at the destination (ie. the level cap) then sit there forever running the same content.

True, some games manage this without actually increasing the level number (eg. FFXI with their ‘merit’ system, Rift with PAs. etc) but generally mobs also have to increase in strength to keep balance with increased character power; for that, and other reasons, it seems to me that non-level based character progression tends to be unsatisfactory.

Kraggy.4169:

Writetyper.1985:

Why do people want the level cap to increase, btw? It’s just the same game with bigger numbers

Because for most people character progression stops at the level cap; forget phat lewt and gear, I’m talking about character abilities and skill, the continued evolution of playstyle for the class you’re playing, gear generally just makes you more ‘powerful’ without changing the way you play.

And I suggest most games players want more than arriving at the destination (ie. the level cap) then sit there forever running the same content.

True, some games manage this without actually increasing the level number (eg. FFXI with their ‘merit’ system, Rift with PAs. etc) but generally mobs also have to increase in strength to keep balance with increased character power; for that, and other reasons, it seems to me that non-level based character progression tends to be unsatisfactory.

I don’t understand MMO players. You just want something to aim for, and when you get there, you get nothing but slightly larger numbers than everyone else? But not really because then everyone else has the same numbers?

Why not make things to do instead of increasing the level cap so instead of a wild goose chase for meaningless rewards, you can actually have fun. Isn’t that what games are for, fun, right? Something with replay value in it apart from just exploiting past stuff to grind for meaningless kitten to look pretty in something where there’s nothing to do. I mean Wub and Fractals and getting Dungeon Master can only go so far.

I’d be happier if they give us a way to save builds and use them at idk, any safe zone/town/waypoint for a cost (not at a trainer!), guess changing the builds anytime when out of combat would be a tad OP-ish in some cases, specially s/tPvP.
But even the ability just to save builds and to change at trainers would be veeeeeery appreciated.

Edit: Ah yeh, 90 points, too many points and traits, some builds would be quite more powerful than now.

owch, too broken. 70 points already allows you to take just under 50% of your available traits. i could see 75 trait points happening, but i would never want it to go over that.

the sad thing is that there are probably some classes where having 3 grandmaster majors would be a much-needed improvement, and other classes where having 3 grandmaster majors would be like the apocalypse. kind of like in beta before the traits were even tiered.

Writetyper.1985:

Kraggy.4169:

Writetyper.1985:

Why do people want the level cap to increase, btw? It’s just the same game with bigger numbers

Because for most people character progression stops at the level cap; forget phat lewt and gear, I’m talking about character abilities and skill, the continued evolution of playstyle for the class you’re playing, gear generally just makes you more ‘powerful’ without changing the way you play.

And I suggest most games players want more than arriving at the destination (ie. the level cap) then sit there forever running the same content.

True, some games manage this without actually increasing the level number (eg. FFXI with their ‘merit’ system, Rift with PAs. etc) but generally mobs also have to increase in strength to keep balance with increased character power; for that, and other reasons, it seems to me that non-level based character progression tends to be unsatisfactory.

I don’t understand MMO players. You just want something to aim for, and when you get there, you get nothing but slightly larger numbers than everyone else? But not really because then everyone else has the same numbers?

Why not make things to do instead of increasing the level cap so instead of a wild goose chase for meaningless rewards, you can actually have fun. Isn’t that what games are for, fun, right? Something with replay value in it apart from just exploiting past stuff to grind for meaningless kitten to look pretty in something where there’s nothing to do. I mean Wub and Fractals and getting Dungeon Master can only go so far.

Thing is, people want to get better and advance, its generally a really exciting feeling when you break through.
That said, for me gear isnt that exciting or the number crunch.
what is exciting is getting new abilities, skills, and refining your favorite skill setups. hence why people feel a desire for more skill points, although their solution would actually make each build less unique overall.

What they could do is have you unlock traits/skills through content. but leaving current limits, like 70 points, and your current amount of slots, so you still have to choose.

Another possibility is to have a lot of new and challenging content to do (if its not challenging it wont give the feeling of breaking through and achieving something great) But that would probably not be maintainable, and generally would need better rewards, which starts to make it the only way to do things.

Kraggy.4169:

Because for most people character progression stops at the level cap; forget phat lewt and gear, I’m talking about character abilities and skill, the continued evolution of playstyle for the class you’re playing, gear generally just makes you more ‘powerful’ without changing the way you play.

The problem with this statement is that most of the people that want to increase the level cap are the same people who rushed to get there in the first place because they just had to be max, and then proceeded to complain that the cap should be raised.

Paulytnz.7619:

“What is the point of specializing if you are not limited in some way for doing it?”

In reply to this question I can give a small example. Specializing at the moment for some things requires you to have 2 complete full trait lines to do so effectively. An example is for an Engineer who wants to specilize for the flamethrower. You want Juggernaught for the extra defence you also want the extra 15% damage for the weapon. Having those I’m pretty sure you need 2 trait lines maxed at 30.

Also going for the extra 15% damage you then lose the chance to build up the toughness trait line. So in effect you really are not getting the full benefit from the extra defence from the juggernaught trait. In the end you are still -100 toughness than you would be if you went with toughness instead.

Perhaps they just need to alter a few trait lines for some classes to better suit certain weapons, kits, builds etc…….

Think about that one for a second.

You need to make choices. I.e.: You need to make a build.

Tada. You can’t have a build that has everything.

Right now the game is balanced towards letting you have up to 6 minor and major traits active at any one time, plus forcing a certain distribution of statistics. e.g.: You can go full offence at the cost of survivability, or you can get yourself some extra defense at the cost of the high glass-cannon damage.

You can change this easily enough, but you can’t simply have every trait and stat available. If you could, there would be no reason to have a build (let alone minor traits), as every build would simply have everything.

And, personal opinions aside, that would be fine if that was the way the game was built and balanced around, but it isn’t. Right now the game is designed with the consideration that you can’t have 3 grandmaster traits in mind. Or even 2 grandmaster and 1 master from another tree. You get 2 grandmaster and 1 basic traits, or 1 grandmaster and 2 masters, at most. Letting everyone have everything would require a significant, not rebalancing, but redesign of how the entire character building works.

Come on people, think these things through for a minute.

As someone who does not spec into 30pts in any trait line I would like to see the number of traits increased. Many of my Tier 3 traits are just not that rewarding. Sometimes I can get better utility by putting 10 or 15 points into another tier, and equalizing the changes with gear, than filling up one to 30. It may be just my lust for power but I always feel like if I just had another 10 or 20 I would be able to play like I want.

Writetyper.1985:

No. The game is balanced around 70 traits. Everyone would be able to do everything, some incredibly strong cohesions between traits would come out, and all builds would become more samey.

Why do people want the level cap to increase, btw? It’s just the same game with bigger numbers

I do not – it’s just that the developers said it will happen, and that the game is already designed for it. That must mean traitlines were designed with future levels in mind already. Of course, they might not have been entirely correct saying that the game design from the get-go already supports level expansion.

Rather than filling in more trait lines (which reduces diversity)…

I would be nice to have longer trait lines to enable to use more skills on a same line, that would increase diversity and enable to make builds that suit each person’s style.

Adding some trait point for a possible over 80 content added later later on would therefor be very nice IF the trait lines are made longer opening more options to specialize or to spread as one feels appropriate.

There would be no need for a complicated add of new skills, just make it possible to use more of the existing at the same time.

I think 70 is fine. So many traits still don’t work correctly.

You could give me all traits full on my ranger I’m sure I would still get obliterated.

Kraggy.4169:

Writetyper.1985:

Why do people want the level cap to increase, btw? It’s just the same game with bigger numbers

And I suggest most games players want more than arriving at the destination (ie. the level cap) then sit there forever running the same content.

You don’t have to raise the level cap to add new content, you know. There’s always the option of adding new content at the same power level as the existing stuff so players (GASP!) have a choice of what content they want to do. See DAoC’s Shrouded Isles expansion as an example of a major MMO that did exactly that.

A skilled artist works within a restricted colour palette, rather than just barfing rainbows everywhere.

Pass.

The only reason to increase the trait limit is to 1.) cover up failed class design because they need 20 more traits to become functional or 2.) because the class has too many traits that are deemed mandatory. Neither situation is acceptable.

There are simply too many worthless traits or poorly designed class mechanics to ignore by increasing trait limits because what of the classes that actually have good trait systems? Guardians, Warriors, and Thieves are probably the only classes in this game with actual build diversity. Lets work on the other classes first so everyone isn’t running the same exact spec.

If they actually do expand the level cap along with trait points, chances are it’ll involve adding a new trait tier to the classes as well. Adding 20 points would allow for 40/40/10, although if they’re very powerful traits the skill points may be less (might be only 10 points for 80 trait point cap).

I actually would like to see a trait-line expansion which would be the best reason for getting more trait points to spend. But before that I want a lot of traits reworked and improved on for all the classes.

God i hope we never get new trait points, new levels are fine but i hope we get something new to customize ourselves for those next few levels, not more trait points.

That being said i’d rather there be no levels, but if they add em w/e, not a big issue, i just feel whenever games add more trait/talent points it just becomes less and less customizable because you need to keep specializing further and further to be viable instead of spending them elsewhere.

btw, you don’t even need to grandmaster to be viable, so if you don’t want to super specialize don’t, i know my friend runs a 20/20/20/0/10 build (i know there’s 3 20’s and a 10) for i think it’s his warrior? Or maybe his necromancer… idk i can ask him if anyone wants to know more specifically what the build is.

PS: I said trait POINTS, i’d LOVE for more traits to be added for each area (IE another grandmaster or two, and other such categories).

I don’t see a problem with that. Even if there were 120 points to spend. It is not that you become god. The only thing that would happen is that the game or some situations would be easier.

@Astralporing.1957
Wait, wait, wait, the devs said a raise in level cap was going to happen??
Where was this mentioned?

I railed against the 20 cap in Gw1, but 80 here feels just about right. That’s the point where I stop feeling like I need to be more powerful to keep up and can focus on specing out gear and traits. If there’s a cap increase it’ll almost inevitably come with a new tier of gear, which will mean the effort to getting my stuff just right for level 80 with all go down the drain

On topic, I have a couple builds I’d like to try but they’d only work right with another 5-10 points. One I actually spec’d and only realized it wouldn’t work when I ran out of trait points (I’d mentally been counting from 80 points instead of 70). SO I wouldn’t mind a few more, or maybe just for some tweaking to certain trait skills.

Edit: I do see where maxing all the trait lines would be a problem, since everyone would get all the stat bonuses and the only difference would be which trait skills you went with. That would really water down build diversity.

Paulytnz.7619:

Personally I wouldn’t mind if they gave us enough points to have all trait lines open. Even if they did this we would still be limited as we can’t change traits during combat etc.

I wouldn’t think they would have to give us the extra bonuses such as the extra toughness etc. Perhaps just a way to unlock a few more of the traits from the other lines without fully opening up the line, I don’t know but I feel it would help somewhat.

You can’t change major traits during combat, but minor traits and the passive stat bonuses are quite enough already. Traits arn’t meant to give you every tool for every job, you gata go down the route that best suits your needs. Utility skills, weapon skills, those are adjustable already. Why ofcourse you feel like an extra 3 or 4 minor traits would help, we all do but then where is the build diversity? Completely disagree with more trait points, ArenaNet gives us plenty room to work with as is.

I ran some theorycrafting a while ago, and i came to the conclusion that 80 Trait points would allow the most build vareity, while still preventing balance disasters and people from “picking everything” (while adjustments sure would have to be made).

90 points on the other hand is definately to much, making build vareity nearly non existent due to allowing to get everything even slightly usefull for your playstyle, while 70 points only allow from 2 up to 3 viable builds for each profession due to the restrictions (it’s a fine line and 10 points more or less can mean a lot).

Basically,

80 points allow you to spec heavily into the main thing you want to do, but also allow you to customize that main style with your personal preference by adding something to it, providing a great build vareity.

70 points only allow you to build one main spec, of which every class has about 2 or 3 (con dmg dealer/direct damage dealer, con damage dealer/support/bunker etc.), cuncluding in a average build vareity.

90 points allow you to get everything you need to fill mutiple main roles, which will most likely conclude in one optimum (con and direct damage dealer, damage dealing bunker etc.), resulting in a absolute poor build vareity.

Behind this is days of thinking and “mindcrafting” which i either (besides the conclusion) don’t recall, or don’t want to write down for hours without a good reason (going tru examples of hunderds of Trait combinations for multiple professions with multiple Traitpoint variations and so on).

//E:
Personal conclusion:

As theorycrafter i find the idea of 80 Trait points way more interesting than 70 or 90 Traitpoints (or any other number), since it opens up just enough, but not to much, to provide a great build vareity.

//E2:
I understand the decision of ArenaNet to cap Traitpoints at 70, which for sure also had influences by things like the philosophy of not overwhelming new players, in this case by already giving them the option to spend Trait points at level one, a point where they most likely have no idea what all that stuff even is about.
But keep in mind that (at least ideally) the time you have a learning Level 1-10 player is short and the time you have optimizing Level 80’s is long.

So compared to trapping all dedicated long term players into two or three playstyles, overwhelming some newbies seems less significant.

(Besides that, 80 Levels = 80 Trait points is probably the least confusing thing possible after all.)

Fyrebrand.4859:

A skilled artist works within a restricted colour palette, rather than just barfing rainbows everywhere.

Kitten me that me ROFL.

Back to topic…

80 trait points would be nice. 80 levele, 80 trait points. You don’t need to unlock them before lv10, just get a bonus of 10 extra triat points when you reach level 80.

Don’t like this 70 is enough.

Personally I hope they will never increase it further.

phys.7689:

Writetyper.1985:

Kraggy.4169:

Writetyper.1985:

Why do people want the level cap to increase, btw? It’s just the same game with bigger numbers

Because for most people character progression stops at the level cap; forget phat lewt and gear, I’m talking about character abilities and skill, the continued evolution of playstyle for the class you’re playing, gear generally just makes you more ‘powerful’ without changing the way you play.

And I suggest most games players want more than arriving at the destination (ie. the level cap) then sit there forever running the same content.

True, some games manage this without actually increasing the level number (eg. FFXI with their ‘merit’ system, Rift with PAs. etc) but generally mobs also have to increase in strength to keep balance with increased character power; for that, and other reasons, it seems to me that non-level based character progression tends to be unsatisfactory.

I don’t understand MMO players. You just want something to aim for, and when you get there, you get nothing but slightly larger numbers than everyone else? But not really because then everyone else has the same numbers?

Why not make things to do instead of increasing the level cap so instead of a wild goose chase for meaningless rewards, you can actually have fun. Isn’t that what games are for, fun, right? Something with replay value in it apart from just exploiting past stuff to grind for meaningless kitten to look pretty in something where there’s nothing to do. I mean Wub and Fractals and getting Dungeon Master can only go so far.

Thing is, people want to get better and advance, its generally a really exciting feeling when you break through.
That said, for me gear isnt that exciting or the number crunch.
what is exciting is getting new abilities, skills, and refining your favorite skill setups. hence why people feel a desire for more skill points, although their solution would actually make each build less unique overall.

What they could do is have you unlock traits/skills through content. but leaving current limits, like 70 points, and your current amount of slots, so you still have to choose.

Another possibility is to have a lot of new and challenging content to do (if its not challenging it wont give the feeling of breaking through and achieving something great) But that would probably not be maintainable, and generally would need better rewards, which starts to make it the only way to do things.

you know, i understand about wanting to play your character to its max ability. what i don’t understand is the need to play to max ability, but please-give-me-more-to-max, instead of working within what is. for instance, i played and played and played through thief, redoing my thief’s traits numerous times, until i found a build that 1) does HUGE damage and 2) is AMAZINGLY survivable. THAT was thrilling.

my husband recently did the same thing, on his warrior. again, THAT was thrilling.

i don’t think the answer is always, “give me more to play with, what you have isn’t enough to do what i want.” i think sometimes (and yeah, i look at life this way, too) the answer has to be “how can i be the best i can be with what i have?”

anet has given us a tremendous amount of customization. for all those who are stuck at the “go-find-the-right-build-on-the-internet-then-copy-it-stage” you’re short-changing yourself. you’re not really learning the profession, you’re parroting what someone else did, in order to get those big numbers.

what i love about this game is that it goes back to two simple things:
1) did i live through the fight?
2) did the bad guy die

we’ve forgotten the joy in those two things, in the search for ever-bigger numbers … and really? if 1 and 2 are met, then the job is done, and the numbers? they don’t matter.

I just want to thank everyone who responded to my thread on this topic. I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated your views.

The consensus seems to emphasize a trait system where implementing more points is not the answer, but reworking existing traits to be more meaningful and synergistic is really the heart of the matter. Many of you provided clear examples, which was great.

The Trait System needs to be more complex, so that it will allow all players an universal build system that is as variable as possible.
The Trait System needs a split up into active effects as “Traits” and passive effects as “Talents” and it needs to be in general bigger so that players can get really a good impression of how much impact the system should have on character progression…
GW2 should be alot lesser about item progression and more about character progression, because character progression is alot more fun, than item progression, which mostly means always only grind, where character progression can be combined with alot more things, that can add more fun aspects to the whole game.
Actually the trait system has just “only” 3 tiers.
The tier ranks should look like this:

Tier 1 = Novice – unlocked from begin on
Tier 2 = Adapt – unlockable with Level 11
Tier 3 = Expert – unlockable with Level 31
Tier 4 = Master – unlockable with Level 51
Tier 5 = Grand Master – unlockable with Level 71
Tier 6 = Sage – unlockable with Level 80, when played through the game, having beaten Zhaitan

Increasing the amount of Tier Ranks and splitting up the Trait System into A ) Abilities and B ) Talents

Every Class should have 5 Ability Trees and 5 Talents being tiered from T1 to T6
Maxing one of the Ability Trees should cost a Character 60 Ability Points
Every 5 Ability Points comes a Minor Ability
Every 10 Ability Points comes a Major Ability

This means all 5 Ability Trees would need together 300 Ability Points to max out all.
From those 300 players should receive 180
So players should be able to max out 3 of 5 Abilities being able to put up 18 different Major Abilities that become YOUR individual build.
The current system just allows for up to 7 Major Traits that define your build.

Those 180 Ability Points come from this ways : 100 from reaching Level 100, 80 from doing over Tyria 80 different “Ability Challenges”, which would be basically the current Skill Points.

Talents on the other hand work the other way. Talent Poin#t wouldn’t be receivable via Leveling, nor via mini tasks like the Ability Challanges.
Talent Points would be only receivable by doing Missions for your Mentors
Mentors are new travelling and all over Tyria findable Sages, which share their wisdom with you, if you fulfill various very hard and really challenging tasks for them.

So again here, 5 Talent Trease 300 points needed to max all, but only 180 receivable. But this time, you don’t get the majority of them by leveling your character. No, this time you have to work for your talents.
Talents would basically work, like hunting down bosses in GW1 for their elite skills.

These changes should come by with an additional adding of a sub class system to further add content to specialize your character into something unique, which will help also in adding more weapon skill builds via new “battle styles” between which players can choose like switching in battle between weapons.
Yes, this will definetly make the game more complex, sure, but the game would greatly profitate from this new complexity, as the game would become alot more interesting to play over long time.

My Ability/Talent-Split up Trait System Concept here is just basically inspired from offline rpg games, just like the Star Ocean -Series, where characters always have had their ACTIVE battle abilities into which players could put points into to make some character progress in them and then again there were always in these game various kinds of passive Talents you could make character progress in and put points into, which have had in a different way their impact on the whole character by adding passive buff effects, stat boni or changed effects of active abilities and so on.

In the end, this change would be a great way to introduce some kind of “master and pupil – system” to GW2, which I’m personally really missing in the game.

• Even greater would be this system, if players could even have other players as their personal mentors* But this could be maybe just something special for earning the like last 10 talent points to implement also an incentive to play together with other players to maximize your own character progression to get ypour last talent points you’d be able to earn in the game.

4 things should be done:

1. Redesign the bonuses you get from investing in a tree to be more meaningful, interesting and scale with gear
2. Allow you to get traits from other trees (perhaps 1-2 slots dedicated to cross-tree traits)
3. Separate traits into minor, major and superior, because currently there are alot of traits that are simply too gimmicky
4. Increase the amount of traits available