Guild Wars 2

Maybe I’m the only person who didn’t notice this, but last night it was pointed out to me that you can change your Major Trait choices when you’re out of combat (OOC). You don’t have to “respec” in order to make other choices. (This isn’t changing your trait point allocation, just your Adept, Master, and GrandMaster choices.)

No other MMO or RPG I’ve played in the past allowed you to do this kind of thing, so I never even thought to try it. It totally changes my conception of traits.

For one thing, it changes the idea of trait line organization. I’ve seen complaints in these forums that traits aren’t organized as people expect. Traits that strengthen the staff or that enhance minions are scattered among different trait lines. But given that you can switch, the organization makes a lot more sense: With points in Spite, you can choose to increase the damage of your marks, minions, yourself while downed, or to increase your damage against foes with low health, etc.

If you like to use your staff, 10 points in Death Magic increases the area of your marks and makes them unblockable (Greater Marks). But if you don’t generally use your staff in dungeons because you feel the cooldowns are too long, you can switch to having 3 seconds of protection when you cast a well (Ritual of Protection) for most of the run, and have staff skills recharge 20% faster for select fights (Staff Mastery).

ANet really did re-think things in GW2 compared to other games. I really like that.

It’s pretty cool, there are a lot of situations where I might swap out the level 10/20/30 trait skills but not necessarily respec. Also just to try some out to see if they’re worthwhile.

@Druitt

Not sure I got it right, but man It must have been a pain so play like that.

It’s really useful to switch you trait ooc, especially when you have to swap some traits for PvE/Dungeon/WvW. The 50% fall damage being great for WvW but useless in other place, I swap it a lot.

@Kardiamond: Yeah, it was a pain. In previous games I’ve played, you had to respec, which involved some kind of pain (go to a particular location, pay an NPC, buy a book, etc) to “give your choices weight”. Some, like WoW eventually allowed dual specs. (Even before dual specs, there were guilds who were fanatic enough to do respecing or even swap players/characters before a big boss fight.) So I assumed that changing my trait choices would involve a trait point refund. :-(

So I’m really rethinking builds in terms of what trait lines and how many points in them will give me the bonus stats that best fit my goals and work with my gear, plus give me the options I want to choose from in different situations.

Your example of 50% fall damage is perfect. It seems like a great idea for WvW or for PvE map completion, but I couldn’t see a non-gimmicky way to use it in PvE fights.

Heck, I’m a big non-fan of the Focus, for example, but now that I might be able to actually swap some traits to enhance it for a particular encounter, it even makes me reconsider weapon choices.

So I posted this in case others had overlooked the option. Was this the way GW1 was? Are there other similar MMO/RPG games that work similarly?

(Call me lazy, but I’m never going to respec — in the sense of trait point refunds — on a daily basis, unless there is some kind of dual-spec or spec memory system. But changing Adept, Master, and GrandMaster choices? Yep, I’ll do that several times in an evening.)

I keep a weapon of every type I can wield on every character I make. Never know when those might come in handy. Even multiple sets of armor. Combined with hot-swapping traits you can really alter your build to plan for an encounter. Especially tedious ones like Lupi.

It’s still not as good of a system as it could be. Look at Rift for example you could swap between 5-6 different build templates on the fly. I really wish GW2 would allow something like that. So if I’m on keep defense i can swap to spec X and if on keep offense swap to spec Y.

For a game that was trying to break the standard MMO mold for many aspects I’m surprised they stuck with the lame old pay for respec system.

Sprawl.3891:

For a game that was trying to break the standard MMO mold for many aspects I’m surprised they stuck with the lame old pay for respec system.

My guess would be that they were trying to still provide a certain weight to your spec decisions.

Your description of Rift sounds intriguing to me, but also like it might be more of a collect-the-whole-set kind of mentality where your build choices really don’t carry much weight. Where does it stop? Should we be able to have gear enhancement sets, distinct from our gear sets? Should we be able to swap characters on the fly? (I’m getting beat on with my Necro, so I swap in my Warrior?) At some point there need to be decision points that are irreversible or at least cost us something to change our minds, I think.

I think I like the idea that we’re stuck with the trait points we’ve allocated to each trait line, but within each trait line we’re free to modify specific trait decisions. Some decisions-that-matter and some flexibility, combined. It also means a little less carrying of all kinds of armor, since our trait stat bonuses are fixed. (I do carry one of each weapon, though, since weapons equate to skills.)

One of the classic examples of this is Warrior’s banners and shouts. The most powerful abilities for each are in the exact same line, all the way up to grandmaster.

Sprawl.3891:

For a game that was trying to break the standard MMO mold for many aspects I’m surprised they stuck with the lame old pay for respec system.

This is one old feature I actually don’t get the hate about. Too much flexibility and your character ceases to be a character and turns into a mass of stats and metagaming decisions that have no permanence in regard to how you’d like to play. I personally like the choice between being generally good at everything vs specialized in certain areas. It creates a certain identity of playstyle, and while I’m not a roleplayer I still like to think of my character as a character and not having everything being about the metagame.

Druitt.7629:

So I posted this in case others had overlooked the option. Was this the way GW1 was? Are there other similar MMO/RPG games that work similarly?

In GW1, you did not have to pay to respec (although unlocking a secondary profession may require doing so). Any time you were in a town or outpost, you could move your attribute points and change your skills. However, once you left said town or outpost, your skills were set (unless you learned a new one, in which case you could swap that one in) and your attributes could not be decreased (however, you could throw more points in, usually done when leveling up). Even changing your secondary profession could be done freely in a town or outpost.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Druitt.7629:

So I posted this in case others had overlooked the option. Was this the way GW1 was? Are there other similar MMO/RPG games that work similarly?

In GW1, you did not have to pay to respec (although unlocking a secondary profession may require doing so). Any time you were in a town or outpost, you could move your attribute points and change your skills. However, once you left said town or outpost, your skills were set (unless you learned a new one, in which case you could swap that one in) and your attributes could not be decreased (however, you could throw more points in, usually done when leveling up). Even changing your secondary profession could be done freely in a town or outpost.

Nope, at the very beginning of GW1, there was a ‘payment’ system for respeccing.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Attribute_Refunds

Took them more than half a year to realize how silly it was.

I didn’t start playing until the game was almost 2, so it’s not surprising I missed that.

Though it’s hilarious that I only remember one Warrior elite getting nerfed because Warriors were abusing it.

Yup wish there was a template loader to do it faster.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Any time you were in a town or outpost, you could move your attribute points and change your skills. However, once you left said town or outpost, your skills were set (unless you learned a new one, in which case you could swap that one in) and your attributes could not be decreased (however, you could throw more points in, usually done when leveling up). Even changing your secondary profession could be done freely in a town or outpost.

Sounds like they made some reasonable changes in GW2: utility skills freely changeable anywhere OOC, specific Major traits changeable anywhere OOC, but trait point allocation requires spending some coin in larger cities.

Druitt.7629:

Sprawl.3891:

For a game that was trying to break the standard MMO mold for many aspects I’m surprised they stuck with the lame old pay for respec system.

My guess would be that they were trying to still provide a certain weight to your spec decisions.

Your description of Rift sounds intriguing to me, but also like it might be more of a collect-the-whole-set kind of mentality where your build choices really don’t carry much weight. Where does it stop? Should we be able to have gear enhancement sets, distinct from our gear sets? Should we be able to swap characters on the fly? (I’m getting beat on with my Necro, so I swap in my Warrior?) At some point there need to be decision points that are irreversible or at least cost us something to change our minds, I think.

I think I like the idea that we’re stuck with the trait points we’ve allocated to each trait line, but within each trait line we’re free to modify specific trait decisions. Some decisions-that-matter and some flexibility, combined. It also means a little less carrying of all kinds of armor, since our trait stat bonuses are fixed. (I do carry one of each weapon, though, since weapons equate to skills.)

Well the thing with Rift is the class spec is a lot deeper than GW2. Each class has 9 tree lines to choose from and can only spec into a maximum of three trees for your build. I think you could save up to 6 builds, but it did cost money to re-spec any of those 6 builds, and you could pay even higher cost to purchase more build slots.

For example as a Rogue you could have a bard spec (healing/support/instruments) an assassin spec (stealth/spike or stealth/bleed variations) a marksman spec (ranged bow) a nightblade spec (elemental damage) riftstalker spec (tank), ranger spec (pet/bow), a sabotouer spec (aoe/bombs), etc. Gearing was generally the same for the most part with exception of having some tank gear for serious PvE tanking. GW2 classes are a lot simpler and have so much less variation than Rift.

So for example if Rift had WvW like GW2 I could be in Marksman spec and pew pew from top of a keep, then soul change to a sin spec on the fly and go run around and gank people trickling out of their portal keep, then switch again to bard if our group was short on healing. It is a great system.

Honestly GW2’s spec trees are very lame and more along the lines of Warhammers boring linear spec “towers”

Sprawl.3891:

So for example if Rift had WvW like GW2 I could be in Marksman spec and pew pew from top of a keep, then soul change to a sin spec on the fly and go run around and gank people trickling out of their portal keep, then switch again to bard if our group was short on healing. It is a great system.

This sounds like a FPS which has an RPG/MMO feel, but I think it’s too much for an RPG/MMO: your character is just a collection of stats. Which is OK in an FPS, because an FPS is all about you at the keyboard, not your character.

Druitt.7629:

Sprawl.3891:

So for example if Rift had WvW like GW2 I could be in Marksman spec and pew pew from top of a keep, then soul change to a sin spec on the fly and go run around and gank people trickling out of their portal keep, then switch again to bard if our group was short on healing. It is a great system.

This sounds like a FPS which has an RPG/MMO feel, but I think it’s too much for an RPG/MMO: your character is just a collection of stats. Which is OK in an FPS, because an FPS is all about you at the keyboard, not your character.

Er no, Rift is more of a traditional MMO than GW2. GW2 spvp on the other hand is about as close as you get to an FPS. I don’t understand what you mean by a collection of stats, again it’s nothing like that. Here’s an example of a standard Rift spec:

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?riftstc=1MfMi.ERqkqkAdduqtk.V0V.x.-11

There were lots of people who would fall in love with one particular tree and then just have 5 variations of that spec they used for different situations. So like for the example I showed you someone with have 5 different 61 ponit marksman specs with variations of the other 2 available trees to finesse the build exactly to their liking in different situations.

GW2 on the other hand is boring. You put 30 in one 30 in another and have 10 left over for some minor potential tweaking with a few traits you occasionally swap around, with most being worthless.

I never played GW1 but from what Gw1 players say, they agree, and that they really dumbed down player spec ability in GW2 likely because it’s the easy way out of balancing issues.

Sprawl.3891:

I don’t understand what you mean by a collection of stats, again it’s nothing like that.

What I mean by “a collection of stats” goes back to my original comment in this thread. In order to make a world feel real and your character feel real, some of your decisions need to have a sense of weight to them. If you can change any decision you make at any time, on a moment’s notice, you’re playing an FPS.

Having a respec cost to change your trait allocation is an attempt at this. How you spend your trait points matters. It’s not something you can change second-by-second as you’re flying around the world, it’s something you think about and experiment with and make a tough choice.

Obviously, the total hardcore approach may be challenging, but not really fun. Something like a game where traits can never be changed once chosen, where death is permanent, where a choice in a quest might forever lock you out of particular areas in the game, etc.

But being able to come up with as many alternative specs and gearing as you can think of — or read about here — and switching between them on-the-fly at no cost to yourself makes the game world just a screen on which you — the guy in the chair — matters and your “character” is simply a toon.

Sounds like Rift is fun in many ways, but it doesn’t sound like there’s any weight to your decisions either. If so, it risks becoming a game of collecting stats and listing enough options in advance, then switching all you want as if you were in an FPS running over a power-up.

Personally, I like Skyrim’s approach: you get good at what you do a lot, and you have a limited number of perk points you can spread in a huge range of options. You can choose to concentrate perks, or try to cherry-pick ones that build a unique character. For example, I developed a Magical Ninja (offensive spells, long bow, stealth, and enhanced sensory skills). Not sure that could ever work in an MMO, but it was flexible, BUT if I decided that I wanted to drop bows and concentrate on healing spells instead, it would take working at those spells, not using bows, and I forget if reallocating perk points is even possible. Flexibility, but your choices have significance and weight.

Druitt.7629:

Sprawl.3891:

I don’t understand what you mean by a collection of stats, again it’s nothing like that.

What I mean by “a collection of stats” goes back to my original comment in this thread. In order to make a world feel real and your character feel real, some of your decisions need to have a sense of weight to them. If you can change any decision you make at any time, on a moment’s notice, you’re playing an FPS.

Having a respec cost to change your trait allocation is an attempt at this. How you spend your trait points matters. It’s not something you can change second-by-second as you’re flying around the world, it’s something you think about and experiment with and make a tough choice.

Obviously, the total hardcore approach may be challenging, but not really fun. Something like a game where traits can never be changed once chosen, where death is permanent, where a choice in a quest might forever lock you out of particular areas in the game, etc.

But being able to come up with as many alternative specs and gearing as you can think of — or read about here — and switching between them on-the-fly at no cost to yourself makes the game world just a screen on which you — the guy in the chair — matters and your “character” is simply a toon.

Sounds like Rift is fun in many ways, but it doesn’t sound like there’s any weight to your decisions either. If so, it risks becoming a game of collecting stats and listing enough options in advance, then switching all you want as if you were in an FPS running over a power-up.

Personally, I like Skyrim’s approach: you get good at what you do a lot, and you have a limited number of perk points you can spread in a huge range of options. You can choose to concentrate perks, or try to cherry-pick ones that build a unique character. For example, I developed a Magical Ninja (offensive spells, long bow, stealth, and enhanced sensory skills). Not sure that could ever work in an MMO, but it was flexible, BUT if I decided that I wanted to drop bows and concentrate on healing spells instead, it would take working at those spells, not using bows, and I forget if reallocating perk points is even possible. Flexibility, but your choices have significance and weight.

the respec cost is very little in gw2, its nothing but an annoyance to travel somewhere, respec, and go back to where you were. Like I said, there was still a respec cost in Rift, but they allowed you to atleast save a few favorite builds. And actually with the diverse possibility of builds in Rift people re-spec’d much more often despite having saved sets.

GW2 you can just go to the mists try out whatever build you want at no cost.

so what i dont understand is what you say sounds bad in rift is worse in gw2

Sprawl.3891:

the respec cost is very little in gw2, its nothing but an annoyance to travel somewhere, respec, and go back to where you were. Like I said, there was still a respec cost in Rift, but they allowed you to atleast save a few favorite builds. And actually with the diverse possibility of builds in Rift people re-spec’d much more often despite having saved sets.

GW2 you can just go to the mists try out whatever build you want at no cost.

so what i dont understand is what you say sounds bad in rift is worse in gw2

Is I understood you, you were saying that you could save multiple builds and switch between them on the fly. Maybe you were suggesting that crossing Rift with GW2 so you could do that would be cool. At any rate, being able to change builds moment-by-moment makes the choices you make mean less, in my opinion.

And I think that’s what GW2 was trying to achieve by requiring you to go somewhere and buy something to refund your trait points and respec. As opposed to your trait choices, which you can change from moment to moment, or your weapons.

Druitt.7629:

Sprawl.3891:

the respec cost is very little in gw2, its nothing but an annoyance to travel somewhere, respec, and go back to where you were. Like I said, there was still a respec cost in Rift, but they allowed you to atleast save a few favorite builds. And actually with the diverse possibility of builds in Rift people re-spec’d much more often despite having saved sets.

GW2 you can just go to the mists try out whatever build you want at no cost.

so what i dont understand is what you say sounds bad in rift is worse in gw2

Is I understood you, you were saying that you could save multiple builds and switch between them on the fly. Maybe you were suggesting that crossing Rift with GW2 so you could do that would be cool. At any rate, being able to change builds moment-by-moment makes the choices you make mean less, in my opinion.

And I think that’s what GW2 was trying to achieve by requiring you to go somewhere and buy something to refund your trait points and respec. As opposed to your trait choices, which you can change from moment to moment, or your weapons.

again you arent getting it. There are tons of variations in rift, so having 5 specs to swap to does not cover everything. you have a set 5 to choose from, if you dont like one of those you have to re-spec, which costs coin. gw2 has limited skill trees with very little variation and almost pointless cost to respec, it is a mere annoyance to have to travel to LA for 1 second to re-train and port back.

tldr: rift has tons of choices. gw2 has basically bunker, dps or condition with very minor variations.

from what i heard gw1 allowed you to save template specs for easier swapping, im expecting that will come here eventually and is basically the same thing as rift except it takes 2 additional seconds to port to la and port back lol. i mean you really feel like your choices “mean” something because it costs a few coin and trip to any respec trainer to change them? The only choices in gw2 that are really binding are gear and the cost of exotics if you want different stat setups.

Yeah, I wish Build Templates would make a return. Would save me a lot of time switching from my MM build to my Wells build (both of which use very different traits and skills).

Druitt.7629:

Sprawl.3891:

For a game that was trying to break the standard MMO mold for many aspects I’m surprised they stuck with the lame old pay for respec system.

My guess would be that they were trying to still provide a certain weight to your spec decisions.

Your description of Rift sounds intriguing to me, but also like it might be more of a collect-the-whole-set kind of mentality where your build choices really don’t carry much weight. Where does it stop? Should we be able to have gear enhancement sets, distinct from our gear sets? Should we be able to swap characters on the fly? (I’m getting beat on with my Necro, so I swap in my Warrior?) At some point there need to be decision points that are irreversible or at least cost us something to change our minds, I think.

I think I like the idea that we’re stuck with the trait points we’ve allocated to each trait line, but within each trait line we’re free to modify specific trait decisions. Some decisions-that-matter and some flexibility, combined. It also means a little less carrying of all kinds of armor, since our trait stat bonuses are fixed. (I do carry one of each weapon, though, since weapons equate to skills.)

Rift is far more diverse than GW2 and gives the ability to swap to every other build within the archetype they choose. And you save your builds with the UI so you are not resetting everything every time. Even slot skills are saved.

If Rift had as much content substance as class substance no one would be playing GW2 or Mists of PandaFu right now.

Now that I think about it, every designer working on PvP in GW2 should probably spend a couple weeks with Rift. Rift PvP is a nightmare of broken class mechanics but the package is ideal. Each Archetype has several advanced tiers and each build can be saved to a UI element and swapped freely out of combat. Gear sets can be saved and assigned to macros. Its just all the UI functionality that GW2 doesn’t have.

GW2 should really have some of these kinds of mechanics by default, hopefully they start to show up over time.

Sprawl.3891:

again you arent getting it. There are tons of variations in rift, so having 5 specs to swap to does not cover everything. you have a set 5 to choose from, if you dont like one of those you have to re-spec, which costs coin. gw2 has limited skill trees with very little variation and almost pointless cost to respec, it is a mere annoyance to have to travel to LA for 1 second to re-train and port back..

I get it and I disagree with you. And the only reason I replied in the first place was to suggest why, perhaps, GW2 (and many other games) did something in a particular manner. You don’t agree with that reasoning.

EDIT:

As I see it, an FPS is all about the guy sitting in the chair, and the in-game character is generic and disposable. Every time you fire up a pure FPS, your in-game character is the same: same capabilities, same gear, etc. At the same time, you can radically change your playstyle in an instant: pick up a new weapon, enter a land or air vehicle, etc. And moment-by-moment you can change from sniper to tank driver to pilot to shotgun-wielding maniac.

You have no attachment to your character, and in fact never see yourself, which wouldn’t matter because they all look and work alike.

An RPG (and MMORPG) is basically the opposite: every time you fire up the game, your in-game character is different from the last time: you’ve gotten new gear, leveled up a skill, leveled up overall, enhanced your gear, etc, etc. And change is in general slow: radical changes in playstyle may require weeks of preparation and achievement. Your character doesn’t look like everyone else’s and it’s not throw-away. You may not go full-on role-playing, but your character in all of its aspects is a reflection of you and your choices over time.

Of course, lines get blurred. I love Team Fortress 2, and that’s an FPS that has classes. But even there, you can’t change classes on a whim. You can’t choose to be a Scout while running to the front lines, then switch to a Heavy once you get there, then decide that the opposition’s too hot so switch to an Engineer to drop turrets and then back to a Scout to run. You choose a class at respawn and have to live with the tradeoffs until you die again.

You mentioned that Rift lets you switch “on the fly” so you could be a Rogue-ish character but switch to one build to chase someone down, then switch to an assassin to attack from stealth, then switch to a tank spec when his buddy comes to help, then switch to a support/healer when a couple of your buddies show up. The only decision you’ve made that you have to stick with is to be a Rogue. Perhaps I’m misunderstanding, but that’s what I get from your description.

Don’t get me wrong, that actually appeals to me. But I think it’s a legitimate concern that this is more like an FPS in feel (quick switches, no choices you have to live with) than an RPG. And I believe that’s part of ANet’s calculus: change weapons on the fly, change skills on the fly (OOC), change major trait options on the fly (OOC), but what trait options are available to you cannot be be changed on the fly. You have to make a decision and stick with it for a while.

and this is why i made a build that works well with preeetty much any trait setup >.>

traits i like to swap around:
Dark Armor instead of Staff mastery

any of the Soul reaping 10 slot traits

transfusion for siphon on crit or vice versa

quickening thirst in blood20 slot for when im lazy in wvw and dont feel like perma swifting… autorun is my friend

might blast trait in spite for downed damage… when i feel like playing nub-like and want to troll people by killing them with high base power scaling when down. (because when i get up.. the upped health on me is like, 14k hp… it pisses people off to work on killing me again..)