Showing Posts For momistah.2053:
Am I the only one feeling this could, in the long run, lead to sub-par builds? Like players just unlocking whatever traits they find easier to do without factoring in how efficient those may be given their equipped stats and weapon choices?
Without a doubt that is what will happen. Leveling up classes that rely on traits to make PvE content not terrible (mesmer, engineer come to mind) are going to absolutely blow until they get to 80 and can focus on traits.
But what confuses me the most is, in its current implementation, the new trait system doesn’t really add longevity to the game, it just increases the amount of grind you have to wade through until you can be relevant in the end game content (fractals, wvw, dungeons, etc). This isn’t the way to increase interest in the game.
It seems like the time sink to unlock traits is fairly large as well. I mean, it usually takes an hour and a half to two hours to 100% a zone (this is especially true for classes with little swiftness, like Mesmer) and just to reach a character’s full potential we have to do more than 10 of them? For most/all casual players, this is an insane barrier to entry. As a student, this means I’m going to spend probably an entire month of my free time just working towards trait unlocks.
I think the unlocking trait idea is a decent idea, but was executed fairly poorly.
There are two ways to unlock traits: skill points + gold, and doing activities.
It seems to me that skill points + gold is very cost prohibitive. By the time a character has leveled up to 36, what is the expected amount of gold a new player has stockpiled? It’s probably about 1-3 gold. So this tier actually works okay from the gold standpoint. I mean, you’re taking a new player’s limited resource and draining it, but they’ll surely regain their wealth in enough time. However, the skill point cost makes absolutely no sense.
Currently, you can spend skill points on skills, traits, and items. Items are definitely the lowest priority, so disregard that for now. To unlock every non-elite skill for a character, you need about 100 skill points. In my experience, I usually unlocked every non-elite skill and an elite or two right around the time I was 70 or so. Having to use skill points to unlock traits basically means that until a character is 80 they’re going to have to make a choice between filling their trait lines to capitalize on all of their tools, or unlocking skills to increase their build diversity.
This makes the trait purchasing system unfeasible, in my opinion.
So this leaves with the adventuring option for unlocking traits. Aside from the issues many people have with the various methods (locking an adept trait behind clearing a level 70 zone, etc) there is one HUGE problem with this method; it pretty much counters the mission statement of Guild Wars 2.
Guild Wars 2 was billed as a game that breaks the traditional MMO mold and allows people to play any way they want. If someone wants to only play WvW, they can. If someone wants to only play sPvP, they can. If someone wants to only play PvE, they can. But the trait unlock system has basically ignored all of these people, and is forcing people to acknowledge parts of the game they find uninteresting or boring. It’s really counterintuitive to lock something so fundamental to a player’s power and creativity behind such rote, unimaginative, time consuming tasks. Many can be completed when you reach the appropriate level, but getting to the appropriate level has become severely tedious without the ability to use traits to boost your character’s abilities.
It’s pretty much a terrible system.
With my necromancer recently completed, I’m looking for a new class to start gearing up for wvw. My necro tends to be a slow class whose power comes from grouping up with others and whittling down health. I figure the opposite of that is a roamer.
What classes are good at roaming (that aren’t thieves because apparently everyone gets upset when they die to a thief)?
Something that has been bothering me lately is the relative skill caps that the classes have and how effective those classes are. For example, there seems to be a prevailing opinion that warriors have a very low skill cap, and also have very low effectiveness in spvp. On the other hand, engineers have a high skill cap, but low effectiveness.
So I guess I have two questions:
1. How do the classes rank in terms of the balance of skill cap versus effectiveness?
2. What can be done to fix the ones that are screwed up?