Guild Wars 2

what current class would fit a martial artist combo skill chain driven class who focuses on brawling and is highly reactive.

what current class would fit a tactical preparatiative who excels by preparing for the enemies and having a strong strategy excelling at long range and Dmg and close range Control. (without a pet)

the truth is there are a number of playstyles that just dont fit with what our current classes actually are.

In idea, mesmer>bard makes sense, but in practice, mesmers class mechanics dont work with support very well, i mean you can throw skills on them, but their mechanics are based around manipulating the enemy, not helping the team. They cant even summon an illusion without an enemy present.

haviz.1340:

phys.7689:

Bosses with faster attacks that its profitable to create small openings to do large damage via successfully reacting to what skills he is using. (like the group blowing its CC for a good 10-15 seconds of dps)

Which is what currently good teams do in fractals. You create an opening by stunning a boss for 5s.

ok keep it useless, because thats what you re used to. by the way something that is almost rarely to never used, and doesnt give much added benefit is essentially useless. I think even you cant claim CC is anywhere near being the third pillar of combat that they claimed they wanted it to be.

Vol.7601:

I really don’t understand the people who are annoyed that this will cost money.

Do you honestly think Anet would be willing to sacrifice a huge chunk of sales? Transmutation crystals are more than likely their #1 selling item, and probably their highest grossing one. It’s an item that is constantly in demand.

there is a return on sale, as it is, most people only use transmutation stones rarely, maybe once or twice per character per year. If each item required one unlock, people would unlock as many items as they like, or plan to use, or all of them just to collect. Essentially right now they are leasing looks, when most people would prefer to buy them.

Essentially for me, i will probably pick one look per charachter and stay there probably for months or years, in the other system i would probably work toward full unlocks. So essentially more spent, however i feel better about each purpose, because it isnt for rent till the next costume change.

so looking at my system.
they lose on profit from repeat users who swap between same sets often
they gain on people who would now unlock multiple sets instead of 1 look per charachter
they stay the same on people who keep one look forever.

Id say the profit and happiness of the consumer is greater with my system than the rent a look system.

I think the system overall is good, but i think it should have been one cost per unlock instead of everytime you transmute
Im assuming some items will have zero transmutation cost? like HOM skins, achievement skins, etc.
Also kind of bad for gem store items and weapon skins and what not. Its like buy it now! and then pay for transmuation charge.

unless they are going to start putting charges in like chests or random rewards for certain content, and then make gem store charges a shortcut. I could get with the that.

Anyhow, wardrobe good, but paying gems for every use of wardrobe is kinda lame.

Orpheal.8263:

Adding new Classes?
There’s only one new Class needed, that should be added -the Knight as 3rd Soldier Class.

Everything after that point I want to see is just only further Class Progression and Development via Sub Classes
GW2 doesn’t need tons of seperate Classes, when all what this Game needs are just only 9 Basic Classes with the Warrior, Guardian, Knight, Thief, Ranger, Engineer, Elementalist, Mesmer and Necromancer

From that point on its easy for ANet to evolve these 9 Basic Classes with Sub Class-Character Progression into whatever you want:

Warrior: Berserker, Legionnaire, Duellist, Mercenary
—-
Guardian: Patron, Augmentor, Mystic, Paladin
—-
Knight: Dragoon, Templar, Crusader, Partisan
—-
Thief: Rogue, Infiltrator, Saboteur, Strider
—-
Ranger: Druid, Scout, Hunter, Poacher
—-
Engineer: Alchemist, Inventor, Technician, Pioneer
—-
Necromancer: Occultist, Witcher, Ritualist, Chastiser
—-
Mesmer: Bard, Fencer, Chronomancer, Psionic
—-
Elementalist: Bender, Arcanist, Summoner, Sorcerer

In regard of playable Races, theres also a Yes from me, but not for all races, only a very few ones. Alot of them would be better for the game to get completely erased out in my opinion and should have never been added into the game at all.

What I want as playable race first are the Tengu.
After them I’d like to see become playable the Largos, but only if they get completely redesigned, like Anet has also completely redesigned the Sylvari in regard of their Looks.

To me should Largos look far more like this:
http://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-16/bs-fishman.html

Like a real amphibic Fishman-Race without these silly ridiculous looking static wings.
ANd before they get implemented, their Lore needs to become far more thought out well before.
Made about this few months before in a postign a concept about how I’d like to see them getting “4 Houses as equivalent for the Character Creator, where all players have to choose out something personal for their character. With Largos it would be te choice to which “House” your Largos should belong and I think, I came up in that posting long time ago with a pretty nice concept
When I find that posting again, I’ll relink it here later.

mesmer doesnt gel well with chronomancer or bard. You are married to a class mechanic of shatter, which is dmg confusion daze and distortion, if one was going to do a chronomacer its mechanic should have more to do with time. bard should have support or songs or something, and mesmer has some of the worst boons, and nothing really boonlike about its playstyle, or singing.

This is why the class actually doesnt have every archetype, because the class mechanics of a class actually do define it.

theif is a quick agile fighter, but its basis is initiative, which means you use whatever skill is the best for that situation(not combo driven) and powerful skills when you stealth, which doesnt gel with a stay in your face fighter. They have also built them to be primarily about evasion, and primary defense is to pick battles and escape.

essentially theif isnt quick fighter, its quick fighter with stealth and a stamina system
mesmer isnt CC mage, its illusionist
ranger isnt wilderness hunter, its beastmaster
etc.
Point is there are playstyles that are currently missing and dont fall into line with current proffesions. Proffesions are not broad enough to handle all playstyles currently

Sarrs.4831:

Classes no, races yes.

Why bother making new classes when the standing classes are so easy to expand on?

Races would be neat because kodans.

because each class is defined by its class mechanics, and archetype, and while they should expand those classes withing that, they shouldnt expand outside of that.

thief should always be about initiative/skills from stealth/steal and generally be an evasive fast class.
ranger is tied to pets, and should be tied to pets
mesmer is ultimately about making use of clones and illusions or blowing them up

point is, you cant build certain things with these types of class mechanics. Thats why you need new classes, to have the type of playstyles that the current classes cant, or shouldnt have.

hendo.1940:

phys.7689:

Spoj The Second.7680:

Exactly. Its only a problem when noone else is using cc. Dungeons and fractals are meant to be for organised groups. Dungeons are possible in pugs with no real difficulty because they have been in the game since launch. You cannot balance the game around unorganized pugs. You people are just asking for the game to be dumbed down even further than it already is.

I ve done the count CC thing, its still a stupid mechanic. Im not saying you should have no mechanic, im saying they should actually make a good interesting usuable CC mechanic.

the reality is CC is no where near deserving of being the gw2 Trinity in its current iteration. its a side skill that sometimes rarely is useful. Its not an integral part of battle.

current gw2 trinity is dps avoidance and recovery

I agree, CC is irrelevant:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryynO8PzegY

rewatched the video carefully, and it appears its getting 5 stacks, which is still pretty useless use of skills for the mesmer.
The mesmer is using two skill slots, to do 1 CC every 40 seconds, against a skill which it commonly dodges without using CC. Imagine now, if they put somthing usefull in that slot, they would have had an easier time killing it, or done it faster. Essentially once every 40 seconds, it saves a couple seconds dodging.

yep, useless. and it can only use it with that much precision, because the mesmer is solo and has complete controll over what CC is being used.
is that supposed to be sarcasm? that video doesnt show me relevance, first of all it

What exactly did they gain using control there? the most usefull thing in that fight was going behind the abomination while it slowly swung.

haviz.1340:

phys.7689:

how about you give npcs access to stun breaks and stability, as well have some of them have special behaviors/effects that they use when being CC spammed.
Then you have actual play and counterplay, without arbitrary counting of CCs, which lets be honest 99% of the time is just people totally ignoring CC and using skills based on dps, utility and avoidance.

A glimpse into the future: “CC is useless because bosses have stability and can stun break all my stuns.”

Which like players they wouldnt have constant access to, the player would then have to bait, and use CC at the right times, or use CC in win win situations. Depending on how much CC is going on, the npc should react differently. Of course blanket stability and stun breaks would be a fail mechanic. But being able, and it being advantageous to control bosses, is kind of the point of CC. the fact that bosses arent designed with CC in mind, makes them less complex, and less interesting.

Every battle is about dps/avoidance/recovery. The best solution for that turns out to be stacking in a corner somewhere. you lose some avoidance, but you increase your recovery and dps drastically.

Making CC useful would allow them to give bosses mechanics that without CC are extremely cheesy and have no counters. A lot of those type of skills, or tactics are the ones that might counter stacking. Like a boss who actively tries to kite or fight in profitable areas. Big wind up skills that are very powerful, but interuptible. Bosses with faster attacks that its profitable to create small openings to do large damage via successfully reacting to what skills he is using. (like the group blowing its CC for a good 10-15 seconds of dps)

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

New race? Yes. Each race has it’s own story, it’s own lore. Not to mention that to me, they each feel different – ie: a human mesmer does not feel the same as an asuran mesmer, as such I build and play them differently.

New class? No, thank you. Let them balance what we have, then look at adding something like this to it.

classes will never be balanced, they are not balanced in any mmo ive played, or any game really. I want new playstyles, and new mechanics that the current classes dont, and probably shouldnt offer.

yes i want new classes (martial artists combo focused reactive playstyle) marksman (preparation focused preparitive and tactical playstyle) new races yup, although sadly anet probably cant do this unless its a humanoid race, in which case there probably isnt much purpose. (they already struggle with gearing up charr)

i got 8 level 80s, i probably have done most storylines, And i still dont think they have a job that really hits my playstyle on the head.

• Thief is too stealth focused, and only has 1 scrappy build in its moveset
• Mesmer, only the mainhand sword style is really my cup of tea, and it doesnt really have very many useful chains of skills.
  * Engineer has great variety, and a great many useful chains if you make use of combo fields, but fairly ranged oriented, and not that reactive/survivable with the meleeish sets.

• ranger is has some good options in melee, but it doesnt have a great many combos, and doesnt have a very reactive style. While its melee does give it dodges, it seems more random since it mostly on AA skills, and you cant depend on random much, this makes it usually a safer bet to stay at a distance on hard content.

*the rest of the classes generally dissapoint me. necro too focused on condi for me, and the class mechanic is pretty dull. warrior is too much about passive buffs, with very few combo/skill chains. ele has loads of combo/skill chains, but only dagger style really fits me, and for some reason just doesnt appeal to me much, probably not scrappy enough. guardian has a super boring class mechanic, and few interesting skills and combos.

long story short, something is missing i welcome new classes.

Nike.2631:

I get it the Balance team looks like you’d have to card them at a bar, and some of them might not pass, but I’m pretty sure anyone who does game balance as their 40 hour a week job is aware that crit damage can be found as part of more sets than just berserker.

Players are saying “Oh, this just targets berserker, only it doesn’t.”

No Dev has ever said that was the only, or even principle goal of the change…

the problem is, this problem is so old meta. powerbased builds, are under performing in most content these days. Condi is easier, and more deadly in spvp and WvW. The only reason people dont use it to faceroll dungeons is because in game mechanics limit its effectiveness past 1 or 2 people, and the fact that dungeon/encounter design is currently allowing people to stack to win. The only other use it has is heavily extra buff heavy WvW instagib 1 v 1 builds, which isnt even an important part of wvw.

the problem is Anet keeps trying to fix the problem with numbers when its not a number problem. Its an encounter problem. reducing effectiveness of all power builds is not a good thing, because most power builds arent OP.

SkiTz.4590:

nGumball.1283:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Malediktus.9250:

GW2 is just a casual grindy game with no proper endgame or challanges.

Pretty much. You forgot to mention the cash shop though, where you can buy skins that should’ve been obtainable in game, and cosplay in the LA chat room with your friends.

WoW is a hard-core grindy game with forceable endgame, no combat, no exploration and mounts etc. to purchase even-though it is pay to play.

1. At least it has endgame.

2. combat is respective to the user. Opinions vary. However, combat in GW2 is absolutely face roll and requires little to no coordination (outside of sPvP). Everything in the game can be done with just 1 set of gear (zerker) that has not changed. There is little to no gear diversity in any mode of PvE

3.There is no exploration in GW2 either. You get your map completed (took me 1 week for PvE and a few days for WvW maps) And you will never go to those portions in the map ever again unless they give it meaninful content. Vast majority of the population is in frostgorge/queensdale zerging or vigil keep. I’m not sure what exploration you are talking about here. Also, who cares? If you wanna really explore and be immersed, go play Skyrim. This is an MMO.

4. Mounts – again opinion based. some ppl like it some don’t. Meh personally. has no real impact on a successful MMO or not.

5. WoW will always have more users than GW2. Just a fact. It’s dwindling no doubt, but you are sadly mistaken if you think GW2 is even close to their current population…..Theres quite a few dead servers here in gw2.

The good thing about GW2 is i don’t feel pressured to keep playing…. no sub so its nice to have that luxury to come back whenever I feel like the game will be worth my time

However, you are crazy if you don’t believe the releases of ESO/Wildstar/EQN and even Diablo 3 xpac will not have an impact on GW2 population….

At the moment, I personally don’t feel like theres a reason to keep playing (besides WvW season…or until they announce actual meaningful content additions to the game

I think the real key thing in what your saying is the last sentence
“or until they announce actual meaningful content additions to the game”
thats the major problem with GW2

its just old, and they keep adding small things and tweaks to old content. Gw2 needs to expand, and evolve.

• Dynamic events were great, but they never evolved them past random kill quests by and large. The best dynamic events day 1 are still the best dynamic events 1.5 years later, except they are now old.
• exploration, map design, reward for exploring was really good, but they didnt create anthing new and interesting in these places, even the places you are supposed to want to go back to, suck due to lack of rewards and nothing happening when you get there

• skills and traits finally making some headway here, but still not much more added

the point is, GW2 is not giving people interesting new things to do, and they are not building on their old systems and evolving. Right now it looks like other companies may take the best of gw2 and run with it if they dont get it together.

When i play other MMOs i tend to realize gw2 has a lot going for it, when i play guild wars 2 though, i tend to realize there is nothing new, and nothing better than what was there day 1 in most cases.

Arken.3725:

But isn’t that how it’s supposed to be? Outplaying your opponent through proper skill usage? While I get that you’ll be missing out on some serious traits, the former statement gives me hope of such skillful play.

well last time i tried to mess with interupts, i realized it required to much waiting for the opponent to be useful, aside from mantra of distraction and signet of domination, using regular skills slows down your ability to interupt. (because of animations and aftercasts) aside from the instant interupts, you basically have to be predicting the opponent to interupt them, rather than reacting.

• Diversion requires your clones to run to target before dazing/interupting
• illusionary wave has .5 second cast time, with average human response at .220 or something that means you wont be able to react and interupt a skill unless its got a 3/4th second cast time, and thats only if you arent in middle of another animation.
• chaos storm is random, so cannot be reactionary
• counterblade has a 3/4 second cast time and requires you to counter first
• into the void has a 1 second cool down from when you first use the skill
  point is, pretty hard to actually counter a specific skill except with 2 skills only, the rest of the interupts, the mesmer is just throwing out randomly, or predicting what you will do.

so really actually making good use of powerblock will be a pretty good use of resources, realize, the mesmer is giving up a utility slot to stop you from using your skill, so really they are giving up a skill for 1 of yours, on a much longer cooldown even if the succeed.
he stopped your good skill for 10 seconds and that used up 18 seconds of his skill in doing so.

bleh to interupts,

Arken.3725:

And that’s fine Phys but the ramifications when interrupting are substantial. Not only for the enemy but for the Mesmer as well. I’m all for counterplay, it just seems like there should be a way to avoid it.

Edit: I’d like to think I have a decent grasp on other professions, obviously not as much as Guardian. When fighting against such specs I try to find ways to counter it myself and I still haven’t found a way, even as a Medi-Guard.

like the dude said, the big easy counter for say guardians is stability. basically nullifys control effects(daze), and guardian gets that pretty easily. It also does nothing versus auto attacks, because they dont have a cooldown. Its honestly not that great a trait, and it is on the same line with the 3 mantra trait, so you are losing a lot of mantra potential to gain a skill thats only going to be really useful when you totally outplay your opponent, and catch their best skill.

I think you understand proffesions somewhat, but some things look good on paper till you actually start looking at what you are giving up, and how often can you even really make use of something, and then how effective it is when you do make use of it. Id rather get another instant interupt/stability/condition removal/dmg/heal over MAYBE getting an extra 5 second lockout on MAYBE a good skill if i time it just right, and the opponent doesnt use stability.

Arken.3725:

I stated earlier that Healing power scaled terribly but 1k is still quite a bit. If you’re talking about from a Guardian’s standpoint that uses all instant skills then yes, it is easier to avoid. I’m talking about the overall picture here.

Edit: And it is true, Power lock has very little counterplay once activated. The skill ceiling of this is very low to due its nature of being instant.

thing is you are asking for counterplay to counterplay. Why should you be able to counter a counter? For powerblock to be useful they have to actually interupt a skill with a cool down, this means they caught you in the middle of an act. for it to actually matter, it has to be useful skill. In terms of access to interupts, mesmer has a few, but ones with fast enough cast time to actually catch someone in a specific action is small.

the best is the mantra, but the mantra gives you two interupts per fight(with a 5 second cooldown), then it has a 2.75 second casting time to get it back, but only after 30 seconds has past

so at the end of the day they have 2 interupts per 37.75 second cooldown.
Which means, when they land it on a usefull skill its because they totally read you and countered you. If they counter a random free attack they get nothing for it.

i get yall guys were sharing your thoughts, but on some classes, yall dont really have a very good grasp of whats going on. And Swagg has too much beef with ideas instead of realities. Not saying dont do your thing, but yall dont really get a lot of the real factors with classes outside your expertise.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

nGumball.1283:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

The Revenant.4970:

Sinifair.1026:

In terms of grinding? I’ve felt GW2 have been more of a grind to me than WoW was when I played it.

I disagree 100%, WoW was nothing but grinding, whether it was PVE or PVP.

I think your tolerance of grinding, as with most of us, has diminished with age. GW2 is definitely not more of a grind than WoW though.

You’re wrong and woefully behind. Try to keep up please since it’s not 2008.

WoW is a grind of 10 years where missing a part of it would make the next content un-available for you. The progression feeling is illusionary, it is about starting the new chapter in the grind-fest every month.

GW2 is grindy too, but at least I can enjoy it the way I want.

If you are a fan of Everyquest, you shouldn’t be here though, I don’t see the point in you commenting.

My fresh 90 was raiding current content within a few days of reaching 90. I didn’t grind or miss anything.

Raiding for a few hours a week is fun and not a grind at all. Beats zergy LS garbage.

we get it, you hate GW. thats fine, but is there really any other point to your posts in this thread?

IndigoSundown.5419:

Spoj The Second.7680:

digiowl.9620:

High level fractals are not representative for how most of the game is played, for better or for worse.

True but the majority of the playerbase doesnt understand the game they are playing so this will always be the case.

Exactly. Even if Defiant were to be swapped out for some other means of limiting CC use on bosses (like an immunity timer), random players in a herd will still not be able to CC bosses effectively. The only way for that type of play to allow for effective CC is to remove any type of immunity and just let players CC-lock.

phys.7689:

I ve done the count CC thing, its still a stupid mechanic. Im not saying you should have no mechanic, im saying they should actually make a good interesting usuable CC mechanic.

I see a lot of people asking for this, However, no one seems to actually offer any ideas (besides timed immunity after CC) as to what this could be. Do you?

how about you give npcs access to stun breaks and stability, as well have some of them have special behaviors/effects that they use when being CC spammed.
Then you have actual play and counterplay, without arbitrary counting of CCs, which lets be honest 99% of the time is just people totally ignoring CC and using skills based on dps, utility and avoidance.

Spoj The Second.7680:

Exactly. Its only a problem when noone else is using cc. Dungeons and fractals are meant to be for organised groups. Dungeons are possible in pugs with no real difficulty because they have been in the game since launch. You cannot balance the game around unorganized pugs. You people are just asking for the game to be dumbed down even further than it already is.

I ve done the count CC thing, its still a stupid mechanic. Im not saying you should have no mechanic, im saying they should actually make a good interesting usuable CC mechanic.

the reality is CC is no where near deserving of being the gw2 Trinity in its current iteration. its a side skill that sometimes rarely is useful. Its not an integral part of battle.

current gw2 trinity is dps avoidance and recovery

Spoj The Second.7680:

phys.7689:

Nikaido.3457:

Try to kill the pack of mobs after the tunnel in the molten fractal @50 without using any blind, any cc, any damage mitigation. Try it. I dare you talk about how CC is useless after this. In fact it’s my main pet peeve in pugs when I see warriors camp their gs and not use mace 5 etc.

its useless on bosses and champs, 99% of time people avoid regular mobs

No its not. And you cant avoid most regular mobs in fractals.

so CC is ok, because in high level fractals its useful on trash mobs. you realize that level 50 fractals are played by a very small percentage of players?
And yes its overall useless on champions and Bosses. take mesmer, the master interupter supposedly, they only have like 5 interupts per minute. you would have to use all of those just to get a single interupt in a group. This is assuming no other players random interupt doesnt take your good interupts slot.

Nikaido.3457:

Try to kill the pack of mobs after the tunnel in the molten fractal @50 without using any blind, any cc, any damage mitigation. Try it. I dare you talk about how CC is useless after this. In fact it’s my main pet peeve in pugs when I see warriors camp their gs and not use mace 5 etc.

its useless on bosses and champs, 99% of time people avoid regular mobs

yall are missing a lot of class mechanics in your analysis.

Justin ODell.9517:

As an altoholic, I feel your pain. I’ll need to take a look at the data tomorrow, find out just how common re-rolling is for PvPers.

i thought they were supposed to be account bound? much like gw1?

Belenwyn.8674:

Valk/Cav will not crit less. The chance to crit will stay the same: very very low. The crit damage will be lower. Since the crit chance is very very low the loss in overall damage will be significantly lower than the loss with beserker. In contrast valk/cav build will profit much more from the changes on sigils like triggers on hit instead triggers on crit. The overall DPS will be higher.

the valk/cav builds were controlled burst builds where the user forced crits via skills/traits. While the overall dmg wont go down as much, the whole point of using various skills to force a crit in key moments, or temporarily boost your dmg with things like fury, is going to be even more heavily hit, they nerfed your damage by like crit dmg by like 50%. For builds that relied on forcing big hits, thats a HUGE loss of dps.
as far as triggers on crit, they simply wouldnt have used those sigils, and instead opted for things like sigil of intellegience. These builds were not about hitting as often as possible, so really a whole style of play took a rather large hit, and it wasnt an OP style in the slightest.

Wethospu.6437:

Yes, relying on overpowered gear pieces may eventually get you nerfed. It’s still less than what berserker is losing.

cavalier and valkyrie wasnt overpowered. The problem is they are going from ok, to weak. Essentially they nerfed all direct dmg sets. I dont think its a good solution, especially when direct dmg really isnt OP. The problem is poor AI and encounter design. Taking a look at WvW and sPVP tells you the real story. Now, if they ever make interesting fights, power based DPS builds will probably be ineffiecient.

number tweaks only go so far

Vol.7601:

phys.7689:

Vol.7601:

How you concluded with buying traits on the gem store is beyond me.

If you want to come up with absurd ideas, there has to be a better one than that.

its actually highly likely, they have already sold trait resets in store, and its the analog in the new systems where they moved the gold sink from trait resets, to obtaining traits.

I seriously do not see how you can conclude that since they sold trait resets in the store, that they would sell traits directly. Is it because they use the word ‘traits’??

They sold trait resets because it was a convenience item.

Why would they sell traits in the gem store, when they will be available not only in game after completing in content, but purchaseable from the NPC?

the second part of the post you quoted goes on to say, though it would be likely, it is redundant, because you can already buy traits in game just buy buying gold.

And it isnt ridiculous, they sold the same thing in GW1, and that had much less pervasive gem store.

Im not trying to put a moral judgement on whether its cool to do so or not, im just saying its not off the rails, in fact its already built in by making it a gold purchase.

haviz.1340:

Nike.2631:

Really? How? Walk me through it.

For eles&engies: they have 2 slots for sigils, others have 4. As a warrior, for instance, you can get force, energy, battle and bloodlust, as an ele just force and bloodlust.

If that were true, why would they change it?

So every change they made was fixing exploits? :o

also note that engies and eles can swap more often without traits, if they dont put 9 second cooldowns on every on swap trait, that alone would be an advantage, much remains to be seen, but essentially yea, ele and engineer was always balanced to get less out of multiple weapons, the versatility was supposed to make up for it, if it wont after this change, then thats a balance issue.

That said, the stacking buffs and equipping new weapons thing has always been pretty cheesy technique on every class.

X The Manimal.5293:

Don’t think they’ve ever SOLD anything on the Gem store that’s a key component of the core game’s mechanics such as traits… no reason to start thinking that now. Don’t see how you jumped to this conclusion at all, unless you’re just really really bored today =P.

they already have? they are making it use gold, which is probably the number one gem store item.

And yes the development does consider the gem store fairly often. But thats how its going to be. As long as they can make the game fun and rewarding without the gem store use, its cool. Sometimes i feel they cross that line, but i dont think the traits will be one of those times.

Vol.7601:

How you concluded with buying traits on the gem store is beyond me.

If you want to come up with absurd ideas, there has to be a better one than that.

its actually highly likely, they have already sold trait resets in store, and its the analog in the new systems where they moved the gold sink from trait resets, to obtaining traits.

It would however be kind of pointless since you can already buy traits with gems via just buying gems and turning it to gold.

So yeah, it aint really crazy, its just redundant.

Orpheal.8263:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

So, overall I’m pleased with the changes. Being a GW1 vet as well as some others here, I can say I liked skill hunting in GW1 and am one of those that asked for something similar here. This seems like a decent equivalent. I like that they are including the book alternative as well, since not everyone plays pve or enjoys the exploration of it. Different strokes for different folks.

I’m with many on the being iffy about getting the first trait point at 30. The math is awkward there:
30 1
36 1
42 1
48 1
54 1
60 1
66 2
72 2
78 2
80 2

14

Where as I think it flows a little better if they started at, say, 20 instead:
20 1
26 1
32 1
38 1
44 1
50 1
56 1
62 1
68 2
74 2
80 2
14

I guess we’ll see how it works out. They’ve tweaked things before, I’m sure they’d do it here if it were necessary.

Theres a simple solution to this math.

Increase the Max Level from 80 to 90

30 > 1
36 > 1
42 > 1
48 > 1
54 > 1
60 > 1
66 > 1
72 > 1
78 > 2
84 > 2
90 > 2

And anywhen later to 100 with startign to gain a point instead of every 6 levels on every 5 Levels

30 > 1
35 > 1
40 > 1
45 > 1
50 > 1
55 > 1
60 > 1
65 > 1
70 > 1
75 > 1
80 > 1
85 > 1
90 > 1
95 > 1
100 > 0 Instead of getting a Trait Point here, you get somethign else for reaching Max Level

Much better solution :P

increasing max level as is would be a really bad solution to anything. Im not saying it couldnt serve some purpose, but it would have to be a pretty different system, and it doesnt really add anything to the game as is

i find this age old debate rather interesting, because people say condi is broken, like it isnt one of the most OP things in the game. Its actually the popular meta in WvW and in SPVP, and it honestly is also pretty powerful in instances, if you have 1 or2 coordinated condition users.

Its biggest issues are in PVE versus single targets when you have a zerg. outside of that instance, its actually fairly powerful and easy, and will only become more so with the nerfs to critical damage.

i honestly want to see conditions become weaker in general, and sure make it more usuable for the zerg instances, but as it is, making it viable in zergs would probably make it the best choice in almost every content

Kunzzi.5714:

The moment I actually started enjoying this game is the moment they ruin it with this tragic update. Dear anet, maybe instead of forcing us to do your old boring content that no one touches you try to make something new and interesting? Attack on Lion’s Arch was amazing but this is just fing lazy.

EDIT: Also it’s a GREAT idea to force new players to grind your kittenty content or pay for traits with gold so they can’t get into pvp or wvw. Really kudos for you anet.

It honestly depends what content you have to hunt, and how it fits in to the leveling process. I will tell you that the high wizard in arah is no more boring than the LA event, in fact id say its probably less boring. I killed that dude a lot more times than i did the last LA event.

The truth is the game has had a very poor method of leading players to the interesting content before. While the high priest was more entertaining than killing a random horde of too weak zombies, it served less purpose.
This type of system at its base, allows anet to create compelling non grindy reasons to do the more interesting, and usually more difficult content.

Taygus.4571:

phys.7689:

another thing, it would have made more sense to make the trait books be buyable with karma than gold. Karma is a better currency for representing playing the game in any mode, where as gold represents how well you can merchant or farm

but i suppose the problem would be karma is currently pretty unbalanced currency, some have millions sitting around, some have like 0, then again the same can be said of gold.

Make the traits buyable by skill points, thats not so bad I think. depends how much skill points they’d cost.

problem with skill points is its in direct competition with getting new skills, which would make the level up process even more confusing and slower for new players.

Nike.2631:

Again, they aren’t a reward. They’re a coupon encouraging you to buy another characters slot.

well your new way of describing it fall more inline with your theory, everything other people are saying are to benefit alts, not nec new slots. However i think such a coupon given for reaching a charachter birthday (the only way to get them i believe) is a bad coupon. It doesnt make me want to buy a new slot

Zoid.2568:

“The key farm” was not intentional in the launch of the game. It’s not a nerf.
You can buy keys by converting gold to gems.

the key farm is the only reason the BL chests contribute to the economy. the drop rate of anything usefull is way too low to be worth 9 gold. One of the main problems with the gem store/exchange is that the prices are fixed, this means every gem store item is competing with other items in value

lets say on average opening 40 chests would give you either 10 scraps or a ticket, that would put the price of the gem store weapons at a absolute minimum of 360 gold after the first month they would be 360-1800 gold. since very few people would spend that, it would mean black lion chests would not be worth the money, hence no one would buy them, or try to get the skins, which means black lion key items wouldnt be increasing the demand for gold, or gem—>gold conversions. which means it would actually make less money, and be a system that adds no value to the game.

now, if they change drop rates at the same time, who knows what the effect would be, but i can tell you right now, i dont think anyone would benefit long term from reducing the ways of obtaining keys through specific gameplay.

lordkrall.7241:

Khisanth.2948:

Doesn’t this end up making the lv1-30 zones even easier for lv80 characters?

Quite likely, unless they tweak the downscaling a bit.

But then again, lvl 1-30 zones shouldn’t really have to take lvl 80 characters into consideration anyway.

with their current design philosophy it should, because they actually want level 80 people to be wandering many zones, if people were supposed to stay in level appropriate areas, wed have a playing field that amounts to Orr, frostgorge and southsun cove at 80

Nike.2631:

The item is an incentive to make alts. That’s ALL it is. It’s not going to change.

his suggestion still keeps it inline with exactly what you just said. It will just be a more adaptive and usefull incentive for alts. as of now, if my alts or 20 i have no incentive to play them with this item.

I think what anet wont like with it, is the extra programming and unclear messaging attached with it. but really its probably a pretty good idea.

Harper.4173:

I disagree. the way they are implementing it is fine. I don’t want to spend time unlocking everything I already had.
It defeats the purpose.
It would be just as bad if not worse than the level 30 fractal reset. Let’s not do that again.

i think we can agree it being mandatory is bad, but what about it being optional with some limited benefits.

maddoctor.2738:

Nothing is stopping you from going and finishing the content required for the traits again, even if you already have them unlocked. Defeating bosses, clearing dungeons etc will always be active.

I doubt you will even know what the requirements are they tell you how to unlock them before you do them. Also its not the same thing to do something for nothing as it is to do something for a purpose. Yes its all for nothing regardless and all that nihilist stuff, but the reality is that illusions make things more entertaining. The feeling of hunting adventure and progressing your charachter for doing it is what people are looking for in this thread. That illusion is shattered when you already have it unlocked.

to be clear i think its a bad idea to be mandatory, but i think it might be a good idea to be optional, or have reasons to repeat it (but not like 100s of times)

Traveller.7496:

Lunchbox.6970:

If it gets nerfed because of these changes, then it was probably not intentional.

Of course it will be intentional, no need to be naive. Most people who farm keys will not buy them from the store even if the run is nerfed (I sure won’t) but if they get even a few people buying, they’re already won.

Although I do have to wonder why now, since the whole key farming thing is not very efficient time-wise and has gone on for a long time.

its more fun because you can be OP and one hit kill things, its faster paced than most other content, and at the end you get an item that you cant get via other means, that can give you access to items you cant get by other means, in a nice rng box (as much as people claim they hate rng, well handled random is one of the most used gaming hooks in all games) where the big win is big, and the small win is crap.

Asacledhae.2650:

Either way, i’m really glad that i already have the chars i want to play already in the game, and that i won’t be affected by the trait hunt…. at least considering the traits we already have. Having to farm (or even buy in outlandish prices) in order to be effective, isn’t my cup of tea.

I will be kind enough to remind you people the plague the game endured during it’s early days, ending up in almost ruining the economy. Right now, the game is working well if you ask me. Yes, it has some bugs and some glitches, but which game doesn’t? By changing it to a “Pay To Win” model (not everyone is keen on dungeons or farming), you’re simply allowing history’s faults to come back on our doorstep. And if history repeats itself, then what?

Why don’t you keep the existing traits unlocked for all players even after the change, hmm? Our chars will be effective, and any new trait wouldn’t be an issue to “farm”.

What you’re proposing, is hindering gameplay and i don’t like being stabbed in the back.

I wonder, though : Is each trait going to cost the gold required to get a tier 3 cultural set by any chance???

what do you mean by farm?
killing a single enemy is considered farming? i think that is considered hunting. farming implies doing the same repetetive task in order to grow over time. This is a series of specific goals to do one time, from what we have seen.

i dont really know what plague you are refering to at the game start. Nothing like what they are talking about here was in the game at game start at all. can you elaborate?

Meglobob.8620:

Oh I have just realised you will be able to do this if you want and Anet don’t after do anything other than what they are doing now.

Just start a new character, use scroll of knowledge (a dozen gathering dust in my stash) takes you to lvl 20.
Use 60 tomes of knowledge (everyone has 100’s of those).

Bingo you 80 with no traits unlocked, go forth into the world of Tyria and enjoy…

first, it would require a new chr slot
second it requires 60 tomes of knowledge, and no, everyone doesnt have hundreds of those at all
third it requires the birthday item.

so no it doesnt solve this. I would say they should probably include some sort of reset mechanic, where you can get something for repeating this unlock. This would make it somewhat more sustainable as a system as well.

another thing, it would have made more sense to make the trait books be buyable with karma than gold. Karma is a better currency for representing playing the game in any mode, where as gold represents how well you can merchant or farm

but i suppose the problem would be karma is currently pretty unbalanced currency, some have millions sitting around, some have like 0, then again the same can be said of gold.

nGumball.1283:

Becasue GW2 have been focusing so on giving you everything from the start, leading to people wonder: how is this rewarding?.

It is a step to improve the game progression in general and we have yet to see the 11 other updates, I suppose they will be connected to eachother as to how Anet want to introduce the mechanics of the game.

i agree that their old implementation of get everything easy was bad, but theres a difference between getting everything easily, and getting everything late. problem is, this change makes level 10-60 way more boring and have way less options. yes, at level 59 you will only have the equivalent of 30 points to play around with. This means a level 40 now, has as much options as a level 59 will have. I can tell you already being level 50-59 was pretty boring, in the entertainment curve, i can only imagine it being more so, with even fewer builds available, using the same weapon skills and utility skills i had since probably level 20.

I really dont think they could have tested this for entertainment well. I guess hunting the traits may make it less boring in these level ranges… but i dunno…

perhaps they can make it optional, and offer some extra reward for unlocking every skill (that is obtainable in other ways). I think i would probably like to do this as well, but i have no logical reason to, with all classes to 80. Also on some classes i wouldnt want to do it at all, because now that they are 80, i know i dont actually like them that much.

illutian.7630:

Why not just remove traits….ya know. Cause it’s so hard to build a Trait Set.

/eyeroll

Major traits will now be unlocked via traits guides, a new in-game item. Double-clicking on a trait guide will unlock its associated trait. You can find trait guides by completing specific content in the world, like story dungeons, minidungeons, WvW, personal story, specific bosses, and discovering certain areas on the world map. As excited as we are to let players earn traits with feats of bravery and cunning, we know not everyone is the exploring or adventure type—which is why we’ve included the option for you to buy trait guides from profession trainers!

You’ve just completely ruined your game. Good job on that.

Traits will now be learned by: Coin sinks (thus facilitating Gem buying). And Play-time sinks.

you realize the point of a game is to play it. If actually playing the game is so boring its considered a playtime sink, whats the point of playing it? If the point is to get all the skills, then whats the point if they make it so you can do it by hitting one button.

Sirendor.1394:

I don’t know anyone who does exploring after they reached level 80.

Open world PvE feels like school did (not university)… repeat useless tasks over and over.

When you reach 80 you simply don’t want to explore anymore because it’s the most annoying part of the game. When you reach 80 you go straight to dungeons for some gold and then WvW, then stay in WvW until your money is gone and you’re forced to go do dungeons again.

there are actually some unique tasks and things in the open world, but you may never have done them, because you dont need to do them to level up.

Jumping puzzles, Mini dungeons, Certain well designed dynamic events. Certain chests in interesting/hard to reach places.

Yes there is a whole lot of filler dynamic events, and hearts generally are boring, but i think the OP probably means the good interesting stuff, not the lame fillerish events.

Perhaps… they should create a new type of dynamic event tag, lets call them special events, these are the events/chains that are highlighted as being more than just filler events. have them give better rewards, or better chances for rare rewards. These events can be more designed to require varied and interesting play.

MithranArkanere.8957:

Astralporing.1957:

[…]
Nerfing loot just because you don’t like certain playing style is not going to move those people to do things you want them to do. It will just make them angry.

When they changed dungeon and world boss rewards, a few complained about losing their repetitive stuff. But they adapted.

Now there’s people going for different dungeon paths and doing different world bosses instead the same one over and over.

You didn’t see people complaining about not being able to do CoF1 repeatedly all the time, nor something like angry posts of people saying in reddit and forums stuff like “They ruined my game”.

You may think you are right, but the facts themselves shows I’m not wrong. People will adapt.

The only problem that may arise from flags in champions is people having a harder time finding a zerg. Which can be solved by making the LFG tool work for looking for squads. Well, what about commander costing 100 gold? That should be changed too, to require seniority and experience instead gold.

you are right, in that they should create rewards that incentivize playing in ways that are more varied/entertaining, and that people will always adapt who want to hunt gold.

However, if you make the wrong changes to rewards you just destroy things, like ORR, i would say ORR in the first few months was a way more entertaining and live place than it is now. Events constantly getting completed all over the maps. Getting excited when you see hoards of enemies. Now its just an empty map.

I ve farmed keys, its kinda entertaining, and fun to try to win big with a ticket. If it goes, that will be sad, but mostly it will just make anything that comes from a black lion chest more expensive, past the point of value. they already have 300 gold skins, imagine the costs.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

So, overall I’m pleased with the changes. Being a GW1 vet as well as some others here, I can say I liked skill hunting in GW1 and am one of those that asked for something similar here. This seems like a decent equivalent. I like that they are including the book alternative as well, since not everyone plays pve or enjoys the exploration of it. Different strokes for different folks.

I’m with many on the being iffy about getting the first trait point at 30. The math is awkward there:
30 1
36 1
42 1
48 1
54 1
60 1
66 2
72 2
78 2
80 2

14

Where as I think it flows a little better if they started at, say, 20 instead:
20 1
26 1
32 1
38 1
44 1
50 1
56 1
62 1
68 2
74 2
80 2
14

I guess we’ll see how it works out. They’ve tweaked things before, I’m sure they’d do it here if it were necessary.

starting at 20 might be ok, but also, they should probably put the greater points spread throughout the leveling process.

the hunting system is good, and allows for better incentives to play the game. New specific traits is also a good system, as well as new skills would be, if they are also unlocked similarly.

However i have to agree the current point spread is pretty bad. its way too high level heavy. Messing around with skill points and having play options makes level 10-30 more bearable. I dont think its a great idea to make level 1-60 so boring. (yes this will also make 30 levels boring because while you do have trait points, you will only have the equivalent of 30 point at level 59. Also level 70-80 is probably a lot faster than leveling previously, due to taking part in max level open world stuff. doesnt make sense to put so much of the progression points there.

Unless you will be adding some new play options that make levels 1-60 interesting in other ways, i dont really see how this will be a good idea for leveling. Not to mention some classes need their traits early in order to be effecient, mesmer comes to mind as a class that works very poorly with no traits, and fairly well with traits.