The new system is MUCH different from the current system and we haven’t gotten a chance to feel it out and see how it will end up.
All the OP’s examples are centered around the way the current system and traits work, but the new systems function and trait details are getting totally overhauled.
You can’t make a valid arguement against apples by complaining about oranges.
No, you are wrong mister.
The new system is totally based on current system. There is a change, some tweaks and merges but this is still trait system of 5 lines with multiple traits. The difference is at the end the range of choice is going to be much lower.The big factor is the separation of attributes from trait lines. This alone will give diversity a huge boost and will completely change up trait usage.
With the current system, you have to balance what traits you want with what attribute bonuses you also need to make your build viable. With the new system the choices are separate. Meaning, for instance, a thief who wants to spec for high critical hit won’t have to choose to use the traits that are currently in the precision line and can instead choose freely from all the other options without messing with their critical hit %.
so why not just do that part, instead of limiting tratlines to 3, possibilities per slot to 3, and reducing total traits per line to 9
do you think stop drop and roll is going to be useful in the meta?
soothing ice? in a meta where you try to never get hit?
remove a condition when you go water attunement? 1 condition?All those are meta in pvp, or were one picked even at a higher tier (stop drop and roll).
Their effectiveness in pve is, as you said, related to design and not to trait selection. Hopefully, the new encounters will make those traits viable there.
exactly the flaw with reducing the number of possible traits.
some traits are very good, for specific situations.
now, with only 3 options, you basically have to take one of the other two options.
so now, once you start eliminating PVP traits how many viable builds can you really make?
I simply don’t like that we can’t pick 2 Master’s or Adepts anymore. Though we’d have to wait and see on how they combine the traits, I am not too hopeful. In fact if this is as bad as I foresee and OP has predicted, it might actually push some players out of the game.
I made a post here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Water-Magic-trait-changes/first#post4999771 about the trait changes in the Water Magic trait line. It’s interesting to note that with the new system there appears to be far less competition (if any at all) for traits for the same playstyle on the same trait tier. If you want damage, you can get an adept, master and gm trait for damage, if you want survivability, there are traits for it, if you want party healing support, there is a different choice.
It’s too early to know for sure and we obviously don’t have enough information yet, however I believe they will address the issue of adept traits in master slots, by making the 3 traits available on each tier not competing with others for the same playstyle / role. For example, with the old system we have 2 traits in Water Adept that increase DPS and compete with each other, however with the new system there is no competition.
which basically means the realistic options/variations is small. as the thread says, it is fairly likely people will be clones.
essentially you wont be making too many actual choices
this is why i say its highly unlikely build variety will increase. the purpose is mostly to get people to pick the same traits.
I can say what you said much more forum friendly: “games are getting more stupid so lazy new players don’t have to learn them so we can sell more boxes; p.s. who cares about veterans, they’ve already paid”
see? I said the same without wall of text
And I can make your post even more forum friendly:
“There’s no such thing as lazy players”.See? I said the same as you with even less words.
More words coming, but also more precise:
Some people will complain about a game’s design without studying game design.
You hit the nail on the head, Diogo. Where other players kewkew about “dumbing down” and “removing options,” actual game designers are aiming for more elegant designs that give actual, useful choice instead of the illusion of choice.
What seems most ironic is that the people who want a thousand skills and traits, the illusion of choice, are the same ones who will follow metabuild guides limited to 3 or 4 optimizations, and then feel clever for doing so. Those same people will look at half of the traits and skills available and say “I never use those, ever. They suck. GAME NEEDS TO GIVE ME MORE SKILLS I WILL NEVER USE.”
Instead, the devs are looking at making each choice actually matter, much like Blizzard did with WoW. While it’s unfortunate that some of the non-6/6/2-6/4/4 builds aren’t going to be possible, it’s likely that the new traits will compress functionality into few, more potent options that might actually be desirable.
And people are mathing this out now. 196 thousand build combinations, before accounting for special class specs. Over 390 thousand including that. That is sufficient wiggle room, considering there will be maybe 50 meta builds that emerge.
nope.
wont happen.
they are trying to simplify the system, not increase viable possibilities.
also, a lot of the viability problems are more related to game design than trait selection.
do you think stop drop and roll is going to be useful in the meta?
soothing ice? in a meta where you try to never get hit?
remove a condition when you go water attunement? 1 condition?
and now, since there are less options in each, you have less chance that there will be some other useful trait to place there. 1 trait that doesnt fit you is 1/3rd of all possibilities, where before it was 1/6, 1/10, or a different trait line.
no, its not about increasing options or viability. The only way to increase viable options is to make more options that are good. lowering the number of options does not increase viability, just decreases the chances that there will be an option that is useful to you.
better smaller variation than imaginary variation… when you have 13 traits from which 5 is useless, 3 is good, but don’t fit any build and the rest is taken with very small differences, it’s not a real variation… I will rather have less but more impactful choices which are all useful for someone, just in different ways
removing options does not give you more impactful options, thats the big illogical jump people keep making.
say you have 10 dates to choose from
5 of them cancelare the 5 left somehow better than before?
That’s not what’s happening. It’s more like, you have 10 dates to choose from. Your friends point out that 8 of them are neo-kittens, and suggest two new ones. You now have only four to choose from, but they’re better than what you had before.
why not just have your friend suggest two new ones.
some people prefer the girls others dont like.
you get 4/12 guy who likes something you hate has 3/12 etc.
Thought up another, more rhetorical one. Do you think that after almost 3 years that is it a wise move to totally recreate a system (some would say for a second time) many of us have used and understood for years?
Also will this change make it easier or harder to design future content for us the players and if not easier, why bother?It is a simpler system, although veterans may not like it completely, they will quickly get use to it. Since it is simpler, there will likely be less of a learning curve for newer players, putting them on par with veterans quicker. It will allow easier balancing because it does have some inherent limitations (can’t combine two “master” traits in a single line now). Finally, it allows for easier integration of new traits as they will just add a trait line, and since those lines will likely be in the form of an Elite Specialization line it is even easier to balance since multiple elites cannot be combined.
So, it seems like a complete win/win from a developer stance. They just have to weather a few months of veteran player complaints (and during that time, many other veterans will help them defend the system too). By this time next year, only the nostalgic people will remember or care about what we have as our current system.
it wont be the end of the world, but if you had an off the road build, there is a high chance that it will dissapear.
most of my alts were just for fun, and had those type of builds. Just for fun builds will die. there isnt room for both with only 3 choices per teir and only 3 lines
After the AMA today we might have enough information to compare some of the old builds with the new ones, then we can see for real, with actual data, if variety and diversity will be increased or reduced.
As people mentioned before, the current amount of meta builds is rather low, despite the large variety of options. Let’s see if with the new system we will get more viable builds or less, I could care less about the overall amount of possible builds, viable / playable builds matter the most.
you will likely get the same or less. truth is most trait lines had at least 9 good traits in them already.
just a matter of what you were interested in doing.
looking at their example, they will merge most traits together.
there simply is not enough variety with only 3 choices per line to make a noticeable impact on viability. many traits are linked to certain playstyles.
the thing that has a chance of increasing viability is decoupling stats from traits, but that did not require the other changes in order to work.
the other thing that may help, is making better traits, but since they are cutting total traits, that wont effect much since it will have to canabalize or become a part of some other build that already existed, and not be a real option.
but if i am wrong, i am wrong. time will soon tell us
We get to the total POLAR OPPOSITE of “diversity” – there are only 10 combination of 3 trait lines and everyone in a profession will be one of those 10. The. End. (the specialization with be another mix of 10 clusters of 3 lines).
Each of those lines will only 27 ways of traiting, down from 418.
We get simplicity. We get hammered towards the middle in terms of performance. We do NOT get diversity.
Now if you take the current system and toss out all the useless crap, then do your calculations again, you’ll find that this change is actually improving diversity.
that is not possible, you will never get more diversity by taking out options.
Well I say yes. If before you have 100 options but only 10 are viable and after you have 50 option and 35 are viable well in my book it’s diversity increase….
You have to understand that this new system WILL raise MORE viable option even if the overall possible combination are less.
nothing about the system itself increases trait viability.
if more traits are viable it will be because they changed traits, not because they cut them.
they could have done the same thing without reducing traits, but the goal is not about viability.
the goal is to make a simpler system that leads you to meta builds more easily. Reduce options so its more likely people will get a good build by accident.
eliminate how many good trait ideas you have to come up with.
Thought up another, more rhetorical one. Do you think that after almost 3 years that is it a wise move to totally recreate a system (some would say for a second time) many of us have used and understood for years?
Also will this change make it easier or harder to design future content for us the players and if not easier, why bother?
they said they think it will be easier to create new elite specializations now.
Are the traits changes for core specialisations gonna be released before HoT?
Wooden patatoes is heavily hinting that it will be. Apparently someone from your staff told him they would be.
If it’s true can we get a confirmation?
they said the ama will go over every thing.
“This also means we’ll be going over every single trait in their current iteration in our development environment”
dont count the new trait line, thats only for HOT, better compare same with same, which gives you 10 options.
Why? It’s about the total number of possible trait combinations now and in HoT. Yes you can currently not specialize, but in hot you cant take more than 3 lines.
because if they hadnt done this change, you would have had a 6th line with 13 possible options and be able to use lower teirs in higher teired slots, which would have been an even greater variety of choices than before.
also, not everyone will buy HoT. So the fact that Hot would double their options is no balm for the variety they lost.
For those who think that the number of possible builds is low:
You get to chose 3 out of 6 (5 old + 1 new spec) trait lines. This gives you:
6!/((6-3)!3!)) = 20 possible ways to select trait lines.
each line has 3 points of 3 choices so:
33*3 = 3^3 per line or
(3^3)^3 = 19683 in total.
This results in 19683 * 20 = 393 660 different builds by traits alone.Yes this is lower than the current number of possible different trait setups (only calculated the number of builds with 2 lines with 6 points and already got ~250k different builds), but i believe that is enough so that people can be different if they want to. Optimal builds will always only be a handfull or less, no matter if it’s the old or the new system. That some current builds will not be possible is also not surprising, every trait change destroys some old build but also allows some new ones.
dont count the new trait line, thats only for HOT, better compare same with same, which gives you 10 options.
what you need to realize rabbit is the actual purpose of the new system is this
“existing system and break them down into a similar system that is clearer and easier to use.”
compare the old water to the new water,
do you see any new applications? any meta changing ?
the purpose is just simplification.
no comments on some stats being profession specific? i would think that would effect dungeon meta maxers a lot.
Those stats are hardly relevant. And half of them are getting implemented baseline. Thats a buff to most builds.
well its not clear exactly what they mean with the profession attributes, if its like thieves get 150 more precision that might be huge, but that would seem odd.
hopefully they explain that better today.
removing options does not give you more impactful options, thats the big illogical jump people keep making.
say you have 10 dates to choose from
5 of them cancelare the 5 left somehow better than before?
You are the one making the illogical jump. What you describe is irrelevant. It would only apply if Anet announced that the only change they are making in the current system is removing traits. Nothing else, you still assign points, unlock them through the NPE system, but some traits are just removed. No compensation.
This is what you are describing. But this is not what’s happening.
What is happening is this:
I’m giving you dyes in-game. They are not account bound and you can sell them. You can choose only 2 of the following:
Rare: Abyss, Celestial
Uncommon: Summer Grass, Lilac, Sunrise Breeze
Common: Pink Ice, Sea Ice, CitrusThere are a lot of possible choices, but in reality, you will pick the 2 rare dyes and either keep them or sell and bye whichever dyes you want. Thus, you only have 1 viable choice.
Now I’m offering you these bundles, and you need to pick 1:
Abyss+Pink Ice+Citrus
Summer Grass+Lilac+Sunrise Breeze
Celestial+Sea Ice+CitrusNow, you have more than 1 viable choice, even if the number of possible choices is greatly reduced.
no, that is not analogous.
like really really not analogous
Diversity is confusing to new players therefore it needs to be removed…
Yeah they are confused and use bad useless traits and builds. Diversity for the sake of diversity isn’t good for any game.
you cant get real diversity with out having options some people dont like. lowering the amount of options does not intrinsicly increase the quality of options.
people are mistakenly linking having less options to having better options. There is no coorelation between number of options, and how good your options are.
It’s not a mistake. Less options available can be more easily balanced, so less options can also be better options.
less options are not always more easily balanced.
but even assuming it is.
easier to balance does not mean more viable options.
supposedly this game was already easier to balance, but ill tell you right now, with no uncertainty, GW1 had more viable options
Had more viable options out of how many available options? 10 viable options out of 100 possible ones is a 10%, 100 valid options out of 10000 is 1%. GW1 might have had more viable options, but it had way way more completely trash options too.
if your goal is viable options it doesnt matter how many trash options there are. All that matters is how many viable thing you get in the end.
If your goal is for people not to make crappy choices, then it helps, but those are two different reasons.
You would be better off creating standard builds for people who make crappy choices. and letting people customize.
take a look at their plan, its not really about creating more viable builds. Its about more about less options so people pick meta builds without trying too hard. I highly doubt changes like what they showed for water will create more viable builds than were there before.
the focus is simplification not an increase in quality of choice.
Even those builds that use 4 or 5 trait lines can see a benefit from the new system.
Well they would get the benefit if it was just 4 added trait points but its a different since you can only have 3 trait lines so really they don’t get any benefit and quite the opposite since it makes that build impossible.
They are just making the subsets stronger since i doubt you could have a build that doesn’t completely specialize on a type of utility skill in this new system.
Thinking about it the new system feels like a typical adventure game where you chose one of 5 diverse looking characters to go through the story with and they have a unique skills and that’s it, with maybe a few choices of choosing different skills upgrades.
Having 3 full trait lines allows access to more grandmaster traits, which are powerful and can define a build. Although it will be impossible to replicate a build that uses 4 or 5 trait lines, the access to extra grandmaster traits can really make up for it.
in terms of power? sure, in terms of being able to get what you really want? not really.
Diversity is confusing to new players therefore it needs to be removed…
Yeah they are confused and use bad useless traits and builds. Diversity for the sake of diversity isn’t good for any game.
you cant get real diversity with out having options some people dont like. lowering the amount of options does not intrinsicly increase the quality of options.
people are mistakenly linking having less options to having better options. There is no coorelation between number of options, and how good your options are.
It’s not a mistake. Less options available can be more easily balanced, so less options can also be better options.
less options are not always more easily balanced.
but even assuming it is.
easier to balance does not mean more viable options.
supposedly this game was already easier to balance, but ill tell you right now, with no uncertainty, GW1 had more viable options
better smaller variation than imaginary variation… when you have 13 traits from which 5 is useless, 3 is good, but don’t fit any build and the rest is taken with very small differences, it’s not a real variation… I will rather have less but more impactful choices which are all useful for someone, just in different ways
removing options does not give you more impactful options, thats the big illogical jump people keep making.
say you have 10 dates to choose from
5 of them cancel
are the 5 left somehow better than before?
Are Hero Points going to be limited or not?
Doubtless many if not most of us have characters that have leveled hundreds of times, and this is a source of a good portion of the Skill Points we have or have used. Part 2 of the Primer says, “Hero Points will be limited, and they’ll be earned strictly through what are currently called skill challenges . . . and leveling up.” It furthermore states that a typically experienced level 80 will have sufficient points to unlock “all of the core” stuff (emphasis mine), suggesting that unlocking the new bits may require more.
But if unlocking everything demands full map-comp-worth of SP’s, well, that’s a pretty steep expectation. On the other hand, if we are expected to gather Hero Points in excess of what is necessary to unlock everything, then are we storing them for future specializations? This leads us to ask: Do we keep gaining them for levels gained while 80? If not, then doesn’t that set a cap on how many specializations can be included (or else require shoehorning in more challenges)? If so, then doesn’t that mean Hero Points are unlimited?
they said a level 80 will be able to unlock enough to make several full builds, that doesnt mean you have unlocked most options
Actually you can make more viable options by reducing the total number of options. The more customisation you have the less likely it is that any given combination is actually useful. The card game Yomi has 20 fixed 55 card decks that are all tournament viable. If instead you could make your own 55 card deck using any of the cards in the game there would be 3.77×10^93 combinations and almost certainly only 1 best deck that you should always use if you’re serious about winning.
there is two facets to the current change
1) one is the elimination of options. in your example that would be deleting cards, not not allowing some people to use some cards
2) the other facet is eliminating old combinations. that is some what similar, but we were far from a point where this was causing over powered builds. People claim most 4/5 traitline builds were sub optimal, so eliminating them is not going to eliminate overpowered builds, and it is infact easier to eliminate overpowered builds by changing single cards, not the basic game rules.
Diversity is confusing to new players therefore it needs to be removed…
Yeah they are confused and use bad useless traits and builds. Diversity for the sake of diversity isn’t good for any game.
you cant get real diversity with out having options some people dont like. lowering the amount of options does not intrinsicly increase the quality of options.
people are mistakenly linking having less options to having better options. There is no coorelation between number of options, and how good your options are.
I wonder how you managed to spend 250-500g per piece of ascended armor.
i think when he says armors he is saying armor sets.
Question: Why do I have to be a healer just because I want my Ele to be good with cantrips? Cantrips have nothing to do with heals, but trying to get their reduced cooldown trait means I have to take a healing-oriented adept trait, because even with three choices there’s no variety. Look at the three Water Magic Adept traits: Heal, heal, and oh, more heals.
Soothing Mist: You and nearby allies regenerate health while you are attuned to water.
Healing Ripple: Heal nearby allies when attuning to water.
Aquatic Benevolence: Healing done to allies is increased. (25%)
those are non selectable.
the selectable adepts are different.
If you only count the # of viable builds, though, then quantity can decrease that.
It’s illusion of choice vs real choice.
It hurts my soul the way people throw around the word “viable” where the term that would have meaning is “competitive”. It gets (deliberately) misused because viable is a binary term (alive/dead) used to create a false dichotomy based on a floating, arbitrary cut off when the reality is builds populate a spectrum of performance. Viable gets used in the same way as saying “every child that won’t be in the Olympics will just fall down dead at the age of 5 because they just aren’t viable.” It’s not necessary for all builds to by hyper-competitive to add value to the system as a whole. And its even more important to have some flexibility in a game that has multiple modes with very different demands.
I use viable for builds that serve a purpose, whether that’s suiting your playstyle or a certain strategy. It’s not a binary term, as you can still play the game with any choice of traits. However, playing 3/3/3/3/2 is not about being meta or not, competitive or not, it’s making a build that willing gimps yourself.
Similarly, the gear system allows you to go naked, or not wear certain pieces of armor. Does this offer choice? Is there a purpose in willingly choosing to do otherwise of bragging rights?
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQBoCaCZvH8VzvwaFovjA
this is not a useless build, it provides a lot of different useful effects
more endurance for dodges
synergizes with stealth and stealing
the biggest flaw is not getting a lot of any base stat.
but they removed stats so, that build would be fine for some players.
We get to the total POLAR OPPOSITE of “diversity” – there are only 10 combination of 3 trait lines and everyone in a profession will be one of those 10. The. End. (the specialization with be another mix of 10 clusters of 3 lines).
Each of those lines will only 27 ways of traiting, down from 418.
We get simplicity. We get hammered towards the middle in terms of performance. We do NOT get diversity.
Now if you take the current system and toss out all the useless crap, then do your calculations again, you’ll find that this change is actually improving diversity.
that is not possible, you will never get more diversity by taking out options.
Depends on what you define as diversity. If it’s # of possible build, then yes, quantity is one of the factors that directly affect it.
If you only count the # of viable builds, though, then quantity can decrease that.
no it can not, this isnt theory its math.
if the traits dont change, getting rid of bad traits does not increase the amount of viable builds.
changing the traits themselves can increase the amount of viable builds, but you can always do that, it has nothing to do with the total amounts of traits.
It’s not theory. Take Champions Online for example. There are no classes, only power trees, and you can mix and max.
Instead of making diverse builds possible, the system led to cookie cutter builds, that all used the same core of staple skills, and only left room for a handful of skills that offered some variety.
A different example, the card games Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic the Gathering. MtG seperates cards in 5 colors and indirectly forces you to limit yourself to a small number of them. YGO, on the other hand, has a ton of generic cards you can use in every deck. In practice, it only means that the best of those cards became staples and are used in pretty much every competitive deck.
So, while in the above scenarios you are still free to deviate, you are willingly gimping yourself by doing something that is not viable or less optimal.
The more free you are to min max, the more identical the builds start to look, because not all choices are made equally attractive.
last sentece is the key
“not all choices are made equally attractive”
this is what limits viability, but it is mistake to link that to your number of choices. Your number of choices has nothing to do with how many are equally attractive.
if you have 10 good options out of 20 versus 10 good options out of 40, you still have 10 good options.
the difference between 20 and 40, is that people are variable and not all people have the same goals, with more options you increase the chances people will find some options appealing.
case in point, i hate all grandmasters in the tools line, i would rather have invigorating speed. Those grandmasters may be great for some people, but i dont want em.
Diversity is a function of the number of meaningful choices. If you go from 1000 possible choices with only 10 viable ones to 100 choices with 20 viable ones the diversity has increased.
you cannot increase viable choices by cutting out choices, you can only increase viable choices by having better choices.
example
how many of these faces are attractive?
if i remove 20 unattractive faces, are there more attractive faces?
the answer is no.
(edited by phys.7689)
We get to the total POLAR OPPOSITE of “diversity” – there are only 10 combination of 3 trait lines and everyone in a profession will be one of those 10. The. End. (the specialization with be another mix of 10 clusters of 3 lines).
Each of those lines will only 27 ways of traiting, down from 418.
We get simplicity. We get hammered towards the middle in terms of performance. We do NOT get diversity.
Now if you take the current system and toss out all the useless crap, then do your calculations again, you’ll find that this change is actually improving diversity.
that is not possible, you will never get more diversity by taking out options.
Depends on what you define as diversity. If it’s # of possible build, then yes, quantity is one of the factors that directly affect it.
If you only count the # of viable builds, though, then quantity can decrease that.
no it can not, this isnt theory its math.
if the traits dont change, getting rid of bad traits does not increase the amount of viable builds.
changing the traits themselves can increase the amount of viable builds, but you can always do that, it has nothing to do with the total amounts of traits.
Phys you completely missed what I’m saying. They could include a new trait or adjust an existing one that does THE SAME THING as spreading yourself out over 4-5 lines. I understand the change is cause for concern but our information is minimal and the amount of doomsday Sayers right now is unbelievable.
it doesnt matter if your goal is variability, if your goal is more power than it does.
lets say a domination/dueling/illusion based dude would dip into 1 trait line for one effect
and a chaos/dueling/illusion based guy would dip into a trait line that same traitline for the same effect.
even if they merge that trait into some other traits, neither of those builds can ever get that effect any more.
even should they cross merge that trait into say domination, the chaos guy wont have access.
lowering options lowers options, thats just how it works,
keep in mind that the more merged the traits are, the fewer realistic options you have.
clone on dodge for example
anything else they put in that trait teir, cannot exist with a build that has clone on dodge now. So if they merged two adepts and moved it up to master, that can no longer be part of a clone on dodge build.
you dont get more options/specificity from eliminating options, that is simple not possible.
We get to the total POLAR OPPOSITE of “diversity” – there are only 10 combination of 3 trait lines and everyone in a profession will be one of those 10. The. End. (the specialization with be another mix of 10 clusters of 3 lines).
Each of those lines will only 27 ways of traiting, down from 418.
We get simplicity. We get hammered towards the middle in terms of performance. We do NOT get diversity.
Now if you take the current system and toss out all the useless crap, then do your calculations again, you’ll find that this change is actually improving diversity.
It may increase the number of competitive builds. Maybe.
It will NEVER improve diversity. Because the word actually has a meaning.
taking out traits will not increase competitive builds, if competitive builds increase, it will be because they make better traits, not because of the amount of traits.
their idea is that they will make better traits, but they are tying that to the amount of traits, when it doesnt really have to do with that.
We get to the total POLAR OPPOSITE of “diversity” – there are only 10 combination of 3 trait lines and everyone in a profession will be one of those 10. The. End. (the specialization with be another mix of 10 clusters of 3 lines).
Each of those lines will only 27 ways of traiting, down from 418.
We get simplicity. We get hammered towards the middle in terms of performance. We do NOT get diversity.
Now if you take the current system and toss out all the useless crap, then do your calculations again, you’ll find that this change is actually improving diversity.
that is not possible, you will never get more diversity by taking out options.
We get 2-3 screen shots and and knowledge that things will change and everyone is losing their kitten. We know traits will change, or shifted around, boost skills, get new traits; no need to flip you kitten without having all the information. What if there is a new Arcane Trait that boosts all elements, instead of having to 2/2/2/2 everything. You don’t know, and neither do I, but geez, wait until we have more info first.
increasing your base power does not mean you have more possibilities.
it means you have more power.
lets say they made it so that all traits were given free.
you would be a lot more powerful, you would also have zero variability.
Most classes have 0-1 viable builds in any given game mode right now. How exactly do you figure that anything could result in less build diversity?
this is far from true.
optimal and viable is two different things
and you can bet after this change there will still be optimal classes and non optimal classes.
removing variety doesnt give you more power, making better traits gives you more power.
you can build better traits without removing traits.
the main advantage to the new system is, there will be less overpowered builds, fewer people with bad builds, and easier to create new traitlines.
the – is there will be less variability, and each traitline brings less to the table.
but nothing about removing options will increase a classes power.
" A single character who’s done a fair amount of the hero challenges should be able to unlock all of the core specializations, skills, and traits."
implies they are talking about an existing charachter here. which means that they will mostly be the existing challenges
The way I read it, it also implies that you need nowhere near all hero challenges in the game to unlock everything.
disclaimer: the following is pure speculation on my part
Going from this image of the new profession reward tracks, it looks like they’re currently planning for around 16 trait unlocks in the water magic reward track (3 minor, 4 adept, 4 master, 5 grandmaster). Five core specialisations per class makes that ~80 hero points to unlock all core traits. Each class has around 6 skill categories with an average of 6 (1 heal, 4 utility, 1 elite) skills belonging to each category, with comes down to roughly 36 hero points needed for the skill category reward tracks. Adding those, we’ll end up at somewhere around 116 hero points to fully unlock all the core reward tracks (trait lines and skills).Currently, leveling a character to 80 gives you 68 skill points plus two 1-point skills (one heal, one utility), so it would be fair to expect a level 80 character with no hero challenges to have access to 70 hero points in the new system. That leaves another 46 hero challenges required to unlock all the core traits and skills. Even if that number doubles by requiring more than one point to unlock e.g. the higher-level elite skills, we’re still a good bit below the 200+ skill challenges currently in game.
its unlikely they will limit hero point amounts, and then have you have extra ones you cant do anything with
notice they said someone with a fair amount would be able to unlock CORE specialization/skills/traits
this means the rest will likely be what you need to unlock elite stuff.
so either the elite costs a lot, or the elite costs almost the same, and a fair amount =5/6 your total amount of skill points.
so essentially if you hit 80, and do 3/4th the available skill challenges, you will have enough for all core specs. The one 4th left will be about enough for unlocking the elite.
if everything stays even, you are looking at 46 skill points per spec/skill/traits
In addition, out of those MASSIVE amounts of “set ups” we already manage to narrow it down to 1-2 with a couple slight variations. If the new set up is handled properly, it will allow more personal preference choices, and the most exciting part about locked adept/master tiers is that it forces people to make harder decisions.
Ah. yes, well, serving the groupthink over all other player types is one goal they are accomplishing in spades.
The people who think there’s only 1-2 way to have fun with a class will still think that after this change – they gain or lose nothing. It’s the other players that are getting their options maimed.
The groupthink? Seems pretty common for people to be complaining right now. The key is setting up the game for a better future. Sometimes you have to give up something for something better. You will be alright, I promise. There will be new ways to play, and if you found a way you enjoyed before, I’m sure you will after HOT without having 2 points in some random off-tree. You’re exaggerating how much this is going to “kill” all of your precious builds.
if you werent playing a meta build, there is a very high chance your build will die.
as for giving up something to get something.
You are right in theory, but anet has a habit of making these systems that are supposed to allow them to do so much, so easily, that never happens.the weapon skill system was supposed to allow them to introduce new weapons really easily. in 3 years, we are finally getting one new weapon per class.
the initial trait system was supposed to make it easy to add a new traitline/traits
in 3 years we get one new line, and overall trait number gets shaved.Guild missions were supposed to be easy to add to, and how many new guild missions did they add?
basically many of the changes to make it easy to add to/fix, never really add much/fix to anything in practice.
Sure, there will always be variability with how much and how well the Devs pull it off, but that doesn’t make the system innately wrong. It has potential, and thats all that can be said either direction at the moment, but its certainly interesting and will definitely help with balancing the game.
And like I said, as for builds, its very rare people use 5 trees (not that it NEVER happens), or so on, but having some change isn’t innately bad. Especially when it causes players to have to make hard decisions. If people are missing taking two things at once, that should be considered a good thing. That means (finally) there felt like a real trade off, where as right now, many builds tend to fall into a certain (generally obvious) casting.
In the end, I’m confident people will be happy and find things they think are interesting in the new system, and for the most part, I’m sure many builds won’t change as much as people are thinking.
why are you only bringing up 5 trees, you can use 4 trees either now, which was in fact really common.
We get to the total POLAR OPPOSITE of “diversity” – there are only 10 combination of 3 trait lines and everyone in a profession will be one of those 10. The. End. (the specialization with be another mix of 10 clusters of 3 lines).
Each of those lines will only 27 ways of traiting, down from 418.
We get simplicity. We get hammered towards the middle in terms of performance. We do NOT get diversity.
When the 3/3/3/3/2 Ele build, 2/5/2/2/3 Warrior build, 5/5/1/1/2 necro, 2/3/3/6/0 engineer works, then I would agree with you.
there are tons of highly viable builds that go into 4 trait lines
and there would have probably been even more, had stats not been linked to traits.
and many builds that didnt use a master in a master slot or a grandmaster in the grandmaster slot.
some of them were in fact top end builds.
They explicitly said they’re going to do their best to support currently existing builds under the new system.
That being said, “SO”? We’ll likely lose some builds, we’ll likely gain some builds.
Even more likely there will be old builds that still exist that are overwhelmed by new builds and made obsolete
We can’t treat any build like it’s sancrosanct or special, as long as the general style continues to exist and be viable
they will lose a lot of builds, thats a given.
And there will be a lot less possibility.
They may increase the amount of super top end builds from by a factor of two, but they will kill a tone of middle ground builds by a much larger margin. They will also like force synergies
truth is, the options will be far less.first of all there are only 10 possible specialization choices in the core
then there are only 27 possibilities to choose for any one line.many of these choices will likely have no synergy with some builds.
like you wont take anything dagger related within a trait line if you dont use dagger.
so out of those 27 possibilities, a great many will be false choices.
so yeah, a lot less builds by far.
now, you my think that is ok, as long as you get a few more top end choices. But lets not kid ourselves, a lot of viable builds will die. there is noway around it.
True, but how many of those will be replaced.
How many middle ground builds are there that perform at a subpar level when compared to the high end builds
It’s why I asked the question earlier if you missed it.
Maybe all of this will be answered tomorrow?
reducing possibilities will never increase variability. Thats not actually possible.
making better traits MAY increase high end variability, but making better traits has nothing to do with how many possibilities exist.
If any new better builds exist, it will be because they made some traits better, thats it.
We get to the total POLAR OPPOSITE of “diversity” – there are only 10 combination of 3 trait lines and everyone in a profession will be one of those 10. The. End. (the specialization with be another mix of 10 clusters of 3 lines).
Each of those lines will only 27 ways of traiting, down from 418.
We get simplicity. We get hammered towards the middle in terms of performance. We do NOT get diversity.
Quantity is only one component of diversity. And you choose to unnecessarily dumb the system down to make a point.
You will now get more out of your traits, some traits become base components of your skills, you get more active traits overall, and your choices affects your build in a more meaningful matter.
Saying you could choose between 18 million builds before is absolutely meaningless. The game was not released yesterday, you should know by now how well those 18 mil builds worked out.
Yes, we lose quantity, but quality has a much, much bigger impact in build diversity.
there is no reason to believe the quality will be much greater.
nothing about the trait cuts inherently increases quality of traits. The theory is they will be better able to create true variability with less options, but they said that before, it was untrue.
the real truth is, its actually unlikely to have more options by taking away options. its not like a bad trait would lower the quality of a good trait by existing.
In addition, out of those MASSIVE amounts of “set ups” we already manage to narrow it down to 1-2 with a couple slight variations. If the new set up is handled properly, it will allow more personal preference choices, and the most exciting part about locked adept/master tiers is that it forces people to make harder decisions.
Ah. yes, well, serving the groupthink over all other player types is one goal they are accomplishing in spades.
The people who think there’s only 1-2 way to have fun with a class will still think that after this change – they gain or lose nothing. It’s the other players that are getting their options maimed.
The groupthink? Seems pretty common for people to be complaining right now. The key is setting up the game for a better future. Sometimes you have to give up something for something better. You will be alright, I promise. There will be new ways to play, and if you found a way you enjoyed before, I’m sure you will after HOT without having 2 points in some random off-tree. You’re exaggerating how much this is going to “kill” all of your precious builds.
if you werent playing a meta build, there is a very high chance your build will die.
as for giving up something to get something.
You are right in theory, but anet has a habit of making these systems that are supposed to allow them to do so much, so easily, that never happens.
the weapon skill system was supposed to allow them to introduce new weapons really easily. in 3 years, we are finally getting one new weapon per class.
the initial trait system was supposed to make it easy to add a new traitline/traits
in 3 years we get one new line, and overall trait number gets shaved.
Guild missions were supposed to be easy to add to, and how many new guild missions did they add?
basically many of the changes to make it easy to add to/fix, never really add much/fix to anything in practice.
They explicitly said they’re going to do their best to support currently existing builds under the new system.
That being said, “SO”? We’ll likely lose some builds, we’ll likely gain some builds.
Even more likely there will be old builds that still exist that are overwhelmed by new builds and made obsolete
We can’t treat any build like it’s sancrosanct or special, as long as the general style continues to exist and be viable
they will lose a lot of builds, thats a given.
And there will be a lot less possibility.
They may increase the amount of super top end builds from by a factor of two, but they will kill a tone of middle ground builds by a much larger margin. They will also like force synergies
truth is, the options will be far less.
first of all there are only 10 possible specialization choices in the core
then there are only 27 possibilities to choose for any one line.
many of these choices will likely have no synergy with some builds.
like you wont take anything dagger related within a trait line if you dont use dagger.
so out of those 27 possibilities, a great many will be false choices.
so yeah, a lot less builds by far.
now, you my think that is ok, as long as you get a few more top end choices. But lets not kid ourselves, a lot of viable builds will die. there is noway around it.
I can’t think of anything I regularly do that needs the forge. Its pretty useless to me outside of dailies.
what are skill points useful to you for right now?
i say this because the only thing skill points used for right now after unlocking skills is the forge, far as i know
I can answer for myself and say that it removes one of its functionalities. I was planning to use them on any alt I might one day decide to level and I was planning to use it on my Revenant, level her with tomes then she would start out with all skills unlocked and some skill points extra if needed to buy traits.
oh you mean transfering skill points between charachters?
yeah looks like that is essentially dead.
Professions will decide base attribute points, traits lines and gear will do the rest. Every player will have 1000 base points on every stat, then profession will add some points, then each chosen specialization will add more, and finally equipment will do the same. This means that some professions may have higher power that others, a bit like Warrior has currently more health and armor that others.
ahhh didnt really understand that proffesion based stat thing till you said it.
That blows.
some proffessions will just be built kitten (toughness/vit stats)I’m not sure that’s correct.
“We feel that separating build choices from stat decisions provides greater build flexibility, so you’ll no longer gain attribute points through a given line.
Each profession’s attributes will be updated to have half of their functionality be part of a specialization and half of their functionality will be a baseline for that profession. For example, elementalists now have a base attunement recharge of 10 seconds, which is reduced to 8.7 seconds when the arcane specialization is equipped."
It looks to me that the only attributes that will be profession-specific are the ones that are already profession-specific, like the example, attunement recharge.
Either that or the blog is contradicting itself, which I won’t rule out.
half will be part of the specialization, thats the ele base recast lowered with arcane trait line.
half will be proffession linked: “Each profession’s attributes will be updated…. half of their functionality will be a baseline for that profession.”now, i could easily see this interpretation being incorrect, because it does seem to go against stats being mostly on armors, but thats what what they wrote says now that i look at it carefully.
My interpretation is that “baseline” refers to the profession-specific attribute. In other words, you’ll get some of the benefit of traiting Arcane (for instance) just for being an ele, and the rest by actually choosing that line. This w2ould level the playing field a bit because universal attributes look like they’ve been removed from traits altogether.
Giving professions more universal attributes like power and toughness seems like it would break too many things. Then again, I’ve made that argument in the past and been wrong, so, yeah, we’ll see.
HMMM ok….
well, lets hope they clear that up tommorow
no comments on some stats being profession specific? i would think that would effect dungeon meta maxers a lot.
The whole thing seems like a slight power creep for me.
Care to share your insights?
I thought the same thing when they said they’re increasing base stats and weapon stats.
Low level dungeon bosses are going to blow up even faster now.
since more of the stats are on gear, the level down system can better nerf your damage just by nerfing your gear.
also, low level players may have more traits/skills even at low levels now, if they hunted a lot of skill points.
my guess is they will actually end up normalizing a lot of things, and you will be less powerful relatively than before.
your fear of the nerf, doesnt consider that power is relative, and every other build will also have more power.
I can’t think of anything I regularly do that needs the forge. Its pretty useless to me outside of dailies.
what are skill points useful to you for right now?
i say this because the only thing skill points used for right now after unlocking skills is the forge, far as i know
It seems like the blog says their will be some stats allocated based on proffession.
For example, a theif may have more base power than a guardian, is this accurate?
based on this part;
“Each profession’s attributes will be updated to have half of their functionality be part of a specialization and half of their functionality will be a baseline for that profession.”
Professions will decide base attribute points, traits lines and gear will do the rest. Every player will have 1000 base points on every stat, then profession will add some points, then each chosen specialization will add more, and finally equipment will do the same. This means that some professions may have higher power that others, a bit like Warrior has currently more health and armor that others.
ahhh didnt really understand that proffesion based stat thing till you said it.
That blows.
some proffessions will just be built kitten (toughness/vit stats)I’m not sure that’s correct.
“We feel that separating build choices from stat decisions provides greater build flexibility, so you’ll no longer gain attribute points through a given line.
Each profession’s attributes will be updated to have half of their functionality be part of a specialization and half of their functionality will be a baseline for that profession. For example, elementalists now have a base attunement recharge of 10 seconds, which is reduced to 8.7 seconds when the arcane specialization is equipped."
It looks to me that the only attributes that will be profession-specific are the ones that are already profession-specific, like the example, attunement recharge.
Either that or the blog is contradicting itself, which I won’t rule out.
half will be part of the specialization, thats the ele base recast lowered with arcane trait line.
half will be proffession linked: “Each profession’s attributes will be updated…. half of their functionality will be a baseline for that profession.”
now, i could easily see this interpretation being incorrect, because it does seem to go against stats being mostly on armors, but thats what what they wrote says now that i look at it carefully.
So, what happens to characters who’d already unlocked every skill and trait in the game?
How about people who had 100% map completion and had done every skill challenge?Do all characters start off with everything locked and a number of hero points equivalent to the things they’ve already done to earn them? That seems most likely from what we know so far.
short story: we don’t know; we’ll have to wait for more details to find out
actually these were implicitly answered;
“A level 80 character that’s done none of the hero challenges should be able to unlock more than enough skills, "
this would be a player who unlocked everything already but did no skill challenges.
" A single character who’s done a fair amount of the hero challenges should be able to unlock all of the core specializations, skills, and traits."
this is a person who was 80 and had done every skill challenge
neither of these was likely to be a new charachter because they wouldnt be level 80. This passage is basically about how they currently want to handle existing level 80s, most likely.
They may change the plan if they get a lot of negative feedback though