It is clearer, but we're back to the point where I disagree with you about untraited abilities being useless. Your proposition fixes a problem that I don't think exists.
Your example is that of a Warrior who decided to, at least partially, trait for defense, and is then faced with an encounter where he can't benefit from it. You propose a solution to micromanage your traits to squeze the last bit of efficiency out of them, and I just don't believe that's neccessary. I've never been much of a fan of going to such extremes with minmaxing.
I don't think traits are intended to be something you switch all the time. They are intended to allow you to play a profession in a personal style, and once you've found that style, you'll want to stick with it.
We want traits to be different things.
Well I'm obviously not making myself clear. I'm not proposing micromanaging anything.
What I'm saying is that in the current system, a warrior who specced for Defense can encounter a situation where they can only attack at range (that's a real boss btw). They can't freely swap to Arms even though it seems like it would be significant benefit to doing so (6 synergistic bleed/crit/rifle traits and +300 Precision and Malice). This means they either need to just do their best for this encounter with whatever not quite useless Defense majors they can swap to, or they need to head back to town to respec.
We want traits to NOT be something you feel like you need to micromanage, but under the current system it feels like something people should. Like you changed your skills and now you want to change your traits to support them as well, but you can't. The problem I'm having with this is that 6 traits and 2 stat boosts that support those traits don't feel like a bonus, they feel like I should go back and respec for this boss, especially if we wipe on him a few times.
Ok, that was the current system.
This is what I'm proposing, making it a little more clear I hope:
You can only swap in town because ArenaNet wants permanence.
Remove attributes from Traits and put them back solely on gear.
Forget the Minor Traits. Ignore them for now.
Each of the 5 categories has 3 slots for Major traits. Let everyone fill all 3 in each category with the 12 major traits for that category. You choose 3 Strength majors, you choose 3 Arms, you choose 3 Defense, etc, for a total of 15 (compared to 14 Major+Minor we get now).
To say again. Look at the trait window now. Ignore the Minor traits, fill up the entire window with Majors.
To me, what this does is simply give people a wide variety of minor bonuses which they can use to enhance how they think they might play. In the Strength tree, you might buff axes, or physical utility skills. In Defense, maybe you buff your hammer, or a shield. You can give a few bonuses to whatever best suits your playstyle in general, or even plan ahead for an alternate weapon spec.
Then if you have to put down your axes for one encounter, you're only giving up 5% to axes, not some huge 6 talent synergy.
Because ArenaNet wants people to be able to go for Power, Crit, or Conditions, maybe the traits would be adjusted to make that an obvious choice that people would have to make in one of the categories.
In an earlier explanation of this, I suggested that players could choose a minor trait like it was a major (just combine them in the selection). I think that might have been a source of the confusion. I had also proposed giving people 2 from every category, but I think it might be easy to visualize filling up the whole screen with majors.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Just because you have your points in greatsword doesn't mean you can't say "Hey, I need to knock back enemies here...hm I'll just switch to my hammer 'cos I have one". The only thing that can limit a character is if they don't have the weapon for the job in their inventory, if they do, it doesn't matter what spec they have, the weapon will work as intended every time.
Yep, that's true!
The point of my post was that you can't really just specialize in one weapon and then ignore the rest.
People can and they will. They'll then complain about the game being unbalanced and too difficult because standing still pressing 1 also isn't viable.
Well I'm obviously not making myself clear. I'm not proposing micromanaging anything.
What I'm saying is that in the current system, a warrior who specced for Defense can encounter a situation where they can only attack at range (that's a real boss btw). They can't freely swap to Arms even though it seems like it would be significant benefit to doing so (6 synergistic bleed/crit/rifle traits and +300 Precision and Malice). This means they either need to just do their best for this encounter with whatever not quite useless Defense majors they can swap to, or they need to head back to town to respec.
We want traits to NOT be something you feel like you need to micromanage, but under the current system it feels like something people should. Like you changed your skills and now you want to change your traits to support them as well, but you can't. The problem I'm having with this is that 6 traits and 2 stat boosts that support those traits don't feel like a bonus, they feel like I should go back and respec for this boss, especially if we wipe on him a few times.
Ok, that was the current system...
Cali I kinda understand what you are saying but I also think you have made the issue much worse in your own mind on top of bringing a "must min-max EVERY fight" mentality to a game where I honestly don't think that will work.
First off, you could go "Sword & Board + Rifles" (for example) for a flexible defense-oriented build that also works at range.
Second, you are generally going to know where you are going so if you know there's a fight that's all kiting you would spec for it in town before leaving (just like in GW1).
Third, even in a fight at range a Warrior (for example) can provide other very valuable benefits with Banners/Shouts/etc.
I feel like you are totally caught up in this idea of "omg I'm Axes but this fight I NEED Bows!1!!1!" as if you can't (a) Spec 2 lines at 30 to cover 2 weapons (b) provide ANY "viable" Utility if you either swap to an "untraited" weapon or use Buffs/Boons/Heals on "melee unfriendly" fights and that's just not true.
It's a different type of game than what you are thinking it is, simply put.
Part of the fun of GW is finding new and interesting combinations of skills on your action bar and how you pick your traits. Think of it like building a deck in Magic: The Gathering card game. There are lots of decks that work well for how they are built, but all of them have there weaknesses.
Maybe you are set on a style that will deal with every situation equally well. Creating a build like that will also require you to make something that will accomplish that purpose.
Honestly, any game that has no trade-off with weaknesses to certain builds/talents/etc are simply creating an OP scenario.
Sid Meier, who knows a thing or two about game design, described gameplay as "a series of interesting choices".
Anyone who is complaining that this trait system doesn't allow them to be the best at everything should pause and think about that for a moment.
cali59, you seem worked up about the fact that a warrior who specs heavy into defense will be less effective in a fight where he is forced to fight at range. If you make a spec that was optimal in melee and optimal at range, where's the interesting choice?
The whole point is that you make a decision, and that decision will make your character be able to do some things extremely effectively, and some other things, you'll be less effective at. At which point you'll need to (a) suck it up and accept that you're not perfect at everything, (b) rely on your teammates to pick up the slack, and/or (c) go back to town and respec before every pull.
But looking over the trait lines, it's immediately obvious that everyone will be perfectly free to do multiple things well. Yes your hypothetical defense warrior could pick up all mace-and-shield specific major traits. But he could also - if he was concerned about being overly specialized - pick up "increased damage to weakened foes", "increased stance duration" and "regenerate health based on adrenaline level." They all sound useful all the time. And as far as I can see, none of the minor traits are weapon-specific.
So you spec for a control build but want to be the best dps for the next fight. Just because the boss can one shot you in melee does not mean he will not do significant damage from range which you will need toughness for. Your group may need a melee control for the boss after him but for that fight you will have to rely on someone esle. Everyone can make control builds but some will be more useful at times. Dungeons are a team effort so no group should have to rely on only one control.
Hum so you want to have one damage type clearly do more damage than the rest? In the arenanet blog post the said the dps system at the press beta was imbalanced so they adjusted power/precision/condition damage to be more balanced with one another. Instead of having power be the clear choice for dps. As far as which one should be best: Crit is generally the best for pvp since burst damage stop anyone for healing, Conditions are best for fights where you have a limited time to dps between dodging, and Power is best at substained dps.
I can argee with you about the minor traits. Even though they are call minor traits they are not since they cost alot of skill points to get to and you do not have a choice as to what trait you will get at the 5/15/25 mark in each tree. But we still have a few beta's left before the game comes out, so the traits we have seen are not set in stone and are subject to change.
I said in an earlier post everyone wants a universal build like in wow.
I am glad I was able to just link that wall of text instead of quoting it :P.
I don't know why, but I'm not making myself clear at all.
I don't even know if I should try again. What the hell, here goes.
Traits don't feel like character customization bonuses right now, they feel like potentially huge swings in effectiveness.
If you can totally change your skillbar, that's a choice you make to pick the skills for the encounter. But right now it feels like you can go from synergistic traits/skill combinations to completely unsynergistic ones.
If a boss is really difficult and you're struggling, this probably means you're heading back to town to respec for the encounter to get the seemingly huge rifle boost I think is possible if a guy could shift his Defense points.
What I want, what my proposal is trying to achieve is that you pick a bunch of bonuses based on your playstyle. Bonuses from a bunch of categories with no great synergy between them. If you like axes, you can boost your axe. If you like crit, you can boost that too. If you think you might use a shield from time to time, you can put traits into that just in case. A whole bunch of minor tradeoffs where you have 12 choices in each category and can pick 2-3.
I like tradeoffs. Tradeoffs are great.
In my proposal, even if you buff axes and have to use a rifle for the encounter, it's only a 5% damage hit or whatever. Maybe next time you do the dungeon you remember that boss and spec rifle. It doesn't feel like I should be going back to the town to respec into 6 synergistic traits and hundreds of attributes, or sitting in a dungeon wiping to a boss and thinking that I should.
Please understand this. I'm so tired of debating.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
I don't know why, but I'm not making myself clear at all.
I don't even know if I should try again. What the hell, here goes.
Traits don't feel like character customization bonuses right now, they feel like potentially huge swings in effectiveness.
If you can totally change your skillbar, that's a choice you make to pick the skills for the encounter. But right now it feels like you can go from synergistic traits/skill combinations to completely unsynergistic ones.
If a boss is really difficult and you're struggling, this probably means you're heading back to town to respec for the encounter to get the seemingly huge rifle boost I think is possible if a guy could shift his Defense points.
What I want, what my proposal is trying to achieve is that you pick a bunch of bonuses based on your playstyle. Bonuses from a bunch of categories with no great synergy between them. If you like axes, you can boost your axe. If you like crit, you can boost that too. If you think you might use a shield from time to time, you can put traits into that just in case. A whole bunch of minor tradeoffs where you have 12 choices in each category and can pick 2-3.
I like tradeoffs. Tradeoffs are great.
In my proposal, even if you buff axes and have to use a rifle for the encounter, it's only a 5% damage hit or whatever. Maybe next time you do the dungeon you remember that boss and spec rifle. It doesn't feel like I should be going back to the town to respec into 6 synergistic traits and hundreds of attributes, or sitting in a dungeon wiping to a boss and thinking that I should.
Please understand this. I'm so tired of debating.
I looked at the warriors traits that we have seen and what you are proposing is already their. Warriors do not have any traits to greatly improve range damage over melee. Every other trait tree is focused on one weapon hammer/sword /axes with axes mastery in the strength trait line is the only issue I see. Overall you are just talking about a balance issue in some trait lines with a game that is still in BETA.
I don't know why, but I'm not making myself clear at all.
I don't even know if I should try again. What the hell, here goes.
Traits don't feel like character customization bonuses right now, they feel like potentially huge swings in effectiveness.
If you can totally change your skillbar, that's a choice you make to pick the skills for the encounter. But right now it feels like you can go from synergistic traits/skill combinations to completely unsynergistic ones.
If a boss is really difficult and you're struggling, this probably means you're heading back to town to respec for the encounter to get the seemingly huge rifle boost I think is possible if a guy could shift his Defense points.
What I want, what my proposal is trying to achieve is that you pick a bunch of bonuses based on your playstyle. Bonuses from a bunch of categories with no great synergy between them. If you like axes, you can boost your axe. If you like crit, you can boost that too. If you think you might use a shield from time to time, you can put traits into that just in case. A whole bunch of minor tradeoffs where you have 12 choices in each category and can pick 2-3.
I like tradeoffs. Tradeoffs are great.
In my proposal, even if you buff axes and have to use a rifle for the encounter, it's only a 5% damage hit or whatever. Maybe next time you do the dungeon you remember that boss and spec rifle. It doesn't feel like I should be going back to the town to respec into 6 synergistic traits and hundreds of attributes, or sitting in a dungeon wiping to a boss and thinking that I should.
Please understand this. I'm so tired of debating.
I looked at the warriors traits that we have seen and what you are proposing is already their. Warriors do not have any traits to greatly improve range damage over melee. Every other trait tree is focused on one weapon hammer/sword /axes with axes mastery in the strength trait line is the only issue I see. Overall you are just talking about a balance issue in some trait lines with a game that is still in BETA.
No, I'm not talking about a balance issue with trait lines. I'm talking about synergy with your skills when you choose one trait line that disappears when you choose another.
I am literally begging ArenaNet to rethink this change on GW2Guru where I've posted literally 17 times in one thread and haven't even expressed all of my objections to this system.
In addition to all my other problems with it, I'm starting to think that "it must be so complicated that I can't even adequately explain what is wrong with it" is itself a sign that there's something wrong with it.
What I am talking about is a person who took 30 points in Defense having to use a rifle for a particular encounter.
If I have to use a rifle, even if I can switch my major traits to something in defense that would help, I end up with something like this:
Adept Vigorous Return: Increased health on rally.
Master Embrace the Pain: Gain adrenaline when hit.
Grandmaster Armored Attack: 10% of toughness is converted to power.
Major Adrenal Health: Regenerate health based on adrenaline level.
Major Cull the Weak: Increased damage to weakened foes.
Major Sure-footed: Increased stance duration.
Not useless, but really not optimal.
However, if I could switch my 30 points to Arms, not only would I have +300 Precision which buffs crit, I'd also have Malice which increases the damage of bleeds.
Adept Precise Strikes: 33% chance to cause bleeding on crit.
Master Critical Burst: Burst skills have an increased crit chance.
Grandmaster Rending Strikes: 33% chance to cause vulnerability on crit.
Major Attack of Opportunity: Deal extra damage to a bleeding foe.
Major Deep Cuts: Bleeds you apply last 50% longer.
Major Marksman: Increased damage with harpoon gun or rifle.
Look at the synergy there.
The problem I'm having (one of many problems) is that switching your skills kills the synergy between your skills and your traits. You either go up against this boss in a suboptimal configuration, or you need to go back to town and respec.
ArenaNet doesn't want us to respec. I don't want us to respec. I want traits to be tradeoffs. If the boss is very hard, it's either tuned for people running optimal specs for it (and balanced specs struggle), or it's tuned for balanced specs, in which case very synergistic specs have an easier time.
Right now, the trait system lets you pick these ultra synergistic trait combinations. They don't feel like customization bonuses to me, they feel like things people should be doing to min/max, which they can't without going back to a trainer.
What I'm proposing is a way for people to take 15 traits but without these obvious synergies. If you like axes, you can take an axe trait. If you like greatswords, you can take that trait instead. If you like neither, you can take a physical utility trait. Whatever you prefer to customize your playstyle.
Then if you do run into a situation where you took an axe trait but have to use a rifle, you don't feel like you're totally screwed because it's just 1 trait out of 15 which doesn't apply for this encounter.
Can someone please show me love and let me know they get what I'm talking about?
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Honestly, this isn't even my latest objection, which is also something I can't seem to get anyone on GW2Guru to take seriously.
Colin Johanson gave this interview where he said that one of the reasons they tied skills to weapons in GW2 was because there were people in GW1 who were bad at making builds. http://www.necrobator.com/features/i...nson-part-two/ One of the things I truly love about GW2 is that even though there are fewer choices overall, you can't really make a bad build. You're always going to have a weapon, a heal, at least somewhat useful utilities and elite.
My latest objection to this traits system is that unlike skills, it's possible to make a bad build. Like REALLY bad.
This build is awful. Because of terrible trait point placement, they get access to 3 Major traits instead of 7. Furthermore, it's possible to take completely unhelpful major traits, like in this example if the elementalist didn't have any glyph, signet, or conjured weapon skills. Granted, nobody should do that, but maybe they make a mistake or swap skills and forget to change traits.
I see a huge inconsistency between their desire to make it so nobody can gimp themselves with skills, and how badly you can potentially gimp yourself with traits.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
I get what your saying Cali and I wonder about it with my Warrior build that I want to use. But we have no idea how often this occurance will happen. If it crops up every hour or so of gameplay then its a big problem, every dungeon- problem, every so often?? all well thats the price of specializing.
As stated before hand the weapon gives the skill at a decent base level. So your not a total gimp if you have to switch out your prefered weapons to one that your only baseline in. Change your skills and elite around, even change a major if you get the chance for some new synergy, and try the encounter. If you want to use up a bunch of bag space, make sure you have all your weapons and a different set of generalized runed armor (yuk i know but ya gotta do that sometimes)
Eh was trying to write more and it just wasnt comin out right so im gonna stop. Hope i got my point across.
Well, they could always introduce "Dual Spec", or Multiple Specs. It's inevitable that people are going to be trying different specs for certain fights and encounters. This still wouldn't fix the problem though.
An Earth attuned Elementalist might do better as an Air attuned Elementalist against a certain boss or encounter.
Earth magic line gives Malice (Improves damage done by conditions)
Air magic line gives Prowess (Improves damage multiplier on critical strikes)
Now why would i use the Air magic line on a boss if the Earth magic line would be superior by using conditions? I would be gimping my stats. Will the group actually wait for me to go back to town and respec? I highly doubt it.
Honestly, this isn't even my latest objection, which is also something I can't seem to get anyone on GW2Guru to take seriously.
Colin Johanson gave this interview where he said that one of the reasons they tied skills to weapons in GW2 was because there were people in GW1 who were bad at making builds. http://www.necrobator.com/features/i...nson-part-two/ One of the things I truly love about GW2 is that even though there are fewer choices overall, you can't really make a bad build. You're always going to have a weapon, a heal, at least somewhat useful utilities and elite.
My latest objection to this traits system is that unlike skills, it's possible to make a bad build. Like REALLY bad.
This build is awful. Because of terrible trait point placement, they get access to 3 Major traits instead of 7. Furthermore, it's possible to take completely unhelpful major traits, like in this example if the elementalist didn't have any glyph, signet, or conjured weapon skills. Granted, nobody should do that, but maybe they make a mistake or swap skills and forget to change traits.
I see a huge inconsistency between their desire to make it so nobody can gimp themselves with skills, and how badly you can potentially gimp yourself with traits.
You have to purposefully gimp yourself to make a build that bad.
Even if you purposefully gimp yourself, your build still works.
Idiot-proofing the game, while having a system that lets players build the way we want to is probably impossible.
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
Honestly, this isn't even my latest objection, which is also something I can't seem to get anyone on GW2Guru to take seriously.
Colin Johanson gave this interview where he said that one of the reasons they tied skills to weapons in GW2 was because there were people in GW1 who were bad at making builds. http://www.necrobator.com/features/i...nson-part-two/ One of the things I truly love about GW2 is that even though there are fewer choices overall, you can't really make a bad build. You're always going to have a weapon, a heal, at least somewhat useful utilities and elite.
My latest objection to this traits system is that unlike skills, it's possible to make a bad build. Like REALLY bad.
This build is awful. Because of terrible trait point placement, they get access to 3 Major traits instead of 7. Furthermore, it's possible to take completely unhelpful major traits, like in this example if the elementalist didn't have any glyph, signet, or conjured weapon skills. Granted, nobody should do that, but maybe they make a mistake or swap skills and forget to change traits.
I see a huge inconsistency between their desire to make it so nobody can gimp themselves with skills, and how badly you can potentially gimp yourself with traits.
You have to purposefully gimp yourself to make a build that bad.
Even if you purposefully gimp yourself, your build still works.
Idiot-proofing the game, while having a system that lets players build the way we want to is probably impossible.
Their goal with the skill system was to make a system where you couldn't gimp yourself, but which allowed for expert players to get more out of it with synergies (presumably tying in traits as well).
Don't you think they've succeeded in doing that? Can you even make a skill build which you can say that's really bad?
Can you even point to any utility skill that you could say "given the rest of their build, this isn't going to help them at all?"
Forget about my other proposal above and look at the trait system as it is now.
Suppose instead of getting one point per level, you got 1 point every 5 levels and each one by itself was enough to unlock a minor or major trait. That would be a simpler system. That would be a system where you couldn't go 19/19/14/9/9 and completely screw yourself. Yet the functionality would be near identical to what is obviously intended.
Suppose they didn't make major traits which tied to particular weapons/glyphs/seals etc and they were all just generic bonuses so you could pick which ones you liked to fit your playstyle. That would arguably be a better system because then people couldn't (for whatever reason) have selected traits which didn't benefit them.
You call it idiot proofing, but based on the interview it's clear that there are people who just made bad builds. GW2 seems like it's going to be an extremely casual friendly game. Making simple changes so that people always have a totally functional baseline yet still allowing for more experienced players to get more out of the system seems like something ArenaNet really should be doing.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Oh c'mon now cali. I could come up with a purposefully useless build in your proposed system as well. That's hardly a convincing argument against the current one.
Other than that we're running in circles. We DO get what you're talking about, we just don't agree with you.
Suppose they didn't make major traits which tied to particular weapons/glyphs/seals etc and they were all just generic bonuses so you could pick which ones you liked to fit your playstyle. That would arguably be a better system because then people couldn't (for whatever reason) have selected traits which didn't benefit them.
That would be a horrible system. That is in fact a criticism i have with the current system. There are still too many flat damage bonuses in there. More damage is not a choice. Those always seem mandatory, and players feel like they need to pick them up.
Honestly, this isn't even my latest objection, which is also something I can't seem to get anyone on GW2Guru to take seriously.
Colin Johanson gave this interview where he said that one of the reasons they tied skills to weapons in GW2 was because there were people in GW1 who were bad at making builds. http://www.necrobator.com/features/i...nson-part-two/ One of the things I truly love about GW2 is that even though there are fewer choices overall, you can't really make a bad build. You're always going to have a weapon, a heal, at least somewhat useful utilities and elite.
My latest objection to this traits system is that unlike skills, it's possible to make a bad build. Like REALLY bad.
This build is awful. Because of terrible trait point placement, they get access to 3 Major traits instead of 7. Furthermore, it's possible to take completely unhelpful major traits, like in this example if the elementalist didn't have any glyph, signet, or conjured weapon skills. Granted, nobody should do that, but maybe they make a mistake or swap skills and forget to change traits.
I see a huge inconsistency between their desire to make it so nobody can gimp themselves with skills, and how badly you can potentially gimp yourself with traits.
You have to purposefully gimp yourself to make a build that bad.
Even if you purposefully gimp yourself, your build still works.
Idiot-proofing the game, while having a system that lets players build the way we want to is probably impossible.
1. Have you played games online? Some people are bad. Some people are really, ridiculously bad.
2. That isn't going to be enough justification for the inevitable min-maxers that WILL be playing GW2.
3. You're right; which is why this system should not exist.
You call it idiot proofing, but based on the interview it's clear that there are people who just made bad builds. GW2 seems like it's going to be an extremely casual friendly game. Making simple changes so that people always have a totally functional baseline yet still allowing for more experienced players to get more out of the system seems like something ArenaNet really should be doing.
Ok Cali, I'll play again...
First off, I'd be willing to bet money that the reason we have 70 Points is they wanted a system that rewarded players at every level gained as changes in (a certain other game) weren't well-received. Since based on beta feedback it'll take a player 20-40 minutes to unlock their weapons, there does need to be some kind of tangible feeling of "reward" or "progression" as players level up. You might disagree, but I've heard them talk about it before.
Second, as people have said you worked really hard to come up with a bad build, and even if somebody really did that it would be easy enough for them to correct it with a respec.
Third, let's take a look at a Warrior with that ranged fight in mind. Here's a build that I don't consider particularly good for that dungeon or even for play in general, but I can see people taking it as a kind of "Paladin/Tank/Support" concept: http://www.gw2tools.com/#t-w-afppa:aaa.baa.Wgc.WfX.aaa
Like I said, not particularly good but it's got a "Sword & Board" Support theme going. Now we get to that nasty Spider and "Omgz whatever are we going to do?!?..."
Well, we can try something like this http://www.gw2tools.com/#t-w-afppa:aaa.Xaa.Wdc.WfX.aaa and we spend the fight Supporting with Shouts, shooting when the Spidey isn't looking/running at us, and we can reflect missiles sent our way while our Shield is out. The 25-point Defense Minor Trait means that (especially if we really went Tanky and stacked as much Toughness as we could on our gear) we will still have a very respectable Power rating for consistent damage, and the 25-point Tactics Minor means we're making everybody else hit harder passively.
And all that was accomplished without even taking into account that we can focus on a Bow with Tactics or build for a Banner or Warhorn instead.
Hopefully this clarifies my point a bit - you seem deadset on focusing/worrying about not being able to go from "Max Control/Support" to "Max Ranged Damage" on that Spider fight and I'd argue that trying to is "doing it wrong" because Support is still going to be very valuable on that fight, and if you are good at Dodging boy are you going to be able to take a lot more damage before going down with the above build.
And finally, once again - that above Build isn't even one I expect to be preferred for that Dungeon and I still think it can work.
GW1 was all about coming up with optimized and synergized builds for specific Heroic Missions. As best we can tell, that tradition lives on in Expore-Mode Dungeons. I want a deep and varied system for designing my character to work with a group for those, and I accept that kind of system will also allow for "bad builds" that might work fine in the open world but fail in Dungeon play.
First, like the original GW, armor is armor - there is no traits really on it. That means no armor grind to get the best. GW2, like it's predecessor, is about your skill at playing not getting 'UBER' anything. Armor look will be about vanity and how you want your character to look.
GW1 also didn't let you change your builds, once you picked them, you were stuck. That changed as the game matured.
You already have 5 skills tied to your weapon, change weapon change those skills. So in fact, you can change some on the fly.
Like most games, there will always be people who want everything their way - the QQ'ers. The developers/designers have a reason to to do things this way. Let's see how the game looks in beta once we are able to play it.
First, like the original GW, armor is armor - there is no traits really on it. That means no armor grind to get the best. GW2, like it's predecessor, is about your skill at playing not getting 'UBER' anything. Armor look will be about vanity and how you want your character to look.
GW1 also didn't let you change your builds, once you picked them, you were stuck. That changed as the game matured.
You already have 5 skills tied to your weapon, change weapon change those skills. So in fact, you can change some on the fly.
Like most games, there will always be people who want everything their way - the QQ'ers. The developers/designers have a reason to to do things this way. Let's see how the game looks in beta once we are able to play it.
GW2 armor, like GW1, have stats. The power curve is much more shallow than in other games and it won't take long upon reaching the level cap to acquire max stat gear. There is no "End Game" gear grind.
GW1 did allow you to change your builds. Originally you earned refund points by earning XP and completing quests ans those points could be used to refund attribute points. As long as you had the refund points, you could change your build mid-mission.
Not long after release, they got rid of the refund point cost and allowed you to freely readjust your build, but you had to do so in town or at an outpost, you could no longer change it mid-mission.
Yes, most professions can swap between two weapon sets mid combat. Anyone can swap weapons in and out of their weapon set(s) out of combat.
Tbe developers originally touted the ability to change trait builds anywhere, outside of combat and for free, as a desirable element of GW2 game design. They made a good case for that design choice at the time. The reversal was unexpected and no explaination was given. Some of us would like to know what caused them to backtrack and are requesting some compromise. Few have asked for a complete reversal, we understand there must have been some reason for the change, but we also see some serious negative consequences to the change, as is. (Inability to freely change builds other than through a trainer is likely to lead to groups recruiting particular, proven, Flavor of the Moment builds. This would be contrary to a major design goal of the game, which is that no group will ever have to wait for a particular profession to do content and no player will have to miss out on a group because they are the wrong profession).
Suggested compromises have been limited respecs in the field, or the ability to save two builds that you can switch between in the field, while still needing to visit a trainer to change those builds. No one is demanding "their way", we just would like some communication, feel the need to voice our concerns on this encouraging people to stick to cookie cutter builds and would like to suggest some simple compromises to alleviate our concerns.
First, like the original GW, armor is armor - there is no traits really on it. That means no armor grind to get the best. GW2, like it's predecessor, is about your skill at playing not getting 'UBER' anything. Armor look will be about vanity and how you want your character to look.
GW1 also didn't let you change your builds, once you picked them, you were stuck. That changed as the game matured.
You already have 5 skills tied to your weapon, change weapon change those skills. So in fact, you can change some on the fly.
Like most games, there will always be people who want everything their way - the QQ'ers. The developers/designers have a reason to to do things this way. Let's see how the game looks in beta once we are able to play it.
GW1 armor did have traits, later armors did however allow you to change those traits.
GW2 armors will have traits as well, but they will be balanced so one is not affecting the game balance much more than any other.
And you could initially change builds outside outposts.
This system is slightly different, I agree that we need to try it out before really judging it
First, like the original GW, armor is armor - there is no traits really on it. That means no armor grind to get the best. GW2, like it's predecessor, is about your skill at playing not getting 'UBER' anything. Armor look will be about vanity and how you want your character to look.
GW1 also didn't let you change your builds, once you picked them, you were stuck. That changed as the game matured.
You already have 5 skills tied to your weapon, change weapon change those skills. So in fact, you can change some on the fly.
Like most games, there will always be people who want everything their way - the QQ'ers. The developers/designers have a reason to to do things this way. Let's see how the game looks in beta once we are able to play it.
GW2 armor, like GW1, have stats. The power curve is much more shallow than in other games and it won't take long upon reaching the level cap to acquire max stat gear. There is no "End Game" gear grind.
GW1 did allow you to change your builds. Originally you earned refund points by earning XP and completing quests ans those points could be used to refund attribute points. As long as you had the refund points, you could change your build mid-mission.
Not long after release, they got rid of the refund point cost and allowed you to freely readjust your build, but you had to do so in town or at an outpost, you could no longer change it mid-mission.
Yes, most professions can swap between two weapon sets mid combat. Anyone can swap weapons in and out of their weapon set(s) out of combat.
Tbe developers originally touted the ability to change trait builds anywhere, outside of combat and for free, as a desirable element of GW2 game design. They made a good case for that design choice at the time. The reversal was unexpected and no explaination was given. Some of us would like to know what caused them to backtrack and are requesting some compromise. Few have asked for a complete reversal, we understand there must have been some reason for the change, but we also see some serious negative consequences to the change, as is. (Inability to freely change builds other than through a trainer is likely to lead to groups recruiting particular, proven, Flavor of the Moment builds. This would be contrary to a major design goal of the game, which is that no group will ever have to wait for a particular profession to do content and no player will have to miss out on a group because they are the wrong profession).
Suggested compromises have been limited respecs in the field, or the ability to save two builds that you can switch between in the field, while still needing to visit a trainer to change those builds. No one is demanding "their way", we just would like some communication, feel the need to voice our concerns on this encouraging people to stick to cookie cutter builds and would like to suggest some simple compromises to alleviate our concerns.
So if I didn't read wrong, the way they currently have it will lead to the cooki cutter builds and that will limit our participation in the group activities (Dungeons), am I correct?
So doesn't that break the game's philosophy just like you said it?
So if I didn't read wrong, the way they currently have it will lead to the cooki cutter builds and that will limit our participation in the group activities (Dungeons), am I correct?
So doesn't that break the game's philosophy just like you said it?
That is indeed the criticism. The problem here is that people think of trait builds as if those were the builds in GW1 or talent specs in WoW. They are not, because professions in GW2 are generalists by design.
The game's philosophy remains unchanged. You cannot trait to become a healer, you cannot trait to become a tank. You cannot trait yourself 'wrong' so you're not viable as a party member for a dungeon. Traiting allows to emphasize one ore more aspects of your characters abilities, but even then you will never be efficient if you focus on just those while neglecting the rest of your abilities in combat.
The purpose of the trait system is not to optimize your character, it is to customize it.
First, like the original GW, armor is armor - there is no traits really on it. That means no armor grind to get the best. GW2, like it's predecessor, is about your skill at playing not getting 'UBER' anything. Armor look will be about vanity and how you want your character to look.
GW1 also didn't let you change your builds, once you picked them, you were stuck. That changed as the game matured.
You already have 5 skills tied to your weapon, change weapon change those skills. So in fact, you can change some on the fly.
Like most games, there will always be people who want everything their way - the QQ'ers. The developers/designers have a reason to to do things this way. Let's see how the game looks in beta once we are able to play it.
GW2 armor, like GW1, have stats. The power curve is much more shallow than in other games and it won't take long upon reaching the level cap to acquire max stat gear. There is no "End Game" gear grind.
GW1 did allow you to change your builds. Originally you earned refund points by earning XP and completing quests ans those points could be used to refund attribute points. As long as you had the refund points, you could change your build mid-mission.
Not long after release, they got rid of the refund point cost and allowed you to freely readjust your build, but you had to do so in town or at an outpost, you could no longer change it mid-mission.
Yes, most professions can swap between two weapon sets mid combat. Anyone can swap weapons in and out of their weapon set(s) out of combat.
Tbe developers originally touted the ability to change trait builds anywhere, outside of combat and for free, as a desirable element of GW2 game design. They made a good case for that design choice at the time. The reversal was unexpected and no explaination was given. Some of us would like to know what caused them to backtrack and are requesting some compromise. Few have asked for a complete reversal, we understand there must have been some reason for the change, but we also see some serious negative consequences to the change, as is. (Inability to freely change builds other than through a trainer is likely to lead to groups recruiting particular, proven, Flavor of the Moment builds. This would be contrary to a major design goal of the game, which is that no group will ever have to wait for a particular profession to do content and no player will have to miss out on a group because they are the wrong profession).
Suggested compromises have been limited respecs in the field, or the ability to save two builds that you can switch between in the field, while still needing to visit a trainer to change those builds. No one is demanding "their way", we just would like some communication, feel the need to voice our concerns on this encouraging people to stick to cookie cutter builds and would like to suggest some simple compromises to alleviate our concerns.
Initially they did yes, but after Nightfall, you had to put runes on your armor to get the stats - otherwise max armor was just that - max armor. They also converted the older armor (I had elite Bonelace armor which was converted to Elite cabalist with the runes to make it bone lace). It is not quite the same as WoW or Rift where the interents on the armor make you more powerful.
Let us wait and see. We can conjecture all we want but when we play the game we will know more.
Comments
Well I'm obviously not making myself clear. I'm not proposing micromanaging anything.
What I'm saying is that in the current system, a warrior who specced for Defense can encounter a situation where they can only attack at range (that's a real boss btw). They can't freely swap to Arms even though it seems like it would be significant benefit to doing so (6 synergistic bleed/crit/rifle traits and +300 Precision and Malice). This means they either need to just do their best for this encounter with whatever not quite useless Defense majors they can swap to, or they need to head back to town to respec.
We want traits to NOT be something you feel like you need to micromanage, but under the current system it feels like something people should. Like you changed your skills and now you want to change your traits to support them as well, but you can't. The problem I'm having with this is that 6 traits and 2 stat boosts that support those traits don't feel like a bonus, they feel like I should go back and respec for this boss, especially if we wipe on him a few times.
Ok, that was the current system.
This is what I'm proposing, making it a little more clear I hope:
You can only swap in town because ArenaNet wants permanence.
Remove attributes from Traits and put them back solely on gear.
Forget the Minor Traits. Ignore them for now.
Each of the 5 categories has 3 slots for Major traits. Let everyone fill all 3 in each category with the 12 major traits for that category. You choose 3 Strength majors, you choose 3 Arms, you choose 3 Defense, etc, for a total of 15 (compared to 14 Major+Minor we get now).
To say again. Look at the trait window now. Ignore the Minor traits, fill up the entire window with Majors.
To me, what this does is simply give people a wide variety of minor bonuses which they can use to enhance how they think they might play. In the Strength tree, you might buff axes, or physical utility skills. In Defense, maybe you buff your hammer, or a shield. You can give a few bonuses to whatever best suits your playstyle in general, or even plan ahead for an alternate weapon spec.
Then if you have to put down your axes for one encounter, you're only giving up 5% to axes, not some huge 6 talent synergy.
Because ArenaNet wants people to be able to go for Power, Crit, or Conditions, maybe the traits would be adjusted to make that an obvious choice that people would have to make in one of the categories.
In an earlier explanation of this, I suggested that players could choose a minor trait like it was a major (just combine them in the selection). I think that might have been a source of the confusion. I had also proposed giving people 2 from every category, but I think it might be easy to visualize filling up the whole screen with majors.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Let's pray they don't.
@Creslin
Yea, I wasn't quite sure if you were saying that or not. Good to know you were.
This is not a game.
Cali I kinda understand what you are saying but I also think you have made the issue much worse in your own mind on top of bringing a "must min-max EVERY fight" mentality to a game where I honestly don't think that will work.
First off, you could go "Sword & Board + Rifles" (for example) for a flexible defense-oriented build that also works at range.
Second, you are generally going to know where you are going so if you know there's a fight that's all kiting you would spec for it in town before leaving (just like in GW1).
Third, even in a fight at range a Warrior (for example) can provide other very valuable benefits with Banners/Shouts/etc.
I feel like you are totally caught up in this idea of "omg I'm Axes but this fight I NEED Bows!1!!1!" as if you can't (a) Spec 2 lines at 30 to cover 2 weapons (b) provide ANY "viable" Utility if you either swap to an "untraited" weapon or use Buffs/Boons/Heals on "melee unfriendly" fights and that's just not true.
Cali-
It's a different type of game than what you are thinking it is, simply put.
Part of the fun of GW is finding new and interesting combinations of skills on your action bar and how you pick your traits. Think of it like building a deck in Magic: The Gathering card game. There are lots of decks that work well for how they are built, but all of them have there weaknesses.
Maybe you are set on a style that will deal with every situation equally well. Creating a build like that will also require you to make something that will accomplish that purpose.
Honestly, any game that has no trade-off with weaknesses to certain builds/talents/etc are simply creating an OP scenario.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
Sid Meier, who knows a thing or two about game design, described gameplay as "a series of interesting choices".
Anyone who is complaining that this trait system doesn't allow them to be the best at everything should pause and think about that for a moment.
cali59, you seem worked up about the fact that a warrior who specs heavy into defense will be less effective in a fight where he is forced to fight at range. If you make a spec that was optimal in melee and optimal at range, where's the interesting choice?
The whole point is that you make a decision, and that decision will make your character be able to do some things extremely effectively, and some other things, you'll be less effective at. At which point you'll need to (a) suck it up and accept that you're not perfect at everything, (b) rely on your teammates to pick up the slack, and/or (c) go back to town and respec before every pull.
But looking over the trait lines, it's immediately obvious that everyone will be perfectly free to do multiple things well. Yes your hypothetical defense warrior could pick up all mace-and-shield specific major traits. But he could also - if he was concerned about being overly specialized - pick up "increased damage to weakened foes", "increased stance duration" and "regenerate health based on adrenaline level." They all sound useful all the time. And as far as I can see, none of the minor traits are weapon-specific.
So you spec for a control build but want to be the best dps for the next fight. Just because the boss can one shot you in melee does not mean he will not do significant damage from range which you will need toughness for. Your group may need a melee control for the boss after him but for that fight you will have to rely on someone esle. Everyone can make control builds but some will be more useful at times. Dungeons are a team effort so no group should have to rely on only one control.
Hum so you want to have one damage type clearly do more damage than the rest? In the arenanet blog post the said the dps system at the press beta was imbalanced so they adjusted power/precision/condition damage to be more balanced with one another. Instead of having power be the clear choice for dps. As far as which one should be best: Crit is generally the best for pvp since burst damage stop anyone for healing, Conditions are best for fights where you have a limited time to dps between dodging, and Power is best at substained dps.
I can argee with you about the minor traits. Even though they are call minor traits they are not since they cost alot of skill points to get to and you do not have a choice as to what trait you will get at the 5/15/25 mark in each tree. But we still have a few beta's left before the game comes out, so the traits we have seen are not set in stone and are subject to change.
I said in an earlier post everyone wants a universal build like in wow.
I am glad I was able to just link that wall of text instead of quoting it :P.
I give up.
I don't know why, but I'm not making myself clear at all.
I don't even know if I should try again. What the hell, here goes.
Traits don't feel like character customization bonuses right now, they feel like potentially huge swings in effectiveness.
If you can totally change your skillbar, that's a choice you make to pick the skills for the encounter. But right now it feels like you can go from synergistic traits/skill combinations to completely unsynergistic ones.
If a boss is really difficult and you're struggling, this probably means you're heading back to town to respec for the encounter to get the seemingly huge rifle boost I think is possible if a guy could shift his Defense points.
What I want, what my proposal is trying to achieve is that you pick a bunch of bonuses based on your playstyle. Bonuses from a bunch of categories with no great synergy between them. If you like axes, you can boost your axe. If you like crit, you can boost that too. If you think you might use a shield from time to time, you can put traits into that just in case. A whole bunch of minor tradeoffs where you have 12 choices in each category and can pick 2-3.
I like tradeoffs. Tradeoffs are great.
In my proposal, even if you buff axes and have to use a rifle for the encounter, it's only a 5% damage hit or whatever. Maybe next time you do the dungeon you remember that boss and spec rifle. It doesn't feel like I should be going back to the town to respec into 6 synergistic traits and hundreds of attributes, or sitting in a dungeon wiping to a boss and thinking that I should.
Please understand this. I'm so tired of debating.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
I looked at the warriors traits that we have seen and what you are proposing is already their. Warriors do not have any traits to greatly improve range damage over melee. Every other trait tree is focused on one weapon hammer/sword /axes with axes mastery in the strength trait line is the only issue I see. Overall you are just talking about a balance issue in some trait lines with a game that is still in BETA.
Some of us understand. To take it further, i wonder how this will affect maxed out characters when they go back to lower level areas.
No, I'm not talking about a balance issue with trait lines. I'm talking about synergy with your skills when you choose one trait line that disappears when you choose another.
I am literally begging ArenaNet to rethink this change on GW2Guru where I've posted literally 17 times in one thread and haven't even expressed all of my objections to this system.
In addition to all my other problems with it, I'm starting to think that "it must be so complicated that I can't even adequately explain what is wrong with it" is itself a sign that there's something wrong with it.
What I am talking about is a person who took 30 points in Defense having to use a rifle for a particular encounter.
If I have to use a rifle, even if I can switch my major traits to something in defense that would help, I end up with something like this:
Adept Vigorous Return: Increased health on rally.
Master Embrace the Pain: Gain adrenaline when hit.
Grandmaster Armored Attack: 10% of toughness is converted to power.
Major Adrenal Health: Regenerate health based on adrenaline level.
Major Cull the Weak: Increased damage to weakened foes.
Major Sure-footed: Increased stance duration.
Not useless, but really not optimal.
However, if I could switch my 30 points to Arms, not only would I have +300 Precision which buffs crit, I'd also have Malice which increases the damage of bleeds.
Adept Precise Strikes: 33% chance to cause bleeding on crit.
Master Critical Burst: Burst skills have an increased crit chance.
Grandmaster Rending Strikes: 33% chance to cause vulnerability on crit.
Major Attack of Opportunity: Deal extra damage to a bleeding foe.
Major Deep Cuts: Bleeds you apply last 50% longer.
Major Marksman: Increased damage with harpoon gun or rifle.
Look at the synergy there.
The problem I'm having (one of many problems) is that switching your skills kills the synergy between your skills and your traits. You either go up against this boss in a suboptimal configuration, or you need to go back to town and respec.
ArenaNet doesn't want us to respec. I don't want us to respec. I want traits to be tradeoffs. If the boss is very hard, it's either tuned for people running optimal specs for it (and balanced specs struggle), or it's tuned for balanced specs, in which case very synergistic specs have an easier time.
Right now, the trait system lets you pick these ultra synergistic trait combinations. They don't feel like customization bonuses to me, they feel like things people should be doing to min/max, which they can't without going back to a trainer.
What I'm proposing is a way for people to take 15 traits but without these obvious synergies. If you like axes, you can take an axe trait. If you like greatswords, you can take that trait instead. If you like neither, you can take a physical utility trait. Whatever you prefer to customize your playstyle.
Then if you do run into a situation where you took an axe trait but have to use a rifle, you don't feel like you're totally screwed because it's just 1 trait out of 15 which doesn't apply for this encounter.
Can someone please show me love and let me know they get what I'm talking about?
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Honestly, this isn't even my latest objection, which is also something I can't seem to get anyone on GW2Guru to take seriously.
Colin Johanson gave this interview where he said that one of the reasons they tied skills to weapons in GW2 was because there were people in GW1 who were bad at making builds. http://www.necrobator.com/features/i...nson-part-two/ One of the things I truly love about GW2 is that even though there are fewer choices overall, you can't really make a bad build. You're always going to have a weapon, a heal, at least somewhat useful utilities and elite.
My latest objection to this traits system is that unlike skills, it's possible to make a bad build. Like REALLY bad.
Please please please take a look at this trait build. http://www.gw2tools.com/#t-el-QQhVV:Waa.daa.Zaa.aaa.aaa
This build is awful. Because of terrible trait point placement, they get access to 3 Major traits instead of 7. Furthermore, it's possible to take completely unhelpful major traits, like in this example if the elementalist didn't have any glyph, signet, or conjured weapon skills. Granted, nobody should do that, but maybe they make a mistake or swap skills and forget to change traits.
I see a huge inconsistency between their desire to make it so nobody can gimp themselves with skills, and how badly you can potentially gimp yourself with traits.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
I get what your saying Cali and I wonder about it with my Warrior build that I want to use. But we have no idea how often this occurance will happen. If it crops up every hour or so of gameplay then its a big problem, every dungeon- problem, every so often?? all well thats the price of specializing.
As stated before hand the weapon gives the skill at a decent base level. So your not a total gimp if you have to switch out your prefered weapons to one that your only baseline in. Change your skills and elite around, even change a major if you get the chance for some new synergy, and try the encounter. If you want to use up a bunch of bag space, make sure you have all your weapons and a different set of generalized runed armor (yuk i know but ya gotta do that sometimes)
Eh was trying to write more and it just wasnt comin out right so im gonna stop. Hope i got my point across.
Well, they could always introduce "Dual Spec", or Multiple Specs. It's inevitable that people are going to be trying different specs for certain fights and encounters. This still wouldn't fix the problem though.
An Earth attuned Elementalist might do better as an Air attuned Elementalist against a certain boss or encounter.
Earth magic line gives Malice (Improves damage done by conditions)
Air magic line gives Prowess (Improves damage multiplier on critical strikes)
Now why would i use the Air magic line on a boss if the Earth magic line would be superior by using conditions? I would be gimping my stats. Will the group actually wait for me to go back to town and respec? I highly doubt it.
You have to purposefully gimp yourself to make a build that bad.
Even if you purposefully gimp yourself, your build still works.
Idiot-proofing the game, while having a system that lets players build the way we want to is probably impossible.
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
Their goal with the skill system was to make a system where you couldn't gimp yourself, but which allowed for expert players to get more out of it with synergies (presumably tying in traits as well).
Don't you think they've succeeded in doing that? Can you even make a skill build which you can say that's really bad?
Can you even point to any utility skill that you could say "given the rest of their build, this isn't going to help them at all?"
Forget about my other proposal above and look at the trait system as it is now.
Suppose instead of getting one point per level, you got 1 point every 5 levels and each one by itself was enough to unlock a minor or major trait. That would be a simpler system. That would be a system where you couldn't go 19/19/14/9/9 and completely screw yourself. Yet the functionality would be near identical to what is obviously intended.
Suppose they didn't make major traits which tied to particular weapons/glyphs/seals etc and they were all just generic bonuses so you could pick which ones you liked to fit your playstyle. That would arguably be a better system because then people couldn't (for whatever reason) have selected traits which didn't benefit them.
You call it idiot proofing, but based on the interview it's clear that there are people who just made bad builds. GW2 seems like it's going to be an extremely casual friendly game. Making simple changes so that people always have a totally functional baseline yet still allowing for more experienced players to get more out of the system seems like something ArenaNet really should be doing.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Oh c'mon now cali. I could come up with a purposefully useless build in your proposed system as well. That's hardly a convincing argument against the current one.
Other than that we're running in circles. We DO get what you're talking about, we just don't agree with you.
That would be a horrible system. That is in fact a criticism i have with the current system. There are still too many flat damage bonuses in there. More damage is not a choice. Those always seem mandatory, and players feel like they need to pick them up.
1. Have you played games online? Some people are bad. Some people are really, ridiculously bad.
2. That isn't going to be enough justification for the inevitable min-maxers that WILL be playing GW2.
3. You're right; which is why this system should not exist.
Ok Cali, I'll play again...
First off, I'd be willing to bet money that the reason we have 70 Points is they wanted a system that rewarded players at every level gained as changes in (a certain other game) weren't well-received. Since based on beta feedback it'll take a player 20-40 minutes to unlock their weapons, there does need to be some kind of tangible feeling of "reward" or "progression" as players level up. You might disagree, but I've heard them talk about it before.
Second, as people have said you worked really hard to come up with a bad build, and even if somebody really did that it would be easy enough for them to correct it with a respec.
Third, let's take a look at a Warrior with that ranged fight in mind. Here's a build that I don't consider particularly good for that dungeon or even for play in general, but I can see people taking it as a kind of "Paladin/Tank/Support" concept: http://www.gw2tools.com/#t-w-afppa:aaa.baa.Wgc.WfX.aaa
Like I said, not particularly good but it's got a "Sword & Board" Support theme going. Now we get to that nasty Spider and "Omgz whatever are we going to do?!?..."
Well, we can try something like this http://www.gw2tools.com/#t-w-afppa:aaa.Xaa.Wdc.WfX.aaa and we spend the fight Supporting with Shouts, shooting when the Spidey isn't looking/running at us, and we can reflect missiles sent our way while our Shield is out. The 25-point Defense Minor Trait means that (especially if we really went Tanky and stacked as much Toughness as we could on our gear) we will still have a very respectable Power rating for consistent damage, and the 25-point Tactics Minor means we're making everybody else hit harder passively.
And all that was accomplished without even taking into account that we can focus on a Bow with Tactics or build for a Banner or Warhorn instead.
Hopefully this clarifies my point a bit - you seem deadset on focusing/worrying about not being able to go from "Max Control/Support" to "Max Ranged Damage" on that Spider fight and I'd argue that trying to is "doing it wrong" because Support is still going to be very valuable on that fight, and if you are good at Dodging boy are you going to be able to take a lot more damage before going down with the above build.
And finally, once again - that above Build isn't even one I expect to be preferred for that Dungeon and I still think it can work.
GW1 was all about coming up with optimized and synergized builds for specific Heroic Missions. As best we can tell, that tradition lives on in Expore-Mode Dungeons. I want a deep and varied system for designing my character to work with a group for those, and I accept that kind of system will also allow for "bad builds" that might work fine in the open world but fail in Dungeon play.
First, like the original GW, armor is armor - there is no traits really on it. That means no armor grind to get the best. GW2, like it's predecessor, is about your skill at playing not getting 'UBER' anything. Armor look will be about vanity and how you want your character to look.
GW1 also didn't let you change your builds, once you picked them, you were stuck. That changed as the game matured.
You already have 5 skills tied to your weapon, change weapon change those skills. So in fact, you can change some on the fly.
Like most games, there will always be people who want everything their way - the QQ'ers. The developers/designers have a reason to to do things this way. Let's see how the game looks in beta once we are able to play it.
GW2 armor, like GW1, have stats. The power curve is much more shallow than in other games and it won't take long upon reaching the level cap to acquire max stat gear. There is no "End Game" gear grind.
GW1 did allow you to change your builds. Originally you earned refund points by earning XP and completing quests ans those points could be used to refund attribute points. As long as you had the refund points, you could change your build mid-mission.
Not long after release, they got rid of the refund point cost and allowed you to freely readjust your build, but you had to do so in town or at an outpost, you could no longer change it mid-mission.
Yes, most professions can swap between two weapon sets mid combat. Anyone can swap weapons in and out of their weapon set(s) out of combat.
Tbe developers originally touted the ability to change trait builds anywhere, outside of combat and for free, as a desirable element of GW2 game design. They made a good case for that design choice at the time. The reversal was unexpected and no explaination was given. Some of us would like to know what caused them to backtrack and are requesting some compromise. Few have asked for a complete reversal, we understand there must have been some reason for the change, but we also see some serious negative consequences to the change, as is. (Inability to freely change builds other than through a trainer is likely to lead to groups recruiting particular, proven, Flavor of the Moment builds. This would be contrary to a major design goal of the game, which is that no group will ever have to wait for a particular profession to do content and no player will have to miss out on a group because they are the wrong profession).
Suggested compromises have been limited respecs in the field, or the ability to save two builds that you can switch between in the field, while still needing to visit a trainer to change those builds. No one is demanding "their way", we just would like some communication, feel the need to voice our concerns on this encouraging people to stick to cookie cutter builds and would like to suggest some simple compromises to alleviate our concerns.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
GW1 armor did have traits, later armors did however allow you to change those traits.
GW2 armors will have traits as well, but they will be balanced so one is not affecting the game balance much more than any other.
And you could initially change builds outside outposts.
This system is slightly different, I agree that we need to try it out before really judging it
So if I didn't read wrong, the way they currently have it will lead to the cooki cutter builds and that will limit our participation in the group activities (Dungeons), am I correct?
So doesn't that break the game's philosophy just like you said it?
Guild Wars 2's 50 minutes game play video:
http://n4g.com/news/592585/guild-wars-2-50-minutes-of-pure-gameplay
Everything We Know about GW2:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/287180/page/1
That is indeed the criticism. The problem here is that people think of trait builds as if those were the builds in GW1 or talent specs in WoW. They are not, because professions in GW2 are generalists by design.
The game's philosophy remains unchanged. You cannot trait to become a healer, you cannot trait to become a tank. You cannot trait yourself 'wrong' so you're not viable as a party member for a dungeon. Traiting allows to emphasize one ore more aspects of your characters abilities, but even then you will never be efficient if you focus on just those while neglecting the rest of your abilities in combat.
The purpose of the trait system is not to optimize your character, it is to customize it.
Initially they did yes, but after Nightfall, you had to put runes on your armor to get the stats - otherwise max armor was just that - max armor. They also converted the older armor (I had elite Bonelace armor which was converted to Elite cabalist with the runes to make it bone lace). It is not quite the same as WoW or Rift where the interents on the armor make you more powerful.
Let us wait and see. We can conjecture all we want but when we play the game we will know more.