Am I the only one that isn't surprised? An experienced player builds a balanced system and has better results than an inexperienced player making the mistake of trying to specialize.
This validates what I've been saying all along.
It validates what both of us have been saying.
You've been saying that balanced specs are better.
I've been saying a lot of things, but among them are that we should protect new players, and stop allowing this kind of specialization, or at least encourage balanced builds, at or least at first.
I'm not even talking about elitism here, but there's going to be players who never played an MMO before because they were put off by subscription fees. The trait system adds a lot of complexity as I showed earlier in this thread. There's also going to be players who are coming over from Strict Holy Trinity games. These people are naturally going to assume 30/30/10 is the way to go.
The problem that I see is that unlike Lewis B, these players aren't going to have Jon Peters right next to them to compare results to and to tell them what they should be doing. They're going to fail badly. They're going to try to trinity their way through dungeons and die, possibly blaming ArenaNet for not tuning the dungeon. Any players who quit and badmouth the game will be keeping other players from even trying it themselves.
Please, however much you think is an ok amount to ease new players into this, I think ArenaNet should do twice that much just to be sure.
Oh gawd, after reading this. I actually agree with you that they need to REMOVE the attributes in the trait lines.
"his damage was almost double mine" I didn't realize the traits would have that much of an impact. I always figured the changes would be subtle such as thief doing +50-100 damage more, but not doubling damage or halving the damage.
This isn't playing to your playstyle, there is definitely going to be min-max.
I think if they removed the attributes on the traits, then the traits would feel more or less to you playing style. For example. mesmer dodging creates a clone
Honestly, I don't see this as a problem with the trait system. I see this as a problem with mass mentality.
As I mentioned in another thread, Anet has a VERY difficult problem they need to deal with when building the early content of this game / present the game to the masses. The majority of MMO gamers have been weened into a fairly mindless trinity system which rewards grinding over thought. Because of this, Anet is going to find players who are blatantly ignoring the system Anet has in-place, but instead of realize this they will blame Anet for it. It's not fair, but as developers they will be responsible for correcting this.
Now:
Anet has said PLEANTY of times that this game isn't built for the holy trinity. They have said that trying to play this game as such will severely gimp your character. Here we have a player who STILL tries to make his character a healer, and then complains that his class is gimped. Why is it gimped? Not because his heals suck, it's because the CDs prohibit him from spamming them the whole fight. (As most of us should realize by now).
While I am all for new players being eased into this game, and a little bit of hand-holding to show them how the system works / beat them over the head with basic logic; I am very much opposed to the dumbing down of this game. Part of the brilliance of Anet's games is that they are on one hand very simple, and on the other extremely complex. It's like chess, sure you can play it with very basic knowledge, but you will get destroyed when playing against real opponents who actually think about what they are doing. It's very much a game for intellectuals.
Will there be min-maxing? I can pretty much guaruntee it. It was there in the first game, it's been there in pretty much every MMO that has ever existed (nix hello kitty online). However, Anet has a system that provides flexibility within a min-maxed system, and that's the key. In most games, someone eventually does the math & finds the best build per class. You play that build or you don't play at all. The end. In GW, someone finds the best class that works for a specific playstyle. Then everyone starts rolling that way, and someone else finds a counter for that 'best class' and everyone starts wondering why their uber build isn't working so good anymore. This is where the FOTM situation arrises.
To get back to the point, though, the trait system offers a LOT of flexibility and gives players the freedom to build their character how they choose. Just like in GW1, if a player wants to run w/ a really crappy build, he can most definitely do that.
** What's really needed is not a gutting of the traits system. It is a quest / tutorial event that explains it in a simple and easy to understand way, so that new players will know how to use it before it becomes too important. Provide some recommended trait builds for each class. Either on the box, or in game, or both. I think that's a much more acceptable solution than throwing the baby out w/ the bathwater.
Oh gawd, after reading this. I actually agree with you that they need to REMOVE the attributes in the trait lines.
"his damage was almost double mine" I didn't realize the traits would have that much of an impact. I always figured the changes would be subtle such as thief doing +50-100 damage more, but not doubling damage or halving the damage.
This isn't playing to your playstyle, there is definitely going to be min-max.
I think if they removed the attributes on the traits, then the traits would feel more or less to you playing style. For example. mesmer dodging creates a clone
While this has the potential to be true for extreme builds, this will not be the main for most people. One need only look at how the attributes in each trait line affect your character to come to a perfectly valid conclusion that you'll need to spread the points a bit. Post is going to be a little long so bare with me.
Most of the people in an uproar clearly haven't read through the actual minor/major trait bonuses that come with putting a certain amount of points in each line. In less than half of the instances, the traits in those lines have something to do with the actual trait. For instance, there's about 4 trait bonuses in Water for Elementalist that actually deal with improving Water, the larger majority improve the character as a whole and are beneficial regardless of whether you choose water as your main element or not.
Likewise, the Engineer traits line dealing with their kits only has a few traits that benefit using a kit on their own, most are beneficial to any build. Because of this, it makes FAR more sense to instead trait yourself based on the attributes you want for your character, and leave the minor/major bonuses as more of a secondary concern. Example build I'm planning for my Mesmer, who will be almost exclusively Staff:
20 dom - for power, minor (illusion of vulnerability, confounding suggestions) major (empowered illusions, crippling dissipation)
15 dueling - some crit, minor (critical infusion, deceptive evasion), major (deceptive decoy)
15 chaos - some defense, minor (metaphysical rejuvination, illusionary membrane), major (debilitating dissipation)
5 inspiration - slight boost to hp, minor (vengeful images)
15 illusion - boost to condition damage, minor (illusionists celerity, shattered mind), major (compounding power)
Despite each trait line specializing in a specific weapon, I selected none of those specific traits. Instead, my points are spread to give me a balance in my attributes, and overall boost to my GAMEPLAY STYLE, which is an illusionist/condition mesmer. The above build gives me the following:
A whole host of awesome benefits to condition/illusion skills (Go here to reference them if you're curious) including extra illusion damage, creating clones when dodging, creating clones and escaping when low on health, cripple + random condition whenever i destroy a clone, stun on daze, etc., etc.
Notice how all of those things are beneficial to me regardless of what weapon I'm wielding? And how the balance of stats + traits edge me toward damage and utility without hindering my ability to do other things, too? Mind you yes, it's all theorycraft until we all get ingame to try it, but that argument works just as well for those against the new system as it does those who aren't.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
i haven't read the whole thread cuz I m don't feel like it.
Here is what I think.
1. The trait system exist as a way to play around after you hit 80. You basically you have 70 levels to learn the basis of the trait system. Will some poeple have issues wiht the trait system? Yes, ofc they will have issues with the trait system just like not everybody is gonna be a good PvPer or PvEer, that is unavoidable.
2. I see traits more as a way to hence your playstyle, without severily punishing you for mistake. Even without the proper traits, at the miminum you will still be effective, just not as effecttive as thte guy who traited better for the content. I mean going into PvP with a support build and deciding to solo is probably a bad idea like LewisB did. But maybe going into PvP with support and playing in a group is a better idea. for me, i m playing an elementalist and I m gonna be doing a 15, 0,15, 20, 20 (F, A, E,W, A), This will give me a fair balancce set up and I will focus more on runes of Power and health from my armor to give me a decent dmg/health ratio. Ofc, all this is just speculation and while it is fun, ultimately its pointless because we haven't played the game enough to see how the meta game works. So the people making the ultimate healing build, healing someone for 200 hp more while the average damage is greater than that is pointless.
If this kind of build is pointless. And I agree it is with the way the mechanics work in this game. What is the point of having all these useless traits. The bulk of those "pointless" healing traits in the invention tree for engineers are minors thus are locked in and you have no say if your going to take them or not, even if your just going into that tree to grab toughness or to extend the range of your turrets or increase your turrets range/damage your taking these traits. I would actually argue the minors of that entire tree are subpar compared to the rest of the traits in the other trees.
Oh gawd, after reading this. I actually agree with you that they need to REMOVE the attributes in the trait lines.
"his damage was almost double mine" I didn't realize the traits would have that much of an impact. I always figured the changes would be subtle such as thief doing +50-100 damage more, but not doubling damage or halving the damage.
This isn't playing to your playstyle, there is definitely going to be min-max.
I think if they removed the attributes on the traits, then the traits would feel more or less to you playing style. For example. mesmer dodging creates a clone
While this has the potential to be true for extreme builds, this will not be the main for most people. One need only look at how the attributes in each trait line affect your character to come to a perfectly valid conclusion that you'll need to spread the points a bit.
And if you "spread the points a bit", you'll be gimping your attributes.
Am I the only one that isn't surprised? An experienced player builds a balanced system and has better results than an inexperienced player making the mistake of trying to specialize.
This validates what I've been saying all along.
It validates what both of us have been saying.
You've been saying that balanced specs are better.
I've been saying a lot of things, but among them are that we should protect new players, and stop allowing this kind of specialization, or at least encourage balanced builds, at or least at first.
I'm not even talking about elitism here, but there's going to be players who never played an MMO before because they were put off by subscription fees. The trait system adds a lot of complexity as I showed earlier in this thread. There's also going to be players who are coming over from Strict Holy Trinity games. These people are naturally going to assume 30/30/10 is the way to go.
The problem that I see is that unlike Lewis B, these players aren't going to have Jon Peters right next to them to compare results to and to tell them what they should be doing. They're going to fail badly. They're going to try to trinity their way through dungeons and die, possibly blaming ArenaNet for not tuning the dungeon. Any players who quit and badmouth the game will be keeping other players from even trying it themselves.
Please, however much you think is an ok amount to ease new players into this, I think ArenaNet should do twice that much just to be sure.
Oh gawd, after reading this. I actually agree with you that they need to REMOVE the attributes in the trait lines.
"his damage was almost double mine" I didn't realize the traits would have that much of an impact. I always figured the changes would be subtle such as thief doing +50-100 damage more, but not doubling damage or halving the damage.
This isn't playing to your playstyle, there is definitely going to be min-max.
I think if they removed the attributes on the traits, then the traits would feel more or less to you playing style. For example. mesmer dodging creates a clone
Honestly, I don't see this as a problem with the trait system. I see this as a problem with mass mentality.
As I mentioned in another thread, Anet has a VERY difficult problem they need to deal with when building the early content of this game / present the game to the masses. The majority of MMO gamers have been weened into a fairly mindless trinity system which rewards grinding over thought. Because of this, Anet is going to find players who are blatantly ignoring the system Anet has in-place, but instead of realize this they will blame Anet for it. It's not fair, but as developers they will be responsible for correcting this.
Now:
Anet has said PLEANTY of times that this game isn't built for the holy trinity. They have said that trying to play this game as such will severely gimp your character. Here we have a player who STILL tries to make his character a healer, and then complains that his class is gimped. Why is it gimped? Not because his heals suck, it's because the CDs prohibit him from spamming them the whole fight. (As most of us should realize by now).
While I am all for new players being eased into this game, and a little bit of hand-holding to show them how the system works / beat them over the head with basic logic; I am very much opposed to the dumbing down of this game. Part of the brilliance of Anet's games is that they are on one hand very simple, and on the other extremely complex. It's like chess, sure you can play it with very basic knowledge, but you will get destroyed when playing against real opponents who actually think about what they are doing. It's very much a game for intellectuals.
Will there be min-maxing? I can pretty much guaruntee it. It was there in the first game, it's been there in pretty much every MMO that has ever existed (nix hello kitty online). However, Anet has a system that provides flexibility within a min-maxed system, and that's the key. In most games, someone eventually does the math & finds the best build per class. You play that build or you don't play at all. The end. In GW, someone finds the best class that works for a specific playstyle. Then everyone starts rolling that way, and someone else finds a counter for that 'best class' and everyone starts wondering why their uber build isn't working so good anymore. This is where the FOTM situation arrises.
To get back to the point, though, the trait system offers a LOT of flexibility and gives players the freedom to build their character how they choose. Just like in GW1, if a player wants to run w/ a really crappy build, he can most definitely do that.
** What's really needed is not a gutting of the traits system. It is a quest / tutorial event that explains it in a simple and easy to understand way, so that new players will know how to use it before it becomes too important. Provide some recommended trait builds for each class. Either on the box, or in game, or both. I think that's a much more acceptable solution than throwing the baby out w/ the bathwater.
Thanks for easing my concerns..Sometimes these threads and GW2 threads are too overwhelming. Regardless, I'm still anticipating the game.
All of the traits player A selected are conditional and emergency healing injection makes sure even when those condition are met, its for brief amount of time at best.
Where as player B will benefit just from dodging and his major will increase that benefit.
Oh gawd, after reading this. I actually agree with you that they need to REMOVE the attributes in the trait lines.
"his damage was almost double mine" I didn't realize the traits would have that much of an impact. I always figured the changes would be subtle such as thief doing +50-100 damage more, but not doubling damage or halving the damage.
This isn't playing to your playstyle, there is definitely going to be min-max.
I think if they removed the attributes on the traits, then the traits would feel more or less to you playing style. For example. mesmer dodging creates a clone
While this has the potential to be true for extreme builds, this will not be the main for most people. One need only look at how the attributes in each trait line affect your character to come to a perfectly valid conclusion that you'll need to spread the points a bit. Post is going to be a little long so bare with me.
Most of the people in an uproar clearly haven't read through the actual minor/major trait bonuses that come with putting a certain amount of points in each line. In less than half of the instances, the traits in those lines have something to do with the actual trait. For instance, there's about 4 trait bonuses in Water for Elementalist that actually deal with improving Water, the larger majority improve the character as a whole and are beneficial regardless of whether you choose water as your main element or not.
Likewise, the Engineer traits line dealing with their kits only has a few traits that benefit using a kit on their own, most are beneficial to any build. Because of this, it makes FAR more sense to instead trait yourself based on the attributes you want for your character, and leave the minor/major bonuses as more of a secondary concern. Example build I'm planning for my Mesmer, who will be almost exclusively Staff:
20 dom - for power, minor (illusion of vulnerability, confounding suggestions) major (empowered illusions, crippling dissipation)
15 dueling - some crit, minor (critical infusion, deceptive evasion), major (deceptive decoy)
15 chaos - some defense, minor (metaphysical rejuvination, illusionary membrane), major (debilitating dissipation)
5 inspiration - slight boost to hp, minor (vengeful images)
15 illusion - boost to condition damage, minor (illusionists celerity, shattered mind), major (compounding power)
Despite each trait line specializing in a specific weapon, I selected none of those specific traits. Instead, my points are spread to give me a balance in my attributes, and overall boost to my GAMEPLAY STYLE, which is an illusionist/condition mesmer. The above build gives me the following:
A whole host of awesome benefits to condition/illusion skills (Go here to reference them if you're curious) including extra illusion damage, creating clones when dodging, creating clones and escaping when low on health, cripple + random condition whenever i destroy a clone, stun on daze, etc., etc.
Notice how all of those things are beneficial to me regardless of what weapon I'm wielding? And how the balance of stats + traits edge me toward damage and utility without hindering my ability to do other things, too? Mind you yes, it's all theorycraft until we all get ingame to try it, but that argument works just as well for those against the new system as it does those who aren't.
yah, the minor traits. i think my mesmer will be my 3rd character i'll create.
but yeah, guess we'll have to wait for the game to release.
All of the traits player A selected are conditional and emergency healing injection makes sure even when those condition are met, its for brief amount of time at best.
Where as player B will benefit just from dodging and his major will increase that benefit.
to experiment with the new trait system. Personally I'm diggin' it. There's a lot of flexibility, and while it's pretty straight-forward, you do have to think about both the stats you want, as well as how you will be playing your character. (For example, I've been toying with a warrior build that relies on crits and bleeds for a number of nice effects)
It's not optimized yet, but you can already see the potential. I threw some points into the other trees to get some general defense / group support (as I'll need it to stay alive long enough to deal damage) and I set it up so allies buffing me will also increase my damage output. It's got a little versatility, but it's also focusing on a very specific type of playstyle @ the same time.
I hope that the wave of QQing going on atm by a very small group of people will die down soon, and Anet's system won't suffer as a result.
Well Cali59 which gives people more satifaction figuring out how sometime works or already knowing how it work? This situation reminds me of how DOTA started. It was very hard to learn, but very satisfying once you did. If the trait system was easier to master it would be an after though to people. The complexity of the current trait system makes learning about it challenging and rewarding.
The first dungeons are well after the starting stages of the game, by then people will only have 20pts and upto 10pt per each trait line. People can test the various lvl 80 builds in the PvP mist before the commit to them. Everyone will have enough time to figure it out before level 80. The difficult of the dungeons will not be because of small trait differences but adjusting to a non-trinity system.
Everyone will be test builds in the first weeks of the game. No one will know what works best until they get to play with the system some. It is still in beta we have not seen all of the traits, changes that were made to the known trait or the explorable dungeons (which may require a specific number of support/control builds).
I don't consider 50% of dps output to be a small trait difference not when the pros of specing this way will aren't even close to make up for the lose. There is no satisfaction from using a cookie cutter build on wiki, which alot of people will do for fear of making a spec that gimps them.
Cali was refering to people who have never played an mmo before, your saying there going to jump right into the mist to playtest there build before specing?
Hum, the only way I can see them coming up with a 50% difference in damage if if they played in version before the tweek to power. That was when power scaled damage exponentially. Still, looking at my elemental trait lines their are 3(fire/air/earth) that can be built for damage. Even if go water/arcane the fast swaps between attunements would enable me to put all of my skills on cooldown and still be decent dps. Anyway thought about it some more and I could be wrong.
Also, I did not say find a build from wiki, I said people will get to test their build as they are leveling. You will get 2 respec before 80, if that is not enough they can test builds in the mists. I am saying everyone will have enough TIME to test their builds.
Also, whenever I have played mmorpg's or rpgs in general I have always tried out different builds as I leveled. I never looked up any cookie cutter build on wiki. I tended to be knowledgeable about the games from all time I spent on them to know how I wanted to spec. I just thought others should be capable of do the same, since they are making the jump from rpg to mmoprg.
So you are saying that the early 5/10 traits should always be useful no matter what build you use? I understood that from all of the other post you have made about the subject. I just do not want the system to be dumbed down to a point were their are cookie cutter builds. That is why I compared it to DOTA, because their are alot of werid builds that work.
Haven't read the entire thread, but I think a lot of people defending the 'trait' system are missing the FACT that this system is not just about traits, it also gives you a significant boost to certain stats depeding on how you speck. i.e. If you speck into more support / defence lines you miss out on A LOT of stat points that would help your DPS... so if support / defence is not useful for what you are currently doing (DPS race boss etc.) then you are totally gimped.
With regards to 'balancing' content, the problem with this trait system is that it is very min / max. Sure you can make a balanced build, but you can also make very extreme builds, and if it can happen it will... so how do you balance content in a world where such extremes are possible:
Lowest common denominator? Everyone can do it, but too easy for anyone not totally gimped.
Somewhere in the middle? Most people can do it, but will still be too easy for some while being too difficult for others.
Top 5%? A challenge for anyone, but also makes it too hard / impossible if not speced right; leads to a need to respec.
Basically there is no way to balance the content that will not at least trivalise it for some (making the content boring) while possibly making it too difficult for others. This IS bad game design.
Also permance is one of the biggest arguments I've seen used to defend this system, but this system discourages permanence simply from the fact that it is possible to create such wildly varring builds, and not just in terms of playstyle, but also in terms of 'power' and viability, especially for a given situation.. Surely permenace is more a matter of being able to play however you like and having that playstyle be viable in any situation (not possible with the current system unless content is trivial, again bad game design), and not one of putting in barriers in order to discourage experimentation / change .. I mean if you find a playstyle / spec that you really like why go changing it all the time even if you are able to?
A far simpler and IMO much better 'system' would be to not have a system, but rather just give players freedom, namely:
Leave stat bonuses to gear - this not only lowers the relative difference between stats for different players, it also allows freedom to mix, match and swapout stats as and when needed, while having a much more organic limitation i.e. if you want to have absolutely perfect gear for any occasion you need to carry it around with you.
Have minor traits come from the emblems you put on gear - this decouples minor traits from major ones and stats, giving players much more freedom to choose the ones they want; massive win. This would also add 'permance', and again in a much more organic way, in that players will need to choose carefully what emblems they put on gear as old ones will be lost when replaced, making it expensive to constantly 'respec'.
A new major trait is given each level with a new major trait slot every 10 levels - This avoids one of the biggest problems with the current system (i.e. anything but a 'mod 10 = 0' build gives you less major trait slots, possibly as few as 3 while other builds have up to 7). It also, like the skill system, gives players access to all the tools they may need for a given situation, ensuring that players can always complete content, even if they have to respec slightly to do it.
The current system is bad game design, and IMO was implemented for the wrong reasons, and while I doubt anyone at Anet will ever read this, I do hope they change their mind on the current system as it is a blight on an otherwise brillant game.
Well Cali59 which gives people more satifaction figuring out how sometime works or already knowing how it work? This situation reminds me of how DOTA started. It was very hard to learn, but very satisfying once you did. If the trait system was easier to master it would be an after though to people. The complexity of the current trait system makes learning about it challenging and rewarding.
The first dungeons are well after the starting stages of the game, by then people will only have 20pts and upto 10pt per each trait line. People can test the various lvl 80 builds in the PvP mist before the commit to them. Everyone will have enough time to figure it out before level 80. The difficult of the dungeons will not be because of small trait differences but adjusting to a non-trinity system.
Everyone will be test builds in the first weeks of the game. No one will know what works best until they get to play with the system some. It is still in beta we have not seen all of the traits, changes that were made to the known trait or the explorable dungeons (which may require a specific number of support/control builds).
I don't consider 50% of dps output to be a small trait difference not when the pros of specing this way will aren't even close to make up for the lose. There is no satisfaction from using a cookie cutter build on wiki, which alot of people will do for fear of making a spec that gimps them.
Cali was refering to people who have never played an mmo before, your saying there going to jump right into the mist to playtest there build before specing?
Hum, the only way I can see them coming up with a 50% difference in damage if if they played in version before the tweek to power. That was when power scaled damage exponentially. Still, looking at my elemental trait lines their are 3(fire/air/earth) that can be built for damage. Even if go water/arcane the fast swaps between attunements would enable me to put all of my skills on cooldown and still be decent dps. Anyway thought about it some more and I could be wrong.
Also, I did not say find a build from wiki, I said people will get to test their build as they are leveling. You will get 2 respec before 80, if that is not enough they can test builds in the mists. I am saying everyone will have enough TIME to test their builds.
Also, whenever I have played mmorpg's or rpgs in general I have always tried out different builds as I leveled. I never looked up any cookie cutter build on wiki. I tended to be knowledgeable about the games from all time I spent on them to know how I wanted to spec. I just thought others should be capable of do the same, since they are making the jump from rpg to mmoprg.
So you are saying that the early 5/10 traits should always be useful no matter what build you use? I understood that from all of the other post you have made about the subject. I just do not want the system to be dumbed down to a point were their are cookie cutter builds. That is why I compared it to DOTA, because their are alot of werid builds that work.
With yourEle lines while 3 lines might have good dps traits, Because of attributes an air/fire atleast looks like its gonna do more damage, your trading 300 crit for 300 toughness, malice could make up for that lose but an arcane/water build is gonna do way less damage. You don't have a single offensive attribute for either of those trees. There is no way those trees are doing comparable damage to a fire/air build.
there he states his damage was almost 50% lower then Jon Peters who was using a different build.
he also states which to me is even more disturbing
When in structured PvP, the impact of my build was even more noticeable. In over 20 structured PvP matches I didn’t kill a single person by myself because my damage was so low. I’d sacrificed my damage so heavily as a result of my extreme build that every class could ‘out-last’ my damage or ‘out-heal’ it. If I survived long enough to dwindle down my enemies health (which I often did as I had a great deal of vitality and constitution) it took so long to do it my opponents heal had often recharged allowing them to reuse it several times. This sometimes caused a stalemate before one of us would be joined by team mates.A
there he states his damage was almost 50% lower then Jon Peters who was using a different build.
he also states which to me is even more disturbing
When in structured PvP, the impact of my build was even more noticeable. In over 20 structured PvP matches I didn’t kill a single person by myself because my damage was so low. I’d sacrificed my damage so heavily as a result of my extreme build that every class could ‘out-last’ my damage or ‘out-heal’ it. If I survived long enough to dwindle down my enemies health (which I often did as I had a great deal of vitality and constitution) it took so long to do it my opponents heal had often recharged allowing them to reuse it several times. This sometimes caused a stalemate before one of us would be joined by team mates.A
Its not disturbing, reading on through the article he also mentions how he used a fully specialized "Dps" ranger build, and while he could hit extremely hard, it wasn't unusual for him to be dropped in a matter of a few hits. As a support-focused build, it would be insane to go out on your own when the basis behind the build itself is to aid your team.
Likewise, a Damage-focused build would be insane to rush even a couple of players because of his lowered health and defense unless he had a few people on his side as well to help support him.
Furthermore, people need to stop painting this article as a "negative", when the author of it is in support of the current traits.
there he states his damage was almost 50% lower then Jon Peters who was using a different build.
he also states which to me is even more disturbing
When in structured PvP, the impact of my build was even more noticeable. In over 20 structured PvP matches I didn’t kill a single person by myself because my damage was so low. I’d sacrificed my damage so heavily as a result of my extreme build that every class could ‘out-last’ my damage or ‘out-heal’ it. If I survived long enough to dwindle down my enemies health (which I often did as I had a great deal of vitality and constitution) it took so long to do it my opponents heal had often recharged allowing them to reuse it several times. This sometimes caused a stalemate before one of us would be joined by team mates.A
Its not disturbing, reading on through the article he also mentions how he used a fully specialized "Dps" ranger build, and while he could hit extremely hard, it wasn't unusual for him to be dropped in a matter of a few hits. As a support-focused build, it would be insane to go out on your own when the basis behind the build itself is to aid your team.
Likewise, a Damage-focused build would be insane to rush even a couple of players because of his lowered health and defense unless he had a few people on his side as well to help support him.
Furthermore, people need to stop painting this article as a "negative", when the author of it is in support of the current traits.
I'm not painting it at all, i link the article, my point has been these traits are going to have a huge affect on how you play your class. Many people stated these traits will have little impact to your characters performance. And it would be impossible to gimp yourself.
Now we have a supporter of the system stating he was able to gimp himself.
And while the ranger was able to offset his survivability with increased damage, the support engineers healing wasn't really enough to offset the lose of damage do to the cooldowns on his heals. And while there is more to support then healing you have 3 unchangable minor traits in that tree that all buff your healing abilities.
Well you are linking something I already read. I my first response I could have quoted#70, but I dislike linking long walls of text. Yes he does state that Lewis B. was doing 50% less damage than Jon Peters, but when did he play during the press beta, which was before the change to power which I mentioned in previous post#86. That was when 2power= 5precision and was the best damage increasing attribbute but it was changed since then. Weapons do more damage and power scales lineary.
Hum how to address the Lewis B. concern about full support builds vs balance builds. He focused on support and was able to do that, but complains when he can not control or dps. Just like during classic Wow pvp people started to slowly understand that you need a balance of survivablity and damage to get pvp kills. While their were still some glass cannon builds those people generally stayed with 2-3 other people to help them survive and were usless outside of a group.
As for the attribute you get per each trait line here is a look at some of the gear you get at lvl 80 (Pvp gear is the same as PvE gear) the amulets give 500-800 of various attribute points. Everyone base attributes at lvl 80 are 916. So having trading off power for toughness (dps/steady survivablity) is not that big of a deal. Since you can offset it with gear.
Arcane/water doing comparable damage to a fire/air build that is just my theorycraft, since you will be able to have ALL major spells on cooldown. With a arcane/water build you will casting one major spell every second vs a major spell every couple of seconds. Still not enough info on the arcane trait line to find out if that is right or not. The Arcane trait line could greatly improve the arcane utilities but we have seen less than half of the traits for it. So it is just theorycraft.
Hum, the only way I can see them coming up with a 50% difference in damage if if they played in version before the tweek to power. That was when power scaled damage exponentially. Still, looking at my elemental trait lines their are 3(fire/air/earth) that can be built for damage. Even if go water/arcane the fast swaps between attunements would enable me to put all of my skills on cooldown and still be decent dps. Anyway thought about it some more and I could be wrong.
Also, I did not say find a build from wiki, I said people will get to test their build as they are leveling. You will get 2 respec before 80, if that is not enough they can test builds in the mists. I am saying everyone will have enough TIME to test their builds.
Also, whenever I have played mmorpg's or rpgs in general I have always tried out different builds as I leveled. I never looked up any cookie cutter build on wiki. I tended to be knowledgeable about the games from all time I spent on them to know how I wanted to spec. I just thought others should be capable of do the same, since they are making the jump from rpg to mmoprg.
So you are saying that the early 5/10 traits should always be useful no matter what build you use? I understood that from all of the other post you have made about the subject. I just do not want the system to be dumbed down to a point were their are cookie cutter builds. That is why I compared it to DOTA, because their are alot of werid builds that work.
The guy was in the press beta with the new trait system, so I don't think it was before the tweak to power. I think it was a combination of gear and traits which made such a huge difference. I was looking at one video where a person was in the PVP area jacked up to max level and he had something like 2000 Power, 916 Precision (that's the minimum for the 4 base stats at cap), 1950 Toughness and 1650 Vitality. We couldn't see the other stats. Obviously we don't know the impact of these stats exactly, but if someone cuts their Power in half (2000 back to 900) and replaces it with Compassion, Concentration, etc and also has no Precision, Expertise, Prowess, Malice or class specific skill, I can see a huge drop in damage output.
To your specific part to me, my basic philosophy is this. The skill system lets anyone play any role, is newbie friendly, and is also easy to balance. The stated purposes of the trait system are permanence and customization. The trait system is orders of magnitude more complicated than the skill system. It CANNOT make the skill system more balanced. The skill system allows anyone to play any role already. Having traits to spec more towards one role or another is the very definition of soft trinity, something this game should be trying to avoid.
What I'm saying is that traits need to be ALL about permanence and customization, not some halfway system where you can change your majors.
I think they should only be changed in town because of this. If they are only changed in town, I believe they need to be never useless, regardless of what you're doing with your skills. What I think is that the entire total sum of your traits needs to be something like 5% toward control, damage or support. Or 5% total toward power, crit, or conditions since that's what ArenaNet wants. Or flavorful effects to personalize your character.
I do think the system needs to be way more newbie friendly than it is. You say you think that if it's dumbed down, then there will be cookie cutter builds. I think the opposite is true. If it's too complicated, then people will google someone else's template and copy it.
"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
Well you are linking something I already read. I my first response I could have quoted#70, but I dislike linking long walls of text. Yes he does state that Lewis B. was doing 50% less damage than Jon Peters, but when did he play during the press beta, which was before the change to power which I mentioned in previous post#86. That was when 2power= 5precision and was the best damage increasing attribbute but it was changed since then. Weapons do more damage and power scales lineary.
Hum how to address the Lewis B. concern about full support builds vs balance builds. He focused on support and was able to do that, but complains when he can not control or dps. Just like during classic Wow pvp people started to slowly understand that you need a balance of survivablity and damage to get pvp kills. While their were still some glass cannon builds those people generally stayed with 2-3 other people to help them survive and were usless outside of a group.
As for the attribute you get per each trait line here is a look at some of the gear you get at lvl 80 (Pvp gear is the same as PvE gear) the amulets give 500-800 of various attribute points. Everyone base attributes at lvl 80 are 916. So having trading off power for toughness (dps/steady survivablity) is not that big of a deal. Since you can offset it with gear.
Arcane/water doing comparable damage to a fire/air build that is just my theorycraft, since you will be able to have ALL major spells on cooldown. With a arcane/water build you will casting one major spell every second vs a major spell every couple of seconds. Still not enough info on the arcane trait line to find out if that is right or not. The Arcane trait line could greatly improve the arcane utilities but we have seen less than half of the traits for it. So it is just theorycraft.
You mentioned vanilla wow and people using 'balanced builds for pvp'. You must have played a different vanilla wow then me, For example I'll use my class but you can generally use it for most classes. I played a warrior in vanilla wow, now the warrior 31 point skills were so good if you didn't pick them up you were utterly useless esp end game. If you pvp'd you went mortal strike because thats what warriors brought to the table, and blizzard nerfed the fury tree into ground then kicked it some more. If you wanted to do endgame content you spec'd 31 points into protection. You could pve as fury effectively for a while but with the rage normilization and other nerfs blizzard fixed that. If you played a paladin you spec'd holy or you were laughed at after 1.5. If you played a priest you spec'd holy or shadow, the it took an expansion to make the discipline tree useful. If you were a druid you went resto period for pve, feral was ok for pvp, balance was useless till burning crusade. If you were a shaman you spec'd windfury totem and followed me around (ok that was a joke I played a warrior)
This is exactly my point, while I don't think the current trait system is as bad as vanilla wow. Its those kind of spec this way or be gimped I don't like from the current system.
If you have to offset stats with gear because another spec has more of a stat, and the benefits you get from specing that way aren't worth it then why spec that way. And every 'useless' spec means thats one less option you have to choose from. Which means that tree gives you the illusion of custimization. Kinda like how Paladins had the illusions of two other trees in vanilla wow.
Really the guy try to turn his guardian into a healer and he end up with a totally fucked up build, he probably just wanted to see if his guardian could be a "everything in support" build, then he wonder he do 50% less damage, even though the guy is supposed to know the game actually is getting rid off the trinity, this mean get rid of "heal is everything" kind of build? Anyone see a problem in the argumentation he have here?
I don't want to defend the trait system by all mean, i personally like it. But the kind of argumentation the guy is using in his article is just wrong, it is just obvious. Yes the trait system seam to have more impact that you would guess, i also personally thought a 10 or 15% difference would be all the trait system could give, now it seam you can reach a lot more. Maybe they have to ton it down. But i'm not sure, i mean everyone can access the system, you can respec it at anytime, you don't actually need to rebuild a character or craft/drop items to do so. So if people gimp themselves to force a gameplay that don't work, well its their choice after all. Reducing the choice, thus the flexibility of this system because some people totally lack any common sense? it kind of irritate me tbh.
Hum, the only way I can see them coming up with a 50% difference in damage if if they played in version before the tweek to power. That was when power scaled damage exponentially. Still, looking at my elemental trait lines their are 3(fire/air/earth) that can be built for damage. Even if go water/arcane the fast swaps between attunements would enable me to put all of my skills on cooldown and still be decent dps. Anyway thought about it some more and I could be wrong.
Also, I did not say find a build from wiki, I said people will get to test their build as they are leveling. You will get 2 respec before 80, if that is not enough they can test builds in the mists. I am saying everyone will have enough TIME to test their builds.
Also, whenever I have played mmorpg's or rpgs in general I have always tried out different builds as I leveled. I never looked up any cookie cutter build on wiki. I tended to be knowledgeable about the games from all time I spent on them to know how I wanted to spec. I just thought others should be capable of do the same, since they are making the jump from rpg to mmoprg.
So you are saying that the early 5/10 traits should always be useful no matter what build you use? I understood that from all of the other post you have made about the subject. I just do not want the system to be dumbed down to a point were their are cookie cutter builds. That is why I compared it to DOTA, because their are alot of werid builds that work.
The guy was in the press beta with the new trait system, so I don't think it was before the tweak to power. I think it was a combination of gear and traits which made such a huge difference. I was looking at one video where a person was in the PVP area jacked up to max level and he had something like 2000 Power, 916 Precision (that's the minimum for the 4 base stats at cap), 1950 Toughness and 1650 Vitality. We couldn't see the other stats. Obviously we don't know the impact of these stats exactly, but if someone cuts their Power in half (2000 back to 900) and replaces it with Compassion, Concentration, etc and also has no Precision, Expertise, Prowess, Malice or class specific skill, I can see a huge drop in damage output.
Since they posted about the trait system a week after the press beta was done, I assume that the update was done after the inform gained from it. So they could have changed it after understanding how people completely new to the game would play.
To your specific part to me, my basic philosophy is this. The skill system lets anyone play any role, is newbie friendly, and is also easy to balance. The stated purposes of the trait system are permanence and customization. The trait system is orders of magnitude more complicated than the skill system. It CANNOT make the skill system more balanced. The skill system allows anyone to play any role already. Having traits to spec more towards one role or another is the very definition of soft trinity, something this game should be trying to avoid.
Well their is no definion of soft trinity. It is just a way people use to describe non-trinity systems. Just because the trait system is complex, does not mean it can not make the skill more balanced. The skill system does allow people to play any role but due to base hp/armor some will still be able to control better than other. So if a elemental wants more control they spec into it but do they have to no.
What I'm saying is that traits need to be ALL about permanence and customization, not some halfway system where you can change your majors.
Yes I understand you really dislike the minor/weapons specific traits.
I think they should only be changed in town because of this. If they are only changed in town, I believe they need to be never useless, regardless of what you're doing with your skills. What I think is that the entire total sum of your traits needs to be something like 5% toward control, damage or support. Or 5% total toward power, crit, or conditions since that's what ArenaNet wants. Or flavorful effects to personalize your character.
Well changing the minor traits would help the system be more noob friendly but the idea of adding 5% to support/control/dps is what I see the system currently doing. The minor traits I see do this various ways: Support-heal, boon(all buffs), remove conditions, Control-mitgate damage(hp/armor/dodge), boons(protection, swiftness), conditions(weakness,slows,blind), Dps-crits, conditions(burn,poison,bleeds), damage. It is just not clear for a newer people how some effects can be considered control/support/dps without them look at how the holy trinity did it.
I do think the system needs to be way more newbie friendly than it is. You say you think that if it's dumbed down, then there will be cookie cutter builds. I think the opposite is true. If it's too complicated, then people will google someone else's template and copy it.
I do not think that the current trait system is completely polished but it looks fine from what I have seen so far. Do it want it more complex no. Also, I do not want to see everyone have traits the same 5% increase to X.
Next topic.
Originally posted by evicton If you have to offset stats with gear because another spec has more of a stat, and the benefits you get from specing that way aren't worth it then why spec that way. And every 'useless' spec means thats one less option you have to choose from. Which means that tree gives you the illusion of custimization. Kinda like how Paladins had the illusions of two other trees in vanilla wow.
Hum I was talking about getting gear to PvP in classic WoW. General people in classic wow had around 3-4k hp and the rest focused on damage. Picking up some survivablity/damage traits are not useless, you get the traits which you think you will use. It is just in the sky is falling is falling traits are here blog post he complains about not being the best at something he did not spec for, creating this usless spec as you say. After that experience I am sure he would change his spec for PvP.
Originally posted by cali59 Think about this scenario. If my math is in the earlier post is right, you can allot your points 540 different ways, and there's at least 580,000 ways to allot your majors within that (depends on the point allocation), so right now you have over 300 Million possible trait builds.
Yes I realize that their will be some specs that are bad compared to other. With such a large variety of spec to choose from should every spec work? No. Should people be allowed to figure it out on their own? Yes. Anyways, I have been arguing for the sake of arguing. Rainbow wall of text. You can see why I dislike quoting.
I don't think it's perfect, but I am not sure all this explosion of freaking out is warranted. I don't think any of us can know what the long-term implications of this will be until we have some long-term play.
I do think that if it does cause problems, Anet will change it.
"There are two great powers, and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."
John Parry, to his son Will; "The Subtle Knife," by Phillip Pullman
I don't think it's perfect, but I am not sure all this explosion of freaking out is warranted. I don't think any of us can know what the long-term implications of this will be until we have some long-term play.
I do think that if it does cause problems, Anet will change it.
It's a pretty damn important system, so it really should be perfect... now you could argue that no system is perfect, and I might agree with you. However IMO the current trait system (not to be confused with the idea of traits in general) is quite flawed, as such it's not hard to think of a better system, hell even something as simple as decoupling the stats from the traits would be infinitely better in terms of the number of builds you could make (never mind viable ones).
The difference is with traits you commit points and get to select a choice of majors and the bonus minor. It's a commitment with options. The reality is ppl pick one line for 1 or 2 rather than the option of those 12. Committing themselves to a play style. So rather than a tree with branch choices you get to pick from a cluster.
Nothing much there, just the source. It appears that for the press beta, the number of finished major traits was not the full list for launch. Only 6 to 7 traits per trait line were shown. At launch, each traitline will have 12 available Major Traits.
We also know that they are continuing to tweak what each point of the trait attributes will provide, so that the attribute benefits from investing in any trait line will be as equal as possible to any other.
The system shown in the press beta was neither complete nor fully balanced, so much of the theorycrafting may fly out the window once launch rolls around.
I see no problem with the traits. The more variety you have to play your class the better. There will always be people who are more tank or healer oriented in how they play, its a playstyle preference. But the fact that there is no taunt ability severely diminishes the so called tank. Even if a person wants to heal mostly, they will have to play dps also in order to conquer the content. But we will see. Getting rid of the holy trinity is going to be tough. As long as they put a crack in that trinity I'll be happy.
I agree with the point about playstyle preference. I like variety, and I think making the game maliable to the gamer's playstyle preference, is a good step -- helps players enjoy their choices more, imo.
I also agree with the goal of just trying to do something different than the holy trinity. They don't need to hit a home run, but rather just get on base, imo.
There is a thread roaming around called something like Your Favorite Memory in a MMO. If you go in there and read what people have to say it is pretty damn amazing, especially if your a old school video gamer. Point is- The games that come up the most are some really old schoolers, games with HEAVILY FLAWED skill trees, trait systems, AA points, UI's, HUD's... GW2 isnt even out yet and people are in a tizzy over speculation? Come on. Play the game for what it will be and it WILL get adjusted as time goes on you can bet on that. The early days are the BEST, when the game is broken... when someone figures out that OMGWTFPWN build and people get to go crazy for a few days or more.Then years down the line you read all over the forums... Wow remember back when you could 4 points into ownface and then go ownface... those where the days. Live it, Love it... Or leave it. Simple.
Comments
Honestly, I don't see this as a problem with the trait system. I see this as a problem with mass mentality.
As I mentioned in another thread, Anet has a VERY difficult problem they need to deal with when building the early content of this game / present the game to the masses. The majority of MMO gamers have been weened into a fairly mindless trinity system which rewards grinding over thought. Because of this, Anet is going to find players who are blatantly ignoring the system Anet has in-place, but instead of realize this they will blame Anet for it. It's not fair, but as developers they will be responsible for correcting this.
Now:
Anet has said PLEANTY of times that this game isn't built for the holy trinity. They have said that trying to play this game as such will severely gimp your character. Here we have a player who STILL tries to make his character a healer, and then complains that his class is gimped. Why is it gimped? Not because his heals suck, it's because the CDs prohibit him from spamming them the whole fight. (As most of us should realize by now).
While I am all for new players being eased into this game, and a little bit of hand-holding to show them how the system works / beat them over the head with basic logic; I am very much opposed to the dumbing down of this game. Part of the brilliance of Anet's games is that they are on one hand very simple, and on the other extremely complex. It's like chess, sure you can play it with very basic knowledge, but you will get destroyed when playing against real opponents who actually think about what they are doing. It's very much a game for intellectuals.
Will there be min-maxing? I can pretty much guaruntee it. It was there in the first game, it's been there in pretty much every MMO that has ever existed (nix hello kitty online). However, Anet has a system that provides flexibility within a min-maxed system, and that's the key. In most games, someone eventually does the math & finds the best build per class. You play that build or you don't play at all. The end. In GW, someone finds the best class that works for a specific playstyle. Then everyone starts rolling that way, and someone else finds a counter for that 'best class' and everyone starts wondering why their uber build isn't working so good anymore. This is where the FOTM situation arrises.
To get back to the point, though, the trait system offers a LOT of flexibility and gives players the freedom to build their character how they choose. Just like in GW1, if a player wants to run w/ a really crappy build, he can most definitely do that.
** What's really needed is not a gutting of the traits system. It is a quest / tutorial event that explains it in a simple and easy to understand way, so that new players will know how to use it before it becomes too important. Provide some recommended trait builds for each class. Either on the box, or in game, or both. I think that's a much more acceptable solution than throwing the baby out w/ the bathwater.
While this has the potential to be true for extreme builds, this will not be the main for most people. One need only look at how the attributes in each trait line affect your character to come to a perfectly valid conclusion that you'll need to spread the points a bit. Post is going to be a little long so bare with me.
Most of the people in an uproar clearly haven't read through the actual minor/major trait bonuses that come with putting a certain amount of points in each line. In less than half of the instances, the traits in those lines have something to do with the actual trait. For instance, there's about 4 trait bonuses in Water for Elementalist that actually deal with improving Water, the larger majority improve the character as a whole and are beneficial regardless of whether you choose water as your main element or not.
Likewise, the Engineer traits line dealing with their kits only has a few traits that benefit using a kit on their own, most are beneficial to any build. Because of this, it makes FAR more sense to instead trait yourself based on the attributes you want for your character, and leave the minor/major bonuses as more of a secondary concern. Example build I'm planning for my Mesmer, who will be almost exclusively Staff:
20 dom - for power, minor (illusion of vulnerability, confounding suggestions) major (empowered illusions, crippling dissipation)
15 dueling - some crit, minor (critical infusion, deceptive evasion), major (deceptive decoy)
15 chaos - some defense, minor (metaphysical rejuvination, illusionary membrane), major (debilitating dissipation)
5 inspiration - slight boost to hp, minor (vengeful images)
15 illusion - boost to condition damage, minor (illusionists celerity, shattered mind), major (compounding power)
Despite each trait line specializing in a specific weapon, I selected none of those specific traits. Instead, my points are spread to give me a balance in my attributes, and overall boost to my GAMEPLAY STYLE, which is an illusionist/condition mesmer. The above build gives me the following:
+200 power, +20 expertise, +150 precision, +15 prowess, +150 Toughness (defense), +15 concentration, +50 Vitality, +50 Compassion, +150 Malice, +15 Guile
A whole host of awesome benefits to condition/illusion skills (Go here to reference them if you're curious) including extra illusion damage, creating clones when dodging, creating clones and escaping when low on health, cripple + random condition whenever i destroy a clone, stun on daze, etc., etc.
Notice how all of those things are beneficial to me regardless of what weapon I'm wielding? And how the balance of stats + traits edge me toward damage and utility without hindering my ability to do other things, too? Mind you yes, it's all theorycraft until we all get ingame to try it, but that argument works just as well for those against the new system as it does those who aren't.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
If this kind of build is pointless. And I agree it is with the way the mechanics work in this game. What is the point of having all these useless traits. The bulk of those "pointless" healing traits in the invention tree for engineers are minors thus are locked in and you have no say if your going to take them or not, even if your just going into that tree to grab toughness or to extend the range of your turrets or increase your turrets range/damage your taking these traits. I would actually argue the minors of that entire tree are subpar compared to the rest of the traits in the other trees.
I think this system is just trying to prove that any class can spec into any given specialization and I say it does a bloody good job of it.
This is not a game.
Thanks for easing my concerns..Sometimes these threads and GW2 threads are too overwhelming. Regardless, I'm still anticipating the game.
Just as an example of a newer played gimping themselves from the start with this system as well we have:
A: http://www.gw2tools.com/#t-e-aaXfa:aaa.aaa.aaa.baa.aaa
versus
B: http://www.gw2tools.com/#t-e-Saaaa:daa.aaa.aaa.aaa.aaa
All of the traits player A selected are conditional and emergency healing injection makes sure even when those condition are met, its for brief amount of time at best.
Where as player B will benefit just from dodging and his major will increase that benefit.
Even if player a sticks to the same tree:
http://www.gw2tools.com/#t-e-aaaSa:aaa.aaa.aaa.baa.aaa
That build still doesn't have the same synergy that player Bs traits do.
yah, the minor traits. i think my mesmer will be my 3rd character i'll create.
but yeah, guess we'll have to wait for the game to release.
Good post.
Just for anyone else who hasn't figured it out, you can go here: http://www.gw2tools.com/calc/
to experiment with the new trait system. Personally I'm diggin' it. There's a lot of flexibility, and while it's pretty straight-forward, you do have to think about both the stats you want, as well as how you will be playing your character. (For example, I've been toying with a warrior build that relies on crits and bleeds for a number of nice effects)
http://www.gw2tools.com/calc/#t-w-kkfff:dYa.ZXa.gaa.Yaa.Vaa
It's not optimized yet, but you can already see the potential. I threw some points into the other trees to get some general defense / group support (as I'll need it to stay alive long enough to deal damage) and I set it up so allies buffing me will also increase my damage output. It's got a little versatility, but it's also focusing on a very specific type of playstyle @ the same time.
I hope that the wave of QQing going on atm by a very small group of people will die down soon, and Anet's system won't suffer as a result.
Hum, the only way I can see them coming up with a 50% difference in damage if if they played in version before the tweek to power. That was when power scaled damage exponentially. Still, looking at my elemental trait lines their are 3(fire/air/earth) that can be built for damage. Even if go water/arcane the fast swaps between attunements would enable me to put all of my skills on cooldown and still be decent dps. Anyway thought about it some more and I could be wrong.
Also, I did not say find a build from wiki, I said people will get to test their build as they are leveling. You will get 2 respec before 80, if that is not enough they can test builds in the mists. I am saying everyone will have enough TIME to test their builds.
Also, whenever I have played mmorpg's or rpgs in general I have always tried out different builds as I leveled. I never looked up any cookie cutter build on wiki. I tended to be knowledgeable about the games from all time I spent on them to know how I wanted to spec. I just thought others should be capable of do the same, since they are making the jump from rpg to mmoprg.
@cali56 ;
So you are saying that the early 5/10 traits should always be useful no matter what build you use? I understood that from all of the other post you have made about the subject. I just do not want the system to be dumbed down to a point were their are cookie cutter builds. That is why I compared it to DOTA, because their are alot of werid builds that work.
Haven't read the entire thread, but I think a lot of people defending the 'trait' system are missing the FACT that this system is not just about traits, it also gives you a significant boost to certain stats depeding on how you speck. i.e. If you speck into more support / defence lines you miss out on A LOT of stat points that would help your DPS... so if support / defence is not useful for what you are currently doing (DPS race boss etc.) then you are totally gimped.
With regards to 'balancing' content, the problem with this trait system is that it is very min / max. Sure you can make a balanced build, but you can also make very extreme builds, and if it can happen it will... so how do you balance content in a world where such extremes are possible:
Lowest common denominator? Everyone can do it, but too easy for anyone not totally gimped.
Somewhere in the middle? Most people can do it, but will still be too easy for some while being too difficult for others.
Top 5%? A challenge for anyone, but also makes it too hard / impossible if not speced right; leads to a need to respec.
Basically there is no way to balance the content that will not at least trivalise it for some (making the content boring) while possibly making it too difficult for others. This IS bad game design.
Also permance is one of the biggest arguments I've seen used to defend this system, but this system discourages permanence simply from the fact that it is possible to create such wildly varring builds, and not just in terms of playstyle, but also in terms of 'power' and viability, especially for a given situation.. Surely permenace is more a matter of being able to play however you like and having that playstyle be viable in any situation (not possible with the current system unless content is trivial, again bad game design), and not one of putting in barriers in order to discourage experimentation / change .. I mean if you find a playstyle / spec that you really like why go changing it all the time even if you are able to?
A far simpler and IMO much better 'system' would be to not have a system, but rather just give players freedom, namely:
Leave stat bonuses to gear - this not only lowers the relative difference between stats for different players, it also allows freedom to mix, match and swapout stats as and when needed, while having a much more organic limitation i.e. if you want to have absolutely perfect gear for any occasion you need to carry it around with you.
Have minor traits come from the emblems you put on gear - this decouples minor traits from major ones and stats, giving players much more freedom to choose the ones they want; massive win. This would also add 'permance', and again in a much more organic way, in that players will need to choose carefully what emblems they put on gear as old ones will be lost when replaced, making it expensive to constantly 'respec'.
A new major trait is given each level with a new major trait slot every 10 levels - This avoids one of the biggest problems with the current system (i.e. anything but a 'mod 10 = 0' build gives you less major trait slots, possibly as few as 3 while other builds have up to 7). It also, like the skill system, gives players access to all the tools they may need for a given situation, ensuring that players can always complete content, even if they have to respec slightly to do it.
The current system is bad game design, and IMO was implemented for the wrong reasons, and while I doubt anyone at Anet will ever read this, I do hope they change their mind on the current system as it is a blight on an otherwise brillant game.
With yourEle lines while 3 lines might have good dps traits, Because of attributes an air/fire atleast looks like its gonna do more damage, your trading 300 crit for 300 toughness, malice could make up for that lose but an arcane/water build is gonna do way less damage. You don't have a single offensive attribute for either of those trees. There is no way those trees are doing comparable damage to a fire/air build.
This was posted yesterday, and jon peters took part in it. cali has already linked it already but one more http://www.guildwars2guru.com/articles/the-sky-is-falling-traits-are-here/
there he states his damage was almost 50% lower then Jon Peters who was using a different build.
he also states which to me is even more disturbing
When in structured PvP, the impact of my build was even more noticeable. In over 20 structured PvP matches I didn’t kill a single person by myself because my damage was so low. I’d sacrificed my damage so heavily as a result of my extreme build that every class could ‘out-last’ my damage or ‘out-heal’ it. If I survived long enough to dwindle down my enemies health (which I often did as I had a great deal of vitality and constitution) it took so long to do it my opponents heal had often recharged allowing them to reuse it several times. This sometimes caused a stalemate before one of us would be joined by team mates.A
Its not disturbing, reading on through the article he also mentions how he used a fully specialized "Dps" ranger build, and while he could hit extremely hard, it wasn't unusual for him to be dropped in a matter of a few hits. As a support-focused build, it would be insane to go out on your own when the basis behind the build itself is to aid your team.
Likewise, a Damage-focused build would be insane to rush even a couple of players because of his lowered health and defense unless he had a few people on his side as well to help support him.
Furthermore, people need to stop painting this article as a "negative", when the author of it is in support of the current traits.
I'm not painting it at all, i link the article, my point has been these traits are going to have a huge affect on how you play your class. Many people stated these traits will have little impact to your characters performance. And it would be impossible to gimp yourself.
Now we have a supporter of the system stating he was able to gimp himself.
And while the ranger was able to offset his survivability with increased damage, the support engineers healing wasn't really enough to offset the lose of damage do to the cooldowns on his heals. And while there is more to support then healing you have 3 unchangable minor traits in that tree that all buff your healing abilities.
@ evicton#88.
Well you are linking something I already read. I my first response I could have quoted#70, but I dislike linking long walls of text. Yes he does state that Lewis B. was doing 50% less damage than Jon Peters, but when did he play during the press beta, which was before the change to power which I mentioned in previous post#86. That was when 2power= 5precision and was the best damage increasing attribbute but it was changed since then. Weapons do more damage and power scales lineary.
Hum how to address the Lewis B. concern about full support builds vs balance builds. He focused on support and was able to do that, but complains when he can not control or dps. Just like during classic Wow pvp people started to slowly understand that you need a balance of survivablity and damage to get pvp kills. While their were still some glass cannon builds those people generally stayed with 2-3 other people to help them survive and were usless outside of a group.
As for the attribute you get per each trait line here is a look at some of the gear you get at lvl 80 (Pvp gear is the same as PvE gear) the amulets give 500-800 of various attribute points. Everyone base attributes at lvl 80 are 916. So having trading off power for toughness (dps/steady survivablity) is not that big of a deal. Since you can offset it with gear.
Arcane/water doing comparable damage to a fire/air build that is just my theorycraft, since you will be able to have ALL major spells on cooldown. With a arcane/water build you will casting one major spell every second vs a major spell every couple of seconds. Still not enough info on the arcane trait line to find out if that is right or not. The Arcane trait line could greatly improve the arcane utilities but we have seen less than half of the traits for it. So it is just theorycraft.
The guy was in the press beta with the new trait system, so I don't think it was before the tweak to power. I think it was a combination of gear and traits which made such a huge difference. I was looking at one video where a person was in the PVP area jacked up to max level and he had something like 2000 Power, 916 Precision (that's the minimum for the 4 base stats at cap), 1950 Toughness and 1650 Vitality. We couldn't see the other stats. Obviously we don't know the impact of these stats exactly, but if someone cuts their Power in half (2000 back to 900) and replaces it with Compassion, Concentration, etc and also has no Precision, Expertise, Prowess, Malice or class specific skill, I can see a huge drop in damage output.
To your specific part to me, my basic philosophy is this. The skill system lets anyone play any role, is newbie friendly, and is also easy to balance. The stated purposes of the trait system are permanence and customization. The trait system is orders of magnitude more complicated than the skill system. It CANNOT make the skill system more balanced. The skill system allows anyone to play any role already. Having traits to spec more towards one role or another is the very definition of soft trinity, something this game should be trying to avoid.
What I'm saying is that traits need to be ALL about permanence and customization, not some halfway system where you can change your majors.
I think they should only be changed in town because of this. If they are only changed in town, I believe they need to be never useless, regardless of what you're doing with your skills. What I think is that the entire total sum of your traits needs to be something like 5% toward control, damage or support. Or 5% total toward power, crit, or conditions since that's what ArenaNet wants. Or flavorful effects to personalize your character.
I do think the system needs to be way more newbie friendly than it is. You say you think that if it's dumbed down, then there will be cookie cutter builds. I think the opposite is true. If it's too complicated, then people will google someone else's template and copy it.
"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
You mentioned vanilla wow and people using 'balanced builds for pvp'. You must have played a different vanilla wow then me, For example I'll use my class but you can generally use it for most classes. I played a warrior in vanilla wow, now the warrior 31 point skills were so good if you didn't pick them up you were utterly useless esp end game. If you pvp'd you went mortal strike because thats what warriors brought to the table, and blizzard nerfed the fury tree into ground then kicked it some more. If you wanted to do endgame content you spec'd 31 points into protection. You could pve as fury effectively for a while but with the rage normilization and other nerfs blizzard fixed that. If you played a paladin you spec'd holy or you were laughed at after 1.5. If you played a priest you spec'd holy or shadow, the it took an expansion to make the discipline tree useful. If you were a druid you went resto period for pve, feral was ok for pvp, balance was useless till burning crusade. If you were a shaman you spec'd windfury totem and followed me around (ok that was a joke I played a warrior)
This is exactly my point, while I don't think the current trait system is as bad as vanilla wow. Its those kind of spec this way or be gimped I don't like from the current system.
If you have to offset stats with gear because another spec has more of a stat, and the benefits you get from specing that way aren't worth it then why spec that way. And every 'useless' spec means thats one less option you have to choose from. Which means that tree gives you the illusion of custimization. Kinda like how Paladins had the illusions of two other trees in vanilla wow.
Really the guy try to turn his guardian into a healer and he end up with a totally fucked up build, he probably just wanted to see if his guardian could be a "everything in support" build, then he wonder he do 50% less damage, even though the guy is supposed to know the game actually is getting rid off the trinity, this mean get rid of "heal is everything" kind of build? Anyone see a problem in the argumentation he have here?
I don't want to defend the trait system by all mean, i personally like it. But the kind of argumentation the guy is using in his article is just wrong, it is just obvious. Yes the trait system seam to have more impact that you would guess, i also personally thought a 10 or 15% difference would be all the trait system could give, now it seam you can reach a lot more. Maybe they have to ton it down. But i'm not sure, i mean everyone can access the system, you can respec it at anytime, you don't actually need to rebuild a character or craft/drop items to do so. So if people gimp themselves to force a gameplay that don't work, well its their choice after all. Reducing the choice, thus the flexibility of this system because some people totally lack any common sense? it kind of irritate me tbh.
Next topic.
Hum I was talking about getting gear to PvP in classic WoW. General people in classic wow had around 3-4k hp and the rest focused on damage. Picking up some survivablity/damage traits are not useless, you get the traits which you think you will use. It is just in the sky is falling is falling traits are here blog post he complains about not being the best at something he did not spec for, creating this usless spec as you say. After that experience I am sure he would change his spec for PvP.
Yes I realize that their will be some specs that are bad compared to other. With such a large variety of spec to choose from should every spec work? No. Should people be allowed to figure it out on their own? Yes. Anyways, I have been arguing for the sake of arguing. Rainbow wall of text. You can see why I dislike quoting.
I don't think it's perfect, but I am not sure all this explosion of freaking out is warranted. I don't think any of us can know what the long-term implications of this will be until we have some long-term play.
I do think that if it does cause problems, Anet will change it.
"There are two great powers, and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit."
John Parry, to his son Will; "The Subtle Knife," by Phillip Pullman
It's a pretty damn important system, so it really should be perfect... now you could argue that no system is perfect, and I might agree with you. However IMO the current trait system (not to be confused with the idea of traits in general) is quite flawed, as such it's not hard to think of a better system, hell even something as simple as decoupling the stats from the traits would be infinitely better in terms of the number of builds you could make (never mind viable ones).
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1184631&postcount=22
Nothing much there, just the source. It appears that for the press beta, the number of finished major traits was not the full list for launch. Only 6 to 7 traits per trait line were shown. At launch, each traitline will have 12 available Major Traits.
We also know that they are continuing to tweak what each point of the trait attributes will provide, so that the attribute benefits from investing in any trait line will be as equal as possible to any other.
The system shown in the press beta was neither complete nor fully balanced, so much of the theorycrafting may fly out the window once launch rolls around.
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I agree with the point about playstyle preference. I like variety, and I think making the game maliable to the gamer's playstyle preference, is a good step -- helps players enjoy their choices more, imo.
I also agree with the goal of just trying to do something different than the holy trinity. They don't need to hit a home run, but rather just get on base, imo.
There is a thread roaming around called something like Your Favorite Memory in a MMO. If you go in there and read what people have to say it is pretty damn amazing, especially if your a old school video gamer. Point is- The games that come up the most are some really old schoolers, games with HEAVILY FLAWED skill trees, trait systems, AA points, UI's, HUD's... GW2 isnt even out yet and people are in a tizzy over speculation? Come on. Play the game for what it will be and it WILL get adjusted as time goes on you can bet on that. The early days are the BEST, when the game is broken... when someone figures out that OMGWTFPWN build and people get to go crazy for a few days or more.Then years down the line you read all over the forums... Wow remember back when you could 4 points into ownface and then go ownface... those where the days. Live it, Love it... Or leave it. Simple.