New specialization system - a huge mistake

[Deleted]

Hi guys,

i cant express how frustrated i feel about the new specialization system they are going to introduce for the HoT.
I just came to GW2 from WoW, with the idea of how much more customizable the characters in GW2 are, and BooM - most of character customization is going bye-bye.
The new spec system they introduce will stram-line character builds and make them feel all the same. Furthermore i believe this is a step toward the holy trinity set-up. What i mean:
1. You pick 3 out of 5 spec lines always, no more half builds. What that mean is, we say welcome to stereotypes. You wanna do dps - pick lines 1, 2 and 5. You wanna support - pick lines 2, 4 and 5. You wanna be more tanky? Go for lines 2, 3 and 4.
sure there are choices to be made within a single line, but they are more like "pick this to do damage with sword, pick the next one to do damage with scepter"
2. Pretty much all professions will be forced to pick the new elite specs. Nobody say that for sure, but i am convinced they will be made to be stronger than the rest. Why else they will call them Elite. Besides, when introducing something new to a game, designers tend to make it a little OP, just to be attractive and to excite people.
Which leaves you with just two spec lines to choose from. So no more hybrid builds, no more surprising trait combinations, no more hidden capabilities.
3. Stat boost coming from traits are gone, no more reason to advance into a line just for the sake of getting more Toughness or Boon duration. Another customization option stripped away.

Basically, they went down the way Blizzard did with Cataclism. Revamped talent system with far less choices, badly developed to provide little to no choices. All classes started to feel all the same with their fellow classmates.

This is the easy way to go imo. Instead of put some brain work into balancing existing system (which was great), they stated "no one is picking this and that trait, why not just remove them or give them baseline. Following to that, now you pick one of three traits in a tier which are balanced to the extent it doesn't feel any different which one you will pick. And to surprise you, no more interaction inbetween traits from different lines. We standardize all traits into groups and put into a single trait or line. But hey, this is all exciting and good, no matter that when you see a Mesmer, he will perform exactly the same as all other Mesmers in the game."

Finally, limiting customization is always a bad choice. It is a design weakness or inability to handle a high diversity of skills and builds.
Im not sure if i could fully express my dissapointment with what is coming soon.

[Mirishka]

Funny that you keep falling back on WoW's talent overhaul when the overall reaction/effect on gameplay was pretty positive. The best WoW players in the world routinely switch talents on the fly, based on the encounter or whether or not they're PvPing - for all the talk of 'dumbed down' talents, there's more diversity in their use by far than there was with the 51/61 etc point systems.

Back then, you either A: picked the correct talents for your spec or B: picked the wrong ones and said you were 'experimenting' or 'original'.

So maybe you shouldn't play the 'SKY IS FALLING!!!' card with GW2 just yet?

[Deleted]

Funny that you keep falling back on WoW's talent overhaul when the overall reaction/effect on gameplay was pretty positive. The best WoW players in the world routinely switch talents on the fly, based on the encounter or whether or not they're PvPing - for all the talk of 'dumbed down' talents, there's more diversity in their use by far than there was with the 51/61 etc point systems.

Back then, you either A: picked the correct talents for your spec or B: picked the wrong ones and said you were 'experimenting' or 'original'.

So maybe you shouldn't play the 'SKY IS FALLING!!!' card with GW2 just yet?

I am not saing "sky is falling" so long as this is just a game that i can stop playing whenever i feel it dull and lackluster.

But seriously, less choices ensures better balance, but it also mean less choice impact.
Three choices in a tier, all dps-oriented, all worth the same dps gain. No matter what i pick, my toon will perform just the same. What the hell?

Right now you can pick traits from different tiers of different lines that focus on improving one aspect of your skills, or you can go for improving a little bit from many ascpects. Or a lot of inbetween. With HoT, there will be no more such choices. With your choices you will be improving either your dps, healing and support skills or survivability in general. To the fullest, no chance of making hybrid builds anymore.

They should've put effort into improving current system, to make all traits viable and to encourage crazy builds and non-standard play in general.
What they will do is quite the opposite.

[PACOX]

1. Some would say that the system was flawed because some builds always had to do those "half" builds because some minor traits were too valuable to pass up and some grandmaster sets were absolutely terrible.

2. No one is forced to take elite specs. Of course people will take them because they are new and some will shine more than others but nothing is forced. I can tell you right now out of the 3 we have that the guard and perhaps the necro one wont be universal. Chrono might get a lot of play. The are not stronger, they are atypical ways to play a particular class.

3. We can go on for days about why place stats in the trait trees was a bad idea, forcing people to take trait lines for a particular stat and not the actual traits. Best thing they did was take stats away and make the trait lines about the actual traits. And now armor choices actually matter!

...you get more traits now...

[grexly75]

Find it interesting that another game is going this route, and yet the same issue we had in WoW, and the answer in someways is that like every game to get more people interested in your game you have to make it appealing to a wider audience..

Since GW2 is a F2P / Micro Transactioin type game Arenanet don't have to worry so much about subs income so in this case the Arenanet want to attract more people to the game and by making it easier for new players to get to grips with the game, and let them enjoy the game they can tell their friends and so on and get more people to join in the game..

And as the competition for the gaming public increases so will things like this happen to try and attract more people to their games..

[Deleted]

1. Some would say that the system was flawed because some builds always had to do those "half" builds because some minor traits were too valuable to pass up and some grandmaster sets were absolutely terrible.

The topic is rather about system comparison, not realization of said system.
I say that the current system, if put more work into balancing, is by far superior than the new simplified "pick 3 out of 6" customization handicapped abomination they will implement.

Most folks, just as it happened with WoW, would say "yeah, current system is broken because it offer cockie-cutter builds, the new system is better because although it limits diversity, it provides with a little something of a valuable choices".
Quite few people will look past realization and can evaluate custimization potential of the system, if done right.

Provided people prefer free-to-improvise customization options over mind-relaxing stream-lined character builds.