Tiered Traits

[rhandric]

Tiered traits might not be the best solution, but it is a good solution. Talent traits don't feel meaningful when you can access all traits at 10 points, and there's a clear imbalance between trait's potency. Yes, they could iterate on the traits and come up with 12 (15) equally powerful traits, but equally powerful doesn't mean equally useful, and you'd still likely end up with most builds being 30/10/10/10/10.

Tiered traits do 2 things. First, it makes every trait choice meaningful, and it means you might have tradeoffs to get certain traits you want.
Second, it makes it so that your third trait choice in a line isn't the least meaningful choice. When you can get every trait at 10, then you will choose the definitive trait, rather than having it be something you get because you chose to specialize in a line.

With tiered traits, the ideal way to place them would be to have more generic traits in the first tier, somewhat specialized traits in the second tier, and line-defining traits in the second tier. Whether they did that, I don't know, but there's still time for iteration on this.

[DrakeWurrum]

The trait system would have been plenty balanced earlier if they'd gotten a bit more creative with tweaking the effects of traits, both through buffing and nerfing. I've presented numerous examples of ways they could do this without straying from the core concept of the trait. I still say the tiered trait system does not reduce the amount of work the devs have to do. They still need to balance all the traits to be equally attractive, or else they will always be plagued by complaints of the system not being fun due to forced decisions.

[Exedore]

The trait system would have been plenty balanced earlier if they'd gotten a bit more creative with tweaking the effects of traits, both through buffing and nerfing. I've presented numerous examples of ways they could do this without straying from the core concept of the trait.

Having a chance for an effect to happen that can determine the outcome of a fight (like removing a condition) is not good gameplay when you're balancing for PvP. Sure, maybe one ability isn't so bad, but when you make a few like that, combat becomes more about luck than skill. So no, you can't really change everything to work like that.

I still say the tiered trait system does not reduce the amount of work the devs have to do. They still need to balance all the traits to be equally attractive, or else they will always be plagued by complaints of the system not being fun due to forced decisions.

It reduces the development workload significantly! By adding tiers, it reduces the total permutations possible. That means there are less possibilities to consider when balancing, and it allows the developers to tweak individual traits or trait lines with less overall impact. In addition, your adept level traits don't always have to be good choices, as long as they're good choices some of the time. The quantity and broader but lower magnitude impact makes a looser balance acceptable on the adept traits, compared to stronger, narrower abilities at the master and grandmaster level.

Without tiers, not only do the developers need to balance 60 major traits with each other, they need to balance over 100 million possible combinations... per profession. With tiers, it's only a few million. And if allow looser balance on the adept level, you only need to worry about a few thousand combinations from the master and grandmaster levels. The number of combinations is hugely important because you can't balance a trait or ability in a vacuum. Granted, you could avoid all this by setting ground rules for making a trait and a basic framework. But then you end up with a slew of boring traits like +5% damage with weapons x and y.

I'll take a tiered system that allows interesting traits that can be tweaked to balance overpowered builds while not hurting other builds which use the same traits over a system of bland traits or a system where everyone just takes all the overpowered traits.

You're mistakenly associating the tiered traits with forcing you take a particular trait. That is not the intent or eventual outcome. It is forcing you to make a decision on which traits to take. Without the tiered system, you only had an illusion of choice. It was an illusion because although there were many choices, there were few optimal ones. Now that you can't get everything in the optimal selection, you have to choose which parts you want - still a choice, and a very meaningful one for how you play.

As an aside, yes, there are some crappy major traits right now that no one wants. Those will be improved or replaced in later BWE's. During a beta, you have to look at the overall intent and how it would work after iteration - but not in an ideal world because the ideal world is never possible.

[DrakeWurrum]

Without the tiered system, you only had an illusion of choice. It was an illusion because although there were many choices, there were few optimal ones.

Yeah, not agreeing with this. Just from boredom, I came up with 10 different Thief builds, and there were still numerous other possibilities I hadn't explored. Some of them were even simply variations of the same core concept.

[Lusitan]

You're mistakenly associating the tiered traits with forcing you take a particular trait. That is not the intent or eventual outcome. It is forcing you to make a decision on which traits to take. Without the tiered system, you only had an illusion of choice. It was an illusion because although there were many choices, there were few optimal ones. Now that you can't get everything in the optimal selection, you have to choose which parts you want - still a choice, and a very meaningful one for how you play.

Just because Anet said this is how it performs now doesnt mean they are fucking right, there's nothing meaningful about it all, and i wasn't under the illusion of freedom, i had freedom to pick what i wanted in bw1 even if my build totally sucked in most peoples eyes.

what's so meaningful of picking a filler trait at 10 to get an ok trait at 20 and so on? its like having to put 1 point either on reverberation/convection/elemental warding on my ele shaman so i can open the last 2 tiers, its a fucking FILLER, forced on players nothing more.

[Exedore]

Just because Anet said this is how it performs now doesnt mean they are fucking right, there's nothing meaningful about it all, and i wasn't under the illusion of freedom, i had freedom to pick what i wanted in bw1 even if my build totally sucked in most peoples eyes.

You can't balance around some people picking good builds and some people picking awful builds. You have to balance around the good builds, and if you picked a bad build, you'll be underpowered. The only way to be equal in power is to pick a good build. And if the only good builds are to pick the most powerful major traits out of every line, then the effective flexibility is very small.

what's so meaningful of picking a filler trait at 10 to get an ok trait at 20 and so on? its like having to put 1 point either on reverberation/convection/elemental warding on my ele shaman so i can open the last 2 tiers, its a fucking FILLER, forced on players nothing more.

Why do you see them as filler? Just because it's not something you want does not mean it's filler. All the traits should give your character benefit. If there is nothing you can pick to give your character benefit at any level, then that's a problem with that trait line, not the system overall.

[DrakeWurrum]

Why do you see them as filler? Just because it's not something you want does not mean it's filler. All the traits should give your character benefit. If there is nothing you can pick to give your character benefit at any level, then that's a problem with that trait line, not the system overall.

The definition of filler is something that is put into a space for no other reason than to fill that space. So yes, it does mean it's filler, because I only get it to fill space.

The benefit they give my character is simply not meaningful enough for it to make an impact on my playstyle or performance. If they successfully design the traits so that all of them are desirable, to the point that you look at a Grandmaster trait and think "Huh, I could get that, or I could grab one of the other 5 Adept traits that are pretty awesome, or I could grab one of those Grandmaster traits," then they had absolutely no reason to use a tiered system. Because then the traits are already equally desirable rather than you only picking "the few traits that are powerful."

If they specifically design the Grandmaster traits to be especially desirable over the others, then I will simply see any non-Grandmaster traits as filler, because my goal will simply be to go 30 points into a line specifically to get one trait, not because there's three traits that I want.

There were plenty of good, viable builds that I had to go 30 points into a line, simply because there were 3 traits in a line that I wanted, and that felt plenty balanced to me.

Example:
http://www.gw2builds.org/view/365038/cantrip_storm
http://www.gw2builds.org/view/236069/lightning_hammer
http://www.gw2builds.org/view/384003/glyph_master
http://www.gw2builds.org/view/305119/arcane_tornado

And those are just a small handful of builds I could've come up with. Could easily come up with variations of those same builds that stick to the exact same concept that don't just grab one powerful trait from multiple trees.


So seriously, the more you say "But look, I'm still getting 30-point builds where I don't get Grandmaster traits!" then the entire point of the tiered trait system is completely defeated, and nonexistent. The entire point of tiered traits was to put the most "powerful" traits into the Grandmaster line so that people would be forced to go more than 10 points down a line in order to grab them.

[rhandric]

If there is nothing you can pick to give your character benefit at any level, then that's a problem with that trait line, not the system overall.

Or a matter of perception.

[Lusitan]

So seriously, the more you say "But look, I'm still getting 30-point builds where I don't get Grandmaster traits!" then the entire point of the tiered trait system is completely defeated, and nonexistent. The entire point of tiered traits was to put the most "powerful" traits into the Grandmaster line so that people would be forced to go more than 10 points down a line in order to grab them.

at least someone here gets it

[dredgwolf]

i understand tiered traits well enough, but im having trouble understanding tiered skills, for example http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/ran...1802|1799|0|0|

this is build i plan on using, as you can see i have chosen all signets, the part i realy dont understand is the part where i have to "buy five to move to the next tier" does this mean that if i want to buy signet of the hunt i must first buy spike trap, signet of renewal, sharpening stone, sun spirit, and sic em before i can get it? and so on down the line?

[Exedore]

i understand tiered traits well enough, but im having trouble understanding tiered skills

You should have enough skill points to buy 5 skills in the current tier and get access to the next tier of skills before you open up the next skill slot. So it's not as bad as it seems. The problem is that for some professions, there's nothing enticing in the first skill tier. Once you get to the second skill tier, there's a big enough selection that 2 skills will work for you.

I don't like it, but I see the point of trying to make people experiment and teach new people. However, they need to shuffle abilities around on certain professions (engineer is a big offender from my experience) and I would say to reduce progression to 4 skills instead of 5.

[dredgwolf]

ya 5 seems a little much to me, but i think i understand now. thanks

[Durzlla]

ya 5 seems a little much to me, but i think i understand now. thanks

Lol I used to hate it too, but after USING it I've grown to like it...