Tiered Traits

[DrakeWurrum]

Um... i said ghost crawler was an idiot didn't I? If not, i'm sorry, he's an IDIOT... and i'm praying to all that is holy that by DPS warrior you are in fact referring to WoW, and not GW2..

I'm talking about GW2 Warriors who focus 100% on doing the most damage they can, while giving little, if any, consideration to building for support or control, beyond what their skill choices already provide. Example:
http://www.gw2builds.org/view/320011/burst_axe

While this build does offer support to allies through the shouts and through the banner elite, that's only a side-effect - they were chosen explicitly for selfish reasons.

[rhandric]

Define "meaningful" in this sense, though.

The devs seem to want all DPS Warriors to go 30 points into either Strength or into Arms, for example. Suddenly, every DPS Warrior is going some variant of 30/X or x/30/x or even 30/30/x. I see limited variety among DPS Warriors as a result. There will still be plenty of trait choices, sure, but it will be VERY quickly figured out which set of traits people speccing a certain way will be the most powerful in order to build towards the top tier choice they want.
This is what happened when GC decided that everybody needs to go X number of points into their primary tree before going elsewhere. Everybody started speccing the same way. The theory was fine behind it, but it didn't actually work in practice.

I just want to get away from the whole thing in WoW where you're not identified as a Warrior, but an Arms Warrior.
I don't want to be identified by which T3 major trait I have, so that I now must spec a certain way in order to be optimal with that major trait.

Obviously I should wait until we see it in practice, and if it gets to release see how it works at release, but I don't want to be restricted in my build choice. :S

So would you rather all players be 30/10...?
That's the biggest issue with traits; since you'll never be able to balance all traits against each other, you can either tier them, make certain traits mutually exclusive (which tiering indirectly does), or make them all trivial, at which point there's little purpose for them.

Ideally they would "just" effect your play style, but have either minimum or equal effect on balance, but realistically that's relatively impossible to achieve.

[DrakeWurrum]

Sure. But why limit everyone to that? If I know how everything works I should be able to take 'this, that, the other thing and this thing' to suit my needs.

You can still do that. Probably by level 20. I had way more than 10 purchased skills by then, and skill costs were higher than what we saw in that certain video.

[Durzlla]

I'm talking about GW2 Warriors who focus 100% on doing the most damage they can, while giving little, if any, consideration to building for support or control, beyond what their skill choices already provide. Example:
http://www.gw2builds.org/view/320011/burst_axe

While this build does offer support to allies through the shouts and through the banner elite, that's only a side-effect - they were chosen explicitly for selfish reasons.

Oh! you mean the min maxing idiots that i and all other hybrids completely stomped on in pvp!! Of course you can do that if you -really- want to!! i'm not gonna stop you from dying horribly like i said you guys would!!

---------- Post added 2012-06-06 at 03:16 PM ----------

Sure. But why limit everyone to that? If I know how everything works I should be able to take 'this, that, the other thing and this thing' to suit my needs.

because people like me who did know exactly what they wanted due to reading up on skills ended up falling in love with traps after buying one by accident despite them on paper looking really stupid lol

[DrakeWurrum]

Oh! you mean the min maxing idiots that i and all other hybrids completely stomped on in pvp!! Of course you can do that if you -really- want to!! i'm not gonna stop you from dying horribly like i said you guys would!!

This trait system encourages such builds.

[Durzlla]

So would you rather all players be 30/10...?
That's the biggest issue with traits; since you'll never be able to balance all traits against each other, you can either tier them, make certain traits mutually exclusive (which tiering indirectly does), or make them all trivial, at which point there's little purpose for them.

Ideally they would "just" effect your play style, but have either minimum or equal effect on balance, but realistically that's relatively impossible to achieve.

i doubt all players would go 30/10... regardless of what some guide said was most effective, because you get people who are DETERMINED to be that healer elementalist, or that tanky commander warrior (gotta say i saw someone play like that and it was actually a REALLY bad ass build wish the guy would share it with me lol) !

---------- Post added 2012-06-06 at 03:22 PM ----------

This trait system encourages such builds.

Um, no it doesn't? It just means that by you going fully into say, Strength, that you'll get some really cool traits at the end of that tier, it doesn't mean everyone is going to go LAWLZ GLASS CANON FTWZ!! Am i going to go with a stupid 30/30/10 build? No, i may stick with my 30/25/15 build though, or i may change it to be more of a 30/20/20 it really depends on how they change the minor traits up, hell i might decide that 30/10/10/10/10 seems more interesting after they move some of the traits i was grabbing out of the reach i'm willing to go into that tree!! Most people will probably go with builds that are more them "specializing" in one of the traits and then taking some things that benefit how they want to play with that trait line from other ones.

IE: I want to be a sort of "commander" warrior so i'm going to be super good at shouting commands and placing banners and then maybe throw in a few shield traits and maybe a big 2 hander trait or something as well for versatility, making the traits tiered does nothing to stop that.

EDIT: Please note that the only reason i'm going 30 points in is because i'm a HUGE beast master fan and i will always spend 30 points in beast mastery if given the opportunity, however my mesmer may not even have a trait line that hits 30, it all depends on what i want to do with him/her.

[rhandric]

This trait system encourages such builds.

It depends on how they spread the traits, especially since Jon implied they've been changing the traits. If T1 traits are mostly survival-based traits, T2 are starting to get damage-based, and T3 are the super-powerful damage and survival, then it really doesn't. Same if there aren't "enough" traits to min/max with in a given line.

[DrakeWurrum]

So would you rather all players be 30/10...?

Problem with your assumption: that didn't happen, and we have seen no evidence of that happening.

---------- Post added 2012-06-06 at 03:25 PM ----------

Um, no it doesn't? It just means that by you going fully into say, Strength, that you'll get some really cool traits at the end of that tier, it doesn't mean everyone is going to go LAWLZ GLASS CANON FTWZ!! Am i going to go with a stupid 30/30/10 build? No, i may stick with my 30/25/15 build though, or i may change it to be more of a 30/20/20 it really depends on how they change the minor traits up, hell i might decide that 30/10/10/10/10 seems more interesting after they move some of the traits i was grabbing out of the reach i'm willing to go into that tree!! Most people will probably go with builds that are more them "specializing" in one of the traits and then taking some things that benefit how they want to play with that trait line from other ones.

IE: I want to be a sort of "commander" warrior so i'm going to be super good at shouting commands and placing banners and then maybe throw in a few shield traits and maybe a big 2 hander trait or something as well for versatility, making the traits tiered does nothing to stop that.

EDIT: Please note that the only reason i'm going 30 points in is because i'm a HUGE beast master fan and i will always spend 30 points in beast mastery if given the opportunity, however my mesmer may not even have a trait line that hits 30, it all depends on what i want to do with him/her.

What happens when you provide a reward to somebody that is only give for specific perceived patterns?


Also: You may be interested in my battle commander build, assuming the basic set-up is still possible after the things they've changed.

[Fencers]

You can still do that. Probably by level 20. I had way more than 10 purchased skills by then, and skill costs were higher than what we saw in that certain video.

Not sure yet. From what I saw it looked like the skills required 5/5 ->next tier and so on. Perhaps this has changed though.

because people like me who did know exactly what they wanted due to reading up on skills ended up falling in love with traps after buying one by accident despite them on paper looking really stupid lol

...and what of players who know exactly how each skill and mechanic works for their profession?

Still not seeing why those who know what skills they want exactly, how to build, rotation, enchants and et cetera, are forced into skill gating.

That's like forcing me to play the pre-set souls in Rift or the recommended items in LOL.

[Durzlla]

It depends on how they spread the traits, especially since Jon implied they've been changing the traits. If T1 traits are mostly survival-based traits, T2 are starting to get damage-based, and T3 are the super-powerful damage and survival, then it really doesn't. Same if there aren't "enough" traits to min/max with in a given line.

This is my guess, T1 will be CD reduction traits/minor effect traits (IE crits cause bleeding). T2 will probably be more major effect traits (IE causing confusion also blinds the target), and then T3 will be some (i hope) really cool effect/mechanic changing thing (Death Shroud bar drains slower over time, and you lose less life force when taking damage in deathshroud) sort of thing.

[DrakeWurrum]

Not sure yet. From what I saw it looked like the skills required 5/5 ->next tier and so on. Perhaps this has changed though.

Which is why I said that I had 10 purchased skills by level 20ish. Maybe I'll end up purchasing different skills, but so what? I was already purchasing some random ones, primarily because they were cheap and I thought I'd try them out since I wasn't level 80 yet. I don't care about having a perfect build until I hit max level.

I also think it's highly presumptuous to assume you already know everything about your profession as you suggest, when you (likely) have yet to experience the final-release version of being level 80 for that profession.

[Durzlla]

Not sure yet. From what I saw it looked like the skills required 5/5 ->next tier and so on. Perhaps this has changed though.



...and what of players who know exactly how each skill and mechanic works for their profession?

Still not seeing why those who know what skills they want exactly, how to build, rotation, enchants and et cetera, are forced into skill gating.

That's like forcing me to play the pre-set souls in Rift or the recommended items in LOL.

From what i saw in the picture it was you needed 5/10 or so skills to move onto the second tier of skills (the 5/5 on the bottom was just how many skills you had, and how many were needed to unlock next section).

and i wouldn't say it's like playing with recommended items in LoL, but i would say it's more like making them follow those pre-set souls until level X to kinda hold their hand and be like "Are you -sure- you know how to build properly now and aren't going to go out and be like LAWLZ I IZ DRUID PURIFIER CABALIST!"

[DrakeWurrum]

Your analogy to LoL is also highly inaccurate. It's more like forcing you to unlock your elite skill at level 6, instead of having immediate access to it. It's like when increasing your summoner level still in LoL, instead of having access to all summoner skills right away, you have to level up and unlock them.

[Ynna]

Problem with your assumption: that didn't happen, and we have seen no evidence of that happening.

We didn't see it, but Arenanet did, and they have access to more information than we could possibly dream of.

[DrakeWurrum]

We didn't see it, but Arenanet did, and they have access to more information than we could possibly dream of.

No, they didn't see *all players* doing it. Or else we would have seen *all players* doing it as well. What ANet said is that they saw that 30/10/10/10/10 builds were the most powerful - this does not mean most common or most popular, but most powerful - and I'd like to have a better understanding of how they came to this conclusion.

I did catch this reply to somebody else asking the same question as me:

The 30,10,10,10,10 builds were from the best players in our closed test. Also there are many considerations and while not everyone is going to make sense for everyone, from a design standpoint for us, this was the best solution for the most players, and more importantly for the game and how we want it to play.

Jon

[Fencers]

Which is why I said that I had 10 purchased skills by level 20ish. Maybe I'll end up purchasing different skills, but so what? I was already purchasing some random ones, primarily because they were cheap and I thought I'd try them out since I wasn't level 80 yet. I don't care about having a perfect build until I hit max level.

I share(d) no similar compulsion. I got the 4 skills I needed + banked enough for the 1 elite I needed. on Warrior, the 6 skills for Engineer + elite points. Done.

I also think it's highly presumptuous to assume you already know everything about your profession as you suggest, when you (likely) have yet to experience the final-release version of being level 80 for that profession.

Not even relevant to my point.

Changes to skills wouldn't make any difference from here to release on the capacity to know what you want without having to buy a lot of what you don't want.

On release; simply jump into the training area, try out all skills, look at tree synergies for a couple hours. Go on your way.

follow those pre-set souls until level X to kinda hold their hand and be like "Are you -sure- you know how to build properly now and aren't going to go out and be like LAWLZ I IZ DRUID PURIFIER CABALIST!"

I find the notion disgusting, tbh. I hate hand holding BS and tutorial crap like the Tera prologue. ><

[DrakeWurrum]

I share(d) no similar compulsion. I got the 4 skills I needed + banked enough for the 1 elite I needed. on Warrior, the 6 skills for Engineer + elite points. Done.

Not even relevant to my point.

Changes to skills wouldn't make any difference from here to release on the capacity to know what you want without having to buy a lot of what you don't want.

On release; simply jump into the training area, try out all skills, look at tree synergies for a couple hours. Go on your way.

My apologies for this game not being created specifically for you. ^_^;

[Fencers]

My apologies for this game not being created specifically for you. ^_^;

Or ya'know, just designed well.

[DrakeWurrum]

Or ya'know, just designed well.

Designed well for you, you mean. Because, you know, some players will benefit from this change - probably many. Durz already gave one example of how this change could benefit somebody, by introducing them to a skill they previously had disliked. Perhaps equally many won't be affected at all, like me, since I experiment with numerous skills already.

I see your complaints as the complaints of a minority.

[Fencers]

Designed well for you, you mean. Because, you know, some players will benefit from this change - probably many. Durz already gave one example of how this change could benefit somebody, by introducing them to a skill they previously had disliked. Perhaps equally many won't be affected at all, like me, since I experiment with numerous skills already.

I see your complaints as the complaints of a minority.

So what exactly, is the disadvantage of "elective mode" [to borrow a term] skill choice? What disservice would that option be to the players needing guidance in build prep?