Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Debates and Dilemmas: Tiered Traits



During the last BWE there was a profound change in design to traits.  They are now tiered, and there are many differing opinions in the community over whether this was a positive move for the game.  During the Reddit AMA, ArenaNet provided 3 main reasons for the change and advantages of the new system: ease of understanding by new players, expanse of diversity of viable builds, and facilitation of overall balance.  Is this new system better for the game?

Many members of the community seem to be split, and unsurprisingly even the authors of this blog are divided.  For the interest of constructive debate, Aly and I have arranged a joint article discussing our opposing views.  We hope this article encourages thoughtful discussion, and have provided strong, valid arguments in support or against the new model.

Aly- In Support of the New Model

ANet aggressively marketed Guild Wars 2 toward casual players and newcomers from the beginning. While many players appreciated the freedom of the game’s design, others found themselves overwhelmed by the sheer amount of choices players had early on. Players previously had to consider 60 different major traits. Additionally, we had to do so with no basis of comparison, or at least we had to compare each trait against every other trait, as well as take into account the stat boosts and minor traits provided by each trait line. Even after honing in on a preferred play style, there were a number of ways to enhance the play style via traits. Those players leveling up through PvP had the advantage of knowing what weapons and skills they preferred by the time they had to begin making these decisions. However, a player heading straight for PvP has greater difficulty.
No matter your level of familiarity with the game, build a character took more time prior to the introduction of tiers. Theory crafters may not mind but the system wasn’t particularly friendly to casuals or altoholics who may consider creating builds preparing to have fun rather than having fun. Even some hardcore gamers complained, not because of the difficulty or time, but because they felt their decisions lacked weight. Now we have smaller groups of traits to measure against each other at a time. Not only do our decisions carry greater weight, but we can also pick out those traits that enhance our preferred play styles more easily without having to cross-reference as many traits at a time. The new system draws more attention to existing synergies many of us already recognized, and we no longer have to look as hard for them when creating other builds or characters. While the system may be more restrictive, it still encourages more experimentation precisely because it is less time-consuming.

A big selling point of Guild Wars 2 is that you can play how you want, in reference to the removal of the holy trinity. It’s an appeal to hybrid fans that had to forgo their preferred play styles in order to find a group in other MMOs. Sadly, some players were determined to squeeze Guild Wars 2 into the typical MMO box anyway. When traits became tiered, ANet confirmed what many of us already feared: previously there were many good builds, and only a few great builds. The intent of tiers is not to reduce the variety of play styles, but to ensure their viability. A non-viable choice is no choice at all. ANet has even assured us that they will make sure to support all play styles, and they requested player feedback in the event a play style was no longer possible. It’s important to note that play style is determined less by traits than by weapon and skill selection. Traits merely allow us to enhance our preferred play styles. There may be fewer variations of how to enhance a particular play style, but that play style is still possible – even more so due to greater viability.

ANet promised us long ago that they would not punish us for our personal preferences nor would they allow for the creation of poor builds. That was a big problem with the original and part why they nixed secondary professions in the sequel. However, the sheer volume of possible builds threatened to turn the game into Build Wars 2 anyway. There are also expansions to consider, and the risk of adding new content while playing catch up on balancing the existing game.

Some players believe all traits should be equally useful, but usually the most useful traits are the least interesting and vice versa. Mind you, the trait tiers don’t necessarily range in usefulness. While the third tier may include some very powerful traits, they are also the most specific, whereas the more general skills that support a larger variety of builds are in the first tier. The first tier also includes some of those fun, niche skills players want to use but ultimately bypass because usefulness trumps novelty. The tiers mean we may actually get away with taking some of those “fun” traits instead of simply stacking the “better” traits, thus allowing ANet to balance the game while still allowing for more personalization and creativity.

Conclusion:

Love it or hate it, the tiered skills and traits were developed with the target audience in mind and that audience is not limited to the minority of players who blog or post in forums. Perhaps the big selling point of Guild Wars 2 is the emphasis on promoting a friendly, thoughtful and – perhaps most importantly – inclusive community.




Entombed- Against the New Model

I fundamentally disagree with the change and contest, in order, each of the three major points; ease of understanding, diversity of builds, and overall balance.  

Ease of use by new players.  Theoretically yes. Anyone would tell you that making a choice between 6 choices and 12 is considerably easier for a new player.  However, in practice this concept just doesn’t pan out.  Think about it, what will a new player do?  They will open up the trait system, and be overwhelmed by 5 trees.  This happens with or without the new or old system. However, a person isn’t just going to look at the six traits in the first tier, I argue that everyone will still look ahead.  Yes, whether they are jumping into structured PvP as a new player or simply turn level 11, they will have some formulation of a future path to take. They aren’t just going to stop after looking at the first tier.  To do this in the old system, they simply could click one of the major tiers and see all 12 choices for one tree pop up.  Now, for each tree they have to click to see a new set of traits per tier per tree.  If you are counting, they can either see all of the traits for a given profession in 5 clicks with the old system or 15 with the new system. Not only that, but they now have to remember all the varying pools of traits per click, because each click offers new, unique traits.  In the old system, I could easily see the entire selection of traits I want.  A player now needs to remember traits and the tier of each trait, where before they only had to remember traits. Sixty traits broken into 5 different groups are hard enough to keep track of, now you have to keep track of sixty traits broken into 15 different subgroups to plan a build.  Does that sound welcoming to new players?

The second major reason for the change is diversity.  I challenge that this ultimately decreases both the number of viable builds and the number of total builds.  It’s inarguable that the introduction of tiers decreases total builds, but many have tried to argue that it increases the number of viable builds.  I’ve seen people compare this to two ice cream shops.  One ice cream shop has 100 flavors, but only 2-3 are really good, the rest are just alright.  Another has only 10 flavors, but all 10 are equally good.  Thus the second shop while having less overall number of flavors, they have more diversity in viable flavor options.  A unique analogy, and at first glance I contended that it at least was decently comparable to the trait systems.  However, when you start to take a deeper look, you realize you cannot use this analogy when comparing the old and new systems.  The old system, theoretically, is supposed to have equal traits. (Yes, that may be impossible, but I will deal with this point later, just grant me this for now) All 12 traits per tree are equal, or at least were supposed to be.  ArenaNet during the AMA even went as far as saying the best builds were 30, 10, 10, 10, 10.   As a person who worked extensively on my builds, friends builds, and builds on forums with many other competitive PvPers, I did not see this to be the case.  Don’t get me wrong, I cannot prove this point, but I have a feeling that this was a fictitious point that was used to try to sway the community. Regardless, even if I grant that many builds were 30, 10, 10, 10, 10, that wasn’t the fault of the system.  It was the fault of bad, unequal, traits created by designers, not the system.  The new system will now create far more 30, 30, 10 builds than 30, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10 builds because of the use of tiers.  This will attribute even less diversity to a system that already constricts player choice.

The one greatest strength of Guild Wars 2 is player choice.  Every part of the game is built around this central philosophy;  level and gain XP the way you want, play the way you want to play, destruction of the “grind” that has plagued MMOs since their invention.  This new system goes against every main design philosophy of the game.  It irrevocably restricts player choice, and even worse, you now have to slog through traits that you do not want to get to the trait that you ultimately want.

Finally, I have heard many responses in agreement with ArenaNet, specifically around the balance issue.  “The old system was simply unreasonable.  You cannot expect to have 12 equal traits per tree, and have them balanced.” Balance is extremely important, even more so if Guild Wars 2 is to become an e-sport.
However, the above point, in my opinion the strongest argument for the new system, is flawed. We simply cannot tell if the above point is true. If the venture of the old system is truly impossible, one would reasonably make an argument that it must be reasonably attempted first.  You cannot accurately say something is impossible until you have seen it attempted or can be discounted from personal experience.  

Even ArenaNet cannot tell us if this was balanceable or not, every iteration of traits for nearly every profession had useless to extremely strong traits. The breadth of strength of the traits was so great were so laughable that you could almost tell they hadn’t adequately attempted to balance traits yet.  Many of the traits were so niche, specifically the falling damage ones, that were either overpowered in certain situations or going to be so rarely utilized that they just weren’t worth it.  That is not the fault of the system, but the fault of poor trait design.  If you really are so concerned about balance, just lower the number of traits per tree from 12.  There was and still is too much bloat in the trees, and many of the traits will still rarely be used.  Well designed traits are often inherently balanceable because of numbers, you can easily buff or nerf as needed without affecting other builds. Traits that provide additional effects are extremely fun and interesting, but you must take specific care to create them well.

I argue that ArenaNet did not adequately attempt to balance traits, and thus the “balance” issue is negligible.  The new system now forces ArenaNet to balance among three different tiers per tree, instead of an equal plateau of power per tree, you now have fifteen different standards to match, and even more people are going to complain when traits are incorrectly placed in the wrong tier.  People are going to outsmart the system and create new, unexpected, and frankly, overpowered builds.  The new system and old system were equally capable of handling this effect.

In conclusion, the new system really represents the opposite of so many of the design philosophies that have made Guild Wars 2 great under the sole guise of balance.  I argue that the new system solves nothing that the old system could not have solved.  ArenaNet is now able keep poorly designed traits without fixing them and now have a reasonable defense for them.  “Well they are tier one, they are supposed to be less powerful.  They provided a band-aid when there should have been a full amputation.  Fix the traits, and if needed the total number of them, stop ruining the initial great design.   Furthermore, ArenaNet’s new system restricts player choice beyond reason and in effect becomes nothing more than the regular, overused, World of Warcraft’s talent trees. 

The new motto:  “Play the way you want to play, well at least when you get past tier one.”

20 comments:

  1. I have to side with Aly in this one. I found, after playing both BWE's, that the tiered system is great. I hated it when I first learned about it, but after trying it, it was great. I found I had a greater amount of options for theorycrafting, but if I wanted a "I just want to play" build, that was easy to do. It was much easier to look at level 1 traits to pick in my "non-preferred" trees.

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  2. Uhh sorry entombed, but if anyone can say whether balance is impossible, it is Anet. Just look at gw1. Each toon has 1 major profession with 3 attributes and 1 powerful primary attribute AND 1 secondary profession with 3 more attributes. Then outta of all the possible spells you choose 8 spells. In pvp and pve, there were builds that were extremely gimmicky and extremely effective. There was no way to balance that. Anet has far more balancing experience than you are giving them credit for, and for this argument, far more than you.

    Now the old trait system allowed for far too many choices, and these included choices also produced gimmicky builds. Builds that could one shot anyone, that would not die, and etc. While inter class balance played a part, it was the traits that were the main problem.

    Now, bc the meta builds will focus on maxxing two lines for the elite traits, it will be much easier to balance. Instead of balancing all 60 major traits for a profession, anet now needs to balance 10 elite traits. Much easier. This is not some band aid fix, this is a fix to just allow spvp to possibly be balanced if they can get everything else right.

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    1. I understand this is a controversial opinion.

      However, comparing balance in Guild Wars 1 to Guild Wars 2 is like comparing apples and bricks. You just can't, and it's foolish to try. The secondary profession mechanic of course was unbalanced, and is the main reason they got rid of the mechanic in Guild Wars 2. There are far less skill options than in Guild Wars 1, and most are already sectioned into subgroups (weapon, heal, utility, elite, etc.)

      They did all of this to create a balanced game, and are short-changing the effort needed to making a great system by replacing it with a good system that requires less effort.

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    2. Uhhh I was not saying they were similar, nor was I comparing apples to oranges. You said in your post, and I quote, "You cannot accurately say something is impossible until you have seen it attempted or can be discounted from personal experience." If anyone knows what it is impossible to balance, it is Anet, not you and your opinions. That is the point, whether they say it or not, the old trait system was not balance-able. There are no apples and oranges to compare, I am saying Anet has the "personal experience" to distinguish that it will not work. While this is not a balance between professions, this is a balance among a profession. So yes, this was done in the name of balance. This is no sorta short coming, you can still build how you want to play.

      So while you boo hoo about your I want my theory crafted build back, I am just glad Anet had the sense to balance the game.

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    3. "You cannot accurately say something is impossible until you have seen it attempted or can be discounted from personal experience."

      My point by that specific quote: ArenaNet has neither made an adequate attempt nor does it have the personal experience to back their statement up. Their experience in Guild Wars 1 is irrelevant, they are too different of games to compare. Their attempts at balancing Guild Wars 1 were so strictly limited by game design, where as in Guild Wars 2, they have already accounted for many of the weaknesses of GW1. If you can discount their "experience" in Guild Wars 1, you successfully null their major argument for the new system. The new system is decent-to-good, but let's be honest, it is not innovative or new, and in my opinion, does not have the same potential as the old system.

      As for wanting "my theory crafted build back", that's not really true. I don't think anyone can hope to maintain the same build from early beta testing until release, especially with the rough iterations we have seen. At this point my only attachment is the thief profession and the shortbow, traits are changing too rapidly to become attached to anything.

      Let's agree to disagree. I think most of us in the community agree that the main argument is balance vs. choice. Does the old system stray too far to the side of choice at the expense of balance, and does the new system stray too far to the side of balance at the expense of choice? No one can really know, and I contend that even ArenaNet doesn't fully know that question yet. It will definitely be interesting to see what happens in the next few months.

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  3. The real issue was that with the old system there were a few builds that were just extremely overpowered. Instead of all the half-reasons they gave to justify the change they should have just come out and said so.

    There was no easy way to balance a few of the extreme 30/10/10/10/10 builds without nerfing some traits. I'm glad they went this route instead of whomping everything with the nerf bat. They have thousands of testers playing every iteration, and have been in this process for years, I'm pretty sure they already tried other methods of balancing.

    As for the choice complaint, well, it's a game that is still in the design process. All games limit choices, in fact that's a defining feature of games in general. Why not give everyone 150 trait points? Or all 60 possible traits? Why not make utility skills hot-switchable in combat? Why limit classes to certain weapons or skills? Trait tiers are no different from those features, except that they have been changed recently so more people have seen a difference.

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    1. Assuming the new meta builds are 30/30/10....

      You have 10 elite majors, 8 more elite majors, 4 master, another 4 master, 6 minor, and 6 more minor... that is assuming you go the most likely route, otherwise there are even more options.

      So number of builds per profession 10*8*4*4*6*6=46080. If that is not enough options for you, then I am sorry. Maybe try another game? This is not directed at you anon.

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    2. However, we both know that's not entirely true in practice. Every player will try to synergize their builds. When you start doing that, at least at the moment there are only 3-4 viable builds per profession. And that's quoted by ArenaNet from the official forums.

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    3. Umm excuse me, but many of them will synergize just fine. After all, they are in the same tree. Most of them do similar things.

      But your point is valid, they will not be the best builds for spvp, ie the meta 3-4 builds. However, your complaint about not enough options is just bad. There are plenty of builds available to play the way you want to, the way you choose to play, even if it not the meta build everyone else is running. I am sorry, but I have seen enough QQ forum posts about this topic already. Imo Anet is making a good decision and many of the counters points are simply bad or invalid.

      If you want to complain about something, complain why some of the 10 elite traits for a class are not balanced. That and that alone will give you many many more options and allow for balance to be easily managed while still allowing for many builds.

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    4. There are many similar threads that feature parallel ideas to our article. However, the multitude of threads comes from some of the community who are not happy with the system. We all have a right to feature our opinions on forums, blogs, websites, etc, and I disagree with ArenaNet. I think we are seeing very extensive discussions, and many of the points are not "simply bad or invalid." If the debate was that one-sided, people would not still be talking about it. I think we are going to see some iteration to traits in the next BWE, how extensive those changes are depends on the community.

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  4. Okay, since that discussion went no where, I will try to argue why your points are invalid, one at a time.

    Paragraph One.

    Entombed:
    Ease of use by new players. Theoretically yes. Anyone would tell you that making a choice between 6 choices and 12 is considerably easier for a new player. However, in practice this concept just doesn’t pan out. Think about it, what will a new player do? They will open up the trait system, and be overwhelmed by 5 trees. This happens with or without the new or old system. However, a person isn’t just going to look at the six traits in the first tier, I argue that everyone will still look ahead. Yes, whether they are jumping into structured PvP as a new player or simply turn level 11, they will have some formulation of a future path to take. They aren’t just going to stop after looking at the first tier. To do this in the old system, they simply could click one of the major tiers and see all 12 choices for one tree pop up. Now, for each tree they have to click to see a new set of traits per tier per tree. If you are counting, they can either see all of the traits for a given profession in 5 clicks with the old system or 15 with the new system. Not only that, but they now have to remember all the varying pools of traits per click, because each click offers new, unique traits. In the old system, I could easily see the entire selection of traits I want. A player now needs to remember traits and the tier of each trait, where before they only had to remember traits. Sixty traits broken into 5 different groups are hard enough to keep track of, now you have to keep track of sixty traits broken into 15 different subgroups to plan a build. Does that sound welcoming to new players?

    Finit:
    For a new person playing for the first time, when they reach level ten, they will get their very first trait point. That player's first choice is to choose which tree to invest the point in. Hopefully, they invest their points into the same tree, that is up to them. If they put ten points into a single line, they get their first big decision. (The five trait lines are in both builds, so the five lines means for this discussion about which system is better since it is in both) For a new player, six options is much easier to pick from than twelve. A new player who doesnt know anything will not see their decision as picking from one of 15 different subgroups, they just see it as putting in points. THIS WILL HAVE NO AFFECT ON ANY PLAYER WHOSE KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE DOING!! The traits can be refunded and the choices can be changed. This is also a good design decision in that it mimics the skill system. The first tier of skills are cheap and less powerful, allowing new players to try different things out. By limiting the number of the choices by putting the skills and traits into tiers makes the decision process easier for a new player. That is not an opinion that is a fact, six is less than twelve.

    Furthermore in Anets post, they discussed that this tiered system lets players have a sense of power building. In the old system, when you got to lvl 30, you had to pick the third least powerful trait in a line (assuming you put them all in one line). Why are you picking the third most powerful, shouldnt it feel like a big step? In the new system, when a new player gets to 30 they are now able to pick their very first elite trait. When they balance the elite traits (that is not done yet), this will feel like an accomplishment for a new player.

    Thus, for brand new players, this a good change for them. Furthermore, this has no effect for experienced players. They know that their first choice is not the end of the world, they can simply get them refunded.

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  5. Finit, you have a fair point on ease of use. The first section is probably my weakest argument, but I feel that the theory isn't entirely true in practice. If you are assuming they don't plan ahead, then I think it's also fair to assume that they do not know where/how/if they can refund trait points. Thus they may, and most likely will, view their first trait choices as extremely important. Remember, your first MMO (this is especially true since GW2 is appealing to more people than just the usual MMO player. Did you not spend substantial time developing your first talent tree? I know even at level 10, I had an idea (a very misinformed idea, but an idea nonetheless)of where I wanted to go with my build. This is especially true, if a new player jumps into structured PvP. They will not be simply selecting from a group of 6 traits, but perform a far more involved selection process. If ArenaNet really wanted to help the new player they would provide multiple "starter" builds (in sPvP) that a new player could choose from. This way they could easily have a starter build and experiment with what they do like/don't like. They did not need a new trait system to create ease of use by new players, but instead could add the infrastructure that could support them.

    Your second major point is the "third least powerful trait/uncompelling choice argument". Again, no, not really. If you have 12 "equal" traits, then you aren't choosing the least powerful trait. You are making another equal choice, that if balanced, would be no less exciting than your first choice. The third least powerful trait argument stems from the poor offering of traits we have seen, specifically the inequality amongst them. That is not the fault of the system, but the fault of poor traits.

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    1. Uhh that is the point. A new player knows absolutely nothing. This is suppose to help them learn the system. This point of the discussion is only for brand new players that dont know anything about traits, how they work, if they can be refunded.

      Although I think that is a very good suggestion. It would be really nice of Anet to give suggestive builds for people when they jump into spvp. You should really suggest that to Anet next bwe, this could really really help new people out.

      I also had another thought. In gw1 one of the arenas only allowed certain builds. It would be an awesome battleground if Anet designed it so that it gave every person who enters it a completely random build and random skills/weps. (well not completely random, random in the sense that the devs made some interesting choices)

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    2. Well currently there are no 12 equal traits, and it is currently third least interesting. Again as I said below, if you can make 12 interesting traits for each line for each profession go right ahead, bc I would like to see you try.

      The new system reduces the difficulty in balancing because now it is okay to have some traits that are stronger. And now you just have to balance the traits among the same level rather than across all the traits of the said profession.

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  6. Paragraph 2/3

    Entombed:
    The second major reason for the change is diversity ...to the trait that you ultimately want.
    **Apparently my post got too long, Ill just post my response to your paragraphs **

    Finit:
    Yes, I agree that the total number and the total number of viable builds. However, I would counter that there are still many viable builds. As you said, there are currently only 2-3 really good builds per profession. This is not a limitation of the new system, this is a limitation in that the current elite traits are not balanced. Only a few of the ten elite traits are any good, some could even make arguments saying that minor traits are better than some of the elite traits.

    However, if Anet makes the ten elite traits that are balanced and synergize well with its own trait line, then there would be many more than 2-3 meta builds.

    Hypothetically, lets say the traits have been balanced amongst themselves. (THIS IS NOT A BALANCE OF CLASSES, but A BALANCE OF TRAITS FOR A SINGLE CLASS, something that should be very viable). Let's discuss the number of possible valid builds with this new system and lets assume we use the meta 30/30/10. Your first choice is among 10 of the elite traits. The next choice is for you other elite trait, leaving you with only 8 other options. Just amongst those two choices alone, that is 80 different builds that are defined by the elites which are suppose to be significantly stronger than the other traits, that is why they are elite. Next you have to choose the four remaining traits. But as you said before, you cannot possibly just choose from all the remaining traits because they will not all synergize well. Well, some of them will synergize well, many of the traits in a single line do similar things (that is why they are grouped under a single line). Lets say you can only choose between two because of synergize reasons for the first two adept traits. And lets say that there is only two of the remaining traits for a line that have modest synergize for the master traits. That leaves a total number of viable well synergized builds at 2*2*2*2*8*10 = 1280 builds. I expect the number to be far higher than this, because I expect the number of traits that synergize well with one another to increase as the development continues. So wow only 1280 builds, thats not very many? Wrong. In most games there are only a few meta builds, currently there are only 3 meta builds.

    On a side note, the old system had such diversity that it made it impossible to balance. There were just too many ways to pick a handful of powerful traits that made gimmicky builds that could either one shot people or never die. These builds are not balancable amongst themselves or amongst other professions. If Anet is serious about making this an Esport, than balance will be necessary. The new systems is much easier to balance, bc instead of trying to balance different gimmick builds that used traits from every line, simply balance the 10 elite traits.

    So, yes the number of builds has decreased. However, there are still many many viable builds possible, but more importantly balance is possible.

    Balance is also a key philosophy for the game if it is to be an Esport. A players choice design philosophy does not trump a balance philosophy. There needs to be a middle group between the two philosophies, and this is that middle ground.

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  7. Entombed Paragraph 4/5:
    Summary: Balance is important. Anet did not put in enough to fix this system, instead they just made a band aid fix. They should have tried to balance the traits amongst themselves.

    Finit:
    This is the worse argument yet. As I said before, balance is key for an esport and I agree on this point. This change in the system is not some quick fix, this is a fix vital to the success of balance.

    As you said yourself the traits in a single trait line are not balanced. Some are just downright terrible. So there are two choices. One you try to balance all the traits in a single line, or you make the trait line have two power elite traits that are intentionally much better than the rest. Right now, just try to make twelve traits up that are all similar to what the trait line is about yet still make them balanced. Yea good luck with that. Now apply that to the eight professions, with five lines each. And then make sure that one trait line is not stronger than another line. If you think this is even remotely possible than you are fooling yourself and there is not way to change your mind.

    As I said, Anet thankfully had the foresight from GW1 to see that this would be impossible to do, (or impossible to do in any reasonable amount of time for a release).

    The new system is far easier to balance, now you simply have to balance the ten elite traits for each profession.

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  8. The rest is just your opinion and how you see the game.

    You cannot have it your way, this is not burger king. The players choice design philosophy is not the only thing this game is riding on. It should be "Play the way you want, well as long as you cannot pull of some crazy gimmick that kill everything instantly."

    To anyone else who bother reading this debacle, we are brothers. We agree to disagree.

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  9. I must say i'm divided between the 2 oppinions, while it's true the new system removes some personalization it gives harder thought to players when bilding since they have more advantages and disadvantages going a full trait, people say it'd be about Anet balancing, but let's take a look at a duo of the tier 3 traits:
    Engineer both on the Explosives line - "Explosive Powder" and "Elixir-Infused Bombs" if you'd get those 2 together in WvW you'd get an amazing power, since you'll likely have some alies on melee attacking your enemies you'd heal all those alies while dealing some extra damage to your opponents... the most 2nd and especially 3rd were cases where this happened, and i completly agree with Anet tiering that way to avoid trait overpowering, let's be honest, on their own they are nice, not overpowered, so what could Anet do to balance them? nothing, traiting is done right in this case, but to be honest I also seen wrong cases... an alternative trait system (that woukd likely take much more work to do) i'd like seen would be trait blocking (trait A blocks trait B) so the people would still be able to get all traits from the start but those kinda OP combos would be removed.

    As Finit says:
    "Play the way you want, well as long as you cannot pull of some crazy gimmick that kill everything instantly."

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  10. Agree: "Play the way you want, well as long as you cannot pull of some crazy gimmick that kill everything instantly."
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