Old v New Trait System Curiousity

I remember the old trait system, but I don't remember exactly why it was changed to what we have today. And, maybe it happened in a few steps? I've been trying to find something on YouTube that maybe discusses the new system and why it happened, but I can't seem to find anything.

I was just thinking about it today and was curious. No nefarious purpose beyond a trip down memory lane. :)

It was changed in summer 2015 right before (in prep for) HoT release. As they needed to change it so you had to select a whole trait line because of specializations.

Wooden Potatoes probably has a video on it, with commentary on why...

I’ll look at wooden, now that I know it was about 3 years ago. Thanks for the reminder on the partial lines, we used to no use the last one in a lot of cases, and grabbed 1 or 2 from other lines, and could use a little from each. Totally makes sense thinking about the specializations.

I knew it was different, just couldn’t remember how. Thanks.

There's been 2-3 different iterations of it.

First was the point system with books/buying traits(Hero Points/Skill Points).This was changed so that you could switch traits on the fly without the cost of the book, because they wanted players to have freedom of choice.

Then they changed how you get traits to a unlock on event system and removed the point cost(you just chose 3 in the row and got minors as gratis).Pretty sure this was changed to get people to play events and to have a more streamline less complex system

Now we have the newer unlock system where you max out your characters specialization (hero points).This was done to streamline things for HoT/PoF and future.

also you could find the entire changelog - https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Trait#Historical_changes

Among other things, the reason why we went toward the one-point system and then the 3-line system was to fool-proof the game. A surprising number of players (around 1/6th of I remember correctly) just put 14 points into every line. As you know, that was a terrible way to build, but players would do it anyway. So, to fix this issue, the trait system was overhauled.

Thanks! Good trip down memory lane!

Found and watched this old WP video that covers everything everyone above is saying pretty well.

As I remember it there's been 5, or 6 depending on how you count it, variants of the trait system. But I could be wrong, this post is written mostly from memory.

1) At launch you had to buy a book to unlock each tier of traits (Adepts', Master's and Grandmasters Training Manuals) with each one being increasing expensive. You also needed trait points which you got from levelling up. With the Grandmaster's tier unlocked you could put 30 points into each line - every 5 points you got a minor trait and every 10 points you got a major one. Minors were fixed but majors could be changed, and originally you could even put lower tier traits into higher slots - so for example it was quite common to put a 2nd master trait into the grandmaster slot instead of a grandmaster trait.

Also at this point each trait line gave bonuses to 2 stats. If you were lucky these went well together - precision and ferocity for example. But on a lot of professions there were fairly random combinations like condition damage and healing power. Even with good pairings this meant there was a bit of a trade-off in builds - did you pick the line with the best traits and 'waste' the stat points on stats you didn't want? Or pick the best stats and try to do the best you could with the traits?

2) The first change I remember was fairly minor - the books (and therefore gold cost for unlocking traits) was scrapped - if I remember correctly Anet said that an amazing number of people never bought them, or only bought the very cheap adept book and were trying to manage without the stat bonuses or traits. (I never bought any until I was sure I was going to keep the character, and I remember being surprised at how much of a difference it made on some professions, especially mesmer, when I was finally able to use traits.)

They also reduced the number of trait points and made it so each point unlocked a trait. Apparently no one ever put 23 points into a line - they'd put 20 or 25 in because it was pointless to stop between traits, so they simplified it by making that the only option.

3) The next change was much bigger - they made it so each trait had to be earned by completing events or killing specific enemies (and this was character specific - even if you'd unlocked that exact trait on another character you had to do it again). Some players had asked for it but it was unpopular and didn't last long. More on why below.

4) If I remember correctly 3 was reverted shortly before the 4th change - which was to basically the system we have now. Stat bonuses were removed from trait lines (moved to a combination of level up bonuses and equipment) and trait points were merged with skill points and used to permanently unlock traits (and skills) rather than to equip them. Players had to select an entire trait line and could only have 3 active together - where before it was possible to put some points into each line so you had the first few traits in each available. That was done partially to simplify the system and partially to make way for:

5) Elite specialisations, introduced with HoT. Apparently this was why they removed the stats, because there weren't enough stats to keep giving 2 to each specialisation when they began adding new ones. They added new trait lines to each profession and with PoF introduced the limitation that you can only have 1 elite spec active at a time.

@"TexZero.7910" said:There's been 2-3 different iterations of it.

First was the point system with books/buying traits(Hero Points/Skill Points).This was changed so that you could switch traits on the fly without the cost of the book, because they wanted players to have freedom of choice.

Then they changed how you get traits to a unlock on event system and removed the point cost(you just chose 3 in the row and got minors as gratis).Pretty sure this was changed to get people to play events and to have a more streamline less complex system

Now we have the newer unlock system where you max out your characters specialization (hero points).This was done to streamline things for HoT/PoF and future.

also you could find the entire changelog - https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Trait#Historical_changes

The change to unlocking traits by completing events or killing certain bosses was made at least partially because people kept on asking for a system like GW1 had where new skills weren't unlocked automatically - you got them as quest rewards or by defeating a boss and then using a Signet of Capture on them to learn one of their skills. In GW1 it worked quite well, and apparently some people really enjoyed collecting as many skills as they could (although I think most people only got the ones they absolutely needed) and thought it would be fun in GW2 as well.

It was, to put it mildly, unpopular. I suspect that's a combination of the people asking for that system actually just being a vocal minority while most were happier with what we had, the inconvenience of the system after being used to just needing enough trait points and the fact that the trait system doesn't have as much freedom as GW1's skill system where you can slot in any combination of skills you like.

They seem to change it every couple of years so we should be due for a new one soon. Not only does it mess up builds but we wind up losing traits. I still miss the ability to throw turrets.

they messed up when they changed it so we can't choose what we use, now profs are locked behind specific builds instead of having the freedom of choosing your own.i really miss non-target able wells, i was such a powerhouse with D/D......not anymore.....

They should have made the elites a 4th trait line (that you only had access to with an elite spec) rather than replace the third. The original specs got to keep 3 trait lines so good for them but the 'elites' lost 1 (ie, stuff they already knew).

edit: If the goal was to make the specs even have trait lines for all 9 of the base classes. A little worse traits in that line but give all 80s the needed points maybe?

@Danikat.8537 said:The change to unlocking traits by completing events or killing certain bosses was made at least partially because people kept on asking for a system like GW1 had where new skills weren't unlocked automatically - you got them as quest rewards or by defeating a boss and then using a Signet of Capture on them to learn one of their skills. In GW1 it worked quite well, and apparently some people really enjoyed collecting as many skills as they could (although I think most people only got the ones they absolutely needed) and thought it would be fun in GW2 as well.

It was, to put it mildly, unpopular. I suspect that's a combination of the people asking for that system actually just being a vocal minority while most were happier with what we had, the inconvenience of the system after being used to just needing enough trait points and the fact that the trait system doesn't have as much freedom as GW1's skill system where you can slot in any combination of skills you like.

Another issue with the event unlock system was that some events to unlock traits would glitch, making them impossible to complete or need to be reset. Also, some chains of events were needlessly obscure requiring some players to need to look on the wiki to get a grasp on event chains so you can discover where they start or how they might glitch to avoid doing that.

In theory, I enjoyed doing these events to unlock my character's potential but it felt arbitrary and unrelated to a lot of the professions and kind of half-kittened addition. I didn't mind it too much but I know why it was removed and I didn't really complain.

@Leo G.4501 said:

@Danikat.8537 said:The change to unlocking traits by completing events or killing certain bosses was made at least partially because people kept on asking for a system like GW1 had where new skills weren't unlocked automatically - you got them as quest rewards or by defeating a boss and then using a Signet of Capture on them to learn one of their skills. In GW1 it worked quite well, and apparently some people really enjoyed collecting as many skills as they could (although I think most people only got the ones they absolutely needed) and thought it would be fun in GW2 as well.

It was, to put it mildly, unpopular. I suspect that's a combination of the people asking for that system actually just being a vocal minority while most were happier with what we had, the inconvenience of the system after being used to just needing enough trait points and the fact that the trait system doesn't have as much freedom as GW1's skill system where you can slot in any combination of skills you like.

Also, in GW1 you only needed to capture elite skills, without which you could have a complete (if not maximized) build. The system tried in GW2 locked the ability to have a build at all.

In my opininon does the Trait System need one last redesign.

1. All Classes should have more than 5 Traitlines to choose from (E-Specs not counting to the total) Instead of 5 should it be like 7 to 8, so that all classes get miore traitlines, which define more and better the diversities and roles of their classes, cause the current system with its 5 Line Design doesn#t make usage of all the potentials that each class has to provide more different gameplay styles of the classes. Sure, E-Specs can compensate a bit for that, but everythign also can't E-Specs compensate, some thigns should be rather part of the Core Classes to provide better and broader build diversity, that can then be mixed and specialized together with E-Specs.Like the name says, should be an E-Spec just the topping of the iceberg, that is the Specialization which is on an Elite-Level, when you use the specific traits which belong together to it.

2.From the then 7 to 8 chooseable Traitlines should all Classes be able to use actively then 4 instead of 3 Lines to create your build, so that players can combine 1 line more into their build, and with this increased combination gets added also more build diversity into the ganme, cause you will have access then to more traits, that you can choose from ,which can define your build and playstale with your Character, thus increasign the chance for you to create a unique character also too.

3. all Traits should get splitted up. All traits, that are currently passive effects, shoudl get removed from the current Trait System, and be reworked into a new Talent Tree-System from which you can automatically learn them as you progress from 1-80 by receiving with every Level Up Talent Points that you can use then to learn new Talents in your Tree. these Talents are then once learned always passively active, kind of "baseline" can you say from the moment of learnign them for your character, cause these talents are what kind of defines your CLASS and differentiates your class from others. Talents are not like Traits and shouldnt be handled like them, that you need to choose them, just so that you can use its effects. A talent is a talent, you dont forget your tallents immediately, only because you have chosen out an other talent for your charatcer. Once you learned how to use a bicycle, you also don't forget it instantly again, only because you decided, that your talent is now to draw pictures ... Passives shoudl be always there, once you have learned them.

4. The real form of Traits, the kind of active ones, whose effects happen only, if the player did actualyl somethign actively in the game to trigger their effects, thats the kind of thign which Traitlines should provide only for all classes and the huge gaps in the Traitlines from remioving all the passive stuff and changing it into a Talent Tree System shoudl get filled up with new actual active workign effects that trigger only, if the player did somethign actively, like performing a dodge roll ,like using a specific weapon or utility skil lto alterate or improve the way how these active effects work in the game, by either changign their effects positively, or addign new side effects to them, which they would normally not have, if you wouldn't use Trait X now which affects the effect of Skill X in combat directly actively when you use it.

5. In regard of bringing underwater combat back to the game, does this gamre need for the Trait System a complete own underwater version of traits for all Classes. Land and underwwater combat should have their total individual own different Traits among the traitlines, which are diferently designed for both combat locations, unless an trait Effect can work as hybrid the same way both on land and in water, then it can be naturally be kept in the system and be used in both Trait Systems for a CLass i nthe same way.

These 5 steps need to be done in my opinion, to have a Trait System, that actually woudl work then everywhere in the game for all classes, which is mainly focused only on active gameplay that has the goal to improve or alterate active combat elements, like using weapon skills, positioning, defense in form of Dodge Rolls, blocks ect,.Passives need to get completely exluded out of this system and be changed into becoming their complete own Character Progression System that is simply natual part of our characters as we level them up and learn over time more talents of our Classes that becoem from that moment on then integrated permanent part of our Class that defines the gameplay of the class. Thats true Character Progression, that you also keep passive things, that you have learned ... and not forget them instantly again only because you changed out one passive working trait for another