A Question of Roles and The Old Trait System

[Abdiel.3051]

Hello everyone,

Thank you for reading and I apologized in advance if my little rant bothers you.

GW2 does a lot of things right, it's one of my top ten most played games, and I'm looking forward to it's future.

However, my issue is with how the game treats its roles, or the lack of treatment really. To put it simply, like any other MMO the roles are healer, DPS, tank, and a variety of supports. The endgame content and some of the public events are designed to be “beatable” only by playing these roles. However, the game makes no, and I mean none, absolute zero mention of said roles. Through its onboarding, various tutorials introduced in the games various expansions, and even the game’s very UI, there absolutely no indication that these roles exist. This might be the biggest source of frustration and confusion for new and old players like me alike.

To me, this is one of life’s biggest questions. Right up there with, where do we come from? And, what happens after death? Why would the game developers design content with these roles in mind but never explain to the player that these roles are needed or even exist? Additionally, as a day one player I was there for the game's first trait system, when changing roles literally took seconds since you could allocate skill points to traits, which would increase your core attributes and allow you to play any role you wanted. A lot of players either don't know or don't remember that this used to be the main way to allocate core attributes. After a few years the developer overhauled the trait system so they would not increase your attributes and instead having your gear and gear customization dictate your role. I do not know why they did this, but I suspect the change was made in bad faith. My opinion has always been that the old trait system made grinding for gear almost irrelevant, that they wanted to incentivize players to grind for different gear sets and also making the legendary gear seem more convenient and therefore more enticing.

Am I missing something about roles and the old trait system?

[Val.7826]

I am not an old gen Gw2 player, but I don't really feel roles in this game, they are all mixed, boon healers, boon dps, healer dps, and tanks don't exist. I don't really like the lack of clear roles, but it's how this game works; also, the gameplay is really fast, even if you are covering a role you don't really feel your role, most of the times is just spamming a rotation (I'm talking about pve). What I mean is that the game is so much like this right now that knowing that years ago you had to allocate skill points actually sounds weird. By now, it's all about flexibility.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

The old trait system wasn't the primary way to allocate attributes.  You could only give about 300 points from a full investment into a particular line.  Gear was still responsible for the majority of stat allocation.  Eventually this was scrapped and all of our base stats were increased.  The reason why this system was changed was due to a large amount of players not understanding it.  I can't remember the exact number, but a sizeable amount of players would evenly distribute all of their trait points to each line, effectively creating a 14/14/14/14/14 build.  Since abilities were granted at equal intervals of 5, this made these builds nigh trait-less and functionally incompetent.  Eventually we got the 3-line system that we have now.

Second, the combat roles aren't solid in any sense.  The build system is meant to be far more freeform, but that hasn't stopped players from maximizing it.  The only part of the game that truly requires the heal/buff/DPS trinity is raids.  Yes, though uncommon, people will run fractals without a healer sometimes.  Because these roles were added later, they aren't truly recognized as "official" regarding the majority if in-game content.  Also to note, most things in the game don't have a tutorial of any sort.  It wasn't until EoD that we received a combo system tutorial.  

[Parasite.5389]

you're very mistaken on how the old Skill point system use to work.
you do realize people can use the History function on the Wiki to see exactly how it changed?

also, Hero points where introduced to replace the skill point system in 2015, which means the game has existed with heropoints for longer than it has with skill points

Edited July 21, 2023 by Parasite.5389

[Danikat.8537]

5 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

The old trait system wasn't the primary way to allocate attributes.  You could only give about 300 points from a full investment into a particular line.  Gear was still responsible for the majority of stat allocation.  Eventually this was scrapped and all of our base stats were increased.  The reason why this system was changed was due to a large amount of players not understanding it.  I can't remember the exact number, but a sizeable amount of players would evenly distribute all of their trait points to each line, effectively creating a 14/14/14/14/14 build.  Since abilities were granted at equal intervals of 5, this made these builds nigh trait-less and functionally incompetent.  Eventually we got the 3-line system that we have now.

Second, the combat roles aren't solid in any sense.  The build system is meant to be far more freeform, but that hasn't stopped players from maximizing it.  The only part of the game that truly requires the heal/buff/DPS trinity is raids.  Yes, though uncommon, people will run fractals without a healer sometimes.  Because these roles were added later, they aren't truly recognized as "official" regarding the majority if in-game content.  Also to note, most things in the game don't have a tutorial of any sort.  It wasn't until EoD that we received a combo system tutorial.  

Exactly what I was going to say.

Equipment had stats right from the beginning, that's why people would do specific dungeons or go to specific Temples in Orr to get level 80 exotics - to get the ones with the right stats. It also came from traits but it wasn't one or the other, you had to use both and ideally match them. That lead to an annoying trade-off because often the best traits for a build or playstyle were in different traitlines to the best stats. It probably lead to more build variety where players tried to make the best of less desirable traits or odd stat combinations, but I don't think many people enjoy being forced to compromise like that.

You're definitely wrong about roles. GW2 was actually designed to avoid the 'holy trinity' of tank, healer and DPS seen in many (but not all) other games. That's why everyone always has a healing skill - because you're not supposed to rely on a designated healer to keep you alive while you do whatever. It's also why there's no consistent tanking mechanics. Yes many bosses will focus on the player with the highest toughness, but others focus on the person closest to them or furthest away or doing the most damage, or change targets frequently.

The intention was, and still is, that any character can fulfil any role and most will be hybrids - even a 'glass canon' will have some defensive abilities like a self-heal and being able to dodge and kite and will need to use them even if there's a dedicated healer in the group. Part of their role will also be to provide boons to the group. The healer will also be able to do damage will need to attack at least some of the time. Tanking is only really relevant in certain situations, mainly in raids and some Fractals.

The idea is to give players a lot more flexibility, both in what they play and in how groups are made up. If you want to play with your friends you can all pick whatever race and profession you enjoy and then when you're doing something which needs good tactics and group composition you'll be able to make it work no matter what you picked. You don't have to pressure someone to swap to a healer class because there isn't one, someone can choose to focus on healing and support on their existing profession or the group can share the responsibility among them. Most professions can provide popular boons one way or another and it's often just a matter of picking the right trait or utility skill. That's why the game won't ever tell you what your role is or specify which ones you need in a group - because the game doesn't work like that so it would make no sense.

[DeceiverX.8361]

I hate to break it to you OP, but your post is either very uninformed or you've forgotten a significant chunk about the making and release of GW2.

Roles were deliberately avoided as part of the core GW2 release and mission statement of the game back in 2012.  This is actually why I joined in the first place; the previous game I played was role-restricted and it sucked to do anything without the right group comp, especially the case for PvP.

The notion of tank/healer/dps is a dated model going back to D&D, and frankly sucks for everyone playing DPS, which from industry data, is a majority of players, and was directly addressed as part of GW2's decision to actively avoid roles.  Even tabletops like Pathfinder 2 are slowly shifting more towards a direction and design of allowing players to not *need* a direct healer or similar anymore, because nobody wants to be stuck doing something they don't want to do just to clear content.

The old trait system also had nothing to do with roles.   A couple-hundred stat points were modified along with trait choices and that's about it.  All of your gear, which was the majority of stats you had, stayed the same during this changeover, so your stats wouldn't reflect a build choice via traits; you just generally stayed kind of ineffective at both things.  If anything, it's faster and easier to change a build now into a secondary play style using build templates.

 

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

15 hours ago, Abdiel.3051 said:

Hello everyone,

Thank you for reading and I apologized in advance if my little rant bothers you.

GW2 does a lot of things right, it's one of my top ten most played games, and I'm looking forward to it's future.

However, my issue is with how the game treats its roles, or the lack of treatment really. To put it simply, like any other MMO the roles are healer, DPS, tank, and a variety of supports. The endgame content and some of the public events are designed to be “beatable” only by playing these roles. However, the game makes no, and I mean none, absolute zero mention of said roles. Through its onboarding, various tutorials introduced in the games various expansions, and even the game’s very UI, there absolutely no indication that these roles exist. This might be the biggest source of frustration and confusion for new and old players like me alike.

To me, this is one of life’s biggest questions. Right up there with, where do we come from? And, what happens after death? Why would the game developers design content with these roles in mind but never explain to the player that these roles are needed or even exist? Additionally, as a day one player I was there for the game's first trait system, when changing roles literally took seconds since you could allocate skill points to traits, which would increase your core attributes and allow you to play any role you wanted. A lot of players either don't know or don't remember that this used to be the main way to allocate core attributes. After a few years the developer overhauled the trait system so they would not increase your attributes and instead having your gear and gear customization dictate your role. I do not know why they did this, but I suspect the change was made in bad faith. My opinion has always been that the old trait system made grinding for gear almost irrelevant, that they wanted to incentivize players to grind for different gear sets and also making the legendary gear seem more convenient and therefore more enticing.

Am I missing something about roles and the old trait system?

Hello,

I think people are misinterpreting you a little bit, so i'm gonna just state facts: Guild Wars, as a franchise was NEVER built on the concept of roles. Roles are a player-made construct, that helps players parametrize games...often times, people refer to the most well established concept of roles : Healer/Tank/DPS, which is classic Rock Paper Scissors dynamic people like to think that Guild Wars was ever made with.

Like I said though, Guild Wars was never inherently built on this concept of roles...it was and still is based off the idea of builds, similiar in vein to a card game where one would create a "deck" from a huge multitude of possible cards that you can combine and use in a sequence. Like Magic The Gathering, YugiOh, or Pokemon.

The issue that Guild Wars 2 had as it was growing over time, was that it was failing to understand and come to terms with its own identity when it comes to "balance." They often cite the word "roles" when they use philosophies and phrasing like "Purity of Purpose" which is a balance attempt, to make player options have a singular purpose...and this is why you have Elites Specializations like Druid, which for the most part only functions as a Healer...or that a Thief Daredevil that only functions as a +1/Decap Bot. These "designed in" roles by Arena-net under the guise of Purity of Purpose and other similiar philosophies, run contradictory to the concept of builds...builds being the idea that PLAYERS put together skills to create THEIR OWN roles...And when putting together their own roles, to create player driven ecosystems and dynamics.

This deep rooted identity crisis, has held Guild Wars 2 balance and design hostage for a long time. Many people, players and game designers alike ONLY know about Rock Paper Scissors as a form of a game design, which is a problem...and hence the identity crisis has continued to push guild wars into something it never was and can never be congruent with...and that's the irony of Gw2 balance and design.

Edited July 21, 2023 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Burnfall.9573]

15 hours ago, Abdiel.3051 said:

Hello everyone,

Thank you for reading and I apologized in advance if my little rant bothers you.

GW2 does a lot of things right, it's one of my top ten most played games, and I'm looking forward to it's future.

However, my issue is with how the game treats its roles, or the lack of treatment really. To put it simply, like any other MMO the roles are healer, DPS, tank, and a variety of supports. The endgame content and some of the public events are designed to be “beatable” only by playing these roles. However, the game makes no, and I mean none, absolute zero mention of said roles. Through its onboarding, various tutorials introduced in the games various expansions, and even the game’s very UI, there absolutely no indication that these roles exist. This might be the biggest source of frustration and confusion for new and old players like me alike.

To me, this is one of life’s biggest questions. Right up there with, where do we come from? And, what happens after death? Why would the game developers design content with these roles in mind but never explain to the player that these roles are needed or even exist? Additionally, as a day one player I was there for the game's first trait system, when changing roles literally took seconds since you could allocate skill points to traits, which would increase your core attributes and allow you to play any role you wanted. A lot of players either don't know or don't remember that this used to be the main way to allocate core attributes. After a few years the developer overhauled the trait system so they would not increase your attributes and instead having your gear and gear customization dictate your role. I do not know why they did this, but I suspect the change was made in bad faith. My opinion has always been that the old trait system made grinding for gear almost irrelevant, that they wanted to incentivize players to grind for different gear sets and also making the legendary gear seem more convenient and therefore more enticing.

Am I missing something about roles and the old trait system?

Anet wanted to 'reinvent the wheels' of Guild Wars (1) Vision by Attacking and Annihilating Guild Wars (1) The Holy Trinity.

"If You Forget Your Roots You've Lost Sight Of Everything"

This is what is happening.

-Anet lost sight of Roles and Identities and are once again 'reinventing the wheels' with the introduction of Alacrity and Quickness, as the next new roles for the Professions.

 

-Guild Wars 2 is under the curse of The Holy Trinity until Anet return Guild Wars 2 back to its roots- 

(Anet is losing its mind as to know what to make of Guild Wars 2)

Edited July 21, 2023 by Burnfall.9573

[Leo G.4501]

3 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

I think people are misinterpreting you a little bit, so i'm gonna just state facts: Guild Wars, as a franchise was NEVER built on the concept of roles. Roles are a player-made construct, that helps players parametrize games...often times, people refer to the most well established concept of roles : Healer/Tank/DPS, which is classic Rock Paper Scissors dynamic people like to think that Guild Wars was ever made with.

Does DnD refer to their classes as healer, tank and DPS? I figure your DM just adjusts the campaign more around the players. Don't have a healer? Use potions and items. Don't have a tank? Probably have expendable npc fodder to help pad out the dice. I know the holy trinity evolved from such games but again, it's a player creation, not the game itself.

As for the rest of what you said, I actually agree with.

As for the other posters who corrected the OP, I'm glad I wasn't going crazy. Searching my own memory, I actually didn't like the trait point system at all. It was functional but the only hallmark of it was that if you, for example, fully maxed out a trait line, you could freely pick what selectable options were available so long as they were category downgrades (i.e. instead of picking a GM trait, you could pick a Master or Adept instead). Outside of that, the system was meh...and alot of the traits were meh too. They had to rework alot of GM traits to actually "fulfill" the category (with mixed success) since GM traits were and have always been competing with each other in any given build. 

On the topic of roles, I feel it's a mixed bag. I am not one that finds the avoidance of roles a good thing. You should really aim to reinvent roles because then you can form the game around them and adjust their dynamics accordingly. An example I often cite for roles in MMOs is City of Heroes. They specifically have 4 roles: Support/Healing, Tanking, DPS/Ranged DPS, and Control. To those ignorant of their system, you might think you need to fill up each of those slots but you'd be incorrect. You really only ever need 2 but you can get away with 1. If anything, it's harder to get a bit of everything and try to balance it on a team than it is to pick a couple of those elements and rock with it. Having all Tanks just means no one's dying and everyone's pounding enemies with abandon. If you have all DPS, you just have to be careful to kill priority targets quickly (very doable) then clean up the trash. If you're all support, you're bound to have buffs to max +damage, +recharge, +healing and +endurance while nuking the enemies into infants with -damage, -accuracy, -resistance etc. meaning you're steamrolling the whole game. And if you have all control, everything is turned into statues, you just have to watch out for the rare super-elite-high-rank enemy that will resist most control...then it takes awhile to shut them down.

I don't mind too much the system Anet chose, it's just they keep shifting gears through the years resulting in the mess we ended up with now. If anything, I think it would be BETTER if Anet tried to tie more of a specialized role with stats but rather than just having a buffing stat or a condition stat, the effects of boons would be variable by the subject's stats and traits as well as conditions. The problem is individual characters are too self reliant because there are no roles so when they need to shoehorn role-like compositions for teaming/raids, you get this nasty confusion and having players just rely on reaction...now I love some chaos and confusion, but other players despise it and seek to control everything leading back to the nasty confusion. I would love to do raids, but I fear they are too structured and regimented for me. I wouldn't be allowed to just run a build and figure stuff out naturally because people want this many boons pre-stacked by this point and so on and so on. 

[Burnfall.9573]

4 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

Hello,

I think people are misinterpreting you a little bit, so i'm gonna just state facts: Guild Wars, as a franchise was NEVER built on the concept of roles. Roles are a player-made construct, that helps players parametrize games...often times, people refer to the most well established concept of roles : Healer/Tank/DPS, which is classic Rock Paper Scissors dynamic people like to think that Guild Wars was ever made with.

Like I said though, Guild Wars was never inherently built on this concept of roles...it was and still is based off the idea of builds, similiar in vein to a card game where one would create a "deck" from a huge multitude of possible cards that you can combine and use in a sequence. Like Magic The Gathering, YugiOh, or Pokemon.

The issue that Guild Wars 2 had as it was growing over time, was that it was failing to understand and come to terms with its own identity when it comes to "balance." They often cite the word "roles" when they use philosophies and phrasing like "Purity of Purpose" which is a balance attempt, to make player options have a singular purpose...and this is why you have Elites Specializations like Druid, which for the most part only functions as a Healer...or that a Thief Daredevil that only functions as a +1/Decap Bot. These "designed in" roles by Arena-net under the guise of Purity of Purpose and other similiar philosophies, run contradictory to the concept of builds...builds being the idea that PLAYERS put together skills to create THEIR OWN roles...And when putting together their own roles, to create player driven ecosystems and dynamics.

This deep rooted identity crisis, has held Guild Wars 2 balance and design hostage for a long time. Many people, players and game designers alike ONLY know about Rock Paper Scissors as a form of a game design, which is a problem...and hence the identity crisis has continued to push guild wars into something it never was and can never be congruent with...and that's the irony of Gw2 balance and design.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Team_roles

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guide_to_Professions

this was not 'fan' created or was an idea that was created in the imagination. The Former Anet Design Each Profession Skills To Comply With Their Identities and Roles.

How can you say otherwise when everything is designed for it?

Like Seriously!!

-I can back this up with hundred and thousands of evidence including hard evidences with myself including other  Guild Wars (1)  former and present players to prove your statement wrong.

---One can not make this whole thing up---

~~I can even encourage Anet-The Forum Moderator here on the forum to back up my statement~

(was The Holy Trinity was made up in the Imagination by the players)

Edited July 21, 2023 by Burnfall.9573

[Abdiel.3051]

15 hours ago, Parasite.5389 said:

you're very mistaken on how the old Skill point system use to work.
you do realize people can use the History function on the Wiki to see exactly how it changed?

also, Hero points where introduced to replace the skill point system in 2015, which means the game has existed with heropoints for longer than it has with skill points

I can see that I mischaracterized the old trait system, it has indeed been gone for longer then it existed as you pointed out. The point I was trying to make, maybe I did so poorly, is that the old system made it more simple to switch between "roles". If your gear had no healing power for example you could get a good amount from the traits. Maybe the new system is the same and I've just failed to notice that after all these years. Untimely, I was able to understand the old trait system better. I mean, how did you know which was the defensive trait line? Well you just simply went by the trait line that gave you defense attribute. I mean it was like the ball fits through the circle, and the cube fits through the square. Doesn't get any easier than that.

[Abdiel.3051]

12 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

GW2 was actually designed to avoid the 'holy trinity' of tank, healer and DPS seen in many (but not all) other games.  

any character can fulfil any role and most will be hybrids - even a 'glass canon' will have some defensive abilities like a self-heal and being able to dodge and kite and will need to use them even if there's a dedicated healer in the group. Part of their role will also be to provide boons to the group. The healer will also be able to do damage will need to attack at least some of the time. Tanking is only really relevant in certain situations, mainly in raids and some Fractals.

The idea is to give players a lot more flexibility, both in what they play and in how groups are made up. If you want to play with your friends you can all pick whatever race and profession you enjoy and then when you're doing something which needs good tactics and group composition you'll be able to make it work no matter what you picked. You don't have to pressure someone to swap to a healer class because there isn't one, someone can choose to focus on healing and support on their existing profession or the group can share the responsibility among them. Most professions can provide popular boons one way or another and it's often just a matter of picking the right trait or utility skill. That's why the game won't ever tell you what your role is or specify which ones you need in a group - because the game doesn't work like that so it would make no sense.

How was I wrong about roles?

If there are no roles, then why are you explaining how roles work in this game? 

My point was not that in GW2 roles work exactly the same as other MMOs, I said that there ARE roles, as there are in other MMOs be it tank, dps, healer, hybrid and otherwise, and the game does NOT tell you about them.

I understand fundamental game design of GW2 you do not need to explain but thank you, and I think you understand what my criticism is.

Edited July 21, 2023 by Abdiel.3051

[Abdiel.3051]

6 hours ago, DeceiverX.8361 said:

I hate to break it to you OP, but your post is either very uninformed or you've forgotten a significant chunk about the making and release of GW2.

Roles were deliberately avoided as part of the core GW2 release and mission statement of the game back in 2012.  This is actually why I joined in the first place; the previous game I played was role-restricted and it sucked to do anything without the right group comp, especially the case for PvP.

The notion of tank/healer/dps is a dated model going back to D&D, and frankly sucks for everyone playing DPS, which from industry data, is a majority of players, and was directly addressed as part of GW2's decision to actively avoid roles.  Even tabletops like Pathfinder 2 are slowly shifting more towards a direction and design of allowing players to not *need* a direct healer or similar anymore, because nobody wants to be stuck doing something they don't want to do just to clear content.

The old trait system also had nothing to do with roles.   A couple-hundred stat points were modified along with trait choices and that's about it.  All of your gear, which was the majority of stats you had, stayed the same during this changeover, so your stats wouldn't reflect a build choice via traits; you just generally stayed kind of ineffective at both things.  If anything, it's faster and easier to change a build now into a secondary play style using build templates.

 

Fair enough about the old trait system but my feelings are the same. It was easier to know what role I was playing by choosing the trait that gave the attribute associate with the role.

Please don't say GW2 does not have roles. If so, why do I see the words tank, dps, healer, alac, etc on LFG descriptions all the time? Please don't argue this you know what I mean. Roles might not work exactly the same as in other RPGs, but they exist, they are played, and commanders ask people to play these all the time. Doing a strike the other day our commander ask for someone to play tank, which I did because I had my tank template ready 🙂

"it's faster and easier to change a build now into a secondary play style using build templates." - This is arguable at best. but I see you point, I don't think this system is good enough though.

[Abdiel.3051]

5 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

Hello,

I think people are misinterpreting you a little bit, so i'm gonna just state facts: Guild Wars, as a franchise was NEVER built on the concept of roles. Roles are a player-made construct, that helps players parametrize games...often times, people refer to the most well established concept of roles : Healer/Tank/DPS, which is classic Rock Paper Scissors dynamic people like to think that Guild Wars was ever made with.

Like I said though, Guild Wars was never inherently built on this concept of roles...it was and still is based off the idea of builds, similiar in vein to a card game where one would create a "deck" from a huge multitude of possible cards that you can combine and use in a sequence. Like Magic The Gathering, YugiOh, or Pokemon.

The issue that Guild Wars 2 had as it was growing over time, was that it was failing to understand and come to terms with its own identity when it comes to "balance." They often cite the word "roles" when they use philosophies and phrasing like "Purity of Purpose" which is a balance attempt, to make player options have a singular purpose...and this is why you have Elites Specializations like Druid, which for the most part only functions as a Healer...or that a Thief Daredevil that only functions as a +1/Decap Bot. These "designed in" roles by Arena-net under the guise of Purity of Purpose and other similiar philosophies, run contradictory to the concept of builds...builds being the idea that PLAYERS put together skills to create THEIR OWN roles...And when putting together their own roles, to create player driven ecosystems and dynamics.

This deep rooted identity crisis, has held Guild Wars 2 balance and design hostage for a long time. Many people, players and game designers alike ONLY know about Rock Paper Scissors as a form of a game design, which is a problem...and hence the identity crisis has continued to push guild wars into something it never was and can never be congruent with...and that's the irony of Gw2 balance and design.

Well put. Thank you for your understanding and reply.

[Abdiel.3051]

55 minutes ago, Burnfall.9573 said:

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Team_roles

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guide_to_Professions

this was not 'fan' created or was an idea that was created in the imagination. The Former Anet Design Each Profession Skills To Comply With Their Identities and Roles.

How can you say otherwise when everything is designed for it?

Like Seriously!!

-I can back this up with hundred and thousands of evidence including hard evidences with myself including other  Guild Wars (1)  former and present players to prove your statement wrong.

---One can not make this whole thing up---

~~I can even encourage Anet-The Forum Moderator here on the forum to back up my statement~

(was The Holy Trinity was made up in the Imagination by the players)

Yeah I was thinking the same thing but I didn't levitate towards that point. I do agree with the general idea he was trying to convey.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

2 hours ago, Burnfall.9573 said:

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Team_roles

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guide_to_Professions

this was not 'fan' created or was an idea that was created in the imagination. The Former Anet Design Each Profession Skills To Comply With Their Identities and Roles.

Ya, those pages are fan created and those are player created distinctions. You can even read some of the contributors to the wiki stating the same thing: 

"As is, this isn't an article as much as it is a POV essay. It is a de facto interpretation of how the game should be optimally played. However, it is neither necessary nor sufficient for success. It is basically evangelizing the balanced build, and the factual content about how that build is played should be transferred to that article. 65.87.26.122 23:42, 30 October 2012 (UTC)"

Quote

-I can back this up with hundred and thousands of evidence including hard evidences with myself including other  Guild Wars (1)  former and present players to prove your statement wrong.

I literally linked an interview with Arena net (first hand source) that describes exactly what they based their game on. That's actual "real" evidence.

the quote is here :

IGNPC: How will combat work in Guild Wars? Preparation for combat seems to follow the deck-building approach found in some card games.

Guild Wars Team: This is correct. In fact, we have likened Guild Wars' pre-mission strategy sessions to a game of Magic: The Gathering, where you may have hundreds of cards, but select a small number appropriate for a specific strategy. Like the Magic player, the Guild Wars player will have to think about what options he has for skills, what might be needed in a particular mission, and then take it a step further and consider what his teammates are bringing to the mix. From his inventory of skills - which may number several dozens or more - the player will select a small number to take into a mission.

Edited July 22, 2023 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Burnfall.9573]

At the start of the interview video: the commentor on the left said in his own words to former Anet: Colin Johanson, "Guild Wars 2 is basically taking the foundation (Guild Wars (1) Philosophy) and destroying it (Guild Wars (1) The Holy Trinity) and building something that is newer and better"

This is what I have been saying all along including in my previous posts with using evidence of a  Guild Wars (1) and 2 veteran player...  showcasing the pros and the casualties-cons--consequences of Anet "reinventing the wheel" by Attacking and Annhaliating Guild Wars (1) The Holy Trinity

 

side note: I wish former Anet: Colin Johanson was here to convince Anet to reverse the changes back to Guild Wars (1) The Holy Trinity

 

 

Edited July 22, 2023 by Burnfall.9573

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

5 minutes ago, Burnfall.9573 said:

At the start of the interview video: the commentor on the left said in his own words to former Anet: Colin Johanson, "Guild Wars 2 is basically taking the foundation (Guild Wars (1) Philosophy) and destroying it (Guild Wars (1) The Holy Trinity) and building something that is newer and better"

This is what I have been saying all along including in my previous posts with using evidence of a  Guild Wars (1) and 2 veteran player...  showcasing the pros and the casualties-cons--consequences of Anet "reinventing the wheel" by Attacking and Annhaliating Guild Wars (1) The Holy Trinity

 

 

I'm a veteran Gw1 player. It did not have a holy trinity bro. There was no "priest" in gw1 either it was called monk, so obviously when he's talking about Priest, they are referring to their competitors (World of Warcraft) and how their game design beats there's because it has no "trinity" like WoW.

I'll say this again, Gw1 never had roles, Gw2 never had roles and Colin explicitly says that here too. 

Edited July 22, 2023 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Burnfall.9573]

1 minute ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

I'm a veteran Gw1 player. It did not have a holy trinity bro. There was no "priest" in gw1 either it was called monk, so obviously when he's talking about Priest, they are referring to their competitors (World of Warcraft)

I did not take him literally about the Priest and I know exactly what he meant

Edited July 22, 2023 by Burnfall.9573

[Burnfall.9573]

21 minutes ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

I'm a veteran Gw1 player. It did not have a holy trinity bro. There was no "priest" in gw1 either it was called monk, so obviously when he's talking about Priest, they are referring to their competitors (World of Warcraft) and how their game design beats there's because it has no "trinity" like WoW.

I'll say this again, Gw1 never had roles, Gw2 never had roles and Colin explicitly says that here too. 

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/22291-your-thoughts-on-the-holy-trinity-abscence/

so...we are all liars....

Edited July 22, 2023 by Burnfall.9573

[Matoro.9708]

On 7/20/2023 at 6:12 PM, Abdiel.3051 said:

Hello everyone,

Thank you for reading and I apologized in advance if my little rant bothers you.

GW2 does a lot of things right, it's one of my top ten most played games, and I'm looking forward to it's future.

However, my issue is with how the game treats its roles, or the lack of treatment really. To put it simply, like any other MMO the roles are healer, DPS, tank, and a variety of supports. The endgame content and some of the public events are designed to be “beatable” only by playing these roles. However, the game makes no, and I mean none, absolute zero mention of said roles. Through its onboarding, various tutorials introduced in the games various expansions, and even the game’s very UI, there absolutely no indication that these roles exist. This might be the biggest source of frustration and confusion for new and old players like me alike.

To me, this is one of life’s biggest questions. Right up there with, where do we come from? And, what happens after death? Why would the game developers design content with these roles in mind but never explain to the player that these roles are needed or even exist? Additionally, as a day one player I was there for the game's first trait system, when changing roles literally took seconds since you could allocate skill points to traits, which would increase your core attributes and allow you to play any role you wanted. A lot of players either don't know or don't remember that this used to be the main way to allocate core attributes. After a few years the developer overhauled the trait system so they would not increase your attributes and instead having your gear and gear customization dictate your role. I do not know why they did this, but I suspect the change was made in bad faith. My opinion has always been that the old trait system made grinding for gear almost irrelevant, that they wanted to incentivize players to grind for different gear sets and also making the legendary gear seem more convenient and therefore more enticing.

Am I missing something about roles and the old trait system?

Common misconception. GW2 actually has two roles - Quickness and Alacrity. But don't worry, sometimes you can pick both. Enjoy!

[Abdiel.3051]

Thank you all for taking the time to read this post and reply. Some of you have made very insightful, well researched comments and I appreciate that.

I think that a lot of it is semantics. With my original post I wasn't trying to say that the game has actual roles, we all know how GW2 works. But these roles exists, they exists as possible builds in the game, and they exists in the mind of the player. And, contrary to the game's philosophy, it evidently exists also in the mind of the developer.

I say that because -as some of you have explained- there are moments in strikes and raids that, by means of a variety of mechanics, a player character will get a boss's aggro, and will have to endure an onslaught of attacks. On top of that the game allows you to create "tanky" builds by equipping gear with high defense attributes. Well, hate to break your hearts folks, but you just created the tank role in your game whether you want to acknowledge that or not. This is just one example. Perhaps its because the "holy trinity" is inescapable, or at least easy to fall into when designing an RPG. 

So the point I was trying to make, tough I was actually complaining more than anything, is that GW2 should somehow acknowledge and help the player understand these roles. I understand that it would be a big change, but in the past other MMOs have changed, why not GW2?

[Gaiawolf.8261]

It's not so much that players in the game can't play roles and use them to optimize play, it's more like GW2 doesn't establish roles for success, or didn't before this weird balance philosophy recently came out. Furthermore, professions, e-specs, and even builds are not designed to lock you into a role or bar you from another. GW2 is designed to allow you to jump into combat where you are needed without forcing you into a certain class or role.

From the mouth of Colin Johanson himself:

Quote

We like the way combat works right now, we really don't plan to change it much other than add more options with elite specs. It works the way we intended: you can play control, support, and DPS actively. To folks who prefer to define by the holy trinity, Gw2 doesn't force you to pick one of the three from heal, tank, or DPS and only do that - it blends a mix depending on your build and allows you to actively swap roles or soft play between roles. Our goal was to remove the forced singular role per you're locked into, people often mistake this as saying gw2 has no trinity elements, that isn't true - we just don't believe in a forced role per for Gw2 for the reasons I covered in the live stream.

...

Hope that helps a bit! - CJ

I think what you are looking for is a community-based guide for the current meta, where roles are more defined. Playing in the meta is completely different than playing outside it. For this, you can look at external sites like Metabattle, Hardstuck, and Snowcrows. You aren't going to find anything official in the game, because the game itself doesn't require or encourage them, and most players don't use them.

[Mell.4873]

@Abdiel.3051

I think the Developers themselves don't fully understand the roles. They have really just been responding to the Meta as it developed. 

I mean right back at launch very few skills/traits even had a boon element so stuff like Fury was straight up missing from classes. 

When they saw that Warrior shouts where being used to buff other players with Might and Fury they thought that everyone should get that boon built into their kit. This logic continued untill everyone has a Quickness or Alacrity support. 

 

Anyway I do agree we need some sort of role training material from Arena Net. It should come through with a better LFG system. 

Edited July 23, 2023 by Mell.4873

[Endaris.1452]

Roles are something that exist more based on player-demand than anything.

Provided a well-coordinated group, you can easily clear fractal CMs without a healer. Raids are slightly more problematic thanks to aura damage but many bosses can be cleared without a dedicated healer as well and especially those that lack aura damage.

Even then, the amount healing you need to counteract aura damage is still quite low to the point that everyone slotting an AoE heal skill could perfectly get your group by without anyone slotting heal stats. To put this into relation, most aura damage deals around 800 damage average every 3 seconds so 8000 damage every half minute. A level 80 engineer with no healing power investment casting and detonating their healing turret heals the entire group for 4230 health. So just 2 engineers blasting their healing turrets off cd is enough to more than offset aura damage and you still have 3 more people per group that can contribute to healing. And that's not an engineer feature, you can substitute it with tempest's or guard's shout heal, necro's well of blood, thief's skelk venom, renegade's breakrazor, chrono well...

It is all by choice and player optimization. I assure you that you can beat about any boss with largely random squad compositions as long as people sit down and talk about how to solve the encounter's problems and put it into competent play - even while lacking access to quickness and alacrity. That is how anet originally designed raid encounters to beat (although recent strike CMs shifted away from that). I beat my first raid boss in a thoroughly random and off-meta squad doing very questionable damage on my sinister / rampager daredevil that spent most of its time pewpewing on pistols because I was taking greens on Vale Guardian along with 4 other players.

There is also no "tank role" in and of itself. It differs for each and every encounter that actually has a tank mechanic. You can't just go there and gear a character to be the perfect tank for every encounter. The requirements a much too diverse to compress.

We play the game how we want to and much like mentioned by a previous poster in regards to DnD meta, a trinity is a matter of preference and being efficient, not a matter of being required to beat content. Turns out most players want to be efficient and not waste their time on inefficient setups duh. That doesn't mean the game should actively lead into them.