Tales of Tyria #21: Build Wars 2

This show mostly focuses on the newly revealed Traits and Attributes systm.  How flexible is it? Does it pigeonhole people into specific roles again?  We also discuss various links from around the community, incluing a Bridger Rant on players who refuse to learn.  Finally, we discuss the pros and cons of being able to change your "build" in the middle of a PvP match.  Next week we'll talk about changing your build in WvW and PvE.

 Episode 21:

• 04:25 - News: Next Beta in Late March, Various Links
• 24:00 - Bridger Rant: When Will they Learn?
• 35:45 - Roundtable: Traits, Attributes, and Build Wars 2

Weekly Question:

Question of the Week - How much flexibility should players have to change their build in structured PvP?

Let us know what you think and send us feedback.  Also, watch us live on Sunday nights @ 8pm EST.

Comments

[H D Harris]

I find it difficult when people talk about optimized builds in GW2, because there's no regular application of any of what we know to be traditional roles in the game. Yes, we do damage, but there's no way to focus on just doing dps, theres no way to generate threat other than by triggering the varying AI cues, which range from merely to whose closest to a whole slew of conditions including who's downed, what attacks or skills are being used. Heals, no matter how heavily you spec into them, are on longish cooldowns, so theres no way to save someone who is just eating damage, even with their selfheals from what I've seen of the dungeons and whatnot, and bosses are so brutal that the victims of tunnel vision are readily killed. Optimization lends itself to a game where people can focus on one single role and have done with it. if you run a dungeon with five other theives, its going to be a very different group than three engineers and two warriors, or any mix thereof. in that situation, it becomes impossible to say "I'm just going to do X role, because thats all I want to do," and moreover it becomes impractical to build around that mindset.

[H D Harris]

Also, as a point of distinction between talent systems in the style of WoW and Rift, and the trait system in GW2, the latter is much more flexible than the former because in a Talent system, you buff or change specific abilities, and depending on where you place your points, you gain abilities that no other build has access to, and the worth of those abilities might be so great that they preclude the builds without them, leading to the stagnation of the cookie cutter builds. If you know that your class gets a ten percent bonus out of spending three points into a talent, then you'd probably be a fool not to take it, whereas in the gw 2 system, you're not buffing any one skill but entire aspects of your class, such as the damage of conditions and the like. The traits offer new functionality, but the major traits are selected from a pool of possible traits, and they aren't separated by tiers. you can pick one of any of the twelve traits in a trait line so long as you choose to spend ten points in the line. By tying the attributes into the traitlines they also ensure that no matter what gear you wear you will always be better at that particular aspect of your character than anyone else who isn't specced into it. Overall, since gw2 combat doesnt lend itself readily to min-max approach, it should be able to avoid the trap of one build lording over another.

[Bridger]

That's some good points Harris. We'll be talking more about the traits system and how it affects PvE on next week's show.

[Garethh]

Each and every class seems to be pretty balanced, at least independently, when it comes to every spec they can make. You could probly play a half dozen specs with each build that will play very well.

The only problem I see is that as you start combining specs together.... some combinations tend to be EXTREMELY more potent than others. That could really cut down the number of 'viable' specs for high level PvP to that generally 2-3 ones for each that you mentioned in the podcast.

say a ranger necromancer, necromancers have epidemic (spreads all conditions on one target to all nearby enemies, 15s CD). Rangers can stack about 6k worth of bleeds in an attack or 2.... (maul is 3.5k bleed, pet has a slightly worse version, first ranger attack in combat causes bleed/vulnerability, most crits cause bleed, sharpening stone makes all next 5 attacks cause bleed) that turns epidemic into a 6k-10k aoe (depending on what the necro does) on a 15~ second CD... that is REDICULOUS... you will half the health of an entire enemy group with practically no setup... you also only used 1 necromancer utility slot and 1 ranger weapon and utility slot to make that disastrous combo, leaving near the entire rest of the spec open for both builds to cover near every other base for how fights can go.

As a side note if you just tossed a bubble crazy guardian and maybe an elementalist into the group you have a GW2 bomb group.. lol

[MrBurns]

+1 for Bridger Rant!!!

[Bridger]

Thank you Mr. Burns (seems odd saying that...)

[alexrobomind]

Considering your discussion about swapping out utility skills in combat, one of the important points by Freelancer is that utility skills actually seem to belong into the meta game. Experience showed in other games (GW, LoL, SC, ...) that the overly specialized builds rarely occur when playing on a competitive level (competitive not meaning top tier, but competitive in the sense of not being constantly steamrolled over and playing on common level).

The problem with adding those real-time adaption elements into the match is the destruction (maybe the word "blurring" would be more appropriate) of parts of the meta-game, which is one of the most important elements when diversifying match flow. Even though most games settle in a range which is perceived as optimal (like the standard LoL lane match-ups), there is still a huge amount of gameplay variety which is induced directly by variations in the champion match-ups, which would be severly reduced if one could, for example, pick a new champion after death, shifting the focus from playing well with the chosen champion to being able to pick a new counter-champion after each death.

So the real question this boils down to is whether the utility skills are part of the play (game) or the build (meta-game). There are a few reasons why I would agree with Freelancer in the utility skills being part of the meta-game.

1) Hard-Counters: While access to mitigation-effects is usually unlockable inside the game fairly easily (tenacity boots in LoL, which reduce cc duration), hard counters to certain gameplay elements are only available in exchange for paying a significant opportunity cost (the item "quicksilver sash", which allows to remove a cc spell while active, costs 1/3rd to 2/3 of a core item, significantly delaying a build). One could argue that not having those skill slots available for something else is a significant opportunity cost by itself. But this cost is not permanent (selling an item in LoL gives back only part of the gold), at every time during the course of the match the skill could be reslotted, if utility skills were changeable in-match. As there seems to be no method in-game to induce a permanent cost on skill swapping, this would create a game of constantly countering the opponent's last build (boon-removal, condition-removal, stun, stun-breaking).

2) Predictability of encounters: The knowledge of your opponent's utility skills is a very important influence on your personal play. As is the set of utility skills you have chosen. One of the most interesting elements of eSports-quality games is the ability to detect patterns in your opponent's playstyle and change your own accordingly. In order for this element to be present, you need to be able to rely on the fact that your opponent's playstyle does not change drastically over the course of the game (outside predictable elements, like the match entering a new phase). Being able to change utilities on the fly would mean being able to change almost half of your available skill bar on the fly, completely reducing any learning effects to dust. This is the main reason why build changing is often bound to paying a severe cost.

Actually, the whole reasoning behind playing a specialized build (which is not necessarily gimmicky as long as on-the-fly-counters are restricted) is to catch the balanced meta off-guard, and thus is, while not favorable for regular play, an interesting method to out-"meta-play" opponents in critical tournament matches (it's rarely used in LoL as on-the-fly-counters are readily available in draft-mode).