ArenaNet talk:Guild Wars 2 suggestions/Bonuses for not picking a secondary profession

I like it

Games like wow have a system kind of like this. Each class has three talent trees. Most players pick one talent tree, a certain number of points are required in lower talents to get higher talent skills. At max level you are only able to have so many talents filled out, usually enough to fill one talent tree and maybe half of another. Players can choose to fill a whole tree to get the best skills from that tree at the expense of limited talents from other trees. Some builds choose not to fill an entire tree to get the best skill to make a more balanced class - a hybrid - which is able to do a little bit more but not as powerful. I see this kind of like a secondary profession, but in GW there really is no reward for being a full ranger. I expect the skills in gw2 to be completely worked over so I wouldn't be surprised to see a system like this happen. While the secondary class system made things interesting, it was clearly a source of much of GW gimmicks and exploits, touch rangers, scythe rangers, scythe sins, mending touch making the bar on more monk secondaries than monk primaries etc. Talent trees are also easier to balance, they are typically smaller and easier to predict how players will build their character around, but result in less build diversity (which isn't that terrible in my mind). 122.104.161.96 20:43, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

It's true a lot of people used the secondary class system to come up with gimmicky builds, but a lot of balanced and creative builds also spawned from it. The problem was that those builds were less effective than the gimmick builds because the gimmicks were all about exploiting fundamental design flaws in a lot of the classes. An even bigger problem is that in their efforts to control the gimmick builds, the developers also hamstringed a lot of the balanced builds and they wound up being a sort of collateral damage from the nerf-bombs.

I haven't played WoW, but I've heard a little about it and games like Diablo and stuff so I think I get what you say about the skill trees. I sort of agree and sort of don't. Skill trees do simplify things a lot. The current cumulative attribute system is unnecessarily complicated and actually does more to hinder options than broaden them. It also seems to create more balancing issues than it solves. A skill tree might work better, but then they'll be making it too similar to someone else's product. Still. If it's a better system, may as well use it. Frankly I say if they can't find a way to keep dual/multi-classing simple and balanced, they should just go to a single-class system and build variety into each class instead of making players choose two and mold them together. *shrug* -Painted Bird

I disagree.

Guild Wars 1 already rewards you for only using your primary profession. How so? You can't rune up the attributes of your secondary profession or equip armor from that secondary, and you also get no benefit from your secondary's primary attribute. Under the current ruleset, a lot of this is understandable...after all giving someone full bonuses from Fast Casting AND Energy Storage would be pretty insane. Still. My point is the current system of Guild Wars already rewards you for using only one profession. You may choose a secondary, but you don't really use it, at least not as effectively as if you focus on just your primary. Most of the time, especially in PvP, people will only take skills from their secondary that are non-attribute or have no numeric variables linked to attribute level, all because it's impractical to put their attribute points into their secondary class. There are a handful of exceptions to this flaw, but a handful isn't enough.

This actually leads to *less* variety in builds because the combination of skillsets and attributes between multi-class builds is numerically inferior to single-class builds, and actually confines players to either just use their primary class or be doomed to using a less-effective build. Basically players have to make a choice between being creative or being combat effective. That's as wrong as wrong gets in my opinion.

I would rather see them make your secondary class more significant and desirable than less so. That would promote more variety.

To be fair, though, your first sentence caught my eye. They might not have a two-class system in Guild Wars 2 at all. And in all honesty, there would be nothing wrong with that if you ask me. There are still ways to include lots of variety and individuality for each player without giving them a second class. And as inferior as 2-class builds are under the current system, your secondary is basically more of a distraction than an enhancement. Doing away with it altogether might do more to help the game than people will initially realize. But, you never know. -Painted Bird