Why I'm not a fan of unlimited trait points, and Remnant 1 actually had a trait cap

[Rusty_V4]

When I first played RemnantFrom the Ashes, coming from souls games, I thought that trait points would get harder and harder to get. Just as how in souls you are not capped at a certain level but each next level will cost more souls than the last. When I realized you can keep getting trait points indefinitely, even easier with the sagestone ring, I thought that was pretty dumb. I know some players prefer to lean into the power fantasy and just keep dumping on stats forever in order to make an OP all rounded character, but for me it really invalidated the significance of build choice past the early game.

You may argue "well If you don't like it, just cap yourself". But that's not how many videogames work most of the time. You can put constraints on yourself to make challenge runs that you find more engaging, sure. But plenty of times, we need some externally imposed constraints to discover engagements we would've missed. Finding work arounds those constraints, taking meaningful choices on different trade-offs, brings gratification to your character progression.

Doom Eternal as a videogame follows a rigorous philosophy in game design: "Push the player into the fun zone". If given the choice, players will optimize their games into boredom. When it came out, Doom players were pissed off at a core gameplay change compared to the predecessor: You barely had any ammo. Like 50% at best. And it was an intended choice, because devs realized in the previous game ammo management was non existent, but not only that, since 2 weapons were stupidly busted you had no reason to use your vast arsenal at your disposal, so scarce ammo intended to push you into experimenting with everything you got. And you are also given the tools to replenish ammo constantly through active skills and resource management mid combat. It was an annoying game to learn at first, but we all realized eventually that that made it way more engaging than the previous one, you never have a dull moment in Doom Eternal combat because actually have to make choices. Depriving players of ammo but giving them the abilities necessary to replenish it through skill and wisdom made for a better game.

Constraints are needed for engagement. In the end, a game will always cap you in many ways you aren't aware off. For starters, there was already a cap in Remnant From The Ashes: 20 points maxes out a trait, and there are limited traits. It was just a ridiculous high cap, but it was one. You can just argue "why can't I keep leveling vigor like in souls games??", " Why can't I have infinite ammo?", "why can't I use all the archetypes at the same time??", "Why can't I reach 100% damage mitigation??" Etc, etc.

You don't want no caps. You may argue the current trait cap is too low, possibly, but unlimited trait points not only would invalidate build choices in the long run, it would also reduce drastically the significance of the new systems: Relics with upgradable relic fragments, upgradable mutators, archetype perks, prime perk, active skills, etc., and do not forget you have like 20 more trait points between each one of your 2 archetypes.

"OMG but why do you want us to have less trait points."

Listen, it's not that I want you to have less fun. You feel like that but it's the actual opposite. I want you to realize that, maybe, working around the trait cap is going to be fun. And if it's not, if it's not your cup of tea, sorry about that. At least the first game is still pretty solid I'm actually still playing it with friends I got into the franchise and enjoying it's own quirks, as it's own thing. Let us have a trait cap this time around and see how it plays out for build choices.

[Homer Pimpson]

and who are you?

[Xeowolf]

You didn't address the other underlying issue.
You play Doom to get through the storymode and maybe find the secrets and then that's it yer kinda done. At least for me. I beat the game. I didn't care about multiplayer. It didn't really have coop which I would have cared about. So once I beat the game I was done. There really was nothing left to go for.

Remnant isn't designed to be beaten and put down.
So what keeps people coming back?
Oh right. You have stuff to keep earning and leveling up for. (Remnant 1).

Okay but now in remnant 2. I have beat the game. My build is maxed out. Solid. The way I want it. My traits are capped. I guess im done?

Sure I can jump into peoples games and help them progress but what am I REALLY doing?
Other than the fun of the game which is short lived without something to strive for. I am going to just put it down and move on.

And I am guessing others will to. It's a flaw.
To keep people playing. Generally. You need something to be working towards.

[Xankrieg]

For me the difference in traits between remnant 1 and 2 is night and day. remnant 1 had raw damage traits. crit traits. etc. things that actually granted you lots of power whereas remnant 2 all the traits are either defensive or utility.

To be honest. Remnant 1 would make more sense with a trait cap than remnant 2.
The trait cap in remnant 2 just makes certain traits useless such at "environment speed" which is for climbing ladders. wading through water and vaulting. noone would ever pick it no matter the build (unless they would pick it just to spite this comment).

As much as i do think having build variety and not allowing everything at once is nice. the current implementation doesn't really do it well.

[5812381312183238422879]

I don't get why there is so much pushback to trait cap. Your build in r1 was basically just your armor set and weapons. Everyone had the same traits, you always maxed them out in the same general order based on what was "mandatory"

Now you actually have to think about how to build your character and you can have drastically different playstyles. This also improves loot since you can't just brute force certain attributes up to max.

[Rusty_V4]

Originally posted by Xeowolf:

You didn't address the other underlying issue.
You play Doom to get through the storymode and maybe find the secrets and then that's it yer kinda done. At least for me. I beat the game. I didn't care about multiplayer. It didn't really have coop which I would have cared about. So once I beat the game I was done. There really was nothing left to go for.

Remnant isn't designed to be beaten and put down.
So what keeps people coming back?
Oh right. You have stuff to keep earning and leveling up for. (Remnant 1).

Okay but now in remnant 2. I have beat the game. My build is maxed out. Solid. The way I want it. My traits are capped. I guess im done?

Sure I can jump into peoples games and help them progress but what am I REALLY doing?
Other than the fun of the game which is short lived without something to strive for. I am going to just put it down and move on.

And I am guessing others will to. It's a flaw.
To keep people playing. Generally. You need something to be working towards.

You know with Doom Eternal what happened was quite the opposite. Doom 2016 was a game that you would beat the campaign and remember quite fondly, but not touch again. Eternal, on the other hand, kept so many players coming back and built an active community around it's meta, it's "techs" (like weapon swap combos and other techniques that explored the skill gap), etc. It had a very long life for a single player game, like more than 2 years after release we would still be excited at community breakthroughs that pushed the skill ceiling.

I think the same thing will happen with Remnant 2 because I've seen it in other RPG. I remember playing a Destiny wannabe shooter that wasn't very great, but it had a "skill cap" of 20 points only so you could not max out everything in your skill tree. I heard players wish we could have all points needed plenty of times. But truth is, we would always come back to the game to try out new builds: "Let's see how investing in survival skills plays around this time", "let's make a gunslinger build" (that was a thing), "let's make a heavy weapons tank", etc. Didn't take me long to realize the skill cap was actually good for the game's longevity since we always had a reason to respec our characters and try new things.

On the opposite end, if you can max out all traits and do everything, that's it, there are no new shiny build toys to play around with and you are more likely to put down the game.

[Xeowolf]

Originally posted by Fair²:

I don't get why there is so much pushback to trait cap. Your build in r1 was basically just your armor set and weapons. Everyone had the same traits, you always maxed them out in the same general order based on what was "mandatory"

Now you actually have to think about how to build your character and you can have drastically different playstyles. This also improves loot since you can't just brute force certain attributes up to max.

Again, see what I posted above.
And to add to this. I don't want unlimited traits but the current cap is pretty low. We barely get to dip into alternative traits vs the core of what's really useful / helpful. Or pretty much what most will take.

Not including the 1% who will come in here and be like I beat apoc without any traits. Great few people can do that. We don't care.

The real issue is. Without being able to keep earning... SOMETHING even if its just earning unlimited trait points to spend but only selecting 6-8 traits total... is something.

[Xeowolf]

Originally posted by ivan_skptc:

Originally posted by Xeowolf:

You didn't address the other underlying issue.
You play Doom to get through the storymode and maybe find the secrets and then that's it yer kinda done. At least for me. I beat the game. I didn't care about multiplayer. It didn't really have coop which I would have cared about. So once I beat the game I was done. There really was nothing left to go for.

Remnant isn't designed to be beaten and put down.
So what keeps people coming back?
Oh right. You have stuff to keep earning and leveling up for. (Remnant 1).

Okay but now in remnant 2. I have beat the game. My build is maxed out. Solid. The way I want it. My traits are capped. I guess im done?

Sure I can jump into peoples games and help them progress but what am I REALLY doing?
Other than the fun of the game which is short lived without something to strive for. I am going to just put it down and move on.

And I am guessing others will to. It's a flaw.
To keep people playing. Generally. You need something to be working towards.

You know with Doom Eternal what happened was quite the opposite. Doom 2016 was a game that you would beat the campaign and remember quite fondly, but not touch again. Eternal, on the other hand, kept so many players coming back and built an active community around it's meta, it's "techs" (like weapon swap combos and other techniques that explored the skill gap), etc. It had a very long life for a single player game, like more than 2 years after release we would still be excited at community breakthroughs that pushed the skill ceiling.

I think the same thing will happen with Remnant 2 because I've seen it in other RPG. I remember playing a Destiny wannabe shooter that wasn't very great, but it had a "skill cap" of 20 points only so you could not max out everything in your skill tree. I heard players wish we could have all points needed plenty of times. But truth is, we would always come back to the game to try out new builds: "Let's see how investing in survival skills plays around this time", "let's make a gunslinger build" (that was a thing), "let's make a heavy weapons tank", etc. Didn't take me long to realize the skill cap was actually good for the game's longevity since we always had a reason to respec our characters and try new things.

On the opposite end, if you can max out all traits and do everything, that's it, there are no new shiny build toys to play around with and you are more likely to put down the game.

I played and beat eternal.
I put it down and never came back. It just had nothing else going for it to keep me replaying it. It certainly wasn't as deep as remnant in terms of builds. At least not to me.

[Naewyng]

Traits in r1 weren't as important as you claim them to be.

Especially on something like apocalypse, traits contributed to around 5%, 25% for equipment and the rest was your skill.

[Rusty_V4]

Originally posted by Xeowolf:

Originally posted by ivan_skptc:

You know with Doom Eternal what happened was quite the opposite. Doom 2016 was a game that you would beat the campaign and remember quite fondly, but not touch again. Eternal, on the other hand, kept so many players coming back and built an active community around it's meta, it's "techs" (like weapon swap combos and other techniques that explored the skill gap), etc. It had a very long life for a single player game, like more than 2 years after release we would still be excited at community breakthroughs that pushed the skill ceiling.

I think the same thing will happen with Remnant 2 because I've seen it in other RPG. I remember playing a Destiny wannabe shooter that wasn't very great, but it had a "skill cap" of 20 points only so you could not max out everything in your skill tree. I heard players wish we could have all points needed plenty of times. But truth is, we would always come back to the game to try out new builds: "Let's see how investing in survival skills plays around this time", "let's make a gunslinger build" (that was a thing), "let's make a heavy weapons tank", etc. Didn't take me long to realize the skill cap was actually good for the game's longevity since we always had a reason to respec our characters and try new things.

On the opposite end, if you can max out all traits and do everything, that's it, there are no new shiny build toys to play around with and you are more likely to put down the game.

I played and beat eternal.
I put it down and never came back. It just had nothing else going for it to keep me replaying it. It certainly wasn't as deep as remnant in terms of builds. At least not to me.

It wasn't in terms of builds indeed, the RPG mechanics were half assed at the very best and actually meaningless. The meat of the game was all in the skill ceiling and the badass sh*t some players could pull off. Not for everyone but it enjoyed an incredible good longevity for a single player game, big community with plenty of "Doomtubers" still talking about the game like 2 years after release. Now it did die out but I blame the lack of good multiplayer for that. Doom 2016 died out sooner.

[Peter]

I agree, the trait cap is important for the difficulty, any rise will result in power creep and we will have another braindead game aka. warframe.

[Mikoto]

People claiming traits will make your OP clearly have never seen what they do, nor understand how much damage you take in apocalypse.

Make it to end game before you give your opinion on an endgame issue.

[DEDloc_©]

If they gave more trait points, not unlimited, just more, it would be great. Some traits you're just going to want for every build so I don't really get 60 points to use how I like.

Respeccing needs to be cheap or free.

[Ryver Cryx]

Originally posted by ivan_skptc:

Why I'm not a fan of unlimited trait points, and Remnant 1 actually had a trait cap

and then followed by a massive wall of text...
there is a trait cap.. its lvl 60, so who are arguing with?
if your awnser is: ''im not arguing, im just letting everyone know why this system is better for them.''
and in case that's you're reply i would like to ask you:
Why are u so keen on telling on telling us on whats best for us?
What makes u think people want to hear how u think we should play the game and how it should be made?

[Rusty_V4]

Originally posted by DEDloc_©:

If they gave more trait points, not unlimited, just more, it would be great. Some traits you're just going to want for every build so I don't really get 60 points to use how I like.

Respeccing needs to be cheap or free.

Fair enough.

[Rusty_V4]

Originally posted by Naewyng:

Traits in r1 weren't as important as you claim them to be.

Especially on something like apocalypse, traits contributed to around 5%, 25% for equipment and the rest was your skill.

Ok even so they are even less important here where we have a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ insane truckload of new mechanics for character progression.