Maybe, but I think making other options more compelling, perhaps by making them more relevant through gameplay (e.g. by making stagger feel inadequate without Opportunist, so not taking it means choosing dps over vital safety, a real and difficult choice you might flip between) is better. If it was a question of, ‘I need this stagger otherwise I can’t face hordes head-on without it because basic enemies will retaliate too quickly even with higher attack speeds’ or ‘I need this dps otherwise enemies build-up too much’ means players end up having to contextually pick the one that will aid them, using observations they’ve made on the issues they’ve observed in their team (most teams stick together for more than a single quickplay match) i.e. we have enough damage, need more control etc. Wouldn’t have to be a bunch of absolutes of course and this just an example, but more so along the lines of going for the optimal dps route requiring very high levels of animation reading, micro and proper commitment to it build-wise so Swift Slaying isn’t passively extremely useful for any build, and so a skilled player has a reason to bring Opportunist for the sake of their team rather than themselves. Like if with Swift Slaying you still had to parry a bit because of the sheer number of attacks coming from the horde but your dps is higher, but with Opportunist you maintain a higher dps uptime.
But the fact is you don’t really need any trait in this game, so of course nearly everyone is going to pick the one that simply makes the run faster. This is true without Swift Slaying being in the picture. You don’t need Parry because we already have stamina, you don’t need RS because ultimates already have generously low cooldowns and dealing and taking damage gives so much ult cooldown, you don’t need Opportunist because enemies have a low attack frequency and the majority of enemies already get interrupted by virtually every player action.
Besides, people are only addicted to Swift Slaying because it’s straightforward and free of bugs. Who wants to go figure out hundreds of different stagger breakpoints in a game that makes that difficult, especially when they’re carefully researched stagger breakpoints can get overwritten by other sources of stagger anyway? Most don’t even know if Crit Power is good on their weapons (it’s practically never good unfortunately except on very niche builds or on BH). It’s also because everyone says to use SS.
It would be interesting to see a WHC facetank and Riposte two bosses at the same time though. Or silly. Maybe cool?
Yeah. I’m fine with getting something like Opportunist because it has an impact, unless it’s on something like Dual Daggers which is a horrible pairing. But if I get Parry on a shield weapon that’s such overkill it’s like not having a trait at all.
Not if it’s done with a great deal of tact, slowly, carefully and with proper adjustments so players feel like there are interesting alternatives as a result, with the overall peak capabilities of players staying unaffected but with the addition of smart complexities and fair difficulty. Difficult, demanding, something that isn’t mine or your job.
Edit 1: @Adelion Quick question, do you happen to know if Caxuatn’s Frenzy works with friendly fire?
Edit 2: I do appreciate the amount of creativity Fatshark has put into the ideas here. Some of them are really cool. Like Kurnous’ Precision, which while it sounds overpowered to me due to my limited knowledge, is a cool skill-based tradeoff that I really like. Mork’s (or possibly Gork’s) Onslaught is going to be absurdist and funny with Slayer. Lileath’s Grace would be pretty awesome for Rapier, Dual Axes or any of the lower cleave weapons. Djaf’s Reaping is another great looking one.
