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[Sylph]

A few thought come to me when trying to think of alternative character builds. Namely, why are there so many blocked traits?
In order to preserve the 'no more than 1 master trait', only a single trait block is needed. Of course, I understand that the main purpose of trait blocking is to stop characters getting ridiculously powerful, I just think many of them were too heavy handed....
Here's our current list:

FireAngel     blocks  Hellrunner, Son of a Bitch, Son of a Gun
AmmoChain     blocks  Tough as Nails, Son of a Gun, Eagle Eye
Cateye        blocks  Tough as Nails, Reloader, Brute
ArmyOfTheDead blocks  Finesse, Hellrunner, Eagle Eye
Vampyre       blocks  Hellrunner, Son of a Bitch, Eagle Eye
BladeMaster   blocks  Tough as Nails, Son of a Gun, Son of a Bitch
GunKata       blocks  Tough as Nails, Son of a Bitch, Brute

The first thing that sticks out here - why do so many builds block SonOfAGun? SoaG is a trait specifically for pistols, and I can't think of *any* master traits that are significantly, necessarily, limited by stopping the player spending traits to use pistols. why block it?
What about army of the dead blocking eagleeye? EagleEye is already pointless for a shotgun character, but if a player gets some whacky idea to use it, why not let him? If you wanna block intuition, block intuition instead...

More significantly, why so many blocks? Since master traits are currently so powerful (compared to normal traits), a player is almost forced to pick them, but by picking them he's shoehorned into a character build.

My suggestion here is to reduce all the blocks, using them to limit the power of master traits, without shoehorning the player... Something like:

FireAngel     blocks  Hellrunner, Son of a Bitch, GunKata
AmmoChain     blocks  Tough as Nails, Ironman, Eagle Eye
Cateye        blocks  Tough as Nails
ArmyOfTheDead blocks  Finesse, Hellrunner, Intuition
Vampyre       blocks  Hellrunner, Eagle Eye, Ammochain, FireAngel
BladeMaster   blocks  Tough as Nails, vampyre, gunkata
GunKata       blocks  Tough as Nails, Son of a Bitch, blademaster

Obviously, this was just thrown together by me in 10 minutes, so it'd need a lot more hashing out and balance to work, but the principle is this - don't shoehorn players into a single build just for taking a master trait - we're gonna take a master trait anyway, since they're so powerful, and at the moment the only real block that makes a master trait significantly weaker is ammochain blocking eagleeye, all the other simply stop the players from taking innovative ideas (such as, for example, fireangel and sonofagun).

[Journey]

I definitely agree with many of your sentiments.

Most master traits shoehorn a build even moreso than previous versions, where it was already a concern that certain builds were dominant (cateye).

And I too was sad that Son of a Gun was excluded by so many - now I'm not even a pistol player anymore (when before I was so hardcore that I did N! Ao100 with pistols!!)

And to be honest, the master traits are a mixed bag - some aren't even worthy compared to non master traits, while others are complete game changers.

Actually - if Ammochain was reined in, I honestly think a Master Trait system where they didn't block ANY traits (except other Master Traits - i.e. one master trait per character) could be a cool system.

[raekuul]

I agree with Journey. Tone down MAC, only block other master traits, see how that goes for a version.

Who knows? Maybe that would just create more unbalance?

[Madtrixr]

Actually, a seperate beta to screw around with this wouldn't be such a bad idea.

It'd probably be a bit of work(possible understatement intended) but I don't see why not. Then again, it's not up to me...

[Journey]

Also - Intuition 2 or its effect should be a master trait, and Cateye simultaneously should NOT be.  The former is far more powerful than the latter, and some sort of cateye-like effect is pretty necessary in order to play tactically, even if the vision boost is only 1 tile.

[Journey]

A radical idea:  Have no prerequisites for Master Traits at all, except a minimum level requirement.  Why?

This allows many more trait combinations to be put together.  AND - this gives players a viable chance to switch their build/playstyle in the same game, when now a player is pretty much locked onto their early build's focus when playing at any siginificant level of difficulty.

[metroidRL]

You can actually choose 2 master traits.The army of the dead master trait and vampyre master trait. Check it out, this occurs 'cause army of the dead and vampyre needs Badass trait but army of the dead doesn't block brute.