Guild Wars 2

For the sake of build diversity, I suggest you allow 1 utility change while in combat and keep the rest locked.

IF this idea is implemented, it would make gw2 more interesting to play because of build diversity. The current system is not efficient, take for example this:

For the sake of argument I will take warrior as an example:

• Suppose a warrior equips on my mark to make use of the reveal against thieves, but all of a sudden you are faced against a warrior, necro, or guardian and you rather have balance stance to counter the CC (crowd control) skills. On my mark is pretty much useless against those classes and you are basically using only 2 utilities instead of the 3.

This would reduce the importance of choices made in character building. Not a fan of the suggestion. Sorry.

Not a fan either, and it would be distracting from the combat having to change while fighting.

Goldfox.5729:

Not a fan either, and it would be distracting from the combat having to change while fighting.

You can easily change while blocking or stealth, so that is not an excuse, besides if you would not like to change your utility skills while in combat, then don’t do it, but it would be unfair for those who do want to change while in combat.

Hitman.5829:

Goldfox.5729:

Not a fan either, and it would be distracting from the combat having to change while fighting.

You can easily change while blocking or stealth, so that is not an excuse, besides if you would not like to change your utility skills while in combat, then don’t do it, but it would be unfair for those who do want to change while in combat.

How is it, “unfair?”

Hitman.5829:

Goldfox.5729:

Not a fan either, and it would be distracting from the combat having to change while fighting.

You can easily change while blocking or stealth, so that is not an excuse, besides if you would not like to change your utility skills while in combat, then don’t do it, but it would be unfair for those who do want to change while in combat.

You can change while in combat ?

Pretty sure blocking puts you in combat, stealth doesn’t but it requires you to not be seen and not be aoe’d. GLHF with that.

Also, not needed. Be a man and kitten the situation properly. If you get jumped by 3 people and die that’s not on any one skill.

Hitman.5829:

IF this idea is implemented, it would make gw2 more interesting to play because of build diversity. The current system is not efficient…

Those two ideas are counter to each other. Allowing players to have a more efficient build will reduce the number of builds to choose from. Right now, players have to specialize and make sacrifices. If more skills are allowed on the bar, then less decisions need to be made on what to take, and diversity drops.

One of the worst ideas you could implement on GW.
You basically are trying to remove one of the big aspects of it that is you need to choose 5 skills and go with it. Just like GW1 where you need to choose 8 skills out of hundreds.
In other games you can use any skill at anytime which i think its not fun as you just remove the aspect of building

Why stop at swapping a single utility during combat? Why not allow them all to be swapped? Why not allow weapon swapping? How about replacing the elite or the healing with some other utility?

Everything the OP writes to justify this option applies to the others: there are situations in which each would be useful.

Fortunately, ANet considers more than just utility of, um, utility skills when determining how to set up an infrastructure of game mechanics that allow for (a) fun game play and (b) continual rebalancing and evolution of the skills to match our evolution as players.

I disagree with the OP. If people want more diversity, add a utility slot. Swapping in combat is a bad idea.

Djinn.9245:

I disagree with the OP. If people want more diversity, add a utility slot. Swapping in combat is a bad idea.

You said it is a bad idea but you don’t say why it is a bad idea. If people want to swap skills while in combat, how does that affect those who don’t want to swap while on combat?

i don’t see how adding that option affects those who don’t want to swap, if you dont want to swap, then don’t swap.

I dont get it. We can already swap 5 skills in combat. Or 20 skills for ele/engie. Whats 1 more supposed to do?

Hitman.5829:

Djinn.9245:

I disagree with the OP. If people want more diversity, add a utility slot. Swapping in combat is a bad idea.

You said it is a bad idea but you don’t say why it is a bad idea. If people want to swap skills while in combat, how does that affect those who don’t want to swap while on combat?

i don’t see how adding that option affects those who don’t want to swap, if you dont want to swap, then don’t swap.

Something that affects play balance affects it for everyone. Encounter development would need to take your new paradigm into consideration, for example.

And changing the current set up would cost dev resources for all.

Hitman.5829:

Djinn.9245:

I disagree with the OP. If people want more diversity, add a utility slot. Swapping in combat is a bad idea.

You said it is a bad idea but you don’t say why it is a bad idea. If people want to swap skills while in combat, how does that affect those who don’t want to swap while on combat?

i don’t see how adding that option affects those who don’t want to swap, if you dont want to swap, then don’t swap.

Character build systems in games involve opportunity costs. If you take X, it’s at the cost of not being able to select Y. If you instead take Y, you have to sacrifice access to X. Opportunity costs make build design more interesting and also are a way to inject some semblance of fairness into the game.

If you tweak the build system so that players can switch between X and Y at will, then there is no opportunity cost to choice of skill. Anyone who chose not to switch would still have that opportunity cost. They’d be at a disadvantage when facing someone who does choose to switch.

Even in PvE, opportunity costs matter. Every time a need to make a meaningful choice is removed (i.e., it becomes possible to have X and Y at need instead of having to choose and make do without one), the game gets easier. For many, an easier game is boring, which prompts calls for ANet to change mobs to make the game harder. Each time that ANet complies to those requests they are spending resources that might instead produce content. Everyone loses.

while we are at it lets remove any importance of decision making in the game…

Hitman.5829:

Djinn.9245:

I disagree with the OP. If people want more diversity, add a utility slot. Swapping in combat is a bad idea.

You said it is a bad idea but you don’t say why it is a bad idea. If people want to swap skills while in combat, how does that affect those who don’t want to swap while on combat?

When I wrote that response I didn’t have time to formulate a detailed response as to why it was a bad idea. However Indigo’s response sums it up nicely.

IndigoSundown.5419:

click ^ to see Indigo’s response.

This is not build diversity, it’s having a weird bandaid patch that allows for an extra utility slot. A better suggestion would be to just make the latter. This is not a worthwhile use of development time.

Hitman.5829:

For the sake of build diversity, I suggest you allow 1 utility change while in combat and keep the rest locked.

IF this idea is implemented, it would make gw2 more interesting to play because of build diversity. The current system is not efficient, take for example this:

For the sake of argument I will take warrior as an example:

• Suppose a warrior equips on my mark to make use of the reveal against thieves, but all of a sudden you are faced against a warrior, necro, or guardian and you rather have balance stance to counter the CC (crowd control) skills. On my mark is pretty much useless against those classes and you are basically using only 2 utilities instead of the 3.

So, this would actually hurt build diversity, not increase it. It would homogenize builds even further, since you would always be able to swap out that 1 utility for each next encounter.

Currently there is more build diversity, since you could choose to make a build dedicated to fighting a certain way, and beating certain other builds. With this proposed change that would stop happening, as everyone would run the same build that was best at as many things as possible and then swap out the weakest utility when they saw someone coming up.

Id like class/race swap in combat. Incase i run into a group of warriors i can pop my charr teef and run away like hell.