Guild Wars 2

I know race change is a problem because it would effect personal story and the likes. However, I think profession change would be less problematic.

This would in fact solve a percentage of people’s concern for lack of race change, depending on their cases, like my own. (I don’t like asura medium armor, but I wouldn’t mind asura heavy armor)

I wouldn’t mind this…

Ya this totally wouldn’t be a complete mess with different weapons and armor weight and elite/specialization and skill line unlocks.

Unusable soulbound weapon and armor are forfeit. I am already paying gems to change my profession, why would I care about stuff that cost gold?

Skill/Specialization unlocks are all hero points based now, so just refund all the hero points.

So just buy a new character slot and roll a new character?

You lose role-playing factor and birthday gifts on re-rolls.

This one I think is messy for a whole other set of reasons. Yes, there’s nothing story-wise that would prevent this, but remember that each profession has a unique mechanic to it that is there from level 1. Even if we ignore the armor/weapon thing and, say, had you switch from mesmer to elementalist. Here are the various things that will change:
1. Character loses the ability to swap weapons. It’s just gone, which also means that weapons in the offset would have to be shunted into your inventory and hidden in the hero panel. This might be less of a problem in the reverse, revealing the second weapon set slots, but then again, it might not. Depends on how they were coded.
2. The mesmer shatter skills are replaced with attunements. These two mechanics function completely differently, especially as the mesmer has three phantasm blips while the elementalist has a permanent attunement buff. Swapping from one to the other could offer a plethora of bug possibilities.
3. Resetting already bought skills and replacing specialization lines. Sure, the game keeps track of how many skill points you have, so that is probably not a problem, but the specializations would have to point to a new list of skills. Also, is your character still at the same level, or are they reset to level 1? After all, I may know a lot about accounting, but I can’t just suddenly want to practice law and become a partner at a firm.

And this is just the surface stuff we can see. Coding any game more complex than a text adventure is a complicated process, and gets more complicated with the more people added and the more unplanned features such as changing professions offer. Basically, I imagine this would be a coding nightmare which is much more easily solved by just making a new character. Your complaint about birthday gifts? Lost. RP? Handwave it. I delete the old character, give the name to the new one, make him/her look the same, and nobody can tell the difference.

Whole post was well written Rognik, apart from this.

Rognik.2579:

This one I think is messy for a whole other set of reasons. Yes, there’s nothing story-wise that would prevent this,

There’s several story points which are profession related, even down to your choices in character creation. In Scarlets Secret Room (Entanglement) Engineers specifically can interact with things you find for extra lore/info.
In The Head of the Snake (Confessor’s End) Thieves can pick the locks of the doors to the Manor, they can also pick the lock to Samarogs Arena in Bastion of The Penitent. Rangers can tame the beast masters pet to use in that fight in Confessors end.
Engineers only can also use the Turrets.
Necromancers can claim the Skeletons summoned by the High Inquisitor.

There’s probably a few more, but there is definitly Profession specific interacts that could be bodged up.

Lore reasons are always easy to deal with, as it’s just a matter of finding a compelling in-game reason. The GW franchise has, however, made a big deal of profession swapping — there’s always been a long story behind an NPC converting (e.g. Logan’s ancestor took an entire “Living Story” equivalent to learn Paragon; e.g. Rytlock disappeared into the Mists for ages, before showing up blindfolded and a Revenant).

So perhaps one reason this isn’t yet available is that the story writers want to ensure there’s a personal story for conversion.

Then there are also the mechanical difficulties. This game uses a lot of “flags” to track progress in achievements, stories, etc. We have no idea how many times someone “assumed” that profession was unchangeable when coding this bit or that — and we have no idea how difficult it would be to check.

And of course there are all sorts of more mundane, but time-consuming challenges, including dealing with equipped and soulbound gear, stories in progress, and things that wouldn’t occur to the average player.

So this is probably a ton more work than most of us would imagine. Is it worth it to divert that many dev resources to the ability to change a profession, when (as a group) we are already impatient for more open world and more instanced content?

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Then there are also the mechanical difficulties. This game uses a lot of “flags” to track progress in achievements, stories, etc. We have no idea how many times someone “assumed” that profession was unchangeable when coding this bit or that — and we have no idea how difficult it would be to check.

This here is the part that more people need to understand when they say things like “oh yeah, coding xyz should be easy, I did something similar in my own hobby project” – The assumptions that went into the original design documents inform how you will solve certain problems and what shortcuts will be valid because of that. It isn’t like the devs don’t know how to code the fix, it’s that things were designed in a way that the fix may take so much effort that it wouldn’t be worth it without a complete rethinking of the design process, which can have long reaching halo effects in other parts of the code.

I am a software engineer, so if you had shown me the database schema, I would be able to estimate how challenging the work would be.

Given my experience with GW1 in which you can change profession (Razah, one of the endgame heroes can change his primary profession), I know the GW engine is capable of doing so, so this request is not random wish.

Also telling people to re-roll is not a constructive discussion. Is this the response you would give to people when they say Necro is underpowered or Ele is OP?

voidvector.2780:

Also telling people to re-roll is not a constructive discussion.

Of course it’s constructive.

Even if ANet agreed today that this game needed profession swapping, it would be 6-18 months before it got delivered. So it’s a lot more constructive to roll a new toon and possibly useful to some to re-roll than it is to wait, without knowing ANet’s plans.

(Of course, some people can phrase it the suggestion in such a way as if trying to end the discussion of the topic, but that’s an issue with rhetoric or intent, not with the idea itself.)

Anyway, I am giving this suggestion because it is a feature I am willing to pay cash for. So it is a feature that they can monetize. It might also make way for future in-plot functionality (e.g. GW1-esque ascension)

I will let ANet make their own development estimates and prioritize their own backlog.

voidvector.2780:

Given my experience with GW1 in which you can change profession (Razah, one of the endgame heroes can change his primary profession), I know the GW engine is capable of doing so, so this request is not random wish.

Sighting GW1 is not a good precedent for how things work in GW2. First off, while you could always change the secondary profession in GW1 (there were quests in the Crystal Desert that unlocked this back in Prophesies), the primary profession was always locked. Razah being able to change his primary was an exception, being a hero character and designed as such at his introduction. So even back then, the primary profession never changed.

Even if it were a valid basis, though, GW2 is a completely different set-up. There are no more secondary professions, and there are unique mechanics that are radically different from each other. What would the ranger’s first pet be if he didn’t start out as the class? The thief has an initiative bar, the mesmer has illusion bubbles, the warrior has an adrenaline bar the revenant has an energy bar; those all could potentially muck about with the code if the professions swap. Lots of little things could make it a big problem.

Finally, you say you would be willing to pay for it? That’s great! How often? How many others would? It can’t be measured in a vacuum, but against a myriad of facets. I know it’s not the answer you want, but why force a complicated solution when there’s a simple one available? If you want to have a different character with the same name and look, but not lose your age bonus, just buy the total makeover kit and identity reclaimer to keep the bonuses and create a new toon with the old name!