Guild Wars 2

<em>“Free and Paid tournaments now have a new build-locking feature. When the countdown timer completes, players will no longer be able to change weapons, armor, skills, or traits until the match is over. This will prevent players from abusing build-swapping between fights.”</em>

As the title says, this new feature will just destroy the game as it is right now. There will be no room for the Top Players, there will be no room to improve our own gameplay and most importantly there will be no room to make a “show” off of this game.

You most certainly cannot consider “skill” the part where you chose your weapons and utilities before a game and then are stuck with them for the entire match.

Skill is the part where you switch to a key Utility to save your team from a tight situation (non combat condition granted), skill is allowing EVERY profession to have some sort of mobility to move around the map; consider Necromancers for example, they will be stuck with no swiftness, no worm, no nothing.

Same goes for Guardians, they will have close to no mobility to move around the map, it will make the game boring and snowbally.

There will be no chance of good play comebacks.

The game will start and end before the 8 second timer finishes because the team that got the best set of utilities will win and that’s just ridiculos. The current meta will be around who was the luckiest to counter pick the other team.

Let’s not even talk about teams that will be streaming, they will expose their whole gameplay cause of the simple fact of streaming their utilities. Is this even acceptable?!

Me and many other Top Players are against this new feature, and we all think that we have the right and the duty to prevent this from happening. We play this game more than everyone, we know this game inside out and this new feature is as bad as it can get.

I request that every Top Player that reads to sign this “petition” by replying with their name and a short description of why this new feature is counterproductive for the game.

Sincerely,
Danto

P.S. GW2 streamers, please use this image on your stream in show of protest against this new feature: http://i.imgur.com/dxJ7x.png

The new META: Finally people are forced to make balanced builds.

Your welcome, the community asked for it, after all.

Ahh I can’t believe they did this… No more swapping to horn for swiftness or focus for swiftness for mesmers? Everyone just got slowed down dramatically that doesn’t have a 25% signet now. Utilities NEED to be able to be swapped out of combat… That’s why they are called Utilities!!! Hopefully I read skills wrong and it means something else beside utilities. I completely agree this is terrible what separates the bad players from good is the ability to adapt to different scenarios in one swoop they just removed this from tourneys where most players compete at the highest level (using Adaptation to its fullest).

Great job on the patch, but this is a big big shot to the TPVP heart.

I understand not class swapping or trait swapping mid game, but weapons for swiftness, amulets, and utilities need to be able to be adjusted in game.

This change just took those that now have access to 25% movement speed and just skyrocketed them past those classes that don’t.

Im still wondering about character swap between games, is it included in this?

guild wars was always build wars. Is this forgotten? Build wars 1 was a fact.

I agree and support this thread.
I can understand the points of taking utility switch away, but cmon anet…? weapon/amulet swap also?
your slowly making your game require no brain at all to play. nothing much to say on the matter as you guys do whatever you feel is best anyway (personally i see/saw nobody complaining about this but you ninja nerf it anyway)

Kylex.5962:

I agree and support this thread.
I can understand the points of taking utility switch away, but cmon anet…? weapon/amulet swap also?
your slowly making your game require no brain at all to play. nothing much to say on the matter as you guys do whatever you feel is best anyway (personally i see/saw nobody complaining about this but you ninja nerf it anyway)

Utilities NEED to be able to be swapped, that’s why they are called Utilities!! Skills used to adapt to a situation…

If you play a TPVP team that you haven’t played before and you find out they are all running conditions so what now you are just screwed no way to defend yourself? This would be ok if we had more than 3 utilities slots… So we could plan accordingly

Build wars incoming. Allow weapon swaps only when all weapon skills are not under any cool-downs. No issues with amulet swapping.

BlueprintLFE.2358:

Kylex.5962:

I agree and support this thread.
I can understand the points of taking utility switch away, but cmon anet…? weapon/amulet swap also?
your slowly making your game require no brain at all to play. nothing much to say on the matter as you guys do whatever you feel is best anyway (personally i see/saw nobody complaining about this but you ninja nerf it anyway)

Utilities NEED to be able to be swapped, that’s why they are called Utilities!! Skills used to adapt to a situation…

personally i think this is all down to people swapping to rez signet whilst engaging a fight. if that was the case, they should have just nerfed the signets

This gives a huge opportunity for a team to actually brainstorm and have different team comps for various situations. It just sounds like you being whiny brats because you all of a sudden don’t have everything at your disposal. It’s a team game; Learn to build around each other to get the utility spread you desire.

Also, “Let’s not even talk about teams that will be streaming, they will expose their whole gameplay cause of the simple fact of streaming their utilities. Is this even acceptable?!” actually made me laugh out loud. If your whole gameplay is to play the same class and same build every match, then you and your team are nowhere close to being “pro players”.

I do not consider it skill to swap to a weapon to use swiftness and making your decision to avoid mobility in your build a non factor. I agree that you should be able to swap utilities though!

The thing is, I get where the idea is coming from.

In a lot of esports, you get a “pre-game meta” where the team picks its loadout and that loadout stays the same for the length of that round.

Like in CS, does your team upgrade straight to assault rifles, or do they save cash, go for an extra cash-generating shotgun etc. Or the league of legends pre-game meta.

Having that provides a frame of reference for the round, where you know what each player can do, and how the team as a whole has built for the upcoming game and those:

“oh-dear they decided to go glass cannon DDs, they don’t know it yet but they’re facing a lot of condition builds and they didn’t take enough condition removal, how will they deal with this….” – makes for more pre-game anticipation and conversation.

Some teams will gain a rep for example using bunker guardians, so the other team may decide before the start of the match to counter it with necros or boon removal, but no one knows for sure what the other team’s loadout is, so there is room for a lot of bluffing and double-bluffs, etc.

So wait…you’re arguing skill is actually not committing to a particular build and using it to maximum effectiveness, but is actually being able to change to the most optimal build for each situation facing minimum consequences at any given time?

Seether.7285:

I do not consider it skill to swap to a weapon to use swiftness and making your decision to avoid mobility in your build a non factor. I agree that you should be able to swap utilities though!

Yeah the utilities thing I don’t quite get although I don’t find it nearly as crippling as some drama-queens are trying to make it sound.

The gear swapping, however, to me was a great fix.

tOss.9024:

So wait…you’re arguing skill is actually not committing to a particular build and using it to maximum effectiveness, but is actually being able to change to the most optimal build for each situation facing minimum consequences at any given time?

It’s ironic, isn’t it? I was thinking the same thing.

tOss.9024:

So wait…you’re arguing skill is actually not committing to a particular build and using it to maximum effectiveness, but is actually being able to change to the most optimal build for each situation facing minimum consequences at any given time?

You aren’t changing build mid game, you have never been able to respec in ANY PvP lobby, just swapping utilities which COMPLEMENT your build depending on the situation.

BlueprintLFE.2358:

Kylex.5962:

I agree and support this thread.
I can understand the points of taking utility switch away, but cmon anet…? weapon/amulet swap also?
your slowly making your game require no brain at all to play. nothing much to say on the matter as you guys do whatever you feel is best anyway (personally i see/saw nobody complaining about this but you ninja nerf it anyway)

Utilities NEED to be able to be swapped, that’s why they are called Utilities!! Skills used to adapt to a situation…

If you play a TPVP team that you haven’t played before and you find out they are all running conditions so what now you are just screwed no way to defend yourself? This would be ok if we had more than 3 utilities slots… So we could plan accordingly

Every person should have at least 1 stun break or condition cleanse equipped. If not, you are just further promoting a bunker/burst meta? How do you not understand this concept.

MindlessRuff.1948:

tOss.9024:

So wait…you’re arguing skill is actually not committing to a particular build and using it to maximum effectiveness, but is actually being able to change to the most optimal build for each situation facing minimum consequences at any given time?

You aren’t changing build mid game, you have never been able to respec in ANY PvP lobby, just swapping utilities which COMPLEMENT your build depending on the situation.

I’m using the word build here as your entire load out. Not only the traits you selected. You were able to change trait slots,(not entirely but what you spent points in) weapons, and utilities.

Yinn.6507:

Build wars incoming. Allow weapon swaps only when all weapon skills are not under any cool-downs. No issues with amulet swapping.

Bolded. Everyone can see this. Everyone’s going to be re-evaluating their team in order to make people mesh as a unit instead of individuals.

If anything worried that certain professions will again be kicked out further because of their ability to mesh into the team as a whole when sets are fixed.

Klassic.8057:

Every person should have at least 1 stun break or condition cleanse equipped. If not, you are just further promoting a bunker/burst meta? How do you not understand this concept.

This is kind of a good point.

Locking the utilities might help force people to move away from pure bunker/burst builds, which would actually solve a lot of issues in one simple move.

xiv.7136:

Klassic.8057:

Every person should have at least 1 stun break or condition cleanse equipped. If not, you are just further promoting a bunker/burst meta? How do you not understand this concept.

This is kind of a good point.

Locking the utilities might help force people to move away from pure bunker/burst builds, which would actually solve a lot of issues in one simple move.

Exactly.

tOss.9024:

MindlessRuff.1948:

tOss.9024:

So wait…you’re arguing skill is actually not committing to a particular build and using it to maximum effectiveness, but is actually being able to change to the most optimal build for each situation facing minimum consequences at any given time?

You aren’t changing build mid game, you have never been able to respec in ANY PvP lobby, just swapping utilities which COMPLEMENT your build depending on the situation.

I’m using the word build here as your entire load out. Not only the traits you selected. You were able to change trait slots,(not entirely but what you spent points in) weapons, and utilities.

Yes I knew you could switch traits, I don’t think I did this once during a tPvP game, and that is not really my main concern.

aydenunited.5729:

The new META: Finally people are forced to make balanced builds.

Your welcome, the community asked for it, after all.

And this is why this change was most welcome. I wont be able to switch my heal based on my opponenets but its good news imo. Bag switching was lame and changing skills was lame because it meant balance builds werent required as much.

lightning combo fields just got more important.

I am glad this change was implemeted I was waiting for it, now teams are forced to play what they play instead of this “oh it’s this team switch to x,y,z”

Klassic.8057:

BlueprintLFE.2358:

Kylex.5962:

I agree and support this thread.
I can understand the points of taking utility switch away, but cmon anet…? weapon/amulet swap also?
your slowly making your game require no brain at all to play. nothing much to say on the matter as you guys do whatever you feel is best anyway (personally i see/saw nobody complaining about this but you ninja nerf it anyway)

Utilities NEED to be able to be swapped, that’s why they are called Utilities!! Skills used to adapt to a situation…

If you play a TPVP team that you haven’t played before and you find out they are all running conditions so what now you are just screwed no way to defend yourself? This would be ok if we had more than 3 utilities slots… So we could plan accordingly

Every person should have at least 1 stun break or condition cleanse equipped. If not, you are just further promoting a bunker/burst meta? How do you not understand this concept.

I do understand the concept, clearly which is why this is an issue, if a team is running 2 backstab thieves and you have 1 stun breaker you are going to be in a world of hurt. Sometimes you may need to add a stun breaker, or add another condie remover, now you can’t. This would be fine if skill alone can hard counter this, but with basilisk venom, backstab hitting hard if there are 2 thieves, and your (1) stun breaker is on cd and you can’t add or swap utilities to adapt to the situation you are just going to be a free kill.

The burst in this game has put Your survival on utilities being able to save you, now without being able to change/add utilities a lot of that has gone out of the window. You can’t survive some of this burst on skill alone, you have to have a stun breaker.

BlueprintLFE.2358:

Klassic.8057:

BlueprintLFE.2358:

Kylex.5962:

I agree and support this thread.
I can understand the points of taking utility switch away, but cmon anet…? weapon/amulet swap also?
your slowly making your game require no brain at all to play. nothing much to say on the matter as you guys do whatever you feel is best anyway (personally i see/saw nobody complaining about this but you ninja nerf it anyway)

Utilities NEED to be able to be swapped, that’s why they are called Utilities!! Skills used to adapt to a situation…

If you play a TPVP team that you haven’t played before and you find out they are all running conditions so what now you are just screwed no way to defend yourself? This would be ok if we had more than 3 utilities slots… So we could plan accordingly

Every person should have at least 1 stun break or condition cleanse equipped. If not, you are just further promoting a bunker/burst meta? How do you not understand this concept.

I do understand the concept, clearly which is why this is an issue, if a team is running 2 backstab thieves and you have 1 stun breaker you are going to be in a world of hurt. Sometimes you may need to add a stun breaker, or add another condie remover, now you can’t. This would be fine if skill alone can hard counter this, but with basilisk venom, backstab hitting hard if there are 2 thieves, and your (1) stun breaker is on cd and you can’t add or swap utilities to adapt to the situation you are just going to be a free kill.

The burst in this game has put Your survival on utilities being able to save you, now without being able to change/add utilities a lot of that has gone out of the window. You can’t survive some of this burst on skill alone, you have to have a stun breaker.

This isnt a 1v1 game, you play as a team. If your stunbreak is down you say to your ele or guardian, ‘hey I dont have a stun break I need help if someone jumps me". I don’t like the fact that people can play 2/3 rounds with one build and switch up utlities to face the 3rd team. You need to play what you play and adapt. I give anet +1 for this change.

xiv.7136:

The thing is, I get where the idea is coming from.

In a lot of esports, you get a “pre-game meta” where the team picks its loadout and that loadout stays the same for the length of that round.

Like in CS, does your team upgrade straight to assault rifles, or do they save cash, go for an extra cash-generating shotgun etc. Or the league of legends pre-game meta.

Having that provides a frame of reference for the round, where you know what each player can do, and how the team as a whole has built for the upcoming game and those:

“oh-dear they decided to go glass cannon DDs, they don’t know it yet but they’re facing a lot of condition builds and they didn’t take enough condition removal, how will they deal with this….” – makes for more pre-game anticipation and conversation.

Some teams will gain a rep for example using bunker guardians, so the other team may decide before the start of the match to counter it with necros or boon removal, but no one knows for sure what the other team’s loadout is, so there is room for a lot of bluffing and double-bluffs, etc.

Hmm ok. League’s pre-game talks is not at all oriented around which champion has buffs/debuffs/counter conditions to counter who, rather it’s usually about what’s the team’s gank plan/ map control plan/ laning phase plan / teamfight plan. Just because a player gets outplayed in lane… doesn’t mean his team will lose of course. In the GW2’s though… that is generally what happens when a bunker outplays the other team; he literally can carry the points for the team in a 5v5 match.

[cuz these Anet devs don’t care to fix the mechanics, rather they just keep on nerfing/buffing class stats].

Here’s the difference between GW2’s meta / League meta (ie. a good enough meta for Esport):
For example in League, players pretty much know that if there’s an MF on the enemy team – that player is going to be AD carry (build anything else like burst or support on a MF at a higher ELO would be absolutely foolish).

As for the counters and what not, in league of legends most counters are predictable if you can guess which lane he’s going, which is done by lane analysis and not foolish guessing games on whether Player 1,2,3,4,5 is individually either roaming, bunking, or supporting. Going back to league: If team A picks a nunu and they also picks a taric, there’s no way they’ll send taric to jungle, which means nunu has to be jungling 90% of the time (the class meta for nunu is based on his mechanics composition and not just that fact that his skills burst pretty hard, by no mean is he good enough to be the burst source for a team in teamfights). Getting back to the point: is that the type of analysis strats are what actually takes place by analysis of class/lanes/ganks/teamfights. In GW2 though, they seems to go way from this concept… because their meta is far below the solidity point of other current Esport game metas like League’s meta (there’s no solid progression like in League where it’s: Early game= laning and ganking, mid game = gold and map control, late game = teamfights that leads to winning farm/pushing the lanes for the win).

Plus with no laning or the ability of each class to progress parallel to the game clock, ultimately many types of competitive strats in League can’t be used at all in GW2 (their directions are completely different, but if that’s the case: GW2 won’t be ready for esport probably until a year from now, cuz they’re going to have to home grow their own unique RTS metas).

I like what they’re trying to do here, but it’s going to take a long time to develop (and it will only be slow down by the indeterminate attitude of the majority of PvP players who cares about their own class more than getting this game to a state with a healthy meta. GW2’s PvP meta has only pieces of components, and the core meta atm is still very unstable.

Btw you can still change utilities.

Glad they changed it,
Balanced builds and real teamwork can now finally make it’s way into the game, Instead of the sad excuse for teamwork it was before, let’s be honest here shall we?.

builds’’ Should be an entire loadout as it now is, It forces people to play balanced, and slows down the game, without forcing the game into Bunkerwars v2,

Over the past weeks since the res timer change, more and more groups have swapped to bursty setups,
Why? – because you can no longer just bunker up on a point and wait for 3 team members who died to return together.

However, eventho Bunkerwars was bad, having a meta changing THIS fast into nearly pure burst specs, regardless of how viable bunkerwars may still be to SOME teams,
Is not good for the game overall.

It has to settle somewhere inbetween, so bunkers. condis. dps and pure burst. are all viable, and nothing trumphs the other 100%.

This will help that alittle, seeing as if you go with a fully non balanced team, you get screwed instantly if you meet a team that counters.
Where as, if you had played balanced, you could’ve addapted if your team had the skill needed to do so, and if they’d made the right calls at the right times obviously.
in the same place you have full condi or full burst teams, if they run into a balanced team, then their burst wont count for anything if the team is any good.

TL;DR – Arenanet wants people to play balanced, and to think about what they bring to the party BEFOREHAND, Not pick an unbalanced spec, and rolfstomp because you can addapt to any situation through trait/utility/amulet/weaponswaps.

-1 to OP.
+1 to Anet.

@ Wakani. I agree with what you’re saying.

-1 to OP.
But even (+/-) to Anet. They should have began doing this since the beta; now it’s going to take much longer for this game’s PvP meta to solidify. Right now it is like the GW2 PVP Beta.

Eventually though, they will get a healthy meta similar to league’s team comps (ie. everyone knows to run 1 support and 1 farming carry in a lane, and distribute the tank & burst in the other 2 solo lanes with of course one jungler; the rest of the game can then be focused on player builds/teamwork/map wareness/etc). That’s type of standard team comp represents a solid meta, while at this point GW2’s meta is still pretty much unsure about how they want players to play competitive pvp.

@ Wakani. I agree with
-2 to OP.
We for sure need some change on meta game, now let’s what gonna happen.

All this talk about “adaptation” but what anet is saying is you need to “adapt” BEFORE the match starts. Is it more of a challenge? Yes. But we want this to be competitive right?

Example:

I run a burst d/d thief roamer, but many a second round match has been decided just because I had this option. I keep 2 bleed length% sigil daggers and a full carrion neck in my bags. Sometime in the early part of a match someone takes down a gate and returns to fighting on the points. Then later in the match the rest of my team pressures the other team while I go to the lord, swap into condition gear, make a few utility adjustments and then procede to SOLO the lord. (quite easily i might add)

No full glass cannon burst thief should be able to do this, but because I had the ability to completely change my char during the match I am able to fulfill this role. And then when im done switch back into my optimized roamer self again.

Now, if the team wanted to have this benefit I would instead have to gear full condition and play with it the ENTIRE time. You should have to make a decision, not have the best of both worlds all the time.

This encourages ppl to actually think and choose different builds and setups.

To be honest Danto, this is pretty much Exactly what you and the rest of the “top players” said about the new ress-timers. You raged, claimed the competitive scene dead etc for a week or so, then you all magically turned around and ended up praising it in the GW2guru broadcast with Jonathan Sharp.

So forgive me if I don’t lay much trust in your sheer theorycrafting conclusions and early hand experience. And no, I don’t consider you top players having the right and obligation to decide what changes/balances will be done. You are allowed your opinion and due to the amount of time you spend in competitive (eh, as close to competitive as one can get with barely any ptPvP community) PvP you might more often than not be on the right track of things, but that does not make your opinion the rule of which to follow.

Just want to end my rather harsh post by saying that I think some of you top players seems like nice guys, and surely are good players. Better than me by a far stretch. But I am getting fed up with this “we top players” talk.. GW2’s top players just seem to fall short in my eyes. Out of all the e-sports/really competitive games I’ve played I must say that GW2’s top players is amongst the most arrogant and inflated ones. Take it down a notch please. I don’t mind hearing your opinion, just the part about how it is your divine right by playtime/experience to decide the development of the game.

TL;DR: No offense but get down from that horse of yours, chillax a bit before making rash doom conclusions. Also, this might be a balance for the worse, I am yet to decide my opinion on it. Although I really see where Anet wants to go with this. And I think the ramifications you mention is a bit on the extreme.

Excellent change, if you dont like it leave.

Damn euros, they never wanna get out of their comfort zone. Still stuck in the pre-nov15 patch meta lol

I like this change.

I like res timers and I like no weapon changing.

Payneful.7934:

I like this change.

i play A LOT of paids and i assumed they wanted to do this from the start. doesnt bother me or any of JBUO for that matter.

<3

Rythgar.2896:

To be honest Danto, this is pretty much Exactly what you and the rest of the “top players” said about the new ress-timers. You raged, claimed the competitive scene dead etc for a week or so, then you all magically turned around and ended up praising it in the GW2guru broadcast with Jonathan Sharp.

So forgive me if I don’t lay much trust in your sheer theorycrafting conclusions and early hand experience. And no, I don’t consider you top players having the right and obligation to decide what changes/balances will be done. You are allowed your opinion and due to the amount of time you spend in competitive (eh, as close to competitive as one can get with barely any ptPvP community) PvP you might more often than not be on the right track of things, but that does not make your opinion the rule of which to follow.

Just want to end my rather harsh post by saying that I think some of you top players seems like nice guys, and surely are good players. Better than me by a far stretch. But I am getting fed up with this “we top players” talk.. GW2’s top players just seem to fall short in my eyes. Out of all the e-sports/really competitive games I’ve played I must say that GW2’s top players is amongst the most arrogant and inflated ones. Take it down a notch please. I don’t mind hearing your opinion, just the part about how it is your divine right by playtime/experience to decide the development of the game.

TL;DR: No offense but get down from that horse of yours, chillax a bit before making rash doom conclusions. Also, this might be a balance for the worse, I am yet to decide my opinion on it. Although I really see where Anet wants to go with this. And I think the ramifications you mention is a bit on the extreme.

1. There was no rage from any of us about the timers. The only thing we wanted to point out was that it would make it a lot harder for newer players to get into the game without spawn waves, which is true.
2. This new feature will severely damage the PvP streamers and their teams.
3. This feature will prevent any “big plays” scenarios, which are partially what fans would be attracted to.
4. The game will become a lot more boring, to play and to watch.
5. There is an inbalance with and without this feature, but the gains from not having this feature are better than having it. For some professions it’s a good thing, for some other it isn’t in both cases.
6. Nobody is on a high horse here, we are just very alarmed.

You mean players need to make choices and deal with the tradeoffs?

I like it.

Danto.6748:

Rythgar.2896:

To be honest Danto, this is pretty much Exactly what you and the rest of the “top players” said about the new ress-timers. You raged, claimed the competitive scene dead etc for a week or so, then you all magically turned around and ended up praising it in the GW2guru broadcast with Jonathan Sharp.

So forgive me if I don’t lay much trust in your sheer theorycrafting conclusions and early hand experience. And no, I don’t consider you top players having the right and obligation to decide what changes/balances will be done. You are allowed your opinion and due to the amount of time you spend in competitive (eh, as close to competitive as one can get with barely any ptPvP community) PvP you might more often than not be on the right track of things, but that does not make your opinion the rule of which to follow.

Just want to end my rather harsh post by saying that I think some of you top players seems like nice guys, and surely are good players. Better than me by a far stretch. But I am getting fed up with this “we top players” talk.. GW2’s top players just seem to fall short in my eyes. Out of all the e-sports/really competitive games I’ve played I must say that GW2’s top players is amongst the most arrogant and inflated ones. Take it down a notch please. I don’t mind hearing your opinion, just the part about how it is your divine right by playtime/experience to decide the development of the game.

TL;DR: No offense but get down from that horse of yours, chillax a bit before making rash doom conclusions. Also, this might be a balance for the worse, I am yet to decide my opinion on it. Although I really see where Anet wants to go with this. And I think the ramifications you mention is a bit on the extreme.

1. There was no rage from any of us about the timers. The only thing we wanted to point out was that it would make it a lot harder for newer players to get into the game without spawn waves, which is true.
2. This new feature will severely damage the PvP streamers and their teams.
3. This feature will prevent any “big plays” scenarios, which are partially what fans would be attracted to.
4. The game will become a lot more boring, to play and to watch.
5. There is an inbalance with and without this feature, but the gains from not having this feature are better than having it. For some professions it’s a good thing, for some other it isn’t in both cases.
6. Nobody is on a high horse here, we are just very alarmed.

I watch your stream/ i play paid turnies/ top 30 Na mesmer/ i switched for speed buff/ i switched neck to tank on my point. The thing is that this forces teams to make a balanced team! and this is good now you cant just switch a necklace or weapons so you can completely counter a persons build that’s not right.

I think Anet made the right decision on this one. Also this will help new players more than veterans. Veterans should not be complaining right now there is still alot of things to do to save your team from losing a game. As far as utility swapping is concerned you can still swap skills. Guess what it’s not only your team that cannot swap anything its the enemy team too so it’s an even game in my eyes. I welcome this change.

A-NET veryyyyyyyyy good decision on your part. Now teams have to criticaly think their strategy and team comp rather than going in there and switching gear/skills to beat the opponent.

I am with danto on this one, this change will only benefit low rate pvp players that lack the skill to adapt to situations by changing weapons/utilities , games will simply become slow and boring, and most likely decided in the first battle , no comeback possibility, whoever got the counter build wins.
and who the hell would want to watch “esport” that is slow,boring, and decided in the first 2minutes?

Op is wrong. Build locking is a good thing.

Some build side decking might be good, but that can be added later on, after weve played with the lockout for a while

Jony.9041:

I am with danto on this one, this change will only benefit low rate pvp players that lack the skill to adapt to situations by changing weapons/utilities , games will simply become slow and boring, and most likely decided in the first battle , no comeback possibility, whoever got the counter build wins.
and who the hell would want to watch “esport” that is slow,boring, and decided in the first 2minutes?

Right.. it takes a god to recognize a kitten ton of AOE condi and double click to swap utilities, right.. I must be a god at pressing “4” for swiftness buff too

Danto.6748:

1. There was no rage from any of us about the timers. The only thing we wanted to point out was that it would make it a lot harder for newer players to get into the game without spawn waves, which is true.
2. This new feature will severely damage the PvP streamers and their teams.
3. This feature will prevent any “big plays” scenarios, which are partially what fans would be attracted to.
4. The game will become a lot more boring, to play and to watch.
5. There is an inbalance with and without this feature, but the gains from not having this feature are better than having it. For some professions it’s a good thing, for some other it isn’t in both cases.
6. Nobody is on a high horse here, we are just very alarmed.

Case in point, a player as I described would pretty much respond the exact same way you did.
1: Raging might have been a bad choice of word, but you “top players” cried out, loud! Claiming it would ruin the game, and oh how wrong you were. The only ones experiencing problems with ress timers are the teams still stuck on the pre-patch meta setup.
2: So, don’t stream? It’s not like you get a lot of viewers any ways.. You talk a lot about that e-sports has to be fun to watch. And I just can’t see the fun in watching you practice day out and day in. The things worth to watch would be tournaments/show matches.
3: Big plays? Do you mean zergs? I personally so much more prefer to watch a good 1vs1. Or a team outsmarting the other team. Besides, with the ability to swap abilities, traits and weapons constantly (while out of combat granted) it would be so incredibly much harder for a viewer to follow the matches. Would be a mess to try to keep up with the teams constantly changing tactics and setup.
4: More boring to watch? No I doubt it, since people actually will be able to try to analyze the matches, follow with the tactics and setups this way.. More boring to play? So the fun for you is to run around trying to predict what your enemy changed for abilities/traits so you can change yourself, to try and counter it? Yeah..sounds fun and not at all random.
5: You just mentioned like one of the most fundamental physical laws..There is always two sides to one coin. Of course there is pros and cons with every feature, and this one might very well be very con heavy with you “top players” current meta. Granted there might be a scenario where we can’t find a balanced meta with this change either. Haven’t even touched the game last weeks so can’t speak too much about the change yet.
6: How can you be alarmed about a change before you, the community and the game have had a chance to adapt? Step outside of the box (which you yourself ((top players)) claim you are so good at doing..) and change up the meta and adapt your setups to it.

And the whole argument “Oh with this change you will have to sacrifice something, like mobility for burst or survivability for mobility etc.” is just so hilarious. It’s being used like that is not how it should be! Of course you should have to sacrifice certain things for some things. I personally was bored with the tedious work with changing weapons/traits just to try to get that extra swiftness or the small advantage a trait change gave you in a certain encounter/map etc.

Rythgar.2896:

So forgive me if I don’t lay much trust in your sheer theorycrafting conclusions and early hand experience. And no, I don’t consider you top players having the right and obligation to decide what changes/balances will be done. You are allowed your opinion and due to the amount of time you spend in competitive (eh, as close to competitive as one can get with barely any ptPvP community) PvP you might more often than not be on the right track of things, but that does not make your opinion the rule of which to follow.

Just want to end my rather harsh post by saying that I think some of you top players seems like nice guys, and surely are good players. Better than me by a far stretch. But I am getting fed up with this “we top players” talk.. GW2’s top players just seem to fall short in my eyes. Out of all the e-sports/really competitive games I’ve played I must say that GW2’s top players is amongst the most arrogant and inflated ones. Take it down a notch please. I don’t mind hearing your opinion, just the part about how it is your divine right by playtime/experience to decide the development of the game.

^
Quoted for mother kitten truth! Well said.

Also I actually like this change as I’ve been getting the short end of the stick through most of the game because I try to design a balanced build every time and yet the old/current meta only punished balanced builds and rewarded extreme bunkers or extreme bursts with no middle ground.

i agree with the decision. it brings in the unpredictability factor, something that tpvp has not had. once you commit to a build, you have to make it work, period. constant switching was just silly. so if one team decides to do something out of the ordinary, and they pull it off well, why should the other team have the capability to directly counter that almost instantly? this change will encourage planning and organizing before a match. and as poster above me said, it encourages balanced builds that can adapt to different situations.

if this change kills tpvp as we know it (it wont), then all the better.

Rythgar.2896:

Danto.6748:

1. There was no rage from any of us about the timers. The only thing we wanted to point out was that it would make it a lot harder for newer players to get into the game without spawn waves, which is true.
2. This new feature will severely damage the PvP streamers and their teams.
3. This feature will prevent any “big plays” scenarios, which are partially what fans would be attracted to.
4. The game will become a lot more boring, to play and to watch.
5. There is an inbalance with and without this feature, but the gains from not having this feature are better than having it. For some professions it’s a good thing, for some other it isn’t in both cases.
6. Nobody is on a high horse here, we are just very alarmed.

Case in point, a player as I described would pretty much respond the exact same way you did.
1: Raging might have been a bad choice of word, but you “top players” cried out, loud! Claiming it would ruin the game, and oh how wrong you were. The only ones experiencing problems with ress timers are the teams still stuck on the pre-patch meta setup.
2: So, don’t stream? It’s not like you get a lot of viewers any ways.. You talk a lot about that e-sports has to be fun to watch. And I just can’t see the fun in watching you practice day out and day in. The things worth to watch would be tournaments/show matches.
3: Big plays? Do you mean zergs? I personally so much more prefer to watch a good 1vs1. Or a team outsmarting the other team. Besides, with the ability to swap abilities, traits and weapons constantly (while out of combat granted) it would be so incredibly much harder for a viewer to follow the matches. Would be a mess to try to keep up with the teams constantly changing tactics and setup.
4: More boring to watch? No I doubt it, since people actually will be able to try to analyze the matches, follow with the tactics and setups this way.. More boring to play? So the fun for you is to run around trying to predict what your enemy changed for abilities/traits so you can change yourself, to try and counter it? Yeah..sounds fun and not at all random.
5: You just mentioned like one of the most fundamental physical laws..There is always two sides to one coin. Of course there is pros and cons with every feature, and this one might very well be very con heavy with you “top players” current meta. Granted there might be a scenario where we can’t find a balanced meta with this change either. Haven’t even touched the game last weeks so can’t speak too much about the change yet.
6: How can you be alarmed about a change before you, the community and the game have had a chance to adapt? Step outside of the box (which you yourself ((top players)) claim you are so good at doing..) and change up the meta and adapt your setups to it.

And the whole argument “Oh with this change you will have to sacrifice something, like mobility for burst or survivability for mobility etc.” is just so hilarious. It’s being used like that is not how it should be! Of course you should have to sacrifice certain things for some things. I personally was bored with the tedious work with changing weapons/traits just to try to get that extra swiftness or the small advantage a trait change gave you in a certain encounter/map etc.

You just have no idea of how games are going to be played now. The game will be a HUGE snowball where one team will dominate the other just cause they counter picked. The fun in not having this feature was that games could evolve constantly and you always had to expect something different.

Also, to quote someone: Balanced builds were actually more popular than “extreme bunker” or “extreme burst” builds. Talking in general.

Example of a “big play” that the fans would love to see: mesmers switches to focus for speed, gets blink to move even faster, get illusion of life with portal, resses a dead guy from another point and portals him away to the mesmer’s orginal point while the mesmer takes the guy’s place. Stuff like that you can’t do anymore. The guy will die and the mesmer will stay AFK on his point waiting to get snowballed. This is an example only.

I personally think that this feature will cut off a lot of creativity from the gameplay, but whatever, I’m not here to dictate how this game should be ran. I’m just sharing a common feeling amongst some of us.

We are all here to play this game because we like it and we believe in it.

nerva.7940:

i agree with the decision. it brings in the unpredictability factor, something that tpvp has not had. once you commit to a build, you have to make it work, period. constant switching was just silly. so if one team decides to do something out of the ordinary, and they pull it off well, why should the other team have the capability to directly counter that almost instantly? this change will encourage planning and organizing before a match. and as poster above me said, it encourages balanced builds that can adapt to different situations.

if this change kills tpvp as we know it (it wont), then all the better.

So you are saying that one team managed to do a good cheese start and therefore should automatically win because of that? You are saying that the other team should just lose (even tho they might be even better) just because they got cheesed? No comeback scenarios? No evolving gameplay?

God.. posts like these make me so damn sad..