Guild Wars 2

Daays.4317:

bettadenu.5483:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Just wanted to jump in and say that I’m reading this thread and taking it all in. Keep it civil (don’t get yourselves banned! ) and let those ideas flow.

I know some of you are upset with the change, but really, this is something we were planning for a while. WE MAY NOT LOCK DOWN utilities down the road, so that you can still have some adjustment when out of combat, but at the same time, we do not think weapon swapping mid-match is good for the overall health of the game. Just wanted to remind you we are here, and I am watching the forums, and your ideas are being heard.

Keep it constructive (and really, overall you guys are doing a FANTASTIC JOB OF THIS!), and carry on!

Best update ever, I believe that you should go in with a fixed build as a team. And not suddenly change all that when out of combat.

It’s like playing rock, paper, scissors: you shake and then say i’m picking rock but you realize that the other person chose paper and you then suddenly switch to scissors.

So good implementation, people just have to deal with it that it wasn’t fair

Awful logic.

Assume A>B>C>A

If I run A and they run B, we wipe them, they could come back with C. Who’s to say we don’t swap to B? To finish your analogy, they see you swap to scissors and go rock.

You look at is as only one side can change things. Both sides can. It was the benefit of building traits that could be interchanged at a moments notice and change up your play style.

Limiting options is never a good idea. Ever. There are far too many key buffs required and too few of weapon sets to provide them. Not to mention completely useless weapon sets. All that’s been done is forced people into key weapon sets/utilities, and anything that isn’t perfect is tossed aside.

If this was a good change. If “less is more”, then remove weapon swapping all together. You can only play with one set. Can only be a GS warrior. A staff mesmer. A shortbow thief.

Sad to check in on GW2, still see no infrastructure, balance changes for whatever reason, and now no trait/weapon swapping.

I thought it was pretty good logic, ofcourse it works both ways i’m just making a point and you’re quoting it just to make a post.

When you represent a team in higher end PvP, you should be limited to change WHILE IN A MATCH.

Different weapon sets provide different kind of playstyles, that’s why you should think of what you pick beforehand and make a strategy using those weapons.
To me this entire thread comes off as ‘’I can’t change my stats anymore during a match so I can get the upperhand rather than tactically think on a counter’’

I didn’t read through all the posts (don’t have a lot of time on my hands during the holiday season), but I wanted to throw my hat in the ring.

Simply put I think locking traits, and preventing folks from logging out into different classes is a good change. However, I think letting us change weapons, utilities and elites during the match out of combat should remain. If traits are locked, then potentially switching weapons and/or utilities isn’t as big of a deal and can even be a handicap if switch and get caught into combat before I can switch back (not likely, but possible). I don’t just switch weapons and traits for speed, but I also change my elite around on some of the classes I play based on the situation I think I’ll be heading into (easy example is I’ll change back and forth from my Golem and Plague form on my Necro whether I want the extra damage/control or I think helping to blind spam a point for my team will help more).

I should state my opinion would come based on free tournaments as I don’t do paids, and may never. If it’s a change for the better for paids then so be it.

I skipped a bunch of stuff. But let me say that one of the main arguments is that this will hurt streamers. Do you forget that ALL high level pvp matches were streamed (in a fashion) in GW1? Granted, it wasn’t real time but that is something you will have to make decisions about.

My point is that all top pvp was viewable by the entire player base if they chose to watch it. You had a reasonable idea of what the teams you were likely to face were going to be running. The top teams didn’t win by secret, they won because they knew what they were doing, build-wise, team-wise, strategy-wise. Everything was built to work together and cover as many voids as possible (short of gimmick builds).

Builds were set when you went into a match, you had to adapt within a set of pre-determined conditions to win. And the best did. Right now, you can freely change from one gimmick to another to abuse whatever combination is more op. In the long run, freezing builds like they did will be a better place for GW2 gameplay, especially if there is an esport future.

Hockmed.9417:

I skipped a bunch of stuff. But let me say that one of the main arguments is that this will hurt streamers. Do you forget that ALL high level pvp matches were streamed (in a fashion) in GW1? Granted, it wasn’t real time but that is something you will have to make decisions about.

My point is that all top pvp was viewable by the entire player base if they chose to watch it. You had a reasonable idea of what the teams you were likely to face were going to be running. The top teams didn’t win by secret, they won because they knew what they were doing, build-wise, team-wise, strategy-wise. Everything was built to work together and cover as many voids as possible (short of gimmick builds).

Builds were set when you went into a match, you had to adapt within a set of pre-determined conditions to win. And the best did. Right now, you can freely change from one gimmick to another to abuse whatever combination is more op. In the long run, freezing builds like they did will be a better place for GW2 gameplay, especially if there is an esport future.

fully agree with you.

The only difference in this case is that in GW1 we had the choice of 8 skills… while in GW2 we are limited by weapons and only few utility skills and traits.
Even it looks better on paper, reality is that i had much more options in GW1.. but thats a different story..

Grimpaw.7493:

I like the idea of utility swapping, even if it has a further drawback such as adding an additional 5(?) second initial cooldown to an ability that was just swapped in.

As well I think weapon swapping would be fine only inside the starting “bases” (and after a death) so that if things really aren’t working for your team and your utility adjustments can’t cover it there is still a chance for a comeback using different weapons.

Trait, armor, amulet, etc swapping just isn’t visible enough to your opponent (or spectators) and I like a stronger fixed/build meta.

Your sir have a real point. +1

Hockmed.9417:

My point is that all top pvp was viewable by the entire player base if they chose to watch it. You had a reasonable idea of what the teams you were likely to face were going to be running. The top teams didn’t win by secret, they won because they knew what they were doing, build-wise, team-wise, strategy-wise. Everything was built to work together and cover as many voids as possible (short of gimmick builds).

stick this statement please anet. and force users to read it everytime they log in “structured PvP” section.
thx

I don’t really understand how people can say “there aren’t enough viable options, so this really hurts gameplay”.

If the current mechanic of menu switching weapons/armor/traits/utilities is giving the illusion of options, isn’t the current state of the game a band-aid? Why wouldn’t we remove the band-aid and address the infection itself to the benefit of the game’s health?

bettadenu.5483:

I thought it was pretty good logic, ofcourse it works both ways i’m just making a point and you’re quoting it just to make a post.

When you represent a team in higher end PvP, you should be limited to change WHILE IN A MATCH.

Different weapon sets provide different kind of playstyles, that’s why you should think of what you pick beforehand and make a strategy using those weapons.
To me this entire thread comes off as ‘’I can’t change my stats anymore during a match so I can get the upperhand rather than tactically think on a counter’’

Once again, you can’t swap to gain the upper hand if the other team can swap as well.

Please, try and understand this.

The title states no weapon swapping, so that is all that I will address. I’ve grown accustomed to it now, but as a guardian, being able to sub in staff for swiftness was essential for playing a support role. I feel so constrained without being able to do so. However, there is a risk in doing so. Getting caught and drawn in to combat with the wrong weapons equipped almost guarantees defeat. The same can be said regarding utility and elite skills. Getting caught or stuck with the wrong spells could essentially have a negative impact. Micromanagement of this sort added a competitive element to the game, and made it more enjoyable.

JonathanSharp.7094:

…. WE MAY NOT LOCK DOWN utilities down the road, so that you can still have some adjustment when out of combat….

BAD idea. As a bare minimum utility must go into cool-down upon swap.
Just think this simplistic scenario:
Bunker ele defending home point. He equips his utility bar with stun breakers in order to counter CC from burst thief or warrior.
He gets informed that fight is not going well at mid point they will be going down soon. So he quickly rides the lightning and ‘burning speed’ while swapping his stun break for 165s cooldown glyph of renewal to provide his team with super powerful situational ability.
Simply NO….he should really either provide resurect to the group and sacrifice his tanking OR the other way around. He should NOT excel at both (provide resurect on demand and have stunbreaks available when bunkering on home point).
And yes, this promotes skill: now he will have to dodge warrior’s stun, or get 100bladed if he cannot (which will promote his learning 2 play).
So, at minimum, when he swaps to resurrect, it should go into coool-down so he cannot use it immediately.

To ppl saying how this change promotes ‘build wars’:
What do you call constantly swapping builds (weapon sets) in the middle of the match. Oh, he has A, so I will use B to counter him, at which point B will disengage and switch to C to counter me etc. Simply nonsense! This promotes people being mediocre at all possible builds and constantly swapping to counter enemy’s build, rather than excelling at few chosen builds and learning how to maximize their use.

Cooldown on swap seems like a good idea Mufa, that would general balance with the power of the utility. Probably with a minimum cooldown of X seconds for things like signets with passives, etc.

Daays.4317:

bettadenu.5483:

I thought it was pretty good logic, ofcourse it works both ways i’m just making a point and you’re quoting it just to make a post.

When you represent a team in higher end PvP, you should be limited to change WHILE IN A MATCH.

Different weapon sets provide different kind of playstyles, that’s why you should think of what you pick beforehand and make a strategy using those weapons.
To me this entire thread comes off as ‘’I can’t change my stats anymore during a match so I can get the upperhand rather than tactically think on a counter’’

Once again, you can’t swap to gain the upper hand if the other team can swap as well.

Please, try and understand this.

Not in combat but you can before hand just by paying attention to whatever intel you can get on the other team. And sure they do it too, but if they want to counter your swap, they’re going to need to predict what you’re swapping to and when you’re swapping.
Locking people into builds gives them clear limits, and when they reach those limitations, they can either roll over and die or get creative with whatever resources are around. I think it’s more interesting finding a new way to use what you do have, then it is to find some way duck out and switch to something optimal, and the person who figure out the new tactic will be more skill with their build as a result.

Mufa.1326:

To ppl saying how this change promotes ‘build wars’:
What do you call constantly swapping builds (weapon sets) in the middle of the match. Oh, he has A, so I will use B to counter him, at which point B will disengage and switch to C to counter me etc. Simply nonsense! This promotes people being mediocre at all possible builds and constantly swapping to counter enemy’s build, rather than excelling at few chosen builds and learning how to maximize their use.

GW2 isn’t as you described.

A>B>C>A

By being able to constantly swap between weapons/armor and creating a trait setup that is versatile, you allow people to play off the cuff and adapt.

All this does it turn the game into a crappy version rock, paper, scissors.

Because in RPS, you can choose to throw anything. Imagine how fun RPS would be if you could only throw rock. Every. Single. Time.

Removing choice is always, always, always a bad idea. It dumbs down game play and promotes hard counters.

Being versatile is never a bad thing in any game.

Daays.4317:

Being versatile is never a bad thing in any game.

Exactly, and now you have to more aptly consider your role within a team build and the effect it is going to have on the outcome of the match. Players are going to need to plan their team builds to a more extensive degree rather than just saying “Okay you go trap ranger.” Players are going to need to consider all of the options and interactions to get the most of their team, provided the teamwork is there to support such interactions.

Playing the game with different menus open is not fun. I do not like playing with my backpack open, the hero menu and alternating my traits. Extreme build-warsing is a barrier to entry to competitive PvP that should not exist – no one wants to watch you change your build every other minute in a match (with both teams doing it). Being able to change nearly your entire build on the fly only promotes extreme build wars and creates an environment that is inherently less team oriented – not enough attention is paid to covering the weaknesses of your teammates.

If you want to be able to swap anything mid-match, then there should be hero templates so I can just change my entire build in less than a second – rather than arduously going through each trait that I want to change. At least then I wouldn’t have to watch menu wars during streams.

Adaptation: switching to A to counter B, until enemy switches to C to counter A, at which point switching to B to counter C, until enemy switches to A to counter B, at which point switching to C to counter A, until enemy switches to B to counter C, at which point (GOTO :Adaptation).

This is what we want to happen in pro matches, yes?

Cogbyrn.7283:

Adaptation: switching to A to counter B, until enemy switches to C to counter A, at which point switching to B to counter C, until enemy switches to A to counter B, at which point switching to C to counter A, until enemy switches to B to counter C, at which point (GOTO :Adaptation).

This is what we want to happen in pro matches, yes?

No.
I know i speak for alot of people (altho not everyone obviously), when i say.

I want to see team’s Overcome obstacles, countercomps, and enemy strategies, by OUTPLAYING them, not by Outbuilding them on-the-fly.

If i tune into a stream, or in the future, the live observer mode, to watch a certain team play, i want to see them overcome their enemies by splitting differently, thinking out of the box, making plays, baiting strats – And so on, you get the point.

I don’t personaly have a problem like some does ,with wathcing people’s menu’s popping up all the time, thats not the issue.

The issue is that changing mid-game, is NOT being skilled, Changing your strategy (as a team), and outplaying your oponents, THAT is being skilled. and that is what i want to see. and what i know many others want to see.

Not even close, cogbyrn.

The only change is that we don’t do utility swap situaitonal moves and that we sit on our core weapons all game without ever doing any swap tricks (be it swiftness or for some cc or whatever)

Just like I said before, the only real change I did is that I now sit on focus instead of pistol. Our necro/guard has no swiftness at all and we cant stack swiftness outside of combat.

Not as many interesting options, NOTHING else, that’s all.

Havent had a single loss either in paids since the change, so I suppose the idea that all the top players that just ‘’cheated by countering the enemy team’’(wat) was wrong aswell, just like we said.

So in the end we are left off with the game having less versitility/options and that’s all.

Here are a list of things that our team sometimes did as interesting trick plays which will never happen again unless arenanet unlocks utility/weapon sets:

1. We know where the enemy is coming, thief swaps to shadow refuge, refuge+mightstack up and intercept them
2. We lost mid on legacy, the enemy has 2 point. One of our plays was that we put smokebomb, stacked 15s invis in base and put portal on enemy close, we then attacked mid and when they got to mid we portaled to their close. Is this uncounterable? No, their mesmer portals their close and then port back the allies and it’s a standard teamfight – this is just a tactic to have a comeback chance on a map where it’s nigh impossible to do so.

Here is a scenario which happened shortly before the change:
3. Our ele is dying on the treb, I’m on close. I portal close and rush to him, swapping mirror images to blink and nullfield to illusion of life. I manage to get to him and do the illusion of life JUST before he gets stomped and then I open my portal, the ele enters the portal in the illusion of life and died on close where I could easily rez him.

You guys keep saying ‘’all you do is swiftness and now you have to make balanced builds’’ and ‘’now you cant instantly counter enemy team by outbuilding them in the middle of the game’’

Neither of these were ever the case, ever. It’s a misinformed opinion (which is reasonable to have without experience) that people voiced and harassed arenanet about which lead to this change which surely is NOT good for the highest of competitive play.

Regardless, this is the change we are stuck with now. I find it unfortunate, many top players do. Not because we’ll stop winning but because there were so many trick plays, tactics and cool ideas you could do with these.

Grimpaw.7493:

Cooldown on swap seems like a good idea Mufa, that would general balance with the power of the utility. Probably with a minimum cooldown of X seconds for things like signets with passives, etc.

This is what I think:
1. The best idea is to block it completely. There is simply no need to give this optionality. Some classes which have too many useful utilities (both 1v1 and group) and easily switch from one role to the other on the fly.
2. If they do not completely block it, then it should be heavily penalized: Whenever the swap is done, the new utility on the bar should be put on immediate cooldown and I would also add increased cooldown time penalty on all utilities (like X% increase cooldown times on everything for each swapped utility for that match). This penalty would keep accumulating, as to prevent many swaps and as to prevent swapping back and forth. This would act pretty much as #1 (with large % penalty) but may warrant one or two swaps in a match in extreme cases.
3. Bare minimum is to put the newly swapped-in utility to (complete) cool-down as stated above.

Daays.4317:

Mufa.1326:

To ppl saying how this change promotes ‘build wars’:
What do you call constantly swapping builds (weapon sets) in the middle of the match. Oh, he has A, so I will use B to counter him, at which point B will disengage and switch to C to counter me etc. Simply nonsense! This promotes people being mediocre at all possible builds and constantly swapping to counter enemy’s build, rather than excelling at few chosen builds and learning how to maximize their use.

GW2 isn’t as you described.

A>B>C>A

By being able to constantly swap between weapons/armor and creating a trait setup that is versatile, you allow people to play off the cuff and adapt.

All this does it turn the game into a crappy version rock, paper, scissors.

Because in RPS, you can choose to throw anything. Imagine how fun RPS would be if you could only throw rock. Every. Single. Time.

Removing choice is always, always, always a bad idea. It dumbs down game play and promotes hard counters.

Being versatile is never a bad thing in any game.

I completely disagree, it is exactly the controlled constraints that make things interesting.
I mentioned this on other (same topic) thread:
If your statement is correct then, in the limit, they should allow us to switch everything (traits, weapons, utilities, elites, heals, sigils, runes) at any point of time (combat no combat). They should simply let us create ‘presets’ and switch between them with one keystroke. Imagine that flexibility, one moment you are extremely tanky, the next you are pure glass…so flexible. That is maximum flexibility in this game, but it is really really really bad idea.

I also heard arguments that ‘game will be boring to watch now’. That also is not true. FPS like “quake” (excuse me for being so old) are very interesting to watch, yet they offer no variety spec wise at all. It is all in how you play one and the same character.

I also heard arguments that ‘there is no (less) room for skilled player to differentiate himself now’. That is also not true. Sorry for using quake as example again:
Quake had no spec optionality, yet very skilled player could blow up team of 8 mediocre players easily.

This extreme spec optionality ‘on the fly’ to me is equivalent of:
1. switching the deck mid game in ‘magic the gathering’ type of game.
2. asking that all figures in chess be given ‘flexibility’ to move like a queen+knight (yes, more flexible, but no, not a better game).

Oni.5429:

Regardless, this is the change we are stuck with now. I find it unfortunate, many top players do. Not because we’ll stop winning but because there were so many trick plays, tactics and cool ideas you could do with these.

But it was not fun, clunky and CHEESE (I did it myself) as well as it was diminishing the planning/build creation part.

It feels more like Guild Wars 1 now. I like Guild Wars 1. I like the change.

Thank God there is no going back.

Thank you for your understanding.

I do not remember ever seeing a thread complaining about the weapon or utility swapping in tournaments, so I can’t agree with the majority here stating that massive QQ caused the change. The change happened and surprised most, if not all, of the community. Perhaps I’m not as active on these forums as others but I watch much of this and have not noticed what many of the players here have noticed, rightly so as I’m not on a team and haven’t tried to be as of yet.

I personally didn’t like the change, but neither do I think it’s unwarranted either, swapping so much each match felt like I wasn’t playing the match very fairly. Granted my opponents could change too but they’d have to know that I had changed a lot first, and because of the misinformation the correct play wasn’t available to them (since I had the advantage of them not knowing). Less is more though, the less options to change things here the more we might value the highly versatile skills and change the way we play more. Also they are more likely to be able to tune and fix the cooldowns of various abilities without having to think about whether people are going to switch back and forth between them during matches.

I would just like to remind everyone who is trying to compare this to gw1 (and trying to make it into gw1) that this is in fact called guild wars 2(2 is not 1 btw) and guild wars 1 failed as an esport.

P.S. if you like gw1 that much go play it and leave gw2, nobody is forcing you to stay here

GW failed as an esport?

GW was the precursor of e-sports, GW already had a ladder system since the start of the game, and internal tournaments were hosted, also with cash prizes.

Xilis.5647:

I would just like to remind everyone who is trying to compare this to gw1 (and trying to make it into gw1) that this is in fact called guild wars 2(2 is not 1 btw) and guild wars 1 failed as an esport.

P.S. if you like gw1 that much go play it and leave gw2, nobody is forcing you to stay here

Numerous fails in one post, well, I see it is possible.

First of all, I didn’t compare anything, just stated the fact, that the change reminds me of GW1. It is an opinion.

Secondly, I never said I want it to be like GW1.

Also, I have every right to say that I want it to be as awesome as GW1. Your argument of ‘it is GW2, not GW1’ is the invalid one. This is a different game, but what’s wrong with chasing the ideal?

Finally, GW1 existed in times when the only ‘e-sport’ was Starcraft. GW1 back then was an immensely engaging game with insanely well designed PvP. It didn’t even make an attempt at being an ‘e-sport’. In these years though, it would be an awesome one.

I believe you never touched GW1 and dare to speak in this popular ‘leave, no one’s forcing you to stay’ manner. Shame.

GW1 may never have been a part of any major (inter)national tournaments, but as far as I can tell, it never tried. I just built its systems and was pursued strongly by those who decided to become a part of it.

If anything, the intensity of the following behind GW1 is a quality to be admired. Striving to push a game to be some modern day idea of an e-sport is all well and good, but to be quite honest, there are more measures to success than “#1 ranked/played video game e-sport in the world”.

I dont think you should be able to change weapon are traits.

However, they need to unlock utilities.

Hi. My first post.

This seems to be an issue thats really divided the community based on the way each side is posting. And both sides seem to be making some valid points. I think the way out is to stop thinking of this as an entirely either/or situation and recognize some room for compromise.

1 Gentlemen compared swapping out abilities to swapping out cards in a magic tourny. But of course you can do this. its called a side board. And it adds to the meta immensly.
But you cant swap cards out mid game.

Its lame to watch the Ui open up constantly in esports, and its frustrating to play like this, at least for me. And its annoying to carry so much extra stuff.

What i would recommend is a respawn ‘starting area’. Before you exit the starting area you can change things. When you true die and respawn then you can swap weapons/utilities If you find a need to adapt before exiting the starting area to rejoin the match. Im not sure about also allowing armor/amulet swap. But probably.

However, while on the match board outside the starting area no changes permitted. Even while out of combat in the map you cant swap.

This position has the advantage of being a compromise between both sides.

It functions somewhat like the sideboard in magic.

=)

This is the best change they ever made to the PvP in this game.

daydream.2938:

Hi. My first post.

This seems to be an issue thats really divided the community based on the way each side is posting. And both sides seem to be making some valid points. I think the way out is to stop thinking of this as an entirely either/or situation and recognize some room for compromise.

1 Gentlemen compared swapping out abilities to swapping out cards in a magic tourny. But of course you can do this. its called a side board. And it adds to the meta immensly.
But you cant swap cards out mid game.

Its lame to watch the Ui open up constantly in esports, and its frustrating to play like this, at least for me. And its annoying to carry so much extra stuff.

What i would recommend is a respawn ‘starting area’. Before you exit the starting area you can change things. When you true die and respawn then you can swap weapons/utilities If you find a need to adapt before exiting the starting area to rejoin the match. Im not sure about also allowing armor/amulet swap. But probably.

However, while on the match board outside the starting area no changes permitted. Even while out of combat in the map you cant swap.

This position has the advantage of being a compromise between both sides.

It functions somewhat like the sideboard in magic.

=)

No. Again it leads into inside-the-match build wars. Oh, we just got wiped on this setup. Let us try something else…etc.

If you bring an extreme setup into the match where you seek to easily destroy people based on specializing in feature_A but you are at disadvantage if they specialize in feature_B, then tough luck, you deserve to be wiped, or compensate for the disadvantage with your ‘skillz’.

If you think that gap is too much for your ‘skillz’ then respec for the next time so you decrease reliance on feature_A to win, but also expose yourself to lower gap if enemy specializes in feature_B. Proceed to do so until you find some type of balance (between advantages you seek to gain, weaknesses in spec you leave open, “skills you use to compensate for your weaknesses” and “skills that allow you to seek lower spec/setup advantages to win” )

But. Dont we want matchs to be determined by skill? IM agreeing we need to restricct the ability to make changes, but allowing some change means that some matchs wont be write offs from the start because of unfairable matchups.

What about between rounds? Surely some changes should be allowed to be made then?

mmh, im actually wondering why you can’t change ur amulet,utilitties, weapons. everyone can make benefit of it and if they don’t their just not making full potentional of all the skills/weps they have. before they made this change i always changed my utilities for certain circumstances.
and i actually really want to know why arenanet put this “not able to change skills” thing.
is it because they want everyone to be equal or?
i think they should’ve just left as it is. everyone can make use of the same benefits. but if the arenanet thinks that This makes everyone equal i think their mistaken. (if that is what their goal was). because everyone is equal too if they can change skills like all others. its just taking away skill in the game in my opinion.

Okay. I was used to Elixir B for swiftness on my Engineer, then I started playing my Ranger and was swapping to horn and torch to move around the map, AND I HATED IT. I was so glad when they implemented the change, so I wouldn’t have to deal with this giant clumsy UI popping up, me finding the horn, double clicking, using the 5 ability, then clicking on my torch to get it back on, all while running to a point. I FELT LIKE I WAS PERSONALLY CCing MYSELF.

If ANet is going to implement this, they better do it right. Give us a 2nd weapon swap keybind that can only be used outside of combat, or DON’T DO IT AT ALL

Welswift.9813:

Okay. I was used to Elixir B for swiftness on my Engineer, then I started playing my Ranger and was swapping to horn and torch to move around the map, AND I HATED IT. I was so glad when they implemented the change, so I wouldn’t have to deal with this giant clumsy UI popping up, me finding the horn, double clicking, using the 5 ability, then clicking on my torch to get it back on, all while running to a point. I FELT LIKE I WAS PERSONALLY CCing MYSELF.

This is a very good point. I also used to swap weapons out of combat, but in my case I was first swapping to warhorn, using Hunter’s Call for swiftness, then swapping to Greatsword to use Swoop to finally go back to my ordinary set by swapping to axe/torch.

It was dreadful.

By restricting that, we can ensure people have to make meaningful choices.
We also save them from fighting the UI. If we left it open for swapping, people would be forced to do it.

Once again, this is a great change. Good job PvP devs.

Yeah I talk about weapon swapping in this video And also downstate.

daydream.2938:

But. Dont we want matchs to be determined by skill? IM agreeing we need to restricct the ability to make changes, but allowing some change means that some matchs wont be write offs from the start because of unfairable matchups.

What about between rounds? Surely some changes should be allowed to be made then?

They are determined by skill. Skill of using your setup to win. And skill of making the setup that best fits your play-style.
Match is a write-off only if you are bringing severely unbalanced build into the game and do not have enough skill to compensate for the gaps you left open, in that case it is a signal for you to respec or to train more.

Let us look at dummy example:
it is 1v1 dueling. You are a thief and decide you will kill enemy by stacking bleeds. You will use evasion via db to mitigate the dmg. You got 100bladed many times by glass warrior and spiked by glass thief so you decide to also carry some vitality and toughness. You carry no (or little) condition removal.
You meet another condition spec that does carry a lot of condition removals (so he can frequently clean your bleeds). It hard counters you. You need to compensate with your skill (dodge/evade his main attacks). If you cannot and you repeatedly die you have two choices:
1. Practice until you actually CAN close the counter gap with your active skill (well timed dodges, evades etc).
OR
2. sacrifice something (do less dmg, or carry less toughness or carry less vitality ) to get better condition removal. That way you do less dmg to all enemies, or you have tougher time with burst but you have easier time with condition.
It is up to you (and your team in the case of team setup) what tradeoffs to make.

I do not get your argument, should we be constantly running extreme setups with huge gaps that in turn attempt to exploit some huge gap that other team is having? So you lose the first fight in the mid, you reconfigure come back and win the second. Then they reconfigure, come back and win the third….etc….is that how it is supposed to go? Sounds lame to me.

Mufa.1326:

I do not get your argument, should we be constantly running extreme setups with huge gaps that in turn attempt to exploit some huge gap that other team is having? So you lose the first fight in the mid, you reconfigure come back and win the second. Then they reconfigure, come back and win the third….etc….is that how it is supposed to go? Sounds lame to me.

Yea.

Queuing up as a full condition team and running into a full anti-condition team is much better.

Guess the guys who randomly queued into a hard counter got outplayed.

Daays.4317:

Mufa.1326:

I do not get your argument, should we be constantly running extreme setups with huge gaps that in turn attempt to exploit some huge gap that other team is having? So you lose the first fight in the mid, you reconfigure come back and win the second. Then they reconfigure, come back and win the third….etc….is that how it is supposed to go? Sounds lame to me.

Yea.

Queuing up as a full condition team and running into a full anti-condition team is much better.

Guess the guys who randomly queued into a hard counter got outplayed.

If you run a gimic and run into a counter, you deserve that loss. Run balanced team setups so you have something for what you think are going to be prevalent in the tournament.

Numot.3965:

Daays.4317:

Mufa.1326:

I do not get your argument, should we be constantly running extreme setups with huge gaps that in turn attempt to exploit some huge gap that other team is having? So you lose the first fight in the mid, you reconfigure come back and win the second. Then they reconfigure, come back and win the third….etc….is that how it is supposed to go? Sounds lame to me.

Yea.

Queuing up as a full condition team and running into a full anti-condition team is much better.

Guess the guys who randomly queued into a hard counter got outplayed.

If you run a gimic and run into a counter, you deserve that loss. Run balanced team setups so you have something for what you think are going to be prevalent in the tournament.

Agreed

Numot.3965:

If you run a gimic and run into a counter, you deserve that loss. Run balanced team setups so you have something for what you think are going to be prevalent in the tournament.

You do realize that a condition team only has 3 condition damage dealers, one DD, and a guardian.

Calling that a gimmick now? What is a team with 3 direct damage? That a gimmick as well?

Better be careful on what you label gimmick.

Balanced set ups have weaknesses. They just have an equal weakness to any imbalanced set up running balanced defenses such as full condi, full power, full burst/cc and bunkers. Any person playing to counter them all which is what you people incessantly recommend, is at a huge disadvantage to any person who knows what you play (balanced apparently, since it’s all you guys recommend and think is a good idea to run the set up everyone is going to be out to counter). But that’s alright, you just need more skill, then the unnecessary disadvantages won’t matter. Remember, run balanced. They’ll run balanced defenses to counter your balanced offense, and imbalanced offenses to exploit your balanced defence, rendering most of your defenses relatively useless. But that’s cool, now you run imbalanced defenses to counter in the next game (lets pretend the last game wasn’t ruined and just move on). But oh wait they changed build. Now your defenses are useless again. Just run balanced man. Oh hey some top players come on forums to explain why this isn’t as fun as before, lets just tell them to run balanced.

I’m not that good at this game, but I really don’t see how this is an improvement. I almost feel as if these people just like the change so they finally have a chance of winning paids vs teams who are better because of luck (or just watching their streams and it not being luck at all). You people lack common sense, don’t compare this game to Dota. Dota has an intricate picking phase which actually involves counter picking and banning not blind luck. Not only that they have an entire laning phase with so many variables and item choices (which give SKILLS relevant to the situation, hey sounds like what we had before) so you can counter an unfair match up with unfair item pick ups, laning set ups etc.

What am I saying? Run balanced, that’ll fix the problem.

Omg they locked utilities too..Why anet??Whyyy

Oni.5429:

Not even close, cogbyrn.

The only change is that we don’t do utility swap situaitonal moves and that we sit on our core weapons all game without ever doing any swap tricks (be it swiftness or for some cc or whatever)

Just like I said before, the only real change I did is that I now sit on focus instead of pistol. Our necro/guard has no swiftness at all and we cant stack swiftness outside of combat.

Not as many interesting options, NOTHING else, that’s all.

Havent had a single loss either in paids since the change, so I suppose the idea that all the top players that just ‘’cheated by countering the enemy team’’(wat) was wrong aswell, just like we said.

So in the end we are left off with the game having less versitility/options and that’s all.

Here are a list of things that our team sometimes did as interesting trick plays which will never happen again unless arenanet unlocks utility/weapon sets:

1. We know where the enemy is coming, thief swaps to shadow refuge, refuge+mightstack up and intercept them
2. We lost mid on legacy, the enemy has 2 point. One of our plays was that we put smokebomb, stacked 15s invis in base and put portal on enemy close, we then attacked mid and when they got to mid we portaled to their close. Is this uncounterable? No, their mesmer portals their close and then port back the allies and it’s a standard teamfight – this is just a tactic to have a comeback chance on a map where it’s nigh impossible to do so.

Here is a scenario which happened shortly before the change:
3. Our ele is dying on the treb, I’m on close. I portal close and rush to him, swapping mirror images to blink and nullfield to illusion of life. I manage to get to him and do the illusion of life JUST before he gets stomped and then I open my portal, the ele enters the portal in the illusion of life and died on close where I could easily rez him.

You guys keep saying ‘’all you do is swiftness and now you have to make balanced builds’’ and ‘’now you cant instantly counter enemy team by outbuilding them in the middle of the game’’

Neither of these were ever the case, ever. It’s a misinformed opinion (which is reasonable to have without experience) that people voiced and harassed arenanet about which lead to this change which surely is NOT good for the highest of competitive play.

Regardless, this is the change we are stuck with now. I find it unfortunate, many top players do. Not because we’ll stop winning but because there were so many trick plays, tactics and cool ideas you could do with these.

Wooh, very well written.

Is the bad side of utility-swapping(whatever the main reason is) bad enough
that we have to make the game less interesting by removing ALOT of tactics and tricks?

I hope they change it back : (

We know the game is dying when necromancers start using their powers on threads instead of players.