Guild Wars 2

Justin ODell.9517:

MarkPhilips.5169:

I hope it’s not in this way because it’s very very heavy.

You queued as a warrior, we found a match for a warrior, using your warrior MMR. It wouldn’t be fair to others if we let bypass matchmaking rules, and it opens the door for exploits.

If the full loss for small disconnects becomes an issue, feel free to bring it up again and we can talk about less severe deterrents. As John mentioned, this is an experiment and we’ll be looking at the data and community reaction.

This is extremely important. There absolutely NEEDS to be a timer regarding small disconnects. It happens quite often that someone will d/c or whose game will bug and it is PRIMORDIAL that they are able to come back into the game. There needs to be a 2-3 minute timer before dishonor affects them. This is not “we’ll take a look into it”, this is extremely important and something that needs to be addressed right away.

Please, do not let this go through as it is. The changes you are bringing are absolutely awesome and I for one am extremely excited about them and quite looking forward to playing under these new rules. However this issue could get extremely frustrating, VERY fast, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see people quit over this.

Once again, I cannot stress how important it is to fix this issue as soon as possible. Keep the no profession swap rule, but give players a chance to recover from a short disconnect. 2-3 minute timer is plenty of time to restart one’s computer and it is still possible to recover from that and push for a win. I’ve had it happen more times than I can remember.

Even the shortest interrupts can have significant impact on the quality of the game for the other players.

But here’s the biggest problem: this system might and WILL contribute to that negative impact on the quality of the game.

Assume the following case: a player gets DC’d.
Situation A: No disconnection punishments. Player comes back, and works hard for the team to get the best score possible. The team might hold their scoring advantage, they might still make a comeback, or perhaps get a close lose.
Situation B: Dishonor kicks in. DC’d player knows this, and loses their motivation to log back into the game. They already know their effort for the remaining match will be useless, because they’ll get a loss in ranking no matter what. So they don’t even bother. If the team was holding a scoring advantage, they will probably lose it. If the team was having any hopes for a comeback, they’ll probably be unsuccessful at it. Their lose will probably not be close to victory at all. Everyone loses.

I hope I was clear on my point. Can you see, Justin, why this new system might contribute to the negative impact of a DC? Because it gives to the disconnected player no motivation to come back and work hard for the remaining match.

The new system is, thus, making a problem worse than it is.

A DC’d player who comes back (quickly enough) and works hard should actually be rewarded for that. It’s good behaviour.

Case in point, extremely well put out mister.

“You queued as a warrior, we found a match for a warrior, using your warrior MMR.”
Because of the enemy comp I decide it is better to switch Thief at beginning, and play as Thief.
Which MMR will be altered at the end of the game (Warrior or Thief)?

I’m pretty sure Anet has the capacity/servers and programming experience. To distinguish when a player clicks logout or randomly loses connection to the server.

Also, if you disconnect on occasion… Yea, check your ports, cables, Ethernet card, motherboard, ISP, or computer firewall.

Maybe Anet may be at fault, but i do not believe you can put them at fault every time.

Acrisor.8097:

“You queued as a warrior, we found a match for a warrior, using your warrior MMR.”
Because of the enemy comp I decide it is better to switch Thief at beginning, and play as Thief.
Which MMR will be altered at the end of the game (Warrior or Thief)?

From what I understand you can’t switch. If you get a match as a warrior, you need to stick to that warrior. Leaving the match kicks you out and gives you dishonored.
This due to the fact that each of your different classes will have their own MMR. I.e. if you have 10 matches on warrior, you get put into a game were people have about the same amount of matches on their class. You can’t Q as a newbie warrior and the switch to your thief you’ve played for say 500 matches.
I think that’s how it works, so don’t take my words as final pretty sure Justin will be able to answer your question much better.

Thoth Divine.8642:

Once again, I cannot stress how important it is to fix this issue as soon as possible. Keep the no profession swap rule, but give players a chance to recover from a short disconnect. 2-3 minute timer is plenty of time to restart one’s computer and it is still possible to recover from that and push for a win. I’ve had it happen more times than I can remember.

This is so true. I would currently get at least one disconnect per session despite having the best internet connection available in my area (London).

ANet knows about the lag issues and DCs currently as there enough posts on this issue. It is insane not to factor this into the dishonour / ladder system.

As others have pointed out players who stay in the instance but go AFK or refuse to participate once they think a game is lost (often far too early) are ruining games at least as often as those who leave the instance.

I’d say allowing up to a minute of disconnection per match would be a good starting threshold. Putting this live with absolutely 0 disconnects allowed is going to generate a lot of complaints! I like the ideal you’re going for, though.

Is it allowed to switch chars before the game starts? if not we need build templates with this update. Some comps just dont work and its sometimes needed to switch builds/chars

Also seeing the current amount of DCs i think about a minute of time to reconnect is needed

If you have good connection you will have as much dc as average player so your ladder wont be hurted.

About dishonorable, this is how it work:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dishonorable

You need to get 3 disonhour stack in 72 real hours to get disonhorable. Stack expires when offline.

In other words you need to keep dc on daily average to get disohnorable.

We all knows anet server issue but anet server issue do not dc you on daily average.

If you get dc on daily average there is some personal connection issue.

Inbefore anet could work on disonhorable time (example moving it from 72 hour to 48 or 36 hours could) to help people dealing with dc but penality for dc should not be totally removed because people with huge dc issue should NOT DO RANKED ARENA.

There is unranked arena for them (whoever get 3 dc on daily average should not ruin fun of other people doing ranked arena)

azerte.4365:

Acrisor.8097:

“You queued as a warrior, we found a match for a warrior, using your warrior MMR.”
Because of the enemy comp I decide it is better to switch Thief at beginning, and play as Thief.
Which MMR will be altered at the end of the game (Warrior or Thief)?

From what I understand you can’t switch. If you get a match as a warrior, you need to stick to that warrior. Leaving the match kicks you out and gives you dishonored.
This due to the fact that each of your different classes will have their own MMR. I.e. if you have 10 matches on warrior, you get put into a game were people have about the same amount of matches on their class. You can’t Q as a newbie warrior and the switch to your thief you’ve played for say 500 matches.
I think that’s how it works, so don’t take my words as final pretty sure Justin will be able to answer your question much better.

From what I understand the disconnect and dishonored refers to the play itself, and not to those 2 minutes of “time to nail down your strategy”.

Justin ODell.9517:

glock.6590:

Yeaa same here…. I play on a very crappy internet and PC, hopefully arenanet can tell if its DC or rage quit. Like giving 5 min to come back would be reasonable, that’s what it takes to reset the PC and stuff.

Sorry, but if you leave for any reason you’ll get dishonor, no matter the length of time. Even the shortest interrupts can have significant impact on the quality of the game for the other players.

Unfortunately there is no real way that I’m aware of to detect real disconnects from someone ripping out their Ethernet cable and setting it on fire in a fit or rage induced passion.

As usual though, if there is good reason too, we’ll take the time to look at this again. I can’t promise any we’ll take any action though.

This just feels wrong…. i mean, here in italy internet connection suck badly, when i play with my friends we often have ppl lagging or connection drops, but we know they’ll do whatever they can to come back in game as soon as possible, and since we are playing on voicecom we know they crashed and we can react accordingly for the time they are not there.
So clearly, since we are in same team we would not want them to get disonhored for something is not their fault.

So, this is the idea, why not to put a grace vote ? For example:
a player from team A dc, at the end of the match a message pops up to his team: “Player * disconnected from the game, do you want to punish his behaviour ?” Y | N
If he gets 2 “no” he wont get the dishonored.

I’m thinking about my feelings if i play 40 min. in PVP (3 matches) i get 3 wins and +3 ladder points in total and after that i lose everything for 1 sec. of disconnection.

No really, it can’t be true.

lets be honest your game has been ddsos’d alot before.

remember the 1 week period of nothing but massive dc’s/ lags.

legacy of foefire being bugged to hell……

Everyone starts getting dishonor. That is not fair to anyone

some kind of solution could be to not get dishonor when playing with a full group. people who play with a full group rarely leave during a match. If they do its mostly due to dcs. If they really ragequit they get punished by the players they play with (they wont take them anymore)

Justin ODell.9517:

XGhoul.7426:

That’s an insane requirement given that some teams (teamq) run less than optimal comps for the sake of fun, but when they see a real team they swap classes. What you’re essentially putting is a barrier to always play serious which results in teams steamrolling other players and rather than building a stronger pvp community you get more people discouraged from playing.

I get you, the matchmaking system will do much more to prevent awkward compositions.

If you want full control over comp you must form a party. Evan’s post tomorrow (today for you, maybe?) will explain how we’ve simplified and improved the process. I hope it helps.

Solo que matchmaking should also ask your role: glasscannon/bruiser/bunker because having 5 hambows is way better than having 5 different professions all on glasscannon builds because noone is able to stand on point for more than a few seconds without dying. Players would be incentivized to set the correct role for their own good

There is another major oversight here. Disabling profession swapping will completely remove a team’s ability to counter an opposing composition. Last night I played two games against a team that was running 2 turret engis, a decap engi, and two celestial elementalists. With the normal composition that we entered the game with, this would have been absolutely impossible to beat. It wasn’t until we swapped in a power necro and a staff ele that we were able to wipe their ~3 bunkers on a point with huge aoe. If profession swapping is disabled, it will only encourage more people to run this type of terrible, AI-reliant bunker comp. Now the ideal solution would be to nerf turret engineers into the ground (and tone down the celestial amulet) but since it looks like that won’t be happening any time soon, can anyone comment on how this issue might be resolved?

@Demus, it can be solved with a build template feature. Players would be able to load different builds for different situations before a match begins, and thus adapt to the situation at hand. It would even change the meta a slight bit, because Plan B builds would become viable.

@The issue about disconnections,

Basically, I think we all found a good argument about it. The intended system that will come out at December will not solve the problem with DCs, it will make it worse. The game should motivate the DC’d player to come back to the match and save it. Instead, the new system will make any DCs even more punishing to the team than what they already are, by transforming 1-min DCs into full-time AFKs.

Except Anet has made no plans to implement a build template, I wouldn’t expect that for 6+ months at the very least. Sure some classes have multiple viable builds that can help in these situations, but others do not. Plus that whole point just goes to show how stupid it is to attempt to engineer balanced comps by profession alone.

I agree with many other players on this thread that punishing Disconnects without any opportunity to come back without penalty is a very bad idea. At least it feels that way to me. Perhaps I’m on the losing end of a the statistics that say most people don’t ever have disconnects, but my internet connection regularly (once or twice a week while playing) drops briefly. It was bad enough before if I would get disconnected near the end of a game and not have an opportunity to cap anything and lose any reward points I had earned up until the disconnect, but this feels even worse.

Also, I don’t like that you are now required to queue from within the heart of the mists. One of the things I LOVED about arenas was that I could play PVE while waiting on a queue. Sometimes that queue would take 5-10 minutes in solo arena, and often 15 or more in team arena. If we don’t have that time to do other things, we’re just going to be wasting time, sitting in the PVP lobby unable to progress our PVE game at all. This means that a simple 1 hour game session for me, in which I could pretty easily complete my dailies (say during my lunch break at work) will become much less productive.

I also agree that due to the harsh penalty for disconnecting, a build templating system should jump into very high priority.

Justin, you said in a previous post that if we are not happy with the system after we have tried it that we should open up further discussion. What is the medium for that discussion that is heard most clearly by the developers and decision makers? I’m somewhat new to the forums, so I’m not sure. Would that be just posting in a forum like this, or is there an official discussion place of some sort for suggestions and fixes?

So what about when prior to match start in the 10 second window, I couldn’t fully summon and swap on necro to build some base life force and then I’m locked out with possibly a minion still slotted? This doesn’t happen often but I’m always sometimes preoccupied with something else and not always paying attention or late to the game and it has happened a couple times. Usually if it does I’ll just swap to another class instead of running with a messed up utility bar. Now if I’m profession locked, I’m basically screwed? This can happen for say, eles using a staff to stack swiftness as well. Its not as detrimental to the build if they accidently not swap weapons in time but it still sucks.
How is this going to be handled? Can say necros finally be able to build life force prior to matches easier? Will life fore accumulate better? Will you just increase the match start time period to say 15 seconds? Can I just use the wait time before match to build life force without it resetting right before countdown?
Is this change really what’s best? Could be harsh for some.

I’m with the people who posted above on this. There is no reason to disallow profession swapping. It’s a perfectly valid tactical choice to punish an enemy team which has invested too heavily in an easily-countered profession. It seems that you’ve only chosen to disable it so you could enable your MMR-by-profession feature. Well, MMR-by-profession a neat idea, but I don’t think it’s necessary. The other improvements you’ve made to matchmaking should be enough to make matchmaking better. I confess, as someone who gets slaughtered every time I try a new build (because I get matched against people who are as skilled as I’ve gotten on my main), it would be nice to be able to slum it at a lower rank when playing something new, but since you’re introducing an unranked arena, that should be enough for people like me who have only started playing a warrior last week. I don’t want this enough to want to disable profession-swapping, and I doubt many other people do either – I don’t remember anyone raising this issue on the forums, so it’s not like this is a feature that many people think is necessary.

Short version

Swap profs before match starts (2 min.) = good
Swap profs during the match = bad
Punish leavers who leave the match = good
1 sec. Dc (and people can come back fast) = -3 ladder points + dishonor buff always = very bad

Justin ODell.9517:

That said, I think character swapping mid game should be discouraged. Does anyone have an opinion on that?

Agreed. Players should be expected to put a little forethought to their build and comp choices and commit to them. Allowing character swaps mid-game encourages counter-comping, which is just a crutch for mediocrity.

MarkPhilips.5169:

Short version

Swap profs before match starts (2 min.) = good
Swap profs during the match = bad
Punish leavers who leave the match = good
1 sec. Dc (and people can come back fast) = -3 ladder points + dishonor buff always = very bad

MarkPhilips.5169:

Short version

Swap profs before match starts (2 min.) = good
Swap profs during the match = bad
Punish leavers who leave the match = good
1 sec. Dc (and people can come back fast) = -3 ladder points + dishonor buff always = very bad

i agree with this.

and to add to it.
players who manually afk the whole match = very bad

Justin ODell.9517:

manveruppd.7601:

I’m with the people who posted above on this. There is no reason to disallow profession swapping. It’s a perfectly valid tactical choice to punish an enemy team which has invested too heavily in an easily-countered profession. It seems that you’ve only chosen to disable it so you could enable your MMR-by-profession feature. Well, MMR-by-profession a neat idea, but I don’t think it’s necessary. The other improvements you’ve made to matchmaking should be enough to make matchmaking better. I confess, as someone who gets slaughtered every time I try a new build (because I get matched against people who are as skilled as I’ve gotten on my main), it would be nice to be able to slum it at a lower rank when playing something new, but since you’re introducing an unranked arena, that should be enough for people like me who have only started playing a warrior last week. I don’t want this enough to want to disable profession-swapping, and I doubt many other people do either – I don’t remember anyone raising this issue on the forums, so it’s not like this is a feature that many people think is necessary.

You may be right, but we’ll wait until we have actual data to look at. If the cost of having the feature out-weight the benefits we’d definitely be willing to change it. The new systems make this sort of thing much easier to do.

That said, I think character swapping mid game should be discouraged. Does anyone have an opinion on that?

Firmly against allowing character swap mid match, this isn’t hotjoin.

MarkPhilips.5169:

Short version

Swap profs before match starts (2 min.) = good
Swap profs during the match = bad
Punish leavers who leave the match = good
1 sec. Dc (and people can come back fast) = -3 ladder points + dishonor buff always = very bad

This is the best compromise, almost nobody ever switches mid match, let alone one player swapping puts the match in an auto win situation.

Justin ODell.9517:

You may be right, but we’ll wait until we have actual data to look at. If the cost of having the feature out-weight the benefits we’d definitely be willing to change it. The new systems make this sort of thing much easier to do.

That said, I think character swapping mid game should be discouraged. Does anyone have an opinion on that?

I like the original plan prohibiting profession swap at all much better.

1.) The system is designed to balance the professions per team, to not force players to play against three turret engis. If you’d allow profession swap, players’d just queue with f.e. a necromancer, and once they are ingame swap back to the turret engi overload.

2.) At the start of a match, the most toxic behavior results from your profession choice. A lot of players would prefer to only play with other celestrial/soldier profession, and often starting to flame, if the have to play f.e. as a mesmer, hoping that they can force you, to play another profession.

3.) I want a different rating on every profession. I’m not as good on my ranger as I am on my mesmer. Currently if I’d want to play on my ranger without negatively influencing my personal rating, and the playing experience from my teammates, I’d have to play hot-join with him.

4.) You can’t play ever profession on the same level. Too often I have seen players relogging with the wrong idea, that his might be better for our teamcomposition, but they just couldn’t compete with their new choice.

5.) It is also strategic and tactical to build a suitable combo at the start, without having to rely on reloggs.

6.) Relog-Competition: Have seen it too often. No thief on the opponents team? Then I’m going to play power ranger; What? They opponents now have a power ranger? Let’s play with Thief.

Justin ODell.9517:

You may be right, but we’ll wait until we have actual data to look at. If the cost of having the feature out-weight the benefits we’d definitely be willing to change it. The new systems make this sort of thing much easier to do.

That said, I think character swapping mid game should be discouraged. Does anyone have an opinion on that?

Swapping mid game should imo definitely be discouraged.
I’ve had it happen a few times before, and it is definitely a disadvantage.
As to profession-swapping, I’ve always thought about a system similar to “Picking Heroes” in MOBA-games like Dota.
Obviously the feature would have to take less time, since there are much fewer professions than heroes, and it’s not as important. However, it still makes a difference.
If you’re proficient at playing Necro and Ele, you might want to play Necro in a game against two Engineers.

It could be a simple feature, where people had to “lock” their current character, and when locked it would show the specific class icon to the team.
Another idea would be to do the picking like in Dota, where each team take turns to lock a character. This would allow for counters, and not just avoiding duplicates on your own team. The current swapping allows for both.

However, there are a few issues with this idea.
In Unranked Arenas people might not want to use too much time getting into a match. And with map-selection, class-selection etc. it might be a feature where everybody simply just locks instantly. In dota however, the same issue is present, some people just pick a hero they want to play and do not care for the enemy or ally team’s picks.
A lot of people main a class, and would never play another class even if they have triplets on the team, because they simply dont care and just want to play that one class. Which I understand.
You could choose to implement this feature only in ranked, but even the current “pro-teams” usually stick to a comp and rarely swap classes.
This may be a complicated suggestion for a small problem. I think it would be pretty interesting though. Might make people think more about countering comps, and therefore play more than one class. This way we would see a lot of variation in comps.

The current system seems very uintended though, and every match has 1:30 minutes time waiting, where nothing happens except maybe determining who goes close.
As far as I understand, this waiting time (in the actual map) won’t be there, which to me is very good. So a class-selection/lock feature could replace all this waiting time, which would not lengthen the matches.

Last comment: Obviously the MMR-Profession thingy wouldn’t work with this feature.
And to the people who don’t think you can play multiple classes on the same level, well, I am simply not agreeing. If pro Dota players can play a lot of heroes well, GW2 players can also master more than one class. I know for a fact, since I can easily play multiple classes at the same level.

TLDR: An implementation of a “Moba-Picking”-like feature. Would allow teams to counter specific classes and avoid dublicates if wanted.

Justin ODell.9517:

That said, I think character swapping mid game should be discouraged. Does anyone have an opinion on that?

Definitely agree with you. I never found that “feature” to be fair, and now that profession plays a role in the matchmaking, it would become even worse.

Although I’m talking far ahead in the future, the day we get a build template feature, if coupled with no profession swapping, it would force the meta to branch out a little. Different specialized builds for each profession would become viable for different situations, but some of those would be negated if you simply could change your profession at the mid or at the beginning of a match. For example, solo players want a bunker guardian for the mid point, but the team has gotten no guardian. So one of them can improvize a bit, and load a mid bunker template for their profession, which might not be as good as the guardian at its role (aka, currently not viable) BUT the only and best option for a situation like that.

If you want to prevent character swapping, why not bar entry into the lobby on alt proffessions? Wouldn’t that be the most elegant solution?

Character swapping midgame is really bad. Since certain people will have a much bigger advantage than others. Imagine someone with a high end PC and an SSD Drive compared to someone with for example an average PC.
The one with the faster loading screen would technically be able to switch to a better suited class / build in mere seconds after judging the current match situation. Compared to the other user who would most likely spend around 1-2min in total which is really a huge advantage for the other team playing 5vs4 for that long.

MarkPhilips.5169:

Short version

Swap profs before match starts (2 min.) = good
Swap profs during the match = bad
Punish leavers who leave the match = good
1 sec. Dc (and people can come back fast) = -3 ladder points + dishonor buff always = very bad

This.

glock.6590:

Yeaa same here…. I play on a very crappy internet and PC, hopefully arenanet can tell if its DC or rage quit. Like giving 5 min to come back would be reasonable, that’s what it takes to reset the PC and stuff.

hahahha
I played with you yesterday and you DC.. result we lost the match…

Ill love this new system!!! <333

MarkPhilips.5169:

Short version

Swap profs before match starts (2 min.) = good
Swap profs during the match = bad
Punish leavers who leave the match = good
1 sec. Dc (and people can come back fast) = -3 ladder points + dishonor buff always = very bad

This^^

Chaith.8256:

Maybe switching characters can finally be disabled????
..snipped..

^ This…Why is it even possible to change character after the match has begun? You have 1 min to adjust your weapons, sigils, runes, traits, utilities, etc…

As for disconnects allow for at least 1-2 mins for the player to log back in with same character during same match. Using a timestamp, match uuid, character uuid, shouldn’t be difficult to implement if it is not already…
2 mins would be great, I am not sure about other players, but when I get a random d/c I have to wait for my game to recover (which sometimes takes forever stuck on a black blank screen… or alt+f4 kill it and log back in as quickly as possible.). It doesn’t happen often, but I would hate to be penalized for something so random when I am trying my best to get back in and not make it harder for my teammates.

Character swapping after entry if the limited number of same professions works as advertised shouldn’t happen. MMR should be based on the character that you enter the match and queue with and you should be locked into the profession you enter with.

If the profession diversity is working properly then there won’t be too many matches with the same professions in them for people solo queue’ing. The issue is moot at that point.

A lot of people seem to be looking at how this new system is going to work with how it works now and people need to wait and see how it’s going to work before snapping to a judgment on it. EDIT** You still will be able to change your build prior to the match starting anyways. If you know your class then this isn’t an issue as much. With the projected odds of winning formula your score gets weighted. I really think you guys will like this new system. I really do.

In GW1 it was an issue because of getting multiple Monks in a Random Arena Match. A tankier support comp isn’t as much of an issue because you can still easily win with that type of setup if your placement and rotations are decent.

I for one think this new setup will promote better play overall even if the community as a whole isn’t up to the task. Like I have said before, I haven’t played PvP regularly since April, but this new system is definitely going to bring me back. I don’t know if I will be playing regularly again until we get a new format, but I will definitely give this new system a fair shake before making a decision.

Justin ODell.9517:

You may be right, but we’ll wait until we have actual data to look at. If the cost of having the feature out-weight the benefits we’d definitely be willing to change it. The new systems make this sort of thing much easier to do.

That’s great to hear! And running a test season is a great way to get the feedback you need for this kind of stuff.

That said, I think character swapping mid game should be discouraged. Does anyone have an opinion on that?

I absolutely agree. I would say anything goes during the 2 minute pre-match sequence (which tbh you should be able to cut down to 1’ since now you have a “ready” button when the queue pops), but once the match actually starts you should be locked into your current character slot. If you got disconnected during a GvG in GW1 the game would bypass the character selection screen when you logged back in, loading you straight back into the match on your last-played character. Is that something you can do in GW2? Is your new system able to differentiate between the pre-match period and the actual match?

KrisHQ.4719:

Last comment: Obviously the MMR-Profession thingy wouldn’t work with this feature.
And to the people who don’t think you can play multiple classes on the same level, well, I am simply not agreeing. If pro Dota players can play a lot of heroes well, GW2 players can also master more than one class. I know for a fact, since I can easily play multiple classes at the same level.

That’s the problem really. GW2 is much more mechanically intensive than MOBAs and most other MMOs, so changing your build, and even more so changing to a whole new profession, is a much bigger deal. That’s why there’s so few multiclassers at top level. So, from that perspective, the new profession-specific MMR is a good thing. But, otoh, it doesn’t completely solve the problem: most professions have multiple viable builds, many of whom play completely differently to each other, and the MMR won’t be able to tell if you’re playing the one you’re actually familiar with. So it’s an imperfect feature at best, and not really a necessary one now that we’ll have an unranked arena to practice new builds in. Is it really worth sacrificing pre-match profession swapping to get a feature that won’t really work that well anyway?

Guys, its not working now, this isn’t a permanent change, its a calibration. IF this change results in new problems, hopefully we can start thinking of solutions to them.

The only thing I can think is if u drop for less than 1 min and come back, and it happens only once, and the match is a win, maybe no dishonor.

I am fully against character swapping of any kind, even before the match has started. If you wanna edit a few choice skills, fine. But you shouldn’t be able to swap your team comp. It creates a culture of countercomping rather than trying to create a team build that is good at facing anything. Further, it makes people not learn how to deal with certain other builds and instead teaches them to just swap from rock to scissors whenever they see paper.

Justin ODell.9517:

manveruppd.7601:

I’m with the people who posted above on this. There is no reason to disallow profession swapping. It’s a perfectly valid tactical choice to punish an enemy team which has invested too heavily in an easily-countered profession. It seems that you’ve only chosen to disable it so you could enable your MMR-by-profession feature. Well, MMR-by-profession a neat idea, but I don’t think it’s necessary. The other improvements you’ve made to matchmaking should be enough to make matchmaking better. I confess, as someone who gets slaughtered every time I try a new build (because I get matched against people who are as skilled as I’ve gotten on my main), it would be nice to be able to slum it at a lower rank when playing something new, but since you’re introducing an unranked arena, that should be enough for people like me who have only started playing a warrior last week. I don’t want this enough to want to disable profession-swapping, and I doubt many other people do either – I don’t remember anyone raising this issue on the forums, so it’s not like this is a feature that many people think is necessary.

You may be right, but we’ll wait until we have actual data to look at. If the cost of having the feature out-weight the benefits we’d definitely be willing to change it. The new systems make this sort of thing much easier to do.

That said, I think character swapping mid game should be discouraged. Does anyone have an opinion on that?

My opinion on profession swapping is that it was something of a more tactical advantage which a well-versed player could use to gain a one-up on a more skilled player. Just like strategizing where to go, who to target, and what build to use, profession swapping was something of a “brain” part of the game where the ability to utilize one’s character, the skill or “brawn”, would be the flip side to the strategy, since both are needed to win.

So while it’s good to encourage people to become more skilled, I think that those capable of learning more than one profession and using them well enough to switch mid-game or in the pre-game should be allowed to take advantage of this.

I main a mesmer and can’t really get into other professions, therefor I do not profession-swap myself during games, but I can appreciate the work one had to put into becoming good with another profession besides their main.

Justin ODell.9517:

Leaving the PvP lobby will remove you from the queue.

So, this means i have to stay in the mists until a game is found ?
If this takes some minutes i am forced to be in there waiting ?
No more joining from anywhere in the world ?
No more pve’ing / WvWing while waiting for the queue pop ?

lvis.3824:

Justin ODell.9517:

Leaving the PvP lobby will remove you from the queue.

So, this means i have to stay in the mists until a game is found ?
If this takes some minutes i am forced to be in there waiting ?
No more joining from anywhere in the world ?
No more pve’ing / WvWing while waiting for the queue pop ?

Yes, a small sacrifice in exchange for getting rid of or reducing AFKers. Though, if their system is really much better than before, maybe you won’t be waiting for minutes from now on.

Dondagora.9645:

Yes, a small sacrifice in exchange for getting rid of or reducing AFKers. Though, if their system is really much better than before, maybe you won’t be waiting for minutes from now on.

So you say, ( and Anet ) , the chance that someone will go AFK while in the queue is higher if he is actually playing the game in another part than standing in the mists while doing nothing ????
Interessting…

So while it’s good to encourage people to become more skilled, I think that those capable of learning more than one profession and using them well enough to switch mid-game or in the pre-game should be allowed to take advantage of this.

But where does it end? Say someone one Team A swaps professions during the pre-game time, then Team B see’s that and they switch professions, and back and forth. How do you manage that?

If you queue as a Warrior then you should play as a warrior. During the pre-game, you change your warrior build(weapons, sigils, runes, skills, etc.) as you see fit to counter the other team. But allowing professions swapping during that time is just a bad idea.

With this new system, ANet should also be getting better metrics on class balancing. Having profession specific MMR’s will give them way more data to analyze on just how some professions can counter others. So going forward, hopefully, this will just help the balancing aspect.

I can understand that players see this is a “current feature” that is being removed. But if it improves the matchmaking system, then its a sacrifice for the “greater good”.

People are missing the big picture here and dissecting minutiae. The best part of this whole thing is queueing and not getting 3 of the same class. This will reduce afk’ers. Why? Because there are a lot of people that pop in the match right as it’s starting and never move. You can’t do that now. If you want to play, you have to be present or you will incur dishonor and that is the way it should be. We should all be stoked that we can play as professions we normally wouldn’t and it doesn’t affect us as much.

Instead we are focusing on the random disconnects? Really? If you disconnect that much even with the old system why are you playing pvp? Even if all the disconnects are ArenaNet’s fault(which they aren’t) why would you subject yourself to that when there are tons of games out there that don’t have that issue. There is a ton of whining going on in here over stuff none of us have seen yet. Wait to see how the whole thing is going to work before you judge it.

To me there is another huge problem with the new design.
Two guardians on the same team might be totally fine, one is AH the other plays Medi.
And the same goes for other classes. It could be a tanky D/D Ele and a S/D burst (if they become viable). Dublicates are not a problem really, unless its the same build.

Thoth Divine.8642:

Justin ODell.9517:

MarkPhilips.5169:

I hope it’s not in this way because it’s very very heavy.

You queued as a warrior, we found a match for a warrior, using your warrior MMR. It wouldn’t be fair to others if we let bypass matchmaking rules, and it opens the door for exploits.

If the full loss for small disconnects becomes an issue, feel free to bring it up again and we can talk about less severe deterrents. As John mentioned, this is an experiment and we’ll be looking at the data and community reaction.

This is extremely important. There absolutely NEEDS to be a timer regarding small disconnects. It happens quite often that someone will d/c or whose game will bug and it is PRIMORDIAL that they are able to come back into the game. There needs to be a 2-3 minute timer before dishonor affects them. This is not “we’ll take a look into it”, this is extremely important and something that needs to be addressed right away.

Please, do not let this go through as it is. The changes you are bringing are absolutely awesome and I for one am extremely excited about them and quite looking forward to playing under these new rules. However this issue could get extremely frustrating, VERY fast, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see people quit over this.

Once again, I cannot stress how important it is to fix this issue as soon as possible. Keep the no profession swap rule, but give players a chance to recover from a short disconnect. 2-3 minute timer is plenty of time to restart one’s computer and it is still possible to recover from that and push for a win. I’ve had it happen more times than I can remember.

ya, Dev need to be aware that if you leave no grace period between these small uncontrollable d/c people will go nuts. what about ddos on server? when huge lag happens all across the server. you meant to see the whole spvp shut down in the event like that?