Guild Wars 2

Have you ever created a personal build and had some player steal it from you? Sometimes players lack the ability to make really good builds and simply forum shop to appear decent. Build creators often generously share builds. However, personal builds are much too easily distributed.

Sadly, it is impossible to protect builds in pvp as someone will figure them out eventually. however, we can slow the distribution of ridiculously strong builds that fills pvp with metas.

The solution is to remove the ability to see traits, weapons, and skill bars during spectate.

This fix would not only slow down the creation of meta specs and protect build creations for longer, it would also give the balance team time to catch up with their game and result in better less frequent nerfs. I was curious as to other players opinion on this change while already expecting to be engaged by those who like easily spectating their builds.

“I propose change to help casuals. Disparity will always exist and this is a valid question. I see two sides to the outcome. One, players who are truly fortunate to be gifted with intelligence and skill will rise higher and dominate, or on the other hand, a strong player will be open to more build counters as they can never truly expect what their enemy class uses allowing for the underdog to become victorious.”

Zelulose.8695:

Shadow.1345:

Zelulose.8695:

Shadow.1345:

I don’t honestly know why anyone would spectate your hotjoin match to steal your build when they could just go on google or youtube and type in “gw2 -class- pvp” build. Besides with 3 choices per trait tier it’s not like it’s all that hard for people to come up with a build.

Face it, nobody stole your build, they just saw the same glaring combination of traits, utilities and weapons and combined them.

"

This is not going to protect builds from being stolen. It will instead slow their distribution (As noted in my OP and previous posts)

If you don’t want your build stolen don’t use it in hotjoins. Problem solved.

Forcing secretive player to stop playing pvp is exactly why I posted this thread. Your post is, in fact, a revelation that this can affect the player base count and quality.

Are you serious?

Morwath.9817:

Are you serious?

yes

You know that anyone with clues would find more-less exact build of top players used im tourmanets even if you would hide bars? It would be harder, but people would just watch same videos like 10x in slow motion step-by-step to figure each single used skill?

Reminds me that people in GW1 were trying to hide their skill bars, that wasn’t much help in keeping ‘secrets’ ;-)

Morwath.9817:

You know that anyone with clues would find more-less exact build of top players used im tourmanets even if you would hide bars? It would be harder, but people would just watch same videos like 10x in slow motion step-by-step to figure each single used skill?

Reminds me that people in GW1 were trying to hide their skill bars, that wasn’t much help in keeping ‘secrets’ ;-)

You said it. Players would would have to watch videos in slow motion step by step. If they go this far, they are very desperate for the build.

This relates to my OP slowing down (not eliminating) the speed at which builds are copied for reasons stated again in the OP.

Zelulose.8695:

Morwath.9817:

You know that anyone with clues would find more-less exact build of top players used im tourmanets even if you would hide bars? It would be harder, but people would just watch same videos like 10x in slow motion step-by-step to figure each single used skill?

Reminds me that people in GW1 were trying to hide their skill bars, that wasn’t much help in keeping ‘secrets’ ;-)

You said it. Players would would have to watch videos in slow motion step by step. If they go this far, they are very desperate for the build.

This relates to my OP slowing down (not eliminating) the speed at which builds are copied.

It wouldn’t slow anything. Especially when tournament players stream and share their knowledge about the game with others (e.g. guys from Abjured).

Morwath.9817:

Zelulose.8695:

Morwath.9817:

You know that anyone with clues would find more-less exact build of top players used im tourmanets even if you would hide bars? It would be harder, but people would just watch same videos like 10x in slow motion step-by-step to figure each single used skill?

Reminds me that people in GW1 were trying to hide their skill bars, that wasn’t much help in keeping ‘secrets’ ;-)

You said it. Players would would have to watch videos in slow motion step by step. If they go this far, they are very desperate for the build.

This relates to my OP slowing down (not eliminating) the speed at which builds are copied.

It wouldn’t slow anything. Especially when tournament players stream and share their knowledge about the game with others (e.g. guys from Abjured).

Ah your absolutely right. In my OP, I addressed this too. People for strategic reasons can share a really unique build to win a tournament. Also, because players have to be ready to copy the build (It does not always cross a persons mind to record every moment of his matches.) And have the right recording software or camera on hand, it will slow down the build copying rate.

For the sake of credibility, I had played the game at release and beta. It was not until spectate that players meta complaints increased and many strong builds had to be nerfed down very quickly.

Believe me when I say this OP: You’re not special, your build is not unique.

Hide your builds, hide your wife?

Dirame.8521:

Hide your builds, hide your wife?

They having their way in an uncouth manner with everyone up in here

Do we really want to slow down the development of the meta? Are you asking ANet to make changes even more slowly?

I don’t remember the last time I looked at someone else’s build, but I firmly believe all information should be freely shared. Tools for learning the game should not be restricted.

they can only look at your build in a custom arena or hotjoin. if you’re so paranoid just don’t go into those. i have builds that i have kept between me and guildies and will continue to do so. a guildie even won a 1v1 tournament with my cele bomb build, that thing was so beast but never became meta because i hid it away. i still got rad stuff like the goku guard, but homes you gotta talk to me in TS if you want that build. I don’t want to fight goku guardians fml.

He’ll man, I like sharing my builds. Even if I get the old, “kitten that hurt, what build?” in chat, I’ll quite happily go into as much detail as you want.

Peutrifectus.4830:

He’ll man, I like sharing my builds. Even if I get the old, “kitten that hurt, what build?” in chat, I’ll quite happily go into as much detail as you want.

I will also happily share every single detail of my build with anyone who asks, for any reason. Maybe they want to use it, maybe they want to better understand it so they can fight it. Doesn’t matter.

I favor execution over a build.

I will steal the build that works the best and will play it better and there is nothing you can do about it.

Nothing.

Let me see if I understand clearly what the OP is asking for.

He wants less people to have access to overpowered builds because the developers will not find them out as quickly as they currently do and attempt to balance the game?

In other words, he thinks they are balancing the overpowered builds too quickly?

Jasher.6580:

Let me see if I understand clearly what the OP is asking for.

He wants less people to have access to overpowered builds because the developers will not find them out as quickly as they currently do and attempt to balance the game?

In other words, he thinks they are balancing the overpowered builds too quickly?

His intentions isn’t nearly that intricate. This is mearly a “stop stealing my build” rant.

Build’s aren’t private by any meams of the word. There are no secrets; tournament player’s builds are always revealed and posted. There’s nothing wrong with being discrete either but don’t act like there’s something special under the hood or you discovered something new. Trust me, odds are, you weren’t the first to use it. The best you can do is make it popular.

Doesn’t matter if they copy pasted your build if they can’t use it the way you use it. Get over yourself, OP. You’re not a genius and this game certainly isn’t that complicated when it comes to setting up traits. I’d understand if, for instance, we could’ve had craptons of ‘working’ trait combinations, like diablo, but we don’t. So relax and just outplay your opponent.

Down with build wars. Up with skill wars.

I humbly am no genious just a regular palyer.
From what I gather from these posts. People who create builds are the minority. (Althought these comments infer that people havent read my original post completely)
The majority favor my prediction. People would rather copy someome elses creative work rather than create their own and fight against me for it.

I just wan’t to repeat. The fix will slow down the rate at which metas arise. Even if there are ways to still get the builds, the distribution will be less convenient. Less convenience means slower distribution. (Even if only slightly slower)
I want to see build wars and skill wars togather to create a sense of uniqueness.

Here’s the thing though. When you main a class and spend a majority of time on that one class, you tend to know every trait and every possible synergy for said traits. Discovering the next best setup is certainly no difficult task for a good player when they’re on their main. Assuming the winners of the PvP tournaments are actually good, they generally know their class well enough to find the meta on their own with no stress. These players tend to disclose their builds without a care because they’re confident in their own skill.

I’ll give you a little example. My guardian was my first character and is my main. I was fooling around for quite a bit before I discovered meta battle and through a series of trial and error (mind you, I was only 100 hours into the game) I whipped up a build that worked really nice. I played it for a bit and then was introduced to metabattle. I then realized that my build was, in fact, the norm that DPS guards ran. Does that stop me from beating other guards? No. Then it isn’t a problem. I also have a similar story from a guildy who whipped up a SBless condi ranger build and then discovered that it, too, already existed on metabattle.

Point is, there are far too many players and among these players, a lot of competent people who may very well all whip up the same build at the same time right after a patch drops, for instance, because the trait choices are so limited (in relation to other games, of course).

Build<skill

#15chars

While it is easy to imitate builds, learning and skill is required to make (certain) builds work. Denying build information is also denying new players who are unfamiliar with the game seeking advice.

I’ve formed my own builds for all my chars since the new patch. And the similarities with my trait choices actually matches 7/9 of what the pro players use. It’s not all that surprising that once players have adapted to the gameplay, they know what works and what doesn’t in conquest.

Yes SlayerSixx.5763, you are absolutely right.( If you read my OP.) This post has nothing against players using the same build. Players with quick minds and creative mind will likely converge their builds and then battle it out with skill. However, by changing spectate, there are less skilless players getting strong builds and less brainless players with quick fingers using a build they can’t figure out. For learning, there is a post your build section on forums if a player wants to teach new players.

Perhaps other changes that increase diversity would benefit from a hidden skill bar during spectate. Players would show their creative uniqueness and their personal skill levels at tournaments.

While we’re at it, we probably want to make sure teams have their map strategies, composition strategies, and rotation strategies hidden to ensure other teams can’t copy them. Why stop hiding creativity at an individual player’s build? It would be really unfair if a team thought of a really good comp and strategy for a map, then another team just copies it.

Spectator mode should just blank the screen, so you only see the points tick at the top. That way we can make sure that a team’s genius is appropriately kept secret.

I’ll make sure to propose that, in DOTA 2, all skill and item builds that pro players use are kept secret as well. It’s really a shame when a community learns and grows together.

With the synergy between traits combinations maintaining their uniqueness is not really a thing. As much as your ego demands that no one could have possibly have come up with your special snowflake build without copying you probability is not in your favour. With choosing 3 out of 5 trait lines means 10 choices of trait line combinations (this is not taking in different trait choices of course) so that means there is a 10% chance every one of your class you run into has the same combinations of trait liness just on that alone. For each trait choice there is a 1/3 chance someone else picked that choice. Do that 9 times over and you come up with roughly 1 out of every 20000 of your class has that exact same trait composition. Take that against all of the players that play GW2 and there is a 100% chance someone else is running your exact same trait composition that came up with all on their own. And that’s not even taking synergy into account.

Shadow.1345:

With the synergy between traits combinations maintaining their uniqueness is not really a thing. As much as your ego demands that no one could have possibly have come up with your special snowflake build without copying you probability is not in your favour. With choosing 3 out of 5 trait lines means 10 choices of trait line combinations (this is not taking in different trait choices of course) so that means there is a 10% chance every one of your class you run into has the same combinations of trait liness just on that alone. For each trait choice there is a 1/3 chance someone else picked that choice. Do that 9 times over and you come up with roughly 1 out of every 20000 of your class has that exact same trait composition. Take that against all of the players that play GW2 and there is a 100% chance someone else is running your exact same trait composition that came up with all on their own. And that’s not even taking synergy into account.

This

If you read the posts, I adressed this in my original post and last post.

Sounds like you want to punish casuals and create a bigger disparity in games then we already have……

This is not covered in my original post. however, I propose change to help casuals.
Disparity will always exist and this is a valid question. I see two sides to the outcome. One, players who are truly fortunate to be gifted with intelligence and skill will rise higher and dominate, or on the other hand, a strong player will be open to more build counters as they can never truly expect what their enemy class uses allowing for the underdog to become victorious.

Builds are so easy to make! There is no skill involved! Because there’s only one game mode, there’s only 2 types of builds! Damage and bunker! The wonderful celestial amulet introduced classes that are able to be both! #Balance! These are the criteria for any and every successful build!

• Can you survive focus fire/stunlock/immoblock long enough for your teammates peel for you (only useful if team queuing) or for you to escape to a better position!
• Do you have condi cleanse!
• Do you have a stun break!
• Do you have additional dodges!

If damage dealer:

• Can you deal damage!
• Can you move to points quickly to deal your damage!

If bunker:

• Can you sustain a lot of damage while on point!
• Can you support the team offensively and/or defensively! (Stab stomps/revives, might stacking, AoE healing/condi cleanse, etc)

Builds aren’t special! Any monkey can create a halfway decent build! You just have to meet the above requirements and exploit what the current overpowdered mechanics are! For example a power build that normally wouldn’t deal a lot of damage can become good with Air/Fire sigils! (See 30/30 Acro/Trickery SD Thief)

Wahoo! Bye frands!

ellesee.8297:

Builds are so easy to make! There is no skill involved! Because there’s only one game mode, there’s only 2 types of builds! Damage and bunker! The wonderful celestial amulet introduced classes that are able to be both! #Balance! These are the criteria for any and every successful build!

• Can you survive focus fire/stunlock/immoblock long enough for your teammates peel for you (only useful if team queuing) or for you to escape to a better position!
• Do you have condi cleanse!
• Do you have a stun break!
• Do you have additional dodges!

If damage dealer:

• Can you deal damage!
• Can you move to points quickly to deal your damage!

If bunker:

• Can you sustain a lot of damage while on point!
• Can you support the team offensively and/or defensively! (Stab stomps/revives, might stacking, AoE healing/condi cleanse, etc)

Builds aren’t special! Any monkey can create a halfway decent build! You just have to meet the above requirements and exploit what the current overpowdered mechanics are! For example a power build that normally wouldn’t deal a lot of damage can become good with Air/Fire sigils! (See 30/30 Acro/Trickery SD Thief)

Wahoo! Bye frands!

This is totally unrelated to my OP make a separate thread for how to create builds please.

It’s perfectly relevant! You seem to think builds are special and place people who make builds on some kind of pedestal (like yourself) and tout them as skillful and creative! But in reality there is no diversity and it’s just a very simple process! There is always a clear choice in utility and traits especially now where Anet has oversimplified everything!

Also the balance team doesn’t need to catch up with anything unless you think biannual patches are too quick! Silly!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

ellesee.8297:

It’s perfectly relevant! You seem to think builds are special and place people who make builds on some kind of pedestal (like yourself) and tout them as skillful and creative! But in reality there is no diversity and it’s just a very simple process! There is always a clear choice in utility and traits especially now where Anet has oversimplified everything!

Also the balance team doesn’t need to catch up with anything unless you think biannual patches are too quick! Silly!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

I see where you are coming from now. There would be allot of build diversity, however, too many people have had the perfect, ideal chance to compare builds to perfection creating the ideal builds for each class. This is why I proposed the change. To slow down ideal build creation aka meta builds.

Also, let me clarify one thing, I do not esteem build creators higher than any type of player. I simply want to add a new element of uniqueness to the game. Furthermore, I am not a genius build creator or a genius player. I do not think I am above or below anyone or even average. This is because I do not claim status or positions.

What are these creative builds that have been “stolen too quickly” and need protection “for the sake of balance”? Mind posting them? I could show you why they’re not actually creative and worth “protecting” if you do.

Every couple of months we get posts like these. Eventually everyone realizes “oh kitten I’m not a special snowflake… kitten t mom”

Yamsandjams.3267:

What are these creative builds that have been “stolen too quickly” and need protection “for the sake of balance”? Mind posting them? I could show you why they’re not actually creative and worth “protecting” if you do.

Me posting them would defeat the purpose of this thread. By sharing a build, it would no longer be creative or worth protecting. However, if you want to share a build, there are threads that builds can be posted on rather than spectating them.

Aka they don’t exist and or probably aren’t better than what is considered meta(if we even have a meta right now)

Zelulose.8695:

Yamsandjams.3267:

What are these creative builds that have been “stolen too quickly” and need protection “for the sake of balance”? Mind posting them? I could show you why they’re not actually creative and worth “protecting” if you do.

Me posting them would defeat the purpose of this thread. By sharing a build, it would no longer be creative or worth protecting. However, if you want to share a build, there are threads that builds can be posted on rather than spectating them.

But then how can you demonstrate that the build is worth “protecting” in the first place?

If you can’t prove that these builds are what you claim, or even show that you actually know any builds that fit your description, then for all we know they’re just average cookie-cutter builds. Some people could then infer that your real purpose it to prevent people checking out your build to subsequently counter-pick you.

Are you suggesting we just make large alterations to the game on nothing more than faith in your claims? I don’t believe many people are going to be convinced without something more substantial to reinforce your point.

Yamsandjams.3267:

Zelulose.8695:

Yamsandjams.3267:

What are these creative builds that have been “stolen too quickly” and need protection “for the sake of balance”? Mind posting them? I could show you why they’re not actually creative and worth “protecting” if you do.

Me posting them would defeat the purpose of this thread. By sharing a build, it would no longer be creative or worth protecting. However, if you want to share a build, there are threads that builds can be posted on rather than spectating them.

But then how can you demonstrate that the build is worth “protecting” in the first place?

If you can’t prove that these builds are what you claim, or even show that you actually know any builds that fit your description, then for all we know they’re just average cookie-cutter builds. Some people could then infer that your real purpose it to prevent people checking out your build to subsequently counter-pick you.

Are you suggesting we just make large alterations to the game on nothing more than faith in your claims? I don’t believe many people are going to be convinced without something more substantial to reinforce your point.

This post was designed to trap me. You want me to post builds so you can say there is no need to keep a know build secret. However, by not posting builds you falsely assume that I have absolutely no builds and judged me by implying that if I do they are not viable. I may question your credibility as well.
I don’t believe you have the credibility to say we shouldn’t make game alterations to slow down the progression of what you may falsely think are not potential metas.

The funnies thing about topic is: we can’t even spectate Ranked matches unlike in GW1… much #esportz.

I don’t honestly know why anyone would spectate your hotjoin match to steal your build when they could just go on google or youtube and type in “gw2 -class- pvp” build. Besides with 3 choices per trait tier it’s not like it’s all that hard for people to come up with a build.

Face it, nobody stole your build, they just saw the same glaring combination of traits, utilities and weapons and combined them.

Shadow.1345:

I don’t honestly know why anyone would spectate your hotjoin match to steal your build when they could just go on google or youtube and type in “gw2 -class- pvp” build. Besides with 3 choices per trait tier it’s not like it’s all that hard for people to come up with a build.

Face it, nobody stole your build, they just saw the same glaring combination of traits, utilities and weapons and combined them.

This is not going to protect builds from being stolen. It will instead slow their distribution (As noted in my OP and previous posts)

It is pointless to attempt to hide your build considering their are so few builds that actually work available. Yes you might have some traits in the same line different but if you are building for a certain action…let’s say tank…you are going to pick the same 3 lines no matter what because the traits state exactly what they provide. It is not hard at all to accidently go through lines create a build that is considered “the norm”

It wouldn’t slow distribution at all the higher tier players would have no problem sharing most of their builds on metabattle

DanzelOPP.5068:

It is pointless to attempt to hide your build considering their are so few builds that actually work available. Yes you might have some traits in the same line different but if you are building for a certain action…let’s say tank…you are going to pick the same 3 lines no matter what because the traits state exactly what they provide. It is not hard at all to accidentally go through lines create a build that is considered “the norm”

If you read, this same statement has been addressed in a previous comment. (same to NeXeD.3042)

Zelulose.8695:

Shadow.1345:

I don’t honestly know why anyone would spectate your hotjoin match to steal your build when they could just go on google or youtube and type in “gw2 -class- pvp” build. Besides with 3 choices per trait tier it’s not like it’s all that hard for people to come up with a build.

Face it, nobody stole your build, they just saw the same glaring combination of traits, utilities and weapons and combined them.

This is not going to protect builds from being stolen. It will instead slow their distribution (As noted in my OP and previous posts)

If you don’t want your build stolen don’t use it in hotjoins. Problem solved.

Shadow.1345:

Zelulose.8695:

Shadow.1345:

I don’t honestly know why anyone would spectate your hotjoin match to steal your build when they could just go on google or youtube and type in “gw2 -class- pvp” build. Besides with 3 choices per trait tier it’s not like it’s all that hard for people to come up with a build.

Face it, nobody stole your build, they just saw the same glaring combination of traits, utilities and weapons and combined them.

This is not going to protect builds from being stolen. It will instead slow their distribution (As noted in my OP and previous posts)

If you don’t want your build stolen don’t use it in hotjoins. Problem solved.

Forcing secretive player to stop playing pvp is exactly why I posted this thread. Your post is, in fact, a revelation that this can affect the player base count and quality.

Zelulose.8695:

I humbly am no genious just a regular palyer.
From what I gather from these posts. People who create builds are the minority. (Althought these comments infer that people havent read my original post completely)
The majority favor my prediction. People would rather copy someome elses creative work rather than create their own and fight against me for it.

I just wan’t to repeat. The fix will slow down the rate at which metas arise. Even if there are ways to still get the builds, the distribution will be less convenient. Less convenience means slower distribution. (Even if only slightly slower)
I want to see build wars and skill wars togather to create a sense of uniqueness.

Um… no? What I’ve gathered from these posts is that people understand that what they build isn’t unique due to the limitations of the trait system and have no problem sharing their builds because they feel like even if the enemy knows what they’re using, it isn’t the build playing the game, its them. So only if the build is OP and they themselves are hilariously unskillful will the enemy knowing or copying the build actually weaken you, if you’re only riding the ranks on the wind of other players’ ignorance.

So from what I’m seeing of your post here is that you equate people who disagree with your idea of controlling build info to being part of the uncreative masses who simply want to steal other people’s ideas. What I see are people who, creative or not, believe that your idea of information control is a bad one that will, in the end, only help in hindering the meta’s progression and thus also hinder balance, meaning that hiding build information also let’s severely OP specs which are wildly outside the realm of balance hide in the opaqueness of this illusion of uniqueness you seem to be advocating for.

Zelulose.8695:

Shadow.1345:

Zelulose.8695:

Shadow.1345:

I don’t honestly know why anyone would spectate your hotjoin match to steal your build when they could just go on google or youtube and type in “gw2 -class- pvp” build. Besides with 3 choices per trait tier it’s not like it’s all that hard for people to come up with a build.

Face it, nobody stole your build, they just saw the same glaring combination of traits, utilities and weapons and combined them.

This is not going to protect builds from being stolen. It will instead slow their distribution (As noted in my OP and previous posts)

If you don’t want your build stolen don’t use it in hotjoins. Problem solved.

Forcing secretive player to stop playing pvp is exactly why I posted this thread. Your post is, in fact, a revelation that this can affect the player base count and quality.

Who said anything about stopping PvP? Just go unranked or ranked.

It’s to my benefit that people know my build. That way they can challenge and critique it, and bring counters to it to take advantage of any obvious weaknesses. When people share knowledge in this way we all benefit and become more cunning.

Good luck with your build ownership though. Perhaps take a trip to your local patent office to make it legit?

Also I’ve found tinfoil hats to be exceedingly potent. Wait, kitten, I just gave away my secret