Guild Wars 2

Short intro: Reason for this thread being opened is to have a constructive discussion about the one of the engi’s most painful spots: hobosacks. Other thread shows how many of us are there that dislike it from a visual point of view, and one thing that I have been taught while browsing the forums is that the best way to get ArenaNet’s attention is to have a constructive discussion, with useful feedback. As the other thread kind of only presents the disatisfaction about it as a visual item.
Now, I propose that we give the constructive feedback about this problem from a balance point of view.
Do you, as a player, think that removing hobosacks will introduce the imbalance in the game? Especially in a competetive environment, where seeing what your opponent does is key to countering? Do you, as an opposing class, whilst fighting an engineer, find seeing hobosacks cruical to your defense and counterplay?
Leave your thoughts and suggestions, again, in a constructive manner, as I think, as stated, this the best way to get developers’ attention. And please, leave the inflammatory and sarcastic posts for elsewhere, as it ruins the foundation for intelligent discussion.
Also, devs, don’t be afraid to join in, as it’s been now almost 2 years since we presented this “problem” to you.

I’ll leave my quick thoughts about the matter: As someone who mains a thief, besides an elementalist & an engineer, I do agree that knowing what the opponent does is crucial, especially as a thief. Do I find hobosacks helpful for my counterplay? Hardly. Because, it’s really hard to tell the difference between them, even if I play engineer myself, and know exactly how they look. And, they really look alike, and it rarely provides me with feedback as an opponent what kit is engineer equipping at the given moment. Guns do. As well as the character’s animations. They are quite noticable and they are the ones that give me more information over hobosacks. As far as the grenade kits, this is where we need to come up with a solution / suggestion.

Solution suggestion: Completely remove the hobosacks and add the “toolbar icon” for every kit, similair to elementalist’s attunements. And everyone is happy. I hope.

What are your thoughts?

A toolbar icon would probably be a good alternative, although I think that some might complain about yet another icon cluttering that bar.

I myself really don’t mind the “hobosacks” btw. Seriously, it just makes sense that you do have a special piece of equipment on your back if you’re using something like a flamethrower or an elixir gun. Also, I’m only using kits in combat, where I usually don’t really have time to look at my character in awe anyway. Out of combat, I’m not using kits… so yeah, for me it’s a non-issue. But I guess that belongs into the other thread. (Btw, shields are a much bigger annoyance in my opinion, but I guess it wouldn’t make much sense to carry them around anywhere else than on the back, so yeah.)

Toolbar icon could work, though unlike elementalist attunements, engineer kit icons share a color scheme, which requires more focus on the toolbar to glean the information than it would for the elementalist.

As such, in addition to the toolbar icon, hobosacks should also be replaced with in-hand indicators of kits (held items). flamethrower and elixir gun already have these, and the wrench for tool kit could just be made a little bigger to increase visibility. medkit could hate a bandage-pack in one hand and a syringe in the other. bomb kit could have a bomb in one hand and a lit lighter or match in the other, and grenade kit could have a two-barreled grenade launcher (seeing as, untraited, the kit skills fire two grenades each)

Haha, i actually like them.
They are nice and fit my engineer also the theme.
and i don’t need to worry about finding a good looking backpack.

if they remove it, ill probably give it another backpack like backpack..-.-
or one of those craft prof backpacks

People have proposed having an icon for them for like 2 years. Nobody cared. One dev dude said he thought replacing them with a fanny pack was a good idea.

Don’t get your hopes up.

Piogre.2164:

Toolbar icon could work, though unlike elementalist attunements, engineer kit icons share a color scheme, which requires more focus on the toolbar to glean the information than it would for the elementalist.

Hmm, I’m not a huge fan of that idea. Do elementalist conjured weapons and warrior banners (when carried as a bundle) have toolbar icons?

Piogre.2164:

As such, in addition to the toolbar icon, hobosacks should also be replaced with in-hand indicators of kits (held items). flamethrower and elixir gun already have these, and the wrench for tool kit could just be made a little bigger to increase visibility. medkit could hate a bandage-pack in one hand and a syringe in the other. bomb kit could have a bomb in one hand and a lit lighter or match in the other, and grenade kit could have a two-barreled grenade launcher (seeing as, untraited, the kit skills fire two grenades each)

YES PLEASE. Replacing the hobosacks with distinctive hand-held items would be great!

robertul.3679:

People have proposed having an icon for them for like 2 years. Nobody cared. One dev dude said he thought replacing them with a fanny pack was a good idea.

Don’t get your hopes up.

This is the kind of posts I was talking about. I understand it can be dissapointing when our wishes / requests are not emediatelly or never granted, but posts like this really discourages constructive discussion and probably developers themselves to charm in on it.

On another note, I also like the “handheld items” idea as well to signify what kit is equipped at the given moment. Although, still pretty sure the “toolbar icon” wouldn’t be as cluttering as some might think.

as someone whos played the engineer very extensively i can say that kit swapping is so fast in multikit builds there is no way to deduce what kit an engineer is using other then seeing what he does next, weapons are allmost a dead give away to tell what another class is using because of there distinctive look and general knowledge about weapon sets/combinations across the classes, but considering other classes have a cd on there weapon swap its a much more easier to pick what weapons an enemy is using by there stance and the weapons (the way you look when holding certian weapons), but on an engineer if you take some kits you literally cannot pick what kit he is using befor he does something with that kit with the exception being EG and FT but even then in the middle of combat chances are youll pick hes in flamer or EG from the next skill hes uses befor you see the kit itself, so there fore hobosacks are not a visual que for seeing what kit an engi is using befor he uses a skill from that kit, icons would be neat but the speed of which an engineer swaps kits would make it next to impossible to predict anything an engineer is doing from looking at those icons so its also a no go from me, so the only thing that could be done for kits in pvp is well not much.

as for how i feel about the hobo sacks, if i could make them match my outfits id be okay, id really like to see them changed to something hip mounted so it dosent cover our back item but still gives us a unique visual identity, even if maybe they added an extra color slot into the dyes area that applied the different colors across all the hobo sacks so we could at least add a small amount of personalization to match our outfits.

I personally like hobosacks.

I would like to see an option to toggle the graphics if anything. Give bomb and grenade kits some better ‘weapon’ graphics, FT, EG and TK are easily seen. That way opponents can see a weapon and players can keep their hobosacks if they want.

IMHO
Blood~

The balancing problem with #NoHobosacks is already solved. Funnily enough, a-net did this without even noticing it.
You see the new standard-model option in s/tPvP?
How about you ALWAYS make hobosacks visible with these models (as it is currently anyways), and leave the decision to show it with skins -or not- to the engi per graphical / gameplay option.
For WvW zerging it certainly does not matter what a single engi in a blobb is running as his kit, and since WvW is imbalanced PvP per definition, the balancing-reasons argument is simply not valid there, nor does it matter for PvE.
And if people in wvw actually start to moan; give them a standard-model option for WvW as well.

The balancing solution is already implemented – People can decide to see an engis standard model instead of his race/skins, including the kit he equips, so finally give in and give as a proper-hide option for hobosacks, Anet.

Ty in advance for showing common sense.

Predator.9214:

robertul.3679:

People have proposed having an icon for them for like 2 years. Nobody cared. One dev dude said he thought replacing them with a fanny pack was a good idea.

Don’t get your hopes up.

This is the kind of posts I was talking about. I understand it can be dissapointing when our wishes / requests are not emediatelly or never granted, but posts like this really discourages constructive discussion and probably developers themselves to charm in on it.

Yes. Constructive discussion when basically all that provides are hundreds of variations on “remove them” like “remove them and add icons”, “remove them when you enable your backpiece visibility”, “make a toggle button for them” etc.
It’s a commonly known fact they serve no purpose in the competitive scene, there has been a poll about that. Just bad design all around.

What if in the recent gem conversion situation people would have just said “kk anet just reduce base number to 200gems” and called it a day? Constructive criticism doesn’t provide change. It provides a venting mechanism. Also there is literally nothing “constructive” when the answer is obvious.

As a side note, legendary effects are also a big issue. Also highly ignored.

But it’s cool guys cuz grouch totally mains an engi! He feels us! All dem feels!!

robertul.3679:

But it’s cool guys cuz grouch totally mains an engi! He feels us! All dem feels!!

If he tries to feel me, I’ll kick him in the nads.

robertul.3679:

Predator.9214:

robertul.3679:

People have proposed having an icon for them for like 2 years. Nobody cared. One dev dude said he thought replacing them with a fanny pack was a good idea.

Don’t get your hopes up.

This is the kind of posts I was talking about. I understand it can be dissapointing when our wishes / requests are not emediatelly or never granted, but posts like this really discourages constructive discussion and probably developers themselves to charm in on it.

Yes. Constructive discussion when basically all that provides are hundreds of variations on “remove them” like “remove them and add icons”, “remove them when you enable your backpiece visibility”, “make a toggle button for them” etc.
It’s a commonly known fact they serve no purpose in the competitive scene, there has been a poll about that. Just bad design all around.

What if in the recent gem conversion situation people would have just said “kk anet just reduce base number to 200gems” and called it a day? Constructive criticism doesn’t provide change. It provides a venting mechanism. Also there is literally nothing “constructive” when the answer is obvious.

As a side note, legendary effects are also a big issue. Also highly ignored.

But it’s cool guys cuz grouch totally mains an engi! He feels us! All dem feels!!

In addition to all this: The staff aren’t supposed to talk to us about things that are in progress, and they know they’re not going to be greeted with “Cool, thanks for letting us know” if they come out and go “Yeah, Hobosacks are always going to be there. Buy our back items! Good luck on getting Legendaries!”

So, either they’re not going to say anything because it’s against policy, or they’re not going to say anything because they don’t want the outcry. Pretty sure I’ve seen Whiteside make a candid post about getting frustrated with the playerbase, not being sure if the CDIs were worth it – I can’t imagine anyone being inclined to stick around if they told Engineers they weren’t doing anything about Hobosacks.

Thus, by process of deduction: They’re not going to say anything unless they have it ready for the next release. I welcome somebody with the authority to do so proving me wrong on this, but I’d lay money against it, if I were a gambling man.

On the subject of constructive/not constructive posts, though? We have a year-old thread, in which one of the forum members took it on themselves to design much better-looking, more distinct Kit back items, at one point. There’s really very little to say about the subject except:

• Engineers are, when played as Anet designed – with at least one Kit, bugger their eyes – prevented from enjoying/partaking in the cosmetics-driven endgame as much as other classes, especially in regards to Legendaries and the back items often given as meta-rewards. Anything earned is only able to be shown off out-of-combat or in short bursts.
  but on the other hand,
• Hobosacks are meant to be a tell, regardless of the fact that they’re flipped between rapidly, and that two of them are identical except for a hand-held item. Compare to Elementalist, an entire class based on essentially what Kits do (swap the weapon bar) – longer time between swaps, but swaps are indicated by sound clip, boon-bar badge, and small rings of effects around their wrists, which do not override Gauntlet skins.

I really don’t think there’s much else to say, besides “It would be really nice to know why Elementalists get boon badges, sound clips, and non-overriding bracelets, while Engineers get back-item overriding hobosacks.”

They also said precursor crafting by the end of 2013, new legendary items(trinkets) etc.
Oh and..
Fractal Reset. Never forget.

To quote Wylenn’s Manual of Style description “Using words is hard, because words mean things.”

Back on topic dudes. I was hoping to hear more about the player’s opinions whether hobosacks are useful for a counter play, and suggestions that players can come up with as well.
Also, keep the thread bumped guys, until we finally influence the removal of the forementioned “problem”.

Predator.9214:

Back on topic dudes. I was hoping to hear more about the player’s opinions whether hobosacks are useful for a counter play, and suggestions that players can come up with as well.
Also, keep the thread bumped guys, until we finally influence the removal of the forementioned “problem”.

Based on the informal poll I did in the balance boards, I’m going to go with ’they’re not generally considered useful by the forum-going crowd.’
There’s already been plenty of suggestions regarding actually making awareness of them beneficial rather than ‘okay, they’ve got a bag, what kind is – oh, different bag now, great, and – hey, weren’t they just dropping bombs, when did they get a prybar’ – genuinely distinct models/looks for each Hobosack, providing boon badges like the Elementalist gets, sound clips to help inform transitions…

Grenades and bombs aswell the toolkit can be visible in the hands of the user. EG, FT are both guns and very visible. Why hobosacks? Option to disable would be enough.