Curse

Legolas Ravenwood · Oct 26, 2006, 08:53 PM // 20:53

Unfortunately I can see into the future.

Update - January 6th 2007
Weapon swapping in PVP disabled.

Drewfense · Oct 26, 2006, 09:04 PM // 21:04

Eh I can see where you are coming from, but I doubt that would happen. Weapon and armor swapping are different for one in realism ("not going to change pants in battle") and secondly by anet giving weapon slots they clearly inteded for weapon switching. It was a little unbalanced originally with Gale warriors and such, but the necessary nerfs were made back then.

I would even go a step further in saying weapon swapping requires more skill than armor swapping and anet seems to award skill more often than not. For all the people who don't like this point because they want to sound leet, watch weapon usage of any top 20 monk and then compare it to a 80-100ish monk. There is a big difference.

Jessyi · Oct 26, 2006, 09:13 PM // 21:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by clonmac

Or the third possibility may have been that they just decided to hold off on making the changes until they had a way of implementing the solution correctly. Developers, believe it or not, usually have a list of things that they planned on changing a year down the road. They most likely planned on removing armor-swapping from the game a while ago, but decided to not make the change until they could implement the new PvP equipment crafting interface.

If they feel that armor swaps are less important or impactful than I do, then at the very least it explains thier action (or inaction as it were). I'm not ruling out the possibility that I'm overreacting because I'm a huge crybaby (I'm trying desperately to stay objective here). However, that aside, I've got enough of an appreciation for projects like these to realize thier complexity, but nothing is impossible just the same, and I find it VERY hard to believe that the opportunity to make this change has NEVER come up before. Unless the one-armed man eating giant of Antross was guarding the game code, I'm going to stay cynical for the time being.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drewfense

Sometimes the best way to fight back is a show of protest...I have already decided to play out the winter gvg season naked...

I said I'm pissed, I didn't say I didn't want to win anymore...but I know you're kidding, so "lol" to you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR-

PvP characters have never had the ability to armor swap, and PvE characters have only relatively recently become so popular in PvP due to the imbalances fixed in the most recent update.

My guess would be that Anet wanted to completely balance PvE and PvP characters - including disabling armor swaps - in one go, instead of making one small change, and then more later.

I don't even have to disagree (and in fact I agree) with you to make the point that Dragannia first made: why make it possible to create more armors for PvP toons, then make it impossible to armor swap? They DID fix the imbalance. Then they went on a lamer spree. So close guys...so damn close. Don't worry ANet, you'll get it, you just keep trying!

-Jessyi

JR · Oct 26, 2006, 10:07 PM // 22:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jessyi

why make it possible to create more armors for PvP toons, then make it impossible to armor swap?

Why is it not possible to change skills in matches?

Blame the Monks · Oct 26, 2006, 10:16 PM // 22:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR-

PvE characters have only relatively recently become so popular in PvP due to the imbalances fixed in the most recent update.

Not at all. Even as far back as the GWWC in Jan PvE toons were the rule, especially for certian classes (HoD helm warriors). PvE monks were also the standard from at least that time for prebuffing boon. Its not new by any stretch -- in fact, its more accurate to say there has never been a GW tournament that did not prominently feature tactical gear swapping.

Messner · Oct 26, 2006, 10:25 PM // 22:25

Hey for once ANet got the dart they blindly threw to hit the board instead of putting another messy hole in the wall, by no means a bullseye, but one of these times they're bound to get it right, I mean, even monkeys have a learning curve...

Side note: Does anyone else find it ridiculously retarded that whenever ANet introduces a new patch or update, items completely unrelated to the patch cease to function correctly? Examples being a few months back when the Ghostly Hero on relic matches couldn't collect relics for about 4 days after a skill update. Or how about the one where if your ghost died in halls and ressed to recap, he would follow a player off of the altar while the team was still in control and you could just setup a 3 man body block on one of the side stairs. The newest one that makes me say wow in the pathetic way is the Auto-Camera function in observer mode. It's set to off by default but it's on anyways, so you have to check it on and then off again.

It does strike me as funny how they addressed an issue (PvE armor/weapons swaps outclassing PvP characters) while simultaneously removing the need to address the issue in the first place.

I think they're just pissed that people used to boon on pvp characters and get 67 boons and with the new boon nerf PvE characters can have the same HP (no superior stat runes) and get a 66 boon.

Or maybe when handing out development task lists two people got the one that said "Address the imbalance issues between PvE and PvP players" Obviously one was created by an intelligent developer (Insignia system) and the other by a screaming monkey (No armor swaps in PvP!) and since the monkey showed some progress over his last illogical contribution (the development of the skill Order of Apostasy) they decided to implement both solutions without applying common sense first.

Servant of Kali · Oct 26, 2006, 10:43 PM // 22:43

I cant believe people in this thread say that armor swapping is a tactic. It was NEVER meant to be that way, and it shouldnt be that way, and ANet finally fixed it. Yes that's right, they _fixed_ it.

Sulk all you want, armor swapping was just lame.

-Dullahan- · Oct 26, 2006, 10:48 PM // 22:48

Quote:

Unfortunately I can see into the future.

Update - January 6th 2007
Weapon swapping in PVP disabled.

I call shenanigans on that

Quote:

Or maybe when handing out development task lists two people got the one that said "Address the imbalance issues between PvE and PvP players" Obviously one was created by an intelligent developer (Insignia system) and the other by a screaming monkey (No armor swaps in PvP!) and since the monkey showed some progress over his last illogical contribution (the development of the skill Order of Apostasy) they decided to implement both solutions without applying common sense first.

Could the insignia system be used to replace the advantage of armor swapping?

Blame the Monks · Oct 26, 2006, 10:56 PM // 22:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Servant of Kali

I cant believe people in this thread say that armor swapping is a tactic. It was NEVER meant to be that way, and it shouldnt be that way, and ANet finally fixed it. Yes that's right, they _fixed_ it.

Sulk all you want, armor swapping was just lame.

Who cares what they meant? Original intent only matters if you are Scalia. For everyone else, the only thing that matters is balance, and imo swapping is better balanced because it is a nerf to gimmicry and spikes.

Maybe I'm just sulky tho

Jessyi · Oct 26, 2006, 10:56 PM // 22:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Messner

Side note: Does anyone else find it ridiculously retarded that whenever ANet introduces a new patch or update, items completely unrelated to the patch cease to function correctly? Examples being a few months back when the Ghostly Hero on relic matches couldn't collect relics for about 4 days after a skill update. Or how about the one where if your ghost died in halls and ressed to recap, he would follow a player off of the altar while the team was still in control and you could just setup a 3 man body block on one of the side stairs. The newest one that makes me say wow in the pathetic way is the Auto-Camera function in observer mode. It's set to off by default but it's on anyways, so you have to check it on and then off again.

I was going to address the gross issue of coupling in this game. Unfortunately beyond proper usage of the word "coupling" in this context, I don't know that I'm totally qualified to critique this...as totally baffling as it is. Even a layman has got to ask, "HOW is THAT tied to what they CHANGED"? Seems like some kind of bizarre design to me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR-

Why is it not possible to change skills in matches?

I can grant you that. I could attempt to argue that skills and armors are different...or I could address a point you made earlier about making all the changes at once (to which I would say, better to establish the change early instead of letting it catch on). I doubt either would be productive, really. This is my take on it, and I remain dissapointed in ANet's action in this one isolated area.

-Jessyi

romO · Oct 26, 2006, 11:05 PM // 23:05

I talked to Izzy last night and he said that he fully supports weapon swapping, as it doesn't have the same power that armor swapping does. The main problem with armor swapping, at least in Izzy's eyes, was swapping superior runes on and off, not necessarily the armor mods. Superior runes were supposed to mean that you were taking a sufficient risk to gain an offensive advantage, not something that you were able to get an advantage from with no drawbacks.

Drewfense · Oct 26, 2006, 11:31 PM // 23:31

Switching sups was to much of an advantage, but I think monks are taking a big hit by not being able to switch armor bonuses. Getting an additional 15 armor versus teams with a tainted or 35 health to counter a spike can go a long way.

Wasteland Squidget · Oct 26, 2006, 11:41 PM // 23:41

Monks will be less likely to have armor that counters me now == I get more kills playing a warrior == awesome update.

Discuss.

Messner · Oct 26, 2006, 11:42 PM // 23:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by romO

I talked to Izzy last night and he said that he fully supports weapon swapping, as it doesn't have the same power that armor swapping does. The main problem with armor swapping, at least in Izzy's eyes, was swapping superior runes on and off, not necessarily the armor mods. Superior runes were supposed to mean that you were taking a sufficient risk to gain an offensive advantage, not something that you were able to get an advantage from with no drawbacks.

Provided that's a direct quote, I'd have to say that armor swapping does not increase the offense as the rune has to be equipped to get the offensive effect. If you're swapping headpieces between superiors and minors for every time you use a skill then you're insane and any benefit is lost to the inefficiency. Bottom line, in realizing those enhanced benefits of the stronger skill, you still experience the increased vulnerability. If offensive overpowering is the reason behind this then I've never been more confused as to why they did this.

I mean depending on the nubbiness of the team on the other side of the map and the build that you're facing you change weapons to deal with specific situations and what not, so why not armor?

The only sustained benefits from headpiece/rune swaps come in the form of enchantments and spirits for the most part. The majority of those fall under the umbrella of defensive skills. I suppose you can switch up from a minor to a superior on a Conjure Lightning Elementalist for that extra kick but I mean let's be real the offensive benefits realized from swapping are marginal in many cases. You can add a few seconds to an attunement or boost the ZF dmg from 33 to 37. If from the offensive standpoint they're trying to address that issue, why did they nerf the skill as well? Jessyi if you decide to make a distinction between skills and armor sets I think the last point I made would form a pretty solid base of an argument proving their mutual exclusivity.

IMO equipment swapping is a learned tactic considering a lot of players (granted they're horrible in the first place anyways) don't even grasp the concept behind it. With that said it is predominantly more of a defensive tactic than an offensive one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drewfense

Switching sups was to much of an advantage, but I think monks are taking a big hit by not being able to switch armor bonuses. Getting an additional 15 armor versus teams with a tainted or 35 health to counter a spike can go a long way.

Insignias should be swappable in game but then we run into the problem with PvE characters inferiority as they don't have insignias in the first place and would require a full armor swap which would be impossible. How about fully unlocking insignia swappability for all characters to address the issue.

comonnow · Oct 26, 2006, 11:45 PM // 23:45

I'm a little ticked about the armor swapping nerf, but hey thats how it goes. I used to switch armor quite often actually (i.e. VoD, DP, Spike) but i dont really see it being that big of a change. The only thing that is gonna mess me up, is extending a bit too far to go for a flagger or something, getting snared and running back to monks, in that case i always switched my sup rune and that extra health saved my life 90% of the time.

Thom · Oct 26, 2006, 11:49 PM // 23:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Messner

Hey for once ANet got the dart they blindly threw to hit the board instead of putting another messy hole in the wall, by no means a bullseye, but one of these times they're bound to get it right, I mean, even monkeys have a learning curve...

Side note: Does anyone else find it ridiculously retarded that whenever ANet introduces a new patch or update, items completely unrelated to the patch cease to function correctly? Examples being a few months back when the Ghostly Hero on relic matches couldn't collect relics for about 4 days after a skill update. Or how about the one where if your ghost died in halls and ressed to recap, he would follow a player off of the altar while the team was still in control and you could just setup a 3 man body block on one of the side stairs. The newest one that makes me say wow in the pathetic way is the Auto-Camera function in observer mode. It's set to off by default but it's on anyways, so you have to check it on and then off again.

It does strike me as funny how they addressed an issue (PvE armor/weapons swaps outclassing PvP characters) while simultaneously removing the need to address the issue in the first place.

I think they're just pissed that people used to boon on pvp characters and get 67 boons and with the new boon nerf PvE characters can have the same HP (no superior stat runes) and get a 66 boon.

Or maybe when handing out development task lists two people got the one that said "Address the imbalance issues between PvE and PvP players" Obviously one was created by an intelligent developer (Insignia system) and the other by a screaming monkey (No armor swaps in PvP!) and since the monkey showed some progress over his last illogical contribution (the development of the skill Order of Apostasy) they decided to implement both solutions without applying common sense first.

Anet has slowly changed its philosophy on PvP, PvE relations. The two changes were distinct: no armor swaps was a balance issue, unlimited armor was a PvP equality issue. Anet has completely abandon the necessary connection between PvP and PvE, which has certain benefits and disadvantages for both sides.

Large updates over very dense code is largely error free. The fashion in which the game updates is prone to stupid errors. The game code is complex enough that you get ripple effects resulting in bugs. Perhaps some code is messy or takes a short cut which is exposed later, maybe a typo causes a non-critical error which shows up as bugged AI. That has simply always been the way with guild wars updates.

Patrograd · Oct 27, 2006, 12:11 AM // 00:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Messner

The only sustained benefits from headpiece/rune swaps come in the form of enchantments and spirits for the most part. .

Not really

You could, for example, run a superior rune at the start of a battle. Then you acquire some DP, and switch to a minor, effectively wiping out your DP

You could, at VOD, switch to a minor rune, and effectively negate a large part of the VOD mechanic

Going base ganking? Remove that superior rune.

And so on

Now you cant

You start with a superior, and you *feel* that DP, and you *feel* that VOD mechanic, instead of being something you armour switched your way through

or you start with a major/minor, and feel the effect less but have less attrribute points to spread around.

Game balance should be about choices, with penalties for making the wrong choice. The reason why everyone ran PVE toons is because it gave them the ability to not have to make this choice, almost the definition of imbalance imo

The same thing applies to armour against various situations. Assess the meta and make your choice. Get it wrong and you suffer, get it right and you dont. Isnt this what it should be about?

Messner · Oct 27, 2006, 12:25 AM // 00:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrograd

Not really

You could, for example, run a superior rune at the start of a battle. Then you acquire some DP, and switch to a minor, effectively wiping out your DP

You could, at VOD, switch to a minor rune, and effectively negate a large part of the VOD mechanic

Going base ganking? Remove that superior rune.

You start with a superior, and you *feel* that DP, and you *feel* that VOD mechanic, instead of being something you armour switched your way through

or you start with a major/minor, and feel the effect less but have less attrribute points to spread around.

Defensive Switch. Defensive Switch. Defensive Switch. Defensive Switch.

My comment was made in response to an assumed direct quote and I'm refuting the claim that it was a solution to increased offensive outputs. So you want to decrease your original healing/damage output by swapping, it's a tactic.

From dictionary.com:
tac‧tic /ˈtæktɪk/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[tak-tik] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1. tactics (def. 1).
2. a system or a detail of tactics.
3. a plan, procedure, or expedient for promoting a desired end or result.

I've planned that when I get killed, I will execute the procedure required to swap down runes to promote the desired end, victory. I think the whole thing is just absurd, if you swap up or down in rune strength you have the health tradeoff. I can't magically use a minor rune and get a superior rune's gift of health stats.

Following the weapon swap nerf on January 6th, 2007 they will also nerf kiting because the tactic was overlooked in development. Movement as a form of damage mitigation is an exploit and was never originally intended, enchantments and spells were created to deal with damage and that will be all that is allowed...players caught kiting will receive 1 strike towards an account ban upon each sighting.

Call it apples to oranges if you like, you see my point though...

Emu · Oct 27, 2006, 12:40 AM // 00:40

I'm going to go hypothetical for a moment here

Player A: this player lives and breathes guildwars pvp

Player B: a casual player, this player would like to get into pvp but gets discouraged by the amount of time that more experienced players force him to spend face down in the dirt

Players A and B read about armour swapping on a forum and give it some serious thought.

Player A decides that it is something he'll need to do to keep competitive. He starts up a new pve toon for his pvp exploits and grinds through shing jei, then grinds quests on the mainland up to level 20, then hops on to his farming character (or god forbid: Ebay) to grind some gold and materials to make his three sets of situation specific armour and buy some pvp appropriate weaponry. This cost him 20 hours of game time (we'll give his farming skills the benefit of the doubt) that he would rather have spent playing pvp, but at least the hard-core folks don't have that advantage over him anymore.

player B isn't willing to invest the kind of energy required to set up one of these characters. Maybe he'll keep playing and getting more frustrated or maybe he'll just go pve.

Who am I? I'm player C, and I'd be downright thrilled if pvpers that look down on pve and/or just don't enjoy it would go back to pvp and stop whining for power levelling at Drok's forge.

Once you get past the original set up armour switching isn't so bad, but really players A, B and C would've had more of what they enjoy if it had never existed.

Rera · Oct 27, 2006, 01:04 AM // 01:04

Armor swapping increases offensive strength because it allows you to bring that superior rune in the first place. Your argument assumes that everyone brought superior runes as the default option, and were switching them down in response to circumstances like DP, VoD, spike, etc. I believe this assumption is incorrect. The minor rune is actually the default option, and the superior rune is swapped up when DP, Vod, and spike conditions do not exist. I would never bring a superior rune if I didn't know it could be swapped out.