Question to the Community

I hate posing questions that I already have an opinion on, but here goes.

Would you think it would be more competitive if the class labels were removed from your character upon entering a PvP arena? Not in the party window, just when you highlight an opposing player.

Its not like you couldnt play spot the monk, but I think it would add a much needed degree of dificulty to the already easy "i see you from a mile away and we are all coming for you" PvP.

Im sure this has been discussed before, just wondering what the general consensus is.

Not a PvP'er - but that makes sense to me. If it were a real "arena match" all you would have to determine what someone was would be their actions and armor....

That is a pretty cool idea give us more of a challenge even tho we already do trying to kill them lol(or at least i do)

since the armor gives you away it does not make much sense to get rid of the "title"

It makes sense to get rid of the title if you can see the title from further away than you can see the armor. It -forces- you to come into visual range as you would have to do if it were a RL situation....I know, I know. It's not RL. *yawns*

Awww but I like holding Ctrl and looking at everyones proffessions and then choosing which one I'm going to kill first...

Exactly.

but the armor doesnt give you the second profession.

well it would be more challenging. i think it's better to make a hardcore arena to support this. winning is this arena gives slightly more xp and faction point as it's more challenging

Yes, the secondary class should _not_ be shown in PvP -- only the primary class. This would add a rich dimension of suprise and strategy.

I'll support anything lets me live for more than 10 seconds into the battle!! yeah, i am a monk, a weak little monk

It would make PvP a lot more challenging, and increase the gulf between the advanced guilds and the new guilds. Besides, it would take way too long to spot the mesmer whos hexing you all if that mesmer is in fact an E/Me. Classes would be all messed up, since having monk or mesmer secondaries as opposed to primaries would be all too common disguises. I picture a team of 8 elemental and ranger(expertise) avatars...so yea I'm against it.

Not a bad idea, I'm not a pvp'r too often myself... but the the not knowing right away might be a little extra challenge.

To those who say it's all about the skills and strategy... start putting this into the suggestion forum.

As an E/W, N/Me and R/Mo, I'd hate this as it makes things really hard. And then I'd realise something very important: THAT'S A BRILLIANT IDEA

I don't understand your reasoning...up until I got to the second half of your post I thought you were stating reasons it would be a good idea.

It would make PvP a lot more challenging -> More skill (ala what GW advertised)

increase the gulf between the advanced guilds and the new guilds -> More skill

it would take way too long to spot the mesmer whos hexing you all if that mesmer is in fact an E/Me -> Adds a dimension of awareness and mid-battle reaction -> More skill

all too common disguises -> Adds a dimension of awareness and mid-battle reaction -> More skill


Plus it would make a tradeoff for the monks. Go primary and have divine favor and healing runes, or go secondary and have a longer life expectancy. Name me one successful high level team build that doesn't have monk primaries right now. The fact that there are none says that Monk primaries are too heavily focussed on. You can't say that for any other class primary as things stand atm. This would be a step towards changing that.

Basically everyone here is advocating chaos over skill. As a mes, locking down certain classes makes sense. Not the monks mind you, but taking their one stripper necro completely offline with a bonder group, for example, is a skilled and experienced move.

This suggestion would basically allow people to "hide" their available skills, which is completely bogus: i can't see your skillbar as a mes, so does casting backfire do much to the monk who's running persistent enchants? How's about one that has signet of devotion? No, it does next to nothing. That's odd: the posterchild domination skill useless against a caster?

Here's a clue: if you're worried about people "figuring you out" by seeing your classes, then try to mix up your groups a little. Throw a prot smite monk into your group, but have him use prot until people get close, then drop some snares and aura them all to death. Having problems with people taking your marksman ranger seriously? Why don't you go R/E and team up with a mes running fragility for your kindle arrow/rodgort's invocation combo. How's about running a W/Mo that uses protection to drop prot spirit on a focused target. Why not try a N/Me that drops life siphon on half the team, then spams order of the vampire and order of pain? Why not be Me/W, but use tactics for shouts and shutdown against people focusing. You might have thought i'd say the Me/W was the illusionary weaponry warrior, but nope, you'd be wrong.

You'd be wrong because the 8 skills i load up are secrets: each of them unknown the the enemy. That's where your skill lies, not in the W/Mo or N/Me next to your name.

No one's saying a character -can't- lock down on a certain class. What they are saying is that they shouldn't be given an unfair advantage in KNOWING what class someone is. They should have to get within 'striking' distance to find out.

And I categorically agree that a char's secondary class should NOT be shown. It adds a dimension of the unknown that doesn't currently exist.

It'd be a great idea, if only skill visual effects were clearly identifiable. Unfortunately most of the skills have fairly generic visuals and sounds, it's hard to tell just from looking around the 3d world what people are doing what.

Until they solve this problem, i dont think removing the class indicators is good for gameplay.

This would be interesting so long as it would be implemented in a "hardcore" version of the arenas. The give aways would still be in the Enemy Skill Indicators when you select them but would double or triple the skill necessary to do effective team combat.

Team 1: "Hehe, we are so totally owning that group, they don't know what hit em! ...eh, what!? OMG! What the hell!?"
Team 2: "Hidden trump card for the win!"

Like a Magic the Gathering deck suddenly whipping out Upheavel and throwing down a 'Tog after someone had totally served you up until that point. Makes for fun battles.

Except with experience, you generally learn who you should lockdown. You call that skill, but I say it's no more skill than you can get out of a monkey. How long does it take to learn that 'skill'? Not long at all if you're reasonably intelligent. You could probably teach a monkey to lockdown, and lockdown is supposed to be one of the more 'skillful' roles to play. As it stands right now, you could probably teach monkeys to do all the key class roles given enough time.

Why is this? Because there's a limited number of builds, and you always know what you're up against well in advance. There's a limited amount of adaptation when somebody comes up with a completely new idea, but that happens very infrequently. Aside from that, it basically boils down to identifying the other team before you ever see them, and then going into your usual routine for combating that build.

But now, if you add the element of figuring out who you need to lock down, that's more skill. I can't see at all how you can consider that simple chaos. Obviously it is chaos to those who don't learn the skills of identifying key targets mid-battle and adapting on the fly, and that puts them at a disadvantage. The intelligent players who can think beyond the monkey mechanics of always reacting to situations the same way will learn new skills and the game will become more dynamic.

You call it chaos now only because none of us have these new skills yet, but that changes in time (for the intelligent). To people who are inexperienced in the current GW mechanics, matches right now seem pretty chaotic, but that dissipates with experience.

/signed
This would make PvP and GvG hell even the random arenas so much more fun. It would also increase skill required. I mean you see a lot of heals aand the other team has no monk but has 1 elemtal. A skilled team would know that he is the probably healer and target him while the unskilled team wouldn't.