Ranked PvP Character swap

[Tralse.1982]

I'll start this off by saying I'm relatively new to GW2 PvP. I've played off and on for years, basically since start, but never really got into PvP. I've started to play semi-regularly and I've noticed something I've never seen before in ranked. Once both teams get into game, during the minute+ of time before game starts, people will swap characters. Is this a bug? Effectively "scouting" the other team, seeing what they have, and swapping to another character that is more effective that at countering the other team.

Balance issues aside (see the many, many posts about Necros, Willbenders, ETC) this seems absurd. Or am I missing something?

[Downstate.4697]

13 minutes ago, Tralse.1982 said:

I'll start this off by saying I'm relatively new to GW2 PvP. I've played off and on for years, basically since start, but never really got into PvP. I've started to play semi-regularly and I've noticed something I've never seen before in ranked. Once both teams get into game, during the minute+ of time before game starts, people will swap characters. Is this a bug? Effectively "scouting" the other team, seeing what they have, and swapping to another character that is more effective that at countering the other team.

Balance issues aside (see the many, many posts about Necros, Willbenders, ETC) this seems absurd. Or am I missing something?

Its normal and multi classing is a good thing. Would you rather rely on RNG and hope you dont get 3 supports?

[Tralse.1982]

If people played supports more, then I would agree with that statement. The average game I'm seeing right now (and again take this from someone who is new-ish) is 2 necros per team, 1-2 guardians(probably not the support one), and another new elite class. Almost never seen a support class, let alone 2 in 1 game. Maybe thats an anomaly at my rating (Currently low gold).

[Bazsi.2734]

9 hours ago, Tralse.1982 said:

I'll start this off by saying I'm relatively new to GW2 PvP. I've played off and on for years, basically since start, but never really got into PvP. I've started to play semi-regularly and I've noticed something I've never seen before in ranked. Once both teams get into game, during the minute+ of time before game starts, people will swap characters. Is this a bug? Effectively "scouting" the other team, seeing what they have, and swapping to another character that is more effective that at countering the other team.

Balance issues aside (see the many, many posts about Necros, Willbenders, ETC) this seems absurd. Or am I missing something?

Whats absurd about rerolling? It's weird you'd think such a "bug" would persist in a 10 year old game.

Anyway it's common practise to ensure the botched matchup you got served turns into a more even fight. The matchmaker only averages out ratings, it has absolutely nothing against role stacking, and also knows nothing about counters so... sometimes you are served matchups you have no chance of winning unless you reroll. This is how good players rise above average ones. If the match calls for X role or specifically X build, and you know how to play it properly, you can reroll and contribute more to the win.

[Dr Meta.3158]

9 hours ago, Tralse.1982 said:

If people played supports more, then I would agree with that statement. The average game I'm seeing right now (and again take this from someone who is new-ish) is 2 necros per team, 1-2 guardians(probably not the support one), and another new elite class. Almost never seen a support class, let alone 2 in 1 game. Maybe thats an anomaly at my rating (Currently low gold).

In high plat you consistently see 1 support (usually support guard) and a variety of other classes. I imagine you'll see what requires the least effort for the most payoff at low level play at your elo. Find some good players, learn from them, rank out of gold and the game becomes much better.

[Fueki.4753]

13 hours ago, Tralse.1982 said:

I'll start this off by saying I'm relatively new to GW2 PvP. I've played off and on for years, basically since start, but never really got into PvP. I've started to play semi-regularly and I've noticed something I've never seen before in ranked. Once both teams get into game, during the minute+ of time before game starts, people will swap characters. Is this a bug? Effectively "scouting" the other team, seeing what they have, and swapping to another character that is more effective that at countering the other team.

Balance issues aside (see the many, many posts about Necros, Willbenders, ETC) this seems absurd. Or am I missing something?

I consider this behaviour as match manipulation.

Arenanet ought to disable the function to switch characters and have players use the character they queued with.

Edited May 17, 2022 by Fueki.4753

[Aktium.9506]

Lock character upon queueing up. Only nerds reroll and counter pick.

It's also mildly abusable since the matchmaker tries to create mirror matchups when possible.

[Sereath.1428]

Shouldn't be a thing but unfortunately is.

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

14 hours ago, Bazsi.2734 said:

Whats absurd about rerolling? It's weird you'd think such a "bug" would persist in a 10 year old game.

If it was an intended feature then it wouldn't give people pre-fight anxiety by making them think their teammate immediately dc'd when in reality, they're just using that feature that the game definitely tells you about- Hey, wait a minute. 🤔It doesn't.

 

It may not be a bug either, but actually a hidden minigame of scuffed hot potato that some people choose to play before a match starts.

Quote

Anyway it's common practise to ensure the botched matchup you got served turns into a more even fight. The matchmaker only averages out ratings, it has absolutely nothing against role stacking, and also knows nothing about counters so... sometimes you are served matchups you have no chance of winning unless you reroll. This is how good players rise above average ones. If the match calls for X role or specifically X build, and you know how to play it properly, you can reroll and contribute more to the win.

Here OP, I went through this comment an emboldened all the things what are true and struck through what was misinformation. Hopefully this helps all parties.

 

It is indeeed a very common practice that only the elite really abuse.

The matchmaker does take what profession you queue with into account, but not whatever gets swapped to. This is how it gets abused. People; especially duoqs and other parties of any capacity, can queue together as one class and that pretty much guarantees seeing some version of that class on the other team. Then they immediately swap to a counterpick and play the entire match at an advantage. -- But it is true the matchmaker knows nothing of this advantage, but that's sort of how exploits work.

Plenty of people can and do play without class-swapping ever and they do absolutely fine. Class-swapping is needless and excessive.

This is part of how the same 20 people rise above and exploit the average player for free rating 24/7 and across as many alts as possible. 

Edited May 18, 2022 by Multicolorhipster.9751
Not for mean reasons only nice reasons

[Bazsi.2734]

32 minutes ago, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

If it was an intended feature then it wouldn't give people pre-fight anxiety by making them think their teammate immediately dc'd when in reality, they're just using that feature that the game definitely tells you about- Hey, wait a minute. 🤔It doesn't.

 

It may not be a bug either, but actually a hidden minigame of scuffed hot potato that some people choose to play before a match starts.

Here OP, I went through this comment an emboldened all the things what are true and struck through what was misinformation. Hopefully this helps all parties.

 

It is indeeed a very common practice that only the elite really abuse.

The matchmaker does take what profession you queue with into account, but not whatever gets swapped to. This is how it gets abused. People; especially duoqs and other parties of any capacity, can queue together as one class and that pretty much guarantees seeing some version of that class on the other team. Then they immediately swap to a counterpick and play the entire match at an advantage. -- But it is true the matchmaker knows nothing of this advantage, but that's sort of how exploits work.

Plenty of people can and do play without class-swapping ever and they do absolutely fine. Class-swapping is needless and excessive.

This is part of how the same 20 people rise above and exploit the average player for free rating 24/7 and across as many alts as possible. 

Lovely edit. Passive agressive insults are so in right now.

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

38 minutes ago, Bazsi.2734 said:

Lovely edit. Passive agressive insults are so in right now.

I forgot the word "be" 😦

I love everyone and the only type of person i'd passively aggressively insult would exclusively be those from the wintrading cartel and those that are the living embodiment of the phrase "well actually."

As far as I know you belong to neither of these groups. I just don't like class-swapping. It is my least favorite bug/exploit in Gw2 with stretchy Charr being my favorite.

[Arklite.4013]

23 hours ago, FrownyClown.8402 said:

Its normal and multi classing is a good thing. Would you rather rely on RNG and hope you dont get 3 supports?

The issue is that you can see the other team's picks. It would be fine if you were just building your own team's composition but you can swap specifically to counter the enemy team's specs.

[Downstate.4697]

8 minutes ago, Arklite.4013 said:

The issue is that you can see the other team's picks. It would be fine if you were just building your own team's composition but you can swap specifically to counter the enemy team's specs.

Thats fair

[disco.9302]

It's always been a feature for better team comp building. AFAIK the mm system doesn't differentiate between builds so if I queue on a guard, it can't tell if I'm support, dps, roamer etc. If you start with a loading comp of 3 support and 2 roamers or something else you consider unfavourable, you have the op to change. IMO not an unfair advantage, especially since anyone can do it.

Ik some want it removed but many people want to do pve stuff like map completion while in queue and then change to their pvp char when prompted.

[Shao.7236]

Re-rolling is effectively match manipulation, you nearly 100% can guaranteed that you won't have a specific spec that you're queuing as, meaning that you can play meta and effectively take away important builds to always have them under your control for up to two players.

 

Taking away re-rolling would force players to come up with alternative builds to fill gaps in their team ability but of course doing so would make a lot of people upset because taking away control never was meant to keep things fair according to them but it is, esp when the game advertise itself to have professions that can mostly do anything from one to another.

[Ovark.2514]

On 5/17/2022 at 10:33 AM, Fueki.4753 said:

I consider this behaviour as match manipulation.

Arenanet ought to disable the function to switch characters and have players use the character they queued with.

Or better yet: Have a character/build choice built into PvP so that when the queue pops you will be loaded into the character you want even if you're PvEing on your favorite character for PvE

[Kuya.6495]

It seems obvious that people who multi-class will prefer the current system and those who only play one profession won't find it fair. Why would you want to limit the complexity of the game (knowing which build counters x build) and remove an incentive for people to learn to play more than one profession in spvp?  I would consider it unfair or match manipulation if everyone didn't have the ability to change professions before a game starts. 

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

1 hour ago, Kuya.6495 said:

It seems obvious that people who multi-class will prefer the current system and those who only play one profession won't find it fair. Why would you want to limit the complexity of the game (knowing which build counters x build) and remove an incentive for people to learn to play more than one profession in spvp?  I would consider it unfair or match manipulation if everyone didn't have the ability to change professions before a game starts. 

How does a game of pre-match hot potato add to the complexity of the game overall?

Especially when it exists more like a bug than an actual game feature?

 

Nobody has to multiclass if they don't want to. That's why we have complete build freedom in this game.

Edited May 19, 2022 by Multicolorhipster.9751

[anjo.6143]

On 5/16/2022 at 10:19 PM, Tralse.1982 said:

I'll start this off by saying I'm relatively new to GW2 PvP. I've played off and on for years, basically since start, but never really got into PvP. I've started to play semi-regularly and I've noticed something I've never seen before in ranked. Once both teams get into game, during the minute+ of time before game starts, people will swap characters. Is this a bug? Effectively "scouting" the other team, seeing what they have, and swapping to another character that is more effective that at countering the other team.

Balance issues aside (see the many, many posts about Necros, Willbenders, ETC) this seems absurd. Or am I missing something?

Matchmaking will gonna match 2 supports on same team, 3 sidenoders on the same team, 1 support on opponent and none on ur te, what u gonna do? 

[anjo.6143]

On 5/17/2022 at 10:02 PM, Arklite.4013 said:

The issue is that you can see the other team's picks. It would be fine if you were just building your own team's composition but you can swap specifically to counter the enemy team's specs.

It will throw a lot of auto wins, cause matchmaking sucks.

 

So MM will control 100% of wins. 

[Kuya.6495]

34 minutes ago, Multicolorhipster.9751 said:

How does a game of pre-match hot potato add to the complexity of the game overall?

Especially when it exists more like a bug than an actual game feature?

 

Nobody has to multiclass if they don't want to. That's why we have complete build freedom in this game.

How is -tricking your enemy/thinking about what counters your enemy's comp/thinking far enough ahead to know what your enemy thinks you might switch to- not added complexity? 

 

You're right. Nobody has to multi class if they don't want to. And just like in raids and other difficult pve content, if you can't flex, you are at a disadvantage. Having freedom also means having the freedom to make mistakes and to refuse to seek advantage, which you're welcome to doing if you don't want to flex pick.

[Crab Fear.8623]

6 minutes ago, Kuya.6495 said:

How is -tricking your enemy/thinking about what counters your enemy's comp/thinking far enough ahead to know what your enemy thinks you might switch to- not added complexity? 

 

You're right. Nobody has to multi class if they don't want to. And just like in raids and other difficult pve content, if you can't flex, you are at a disadvantage. Having freedom also means having the freedom to make mistakes and to refuse to seek advantage, which you're welcome to doing if you don't want to flex pick.

So teams?

 

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

1 minute ago, Kuya.6495 said:

How is -tricking your enemy/thinking about what counters your enemy's comp/thinking far enough ahead to know what your enemy thinks you might switch to- not added complexity? 

Because it has nothing to do with the game itself. A good chunk of PvP's population doesn't even know that you can class-swap because there is no tooltip or notification of any kind that tells you that you can or how.

Everyone that knows about class-swapping found out about such on their own.

We're also playing a competitive arena game, and not speedrunning something. Bugs/exploits are a detriment, not a layer of added complexity.

And if I have an SSD or if i'm on cloud gaming, then my load times can be almost nonexistent, giving me a technological advantage  for pre-fight hot potato.

1 minute ago, Kuya.6495 said:

 

You're right. Nobody has to multi class if they don't want to. And just like in raids and other difficult pve content, if you can't flex, you are at a disadvantage. Having freedom also means having the freedom to make mistakes and to refuse to seek advantage, which you're welcome to doing if you don't want to flex pick.

Nah, I'm good on that, thanks.

I would not want to be banned for bug abuse.

[Kuya.6495]

Has anet said anywhere that swapping characters before a spvp match begins is a bug/exploit? Anyone have links?

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

2 hours ago, Kuya.6495 said:

Has anet said anywhere that swapping characters before a spvp match begins is a bug/exploit? Anyone have links?

No, but they haven't said that it isn't a bug either.

Better safe than sorry though, I say.

Plus, this way I get to keep some shred of integrity too.