As it stands now, if you have a downed penalty and you are defeated, a piece of your armor will be damaged. Isolated falling incidents which lead to instant defeat do not damage your armor unless you fall several times in quick succession. However every combat related defeat will damage your armor, no matter what.
We’ve all been there, haven’t we? Fighting as hard as we can, using whatever tactics we can, and yet we hit the dirt in defeat nonetheless. We’re down, but on top of that – our armor is damaged. We know we lost, we’re embarrassed that we lost – but why must we dread and expect another damaged piece of armor on top of that?
I could understand if your armor had a -chance- to be damaged when you’re defeated, but that it is always damaged every time you go down is insulting on top of the frustration of losing. Worse off, if there is nobody around, you have to spend even more coin to waypoint out!
GW2 seems to be built around a casual mindset, yet it punishes you arguably more than GW1 ever did with defeat. In GW1, you were hit with a steep 15% death penalty. In GW2, you still get a death penalty to my knowledge, though how exactly it affects you beyond revive issues is beyond me.
PROBLEM: Armor damage is a 100% chance on defeat when carrying a downed penalty.
PROPOSED SOLUTION #1: Give Armor a sliding chance of damage depending on the magnitude of downed penalty.
- Grey penalty (first down) = 5% chance to damage armor
- Yellow Penalty (second down) = 25% chance to damage armor
- Orange penalty (third down) = 50% chance to damage armor
- Red Penalty (fourth down) = 75% chance to damage armor
- Instant Defeat (fifth down) = 100% chance to damage armor
At any stage in your downed penalty, there is always the chance that you may not damage a piece of armor.This offers less ‘fear and frustration’ about defeat, while still retaining the concept of punishment.
Isolated defeats in combat will not automatically damage your armor. Repeated defeats against a foe you that clearly outmatches you, or careless gameplay, will end up damaging your armor more often.
You could consider extending the time of the downed penalty as well.
PROPOSED SOLUTION 2: Remove armor damage completely and replace with a more harsh Downed Penalty system more like GW1’s Death Penalty system.
GW1’s Death Penalty system encouraged you to find different tactics to defeat your enemies, instead of punishing you monetarily for failing to do so the first time. The following concept would be more familiar to GW1 players, and less frustrating as the current.
I would leave it to ArenaNet to find balance in these numbers, of course.
For each point in downed penalty, you would receive negative ten percent (-10%) of all primary attributes, based on your current normal amount. So, if you have 100 points in Power, you would lose ten points. For each successive downing, you would again lose ten points.
If those numbers are imbalanced or too harsh, you could incorporate a diminishing returns system. Starting with -10%. The first point gives you negative 10%. The second point gives you -10% of your already penalized attribute, and so on.
Thoughts?
(edited by Counciler.7438)