Guild Wars 2

Don’t get me wrong, I think the downed state is a wonderful idea for PvE. It allows the game to be made more difficult without making players frustrated at repeatedly dying. However, in PvP, allowing players to be resurrected from a downed state completely defeats the point of skill and favors numbers.

Imagine a large battle:

20 vs 20 — huge brawl, people being downed are ressed with relative ease by allies. One side eventually pushes the other back and takes out stragglers on the way. Downed stragglers are demolished by the pursuers. I think this is fine. In battles like these, numbers count the most anyway. No complaints.

Now imagine a small raid team (personal experience):

2 players sneak around the map capturing control points and supply camps. They meet a group of 5 and engage. Being more skilled, and better equipped, 2 of the enemy are downed. However, if the 2 infiltrators stop to finish them, the other 3 enemies would mow them down. Furthermore, the downed players knock the 2 infiltrators down and their allies come res them in a matter of seconds. Eventually, the 2 are worn down and killed. Had the first 2 downed enemies died immediately, it would very likely have ended up in the infiltrators’ victory.

This just goes to show that this downed system favors numbers over skill.

What I’m suggesting is either removing the downed state for PvP or at least make it much faster to finish. Standing there for 3-4 seconds to finish someone, knowing that theres a 90% probability the downed person will interrupt you for another 2 seconds, makes it nearly impossible for smaller groups to fight larger groups. Also, what’s with some classes being able to teleport 3 times to stall while other classes only get one knockback or daze?

Anyway, comments/concerns?

You can attack them, without pressing F, and often kill them faster. Even dead though they can be brought back up. It can get annoying but more then anything Id rather see them change it so that if you die there is no ressing, only downed in PvP.

Even attacking them take a long time if you are a small group, and it still leaves other ranged players to shoot you down. The ressing after being killed is fine since it takes such a long time and the dead player can’t retaliate.

There are several variables here to consider:
a) How much effort it takes to bring a character to downed state?
b) How much effort it takes to defeat a downed character?
c) How much effort it takes to bring up a downed character?
d) How much effort it takes to bring up a defeated character?

From my experiences with WvW, A and B are about equal. If there’s backup from allies, it’s very difficult to defeat downed characters. On the other hand resurrecting a defeated character takes so much time that it’s mostly not worth bothering if there are enemies to fight. I’m not sure if there are factors like Healing Power that have effect on resurrection speed.

The good point about current system is that there’s a certain feeling of permanence with defeat. When you defeat a character, it feels like meaningful gain. The bad experience in current system is in playing with smaller group against larger force. The larger force can bring up downed characters faster than you can damage them, so it feels futile to try to gain something in such a battle.

I dunno. I haven’t had issue with it in PvP.

The idea is you aren’t dead yet, and you can fight to get back up, or a friend can, in a sense, pick you back up to your feet.

People think they have to finish you with the “Finish Him” feature, which isn’t viable in a big battle. My brother in fact uses that ignorance to bait players into trying to help their downed comrads, and kills them while they are distracted. Some people are so stubborn that they will continuously try to “Finish him!” even when they are getting bombarded in the process.

Keep in mind, area affect damage will ultimately drop these players down faster than they can heal themselves too. It just adds to the dynamic of play, I love the way it is. It’s not so finite, and it adds that element of uncertainty that maybe you can come back from the clutches of defeat.

the only thing that I would add perhaps to the system, is the ole “3 strikes you’re out!” idea. maybe if you fall down 3 times within a set timeline, that’s it, your done, no more chances.

But again there is no real resurrect spell, some battles you’ll find yourself knocked down a lot and part of the strategy is to keep your team on its feet.

Personally, I think it needs to stay just how it is.

Just no. Don’t engage 2v5. Of course 2v5 favors numbers over skill. Be it without downed or with it.

@ Alviss: I rarely use the finish him option. Like you said, it leads to you being bombarded. However, even striking the downed opponent down to the dead state takes incredibly long for one or two ppl. I don’t think it needs to be removed, but at least make it easier to kill someone once they are downed in PvP specifically. It sounds like you haven’t tried to fight larger groups like what Zenith describes.

@ Shard: Plz reread. I said the downed state favors numbers, not a 2v5. Of course 2v5 gives the 5 the advantage, but why shouldn’t the 2 be able to win if they are more skilled. Are you saying 2 should never be able to win against 5? If so… I don’t even know what to say to that.

@ Zenith: You are exactly right. I believe with a weaker downed state, a small team would actually have a chance against a large team by being able to whittle down the numbers (assuming they are good enough to do so without losing numbers of their own). If both teams are evenly skilled, then it’s obvious that the larger team would win, with or without the downed state. Again, this is for PvP only.

For the same reason 1 can’t win 10. The line is somewhere (I don’t know where) when the opposing team has too much firepower and health to be taken down. There is skills in the game that you can use to disrupt ressing so I’d say it IS possible to win 2 v 5. Some dots on the layers and knockback for the ressers for example. You are right that it should be possible to win 2 v 5 with the right players but are there even that good groups in the game yet that can do it? And how would we know? First you have to prove that you can’t win 2v5 if you want to argue that it should be possible.

It is possible, but exceedingly difficult if the enemy team even makes a half-hearted attempt to resurrect. I have won 2v5 and have lost even more. But that’s not my argument whether it’s possible or not. My point is that the downed state gives larger numbers a larger advantage than just having more people.

Think about a 1v2 as a simple example. For the 1 to win, he would have to take down one HP bar to down one opponent. Then what? if he kills the downed one by slashing him down, that’s another ~50% of an HP bar he has to take down (while sustaining more damage). Then he must finally down the remaining enemy to actually win. That’s 2.5 HP bars for 2 people. In any scenario, the 1 must take down more than 2 HP bars to win (again assuming he wouldn’t use the finish him option).

On the other hand, if the 2 down the 1, it’s effectively over. The 2 only had to take down 1 HP bar to win. 1 HP bar for 1 enemy.

Get my point?