Guild Wars 2

For me personally it was a learning experience to have the downed state for the first time. I found it fantastic when going down i got the change to fight back and get up. Every time you’ll get better in it and eventualy you can counter your self back on the feet more then you permadie. Best learning is practice.
Its getting a little too casual with this change (The Sims casual). its not a gamebreaker, but its annoying to players who know how to use their head.
It would be better if the’re where some kind of advisor (Like in Rome Total War) who tutors the more casual beginning player with the basics of the game.
And it should be optional (so the vets can switch it of)

Haishao.6851:

Walhalla.5473:

While most of us take it as a given that every player knows what to do at the down state, it was never explained ingame what to do when downed.

You’re on your butt with 4 skills. What do you do?
1) Call your mom
2) Click a button to see what happen
3) Uninstall.exe

I bet a monkey would figure it out on his own.

Ahahaha, brilliant! But in a game where majority of the people refuse to read anything, it’s not a surprise.

Supposition: I’m a PvP player, I want to play a new profession so I create a lvl 1 character of the desired profession. The PvP button isn’t shown bacause I don’t have the right lvl (18 or 22 I don’t remember), but as a veteran I know how to join the PvP lobby.

Now I enter a random PvP server. What happened when my HP drop to 0 ? Am I downed, or do I simply die because I’m only lvl 1 ?

Alea.7625:

Supposition: I’m a PvP player, I want to play a new profession so I create a lvl 1 character of the desired profession. The PvP button isn’t shown bacause I don’t have the right lvl (18 or 22 I don’t remember), but as a veteran I know how to join the PvP lobby.

Now I enter a random PvP server. What happened when my HP drop to 0 ? Am I downed, or do I simply die because I’m only lvl 1 ?

Aren’t all PvP players up scaled automatically to level 80?

Bolbo Baggins.8594:

(The Sims casual).

That would be hilarious! Maybe that’s what we need for the home instances. To make it more like an actual…

/e puts on sunglasses

…living world.

What would be more lifelike than having your charr necromancer not make it to the bathroom in time? “Faster! Uh. Oops. Well, entertain the awesome.”

‘Drowned State’ – now that would be frightening.

There’s already too much hand-holding in games overall. Sure, throw in a tutorial and a way to view your downed skills (they could add them to the ‘weapon skills’ part of our character sheets, iirc they’re not there) but locking features with the purpose of babysitting new players? Frankly, i find that kind of a mindset a bit offensive. Also, it’s only a failure state, you can keep calm and read the skills, there’s just 4 of them. Just don’t panic.

If the downed state is confusing for new players delaying their exposure by an hour or two, with no more explanation than was available before is not an improvement IMO.

I dont see how Anet considers people who have only reached level 5 to no longer qualify as, “new players.”

Personally i am in the camp that says, “press some buttons to see what they do, figure it out.” Kind of like how some people figure out their weapon skills/build. Trial and error.

My issue is that spending dev resources because Anet thinks that people will no longer feel new to the game an hour after starting seems questionable.

While I’d say the downed state is stupid and annoying, I never found it confusing or frightening.

Downed state is confusing to some new players because all of a sudden their familiar skill bar disappears and is replaced by skills they know nothing about. To make matters worse, they do not really have time to mouse over them to read a tooltip due to the fact that they are dying. So most just randomly spam buttons and hope for the best. The pressure of a near-death experience isn’t exactly conducive to learning.

I totally agree, though, that moving the downed state to level 5 doesn’t solve this problem at all.

Me Games Ma.8426:

What if they’d completely remove downstate in PvE?

What do you guys think? I did not ask if you like this idea but what you think would happen to the gameplay!

I know how it would affect gameplay:

1. Engies wouldn’t be able to rez downed people from a distance with Elixir R. This elixir doesn’t work on dead players. It only works on downed players.

1. Elixir R will be useless to the Engies too. Why? If a player drinks Elixir R prior reaching 0 hp, they will immediately rally shortly after reaching the downed state.

1. It would prevent people from rezing during major fights like Tequatal. Why? A downed character is alot easier to rez than a dead character. It could take up to 3 min to rez a dead character while rezzing a downed player takes only a few seconds. During a major fight, you don’t want to rez for more than a few seconds or you’ll risk going down too. The downed state is very necessary part of the game’s mechanics (esp. at the higher levels).

Ashen.2907:

If the downed state is confusing for new players delaying their exposure by an hour or two, with no more explanation than was available before is not an improvement IMO.

I dont see how Anet considers people who have only reached level 5 to no longer qualify as, “new players.”

Personally i am in the camp that says, “press some buttons to see what they do, figure it out.” Kind of like how some people figure out their weapon skills/build. Trial and error.

My issue is that spending dev resources because Anet thinks that people will no longer feel new to the game an hour after starting seems questionable.

I’m not sure what new explanation may or may not be on the card that pops up when you’re level 5 though.

We’re all just talking theory until we level a new character. It’s entirely possible there’s more to this update than just that they moved it to level 5. They were using it as an example.

I can tell you right now, one of my friends never knew about skill #4 to rally until he was a good 2 weeks into the game.

I agree with everyone who said the Downed State needs a tutorial. I also agree that the Downed Skills should be listed in the Weapons Skills section on the Skills & Weapons tab.

minbariguy.7504:

Downed state is confusing to some new players because all of a sudden their familiar skill bar disappears and is replaced by skills they know nothing about. To make matters worse, they do not really have time to mouse over them to read a tooltip due to the fact that they are dying. So most just randomly spam buttons and hope for the best. The pressure of a near-death experience isn’t exactly conducive to learning.

I totally agree, though, that moving the downed state to level 5 doesn’t solve this problem at all.

So you press one of the four buttons right in front of you and see what it does, you’ve got nothing to loose. You’re dying anyway.

Anet do the darnedest things sometimes

Anet never adequately explained how the downed state worked, so the blame should fall on them. How are new players supposed to know what to do if you don’t even give them a freaking tutorial on it?

The idea about making lower level characters have more downed HP works, but removing downed completely until level 10 will make starting areas frustrating and new players still won’t know what to do when this new mini-game appears at level 10. That’s if they even keep playing until level 10.

Down state isn’t scary, being noticeably different than any other MMO is the scary thing.

I just don’t understand why they would delay it until lvl 5.

Whether it’s at lvl 5 or lvl 20, they are still going to have to learn.

We still don’t know how it’s going to work, but they could easily implement a pop-up message that shows how to use it when they first go down, such as the pop-ups for unlocking the Utility Skills.

nexxe.7081:

I just don’t understand why they would delay it until lvl 5.

Whether it’s at lvl 5 or lvl 20, they are still going to have to learn.

We still don’t know how it’s going to work, but they could easily implement a pop-up message that shows how to use it when they first go down, such as the pop-ups for unlocking the Utility Skills.

It’s not when you learn it, it’s the amount of stuff you need to learn at the same time. There’s enough to learn at level 1, at least that’s the feeling they’ve gotten from testing it with various people.

Am I the only one who got himself downed on purpose to read what the skills did?

It’s funny, because new players being overwhelmed by mechanics keeps being offered by ArenaNet as a reason for delaying access to a mechanics, when what we really need is simply more thorough, in-game explanation of these mechanics.

They said it about traits, but how delaying trait acquisition 20 levels is supposed to better introduce the trait system is beyond me. Now weapon swapping, skill-slots, and downed state are all being delayed. These things need better introductions, not delayed introduction.

From what I see, we’re getting these changes to bring us in line with the China version of GW2. Colin spend a little longer on the downed state, but breezed over the other delays.

The Chinese version introduced traits at level 30, and we got the same thing later. It looks like the downed state unlocks for them at level 5, which is what Colin says in the blog post is in store for us. So it seems safe to assume that the rest of the unlocks are going to map directly to the Chinese version as well.

That means you won’t have weapon skill 2 until level 2, weapon skill 3 until level 4, weapon skill 4 unlocks at level 7, and no 5th weapon skill until level 10!

The first utility skill is delayed until level 13, and the elite is delayed until 40. I can find a some disagreement on when the second and third utility are unlocked, but it looks like they are significantly later. I couldn’t find much concrete information on profession skills, but found at least one hint that attunements for Eles are also significantly delayed.

No weapon swap until level 15! :P

I’m not sure why ArenaNet thinks their systems are so complicated. Ten levels (yes, pretty fast levels, but still) before you have a full weapon bar? Fifteen before you can handle having two weapons? Yikes.

nexxe.7081:

I just don’t understand why they would delay it until lvl 5.

Whether it’s at lvl 5 or lvl 20, they are still going to have to learn.

We still don’t know how it’s going to work, but they could easily implement a pop-up message that shows how to use it when they first go down, such as the pop-ups for unlocking the Utility Skills.

IMO, the best way to introduced downed would be to give the players a quest that artificially puts them in downed state for a prolonged time under very mild threat. The difficulty with downed state is that typically when you get there, you have something continuing to wail on you that obviously was enough of a threat to have put you there in the first place.

There’s no time or space to hover over downed skills, read tips, and figure out how they are supposed to be used.

I’m sure the clever writers at ArenaNet could write a level 3 quest into each starting zone that justifies putting you into a prolonged down state with explanation and time to figure out what to do there.

Healix.5819:

JusticarArkiel.1564:

maybe just do like some other games do, have a forced death that allows you to explain the downed state, maybe during the tutorial instance one of the mobs gets to insta-down you or something

Back in beta, each intro end boss had a special attack that would spawn weak enemies that was followed by an attack that would down your character. This was the first downed, rally and revive experience, but you were left to figure out the mechanic yourself.

Then they nerfed it as well as the damage and health of all mobs in the early levels. Ettins for example could 1 shot an elementalist with their special attack back then.

I miss those days.

I still remember the fire shaman in plains of ashford being able to delete a zerg instantly if people didn’t pay attention to his shield. Good times.

Seems to me that this accomplishes absolutely nothing, and the real fix:

Put the downed state skills in the weapon skill tab of the hero panel just like all the other skills. /resolved

Probably the only two effects this will have are

1) change the way some keyfarmers operate, but in the end, farmers gonna farm….

2) The same category of players this is intended for will be just as lost and frustrated at level 5.

RollingBob.8502:

2) The same category of players this is intended for will be just as lost and frustrated at level 5.

It does look like there are “guides” that pop up in the Chinese version. No idea how extensive they are, but perhaps there will be more thorough explanation of mechanics when we get what the Chinese already have.

Though I agree, I can’t see how all of these mechanics delays are going to help the kind of player who gets confused with GW2 in its current state.

Downed state is confusing. There’s hardly enough time to hover over the icon, read the text, process it, and get your other skills off cooldown. Add to that they never explain the nuances of how the skills work or what you actually need to do to survive and it’s confusing. Mashing buttons doesn’t help you learn cause and effect when you don’t understand the basics of the game yet.

And no, beyond, “FIGHT TO SURVIVE!!!” it doesn’t actually tell you that you need to kill a mob to get back up. I spent the first several times I went down jamming 1 and not understanding why my health wasn’t going back up. I was fighting, why wasn’t I surviving?

Lisa.6102:

minbariguy.7504:

Downed state is confusing to some new players because all of a sudden their familiar skill bar disappears and is replaced by skills they know nothing about. To make matters worse, they do not really have time to mouse over them to read a tooltip due to the fact that they are dying. So most just randomly spam buttons and hope for the best. The pressure of a near-death experience isn’t exactly conducive to learning.

I totally agree, though, that moving the downed state to level 5 doesn’t solve this problem at all.

So you press one of the four buttons right in front of you and see what it does, you’ve got nothing to loose. You’re dying anyway.

Anet do the darnedest things sometimes

Sigh. New players do hit the buttons, but it isn’t always easy to tell what each skill and its associated animations are actually doing in terms of game mechanics.

But hey, thanks for the sarcasm. It was really productive. :-)

Krowe.3651:

How are new players supposed to know what to do if you don’t even give them a freaking tutorial on it?

The same way the rest of us figured it out.

ketchup.2783:

This is the kind of thing that you put in as filler in your resume. If they left it out of their blog, it might be a nice surprise for a the people who leveled up again as a beginner. Still, it might not be so pertinent to be mentionable anyway.

I mean, if you want to take it further, some or gw2’s dungeons are way too hard and complicated for people who don’t consult an outside source. Maybe give them hints on how to do them too or nerf them.

They didn’t blog about this specifically. They used this as an example of the sort of layering they’re doing. They’ve revamped the entire system.

minbariguy.7504:

Lisa.6102:

minbariguy.7504:

Downed state is confusing to some new players because all of a sudden their familiar skill bar disappears and is replaced by skills they know nothing about. To make matters worse, they do not really have time to mouse over them to read a tooltip due to the fact that they are dying. So most just randomly spam buttons and hope for the best. The pressure of a near-death experience isn’t exactly conducive to learning.

I totally agree, though, that moving the downed state to level 5 doesn’t solve this problem at all.

So you press one of the four buttons right in front of you and see what it does, you’ve got nothing to loose. You’re dying anyway.

Anet do the darnedest things sometimes

Sigh. New players do hit the buttons, but it isn’t always easy to tell what each skill and its associated animations are actually doing in terms of game mechanics.

But hey, thanks for the sarcasm. It was really productive. :-)

NP

but seriously though, The first time I was in a downed state … I was happy I wasn’t dead. I had a second chance and hit buttons, I didn’t care what they did , I wasn’t about to sit there and analyze what might be the best option to choose, I had no choice my health was going… so I spammed. It didn’t take a degree in astro physics to work out that the rock I was throwing was directly having a negative effect on drakes health.

We learn from experimentation

I’m pretty sure downed state was stolen from Call of Duty (whether thats its original incarnation I’m not sure). All they need is a hint that pops up. You are downed. Kill an enemy to rally off them, or heal yourself to full HP using Bandages.

Would be funny seeing people trait double damage when downed and killing themselves because double damage is OP!!!

EDIT: New dungeon speed clear challenge. Lupi all downed challenge!!!!

Raina.8642:

I’m pretty sure downed state was stolen from Call of Duty (whether thats its original incarnation I’m not sure). All they need is a hint that pops up. You are downed. Kill an enemy to rally off them, or heal yourself to full HP using Bandages.

Would be funny seeing people trait double damage when downed and killing themselves because double damage is OP!!!

EDIT: New dungeon speed clear challenge. Lupi all downed challenge!!!!

Downed state was originally in Left for Dead. But I’m pretty sure most MMO players never played that.

I wish you could see your downed skills somewhere before you have to use them, currently the only way to do that is by looking online, they should put them in the weapon skills menu so I can see which buttons I should push when I’m downed.

I know the last one is your self heal but the other 3 could be anything for different classes, some fear, some push, and some even pull which you really don’t want to use by accident <_<

Wow the downed state is truly terrifying. It took me well over a year before I had the courage to fight those level 7 centaurs in Queensdale. I really just couldn’t handle being downed, and honestly without any of the downed skills explained on screen to help me, I was scarred for life.

Now, 2 years have passed and I’ve finally gotten over my fears of being downed. I just hope they do the same with water skills soon because I’m still terrified of water; maybe they should prevent players from being able to swim until level 5.

minbariguy.7504:

Lisa.6102:

minbariguy.7504:

Downed state is confusing to some new players because all of a sudden their familiar skill bar disappears and is replaced by skills they know nothing about. To make matters worse, they do not really have time to mouse over them to read a tooltip due to the fact that they are dying. So most just randomly spam buttons and hope for the best. The pressure of a near-death experience isn’t exactly conducive to learning.

I totally agree, though, that moving the downed state to level 5 doesn’t solve this problem at all.

So you press one of the four buttons right in front of you and see what it does, you’ve got nothing to loose. You’re dying anyway.

Anet do the darnedest things sometimes

Sigh. New players do hit the buttons, but it isn’t always easy to tell what each skill and its associated animations are actually doing in terms of game mechanics.

But hey, thanks for the sarcasm. It was really productive. :-)

it easy to tell.

Algreg.3629:

minbariguy.7504:

Lisa.6102:

minbariguy.7504:

Downed state is confusing to some new players because all of a sudden their familiar skill bar disappears and is replaced by skills they know nothing about. To make matters worse, they do not really have time to mouse over them to read a tooltip due to the fact that they are dying. So most just randomly spam buttons and hope for the best. The pressure of a near-death experience isn’t exactly conducive to learning.

I totally agree, though, that moving the downed state to level 5 doesn’t solve this problem at all.

So you press one of the four buttons right in front of you and see what it does, you’ve got nothing to loose. You’re dying anyway.

Anet do the darnedest things sometimes

Sigh. New players do hit the buttons, but it isn’t always easy to tell what each skill and its associated animations are actually doing in terms of game mechanics.

But hey, thanks for the sarcasm. It was really productive. :-)

it easy to tell.

Not really. How does this mean heal?

BunjiKugashira.9754:

Am I the only one who got himself downed on purpose to read what the skills did?

No.

Behellagh.1468:

Not really. How does this mean heal?

It also outstretches a hand and most of the time plays “player chatter audio” (“please, help me!” or some variant) while slowly healing up. I gather the original intent was for it to signal you needed help more obviously than the icon amidst a sea of icons. Then they added the self-heal later because, well, if nobody is around . . .

Vayne.8563:

Downed state was originally in Left for Dead. But I’m pretty sure most MMO players never played that.

I think most people assume gamers have played the following games (or at least are passingly familiar with them): Halo, Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Candy Crush Saga, Minecraft, Final Fantasy 7, Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros 3, and “I Wanna Be The Guy: The Movie: The Game”.

In hindsight, “fight to survive” was pretty self explanatory.

>Do damage
>you live

It just didn’t tell you how much.

If you find the downed state frightening or confusing then may I suggest switching to an “easier” game like The Sims or possibly Farmville?

Seriously, that’s sad.

JusticarArkiel.1564:

maybe during the tutorial instance one of the mobs gets to insta-down you or something

This is the only post worth reading in this thread.

This suggestion should be implemented, without question, and I am happy to see that there are some people who at least understand how things should be done, and agree with this post.

There is a definitely lack of tutorial in this game, and perhaps Anet should focus on expanding on the entire character tutorial instance, rather than keeping it as a 5 minute, fight some enemies then fight a boss experience.

Cassandra Nea.2507:

BunjiKugashira.9754:

Am I the only one who got himself downed on purpose to read what the skills did?

No.

Nope.
By the way the easier solution would be
1. A better tutorial (we probably get now a popup window anyway) and …
2. Include the skills amongst other class specific skills in the hero menu.

Done. But nope dumb it down even more if the game isn’t easy enough after you get used to it.

The bleeding condition is frightening, I find blood repulsive.
The air attunement tree is frightening, I’m scared of lightning
The necromancer class is frightening, I’m deeply religious and find the concept of undead/black magic terrifying.

please remove all of these things, thank you.

The thing that got me the most about Downed was the fact that the first few times, you don’t know what your skills do yet you’re expected to use your skills to survive.

Imagine if you were thrust into a WoW character with defined, locked keybinds and told to survive while your health is being drained fast. You can’t move away from the enemy and you have to use your skills to survive. You can die trying to read your skills, or you can press random buttons and hope you survive.

Then, after you die/survive, you can’t read the skills unless you typed them in chat via Alt or Ctrl + Clicking them.

It’s not so much that it’s scary, it’s that it’s not explained. All of your weapon skills can be viewed on the weapon skills tab. While the chains are not always shown, at least the base skill is, which is a lot more than downed combat.

“Downed State” frightening , really, ppl need to get a grip if this is scary.

Behellagh.1468:

Algreg.3629:

it easy to tell.

Not really. How does this mean heal?

-Click skill
-Green numbers appears over your head and hp is refilling
-Character say a variation of “Help Me” out loud for nearby people to hear

I wonder

Where did this “frightening” phrase come from in the first place? Confusing, surprising, yes but frightening? Unless you were traumatized by death penalties in past MMOs it’s not frightening. As used in this thread it’s a term of derision.

if the downed-state does actually confuse/chase off new players, then Anet is correct dumbing-down every aspect of the game as they have been since launch…….and i refuse to believe that

Here’s a suggestion to the developers, one that fixes every problem with people not understanding a system, and I shall bold this.

If you think a system is confusing, make a mandatory tutorial for it if it’s the first time a character on the account has unlocked it, don’t just gate it behind a specific level. If you give tutorials, people learn how to do things.

Gibson.4036:

That means you won’t have weapon skill 2 until level 2, weapon skill 3 until level 4, weapon skill 4 unlocks at level 7, and no 5th weapon skill until level 10!

The first utility skill is delayed until level 13, and the elite is delayed until 40. I can find a some disagreement on when the second and third utility are unlocked, but it looks like they are significantly later. I couldn’t find much concrete information on profession skills, but found at least one hint that attunements for Eles are also significantly delayed.

No weapon swap until level 15! :P

I sincerely hope you’re wrong, but I have a fear that you’re absolutely correct.

Slowing things down for newbies is an okay thought, I suppose.. but this is going to make things even more dreadfully uninteresting for vets powering through yet another alt.

And slowing things down can’t help much if it isn’t accompanied by some simple introductory tool tip for new mechanics, or SOMETHING.

There’s just not enough ‘things’ to unlock to last 80 levels, and trying to stretch them all out over so much space leaves it all way too thin to be entertaining. Won’t even comment on the sparse achieveability of the trait unlocks. This game should’ve had 40 levels tops :/.