Guild Wars 2

47 levels into GW2 on my ‘main’ and I still don’t get how “defeat” works. In fact, from my experience it is possibly the worst game mechanic I have ever seen. Let me share my experiences:

Doing a skill point challenge when respawns start to interfere. Start moving to re-position myself and at about 60% health…then I’m defeated.

Stumble upon a powerful enemy and fight for just a few seconds. Decide discretion is the better part of valor, take off, heal myself, and at ~90% of max health…defeat rears its ugly head again.

Fighting a several ogres and their pets, get beat down to 0 HP and continue to resist, pop back up, heal, beat them all, no issues.

If I get beat down to 0 hp, then I should be defeated. If I am ‘retrograding’ from a powerful enemy and above 50% health…no way should I be defeated. I think this defeat mechanic is the main reason why I can’t stay interested in playing this game more than an hour at a time.

OK Here’s how it works

You have your HP bubble. This is the red circle you see in the center.

When that goes to 0, you enter downed phase, which is another set of HP.

Within this HP, it does not regenerate unless you use your 4 skill or if you get
‘rubbed’ by other players. You can leave this state if you fully heal your downed state HP or if a mob you have tagged dies (called rallying)

Once you are back on your feet, you get a penalty (it’s a little icon at the bottom left of your HP bubble). Each time you enter a downed state in a short period of time, your downed state HP starts off lower.

So if you die again, you may end up with 50% downed HP rather than 75%. If you get revived and downed again, you end up with 25% downed HP

If you get downed once again, you end up with 0% downed HP and immediately go from alive to dead

If you are constantly dying then you are either attempting mobs that are too powerful for you or you are not properly geared.

tonecapone.6875:

47 levels into GW2 on my ‘main’ and I still don’t get how “defeat” works.

This pretty much sums up this whole post….. Doesn’t know the game but is complaining about a mechanic.

When your hp goes down to 0, you go to a down state. If your down state hp goes down to 0, you are defeated.

Not a hard concept.

It sounds like you are playing a warrior and that you press the down state skill 3, vengeance. Vengenace allows you to be temporarily up, but you have to remove the vengeance buff within 15 second without dying. To remove vengeance, you have to kill a foe which is a random chance.

The issues is, I get defeated without ever going to 0 hitpoints. In fact, I’ve been defeated without ever dropping below 50% of my hitpoints as I pointed out in two of my scenarios. That’s what I don’t understand. In fact, most of the time I am defeated, I never even get to 0 hp and that’s what irks me.

No Walking.6349:

tonecapone.6875:

47 levels into GW2 on my ‘main’ and I still don’t get how “defeat” works.

This pretty much sums up this whole post….. Doesn’t know the game but is complaining about a mechanic.

Thanks for your wonderful insight. Maybe you actually have something to add to the conversation? Reading comprehension???

tonecapone.6875:

The issues is, I get defeated without ever going to 0 hitpoints. In fact, I’ve been defeated without ever dropping below 50% of my hitpoints as I pointed out in two of my scenarios. That’s what I don’t understand. In fact, most of the time I am defeated, I never even get to 0 hp and that’s what irks me.

As the guy said above, it’s most likely you are a warrior using the 3rd downed skill, which can kill you if you do not kill anyone (random chance)

runeblade.7514:

When your hp goes down to 0, you go to a down state. If your down state hp goes down to 0, you are defeated.

Not a hard concept.

It sounds like you are playing a warrior and that you press the down state skill 3, vengeance. Vengenace allows you to be temporarily up, but you have to remove the vengeance buff within 15 second without dying. To remove vengeance, you have to kill a foe which is a random chance.

As I stated in two of my scenarios, I don’t even go to 0 hp and still get defeated. This is what confuses me about the game mechanic.

tonecapone.6875:

runeblade.7514:

When your hp goes down to 0, you go to a down state. If your down state hp goes down to 0, you are defeated.

Not a hard concept.

It sounds like you are playing a warrior and that you press the down state skill 3, vengeance. Vengenace allows you to be temporarily up, but you have to remove the vengeance buff within 15 second without dying. To remove vengeance, you have to kill a foe which is a random chance.

As I stated in two of my scenarios, I don’t even go to 0 hp and still get defeated. This is what confuses me about the game mechanic.

OK clean you explain the exact scenario that happened?

i.e.
-You engage a mob
-He brings you down to 0 %
-You enter downed state
-Somehow you get back up (you pressed 3rd skill)
-Your HP is back up for 10 seconds
-You suddenly die

in this game you can get hit for more than 50% of your HP pool in a single shot. this is where learn to dodge comes in the game.

also read what downed state skills do. they are different for each profession.

Here is how it works for me:

Attack Mob > Mob Attacks Back > Downed > Spam Downed State Keys > Defeated > Way Point > Armor Repairs > Kill Ambient Animals For Revenge

Vol.5241:

tonecapone.6875:

runeblade.7514:

When your hp goes down to 0, you go to a down state. If your down state hp goes down to 0, you are defeated.

Not a hard concept.

It sounds like you are playing a warrior and that you press the down state skill 3, vengeance. Vengenace allows you to be temporarily up, but you have to remove the vengeance buff within 15 second without dying. To remove vengeance, you have to kill a foe which is a random chance.

As I stated in two of my scenarios, I don’t even go to 0 hp and still get defeated. This is what confuses me about the game mechanic.

OK clean you explain the exact scenario that happened?

i.e.
-You engage a mob
-He brings you down to 0 %
-You enter downed state
-Somehow you get back up (you pressed 3rd skill)
-Your HP is back up for 10 seconds
-You suddenly die

No, that doesn’t happen. It’s like this:

Engage a mob, health gets down to ~50%, decide to take off (mob too tough, respawns, whatever), and then defeated in mid stride, with health around 50%. Not once in the past several minutes did my health drop to 0. Yes on occasion, I get beat down to 0 and fight back, but the majority of the time I ever get defeated in PvE is when that doesn’t happen.

PetricaKerempuh.7958:

in this game you can get hit for more than 50% of your HP pool in a single shot. this is where learn to dodge comes in the game.

also read what downed state skills do. they are different for each profession.

I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. Not saying you can’t get hit for more than 50% of your health, but in some cases it has been a ‘melee only’ enemy and I’m out of melee range.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot

To be honest man, I have never heard about this before. Perhaps you need to record this or send in a bug report.

I’m not aware of anything else that kills you instantly.

The only two scenarios as mentioned:
-You use the 3rd skill for downed warriors
-After getting downed 3 times in a short period of time, you get one-shotted by a mob

There’s only two things in this game that make you just “Drop Dead”. The first is the #3 skill on a Warrior’s downed skills bar. Normally, when you’re downed and something you were fighting dies, you “rally” and get back up to fight again. The #3 skill is a sort of self-rally, but when it wears off you die. Each enemy you kill has a random chance of negating that effect, you basically trade the certainty of normal rallying for full action.

The other time is when you fall to your death. Literally dropping dead, so to speak. If you fall far enough, you don’t get a downed state. You’re simply dead.

Other than that, something outside of your character must be damaging you. It’s possible that your internet connection is giving you bad bursts of lag, so you’re getting beat on without seeing it until it’s too late.

Vol.5241:

To be honest man, I have never heard about this before. Perhaps you need to record this or send in a bug report.

I’m not aware of anything else that kills you instantly.

The only two scenarios as mentioned:
-You use the 3rd skill for downed warriors
-After getting downed 3 times in a short period of time, you get one-shotted by a mob

I reported it but no response. I’ve also asked in game and no one seems to know. It doesn’t appear to come from any debuff or direct attack, or from falling damage. It generally appears to happen about the instant I would get out of combat from fleeing from a mob (but I’m not positive on that yet). It is definitely frustrating.

tonecapone.6875:

Vol.5241:

To be honest man, I have never heard about this before. Perhaps you need to record this or send in a bug report.

I’m not aware of anything else that kills you instantly.

The only two scenarios as mentioned:
-You use the 3rd skill for downed warriors
-After getting downed 3 times in a short period of time, you get one-shotted by a mob

I reported it but no response. I’ve also asked in game and no one seems to know. It doesn’t appear to come from any debuff or direct attack, or from falling damage. It generally appears to happen about the instant I would get out of combat from fleeing from a mob (but I’m not positive on that yet). It is definitely frustrating.

Then I’m 100% certain it’s a bug. Does this happen to your whole account, or just limited to 1 person?

If you don’t get a response in 5 business days I suggest you post here on the forums. Gaile is pretty good at escalating issues that need escalating.

What does your combat log say?

Also, Mesmers have their Illusion of Life skill which acts like Vengeance on downed allies.

As Rouven said, check your combat log. It’ll tell you if you got hit for 10k suddenly.

The only other thing I can think of is lag. You know, you don’t think you’re taking damage, but your computer screen isn’t showing what the server actually has you on.

There are times when you may think you’re running away from something, but you’re actually not because you’re already downed…but it’s not showing on your screen yet.

Seras.5702:

Also, Mesmers have their Illusion of Life skill which acts like Vengeance on downed allies.

As Rouven said, check your combat log. It’ll tell you if you got hit for 10k suddenly.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that skill.

Still, I’d guess that the problem here is lag.

that’s a lot of lag!!

btw what’s your profession?

Even melee attacks have a range. I’ve hit enemies with a dagger or sword melee attack (not thrown) when the enemies seem to be too far away to damage. There are also melee weapon attacks that have a fairly good range, like the thief’s dagger attack that hits multiple targets or the warrior’s boomerang greatsword attack.

Most likely what happens is that you get hit while moving away or at the edge of the enemy’s range, or the enemy has some kind of thrown weapon attack that you don’t know about. As has been pointed out, the game can lag and a hit can occur even if you didn’t see the animation. It’s far more likely that you got hit and it took a second to apply the damage than the game just kills you for no reason.

Another thought, keep an eye out for condition damage. I’ve walked away from a fight while poisoned or something and taken enough damage from the condition to kill me, even after killing all the enemies in the area. The game considers you to be still in combat until the conditions expire or are removed.

tonecapone.6875:

runeblade.7514:

When your hp goes down to 0, you go to a down state. If your down state hp goes down to 0, you are defeated.

Not a hard concept.

It sounds like you are playing a warrior and that you press the down state skill 3, vengeance. Vengenace allows you to be temporarily up, but you have to remove the vengeance buff within 15 second without dying. To remove vengeance, you have to kill a foe which is a random chance.

As I stated in two of my scenarios, I don’t even go to 0 hp and still get defeated. This is what confuses me about the game mechanic.

Then help us help you. Give us screenshots. Tell us what profession you are playing, what you are fighting, what skills did they use, check your combat log. We can’t work with ambiguous anecdote.

What class are you using? I can’t believe you haven’t even mentioned this because we are just assuming you are a warrior.

This is definitely not a bad game mechanic or a bug. You are suffering from lag issues. So instead of asking what are you are doing in game, or what character class you play, I will ask the following:

-What country do you play from?
-What ISP do you use?
-What is your computer specs?
-What is your game settings?

Here are a couple thing you can look at.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defeated

As others have said they believe you are a warrior and are using vengeance which automatically defeats even if you have full HP unless you get lucky and remove the buff

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vengeance

Something similar happened to me last night, twice. Both times, I suffered a momentary connectivity issue (2 seconds max, barely enough time to say, “Oh kitten!”)). Both times I was fighting ghosts in Diessa Plateau. When the lag ended, the character went to dead. It looked like going from 90% health to 0 instantly.

Based on experiencing lag in other games, I would expect the mob to have done damage to my character while I was not in control. However, I know these mobs. Neither (Ghost fighter, Vet ghost captain) has the capability to burst the character down in that time frame. Best guess I’ve got is there’s some issue with how the client and/or server is handling connectivity loss.

Of course, I don’t know if lag is associated with the OP’s issue.

tonecapone.6875:

The issues is, I get defeated without ever going to 0 hitpoints. In fact, I’ve been defeated without ever dropping below 50% of my hitpoints as I pointed out in two of my scenarios. That’s what I don’t understand. In fact, most of the time I am defeated, I never even get to 0 hp and that’s what irks me.

Are you sure you’re not lagging? If what you say is true….you’re bugging out or something. That’s not normal.

I’ve had this happen when I was lagging. If you lag out and you were running, you can stay in a running-state in-game. Then you fall off a cliff and die. Your connection catches up with you, and you’re dead.

‘How does defeat work’..download GW2..

The problem with the lag theory is that it’s easy to tell when you’re lagged out: you’re the only one doing anything.. everyone else is static.

What about this:
In WvW, disconnecting while in combat = automatic death (when you log in that character again, you’re dead); I believe this is also true in PvE.

Perhaps your problem is somehow related to this? The server thinks you disconnected and kills you off — however, if this was the case, I’d expect that you’d be asked to login again. Maybe it’s this combined with some bug?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vengeance