Guild Wars 2

Am I the only one who has a problem with that?
Specially if I want to make alts?

I dont see anyone making threads to bring concerns of this so I thought to make one questioning it… I think taking downstate away is stupid… It’s a mechanic that all levels should learn.

There are comments on various threads, but not a thread specifically about this. There are so many things people are unhappy about right now with these upcoming changes that the down state is small potatoes.

til level 5, dont think thats a big deal tbh

They simply moved it to level 5 so that when new players reach that level, it feels like they’re given a new ability. In comparison, by including it at level 1, a player will never know about it until they die the first time and try to figure out what is happening.

Considering you can auto attack everything to death in the early levels, I doubt it will matter.

The only concern I have about it (I am sure it is unwarranted) is how it will interact with upleveling in things like WvW or PvP. So long as it works off the adjusted level it will be fine.

Is it because players under level 5 are too stupid to use the downed system?

What is the purpose? Seems like a ridiculous and pointless change. Call me old fashioned but I’d rather not see resources being used to change things that are not broken.

The only place where I see this possibly presenting a problem is for key runners that aren’t very good…..and seeing how that appears to being nixed by the Feature Pack, that appears to not be an issue, either.

I do recall being quite confused about this feature when I first encountered it during beta. The game does need some work at the introduction levels, but I’m not sure these changes are the answer (but at least they ARE trying something to improve the experience).

Downstate in PvE was a joke anyway. Just extends the death. The npcs just finish the character off anyway.

If you’re an alt-roller then I’d imagine you don’t even get into the downstate until well after level 5.

I feel like you have to be kind of trying to go into downstate before 5. Just hit the monsters or use your heal skill.

~Welcome to PvE~

Not sure why Anet thinks downstate is too hard to understand. It’s been a regular feature of games for a LONG time now.

Wow guys, didn’t u read the blog properly?

Its not meant for experienced players who are rolling alts, it’s meant for a brand new players.

Currently, if you’re new player to gw2, you don’t even know about the downstate until ur downed. For someone who has never experienced this, it’s a very confusing thing. They don’t understand what is going on and they’re in such panic and being killed of so fast, trying to understand the downed skills and what they do and what has happened to you is very daunting.

I remember experiencing it for the first time in beta and even though i was aware of the fact there was downstate, nothing prepared me for when it actually happened and what i was supposed to do to rally. So imo, this is a good thing, vet players can just ignore it.

I’ll post this here too. Direct quote from Colin, for those of you who think and truly believe it wasn’t broken:

Yeah we thought so too. After tens of thousands of usability testers and interviews with players who tried Gw2 and left leading up to China launch both in NA/EU and in China – we learned we were wrong.
Honestly, we were kind of shocked how many systems, downed included a surprising number of players just didn’t understand. For downed, we tried a downed tutorial, building downed into the level 1 tutorial, etc. We found after usability testing with numerous different groups, the best rate of people learning and understanding it came from having it be layered complexity and the solution we went with above. Intuitively that wouldn’t have been my guess either initially, but we found people understood it better this way than all other options we tried.
This same level of testing led to the other changes as well. At the end of the day the biggest take away I’d say is: all of us, especially people who go to a reddit to discuss a game, probably know games (and Gw2) really really well. We have millions of users, and a tiny % of them frequent game forums or reddit. Just because all of us, me included, learned those systems well and thought it was all really easy doesn’t mean we are the norm

Vayne.8563:

I’ll post this here too. Direct quote from Colin, for those of you who think and truly believe it wasn’t broken:

Yeah we thought so too. After tens of thousands of usability testers and interviews with players who tried Gw2 and left leading up to China launch both in NA/EU and in China – we learned we were wrong.
Honestly, we were kind of shocked how many systems, downed included a surprising number of players just didn’t understand. For downed, we tried a downed tutorial, building downed into the level 1 tutorial, etc. We found after usability testing with numerous different groups, the best rate of people learning and understanding it came from having it be layered complexity and the solution we went with above. Intuitively that wouldn’t have been my guess either initially, but we found people understood it better this way than all other options we tried.
This same level of testing led to the other changes as well. At the end of the day the biggest take away I’d say is: all of us, especially people who go to a reddit to discuss a game, probably know games (and Gw2) really really well. We have millions of users, and a tiny % of them frequent game forums or reddit. Just because all of us, me included, learned those systems well and thought it was all really easy doesn’t mean we are the norm

That last sentence says it all, really. Thanks for posting that here, Vayne!

This is a non-issue. It takes 1 character to get used to the downed state. Once someone is used to the mechanic they won’t even notice it. Heck, by my fifth character I had a leveling routine down. This really is a non-issue. Even if you maxed out all 8 professions, that’s what, a few hours of no downed state for your account ever?

I’m wondering how they’ll let new players know in advance that this will be happening at level 5. Will it be a surprise then? Just maybe more easy to figure out given other game mechanics having already been learned?

I mean, when I learned to drive it was in a VW bus with automatic transmission. No pieces of the vehicle stuck out beyond the windows, I had excellent visibility, and only had to deal with gas and brake and steering. A couple of years later my dad rented a manual transmission car and taught me to drive it. Since I already knew the rules of the road, all I had to add in was the mechanics of moving that style of car. Then for a summer we kids got a 1964 Volvo wagon. Manual choke, the works. More layering in. Whereas my college roomie who learned on stick in the first place was far too easily flustered by traffic getting in her way.

But if you don’t know you’re getting in a stick car and no one tells you in advance about the clutch and gears, you’re going to have a nasty shock when you try to move forward.

I’m not even sure why it’s a big deal. How many experienced players die in the first 5 levels anyway when playing PvE? I can probably count on one hand the number of times that I’ve died between levels 1-5 in the last two years, and it was probably because of an event where I got in over my head or tried to go way above my level (which I do sometimes to create a challenge).

You will probably not notice the difference. But I new player might welcome the idea that something new happens that is pointed out to them once they achieve level 5. And is it just me, or have there been a lot of new players asking questions recently? This can’t be a bad thing.

Vayne.8563:

I’ll post this here too. Direct quote from Colin, for those of you who think and truly believe it wasn’t broken:

Yeah we thought so too. After tens of thousands of usability testers and interviews with players who tried Gw2 and left leading up to China launch both in NA/EU and in China – we learned we were wrong.
Honestly, we were kind of shocked how many systems, downed included a surprising number of players just didn’t understand. For downed, we tried a downed tutorial, building downed into the level 1 tutorial, etc. We found after usability testing with numerous different groups, the best rate of people learning and understanding it came from having it be layered complexity and the solution we went with above. Intuitively that wouldn’t have been my guess either initially, but we found people understood it better this way than all other options we tried.
This same level of testing led to the other changes as well. At the end of the day the biggest take away I’d say is: all of us, especially people who go to a reddit to discuss a game, probably know games (and Gw2) really really well. We have millions of users, and a tiny % of them frequent game forums or reddit. Just because all of us, me included, learned those systems well and thought it was all really easy doesn’t mean we are the norm

Colin also said we’d have best in slot gear by the time we reach level 80.

It costs money to change things in a game of this sort. Companies generally do not spend money changing something about their product unless they feel that they have to or that it will benefit them and/or their users.

If they are making a change there is a decent chance that they have information, that we may (probably) do not, to indicate that it is in some way a problem.

Here is the silliness of this….

What if the new player doesn’t die before level 5? How does he know he got some new “ability”? Silly.

GOSU.9574:

Here is the silliness of this….

What if the new player doesn’t die before level 5? How does he know he got some new “ability”? Silly.

I assume there’s going to be an alert.
like

Congrats you are now level 5!
Things that have been unlocked at this level. Downstate.

and then an explanation of the down state.

Just for fun I rolled a human guardian yesterday. Got to level 10 in a little over an hour just doing hearts, personal story and any events that happened in my travels. Only used dropped items and PS rewards.

Not really so hard to do.

Got downed once {at level 3}when I soloed the big elemental at the dam. Rallied, killed him and his minions. He dropped a 0 level blue mighty staff, which sells for more on the tp than most rares.

They’re not taking it away. They’re delaying it. To level 5, supposedly.

Down state is easy to learn, it’s the most annoying feature in PVE. Ahhh nothing like going down in pve and a monster slowly kills you while you go get a drink and bake a cake.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Vayne.8563:

I’ll post this here too. Direct quote from Colin, for those of you who think and truly believe it wasn’t broken:

Yeah we thought so too. After tens of thousands of usability testers and interviews with players who tried Gw2 and left leading up to China launch both in NA/EU and in China – we learned we were wrong.
Honestly, we were kind of shocked how many systems, downed included a surprising number of players just didn’t understand. For downed, we tried a downed tutorial, building downed into the level 1 tutorial, etc. We found after usability testing with numerous different groups, the best rate of people learning and understanding it came from having it be layered complexity and the solution we went with above. Intuitively that wouldn’t have been my guess either initially, but we found people understood it better this way than all other options we tried.
This same level of testing led to the other changes as well. At the end of the day the biggest take away I’d say is: all of us, especially people who go to a reddit to discuss a game, probably know games (and Gw2) really really well. We have millions of users, and a tiny % of them frequent game forums or reddit. Just because all of us, me included, learned those systems well and thought it was all really easy doesn’t mean we are the norm

Colin also said we’d have best in slot gear by the time we reach level 80.

He did. I’ve said hundreds of thousands of things in my life. Some of them turned out eventually to be wrong. But my track record is pretty kitten ed good and most people who know me in real life end up trusting me because of that.

Colins track record is pretty good too. If you can pick five or ten things out of the thousands of things he said that turned out to be wrong, that’s a pretty good track record.

I’m sorry but anyone who struggles to understand the downed state is a complete kitten. It literally takes 1 death to figure it out.

Seems like a waste of resources and time imo.

Kinda wish other features took priority, but whatever.

So, thousands of usability testers couldn’t figure out the downed state, and now the millions already playing who did have to deal with just straight up dying before level 5 instead of having a chance to rally?

Thousands of kids fail first grade math every year, do we lower the curriculum standards to accommodate them over the general public who gets it?

Basically, what they’re saying is, we think people who tried the game and didn’t like it are more important than those that have been playing successfully for 2 years, so we’re bending the game mechanics in their minority favor.

Same deal with the story not unlocking until level 10, traits not unlocking until level 30, stats being allocated in chunks rather than bit by bit. They’re making it a pain in the kitten for the majority of players that have understood basic RPG mechanics for years, to please a very small handful of people that didn’t like the game to begin with, and probably won’t ever like the game no matter how much you try to hold their hand at the inconvenience of your loyal playerbase, because they simply don’t get the genre…