Guild Wars 2

Any plan to overhaul it? The effectiveness of downed state far outweighs how interesting it is, how fun it is, how much effort it requires, a build aiming for a different form of support, etc.

1. rallying needs a fix. I think I have told you 100×. Instead of instantly getting up if someone dies around you the downed bar fill at 15%/s for 5s. Much more balanced and allows counter play.

1. Does there really need to be a stomp escape skill? This bar position is obviously only designed for PvP but I can’t say it is a good one. What was your rational for going in this direction instead of removing the downed evasion skills of the few classes that initially had them? Personally this should be the spot of a more interesting skill shot but that requires fixing the camera angle as well. Don’t think anyone likes the camera when downed anyways.

1. Small point but wth is with the 50% damage in downstate traits? Landing a downed ability doesn’t take any skill so rewarding it this much seems really stupid. For starters if someone has the trait that is must know information because it changes the entire approach. 30% seems more appropriate.

1. Leaving people in downstate to bleed out seems very bm, especially when certain knockbacks can hit downed targets. However it is so important to do! And is completely contradictory to common sense. Try making bleed damage ramp exponentially between using #4.

You have a lot of work to do to clean it up. It is no wonder, even out of the players that haven’t quit there is a large amount of hate for the downstate.

Never queit got this system, and aside from me, the people I got to play GW2 in the past and recently all dislike it when it come’s to PvP. WvW it doesn’t bother me that much.

If you’re dead, you should be dead. Every finish can be blocked on each class, ontop of that, you got a fight usually still going on while people that are in the downed state are still doing damage.

Especially in fights where I come out ontop 2vs1, I usually get destroyed trying to finish 1 of the 2. Even if they’re down both at the same time it’s still hard to finish either one of them since they’re both spamming their buttons to deal damage, or to use one of their escapes.

The system adds nothing, remove it.

Stability stomp.

Not everyone has stability and why would you want to dedicate one of your most important skills to a mini game when there is already so much cc flying around.

Never liked the down state in the pvp modes. Doesn’t fit in with competitive pvp.

I can say I’ve saved a handful of people from a well-timed knockback/stun while they were stomping, and I can say I’ve been res’d a handful of times as my team runs in when I’m downed, and I can say I’ve been rallied (though not as much as the others), but I can also say all those things have happened equally as much to the teams I’ve fought.

It seems like this is just Yet Another Mechanic, not really good or bad. Just different. It does need some work, though. I wouldn’t say to remove it, because they obviously won’t. There are just too many traits and skills that rely on it. The suggestions you’ve made would be good. I mean, 90% of the time, the annoying ele/thief/guardian/warrior skills that stop the stomp just waste time for both parties, to the point where people will advocate not using them just so you can respawn. This is counter-intuitive. Also, the whole rallying thing does need some work. Five people shouldn’t get up just because one enemy they were able to tag died. How does that even make sense? The other team lost a person, so let’s make them outnumbered even more?

But this is the same team that put Skyhammer in solo queue and refuses to do respond to the countless threads about it, so it’s doubtful we’ll see changes like these.

Fourth.1567:

Not everyone has stability and why would you want to dedicate one of your most important skills to a mini game when there is already so much cc flying around.

This is a team game, you depend on the other person to use stability.

Lopez.7369:

Top-tier players generally disagree with most of what you said. Consider why that is.

Top players are usually the ones that care the most and put the most time in. Most satisfied at least compared to those who left. Though really when I played regularly most of the top players (a long time ago I know) would agree some tweaks do need to be made, mostly in line with what I said. But if your right that can largely be chalked up to self selection bias.

Lopez.7369:

Top-tier players complain about a lot of bad things in the game. They don’t complain about downed state because it creates counterplay and interesting tactics. The game would, in fact, be pretty basic and dumbed-down without downed state, or even if bleeding people out was somehow nerfed.

The problem is low-tier players generally refuse to adapt to downed state and think of it as a mini-game. But there’s no reason to think of it as a mini-game. It’s an extension of a character’s normal life in Guild Wars 2, and it demands just as much attention as a fully alive player.

I think the only thing top-tier players would agree with is that rallying needs a range limit of some sort.

That is my problem with it. It does require as much attention as a living player but at the same time is very simplistic to use. Its basically comes down to just knowledge which tends to be counter intuitive in many cases. Downed state takes the place of more traditional support type of play and doesn’t hold a candle to it in terms of how much skill it takes. The transition I am looking for a less of an emphasis on downed state and more of an emphasis on clutch support effects. But if you ask me downed state as it is, is toxic and can receive some changes before support receives more emphasis.

Lopez.7369:

Everything in this game comes down to knowledge.

It’s okay if the mechanic is easy to use if it broadly adds layers of counterplay and strategy. Downed state does that.

That is why I am not proposing to remove it as opposed to reduce its level of impact a bit. In fact I am trying to add more counterplay to the downed state.

Some classes have strong downed skills to compensate for general squishiness (like ele). If you remove it, you have to rebalance everything else.

Lopez.7369:

Top-tier players complain about a lot of bad things in the game. They don’t complain about downed state because it creates counterplay and interesting tactics. The game would, in fact, be pretty basic and dumbed-down without downed state, or even if bleeding people out was somehow nerfed.

The problem is low-tier players generally refuse to adapt to downed state and think of it as a mini-game. But there’s no reason to think of it as a mini-game. It’s an extension of a character’s normal life in Guild Wars 2, and it demands just as much attention as a fully alive player.

I think the only thing top-tier players would agree with is that rallying needs a range limit of some sort.

You can’t design a PvP game around what “top tier” players like.

I’m was a good player myself. Not quite “top tier” but good enough to play against ranks >100 in teamQ on a regular basis.

Downed state is not an interesting mechanic. Instead it’s a snowballing safety net with a completely imbalanced risk/reward ratio.

The only build that can reliably capitalize on downed state is a Pistol Whip Thief since it can both interrupt the revive as well as damage the targets. But even Pistol Whip spam can’t stop a Guardian from rezzing.

The entire downed game-play is lame too. It’s always the same dance. It’s not interesting or engaging. It’s just annoying.

And again, it’s not balanced that it can take 10-30 seconds and 20 skill-uses to kill a target, but it only takes 2 seconds to revive them and negate that entire process. Everything that is good and fun about combat in GW2 is focused on getting people in to downed-state. But what happens thereafter is just bad design.

And by the way there were plenty of competitive PvPer when GW2 originally launched. It’s just that they all left, partially due to downed-state.

Here’s Kripp’s first impression video from GW2 back in 2012. And Downed-State is the first thing he criticizes.

And we haven’t even touched on WvW, where downed-state and rally is the single biggest snowballing mechanic in the game. Combined with hard-rezzes it makes it virtually impossible to chip away at larger zergs. It gives nigh immortality to numbers.

To this date, and my view has never faltered on this, I consider downed-state to be the single worst game-design element of GW2, probably even the worst in any MMO to date.

I know it must have sounded good on paper but the game-play it entails is just bad in every respect.

You’ll have to explain to me how bleeding people out creates counter play. That part in particular seems like a gimmick and is just counter intuitive for new players. And honestly it is a very large advantage for engi’s to take advantage of because they ever further negate the counter play of trying to die on point to prevent that.

As for the rally mechanic really do you think that makes rallying irrelevant? Instead of being given a two person swing in a fight now it is 1 with a high chance of a second. However if a team has put the time into damaging a target that is not completely negated instantly. This opens up the possibility of a more conservative approach on top of the current play styles that can be used. Now numbers can be tweaked, maybe 20% per second is more appropriate but 15% is probably better with the general hate for the mechanic.

And as for compensating classes for changed downed abilities well a competent design team could accomplish that in short order to be perfectly honest. Ultimately the game would be better for it too. Its why I care about tackling gameplay as opposed to balance first. Balance is the easy part at least to get it within a functional range.

Down state is fine, and pvp is better for it. Please dun give the devs any more bad ideas. Just go play another mmo.

I was initially against the concept of downed state, but not long after playing spvp on a regular basis did I learn to appreciate this mechanic. It gives your team a chance to save you, rather than it just be about bursting everyone down. It increases skill cap because now you have to understand not only each classes downed state, but the others around who may try to save them or counter you from stomping.

I think if you give it a chance you’ll learn to like it.

Lopez.7369:

-snip-

Wrong,

you design a game around all tiers of game play. No game has ever been successful by being fun and balanced exclusively around the best players.

That kind of approach is the best way to ruin any PvP ambition. PvP needs and thrives on a wide player base. And to achieve that the game needs to be balanced and fun to play at all levels. That’s what makes DotA 2, LoL and all other PvP games so popular. Easy to access but a lot of depth.

Within this balance it’s ok to have heroes or (in the case of GW2) builds that are harder to play effectively and others that may achieve good results with comparatively little effort. Here you can bring the argument about build X being balanced around higher level play. But the game as a whole still needs to be balanced around all levels.

And that said, I think you vastly overstate the skill-cap in GW2. The difference between a top 20 and a Top 200 Guardian is virtually indistinguishable in actual game-play. Both still run in circles, spam the same cooldowns and essentially do the same thing. The only difference between a good team and a top team is coordination.

Have to agree, the casual crowd drives viewership which in turn drives the competitive scene. League could be tweaked quite a bit to be an overall better game for people at the competitive level but that would effect the rest of the player base negatively.

Now I do have a really good grasp of how to play around the downed state. I played at the highest competitive level during the first 5 months after release but left after my team all saw the direction Anet was going. Within the first 5 months basically every team that went into Gw2 to play competitively quit. Only one I can think of that stuck around a bit longer was Team paradigm. Even when I play maybe one weekend in a month I can still quickly get back into the top 100.

But when it comes to the downed state I just simply don’t enjoy the gameplay it takes. I played a monk in Gw1, now that was good gameplay and covered the same role of preventing burst.

The hard part about talking to the Gw2 forums is it hardly covers the opinion of players that would have otherwise been interested in the game or all the individuals who left. Talking to old players and players from other games downed state is the most common reason given for not taking an interest in Gw2, the second being a lack of energy management. Most have tried it for a free weekend but were put off.

Fourth.1567:

Any plan to overhaul it? The effectiveness of downed state far outweighs how interesting it is, how fun it is, how much effort it requires, a build aiming for a different form of support, etc.

I have one grin and one gripe about downed state (in structured PvP.) It’s funny when two downed players are smacking away at each other until one or both get banner-spiked.
My gripe is that I go into downed state with my elite downed skill on cooldown, every time. It comes off cooldown just when the finishing move happens. It’s coincidence, no doubt, but it happens every time.

the downstate simply needs a big balance a necro’s downstate can down a person with +6k health in seconds while a guardian downstate does almost nothing

The downstate adds so much to the PvP, I’m confused on the benefit to removing it? It adds teamwork to res you up, instead of ‘dead is dead’ it adds a last small bit of possibility to still ‘win’, and it guarantees that thieves aren’t the only ones playing in tpvp.. Seriously, if you can 1 shot someone and steal and get out of there with no consequence… why even play another class that requires you to use multiple rotations.

ruffoth.9024:

Fourth.1567:

Any plan to overhaul it? The effectiveness of downed state far outweighs how interesting it is, how fun it is, how much effort it requires, a build aiming for a different form of support, etc.

I have one grin and one gripe about downed state (in structured PvP.) It’s funny when two downed players are smacking away at each other until one or both get banner-spiked.
My gripe is that I go into downed state with my elite downed skill on cooldown, every time. It comes off cooldown just when the finishing move happens. It’s coincidence, no doubt, but it happens every time.

It is actually designed such that a person has time to try and stomp you 2x if they start right away and you interrupt their first attempt. Just enough time that you need the help of someone else for it to come off cd.

Ideally downstate should be removed but it would have to be compensated for in an extreme way such as bringing back the trinity. Doing so would easily fix complaints about burst classes dominating, loss of depth etc. However that’s not Gw2 but it is feasible to change the relative importance of downed state while making smaller changes towards promoting support and higher synergy between teammates in keeping each other alive. Again, not trying to remove depth, simply trying to transition away from some of the limitations downstate imposes such as its impact on 1v2s and close fights that are interesting suddenly swinging to a boring one sided slaughter because of a rally. Downstate is still there, and there is more team synergy.

Downstate saves feel pretty clutch imo. As is people being able to delay and save themselves, setup cleave situations, rally off kills, etc is all very fun.