Guild Wars 2

I’ve identified the potential problems with downstate the first day i started playing GW2, and sadly i was not wrong. And no, i don’t need to learn to play or to roll a FOTM class in order to play “properly”. It is an original idea with bad implementation, that’s all.

I must say that i’ve been playing hardcore pvp for over a decade and i do extensive testing with different classes before forming an opinion on a new game mechanic. So far i’ve played a generous amount of tournaments with Ranger, Guardian, Thief, Necro and Mesmer, all with different toolsets at their disposal while downed or stomping someone. I find that while Thieves, Mesmers and Guardians have it easy when stomping someone, i pity Rangers and Necros. As far as stomping Thieves and Mesmers, that’s no big deal, as long as you understand how their skills work, and you realize that you can still hit them while they’re invisible.

The main issue here, dismissed by fanboys and/or people that clearly have no idea about balancing stuff in PVP, is uneven fights. Yes, it sucks to have a stealthed thief stomping you before anyone can get you up, but it is my opinion that while that is easily fixed (by not allowing it, the same way necros on Lich form can’t stomp), it won’t be so easy to balance what happens when you’re playing 1v2.

I have managed to succeed in some 1v2 fights. Mostly due to luck or the inability of my oponnents, i’ll admit. I can however recognize that it greatly burdens who has numerical disadvantage, which in PVP is kind of silly. People with more numbers shouldn’t have an additional mechanic that further improves their chances to win.

Nothing is more frustrating than managing to outskill 2 ppl, only to be killed by rocks being thrown by someone that is supposed to be gravely wounded. And while i understand some classes have it easier (heck, with my guardian i just stand on top of them spamming and interrupting anyone that tries to res – which won’t really work if they have a clue about what they’re doing and pop aegis/stability), others lack such survivabilty and interrupt options. On my Ranger, for instance, i can only gain stability by using my elite, which is cast and on a 2m CD. Add that to the fact that i can still be rooted (by eles) and my target can get up (warrior, engineer) or stealth (mesmer and thief) and suddently to finish off someone that took me 20-30s to down, i’m forced to be at the mercy of his mate for another 10, or chose to ignore the downed player and focus on his companion, usually when i’m under 30% hp, many CDs spent and getting hit by rocks. It’s not fun, it’s not clever and it’s not even close to balanced.

This same mechanic has drove away 80% of my PVP team, which have played with me on a number of MMO and FPS. Not because they didn’t understand how to mitigate the effects of the downed state, but because they feel (as i do) that it ruins this game’s dynamic in SPVP. It’s just an opinion, i realize that, but one that is shared by most experienced gamers i know from this, and other games.

My suggestion would be to either remove it in tournaments (which i don’t think will happen) or revamp the entire downed state skill set. Here’s my 2c on the subject:

- Remove damage dealing abilities. Throwing rocks that do the same damage as arrows and swords makes no sense in my perspective.

- Increase the rate in which you bleed out while downed.

- Remove invisibility/porting/getting up while downed. If you are on the verge of death, you should barely have the strength to be alive, let alone behave like a demigod.

- Change (1) to an AoE unblockable interrupt with a high CD, so you can actually stop the first stomping attempt.

- Change (2) to a “Suicide” skill, in which you instantly die. You could also add an AE condition to this, but it’s somewhat arguable.

- Change (3) so that it heals you for 50% of your hp every 8-10s. This would allow you to eventually res up by yourself if all enemies are dead, or you are left alone. Not meant to heal you up while getting hit.

- Heal ability (4) should not actually heal, but just stop you from bleeding out. Think of it as a kind of “Hanging by a thread” or “Waiting for res” mode.

It is my opinion that all classes should have the same downed state abilities, and despite acknowledging that it might be difficult to implement in a technical level, this should be different for PVE and PVP. I for one don’t think the current downed state is that bad in WvW. It’s in SPVP that i find it most annoying.

What are your ideas for improving this mechanic?

P.S.: If possible, i’d like people that do think it’s all good as it is to be constructive about it. Your opinion is, of course, also valid.

There does need to be a suicide button, but not an instant cast. It would NEED to have a cast time the same as, or even slightly longer then finishing, so people don’t abuse this to get instant respawns.

1st skill should remain, but toned down for some classes. This is so they can tag players (or mobs in pve) so they can actually get back up without the aid of another player.
2nd Skill AoE interrupt as you said.
3rd suicide, with cast time…
4th same as it is now.

Downed state makes pvp much less enjoyable for me.

This is probably the only game where a 1v2 is virtually impossible, the game makes it very hard to display skill.

Say you’re in a 1v2, you down one, then he is constantly hitting you for 1-1.5k while “dead” making it nearly impossible for you to kill the other person and if you try to finish him the other person will kill you. So it’s basically inevitable that you will die. once you die the downed person is rezzed by his teammate and all your efforts prove worthless.

This is a very discouraging thing to have, something many guildies seem to agree on is that downed state damage should be reduced to the point that’s it’s almost nothing, getting hit for 1.5k a second by a thief while he’s downed is absolutely ridiculous, i know people who are bunker/defensive builds that can’t do that much damage while alive.

So i’m all for it being removed entirely or the damage being drastically reduced while downed. however i do agree with Aga…

1st – Very Low damage attack just to tag something for a chance to rally.

2nd – AoE interrupt

3rd – Suicide button.

4th – Leave it the way it is.

Should be like that for every class, so there is no need to worry about balancing and downed state no longer makes this entire game rely around outnumbering your opponents both in WvW and Spvp. Downed state takes away from player skill.

I noticed the OP didn’t mention Elementalist in his post and is complaining about downed state balance. This is very amusing to me.

I dont think downed state itself is a problem, the problem i see is the couple of very very powerful downed abilitys.

Mesmer, illusion Mesmer especially being he can teleport around, make fake downed ppl(yes i know the arrow) and to top it off the whole time his clones are beating on you.

Thief, the port skill itself isn’t that powerful, the ability to recast it so quickly is powerful.

Ranger(my main), lets be honest, the ability to use pet abilitys, switch pets, have pets attack ppl, while you are downs is way to strong, all pets for all classes should die when someone is downed. The actual ranger downed ability is fine and in line with the weakest of them.

Warrior i think is borderline, yes you get back up, but shortly after you die completely.

Necro is single target fear, who cares, and Guardian has a huge cd on the knock back, plenty of time to stomp both.

Elementalist, uh i dont even know what they get in downed state, im gonna guess its garbage?

the easiest fix imo, which ive already posted in my Big List of Fixes, is to reduce health in downed state (pretty much in line with your “bleed out quicker” recommendation. dying faster with same health and dying at same speed with less health achieves the same end), and NORMALIZE all damage from downed players. people that stack Power shouldnt be able to hit for over 1k damage from the ground, while people that stack Healing or Condition hit for 150. the 1 skill for ALL downed professions should simply do a FIXED amount of damage. say, ~200.

other than that, i feel like downed state abilities are pretty balanced. except of course for the obvious Elementalist downed state. they need a SLIGHT boost. heres the breakdown of why i think its balanced otherwise

Elementalist – can win a 1v1 downed fight most of the time due to the fact that mist form heals you back up to original downed hp. they will beat engineers, thieves, and mesmers everytime in a 1v1 downed fight, and POTENTIALLY necros and rangers, depending on circumstances. they will almost always lose to warriors and guardians, unless the other player is very lowly skilled.

Mesmer – can do added damage to another downed player through phantasms, so gives them a slight edge in 1v1 downed fights, can also teleport, negating stomps from multiple people at once in team fights. the “negating multiple stomps” gives them enough of an edge that they are perfectly fine. everyone by now knows (or SHOULD know) to wait for the SECOND one to appear, or just look for the mesmer with the giant red skull arrow over him to stomp after his teleport is used.

Warrior – can negate a single stomp with hammer throw, and can get right back up and attempt to self-rally on a six second timer. this is both fine. Vengeance is seen as imba by a lot of people, but most people dont add that hammer throw can only stop 1 stomp from 1 person, so if 2 people stomp you at once in a team fight, youre insta dead. also, how hard is it to just not die to someone for 15 seconds so you can watch them drop dead a second time? cripple/chill/immob and dodge roll people. Vengeance is easy to deal with.

Ranger – pet heals make you win almost every 1v1 downed fight, and lightning bolt is an AoE stomp stopper. ranger is in my opinion the most perfectly balanced downstate atm. a good stomp stopper, an a good 1v1 downed skill. nothing amazing about either.

Engi – a single person stomp stopper (if 2 stomp at once, youre done, just like warrior and necro), and an AoE knockback/down much akin to Guardians 2 skill. a single stomp stopper, and an AoE stomp stopper (hereby referred to as “SS”. im sick of typing Stomp Stopper) on a 6sec cooldown. decent, but what brings them closer to balanced is the condi’s they inflict with their one. they actually contribute to a team fight from downed state with their 1 attack. and the knockback/down on their 3 is huuuuuge. ive seen downed Engi’s neut points with this skill.

Guardian – a super solid AoE SS on 2 that is ready at the word go, and a HUUUUUGE heal on 3. whats awesome about three is that it is AoE, so if your friend tries to res you, and he goes down too, your 3 heals him as well when its ready. granted, dying on top of each other is less than ideal, but the heal being AoE sure as hell doesnt hurt. Guardians are the most res’d class i see because they go down, EVERYone flies away, and 1 teammate res’ing you is enough to get you off the ground before anyone can get back to you.

Necro – a single target SS, and a big damage AoE skill on the 3. the 3 is high enough damage to win a decent amount of 1v1 downed fights, and the SS is good because it doesnt just interrupt, it makes space. this is invaluable for combo’ing with your 1, so you can drain that precious life, especially if they are near death. in a downed fight, very few classes beat a necro. the life drain is amazing on the 1, and damage on the 3 is very high. youll self-rally against almost everyone.

Thief – prepare to flame me, but they are balanced and heres why. your 2 is a multi-target SS, but if you go down, and they try to stomp, you have to tele IMMEDIATELY. anyone that is even SEMI-skilled, should know that the 3 skill for all downed classes is on a 6 second timer. if you go and stomp the thief after his tele, he CANNOT use his invis. and even if he does, just swing at him. he cant move again. hes INVISIBLE not INVINCIBLE. Thieves can only ever get their invis off if you LET them, and even if they do, just nuke them where they were laying. if there is a black swirly spiral, a thief tele’d. look around and stomp him. if there is no black swirly spiral and he disappears, he just invis’d. just keep swinging. no true interrupts, and nothing that helps anyone else from downed. thieves are, imo, the most selfish downed class because all of their abilities only help THEM. every other downed class can assist a teammate in SOME way, via interrupt or knockback or fear or SOMETHING. thieves just go “lol, screw you guys, im goin’ home.”

normalizing damage from downed state and lowering downed hp brings pretty much everything very close to inline with each other.

Aga:

Good point regarding cast time on suicide button. I fully agree that it would help prevent abusing it.

I do think that the (1) ability is cool in PVE, but at least they could tone down the damage, as some others suggested.

AnthonyZdravko:

Yep, basically it makes 1v2 fights harder than they would normally already be. Which sometimes does frustrate me a little bit.

Dayne:

I didn’t mention it in my initial post since it was a bit off-topic, but i also think that using pet abilities is a bit too strong.

I disagree however about the warrior ability to get up for another 15s. I would personally trade it for the pet res on the Ranger. Half the time it’s bugged anyways.

spoonfoy:

Basically we’re talking about the same thing. The time it takes to go from 100% to 0% while downed and i think we agree, that needs to be reduced.

Normalizing damage to a small amount (i’d go with something like 2% hp in players, to account for bigger hp pools) could be an alternative with no damage at all, though personally i’d rather have zero damage while downed.

Regarding the different profession skills, i’m focusing on group play circumstances and not 1v1 while both downed. I don’t think most abilites are OP, i simply dislike a mechanic that invalidates the time and effort took to get someone to 0 hp, by making you fight 2 HP pools or risk dying stomping, if you have unequal numbers . Of course, in it’s current state, there are some classes with big advantages and some that could use a buff. I am not, however, a big fan of some of the abilities put in (such as vengeance and mist form to name a couple), and while it’s only my opinion, i believe they only add to the whole downed state problem.

@spoonfoy – Elementalist mist form heals you but while in mist form you can’t heal yourself and continue to bleed out, all the while the thief could just hit “4” while you’re in mist form and get themselves up before you.

Instead of a suicide button, how about just allowing waypointing while downed, subject to the same timing as while dead?

I oppose a lot of the proposed changes, as I think the system generally works, but I’m not entirely opposed to some modifications. Ignoring stats from gear might help smooth out the effectiveness of downed players (You’re meant to be hindered, not out of the fight, so you still need to contribute to a meaningful degree).

Maybe I just don’t see the problem because I bring a stability skill to aid when stomping.

You know, downed is part of the game as it is and I think it is a great part at that. When fights (structured at least) are maxed at 5 people, the most important question comes to being in the right place at the right time. Dedicating two people to one person in this case is 40% of your entire team. This hurts their ability to get stuff done elsewhere. It is completely balanced to me that a 2v1 is nearly impossible considering how important each person is on a team. Setting up a 2v1 is in many cases either a disadvantage to the team with 2 due to them over committing to a point OR poor movement on behalf of the 1 team to keep an important point.

It’s insane to me that people think downed state is broken because they can’t win a 2v1. When you are fighting two people, you need to be smart enough to realize you need to make a decision. Waste their time or retreat and overwhelm another point.

Once again, to emphasize, 2 people is a huge chunk of a team of 5 people, it makes sense that in a game that focuses on positioning that 2 people should win against 1 nearly every time.

This argument is further silly since it also requires that for you to win a 2v1 you don’t just have to be better than one person, but better than both. And not just better than both, but better than both at once. Agh, crazy to me that people think THAT is the problem with downed.

The real problem I see is slight imbalance of downed abilities and the fact that one defeated person means every single downed player on the opposing team around gets to rally.

In regards to the suicide button, it isn’t a good idea. It promotes the ability to just time your death with the timer far too easily. Someone can waste all their abilities to keep you from capping a point while they’re downed, time their death, and be back potentially with enough time to stop the full cap. Essentially, that is something that is just asking to be abused.

After playing a guardian, which does pretty terrible damage while downed, I was amazed at how much damage my thief deals while downed. It’s easily enough to guarantee a win in a fight between one enemy and one ally.

Fildydarie:

The argument against letting you port immediately is to avoid abuse, at least the way i see it. By adding a cast time we’re thinking about preventing people from simply porting as soon as they fall, after delaying others in an object and allowing for a quzick release.

Sadly, regarding your statement on stomping, not all classes have stability on demand. While stomping with a guardian is a no-brainer, doing it with necro or ranger (2m CD) is risky at best in the midst of battle.

Diage

You fail to see the point in this argument and seem to assume we’re saying killing people in 1v2 should be easy. It shouldn’t, and in no game is it easier to kill 2 than it is to face only 1 opponent. You state obvious facts, such as “sending 2 people hinders your team elsewhere” yet fail to recognize that by having this downed state mechanic it actually rewards people that send 2 people to kill a single node defender while leaving a high survivability player to defend theirs. It further ensures their chances of coming out victorious, defeating the purpose of PVP, which is to leave room for unexpected outcomes, despite the odds.

It might seem insane to you, but it’s hardly a defenseless argument. On the contrary. What this mechanics allows is for subpar players to be able to easily defeat any single player, provided they have a numerical advantage.

It’s also silly that you seem to think that 1 guy being better than 2 should mean he has to be able to kill them twice. In a 1v2 fight, be it an MMO or FPS, there’s already an implicit advantage which means that any single individual that beats two enemies simultaneously has to be better than both. While one might be a noob and die sooner than he should, the other still has had time to dps, and face a single opponent that has wasted CDs and HP in order to kill the first.

That is without a downed state. Introduce downed state as was implemented in GW2, and you’re only making things easier for the ones that already have the upper hand. It’s counter-intuitive and, from my perspective, a design flaw.

It’s not crazy or deluded, it trully is one of the biggest problems with this game’s PVP atm.

Also, you don’t need to say people are nuts to argument against their ideas. I’ve learned a long time ago to respect the opinion of others, no matter how wrong they might seem.

We disagree with rally aswell. Hardly the biggest issue (actually find it adds depth and an incentive to res/stomp players in the current state of pvp).

Finally, regarding the suicide button, you can see Aga made a different purposal in which he address exactly the abuse you talk about (which i had explained to the previous poster in this same post, before reading yours). And we agree, it shouldn’t be abused, but people shouldn’t also be able to abuse downed players by letting them just idle there bleeding out, transforming 5v5 in 3v5 for a couple mins (add to the time spent downed + potential respawn timer + time to get back into the fight).

The whole purpose of the suicide button idea is to address this issue, but since we’re discussing the possibility, how would you address the problem with abusing downed enemy players?

Vorpal

Rangers also have insane DPS while downed, considering they can change pets and use their abilities while lying on the floor. One of the reasons normalizing this damage would help with the problem

I think in general every class should have:

1. Damage ability

2. Interrupt ability – this can range from throwing a Hammer to Teleporting away. It should have about 5 seconds cooldown so you can’t stop an immediate stomp.

3. A suicide button with a cast time longer than the stomp. You could add potentially cool effects similar to Vengeance. However the player needs to end up defeated. This needs to have around 10 seconds CD so people can’t pop it straight away.

4. Your standard heal.

With every class having similar abilities the downed imbalance should be dealt with. Now to fixing the actual mechanics.

1. Direct Damage needs to interrupt healing efforts on a player.

2. Resurrecting defeated players should only be possible out of combat.

That would make downed state a lot more bearable in PvP, both tPvP and WvW.

I agree about the downed state is making 1v2 impossible. Being able to revive a person while he’s downed works alright. But having that downed person doing damage on you while the other person is still in the match is just making everything a chaos.

I also second that suicide button, that should seriously be considered atleast in PvP.

People should start taking abilities to secure the stomp. Or simply accept that yes, you can still lose the 1v2 even if you down two people and perhaps you should leave and heal up, line of sight people, or ask for assistance.

@Bloodbath
You actually missed the point of my argument. The point was to note that the location of skill in this game is moved away from your ability to use your bar. Skill is more directly associated with being in the right place at the right time and planning ahead to make sure you can handle what the other team is planning.

This sort of redirection is necessary due to the game play mechanic of capture points and the greater importance of each player. It is also required due to how anet decided to define their game. They wanted you to be able to play how you wanted to play, in order to do that, they needed to move importance from individual bars and skills to elsewhere. This game comes down to making sure your actions in regards to where you are are the things that matter both.

Further, it’s not just whether or not you have someone somewhere, but that you have a particular someone somewhere. Your example that they gained an advantage by devoting two to somewhere when they have a tank elsewhere means that perhaps you should of made it so you had a tank defending the lone point. This gives your team two options, overwhelm the point with the tank or collapse and help kill with the tank. If you decide to leave an assassin back at the lone point, then there is a good chance he won’t be too helpful at holding it.

Seeing how there are fewer players, namely 5, each player is important. Far more than in general games where the numbers are slightly larger. To lose one is significant in many cases, it results in the loss of points for you and the gain of points for them, a gigantic marginal loss. That is why downed state helps to ensure that the thing that matters most is movement about the field, not who is strictly better with their bar. By the way, it is still possible to 1v2… assuming skill difference significantly high.

The point at the end was to say the IDEA is insane, not the person. But just think about it like this. You are calling a game broken because it seeks to be more casual friendly in giving the lower skill players an advantage. If you want to dominate your opponent, beating them 1v2 is not the place to do it. Out smarting them, out moving them, out ganking them, and out capping them is the way to do it.

Now, I personally do not like what GW2 pvp has become in and of itself only because it has fallen far short of it’s expectations. However, I will admit, the system in place does exactly what they look to achieve and does a fantastic job at that. If you want to discuss the game being worse than what it could be, that is a discussion over design philosophy as a whole, not downed state.

Added: about abusing downed enemy players.. just be a smart enemy player and bleed out. It doesn’t take that long. It would take basically as long as you’d have to wait for a suicide button should you implement it and wish it to be balanced. My favorite solution however would just be a rate of bleeding that speeds up over time. So the longer your down, the faster you start to bleed out.

Just the other day I had an interesting downed state experience. I kill my opponent and 1 or 2 seconds after that I die due to his/her DOTs on me.
So there we are, sitting on our behinds, facing each other, 1 or 2 meters from each other hitting each other with rocks. Come on!!! What the f… is that?
I know there are several things you can do while being downed, but it’s really one of the most stupid ideas I have come across in gaming world. I like rezzing other people a lot. It gives me a good feeling. Of course I don’t know how many of those I’ve already rezzed were bots, but it’s still a good feeling.
But even others rezzing me, gives me a sour taste in my mouth. It just isn’t right. I died. At least take away the chance to still do damage while being downed. It’s ridiculous, sitting on the ground hitting others like some sort of joke to all the fighters out here.

I agree. Downed state needs to be altered in some way as to make 1vs2’s possible if you are good enough. As of right now 1vs2’s are actually 1vs4’s cause you have to kill everyone twice.

Ya i left because the sPvP isnt fun, and downed states are probably the key component.

Ill be back i think, but im not gonna lie, im pretty let down. I have higher hopes for the pve than i do for pvp at this point, and i dont think thats ready for launch yet either.

Gameplay in gw2 is full of chores, and downed states are a big one

Whilst it’s noted that 2v1’s in this game are harder than you’re ‘usual’ game, with a good team the downed state is really useful 2v1 if you know what you’re doing.

Firstly and most importantly, if you’re 2v1ing, your team should be outnumbering the enemy elsewhere, which means the same advantage applies to your team.

You do not, under any circumstance in this game, in a tournament setting, need to kill players to win.

If you are 1v1ing and they send two and you manage to down them both, two things then happen at this point;

1. They down you, but because you downed one earlier and didn’t have a guaranteed stomp, you would ideally DPS the downed player or AoE them both so that when you did go down you could simply kill the downed player (unless they have a way to avoid it, for example a Ranger or a thief TPing behind cover) rally and finish off the other.

You have taken two players out of the game, taken their point and your team should win everywhere else. I admit, this is an ‘ideal’ scenario it doesn’t happen often but it’s possible and pretty much determines you win because then they have to fight you again for their point (possibly sending three).

2. Their downed DPS finishes you off and they both rally, this is far more common but you still win. This I can’t stress enough, you have won at this point as long as they do not own the node.

Presumably you went down on their point so they couldn’t cap it back or to neutralise it because they went down off it, so for the remainder of your life you will now force them to have a reduced point generation. On top of the fact they have a reduced point income, your team should be winning whatever it is they’re doing due to their outnumbering of them, giving them a chance to get the rest of the map under control.

In a tournament setting, if at any stage you are engaged in a 2v1 on a neutral point, or a point you own every second you live and maintain that, you are winning even if you ultimately die, you have still won.

The only time this isn’t good is if they kill you very quickly and you eat a 19 second rez timer. Even then the guy has to cap the point which takes time then run to the fight, by this time you would be at least on your way to wherever needs help or assaulting.

In tournies I often (as my job) try to grab the attention of as many players as I can on a neutral point. Attacking their natural bullying their defender off the point (or killing him) and then just delaying against two people for as long as humanly possible. My team then has an extraordinarily easy time of 4v3ing everywhere else.

The downed state actually adds a huge extra dimension to this game, one the community hasn’t full appreciated yet (with good reason) and it is something that must be planned and strategized around.

From my experience the team that wins even team-fights is the team who knows how to manage the downed state (rotate defensive moves, from both yourself and team-mates, etc.).

To my own embarrassment, I have been in fights, where we downed the enemy team four times more often than did us in the middle of Foefire. We ended up losing because at that stage we didn’t understand the importance of having someone who could reliability; rez, stomp and support downed players.

Finally a downed suicide move, not only removes this strategy (implementing its own, shallower strategy), but promotes abusive use of this mechanic. My team on regularly ignores stomping a player and let them bleed-out or stomp them at very specific times to maximise the res timing and just DPSing until then.

If a suicide was an option, you’d simply have player killing themselves at the appropriate times just to get a faster res, people wouldn’t bother with the downed state simply for an instant res (swiftness would become a must have for everyone). Team-fights would be endless against equal teams.

2cents.

I think downed state is the worst mechanic/design i’ve experienced in 25 years of gaming.

Downed state is bearable in pve but it simply doesn’t belong in PvP at all. The best solution would be disable downed in PvP zones. The second best solution would be to make rezzing break on any damage in PvP zones.

There’s already plenty of things that need fixing in the game, please don’t waste resources on downed state.

Diage

I’m sorry but what you’re describing is not action oriented PVP but RTS. In RTS, all strategy and skill is focusing on positioning and knowing when to attack and when to retreat. In an action based PVP game, you have this same element to a smaller scale, but you also have the element of skill when fighting people, otherwise they might aswell give you a single attack button and tell you this game is about getting numerical advantage at objectives, which i don’t think ArenaNet did.

The point capture system present in SPVP is not new, or even innovative, so i fail to see your point regarding a specific way this game is meant to be played. You yourself say they wanted the player to play how they wanted to, but then you seem to be fixed in a single playstyle which adapts to the specific mechanics of the game. Which is it?

Ok, i guess your next paragraph answers that. You believe that the skill of the players should be dismissed in order to favor player assignment at different locations. I’m sorry mate, but i fail to see why on earth would you want that. It’s not what i get from the skillset available on all characters either, and i’d have to see feedback from ArenaNet confirming this was their intention. From my experience it’s the combination of strategy (positioning/movement) and execution (the fights themselves) that makes PVP in MMOs fun.

Also, i did not say that GW2 was broken, or anything of the sort. I’m merely trying to discuss a change in a game mechanic that i feel defeats it’s purpose, despite acknowledging that it is indeed an original idea. And casual players are the ones that suffer from it most, considering they will usually get into unorganized pugs which are more likely to be outmatched both in skill and strategy. That means that a casual player, even if he knows what he’s doing, is likely to end up facing 2 opponents and while i believe he should still be able to win if he outskills his 2 opponents, you seem do defend that his only choice is to run away and expect randoms to help him. That, or expect both his opponents to have a low IQ. This is hardly casual friendly, and trust me, i’ve always been concerned about casual play, since i have many friends that only play sporadically.

Finally let me tell you that while being harassed by GW2 fanboys for 2 years (my friends, in case you were wondering) i always told them i’d wait and see, and didn’t want to get overhyped over an MMO. The first video of this game i saw was while downloading the client. And my impression after playing for a month is very, very positive. There’s some bugs here and there and some mechanics i might disagree with, but overall i’m pretty satisfied. I didn’t bring the game as whole to the discussion, you just did. Liking it, however, does not mean i have to suck up to every single aspect of it.

I trully feel this specific mechanic hinders PVP in this game, and it’s because i plan on keep playing that i’m trying to discuss it openly and in a civilized manner (as you and the majority of people are doing, which is always refreshing). I don’t think the concept of the game would change radically without downed state, or with a kittened downed state for that matter. I trully don’t. And if i wanted to discuss the whole SPVP philosophy i’d have to talk about ninjaing mobs with 1 hit, the lack of variety in the types of scenarios aswell as other stuff which i’m not mentioning because this is not the aim of this post. I’m focusing on what i think it’s a major problem, which has already drawn people away from PVP. Doesn’t mean most people hate it, it just means that there is room for improvement, and i’m trying to contribute towards that end.

Regarding your suggestion, it’s another good alternative (accelarating bleed-out). Even with no one hitting you, getting dead takes a bit too long right now, specially if you’re being abused by the enemy team. The objective here is to diminish the minimum time you’re down to prevent abusing, yet making sure people can’t abuse getting dead too soon as you’ve pointed out on another post.

RapBreon

Trust me, i fully understand what you are saying regarding planning around downed state, and player stalling. You fail to mention, however, that all the timing/stalling can be done without having to implement downed state. It’s not exclusive to GW2. Also, it’s always a bad idea to plan games around “ideal” scenarios, and a good idea to make them flexible. Right now, this game is very static exactly because of downed state and bunker builds. And while i disagree with the first, i see the latter as a more legit way of stalling.

Regarding your final statement, you should have read my post thoroughly. It’s exactly to avoid this kind of abuse that a suicide button would be implemented (or one of it’s alternatives being discussed in this thread). You can seriously hamper the opposing team by ignoring ressers (which, admittedly is the downed player’s fault most of the times, by still trying to heal) and forcing them out of the battle or as much as 30s (think down time + bad luck on repop timer + running back) which i think it’s too much. One of the alternatives would be to diminish the overall HP pool (which would be messy) or simply increasing the bleed-out speed/damage.

And yes, preventing the kind of abuse you describe has also been discussed here, which is why there should be a minimum time to be in downed state before dying, when not being touched by enemies.

mjharrison

I wouldn’t go so far to say it’s the worse thing ever, but coming from 20+ years of gaming like yourself i’d also have it removed. But since i also know MMOs (and forums) i know the kind of shizzlestorm that could generate. Which is why we’re discussing alternatives.

Bloodbath.7084:

RapBreon

Trust me, i fully understand what you are saying regarding planning around downed state, and player stalling. You fail to mention, however, that all the timing/stalling can be done without having to implement downed state. It’s not exclusive to GW2. Also, it’s always a bad idea to plan games around “ideal” scenarios, and a good idea to make them flexible. Right now, this game is very static exactly because of downed state and bunker builds. And while i disagree with the first, i see the latter as a more legit way of stalling.

Regarding your final statement, you should have read my post thoroughly. It’s exactly to avoid this kind of abuse that a suicide button would be implemented (or one of it’s alternatives being discussed in this thread). You can seriously hamper the opposing team by ignoring ressers (which, admittedly is the downed player’s fault most of the times, by still trying to heal) and forcing them out of the battle or as much as 30s (think down time + bad luck on repop timer + running back) which i think it’s too much. One of the alternatives would be to diminish the overall HP pool (which would be messy) or simply increasing the bleed-out speed/damage.

And yes, preventing the kind of abuse you describe has also been discussed here, which is why there should be a minimum time to be in downed state before dying, when not being touched by enemies.

Choosing when you die is a reward, when you die, you shouldn’t be rewarded. You have the choice to let yourself bleed out and deal with the hand you were given, when you’re being bled out, ideally you’d have the awareness to just let yourself go, and realise the best time to let it happen to get the smallest res. Suicide button is a far worse abuse I’d rather the down state removed than a suicide button. Minimum time is still silly, when you can just bleed out.

Bunkers are OP for many, many reasons, least of all their downed abilities. If you die instantly, you can not stall without a downed state, this infact counters one-shot builds.

No you don’t design games around ‘ideal’ situations, which is why I gave you two scenarios in which 2v1’s favour the person whom is outnumbered in a proper tournament.

RapBreon

I do understand where you come from, but while you have valid points, let me remind you that we’re suggesting a suicide that it’s not instant. Perhaps it could have an initial CD with the same time as it takes to bleed out normally, so there would be no abuses.

Regarding bunker specs, i didn’t mention them in regards to downed state, but as an example of a kind of mechanic that makes combat less dynamic. This can be both a good, and a bad thing, but it in the end, all that matters is how the gaming experience “feels”.

@bloodbath
You are correct. What I described to you is in no way what you would expect from an MMO game. The reason for this is that anet looked to create a pvp that was modeled after other game modes. Moba, RTS, and FPS games to be more precise. They wanted to look at games which are already e-sports and try to create an e-sport by modeling those.

Do I think this was a good idea? absolutely not. I have a very very long post describing that very point, but that is irrelevant. The important thing is to ask the question, how did anet want their game to feel when they designed it? Then ask, does this mechanic in question help or hinder that game objective?

I think we both agree they are looking for a casual friendly game. They want a game where you can choose your play style. They want a game that has potential for an e-sport. Now, although I know for a fact that all of these are possible to have in a game, I don’t think anet went the right way. But we can ask the question does downed, as is, help their objective or hurt it?

My claim is that it helps. A game focused heavily on individual skill is initially not very friendly to new comers. There are things you can do to adjust that fact though. For example, proper match making, informational observer modes, great tutorials, or a tiered ranking system. But those still hinder ones ability to enter the game. Instead, anet took a note from other game modes and decided to move the skill away from the individual player. This is evident in the way they chose build selections, the lack of marginal returns for most skills, the lack of a skill-detrimental attrition factor, and just the way the entire flow of the game operates. It is also implicit from much of their discussion over their own views of the game. Things such as wanting every profession to be equally viable. Now, I will grant that what happens at a fight does make a HUGE difference. For example, living for a minute versus living for 15 seconds creates a gigantic difference. Your success in that fight however, is not weighed by whether you literally won or loss. If a team commits resources, particularly when their resources are so heavily weighted, there should be some kind of result. The game would be a bit ridiculous if it were the case that people could win a 2v1 easier than now. Skill difference would be magnified and it would hurt new comers interest in the game if they got dominated.

Further, your argument that “Casuals are hurt the most” doesn’t really hold. Granted in spvp, the world is a different beast, they don’t plan to balance the game around spvp. If they did, that would be insane. Instead, they will attempt to balance around tpvp. Casuals in this area should quickly be aware of the significance of 2/5ths of the team being committed to a single point. There is no degree of casual that will not be able to eventually understand that importance. So, if he outskills his opponents, all he needs to do is waste their time as much as possible. Killing them, actually, is worse for your team in most cases! If they die, they will probably rez faster, and then be available elsewhere. But, in any case… even if I were to grant you that claim, this game is intended to be an e-sport and the harsh reality is that you can’t balance the game around casuals. It needs to be casual friendly, but that doesn’t mean casual easy.

Like I said, I have a lot of qualms about the general direction of the game. I mentioned my concerns long before the game was released only to be squandered by fanboys. This game’s potential has been shot, and where I agree that the game I described is in fact not much like an MMO, that is exactly where the problem is from my eyes. It honestly isn’t an mmo. It doesn’t play one bit like one. So, one thing you’ll have to learn is because you can win a 2v1 in another game doesn’t mean you should be able to win one in this game (sufficiently even skill difference).

I have to agree with your reworked downed system it would be much better then it is now , also it would work in pve too i gues…. and yes after useing suicide spreading conditions might make condition builds bit stronger… but 1 stack of bleed is +/- useless so it woulnt hurt too much.

This is a very helpful assessment. I agree with quite a bit of this and myself being a ranger, Quickening revives/finishes NEED TO GO! They are so cheesy and just break the gameplay. I use it still because I’m forced to in Tpvp but it is brutal. As well as “immune” stomps like engineers and the ridiculous stealth revive/finishes. That is were I think the downed system is broken. For the most part it’s great these three times of revives/finishes drive me insane. I hate them and I play a class that gets to abuse quickening finishes even.

Diage

Firstly, let me say that i’m a bit tipsy so if i fail to make sense, let me edit this post in the morning. :>

I went ahead and +1’d your latest post. Very interesting read and likely the most comprehensive response i got in this thread. I did not read much about this game before i started playing, mainly because i wanted to keep the surprise factor in, so i’m not fully aware of ANet intentions regarding PVP in the game. I completely get your points, yet my initial opposition remains. Not that i think they’ll overall the entire game, but because i still believe there’s time and room to improve on what we currently have.

And we absolutely agree, if this was what they wanted as an end result, i also think it might not have been the greatest idea. I still give them kudos for risking a change on the whole MMO panorama.

Finally, let me just address your words regarding their balancing focus being made around tpvp. What me worries about that is that if they’re focusing on such a specific setting , it will be hard to balance fights around radically different tpvp scenarios (maps) which i think are really needed to vary the types of matches and strats used. This is essential to make tPVP fresh and fun for the months to come.

As i said in an earlier post, it’s always a best approach to focus combat balance around general lines and evolve from there than to built it around specific situations and risk huge imbalances due to unforseen circumstances.

I trully thank you for your input, in a way it gave some insight into how this game was developed.

This is quite an important balance matter that needs to be resolved as soon as possible.

Payed tournaments will be starting soon and the key issues with sPvP (bunker builds and downed/revival issues) have not been looked at.

People focus on burst builds but burst builds are not an issue in tPvP, teams that greatly abuse bunker builds and classes that have alot of the abilities the original poster talked about are issues.

I do hope this post gets at least an oficial answer from arena.net

Downed state is great, makes alot of the fights more interesting, but it’s current state seems greatly untested and unbalanced.

i personally agree that downed state with the exception of elementalist is fine. however i am pretty surprised that people have an issue with this. hardcore pvpers should welcome this extra challenge in fighting other players. this is just another facet to a high skill cap game. the game is hard to master for alot of people and when that happens people look to change things to make it more “streamlined” or “casual friendly”

there are people and alot of them that feel that rezzing teamates is a hindrance and should not be done as it takes too long. i disagree with this fact as well as “finishing people is dumb i killed them they should be dead.” those are both dumb statements i personally enjoy the downed state as new and refreshing, at times it gets irritating, but it is part of the system.

i want the developers to tweak the ELe downed state and then leave it alone. its fine its good and to me its fun.

I’m sorry but if you think mesmer downstate for example is fine, you’re just not playing the same game as everyone else.

I personally think the downed state is an important mechanic in the way that they designed the game. Now it still needs to be tweaked, and changed some, but that being said we still haven’t had any real profession balancing, and several professions still have bugged skills. Up to this point we have only had changes to skills that were causing major imbalances.

Here is why I feel that the overall mechanic of the downed state is good. Simply put we have NO dedicated healers in this game. Comparing this to other games, all the others have a dedicated healer, and this role is our life line / 2nd chance when we get spiked. The downed state gives people a 2nd chance to get back into the fight be it in pve / dungeon or pvp. No one would enjoy being spiked down and not having a 2nd chance to get back into things. In other mmo’s this comes from a heal from a dedicated healer, in GW 2 it comes from the downed state.

Now I know that this doens’t solve the issues with 1v1 and 1v2 but still comparing the healing system in gw 2 it is still much different. Generally speaking in all the other games that I played I could heal myself better and more consistently. Be it from pot spamming / or just better healing from pots, and class mechanics like spammable minor heals. Generally speaking I have less burst heal and less regen with longer cool downs compared to most of the other games that I played. Here again I feel that the downed stated compensates for this difference.

Now I’m not saying it’s perfect, but the over all system is better then the alternative of not having the downed state, with the heals that we have in gw 2, and without true healers.

I dunno. I think other than the down state needing to be equalized among the classes, I feel its fine for the most part. Your 1 skill should be able to kill someone, not just tag. It just comes down to how good/bad a player is to kill them. Ive never once personally been killed by someones 1 when they are in a down state. Cause if Im low, I back up and range them down or wait for my heals to come off CD. Ive got all the time in the world, so to speak. They are bleeding out and immobile.

The down state I dont think needs a suicide mechanic either. Its a double edged sword to be in down state IMO. Yes, you arent dead and you can technically get back in the action faster, but thats only if you do it in a certain time frame. If it takes you 20+ seconds to get back into the fight, it probably at that time wouldve been quicker to die and res. So if it takes a while for you to die, its either you wasted your time trying to get back up, or you bought enough time to screw up the enemy team. It depends on the situation and use. If you give a suicide mechanic, everyone is just going to spam it to respawm quickly. Not even bothering with healing or the AA or whatever.

@bloodbath

Thank you

If you’re a fan of reading extremely long posts and over all analysis you can search for my post, “Lost Potential.”

Anyways, about balance…

When they developed the game, for a matter of fact, when anyone develops a game, you have to balance around a game type. The reason for that is because objectives just simply vary heavily between game types and the objectives of a certain game determine the combat. So, when someone says they have to balance around tpvp, that simply means they have to balance things with tpvp in mind.

Here’s an example, consider the bunker situation. In spvp, it is all big damage zergs. A possibility to fix that would be to say hey, lets make defensive builds a little bit better at stopping this. The problem then becomes that in tpvp, it is simply unbalanced. Bunkers already push the boundaries which make people question whether they are or aren’t balanced (not saying they are either way), but to buff them at all would probably push them over the edge. This difference comes from the fact that in spvp, your objective is to farm points. You don’t care about a win only about glory. In tpvp, it is the opposite. Bunkers often take the center stage since you get the most points by simply holding a point, so the longer you can hold a point the better the chance of winning.

Now, of course I by no means would approve of such a balancing decision or even believe it is remotely a good idea to balance that. The point is that the game play is so different that it alters the actual combat as well. So, as a developer you are forced to ask, what do I balance around?

It’s the question asked for every game. LoL balances around 5s and GW1 balanced around GvG. You can think of many other games historically which had to choose between pvp or pve (thankfully anet has noted they will split skills if that decision comes to question.)

Other than that, about your map problem. The main point of the game remains the same, the alternative objectives just theoretically help or hurt that ability to meet that objective. Those objectives will be balanced as well as need be. Example being the bosses in forest. They used to be a lot simpler and their difficulty was raised a tad to help prevent the game being most won by who killed those as opposed to who capped points.

The obvious solution to downed state (short of simply disabling it for PvP) is to make rezzing break on any damage.

@the person who said they don’t understand why pvpers hate downed state:
Pvpers hate downed state because it strongly favours numbers over skill.

The best solution short of disabling DS for PvP is to make rezzing break on any damage in PvP zones.

numbers should beat skill in a 2v1 the 2 should always win if all are equally skilled. that being said if the 1 wins vs 2 then the skill was never equal so automatically it was not based on skill but a lack of skill. a person who beats 2 people in this scenario shouldnt even be proud of it. you won because you totally out matched your opponents in every way. this is not skill based, this is why in heck did they even match my team against your team in the first place.

the downed system rewards players who are coordinated enough to get there team mates up and punishes folks who fail to finish there opponents off. this also is an inherent balance against bunker specs and forces people to make tradeoffs when building how they want to play.

do you want to survive vs multiple people well then you sacrifice other damaging ability the downstate “should” make this a hard choice because you not only have to work against your build to kill someone in the first place but you have to also finish them off before someone rezzes them.

if a “bunker” is your preferred style of play then your goal should be to survive against two people long enough for your friends to arrive, not to kill those two people.

if you can kill those people as a bunker then you are either playing against people far below your skill and therefore not worth fighting, or you are using an overpowered spec and again this has nothing to do with skill at all.

downstate is in favor of numbers, because in an uneven fight the person with the more numbers should win.

Psychrome.9281:

numbers should beat skill in a 2v1 the 2 should always win if all are equally skilled. that being said if the 1 wins vs 2 then the skill was never equal so automatically it was not based on skill but a lack of skill. a person who beats 2 people in this scenario shouldnt even be proud of it. you won because you totally out matched your opponents in every way. this is not skill based, this is why in heck did they even match my team against your team in the first place.

the downed system rewards players who are coordinated enough to get there team mates up and punishes folks who fail to finish there opponents off. this also is an inherent balance against bunker specs and forces people to make tradeoffs when building how they want to play.

do you want to survive vs multiple people well then you sacrifice other damaging ability the downstate “should” make this a hard choice because you not only have to work against your build to kill someone in the first place but you have to also finish them off before someone rezzes them.

if a “bunker” is your preferred style of play then your goal should be to survive against two people long enough for your friends to arrive, not to kill those two people.

if you can kill those people as a bunker then you are either playing against people far below your skill and therefore not worth fighting, or you are using an overpowered spec and again this has nothing to do with skill at all.

downstate is in favor of numbers, because in an uneven fight the person with the more numbers should win.

Everything you wrote makes no sense.

You basically wrote alot about skill and at the the end said that skill should be a non-factor.

If someone is better then 2 adversaries (he was already at a disadvantage) then he shouldn’t be penalized by it.

It’s like saying that it shouldn’t be possible for a football winger to get by 2 defenders, it just makes no sense.

what i am saying is that if all people are skilled equally then the 2 people should ALWAYS beat the 1 player…if its not equal skill then the 1 persons skill didnt even come in to play …it is the lack of the 2 players skill that won the fight

and lets not get it twisted, this isnt real life any analogy you use that is based on real life scenarios doesnt make sense either since football or anyother sport is based not only on skill but genetics which makes professional sports “imbalanced” in regards to what we are talking about. since skill is not the only factor involved physical ability, physical size, physical stamina are not ever equal between players and has nothing to do with actual skill.

in a video game what we have is artificial balance making all professions equal( in a perfect game) therefore skill is the defining factor separating us. what i say is and should be true:

if all players have equal skill than 2 people should beat the one simply because of the numbers advantage. if the 1 person can beat the 2 than by definition equal skill was not there and they really should not have been matched up at all.

what i said makes sense if you can see that a 2v1 should never be won by the solo player considering equal skill. even if the the 2 are slightly less skilled than the one they should still win. they have an advantage and a huge one at that. if the solo player does win than the solo person is so much more skilled that the solo player had the advantage from the beginning.

its like having 2 lvl 1 players against a lvl 80 player in WvW the solo player has the advantage from the rip. no one would think the level 80 player was more skilled. in tPVP all classes have the max gear max traits so that is never an issue. so if a player wins a 2v1 solo then he wasnt super awesome the other 2 were just really bad.

Dayne.8910:

Elementalist, uh i don’t even know what they get in downed state, im gonna guess its garbage?

Its an immobilize, very good if you foe is a zombie at full range. Very bad if he has half a brain because he can close the gap before the immobilize can even finish its cast animation.

I agree that in sPvP all downed stats should be the same / similar. Thief can peg 2 or 3 rocks in the time it takes for an ele to lightning once. Thief stealth whilst downing is bad, eles can also mist form whilst downing.

PvE downed stats should stay as is (with a change to ele’s #2)

I am completely against suicide buttons. Delaying someone´s death while they bleed out is a huge part of the strategy. If they try to heal, hit them a couple of times, so they can never get up but take longer to bleed out.

I am not totally against the downed state, I just don’t find it fun. I find, as many have replied, that it adds an advantage to numbers where the players with numbers already have an advantage. It’s like getting in a fistfight with a mixed martial artist that also has a gun lol

My main problem with the downed state is the rallying. I find this to be why I hate it. I think rallying from someone dying that you happened to have tagged is a broken system. I think you should only be rallied from healing yourself (with faster bleedout times) or rallying from an ally actually rezzing you.

Having said all of that, I would be the happiest if they just completely removed downed state.

I totally agree, downed state is frusterating for both the killer and the killed, and it isn’t even fun.

Huh, actually that 2 vs 1 frustration is the thing I really like about downed state, once by some reason you managed two kill 2 enemies, and then die from thrown rock or bleed, you’ll have to watch them throwing you dead with rocks and then reviving and going on fighting like it were them to win, not you. You definitely feel frustrated, maybe even humiliated. Or once you witness 5 men stomping you while you are lying helpless and is only 0,1 sec cd away from blinking back which will give you nothing more then just 2 seconds of meaningless existence -_-
These little pretty things add to game some cruelty and survival instinct feeling while pressing this lifesaving “4” button

I think they should just remove it from pvp as well.

As a mesmer, our #3 is a bit too powerful. #2 is fine, you just need to know how to stomp one. A person who has played mesmer always knows the second one is the one to stomp.

As an elementalist, I don’t even push the buttons when I’m downed.

I’d be more happy with it if they removed any knockbacks and disables from downed state, and decreased the health by like 75%, so you could actually stab someone to death in a reasonable time.

I have several friends left the game because the downed state. its simple really fustrating to manage get several people down and die because you are unable to finish them off.

- I would increase the bleeding speed.
- Increase the 2 ability starts with cooldown to 4s and make it a single interrupt. if nobody helps you. you should die
- 3 aoe interrupt or avoid being finished. starts with 10s cd
- 4 heal but with a bigger cd if you get interrupted

As I posted earlier downed state is needed with out a dedicated healer. How many times in other games, did I almost have someone killed, and they got a heal from the healer. What is funny is then you see in chat “I would have killed you if you didn’t have a healer..” down state is very much needed, and honestly it doesn’t need to be changed to much.

There are ways around the interrupts, like stability, aoe damage, timing a dodge roll.

Know your enemy, and there skills. All the classes are easy to finish if you know what look for.