Guild Wars 2

After playing a full day of paid tournaments with the new 20 second release timers and talking to several players on other top NA teams, we find that the new system takes a lot of skill out of the game.

The first team to have someone executed (or should I say first person to go down because it’s so easy to dps a corpse) is creating a full-blown snowball effect that’s worse than the previous 1:88 :58 system.

As top teams we take pride in knowing the games ins-and-outs, and knowing timers/glancing at them at all times before stomps added skill and STRATEGY to the game. Skill in the sense that you are avoiding tunnel-vision to properly play, and strategy in the sense that teams had the ability to either stagger enemies.

What are other top team thoughts on this topic? Today I talked to PTC and JBUO who both disapprove.

#burstdps
#timewarp
#ez

PZ!

Time kills played a major role in GW too, and were a great tool to exercise additional control over the match, so it was a good call to keep that feature in GW2.

Did they actually make arguments for this change, or was it just thrown in randomly?

It have no idea, and I haven’t ever even heard of thought of changing the system. People arguing against the “it takes away skill from the game” are just out of their minds. Thiefs press steal+C&D+backstab and in 1.5 seconds anything under 1200 toughness is dead instantly. That takes skill? Oh, btw, they can do it from 2100 units away (SS+steal)

Sounds like a sound balancing decision most definitely aimed at improving the competitive pvp scene.
/palm

KarlaGrey.5903:

Time kills played a major role in GW too, and were a great tool to exercise additional control over the match, so it was a good call to keep that feature in GW2.

Did they actually make arguments for this change, or was it just thrown in randomly?

Karla Grey !! i think i remember you from GW1
anyway.. in GW1 we had different system (moraleboost, death penalties). Whole mechanic of combat different and more team fights (7v7 most of the time or splits)
Anyway Im not top GW2 player – i believe im somewhere in middle with my team but i still dont agree with 20 sec. Previous waves were pretty much good and working fine – as Power said – its about knowelage and strategy.
Now, im pretty much sure, i will torture everyone in downed state to maximum limit in order to give him at least 20 sec in downed + 20 sec respawn timer.
and from point of view of downed player? I dont think its fun to know there is no chance to fight back and therefore lost 40 seconds (or even more) of the game?
On top of that – against some of the issues with downed states abilities being unbalanced betwen classes? some classes take 1000 + HP from you by every hit while others are .. well.. not able to fight back..

Gonna second this Powerr, No serious player I’ve spoken about this with thinks this is a good idea. It is all cons and no pro’s from the change. Why fix something that was not broken ArenaNet?

@Powerr

You actually played the whole day with this? I closed the game after my tournie was done, couldn’t hold in the rage.

At Aragiel, it’s nice to see some players still remember me after all this time, hehe.

The time-kill mechanic was no different on GW than it is on GW2 (minus the fact that on GW you could body block players, preventing them to escape and finish them off after rez timer). It is a mechanic utilized in virtually all main pvp modes, randing from RA, TA (may it RIP) and HA to gvg, and it is a sign of match awarness and strategy, as already pointed out.
The scenarios you list look pretty messed up though.

The only time I almost rage logged today was when we lost a match today with a 350 point lead because 3 of us dc’d one after the other 3 times in a row. It was quite hilarious, but ridiculously frustrating..

For one, it takes away excitement from the game, such as the previously “never-ending teamfight” foefire map. Now once there are 1-2 players left alive you’re stuck sitting around for about 40 seconds waiting for everyone to spawn… The game not only looks but feels far more boring now.

Secondly, stomping someone held strategic importance. Do you stomp him on :22 knowing he will spawn in 2 seconds? Will those 2 seconds give you enough time to cap before the next respawn makes it there to contest? Should you risk letting him get ressed in order to turn a 2 second into a 20 second timer?

i’d say i’m a mid tier player and i feel that yeah 20 seconds is excessive. If they reduced it to 8-12 seconds i would feel that would be okay. But yeah time stomping was a great way to gain an advantage during a fast paced match to gain the upper hand. But we’ll have to see what direction they want to take with this.

I think it introduces a new way of team gameplay, a boring one. The skill in the new timers will be to just kill people at different times during a teamfight and that’s kinda “meh..”. I would say that this system could even work if they shortened the time from 20 to say 10 or something, but this way it’s a easy win for the team with the first teamfight win. It all comes down to who can zerg better.

Also, to quote Powerr, those random DCs, the loading screen bug and the massive and random lag spikes are making this game stupid. Losing to random teams cause 2/3 people get chain DCed is not cool ANet.

I have to agree with you here. Not only is it a slap in the face to the pvp community that anet can only spare 2 devs for pvp, but then they think changes like this are for the better? Anet is going down the same path EA took with sw:tor, and all that leads to is a dead game no one gives a kitten about.

I did hear from a high tier player (they quit before qp) that the rez timers were a likely part of why games in gw2 tended to snowball. Perhaps anet was responding to such concerns?

Comming from a high tier gw1 prophecies player, i can say that timing stomps for spawn waves seemed pretty natural, though why the spawn cycle was such a kitten number beats me.

@ dc complaints… yea error7 is a pretty classic gw problem so im not going to give you my shoulder to cry on about those

I would have to say that the new system for lack of better words is pretty kitten and really poorly thought out; I have no clue why Arenanet thought that the previous system needed changing.
The only way I see this system working is if the timer starts from the second that you go down, meaning that if you stay in downed state for more than 20 seconds than your given an instant respawn, thus discouraging players from keeping the person in downed state for too long, and bringing back an element of control over the rez time, or we could simply go back to the old system that worked perfectly.

I understand Arenanets approach with this new system, but I hate the fact that they are trying to dumb the game down; its nice that people can’t filter into a point constantly to keep it neutral, but I believe this problem could’ve been addressed in a different fashion to the one Arenanet chose to take.

All in all, I hope that the system is reverted or changed at the soonest time possible.

I’d like to see them test a static 10-12 second timer and see how it feels for a day or two. 20 seconds though… no thanks

the best part is the make this change when nobody was asking for it, yet dont add things people are asking for

Well.. to be honest this is an easy fix for the devs, and this is nothing to overreact about. We just need to give honest feedback from the pvp scene. They will change it if we ask

Powerr.3649:

Well.. to be honest this is an easy fix for the devs, and this is nothing to overreact about. We just need to give honest feedback from the pvp scene. They will change it if we ask

while i agree it it easy task to change it back or change it for example to 10-12 sec. Im not sure if its what they will do if we ask.
Or do you feel any change in paid tournaments? i mean did they changed anything regarding the queue times? I think its now even worst with the gem lottery.. and queue times are longer then previously.. and this is.. also easy task to change

Aragiel.6132:

Or do you feel any change in paid tournaments? i mean did they changed anything regarding the queue times? I think its now even worst with the gem lottery.. and queue times are longer then previously.. and this is.. also easy task to change

So, you consider the queue times (that I disagree with, they are just a few min, at least for my team) is a “easy” fix? Then please do tell us how this could be fixed.

The fix I see is to basically “fix the game” to get more people playing tournaments, but to fix all that is not working well and add what is needed is far from a “easy” fix

Now on the other hand, to change the ress timers from 20 seconds to 10 should be as simple as changing a few lines of code. Aka erase 20 and put in 10 instead, no need to change any mechanisms or lines of code beyond that.

Rythgar.2896:

Aragiel.6132:

Or do you feel any change in paid tournaments? i mean did they changed anything regarding the queue times? I think its now even worst with the gem lottery.. and queue times are longer then previously.. and this is.. also easy task to change

So, you consider the queue times (that I disagree with, they are just a few min, at least for my team) is a “easy” fix? Then please do tell us how this could be fixed.

The fix I see is to basically “fix the game” to get more people playing tournaments, but to fix all that is not working well and add what is needed is far from a “easy” fix

Now on the other hand, to change the ress timers from 20 seconds to 10 should be as simple as changing a few lines of code. Aka erase 20 and put in 10 instead, no need to change any mechanisms or lines of code beyond that.

By easy fix i meant balance the entry fee and tournament rewards. How it doesnt matter. its just change in numbers from XX to XX
Righ now .. there is still so many premade groups in free tournaments and they are not going to paid because 1) they have no tickets 2) there are queue times

And hey.. where do you wait just few mins? Sunday evening I was waiting like 15-20 mins for one tournamet to pop..

Xeph.4513:

I would have to say that the new system for lack of better words is pretty kitten and really poorly thought out; I have no clue why Arenanet thought that the previous system needed changing.
The only way I see this system working is if the timer starts from the second that you go down, meaning that if you stay in downed state for more than 20 seconds than your given an instant respawn, thus discouraging players from keeping the person in downed state for too long, and bringing back an element of control over the rez time, or we could simply go back to the old system that worked perfectly.

I understand Arenanets approach with this new system, but I hate the fact that they are trying to dumb the game down; its nice that people can’t filter into a point constantly to keep it neutral, but I believe this problem could’ve been addressed in a different fashion to the one Arenanet chose to take.

All in all, I hope that the system is reverted or changed at the soonest time possible.

What if respawn time was set at 10 seconds instead of 20.

I tend to agree… no one likes to sit around for 20s. On top of that the strategy of waiting on a stomp/kill to trigger longer spawn timers was something even my team worked at utilizing. I wish we could get a developer response for this change….

Powerr.3649:

Well.. to be honest this is an easy fix for the devs, and this is nothing to overreact about. We just need to give honest feedback from the pvp scene. They will change it if we ask

in 2-3 months if youre lucky

Another thing that bothers me about the new rez timers is the importance or winning the inital fight. The team that loses the fight is left with 1 defender on home point if he didn’t die already leading to a quick 3 cap while everyone is waiting to rez. It makes comebacks near impossible.

Khalifahaze.6045:

Another thing that bothers me about the new rez timers is the importance or winning the inital fight. The team that loses the fight is left with 1 defender on home point if he didn’t die already leading to a quick 3 cap while everyone is waiting to rez. It makes comebacks near impossible.

that’s what op meant by snowballing

top priority should be to get a ranked solo queue /w ladder in the game, so that people will be [cumin in bulk] (see what I did there!)
…but also to fix load bug, and this awful timer

This is what i thought, that they will set timers to ~7-10seconds. 20sec is overkill that will results in more one sided games for sure – If you win bigger teamfight you will be in much bigger advantage than before.

I completely agree with you, Powerr. The only annoyance with the “old” respawning system was the insta-ressing (skilled players didn’t even worry ‘cause they could control the players spawn time to a certain point).
However, this isn’t the right solution. They took out the skill of timing, where you could potentially give an enemy player 20 sec. respawn.
The new respawning system will make the first fight even more decisive and teams will snowball to the point where there is no more hope for other team.

I understand that its important to eliminate the Legacy of Foe-fire scenario where people constantly are able to reinforce due to the “old” respawn system.

I think a solution would be to cap the minimum respawn to say 7 seconds and then let skill decide whether you’ll have to wait 7 or 17 seconds.
Hopefully ArenaNet will fix this as soon as possible.

Some changes … adaptation
top tier player … i laugh

ErlendR.6107:

Some changes … adaptation
top tier player … i laugh

So, by your theory changes should just be made, accepted and adapted to? Seems like a kinda odd attitude. Especially since the change at hand didn’t do anything else than break a perfectly working system.

You laugh about top tier players? Or do you laugh at any specific top tier player? Kinda worthless statement, but ok. You laughed.

Random player makes a stupid post… I laugh

Team fights matter. Stomps are necessary in team fights, rezzes are necessary in team fights. If you go for a stomp and it goes off at :59 they instantly get back up and sprint to the fight. Whereas if you had to go for a stomp and it happens to go off at :58 they’re down for 20 seconds. Let’s say you’re getting a stomp to get your teammate up in this situation.

Sorry Power, but playing 3 guard zerging mid until you chance into a favorable engagement isn’t the way to play the game.

If you want to succeed, you have to coordinate— even if that means waiting an extra 10 seconds after you spawn to get your teammates together.

The previous system was skill-less as it gave you a handicap of spawning with your teammates, now you have to coordinate actually grouping up.

Nero.8623:

Team fights matter. Stomps are necessary in team fights, rezzes are necessary in team fights. If you go for a stomp and it goes off at :59 they instantly get back up and sprint to the fight. Whereas if you had to go for a stomp and it happens to go off at :58 they’re down for 20 seconds. Let’s say you’re getting a stomp to get your teammate up in this situation.

Sorry Power, but playing 3 guard zerging mid until you chance into a favorable engagement isn’t the way to play the game.

If you want to succeed, you have to coordinate— even if that means waiting an extra 10 seconds after you spawn to get your teammates together.

The previous system was skill-less as it gave you a handicap of spawning with your teammates, now you have to coordinate actually grouping up.

The previous system was “skill-less” because? You actually had to pay attention to the timers? Had to weight between long stomps and the risk of a ress or chance to capture the point?
The new system is more “skill-based” how? Because you don’t need to bother about Anything what so ever, just get the first stomp in and off goes the snowball.. And with the snowball I mean the fact that you from that point and onward will be on a continuously growing advantage.

You my good sir could not be more wrong.

So your logic is that if you win the big team fight in mid you shouldn’t be rewarded? How exactly is that logical?

And yes, paying attention to the game clock when stomping was literally so stupidly easy— calling it a skill is a joke. If by skill you mean shifting your gaze to the top of your screen briefly to check the game clock you have a bad definition of it. Conversely, winning a team fight takes skill and should be rewarded.

Nero.8623:

So your logic is that if you win the big team fight in mid you shouldn’t be rewarded? How exactly is that logical?

And yes, paying attention to the game clock when stomping was literally so stupidly easy— calling it a skill is a joke. If by skill you mean shifting your gaze to the top of your screen briefly to check the game clock you have a bad definition of it. Conversely, winning a team fight takes skill and should be rewarded.

So.. winning the point, getting 5-25 points, pushing them back and forcing the next move out of them is not reward enough? You want the first team fight to be a “win or lose the match” kind of situation? Then my good sir, you have gotten what you asked for.

I dont think there is less “skill”. I mean come on, watching timers isnt exactly difficult anyways, if you had the luxury to decide when to kill them, you likely had the luxury to glance at the timer for a second anyways.

I am concerned with the change of pace, 20 seconds is a long time and it makes the game feel slow/slugish. It isnt fun for the person dead. Not to mention the snowballing that takes place as mentioned, there is already a flaw in linear scoring and comebacks, but this just makes attaining a comeback even more of an uphill battle after the first team fight. Not sure I like this, however I can see the change functioning on a 10s respawn timer just fine.

I mentioned this in another thread, I would prefer a respawn timer starting at 20s and decreasing the longer the player is in the downed state.

I didn’t like timer watching, and I don’t like a 20s static timer. Both of these options encourage one to keep the opposition alive and in the downed state for as long as possible (not 100% true with timer watching, but often it behooved one to wait on stomping for the timer to reset).

Players should ALWAYS be encouraged to stomp as soon as possible. It’s PvP, the object should be TO KILL your enemy and KILL THEM QUICKLY. Period. A decreasing timer would encourage this as even a downed player is more dangerous than a defeated one waiting on a respawn timer.

My team [RC] also thinks this is a terrible change. As powerr said, it removes the strategy involved of bleeding someone out vs a stomp (do you risk reinforcements coming and getting a res in favour of increased respawn time?), and makes the big AoE team fights an even bigger deciding factor, since you’re guaranteed so much time to go get something else done (boss kill, reclaim side point, etc) after a 4-man wipe. This also increases the already significant defender’s advantage.

I was originally expecting a 10 second timer for everyone when I read about this change, which would still reduce some of the skill required in the game, but at least not move even more importance to team fights. 20 seconds is over the top.

Wooo Let The Snow Balling Begin.

Anyway, I’d rather have the respawn timer increase as the game progresses, it might not be better than the original system but it’s sure as hell better than a static 20s respawn. That kitten Cray.

You should be watching the actual fight and not timers, buff bars, and other nonsense. Anytime you find yourself staring at a buff bar or watching a timer it is some combination of bad UI/UX or just overall bad game design. It’s not completely avoidable of course but…

IMO, if you keep calling it a “skill” and pretending it’s fun and stuff… you’re going to end up with a game that makes WoW Arena and Duels look advanced.

Deciding to stomp someone based on the timer is a gimmick. Calling it strategy is a facade by hardcore players pretending it’s not a cheap gimmick over teams ignorant of the mechanic.

But 20 seconds is too long. Reduce it to 12 seconds or something.

say goodbye skillbased teamfights.
I kinda feel that this was like a casual hotjoin patch, to avoide the hugh zerg based spvp hotjoin games. But why should they change a running system which proofed to be good. To lower the the time wouldnt change anything either. I kinda agree that this is may good for hotjoiners but for everyone else -> totaly skill reduce gameplay.
The opertunity of never ending teamfights and the importants of recaping at a good time or the decisions everyone have to make during Teamfights (should we kill him or not) doenst exist anymore. It all comes out to the point who got 5players faster in mid and used all of the cds. Snowballgame and way faster gameplay will come (NOT a good change).

So my opinion, add this change in hotjoin but not in tournament. That kinda support my opinion that the patches gonna support more and more the casual game players and lower the core players.
If someone die first the fight is almost over since rezzing without utility rezzes are kinda out of the game and u need like 1 min overall to reinforce with 5 or 4 or w/e cuz of invidual spawntimers.
I already talked to some EU Teams they kinda agree with what i said.
Skill related teamfights doenst exist any longer, or at least longer fights. Game is gonna change to a fast gameplay. Teams that arent on the same level we get stomped even harder and get less points in pvp and may get bored as well.
->Not a good change.

And mone more, 1v1s are basicly out of the game cuz its too kitten risky.

OnibawaN Varee

as mentioned – snowball effect. it’s stupid

I am not a top team, nor do I speak for one, but I hope you will still grant me the courtesy of considering my reply.

This is absolutely, definitely, beyond any doubt a skill-gap decreasing change, and therefore a bad one. In general, Arena Net should be looking to get sPvP competition ready, not the reverse, which means evaluating every change in light of whether it increases or decreases either the individual or team-based skill gap and implementing changes based on two very basic principles: (1) increase skill gap good, (2) decrease skill gap bad.

It’s disappointing that they are not taking this approach.

(Slightly off topic, and hence parenthetical — I would love to see a charted breakdown of normalized damage across different abilities -- i.e. ground targeted/aim based, AI-based, auto-aim-based, etc. — to see whether skill shots are actually rewarded with more damage. I am confident they are not, just another indication that Arena Net is not focused on skill gap whatsoever.)

So because so much emphasis is put on team fights this somehow takes the skill out of team fights? You people aren’t making any sense with your arguments.

I heard about this and all I see it doing is promoting spawn camping, as now you wont ever have to worry about them all respawning at once and rolling over you.
I’ll be staying far away from sPvP now, and only stick with WvW.

I’m probably leaving GW2 for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn anyway — When a company completely remakes a game that was bad, you KNOW it has to be good.
And with all the bugs, faults, cheap skills and exploits in GW2, they’d probably have to remake the entire thing to fix everything > >

Nero.8623:

So because so much emphasis is put on team fights this somehow takes the skill out of team fights? You people aren’t making any sense with your arguments.

No, it means the team who does win the team fight, 3 caps the other team. There is rarely a chance when you can hold your own point due to the new respawns. In all honesty you might as well throw all 5 people into the middle point now because even if your team loses the teamfight mid, your last player is just dead anyway.

On a sidenote: Doesn’t this patch just tempt people to “go to the mists” then load back in, my load time is only a few seconds and would save me time in doing so. Of course chancing a load bug an extra load bug could be stupid, but perhaps after they fix it, there we be an overload of people exploiting this in order to win games.

I agreed i think they should leave it how it was before there was no problem with it.

I kind of like the idea that that timer would begin ticking when you enter the downstate, if they get an immediate stomp off on you then you will take the full rez timer but if they bleed you out then they will not be getting an extra benefit.