Guild Wars 2

I can’t remember the post but once a dev said: what if in order to rally you need to stomp the enemy and not just kill it.
Well, this would balance the WvW scene so much, right now having an upscaled player on an organized group means having 5 potensial rallies for the enemy. The ratio of good players you need to balance a single upscaled is insane, 1 to 5. Right now you just autoattack on downed enemy and make your allies rally, the fact of stomping would make downed skills much more usefull and change the WvW scene.

Another idea for balancing the rally problem could be to reduce the rally ratio 1 to 1, so only 1 enemy gets the rally when an enemy is killed or just remove the rally mechanic

EDIT (from comments): The rally mechanic has created an us (hardcore) versus them (casual) split on every server

How about no more rally from killing something. The only way to get up is for an ally to bring you up or do it yourself.

Really simple change that would make a lot of less experienced players more welcome when running with experienced players.

You shouldn’t rally AT ALL from killing anything.

You also shouldn’t be able to res a completely dead player while in combat. I HATE it how my 5 man group starts destroying a 12 man group, only to have a few players almost instantly res a dead player. It’s dumb and supports zerging a bit too much.

EvilSardine.9635:

You also shouldn’t be able to res a completely dead player while in combat. I HATE it how my 5 man group starts destroying a 12 man group, only to have a few players almost instantly res a dead player. It’s dumb and supports zerging a bit too much.

Any half decent skirmish team or skill group has similar feelings. The rally mechanic has created an us (hardcore) versus them (casual) split on every server I have run on. If the rally on kill didn’t exist I would have no problem bringing along a casual but since our group routinely takes on bigger numbers having anyone that isn’t hardened and experienced is a massive liability.

Down state is ridiculous to begin with. Personally I wish it didn’t exist at all.

Keep this post up so maybe we got some answer from the dev and they notice this problem!

Billaboong.6821:

Keep this post up so maybe we got some answer from the dev and they notice this problem!

Keep dreaming… People talk about this ever since WvW started…

It wouldn’t be so bad if lowbies or very inexperienced players coming wasn’t such a huge drawback.

One of the reasons good skill groups can bigger groups, is they don’t bring rally bots.

Billaboong.6821:

Another idea for balancing the rally problem could be to reduce the rally ratio 1 to 1, so only 1 enemy gets the rally when an enemy is killed or just remove the rally mechanic

This idea I support fully. It would bring a balance to problems of rallying. If an enemy dies from just being attacked, only 1 person gets the rally (how you determine this would be interesting though). However a stomp kill instead does the normal rally for up to 5 enemy downed players. This would create a much more interesting battle field, and it would not be the end of the world (turning the tide of the fight in a strong way) because a single less-skilled or upscaled player got killed (not stomp killed).

Billaboong.6821:

Keep this post up so maybe we got some answer from the dev and they notice this problem!

Sometime between now and the heat death of the universe.

" what if in order to rally you need to stomp the enemy and not just kill it."

umm if your down and the enemy is down…how are you gonna stomp it to rally…kitten

Lithril Ashwalker.6230:

" what if in order to rally you need to stomp the enemy and not just kill it."

umm if your down and the enemy is down…how are you gonna stomp it to rally…kitten

You kill your enemy as downed, then you can still ress yourself. Not a big deal. Anet could also revisit downed skills: example, with thief teleport you can easily avoid a stomp, others like the guardian one can just be blocked with stability or a well placed aegis

I love the downed/rally system, it would be considerably more boring without it.

My only issue is that a single death rallies everyone who hit them – it should only rally one. One death, one rally.

Straegen.2938:

How about no more rally from killing something. The only way to get up is for an ally to bring you up or do it yourself.

Really simple change that would make a lot of less experienced players more welcome when running with experienced players.

I would support this.

In addition, I suggest that once you’re dead (hard down) the only way to revive is by WP. Otherwise, large zergs would just steamroll everything and then rez their dead without any chance of reduction to numbers even after large engagements.

Interesting, but a change of this magnitude just couldn’t be implemented before league, so, even if they got 100% behind this, its awhile away.

Randoms following guild groups instead of pug commander are quite common in WvW and since they are often upscaled or just bad, they can ruin the battle for a guild easily by rallying the enemies.

Such a change would make it significantly less annoying for guilds because now there is no way to prevent randoms from following a guild raid.

Engelsstaub.4356:

Randoms following guild groups instead of pug commander are quite common in WvW and since they are often upscaled or just bad, they can ruin the battle for a guild easily by rallying the enemies.

Such a change would make it significantly less annoying for guilds because now there is no way to prevent randoms from following a guild raid.

Preach, sista. I’ve seen a random pug rally 15 people out of a 30-man guild group. 15. Then people wonder why we tell pugs to follow the tag and get away from our guild group.

Billaboong.6821:

I can’t remember the post but once a dev said: what if in order to rally you need to stomp the enemy and not just kill it.
Well, this would balance the WvW scene so much, right now having an upscaled player on an organized group means having 5 potensial rallies for the enemy. The ratio of good players you need to balance a single upscaled is insane, 1 to 5. Right now you just autoattack on downed enemy and make your allies rally, the fact of stomping would make downed skills much more usefull and change the WvW scene.

Another idea for balancing the rally problem could be to reduce the rally ratio 1 to 1, so only 1 enemy gets the rally when an enemy is killed or just remove the rally mechanic

EDIT (from comments): The rally mechanic has created an us (hardcore) versus them (casual) split on every server

Yeah, that’s what I was really looking forward to most with this update.

The whole Rally system is such a snowballing mechanic it really makes you detest fellow crappy players.

But alas, it’s just another important change that isn’t going to happen. But hey, at least they nerfed something that didn’t need nerfing.

CorliCorso.6254:

I love the downed/rally system, it would be considerably more boring without it.

My only issue is that a single death rallies everyone who hit them – it should only rally one. One death, one rally.

At least this one gave a actually better idea than just everyone saying “OMGF rally sux, QQ, shouldn’t exist, we no need nubs rallybots”

I don’t get it. Who QQs over rallying? I’ve never seen it. All teams have to deal with the same things. It’s part of the game, and has been from the beginning. If you lost a fight due to someone rallying, then you didn’t deserve to win. I’ll bet that for every time you’ve lost a fight due to rallying, you’ve won one the same way. Did you cry about it then, or revel in your good fortune?

Boonprot.6274:

Engelsstaub.4356:

Randoms following guild groups instead of pug commander are quite common in WvW and since they are often upscaled or just bad, they can ruin the battle for a guild easily by rallying the enemies.

Such a change would make it significantly less annoying for guilds because now there is no way to prevent randoms from following a guild raid.

Preach, sista. I’ve seen a random pug rally 15 people out of a 30-man guild group. 15. Then people wonder why we tell pugs to follow the tag and get away from our guild group.

That’s just sloppy, or a blatant lie. If you’re not focusing on those in downed state, it’s just bad housekeeping. Alternatively, if you were able to down 15/30 and lost only one in the process, then surely you can just do it again, no?

The most obvious solution to ‘rally bots’ is to fix the uplevel system. AR, traits and weapons should all be buffed. Personally, I don’t think it’s an issue. Leave it alone.

Engelsstaub.4356:

Randoms following guild groups instead of pug commander are quite common in WvW and since they are often upscaled or just bad, they can ruin the battle for a guild easily by rallying the enemies.

Such a change would make it significantly less annoying for guilds because now there is no way to prevent randoms from following a guild raid.

This should actually give ANet a very strong incentive for ending rallying in WvW, since they’ve said again and again that one of their main priorities is to make sure that players always welcome other players and that players aren’t told to go away because they are making things worse for others.

Honestly they should make commander tags account bound, just make it so that a toon has to be a true 80 for you to tag up. That way no uplevel commanders.

Having more commanders is good for wvwvw, and ultimately good for the game, I don’t know if Anet understands just how many people would quit there game if public commanders disappeared, they shoudltn make it harder to get them.

Not only wvw, spvp needs a solution for rallybots too. I down an enemy in 1v1, then while stomping he gets up and runs/fights like nothing has happened just because some random teammate dies at the other end of map. It’s the most annoying thing about pvp system of this game.

the 1:1 ratio would be fine… but I as a mesmer, I am actually quite powerful in downstate… I think some other classes are too… and I think Umut is confusing a downstate skill with a full rally.

Also in 1v1 fights, I often make use of the wildlife to rally in fights that I know I have a chance of dieing… when all my skills are on recharge, I start to hit wildlife because I know I can rally from it should I be taken down – the trick is to get wildlife to a point that is easy to finish in downed state without killing them before going down.

Similarly, if I am fighting two or more foes at the same time, I will put someone into down state, get ganked in the process, then kill that person while I am in downstate to rally before finishing off the person/people who ganked me.

I think rallying is a key component of the game and you need to know how to use it rather than qq about it all the time. The wildlife on wvw map is there to be used… I use it for all sorts of things… nothing better than fighting 5+ people solo and using the wolves to help you win. I once had a fight with 2 vs 16, and used the wildlife to rally until we had killed all 16.

Biggusbiggus.5789:

I don’t get it. Who QQs over rallying? I’ve never seen it. All teams have to deal with the same things. It’s part of the game, and has been from the beginning. If you lost a fight due to someone rallying, then you didn’t deserve to win. I’ll bet that for every time you’ve lost a fight due to rallying, you’ve won one the same way. Did you cry about it then, or revel in your good fortune?

When a smaller group takes on a larger group every mistake can lose the match. This is particularly true with small skirmish groups and when servers are fighting seriously out manned (which happens A LOT on my server).

Getting stomps in a 8v4 situation is difficult enough. Losing because some random player doesn’t know how to play well and is running a poor WvW build is irritating to say the least. If it hasn’t happened in abundance to you, my guess is you don’t run in smaller skill groups much. As for the shoe on the other foot, not really. I dislike being rallied from an unearned kill and I usually run back when killed.

Straegen.2938:

How about no more rally from killing something. The only way to get up is for an ally to bring you up or do it yourself.

Really simple change that would make a lot of less experienced players more welcome when running with experienced players.

i agree. This is perhaps the best proposal yet.
It gives you a hope of getting up again, yet one bad player would be unable to spell doom for an entire blob.
A very fair proposition. +1 and signed.

I love rally bots. It should be kept in game. Most of these are terrible PvE players who are in pure zerk gear. It teaches them to learn how to dodge, use invulns, or learn how to mitigate damage.

This is a different mode in game and PvE’rs need to adapt accordingly. The game is easy mode enough as it is.

No need for solution other than L2P.
Rallybot is what make me able to 5 v 15 easily.

Straegen.2938:

Biggusbiggus.5789:

I don’t get it. Who QQs over rallying? I’ve never seen it. All teams have to deal with the same things. It’s part of the game, and has been from the beginning. If you lost a fight due to someone rallying, then you didn’t deserve to win. I’ll bet that for every time you’ve lost a fight due to rallying, you’ve won one the same way. Did you cry about it then, or revel in your good fortune?

When a smaller group takes on a larger group every mistake can lose the match. This is particularly true with small skirmish groups and when servers are fighting seriously out manned (which happens A LOT on my server).

Getting stomps in a 8v4 situation is difficult enough. Losing because some random player doesn’t know how to play well and is running a poor WvW build is irritating to say the least. If it hasn’t happened in abundance to you, my guess is you don’t run in smaller skill groups much. As for the shoe on the other foot, not really. I dislike being rallied from an unearned kill and I usually run back when killed.

My point still stands. If you deserve to win the fight, the ‘rally bot’ shouldn’t be what causes you to lose. Every server has to deal with being outmanned. Every roaming group has to deal with people tagging along. Every server has their share of uplevelled players. If I get uplevels following my small group, I ask them to equip a ranged weapon, and tag from the back. If you don’t welcome new players on your server, then I’m not surprised you’re persistently outmanned.
If you’re in a 4 vs 8 fight, then the only real way to win it is if one (or all) on the opposite team doesn’t deserve to be there.
You dislike being rallied by an unearned kill? Do you think there’s honour in winning as 4 vs 8? No way. If you think that you’re fighting a team of equally skilled players, and winning against those odds, you’re kidding yourself.

The problem with the rally system is that it shifts resources to the winning side. Both sides of a fight must commit resources to it (the players themselves are resources). When one side starts winning they get back the resources they committed to it. This imbalance of resources results in a snowball effect with the losing side losing completely. Where it could potentially save a losing side if they start to get some traction it will more often benefit the winning side.

What needs to happen is one of two things.
If they want to keep the rally system make it dodgeball rules: 1 rally per death.

-or-

Remove the rally system.

This removes the bonus resource from the winning side and makes a fight rely on skill more than resources to win. In the first case we keep the rally system but make it dodgeball rules. This makes the swing in resources less impactful. The second case increases the skill minimum to successfully win a fight and makes it possible for small groups to use Hit and Run tactics to defeat a larger group.

Rallybots is what keeps zerg busting groups alive. And response to spiking a player to make it rally. This kind of change would do nothing for the group I run with since we have dedicated thiefs spiking it would only hinder pug groups or less organized groups. Rallying is fine if you take something that is this big out of the game this late into its life its going to get a ton of hate.

I’m confused, every group should have dedicated people finishing. If your group is running around just trying to auto attack everyone to death then you deserve to lose if you allow the other team to finish off someone in your group.

How about when you are bad, or make a mistake you simply are dead-dead? Instead of Second Chance Wars 2?

There should be at the very least a cap on how many people can rally. I say about 3, being determined by the most damage dealt. It makes no sense if you can only hit 5 people and rally a dozen. This way they can preserve the current system and avoid Zombie Wars 2. This also prevents you from just tagging people with staff and you can pop back up if you die as long as one of them gets defeated. It doesn’t make sense when you hit someone a while ago and then you pop back up after being downed immediately when you’re miles away. I’d have to learn to play then though.

Also, there should be no rallying off npc creeps if you’re fighting other players. There’s been a few instances where I’ve gotten away by killing a deer or something, and that’s just silly.

Also, disable hard ressing if player was stomped.

just tell upscaled to get on lv80 char or go to other commander as easy as that and if they dont want to just run without tag and try to regroup without them

TheflamingWolf.5861:

just tell upscaled to get on lv80 char or go to other commander as easy as that and if they dont want to just run without tag and try to regroup without them

This makes wvw guilds look bad because they don’t want random players and it doesn’t help the game community at all. Why be unfriendly only because of a silly game mechanic?

Billaboong.6821:

This makes wvw guilds look bad because they don’t want random players and it doesn’t help the game community at all. Why be unfriendly only because of a silly game mechanic?

Because they want to look like pros…

It’s because the pugs (pick up groupers) are unreliable. The won’t get in the teamspeak, they won’t follow the raid driver’s orders and they don’t maximize their gear and spec to the fullest potential. That’s why the guilds run tagless to avoid picking them up. Otherwise these pugs become the first to die because they didn’t see where the raid driver (commander) juked to avoid the enemy raid’s hammer train and they ate it to the face. If they’re on the teamspeak they can hear the driver “get ready to dodge through” and “dodge through”.

I’m not sugar coating this anymore. I’ve been in several different guilds over the past year and a lot of them high level raiding guilds. They are almost always outnumbered. This combines with a system which rewards a side who starts to gain momentum with extra resources to push that momentum to produce an environment with zero tolerance for any mistakes. That system I talk about is the rally system in place now.

Without the rally system no harm no foul… the dead pug just kills himself. With it, the dead pug empowers the enemy force and erases the effort the guild raid puts into killing the enemy force. Since the guild cannot reliably control the pug they want to get rid of it to prevent him from aiding the enemy with his death.

I agree, at least for someone to rally, a spike should take place instead. The situation still isn’t perfect but at least it’s better than what we got IMO.

As for the team speak argument and blaming pugs for rallying, ironically it’s the people in team speak that die the most because it seems they can’t learn to play to their classes strengths and weaknesses without someone shouting instructions. I’ve played on 4 different servers and it’s the same every single time, “get on teamspeak”, people in teamspeak die (again), people not on teamspeak finish the battle off, pick the teamspeakers up after battle. Then they blame the people outside of teamspeak.. which is kind of hard to do when they are the ones finishing off all the rallying the teamspeak crowd caused. Usually whenever I enter a map and find out that most of the zerg is in teamspeak, I leave because more often than not, it means wipe after wipe.

Teamspeak does have it’s uses though, map roaming being the primary one.

Nymph of Meliai.6739:

-snip-

If anything that just shows how easy it is to abuse.

Downed-state creates such an artificial and non-intuitive combat environment that, contrary to your natural instinct, if your health is low when fighting an Elite mob, you want to add another minor mob to use abuse the rally.

You don’t want to “blow all your cooldowns” to burn him down, because that leaves you vulnerable. You actually WANT to down so you can abuse the rally system as a heal. It’s completely nonsensical.

In sPvP it’s often GOOD TO GO DOWN FIRST in a team-fight because the enemy has to expose themselves to A LOT of damage in order to kill you, especially if you’re a Mesmer or Ele that can delay a finisher for a while. They will often go down themselves in the process which allows you to finish them in return and use the rally.

It’s just a completely gamey and snowballing game mechanic. It works alright in PvE because mobs don’t care about you bouncing back to 50% life but in PvP team-fights are completely dictated by who can finish/revive who first.

It’s not about clever ability usage or good team-play, it’s about reviving and finishing at the right time. And that’s not fun.

Biggusbiggus.5789:

I don’t get it. Who QQs over rallying? I’ve never seen it. All teams have to deal with the same things. It’s part of the game, and has been from the beginning. If you lost a fight due to someone rallying, then you didn’t deserve to win. I’ll bet that for every time you’ve lost a fight due to rallying, you’ve won one the same way. Did you cry about it then, or revel in your good fortune?

Boonprot.6274:

Engelsstaub.4356:

Randoms following guild groups instead of pug commander are quite common in WvW and since they are often upscaled or just bad, they can ruin the battle for a guild easily by rallying the enemies.

Such a change would make it significantly less annoying for guilds because now there is no way to prevent randoms from following a guild raid.

Preach, sista. I’ve seen a random pug rally 15 people out of a 30-man guild group. 15. Then people wonder why we tell pugs to follow the tag and get away from our guild group.

That’s just sloppy, or a blatant lie. If you’re not focusing on those in downed state, it’s just bad housekeeping. Alternatively, if you were able to down 15/30 and lost only one in the process, then surely you can just do it again, no?

The most obvious solution to ‘rally bots’ is to fix the uplevel system. AR, traits and weapons should all be buffed. Personally, I don’t think it’s an issue. Leave it alone.

Step-by-step walking you through it:

We push, down a lot because the group we were fighting was too glassy for their own good, 15 down people, move off to regroup before finishing them off. Meanwhile ranged AoE + poison is keeping them on the floor. Random Pug A dies because they stood in AoE and are generally incompetent. 15 rally.

The second we downed more than 3 of them in the first bomb we already won the engagement. It wouldn’t matter if they bannered the down or what, because we burnt almost all of their cooldowns and could then free push. Note that I never said we wiped after that happened; the point of the example was to illustrate how ridiculous the rally system can be.

By all means, though, don’t let me stop your tirade.

Boonprot.6274:

Note that I never said we wiped after that happened; the point of the example was to illustrate how ridiculous the rally system can be.

By all means, though, don’t let me stop your tirade.

If you won the match, then what’s the problem? Why all the tears? So many above complaining about low level and inexperienced players joining them to play a GAME. I honestly believe a lot of you guys take yourselves way too seriously. If you think that means I’m on a tirade, you’re also taking it too personally.
I’ve been asked to join guild raids, and gone along with it. Yes, very organised and effective. Then all of a sudden, something doesn’t go to plan, and everyone is swearing at each other, calling their own teammates noobs, people logging off, the whole bit. There’s a HUGE difference between being pro, and taking yourself seriously.

At the end of the day, the true inexperienced players are the ones who can’t adapt to one of the most fundamental parts of the game – the ones who can’t make use of uplevelled players – the ones who have to blame someone else in their team for their failures.

Looking at my previous post, i didnt notice i was +1’ ning Straegen… gotta screen this… prolly the only time ever the two of us gonna agree on something

Straegen.2938:

How about no more rally from killing something. The only way to get up is for an ally to bring you up or do it yourself.

Really simple change that would make a lot of less experienced players more welcome when running with experienced players.

This. One of the things I like about EoTM is that it allows new concepts to be tested. That map would make an excellent testing ground for this concept and potentailly the no rezing of the fully dead. That way the larger force either needs to tend their wounded before they are fully dead or risk thnning their numbers. It would really increase role of skirmishers who try and thin out a larger force. Today if a side wins they are quickly back to 100 strength as long as their side didn’t release. There should be a price to pay if you won the fight but lost half your troops doing it.

Biggusbiggus.5789:

Boonprot.6274:

Note that I never said we wiped after that happened; the point of the example was to illustrate how ridiculous the rally system can be.

By all means, though, don’t let me stop your tirade.

If you won the match, then what’s the problem? Why all the tears? So many above complaining about low level and inexperienced players joining them to play a GAME. I honestly believe a lot of you guys take yourselves way too seriously. If you think that means I’m on a tirade, you’re also taking it too personally.

I think we can both agree that different players play the game differently, right? Well, I’m part of a guild who takes the more hard-core WvW approach, involving 20v40+ engagements and GvGs. We obviously have a far different mentality from an uplevel bearbow casual. Part of how we play involves not having randoms who aren’t in voice comms running with us, because they’re nothing but a liability. The degree to which they affect a fight’s outcome varies greatly, but the more randoms you have the more their dying impacts the fight. Following your logic, we’re playing a game our way, and if we don’t want uplevel randoms with us, then that’s our perogative.

That said there’s quite a few tactics to ensure randoms running with you die. Hard engaging to force the randoms to get 1-pushed, taking a sentry and walking away so they’re sentry immobilized, porting out, juking, etc. When we have a significant pub tail we try to get them killed as fast as possible so they’re more likely to stop following us. Either that or we tell them to go away, but that rarely works.

tl;dr: You can’t criticize us for how we play then turn around and say that the uplevels are playing the game how they wish and we’re not to be too critical of it.

Biggusbiggus.5789:

I don’t think it’s an issue. Leave it alone.

I think you’re a rallybot.

If you don’t understand the dislike of “Rallybots” you probably don’t fight significantly out manned fights much. When a skill group hits a significantly larger force, stomps are EXTREMELY difficult to land. The smaller force has to be patient with the stomps or they will get nuked trying to stomp an enemy.

One “rallybot” shows up and despite the fact the small team may have the other team on the ropes with a bunch of downed doesn’t matter. It isn’t easy beating twice your numbers or more and “rallybots” make it significantly more difficult. Rally is a mechanic that works best for larger groups and promotes randomness over skill.

Well being a pug commander and even as a Thief I survive by positioning, sticking together and such. On many occasions though I end up uplevels or Ranged Melee Train heroes that get ahead of themselve. Against larger groups as mentioned they become rally bots no matter how many you have downed, you can try finishing the downed but you’ll often get interrupted – I don’t particularly like the rally system in WvW.

Remove rallies.

Look at it from a social friendly point of view, Anet: Suddenly people won’t be forced to be jerks to uplevels. People can play together without being as exclusive because suddenly this guy to your left that you know sucks, but he’s got a nice personality, won’t be a complete liability in a fight.

I agree with the social standpoint. Who cares if a pug dies if his death doesn’t rally the enemy anymore. He actually does you a service up to that point by absorbing damage that your guild raid would have otherwise taken. Pugs become welcome in guild raids rather than shunned because they can only help, not hurt anymore.