Guild Wars 2

Here are 2 additions to the stomping mechanics that I think would improve WvW:

1. You can now stomp down AND defeated players
2. When you are stomped, you automatically respawn at the starting area

I think it would improve WvW because it would :

Promote organized play
Smaller group now stand a chance to slowly drain a bigger group

Help with defense
Each player that you stomp is one less player participating to the attack

Still be possible to resurrect people that fall off cliff
It’s very frustrating when you fall because of fall damage

Fix dead body problems
Dead mesmer behind door or corpse spying for example

It’s an interesting idea. However, why add the extra step of potentially needing to stomp an opponent in the defeated state?

If the goal is to reward a smaller group (or any sized group, for that matter) for having defeated their opponent by preventing that opponent from being resurrected to rejoin the fight, I think there’s an easier way to do it:

Simply prevent defeated players being resurrected by allies who are in combat.

Resurrecting from the downed state would still be permitted. Once sent to defeat, though, a player can’t be resurrected by another player currently in combat mode. Once the battle is over and players are out of combat, they can then resurrect their fallen comrades (assuming their side was victorious and there’s still players left to resurrect anyone).

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with having both mechanics co-exist.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

It’s an interesting idea. However, why add the extra step of potentially needing to stomp an opponent in the defeated state?

If the goal is to reward a smaller group (or any sized group, for that matter) for having defeated their opponent by preventing that opponent from being resurrected to rejoin the fight, I think there’s an easier way to do it:

Simply prevent defeated players being resurrected by allies who are in combat.

Resurrecting from the downed state would still be permitted. Once sent to defeat, though, a player can’t be resurrected by another player currently in combat mode. Once the battle is over and players are out of combat, they can then resurrect their fallen comrades (assuming their side was victorious and there’s still players left to resurrect anyone).

Because, I don’t think “Simply prevent defeated players being resurrected by allies who are in combat.” go far enough

It :

Doesn’t promote organized play
The blob will still be able to resurrect all their defeated players once the battle is over and the attack will continue. Also, blob have a lot of players in it and many are not in combat

Doesn’t help as much with defense
After each door or wall is down, they will be able to resurrect all their players for the next attack

Doesn’t really fix dead body problems
Dead mesmer behind door or corpse spying for example. Sure the people will probably be in combat when they try to resurrect the mesmer but the problem is that the mesmer can be resurrect and lay there forever in the first place.

Promote lazy people staying dead
How often do we see half the zerg stay defeated in the keep when it takes 30 seconds to run back and the fight will continue for like 5 minutes

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with having both mechanics co-exist.

Agree with that, both mechanics could work well together

IMO, the downed state should be removed from WvW. It’s too much of an advantage for zergs over smaller groups.

I would rather like them to remove rally from dead people, they should only be able to fully revive by either healing on down state or by allies, not from a pve mob or a player that possibly downed you first, but was interrupted by something else.

Zanshin.5379:

IMO, the downed state should be removed from WvW. It’s too much of an advantage for zergs over smaller groups.

A “Zerg” is supposed to have a big advantage over a smaller group. If your group is too small, don’t fight the zerg—problem solved.

I think the easiest thing to do is, if you’re stomped, you’re shown the map and told to warp back to a waypoint. The minute you’ve been stomped (or defeated) a count down pops up that gives you time to be revived or warp to a waypoint of your choice. If time expires you go back to your original waypoint (the one you’re near when you come into that borderland).

There are probably flaws in what I just suggested, but it’s something that popped into my head when I was reading this thread.

there used to be an option many months ago either in WvW or sPVP I’m not sure anymore where after you stomp an enemy player there was a new option to force respawn him.

this is the feature we need in WvW to stop defeated spies from being able to report numbers and location and to stop mass ressing

A zerg already has an advantage over the small group, in damage and healing, they also don’t need the advantage of resurrecting.

Think of it this way, maybe skill lag would diminish if there were not so many bodies littered on the ground casting skills. Perhaps it’s best to send the player right back to the main wp up on death; no rallying, no resurrecting.

Zanshin.5379:

IMO, the downed state should be removed from WvW. It’s too much of an advantage for zergs over smaller groups.

Agreed, but not likely to happen as ArenaNet wants to give players of all skill levels a fighting chance; thus the downed state.

That said, I’m in agreement with the other assessments here that limitations could be placed on the downed and defeated states in WvW to better level the playing field for groups of different sizes.

• If downed but not yet defeated, players can still be rezzed.

• Remove rallying from the downed state off of a defeated opponent. I get where ArenaNet is coming from with this mechanic; to give players a chance to get back in the fight and make it a bit more cooperative and casual friendly. It’s backfired, instead, as players have become angry and frustrated over lower level characters who die quickly, serving to rally the enemy (leading to the pejorative rallybot). This leads to rage and exclusionary practices against upscaled players; the exact opposite of what I think ArenaNet was hoping to achieve.

• Defeated players can not be rezzed by any ally still in combat.

• A defeated player’s view is switched to the world view map after 30 seconds of lying there as a corpse. The view remains locked in the world map until they either respawn or are resurrected by allies.

• Stomping a defeated player forces them to respawn per the OP’s original suggestion.

And, as DeadlySynz stated, zergs already have the advantage. They don’t need the additional bonus of rezzing allies ad infinitum. Especially in light of the 5 player AoE cap in which an enemy force can bring more players to resurrect a downed ally than their opponents can reasonably expect to hit, given this limit.

Armor repair costs are being removed from the game with the April 15th patch, rendering death in this game near-consequenceless. I see no issue with adding back in a bit of risk associated with defeat. Perhaps the current mechanics can be kept as is in PvE (especially since NPCs don’t perform stomps, anyway).

But in a PvP arena such as WvW, taking an opponent out of the fight as a result of a defeat is a cornerstone of competitive play. At least, it should be. Instead, zergs become the equivalent of a zombie army that just keeps resurrecting itself forever, making a mokery of the effort put into defeating an opponent.

Sometimes, reinventing the wheel is a good idea. This isn’t one of those times.

eso has timer 10 min while auto respawn . they had some serious resoans to add it like this

Pfft. I love dying in keep as mesmer and seeing how long they’ll watch my dead body.

I don’t think the downed state or the ability to combat rez (which can easily be punished) is an issue to be honest. And you shouldn’t be able to take on a group of 30 with your 2-man roaming group. Rally mechanics on the other hand can really turn the tides – one uplevel can rez a whole zerg. I think if anything, this should be changed to a one for one ratio.

Zord.6457:

I don’t think the downed state or the ability to combat rez (which can easily be punished) is an issue to be honest. And you shouldn’t be able to take on a group of 30 with your 2-man roaming group.

Why not? What’s the justification that 2 players shouldn’t be able to take on 30? I’ll give my justification for why they should be able to do so. If the 2 players are more skilled, communicate, cooperate, coordinate efforts and rotations, and play at the absolute top of their game while the 30 players have little to no PvP skills, then those 2 players should most certainly be able to take on a group of 30. If the 2 players win under such circumstances, they will have done so as a result of skillful play; which is ostensibly what PvP is supposed to be about.

Instead, due to the limitations imposed on AoE in conjunction with numerical superiority, the larger force has an uncounterable advantage. Namely, as AoE is limited to hitting five players, the larger force can throw ten players into rez someone. Five of those ten will be hit by AoE while the other five are spared or all ten will be hit by the AoE at some point, but only in increments of five players at a time, diffusing the damage done. Either way, the downed player is guaranteed to be speed rezzed by five players. The larger force (in the 30 versus 2 scenario) will be able to resurrect their downed and defeated players indefinitely.

This is not rewarding skillful play; it is rewarding the borderline exploitation of the game’s limitations which overwhelmingly favor numbers over skill. Some may smugly pat themselves on the back, believing that manipulating the mechanics in their favor is a demonstration of skill. It is not; which is why this game’s PvP is a joke among the hard-core PvP/eSports segment of the gaming population.

A truly competitive game does its absolute best to eliminate all such manipulation and exploitation so the playing field is leveled. As a result, the measures of skill become a player’s hand-eye coordination, manual dexterity, memorization of skill rotations, efficient resource management (mana, energy, stamina, initiative, adrenalin, etc.), a deep understanding of the combat mechanics, and an exhaustive knowledge of every classes’ strengths and weaknesses. Taking advantage of a flaw in the game’s design is not counted among these.

In other words, it’s a measure of what the player personally brings to the game through focus, dedication, training, and talent rather than what the game allows players to get away with as a result of poorly implemented mechanics.

That said, ArenaNet has made it very clear they will not be lifting the AoE cap. Fine. But if they’re going to claim WvW is a PvP or semi-PvP arena, then they’ll have to cleave more closely to long-standing definitions of what constitutes PvP. Allowing players to be so easily returned to a fight after defeat with almost nothing to counter it is not acceptable within the classic definition of PvP.

Defeating an opponent IS the reward to the victor; it’s a validation of their skill. What’s more, it’s critical the defeated stay defeated; that’s what levels the playing field so the contest is a measure of skill rather than of numbers. Dispense with that convention and WvW risks devolving into nothing more than blobs running circles around the map spamming their auto-attack with no effort made by the members of that blob to improve their skill at the game. Oh, wait…

So that’s my defense of why 2 should be able to take on 30 or, at the very least, why the defeated should remain defeated while they and their allies are still in combat. Now I’d like to hear the defense for why 2 should not be able to take on 30.

@Kraag Deadsoul, well said

If 2 should be able to take on 30, then I’ll just solo since I’ll solo roam I guess. Since communication between me and me will be better over any 5man groups. Oh, yea… no more team play cause everyone will be soloing so I’ll be playing against anyone 1v1 anyways. Pugs trying to 2man anyone will be hated cause 2 players trying to gank one will cause communication problems.

@Kraag,

I don’t see WvW as a competitive PvP game mode in the sense you seem to use the term. There are situations where it can be fairly balanced, but even in an 1v1 situation it’s easy to run away, get to some guards or otherwise exploit the maps. WvW is not an arena, if you want that, do sPvP.

Your whole argument revolves around being skilled, but WvW is set up so that not only individual player skill counts but strategy, logistics, organization, sometimes even diplomacy as well. Part of the WvW “skills” is the ability to get together enough allies to wipe the mapblob that just steamrolled you. Or to supply drain them so they can’t actually do much regardless of numbers. Or you could build ACs behind a choke with a couple of friends. There are a lot of possibilities…

I think this adds layers of complexity and gives players choices, both of which I see as good things. Someone can be a great commander, but absolutely suck 1v1 – is he a bad player then?

lee jeremy.8526:

If 2 should be able to take on 30, then I’ll just solo since I’ll solo roam I guess. Since communication between me and me will be better over any 5man groups. Oh, yea… no more team play cause everyone will be soloing so I’ll be playing against anyone 1v1 anyways. Pugs trying to 2man anyone will be hated cause 2 players trying to gank one will cause communication problems.

You’re taking my comments out of context. I was responding to Zord using his/her own parameters of 2 versus 30. I even went on to very carefully qualify my statements by setting up a scenario where the 2 are highly skilled PvP players while the 30 are not. I then qualified it even further by stating that the issue I’m debating is not 2 versus 30 per se but a system which is invalidating the skill of those who manage to defeat their opponents by making such defeat meaningless in the face of unequal numbers.

If the situation were one in which the 2 are only mediocre PvP players, then they will most certainly lose to the 30. But that loss should be due to lacking the skill to take on 30 players, not because there are simply 30 players on the field taking advantage of a game mechanic which specifically favors numbers over skill.

WvW won’t devolve into nothing but solo roamers dueling 1v1 as you assert because not everyone is that skilled. For those who aren’t, they form larger groups for safety in numbers. Doing so, however, should level the playing field against more skilled players rather than giving them an uncounterable advantage of resurrecting allies while ignoring the effects of damage.

I’m not even advocating the removal of the AoE limit; it can remain capped at 5. All I’m arguing for is – once a player is defeated – they can’t be resurrected by allies who are still in combat. That’s all.

Zord.6457:

@Kraag,

I don’t see WvW as a competitive PvP game mode in the sense you seem to use the term. There are situations where it can be fairly balanced, but even in an 1v1 situation it’s easy to run away, get to some guards or otherwise exploit the maps. WvW is not an arena, if you want that, do sPvP.

Your whole argument revolves around being skilled, but WvW is set up so that not only individual player skill counts but strategy, logistics, organization, sometimes even diplomacy as well. Part of the WvW “skills” is the ability to get together enough allies to wipe the mapblob that just steamrolled you. Or to supply drain them so they can’t actually do much regardless of numbers. Or you could build ACs behind a choke with a couple of friends. There are a lot of possibilities…

I think this adds layers of complexity and gives players choices, both of which I see as good things. Someone can be a great commander, but absolutely suck 1v1 – is he a bad player then?

I do see it as a competitive game mode; or, rather, as having the as-yet-not-fully-realized potential to be such. I also see it as all the other factors you described. I fully agree that skill in WvW comes in many forms and I’m all for adding layers of complexity to this game mode. In other threads I’ve been a very vocal advocate of adding deeper strategy to WvW.

However, I’m also in favor of eliminating game mechanics which so overwhelmingly favor numbers over skill for the reasons described in my previous post. It’s no surprise that many hard-core guild groups left this game long ago. With no arena in which to duel other guilds, WvW became that arena by default. But it quickly became apparent that WvW – ostensibly a form of PvP – fails at a fundamental level to reward their combat skills due to mechanics which render defeating a player meaningless in the context of PvP combat. So they left.

It amounts to, “Hey, I just defeated you! What are you doing back in the fight again so soon!?!?” or “Hey, we just stomped you! But you’re being rezzed by a zerg which we can’t do anything to counter because of how this game handles AoE!” That completely invalidates the efforts of a smaller but more skilled PvP group, eliminates the potential for attrition play of slowly whittling down an opponent’s numbers, and directly contributes to the behavior we see today of combat devolving into karma trains spamming their auto-attack (the skill lag doesn’t help the situation, either).

If the AoE cap isn’t going to be lifted (and it won’t be), then all I’m asking is make defeat a little more permanent by disallowing resurrection while in combat. What’s more is, this actually promotes a greater variety of player choice in alignment with one of your stated tenets. If players can only rez while out of combat, this may see a whole new sub-meta evolve whereby players who prefer a support role hang back from the main combat to act as field medics to rez fallen allies.

I want to see all the various flavors of skill as you described above kept in WvW. I also want to see combat skill recognized and rewarded by making defeat become a meaningful consequence. These are not mutually exclusive design elements; they can co-exist within the same game space.

@Kraag,

I think we mostly agree. I’d like to see combat prowess more rewarded as well, I’m just not so sure this proposal would help that. I still think mass rezzing is very punishable as it is, it takes quite a while even with a lot of players and despite the AoE cap a couple of wells, meteornados, hammer stuns or what have you can ruin their day quickly. And if they are rezzing with 30, they might as well just kill you and then rez…

The downed system is a system that keeps kittening me off, each and every day.

@Kraag,

You do realize ressing in combat is what helps smaller, more organized groups take towers and keeps, right? Such the garrison in home bl? While the enemy, queues the map, mindlessly runs in, and contests, and dies, and still runs back faster?

lee jeremy.8526:

You do realize ressing in combat is what helps smaller, more organized groups take towers and keeps, right? Such the garrison in home bl? While the enemy, queues the map, mindlessly runs in, and contests, and dies, and still runs back faster?

That’s an interesting opinion. Could you elaborate on it please?

I always thought that rez in combat would help the bigger force. Here is an example

They attack your keep with a huge force and you have a couple of AC on the gate. A couple of them died, but most stay alive are able to kill most of your ACs but not all of them. Then they start rezzing all their defeated players directly in the fire of your last AC.

lee jeremy.8526:

@Kraag,

You do realize ressing in combat is what helps smaller, more organized groups take towers and keeps, right? Such the garrison in home bl? While the enemy, queues the map, mindlessly runs in, and contests, and dies, and still runs back faster?

Yes, I do realize this. But I also realize that, in the larger context of how WvW has evolved, it helps the numerically superior force even more. As this is just one more mechanic which – in the final analysis – disproportionately benefits the larger force, I want to see it eliminated. Success in combat should be about who outplays their opponent, not who outnumbers their opponent.

I get it. WvW isn’t fair. I’m 100% at peace with that premise. So let’s stop giving what amount to government subsidies to the blobbing masses and create an arena which adheres to truly Darwinian principles of survival of the fittest and unfairness. Make it a pure application Law of the Jungle. Eliminate the artificial constraints of AoE caps, downed states, resurrection, consequenceless defeat, etc. and let the chips fall where they may.

Of course, this will never happen because – if it did – the blobbing masses would have their heads handed to them on a silver platter by the skilled PvP-ers, they would quit the game (or WvW at least) in frustration, and ArenaNet would have a meltdown over the loss of players/revenue.

Instead, mechanics are put into place to soften the blow, to make WvW more casual-friendly. I can even accept this. What I don’t accept is swinging the pendulum so far in favor of casual play and numbers-greater-than-skill that the accomplished player is left disenfranchised, hamstrung, and invalidated.

@Kraag Deadsoul.2789:
I totally agree with you. The removal of resurrecting defeated players would allow for an even wider variate of strategies. Not only could you slowly drain troops from the attacking superior forces, you’d also be able to intercept their reinforcements in an effective valid strategical manner, who, in the case of low skill/coordination pug zergs would run one by one.

It would also balance the game further in a sense, that the further you are away from your spawn/way point, the slower, or smaller you become, due to dying players. The resulting strategical impact on WvW would be huge and allow way better strategic planing, especially on the defensive, outnumbered side.

The simplest implementation would be, that, if one dies in combat, the defeated players are sent back to spawn. So it would not be impossible to ress them and they won’t be able to spy/oversee the fight, creating potential unfair Intel advantages.