Guild Wars 2

I’ve felt for a long time that team fights in sPvP have been far too volatile. Things happen too quickly and momentum shifts are extremely common.

I think that one of the biggest culprits in this has always been the rally mechanic. More specifically that who ever has damaged an opponent that is finished, is rallied. This causes team fights that might be evenly matched suddenly swing in favor of one team because one of the teams happened to finish someone first.

My proposal is this:

1 finished enemy = 1 friendly rally

- The priority for who is rallied could be decided as whoever has been in downed state longest is rallied first.

- Since the downed player no longer needs to damage the opponent to be rallied, there needs to be a range in order to be rallied(earshot)

This will make team fights much less volatile, but will leave small fights (1v1, 2v2) relatively unchanged. It also makes team fights a little less confusing, because opposing players will no longer rally seemingly out of nowhere because someone across the map was finished.

The way it works right now its as if you knock half the enemy team out but they catch one of your balls, they just got their whole team back. Which would be a really stupid game of dodgeball.

It has been rather difficult to continue having fun playing this game. I haven’t played it for 2 weeks now and don’t feel compelled in the slightest to come back. Though I still lurk the forums. I think the problem for me is that the basic levels of playing the game are just not very fun.

Back before the game was released when they were putting out the skill videos, it looked like they were focusing on making the combat visceral and satisfying. Skills looked and seemed powerful. They probably were at some point. I never played during the beta weekends, but from what I’ve gathered, many things changed regarding skills and class mechanics during that time.

Now while using certain skills or whole classes even, you can feel the effects of these changes. It feels like the vision for intense, gratifying combat was diminished or obscured, and what we are left with is a kittenized version of what once seemed very promising.

My first and most jarring encounter with this was on a warrior using the skill ‘Eviscerate.’ It immediately felt wrong. The huge windup and the exaggerated animation clearly do not reflect the range of the skill. It feels like you’re hitting an invisible wall when trying to use this skill outside of its range which is surprisingly short. I had never used Eviscerate before it was changed, but I knew it was changed. I later found out that it was nerfed pretty hard during the beta weekends.

These are things we use at almost every moment of the game, so why isn’t there a bigger focus on this?

The game has been out for over a half a year now, and it’s easier to see how the mechanics of the game really work. I feel that Arenanet should go back and re-evaluate the classes and their skills/traits. Re-envision them. Bring back visceral and satisfying combat. Bring back the fun.