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Guild Wars 2 : A New Way of Looking at Healing & Death
Posted Jul 08, 2010 by Suzie Ford
Guild Wars 2 game designer Jon Peters has penned the latest blog post on the official GW 2 site. This time, Peters takes a look at the healing and death systems for Guild Wars 2. With a title like "A New Way of Looking at Healing & Death", it's a surefire hit.
The goal of the development team was to change the fundamental death system from a punative one to...erm...a more enjoyable event in a player's life. Upon loss of health, players enter something called a "downed state" with a limited number of less powerful skills to use that give them the chance to survive. Of course, downed players can still be attacked and, if defeated again, they are well and truly dead and forced to wait for resurrection or to respawn. In addition, a few of the professions have something akin to an instant resurrection for nearby fallen allies. For instance, Peters outlines the Warrior's "I Will Avenge You" skill that, on defeat of a nearby enemy, will rally their fallen allies.
GW 2 will also have a kinder, gentler death penalty. Players who have been downed more than once will take longer to revive and, at worst, have to spend gold to revive at a nearby discovered waypoint. Devs simply felt that the alternative harsher death penalties simply weren't worth it. "Why should we debuff you, take away experience, or make you run around for five minutes as a ghost instead of letting you actually play the game? We couldn't think of a reason." Peters writes.
Tackling the 'Holy Trinity' factor, Peters talks about making Guild Wars 2 players more self-sufficient yet offers them cool ways and reasons to want to group together rather than having to group:
Instead of the traditional trinity, every Guild Wars 2 profession is self reliant--not only can they all help each other by reviving in combat, but all professions have ways to build their characters differently to make them more versatile for group play.
Ultimately, DPS/heal/tank just didn't cut it in our book...er, game. Our players demand more from Guild Wars 2 and we intend to deliver on that demand instead of delivering more of the same. Not only is the trinity very formulaic, but it leaves out a lot of gameplay elements that make many other games so much fun.
Peters offers a lot more insight into these roles and it's worth the time to head to the Guild Wars 2 blog and read the rest. Then come back and tell us what you think!
It just keeps getting better and better =) Downed Abilities sound like an excellent addition to the game. That last fighting chance will certainly make things more interesting. And I also love that they're breaking away from the holy trinity mould.
currently reading it, cant comment much cuz its 1:45 am where im at... zzzzzzzz
It makes me think of Borderlands and the "Second Wind" feature. I like it.
If they can deliver and actually make the game play interesting (the one part that failed in the first game was the actual PvE play) then I am in. If not then it will eventually be up for 75% off on steam.
Kinda disappointed that ultimately there is no death penalty, having to pay for your mistakes adds to the excitement of battle IMHO.
Love the extra layer added by the 'downtime' akin to battle fatigue, should make things a little exciting especially if you do manage to bring yourself back from the jaws of death.
Holy Trinity by any other name......We have support, dps and control, same basic concept, different words. I hope it does mean more choice (without more profession info it's guess work atm) and makes classes a little more interesting. I think it's a good thing they are trying to move away from it but how far can you go in an MMO without redefining the whole concept of gameplay for the genre?
Thought the description of the elementalist healing skill was lovely, can't wait to see that in action.
"Why should we debuff you, take away experience, or make you run around for five minutes as a ghost instead of letting you actually play the game? We couldn't think of a reason."
Well here´s some:
So you dont have that annoying hunter/mage running around agroing every mob in the place, even after the leader talked a hundred of times to not do it, so he continue to NOT learn about the game and be a weight to everybody.
So the same person dont go all cooky agains other guilds in channel, since he never gonna lose anything, he can go all mouthfull and stupid all he want.
the first situation i mention can be fixed as long group content required few people.
for the second block comand ok.
but then i see the most important thing they are trying to create distroyed, the comunity.
well, 1 bad thing this game supposed to have =p
This game is going to reinvigorate this genre.
An interesting read, however the devs seem to be talking about many aspects which are already in MMOs but making them sound like they are something new. They talk about moving away from the trinity yet they talk about using the very same tactics (different kinds of heals, crowd control, buffing) that is found in many other games.
Granted there isn't a pre-defined healer class, but you can bet your life some will try to find the ultimate combination of healing skills so they can do it well.
Don't get me wrong, I hope that GW2 (and others) do well, because the industry needs success stories. However, it doesn't sound as "innovative" as some are hoping it will be.
The developers have already mentioned that, as this will be a persistent world, they are working against griefing, so I doubt the scenario you just described will be able to occur even with their current death penalty system.
I agree it's a spin on the trinity but when it comes down to it there isn't much way around the trinity without hurting the difficulty level of the game.
Arenanet sure does talk pretty.But plenty of other devs have tlaked up features to make them sound innovative and new but when it came to actual practice either was neither just a slight twist on the old pradigms or jsut didn't work at all.
Like every other game we haven't actually seen all it's parts in action or in some cases at all or had the chance to try ourselves....proof is in the pudding not talking about the pudding.
Mmm...pudding.
Get rid of the SOB problem solved. I have no Patience with someone like this in a group.
Great, another game where I have absolutely no reason to fear death or defeat and I can just suicide charge into the encounter over and over. Looks like I won't be feeling attached to my character at all or have any real emotion in the game.
What do I see here? Oh wait... sheesh Anet AGAIN posted a bit of epicness...
Well I gotta give you credit Garvon, you don't just generalise in SWTOR forums...you do it in here too XD
True, some things sound the same. Still, I beg to differ.
The "downed" effect is certainly something new, and could be interesting, especially the several ways that a "downed" state could be handled by yourself or others (your teammember a Warrior uses his "I will Avenge You" skill and as soon as he has defeated an opponent with it, you're back on your feet).
There is no dedicated healer class: true, more new MMO's are going into that direction, but how ANet does it in GW2 with spreading out heal-skills over the classes plus making some class(es) instead of dedicated heal a "dedicated support" class is certainly not customary.
The "Tank" as it is known in classic Trinity, with the hate/aggro management, drawing NPC mobs to you and then act the meatshield, that'll be gone according to the article: instead some classes will be more about Control of the flow of the battle, I'd gather it's more accent on CC, crowd control, instead of tanking.
Don't worry the pudding is coming in Cologne, Germany on August 18-22, ArenaNet will be showing off the first public demo of Guild Wars 2,i will be there.
As for the downed ability, it kind of sounds like the lotro ability when you die you are not actually dead, you get one chance to revive right their on the spot, if you die again you go to a way-point and you can't use the rivie ability for 60 minutes.
I know that the "downed" effect is a different take on the death penalty situation, which could make a nice addition to the "traditional" list of elements commonly found in MMO's. So I give them credit for that.
Spreading out healing to even more classes than the likes of AOC did goes a little further than others have done, so I can appreciate how that could work. However, its nothing new really. Not in the sense that the devs are making it sound. Plus, in order for there to be character progression, there also has to be encounter progression (mobs will start hitting harder, quicker, interrupting more, etc, etc). This means that at some point, those multiple classes that "dabbled in a bit of healing" will no longer be viable. Which can prompt some people to start thinking about needing / being more "dedicated" healers. And you know what happens then.....
With regards to how tanking was discussed in that article, seemed to me that the devs just talked about the use of CC in a game, not necessarily the complete removal of a "tank" from group composition. Maybe I missed something. Don't get me wrong, I can certainly appreciate the use of CC (I've used my share of it myself). But "tanking" is used in groups for a reason i.e. to create control over the encounter. And without that control the problem arises where you have multiple mobs, each with their own "targets" and thus the encounter is no longer controllable by the players. Chaos ensumes, and inevitably people begin to "die". This often happens because the healers being constantly interrupted by mobs beating on them, or the dps / healers running out of mana/energy/forcepoints/whatever because the encounter is going on too long for them to recoup their energy back. This is why "tanks" are essential in group compositions, to add a measure of control to the encounter.
In short, CC is certainly needed to "spice" up an encounter, and it can also help control that encounter too. But it will only go so far before the use of CC begins to trivialise the encounter.
downed abilities sound cool but i will have to see how they are in the game
Man, I like what I'm reading here.
Don't belittle the SUPPORT role by calling it heal. Healing is the least dynamic kind of support there is. It is reactive instead of proactive. Healing is for when you are already losing. In Guild Wars 2 we prefer that you support your allies before they take a beating. Sure, there are some healing spells in Guild Wars 2, but they make up a small portion of the support lines that are spread throughout the professions. Other kinds of support include buffs, active defense, and cross-profession combinations.
What can I say? The more I read about this game from ArenaNet, the more eager I am for it to be released when they are finished. Hopefully NCSoft doesn't force them to put it out earlier than ArenaNet thinks is appropriate, otherwise we'll have something akin to the AION fallout (i.e. people leaving not because they were going to leave anyway but because the game really wasn't complete or free of some very glaring flaws that should have been worked out after a year).
ArenaNet deserves all the kudos they get. Much like EVE and the original Guild Wars, this game is looking to truly be something unique and help vivify a rather stagnant MMORPG field.
Have you played gw1? That game did not have tanking and had none of the problems you suggested. Your thinking far too closed mindedly. Removal of tanking has been done with little to no problems what so ever. In gw1 monks actually had to take care of themselves through either healing themselves, staying away from the most damaging areas i.e out of the range of most of the enemy casyers, protting or having the rest of the team take down any major sources of damage. It's far more engaging than tank and spank and had a heck of a lot more variety.
I'm glad I'm not the only one that looked at this and sighed. I swear I thought it was just me that has been reading dev interviews about this game and thinking it's the least interesting game on the horizon, despite everyone creaming themselves over it for whatever reason.
About tanking, what you say is not complete: they cleearly stated that with the Tank role they're making the biggest break with the classical Trinity, Then he went on to saying how this break would be, namely that the focus would be Control, and he goes on describing several CC skills. Then he mentioned examples as the control of damage, and the control of movement.
I guess you could classify the classical role of tank as Control of the flow of damage, where the damage of the mobs will be directed, namely to the tank instead of the squishier classes. But the designer clearly stated that they considered this classical role a rudimentary form, and that what they were aiming for was something beyond that. His talk in this article showed more of a Control oriented setup as in cc, instead of aggro management/meatshield setup.
TL;DR
The talk sounds intriguing, with ANet's own 'new' Trinity of Damage/Support/Control, but we'll have to see in demos and beta tests if in reality it'll work out as differently from the old situation as they make it sound. If it is though, then this renewed battle configuration is only 1 more reason to get excited about GW2.
How is it generalizing? I've been playing MMORPGs for 11 years. I know what a lack of death penalty does. I can remember real close encounters with failure in games like Dark Age of Camelot, real fear that build memories that last the rest of my life. I can't remember a single encounter from Lord of the Rings Online because... I really didn't care. Nothing happened if I died.
If history repeats itself, then I expect there will be a follow up article or blog very soon that will provide more indepth details and examples of how their trinity of damage/support/control will work.
Also, GW already showed a break with the classic role of tanks, seems GW2 will continue in that line.
I wish they'd release more classes. I am getting a little wary that the entire dynamic grouping combat thing hinges exclusively on the elementalist, because it is in every example they use so far. Perhaps with another class or two they can talk about how they contribute to combat cooperativeness.
Still, all in all, another good read. Severe death penalties are overrated, and if the only way you can build identity with your character is by losing gear, stats, or time, then I'd suggest a limited imagination based solely on punitive measures.
Yeah, I hear what you're saying, I had the same in EQ, there were some epic fights, even in lower levels like between 10-20 - heck, even the infamous Orclift at L5-6 - where we managed to barely survive with a group, and what made those fights epic was the heightened risk and danger of losing XP when you died.
It could make your deaths agonizing and frustrating (above L30, losing several hrs of XP gained just with 1 death really hurts), but hardfought victories also taste sweeter and make more of an impression.
But it's not really accepted anymore in the current MMO market, the majority of the current MMO gamers won't go for it anymore let alone accept it. Best 2nd option is where death can cause loss in other ways like in EVE where you lose a ship.
You speak of it like you have played it. The problems you list are only their because they have happened before in other games.
It's sort of like saying... in Call of Duty, you in put a guy down with a few shots, without automatics in GW2, mobs will be too hard. Well, that's not true, because GW2 isn't designed like that.
Or... in WoW you have flying mounts to get around, so in GW2 it will take too long to get around, well the game is designed differently, so it doesn't need flying mounts.
So your compairson would be similar to... In this MMO a specific tank was needed to keep the team alive in high raids, so in GW2 the team will die often, well... no, the game is diesigned differently.
The biggest thing I got from "tanking" in this article was that it just became more active. Instead of standing there taking blows and calling taunts, you may have to chase mobs down. Since knockdowns are superior, make sure you use it on the one hitting your support/squishy allies. Don't use cripple on the mob attacking your assassin/rogue class, because chances are that rogure/assassin has an ability to out-run the mb anyways. Of course with the "downed state" you could ACTIVLEY raise your shield and protect that ally.
I see no negatives when comparing active tanking/controlling vs passive crap we have now.
Also, for death penalties, you lose gold. So it isn't just a free way out, you have walk back from a waypoint and give up some gold.
Indeed, most MMORPG virtual world gamers are gone. Now MMO(if they're even massive, which they aren't half the time) are more a cluster of mini games with a monthly fee and an endless gear grind.
Death penalty's don't have to be crippling to be effective. But nowadays people just want it all handed to them. Thanks WoW.
I think you misunderstood me. Like I said before, I've nothing against spreading out healing across multiple classes. However I was just stating how this is nothing new really.. That's all.
With regards to the tank situation, I was just responding to your claim that they were removing the tank class, which apparently they aren't. They are in fact modifying it. I suppose it all depends on how one takes what you said originally ;)
Yes whilst I was citing what CAN happen given certain circumstances (e.g. where theres no tank at all and thus mobs have separate targets that aren't being controlled). I never said that's what WILL happen in GW2. Theres a difference. ;)
And yes, I don't know all the details yet. But unlike certain other individuals that lurk in these forums, I ain't denoucing GW2 as a failure. Merely highlighting my own concerns which I HOPE will be addressed anyhow.
Like we said in the TOR forums: we dont have all the details yet, so we cannot make an accurate assessment on the situation. However, you have to admit that it makes you wonder.
@Tarka: Hmm, funny, we read the same article but our interpretation is different: I read it that there will be no primary healer role and that heals were spread out, but that there could be a primary support role. Also that there won't be a primary tank or any aggro management/meatshield role, but that instead there very well will be a (crowd) control role - an evolution of the role as a Warrior was in GW, where it also wasn't an aggro manager or meat shield.
But all that isn't as is the state of affairs in the current top MMO's, not even in AoC where you still need one of the 3 healer classes in the group, even if they may be hybrid healer classes. In GW2 though you will have no healers at all, the few heal spells that are present will be spread out over the classes.
So, classical tanking is gone, healing role is fully gone, and instead you will have Supporter roles and (crowd) Control roles (and Damage roles, which don't sound that different from DPS roles).
But that's how my interpretation of the things stated in the article went
; guess we'll have to wait and see for the beta how it in reality will work out.
I agree, ANet already showed that it can be done, breaking away from the classical Trinity, because in part they already did it in GW; the Warrior was no meatshield, but more of a harasser of mobs.
True that's how I interpretated the article. If you think about it gw2 is pretty much gw1 3 lines except without the need of of healing/greater emphasis on support and cross class combo's. CC is pretty much the same although probably with a bit more diversity.
Really they've pretty much just made the mechanics closer to that of high level pvp with the extra addition of cross class combo's with allowing anyone to rez in which everyone apart from the healer brought rez signets anyway and the greater emphasis on protting/support which again was more used in pvp than regularhealing.
Theres lots more information on this subject out there. One thing I find very relevant was http://www.gamona.de/games/guild-wars-2,interview-pc:article,1770674,page-3.html Its a real experience of the developers in a 5 man dungeon with only 3 people, 2 warriors and an as yet to be named ranged profession. I'm linking to the third page, but I suggest you read the whole thing
For a fairly complete list of the articles and pieces on the latest infodump, I suggest GW2Guru's News, Interviews, and Articles section. Stuff from IGN, PC gamer, Kotaku, Massively, ect. And don't forget the active participation of ArenaNet staff talking with the community. ;)
Nice way of looking at it, in my opinion. Not really another paradigm altogether (because in a way it does look like they will have their own sort of trinity), but it's sufficiently different from the norm to not feel too samey.
Sorry mate, that last one wasn't at you, thus the reason it was broken off from the rest of my post. :D
But you mentioned about how they handled healing and tanking, saying that dissolving it to other professions wasn't good enough, since eventually you mobs would hit harder and such. My theory was, that IF the game is designed to "counter" or "harmonize" with the new system, then it would be fine. Nothing more, there was no argument.
No worries. I know how emotions can run in these forums. Assumptions can easily be made without actually realising it. And before you know it, theres a 20 page thread on how one person said that they didn't like the colour of something.
Still I'm glad we're mature enough to let it lie. :)
Thanks for sharing that link, the description of the dungeon play puts it in to context, for people that want a challenge doing small groups sounds fun.
To me, it depends on what they mean by "every class is self-sufficient".
Does this mean every class will literally have damage dealing capabilities/healing/control in some form or does this mean every class can contribue to one of these three in some way?
Is providing higher armor to everyone around you not a reactive heal in a sense (when you take damage you heal part of it back)?
Things along the lines that every class can provide some way to heal/damage/control but is provided in a way that makes sense with the class. And if everyone can provide some type of heal, control, damage thats relevant, then this could make the game pretty interesting.
Well, I guess I understand the skepticism here, but this is yet another very thoughtful and intelligent piece from the GW2 designers deliberately trying to break away from standard MMO design. And, quite frankly, I have that "OMG runs-around-in-tight-circles how exciting is this!!!!" feeling when I read them.
The only slip in the article is not being able to think of a reason for a harsh death penalty; that's simple, it is that players care about dying and by extension the game is more engaging and exciting. I loved Zangband because death was death.
That aside, I am personally LOVING what I read. The downed skills add a layer of immersion and strategy to combat. The support roles mentioned sound like my kind of thing. I loved being a jack of all trades class as a loremaster in LOTRO - buffs, debuffs, pets and CC, as well as burst damage and a healing option or two.
The lack of a death penalty is odd though. I actually think that given there are additional options during the downed state, actually dying is MORE justified to really set you back.
This isn't an attempt to hijack the thread but a question that I'd like to ask you openly. How could you possibly include 'TL;DR' in your response when you are actively responding within quoted text? If the post or comment your are quoting is too long to read, and you didn't read it, you have no room or right to reply. The useage of the two colours in your response is confusing as well, making me wonder if you are trying to confuse someone with your posting.
In any event, you are definitely right about the whole 'wait and see' approach. I've been far less than pleased with the sort of support that NCSoft gives (it actually took them until 08 July to answer a gameplay issue ticket from 09 June) and if NCSoft wants to push the hype bubble, which they likely will, much like they did in AION, we'll either be missing some of these really cool features/mechanics or they will be poorly implemented. I may be in the minority with my thoughts on NCSoft but I don't think I'm in the minority with wanting Guild Wars 2 to launch as the most kickass game possible.
He wasn't actually saying the post he quoted is TLDR, he was putting the part in yellow as HIS TLDR of what he was writing.
the 1st second i read about "Down Time" it reminds me of Borderland's Second Wind
if it is what i think it is, wow, this is gonna be fun, you, being crippled on the ground, but still able to help your group with a limited number of skills that is only available during the "Down Time" while wait to be rezzed, and while you're dead, you are still useful to your party/raid
this is neat !
Guild Wars 2 is shaping up to be the true next gen MMO. I think that's awesome. Of course there will still be people complaining who prefer the more WoW like games.. but to each their own. I know I'll be playing Guild Wars 2 day one.
Personally do I like some kind of death penalty because it makes me more nervous but thta is just me.
I am however more interested about the other things in the article. The holy triad have ruled MMOs for too long, it promotes boring combat, already the original GW was better than the regular system there and I think this will be awesome.
I hope I get a chance to test it out on GamesCon :).
I fail to see how what you say can even be adduced from cyphers's response. That said, there is no point in continuing debate about it. I gave criticism of the post as well as following it with something that was on to the point of the post, agreeing with the 'wait and see' approach as well as offering my own thoughts on the matter. The whole 'TL:DR' and two colours made things confusing and let's leave it at that, eh?
I wasn't debating anything, i was answering the question you asked of how could he possibly respond the way he did to the post and then claim TLDR (implying he didn't read the post). You seemed confused because of the way he setup his reply, and i was clarifying it. He wasn't saying the post he was replying to was TLDR. What he was saying was "here is the TLDR of my own post" and highlighted it in yellow (to seperate from the orange he was using for the "long" version of his post so they didn't look the same). Nobody is "debating" with you, im simply telling you what his TLDR meant.
TLDR: He could have made it more clear by saying "TLDR Version of my post:....." but instead he just shortened it to TLDR. (see what i did there, same thing as him)
I'm taking a wait and see approach and will most likely play the game. I don't really care if they have a new take on the trinity or claim it is completely different. Usually, the mechanics of a game can be boiled down to some classes being able to take more damage (tank), some classes being able to dish out more damage (dps), and other classes supporting better whether thats a healer, buffer, debuffer,cc.
Some games split that support into 2 distinct classes like a cleric and enchanter, while some games, will mix in the support into all the other classes. In GW2's case from the limited info we have, it seems there are tanks and dps, and the support abilities are mixed in with those classes. More of a hybrid approach throughout the classes. Wouldn't be surprised if some classes are better support with dps, some more support oriented tankish type.
However it ends up, some people will say it is completely different, others will put the classes in categories. No matter how a game is set up, people are going to categorize the classes or skills. Usually there will be the 3 or 4, especially in a class based game, but i've seen it with 2 and everyone pops potions.
Too many people tend to use other 'standard' mmo games as their base line for GW2, I'm telling you now that you can't do that. Look first at GW, and then at 'standard' MMOs, and then at other games. Most veteran GW players will tell you that Protection, a monk skill line, was one of the strongest skill sets in the game because of its powerful ability to actively prevent damage. A few examples of the skills.
Protective spirit, enchantment that prevents the target from taking more than 10% of its health as damage.
Reversal of Fourtune, enchantment that caused the next source of damage against the player to be turned into healing.
Shield of Regeneration, enchantment that causes target player to gain 40 (halves the damage taken basically) armor and health regeneration.
We had no aggro gaining skills, no taunts at all, the AI would change targets to hit the weakest link in your party. It was also not always a factor of who fills the role the best, but who fills it the best in the situation, as every class filled the roles in different ways. Damage dealt from an Assassin was quick, they tended to peak damage about every 30 seconds. Spiking is what they were used for. Warriors tended to have a more constant damage output and used different mechanics.
In GW, it wasn't so much what role you were playing, but how you filled it. And how was partly dependant on the class you were playing. This seems to be carrying over into GW2.
With the trinity taken care of, lets move on to death penalty. I tend to not care what this is in games, as long as I don't lose a large chunk of experience and gold I'm fine with it. Don't look at Downed as death, look at it like incapacitated from L4D or the second wind system from Borderlands. In L4D you had a pistol, a weaker weapon than the shotguns or assault rifles laying around, I'm sure the 4 skills you get will be weaker in comparison to your active set of skills. Death appears to require someone to revive you via a skill or using the revival ability, an interesting idea and mechanic that will be very interesting in PvE and especially PvP. Sure, you can claim that a harsher penalty than walking back or waiting for someone to revive you promotes bad play, that it lets you get away with death. It does sure as hell beat losing a large chunk of my hard earned experience and gold. What is the point of having such a heavy penalty? Some times you die of lag, bad luck, or just some asshat who decided to aggro more than he could handle.
I would just like to say that I love how ArenaNet does these news posts, they have a casual feel to them and have enough good humor in them to make them feel human. It doesn't feel fake, the jokes arn't bad, and I love that.
Agreed, I do see them being categorized. I think the difference is that the lines between classes will fade and blend more.
Take a warrior for example, he can easily be classified as tank. He uses his shield and stances to promote higher armor. But then he can be a crippler or knockdowner... making him a good controller. Of course with shouts and the ability to insta-rez through "IWAY" he could be considered a healer of some type. It's not really about breaking a class into a category, it's about whether each class can efectively break the boundaries held by the holy trinity.
An elementalists can heal, damage, and snare. Generally, elementalists are not healers nor do they control mobs utility-wise. But they are allowed to, at least that is was ANet claims. So I can see how one can categorize a class into one of the trinities, but It sounds like classifying it into another on of the trinities wont be hard either.
I love the original Guild Wars, and I am excited about this game, but this is a dumb idea. Reasons for death penalties beyond being granted the ability of local teleportation to a safe place upon death...
The original GuildWars does a good job with its death penalty system. In most cases its a wait time, and it makes what you are doing harder via a stat penalty. Eventually, if you continue to die, it will be pretty hard for you to get anything done and you'll need to start over from an outpost. In a mission, if everyone dies, well, its mission over and you start over. I think that concept is great, and I don't see why they didn't take the same ideology along in the new game.
A lot of people simply would never really try to become good at anything if no matter if they played well or poorly they ended up with basically the same result: there's no concept of real loss, you are always on an upward trajectory even if you only manage to kill one mob every 2 hours and die every 10 minutes. Hell, in Age of Conan death was a terrific feature! You got a free teleport pretty much anyone in your current zone! Death is awesome! Go Death!
So they copied the DnD death system (the table top game, I mean).
Good for them.
I love that system.
Can't say I like the lack of a meaningful death penalty, but we'll have to see how it works in the context. I do like the "downed" status though.
We'll have to see how this "takes longer" at every time you die works, how nearby are the respawn points and how expensive it will be.
The emotional part is the "downed syndrom state" were you need to use your skills to keep the enemies away from you so your comrades can kill them and then you become rallied.
I cant fully enjoy a game with no death penalty. Might as well be playing unreal tournament. Die, spawn, die, spawn, die spawn. When you kill someone they should be out of the fight for good. When you die, you should suffer the consequences, including losing your stuff. Play eve, play Darkfall. Killing is so much more rewarding. Fighting is so much more tense.
I am glad that Arenanet is thinking outside of the normal MMORPG box. I want something new and exciting and I believe GW2 will deliver. They want people to have fun while playing the game. If people find losing experience or items fun then you my friends are sick and twisted.
People who suck at GW2 or just do not care to be good at it will show it by the number of deaths during a fight. That person will either strive to be better or not see themselves get invited to groups much. GW2 will not be the normal hack n slash MMO we are all used to. You will need a good line of skills plus use tactics and the environment to your advantage.
I play Eve, I play Guild Wars, fighting is tense in both of them because obviously I want to win, I want to get those damn points, I want to prove that my "innovative" set-up works and all that rigmarole. Also remember Eve and Darkfall have openworld pvp while GW2 doesn't and in that sense death penalty in the way you seem to be looking at it doesn't make much sense. I don't think it would be fun if you lost your gear in instanced pvp, it doesn't feel like it should work that way.
In many ways they are speaking to the survivalist like me who doesn't like dieing in a fight if he can help it, dieing is the bane of my gaming experience, I love surviving waves and hordes of enemies especially alone so I can feel leet about myself :). But if I die then that's my penalty, get up and try it again until my leetness shines again.
But at the end of the day Tanking is CC. Instead of using Fear to scatter Enemies , you hit Taunt to gather them around so your Party Members can kill them. so in the end its the same thing different wording.
There is no taunt dude.
Or Fear, for that matter. No aggro management whatsoever. At least, if it holds true to GW, and this is one thing that I hope does.
Theres a huge difference between tanking and CC. Hell even squishy cloth wearing DPS utilize CC in some games to avoid getting hit, but once they start taking the hits they tend to be screwed. Tanking usually consists of the tank forcing all the damage to be directed at himself, but does not require hindering the enemy in other ways. Crowd Control generally hinders the enemy through slowing their movement, attack speed, prevent use of skills, or stunning / paralyzing and preventing them from doing anything regardless of who the target is.
Short version:
Tanking = directing the flow of damage to an individual (the tank)
CC = preventing or slowing damage against anyone, regardless of class/role
I love how you can just go back to playing the game when you die. It reminds me of CoD and how when you get shot and die you pop right back up and continue to play without having to worry about being weakend or anything and I think that's what Anet is trying to do, just get you back in the game so you can keep playing the game instead of getting frusterated that your weakened and have to wait awhile or go back to a town to get fixed.
Now about the no dedicated healer, I like that. Now I can just go around by myself or with a group of my buddies and fight things with no worries about needing to be healed or getting bored for hours waiting to find a healer. Why would you need one if you can take care of yourself? Also I like how they made the supporter role. I've seen it before in games but here it just blows my mind! It defends the group instead of healing it which sounds way cooler and some cool combinations and tricks could be found out to make it totally awesome. Anet, you're doing a good job.
I wonder how many posters in this thread know anything about tanking in Guild Wars 1. Its already very different from tanking in games like EQ and WoW. There are no taunt commands. Its about positioning and bodyblocking and putting pressure on the key characters of the enemies to disrupt their play.
In GW, mobs act as groups with their support mobs, pressure mobs, interrupters and dps mobs. Its as if you are playing against an AI team in team PVP. PVE in GW is very different from other MMO's because you are never fighting single mobs that just stand there to be smashed in their head.
My point is that GW never had the classic tank spank system.
Exactly, tanking is just a rudimentary form of crowd control, only a part of it, as they also say in the article.
GW is a good indication: in GW the Warrior class who's supposed to be the Tank was more of utility guy and mob harasser than a meatshield or taunter/aggro manager. It seems ANet took a good look at the existing combat mechanics and archetypes, also from their own GW, and decided to evolutionize the Warrior role into more of a Control role.
GW btw already showed that other team setups than the classic 'tank(s)-healer(s)-fill up with dps' could be successful: in GW there hugely successful teams that were a far cry from the Trinity team setup, you had teams that existed only of (protection) monks, or only of warrior rangers, or that were mostly necromancers and mesmers, and far more different combinations.
Q: Death penalties in MMO games provide incentive to players to learn their class and work better in groups. With no death penalty, won’t this lead to less incentive to learn how to play their class and group properly?
A: In most games—both single and multiplayer—the penalty for failure is to simply return to a saved position or state. The penalty, in this case, is simply time. MMOs can’t return someone to a saved position, and so they have developed many other penalties over the years to simulate this. We penalize the player by taking a small amount of money, but more importantly, by setting him back to the waypoint of his choosing.
Death penalties—even simple return to save systems—can, of course, vary in their harshness. When deciding on the degree of severity, you need to look at what you are trying to accomplish overall with the game. Is your game a hardcore simulation, meant to test the skill of the player under extreme stress? In this case, a more severe death penalty would be warranted. With Guild Wars 2, however, one of our main goals is to encourage experimentation and risk-taking on the part of the player. Because of this, we firmly believe that a milder penalty upon defeat is in order. We have found that our emphasis on risk-taking, along with this milder penalty, has resulted in a game where players try daring and heroic things, where they will go into grave situations to help out a stranger, and that overall increases the number of epic and heroic moments that the average player encounters.
We have found that this ability to experiment with your character and throw yourself into more dangerous experiences has resulted in players gaining more opportunity to really test the limits of what their characters can do. Players consequently learn how to play their professions just as quickly (if not more so) than they do in many other games.
This was just posted on the ArenaNet blog, and I think it does a great job of answering why no death penalty.
http://www.arena.net/blog/jon-peters-answers-your-first-batch-of-healing-and-death-questions
Great interview, answers quite a few questions about not only the death penalty but the healing/support roles as well as the reasons behind the direction theyre taking these things. You should all read it for not just the death penalty explanation but the rest as well.
I think this will make GW2 very easy.
Death penalty doesn't make game easy or hard.
Exactly. People keep equating little/no death penalty to making the game easy, but it could very well be the most challenging PVE game weve seen because they dont need to worry about people complaining "oh well its too easy to die and lose all your stuff so the games too hard / no fun". GW1 death penalty wasnt very harsh, and was easily fixed and the game itself was more challenging than the PvE in many games which have pretty drastic death penalties. We wont know for sure how hard or easy it is until we actually play it, but assuming the death penalty is what determines the difficulty of a game is pretty stupid.
As they pointed out in normal RPGs (or other types of single player games) the death penalty is generally just a loss of time by having to restart at the last save point. Theres no loss of stats, items, etc. Is every single player RPG ever made easy because of that? Hell no, most are a hell of a lot more challenging than any MMO.