Guild Wars 2

First of all I have to say that I really enjoy the new content. Rescuing the citizens is a lot of fun with a small group of friends or even strangers. I see a lot of complaining about the event though. Bad rewards for players who do the rescue missions is one of them. People are angry about players who do the events instead of rescuing citizens. Everyone gets the ultimate bag at the end, whether they helped at the evacuations or not.

Personally I think a lot is very unclear for people who don’t use websites for the game.

• it isn’t clear that the civilians run to the nearest stealthed Order of Whisper’s guy – not the entrance
• it isn’t clear that reviving npcs counts towards the counter too, not only the npcs with the orange marker over their heads
• it isn’t clear what to do in order to get the ultimate bag – not everyone reads the patchnotes.
• it isn’t clear that the npcs which were saved respawn
• personally I didn’t know that you get +20/30(?) citizens for a successful event

a lot of unclear things imho, so the random guy won’t get it if he doesn’t read the patch notes / internet guides. No wonder tons of people are confused… it’s just bad communicated in the game imho. Events have huge orange markers… so everyone goes there.

How to do it then:
But how would I have designed the event then? Tough question. Maybe Anet could have sent the heroes we all love on those mini-rescue missions (including the orange map marker). This would give players who haven’t read a guide an indication that there is something to do besides the “big events”. Braham could patrol one of the escape-routes and people could join him. How many routes are there? 6-8? Well, we have quite a few heroes who could have run these routes.

There could have been a personal revive and encourage counter also. After the event you would see Braham and Roxx telling each other how many citizens they rescued… like Legolas teasing Gimli how many kills he got. And players whould get +10 extra bags for every 10 citizens rescued.

This is an MMO and the rescue citizens content is a group-effort. So it is important to use mapchat to work together. This goes from simple things as coordinating (‘need more people in sector orange’) to explaining those things.

I actually love how this game is giving room to find out things on our own and share it amongst eachother.

On a side note, I do think that the NPC’s should be smarter. Please tell the ones in the former TP that there is a whispers agent right next to.

mercury ranique.2170:

This goes from simple things as coordinating (‘need more people in sector orange’) to explaining those things.

it’s not as simple. What is sector orange? You can’t see the routes on the map ingame. Users have created those maps with green, orange and red routes depending on difficulty.

It has become quite a disadvantage to play the game without a guide. I don’t like this direction. API Websites… no thanks. Finding out when the next Worldboss arrives – dragontimers. Meh. Why not have the sky turn black above the zones on the ingame-map to indicate a world boss arriving?

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

There could have been a personal revive and encourage counter also. After the event you would see Braham and Roxx telling each other how many citizens they rescued… like Legolas teasing Gimli how many kills he got. And players whould get +10 extra bags for every 10 citizens rescued.

The problem with personal rewards tied to # of citizens saved is that it would lead to players fighting over citizens to rescue.

Should have used this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xyg_Vjw1xaQ

I hope this doesn’t come as too negative, I really enjoy the new patch. It’s awesome, found a few new friends by rescuing citizens together. It’s really encouraging to play a defensive specced profession. I love using the full spectrum of my defensive abilities with my guardian here.

They did made some improvements such as putting scouts just in case people ignored their mail, and the map mission briefing was also improved (slightly). I agree with you OP that people get confused with what to do because of the lack of information. I personally like it that way, to learn the event by yourself, to figure it out how to do it as an individual and as a group, discovering, solving it on our own. I’m not a fan of spoon feeding, but too much lack of information is very bad as well. I dunno, I’m a bit in the middle ground with this right now. Maybe they could put in “hints” to help us succeed? But that’s our job as players, take care of others who do not know yet what to do. Then again, others don’t like to read map chat and follow strangers’ advice, and like you said, some don’t read forums and online guides. I like your idea though of using the LS characters to provide hints on what to do.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

mercury ranique.2170:

This goes from simple things as coordinating (‘need more people in sector orange’) to explaining those things.

it’s not as simple. What is sector orange? You can’t see the routes on the map ingame. Users have created those maps with green, orange and red routes depending on difficulty.

It has become quite a disadvantage to play the game without a guide. I don’t like this direction. API Websites… no thanks. Finding out when the next Worldboss arrives – dragontimers. Meh. Why not have the sky turn black above the zones on the ingame-map to indicate a world boss arriving?

dw,
just ask them where, and they link something from the map.

Whenever I ask people to join me somewhere. I normally use map terms, (eastern ward for example) I always link to something near.
Not everyone does, all you have to do is ask where.

Then anyone going there, please say, ..to prevent 10-15 people going to the same place when about 10 of those could continue off somewhere else.

Alot of people don’t use mapchat, which doesn’t help in an event that requires coordination. Overflows don’t help when they mix english speakers with non english.

Many times I’ve been shoved in an overflow and there’s german going on in the mapchat. Surely they could organise overflow to not mix regions like this?

From what it seems overflows are a combined of all EU or NA servers, It would be a little better if they overflowed Desolate, with desolate overflows. (for example).
Like the overflow would be comprised of only desolate and people guesting to desolate, it doesn’t seem like atm, this is the case? I could be wrong though as idk

if overflows would only be from a specific server, they’d never be full I imagine. Also germans have quite a few servers compared to Italy for example.

The problem here is that there are more than one activity going on, but only one (events) is communicated via map-markers. The other one – to succeed – isn’t. Of course this leads to anger towards other players, since the ones who do events think they do THE most important thing to make the mission succeed, while those who rescue have no real instant-notification that this one survivor they ressed is one more step towards the ultimate bag.

The number 1200 can only be found on websites, some might think they got the ultimate bag for being successful in all events on the map.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

if overflows would only be from a specific server, they’d never be full I imagine. Also germans have quite a few servers compared to Italy for example.

The problem here is that there are more than one activity going on, but only one (events) is communicated via map-markers. The other one – to succeed – isn’t. Of course this leads to anger towards other players, since the ones who do events think they do THE most important thing to make the mission succeed, while those who rescue have no real instant-notification that this one survivor they ressed is one more step towards the ultimate bag.

The number 1200 can only be found on websites, some might think they got the ultimate bag for being successful in all events on the map.

Actually, at some point in the event, there is a big yellow message that comes across the screen that tells each player to ignore the miasma and rescue the citizens. It’s our own fault for not actually figuring out what that means. I will fully admit that I didn’t understand it myself the first few times I saw it. When it finally sunk into my skull, I started doing nothing but rescuing civilians and encouraging the guards.

I am probably in the minority here, but I rescue the citizens to help everyone get as much of a reward as possible… not just for my own personal benefit. I get bags from killing the enemy in the path the citizens take, and that’s good enough for me. Usually, I’m in my preferred area all by myself. It’s fun killing veterans and elites solo, though it is slow. And I’m in green gear primarily, without a single berserker piece of armor. My necromancer pets help to keep me out of trouble though, so I’m okay.

If you were doing this kind of thing ‘for real’, you would clear enemies out of an expanding area, while maintaining a perimeter behind which you could find and rescue survivors. Unfortunately, in this case enemies re-spawn anywhere, so that is not possible. If they had fixed spawn points, you could hve better strategies to contain them.

I actually like that the game has a level of complexity that requires everyone to get engaged and investigate how best to do things.

As a mature gamer I way prefer this over some boring easy-mode hand holding.

The thing about this event being map wide reward leads to very poor reward distrabution.

150 people in a map every hour, across 30 servers, plus 2-5 overflows. Obviously the not everyone can get a good reward because then it devalues and that leads to the problem:

“Why am I doing this?”

The rewards aren’t there, and you still get the same thing as someone who rescued 100 citizens or just by the door for 40mins doing nothing.

Instance content is the only way to go, I’m sorry that people like the idea of a living world but rewards are important in an MMO and the only way to get them is through skill-locked content that people can control.

I think every player should be reading patch notes. There is simply no way to fit every single detail in game without cluttering or confusing.

Instance content is the only way to go

absolutely disagree. Instances are a breeding pool for elitists and I REALLY enjoy playing with random guy XY, even though they are not best geared top skilled players. It’s awesome to find new friends that way and sometimes you feel like being a hero when helping not-so-skilled ones.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

• it isn’t clear that the civilians run to the nearest stealthed Order of Whisper’s guy – not the entrance
• it isn’t clear that reviving npcs counts towards the counter too, not only the npcs with the orange marker over their heads
• it isn’t clear what to do in order to get the ultimate bag – not everyone reads the patchnotes.
• it isn’t clear that the npcs which were saved respawn
• personally I didn’t know that you get +20/30(?) citizens for a successful event

You forgot

• it isn’t clear what is actually in that ultimate bag

The patch notes do mention “chance at previous LS rewards” but that still leaves a lot of guessing.

That’s what the wiki says:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ultimate_Citizen%27s_Rescue_Bag

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

But how would I have designed the event then? Tough question. Maybe Anet could have sent the heroes we all love on those mini-rescue missions (including the orange map marker). This would give players who haven’t read a guide an indication that there is something to do besides the “big events”. Braham could patrol one of the escape-routes and people could join him. How many routes are there? 6-8? Well, we have quite a few heroes who could have run these routes.

There could have been a personal revive and encourage counter also. After the event you would see Braham and Roxx telling each other how many citizens they rescued… like Legolas teasing Gimli how many kills he got. And players whould get +10 extra bags for every 10 citizens rescued.

I think it would have been a good idea to have “Encouraging” a citizen give you a drop. All I do at these events is revive and encourage. I get a couple bags from killing mobs around citizens that need to be rescued but the # I get is nothing to what I got the first two cycles when I just did events.

It would have been nice if the map scout dude could have given you an overview of how the event works.

I agree that some of it is not clear. ( I read the patch notes but can’t assume all do)

Without force feeding all the answers, going foward they should have voiced announcements from the general and have the OfW do text bubbles when you run by them.

General announces to focus on citizens but after that he should have phrases when a certain number is reached so you know you need to keep going.
“Good job so far but more people are in danger! etc etc”

Order of Whispers can just have small chat bubbles: Psst, help guide the citizens to me and the order will ensure their escape"

hmm I guess fighting over a citizen isn’t a great idea. What if running citizens drop bags occasionally? Then it would be for everyone around, so you’re rewarded for patrolling that area.

Vol.7601:

I think every player should be reading patch notes. There is simply no way to fit every single detail in game without cluttering or confusing.

They could fit in the details. All it would take is a few NPC’s, better audio cues, or map icons that explained things. There are dozens of ways they could do it, but they simply choose not to. And since they are choosing not to, perhaps the content they release should be simpler or easier to understand. It shouldn’t be the players’ responsibility to pick up the slack for the developers’ negligence in design.

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: They ought to be paying Dulfy and those other sites for explaining their game for them.