Guild Wars 2

Stop.

I know what the critics are already about to say, and my response is just hear me out first.

The World Event for the Elder Dragon occurs in a specifically planned lair, effectively a mini-zone JUST for the encounter. Going to use Kralkatorrik (Elder Crystal Dragon, Branded one) as a prime example of how it would go down.

Every Half-Day a notice from the mini-zone sent to the adjourning zone(s) informs players that Kralkatorrik has made an appearance, and through whatever means to get there (Waypoint, walking, dancing), the heroes arrive in the zone. Now, naturally it would be chaos, Branded enemies everywhere, from normals to champions running about, Pre-Event quests involving killing foes or repairing broken siege machines. After all that is done, a pause….

Suddenly, dozens of normal and veteran Branded begin to come into different locations across the zone, and one of the three ‘inconspicuous’ mountains that encase this small zone move. Seems like Kralkatorrik was watching all this time (this is where you gasp) and IMMEDIATELY takes flight.

The Encounter Starts…

Of course, it would be not just if the Elder Dragon were to fall like his Lieutenants so he would not be targetable until shot out of the sky/his minions fall/some pre-existing condition occurs that requires heroes to run across the zone to fulfill. And this dragon isn’t pulling punches as he leaves a trail of crystal and smoke under his flight, while breathing huge flames that linger on the ground for minutes, and HURT (Close to One-Shot)! But even THEN that wouldn’t be enough, maybe toss in a few LEGENDARY mobs that guard the objectives required, or provide a buff to the Elder Dragon similar to Claw that vastly reduce damage until killed. Toss in a few phase changes with different abilities (Just an idea, have Kralkatorrik debuff players who are downed so that when they die, a veteran mob of their race spawns, or normal if that is too hard).

Finally you take out the last of the Elder Dragon’s health, of which he roars with agony as he retreats back over a mountain range crashing, revealing not only a chest with at least a guaranteed exotic for fighting about 40-60 minutes straight, not including pre-events but…

A Dungeon

That’s right, you ain’t done yet, you get some of your best buddies and group up for the LIMITED TIME DUNGEON (2 hours after death, let’s be a little fair) with its own tokens, very difficult bosses, and a final encounter to finish off the weakened Elder Dragon!

The Low-down (for my idea of a well-crafted World Encounter):

- Encounter happens every 12-15 hours (because of the duration, and the fact it is an Elder Dragon not simply one of the Lieutenants.)
- Fairly substantial pre-event for encounter when mini-zone where the fight is held notifies players in adjourning zone(s)
- Upon completion, players fight large amounts of normal, veteran and a champion or two mobs.
- Elder Dragon shows up in a bit of flair, you cannot easily hurt him unless you fulfill an objective or two. Maybe a Legendary Mob needs to die first or something, forcing heroes to work across the entire zone dodging the Elder Dragon’s attacks.
- Elder Dragon comes down or gets knocked down, you all fight together, using tools to make the boss take more damage to actually be killed!
- After Dragon is defeated, he retreats heavily injured, unveiling a really nice chest and a limited time dungeon (2 hours). There, a small group must force their way through a difficult dungeon to finish the dragon off!

…So?

Not bad eh?

This would actually make it A LOT more epic. But unfortunately, I don’t see it happening (as much as I would like it too). Here’s why:

• That is a lot of mechanics that would probably take quite a few months to complete. It might be doable as part of the next expansion. And there’s currently 3 dragons. From what I’ve heard, Claw of Jormag is pretty good compared with the other 2.

• They’d need to create a database to log who took part in the fight. Otherwise, you’d get all of the farmers who’d farm the dungeon and avoid the fight/pre’s.

• With all of your points, it may take too long for most people to complete, which would probably mean that people won’t do it. I personally would just on how epic and satisfactory it would be alone.

• They’d have to be very careful with the normal, veteran, and champion mobs in terms of scaling, numbers, and if the Shatterer made a field of his own brand of fire that nearly 1-shots you, then if the mobs are over-numbered, they could overrun you and just cause frustration and money with the repairs.

• If not enough time and resources are put into this….BUGS. And we all know how annoying those are.

I’m personally in support of your suggestion, I just don’t see it happening. At least, not anytime soon. Fingers crossed though :P

On a side note, Anet has said that once their “testing” is complete, that they’ll be re-vamping things to be tons better.

Of course I don’t expect this in any minor patch, but I do believe something like this is plausible for Arena.net to come out with.

- Concerning Claw, yes he is a few notches above the others in terms of mechanics, but I still advocate something like this in a major content patch or expansion.

- I won’t argue with the fact that people might sit out just to do the dungeon, but there is an incentive to complete the event as quickly as possible, and farmers won’t be able to access the limited dungeon and do all the paths in two hours. It won’t nearly be as farmable as the other dungeons currently in game.

- People would wait an hour before Shatterer for a 6-8 minute easy boss. I don’t expect people to pass up this world boss if the incentives of the chest are good enough, bear in mind the gear in the chest would have a much larger chance at exotics and nil chance at blues dropping.

- Yes, minion scaling is important and that would be addressed in tests internal and when released.

- BUGS, oh yes we all know, I acknowledge!

All of the elder dragons should be world events. Discovering that Zhaitan could only be encountered in a 5 person dungeon was by far the most disappointing thing in Guild Wars 2.