Guild Wars 2

I love dynamic events, I have a lot of fun with almost ever dynamic event I’ve been a part of, but they don’t seem to love me. A lot of positive reviews talk all the time about being able to just roam around randomly and come across dynamic events every other minute, and occasionally I’ve experienced that myself, but other times I’ve run around for an hour or more and only seen maybe 1-2 minor events, the rest of my time seeing nothing particular going on to participate in beyond grindage.

Because they are so random, and because most don’t become visible to you until you’re within about thirty seconds jog of them, some of them even less, it can be very easy to make complete circuits of a zone and miss practically every event in it, because they are all happening minutes before or after you pass through a given area (and that’s even if you know what most of the available events are in a given zone). The “complete five events” condition is always the last one I fulfill for the daily reward. I’ve leveled several characters through the Sylvari starting area and never seen the mega-boss battle event being up for it because it’s so far out of the way of most of the other content.

I would very much like something that makes this easier to manage. My hope would be to widen the “radar range” for events, so that I can detect events happening halfway across the map, and travel to them if I choose to. Ideally there could even be advanced notice for some of the ones that burn out fast, giving a few minutes to reach them before they get started.

I really want to do more events, I just need to know that they are happening.

Two tips:
a) events come in chains, if you finish one another one will often follow, just stick around and don’t run away
b) observe the NPCs, quite often they will try to grab your attention (“Need some help over here!”) speak to them, they will show you an ongoing event; sometimes they will just start talking to each other and then they decide to go on a walk or something – this a starting event, follow them

This video explains it in a nutshell…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KbjpZJ9MJM&feature=plcp and it doesn’t even cover the criers (the npcs that try to take your attention and point DE’s if you talk to them).

a) events come in chains, if you finish one another one will often follow, just stick around and don’t run away

Some events do come in chains. Many don’t, or if they do, the chains are veeeeery far apart. I’m pretty familiar with certain parts of the game, I’ve cleared Queensdale, for example, on at least five characters now since BWE1, done I imagine at least 90-95% of the available events at least once, many of them several times, yet I can still spend an hour wandering the zone, passing through areas that I know tend to have events on a fairly regular basis, and not see any of them in an active state.

I even got just within range to be able to “see” the swamp boss event, right in time that by the time that I reached the area I was able to watch him fall before I could get into combat range. Yay. If I’d known about that event a few minutes earlier I could have actually participated in it. That wider reach is all I’m asking for.

I don’t really need advice on how to find events available in the area I’m in, I know how to do that, what I need is to know about events that are going on, or about to go on, outside the area I’m in, because all the events in the area I’m in have either just finished and/or won’t begin again for another fifteen minutes or more. If I’m at the “wurm farm,” I need to know whether I should head west to see if the bull or the spiders are up, whether to head north to see if the harpies are active, whether to head south to see if there’s anything going on at the water pumps, I won’t be able to tell until I spend a minute or two running in that direction, and if I choose incorrectly then by the time I reach “plan b” if an event had been going on there then I’ll already have missed it. A wider “radar” would let me know which direction I should be heading in.

I would like to see events zone wide also. I would guess they limited the visibility of events so people had to explore the zones. I have spent multiple levels at event hubs alone. I would also guess that we will see expanded visibility in a later update.

Blood~

Honestly, I’d like to be able to see “major” events worldwide when I bring up the map (at least in areas that I’ve explored).

If the goal is to get people to explore, that’s fine, but there should still be a way to expand your view, maybe even requiring that you get the exploration achievement for that map before it unlocks, or requiring some perk you buy from karma vendors. There should just be some method of expanding your event detection range.

Is there any reason at all why we can’t see all of the events on the map? I don’t see the point of limiting the range of the notifications, it just means players miss a lot of content constantly

Zzulu.5489:

Is there any reason at all why we can’t see all of the events on the map? I don’t see the point of limiting the range of the notifications, it just means players miss a lot of content constantly

The point is that if you are on the far side of the map and see event pop up on the opposite side, there is little to no chance you would make it in time anyways.

Also, by adjusting event visibility based on player density inside zones they can try to split up zergs (by showing more than one event in different directions) or attempt to not show an event that is already flooded with people to many more, in reverse they can increase the visibility of events with little to no participation.

For the record, back in the first public beta weekend event notifications were pretty much map wide.

This game needs an event tracker, it also could do with an instant adventure system like in Rift.

2 hours in Fields of Ruin, 2 events. 1 of them bugged.

This is quite ridiculous, as DEs are supposed to be the main content of the game.

The point is that if you are on the far side of the map and see event pop up on the opposite side, there is little to no chance you would make it in time anyways.

Depends, if you’re willing to waypoint to the nearest point you can make most events, and in some cases the event might not be all the way across the level, but rather just slightly outside your detection radius, and you’d never notice it if you weren’t heading towards it. Many events last for several minutes, long enough that if you saw it as soon as it came up, then even without speed buffs you could probably cross 1/4 of most maps before it ended.

2 hours in Fields of Ruin, 2 events. 1 of them bugged.

This is quite ridiculous, as DEs are supposed to be the main content of the game.

Yeah, I had a lot of issues with FoR too. Like you I saw very few events, and most of the ones I did see were bugged. Bloodtide Coast was less buggy, but I’ve noticed that the game has a lot of issues with escort missions where the escort just stops moving.

I’d be nice if DEs had internal timers that automatically reset them if they’ve been stuck on too long.

I started a suggestion thread on that topic:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Auto-Fixes-for-broken-events/first#post219141

Xomic.5792:

I’d be nice if DEs had internal timers that automatically reset them if they’ve been stuck on too long.

They are supposed to have that. Some longer than others. I would not want an event finder it would seriously mess up the feel of the game. Part of the fun is finding events by exploring and speaking to all NPCs. I mean exploring the game world, not exploring a map or UI that shows you where to go without any context at all.

They are supposed to have that. Some longer than others. I would not want an event finder it would seriously mess up the feel of the game. Part of the fun is finding events by exploring and speaking to all NPCs. I mean exploring the game world, not exploring a map or UI that shows you where to go without any context at all.

It can be optional, a toggle in the UI. I want this feature, and if you don’t want it, you could always leave it off.

I would love to be able to see every DE in a zone provided I’ve met a minimum requirement. Could be something like at least talking with every heart quest NPC on the map or unlocking the full map or only getting notified of DE’s up to 2 levels above you, something. I do not want to step into the 15-25 zone as a 15 and only have the first waypoint unlocked and suddenly see every level 25 DE going off. It truly is frustrating to be at near max level for that zone and just run around hoping to catch a DE going on.

+100 to this. In some zones I can wander around for an hour and not come across a dynamic event.

People used to map announce an event, but this seemed to have got less frequent. Usually they are announced only if the boss is too hard. Requests for what events are up is a crapshoot. Sometimes people are helpful, sometimes no response.

The idea of dynamic events (at least the smaller ones that are the majority of the content) is that they are things that just happen in the world around you where you happen to be at the time, not unlike how things unfold around you in reality. Currently, as we know, this doesn’t always work out as well in practice as it does in theory, but as more events are added and the existing ones get tweaked the game should get closer to that ideal. Since that’s the design aim it would hardly be sensible for Arenanet to introduce tools that would essentially turn events into sequential farming runs for players too impatient to play the content in a more leisurely way: GW2 is a game where it’s very easy to find alternative things to do, since it has a lot of content and four major alternative gameplay elements.

As you said it doesn’t work out in practice. In the beginning, when most players were concentrated in one zone, it seemed to feel right, lots of events lots of players. Now many zones are deserted and events far and few between. Sometime you come across an event and cant even do it because there aren’t enough players and map chat is dying.

ghull.3571:

I would love to be able to see every DE in a zone provided I’ve met a minimum requirement. Could be something like at least talking with every heart quest NPC on the map or unlocking the full map or only getting notified of DE’s up to 2 levels above you, something. I do not want to step into the 15-25 zone as a 15 and only have the first waypoint unlocked and suddenly see every level 25 DE going off. It truly is frustrating to be at near max level for that zone and just run around hoping to catch a DE going on.

that seems like a pretty good idea. maybe there could be different icons for large-scale bosses, Champion mini-bosses, etc.

roqoco.4053:

it would hardly be sensible for Arenanet to introduce tools that would essentially turn events into sequential farming runs for players too impatient to play the content in a more leisurely way:

I forgot to address this comment. EXCESSIVE farming runs are a different problem and should be addressed by a different system.

For casual players, a farming run may be the only way they can get enough coin to craft or upgrade equipment. Certainly leveling is heavily dependent on completing DEs. Try leveling by exploring and grinding, not only is it VERY boring, but it is slow.

I made a similar post about this today. In the first 2 weeks I seen hundreds of events (I completed my monthly requirement of 100 events in less than 5 days, the first time, just over a week the second.) In the last week I am really struggling to find enough events to complete my daily 5. I was wondering whether event triggers were based on player population in the zone, because as you get less players they seem to happen less frequent.

Something I think that would help with zergs is to increse the broadcast distance based on the population of the zone. When these zones get low the more people you can tell about an event the better.
Even getting to the point now where you can see other players run past and completely ignore the event because they are there for something else or don’t care to do it. Either way it seems to be getting harder to find events (even though I’m 90% world complete and have done tonnes of events) going to those areas is just not showing them up. And when I finally do find an event just have to hope it’s not bugged.

@ “Certainly leveling is heavily dependent on completing DEs. Try leveling by exploring and grinding, not only is it VERY boring, but it is slow.”

Quite often one can find DEs by following the “story” of the NPCs involved in them. But I do agree that in some areas they are a bit sparse.

As to levelling: My personal feeling&playstyle is that the game progression is best done somewhat under level, since the open world difficulty is geared to very casual players (not looking for a dungeon level stuff, but a little challenge is fun for L2Ping, testing out one’s build ideas and stuff). For that reason I’m always looking for ways to avoid XP gain, which is quite hard since you get XP for almost everything in GW2 – one session of WvW or a bit of crafting, for instance, puts you over level for an area immediately.

I would love to see some sort of notification or timer for the temple event chains in Orr. I hate it when I’ve been running around the zone for a while and I get in range of the event tracker as soon as its ending so I never had a chance to participate. Even if there’s only something that says “Grenth: In Progress” from anywhere in the zone would be nice.

As to levelling: My personal feeling&playstyle is that the game progression is best done somewhat under level, since the open world difficulty is geared to very casual players (not looking for a dungeon level stuff, but a little challenge is fun for L2Ping, testing out one’s build ideas and stuff). For that reason I’m always looking for ways to avoid XP gain, which is quite hard since you get XP for almost everything in GW2 – one session of WvW or a bit of crafting, for instance, puts you over level for an area immediately.

Well, that’s you, and that’s a fine way to play, but for players that do want to gain some levels, for whatever reason, being able to find DEs when you want them can be important. If they did implement this feature, you could use it to avoid active DEs. I assure you that if you avoid DEs entirely you’ll have no problem staying underleveled.

over an hour in Queensdale, not seen any active events todday (1 bugged on does not count imo).

Gave up looking in teh end and jumped in WvWvW to complete my daily.

Its a bit worrying as DEs are the main PvE content, and whilst I love them, I’m not going to log in to run round for an hour or so hoping to find an event…..

Event finder please, and preferably an Instant Adventure system like in Rift.