Guild Wars 2

1:30 to 2:00 states that the devs wanted no grind and meaningfull events where “the boss” doesn’t respawn every 5 minutes.
Imho, the game right now does not offer what the devs were dreaming about back when the trailer came out.
Don’T get me wrong, it’s a great game. But these 2 things really bother me: grinding 24/7 and events having no emotional impact or any other connection to the player.
There is so much T6 grinding that I as a casual player dont even think about ever having ascended gear. A complete dongeon set makes you grind the same dungeon ~100 times.
Events just happen and nobody cares about whats going on. The task is always the same: slay everything that’s still alive.
Event chains usually have only 1 or 2 Levels. There is nothing special happening so that you really want to get to the last event of a chain.

For example, an event chain could start by protection a few NPCs on their way to build a camp.
Then, you would have to defend them while setting up their camp.
As their supplies drop low, you have to either collect them yourself, or protect the caravan bringing new stuff (while defending the camp site at the same time)
Having the camp set up, the attacks continue. You could protect some guards on their way to the camp so protection gets easier.
Maybe an engineer arives for some defensive machinery, but you will have to help him to set things up.
Once the camp stands, you get access to a teleportation point, special merchants and new events etc.
THIS would be a meaningfull Event, because YOU helped build something and you certainly dont want it to get destroyed.

The GW2 way of doing this is right now: Guard the caravan and clear the camp.

I disagree on two points with you.

The first point is that GW2 is doing a lot better on this point then gw1 and any other mmo around. So it might be not as revolutionary as you might have hoped, but it is revolutionary.

Second of all, in almost every map there are chains of events that do what you are saying/asking. Maybe not all events, and maybe not with the rewards you would hope but still.

Kessex hills has e.g. the centaur war. Here you have multiple key locations you have to guard caravans to and conquer outposts. If you hold all key locations a special merchant appears. This is beside drops the first place in the game where you can buy fine (blue) weapons. This fails however cause they are much easier and cheaper to craft or buy on the TP and by the time you get to those events you are level enough for green weapons.

Also look at the balthasar event. You have to support three separate invasion forces. Leading supplies, bombs and troups through the entire map, conquer and defend key locations till you reach the final rally point. If one or more of your invasion forces have arrived you can start your final assualt. If this succeed you get access to the highly exclusive temple armor vendor.

There are events that are just bout guard the caravan and clear the camp, but there are also many different ones. My favourite is the white lady in sheamore cemetery. It’s a bit unknown single event, but just go to the cemetery at night and find the white lady.

It’s all about how people get their fun. If you define fun as “getting X,” you will spend your time trying to get X. If that takes “too long,” the game feels grindy. If you define fun differently, then the game may work better for you than it does those who want (whatever) ASAP.

As mercury points out, there are some very involved event series in different zones. As much as the pre-launch hype may have generated the expectation that the events would not ever be “the same,” that doesn’t work in an MMO. Someone who logs on a half hour later wants stuff to do also. The level of programming complexity needed to create a truly dynamic MMO is well beyond what is currently possible within the scope of what is cost effective.

In a truly dynamic world, at some point the centaurs would become extinct. Zhaitan’s death would mean the end of the Risen (or maybe not). The Inquest would be expunged. The Sons of Svanir would be eliminated. All of these happenstances would ruin the personal story for those who come to the game late.

I was as excited by the pre-launch hype as anyone, but I was skeptical that there would be no repetition. Now, maybe the rate at which events recycle might be more extended, but even that is going to bother some players — just look at the reaction to the extended timers at Pen-Shelt-Jofast.

mercury ranique.2170:

The first point is that GW2 is doing a lot better on this point then gw1 and any other mmo around. So it might be not as revolutionary as you might have hoped, but it is revolutionary.

I don’t see any real difference between GW2 and other games’ dynamic events. It’s also arguable as to whether dynamic events are actually better than traditional quest systems. In GW1 you built up HQs that were permanently affected by your progress and gameplay choices, not possible if your choices are limited by others helping or not helping against your will. It’s opinion in either case, but you are stating it as fact and using unsubstantiated cliches like “revolutionary” as though they mean something.

Second of all, in almost every map there are chains of events that do what you are saying/asking. Maybe not all events, and maybe not with the rewards you would hope but still.

And in each case, the event chain restarts regardless of what you did last time, and in those big group event chains it’s often the case that success or failure depends entirely on how many people happen to be there when it starts. This is not gameplay, it’s just statistics. The only reason Balthazar is “exclusive” is that most people don’t think it’s worth grinding through it with a group just to get exotics with the same skin as other temple vendors. Strange word choice there, I think “undesirable” is more accurate.

From what I’ve seen, meta events don’t just restart regardless of what was done prior. They commonly have a “hold the line” event sometime after a point is captured. Because most, if not all, of the players have moved on by then and the npcs couldn’t punch their way out of a wet paper bag, the point is lost and then the meta event chain resets. That is the dynamic world the devs promised and they have done a reasonable job delivering. Granted there are huge problems with how the system presently works but the original concept is there.

And if you think most people do Balthazar for the skins, which you even stated they can get elsewhere, then you are sorely mistaken. It’s done for the stats those skins carry and it’s the only vendor that sells obsidian shards for karma.

Aeri.5738:

1:30 to 2:00 states that the devs wanted no grind and meaningfull events where “the boss” doesn’t respawn every 5 minutes.

Victims of The Hype [HYPE] is recruiting! Wait, wrong thread.
But yeah. Shameless profitable hype. Join the suckers.

Aeri.5738:

1:30 to 2:00 states that the devs wanted no grind and meaningfull events where “the boss” doesn’t respawn every 5 minutes.
[…]
Don’T get me wrong, it’s a great game. But these 2 things really bother me: grinding 24/7 and events having no emotional impact or any other connection to the player.

This is a huge issue for me as well.
I know, it’s an MMO, not a single player game. I know, the idea is to give everyone the chance to play an event and not be unaware of it because it didn’t spawn when one was around.

But the event respawns are out of hand. Queensdale map chat: “Troll up”, “Oak up”, “Troll up”, “Oak up”, “Troll up”, “Oak up” in a matter of 30 minutes or so.
I have been guesting with a guildie on a medium population server, we killed a champion shark in Timberline Falls, it took us maybe 2 minutes.
I went to sell some junk, took me maybe a whole minute, the shark respawned. Why do champions respawn faster than it takes to kill them? For no reward anyway, for that matter.

Personally, I find the Dynamic Events as they are now lacking, for two reasons:

1.) They don’t scale well

And by that I don’t solely mean scale with the amount of players around, though that is just as debatable; why do I need to turn in 10 pieces of item X when I’m alone, but when a second player joins suddenly we need 35, with a third one we’re at 50-60, while the time for the item / NPC that drops the item does not decrease? It drags the event on for much longer than before, so that I’m more inclinded to just finish it myself than tell anyone else about it and wait for them. OR to turn in one or two items and then leave it.

More importantly, the bigger and tougher and more importantly much longer events don’t give more rewards. Sometimes event chains don’t even give the event reward because the stage doesn’t count as an extra one. I think it is on Fireheart Rise where there is an event chain to assault a Flame Legion Base and rescue a Pact member. I did that chain from the beginning to the end, and I think it took me about 30 minutes, give or take. The reward was three event participations and the dead NPCs along the way. But I had to wait for NPCs and on key locations for the next stage to be triggered. So I might just as well go and do other random stuff.
Same goes for World Bosses. Claw of Jormag takes so long compared to others, people don’t even bother to join the fight earlier than 15 minutes in or even at all. The Shatterer and Tequatl die in 3-5 minutes (on Underworld at least), and give the same rewards.
Temple of Lyssa – the priestess scales so harshly, it’s not even funny anymore. Why bother fighting her for 30-40 minutes, with the chance of the event failing along the way as well, when the reward is just the same as for every other world boss (save the Karma armor)?

But hold, you might say, the events are just a way of telling the story of the map / world we’re in!
That’s certainly true. And I like that a lot, too. I love it, in fact. I love going into an area, finding an NPC in disarray and help them, unlock the next event and continue to help them push against enemies and the likes to have them liberate an area or free friends and whatnot.
But that’s my second complaint.

2.) They are way too quick in respawns / feel disconnected from the world

And this is a huge problem, if you think of them as telling the story. Why on earth would I bother with a long event chain to defeat a (seemingly) ancient foe of a faction or finally make the last push to a battle when the event chain resets about 5 minutes later?
“Thank you, [insert hero name here]! Without you, we could have never done this! Now excuse me while we lose our settlement in the next minute to be able to do all this again.”
I get that the events need to reset at some point, but it’s so fast it feels incredibly pointless to do any except for the quick XP grab.
Not to mention that most maps are dead. Seriously, I’m playing on a supposedly Very High population server. But on maps other than the 1-15 starter areas, Orr and the maps on which there are currently world events going on people swarm with the help of timers on homepages, it feels so lonely. The maps from 30-70 in particular. You run around the map and see events half done for hours, unless you decide to finish them. Or you just did them and they pop right back up, as if nothing happened.

So, in essence, events feel like a quick XP / money grab OR aren’t worth the effort due to lack of rewards in both gold/loot/xp and emotional investment/sense of accomplishment/story telling. And the latter is especially true for Orr, in my opinion.

When I started playing this game on release, I remember Queensdale. There were events, but not all the time and everywhere. I remember doing the Skritt event chain at the Lumber Mill and thinking “Wow, this is so awesome that we first stop the Skritt and then retaliate!”, it felt like I was part of the world and actually helping. And when the cave collapsed, it stayed like that for a good 40 minutes or so. Now you do an event, you sort out your inventory, and you can do it right again.

Sorry for this extremely long (double) post, I wanted to make a topic just for this but I felt this one already adresses it somehow. Not that it won’t drown in unimportance soon anyway.