I could have sworn I read or heard something before the betas started that events will scale with the amount of players participating in them. So far it all seemed to work properly because everyone seemed to be contributing. However this evening I noticed that players that are AFK and just hanging around inside of the Dynamic Event range (standing perfectly still doing nothing) will also scale up the difficulty of events.
I decided I’d go play around in Wayfarer Foothills, as the scenery there is still some of the best in the game (in my opinion), but doing some of the events was an utter nightmare. There were about 4 players motionless & silent inside the Grawl cave, making the “Steal Bags of Grawl Food” event last for way longer than it should have, since no one else was moving much less helping the event progress. There was also another group of players idle during the “Protect Lunt’s Bonfire from Dredge” event, and the sheer amount of Dredge (sporting a level or two above normal) was simply far too much for one person to handle. That’s just 2 of the bunch I came across today.
This can’t be working as intended, as it goes against what they said (assuming I can recall that correctly). This may have been complete coincidence that some groups of players were simultaneously AFK inside some of the more interesting event chains, but what’s to stop a guild from covering a huge section area then alt-tabbing over to their web browser or something(we already know trolls get their jollies off by making someone else get frustrated, this isn’t very different from that)?
Despite being annoyed by this, I’m much more concerned that once people reach a finishing point in the game, some of the bad eggs could potentially do this, which sours the experience for everyone else. So I’m wondering if anyone else is concerned with this, and if this feature of the Dynamic Event system should get looked at again.