Guild Wars 2

IMO, an example of a very good DE is the defense of the Vidius Castrum base, after you’ve taken it from the Charr shaman (also a great DE). I did this event with about 10 people. Taking into the account of the spread in population, here are the reasons why this is a very successful DE (in terms of fun):

1) The event objectives are somewhat challenging because they are easy to fail. If two effigies reach the objective, you fail the event. Players not only need to defeat enemies, but they also need to be wary of them reaching a prescribed location. This puts into play the necessity of focus firing and slowing down enemies, two things that are often lacking in the ‘defend X waves’ events.

2) Difficulty is furthered by the effigies’ flame aura. The constant application of burning puts players on edge; the damage is significant and they cannot easily get out of combat status to regenerate health. Moving away from the effigies is potentially harmful to the success of the event.

3) Geographically this event is set out very well. Effigies approach from two opposite ends of the base. In my run of the event, the group of players defending the other side failed to do so, and it took my group a while to realize several effigies were approaching the objective right behind us! This also has a good effect of being slightly anti-zerg, which is always good!

4) It has suitable environmental weapons that were contextually relevant. The cannon turret is very fun to use. The barricades are located in a bit of a useless manner, but the idea was there.

So yes, despite my general negativity when it comes to issues of lack of challenge in these forums, I’d like to thank the dev team who worked on this dynamic event. In terms of fun, it is definitely up in my top 10.