Guild Wars 2

Apologists for “hard content” came out of the woodwork with Tequatl, but now that things have settled down we pretty much have the following facts:

1. Tequatl spawns about 10-12 times per day, but is really only being done once. (After reset). Scarlet doesn’t seem to be done even once per day on my server, we just get a few farmers hoping they make it to Aetherblades (and they rarely do..)

2. Both Tequatl and Scarlet seem to currently require, at least, a full soft-capped zone…if not MORE than that via group invite ‘flex’ room. To put it simply, the scaling of these events is horrible or non-existent.

3. Both events are subject to intentional or unintentional sabotage…whether its turret operators in Tequatl or groups of people uninterested in progress on Scarlet (and who can blame them on Scarlet given the current rewards…).

I am a big supporter of you fixing world events and making them more fun and challenging, but my point is this: If this is the best you can do, please leave the rest of them alone. I mean, a fix to the obvious scaling problems should have come by now…seriously.

1. Would you prefer to go the Megadestroyer route? He’s not a super hard boss, and he doesn’t spawn regularly because of his pre-events, but he’s also one of the less-frequently done world bosses, for exactly those reasons. See also: Karka Queen.

I’d comment on 2 and 3, but I’m exhausted on discussing those particular topics, so I’ll just stick to 1.

One would hope that Anet will look at the numbers for these events and decide on more scalable content in the future.

Redenaz.8631:

1. Would you prefer to go the Megadestroyer route? He’s not a super hard boss, and he doesn’t spawn regularly because of his pre-events, but he’s also one of the less-frequently done world bosses, for exactly those reasons. See also: Karka Queen.

I’d comment on 2 and 3, but I’m exhausted on discussing those particular topics, so I’ll just stick to 1.

I would prefer a system of long event chains that are announced in the UI (like Scarlet and Tequatl were during their events) and once they’ve gone past the initial trigger events and have the rewards spread out along the ENTIRE chain.. and that people showing up at the last minute get little to no rewards. This concept of an event chain and contribution across steps probably doesn’t exist in the game at this time, though.

Many events sort of meet this requirement now, which is why you see Modniir Ulgoth done regularly but Megadestroyer barely done at all. The rewards vs difficulty for the megadestroyer chain pieces and navigating that area is just not up to most peoples standards.

This is sort of a tangent though, the point was more that currently the design is that this will be attempted many times per day for players of all time zones, but that’s not happening. It’s clearly just too difficult for a world event that you want people to attempt 12 times per day…. it’s no longer a debate it is just a fact based on evidence.

I maintain that the issue if the use of failure timers.

Over at Rift, you have something very similar to the Scarlet invasions. But there the failure of such a event is based on the lack of defense, not a lack of offense.

This by having nearby settlements and such have objects that the mobs try to destroy. This at the same time as the players are trying to achieve the events goals, so that the big bad spawns.

Basically, the failure or not is entirely up to the ability of the players to balance offense and defense. Not some arbitrary timer that makes the mobs go “ok, lets break for tea”.

Hmm, I killed Tequatl three times yesterday. Once just before the reset and twice afterwards.

I agree that it is not a good design that turrent operators are depended upon so heavily for the success or failure of the event.

I think your experience is atypical or you are going to great lengths to make that happen.

Consider that it’s only going to get worse at this point, not better. Novelty wears off, waiting an hour or more in the zone to avoid overflow is not really worthwhile once you’ve done it a couple times. (You are likely to get more better loot just doing the easier world events).

digiowl.9620:

I maintain that the issue if the use of failure timers.

Over at Rift, you have something very similar to the Scarlet invasions. But there the failure of such a event is based on the lack of defense, not a lack of offense.

This by having nearby settlements and such have objects that the mobs try to destroy. This at the same time as the players are trying to achieve the events goals, so that the big bad spawns.

Basically, the failure or not is entirely up to the ability of the players to balance offense and defense. Not some arbitrary timer that makes the mobs go “ok, lets break for tea”.

Offense/defense seems to be present in the Teq event. Of course, it’s not in the invasions — which seem like a hastily done copy of Rift’s without mob pathing and objectives.

ElenaDragon.8401:

Hmm, I killed Tequatl three times yesterday. Once just before the reset and twice afterwards.

What’s not being said here? “I’m in a dedicated Teq killer guild?” I’m on a high pop server that can muster enough to do Teq 3x in a row during prime time?" ANet may be fine with only a few servers/guilds doing this content regularly. Heck, I’m fine with it. I just wouldn’t want to see all the dragon events work this way.

Yes I joined a Teq guild during the first week. My server has never killed Teq. The guild is cross server and has now spanned to six guilds (the first five are full). People are still doing this event many times a night, just not on their servers. The design may not have been the greatest for scaling on lower pop servers, but it still stands that people are doing the event.

Joining a guild is not exactly hard, so I wouldn’t say I went to great lengths to do it. The fact that the guilds are still growing (we filled five overflows last night) means that many people are still doing the event.

ElenaDragon.8401:

Yes I joined a Teq guild during the first week. My server has never killed Teq. The guild is cross server and has now spanned to six guilds (the first five are full). People are still doing this event many times a night, just not on their servers. The design may not have been the greatest for scaling on lower pop servers, but it still stands that people are doing the event.

Joining a guild is not exactly hard, so I wouldn’t say I went to great lengths to do it. The fact that the guilds are still growing (we filled five overflows last night) means that many people are still doing the event.

I’m glad that there are people doing it. I’m glad the content is being utilized and maybe even enjoyed for its own sake. Still, 5 overflows? I’ve not seen any hard numbers on zone caps, but let’s be generous and say 200 people doing Teq in each of those five overflows. 1000 people is a drop in a bucket compared to the most recently quoted concurrency number (460,000+), never mind the total player base. Now, there are undoubtedly some other anti-Teq efforts elsewhere, but how many?

That’s five overflows for one kill. I killed him three times last night, and there were people coming and going, so it is even more people than you are estimated. And that was on a Tuesday night… it’s even more people on a Friday or Saturday. I know there are at least a few servers who still do it every night as well, and probably some other organized groups (there are Tequatl guilds on European servers, for example).

I believe it is meant to be an event you have to organize to complete, and I think that if they can tweak it such that lower population servers would have a better chance to beat him, it would be an improvement. However, the fact is, a lot of people are still doing this event daily.

Doubtless it seems like a lot. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to take this event away from you. However, if the number doing it were 10x what I guesstimated, that would be just a bit over 2% of the high concurrency number. 20x would be ~4.34%. 50x would be under 11%. I’m not going to argue that those who want mega numbers organized content don’t deserve to have some. I might argue that making the other dragon events doable only on a few servers or by a few guilds would not be a good idea.

While I’d like Shatterer and the Claw of Jormag to get updated, I’d prefer them to stick closer to a slightly more involved version of the Claw in difficulty and organization than to new Tequatl. Shatterer is a cakewalk, but the Claw has the start of some interesting mechanics.

Much as I like the experience of the new Tequatl, it comes down to the fact that I can’t imagine doing Tequatl, Crystal Tequatl, and Ice Tequatl all in one day, especially if they’re on separate timers. Tequatl is hard enough without two other equally-difficult events splitting the interested population between them.

I’d like to know why SAB & Molten is still temporary stuff

…while this Zerg DPS check crap got made permanent…

IndigoSundown.5419:

digiowl.9620:

I maintain that the issue if the use of failure timers.

Over at Rift, you have something very similar to the Scarlet invasions. But there the failure of such a event is based on the lack of defense, not a lack of offense.

This by having nearby settlements and such have objects that the mobs try to destroy. This at the same time as the players are trying to achieve the events goals, so that the big bad spawns.

Basically, the failure or not is entirely up to the ability of the players to balance offense and defense. Not some arbitrary timer that makes the mobs go “ok, lets break for tea”.

Offense/defense seems to be present in the Teq event.

Yes, but the timer makes it a DPS race more than anything else. Remove the timer, and let the failure or not hinge on people properly defending some non-reparable object (big cannon?).

I’d like it if they made all of the dragons just like zhaitan.

It’s sort of disappointing there’s been nothing, especially on Tequatl. We’re getting new dungeon paths but no response to the murder of one of the ‘big events’.

I suppose there could be a valid reason but it feels like content is being just being churned out every two weeks without any care afterwards.