Guild Wars 2

I am a Norn and have been questing the Norn zones (Gates of Madness), which moved me into Maelstrom’s Bile eventually which is where I am now. Now I have been playing solo most of the game since most everyone in my guild took a full week off and got to level together in groups.

My question why is it I hardly ever seen dynamic events? I’m lucky if I see 2, in 3 or 4 hours. I see no way of triggering them by myself when there is nothing there to get one started first, such as a collection quest. I have found it so very very tedious to level in this game. It is one of the most unpleasant leveling experiences I have ever had in any game. I am level 63 now, it has been this way for over 30 lvls. Level 4o-45’s centar dynamic events was the only exception to this.

Solo quest is what I get to look forward to, and they are far and few spread apart level wise. When I first stared the game there was dynamic events going all over, sometimes I would see 3 going at the same time in the first week. Now it’s a Dynamic Event wasteland. For some reason It seems to me there were more where there were lots of players. Grinding heart quest, and spending hours killing single mobs is not my idea of fun.

Dynamic Events are fun …. When they actually happen.

This was also my problem leveling up, which led me to rush through the hearts to get enough xp to get to 80 so I could be where other people are. And now that I am 80 I really don’t enjoy Orr but the sheer amount of undead and their CC skills and my inability to have fun exploring and learning about the world.
Ideally I would have gone through slowly and enjoyed Dynamic events with people but maybe I was in the wrong zones or behind the curve in leveling (At first everyone was together and it was great! but slowly the hardcore players pulled ahead to the end and the rest of us spread out too much)
I remember running through Mount Maelstrom for over an hour..and seeing 2 dynamic events one was a Champion and no one around to kill it. I asked in zone chat but if there’s no chest people don’t want to come because of the waypoint costs to get there doesn’t justify it?
There is one champion Golem who Does drop a chest and when I said in /map chat later that he has a chest about 5 people showed up. Something is wrong when it’s only worthwhile to repeat the events with chests with a chance at getting something rare.

I like to solo or duo with my husband. Yeah it’s an MMO people will always say find someone to group with but for those who play at odd times or need to AFK frequently, talk to npc’s, take screenshots etc without holding anyone back,
this game was something I was really looking forward to how they worked the mechanics with not having to group but still getting to play with people.

The problem now is if you don’t have a group of people running around to different area’s there’s not enough to spawn events and if they do spawn they are too hard to do solo and not rewarding for the time invested compared to zerg events. I would love to see events spawning even with just one person going by, or just by themselves even..and if there’s not enough players? Well spawn more NPC’s! The world should still be happening no matter what.. it’s supposed to feel alive but it felt dead.

And I can’t blame players either for not coming back to the older events because they are just as hard with the exception of maybe 1-15 .. but after that downscaling pretty much makes you just as killable as anyone else, and you aren’t rewarded for your level but you still need to PAY for your level to travel around and repair yourself. It makes no sense but I have faith they are looking into this.. I don’t see how it won’t be fixed but obviously something that’s very challenging to balance so that it’s not just a matter of finding the easiest event in any given zone and zerging it.

Solitaire.3680:

T I would love to see events spawning even with just one person going by, or just by themselves even..and if there’s not enough players? Well spawn more NPC’s! The world should still be happening no matter what.. it’s supposed to feel alive but it felt dead.

And I can’t blame players either for not coming back to the older events because they are just as hard with the exception of maybe 1-15 .. but after that downscaling pretty much makes you just as killable as anyone else, and you aren’t rewarded for your level but you still need to PAY for your level to travel around and repair yourself. It makes no sense but I have faith they are looking into this.. I don’t see how it won’t be fixed but obviously something that’s very challenging to balance so that it’s not just a matter of finding the easiest event in any given zone and zerging it.

These two quote I very much agree with. The world does seem dead to me. This hit the Nail right on the head. Everyone in my guild is up doing WvWvW but the que’s are hour+ long to get into it. Sometimes it takes more than 2 hours to get into WvW.

Thing is you normally can see an event pop a long long ways away. Many times Half a zone away and you will see it on your map. Thing is I’m not seeing any events pop. And just like you said the cost to travel is way to much to justify it when you do see one. I am still trying to get my Grand master manual. I am still a gold away and I just can’t seen spending 2 silver to travel up and down the very same zone I’m in.

I just hit level 50, and am finding that now, after I do an RH, I find myself waiting for what seems like forever, at a DE location, just for other players, so we can begin the event. Because, many of the DEs can be excedingly difficult, in the later stages, as a solo player.

Just a point of reference, Plains of Ashford, the starting zone of the Charr, has 35 DEs, that’s including the latter parts of the events. Where as, Iron Marches, a level 50-60 area, has only 9, that’s also including the latter stages of the events. You read that correctly, only 9!

Perhaps it’s just me, but, something seems off with that picture. Traditionally speaking, MMOs have, in the past, front-loaded content, in order to get their hooks into players, to get them to subscribe. This game, being a pay-up-front, doesn’t need subscribers, however, if they can get their hooks in you, perhaps, you’ll stick around long enough to make use of their “Gem Store”. That’s not a knock, they’re a company, companies need to make money. It’s merely an observation.

^ Yeah I really did have a lot of fun during the BWE when there were a lot of events going on and sometimes a matter of deciding which one to do, or wandering halfway through zones when you hadn’t planned to because you were following a storyline. and then thinking where am I how did I get here? Oh well that was awesome!
I think the higher level zones are beautiful and well-done and have the camps and NPC’s and encounters but there needs to be the same level of events as there are in the newbie zones. The game is based around these events.. hearts really don’t cut it, at all. They were only supposed to be put in as a guiding feature to lead you to major event area’s but in reality sometimes that’s all I end up doing and it’s not remotely epic.

The notification needs to be increased in range, and also some events need to have health upped so people can get to them.

I ran round gendarren fields for 25mins earlier before I found an event to complete my daily.

Couple of times I saw one start, but it was over before I could run to it as the “boss” died in seconds.

they removed a whole 70 zone of hearth events, and over 100 hearth events total too.

ontop of that, they resat some of the events, so if you didnt do zone completeion,… gg do them events again!

Ok, first when you start a char and you finish doing your starting zone, go do other starting zones, charr ones have a lot of close events and event chains. At level 20 you can do chains in kessex hills till level 30 very very fast, if you get bored there are 2 or 3 other 20-30 zones… My point is, don’t play this like other mmos where you went from 1 quest hub to the other, change zones, look in the map zones in your level range or even below that you have not done and do them.

Level scaling is there for a reason, use it. I have never stopped in this game and said “im leveling slow, i don’t see enough events”. Al tho there are some zones with less events than others its really not that bad.

I am taking my 3rd char to level 80, another thing that helps is always gather, exp in the game is % based, gathering a node is about 0.6% exp, its the same exp you get from killing 6 or so mobs, unless the mobs have not been killed recently and you get explorer bonus, which is another good thing to exploit for getting exp, go to places not traveled a lot and kill for huge explorer bonus.

Thematically it makes sense too, the areas with the most dynamic events have the most npc’s in them. Kessex always have something going on cause of the war with the centaurs, the inquest are always up to something over in Metrica, or maybe it’s the reactor, or the Hylek… but there are only a couple small outposts out on the volcano, so there will be relatively less things going on with those outposts.

My personal experience with DE is that it differs allot in area’s. The start area’s 1 – 15 have plenty ’o dynamic events, the 15 – 25 way less. level 25 – 35 is decent i think and 35 – 45 so far has been pretty good imo.

Yeah DE’s need to be happening regardless if anyone is even there.

Then they will all fail and the zone will go to all hell until people come back there to clean stuff up.

there are events on timers..and there are events started by players.

Keep an eye out for NPCs who call you for help…If you talk to them, they will either point you to an active DE, or start one.

I have not had this experience and I’m level 60 on my main, in fact most areas I’ve been in, including the Norn areas, have a lot of event opportunities. Now granted, there have been lighter event oriented areas, meaning maybe there were not as many as others. There are quite a few events that are triggered by talking to an NPC, especially those calling your name and trying to get your attention. I also never go in a straight line, side A to side B, if that makes sense, I’m zig-zagging all over the maps so I get more chances to come across events. Sometimes I will just talk to an event NPC just to get it started for other people and find that THEN people will pay attention when it shows up on the nap, even people who were near the NPC in the first place!

I also am always going to areas that I’ve been to before and always up for doing older events. There are quite a few events you can do solo and for those pesky champions, if no one is around I can always catch it later when there are A) More people on later or I’ll come back in a day or two! Sometimes I’ll hang around the area as well and when I see the champion’s health going down then I know there are people there and I travel to join!

Yayabingyi.2815:

I have not had this experience and I’m level 60 on my main, in fact most areas I’ve been in, including the Norn areas, have a lot of event opportunities.

Same. My Ranger is 71 now and I feel like I spend the majority of my time running from one event to another.

I’ve been playing in Mount Maelstrom today and this is probably the slowest event area I’ve seen yet.

You don’t see Dynamic events very often because it all started with TotalBiscuit’s video. After he said that Dynamic Events restart too quickly, the community agreed with him and pressured Arena Net to raise the timer. Now, Dynamic events don’t spawn much.

If you’re only looking at the orange circles then you’re missing many events. Look for the NPC’s with orange “wheels” above their heads, these can start events if you talk to them. Some NPC’s may run around calling you, they can point you to events. Some events can be started by other means. For example, if you kneel before a certain shrine, a challenge will activate and it’s not a skill point, but a DE. Another example is reviving certain NPC’s that will initiate another event (in Orr for example). It’s not always clearly marked as a possible event. And I like it this way.

Yersterday it took me 40 minutes to find a single event, and i found it by repeativly asking the /map chat. Its random i know but some area’s lack in events. waypoint traveling is way to expencive so going from area to area takes ages.

No offense, but do some research.
There are SO MANY events, every zone is filled to the brim. The reason the low level zones have so many going on, is because there are so many people poking every NPC, stepping in every corner, doing random things in random places.
Most events are NOT on a timer, meaning you have to do something to trigger them. So if the zone is mostly empty since most people are low level, then the events are sparse.

Also, a few events have been bugging out seriously (past two days a pile of the events in Lornar’s Pass were uncompletible).

So if you arn’t seeing alot of events, start poking NPCs, stones, altars, what have you. go find them.
I’ve got a lvl 80 ranger, lvl 43 warrior, and lvl 22 engineer… I have NEVER run out of things to do. There are still zones I haven’t completely explored and certainly events I’ve never seen.

I agree that waypoints are a bit expensive at later levels, especially considering how little silver you make… spending 1-4s per teleport is painful. Repairs are even worse, especially when doing dungeons. However I went in to AC earlier today, with 10s, left with 50s, and died probably 2 or 3 dozen times :p repaired at least half as many times. at close to 1s per item repaired (was my warrior).

You said it has been that way for over 30 levels, that would mean your experience changed around Gendarran Fields… I did 100% completion on that zone both in BWE’s and in live, and while there were repeated events there were also events that I saw during one run through and not the other.

If we take the zone south of lion’s arch (bloodtide coast) there are some seriously hilarious dynamic events in that zone, but some do require another event to successfully complete to trigger (please refer to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8Gb6uZzoTE for one of the more hilarious examples)

OP sorry you have had this experience. I have lvl 80 human ranger and lvl 28 norn guardian. I have not had your DE/boss experience. It has been the opposite for me in both cases – so many things going on my head is swimming. Which do I do first? Lol sometimes on my Norn I have just run past because I am trying to complete my personal story.

I also like to solo and am more into the rpg aspects of mmoRPG. Maybe slow down a bit as you travel through the zone. I actually make my characters sleep at night. I think a full cycle is about 30 minutes. Yes, I know that is a long time to wait but I take real life breaks during that time. Usually, within 10-15 minutes some event announcement pops.

Also, I learned early on to go back to an area within the zone. Bam someone runs up to me or a new event that I missed before pops.

I traditionally have avoided fast travel in rpg games. Skyrim taught me it is better to just take the time and walk around the world. If not, you will miss many things – random encounters but also neat spots. I walk a lot in this game. Well, actually in Orr, I have started running, real fast (those risen are too freaking fast).

ill add an “i agree” to this.. i don’t see why any given zone can’t have at least 2-3 events going on at any given time at its various sides.. you know there isn’t enough events when the last part of the daily achievement i manage to complete is always the 5 events.

Ballistic Tomato.3908:

ill add an “i agree” to this.. i don’t see why any given zone can’t have at least 2-3 events going on at any given time at its various sides.. you know there isn’t enough events when the last part of the daily achievement i manage to complete is always the 5 events.

For the record simultaneous events are a thing, they do happen. However, the zone map will not show every event to everybody. Then there are not so obvious event triggers like a shrine which you do an emote at and it spawns an event as a result if the prerequisite is met. There are also seemingly unrelated events that depend on each other failing or succeeding.

Not to even get started on the “everything always succeeds” issue.

I brought up this issue in one of the beta weekends. I was only a DAY before the “mass” of people who started one weekend (I believe it was the third, when they wiped our previous characters), and just that 1 day lag put me significantly behind the zerg. When I started, even the LOW LEVEL zone was a ghost town. THere was literally nothing happening in Caledon Forest. I was mostly alone, and maybe saw 1 dynamic event in 2 hours.

I made a post about it. People essentially told me I was “doing it wrong” or there was something wrong with me.

I made an alt a couple days ago and have noticed the same thing. I’m still seeing some dynamic events but NOTHING even to close to what it was on my main when I was leveling with the “Group”. They have, in the past, denied that dynamic events occur more often when more people are around, but my experience suggests otherwise.

I play a norn level 72 (gates of madness) , I run solo most of the time, and I am having no problem finding DE. However many DE have been broken in the hiigher area which is frustrating.

On the other hand.

This morning I played my Sylvari for 1 hour and did 6 DE just trying to get to my next story location.; let see there was an escort, protect some Sylvari from slavers, rescue them, Spit on creature to turn them back to Sylvari, kill the witch that cursed those Sylvari, and kill some risen that where attacking some Sylvari.

So sometime I feel there is an issue but time like this morning everything felt fine. Could it be that DEs are just breaking and a server reset or patch may fix it?

Nepocrates that could be. I’m not having a problem finding events, I think some people need to pay attention more, but one problem I have seen are events breaking (especially escort events). Usually, in my experience, an event is in a series of events, so if it breaks then you are knocking out two or three other events. So, for example when I was in a Norn area I saw an escort quest bugged, which I knew knocked out two other events that came afterwards. Then later I found a “wave” event (where you defeat waves of mobs) broken so that knocked out, I think two other events. So that is four events that are not happening, so I do believe that is a big concern and others have reported it. I think there is even a discussion going on about it in the Game Bugs section.

There are glitched out events everywhere, but saying that I’ve had no issues at all finding events, even in the glitched out areas. Most of the time I think people are not paying attention to things around them. They expect a big orange circle to pop up and they don’t interact with NPCs, which I do all the time. I’ve seen that actually where people were ignoring the NPCs with big orange slices over their heads and I went up, started the event, and voila suddenly people are grouping around the guy when it pops up on the map!

Saying that, lets say on a server there are a lot of glitched out events, well I can see that effecting some players who are saying they can’t find events. It is a possibility. But then again you can just travel to other areas and I do, I travel all over, so most of the time I am thankful for a little peace and quiet of the lighter event areas.

Nepocrates.3642:

So sometime I feel there is an issue but time like this morning everything felt fine. Could it be that DEs are just breaking and a server reset or patch may fix it?

There are plenty of broken events, which of course will stall any events tied to that broken event, for sure but it is not just that… there are events that only run during certain time of the in-game day and night cycle for example, just to add one to what I already mentioned above.

Why post to specifically add this… I recall from pre-release discussion that there was an event that was added to the game and then month later someone in the company asked if it was just recently added to the game, turns out they just hadn’t encountered it because it only ran in that zone and only at night.

The point is, it is also possible that you get unlucky. Although it is certainly possible that being in a sparsely populated zone affects the amount of events you see, because an individual event takes longer to complete and even direct follow up events may have minute or more of a gap between them when the NPC’s run to stage their discussions or whatever, or they may have to run a relatively long distance. But on the contrary in a zone brimming with people you only ever see events in their ultimate states of success, which means that potentially you could also see a greater variety of events in a more sparsely populated zone.

Rewards are handed out whether event succeeds or fails, so if you think you can’t make an event complete successfully alone just hop in anyways you get credit for it and will still see the potential failure follow up regardless. Also some events do have partial success states.

For example an event where bandits are trying to blow some pipes up not letting them blow every one, but only some, of those pipes will give the event succeeded message, but still you might get a follow up to repair what was blown up… if they managed to blow up everything and the event failed the follow up might be different (this example is from Queensdale, but no doubt similar conditions are used in other events as well).

@Crise

Good info there thanks

I’m in the Chaar lvl 50-60 zone and its completely dead. None of the DEs work because theres not enough people around, I’ll assume since whenever one pops, the NPCs just sit there and stare at each other. I thought everything was supposed to scale? ON a bigger note, how can zones be dead only a few weeks after release? Its crazy. Hello, its prime time, 8-11pm. The place should be loaded. I’ll bring up WOW since it was my last enjoyable experience in a MMO, but I don’t think it was possible to be anywhere in WOW within the first 5-6 months and be alone, ever. There were people everywhere. And GW2 is certainly no larger.

I know, group with your guild. But mostly everyone is 80 already and have little interest in tagging along while I level up, especially when I have to log off to talk with the wife, ect. Seems rather odd for a new MMO to have zones completely empty. I don’t get it.

I’ve had trouble trying to level to 25 with my last character. There are few people around and no events popping up. Once in a while an escort event happens. I’ve done hearts in three 15-25 zones to get to 25.

This is in contrast to the first two characters I took to 25. Plenty of people around, events all over the place, fun experience. I have 5 characters I have been leveling. I’ll play one for a few levels and try out another one. To get a feel for the ones I like, etc. I was hoping the fast travel system would bring more people to an area. You know, moving people around to populate an area.

I would like to see more experience earned for doing hearts, enough to get to the max level in that zone. Less experience for doing DE’s. Right now you have to do them to level, but if they don’t pop up… then what? I’ve been fast traveling around on the map trying to find something to do but that gets expensive.

For me DE’s = fun. Doing hearts = not so much fun… go kill a bunch of wolves and the heart lights up.

Hopefully they will be able to do something to bring more people together in a single area so DE’s spawn.

I’ve noticed a lack of dynamic events as I move into higher level areas.

Timberline Falls has to be my least favourite area because of this……and really I would say it’s because more than half of the events I came across were bugged and didn’t do anything.

I know this is something they’ll eventually fix but it made for a very unenjoyable journey through the map.

Not really so worried about levelling since I’m at level 75 right now.

Adam Baum.6170:

I’ve had trouble trying to level to 25 with my last character. There are few people around and no events popping up. Once in a while an escort event happens. I’ve done hearts in three 15-25 zones to get to 25.

This is in contrast to the first two characters I took to 25. Plenty of people around, events all over the place, fun experience. I have 5 characters I have been leveling. I’ll play one for a few levels and try out another one. To get a feel for the ones I like, etc. I was hoping the fast travel system would bring more people to an area. You know, moving people around to populate an area.

I would like to see more experience earned for doing hearts, enough to get to the max level in that zone. Less experience for doing DE’s. Right now you have to do them to level, but if they don’t pop up… then what? I’ve been fast traveling around on the map trying to find something to do but that gets expensive.

For me DE’s = fun. Doing hearts = not so much fun… go kill a bunch of wolves and the heart lights up.

Hopefully they will be able to do something to bring more people together in a single area so DE’s spawn.

They probably will not increase the xp from the hearts because it caters to the shoppinglist mentality. Hearts were added as a mechanic to mark areas with most DE activity, whether that is working as intended I don’t know but that is the design.

With the large amount of stalling events no doubt there will be problems, but getting around them does not fix them. DE’s are supposed to be the core content of the game and personally I’d prefer they fix the problems with events rather than make them the optional content.

I also find that favouring walking over waypoints usually leads to better rewards than gunning for dynamic events in different areas by fast travel.

I’ve been L80 for maybe 10 days now. I have recently started exploring the different maps once again in order to get the 100% achievements. Compared to what it was like when I was leveling I can confirm that all zones are already starting to look rather empty. Like you said I was surprised to see that there are now so few DE’s. While I was looking for some vista or POI I even completed several of those DE’s alone , which is doable with a L80 warrior, because there was no one else around.

I have a couple of characters in the 50-60s and I’ve been struggling to find enough DEs or ones that actually trigger. It’s not all about a lack but some are broken. Some of these are escort quests that don’t get moving at all (and it’s not due to dead NPCs, they are alive). Some are marked on the map but the waves of enemies never start attacking.

I’ve been busy filling out bug reports, but I wonder if some are not triggering due to lack of population. If that is part of the game design there’s a risk of ending up with a situation like Rift where depopulated areas/worlds were dull because few world events would trigger. I would rather fail an event because of too few players than not have it happen at all. That said, in earlier areas I have managed to complete some events alone or with just one or two others though through careful picking off of enemies, and it was more satisfying than one big zerg.

Don’t worry, now that they added heavy diminishing returns to DEs you wont be getting ANY exp/karma/coins from them anyways.

i think they fixed a lot of the bugged DE’s in last night’s patch. as for my experience, im getting lots of DE’s in all the lowbie areas, lvl 35 right now in Lornar’s Pass. so far, im having the most fun here! DE’s are everywhere, theyre different, and the story is intriguing. if every zone was like Lornar’s Pass, i wouldnt complain

I have to agree with the op of this thread.

I seem to enter a new zone, run around doing the hearts, get like 2 levels, see maybe 2-3 events and then just see nothing else for the next half hour or so. It’s not fun running around like a headless chicken trying to find events all over a zone just so you can progress. Events are far too rare and too hard to find at times. Since they are so important to the leveling they need to happen more often or be more obvious when they’re ongoing.

Maybe Arenanet balanced the game around huge population numbers and now that the lower level zones are emptying out the dynamic event leveling is breaking?

hmm, this is interesting. I started playing during head start I got my Human Guardian to 80, it didn’t take long as I just followed hearts and events.

My friend started last week, human ranger. He kept saying how there weren’t any events which lead him to be majorly under level and get bored.

I thought it was odd and I rolled a human thief. I now see what he was talking about. A mere 3 weeks ago Queensdale was a hot bed of events now it’s just…pretty dead. No events and next to no one around to do them. Oddly enough one of the few events that actually did spawn was bugged for the past 2 days.

I enjoyed the 1-70 experience and well..Orr..just…Orr.. Now even the leveling experience has become bland.

I hope Arenanet looks into this and fixes the event system now that the zones aren’t packed with people. Leveling is really slow at the moment

I got to level 30 or maybe 40, and most of the rest levels i did in WvW – like 10 a day. Ended up having 80 in like 7-9 days. Not that hard though.

I found a DE in Queensdale that I hadn’t experienced before. I spoke to an NPC in the swamp that had just found a book. The convo set off a DE involving flesh reavers.

I can’t say I have ever been without events to play and I am on Gates as well. If nothing is happening in your area, go to a different area. You can even go to a starting zone and your level and exp scale so I don’t see the issue.

One thing that I noticed though, The norn zones are rather huge and can be very desolate looking. This really adds to the feeling of nothing happening. It looks like you can see for miles and there is just nothing there. I don’t get this feeling in other areas, specifically the human and Sylvan areas, even in midgame. It feels like I am always running into a caravan or being trampled by a herd of centaurs.

Bottom line. If it feels empty, try a different zone or a dungeon. I’ve had zero problem leveling to 80 with no downtime. Sometimes I even feel like I am outleveling the area I am playing in.

Few dynamic events?? OP, are you playing on a low pop server?

I almost feel like there are too many events. They constantly cycle the same events over and over. The player really never gets a sense of achievement when – 5 min later – the event starts again.

Disagree. Leveled a character to 80 during the last week and the zones were full of people and had a lot of events. Leveling a guardian now, starter zone has players everywhere and many events. I did the stampeding minotaur event 3 times while leveling to 5.