Guild Wars 2

All I can say is I 100% agree.

Instead of spawning more NPC’s, spawn more NPC’s they do different things. For centuars, all I have seen is melee and ranger, thats it.

Yeah, the OP is actually a great idea. In some of these bigger situations, I go to start attacking an enemy and it’s already dead because 10 Elementalists are raining fire and brimstone on everything. So, I end up doing far less helping than I could. Makes it seem a bit pointless, sometimes.

I would love to see this implemented, I would love to see a more tactical approach towards events, would make for some more exciting gameplay.

This is an outstanding idea, and so I stand behind it all the way.

Perhaps after they get everything working as in we will see things like this in the future. A-net is very community driven, they do listen to us, enough people backing an idea like this they will certainly take notice.

Great idee! Can only agree with it. It will make battle’s more alive

Agreed!. Think they still need to fix the AI for those monster as well

You notice this a lot if you’re doing Cathedral of Flames (there’s a defend event that has to be done)

With a small group its very challenging and interesting (you have to defend 2 sides, one of which has a champion spawn on it. Meaning parties of 5 have to split properly, and 3 or so people are fighting a boss fight)

with large groups of 20+ people it’s just silly. Instead of 4 charr per wave, we get 30, but they all still get hit by AOE’s and just explode. And the champion monster which used to be dangerous is now laughable. Anyone who goes down can be instantly brought back while the other 8 people standing there distract the boss.

Yes, justw throwing more weak enemies into the aoe is not effective. Also, get mobs to stop clustering up, they folow predictable paths and group up so stacked aoe just mows them down, spread them out, and also force us to spread out by usIng hard hitting aoe,

Asura fire elemental boss is a great example of how events should be.

A good idea if you ask me, I support it and hope Anet have something like this in mind for the furture.

I agree with anything that gives the mobs a sense of wits. Right now many a time have I thought how stupidly the opposition acts. Great ideas from OP.

I like the idea, but it has a minor downside which some might complain about:
It feels less epic with fewer people if you don’t get the champion and so on.

I don’t agree with that statement, but it might happen, that someone claims it.

I’d also like less predictable events, where mobs come randomly from different sides, spread out and immune. They have to drop immunity randomly tho, otherwise they would just get AoE’d at the spot where they are known to be vulnerable.

Overall I like your approach, +1 to you

I hope rewards will correspondingly increase if this is ever implemented. Some of the events are hard enough as it is and some events still have loads of mobs even if you try soloing it (like that inquest underwater event in the level 50 pirate zone). Some mobs have three second knockdowns, this means you can’t do a thing for three seconds. If you’re an elementalist it’s insta-death unless your mist form activates (takes too long so don’t bet on it) and you can mist towards the water (and even then hope no water mobs are present or whatever’s chasing you can’t swim).

And people use AoEs, so what? The entire point of AoE is to take out large groups of things (or plant down DoT AoEs like radiation field when you know you’re going to be downed soon so their HP ticks down faster while they stand in radiation and the lava field you talented). Besides, meteor storm has unreliable damage as the meteors randomly strike within a certain radius, it isn’t like each meteor causes damage to everything in the circle.

Yes I would like to see something similar to what the OP posted.

Some tactics would be great, so that it feels like a battle and not just a AOE fight.

Couldn’t agree more. Especially the AOE part is important. Big bosses, that only do damage to one target at a time can be zerged so easily.

Totally agree with the idea!
And to the concerns DEs getting boring without champions or so, I think the idea is to have a veteran (champion) in every wave of NPCs.
And to AOEs: Wasn’t the idea that AOEs only hit 5 targets max? Got that on mind but don’t know where it’s from

Shriketalon.1937:

One of the original premises of the Dynamic Event system was the way they would scale to the number of people. However, in practice this isn’t working, since the game isn’t accounting for the way fighting twenty people is completely different from fighting two. Rather than altering the event, DEs are just throwing more enemies at the players or increasing the boss’s stats Instead of just scaling the numbers, events need to start treating larger groups differently than smaller teams.

To phrase that better, right now an event goes like this…
Few Players) five centaurs attack per wave
Some Players) eight centaurs attack per wave
Lots of Players) twelve centaurs attack per wave
Horde of Players) eighteen centaurs attack per wave
Convention of Players) twenty-five centaurs attack per wave

….This doesn’t work. It just means that players start throwing down nuclear strikes on the centaurs to chew them up the instant they arrive. Conventional tactics don’t beat the zerg. Instead, the event needs to be clever.

Few Players) centaurs charge them
Some Players) melee centaurs charge them, ranged centaurs fan out and snipe
Lots of Players) melee centaurs, ranged centaurs, and a miniboss shaman with AoE earth magic
Horde of Players) melee centaurs, ranged centaurs, two minibosses, and a catapult
Convention of Players) melee, ranged, three minibosses, two catapults, and a partridge in a pear tree

Siege us. Nuke us. Blast our groups, break our formations, bleed our lines. Make players split up to take down multiple objectives in a massive fight, and force teamwork by giving the opposition their own strategic cohesion. The zerg won’t be defeated by more zerging by the NPCs. The zerg will be broken when the opposition steps up its game, and forces players to do the same.

The result will be better for everyone. It will teach proper tactics, encourage situational awareness, and require cooperation. It will make players feel special even in a mob of players (lead the charge to take down the left trebuchet, and you’ll feel like you saved a hundred lives), and make us actually respect the opposition. And most of all, it will make a massive battle feel like a proper war, rather than just a farming run.

I’ve been saying post after post after post that GW2 needs more depth and complexity. This is a step in the right direction. Hell, make it even more complex. Make the each fighting line (melee, ranged, catapults, mini bosses) with a few more layers to it. For instance – a group of players is dispatched to destroy a catapult that’s raining heavy fire all over the battleground.

Catapults are heavily guarded, but once you finally break through to them and get them to – let’s say 50% HP, another mini boss shows up, casts a defensive barrier on the catapults, and enemy engineers rush to fix the damaged catapults. You must kill the mentioned mini boss as quickly as possible, but it’s not as easy as it sounds because he evades, heals and uses all sorts of CC – slows, knock backs etc.

Was just talking off of top of my head, but yeah, more complexity and depth, PLEASE. I crave for it. Same applies for dungeons, same applies to PvP. I hate simplicity and shallowness in video games. GW2 is better than this, it’s up to ANet to justify our beliefs.

Agemnon.4608:

And people use AoEs, so what? The entire point of AoE is to take out large groups of things (or plant down DoT AoEs like radiation field when you know you’re going to be downed soon so their HP ticks down faster while they stand in radiation and the lava field you talented). Besides, meteor storm has unreliable damage as the meteors randomly strike within a certain radius, it isn’t like each meteor causes damage to everything in the circle.

Make mobs so that they have at least a gram of gray matter with which they can conclude that AoE = bad! So they… Move out of it?! Sounds crazy enough to work, right?

Agree with the topic starter.
It would be great if DEs outscale with the number of players near…

TBH this should be stickied, as it hits the very core of the problem GW2 has. Not only in DEs, but in Dungeons and general questing too.

That is so true and if they take this into consideration, im happy to take on the partridge in a pear tree

One big issue with the current scaling is that mobs follow very VERY predictable waypoint paths and they ALWAYS clump when doing so. It’s no wonder AOE is king.

+1 on this.

Specially since it seems that Anet response to zerging is simply to cut loot… thats not the answer make loot hard to get and people will stop farming the easy “mobs come in a cluster, nuke them, loot, repeat” if the events are “demanding” people wont farm them too long since it will take a long time to get the loot.

“Make players split up to take down multiple objectives in a massive fight,”

would like to emphasize this line. Its the solution. A.net needs to acknowledge this immediately because i am a self proclaimed game design genius and i know its the best solution (at least without being able to coordinate with designers and discussing limitations and budget)

I agree 100%, we want these events more challenging please, like you explained.

well what you propose coult take months..We need hot fixes now.Just let the events scale more and let the mobs get tougher..It would be better to ensure that there is proper scailing first and events work at the basic level and then make them more complex..

Yeah I agree. A main problem with events is that they just become way too easy with one tactic, which is AoE everything to death from ranged or just have everyone stack and kill them so easily. I’d love to see NPCs use abilities more often; is a horde of players doing an Inquest event? Have those Inquest summon D-Golems who effectively block ranged with their shields. Lots of melee characters ganging up on someone? Maybe an Inquest with a Greatsword or Hammer pops a Sanctuary (Guardian) skill and everyone gets pushed out.

I feel the AI can be more complex, which would really serve to be more fun and make players think a little more. Obviously it’s really hard to look at every event and say “Well, we need to make this guy do THIS and THIS if there are 15 players, but once it hits 16 players we throw in THIS guy to rain death on the players!” I mean sure, I’d love every event to be epic and balanced, but that’s just impossible in the short run.

As it stands, there are plenty of events that can be representative of change. Starter area events, well-known ones, ones that are farmed, and Orr events are the main ones that should change ASAP to show the evolution of events. It can’;t just be about numbers; but then you’ll have to test everything, because there’s the danger of “too hard” coming into play. It’s a brittle line, but one worth treading IMO.

^ thats an interesting thought.

They could do a series of ‘if (this happens) {do this}’ statements that react to specific predefined outcomes.

For instance: if (mobwave dies in < 5 seconds) {do something that blocks aoe}

if (no one dies in 20 seconds) { cast aoe enemy wave that increases damage dramatically for a brief time period }

With set ups like this, you can ensure a proper challenge and it looks and feels like enemies are reacting to you.

I wonder what kind of even scripting system the developers have…

I’d love a peek under the hood. Maybe they could expose some of it to us and let us design events for the world. Maybe a monthly contest or something.

Anyway, much better intelligence (artificial or otherwise) would make these events actually dynamic. As it stands, they’re pretty flat.

Raging Bull.5048:

Agemnon.4608:

And people use AoEs, so what? The entire point of AoE is to take out large groups of things (or plant down DoT AoEs like radiation field when you know you’re going to be downed soon so their HP ticks down faster while they stand in radiation and the lava field you talented). Besides, meteor storm has unreliable damage as the meteors randomly strike within a certain radius, it isn’t like each meteor causes damage to everything in the circle.

Make mobs so that they have at least a gram of gray matter with which they can conclude that AoE = bad! So they… Move out of it?! Sounds crazy enough to work, right?

Mobs aren’t players, mobs should stand in the fire because they commit themselves when they’re charging a 3 second knockdown hammer swing or bow move. If mobs split up and pincer the group then it’d blow. For a player to take down a mob they need to press many buttons, most of which are charges that root the player (especially meteor storm and radiation field) whereas mobs simply need to get in melee range if they’re melee and if they’re ranged they aren’t as bad, just lava under where they’re standing and have a shootout with them while dodging after that second and a half they put their bow or gun up.

Maybe some veteran mobs that buff all their nearby allies with retaliation would cut down on the AoE spam a bit.

I agree with this. One of the things that makes GW2 amazing is the dynamics of the events. Stuff like this would make it even better.

OPs suggestions would be nice but are very unrealistic.

For now I’d be content if mob HP simply scaled better with the number of people in the event. Once you reach the critical mass of 10+ players every normal mob dies in a matter of seconds, regardless of their numbers.

So not only do these mobs need to become more resistant, they alone need a few cooler abilities.

I agree with this one

this is a great idea. i would love to see this put into the game

Great idea. Just basically giving the game a little more AI.

The difficult part of this is that there are just so many DEs. You could, in theory, start by simply giving more kiting and movement to enemies, and bringing in more ranged enemies. You could have enemies try to run off with goods in collection quests, too, or have enemies make traps, whatever. It would take a large amount of time to rework dynamic events this way. However, I personally think it would be very, very worth it. Start with the largest, most grandiose events, and work down from there.

Would take some time, but very worth it.

I’m so glad someone see’s this and posted something. I saw this from beta and was dissapointed.

It really makes 90% of DE’s exactly the same.

Even just changing it by buffing mob hp and throwing in veteran/champion mobs w/o more people would be a step in the right direction.

Events seem to be too easy most of the time, though there are some harder ones, too. But usually there is a zerg, and I barely get to hit a mob before all of them are dead.

Other things is that after the first epic starter dragon fight there has not been much epic fights if not at all. It is like a minute of glory, then back to the basics of farming smaller stuff. Some event bosses are tougher, especially skill challenges when you are alone and not high enough level. But mostly it comes to farming hearts and doing an occasional normal event.

Even the first dungeon comes only when you are level 30. Before that there is a lot of normal forests and normal grass lands. I have seen normal forests and normal grass lands a lot before, so it doesn’t feel as epic. Luckily there are also some neat places too for exploring. But especially for levels 25 – 30 there seems to be only one place to go and it is mostly grass, though there is some water etc. too.

kostbabis.8791:

well what you propose coult take months..We need hot fixes now.Just let the events scale more and let the mobs get tougher..It would be better to ensure that there is proper scailing first and events work at the basic level and then make them more complex..

Time would be a significant factor, this is true.

The simplest method might be to start in Orr, and work backwards. Use only a few areas and their event chains to refine the method and perfect the “endgame” open zones, and then gradually sprinkle the design they find best backwards into the lower level zones while adding new content. That way, there isn’t an overwhelming amount of work to do, and the problem is addressed where it’s a more apparent crisis.

I must agree, it would be nice to see the enemies learn. This whole just send 24 mobs at us thing will only last so long before we get bored of it and realize this game for what it really is.

The first thing we need, and what would already fix alot of problems, is giving mobs the ability to realize they are standing in a AoE, and moving out of it.

20 mobs just sitting in 5 Metorshowers at what not, attacking with a silly bow auto attack until they die just isn’t fun, not even if you are one of the Elementalists casting it.

It should be about playing well with situational awarenes, not staying still and cast AoE > all.

Playing a single target melee dps just doesn’t makes any sense in events right now.
Spreading out the mobs (because they want to avoid AoE) would help ALOT, and even give a use to single target and condition dps, since mobs aren’t clutching and nuked down in a second anymore.

If i remember correctly, mobs were dodging AoE’s in GW 1 (i could be wrong here), which sure is annoying at the first look when you are a AoE caster, but eveyrthing else is incredible boring.
If you want enemies to be in AoE’s, you at least should have to work for it (knocking them into them, CC’ing them in them, kiting them into them), and not being a auto win.

I agree 100% with the OP.

The AI in GW2 is reminiscent of games from ten years ago. Just expand numbers, and continue on predicable and scripted paths.

What the OP is suggesting would not only solve the issue, but make this game one of the coolest online experiences I’ve every had.

I’m getting so tired of everyone showing up for events and just winning through sheer numbers that I’ve actually started avoiding them.

Personally, I’d love to personally deal with that partridge in a pear tree.

Dee Jay.2460:

OPs suggestions would be nice but are very unrealistic.

For now I’d be content if mob HP simply scaled better with the number of people in the event. Once you reach the critical mass of 10+ players every normal mob dies in a matter of seconds, regardless of their numbers.

So not only do these mobs need to become more resistant, they alone need a few cooler abilities.

UNREALISTIC?! Why is it unrealistic, would you please explain, I’d love to hear it. If it’s unrealistic for ANet to do so, then they are no match for Blizzard and WoW. They have nothing to look for in the top tier MMORPG market.

Personally, I am tolerating the lacking of any depth in GW2 mechanics because it’s a new game and I’ve waited so long for it. But if this doesn’t get fixed, like, soon – my patience will run out. PvE in general is already so boring I have to MAKE myself play it.

I totally agree!

But here are some comments missing the point…
Increasing health won’t help to fix the problem!

Even if every single mob survives 10 minutes, they are mostly just using single target
attacks, so if there are 10+ players around, there is only a few players that get damage because they have aggro for the moment!
So, with every additional player in an event, there are more players that probably never get any aggro and so no damage at all till the end, making it no-brainers for them…

In the most simple solution, mobs need at least to do more AOE attacks instead of single target stuff, so that all the players have at least to react from time to time, not just those that got the aggro! Sure, beside that they need to live that long that they can challenge the players at least a couple of times with those attacks…

But certainly, my solution is a more simple fix, but your suggestion would be way more fun for all players while increasing the challenge as well!

I would really appreciate if we could get someone from ANet to comment on this. Do they take this as a valid point of view or not? It’s a game-breaking decision, really.

Raging Bull.5048:

Shriketalon.1937:

One of the original premises of the Dynamic Event system was the way they would scale to the number of people. However, in practice this isn’t working, since the game isn’t accounting for the way fighting twenty people is completely different from fighting two. Rather than altering the event, DEs are just throwing more enemies at the players or increasing the boss’s stats Instead of just scaling the numbers, events need to start treating larger groups differently than smaller teams.

To phrase that better, right now an event goes like this…
Few Players) five centaurs attack per wave
Some Players) eight centaurs attack per wave
Lots of Players) twelve centaurs attack per wave
Horde of Players) eighteen centaurs attack per wave
Convention of Players) twenty-five centaurs attack per wave

….This doesn’t work. It just means that players start throwing down nuclear strikes on the centaurs to chew them up the instant they arrive. Conventional tactics don’t beat the zerg. Instead, the event needs to be clever.

Few Players) centaurs charge them
Some Players) melee centaurs charge them, ranged centaurs fan out and snipe
Lots of Players) melee centaurs, ranged centaurs, and a miniboss shaman with AoE earth magic
Horde of Players) melee centaurs, ranged centaurs, two minibosses, and a catapult
Convention of Players) melee, ranged, three minibosses, two catapults, and a partridge in a pear tree

Siege us. Nuke us. Blast our groups, break our formations, bleed our lines. Make players split up to take down multiple objectives in a massive fight, and force teamwork by giving the opposition their own strategic cohesion. The zerg won’t be defeated by more zerging by the NPCs. The zerg will be broken when the opposition steps up its game, and forces players to do the same.

The result will be better for everyone. It will teach proper tactics, encourage situational awareness, and require cooperation. It will make players feel special even in a mob of players (lead the charge to take down the left trebuchet, and you’ll feel like you saved a hundred lives), and make us actually respect the opposition. And most of all, it will make a massive battle feel like a proper war, rather than just a farming run.

I’ve been saying post after post after post that GW2 needs more depth and complexity. This is a step in the right direction. Hell, make it even more complex. Make the each fighting line (melee, ranged, catapults, mini bosses) with a few more layers to it. For instance – a group of players is dispatched to destroy a catapult that’s raining heavy fire all over the battleground.

Catapults are heavily guarded, but once you finally break through to them and get them to – let’s say 50% HP, another mini boss shows up, casts a defensive barrier on the catapults, and enemy engineers rush to fix the damaged catapults. You must kill the mentioned mini boss as quickly as possible, but it’s not as easy as it sounds because he evades, heals and uses all sorts of CC – slows, knock backs etc.

Was just talking off of top of my head, but yeah, more complexity and depth, PLEASE. I crave for it. Same applies for dungeons, same applies to PvP. I hate simplicity and shallowness in video games. GW2 is better than this, it’s up to ANet to justify our beliefs.

Great idea, I do fear that people simply won’t bother though. Why spend so much time doing that when you can just spam your AOE and get loot and get the same reward in the end anyway? There’s a reason people zerg the easy, straight-forward events and avoid the ones that actually require coordination and are different. I mean, no one kills the champion shark in Orr.

If they want to, they can do something like their idea with mobs and experience. As of now, if a mob is alive for awhile, you get bonus experience. I would say doing that with events makes complete sense as well, as it would make people curious as to the scaling (hopefully it’s enough to merit going around doing ANY event). As Psilocin says, no one kills the champion shark for the most part, and it kind of just swims around for hours on end. But imagine…if that event started at 15k exp and somehow ended up at 30k after a long time. The incentive to wait wouldn’t be enough until they figure out at what point the exp goes so high.

One of the problems with the zergs is that…well, there shouldn’t be any events that just cycle and allow you to do them in such a time span. They should be random times. The idea of a 3 hour timer on dragons is kind of dumb. It should be something like…may appear 1-5 hours after he’s killed. As soon as you enter Frostgorge people are always asking when the dragon died, so they know to come back 2 hours and 30-45mins later. When you walk into Orr, people are asking where the zerg is so they can join.

Kinda takes the fun out of it…especially when there are people actually telling others not to “mess up” the zerg’s rotation, and don’t kill stuff without the zerg, as if it were the end of the world if one of their bosses is out of sync.