Guild Wars 2

I’ve been seeing a lot of comments here and on reddit about how ArenaNet ruined the pavilion and how it was better before, but I haven’t seen a lot of suggestions on how to fix it other than “make it like it was before”. I wanted to throw out my suggestions on how to make this type of content better and more accessible in the future, since zerg splitting content seems to be a theme as of late.

First, I want to say, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the design of the Boss Blitz. The boss strategies are interesting and challenging, require coordination, and overall is a nice change from the mindless zerg fest it used to be. So what’s the problem then? Some would say it is the community’s fault and their unwillingness to coordinate and work together. Well, they would be partly right, but more so it is the lack of features in the game that assist in letting players coordinate on a large scale.

Let’s try an analogy. When the game launched and up until maybe the Tower of Nightmares, we had been riding on tricycles. Then, all of a sudden with events like Triple Trouble, ArenaNet switched out our tricycles for bicycles without us expecting it. This would normally be great, because a bike is way better than a tricycle, but they neglected one crucial step, training wheels. All of a sudden we were expected to coordinate across maps with strangers, but there were no systems in place to teach us how to effectively do that.

So, how can ArenaNet implement systems that allow us better coordinate? Here’s how:

1. Have the event party players together appropriately. Taking the Boss Blitz as an example, what if instead of donating directly to Heal-O-Tron in the middle, he set up a donation machine at each of the six gates? Then, when you donate to that particular station, you are partied up with people who have donated to that same one. Then, when the event starts, you see the overall reward timer, but instead of being shown six boss objectives, you are only shown the one corresponding to the machine you donated to. The event probably shouldn’t start until at least 10 people have donated to each machine so that there are enough players on each boss. Then, when each group gets their boss down, they see the other boss objectives and can take their pick of where to go. Supplying the training wheels then taking them off.

2. Temporary commander tags. There aren’t always commanders available to lead these kind of events. What if you could buy temporary commander tags for an event such as Boss Blitz? Maybe they would be yellow-orange like the living story stars. You could have two options when donating to Heal-O-Tron, the standard donation, or a more expensive donation for the temporary tag. Only one could be purchased per boss.

3. Better rewards. While quantity is a problem here, the bigger problem is how they are dished out. Assuming a group can get gold, the rewards are actually on par with the time it would take to kill 6 champs in a train. The issue is that the way the rewards are being given make people think that ganging up on one and moving on is the fastest way to kill the bosses. This is a complex issue, but here is an idea I had off the top of my head. It may be terrible, but I figure I’ll throw it out there. What if rewards were given not by how quickly you get down the bosses, but by how well you are all working together? There would be four reward tiers – 75%, 50%, 25% and 0%. You would get a reward chest (smarter people than me can decide what is in that chest) for bring all 6 bosses down to 75% before a single boss hits 50%, then repeat that for the other steps. It rewards people for working together, not working faster. If a boss is killed before the rest of them, then the rewards inside the chest decrease.

I should add that I don’t expect any changes to be implemented to fix Boss Blitz. The changes I suggested specifically are a lot of work. Mainly, I’m putting forth suggestions to help with similarly designed events in the future.

I had a few other suggestions that I’ve since forgotten, but maybe I’ll add them in later. What is everyone else’s thoughts? Let’s try to make this thread constructive criticism only.

Fixing it would be easy and doesn’t require anyone to write an essay.

Add Loot. Done.

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

Fixing it would be easy and doesn’t require anyone to write an essay.

Add Loot. Done.

The loot is there. You just need to do the event correctly to EARN it.

Give it a bit of time and those that want to do the event correctly will figure it out and teach others that are willing how to do it properly. Those that just want, “loot added” will go elsewhere.

I do agree that some sort of better explanation of how to do the event properly is needed for those that want to simply ZERG the bosses in succession and then complain that they got horrible rewards.

To be honest they created a catch 22, the zerg became a necessity because of the poor rewards throughout the game. Now they’re trying to change the zerg mentality by making the loot a reward for coordinating and completing content but did so without enhancing the reward to warrant the effort. Besides this is something they should have done long prior to megaserver so the populace could acclimate to the new content type and we wouldn’t have this whole mess of trying to create order out of chaos!

Another point, they won’t ever eliminate the zerg mentality until they change the rewards to make them truly worthwhile. This can’t be accomplished by just nerfing the rewards system altogether because that will kill the zerg but will also drive their other players away in the process.

Brother Grimm.5176:

Give it a bit of time and those that want to do the event correctly will figure it out and teach others that are willing how to do it properly. Those that just want, “loot added” will go elsewhere.

I hope so, but I’m a bit pessimistic about that. Marionette and Triple Trouble are the two biggest examples of zerg splitting we have so far. What you said kind of worked for Marionette, though there were plenty of servers, including my home one at the time, that never adapted and just abandoned ship all together. I’m not sure if mega servers will make the more or less likely. I never saw a single server adapt to Triple Trouble. Guilds, sure, and that’s how I completed it. But as for just a random server completing Triple Trouble without the help of a large guild, I personally never saw it and I did that event a lot.

Brother Grimm.5176:

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

Fixing it would be easy and doesn’t require anyone to write an essay.

Add Loot. Done.

The loot is there. You just need to do the event correctly to EARN it.

People have already stopped playing this event, at least on the megaserver I was just on. Nobody went for the bosses because they already had those achievements. It was just a few players working on the Kill 10 Rats Achievements.

I think I need 2 more cheevos and I will also be done with this No Loot Nonsense.

Better yet instead of a gold sink to start the event have 6 different NPC commanders to lead the fight on each boss.

The event will only start when enough people are standing with each NPC commander (ala Siegeraizer). The NPC commander will guide the group to each boss but not fight (in order to keep success completely on the players).

Teaches the map group how to split properly, doesn’t require a gold sink and keeps the success of killing the boss on the skill of the players in each group.

Better yet, place portals by each of the zones and only allow 10 people to enter each portal. It worked for marionette.

Having the boss health bars present in the event UI would also be helpful. It would make it a lot easier to coordinate kills.

I also, as I mentioned in another thread, do believe that giving the vets loot would assist in getting gold rewards on boss blitz. The problem I see happen when people split initially is, once they kill their boss, they run to another one which scales that one up. If the vets in an area dropped loot, they’d be more likely to stay in that area and kill vets for goodies instead of zerging to another boss and screwing things up.

Coordinated fighting is better suited to a game where well formed groups can meet an equal challenge.

I’ve spent 7 years raiding at end game in another MMO that has a very high expectation of coordination including quick voice communication as well as personal situational awareness.

Guild Wars 2 has a long way to go before that can be reached by it’s playerbase. The first thing that would have to go are the players that are not contributing to the fight and are actually a detriment to the success of the kill. This connot be done in the current format.

If the requirements for success are set this high then the requirements to participate should also be. The only working mechanic i have seen in game so far that would allow this is the dungeon grouping model but that also has it’s flaws and would be incredibly difficult to manage on a meta level.

I can honestly say in my opinion that while I love this game it is not ready in it’s current state to have the zerg removed in the place of some magical meta coordination that’s somehow going to appear.

McKeone suggestion is very good to the extent of limiting the number of players but it still doesn’t solve the issue of an upleveled undergeared bunch of players being drawn into one of the areas beause the success of the total event relies on their performance.

The loot fest zerg isn’t the answer in the long term but it’s the only way i can see anyone devoting 2+ hours into clearing just the bronze phase because there are so many ways a player can better spend their time earning loot.

khani.4786:

Better yet instead of a gold sink to start the event have 6 different NPC commanders to lead the fight on each boss.

The event will only start when enough people are standing with each NPC commander (ala Siegeraizer). The NPC commander will guide the group to each boss but not fight (in order to keep success completely on the players).

Teaches the map group how to split properly, doesn’t require a gold sink and keeps the success of killing the boss on the skill of the players in each group.

I agree. I also like the idea of designing content that encourages cooperation rather than blind zerging, but I think it’s unrealistic to expect players to coordinate themselves completely ad hoc. I doubt that most people go around thinking “When I walk into a room of 50+ strangers, I expect they will all do what I tell them.” And yet this is exactly the sort of mentality that is required for this sort of event. Also, some people don’t take well to being told what to do by a complete stranger, which is also completely natural.

In its current form, the Pavilion is like a theme park with no attendants. Imagine if you went to Disneyland but all you saw were other tourists. No ushers or ride operators to keep things running and keep moving people through. Maybe operating the rides is as simple as flipping one single on-off switch, but who would want to take on the responsibility of working that switch and be blamed if something goes wrong? From another perspective, let’s say someone did start telling people what to do, why would you listen to this person? This is why Disney doesn’t just build the rides and call it a day, but also spends money on hiring people to staff the parks, and have them wear uniforms to clearly establish their authority.

In short, I completely agree with the underlying theme of almost all the suggestions in this thread, which is that the game itself should take up the position of leadership in content that requires coordination. I think the NPC commanders would be an excellent place to start. Even something as simple as counters in the event info pane that told you how many people were in each sub-zone would be extremely helpful, because that would help people figure out which area needs more help, without needing a bunch of people to count heads and compare numbers.

What a wall of text. Let me make an easier fix:

Try it.

I kinda like the “fake commander” idea (kinda when knights would start you have fake commander hats on Kasmeer etc). Plus put a portal/curtain on the zones and make them separate. You run into the zone and it closes up until the boss is dead with potential add-ons allowed in one/two minute intervals (i.e. it “locks up for 1 or 2 minutes, but if boss is not dead, it would allow more people to come in, then lock up again”)

But generally I’d like them to clearly communicate that this is totally absolutely different event. Otherwise it’s like going into the candy store that used to give you free unlimited candy but now it suddenly has a drill instructor that says the whole group of customers has to run 20 mile marathon and if nobody stumbles during it, he will give us a tasty carrot and celery stick :P

Elentari.9156:

khani.4786:

Better yet instead of a gold sink to start the event have 6 different NPC commanders to lead the fight on each boss.

The event will only start when enough people are standing with each NPC commander (ala Siegeraizer). The NPC commander will guide the group to each boss but not fight (in order to keep success completely on the players).

Teaches the map group how to split properly, doesn’t require a gold sink and keeps the success of killing the boss on the skill of the players in each group.

I agree. I also like the idea of designing content that encourages cooperation rather than blind zerging, but I think it’s unrealistic to expect players to coordinate themselves completely ad hoc. I doubt that most people go around thinking “When I walk into a room of 50+ strangers, I expect they will all do what I tell them.” And yet this is exactly the sort of mentality that is required for this sort of event. Also, some people don’t take well to being told what to do by a complete stranger, which is also completely natural.

In its current form, the Pavilion is like a theme park with no attendants. Imagine if you went to Disneyland but all you saw were other tourists. No ushers or ride operators to keep things running and keep moving people through. Maybe operating the rides is as simple as flipping one single on-off switch, but who would want to take on the responsibility of working that switch and be blamed if something goes wrong? From another perspective, let’s say someone did start telling people what to do, why would you listen to this person? This is why Disney doesn’t just build the rides and call it a day, but also spends money on hiring people to staff the parks, and have them wear uniforms to clearly establish their authority.

In short, I completely agree with the underlying theme of almost all the suggestions in this thread, which is that the game itself should take up the position of leadership in content that requires coordination. I think the NPC commanders would be an excellent place to start. Even something as simple as counters in the event info pane that told you how many people were in each sub-zone would be extremely helpful, because that would help people figure out which area needs more help, without needing a bunch of people to count heads and compare numbers.

I really like this post, I don’t see why people expect masses of random players to be able to coordinate with each other on a regular bases, when there are hardly any tools available in game for said coordination.