Guild Wars 2

Is this event really as poorly designed as I understand it? You complete it and from then, your rewards are determined solely by how many other players will complete it? You cannot do it again (like guild rush) to assure you get full reward, you are just completely reliant on something you have absolutely no control of. I dislike some stuff in this living world, I like some stuff, but this is seriously the stupidest design anyone could ever come up with.

Well, how would you have it designed?

Well if it’s a race you would think placement would sort of matter. It doesn’t though.

Ok, so maybe the name is a bit bad. The ranking-race is Sanctum Sprint.
This is “just” an event. And yeah you can only do it once so that players actually need to play together. It adds some variety because the other event allows repetition.

Remember: This is a MMO.

If the game wouldn’t gently~sternly force player interaction onto you in some parts (it’s very minor parts, tbh), then it could hardly call itself a MMORPG. The MM-part would be missing.

Wait, the Flying Dolyak can only be donde one single time and the reward depends on the numero of participants? What happens when moST have completed it?

Garambola.2461:

Wait, the Flying Dolyak can only be donde one single time and the reward depends on the numero of participants? What happens when moST have completed it?

You can only complete it once per race, meaning you can’t finish it and then go back to start and run it again to add another succesful finish to the overall score of that race. But you can of course complete as many races as you like, you just need to wait for a new one to begin. The timers are awful, btw. And there is very little flying in this “Flying Dolyak Race” (although there is enough little dolyak). It’s just a watered-down guild rush, I will probably do another for the chievo and never ever touch it again while purging it from memory.

The difference between silver and gold is insignificant anyway, so I just see both events as a fun little diversion that I do if I feel like it.

Garambola.2461:

Wait, the Flying Dolyak can only be donde one single time and the reward depends on the numero of participants? What happens when moST have completed it?

Once per event. And it’s only 60 for gold, of 100-150 people in the zone. :P

I was disappointed there are no flying dolyaks

This is simply an update to the carry my stuff event from last year. It’s a collection event that you only get to do once – but since it doesn’t make sense it makes it kinda odd.

You’re taking the supplies up to the top level, this year (forget how it was last year) he thought to make it a game and turn you into a dolyak calf while you do it. If this is just a supply run then it doesn’t really make sense that you can only do it once.

I don’t mind this event nearly even remotely as much as I HATE Boss Blitz, but I agree with some of the OP’s points. It’s a more fun event, and you’re almost certain to get at least something out of it, but it is a bit flawed. It would definitely help if you could repeat the event to bump the total complete credit. I had no problem clearing gold during peak hours, but silver was the best I saw in off-peak, and there’s nothing you can really do about that as a player, which is just bad design from the developer.

I’m also annoyed that I finish it in about two minutes or so, and then have to spend about fifteen minutes just doing whatever before I get my reward. So far I often have things I can be doing in the zone, but I’m almost out of those, which means I basically have to go AFK, when instead I could log in to a different character and run some world bosses, or doing Pavillion content, or whatever else.

The reward from this event should be based entirely on your own performance, and it should be granted the instant you cross the finish line. I do not think it should be a straight race like Sprint, because then it would be pointless to start late, but it could be something like a time trial, in which there is a predicted time, if you hit it, you get gold, if you fall a bit short, silver, if you just get there eventually, gold, but it wouldn’t matter if you started right at the beginning or started only a few minutes before the end of the event, you would be timed from when you first went Dolyak.

If they don’t have the tools to have a time trial directly (I can’t recall one currently in the game), they could maybe give you three different buffs with three different timers, and reward you based on how many of the buffs are still up when you cross the finish line.

I do like the event, I do like to be a tiny Dolyak and run with other tiny Dolyaks.
The “cuddly” factor just really gets me with this

But of course the first time I did it, after completing my course I rushed down to go again (we should get the supply up, shouldn’t we!) and was a little irritated to not be able to…

It is funny that one of my proverbs has made it into an actual mini game. Now I might actually give a flying Dolyak about this event, haha!

Tarasicodissa.7084:

Is this event really as poorly designed as I understand it? You complete it and from then, your rewards are determined solely by how many other players will complete it?

Yep. You understand it correctly. This has been the Anet boss/event design concept for quite some time now. What you do hardly matters. Your rewards depend on people you don’t even know, and sometimes can’t even speak to.

I’m a bit surprised to even hear the same old whining for a difference of 4 tokens (what is about 9% of the reward)…

One of the few new things this patch I like are this event and the gathering the charged crystals. Zephyr Sanctum is gorgeous and fun as usual….unlike the mockery of the Crown Pavillion.

Because they want us to play as a community. The same is true in Boss Blitz.

Neither take a huge amount of coordination, but groups that completely ignore each other will not do as well as groups that tacitly recognize it is a group event.

I like this design direction. The solo – to hell with everyone else – players will eventually fall off and the people looking for this kind of thing will have a game we really enjoy. It isnt for everyone, but I like what theyre doing.

Blaeys.3102:

Because they want us to play as a community. The same is true in Boss Blitz.

Neither take a huge amount of coordination, but groups that completely ignore each other will not do as well as groups that tacitly recognize it is a group event.

I like this design direction. The solo – to hell with everyone else – players will eventually fall off and the people looking for this kind of thing will have a game we really enjoy. It isnt for everyone, but I like what theyre doing.

No, the people who don’t want to organise it every single time because nobody else is putting in any effort will fall off. Which will leave it to: organised guilds/groups or simply failing the event.

There’s so much wrong with relying on your guild that I’ve simply stopped enjoying this type of content all together (mostly time/schedule/planning related).

eekzie.5640:

Blaeys.3102:

Because they want us to play as a community. The same is true in Boss Blitz.

Neither take a huge amount of coordination, but groups that completely ignore each other will not do as well as groups that tacitly recognize it is a group event.

I like this design direction. The solo – to hell with everyone else – players will eventually fall off and the people looking for this kind of thing will have a game we really enjoy. It isnt for everyone, but I like what theyre doing.

No, the people who don’t want to organise it every single time because nobody else is putting in any effort will fall off. Which will leave it to: organised guilds/groups or simply failing the event.

There’s so much wrong with relying on your guild that I’ve simply stopped enjoying this type of content all together (mostly time/schedule/planning related).

There is no real organization to the Dolyak event. You just need enough people interested in doing it. That in no way requires a guild.

I love this event, but I would like it if we were able to run again. Currently logged in and we always get gold for the charged essence event (each person can use as many nodes as they can find) with several minutes left on the clock, and silver for the dolyaks because everyone can only go once.

Bluee.1425:

Well, how would you have it designed?

Give reward based on how fast you finish.

Because they want us to play as a community. The same is true in Boss Blitz.

Neither take a huge amount of coordination, but groups that completely ignore each other will not do as well as groups that tacitly recognize it is a group event.

I like this design direction. The solo – to hell with everyone else – players will eventually fall off and the people looking for this kind of thing will have a game we really enjoy. It isnt for everyone, but I like what theyre doing.

Well, the problem with this event is that it has nothing to do with coordinating a community. No player has to interact with another, they just all have to cross the finish line once. If players aren’t participating in the race then they aren’t participating in the race, and there’s nothing to be done about that either. If there aren’t enough players on the map to clear Gold then there aren’t enough on the map to clear Gold, and there’s nothing anyone can do about that either.

Shinzan.2908:

Give reward based on how fast you finish.

Nah, we have Sanctum Sprint for that. I love the Flying Dolyak race – it’s whimsical and fun with very little pressure to be any good at it. :-)

I’d like to see two things changed, though. For one, like most here, I would like to be able to repeatedly run in the same race. Once you figure things out, you have plenty of time left to run a second or third time, and it’s frustrating to have to just stand there and hope for the best, instead of contributing more like you can with the crystal gathering event. I’ve so often had a race stuck in Silver with only a dozen more need for Gold…

Also, I’d like a way to heal Cripple on other players. Make it, say, a 1/2 second channel on a 6 second cooldown to avoid spamming. As fun as the Dolyak race is, there is nothing much about it that promotes community play. Being able to help other players would be a nice addition, I think.

I don’t know why your rewards are tied to everyone else. This is one of those events that punishes people for being in less populated maps (yes, even if megaservers that’s still a problem for some reason).

Why make rewards of an event based on other people’s performance if there is no way to help other people? I saw mesmers try to portal people and it ended up removing the yak buff and forcing those people to start again.

I just don’t get why make people fail for conditions entirely out of their control.

Shiren.9532:

Why make rewards of an event based on other people’s performance if there is no way to help other people? I saw mesmers try to portal people and it ended up removing the yak buff and forcing those people to start again.

Well yeah ,that you can’t help them is really weird.
But other than that, this is a MMO. It would be weird if you didn’t depend on other players.

khani.4786:

One of the few new things this patch I like are this event and the gathering the charged crystals. Zephyr Sanctum is gorgeous and fun as usual….unlike the mockery of the Crown Pavillion.

If you mean it’s mocking the mob mentality of standard ZERG-play, then I applaud the attempt at humor.

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

I was disappointed there are no flying dolyaks