I have just finished another extremely frustrating round of Scarlet’s Marionette and feel it’s time to share my opinion. I’m on Stormbluff Isle server and the community has given up to the point where people actually try and get into an overflow since the server rarely wins. The Marionette must have taken a lot of work to create and can be a lot of fun in a lot of ways. This could be a great event in theory but simply doesn’t work in practice for the following reasons.
1.) The community will never organize well enough to pull off events of this scale.
It’s not that a server can’t pull off a win or that there aren’t people screaming instructions on how to win for an hour before the event starts up. It’s just that some people don’t care to listen or to pay attention to instructions. I’m sure certain servers have a serious community that allows for regular success but for many servers there are simply too many people dropping in to check it out without a clue of what to do. That brings me to my second and arguably most important point.
2.) There is too much room for small groups to create failure for an entire server.
How many times have we seen one of 5 platforms fail their warden? It’s not just that all 5 lanes have to work effectively to stop leaking it’s also that all platforms have to work well. Suddenly the fate of 125 people is on 5. I just can’t figure out why this would be allowed in an event of this size. I know there is room for platform failures but there are too many reasons they fail. Not enough people with a res. Not enough people who know the mechanics of the warden. Not enough DPS. Suddenly We’ve got 20 people in map chat screaming at what could have essentially been 1 person making a mistake. At first I was upset to see all the negativity but now I’m starting to think that the rude people are those who show up and pay no attention to the mechanics of the event. Nowhere else in Guildwars has there been a place where so few can carry or fail so many.
3.) The event requires too many people to succeed at any time other than primetime.
Ever logged on in the morning? I can accept not being able to complete a Wurm or Teq event in the morning. Problem with the Marionette is that it’s a temporary event and anybody who can’t log on during their servers primetime is never going to see it succeed.
4.)I thought Guild Wars was suppose to be a casual fun sort of MMORPG. Why is it trying to compete with the hardcore games?
As much as I complain that people should pay more attention to the mechanics of this living world event it frustrates me that they have to. Living world content should be available to all. Let the hardcore gamers take on others in PvP or WvW. The original Guildwars let serious gamers pull off feats like speedclears or soloing tough content. When Halloween or Wintersday came around everybody could participate and succeed.
My suggestions to help improve this situation.
1.) Scale, scale, scale. Imagine if 50 people could complete this event in downtimes.
2.) Imagine if we could port across platforms once our warden was down
3.) Don’t create events where less than 5 people can affect 100 others. It creates anger at others.
4.) Living world content should be challenging to long time serious players but add aspects that appeal to more casual players as well. I felt that the Tower of Nightmares balanced that well. It was tough as nails to get through alone but groups could accomplish a lot and I’m sure some players found it more manageable than I did.
Thank you for reading. These are just my opinions. I will continue to play and enjoy the game but this event seems to have given more grief than joy for myself and many others.