I’ve played through the game and killed each of the Dragon Lieutenants repeatedly and I have a few things to say about those encounters. First thanks, then a question, and lastly a suggestion.
Thanks:
Thank you ArenaNet for making Guild Wars 2. I didn’t pass the trial in Guild Wars 1 due to its heavily instanced nature. But Guild Wars 2 hits the spot! Amazing work ArenaNet! There are of course a few things that I think could’ve been done better. The biggest one of those for me is dragon lieutenant encounters and their events.
Question:
I’ve never seen it happen, I doubt it ever will. But if a Dragon Lieutenant spawns and there’s nobody there to kill it, what happens? Does it just sit around waiting for someone to come around? I hope not.
Suggestion:
Dragon Lieutenant encounters are terribly static (barring Claw of Jormag, but even that one simply moves from one spot to another at predetermined time). I have fought Tequatl The Sunless without moving from the same spot once (except when feared away) and didn’t take a point of damage while the dragon died. Same about Shatterer. There’s something wrong with a dragon lieutenant fight if you can defeat one without breaking a sweat. I may not be a game designer (yet) but I’ve had this idea bouncing around my head how to make lieutenants more dynamic, more interactive and most importantly challenging.
For each dragon come up with around 5 stages, say:
1. Dragon on the ground, fighting with its claws and fangs
2. Dragon in the air, only attackable with deployed siege weapons, doing flyby breath attacks on the siege weapons (which can be deployed by players, anywhere)
3. Dragon breathes in and breathes its attack across a wide arc (at least 180 degrees in front of it as it waves its head around)
4. Dragon puts up some sort of a shield (crystal, bone, ice) while it calls minions. Shield stays until destroyed with siege weapons (swords won’t put much of a dent in it) and minions keep swarming while shield is up.
5. Special move for each dragon, Shatterer’s crystals (I don’t even know what they do since they get broken so fast, heal him?), Claw of Jormag’s Ice prisons and maybe Orrian Tendrils for Tequatl?
Now here’s the big part really. Make those stages random! What makes lieutenats predictable is the knowledge that at 75% health they do that, at 50% they do something else and 25% maybe something else.
How about, every 10% of lieutenant’s health the game rolls random stage out of the predetermined list making the dragons unpredictable and more challenging.
I believe a wipe should be a big likelihood during a lieutenant fight especially during stage changes as people need to figure out what’s going on while being pounded on by a new wave of minions.
And the biggest thing, tied in to my question. If the lieutenants don’t do anything if there are no players present/dead it’s a bit of a bummer.
How about, if the lieutenant didn’t take any damage in say, 5 minutes, the event progresses to the next stage, the lieutenant takes the lead and sends his army forth, eventually conquering the entire zone. The whole thing.
I remember ArenaNet stating world changing events but to be absolutely honest I haven’t seen any events that would actually change the world. Perhaps the biggest changes I noticed were in Harathi Hinterlands when the Seraph took over all centaur camps… But how about the other way around? Are the Centaur so inept they can never take over a single human village? Events should be in my opinion quite a bit harder than they currently are. Until I reached Orr I don’t think I’ve seen a single failed event. But I digress, dragon lieutenants. Read above and please make them more challenging!
Thanks for creating this great MMO ArenaNet! Don’t waste the opportunity.
P.S.
More Town Clothes please?