Guild Wars 2

Before I’d start, I’d like to say please read everything I have written, so you will know EXACTLY what I’m trying to say. Id also like to say that there are Spoiler’s ahead, and if you don’t want to see them, just read the World Event Dragons and where it says Spoilers are gone at the end.

We all know about events like Kralkittorik’s legend, and the Claw of Jormag, and the Tequatl event! Cool, right? The “Event” and “Hard” part of them slip away. Why? Two reasons.

1. You can’t fail.

2. Camping.

Don’t know what I am talking about?

The World Event Dragons

1: Shatterer: In Blazzeridge Steppes, if you go to the area that has been destroyed by Kralkittorik, an Elder Dragon, you will be able to fight the Shatterer. An Elder Dragon Lt. Now, no matter how epic he looks, his fight is to easy. Some guy: “WHAT?!?!?!? ITS EPIC AND AWESOMELY HARD!!!!!!!” Well… no… just… no…. If you have been in a fight, you know that you can go on either side of him and he wont be able to attack you unless you get to close. Un-Failable event

2: Tequatl: In Sparkfly Fen, if you go to the bottom left of the map, you will find Tequatl’s swamp (I know it isn’t his swamp, I just referred to it as the swamp he comes out of), and are able to fight him. Now, don’t mind my terrible history of GW2, for I am still trying to learn the entire lore. So, bare with me. I’m pretty sure he’s the Under Water Elder Dragon’s Lt.? I don’t know, but, I am pretty sure, just like the Shatterer, he has a easy camping spot. Now, I lagged out in the middle of fighting him once, and I wasn’t able to fight him since because my server is bugged out on him. But, at the beginning, we were at one of his sides and he wasn’t able to hurt us, unless we got to close. Un-Failable event

3: Jormag’s Claw: First, I might be wrong at the name, but I have only heard what the event is called. Second, if you go to Frost Gorge Sound (Might be wrong on the name), and you go to a certain place (Don’t know where it is yet) you will able to fight him. Now, this fight is a bit different from the first 2. From what I have heard, he phases and changes a position at one part of the fight. I’ve also heard 2 things: One, you have to stay in front of him, and two, he, just like Tequatl and Shatterer, have weak spots. Finally, I have heard that one phase isn’t good enough, and that he needs to change positions more than once. Since I haven’t even fought him yet, I’m not going to say he can’t hurt you and kill you. BUT, I do know, from just like every other event, IT is an un-failable event.

Personal Story Dragons Spoilers start from here.

Now this is a tough one, because I haven’t played any other paths, I’ve only done the Order of Whispers on the Norn side. But, I do know about ONE dragon.

The Plaguebringer: This is the boss you fight when you do the Battle for Claw Island, a coast in Lion’s Arch with guards to protect any invasions. This boss fight was just like Shatterer’s, or Tequatl’s. I was able to kill him when I was at his side. Also, it was to easy the second time, as when I respawned, all the NPC’s did the work for me. It is also Un-Failable. (Even though you can die, he won’t regain health, unless you go pretty far from him. Or you start the entire mission over.)

Dungeons and Dragons: Elder Dragons (COME ON! You at LEAST chuckled.)

Zhaitan: As I am sure this is the only Elder Dragon out so far, I have heard all he does is stand on a clock tower while you shoot him with a mini gun? Pretty dissapointing, I heard he doesn’t even change position. I also heard he is Un-failable Don’t know if it’s true or not.

Spoilers are gone.

Ok, so, after writing this, I have a few suggestions.

World Event Dragon Suggestions

1: Make the events fail-able. Maybe, Tequatl is about to release a bunch of minions into the world! And if you don’t stop him, there will be an extra amount of risen for a week maybe!

2: You’ve got to stop the camping! Maybe, just like In The Claw Of Jormag, you can have phases for the battle. Or maybe the dragons can move around the area.

Personal Story Dragons Suggestions

1. Make it fail-able. Maybe, the Plague Bringer is about to destroy all of Lion’s Arch with one risen, and you have to fight him before he is able to risen to life.

2. Make it so he can move around the area.

3. Don’t make it so the NPC’s do all the work, maybe if you go far away, the NPC’s will retreat.

Dungeons and Dragons: Elder Dragons Suggestions

1. Make it fail-able.

2. Give Zhaitan a phased fight, or a more open variety. It is a pretty big dungeon after all, from what I have heard.

3. Give the fight a bigger variety with weapons and fights and such!

So, what do you guys think? Do you agree with me?

I agree with you. The Dragons events make no sense, for there is few to fight during them. For the most, you go there like “Meh, let’s grab these 20s and go on”…The fight might be funnier, I happened to be fighting the Shatterer in early morning once, where few more than 5 people were there. It actually made some sense as a fight, but for the most of the time, there are way too many people camping there, mostly now that rewards have been increased.
As to make them fail-able..I doubt they could, due to the amount of people that still would make sure the event doesn’t fail, unless they added some random situation where maybe the Dragon just flies away…but that would cause crying and rage for sure…
As for Dragons in story quests, yes make them harder, but fail-able…I don’t know. I would honestly find it pretty frustrating to fail at the end-boss and have to start all over, more of all in The Ruined City of Arah, for you must team up with other people. Though, Zhaitan MUST be buffed, the fight is too lame and MUST be improved, made hard and worthy…I found no fun in killing him, no satisfaction in the end for you feel to have just killed loads of Risen as you could have done while farming Orr.
Being the ED weakened already, I don’t think it would be so unreal to end up in a “land-fight” against him, using proper weapons and skills instead of just clicking to fire the cannon, without even needing to aim nor anything…
Anyhow, +1 to this thread, hope they will take your ideas into account!

Pip.2094:

I agree with you. The Dragons events make no sense, for there is few to fight during them. For the most, you go there like “Meh, let’s grab these 20s and go on”…The fight might be funnier, I happened to be fighting the Shatterer in early morning once, where few more than 5 people were there. It actually made some sense as a fight, but for the most of the time, there are way too many people camping there, mostly now that rewards have been increased.
As to make them fail-able..I doubt they could, due to the amount of people that still would make sure the event doesn’t fail, unless they added some random situation where maybe the Dragon just flies away…but that would cause crying and rage for sure…
As for Dragons in story quests, yes make them harder, but fail-able…I don’t know. I would honestly find it pretty frustrating to fail at the end-boss and have to start all over, more of all in The Ruined City of Arah, for you must team up with other people. Though, Zhaitan MUST be buffed, the fight is too lame and MUST be improved, made hard and worthy…I found no fun in killing him, no satisfaction in the end for you feel to have just killed loads of Risen as you could have done while farming Orr.
Being the ED weakened already, I don’t think it would be so unreal to end up in a “land-fight” against him, using proper weapons and skills instead of just clicking to fire the cannon, without even needing to aim nor anything…
Anyhow, +1 to this thread, hope they will take your ideas into account!

I only have to say one thing to this: Thanks for taking my idea and giving it a thumbs up! Also, on the failing part for Zhaitan: I didn’t mean as to having to start everything over, I meant just him. Because I myself would be kitten off if I had to restart an entire dungeon. Either way, thanks!

I don’t think having the entire area filled with risen for weeks would be the case for Tequatl, it would most likely be similar to the events in Fort Trinity where you have to retake the beach and rebuild the laser to take him down again, should the team fail. Once the players clear out the area, maybe an hour or so later, things would return to normal.

I agree with a lot of these points. And yes, making them failable might make things more interesting.

The big problem with dragons right now, is that they are static objects that are not aware of any of the players in the battle. They simply spew their attacks in one direction, regardless if anyone is there. They are unable to even look at players, and I wish they could. But I suspect there are just some serious technical limitations that the dev team runs into when designing these battles.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I agree with a lot of these points. And yes, making them failable might make things more interesting.

The big problem with dragons right now, is that they are static objects that are not aware of any of the players in the battle. They simply spew their attacks in one direction, regardless if anyone is there. They are unable to even look at players, and I wish they could. But I suspect there are just some serious technical limitations that the dev team runs into when designing these battles.

Even though Dragon minions are mindless, I still agree with you. I mean, they have to be aware of everyone, and not just attack in one direction.

Although I agree on most points, don’t get your hopes up. These events aren’t going to change.

Everflame.1305:

Although I agree on most points, don’t get your hopes up. These events aren’t going to change.

Maybe these wont, but the ideas could teach them how to make the new fights!

Would be nice if all 3 dragon champions went along the lines of the temple system, perhaps with a longer wait between.

If server fails the event:
1) The Dragons minions over run that map zone for 3 hours.
2) At the end of 3 hours you can make another attempt at the event, the dragons minions from earlier will still be present until the event succeeds making the event a little more harder.

Dragon Fight Changes":

Jormag:
Final Phase:
After his wings have been blown off, he summons a small army of Ice Broods to defend him, these will be veteran~Rare (bronze & silver ring respectively) caliber foes. Every time a player dies during the fight another Ice Brood Rare quality monster is spawned.

Tequatl the sunless:
- Health increased by 30%
-Armour increased by 15%
- During the fight he will summon 2 Champions, both of which will be different and may vary per fight those champions on the list would be:
A) Eye of Zhaitan
B) Mouth of Zhaitan
C) Priest/Priestess of _______ (Kormir, Lyssa, Grenth, Dhuum, Menzies, Balthazar, Dwayna, Melandru, and Abaddon)
There are more gods listed based on the fact that Tequatl the sunless is the Lt. Champion of Zhaitan who raised up Orr the city of the gods. It would not be far fetched to believe that Zhaitan could have raised up the ancient priest and priestess of those fallen Gods.

The Shatterer:
-Increase health by 40-50%
-Increase armour by 15-20%
-New Skill: Chain Lightning
Reason: Powerful aoe, where ever he goes you see lightning, there’s electricity bouncing off around him so its not a far fetched idea lore wise.

The Lightning will hit everyone within shout range

-Larger Branded army of all races present

-Potential mini boss during phase 2 while he has his head down
“Child of Glint”
Size would be about 10-20% smaller then The Shatterer
Health and armour would be only 25-30% of The Shatterer
Attacks would be a mix of Glint & The Shatterer

for those who didnt play gw1 and dunno who Glint is,
Glint was the former champion but defected and aided the humans
Before she died, she had a giant nest of eggs

It would be nice if perhaps the dragon would take note of large groups of players forcing them to scatter out to fight it. I don’t know how things like that would work from a programming aspect, but I do know that if the dragon attacked the group of people on the cliff attacking the Claw of Jormag they may learn pretty fast that a new strategy is necessary. It would really add life to these creatures as well, I mean it makes sense that their eyes should not always be on you, but at the same time they would definitely take note of large clusters of players.

Glint’s children were nowhere to be found in the Edge of Destiny book, so it seems to me that Glint probably sent them away to be hidden from Kralkatorrik. It is quite possible that Kralky has disappeared because he is hunting these, but I believe that ArenaNet has something bigger in mind for them than to be just more minions of Kralky.

Another thing they could do, is like with the Jade Maw. Have the dragon pick on one player, for example, the one doing the most damage. Mark that player with a skull symbol above his head, and then have the dragon fire a massive aoe attack towards that player. Then watch every other player scatter to run as far away from him.

This would add more of a feeling of threat to the dragons, and it might be easy to implement.

And yes, adding some way for the dragons to detect clusters of players would be a great addition. Just have them occasionally spit a small aoe attack at a cluster of players, if they are cluttering together for too long. You could even make players aware of this, by adding a simple debuff called “easy target” if they hang around large groups of other players too much. Groups would be able to create threat, just like individual players can.

Maybe not even AoE. I can see the Claw of Jormag or The Shatterer encasing the player and those nearby in Corrupted Ice/Branded Crystal. Then other players have to break them out in order to keep their allies.

Narcemus.1348:

Maybe not even AoE. I can see the Claw of Jormag or The Shatterer encasing the player and those nearby in Corrupted Ice/Branded Crystal. Then other players have to break them out in order to keep their allies.

AoE? Sorry, don’t know what that means. I’m new to MMO gaming.

AoE = Area of effect. An attack that doesn’t just hit one player, but a large area on the ground.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

AoE = Area of effect. An attack that doesn’t just hit one player, but a large area on the ground.

Thanks, and now that I know what it means, I totally agree with you guys.

Maybe they could work on the A.I. to make it more intelligent? So it can know where the biggest target it.

Related discussions / ideas:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/This-spring-I-m-attending-dragon-camp-yay

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Mega-events-should-be-epic

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Related discussions / ideas:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/This-spring-I-m-attending-dragon-camp-yay

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Mega-events-should-be-epic

I guess those are related, but my reasons kind of bring both of those And possibly more together

Here’s a crazy thought, but I’ve posted before about chaining dynamic/meta events together to make events have a greater impact on the world. Here (I apologize for the wall of text) I stated that I think it would be cool to take the wars and battles in this game to an even higher level by allowing players to effect the way the world looks and feels. I used the example in here of the major wars of the races and how players should be able to instigate events where they can fully claim, say, centaur advancements and push the centaurs out fully eventually across the maps. Or help the lionguard push the sons of svanir out of wayfarer’s fully. This would obviously be a continuous war, as when player disappeared the enemies would be able to push the advantage. I think including the Dragons in these would be amazing as well. Perhaps once the players have pushed most of the risen out of Sparkfly Swamp Tequatl would spawn to attempt to push the players back and make a beachhead once more. Or The Shatterer doesn’t stand in 1 spot but he works his way north destroying everything in his path until the players can stop him. The shatterer could be even more interesting because we are told as players that the dragonbrand is attempting to expand, perhaps in the destruction behind him the dragonbrand is allowed to expand a bit, and it shrinks once more once he is destroyed. The same could be said for the Claw of Jormag. Should the players push the sons of svanir/icebrood back to a certain point the Claw of Jormag appears in a failable event that would allow him to push an advantage against the Kodan/Pact. It would help make this a truly dynamic world where players can cure areas of corruption and help rebuilt, and it would give players reason to go back to low level areas if you saw that the flame legion were beseiging the Black Citadel.

Good idea Narc.

And another suggestion, rewards need to be BASED off the dragon. Example: After defeating the shatterer, you get a greatsword made from his own crystals!

None of the dragon events can be failed. How is this a world event? Nothing changes. The world isn’t even hearing stories of these massive lieutenants. They just appear and die moments later. The mechanics on the dragons need to be more challenging (by not allowing any safe spots) and there should be side objectives that can either fail or succeed these events. The first time, these events mezmorized me. Now I just repeat it for a chest and a .000000000000001% chance at something good to sell on the tp.

I’m suspecting you’re agreeing with me.

I’d love to see a dragon go on a rampage across the map. Instead of having players fight him in one spot, have them chase him to the highest mountains down into the deepest valleys. Have him level small villages in the explorable, if the players are unable to deal enough damage to him.

I’d also love to see the dragon do a flyby attack, where it scorches the earth, and players flee in terror to escape the carnage. It would add dynamic and a feeling of menace to these creatures.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I’d love to see a dragon go on a rampage across the map. Instead of having players fight him in one spot, have them chase him to the highest mountains down into the deepest valleys. Have him level small villages in the explorable, if the players are unable to deal enough damage to him.

I’d also love to see the dragon do a flyby attack, where it scorches the earth, and players flee in terror to escape the carnage. It would add dynamic and a feeling of menace to these creatures.

don’t know how the dev would pull that off giving how these events are designed but yeah it would be awesome having to chase them across the map like you do in Skyrim or Monster Hunter

I honestly think the dev’s could easily pull this off as long as the devastation of the dragon stays within 1 explorable zone. If it leaves an explorable and moves to another, I don’t see things working well with the transfer.

We have dragons in orr that fly around and do nothing but pop balloons. The visual of it in the sky is already there, just the mechanics of it flying down to wreck havoc isn’t. For a game having dragons as it’s main antagonist, you sure don’t feel their impact that much. Their minions are more threatening than them..

Narcemus.1348:

I honestly think the dev’s could easily pull this off as long as the devastation of the dragon stays within 1 explorable zone. If it leaves an explorable and moves to another, I don’t see things working well with the transfer.

Exactly! They could pull this off IF they would focus more on it.

Well IF they would focus on it we could hope to someday see a truly dynamic world and not a static world with a few moving parts like what we have now.

NinjaEd.3946:

We have dragons in orr that fly around and do nothing but pop balloons. The visual of it in the sky is already there, just the mechanics of it flying down to wreck havoc isn’t. For a game having dragons as it’s main antagonist, you sure don’t feel their impact that much. Their minions are more threatening than them..

Yes, this is true. Even the dragons that we fight aren’t as threatening as their minions. I myself had more of a challenge with the Mouth Of Zhaitan than Zhaitan himself!

Narcemus.1348:

Well IF they would focus on it we could hope to someday see a truly dynamic world and not a static world with a few moving parts like what we have now.

Exactly! We need a more EXCITING world.

I know for a fact, anet wanted events to be more meaningful, which they sort-of addressed when they made 1 guarunteed rare per world event (I’d look for the post they had before that patch but it isn’t the point).

Events should be rewarding, and not farm fests. If they are truely meant to be dynamic they would follow the lines of orr where they lead to long strains of events, and not just a few steps that reset every hour or so (assuming none are failed).

Dragons occur every 3 or so hours, and there are 3 to fight atm so almost every hour a dragon liuetenant (with small variations in window openings) appears and gets killed moments later. Surely they can bring some good news to their masters but they can’t win. There is no way, even if no one showed up, that the dragons can win. I think, now this is just from seeing other events, the only thing that would hapkitten someone would stumble upon dozens of dead npc’s and a lot of spawns eventually leading to an event reset. Since there is no chain to the dragons afterwards, they would just disappear and the region would be left untouched. No impact, no story, nothing.

Time limits, side objectives, enviromental weapons to speed up the process/weaken the enemy, these things should be more involved. You should want to defend the cannons at Tequatl, you should want to avoid sitting still at the claw of jormag or shatterer(safe spots), but that simply isn’t the case. They can be blinded, their moves can be avoided by safe spots and player damage far exceeds the use of any enviromental weapons in damage and utility (can’t dodge on a cannon, can’t heal on a cannon, can’t remove conditions on a cannon, etc).

NinjaEd.3946:

I know for a fact, anet wanted events to be more meaningful, which they sort-of addressed when they made 1 guarunteed rare per world event (I’d look for the post they had before that patch but it isn’t the point).

Events should be rewarding, and not farm fests. If they are truely meant to be dynamic they would follow the lines of orr where they lead to long strains of events, and not just a few steps that reset every hour or so (assuming none are failed).

Dragons occur every 3 or so hours, and there are 3 to fight atm so almost every hour a dragon liuetenant (with small variations in window openings) appears and gets killed moments later. Surely they can bring some good news to their masters but they can’t win. There is no way, even if no one showed up, that the dragons can win. I think, now this is just from seeing other events, the only thing that would happen is someone would stumble upon dozens of dead npc’s and a lot of spawns eventually leading to an event reset. Since there is no chain to the dragons afterwards, they would just disappear and the region would be left untouched. No impact, no story, nothing.

Time limits, side objectives, enviromental weapons to speed up the process/weaken the enemy, these things should be more involved. You should want to defend the cannons at Tequatl, you should want to avoid sitting still at the claw of jormag or shatterer(safe spots), but that simply isn’t the case. They can be blinded, their moves can be avoided by safe spots and player damage far exceeds the use of any enviromental weapons in damage and utility (can’t dodge on a cannon, can’t heal on a cannon, can’t remove conditions on a cannon, etc).

What bothers me the most out of all your good reasons is your one about the variation of the dragon. See its as if they just wanted us to fight it, and nothing else! I know GW2 cant have all this at LAUNCH, but these are suggestions to get it better later on.

I find the Lyssa Statue boss one of the better ones in the game. Having thoese mini events on the sides require defenders everynow and again or she resets is a nice touch. Having clones of players too dumb to get out of the red cricles left behind afetr a teleport is also anohter good touch.
She’s also very Zerker unfreidnly because of her invunerability states however conditions can still tick while she’s like that.
And there are the catapaults that can be taken down by a single player, but if they are not cause huge headaches for all.
And lastly the DON’T LOOK AT HER! How many people can’t work out to stand between her and the mobs to face away… well let’s just say it’s a lot.
All in all it’s a great open world fight and I just wish Anet would put this much thought into the other open world bosses.

Kaaboose.3897:

I find the Lyssa Statue boss one of the better ones in the game. Having thoese mini events on the sides require defenders everynow and again or she resets is a nice touch. Having clones of players too dumb to get out of the red cricles left behind afetr a teleport is also anohter good touch.
She’s also very Zerker unfreidnly because of her invunerability states however conditions can still tick while she’s like that.
And there are the catapaults that can be taken down by a single player, but if they are not cause huge headaches for all.
And lastly the DON’T LOOK AT HER! How many people can’t work out to stand between her and the mobs to face away… well let’s just say it’s a lot.
All in all it’s a great open world fight and I just wish Anet would put this much thought into the other open world bosses.

I agree, the temples feel like a true world event with all their elements in play. You can’t just simply dps 1 target, you have to take out high valued targets and understand what form the boss is in to succeed. The dragon liutenants I feel like they fall behind this standard. They don’t impact the zone, and they certainly cannot be failed for a number of reasons.

1. Blind makes big moves miss.
2. Even if their skills do hit, there are so many players that can recover from and/or dodge the hit making it useless.
3. Its all dps. Nothing to protect, nowhere to move to, just stand still and dps.

When I first heard that zhaitan was an elder dragon AND that it can be fought, I thought to myself,“Wow, this sounds intense. Fighting a main antagonist of the entire game. Can’t wait!”. Upon entrance I found not only are it’s lieutenants weaklings, the elder dragon itself is a bunch of kitten scraps. The minions alone are more troublesome than the elder dragon. I do no understand how that is allowed. There really should be conditions to be met to defeat such bosses and mechanics to make it more difficult. Clearly this can be done, because the living story team (I love your work so far^^) has proven so. These bosses don’t need some simple,“swing 1 to win” mechanics, they have side objectives. Some more interactive than others but still there. I pray the future elder dragon fights are atleast 20X harder than the Dwayna fight in Arah Exp mode.

Not to sound like an old WoW-fanboy, but uh if we could get a Deathwing approach* combined with a meta-event boss battle to the next Big Bad Dragon, that’d be great. (I’m fairly sure there will be another one; when? I’ve no idea)

Deathwing- In World of Warcraft: Catacylsm, Deathwing The Destroyer destroyed and changed many vanilla areas of the game (as in mass terrain changes-floods, fissures, burning forests, etc.). *******He also randomly spawned in any zone, flying around, breathing fire and killing you. Out of nowhere. This includes level 1 zones up to max level zones, and everything in between.

I believe that concept-(modified)-combined with a meta-event boss battle would be a very fun experience, and something that would make the dragons of GW2 more…..camp-free?

My 2 cents.

The problem with world bosses is how to make them more difficult. Adding health won’t make them difficult, it’ll just make them take longer. Increasing damage might work but the problem is with the size of the grouping doing these bosses would mean that you might start entering one-shot territory. I’d say the best option would be to redesign the bosses, adding more variety by adding a few more phases. The Claw is a bit better then most of the other’s as it has some variety in terms of different phases (mind you it doesn’t make it a great boss).

I’d like Dragons that actually move. Stomp around the area wrecking all in their wake, like fighting a Veteran Karka on steroids.

Dual.8953:

I’d like Dragons that actually move. Stomp around the area wrecking all in their wake, like fighting a Veteran Karka on steroids.

Problem with that is trying to put something of that size around the map without serious clipping issues (many mobs already have problems where they look side-ways on certain ramps/ledges.). The dragons would need to be in set spots with moves specific to it’s posture otherwise it would look quite ugly. It would be awesome if the shatterer flew up and down the Dragon brand in Blazeridge steppes and would stop down to reign a little terror, it would also be awesome if player dps wasn’t the primary goal.

This topic has circulated the forums since the release. I’m shocked that the only thing these dragons have gained is stat scaling which isn’t effective. Too many players and you get 1 shotted. Too many blinds and half the skills miss. Too short of a respawn and the event feels insignificant, especially because they cannot fail. These are NOT world events as much as they are a chore for weak loot.