Guild Wars 2

Dear developers,

Thank you for making Guild Wars 2. I really like it, and have a lot of fun playing.

We’ve had games such as Left4Dead for a while now, and they had proven themselves replayable not because of new content, but because of the random elements brought into play by the Director, an AI that controls the pace and substance of dynamic encounters on the map.

Right, so GW2… many people will be familiar with Penitent / Shelter farming, which I will use as the primary example since many are familiar with it. For those who are not, the Penitent/Shelter farm is a route at the eastern end of Cursed Shore. Players simply traverse the Penitent Path north and south, completing the world events that occur at each point over and over again.

Trouble is…

• The spawn points are predictable.
• The spawn timing is predictable.
• The mobs spawned are predictable.
• The spawns are all bunched up and susceptible to massive AOE.

Recurring quests could be adjusted as follows:

• The number of spawn points increases, and the radius from the event increases.
• The AI spawns some creatures en masse (sometimes scattered, sometimes in formation) and others at a trickle so that some spawns converge with player groups while AOE skills are on cooldown and/or player groups have to stagger AOE in a more tactical manner.

Or, if you want to think bigger, you could do a fully dynamic system:

• The start and end points for dynamic events could be variable based on a large collection of available points.
• Quests could dynamically chain, similar to how assault-style events build on one another in some areas.
• The objective(s) could be variable – escort, assault, defend… really anything.
• The reward could be variable based on distance, time, number of enemies destroyed… anything.

You’ve got the rock-paper-scissors stuff down, so I think the game could definitely benefit from more “Mad Lib” play. From your own observations of map play, I am sure you can understand how this would be beneficial and interesting to the community. I would love to see more events with dynamic criteria!

Thanks again for making Guild Wars 2. It’s a great game.