Guild Wars 2

This idea popped to my mind while reading gw2 reddit and I noticed this thread

Anyway to the point: I think one of the major lackluster things that GW2 suffers from is how the Meta events function, they are simply farm fests in hopes of lucking out and getting a precursor.
What meta events were originally prescribed was something like this: “Meta events are dynamic events on big scale that potentially affect whole zone”. Well currently the only effect on the zone is increased lag really.

The change I came up with potentially solves 2 big problems in the game: Lack of feel to meta events and lack of things to do after level 80. In other words this could even bring people who were looking for endgame content (back) to the game.

Explanation:
Make meta events punishing: If people do not participate in the said event, every waypoint in area locks down and/or area becomes increasingly hostile. Remove Champion lootbags from the area until the meta event has been cleared to prevent people abusing increased champion and veteran spawns. At the end of the event give out a reward similar to current Scarlet Invasions, nothing inbetween to keep peoples sights at the end of the event instead of constantly spawning champions.
Since atleast one of the areas where meta event happens will cover area that has a reputation of being hotspot for farming champion lootbags, it would provide a reason for them to take part in these events too over simply continuing their farm.

As for how often it should happen, I personally think only once or twice a week for a single event would be golden. This way its not too often and even if people miss one they still have chance to take part on the other, also they wouldnt happen too rarely this way if every event would semi-rotate (ideally there would be 2 meta events over the course of a day).

As for how the events should execute with this change, lets take shatterer as an example: Shatterer flies over area few times over 20 minutes and each time crystallizes a waypoint. After the 20 minutes has passed the crystallizations spawn minions that need to be defeated in order to open up the waypoint, and all waypoints need to be opened up before shatterer lands to be defeated. Every 3-5 minutes after the 20 minute mark shatterer crystallizes a new waypoint as long as atleast one waypoint still remains crystallized. Every waypoint counts as a group event designed to be taken down with 5 or so people.
To complete the entire meta event quickly it would require only roughly 30 or so people co-operating.
Once shatterer lands he will no longer crystallize waypoints.

The event would take roughly 40 minutes to complete if the every waypoint in the area is crystallized, and about 20 minutes if people start preparing the moment first waypoint is blocked. This way it the events would execute comfortably and would provide the “endgame content” for people who are looking for any.

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TL;DR: Change meta events to actually affect whole area, block waypoints until cleared and disable champion lootbags for the duration to add incentive to do the event.

Also let me add that obviously certain meta events can not function like this for varying reasons: Boss not being able to fly for instance. And not every meta event needs to work in this fashion either, smaller events are fine as they are (Fire elemental for instance is pretty fine as is).

There can be workarounds to make the smaller meta events more interesting but my solution is mainly aimed at dragon bosses (and maybe shadow behemoth on smaller scale), they are simply so underwhelming.

Additionally there is already one meta event in the game that functions similarly to said change: Modniir Ulgoth. This event is one of my absolutely favourite events in all game because it actually has some impact on the zone.

Regarding the dragon fights themselves, they should have a certain method of instantly wiping the zerg, but with plenty of time to prepare for it and safe grounds prepared.
Take Tequatl as an example: the wave shown in trailer, that would be a good and sensible method to wipe out the zerg if the people are simply afk attacking the boss for loot, this way people would have to remain by their PC and actively participate in the fight.

Most bosses already have such methods but the safe zones are simply too close to the boss, have the safe zone farther from the boss and make the hard hitters happen less often or even better turn the hard hitters in to steady damage like Claw of Jormag phase 2 but instead of stacking in damage have it affect everyone for lower damage no matter where they stand in the event area, this would promote support builds for characters.

There are multiple ways for the epic dragon battles to be more engaging and feel more epic, but only few of those methods are utilized and as a result the dragons dont feel powerful or epic at all.

Ps. this post also serves as a bump

After seeing the new events I can say that tequatl is a step to the right direction without a doubt, but the event still lacks impact in environment.

There is next to no negative consequences to failing to defeat him, he places mines to the beach? Well thats okay to a degree (but still boring) since the boss itself is so hard that most servers cant even defeat him. But his easier brothers still lack any impact and I hope that atleast one of the dragon lieutenants would follow the modniir ulgoth -pattern where zone becomes contested instead of just turning small area around the fight zone hostile and no signs of the dragon itself.

That also boggles my mind about tequatl: he destroys the cannon and just flies back to water just to come back and see the same cannon again. Atleast make it so that he will stay in his beach or fly around the zone until pre-events have been complete and make the pre-event chain occur where the cannon grounds are secured and cannon rebuilt before re-attempting the dragon battle. Make the events easy enough that they arent overly hard to finish since the main difficulty is in the dragon fight itself.

ps. friendly bump.