Anyone who has played GW2 since launch can tell something is a bit off about most zones now….. their kind of empty.
Players have either left to go play something else, because there isn’t much to log in each day to do, esp once you get to level 80.
But also that most of the people who are left are in Orr, grinding for karma and rewards.
This makes many of the events in the zones either not spawn, or can’t be completed solo.
It certainly isn’t as fun as it was at launch. But as soon as holiday events or new zones like the lost shores show up, everyone comes out of the wood works to take part.
People want to play, they just need to be given a good reason to do so.
My suggestion is to use large meta events like the ones in Orr, in every other zone that have rewards (that scale to level) that equal or surpass that in Orr.
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Let me break this down.
Say in Diessa Plateau when events play out and fail, which turns the lake to tar….. and?
As is, this does nothing, it’s a mere visual that has little to no effect on the player.
Worse comes to worse, a merchant or waypoint goes down….. at which point you walk 20ft in any direction and that problem is solved.
Events in short have no long term drawback to players should they fail, so why should we go out of our way to do events when there is neither a good reward nor drawback from not completing them?
The idea for these massive meta events is to have really tangible drawbacks for events in the zone failing, which progressively increase the difficult of the area/zone, however in turn it cycles in events that have higher rewards for completing them, as well as a multiplier bonus depending on how much of the zone has deteriorated.
In addition the condition of the zone can be seen from anywhere in the world via the map. (as long as you have been there at least once)
For example, the lake gets turned to tar and swimming in it causes players to get poisoned and slowed while in the water. New events crop up, Fire Legion built cannon towers along the shore line that attacks passersby, and another event causes large mutant lake monsters to spawn.
Each progressively makes the area around the lake a more dangerous place for players to be.
Spread this across the entire zone, systematically taking almost every way-point and merchant and event heart quests offline, and cycle in these high risk/reward events.
Once the zone gets to a certain point or after certain events fail, a meta event spawns that can be seen from anywhere in the world via a display on the map, showing that the meta event is now in play.
These meta events are completed by completing other events in the zone, each event improves the health of the zone. Once the meta event is completed everyone who participated in the meta event gets a huge reward, greater then anything they can get in Orr. (that scales to level)
Then after that a zone boss spawns that can be seen from anywhere in the zone, that once defeated gives another big reward and chest for some decent level based loot.
In addition each completed massive meta event/boss gives token rewards that can be redeemed for level appropriate gear, so if a player were to partake in meta events regularly as they level from 1-80, by the time they get to level 80 they should have enough for a full set of armor and a pair of weapons.
This equipment should probably have a unique skin, but also stats equal to any dungeon gear.
As long as there is 2 or 3 massive meta events each day, that would be enough to bring some people back each day and pry some people away from Orr and give them something interesting to do, as well as to return flow back to other zones.