So far, we all know the time deadline can be flawed in some events and that relying on NPCs in bigger and harder events barely works most of the time. I thought we could discuss other means that could be used in a global scale for bosses and might fit more into the way GW2 operates.
I have one idea myself, but take it with a grain of salt. I am almost certain that it takes a lot more work than how simple it might be put to it, but still, it’s worth a shot and might spark new ideas that’s simpler to create.
The idea came up when I thought of how much the game relies on teamwork but also how much an individual has a responsibility for themselves as part of the team, e.g no holy trinity breeds self responsibility instead of completely relying on a tank to take all damage or a healer to always heal your HP. I think this mechanic would promote it more, and also bring a greater meaning and penalty of what I’m to least below: character deaths.
Player Death Count
Each time a player dies in the zone of the event, it is counted. Say the maximum death count is a 100 for one event. Once a 100 player has died (not downed) the event fails. See it as a morale status for the players on larger and harder events like enemy NPCs has their morale bar.
This would change everything and actually encourage people to revive downed players. It would also encourage taking things slower and make use of survival builds. Steady and slow wins the race.
Keep Boss Timer
Whilst the above is all well, it would instead give birth to a new problem. People might even more hate zerger gear people who die and the bosses might end up taking more time to kill than planned. To tackle this, I still think boss timers should be there.
Why? Because a boss wont sit around to wait until it’s beaten. Also this gives a reason to try kill the boss within a timeframe instead of relying on survival gear completely. BUT! The timers should be increased to the double of their current amount or even more or less, depending on the boss encounter.
Death Count Scaling
The best thing Anet came up with their events, is the scaling. I don’t know if this is also possible and how easy/hard/impossible it is, but instead of just scaling the encounter, scale the failure condition on fights aswell. The timer can stay the same if the fight gets easier, but the death count would have to be decreased and increased depending on the number of participants.
Conclusion
Taco (just as an example) could have a timer of about 20-30min instead, whilst having this player death counter. You can fail either from being way too slow, or way too reckless and dying a lot.
I think this is a fair deal, to have more than just one condition of failure, but also making them not all too harsh.
Again, the player death count mechanic is something I am not all too sure how easy/hard/impossible it is to create. I know hardly anything about coding and how it works, and I could’ve missed a few points which goes to the “Sounds good on paper, but no”. Atleast I hope it might give life to additional ideas and anything that might breed something close to it.
Thanks for reading, feel free to comment and post your ideas on how Anet could make boss and event encounters more interesting and add more event failure mechanics!
(edited by Tyragon.2496)