This is not my suggestion and has several manifestations, but largely the solution seems to be similar to what I give below. I have searched this sub-forum for it, and have not seen it presented here. A little background, I’ve been taking my time with the game and exploring zones to their completion. I have never been to a level 50+ zone, and have completed some dungeons (which I think are challenging, but a completely separate beast). So far I have yet to see a dynamic event fail that has players engaging it. This is troubling as it indicates a lack of challenge. Furthermore, the world doesn’t seem to change as much as it could because events stay in a success state or near success state, when multiple states exist that are never seen. This isn’t as important for events that have no chaining associated for them, but for the one’s that have significant amount of chaining, like most meta-events.
I’ve been exploring Lornar’s Pass lately and the pirate ship meta-event in the lower left corner is a good example. No matter when I stroll by this area it’s always in the same state, the Quaggan captain is securely in charge and when threatened with mutiny the revolt is quickly averted. I’ve never seen this ship taken over by pirates, and I’m not sure how many events precede it, or even if a confluence of events are needed to succeed to get it in this state. I’d know I’d like to experience it though. I’ve had similar experiences in Harathi Hinterlands with the invasion of the centaur camps.
This may change in higher level zones, but I don’t think the lower level zones should be ignored when it comes to event progression and failure, even if it were the case. So, as a suggestion I think dynamic events should scale in difficulty on success. Meaning the next time that specific event triggers it is harder, and it increases in difficulty each time it is run until it fails and is pushed to the step(s) it progresses to on failure. Failure of an event will decrease its difficulty. The branched steps will remain at their existing difficulty unless they too succeed/fail. With this in play the pirates in the above example will get so numerous and challenging* that they will eventually succeed in their mutiny.
This is a basic solution to the problem that also has the benefit of adding replayability, other considerations that add icing to the cake are:
- Mark the event difficulty and increase rewards for completing more difficult events. This could also give an activity for guilds to do together, and boasting rights. (e.g., “We took down the ten-star Shatterer!”)
- Since failure is now an option provide rewards for failure based on partial event success.
- Make it more apparent where completed events branch. I’m less partial to this as I enjoy sticking around and listening to the post-event wrap up, but I notice many players run off after an event, only to return a minute later when the follow up starts.
Not every solution is without its problems, but I think the problems are minor. One problem is new players to a zone may happen to stumble upon it when most events are at their highest, making for a day full of failure/frustration (but not without its compensation). Another problem is this could encourage guilds/players to sit around in one place succeeding at an event to make it harder, rather than exploring the world.
(edited by SirMoogie.9263)