Guild Wars 2

Another thought I had about encouraging people to go to different zones…
Right now, there’s not much of a way to know which events are happening in which zones. Can I tell if Tequatl is happening without being in the right place at the right time? Same with temple chains, for instance.

“Calls to action” that encourage me to head to a zone to help out with events would help here, otherwise it’s easy to get lost in whatever I’m doing without thinking about what might be happening elsewhere.

ColinJohanson.2394:

We agree, this is something we’ve been discussing a lot lately and working on some various answers for, but I’m curious:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Some of the fun challenges we are currently solving, but it’s great to hear peoples thoughts on this subject as well.

Here’s something that I would like to see:
1. Make chained events increasingly more difficult the further you are in the chain. For example, if after scouting an NPC to a specific place, the event ends and a new event starts where you have help that NPC retake their home, make the second event harder than the first. If after retaking their home, a new event starts with a boss to kill, make that event even more difficult than the second.
2. In addition to this, make events incresingly more difficult for each time players successfully complete them.
3. Finally, make rewards scale with difficulty.

This way, you’ll accomplish two things: you’ll make the open world’s difficulty a bit more unpredictable, which adds fun, excitement and a feeling of danger to exploration; and you’ll create opportunities where events might reward more than normal.

However, I am aware this might make people grind a specific event over and over. Perhaps randomly increase the difficulty/ reward of events that haven’t been completed for too long, too. This way, you’ll create incentives for players to explore the world, and hunt down ignored-and-harder-than-ever events for better rewards.

I personally would love for the rewards to be related to each even’t story. If we kill a mighty dark knight in an event, perhaps we could get a rare sword drop from him? It would help at world immersion if the rewards were more “predictable” but related to each event.

Colin-

I’ve suggested this a couple times, but just in case it’s been overlooked… If you want to make doing Dynamic Events more rewarding, just increase the rewards! They don’t need to be different. Gold, Experience, and Karma all have useful sinks/conversions in game already.

I think that, rather than flatly increasing the rewards, you should scale the rewards based on how long the event went uncompleted. For example, an event like Champ Boar that gets fired off as soon as it’s ready will give the same rewards. An event that is often neglected, failed, or uncompleted, (like most of the escort quests), would scale gold, experience, and karma up based on a timer.

For example, if it goes 30 minutes before completion, you get double the normal rewards. If it’s 4 hours, you get 5x rewards. If it’s 8 hours, you get 10x rewards. That kind of thing.

This means that zones with low player population suddenly become very rewarding for groups of players who want to run through and complete events. Suddenly, these zones which are mostly empty are full of people. Players on high-population servers are guesting down to less-populated servers for the extra rewards (and those on the low-pop servers suddenly have open-world friends).

ColinJohanson.2394:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I think where the failure is lies in the rewards. You don’t get nowhere near enough rewards for doing DEs compared to other things, because karma is not very useful. Also, doing something extremely short and simple like killing a champion gives the same if not more rewards than a long DE like escorting someone, so no one does the escorts.

We agree, this is something we’ve been discussing a lot lately and working on some various answers for, but I’m curious:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Some of the fun challenges we are currently solving, but it’s great to hear peoples thoughts on this subject as well.

While I’ve suggested that Events should drop crafting materials rather than coin to add value to the system without driving inflation, I think the most direct solution is expand the things we can buy with the karma we are already receiving now.

One example would be add a traveling merchant somewhere that will convert our Karma into Lodestones, even at an extreme ratio not all that much better than we see for Orrian Jewelry Boxes. Those Orrian Jewelry boxes helped add enduring value to karma, but their fiercely RNG-driven nature makes them a non-starter for many players. Finding or even unlocking this vendor via DEs makes the process of swapping karma for lodestones an activity rather than simple maintenance.

Another example would be adding-post event vendors (as we see for many DEs now) that sell skins of the several armor sets that are presently only visible in the PvP locker. I would personally climb over a small mountain of dead Champion-or-Harder scale events to get the full set of “Guild” armor for use in general PvE play. I know others feel the same about the other ‘locked’ sets. Add 1 piece of each weight class to each new vendor and you already have superb ‘bait’ for 12 major new DE chains.

ColinJohanson.2394:

We agree, this is something we’ve been discussing a lot lately and working on some various answers for, but I’m curious:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Some of the fun challenges we are currently solving, but it’s great to hear peoples thoughts on this subject as well.

I think each of the non-80 zones should have a unique set of armor skins that are unlocked by completing the zone & doing a special set of zone achievements. The list should be pretty long & interesting (not just kill 500 chubas). Then you can have armor skins available to purchase for karma or zone faction. This, of course, needs to be done after the zone have been revamped to have MUCH MUCH larger metas that cross the whole zone & have lots of variations. DEs don’t split nearly enough. Every major DE should have at least 3 outcomes. It shouldn’t be just win/lose. It should be a story that plays out in lots of different ways.

In terms of DE? I’d even say, follow the K.I.S.S. Method.

Keep it Simple, Stupid.

Don’t try and come up with a new-fangled idea that will only put pressure on your dev team for both brainstorming and implementation. While ideas are your strong point, I think it’s the execution that usually suffers.

In all honesty, I’d just say, look to other games for inspiration. It’s not bad to do so.
A few things I’ve seen in other games that reward long play time, that can easily be translated to “You’ve done X amount of DE’s today!” are things like:
- Timed Offensive or Defensive buffs.
- Timed Loot drop increases.
- An overall increase in overall rewards for longer DE’s (You guys seem to always be on the edge of not wanting us to really “profit” from doing stuff in-game, only to really ‘break even’ for lack of a better term)

Or better yet, why not just do incremental rewarding?
So for example;
- After doing 5 DE’s in a day, you receive a chest. It contains a handful of very low level crafting items, and most definitely some junk.
- After doing 10 more DE’s, you get another box, with some other rewards slightly better, with less junk.
- Repeat for after 15 more, 20 more, ad 25 more.

I mean, you can change the chest rewards up completely to whatever you desire, and it also takes off some of the pressure on Champ Trains, which is kind of where people get their rewards from instead of DE’s.

nethykins.7986:

Or better yet, why not just do incremental rewarding?
So for example;
- After doing 5 DE’s in a day, you receive a chest. It contains a handful of very low level crafting items, and most definitely some junk.
- After doing 10 more DE’s, you get another box, with some other rewards slightly better, with less junk.
- Repeat for after 15 more, 20 more, ad 25 more.

I mean, you can change the chest rewards up completely to whatever you desire, and it also takes off some of the pressure on Champ Trains, which is kind of where people get their rewards from instead of DE’s.

Here’s the problem: champ trains become MORE popular because you get the champ bags AND you start to get chests for finishing DEs. I don’t know of any faster way to complete DEs than the champ trains…

Unintended consequences.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

[SNIP] We will then be opening up a new thread which will be discussing what we think has gone well and not so well (such as available time on my part)…

Chris,

While it’s true that I’m very unhappy with (what I perceive to be) such slavish adherence to the 2-week cadence without any true acknowledgement about how stressed and unhappy it makes many of us, I do have to say that I think both you and Bobby did very well in this thread in terms of participation.

In my opinion, you made the most of the time you had and I hope you don’t feel as though you didn’t participate enough. I may not have gotten the answers I wanted, but you were here, you listened, and you gave quite a bit of feedback yourself.

To summarize:

On a customer level, I doubt I’ll be purchasing gems or logging in any time soon. But on a personal level, I say: Job well done. Kudos.

Conncept.7638:

What I believe players wanted can be summed up as: Expansions on the existing stories and event mechanics already within the world, to the end that these stories feel more alive, expanding outward based on more advanced event mechanics, more story steps, leading to more varied story steps, player choice, and player success or failure.

This is very much what I imagined the Living Story would be like when I started playing GW2. The Dynamic Event system already makes the game feel alive, but the fact that Dynamic Events don’t change over time makes the game feel stagnant.

I think every LS update could just revamp a zones DEs and it would be great!

ColinJohanson.2394:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards?

I think loot is always the best reward in an RPG. But since champ-events already drop loot, perhaps non-champ events could give more XP and Karma than champ-events? To compensate you could create more things to buy with Karma and Skill Points.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We will then be opening up a new thread which will be discussing what we think has gone well and not so well with the process and practices of the first phase of the CDI initiative.

Could someone from the dev team also summarize the main points of discussion in this thread? i.e. consistent questions raised and main subjects discussed. It would also be nice to know how the dev team processed our feedback. i.e. how did the devs react? did we raise any concerns you hadn’t considered? or did we mostly mention points you’re already discussing internally?

Finnway.2183:

Could someone from the dev team also summarize the main points of discussion in this thread? i.e. consistent questions raised and main subjects discussed. It would also be nice to know how the dev team processed our feedback. i.e. how did the devs react? did we raise any concerns you hadn’t considered? did we praise anything you took for granted?

I want to emphasize this as a great idea. It’d be encouraging to get an idea of just how our feedback was received on a case-by-case basis if that’s information you can share. It’d help us feel like we’re actually bringing something to the table in terms of discussion.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I think where the failure is lies in the rewards. You don’t get nowhere near enough rewards for doing DEs compared to other things, because karma is not very useful. Also, doing something extremely short and simple like killing a champion gives the same if not more rewards than a long DE like escorting someone, so no one does the escorts.

We agree, this is something we’ve been discussing a lot lately and working on some various answers for, but I’m curious:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Some of the fun challenges we are currently solving, but it’s great to hear peoples thoughts on this subject as well.

I got a few ideas.

1. (you might be planning this already) make each dynamic event give you a number of event tokens based on their length and difficulty. E.G champ event would give no tokens because it’s very short and you got bags as a reward already.

You can’t get tokens from the same event more than once a day.

The tokens as used to purchase new Ascended materials for Ascended armours, amongst other useful items like special skins, unique sigils, or perhaps convience items like a reusable item which allows you to use it to gain Swiftness outside of combat and WvW. A vast number of tokens can even be used to purchase Ascebded weapon boxes.

Bit whatever the other rewards are, it should be tiered I think. There would be a low tier requiring relatively few tokens for those who want a quick payout, and a higher tier of rewards requiring a lot of tokens for those who likes having long-term goals.

2. Give DEs their own unique rewards. Each DE would drop a chest at its conclusion for all those who participated, depending on which zone you did the event in, the content would be different. Each type if chest has its own unique rewards.

You can’t get a chest twice from the same event twice a day and there’s a limit to how many chests you can obtain per day per zone.

3. Make Karma more useful, such as allowing you to purchase ascended materials and crafting material bags.

I don’t think it would be good to change the rewards for 80s and under-80s, as it can promote the player to rush to max level like you see in most other MMOs.

DarksunG.9537:

I think each of the non-80 zones should have a unique set of armor skins that are unlocked by completing the zone [snip] Then you can have armor skins available to purchase for karma or zone faction.

I hate to pick on someone, but I just wanted to point out that this already exists in many zones. For example, the Jottun Greatsword can only be obtained from a karma-merchants in Snowden Drifts; a level 15-25 zone. As another example, Dark Armor can only be obtained from karma-merchants in Fireheart Rise and Orr.

timmyf.1490:

nethykins.7986:

Or better yet, why not just do incremental rewarding?
So for example;
- After doing 5 DE’s in a day, you receive a chest. It contains a handful of very low level crafting items, and most definitely some junk.
- After doing 10 more DE’s, you get another box, with some other rewards slightly better, with less junk.
- Repeat for after 15 more, 20 more, ad 25 more.

I mean, you can change the chest rewards up completely to whatever you desire, and it also takes off some of the pressure on Champ Trains, which is kind of where people get their rewards from instead of DE’s.

Here’s the problem: champ trains become MORE popular because you get the champ bags AND you start to get chests for finishing DEs. I don’t know of any faster way to complete DEs than the champ trains…

Unintended consequences.

And therein lies the problem with my idea.

In that sense, all DE’s will hard to lure players away from champ trains if they are ultimately knocking 2 birds with 1 stone.

There is also the atomic bomb of making Events more attractive -

Allow players to buy 1 gem for 10,000 karma.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

The Queen’s Pavilion REDUX
Players are allowed to choose between two strategies, and the combined choices of all players on that server, decide the most popular strategy (much like Evon vs Ellen). The events then play out accordingly on that server. Perhaps Scarlet is blown out of the air by siege equipment. Perhaps Scarlet attacks another part of the city instead, and steals a valuable item. Or maybe she attacks Lion’s Arch instead, and springs Mai Trin from jail in a clever twist. Either way, the outcome can be different on each server, and none of the npc’s act like idiots.

The problem I have with servers each having their own independent story is this:

Even if you only give two options, the permutations after only three or four events become too much for even a handful of teams to handle.

A and B turns into A1, A2, B1, B2… which turns into A1, A2, A3, A4, B1, B2, B3, B4… which turns into A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6, A7, A8, B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B6, B7, B8…

It’s simply not feasible. Sorry. The story HAS to be railroaded to a considerable degree.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I think where the failure is lies in the rewards. You don’t get nowhere near enough rewards for doing DEs compared to other things, because karma is not very useful. Also, doing something extremely short and simple like killing a champion gives the same if not more rewards than a long DE like escorting someone, so no one does the escorts.

We agree, this is something we’ve been discussing a lot lately and working on some various answers for, but I’m curious:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Some of the fun challenges we are currently solving, but it’s great to hear peoples thoughts on this subject as well.

Token items Oh dear, I can expect rage for this. Completing events relating to Seraph rewards seraph tokens. These can be then traded for human cultural gear (weapons, only armor if human). Each zone relating to seraph dealers could have a token swap for items relevant to that level. Even more, you could make these vendors locked until certain events were complete – such as unique vendors only available once the Hirathi chain is open. Add unique rewards such as titles for actually contributing a lot (please stop this farm a living world to get a title, titles should mean something not represent the fact you signed on during a 2 week period and joined a zerg). So completing the full Seraph chain (you would actually have to take part in many of the events) and trading in a lot of tokens could get you a title ‘Slayer of Ulgoth’. Rewards based on contributing to the world in meaningful ways that relate to the lore, are totally lacking at the moment.

This makes perfect sense. More difficult events could reward more tokens. Events which have been up for a long time could reward more. It gives a reward related to the actual events. Farming events would be possible, but atleast zones may be a little more active. The big note is making things equal risk = reward. Also add scaling so bonuses can be added for completing a large amount of the event compared to someone who did 10% damage when you did 90%. So when people were at level 80, the amount of work they put into helping the world and completing events for the world actually can amount to some level of reward, that actually represents said contribution. Add really difficult events that have to be started from a contact in the city zone, cover different maps and have decent rewards.

Next the counter argument – we have so many tokens allready. Well, why not merge these with dungeon tokens. So no more dungeon tokens, instead you have ‘Badge of the Seraph’ relating to events which help out the seraph, completing large human chains, human storyline (you do so much for the queen yet get nothing from it…), random small chance drop on human enemies and a larger reward from dungeon tokens. Add some unique rewards/unlocks for completing each dungeon, such as only being able to access a dungeon sale vendor once you have completed all the paths of that dungeon.

tldr:

- Completing events relating to a specific organization rewards tokens for that.
- Harder events give more rewards. Contributing more gives more rewards. If chains have been open for a long time, they offer more rewards (urgency bonus). Additional benefit for completing more of a chain/completing events in multiple zones within a time frame. This stuff is hidden from the UI of course.
- Completing event chains unlocks dealers to spend the tokens, such as killing the centaur boss to open a unique dealer in that zone. Some dealers move through zones themself at random times to reward exploration.
- Rewards are not just weapons/armor. Special food, crafting mats, backpieces, even titles for contribution (T1 human = Protector of the innocent, T2 = Knight of her majesty , T3 = Lord of the unbroken).
- Remove dungeon tokens. Dungeons now give tokens relevant to that token type. Dungeon token dealers can only offer rewards based on your dungeon completion, so example, to get Arah gear you have to complete Arah story +3/4 paths. Then dungeon rewards are less about farming the dungeon and more about unlocking the ability to buy something for your contribution
- Most importantly, this can be tired to the heart system and make hearts continue to be worthwhile after completed.
-Continued with rant below—

It may be a bit of work to redesign but it would really be worth it. Let me sum this up in one slight rant of a sentence You have created an amazing open world that has so much story and character, likely the deciding purchasing factor for so many of your customers, yet forsake this to reward a biweekly grind and repeating dungeons/world bosses/champ kills over and over again. The living world, Scarlett, these bi weekly things are not Guild Wars. I honestly disbelieve a large number of people would buy the game based on the living grind, they buy it for PvE in general, WVW and PVP. Please do not place so much focus on your living world the rest is forgotten about. Please give people reason to remember why the open world is so well designed, what the story is, who the inhabitants of Tyria are. Make Arah path 5, put scarlet there and be done with it, the epitome of bad design can remain the epitome of annoyance in her rightful place.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I think where the failure is lies in the rewards. You don’t get nowhere near enough rewards for doing DEs compared to other things, because karma is not very useful. Also, doing something extremely short and simple like killing a champion gives the same if not more rewards than a long DE like escorting someone, so no one does the escorts.

We agree, this is something we’ve been discussing a lot lately and working on some various answers for, but I’m curious:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Some of the fun challenges we are currently solving, but it’s great to hear peoples thoughts on this subject as well.

Hi,
Earlier in this thread I suggested a system called Global Dominance where as a server, we need to control the world map(all zones, all towns..as much as possible) against onslaughts of enemy NPCs. If an enemy NPC like a band of centaurs take over a town, they gain a foothold thus increasing their presence. After a short while they attack another town, and gain another foothold. We have to defeat these footholds and drive them back. Our world dominance % dictates a server-wide bonus, or something to that effect similar to WvW,

This does at least two good things:
-Allows the player to truly play in any zone they want without following the champ train
-Spreads the population out to all zones rather than just a few

Search for my post earlier in the thread. I explain it a bit more.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I think where the failure is lies in the rewards. You don’t get nowhere near enough rewards for doing DEs compared to other things, because karma is not very useful. Also, doing something extremely short and simple like killing a champion gives the same if not more rewards than a long DE like escorting someone, so no one does the escorts.

We agree, this is something we’ve been discussing a lot lately and working on some various answers for, but I’m curious:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Some of the fun challenges we are currently solving, but it’s great to hear peoples thoughts on this subject as well.

Karma is pretty useless right now unless you want a temple set or are going after a legendary. Other than that, it is useless. Suggestion: Make karma more useful.

GW2 is littered with too many currencies and reward types.
-Gold
-Gems
-Different dungeon tokens for every dungeon
-Karma
-Laurels
-Globs of Ecto
-Guild Commendations
-Badge of Honor
-Skill points
-Fractal relics
-Fractal pristine relics
-Guild Influence

Did I miss any? Point is: You need to reduce the amount of currency you have, and make Karma a universal currency. And make Karma universally available from literally anything you do in game.

Doesn’t necessarily fix the issue at hand, but its a start.

What disappoints me the most about dynamic events in the game right now, is how it is EXACTLY what the developers said the game wouldn’t be in the Manifesto trailer. Ree Soesbee said literally:

“As a structure the MMO has lost its ability to make the player feel like a hero. Everybody around you is doing the same thing you’re doing. The boss you just killed respawns 10 minutes later. It doesn’t care that I’m there.”

Yet that is exactly what the game is like right now, only the boss respawns less than a minute later.

“You rescue a village that will stay rescued, who then remember you. "

Dynamic events reset really fast, and if you spend a few minutes in any explorable, you constantly see the same events repeating themselves. Villages most definitely do not stay rescued, and they also do not remember who you are.

Manifesto trailer

I was really hoping that we’d get what the Manifesto promised… and we didn’t. So my hope is that the Living Story will evolve into what the Manifesto promised.

ColinJohanson.2394:

We agree, this is something we’ve been discussing a lot lately and working on some various answers for, but I’m curious:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Some of the fun challenges we are currently solving, but it’s great to hear peoples thoughts on this subject as well.

Put champion boxes at the end of a DE chain, that way we don’t have too bad of a “Champ Train” going on.
Have keys, or something, that are part of the reward. Much like the scavenger hunt in GW1 for the moa chick, we could have something for GW2. A key from the fallen Bandit King, a crystal information piece taken from the dead Inquest researcher, magic McGuffin seeds from a Nightmare Court Baron. Add them all together in Mystic forge and get something awesome or helpful like a buff for reduced WP costs, a exotic weapon, or big bags of money.

People will game the system for the quickest reward. Some will do the events just to see what happens next, some want the challenge.

From a pure monetary reward I’d like to see:
*Skins from BLTC or at least tickets so I don’t need to buy keys
*Keys if you don’t feel like giving out skins
*Rare chance of T6 rare materials like Glacial Lodestones
*Buffs, account bound, that would help our lower leveled alts if they use them
*Maybe even Guild commendations or rewards for those playing a chain in a guild, letting the smaller sized one get a helping hand.

Also cesmode is right about the currencies. ANet, you have so many different ways to reward folks.

ColinJohanson.2394:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Whatever other rewards they have, they should definitely include XP and…anything fungible (coin, items, etc.). I would take notice if they started including ascended crafting materials, even in small amounts (judging from collectible storage, it looks like you’re planning at least one more ascended material—maybe it should come mainly from DEs?)

Some sort of record tracking all the unique events I’ve helped complete would encourage seeking out and completing a lot of different events, even if there were little or no additional reward for filling it in. (I’m a completionist.) If it were broken down by area, it could also help me locate events I’ve never done before.

As a rule of thumb, events—like everything else—should give rewards roughly proportional to the required time investment. That means longer events need bigger rewards—but only for players who stick with them the whole time.

I think there’s a lot of unexploited potential in the concept of participation ranks. Currently, it’s easy to get gold participation in many events even if you only show up for 10% of the event, and that makes the ranks pretty much meaningless; it would be cool if I got rewarded when I participated more.

HOWEVER, that only works if players can trust that you have a sound metric for measuring participation, which probably requires both an overhaul of the system and an increase in transparency. Right now when I do an escort event, I’m not sure whether I get participation for being near the caravan or for killing enemies along its path (sometimes players push the front line ahead of the escort and I can’t do both), and I’d be surprised if I got additional credit for giving the caravan swiftness or protection even though I probably should.

Maybe an onscreen progress bar showing your participation rank and progress to the next rank, which visibly goes up for a wide variety of contributions, including dealing damage, healing/buffing NPCs and other participating players, and accomplishing event-specific goals? And probably an increase in the number of possible participation levels, with the highest ones requiring skillful play over the entire length of the event. Probably troublesome to balance all that, though…

On another note, players who want to participate in DEs need to be able to find them; I’ve sometimes gone a long time without stumbling across any. It may be helpful to increase the range they’re visible from…or perhaps scouts could reveal active events in a large area? Sometimes I suspect that one event people can’t or don’t want to complete (or possibly don’t even notice) is preventing other events from starting in the vicinity, though I’m not sure if that’s really how they work…if that can happen, consider adding failure conditions to more events so they eventually cycle out if players ignore them.

cesmode.4257:

ColinJohanson.2394:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I think where the failure is lies in the rewards. You don’t get nowhere near enough rewards for doing DEs compared to other things, because karma is not very useful. Also, doing something extremely short and simple like killing a champion gives the same if not more rewards than a long DE like escorting someone, so no one does the escorts.

We agree, this is something we’ve been discussing a lot lately and working on some various answers for, but I’m curious:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Some of the fun challenges we are currently solving, but it’s great to hear peoples thoughts on this subject as well.

Karma is pretty useless right now unless you want a temple set or are going after a legendary. Other than that, it is useless. Suggestion: Make karma more useful.

GW2 is littered with too many currencies and reward types.
-Gold
-Gems
-Different dungeon tokens for every dungeon
-Karma
-Laurels
-Globs of Ecto
-Guild Commendations
-Badge of Honor
-Skill points
-Fractal relics
-Fractal pristine relics
-Guild Influence

Did I miss any? Point is: You need to reduce the amount of currency you have, and make Karma a universal currency. And make Karma universally available from literally anything you do in game.

Doesn’t necessarily fix the issue at hand, but its a start.

Funny thing was, this was highlighted as a key thing that they’re looking into removing/cutting down. A few months later though, I’m still seeing currencies being introduced.

Sure they may not be permanent like laurels and fractal relics, but hell, they’re not at all improving on the “too many currencies” issue.

BobbyStein.2315:

So while I think it’s entirely possible that we can implement such a feature we are limited in how much historical text we can display. But if players are able to “fill in the gaps” somehow, then I think they’ll get what they need out of it. I wish I could say more because I think our current designs are pretty exciting, but we’re just not ready to discuss them in detail just yet.

Regarding GW1 lore in the game, I think it’d be really compelling to have in-game books or some other delivery device to allow players to immerse themselves in Tyria’s history.

don’t have scrolling text actually make them replayable, introduce THE MINSTREL or similar, have him wander tyria a different zone each week (ie nicholas sandford), and by talking to him you can request an epic tale of battles past, this would trigger a short piece of VO and possibly a cut scene where your sitting by a fire as he narrates imagining the events where he introduces the content and then the player is placed into an instance where they can actually play through it, and watch relevant cut-scenes etc and if you request the same tale enough times he may reward you with a memento ie that storys meta (assuming you clear the requirements through replaying the events) some aspects can be tweaked such as grindy click x n00 times is reduced to n0 and the narrator chimes in “<name> finally finished < activity (n)> while it was only <n> it felt as though <s/he> had been at it much longer and done it many more times”

this does two things

it has players move around the world a bit more to find him, he may also ask for zone specific materials as a price for his tales or only tell zone specific tales.

it saves on new content you have to make, as essentially other than the narration you are replaying an instance of the old content with minor tweaks.

In regards to books existing books can be expanded ie koss on koss, Abaddon: The Secret Truths and so on in regards to books that are backpacks add a read option to the right click menu.

ColinJohanson.2394:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Some of the fun challenges we are currently solving, but it’s great to hear peoples thoughts on this subject as well.

i would like to see things like collectables ie toys/ minipets / tonics consumable/ permanent bundles different ones for each zone or themed per faction so for example Kryta areas could reward seraph/ centaur minis, these could be the currently existing ones or new ones, southsun could have those that were around for the living world events back and so on.

WOW does this really well with different areas having different mount/ pet vendors, some requiring certain quest completion or faction standing or crafting or as rng drops, people today still farm Strathholme for the mount 7 years on to a certain extent you have this in the game with some karma vendors giving nice themed rewards, but this is let down by the fact that i cant transmute my pet rock onto a lvl 80 trinket or that the quaggan offering tonics is behind an event chain with a buggy champion you need to kill

Conncept.7638:

very much this, right now most dynamic events are extremely shallow with simple win/lose states with the same event replaying a few minutes later if you don’t progress the chain further if its part of a chain. you could really use the living story to expand on this say for example the centaurs are pushed back in harathi, rather than lasting 10-20 min a new foe steps into the power vacuum and the DEs change those already in progress are modified ie escorts where at point x you are attacked by centaurs, you are instead attacked by aetherblade and so on, taking this a step further you could also introduce a whole new set of hearts, this lasts till the new foe is defeated or perhaps the centaurs launch an offensive and battle them

in regards to pacing and plot, the scarlet plot may have an amazing ending that fully explains everything and fleshes out her character, but there’s no guarantee ill be playing for it, if i miss those two weeks due to having a life or not wanting to play, shes still a one dimensional character and nothing is explained to me, i skipped most of lost shores due to the LA invasions being a buggy laggy mess and every previous instance of "you really don’t want to miss it " being a cut scene you could catch on youtube, obviously after the fact i was a bit miffed it rained precursors, but going there for secret of southsun i had no idea who canach was, to me he was just a random sylvari, who liked mines, i needed to kill to get a backpack. he wasn’t really explained in that release, it was assumed you’d met him previously, some of my friends only started playing during that release and didn’t really know what was going on as i rushed them around to get the meta.

in my opinion NOTHING should be unobtainable because you missed an event, make it harder to get after the event like the new healing skill but still available, so if people want to put in the extra effort they can.

one thing i think would help to improve the living world would be to add the tabled minigames you guys had planned on adding to the racial cities originally before launch. ASAP I want to be able to take a break from adventuring and have fun playing fun activities on the side in LA and the racial cities. I feel like you guys are leaving loose ends in the living world but not having released them, i especially want to see bar brawl and polymock. Theres even an achievment category for bar brawl.

ColinJohanson.2394:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards?

I would like to see rewards. Obviously. :P

I would say not more exp. I think we get too much of it already. It’s easy to overlevel past the content of an area. And if someone really wants to power level an alt, there are already methods like crafting to do that.

The main thing people seem to want out of champ trains is loot and karma. More karma wouldn’t be bad, but I doubt it’d pull anyone away from a champ train. Loot especially is something I missed once I stopped doing champ trains.

One thought I had was some kind of “regional crystal.” In short, either a drop or npc item that “powers up” when someone finishes an event in that map. Champ trains would contribute little or no energy for the crystal. Meta events could provide a lot, if not the most. The powered up crystal could then be used for something. What specifically? I’m not sure. Weapon/armor skins? Loot? Instances?

I had the thought of using it to open special instances for special items/content, but I’m worried that would lead to a “do the grindy part to get to the good part” style of play. Maybe if there was multiple ways to open the area, the crystal being one of them?

What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Ultimately, I’m not sure. I haven’t really spent much time with a train for awhile, ignoring labrynth. And really, the only reason I spent time with a train in labrynth was to help an guildie. I just got bored over the whole thing; normal and labrynth trains alike.

I think if I was only doing events for rewards, it’d end up being the same boredom. I would like more variety of things to do.

My idea for better rewards would be something like the Luxon and Kurzick faction in GW1. If you are doing events that are helping the ogres you could gain ogre rank whick would allow you to buy special ogre weapon and armor skins.

It obviously needs those skins first to do something like that and it seems to be quite some effort for you to produce those considering we didn’t see a single whole armor set in the last year apart from the gemstore, but you could start with the ones you already have.
Every character is only allowed to buy the armor and weapons from the order he joined in his personal story. You could make Vigil, Order of Whispers and Durmant Priory factions and when a player finishes an event helping one of them he gains rank and lets say after 30 events he is allowed to buy the boots, 30 next the gloves or something like that. At least I would be higly motivated to do events for the Durmant Headgear on my Thief

DEs are the thing I enjoy most about Guild Wars and I would love to see a good reward system and an evolution in the events.

ColinJohanson.2394:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Perhaps another look is needed at long-term rewards and goals that players strive for. It seems a lot of angst is directed at long-term rewards that players feel are “too grindy”, such as Legendaries, Ascended gear, and more recently, festive content such as the Halloween items. Of course we want to have long-term goals to work towards, as this heightens the feeling of satisfaction when we finally do get it. However, to avoid creating that feeling of “grind”, requirements for these rewards could be spread out across a variety of game content with lower tiers of completion. For example:

- Instead of relying on a Precursor to drop by chance, the player could acquire one (per character) by undertaking a quest to defeat a number of powerful bosses scattered across the world. This includes not just World Bosses, but also foes that are rarely tackled, such as Lieutenant Kholer in Ascalonian Catacombs, or Guild Bounty targets. This would encourage players to seek out foes and dungeon paths that are unpopular or rarely seen.
- Once they have defeated all of these foes, the player is then sent to a special solo instance where they have to defeat one last powerful enemy (a Doppelganger, perhaps?), after which they receive their Precursor. This Precursor can then be sold or kept for personal use as usual.

Another idea might be putting special NPCs in a player’s Home Instance that grant special rewards based on the player’s activity in-game. For example, suppose there is a Seraph Liaison in the Home Instance who tracks how much effort the player has put into the war with the centaurs. Completing Hearts/Dynamic Events/bosses linked to the Seraph/Centaur war grants karma (increased from the current amount) and increases the player’s “renown”. Depending on their Renown level, karma can be spent at the Liaison NPC to obtain materials, weapon/armor skins, or even special items that are used for Ascended/Legendary crafting.

For instance, to reach Renown Level 1, the player must have completed all Hearts in Queensdale linked to the centaurs, completed all the centaur-linked Dynamic Events in Queensdale, and killed the three Veteran Centaur Chieftains at the Righteous Hoofmoot. To reach Level 6 (the highest level), the player must have completed all Hearts in all maps linked to centaurs, completed all centaur-linked DE’s, and slain the World Boss Ulgoth the Modniir.

At each level, a new tier of rewards is unlocked at the Seraph Liaison, allowing the player to purchase things like Centaur weapon skins, Vials of Blood fine crafting mats, Onyx rare crafting mats, special minis etc. for karma. (Possibly also gold.)

Similar systems could be set up for wars against the Nightmare Court, Flame Legion, the Sons of Svanir/Icebrood, Destroyers etc.

To encourage players to return to past maps they’ve already completed, utilise the Daily system! Having a Daily task like “Centaur Crusher: Fight the centaurs by completing <X> centaur-related DE in Queensdale/Kessex Hills/Gendarran Fields/Harathi Hinterlands” would encourage players to go to a specific map and aim for particular events.

As far as encouraging players to travel all over the world rather than just sit in one map farming the same ones over and over, this seems to be linked to the new trend of Champ farming. The introduction of Champion loot bags was a fantastic idea, but as always, players gravitate to whichever Champions/areas are the easiest to kill. Although it’s normally regarded as a dirty word, Diminishing Returns on individual Champions will probably be needed to get players to move out across the world looking for fresh targets. A Champion may always drop an Exotic loot bag the first two times he’s killed, but after that it changes to a non-Exotic loot bag for the map level he’s in for the next three kills, and after that he stops dropping loot altogether.

While we’re on the subject, can I make the suggestion that Elite enemies also get the non-Exotic tier loot bags? Elites are almost as hard to kill as Champions, and having them give the same or worse loot as Veterans seems inconsistent. As with the Champions, Elites are also subject to Diminishing Returns and stop dropping loot after they’ve been killed a few times. These loot bags will also help keep supply for Fine crafting mats at a reasonable level.

ColinJohanson.2394:

We agree, this is something we’ve been discussing a lot lately and working on some various answers for, but I’m curious:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Some of the fun challenges we are currently solving, but it’s great to hear peoples thoughts on this subject as well.

One of the ideas I came up with (and posted here but without any reply) was to introduce a zone-progression system with unique rewards like themed skins, a slot for minis in your hero-window, specific bags (more about it later in the post),…

You’d get progression by doing a number of uniqe events of that zone. So for example: if you do 10 unique events in that zone you’ll get +10 progression on the zone-progression bar. If you manage to find 15 unique events in that zone and get gold participation for those, you’ll get a bonus and +20 progression. At every specific number you’ll get a reward chest too (as short time goal).

This shouldn’t be time-gated. Not a “weekly” or “monthly achievement” but something you can do on your own pacing. A clearly visible counter would be needed to let people know of their progress. Once you’ve done all events in a zone, the counter gets a reset and you can start all over again.

At first the progression was in form of a token system, but people didn’t like the fact that it’s a new currency again. If you have a certain amount of points on the progession, you’ll unlock new rewards. Prestige rewards would have you doing most of the events of a zone not only once but a few times.

About the rewards. Things should be really non-generic. Something you could only get from the specific zone, so that people don’t repeat this only in “easy” zones. I mentioned a bag, but how could you make a bag a specific item? Well: add a certain functionality e.g. Queensdale: the centaur-hunter bag. A 18 slot bag (prestige: 20 slot bag) which automatically collects the centaur-related junk items and salvages those into crafting materials. No one else can salvage centaur-junk items. Alternative: it automatically sells the centaur-junk items for vendor-price. The mini-slot would only work for Queensdale-related minis. Something like this.

Edit: another word on this:
Heart vendors should really be more useful for high level characters. Most of the people spend their time on lv.80 characters, the longer the game is live, and not everyone has all hearts unlocked once hitting the level-max. The suggestion: give each heart vendor lv.80 versions of the rewards for quite a lot of karma and some prestige rewards (rare and exotic versions, bags, permanent environmental weapons,…) which are even more expensive. Stuff that people want to buy, so that karma gets useful again and people feel rewarded for doing the hearts once they reach a higher level than the zone turns you into. Rewards should be for your level, not low-level stuff… people should feel rewarded to go out in the world and do other zones than max. level ones, not punished because it’s a “low level zone”.

to make it easier for devs and people to track the series of unique events it could look more like this: A tactician npc shows you a map of the zone where you see the zone in 20 sectors. 20 squares. If you do an event in a square, the square turns green. For each 5 green squares on that map you’ll get a reward chest and progression on the zone-progression bar. The only problem: there should be at least one event in each square. Anet could start doing this for one zone and add a few events to make sure it’s covered. Then they could add this system for all other maps when they’re ready. When the whole map is green (done an event in each square) you’ll get an extra bonus progression, a nice reward and all squares turn non-coloured again so that you can repeat this.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I think where the failure is lies in the rewards. You don’t get nowhere near enough rewards for doing DEs compared to other things, because karma is not very useful. Also, doing something extremely short and simple like killing a champion gives the same if not more rewards than a long DE like escorting someone, so no one does the escorts.

We agree, this is something we’ve been discussing a lot lately and working on some various answers for, but I’m curious:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Some of the fun challenges we are currently solving, but it’s great to hear peoples thoughts on this subject as well.

Gonna blow you’re mind. I do two things in this game and have done mostly since release. WvW and open world PvE. I was the timer before there were timers online. I kept track of boss spawns, notified multiple large guilds, brough together groups of 20+ people. A random player actually bought me my commander tag on my main so the groups could follow me better. This will be in two parts

PART I OF THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO FIXING THE OPEN WORLD!

Lets go head and take a look at while the DE did poorly and isn’t considered “good endgame” by most players.

1. We can’t find new ones! Thats right. When you say you added 60 events. We have no idea where they are. We could explore a zone and theres a chance of never finding a new one because they are set on timers.

2. Reward system. It is just bad. Not all players need exp at 80. Most grab skill points if they need skill points. On top of that everything gives exp, so most would rather be doing dungeons or WvW or fractals. These three things all offer exp, karma, and silver (somtimes more on the sliver part) on top of having sure ways of getting gear (tokens).

3. Rewards aren’t in tune with the events. Sometimes events that take twice as long offer very little more in reward.

4. Combat can become bland and boring with too many people doing the same event, lose its depth. (refer to champ runs. Players aren’t really challenged in most of these fights).

These 4 points I believe are huge factors in the downfall of events.

Now lets look at some of my favorite suggestions that I have formed over months of thought

1. Rewards.
– There aren’t too many ways you can reward players with current rewards. You could do champ bags, but that could make champions useless again. You could do ascended stuff, but there is a ton of that in the game already and could make open world content aside from events useless. So here are a few that you should think about
A. Buffs. That is right, buffs. You could do special food buffs OR a special buff that doesn’t take up the current buff slots. These buffs last long and can be taken into dungeons and WvW. Your group about to go into CM? Well that one buff from an event in kessex hills could really help in the fights in there.
B. Gear. I’ve suggested this before and I stills stand strong on it. Award special looking gear. STAY AWAY FROM RNG. Theres plenty of RNG gear in the game already. You know how each dungeon has tokens that can be turned in for loot with unique looks. All armor pieces and weapons. One per map. These tokens can be map wide or only zone wide. However, you must make it so you can own these tokens only through event. You can only get these tokens from an event once per reset! This will promote exploring and finding new events.

Deified.7520:

ColinJohanson.2394:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I think where the failure is lies in the rewards. You don’t get nowhere near enough rewards for doing DEs compared to other things, because karma is not very useful. Also, doing something extremely short and simple like killing a champion gives the same if not more rewards than a long DE like escorting someone, so no one does the escorts.

We agree, this is something we’ve been discussing a lot lately and working on some various answers for, but I’m curious:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Some of the fun challenges we are currently solving, but it’s great to hear peoples thoughts on this subject as well.

snip…

PART II OF THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO FIXING THE OPEN WORLD!!

C. Guild Rewards- Guilds are really useless right now. They’re main purpose is for WvW and outside of that large groups aren’t needed as often. Involve guilds in the open world more. Each map could have lets say 3 structures. A guild would automatically claim a structure when it reaches a certain level of influence. Lower level it is, lower amount of influence (low levels= chance of more players without guild= small guilds can grow easier). So a structure in lets say the straights of devestaion woudl require a lot of influence and be for the really large guilds. Which is suiting since most of the hardest events are in Orr. Each struture will be in a “Guild Zone”. In these guild zones the towns will display banners with the guild emblem, maybe a few npcs wearing guild armor. Don’t overdo it however. Each zone has a stabilization meter. For each event that fails or goes undone over a period of time, it goes down. Lower it is, less special rewards you get from the guild structure. This promotes doing events. In the guild structures there are special Armor vendors, NPCs, and statues that award buffs. They only exist at certain levels of stabilization. These guild structures could have some level of customization (the feeling of guild halls which many people wanted). They display the guild emblem, etc. Random players could take advantage of some of these buffs. There is a section reserved for only guild members with special buffs that also correlate to the stabilization. If you guys put in something like this it could make guilds feel more important, and populate the world again. Put in a influence drain to take care of afk/dead guilds. Lower stabilization means higher influence drain. Makes them get involved and invested to the open world. Do not put TPs, and other main city appliances in these structures. Keep those in the main cities!
D. Home instance items. This is the least likely because you can’t really show off your home instance easily. However awarding items that could customize your home instance could help. However, these would probably be a secondary reward and wouldn’t come close to populating the world again.

Next problems
2. We can’t find new ones! Easiest solution would to at least list teh zone or area the new events are put so people can find them .

3. Reward scaling. If I spend 30 mins doing a event compared to a event that last 10mins, the 30mins should get a lot better rewards.

4. If you feel like a event could involve a zerg, spread people out. The biggest thing for the open world is to INVOLVE THE ENVIRONMENT. This is what makes it different from the rest of the game. NPCs, taking cover behind rocks/blockades, buffs, environmental effects, environment weapons, environmental utilities (causing rockslide to take out enemies or stun a boss). Things like that. It makes the fights interesting and makes it so you can’t kill or do a event by just standing there attacking it.

5. Another suggestion. Avoid timed spawns if you can. They’re boring and promotes timers which really takes away from the game. Zho’qafar catacombs is one of the best events in terms of how it is spawned. 3 pre events, then a 20-30min way, then a escort, then the boss fight, then it restarts in like 15mins. The way you set it up, 90% of the time it was either up or in a pre event. I hardly ever had to wait for something to pop, unlike the boss fights where you end up waiting 2 hours+.

So, I don’t really have anything constructive to add to this conversation, as I think there are many people in here already doing an amazing job of expressing everything I feel, but I did just want to interject and just give ANet a pat on the back for giving us this opportunity.

Not only that, but I imagine it’s a lot for them to take in (I myself am having a hard time reading all of these posts) with everyone giving their thoughts and opinions, so bravo ANet, I think this is definitely a step in the right direction, I look forward to what you have to bring us in the coming years

Finnway.2183:

DarksunG.9537:

I think each of the non-80 zones should have a unique set of armor skins that are unlocked by completing the zone [snip] Then you can have armor skins available to purchase for karma or zone faction.

I hate to pick on someone, but I just wanted to point out that this already exists in many zones. For example, the Jottun Greatsword can only be obtained from a karma-merchants in Snowden Drifts; a level 15-25 zone. As another example, Dark Armor can only be obtained from karma-merchants in Fireheart Rise and Orr.

nah, that’s nothing. I’m talking full, dungeon-like skin sets that reflect the zone that can only be unlocked by playing the zone to a large extent. Tbh, Orr should have a different set for each god/goddess. For a game that’s end-game is about skins, they seem to suck at adding armor skins to the game.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I think where the failure is lies in the rewards. You don’t get nowhere near enough rewards for doing DEs compared to other things, because karma is not very useful. Also, doing something extremely short and simple like killing a champion gives the same if not more rewards than a long DE like escorting someone, so no one does the escorts.

We agree, this is something we’ve been discussing a lot lately and working on some various answers for, but I’m curious:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Some of the fun challenges we are currently solving, but it’s great to hear peoples thoughts on this subject as well.

Gold. Rewarding skins or unique items is only going to matter until a player gets a look and stat combo they are happy with, which they eventually will. At that point they’ll be interested in making gold to work towards some of the expensive items like ascended weapons and legendaries, so any reward that does not lead to those items is going to be useless.

I’d suggest increasing the payout for dynamic events considerably, but limit the bonus reward to once per week for each event. Players would be encouraged to do events all over the place and could do their favorite ones without feeling like their time is wasted, while the weekly limit would keep people from just repeating the same one over and over.

Conncept.7638:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Conncept.7638:

BobbyStein.2315:

It’s more a matter of finishing what we started, implementing what we’ve already designed, and setting the game up for the next arc…

Why couldn’t the design team have this attitude when they attempted and failed to expand on the event system? I swear it seems like they barely even tried…

Hi Conncept,

Can you provide some more details please in order to add more value to the discussion. Can you explain what you mean by attempted and failed to expand on the event system? Where do you think we failed and what do you see as success?

Chris

Sure. A short time in to the games release, before the LS, the developers stated that they wished to spend development time and resources expanding on the existing ‘core’ event system over the whole game world, everybody loved the idea and I haven’t seen players so excited since. Note that when it was announced existing events was the wording used.

Cue the Modus Secleris events. While they did have some interesting combat mechanics they didn’t scale properly, and had no story; but more importantly they (and whatever events were implemented with them, players still don’t know what those 60 events were) couldn’t be found by any method except scouring the entire bleeding world, and none were in any way related to the existing event, stories, characters, and areas we loved and were hoping to see expanded. They were just… there… they could have been placed anywhere in the world without actually feeling like they were part of the world.

In short, the design team completely botched it. What was implemented was not what players wanted or had in mind when they asked for expansion on the DE system.

And then seemingly without any feedback whatsoever, from which they may have concluded that these events failed for reasons that could be easily addressed in even a single subsequent attempt, the expanding of the event system just seemed to piddle off as southsun came and went, hard-stopped for the holidays, and a few months later the LS started with its temporary content and side-story rather than the expansion of the core content and existing stories I believe most players hoped for.

What I believe players wanted can be summed up as: Expansions on the existing stories and event mechanics already within the world, to the end that these stories feel more alive, expanding outward based on more advanced event mechanics, more story steps, leading to more varied story steps, player choice, and player success or failure. That expansion can come by way of the LS updates, or just retcons of new content into existing areas.

I don’t want to see a giant tower out of nowhere on the front lines of the war with the centaurs nearly as much as I would like to actually see the story of the war with the centaurs. I don’t want to see the dredge and flame legions ‘powers combined’ as much as I would like to see the stories which the flame legion and the dredge are already a part of continued. Tyria already felt like a living world on release, those feelings just needed to be continued, but were instead diverged away from, and in some cases wholly ignored.

(Sorry I’m saying ‘them’ as if you aren’t part of the conversation but I have no idea if you were a part of the team of developers at the time or not)

I want to see the politics involved in the Flame legion, all their leaders bickering with eachother while slandering the other legions. I want to see their plots to take control of the Charr again, I want to see them steal the claw of Khan-Ur and create another Charr civil war with many of the other legion’s seperatists siding with the Flame legion. I want to see specific and unique characters in the group and then choose a side with either the Flame Legion or the other legions (or at least fight them as a type of story plot).

I don’t want to see them team up with the Dredge unless they are playing the Dredge for fools (because the Flame legion Charr are actually quite clever).

Each faction is interesting, and I would rather see them fleshed out more. To see them all come together makes the world shrink somewhat. Let’s pick a dragon, then take the biggest non-dragon antagonists and create a story during the dragon conflict that will get in the way of us taking down the beast.

I’m really cautious about the idea of just foisting monetary rewards onto everything – that’s really the most social-engineering-y of choices. The effect of champ bags are obvious and not exactly all positive.

I love DEs.. I understand the criticisms about the repetitiveness and lack of consequences, but one of the things that swayed me during the beta weekends was the sense of just always being strung along by vista, event, heart, event, POI.. till you’re halfway across a map you hadn’t intended to cross. I’d only say that it’s a shame the later level zones aren’t as dense with the events as the newbie zones are.

I’d also agree with the sentiment that adding a few DEs here and there and not telling us where was a bit of a mistake. If it were up to me, zones would be updated in turn, with fanfare and plot attached.

In terms of rewards I’d keep it simple like many have suggested already – crafting mats, special skins. In particular I’d add those things to karma vendors; I have more than a million burning a hole in my pocket – there’s little to do with it, and it’s an awesome system that ought to reward participation where you want in a game with rewards where you want. If I could exchange that for some soft wood I’d be a happy camper.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I think where the failure is lies in the rewards. You don’t get nowhere near enough rewards for doing DEs compared to other things, because karma is not very useful. Also, doing something extremely short and simple like killing a champion gives the same if not more rewards than a long DE like escorting someone, so no one does the escorts.

We agree, this is something we’ve been discussing a lot lately and working on some various answers for, but I’m curious:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Some of the fun challenges we are currently solving, but it’s great to hear peoples thoughts on this subject as well.

I can’t really take credits for this idea since I’ve heard it in a few different places and somebody might have writen it out already.(so many posts, so lazy me)

But I think it would be a great idea to make the reward for an event increase the longer it has remained unfinished. This would be similar to the bonus xp you get from mobs that haven’t been killed in a while. It would encourage players to explore the world and see new events. It would also make the player excited when ever they see an event pop up, “Will I get a big kitten reward for this?” since they obvously can’t know hw long it has been since the last play through that event.

On adding a time based bonus for unused events…

I really wouldn’t look forward to people being more irritated with other players for having ‘stolen’ their timer bonus by having done the event ahead of them.

The game goes to a lot of trouble to make everybody on the server allies – people shrieking about “ninja’ing” champs is bad enough. We don’t need to extend the phenomenal to every event in the game…

…Further, I’d mention the Devs are experimenting with this right now as part of the Tower of Nightmares chapter and I my opinion it’s not working.

The new Toxic Spore buff encourages waiting to engage or attacking event-champs that have been up a long time – triggering the new buff increasing the difficulty slightly and adding to the rewards for success. The emergent reality is a lot of people yelling “Wait. WAIT. No buff yet!” which is sowing discord with players who just want to get it done. Just as tedious, the buff/reward is essentially unavoidable on the trillion hit-point DPS snoozefest champions that take longer to erode than the delay before the buff appears.

While I’m echoing others here I want to remark on the points about DEs that I agree on.

1. increase the rewards for them. It has to be enough so people will prefer them to champ farming. The rewards don’t necessarily need to be only money. They can also be T7 mats for example. Or tokens of some sort. Laurels maybe, which are badly needed by people who have a stable of alts. Access to merchants who sell items only after you have done a certain number of events in a map on a day or if you have enough area tokens. Maybe a merchant who sells T7 mats. Do 10 events in a map for example and get your choice of 10 T7 mats.
2. make the ones that haven’t been done for a while by any players be worth more. Not a lot more as this will cause friction by people wanting to let it sit for greater rewards, but enough that people will prefer them.
3. make the rewards for events at least account bound and once per day to stop people farming the same event repeatedly.
4. add new events frequently and remove or modify/extend the chain of old events.
5. encourage people to move to new maps to do events rather than doing the same map every day. Perhaps you do events in one map on day one, then in order to get rewarded for doing events on day two, you need to go to another map. There would need to be some sort of cutoff so that people don’t do one event and then can’t play in that map for 24 hours. Perhaps the cutoff could be 4 events in a map. If you do 4 or more then the next day you need to play in a different map. 3 events or less, you can return to the same map the next day.
6. extend the notification area of events on a map. Currently I can find them using an app but I would rather the game showed me. Perhaps the orange event circles can be seen much further out and perhaps the ones that can be started can have an orange dot on the map.

ColinJohanson.2394:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Shinzan.2908:

Gold. Rewarding skins or unique items is only going to matter until a player gets a look and stat combo they are happy with, which they eventually will. At that point they’ll be interested in making gold to work towards some of the expensive items like ascended weapons and legendaries, so any reward that does not lead to those items is going to be useless.

Ug. Worst of all possible solutions. Gold carries no intrinsic value whatsoever (beyond the fixed rate of conversion to Icy runestones). Pumping more gold into the system doesn’t get anyone closer to their goal, it just shuffles the order of who gets theirs first.

And when everybody gets more gold… nobody gets there any faster.

The value necessary to advance towards Legendaries and Ascended is in the accumulation of crating mats. With the built in alternative that if you get mats you don’t want/need, you can sell them for gold. No one ever makes a Gift of Bifrost faster than 250 unidentified dyes enter the system. You could multiply our gold acquisition by a factor of a thousand and the real “progress clock” wouldn’t change.

I feel the flaw with Living Story is its focus on completely new, seemingly out of place content (such as Atherblades), rather than a focus on existing lore.

Wirzard’s Tower, for example, would make a great Living Story chapter. Or something with Dragon Minions…

ColinJohanson.2394:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I think where the failure is lies in the rewards. You don’t get nowhere near enough rewards for doing DEs compared to other things, because karma is not very useful. Also, doing something extremely short and simple like killing a champion gives the same if not more rewards than a long DE like escorting someone, so no one does the escorts.

We agree, this is something we’ve been discussing a lot lately and working on some various answers for, but I’m curious:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Some of the fun challenges we are currently solving, but it’s great to hear peoples thoughts on this subject as well.

Hi Colin
I spend most of my time in- game doing DE’s on all sorts of maps because that is what I enjoy.
I have some suggestions so that DE’s do not just become another champ train.

Add zone specific rewards:
in the form of consumables- like the love potion, spy kit, foods

unique crafting recipes

Unique armor and weapons merchants- like we have for hearts now, but more in the line of the Pirate weapons that are unique to Sharkmaw
Keeping resources in mind, you can have an item per chain/ events instead of a set per merchant- so that you may have to complete events across all of Kryta for a whole set if you are so inclined

If you bring in housing you can add trophies, cosmetic items, unique crafting materials.

You can even add unique pets/ mini’s at the end of a chain event

nethykins.7986:

cesmode.4257:

ColinJohanson.2394:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I think where the failure is lies in the rewards. You don’t get nowhere near enough rewards for doing DEs compared to other things, because karma is not very useful. Also, doing something extremely short and simple like killing a champion gives the same if not more rewards than a long DE like escorting someone, so no one does the escorts.

We agree, this is something we’ve been discussing a lot lately and working on some various answers for, but I’m curious:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Some of the fun challenges we are currently solving, but it’s great to hear peoples thoughts on this subject as well.

Karma is pretty useless right now unless you want a temple set or are going after a legendary. Other than that, it is useless. Suggestion: Make karma more useful.

GW2 is littered with too many currencies and reward types.
-Gold
-Gems
-Different dungeon tokens for every dungeon
-Karma
-Laurels
-Globs of Ecto
-Guild Commendations
-Badge of Honor
-Skill points
-Fractal relics
-Fractal pristine relics
-Guild Influence

Did I miss any? Point is: You need to reduce the amount of currency you have, and make Karma a universal currency. And make Karma universally available from literally anything you do in game.

Doesn’t necessarily fix the issue at hand, but its a start.

Funny thing was, this was highlighted as a key thing that they’re looking into removing/cutting down. A few months later though, I’m still seeing currencies being introduced.

Sure they may not be permanent like laurels and fractal relics, but hell, they’re not at all improving on the “too many currencies” issue.

Because there’s a need for it. Imagine if you can get Arah armour with AC tokens. Why would anyone run Arah then, when it’s so much harder that any multiplicative reward would have to be blown out of proportion?

I have a question for the Devs.

What happened to Meta Events telling stories through Dynamic Events? This concept seems to have been entirely dropped within the living world in favour of a small variety of singular dynamic events. The meta-events did a great job of giving context to an area while telling mini stories. By comparison these singular events feel detached and certainly not alive.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I think where the failure is lies in the rewards. You don’t get nowhere near enough rewards for doing DEs compared to other things, because karma is not very useful. Also, doing something extremely short and simple like killing a champion gives the same if not more rewards than a long DE like escorting someone, so no one does the escorts.

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

To be honest, the reward and item system is a completely different subject, which I do have a very strong opinion about. But since you asked…

I DONT want money/items/alternativecurrency at a reward. If I wanted shiny loot, I’d play WoW/Diablo/etc.

The item/loot/reward system is the main reason why I am not really playing the game much anymore. I feel Guild Wars 2 is just a WoW clone itemwise, and I hate WoW with every fibre of my being. I am desiring to all these stupid items and ascended and even exotics to just be removed from the game, and a return to Guild Wars 1 where you can just get best-stat items everywhere with minimal effort (for finishing the story, for killing a particular boss a few times, etc).

Two things that should in my opinion be changed with the items:

• Items should no longer have stats (power, etc) on them at all (in my opinion stats can be removed from the game alltogether) but instead have various equally powerful situational bonuses like in guild wars 1 and what you currently have on some runes (15% damage while in stance, 20% enchantment length, X initiative on a weapon swap) so that there is meaningful choice and variety in items
• Return of ‘green’ items, that are non-customizable max stat items with unique looks that are tied to drop off specific bosses in the game world with a relatively high droprate.

For Dynamic Events (or any other game content) I would rather see rewards that are not items/gold/currency:

• Reputation with a faction of choice, unlocking reputation tiers gives more options for new home instances, deco for home instances, titles, political influence within a faction
• World-shaping choices – if you support side X then this happens, if you support side Y then something entirely different happens, with consequences eventually becoming large scale and permanent or semi-permanent
  • If the centaurs hold camp X for a whole week unopposed, then they will rule the map and cannot be beaten back for 3 months, after which there is a large scale dynamic event that lasts a whole day in which the queen sends out a massive army and players have a chance to liberate the valley
  • If the humans control all the centaur camps unopposed for a whole week, then the centaurs flee and leave the map completely, but go raise hell on an adjacent map for the next 3 months. After that time, there is a giant invasion event that lasts a whole day in which giant centaur armies attempt to reclaim their home map
• Some ways for players/guilds to gain ownership of territory/buildings on PVE maps and to customize it to a degree
• Fame – make an ingame ‘council of nobles’ kind of thing for each faction, top players for each faction get to have a seat and vote on important world-shaping matters for their server. You become a top player by attending a load of dynamic events and performing well at them or by being lucky and finding ‘secret’ dynamic events that appear rarely at random.

This is a long thread, so apologies if it’s been said before.

There are many great ideas here, and as a long term player I would enjoy many of the proposed changes. However, I’ve recently started to level an alt together with someone who is completely new to the game, and this has given me a slightly different perspective. I have come to realize that this game can be confusing to new players, and that parts of the living story contribute to this.

These are some of the questions that may arise, but I’m sure there are more:
What is all this the new info to the right on my screen? Are they quests? Do I need to do those things? Will I survive if I try? Who is Scarlet and her minions, and why do I need to know that they are attacking a certain map? Do I need to go there for some reason? Should I? Or even worse: what happened to the map I was leveling on? Why are there suddenly all these super-tough monsters here? What’s this glowing door, and why am I suddenly in a huge labyrinth with monsters that one-shot me? Etc. etc.

Also, having a high level player help you in a low level zone is exciting and fun for a new player. Having swarms of high level players running round doing stuff as fast as possible while sending cryptic abbreviated messages in map chat? Not so much.

So while my lvl 80 character wholeheartedly supports the idea of having all maps to play on, I hope it can be done without disrupting new players and making them lose sight of the core game.

I figure I’d add my two cents. Unfortunately I haven’t had the time to peruse this entire thread but here we go:

I feel that the Living Story is a great addition, in concept but in execution seems to be a bit lacking. While there is certainly some nice storytelling but it doesn’t REMAIN alive. With the sole exception of Southsun Cove, none of the living story parts have had a truly permanent change on the geography of Guild Wars. (Okay yes, the crown pavilion is

I can understand the actual content being temporary, but people cannot return and revisit most of the new content. I can understand this being the case for things such as the Dragon Bash but a lot of other things make less sense.

The Bazaar of Four Winds for example is an AMAZING zone and even with the skyships gone, the cliffs ought to remain. Unless you know they took the cliffs with them but that would be one heck of a trick.

The hidden Aetherblade lair behind the Lion’s Arch waterfall. Sure the dungeon should be gone now, but what of the actual area? People who weren’t here for when the dungeon was there still ought to be able to visit and marvel at the zone, if only to bring it back as a sort of home instance . But no all that remains is a holoprojected rock wall and a sewer drain.

The Molten Facilities. I’m sure man players cannot count how many of them they collapsed. But the world doesn’t show any signs of it apart from the periodic Scarlet raid containing molten enemies. The destruction of Ascalon left ruins, why not these? You could even have Priory researchers, Whispers scouts or Vigil salvagers hanging around the old locales and telling stories of what they were to those who didn’t get to originally participate.

These are just examples but I feel that one way to make the Living Story truly alive is to show more of its remnants after it leaves. The very first Halloween event with the disintegration of the Lion’s Arch fountain was VERY distinct for example. Granted now it has been rebuilt but people NOTICED. And you can bet people remembered. Tixx’s workshop on the other hand while cute in being a huge flying golem, simply disappeared without a trace and has nothing really else that remains from it except for a few miniatures which people rarely pull out.

There are a few ways to do it wrong though too. the Crown Pavilion exists still but you can only roam the upper balconies now, an act which was an exercise in pointlessness even when the event was ongoing. Added to that, there are even still guards around the pavilion warning players that there may be trouble when the queen takes the stage. And as far as I can tell, apart for that one guard and the Royal Terrace, there is absolutely nothing left of interest in that entire area. It might as well be the Great Collapse again.

The bottom line for me is that it’s hard to remain attached to any part of a Living story which does not appear to have any lasting consequences. Sure, Capt, Kiel has taken up residence at the Crow’s Nest, we have a new jumping puzzle in Gendarran Fields and Southsun Cove is now in fact a place, but it seems almost every other introduction given in the Living story is now gone, as if it had never happened.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Our take on phasing, and why we never did it to begin with is: the world isn’t progressing, it’s just fake progressing for you and the person next to you isn’t seeing it progress simultaneously. One of the biggest things we wanted to accomplish with Gw2 is that the things that happen do matter, they happen for everyone, and everyone experiences them together. This is really putting the social aspect of the game and immersion, above the personal aspect.

That doesn’t make phasing wrong, but if you judge by the above pillar it makes phasing wrong for Gw2. Each design decision we make takes that into account as one of the games core pillars. When something in the open world happens, it needs to happen for everyone, and we gauge everything that way.

Edited to add: This specifically applies to experiences in the open world, and doesn’t mean we couldn’t do things like letting you see moments in time in the past, or experience living world instanced (or “phased”) moments on their own timeline.

But by putting the group above the individual you further diminish the importance of the individual in a game where our actions are already pretty irrelevant because the Living World just carries on regardless. To put it another way; if a tree falls in the forest and I wasn’t logged in and able to see it fall then does my presence matter at all? No. It does not.

The benefit of phasing is that the world changes for your character permanently due to your characters actions, due to something you initialised. Not just because some other group of people did something while you were off screen. With phasing you have the benefit of still being a hero in a game where there are thousands of heroes. You don’t just arrive a second too late to contribute to an event and then come back when it refreshes.

Now I’m not saying that everything should be phased but it wouldn’t be a bad way of handling Living World “quest” areas, if phasing was a possibility then we could go back and play through the Flame and Frost or see the toxic Kessex Hills on a new character in the future and you would be constantly adding a body of new content that could remain accessible and completable by new customers rather than content that is lost forever after its two weeks in the spotlight are up.