Guild Wars 2

They don’t care. Do I regret having to deal with ‘dynamic zerg fest’ instead of strategic combat? Yes i do.

I love the Dynamic Events and seek them out to complete them. I almost borderline RP while doing them.

I find them fantastic and many others in my guild do as well. I think it is the greatest innovation in MMOs since “!” or “?” over quest givers.

Aridia.3042:

Seras.5702:

Anet boasted about their DEs before launch. I really, truly thought their consistent content updates would be new DEs replacing old ones as the face of Tyria changed. For instance…

- After a while, an oft-attacked camp would either become a fortified outpost or simply cease to be.
- Destroying centaur camps would drive them off, creating a human outpost with some grass growing to replace the hoof-trampled mud.
- The crystal scar running down Ascalon could grow as the tainted emotionlessly push through Charr lines.
- The Risen tear through a krait tower, corrupting them, and a new DE involves destroying Risen krait rather than freeing captured quaggan.
- The Nightmare Court, taking advantage of focus on Zhaitan, spread through parts of Maguuma, overrunning even Inquest bases. New DE involves actually helping the Inquest (still a legit asuran college) reclaim their tech from Nightmare Court.

This is what I expected. For Tyria to actually evolve and for new DEs to replace old ones as the effects of our and NPC efforts were felt. Alas, it isn’t so.

This is basically what Everquest Next will be doing, essentially dragging out a DE to week/months with a macro goal post that involves numerous micro quests. I think it’s a great idea and one that Anet needs to look into.

I think that’s a terrible idea really.

1. If stepped into the middle if a long chain of DEs which took months, you wouldn’t have a clue on whats going on.
2. It would take months for you to experience a particular piece of content. Let’s say the Claw of Jormag took 2 months to complete, it would mean that if I missed the fight with the Claw, I’ll be waiting for 2 months to do it again.

The idea of full evolution would mean pieces of content becomes replaced, not something a lo of people prefer.

Besides, the biggest problem with DEs isn’t that they aren’t fun or well made, it’s more so that they simply aren’t rewarding enough. In a MMO, content is often judged on rewards, so having a long DE chain which doesn’t reward you with much still doesn’t help one bit.

I dont know if this would be another carrot on a stick.. but if there was an achievement for completing all dynamic event content in the game at least once(and all of the parts of chains), do you think we will see more people in the open world?

While I loathe yet another thing to check off, I think this would be better in getting people out into the world instead of saying "Hey, there are invasions, go kill hundreds of mobs in 45 minutes)….and then you see this invasion and its a group of idiot mobs that have no purpose or pathing set up, they stand there until attacked. Yah, fun.

Id rathe rsee people completing the dynamic content that is already in the world, throughout the entire world.

I really like the invasions. I mean sure, they got a lot which could be improved (eg remove the ‘fake’ Scarlet’s event tags), but giving all the mobs patching would both defeat the strategic element of the event and turn it into a huge mess.

The whole idea was that the commanders in the group split the group effectively and divide-and-conquer the invasion, if the mobs all had pathing, all nearby invasion groups would gather to the nearest minizerg, overwhelming it and making it call for backup, which attracts more invasion groups. The process continues until you have a huge army of massively upscaled mobs against a huge zerg of players, ie, a total mess.

Xae Isareth.1364:

I think that’s a terrible idea really.

1. If stepped into the middle if a long chain of DEs which took months, you wouldn’t have a clue on whats going on.

This happens in Guild wars 2 dynamic events chains too. They handle it, usually, by giving optional dialogue with the NPCs involved with the chain, or couriers who relay information about the event. NPCs in the area also contribute by telling you the general story of the area, which provides context for the event.

2. It would take months for you to experience a particular piece of content. Let’s say the Claw of Jormag took 2 months to complete, it would mean that if I missed the fight with the Claw, I’ll be waiting for 2 months to do it again.

Not enough is known about their model to conclude that you will miss great story changing events, or how world bosses will be handled in such a system. Your concern is a valid one, but even if it’s true that you could miss the world changing event it’s interesting that they are trying to make a more lively world that will grow even if you are away. That’s kind of intriguing for some people. Maybe not you, fair enough, but most MMOs currently cater to people like you. Few cater to people who want a living world.

Besides, the biggest problem with DEs isn’t that they aren’t fun or well made, it’s more so that they simply aren’t rewarding enough. In a MMO, content is often judged on rewards, so having a long DE chain which doesn’t reward you with much still doesn’t help one bit.

MMOs with gear goals are judged based on reward and fun. An MMO that made gear easy to obtain through multiple means would have to thrive on giving interesting/fun content, and delivering new content when that grew stale. An MMO with really good gear, but no enjoyable activities would fail, so in the end they all need fun and engaging activities to perform. Of course, everyone’s mileage may vary. I can stand doing a farming cycle just once before I crave new dynamic events. When ember farming was being done I only tolerated it once before I decided it was out of character to fail the event, and I wanted to push it forward. Most MMOs thrive by introducing hard to obtain, desirable gear as it provides something to work toward while they develop new content.

^
I’m kind of curious about how do you make a world fully evolving based on player choices in DEs. What happens to the other choices which players didn’t choose? If its a dynamic event, it can’t just be ‘hold on for a few months until we design the next part’ kind of thing.

I would imagine also that you would have problems of a similar nature to the problems with this game’s Living Story system. Players would complain that they’re being forced to play the game at a pace and to do certain things at certain times because otherwise it won’t be there anymore.

In terms if rewards, the core if the MMO player base will always be reward and progress driven. Look at this game for example, they made current endgame gear rather easy to obtain (a couple of dungeon runs) and removed the gear treadmill and look at what happened, people everywhere complain that there’s no endgame or character progression. I sometimes even wonder if grinds are actually an essential part if a ‘good’ MMO, but I degress.

And in terms of activities, looking at all the DEs avaliable to players, which ones do people do the most? The interesting ones with a story? Nope, the ones that are just basically ‘champion spawned out if nowhere, kill they kitten ’. No matter what you do, most players will always flock to activities with the most reward or income and farm them to heck.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

We are listening. Not only to what you’re saying but also to what you’re not. The very first living world team actually did the thing some of you have called for. Some 40 or so permanent events were added around the game in our very first content update. They were met with little interest or fanfare. Granted, Halloween may have stolen the show. But those events are still in the game today. I’ve seen very little reaction to them, however, positive or negative.

Anet can’t seriously be this dumb can they? Those events were just a bunch of horribly implemented random boss fights that spawned in any of dozens of places throughout the world, almost nothing like the existing events which people do like, and ANet refused to give any clue as to where to look for them! No casual players (the majority of the playerbase) bothered with them because we don’t have time to scour the whole friggin’ world for new content!

They cannot have decided not to work on any more dynamic events from that alone, if they did, that was an incredibly stupid, pithy and juvenile decision. Quit being a bunch of babies, everybody loves the DE system, if we don’t play something it is because you screwed up on it’s implementation, learn from it and do better next time.

Do the events right, expand on the ones that are unfulfilling, let players actually know they are there, and people will play them.

Xae Isareth.1364:

^
I’m kind of curious about how do you make a world fully evolving based on player choices in DEs. What happens to the other choices which players didn’t choose? If its a dynamic event, it can’t just be ‘hold on for a few months until we design the next part’ kind of thing. […]

It doesn’t need to have a stopping point. It can be cyclical, like existing dynamic events. Let me illustrate some solutions to the problems you raise by describing how I would have handled the Zhaitan story. Upon reaching cursed shore players would be greeted with the series of dynamic events they have now (perhaps a bit more connected than they are). Instead of leading to an invasion of Arah to open a dungeon, the event chain would culminate with the players claiming Arah as a fortification in their attack on Zhaitan. At this point the zone would be in a state for Zhaitan to start an invasion. When the invasion started players would have to defend the territories they claimed to reach Arah from Zhaitan’s minions and Zhaitan himself. Some would have to focus on clearing out risen across the map, some would have to man Pact artillery to stop Zhaitan himself. If the players succeed Zhaitan would flee, they get a rewarded, and they can keep the benefits they reaped by holding the territory. If they fail, they have to reclaim and rebuild the lands lost to have another invasion occur.

While holding the territory a new dynamic event would become available called “Aid the Pact Researchers”. This would be a slow dynamic event that’s progress would be tracked over months, and could even be artificial, like many of the living story meters have been (i.e., they grow based on time, not actual player participation). The goal of this event would be to gather resources for the researchers to figure out a means of destroying Zhaitan.

When Arena Net was ready to move the story on with Zhaitan they would allow the help the researchers event to complete. Now after successfully completing the invasion event the researchers would no longer ask for materials, but give instructions on their findings and how to kill Zhaitan. Instead of fleeing this time Zhaitan would stay (land, or do something really awesome to start this new content, I’m not a game designer). Players would then have to perform the actions necessary to kill Zhaitan. Those that participate in this event get a cutscene that moves the story forward, and then are transported to post-Zhaitan cursed shore. Post-Zhaitan cursed shore is one that no longer requires claiming territory or clearing invasions. Instead it deals with the fallout of the Zhaitan attack and restoring Orr.

Players who were not there for the kill Zhaitan event (and even those who were) will have the option to relive it through a Fractals of the Mist portal available in Cursed shore that takes them to the zone as it used to be, including Zhaitan invasion and kill Zhaitan event.

This allows for story development, a living world, and still allows people who missed it to participate. It requires a helluva a lot of work, as you basically need two copies of a zone; but this is not unfeasible as it is expected that MMOs will add zones overtime. This is doing essentially the same thing, but the new zone being added is the current version of an existing zone. Much of the infrastructure is already in place to handle multiple instances of zones too (overflows are basically new instances of a zone).

If you want to add choices to huge world changing events like these, you just ensure that the choices the players make is made early on before development starts on the post-event world. You then introduce the cyclic events structure that keeps them busy until the content is ready to be moved forward. How the election was handled is one way of doing this. We probably won’t see the new fractal until the end of this year (if at all this year). Unfortunately, there are no events in the game to remind us that there was indeed an election and that it had consequences.

Erasculio.2914:

Now, I’ll guess. I think ArenaNet has the numbers to realize that the great majority of players don’t care about fun or interesting Dynamic Events. I think ArenaNet has realized that the great majority of players wants to farm. And I think ArenaNet has realized that there is no point in all the work required for building interesting and fun Dynamic Events, when it’s much easier to just build more farming grounds, which are more popular than the events anyway.

:/

I care. I’m still waiting on that dynamic event they mentioned about the skirtt and the koda.

I was thinking about this topic earlier when I was participating in one of the invasions. People in map chat were saying things like “Well, looks like a glitch of never ending champions..the vent isnt ending. Farming them, good luck with the event”.. And then others were defending their reasons for farming and failing the event vs trying to work together to complete it. They were saying the you miss out on two rares, but you have the possibility of gaining so much more if you just let the event draw out as many mobs as possible with the scaling.

I dont know if Arenanet patched this sort of behavior, but this is a real problem if you think about it.

In traditional MMOs where the world content is comprised of traditional questing…quest hubs, question marks and exclamation points. Go here, kill x, and return for your reward. Theres not a lot that can be done to glitch this type of content. Yet, in guild wars 2, dynamic events scale with more people. The more mobs there are, the more loot drops. The more loot drops, the better chance at getting better things. So someone who plays this game for extrinsic reward (I created a thread a few days ago intrinsic reward vs extrinsic) will look at the event and say "Well, if I complete the event, I get maybe 2 silver, some XP and 378 karma. If I intentionally let it “fail” without the event necessarily end..just farm mobs, I can get a lot of loot bags, vendor trash, possibility of rare and exotic drops, etc."

The reaction by any developer would be to nerf that type of behavior. So they possibly scale back the number of champions that will spawn, which is what they might have done to the invasions already. In doing this, this might ruin the experience a bit for people who ARE trying to complete the event, but just cannot get it done. Less champs and less loot being spread around because of the individuals who will exploit never ending champions, never ending waves of mobs, etc.

So… when you compare traditional questing vs dynamic events… Kill X, and return vs “try to kill the boss mob while waves of adds spawn”…you can see the potential problems.

I think that ArenaNet is wrong that players are not interested in Dynamic Events.

Dynamic Events are interesting and fun. There is just too many problems revolving around them.

Problems:

• Terrible Rewards. ArenaNet said that dungeons are meant to be the most rewarding. The problem is, dungeons are too rewarding and Dynamic events reward is not worth doing over again at all. Dynamic Events need to reward more while not risk spawning more farms. A week after the game released, level 80 players have complained how little silver they earned. In a meta that is all about getting rewards, the easiest solution is to increase rewards for open world activities.
• No new dynamic events: The problem with dynamic events are that once the event is over and you went back, the same event happened again. This makes dynamic event less of a immersion and more of a grind. The solution to this problem is to add more dynamic events everywhere.

Great thread! I do think Anet has basically given up on having a dynamic world. Looking at this latest Living Story, the invasions have zero impact on the world. Whether you win or lose, there are no consequences.

Anet is catering to the min-max players, which is really foolish because in doing so they are driving away the non-min-max players.

They should cater to the latter bunch because the min-max players will always find something to do anyway: we always see that when one farm is nerfed, these players whine for a little bit and then simply move on to the next latest and greatest farm.
These min-max players will always be satisfied customers because in essence, their goal is to participate in the best farm — and no matter what you nerf, there will always be a new best farm.

So in order to have more satisfied customers, Anet should be catering to other parts of the player population — an example would be those who want good storytelling/a dynamic world.

One issue I do have with the DE’s are the escort missions. They are horribly tedious. There’s simply not enough action given the time it takes to do these (especially since those you are escorting usually move really slow). I’m not asking for non-stop waves of enemies, but rather something should be happening most of the time, be it attacking mobs, or conversations between the NPC’s. As it is, most of the time nothing is happening.

When I first heard that the Clockwork Chaos DEs were spread over the world’s maps, I thought that meant that each map had its own unique DE, but that wasn’t actually the case. It’s the same DE on every map, and yeah, it tends to become a farm. Can’t say I blame anyone, really. The farm helps keep the tedium at bay on repeats. My biggest problem with these DEs are having such a hard time getting into the ones I want due to the extremely narrow window for joining.

The reason the DE are basically left by the player base is due to the rewards being terrible so no one does them, if new ones were added that added rewards worth the time, people would be all over them..

Some rewards could be new Armor Pieces, Skins, Weapons and or Skills and traits, just some ideas but as they are now they are pointless..

DE’s are mostly handy for leveling really. Nothing like seeing 3 events pop, run around and kill 2 things in each area and get rewarded for all 3 of them.

Sometimes I am on my way somewhere and pass through an area with an event. Well I just kill something and carry on. Then at some point later suddenly the event ends end I get rewarded for it.

There is no need to stick around for the full event. Just run around do a small bit in each one and reap in the rewards. Sure, you don’t get gold but maybe silver or bronze but for the minimal effort put in, it’s a brilliant reward.

Cause let’s be honest, some do affect the area but you don’t stay there long enough to really care about the effects and it’s always escort this, defend that, kill a champion type events. There may be more than 1500 of them but most of them are copies of others.

I think if the game had fewer areas where you stayed longer to level and events had a bit more longer lasting effects it’d probably be more interesting to really be involved.

SirMoogie.9263:

but anyone who paid attention to Guild Wars 2 manifesto, or current videos about the dynamic event system, will be confused on why most players are chasing rifts and ignoring the other events in the area.

I’m pretty confused by that myself.
The first thing I said to myself when I went to these clockwork invasions was:
“What? ….this doesn’t feel like guildwars. Why is that??”