Guild Wars 2

In the wake of the portal hunt in the Maguuma Wastes I spend some time in Dry Top usually doing the three events near the entrance (Tendrils, Serene, Basket) and helping Serene ended up vexing me quite a bit.

Escorting an NPC slowly walking through hostile territory never was one of my favourites, but that’s okay after all she just crashed down and maybe is still a bit dizzy and took a hit to the head or a few and I have to occupy myself for the next 5 min till the start of the next event or the sandstorm.

What I really find unnecessarily annoying is that whenever she sees opponents she rushes up to them and after they have been dispatched she slowly slinks back to where she left her track and only then resumes her walk. This is especially bad on her way to the last crystal where she walks around a small ledge and whenever she sees an opponent on the other side she runs around usually not even getting a hit on the mob because her player escort frantically tries to kill it before she moves any further from her track. This can take up to a few minutes if the mobs respawn at an unfavourable time.

In the end you try to kill the mobs on her way so that she doesn’t see them and so that they don’t respawn before she’s through the area, which feels to me rather like playing the system than the game.

In my eyes a simple way to fix this problem would be to either make her stop and cower whenever she sees an opponent or give her an attack with a range greater than or equal to her aggro range. It still won’t be the most popular event, but it will certainly be better.

I remember in GW: Prophecies there were a couple of missions where players had to escort slow NPC’s and failed if the NPC died. The default option became leave the NPC at the gate (or don’t activate the NPC), run through and kill everything, then go back and get the NPC and endure the slow walk. It was especially entertaining when Prince Rurik would emote over the vast numbers of Charr enemies — while looking at a hillside with no mobs on it. Of course, there was no respawn in GW.

/reminisce off

Nice to see those fine traditions are continuing.

/sarcasm off

I agree, the “Help Kari back to her mother” event in Kessex is better than the Serene event, precisely because Kari cowers, and moves with some alacrity.