Guild Wars 2

The infrastructure of the game seems to support a much more compelling style of event chains than what is currently being presented. I’d like to see dynamic events (and perhaps even some hearts) be updated to have more meaning in the world. It doesn’t feel that interesting to clear out 10 centaurs wandering aimlessly around, or those spawning wave after wave only to be easily put down ad nauseam for 7 minutes. Once done, the cycle just repeats on a very short interval. There’s no impact.

It is my impression that players of MMOs are often in it for the long haul. They may not all play very much per week, but they come back and very often find themselves in the same places. I think it would be perfectly OK if one day, or half a day, a zone has certain characteristics depending on how events have been unfolding, and then another day it’s something different. This would only add some flair. Maybe one day the centaurs are mounting a serious offensive on Shaemoor, and if you beat them back, they scatter to recover. If they take the garrison, the surrounding events would change to gather materials and forces for a siege to take it back. The doors would be closed and the centaurs would be wreaking havoc with siege shots from their new fortification. During the centaur siege, the event may run for a long while, with many “sub” events going that award players who only have a certain chunk of time to commit. Bring ammo bundles to the trebuchets, kill the centaur patrols, rally and escort soldiers across the map, finally lay siege, mount the assault, and then take down the leader inside the garrison as the grand finale.

In one area you may have an NPC asking for help gathering certain resources, e.g. some of the stuff we find around the zone. When they have obtained enough, an escort quest begins which spans across part of the map. Maybe you get to vote on the route, or the route changes depending on how quickly the enemy waves are handled, or perhaps it’s random. If the destination is reached, merchants will set up shop and sell unique or useful items. Perhaps multiple escort quests take place, and if all of them are successful, a small settlement is built with all sorts of convenience vendors. Then the defense events begin at certain intervals and become increasingly intense each time they happen. Perhaps a steady flow of supply also has to be kept to keep the settlement running.

Then in some other area, you have an NPC asking for your help regarding very specific acquisitions. If the combined efforts of the players succeed, a buff becomes available for everyone on the map; this could be extra magic find, for example, or more vitality, or something else entirely. Perhaps there are multiple of these on each map, all with different buffs or perks that can be kept up given enough supplies.

Once you’ve completed a heart, instead of just having the eternal gratitude of the person, perhaps you can continue to perform small tasks for them for pocket change karma. You’re in the area anyway and happened to loot a few extra tools or revive a few extra soldiers. Make it feel more like an ongoing effort; after all, the hearts remain even when you’re through, with little to no evidence that you’re done making a difference.

I could keep suggesting forever, but I’m interested in hearing some of your ideas.

Dynamic events take a lot more work to create than traditional quests. How many events would Anet have to create to make all that happen?

Honestly, I like the dynamic event system in GW2 faaaaar better than any other MMO with standard quests. Things are happening while I’m exploring, rather than “go to NPC, get quest, kill things, woot exp, never visit that npc again”. Implementing much more content to the dynamic events when they have so many already is a bit much to ask.

Does it have problems? Sure. Still better.

In an ideal world, with infinite resources, I’d agree.

However, given that a lot of the players seem to be more into farming champs than actually immersing themselves, it would, unfortunately, be a waste of resources (unless you made these events very rewarding).

However, I do like your idea with the Hearts. Maybe each day there could be different things you can do to complete the Heart. For example, Queensdale farm. One day could be killing Wurms, feeding cows ect, and then the next it could be retrieving crop from a bandits hideout.

repeatable hearts seems do-able.

we have repeatable achievements (crab toss, sanctum sprint, southsun survival, keg brawl) so why not hearts quests?

A lot of dynamic event chains already have the scope you talk about it.

They dont have the impact or choices you talk about directly though. You’re right there. Current DE dont give a buff but make passage easily, give you access to vendors even buying unique stuff that would otherwise be unavailable like say the dust that you can use to summon a fire elemental on any class.

That being said your ideas would benefit the game, make it more interesting I agree. Unfortunately DE arent that popular with most of the player base so unfortunately I dont think they’re going to get the focus any time soon to do stuff with the scope you suggest. Which is a Pity cause DE are beyond awesome

I love your idea of DE’s and to be honest I think that originally they might have had something like this in mind- especially since they said that they developed them in a way that they are easy to add to and expand.

Very unfortunately for us ( people who enjoy DE’s) when they did add DE’s to the game back in Oct it went almost completely unnoticed and now… well you know what is happening now- people are basically farmbots and complain if they are not “sufficiently rewarded” for basically everything.

I would love them to build on the game in this way because it would truly enhance the world and make the game more alive.
DE’s are one of the best features of GW2 imo.

If they had the resources and the time they could do this for the rest of us who are not obsessed with loot- I am not sure if there are enough of us or if they are aware that we feel like this.

Vayne.8563:

Dynamic events take a lot more work to create than traditional quests. How many events would Anet have to create to make all that happen?

A lot, sure, but wouldn’t that be worth it?

This isn’t something people are demanding, Vayne, this is something that would be nice for the future, nice for new areas and so on. I’d really like to see it.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

repeatable hearts seems do-able.

we have repeatable achievements (crab toss, sanctum sprint, southsun survival, keg brawl) so why not hearts quests?

It’s called rolling an alt.

I couldn’t bear to do it a second time around after the first for world completion. Please no.

It should be a surprise to no one that people are rushing out to farm champions, given that it was suddenly made the easiest way to obtain the latest shiny things in the game, as well as being fairly profitable to boot. Looking at it as an approving nod that everyone find it to be the most fun or compelling thing to do is probably a mistake. If there is one thing I’ve learned from playing, it’s that people are willing to do things they don’t find fun to get their fix of equipment or reward. If new, involved and compelling dynamic events were the easiest and best way to obtain the materials and items people wanted, those would no doubt see a lot of attention. I find it unwise to pretty much stealth add a bunch of dynamic events a year ago, find that no one seeks them out (I didn’t know they’d added them then), and then surmise that people don’t want to do dynamic events.

Looking at the fact that people are choosing to play content is not even half the story. If you don’t know how fun they find it or how satisfied they are with it, making it the key cornerstone for future updates seems suspect at best. I’ll grant you that there are probably people who find it fun, but I’d like to suggest that if you switched the rewards around, you’d see the commitment to champion farming go back to the state before they were loot dispensers, and a lot more people would do other events.

I think the key pitfall may be to presume that just because a lot of people are doing this, you’ve struck on the only thing people want and how to make them play. I doubt that and I sincerely hope that just because this has become popular, it is not an indication that the bulk of resources will be committed to more of this sort of thing.

A lot of players also tend to follow the snowball effect. If a critical mass of players is doing something, they’ll naturally be joined by players who seek things to do.

As for the resources available to the development team; I think as players we don’t really have to concern ourselves with that. Not sharing ideas because we suspect the developers don’t have the resources seems detrimental, and it isn’t like they really have to listen to us anyway. Also, not having enough resources for certain things is in essence a choice. It sounds like they’re doing really well and raking in millions, so surely they could hire a few more people if they really wanted to. In that sense, this is a choice a developer makes.

It is OK to do some things that aren’t the most popular. It is okay if not everyone wants to do everything, just as I certainly opt not to do some of the things currently in the game. If you only cater to the majority when you don’t have to, I think you’re missing an opportunity to create some brilliant game play. There is no doubt in my mind that a balance between compelling content and reward mentality can be struck. They don’t have to be mutually exclusive to the extent they are now.

…But all that would require work.

ANet is already too busy doing the “Living World” updates to bring their Dynamic Event system up to scratch with what they were promising the game would be like.

Eurhetemec.9052:

Vayne.8563:

Dynamic events take a lot more work to create than traditional quests. How many events would Anet have to create to make all that happen?

A lot, sure, but wouldn’t that be worth it?

This isn’t something people are demanding, Vayne, this is something that would be nice for the future, nice for new areas and so on. I’d really like to see it.

Sure it’s something people are demanding. The question is how many people.

I’m in the boat with people who’d like this sort of thing…a lot. But I also realize that my play style is not as common as some others. For me to insist effort be put into something, I’d first have to believe the majority would want/benefit from it. I don’t really think that’s the case.

I’d love it if this game had no vertical progression, no grind and more open world content that makes you think…unfortunately, I don’t think the majority of players want that (even if the majority of people who post to forums do).

Azure Prower.8701:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

repeatable hearts seems do-able.

we have repeatable achievements (crab toss, sanctum sprint, southsun survival, keg brawl) so why not hearts quests?

It’s called rolling an alt.

I couldn’t bear to do it a second time around after the first for world completion. Please no.

its called optional.
the heart would be still filled up.

but players could talk to them to activate some kind of daily quest or something. if they somehow pass by that area.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Azure Prower.8701:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

repeatable hearts seems do-able.

we have repeatable achievements (crab toss, sanctum sprint, southsun survival, keg brawl) so why not hearts quests?

It’s called rolling an alt.

I couldn’t bear to do it a second time around after the first for world completion. Please no.

its called optional.
the heart would be still filled up.

but players could talk to them to activate some kind of daily quest or something. if they somehow pass by that area.

When it becomes a daily. It becomes less optional. Because there is some tangible reward usually attach to it like with the current dailies.

Azure Prower.8701:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Azure Prower.8701:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

repeatable hearts seems do-able.

we have repeatable achievements (crab toss, sanctum sprint, southsun survival, keg brawl) so why not hearts quests?

It’s called rolling an alt.

I couldn’t bear to do it a second time around after the first for world completion. Please no.

its called optional.
the heart would be still filled up.

but players could talk to them to activate some kind of daily quest or something. if they somehow pass by that area.

When it becomes a daily. It becomes less optional. Because there is some tangible reward usually attach to it like with the current dailies.

it is optional, if the rewards are the same as before.
i.e. some copper / silvers plus some karma. varies based on the hearts quests level.

for example,
dungeons explorable paths have a daily reward of 1, 1.5 or 3 gold per explorable path. optional.

world boss have daily account bound bonus chest and daily character bound big chest. optional.

its optional.
people will not miss them.

I just wanted to clear up a misunderstanding about the hearts. My original suggestion was not to make them repeatable or clear current progress for them in any way. Others have also alluded to this, but I was merely talking about having some sort of action revolving around them after they’ve been filled. Perhaps I could have spent more time elaborating on this, but the post was mostly about dynamic events, it’s just that hearts seem like a natural connection to those in many ways.

Some of the other stuff mentioned I’ve also addressed in my second post.

At any rate, I was hoping to hear more ideas in regards to dynamic events, especially chains involving the current areas, their stories, characters, and so on. There’s bound to be people out there with a vivid imagination who could come up with something brilliant.