Guild Wars 2

Edgar Doiron.2804:

timmyf.1490:

Why is Dry Top better for this? Well, you need Geodes for lots of recipes and skins. So you have to play those events.

If you went back into old zones, added a bunch more dynamic events, added map-specific progression, and gave map-specific rewards, I bet you’d see a lot more players in those zones as well.

The trick is that the rewards need to be 1) exclusive or 2) comparable in gold value to other forms of content. And if #2 is economy-breaking, you NEED #1.

Just my two cents.

You bring up a good point, if every map (or region) had there own geode like currency, and that with it we could trade them in for stuff even level 80 could use. It would make going back to old zone and doing events even more fun.

I think a simple and obvious currency would be the dungeon tokens for each region, e.g. Completing DE’s in Ascalon rewards you with Ascalonian Tears, Kryta rewards you with Seals of Beetletun, etc.

Additionally, I think a novel use of Karma would be for temporary buffs that give a +X% region-currency find. Sort of like the reputation blessings in GW:EotN. So you could spend e.g. 5000 Karma for a 30-min buff that grants +50% Deadly Blooms while in the Maguuma Jungle.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The intent of the Renown Heart system was originally to help players find event content. They also provide a decent method for us to give the player some context and awareness of what’s going on in the area. There are probably a few issues in that design which we could discuss. We could also let it suffice to say that hearts do not make the best repeatable content the game has to offer.

On the topic of keeping players engaged with open world content, I think this goal may be for more approachable from a different angle. Consider Dry Top, which has no hearts. Players on that map are participating in events all the time, largely on the premise that each event contributes to both map-level and personal-level goals. This gives me the notion that with a little help at the system level, events can and should be the bulk of repeatable open world content in Tyria.

I’d be very interested in hearing your thoughts on that.

Dry Top is great if you like farming, and want the specific rewards from it. But for leisurely exploration, it’s underwhelming. Even with the Coin scavenger hunt: because that isn’t leisurely or easily accessible – if you do it without a guide, it’s pretty hardcore and frustrating to find the last one. Whereas hearts and map completion elements show up on the map.

One reason I like map completion in the traditional sense is that you are actually progressing towards something. You can do, say, a quarter of Kessex Hills, go away and do other stuff, do another third, go away and do some of Gendarren, whatever… and all that progress is shown on your map and counts towards something. Whereas events… you do it and… it’s done… and will be back again… and nothing really changes for you whatsoever. That’s good, in the sense that you can skip any event and not worry about it, but it doesn’t make me want to do events.

Having a specific currency per area is even worse, because it forces you to replay the exact same content ad nauseum (and beyond) if you want the specific rewards. If you want to farm karma, there’s several different places you can do that, and even if you’re not specifically farming at the time, you’ll still probably be getting some. If you want farm geodes, you are stuck doing the exact same sequence of events like clockwork every hour, again and again and again…

I don’t know that making Renown Hearts replayable is really going to solve anything, though (as long as it’s up to the player to decide, per map), I don’t have anything against the idea. I definitely don’t think that cluttering up the game with new, specific currencies does anything more than promote the most efficient farming method… which is really boring and doesn’t at all encourage people to play in varied ways.

Olvendred.3027:

I definitely don’t think that cluttering up the game with new, specific currencies does anything more than promote the most efficient farming method… which is really boring and doesn’t at all encourage people to play in varied ways.

I agree that new currencies aren’t the best idea; fortunately we already have somewhat niche currencies that could be expanded upon quite cleanly:

I think a simple and obvious currency would be the dungeon tokens for each region, e.g. Completing DE’s in Ascalon rewards you with Ascalonian Tears, Kryta rewards you with Seals of Beetletun, etc.

process execution.8014:

Olvendred.3027:

I definitely don’t think that cluttering up the game with new, specific currencies does anything more than promote the most efficient farming method… which is really boring and doesn’t at all encourage people to play in varied ways.

I agree that new currencies aren’t the best idea; fortunately we already have somewhat niche currencies that could be expanded upon quite cleanly:

I think a simple and obvious currency would be the dungeon tokens for each region, e.g. Completing DE’s in Ascalon rewards you with Ascalonian Tears, Kryta rewards you with Seals of Beetletun, etc.

. . . we get into another issue then, where you now have people who can grind “easy” dungeon paths for that currency instead of, well, doing other things.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Anthony, can you tell me why karma seems much less important now that it has been at release?

We have added a few karma sinks along the way but typically new content comes with a new currency, eg. candy corn or geodes. I haven’t personally implemented all of this content or currency but if I had to guess I would say that this pattern exists because we actually want to give you specific rewards for specific content.

It’s nice that you care about that. But how about utilizing that feature you have in place called a wallet ?

If each content patch is going to add a new currency aka Geode’s then please god add them to the wallet. There’s 0 reason to add currency but not update the wallet and UI to reflect it.

I rather like the idea of receiving dungeon tokens for maps, kind of along the lines of the PVP reward tracks, maybe. Bonus chests, tokens, equipment or skins based on the amount accomplished during that day.

Another thought, what if there is greater reward for playing somewhere less players are at? Kind of like dynamic scaling difficulty, or diminishing returns… There has already been mention of a volunteer boost for people willing to go to a new overflow. So what about a bonus for people exploring a zone with low weekly traffic? If most players are zerging around Cursed Shore, maybe those playing in Harathi Hinterlands could have the chance at a rare drop (skin, salvagable material, etc) exclusive to that map? When a map becomes too high traffic that special reward chance would drop severely. Might get people to spread out a little more.

Seera.5916:

Did you know that the game originally didn’t HAVE Hearts?

But players didn’t know where to go to find the events. So ANet put things to do to pass the time in areas were events tend to pop up. These are the Hearts. They are primarily there to slow your progress in an area down long enough for you to see an event occur. They put it towards map completion and gave rewards to it so that players would have incentive to slow down when they ran into a heart.

And no to a reset that I can’t control. The right side of the screen is already cluttered with personal story and daily/monthly achievement and living story stuff and world event stuff. I don’t need to be forced to have heart information there when I’ve already done it.

That’s funny, I saw a video from Woodenpotatoes yesterday with footage from the beta that showed the game once having twice as many hearts as it has today.

OmaiGodman.2098:

Seera.5916:

Did you know that the game originally didn’t HAVE Hearts?

But players didn’t know where to go to find the events. So ANet put things to do to pass the time in areas were events tend to pop up. These are the Hearts. They are primarily there to slow your progress in an area down long enough for you to see an event occur. They put it towards map completion and gave rewards to it so that players would have incentive to slow down when they ran into a heart.

And no to a reset that I can’t control. The right side of the screen is already cluttered with personal story and daily/monthly achievement and living story stuff and world event stuff. I don’t need to be forced to have heart information there when I’ve already done it.

That’s funny, I saw a video from Woodenpotatoes yesterday with footage from the beta that showed the game once having twice as many hearts as it has today.

Different Beta. They were put in for the open Beta but from what I understand an earlier build had no hearts.

There was also a build with no levels either but the testers didn’t like the effect.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Consider Dry Top, which has no hearts. Players on that map are participating in events all the time, largely on the premise that each event contributes to both map-level and personal-level goals. This gives me the notion that with a little help at the system level, events can and should be the bulk of repeatable open world content in Tyria.

I’d be very interested in hearing your thoughts on that.

I think Dry Top would have much more replayability if it had event chains similar to Orr or at least one or two meta-events similar to the one in Harathi Hinterlands. Those are rewarding in terms of both narrative and gameplay. I think the current events in Dry Top are very lack-luster in those respects, focusing on just loot, xp, karma and other such rewards (both for the individual and the map) instead of focusing on the intrinsic fun of doing the events.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

OmaiGodman.2098:

Seera.5916:

Did you know that the game originally didn’t HAVE Hearts?

But players didn’t know where to go to find the events. So ANet put things to do to pass the time in areas were events tend to pop up. These are the Hearts. They are primarily there to slow your progress in an area down long enough for you to see an event occur. They put it towards map completion and gave rewards to it so that players would have incentive to slow down when they ran into a heart.

And no to a reset that I can’t control. The right side of the screen is already cluttered with personal story and daily/monthly achievement and living story stuff and world event stuff. I don’t need to be forced to have heart information there when I’ve already done it.

That’s funny, I saw a video from Woodenpotatoes yesterday with footage from the beta that showed the game once having twice as many hearts as it has today.

Different Beta. They were put in for the open Beta but from what I understand an earlier build had no hearts.

There was also a build with no levels either but the testers didn’t like the effect.

Makes sense. I don’t know, I think most of the heart missions are okay but some of them are really tedious (mostly the ones where you have to kill a gazillion enemies to get the bar to fill up one pixel) while others are a lot of fun. I wouldn’t mind being able to redo some of them by reactivating them through a conversation option with the heart NPC (“Need any more help on that?” > heart mission reactivates) but of course that would have to be limited to once a day/week so that people can’t keep repeat the same heart mission over and over.

Diovid.9506:

I think Dry Top would have much more replayability if it had event chains similar to Orr or at least one or two meta-events similar to the one in Harathi Hinterlands. Those are rewarding in terms of both narrative and gameplay. I think the current events in Dry Top are very lack-luster in those respects, focusing on just loot, xp, karma and other such rewards (both for the individual and the map) instead of focusing on the intrinsic fun of doing the events.

Coming after the discussion about the “event chain” in Cursed Shore being farmed into science by people? I really don’t think talking about them as though they aren’t used for personal game is a good move.

I do get your meaning, but consider Straits of Devastation, which I think is still mostly run only when a meaningful attempt at the Temple of Balthazar is intended to be pushed. So many event chains and so many interlocking events and it’s not really worked with.

Here is how it should be done in my book…

• Step 1: make all events on the map represent and fill a heart. Not just the ones that take place on the same space as it currently is.
• Step 2: Make all hearts represent a faction of in the game (e.×. Seraph, Lionguards, Centaurs, Sith lords…).
• Step 3: Implement a “favor for each faction” system similar to WoWs. Unlike the Zephirite refugees who suffer from memory wiping sandstorms, the points each individual player take for each faction should stay there forever and be visible on his Hero Panel. Bigger factions like the seraph should be harder to please than smaller factions like the few friendly centaurs.
• Step 4: Allow Each heart to be filled a second time each day. In this second time, the heart should be twice as hard to be filled by completing an event that represent that heart, and three times harded if you want to complete it by doing the heart chores.
  Refilling the heart should reward you with points for each faction the heart represent. Re-Completing a heart should be the only way for players to gain favor of the factions (marelly killing enemies and half completed hearts don’t count).
  Hearts will reset on their yellow state after each day.

And there you have it!
The results will be:

• Hearts will get a new use beyond the initial exploration purposes.
• Players will spread all over Tyria and keep them selfs busy with the new favor system for months and years.
• The fact that they can only re-complete each heart once a day will ensure that they wont rise the favor for each faction faster than expected.
• When there is no event near by, players in a hurry will just do the heart chores.

Regarding currencies I would very like to see a system implemented in which you can convert one of a currency into another. That way it really doesn’t matter what and how you are playing, but it encourages to do that instead of having to do a very specific content.

And please give us something useful to do with all the bloodstone dust and dragonite.. it doesn’t make much sense for me that if you have no use for them, you have to throw them away. (Even if it would say 250 of one of these would be just 1 consumable tonic or whatever..lol let us transform into a bloodstone or dragonite.. xD)

Then I came up with quite a nice idea which I described somewhere else… (temple specific armor as a very rare drop from the particular temple, but also achievable by doing these temples again and again for the ‘unlucky’ people..)..
“[…]. And if it’s really rare, just let the game count how often you are doing this event (maybe we can see a progress bar in achievements) and after a certain amount (doing a temple 50x = one piece of choice of this armor or whatever is adequate). Means, if I am not a super happy person that gets a piece of that armor in its first or second run (;-)), I just can progress and get it, too. For me, that sounds fair!

[…]Dwayna armor from doing the dwayna temple event, balthi from balthazar temple.. sounds very immersing."

Yeah, new armors will be an incentive. ;-)
http://wiki.guildwars.com/images/c/c4/Avatar_of_Balthazar_model.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars.com/images/5/52/Avatar_of_Dwayna_model.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars.com/images/1/16/Avatar_of_Grenth_model.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars.com/images/c/c0/Avatar_of_Lyssa_model.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars.com/images/a/ab/Avatar_of_Melandru_model.jpg

Why I put it on topic here is that this kind of system could work nearly anywhere in the open world. And there is no need to create thousands of new armors (I am sure you can think of other incentives), although new armors are needed which are not from gem shop.

Let us say you are doing a few events/ hearts in a specific area (for example: snowden drifts or a much larger area like the entire shiverpeak mountains) and then you have an achievement (or whatever) called ‘helper of snowden drifts’/ ‘helper of shiverpeak mountains’ and each time you do an event in that area the progress bar fills up. Once it is filled you’ll receive something nice (which is worth the efforts) and then it resets so you’ll start from the beginning. It would be an endless thing. ^^
You could also use that for dailies or monthlies.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Morte.5916:

- The same loot as a L80 area for a L80 character, including T6 and ascended materials, once the fights are the same difficulty

That’d mean if you have no low level characters, you can’t get low level mats. Linen, for example. Not good.

I didn’t think of that… Fair point.

Let me put it another way: I would be more inclined to go to a lower level area (with true downscaling to equalise the difficulty) if I didn’t lose out loot-wise by doing so.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Diovid.9506:

I think Dry Top would have much more replayability if it had event chains similar to Orr or at least one or two meta-events similar to the one in Harathi Hinterlands. Those are rewarding in terms of both narrative and gameplay. I think the current events in Dry Top are very lack-luster in those respects, focusing on just loot, xp, karma and other such rewards (both for the individual and the map) instead of focusing on the intrinsic fun of doing the events.

Coming after the discussion about the “event chain” in Cursed Shore being farmed into science by people? I really don’t think talking about them as though they aren’t used for personal game is a good move.

I know right? It’s really a pet peeve of mine how people turn this game into a glorified spreadsheet in which they have to be able to calculate everything, manage everything and optimize anything. Just because you can play as an Asura doesn’t mean you should mentally become one.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I do get your meaning, but consider Straits of Devastation, which I think is still mostly run only when a meaningful attempt at the Temple of Balthazar is intended to be pushed. So many event chains and so many interlocking events and it’s not really worked with.

Straits is a reasonably difficult zone, and it’s one that very hard to get around in some areas, due to the circuitous paths and lack of open WPs. Try running around, say, the notoriously empty Snowden Drifts instead – even there, most of the (non-bugged) events do get done reasonably often. Maybe only by one or two players, but that’s ok, because you don’t need more and a lot of people aren’t (always) looking for a challenge.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Broseph.9283:

Karma rewards should be more dominant:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Karma-should-be-more-dominant-as-a-currency/first#post4339681

No. They should not be.

Karma is something many long-time players have in tremendous bulk, specifically because there is nothing to spend it on. I think at some point I had upwards of seven figures until I decided to start buying Lost Orrian Jewelry Boxes.

If you moved to Karma-based rewards? There would have to be either a reset of Karma or an astronomical amount set as the goals to prevent older players from just going “huh, 5000 Karma for this new shiny thing? Sure, I’ll get fifty . . .”.

Unfortunately, the choice of once-more an item-based currency not unlike GW1’s collectors? REALLY has the risk of junking up inventory. Unless, of course, there was a “regional currency” like Geodes for Dry Top, Seed Pods for Maguuma, Dwarven Artifacts for Shiverpeaks, Old Shining Blade Insignia for Kryta, and Tarnished Rin Relics for Ascalon. You get the picture.

Second thing? Try to structure it so a full stack is more the yardstick for “high tier rewards” so you don’t need to hoard like 6 full stacks to get the high-level rewards. Just, say, two at most. So events might give you 1-2 each, but you can turn those in for . . . say, regional-based skins like the Shiverpeak Hatchet, or Verdant Dagger . . . Glyphic Longblade . . .

Final point. It is also a good place to introduce something interesting and new for players to go after. Might I suggest the lorebook idea which was scrapped early on? Trading these objects to get some information from locals . . . or to unlock things to go investigate for lore? I could come up with a framework in 24 hours which could possibly be engaging for players interested in getting their hands into the world of Tyria rather than just running through it looking for the next champion bag.

I like your ideas. But as for saying no to Karma, just because some people have loads of it should not mean that players with out should suffer. Some people can make gold easy, others struggle. If they said they where going to have out more coin people wouldn’t complain as ou can use coin for almost anything. karma needs to have more things you can buy with it. I could be wrong but I don’t recall any new karma vendors being added to the game. So yeah if you have everything you need that uses karma, then yes it just builds and builds. Realistically now I’ve done my ascended weapons and armor for my main I do t really need to spend gold. But I’m not going to say its a terrible idea if ANet said they where going to add more gold sinks. As long as they where things people would want/use I’m all for it. All I’d use karma for right now is unlocking skins/ Obby shards of a weapons.

BrotherBelial.3094:

I like your ideas. But as for saying no to Karma, just because some people have loads of it should not mean that players with out should suffer. Some people can make gold easy, others struggle.

I don’t know if you grasp the magnitude of just how much older players have access to, or the disparity of gain between Karma and Coin. Karma gained much faster, because its use is highly limited (as in, it was not intended to be a quick/easy way to bolster Coin earning). It’s throttled back a lot with the change from handing out Jugs (5000) to Drops (600) of Karma on completing the Daily, but I think the danger of linking things to a Karma purchase . . .

If it’s low enough to make it possible for people to do a few events in an area and snatch it up? It becomes trivial for long-time players, much like a “gold sink” of the likes around the new Trait system is either trivial for some or crippling for others.

I’m against Karma becoming dominate over Coin or others because of the myriad problems that is likely to bring. Specifically, Event farming becoming a bigger part of the game again . . . as in “Queensdale Train’s glorious return to service”.

I’m not wanting to actively discuss this further on this thread, can you go to Broseph’s thread?

I support the idea of adding heart quest completion to the daily rotation. Adding 4 or 5 of these quests in different areas of the world map to the daily rotation and with increased rewards would for sure increase player population in low level maps, and that goes the same for world meta events that almost nobody goes in for a rerun. Some of them are great fun and ANet should boost largely the rewards for doing such events.
Not a big fan of monthly reset of heart quests.

Also support Mr. Ordon views, i mean, ill support anything when it comes to make the world map and the amazing cities that were built, populated.

Just a reminder of a ting everyone knows: people do it for the fun, but also for the rewards.
I still feel that, for a game that wants to take the premise of a “living world”, theres not much happening in living world atm.

It’s a bit of a drift, but several people have mentioned the idea of regional content paying regional currencies for regional rewards. I like that, but there are a couple of things it would have to have:

- Currencies go in the wallet, not inventory. Switching geodes/keys/sand around five characters is a pain. If I have five characters with 0..9 piles of sand, it takes five logins to consolidate them. This is appalling usability. Now imagine that multiplied by multiple regions. I think I’d start actively avoiding everywhere but Orr, to not have to deal with it,

- Currencies are convertible, even if it’s not at a very good rate. I don’t want any of the skins from Dry Top — they aren’t bad at all, but there’s always something I prefer. I don’t want the vine/plant, for me they’re overpriced. I don’t want Nomad gear, I have no use for those stats. So I have geodes and keys and sand and nothing to do with them. I have no reason to go back to Dry Top after I’ve done LS, skill points and vistas.

edit: come to think of it, Unidentified Fossilized Insects are a currency too. That’s four, from half a region. But at least you can convert those if you don’t want them.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I think they should add bonus rewards for lv.80 players to each map.

• get 100% map completion first for that specific map.
• 1-2 random heart vendors have a job for you – a small quest. Guides are useless.
• complete this quest for a special reward (unique skin for each map)
• you can reset that challenge by doing 10 unique events in that zone.
• now 1-2 other heart vendors have a job for you.

Yea, I was a little sad to complete (unless there’s more to be added to the zone later) the Dry Top map on my character and not get that map completion reward. Those were good rewards (2-3 rares/exotics).

I actually miss hearts in those lvl 80 zones, while I believe the events that are taking place are the best way to handle repeatable content, the hearts could be one-time quests and ways of conveying story that only needs to happen once and doesn’t need to repeat after that like events in the same area. Completing the heart however would give you a vendor offering unique skins or consumables, etc. that could co-exist with those merchants offering you tiered stuff currently as part of the Favor of the Zephyrites “chain”.

Example hearts in Dry Top

• I.e. help the Zephyrite collect certain stuff so they can continue to build their settlement or rebuild their airship => exotic amulets with Nomad prefix for 42K karma as reward?
• …or the oasis where you have an event to defend against attackers, but you could have a heart over by the centaur gardener NPC who might need you to run around watering stuff, uprooting Mordrem roots/min-tendrils or something like that => bulk of nopale, cactus, prickly pears for 1500 karma, or something like that…
• …or a heart in Restoration Refuge to help the centaur tribe and learn some more lore about them in the process, maybe remove the threats of their territory like the devourers, etc. and again having a heart vendor offering items for karma..

Just some ideas of the top of my head

Dry top is not a good comparison for me, I don’t really like getting geods. It is for me the annoyance of the currency dropping into your bags instead of a central wallet that all can access, which would make it better for players like me that flip between different characters rather than having a ‘main’. Also not having a good idea of where things are currently happening and how far along the events are, asking in map chat is ok but often you do not get an answer because others don’t know either.
The currency idea posted above about using the dungeon tokens as area currency could very well work. This needs to be coupled with all currency being interchangeable as has also been stated. If all NPCs also can see what you have in your wallet without needing to have it directly on the character in question it would be wonderful.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The intent of the Renown Heart system was originally to help players find event content. They also provide a decent method for us to give the player some context and awareness of what’s going on in the area. There are probably a few issues in that design which we could discuss. We could also let it suffice to say that hearts do not make the best repeatable content the game has to offer.

On the topic of keeping players engaged with open world content, I think this goal may be for more approachable from a different angle. Consider Dry Top, which has no hearts. Players on that map are participating in events all the time, largely on the premise that each event contributes to both map-level and personal-level goals. This gives me the notion that with a little help at the system level, events can and should be the bulk of repeatable open world content in Tyria.

I’d be very interested in hearing your thoughts on that.

I’d love something like dry top on other maps.

That all events completed contribute to greater rewards, or even map specific skins. That’d be cool!

Though would you end up spreading player base too thin to reach “higher tiers”? Maybe if it had unlimited time to reach? (though that could be a problem too)

[quote=4341932;Morte.5916:- Currencies are convertible, even if it’s not at a very good rate. I don’t want any of the skins from Dry Top — they aren’t bad at all, but there’s always something I prefer. I don’t want the vine/plant, for me they’re overpriced. I don’t want Nomad gear, I have no use for those stats. So I have geodes and keys and sand and nothing to do with them. I have no reason to go back to Dry Top after I’ve done LS, skill points and vistas.
[/quote]

’what if currencies were convertible similar to gold to gems? or gems to gold.?

If alor of people a converting a certain currency to another. It would encourage some of those people to actually go do the other content.

Though some will still stick to doing what they prefer most.

Less played areas would have the better deal in converting, than those in well-played areas. So it would work as bonus without implementing a bonus.

idk, I’m sure some would disagree but I think this would work better than a set currency rate.

I would love a reason to go back to zones I only ran through once.

Until the ascended back piece scavenger hunt I didn’t even know about the underground volcano asura lab.. And the discovery of it gave me the feeling of exploration I felt at launch.

I would like to see a specific different zone ‘boosted’ every day in the same way dry top is at the moment, and all events and hearts give you bonus loot. Make the rewards good and players will revisit zones.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The intent of the Renown Heart system was originally to help players find event content. They also provide a decent method for us to give the player some context and awareness of what’s going on in the area. There are probably a few issues in that design which we could discuss. We could also let it suffice to say that hearts do not make the best repeatable content the game has to offer.

On the topic of keeping players engaged with open world content, I think this goal may be for more approachable from a different angle. Consider Dry Top, which has no hearts. Players on that map are participating in events all the time, largely on the premise that each event contributes to both map-level and personal-level goals. This gives me the notion that with a little help at the system level, events can and should be the bulk of repeatable open world content in Tyria.

I’d be very interested in hearing your thoughts on that.

My personal problem with this system is the lack of visibility. Hearts are there on the map when u open it. U know where it is..u go there.

Events..if u are not in the vicinity u won’t know where it takes place. This is specially annoying to new players and to players who don’t overfarm just 1 map and know every event spawn.

In Dry Top for example u will always see ppl mapchat “please link events” because of that very reason…and the sad part is most of the times ppl don’t link them even when nicely asked…OR people port to Dry Top a few minutes after the event was linked and nobody links it again.

The system u have now is great in my opinion but u need to make it visible on the map. Otherwise both u and us won’t fully profit from this system. Make the event-circles visible from any side of the map instead of just 1-2 meters away from it.

Opening the map and seeing it filled with circles gives u the impression “hey there’s stuff to do!” instead of opening up the map and wandering where the event takes place and so on…or be at the mercy of mapchat to link u the location, but i told u the problems with that above.

The text about “Whatever scorpion spawned” u added doesn’t help that much u still get ppl asking where it is (specially ppl who just came). Also that text dissapears very fast and it’s color honestly most of the times i just miss it because of it’s color.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The intent of the Renown Heart system was originally to help players find event content. They also provide a decent method for us to give the player some context and awareness of what’s going on in the area. There are probably a few issues in that design which we could discuss. We could also let it suffice to say that hearts do not make the best repeatable content the game has to offer.

On the topic of keeping players engaged with open world content, I think this goal may be for more approachable from a different angle. Consider Dry Top, which has no hearts. Players on that map are participating in events all the time, largely on the premise that each event contributes to both map-level and personal-level goals. This gives me the notion that with a little help at the system level, events can and should be the bulk of repeatable open world content in Tyria.

I’d be very interested in hearing your thoughts on that.

1. people are participating in events in dry top because its the new thing to do. Once theres a new thing to do elsewhere in a new zone, Dry Top will be as empty as the Karka areas. This is nothing new. I wouldn’t kid myself in thinking that “well people are playing in dry top all the time. It must be a success”. Once you release something new, or the players find another avenue that they find lucrative to their desires, dry top will empty.

2. Ive seen more requests for heart resets, repeating renown hearts, etc over the last 2 years than I saw for 2 week living story breadcrumbs PRIOR to LS release. I saw more interest in resetting hearts than I did requests for another tier of gear(ascended).

This is definitely something that a decent amount of people might enjoy. Why not give it to them? How would it break Tyria?

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The intent of the Renown Heart system was originally to help players find event content. They also provide a decent method for us to give the player some context and awareness of what’s going on in the area. There are probably a few issues in that design which we could discuss. We could also let it suffice to say that hearts do not make the best repeatable content the game has to offer.

On the topic of keeping players engaged with open world content, I think this goal may be for more approachable from a different angle. Consider Dry Top, which has no hearts. Players on that map are participating in events all the time, largely on the premise that each event contributes to both map-level and personal-level goals. This gives me the notion that with a little help at the system level, events can and should be the bulk of repeatable open world content in Tyria.

I’d be very interested in hearing your thoughts on that.

The way events are done in Dry Top is brilliant, but how would something like that work in light of world map completion? You need a way to show “done is done” so you can get your achievement and move on.

I have taken the liberty to reword the OP as I think a lot of people didn’t comprehend what I am after. After rereading the OP, after seeing peoples responses, I think it had more to do with my comprehensive writing skills, than with other people’s comprehensive reading skills… so I thought, for the continuation of this thread, it would be better if I reworded the OP.

I do not think this new wording will change anybody’s opinion, nor does it make any response look out of context. Thanks for your responses so far…

I love the idea of having dungeon tokens for doing open world stuff.

• 0-1 tokens for each bronze-event medal
• 0-2 tokens for each silver-event medal
• 1-2 tokens for each gold-event medal

This would make people who don’t like dungeons (I think there are a lot of those) spread out and look for new events. It certainly would take a while so when people have 50 tokens they might consider trying a dungeon run for the faster reward.

Incentives trying dungeons… check!

And then you can make fragments of tokens (1/2 token) as rare spawns in the zone, in places which are rather far away from hearts and vendors. —> Would make exploration feel much more rewarding. Look for new events or rare token spawns. Very rare spawns could even net you 5 tokens.

rewarding exploration… check!
rewarding doing events… check!

Now that we have sPvP reward tracks so that people who don’t enjoy dungeons also have a chance for that dungeon-loot, wouldn’t it be a good move to reward exploring and event-doing players as well?

having progression towards something via doing events… check!

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I love the idea of having dungeon tokens for doing open world stuff.

• 0-1 tokens for each bronze-event medal
• 0-2 tokens for each silver-event medal
• 1-2 tokens for each gold-event medal

This would make people who don’t like dungeons (I think there are a lot of those) spread out and look for new events. It certainly would take a while so when people have 50 tokens they might consider trying a dungeon run for the faster reward.

And then you can make fragments of tokens (1/2 token) as rare spawns in the zone, in places which are rather far away from hearts and vendors. —> Would make exploration feel much more rewarding. Look for new events or rare token spawns. Very rare spawns could even net you 5 tokens.

Not a bad idea. Not fully fleshed out (obviously) and I think there are still a lot of open areas to fill, but a good start.

@Rebound: making every event visible on the map has a few problems:

• it takes out the discovery aspect completely
• it gives incentive to waypointing constantly because when you run all the way the event is most likely over

both horrible prospects, if you ask me

… further ideas related to the dungeon-token for events/exploring-idea:

• Put the dungeon vendor also in the map where you get the tokens for doing the events (in front of the dungeon)
• Increase his loot-offer…
• dungeon-specific lockpicks: You buy one for 5 dungeon token (equals doing 5-10 events)
• spawn randomly chests in the map (and the dungeon in hidden locations) which get you 1-2 champion loot bags —> makes exploring much more rewarding
• lockpicks are also rare drops from mobs (higher dropchance from mobs with bonus xp for not being killed for a while)

I think hearts add very little to the world. A few are entertaining and have some interesting story bits that could be worth replaying but the majority isn’t. I much prefer the idea of more events in the open world, specific invasions would be cool, that are better implemented into the maps than the scarlet ones a year ago. Unleash the destoyers, the icebrood, the flame legion (or molten alliance if they are still a thing) or any other already developed enemy faction on some maps. Make invasion states of some of the current maps.

@AnthonyOrdon.3926: How hard is it to create dynamic events? I thought to remember an article back at release that your systems allowed to create new events in a short time.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

… further ideas related to the dungeon-token for events/exploring-idea:

• Put the dungeon vendor also in the map where you get the tokens for doing the events (in front of the dungeon)
• Increase his loot-offer…
• dungeon-specific lockpicks: You buy one for 5 dungeon token (equals doing 5-10 events)
• spawn randomly chests in the map (and the dungeon in hidden locations) which get you 1-2 champion loot bags —> makes exploring much more rewarding
• lockpicks are also rare drops from mobs (higher dropchance from mobs with bonus xp for not being killed for a while)

This!

I never do this, but this idea is exceedingly pertinent to the idea of making DEs more relevant, repeatable content and it was kind of skipped over: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Rewarding-Adventure-in-the-Open-World/first#post3827855

Of the various things that have been mentioned here, this would be among the easiest to implement but have a big impact game-wide. Please take a look if you have the chance.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The intent of the Renown Heart system was originally to help players find event content. They also provide a decent method for us to give the player some context and awareness of what’s going on in the area. There are probably a few issues in that design which we could discuss. We could also let it suffice to say that hearts do not make the best repeatable content the game has to offer.

On the topic of keeping players engaged with open world content, I think this goal may be for more approachable from a different angle. Consider Dry Top, which has no hearts. Players on that map are participating in events all the time, largely on the premise that each event contributes to both map-level and personal-level goals. This gives me the notion that with a little help at the system level, events can and should be the bulk of repeatable open world content in Tyria.

I’d be very interested in hearing your thoughts on that.

In my opinion, the game has two great issues gameplay-wise:
Most content in the world (entire PvE maps) are not capable of providing wanted and valuable loot (Gold is wanted and valuable loot. Green or blue armor parts are usually not.) and the most content is really old.

Resetting Heartquests is an easy way for ANet to add additional repeatable content to the world, whether the reward of those hearts is valuable or not.
I think you should be able to go to the Heartvendor and reenable the Heartquest if you like to.
There are different ways how the reward could be structured.
One idea would be, that upon successfully completing the Heartquest, the vendor offers one of his items for free.

As for the long-term fix for old content and reward structure, I would like to continue Tobias’ thoughts.

Like already in Dry Top, there should be local currencies, rewarded by events (and Heartquests). Those currencies can be traded at local vendors for items.
But unlike in Dry Top, those vendors should offer meaningful rewards. There should be an option to exchange the local currency for gold, for local (new) armor- and weaponskins, for minipets, local dyes, normal crafting materials and other stuff, that has neither limited, nor one-time usage. Also, the events in all areas shouldn’t be part of a “mega-event” like in Dry Top, so that not entire maps are forced to cooperate in order to unlock vendor items.
The exchange rate for gold can also be influenced by how many people exchange gold for one currency, which will drop the exchange rate. This should assure, that people don’t only camp specific areas or events, but spread evenly over all maps.
The acquisition of one currency through events should also be gated by the amount of players participating. More players at one event means that the event becomes easier, which should lead to less currency being awarded.
This system could be enhanced in multiple directions. For one, repeating Heartquests could also grant the local currency and the Heartvendor could also accept the local currency. Dungeon tokens could become the new local currencies, which would incorporate dungeons into the local currency.
All in all, I think that local currencies are the most ideal way to deal with the reward lacking PvE maps. But in order to get players doing those events all over Tyria, the reward has to be appropriately.

On a side note: This could be a great way to implement a precursor hunt:
For each precursor, you have to get items from all over Tyria, bought with the respective local currency. If you add enough local currencies (not one for each map but mybe one for each race?) and combine the items bought from these currencies with other “special” items, that can be acquired differently, you have implemented a working system, that wont flood the market with precursors.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The intent of the Renown Heart system was originally to help players find event content. They also provide a decent method for us to give the player some context and awareness of what’s going on in the area. There are probably a few issues in that design which we could discuss. We could also let it suffice to say that hearts do not make the best repeatable content the game has to offer.

On the topic of keeping players engaged with open world content, I think this goal may be for more approachable from a different angle. Consider Dry Top, which has no hearts. Players on that map are participating in events all the time, largely on the premise that each event contributes to both map-level and personal-level goals. This gives me the notion that with a little help at the system level, events can and should be the bulk of repeatable open world content in Tyria.

I’d be very interested in hearing your thoughts on that.

In my opinion, the game has two great issues gameplay-wise:
Most content in the world (entire PvE maps) are not capable of providing wanted and valuable loot (Gold is wanted and valuable loot. Green or blue armor parts are usually not.) and the most content is really old.

Resetting Heartquests is an easy way for ANet to add additional repeatable content to the world, whether the reward of those hearts is valuable or not.
I think you should be able to go to the Heartvendor and reenable the Heartquest if you like to.
There are different ways how the reward could be structured.
One idea would be, that upon successfully completing the Heartquest, the vendor offers one of his items for free.

As for the long-term fix for old content and reward structure, I would like to continue Tobias’ thoughts.

Like already in Dry Top, there should be local currencies, rewarded by events (and Heartquests). Those currencies can be traded at local vendors for items.
But unlike in Dry Top, those vendors should offer meaningful rewards. There should be an option to exchange the local currency for gold, for local (new) armor- and weaponskins, for minipets, local dyes, normal crafting materials and other stuff, that has neither limited, nor one-time usage. Also, the events in all areas shouldn’t be part of a “mega-event” like in Dry Top, so that not entire maps are forced to cooperate in order to unlock vendor items.
The exchange rate for gold can also be influenced by how many people exchange gold for one currency, which will drop the exchange rate. This should assure, that people don’t only camp specific areas or events, but spread evenly over all maps.
The acquisition of one currency through events should also be gated by the amount of players participating. More players at one event means that the event becomes easier, which should lead to less currency being awarded.
This system could be enhanced in multiple directions. For one, repeating Heartquests could also grant the local currency and the Heartvendor could also accept the local currency. Dungeon tokens could become the new local currencies, which would incorporate dungeons into the local currency.
All in all, I think that local currencies are the most ideal way to deal with the reward lacking PvE maps. But in order to get players doing those events all over Tyria, the reward has to be appropriately.

On a side note: This could be a great way to implement a precursor hunt:
For each precursor, you have to get items from all over Tyria, bought with the respective local currency. If you add enough local currencies (not one for each map but mybe one for each race?) and combine the items bought from these currencies with other “special” items, that can be acquired differently, you have implemented a working system, that wont flood the market with precursors.

These are fantastic ideas! I would go for this.

First i want to said that i find this as a very interesting topic, bcs i think that the game would benefit a lot from repeteable content such as repeteable hearts, an improved daily/monthly goals and/or daily faction quests.

As a side note, i think all this could be done using existent content such as events, puzzles, bosses, etc.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The intent of the Renown Heart system was originally to help players find event content. They also provide a decent method for us to give the player some context and awareness of what’s going on in the area. There are probably a few issues in that design which we could discuss. We could also let it suffice to say that hearts do not make the best repeatable content the game has to offer.

I could agree that maybe it wouldnt be the best repeteable content but i also think that it wouldnt hurt to have the option to repeat them if someone want to do it.

Following this line, i think an option to repeat the heart could be added. With this the players that want to repeat the hearts could do them and the ones that dont want to do them again could just skip that option.

But i also think that the hearts and the posibility of make them repeteable could open a door to have something like a “map reputation” system in which the player “fill” the heart while they do events, puzzles, bosses, etc, and when it is complete new rewards could be unlocked.

On the topic of keeping players engaged with open world content, I think this goal may be for more approachable from a different angle. Consider Dry Top, which has no hearts. Players on that map are participating in events all the time, largely on the premise that each event contributes to both map-level and personal-level goals. This gives me the notion that with a little help at the system level, events can and should be the bulk of repeatable open world content in Tyria.

I’d be very interested in hearing your thoughts on that.

I agree with this. I think a repeteable system should be based on the events. The problem i see with Dry Top is that with time there wont be that many people to do those stuffs. But i think that using an improved daily/monthly goals, that could be fixed. There could be npcs (could be npcs from the factions, for example) or just a message (like it is with the dailies, for example) that send the players to a specific map to do the events and stuffs like in Dry Top.

I think this could also be combined with mega events such as “Scarlet’s invasions” which could happen less often to dont overwhelm. This invasions could be sent by the dragons which became more agressive after the recent events.

Thx for take the time to read and sorry for the bad english.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The intent of the Renown Heart system was originally to help players find event content. They also provide a decent method for us to give the player some context and awareness of what’s going on in the area. There are probably a few issues in that design which we could discuss. We could also let it suffice to say that hearts do not make the best repeatable content the game has to offer.

On the topic of keeping players engaged with open world content, I think this goal may be for more approachable from a different angle. Consider Dry Top, which has no hearts. Players on that map are participating in events all the time, largely on the premise that each event contributes to both map-level and personal-level goals. This gives me the notion that with a little help at the system level, events can and should be the bulk of repeatable open world content in Tyria.

I’d be very interested in hearing your thoughts on that.

Please don’t make the orginial maps like Dry Top. I love the orginal maps for their organic events, the exploration and the many details I can discover at leisure. They have depth in atmosphere and narrative and feel like an enjoyable sandbox.

Dry Top, to me, feels more like a theme park: find all the coins! Search for hidden chests! Whack the chickenado! Something for everyone, bring the family! It even comes with a schedule and program so you can plan your perfect day in Dry Top.

While I realize that there are players that like and maybe prefer this style, I feel that the new content in LS 2 has become a lot more gimmicky, with minigames and platforming and encounters with complicated, but somewhat tedious mechanics. I prefer the style and flow of the original maps and events, and find my reward more in the experience than in the loot.

As to the hearts, I would actually love to be able to repeat specific hearts, maybe through a dialog option with the heart NPC. I sometimes help friends or people from my guild while leveling and it would be nice if I could do the hearts alongside with them, for a little coin and karma. I enjoy doing most of the hearts anyway.

Let’s take a look at the zones :

They are a fine way of leveling, hearts doprovide a certain amount of guidance, dynamic events are a good source of XP and Karma and break the monotony (for a time)

Once you hit 80, why would you come back to a lower level area in the current state of things  ?

• World completion
• World Bosses
• help a friend that is leveling
• find a jumping puzzle you haven’t completed yet
• grab a Karma item exclusive to this zone
• farm lower level materials you might need.
• Roleplaying
• A LS episode

First thing that comes to mind when looking at this is that most of them are very ponctual activities, go in, do your thing, complete it, go out, there is no long term goal to achieve, nor reasons to stay for more than that.

Why no event farming in all this  ? Because doing it in level 80 zones is more rewarding in terms of pretty much everything you can earn on the way.

And that is the big part of the problem.

In order to make the lower level areas more attractive for a level 80 character there must be a way to be able to get as much silver/gold/ high level crafting mats than when playing in a level 80 area.
And by stating that, the first tricky detail emerges, because on top of that you need access to the lower level ones as well since they are used in lvl 80 crafting too.

Rewards  :

If you want people to come back to lower level areas, there has to be some sort of incentive, something that, when they resume their play session, or go elsewhere, makes them feel like they didn’t just waste their time, or ‘grind’ for pretty much nothing.

Hawkian’s suggestion about event chains regarding rewards that he mentioned earlier is a very good one and would be a good start  (and the ideas I’ll throw a bit later in this post are loosely based on this) :
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Rewarding-Adventure-in-the-Open-World

The only thing I personally don’t like about it is that it involves directly a monetary reward in terms of gold, and I don’t completely agree with that, in the sense that, considering how the economy of the game works I’d rather have access to additional crafting materials first, that I can eventually trade for gold later if I don’t have a use for them.

Why that  ?
Simply because in most cases there is already in the game too much situations where farming for gold and buying things directly for gold gets you things easier/faster that playing the game and collecting them, and considering that many things in the game, and in the LS rely one way or another on crafting, i’d rather get things that make me more self suficcient, and less reliant on the variations of the TP prices than straight-up gold.
There is Imo in the game already too much of that.

The problem of ‘the most efficient path on the most efficient map’ is very real and while there is no real way to prevent this than 100% perfect balance (which is pretty much impossible) one way to tone this down I think, is to have additional points of interest in terms of rewards to give an incentive to go elsewhere.

So let’s say we have a system akin to this in place, where completing an event chain, or participating in X events consecutively rewards you [something], and / or a token.
(be it a guaranteed drop, or something a ‘little’ bit more rare)

Each zone would have a vendor, similar to the Karma one, with a range of themed items, skins, tonics or whatever exclusive to this zone, but only available for level 80 characters because getting the tokens would be an endgame thing.
Imagine this vendor with a range of things like what was available at this year’s festival of the four winds for instance (from armor / weapon skins to simple material bags or crafting materials), but themed around the area they are in.

Now I already see a complaint coming ‘but then I only can / have to farm in this zone’ you’re locking content yadda yadda …

The thing is the vendor in each zone would have a small selection of exclusive goods, but the tokens required would be ‘region’ wide, meaning that if I want something exclusive from, say the Metrica province, I can get tokens in all zones of the Maguuma Jungle.
Doing so, you don’t have to repeat the events of a single zone, and you can skip the ones you don’t like and are still left with a choice of several zones to play in.
Also, should the exclusive items of a particular vendor not interst you, you still would have some incentive to play in the zone because you can spend your tokens elsewhere as well or fall back on the crafting ingredients.

It is also something very close to what the Orr temple vendors already do.

One of my disappointments is the fact that players can complete a Heart “on accident” by just killing roaming mobs that are attacking, or clicking on inactive objects before even knowing that they are in an event area. With the fact that once the Heart is completed, you can’t see what the original NPC text was, I think players miss out on some fun regional lore. Making them repeatable in some way would help with that issue. Or, at least, make Heart quests not progress until you talk with the NPC responsible for them?

Also, once you complete a zone, the Scouts won’t give you a “tour” of the area. If it’s been awhile since you have completed a zone, players may want a reminder of some of the areas events take place. I think the Scouts should always be able to replay their map tour dialog whenever requested.

PART 2 (kitten you character limit ! :p )

As a reminder the regions of the game are these ones and all have each 6 zones (not counting dungeons, towns and such) :
- Ascalon
- Kryta
- Maguuma Jungle
- Shiverpeak Mountains

I’ll leave Orr and Maaguma Wastes out of this example because they are supposed to be their own separate thing.

Could be an opportunity to introduce some more ‘racial’ themed skins to the game, provide an easier way to introduce non Gem / BL ticket bound skins to the game from time to time (for a change) as well as providing a convenient way of eventually introducing new rare crafting materials for things to come and all kind of items alike.

In the end you would basically have in each zone, some short/medium term goals added in terms of specific items to get, and a more long-term selection of rewards with more regular crafting oriented materials to grab and whatever direct or indirect monetary reward you would tie to completing the events at level 80.
It would of course need some basic updating from time to time to stay as ‘fresh’ and as interesting as possible.

‘Dynamic’ events  :

Now I won’t be as extensive about that, but I have to talk about it as it also will complement my idea above.

What I gathered is that there was always this idea that maps and their dynamic events were always meant to be some sort of ‘engame’ and Orr especially so.

But beyond the ‘carrot’ that would represent some kind of reward ‘dynamic events’ don’t feel as dynamic as they maybe should have been, patterns are pretty clear, failing an event has more than often very little consequences, even if it is one tied to the opening of a dungeon.

That boils pretty much to the fact that re-starting the event is just a matter of waiting that the first event of the chain pops back up again, and since megaservers, the fact that maps are always populated make it almost impossible for an event to fail anyway, moreso when the bigger events are tied to a world boss, and on a timer.

It feels like there is no stake in any of the maps, no scenario where a player would go ‘kitten we might fail this’ as if it were somewhat a big deal, and this is really something that could make the whole thing more interesting.
But it would require ideas and balance that would not discourage all players and once again finding the right balance for that doesn’t seem like the simplest task.

Dry top is a step in the right direction in almost every regard, from rewards to having some kind of pressure to go and complete the events and complete them as fast as possible.
I wouldn’t say it’s perfect, it’s still very predictable and maybe not ‘sandbox-y’ enough, but it does some things better than the others.
But every map wouldn’t work like Dry Top and we would definitely need a variety of maps with mechanics in the vein of that.

To end this a word about hearts, since it is what started this topic, I personally don’t see the point for them to be repeatable, their only purpose is to provide some basic guidance when evolving through the zones and especially low level ones, and should you want to play them again, an alt does the trick just fine.
Now if making an option to reset a heart isn’t too much work why not have it as an option for those who really want it, but resetting them on a regular basis doesn’t sound good to me.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

This gives me the notion that with a little help at the system level, events can and should be the bulk of repeatable open world content in Tyria.

Oh my, thank the Eternal Alchemy, I am so happy to read that this is your stance on the matter. When I saw the red post in this thread I almost feared that the OPs idea might gain some traction. (Not meant against you, OP, I just really, really don’t like the idea of more checklist quests.)

Please don’t bring back more quests. In my opinion, the hearts were the most boring and mundane aspect of the whole game. I was so happy that they were gone once they were done; I really don’t ever want to do them again. I consider not having a single heart quest in Dry Top a very good sign.

Personally, I still consider the the renown hearts and their blatant over-communication as GW2’s most dire design flaw. This over-communication was spawned from the understandable intention to cater the veteran MMO crowd that so desperately needed a checklist for them to know what they should do. (You could also call that a lack of confidence in ANets own initial dynamic event concept.) However, this approach backfired. Since the heart tasks were so prominently visible in the UI, and dynamic events were very often quite immersively, if not subtly, melted with the environment, in the perception of journalists and first-time players the mundane and rather boring hearts were mistaken as the core content of GW2. I have seen countless review, “let’s play”, or walk-through videos showing that many, many players were running straight past all the wonderful content just to reach the next heart, to fill it, and to move on. I have heard people explicitly stating stuff like “Nah, don’t go over there, that invasion of hellish creatures is just some crazy world event. Here, my quest says I should plug some daisies for farmer Ree, so let’s go there …”

I say we don’t need more checklist quests in GW2. I say what we really need are more dynamic events. You know, as in the original sense of this term, like with ‘cause and effect.’ I want complicated events, I want intertwined events. I want random and alternative forks in event chains. And I want failure branches if we fail.

When I was first imagining the possibilities of the dynamic event system 4 years ago, I was picturing an event chain as something cool like the old Wing Commander mission structure. (See the picture in the attachment if you are too young to know what I mean.) Instead, most of the time, we just got this:

( state A ) <—-> ( state B )

So please, don’t go for checklist quests. Other games do this already, the world doesn’t need another game doing this. Instead, go for dynamic events as you once planned, iterate on the concept where necessary, and make them worthwhile!

tl;dr: I don’t like hearts, I like dynamic events. Includes my 2 cents, and some arguments, too.

(edit:) screwed up the attachment, fixed that.

~MRA

Kentsui.4930:

Once you hit 80, why would you come back to a lower level area in the current state of things  ?

• World completion
• World Bosses
• help a friend that is leveling
• find a jumping puzzle you haven’t completed yet
• grab a Karma item exclusive to this zone
• farm lower level materials you might need.
• Roleplaying
• A LS episode

Also:
- Unlock traits on newer characters (something I actually don’t like at all)
- Open chests for Empyreal fragments, the main reason I (briefly) visit lower level maps.

Kentsui.4930:

Also, should the exclusive items of a particular vendor not interst you, you still would have some incentive to play in the zone because you can spend your tokens elsewhere as well or fall back on the crafting ingredients.

It is also something very close to what the Orr temple vendors already do.

That gave me an idea, remember when I suggested getting dungeon tokens for events? You get 1-2 token for completing an event with a gold medal. I love the region wide idea… having a few zones where you get a specific token (like all ascalon zones to get AC token).

What if each region’s dungeon vendor would sell one specific crafting material (t6)? Let’s say Ascalon’s dungeon vendor sells Piles of Crystalline Dust (t6) for 3-6 dungeon tokens.

This way you could directly work on your Legendary without depending on t6-rng drops from laurel vendor bags or drops in general. Do you still need 30 vicious claws? Go to Maaguma zones and do events there. Or armored scales? Kryta it is then.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

That gave me an idea, remember when I suggested getting dungeon tokens for events? You get 1-2 token for completing an event with a gold medal. I love the region wide idea… having a few zones where you get a specific token (like all ascalon zones to get AC token).

What if each region’s dungeon vendor would sell one specific crafting material (t6)? Let’s say Ascalon’s dungeon vendor sells Piles of Crystalline Dust (t6) for 3-6 dungeon tokens.

This way you could directly work on your Legendary without depending on t6-rng drops from laurel vendor bags or drops in general. Do you still need 30 vicious claws? Go to Maaguma zones and do events there. Or armored scales? Kryta it is then.

Now THIS I like. Great idea.

Lheimroo.2947:

Broseph.9283:

RyuDragnier.9476:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Anthony, can you tell me why karma seems much less important now that it has been at release?

We have added a few karma sinks along the way but typically new content comes with a new currency, eg. candy corn or geodes. I haven’t personally implemented all of this content or currency but if I had to guess I would say that this pattern exists because we actually want to give you specific rewards for specific content.

Have you guys considered allowing old temporary content items to be purchased with a combination of karma and laurels sometime in the future? I personally feel the buying of equipment types (practically skins) through WvW with Badges of Honor and Silver/Gold is a nice touch, and would love to see something similar unfold in PvE using a combination of Karma and Laurels.

What if we used Karma, Laurels, and a rare drop item (mysterious fossil, ect.) from specific zones?

Not bad. Or allow karma to otherwise ‘substitute’ in a pinch, at extravagant exchange rates, for certain kinds of our multitudinous currencies. You’d be left with a choice – do the specific content to get the currency efficiently, or substitute a limited supply of longer-term effort.

Done right, it would feel good. Every once in a while you’d look at your karma balance and realize that in this episode of the living story you’d have a million karma banked up and could afford enough of ‘x’ to craft the special backpack with little effort.

Yes, there’d be an initial flush of ‘freebies’, but the karma bank balance’d dry up if you made enough pricey yet enticing rewards.

This is a really good idea. It makes karma relevant without it being too powerful for older players, it opens up people to start doing open world stuff more, and it could be used for more crazy things…like maybe being able to buy trait books with karma?

BGrennslen.9765:

One of my disappointments is the fact that players can complete a Heart “on accident” by just killing roaming mobs that are attacking, or clicking on inactive objects before even knowing that they are in an event area.

Thats because in the original design, the hearts are not quests, they measure your reknown in a region. If you did something in that region, then people know you, regardless of you having talked to them in advance or not.

One of my disappointments at release was they they crippled events to no longer contribute a significant amount to the renown in the region. Which made the hearts a little bit more of a chore instead of a natural renown thing. Think of it, after having saved his farm two times over from bandit attacks, do I really have to keep watering a farmer’s crops for making myself a name in the region?

BGrennslen.9765:

Also, once you complete a zone, the Scouts won’t give you a “tour” of the area. If it’s been awhile since you have completed a zone, players may want a reminder of some of the areas events take place. I think the Scouts should always be able to replay their map tour dialog whenever requested.

This is a fair suggestion.

~MRA

@AnthonyOrdon.3926:

I respectively have to disagree with you here.
It it’s current state, the Renowm Hearts offer to the game nothing, they are nothign more than just beign a part of like a “checklist” on the way of the 100% World Exploration Task to get at the End an item that you need for your Legendary Weapon Grind.
For a fresh new player, they offer no guidance, they offer only a 1 time only based nice experience boost, that helps a tiny bit in gaining faster the next level up and after that for some Karma eventuelly a better equipment, than what you used up to that point.
But after that, those thigns for Karma also become very quickly useless for endgame characters.
As a fresh new player, you don’t search for renowm hearts to find just dynamic events.
In a good dynamic event system, the dynamic events would find the players, without that the player has to run around like an idiot for several minutes guidelessly around to find somewhere on the map a dynamic event that you can partake on or search for an undone renowm heart in the hope, that in its near might be some dynamic events running at that time to help you gaining experience quickly passively, while you do the renown heart in the meanwhile too automatically while helping at the dynamic event.

There aren’t only a few design issues, that have to be discussed. Theres a big design flaw that has to be discussed and solved here with improvements.
And with improvements I mean here solutions, that are senseful, useful, and fun for EVERYONE and not just only fresh new players, but also for all those tons over tons of endgame players with lots of max level characters, which see currently absolutely no single reason to revisit any of the older players, because the game absolutely offers us no rewarding reasons at all to do so, because everythign what the old maps offer, are maybe minimally rewardign only for a very short tiem for new players, but not for 2 year old GW2 veterans!!

Yes, Dry Top was really an awesome design refreshment, considering the absolutely unrewardign rest of the game.
I absolutely wish, Anet would be alot more consistent with their changes they do to improve the game to the point, that they would implement those improvements to the WHOLE GAME, and not always only just to a small portion of the game, like in this case for Dry Top. So I can hope only, that we will see in future more consistency improvements, so that good features from earlier patches will spread out to more and more segments of the rest of the game.

Examples:

• Region Achievements – currently only for Dryp Top – I want to see Region Achievements for all other Regions too !!
• Dynamic Event Reward Chests for doing Events successfuly – currently only for Dry Top Events – I want to see this for all Events in all of the Game Maps so that players have more incentive to do the events, because just the exp, karma and little gold you get, isn’t enough. But an Event Reward Chest for doing DE’s would be, especialyl if they have the chance for precursor Drops, or of they would give you map exclusive rewards that can be used to trade them in for map exlusive unique things and so on

Theres alot of unused potential which Anet could make use of to improve all of the existign maps to make them more interestign to get revisited.
But all of that effort would mean nothing, if it brigns peopel to revisit a map just only once.
Map Improvements must bring in sandbox system like long term goals, which bring people to the point, that they ALWAYS want to come back to older maps, not only because to help some beginner friends or so, but more also because you will feel later beign rewarded for doing so, having done something, that lets you feel, that you have progressed somehow somewhere in something each time you revisit an old map, so that this revisitation feels meaningful to you.

Thats why i would like to see a reputation system gettign added to replayable renowm hearts with a redesign of daily achievements into an order guild system and renorm hearts getting from that moment on also constantly expanded with new tasks to do for the players that players could slowly unlock to getting better reputation in the various regious of the game and that your decisions could lead also to the point of losing reputation in certai nregions, so that you see, that your decisions also have consequences somewhere.
This is a topic, which I think, deserves an own CDI, I’d name the topic:

Ways to improve the Game’s Longevity in PvE
Topics that I think could get discussed then in there are:

• Renowm Heart Improvements/ Reputation Systems
• Order Missions/ Order Guilds and Daily Task/Achievement Improvements
• Dynamic Event Rewards
• Map Exploration/ Spreading out Region Achievements
• PvE Replayability Personal/Living Story
• Guild Mission Improvements and General Guild Improvements
• Engame Content. i.E. explorable Elite-Locations, like the Underworld
  ect pp.