Guild Wars 2

Gamescom 2010 interview

http://www.g4tv.com/videos/48232/guild-wars-2-gamescom-2010-interview/?quality=hd

3 core ways
1) DEs
2) visuals in combat and active combat
a) Skill choices through weapon choices.
3) personal story

Guild Wars 2 Wants to Change the Way We Play MMOs (2011)

http://www.ugo.com/games/guild-wars-2-attempts-to-change-the-mmo-genre

“Guild Wars 2 is founded on 3 core innovations: the “Dynamic Event System,” your “Personal Story,” and our changes to combat."

Dynamic Events Dev Journal by Colin Johanson (2012)

http://www.guildwars2hub.com/features/interviews/dynamic-events-dev-journal-colin-johanson

“Unlike any game ever made before Guild Wars 2, these events are our core content model for the game world. In other games you might find hundreds or thousands of quests, and some events scattered around as well; we literally have thousands of events with additional content scattered around to help support those events. The events are the core world content in Guild Wars 2 and make up the bulk of the content in the game between the open world and dungeons, with stuff like more traditional-style renown regions and exploration challenges there to provide a supporting hand to the events. We believe this creates a fundamental paradigm shift in the way you play and experience the game.”
“Events truly are cooperative. In traditional MMOs, you’ll often find yourself competing with other players for mobs, struggling to tag them for loot drops, or to get on the high-score list for rewards for the public quest. Our core systems are designed so that everyone who helps kill a mob gets experience and can get loot. If you die, anyone can run up and help revive you and they get rewarded for doing so. Everyone who participates in events gets rewarded at the end, and everyone could earn the best (gold) participation reward if they all helped in the event for most of its duration. This builds a sense of cooperation between players, and helps make it feel like another player in an event is never a hindrance; they are instead another resource you could use combo skills with, or someone to help protect and revive you. Other players, even if you don’t know them at all and don’t talk to them, make the game more fun. This is perhaps the thing that is most unique and innovative about the event system as a whole.”

Colin Johanson on Guild Wars 2 in the Months Ahead (2013)

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/colin-johanson-on-guild-wars-2-in-the-months-ahead/

Allowing players to share experiences in an open world where other players are seen as helpful, rather than competition, is a huge component of what makes our game what it is. Open world online games are always strongest when players are encouraged and rewarded to interact as a community, to support other each other, and when the flow of the game ushers players to go places where they run into other players across all levels and have shared experiences. Our shared loot system, dynamic level adjustment system, shared resource nodes, multi-player skill combos, and the ability for every player to revive one another are all examples of key game features that help support this concept of a community-driven experience.
Guild Wars 2 is a game that’s about these shared experiences. Through the dynamic event system, every time you log in, you can experience and share something different in the world with other players. Maybe you’re in a map you’ve been to before and see an event for the first time, or you’re in the midst of an event and it dynamically scales with more players arriving, becoming more epic, or you’re fighting for control of Stonemist Castle in WvW, where each fight can play out differently.
Since launch, we’ve shown our capacity to really build and expand on this system of dynamic events with more unique events that are a living story. These special events and living stories like Wintersday, Halloween, and the Lost Shores invasion are all examples of this style of event we’ve run since the launch of GW2.

These key pillars — a sense of community and a dynamic, living world full of different experiences every time you log in — are what makes Guild Wars 2 what it is. But what does that mean looking forward to 2013?

Guild Wars 2 to feature over 1,500 dynamic events

http://www.vg247.com/2011/08/24/guild-wars-2-to-feature-over-1500-dynamic-events/

“We’re looking at having around 1500 events happen, so its going to take people a long time to get through all of them,”

Above are all quotes from Arenanet.
In essence: doing DEs ARE the core of this game.
Fractal, sPvP, WvW, Dungeons are only a forth of this game, but still most everyone is focused on these instead of the rest of the game.
This has to change and it is not Anet that has to make these changes. It is the players themselves. Still they focus on old MMORPG models and do not see that this game is not them. It is its own game. That has it own challenges that they ignore daily.
As I have stated before with 26 zones of DEs mostly untouched by the player community it is sad to see them crying for the old ways instead of even making a effort to try the new way.
Please read and follow the suggestion I posted in the thread below and see how things can become different as they should be (btw I did name that thread the name it has.. an Anet employee gave it that name)

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/A-call-to-action-emergent-play-getting-the-most-out-of-GW2/first#post1842894

Leaving WvW and sPvP aside (as some players simply don’t like PvP in their games, and I wouldn’t force someone to do it), the main reason why people are doing Fractals and Dungeons is frankly because the loot is better there. If DE’s gave out loot comparable to Dungeons (and technically, the World Boss events do), you would see a lot more players doing them.

my biggest issue was not being able to find them. i leveled up by going heart to heart and doing any and all de’s i found on the way. but even then there were times where i could go for ages and not hit any, or id hit the same one again and again.

this became a much bigger issue when i hit orr. i expected the “frontline, always pushing onwards via de’s” the devs talked about when instead i spent most of the time running around trying to find stuff to do.

i would personally love for de’s to be seen on the map much further away than they currently are so i can actually just run out and do them, as my biggest turn off atm is hunting them down for ages.

My main reason is that I find dungeons more of an interesting challenge than the open world. (Drops aside which is not my primary reasoning) while alot of events can be fun for a while or at least the first time they lack depth in comparison to dungeons.

While changes have been made to some they are usually overly simple and end up being zerg fests which for me and I’m sure many others is no fun.

Please note I’m making these comments soley comparing the different aspects of this particular game with each other.

DEs to me are meant to be the primary way of spreading story and lore but they feel rather shallow in that regard. (At least the vast majority of them).

If DEs were better used to tell lore or provide a challenge I know I’d defintely spend more time doing them than dungeons. As for now dungeons and fractals is an ok enough substitute.

I still find DEs to be the best thing in this game, if only they’d be easier to find.

- make all active DEs in the zone visible on the map

There, major complaint fixed.

DEs would be better if there were more controllable ones. RNG on your xp gain rate = bad.

i love DEs. i don’t really have time to do four fractals most days, but i agree with coldtart that it’d be nice if more were easier to trigger by yourself. on the whole though i don’t think i ever found myself lacking in events while levelling.

Doing DE doesn’t reward the players enough, besides the bigger ones like dragons and what not..

DE’s reward me with fun. As I do them I also get loot, karma and experience. Since I play games to have fun, I am amply rewarded by DEs.

During dynamic events it is easy to get swallowed by the masses, meaning your perception of the importance of your contribution trends towards zero. Especially during dragon encounters in which 100 players chip-damage the right leg to death.

For this reason the existence of personal story (solo and/or group) and dungeons (coordinated teamplay) is just as important to the game than DE, if not more for parts of the audience.

You can argue whether or not each of these four gamemodes (i.e. Solo, Uncoordinated Group, Coordinated Group and Mass) is able to compete with a game focusing solely on one of these things, but such is the tragedy of all MMOs. This ‘problem’ is complemented by the fact of ArenaNet pulling the right tropes, e.g. dragon boss appears, establishing shot of boss, feeling of players of being at a clear disadvantage. But then the scene continues with an uncoordinated mass battle, which is not necessarily the best resolve to the setup and drags a lot of issues to the foreground the rest of the game does its best to hide.

GW2 tries to be all things at once, which is crazy ambitious and only works to a certain degree. It certainly works better than other products trying to do the same. GW2 has its rough spots. Sometimes you can point to other games doing it better, many times you cannot.

I love DE’s.
What I would like to see is more chain DE’s- spanning over maps, more complicated DE’s that have various branches and outcomes.
A general improvement in Event density in some maps.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if there were so many events going off that players had to choose which ones to complete and then have consequences for that choice?

FourthVariety.5463:

During dynamic events it is easy to get swallowed by the masses, meaning your perception of the importance of your contribution trends towards zero. Especially during dragon encounters in which 100 players chip-damage the right leg to death.

Your referring to the few that everyone runs to. Every time they WP or run passed several DEs just so they can get the “big” prize.

Are you aware that there are “open world dungeon” that are activated by doing certin DEs?
Are you aware that very few of these have been found?

DEs are not just Jungle Wurm, Frozen Maw; the temples or the Dragons

Those are the end of 12 chains.

What other big prizes lay undiscovered out there?

There are 1500+ DEs in this game, most of which have not been IDed most likely. Most are in Orr and are part of DE webs, not chains.

With webs group A can start one DE in one area while group B starts another DE somewhere else and at some point they meet causing a different chain (or webline if you will) to spring out; then if group A ran the DEs and got to the meeting point and there was no group B.

Morrigan.2809:

I love DE’s.
What I would like to see is more chain DE’s- spanning over maps, more complicated DE’s that have various branches and outcomes.
A general improvement in Event density in some maps.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if there were so many events going off that players had to choose which ones to complete and then have consequences for that choice?

they do exist. In this game. In Orr as mentioned above.

The only way to make these choices is though organized DE Raid Groups, but I have never seen such a group yet.

Nor have I seen any guild willing to even try

DEs need to fire more often and feature more mob density. Escorting some slow NPC while 3 monsters occasionally attack is just not fun.

Also, DEs need to be marked on the map you are on, not just when you’re near the event, so people can be made aware of it more rapidly.

Funny. You’re trying to change the human condition with a web forum post. Good luck with that. Game has to change in order for players to change, societies and laws form because they are necessary, not out of goodwill and happy thoughts.

Krosslite.1950:

Morrigan.2809:

I love DE’s.
What I would like to see is more chain DE’s- spanning over maps, more complicated DE’s that have various branches and outcomes.
A general improvement in Event density in some maps.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if there were so many events going off that players had to choose which ones to complete and then have consequences for that choice?

they do exist. In this game. In Orr as mentioned above.

The only way to make these choices is though organized DE Raid Groups, but I have never seen such a group yet.

Nor have I seen any guild willing to even try

Yes sorry it is early in the morning for me, not expressing myself well.

I know that they exist- I simply meant it as a example of the type of DE’s that I enjoy and would like to see more of.

DE’s are one of my favourite parts of the game and I love them.
I like long complicated chains/webs because the story involved are almost always interesting and I like the way they move around the map.

Orr is one of my favourite zones because of the event density.
As you said though people are not really interested, used to be better but not so much now with the big loot pinatas :P

Krosslite.1950:

Are you aware that there are “open world dungeon” that are activated by doing certin DEs?
Are you aware that very few of these have been found?

…

There are 1500+ DEs in this game, most of which have not been IDed most likely. Most are in Orr and are part of DE webs, not chains.

With webs group A can start one DE in one area while group B starts another DE somewhere else and at some point they meet causing a different chain (or webline if you will) to spring out; then if group A ran the DEs and got to the meeting point and there was no group B.

I would not go as far as calling certain metaeventchains open world dungeons. Mainly for the reason that when it comes to dungeons, I think of coordinated group play and inter-player dependencies of either skill activations or roles during an encounter. (by roles I am not insisting on Trinity, things such as Hammer management of Whisp coordination are perfectly fine as well)

For this type of experience, the open world enemies are far too weak. You slay them in passing by with no effort or concentration required. I am aware of the more complicated event chains outside the dragon timer. However, my player agency when stumbling across them is often not such that I follow them through. More often than not I ride them for the time that they align with my current goal, e.g. map completion, and if that purpose is served they are abandoned. I believe I play that way because I do not feel a desire of doing them over and over in the same way I would complete a regular dungeon.

I am a bit split on the 1500 event thing. Because in my opinion, being a hardcore player, it is not 1500 events. If you put 100 escort missions in the game, that makes still one mission in my book. I can applaud the visual designers and the lore team of making each of the 100 escort missions individual, but when it comes to guarding a caravan in Orr then “sry, been there, done that, not interested, what else is really new?”. Currently GW2 has a very limited set of things it can throw at a player in the open world. At the same time, there are not a lot of game systems creating situations through interacting with each other; in the way you would see in a world sim or strategy game. GW2 has achieved outstanding complexity when it comes to a scripted world with scripted events. I am not going to hate the game for being what it is. If you love playing all 1500 scripted events and can look past the limited set of different event types, then you will be a happy man having bought GW2. If you like other things, then there is plenty of that as well and lots of groundwork in the right spots to advance the game in the coming years. That does not mean I have tunnel vision, it merely means I pick and choose. I am a first wold consumer of entertainment products after all, how else would I go about it?

1500 plus dynamic events replace quests in other games. Other games have the same sorts of quests over and over again. Most games release with 500 quests. The content DEs are supposed to be replacing are quests, not dungeons.

There are, however, actually mini-dungeons in the game that are more challenging than open world content, but not as challenging as full dungeons.

The idea that dungeons require teamwork is just something that’s been instilled into us from other MMOs. It’s not what a dungeon is. In fact, there are many games that have solo dungeons. And even in Guild Wars 1 you could have a party of NPCs and you and solo a dungeon.

I like Dynamic Events when I’m levelling a character, but for a maxed out character they get boring kinda quickly. Well, there are some good ones, but most of them are way too easy.

FourthVariety.5463:

I am a bit split on the 1500 event thing. Because in my opinion, being a hardcore player, it is not 1500 events. If you put 100 escort missions in the game, that makes still one mission in my book. I can applaud the visual designers and the lore team of making each of the 100 escort missions individual, but when it comes to guarding a caravan in Orr then “sry, been there, done that, not interested, what else is really new?”. Currently GW2 has a very limited set of things it can throw at a player in the open world. At the same time, there are not a lot of game systems creating situations through interacting with each other; in the way you would see in a world sim or strategy game. GW2 has achieved outstanding complexity when it comes to a scripted world with scripted events. I am not going to hate the game for being what it is. If you love playing all 1500 scripted events and can look past the limited set of different event types, then you will be a happy man having bought GW2. If you like other things, then there is plenty of that as well and lots of groundwork in the right spots to advance the game in the coming years. That does not mean I have tunnel vision, it merely means I pick and choose. I am a first wold consumer of entertainment products after all, how else would I go about it?

Vayne.8563:

1500 plus dynamic events replace quests in other games. Other games have the same sorts of quests over and over again. Most games release with 500 quests. The content DEs are supposed to be replacing are quests, not dungeons.

There are, however, actually mini-dungeons in the game that are more challenging than open world content, but not as challenging as full dungeons.

The idea that dungeons require teamwork is just something that’s been instilled into us from other MMOs. It’s not what a dungeon is. In fact, there are many games that have solo dungeons. And even in Guild Wars 1 you could have a party of NPCs and you and solo a dungeon.

I understand where both of you are coming from and to be honest to a degree you are prime examples of the tunnel vision I am referring too. I will agree that most likely most of the 1500+ DE fall into the realm of not massively challenging.
That is to be expected in an open world game, but I must add that also due to it being an open world arena that there will be and I would go as far as say, there are, DEs out there that do require a controlled group (raid) mentality to get through them.

It is also the very "“sry, been there, done that, not interested, what else is really new?”. " mentality that is the issue here. How can you know you have done all if you haven’t tried to figure out the DE web on Orr?

How do you not know that these open world dungeons DO require teamwork if no guild has made a DE raid group that has half start at point A while the other half started at point B and pushes forward till they meet. At which point a team consensus is made on which direction to go within the web and see where it leads. Could there be another Frozen Maw, Jungle Wurm type of ending awaiting you? I would bet there is since Anet has implied it.

Could the rewards be worth the effort? Again since Anet has implied it I bet there is.
And I for one would love to find out.

I’ve done several of the minidungeons and the problem really isn’t that they’re easy. The problem is people can just look on the internet to see how to get through them. That’s the real problem.

Me, I’d just as soon go into a dungeon and figure it out than watch a video about it or read a website. But a lot of people get frustrated by something, run to the internet, follow a walk-through and then they’re done with everything and they complain.

I’ve done now close to 2/3rds of the jumping puzzles. I haven’t looked up where they are to find them. I look for them and do them when I find them. And it takes me a REALLY long time to look up something online to see how to get through it. That makes the game harder for me.

There’s an interesting mini dungeon in one of the charr zones, where there are a number of puzzles. At the end of an event chain a gate appears and takes you to it. You’d never know it was there if you didn’t finish that event chain. The dungeon itself is a lot of fun.

But what made it fun for me was that the first time I experienced it, it was me and three strangers, all caught up in it, with no idea how to get through. And no one went to the internet. We figured it out, over time. It was a blast.

Did it really require coordination. Not so much. But it required group problem solving and throwing ideas around to see where to go.

I haven’t found all the mini dungeons yet, and I’m looking forward to them.

its not some joke, arent it?
Epic DE. Go from point A to point B using autoattack on way to tagg mobs (because difficulty level = -1000000). After some time, 20 minutes/1h hour, whatever the same guy start this from point A to point B event.
Sometimes we need to defend something! Great!. Sleep with autoattack on for x minutes. You have saved the world!
After xx times the same event kicks in. Oh you failed. Don’t worry, wait couple of minutes for event which take place back…
There is nothing dynamic in dynamic events. Chain quests which are mostly triggered by game itself (yeah great timers). Its all around fail or win, if chain failed it start from scrap, if chain is done, defend events starts. If failed chain events starts from scrap. Dynamic as dinner table.
All those group events which I can solo with any class.
No no no.

I would love DE’s to be super engaging, fun, and challenging.

But the truth is, 99% of them are not. Most are easy and somewhat non-eventful. Even the ones that ARE entertaining (there are definitely some) simply don’t reward you with anything. No, I don’t want 2 silver, experience, and 300 karma on my level 80 toon.

I fully support making a DE based endgame, but the problem is – there isn’t one. Orr temples are an attempt at doing this but fails due to the dirty, dingy, repetitive feel of the zone.

TLDR; More DE’s, harder DE’s, rewarding DE’s. oh and maybe more often in frequency too.

George Steel.1804:

I would love DE’s to be super engaging, fun, and challenging.

But the truth is, 99% of them are not. Most are easy and somewhat non-eventful. Even the ones that ARE entertaining (there are definitely some) simply don’t reward you with anything. No, I don’t want 2 silver, experience, and 300 karma on my level 80 toon.

I fully support making a DE based endgame, but the problem is – there isn’t one. Orr temples are an attempt at doing this but fails due to the dirty, dingy, repetitive feel of the zone.

TLDR; More DE’s, harder DE’s, rewarding DE’s. oh and maybe more often in frequency too.

I seriously doubt 1485 DE are as you described. I know without a doubt that people have only seen 40% of the DEs this game has.

Now 594 of them I will agree with you about.

Until guilds make DE raid groups that go through all 26 zones doing all the DEs in that zone then neither of us will really know

Krosslite.1950:

George Steel.1804:

I would love DE’s to be super engaging, fun, and challenging.

But the truth is, 99% of them are not. Most are easy and somewhat non-eventful. Even the ones that ARE entertaining (there are definitely some) simply don’t reward you with anything. No, I don’t want 2 silver, experience, and 300 karma on my level 80 toon.

I fully support making a DE based endgame, but the problem is – there isn’t one. Orr temples are an attempt at doing this but fails due to the dirty, dingy, repetitive feel of the zone.

TLDR; More DE’s, harder DE’s, rewarding DE’s. oh and maybe more often in frequency too.

I seriously doubt 1485 DE are as you described. I know without a doubt that people have only seen 40% of the DEs this game has.

Now 594 of them I will agree with you about.

Until guilds make DE raid groups that go through all 26 zones doing all the DEs in that zone then neither of us will really know

You know without a doubt? That is a mighty strong statement. What facts are you using as reference exactly?

killcannon.2576:

Krosslite.1950:

George Steel.1804:

I would love DE’s to be super engaging, fun, and challenging.

But the truth is, 99% of them are not. Most are easy and somewhat non-eventful. Even the ones that ARE entertaining (there are definitely some) simply don’t reward you with anything. No, I don’t want 2 silver, experience, and 300 karma on my level 80 toon.

I fully support making a DE based endgame, but the problem is – there isn’t one. Orr temples are an attempt at doing this but fails due to the dirty, dingy, repetitive feel of the zone.

TLDR; More DE’s, harder DE’s, rewarding DE’s. oh and maybe more often in frequency too.

I seriously doubt 1485 DE are as you described. I know without a doubt that people have only seen 40% of the DEs this game has.

Now 594 of them I will agree with you about.

Until guilds make DE raid groups that go through all 26 zones doing all the DEs in that zone then neither of us will really know

You know without a doubt? That is a mighty strong statement. What facts are you using as reference exactly?

personal experience of going through most of the zones in this game and seeing ghost towns, especially in the higher end zones where I am surrounded by active DE that take more then one person to do them.

many of these are the beginning of a chain or a web but no ones does them

Krosslite.1950:

killcannon.2576:

Krosslite.1950:

George Steel.1804:

I would love DE’s to be super engaging, fun, and challenging.

But the truth is, 99% of them are not. Most are easy and somewhat non-eventful. Even the ones that ARE entertaining (there are definitely some) simply don’t reward you with anything. No, I don’t want 2 silver, experience, and 300 karma on my level 80 toon.

I fully support making a DE based endgame, but the problem is – there isn’t one. Orr temples are an attempt at doing this but fails due to the dirty, dingy, repetitive feel of the zone.

TLDR; More DE’s, harder DE’s, rewarding DE’s. oh and maybe more often in frequency too.

I seriously doubt 1485 DE are as you described. I know without a doubt that people have only seen 40% of the DEs this game has.

Now 594 of them I will agree with you about.

Until guilds make DE raid groups that go through all 26 zones doing all the DEs in that zone then neither of us will really know

You know without a doubt? That is a mighty strong statement. What facts are you using as reference exactly?

personal experience of going through most of the zones in this game and seeing ghost towns, especially in the higher end zones where I am surrounded by active DE that take more then one person to do them

So no facts, just personal experience. And flawed personal experience, because you are not there 24/7 at all the events “That no one has ever done”. Thank you.

killcannon.2576:

Krosslite.1950:

killcannon.2576:

Krosslite.1950:

George Steel.1804:

I would love DE’s to be super engaging, fun, and challenging.

But the truth is, 99% of them are not. Most are easy and somewhat non-eventful. Even the ones that ARE entertaining (there are definitely some) simply don’t reward you with anything. No, I don’t want 2 silver, experience, and 300 karma on my level 80 toon.

I fully support making a DE based endgame, but the problem is – there isn’t one. Orr temples are an attempt at doing this but fails due to the dirty, dingy, repetitive feel of the zone.

TLDR; More DE’s, harder DE’s, rewarding DE’s. oh and maybe more often in frequency too.

I seriously doubt 1485 DE are as you described. I know without a doubt that people have only seen 40% of the DEs this game has.

Now 594 of them I will agree with you about.

Until guilds make DE raid groups that go through all 26 zones doing all the DEs in that zone then neither of us will really know

You know without a doubt? That is a mighty strong statement. What facts are you using as reference exactly?

personal experience of going through most of the zones in this game and seeing ghost towns, especially in the higher end zones where I am surrounded by active DE that take more then one person to do them

So no facts, just personal experience. And flawed personal experience, because you are not there 24/7 at all the events “That no one has ever done”. Thank you.

So? How do you know they have been done? I have found no documentation on the internet saying if you do DE A in zone 20 that it will start chain/web 4.

have you?

We are in limbo and from your way off addressing this issue you wish to stay there. I do not. I wish to push forward and find these chains and webs. Then they will get documented on the internet like the dungeon/dragons/ etc etc.

Do you have a better idea then to try and discredit me because the very lack of documentation supports me?

xydrassial.6953:

my biggest issue was not being able to find them. i leveled up by going heart to heart and doing any and all de’s i found on the way. but even then there were times where i could go for ages and not hit any, or id hit the same one again and again.

this became a much bigger issue when i hit orr. i expected the “frontline, always pushing onwards via de’s” the devs talked about when instead i spent most of the time running around trying to find stuff to do.

i would personally love for de’s to be seen on the map much further away than they currently are so i can actually just run out and do them, as my biggest turn off atm is hunting them down for ages.

Do you like hearts or hate them? I cant tell from your post. I know these hearts where added in because the players could not work out ways to level so they added them in to hand hold the players into showing them how to play the game and where they can exp. In effect hearts are there for the ppl who are too use to playing other older mmorpgs.

Krosslite.1950:

killcannon.2576:

Krosslite.1950:

George Steel.1804:

I would love DE’s to be super engaging, fun, and challenging.

But the truth is, 99% of them are not. Most are easy and somewhat non-eventful. Even the ones that ARE entertaining (there are definitely some) simply don’t reward you with anything. No, I don’t want 2 silver, experience, and 300 karma on my level 80 toon.

I fully support making a DE based endgame, but the problem is – there isn’t one. Orr temples are an attempt at doing this but fails due to the dirty, dingy, repetitive feel of the zone.

TLDR; More DE’s, harder DE’s, rewarding DE’s. oh and maybe more often in frequency too.

I seriously doubt 1485 DE are as you described. I know without a doubt that people have only seen 40% of the DEs this game has.

Now 594 of them I will agree with you about.

Until guilds make DE raid groups that go through all 26 zones doing all the DEs in that zone then neither of us will really know

You know without a doubt? That is a mighty strong statement. What facts are you using as reference exactly?

personal experience of going through most of the zones in this game and seeing ghost towns, especially in the higher end zones where I am surrounded by active DE that take more then one person to do them.

many of these are the beginning of a chain or a web but no ones does them

You know without a doubt, i.e. 100% confident, that the sum of every single person has experienced exactly 40% of all the dynamic events, based off your own personal experience?

What the… That argument is beyond flawed.

It would be interesting to see the stats from ANet.

I won’t pretend to assume that I know the actual numbers, but my guess is that most events have been played at some point or another.

Krosslite.1950:

So? How do you know they have been done? I have found no documentation on the internet saying if you do DE A in zone 20 that it will start chain/web 4.

You may want to check the wiki. Many pages show how the chains work.

For example, this shows all known events in Bloodtide Coast and the events that chain off each: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bloodtide_Coast

Krosslite’s points are absolutely valid. I recently changed servers, hoping for a better community, because on my server everyone was constantly focusing on a couple of “big” events. For the loot of course (sigh). Just the other day I found the Ogre Wars event chain in Fields of Ruin. The whole area is brilliant, but there was literally no-one there. I met a fellow player, but the two of us couldn’t finish the timed events, we were too few. Still, it was an epic fight, completely immersive, but it made me sad, knowing that it was only the two of us on a whole map, peak time.

Reminded me of Ray Bradbury’s short story, There will come soft rains.

Krosslite.1950:

killcannon.2576:

Krosslite.1950:

killcannon.2576:

Krosslite.1950:

George Steel.1804:

I would love DE’s to be super engaging, fun, and challenging.

But the truth is, 99% of them are not. Most are easy and somewhat non-eventful. Even the ones that ARE entertaining (there are definitely some) simply don’t reward you with anything. No, I don’t want 2 silver, experience, and 300 karma on my level 80 toon.

I fully support making a DE based endgame, but the problem is – there isn’t one. Orr temples are an attempt at doing this but fails due to the dirty, dingy, repetitive feel of the zone.

TLDR; More DE’s, harder DE’s, rewarding DE’s. oh and maybe more often in frequency too.

I seriously doubt 1485 DE are as you described. I know without a doubt that people have only seen 40% of the DEs this game has.

Now 594 of them I will agree with you about.

Until guilds make DE raid groups that go through all 26 zones doing all the DEs in that zone then neither of us will really know

You know without a doubt? That is a mighty strong statement. What facts are you using as reference exactly?

personal experience of going through most of the zones in this game and seeing ghost towns, especially in the higher end zones where I am surrounded by active DE that take more then one person to do them

So no facts, just personal experience. And flawed personal experience, because you are not there 24/7 at all the events “That no one has ever done”. Thank you.

So? How do you know they have been done? I have found no documentation on the internet saying if you do DE A in zone 20 that it will start chain/web 4.

have you?

We are in limbo and from your way off addressing this issue you wish to stay there. I do not. I wish to push forward and find these chains and webs. Then they will get documented on the internet like the dungeon/dragons/ etc etc.

Do you have a better idea then to try and discredit me because the very lack of documentation supports me?

Do not make absolute statements with no basis in fact unless you want to be called on them. I made no absolute statements, or commented on whatever your raison d’etre is. Just wanted to make it clear to topic readers you were speaking from opinion instead of fact. Carry on with whatever it is you are doing, makes no difference to me.

Players won’t change the way they play simply because you think it’s the better way to play, they need incentive (better story, rewards, challenge, something they see as fun). Some players do nothing but DE’s. Others don’t. It’s Anet’s game and if they want to change the way the player base plays it, they need to do different things to make it compelling to do so. Soap boxing and telling the player base they are wrong won’t change anything.

Any way the big problem that happen when the game first came out there was a big race to level 80. This is not a blizzard game and racing to level 80 was the worst thing possible for the player base to do. You miss out on a lot of events a lot of story line that is build into the environment and a lot of fun things to do. Its not so bad at 80 now but the quality of life for thoughts who exp slower vs though who exp faster is greatly different. Slower players will enjoy the game more hands down then the binge. I think this is true for all things in life if your just simply rushing to the end of your life then your going to miss it.

Krosslite.1950:

the player community it is sad to see them crying for the old ways instead of even making a effort to try the new way.

Krosslite.1950:

I must add that also due to it being an open world arena that there will be and I would go as far as say, there are, DEs out there that do require a controlled group (raid) mentality to get through them.

How do you not know that these open world dungeons DO require teamwork if no guild has made a DE raid group that has half start at point A while the other half started at point B and pushes forward till they meet.

Krosslite.1950:

Until guilds make DE raid groups that go through all 26 zones doing all the DEs in that zone then neither of us will really know

Seems like there is a “new way” to try things…it’s called a “raid”.

*sry had to….it was kinda obvious

Jemmi.6058:

Krosslite.1950:

killcannon.2576:

Krosslite.1950:

George Steel.1804:

I would love DE’s to be super engaging, fun, and challenging.

But the truth is, 99% of them are not. Most are easy and somewhat non-eventful. Even the ones that ARE entertaining (there are definitely some) simply don’t reward you with anything. No, I don’t want 2 silver, experience, and 300 karma on my level 80 toon.

I fully support making a DE based endgame, but the problem is – there isn’t one. Orr temples are an attempt at doing this but fails due to the dirty, dingy, repetitive feel of the zone.

TLDR; More DE’s, harder DE’s, rewarding DE’s. oh and maybe more often in frequency too.

I seriously doubt 1485 DE are as you described. I know without a doubt that people have only seen 40% of the DEs this game has.

Now 594 of them I will agree with you about.

Until guilds make DE raid groups that go through all 26 zones doing all the DEs in that zone then neither of us will really know

You know without a doubt? That is a mighty strong statement. What facts are you using as reference exactly?

personal experience of going through most of the zones in this game and seeing ghost towns, especially in the higher end zones where I am surrounded by active DE that take more then one person to do them.

many of these are the beginning of a chain or a web but no ones does them

You know without a doubt, i.e. 100% confident, that the sum of every single person has experienced exactly 40% of all the dynamic events, based off your own personal experience?

What the… That argument is beyond flawed.

It would be interesting to see the stats from ANet.

I won’t pretend to assume that I know the actual numbers, but my guess is that most events have been played at some point or another.

Krosslite.1950:

So? How do you know they have been done? I have found no documentation on the internet saying if you do DE A in zone 20 that it will start chain/web 4.

You may want to check the wiki. Many pages show how the chains work.

For example, this shows all known events in Bloodtide Coast and the events that chain off each: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bloodtide_Coast

And that is an excellent example od the documention I am revering. There should be pages like this for Orr.

And yes I would love to see the actual numbers from Anet as well. I still believe my number are closer to correct, and I will agree they are not due to this very reason that we do not know.

Should that stop a guild or two from forming a DE raid group? No.
should it encourage a guild or two to try? Yes

DEs don’t reward you as much as, say, dungeons. If they want people to focus on those, they need to reward them proportionally. I made this equation:
percent of people that do it = fun * reward / time
CoF1 speed run has low fun, high reward, extra low time = high percent
Dynamic Events have medium fun, low reward, medium time = low percent
most dungeons have high fun, high reward, high time = medium percent

either increase the gold or karma rewards for these if you want people to play them. “increase” does not always mean “get more”. currently, karma is stupid cheap to get and nearly worthless to use. make it worth something, like being able to buy ascended stuff with it. Can you imagine how many people would be doing every low level zone events if you could buy ascended underwater breathing masks for 750,000 karma?

Corvax.1675:

Krosslite’s points are absolutely valid. I recently changed servers, hoping for a better community, because on my server everyone was constantly focusing on a couple of “big” events. For the loot of course (sigh). Just the other day I found the Ogre Wars event chain in Fields of Ruin. The whole area is brilliant, but there was literally no-one there. I met a fellow player, but the two of us couldn’t finish the timed events, we were too few. Still, it was an epic fight, completely immersive, but it made me sad, knowing that it was only the two of us on a whole map, peak time.

Reminded me of Ray Bradbury’s short story, There will come soft rains.

Yes exactly.

And an organized DE raid group would have succeded

I’d play a “hard mode” PvE map, if “hard” didn’t mean more garbage like Karka, or oneshot-inflicting Champions with more zeroes in their total HP than in a bowl of Cheerios.

I think there are a few things that keep players from doing typical DEs. The most popular events are the ones that are the most rewarding… you know… shadow behemoth, dragons, etc. Also, they’re very easy and never fail. Since they shower you with rares and they don’t fail, there’s not really any incentive to do other events unless you really do just enjoy them.

I feel the purchasable rewards and karma vendors kind of compound this problem, since the things they have are typically blue with maybe 1-2 greens. I’m almost never going to find something useful on a vendor :-|.

So… it’s a risk vs reward imbalance problem. I think there’s ~four things that could completely rectify this problem

1) Make the gameplay feel rewarding in and of itself. It needs to reward you for playing well. Most MMORPGs take the opposite approach and just punish you when you do poorly, and that’s it. That’s ok, but a game should also reward you for playing well. And example of a game + mechanic that I felt was rewarding were staggers in FF 13. It’s nice to stagger a boss, build up the gauge, then slam it with 3 insta-filled gauges. I’m not saying that needs to be in this game though, it’s that feeling that this game needs to capture. It should feel good when you get an amazing epidemic off or such.

2) Make the world feel living. I feel like this is the most under-rated thing people discuss. People like the illusion of a living world, but they never say it in these words. Instead people say “_ [DEs, questing, exploring, whatever] is boring” without really addressing why it’s boring. I’d say GW2 is already a cut above other MMORPGs in this department, but there’s still plenty of room for improvement in my humble opinion.

3) More difficulty, specifically difficulty that doesn’t rely on more/bigger. What I mean by this is that the difficulty needs to be a little more thought provoking. Having more things appear or having things with larger health bars that can one-shot you are really simplistic forms of difficulty, people seem to want more difficulty that requires some strategy.

4) Lastly, tweak the rewards a bit. This is kind of self-explanatory, but I’ll elaborate anyway. First off, the game showers you with stuff as you’re leveling. It’s difficult to NOT have a full set of greens. Another thing – you can ALWAYS use what drops… why? Because everything can either be sold or broken down into mats, and the drop rate of stuff is high. When I see people kvetching “amg nothing I can use” after a “dragon” event I shake my head because really you’re still accumulating wealth no matter how you slice it, and you can buy things right off the TP. You have to be REALLY picky to not see GW2’s current system as very generous.

4cont) So, that said, GW2 feels a little TOO generous. It’s nice that A-net is really anti-grind, but if I can literally just buy new stuff of the TP for 30-100 silver every few levels (which was easily affordable for me), rune everything up, etc, then I feel like there’s no incentive, so this can make doing all the events in the world feel remarkably unnecessary.

In closing, I wouldn’t say this is a player problem. It’s a natural tendency to take the most efficient path to get somewhere, human nature. The “amg endgame is all that matters” is a different matter, I don’t feel that way and never have, but that might just be a preferential difference (values). GW2 has done a lot of things right, but it’s not perfection incarnate (yet).

Jared.8497:

So… it’s a risk vs reward imbalance problem.

In this line I have to agree with you.

People are flocking to the certain reward DEs. This is sad.

Yes people hate to loss, but that is not a “living” world. This game is suppose to make you have to struggle sometime.

Yes it is sad that people can not handle this, but with DE Raid groups maybe someone of this imbalance can be addressed.

We really will never know till someone steps up and say my guild will do, and let me tell you I will be more then happy to join this guild and help them (no guild at this time since none will even listen to me on this topic [heck some don’t even know that “DE” means Dynamic Events..sad])

The reason many players are more focused on the dungeons is because of two things;

1) Risk vs reward: you can easily make more spamming COF over and over than pretty much any DE in the game (even while not speed running with the now staple “Zerk warrior only!” groups).
2) Difficulty: these other areas of the game can provide much more challenging events than the DEs and open world content. You pretty much CAN’T fail open world content; you fail, oh look it pretty much immediately restarted with no real repercussions.

and 3) Typically difficulty just get’s scaled by increasing enemy hp and damage and then playing bash your face into this wall for the next 10 years until you can kill it…

They need to tie the events together more and make some of them require a groups working together to complete and then have the repercussions be devastating enough to the rest of the game, that players, groups, guilds, etc. are going to want to fight for and beat these DEs. If you fail an event, it should do much more to the world than close off a waypoint (ya, because one lost waypoint is real devastating to the playerbase….).

The events need to become waaaay more dynamic as well. Let’s look at the temples for instance; they need to divide the players more and have 2-3 different scenarios that can be thrown at them each time the event spawns. When the event spawns they could have several different mini events spawn at the same time (the orange circle pops up around Melandru for example, then also at the same time have several smaller orange event circles simultaneously appear along the perimeter that effect the main event in some potentially major way; maybe have none of these if there are only a few players and then have like 3-5 sub events as it scales up for the number of players there…).

They don’t take their DEs far enough. Sure they can be fun to stop and do here and there, or farm certain ones for crafting mats or just straight up sell on the market, etc.; but, when a player see’s an event, they should be going I have to stop and help or else this whole area could go to hell and makes thing very difficult. Maybe even have some events have even farther reaching repercussions as to shut down or impede certain aspects of the game such as npc merchants shutting down within 2-3 map range of certain failed events… ro something to get players into the attitude of “We need to take this”.

Krosslite.1950:

…Allowing players to share experiences in an open world where other players are seen as helpful, rather than competition, is a huge component of what makes our game what it is. Open world online games are always strongest when players are encouraged and rewarded to interact as a community, to support other each other, and when the flow of the game ushers players to go places where they run into other players across all levels and have shared experiences. Our shared loot system, dynamic level adjustment system, shared resource nodes, multi-player skill combos, and the ability for every player to revive one another are all examples of key game features that help support this concept of a community-driven experience.
Guild Wars 2 is a game that’s about these shared experiences. Through the dynamic event system, every time you log in, you can experience and share something different in the world with other players. Maybe you’re in a map you’ve been to before and see an event for the first time, or you’re in the midst of an event and it dynamically scales with more players arriving, becoming more epic, or you’re fighting for control of Stonemist Castle in WvW, where each fight can play out differently.
Since launch, we’ve shown our capacity to really build and expand on this system of dynamic events with more unique events that are a living story. These special events and living stories like Wintersday, Halloween, and the Lost Shores invasion are all examples of this style of event we’ve run since the launch of GW2.

These key pillars — a sense of community and a dynamic, living world full of different experiences every time you log in — are what makes Guild Wars 2 what it is. But what does that mean looking forward to 2013?…

To me, what I quoted is the main problem. They may have wanted interaction but they didn’t get it or provide it other than at it’s base level. Technically speaking it was a “shared” experience, but it was done through very little interaction and to me that’s not sharing an experience at all.

Also for me, outside of WvW there isn’t anything EXCITING to do once you reach 80. The living story is nice. Fractals are okay the first 20 times. I like to feel like I have achieved something in a game. For me the PvE side is lacking in that, especially the DEs

If your motivation is purely loot driven and your preferred gamemode is dynamic events, then you will find Orr to your tasting. Go magic find and fill those bags. The pure income is comparable to that of CoF. The game retains some “loot balance” in that regard.

The “living world” problem is frankly a bit weird, if I look at it. At the one hand you have games such as Civilization or DayZ. Games which are not driven by scripted events, but rather by a set of ingame agents interacting according to a set of rules. Quite a few high ranking ArenaNet personnel left the company to form UndeadLabs and create a game based on that premise and not on scripted events.

At the other hand you have a server structure which is massively parallelized to the point where it could portray a lot of player choices hugely impacting the world. But the game does its best to wash out any player choices, meaning the longer you play, the more you get pushed down the chute of the “one true ending”. Everything you do achieve in the DE system is quickly reset, meaning there is no real progress to be seen. We play for identical servers called Riverside or Fissure of Woe, but those servers are not used to store our choices, they merely there to confront X amount of players with the same recurring situations.

If we want to talk about loot being the reason to play a part of the game we would otherwise have ignored. Parts of the game that do not grow on us even though we do them. Then let’s talk Laurels and ascended amulets.

FourthVariety.5463:

At the other hand you have a server structure which is massively parallelized to the point where it could portray a lot of player choices hugely impacting the world. But the game does its best to wash out any player choices, meaning the longer you play, the more you get pushed down the chute of the “one true ending”. Everything you do achieve in the DE system is quickly reset, meaning there is no real progress to be seen. We play for identical servers called Riverside or Fissure of Woe, but those servers are not used to store our choices, they merely there to confront X amount of players with the same recurring situations.

On this point I have to agree. I wish our changes we make doing the DEs would last more then a few minutes to a few hours. In the lower zones I would say leave it this way though. That gives the newer players a chance to learn and see how DEs work. Once you get into the higher zones though I think the time for reset should gradually increase to a max of a few days. Not a week that would be too long, but a few day would be nice. Like giving you the impression that the Flame Legion was re-massing for an attack upon Fireheart Rise. In the mean time you are give access to items be it through karma or plain our cash that you do not have access to any other time. Like the weapons recipe vendor at the end of the Claw of Jormag for example.

I find no issue with this and those saying the DEs reset to quickly have a valid point in this, but it should be scaled up in time like I stated earlier. This I feel would still give you a living world and also encourage people to reclaim these rewards once they are lost.

Krosslite.1950:

FourthVariety.5463:

At the other hand you have a server structure which is massively parallelized to the point where it could portray a lot of player choices hugely impacting the world. But the game does its best to wash out any player choices, meaning the longer you play, the more you get pushed down the chute of the “one true ending”. Everything you do achieve in the DE system is quickly reset, meaning there is no real progress to be seen. We play for identical servers called Riverside or Fissure of Woe, but those servers are not used to store our choices, they merely there to confront X amount of players with the same recurring situations.

On this point I have to agree. I wish our changes we make doing the DEs would last more then a few minutes to a few hours. In the lower zones I would say leave it this way though. That gives the newer players a chance to learn and see how DEs work. Once you get into the higher zones though I think the time for reset should gradually increase to a max of a few days. Not a week that would be too long, but a few day would be nice. Like giving you the impression that the Flame Legion was re-massing for an attack upon Fireheart Rise. In the mean time you are give access to items be it through karma or plain our cash that you do not have access to any other time. Like the weapons recipe vendor at the end of the Claw of Jormag for example.

I find no issue with this and those saying the DEs reset to quickly have a valid point in this, but it should be scaled up in time like I stated earlier. This I feel would still give you a living world and also encourage people to reclaim these rewards once they are lost.

Problem: DE reset times: Do they stay done just for you, or the whole server?

If just you, then players are shoehorned in with only the other players who finished that DE together. If Guildie A needs help with or wants to run with Guildie B doing certain events, then they need to be in the same DE instance. Same thing with gen pop, if a large group is doing events slightly earlier in the day than other players, those later players can receive zero help from any other player who was doing them slightly earlier.

If it’s the entire server, I can just imagine the trolling there.

This entire idea creates a lot of problems from this being a mmo as opposed to a single player rpg or coop rpg.

Since it is an MMO it should benefit all. Should the rewards be as good the Claw vendor? I would say no. Should they be something hard to get and account or soulbound? Yes

DE’s are basically renamed quest givers you get the quest when you get near them and you run back to them when you finish to get your rewards (such as they are) once you reach level 80 DE’s become selective at best, mostly useless at worst..

There are very few 80+ DE and as others have posted rewards are terrible compared to world events and Dungeons.. so no one wants to do them..

At the Games opening i loved GW2 open world but nerf after nerf of the loot tables, the fact DR and farming is bad, i gave up wasting my time and effort with it on terrible RNG (look at lodestone drops), now i only do world events and occasional “faster” dungeons..

Sorry to bump this but in the last 15 mins I have been going through the forums just now I ran into this Tunnel vision issue in several threads. Please folks read and learn

Zaxares.5419:

Leaving WvW and sPvP aside (as some players simply don’t like PvP in their games, and I wouldn’t force someone to do it), the main reason why people are doing Fractals and Dungeons is frankly because the loot is better there. If DE’s gave out loot comparable to Dungeons (and technically, the World Boss events do), you would see a lot more players doing them.

Actually, I’m doing Fractals because their design blows all the other dungeons in the game away.

The loot is secondary to me.