Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone.

The same conditions I’ve mentioned in my other topic (ACT I) apply here, so I will not repeat them.

You can find the previous Act here.

World Events PvE (ACT II)
The goal for this topic is to suggest a world-wide, multi-zone dynamic event. I will do this by providing a number of options that could potentially be part of this.

Intro
The main focal point of GW2’s storyline, the Elder Dragons. Currently the prime focus is Zhaitan and his undead. Even though the storyline presents you with a paced change from minor problems in your starting town to the ultimate battle into Orr, for me I never really felt the threat of Zhaitan and his minions. Heck, I don’t really like Orr myself. It is a barren place, with somber enemies (annoying at times) and that is about it for me. Their threat doesn’t bother me, I just zone out of Orr and visit other areas and they are out of sight, out of mind.

Summary
The idea is to have an event on an enormous scale that will constantly change the world we play in, every day, every moment. This is achieved through using the same mechanic as used in Cantha between the warring Factions, Luxon and Kurzick. Whenever I visited Cantha I caught myself checking the world map and seeing which outposts were controlled by what side, and where the border was currently at. This World Event will take the same approach, just on a much larger scale and a much more significant change to the world.

Perhaps you’ve already guessed what I’m talking about, but if not, read on. Zhaitans minions will slowly and gradually, through the usage of events, move out of Orr and towards the settlements and cities of Tyria’s Races. Here they will clash with both the common inhabitants of each zone, but also the players. Ultimately, the common inhabitants (monsters), if not helped by players, will lose the battle and the Dragon’s minions will take over the zones. They will slowly move onward and eventually lay siege to the cities, triggering a world event where all races are called in defense of a city (e.g. Lions Arch). To prevent to many players into a single zone, a number of additional world events can trigger in surrounding zones that are of equal importance to complete successfully.

Requirements

• A mix of smaller and larger (more significant) events to control the movement of the Dragon’s Armies.
• Specific boss encounters (Dragon Generals, Champions, Commanders) to turn the tide of battle or strike a blow to the enemies.
• Dynamic scaling of events
• Periodic changes to the minions in terms of strength and numbers. Ensuring that sometimes, a battle simply cannot be won and must result in the “Races of Tyria” losing ground. (to prevent the border of Orr never expanding and never threatening any of the major cities/settlements).
• Large losses / negative impact when important locations are lost
• Controlling key locations in world, perhaps something in the likes of statues and such, grant PvE boosts to everyone (similar to that of WvW)
• If a major city or settlement is under siege and lost, almost all activities there should be disabled until the city is re-taken. (e.g. Lions Arch being lost means the bank, merchants and everything else becomes disabled). A high penalty for failure.
• ‘Smart’ events to prevent the basic “stacking up and over-run” the enemy tactic. Especially when defending or re-taking cities, numerous tactical choices should impact the tide of battle.

In addition, a number of aspects could be added with this:
1. Guild Keeps / Hall

• A place to call home for your Guild, similar to GW1 Guild Halls. The following aspects can apply to housing as well, found in the ACT I topic.
• Guilds are able to invest/purchase upgrades to defend their keep/hall
• Guilds are able to invest/purchase aesthetic upgrades or display Guild achievements in their keep/hall
• The keep can be a battleground for Guild Battles (e.g. sieging an enemy keep, or defending your keep from an enemy Guild)
• Purchasing/building your Guild keep/hall in a certain region will mean you swear fealty to the major city of that region. This means you will HAVE to come to the cities defense if need be, as losing the city will also mean you lose your keep/hall or sustain great damage to it. (requiring to re-take the city, reclaim your hall/keep and rebuild, costing money/resources)
• A place to host personal PvP tournaments (1v1) or invite enemy/friendly Guild’s to participate. Potentially combining it with the Custom Arenas in the Mists.

2. Alliances

• Helps in making a stand against Orr and allocate resources where needed.
• Much desired feature by many, for both WvW and PvE in general.

3. Static Keeps

• Perhaps the option to build Guild Keeps/Halls in the living world. With this I mean that everyone can see and visit it. (not like in GW1 where every Guild gets their own copy of a Guild Hall on a location). But e.g. a Keep on a hill in Queensdale.
• This can be set locations by ArenaNet and potentially serve as rewards for Guild Battles. There shouldn’t be too many in the World and it should serve as a prestige award. So the best PvP Guilds would have the chance of battling over ownership of these keeps in the living world. Losing a Guild battle will result in the loss of the keep and the winning Guild taking ownership, there for the world to see your accomplishment. (perhaps accompanied by a world announcement that a particular Guild has taken that Keep)
• After ownership change, the cycle begins a new and Guilds can invest in increasing their defense, increasing their chances of maintaining the location.
• These keeps automatically swear fealty to the major city of the region, making them also subject to the world event if the city would fall.

Benefits

• Commanders are provided with an important role in PvE
• A whole new PvE end-game
• Every race, guild and players can contribute
• No matter how small, you can make a change and impact the world
• Dynamically changes the world at a constant rate, sometimes slow, sometimes faster
• As more content becomes available and more Elder Dragons are added, multiple war-borders can be added to really get the idea Tyria is under constant threat of the Elder Dragons and his minions.
• Provides players who wish to do so to combine important aspects of PvE with role-playing.
• Sense of accomplishment when you and your allies successfully defended a city or re-take a settlement, saving not only your own keep but potentially dozens of other Guilds.

Potential conflicts

• This event is of course world based, so losing a city to the Dragon would disable it on your home world, guesting to a different world would still give you the ability to visit that city. Whether this is a good or bad thing, I’ll let others decide.
• I am aware that the penalties for losing a city/settlement (e.g. losing access to merchants, portals, losing your keep etc.) is expansive and a strong penalty. But I feel a strong penalty is needed for such a large scale and potentially world-wide end-game.
• The culmination of the storyline is the defeat of the Elder Dragons, this event however is a continues never-ending battle. One could potentially incorporate the Elder Dragons themselves into it. But this would require major changes to the storyline.
• Some of the suggestions mean that larger Guilds would gain substantial benefits over smaller Guilds. But I suppose that’s just the way it is. Adding alliances to the game should provide a feasible option to counter this.
• The Dragons Minions will clash with the common inhabitants of each zone (to what extent is of course dependable). If their presence is constant, they will clash with many hearts and other events normally present in the area. Making their presence only event based will prevent this for the most part.

Yes, all of the above is a major change and implementation. But I feel it could be done. Especially seeing the potential of the Elder Dragons constant threat over Tyria. I am sure I will come up with more in the near future. I am also sure much of you will have their own view on things.

I thank you for your time if you read through all that.

Not a single reply? Guess I made the topics too long! Shame… ^^

I believe this is a good idea.

Replying to this wasn’t easy though. There are numerous things that come up when I think about the Orrification and desorrification of Tyria. All of them have serious flaws. (Like content being shutdown forever if Orr gets cleansed)

Within your plans there are also things very much like it already in the game. Like the contested waypoints & karma vendors in Orr. And World versus World. If there is a similar thing in the open world, the amount of players up for such a thing might be stretched pretty thin.

And then there are some critical points:

Should this run day and night? If so, when we do not have early morning coverage, do we lose everything we’ve gained the day before?

What is to be gained? Will players just accept that half the world is lost as long as they can use the vendors in Hoelbrak? Or is there an incentive to save Tyria? (New vendors/dungeons that can only be accessed by liberating the land?)

Do we know when to defend? Or do we all miss the attack and wake up to a lost Lions Arch? And if we do know, is it realistic to believe that we’ll ever lose it? (Unless there is no reward attached ofcourse)

Oh and I’ve written and deleted so much text while writing this reply…. looking at the time, I better move on.

There’s just too much to consider in a couple of minutes.

I do like the idea, though it’ll be very hard to implement and I agree with the critical notes mentioned by The Lost Witch and fear for loss of content if this is to be implemented and for new people or more casual players who find themselves caught up in a war that shuts them out of certain hubs etc. The basic principle has been done before on a small scale for example in Kryta where certain outposts switch from Centaurs to Seraph constantly, but to revamp entire Tyria for this… For that reason I feel that if this is to be implemented, then in areas not yet available that are completely designed for this idea, so that players who do not like it don’t suffer from it. Maybe if the Far Shiverpeaks are opened up or the Crystal Desert, ideas like this could be implemented.

On a more general note, I really feel that the limits of the event system are not even scratched. This idea of course reminds me of Factions, but also to some extent of Southsun with the new meta event.

Making meta events more complex, with more event chains, more coördination required and big finales would really draw out guilds to do more open world PvE. Guild Challenges are great, but implementing similar challenging events in the surrounding area via event chains of all sizes which take place all across the map, or as suggested even all across Tyria, and which require real coördination, timing and guild activity, would make PvE at level 80 so much more interesting.