That’s not the point of the events however.
Events are designed to make the world feel dynamic.
If no player is around to save captives from a Champion – so be it. They will unfortunately perishGranted they will not permanently perish
This sums it up pretty well. I think of the world and everything in it as being in a legit fantasy story. There will be strong enemies who lead bands of lesser enemies. A champion just makes sense when it comes to they type of enemy who would be leading a centaur camp. That champion would have veterans as its “lower management”. If the heros do not show up to save the day when the captives are still in their cells, then they are going to be led to the chopping block, and the champion is not going to care that nobody tried to break them out, all he cares is seeing that the executions happen as intended.
From a game stand point just because people were not around to complete the break out does not mean it should get scaled down in the next part. A swarm of players could come along and wipe it off the face of the map, at which point the scaling down would just seem silly. You will not always be able to save the citizens and complete the DE, that is just the way it is.
If this was consistently an issue for any number of players then the DE should be rebalanced.