Guild Wars 2

Yeah, I sometimes find myself in there murdering Elites as a public service.

On the whole I like the tower, but as the population declines, I sadly expect it to be another piece of content that scales horribly to the population present.

Heibi.4251:

The key part is – what the heck is an illusion master doing wielding a great sword? Makes absolutely no sense.

They aren’t wielding a greatsword – its a really big wand in their hands .

TO A GOOD HOME

Add a check box when posting items that indicate the item must be sold to “a good home”: when purchased via TP this item becomes account bound. For items that stack it is place in a separate stack that include only similar account bound items.

When buying via TP a check box allows ‘to a good home’ items to be viewed (the default would be to filter them out. the check box is to opt in to see them). This way customers are less likely to accidentally buy something they cannot re-sell/flip.

People selling in ‘to a good home’ mode should expect to get less money for their items – after all, the only people who can buy them are people who intend to actually use them. But they also get the knowledge that their goods are not being juggled for profit.

For buyers who intend to use the item it creates a parallel market with lower price and a direct from initial seller relationship.

For flippers it moves a percentage of their market into a parallel track. Then we find out if the people actually harvesting/getting the initial drop really care about the so called “service” of arbitrage… Do they want to sell fast to arbitrage liquidity, or slower to people who will use what they are buying?

Midnight Gypsy.9360:

To me the LS and LW are the same thing, I saw someone say it was very different to them. I would like to know how it’s very different.

To me, Living Story content is the one-use limited time content, advancing a plot across multiple regions/maps and expiring after a limited period. It is character focused, can take advantage of both episodic and serialized storytelling techniques, and can chain together activities and rewards to give a grand, sweeping feel.

Living World content is material that adds to the permanent pool, increasing the richness of an area or activity forever, but not necessarily able to evoke the same sort of urgency or “I was there when…” war-stories associated with Living Story episodes. Its components are often strictly episodic and quite a bit more localized in their impact. Intimate rather than grand in many cases. Something to stumble over or work out for yourself rather than referencing an online guide since there is no particular time pressure, and something you later bring to friends and guildmates and ask “so, have you seen this?”

It’s the difference between the Molten Alliance dungeon in its original, limited-run incarnations, and a new fractal that will be part of the roster forever. Both have value and specific advantages. I just feel some 2 week releases should be dedicated to Living World Releases, and in particular to releases that are designed to function enjoyably after the novelty has worn off. Plus living World Releases create opportunities for foreshadowing LS releases, building the drama/tension.

Both could take the focus of a 2-week release, but they contribute to the overall experience very differently. So I keep them separate in my head and in my posts.

I run 2-3 banners constantly, and I’m just not seeing the problem…

I’ll take semi-mobile via hand-carry and INDESTRUCTABLE over every other version of spawn/tool out there. Ranger spirits, Guardian spirit weapons, Engineer turrets, Necro minions… Yeah. It ain’t broke. Don’t try to fix it.

…I fact, I’d really rather Devs didn’t look into banners at all – it can only get worse, considering the performance of the alternatives.

People are generally thinking ‘uniform distribution’ when they say ‘random chance’.

The Mystic Forge does NOT run on uniform distribution.

The last 28+ page thread about this EXACT SUBJECT didn’t cover it?

Ronah.2869:

If there was no achievements and no rewards added to the Living Story, very few would do the content.

As harsh as I am on the story, I don’t think it’s as bad as that.

I now have all the achievements done. The 5 tri-keys I got in the process of doing the other stuff. Finding and going through all the nightmare chambers was tracked by achievement, but I felt that was more for my convenience that a goal in and of itself – I liked the exploration aspect and I liked seeing a bunch of different fights including against my mentor and a member of Destiny’s Edge.

Single use content is great. A few repeats (kill the hybrid 5 times, get and use 5 tri-keys) isn’t excessive. I’m for the most part enjoying the gameplay (my durable support characters can actually traverse the tower solo where I see glass cannons getting gobbled up wholesale…).

I think that the achievements on this one are considerably more manageable than even the previous 50 spores and transcribing ALL 24 obelisk shards. The killing 25 spore infected baddies is just a slog. It’s drudgework. 10 would have gotten the point across. I think there needs to be a good look at the target numbers to see when a task is prompting interesting gameplay (e.g. 5 hybrid kills) and when its make-work to try and stretch a meager offering.

(I also appreciated the greater use in dialogue amongst the non-Scarlet adversaries in this episode. While we are stuck with the Leafy-Messiah of Chaos for a while longer, I do see some course correction going on around the periphery.)

Upon review, I think that’s a human hairstyle.

Got the mini hybrid on my 5th tri-key.

So, beyond highs and lows of specific Living Story episodes, and some brainstorming on future Living Story/Living World content (I use the two terms very differently) is there anything else you’d like to hear from us? You certainly have our attention .

She’s wearing hair #1. The ponytail without the braids.

Just wanted to mention that I’m enjoying the Nightmares Within – at least in terms of gameplay. I particularly like that the meta-achievement can be done entirely with the set tasks/achievements, with the dailies acting as an additional buffer (letting you swap a daily for each fixed task you don’t want to chase after). It’s a good balance.

The Scarlet re-cap video made me want to claw my eyes out, but I’m a lost cause on that front. “Look how amazingly clever I am – doing so many, many things that are in no way appropriate to my apparent demeanor!” Still, some of the individual Nightmare chambers use her dialogue blurbs reasonably well to be creepy. And it’s nice to see the rest of the cast back. I particularly liked fighting Garm and Eir. It makes me look forward to opening the remaining chambers beyond the achievement incentives.

Mega-points that I haven’t had to group up once, thought clawing your way through the third floor does favor finding a zerg.

Rajani Isa.6294:

So… why the increase in price?

Because the utility went up? Because now instead of putting one character outside the tool goldsink forever, a single set puts your entire account outside of that gold sink?

BobbyStein.2315:

The biggest reason why we introduced new characters for Living World story content was because we weren’t able to separate the Personal Story and Living World timelines and characters. So while we could have used iconics or existing characters more liberally in the Living World releases, we couldn’t put them through any meaningful changes because it could potentially break continuity elsewhere.

Nike.2631:

THE QUEEN’S JUBILEE: AN ALTERNATIVE

I was wondering if you could comment on the above post (the user name in the quote above will act as a link to the full post). I think that episode was a useful example of where pointing to a central, established character robbed the story of impact. I agree ‘name dropping’ must be challenging, as some characters are secure in ‘the present’ because they must be around for new players to encounter ‘in the past’.

If you create a character that has no dependencies to existing content then you have a lot fewer restrictions in how you use them. The good news is that we’re taking steps to address this very concern and we’ll be sharing more details on our solution in the coming months.

Like different types of gameplay, part of the trick may lie in how the world is partitioned. Characters like Marjory are free to move about more because they have no permanent open-world address players expect to find them, as opposed to Logan Thackeray and his office. While she’s present in Kessex Hills, there’s no question of why she’s also present in Divinity’s Reach… because there’s no expectation she should be there.

The world is rich and wide – I think there are plenty of stories to tell with new characters Like Rox and Kasmeer that don’t have to constantly cross paths with Destiny’s Edge or the major rulers to have impact. And as demonstrated with character’s like a Tarrek Linmoor, you can threaten permanent fixtures like the Queen of Kryta by moving the stakes just slightly adjacent to them .

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We can discuss this in the CDI evolution topic which will go up soon. Our feeling was that the communities top topics will change from one week to another, hence doing another call for topics. We can decide in the next phase that will likely be posted at the end of this week.

Good point!

Chris

My feeling is that since you asked us for our top 3, it would be appealing symmetry to address the cumulative top 3 before attempting a new poll. At that point you’ll have at least addressed one “full list” worth of topics and spoken fully to the iconic ‘average user in the community’.

Wanze.8410:

You got your facts in a little twist there.
The Guild Commendations Vendor only sells Sentinel Inscriptions for Weaponcrafting, not Settler Insignias for armorcrafting.

The Southsun Economist only sells settler weapons, not armor.

Ah. My mistake then. Thanks .

So, side question… I have nine 80th level characters… I’d only ever consider equipping maybe, maybe four of them with Celestial (and even then probably mixed celestial and stats more focused on their forte). I find its good for support builds where you need some healing power and I like a little of the Toughness/Vitality to keep from being killed when I bungle a dodge, and no character gets by without doing DPS…

But.

My DPS characters wouldn’t touch the stuff with a pole. Do people really have stables of 8+ character that ALL of them benefit from Celestial?

juno.1840:

Nike.2631:

I would say that with the cost measured in Guild tokens (a time-gated currency), Settlers armor is time-gated. Unless by some miracle your server rises up and smites all Karkadom simultaneously and you happen to be in Southsun Cove to see it…

I did say “crafted” exotic armor.

So did I. The Guild vendor sells the insignia so you can craft them.

The only reason 250 doubloons cost 500g is because someone with 500g WANTS THEM MORE THAN YOU DO.

If people with money didn’t want not be in line ahead of you, the price would not rise.

Nike.2631:

The size of the staff has nothing to do with the disproportionate cost to benefit.

juno.1840:

That argument can be applied to everything — including putting any responses in these forums at all. So while it sounds good, it’s mostly a cop out.

Except that some things AREN’T disproportionately difficult compared to their value – which is why with have occasional brief posts from Agent Smith .

ColinJohanson.2394:

Shinzan.2908:

I’m more convinced turning to a traditional content release concept rather doing this episodic thing would be better for GW2. The instances with Roxx and Braham, Scarlet’s playhouse etc could have been triggered after one finishes their living story as the next chapters so people can do them at their own pace and experience a personalized story. Doing it that way would allow for things like recognition from NPC’s or slight alterations based on our characters past choices.

Meanwhile the Molten Facility or Aetherblade retreat would have been better as new permanent dungeons, with explorable paths as well as their own rewards and armor.

In my opinion a game just shouldn’t try be a TV show.

I’m not sure the two need to be mutually exclusive. What if every X amount of time that seemed reasonable, the story simply kept being expanded in the way you’re discussing rather than be released in one big chunk?

But if you’re not up to that point in the story arc, you can play it when ever you get there.

Then that story has to exist inside of instances rather than your open world, and while your Living Story accumulates content (good) your Living World stagnates (bad).

The problem you’re running into is your pivot point for the Living Story has been so unwelcome, many people want you to direct your attention back to the Living World.

Its a resource allocation puzzle, to be sure. Hopefully this thread inspires you to shift priorities to a more middle road, and new insights garnered here allow higher quality on both tracks.

Buttercup.5871:

Nike.2631:

Then take it as directed at the generic ‘you’ you are so bravely championing.

Simple truth is if I can stack up 25 silver doubloons in two weeks and a total play time of under an hour without being even interested in the result, I DON’T BELIEVE YOUR PREMISE that they are too hard to get.

You’re essentially telling me to to delete three of my nine characters just so that they can do nothing but be a level 21 piggy bank and open chests at jumping puzzles they never really did. Or buy three additional character slots solely for this purpose instead.

I will not accept this kind of unintended gameplay. I’d rather bleed and buy the legendary straight from the TP than do that. It’s wrong.

Well, I’m certainly hinting that for a fraction of what you’d spend buying the 250 silver doubloons you could buy more character slots – and after you’ve built juggernaut they’ll continue to net you a substantial profit for trivial effort. Some economic solutions are lateral.

Warcry.1596:

60 minutes over 14 days is 4.2 minutes a day… thats some efficiebt farming

Yes it is.

It takes seconds to log in an alt and click a chest. Multiply by 5 and it’s still under a minute. I counted my time messing with the Mystic forge in there too.

I DON’T expect everyone to do this, I just would like people to understand that when I do it I then sell them and I’m not raising the prices (I’m selling instantly to the highest standing offer). You ‘enemy’ in this process is all the other players who want the same legendary as you do and who like you, are turning to the TP to get there.

When they finally unveil a new wave of Legendaries, I think this problem will self-correct in a big way – people’s focus on the current set of Legendaries will be divided up over a much larger field. It’s possible one of the new ones will also require the gift of Quicksilver, but if not, your relief is already inbound. Stand by.

Elbegast.6970:

I know I would. I remember the first time going back to Korriban, in SWTOR, after finishing my character’s storyline. The Imperial Guard bowed to me when I walked through the hallway. It may seem like a small thing but the feeling I got from that was immensely rewarding.

Oh yeah.

Flourishes like that are PRICELESS. Worth more than “triple gold weekends” or other loot-based rewards by far.

Money is great and all, but who doesn’t like respect?

Then take it as directed at the generic ‘you’ you are so bravely championing.

Simple truth is if I can stack up 25 silver doubloons in two weeks and a total play time of under an hour without being even interested in the result, I DON’T BELIEVE YOUR PREMISE that they are too hard to get.

Buttercup.5871:

Really? Let’s assume 1 in 3 of the “right” mobs, let’s say centaurs, drops the “right” bag that might contain a doubloon. As I stated above, you need over 60 thousand bags of those bags for 250 doubloons. You are, therefore, proposing that people stick around in level 20 to 35 zones for a year and slay 180.000 centaurs just to get the doubloons. Do you even know how ridiculous that sounds?

((Holds Infinite Light aloft))

Probably better than you do. It’s not theory-craft for me. I’ve DONE IT.

I’m sorry your tastes happen to run in the same direction as people with more gold coin than you, and that you’re getting trampled at the Trading Post. I’m sorry you’re spending your time launching a multi-forum posting crusade instead of going out and being a centaur mass murder. I’m sorry you are constitutionally incapable of placing alts at the end of a jump puzzle for whatever reason. I’m sorry you’re so afraid of Zomorros you won’t even try to get them that way. I’ve even taken it upon myself to do the harvesting and mystic forge combines you won’t to inject more silver doubloons into the system. Without much thanks, I see.

I’ve tried to help you by explaining alternative methods to accelerate your progress. But if all you want is for them to COST LESS, what you really need to do is go over and cheer the Devs on in the “Champ-loot bags have been nerfed” thread, because that one action has done more for your cause than the many, many threads you listed in the OP.

BobbyStein.2315:

So you’d like the game to react to you on a more personal level, such that people, places, etc. respond differently depending on your accomplishments, decisions, and so on?

Fozzik.1742:

No. That would be neat, of course…and add to immersion, but it’s not what I was getting at.

I want the story to on some level be under the control of the player(s). I want our decisions, actions, or inaction to cause changes in the story and the world.

Then you want to play a table-top roleplaying game, because until MMOs are powered by Story-Engines that can pass a Turing test and qualify as full blown AIs all you can do is choose the depth to which you maintain the illusions of Choice & Consequence.

They can do a better job of maintaining the illusion with tools already to hand, but the cost is very, very steep. I think threads like this have a lot to do with helping them choose which paths will deliver the greatest gains from costs they are able to pay.

Fozzik.1742:

To be honest, I don’t care if the world changes are permanent…I understand the limitations of a persistent online world and I’m okay suspending disbelief as long as I get to develop my character’s story and have something to show for it. This was one of the coolest aspects to dynamic events which could be greatly expanded on and better realized. I could take part in a story that would turn out different ways depending on what I did. I was involved and invested in the world, and I could come back and help it turn out a different way next time.

Producing story lines that branch, and letting the player(s) navigate.

The personal story was a simple version of this…we had at least some choice which lead to us seeing different story lines (although they all ended up in the same place…which maybe is unavoidable).

Some of the dynamic event chains also offered this. Again, it was a simple version that I would love to see expanded on and improved.

I guess the central point I was trying to make is that the content I enjoy is content which is more personal…building my own story in the context of the story of the world. I felt like the personal story instances and DEs that the game launched with were good basic tools which could be used to do that. I think they could be expanded on and improved to do that even better.

And though put another way, we see another voice for the critical mass issue. The game launched with great presence. The world IS RICH. Building directly on that richness isn’t additive, it’s multiplicative. More isn’t just more, its MUCH MORE.

Think of the value of DEs or unique reactive dialogue pieces as N.
The impact on the players is N^2.

1 event in the area = 1 impact = “Eh, its whatcha get.”
2 events in the area = 4 impact = “Yeah, I remember that place.”
3 events in the area = 9 impact = “Oh yeah. I totally thought that was cool!”
4 events in the area = 16 impact = “This. This is a LIVING world!”

Giving us 50 new events was a great idea, but the formlessness of the presentation buried it. Use your bi-weekly cadence to highlight a clustered burst of them and you’ll see a far different result.

stemare.2578:

I feel so sad for people still trying to craft Juggernaut nowadays.
I made it 4 months ago when doubloons cost 90s each and it was already a huge amount of farm, right now the price is over doubled, anet definitely needs to address that.

You realize that the price didn’t go up because the supply went down… It went up because there are now many more players competing for the components to make them. If anything the supply went up substantially because people like me are now harvesting them for sale – we just can’t keep up with the hordes of future Shiney-Hammer swingers .

Maybe the inbound nerfs on Warrior Hammer-Spam will drive off some customers and the prices will drop.

I would say that with the cost measured in Guild tokens (a time-gated currency), Settlers armor is time-gated. Unless by some miracle your server rises up and smites all Karkadom simultaneously and you happen to be in Southsun Cove to see it…

The size of the staff has nothing to do with the disproportionate cost to benefit.

BobbyStein.2315:

So you’d like the game to react to you on a more personal level, such that people, places, etc. respond differently depending on your accomplishments, decisions, and so on?

There are examples of this in LotRO that work well – If my main in that game walks across almost any of the primary town/hubs, there are characters that call out greetings in passing, often with specific thanks because of tasks I’ve done to their benefit. Rescuing kids toggles on the thankful parents dialogue, etc. It’s not a system that maps to many things in GuildWars 2, but it is particularly gratifying as a player. I think more of the PS steps could trigger mail deliveries hours or days later as someone sends delayed thanks after they catch their breath. I think in particular you could rig the Order headquarters to have more pop-up ambient dialogue like that triggered by you advance through the Personal Story. Make the HQ something of a verbal trophy room for your successes and give me a reason to check back periodically as I move through the later half of the Personal Story.

I will point to one curiously cool bit I have seen in GuildWars 2 – the aide in Rytlock’s office has a whole dialogue chain that only appears if you are a Ranger, and I suspect it may only appear if you are non-Charr Ranger (I don’t have a Charr ranger to test this). Proof the technology already exists in the engine.

I realize that these more responsive pieces of narrative have a huge overhead – likely only one character in 8 will ever trigger that conversation line, but I think if there were more of them, many more of them, people would be more inclined to play their alts more slowly and fully, knowing that the experience from race to race or class to class will be genuinely different on their second, third, and fourth play through of areas that are otherwise burned through without a backwards glance. Even if the player only has one character, talking to an NPC that recognizes you are an Asura and reacts appropriately will make the experience more personal and engaging.

This may be a manifestation of critical mass again, instead of it being a piece of real estate that has 4+ events that bring it to life in the minds of the player, its a character that responds differently to 4+ classes or races, making them seem like a person and not a person-shaped sign post.

Arkantos.7460:

WHY isnt there a vigor nerf on mesmer and guards?

Because the base chance to get the vigor buff is around 4%. It requires specific gearing/traiting to elevate that chance, and there is ALWAYS a random element to it (crit chance cap) and gaps are unavoidable. Further, things like blinds and dodges create more gaps.

This round went after self-generated vigor. They didn’t touch the methods that require an unwilling victim to gain it.

Well, I have to say now that I have a place of power in the same home instance as my Quartz node, I’m actually amassing the charged quartz faster than I use it.

I should be in pretty good position when the Ascended Armor crafting starts.

P.S. The node itself spits out charged quartz crystals more than I expected, and its THE place to use any picks you might get with enhanced crit chance, as the Charged Quarts is basically the jewel/crit result for the node.

ColinJohanson.2394:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Shinzan.2908:

Gold. Rewarding skins or unique items is only going to matter until a player gets a look and stat combo they are happy with, which they eventually will. At that point they’ll be interested in making gold to work towards some of the expensive items like ascended weapons and legendaries, so any reward that does not lead to those items is going to be useless.

Ug. Worst of all possible solutions. Gold carries no intrinsic value whatsoever (beyond the fixed rate of conversion to Icy runestones). Pumping more gold into the system doesn’t get anyone closer to their goal, it just shuffles the order of who gets theirs first.

And when everybody gets more gold… nobody gets there any faster.

The value necessary to advance towards Legendaries and Ascended is in the accumulation of crating mats. With the built in alternative that if you get mats you don’t want/need, you can sell them for gold. No one ever makes a Gift of Bifrost faster than 250 unidentified dyes enter the system. You could multiply our gold acquisition by a factor of a thousand and the real “progress clock” wouldn’t change.

On adding a time based bonus for unused events…

I really wouldn’t look forward to people being more irritated with other players for having ‘stolen’ their timer bonus by having done the event ahead of them.

The game goes to a lot of trouble to make everybody on the server allies – people shrieking about “ninja’ing” champs is bad enough. We don’t need to extend the phenomenal to every event in the game…

…Further, I’d mention the Devs are experimenting with this right now as part of the Tower of Nightmares chapter and I my opinion it’s not working.

The new Toxic Spore buff encourages waiting to engage or attacking event-champs that have been up a long time – triggering the new buff increasing the difficulty slightly and adding to the rewards for success. The emergent reality is a lot of people yelling “Wait. WAIT. No buff yet!” which is sowing discord with players who just want to get it done. Just as tedious, the buff/reward is essentially unavoidable on the trillion hit-point DPS snoozefest champions that take longer to erode than the delay before the buff appears.

Ashanor.5319:

I know the developers will claim that is not why nerfs happens, but the proof is in the pudding.

The proof is in the win/loss and kills/death ratio trackers you and I will NEVER be privy to.

They don’t this out of pure ignorance, you know. They make poor choices in execution, but there’s generally a very good motive behind the direction of any adjustment up or down.

I typically run 0/10/30/30/0 sword and horn/longbow with banners as a dungeon & zerg support specialist. Apparently ANet can’t thank me enough, because I’ve seen nothing but buffs for my weapons, utility choices, and trait array from months now.

The clipping of damage on the longbow burst is about the only hit I’m taking in the notes currently proposed, but they’re leaving the fire field and combo potential alone, so I’m not feeling too mauled by the changes. The increase on defense 25’s minor trait is pure DPS gravy.

Imagi.4561:

Zaxares.5419:

Whale

LOL! If you thought Bearbow was bad, wait till you see Whaleharpoon! XD

Wharple? Whaloon? Wharpoon?

I vote for Wharpoon.

I am truly astounded the kitten filter did not go crazy when you said that.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

i like the silver doubloons now.

i have a level 33, level 21, level 21 parked at sharkmaw cavern jumping puzzle chest and i enjoy the occasional silver doubloon sales.

i still got 3 more character slots.
gonna make 2 more level 21s and park them there.

The ‘instant level 20’ scrolls you get for each of your characters’ first birthday/anniversary are amazing for doing that.

One click and about 20 minutes on the Queensdale champion train and you can drop a new character off at the Sharkmaw Magnificent Chest forever.

Nike.2631:

Note to self: People WILL pay nearly 2 gold per item to make progress on their Legendary. Must buy up copper doubloons to ensure if ANet make changes so that they can be used to create silver ones and the copper doubloon supply evaporates overnight, I am well positioned…

It’s a cute thought, but the “I can’t get copper doubloons with my 80!” threads will start a less than an hour after it goes live.

Lunar Sunset.8742:

Oh mighty lord, how shall I obey thee?

After reading this thread I have decided to continue grinding out silver doubloons (just for fun I ran the mystic forge 30 times to trim my overstock of tier 2 jewel mats this evening since last posting… I got two more silver doubloons…) and I’m setting aside half of the profits from all my silver doubloon sales to buy STACKS of copper doubloons for the next week or three.

Because if they do make it possible to convert the copper ones to silver, I expect the copper doubloon price to pop up over a 1g within hours of the announcement.

The demand for silver doubloons is incredible. At most doubling the supply by folding copper ones into the supply is NOT going drop the price all that much.

Lunar Sunset.8742:

Nice job, Buttercup. I 100% agree and support this. When crystalline dust price was out of control they corrected it with ecto salvage. We should be able to turn copper -> gold with a recipe. And the people defending the price, your legendary is not prestigious to many people.

Note to self: People WILL pay nearly 2 gold per item to make progress on their Legendary. Must buy up copper doubloons to ensure if ANet make changes so that they can be used to create silver ones and the copper doubloon supply evaporates overnight, I am well positioned…

It’s a cute thought, but the “I can’t get copper doubloons with my 80!” threads will start a less than an hour after it goes live.

Would people QUIT SAYING 80s CAN’T GET THEM?

Go to the appropriate zone.
Kill.
Open bags.
DONE.

That you can’t get them as fast as you’d like is NOT you can’t get them. It’s a false statement, and repeating over and over is begging the Devs to ignore you.

There is also the atomic bomb of making Events more attractive -

Allow players to buy 1 gem for 10,000 karma.

Since the latest round of posts started several weeks ago , I’ve personally extracted and sold 20+ silver doubloons. One person. I’m not even interested in the Hammer of Shiny and I’ve churned out 10% of the requisite chokepoint material in 2 weeks spending no more than 3 minutes a day on it. The people most committed to creating the corresponding Legendary are succeeding. You see more of them in WvW and Lion’s Arch every month.

That you are not the most dedicated may not be ANet’s problem.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I think where the failure is lies in the rewards. You don’t get nowhere near enough rewards for doing DEs compared to other things, because karma is not very useful. Also, doing something extremely short and simple like killing a champion gives the same if not more rewards than a long DE like escorting someone, so no one does the escorts.

We agree, this is something we’ve been discussing a lot lately and working on some various answers for, but I’m curious:

What rewards would you like to see from rewards? Would they be different when you’re leveling up than when you’re level 80? What would motivate you to want to go around the world playing as many different events as possible, rather than the same 4-5 over and over again?

Some of the fun challenges we are currently solving, but it’s great to hear peoples thoughts on this subject as well.

While I’ve suggested that Events should drop crafting materials rather than coin to add value to the system without driving inflation, I think the most direct solution is expand the things we can buy with the karma we are already receiving now.

One example would be add a traveling merchant somewhere that will convert our Karma into Lodestones, even at an extreme ratio not all that much better than we see for Orrian Jewelry Boxes. Those Orrian Jewelry boxes helped add enduring value to karma, but their fiercely RNG-driven nature makes them a non-starter for many players. Finding or even unlocking this vendor via DEs makes the process of swapping karma for lodestones an activity rather than simple maintenance.

Another example would be adding-post event vendors (as we see for many DEs now) that sell skins of the several armor sets that are presently only visible in the PvP locker. I would personally climb over a small mountain of dead Champion-or-Harder scale events to get the full set of “Guild” armor for use in general PvE play. I know others feel the same about the other ‘locked’ sets. Add 1 piece of each weight class to each new vendor and you already have superb ‘bait’ for 12 major new DE chains.

THE QUEEN’S JUBILEE: AN ALTERNATIVE

I want to highlight this particular Living Story release in terms of a missed opportunity for engagement, and another example where the active pursuit of epic detracted from the final product.

The issue is credibility of threat. By making Queen Jenna the central target, the event tried to chase after scale – to have the seeming of importance. Unfortunately because much of the playerbase realizes that Queen Jenna is in fact an untouchable target, intricately woven into public spaces and the Personal Storyline, this push for epicness was self-defeating. The attentive player simply did not buy-in, and was left waiting for the inevitably successful defense/rescue to play itself out.

BUT IN ANOTHER KRYTA NOT SO FAR AWAY…

What if we still saw all the same events, but through new eyes. Introducing Tarrek Linmoor, an up-and-coming Seraph. This earnest and capable warrior has been hand picked as Logan Thackeray’s squire for this event, a chance for him to gain promotion into the senior officer corps. He wears similar but simpler armor to Logan, he’s a bit arrogant towards the Watchknights like his mentor but he’s highly respectful to the player character and on the whole someone you grow to approve of. Maybe you’ll share a tankard or three and compare war stories after the festival. He’ love to hear more first hand from the [player’s heroic title] themself. It’ll give him a great story to share back at the barracks.

In short, we like the kid.

Scarlet makes her appearance and chaos ensues. While her attack is still focused on the queen, it becomes abundantly clear to the player that Linmoor, a truly loyal and committed vassal of the throne of Kryta will sacrifice himself for the queen’s safety. The kid is a deader unless we step up our game to the utmost and fight back hard enough that it doesn’t come to that.

Risk. Tangible risk.

The outcome isn’t a foregone conclusion because we don’t know if its even possible to save Tarrek from his better nature. We like him. We know his death will be a loss to us, to Logan, to the Kingdom. But can we prevent it? We don’t know… but we want to find out!

Now we care. Now we’re engaged. Now the story matters.

Meglobob.8620:

laokoko.7403:

I dont’ think John Smith want you to know a small portion of people hold all the wealth.

Just like the real world then…where 5% of the population control 80% of world resources/$.

You know, in the real world I don’t mind that fundament inequity so long as I’m not having my nose rubbed in it. Its ok that there are Shadowy Overlords so long as they extend me the courtesy of staying shadowy…

Maybe its for the best we don’t have charts like that for this game being publicized. It would just be depressing.

lakdav.3694:

With all the mentions of DEs and whole DE-chains overarching entire maps, i feel it should be pointed out that at least 70-80% of such build-up events should be doable solo or with a small amount of people.

A big issue with Living Story/World things that remain in the game (like the scarlet invasions, possibly the toxic offshots later) is that they are designed purely as Group Events, meaning for zergs. Once Wintersday arrives, and Kessex is still not cured, how many people do you think will still bother doing the group events? Just how many servers and worlds have had a single successfully averted Scarlet invasion in the past week on any map?

Yes. Yes. Yes.

When we were asked for our top 3 topics/concerns Dynamic Events Scaling was and still is my #1 issue.

DarksunG.9537:

Essentially, it’s been said that the teams stopped adding DEs because it “was met with little fanfare”. To me, that’s a horrible design philosophy & it came when they had barely scratched the surface on what it would take to make a significant impact on DEs.

The number of DEs in the game is probably at half of what it should be to make the game feel alive. (as an aside, the LS doesn’t make the world feel live. DEs do. Which you’re kinda killing by funneling people only to the LS stuff) I would have thought (especially since there was a big deal made about how you were going to add DEs) that by 1 year, the number of DEs would have doubled & the variation in cycle length would have been drastically increased. Instead, the teams tried it for a tiny length of time & dropped it wholesale. I would have preferred that philosophy with Scarlet, not with DEs.

I feel like figuring out how to make new, more expansive kinds of DEs should be the teams focus. Making the game more live. not just having, essentially, story festivals.

This was something I touched on a few pages back: the concept of a Critical Mass of Dynamic Events.

I describe some examples of my own favorite areas that have enough events to bring them to life for me, but I was wondering if you had any locations you thought the game had begun to deliver on the promise of a living world? Anywhere you can point to right now and say the Devs got it right?

I have a Question for the Class Balance Devs:

Could you please describe what you see as the deliberate, intrinsic “Weak Spot” each class has that will by design never be covered or closed?

My impression is that Guardians and Necromancers are supposed to have permanent deficiencies in their mobility. I’m less clear how the other classes are supposed to always play ‘paper’ to a particular brand of ‘scissors’.

Thank you