Guild Wars 2

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Internally for a while we now we have been talking about positive and negative consequences of completion or failure of activities and challenges within the game and more specifically around events. For example Jon Peters one of our Design Leads was putting forward the idea of the above rules/paradigms around TQ. So for example if the players are fail to take down TQ then this would cause a ‘Darkness’ to fall across the zone, perhaps where he would fly around attacking locations and creating new events. A second chance on TQ would therefore be to complete these events and then perhaps rally the NPC forces in the zone to help you take him down. A positive modifier could bring ‘Light’ to the land for example and lower cost on NPC traders, give greater rewards from events and perhaps even create new events. Of course this is all brainstorming but it is the natural evolution of our current platform.

This excites me. I’ve been advocating for sometime now ¹ that world bosses need to be on something other than timers and that player actions should contribute to how the ebb and flow of a battle in the zone works, and in turn what causes a world boss to take interest in the players actions and what doesn’t. Ideally, how the battle is going the world over should be done this way if effects could bleed over zones (they at least do for Temple Events and their effect on statues).

I think whenever possible world bosses should be off timers, though I imagine timers will have to play a role in some capacity down the line in the events that lead to their spawning, but generally; it should make sense and be hidden information. For example, players holding a resource too long that an enemy is interested in could be the impetus for a world boss entering the fray because his/her minions are failing at the task. I think The Campaign Against Taidha Covington is a good example of such an event as is Ogre Wars, in particular that there are two fronts to move on (though it’d be nice if both needed to be claimed to start the attack, not just one). These events are hardly done over the other world events though because they require effort to get going, and the other events are on predictable timers, so the player base gravitates to the path of least resistance for their reward; which is to watch Dragon Timers and then hop around the world as a zerg killing the bosses on timers. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve went through the effort to get Ogre Wars going myself, just to have a zerg show up when it finally pops on Dragon Timers to rush in and get the glory. The API is a wonderful tool for farmers, but it has revealed how uninvolved we are in shaping the world and instead shows how much timers dictate the flow of things.

What are some of the problems raised by the development team internally about giving more choice for players in shaping the world? I raised a point earlier about how if given too much control it can cause conflict (e.g., such as being able to prevent the shadow behemoth from summoning by disrupting a necrotic ritual its minions start). Is such control off the table for the team? If so, that’s fine. If not, there’s lots of ideas that could be implemented that make the world and player action more impactful (e.g., making it extremely difficult for centaurs to ever control Gendarran Fields by fortifying and improving the weapons at the various outposts, and disrupting centaur attempt to gather resources for their offensives).

¹ – Even in this very thread on Tequatl and the Karka Queen. If you have time see my post here.

Zoltreez.6435:

Its too late are you playing this game did you saw the champ farm ?

I am actually not playing the game very actively at the moment. That another problem exists doesn’t mean there are problems to discuss with the current requests. The champion farm situation could get resolved at some point and then we’d still have problems if the more world impacting dynamic events get implemented.

cesmode.4257:

I don’t know of a solution. Taking your Shadow Behemoth idea a step further: Should we fail to prevent him from being summoned, what if he wasn’t stationary? What if he then began roaming town to town destroying the towns in Queensdale. Im sure there will be incentive to stop him and defeat him, at least from the low level players. They need those heart events and NPCs!

That potentially resolves the problem of getting people to engage him. However, I referenced this as another problem. I suppose I should have said what are your thoughts on the two problems I’ve raised. The other one raised is what about introducing player conflict by having dynamic events with multiple outcomes based on player choice.

What if one player wants one outcome and another player wants another? We already got a preview of this when they added champion loot boxes and fire elementals became the event to fail. People were actively harassing players trying to succeed at the events so they could get more boxes. Similar problems occurred with Scarlet’s invasion. Now these scenarios did have a loot conflict so it isn’t exactly synonymous with a scenario where we could prevent the shadow behemoth from being summoned (provided all rewards are created equally). However, I imagine some players would disagree, potentially to the point of harassing each other if one wanted to fight the really cool boss encounter and the other wanted to save the day.

The devs have stated this was a problem during development:

The team had to test the game to remove some elements that put players at odds with one another. “Originally when we had events,” Cartwright said, “we had events that had fail states and success states. We still have that, but there would be this event going on where there’s a [character] that’s gonna summon a big bad monster. And they’re on the way, leading up to it. And if you fail that event, a big monster spawns. And if you stop her, it doesn’t spawn. What we found is, some players want to see the big bad monster, and so they’re like, ‘Don’t do the event!’ But some players do want to finish and [stop] the monster, and so you have conflict. Now, some players are disliking each other. We started getting in the game and some people were like, ‘Hey, don’t do that.’ And so we said, OK, what did we do wrong? When you see another player, you should be like, ‘Awesome! I have another person here!’”

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2012/09/guild-wars-2s-subtle-mind-control-makes-me-actually-like-other-people/

While I’d really love such an organic world where player actions matter, even when such actions could influence whether to allow a boss to be summoned or not; it seems that to have a more positive community some choices will have to be left to the wayside. I think this where we can have a good productive discussion. What types of events would be good candidates for keeping a mostly positive community, while still giving consequences to player actions in the world?

Grimthagen.6019:

The personal story is mostly instanced so separating that out wouldn’t be too terribly hard. Simply including a title card or graphic at the start of the major branches indicating the year the instance is taking place would be ok. Perhaps dating it by the Mouvellian Calendar and by X years before Zhaitan’s fall (yeah, it’s a spoiler – but seriously…).

I agree with everything you said, but this in particular made me excited for what they could do with a Living Story/Personal Story interface. Imagine if the interface were a timeline with event markers. Clicking a marker brought up a map of the location, some snapshots/artwork of what the area looked like during the event, and the ability to replay relevant cutscenes (or even replay the events themselves) .I don’t know why I’m so excited for a timeline, but I’ve always liked knowing when events described in stories occur.

cesmode.4257:

Ive seen his post pop up many times in threads. What Ive always wanted to say in response to that was that I am not sure a big deal was made about the additional dynamic events that they installed.

I don’t think Anthony is completely wrong though. I don’t think most players would return to events even if they were more impactful, like you and I both want. Call me cynical, but I think most MMO players like collecting things (e.g., achievements and loot), gathering riches, and empowering their characters. So, even if they added consequences to dynamic events and incentivized them with better loot, I think the majority of players would still take the path of least resistance. Trackers would pop up for whatever farm chain proved to be most efficient and the zones that unfortunately didn’t make the cut for that farm chain would die off. I can even see it causing conflict, like in my Shadow Behemoth example in this post ¹.

Thoughts on handling this problem, if you agree it is one?

¹ – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Collaborative-Development-Topic-Living-World/3129259

cesmode.4257:

I second this. I see more of these types of success/failure scenarios in the early zones and less as you move through the rest of the world. I think you could do the game wonders if you would add more layers of success and failure.

I third this. However, Arena Net has commented on their dynamic events prior to this:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

We are listening. Not only to what you’re saying but also to what you’re not. The very first living world team actually did the thing some of you have called for. Some 40 or so permanent events were added around the game in our very first content update. They were met with little interest or fanfare. Granted, Halloween may have stolen the show. But those events are still in the game today. I’ve seen very little reaction to them, however, positive or negative.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/jubilee/I-don-t-like-this-update/page/4#post2581092

I think this is partially mistaken as their reward structure at the moment does not encourage doing dynamic events. However, even if it were to ,such as by removing champion boxes and pushing them to dynamic event success ¹; I think people would just return to farming patterns and game the system to most the most lucrative use of their time. Such lamentable observations about the state of MMOs were made by me and others in these posts (²,³).

I do not think it is hopeless, but it does entail making players pay for ignoring threats to the world or at the very least making it feel like our actions have meaning to the world. In my opinion we as the heroes of the realm have little responsibility to the realm. Imagine if threats that were ignored could grow and spread, much like the centaurs you describe, to the point that they own a zone. Friendly NPCs vacate those zones (preferably relocating in an adjacent zone temporarily), outposts/waypoints close, and the process starts a new in the next zone. Well known NPCs that represent the major conflict(s) from an invaded zone will head to the nearest governing racial city (e.g., Krytan zones head to Divinity’s Reach, Magumma Jungle zones head to The Grove or Rata Sum) where they act as emissaries for the conflict in that zone. Should the enemies hold it long enough they empower the adjacent zone allowing the conflicts there to escalate. Eventually, zones get invaded to the point they reach the gates of the major racial cities or the number of emissaries grows past a certain point, either could work. Vendors and trading posts inside those cities become uncertain about how safe they actually are due to the increasing unrest in the neighboring zone(s) and start closing. At this point the leader of the racial capital starts insisting on help and sending emissaries to Lion’s Arch. Refugees from the cities also start showing up in Lion’s Arch, destabilizing the economy and causing increased auction house fees and vendor unrest ⁴. The more racial capitals in disarray due to enemies at their borders the more refugees in Lion’s Arch and the bigger the consequences on Lion’s Arch.

This would be a huge amount of work and not be without problems (how to handle existing game rewards that are severely hindered by an invaded zone, like World completion). As I discussed in previous posts in this thread ⁵ I side on content that makes actions more meaningful rather than content that might cause some player conflict or prevent certain rewards, but I do not envy the position the developers are in when it comes to balancing players conflicting desires. Generally, I think “carrot-on-a-stick” content; like loot, map completion, and achievements should supplement interesting content, not become the content or prevent more meaningful events from taking place. If they are in the way of developing more world impacting content, then they should be reworked.

That’s just one way I would breath life into old zones and make dynamic event outcomes have more impact on the world.

¹ – Ideas to make players spread out in the world and do dynamic events

² – Does Arena Net Regret Dynamic Events?

³- Are we trading Dynamic Events for Rifts?

⁴ – Maybe, I’m not an expert on economies so I’m not so sure how this would work out. Just the refugees asking for help could be enough to move some players into action without actual economic impacts. I just find it odd that the world could be going to kitten and Lion’s Arch operates mostly as is.

⁵ – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Collaborative-Development-Topic-Living-World

BobbyStein.2315:

That’s among the many things we discussed doing, but we currently have technical limitations preventing us from making such a drastic change because it would break Personal Story dependencies. Until we have a system in place that separates the timelines of the Personal Story and Living World stories we are limited in the kinds of changes we can show in the open world.

Can you elaborate on the technical difficulties? I can’t see this being more difficult than what you did in GW when we got to experience missions our characters never could have done from a lore perspective. You put a message on the screen saying, “You are about to witness events that occurred before you arrived in Tyria/Cantha/Elona” (paraphrased). We aren’t incapable of understanding that worlds change and that a game’s lore progresses. For personal story you can say, “You are about to relive actions your character took in the past.”

I can understand why this would feel odd to some new players without proper context (perhaps the intro videos or introductory text will have to be amended to describe how their characters have fought and killed Zhaitan and that they are reliving a story that has happened). However, you will have this problem no matter how you choose to expand the content (and you currently do). The Aetherblades cannot have simultaneously have stole Pact airships when my character hasn’t formed the Pact yet (for example).

This is generally a problem with instanced content (like the personal story and dungeons) and why I don’t like instancing. Technically, instance effects are not part of the world, and thus you can’t happily or easily wed the two without providing some temporal context cues or blatant messages stating when the events in that instance took place. The other alternative is constantly updating them as the world changes, but that is an insurmountable task for even the dungeons alone.

Do you think it’d be good enough to just give temporal context cues or blatant messages during instances? What internal discussions have been had on this matter and what flaws am I missing in my proposal?

Tequatl Rising

Added challenging dynamic events and event failure, unfortunately based on timers, to many events. Makes our actions seem important, but the outcome of the events is lacking. Tequatl corrupts the shore on failure and always flees, he needs to stick around when he’s winning. I have more elsewhere. ²

Flame and Frost

Though not one release this living story arc developed through time, but player involvement didn’t seem to matter. It would have been nice if the refugees we could rescue was fixed and those that made it to some fixed locations on the map could start settling in. In the next stage there would be no more refugees fleeing, just a number based on how many we saved. A number of lodges/homes/outposts would be established based on number saved. In this phase the dredge and flame legion could attack and destroy these locations (and potentially kill settlers). We would then have to help rebuild, if we failed defending them. Retribution would remain the same, but actually completing a molten facility would reduce the meter and have impact on the world, such as fewer dredge/flame legion attacks and the settlers feeling more safe. At the end of the arc, based on our performance we get a different outcome (such as a mass grave to the fallen or a new outpost). I think it’d be neat to tie performance to a world, but that makes it harder for you to use in the future as you have to create content for worlds that have different outcomes.

Sky Pirates of Tyria/Twilight Assault

No open world dynamics events here, but the dungeons were fun and challenging. I’m not a fan of instanced content, as I usually do it once and then never revisit it.
Bazaar of the Four Winds
This is near the bottom, but I really liked where the story could have gone here with the Zephyrites connection to Glint. I eagerly await their return, but they need some more engaging dynamic events.

Tower of Nightmares

I really enjoyed the transition from the personal story aspect of this release to the changed zone. The story also seems to have a bit more exposition as well. However, the events are lacking in impact, though at least there is more variety than Queen’s Jubilee, Scarlet’s Invasions, and The Secret of Southsun events. There doesn’t seem to be any consequences to preventing the toxic offshoots and I’m unsure of what happens on failure as they aren’t very challenging and I have yet to see it. Having them contribute to some overarching goal in Kessex Hill would be great. For example, as we clear more offshoots the land becomes less corrupted, and NPCs start feeling better and capable of defending the outposts from centaurs and the Toxic Alliance.If the offshoots spread, NPCs become mentally ill and start attacking the outposts and players. Outposts and nearby waypoints become unusable and it becomes harder to travel in the zone. Inconveniencing us as a consequence of our failures may not go over well with those who need map completion though. This is yet another unfortunate example of a reward scheme getting in the way of making more interesting content.

The Secret of Southsun/Queen’s Jubilee/Clockwork Chaos

Dynamic events were just used for farming purposes and had next to no impact on the world. In Southsun the events didn’t help further the unraveling of the secrets. In Queen’s Jubilee the events didn’t help to make the humans more jubilant or empowered. In Clockwork Chaos Scarlet’s minions just sat there waiting to be killed and weren’t invading anything of import, just the wilderness.

² – Sad part? This event will die soon.

Living Story Evaluation

From my favorites to my least favorites looking at the content, not story told (festivals and SAB excluded):

The Lost Shores

Huge technical hurdles aside. This release delivered to us the players the one time experience of fending off an invasion of Lion’s Arch and helping to settle a zone. We defended Lion’s Arch from an attack, helped build structures, bridges, fight the local wildlife and then had an epic boss encounter at the climax. It felt that our actions mattered here and for some the world that they logged into was not the same as the one they left the previous day (just like the real world). From a story-telling standpoint you delivered us mini-objectives in game to find out information about the island and didn’t need a short story on the website to give us extra information. But… I wouldn’t do it this way again. For one time changes like these (and not changes that can be done and redone again, like other dynamic events) there needs to be better pacing so players can all feel like they contributed. It shouldn’t take seconds to establish and build an outpost, but days (with events to help stock it and protect it even after it’s built). A siege on Lion’s Arch should last minutes, but be an ongoing encounter with players taking objectives back and enemies increasing their strength and fighting back (a tally of casualties/battles won can help determine when the event finally succeeds and moves to the next stage).

Cutthroat Politics

While the impact of this release arc promises to be huge, it was a fairly boring method of enacting that change. We just voted. I can’t offer any other way of doing this arc, as that was pretty much the story. Unfortunately, this one makes it to the top of the list as it’s the only other release where player action seemed to matter greatly.

Last Stand at Southsun

The events added here for the Karka Queen made our actions important for summoning her, which is a plus. However, the event could be more organic if it acted more like a back and forth between the Settlers of Southsun and the Karka. The settlers would have their corner(s) of the map and the Karka have their territory. As the settlers need more resources they risk going out into the island. As players we protect them, but in doing so we start to enrage the Karka Queen. As more territory is claimed by the settlers the Queen responds in kind by initially sending out karka to take back the territory. If she continues to fail she fully enrages and joins the battle. This way a small contingent of players can get the event rolling. Remove her timer ¹ and put failure conditions related to protecting the outposts (and thus her becoming less enraged). As an aside the Karka Queen needs a better model. (cont’d)

¹ – I Dislike Timers

Similar changes can be made to the world boss events. Tequatl shouldn’t be entering the fray unless the players are doing really well at controlling Sparkfly Fen. After he is defeated players should have to perform events necessary for combating his eventual return. If Tequatl wins, he should do more than corrupt the shore and then flee. He should stick around aiding his minions in capturing objectives around them map in an invasion style event. If the players fight back this invasions to the shores again, they get another crack at Tequatl. Again, NPCs need behave in context with the tale you are trying to tell.

Event Failing and the Problem of Choice

You mentioned in one of your previous responses that having events fail is a more nuanced discussion, and I agree. I don’t think this is just a problem with event failure, but part of the general problem with giving players choices over how the world is shaped. We saw how vile the player base could be to each other when the choice was between earning more loot from champion farming and completing events successfully during Scarlet’s Invasion events. Although I think that problem would be easily resolved by removing champion boxes and putting them on dynamic event completion; that is not a solution that lends itself to the general problem of players having competing interests.

I’ve read earlier on in development testing that you experimented with having more world impact on event failure/success and this also bred conflict (though I wonder if it was as much as the loot conflicts). I can see how that would be a problem. Let’s say the Shadow Behemoth could not be summoned unless a necrotic ritual was successfully performed by his minions, and that his minions could be stopped by the players. Here the players are given the chance to prevent a powerful enemy that could cause untold destruction (if only he could) from entering the world; but because of this they miss seeing a really interesting boss encounter. Assuming perfect reward balancing between these encounters (i.e., let’s remove loot considerations), I can see how this could still generate conflict as some people would naturally want to save the day, and others would want to see the boss encounter (even if it caused untold destruction on the world).

When it comes to lesser impact on the world this problem doesn’t seem to crop up, at least I haven’t seen it. When it comes to whether or not we should let the centaurs capture an outpost, everyone seems to just help out, no one I’ve seen complains that we shouldn’t win the day to see what happens. So I suspect that this type of conflict escalates in proportion to the type of impact it has on the world, and individual preferences on what would be “cooler” to do (a boss battle followed by a mass burying of the dead, or preventing said boss and a huge festival cheering you on for saving the day). It’s unfortunate that epic choices like these would generate conflict in the community, as the mature thing to do is recognize that people have differing preferences and part of life is negotiating our differences. I certainly would side on making our experience more organic, where player choice matters even on the big world changing decisions; but as a developer that wants to have a positive community it might be preferential to still give us choices here or there where conflict doesn’t appear to spring up (you’ll have to experiment); while leaving bigger choices as fated ; like preventing an epic boss fight or opening a new zone. This isn’t to say player action can’t be responsible for summoning world bosses (see the Tequatl suggestion above), just that player choice shouldn’t be able to prevent it. Again, not that I agree with this, but it is probably the diplomatic choice. (cont’d)

Hi Chris,

I agree with what many posters have been saying about the Living Story pacing, storyline fragmentation, and Scarlet. While I’m disappointed that you are not willing to reconsider the two week release schedule, as Arena Net has not yet demonstrated this is anything but a hindrance to developing quality content thus far; I’d rather focus on the type of gameplay you are introducing while telling the Living Story as that is my primary concern (though I don’t think the two week schedule is helping you here either).

General Content

Shortly after releasing Scarlet’s Invasion I began to feel “burned out” by the Living story content.The achievement grind is part of the problem, but to be honest even if it were easier to do the achievements I don’t think I’d find them fun.Scarlet’s Invasion wasn’t the first content to have the problems I think the Living Story has, but it was the first where I started to think about what I liked in the game; which is the potential dynamic events have for letting the player base control the outcome of individual stories across the world. I don’t consider loot very meaningful, and if there is too much vertical character progression I’m more likely to leave a game than go through the grind;; but give me the ability to change the course of the story and help shape the world, and you suddenly make me feel meaningful.

I consider dynamic events the bread and butter of your game. They tell short or multi-branching tales where player actions can help determine the outcome. They aren’t always challenging, many don’t have any impact on the world at all, and when they do this impact is usually short lived; but they can be the perfect vehicle for allowing player actions to have meaning in the world. Going forward before you introduce new dynamic events, whether it be huge invasion type content or small events like hunting an arctodus so Edmund can get a new rug; I think the content creators should ask themselves:

• Does this event and surrounding environment give enough story context for why the player is performing the activity?
• During the event, should a player arrive late; is there spoken or text dialogue that can catch a player up?
• Are the NPCs acting appropriate to the context of the tale you are telling with the dynamic event?
• Can the NPCs make meaningful impact on the world around them should players succeed/fail at the task at hand?
• Does the impact have lasting effects on the surrounding area or the zone at large so that the players feel like they did something meaningful?
• Can those effects be changed back to the previous state by player and NPC actions or are they on a timer? If the latter, try to go for the former.

Presently many of the dynamic events, especially those added in the Living Story content, fail to make the players feel like they’ve made meaningful changes on the world. Whether it be the epic dragon fights or smaller centaur incursions, the events repeat too frequently and many times without cause, removing the immersion and reminding players their actions don’t matter. I know it would upset the loot/achievement/farming motivated players, but I’d prefer a more organic world where player and NPC actions matter, as opposed to one where things run on predictable schedules so that people aren’t denied access to their loot pinatas. To make the world feel more organic NPC actions and reactions need to be logical and whenever possible, off timers. If we succeed in winning an outpost from the centaurs, it should open up new events to fortify that outpost from the centaurs. Making it harder for them to take it back. In response the centaurs will have their own “events”, where they must gather resources to build up their attack, descry new combat techniques or spells, scout out the player controlled encampments for weaknesses in the defenses, perform guerrilla attacks on bases elsewhere, and perform assassinations on key players that wander outside the safety of the encampments. Players may interrupt these centaur “events” to make their reclamation of the fortress harder still. To ensure the centaurs aren’t always pushed from the maps, you can add centaur type “break out events”, where the centaurs get a powerful boss to rally to their aid occasionally. This type of dynamic scaling need not be on a timer either, but can be based on how many successes the players of that world have been against the centaur incursions. The idea here being that a warlord doesn’t enter the fray unless necessary. The more event choices we as the players have to help shape the ebb and flow of the Living Story content or any content the better. (cont’d)

First, there are male heroes, so your title is misleading. Second, I’m not so sure I see the problem. Male characters are represented in the game (even as heroes!) Are you suggesting that they cater to some population demographics of the real world for every character they create in the fantasy world? In terms of male heroes you have Rytlock, Logan, Thrahearne (who will return to the story in the future), Braham and some lesser support characters; like Evon Gnashblade, Lord Faren, Emissary Vorpp, and Captain Magnus. They each have their own personalities and quirks, which is a good thing.

How many will be enough for you?

I don’t like the mindlessness of zerging either (or all the spell clutter on my screen). They can control the zerg by:

- Creating multiple, distant activities that must be done simultaneously to reach some goal
- Reduce the maximum zone capacity before spawning a new overflow
- Some combination of the above, or something I haven’t though of

The latter sounds nice, but may have some technical hurdles we’re not aware of. For example, it might be much easier to process 100 players in one zone, than processing two copies of the zone with 50 players each.

Some people have pointed out this may be Marjory being sarcastic. The collective is probably not called this, if it even has a name; and she is just poking fun at mesmers.

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

I really don’t understand people who call achievements grindy.

What is a grind is rather personal. I happen to have a low threshold for doing what I consider irrelevant activities. This includes fighting hordes of the same enemies, opening doors over and over again, collecting X number of particular items. It’s especially intolerable when these activities seem to have no effect on the world. I prefer to do activities that advance some plot or actually make a change in the world (as minimal and temporal as those changes happen to be presently). When Arena Net gates content behind doing their achievements this is a grind for me. I didn’t particularly like fighting Scarlet’s Invasions as they felt immersion and manifesto breaking ¹ and I grew weary of them after doing one invasion. Yet, I had to do many invasions just to progress the plot. As small as these plot updates are I still do them as I liked Guild wars lore (though I’m quickly falling out of love with it as the story revolves around Scarlet who I don’t find to be a very well written or presented villain). The same thing happened again this patch with the Halloween activities. I don’t particularly like the Mad King’s Labyrinth as it’s just boring for me to follow a chain of people around tagging mobs for loot, but I had to do many activities here to advance an achievement chain just to get the next part of the story. It’s time gating the story by making it mandatory to do the achievements, many of which are repetitive and boring for me.

¹ – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/speech/Are-we-trading-Dynamic-Events-for-Rifts/2671441

Konig Des Todes.2086:

In short: Not trying to be offensive to Mr. Bobby Stein – by no means – but he really mainly only responds to positive feedback and to negative feedback he pretty much just says “we cannot please everyone.”

That’s not quite charitable, but I sympathize with why you are frustrated. He also says they are working on ways to accelerate presentation and that they will reveal more answers in time as well. However, like you, I’ve heard this said countless times already and am a bit sick of hearing it but seeing no evidence that it is actually being worked on. Not even a blog post on future Living Story developments has been given or how they plan to accelerate the story telling/improve its presentation.

Frans.7930:

I bet it is super confusing for new people. As it is not obvious what just happened and why.

So it’s a proper welcome to the Living Story.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I guess Robert fighting tooth and nail for it didn’t work out. Would hate to see the dentist bill for that…

Robert no longer works for Arena Net… so, it didn’t work out well.

1. Living World
2. Dynamic events (scaling, challenge, world impact)
3. Loot (Ascended gear grind, removing champion boxes (and mob loot) and putting rewards on dynamic events instead, increasing diminishing return on dynamic events to promote spreading out the player base instead of consolidating them into farm chains in one zone)

(3) Dynamic events fail to make the players feel like they’ve made meaningful changes on the world. Whether it be the epic dragon fights or smaller centaur incursions, the events repeat too frequently and many times without cause, removing the immersion and reminding players their actions don’t matter. I know it would upset the loot/achievement/farming motivated players, but I’d prefer a more organic world where player and NPC actions matter, as opposed to one where things run on predictable schedules so that people aren’t denied access to their loot pinatas.

To make the world feel more organic NPC actions and reactions need to be logical and whenever possible, off timers. If we succeed in winning an outpost from the centaurs, it should open up new events to fortify that outpost from the centaurs. Making it harder for them to take it back. In response the centaurs will have their own “events”, where they must gather resources to build up their attack, descry new combat techniques or spells, scout out the player controlled encampments for weaknesses in the defenses, perform guerrilla attacks on bases elsewhere, and perform assassinations on key players that wander outside the safety of the encampments. Players may interrupt these centaur “events” to make their reclamation of the fortress harder still. To ensure the centaurs aren’t always pushed from the maps, you can add centaur type “break out events”, where the centaurs get a powerful boss to rally to their aid occasionally. This type of dynamic scaling need not be on a timer either, but can be based on how many successes the players of that world have been against the centaur incursions (³). The idea here being that a warlord doesn’t enter the fray unless necessary. The more event choices we as the players have to help shape the ebb and flow of a zone the better.

Similar changes can be made to the big boss events, like Tequatl(⁴). Tequatl shouldn’t be entering the fray unless the players are doing really well at controlling Sparkfly Fen. After he is defeated players should have to perform events necessary for combating his eventual return, and his minions should be doing things to aid his return. If Tequatl wins, he should do more than corrupt the shore and then flee. He should stick around aiding his minions in capturing objectives around them map in an invasion style event. If the players fight back this invasions to the shores again, they get another crack at Tequatl. Again, NPCs need behave in context with the tale you are trying to tell.

(4) Vertical progression. I don’t find it terribly motivating and more of a nuisance to have to increase arbitrary numbers to do content that doesn’t actually possess new skills or mechanics to overcome, but rather just larger arbitrary numbers than the previous content. It’s a simple gating mechanic put in by lazy developers to extend the longevity of their games. What happened to measuring your game’s success by how fun it is (⁵) as opposed to how long you can keep people obtaining new gear, and thus, increasing your revenue?

³ – Scale-Dynamic-Event-Difficulty-on-Success
⁴ – Sad part? This event will die soon.
⁵ – Is it Fun? Colin Johanson on how ArenaNet Measures Success

Reasons I’ve mostly left and suggestions:

(1) Living story feels rushed and unpolished. At first I enjoyed the idea of the Living Story, but as a vehicle for telling epic tales it is lacking. We get very few story details during each release, and many important ones are left to blog posts and interviews. More story telling needs to be done in game and more development time is needed between releases. You should consider taking on a more manageable schedule. Do small quality of life changes for one to two months, then hit us with a Living Story arc that is epic and more complete (i.e., it doesn’t feel like I’m catching ten minutes of a 2 hour movie). As a result of this overly ambitious schedule larger content releases seem to be off the table despite you claiming everything is on the table. Many MMOs do take much longer between releases, but they are adding more polished and larger content; such as new epic tales, permanent dungeons, and permanent large-scale zones with multiple quests.

(2) New content lacks the world impact that made some of the original dynamic events great. Many liked Scarlet’s Invasions, Queen’s Gauntlet, and Southsun settler events; but some did not (¹,²). The invasions didn’t need to occur in the zones they occurred in as there was no rhyme or reason for why they occurred there. The zones were not impacted in the slightest by the invasions. Scarlet’s minions just sat there waiting to be killed. There were no objectives to defend from her invasion. Completing or failing the invasion had no effect on the zone. If you review your manifesto content like this was the target of the criticisms you leveraged against other MMO’s quest content.

Going forward before you introduce new dynamic events, whether it be huge invasion type content or small events like hunting an arctodus so Edmund can get a new rug; you should be asking yourself:

• Does this event and surrounding environment give enough story context for why the player is performing the activity?
• During the event, should a player arrive late; is there spoken or text dialogue that can catch a player up?
• Are the NPCs acting appropriate to the context of the tale you are telling with the dynamic event?
• Can the NPCs make meaningful impact on the world around them should players succeed/fail at the task at hand?
• Does the impact have lasting effects on the surrounding area or the zone at large so that the players feel like they did something meaningful?
• Can those effects be changed back to the previous state by player and NPC actions or are they on a timer? If the latter, try to go for the former. (cont’d)

¹ – Are we trading Dynamic Events for Rifts?
² – Does ArenaNet Regret Dynamic Events?

Asudementio.8526:

ArenaNet has acknowledged that their story is poorly communicated. They wish to fix this and are trying by implementing new methods to disseminate information to layers. Traditional style quests exist in the game but as with other games, unless you shove the info down people’s throats, the details get lost. Here is hoping that what they have in mind will pull more players into the living story and show them the oddity and glamour of tyria.

I believe what this refers to recapping the Living Story that has already happened, and doesn’t refer to other major problems with their Living Story. The other problems as I see it are that they are taking forever to develop plot lines. To use their analogy, instead of getting a new episode to our favorite T.V. show every week, we are getting a trailer to our favorite T.V. show every other week (if that). Another problem is that they aren’t taking their time with releases, and it shows; as they communicate important story details through external short stories and interviews instead of in game.

The other updates have, at their best, added small story instances and entertaining dungeons that contribute to the Living Story tale, but leave many important details out of the game to be found in blog posts or interviews ³. At their worst they offer achievement grinds and farming, seemingly forced story lines to explain quality of life changes (e.g., Tequatl’s increase in power), teasers for wider stories that don’t seem to be on the agenda anytime in the near future (e.g., Zephyr Sanctum’s connection with Glint and possibly her offspring), or vehicles to promote Ellen Kiel and Scarlet no matter how tacked on their inclusion seems to be.

To me these releases show a need for Arena Net to take their time and only put a stamp of approval on them when they are ready. Two weeks between them seems like too short of time to tell a cohesive tale given their resources. They say their scheduling gives each team four months to work on content, but are these teams large enough to create a new zone populated with interesting dynamic events, new meta-events that tell the zone’s tale; and potentially a new zone dungeons, jumping puzzles, and open world mini-dungeons? I have my doubts. They say that their Living Story is a kin to catching your favorite T.V. show every week, but it’s more like catching a ten minute clip of your favorite show every two weeks (sometimes months).

Given their track record since they started calling the game updates “The Living Story”, I don’t trust the Living Story team to create the fun, entertaining, and story driven content needed for places like The Crystal Dessert or Ring of Fire. However, if they are looking for ideas on how to structure their releases in a way that makes them interesting this forum is not short on good ways of telling a story through frequent content updates (⁴,⁵).

³ – I place Flame and Frost as one exception to this. This content, while poorly paced, at least seemed to give the bulk of the important details in game. The explanation of the reason for the Molten Alliance was left as a cliffhanger, which I’m fine with. What was really disappointing was that it took five months to give us a reason for the Molten Alliance’s creation and that reason was the poorly introduced and developed, at least in game, Scarlet Briar.

⁴ – The Villainry of Lazarus

⁵ – The Hoelbrak Gathering

While on the surface I agree it would be great to see the story develop into these fondly remembered territories from GW, I just don’t see it as a good idea given how the Living Story has been managed so far. The type of epic stories that would need to be told here would involve new fully fleshed out zones. We have not received any update like this since the Living Story was first called “The Living Story” in January of 2013 ¹. I think such content should be relegated to more substantial releases, like what we got from GW Factions/Nightfall/Eye of the North.

The closest we have received to a complete new zone came before the Living Story was announced, and was likely planned well before release. This event was the invasion of Southsun Cove. While I think the event as a whole was well done (i.e., the concept of helping to form a new permanent territory); the zone itself is small, was lacking ² events, and the event had many technical problems. It was notable in that it told a complete tale in game from start to finish with some loose ends to be tied up through future content. Unfortunately, that tale would have to wait three months for a small update with the consortium taking on displaced settlers, and then a major update about three months after that. (cont’d).

¹ – The Living Story in Guild Wars 2

² – Now it has a major meta event few do because it is poorly structured. It would be better if it acted more like a back and forth between the settlers of Southsun and the Karka. The settlers would have their corner(s) of the map and the Karka have their territory. As the settlers need more resources they risk going out into the island. As players we protect them, but in doing so we start to enrage the Karka Queen. As more territory is claimed by the settlers the Queen responds in kind by initially sending out karka to take back the territory. If she continues to fail she fully enrages and joins the battle. This way a small contingent of players can get the event rolling and then the event can pop up on GW 2 stuff. As it is now the pre-events aren’t on GW 2 Stuff (as the events are always up, so what’s the point of tracking them), which means that players that use GW 2 Stuff to guide their farming never show up there. I’m not too fond of GW 2 Stuff to begin with, but it definitely has its uses for getting the farmers to help out on group events. As an aside to this aside, the Karka Queen needs a better model.

Well, this is boring. it’s like old school MMOs all over again, except we aren’t waiting to tag a mob… progress! They really need to have more player involvement in initiating these events.

Victory.2879:

Ask yourself this: why did Anet put this hidden ‘achievement’ in, if not to make certain players deliberately screw up the event for everyone else, hence adding to it’s ‘difficulty’?

I don’t think so. I think they put it in as a perk, a discovery that some people would get for finding a creative means to counter an attack that can’t be avoided with the normal jumping mechanic of other waves. However, like many of their ideas with good intentions (e.g., champion loot boxes), they did not think through how this would incentivize player behavior. They have previously stated they do not like putting things in game that put the player base at odds with one another, so I imagine that this was also not intended.

Good suggestion! The zone that gave me the most wonder when I entered it was Straits of Devastation. It did so as it was the first zone where exploration was almost purely driven by the feelings of, well, exploration and not map completion. I’m not a big fan of map completion being an objective. It turns zones into theme parks where events go ignored just so players can get the goodies at the end of filling in various map markers. I’m at my happiest when I’m just exploring a zone and doing events when they pop up, listening to idle NPC chatter learning the story of the zone, and changing the world in that zone (albeit an unfortunately short and insignificant change most of the time).

I support getting rid of renown hearts, but would probably go further and remove skill point challenges as well. They are obstacles to having more long lasting changes to the zones as (at least those that involve NPCs) as the outposts/caves/etc that house the challenges can never change hands or be destoryed as the NPCs offering those challenges would have to go with them. Map completion with points of interest and vistas (or just revealing the map) should be enough to draw those players who need carrots to certain locations.

If dynamic events are the bread and butter of Guild Wars 2’s living world, then map completion should probably involve doing some number of dynamic events in a zone. Since dynamic events can change in a zone over time (or at least they were intended to change with time), it can’t be a checklist of all dynamic events.

Stooperdale.3560:

It’s futile to look for perfection in a game where players have the potential to play timelined stories together when they are at different points in a timeline.

I don’t recall where I said I’m looking for what you’re calling “perfection”. All I’m looking for is a clear history of events, not a linear presentation of those events (though a clear indication of where they happen would be nice). It’s one thing to say that these personal story events can be done at any point by the player, but historically speaking they occur before Southsun Cove was established (which is what the wiki says ¹); and what you’re claiming, that these events occur whenever you are in your personal story, kitten the lore plot holes are fun. I’m not asking that they present your personal story as if it coincides with the Living World, just that the story they tell remains consistent with a timeline (not necessarily the one you as a player experience). Guild Wars (original) handled and presented this nicely. You were able to do missions your character was not part of historically, the game just said these events already happened.

¹ – http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Southsun_Cove

Talonblaze.3175:

If you analyze Teq, the fight itself is far from hard.

This sentence can be said of any MMO encounter after one learns the mechanics (or meets the minimum gear requirements often imposed). That is the nature of the beast. Something is challenging to people at first, then they learn it. I do think the volumes of dead people in poison pools or after Tequatl’s wave attacks hit belie your claim that “we” have learned these things. Some people have and some people have not.

Some ways to present new challenge is to add a form of scaling that occurs when the server succeeds at the encounter, or improved AI that learns players behavior and adapts. No MMO does this as far as I know.

I agree the timer adds challenge, but it is a uninspiring form of challenge that amounts to a DPS/skill check against the mechanics. It’s a skill check in that those who have the skills to jump waves, learn his telegraphs, and clear/avoid poison pools should be up to DPS him.

Stooperdale.3560:

Yes there are plot holes being introduced but that is the way ANet are doing it. The living story is restricted in order to keep the personal story valid. The living story uses no character history as anyone can join in at any stage regardless of anything they have done or have not done. You will presumably be able to fight Scarlet in the TA update irrespective of your anything you’ve done with the personal story, the living story, twilight arbor story, or twilight arbor explorable.

I’m not sure what definition of ‘validity’ you are using, but validity in the logical sense preserves consistency. The way they are handling things invalidates the personal story as it creates inconsistencies with it. For example, someone not yet forming the Pact is inconsistent with the Living story arc with Aetherblades, who stole Pact airships..

Epic.3950:

a pvt warrior can deal the same damage as a zerker warrior in a dragon fight.

Actually more when you throw in the sharpening stones.

Stooperdale.3560:

The game design has two stories in parallel. For each individual character, the living story may be taking place before, after, or during the personal story.

This cannot be the case. If the player character is before the Pact formation the Aetherblades could not have stolen Pact airships. If the player is post-Zhaitan, then Logan cannot be with the Queen, as he is during the last few arcs, as he pledged not to be:

“Caithe: Will you return to your queen now, Logan?
Logan Thackeray: No. Not until I know that Kryta’s safe.”

There are too many plot holes introduced to the game if the Living story takes place at anytime during the personal story.

Rammie.2843:

snip

Thanks for the reply. I think we agree more than we disagree. I too think that the timers are unimaginative ways of adding challenge to open world content, and agree with you that with the way the event is currently structured (e.g., how it is initiated, how it proceeds on failure/success, and how overflows with the fight are handled) the timers are too punitive. I think suggestions can be made to make the fights more challenging (see my post upthread ¹).

I don’t think open world content is doomed to be less challenging than fixed sized, instanced content. It’s just easier to do so for one of the reasons you list (i.e, that fixed size is easier to balance and create objectives for). However, Arena Net does have tools at its disposal for eliminating some of these challenges open world content possesses for dealing with variable amounts of people. Events do scale, but they could probably use a little wiggle room in how they do scale. I’m not familiar with the inner workings of their Tequatl system, but I think it’d be fair for them to scale it in such a way that they assume about 10-20% of the participants in the fight may be contributing to the event scaling, but not actually contributing to the event (e.g., they are AFK, they are not well equipped, they are using the turrets poorly). It’s not the best system, but the alternative requires much more programming work, like obtaining a gear score average for the group and determining player inactivity, and then scaling the event based on this information.

¹ – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/tequatl/Sad-part-This-event-will-die-soon/2902390

Rammie.2843:

You can’t really create challenging content for the open world. There are simply too many variables.

I don’t think you provide a convincing reason for this. Why are there too many variables? How many variables are too many? Generally speaking, this doesn’t seem like an insolvable mathematical proof, but an engineering problem to be analyzed and solved with the resource pool Arena Net has. If you provided a more thorough analysis of Arena Net’s resources and why open world content just has too many problems for them to engineer a solution, this would be better. However, all your post amounts to is incredulity that (unspecified types of) open world content can be challenging (for an unspecified population). It’s also highly generalized to all open world content. Surely the problem space of open world content is a vast one and you have not envisioned all types of open world encounters that MMO developers can conceive of… I speculate you haven’t even envisioned 1% of them the space is just that large.

Keep in mind this is more than what would be needed as a few simple pre-events like the Shatterer would be enough. However, I’m a proponent of having big events having big effects on the world, should they succeed or fail. So, I threw in some ideas for making Tequatl more of a threat to Spark Fly Fen. Right now he is slightly better than Scarlet’s invasions when it comes to affecting the zone. He is at least attacking objectives and leaves some corruption behind should we fail. However, he flees either way (success or failure). It’d be nice if he stuck around and continued his assault in some manner.

I wrote elsewhere on how I’d revamp, not tweak, the encounter:

SirMoogie.9263:

Some of the problems I see with the encounter are:

• Lots of people are required for the fight, which can place a heavy burden on smaller population servers
• People aren’t prepared before the fight starts as waiting around on the shore is pretty boring.
• Unlike traditional instanced raid content, which I do not support adding to Guild Wars 2, Tequatl lacks a means of practicing him in a timely manner. If you fail, that’s it for potentially 1.5 hours. Few people are willing to put up with this.
• Overflows magnify the first two problems by dropping players into the middle of a fight with a population that may be incapable of handling the event

To improve the event I would work on scaling, event initiation, reattempts, and post-event zone ramifications.

To address scaling I think events like these should scale based on server success and account for smaller populations (perhaps as few as 20 players). The more successful a server is, the harder and more rewarding Tequatl will become. If they fail, the easier and less rewarding he will become. An easier/smaller group Tequatl would generate scales much less frequently (to allow for a smaller number of turrets to be used), spawn kitten ne fingers and other minions, have less health. In turn, NPC allies would gain more health/attack power/skills, turrets and megalaser batteries would be more durable. Reverse this for a harder Tequatl.

The cons of this approach are servers that have a higher rewarding Tequatl will see much more guesting. However, I see this as a problem not unique to this solution, but with guesting in general. I think many people are interested in roping in guesting somehow. I have no solutions to offer on this point, unfortunately.

To improve event initiation, reattempts at a failed encounter, and post-fight zone ramifications I would add pre- and post- dynamic events related to (re-)starting the encounter, which places control of starting the encounter into the player’s hands. A flow chart would be helpful here, but I’ll do my best in text. If Tequatl was previously beaten (the default state), then the Vigil controls the shores. During this time they are actively preparing for Tequatl’s return. Events spawn related to rebuilding the shores forces, establishing power to the pact megalaser, and arming the Hylek turrets by making potions with the Hylek. After all events are completed, Tequatl attacks after a few minutes break to prepare. These events would start about an hour after a successful Tequatl kill.

If Tequatl was successful, he takes to the skies above Sparkfly Fen with his fully hardened skin and initiates an invasion. At first the invasion events are concentrated to the shores, they include help the pact clear the corruption, rebuild the Hylek turrets, and rebuild the megalaser. If all are successful, the megalaser shoots Tequatl out of the sky and the fight resumes. If these events fail, the Vigil retreats further back to various outposts in the zone, which Tequatl now invades with his minions. Players must successfully push these events back to the shores, to restart the cleansing the shores/rebuilding the megalaser events.

The benefits of this approach are it gives a sense of consequence to success/failure of the event, encourages players to stick around and practice even if they fail, and allows for adequate time to prepare for the fight. The negatives are it introduces multiple avenues where people could potentially game the system (i.e., they find combinations of failing events that result in not fighting Tequatl, or failing him that become more rewarding than beating him). To prevent a system of diminishing returns needs to be in place at every step of the encounter. Beating Tequatl should always remain the most lucrative option.

As an aside, I would really love for them to remove the timers from these events. I think challenging events can be made where there are actual in game objectives rather than beating an external timer. For example, Tequatl could be failed if he builds X number of bone walls successfully, making himself too durable to defeat at this time; destroys X number of turrets, damages the megalaser beyond repair, gains X number of enraged stacks, which can be removed with Hylek tranquilizer potions.

(cont’d)

Mastruq.2463:

Honestly I think your plans are too sophisticated. I believe all it takes is a pre-event chain that is triggered (transporting Mega-laser charges) and takes like ten minutes, then another event or a lull for 5 minutes, then start the Tequatl encounter. Similar to Shatterer, basically. That would give players time to organize or get more interested participants into the zone. Thanks to the API there wont be any hours-long waiting for him once the Overflows subside, a guild or coalition of players can see when he is due and go there at the right time.

I agree it is more than needed, but that’s because I also threw in some ideas there to actually make the event matter to the zone should it succeed or fail. When Tequatl was first shown at various trade shows it was asked what would happen if we failed. Arena Net’s response was that Tequatl’s influence would slowly spread over the zone until players had to respond to the threat. As you well know, this doesn’t happen with any major event. They are on simple, cyclical timers and have no effects on the world should they succeed or fail.

If Tequatl is to remain an encounter that 80 players are required to accomplish they really need to add a mechanic like the breakout events in WvW, where the encounter will not even start until 80 players show up. However, I’d just prefer they resolve the issues with the fight through other means. Some of the problems I see with the encounter are:

• Lots of people are required for the fight, which can place a heavy burden on smaller population servers
• People aren’t prepared before the fight starts as waiting around on the shore is pretty boring.
• Unlike traditional instanced raid content, which I do not support adding to Guild Wars 2, Tequatl lacks a means of practicing him in a timely manner. If you fail, that’s it for potentially 1.5 hours. Few people are willing to put up with this.
• Overflows magnify the first two problems by dropping players into the middle of a fight with a population that may be incapable of handling the event

To improve the event I would work on scaling, event initiation, reattempts, and post-event zone ramifications.

To address scaling I think events like these should scale based on server success and account for smaller populations (perhaps as few as 20 players). The more successful a server is, the harder and more rewarding Tequatl will become. If they fail, the easier and less rewarding he will become. An easier/smaller group Tequatl would generate scales much less frequently (to allow for a smaller number of turrets to be used), spawn kitten ne fingers and other minions, have less health. In turn, NPC allies would gain more health/attack power/skills, turrets and megalaser batteries would be more durable. Reverse this for a harder Tequatl.

The cons of this approach are servers that have a higher rewarding Tequatl will see much more guesting. However, I see this as a problem not unique to this solution, but with guesting in general. I think many people are interested in roping in guesting somehow. I have no solutions to offer on this point, unfortunately.

To improve event initiation, reattempts at a failed encounter, and post-fight zone ramifications I would add pre- and post- dynamic events related to (re-)starting the encounter, which places control of starting the encounter into the player’s hands. A flow chart would be helpful here, but I’ll do my best in text. If Tequatl was previously beaten (the default state), then the Vigil controls the shores. During this time they are actively preparing for Tequatl’s return. Events spawn related to rebuilding the shores forces, establishing power to the pact megalaser, and arming the Hylek turrets by making potions with the Hylek. After all events are completed, Tequatl attacks after a few minutes break to prepare. These events would start about an hour after a successful Tequatl kill.

If Tequatl was successful, he takes to the skies above Sparkfly Fen with his fully hardened skin and initiates an invasion. At first the invasion events are concentrated to the shores, they include help the pact clear the corruption, rebuild the Hylek turrets, and rebuild the megalaser. If all are successful, the megalaser shoots Tequatl out of the sky and the fight resumes. If these events fail, the Vigil retreats further back to various outposts in the zone, which Tequatl now invades with his minions. Players must successfully push these events back to the shores, to restart the cleansing the shores/rebuilding the megalaser events.

The benefits of this approach are it gives a sense of consequence to success/failure of the event, encourages players to stick around and practice even if they fail, and allows for adequate time to prepare for the fight. The negatives are it introduces multiple avenues where people could potentially game the system (i.e., they find combinations of failing events that result in not fighting Tequatl, or failing him that become more rewarding than beating him). To prevent a system of diminishing returns needs to be in place at every step of the encounter. Beating Tequatl should always remain the most lucrative option.

As an aside, I would really love for them to remove the timers from these events. I think challenging events can be made where there are actual in game objectives rather than beating an external timer. For example, Tequatl could be failed if he builds X number of bone walls successfully, making himself too durable to defeat at this time; destroys X number of turrets, damages the megalaser beyond repair, gains X number of enraged stacks, which can be removed with Hylek tranquilizer potions.

Durzlla.6295:

GOOD, it was stupid how you couldn’t fail anything unless you were a herd of rocks, the world is actually changing a bit more now, it’s possible to fail stuff, it should’ve always been like this, I hope more stuff is like this.

While I think events should be capable of failing. I think there are more imaginative ways of getting there than just putting timers on everything. I’ve said this elsewhere:

SirMoogie.9263:

I agree. I just took these timers as a quick and dirty fix to a more complicated problem. I’m hoping in the future as they revisit each of these bosses they make more interesting mechanics for failure. For example, Tequatl could fail if all the turrets are destroyed, the megalaser gets damaged beyond reasonable repair during the encounter, or Tequatl builds X bone walls successfully. Other bosses can have similar mechanics. It feels more organic to have these types of failure objectives, than a simple timer.

This isn’t to say that no bosses should have some sort of timing mechanic, but they could be made a bit more organic. Taking Tequatl again, perhaps after he reaches 25% health he starts to enrage. He can build up enraged stacks that when reaching the max cause him to take out his aggression on the megalaser. If so desired, Arena Net could add a means, such as Hylek tranquilizer potions, to remove the enraged stacks.

I do not support making the encounters easier, I just think there can be more interesting ways in making them failable than timers.

Because instances have benefits and negative consequences, and how much the game is instanced will depend on the type of game they want to make. Instances allow for building challenging, structured content easier as you can balance them to particular party sizes. They also allow for telling a more personal tale. However, they push players out of the open world and diminish the first M from the MMO acronym. In games with instanced raids, where those are the most rewarded activity, the open world becomes a leveling service, major cities become fashion shows, and everyone hides away in dungeons having their own private experiences that aren’t shared except among those in their party. A more organic world doesn’t need instances, as our world doesn’t have them. If a dragon attacked our world, we would not just send 25 people to attack it because it put up a sign outside its lair saying, “Maximum capacity 25”. We would use every resource available to us to destroy the threat. Instances also don’t affect the world around them, as the activities are contained in the instance.

As a roleplayer, I prefer a more immersive, organic world. One where challenges can be confronted by anyone that happens to see them and wants to take them on and one where doing so affects the world. I’m not saying Guild Wars 2 gets these things right, but it seems to be what they’d like. I think the game shows promise, but has much to do to get there.

Pifil.5193:

Dragons aren’t real at all. This is a game.

It is a game, but immersion and challenge is something some players like in their games. Taking out a dragon with people sitting there auto attacking and absorbing the dragon’s huge attacks isn’t very immersive or challenging. There are plenty of non-challenging bosses in the game still. If five of the bosses that give bonus chests are revamped that still leaves plenty of options:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chest#Bonus_chest

That said, I do think there is an alternative that could be implemented to help players still get the satisfaction of killing the dragon champions at lower difficulties. Basically, Arena Net can implement a scaling system that is based on number of players AND how successful the server has been in the past at the encounter. If the server succeeds at the world boss, it is harder and more rewarding the next time around. If they fail, it gets easier and less rewarding.

Guesting will still cause problems with this, as those who are loot driven instead of challenge driven will still try and piggy back on the best servers. That is a separate problem I have no good solutions for, but should probably be addressed as it affects more than just Tequatl.

I don’t think that all Living Story elements need to be connected. We can have many different tales told, and I do hope that this one isn’t connected to the rest as that means it’ll just be another “Scarlet did it!” story. That said, I agree with your major points that the Living story releases are underwhelming from a story telling standpoint.

They are too small, story wise. Arena Net likes to compare them to catching your favorite T.V. show every week, but they are more like catching the trailer for the next episode to your favorite T.V. show every two weeks, if that. Most updates aren’t lacking on things to do, but the things to do rarely contribute to telling an interesting story, and that story has never been fully fleshed out in game. usually it is done so through external short stories told on their main page.

fritanga.1623:

I would have liked to see a cutscene bringing the story aspect of this update out a bit more. Personally, if I had been running this update I would have done the following:

Last week I would have made the laser have less effect on Tequatl and added some flavor commentary on an NPC saying that the laser is not as useful on Tequatl as it used to be. Perhaps Warmaster Narru? Then when the update went live, I would have instead of linking to the map, had a cutscene taking place in Rytlock’s office with Rox and Rytlock present. Narru (or some other Vigil NPC) would be there telling Rytlock that the megalaser isn’t as effective as it used to be and that Tequatl is much stronger than before and that they need more Charr Legionaires to reinforce them. At this point, Rytlock tells Rox to investigate the dragons and find evidence of what they are doing. Cutscene then ends.

At this point, Rox sends you a mail telling the player that they need help finding samples of the dragons (with hints as to where said samples might be located). Then, when we have found all the samples, we can talk to another NPC about ways to improve the weapons effectiveness.

Great suggestions. More living story needs to be told this way. As it is now, and has been the past several releases; the actual story behind the Living Story is presented poorly and indicates that it is being rushed out and not carefully crafted. Two weeks between releases does not seem to be enough time for the Living Story. Content updates like these need not be tied to the Living Story and are fine on their own without exposition, unless it really was intended to be a crucial Living Story step. If that is the case, then they need to take more time with the releases and provide adequate exposition and events surrounding the story.

The open world content we had at release was well crafted and had so much potential for a Living World. However, to me, that potential keeps getting squandered with what appears to be rushed low-quality, but high quantity content updates.

I just feel that the story wasn’t told well enough and left people wondering what, if anything that it had to do with it. Many players who I spoke with considered this just a content update with some minor living story stuff tacked on. If that really is what it is, then that’s cool, but if a story is there to be told, then it needs to be told a little better. If Warmaster Narru is going to play a bigger role in the future, then they should have been a little more than just a minor NPC who says “At least this isn’t southsun” and have a little flavor text when you interact with them. If Rox is involved, then it would have been better to throw some more dialogue her way as well.

This is exactly how I felt after seeing the minimal amount of exposition given to the Tequatl encounter. I really do love the encounter as a whole and think the game needs more challenging encounters like this, just a better scaling system for them ¹. These improvements to existing world bosses do not need to be explained through the living story. The only story that needs to be improved is through the lead up to the encounters and subsequent results given failure/success. It would be nice if the world boss presence was not purely based on a timer, but through player actions on the world.

For example, Tequatl should appear only when the Pact controls his shores. This could be accomplished through a series of meta-events that include, purifying the corruption on the shores and building the megalaser/turrets. Once accomplished Tequatl would appear. If successful, they continue to control the shores and events eventually start with repowering the megalaser and delivering potions for the turrets from nearby Hylek villages. Once those are accomplished, Tequatl will make another attack. If Tequatl wins the Pact gets pushed back and Tequatl starts an invasion of Sparkfly Fen, starting from its, now protected, location and pushing outward. once the invasion is halted, the events to purify the shore and rebuild the laser start, and players get another crack at Tequatl. At every step during this process the NPCs should have conversations discussing the significance of the lore, or dialogue interactions. The game at launch was pretty good about this latter point.

¹ – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Scale-Dynamic-Event-Difficulty-on-Success/first

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

The only thing I’d be against is splitting Orr into “before and after” zones for characters at different stages of completion. We don’t want to split the playerbase in existing zones.

We don’t have to. Players that wish to join their friends in old Orr can experience the history of Orr by talking to an Orr historian, or entering a fractal portal to a different time and place in Tyria (namely, old Orr). Players that don’t give a lick about the personal story, can taxi into the present Orr with their friends.

The only problems with this is old Orr may become unpopular. However, this is no different a problem than the mid-range zones becoming unpopular.

I hope Arena Net sticks to their guns on keeping the focus on the open world and not on instances. However, given their history on sticking to their artistic vision, I’m not holding out much hope.

Lucky.9421:

We’ll have to see how things pan out in the long term. If it becomes a dead event fairly quickly, like Karka Queen, then Anet has wasted their development time again, which would be a shame.

I don’t think the Karka Queen isn’t done because she is too challenging, but because she isn’t featured on the boss event tracking tools frequently¹ and is outside the popular “endgame” zones (e.g., Cursed Shore). The Ogre Wars event isn’t challenging. However, from my experience I will never see it on the trackers unless I actively do the leg work to get it going ², and then suddenly a mob of players descends out of the aether to finish the event I started. The karka queen would see more attention if people actually did the leg work to start it. However, it’s much easier to keep oneself busy hopping between the events that automatically start, than to actually pull together the handful of people needed to start the Karka Queen (or even the one needed to start The Ogre Wars). i think all meta-events should require player involvement to start them, and that an in game tool from Arena Net should be developed to report when the events can be started (the current trackers have intentionally or accidentally left out some of the pre-events, and thus people won’t flock to them to start them).

¹ – The worst tool to be introduced to the game, IMO.
² – I’m one of those strange players that actually revisits old zones I’ve long since “completed” just to experience some of the story I may have missed and do some of the events I found fun/interesting.

I agree. I just took these timers as a quick and dirty fix to a more complicated problem. I’m hoping in the future as the revisit each of these bosses they make more interesting mechanics for failure. For example, Tequatl could fail if all the turrets are destroyed, the megalaser gets damaged beyond reasonable repair during the encounter, or Tequatl builds X bone walls successfully. Other bosses can have similar mechanics. It feels more organic to have these types of failure objectives, than a simple timer.

This isn’t to say that no bosses should have some sort of timing mechanic, but they could be made a bit more organic. Taking Tequatl again, perhaps after he reaches 25% health he starts to enrage. He can build up enraged stacks that when reaching the max cause him to take out his aggression on the megalaser. If so desired, Arena Net could add a means, such as Hylek tranquilizer potions, to remove the enraged stacks.

I do not support making the encounters easier, I just think there can be more interesting ways in making them failable than timers.

I’m against instances in MMOs as I think they push player bases out of the world and into their own private games. At this point you might as well not have an MMO, but a town lobby where people group up to do multi-player RPGs. I’d rather the content be in the world and shared by everyone. This is more organic. You don’t take 25 people to fight Deathwing because he marked the entrance with a sign that says “maximum capacity 25”, you take every capable hero to take him down.

Taking down threats to the realm should be a server affair, not just something guilds do on their own. The current problems people have with the Tequatl are not because he isn’t instanced, though I agree instancing would allow for large guilds to take him on easier. The problems are multi-faceted and include:

1) People becoming familiar to the encounter. It is day one and many people only got to try him once yesterday. I assure you many people were just trying him the first time every time yesterday. I stress that before we conclude “trolls” will ruin this to not see your fellow players as trolls just because they are dying or misusing the turrets. This is evidence for ignorance. While it could be evidence of malice, we do not conclude malice unless further evidence is presented to conclude it is malice ¹. Have patience with your fellow players as they come to grips with the mechanics and teach them. As servers succeed, and they will, the knowledge will propagate as more players witness/research successful attempts.

2) The event largely starts unannounced. There is no lead up to the event, which can make for shaky starts. Pre-events would be welcome… I mean where does the megalaser come from anyway after it is destroyed? This event definitely could use a construct the megalaser/cleanse the shore of corruption pre-events.

3) People don’t or can’t read the chat. The chat goes by quickly and some may not pay attention. Arena Net could add NPCs that give clearer and louder instructions to the encounter to aid in positioning and tasks.

4) I tentatively think that the encounter could be too difficult. As I’ve suggested since release , they should scale group event difficulty based on server success/failure ². If an event succeeds, it is harder and more rewarding the next time it occurs. If it fails, it is easier, and less rewarding. More difficult versions of events should be more rewarding, than less difficult version. Unfortunately, guesting players might cause overflows on some popular servers. This is an engineering problem I don’t have a solution for, but probably does have a (costly) solution that involves creating overflows for a world instead of overflows that get populated by any world that currently needs one. This overflow would copy the current state of the world it was created for (i.e., it retains the difficulty and state of dynamic events).

¹ – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity

² – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Scale-Dynamic-Event-Difficulty-on-Success/first#post101866

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Now, imagine if Orr becomes cleansed. To those who have completed their personal story and has defeated Zhaitan, this makes sense. But… now you have folks invading Orr in the personal story, and once they leave it’s… cleansed? What? It creates that paradox that ArenaNet’s trying to avoid (but doing so with too many ‘precautions’ imo).

Simple… Well, not simple, but solvable given enough resources. Zones are instances with large population caps. Technically, even servers are instances as they are one instance of the world among many. Arena Net need only have to have two types of zones for each Orr zone. On completion of the personal story players get shifted to defaulting to the post-Zhaitan Orr, while those not yet there in their personal story have the Orr as we know it today. Players can choose to relive the old Orr if they desire through a Fractal portal¹, and new players can taxi into new Orr if they have no desire to complete their personal story and play with their friends, whenever they may be.

This is a large undertaking as it means creating three new zones even though many of the art assets and terrain will probably remain the same. However, it isn’t unexpected for MMOs to release new zones overtime. Most have added a few by the end of their first year. Unfortunately, adding new zones or even completely redoing one seems to be out of the question.

¹ – By Fractal portal I do not mean a dungeon, but just a portal in the mists that transports players to a different time and place in Tyria, namely pre-Zhaitan’s demise.

Edit: If I’m not mistaken, this would be similar to how Guild Wars Beyond was handled. Players could enter a zone and have it be in a different state based on their progress in the Beyond story.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

I’ll be the source. The invasions are sticking around until the Scarlet storyline is complete. Telling you exactly when it will end would probably spoil a lot of stuff. You can at least count on them regularly occurring through the end of this year.

I didn’t like Scarlet’s Invasions as I think while it introduced many invasion opportunities it sacrificing quality to do so. We have a lot of zones that can be invaded by Scarlet, but in the zones they occur it doesn’t feel all too relevant. The enemies just sit there in the fields waiting to be killed. Despite the event text saying they are invading the zone, they aren’t actually attempting to seize objectives and our NPC allies in those zones aren’t attempting to prevent them from doing so. There is no build up to the invasions in the zone, they just suddenly appear. When completed (fail or success) the outcome is the same and the zone remains unaffected, save the invasion going away. This type of “questing” was what Colin and Ree specifically criticized in the manifesto video.

I think invasions would be better suited for the existing world bosses, especially the dragon champions. Early on in GW 2 development I recall a developer mentioning that if Tequatl failed and players didn’t respond to its attack that it would remain an ever threatening presence in the zone until dealt with. It would over time take over the zone by corrupting the surrounding area and sending its minions to take objectives across the entire zone. This sounds like an invasion to me, and one much more interesting than Scarlet.

One objection I hear to ideas like this are it can prevent map completion, which is required for legendaries, skill points, and getting a sizable XP boost and other rewards. To me this is more of a problem with map completion being a rewarding goal, than with a fun and challenging encounter like this. When rewards get in the way of adding fun and interesting activities, it’s the rewards that need reevaluating, not the fun content. Rewards should supplement your fun, not replace it. Some people may still find getting map completion rewarding, even if it rewarded nothing; but I see no problem putting map completion (or legendary acquisition) behind challenging content, especially when you are in what is now a dragon’s controlled territory.

Going forward are there plans to add the invasion mechanics to other meta-events, say the Tequatl event failing? Are there plans to increase the quality of the invasions so they better mesh with Arena Net’s stated design goals for events in the manifesto?