Problem(s) with Dynamic Events

[Merendel]

I tend to think of it as the personal story and dungeons are the main thread of the hero's lore while the DE's are the ongoing battles. The hero, you, has this ongoing epic quest to save the world. This is your overriding goal but there is nothing to stop you from fending off a random bandit invasion because you were in the area. If you pass it by then the village is destroyed and its a footnote in history. Alternatively you could save the village and again that's a footnote as one of your heroic exploits while accomplishing your quest. Reguardless of if the hero gets involved or not the war still rages accross the land and the consequences are felt in the time that follows.

I think the best thing about the way DE's work is that the world goes on and evolves even when you are not there. The hero of the story can not be everywhere and save everybody at once. Well he can if omnipresent time traveling powers are one of his skills but lets asume they are not. Events happen that mater to someone but may or may not even be noticed by a specific hero untill much later. Yet those events change the world in profound ways that can impact a player later, this makes it a living world. On the other side of a coin you've got the wow style of quests and world. Its all static, only changeing when the hero compleats the quest. Effectivly you can be everywhere and do everything because every event waits for the hero to show up and compleat them.

SKyrim is only a partial analogy as the world is still static. Oh the NPC's have schedules so they move around but if one NPC is destined to be assasinated by the dark brotherhood it wont happen till the player triggers that event. The world is prety much static any time the player is not nearby manipulating events, they just wait till a player shows up to drive the world. If skyrim had DE's you'd have situations where the war between the stormcloaks and imperials advanced while you were away questing and towns would change hands in your absence.

[airea]

So here's my thought... DEs seem fantastic. They're an amazing and revolutionary way of overcoming generic standards of questing. However, if they're not the meat and potatoes of the storyline, then there need to be incentives to do them. And no, not points or whatever junk most MMOs would try and push. What I'm saying is, will there be reasons for us to even care about saving some random little village, other than just getting more exp? Will the vendors there actually sell any good endgame food/reagents/gear? If there aren't any immersive, logical reasons to care about these towns, then saving them over and over again will eventually become boring and pointless. I'm still awaiting the beta, as are many, to see if these possibilities are truly worth fretting over. It should tell us how the world behaves under large-scale community use over an extended period of time.

[Mif]

You get karma points for completing dynamic events, which can be used to buy gear/items.

But generally, GW2 doesn't dangle carrots to get you to do things (ie dynamic events). That means the devs are forced to actually make the gamplay fun instead of a means to an end-game*


(* that was so clever I deserve a cookie)

[Odeezee]

So here's my thought... DEs seem fantastic. They're an amazing and revolutionary way of overcoming generic standards of questing. However, if they're not the meat and potatoes of the storyline, then there need to be incentives to do them. And no, not points or whatever junk most MMOs would try and push. What I'm saying is, will there be reasons for us to even care about saving some random little village, other than just getting more exp? Will the vendors there actually sell any good endgame food/reagents/gear? If there aren't any immersive, logical reasons to care about these towns, then saving them over and over again will eventually become boring and pointless. I'm still awaiting the beta, as are many, to see if these possibilities are truly worth fretting over. It should tell us how the world behaves under large-scale community use over an extended period of time.

there are many incentives, so examples are:

a world where actions and non-action have consequences; you want to get to a certain place on the map but u can't as the waypoint was taken over by an invading force.
you want to craft at a particular village(?), you can't as it has been overrun and all the merchants and villagers have been slain.
to gain karma, experience, coin.
to explore the gameworld.
to play with lowbie friends.
to complete all available content.
to flex epeen.
to have fun.

[Deleted]

They probably won't attack "capitals" so to say, but I think any other city would be fair game.

[Jovanaar]

They probably won't attack "capitals" so to say, but I think any other city would be fair game.

They should, maybe not the central area of the town, but maybe some traders corner, an elite group of Bandits is raiding the stores and if you don't stop them, the prices will increase and the stocks will be low. Would be cool.

[Fencers]

That sounds like a pain in the ass. Pass on the notion for me.

[Durzlla]

They should, maybe not the central area of the town, but maybe some traders corner, an elite group of Bandits is raiding the stores and if you don't stop them, the prices will increase and the stocks will be low. Would be cool.

I have a feeling we might see this in the future, but i doubt these events would be common at all, i think it'd probably be a bit like WvWvW, you'd see one every week-2weeks but the effects of it will last a good while.

[airea]

You get karma points for completing dynamic events, which can be used to buy gear/items.

But generally, GW2 doesn't dangle carrots to get you to do things (ie dynamic events). That means the devs are forced to actually make the gamplay fun instead of a means to an end-game*


(* that was so clever I deserve a cookie)

Ah yes, I remember Karma now from some gameplay videos at a con a while back. Yeah, I think my mind is still stuck in WoW mode where the act of fighting is abnormally boring.

---------- Post added 2011-12-14 at 12:22 PM ----------

I have a feeling we might see this in the future, but i doubt these events would be common at all, i think it'd probably be a bit like WvWvW, you'd see one every week-2weeks but the effects of it will last a good while.

In addition, this is a fantastic idea. I think some people might be in opposition, but think about it, you have DEs in your instanced home zone, why not in the marketplace right around the corner? They'd have to make the prices raise dramatically higher though, or no one will care. That leads into another question I had. I'm curious as to whether or not the consequences for NOT dealing with DEs are truly worth fighting to prevent. I'm concerned that they'll worry too much about affecting the core of the world and draw a boundary line around it so that there's always a place you can call home, when that's just not realistic.

In the ideal world, these DEs would just keep scaling and scaling to the point where they are attacking entire capital cities if we don't do anything about them. If some dinky band of centaurs attacks a village and people think nothing of it, they turn it into a fort. If they stay there long enough, they establish spies and scouts throughout the area. If they get enough intel and supplies from their routes (which we'd have the ability to cut short), they take over another town. Continuing until they gain control of an entire zone. Then, they'd move on to attack the nearest capital city with occasional raids at the front gates. If the players don't help to repel them, they eventually break into the city, and have the possibility of taking it over. But we all know that can't happen. In the eyes of the makers, that's too risky for the players. A gamer can dream, though, can't he?

[Durzlla]

Ah yes, I remember Karma now from some gameplay videos at a con a while back. Yeah, I think my mind is still stuck in WoW mode where the act of fighting is abnormally boring.

---------- Post added 2011-12-14 at 12:22 PM ----------



In addition, this is a fantastic idea. I think some people might be in opposition, but think about it, you have DEs in your instanced home zone, why not in the marketplace right around the corner? They'd have to make the prices raise dramatically higher though, or no one will care. That leads into another question I had. I'm curious as to whether or not the consequences for NOT dealing with DEs are truly worth fighting to prevent. I'm concerned that they'll worry too much about affecting the core of the world and draw a boundary line around it so that there's always a place you can call home, when that's just not realistic.

In the ideal world, these DEs would just keep scaling and scaling to the point where they are attacking entire capital cities if we don't do anything about them. If some dinky band of centaurs attacks a village and people think nothing of it, they turn it into a fort. If they stay there long enough, they establish spies and scouts throughout the area. If they get enough intel and supplies from their routes (which we'd have the ability to cut short), they take over another town. Continuing until they gain control of an entire zone. Then, they'd move on to attack the nearest capital city with occasional raids at the front gates. If the players don't help to repel them, they eventually break into the city, and have the possibility of taking it over. But we all know that can't happen. In the eyes of the makers, that's too risky for the players. A gamer can dream, though, can't he?

Well, i will fight off every DE i come across because i'm one of those interesting fellows that likes to destroy everything from Point A to point C, then to point D, then actually go to point B (this is why it took me roughly a year to level my first wow character up to 60 lol).

However, going off the Centaur example, Centaurs take over a town, you lose the vendors and that waypoint, that's not a big deal for the most part, 1 town doesn't mean much to most people... HOWEVER, centaurs, along with other sentient races IE grawl, bandits, etc. Aren't content with having just 1 city and will begin spreading, and if not dealt with, will likely control an entire zone where you can't use ANY of those waypoints, now to a lot of people that could become an issue. ESPECIALLY if those waypoints were near a point of interest IE an instance, or a good mining spot.

I really hope, what you said will someday actually happen. Cause hell, centaurs (and quite probably other groups of enemies), build siege weapons when they hold a town, and then use said weapons to take their other towns, i see no reason why they wouldn't eventually think "Hey that divinity's reach over yander sure looks perty... we got everything else here why not just take that one there too?"

I also think it'd be great that the more cities that enemies control (that were originally yours) would give everyone a Demoralization debuff that'd decrease your effectiveness overall.

[airea]

HOWEVER, centaurs, along with other sentient races IE grawl, bandits, etc. Aren't content with having just 1 city and will begin spreading, and if not dealt with, will likely control an entire zone where you can't use ANY of those waypoints, now to a lot of people that could become an issue. ESPECIALLY if those waypoints were near a point of interest IE an instance, or a good mining spot.

I really hope, what you said will someday actually happen. Cause hell, centaurs (and quite probably other groups of enemies), build siege weapons when they hold a town, and then use said weapons to take their other towns, i see no reason why they wouldn't eventually think "Hey that divinity's reach over yander sure looks perty... we got everything else here why not just take that one there too?"

I also think it'd be great that the more cities that enemies control (that were originally yours) would give everyone a Demoralization debuff that'd decrease your effectiveness overall.

Exactly. Also, that last idea you had about a demo. debuff is great. That'd really get people motivated. In all honesty, I think it'd be fun to ignore them for a month, then unleash hell with my guild all across the continent; taking back our homeland and ravaging the enemy bases ^_^

[Questar]

another potential problem is that in high activity/population servers, it may be more probable for players to stop a DE cycle at say point A or B than let the DE cycle all the way to point point E. maybe there is a rare point Z that no one will get to experience because everyone is stopping the centaurs too early.

[airea]

another potential problem is that in high activity/population servers, it may be more probable for players to stop a DE cycle at say point A or B than let the DE cycle all the way to point point E. maybe there is a rare point Z that no one will get to experience because everyone is stopping the centaurs too early.

I have the same worry... However, if A-Net has done a good job of making the events difficult enough, this shouldn't be a problem. We won't truly know until the game hits the shelves, but if the DE difficulty is imbalanced, I'm sure they'll fix it to where it's engaging and actually offers incentives to work hard at finishing them off.

[Questar]

I have the same worry... However, if A-Net has done a good job of making the events difficult enough, this shouldn't be a problem. We won't truly know until the game hits the shelves, but if the DE difficulty is imbalanced, I'm sure they'll fix it to where it's engaging and actually offers incentives to work hard at finishing them off.

hmm yes this could be a good solution: make the early steps in a DE hard enough so the probability of it cycling all the way from point A to Z is very high.
then it means players would be faced with failures after failures at point A to Y lol. it may not be a bad thing as the players would be more determined in the final step for revenge.

[Durzlla]

another potential problem is that in high activity/population servers, it may be more probable for players to stop a DE cycle at say point A or B than let the DE cycle all the way to point point E. maybe there is a rare point Z that no one will get to experience because everyone is stopping the centaurs too early.

Although i am hoping very much the events will be hard and will be able to curbstomp people into the dust so the centaurs begin to actually take over, Anet had said that the events tend to have a more exciting turn when you succeed then when you fail. They said they did this because they didn't want a ton of people just standing by cities watching them burn so you could do the cool event lol. It was in their Reddit interview i believe so it's pretty recent info as well!!

[Acquiesce of Telara]

another potential problem is that in high activity/population servers, it may be more probable for players to stop a DE cycle at say point A or B than let the DE cycle all the way to point point E. maybe there is a rare point Z that no one will get to experience because everyone is stopping the centaurs too early.

This was (kind of) address during the Reddit Q&A:

Question #190:

"In regards to Dynamic events, What stops a group of players always winning the event (ie: defending a town) and never being able to experience past the first part of the event chain? I realise the point is to keep the town or place safe but I'd love to be able to experience the whole chain! btw - I really admire your commitment to quality. It's so rare and very admirable "

Answer:

"This is one of the more tricky things about event design we careful make sure each event is designed in way that the failure of the event is not more exciting then the success. For example if a Krait witch summons something big bad an evil if you don't do x you might just sit around and let her do bad things just so you can see the event. So we're really careful to make sure all players goals align with each other. We also expect our content to be different when you play it again it's why going and helping a buddy play in a map or playing another character is a lot more fun because it may be something you haven't seen before. So we really try and layer a lot of different style of events pacing and difficulty. ~Izzy"

Basically, don't bother trying to force an event to last into another stage. While you're waiting hours for Stage 3 to occur, there's a Stage 4 even occuring somewhere else at the same time. You're not exactly a fresh alt in Elwynn Forest wishing you could be doing Molten Front dailies. There's nothing stopping you from going where you want (for the most part).

You can find a cleaned up summary of the Reddit Q&A at http://www.guildwars2guru.com/forum/...rs-t24688.html

[airea]

Basically, don't bother trying to force an event to last into another stage. While you're waiting hours for Stage 3 to occur, there's a Stage 4 even occuring somewhere else at the same time. You're not exactly a fresh alt in Elwynn Forest wishing you could be doing Molten Front dailies. There's nothing stopping you from going where you want (for the most part).

This is true, but I think what we're saying is, wha's making event stage 4 happen somewhere else? We're worried about them all being too easy, and all getting stopped within stage 1-2. I don't want to sit around waiting for stage 3 to come, I want to try my best and get my ass handed to me on the occasion. There's no point in saying there's A-X amount of content when it's so easy all you ever experience is A-O. You know?

[Acquiesce of Telara]

This is true, but I think what we're saying is, wha's making event stage 4 happen somewhere else? We're worried about them all being too easy, and all getting stopped within stage 1-2. I don't want to sit around waiting for stage 3 to come, I want to try my best and get my ass handed to me on the occasion. There's no point in saying there's A-X amount of content when it's so easy all you ever experience is A-O. You know?

Well, keep in mind, there's actually 2 sets of stages; the path of success and the path of failure.

Path of Success: A band of centaurs is approaching, stop them! -> Where did they come from? let's find the source -> Hey, they're lead by this boss guy, kill him.

Path of Failure: A band of centaurs is approaching, stop them! > Oops, protect the farmers! > Shit! Take back the farm > Oh fuck, we're doomed.


I don't know if failure events will really lead to say, taking over an entire region, or DE mobs attacking a separate DE mob group, but Anet says the system is built to handle that possibility.

Success in Region A doesn't mean things are going well in Region B, it all depends on the population spread. If 30 players amass for one event, that's 30 people not handling 1-10 other events in the area. Somethings bound to be failing somewhere. There may be a Path of Failure at stage 4 elsewhere, so you can work the entire 7 part DE chain from "Oh fuck" to "Kill the boss".


(Note: Path of Success and Path of Failure are not official names in any way.)

[jayremy]

As long as there is different shit to do often, not just cyclical repetition, its fine. Achieving this through frequent updates or build in game timers with random "next steps" or what have you that will eventually get updated with more new stuff to occur on existing areas or new ones.

Really its all about the follow up, if they can keep up with bringing "new" to the game and never letting it feel old or having the feeling of being done before too many times. Thing I hate about WoW and its lore, particularly the PvP aspect and PvP based lore there can be no progression. You end up with no real "good guys" to play as and are often contributing to a problem violently. No side can progress, there is no real obtainable goal of peace or success, just one step into the game of more BS that comes up.


I see this as a problem in SWTOR, you go republic only to not really fight them as THE enemy and accomplish total peace, your just beating around the bush pretending to be somewhere like simultaneous friends and enemies. Empire is supposed to be total evil, they come back and bring war, I want to kill/push them back entirely! The same goes as a Sith or empire, I would just want to see them destroyed and rule the system through anarchy and ruthlessness.