Originally posted by fenistil

All those markets and pop-ups are big factor contributing to players behaviour.    People just follow and will follow path of least resistance (follow markets, gps, etc).    Another contributin factor is that almost all events are changing things only for a very short while, they are repeating often and in this regard they are similar to abdunance of fast short quests in other themeparks.

 

So no - bahaviour of huge majority of players will not change.    For it to change game enviroment would have to be diffrent and basically would have to force them to act difftent which in turn would drive off big amount of players.

that's the big one I feel ANET had to decide when making this game.. how can they juggle DE's with a themepark style game. I said this in a couple other threads but say all DE's had much more "lasting" effects and what happens when you miss that big event where a dragon rampaged through a zone and destroyed half of it. People would be PISSED they didn't get to witness that epic battle. So it's a trade off and something they probably struggled with.. How do you make events feel natural but make it so the most amount of people playing the game can enjoy them.

Oh...another "your all just playing the game wrong" threads.

DE's are still boring after the honeymoon period with ANY game that uses them.  Telling people they are "doing it wrong" isnt going to change DE's mechanically so that they are actually entertaining.

Some people refuse to accept the game for what it is...and are still grasping on to all the hype they created.

Originally posted by redman875

Oh...another "your all just playing the game wrong" threads.

DE's are still boring after the honeymoon period with ANY game that uses them.  Telling people they are "doing it wrong" isnt going to change DE's mechanically so that they are actually entertaining.

 

Some people refuse to accept the game for what it is...and are still grasping on to all the hype they created.

thanks for not watching the video and adding nothing to the thread.. video isn't saying you are "doing it wrong" sorry if that's the impression you got. It's there to help people get a perspective of how DE's chain and work because not everyone is aware of this.

Originally posted by redman875

Oh...another "your all just playing the game wrong" threads.

DE's are still boring after the honeymoon period with ANY game that uses them.  Telling people they are "doing it wrong" isnt going to change DE's mechanically so that they are actually entertaining.

 

Some people refuse to accept the game for what it is...and are still grasping on to all the hype they created.

Might want to watch the video and read what people actually are saying in this topic, you kinda look like your talking at the walls right now.

Originally posted by Aerowyn

Originally posted by MindTrigger

Originally posted by Purutzil
They chain, but some just aren't really worth bothering with thechain. I just feel that they aren't all that productive and interesting to bother with. There are some that do well, but doing it a feel times cheepens the feel. I honestly just don't find the DE that interesting, just there for quick exp and gold and perhaps some awesome loot for world events.

Funny thing about those world events.  I've been playing for a month, and I'm at level 60 now.  I've only ever seen one large world event, and it was back when I first started.  Either they are extremely rare, or I've managed to miss all of them despite playing a lot.

so far every single zone I have been in has 2 in each zone.. usually on differn't ends of the zone.. you can tell you are near one by the text on the top right of the screen it will read something like "Everything is Quite" or something else if the event is going on.. seems like you have missed a lot:) will make alts not as boring while though:P

Sure your alt can have a different storyline, and maybe not run the same DE's. But the Hearts, Vistas, PoI etc... are all the same, just like in every other MMO. Alt's will be mind numbing in an extreme fashion, SWTOR was worse, WoW was better. 

Back on topic. Trying to take GW2 slowly, but god's if you stub your toe you level.  I have tried to finish every map I level in, so at L72 on my Necro now with ~40% map completion, have Tailoring to 400, Artificing to 391. Just how much more slowly can I take GW2? Any slower and I would be in a coma, lol.

Lately I have been running into a LOT of broken DE's, broken SP's and missing NPC's. (Is it REALLY necessary to have a vendor chase mobs far from its normal point??)  Escorts that won't move, mobs going Invulnerable mid combat, these and other things can rapidly raise the frustration level and ruin the fun.

Originally posted by CyclopsSlay

Originally posted by Aerowyn

Originally posted by MindTrigger

Originally posted by Purutzil
They chain, but some just aren't really worth bothering with thechain. I just feel that they aren't all that productive and interesting to bother with. There are some that do well, but doing it a feel times cheepens the feel. I honestly just don't find the DE that interesting, just there for quick exp and gold and perhaps some awesome loot for world events.

Funny thing about those world events.  I've been playing for a month, and I'm at level 60 now.  I've only ever seen one large world event, and it was back when I first started.  Either they are extremely rare, or I've managed to miss all of them despite playing a lot.

so far every single zone I have been in has 2 in each zone.. usually on differn't ends of the zone.. you can tell you are near one by the text on the top right of the screen it will read something like "Everything is Quite" or something else if the event is going on.. seems like you have missed a lot:) will make alts not as boring while though:P

Sure your alt can have a different storyline, and maybe not run the same DE's. But the Hearts, Vistas, PoI etc... are all the same, just like in every other MMO. Alt's will be mind numbing in an extreme fashion, SWTOR was worse, WoW was better. 

Back on topic. Trying to take GW2 slowly, but god's if you stub your toe you level.  I have tried to finish every map I level in, so at L72 on my Necro now with ~40% map completion, have Tailoring to 400, Artificing to 391. Just how much more slowly can I take GW2? Any slower and I would be in a coma, lol.

 

Lately I have been running into a LOT of broken DE's, broken SP's and missing NPC's. (Is it REALLY necessary to have a vendor chase mobs far from its normal point??)  Escorts that won't move, mobs going Invulnerable mid combat, these and other things can rapidly raise the frustration level and ruin the fun.

i have several alts already and it's the best alt leveling experience I have had in a MMO because of how the event system works.. also wanted to comment on bugs I have had several events recently people thought were bugged but were not.. obviously there are bugs out there but one example is the gargatua spider in Harathi. The spider goes invulnerable and spawns a bunch of baby spiders then heals to full.. he actually does this 3 times before he will fall. Now I saw several people get fed up and leave after the second time because they thought it was bugged. Another example is in Lornars Pass there is a SP you reach from a cave. If you look at the map it looks like its inside a mountain.. You can run all over the mountain and even a level below but nothing is there.. I saw a couple people complain the SP was probably bugged. I then later found a ways down south was a cave enterance that led to the SP.. again obviously some events and SPs will have bugs but so far I have only ran into a couple.

Originally posted by Aerowyn

Originally posted by fenistil

All those markets and pop-ups are big factor contributing to players behaviour.    People just follow and will follow path of least resistance (follow markets, gps, etc).    Another contributin factor is that almost all events are changing things only for a very short while, they are repeating often and in this regard they are similar to abdunance of fast short quests in other themeparks.

 

So no - bahaviour of huge majority of players will not change.    For it to change game enviroment would have to be diffrent and basically would have to force them to act difftent which in turn would drive off big amount of players.

that's the big one I feel ANET had to decide when making this game.. how can they juggle DE's with a themepark style game. I said this in a couple other threads but say all DE's had much more "lasting" effects and what happens when you miss that big event where a dragon rampaged through a zone and destroyed half of it. People would be PISSED they didn't get to witness that epic battle. So it's a trade off and something they probably struggled with.. How do you make events feel natural but make it so the most amount of people playing the game can enjoy them.

Of course it was design decison that had to be made and propably quite early because things like that decide how whole game will look like. To some degree even it's mechanics, how world / znones are designed, how progression is made and so on.

If you go for less "directing" players, less hand-holding. Make a game so people can miss things just because, or because they haven't been figuring things out, haven't been focused enough and so on and basically reward them for that with universal substantial things (in rpg's progress) then you will have more attentive, more cooperating, taking things slower playerbase.  They would do that because in order to progress and complete things they would have to do it.

Of course by going that route you propably get smaller playerbase numbers especially initial one.

Don't get me wrong I am NOT advocating GW2 to change. I am just saying you cannot require what you require from players that either are not interested in lore, story and figuring things out by themself (group 1) or from players that are task oriented that will figure things out and not rush through content only or mainly if they can earn something substantial from it progress wise or that they have to behave like that.  

Players that take things slow and are attentive ONLY to experience more story or another event - there is not much players like that.  

Originally posted by MindTrigger

Originally posted by smh_alot

Originally posted by grimal
See, you can argue this point for ANY MMO.  I don't see how this is limited to GW2.

Only partially true. In contrast with other MMO's in GW2, and this is what Galen in the YT vid was referring to, when you stick around longer after a DE has finished, you'll find out that the DE sequence isn't really finished, but that a next DE will be triggered by the ending of the former one, and another one after that. A chain of related DE's you might have missed if you just rushed off. Not always ofc, but it pays off to stick around a while longer after a DE has finished.

Seems to me that a simple solution is to stop clearing the DE notifcation off the screen when the stage is completed.  That way people will know it's still going....

Makes perfect sense that people would move on if they don't know any better, especially if it's taking minutes for the next stage to start.

Haha the NPCs will be holding a conversation, and anyone with minimal reasoning capabilities will see that the conversation is heading towards another quest. Of course most folks don't finish DEs in order to see NPCs talk (who cares about dialogue!!!), so they bolt off. I personally enjoy most of their conversations.

Originally posted by Aerowyn

Originally posted by Ginaz

Originally posted by Aerowyn

Originally posted by nate1980
I understand some DE's are like this, but I've personally experienced many that aren't. Many are just escort, gather or whatever DE"s. Take the Genderren zone for example, or Kessix Hills. Both have events that happen almost like clockwork (predictable), and they're rather short. 

it is true not all DE's are branching or chain starting other events.. this can be an issue as people may see this and figure most are lke this then not stick around.. in my experience a good % do chain though so I find it's always worth at least following the npc's around

Having some sort of indicator that there is another chain in the DE would be useful IMO.

not a bad idea.. would surely keep people from wandering off.. guess they could keep the DE indicator going over the npcs head when he is going to chain into another event.. guess they wanted to make it more natural feeling I suppose.

I trully prefer how it is done now.

GW2 was designed without hearts in the first place...and probably with a lot less of "hand holding" through the game....

I know some ppl (me included) need time to change the chip and forget about how we´re been playing MMOS lately...

But i really believe that "lack" of ads pumping in your screens telling you what to do next.... It´s a PLUS!

It´s also a guarantee of a good replayability since everytime you play or go through an area you can discover something you missed before for not paying that much attention. That would be lost with pumping adds....

I would love to see future expansions with new areas "hearts- free" & no hand holding...a bit like in Orr.

Originally posted by CyclopsSlay

Sure your alt can have a different storyline, and maybe not run the same DE's. But the Hearts, Vistas, PoI etc... are all the same, just like in every other MMO. Alt's will be mind numbing in an extreme fashion, SWTOR was worse, WoW was better.

You can easily play 2, maybe 3, different character for most of the game without crossing over into the same maps, unless your original character went and explored most everything. SWTOR hurt.

I think a simple fix would just be to add some indication that there are more steps in a chain. I personally think that the quest text for the DE should tell you what step you are on in a chain.  For example, you could just add a (Chain 2/4) or even just (2/4) at the end of the text that would tell people that they are on the second stage of a four-part chain. 

I am one of the players who finds it hard to find DE's. I only had 15k Karma when I hit level 80 yesterday despite having 61% Map Completion. I will admit that I spend a lot of time running around exploring and completing zones rather than standing in one place but even so I should have encountered far more DE's than I did. I find that I usually spend 10-15 minutes running around looking for a DE and then 2 minutes actually doing one (usually because I happen across it halfway through). I have done some fun chains (Foulbear Kraal in Fields of Ruin probably being my favorite) but not nearly enough. 

On Ehmry Bay, Gandarron Fields, 2 SP's, the underwater one with Willo/Millo, as well the one at the Lumbermill near Vigil Keep, did them both on my Ranger a few weeks ago, both have been awol for a week now. Sparkfly Fen,  the underwater Shark SP sharks get stuck and won't become attackable, couldn't get it to start then an hour later it worked fine then another hour later people were shouting it was busted again.

Then the invuln troubles are with regular mobs, much of the game is on hill slopes, yet occasionaly a slight Z axis difference and the mob goes Invuln and resets, well partially resets.

No game is perfect, much as it may want to claim it is :) but things like these issues that get reported and no comment is forthcoming are a bit disheartening.

As well, couldn't they have found a better solution to some bugged item dropping than "That content is currently Disabled..."

Originally posted by CyclopsSlay

On Ehmry Bay, Gandarron Fields, 2 SP's, the underwater one with Willo/Millo, as well the one at the Lumbermill near Vigil Keep, did them both on my Ranger a few weeks ago, both have been awol for a week now. Sparkfly Fen,  the underwater Shark SP sharks get stuck and won't become attackable, couldn't get it to start then an hour later it worked fine then another hour later people were shouting it was busted again.

Then the invuln troubles are with regular mobs, much of the game is on hill slopes, yet occasionaly a slight Z axis difference and the mob goes Invuln and resets, well partially resets.

 

No game is perfect, much as it may want to claim it is :) but things like these issues that get reported and no comment is forthcoming are a bit disheartening.

As well, couldn't they have found a better solution to some bugged item dropping than "That content is currently Disabled..."

There are  lot of bugged SPs now and DEs are starting to get worse too. I think a big part of it is they have pulled back from their launch mentality and staffing so they haven't been patching as frequently which means the servers don't reset as often which makes the bugs stick around for much longer than they did a couple weeks ago when they were patching everyday.

That people don't stick around to watch the NPC talk runs counter to the going theory that players want storyline and themepark in MMOs.

So with all due respect to the video producer and supporters, no we're not playing it wrong. The simple scripted AI isn't a challenge, the stories are mostly boring, and the themepark world that you have only a mild and temporary influence over isn't interesting.  For that we can watch a movie, and not bother with all the meaninless typing and clicking.

You know what I think would help a lot?  If GW2 offered an event chain completion bonus.  It may be sad to some that such a bonus would be necessary to lure some people to play through whole chains, but I believe it is necessary nonetheless.

I think you can divide players into 3 categories in this regard: those who completely take their time and immerse themselves in the story while levleing, those who have learned to view it as "leveling" and, thus, only see events as a means to an end, and those who fall somewhere in between, who may want to enjoy the story of events, but who feel tugged away from the slower parts of dialogue by the lure of faster exp or events that are going on NOW elsewhere.  

For the second type of player, you'll never get them to stop and absorb the story.  And that's fine.  They will play the game how they enjoy it.  But for the 3rd group of people, adding a somewhat substantial chain completion bonus would help incentivize them to continue to seek out the next step in a potential chain, rather than rush onward to a new area.   

Originally posted by Homitu

You know what I think would help a lot?  If GW2 offered an event chain completion bonus.  It may be sad to some that such a bonus would be necessary to lure some people to play through whole chains, but I believe it is necessary nonetheless.

I think you can divide players into 3 categories in this regard: those who completely take their time and immerse themselves in the story while levleing, those who have learned to view it as "leveling" and, thus, only see events as a means to an end, and those who fall somewhere in between, who may want to enjoy the story of events, but who feel tugged away from the slower parts of dialogue by the lure of faster exp or events that are going on NOW elsewhere.  

For the second type of player, you'll never get them to stop and absorb the story.  And that's fine.  They will play the game how they enjoy it.  But for the 3rd group of people, adding a somewhat substantial chain completion bonus would help incentivize them to continue to seek out the next step in a potential chain, rather than rush onward to a new area.   

not a bad idea:) think a lot of the issues are they are trying to cater to both sides of the fence on this issue but obviously not enough on each it seems.. me personally would love to of played it before they even added the hearts into the game.. but if they didn't have the hearts many people would probably be going crazy about not being able to find quests to do and such.

There is a LOT more to the game if people stop to listen to the NPCs around them talking and then follow them. Found quite a few new events this way.

It may give that quest type feel to some of the people who feel the game lacks it. 

Originally posted by solarine

As for the "lack of indication" of upcoming chain steps...

That's actually one of the few things I like about DEs. GW2 is much too UI heavy (as in, full of indicators) in the first place, and this one feature always seemed to be one of the more "natural" elements of the game to me. I think it's more immersive this way, and it keeps some sense of mystery (which is good for storytelling).

Also, it encourages you to pay attention to what's going on in the world, rather than the UI. Which is good, right? :)

 

A problem is that GW2 wants to eat the cake but keep it too. It would have been better if they had focused on one paradigm and made an extensive tutorial. For instance, they could have removed almost all markers on the map for all players and instead make an extensive tutorial about how exploration can look like and how a DE and discovering its other "hidden" parts can look like.  But, since they didn't have the balls to go that path, they have this messy compromise instead.