47 replies to this topic

[GrandmaFunk]

Hep, on 13 July 2012 - 05:54 AM, said:

With that stuff in mind, how will Anet balance that fact that it will be flat-out easier to proceed with a large population?

how did you obtain this "fact"?  seems a lot more like an assumption.

Events scale, there's probably a sweet spot in active player pop where a given event is as it's lowest relative difficulty. However that really does not mean that 'more' automatically means 'easier', at some point you will hit diminishing returns.

[Krazzar]

nosscire, on 13 July 2012 - 02:49 PM, said:

ANet already received allot of complaints about the system being too difficult to understand. Even with the fairly simple system they have at lower levels, people are confused. Don't understand differences between hearts and events, or how events move forward and backwards.
Thats probably why they figured that if people are already having problems, lets keep it as simple as possible.

I couldn't count the number of times people ran off at the end of an event because they thought it was finished only to miss an entire event chain. The danger is that people think they know how things work and speak with great authority when they are clearly wrong.

[fr0st2k]

nosscire, on 13 July 2012 - 02:49 PM, said:

ANet already received allot of complaints about the system being too difficult to understand. Even with the fairly simple system they have at lower levels, people are confused. Don't understand differences between hearts and events, or how events move forward and backwards.
Thats probably why they figured that if people are already having problems, lets keep it as simple as possible.

As one poster commented, it might be better to create a topic on this rather than derail this (although this thread seems to have been answered).

However, i believe its more complex due to the simplicity behind it (yes i realize the irony).  The developers specifically acknowledged how difficult it is to build a dynamic event.  It seems that they simply aren't that good at it it.  I think the system has the ability to do amazing thing, but i just haven't seen it yet.  

The dynamic events in lower level areas simply don't make sense.  They have no flow, they appear randomly, they end abruptly, the quest tracker is poorly described.  

Dynamic events should almost certainly have a different quest tracker than renown/heart quests and personal story.

[Iron Legionnaire]

Your complaints have reached the point after which you should just go ahead and make your own game.

[Hep]

GrandmaFunk, on 13 July 2012 - 02:58 PM, said:

how did you obtain this "fact"?  seems a lot more like an assumption.

Events scale, there's probably a sweet spot in active player pop where a given event is as it's lowest relative difficulty. However that really does not mean that 'more' automatically means 'easier', at some point you will hit diminishing returns.

Well, as I stated, this isn't about finishing a particular event. It's that, in order to progress, it's assumed there are a lot of events that must be at a success state before moving on, ie, event webs. This is different from event chains in that chains have a single "tug of war" point. The battlefront is at that single point. With event webs, there are a bunch of battlefronts, and when you leave to attack one point, that point you just left is open to being taken back by NPCs, necessitating that point being capped again.

[justaguy]

There will be times when I just log on and rush over to see who else is taking Orr, but for the most part, I will be bringing the population with me - in the form of my guild.

If things go the way I think they will, my plan for "Orr Assault Nights" with the guild will go something like this:

1. Scouting phase: send small teams to all of the island ingress points to see what other groups are doing and where assistance is most needed.
2. Forward Assault: Group up and take the beach point we determine during scouting.
3. Interior Recon: While keeping a defensive unit at the beach, we'll send in recon teams to see which objectives on the main island still need to be taken.
4. Main Assault: Depending on the nature of the objectives and how many other guilds/players will be participating on said nights, we will probably break into smaller assault groups to take the various temples and work our way toward the final objective, where we will group up to take on whatever penultimate challenge the game provides (outside of the dungeon).
5. Defensive Stand: If needed (and part of the design), we will defend the points we take for a preset amount of time.


The key to keeping this fresh will be rotating with other activities on nights we arent doing Orr - dominating lower level zones (downscaling), WvW, minigames, sPVP guild tournaments, etc.

[Mr_Finesse]

My fear is that when I get to Orr for the first time, my server will have already decimated everything in it's path to secure the dungeon and I won't get to experience that scenario raw for the first time.

[Hep]

Mr_Finesse, on 13 July 2012 - 04:11 PM, said:

My fear is that when I get to Orr for the first time, my server will have already decimated everything in it's path to secure the dungeon and I won't get to experience that scenario raw for the first time.

Yeah, that's the other side of the coin. If the entire event web is constantly held at a success state, how will you experience earlier parts of the web if you weren't there the first time? My guess would be some type of server reset coinciding with the reset of WvW.

[FoxBat]

Hep, on 13 July 2012 - 04:17 PM, said:

Yeah, that's the other side of the coin. If the entire event web is constantly held at a success state, how will you experience earlier parts of the web if you weren't there the first time?

People do go to sleep. It's unlikely all those events will still succeed in the dead hours.

Edited by FoxBat, 13 July 2012 - 04:21 PM.

[fr0st2k]

Hep, on 13 July 2012 - 04:17 PM, said:

Yeah, that's the other side of the coin. If the entire event web is constantly held at a success state, how will you experience earlier parts of the web if you weren't there the first time? My guess would be some type of server reset coinciding with the reset of WvW.

It would make sense to increase the difficulty of 'succeeding' over time.  Making it eventually ramp up to insurmountable odds where you are destined to fail.

It would be like tetris, as it gets faster and faster the higher level you are.  However, in this event, the levels are merely times you succeed, and fastness is the amount of enemies and enemy strength.

I can stay on lvl 30 of tetris for a long time, but it requires undisturbed attention and concentration.

Iron Legionnaire, on 13 July 2012 - 03:09 PM, said:

Your complaints have reached the point after which you should just go ahead and make your own game.

you are like an annoying bug that follows me everywhere.  I don't hate GW2...it just makes no sense to praise it like an ignorant fanboy(there are plenty of them on this board already) when there are clearly problems I want to raise. Its up to whoever reads it to decide if they want to address it or not.  If not, then go away.

[anzenketh]

Hep, on 13 July 2012 - 04:17 PM, said:

Yeah, that's the other side of the coin. If the entire event web is constantly held at a success state, how will you experience earlier parts of the web if you weren't there the first time? My guess would be some type of server reset coinciding with the reset of WvW.

That server reset is going to happen naturally on off-peak times. Thus my comment about not wanting to wake up early in the morning. Perhaps also the fact that they have population limits and Worlds instead of just districts as in Guild Wars 1 also solves this issue. In Guild Wars 1 favor was determined by more then just the district.

[Tarranoth]

You can always go to the lower populated servers (guesting) and try to do the events there.

[justaguy]

Mr_Finesse, on 13 July 2012 - 04:11 PM, said:

My fear is that when I get to Orr for the first time, my server will have already decimated everything in it's path to secure the dungeon and I won't get to experience that scenario raw for the first time.

Being able to guest to other servers will offset this some. If done on the scale they are indicating, chances are good that at least one server will see the zone fairly fresh at any given time.

fr0st2k, on 13 July 2012 - 04:26 PM, said:

It would make sense to increase the difficulty of 'succeeding' over time.  Making it eventually ramp up to insurmountable odds where you are destined to fail.

This is an awesome ideal. It would make for some pretty epic nights. This is an area where the ongoing development team could have serious impact on the game as well - adding more and more encounters to the experience chain.

You should post this in the recommendations forums.

[Hep]

FoxBat, on 13 July 2012 - 04:21 PM, said:

People do go to sleep. It's unlikely all those events will still succeed in the dead hours.

It's plausible they will fail based upon not people hitting them, but you'd be surprised with the tenacity of players. In Shadowbane, you could siege your enemy's city. There were some that lasted for days, weeks even. I think it's not that unlikely to see a similar tenacity in GW2.

Edited by Hep, 13 July 2012 - 04:59 PM.

[Dace]

I don't think this will be a problem. There is a cap on players in the map and we know Orr has around twice as many DEs than other areas. With DE webs, this means that there will probably not be enough players to cover every DE that happens regardless of map population. At some point, a DE will fail and get pushed back along it's chain. Instead of waiting around for one DE to reset to keep it in the success position, these other DEs will draw the attention of players allowing the previously succeeded event to be pushed back.

If earlier content is any indication, some of the DEs will start in out of the way areas giving less of a chance for players to push it back in the early stages. Also, if you do indeed need to complete some DEs to get easier access to the dungeon in the area, most people will do it so they can go to the dungeon. Once easy access to the dungeon is obtained players will actually start doing the dungeon thus remove players from the map making completion of all the DEs even less likely.

Low population on the map is probably the base level and only gets scaled up from there and the web system seems more like multiple paths to the same goal meaning you don't need groups on each section to succeed to access the next area (although it might help). Those combined makes me think the low population servers will still be able to complete content just as well as the high population servers.

[DeadlyMist]

I don't like this one bit...
Lets say I get to high lvl faster then any1 else, so A-net is penalizing me for investing time in their game.. by saying I can't finish Orr without relying on others. Even though their philosophy has always said its okay to solo and play alone?

[justaguy]

DeadlyMist, on 13 July 2012 - 05:36 PM, said:

I don't like this one bit...
Lets say I get to high lvl faster then any1 else, so A-net is penalizing me for investing time in their game.. by saying I can't finish Orr without relying on others. Even though their philosophy has always said its okay to solo and play alone?

I wouldnt freak out just yet. We have next to no details about what Orr will play like. It is very possible (probable) there will be plenty of soloable content there as well.

We just dont know yet.

And, I am sure the metaevents in the zone will work the same way they do everywhere else - you wont have to group with anyone to actually participate.

[carralpha]

Fighting through three PvE zones sounds like a whole lot of fun, although I can understand why there'd be concerns about the scaling. Lots of DEs in the betas had problems with their scaling (many being imposssible to solo or a pushover in a zerg). But with server guesting you can choose what experience you want: on a low-population server you get to fight your way through the zones and take the temples, while on high-population servers you have easier access to Arah and can also work to defend the temples.

It's worth keeping in mind that everyone from level 70 to level 80 will be able to contribute in some way to taking or holding Orr (since the first Orr zone is 70-75 and the second is 75-80), so I reckon that in almost all cases you'd have a large enough group of players active in the server that (with a little coordination) all the content would be available without much hindrance. If the server population was so low you'd have problems in Orr, the server is also likely to have bigger problems in WvW, and in that case it'd probably be worth merging the server or allowing character migration to raise the population.