Feedback:User/Darke/Failing Quests and Dynamic Events

This may or may not already be the plan for dynamic events and quests, but here is my interpretation. Forgive the names and generic scenarios, but I'm brainstorming.

Player reaches Town and discovers the local temple desecrated and a Relic stolen. The chief monk frets and worries about the situation, before Player offers to search for the relic, or declines to search for it. If the player accepts, read to option B, if the player declines, read to option A.

Option A: Decline: Player will not be able to utilize this temple's services until the relic is returned.

Option B: Accept: Player embarks on a standard seeming quest to retrieve the relic from a shack on the edge of a swamp, where a Corrupted Djinn intends to use the relic to form a stronger bond with hidden deities/beings/power.

IF Player enters the quest area, a hidden timer (one that Player cannot see) starts counting down. If Player retrieves the relic within a certain amount of time, and kills the Djinn, upon returning the relic to the temple, Favour of the Gods is granted alongside the normal rewards. If Player returns within the same set of time without killing the Djinn (I.E Fleeing) the normal reward is given, but there is a chance they will face the Djinn again in the swamp, and the Favour will also not be granted.

IF however, the relic is not returned within a certain amount of time, the Gods' focus will be lost from the temple, and the temples services will be unavailable for a short while, however, the normal rewards will be given.

IF the relic is not removed from the Djinn within a certain amount of, players will be forced to fight the Djinn, which will also be more powerful. [Cutscene to show Djinn evolving from standard foe to boss type, possibly some fancy graphics here]

IF Player spends too long in the timed area or IF they are killed by the Djinn, they will be subject to an area effect, possibly a whiff of Dragon Corruption Breath [more cutscenes ^_^ ], and will fall unconscious. NOTE: this is intended to be used for multiple quests, not just the one described above and can obviously be made to vary greatly.

[Example Cutscene] Player is kidnapped by a creature who is the upcoming Boss, and dragged through the marsh.

Player awakens to find themselves in a cell, without their weapons and weapon skills, however replaced with environment interaction skills such as "Pick lock".

Upon exiting the cell, Player can choose to assist other escapees, which can be both NPC AND other players, however, the game should disguise all people so that Player cannot discriminate. Public Chat should also be disabled, on grounds of "stealth".

From here on, Escapee is used to reference both NPCs and players. NPC AI should encompass each possibility and use a random choice selector, maybe even a dynamic percentage of choices based on frequency of player choices.

IF Player assists other Escapees in exiting their cells, they become an ally. When Player is satisfied they may move on. Allied players and NPCs are still not revealed, but may try to assist others in escaping, may attempt to proceed by themselves, or may stay with/follow Player.

Timing is of the essence to Escapees. A Patrol of warped creatures patrols the area, and Escapees must attempt to hide in alcoves to get past these Patrols. If a Patrol spots the Escapee(s) directly (Patrols are unaggressive, but have a forward facing line of sight) they will be returned to their cells

At this point, Escapees may either attempt to grab their equipment back, or attempt to knock the Patrols unconscious to assist other Escapees, or both. Knocking a Patrol unconscious will require grabbing a rock and creeping up behind the Patrol.

Fights lasting longer than 1 minute with any Patrol will trigger the alarm, and any escapees in the immediate area will "fail", and be sent back to their cells.

Escapees without their equipment are now free to get their equipment. Escapees with equipment are free to move on.

Escapees staying behind can repeat any of the above steps in terms of helping other Escapees, knocking Patrols unconscious, and lock-picking cell doors.

FOR ESCAPEES THAT CHOOSE TO ADVANCE: INSTANCE: People may join this Instance from either of two spawn points, one as Escapees, and another which will be described later on in this suggestion.

From here onwards, players and NPCs are revealed as who they are, but are unable to return to the cell block. Player encounters a cutscene. [Cutscene: Player throws two rocks, knocking out two Patrols and stealing a map from an unconscious Patrol, before slinking away]. Player can now choose to read the map, but this will prevent them from attacking for four seconds should they be interrupted. All Escapees may now band together as they wish, and talk to NPCs to form sub-parties, or indeed, one big party. Aggressive Patrols will spawn and respawn every minute (based on the number of people in the instance), at which point, Escapees should be prepared to fight their way towards an exit. Escapees may still move freely as a team or split into soloers with different objectives. Team and Public chat re-enabled. Teams may choose to clear all Aggressive Patrols in search of loot, fight towards an exit, or attempt to take on the Boss of the dungeon. The Boss may appear in any one of 5 potential Boss Rooms which should be equidistant from the instance start points.

The Boss cannot be killed per se, when he is at low enough health, he will teleport to a different Boss Room, and anyone who dealt the boss damage will have a percentage to receive an item. As such, people are not waiting on Boss spawns. Percentage of receiving a rare item should be scaled on the following:

A) How much damage was dealt to the boss B) How many skills where used to aid the boss fight C) How many people Player helped rescue D) How many Patrols were knocked unconscious/killed

People may choose of course, to simply escape. They will not receive a boss item if they left before The Mrog reached low enough health to teleport. All successful Escapees will receive an experience/gold reward depending on combat effectiveness within the dungeon, how many people were aided, and how many Patrols were knocked out/killed, upon exiting this dungeon.

Players may then return to complete/abandon their quest, or call for: The Rescuers.

Rescuers are bands of people from inside a town or city that willingly travel to a dungeon in order to raid it, for experience, loot, boss kills, or simply to help anyone escape from the dungeon. They may partake in the fighting, and may even hand themselves over to the Patrol office (located near the Rescue spawn point) to be thrown into the cells. They are however, on a time limit, to prevent camping, the time limit should be visible. They have 15 minutes to kill as many enemies/help as many Escapees as possible.

IF the Rescuers in a group die, they cannot be resurrected by Escapees, and will become Escapees inside a cell themselves (Timer ends).

After the timer is up, a cutscene begins, where the Rescuer(s) is(are) shown being driven out of the dungeon by Patrols if they did not die (and become Escapees). They will receive an experience/gold reward, and will also gain a reputation reward in a potential "Rescuer" Title Track

OVERALL RISKS/BENEFITS: It serves as a harsh reminder why people should get on and do that quest and make sure they do not fail it.

People who cause failure (IE "luring" Patrols, getting the alarm sounded, stand inactive during combat) more than 5 times in a single raid/escape should be affected by a curse; "Forsaken By Fortune". This curse means they will receive no reward when exiting, and a reduced chance to receive an item from the Boss. This is to prevent leechers and griefers benefitting from others' hard work, and hopefully discourage the idea altogether.

Overall Benefits: It should bring random people together a bit more for play, even outside of the centaur raids and city defense, and add a more "We've made a mistake, but we shall learn from it" sense of achievement. It should also give people more chance to play their respective roles, and to choose whether they want to help others and succeed as a group, or play more isolated. Title tracks could reflect Player's style of play, in terms of they gain reputation for what they are seen to be doing, not just killing monsters for rep.

Example Titles:

Aptitude and Attitude: Around Here I'm known as "_____": The scale starts in the middle. The more failed quests or entry into dungeons as an Escapee, the further the slider goes towards "Completely Inept", resulting in less quests being accessible, yet an extended hidden countdown timer on timed quest areas. The more quests that are successfully completed without entering the "Failed Quest" dungeons as an Escapee, the more the slider moves towards "Flawless", resulting in more quests being accessible, but slightly shorter hidden timers. Ranks are (going from worst to best):

Completely Inept (-20);  Useless(-15);   Unreliable(-10);   Lazy(-5)   Untested(0);  Enthusiastic(+5);  Reliable(+10);  Recommendable(+15); Intrepid(+25);  Flawless (+50)

Search and Rescue: Works on a percentage basis. Calculates the average percentage between the number of Escapees assisted, and the number of times Player becomes an Escapee whilst attempting a Rescue. Ranks are (begins with no title):

It Sounded Like A Good Idea! (<5%);   I Should've Stayed At Home...(<15%);  I Should Keep The Day Job (<45%);  Could Save Your Bacon, Could get Us Killed(45-60%); I Could Do This All Day...(>60%); Seeking Was !(>90%);

Revenge for the Fallen: Displays the ratio of the amount of Patrols killed by Player to the amount of Rescuers that have died fighting Patrols at the same time as Player. Ranks: Throws in the Towel (1:>30); Needs More Confidence(1:>20);  A Little Lacklustre(1:>10)  An Eye For An Eye (1:1);  Kills Two Birds With One Stone(2:1); Decimation for Discipline(>10:1);  I Am A Machine!(>30:1);     Vengeful Was !(>50:1)

One could potentially spend a lot of time trying to escape from a dungeon of this sort. Hopefully it will teach newer, less experienced players to place trust and reliance on other players in dire situations, and also teach them why attempted to grief and cause stress to others will only result in their own loss, without such hard punishments such as bans. It will also add a sense of urgency to quests, less of a "Well, I'll do that later" and more of a "If I don't get this done soon, something bad could happen." It also adds a new aspect to raids in the sense that people may get a better sense of purpose when committing themselves to a rescue to know that they're helping real people out of a bad situation.

This is of course, just one tiny possible thing to implement into PvE. I don't wish to bore you with every possibility I've come up with ^.^ and nor would I want to continue talking along this line of thought without a bit of feedback from other people, so onto the Discussion Page for me!

Again, all of the above is designed to be a generic template, and is purely my interpretation on potential "dynamic events" in Guild Wars 2.