Feedback talk:User/Qanux/"Flaw" in Dynamic Event Chains

I think the idea behind the Dynamic Event is, if there are an insufficient number of players, the Ogres (or whoever the antagonist may be in whatever DE we're considering at the moment) will succeed in kidnapping the child.

That said, I do agree with your overall assessment of the DEs. Though DEs may appear dynamic when viewed from the perspective of looking at all the links in the chain as a whole, the individual events themselves are not. The antagonist spawn points are static, the number of enemies is static (though the number may scale with increasing player participation, it does so along a linear path), the timing is static, the criteria for success or failure are static, etc.

The consequence of this lack of dynamicism within the individual events of a DE chain is that it leads to the development of patterns. As proof, you need look no further than this feedback suggestion. The game hasn't even launched and already a static pattern has been detected in the DEs. Once that pattern is detected (something humans are very, very good at), players can predict in advance the strategies and tactics needed to successfully complete the event. Forget about even having to change strategies and tactics in the middle of the event since the pattern doesn't vary. Worse still, these strategies and tactics are posted to a wiki. Players are then handed a script to follow for successful completion of the event without having to put forth any effort of their own.

Though dynamicism exists at the macro level when looking at the DE as a whole, the individual events at the micro level lack this same dynamicism. The solution is to introduce randomization into the events to prevent pattern development. I recognize that each event must have static success/failure criteria (technically, this isn't true; I'll deal with that in more detail below). However, how an event plays out before reaching a success or failure outcome can be randomized. The OP's suggested solutions are all excellent ways in which to advance a DE chain from the "outside-looking-in". My suggestions for randomizing the event from the "inside-looking-out" are:

• Give the antagonists multiple spawn points. With each iteration of the event, randomly select from which point the antagonists will spawn. Perhaps break them up so they spawn from multiple points.

• Randomize the timer which determines when the atagonists will spawn or the frequency between spawns (if there are multiple waves of enemies).

• Randomize the enemies' spawn triggers. Instead of the Ogres always spawning after having talked to a particular NPC (I'm making that up since I don't know the details of this specific event), make them spawn when:

• Players talk to an NPC. This doesn't always have to be the same NPC, either. In one iteration, talking to the father of the girl will launch the Ogre spawn while talking to the mother will result in launch on the next iteration, for example.

• Players move within a certain radius of a particular trigger point. Both the radius length and the trigger points themselves can be randomly generated from a given set of lengths and points.

• Link the two together. As one example, the Ogres won't spawn until 15 seconds after the players have spoken with the girl's mother and moved within a certain radius of a randomly chosen trigger point. This can lead to players dropping their guard and being caught by surprise by the spawning Ogres. For example, the players talk to the father (since the wiki script tells them to speak with him to trigger the Ogres) but nothing happens. They scratch their heads a moment until one of them decides to speak to the mother to see if that will work. Still nothing happens.

The players shrug their shoulders and begin to wander off. In doing so, they pass within the necessary distance of the trigger point (a barn, perhaps). This sets a timer ticking down 15 seconds (which can change between iterations). By now, the players have begun to wander away from the family's farm when they suddenly hear a shriek from behind them. NOW the Ogres are spawning and the players, caught off-guard, have to rush back to try to save the child.

• Randomize the number of enemies. Instead of players knowing there will only ever be 10 Ogres spawning if there are only 5 players participating in the event, introduce a number range. Perhaps it will be 10 Ogres during one iteration of the event, next time it may be 12. Obviously, the range must be kept balanced to still give players a fighting chance of success.

However, something to keep in mind is - over time - the skill level of the player base, as a whole, will improve. The event that was challenging with 10 Ogres on launch day may be a piece of cake 6 months from now. A simple measure of this is to keep track of the average time this stage of the DE is being completed. Let's assume at launch players are taking 5 minutes on average to successfully complete this event. If 6 months from now the event is being completed in 90 seconds on average and/or the number of successful completions greatly outweighs the number of failures, then the devs will know it's time to up the number of Ogres spawning.

I realize that the OP's original intent was to avoid a DE from never advancing; getting stuck at "Stage 1". My suggestions above do not directly prevent this. After adding all of the pattern-breaking randomization listed above, it's still possible for the players to prevent the kidnap of the child; the event then remains stuck at "Stage 1". However, by mixing things up within an individual event, it accomplishes two things:

• It prevents players from relying on a wiki script for guaranteed success. If the event randomizes with each iteration, players can't rely on a script because it will have no predictive value.

• It increases the challenge of the event. This balances the odds between success and failure which, in turn, improves the chance that the event will advance to the next stage.

Taken together with the OP's suggestions, this will add dynamicism to all levels of a DE chain as well as offer the opportunity to witness DEs advance through their various stages.

Now to the issue of static success/failure criteria I mentioned earlier. The OP has already dealt with this in part by suggesting:

"A simpler solution would be to let the chain progress even upon successful completion: The ogres were fought back but the child was still kidnapped during the heat of battle (these things happen)."

Another way to prevent static success/failure criteria is to avoid compartmentalization of the individual events of a DE chain. For example, I would imagine under the current version of this DE, if the Ogres are not defeated, the event is failed and the child is kidnapped. How this plays out in the game (again, total speculation on my part) is that, on failure, the Ogres have kidnapped the child, this stage of the event is over, and the Ogres and child just suddenly pop-up some distance away in the Ogre camp. Now the players have to trek to the camp and defeat the Ogres at that location if they are to successfully complete "Stage 2" of the DE by recovering the child.

Instead of breaking these individual events up into what feels like instanced occurrences, why not have them exist along a continuum? For example, a failure of the event in which the child is kidnapped sees the Ogres actually running away from the scene of the crime with the child slung over one of their shoulders. Players can then pursue the Ogres.

If they manage to defeat them before they've reached their camp, the child is recovered and "Stage 1" of this DE chain is reset. Players aren't rewarded as if they had successfully completed "Stage 1", however; they simply stopped the DE from advancing to "Stage 2". They will, of course, still earn experience for having killed the Ogres and perhaps a reward for recovering the child; but the reward is still less than if they had prevented the child's kidnap in the first place.

If, on the other hand, the Ogres make it back to their camp before the pursuing players can bring them down, now "Stage 2" of the DE chain triggers. The players now have to fight the kidnappers - and their reinforcements - in the Ogre camp if they are to save the child.

By implementing this variation of the DE system, continuuity is maintained between the individual events within the chain as one stage naturally flows into the other.

There was a previous feedback post (not mine; though I commented on the discussion tab) which dovetails nicely with this suggestion. You can read it here if you're interested. Guild Wars 3 perhaps 18:43, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

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Maybe if the repeating "stage 1" would get more and more difficult each time it happens? Eventually it would be impossible to stop the ogres. Same thing the other way - each time players fail on the same stage of the events it would get easier (of course there should be some limit for this). --Mic

I like this suggestion, too. The only downside to it is how to balance it in a persistent world. If party A fails to defeat the Ogres, they downscale in difficulty and/or number. Now, party B comes along, handily defeats the Ogres, and then complain that the content is not challenging enough.