I went out yesterday to farm a load of over world bosses, no-one about at all. Shame really as I like the short form of the ‘boss mechanic’ the overworld has to offer. Yes I understand you can solo most of them but ZoS made them a group thing for a reason making the solo grind on them tedious. It would be welcomed if an event would run on them or make them worth people going to them, as they stand their simply not worth the hassle

EvilCroc wrote: »

This game is pretending to be an old good TES game. At least in overworld part of it.
Go play Skyrim and you'll see the same overworld as ESO one.

NPCs in Skyrim were somehow part of the world. In ESO they're like immortal beings that get totally ignored by enemies (did you ever see an NPC die?). Besides their respective quest they don't have any purpose. In Guild Wars 2 NPCs interact with the world.

ESO overworld is lacking secrets and mystery. If you go symbol after symbol on your map you'll complete everything. In GW2 there's much more than just completing symbols. There are secrets and hidden things throughout the world. And the events keep the maps alive.

I don't really want an RPG world in which NPCs add nothing to the world (the lack of kids is another thing but needs to get mentioned here as well).

As someone who's played GW2 for a long, long time (and still does), the lack of events constantly firing off is a breath of fresh air. It's fun enough at first, I really loved it to start, and I could see it in use in specific maps (perhaps something like Craglorn - a zone with a very specific goal and group-focus) but just over the entire world? I think it'd be more frustrating that anything. It's tedious watching the same events fire on loop over and over, watching the same town you just saved get burned down again and again. It only really becomes palatable in the expansion zones (and the couple pre-expansion zones they used to test the concept) where the events drive a massive map-wide meta, a push over the entire map of the entirety of the player base present. That's fun, and motivating.

But let me tell you, the existence of events does not give any incentive on it's own to return to low level zones. There are people who run around doing the world bosses there, but it's not because they're exciting or fun - the world bosses, especially the low level ones - are garbage that people run for free money (and a pretty pathetic trickle of money at that). I have as much reason to run around the Plains of Ashford or Queensdale as I would to run around in Stonefalls or Auridon in ESO. Less actually, because the zones in ESO are actually matched to my level and gear sets useful to max level characters can be found in zones - barring superb luck akin to pulling an Apex mount from a crate, you're not going to get anything useful at max level from a GW2 event chain in a starter zone.

tl;dr, events are only really good in zones focused entirely on event chains driving a map-wide meta event, events in low level zones do not increase the value/playability of them for long time players. I would be all for them in places where they could actually be used effectively and cohesively, but sprinkling events all over where a village spontaneously erupts in fire because bandits won't add much to the world.

Seraphayel wrote: »

NPCs in Skyrim were somehow part of the world. In ESO they're like immortal beings that get totally ignored by enemies (did you ever see an NPC die?).

I have actually! Five seconds ago, when I stabbed one in the face. I feel like I have more interactivity with the world in ESO - I can enter buildings, punch the occupants in the face, rifle through their pockets and their cabinets and walk out with their stuff, be accosted by a guard for my lawbreaking and then run through the city being pursued by said guard until I can duck into an outlaw's refuge to sell my ill-gotten goods.

GW2 NPCs only have any degree of interactivity when they're crucial to an event. You can see pretty clear evidence of that if you ever run a DPS meter in that game - the NPCs in the cities have less health than a level 1's autoattack. Barely any buildings have interiors. NPCs rarely _walk around_ let alone can be interacted with. Out in the world you can maybe sometimes pull enemies onto NPCs and get them defeated but that's something with zero consequences outside of an event (and often not even in an event) - you can walk over pull them back to their feet. No harm done. Hell, sometimes it doesn't even require you, the other NPCs around might do it themselves.

ESO overworld is lacking secrets and mystery. If you go symbol after symbol on your map you'll complete everything.

I think you'll find that's not quite true if you disable your addons. There's plenty of things that don't show up on the map, and lots of little things you can find off the beaten path. You certainly won't fill out many collections like the Orsinium museum quest, Morrowind pilgrimages, lore book collections, etc. just walking to symbols on your map.

And the only reason GW2 is any different in that respect is because Arenanet's much more wary about allowing people to modify what can be displayed to a player.

Lajask wrote: »

I have actually! Five seconds ago, when I stabbed one in the face. I feel like I have more interactivity with the world in ESO - I can enter buildings, punch the occupants in the face, rifle through their pockets and their cabinets and walk out with their stuff, be accosted by a guard for my lawbreaking and then run through the city being pursued by said guard until I can duck into an outlaw's refuge to sell my ill-gotten goods.

GW2 NPCs only have any degree of interactivity when they're crucial to an event. You can see pretty clear evidence of that if you ever run a DPS meter in that game - the NPCs in the cities have less health than a level 1's autoattack. Barely any buildings have interiors. NPCs rarely _walk around_ let alone can be interacted with. Out in the world you can maybe sometimes pull enemies onto NPCs and get them defeated but that's something with zero consequences outside of an event (and often not even in an event) - you can walk over pull them back to their feet. No harm done. Hell, sometimes it doesn't even require you, the other NPCs around might do it themselves.

Compared to GW2 NPCs the ones in ESO are robots. They never leave their path. They are immortal (until you choose DB and kill them) and they don't interact with the world. They just do nothing. They yell and chat and through out some voice lines but that's it. They're as dumb as they could be (okay, that's ZOS lazyness to adjust them to your progression level of the story).

I mean interaction with the ESO world? Where? How? You can barely do anything in the world. Climbing a mountain... a hill... a little cliff... uhm no. You can't. You couldn't even use chairs in this game for a long time. The overworld is pretty but dead. There's nothing going on besides the "tracks" all quests and NPCs follow. I mean everything you described in the second paragraph is 1:1 the same in ESO.

As soon as you reach level 50 everything happens in dungeons and the overworld becomes pretty negligible and has absolutely zero replay value. That's something I really miss in ESO. That's why Chapters are not very good for max players, the new zones offer nothing new or interesting. They're just more of the usual stuff. In GW2 with level 80 I frequently return to the level 50 zone because there's a gigantic boss with good loot waiting for me or I do just the other event in an level 30 zone to improve my glider etc. There's nothing like this in ESO unfortunately.

No we do not need raid type events and bosses in ESO.

I played GW2 for 3 years and stopped when they released Heart of Thorns because I hated that I needed a raid just to complete a zone and to progress the story. The Silverwaste and Dry Top maps were fun for the first 5 or so times then they became a grind or impossible to complete once people stopped doing them.

I agree with the poster above, they werent dynamic, they were on a loop, timed and predictable. The only thing that wasnt predicatble was if there was going to be enough people for it to succeed.

So NO we do not need this in ESO, where its great for 5 minutes then no one does them again ever and if your a new player or character, Good luck getting it done.

Seraphayel wrote: »

EvilCroc wrote: »

This game is pretending to be an old good TES game. At least in overworld part of it.
Go play Skyrim and you'll see the same overworld as ESO one.

NPCs in Skyrim were somehow part of the world. In ESO they're like immortal beings that get totally ignored by enemies (did you ever see an NPC die?). Besides their respective quest they don't have any purpose. In Guild Wars 2 NPCs interact with the world.

ESO overworld is lacking secrets and mystery. If you go symbol after symbol on your map you'll complete everything. In GW2 there's much more than just completing symbols. There are secrets and hidden things throughout the world. And the events keep the maps alive.

I don't really want an RPG world in which NPCs add nothing to the world (the lack of kids is another thing but needs to get mentioned here as well).

I agree with everything you said. In many games, if an enemy case you to an allied base some NPCs will react and aid you in the fight. Of course, there are merchants and other important NPCs that are glued in one place so they don't become an impediment for other players, but guards are useless in aiding players. If you agro an enemy and fight it on a town or a camp, no NPC will have any reaction, but if I punch someone in the face not only the guards will attack me, but other killable NPCs will react by aiding their friend, cry for help, run or freeze in fear. Why they react only when players commit crimes, why they don't react when a player is attacked by a mob in front of them? There are some NPCs in camps that will react to certain mobs, but that's only part of their loop.

And yes, mystery and a reason to explore more. Single player TES games have those little details scattered around to spice everything for a bit, ESO is just stale.

Both SWTOR and ESO had an immense budget (around 200 mil USD), while SWTOR bothered to add some hidden secrets, jump puzzles and some easter eggs here and there, ESO failed on doing so. GW2 and Wildstar had around 35-40% of their budget but still, their worlds are so dynamic and I spend more time exploring than doing other stuff. There where so many puzzles and areas to explore and overland events to make you take a break from mundane stuff and have some joy. BDO budget pales in comparison with those. I know is a cash grab grind fest, but I fell in love with its world, every time finding something new, like a rotten rotten tree stub from which water spring, dynamic cities and towns, a majestic capital city, gardens, a mesmerizing forest glance in which kids gathered to study magic and more. So the budget wasn't the issue here.

I’d like for them to steal Public Quests from Warhammer: Online. Brilliant idea that nobody, AFAIK, has reimplemented.

Seraphayel wrote: »

Don't you think so?

Unfortunately it hasn't. That's a reason why the "open" world in ESO feels so static and boring. Done once you're never going to return to a zone unless you are doing dolmens or farming item sets.

I just wish the world in ESO would be a "living" world. Most of it is just decoration. NPCs not interacting at all with the environment for example.

The last week I played GW2 again and the difference is massive. GW2 has major design flaws but its world design is absolutely breathtaking. Vast, thriving, enticing with many hidden things to explore. And on top of that the event system that keeps the environment alive and dynamic.

It is so sad that the ESO world is so static and unresponsive in almost every aspect. If this game had events going on in the different zones it would be on another level. I am not talking about replacing the voiced quests with events. Just adding events to the overworld zones. Not something as boring as Dolmens or Geysirs and not something absolutely useless like bandits kidnapping pedestrians or summoners calling for Daedra.

Just imagine a zone wide event with several stages to unleash a gigantic raid boss at the end that's roaming through the zone until 10-20 players gather and just fight him. Those events and massive fights keep the world in GW2 alive. Even "low level maps".

So go play GW2 then if it is so great. Problem solved.

We already have these type of map changing events. Every night, around 8pm, a massive, blood red Zerg spawns and washes over the entire map of cyrodiil, only to be defeated by lesser numbers of more skilled players.

Lajask wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

Compared to GW2 NPCs the ones in ESO are robots. They never leave their path.

Uh. So do GW2 NPCs, my dude. I have several full conversations burned into my mind forever because I happen to stand next to where some NPCs repeat the same trite lines over and over. Or because some dev thought sticking an NPC who speaks every minute next to a merchant was a good idea.

Yup - every MMO ever.

https://youtu.be/Vyw6n1EKlww

Seraphayel wrote: »

[

1. That's just not true. Sure many NPCs just have their chit-chat and that's it but many NPCs interact with the world or start events. And that's what matters. An NPC doing some weird stuff in a zone, an NPC trying to explore a cave and on his way being attacked by bandits (start quest a) or he does make it to the cave without interruption (start quest b)..

And that's exactly what I mean about the NPCs - and events - not being anything special 90% of the time. That same example in ESO is a quest, the only difference is you can stumble into other players doing it and join in without talking to an NPC first in GW2, where in ESO it's you talking to an NPC and following along mostly solo (or with your group only) and limited public interaction. Starting something that's basically a quest on their own isn't really interacting with the world - or if it is, literally every quest giver in ESO interacts with the world. And I feel like I have much more impact in ESO. In Stonefalls I can exorcise some ghosts are they at least go non-hostile. In Plains of Ashford I will be repelling Ascalonian ghosts until the end of time. I even get to help test ghost-busting staves over and over again and I guess even five plus years out that one inventor hasn't perfected them yet.

Again, it's just not true that GW2 NPCs aren't special. They are. They fight, interact, can die, you can resurrect them etc. They can either start events or prevent events from happening entirely. They alter the dynamic of the world because they matter. In ESO NPCs don't matter at all (I hate the Orr maps btw).

Fight, interact, and die is all true of ESO's NPCs as well, the only difference is they can't be resurrected, but as a trade off you, the player can actually interact with them. The GW2 NPCs don't have any special AI, the only ones that seem to have any special scripting at all are ones that show up in solo instances, like the iconics (and that AI is pretty much "Hey rez the player instead of standing there like an idiot"), the ones that start events aren't deciding to start events. It's a timer firing that just happens to fire off an event around them. It's no more dynamic that an NPC starting an assault because you talked to them and triggered them running to assault the enemy camp, or so on. It's the same thing with a different wrapper.

Not really true. Sure not every zone has a massive event going on that's interesting for max level characters but a good bunch of have those raid like events.

They're far closer to ESO's world bosses in difficulty. They're designed to be completed by pugs in a random assortment of gear, potentially random assortment of levels, skill, and builds. I've seen guilds, just for the sake of seeing how much quicker and smoother it'd go, throw an raid comps at those bosses and events.

They melt. They melt hard. The only thing "raid like" about them is that they're intended for a big group and occasionally there's a phase or mechanic. They are exceptionally forgiving (if you can fail them at all, for the longest time the dragon champs, like Tequatl and Shatterer, literally could not be failed. They would stick around until they were defeated) and require little in the way of individual skill or awareness to complete, even if it takes an hour to do so by autoattacking while half-AFK.

In GW2 the new maps added to the game are totally different because they're build in a different way. Heart of Thornes maps for gliders and masteries, Path of Fire maps for the different type of mounts. Those zones are entirely different from each other and you can feel that. In ESO every zone layout is exactly the same.

I'll give you that GW2 actually lays it's new maps out differently, but that's pretty much entirely because GW2 has a better movement system, they can be more vertical, or have shenanigans where you're leaping through sand portals on a jackal made of sand, or gliding across water on a manta-ray-thing. I would love for ESO to have these sorts of things because it's movement is a garbage fire but obviously the geography isn't going to be designed around super vertical motion and flying (or massive, flat distances, or huge flows of killer quicksand, etc.) when the systems for navigating those don't exist. ESO's maps are laid out similarly among themselves (very flat, similar distances between wayshrines, etc) because their focus is on adding stuff like classes, skill lines, etc and not on revamping jumping or mount movement so it doesn't feel like you're navigating a refridgerator on roller skates instead of a person or horse.

Not saying that focus is better or anything (I know I'd pay more for a movement upgrade than I would Summerset or Morrowind, tbh), but it's the reason for the difference, not events or an attempt to make a more "dynamic" world. Bloodstone Fen, for instance, is literally impossible to navigate without HoT's masteries but it's a very static place. Occasionally some ghosts or magical monsters spawn in but it has very little happening outside of that.

TL;DR: ESO's overworld content is static. There's 0,01% dynamic in it, at best. Even 10% of "dynamic events" would make the bland and boring ESO zones a lot more interesting. That's what I want. GW2 is far from perfect but when it comes to dynamic world it's leagues ahead of ESO.

I suppose my own TL;DR, is that I just have a fundamental disagreement that the events are "dynamic", just because Arenanet calls them dynamic events. They're very static in how they play out. Even ones with stages tend to only have a set progression instead of a course you can affect. Nothing really changes and when it does it resets within, at the very most, two hours. It's actually pretty disheartening to finish something like one of the lanes in Tangled Depths and then watch all the stuff you built up over the last thirty minutes explode into pieces because the Chak Gerent meta is firing off and since the map is going to reset whether or not you succeed the Gerent event all your progress is wiped instantly.

Dunno was never a big fan of GW2 open world events..

They were either insanely laggy with thousands of customers disconnecting..
Or just carrot on a stick like quests that only appealed to high levels...

I hated the living story garbage.

I quit GW2 because of heart of thorns, the difficulty was atrocious and the maps were tedious, that mmo franchise turned to trash.

Played Guildwars for 4 years..
Played Guildwars 2 for 1 year came back for Hot left after 2 months.

You do the math on how great the content was.

I did enjoy the GW2 dynamic events quite a bit. It was kind of cool running around questing one minute then suddenly being in a 40-man raid the next taking down some massive dragon the next. ESO has world bosses, which kind of serve the same purpose, but I think people take the “I’ll do it later” approach because world bosses are pretty much always there.

In anticipation of the upcoming Necromancer class I resurrect my old thread:

I really hope they introduce zone wide events (with dragons?) in the new Chapter.

I love GW2's meta events but it would be terrible to have them on ESO. For one thing, the storylines in GW2 have the meta events tied to them. They can't just go back and edit plot points to the main quest / expansion quests and have players zerg down a boss or do mechanics all over the map. Having story progression & account achievements tied to big world events (where if you fail the meta you don't progress, for example Dragon's Stand meta where the entire map is essentially only open during the event) is not good for solo players & small groups. I love that boss fight so, so much but I also hate it when there's not enough people and when we fail the event. On ESO, the world bosses & dolmens basically count as these events. I am glad I don't have to wait for a lot of other people to kill a boss or do a dolmen. I can easily do it solo on ESO because I have max cp toons.

Second reason why meta events won't work on ESO: we don't have a consistently working group finder. In GW2 the thing works, and we have commander tags so we know who is / are helping organize the pugs during the meta event. In ESO we had the event centered on using the group finder and it couldn't even manage to find & q 4 people to a dungeon. So I highly doubt it could manage the really large groups with subgroups that GW2 has.

Third reason: server performance. I don't know if you've been to Cyrodiil during this midyear mayhem or if you've ever pvped in Vivec, but as soon as people faction stack keeps we get infinite load screens, skill lag, disconnects, you name it. Can you imagine doing a boss in GW2 like Tequatl and just disconnecting while you're picking up your loot? Because that's what happens when big groups of people start doing combat. They've had the infinite loading screen issue since before November 2017 and still you see & hear complaints about it especially during this event. In GW2 you get to pick your server and when the instance is full you can no longer teleport to that instance. If it's not full you can server hop to where the rest of your group is. We still get lag during meta events but it is nowhere near as bad as Cyrodiil zerg fights. It's not even nearly as bad as in some trials, where there's only 12 people in the instance and you'll still have skill lag and fps spikes if you've been there for a long time. (Example: vAS is especially buggy if you've been there for a while, and you have to reset the instance)