Hydaelyn is beautiful, and it is utterly wasted

[Melonlycake]

"The centaurs are attacking" is an event i found often in gw2 in several zones. At its core it was just waves of centaurs spawning a bit back and running up, but they way it didnt feel limited to a smaller area and the way the NPC's covered in fear and/or helped killing the centuars made it out to be a common nuiseance in the world i merely helped out with.

It's very engaging at first! I did really enjoy it. But the flavor text fades into the background rather quickly, and there isn't a lot of substance to those interactions. I get more lore from FATE blurbs and leve quest text than I have entire chains in GW2. FATEs usually don't tie up zones and a) force me to either play through it for the 100th time or b) wait for it to fail since I'm the only one there. The issue with those long dynamic event chains is accessibility. If it can't be soloed you're locked out of content.

[Enur]

It's very engaging at first! I did really enjoy it. But the flavor text fades into the background rather quickly, and there isn't a lot of substance to those interactions. I get more lore from FATE blurbs and leve quest text than I have entire chains in GW2. FATEs usually don't tie up zones and a) force me to either play through it for the 100th time or b) wait for it to fail since I'm the only one there. The issue with those long dynamic event chains is accessibility. If it can't be soloed you're locked out of content.

It is true that the lore shown in the centaur attacks are shallow. That i do not deny. But they show that the world is a dangerous place. I would much rather experience a dangerous world than see some text of to the side telling me its dangerous. ffxiv has a problem with the "show, dont tell" world building. Waaaay too much of the lore is being told instead of shown. This makes the world seem stale and unengaging. Like reading a book and then hitting a target dummy.

There is a strong disconnect with what is told versus what is shown.

ffxiv has so much to tell that SE made a book just filled with telling. But nothing is shown ingame.

As for the long tough FATE chains, i actually like them. The world doesnt have to be soloable- its an mmo. Bring friends.

The issue is the rewards from the FATE chains. You get what? access to a special vendor with a minion and an orchestrion scroll? There is no reason to do them at all. You dont get much exp nor do you get any gear or gil of noteworthy amounts. If there was a chance to get good rewards people would flock to them.

[starmorph]

As for the long tough FATE chains, i actually like them. The world doesnt have to be soloable- its an mmo. Bring friends.

This is all well and good for smaller scale stuff like HW Hunts/FATEs which are doable with a party, but on a grander scale the likes of which OP seems to be suggesting we're talking about organizing full raids worth of people on a whim.

[Zojha]

If there was a chance to get good rewards people would flock to them.

If there was a chance to get good rewards, people would also flock to jumping down cliffs. You'd see whole lemming trains at the Witchdrop in Coerthas Central.

Does that make jumping down cliffs a fun and engaging type of content that deserves to be developed further? Maybe develop fall poses you can combo mid-flight and a rating on landing? Bonus points if you manage to land with the body parallel to the ground?

(Truth be told, that doesn't even sound a lot less fun than your run of the mill FATE >_> )

[Airget]

If there was a chance to get good rewards, people would also flock to jumping down cliffs. You'd see whole lemming trains at the Witchdrop in Coerthas Central.

Does that make jumping down cliffs a fun and engaging type of content that deserves to be developed further? Maybe develop fall poses you can combo mid-flight and a rating on landing? Bonus points if you manage to land with the body parallel to the ground?

(Truth be told, that doesn't even sound a lot less fun than your run of the mill FATE >_> )

Ya, it just sad thing is Hunts are already toxic without having any form of a unique reward. Imagine if a unique reward was added, it would be a nightmare.

Heck maybe making a new DOL that is based around finding rare mobs could actually be an interesting gimmick. You'd have to fight them on DOW/DOM but the "Hunter's" Role would be to use their abilities to find unique mobs, some would be "common" and easy to find maybe even easy to subdue with the Hunter alone and then you would have the "Unpoiled nodes" like mobs that you would need another player or job at X level to defeat.

With A/S rank hunts they could have it where X amount of Hunter's need to reach a goal in order for the hunt to reveal itself or an X/Y like situation, where let's say 1 A rank needs 20 X if it's 1 Y or 10 X if it's 2 Y, Y being the amount of time each Hunter needs to complete the objective in order for the mob to reveal itself.

It could potentially lead to more engaging content, the Hunter's themselves/any involved in completing the objective would be given 2 perks, 1 being the ability to change their job to a DOW/DOM without any timers down and the 2nd being unique loot for revealing the Hunt mob as a Hunter. Of course said loot would only be claims if the mob is defeated.

[Melonlycake]

There is a strong disconnect with what is told versus what is shown.

Amal'jaa abduct Ala Mhigans to be tempered. They're cowering and crying for help as you fight the beastmen off- they are if you fail. Later you kill them. It's very dangerous, and it's shown. NPCs talk/react, but you get background you couldn't have through context alone via those blurbs. It's not flawless, but in the confines of the medium it's very effective.

GW2s model actively blocks progress through a zone. It isn't easy to get players in old content without buffing the rewards- reward buffs throw off balance in other game modes. That's the problem: you can't keep scaling rewards for easier or older content, and you can't make that content so difficult it's impossible when it's no longer relevant. An active, changing game/world will render content obsolete by its nature. Open world needs to be largely accessible. More involved content is and should be instanced.