Still kinda underwhelmed by World Events

From looking at the ad for 2.1 I thought World Events would make the world more alive, in that they'd randomly trigger while you were wandering around. This was vaguely gestured at with a few one-time events (Emerald Trail fat zombie, Great Bridge boss), but otherwise wasn't really achieved. Obviously, fleshing out a random-encounters system would be an update's worth of content by itself, so it's unrealistic to be like 'hey wynn team can you do the update again, i didn't like it the first time'. Nevertheless I will complain that WEs are too stilted and artificial.

 

Not unless they were incredibly large, and definitely not enough to be a numbered update. Maybe a sub-update like 2.2.X

No. Not because it'd be work, let me be clear, but because what you want simply isn't compatible with World Events.
You would be asking for an entirely different system. Might we add your idea of what a 'world event' is in the future? Maybe. Are we going to change the current system to be that? No.

What you're looking for is just World Encounters being expanded and maybe a Weather system being added

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And don't get me wrong, I want there to be a weather system of some form. I want there to be random chance encounters in regions - the toxic Wastes world event was drafted before Salted made it clear World Events weren't going to be what everyone thought they were going to be by the name. But that isn't going to replace the world event system.

 

I mean, I think it would be sorta annoying to do quests and to have a random world event trigger every few minutes.

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I mean, world events that randomly trigger are also just basically the same as random mobs spawning, unless I am misunderstanding what you mean. Imo the system is fine as it is, maybe more WEs would be nice though!

 

How I would personally go about it is by having the environmental events be more subtle. Unless you're in specific locations, they do not pose dramatic alterations to gameplay.
I've already played around with using the world's time to determine mob spawning & behavior (the fireflies being the test for this, effectively). What I envision it being like is a few new mobs showing up at most for early game regions, and largely just ambience and visuals otherwise.

Later game when the player is more antiquated with the system would be when id use it to change up gameplay more (like the rain in toxic Wastes completely swapping out what enemies are in the region and being dangerous to stand in specific locations for too long).

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Part of why World Events are basically glorified lootrun challenges is because of both the need for the player to be able to opt out, but also the ability to opt in. World Events are relatively consistent, and it's clear where you need to be to participate. Someone who wants to participate knows all of the ones going on and where they are. Compared to something like ... let's say a sandstorm, where the only way to opt out of it is to just not be in Almuj/Rymek (sucks to suck if you're doing content there!) and it'd be a bit tricky to get the player to opt in

You can neither really reward players for participating or let players steer clear, which is why they have to have very little impact on gameplay

 

Yea obviously this is not World Events as they are, it's World Events as I thought they'd be. This would, practically speaking, be a different system.

 

I totally get why world events are the way they are you don’t want newer players getting caught up in something they don’t understand and ending up frustrated. That said, I think a weather system like a sandstorm in Almuj (or other regional weather events) would be really cool and wouldn’t necessarily need an opt-in/out option. Them going into Almuj would be them opting in for a possible sandstorm just like going to the North pole opts you in for chance of Hail.

It could just be that the entire Almuj area experiences sandstorms every so often either on a set timer or at random for everyone in the area. It’d be different from world events which require players to be partied together for them.

Of course, I have no idea how complicated that would be to code or even if it’s technically possible, but if it was I think players would really be in awe of how alive the world feels regardless of it being a negative effect like a sandstorm.

 

if you've played terraria you probably know that the sandstorms - while fun - absolutely suck when you're trying to do anything but engage with them. If you're looking to get forbidden fragments or farm mummies or enemies or whatever, they're great! If you're trying to build, just navigate (especially in the early game) or explore? It's unbelievably annoying

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That's what I mean about events being opt-in. The player shouldn't be forced to deal with mechanics that impede the gameplay of whatever the event isn't meant to interact with.

 

Would that be the same for like slight sand blowing in the wind as opposed to a full sandstorm the reason I say a sandstorm is to add give the world something that makes it seem alive however I can see why players would need to opt in for something that drastic. But what about like sand particles that arent fully imposing your screen more of an ambiance type of feel. I could not find the perfect image for it but something more like this where its just a light amount of dust/sand being flown across the sands rather than a big storm where noone can see. Would this type of ambiant weather warrant an opt in if its not impeding the player? Maybe I should make a different thread as this is more of an ambiance/slight non player impeding weather type of question.

 

That just ambience then. That's the equivalent of rain. Or snow. There is no gameplay, and thus there is no concern with having the player opt in or out