Motivation for doing “minor” map events?

[Avengingmydeath.8753]

I feel like I am missing something. I am not talking about meta events but just the small/solo events. The reward is experience, karma and about 80 copper. Is there some other hidden reward I am missing? I started to do an event, realized it didn’t count towards heart credit so I left. Not worth my time for 80 copper

[Danikat.8537]

If you're only interested in gold then generally stand-alone events which are not part of a meta are not worth doing. Although it's worth remembering that even big map-wide meta-events give very little money as direct drops, the majority of it actually comes from selling items which drop, or salvaging them and then selling the materials. (Or earning other currencies and then using them to buy items to sell/salvage.)

Possible reasons to do smaller events include:

• Experience points - they're one of the best sources, especially when levelling up new characters.
• Karma - not necessarily one of the fastest sources, but if you're there anyway and it's not a very long event it's probably worth doing.
• Heart Credit - as you said there are exceptions but many events do contribute to nearby hearts.
• Achievements like the daily event completer, or if you're working on something like a slayer achievement and the event spawns lots of the right type of enemy. (Events used to be the only way to do giant slayer.)
• To get them out of the way so something else can start or so you can do other activities in the area without being attacked.
• For fun or because you're there and don't have anything else to do right now.

I realise that last one probably seems pointless, but it's the most common reason I do events. I'm passing through or in the area for another reason and see an event start up, so I join in because I remember doing it before and know it's fun, I don't remember doing it before so I do it to see what happens or simply because I'm not doing anything in particular except playing GW2 and this is part of the game. A lot of the time I take the opposite approach - I think about whether there's a reason not to complete it, and I only skip it if I can think of something.

[mezuzel.4987]

Another reason is lore - there's often a lot of story background or other lore to be learned from doing smaller events.

[Aravind.9610]

These events still award credit towards map bonus rewards.

[Hesione.9412]

Sometimes a player looks a bit overwhelmed doing them, so I will stop and give them a hand - just like for hero points. Other ones are just plain fun (demolition derby!!!). I spend karma, so a bit more here and there always helps. I see them as a journey, rather than a destination.

[Morvran.8265]

No rational reason past the XP most of the time. Still, everything is worth doing at least once. Look at it this way: if you haven't done it before then it's new content. Unless you have something better to do, go for it.