Guild Wars 2

Think ‘underflow’ has been suggested before, but just in case it never showed up here, I want to throw my support behind it.

I really seems like the most obvious solution, with the overflow system already in place.

I say this in every thread with the idea, but I really wouldn’t want this unless you could opt out. I hate when dynamic events become just massive zergs. It makes it really dull.

Yes Yes Yes !

Leveling was a blast when the zones were crowded but now it’s not the case anymore… Underflow is a very good idea.

Underflow may not be the end all solution for all cases, but it’s definitely better than running around alone for hours… otherwise, where is the mmo feel in that?

IDK, I’m on Henge of Denravi and there’s always been a few people around in Caledon Forest. The mid-level zones seemed a bit more empty I agree.

Underflow sounds like a good idea though, I know lots of people seem to think different areas are fairly empty.

For me it doesn’t make much difference. I’m slow and unable to keep up with the crowd, so 99% of the time, I’m in the zone with very few people. The Halloween event was unfortunately, something I had a difficult time doing. I died a lot, as I’m still in the low 1-15 zone. Yes, I leveled up to 20 with 10-12 gear but still got one shotted. So my choice is to stay behind everyone else and let them do the killing or die a lot. After losing half my coin, I decided that these buffed group events aren’t for me. I’m not a jumper either. I would like to group but the few I’ve done – well, difficult for me to keep up with everyone else.
So, I just do what I can when I have time and that’s ok with me. I’m still in the 1-15 zone and haven’t finished maybe half of it since August release.

I’m on Tarnished Coast (the unofficial RP server), and I haven’t had much problems finding other people on, even during non-peak hours. I think there’s a dearth of players in mid-level areas because the playerbase is generally divided into two main groups:

1. The powerlevelers/rushers who have basically already completed the game and are now primarily farming dungeons/Orr for high-level loot.

2. The altoholics (like me) who are busy leveling multiple characters at the same time and so we’re still mostly hanging out in low-level zones.

Over time, the second group will probably start moving into the mid-level areas, so there might be a general migration to higher zones, but considering the nature of Tarnished Coast, I imagine there will always be a healthy population of RP’ers staying in the lower-level regions.

I agree with the OP 100%. That needs to be implemented. I just got back from a break and realize that I’m all alone now in starting zones.. It’s rather depressing and sometimes hard… to get anything done. More games need to adapt and allow cross server play. WoW has done it with the new expansion, seems to be working well for them.

Thanks for the support! Maybe ArenaNet will implement this feature! This could be slapping!

It sounds cool but it’s not needed so much. Many events can be soloed, some require a few random people to be done (call them on /map chat), and large boss events can be done by calling random people and guildmates.

Dagins.5163

It sounds cool but it’s not needed so much. Many events can be soloed, some require a few random people to be done (call them on /map chat), and large boss events can be done by calling random people and guildmates.

I wish I had guildies who would come to my rescue every time I found a low level group event but unfortunately the real world doesn’t work that way.

It is a huge issue. Without enough people in pve, the 30% of the content is unable to be done, and the rest is not fun…

We need this, up for the thread.

Whatever they eventually do (and some measures will need to be taken at some point down the road, however far, to maintain control over player population throughout all zones), it will be imporant that they strike a delicate player population balance. I almost fear overcrowding even more than zone emptiness. The zergs of dozens of players at every event usually totally destroy all otherwise entertaining combat mechanics. Gameplay is reduced to a button mash fest.

I can definitely see what you’re driving at here, and I respect it. I want to add my voice to the mix, just because I’m a little bit against the grain here. I actually like the emptier zones. One reason for this is that, as you say, nobody talks to the NPCs to start the events. This lets me actually see the build up to the events because I’m the one talking to the NPC. This feels better to me than me just barreling toward the orange circle on my map (which I still do…can’t help myself).

It is true that the zones are perhaps a little lonely and there are some group events never get done. So I’d be in favor of these kinds of under-flow servers as long as they have a cap on the number of players, while somehow also allowing my friends join in.

It will be a little bit jarring to make friends, only to find out that they’re matched up against you in WvW

A great temporary solution that you have direct control over is choosing to do your daily achievements in the starter zones.

This allows you to help out new players, meet people in a casual environment, build server unity, recruit for your guild, and overall have a nice experience.

You get the same daily reward regardless of where you do it. Why not do it in the starter zones?

Lurinna.4306:

I say this in every thread with the idea, but I really wouldn’t want this unless you could opt out. I hate when dynamic events become just massive zergs. It makes it really dull.

Whatever! A lot of people makes it where a player can participate where before you just can’t do the events with 1 or just a small group. And when I say small I mean less than 10 players.

As a player, who likes to create new and new alts, I fully agree. Something along this line would be really cool.
Some of the group events are just not doable when there are so few players on the map.

What is “so few” though? The poster right above you considers anything under 10 a “small group” unable to do some group events and such a force is plenty for most events in the game … it might not be enough for the few events requiring high participation but its certainly not a small group. Personally I see the need for zones to have a certain population but running around in a mob of 20 most of the time lost its appeal really fast while leveling “with the crowd”…

I like the sound of underflow, as long as it has a limit and doesn’t pack out the map. Old chinese proverb said “it’s not great to always be part of a zerg”.

I support an idea that populates zones on the whole and/or gives them a reason to come back.

I word it that way because I understand both sides, how some like to experience content on a more chill level without all the zerg and while some want to experience content with a large group of people because in some cases, it’s the only way content can be completed.

Both sides have valid arguments.

But the fact of the matter here is that the lower level zones seem underpopulated and i’m on Dragonbrand, a high populated server.
There needs to be a reason for players to come back to the lower level zones. Par level drops is not a good enough incentive because why come back to a lower level zone when the zone par your level does just that?

There needs to be a balance of some sort. I’m questing in Snowden Drifts at the moment and it’s like…..dead. I’ve seen 3 or 4 others and that’s at separate times mind you.

I tried to level an alt for a while last night in the Brisbain Wilds and saw only two other players and experienced only one event. At one point I got really excited because a Skritt came up to me shouting about needing help but when I talked to him didn’t actually have anything to say, bummer. I have a sinking feeling that leveling any more alts that this point is going to be lonely and boring.

It would be great if they created an upload server when you enter into a zone and there are less than 20-30 people in it. This way you care carried over to a zone with a decent amount of people to play with. You could even have a question on if you want to enter it instead. So if you wanted to play alone in a zone you can but if you want to go to a busy version of the zone you could to experience more DE’s. I am leveling an alt and it’s often frustrating realizing I can’t do a DE by myself and I see so many champions simply being ignored. Some Champions can be 2 manned but often it takes at least 3 if not 4 or 5.

Now I’m on Desolation. I tried like 10 servers, finally I found one that’s not desolated. (haha)

For a ‘high’ populated server like Desolation, the instances shouldn’t be as empty as they are now (except for Orr of course). Balthazar is always contested, and I feel like I’m walking around the world alone. It’s really stupid.

I support the idea of an ‘underflow’ map. A simple popup with: “This area doesn’t have a lot of players, so an underflow map has been created. Do you wish to go there? Yes/No/Re-enter queue”

I was trying to do the Ogre Wars meta event in Fields of Ruin last night. Wow, what a dead zone. I started the Capture Bloodgorge Watch event, and if it wasn’t for one other person to come along and help, I don’t think I could have done it solo. With the stupid fast respawn rates and NPC allies that go down in seconds, I couldn’t clear the ogres fast enough to make any progress retaking not one but two areas.

We managed to do the next group event with just us 2 (yay guardians!), but it sucks that people might miss out on fun events like these because no one’s in the leveling areas (especially the charr ones) any more.

Yes, i do have fond memories of those first few days/weeks playing GW2.

Even if no players would have left the game, just spreading them out over many zones inevitably reduces the average number of players per zone.

If the player population of a zone drops below a certain point, depopulation becomes self-perpetuating especially in high level zones where soloing is hardly an option. Event chains in those zones become stuck until server reset, making those zones even less attractive.

Possibly worst of all it that even if there are enough players in a zone to form a small group, that’s likely not to happen because the players that are there do not know there are other players in the zone. And no, map chat is not the solution, it’s at best a crutch.

Apparently there is a critical population density below which the Massively Multiplayer aspect of open world PvE falls apart.

possible solutions:
- as mentioned, ‘underflow’
- automatic cross-zone event advertising/announcement
- show locations of players on the zone map

Levelling up a new alt i find myself soloing low-level events most of the time…. kind of weird. When i was levelling my main it used to be great fun with a bunch of people pitching in to drive back bandits or whatever…

yhea arenanet please make a underflow, its really hard to find people to do hearts with when your past the first lvl 1-15 area in most cases.

Yes, we badly need underflow servers… I really want to lvl up another character but I can’t be bothered because everything feels so deserted and I am on one of the highest pop servers. It feels like single player game now when lvling its so boring…

The problem is, events in low lvl zones are very boring with few exceptions (Shadow Behemoth), rewards are kitteny so high lvls don’t bother to go back there. GW2 is designed to play with ppl, not for solo experience, so if u lvl ur alt in empty zone, yes it is boring. They need to do sth about it.

You see, Arenanet? I saw your manifesto video, I said to myself “finally, some creative guys doing a game that I imagined before, Jeez’!” but I’m disappointed now. YOU DONT LISTEN TO YOUR FANS WHO PAYED FOR YOUR GAME BECAUSE THEY HAD FAITH IN YOU. Please answer. I want to play this game for years. And I’m not alone. Doing alts, see all the zones. But not deserted zones. Zones with players. Zones with life. With fun. It is an MMO. A truly MMO. But I dont have the feeling anymore.

It’s sad.

I agree when the game launched it had loads of people doing advents it was exciting, so much life around was a lot of fun, but now its empty i hardly see people anymore something needs to be done, this is the best mmo i ever played lets keep it that way.

Great idea, levelling a Charr alt at the moment and most zones are empty or just a few around. You can complete small events but the bigger (and more fun) events are impossible due to population levels.

Sarith.7295:

I agree when the game launched it had loads of people doing advents it was exciting, so much life around was a lot of fun, but now its empty i hardly see people anymore something needs to be done, this is the best mmo i ever played lets keep it that way.

THIS!

Underflow servers could alleviate the problem, but I feel that a new take is needed to resolve the fundalmental flaws in the current server management system.
From what I’ve seen in the forum, players main concerns boil down to the following:

1) It’s desirable to have a reasonable amount of people in the map they’re on to shake away the feeling that they are out there alone, and so that there’s enough manpower to do dynamic events.
2) Too many people on the same map can also be undesirable, because of overcrowded events, lags, etc.
3) It should be easy to meet with friends in the map.

So what I propose is system similar to the one that exists in the outposts of Guild Wars 1:

When a player enters a map, let’s say Queendsalde, he is moved to Queensdale server #1. However if server #1 is already full, the player is moved instead to the highest populated alternative server that isn’t full (Queensdale #2, or #3, or #4, etc.). This takes care of concern 1), by guaranteeing that the player is moved to the highest populated server.
It would also be possible for a player to see which alternatives servers there were for the current map, and arbitrarily move between the ones that aren’t full. This caters for concern 2) by allowing a player to move to another server if he feels that the current one is too crowded, and also concern 3) by allowing the player to move to a server where he can meet his peers.

Note that with this system Home servers would no longer have any effect on PvE; they would only be relevant for WvW.

tl;dr
Home servers for WvW only. For PvE let the system automatically distribute players among servers.

As people leave the game and move on to others, servers will become less populated. There is not much that can be done, other than getting more players to come, moving servers, OR joining guilds.

As pdfrod.1948 pointed out, it is a tic for tac situation. Too many players, its bad, too little players its bad.

Personally I think there can never be too many players. If I’m annoyed by the zerg, I move away somewhere else. Having nobody to do an event however leaves you without any options – there’s not always a guildy around wanting to twink in queensdale. And doing events myself will soon get boring and make me feel lonely.

I remember when I first started GW2. I was so excited when me and a giant zerg destroyed that elementar and then kept moving together across the map. I felt like part of something big and it was simply amazing how we were able to play together without the need to lfg or whatever. I started a new char two days ago and did that group event again – completely alone. The next day I meat 3 players on that entire map.

I can understand that ANet doesn’t want to talk about these things, it would only result in more “the game is dead” posts. And while I don’t believe the game is dead, I do think we are getting problems in low lvls regions. Merging underpopulated servers into some kind of underflow would be an ideal solution.

Again, the problem isn’t that you can not do the events alone. Yes you mostly can, even group events. But who would want to? Isn’t that ‘being part of something big’ aspect, one of the reasons these events are in the game in the first place? It just doesn’t feel that big if I am there all by myself..

Glad to see this thread. I love this game, but the early days were much more fun than the current gameplay specifically for the reason mentioned. The people just arent there. This applies to both low level and high level zones. I believe the reason to be 2 fold – 1. natural attrition (all games have it) and 2. players congregating around hot spots (currently LA for FoTM).

There are two possible solutions to this issue that I can imagine -

1. The proposed underflow servers in which the game actively tries to populate zones with larger groups by pulling from players across all servers in the region.

2. Unrestricted guesting. Currently, guesting is planned to be based on where your friends are on other servers. If they simply removed that restrictions, the player base could “populate” zones on its own.

While 1 would be more preferable to me, I could see either working well. Something definitely needs to be done, though. My server hasnt even been able to take the gates of Arah in over a week.

I’ve noticed a major shift in zone population since Fractals arrived. I think fractals are great but I really wish some of those brilliant fights were also added to the open world. I would love to have more reason for my 80 to come back and do sidekicked events, meta events and generally be a part of the world. The Jade Maw fractal boss would be amazing as a DE in the mid level areas (without the agony of course). Things like the Temples in Orr should be throughout the whole world not just at 80. Rift is a good example of how you can offer a casual/elite open world dynamic and have instanced dungeons at the same time. Every content patch like Lost Isles should add a new DE or Meta event to the world, not just at 80 but also into the low and mid level zones to show that the world is a living/growing thing.

Almost 4k views, but not a single kitten was given from Anet.

If this was implemented, dont make the underflow servers as populated as the beta queensdale!!

It was like play Plinx, fighting other plays just to get to hit monsters. It was fun at the time, like “whoa so many people doing this quest with me”, but I think that vibe has left lol.

This idea is fricken awesome though, and considering they already have systems in place for an Overflow, I would have thought changing it from "If players = >200 go to “Overflow” to "If players = <10 go to “Underflow” would not be too difficult! (Then again I don’t have much idea what I am talking about, I’ll be honest :p )

Lurinna.4306:

I say this in every thread with the idea, but I really wouldn’t want this unless you could opt out. I hate when dynamic events become just massive zergs. It makes it really dull.

Compared to events always failing or not getting started at all?

Of course the same popup as on Overflow servers should appear. Instead asking if you want to join the “Underflow” or keep running around on your own in the current map.

I´m really not getting why ANet isn´t seeing this as a major problem. Especially when they already have all the tech to solve it.
Just another “we don´t need LFG finder” Devblinder.

Indeed…And it’s quite troublesome when Group Events appear (like the Champion Risen Hylek in Caledon Forest and the Champion Ooze in Metrica Province) and there is no one near to help you ._.

+1 on the “Underflow” idea

Why not put a simple system like there are in GW1. A panel where people choose where to go. Simply they go to desired map, and there are a button that open a panel where he can choose one more os less populated. It even can be better to mantain constant tests on events because there will always a full populated map and a empty map and even between.

Introducing an underflow system would be quite easy in terms of usability:

1. Map needs to be low populated – meaning 10-15 active players (not counting people that are afk or doing repeating tasks for > 1 hour).

2. Trigger an chronjob that checks for the next 15 minutes if that status doesn’t change i. E. 20 additional players join that map within the next 15 minutes. Otherwise it creates an global underflow instance.

3. Creates the usual popup if you’d like to join that underflow server like it does when you are currently in an overflow server and your homeserver would be ready to join. New players will be automatically transferred to that underflow realm.

4. Add the usual icon in the right corner for leaving an instance as you get when visting a dungeon enabling people to leave that server / instance if they wish to.

5. Server checks if the underflow realm has a population of at least 5 players otherwhise prompting an automatic popup with an timeout that transfers all players to their homelands unless at least one of the declines the transfer (i. E. when currently fighting a champion or worldboss).

6. If the underflow realm is empty destroy it.

7. Repeat.

Dynamic events or Dynamic event chains I should say, should be expanded and yield the same rewards as dungeons, so to give players options.

Are people content always farming fractals? Probably not. Are people always content on farming dynamic events? probably not?

Would it be nice if they both offered similar rewards for both? For sure, because at least people would have a change in scenery now.

Dungeons take a bit more time than a DE. Perhaps if you successfully run a complete DE chain, but even those usually only take 15-20 minutes.

Dagins.5163:

It sounds cool but it’s not needed so much. Many events can be soloed, some require a few random people to be done (call them on /map chat), and large boss events can be done by calling random people and guildmates.

Thats the thing……we aren’t supposed to be soloing these events lol, quit defending