Yes, you heard that right, but before you switch to the pitchforks and torches hear me out.
I wanna start by bringing into attention why people do that in the first place, and the answer is simple: efficiency. Let’s face it, there is no better place in all of Tyria to farm money and karma at the same time so efficiently. People don’t come to Orr for the lovely landscapes, they don’t come for the lore, they don’t come for the fun activities or social opportunities. They don’t come to have fun, they come to make money/karma and that’s it. After they are bored/full they go to the “fun” activities: WvW, PVP, leveling an alt, map completion, dungeons, keg brawl, whining on the forums, etc.
And you say, “yes, but they could go farm somewhere else, spread out”, but why do that? You could go to Fronstgorge, but that would be 20% less effective, or you could go to Malchior’s Leap, but that would be 15% less effective, or you could go farm some dungeon, but that would be x% less effective… see where this is going?
Making money/karma for most people is like a business, you do what brings more profit in the shortest amount of time. Nothing is going to change this mindset.
So then come the most suggestions in how to “fix” this: make better rewards for all the zones, so that all become viable. Let’s think of what would happen next. You think everyone spreads out to all the zones doing events everywhere happily? Only in the few days or so, maybe. Only after people find out that some events reward just a bit more % loot/karma, or that some are a lot easier then the rest, or some other thing that makes it the most efficient. So slowly all the farmers flock to that particular event/chain and transform it into another Cursed Shore. It’s that maximum profit oriented mentality that forces you to go the best place for farming.
Another thing to mention is that, even if the farmers go on the lower level maps, do you think they will turn the current empty events into something fun and challenging? Or they will simply see it as a money making activity that must be manipulated into giving the best rewards in the shortest time?
That’s why I believe the current general PVE metagame (if you can call it that) in Tyria is ok at the moment: you go to Orr to farm, you go the rest of the map for lore, story, exploration, etc. Is the rest of the map perfect then? Absolutely not!
Something MUST be done with the rest of the map to make it an attractive destination for high lvl people, but better item/karma rewards is not the answer in my opinion, for the reasons stated above. I believe the rewards for roaming the map right now are pretty ok, you get high level item drops often enough to make a profit, if you have magic find you can actually earn more then enough for armors and day to day expenses. Probably the difficult meta-events should reward people with something more than a simple chest, but not to the point of making it farmable.
What they should do, is make the general events less repetitive, and a lot more fun and challenging when multiple people participate (better scaling) . Even simple activities like keg brawl or the ones from halloween can be very engaging with almost no rewards, so a lot of people do play the game for the fun gameplay. That type of mentality should be encouraged a lot more in regard with the DE then anything else.
What do you think?
TL DR: Making better rewards in the lower areas for the lvl 80 people will only cause them to flock to the best farming spot, and turn it into what Cursed shore is at the moment. Making the non lvl 80 areas more interesting and less repetitive might be the better option.
TL TL DR DR: Grinders gonna grind…