Hello,
tl;dr: When an activity has been played past a certain point, please lock the instance so that no new players can be joined.
Why? Let me elaborate how the current system affects certain activities:
- Bell Choir: Many players leave at the beginning of the free play round. But the instances remain open, new players are joined in, even though there are no more songs to play. Joining Bell Choir currently has a good chance of putting you in an instance that’s over. From the remaining joins, there’s still a good chance to get into an instance where the difficult songs have started, which is a terrible experience for someone new to the activity, or even for someone who hasn’t done this in 11 months.
- Winter Wonderland and Clocktower: again, 2-3 minutes before the activity ends, most people just leave. The game assigns new players into these instances, even though there’s nothing to do.
- Sanctum Sprint: Players joining late are put into a “practice round”, earning no rewards. Ironically, starting in the middle of the track is a poor way to practice, and it’s just a waste of time – especially if you never asked to practice. Lock the instance and give us a fresh one please.
- Southsun Survival: You enter late, you’re a little blue orb. Depending on the time you joined there’s no way to influence the game or earn points, because you need to find vengeance motes, then you need to find a survivor, and usually you end the game with 2 points and no chest because the game decided you didn’t contribute enough.
While I understand the need to keep slots filled in competitive matches (sPvP, Keg Brawl, ..), this is not the case in the activities mentioned above. Joining late hurts the experience, and I think this warrants a change.
I’m aware that it’s always more complicated than I think, and your backend programmers are terribly busy doing other high-priority tasks. But given the cumulative annoyances this has caused me (and undoubtedly other players) over the last months, I kindly ask that this change be considered.