Guild Wars 2

Hey Anet,

I dunno if you have noticed but the overworld is pretty much dead.
All most players do is stand around in Lions Arch measuring their legendary kittens or farm lvl 1-10 zones for champs and monthly achieve.

How about you make the rest of the world soloable for those of us who actually want to go out and experience it? Many of the late game zones – hell, many zones and most events, period, are unplayable without a zerg. This just screams to me of poor game design and poor tuning of the supposed scaling that events are supposed to have.

You created this massive, beautiful world. Its about time you gave it some attention.

Please fix the scaling / difficulty for solo players.

edit- 9/5
Just found a post by someone else that does a fantastic job of not only highlighting my own frustrations with GW2 but goes further and explores the core of the things that I find frustrating. They also explain it all so much better than I do.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Endgame-PvE-Difficulty-comes-down-to-dodging/2780806

I still want to hear from Anet on this issue and what they plan to do about it.

I would honestly be very disappointed if ANet made the PvE world any easier. It is already far easier than it was in beta, and further downward adjusting would be unfortunate.

Vick, did you bother to read my post or just the title?

Never mind that your comment is plainly false. If you were correct then more people would play in Orr.
They don’t. Orr is dead.
If you were correct more people would play in any of the end game zones.
They don’t. End game zones are deserted.

My request is valid and Anet should tell us what they are going to do about bringing some life and activity to end game zones?

I propose they either make players more durable so that we can solo events or more likely, and more easily balanced, they improve the way scaling works in events so that they can be enjoyed and completed by players that solo.

I agree that there needs to be some tweaking done (not even sure where to begin) to promote playing in areas that aren’t Frostgorge or Queensdale. I apologize, but that’s where my agreement ends. I’ve been playing solo since beta with the 1 exception of the Arah dungeon story mode to complete the actual story mode. There’s some areas (mainly in Arah) that are frustrating, but not impossible when roaming solo. I know it’s a bad idea to run into a swarm of 15 mobs by myself, so I use different tactics if I need to get to that particular place.

The only thing that makes me sad is the zones between the starter areas and 75-80 areas being ghost towns.

With that being said, unless I’m really bored, I don’t try to solo group events. If I succeed, the time I spent doing it could have yielded better results elsewhere.

No zergs necessary

I have to disagree with you. You cannot argue that the events were tuned for zergs. I guess you could until we defined ‘zergs’. I’m talking about 10+ people.

I am also sad that all the zones between starter and Frostgorge are deserted, which is why I post this.

What I am requesting is that they fix the tuning / scaling / whatever you want to call it so that areas and events can be enjoyed by solo players.

Yes I can already solo individual mobs, the problem comes when mobs are close together and the mobile nature of fights means that I inevitably get too close to other mobs and draw them into the fight.

In the higher level zones, the mobs are strong enough that one or two is a challenge if you arent in max gear (which im not). More than 2 mobs is a trip to the waypoint.

This sucks and isnt fun.

Now I am making an assumption that if I am not having fun, clearly all the other people who are NOT HERE were not having fun either.

If it was fun, people would be playing it!

You cannot refute that simple, basic and plainly obvious argument.

I think Orr will pick back up a bit now that Clockwork Chaos is over. Tonight on a whim I decided to visit Orr. I used the Asura Gate to the Straits to save on WP costs (I’m that cheap) and right away someone called out for Balthazar. I caught the event right at the beginning and a group of probably 50 of us successfully escorted the woeful Pact to Balthazar and we killed him for our well earned loot.

After that I mapped over to Cursed Shore which was my intended destination. I ran around for a good while looking for T6 nodes. I saw people running around pretty much everywhere on the map. Not 20 seconds went by without seeing someone somewhere. Finally when I finished my node hunt someone called out for Melandru and when I got there there must have been 100 people there. After that I looked at the map…all 5 temples were open.

Also noticed quite a few people in Dredgehaunt Cliffs when I was passing through there.

The only thing I think needs to be addressed on the open world is the respawn rates of monsters. In densely packed areas your progress is completely halted because it becomes impossible to solo large numbers of mobs without the original mobs respawning and joining back in the fight. Some kind of calculation should be done where if nobody is nearby and the zone is fairly empty then the respawn timer needs to be much much higher…maybe even 5 minutes or more.

Boysenberry.1869:

The only thing I think needs to be addressed on the open world is the respawn rates of monsters. In densely packed areas your progress is completely halted because it becomes impossible to solo large numbers of mobs without the original mobs respawning and joining back in the fight. Some kind of calculation should be done where if nobody is nearby and the zone is fairly empty then the respawn timer needs to be much much higher…maybe even 5 minutes or more.

Smart respawn timers I think would also go a long way towards making various areas more solo friendly.

As to the rest of your comment, I don’t know what server you are on, but on my server there are 2 places that I see regularly heavily populated. Lions Arch for trash talking and kitten measuring via legendaries, and Queensdale for champ farming for monthlies.

OP you may want to check your gear/traits. Going max power/dps is great until you get to the final zones and then its time to invest in survival stats/traits. Aside from the group events, I think Orr is great solo content because it is a challenge. You can’t go beast mode in it like the lower level zones, but if you take your time, it’s really not any more difficult than it should be.

quakeroatmeal.4829:

OP you may want to check your gear/traits. Going max power/dps is great until you get to the final zones and then its time to invest in survival stats/traits. Aside from the group events, I think Orr is great solo content because it is a challenge. You can’t go beast mode in it like the lower level zones, but if you take your time, it’s really not any more difficult than it should be.

More difficult than it should be? More difficult than it should be for who? For people in best in slot gear? For hardcore min / max players?

Winning fights in end game zones seems more based on luck or fantastic gear than skill.
Running a vit / toughness build I get smoked more than I win out in endgame zones. There are so many mobs, so close together that it is almost impossible to fight just one of them at a time.
The damage they can put out to me in a given period is not only greater than the damage I can put out to them but it takes everything I have, every fight to kill one or two mobs. If I am unlucky, which I always am, and another runs to join in I am toast.

I don’t understand what it is about challenge that so many of you people trumpet. You have dungeons and legendary grinding for all your challenge needs, to prove how leet you are. Why does the rest of the population need to be punished because you want to feel special?

If the majority of players had a fun time in the endgame zones, then more of them would be playing in them. This is just not the case. It has been my experience that the end game zones are deserted save one or two people.

I think my argument is reasonable and supported by evidence.
The game could use some tuning to the way events and mobs scale so that casual (read that as anyone NOT wearing full Best-In-Slot gear) players can have a hope of enjoying the content of all the zones in their own time and solo if necessary.

I hate Orr because of how frustrating it is to move around; 75% of waypoints are contested and if you have to walk, there are 92332 mobs that pull you, cripple you, root you, making it even more annoying to walk around (beside the permapoison).

They aren’t even that hard as you may be inclined to think (icebrood wolves cut your hp when they leap on you, yet I love them compared to undeads), but they are annoying as kitten. They are fast like sport cars, use all sort of lame cc, crippling, pulling, dazing, and keep you slowed down 90% of the time. When I’m on mesmer, it’s ever sillier because I got no condition removal and I end up getting kitten of poison on me, keeping me in combat for a good minute and with my speed cut. When you simply want to skip them, you end up being forced to kill them, because they are persistent. With a good nuke they get crushed, but they are a waste of time and often don’t let me get events.

Also, the underwater mobs are totally off the hook; some of them chase me for half map, lol, what the kitten is up with those? Infinite aggro range? Persistent as kitten

I hear that!
Orr is just one example of the issues with end game zones.
These zones were clearly built and tuned with a zerg of players in mind. Playing in them solo or with only a couple of people these zones can be a nightmare.

Rovaeden.8546:

Boysenberry.1869:

The only thing I think needs to be addressed on the open world is the respawn rates of monsters. In densely packed areas your progress is completely halted because it becomes impossible to solo large numbers of mobs without the original mobs respawning and joining back in the fight. Some kind of calculation should be done where if nobody is nearby and the zone is fairly empty then the respawn timer needs to be much much higher…maybe even 5 minutes or more.

Smart respawn timers I think would also go a long way towards making various areas more solo friendly.

this is my problem with temples, i was doing really well soloing the grenth temple but the respawns are around 10 seconds, 20 at most.
i died because of that, had the respawns kept it’s distance i would’ve saved a temple all on my own for the first time.

sorudo.9054:

Rovaeden.8546:

Boysenberry.1869:

The only thing I think needs to be addressed on the open world is the respawn rates of monsters. In densely packed areas your progress is completely halted because it becomes impossible to solo large numbers of mobs without the original mobs respawning and joining back in the fight. Some kind of calculation should be done where if nobody is nearby and the zone is fairly empty then the respawn timer needs to be much much higher…maybe even 5 minutes or more.

Smart respawn timers I think would also go a long way towards making various areas more solo friendly.

this is my problem with temples, i was doing really well soloing the grenth temple but the respawns are around 10 seconds, 20 at most.
i died because of that, had the respawns kept it’s distance i would’ve saved a temple all on my own for the first time.

I have heard many people complaining about things like this and I have experienced similar situations.

I just don’t understand this obsession with making everything virtually impossible to do solo. I get that it is an MMO but playing with a group of people all the time is utterly unrealistic. There are times when players just want to play solo, and there are players who prefer mostly solo play.

It would be trivial for Anet to tune the events, mobs, respawns and other content to be more forgiving to casual or solo players! I just don’t understand why they won’t do it?!

When the game first came out I was one of the first bunch to reach 80, there was basically nobody in the final zones. I was a very badly fire spec ele using staff…. but yet it worked out, generally even with that horrible of a setup I could solo a vet, and I got to 80 no problem.

With an actually correct build its cakewalk. Most events are totally soloable as well, so I’m not sure what you mean that it’s hard to solo…. most people do solo the world content.

Rovaeden.8546:

Vick, did you bother to read my post or just the title?

-SNIP for being obnoxious-

Yes, I read your post in its entirety, and responded (diplomatically, I think) that I wholeheartedly disagree, for several reasons:

This is an MMO; not everything should be solo-able.

The game has already had its difficulty drastically reduced in several areas, including Orr and dungeons.

Rovaeden.8546:

If it was fun, people would be playing it!

You cannot refute that simple, basic and plainly obvious argument.

And yet, the statement is overly simplified. Even if content is fun, if it lacks incentives, the majority of players will ignore it to play content that actually rewards them. It may not be logical, but psychology isn’t always logical.

I don’t believe that lack of population is entirely to do with difficulty. IMO, it is also influenced by incentives (and lack thereof). If you recall, Orr was not deserted when there were meaningful incentives to play there. Those incentives were nerfed (first was karma trains being nerfed, second was event farming being nerfed), and therefore the zones are now less populated again. Yesterday’s patch introduced new incentives, so we may see a pick-up in population again.

Living Story content (with the notable exception of Scarlet’s invasions) has really removed most of the player population from the general PvE world, because the new content is instanced and/or limited to a very small area of the game. Therefore, a large chunk of the population of the server is condensed into that small area.

As a final note, I will also observe that many people complain on these forums about PvE being far too easy in general, which directly contradicts your request that the difficulty needs to be reduced further.

TL;DR: Now I’ve read your post twice, and I still disagree with you about reducing PvE difficulty. Buff unique incentives in each zone, rather than reducing difficulty.

I hate to be that guy, but I think this is a skill issue and not a general gameplay issue. You said that if people want a challenge, they have their dungeons/legendaries. But what about the people who want a challenging solo experience? Whenever I change my gear/spec, the first thing I do is go practice in Orr. Like others have posted, even the veterans can be taken down solo with a little bit of finesse and caution not to pull the entire zone.

Nerfing this zone would kill a part of the game that is unique, and I personally don’t want to play a game where every zone is the same difficulty.

One final counterpoint is that nerfing the zone could have a drastic effect on the in game economy. If everyone can go to Orr and easy-mode farm mats, then that will affect the value of those mats on the broker.

If the zone is too challenging, stick to the easier zones until you get enough practice to manage in this one.

Vick.6805:

Yes, I read your post in its entirety, and responded (diplomatically, I think) that I wholeheartedly disagree, for several reasons:

-snip- good response but won’t all fit

Thank you for the clarification, I am glad you actually read the OP and were not just disagreeing with me to be an elitist, ‘hardcore’ snob. (not that you are, but that is the attitude I expect. Perhaps you are, who knows. You articulate yourself well so I will assume not.)

I can appreciate your argument that ‘fun’ is not the only consideration in terms of content popularity. You make a very valid point that most players would rather chase the proverbial carrot through miserable content than play content that is fun but that offers no tangible reward.
I do not count myself part of this group.

The desolation of Orr may very well be related to lack of incentives to play there, as you suggest, and not because the content is too difficult for most players.

I still maintain my position however that overworld mobs and events should scale better for solo players. Perhaps Anet could parse a power level checker on a player in the area and scale the content accordingly. I don’t know how they should go about doing it, I just know that I don’t bother going to Orr anymore because no matter how well I play, when I have exhausted my dodge bar and all my abilities are on cooldown and I am rooted, blinded, feared, dazed, poisoned and on fire, from TWO kitten mobs, death is guaranteed!

My complaint is not strictly limited to Orr either. This is a game about being a hero. I have never, not once felt like a hero in this game! I have constantly felt like a feeble, barely capable pauper with the durability of damp paper that can be forced into the down state by little more than a strong breeze. What is heroic about that?!
My first character to 80 was a thief, and no matter what build and gear I tried I just could not take on more than 1-2 mobs at a time. I tried full zerker DD burst. I tried Pistol condition build, I tried stealth and life drain toughness S/D build. I wasted so kitten much money on gear and respeccing it was ludicrous.

Every time it was the same. Out of dodge, covered with conditions, all abilities on cooldown, 2 shots later im dead. Terrible game IMO! Not fun!
I quit for the best part of a year.

Now I come back to see if anything has been improved. Nope! Not enough anyway. Yeah im a little stronger vs noob zone mobs. I can take on 2-3 mobs in Orr now. So what?! That is hardly a change worth commenting on.

Now I am leveling a Necro, and while much more durable than my thief I run into the same issue. When im out of dodge and my abilities are on CD I am as good as dead. So I last for one hit more, so what, that isnt enough time to get away, let alone kill a pile of mobs that have joined the fight. It is silly.

I can really see why most people are content to play in the lowbie zones. They are the only places where you can actually feel powerful.

It sucks. I want to enjoy this game but I just simply don’t.

Now, given that I have heard other people complaining about this stuff, and knowing that I am not alone in feeling this, I have decided to come here and share my experience until I get a response from Anet.

So, rather than just saying “No, you can’t have your fun too! Fun in this game is only for the hardcore elite!” Why don’t you instead try to find a solution that works both for people like you as well as for people like me.

no one plays in higher level areas because champions are harder than the lv 7 troll in queensdale… cant farm champs for loot bags if you can’t kill them in 13 seconds….

Granted orr champs are a guaranteed exotic loot bag…

Orr isn’t hard…

Rovaeden.8546:

when I have exhausted my dodge bar and all my abilities are on cooldown and I am rooted, blinded, feared, dazed, poisoned and on fire, from TWO kitten mobs, death is guaranteed!

How are all of your abilities down? Are you using two weapons and switching during combat?

You made another comment about how the content isn’t fun, but I think Orr is one of the most fun zones to solo.

Rovaeden.8546:

Now I am leveling a Necro, and while much more durable than my thief I run into the same issue. When im out of dodge and my abilities are on CD I am as good as dead. So I last for one hit more, so what, that isnt enough time to get away, let alone kill a pile of mobs that have joined the fight. It is silly.

While I rarely see anyone run it, I’ve had a lot of success running a Minion Master on the overworld zones. Having a lot of minions to soak up the damage and keep aggro off of you makes survivability much much easier. Use all of the traits that increase minion damage and health and shorten their cooldowns and they not only survive quite well but can even dish out a fair amount of damage and can inflict useful conditions like blind and knockdown.

I can go to Orr and take on a Veteran Risen and 5-6 other Risen at the same time without too much trouble. This is with mostly Green and Blue gear items. By the time some minions start dying off they are off cooldown and can be resummoned. Death Shroud can do a lot of damage and acts as a great emergency button to soak up damage. I can even solo low-mid level champions with the minions. However…for dungeons and stuff they’ll probably get clobbered so this is only for the overworld.

quakeroatmeal.4829:

I hate to be that guy, but I think this is a skill issue and not a general gameplay issue. You said that if people want a challenge, they have their dungeons/legendaries. But what about the people who want a challenging solo experience? Whenever I change my gear/spec, the first thing I do is go practice in Orr. Like others have posted, even the veterans can be taken down solo with a little bit of finesse and caution not to pull the entire zone.

Nerfing this zone would kill a part of the game that is unique, and I personally don’t want to play a game where every zone is the same difficulty.

One final counterpoint is that nerfing the zone could have a drastic effect on the in game economy. If everyone can go to Orr and easy-mode farm mats, then that will affect the value of those mats on the broker.

If the zone is too challenging, stick to the easier zones until you get enough practice to manage in this one.

Firstly, I’m not strictly talking about nerfing Orr specifically. What I am talking about is an overall scaling of events throughout the game so that solo players can do events in dead zones.

Orr keeps coming up as an example, so I am using it as an example, but it is not the focus of my request, just one possible example of many.

Rovaeden.8546:

quakeroatmeal.4829:

I hate to be that guy, but I think this is a skill issue and not a general gameplay issue. You said that if people want a challenge, they have their dungeons/legendaries. But what about the people who want a challenging solo experience? Whenever I change my gear/spec, the first thing I do is go practice in Orr. Like others have posted, even the veterans can be taken down solo with a little bit of finesse and caution not to pull the entire zone.

Nerfing this zone would kill a part of the game that is unique, and I personally don’t want to play a game where every zone is the same difficulty.

One final counterpoint is that nerfing the zone could have a drastic effect on the in game economy. If everyone can go to Orr and easy-mode farm mats, then that will affect the value of those mats on the broker.

If the zone is too challenging, stick to the easier zones until you get enough practice to manage in this one.

Firstly, I’m not strictly talking about nerfing Orr specifically. What I am talking about is an overall scaling of events throughout the game so that solo players can do events in dead zones.

Orr keeps coming up as an example, so I am using it as an example, but it is not the focus of my request, just one possible example of many.

Events already do scale and [Group Events] are already soloable.

Ricochet Saw.1793:

no one plays in higher level areas because champions are harder than the lv 7 troll in queensdale… cant farm champs for loot bags if you can’t kill them in 13 seconds….

Granted orr champs are a guaranteed exotic loot bag…

this is certainly true and is part of my frustration. There is no incentive for people to play in other areas of the world, therefore if you want to experience other areas you end up doing so solo.

I am not 80 with max gear so I find it almost impossible to solo many events. This bums me out, so I am asking that Anet scale events a little bit further, especially in higher level zones so that they can be completed solo without dying over and over and over and over and over again.

So, let me get this straight. You’re complaining about the difficulty of end game zones, and you’re not even max level?

quakeroatmeal.4829:

So, let me get this straight. You’re complaining about the difficulty of end game zones, and you’re not even max level?

no. by this point there are a bunch of details you have missed, and i dont expect you to read the entire thread.

my 80 is not in BiS gear. I die a lot, like ‘1 shot and 2 shot nothing i can do die a lot’ i don’t like it.

My lowbie toons that i want to explore dead zones with struggle with events.

I think something could be done to make the game more friendly to solo players and players not in BiS gear.

The end game zones keep coming up as examples everyone, myself included, use to illustrate various points. thats all.

I just don’t understand how any zone other than Orr could possibly be conceived as too difficult. If anything, too easy.

well holy crap.

lo and behold I have found someone who not only agrees with me fully, but does a much better job of explaining what I hate about this game.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Endgame-PvE-Difficulty-comes-down-to-dodging/2780806

adding this to the OP.

Dont make it easier pls , everything is perfectly soloable, just put a bit effort in your gameplay

Ram Banson.4081:

Dont make it easier pls , everything is perfectly soloable, just put a bit effort in your gameplay

all you people singing this refrain are making some huge assumptions. i put everything i have into my gameplay but its not enough.

When you get 1 shot, skill is irrelevant.
When you cannot kite, skill is irrelevant.
When your abilities are on CD, skill is irrelevant.
When Armor and Toughness count for nothing, skill is irrelevant.
When your dodge meter takes longer to refill than it takes the monster to run (faster than you ever can) you down, skill is irrelevant.

Maybe you people don’t mind dying all the time. Maybe to you that is part of the fun.
If that is so, I think you are all stupid.
Dying sucks. I do not enjoy it.

Rovaeden.8546:

Ram Banson.4081:

Dont make it easier pls , everything is perfectly soloable, just put a bit effort in your gameplay

all you people singing this refrain are making some huge assumptions. i put everything i have into my gameplay but its not enough.

When you get 1 shot, skill is irrelevant.
When you cannot kite, skill is irrelevant.
When your abilities are on CD, skill is irrelevant.
When Armor and Toughness count for nothing, skill is irrelevant.
When your dodge meter takes longer to refill than it takes the monster to run (faster than you ever can) you down, skill is irrelevant.

Maybe you people don’t mind dying all the time. Maybe to you that is part of the fun.
If that is so, I think you are all stupid.
Dying sucks. I do not enjoy it.

I wear full zerker and run thru Orr. I do not get 1 shot.

Rovaeden.8546:

Maybe you people don’t mind dying all the time. Maybe to you that is part of the fun.
If that is so, I think you are all stupid.
Dying sucks. I do not enjoy it.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how much of your reasoning behind posting is for attention?

Rovaeden.8546:

well holy crap.

lo and behold I have found someone who not only agrees with me fully, but does a much better job of explaining what I hate about this game.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Endgame-PvE-Difficulty-comes-down-to-dodging/2780806

adding this to the OP.

would you be kind enough to explain to me the relevance between that post and yours?

What events are you having a problem with exactly? Is it a champ event, or just one with a whole lot of enemies at once?
I can assume from some of your posts that you are not in the best gear and I can understand getting frustrated being unable to do some content just because the enemies are far stronger than you, but let me ask you this. If ANet tuned all their events to be fairly easily doable by people in less than optimal gear, where’s the challenge for people in optimal gear?
When I was leveling, and even at 80 when I was still in greens there were a number of events I couldn’t solo. One particularly nasty one in ML comes to mind. But as I got more gear and started experimenting with more builds I was able to do these harder events by myself. It felt like I was really progressing and learning.
My point is, I think you’re looking at it the wrong way. You shouldn’t have a character who is in any way less than optimal and think you can just roll through any event. A event you can’t complete should be a motivation to progress your character further.

Rovaeden.8546:

If the majority of players had a fun time in the endgame zones, then more of them would be playing in them. This is just not the case. It has been my experience that the end game zones are deserted save one or two people.

I think my argument is reasonable and supported by evidence.
The game could use some tuning to the way events and mobs scale so that casual (read that as anyone NOT wearing full Best-In-Slot gear) players can have a hope of enjoying the content of all the zones in their own time and solo if necessary.

Just because you enjoy something, doesn’t mean you will be there 24/7. Back before they nerfed several farming spots, orr use to be THE place to farm. Now it’s champ farming, normally in the lower lv zones. That being said, maybe you are on a low pop server? because it’s been my experience that orr still has more then a few people going there (even if many of them are just node farming).

I’m sorry to disagree with you, but you have presented no evidence other then your own observations (without anything to back them up). The end zones are meant to be completed with a small (2+) group of people. I agree scaling needs to be looked into, but if you are wanting to do the zone solo, you can with only a little bit of effort (obviously you shouldn’t be able to easily solo group events). You say you are in P/V/T gear, have you tried instead knights (P/Pre/T)? or valks (P/V/Crit%)? BIS gear doesn’t add ALL that much in this game. Masterwork (green) -> Rare is less then 8% and Masterwork -> Exotic is only about 20%. I can guarantee you people have solo completed those zones in Masterwork gear.

pve overworld is already ridiculously easy (even group events; most are doable solo if you play well… just take annoyingly long)

Rovaeden.8546:

Ram Banson.4081:

Dont make it easier pls , everything is perfectly soloable, just put a bit effort in your gameplay

all you people singing this refrain are making some huge assumptions. i put everything i have into my gameplay but its not enough.

When you get 1 shot, skill is irrelevant.
When you cannot kite, skill is irrelevant.
When your abilities are on CD, skill is irrelevant.
When Armor and Toughness count for nothing, skill is irrelevant.
When your dodge meter takes longer to refill than it takes the monster to run (faster than you ever can) you down, skill is irrelevant.

Maybe you people don’t mind dying all the time. Maybe to you that is part of the fun.
If that is so, I think you are all stupid.
Dying sucks. I do not enjoy it.

Going to double post here, but LOL!

If you are being 1 shot, check your gear/lv to make sure it’s appropriate for the content (ie not lv 60 armour in a lv 75 zone), or l2dodge telegraphed abilities.

If you cannot kite, try another method of killing said mob (and refer to part 1 of previous point).

If all your abilities are on CD, check your “rotation”. Don’t mash your face across the keyboard and expect everything to die. (On another note, auto attack chain is sometimes one of the stronger attacks characters have…).

Armour yes, makes little different. Toughness on the other hand makes a huge different. If the ability is going to do 20k dmg, ya, expect to die or come close, but for most (non condition) attacks, toughness helps a ton.

Dodging is meant to evade attacks, not our run people. Yes you move faster dodging then running, but this shouldn’t be a reason to spam dodge when you don’t need to.

No one enjoys dying all the time, but if you actually read some of the replies, we are saying (some of us our anyway) that we don’t die in Orr. The more and more you post, the more and more you cement the idea that you are only out for attention.

@ OP

You may be correct in stating as fact that the end zones, particularly Orr, have few players in them. My own anectdotal experience would support that claim as well. In the absence of any raw data from ArenaNet, though, it’s still supposition on both our parts. For all we know, servers other than our own are overflowing with players in Orr.

What is not a fact is stating the above is due to the difficulty of the zones. That is purely subjective opinion. One player’s impossible zone is another’s cake walk. With the exception of some group events and some champions, I find Orr to be no more difficult than any other zone for going solo. Annoying? Yes. Difficult? No.

I’ll agree that if you don’t have best-in-slot gear and condition cleansing, it will be more of a challenge to get through; but still not impossible. With the availability of exotic karma gear and ascended laurel trinkets, though, having at least some best-in-slot gear should not be that difficult to come by.

Furthermore, if I recall correctly from developer interviews and blog statements, Orr was envisioned as an area where players would form groups to work together to accomplish goals. Though soloable, I don’t think that was their intent when they designed Orr. The fact it hasn’t played out the way they intended speaks more to other faulty design decisions, in my opinion, rather than the zone being too difficult.

The reasons for the low player population could be many: difficulty, rewards not commensurate with the effort, missing that illusive and hard-to-define ingredient called “fun”, lack of challenging and unique mechanics versus the monotonous CC spam and one dimensional enemies we are currently faced with, depressing scenery, etc. However, all of those are subjective. The reasons why one player dislikes Orr will be different from another player’s reasons and both will be largely matters of opinion rather than facts.

I do agree with you that something needs to be done if the goal is to increase player involvement in Orr. Decreasing the difficulty level, though, is not one of them. But that’s just my opinion.

For the sake of being realistic, Anet should never scale down some events. You think you should be able to kill a dragon alone? I do not.
Group events are (and hopefully will always remain) rather difficult to complete alone.

Find a party or friendly guild that will assist you…

i do think that, without making things to simple, lvl 80 places should still be a place where rare should be enough to solo the place.
i always find gear discrimination the worst, especially when the devs play along with it.
it’s the reason why i can’t stand the other MMO’s, all kinds of gear grind and no balance for casuals.

orr may be high end but it should still be do-able in normal gear, making exotic and beyond the only way to go is horrible game design.

sorudo.9054:

i do think that, without making things to simple, lvl 80 places should still be a place where rare should be enough to solo the place.
i always find gear discrimination the worst, especially when the devs play along with it.
it’s the reason why i can’t stand the other MMO’s, all kinds of gear grind and no balance for casuals.

orr may be high end but it should still be do-able in normal gear, making exotic and beyond the only way to go is horrible game design.

Exotic is a tiny change from rare (unlike a tier change in basically any other game). Orr is definitely doable in rares, I could run around solo back in my MF rare set if I felt like it. What isn’t practical solo would be steps to arah for the dungeon unlock, and why should they be?

If excessive difficulty/level scaling issues were the main reasons for this game’s non-endgame zones being deserted, then what’s every other MMOs excuse? Every game I’ve played has had this same problem of the mid-level zones being deserted, and all except GW2 did things the “old fashioned” way where going back and doing lower-level content as a high-level player was trivially easy to the point of some people soloing group dungeons and the like.

If anything, the way that GW2 scales your character’s level to match the zone gives me MORE incentive to go back and complete the content in lower-level zones, because I’m not just facerolling everything for no reward. It’s not that I don’t ever have problems with doing the content this way (I really hate underwater combat with certain classes, for example, and in some high-level zones I tend to struggle with it). But often this just makes me find new approaches to playing my class. Either that or I level up a bit more (if not at cap) and try out new skills and traits (which BTW aren’t lost when your level is scaled down).

Please no, the overworld is already extremely easy save for Orr and Southsun. Also the thread you link to is in no way related to yours.

I didn’t bother reading every single post so sorry if I repeat what someone already have said.

I have been quite active in Orr the last couple of days… doing the temples and such, which have been great fun! When that is said, I have a little list of why I think people avoid Orr.

1. Orr is quite huge, you cannot avoid meeting mobs at all time, and thats ok… The only problem is that IF you should end up dying… there is barely any available waypoints as 90% of the maps in Orr is contested..

2. You would need a bigger group than in Queensdale to farm the champs, and well… Eventhough the loot is more valueble (with the Heavy loot bags and stuff), it just have a hard time making up for Champ runs in maps like Queensdale.

3. You have to be more aware in a map where you actually stand a chance of dying, once again compared to Queensdale.

When all that is said, Orr is soloable, but you cannot farm group events solo, and it wasn’t supposed to be for solo.

One way to improve it would be to make certain mob types drop specific rare/exotic/ascended items. For example if a normal white mob had a extreamly low chance of dropping a skin that only THAT type of monster could drop, then I believe a lot more people would farm that specific type of monster = Orr would be brought back to life.

Aeon.1674:

there is barely any available waypoints as 90% of the maps in Orr is contested..

this i agree with

Aeon.1674:

2. You would need a bigger group than in Queensdale to farm the champs, and well… Eventhough the loot is more valueble (with the Heavy loot bags and stuff), it just have a hard time making up for Champ runs in maps like Queensdale.

theres often a sizable CS champ train on deso… (i go FG personally; but alot of my guildies go CS)

I personally like a challenge. My goal is to get to level 80 without being forced to ask for help. I’ve gotten to level 67(I believe, I’ll check tonight) without serious issues. I love trying my skills against a group of tough enemies.
I do see your point though, the areas im in are nearly dead but I put that down to having decent end game content and people not making alts to replay the story.
My two cents. Keep it as is