I’m not going to name servers or individuals here because I don’t want to diminish their luck and accomplishment.
I have noticed a very disturbing issue with Tequatl that I think many of us already saw coming: People simply do not want to do him again after beating him.
A recent server success hit me square in the face on this one. In an effort to organize many of the same folks who participated to do the encounter again I was confronted with apathy, disappointment and frustration.
As it turns out, a great deal of people simply do not want to repeat their victory over Tequatl. Granted, some individuals do; however, it seems the majority (and in a specific case I’m thinking of, the leaders and commanders who organized and lead the success of the event) simply do not want to go through all that hassle again for what, I feel, the absolute majority of people agree: The rewards are 100% not in line with the required effort to complete the encounter.
The attitude I was confronted with was disheartening and showed the true colors of “Tequatl The Funless”. The fight may be the single most interesting experience Anet has put in the game, but the overflows, guesting issues, afk/troll people, general apathy and complete lack of reward have made the fight simply a “I’ll do it once for the achievements then I’m done… I beat it and can do better elsewhere.”
This breaks the encounter for every other person who wants to complete achievements and wants to engage in one of the most interesting battles in the games history. Simply because Anet did not adequately plan nor establish server capability to handle the fight (i.e., they did not first find a solution to overflows, coordination and, frankly, the ‘people’ factor).
Without the help of individuals who have already beaten it and know what to do involved as well as the capability for them to get access to the main server to participate (replacing mentally challenged people who just lay there dead and do not WP or who afk/troll turrets) it makes it much less possible for people just now entering the encounter to have a chance to beat it. Essentially, as time goes by your chances of beating the encounter become less and less. This is a severely broken game mechanic.
I want to be very clear here: I do not want Tequatl nerfed.
GW2 needs battles with this complexity and scale. But, to do them there needs to be rewards to match (so people return to the fight) and the means to build the crowd necessary to beat it (eliminate afk/trolls and force dead people to WP).
A solution to afk could be as simple as a system in the zone during the event that works similar to Sanctum Sprint where you are booted if you stand still for even a few seconds. The solution to dead people not using the WP is even simpler… You die and you are automagically ported to the quaggan WP so you can swim back alive. If you do not re-enter the event zone, the afk timer kicks in and you are booted so someone who is paying attention can replace you. Simple enough.
Speaking to the overflow situation, Anet needs to figure out their performance issues (maybe take a look at using the GPU instead of one core on the CPU for everything?") and increase the amount of people who can populate the main server significantly. The preference for natives coming in versus guests is already in place (though, if a guest has a ‘friend’ they can still join through their party but that seems reasonable as playing with friends is kind of the point).
I would like to urge all of those who have beaten this encounter to not stop doing it regularly and to instead do it as much as possible (at least once per day) to continue to help others get through it. It is not an ‘elite’ fight. It is actually a pretty darn easy one. The only difficult part are things out of most players control. If people continue to get frustrated and angry about how this is working out, there will be no one left interested if more encounters come about like this. There will be a great deal of exodus to newer games on the horizon preventing such things from even being doable at this level again. We have to continue to help each other every day. Kudos to those who have been.
Good luck.