Guild Wars 2

I like playing MMOs for the sheer size of the Worlds/Areas on offer, but a common flaw in the thinking of game designers and planners is that they think their game is always going to have loads of players to join together in groups for large/difficult battles.
The flaw is that players who join such games do not always stick with it, they get bored, don’t like the game. or their enthusiasm is short-lived as they move on to newer games.
It has been suggested that servers are amalgamated/consolidated, this was done for GW1 after a long period, it’s been done for SWtoR [which hasn’t really been out for that long] and there are other examples to be found. The joining together may have for at time increased player population, but hasn’t increased group playing. I’ve run kinship/ guilds/ fellowships and the fall-off rate for most of these is alarming, despite there being a core of enthusiasts.
This game, GW2, has so much potential but I’ve played a lot in the week and week-ends until quite late and have found myself alone many a time playing a group event or challenge event, if I’ve been lucky on occasions [when not in the peak population time] to have the casual grouping of about five of us.
The programmers of this game should reprogram so-called group events so that the difficulty, including the Boss’ hit-points, is changed according to the number of human players taking part or alternatively [in cases like the Hitachi Highlands] have more friendly Bots playing in support. An ‘’And….If……Or’’ piece of programming should do the trick.
If something is not done, I sadly forsee that this excellent game will decline a lot more rapidly than GW1, which many of us still play to this day.

Hmm, that sounds interesting. Have a mob record how many players are attacking itself thus resulting in a increase in powah! I foresee some fun and hilarious times. lol!

The only reason why SWTOR merged servers is because they killed off their own game by having too many initial servers, then a week after launch added even more. My server was dead (literally not figuratively) a month before they merged. Doing a /who of the server revealed that there were less than 10 people on the entire server at any given time.

Is this a problem in GW2? Maybe not to the same extent. But it might be a problem. I’ve seen people complaining they can’t find people willing to do dungeons in the morning hours. Could that be because of population? Or could it be because people just aren’t home? It’s hard to tell. If people are having issues getting groups in the evening, then I’m willing to admit that there’s a problem. But I haven’t seen that on my server.

Group events already scale… the number of enemies that spawn, how tough the bosses are, the number of items you need to collect, these all depend on the number of players in the area.

For example, the “defend the watertower against bandits” events in Queensdale: if it triggers when I’m there alone, one or two bandits run up at a time. If there are six players around the watertower, a horde of bandits rush to the area. Just recently in Wayfarer Hills I triggered a DE where an NPC wanted me to collect sacks of food from the grawl caves. After bringing her four sacks the event ended, if there were three more people collecting food it would require a lot more to complete.

The system isn’t perfect, someone who is afk near an event or chatting/harvesting or just hanging out and not participating in the event can still be counted for scaling purposes, but it usually doesn’t have a dramatic impact on the event.

Now, if you want the events to scale dynamically during the event, such as each additional player increasing the boss’s stats by 20% or something, that would just open up a new kind of griefing. Players could run through the area, take a shot at the boss to be counted, then ride on. A boss that was nearly defeated could be “healed” in this way, repeatedly, making it hard to defeat it.

I actually like the events with less people around and think the challenge level is about right.

I never hesitate to jump in a group event even when I’m solo unless it’s underwater – then, I hesitate and do it anyhow. Usually when folks realize that someone is doing the event, they jump in. If they don’t, I’ve been able to finish them solo, although I’m sure that some folks will consider it a waste of time for the amount of reward you get. I just do it because I find it fun.

Three out of five times in the past two days someone else has shown up, we take out the champ, and have a great time doing it. I really enjoy doing a champ with two people. I have to use every bit of everything I can do and I get to see how other folks play their professions under extreme conditions. It’s a lot easier for me to react to what the other player is doing if there’s only two of us – when too many other players are around, I just react to what the boss is doing, and react to downed players. Not as interesting.

I have to agree they spent too much time thinking people will be everywhere, but it leads to some interesting programing if they don’t. If they make it too easy then a group of two will steamroll everything, too hard and you will have no chance to play once the initial zerg is over as it seems to be dwindling now.

I’ve said many times they need some kind of low level trash guy who does scale with players in the area. One that starts like any other monster and goes up to a Veteran with enough people around.

The only real problem at this point is the amount of Champions in lvl 30-79 area’s. They made the Champs a bit too hard to do yourself, or at least to tedious to do yourself. At the same time these areas are a bit deserted and Champ events will go on for days without anyone bothering to end it. Lighten the Champs up a bit so that I don’t pass it by when on my own due to the time investment I must make to fight it. The more people stop and fight it, the more chances others will be running by and also jump in on the fight. If I run by because I see no one around fighting it, then the next guy does too, then no one is ever around to group up and fight a Champ.

GrimShade.8091:

If I run by because I see no one around fighting it, then the next guy does too, then no one is ever around to group up and fight a Champ.

Why run by it? If no-one shows up, and you don’t want to take the time, the leash isn’t that long, so you can always bail. If someone does end up killing it later, you still get rewarded for trying.