Guild Wars 2

Before I start, I have have not checked into this, so forgive me if I’m totally wrong.

I have been seeing more and more posts popping up about population drops and it got me thinking. How many new players are starting per day, and are they finding a lonely barren world?

It sucks to think that there are new players excited to play the game, and then realizing they’re basically playing a single player game that isn’t all that easy without other players to help.

So here are some questions I have.

1. What can be done to bring new players together when they start new maps?
2. Is there anything ANet can do to encourage high level players to go back and revisit these maps without ruining it for low level players?
3. Level 80 players seem to be hurting for stuff to do, has anyone tried organizing a group to help new players feel welcome?

The reason I ask this is because in the past I remember how lame it was playing hours and hours of WoW alone. It was hard to get people to communicate, and it was even harder to get people to let me join their groups.

As well, we all know that a healthy population is key to the success of an MMO and it’s future. If new players find their initial experience to be frustrating and lonely, it will mean that everyone will max out, and the world will be a very lonely place.

More importantly, if new players aren’t spending money, then ANet won’t produce new content, and we all suffer.

So, anyway…it’s early so forgive my grammar. I just wanted to see what you all thought.

1-30 zones still have plenty of people from what I’ve seen, it’s the 40-70 zones that are low pop.

Most people started the game a month ago.

I recently went back to newbie area (Black Citadel/Charr starting grounds), and there were plenty of people. It wasn’t packed, but it was ok. Unfortunately the first 2 events were bugged, but that’s another thread.

The troubles are in the middle zones. When playing alts, I’m not seeing people, events aren’t going on.

For most of us, it’s ok. We have our crowded top level zones. We’re no longer looking for jute, but ectos instead.

I don’t think we, as a community, can really do much to help new players, cuz there’s just not many of them. For the slower-to-level players (for example my son, they’ll need some help to keep a sense of vibrance about the game.

Unfortunately, story-mode dungeons are not worth repeating, and we’ve discovered the myth that even if you’re 80 it’s s’posedly still rewarding to revisit lower-level content. So, hope the lower-level folks are into joining the zerg in wvw.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

1. What can be done to bring new players together when they start new maps?
2. Is there anything ANet can do to encourage high level players to go back and revisit these maps without ruining it for low level players?
3. Level 80 players seem to be hurting for stuff to do, has anyone tried organizing a group to help new players feel welcome?

.

1 – Starting areas already group the new players together. Where they go from there is up to them, but heart quests, points of interest, and vistas are in place to encourage each area to be fully explored

2 – ANET levels down high level players who visit lower areas so they really arent ruining anything for low level players. As far as revisiting goes, the map explorations are there for that as well if the player chose to skip content in favor of the “old” MMO method of powerleveling to cap.

3 – Those would be called guilds and among its purposes would be helping new players out.

I personally don’t see any major population drops, but anyone worried about lack of population has the option of choosing or moving to a high population server.

The 1-15 and 15-25 zones should still be fairly well populated, and the couple of zones in the 75-80 range should be fine too. It’s that middle part where the population really dwindles, and really even in those zones they’re mostly fine at peak hours.

1, 2, and 3 can be addressed easily by a) lowering Way Point costs for level 80s – right now the cost can be near 5s to go from high level areas to low ones. Which brings us too b) scale the rewards and drops in low level areas to match that of the high level areas.

Combining “a” and “b” we will have a system that allows high level players the freedom of movement WHILE still earning drops and income equal to what they might get in Orr or Frostgorge.
Failing to combine those two, however, means a single Waypoint will take at least 4 to 5 events to recoup the costs of getting there (and more to cover the cost of getting back) and few too no level’d drops for them to use.
In the end, it’s not worth it for a level 80 to return at this point.

And Phy is right. The lowest areas are still packed. Some of us that have 80s have parked them for various reasons and are bringing up alts.

I started less then a week ago and so far there’s been lots of people in the zones I’ve been in. Maybe for people that started when it came out it seems barren comparatively but as a new player I’ve never felt alone. So far there was only one event somewhere in the starting Char zone where I was by myself for a good part of it until some others showed up. I was having fun though working my way slowly through it. It was a real challenge. Other then thats I have never had an event happen where people don’t show up.

I’ve met people and joined a couple guilds too.

What server is everyone on? I just started the game and I’m like level 8 on CD. Still lot of new people over here. Maybe if they cut down on or merge servers?

It will probably be empty from new players but will have plenty of vets who have rerolled because they are bored at 80.

Generally, the best bet to find other players at this point is the place where leveling is best.

That means the zones with a good group of dynamic events close together which spawn frequently. This gives good xp and lots of loot (as long as the anti-botting code doesn’t kick in).

I’ve got from 44 to 54 in just 2 small areas of 2 maps because they have a high spawn rate of DEs close to one another or in a chain.

I honestly think the game has peaked and sales are down which is why your not seeing that many low level players.

I created a new character yesterday and I can’t honestly say new people to the game are going to be getting a wonderful experience. The low level zones are full of downlevelled characters steaming over everything with AoE’s before the ‘real’ low level character even gets a chance to see what’s going on.

Downlevelling needs to be true downlevelling if it’s going to work. At the moment, a downlevelled 80 is FAR stronger than a real low level character and it shows. They absolutely clean up in low level areas.

All of the servers are either High or Full. That has not changed since launch. If you do not believe me, check the servers at peak and non-peak times. Today at what I would consider a non-peak time, I found only two North American servers at Medium. These are the same two servers that they opened up post-launch and have been Medium since they came online.

Right now, it is 9:25 am eastern time. All of the other NA servers are High or Full. Why are so many people playing so early on a Saturday? If the game is losing popularity, the server utilization should be decreasing. It is not.

Also, does anyone remember that due to high concurrent use, Arenanet expanded the capacity of some servers. So we have many High and Full servers still with about the same mixture after 1 month.

To determine if use is decreasing, wait until month 5 or 6. Also, this is not a subscription game so to imply that pop reduction is a failure of this game is inappropriate. To be concerned because people are playing alone is a different issue. The best solution would be to join or form a guild. I figured that was an important part of this game given its name.

While they’ve made big strides in this area and should definitely be applauded for their vision and intent, the scaling still needs some serious spit and polish tweaking before the lofty claims they’ve been making can be realised. They could start by addressing the loot table and waypoint costs which are inhibitive.

Right now, my level 80 will absolutely trounce most average low level content and I’ve had tells from the odd understandably irritated player who felt I was romping all over their content – these are perfectly reasonable players who enjoy the game for what it is and have little interest in being taken through DEs at warp speed. In any case, I get very little in the way of tangible reward for being there. Why would I want to go back to old content, knowing it rubs people up the wrong way, that it costs me quite a chunk of change just to get there and the rewards pretty much stink anyway?

It needs working on, but I’m as certain as I can reasonably be that ANet know this, that they’re getting valuable ongoing information and will act upon it in time. Despite being able to play GW2 in short bursts and not feel guilt about it, I do still think it’s a keeper and they’re playing the long game, so stands to reason.

I started the game only a few days ago.
My highest leveler at this point is a 20 engineer. Just to get to know the profession I’m spending more time figuring skills and traits out in the pvp lodge than leveling
But I do like wandering around this beautifull world.

While running about the world, it bcomes increasingly difficult to do a lot of the stuff I come across. So many things are meant to be done by groups, or at least with a lot of people there. Very often I die in fights just because I’m the only one there in the clutch with loads of spawning npc’s, or veterans popping up etc.

This game clearly seems designed for groups, even when leveling. I feel that very very hard to be honest.
It’s not that I don’t want groups, or that I don’t want to play with other people. I actually do, but for now I’m just checking the game out (been in WoW since Vanilla and am holding of MoP for GW2…).
I’m really impressed by a lot in this game, but not being able to advance smoothly alone is getting frustrating.
By now I have to pass on almost half of what I encounter just because there aren’t many other people around most of the time.

Not only the events by the way, where it’s normal you don’t succeed if not many there. But also some questing zones, some parts where there are just tons of enemies and you have no room to move… all of that makes it harder too.

I like challenges, but being simply overrun by npc’s, while not many other players are around, isn’t a challenge. It’s an impossible fight.

I’m seriously thinking starting over at a crowded server, in the hope there might be more people around doing their thing at the same time.

Yup try getting into a full server at an off peak time. No pop issues in mine (tarnished coast) at all.

@dalendria yes the high level zones are populated but the fact is the low level zones are not and as Kimbald say many players are having trouble doing world events.

High level people get board and quit all the time. Its the new players that keep a game going. If we don’t start getting more new blood in the game the servers are not going to be high population for very long!

I think if Anet would normalize the rewards/drop to the player level in the same manner they do costs (WP, repairs, etc) it would go a long way in getting players to spread out.

There’s lots of complaints about Orr in general because of the way Risen were designed. Given the chance (with equal rewards) players will likely leave Orr and go else where.

Course, that leaves issues with people getting Orr “done” – but the same issue is applied when one looks at WvW and the PvE only players trying to get 100% map complete. Some servers simply are going to have a harder time getting 100% complete then say SBI or HoD.

Meh I’m a slow leveler… and literally no one are in my zones. Dredghaunt Cliffs have literally maybe 4 ppl in them. In the lvl 50 Charr area I’m in, I’ve only bumped into 2 other people. This game which was once easy cake with a zerg, is nearly impossible if you and 1-2 others are the only one doing things in the zones. I think the major problem with this game is that there is a complete lack of scaling in either directions. I have never felt like DE’s scaled for a lot of people or lack of people, maybe you have to be in the magic range of people where they scale, but the rareness of the scaling system actually kicking in leads me to conclude they could have just made the feature up and I couldn’t tell otherwise.

WHY DO I GET THE SAME REWARD FOR kittenING SOLOING A DE, AS I WOULD IF I PLAYED WITH A ZERG AND BARELY CONTRIBUTED??

In order to get the best out of the 15-30 maps it is best to play during prime times. Off peak times are rather barren and a bit miserable.

Making maps 1-60 more cross-realm accessible is one possible solution.

Use map chat and call out interesting events. People will come.

As for level 80’s going back – I jump all over the world as I love the Dynamic Events. Sometimes I will be in Orrr, sometimes in Kessex Hills.

I play on a medium EU server, currently level 60. I hardly see anyone around while in this level zone, chat is empty.

I’ll give my vote to the solution offered up-thread: reduce waypoint costs.

There is also the added issue that high levels give up the money-making potential of Orr to go down level. So they get hit from both sides.

If the devs don’t want a ghost town low to mid-level, they need to make the return as close to the lucrativeness of Orr as possible.

Really don’t understand what the original poster is complaining about. I just started a new character last week, and if anything the events are still way, way, way overcrowded. I eagerly await the day when everyone is so spread out that each event has like 5-10 people participating in it, max. They will be so much more enjoyable at that point.

the uprising.6317:

Meh I’m a slow leveler… and literally no one are in my zones. Dredghaunt Cliffs have literally maybe 4 ppl in them. In the lvl 50 Charr area I’m in, I’ve only bumped into 2 other people. This game which was once easy cake with a zerg, is nearly impossible if you and 1-2 others are the only one doing things in the zones. I think the major problem with this game is that there is a complete lack of scaling in either directions. I have never felt like DE’s scaled for a lot of people or lack of people, maybe you have to be in the magic range of people where they scale, but the rareness of the scaling system actually kicking in leads me to conclude they could have just made the feature up and I couldn’t tell otherwise.

WHY DO I GET THE SAME REWARD FOR kittenING SOLOING A DE, AS I WOULD IF I PLAYED WITH A ZERG AND BARELY CONTRIBUTED??

This is an odd comment. Let’s use an escort-style mission as an example. When you solo it, maybe 3 opponents will pop up at each encounter that occurs along the way. If you and another player are duoing the event, suddenly there will be 5-6 mobs at each encounter instead. As more players join the event, more opponents are added and/or their level is increased. I see this every time, so obviously scaling is happening.

You get the same reward for soloing a DE because the difficulty is scaled down appropriately. It’s a risk versus reward thing. Now, if you’re play a build that is fairly range oriented you can hang back whenever a lot of players are participating and pick off opponents from relative safety – but that’s an advantage of your build. I can assure you the fellow up front preparing to melee 20 centaurs that are charging toward him feels anything but safe for the first few moments.

I agree that the rewards are quirky in that there are encounters where I can kill one or two mobs and get a gold medal, and other times I can greatly influence the tide of the entire battle by working hard on a support role and only earn a bronze. But that’s really as far as the oddness goes. You don’t get better rewards when soloing a DE because most of them are designed to be soloed and you simply don’t deserve anything beyond the standard reward for tackling the encounter as designed.

Think uprising is exaggerating a bit, but my experience has been similar, especially at off-peak times. When the game was new, there were always lots of other players around, even at 4am. Now, not so much.

and the events don’t scale down that well, as far as I’ve seen. I’ve done escort missions solo, and still get pretty much swarmed by mobs. Maybe some scale better than others, not sure. Course, any involving a champ, forget about it, and new players will even have trouble soloing veterans. Then you’ve got the collection events, where they seem to need a hundred of an item, even if you’re the only one there to run around gathering it.

I just don’t see the scaling they claim is in place. It’s hard to be sure, but if it is working, it’s not as big of a factor as I’d expect.

I actually did an escort event twice today, once alone and once with 3 others.
Alone I got swarmed and died a few times after giving up.

With those 3 others we killed everything easy because… the same ammount of mobs spawned as when i did it before alone.

The system looks good on paper, but I can’t say I’m feeling much of that downscaling to be honest.

That’s a bit of the deal, or deal-breaker if you will, with this game isn’t it: the ideas all sound superb on paper. Real innovative for an MMO!
But when seeing them, a lot appear to be implemented a bit too weak and end up having the same issues as … the older systems they were supposed to improve.

I think GW2 is the most innovative game out there, but apparantly a lot of the features I was so looking forward to, aren’t all that good in the game itself.

Kimbald.2697:

I actually did an escort event twice today, once alone and once with 3 others.
Alone I got swarmed and died a few times after giving up.

With those 3 others we killed everything easy because… the same ammount of mobs spawned as when i did it before alone.

Honestly, that has totally not been my experience. When I’m alone I face a handful of mobs at most per wave, although I am rarely alone for long. Events tend to attract players quickly. How many hostile NPCs you face also seems to depend on how many friendly NPCs you have along with you (caravan guards, for example).

Are you sure you were completely alone? Players in the vicinity of the event count towards the scaling, even if they’re not participating.

I’m sure there are events that just aren’t scaling correctly (and those would be bugs).

I’m sure I was alone yes.
Let’s hope it was either bots around (who would actually join the even now I think) or something else, perhaps even a bug.

I’m a big fan of the whole scaling system. it’s actually one of the main attractions of this game: to be able to group or go alone and still have fun regardless.
As well as having somewhere to go at 80, without one-shotting everything in sight.
We know the downscaling isn’t tuned right at this point, a lvl 80 faces no challenge downscaling. So maybe the scaling based on numbers of players around isn’t fully functional either.

I want this game to succeed, and i’m amased at the ammount of hostility on these forums against anyone putting down even the slightest critisism…
Your reply was reasonable of course, and I’m taking into consideration everything you said.

I am lvl 78 on my main and I visit low lvl zones regularly,
Queensdale, the human starter zone is one of my favourites in the game.
I also have low lvl alts currently doing their stuff there and it is never empty.
Just last week I made a new alt and there was a carpet of people in the tutorial.

Actually I have pretty much seen a steady pop in every map since the initial insane rush passed.

My own (limited) experience is that the initial map was crowded indeed, but any other map after that wasn’t…

I hope I just had a streak of bad luck today, but on a saturday afternoon that shouldn’t be the case.
The reason I came to the forums was in fact to check if others had the same experience.

On my new server it’s better, so let’s hope for the best.

I think also players who are in the mid areas skip events because alot of the time it’s a waste of time, when you can just heart seek a place fast and get to the next one. that’s what I’ve done on my three 80s.

I just started the game in the last week or so and I find it to be pretty well populated. Not packed, but events usually have 3-4 people. I rarely have solo’d one. Sometimes a larger group of 10-15 shows up. For me it’s just about right. Not a post launch zergfest and not “this game is 3 years old and it’s a ghost town”.

Shajin.5492:

I just started the game in the last week or so and I find it to be pretty well populated. Not packed, but events usually have 3-4 people. I rarely have solo’d one. Sometimes a larger group of 10-15 shows up. For me it’s just about right. Not a post launch zergfest and not “this game is 3 years old and it’s a ghost town”.

3 to 4 people at events is a joke! When I played FFXI from 2004~2007 all of the zones were so packed that often groups were on top of each other fighting for mobs. Were a month in and 3 to 4 players at a event is very sad! All zones should be packed to the max and full of people everywhere!

Honestly, I wouldn’t want much more than a handful of people at any event. I feel like most are overcrowded as is. It’s difficult to feel heroic in a zerg, and the scaling doesn’t seem to really handle large crowds very well. Almost all the difficulty is lost when too many people are present.