Guild Wars 2

Southsun did not live up to it’s hype, and Cursed Shore is now 80% empty.

I’m sorry if I offend you Anet, but nerfing Plinx and Pent while not giving us any other alternatives, was not very thoughtful.

I am by no means a casual, but I’m not someone who would usually spend a whole hour or more on dungeons such as FotM.

I used to log in at Cursed Shore for 15-30 minutes, do a few rounds of Plinx, laugh around with the crowds, have an idle chat with the lovely community in the Map chat, and log off.

Cursed Shore wasn’t just a farming spot, it has became a ‘Community’ of sorts, with people running around, chatting, helping each other when they see someone i trouble. Now, it’s probably 80% less crowd than it used to be.

And sorry to say, I thought Southsun had a lot of potential if it ‘fully opened’, but for now, it’s a lame place with a few wandering players.

I don’t know if everyone quit GW2, or Cursed Shore is not a viable farming area anymore, what I know is, the community ingame is pretty much fragmented now, each doing their own thing, wandering around.

Well I wouldn’t doubt it. From my experience of straits/malchor area (haven’t tried Cursed yet), I don’t blame them. All of the Orr zones are frustrating, and with nothing worthwhile to do there, people aren’t going to be staying there. I know I won’t, once I finish the maps (unless its changed by then). Also, probably some people might go back there once FotM has lost its newness.

This is what new tiers of gear do. gates content

Welcome to vertical progression

It’s the first game I’ve ever played that cracked down so mercilessly and pitilessly on every single group activity that organically appeared in their “play it your way” world. I suppose it’s the NWO of MMO. Whatever it is, I can’t fathom it, nor deal. Lol.

skullmount.1758:

Well I wouldn’t doubt it. From my experience of straits/malchor area (haven’t tried Cursed yet), I don’t blame them. All of the Orr zones are frustrating, and with nothing worthwhile to do there, people aren’t going to be staying there. I know I won’t, once I finish the maps (unless its changed by then). Also, probably some people might go back there once FotM has lost its newness.

Cursed Shore was very much different from the other two I guarantee you, definitely less gloomier and depressing than Malchor’s Leap, and definitely more rewarding than Straits, and that was where most of the communities of level 80s would be, farming and joking around.

I guess you would only be worried about level 80 areas if you only play your level 80 characters, but let me tell you that running a character up to level 80 is the loneliest experience I’ve ever had in an MMO. Doing events by yourself and running through empty landscapes… Wow. Where were the incentives to make people go back to the beginning areas?

“Where were the incentives to make people go back to the beginning areas?”

Scrapped, it’s all about gear grind now.

juventas.2975:

I guess you would only be worried about level 80 areas if you only play your level 80 characters, but let me tell you that running a character up to level 80 is the loneliest experience I’ve ever had in an MMO. Doing events by yourself and running through empty landscapes… Wow. Where were the incentives to make people go back to the beginning areas?

Lol yea, I can imagine the rest of the map being far worse than level80 areas.

Couldn’t you joke around, chat and have a good time in LA while running FotM just like you did in Cursed Shore?

I understand it’s frustrating that we’re limited to only running FotM for ascended gear but is it really worse than running Plinx for the best gold income? If nothing else FotM does seem to be quite rewarding in terms of gold and I couldn’t possibly fathom how running Plinx could be more fun.

That said, we definitely need new options in terms of endgame PvE content which I’m hoping will happen sooner rather than later. But somehow I doubt that bringing Plinx back would be a good step forward for the game…

one of the reasons its population dropped is because people are not automaticly bumped up to level 80 now.

i’m sure a lot of the people there the first few days were lower level people cheching out what a level 80 zone looks like.

It kinda makes me wonder if I’ll ever finish my personal story. I’ve got a good guild, but a max of 5 or 6 on at a time, and there are several high-end events that simply won’t work with that few.. or so I’ve been told.

But, I’ll just hope this is a temporary lull as everyone burns out on FotM for awhile.

Archer.6485:

Couldn’t you joke around, chat and have a good time in LA while running FotM just like you did in Cursed Shore?

I understand it’s frustrating that we’re limited to only running FotM for ascended gear but is it really worse than running Plinx for the best gold income? If nothing else FotM does seem to be quite rewarding in terms of gold and I couldn’t possibly fathom how running Plinx could be more fun.

That said, we definitely need new options in terms of endgame PvE content which I’m hoping will happen sooner rather than later. But somehow I doubt that bringing Plinx back would be a good step forward for the game…

Yes I do dungeons occasionally, and it’s a nice rewarding place, but dungeons in general, are very mentally (and time) draining, usually taking around an hour AND full concentration.

Cursed Shore was a wonder for people who only had 15-30 minutes of time or patience, and you could just leave a group when you ’don’t feel like it’, no pressure and no one will call you a jerk. Imagine doing that in a Dungeon.

p.s. Plinx wasn’t fun, the community that ran with it was.

I attempt to return to the game after a little more than a month rest.. I find myself logging into a barren wasteland, can’t find another player in Strait, tried to goto the new area but I have no idea what is there to do.

It’s quite boring running around aimlessly, it isnt what it used to be when leveling… at least I knew there was a goal and it’s crystal clear written on my screen on how to achieve it.

I haven’t noticed any change in the PvE areas. I was in Orr yesterday. It was bleak and unpleasant. Did a few events, harvested some nodes… Same as it ever was.

@Jeremy
There’s nothing in your story quest that takes more than 5 people. But you all should look to merge with a bigger/more active guild, as your friends/guild really make or break a game like this.

I don’t know how long we as a community will have hunger for the mats to make exotic gear. We’re all out of things to buy with karma, unless you’re doing legendary. So yeah, it won’t last forever. But it’s really not changed, cept Plinxx

Ok.. as long as I don’t need to have those high-end missions succeeding, yes.. I’ve got a good group of guys and we can fight through most of anything (except the zerg events).

No.. I don’t think we’ll be merging… this is the remains (plus a few new folks) of our old GW1 guild. We like it that way.

juventas.2975:

I guess you would only be worried about level 80 areas if you only play your level 80 characters, but let me tell you that running a character up to level 80 is the loneliest experience I’ve ever had in an MMO. Doing events by yourself and running through empty landscapes… Wow. Where were the incentives to make people go back to the beginning areas?

Plus all the low and mid level areas are still balanced around the initial release “wave” of levelling. A good number events are nearly impossible to solo, and spawn rates in some areas are geared towards having more than a few people scattered across the zone.

mulch.2586:

I haven’t noticed any change in the PvE areas. I was in Orr yesterday. It was bleak and unpleasant. Did a few events, harvested some nodes… Same as it ever was.

@Jeremy
There’s nothing in your story quest that takes more than 5 people. But you all should look to merge with a bigger/more active guild, as your friends/guild really make or break a game like this.

I don’t know how long we as a community will have hunger for the mats to make exotic gear. We’re all out of things to buy with karma, unless you’re doing legendary. So yeah, it won’t last forever. But it’s really not changed, cept Plinxx

In my opinion, Plinx, Pent and Farming problems are much more serious than that. They killed Casual ‘Endgame’ Farming. And now I have to drag myself through an hour of Dungeon for something decent.

And Southsun Cove was supposed to be the ‘successor’ of Cursed Shore (with the enemy difficulty going up a notch)

But now what? Theres hardly any events around. Hardly anything to do than wandering around aimlessly looking for ores and killing stray enemies.

So how to fix this:
-Decrease time to go 1-80, and merge sub-80 areas so that more of the existing areas are for lvl 80. Sub-80 areas will have a wider range of levels so as to not be so desolate
-Put players from multiple servers onto a single instance of a zone, I believe people have called this “underflow”
-Improve down-leveling to make it worthwhile for level 80s to return. Also, introduce upscaling in PvE. This would make areas more universal regardless of level.

Why would anyone go to Orr now when the only way to get your max-level gear is to endlessly grind one dungeon? The fractals ate up most of the 80s in the game like a Tyrian black hole.

I may be getting some people back there by giving away an abyss dye for an armorless marathon. The person who makes it to the end the quickest from point A to B gets an abyss dye.

more to come on this later

Zoul.1087:

I may be getting some people back there by giving away an abyss dye for an armorless marathon. The person who makes it to the end the quickest from point A to B gets an abyss dye.

more to come on this later

Hahaha very kind of you, but it’s not a permanent solution, unless you’re making it daily :o

They recently buffed the rate that you get high level items from low level zones. It’s been like 50/50 for me the last few days.

What they need to do is install something like the Zaishen bounties in GW1:

Today you can pick from a vista in Kessex, a poi in Straits, a skillpoint in Maelstrom, a DE in… a heart in…

And for all those you get a little amount of the same tokens you get in FotM.
(Don’t get me wrong, I hate the idea of having a gear spiral in a game that uses “Guild Wars” in it’s name, but i think the first step cant be rerolled and this way it would be softened up at least)

Rotating thru the existing content like in GW1, this would also ensure enough activity for late map completers, contested way points etc.

This, or any other system which adds replay value to the already existing content.

Working as intended.
Best loot and progression 1 spot.
I feel for those who hate dungeons like me.

Naked run thru Orr would be fumy. Well besides the bots that is lol.

surprised there are no bots in Southcove, yet. i thought with how new it is, there was going to eventually be many bots down there. so far, i have not seen one. that should tell the community how bad it might really be.

I don’t mind a new dungeon, I actually welcome it (generally), I love PvE content, I’m not much of a pvp’er, so I have several alts (2 lv. 80’s etc.etc..)
I went to Orr, and other areas and they’re completely abandoned, very few (if any) people tend to look for a dungeon for tokens anymore. All it is is “LFG FotM”.
As if the event wasn’t enough poor planning, it seems Anet didn’t think ahead on this issue either. It’s really a shame, I <3 Gw2, but at the same time, I see my interest wane every time I log in.

PanzerG.3270:

What they need to do is install something like the Zaishen bounties in GW1:

Today you can pick from a vista in Kessex, a poi in Straits, a skillpoint in Maelstrom, a DE in… a heart in…

And for all those you get a little amount of the same tokens you get in FotM.
(Don’t get me wrong, I hate the idea of having a gear spiral in a game that uses “Guild Wars” in it’s name, but i think the first step cant be rerolled and this way it would be softened up at least)

Rotating thru the existing content like in GW1, this would also ensure enough activity for late map completers, contested way points etc.

This, or any other system which adds replay value to the already existing content.

This is a creative and good idea. Please post it in the Suggestions forum so they will see.

I also hate the move to gear stat progression. Your idea could have also worked when we had horizontal progression.

1. Scavenger hunt for mini-pet. I remember doing something like that in GW1.
2. The tour of Tyria you suggested but the reward would have a better looking max stat Exotic.
3. Little events in the lower lvl zones. They did a great job on Halloween but I am sure that takes a lot of time. They could also do a smaller size event. Maybe even ones with racial themes that tie to the bridging points of the personal story.

Like “Diplomacy Day.” We would all go into the Charr area or a certain part of the Charr area and do hearts or DEs to get to know the Charr better and support the Queen’s peace agreement.

Like “Asura Tech Fairs”. I always now think of Asura as the techies. How about a small event where we go into their area and participate in a Technology fair?

The amount of smaller content event ideas is limitless. This would have been another way to get the lower lvl areas populated and extend the content without the huge effort required for things like Halloween or Lost Shores.

And for those that like the karma and loot at higher levels, for a limited time during the event, give everyone the maximum Karma (number you get in Cursed Shore) and best in slot gear within their level bracket as rewards.

Merthax.5172:

So how to fix this:
-Decrease time to go 1-80, and merge sub-80 areas so that more of the existing areas are for lvl 80. Sub-80 areas will have a wider range of levels so as to not be so desolate
-Put players from multiple servers onto a single instance of a zone, I believe people have called this “underflow”
-Improve down-leveling to make it worthwhile for level 80s to return. Also, introduce upscaling in PvE. This would make areas more universal regardless of level.

+1 All excellent ideas.

Hopefully, they are reading this thread. People have posted some great ideas.

Just in case though, please post this in the Suggestion forum.

What are you doing the in open world! Did you miss the memo?
Get in that dungeon with the rest of the population and make sure
you appreciate it you ungrateful wretch.

Remember bovine acceptance is the what the cool kids are doing

Jaer.1029:

I don’t mind a new dungeon, I actually welcome it (generally), I love PvE content, I’m not much of a pvp’er, so I have several alts (2 lv. 80’s etc.etc..)
I went to Orr, and other areas and they’re completely abandoned, very few (if any) people tend to look for a dungeon for tokens anymore. All it is is “LFG FotM”.
As if the event wasn’t enough poor planning, it seems Anet didn’t think ahead on this issue either. It’s really a shame, I <3 Gw2, but at the same time, I see my interest wane every time I log in.

I love the concept of FotM, but in my opinion it’s an idea that should have been reserved for a much later time in the game’s life-span. We really didn’t need new content sucking people out of the game world right now.

I have to agree with those who have been critical of the complete nerfing of various farming opportunities. Moderate them a bit? Yes. Keep them rewarding enough that they can attract people into the PvE world? Definitely.

World PvE needs to be made a lot more attractive all around. I’m hoping that’s one of the goals that they have in mind for the level scaling improvements, rather than changes to the system that might make playing in the game world less appealing.

So the non-sensationalist, sensible reason is that new content released. It has nothing to do with tiers or progression. There is new stuff and people want it.

Orr was also largely abandoned during the holiday events because people wanted the book, mad kings slippers, and Halloween skins from his mini dungeon. None of those had anything to do with a stat bonus. They were just something different.

Give it a little time for people to get satisfied with their Fractal level and they will go back to doing the stuff they used to do. When the overhauls to areas and dungeons comes around people will be abandoning Fractals (if there isnt a new fragment or two) and doing those.

Its like when new maps come out in an FPS or a new champion comes out in LoL. That’s all you see for weeks then it just becomes part of the game like everything else.

On Isle of Janthir I ran my character around Dredgehaunt Cliffs for about an hour on a late Saturday morning. I saw a grand total of 4 other players there and this was before the Lost Shores event. Something definitely needs to be done to spread players back out across the map.

Yah, give it a few weeks or so. Give the Fractals some time to reset a couple of times.

People should come back to whatever it was they’re doing before.

Slyder.9215:

Yah, give it a few weeks or so. Give the Fractals some time to reset a couple of times.

People should come back to whatever it was they’re doing before.

They never reset. This was a rumor.

They do not reset.

If they don’t reset, then that makes the whole thing even worse.

But I digress.

francisling.2987:

In my opinion, Plinx, Pent and Farming problems are much more serious than that. They killed Casual ‘Endgame’ Farming. And now I have to drag myself through an hour of Dungeon for something decent.

This, the game is designed around dynamic events and being able to casually join and leave them, its losing that with the fractals dungeon and the increase in rewards in it over Orr etc.

What they should do is design other level 80 areas which have decent events to attract and spread the population, and SouthsunCove aint it from what I’ve seen because of the lack of events.

If you aren’t in Flavor of the Month right now, then you are falling behind and will get to play alone. Get back to work!

On my server Wvw is good as dead, with maybe a third of the usual crowd turning up.

PVE in Orr is dead, Plinx nerf and whatnot. Still a few people around but it seems the rewards have been nerfed to the ground. I think I made 25silver in an hour yesterday. I used to be able to get a few rares with full mf gear + food up until recently.

The new island is dead, a couple of eventshere and there, abysmal loot. Only good to farm a few nodes. Only fun part was soloing to the high Ori node and dodging the champion for long enough to get it mined.

All I can see is a crowd of people “lfg Fotm” in Lion’s Arch. The whole game seems to have been reduced to a few instanced areas.

This is a complete U turn in game design. This is not the game I bought.

I felt like I was playing a fun mmo at release. Now I feel marginalised because I don’t want to get into the fractal grind.

I left cursed shore looong ago, maybe players are realizing there are other better places to farm.

frostgorge sound

&

fractals

Cursed shore doesn’t even have a dragon!

Archer.6485:

Couldn’t you joke around, chat and have a good time in LA while running FotM just like you did in Cursed Shore?

I understand it’s frustrating that we’re limited to only running FotM for ascended gear but is it really worse than running Plinx for the best gold income? If nothing else FotM does seem to be quite rewarding in terms of gold and I couldn’t possibly fathom how running Plinx could be more fun.

That said, we definitely need new options in terms of endgame PvE content which I’m hoping will happen sooner rather than later. But somehow I doubt that bringing Plinx back would be a good step forward for the game…

A lot of people don’t buy mmos to end up repeating 5-player instances (that includes the pre-existing dungeons). For some of us such features don’t really feel like an mmo experience but rather like a multiplayer feature of a single player game. I guess we expect our adventures through the “actual mmo” content to be as fruitful.

matenzo.9518:

A lot of people don’t buy mmos to end up repeating 5-player instances (that includes the pre-existing dungeons). For some of us such features don’t really feel like an mmo experience but rather like a multiplayer feature of a single player game. I guess we expect our adventures through the “actual mmo” content to be as fruitful.

That is very true, it does sound an a whole lot like an MP feature of an SP game.

No doubt there are some empty areas in the game. But Cursed Shores on Tarnished Coast is still fairly active.

The real reason everyone is running Fractals is because it’s fun. Seriously, in my opinion it’s some of the best content in the game. I would prefer it over existing dungeons even if ascended gear did not exist.

My game time lately has been:

1) Fractals, for fun (and yes, for tokens)
2) Orr for loot and mats (get magic find out the rear > loot > sell and salvage > profit)
3) Southsun cove for karka shells

Orr is still profitable for me, I found a group of maybe 10 people farming last night. People might come back after Fractals dies down a bit.

TerminalMontage.5693:

Orr is still profitable for me, I found a group of maybe 10 people farming last night. People might come back after Fractals dies down a bit.

I found a group of 2 at pent, and we didn’t have enough firepower on Champ Abom next to Caer Shadowfain, so he stayed there for 5-6 hours, thus eliminating Plinx altogether. Broodmom and Arena Champ was also there for as long.

Arah chain was bugged, Anchorage can’t be uncontested. Grenth….was silent. Melandru was well, pretty unpopular as usual.

On shiny days, there would be a party or two on Plinx, but after one round, it disbanded, who can really wait 30 freaking minutes for another round of Plinx, seriously.

Cant help but think they introduced the new dungeon about a year to soon and have thus ruined the higher level pve areas by rendering them desolate places only those seeking to finish the storyline will venture, maybe they should hold off on adding more ascended gear into the game unitll they figure out how to make the none fotm parts viable again for those who dont care for ascended gear.

brokenserenity.4638:

Cant help but think they introduced the new dungeon about a year to soon and have thus ruined the higher level pve areas by rendering them desolate places only those seeking to finish the storyline will venture, maybe they should hold off on adding more ascended gear into the game unitll they figure out how to make the none fotm parts viable again for those who dont care for ascended gear.

Contrary to popular speculations, I don’t think FotM ‘robbed the business’ off Cursed Shore.

I believe that the Developers tipped off the balance on Cursed Shore, making it severely unpopular and unrewarding. And on top of that, did not introduce any viable reason to migrate to Southsun. And for Casual Level80 PvEers like me who doesn’t have a full hour(or more) of dedicated time and patience for dungeons, I’m currently lost and confused about what I should do.

I am now 100% convinced that those in charge at ArenaNet are detached from the needs and desires of their player base. Not only was the new Lost Shores level 80 zone quite boring during the past weekend event, what it left behind is also half-backed. The zone has no dungeon to offer and no large scale meta event (e.g. Claw of Jormag) cycling every three hours. As a result of these missing bits (very important bits) it feels half-baked. Perhaps a desperate attempt to put something out to stop the hemorrhaging loss of player log-ins each week and declining new account sales.

It’s actually quite frustrating seeing half-baked new content arrive when foundation bits are still missing. For example, try to go find a group to level 1 Fractal dungeon now. You’ll be waiting some time on many servers (if you can find one at all). The player base has been requesting a cross-server LFG tool for a while now. Had that critical feature been in place prior to Fractals arriving it would have added great value. As it stands now the new dungeon is just frustrating because players can’t even find a group.

It’s this sort of thing that tells me the staff at ArenaNet are chasing their tail. They don’t have a clear vision anymore, they desperate to find things they can do in short time windows to try and save their game. Unfortunately for them it won’t work. I’m not trying to be negative. What I see is quite easy (and disappointing) for anyone to see if you really look at the data.