Guild Wars 2

So I´m a returning player, been with the game from the start and have had enough after the Zergfest started in earnest during the clockwork times at about the end of 2013.

Now I come back and find a region that is indeed more annoying than Orr ever was, even during the Undead Ping-Pong times.

Still haven´t managed to get more than the starting point unlocked. Usually there were around 5-10 people around me and the failing was consistent.
Is THIS what the expansion is supposed to look like?
Only with gliding?

Are you having a laugh ANet or have I missed the Don´t Panic Mass-Zerg guide to the Silver Waste?
For now this is indeed a waste for me. :/

Sorry you’re not happy… But I don’t know what you’re asking or trying to do other than kitten about something a lot of people like.

Here’s a great guide to the Silverwastes

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2tgy37/essential_guide_to_the_silverwastes/

It’s a map of mapwide cooperation towards a common goal, taking and defend camps, defeating champions, and finally taking out a boss. It’s not, say, a Raid, but for events with tens/hundreds of people, its a pretty well designed area. Zergs happen of course, but its bound to happen with that many people.

Though Chest Farms can throw a wrench into things XD but then you just LFG for a better map.

I have yet to see this cooperation happen.

My experience has been that for solo adventurers this map seem impossible and even normal party sizes that could manage Orr somewhat consistently are simply eradicated.

Thanks for the guide, gona study this some more.
So far though this seems basically like a constant playground for “The Zerg”.
The gameplay style which was the reason for me leaving.

Essentially, ArenaNet took this existing problem:

Open world PvE is lacking. The maps, while beautiful, can often seem empty. Players have little reason to return to a map other than for map completion, as there are no unique rewards or experiences. The event system, while innovative, is not always cohesive. Meta events like Harathi’s centaur chain help, but there are too few of them and they are often too localized. Players have little reason or direction when it comes to grouping (or splitting) and coordinating.

If you were to break down the goals of a solution, it’d look like this:

• Each map should tell a focused, specific story
• Events should quickly and obviously lead into other events with a story that makes sense
• Each map should feel unique and have something which distinguishes it from the other maps
• Maps should have their own unique rewards giving players a reason to return
• Events should be designed to allow some casual grouping but should discourage full map blobbing

At this point, I’m still on board with ArenaNet. The problem, for me, is in the execution. I’ve tried (and been mostly unable) to specify what exactly I dislike about Dry Top and Silverwastes. For me, I think it’s these things:

1) Events have far too short of a cycle. Having events pop every 5 minutes is cool, you’d think, but it starts to feel frantic and repetitive. Dry Top especially suffers from this: some events repeat 3 times in the 1-hour cycle. (Technically 3 times in 45 minutes of non-sandstorm.)

2) The time between events is, in my opinion, a bit too short. While it’s great that the action is non-stop, there never feels like a good time to pause, vendor, catch up on guild chat, etc.

3) This one is definitely personal opinion, but I just don’t like playing with open world pugs. It’s often very difficult to get guild members into a map, especially if it’s near sandstorm/breach/Vinewrath. The playerbase, on average, is not particularly skilled, usually ignoring /map chat, and at best about one quarter step above “trolling people who want to complete the events successfully.” (That does depend on time of day and day of the week, of course, as well as lots of random variables.)

I’ve come to recognize that this is mostly casual content for mostly casual players and I should more-or-less ignore it. I can stand about an hour or two of it every week or two, that’s about it. I get my rewards through the PvP tracks and am pretty okay with that.

What saddens me is that Anet has shown very little interest in providing more small-group instanced content, my PvE content of choice, but I’m hoping we hear more about raids this year…

HawkMeister.4758:

I have yet to see this cooperation happen.

My experience has been that for solo adventurers this map seem impossible and even normal party sizes that could manage Orr somewhat consistently are simply eradicated.

And mine has been the exact opposite on most maps. Ive explored the whole map by myself and last night me and two others held red for by ourselfs after everyone ran off to kill a legendary boss at indigo.

Silverwastes was not meant to be soloable except for the exploration. It was intended to take groups of people to hold the forts, escort the dolyaks, and rebuild the walls while waiting for the breach event to start(yes there are players who can do this by themselves). If you are in silverwastes and the bar on the right side of your screen is not filled at all, there will be a lack of people, but once it gets to 30 or 50% you are going to see alot more people starting to show up. After about 80% your map is going to get full, and if any forts arent taken, they will be taken then.

There are also chest farming maps, which dont try and hold the forts very hard and run around zerging the chests. If you are on of those and actually want to do the map, use the lfg tool(Y on the keyboard) and refresh the “Open World Content” Tab until you see something likes this “SW 50%”

I can’t help thinking that the SW could use one minor change. If the Bandit chests only spawned in the times between Pact assaults, then there would no longer be players working at cross purposes. Everyone would have an incentive to complete the events.

The problem is with the megaservers. You cannot select to queue for a good overflow when your overflow is empty. Really a nuisance to group-objective maps.

HawkMeister.4758:

Undead Ping-Pong

Have a +1 from me just for that!

HawkMeister.4758:

I have yet to see this cooperation happen.

My experience has been that for solo adventurers this map seem impossible and even normal party sizes that could manage Orr somewhat consistently are simply eradicated.

Thanks for the guide, gona study this some more.
So far though this seems basically like a constant playground for “The Zerg”.
The gameplay style which was the reason for me leaving.

The wife and I were out there for 3 separate cycles of the map and we successfully got to and beat the Vinewraith all 3 times.

I really don’t know what times you play or might be on this map, but I rarely ever see it empty to the point of things failing much. Its a fairly good zone to farm in just by doing the events and it actually has enemies that you have to be mindful of instead of just spamming 1 to eventually kill them. Of all the areas in Tyria I have some of the most fun in this one

Word of advice: Mordrem can hurt when they gang up on you. If you find you have more than 3 focusing you, get out of that spot because they will tear you up.

I find the SW zone quite challenging and a much better design than most of the existing zones out there. Yes, it is a bit of the “Orr” feel to it (potential for constant pressure and needing to be “on your game” when out in the field), but I find that fine as long as the player is fully aware they are not in Kansas anymore…..

I do agree that the fact that you can end up in an underpopulated map can certainly be frustrating in those types of zones.

Problem with SW is that it really requires a number of people in there to push the meta along. It hasn’t been designed with the possibility in mind, that someday it will have as much population as other (less frequented) maps.
From what we heard so far, HoT maps might have the same design flaw.

OP, I agree that SW is a difficult zone, especially to solo. The mobs have some serious conditions and mechanics that can tear you up if you aren’t paying attention.

I haven’t had any issues with having the meta succeed, however. Sometimes it is slow to start and I have to maybe duo a fort with someone to get progress going, but once progress starts and you hit the 50% mark, that’s when it begins to populate and then it’s almost guaranteed to make it to Vinewrath.

The thing about SW is that it is an extremely rewarding zone. Like you get crazy loot out in SW.

Silverwastes is actually a map designed to break the zerg up. If the zerg doesnt break up then the whole thing will end up in failure.

But I am confused by what the issues you’re experiancing are OP…

is it that Silverwastes was too zergy? 5-10 players all around you like you mentioned isnt exactly zergy.

Its it that 5-10 people around you wasnt enough to push forward in the silverwastes? if so you’ll have to be more specific on which part a group of 5-10 player had trouble with cause really it should be more then enough to do most of the stuff the map has to offer except perhaps for the meta.

As for the expansion we have no idea what it will look like so we dont know. However one thing is certain, if its not designed to break up zergs like the silverwastes it will end up zergy because its not content design that creates the zergs, its players who want rewards quickly, efficiently and with the less effort possible. Zerg is what happens naturally in a game with no mob tagging and individual loot drops. Its design that has to break that not the other way round.