Guild Wars 2

Exploring is one of my favorite things to do in this game, but several of the maps feel empty. I’ve seen group events that can’t be completed alone (hence the term group) but no one’s interested enough to participate. I’ve gone into some of the major events, like Assault on Fort Cadence in Sparkfly Fen, quickly realize it’s impossible to solo, and have no other choice but to leave. I pass the same place a day later, and the event is in the same state as I left it. I doubt it made any progress.

There was another instance I was in map chat, inviting whoever wanted to join me to go into a little-known event that gave access to an isolated part of the map. Only one person answered. I called for anyone else but no one responded. Either no one else was talking, or the two of us were really the only people in the entire map.

It just seems like such a waste to have this great content that no one else takes time to enjoy. It wasn’t always like this – when I first started playing GW2, people would just flock to events. Now the same events won’t even start/finish because there’s no one on the map to do them. Doing the event alone just gets boring.

You didn’t mention what server you’re on. I know in Tarnished Coast, there are usually some people around willing to do events. You do have to talk in map chat sometimes to get people there, however.

This goes to the problem with server population.
I think that servers show population of account bound to the server, but don’t show average players numbers.
If many people left from a server like 3 months after launch, server can have Very High status and be mostly deserted. I think it’s like that on my server (but I won’t spoil the name)

I tried to get a group up while in Gendarren fields to do one of the requirements for the meta, which was doing a toxic event in 5 different maps. I called out in map chat a couple of times and pinged a nearby waypoint. (crickets)

The problem is that there’s no reward incentive up go back to those maps or do DEs in general. Karma has very little use to the average player and if you wanted to farm karma, you would just join a champ train in Queens or FGS.

The large number of event-doers you saw at launch was due to that it was a new game so everyone was at the same stage of levelling, and no one established things like champ trains.

The problem is that there are no events for people that got lvl 80 anywhere.We made 2 maps busy with champs train and this it….rest of it u dont need to revisit again at all.They should add permanent events on more maps,trains on more maps,to give reason to go back there and play.Likes this game seems dead……same thing happens with towns.LA is populated,Divinity Reach here and there and rest of them are soo empty…If they whould add dally quests npc’s on different town-different quest we whould not have this problem now

Vayne.8563:

You didn’t mention what server you’re on. I know in Tarnished Coast, there are usually some people around willing to do events. You do have to talk in map chat sometimes to get people there, however.

This makes a huge difference. I admit that it never occurred to me, but I explore to level and if someone says they need help with something in a zone I’m in, I’ll go over to assist if I can.

You can meet some nice people this way, and also have fights that are tougher than the typical zerg slaughter, but much more fun than trying (and failing) to solo.

I also don’t get why Arenanet doesn’t adjust the rewards for dynamic events. Do I really care about getting 2.5 silver for 15 minutes of helping out some NPCs? No, I do not. I do it for the XP and for the fun (I just did one that literally had me LOLing. The writing of some of them is awesome. )

Multiply the gold rewards by 5 and put in a further bonus for ones that haven’t been done in a while, like there is for killing mobs. You’ll see a LOT more people exploring rather than engaging in mindless champ farming.

Group events should have a small dragon chest… every single group event…

2-3 dragonite and the usual 1-3 blue/greens with a chance at rares or exotics (even that lottery chance of precursor).

Why not?

Would it kill the economy? an extra 2-3 blue/greens in the hands of 3-5 players that gathered in a map to complete the event?

Only thing I can see against my idea is that the devs will have to work locating the chest where group events occur… ANet working outside the gemstore its the hardest thing of my idea.

They were empty 9 months ago and they’re empty now. FA High population server.

And yet people say temporary content is the problem, when permanent content dies a month after release.

Vayne.8563:

You didn’t mention what server you’re on. I know in Tarnished Coast, there are usually some people around willing to do events. You do have to talk in map chat sometimes to get people there, however.

Same is true on most servers.. Have to talk in map chat.

But sadly, living story pulls most people out of the world and into one or two areas at a time. Or if there are level cap people in the area, they are probably either map completing or achievement grinding for the LS and just passing through.

LS had an inverse effect on the world.

I periodically farm certain zones for mats (Harathi Hinterlands for fragments, Dredgehaunt Cliffs for iron and seasoned wood, Sparkfly Fen for platinum and hardened wood) and I will typically make a run of an entire zone without ever seeing another player even during prime time. I’ll bet that the champ troll in Sparkfly Fen and the champ fish in Dredgehaunt Cliffs haven’t been killed in the last six months on my server. Granted that Devona’s Rest is practically dead (I wouldn’t be surprised if half the participants in the major events are guests), but still … there’s something wrong when the great majority of the “physical space” in the game is not being used by anyone.

Phy.2913:

And yet people say temporary content is the problem, when permanent content dies a month after release.

The only permanent content added/revised has been: some DE’s (last year); Southsun; the revised Teq event; invasions; and the substitute TA path. Teq and the TA path are still being done. The Karka Queen event still gets done on some servers. Events like Teq and the Karka Queen are just not done on all servers, or at all times on the (few?) servers that do them. I have no idea if people abandoned invasions after the changes were made to hide the Aetherblades in the next-to-last phase before Scarlet, but that’s what seemed to happen on FC.

Then there’s the reward issue. As in every MMO, some players will not repeat content unless there are rewards to mitigate the boredom inherent in doing the same thing over and over again. Permanent content that is less rewarding than the farm of the moment is going to see a drop-off in attendance. Teq and TA new were designed to cater to those who wanted more “interesting” mechanics. However, that demographic does not represent a majority of the player-base, and if the rewards are not worth the time, a lot of players will not touch the content.

Adding permanent content tends to spread the player-base out. Adding temporary content tends to concentrate people in certain areas. For whatever reason, ANet seems intent on concentrating the player-base. Maybe they think that players will react more favorably to large group experiences than having to solo zones, wait for groups for dungeons or whatever.

Everyone is in a city, Queensdale, Frostgorge, or wherever the current LS is (Kessex at this time). Most other zones will have maybe 5 players on them (and this is Tarnished Coast). I still say bumping up rewards in Orr, while changing nothing else, would get more 80s there.

Even on heavily populated servers, many maps are simply completely barren. This is because the game lacks an underflow system that merges loosely populated maps between servers, which would solve the problem across the board. But its not likely that Anet would ever do this because people would be upset about not being able to contribute guild influence while in underflow even if the game would be alot more fun, and seem alot less barren overall.

No matter how big your server is, the game world is just too large to fill out with people.

Hannelore.8153:

Even on heavily populated servers, many maps are simply completely barren. This is because the game lacks an underflow system that merges loosely populated maps between servers, which would solve the problem across the board. But its not likely that Anet would ever do this because people would be upset about not being able to contribute guild influence while in underflow even if the game would be alot more fun, and seem alot less barren overall.

No matter how big your server is, the game world is just too large to fill out with people.

Hmm maybe. Guild influence really should not be tied to any home server though. What exactly is the point of it being this way? Guild system needs alot of work.

Nick.6972:

They were empty 9 months ago and they’re empty now. FA High population server.

I play FA and I don’t notice the emptiness. Heck I was in Malchor’s literally yesterday and at one point someone pinged in map for help with a skill point and when I WP’d over there to help, 4 other people had shown up to help him as well. That’s five people including me that saw his message and WP’d over. In Orr! And there were no temple events going on! That doesn’t even include the people that saw the message and didn’t help or that didn’t see the message at all.

Might not seem like a lot, but for a zone that is characteristically devoid of human interaction, 5 responders to a /map request is pretty impressive. I think anyway.

I probably see the least amount of people in places like Dredgehaunt or Lornar’s. They really don’t give good incentive to go back to past zones outside of wanting to get 100% on alts. I don’t know how they can drive people to mid-level zones outside of LS stuff. But they need to figure something out.

High level maps is all about business no social interactions.

Septemptus.7164:

This goes to the problem with server population.
I think that servers show population of account bound to the server, but don’t show average players numbers.
If many people left from a server like 3 months after launch, server can have Very High status and be mostly deserted. I think it’s like that on my server (but I won’t spoil the name)

Na, I’m on one of the most populated servers and we have this same issue. Folks generally don’t wish to go back and redo content that is pretty meaningless. We can’t even get Karka Queen Event to be on a rotation. >shrugs<

NargofWoV.4267:

Septemptus.7164:

This goes to the problem with server population.
I think that servers show population of account bound to the server, but don’t show average players numbers.
If many people left from a server like 3 months after launch, server can have Very High status and be mostly deserted. I think it’s like that on my server (but I won’t spoil the name)

Na, I’m on one of the most populated servers and we have this same issue. Folks generally don’t wish to go back and redo content that is pretty meaningless. We can’t even get Karka Queen Event to be on a rotation. >shrugs<

Doesn’t necessarily matter how high your server population is, if it’s not a predominantly PvE server, which some aren’t. Some servers are far more focused on WvW or even PvP.

I know on Tarnished Coast, the unofficial RP server, there are usually people around because everyone has a million alts they’re leveling.

Edit: Note also though that it also depend on when you’re doing it. Not just time of day but also if you’re trying to down bosses in say Fields of Ruin on path day and everyone is in the new Tower it’s a whole lot more likely that zone will be dead empty. The new Living World content comes out, people flock to it for a few days, and then it’s slowly starts returning to business as usual.

It isn’t a problem with the game, it’s just something that happens with MMO’s in general. Go to any level 40-50 wow zone or any mid-level zone in any game and it will be just as empty. It’s because the population is spread out between high levels and low levels, the middle ground are players who are either leveling alts or who just recently got the game.

Problem is there is no solution to it. People suggest making it really rewarding to go to lower level zones; the problem with that is that people will just stay in the 1-15 areas to get all the loot. Why bother going to a level 40 area to do event chains if I can get the same reward (or slightly less reward) from a level 6 event? It’s already happening w/Queensdale.

The only real solution that many (myself included) have suggested is an “underflow” sort of system, where barren maps are merged into more populated ones. Of course that likely won’t happen, but hey, we can dream…

Drop a post in the LFG tool, this is exactly why it has an open world content category.

Conncept.7638:

Drap a post in the LFG tool, this is exactly why it has an open world content category.

Did that once, no one cared. Dungeons have faster response. I’m more than capable of soloing on the empty maps, but it’d be nice to run into random company and meet new people.

Arikyali.5804:

Conncept.7638:

Drap a post in the LFG tool, this is exactly why it has an open world content category.

Did that once, no one cared. Dungeons have faster response. I’m more than capable of soloing on the empty maps, but it’d be nice to run into random company and meet new people.

Well I usually answer such calls (and have seen them answerd as well) but I admit the LFG tool is somewhat flawed in this category, especially if you are on a less-populated server.

For some reason the ‘open world content’ option automatically limits your group search to your server alone, just like WvW. Which makes no sense if you think about it, with the guesting feature and all, it should really search for your server and anybody who hasn’t used their two guesting slots on any other server.

Maps are empty because good loot only comes from a few areas.

What Anet needs to do is make sure each map has an increase in chance for a particular high-tier material. There is just too much random things in this game that makes exploring useless in comparison to farming champs.

I’d rather play in a few populated areas than have everyone spread out only doing the daily grind.

Arikyali.5804:

Conncept.7638:

Drap a post in the LFG tool, this is exactly why it has an open world content category.

Did that once, no one cared. Dungeons have faster response. I’m more than capable of soloing on the empty maps, but it’d be nice to run into random company and meet new people.

That’s why I play with a guild. Me and another guildie are currently in the process of zone completing the iron marchs (took a break because a new version of the game is out).

Why would I leave LA when I can make 10X the rewards by standing at the BLTC.

Hmm… introduction of unique/rare items to dynamic group events in less populated maps? Re-design how mats drop – help npc / do group events for rare mats? More guild missions?

Yes, there is plenty to work on but I think Anet is aware of that and they are slowly working on it. Remember the time before Ascended crafting? No one really cared about those low-level and mid-level crafting material. At least now, I see a few people gathering nodes in less populated maps.

Well…after making a brand new character, I’ve found the beginner maps to still be pleasantly populated. I guess maps right outside the city (or lvl 80 maps – I’m not counting those since they’re kind of ‘end game’ content) still have people running around. But the mid-level, and more remote maps are empty.

Maps are empty because they don’t have anything worth coming back to after you’re leved past it. I beleve that things placed in open world (like tower), would bring ppl back to open world.

Might be time to realize this game is dying.

Dragsooth.4071:

Might be time to realize this game is dying.

People have been saying that for a long long time. It remains untrue. There’s absolutely no evidence to support it.

There are servers on WoW where middle zones are empty and there aren’t a whole lot of people who claim WoW is dying.

Event rewards should scale the same way mob XP does. Killed the Champion Troll in Queensdale? Here’s your 1,5s. Completed a group event no one has completed for days in an area almost no one visits? Here’s 30s.

Hannelore.8153:

Even on heavily populated servers, many maps are simply completely barren.

The thing is “High” means nothing in GW2. I was on a High server for months and rarely saw more than 20 people in Lion’s Arch during Primetime.

I agree with you about “Underflow” servers, there are many servers that are completely barren, and if ANet doesn’t do anything to fix it, the effect will snowball as people will think no one is playing the game.

I’ve noticed sometimes the bosses go past their spawning window and doesn’t appear.
I originally suspected the event is bugged (since this game tends to have quite a few buggy events), but now I no longer suspect that.

There was a thread recently regarding resource nodes resetting outside of the usual weekly reset, and some posters suspected that a map “deactivates” when no players are on the map (probably after a extended amount of time).
If true, then that explains why some bosses don’t spawn after hitting the spawning window, because the map deactivates due to no players!
You can see this pattern on most of the low tier servers…

Xae Isareth.1364:

The problem is that there’s no reward incentive up go back to those maps or do DEs in general. Karma has very little use to the average player and if you wanted to farm karma, you would just join a champ train in Queens or FGS.

No karma in FGS champs, they aren’t events like Queensdale

WvW zerg is faster karma (if you’re on a dominating server)

Vayne.8563:

Dragsooth.4071:

Might be time to realize this game is dying.

People have been saying that for a long long time. It remains untrue. There’s absolutely no evidence to support it.

There are servers on WoW where middle zones are empty and there aren’t a whole lot of people who claim WoW is dying.

well…they are bleeding accounts at an increasing rate. Not dying but also not the game or population it was a few years ago

How I said 6 months ago: The problem is that you need to be VERY close to see an event, anet need to make events like 1/3 of the map size to everyone play together.

Protoavis.9107:

Xae Isareth.1364:

The problem is that there’s no reward incentive up go back to those maps or do DEs in general. Karma has very little use to the average player and if you wanted to farm karma, you would just join a champ train in Queens or FGS.

No karma in FGS champs, they aren’t events like Queensdale

WvW zerg is faster karma (if you’re on a dominating server)

Vayne.8563:

Dragsooth.4071:

Might be time to realize this game is dying.

People have been saying that for a long long time. It remains untrue. There’s absolutely no evidence to support it.

There are servers on WoW where middle zones are empty and there aren’t a whole lot of people who claim WoW is dying.

well…they are bleeding accounts at an increasing rate. Not dying but also not the game or population it was a few years ago

Except that the same thing was true in WoW when it had 12.4 million subscribers at its height. It’s always been true that on some servers, the middle zones were empty. There was never a time when it was otherwise. I can’t think of any game where it was otherwise, either.

So the point stands.

Vayne.8563:

Protoavis.9107:

Xae Isareth.1364:

The problem is that there’s no reward incentive up go back to those maps or do DEs in general. Karma has very little use to the average player and if you wanted to farm karma, you would just join a champ train in Queens or FGS.

No karma in FGS champs, they aren’t events like Queensdale

WvW zerg is faster karma (if you’re on a dominating server)

Vayne.8563:

Dragsooth.4071:

Might be time to realize this game is dying.

People have been saying that for a long long time. It remains untrue. There’s absolutely no evidence to support it.

There are servers on WoW where middle zones are empty and there aren’t a whole lot of people who claim WoW is dying.

well…they are bleeding accounts at an increasing rate. Not dying but also not the game or population it was a few years ago

Except that the same thing was true in WoW when it had 12.4 million subscribers at its height. It’s always been true that on some servers, the middle zones were empty. There was never a time when it was otherwise. I can’t think of any game where it was otherwise, either.

So the point stands.

This is true. MMO’s are games in which the customer demands a vast open world with a huge amount of things to do, so they can level through it as fast as possible and then stand in their capital city and queue for endgame/PvP.

Oh hey look another “this game is dying” thread

I’ve been ranting about this since launch, when it wasn’t a problem. It boggles me why they divided players between worlds for PvE content. It was pretty obvious this would happen. Players always gravitate to certain content, leaving the rest sparse.

Now take a game like Champions Online. That basically is a dead game. Yet, anywhere I go, I’m going to run into people. It dynamically creates and destroys map instances based on demand. (Heck, even GW1 did this for towns.) I can also choose my instance, so I can go to heavily or lightly populated instances to meet my taste. As a side-effect of such a design, you can easily tell what instance your party and guild members are in and just go there. Such a feature would make things like organized Teq events a lot less headache compared to the “join party, hop instance, unjoin” fudge we have to use to cheat the system now. And wouldn’t it be nice to be able to go to a Queensdale that isn’t running a train?

Pretty much the whole instance and population control system is in need of a review.

So I have been on a fairly populated PvE server since beta. Last night I hit up Shatterer, first time since Teq redone. We are 4 people, we think it is a good way to die and then he didn’t show, at all. I enjoy empty maps sometimes, but a world boss? no show? this is new to me. Btw I am complaining about lack of people showing for a Dragon, not the fact that the Dragon gave up in digust : p

Morrigan.2809:

So I have been on a fairly populated PvE server since beta. Last night I hit up Shatterer, first time since Teq redone. We are 4 people, we think it is a good way to die and then he didn’t show, at all. I enjoy empty maps sometimes, but a world boss? no show? this is new to me. Btw I am complaining about lack of people showing for a Dragon, not the fact that the Dragon gave up in digust : p

Shatterer pre event has been bugging out for the last couple of weeks.

Last night after supper I was in Wayfarer doing my dailies when the Maw popped so I headed over to find there were 4 of us, we gave it a good try got the champ down to about 1/4 health before the timer ran out, it was kinda’ fun in a weird way, but was odd for the event to be such a ghost town at that time of the evening.

All MMOs have this issue.

It’s not necessarily that the rewards aren’t decent, as they can be in certain areas, but they’re mostly level appropriate. Once you’ve outleveled the area, there really isn’t any reason to go back because the mats and drops are geared to be for the level that the zone is designed to support.

In other words, if I gather mats in a level 40 area, all I can hope to make are level 40-ish items that are quickly made obsolete by the speed of leveling.

If I get drops in the same area, most will be for those who are level 40 or so, with a few here and there that may be level appropriate for whatever level I happen to be at.

There will still be people who are leveling that will go through those areas but like me, they will most likely not go back because there is simply nothing that will make a higher-leveled person stay (barring a world event like the tower.)

Maps are empty because there are no alts. Everyone is farming to trying to max gear their one single level 80 character, and there are only a few places to farm.

Ashabhi.1365:

All MMOs have this issue.

It’s not necessarily that the rewards aren’t decent, as they can be in certain areas, but they’re mostly level appropriate. Once you’ve outleveled the area, there really isn’t any reason to go back because the mats and drops are geared to be for the level that the zone is designed to support.

In other words, if I gather mats in a level 40 area, all I can hope to make are level 40-ish items that are quickly made obsolete by the speed of leveling.

If I get drops in the same area, most will be for those who are level 40 or so, with a few here and there that may be level appropriate for whatever level I happen to be at.

There will still be people who are leveling that will go through those areas but like me, they will most likely not go back because there is simply nothing that will make a higher-leveled person stay (barring a world event like the tower.)

GW1 went around this problem by being super alt friendly. For years, GW1 maps and missions would constantly get steams of new characters to play with, because everyone have multiple characters.

CHIPS.6018:

Maps are empty because there are no alts. Everyone is farming to trying to max gear their one single level 80 character, and there are only a few places to farm.

this pretty much. As it is right now, the only reason to make alts is to make grinding things like Dragonite faster (alt’s don’t get the bonus chest, but the normal chest spawns for them, the one with dragonite) or make a zerker warrior to grind dungeons faster. The game is becoming less and less alt friendly.