Guild Wars 2

Every time I agreed to switch to another map because “my map was unpopulated” in the last couple of days, I got switched to a map that was even less populated. It actually got me killed several times because I was switched from a map with a location secured to a map where that location was not secured and I spawned amidst hordes of enemies.

Not once was I moved to a map that seemingly more active players than the one I got moved away from.

Yeah, their system is completely broken. That they haven’t fixed it yet is a sign to me that they just don’t care anymore.

I’ve had that problem once. They should either relocate you to a safe area, or give you a “no damage” buff when changing instances for 30 seconds.

I’ve learned to ignore that prompt. After about 5-15 minutes it usually goes away as all the other people form empty maps are shuffled around and eventually wind up where I am.

Fix. Return to the gw1 lobby system. (No need for private instances, just a dropdown menu to move between existing copies of a map)

Amaimon.7823:

Fix. Return to the gw1 lobby system. (No need for private instances, just a dropdown menu to move between existing copies of a map)

I keep hoping that is added. Like I honestly log in some days and look around the upper corners of the screen whispering a wish that it would be there.

Here you go, anet. Wasn’t so hard, right?
I’m sure you can have it done by the next ‘quarterly’ patch

To specify:
Queue Only means the map has reached 130 people, and you can only enter through a party or squad. You can queue for this district when the map reaches a population of 129 or less
Queued for closing: the map countdown to closing has been reduced to 10 minutes or less. After 10 minutes (or less) the map will close and the up next districts will be reduced by 1 value
This is your lobby: the one you’re in. EU-D1 shows now label, so you can freely move to it. Then Lobby EU-D4 will become label-less

The issue is multiple instances of a map close out around the same time after some major event is over. But since the close at different times, you may end up going to one that others are leaving from and that map gets dinged to close.

My solution is not to exit when first offered. You can get the buff anytime before you are forced out.

Galtrix.7369:

Yeah, their system is completely broken. That they haven’t fixed it yet is a sign to me that they just don’t care anymore.

It’s not completely broken — it’s specific to certain situations that weren’t easy to anticipate. It’s theoretically challenging to prevent and so it’s not going to be easy to program a solution.

Of course they should fix it and of course this should be one of their megaserver team’s top priorities, but that doesn’t mean that we should expect a fix this month or even soon™.

The players may not be in the area you are in, or just left

I know its a problem, but think about heading to Mount Maelstrom or other maps with rich plat or iron nodes. Go there about 20 minutes before a world boss and then just harvest away again and again. I’ve been able to do that 4 times before it stopped and walked out with about 300 plat and don’t forget about hardwood and elder wood.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Galtrix.7369:

Yeah, their system is completely broken. That they haven’t fixed it yet is a sign to me that they just don’t care anymore.

It’s not completely broken — it’s specific to certain situations that weren’t easy to anticipate. It’s theoretically challenging to prevent and so it’s not going to be easy to program a solution.

Of course they should fix it and of course this should be one of their megaserver team’s top priorities, but that doesn’t mean that we should expect a fix this month or even soon™.

If a system doesn’t work the way it is intended, it is completely broken. With physical, real-world items, not so much… but in computer terms, if a program doesn’t function as intended, it is completely broken and it needs to be re-coded. If, for example, it sent you to a server with a larger population than the one you just came from, then it would be considered “not completely broken”. However, since it happens every time, it is obviously not specific to certain situations.

It is not an easy task to code in a system that balances population equally. However, they already have a prime example of how to do it properly. Their district system in GW1 was a prime example of how to code a system that balances properly. It would take time to create this in GW2, but it would fix everything about the current system. Again, the fact that they haven’t done this already is a sign to me that this isn’t their top priority.

There’s even a bigger issue to consider compared to GW1. As of today, in this game, you still can’t play with your friends from other continents. GW1 was allowing you that but not GW2. Hell you can’t even get into the same instantiated content.

The district system of GW1 was really great for that.

And for the farming abuse:
Why not making the node farming in a way that, if you gather a specific node in a map, it disappears from all the instances of this map? That would fix AB multi loot too…
Having districts would also make it easier to get to a non bugged version of an event, in case the one event you need for your collection T3 of precurseur is bugged (yes it still happens)

What are the cons of districts really?

@Huskyboy if you’ve only had that problem once, then you’re kitten lucky.

@OP I agree that something needs to be done about this. I usually ignore it, but the times I agree it moves me once, I get the prompt again. It moves me twice, I get a third prompt.

Once I took every prompt as an experiment. I stopped at 5. This needs to be seen to.

This frequency of maps opening and closing is derived from player behavior. The zones where this occurs often have a much higher frequency of players entering and exiting the zone. On a couple of maps, we all should have learned to not instantly take the map closing option. For all other zones, the design works as intended.

When I’m adventuring I ignore the prompt. Most of the time the option eventually goes away.

When I’m farming I welcome the prompt with open inventory arms.

~EW

Yeah, just ignore it. Some of these replies are phrased as if this is a game-breaking problem, but it’s really not. You can continue along happily in your current map IP for 60 minutes before you are forced to switch. 60 minutes is more than enough time to finish up any events or bosses you were previously engaged in. And when you finish what you were doing, you can either click the volunteer icon to move to a new IP or continue to hang out in your current map until it force closes.

Either way, you’re playing the game and doing things you want to do. I understand that it can be frustrating getting sent to a second map IP that’s also closing, but again, you’re given a fresh 60 minute timer, and you can once more choose to stay or go.

The previously suggested idea of a 10 minute map closing timer isn’t a great idea, in my opinion. 10 minutes really isn’t much time. IIRC the original map close timer was 15 or 20 minutes, and a lot of people were really upset by this because they were getting kicked from the map instance just before a world boss or map meta finished. 60 minutes is enough of a buffer to prevent most of those occurrences from happening, while 10 minutes would see it happen way more often.

Similarly, having the ability to select which map IP you want to hotswap to on the fly sounds like a great idea on the surface, but I think there are a lot of other problems that will pop up if that feature is implemented. A lot of players think AB multimap looting is a “shady” practice that needs to be nerfed, but imagine if you had the ability to hotswap to every possible map IP, in any map, at any time. As someone else in this thread pointed out, you can often harvest rich ore veins multiple times if you find yourself kicked from a closing map. Imagine if you then had the ability to jump from IP to IP, freely harvesting nodes in a small area within a fraction of the time it would otherwise take. Think about AB multimapping, and then extrapolate that strategy to other maps—how many other chests or event rewards would you be able to repeat simply by clicking the next IP from a dropdown box?

I think I’m probably in the minority here, but I really do think Anet has the map IP/instance system working pretty effectively. It could certainly use some tweaks, I agree, but I think a huge overhaul would be a bad idea.