Guild Wars 2

really? The flag came up just as soon as I’d zoned in.

Why to I get zoned in to a map they want to empty?

What zone control theorycraft am I missing.

Maybe you zoned into a map where a big zerg have just left. Or maybe all other instances were full, but when you zoned in to the new map the zerg from one of the other versions left/disconnected and thus you had space in there.

Maps open and close all the time as people move in and out of them. A big reason for a map closing right after you waypoint in is because a lot of people left, such as what happens when a meta boss event ends and the zerg moves to the next boss. All the maps that were made to handle the zerg then are closed down.

This time it is Lormar’s Pass, not known for it’s zergs.

This is the 4th or 5th occurrence as I held back writing until I saw that it’s a regular happening. The only common item would seem to be entering a zone I’d expect to have low population.

In this case I was going to Durmond Priory instance for the personal story, so just ignored it. But where would I go if I checked “okay” to being evacuated, and why didn’t I go there in the first place?

You would go to another shard of the map, and be in the exact same spot as when you clicked ok. You didn’t go there in the first place because the map you went to first still had enough players to exist and the algorithm they use to put you onto a map decided that shard was the best for you. Had more of your server players, more of your guild, more of your friends, etc. Or the only other instance of the map was full.

We’ve had sales recently. Mid-level zones could be more populated right now due to new players have mid-level characters and leveling up. Their daily events may be putting them in mid-level zones for their Daily Events. Since it is based off of the highest character a player has.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Maps open and close all the time as people move in and out of them. A big reason for a map closing right after you waypoint in is because a lot of people left, such as what happens when a meta boss event ends and the zerg moves to the next boss. All the maps that were made to handle the zerg then are closed down.

I understand what you are saying, but as I mentioned above, I don’t think this is the case. I think there is more going on than the simple “open a new shard when a map overflows due to an event, then close it afterward”. I have not yet teased out what it is, which is why I’m writing about it at all.

I have also, on two occasions, been asked to leave a map during a boss fight with the “too few players” message. In that case we had plenty of people and were going to kill the boss with plenty of time to spare. Folks explained that it was an overflow map and would be closed, but even mediocre software would check to see that the event that spawned the overflow was over before launching the closing sequence. (Or at least do a population check on a time delay, and see plenty of people still there). These two distinct flaws seem to indicate there is some other zoning control in place, not particularly well thought out, and shows up regularly.

Michael.9403:

really? The flag came up just as soon as I’d zoned in.

Why to I get zoned in to a map they want to empty?

What zone control theorycraft am I missing.

Sounds like it’s working as intended.

Some I’m sure have come here and posted that the burden of proof is on you though. smh

Yeah this system did that constantly to me the last time I was on.

Michael.9403:

This time it is Lormar’s Pass, not known for it’s zergs.

This is the 4th or 5th occurrence as I held back writing until I saw that it’s a regular happening. The only common item would seem to be entering a zone I’d expect to have low population.

In this case I was going to Durmond Priory instance for the personal story, so just ignored it. But where would I go if I checked “okay” to being evacuated, and why didn’t I go there in the first place?

Guild Missions happen in that zone. Which is likely the zerg you aren’t seeing.

Michael.9403:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Maps open and close all the time as people move in and out of them. A big reason for a map closing right after you waypoint in is because a lot of people left, such as what happens when a meta boss event ends and the zerg moves to the next boss. All the maps that were made to handle the zerg then are closed down.

I understand what you are saying, but as I mentioned above, I don’t think this is the case. I think there is more going on than the simple “open a new shard when a map overflows due to an event, then close it afterward”. I have not yet teased out what it is, which is why I’m writing about it at all.

I have also, on two occasions, been asked to leave a map during a boss fight with the “too few players” message. In that case we had plenty of people and were going to kill the boss with plenty of time to spare. Folks explained that it was an overflow map and would be closed, but even mediocre software would check to see that the event that spawned the overflow was over before launching the closing sequence. (Or at least do a population check on a time delay, and see plenty of people still there). These two distinct flaws seem to indicate there is some other zoning control in place, not particularly well thought out, and shows up regularly.

And the players doing the boss may have been the only ones really on that shard. And that amount of players may have been too low. Your pre-event may have taken longer on average than most of the other maps. Or you weren’t burning the boss down as fast. So the other shards emptied out and you got the merge message as your shard was below the population levels they would like to keep shards at and there were other shards to move you and the others on your map to.

Seera.5916:

Michael.9403:

I understand what you are saying, but as I mentioned above, I don’t think this is the case. I think there is more going on than the simple “open a new shard when a map overflows due to an event, then close it afterward”. I have not yet teased out what it is, which is why I’m writing about it at all.

I have also, on two occasions, been asked to leave a map during a boss fight with the “too few players” message. In that case we had plenty of people and were going to kill the boss with plenty of time to spare. Folks explained that it was an overflow map and would be closed, but even mediocre software would check to see that the event that spawned the overflow was over before launching the closing sequence. (Or at least do a population check on a time delay, and see plenty of people still there). These two distinct flaws seem to indicate there is some other zoning control in place, not particularly well thought out, and shows up regularly.

And the players doing the boss may have been the only ones really on that shard. And that amount of players may have been too low. Your pre-event may have taken longer on average than most of the other maps. Or you weren’t burning the boss down as fast. So the other shards emptied out and you got the merge message as your shard was below the population levels they would like to keep shards at and there were other shards to move you and the others on your map to.

Your lawyerly alternate theory approach to proving the software is working correctly flys in the face of technical reality. Prequels have timers. Bosses have timers. It’s easy to read the value of the timers and determine if the event failed. It’s difficult in the case of sequenced prequels and long boss fights to determine it’s going to fail, as you theorize. In the case I remember, the Megadestroyer, we had a big zerg and were within a minute of killing it, with 7 mins to go of the allowed 15. Whether or not the prequels were fast or slow, they didn’t time out or we’d not be fighting it.

OTOH, if some designer decided to use an arbitrary time limit for all WB fights “one size fit’s all” it would be pitiful design, but create the exact phenomena I’ve described.
OR, just checks shards on an arbitrary timer, forgetting they were created for a boss fight, and deciding there were too few to win Teq, so must be too few to win an easier fight.

The premises offered for the OP ( zoning into a too low zone) hinge on a big unlikelihood. It presumes that at the moment I clicked to zone, the map was okay, but somehow, during the 5-10 seconds of zoning time, some arbitrary large zerg disappeared. Once a year, maybe. But not 5 times in a week, in nominally underpopulated zones and off peak periods. There is some other issue in the code, about as bad as not checking boss timer status to dump shards created for a boss fight.

Michael.9403:

really? The flag came up just as soon as I’d zoned in.
Why to I get zoned in to a map they want to empty?
What zone control theorycraft am I missing.

Yes, that happened a few times to me too.

Last time it was in Sparkfly Fen, when I was asked 4 times ( I map switched every time, so I switched maps 4 times) to switch maps in around one minute.

I assumed at that time that the Tequatl event was finished and there were then a lot of empty map instances and the reallocation logic did not check if the new map instance was also an empty map instance that would be closed.

Michael.9403:

here is some other issue in the code, about as bad as not checking boss timer status to dump shards created for a boss fight.

I think you’re overthinking things, if you believe that there’s actually specific setups for new ‘world boss’ map instances. The game isn’t set up to automatically generate a bunch of new Wayfarer Foothills maps each second hour in time for Frozen Maw. It does so dynamically as player populations move around.

I have no knowledge of exact numbers, but… we’ll assume that maps cap at 150 players. New maps start getting created once existing maps have 100 plus players on them (giving room for groups/guilds to top out the existing maps to get them up to 150). And lets say a map can close when there’s less than 30 people on it.

So you attended a Megadestroyer event. Maybe you showed up late this time, and got onto one of the later instances being opened, along with other people showing up late, and a few players without any clue there was a world boss going on zoning in on their own. Time goes by, pre-events are worked on. As you were late, people stop showing up for Megadestroyer, or they get filled into empty spots on the many other existing instances due to guild/group ties. Pre-events in your instance continue, but your population dips a bit. A couple of people have real life concerns come up and need to log out. Some of the random players who wandered into the zone wander back out. You still have a healthy looking group doing the Megadestroyer, but the rest of the instance is pretty much empty.

During the fight, you dip under that 30 person limit. Billy’s mother was demanding that he get off the game and do his chores right that instant, so he had to quit to desktop. So now with 29 people, you get the prompt about the instance closing within an hour. You look around and you see people, because all 29 people are currently fighting the Megadestroyer, but the zone as a whole is underneath the minimum they want zones to have. So you get the prompt. It’s not as though it affects you at all, because no one’s going to skip out of their Megadestroyer fight and miss their loot. But that’s all that’s happening. It doesn’t do anything fancy for world boss schedules. It just reacts dynamically to the number of people in a zone, adding more instances as they’re needed and closing instances as they depopulate.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Maps open and close all the time as people move in and out of them. A big reason for a map closing right after you waypoint in is because a lot of people left, such as what happens when a meta boss event ends and the zerg moves to the next boss. All the maps that were made to handle the zerg then are closed down.

Well the weird one is when there is a big zerg in the middle of fighting a boss and this pops up anyway.

Michael.9403:

Seera.5916:

Michael.9403:

I understand what you are saying, but as I mentioned above, I don’t think this is the case. I think there is more going on than the simple “open a new shard when a map overflows due to an event, then close it afterward”. I have not yet teased out what it is, which is why I’m writing about it at all.

I have also, on two occasions, been asked to leave a map during a boss fight with the “too few players” message. In that case we had plenty of people and were going to kill the boss with plenty of time to spare. Folks explained that it was an overflow map and would be closed, but even mediocre software would check to see that the event that spawned the overflow was over before launching the closing sequence. (Or at least do a population check on a time delay, and see plenty of people still there). These two distinct flaws seem to indicate there is some other zoning control in place, not particularly well thought out, and shows up regularly.

And the players doing the boss may have been the only ones really on that shard. And that amount of players may have been too low. Your pre-event may have taken longer on average than most of the other maps. Or you weren’t burning the boss down as fast. So the other shards emptied out and you got the merge message as your shard was below the population levels they would like to keep shards at and there were other shards to move you and the others on your map to.

Your lawyerly alternate theory approach to proving the software is working correctly flys in the face of technical reality. Prequels have timers. Bosses have timers. It’s easy to read the value of the timers and determine if the event failed. It’s difficult in the case of sequenced prequels and long boss fights to determine it’s going to fail, as you theorize. In the case I remember, the Megadestroyer, we had a big zerg and were within a minute of killing it, with 7 mins to go of the allowed 15. Whether or not the prequels were fast or slow, they didn’t time out or we’d not be fighting it.

OTOH, if some designer decided to use an arbitrary time limit for all WB fights “one size fit’s all” it would be pitiful design, but create the exact phenomena I’ve described.
OR, just checks shards on an arbitrary timer, forgetting they were created for a boss fight, and deciding there were too few to win Teq, so must be too few to win an easier fight.

The premises offered for the OP ( zoning into a too low zone) hinge on a big unlikelihood. It presumes that at the moment I clicked to zone, the map was okay, but somehow, during the 5-10 seconds of zoning time, some arbitrary large zerg disappeared. Once a year, maybe. But not 5 times in a week, in nominally underpopulated zones and off peak periods. There is some other issue in the code, about as bad as not checking boss timer status to dump shards created for a boss fight.

Never said you failed the events. Just that you’re shard may not have been killing the boss AS FAST. Let’s say Shatterer requires 200 DPS on average to kill him just in the nick of time. Your shard was doing 300 DPS. Other, full shards, were doing 400 DPS. Guess which shards are going to empty out first and possibly trigger move pop ups on small pop shards?

And your counter doesn’t count against the new players who may be in that level range who are coming and going on the mid-level maps.

Or guild events may be happening as other posters pointed out.

HoT’s announcement has also brought back players who had taken a break. As support threads can prove due to increased ticket times due to players forgetting passwords or coming back to find out their account had been hacked while they were away. So they may be out playing again. Leveling new characters or doing guild events.

So yes, the number of move to a new map things may have increased. But that may be simply due to the increased number of players changing maps or logging off or switching to another character that’s not on the same map.

And players with just mid-level characters may be going to specific mid-level maps for the Daily Map Events. Going to the map to do the events only to leave when they’ve finished. This could cause map populations to fluctuate more, especially if it’s not right on top of reset either before or after.

Michael.9403:

This time it is Lormar’s Pass, not known for it’s zergs.

This is the 4th or 5th occurrence as I held back writing until I saw that it’s a regular happening. The only common item would seem to be entering a zone I’d expect to have low population.

In this case I was going to Durmond Priory instance for the personal story, so just ignored it. But where would I go if I checked “okay” to being evacuated, and why didn’t I go there in the first place?

You would go into a different, more populated instance of the same map.
And the reason why it happened to you is likely because yesterday was a guild missions day, and there were a lot of guild groups in different locations all over the world. This might have temporarily inflated the number of shards.