Guild Wars 2

One thing I noticed with the updates a lot of zones are pretty void of players.
You would think with all that content built there it would be smart to do something to draw players back into those areas as well not just abandon them the way they appear to be.

The vast majority of players I see are ones doing the boss spawns and raids.

The game has pretty much turned into a level 80+ game rather than one people build their characters up in.

I’m not sure something like offering new loot or armor would be that good. People would go there get it if it is what they want and the place would be abandoned again. Its like every time they add some new prize everyone goes and gets in then they never return unless they decide they want to for another character.

What is needed is items that have to be replaced regularly that characters need to get a greater power level they can’t get other places. Make it so each region has its own and they can’t be traded.

That way zones would always have a reason for users to go back to.

grhayes.5192:

One thing I noticed with the updates a lot of zones are pretty void of players.
You would think with all that content built there it would be smart to do something to draw players back into those areas as well not just abandon them the way they appear to be.

The vast majority of players I see are ones doing the boss spawns and raids.

The game has pretty much turned into a level 80+ game rather than one people build their characters up in.

I’m not sure something like offering new loot or armor would be that good. People would go there get it if it is what they want and the place would be abandoned again. Its like every time they add some new prize everyone goes and gets in then they never return unless they decide they want to for another character.

What is needed is items that have to be replaced regularly that characters need to get a greater power level they can’t get other places. Make it so each region has its own and they can’t be traded.

That way zones would always have a reason for users to go back to.

Well, they kinda did that with map bonus rewards, and legendary quests.

It’s just something that takes time to incorporate into new systems.

Oh i do not know :p wvwvw maps are not void of players.

Srsly though, I was finishined of a few collections lately and met quite a few players. Possible more players are organizing maps via the New lfg system and are therefore not as offen stranded in maps which in turn might give the impression of fewer players. Also: the New maps have been updated\made more accessably (is that even a word) and are therefore of interest for those who avoided them previously.

I have seen a lot of players on the maps the past couple weeks while doing map completion.

I may not see crowds everywhere I go on core maps, but I see plenty of players around.

Are there any maps in particular where you’re seeing this, or is it all the low and mid level ones?

Right now it wouldn’t surprise me if they’re relatively empty because we had a big update a week ago which revamped WvW, dungeons, Fractals and the HoT maps so a lot of players have gone back to those areas to check out the changes. We’ve also got new dailies which encourage players to go to the HoT maps.

But that will even out over time, even if the vast majority of people like the changes it will stop being new and exciting and they’ll go back to other maps as well.

Especially with the map bonus system, which made level 15+ open-world maps the best place to farm some previously hard to farm items.

(If this is something you just noticed today you also need to consider the time of day. Most GW2 players live in Europe and North America and when you posted this the majority of Europeans would be heading home and the majority of Americans would be going to, or already at work/school. So all maps are going to be relatively quiet. Things will pick up as the evening goes on, then (at least on EU servers) drop off dramatically after 11pm.)

Danikat.8537:

Are there any maps in particular where you’re seeing this, or is it all the low and mid level ones?

Right now it wouldn’t surprise me if they’re relatively empty because we had a big update a week ago which revamped WvW, dungeons, Fractals and the HoT maps so a lot of players have gone back to those areas to check out the changes. We’ve also got new dailies which encourage players to go to the HoT maps.

But that will even out over time, even if the vast majority of people like the changes it will stop being new and exciting and they’ll go back to other maps as well.

Especially with the map bonus system, which made level 15+ open-world maps the best place to farm some previously hard to farm items.

(If this is something you just noticed today you also need to consider the time of day. Most GW2 players live in Europe and North America and when you posted this the majority of Europeans would be heading home and the majority of Americans would be going to, or already at work/school. So all maps are going to be relatively quiet. Things will pick up as the evening goes on, then (at least on EU servers) drop off dramatically after 11pm.)

That’s my guess as well

Maybe it is the server I am on or the times I play. But it’s the same times I played in the past. Between the straits of devastation and cursed shores I counted about 10 players going through.

Razor.9872:

grhayes.5192:

Well, they kinda did that with map bonus rewards, and legendary quests.

It’s just something that takes time to incorporate into new systems.

I haven’t gotten on to the legendary quests yet. That said still don’t see near the numbers I used to see on the map.

Silberfederling.9302:

Oh i do not know :p wvwvw maps are not void of players.

Srsly though, I was finishined of a few collections lately and met quite a few players. Possible more players are organizing maps via the New lfg system and are therefore not as offen stranded in maps which in turn might give the impression of fewer players. Also: the New maps have been updated\made more accessably (is that even a word) and are therefore of interest for those who avoided them previously.

Honestly hadn’t considered that as a potential. If so then there are far fewer single players playing. Meaning most now choose to group up and far less are doing solo stuff.

Unless they add something of re-play value to old maps/HoT maps there’s really no reason to keep coming back to them, in my opinion.

Once i’ve done the meta’s/bosses ~10-20 times it becomes a bore. Mostly due to how stale the encounters are with the sheer numbers on a map. Hence why instanced content like stories/dungeons/fractals/raids are more appealing to me.

One thing i can suggest, should you struggle with an event or HP, if you own a commanders tag do tag up write in mapchat XYZ on my tag. That works quite well for me

grhayes.5192:

One thing I noticed with the updates a lot of zones are pretty void of players.
You would think with all that content built there it would be smart to do something to draw players back into those areas as well not just abandon them the way they appear to be.

The vast majority of players I see are ones doing the boss spawns and raids.

The game has pretty much turned into a level 80+ game rather than one people build their characters up in.

I’m not sure something like offering new loot or armor would be that good. People would go there get it if it is what they want and the place would be abandoned again. Its like every time they add some new prize everyone goes and gets in then they never return unless they decide they want to for another character.

What is needed is items that have to be replaced regularly that characters need to get a greater power level they can’t get other places. Make it so each region has its own and they can’t be traded.

That way zones would always have a reason for users to go back to.

I’ve been doing map completion for a few weeks now, and I have to say, I’m seeing plenty of people. Some maps are more sparse than others, but when an event pops people turn up to do it, and these are maps that are not the daily event maps.

I usually do some low level map completion at the morning (and WvW raids on prime time) but I have not noticed maps being empty. They are not “full” of people, except daily event map, yet there are players spread around everywhere.

There’s always been certain maps that tend to be low population. All I can be certain of is the areas in DR around the TP and Bank are loaded with players since the patch. Not sure where they are playing when their not there but they are playing somewhere.

Sea of Sorrows seems dead in the lower maps, i see a handful of players daily but most large events are less then 10 players in them.

My guilds have like 500 players but only about 10-15 are ever online, in two guilds.

Orr has a fair few players but the rest is very dead… HoT is hit and miss.

Dante.1508:

Sea of Sorrows seems dead in the lower maps, i see a handful of players daily but most large events are less then 10 players in them.

My guilds have like 500 players but only about 10-15 are ever online, in two guilds.

Orr has a fair few players but the rest is very dead… HoT is hit and miss.

The map system now is a mega-server system. You aren’t see SoS only maps. Some of the people you will see in PvE are from other servers. It’s not like the old days where each server had a map.

As Ellieanna explained, all PvE maps include players from every server (NA and EU are separate). Most low population PvE maps only have 1 instance, meaning these are the players from every server in this map. World Boss events, HoT maps and SW usually have multiple instances of same map where players from many servers are together in one instance and other players from same servers are in another instance of same map.

I haven’t been on an empty open-world instance in ages. (I sort of miss the days when I had gorgeous map all to myself, although even then they were never really empty.)

Behellagh.1468:

There’s always been certain maps that tend to be low population. All I can be certain of is the areas in DR around the TP and Bank are loaded with players since the patch. Not sure where they are playing when their not there but they are playing somewhere.

i thought that is where people logged in to rp Tyria’s Next Top Model

They have daily Event completion achieves to help get people back out into lower level zones each day. It doesn’t fill every zone every day but it does provide content and a reason to play the older zones again. That’s mostly good enough.

All level-based MMOs have this characteristic of progression to higher zones, leaving the old ones behind for lower-level characters. Its normal and it’s not really a problem. The downranking system even allows players to go back and play that zone as if they were that level if they want to experience it again.

Your suggestion about needing to replace items would be restricted to consumables that already need replacing by definition – nourish/utility buffs etc that have a time limit.

would be nice if they introduced a hard mode. that would have a lot of players back on the maps, although im sure it would take a ton of work.

grhayes.5192:

What is needed is items that have to be replaced regularly that characters need to get a greater power level they can’t get other places. Make it so each region has its own and they can’t be traded.

But what about “play how you want”? I dislike playing on the PvE maps… I have never gotten 100% map completion on any of my characters, and I have powerleveled most of my characters with crafting and tomes of knowledge. Maybe the maps in PvE are just not very entertaining after you ran through them once… and renown hearts become repetitive fast.

Edit: just saw Stand The Wall’s suggestion above me, and yes I think that would interest me at least. Hard mode in GW1 was pretty challenging, which made it fun.

Can I ask you OP why exactly is it a problem if there is indeed maybe only a few people on a map?

I mean even if this is the case it does not mean the game is dead or dying. It just means there are no people on this particular map at the moment.

Is it effecting you or your play style in any negative way, and if so how exactly? Most of the game is solo-able, I have done world complete 11 times myself now so I know this is true. If it’s just that you like to chat with people or even interact with them there are solutions to this already. You can go to the popular maps or hit the Daily Event map as there will always be plenty of people there. Since the daily event map changes every day it should be enough to keep the old maps and content varied enough for you.

I just really don’t see an urgent need to have every map close to full all the time or content added to them all the time to try and force this. We have to face it, there is a certain number of people who play this game and logged on at any given time. So of course with new maps and content coming out when it does it may seem like there are less in the older areas as people like new content and new places to explore. It’s not necessary a bad thing at all in my opinion. There is going to be “X” amount of people playing no matter what they do.

Thankfully Anet has gotten over the old fear of not adding new maps because of the old ones dying since we now have the megaservers to deal with that. I hope this continues to be the trend and indeed more maps and new content is added.

I sometimes prefer an empty map when doing map completion because other players can impact how quickly I complete hearts.

I still see plenty of players in the regular pve lands and I have been seeing lots of players out in the HoT areas. (NA server, 5-10pm, pacific coast time)

grhayes.5192:

One thing I noticed with the updates a lot of zones are pretty void of players.
You would think with all that content built there it would be smart to do something to draw players back into those areas as well not just abandon them the way they appear to be.

The vast majority of players I see are ones doing the boss spawns and raids.

The game has pretty much turned into a level 80+ game rather than one people build their characters up in.

I’m not sure something like offering new loot or armor would be that good. People would go there get it if it is what they want and the place would be abandoned again. Its like every time they add some new prize everyone goes and gets in then they never return unless they decide they want to for another character.

What is needed is items that have to be replaced regularly that characters need to get a greater power level they can’t get other places. Make it so each region has its own and they can’t be traded.

That way zones would always have a reason for users to go back to.

The one problem I see is that all people do nowadays is farm in raids and dungeons. Then a new event pops up in a newbie area, they complete it, and then go back to farming.

Stand The Wall.6987:

would be nice if they introduced a hard mode. that would have a lot of players back on the maps, although im sure it would take a ton of work.

Actually hard mode would be a different instance since it’s open world and it wouldn’t get players back on the maps, it would only get players into those new maps, further dividing the player base.

Ayrilana.1396:

I sometimes prefer an empty map when doing map completion because other players can impact how quickly I complete hearts.

Same.

But I’ve been doing base game story stuff for the past couple of days, and even at off hours I’ve seen plenty of other players everywhere I’ve been. It feels pretty consistent with my experience since I returned to the game last summer and started doing world completion stuff- there might not be throngs everywhere I go, but zones never seem empty and I’m not having to solo events when they pop.