Guild Wars 2

I don’t know, if there is a problem with the Mega Servers spreading people too much or decreasing population in general, but today I had the most frustrating in/game experience since launch.

I went with my Mesmer to Verdant Brink mainly to get all the Hero Points for the Chronomancer Elite Specialization. While uncovering the map fog and hopping from HP to HP (luckily I have gliding and mushrooms already unlocked) I noticed that I was pretty much on my own. But that was fine, as there was no HP I couldn’t solo.

While I got close to map completion I started doing some events which got really frustrating after a while, because – apart from the area around the central pact encampment – I was mostly on my own facing tons of mordrem, frogs, beetles, …

In more than 3 hours I have seen 2 commander tags total in VB.
I’ve been to Orr recently and it was pact (felt like 10x more) with people and commanders.

Events in VB do not seem to downscale. At least not to single player mode.

I was never offered the option to switch to a more populated map instance while I was literally on my own. This only happened a few times when there were other people around, i.e. at the central pact encampment.

As a consequence the number of do-able (at least for me) VB events is just a fraction of the actual existing.

Loot (translated to liquid gold) is really bad compared to what I can make in a few level 1-20 fractal runs or by exploring a tier 4 crafting material zone (Timberline Falls).

I seriously hope that this is a problem with the mega server algorithm and not an indication that the HoT maps are already dying. Gliding in Tyria will most likely not help the situation.

With the collection quests and PvP a lot of attention has been pulled away from HoT as people do them. I personally have had my hands full with Central Tyria, after the initial month of release and rarely get back. Orr is crawling with people due to the free to players getting to that level and doing those events.

I bought HoT 3 weeks ago.

I haven’t been in a full map once. I play on WSR (EU), one of the lowest populated servers. Maybe thats a part of why i’m always trasnfered into small active, deserted maps that have a not much more then a handfull of players doing a single event if i’m lucky.

It’s been frustrating me every day since i bought the expansion as most of the content in HoT is group based or requires alot of time and not much room for error if you want to succesfully solo them.

I’m in a guild, one that used to be the biggest guild in our server. Megaserver destroyed it all. We have an average of 20/30 players online at the same time. The leaders / commanders are fed up trying to organise things as we are useally left deserted. Even after trying to set up event websites, community portals and the like.

Yes, you could argue I could join a guild or search for community events that are globally advertised. But thats not how I want to experience the expansion.

The fact that all of this stuff is time based also makes it a pain in the kitten to get my stuff completed.

It all just feels like a drag to me

I ran into this yesterday. Tried relogging…nope same empty map. So I waypointed out to an adjacent region and waypointed back and…I was in a populated map! So try the waypoint method and see if it works for you.

Use the lfg and taxi to a populated map.
People want to get the events done, which requires people, and therefore taxi people in to maps with commanders or other people trying to organise.

As people go to these maps, it leaves the others with low population.
It does not have anything to do with your home server really

VB is loaded with people waiting for raids. So, the raw count is high enough to not trigger megaserver’s algorithm. We’ve asked them to create a lobby, but they simply don’t listen any more.

People waiting for raids is a pretty good explanation, I think.
Also using LFG to join a squad is a good idea when actually wanting to do the meta.

But this pretty much means the original “explore the map as you like” mode doesn’t work for the HoT maps (and partially for Dry Top and Silverwastes, too).

Proper scaling of events and player power according to level and population of an area is hard. Maybe too hard for ANet. It’s obviously easier to balance content around a fixed number of players with fixed level (raid). Hmm, I wanted to play GW2 not WoW.

A lot of people simply don’t want to put in the effort. It’s far easier to simply zerg everything and the way you’re rewarded only promotes that. I can solo most events in VB for example, but I get nothing out of it. I can practically AFK in an “organized” map and get the max rewards where T4 can be achieved without trying.

The problem is, when the map doesn’t look organized, people simply leave. If there are no commanders, people don’t know what to do/where to go. You can’t get into the main maps if they’re soft capped, but a lot more people can still get in by joining through parties, which only hurts everyone else. Since the megaserver is first come first serve, it’s possible for you to get stuck in the last instance created while people are constantly leaving and joining the previous maps. If they never fill up, no new players will enter yours, yet if they never empty out, you’ll never get the opportunity to volunteer.

It only takes 3-5 decent players per area to successfully complete any meta event and in some cases, it can be far faster (3 decent zerkers vs the average zerg).

xlion.3065:

Events in VB do not seem to downscale. At least not to single player mode.

Group events scale down to 3 minimum.

Personally, most of HoT’s group events don’t feel like group events. HoT is simply at a higher difficulty level, being balanced for the upper average instead of the lower that most MMOs cater to. imo, ArenaNet didn’t want to discourage the average player, so they simply labeled them as group events.

BellatorDeus.2310:

Tried relogging…nope same empty map.

Your spot is saved for several seconds. I usually count to 10. You can also use guesting to influence the choice of overflows, as long as the map is active enough for the popular servers to have their own.

Well, to be fair to Anet (lol) it’s only been since October 27 that they’ve know that there is a problem with the Megaserver……

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/heads-up-iteration-incoming/

Excerpt:

“Finally, we’ve discovered a setting that was creating some lower populations in maps in the Heart of Maguuma than we’d ideally been looking for with our megaserver system. We’re really happy with the difficulty of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns—our players have asked for more meaningful challenge from Guild Wars 2, and we believe Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns is bringing that—but having lots of players to play with makes that much more fun, so we’ll make sure you’re always in maps with numerous friends (and soon-to-be friends) to play with.”

I mean, give them another six months or so before complaining (again)…..

“Thank you for remaining on hold. Your patience is appreciated. We will connect you to a representative as soon as one is available.”

I think the game isn’t heading into the right direction.
The original idea of dynamic events that scale according to the numbers of players involved is replaced with scheduled events that are best done (easiest and most rewarding at the same time) in large zergs.

Instead of the game adjusting to the players, the players have to adjust to the game (schedule). A single player doesn’t make any difference in a zerg (unless he/she is a commander) and rewards don’t scale with difficulty and contribution.

[Yesterday I was exploring Tarir and was below the city when the event kicked off. I waited it out just to see what happens. Guess what, I got 4 keys for literally doing nothing.]

I don’t mind “open world boss fight” type of content where you need an organized team, but this should only be one aspect of the game.

Instead I would like the dynamic of events to improve. Maybe in the way that WP suggested in one of his videos (around when silverwastes came out), e. g. it gets harder and harder (and more rewarding) to hold an outpost against attacking foes. Bosses would only appear when the event (difficulty) has been pushed by a lot.

When entering a map one should be able to decide whether to go to an “advanced” instance of the map (with free slots) or to a “basic” (solo-friendly) version. This could actually allow guilds to force certain world boss encounters to happen.

Obviously this requires map/event contribution and thereby rewards to be calculated in a much more sophisticated way than it currently is.

Queensdale-defcon-1:
Pretty much like we know it. The area is largely controlled by humans with a few bandit hideouts and centaur camps.

The map is pushed by actually defending human settlements against attacking foes (which would otherwise just retreat after a while because they get bored) and by attacking the bandit/centaur bases (which will get reinforcement when constantly being attacked).

Queensdale-defcon-10:
This is a war zone (heroic mode). Human settlements are constantly attacked by massive forces. Bandit/Centaur bases have strong defenses and bosses will spawn.

In order to keep defcon-10 human settlements need to be constantly defended and Bandit/Centaur bases need to be constantly attacked. Otherwise things will slowly calm down and the map will gradually return to defcon-1.

The idea is that the map meta no longer shifts between “human controlled” vs “bandit/centaur controlled” but between “peace” vs “war”.