Guild Wars 2

It also sucks that on a rather empty Auric Basin map; before,during and after the Assault on Tarir there is such a long down time of events you can actually complete. You have like 30 minutes of no events. (Wacking the Octovine alone is pointless)

In Verdant Brink it takes a very long time to get a decent amount of airship parts. The Airship cargo usually give 3, but some times 25! Kinda big difference if you ask me.
When you complete an event you should get a bunch too.
Makes completing the events more meaningful, I guess it was meant to keep players on the map longer, but you need so much currency for every little thing and collections it gets really tedious.

Agemnon.4608:

Why do you say Tangled Depths has horrid map design? Rata Novus is cool, and the diving near the waterfall vista is epic. You need to glide from a helicopter to a helicopter blade, jump to the nearby cliff, jump up a ramp, get the vista, etc. Then some of the quests are great but no one does the meta.

I’m not SamThe Guardian, but his complaints are probably similar to mine:

It’s a huge pain in the kitten to navigate, even before you consider the reasonably challenging monsters densely infesting the place. Many’s the time I’ve wandered in there, spied a hero point, poi, or vista I wanted to get to, and spent 15 minutes fruitlessly trying to find a way to get to it. Yes, I do have updrafts, bouncy mushrooms, and nuhoch wallows all trained – without those, the map is even worse.

Have you ever found yourself driving around in a city trying to get onto a highway, where you can clearly see the highway but can’t for the life of you find the actual on-ramp so you can drive your car onto it? That’s how I feel in Tangled Depths, every time I go there.

It will be a problem soon. No one can possibly keep doing these 2 hours long metas over and over and over again for rewards. Maybe over the weekends people may try but, man everyday?

Dragon stand is nothing but, noxious pod farm. TD is for leyline sparks. VB is for oil and AB is for auric dust? But, how long can we be farming?

Yup – check out this thread as well. Lot of discussion has happened regarding the design issues with sustainability. =/

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Unsustainable-map-design/first#post5778795

DS only takes about an hour to reach final chest. The pod farming is an added bonus. DT has an hour long cycle and can be hard to navigate for new players and is still doing fine a year later not to mention SW can be a time sink if you start on a fresh map and complete the Lab.

VB is a great source of event farming and xp not to mention fun canopy battles. Along with it being the first map giving mastery’s and HP I do not see VB ever having issues.

The trick hasn’t changed. If you have the time/patience and enjoy it you stay on the map and help it progress. If you’re short on time or don’t like the map you use the LFG and jump in when they need to fill the map for the meta to get the mats you need. I can get 2 meta’s in with just about an hour investment with TD and AB.

DS is not only an epic final battle but there are a lot of mastery points and specialization collections tied to it so I do not see that map ever having population issues.

The only map that is having issues right now is TD but if the meta success rate can be brought in line with the other three maps than I think TD will be just fine as well. It’s an explorers paradise (much like DT but on a much larger scale!) with hidden gems tucked away and those caches are rather yummy.

So my advice is to use the meta event timers and learn when you need to look at the lfg to find what you’re looking for. HF and GL!

I could (and still can) do SW events and chestfarm for hours on end, but not the new maps? Why?

Rewards? Ease of finding a map? Stress? Not liking to adhere do a 2h schedule?

Probably a bit of all of them. The content itself seems nice enough, though.

@Bandit – I had somewhat of the same view of DS when I started playing and was gaining Masteries and completing map. I completed it on 2 toons and my perception changed. I think killing dungeons in favor of hardcore raids was an extremely poor decision. I simplycan’t bring myself to raids just thinking about how long it might take and if I have to bail halfway to attend to my life. Also, on the other hand, taking a kitten break makes me disconnected from the participation of map events. I am hoping in December balance patch ANET addresses these issues.

Silverwastes work because it’s a steady supply of blues and greens for salvage and still the best map to make money other than direct gathering and selling woods to exploit present condition of wood log market on TP. On the other hand, Dry top needs more focused effort because it’s on a timer, current events killing future events, and does not reward as well as silverwastes. Also, navigating dry top for a new player can be daunting.

HoT is suffering because of long meta chains with disproportionate account bound rewards. ANET took notes from Korean grinders and tried to implement it in a game that is an anti thesis of grinding. They killed dungeons to favor raids; killed boss trains to favor long event chains where loot is driven by how long the player is on the map, another philosophy from pay by hour Korean MMOs.

I think that if they intend to add a large amount of maps in the future (long term future) it will indeed be hard to sustain these events. Meta’s like in VB are much easier because even if you don’t want T4 you can still complete an outpost or multiple outposts and then kill 1 or 2 bosses. You get rewards, sure not the coat box but you can do the meta. In AB you only need a short time period so I don’t see that becoming a problem either, however things like Chak Gerent (which seem to be triple trouble 2.0, as in getting abandoned) are likely a bad idea to have too much of. Since Chak Gerent is just one event in the expac it’s not too bad. The Dragon’s Stand event is in my opinion the most intensive meta, if you have a good map you barely have any breaks for at least an hour. Usually in raids you at least have some downtime, like getting everyone back to the boss or discussion a new tactic etc. I think these kind of events will dwindle in player base sooner once the majority has what they want from them. I do enjoy them, it’s just very hard to spend the amount of time in them that ANet intends (when looking at costs of rewards).

Kanto.1659:

I believe the megaserver is to blame. We had the problem of empty servers before, megaserver came. Now we still have empty maps and it makes no sense. Why do -I get a prompt to leave my empty map and I’m shuffled into another empty map? I’d understand if I got the prompt and BAM! Full map! Ton of people running around!

Sometimes it feels like there are an actual 50-60 people playing GW2.

Over the weekend I got kicked THREE times in Frostgorge in the space of around 20 minutes!

Baolun.8316:

Have you ever found yourself driving around in a city trying to get onto a highway, where you can clearly see the highway but can’t for the life of you find the actual on-ramp so you can drive your car onto it? That’s how I feel in Tangled Depths, every time I go there.

Cantha! You are describing Cantha from GW1.
There was only basically an upstairs and a downstairs but that is exactly what it was like.
I dunno how that place ever got planning permission.

While true I think the bigger problem is mastery gating

You have to grind those maps for exp to raise your masteries so even if you start to feel burned out you have to remain in order to raise the HoT masteries. When teh masteries are maxed people will turn away and never come back because there burned out.

You can tell people to do something else so they don’t get burned out but Masteries replace levels in HoT and all those people with 100+numbers for display are no different in the overall community interaction than actual levels. We already judge people based on class, prefix(Zerk), and AP so Mastery rank is a no brainer for whats next for the future so people will grind and grind till they utterly despise those events.

Heck I’m already sick tired of DS but I do it since it’s the most consistent Meta and a stream of exp for masteries. None of the rewards for any of these events are high enough to get me to stick around after I fill my masteries and map those maps.

What’s funny is I can play half an hour on the new maps, get some events, open some chests, kill a few bosses and leave.

Only people who absolutely feel the need to maximize their achievements in each play cycle are forced to spend more than an hour.

I often log into the new maps for shorter periods of time, do a bit of stuff and leave. This whole having to stay the whole time is a bit silly, considering I’m always making progress.

Not everyone has to make progress at a record pace. I’m quite happy chipping away at things.

velmeister.4187:

HoT is suffering because of long meta chains with disproportionate account bound rewards. ANET took notes from Korean grinders and tried to implement it in a game that is an anti thesis of grinding. They killed dungeons to favor raids; killed boss trains to favor long event chains where loot is driven by how long the player is on the map, another philosophy from pay by hour Korean MMOs.

I don’t remember korea mmo has such long map events chain with lots of waiting time. They do have world boss that spawn at random hours. Korea MMO grindy-ness is based on NA early days MMO. Other than that, everything are decided by anet to kill off the economy.

SkyShroud.2865:

velmeister.4187:

HoT is suffering because of long meta chains with disproportionate account bound rewards. ANET took notes from Korean grinders and tried to implement it in a game that is an anti thesis of grinding. They killed dungeons to favor raids; killed boss trains to favor long event chains where loot is driven by how long the player is on the map, another philosophy from pay by hour Korean MMOs.

I don’t remember korea mmo has such long map events chain with lots of waiting time. They do have world boss that spawn at random hours. Korea MMO grindy-ness is based on NA early days MMO. Other than that, everything are decided by anet to kill off the economy.

Actually NCSoft’s AION does. It needed certain forts to be controlledby a faction to open portal to boss instances, dungeons etc. Long hour long zerging to gain entry to raids. Whateveryou see in HOT today from grinding perspective, including mastery, gliding, time gating copied and pasted from NCSoft’s. AION.
That said I do thank them for introducing gliding. It’s implemented in a better way than AION.

Vayne.8563:

What’s funny is I can play half an hour on the new maps, get some events, open some chests, kill a few bosses and leave.

Only people who absolutely feel the need to maximize their achievements in each play cycle are forced to spend more than an hour.

I often log into the new maps for shorter periods of time, do a bit of stuff and leave. This whole having to stay the whole time is a bit silly, considering I’m always making progress.

Not everyone has to make progress at a record pace. I’m quite happy chipping away at things.

I’m glad you are happy with it, but such a strategy can’t really be applied to DS, you need to be there when it starts. You can’t just log in and do some events because you need atleast 15 players to start it.

You make it sound so extreme, that players who wanna succeed the meta event are trying to maximize their archievements. How would you progress if you aren’t atleast around a few times for the end of a meta event, unless you are talking about XP progression.

If you just do a few events it’ll prolly be on some megaserver that will be closed due to inactivity, because organized maps are usually a bit harder to get in, let alone log in by default. You do some personal progression by helping with events, but truthfully it’s in vain for the meta event.
This might not bother you, but I think it does demotivate players too.

Agemnon.4608:

Why do you say Tangled Depths has horrid map design?

It isn’t clear if they were talking about the meta or the literal labyrinthine design to the map. Personally, I enjoy a good exploration puzzle and love that they added an underwater cavern to the map that can get to to all corners of it unhindered by the maze (could use some events down there, but alas underwater combat seems to be on the back burner). The map has all the tools for players to get it done once they reach the way points and solve the exploration puzzle.

I think the meta is almost well designed on this map. It follows a pattern much like Verdant Brink. Each outpost tells a story that eventually culminates in protecting a weapon that will blow kitten into Dragon’s Stand. The problem for me is the outpost events usually finish a long time before the follow up Chak Gerent, because everything must run on a schedule instead of a natural flow events. My second problem is there is no natural back and forth, only going forward. Once we complete an escort and claim territory we can never lose it, only stop progressing forward.

My favorite meta-event from central Tyria is in Straits of Devastation. It follows a similar design to Dragon’s Stand, except that it doesn’t force a schedule and has a natural back and forth feeling to the conflict. There isn’t a hard-reset to the encounter if you win or lose.

Vayne.8563:

What’s funny is I can play half an hour on the new maps, get some events, open some chests, kill a few bosses and leave.

Only people who absolutely feel the need to maximize their achievements in each play cycle are forced to spend more than an hour.

I often log into the new maps for shorter periods of time, do a bit of stuff and leave. This whole having to stay the whole time is a bit silly, considering I’m always making progress.

Not everyone has to make progress at a record pace. I’m quite happy chipping away at things.

Of course if you do this on TD you would literally get ZERO rewards and have nothing to show for it and make no progress ever. So clearly this is not true.

You also can’t do this on DS. you make 0 progress towards crystalline ore unless you beat the meta which takes a minimum of 90 minutes and requires you be there at the start of the map which only starts every 2 hours.

AB also can’t be done like this. The only source of Auric Dust requires you to complete the meta. The meta battle alone is 30 minutes long but you won’t get any keys unless you have >75% participation before the meta triggers so you will need to be there at least an additional 15 minutes to hope you get lucky enough to find events to get enough rewards to even open the final chests.

I will say that you can successfully play VB in the manner you describe, which by your post I assume is the zone you are referring to.

Sadly as SamtheGuardian explained, this is where my wife and I find ourselves today. Our play time has been limited due to RL especially in the beginning and now 4 weeks in we are trying to move into other maps only to find them vacant. We can’t seem to make any headway now at all and it’s actually led to other family members just stepping away completely. I don’t understand the mentality behind this meta design and like SamtheGuardian has said this is solely the result of poorly though out mechanics.

My hope is they get back from the China launch we get some feedback and developers start actually looking at how poor this design is long term and try and redo it so it is at the very least playable. I am severely disappointed by how far off the mark they are on this design compared to their existing maps. I understand this is supposed to be endgame but frankly once we get done (not really sure how this can happen now) I don’t see any real reason to come back because replay ability is non rewarding and frankly almost doomed to failure. This expansion now feels like one giant Tequatl map with the exception that at least that is rewarding. Maybe if they rework the reward system and change the meta’s to be dynamic events and triggered accordingly that will salvage things, though I really doubt that will happen considering the overall structure now seems to encompass endless grind and gold sink. They really took the old adage of nothing for free to the highest level with this expansion, the cost to craft anything new is obscene.

I don’t really think the maps are truly empty. I think the map assignment just needs to be reworked to address this issue. I believe there are multiple map instances opened but they are not systematically filled. When someone joins a map, he is not placed in a map that is most populated but assigned some other random map. These maps seemed to have been designed for large groups of people who know each other and want to play the map at the same time and coordinated to taxi each other into the same instance. Having a EOTM/WVW style of map assignment would not allow large guilds to join the same map as these maps would likely be filled before the guilds can fully join it. At the same time, it makes players’ life very difficult with so much organization work, and not being able to play the map whenever he wants to maybe because his friends or guildies don’t feel like playing it at that particular time.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

Nothing in the game is truly “people driven” ultimately the game design is what gives the players in the game their objectives and funnels players to specific content. It always comes back to the design (good or bad, in this case I would say bad) the gaming community only goes after things the game design gives them incentives to. Never blame the community for targeting specific content. You can however, blame the community for just being rude in map chat, rude after being paid for a run, etc… Unfortunately I would say on the new HoT PvE maps the attitude of the community has become the worst I’ve encountered in any MMO.

ArenaNet would like to believe this is not true. There was a video they put up a while back when the game went free to play where they boasted about all the players lining up to help new players coming into the game…. That spirit is completely gone on the new HoT maps. What we find in map chat? People angrily venting (worse than this message board), people begging for help and not getting it. People offering absurd amounts of gold for help (and probably getting it), people complaining about not having enough on the map to do meta, gated content, etc… People asking for taxi’s.

From the heart, it’s absolute garbage and an entirely different experience than what we had out the gate when HoT launched not even a month ago. Anyone who reads a positive review of HoT and buys the game for someone as a holiday present as a result of review is following obsolete advise.

While the utility of gliding, mushrooms, etc.. and overall mechanic of mastery and elite specialization unlock add great value along with the new map designs which range from best in game (Verdant Brink) to horrid (Tangled Depths) ultimately the developer has failed to provide needed incentives to keep the game population on these maps and that is not a mild oversight it is a critical issue that has largely destroyed the experience of the game. Two weeks in I would have given HoT 10/10 for rating. Phenomenal. Today I would give it 4/10. I refuse to allow the community in the game to be blamed for a game design that has driven the population away.

if I were a designer or developer on the Gw2 HoT project I would take all this to heart and take it very personal. I would consider it my failure to deliver a sustainable, quality product and if I were a lead designer I would hold some closed door sessions to explore immediate action to patch things back together (namely incentives to get people back into the HoT map). To not take this problem seriously is to be delusional and (a bit arrogant) about the state of where things really are. Unless of course ArenaNet built the expansion only to provide a grade A experience within it’s first two weeks of release.

Again, the game studio’s design is what keeps players around. Don’t scape goat the problem to gaming culture in general or trends “oh this happens with every MMO expansion”. Well, perhaps it does because no studio has correctly innovated and provided incentives. If any ANet designers are reading this, might I suggest reading Tynan Sylvester’s excellent book Designing Games: A Guide to Engineering Experiences.

Wow! very well put. I would say you are spot on, or at least reflect my experience and feeling about HoT as it currently stands. I would add, that the new WvW map is an even more poignant example of poor game design and a rather vivid demonstration of a real lack of understanding of that game mode by the devs….

Roxanne.6140:

I don’t really think the maps are truly empty. I think the map assignment just needs to be reworked to address this issue. I believe there are multiple map instances opened but they are not systematically filled. When someone joins a map, he is not placed in a map that is most populated but assigned some other random map. These maps seemed to have been designed for large groups of people who know each other and want to play the map at the same time and coordinated to taxi each other into the same instance. Having a EOTM/WVW style of map assignment would not allow large guilds to join the same map as these maps would likely be filled before the guilds can fully join it. At the same time, it makes players’ life very difficult with so much organization work, and not being able to play the map whenever he wants to maybe because his friends or guildies don’t feel like playing it at that particular time.

Map progress may also be at play here, you lose any progress you have if you switch maps. I’ve staying longer in a particular map that gave me the option to leave because I wanted to preserve my progress. Map progress needs to be kept client side, not as a function of a particular map. But it seems more and more obvious that a lot of HoT is designed as a gold sink and to prevent significant gold acquisition.

I took my time and didn’t rush into the expansion, so I didn’t see any other map besides VB and a little AB in the first few weeks of the release. I’ve been into DS a few times now, spent several hours on it in chunks of maybe 30 – 60 minutes. I still have zero idea how that map works and what the meta involves or anything. Never have seen a single event.

Yes, I know youtube is a resource, but my point is, as a player, the game does a poor job of informing me what to do or point me in a productive direction or give me incentive to even come back other than heavy-handed ones like achievements, collections, specific materials, etc. It doesn’t entice me back because that map is fun. Definitely not that.

I suspect they hard coded how the mega server system works using data from core maps rather than real time update based HoT zones. This lead to empty maps in the new areas.

If the time sink aspect is the main design decision in the maps, they should allow players to choose queuing for a full map or go straight to an overflow like instances.

Tspatula.9086:

Roxanne.6140:

I don’t really think the maps are truly empty. I think the map assignment just needs to be reworked to address this issue. I believe there are multiple map instances opened but they are not systematically filled. When someone joins a map, he is not placed in a map that is most populated but assigned some other random map. These maps seemed to have been designed for large groups of people who know each other and want to play the map at the same time and coordinated to taxi each other into the same instance. Having a EOTM/WVW style of map assignment would not allow large guilds to join the same map as these maps would likely be filled before the guilds can fully join it. At the same time, it makes players’ life very difficult with so much organization work, and not being able to play the map whenever he wants to maybe because his friends or guildies don’t feel like playing it at that particular time.

Map progress may also be at play here, you lose any progress you have if you switch maps. I’ve staying longer in a particular map that gave me the option to leave because I wanted to preserve my progress. Map progress needs to be kept client side, not as a function of a particular map. But it seems more and more obvious that a lot of HoT is designed as a gold sink and to prevent significant gold acquisition.

Yeah… just the other day there was a pretty funny moment. In our instance of DS we had the final boss down to 50%. Pretty sure a few other instances did as well. Then there was a server flicker or something… everyone hit a loading screen. My squad of 20-30 people was littered across four or five different instances. People everywhere were spamming “??!?!?”. And to top it off, the boss had vanished and the objective box had changed to “everything is quiet” or something like that. I swapped instances via squad interface to look around, and there were quite a lot of stranded boss-fight groups. Wasn’t quite sure whether to laugh or cry, hah; we’d just waded through 1.3 hours of meta and I was 5 mins away from getting my mistward headwrap insignia… xP

The problem with these new maps is that they’re often too confusing for most players. The amount of verticality means that it’s often very confusing to find your way to things you’re interested in.
Some people enjoy that – but most don’t. I personally despise Tangled Depths with a burning passion I cannot describe – I’ve finished it once by following a guide and will never touch it again in my life for more time than I have to in order to get other things I want.

The problem is most maps feel like that – the only one that’s half decent in design is Auric Basin.

The new movement mechanics – while fun on paper – make for a very gated and frustrating experience overall. I feel the new mechanics should have helped players get to various places but not completely cut them off.
If player skill was there – people should have been able to navigate a challenge/jumping puzzle thing and move on even if they didn’t have the associated mastery.

Another issue as many have pointed out is the meta-oriented nature of these maps. Without people the maps suffer greatly.

Shaaba.5672:

I took my time and didn’t rush into the expansion, so I didn’t see any other map besides VB and a little AB in the first few weeks of the release. I’ve been into DS a few times now, spent several hours on it in chunks of maybe 30 – 60 minutes. I still have zero idea how that map works and what the meta involves or anything. Never have seen a single event.

Yes, I know youtube is a resource, but my point is, as a player, the game does a poor job of informing me what to do or point me in a productive direction or give me incentive to even come back other than heavy-handed ones like achievements, collections, specific materials, etc. It doesn’t entice me back because that map is fun. Definitely not that.

Yeah, there’s very little in-game push for playing the new maps. To get masteries? Well, sure, but you’ll only be using them on the new maps anyways. Skill points? Only if you’re trying to get elite skills, and then you can happily leave. Group events? You might be lucky enough to find a populated map. Rewards? Well… if you absolutely can’t live without uncommon/masterwork gear, you’ll find it pretty rewarding.

The only thing that actually pushed me to play the maps was the mistward gear. Once that’s finished, it’s back to the other maps for me, heh. Only got the headwrap to go, so not much left… assuming I can ever find a map that completes the TD meta.

HoT maps are dungeons by design with after thought open world elements.

Doug Whisper.2465:

HoT maps are dungeons by design with after thought open world elements.

That’s actually a pretty good comparison. So many elite/veteran enemies scattered around the map, and very little combat challenge other than internal challenges (should I use my 2 skill? my 3 skill? maybe my 7 skill to speed things up a bit?) unless fighting Mordrem soldiers.

Doug Whisper.2465:

I suspect they hard coded how the mega server system works using data from core maps rather than real time update based HoT zones. This lead to empty maps in the new areas.

If the time sink aspect is the main design decision in the maps, they should allow players to choose queuing for a full map or go straight to an overflow like instances.

They should allow players to choose instances like most other mmos.

morrolan.9608:

Doug Whisper.2465:

I suspect they hard coded how the mega server system works using data from core maps rather than real time update based HoT zones. This lead to empty maps in the new areas.

If the time sink aspect is the main design decision in the maps, they should allow players to choose queuing for a full map or go straight to an overflow like instances.

They should allow players to choose instances like most other mmos.

Like, for instance, Guild Wars 2’s predecessor – Guild Wars 1. Funny how choosing the instance (such a useful tool) was lost between titles, eh?

Unsustainable event and map list.

Triple Trouble
Dry Top (High Tier)
Orr Temple events
Unpopular Dungeon Path

—HoT
Verdant Brink meta
Auric Basin meta
Tangled Depth meta

Are there any contents?

numberbb.8724:

Unsustainable event and map list.

Triple Trouble
Dry Top (High Tier)
Orr Temple events
Unpopular Dungeon Path

—HoT
Verdant Brink meta
Auric Basin meta
Tangled Depth meta

Are there any contents?

You missed Dragon’s Stand, which is even more important since completing the meta successfully there is the only way to reach the vendor.

Well put, OP. Thanks for the read.

reapex.8546:

Celtic Lady.3729:

reapex.8546:

SamTheGuardian.2938:

Was helping a fellow guildie earlier today on Auric Basin map and I really feel sorry for people coming into the game at this stage. Not nearly enough people to bring the walls down so everything was gated. Not nearly enough to go for hero challenges, let alone the meta… What was a lot of fun the first few times through weeks ago but today was truly a horrible experience because of lack of players.

Use lfg.

We do this all the time.

It doesn’t always work out.

That’s understandable since lfg is largely player driven. It’s up to people to decide when they want to taxi or not taxi. Sometimes players are more willing to do it than other players. So there are maps that are filled with people but no one advertises, so other players stay on less populated maps until more load in.

And to add to this mess the LFG tool is insanely cluttered with every kind of group, there’s even a guild that advertises in LFG as some kind of Tarir specialists that are always in Verdant Brink lol.