Guild Wars 2

Quote from Cureforliving:

Really I did DS like twice in a row yesterday, one map I came late and we were able to fill it up and push the meta. Finally got my last Ley-stone chest… now for those Bladed skins chest skins

That’s at least three hours ingame on one map, even counting the came late to first one. Not everyone plays three+ hours straight.

Outside of prime it’s even worse, try completing the DS map then….

So being physically disabled and in pain all the time with the insomnia that entails, I play throughout the day and night at random times and intervals. What I see is that every 2 hours for a 10-15 stretch the DS taxi’s are in full force and it’s easy to find an organized map at any time but only for the 1st minutes of the map cycle. With TD it is hit or miss but if you look up the event cycle on the web and start looking in lfg at the times that the meta is approaching there are taxi’s to that meta also, with Auric Basin there are always taxi’s in the lfg and still more lfg’s looking for an organized AB , same with the VB map. through constant and proactive use of lfg you can always find a map to suit your needs. it may take 10 minutes of refreshing the lfg constantly untill you find what you need but it has and does work. Is it the best solution to the problem of bugged megaservers putting us in empty maps all the time?NO but it is a work around. Also look in the GW2 reddits there are several guilds that post there about their organized HP runs, TD meta attempts etc and the corresponding times that they are doing these. Hell organize your own meta event push and post it here or on reddit and people will show up.

Defiling Treekiller.1632:

So being physically disabled and in pain all the time with the insomnia that entails, I play throughout the day and night at random times and intervals. What I see is that every 2 hours for a 10-15 stretch the DS taxi’s are in full force and it’s easy to find an organized map at any time but only for the 1st minutes of the map cycle. With TD it is hit or miss but if you look up the event cycle on the web and start looking in lfg at the times that the meta is approaching there are taxi’s to that meta also, with Auric Basin there are always taxi’s in the lfg and still more lfg’s looking for an organized AB , same with the VB map. through constant and proactive use of lfg you can always find a map to suit your needs. it may take 10 minutes of refreshing the lfg constantly untill you find what you need but it has and does work. Is it the best solution to the problem of bugged megaservers putting us in empty maps all the time?NO but it is a work around. Also look in the GW2 reddits there are several guilds that post there about their organized HP runs, TD meta attempts etc and the corresponding times that they are doing these. Hell organize your own meta event push and post it here or on reddit and people will show up.

If we have to do this, is that not a sign that the game is failing? if you have to post everywhere in the internet to get people to show up, than surely that show’s that you have failed in what you did? you failed to make a game that people want to play. HoT has been made to be played at specific times of the day. That is a bad idea, I would really like to know ANet’s thinking on this.

No sighn the game is failing the game is litreally buy to play people will buy it and the casuals will shelve it and play other stuff and pop in from time to time making it just that casual.Me for example i bout HoT a week ago ive played pretty much 2 or 3 hours so far,why? because im not bein pressured into paying monthly and im in no hurry wth with the ’its failing comments lmao. And also alot of these people are are in some huge guilds they tend to close them selves off to the normal people so you do actually have to find some scheduling im in a guild right now thats got like 1500 people active at everytime of the day its a guild thats actually 3 because it got so large . So just stop with the whole"omg the game is dead" They havnt even kicked off the living story stuff yet once that start hitting the player base will jump back up there again depending where on the maps they do the living stories. Welcome to guildwars. btw.

well like everything look for a taxi and you’ll surely find instances with people, i have no trouble doing so.
And don’t worry, new legendaries require many item from the new maps, people will be running them for a long time, i can assure you ;-)

well its not surprising that maps are getting empty.

ppl are leaving the game for various reasons~

We are about 3 weeks out from launch, most people experienced it and because there is no sub fee, are probably playing games like CoD, Halo, Fallout, Tomb raider and star wars battlefront released all in the past 3 weeks

They’ll be back to level alts later down the road

Goldrock.9076:

No sighn the game is failing the game is litreally buy to play people will buy it and the casuals will shelve it and play other stuff and pop in from time to time making it just that casual.Me for example i bout HoT a week ago ive played pretty much 2 or 3 hours so far,why? because im not bein pressured into paying monthly and im in no hurry wth with the ’its failing comments lmao. And also alot of these people are are in some huge guilds they tend to close them selves off to the normal people so you do actually have to find some scheduling im in a guild right now thats got like 1500 people active at everytime of the day its a guild thats actually 3 because it got so large . So just stop with the whole"omg the game is dead" They havnt even kicked off the living story stuff yet once that start hitting the player base will jump back up there again depending where on the maps they do the living stories. Welcome to guildwars. btw.

I didn’t say the game was dead at all. I said HoT was falling to keep people interested. You are a case in point. You say you are in no hurry that’s fine, but you clearly can’t be that interested in playing HoT or you would have played more. I do understand sometimes people have busy real lives, But the fact you have to play the meta events on ANets time table is just wrong.

Goldrock.9076

the game is litreally buy to play people will buy it and the casuals will shelve it

Actually, the game is literally free to play.

And plenty of casuals play this game.

In fact, it’s always been more casual than hardcore, so I’m not sure what you’re on about here.

Fallout 4 stealing my mapmates >:O
Raid pugs stealing my mapmate spots >:O

It’s common for maps to become empty in MMOs, the solution is to pick a few maps every week and let players have bonus exp / drop in that map (scaled to ur player level), which makes it into a weekly event thing to encourage player to play on maps whether its high/low level

Doam.8305:

It’s an expansion with no loot aside reclaimed weap set and you can farm mobs for hours and get nothing of value so its no wonder the farmers have left.

The rewards are horrible as in SW you can get the Queen Bee worth 900g and in DT you can get Kites and geodes. Worse offender is DS when it comes to rewards so it’s no wonder those seeking a bounty don’t stay in HoT.

Don’t worry about good loot or cool new skins, they will have more awesome outfits in the gemstore every few weeks.

Minx.7521:

Fallout 4 stealing my mapmates >:O
Raid pugs stealing my mapmate spots >:O

This, fallout 4, halo 5, assassins creed. lots of big titles came out recently.

I got to the point where I would sit at a hero point for 20 mins waiting for someone else to come along and help. Asking in map for help almost never seems to help anymore. There were hero points I would skip altogether because I wasn’t able to get any help.

Fernling.1729:

I got to the point where I would sit at a hero point for 20 mins waiting for someone else to come along and help. Asking in map for help almost never seems to help anymore. There were hero points I would skip altogether because I wasn’t able to get any help.

This has been my experience more often than not, too. I got tired of so much waiting around for people to show up that weren’t and asking in map chat for help while being ignored or outright ridiculed, that I went to EOTM in WvW and ground out some Proof of Heroic scrolls.

But this is a very slow process (you need 10 scrolls, i.e. 10 ranks for 1 Maguuma HC), the scrolls finish random HCs and so might award you one that you’re not actually trying to get, and involves playing WvW, something a player may not really want to do. Plus, it’s boring.

But I have managed to get several Maguuma HCs this way. I just wish I didn’t feel as though I need to resort to this in order to progress.

Less than a month has passed there should be so many more ppl doing H.O.T but there’s not and it was going on be for raids to

WvW is dead do to H.O.T – funny it’s still dead
H.O.T is dead since ppl are grind none hot masterys – still empty
Oh now every one is doing raids ….
Has TD ever been populated ? i keep forgetting that map is even there

Just face it we did not want raids or hard core content in the world keep that to fractals and dungeons

And i can still go to a TEQ fight 10min late and get in a map with tuns of ppl probably fail but still at lest it’s active Now look at TT that’s what H.O.T is right now go to a zone at the right time open up lfg and try and get into a map and fail since there is only 1 active map since the lack of players in H.O.T

Sthenith.5196:

That is until Anet dev’s figure out that that aint the place to put the raid entrance.

And IF they only want guilds to do it and NOT random pugs like someone claimed,
then they’d better put the access INSIDE the Guildhall.
You know, so only guilds can do it.

But wouldn’t that be unfair to HoT players who don’t have acess to a guildhall …?

All weird stuff going on, and strange decisions from the dev’s. Add more armor options, but force ppl into a meta again for the raids. I still can’t wrap my head around some of their views. Weird stuff indeed.

Anet’s design philosophy has been weak regarding all of GW2. There’s literally no sense of foresight. They put in Karma, make the grind for the cost of it mind numbing, only to turn around and make the exact same gear easier to craft and bind on equip. They still offer Karma, but there’s nothing new to buy.

They put champs in a zone, sometimes within spitting distance of the way points and didn’t expect people to simply hop around and farm champs? Then when players decide to become kittens and troll the champ farmers, by killing those champs before the zerg hits, they don’t ban the players involved, they nerf the champs. (Hey Anet, kittens are kittens, no matter which zone they’re in. Nering content doesn’t make a person nicer.)

Players say they want new content. But HoT is just SW 2.0. You have a series of small events to complete before a big event. They just added participation rewards in the over all scheme and called it a meta map completion. Nice idea, but 200% map participation rewards suck.

Risk vs reward. We won’t get into that.

Anet has literally no clue, or they’re so desperate to cling to their idea of challenging MMO content that it’s sinking to the level of sticking your fingers in your ear and chanting “LALALALALA ICANT HEAR YOU LALALALA” and just throw out content without thinking about the effects it has on other parts of the game.

FYI to all casual players, if you don’t have all the hero points and masteries you need now, you had better get them done in less than a month. At the current rate, the HoT maps are going to be uninhabited by xmas.

Osu.6307:

FYI to all casual players, if you don’t have all the hero points and masteries you need now, you had better get them done in less than a month. At the current rate, the HoT maps are going to be uninhabited by xmas.

To late good luck getting a TD meta

The map is empty, it’s pretty depressing now. I think most people feel defeated and disappointed in Anet. It’s like it would have been better if the expansion never happened. It’s a shame, they had a brand name game and so much potential and they blew it.

Valky.2574:

Osu.6307:

FYI to all casual players, if you don’t have all the hero points and masteries you need now, you had better get them done in less than a month. At the current rate, the HoT maps are going to be uninhabited by xmas.

To late good luck getting a TD meta

I guess I will never get the headpiece. The meta is way too hard even with a full map.

I don’t understand why so many people are denying that the open world map of HoT should be toned down. Sure it’s not too bad during the release, when most of the people are there, but it would become a big problem when time has passed.

Less people around? probably related to the 4 big games that came out last week + raids.
We’ll be back to normal eventually.

All the organized groups are doing raids right now instead of open world content.

Yeah I have notice on LFG people are more invested in the other maps past Verdant Brink which is annoying given that I didn’t joined into HOT after Halloween (I was lucky to get the third bladed chests now). Even then I kinda invested half my time into it at the moment due to fractals or something else.

Raziel.4216:

Less people around? probably related to the 4 big games that came out last week + raids.
We’ll be back to normal eventually.

I doubt it, it was dying before those games were released, the only way to save this sinking ship now is to nerf it into pew pew so that people return to the maps to finish their achieves and gear grinds.

JaddynnStarr.5201:

Raziel.4216:

Less people around? probably related to the 4 big games that came out last week + raids.
We’ll be back to normal eventually.

I doubt it, it was dying before those games were released, the only way to save this sinking ship now is to nerf it into pew pew so that people return to the maps to finish their achieves and gear grinds.

Funnily enough when people were asking for nerfs after the first couple of days I said Anet would have to, not because people couldn’t do it now, but when there is no one around to do it, people can’t do it alone.

Unfortunately no one took me seriously, how dare I suggest the maps ever get less populated…

LFG: “60% of the time, it works every time.”

Sicarius.4639:

JaddynnStarr.5201:

Raziel.4216:

Less people around? probably related to the 4 big games that came out last week + raids.
We’ll be back to normal eventually.

I doubt it, it was dying before those games were released, the only way to save this sinking ship now is to nerf it into pew pew so that people return to the maps to finish their achieves and gear grinds.

Funnily enough when people were asking for nerfs after the first couple of days I said Anet would have to, not because people couldn’t do it now, but when there is no one around to do it, people can’t do it alone.

Unfortunately no one took me seriously, how dare I suggest the maps ever get less populated…

^

There was the big merged thread where most of the posters were singing the praises of harder content. People were pointing out that the difficulty was too high for the average player, but were told, No. Hard content is better.

Well, we will see if it’s truly better.

I agree with alot of the comment sin here about problems in the map on HOT
This who map system needs lots of players and there are none
map is confusing at times
I’ve waited 2 hours to get into the raid and no ones either interested or around
I’m very close to giving up and losing interest fast
Star Wars battlefront has come out and i would expect alot of players are on that along with fallout 4 etc

JaddynnStarr.5201:

Raziel.4216:

Less people around? probably related to the 4 big games that came out last week + raids.
We’ll be back to normal eventually.

I doubt it, it was dying before those games were released, the only way to save this sinking ship now is to nerf it into pew pew so that people return to the maps to finish their achieves and gear grinds.

Proof that it was dieing?
Objetive and verifiable source please.

Valky.2574:

Trust me it’s not dead do to raids and it’s not just VB it’s all H.O.T zones

Yeah I don’t know if HoT had exactly the opposite effect they intended. Seems like there were far more people playing the beta weekends than there are now. Perhaps some questionable choices on ANet’s part soured the experience for many, and they are taking a break/quit. Perhaps people are too spread out now doing different things, but it isn’t good to get the empty world message in new maps.

Vayne.8563:

Kraggy.4169:

tluv.5821:

But in reality, you are wanting to play a Massively *MULTIPLAYER" Online Roleplaying Game solo. The content is going to be geared towards working with others. Always will be. If you want to play a solo game, go play Skyrim. It’s really that simple.

No, he’s not saying that at all .. many of us expected HOT to be an addition to GW2 in the same playstyle, meaning loose groups and character progress (leveling) NOT GATED BY GROUP-ONLY EVENTS!

What we got was GW3 with its 1990s group-or-die playstyle instead where Masteries gate the Story and map exploration, and can only be obtained largely by group-only content.

Sorry but Orr and Southsun are gated by Group only events. Even Silverwastes is gated by group only events. How do you get the meta in Dry Top solo. Answer. You don’t. You get an organized group, with many commanders, preferably on voice chat. The Sands guild runs T6 organized maps sometimes. You don’t see them when you’re pugging I guess.

You can play many of the events in the new zones without an organized group, but you do need groups to get the metas, just like pretty much everywhere in end game.

Like it or not, this is ANet’s approach. Join the almighty herd or get jack all. The thing I see in the info about HoT that keeps me from being an adopter is this tendency seems to be expanding into other areas. Skill Challenges? Exploration used to be solo stuff, now completion is not. Adventures? Solo stuff, but some are locked behind meta completion.

I’m not sure how to quantify it, but in the core zones, events other than the meta ones were crazy fun and some of them offered challenge unless outnumbered. In SW, the off-events seemed pointless and dry, hardly worth bothering with. What’s the difference? Maybe its that the core zones were multi-terrain areas, with a variety of things going on, whereas in SW, the meta seems the only reason for the zone to even be there as part of gameplay. I suspect, though I don’t know for sure, that HoT zones are the same.

I was in Tangled Depths and it seemed to have a reasonable number of people. Tried taxiing people and someone asked where to meet for the meta and someone said if you have to ask then it’s already going to fail.

With that said however I noticed more people in Cursed Shore and Straits of Devastation.

Lack of loot, too much grinding and too much gated content. Boring.

I don’t mind the harder mobs, that was kind of fun. Love the gliding. That’s about it.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Sicarius.4639:

JaddynnStarr.5201:

Raziel.4216:

Less people around? probably related to the 4 big games that came out last week + raids.
We’ll be back to normal eventually.

I doubt it, it was dying before those games were released, the only way to save this sinking ship now is to nerf it into pew pew so that people return to the maps to finish their achieves and gear grinds.

Funnily enough when people were asking for nerfs after the first couple of days I said Anet would have to, not because people couldn’t do it now, but when there is no one around to do it, people can’t do it alone.

Unfortunately no one took me seriously, how dare I suggest the maps ever get less populated…

^

There was the big merged thread where most of the posters were singing the praises of harder content. People were pointing out that the difficulty was too high for the average player, but were told, No. Hard content is better.

Well, we will see if it’s truly better.

It really depends on, sure there must be some very hard content for challenge, but should the open world(other than the meta) be so hard as well? Not likely. Also the difficulty of the TD meta was too high.

So when is the next expansion due?

Unless you are giving away something no other map can get, your players will generally gravitate to the easiest loot/hour maps. Although soon after they receive the “shiney of the month” they generally depart to the old stand by content anyways.

Having so many metas on so many maps makes players only go the the ones that are sure to succeed, and even with the LFG they may not want to wait for one to be advertised. Tagging up and advertising yourself is an option, but as time goes by many will already have what the map offered and won’t bother joining. ANet would have done better to reduce the amounts of meta events or at very least not put them on (or increased) timers so players could go in a do them at their leisure.

One thing for sure is that some of the metas (Tarir) are easier to accomplish than others and some maps (Tangled Depths) are already showing signs of abandonment.

You either have 2 choices organize the map you are in and start taxing people or look in lfg for a taxi to another map . I haven’t had any issues finding organized maps and doing any events bar TD meta .

Really don’t see what the issue is ,there are plenty of people on the new maps and finding people for dry top / sw or any old content is easy as well.

CureForLiving.5360:

Exotrax.4207:

So , I’m trying hard to grind xps doing events but since the raids came out , maps (even VB) are quite empty.
Yesterday I ran around VB trying to find a small group to do events and we were 3 people (from 8pm till 11pm).

I know, ran VB a few times yesterday and we just barely kept missing T4-day.

Sthenith.5196:

That is until Anet dev’s figure out that that aint the place to put the raid entrance.

And IF they only want guilds to do it and NOT random pugs like someone claimed,
then they’d better put the access INSIDE the Guildhall.
You know, so only guilds can do it.

But wouldn’t that be unfair to HoT players who don’t have acess to a guildhall …?

All weird stuff going on, and strange decisions from the dev’s. Add more armor options, but force ppl into a meta again for the raids. I still can’t wrap my head around some of their views. Weird stuff indeed.

Nah, just add a lobby area. People are going to try and pug it, no matter what and would only get upset if ANet limited access to Guild Halls. So rather add a lobby area for each raid so people can stand in there and spam LFR-condiengi, healer, tank, and leave open world alone.

Doam.8305:

It’s an expansion with no loot aside reclaimed weap set and you can farm mobs for hours and get nothing of value so its no wonder the farmers have left.

Wait what? No, no, no, no. Maybe there isn’t enough loot for sum but saying the only loot is reclaimed weapons is a lie.

Doam.8305:

This game has overflows and even the overflows have all dried up these days your lucky to find and org map in Lfg.

It hasn’t had overflows since the megaserver was implemented.

Mortifer.2946:

I noticed it too. Everyone is gone…and WvW borderlands are empty too.

Noticed that too. Yesterday my guild with a total of 4 players and two random people on the map captured a keep in wvw and held it for the guild mission… Seriously no one even tried to stop us, or noticed. But it does seem that a lot of players are still doing EB.

Ayrilana.1396:

Well raids did come out on Tuesday.

Yeah it is the new shiny thing. Once everyone has tried it they’ll go back to their usual.

Valky.2574:

Trust me it’s not dead do to raids and it’s not just VB it’s all H.O.T zones

Really I did DS like twice in a row yesterday, one map I came late and we were able to fill it up and push the meta. Finally got my last Ley-stone chest… now for those Bladed skins chest skins…

Manasa Devi.7958:

They should change these event chains to be like how they implemented the Silverwastes. Throw out the fixed-time cycles and make the meta advance based on progress made. The day/night cycle sounds cool, but it doesn’t work, throw it out.

Well the problem there is you then have people jumping from map to map (in the case of SW it was from Vinewrath to Vinewrath), so you might end up with people not pushing the meta but waiting in LFG.

Nausicca.6038:

I find Orr maps being a lot more active than HoT’s ones. And it’s 3 years old content.
And if I had to do meta events now, I’d chose Silverwastes without hesitation.

Why? It’s a lot faster and gives better rewards for the time invested. There are events EVERYWHERE on the map ( protect/upgrade keeps, escort yaks, random vet, ppl digging here and there, then breach and VW + maze).

The outpost system is fine and all but yeah the lack of more widely dispersed short quick events isn’t ideal. Having the big event chains is fine, but having a few small events here and their allows for more exploration, a bit of variety.

Soon.5240:

No. It’s because the maps are empty. Why aren’t there queues to get into the new maps of the first expansion to be issued in 3 years? Why hasn’t Anet needed to create new servers to handle all the traffic from new customers?

Queues? Are you even a player? Probably not. Ok so ANet has the Megaserver system, as far as I can tell using virtualisation and cloud-y stuff, is able to dynamically create instances of a given map, and of course close unnecessary instances (so it’s a bit more efficient than the old system where there was always a active primary map instance open. In this old system they had the overflow and queue system but that was years ago). So this is why there is no queue, because as a map fills up a new instance is created (although I still think the algorithm is iffy, I think it not so much filling maps but distributing players over current instances). This solution is also pretty nice because it allows for easier scaling of the physical architecture. Undoubtedly ANet did increase their server capacity (although I’m not sure if they host their own servers or if they’ve built GW2 ontop of some other cloud platform. If it is the later then that’s even better since most cloud providers allow for dynamic scaling of resource, so if you need more you can get more… for a higher price usually but that’s another topic).
So actually I think the lack of queues and need to get more servers is not a bad thing, it rather indicates that they’ve got a solid system there.

MyriadStars.5679:

Good questions. Usually when a popular MMORPG releases a highly successful xpac, several new servers have to be created to handle the population. However, all we heard about launch day was how “smooth” it was. It would certainly be smooth when there were fewer players than expected.

So if the launch was not smooth I imagine it would be ‘oh look how buggy and broken hot is’ but if it is smooth ‘oh look no one is playing the game, the game is dead’. Do you see how that reasoning could be… well very odd. I mean you’re clearly looking for fault here. Now now I know confirmation bias and all, but it seems you’ve set up a scenario where the only success is failure. No literally the implication is that a bad launch is a good thing.

Takoyakii.2146:

Megaserver won’t let you in the populated map most of the time…..unless you LFG :/.

I’m telling you the algorithm man it’s the algorithm. Lets say you have two servers one is 90/100 and one is 20/100, seems like the algorithm is putting you into the 20/100 server…

Soon.5240:

But Megaserver was only created after it became apparent that customers were not continuing to play, and PvE maps on low tier servers (such as the one I was on at the time, Ferguson Crossing) were empty.

Or maybe because it’s (ideally) a long term scalable solution which has the benefit of ensuring more efficient resource usage? But yeah low pop servers did benefit from it.

Cletus Van Damme.2795:

People said wvw was dead cause of the HoT maps and it’d get better after a few weeks, it didn’t People are now saying HoT maps are empty cause of raids, this is even less likely.

There’s a bigger issue here.

Yeah I know, I call it Fallout 4, and Legacy of the Void. Of course that was to be expected I guess.

Right now VB T4 day fails even with the best organization because the tendrils part of pact camp bugs up and can’t be completed, thus leaving everyone with one or two events short in daytime to get T4.

Yet every map I organized myself has succeeded to get night t4 or very close to t4 n both since I took it into my own hands.

The access spot for raids has to be moved ASAP! It even causes the Itzel hunting party event that goes by there (one of three paths needed to be completed to move on to Itzel fires) to be scaled up to extremes and fail multiple times, thus ending up in a endless loop as that path they take there can’t be completed without an equally large group to match the afkers, and you have to do all three hunting parties successfully to get to the next part of the event chains.

Meta sucks period! I said time and time again join me and our guild, Mentors of The Meek [MEEK] and we can do things how we see fit and with no required stats or builds or gear!

The loot in VB and the later maps, (well I haven’t ventured beyond VB, still trying to get every achieves and mastery there), is fine. I never have gotten so much easy rares and t6 mats before, SW I had to open 1000s of bags in bulk.

Yeah when something is new, everything else is chopped liver we already get that. Its annoying, sure, but we just have to use our heads to and be less selfish and more selfless and organize the maps we want to do.

Jumping form SW to SW is a bit cumbersome, I usually stay on the one map. I already have my +300% Magic Find and reorganize it as I’m very good at doing that. I do wish all the versions of VB and beyond were not synchronized like the stupid bosses are now. SW was much better in implementation.It would make it easier to get the harder achieves and Hero Points done that are gated by night or day or the last 20 minutes of night when its the only time helicopters descend.

These other non-mmo games that are popular (Fall Out 4, etc.) really messed up the launch and longevity of HoT. Anet really messed up as they should have anticipated these launches of alternative and substitute products and launched the game later. It also would have allowed more time to fix a lot of bugs that we are dealing with still.

Its basic Economics people!

foxcat.4096:

You either have 2 choices organize the map you are in and start taxing people or look in lfg for a taxi to another map . I haven’t had any issues finding organized maps and doing any events bar TD meta .

Really don’t see what the issue is ,there are plenty of people on the new maps and finding people for dry top / sw or any old content is easy as well.

This. It’s like some people live in an alternate reality.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Sicarius.4639:

JaddynnStarr.5201:

Raziel.4216:

Less people around? probably related to the 4 big games that came out last week + raids.
We’ll be back to normal eventually.

I doubt it, it was dying before those games were released, the only way to save this sinking ship now is to nerf it into pew pew so that people return to the maps to finish their achieves and gear grinds.

Funnily enough when people were asking for nerfs after the first couple of days I said Anet would have to, not because people couldn’t do it now, but when there is no one around to do it, people can’t do it alone.

Unfortunately no one took me seriously, how dare I suggest the maps ever get less populated…

^

There was the big merged thread where most of the posters were singing the praises of harder content. People were pointing out that the difficulty was too high for the average player, but were told, No. Hard content is better.

Well, we will see if it’s truly better.

Hard isn’t necessarily the problem so much as the content was made for big groups to look amazing on launch “for the cameras”. None of this was made to last months down the line without heavy tweaking.

The content isn’t impossible with much fewer people but it does feel much less fun. Events don’t scale well mechanically with the overabundance of CC and big hit skills that no longer have a zerg to diffuse their attention and if people aren’t having fun they will leave just the same as if they couldn’t do it at all.

The Blighting Tree event in VB is a great example. I did this earlier today with maybe 8 people and it was a hot mess. It didn’t take significantly longer and we did succeed but it was beyond annoying. You couldn’t stand anywhere without eating 8k+ sniper shots or rider knock downs simply because there wasn’t enough people to spread out the attacks.

Wahaha.7938:

foxcat.4096:

You either have 2 choices organize the map you are in and start taxing people or look in lfg for a taxi to another map . I haven’t had any issues finding organized maps and doing any events bar TD meta .

Really don’t see what the issue is ,there are plenty of people on the new maps and finding people for dry top / sw or any old content is easy as well.

This. It’s like some people live in an alternate reality.

You two are missing the point as it is usually indicated when people start or end their post with “Really don’t see what the issue/problem is[…]”

Wahaha.7938:

foxcat.4096:

You either have 2 choices organize the map you are in and start taxing people or look in lfg for a taxi to another map . I haven’t had any issues finding organized maps and doing any events bar TD meta .

Really don’t see what the issue is ,there are plenty of people on the new maps and finding people for dry top / sw or any old content is easy as well.

This. It’s like some people live in an alternate reality.

Or a different time zone. If you play weekends or prime time, I’d hope there’s a ton of people. I play mostly mornings, and it’s always a struggle to find people for dungeons, sPVP, WvW, some events, etc. Like I was trying to open dry top and map complete brisban wilds on my mesmer the other day. The event to open that area for the portal to dry top and the last point of interest failed constantly for about 30 minutes before finally enough people, hint just someone other than me since you have to clear both paths at once, showed up to open it. So I’m definitely not going to buy HoT unless changes are made, I’ll never get anything done. Or be waiting for 30 minutes for one person to show up to open the map. No thanks.

foxcat.4096:

You either have 2 choices organize the map you are in and start taxing people or look in lfg for a taxi to another map . I haven’t had any issues finding organized maps and doing any events bar TD meta .

Really don’t see what the issue is ,there are plenty of people on the new maps and finding people for dry top / sw or any old content is easy as well.

That does not mean, though, that the problem doesn’t exist – it just means you’re unable to see it.

Here’s a little hint on how to maybe understand: Limit yourself to 2h gameplay a day for a couple of days. Start that gameplay at 19:20 or 20:20 depending on personal circumstances.

Now see how many taxis you can get, how many metas you can complete, etc. Then compare your loot/exp gain to, say, the same time spent in Orr or SW.

Just in case you’re not actually intending to try that for real – another thought experiment for you: DS takes 1h to 1,5h. Which means if you do not manage to enter at the exact time a new map has started(+/- 5 to 8 minutes) and that map has been filled you cannot complete it in the time you have available.

Get it now? Orr and SW are completely different.

And just in case you go “Well, this is an MMO, it has to be this way” … no … it doesn’t – and GW2 hasn’t been like this prior to HoT. It caters to the “oh we have tons of time we can spent ingame” way too much and seems to have abandoned those people who have rather fixed and limited slots to play. Those synchronized day-night cycles are one of the worst ideas I have EVER encountered – especially so, since their duration is way too long.

The only way they will get more involvement on these maps is to offer better rewards. I don’t know, maybe an elite daily that has a great reward for successfully completing a map meta. On top of the map meta loot, you get something like 10 ley line sparks. Or some really rare mats. Or…anything.

Seriously, if you make the grind attractive, people will do it. If the grind ends up not being worth it, people will just avoid these maps. Which is what I am seeing.

Right now, in the LFG there was one for the Auric Basin meta. Went there and map was no where near full enough. That was the only meta LFG I saw that wasn’t a person LOOKING for a full (-ish) map.

misterman.1530:

The only way they will get more involvement on these maps is to offer better rewards. I don’t know, maybe an elite daily that has a great reward for successfully completing a map meta. On top of the map meta loot, you get something like 10 ley line sparks. Or some really rare mats. Or…anything.

Seriously, if you make the grind attractive, people will do it. If the grind ends up not being worth it, people will just avoid these maps. Which is what I am seeing.

Right now, in the LFG there was one for the Auric Basin meta. Went there and map was no where near full enough. That was the only meta LFG I saw that wasn’t a person LOOKING for a full (-ish) map.

Well, AB is actually a rather forgiving map as you can do the meta with 15 – 20 people if one spends a bit of time coordinating and explaining – therefore a “not full” AB map is actually not as critical as a “not full” DS map …

Yup. AB is doable, but not with only 5-10 people during the liberate Tarir event. As for other maps, not one LFG entry.

One of the worst examples of problems in AB is the HP below Tarir. To get to it, the Octavine meta event has to be completed and the map level must be at max tier. I haven’t seen that happen, not once. It has, I know, but not when I’ve been on. So, how should I grind constantly in AB hoping for the moment when the meta is achieved? Or just say screw it?

misterman.1530:

Yup. AB is doable, but not with only 5-10 people during the liberate Tarir event. As for other maps, not one LFG entry.

One of the worst examples of problems in AB is the HP below Tarir. To get to it, the Octavine meta event has to be completed and the map level must be at max tier. I haven’t seen that happen, not once. It has, I know, but not when I’ve been on. So, how should I grind constantly in AB hoping for the moment when the meta is achieved? Or just say screw it?

And that leads to the biggest problem. We live in a world with many timezone, and as such what is a very busy time for some (NA prime) becomes a wasteland at other time periods. The reason SW and Orr are as popular today as they were at launch is not due to the fact that they drop better loot, but because they are accessible to anyone at ANY TIME

I keep a pretty close eye on the LFG tool and I can tell you that the postings very greatly between time periods. The direction they took with SW was better as it offered a map on a varied time schedule, in that, depending on how much said map wanted things to happen they would. Finding a new instance was as easy as opening a LFG and finding a map as far along as you wanted and joining.

The new maps are designed more along the lines of a boss fight with a set time schedule. Being on at the exact right time means the difference between playing or not playing the content you want and thus gives the disconnect of many players feeling the maps are empty all the time.

Tommyknocker.6089:

I keep a pretty close eye on the LFG tool and I can tell you that the postings very greatly between time periods.
…
The new maps are designed more along the lines of a boss fight with a set time schedule. Being on at the exact right time means the difference between playing or not playing the content you want and thus gives the disconnect of many players feeling the maps are empty all the time.

And that is the issue I am facing. So, what should I do? Change my sleep pattern? Quit my job?

Yeah, this is going to be even more horrible when fewer and fewer players access the HoT maps, regardless of time period.

Couple these issues with the absolute destruction of WvW, then I really so no reason to continue playing. I regret purchasing HoT. I really do.