Guild Wars 2

Just leaving this here as feedback since there is no exit survey, if you dont want to read the reasons Im not enjoying HoT feel free to skip it.

Maps are beautiful, music is great i enjoyed the story. So im not being sarcastic when i say thanks for the 2 weeks. But thats all i can do.

HoT maps feel dead, i dont know if im doing something wrong but half the events i show up to are empty. Oh and they are designed for full groups. So i try to do it solo, die, run back, but wait, all WPs are contested. So by the time i get back “you have lost participation for inactivity” or the event failed.

Ok so i dont die, i do a few events. Oh wait these events dont actually give any rewards, they come at random times as part of meta event progress. So i got 20 minutes to log on and bang out an event before work, get it done, but i have to chill in the map for another 15-20 minutes and hope something else finishes for a reward? ok…

HPs werent a problem for my reaper and scrapper, i did them the first week. NOW? my guardian will sit at difficult ones for up to 30 minutes with a mentor tag on calling in map with no help. How is this going to be in 3 months let alone 2 weeks?

The whole design of the game encourages running past everything. YES the maps are beautiful, its a shame they are all just a blur as i run by at warp 8 with a million vet mobs shooting slowing arrows and knocking me down. Oh why not team up and fight them? Anytime ive tried that the minute i took aggro from the other person, THEY took off at warp 8 SEE YA SUCKER! ok back to the WP ….oh wait contested back to the start of the map!

And this is where it really really hits me. Why? Why am i bothering with HoT maps at all? They have worse gold per hour and ecto per hour than SW, i cant do fractal or legendary masteries in them. If i dont plan to raid, why ever do HoT maps?

So i basically paid 50 dollars for content that largely frustrated me for absolutly no reason.

But ya, maps and music look pretty, so thanks for the 2 weeks.

You need to taxi to full maps with LFG. The game evenly distributes people, and then they abandon maps to move to maps with max population to make doing the meta easier.

I don’t care what you do, but if you’re interested in playing the events, that’s how you do it.

Fluffball.8307:

You need to taxi to full maps with LFG. The game evenly distributes people, and then they abandon maps to move to maps with max population to make doing the meta easier.

I don’t care what you do, but if you’re interested in playing the events, that’s how you do it.

i didnt know this maybe when i come back in a few months ill try it thanks.
i tried logging in today for the first time in a while and my heart just sank, i used to have so much fun in this game but the new direction just isnt for me. and i know people will say just keep doing the old maps if you dont like HoT, but if this is the new direction, when the next expansion comes out will i still be in base tyria then?

im not raging, i am salty i wont lie but im mostly sad. ah well, cheers and thanks for the idea sir/miss.

I kinda feel like the OP about experiences. Don’t differ really from mine for the parts i have experience in. Ok I don’t want to leave the game over it. But I do run into the exact same things and feelings. It makes me wonder why to bother with the new maps save the something new and I didn’t pay 50 bucks to not use the content I payed for, even if just a part. So I keep giving it a go every now and then till it starts to frustrate me, or leave when due to other reasons it basically is a waste to spend my time there (like not being able to log in long enough for the meta event to finish, so work i done won’t be rewarded anyway so feels like i done it for nothing and am better off spending the time elsewhere. The events aren’t that fun to do just for doing them, especially if not in a full organised map. Then it’s a exercise in frustration and walking back again after being dead again and again (or more accurate running warp 8 and pray you get back in time and not murdered on the road).

And often by now i ignore events completely (and probably scaling up difficulty by doing this, sorry guys who want to finish it). Even if there are events going on if i can’t see the end of the meta anyway. I do use that time in the expansion to explore little bits though if not all wp’s are contested, open up bits of the map where I can. Atleast that feels like some progress. I have no clue how to get into dragon stand though.

The warp 8 speed running paragraph made me chuckle, a bit of a bitter one though, it’s so recognizable

Plot twist: Pezz isn’t done playing. He is just expressing his feedback dramatically.

Lome.8239:

Plot twist: Pezz isn’t done playing. He is just expressing his feedback dramatically.

im not done forever, im done for now.

and i dont even know how to suggest change, if i suggest stuff not being so group focused i get jumped on by hardcore players and made fun of. if i say maybe dont have wps contested so often i get called bad ect

its just frustrating at this point, and thats not what i play games for. if the frustration eases, youre darn right ill be back playing again, but as it stands, its just not enjoyable in its current form.

As was said earlier, you have to use the LFG tool to taxi into lively maps. The reason I can say with confidence this will almost certainly solve your problems is, I’ve been consistently doing every map’s meta and hero points on various characters during oceanic/sea (the two most dead times for the game).

However, I definitely see where you’re coming from when I’m not using the LFG tool. The maps I naturally zone into seem dead by comparison, with rare exceptions.

I don’t like the ‘I am leaving posts’ but this really in some way isn’t that… But you even say that you are not leaving for good and I guess you are not leaving for good becouse GW2 is so darn good.

Anyway, I don’t agree with most of your points but it was a good post.

I always find people on the maps I am playing and if I want to do tier 4 metas I go to LFG as Fluffball.8307 said but if I am just doing events and looking for HP and MP I stay on the map I start on and I always see alot of players but they are not as dedicated to do Tier 4 metas though but the maps are not anyway near empty.

The new reward system I like alot there is just one gripe I have and that is some events like rescue the scattered out people… Sometimes I rescue like a big amount of them but there is one left and as I am to help the one is allready helped so we escort him back. While doing that the game says I am inactive on that event (Becouse no fights happen) and I loose my bonus for it.

I have no problems with HP, if there is no one on the maps to help me I always ask my Guild. When the expac started ofc everyone was doing HP’s but now less people are doing them but it is an MMO and there are not few people on the map, if it was you would have been asked to change layer. I beleave that it might be easier to get help when more people learn how to get to the HP’s but also some HPs atleast in Verdant Brink pretty much needs that the helecopters are up, so when you ask for help at an HP look so that the helecopters are up before you complain that no one helps you.

I run a Knight Scrapper and I have no problems at all walking through the HoT expansion, I actually get more problems running through it. Maby you should change your build and try something else if you find it too hard?

So why are you playing the game? To enjoy it or to farm gold to aquire some fluff? If you just enjoy the game you will eventually have your gold that you so desire.

This is just my side of the coin.

Fluffball.8307:

You need to taxi to full maps with LFG. The game evenly distributes people, and then they abandon maps to move to maps with max population to make doing the meta easier.

I don’t care what you do, but if you’re interested in playing the events, that’s how you do it.

thats just kitten server design, the game should fill up maps

Cameirus.8407:

Fluffball.8307:

You need to taxi to full maps with LFG. The game evenly distributes people, and then they abandon maps to move to maps with max population to make doing the meta easier.

I don’t care what you do, but if you’re interested in playing the events, that’s how you do it.

thats just kitten server design, the game should fill up maps

then people would complain that people dont organice so they will try to move to a map more organized by using
lFGtool

Edit: AAaaaand people would complain that they cant join the same server as their whole guild even more.

Arius.7031:

As was said earlier, you have to use the LFG tool to taxi into lively maps.

I keep doing this.. and I’ve yet to see a t4 Verdant Brink. It’s getting really frustrating. I joined a map just now that didn’t even make it to t3 and I was having to try to solo the rally points.

Pezz.4758:

So i basically paid 50 dollars for content that largely frustrated me for absolutly no reason.

Ask for a refund.

GW2 has two long standing and huge issues: events attribution and server navigation.

All the way back in 2012, there was an one-time meta event – the Ancient Karka one – that had such a big drop rate that people nicknamed its reward the “Precursor Chest”. The event took quite some time and of course a lot of people were playing it, and ArenaNet’s network wasn’t particularly stable so quite often we got someone with a disconnect during the event…

…And boom, there went the event reward. Upon a disconnect, people would return to an empty map that had either just finished the event (thus no reward for the now returning character) or that had no chance of finishing the event at all. With no way to return to the maps those players were in, and no way to get the rewards for an event after a disconnect, people simply lost.

Now, three years later, we still have the exact same problems. It’s STILL impossible to navigate through the megaservers map properly – at best, all we can do is improvise with the LFG feature, but that often doesn’t work. Being disconnected while finishing a long meta event STILL makes a player lose his/her rewards more often than not, no matter how much of his/her time said player has just wasted.

ArenaNet is obviously not even trying to fix either of those issues, because if they were – and both have been very well known for quite some time now – they would already have fixed them.

Complaining on the forums doesn’t work, this is something people have been complaining about for quite some time now. The best we can do is to press ArenaNet economically. So, ask for a refund, tell your friends to ask for refunds too, and tell those who stay to stop buying gems. When this issue is fixed, then you all can come back. But we have to make ArenaNet listen, one way or the other.

Fluffball.8307:

You need to taxi to full maps with LFG. The game evenly distributes people, and then they abandon maps to move to maps with max population to make doing the meta easier.

I don’t care what you do, but if you’re interested in playing the events, that’s how you do it.

We as players shouldn’t need to do this. This is ANet dropping the ball, and bad design.

Test.8734:

Pezz.4758:

So i basically paid 50 dollars for content that largely frustrated me for absolutly no reason.

Ask for a refund.

GW2 has two long standing and huge issues: events attribution and server navigation.

All the way back in 2012, there was an one-time meta event – the Ancient Karka one – that had such a big drop rate that people nicknamed its reward the “Precursor Chest”. The event took quite some time and of course a lot of people were playing it, and ArenaNet’s network wasn’t particularly stable so quite often we got someone with a disconnect during the event…

…And boom, there went the event reward. Upon a disconnect, people would return to an empty map that had either just finished the event (thus no reward for the now returning character) or that had no chance of finishing the event at all. With no way to return to the maps those players were in, and no way to get the rewards for an event after a disconnect, people simply lost.

Now, three years later, we still have the exact same problems. It’s STILL impossible to navigate through the megaservers map properly – at best, all we can do is improvise with the LFG feature, but that often doesn’t work. Being disconnected while finishing a long meta event STILL makes a player lose his/her rewards more often than not, no matter how much of his/her time said player has just wasted.

ArenaNet is obviously not even trying to fix either of those issues, because if they were – and both have been very well known for quite some time now – they would already have fixed them.

Complaining on the forums doesn’t work, this is something people have been complaining about for quite some time now. The best we can do is to press ArenaNet economically. So, ask for a refund, tell your friends to ask for refunds too, and tell those who stay to stop buying gems. When this issue is fixed, then you all can come back. But we have to make ArenaNet listen, one way or the other.

im not angry enough to do that. i really do think HoT maps could be great, and i LOVE the scrapper and reaper.

But i cant play it and it saddens me. Its like banging a square block in a round hole. My square block is my playstyle that was supported for the last year in core GW2, and the round hole is this new play style they came up with for hot.

For now im just looking for a better fit, whether gw2 does it or another game does it first isnt up to me.

Pezz.4758:

But i cant play it and it saddens me. Its like banging a square block in a round hole. My square block is my playstyle that was supported for the last year in core GW2, and the round hole is this new play style they came up with for hot.

That’s exactly why you should ask for a refund – so you are heard. If everyone buys HoT and that’s it, ArenaNet will think the playstyle they have introduced with HoT has been a huge success, and will just keep adding more content like that. As you said, they don’t have an exit survey – they can see people not playing anymore but not asking for refunds as a sign that people loved HoT but found that the expansion has little content.

We have to let ArenaNet know what we think about this new content, and the best way to do so is with our wallets. Asking for a refund is the clearest way to point that you are not happy with how HoT is, regardless of how much content it has.

If ArenaNet listens, you can always buy HoT again.

Test.8734:

Pezz.4758:

But i cant play it and it saddens me. Its like banging a square block in a round hole. My square block is my playstyle that was supported for the last year in core GW2, and the round hole is this new play style they came up with for hot.

That’s exactly why you should ask for a refund – so you are heard. If everyone buys HoT and that’s it, ArenaNet will think the playstyle they have introduced with HoT has been a huge success, and will just keep adding more content like that. As you said, they don’t have an exit survey – they can see people not playing anymore but not asking for refunds as a sign that people loved HoT but found that the expansion has little content.

We have to let ArenaNet know what we think about this new content, and the best way to do so is with our wallets. Asking for a refund is the clearest way to point that you are not happy with how HoT is, regardless of how much content it has.

If ArenaNet listens, you can always buy HoT again.

dude im running out of companies to support here.

blizzard is done for me after WoD and their focus on micro transactions.
activision (same company as blizzard) is done after destiny putting out DLC faster than CoD games
EAs “free to play” of SWTOR and well…its EA
ncsoft after wildstar was already done for me, but i read that anet works with
their own people more than carbine did, but now HoT happens.

where do i go? honestly what is going on with the industry.

i cant refund, i need SOMETHING to at least log into from time to time when isaac is platinum god and bloodborne DLC is over.

Pezz.4758:

dude im running out of companies to support here.

I know, right?

Despite everything, GW2 is still the best MMO around. But that’s largerly because the other MMOs suck

Quit your belly aching, and port into a map that rolls through the content. But thanks, because each one of you non-believers makes my chances of crashing that much lower.

This is the best GW has been since Frost & Flame. A breath of fresh air that an already great game needed.

Test.8734:

~Snip~

…And boom, there went the event reward. Upon a disconnect, people would return to an empty map that had either just finished the event (thus no reward for the now returning character) or that had no chance of finishing the event at all. With no way to return to the maps those players were in, and no way to get the rewards for an event after a disconnect, people simply lost.

Now, three years later, we still have the exact same problems. It’s STILL impossible to navigate through the megaservers map properly – at best, all we can do is improvise with the LFG feature, but that often doesn’t work. Being disconnected while finishing a long meta event STILL makes a player lose his/her rewards more often than not, no matter how much of his/her time said player has just wasted.

ArenaNet is obviously not even trying to fix either of those issues, because if they were – and both have been very well known for quite some time now – they would already have fixed them.

~Snip~

A bad route from the ArenaNet servers to your computer is NOT something ArenaNet can fix, and that is where the majority of these disconnects are…if you ever did a trace route you would find somewhere along the line a big increase in packet loss…and presto, there’s your disconnect issue. That’s a problem you would need to take up with your ISP, tell them to try and find a different way to route your traffic from the AreanaNet servers to your home connection(as if that’s going to work, but then you can always use the same method as you prescribe, tell them you’re changing internet providers).

As for the Megaserver issue, yes, it is still not working properly in HoT, they are aware of the issue and are working on it…it works fine in Core Tyria though, that’s why you get those Empty Map messages when it drops below the population threshold. The maps aren’t designed to hold 500 players, so you are never going to find a map that populated, instead at the most you’ll find 150 or so players on a map, and when it drops down to 25 – 50 it then asks you to change to a more populated map. Which might take several times to do if it was a map that had a say a World Boss on it, as those create several instances of the map and as each one loses population they move you to the next, until you finally reach the map with the lowest population, but there is always one map open at all times of each zone, regardless of population.

Fml. Seriously people, LFG. It’s not kittening rocket science. I can look at LFG at practically any time of the day, and there’s tons of people using LFG to taxi into “org” ( organized ) maps, looking for others on the story steps/achievements, Hero Challenge farming and specific Hero Challenge help.

This is why we can’t have these nice things.

Lothirieth.3408:

Arius.7031:

As was said earlier, you have to use the LFG tool to taxi into lively maps.

I keep doing this.. and I’ve yet to see a t4 Verdant Brink. It’s getting really frustrating. I joined a map just now that didn’t even make it to t3 and I was having to try to solo the rally points.

That’s player incompetence. I joined a map going for t4 about 4 hours ago and we were a hair away from getting it. It’s not a player population issue, there’s enough people, the issue is the players.

Copestetic.5174:

Fml. Seriously people, LFG. It’s not kittening rocket science. I can look at LFG at practically any time of the day, and there’s tons of people using LFG to taxi into “org” ( organized ) maps, looking for others on the story steps/achievements, Hero Challenge farming and specific Hero Challenge help.

This is why we can’t have these nice things.

if Anet came in here right now and told me HoT is the new direction of Gw2 and deal with it or leave i would make my choice.

Until then i will leave feedback and hope the year i spent here with core GW2 learning and enjoying it isnt just abandoned.

Pezz.4758:

The whole design of the game encourages running past everything. YES the maps are beautiful, its a shame they are all just a blur as i run by at warp 8 with a million vet mobs shooting slowing arrows and knocking me down. Oh why not team up and fight them? Anytime ive tried that the minute i took aggro from the other person, THEY took off at warp 8 SEE YA SUCKER! ok back to the WP ….oh wait contested back to the start of the map!

This was bothering me even from day one, why make beautiful maps when you have no time to admire them.
All I can say about VB for example is that is tall and green, have no idea about what the minor details are.

Test.8734

:Ask for a refund.

GW2 has two long standing and huge issues: events attribution and server navigation.

All the way back in 2012, there was an one-time meta event – the Ancient Karka one – that had such a big drop rate that people nicknamed its reward the “Precursor Chest”. The event took quite some time and of course a lot of people were playing it, and ArenaNet’s network wasn’t particularly stable so quite often we got someone with a disconnect during the event…

…And boom, there went the event reward. Upon a disconnect, people would return to an empty map that had either just finished the event (thus no reward for the now returning character) or that had no chance of finishing the event at all. With no way to return to the maps those players were in, and no way to get the rewards for an event after a disconnect, people simply lost

Lol this exact thing happened to me those few years ago. Booooyyyyyyyy did I rage.

Now, three years later, we still have the exact same problems. It’s STILL impossible to navigate through the megaservers map properly – at best, all we can do is improvise with the LFG feature, but that often doesn’t work. Being disconnected while finishing a long meta event STILL makes a player lose his/her rewards more often than not, no matter how much of his/her time said player has just wasted.

ArenaNet is obviously not even trying to fix either of those issues, because if they were – and both have been very well known for quite some time now – they would already have fixed them.

The reasoning doesn’t work out here, there’s a valid 3rd option, they’ve been trying but can’t (either conceptually they can’t conceive of a way to do it, or they’re technically restricted from carrying out their conceptual fixes). Doesn’t mean they’re not trying.

Complaining on the forums doesn’t work, this is something people have been complaining about for quite some time now. The best we can do is to press ArenaNet economically. So, ask for a refund, tell your friends to ask for refunds too, and tell those who stay to stop buying gems. When this issue is fixed, then you all can come back. But we have to make ArenaNet listen, one way or the other.

Or how about you stop trying to coerce people because you’re unhappy with 1 faulty aspect of an otherwise amazing product.

If he wants a refund, let him decide, don’t try to pressure him, and don’t tell him to tell his friends/those who stay to try to hurt ANet as well. Believe it or not, the less money ANet has, the less likely they are to fix an issue as well. ‘Voting with your wallet’ works well when getting people to role back undesirable changes, it works significantly less well as a way to force a company to fix something they’ve probably been trying to fix for years.

Also, you’re BSing straight up if you say ANet hasn’t improved the situation immensely. Not only does the LFG tool work really well, disconnects happen far less frequently (the new HoT ones we can’t really blame them for, it’s a massive new release, and the 64-bit client has fixed 99% of them), and you can generally taxi back in by partying up with another person. They seem to have a system in place that “reserves” your spot for a little while as you relog. Every time I dc’d pre 64-bit client I was able to get back in with all my progress, every single time (though granted sometimes I got back in after a boss died or something, that’s just unavoidable).

Use of LFG tool will help you. Just join groups that are taxing people to organized maps and you will be able to have fun.

Arius.7031:

That’s player incompetence. I joined a map going for t4 about 4 hours ago and we were a hair away from getting it. It’s not a player population issue, there’s enough people, the issue is the players.

Okay….. annnnd? I said nothing about player population, but was refuting the whole ‘just LFG and everything is grand’ claim that keeps being thrown about here.

Zaklex.6308:

That’s a problem you would need to take up with your ISP, tell them to try and find a different way to route your traffic from the AreanaNet servers to your home connection

What are you talking about? I haven’t had disconnects in years.

Context, my friend, context.

Arius.7031:

Also, you’re BSing straight up if you say ANet hasn’t improved the situation immensely. Not only does the LFG tool work really well, disconnects happen far less frequently

I’m not sure if the disconnects are directly because of ArenaNet. The situation with the Ancient Karka all the way back in 2012 was more likely because of the way the event was setup (a one time event where A LOT of people had to be online at the SAME TIME? It wasn’t surprising that ArenaNet couldn’t handle it) than because of poor servers (or because the players would have had poor connections at the time, like Zaklex implied above). We have never had something like the Karka thing for us to see if things really improved on this aspect of ArenaNet’s servers.

But anyway, the LFG thing isn’t a solution to this issue. Using it to taxi people from empty maps to not so empty maps isn’t what the system was created for; players improvise using it because that’s the best option right now, but it’s more a “less worse” option than a good option.

Pezz.4758:

dude im running out of companies to support here.

blizzard is done for me after WoD and their focus on micro transactions.
activision (same company as blizzard) is done after destiny putting out DLC faster than CoD games
EAs “free to play” of SWTOR and well…its EA
ncsoft after wildstar was already done for me, but i read that anet works with
their own people more than carbine did, but now HoT happens.

where do i go? honestly what is going on with the industry.

i cant refund, i need SOMETHING to at least log into from time to time when isaac is platinum god and bloodborne DLC is over.

Support ANet. You’re acting like people didn’t offer a solution to your problems, but we all did. Get into active maps using the LFG feature. If you need a hero point, see if anyone else is doing it in LFG, or post in LFG “Need x HP”.

On the subject of the map moving past things, yes unless you want to kill every mob you have to move past them. Why is this a problem, this is a fact of gaming life rofl. If you want to do something, you have to do it to… do it. If you want to admire the map itself, it’s generally quite easy to do unless you’re standing in the middle of a mob hot-spot. I play solo most of the time, other times just duo, and I have NO issue playing slowly, by myself, and just admiring the jungle.

On the subject of why play they HoT maps, you’re probably not realizing a lot of random stuff you get from HoT is super valuable atm. Take a look at rare reclaimed weapons, for example. I got 4 today, each worth 8g+. I find tons of flax, ancient wood, and orichalcum. Another thing is if you get a lot of exalted keys, after the Tarir meta you can descend into the bottom of the city and there are 27 things to open down there (1 key per) and 5 iirc are particularly rewarding. You will make a LOT of money from doing that.

You can also do map comp to get ready for the legendaries that are about to come out. Not to mention tons of unique rewards from collections (ie mistward set, or specialization ascendeds) that you can only get by playing the jungle. Or unique sets of armor/weapoins (bladed, ley-line, auric etc…). Or achievement hunting (the jungle is filled to the brim with achievements to get, check the story journal and heart of thorns tabs). Or lore hunting (ie did you know there are tons of random lore objects scattered around HoT, the most known perhaps being the plaques in the golden city, which tie into a lore-based achievement that rewards you with more lore rofl).

There is a lot to do in the expansion content that you can’t do anywhere else.

Lothirieth.3408:

Arius.7031:

That’s player incompetence. I joined a map going for t4 about 4 hours ago and we were a hair away from getting it. It’s not a player population issue, there’s enough people, the issue is the players.

Okay….. annnnd? I said nothing about player population, but was refuting the whole ‘just LFG and everything is grand’ claim that keeps being thrown about here.

People brought up the LFG in response to the person saying the maps were dead… We obviously weren’t saying LFG cures cancer, solves world hunger, or in general fixes everything. We were saying it specifically solves dead maps. If you weren’t discussing that, you were just mentioning random unrelated facts.

In fact, your quote of me had me saying specifically “As was said earlier, you have to use the LFG tool to taxi into lively maps.”. So how did what you say refute what I said in any way?

Test.8734:

I’m not sure if the disconnects are directly because of ArenaNet. The situation with the Ancient Karka all the way back in 2012 was more likely because of the way the event was setup (a one time event where A LOT of people had to be online at the SAME TIME? It wasn’t surprising that ArenaNet couldn’t handle it) than because of poor servers (or because the players would have had poor connections at the time, like Zaklex implied above). We have never had something like the Karka thing for us to see if things really improved on this aspect of ArenaNet’s servers.

They said back then, in response to the outcry, they didn’t have the proper server infrastructure for the event. They weren’t prepared for so many people, they said. Every living world event after that had very similar levels of participation, after the improved the servers we saw very few issues like 6 second skill delay or frequent disconnects again.

But anyway, the LFG thing isn’t a solution to this issue. Using it to taxi people from empty maps to not so empty maps isn’t what the system was created for; players improvise using it because that’s the best option right now, but it’s more a “less worse” option than a good option.

It may not be perfect, granted, but it’s most definitely a step in the right direction, and a large one at that. The LFG tool may not allow people to easily precisely navigate the mega server maps, but it generally allows you to get where you want to go. IE say you’re looking to pug an organized DS attempt, you may not be able to select server 22’s organized DS attempt, but hey a guy from server 15 has a taxi up for his organized DS attempt.

It’s not perfect, but it solves the vast majority of problems we face.

Test.8734:

But anyway, the LFG thing isn’t a solution to this issue. Using it to taxi people from empty maps to not so empty maps isn’t what the system was created for; players improvise using it because that’s the best option right now, but it’s more a “less worse” option than a good option.

Taxiing is probably both the cause of and cure for low map populations.

Because irony.

Well after discussing this in other topics it seems my worst fear has come to pass.

Wildstar all over again, hardcore Vs casual arguments, hatred on both sides.
I rode that pony once, not doing it again. Cheers all.

OK bye, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

People are so entitled these days about video games.

Consider this: when you first played the original “Super Mario Bros” 20 years ago or whatever the time it was, how many times did you die before you beat the first level? How many times did you die before beating the game? Or did you actually beat “Super Mario Bros” in 2 weeks? How many weeks did it take before you can finally beat it?

Utilizing the LFG system makes HoT a million times better. It’s pretty necessary to use.

I agree with you Pezz. I feel let down by this expansion as well. So frustrated with the starting zone that I just went back to original content levelling another toon.

The thing that REALLY disappointed me was the Elite Specialization Classes. I despise that I have to give up a whole track in my current build in order to add the new Elite track. This hurt my build soooo much and anyway I tried it, I just couldn’t build around it in a way that complimented the playstyle I have developed for myself. And the tradeoff? A set with nothing but healing abilities (Ranger-Druid). Sounds good on paper, but in practice it just hurt my solo ability too much to be worth it.

I suggest either a 4th track slot, or make it easier to switch your build loadout so that you can switch back and forth as need arises.

Belly aching, get on an hp train. Takes about two hours to fully level a specialization.

Snoopy Shannon.5123:

Utilizing the LFG system makes HoT a million times better. It’s pretty necessary to use.

It’s pretty sad then if you need the LFG tool to make HoT better. If things were done right or fixed, it shouldn’t be necessary.

The expansion in it’s current state is not fun for a very large portion of the playerbase. Like Pezz, many of them are leaving.

They may come back later, GW2 makes that easy, but the fact that they are leaving so soon after HoT’s release should make it obvious to everyone that there is something wrong with GW2 atm.

Widowmaker Z.4802:

Snoopy Shannon.5123:

Utilizing the LFG system makes HoT a million times better. It’s pretty necessary to use.

It’s pretty sad then if you need the LFG tool to make HoT better. If things were done right or fixed, it shouldn’t be necessary.

You don’t, you could play with a guild or “alliance”. But since it’s an MMO, LFG is the easiest way to find people to play with.

What you’re saying is sort of the equivalent for “you shouldn’t need to use LFG to be able to play dungeons/fractals/raids.” You don’t of course, but it’s a very quick and easy way to do it.

On the other hand, you don’t have to complete map-wide meta events. I’ve spent 98% of my time in HoT on my own, just enjoying the maps, exploring, getting achievements and mastery points, and so on. And I’m sure the meta-event maps are glad I did not taxi to them and take up a pop slot.

voidvector.2780:

OK bye, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

People are so entitled these days about video games.

Consider this: when you first played the original “Super Mario Bros” 20 years ago or whatever the time it was, how many times did you die before you beat the first level? How many times did you die before beating the game? Or did you actually beat “Super Mario Bros” in 2 weeks? How many weeks did it take before you can finally beat it?

Games where so hard back then do to if they where not they would be beat in minutes go look up some Mario speed runs they had to be hard and cheap to prolong the game .

Fluffball.8307:

Widowmaker Z.4802:

Snoopy Shannon.5123:

Utilizing the LFG system makes HoT a million times better. It’s pretty necessary to use.

It’s pretty sad then if you need the LFG tool to make HoT better. If things were done right or fixed, it shouldn’t be necessary.

You don’t, you could play with a guild or “alliance”. But since it’s an MMO, LFG is the easiest way to find people to play with.

What you’re saying is sort of the equivalent for “you shouldn’t need to use LFG to be able to play dungeons/fractals/raids.” You don’t of course, but it’s a very quick and easy way to do it.

On the other hand, you don’t have to complete map-wide meta events. I’ve spent 98% of my time in HoT on my own, just enjoying the maps, exploring, getting achievements and mastery points, and so on. And I’m sure the meta-event maps are glad I did not taxi to them and take up a pop slot.

You’re reading way too deep into what I said. You shouldn’t need the LFG tool to find people or a populated map, especially on a newly released xpac., they should be populated period if it’s any good.

So either HoT isn’t attracting people or able to hold people’s interest enough to keep playing on these maps, or the megaserver is still bugged,

Widowmaker Z.4802:

So either HoT isn’t attracting people or able to hold people’s interest enough to keep playing on these maps, or the megaserver is still bugged,

It’s not bugged (well it might be in some ways, but not relevant for this discussion), people are leaving maps intentionally.

If there are 120 people, let’s say the game puts 40 on each map. But only Map A wants to do the meta event, Maps B and C have people doing map completion, adventures, AP hunting, mastery farming, etc. So 20 people each leave Maps B and C to do the meta event on Map A. Now Map A is at max population and Maps B and C appear completely deserted. But that’s what all 120 players wanted.

Fluffball.8307:

It’s not bugged (well it might be in some ways, but not relevant for this discussion), people are leaving maps intentionally.

Bugged or not, taxiing or not, empty maps are what players and reviewers are seeing and reporting.

“HoT is dead” is not a good impression for the expansion to make so soon after launch, especially given its group-content focus, and the overwhelming majority of people who find themselves in dead maps will never see this thread, these forums, or any of the various apologias they contain.

It’s a problem only ArenaNet can solve, it must be solved within the game itself, and it is very much in their (and our) best interests that they do so as quickly as possible.

The OP has a pretty good point about map dynamics, if you move through any of the areas there’s a zillion mobs that don’t give xp waiting to gank you. But Pezz missed the most fun part of the Xpac completely when he left out the fun of making 200% participation in an event and having the boss at 5% and POOF “send report to arenanet” appears instead of the game!

This combined with the fact that hundreds of players who had 100% Tyria map completion are being completely ignored by Anet when they complain about not getting rewards in the xpac even though it’s blocking them from any specialization weapons.

GG Anet….. you can do better.

Fluffball.8307:

Widowmaker Z.4802:

So either HoT isn’t attracting people or able to hold people’s interest enough to keep playing on these maps, or the megaserver is still bugged,

It’s not bugged (well it might be in some ways, but not relevant for this discussion), people are leaving maps intentionally.

If there are 120 people, let’s say the game puts 40 on each map. But only Map A wants to do the meta event, Maps B and C have people doing map completion, adventures, AP hunting, mastery farming, etc. So 20 people each leave Maps B and C to do the meta event on Map A. Now Map A is at max population and Maps B and C appear completely deserted. But that’s what all 120 players wanted.

My point is, for a newly released expansion, none of the maps should have a low population.

The low population maps you refer to after people leave, should end up being re-populated if there are a lot of people playing on the HoT maps, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Majic.4801:

“HoT is dead” is not a good impression for the expansion to make so soon after launch

An unusual number of people don’t understand different maps having different foci, so they probably need a UI created that says “do you want to join the meta-progressing map (80 current players) or etc.”

It’s understandable that anet did not expect players to organize themselves at the expense of the megaserver at first, but by this point they probably should know better, or at least explain it to newbies who have no idea what a taxi is. Players have been implementing the current tactic for literally years with things like Tequatl, triple trouble, vine wrath, etc.

Widowmaker Z.4802:

The low population maps you refer to after people leave, should end up being re-populated if there are a lot of people playing on the HoT maps, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Nope. If I want to do a meta event, the first thing I do is join one of those empty maps, which anet has “repopulated” (with me and whoever), and then promptly leave it for a taxi. Once a map gets abandoned, it can’t progress the meta-event in time. It also doesn’t have a stated focus, so I’m not going to trust that the current population wants to do the meta at all.

Fluffball.8307:

It’s understandable that anet did not expect players to organize themselves at the expense of the megaserver at first, but by this point they probably should know better, or at least explain it to newbies who have no idea what a taxi is. Players have been implementing the current tactic for literally years with things like Tequatl, triple trouble, vine wrath, etc.

That’s just it: they should know better, because players have been doing this for a year and a half, to the point that the events you listed depend on it for successful completion.

The map population algorithm should account for player behavior, including taxiing, and compensate as necessary to keep maps well-populated. That’s the primary reason for implementing the megaserver system in the first place.

But that’s water under the bridge. What matters most now is what ArenaNet does about it, and how quickly they take action.

The longer this drags on, the more damage it will cause.

another evening, another list of failures trying to get DS and TD meta’s……

Sorry Anet, your open world content is kitten. VB is ok, and AB is ok in that even with the absurdly low map pops you at least finish the meta even if the rewards are lower…..but TD in particular is just frustrating.

No point continuing to play if this is not fixed, its just too frustrating.