Guild Wars 2

Djinn.9245:

I believe it was last week that one of the Dailies was Event Completion in Dragon’s Stand. At the time I was playing, there seemed to be 2 maps: 1 that was full and 1 that had a few people that seemed to be mainly trying to get into the full map. Not enough people to do the events. After a while of trying to get into the full map, I gave up on that Daily.

This has happened to me several times lately when I have tried to do things in HoT maps.

It repeatedly makes me think that map caps and how it handles possible space-saving is just done improperly. We need smaller map caps for “full” and possibly smaller taxi allotments in order to usher more people more naturally into maps that can fill.

Map caps and the way that map shards spawn never really gets a fair test because people stack 1, 2 or ? shards because a full map is more likely to succeed. Unfortunately, taxiing isn’t going away. I’m of two minds that changing numbers on caps and shard creation algorithms would be a good thing. If I thought that people would not seek the path of least resistance with taxi, I would be in favor. As it is, a smaller cap might just mean fewer people get into the 1 or 2 choice maps.

@ Vayne: how often do you, in your ever-successful HoT experience, end up not being able to “join in” and for how long?

IndigoSundown.5419:

Map caps and the way that map shards spawn never really gets a fair test because people stack 1, 2 or ? shards because a full map is more likely to succeed. Unfortunately, taxiing isn’t going away. I’m of two minds that changing numbers on caps and shard creation algorithms would be a good thing. If I thought that people would not seek the path of least resistance with taxi, I would be in favor. As it is, a smaller cap might just mean fewer people get into the 1 or 2 choice maps.

@ Vayne: how often do you, in your ever-successful HoT experience, end up not being able to “join in” and for how long?

I don’t know. I’m there at the right times, because I use a timer site. I’ve never gotten into a zone ten minutes early and not been able to get on a map. But I pay attention to the times.

There are times I’m randomly in a zone, just doing my own thing, and that’s a different story. But then I’m not trying to do anything particular. So it’s different for me.

Let’s say I decide I need leyline crystals. Unless the Garent is up, I can pretty much do events in any area of TD to get ley-line crystals, whether people are present or not.

But to get metas done? AB is pretty much an automatic. If you get to DS on time, that’s pretty much an automatic. If you get to TD a bit early, I almost always get into a full map about 80% of the time.

The one exception to all this is VB, which is usually a problem because it’s the least understandable of all the metas. People don’t know how to do it, and it takes time and energy to explain. However, I don’t really care if I hit T4 or not, I can still get my reward chest from doing any of the bosses they’re doing, and move onto the next thing.

A lot of the time I spend in HoT, I’m just doing events, farming currency, or figuring out new ways to get around. I don’t live for the meta. I do them, because they’re there, and I’m there, but I don’t find that the best way to play HOT.

Rauderi.8706:

Djinn.9245:

I believe it was last week that one of the Dailies was Event Completion in Dragon’s Stand. At the time I was playing, there seemed to be 2 maps: 1 that was full and 1 that had a few people that seemed to be mainly trying to get into the full map. Not enough people to do the events. After a while of trying to get into the full map, I gave up on that Daily.

This has happened to me several times lately when I have tried to do things in HoT maps.

It repeatedly makes me think that map caps and how it handles possible space-saving is just done improperly. We need smaller map caps for “full” and possibly smaller taxi allotments in order to usher more people more naturally into maps that can fill.

For daily events in DS, you don’t need a full map. You only need four events. If you want to run the whole meta, you’d get there early and get into a map.

My experience is this though. There’s more chance of failing DS on the daily days. That’s because people who don’t know the fight come to the fight in greater numbers. They’re not really prepared, they don’t understand, they tend often not to listen to instructions in map chat, and they tend to cause issues when it gets to the harder bits, particularly the room with the leyline collectors.

In my opinion, daily days are probably the worst day to try DS.

Vayne.8563:

For daily events in DS, you don’t need a full map. You only need four events. If you want to run the whole meta, you’d get there early and get into a map.

You do, however, need a map that will, at some point, get past the starting line. Which is my point. Show up at an off time, no events for you.

To be honest, it doesn’t even make sense for Dragon Stand to have a countdown timer until after the groups form and the meta actually starts. That would make it much easier for fresh maps to gather people, since a squad could form at any time, and it would only need 12 people to start.

Yeah, I always do the event daily when it comes up, except when it is DS. I’ve spent too long looking for events on that map.

I agree with the people saying the maps are dead. 8 tries on Verdant brink and nothing gets me a shot at that Bladed Coat that I want so very very badly. So I’m going to offer a quick solution:

Pact mastery VI: Timely Reinforcements: Call a Pact chopper to reinforce the area for one hour. 24 hour cooldown.

That would let people get the masteries, skill points, and aid in map completion while letting you, the Pact Commander, actually command things.

(And on the off-chance that ANET is reading this, I’m willing to consult for cheap)

Finalfreefall.8247:

I agree with the people saying the maps are dead. 8 tries on Verdant brink and nothing gets me a shot at that Bladed Coat that I want so very very badly. So I’m going to offer a quick solution

The game is already offering a different “solution” to aquiring the bladed coat (and other HoT armor skins): The Heart of Maguuma reward tracks in WvW and PvP. The final reward of those tracks (Mordremoth Cache ) offers a choice of different HoT skins, including all of the bladed skins.

Finalfreefall.8247:

I agree with the people saying the maps are dead. 8 tries on Verdant brink and nothing gets me a shot at that Bladed Coat that I want so very very badly. So I’m going to offer a quick solution:

Pact mastery VI: Timely Reinforcements: Call a Pact chopper to reinforce the area for one hour. 24 hour cooldown.

That would let people get the masteries, skill points, and aid in map completion while letting you, the Pact Commander, actually command things.

(And on the off-chance that ANET is reading this, I’m willing to consult for cheap)

I’ve had HoT for 3 days and have a full bladed set with an extra Bladed Armor Box sitting in my bank. I’ve managed to be in a group thats got T4 more than once. And that was during halloween, when people are spamming Ascent to Madness and Labyrinth.

The only time I’ve found any issue with maps being “dead” it’s past 2am, and when I say dead I mean, can’t complete the meta in AB, or get above t1 in VB. But I can always count on help for hero points, masteries etc.

I only started doing HoT maps like 2 months ago and I was able to get all HoT achievements+storyline achievements (except Golden Child grind) just by playing through the maps and googling parts that I didn’t know.

Don’t rely on people to just carry you through the event achievements. Put up a tag (commander or mentor) and yell out what you are doing. Put up a LFG for the meta event chain that you are doing. Don’t just follow people all the time. Lead squads of players. It’s the only way you’re going to get those less popular event chain achievements. Occasionally, people do hero’s point rotation maps in the LFG. Either join up and fight the champions or just form a map yourself. If you are a good player, you should be able to solo a lot of the hero’s point champions. Use the event timer on the gw2 wiki and plan your event based achievements ahead of time.

The most difficult part of HoT was getting the achievements in Hearts and Minds. Flights of fancy was a nightmare. I finally managed to solo it by gliding to the northern branch and dodging all of Mordremoth’s boulders while standing on the branch. I couldn’t find a pug good enough to survive Eir’s fireblast for Migraine so I had to solo that. Canach requires you to play a condition damage build to solo because you can not break his breakbar on his 2nd and 3rd phases.

Learn the mechanics of the canopy bosses and lead maps when nightfall hits. Put up a LFG to form a map. Even now, verdant brink maps can form as long as you play at a decent timeslot and you lead well. Do the same for the other 3 maps. You are the Commander right?

Event scaling used to be a thing that would in concept solve these problems.
Though some designs work better with that than others.

Personally i wouldnt mind seeing it possible to get gerent done with just 5 people per side. or dragons stand with just 15. at least with the challenge being fairly similar as to when there is a zerg.

Though there’s also a great unwillingness to even try things with less people. Octovine might already be possible with 5 on each side. Verdant brink bosses are possible with small groups though T4 ing the map seems like a huge deal of coordination.

Its definitely not a bad idea to let successful completion of such things to be in the reach of smaller groups, while not altering the difficulty for bigger groups. The problem would be balancing that, so that people dont start shooing eachother away though.

In my opinion what handicaps Hot. Maps are too big combined with the population cap, so the map will be only 1/4 th filled and you will encounter many events which arent done by anyone. Too many timed larger area locking events, nightmode is not popular, many people afking when its on. And the maps and the events all feel like a hamsterwheel, thats how they are designed. That why i love the new open LS 3 map, With the base of casual little to normal sized events back. Most people dont want everything to be overcomplicated, they want to go straight into the action.