What do people do
Dragon’s Stand is run constantly every 2 hours (there’s multiple timers online). You need to arrive at the very beginning of the 2 hour window and then you need to use the LFG tool to taxi into an active map. Even very late at night I see dozens of taxi posts pop in and out of the LFG.
It’s a real pain, but the key is to get into a map that’s full before it completely fills up and you get stuck in a map with a low pop that isn’t even doing the events.
If you don’t make a full-ish map and are thrown into one that isn’t doing the events, then you have to wait another 2 hours to try again.
Certain times of the day have the maps filling faster than others, so peak times can be hard for getting into a map fast enough.
….then you need to use the LFG tool to taxi into an active map…..
Uh, is this not the very definition of a dead game?
….then you need to use the LFG tool to taxi into an active map…..
Uh, is this not the very definition of a dead game?
Actually, it’s the definition of a broken Mega-Server system. Even at off hours there can be several full maps running Dragon’s Stand. The problem is Anet doesn’t understand how players want to play the game. If there are 500 players ready to play DS, instead of making 5 full maps for those players, the Mega-Server system creates 20 mostly empty maps and scatters everyone around. Since most players don’t want to fuss around trying to organize, they all stand around waiting for a few people on a few of the maps to tag up and do the organizing. Then they all taxi into those maps leaving all players who don’t use LFG in even emptier maps.
There’s plenty of players. It’s just the system is broken.
There’s plenty of players. It’s just the system is broken.
I challenge you to go to any Boss, such as Jormag, Shadow Behemoth, Frozen Maw, etc. and not see 40 to 50 players. The Megaserver does a fine job of grouping people together for those events.
But then again, those events are of short duration. The HoT events are empty because the time required and the level of map wide coordination needed is not justified by the rewards. Their novelty has worn off, and they are no longer attractive to players.
The Megaserver is not what is broken.
(edited by Soon.5240)
There’s plenty of players. It’s just the system is broken.
I challenge you to go to any Boss, such as Jormag, Shadow Behemoth, Frozen Maw, etc. and not see 40 to 50 players.
That’s a poor comparison. Very few people bother with Central Tyria maps outside of specific wants and needs (like world bosses). Therefore when the time comes it is super easy to pile in tons of players for an event where you just auto-attack. The mega-server system worked fine for those needs. Go to a Central Tyria map outside of world bosses or guilds running a mission and you see an even lighter scattering of players then you would in HoT.
Tequatl is a boss you can compare to the HoT situation. Tequatl has a couple of full maps that players taxi into and run the event and then tons of empty maps that players couldn’t run the event if their life depended on it (so they taxi). HoT maps have tons of players at the Meta event times. But like Tequatl, it requires a taxi to get everyone together since there are too many maps spreading people out.
GW1 has the best system in place. The city maps would only open a new instance if the first map was pretty much full. GW2 needs to do this.
That’s a poor comparison.
I did not make a comparison – just the opposite.
I said that the time required and the rewards available for completion of events in HoT have driven people to other regions. For those that have acquired their Mastery Points in HoT, there is very little to motivate them to go back and repeat events. Too much trouble, too little reward.
If the HoT maps were wildly popular, then LFG would not be necessary. People would be lined up three-deep doing the content. But that is not happening.
It ain’t as complicated as you appear to be making it.
Most of the HoT events require organization and cooperation to succeed whereas old tyria world bosses just require a few people spamming 1 afking. This is the main reason why they seem empty, because people aren’t willing to lead and expect others to do so (aka taxi wars 2)
FOR THE GREEEEEEEEEEEEN
…. because people aren’t willing to lead and expect others to do so (aka taxi wars 2)
Or perhaps they just don’t find this type of PvE to be fun or very rewarding relative to the time they have available to play the game.
Do you really think that Anet planned on needing to LFG the HoT maps in a month or so of their release? Do you think the people financially backing the expansion are happy that LFG’ing is necessary just to fill maps? Why didn’t Anet have to ADD new servers to accommodate the huge influx of new players clamoring to play the expansion? That’s what they HOPED would happen, but it obviously has not.
Rather than argue that people “expect other to do so” (which is nothing more than a feigned insult to them), the easiest explanation is that the HoT maps have little in the way of replayability and that most people “hit it and quit it”.