Why is map taxi seen as bad?
The map taxi-ing is double edged. Either you’re on a map where people attempt the meta, or you’re not and left out. Instead of it being something that ALWAYS helps players it just helps the players that are fast enough, prepare in advance and use the LFG tool specifically to do the content.
While that isn’t necessarily bad on it’s own it’s something people are relying on up to the point where they don’t even attempt the Meta if they are not in an organized map. Which I think is pretty bad for the more natural exploring experience. (Meaning that if you’re doing it mostly casually you’ll (feel the) need to switch to a populated map instance rather than staying in the one you were exploring, in order to play the meta successfully.
What could potentially fix it, is scaling these events better or so that when there are less people they become slightly easier or equally hard to do than when there is alot of people.
Though I would say that would be fairly controversial as you would get into situations where people want to be in emptier maps or start saying that people should leave rather than join in together. But already, not everyone notices that 5 people can usually get pretty far in one part of a meta if they are good enough already. I definitely 5 manned several of the verdant brink bosses and 5 manned one side of defending Tarir.
Another thing that potentially would help is when commanding these events you need a commander tag to be taken seriously, making that tool easier to get could potentially make it easier for people to organize themselves. Or any other tool that makes organizing easier.
Personally I think people should be less afraid of trying these events with less people, failure or not as in most cases it’s a much more rewarding experience when you’re not part of a 15+ player group. But that’s obviously very subjective, and it would definitely mean people would fail more than they do now, so on the other hand there’s also alot of reasons why the system that is in place currently is also not completely bad. More players together means easier success means less time wasted. And a system that encourages players to work in larger groups also can feel bigger and more social.
And let’s be honest, most MMO players just want a relaxed time, doing some easy going events with the most rewards. Rather than a challenging experience that has a higher chance to fail and thus give you less reward.
TL;DR
Map taxi isn’t bad, just something that is is the easiest most successful way of doing the events. And on the other hand makes the empty maps feel very much like wastelands where people don’t attempt the event as it’s much more likely to fail, thus a waste of time in many peoples eyes.
Ingame Name: Guardian Erik
Map taxi isn’t bad, just something that is is the easiest most successful way of doing the events. And on the other hand makes the empty maps feel very much like wastelands where people don’t attempt the event as it’s much more likely to fail, thus a waste of time in many peoples eyes.
It’s good for the few, but bad for everyone else as it further fuels the zerg mindset and potentially kills off the other maps as people leave or continue to try to. That full map could easily split in two and still have more than enough people to complete the meta. People become accustomed to the ease of zerging however and anything less is unacceptable. Why bother with a lesser populated map when the average player can practically AFK through a full one for a guaranteed win. Meanwhile, the people that don’t taxi and always find themselves in dead maps eventually stop showing up.
Even if the maps were populated however, people’s perception can be a major problem. If people don’t know where others are, they see no commanders for example, they’ll assume the map is dead. The UI should help with that by showing all events, how many people they’re actually scaled for, how many people are nearby and there should be an easy way to request help (ping chat and show an icon on the map for example).
What could potentially fix it, is scaling these events better or so that when there are less people they become slightly easier or equally hard to do than when there is alot of people.
Group events generally begin scaling at 3 people. Scaling isn’t 1:1 however, because when it is, the zerg fails hard, like Shatterer’s pre-nerf impossible breakbar. The average player simply isn’t good, so it needs to get easier with more, otherwise you will get into that situation where people don’t just want you to leave, you’ll have to. There’s really no reason however to not make it easier with less, except that that was meant to be the normal difficulty.
It’s not bad per se, but its very existence highlights flaws with the megaserver system.
Something I will add to the posts above is that the existence of taxiing encourages players to taxi instead of actually trying to complete the meta events themselves. It’s certainly true that you could complete the meta for any of the HoT maps with way fewer than the max number of players (besides maybe DS, I haven’t played that one much), but anyone who wants to do the meta will just spend their time spamming right click → join map instead of just completing the map they’re on.
Obviously some form of taxiing needs to exist so that friends and guildies can ensure they are in the same map, but it would be nice to have a queue system or something so that people would actually participate in their current map, and then they can decline the map change later on if their own map is going well.
@Healix, very interesting point of view. I actually never thought about that, or how some overflows can fail because of lack of visual information about the actual map population and ongoing events. I wonder what would be the best way to convey such info?
Lack of visual information?
Really?
Because the timers on the right side of your UI- Specifically COUNTING down when something is going to go down isn’t enough?
The mega-server- Is awesome. Any flaw was fixed when they finally updated the LFG tool. Ya gotta taxi people.
If anyone remembers the game prior to it’s introduction- It was terrible finding people to do events with if you were on a low-pop server…So they introduced guesting- You’d guest to like JQ or BG and have to show up HOURS before an event spawned to not get into an overflow.
You think taxing over to Teq 30 minutes before reset is bad? Try hoping to find a map a 3 hours before Teq- and still be stuck an overflow.
Literally everything is provided for you. I don’t camp events- i don’t do anything. I check the LFG 10 minutes before any HoT meta- get a taxi. Boom, easy.
He was referring to lack of visual information about the map population. Not the meta event.
You think taxing over to Teq 30 minutes before reset is bad? Try hoping to find a map a 3 hours before Teq- and still be stuck an overflow.
Ah I remember when Teq was first updated to how he is now, if you got on one of the top maps you stayed there and didn’t leave ever. I was there for the 2nd ever kill of that giant lizard (BG for life!), would of been there for the first but my computer had a quick disconnect and I got booted out. And not only was there the taxing with guesting for Teq but there was also the fact that every server had a different time for world bosses and it was random. If mega servers weren’t added, good luck completing any world boss now that is needed for a collection. Anyone who complains about the mega server clearly did not play when all the servers were separate.
its bad in the sense that we shouldnt be needing to do this to get into populated maps, the mega server system should be appropriately filtering us into the next shard that needs filling
It probably wouldn’t be as much of an issue if megaservers worked properly and didn’t attempt to ferry people from a populated map to a nearly empty one.
It’s good for the few, but bad for everyone else as it further fuels the zerg mindset and potentially kills off the other maps as people leave or continue to try to.
This is the fault of people, not the game. Get there early is STILL the mantra. Can’t get onto a full map, start another. There can’t be only three commanders in the whole game trying to get into DS or TD for instance. On a new map? Start a new instance, pop a tag, throw up your taxi.
That full map could easily split in two and still have more than enough people to complete the meta.
No it couldn’t. The map fills and becomes full. It can’t easily do anything. And why should it? Those people joined that map and want to play on it. If you’re not on that map, start a new one, there are enough people to fill a map and start a second instance, they just need a taxi so they join you on yours.
Meanwhile, the people that don’t taxi and always find themselves in dead maps eventually stop showing up.
Do they? I’d suggest they eventually figure out they need to turn up earlier to get in. Why is the map dead? Because nobody will throw up a tag and start a taxi? Because that’s the answer. It’s not really dead just doesn’t have visible tags.
Even if the maps were populated however, people’s perception can be a major problem. If people don’t know where others are, they see no commanders for example, they’ll assume the map is dead.
A people problem that I’m not seeing. If you see no commanders, pop a commander or mentor tag and throw up an LFG taxi. People assume if you are taxi’ing that you are playing on that map and before long, you all are.
The UI should help with that by showing all events, how many people they’re actually scaled for, how many people are nearby and there should be an easy way to request help (ping chat and show an icon on the map for example).
When I’m in a squad I see all that, map chat tells me the rest. I agree the UI could do many more things than it does, I recently found I couldn’t talk to a Priory weaponseller as I hadn’t joined the Priory and had to hunt for a toon that had. It’s not obvious. But in a squad I see what all those people near me are doing and other lanes, well I don’t need to see them, map chat covers it. I don’t think there is an easy way to request help. You can ping a poi or wp near you and ask for help already – easy if you are near one – but getting that help to come to you? Player choice and terrain difficulty means you might be somewhere hard to get to or nobody is interested.
The average player simply isn’t good, so it needs to get easier with more, otherwise you will get into that situation where people don’t just want you to leave, you’ll have to. There’s really no reason however to not make it easier with less, except that that was meant to be the normal difficulty.
This seems a bit unfair on the average player. If you’ve made it into HoT for instance you’re already pretty good and you quickly learn not to stand still or stand in gunk or run ahead or lag behind. Where you can stand still – and how many people still stand at the old Shatterer spot and dps ineffectively – I suggest a bit of shaming. Name a toon “awful squad”, pop a commander tag and invite all those people. Then try and drag them away with squad chat. Might get some traction. If eventually there just ends up one afk ranger there then they’re not scaling anything up and you can ignore them.
pve, raid, pvp, fractal, dungeon, world clearing, legendary questing.. Zapped!
Why is map taxi seen as bad?
Because there is a system in place called mega servers that if Anet actually got round to fixing it, would eliminate having dozens of empty maps and one full map that most people can’t get into.
It has a couple of maps, one is full and you can start on the next one by throwing up a lfg taxi for people to join on you. Soon you will have a second full map. There will always be a third map where someone is wandering round despite the inherent madness in doing that. That’s probably me doing map complete and gathering bits of things on the way. Apologies if you end up on that map, please use LFG taxi to get people to the second map.
pve, raid, pvp, fractal, dungeon, world clearing, legendary questing.. Zapped!
Taxiing does indeed contribute to map emptiness. The mega server is designed to open new shards before the first shard has filled. When people congregate to one partially-filled shard, they are leaving another partially-filled shard to do so.
Taxiing only works for a certain percentage of players at any given time. Generally, there will be more emptying shards than filling ones. This will be especially true if there are enough players to fill multiple maps at any given time. The fact that someone can be merged to multiple seemingly empty maps in a row is evidence of this.
There is a significant number of players who do not care to “pop a tag” and thus take responsibility for a map. Similarly, there are a lot of players who don’t care to start dungeon/raid LFG’s for similar reasons. I would not be surprised if the number of players who prefer to be followers as opposed to leaders mirrors similar numbers in the rest of life. For another thing, starting a taxi is not a guarantee “your” map will fill. This is especially so if the player popping the tag does not know the event well enough to “lead.” Players will be quick to leave if there doesn’t seem to be both knowledge and progress being demonstrated. Just think about any Teq map where no one is forming shore/hills teams.
Unfortunately, I’m not sure there is a fix for this situation. ANet cannot/will not get rid of the “Join In” feature which enables taxiing. If they did, they would be removing players’ ability to join their guild members/friends at the same time. This is not going to happen.
People seem to think there is some magic fix that will make mega-server better by eliminating emptier maps. I doubt this, very much. At best, there can be some tweaking of numbers with regard to when new shards form or to when shards close. Such fixes might mean fewer emptier shards, but will certainly not eliminate the problem.
Taxiing is a form of “following the path of least resistance.” That tendency is part of the human psyche, and is not going away, period. The only way to make players choose a harder path would be to eliminate the easier path. That’s not going to happen.
because it makes people only want to do the meta on the one map and if they can’t get in they won’t do it, even if the map they are on has enough people.
Even on the full maps people tend to just auto attack bosses instead of using cc when needed or if they die just wait it out because they dealt enough damage to get the gold.
Map taxi isn’t bad, just something that is is the easiest most successful way of doing the events. And on the other hand makes the empty maps feel very much like wastelands where people don’t attempt the event as it’s much more likely to fail, thus a waste of time in many peoples eyes.
It’s good for the few, but bad for everyone else as it further fuels the zerg mindset and potentially kills off the other maps as people leave or continue to try to. That full map could easily split in two and still have more than enough people to complete the meta. People become accustomed to the ease of zerging however and anything less is unacceptable. Why bother with a lesser populated map when the average player can practically AFK through a full one for a guaranteed win. Meanwhile, the people that don’t taxi and always find themselves in dead maps eventually stop showing up.
Even if the maps were populated however, people’s perception can be a major problem. If people don’t know where others are, they see no commanders for example, they’ll assume the map is dead. The UI should help with that by showing all events, how many people they’re actually scaled for, how many people are nearby and there should be an easy way to request help (ping chat and show an icon on the map for example).
What could potentially fix it, is scaling these events better or so that when there are less people they become slightly easier or equally hard to do than when there is alot of people.
Group events generally begin scaling at 3 people. Scaling isn’t 1:1 however, because when it is, the zerg fails hard, like Shatterer’s pre-nerf impossible breakbar. The average player simply isn’t good, so it needs to get easier with more, otherwise you will get into that situation where people don’t just want you to leave, you’ll have to. There’s really no reason however to not make it easier with less, except that that was meant to be the normal difficulty.
This is pretty much on point.
I don’t dislike the system though – I’m not one who really enjoys open world content so being able to do it easily and get carried by zergs is really nice. Gives me more time to tab out and stuff.
And I know people will be shocked and appalled but I’m not going to put 100% effort in unless I know others are as well. Like with a TTS overflow map, or other organized things.
On top of that putting 100% effort into something that randoms half the map away can fail because they can’t be bothered to think or even read map chat is a bad investment.
So map events for me go like “show up – tag – get reward – get out”.
Should this be changed? Yes and no.
I think a lot of players enjoy the zerg – it makes it easy and accessible for a lot of people and the “failproof maps” also keep toxicity in check because nobody is upset if maps succeed.
Simply put – fewer people on map = harder content which means more toxicity.
(edited by Harper.4173)
In GW1 there was a concept of “district selection”, and I saw that in TERA: Online as well.
I still don’t understand why ArenaNet removed it from GW2 when it’s such a quality of life issue, choosing a particular map instance. Now, if the instance is full then it just pops a message, but the choice ought to be there.