Guild Wars 2

Not acceptable.

The entire map is a meta event that starts every friggin hour or longer. There is nothing else do to other than wait for this stupid event. And You will NEVER land on a map that is anywhere near the timer cause everyone has filled them completely. So every time I waypoint to this map I have to wait 45-60 minutes for the event to start. If I waypoint out during that timeframe to do something else then come back…..the map I was in gets filled and im back to waiting 45-60 minutes.

I see squad postings in the lfg….i always join then and spend 10 minutes trying to get in and it never happens. I even ask them inchat if its full or not and noone ever answers. Noone ever removes the listing if the map is full either. I guess cause the map is always full and its just implied. Rude nontheless.

So I would like to play on this map someday plz anet. So if you could come up with a better system that allows me to wait maybe 10-15 minutes max….illl come back and wait and play the ‘defining’ map of the seemingly wasteful expansion.

Like my god how do you design the meta servers? You design them to open up when 1 map gets full and each meta server that spawns starts fresh?!!!!?? Don’t you seee how stupid and problematic that is with dragon’s stand? You need people to do the event! So even if you do wait in a map theres always the chance that the other ones are the full ones and urs is the empty one even if the event is going on in urs.

Everyone will bottleneck into the maps that have the event going. Once they are full new maps starting at 1 hr will appear and people will get dumped into them waiting to try to join into the event map. Then the maps with the event will end and people will jump into the dumping map of the last event since its the closest. Then probably a couple of other maps will open up. People won’t want to wait tho so they will bottlneck into the one map…others will just leave. Creating a scenario where there are very few maps with the event near/ongoing. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out how stupid such a system is.

back in gw2 on cursed shore many years ago you scattered the k-trains for screwing up the pve experience of other players. Why can’t you scatter the farm of this map so we can enjoy play the event for enjoyment like were supposed to?!??!?!
I just want to play….I can’t imagine how you would advertise HoT honestly:
“play in 4 new maps. the 3rd map though we designed so you can’t play unless you wait an hour and luck out on finding the map with population and hopefully ur map isn’t closed down due to lack of population while you wait! kitten de kitten ya’ll!”

They need to drop the initial event, which is like the hardest event in the game. It only guarantees that low population maps will never get started. Personally, if it wasn’t for that, I could have likely pushed one of the chains solo and gained attention along the way.

The design of the map was likely an experiment, which they should have taken further. Larger events should be separated from the map and something you specifically queue for. It guarantees that everyone has the same goal and these events can be tuned for exact numbers, say 20 people, but playing at the intended difficulty may prove too much for the average zerger.

All maps with Dragon’s Stand meta start at the same time (even hour +30 min UTC). It would be more effective if you go there 5-10 min before the maps close and new ones begin so that you can find a populated shard.

I get into dragon stand maps constantly with minimal waiting. Maybe it’s because I look at a timer site, know when it’s coming up, get into a group before it starts and wait, maybe 5-10 minutes for the start.

Timers are bad in certain ways and good in other ways. Showing up late and trying to get into a map though, is often (but not always) futile.

I am astonished how helpless people today are… really, I just wonder how they can survive.

You know when I first entered this map I just took some information from the internet:
- there are timers that show when the events start. Just play some other content and set an alert etc.
- as soon as the map resets there is a time you can easily join an LFG from a commander. I never ever fail at doing this, not if you wait for 5 minutes
- even then I managed to rejoin or join a map mid-meta-events just by spamming instance joining

Sure it’s not the best solution to make people play together, especially not for an open world map. That has been criticized for about 8 million times in this forum. They learned from it and changed quite a lot in the new maps.

Vayne.8563:

Maybe it’s because I look at a timer site, know when it’s coming up, get into a group before it starts and wait, maybe 5-10 minutes for the start.

The average player likely doesn’t follow timers, nor do they use LFG. For MMOs in general, most people just want to login and play, which is why most play solo, and they don’t usually take it outside of the game, like reading the forums.

Taxi’ing is the problem and something needs to be done about it. If nobody did it, every map should fill up to around 70% before a new one is created. When people taxi out, they’re killing their map, which overall, guarantees that a majority of the maps die out in favor of filling only a few of them. That 1 full map could easily split into 3-5 maps, likewise, the 5 dead maps could join into 1. People love their overpopulated maps however, which are generally more rewarding and support the AFK playstyle. In the end, there is always going to be that one last underpopulated map, which could be solved in various ways, such as balancing for smaller numbers or volunteering in reverse to split full ones. At this point, they should just take the easy road and implement districts, but they’re probably afraid of it revealing the active population.

I personally don’t have much problem entering and completing Dragon Stand. That said, the current design is just bad.

1) If you gonna have map on a timer you should have a timer in-game so that people don’t have to look for a website with the timer on it.
2) In game design you have the concept of entry and exit point. The concept is that your game should have natural exit and entry point into a content and for more casual player you want easier and more frequent entry/exit point. And tbh open world is suppose to be the casual content of GW2 and an entry/exit point each 2 hours is just too big. Hell that at the limit even for more hardcore players, that the entry/exit point of a raid.
3) The timer is even worst for Dragon Stand because if you can’t fill your map in the first 15-20min the chance of succeeding the meta is pretty small. The window to get into a successful map is very small.

This map should have followed the Silverwaste system from day one. Player driven events instead of time base. The is ways to make the current map work nicely with LFG and Timers, but it still a bad design.

How about:

You start the squad yourself from your map and push the meta ahead instead of pirate shipping into a full map that already help you finish majority of the steps already?

it would likely take too many resources and time, but i almost wish there was an explorable mode version of dragons stand, just for those that want to explore and/or collect noxious pods without the events or high mob density. tuned to about what tangled depths is.

actually as someone who just wanted to explore, i hate dragon stand.

I have not done the meta event but if the event is not going there is literally no one there and nothing to do.

So i wanted to just explore but all the wps are contested and so the whole map to me is a waste.

I love Verdint Brink, it has a bunch of small escort missions and bosses that can be killed solo but is very hard. And exploring is great, I like the other 2 maps less but at least i can run around by myself and do things.

Why i gave up on DS? I was towards the bottom of the map and i died, none of the near by wp were open. The emta event wasnt on for another 45 minutes so its just a map i really have no use for.

If Anet wants to admit to a wrong doing, it should be about how 3 out of the 4 maps for HOT is about zerging.

Seems slightly odd that people are complaining about timers on the only map that provides an in game timer …

Healix.5819:

Vayne.8563:

Maybe it’s because I look at a timer site, know when it’s coming up, get into a group before it starts and wait, maybe 5-10 minutes for the start.

The average player likely doesn’t follow timers, nor do they use LFG. For MMOs in general, most people just want to login and play, which is why most play solo, and they don’t usually take it outside of the game, like reading the forums.

Taxi’ing is the problem and something needs to be done about it. If nobody did it, every map should fill up to around 70% before a new one is created. When people taxi out, they’re killing their map, which overall, guarantees that a majority of the maps die out in favor of filling only a few of them. That 1 full map could easily split into 3-5 maps, likewise, the 5 dead maps could join into 1. People love their overpopulated maps however, which are generally more rewarding and support the AFK playstyle. In the end, there is always going to be that one last underpopulated map, which could be solved in various ways, such as balancing for smaller numbers or volunteering in reverse to split full ones. At this point, they should just take the easy road and implement districts, but they’re probably afraid of it revealing the active population.

The average player doesn’t have to play every single morsel of content. Timer sites have been a thing for years in this game. The average player would be better learning about and using both timer sites and LFG than ignoring it and hoping the game will change.

Some people won’t get it and those people will leave. But that’s true of things in almost any game. I’ve seen people walk away from games for all sorts of reasons.

Using a timer site is pretty easy. Using LFG is pretty easy and if you don’t want to do either you can always join a guild. Someone will be doing dragonstand and annouce it in guild chat and you’ll join them. So there’s another option as well.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Event_timers <- I recommend this to anyone and everyone.

I do this: Check the above timer, then turn up about 10 minutes the DS start (no later and sometimes earlier), and often find others do the same. If there’s a commander tag, I’ll join their squad, which goes some way to get back into the "right" map when the initial map fails. The majority of the time, I am able to complete DS this way. It also works for any of the other HoT metas. Sometimes I haven’t gotten back into the right map with the squad, and found I couldn’t get back to it, although recently I’ve not had this problem. Those older times, I’ve joined another commander, or advertised on LFG ("DS New map, needs commanders. Come for the cookies! Stay for the meta. Say if map full!" or something to that effect). I find it fills pretty fast.

I know the annoyance when you join something on LFG and the map is full. I try to find time to tell them - sometimes they may not know, so they’ve kept their ad up. If I’m in a hurry, however, I just look for another squad, or start my own requests.

Do I think this is the right way to do things? No, but it’s the way we’ve got right now, and this is the way to use it. I don’t think it hurts to register concerns or complaints, but I think there’s been consistent feedback in the last year or so on this subject. I imagine it’s something that will be being looked at, and hopefully honed for the better.

I’ve been doing Dragon’s stand quite a few times now (at launch and in recent months) and the trick is to use a tag, either mentor or commander (commander is preferred usually). Then set up your own squad and your own taxi well before the map begins. The number one issue I see at this time is the unwillingness of people to start leading or setting up the map. It’s also the reason I end up as a commander every single time, because when I go there I want to avoid wasting time waiting. You can use https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Event_timers to see when it’s about to start. Always come a few minutes early, but even if you come late you can sometimes still set one up. This sunday I set one up 10 minutes after the maps were already reset and by having another useful person also taxi-ing we actualy made it to the end very fast without many issues.

Communication is key, each lane squad commander should talk to the players there and try to invite those on their lane into his/her own squad. If people are in the wrong squad ask them to swap. After the first mortarvine I always make sure I either have a dedicated 5man boss group set up already or start setting one up by asking for volunteers. At this point you will want to have ~30 people on each lane that are in the proper squad. There will always be some that refuse to join or simply play with friends and you just have to ignore that or ask them kindly to join your squad so you can do a proper headcount. After the second mortarvine is killed you should start explaining what the task is of group 1 and group 2 (2 is generally used as the ‘boss group’). Whenever I lead I make sure I tell all the players to bring some healing and stunbreak skills before we reach the blighting towers. I tell people that group 1 should follow me and group 2 will kill the pods on the first cycle. I also try to keep an eye on group 1 straggling during the towers and the broadcast feature makes it easy to inform others that they aren’t doing what they should (i.e. many sticking around at a blighting pod or going for the boss).

Obviously this all comes after the event has started to run, but the gist of it is. If you can’t find a map, organize it yourself beforehand. You can often set up a squad 10-20 minutes beforehand and then ask others to fill up the map with a taxi once the map resets.