Even with downranking, rewards and population is always better at high/peak levels.
If you put in upranking (sidekicking up) you might as well not have levels in the first place.
It's all about zone design too.
Zones at all = bad.
Bring back borderless/seemless regions, more geographical area to put content across the wide spectrum of player advancement.
Newbie toons surrounded by newbie mobs with high level dungeons and caves or open farming areas on the edges.
Noobs will learn to avoid.
Zones are fine, because they generally help a game run better. Zones certainly didnt hurt EQ, but EQ's zone design was closer to what you are proposing.
GW2 is a unique case, because their intention was for people to be in all zones because of the downleveling. But the issue is once you 100% a zone, there is no incentive to return. GW2 needs to figure out how to give incentive.
Now as time goes on and the game grows, the world is going to become too big to expect activity eveywhere, but there is no reason to rotate things around so at least one zone from each level range be populated.
Its up to ANet to figure out how to make this happen
In my opinion, Rift (Trion) has the best offering in terms of dynamic content, it feels the most dynamic out of the games listed in this thread and is completely optional.
Yet, if you choose to participate in closing Rifts and stopping invasions you are rewarded with useful items / currency.
Zones are currently necessary in GW2 due to the Dynamic Event system. When you load into a zone your system needs to be aware of the states of all the events in that zone due to the fact that they can vary. In static quest systems ("!" style) the NPCs are effectively part of the terrain and in most cases will always be at a spot, like a rock. Static worlds allow for more "open" style maps since there's less information that needs to be shared.
Even with downranking, rewards and population is always better at high/peak levels.
If you put in upranking (sidekicking up) you might as well not have levels in the first place.
It's all about zone design too.
Zones at all = bad.
Bring back borderless/seemless regions, more geographical area to put content across the wide spectrum of player advancement.
Newbie toons surrounded by newbie mobs with high level dungeons and caves or open farming areas on the edges.
Noobs will learn to avoid.
Simple conning systems always work.
Ideal map? Something like this.
I don't think it will happen - Why you might say? 1. People want to know they are progressing, you take levels away, how do you show progression? 2. People like to know how they compare to others - this is the way to do it. We wouldn't have all these different competitions and sports events if we didn't want to know. 3. COMPETITION - I am better than you attitude.
Zones are used to help keep server cost down, plain and simple. Anytime you have fancy travel, like WoW or TERA, or GW2, you have zones. It also makes the game more compartmentalized and easier to develop for. Not saying it is right, but it happens.
It's always been like that, with "dead zones" and "crowded zones". Some of us "old players" just did not have that feeling back then because we were blinded by the huge grind. Practically, it took me a year and a half to reach max level in Anarchy Online, and 80% of the leveling time was spent in one of 3-4 spots, doing the same thing over and over again. It took me another half year to get "everything i want" by joining the public raids. Still, there were some "set zones" and groups because that's how old games worked, you grouped up and started grinding in order to level. When you can level solo from 20 to 30 in two days, in a game with 60 levels, no wonder that there is no 20-30 crowded area. Normal players go through the area quickly, and alts of existing players fly through it.
It's always been like that, with "dead zones" and "crowded zones". Some of us "old players" just did not have that feeling back then because we were blinded by the huge grind. Practically, it took me a year and a half to reach max level in Anarchy Online, and 80% of the leveling time was spent in one of 3-4 spots, doing the same thing over and over again. It took me another half year to get "everything i want" by joining the public raids. Still, there were some "set zones" and groups because that's how old games worked, you grouped up and started grinding in order to level. When you can level solo from 20 to 30 in two days, in a game with 60 levels, no wonder that there is no 20-30 crowded area. Normal players go through the area quickly, and alts of existing players fly through it.
I have played 300 hours on one character and just got to lvl 80 - it does take a while even though the amount of EXP needed between levels is the same.
Rifts in Rift at any lvl can always see people doing um. at least i find this true on Faeblight server.
Minor rifts are sometimes closed because they are soloable.
Major rifts sit forever in any non-expansion zone because they cant be soloed.
Invasions get activity because they are broadcast to everyone. However, invasions are uncommon in the midlevel zones because there are usually not enough people in them to trigger the invasions.
Basically, the GW2 social experiment failed. The forced level scaling didn't really do enough to make sure there was still a healthy spread of players in all leveling areas. There isn't really much of an incentive for max level players to grind out low level DEs.
Actually, you don't even run into that many DEs now. I would assume this is due to the lack of people in the mid-level zones, but from 28-40 I think I ran maybe 4-5 DEs. Most of my leveling these days is done via hearts, story quests, exploration, skill challenges, and mob grinding.
Still, I don't think DEs were a mistake on Anet's part. They clearly don't work as advertised, but anyone with functioning brain cells didn't expect them to be much else aside from glorified public quests. They low level ones were fun when the game had the low level population to support them, and I would assume max level characters still run DEs in higher level zones.
GW2 is like any MMO that has been out for several months. You're just playing catch-up until you reach max level. Now the problem with GW2 is the lack of meaningful things to do once you reach the max level.
Do these people suffering from the toils and burdens of soloing ever consider saying "need help with X" or "X event starting" ? Or do the sit there by themselves banging their head into the wall wondering why nobody helps them out.
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
Originally posted by eyelolled Do these people suffering from the toils and burdens of soloing ever consider saying "need help with X" or "X event starting" ? Or do the sit there by themselves banging their head into the wall wondering why nobody helps them out.
Yeah problem is that not enough people are around to help them with x and y in low level and medium zones. Not all are lucky and blessd like you to be surrounded by players in every zone they go.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.' -Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid." -Luke McKinney
The obvious answer is to provide rewards for DE's that will draw people to them. It's not so much a population problem as it is a population distribution problem.
Originally posted by eyelolled Do these people suffering from the toils and burdens of soloing ever consider saying "need help with X" or "X event starting" ? Or do the sit there by themselves banging their head into the wall wondering why nobody helps them out.
Nah they just skip and do something else if they can. It's a natural human reaction, when some other path exists. When we see the sign "road blocked for 1 hour, detour here", most people won't sit for 1 hour waiting for the road to be available again.
I really really cannot understand what the devs are thinking, does not make sense to me at all. They make a game where the "normal" path is solo to max level then they drop some "group content" stuff on the way, thinking that players would actually group and go for those, when the game teaches you that there is no reason to group. Same goes for the "raiding" endgame, most of the games give absolutely no alternative for PvE progression but raids, and after your two-to-four weeks solo adventure to max level, you're told "ok, now you need to group and fulfill a role. Group with random people that you might not see ever again and play nice". No wonder then why the communities in today's games look so retarded.
Either have solo leveling, solo events, solo end game and make the game play like a single player RPG with chat and auction house or have party leveling, party events, party end game. Be consistent.
Originally posted by ShakyMo perhaps levels are the problem
How long have i been saying that for now....
Thats what pretty much every sandbox player has been saying.
Lets look at it hypothetically: Say GW2 had no levels (which you can do in this case, because if everyone were 80 it would effectively have no levels).
How does this solve the problem of most of the zones being empty? people are still going to tend to congregate in hot spots.
Originally posted by InFlamestwo NO. Guild Wars 2 is still smooth and have a steady and growing playerbase.
This is how I feel, I just started playing again and in every single zone people are doing events, calling them out in map chat and everything, its awesome!
I do see that at times an event is happening and no one is around, but that doesn't mean people passed it and don't care, sometimes they simply don't see it! I call it out and link a waypoint, people start pouring in.
Originally posted by eyelolled Do these people suffering from the toils and burdens of soloing ever consider saying "need help with X" or "X event starting" ? Or do the sit there by themselves banging their head into the wall wondering why nobody helps them out.
Yeah problem is that not enough people are around to help them with x and y in low level and medium zones. Not all are lucky and blessd like you to be surrounded by players in every zone they go.
Apparantly not. Maybe I just picked a better server as it still remains as one of the full servers, but I don't have a problem at all. I find the current population to be fantastic. It's a nice amount of players so that you can do every event except for maybe the obscure ones, and yet not so many people that it's just a zerg of people where ones actions are just lost into the mass.
I don't doubt that there are players still struggling with the combat mechanics, and they end up unable to do some of the little events by themselves. I feel sorry for those people, but I don't think the game should be dumbed down more just so they can have a fair shake at it.
The only DE's that are not soloable are the World Events or Group Events, and I have never seen a time where a map chat request didn't bring more than enough people.
The other thing that nobody seems to factor, is it's ok to fail at the event. You still get rewarded, and you might be able to see a different dynamic outcome than always succeeding at the events.
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
The other thing that nobody seems to factor, is it's ok to fail at the event. You still get rewarded, and you might be able to see a different dynamic outcome than always succeeding at the events.
Yep, sometimes It's better to fail an event than "kill" it in It's early stage.
Originally posted by eyelolled Do these people suffering from the toils and burdens of soloing ever consider saying "need help with X" or "X event starting" ? Or do the sit there by themselves banging their head into the wall wondering why nobody helps them out.
Yeah problem is that not enough people are around to help them with x and y in low level and medium zones. Not all are lucky and blessd like you to be surrounded by players in every zone they go.
Apparantly not. Maybe I just picked a better server as it still remains as one of the full servers, but I don't have a problem at all. I find the current population to be fantastic. It's a nice amount of players so that you can do every event except for maybe the obscure ones, and yet not so many people that it's just a zerg of people where ones actions are just lost into the mass.
I don't doubt that there are players still struggling with the combat mechanics, and they end up unable to do some of the little events by themselves. I feel sorry for those people, but I don't think the game should be dumbed down more just so they can have a fair shake at it.
The only DE's that are not soloable are the World Events or Group Events, and I have never seen a time where a map chat request didn't bring more than enough people.
The other thing that nobody seems to factor, is it's ok to fail at the event. You still get rewarded, and you might be able to see a different dynamic outcome than always succeeding at the events.
Like i said not all of us are fortunate like you. I also play on the most heavily populated server in EU and other than W v W and LA rest of the zones are deserted. It is getting harder to find people even in ORR during prime times.
If all of us were as lucky as you, we wouldn't be talking about this issue here now would we?
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.' -Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid." -Luke McKinney
Oh and as to why I didn't eleborate, the first page about covered what needs to be said, good try though OP.
I might get banned for this. - Rizel Star.
I'm not afraid to tell trolls what they [need] to hear, even if that means for me to have an forced absence afterwards.
P2P LOGIC = If it's P2P it means longevity, overall better game, and THE BEST SUPPORT EVER!!!!!(Which has been rinsed and repeated about a thousand times)
Common Sense Logic = P2P logic is no better than F2P Logic.
Oh and as to why I didn't eleborate, the first page about covered what needs to be said, good try though OP.
What do you mean good try? Are you trying to say im lying or trying to troll?
You guys really need to get over this, if someone says something negative about my game they must hate it line of thinking.
I'm actually playing GW2 as i type this...
Bringing up an obvious flaw in game design doesn't mean im trying to troll or spread misinformation...
Gw2 in a lot of ways is a really good game but to focus the most hyped mechanic in the game around high zone population was an obvious mistake. So much so that A-net has already gone on record saying they intend to fix the issue.
Comments
Levels are the problem.
Levels split a community.
Even with downranking, rewards and population is always better at high/peak levels.
If you put in upranking (sidekicking up) you might as well not have levels in the first place.
It's all about zone design too.
Zones at all = bad.
Bring back borderless/seemless regions, more geographical area to put content across the wide spectrum of player advancement.
Newbie toons surrounded by newbie mobs with high level dungeons and caves or open farming areas on the edges.
Noobs will learn to avoid.
Simple conning systems always work.
Ideal map? Something like this.
Looks like an ass with severe fungus infection
Anywho, yes Spock that would be ideal things to do in zones not only in GW2 but in all themepark games.
If it's not broken, you are not innovating.
Zones are fine, because they generally help a game run better. Zones certainly didnt hurt EQ, but EQ's zone design was closer to what you are proposing.
GW2 is a unique case, because their intention was for people to be in all zones because of the downleveling. But the issue is once you 100% a zone, there is no incentive to return. GW2 needs to figure out how to give incentive.
Now as time goes on and the game grows, the world is going to become too big to expect activity eveywhere, but there is no reason to rotate things around so at least one zone from each level range be populated.
Its up to ANet to figure out how to make this happen
In my opinion, Rift (Trion) has the best offering in terms of dynamic content, it feels the most dynamic out of the games listed in this thread and is completely optional.
Yet, if you choose to participate in closing Rifts and stopping invasions you are rewarded with useful items / currency.
Oderint, dum metuant.
I don't think it will happen - Why you might say? 1. People want to know they are progressing, you take levels away, how do you show progression? 2. People like to know how they compare to others - this is the way to do it. We wouldn't have all these different competitions and sports events if we didn't want to know. 3. COMPETITION - I am better than you attitude.
Zones are used to help keep server cost down, plain and simple. Anytime you have fancy travel, like WoW or TERA, or GW2, you have zones. It also makes the game more compartmentalized and easier to develop for. Not saying it is right, but it happens.
It's always been like that, with "dead zones" and "crowded zones". Some of us "old players" just did not have that feeling back then because we were blinded by the huge grind. Practically, it took me a year and a half to reach max level in Anarchy Online, and 80% of the leveling time was spent in one of 3-4 spots, doing the same thing over and over again. It took me another half year to get "everything i want" by joining the public raids. Still, there were some "set zones" and groups because that's how old games worked, you grouped up and started grinding in order to level. When you can level solo from 20 to 30 in two days, in a game with 60 levels, no wonder that there is no 20-30 crowded area. Normal players go through the area quickly, and alts of existing players fly through it.
I have played 300 hours on one character and just got to lvl 80 - it does take a while even though the amount of EXP needed between levels is the same.
No idea why ya mention Rift,
Rifts in Rift at any lvl can always see people doing um. at least i find this true on Faeblight server.
Minor rifts are sometimes closed because they are soloable.
Major rifts sit forever in any non-expansion zone because they cant be soloed.
Invasions get activity because they are broadcast to everyone. However, invasions are uncommon in the midlevel zones because there are usually not enough people in them to trigger the invasions.
Basically, the GW2 social experiment failed. The forced level scaling didn't really do enough to make sure there was still a healthy spread of players in all leveling areas. There isn't really much of an incentive for max level players to grind out low level DEs.
Actually, you don't even run into that many DEs now. I would assume this is due to the lack of people in the mid-level zones, but from 28-40 I think I ran maybe 4-5 DEs. Most of my leveling these days is done via hearts, story quests, exploration, skill challenges, and mob grinding.
Still, I don't think DEs were a mistake on Anet's part. They clearly don't work as advertised, but anyone with functioning brain cells didn't expect them to be much else aside from glorified public quests. They low level ones were fun when the game had the low level population to support them, and I would assume max level characters still run DEs in higher level zones.
GW2 is like any MMO that has been out for several months. You're just playing catch-up until you reach max level. Now the problem with GW2 is the lack of meaningful things to do once you reach the max level.
Thats what pretty much every sandbox player has been saying.
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I don't hate much, but I hate Apple© with a passion. If Steve Jobs was alive, I would punch him in the face.
Yeah problem is that not enough people are around to help them with x and y in low level and medium zones. Not all are lucky and blessd like you to be surrounded by players in every zone they go.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
-Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
-Luke McKinney
Nah they just skip and do something else if they can. It's a natural human reaction, when some other path exists. When we see the sign "road blocked for 1 hour, detour here", most people won't sit for 1 hour waiting for the road to be available again.
I really really cannot understand what the devs are thinking, does not make sense to me at all. They make a game where the "normal" path is solo to max level then they drop some "group content" stuff on the way, thinking that players would actually group and go for those, when the game teaches you that there is no reason to group. Same goes for the "raiding" endgame, most of the games give absolutely no alternative for PvE progression but raids, and after your two-to-four weeks solo adventure to max level, you're told "ok, now you need to group and fulfill a role. Group with random people that you might not see ever again and play nice". No wonder then why the communities in today's games look so retarded.
Either have solo leveling, solo events, solo end game and make the game play like a single player RPG with chat and auction house or have party leveling, party events, party end game. Be consistent.
Lets look at it hypothetically: Say GW2 had no levels (which you can do in this case, because if everyone were 80 it would effectively have no levels).
How does this solve the problem of most of the zones being empty? people are still going to tend to congregate in hot spots.
This is how I feel, I just started playing again and in every single zone people are doing events, calling them out in map chat and everything, its awesome!
I do see that at times an event is happening and no one is around, but that doesn't mean people passed it and don't care, sometimes they simply don't see it! I call it out and link a waypoint, people start pouring in.
Apparantly not. Maybe I just picked a better server as it still remains as one of the full servers, but I don't have a problem at all. I find the current population to be fantastic. It's a nice amount of players so that you can do every event except for maybe the obscure ones, and yet not so many people that it's just a zerg of people where ones actions are just lost into the mass.
I don't doubt that there are players still struggling with the combat mechanics, and they end up unable to do some of the little events by themselves. I feel sorry for those people, but I don't think the game should be dumbed down more just so they can have a fair shake at it.
The only DE's that are not soloable are the World Events or Group Events, and I have never seen a time where a map chat request didn't bring more than enough people.
The other thing that nobody seems to factor, is it's ok to fail at the event. You still get rewarded, and you might be able to see a different dynamic outcome than always succeeding at the events.
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I don't hate much, but I hate Apple© with a passion. If Steve Jobs was alive, I would punch him in the face.
One nice thing about GW2 is the level scaling. So its a lot of fun to go help guildies in older zones or visa versa.
Sometimes its nice to have some content that isn't soloable...don't people complain about that?
Yep, sometimes It's better to fail an event than "kill" it in It's early stage.
If it's not broken, you are not innovating.
Like i said not all of us are fortunate like you. I also play on the most heavily populated server in EU and other than W v W and LA rest of the zones are deserted. It is getting harder to find people even in ORR during prime times.
If all of us were as lucky as you, we wouldn't be talking about this issue here now would we?
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
-Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
-Luke McKinney
Naw not on planet Earth.
Oh and as to why I didn't eleborate, the first page about covered what needs to be said, good try though OP.
I might get banned for this. - Rizel Star.
I'm not afraid to tell trolls what they [need] to hear, even if that means for me to have an forced absence afterwards.
P2P LOGIC = If it's P2P it means longevity, overall better game, and THE BEST SUPPORT EVER!!!!!(Which has been rinsed and repeated about a thousand times)
Common Sense Logic = P2P logic is no better than F2P Logic.
What do you mean good try? Are you trying to say im lying or trying to troll?
You guys really need to get over this, if someone says something negative about my game they must hate it line of thinking.
I'm actually playing GW2 as i type this...
Bringing up an obvious flaw in game design doesn't mean im trying to troll or spread misinformation...
Gw2 in a lot of ways is a really good game but to focus the most hyped mechanic in the game around high zone population was an obvious mistake. So much so that A-net has already gone on record saying they intend to fix the issue.
So yes, this is a problem on "Planet earth".
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing