Why isn't instance changing by choice a thing already?

[Raidel.6134]

To start things off, a short story. I really want get bladed top piece, but there's only 2 ways to get it, PvP or Verdant Brink nighttime meta event. Since I'm not a PvP player, the only other choice for me is the meta event, problem is, currently, Verdant Brink is very much dead. Been trying to get it done for 2 weeks now, no luck, always get stuck at tier 3 at the very most, or wont even go beyond tier 1. But my participation has always been 200%. Today, I attempted again, got participation to 200% by the 20 minute mark, but the map was empty, was still T1, all the rally points were lost, no one was participating so beating the bosses was hopeless , but then I get a prompt to change instances, I figured there's no point in sticking around this dead instance, I joined, my participation went to 0% but the map was at Tier 2, so I quickly started participating in the boss kills and we actually hit Tier 4, I was overjoyed, but then I noticed my participation was a lousy 10% short from a 100%. so I quickly started running around doing whatever event came my way and whatever supplies I could find in the 2 and a half minutes left, I got to 95%, AND AGAIN, I didn't get the damned top! Would I have been able to join an actually active instance before all this begun, I would have finally succeeded.

 

So I ask this arenanet, WHY isn't changing instances a free choice!!? Why does the game always throw me into these mostly dead instances and thus causing me to completely miss out the map meta event. I cant solo champions or map bosses, I cant fend off a whole squad of elite creatures from a defensive point, and I can't push map meta completion to max by myself, this is utterly bogus!! Considering how map meta event important the HoT and PoF maps are, this should be a mandatory thing! Not waiting for a small chance that you get the automatic change prompt.

 

So why isn't changing instance already a thing? All things considered, it should be a 100% must feature at this point of the game.

[Randulf.7614]

You can use lfg to taxi into an active map. I use that to get into successful runs on VB on regular basis (EU)

[Brother.1504]

Wasn’t it a thing at launch but got exploited by players? Anyone remember the Legendary Karka fiasco? Players switching instances and getting dozens of precursors after the event was over.

[Raidel.6134]

> @"Brother.1504" said:

> Wasn’t it a thing at launch but got exploited by players? Anyone remember the Legendary Karka fiasco? Players switching instances and getting dozens of precursors after the event was over.

 

So Anets answer to that problem was not to fix it, but remove an entire mechanic? That sounds utterly dumb.

[Palador.2170]

> @"Brother.1504" said:

> Wasn’t it a thing at launch but got exploited by players? Anyone remember the Legendary Karka fiasco? Players switching instances and getting dozens of precursors after the event was over.

 

I wouldn't know, I worked that day. For me, that content never existed.

 

But no, you can't choose your instance. You can just exit and return, and hope you're in a new map. Or team with someone in another map, then join them on theirs.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Raidel.6134" said:

> > @"Brother.1504" said:

> > Wasn’t it a thing at launch but got exploited by players? Anyone remember the Legendary Karka fiasco? Players switching instances and getting dozens of precursors after the event was over.

>

> So Anets answer to that problem was not to fix it, but remove an entire mechanic? That sounds utterly dumb.

 

No, it wasn't ever a 'thing'. People had access to the same techniques available today: party up with someone in another instance already (and use the "join in" feature to change to their map) or return to character-select and try again.

****

 

And no, no one got "dozens of precursors." (well, possibly a few people, but not as many as reported). It was basically the same as AB multi-loot (or Istan Multi-loot) _except_ that there was a guaranteed reward of an exotic. Since every exotic has a chance to be a precursor and since (at the time) there were half a million people online at a time (at least at peak, which was near enough that week to be plausible), of course _some_ people were getting precursors and linking them. So it seemed like a lot relative to the nothing we normally notice. And since some people were able to "multi-loot" 6 or possible 12 times, those people got multiple chances to roll.

 

But generally, reports that folks were getting _dozens_ were based on feelings (or posts by trolls), not actual results.

 

FYI you could achieve those same results yourself today. Buy up as many pieces of unidentified gear as possible (blue are most economical; rares require less overall effort). Boost your MF to as high as you can go after doing the silverwastes meta. With ~900-1100% MF, if you open "enough" bags, you will get multiple precursors. (Actually, it works even with 0% MF, you just have to open loads more bags.) This is among the reasons that precursor prices dropped after PoF and again after Istan.

 

The biggest difference with the _Ancient_ Karka event: that was a guaranteed exotic and there weren't as many possible exotic drops available. Another big difference: prices were a lot lower for precursors back then. Zap was selling at 200 gold the week before the event, and price dropped to 90 gold after. Compare that to Zap selling for 800g the month before PoF launched, and 500g the month after.

 

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Raidel.6134" said:

> currently, Verdant Brink is very much dead.

That's not true. I'm sorry that _you_ haven't found a way to get into a T4 map, but it happens all the time.

 

> Been trying to get it done for 2 weeks now, no luck, always get stuck at tier 3 at the very most, or wont even go beyond tier 1.

It's the most confusing meta of HoT for a lot of people because, unlike AB & TD & DS, zerging hurts success rather than increasing the odds. T4 can be reached with about 15 people (fewer than the others) who know what they are doing, or 25-40 mostly-active **if** someone is explaining how it works.

 

 

> then I get a prompt to change instances,

Instead of waiting for a prompt, did you check LFG? That's how I've found T4 instances. It helps if they are being organized during daytime, because that gives time to explain the mechanics of reaching T4.

 

 

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

tl;dr maps will look dead unless you use LFG.

(and ANet isn't likely to change that, for a variety of reasons)

 

 

> WHY isn't changing instances a free choice!!? Why does the game always throw me into these mostly dead instances and thus causing me to completely miss out the map meta event.

Taking the second question first: it's a mathematical inevitability of the LFG system or even the "free choice" system you advocate.

* If the map is full or "soft capped", then newcomers get placed in a new instance.

* People who see a new instance (such as yourself) consider it dead, and give up on the meta (increasing its "deadness", leave (ditto), or try to get in a more active map (also ditto).

* Alternatively, sometimes people (largely in TD & AB, hardly ever on other maps, including Istan) start a new organized map in one of these so-called dead zones, often by posting in LFG. That ends up making that map full, which leads to other, newer instances that look dead.

* Sometimes, a guild will organize and move around many times to find room for all their members, which compounds the issue, by leaving multiple maps, each of which will seem even more dead.

 

> So why isn't changing instance already a thing? All things considered, it should be a 100% must feature at this point of the game.

Returning to your original question: it's not a thing because... I dunno. ANet has never explained this in any substantive way. They've mentioned that GW2 isn't GW1 and the tech is trickier. But... if they can volunteer us from a diminishing map to a fuller one, or enable us to LFG to any map, why aren't they able to list the instances that are already up & running?

 

I suspect it's partly because they don't want us obsessing over how many instances there are of each map. That leads to speculation about population & how well the game is doing, which are largely misleading for a variety of reasons. Personally, I'd prefer if they came out and made that explicit, e.g. "hey we could do expose the instances, but then we'd have to kill the game, so it's better for all of us not to."

 

 

[starlinvf.1358]

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

>

> > So why isn't changing instance already a thing? All things considered, it should be a 100% must feature at this point of the game.

> Returning to your original question: it's not a thing because... I dunno. ANet has never explained this in any substantive way. They've mentioned that GW2 isn't GW1 and the tech is trickier. But... if they can volunteer us from a diminishing map to a fuller one, or enable us to LFG to any map, why aren't they able to list the instances that are already up & running?

>

> I suspect it's partly because they don't want us obsessing over how many instances there are of each map. That leads to speculation about population & how well the game is doing, which are largely misleading for a variety of reasons. Personally, I'd prefer if they came out and made that explicit, e.g. "hey we could do expose the instances, but then we'd have to kill the game, so it's better for all of us not to."

>

>

 

Theres another, more pressing psychological reason..... one which the OP exemplifies. There exists an ongoing problem in matched based games where the players can see instance/server populations from a UI or other front end; and High cap shooters like Battlefield struggle with this the most. "People will ignore any instance below a threshold (usually 70-80%), and try to proactively focus on trying to muscle their way into a server which are consider "active" or near full to guaranty the most benefits as possible." Some other games where a low population can be exploited for personal gain (namely survival games with global persistence), players will try to target low pop servers to reduce competition for resources; sometimes which they can export to a more competitive server as a starting advantage.

 

When personal rewards become linked to other players, individuals will try to manipulate it like they do everything else. This often compounds the existing problem because a substantial number of players will suspend investment, or shift it toward getting into a instance with a higher reward ratio, rather then simply advancing the meta on their current instance or doing something else. I've spent the past 2 weeks trying to get Serpent's Ire for a collection, and people actively avoid doing it due to "perceived difficulty" and low reward ratio. Compare that to Octovine, which has people tripping over each other to get into an organized map rather then self organizing a new one. This is kind of insane when you consider the amount of overflow showing to up Octovine that could fill 2 maps with enough people to do the meta; but won't because it requires actual effort on their part. And this is on top of the people who only show up for the Loot phase taxis, and offer 0 contribution to the actual event.

 

Rather then help organize a map with the overflow, the majority would rather keep trying to join an already organized one, and the let others atrophy. As the overflow dwindles for various reasons (lack of interest, time of day, etc), even more focus gets put into the few instances which already have people; plus PUGs would rather overstack a map (even if it meant lower odds of success) just because there are more people there who they think can carry them. When I was playing BC2 and BF3 back in the day, only 5 servers were capped 24/7. The others were only populated during prime time, and you would very often see a huge divide in the server pops going from ~27/32 or ~55/64 (the open slots usually being Reserved) and suddenly nose dive to <6 people (which makes up over 50% of the available servers). I've been in a situation where trying to get a server populated to make it attractive can take a few hours, and requires a lot of people soldiering through crappy matches until the server gains momentum. And if the server loses momentum, its pretty much dead until the next prime time, where the process has to start over again. Those hand full of 24/7 servers are hosted either by a cyber cafe which can default their customers to it, or a Clan with a world wide coverage (to keep it filled).

 

Despite the differences in how the player base is sourced, the psychological effect is nearly identical. You can have 50% of a map cap spread across other instances of the map, or players monitoring it in LFG from other maps, waiting for someone else to organize a meta rather then do what it takes to get one rolling themselves. Then theres the functionality and initial investment cost of a Commander tag....... putting even more pressure on the few that go out of their way to buy to it, to do all work for the benefit of PUGs. I know a LOT of commanders who are so burnt out doing this, they stopped bothering to organize to try and force other players to step and get involved. But PUGs being lazy, too few of them are willing to do this.

 

And if you want to see this problem affecting a whole ecosystem, just watch WvW over the course of 2 weeks. In the lower tiers, almost nothing gets done without tag a herding the cats the around. Roaming groups are few, and they dominate the map without a zerg to suppress their movements. But despite being such a relatively high threat, they only ever take/trade camps or tap keeps to mess with the spawn points. Being an objective based game mode, thats basically doing nothing when the other objectives go untouched. Which brings us to the huge problem with WvW PUGs....... without a tag, they wander around looking for easy targets (which are usually guards or camps) just to keep their participation level up. But when a tag pops up, they all coalesce on it, and turn into a huge blob. The number of active tags on a team determines how active the PUGs are; but at the same time, most don't play in an organized fashion that actually makes those blobs effective. This causes commanders to get frustrated on certain servers, because the threshold for an effective blob is incredibly low, yet the PUG blobs are barely effective most of the time. The current meta has the most oversimplified synergy in WvW's history, but there are servers where too few pugs are even bothering to play into it; or refusing to play into it, but aren't even running their chosen build at a level thats even remotely competitive. This creates a snow balling effect, especially in T3 and T4 which also have coverage problems, where players will rage quit after dying a few times, while the winning side gets embolden, and steam rolls the other remaining players until they get bored. I've seen entire weeks where my server would be a ghost town, due to a hard blow during reset night (when everyone gets on to do weekly rewards).

 

The mere potential for failure is enough to make many players not even try.... and thats a huge problem that plagues every mode in this game, as well as many other games. This behavior encourages people to dogpile anything perceived to give them an advantage, but also devalues anything lesser, or requiring effort as being a waste of time. For most of PvE, its mostly just people showing up and doing stuff in order to succeed..... but the "doing stuff" part is falling more and more into passivity, and frequently gets to the point where people just sit around waiting for "the good part" to start, while everyone else is expected to do the pre-events for them. Even at its height, I quickly noticed the Kourna maps having half the players sitting outside the Inquest facility while some dozen and half people were doing the cannons. If people could do that reliably on a map level, I'm sure they would.

[Raidel.6134]

Illconceived Was Na.9781 has given me lots of food for thought and I appreciate it, today I actually managed to get one such map meta done with full completion. Tomorrow I will attempt VB, hopefully with similar success. I still find it rather bogus that people would have to do instance hopping in such a roundabout way, hadn't the people here told me how I can do it via LFG, I'd still be pulling my hair out from frustration in trying to complete the meta. As such, I am a generally new player and thus I was unaware of the circumstance, but new players like me will continue to appear and they will encounter the same frustrations I did, and again they will have to discover it via word of mouth or trial and error, and it's not pleasant in anyway, I am honestly very burned out form VB since I have literally attempted it dozens of times, doing it one more time tomorrow will be forcing myself, but it's the last time I do it for a very long time.