How do we get people to spread out across maps more?

[hellsqueen.3045]

> @"Rasimir.6239" said:

> > @"hellsqueen.3045" said:

> > > @"Rasimir.6239" said:

> > > > @"hellsqueen.3045" said:

> > > > I am of the personal opinion that by making metas more equally a profitable experience but giving them the Istan treatment of only being profitable once a day, you end up forcing people into finding other profitable materials to fill the new gaps in their schedules.

> > > Your suggestion could work in a perfect world, but we're dealing with everyday humans here. Most of the maps and metas that are frequented by many are being played not because they are objectively the "best" but rather because of a variety of subjective reasons.

> > >

> > > Serpent's Ire is a great example. Mechanically it's not harder than many of the popular metas (anyone remember the outcry about the Chak Gerent meta in the early days of HoT?), but there's an opinion circulating among the playerbase that it's "impossible", reducing the amount of people even trying to run it, and subsequently reducing the amount of people that learn the mechanics enough to carry those that haven't grasped them yet. It's a vicious cycle, as without participation, the playerbase as a whole won't develop enough knowledge and skill to give this meta a good enough chance to succeed to get people to play and learn it. As long as it keeps that way, it will never be profitable in any sense since it's too prone to failure.

> >

> > Serpent's Ire isn't hard, but it needs more people and it needs those people to be coordinated to complete it, just like Triple Trouble but with even more emphasis on taking particular skills. It isn't hard more than it is just an inconvenience to do because of it's design.

> > You won't find people to do it unless you have a large guild to run it and give people the roles required and tell people the skills to take to successfully complete it.

> > Making Metas that force people to need to heavily coordinate with each other rather than just requiring them to group up and do the event as they appear the way AB or TD do is the mistake they made in designing Serpent's Ire.

> >

> > > Another example are all of those people farming Istan and Silverwastes because those are the meta events to gain gold, but never checking how to actually make gold from them. A lot of those people would end up with as much if not more gold if they played other maps with their playstyle, but they blindly follow what's said to be "the best" without realising there's much more to it than just showing up for the event on time.

> >

> > Then that is a fault of a person not doing their research into the meta, that being said those people are still all joining the map that they think are making them the most profit even if they are doing it wrong. So they follow and therefore abandon other maps in favour of the one everyone else is doing for profit.

> >

> > > Forcing people into this or that playstyle never works. I know a lot of people accuse ANet of forcing them into different playstyles, but unless it's something that's vastly out of sync with the rest of the game (like the original AB multiloot, the initial Istan even, or even the recent Kourna multiloot exploit) all of their changes are really more of a nudge to check out other parts of the game than outright invalidating of playstyle. Besides the fact that it is debatable if doing the same small set of events for hours on end can be called a playstyle to begin with ;) .

> >

> > I don't think it could be called a playstyle because a playstyle generally involves the way you utilise a character and not so much the way you explore and earn money in an MMO.

> >

> > > This game is built on the foundation that you should always be happy to see other players around. We don't have kill stealing, we don't have node stealing, and we certainly don't want to have people make a fuss because other people show up at "their" event and reduce the rewards. If you want people to spread out, try to learn some of the less frequented events, advertise them in the lfg (and possibly spread the word on some of the city map chats if you're tackling something interesting), and get people to realize that there's shinies and fun to be had all over the world. The more people are introduced to mechanics, the easier the events will be, and the more populated they will end up in the long run.

> >

> > There is a reason the most profitable maps are run frequently and other content left abandoned. Farmers have no reason to spread to other content. You have to give them a reason to leave the maps more often in favour of other maps without completely making the other map redundant. We have world boss trains, meta event trains would cause people to run things once and then find other content they can farm.

> >

> > Turn the map bonus into an exp based map reward track that actually offers things like wool and linen for players could attract more attention to maps, low level mats will more likely attract high level players. Unless you are giving them good Lodestones and T6 mats, the lower tier loot is harder to obtain.

> >

> > > There's something interesting to be had in most if not all events. Things like the [endless Djinn tonic](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Endless_Djinn_Tonic "endless Djinn tonic"), the [specialization minis](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mini_Holosmith_Baraz_Sharifi "specialization minis"), or [very rare skins](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Berserker%27s_Lightward%27s_Battlestaff " very rare skins") are of interest to many people, and often it only takes one person to take charge to get many to join in and produce a snowball effect.

> >

> > Those are odd items that people may desire but this isn't really loot that will get people to stick around for very long. It isn't loot you farm for profit really.

> > For example, I do metas for the salvage loot.

> > I don't desire tonics all that much. I can get plenty of other tonics and not waste time on one Djinn Tonic.

> > I could just buy that mini off the TP for 2 gold, which time I spend doing loot runs make me way more gold than what could be made going out of my way to earn that mini.

> > There are tons of exotic skins out there and rare ones at that, the one you linked can drop from the Dragon Stand final boss chest, which is a meta people actually run and is a bad example. Otherwise it comes from airship cargo which you can run around opening and not involving yourself in events and spreading yourself around.

> > Tons of exotics drop from just doing the stuff you are already farming, this doesn't spread people around.

> > This wouldn't work.

>

> And your point?

>

> You pretty much rephrased what I already said: the other metas are neither hard nor intrinsically bad, but people tend to flock to what they perceive to be best, not what objectively is best. You won't change that behavior by fiddling with rewards, dailies, or whatever else. (Many) people don't want to spread out, they want to play what they perceive to be best reward for least effort, and if everybody else is doing it, it must be THE best thing, right?

>

> Just accept that a lot of people just go where others go, because those that look like they've got a purpose sure know what they're doing, right? Just like people aimlessly standing in WvW spawn because they see no commander they can follow without thinking, just like people piling up on a commander tag in VB nighttime despite that being really counter-productive to the meta, there's thousands of examples. They're just being people, and no matter how you change events and rewards around, there will always be many that prefer to follow others instead of thinking for themselves and taking responsability for what they do in game.

>

> For some, "optimal rewards" are a draw, for some "fun tonics and rare skins" are a draw, but for many it's just following where others go. This game does a really good job at keeping rewards comparable across the game world and allowing a ton of different ways to play the game and still come away with similar worth. People (in general) obviously can't cope with that choice, but taking away the choice to force people to play in different ways certainly isn't the way to change this.

 

Yes people will follow others but someone is likely to realise where maximum loot potential is versus effort and rewards. That information spreads and more people find it.

But the loot isn't equally balanced and part of why we are in this issue:

 

> @"gateless gate.8406" said:

> Some of the major reasons HoT metas continue to be popular are: 1) Chance at infusion drops, and 2) materials for legendaries (crystalline ore, amalgamated gemstone, gift of maguuma mastery). PoF metas, as far as I know, have lower raw gold-per-hour and don't drop anything required for legendaries. In other words, the rewards are completely imbalanced. I guess ANet considers that fine? Who knows why.

 

 

[Aeolus.3615]

People would complain more if they don’t have to stack against smaller server.... Desert bel has more spaced zones of control that leaded to lots of players hating it.

[runeblade.7514]

> @"Genuinetheo.6591" said:

> > @"runeblade.7514" said:

> > > @"Genuinetheo.6591" said:

> > > > @"runeblade.7514" said:

> > > > >How do we get people to spread out across maps more?

> > > >

> > > > Make "something" that is tracked by experience. That something can be a PvE reward track.

> > > >

> > > > Literally almost everything you can do in the game gives exp. Killing a mob gives exp, mining ore gives exp, doing events gives exp, doing meta events gives exp, etc. By having PvE reward tracks that is separated by zones, there is a reason to go back to all areas of the old content in the game. Repeatable Hearts and Meta events isn't all that effective because it only works with a small specific part of the zone. You don't go back to Sparkfly Swamp for the Frog city, no you go there for that small beach where Tequatl spawn. When you do the repeatable hearts in Living Story, you don't go outside of the hearts because there is nothing to gain. By tracking exp, you have a reason as mobs gives more exp the longer they are alive. Event completer daily is a example of bad design to get people back because I have to ignore everything to search for events.

> > > >

> > > > Even if PvE reward tracks aren't the answer, I want something that is tracked by exp because literally almost everything gives exp and that gives us the most flexibility on how we get to play.

> > >

> > > They tried to do something like this with the Map Reward system, which believe it or not was not always around. However they made it so unprofitable that people still play in higher level areas for that reason.

> > >

> > > I feel like there's just not an easy way to bring people back to lower level maps, and not make it become more profitable than any level 80 map out there. Doing so would have an impact on the market, and would see nerfs (like Istan). Kind of like the Map Reward system, it would have to be almost nonprofitable income for Arenanet to be OK with it.

> >

> > Map reward system is not anything close to what I am talking about. Map reward system rewards for doing events. It is closer to event completer daily where I ignore everything to find events. Trying to find events for map rewards is just unfun and boring. Even if they were rewarding, I would drop it.

>

> You're explaining everything wrong with the map reward system, but not looking for the connection. The map bonus is a progressive system that slowly rewards the player for participating in that map, kind of like your reward track system would reward the player for even being in the map. The map rewards themselves are usually negligible and not worth farming unless you have those mapping materials. Your reward track would be a lot like PvP and WvW, where the rewards themselves are not there to validate playing in the mode - but to reward those who like playing it.

>

> The original dilemma here is how to get people to like playing in lower level maps. Rewarding them over time has not proven to work thus far.

 

You are trying to make a connection where there is none, and you are not listening to why my explanation is the reason. Re-read it again to see why map bonus rewards != Some kind of endgame exp progression like PvE Reward track.

 

It is like saying Everything wrong with sPvP is because of WvW. Both are PvP, but saying that WvW is the problem is just laughable just like how you are trying to connect map bonus reward with Exp Progression.

[hellsqueen.3045]

> @"MikeG.6389" said:

> Spread people out more? Announce that there is an extremely low chance of a random Legendary to drop as an event reward. But don't tell them which event.

> Edit: wording.

 

I mean that would be one way to do it but then they might just do the same events they always do.

[joneirikb.7506]

Personally I'm for the idea of having lesser rewards for having more players, but it's unfortunately completely against ANet's game philosophy, so zerging will remain the least effort = most reward play-style of choice for the majority of players.

 

I wish the game went more for Risk = Rewards myself, leave everything accessible in safe/slow ways, but let there be more challenging ways to get them possibly faster. You should be rewarded for taking risks in video games, not for sitting watching a spreadsheet over how to grind things slowly so you can keep watching netflix on the tv in the background. -_-'

 

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One idea would be to do something similar to the XP from mobs, the longer they stayed alive the more XP. If ANet could do something similar with events (and possibly other things), so the more seldom an event is done, the more rewarding it is. That way, anyone looking to optimize their rewards would go out of their way to look out events outside the "usual farm".

 

Unfortunately I now imagine a commander tagging up and running players through every single event on the map daily, so it would be rendered useless on most popular maps anyways.

 

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Another idea I've posted before is to standarize all rewards for everything in the game, so no matter what you do, you cap out at similar rewards. That way, it literally doesn't matter WHAT you do, as long as you actively play, you'd get the same (theoretical) loot.

 

It would also be very interesting to see how this would shape player behaviour, watching all the super grinders sit and auto attack scales in Queensdale because it's "enough" to max out the rewards :p

 

(This idea was about having a sort of "Reward Track" for the entire game, that basically worked on on/off, so as long as you where active you got progress. And that this would replace 99% of the loot drops in the game, and that way standarize it. With different reward tracks for bonuses to XP, materials, unids, karma, and probably other things.)

 

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@Rasimir.6239

 

General good analysis on humans, interesting reads, thanks.

[kharmin.7683]

> @"joneirikb.7506" said:

 

> One idea would be to do something similar to the XP from mobs, the longer they stayed alive the more XP. If ANet could do something similar with events (and possibly other things), so the more seldom an event is done, the more rewarding it is. That way, anyone looking to optimize their rewards would go out of their way to look out events outside the "usual farm".

 

Wasn't this the problem with Istan and all of the champs that used to spawn?

 

[joneirikb.7506]

> @"kharmin.7683" said:

> > @"joneirikb.7506" said:

>

> > One idea would be to do something similar to the XP from mobs, the longer they stayed alive the more XP. If ANet could do something similar with events (and possibly other things), so the more seldom an event is done, the more rewarding it is. That way, anyone looking to optimize their rewards would go out of their way to look out events outside the "usual farm".

>

> Wasn't this the problem with Istan and all of the champs that used to spawn?

>

 

Sorry, not really familiar with Istan so don't know how that worked. But judging from how often it was used/farmed, I can't imagine so.

 

I mean, the centaur that everyone kills in queensdale is never going to build up any "veteran bonus xp", but that spider hidden deep down in the ravine to the east that no one ever goes to might be worth +200%xp or something, because no one has killed it in a month or so. (Don't remember the actual numbers, and too lazy to check).

 

So if people ran Istan all the time, this would never have time to apply.

[mauried.5608]

Id prefer the game had no rewards at all, to get rid of this mindless obsession of I wont do anything unless I get a reward for doing it.

I thought people played games for the fun component.

 

[AlexxxDelta.1806]

> @"mauried.5608" said:

> Id prefer the game had no rewards at all, to get rid of this mindless obsession of I wont do anything unless I get a reward for doing it.

> I thought people played games for the fun component.

>

 

Getting rewards in the form of loot has been a core component of mmorpgs since their inception. Actually it has been there since old crpgs and the pen&paper DnD that inspired those. Apparently all these people who practically invented the genre didn't know how to have "fun" either.

 

So in your ideal "no rewards" game, what would be the motive to replay content you have already seen? Because after about 2 months of very casual play (at most), you have experienced eveything in game at least once.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

once a day is pretty brutal since it screws over ppl in other timezones. it would be better if it was once every 1-4 hours, depending on difficulty. making longer harder metas 50% more profitable then a couple of shorter easier ones done back to back is a good step. another good step would be to make mats more profitable by lowering their drop rates and increasing their need in crafting. ofc this would depend on how much of a particular mat is being farmed, so more frequent updates to these two things would be good. I like how zones or regions have their own particular mat or currency (machete, pact crowbar). imo anet doesn't take advantage of this enough. I would like to see their need more widely spread out, instead of just one vendor or crafting item requiring it, make them needed in some higher priced crafted items; maybe a couple in food/ utility stuff, things like that. a currency vendor to turn these map/ region specific mats/ currencies into gold or other useful mats would be cool. you can sorta do this with those converter thingies (ley energy matter converter for example), but im talking about an npc vendor that is available 24/7 with unlimited use potential.

[Tekoneiric.6817]

There are a couple of simple changes they could made. Instead of doing daily events they could make them daily region instead so that players spread across the region. They could have rolling map bonuses every hour favoring lower population maps. Thermocatalytic Reagents would make a good reward also a bonus to gathering on low population maps. They could add more world bosses and boost the rewards for them.

 

I suggested this as a change to Timberline Falls to make a new world boss event.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/53716/suggestion-timberline-falls-update