How will PoF affect HoT map populations?

So after finishing my legendary armor, I somehow thought it was a terrific idea to start working on Chuka and Champawat with PoF release so close. I started the collection 2 days ago and by harnessing the power of sheer willpower and coffee, managed to get the precursor completed. However, there is still a lot of work to be done in terms of farming HoT map currencies, etc. My primary concern is that when PoF drops, maps such as auric basin and dragon stand will become very sparsely populated due to everyone exploring the new PoF content. How valid is this concern? Did the release of HoT decimate dry top/silverwastes populations? There are a lot of things required for the crafting of Chuka and Champawat that I can solo such as map completions, but there are certain things that require an organized zerg such as dragon stand and tarir metas. I'd appreciate any insight on this topic. Thanks!

The thing is, as you are aware, ANet have made HoT maps desirable to revisit because a lot of legendaries are tied to HoT's maps.

They are also releasing NEW Gen 2 Legendaries with Season 4 of Living World that DO NOT require PoF to obtain, and if people want those new legendaries or any existing legendary that released with or post HoT, they need to do the maps. I'm not worried about HoT's maps becoming dead.

Will there be a lack of pop in HoT's maps the first couple weeks or month or so after PoF? Sure! People are exploring the new content, but it'll balance back out over time.

Also Silverwastes and DTOP still get run fairly regularly to answer your other question.

Who knows? But the maps that existed prior to HoT don't seem dead when I visit them. So I expect it will be the same with HoT.

Expect them to be fairly empty the first week after PoF release. After that, people will start coming back to HoT maps but I don't believe it'll ever reach back to the levels you see right now. Some metas may only be done during prime time as well but it's difficult to say.

If you need something from those maps which requires people, I suggest doing it before Friday. This was one of the reasons why I had spent a month or so farm HoT map currencies so that I would never have to deal with it later on with the reduced populations.

In the short term, definitely yes.

In the long term, less so, particularly if the balancer creates fewer instances of those maps, as a reduced population over fewer instances can still populate maps.

If PoF attracts and retains players, HoT maps could theoretically see an increase. (Okay, that might not happen, but it could.)

The worry is for times when you only have a few instances, so peak hours will always be best for HoT maps.

I don't think there's any cause to worry about HoT map populations after PoF. There will of course be quite a dip in players the first few weeks after PoF lands as naturally people will be in the new content, but after that I think the population across the rest of the game will normalise again.

There will always be new & returning players who will be buying HoT and playing it, likewise there will be an influx of people who brought it as a bundle with PoF, so they will be boosting the HoT map population.

Plus there will be a number of people who will buy & play the PoF maps, but will still do HoT because they enjoy the maps/metas, and may even prefer them to whatever the PoF ones are. Likewise even players who have had HoT for a while probably still have lots of achievements, collections etc that they haven't done yet.

People still go back and play the core maps, do world bosses, hunt champs etc, and theres always people in the various LS3 maps.

Tl;dr - expect a dip for a few weeks when PoF hits, then map population across the game will stabilise.

@Daedraz.1650 said:Did the release of HoT decimate dry top/silverwastes populations?

@JayMack.8295 said:Also Silverwastes and DTOP still get run fairly regularly to answer your other question.

@AliamRationem.5172 said:Who knows? But the maps that existed prior to HoT don't seem dead when I visit them. So I expect it will be the same with HoT.

In that case there's still a difference: Silverwastes and Dry Top / basically every map before HoT is accessible to every player in the game - even f2p players.

F2p players seem to be a huge factor with regards to the population.Not every player has access to the HoT maps, so it will be limited to players who will buy/already bought HoT. Since we're able to join PoF directly, we don't know how many players will skip HoT - maybe they'll buy it together with PoF, maybe afterwards but maybe they won't buy it at all. It would be different if they didn't sell HoT and PoF separately, if HoT was necessary for playing PoF.

Even after PoF hits, HoT maps will continue to provide good loot, so I think there'll be a drought for a few weeks at best, and HoT maps bruewel wirh life again. Maybe not 5 map instances, but youll get your tarir clears and Gerent kills

Once I get my first mount(s) and have done with the initial round of playing in PoF I'm thinking of returning to HoT to play (I haven't played there in months). Having a mount to get across the HoT maps fast, leap across gaps rather than glide downward and miss the landing spot because of loss of altitude, plus the ability to leap up to a higher ledge is going to make a big difference in enjoyment of that content.

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Be careful what you ask for. ANet might give it to you.