Raise the Numbers of Characters per Map

I've heard quite a few people saying that with each expansion into the unexplored areas it's harder to complete group events and challenges that need a certain number of people to finish.

I don't know about coding, so I won't try to talk as if I do and how easy it is to change aspects of the game.

Would it help if the number of characters per map were raised? Right now characters are shifted from unused servers to concentrate them to use fewer servers.

If there are, say, 200 characters per map by raising it to 225 or 250, "character density" for a lack of better terms would increase and more characters would be available for quests, bounties, and challenges.

Is it an issue of server lag? Was it set when there were fewer maps and not addressed since? Or do so few players see it as a problem they just don't see a need to address the issue?

@"Game of Bones.8975" said:I've heard quite a few people saying that with each expansion into the unexplored areas it's harder to complete group events and challenges that need a certain number of people to finish.

I don't know about coding, so I won't try to talk as if I do and how easy it is to change aspects of the game.

Would it help if the number of characters per map were raised? Right now characters are shifted from unused servers to concentrate them to use fewer servers.

If there are, say, 200 characters per map by raising it to 225 or 250, "character density" for a lack of better terms would increase and more characters would be available for quests, bounties, and challenges.

Is it an issue of server lag? Was it set when there were fewer maps and not addressed since? Or do so few players see it as a problem they just don't see a need to address the issue?

The quantity of players on a map is usually sufficient to complete any event in that area. The only times issue arise are when the map has many players but an inadequate percentage participate in the given event.Most events will scale appropriately, some will require a minimum number to be completed realistically.During some Meta events such as those in VB, if you are experiencing a lack of players on the map, then it's more likely that there are full instances of that map already active and you have been placed on what used to be called an "overflow" instance. As far as I am aware, every time a map approaches it's capacity limit, another instance of that area is created and other players are placed there.For many events, you are able to join a squad or party in a busier instance and join them providing that map is not at 100% capacity.On occasion, when the system can see that one map has very few players, and another "mirror" map has enough space for them, it will prompt those people to merge.

TLDR: most events are scaled appropriately so I don't believe there is a need for "higher character density".

They already move players to busier maps when populations fall too low. This doesn't need a fix.

@"Game of Bones.8975" said:I don't know about coding, so I won't try to talk as if I do and how easy it is to change aspects of the game.Would it help if the number of characters per map were raised? Right now characters are shifted from unused servers to concentrate them to use fewer servers.

It probably wouldn't; most of the maps where that complaint comes up only have a single map instance going on. Busy maps -- enough to get more than one instance -- are the most likely to have someone doing the thing, at least on one instance.

If there are, say, 200 characters per map by raising it to 225 or 250, "character density" for a lack of better terms would increase and more characters would be available for quests, bounties, and challenges.

Anyway, good for you not trying to address technical questions. I can give you a pointer to why this might intuitively seem cheap, but is actually costly: the total amount of network traffic, and some server-side processing, is worst case proportional to the number of players (and NPCs, and anything else active) squared, so adding one more player to the map can actually double the amount of information to be communicated.

Basically, every player sends their actions, and the results of those actions have to be calculated and sent out to all the other players who can "perceive" them. If they all huddle in one location, like for a world boss or meta event, then that can be "all players".

I hope that explanation makes sense of why it might not be as easy, or as practical, to raise this limit as it intuitively seems to be.

The problem isn't the map caps, its the motivation of players to participate in anything that requires an iota of attention or active thinking. Core maps are cap around 100-120. PoF maps top off somewhere closer to 200. There are more then enough players on any given PoF map to do any event... and that includes Serpent's Ire. The problem is the majority just meander about, and less then half will join up on a Commander for an activity harder then Bounty trains. And even then, bounty trains are losing steam, because players are getting tired of it.

The only argument I will coincide is time zones. NA has 3 time zones with peak activity, with OCX being the smallest, yet still fairly active. EU I think only has 2 major time zones, since West Europeans will play on NA servers, but NA won't touch EU servers. But during those peak hours, people are doing stuff. But only certain guilds who will organize events are doing metas with any level of dedication. Outside of that- Tequatel will ad-hoc due to the high reward to time investment for the daily, and so will AB because they aren't hard to organize now that most people know the about the sync timer. I've seen ABs mess up a sync, and still manage to recover after dedicating 15 seconds to complaining about it on map chat. Yet I'm hard pressed to get people on non-starter maps to join in a WB fight outside of a WB train, because people can't be motivated to do something with more then 1 mechanic.

Being between content blocks means players start to get bored. And are only out and about because they're burned out from doing the new LS map for 2 weeks straight and grinding rewards out of it. Only those with specific goals are trying to do the meta to completion, or taking on timed events.... the reset are either casually farming something, or following targets of opportunity. Raising the player cap doesn't resolve any of these problems, because the root cause isn't a technical one.