What if the maps are big because Living Story Season 4 content will be in them?!

So we don't have any Meta Events. We don't have many things to do. What if the emptiness of the maps is because we're going to get more content dropped in them as Living World Season 4 comes out. With Season 1 many of the maps were dramatically changed but imagine new Meta being added without really changing the map too much. New players coming to the map would see the new Meta and not know the difference.

And this is just me wishfully thinking. I do enjoy Meta events that bring the maps together instead of the random bounties. Give me something, Anet! I don't want to go back to HoT maps! T_T

That would be nice.

I actually preferred the system of LS1 that you have to play it when it was happening. It feels better "living" than other living seasons. Would be nice to see that back on LS4 but i really doubt.

Give me something, Anet! I don't want to go back to HoT maps! T_T

I know that feel. :s I just maxed all my mounts; and I'd rather drop dead than do another HoT map or Tyria boss. There's nothing but those tedious fractals. And I've been procrastinating for 4 hours over going back to them again. All I need is 6 days worth of fractal research pages to finish my ad infinitum; and I STILL don't want to do them.

An interesting idea, but I do not yet find the maps empty. I'm randomly wandering to gather mastery points, pois, vistas, HP, and the like, in between doing story and hearts and any events I stumble onto. The only map I've "completed" is Crystal Oasis and I know I haven't found all the events there yet or gotten all the achieves, just the bits needed for map completion rewards. I'm skilling up Jackal 3 now, and hoping I have the MP to pay for it once the xp is done. Once I work through the story and get the griffon then I have many alts to test elites with, story achieves to work on, collections to acquire, recipes to buy, skins to collect ... if LS4 starts in just a couple of months I won't be anywhere near exhausted with what's already on offer.

And that's with playing many hours a day, none of them in older maps. I haven't even done my 2 g dailies for 3 days thanks to not wanting to leave PoF maps.

I'd like to see something to help keep these awesome new maps populated, but that would effectively lock season 4 behind PoF. Was HoT essential to participate in season 3? I know the HoT masteries really sped up moving around those maps, but I always had HoT so I never noticed if it was mandatory or not.

@LightningWolfTigerBear.6725 said:I'd like to see something to help keep these awesome new maps populated, but that would effectively lock season 4 behind PoF. Was HoT essential to participate in season 3? I know the HoT masteries really sped up moving around those maps, but I always had HoT so I never noticed if it was mandatory or not.

Yes, LS3 requires HoT. One could unlock it even on a free account by logging in during the active chapter, but needed HoT to actually get into the maps and play the story. As LS4 will likely continue the story from PoF (just as LS3 did from HoT), I expect PoF will be needed for LS4.

@Donari.5237 said:

@LightningWolfTigerBear.6725 said:I'd like to see something to help keep these awesome new maps populated, but that would effectively lock season 4 behind PoF. Was HoT essential to participate in season 3? I know the HoT masteries really sped up moving around those maps, but I always had HoT so I never noticed if it was mandatory or not.

Thank you for clearing that up for me, my mistake. Probably safe to assume S4 will function much the same then. I really enjoyed the S3 maps so I'd hate to see them do away with releasing new areas episodically in favor of bringing new content to existing maps, but I suppose that'd free up their environment team to go even crazier with the next expansion.

I just want them to bring back Zojja for LWS4. Her condition is still speculative because the PC never actually gets to see her like we got to see Logan later on. I want to know how she's doing. The fact that they hinted at it in the State of the Game address prior to LWS3 but never did anything with it outside of Episode 1 (all of which amounts to hearsay) has left me really sore with the story so far (though I did kind of like the story for PoF).

I'd bet on current events in the new maps, but the new seasons should have new maps

I would like to see LWs4 content in the existing PoF maps (and core Tyria maps), but I would like it to be a balance, I would like them to continue adding new smaller maps too. One thing that I thought would be a good idea is to have s4 maps that are relatively small, like Silverwaste or smaller, that sort of "spin off" the existing maps, but are more dedicated to map metas, basically like "open world raid" situations.

I think the HoT map metas were such a pain because they tied into core progress of that expansion, they were thrust onto players immediately with the release and players were too busy and overwhelmed to really take them seriously. By taking a couple months off to let people get comfortable with PoF, and then add meta-heavy smalleer maps as a side option, I think many more players would be ready to jump right in on them.

and yes, beyond that they could also do plenty of "current event" style things with the existing maps too.

I am assuming right now that LS4 will be in these maps and that they will be layering in events into them. Make sense considering the lack of metas and the size. At least to me. I can't believe that they wouldn't take a sampling of map population meterics and not ask them selves why older maps are populated more than others. Now that's me assuming that metas are part of the reason for some older maps to be more populated than others.

I also was thinking that LS4 might be set in the PoF maps, it would explain their lack of content and emptiness. Also because of mounts I assume they would have to make any new maps bigger than LS3 ones, which surely would be a lot more work to produce a decent bigger map for each episode than before. So using the existing PoF maps and just adding things would save them a lot of map design work.

But I don't know how it would work for keeping things locked as episodes. As if they added a meta for an episode, then what would happen to players who don't have that episode unlocked? They would just see a group of players attacking invisible enemies for an event they can't see?

I actually had a prediction: These maps will have some sort of meta event introduced with the new LS stuff because of what happens at the very end of the story in PoF

@Alchofas.8243 said:I actually preferred the system of LS1 that you have to play it when it was happening. It feels better "living" than other living seasons. Would be nice to see that back on LS4 but i really doubt.

That'd be "wasted content" for ANet because they can't offer it anymore to new players, not even for gems. Temporary content doesn't add long-term value to the game. Of course, you were there theand you played it when it happened, but think about someone who buys the game today, plays the story and then... you have a lot of friends out of nowhere and someone tolds you a story about the past, but that past is in fact a part of your own story between Zhaitan and Mordremoth storylines. It's like "Well, you have forgotten all of this, but believe me, you were there, and say hello to this little cute asura and that annoying norn, they are your friends!". S1 is more "real" in the sense of a world that evolves, but terrible from "a game in which you are the main character" point of view.

in theory it could work that they change small parts of the map, i mean...the story at the end basically skipped whole maps. Im done with the story and i havnt even started exploring Vabbi yet since i had no reason to.BUT i dont think they will go back to season 1 style with limited time content