I think something that could encourage people to do this meta more, and avoid the feeling of loss when it fails, is to:
- Make the rewards tiered, the current time would give you gold, second tier being silver, adding 5 minutes, and then bronze, adding 10 minutes. The thing is that something like that would not matter for the next meta, as the iddle time is honestly too much.
- Add better rewards for the completion of the map, giving better rewards to high tiers, why do you think people still does octo and gerent? The loot is good, but everyone is hoping for an infusion, if you hide an infusion behind it you could theoreticaly make this meta stay in the mind of the people, instead of falling into oscurity like serpent's ire.
- Make the time necessary for the meta lower; currently you must waste two hours to get into a good map, or get all the buffs to increase your participation, make the iddle time shorter and add the events of escort to count on the activity up to 10%. That way you can ensure as many people as possible have more damage.
- EDIT: How about scaling, I know in the future less people will do this meta if the rewards/time isn't worth it for them, how is the boss scaling in relation of the population numbers? if the boss was beatable with a 25 ish squad if no more people was present, I think the challenge would be about the same, but wouldn't require 50 people wailing at Soo-Won's feet for 12 minutes.