Sandswept Isles: one big timesink

[Ashantara.8731]

Seriously, there are so many events on this map, including the races, the spot-the-right-golem game (and let's not forget about the ruined "ambushed" bounties), that force you to waste hours doing nothing but waiting for them to finally show up. This map is one big time sink.

P.S. Yes, I know that ambushes will get fixed soon, but for now, they add to the problem, no?

[Linken.6345]

Yea the problem of having to play the game such a chore.

[Ashen.2907]

Replace the words, "sandswept isles," with, "MMOs," and you have a pretty solid point.

[zerorogue.9410]

Its the age old problem of; "How can you keep the player's busy while you make more content?"Solving the problem is a very tedious balance act between; making content that is not boring VS making content that is not quick to finish.Unfortunately they tipped a bit towards the boring side this time around.

[Gop.8713]

I wasn't even sure this was going to be a complaint thread based on the title alone. My primary criteria for a game is that it be a time sink. If I wanted to do something productive I wouldn't be playing a game . . .

OP also seems to be complaining about long breaks between spawns for each event, which would be a stronger complaint if there wasn't so much to do, as they also point out. I'm not saying it's the greatest map ever, but I'm certainly never just sitting around waiting for something to do either. Plenty of ways to occupy your time while you're waiting for the event you want . . .

[Faaris.8013]

@"Linken.6345" said:Yea the problem of having to play the game such a chore.

I think he's talking about "waiting while doing nothing", at least that's my interpretation of

waste hours doing nothing but waiting

Playing the game is fine, waiting while doing nothing is no fun. I guess most people do something else while waiting for events.

[Rysdude.3824]

Wasn’t it just yesterday people were whining that there weren’t enough things to do in the early PoF maps? The devs listened. And now, there are too many things to do?

[titje.2745]

i explored the map for half hour. first jungle part is beautiful. then the inquest.. i don’t like the whole asura in game and then half of the time they drop no loot.al those engineering buildings etc i don’t like it. i never go back there. i said to someone my opinion about the map. she said that the map is about story and i hate story’s. and it’s about gw1. i have played that. ls3 is way better. bitterfrost ember bay. bloodstone fen. ls4 maps i haven’t played more then 3 days.

further nice game. ?.

[Urud.4925]

I like the map instead, at least there's some spot where you can rest and just walk. Few undeads, so less frustration with that huge aggro. And killing inquests is cool. After the first episode I was scared to have to play on some super-branded area (much wider than Vabbi), but I've been pleased with this little change (at least for now, I'm sure we'll see branded areas in the future).

[Ashantara.8731]

@Urud.4925 said:I like the map

I love the map, too! I did not complain about the map, on the contrary, I have given nothing but positive feedback on its design (visually as well as regarding enemies' aggro ranges, respawns, how well all its elements harmonize with each other etc.).

What I am criticizing here is the timesink that some events pose.

@"Rysdude.3824" said:Wasn’t it just yesterday people were whining that there weren’t enough things to do in the early PoF maps? The devs listened. And now, there are too many things to do?

What?! "Too many things"? I was complaining about the wait time for some events where you just stand around for an hour waiting for them to finally restart, and if you fail you wait another hour and then another one... or waiting for a bounty to spawn the actual bounty instead of an ambush (had up to ten ambushes in a row for one bounty, wasted hours on that one). I have spent more time waiting on this map than actually doing things.

@"Linken.6345" said:Yea the problem of having to play the game such a chore.

Spare me your sarcasm. My criticism is that "standing around waiting" doesn't qualify as "playing the game."

[infrequentia.3465]

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@Urud.4925 said:I like the map

I love the map, too! I did not complain about the map, on the contrary, I have given nothing but positive feedback on its design (visually as well as regarding enemies' aggro ranges, respawns, how well all its elements harmonize with each other etc.).

What I am criticizing here is the timesink that some events pose.

@"Rysdude.3824" said:Wasn’t it just yesterday people were whining that there weren’t enough things to do in the early PoF maps? The devs listened. And now, there are too many things to do?

What?! "Too many things"? I was complaining about the wait time for some events where you just stand around for an hour waiting for them to finally restart, and if you fail you wait another hour and then another one... or waiting for a bounty to spawn the actual bounty instead of an ambush (had up to ten ambushes in a row for one bounty, wasted hours on that one). I have spent more time waiting on this map than actually doing things.

@"Linken.6345" said:Yea the problem of having to play the game such a chore.

Spare me your sarcasm. My criticism is that "standing around waiting" doesn't qualify as "playing the game."

then don't stand still . change maps do something else.

an hour between events?

thats an hour you can spend somewhere else

YOU choose to stand still..

in 1 hour you can do

-all fractal dailies.

• lots of dungeons full cleared
• explore 2-3 maps
• world boss trains

or go to the bathroom

[Ashantara.8731]

@"infrequentia.3465" said:then don't stand still . change maps do something else.

Okay, maybe you need a more concrete example to understand what I mean: Let's take the "Three Golem Monte" achievement, for instance.

It spawns at three different locations, about once per hour. Changing maps won't change anything about that. If you don't wait there on site, you might either miss it or be too late and someone else has already finished it. Then there is the chance of failure for the achievement. These three factors cost me a total of four (!) hours of wait time yesterday where I would stand there, do nothing, watch some tv to not get bored to death, until the next one finally spawned.

You cannot move away and "do other things"... If that was the case, I wouldn't call it a "timesink". The same goes for races. Then there is my example of bounties and their ridiculous ambush %-chance. That makes a total of three timesinks for me, which is at least one too many for a single map. I couldn't get much else done in GW2 these past two days.

@"infrequentia.3465" said:YOU choose to stand still..

Like I had a choice. Also, while bounty ambushes don't force me to "stand still", they do force me to chance maps only to have yet another ambush for the same bounty time and again. How is that "my choice"?

[Urud.4925]

Oh, I was replying to titje when I talked about the map, that he/she doesn't like. About your concerns... I found the waiting time for the races, more or less the same of the other PoF maps (even lower tbh). The ambushes are annoying, you're right, but as you said, the chance to be triggered will be reduced in future.The 3 golem instead, has a respawning time of 5 minutes (pay attention to all of the 3 locations, as the event starts on 1 of the 3 different platforms each time). Sure it would be nicer to have it like an adventure in HoT, that you can start as you wish, but 5 minutes is not that much, I think.

I'm usually concerned about the "replayability" of these maps, since I don't see any reason to do bounties on the long run, after you complete the achievements. But here we can farm crystals easily to buy trinkets (they reset everytime you change map, so there's no need to change alt, like in LW3 - idk if it's intended...)

EDIT (after seeing you reply): it's weird that you had to wait 1 hour for the 3 golems, indeed. I tried few days ago with a group, and it restarted every 5 minutes. But this event is quite bugged, maybe not only on the achievement, but also on the respawning time. Let's hope for a fix soon.

[Blocki.4931]

The map is great though? It's no bigger time sink than Istan is, where you tend to wait around for up to 5 or even 10 minutes as well unless you want to suffer through the shit that bounties are during that downtime

[usnedward.9023]

Personally I think they did a great job on this map. It seems no matter where I am mapping with various toons (hoping for that BL KEY!) there is always an event up. There is always something to do. This is what the community in a sense has been asking for Things to do. Now there is too much? Is this what I understand from the OP? I have recovered so many mats in such a quick time without really trying. Just my opinion.

[Neutra.6857]

@"Ashantara.8731" said:Okay, maybe you need a more concrete example to understand what I mean: Let's take the "Three Golem Monte" achievement, for instance.

It spawns at three different locations, about once per hour. Changing maps won't change anything about that. If you don't wait there on site, you might either miss it or be too late and someone else has already finished it. Then there is the chance of failure for the achievement. These three factors cost me a total of four (!) hours of wait time yesterday where I would stand there, do nothing, watch some tv to not get bored to death, until the next one finally spawned.

You cannot move away and "do other things"... If that was the case, I wouldn't call it a "timesink". The same goes for races. Then there is my example of bounties and their ridiculous ambush %-chance. That makes a total of three timesinks for me, which is at least one too many for a single map. I couldn't get much else done in GW2 these past two days.

Umm, the three golem monte does spawn in 3 possible locations, but it does so more then once an hour. At least it did for me, instead in a new location between 5-10 minutes after I completed the previous event.

[Vova.2640]

Tbh, After spending the first couple of days there, I came to realize the best thing about the new map is the specimen chamber, or more specifically the 7-min farm before that.That event feels great all around. It is actually not too rewarding (karmic retribution makes it so much better) as a lot of the rewards are purely from RNG, but feels nice to do because you constantly kill stuff and constantly get loot, even if the loot isn't always that great. Sometimes you get something great though that makes the whole thing feel even better.

Besides that... I don't know. The map doesn't have much else to offer, to me at least. And while I absolutely love the chamber farm... I don't really go back there to do it just because I can't know when it will happen... and if I do have to wait the 15min timer.... it feels like there isn't anything to do and Ill be wasting time staying on that map waiting for the chamber farm...

I just hope future maps have more events similar to that chamber farm. Maybe smaller scales but more events and more frequent, just to keep people on the map.

[Omega.6801]

Usually while waiting for an event you can do a different event and/or run around farming.

But sure, how dare they want you to do things...you logged in after all, shouldn't everything new be handed to you just for that? Outrageous! /s

[Vayne.8563]

I guess the real issue is that some people must have every achievement and must have it now. I'm also going for the Three Card Monte achievement, and eventually I'll get it. Am I going to stand around and wait for it to spawn? Not even a small chance of that. This is a problem of the OP's making.

[Ayakaru.6583]

Oh boy, you haven’t been to Istan yet, I see.Did you see the anount of Kralkatite Ore we need? 500 per weapon, thats5300 total, and you get like 20-40 per Raid Run in Palawadan every 2 hours.There’s no other way to grind these materials.

(Not entirely true, there’s also meteors and Great Hall, but those are far less, and not on a schedule)

[costepj.5120]

@Ayakaru.6583 said:(Not entirely true, there’s also meteors and Great Hall, but those are far less, and not on a schedule)Meteors strike every 15 minutes. You can also buy a node for your home instance for 10000 VM.

[juno.1840]

@Vayne.8563 said:I guess the real issue is that some people must have every achievement and must have it now. I'm also going for the Three Card Monte achievement, and eventually I'll get it. Am I going to stand around and wait for it to spawn? Not even a small chance of that. This is a problem of the OP's making.

His point was quite succinct and he even provided clarification examples to posts that were clearly trolling -- which is more than I would have done.

Reading the community response to this topic makes me upset. Has it really become this toxic since I last played?

[sorudo.9054]

i love the map to, it's like istan......never go there unless i have to.

[Ayakaru.6583]

@costepj.5120 said:

@Ayakaru.6583 said:(Not entirely true, there’s also meteors and Great Hall, but those are far less, and not on a schedule)Meteors strike every 15 minutes. You can also buy a node for your home instance for 10000 VM.

I got the node which is 4 a day.But 15 minutes? Make that 25-ish

[Vayne.8563]

@juno.1840 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:I guess the real issue is that some people must have every achievement and must have it now. I'm also going for the Three Card Monte achievement, and eventually I'll get it. Am I going to stand around and wait for it to spawn? Not even a small chance of that. This is a problem of the OP's making.

His point was quite succinct and he even provided clarification examples to posts that were clearly trolling -- which is more than I would have done.

Reading the community response to this topic makes me upset. Has it really become this toxic since I last played?

This response isn't trolling. This response is common sense.

There is a ton of stuff to do on that island. I don't stand around and wait for anything because there's always something going on.

Dynamic events have never ever ever in this game been on demand. There has always been a time on them. If you need a world boss for a collection, that work boss doesn't spawn every five minutes. It spawns every 2-3 hours. You have to wait for the world boss. The essence of this guys complaint is you have to wait, but what he's waiting for is one specific event that has one specific achievement tied to it. Do you have to do that achievement ever? Nope. I don't have it and I still got the meta completed for the zone.

If you think this is toxic, I guess that's your prerogative, but this is simple logic.

Orr has been in this game since day one and sometimes I have to wait for temple events. That doesn't mean there's nothing to do in Orr or Orr is badly design. It means temple events can't come up every five minutes because people don't have patience. It's not reasonable.