Joining Wintersday instances puts me in one that is almost done

[Itsy.3186]

So I thought this issue was fixed before, regression?

I tried to join the JP, put me in an instance that has less than 2 mins left.... I exit. I rejoin and put's me in an instance that's just a little over 2 mins... so I give up and join the Bell Choir... I end up in an instance that is in the middle of the 5th song and I can't join...

So what's the deal? I remember reading patch notes in 2019 saying that these issues had been addressed... I think it was around Halloween, and yet this past Halloween I had the exact same behavior with the JP...

It's so annoying

[Itsy.3186]

OMG I rejoin Bell Choir... it put me in an instance that was already completed!!!

[Schimmi.6872]

The instances get filled till they are closed. It would be a good change to deactivate joining old instances, but I don't know, if they will ever fix this system. Till then, better wait and don't rejoin, you should get a new map after it's finished.

[Itsy.3186]

It's pretty ridiculous. I just tried to join the JP today and it put me on an instance with 35s left... like seriously, why even bother putting you in an instance that you obviously can't even complete 1 run of the JP, or even participate on a song in the Bell Choir cause it's the last round and it's already happening so you won't be able to participate. Coding that logic shouldn't take that long and having that in place saves system resources because people don't need to join and leave and rejoin until they get into a good instance, and also saves us from some frustrations...

[Solvar.7953]

This is one of those annoying bugs that also hits the clocktower at halloween, and really any instanced content. I guess it isn't straightforward to fix (whatever logic choosing what instance to dump a player into may not know how much time is left in that instance). However, there must be some communication going on, because the selector knows how many players are in a given instance and whether it can dump new ones there.

[Tanith.5264]

I was having a similar issue last night. I kept trying to join Toypocalypse for the daily and kept landing in an empty Infiniarium. Very odd.

[Fueki.4753]

If it's almost done anyway, why don't you simply wait for the instance to reset?I've had no problems with being placed in such instances.

[Solvar.7953]

In some cases, like the clocktower, it won't start a new run if less than 2 minutes or so. So you sit around for 2 minutes for the timer to run out, get dumped into a new instance where you then wait for another minute for it to allow new players to start. Now 3 minutes isn't a lot of time, but I'm playing the game to have fun, not sit around and have nothing happen.The really annoying one is sanctum sprint activity. It will dump you into an instance and then helpfully display a message along the lines like 'there is not enough time left for you to compete and get any rewards', but because the sanctum sprint activity takes a while, I think that cutoff is closer to 5 minutes. But that one is especially galling - dumping you into an instance that once you get there, they game knows there is not sufficient time to complete the run.

[Aaralyna.3104]

@Tanith.5264 said:I was having a similar issue last night. I kept trying to join Toypocalypse for the daily and kept landing in an empty Infiniarium. Very odd.

Make sure you enter the Toypocalypse instance and not the Infiniarium one thats close to the stairs at the waypoint (while they look the same they are 2 different things and you will always be alone in the Infiniarium unless you have a party and others from the party join in). Just wanted to rule this mistake out in case thats what happened.

When the wintersday jump puzzle timer is under a minute or 2 I just wait for it to reset inside. Funnily today I encountered the bug that when I waited to be sent to a new map (after I had jumped 4x and then had a minute of time left), it moved everyone else but me, then I got the message that the instance I wanted to join was full and therefore I remained fully alone in the finished instance with the counter on zero. Funnily enough I could continue jumping without any timer and having the whole place to myself till I logged out of there. I would still get the rewards as usual, just the top player thing and timer didn't function. Saved me some big characters in my view, no time to worry about and a chance to try the hard mode jumping without others crashing the platforms so I am not complaining =)

[Tanith.5264]

@Aaralyna.3104 said:

@"Tanith.5264" said:I was having a similar issue last night. I kept trying to join Toypocalypse for the daily and kept landing in an empty Infiniarium. Very odd.

Make sure you enter the Toypocalypse instance and not the Infiniarium one thats close to the stairs at the waypoint (while they look the same they are 2 different things and you will always be alone in the Infiniarium unless you have a party and others from the party join in). Just wanted to rule this mistake out in case thats what happened.

I wondered about this exact thing (though it's never been an issue in prior years), so I very carefully noted I was talking to the "Toy Soldier" in charge of Toypocalypse. And yes, I was.

Tried again.

Bam. Empty Infinarium.

Maybe my game client was hitting my alcohol stash when I wasn't looking, or maybe the Windows 10 update that pounced on me after I closed GW2 for the evening is to blame. In any event, the problem sorted itself out, and I haven't had any trouble since. :)