Re: Any Garden Ops changes/improvements coming soon?

@AWMaxSterling 
I used to wait for a full team but gave that up long ago.... due to people starting the game anyway.... I have now joined the ranks of the "idiots" as you call them..... so nowadays I will, sometimes, start a game before the team is full but generally ask (if there is somebody there) if they are "Ready"...
and sometimes, if there is nobody there, I will just start the game on my own.
Ops is pretty easy as it stands mostly and I have found that you don't need a full team anyway....
unless you get caught out with a new team and a Yeti or a Squash, sometimes that doesn't go well, in fact it can go horribly wrong despite any efforts made to try and show the new folk what to do... but its all part of the fun 😃

However, it is interesting that you say you will leave the game if someone starts it before a full team is there, as I had not considered this would put people off and they would leave....and I have noticed people leaving at the beginning and wondered why, maybe this could be the reason. I will definitely take this into consideration in future games.

Not sure what platform you are on, but on PC if you waited for a full team every time you would spend a lot of time waiting.

Normally when starting a game of Ops, I generally just get started on it straight away, rather than waiting for more people to join, but I'll consider that in the future! 

I'm hoping that in this month's livestream, that Garden and Graveyard Ops will get addressed during that session. Even if the developers don't plan on adding anything at that time, such as Phase 3, to Ops in March, then it would be nice if they give us a heads-up that it will be coming at some point sooner rather than later in the future. Many people, including myself, have been wondering when this next phase of Ops is going to come out! Many of us don't play Ops or don't enjoy Ops because it has nowhere near as much variety as it used to back in GW2, there's no difficulty, different places you can place the garden or graveyard, those kinds of things. No variants are fine with me, but what about the other Ops features that many of us loved? I'm hoping the developers mention something like this sooner rather than later, at least just so we know that there's a spanner in the works with the Ops! 🙂

Since BfN had its official release, not much has happened in terms of PvE. Many of us really like the PvE side of it, as well as the PvP. I'm really hoping they look at adding lots of things to the PvE side of the game, as well as continuing to improve PvP. PvP is quite fine at the moment, but there are inconsistencies present as well! 

@AWMaxSterlingI can see your point of view, but I'm Xbox too (Europe) & there have been many times I've joined an Ops game with only 1or 2 other people & not only have we gone through the entire game without a 3rd or 4th joining, but sometimes another game or two after that as well . . . so I'd hesitate to call it selfish of people to start a game without a full lobby.

Yes, you usually find Ops has plenty of people but I think it depends on so many factors, like time of day & whether people are focusing on the weekly events.
Without knowing if people are likely to join, with knowing the playerbase seems to peak & trough and with most people having a limited time to play . . . 🤷‍♀️

I personally though, wouldn't start a game by myself if I'm the first in a game. I'll wait a couple of minutes & see if people join. If no one does, I'll leave & go do Ops in PvE.

I COMPLETELY agree though, that many characters now feel hard to use effectively in Ops since the last balance change & that's affecting my character choices and whether I play Ops for certain challenges 🙁

All these different issues just make me want the solo bot play we have in GW2 more & more . . . . 

(Edit: spelling)

@AWMaxSterlingPlayers who start a game straight ahead I would neither call inconsiderate nor selfish. It's just a result of Ops being way too easy. It always can happen that an Elite Boss won't die due to a lack of players. But it's at the end of the round when the health of the garden/graveyard-thingy doesn't matter anyway. On the way to the final stage players can leave anytime as players can hop into the game.
I don't think it's a big deal to start the game without waiting for a full lobby since the game will sooner be in the final stage - the only stage which is worth to be played imho. And if a Boss is too strong: it happens. I'm so used to changing lobby sizes during the game that I don't even bother anymore.
Ops needs Phase 3 sooner than later. If then someone starts the match with an empty lobby in the hardest difficulty level I call it inconsiderate and selfish but not in the current state of the mode which is just a joke.

@AWMaxSterling Don’t get me wrong, defeating Elite Bosses in a team of two, even three sometimes, does provide a nice challenge; depending on who the slot machine picks. The Yeti is probably the hardest in my opinion but with the right communication and teammates that actually contribute, can be completed relatively quickly. As a four person team, going through all the maps and bosses is becoming even easier as time goes. If we had the option to change the difficulty, I would spend a lot more time playing Ops on BFN. For now, GW2 it is.