Respawned Areas

When you enter an area a second time does everything respawn exactly or can the mobs differ in kind, quantity, location, etc? Are all the same bosses respawned too? It seems like there should be some benefit or "break" to clearing out and mapping an area--that when you reenter an area you have covered completely you don't have to kill the whole nine yards all over again? The one time I reentered an area solo it seemed like the same quantity of mob was there to greet me. I thought I read that it made a difference by how many were in your party?

Thanks.

Yes and no, it depends on which area, quests that are active and campaign.

Other than extra mobs present for a quest which you then complete, in general a zone is completely restocked when you enter it again.

All in all this is a good thing, there are not enough mobs or zones otherwise.

...not enough for what? Is there trouble leveling? Are they not doing the quests? No problem here that I'm aware of...just wondering why.

From experience, most groups of mobs have several different configurations of classes, as well as patrol routes and spawn points. Certain areas are more static than others with regards to group makeup and patrol routes (ember light for example has a pretty static opening area, but the bosses and their groups are somewhat random, the same goes for mineral springs)

No, not at all. There are plenty of zones, but you will outgrow many of them fairly fast. The explorable areas are instanced, of course, so they are dynamic. Quest targets generally will go away once you have "taken care of" them. Common mobs will respawn as well as zone bosses. Chests are random and of course loot drops.

One of my new pastimes is to solo kill lower level bosses for low level greens that may drop. It's a decent way to make a little gold.

Hmmm...I wonder if Arenanet has thought about toggling respawning? Make it optional if you need it or not to select respawn or not?

Well, consider that you don't really have to travel through an area twice if you have accomplished everything in that zone. Also, many mobs are spawned just for you and your current quest objectives. Being able to "toggle" respawn is unnecessary because you can just leave the explorable area and comeback. Most things that respawn are basically the natural flora and fauna you'd expect in a wild area. But, if respawns were kept completely static via a player toggle, some quest exploits could occur. (ie: invite friends to your party to go to a cleared zoned so they can finish their exploration/patrol/item gathering quests, etc.)

Map travel decreases the need for wading through low level repetitive zones but keep in mind you may still want to travel and "farm" these zones for collector drops, salvage material and equipment for your alternate characters. And, dyes can drop off any mobs, of course.

Toggling mobs off for a zone would completely negate the need for the Cartography titles. If I wanted beautiful scenery with no activity or challenge, i'd buy a magazine.

Also, this option would get abused by runners until the people they're scamming realize they just turned the spawns off. Can you imagine someone paying 3k for a Droknar's run only to find out they could've just walked through it with no monsters?

That's true. It certainly was a lot more fun playing Dragon's Gullet over and over again running -60% to get it all mapped out. BTW, speaking of Cartography...How exact do you have to walk every inch of the terrain possible? If the FOW is gone compared to a completed map of an area I just finished is that good enough? Is it possible to approach an area from two different directions to avoid the monsters in one location but at the same time see all the map develop and that's good enough or does it only count if all creatures are killed and red dots cover the area?

Do you do all your cartography after finishing quests in an explorable area or before or during quests? Maybe this doesn't matter how it is approached? I'm trying to think if there is a strategy to follow to complete an area the fewest times through or not? I don't think there really is except to load up on all the quests you can find at that moment and do as many of them as you can until you maybe tire of running -60% and go back to an outpost/town to "refresh"?

Wow Ratsneve that's alot of questions.....

ok best cartography- Tyria info here:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s....php?t=3021985

best advice in it :HUG THE WALLS grab a wall and show it some love

Do it before/during/after quests as you like. Some must be done in mission. You don't have to clear everything in the area but I found it easiest to really make sure I was gettting every last bit. As it is, I'm at 98.8% on Tyria (hardest of the 3 imo) and can't get the last bit lol but having a great time trying. Cartographer is imho the hardest title to max in any ways but the most rewarding.

Has anyone put together a "chart" that shows how much percentage each zone contributes toward 100%? One could add up the zone percentages one thinks they have done and know how well they are doing or at least what zones they need to focus more on instead of wondering at the end when they are 0.5% short which of the 50 zones they missed. I should do a search on Cartography in the Wiki and see what it says.

My gut feeling is that although I would like to get this 100% I will fall short of it and I won't go trapsing through all the zones looking for the missing percentage. If I had a clue up front when I was actually searching through a zone it might be another story. Of course this would be a form of cheating. LOL.

Nope, no chart like that that i've seen. Because of the nature of moving through a zone and getting partial percentages, I don't think it would be very helpful overall.

If you were 0.5% short, how would a map like that help you? ALL of the zones contain that much or more.

If you read the Cartography threads mentioned above, there are fantastic tips and methods for determining which spots you've missed. Theres no excuse not to get your Title if you want it.