My feedback

My feedback

in WvW Desert Borderlands Stress Test

Posted by: Entenkommando.5208

Entenkommando.5208

First of all I want to thank you for inviting me to the stress test.

I will mostly focus on general things I noticed when running around the map because I think it’s pointless to make assumptions about the playstyle unless you actually see the map in action with a full, ts organized group developing strategies.

Let’s begin with the positive things.

  • This map is gorgeous. One of my best moments today was seeing the map during night hours the first time. I was exploring the fire keep and when I stepped through the portal to the surface it was just beautiful. Just looking over this dark (very dark, I like that), empty dessert with some vegetation far at the horizont. Wonderful.
  • The superior siege weapons look awesome. I would have wished to also see different omega golems but they look great anyways.
  • The keeps are wonderful. Finally they look like a true fortress you want to defend.
  • The different themes are very nice. Also the small things like having a tiny layers of sand on the walls of the earth keep. I really love these small details.
  • The shrines are great objectives for solo players, but I’d remove or lower the active buffs. WvW should be about who is the better fighter, not who walked by the most shrines before the fight. The passive buffs were really great, even though they should not be removed instantly like beeing said in some other threads as well.
  • The map structure may be a bit extreme and complex on the first look. But I won’t judge that until we had time to learn it and see how much it affects the normal gameplay.
  • That beeing said I love all the different places to enter a keep. One of the things I miss the most in WvW is the creativity of attacks. It’s been years since my commanders actually sieged an upgraded keep with some trebs to get in there. You just go to the gate, retreat because of too many ac and never touch the keep again. I hope that a creative playstyle will be encouraged with the stronger defense mechanics.
    Also in connection with the hard to counter siege spots due to very high walls people are complaining about. I think it’s generally very good, because it forces you to play creative and maybe also do a second and a third attack on the objective to finally get inside. I like that. WvW should be based on longer and more intensive siege fights. But unfortunatly people only go for easy loot and leave these keeps then. I hope this will change since you need to walk a very long way to the next objective. But as a hardcore WvW players I am of course also hoping for good fights. You have to find a balance there. I will come back to this in the more critical part.
  • Lords seem very fine to me. They shouldn’t just be free loot and give the defenders an advantage. (remember the old sm lord on the 2nd floor. Do that again please. It encourages defense). And they are one of the few useful kinds of PvE in a competitive mode. Tower lords went down easily with about 15 guys, which should be a good number to attack such keeps so I don’t see any reasons for changes there.
  • I like that holding an objective gives you some advantages for movement around the map and that you could make your way through there with some siege. But sometimes it may be a bit too much, expecially combined with the extreme verticality.
  • Finally the Dolyak defense buff. Thank you.

Overall I really like the idea of heavily encouraging defense. And it kind of bothers me that all the guys who got invited because they are active WvW players and those who complained all the time that there is no point in any defense because karma tran is op, those guys are now crying because it takes too long to get to objectives, to attack objectives, to kill a lord and so on, while others are already saying that it’s going to end with 24/7 karma train again.
It’s not perfect and I will talk about some things in the negative part, but you’ve only had 24 hours. You have no idea what the future may bring. And unless you have a crystal ball that tells you the future I am ashamed for you because you don’t even give them a chance to show that this map works. And in the end you will voluntarily join the karmatrain again.
We have been waiting for this for almost 3 years now. All the things we were hoping for are now almost there. But you don’t even show a trace of gratitude for their hard work. If you don’t want the map to work from the beginning on it’s of course not going to work.

R.I.P Kodasch Allianz [KoA]

All we wanted was a GvG.

My feedback

in WvW Desert Borderlands Stress Test

Posted by: Entenkommando.5208

Entenkommando.5208

Some neutral points then.

  • I don’t have a problem with the overall density of PvE mobs on the map. I’m sure if you’d remove them everyone would cry because the maps look so empty. But as said in another thread already, please rethink the mobs in very tight areas like the sandstorm area, where classes like necromancers and guardians couldn’t pass without getting in combat when activating their swiftness skills.
  • The player numbers will have to develop over time. I can’t evaluate that yet because my test server had almost no ques. But you have to think about that if you let too many players in the map it could again result in a big blob running around, because you still have enaugh players left over to defend. On the other hand I’m sure you’ll need quite some numbers to get inside the keeps if they are well defended.
  • I can’t tell much about the oasis event yet. It’s one of the things that needs time to see the impact. But I highly doubt that a disadvantaged server could profit from it if the others are going for it as well.
  • The circles to claim an objective are not too big for my taste. But we have to see if they make it too easy to slow down the cap.
  • I don’t really know why you placed the PvE areas in the upper corners again, but since they never disturbed anyone I don’t mind them. At least they are something for explorers like me.

Now on to the negative things I noticed.

  • First of all I think that the map needs some more open space. It seems like it forces you to go the ways you guys planned when developing the map. You don’t have as much freedom to move as on the old map.
  • With this comes a big problem: fights. If you want to fight your enemy you will rarely have a lot of space for tactical movement. This means, I’m sure about that, that the zergs will become extremly heavy on ranged players because meeles a) can’t evade all the aoe, and b) have the limited stability. It may be possible if you’d implement the old stability in WvW, which would make a lot of sense for the gameplay imo.
    And this is what makes it extremly hard for small groups (like guilds), because they don’t have any space for the tactical movement they need to survive.
    But I don’t know yet how much of a problem this will be since the goal of the map is to disencourage big groups. We will have to wait if this is true. Yet the danger exists and this is where you, as developers, have to jump in and make sure that the above is not happening.
  • Going on with the competitive aspect, I think there are generally too many forced choke points. I understand that some chokes are good to improve defense, but for most keeps I had the feeling that you’d be in a choke 90% of the time which is way to much considering the power of arrowcarts. I doubt that shield generators would be the ultimate solution for that. You’d have to use portal bombs to pass the arrowcarts but unfortunatly those are extremly predictable and rarely successful so they are not the best alternative, also enhanced by the number cap.
  • More of a personal thing: I think the force fields in the earth keep are not a very elegant solution to cut off the way.
    I also don’t see any use in the platforms above the gate there since you will be instantly killed by the aoe from below.
    The earth walls behind the gates seem like another forced choke point and don’t need to be there imo. And they are very annoying if you own the keep.
  • Not sure if I was just plain stupid but for me the airboosters that push you up used to be red when I can use them and green when they push me off…maybe you should swap that since it’s a bit misleading

That’s it about the negative things since, as said above, most things will only develop over time and can’t be foreseen yet.

R.I.P Kodasch Allianz [KoA]

All we wanted was a GvG.

My feedback

in WvW Desert Borderlands Stress Test

Posted by: Entenkommando.5208

Entenkommando.5208

And finally some bugs I found. Those are mostly minor things, but I pay attention to details so I will just post them here.

  • One bigger thing: using the guardian GS leap on a gate he leaps to a range of maybe 400-500 in front of the gate instead of leaping at the gate.
  • The merchant/crafing building in the defenders citadel with the hidden supply camp needs another look at.
  • Please check all stairs on the map again. I sometimes encountered barricades when trying to walk up some stairs. Some may be intended, like the last 2 steps in the fire keeps lordsroom, but there were also some barricades at the south-east wall of the north-west tower as well as some stairs in the air keep I can’t really describe the loaction off.
  • Some lava layers in the fire keep like in the lava pool behind the lord need another look at.
  • The river on the west side of the citadel has no actual underwater effect and starts a little bit from nowhere.
  • Superior arrowcarts should get an improved animation. They only shoot arrows out of the center like normal ac’s.
  • In the skritt city there is a cliff you obviously shouldn’t be able to jump on because of an invisible wall. But you can jump on a tiny edge there, which is very disappointing for my inner explorer. Please do something so you can’t get the idea of jumping up there because it looks perfect to jump on.
  • The sandpile in the south of the supplycamp north of the firekeep looks a little bit out of place colorwise imo.
  • At one of the sentries the first aid kit was a little misplaced.
  • In the north of the fire keep where you have the two like stone gargoyles sitting there is a small room on the left side which I guess shouldn’t be accessable. And the textures are clipping a bit there.

http://imgur.com/a/5YiFp
Here is an album with some screens of the bugs because I have the feeling that I suck at describing them ^^"

I will end my post with saying thank you again. I am a WvW player since the beginning so I know the struggle. This map has some huge potential in it. Please don’t ruin it by simply abandoning the development of WvW for another 3 years again.
A competitive mode needs comstant care. You know that from GW1. So please work on occuring problems and show players that you are able to turn your ideals into reality by actively working on them instead of assuming that players are going to play it the way you think it is going to happen. You say you want to disencourage blobs and karmatrains? Great. But if it’s becoming meta on the new map again-do something please.
And also thank you for the improved comunication in the last weeks. That is a very important step in the right direction.

If there is another stress test, please don’t invite me again. I now know that I can still hope for better times. But I will only be able to really experience the gamemode when actively playing with my server and my guild and I will happily give the spot to someone who hasn’t seen the map yet.

Until then I hope that you will do your very best.

R.I.P Kodasch Allianz [KoA]

All we wanted was a GvG.

(edited by Entenkommando.5208)