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in WvW Desert Borderlands Stress Test

Posted by: Myu Lae.8750

Myu Lae.8750

Here is my personal sight about the new map. I wasn’t able to test everything so it’s not a complete review.

On the first sight the map seems to be veeery huge but I was able to orientate myself very fast. And while running around it doesn’t feel longer to get from A to B than it does on normal borders. So I’m fine with that. I also like the look of the map (many lovely details) but I don’t like the new appearance of the siege weapons.

I think the new map will be good for roaming or open pvp and I like that it seems to be rewarded to be around with more groups than just one huge blob. But in a way I doubt that it will be a good map for guilds. There is little open space to fight and many many choke points. It’s not that bad like in edge of the mists where you can fall to your death nearly everywhere and have stupid respawning cannons in open field but with a guild I would prefer our normal borderlands. Especially the wooden ramp part on the bottom right of the map could be something to be avoided (except you have portal mesmers around which will be pretty useful). And you can’t just run up the ramp because of invisible small whatever you have to jump over.

I like the new way to build up towers etc pretty much. Some guildmates mentioned that there are very little supply camps around, but if you don’t need the supplies to build up your tower or whatever, you can grab it and use it for other things. That’s my thought about that.

Something I don’t understand: Why are there no guards at the shrines? There are a few small elementals but they won’t follow you up to the boss. They don’t even attack you if you’re at the boss. The boss itself is very easy to kill. You can solo every shrine while checking your inventory or the tp or getting something to drink. Should it be that easy?

I played mostly in the bottom part of the map and I dislike it pretty much that it is so easy for two people to capture a full build up not scouted tower. You can even solo it. One reason may be the guards who will aggro you only if you stand close enough to give them a handshake (all guards, not only the melee ones). And they will lose the aggro very easy. Compared to guards of full build towers on normal borders they are pretty useless. But I like the new tower champion who’s no longer someone you have to hurry to get a hit on him.
On not build up towers it’s ridiculous how fast and easy only two people can destroy a gate without using siege weapons. It’s like the gates are made of papier-mâché.

On the other hand it is pretty hard for a group of 10+ people to capture the full build up not scouted fortress on the left. The flying guards have a good aggro range (I like that) and a good aim. But the normal standing guards have nearly the same small aggro range like tower guards. And especially the melee guards at the inner gate will respawn just in the second you killed them. They don’t disturb a group of players (the flying guards do), but it’s annoying to kill them over and over and over. The champion inside seems to be pretty strong. Sometimes it’s impossible to dodge his attacks because the red pattern appears just in the moment he casts his attack. And if he hits you once you will be permastunned (combined with other cc) and maybe killed. It’s annoying. Compared to this the champion of the right fortress is someone to lough about. And I think left and right fortress should be equal in difficulty.

The problem with not attacking guards seems to be a general problem. I saw it in supply camps and with the guards on the road too. Sometimes they don’t even attack dolyaks from other colours within the camp.

All towers and fortresses seems to be very huge but you can scout the new towers as good as the old ones. So that’s fine. Fortresses are a bit tricky. I like that there are many ways in, out or inside a fortress, but it’s sometimes a bit like a maze. It would be nice to have an icon on the minimap where the supply camps are.

I can’t say if it will be good or bad that there are many spots to place an arrowcart where it can’t be destroyed from outside. But on the whole the height of the walls is some nice thing. It’s not that easy to look on top of them and as a defender you can stay when attacking people are spamming aoe on the walls (not in the aoe but you don’t need to leave the whole wall).

All in all I enjoyed playing the new map and think that there are some good mechanics with the shrines. I’m looking forward to the final version.