Guild Wars 2

Hi Anet, just wanted to give you some criticism about your new map.

First off, it is very pretty. There are maybe a few too many cliffs and roundabouts to get anywhere quickly, though that may come with experience so I will give you that one. I do enjoy the themeing of the keeps/towers, however i find them very big. There are just too many places to hide mesmers to get back in later. The maps in general have a lot of space i cannot figure out the use of… everything is really big and really far apart.

Second, there is no way for small man groups to do anything on this map if its defended. I only got to play after the streamers event and there were very few people still playing (maybe that should say more than anything else in this post). 10 of us finally got into the fire keep and died to the lord and a single mesmer. There is way too much cc so all the defender had to do was go around and snipe us when we were feared or dazed. And as the reverse me and 1 other person waited in the lord room of fire keep for 4 omega golems and a couple others and killed them very easily.

Thirdly the fact that everything upgrades itself will hurt smaller servers with less coverage. The server with any kind of superior coverage overnight for NA will cap everything and sit on it til morning. When its all fully upgraded the people who should own it will have to take back all their stuff that’s been fortified. They would have to karma train their own map just to keep it from being fortified.

Fourth, stability is not readily available enough to deal with the amount of cc in these maps. The wind keep has so many air turrets that cannot be turned off by owning the shrines. The lords have a lot of aoe ccs, fire being the most obnoxious. The taunts on every guard is extremely annoying, especially in small groups. There is simply no way to play against it without having a zerg of guardians on you so you can stand up. This will be multiplied when you meet enemy players on all the cliffs and bridges. Whoever has the most stability and knock backs/fears will win… no exceptions.

Fifth, there are too many guards/npc creatures everywhere. You will not manage to find a good place to fight without the interruptions. Every open space has them and it will make for easy rallybots.

Sixth, the map is extremely unhelpful. You cannot tell where to go or where the walls/gates of keeps and towers are. I think in the beginning this will be an issue and also for any new player to enter the map later on.

I honestly think if you added a few events the pve population of guild wars would be happy to consider it a new map. Take out the pvp aspect and let them take keeps and towers… would go over very well.

However this is not what the wvw population asked for and i think you will hear many complaints about it. The old borderland maps are much more appealing to me as it is now… i never thought i’d see the day when i would have to miss them.

Please consider changing things!
Leif.

+1

fifthteen chr

agreed. it doesnt feel like wvw and for me as a fighting/ zergbuster, i dont like this as a replacement for my wvw boderland map. i would love this map however as an edge of the mist map. this would have been the perfect eotm map actually as it is a little too havy on pve and probably more fun for a pve player than a wvw player.

a wvw map should be way way way less complex and more sandbox like and ai and mobs should be reduced. i really hate kiloling mobs. thats why i never ever play pve. i also haaaaaaate jumping puzzles, the new map is too complex with jumping etc, but thats the whole reason i play wvw and not pve.
this map is great for pve players that wanna try a bit of pvp and still have some nice mobs and a pretty looking map. a wvw player does not want any of that

Pve content is fine IMO there are not that much stuff aside from the middle event. The rest is mostly reskins of npcs or contextual defenses that once studied by players, will be just another part of any defense on the place.

I’m much more worried about the size of the 3 maps (+EB) vs a decreasing population playing WvW especially in lower tier servers.

DiscoJacen.1590:

Pve content is fine IMO there are not that much stuff aside from the middle event. The rest is mostly reskins of npcs or contextual defenses that once studied by players, will be just another part of any defense on the place.

I’m much more worried about the size of the 3 maps (+EB) vs a decreasing population playing WvW especially in lower tier servers.

nah it’s way more pve mobs than in old maps. Every kind of mob that isnt an enemy player does not belong in WvW. There is/are none in pvp right?
Even the presence of that champ wyvern makes it possible for the pve zombies to come ruin your wvw map/fight.

There are technically “mobs” in pvp if you count the NPCs in two of the maps: Foefire and Niflhel. Stronghold will introduce a lot of mobs as well. Not quite the same as rallying an enemy off a deer, but it’s still there.

Aerial Melodies.4938:

There are technically “mobs” in pvp if you count the NPCs in two of the maps: Foefire and Niflhel. Stronghold will introduce a lot of mobs as well. Not quite the same as rallying an enemy off a deer, but it’s still there.

I dont mind npc’s or other friendly mobs, what I hate is rally musquitos, flies, deer stuff like that

Several of my guildmates were in the stress test yesterday, and their report wasn’t positive.

They said it was too big, they said there was too much empty space, they said there were too many PvE mobs all over the place, and they said it was too vertical. The thing that they said that resonated a lot with me was that they said it would be too easy to completely bypass the enemy.

It’s like they are going to force us to play EotM version 2 all the time, when over and over we’ve said we don’t want that.

lord npcs and nifhel’s 2 beasts serve a purpose though (so do keep lords)

the 54787548937 veterans, elementals, spiders, etc do not. there’s no reason for them to be there other than decoration. I wiped a group of 5 by myself just by stealthing off the veterans in the oasis and aggroing them onto the enemies and having them get 2 shot—that shouldn’t be a thing. Hilarious and trolly, but shouldn’t be there.

look at eotm—they got a lot of guards and ai stuff like turrets and the aetherblades in the middle, but other than that. no mobs, no random pve. and it does not take away from the map, it only adds to it because you dont have to shove your way through 600 mosquitos just to get where you’re going.

let’s say you finally get a solid fight with two large groups, you push them and down 10 in the first push. then a raptor decides to run into the fight and boom they’re all up again. it’s annoying and doesn’t qualify as ‘wvw’ it qualifies as ‘saved by pve’

i vote for reduce the extra mobs to a minimum (or none)

the pve in the map is kinda alot, you can let pve in the map but a 33% less, i mean is ok that ppl go in the map and have fun other than just big fights and all, but it shouldnt have alot…

I never said the ones in pvp don’t serve a purpose; was simply replying that there are indeed npcs within certain maps. IIRC, you can’t rally off specific mobs in pvp (this may be Stronghold I’m thinking of?) which is, as you stated, what makes the mobs in WvW so trolly. In guild fights it’s not as horrible because a rally is likely going to die all over again. In a roaming fight is where it matters more… you really don’t your opponent to rally off a coyote.

I did notice a large desert space yesterday on the western side of the map that had little to no mobs in it. It’s near the western keep, for what it’s worth…

I agree with the OP. The PvE in the map feels far too heavy and their abilities far too obnoxious, especially considering that siege has a lot more harder to reach placing with ample verticality on structures. Also, I really dislike that the turrets you get from having 2 shrines (air nock ack gust, fireball gargoyle, and earth crippling golem) can neither be damaged nor disabled. It seems stronger than it should be given that they are extreamly abundant in each corner.

I think the main issue is that people don’t know the map and aren’t organized enough yet. Sure, there is some PvE in the map, but relatively I would say it is about the same as the current maps. There will be more fights when people have learned how the map works and where all the hidden little things are.

The title of this thread says it all. Trying to take the keep in a fractal? Bad combo. Not enjoyable. All the grossness of pve (air gauntlet on a bridge in wvw – really?) and not even any gathering nodes to make up for it. Keep the fractal in the fractal. A lot of pvers don’t even enjoy a fractal. The nps are way harder than the enemy. The enemy may as well not even been there. Seems like 85% pve, 15% wvw.

lordkrall.7241:

Sure, there is some PvE in the map, but relatively I would say it is about the same as the current maps.

I highly doubt that, especially when you factor in things like the keep’s effects and such. Also, you have to take into consideration the PvE itself. Even if the new map had the same amount of PvE as the current map, you can’t say that the PvE in the new isn’t stronger than the old map. In turn, potentially making gameplay more annoying.

Unless you guys actually try yourselves to make the PvE situation an PvP situation, instead of seeing everything with an event as pve, you can also think like this i a great chance to fight my opponents!

I played the map for about 8 straight hours mostly by my self no where near a zerg on various maps, in every tower and keep while owned by an enemy and at no point did I feel overwhelmed by enemy NPCs except during one fight with an enemy player ranger ,in the oasis, who had a hyena pet who summoned another hyena and he had ogre runes that summoned a rock dog and the veteran dinosaur he was fighting decided to also aggro onto me(presumably cuz I had a higher armor score then the ranger) and an addition dino attacked me cuz an attack bounced and aggoed to it. Even with all that I was able to survive and walk away from the fight and not die. all while playing an engineer who doesnt have access to blinks and I didnt have stealth slotted.

Most the time while I was walking around I was able to bypass the aggro radius of basically every mob I came across that was hostile without going out of my way and the few that did aggro to me where relatively slow and I could just out run them with only 25% movespeed bonus.

I also noted that there are significantly fewer random mobs in the map compared to the current boarderlands maps with the exception of the in the oasis where most of those mobs are neutral and non aggressive, even the pocket raptors wouldn’t attack you even if you aggro’d a whole pack of about 10 of them.

The 3 shrines around each keep have a little tiny bit of pve to do where you have kill heaven forbid ONE veteran mob. Supply camps have less pve in them now as you the dolyaks and their guards aren’t in the capture radius and there isn’t an [Upgrades] NPC standing around not aggroing to you with the guards.

There are NO DREDGE on the map and as far as i noticed nothing was immune to blind except things with break bars(and maybe dust mites?). Blind is super effective against most pve mobs as they tend to attack slow like once every second or two. Dont reply to this post complaining x profession doesnt have access to blind because we all understand that.

There was some completely OPTIONAL pve in the top right of the map where you could kill a couple champion wyverns that are very far away from any objective. The only like forced pve content I saw was the main event in the oasis you had to turn in about 20 power cores that dropped from certain mobs that had them, but even then, you dont HAVE to do the pve, you can stand around and just snipe enemy players when they pick up the power core which gives them a giant icon over there head visible to every played on the map and it locked them out of their weapon skills while they are carrying the bundle making them prime targets.

I going to just keep saying my suggestion of letting all pve mobs keep their character models for immersion but making them ambient.

They’re just wasting all their work by putting them in there, anywhere there are mobs is a place where the map goes unused because people want to fight without interruption and I hope they don’t see rallying off mobs around you because you can’t fight fairly, tactical play. All the maps would suddenly feel bigger and open up more manouvers for fights once they get rid of the pve mobs obstructing players from using that terrain to fight on.

Love it! The pve in wvw is a nice mix to bring in folks I think. Nicely done! Ty

I don’t consider the Oasis event PvE, personally, because of all the fights it draws out. I kinda want that event to occur more often – every 2 hours or so, instead of 3?

But the Canyon Spiders in the Air portion of the map were a huge headache. The confined corridors in general over there generally makes it difficult for Mesmers, Guardians, Necromancers, etc. to maintain swiftness.

Khezekiah Bellamy.5016:

I played the map for about 8 straight hours mostly by my self no where near a zerg on various maps, in every tower and keep while owned by an enemy and at no point did I feel overwhelmed by enemy NPCs except during one fight with an enemy player ranger ,in the oasis, who had a hyena pet who summoned another hyena and he had ogre runes that summoned a rock dog and the veteran dinosaur he was fighting decided to also aggro onto me(presumably cuz I had a higher armor score then the ranger) and an addition dino attacked me cuz an attack bounced and aggoed to it. Even with all that I was able to survive and walk away from the fight and not die. all while playing an engineer who doesnt have access to blinks and I didnt have stealth slotted.

Most the time while I was walking around I was able to bypass the aggro radius of basically every mob I came across that was hostile without going out of my way and the few that did aggro to me where relatively slow and I could just out run them with only 25% movespeed bonus.

I also noted that there are significantly fewer random mobs in the map compared to the current boarderlands maps with the exception of the in the oasis where most of those mobs are neutral and non aggressive, even the pocket raptors wouldn’t attack you even if you aggro’d a whole pack of about 10 of them.

The 3 shrines around each keep have a little tiny bit of pve to do where you have kill heaven forbid ONE veteran mob. Supply camps have less pve in them now as you the dolyaks and their guards aren’t in the capture radius and there isn’t an [Upgrades] NPC standing around not aggroing to you with the guards.

There are NO DREDGE on the map and as far as i noticed nothing was immune to blind except things with break bars(and maybe dust mites?). Blind is super effective against most pve mobs as they tend to attack slow like once every second or two. Dont reply to this post complaining x profession doesnt have access to blind because we all understand that.

There was some completely OPTIONAL pve in the top right of the map where you could kill a couple champion wyverns that are very far away from any objective. The only like forced pve content I saw was the main event in the oasis you had to turn in about 20 power cores that dropped from certain mobs that had them, but even then, you dont HAVE to do the pve, you can stand around and just snipe enemy players when they pick up the power core which gives them a giant icon over there head visible to every played on the map and it locked them out of their weapon skills while they are carrying the bundle making them prime targets.

There’s a few problems with your assertions though. Firstly, you mentioned you were ‘mostly by yourself’. That in itself gives you a lot more room to avoid the PvE than groups would have.

Secondly, I’m not sure what pathing you were taking, but I was seeing more than a fair bit of red mobs. Skales, various types of Spiders, Colocals, Hyenas, various types of dinos, and other ones that I can’t remember the names of. But beyond that, it doesn’t matter if it’s hostile or neutral. They are all agroable and rally bait.

Lastly, PvE doesn’t merely come down strictly to mobs and events. These maps are also full of things like the keep turrets (constructs that are abundant throughout their respective keeps, indestructible, unaffected by siege dissembler, and can only be turned off by not allowing the owners of the keep to have more than 1 of the 3 shrines). Those alone add a significant other level of annoyance to the PvE issue.

lordkrall.7241:

I think the main issue is that people don’t know the map and aren’t organized enough yet. Sure, there is some PvE in the map, but relatively I would say it is about the same as the current maps. There will be more fights when people have learned how the map works and where all the hidden little things are.

Yes, I’m sure you’re right, the map is wonderful and we’ll all love those unhittable indestructible siege, choke points, fear wars, rally bait pve mobs, etc and it will revitalise wvw completely.

I for one can’t wait to run across a map where pve mobs slow me down for 5 minutes to reach that gate that is protected by 20 ac’s and environmental effects (oh wait, revs can ignore a lot of them, wonder why there’s so many of those dazes..), finally got through the gate to enter a maze like structure, fight to a lord that gives a 10 man advantage to the defenders, finally cap it to have it flipped 5 minutes later by the portalled team with the hidden mesmer…

I literally can’t wait. Really. I’m not waiting.

I would like to add something i’ve been thinking about since the beta test. Anet you should make a new fractal/dungeon out of the keeps. I would actually be happy to see some of this stuff there. The new work isn’t bad its simply been misplaced.

If at all possible though, could you find a way to get the people to come out of the keeps to fight instead of those attacking having to break in to get fights as siege is rained down on them? Adding new and harder to reach places to deploy arrow carts is not really want many people want from wvw.

i just got the strong feeling that this map will be a giant karmatrain only. the size makes us kinda avoid fights and u have to do tasks to get ways into keeps etc…..its eotm ( a better eotm actually), but its not a wvw borderland map. way to vertical and the vertical frustrates me and almost made me ragequit . i hate jumping and im terrrible at it! im like the only mesmer main that needed to be ported to about every single jp in the game…… thats how much i hate jumping and vertical stuff. and on a mes a fight on vertical is the worst thing ever. blink fails nonstop and kept getting obstructed everywhere. so its gonna be a war,/guard/ ele only in wvw because of this map. nah i will queue for eb and thats it!

I believe the PVE aspect really helps those defending when out numbered. Most the time I’m alone defending a tower by my self vs six other people. Now that the NPC’s have a use people are complaining, but I find it that those people have to slow down and not pull every single NPC thinking that the NPC do crap for dmg like they did in the old borderlands.

Ultimaistanza.4793:

There’s a few problems with your assertions though. Firstly, you mentioned you were ‘mostly by yourself’. That in itself gives you a lot more room to avoid the PvE than groups would have.

Secondly, I’m not sure what pathing you were taking, but I was seeing more than a fair bit of red mobs. Skales, various types of Spiders, Colocals, Hyenas, various types of dinos, and other ones that I can’t remember the names of. But beyond that, it doesn’t matter if it’s hostile or neutral. They are all agroable and rally bait.

Lastly, PvE doesn’t merely come down strictly to mobs and events. These maps are also full of things like the keep turrets (constructs that are abundant throughout their respective keeps, indestructible, unaffected by siege dissembler, and can only be turned off by not allowing the owners of the keep to have more than 1 of the 3 shrines). Those alone add a significant other level of annoyance to the PvE issue.

1. A group can move around mobs just as a single player can or rather since they are a larger group might as well take a second or two and just slap those mobs into the ground with a few autos(just not when it puts enough people in combat for orange swords) and get extra loot, rather than chancing the mob slapping a couple players in the group, putting them in combat and slowing them down from the group.

2. I reported how most of the mobs I could simply outrun if they did aggro to me and I was only moving at 25% faster speeds as opposed to someone with swiftness would be long gone from the mobs. I think I did run across some spiders at one point that immobilized me and as such I spend about 5 seconds and killed them all and went on with my day. Almost every dinosaur seemed to be neutral save for I believe the stoneheads(?) and even those were all near each other and completely avoidable. I do completely concur with you on how dumb rallying of npcs/mobs is, no argument with you there and as such fully support a change to where players in wvw can NOT rally on non-players.

3. I think the turrets in lava keep were fine, except maybe tone down the boss room a bit on the turrets. I think the wind gusts also need to toned down a little bit in areas outside of the air keep, moving around in that area and have to use all my dodges/blocks or waiting out all the activating wind spouts was a little much. I do like the idea of having to shutdown the enemy defenses by taking all 3 of the shrines away from an area 1st is a good plan. I like the longer drawn out more planned ‘sieges’ rather than the reckless show up, toss down a ram, pvd. I do feel having them be completely automated is a little much also. Perhaps make them require a player to activate them and then they last for a short duration, this applies to all the automated defenses.

“For the turrets: well the shrines are outside so it just means you have to take the shrines to deactivate them before assaulting the keep”
Will probably be any official response you’d get for complaining about that. As much as I agree with the OP here, the PVE on the new map is mostly just added steps in the “taking something” process.

Before we had: Bali-Ram/Cata-Lord
Now we have: Shrines-Bali-Ram/Cata-Lord

The central wyvern is another story tho. It seems like a revamped version of the quaggans (that we had on borderlands before they added all the bloodlust ruins). But with a bigger impact.
Forcing us all to go fight in the middle for something is kinda cool still; especially since you can gank ppl during the gathering event.

Khezekiah Bellamy.5016:

1. A group can move around mobs just as a single player can or rather since they are a larger group might as well take a second or two and just slap those mobs into the ground with a few autos(just not when it puts enough people in combat for orange swords) and get extra loot, rather than chancing the mob slapping a couple players in the group, putting them in combat and slowing them down from the group.

2. I reported how most of the mobs I could simply outrun if they did aggro to me and I was only moving at 25% faster speeds as opposed to someone with swiftness would be long gone from the mobs. I think I did run across some spiders at one point that immobilized me and as such I spend about 5 seconds and killed them all and went on with my day. Almost every dinosaur seemed to be neutral save for I believe the stoneheads(?) and even those were all near each other and completely avoidable. I do completely concur with you on how dumb rallying of npcs/mobs is, no argument with you there and as such fully support a change to where players in wvw can NOT rally on non-players.

3. I think the turrets in lava keep were fine, except maybe tone down the boss room a bit on the turrets. I think the wind gusts also need to toned down a little bit in areas outside of the air keep, moving around in that area and have to use all my dodges/blocks or waiting out all the activating wind spouts was a little much. I do like the idea of having to shutdown the enemy defenses by taking all 3 of the shrines away from an area 1st is a good plan. I like the longer drawn out more planned ‘sieges’ rather than the reckless show up, toss down a ram, pvd. I do feel having them be completely automated is a little much also. Perhaps make them require a player to activate them and then they last for a short duration, this applies to all the automated defenses.

1) In theory yes, but not necessarily in practice. When you get more people, it becomes more difficult to see the mobs and their attack animations. Not to mention, the potential attacks that are meant for other players, but end up hitting you with the splash damage. And even if you do burn them as you go through, you get into the situation you mentioned, it puts people in combat and can potentially cause orange swords.

2) That’s just it though, you were by yourself. When you get additional people then you start getting into things like laying down symbols of swiftness, or using other skills to help maintain a steady pace, and agroing because of that, as well as the things I mentioned above.

Also, of the dinos, the ones that were neutral were most of the pocket raptors and the quill shooting dinos. The others (the Trexesque one that has the frilly scales around it’s neck, the one lower to the ground and looks somewhat like a alligator, the regular raptors, and some of the pocket raptors) are aggressive.

Upon reviewing the tapes.
Agressive Dinos:
Arrowheads: did the barrel roll attack like a karka. ONLY some were aggressive.
Stoneheads: looked like t-rex, had ranged knockdown and a charge attack.

Neutral Dinos:
Mordrem Bonebreakers: not sure attacks as you could perma knockdown them
Bristlebacks: quill shooters
Pocket Raptors: wont even fight you when aggro NINE of them
Smokescales: I think they stealthed and shadowstepped
Rolling Devils: Probably rolled?

There was also some non aggressive boars and beetles in the oasis too.
So only 1.5 of 9 mob varieties were aggressive by default

Khezekiah Bellamy.5016:

Upon reviewing the tapes.
Agressive Dinos:
Arrowheads: did the barrel roll attack like a karka. ONLY some were aggressive.
Stoneheads: looked like t-rex, had ranged knockdown and a charge attack.

Neutral Dinos:
Mordrem Bonebreakers: not sure attacks as you could perma knockdown them
Bristlebacks: quill shooters
Pocket Raptors: wont even fight you when aggro NINE of them
Smokescales: I think they stealthed and shadowstepped
Rolling Devils: Probably rolled?

There was also some non aggressive boars and beetles in the oasis too.
So only 1.5 of 9 mob varieties were aggressive by default

Thing is its not just the red named mobs that annoy roamers. The yellow ones effectively cut off huge portions of the map because if you are in a 1v1 and you stray too close to one thats a huge interference to the fight. I just don’t understand why they cant make all the mobs ambient but keep the character models.

Is it some attachment to wanting to leave mobs and specifically work on their skill mechanics to attract pvers? Rather than spend that time actually improving wvw as a player vs player type gamemode.