First of all I just want to congratulate the environment artists that worked on this map. There’s so much detail built into it it’s amazing! I can’t find words to express how brilliant it looks, it’s really well done in so many levels. If the future PvE maps are like this, it will take the expansion to a whole new level.
Some of the things I enjoyed:
-The new keep lord’s mechanics are more complex and superior when compared to the old NPCs. They’re actually hard to kill, and the turrets around them make it even harder ( fire keep for example );
-It’s a map that encourages playing in small organized groups, and secondary objectives are decisive in a fight. Those buffs are amazing, but they’re easily capped with 2/3 players attacking a shrine. But what’s special about this is that the shrines are really spread out in the map which makes players have to separate themselves from the rest of the main group.
-The equilibrium between some vertically constructed areas and traditional horizontal map areas. When I first saw the trailer it really gave out the impression of EOTM 2.0. It’s nothing like it, there’s a load of space in the map for zerging but those small trails around the air keep are great for zerg busting. There’s a LOT more opportunity for strategy in the map and it’s amazingly well done. You can’t tell by watching a stream: only after you actually explore it yourself you can see the amount of places that the map actually has to offer.
-The new map’s mechanics: the shortcuts we can take when we own a keep (either to escape or to get in faster), the shrines’ individual buffs that are a treat to roaming players, the new buffs we get when we own the 3 shrines, first aid kits, small teleport pads in our BL main keep, the new siege, the oasis event, the revamped keep’s NPCs, the quantity and quality of spots where we can build siege to attack and especially to defend a tower or a keep, the zerg busting/ambushing spots, and others that I can’t even remember right now. It’s brilliant and it makes the older map look so boring. Even those kitten dust mites that knock you off cliffs are fun!
Some things I feel that could be looked at:
-The earth keep (the main keep in the BL) has teleport pads in some places, and they don’t have a cooldown. I can spam “f” as much as I want and the teleport will always be instantaneous. I believe that this should have a cooldown similar to the mesmer’s portal entre utility skill, so that defending players think twice before using the teleport pad and putting themselves in danger of ranged attacks.
-Supply depots inside keeps. It was hard to find them! All of the keeps are huge and maze like, I had a hard time finding them. It would be a lot better if we could see them marked on the map (with a small icon).
-Attacking a sieged keep will be a nightmare for slightly outnumbered servers. This is a problem we already face in the regular borderlands, but the defending players have to coordinate upgrades and manage supplies. On the new BLs keeps and towers are automatically upgraded, so we can basically just build loads of siege with little worries (with the exception of saving some for repairs). This on top of the new defense/buffs mechanics will make a huge pain for attackers to get in. I don’t know how this will affect servers that lack coverage in specific times of the day/night, but it may become a big disadvantage. Servers with good coverage can basically sit on their butts and the keeps/towers will just self upgrade. Maybe some sort of extra buff to outnumbered players could balance things up a bit: like siege costing 30% less supply or something similar.
-Finding where the keep’s gates/walls on the mini map/world map (when pressing M) was confusing. I’m sure that after we play a few hours on the map it will stop being a problem, but nevertheless it’s a pain to try to understand where are the gates/walls on the mini-map/world map.
-The oasis weapon needs a better animation. I was amazed when I climbed those golden stairs for the first time. It’s so epic, but when the canon fires it just goes like “pew pew”. It’s an OP canon that can destroy gates and that’s only avaiable every 3 hours!!! It needs a better animation, it needs to be more flashy.
-Superior arrow carts have the same animation as regular ones. Although not really important, the superior ACs have more “pipes” from where the arrows should come off, but the arrows only come from the middle of it, just like in the normal ones.
Bottomline: I like the change the map looks amazing, I’m really looking forward to it. There are terrain exploits ( I didn’t find any, but I can see that some players posted them on the forum) and the buffs need to be carefully looked at, but overall it is great.
A 1 week match that counts torwards the general WvW score would be the perfect way to test the map. This way we could actually see how the players adapt to the new map’s mechanics.
Flipping your camps since 2014 :3