Guild Wars 2

Something that GW1 and the original GW2 release had in common was enormous amounts of useless land. GW1 had some maps that were so useless you had to go out of your way into a dead end map just to see some random grass. And that’s awesome. There is a great joy in just running around in new land that you haven’t seen before, maybe fighting some indigenous animal that you haven’t run into before (pinipals!). And you find that hidden little cave with a champ guarding a chest and there isn’t even a PoI. Or that waterfall at the very center of the spiral in The Falls in GW1. No point at all, but insanely awesome.

I understand the desire to concentrate players on the new maps, and pack them full of crazy amounts of content, but people are going to go to that content no matter what. Imagine if HoT had the 4 (now 5) maps we have as the “real maps” and there were also 10 junk maps that were just there for fun with some random events and perhaps even some hearts. No effort put into making them polished, just something to explore in between doing the “real” content.

Anet seemed to brush aside the criticism that HoT was too small, and not having useless maps is definitely part of that.

That’s what I’d like to see anyway. More crap.

I agree that it would be nice to have some breathing room in the newer maps. Especially the HoT maps are completely filled with mobs so you can’t really stop for a minute.

Agreed! I remember back during launch when I could pretty much take my time ambling across the maps, taking in the sights, talking to every single NPC with a name, and only occasionally having to fight for my life when I wandered into obviously dangerous locations like an animal den or a bandit cave.

With the new maps, it’s like the whole place is PACKED with enemies who want me dead (and in the case of the Knights, aggro from YUGE distances away). There’s usually a meta or event chain going on so it’s RUNRUNRUN from event to event, no time to stop, once an event is down get to the next one or you’ll miss out on LOOOOOOT!

It’s exhausting, frankly. I can only handle it in small doses before I need to go do something else.

New content would be nice but they also need to assign a couple of people to updating the central Tyria maps, updating stale events and fixing some of the problems with the worse maps. I wish they would open a portal from Hoelbrak to Snowden Drifts by the Owl waypoint. Frostgorge Sound needs some TLC to fix the problems with it.

Reminds me that I hate having to fight. Mostly I just won’t go anywhere at all.

I gather materials, started to skip the nodes with enemies nearby.

Traced.3495:

Reminds me that I hate having to fight. Mostly I just won’t go anywhere at all.

I gather materials, started to skip the nodes with enemies nearby.

Get an engineer up to full scrapper because you’ll get the sneak gyro. IMHO the scrapper is best for passive gathering.

Sadly, GW2 core had a fair amount of this stuff, but I see less of it in added content. Unfortunately, a lot of players told ANet that they weren’t interested in such things, and only cared about virtual rewards, and ANet has complied.

You’re right, GW1 had whole maps for the sole purpose of being there (like the Poisoned Outcrops , which was one my favorites even), and the only thing to do really was maybe getting one elite skill or two and vanquishing. And there was a lot of fun areas to explore that would reveal the lore behind the place (for the case of the outcrops, it was a mountain area full of giant bones and petrified tendrils, way above the sulfurous sands of the desolation, suggesting this race probably lived at or, at least went up to the mountains when the Crystal Sea was turned into the Crystal Desert).

While I would love more useless zones/areas of the world map (and they could easily have some now if they brought back some season maps and made the raid zone an empty explorable zone for everyone.

I imagine the balance of cost vs production makes it hard to justify making “empty” areas of a map, and judging how dense HoT and the new S3 map have been, it seems unlikely that they would do this from a game direction stand point, unfortunately.

The franchise has always had great environments. But not all zones have the odd thing that only exists to make you wonder why it’s there. To spark the imagination.

If silverwastes didn’t have that poi in the gigantic underground cavern it would have blown me away stumbling across that wondering what else could be down there. But as it is I just felt it was for a poi and didn’t explore it much.

Redfeather.6401:

The franchise has always had great environments. But not all zones have the odd thing that only exists to make you wonder why it’s there. To spark the imagination.

If silverwastes didn’t have that poi in the gigantic underground cavern it would have blown me away stumbling across that wondering what else could be down there. But as it is I just felt it was for a poi and didn’t explore it much.

That’s a good point. I recall randomly finding the King Jalis jumping puzzle early in the game, and that was amazing. Then they put a vista in there that just broadcast “hey there is a secret area here, come explore the secret are that you found all by yourself.”

I think that BF does a good job of not having enemies everywhere like in the HoT maps. Its a huge improvement in my opinion. Still not at the same level as central tyria maps but its headed in the right direction

I agree

HoT maps are just too busy for my liking. I like to take my time and explore- I’m rather put off by getting chased by a huge amount of mobs (with CCs…). It means running around and exploring every nook and cranny is always a battle and super tedious.

I want to find a mysterious area that has no real use apart from looking pretty.

Orr was sort of half-way there- I could explore and there were no heart tasks to distract me (but the area itself isn’t exactly beautiful and there are a huge amount of events that pop too).

But I get that A-net want to produce maps with the greatest amount of play-time possible- it means more players stay interested in the game for longer.

Yeah, when a map is jam-packed with mobs, it kind of kills my desire to actually explore. I end up just taking shortcuts and hugging the outside edges of paths so I don’t have to be forced to fight. I know I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but it’s something I also miss from World of Warcraft. I miss the variety of environments, especially DESERTS. Just running across the sands without too many obstacles, driven by a desire to find out what is on the other side of the flats.

That’s my thought: GW2 needs a greater variety of environments to spur on exploration, because as it is now, each “zone” is just the same environemtns but with increasing levels of complexity and frustration (example: Going from Wayfarer Foothills north to Forstgorge Sound, or south to Dredgehaunt cliffs. Not nearly as much variety between Shiverpeak maps as I would like to see). We either get temperate zone (Kryta), jungle-ish zone (Maguuma), snow + mountains (Shiverpeaks), brown land (Ascalon), crazier jungle (Heart of Maguuma), rocks and more rocks (Maguuma Wastes), or dead zone (Orr).

I gotta go to bed soon, but I wanted to come back to this topic and mention something.

Just remembered something about Dragon Age Inquisition. When I was playing it the environments in that game were amazing. The first zone I was exploring was so magnetic and engaging. But for some reason even though the other zones were so diverse and different, I was losing interest fast in the game!
I honestly think it was because every zone was boiled down to unfogging it and looking for icons such as ‘atriums’, ‘skull shards’, ‘landmarks’, ‘rifts’, etc. They were all being treated the same from a gameplay perspective.

So maybe the idea of changing things up for the next expansion could bring back the mystery of exploring a new zone and give that new zone a real fresh feeling.

Glad to see i’m not the only one that finds the new maps too frantic. I don’t mind a fight but its also nice to be able to see a path where I’m only going to be fighting one or two mobs not packs of them.

I love to roam, exploring, gathering, doing events when i feel like it or ignoring them if I don’t. I particularly don’t like the narrow paths in the likes of verdant brink where you can’t even go wide to avoid the mobs, and if you use your dodge in a fight you are likely to go over the edge. The zerg fest and constant events take away the pleasure of getting to know a zone.

I am looking forward to the day they eventually open up Woodland Cascades, I think it could be really beautiful, but I hope it is closer to Timberline Falls than the new HoT zones.

I would also like a couple wide expansive zones, Savannah or wide open grassland would be a nice change – maybe with more of an emphasis on hunting and gathering.

Out of all the Gw1 Campains and the expansion my particular fav are the Elona maps in Nightfall also Catha’s Shing Jae Island & the Jade sea,
so definatly need more gw1 enviroments to explore in Gw2 without drowning in enemys would be great

Ahhh yes that feeling of exploring and finding something new and maybe something no other player has seen yet because it’s not a POI.
I do miss that quite a bit.

The current maps have several spots with “unfinished business” which would be great leads into new ares.

Where does the gate in Garenhoof in Kessex hills lead to?
Or even how does the Dominion of the winds, behind the great wall to the south of Kessex hills look like now ?.
When do we get to meet Isgarren?

But one or 2 maps that have nothing to do with the new living story but are just out there for us to explore would be awesome.

Don’t call it “mediocre garbage”. Core maps and the like shouldn’t be thought of like that. None of them are mediocre, or garbage. They are of great quality and enjoyable in their own right.

I would also like to see more of them. They’re relaxing to play through… and that’s one of the reasons why I play this game. The game needs to strike a balance between new zone types being added. There is a place for all.

I loved them. Even Dry Top and Silverwastes had peaceful sections. Stuff like that needs to come back.

Totally agree. More maps that exist just for the sake of being there, please. No need to fill them with intricately linked event chains or any of the complex, time-consuming stuff. Just some villages, caves, ruins, lakes and some wildlife at a sensible density. More breadth, less depth.

Daedolon.4583:

Out of all the Gw1 Campains and the expansion my particular fav are the Elona maps in Nightfall also Catha’s Shing Jae Island & the Jade sea,
so definatly need more gw1 enviroments to explore in Gw2 without drowning in enemys would be great

nostalgiagasm

Yes! Your post just brought me back to roaming the hills (and caves) around Shing Jea. The ambient music, how immersive it was… the soft lighting and how emotive the whole place was.

I think one of the reasons why this sort of “stop and smell the roses” sort of gameplay isn’t so huge in GW2 is because when exploring you have very defined points to run to. In GW1 you had to unfog the map to explore, meaning that to some extent you could run wherever you wanted to whilst exploring.

The mini-map in GW2 is so crucial to many aspects of game-play that it detracts from the environment around you. I guess you could liken it to walking/driving around glued to a cellphone or satnav? When I’m running from one place to another, I’m probably looking at the mini-map half of the time. I think it would be really cool to play without it (I think WoodenPotatoes did?) just to see how reliant I am on it, and what the game would feel like without it.

Crimson Clouds.4853:

Daedolon.4583:

Out of all the Gw1 Campains and the expansion my particular fav are the Elona maps in Nightfall also Catha’s Shing Jae Island & the Jade sea,
so definatly need more gw1 enviroments to explore in Gw2 without drowning in enemys would be great

nostalgiagasm

Yes! Your post just brought me back to roaming the hills (and caves) around Shing Jea. The ambient music, how immersive it was… the soft lighting and how emotive the whole place was.

I think one of the reasons why this sort of “stop and smell the roses” sort of gameplay isn’t so huge in GW2 is because when exploring you have very defined points to run to. In GW1 you had to unfog the map to explore, meaning that to some extent you could run wherever you wanted to whilst exploring.

The mini-map in GW2 is so crucial to many aspects of game-play that it detracts from the environment around you. I guess you could liken it to walking/driving around glued to a cellphone or satnav? When I’m running from one place to another, I’m probably looking at the mini-map half of the time. I think it would be really cool to play without it (I think WoodenPotatoes did?) just to see how reliant I am on it, and what the game would feel like without it.

Agreed! I find myself running around with the intent to get to x WP or y POI or z Vista, not truly exploring, just going on autopilot (especially the more toons I make of the same race). Even WoW had a sort of “unfogging” type of exploration deal, where instead of Vistas and POIs you had villages, zones, etc. whose names would pop up on your screen and your map would begin to take shape. Sure, GW2 does the exact same thing, but I feel the exploration is driven more about getting the POIs and Vistas and such.

First off, they should do more first the older maps, theres still way to many maps out there, which have seen until today absolutely NO ATTENTION at all in regard of the living World Concept that should change dynamicalyl the whole world to make also older maps interestign again to consistently revisit them.

However, under the concept of the Living World Seasons and under the Expansions I also think that they should add consistently new maps to speed up the progress of making Tyria completely explorable so that chances raise up, that we see somewhen hopefully before the end of GW2Äs life cicle eventually also the oother continents Cantha and Elona again with fitting own campaigns about them, however I think this is pretty unlikely that we will ever get to see this happening – Naet has I guessed focused themself completely with GW2’s story soely on the continent Tyria.
But if this is realyl the case, then I expect as a player also more world design quality and quantity, when they focuse the whole game only on one single continent, then should we players expecting more and denser expansions of the explorable world, especialyl when its also possible like how they did it with GW1, that we will eventually see also a underground world map with explorable underground regions, otherwise it would be pointless to write on the world map somethign like "Tyria (Surface)

Because when there is a “Surface” Map, then you can automatically expect also from Anet, that they are kind of planning to work also somewhen onto undersurface map thats underground where basically Primordus and the Stone Dwarves are that do since 250+ years their best their to seal him and his minions the destroyers off to break through in masses to the surface.

With their first expansiuon they focused too much on addign just a straight forward story, way too linear and with too less new maps.

Instead of adding only 4 straight forward story maps that offer absolutely no room for creativity and so called “fun maps”, theyy shoudl have added around 6-7 maps, where among the story maps are also in between every now and then non story related fun maps that are focused on other things, which you maybe travel also through in regard of the story, but rather quickly instead of doing it with missions and bigger story related tasks to do there.

They should have continued in my honest opinion with the expansion the Personal Storys… personal Story is in my opinion somethign they should have merged already a long time ago with the Livign Story System and continue the story telling in the same way like they did in the Main Game with the personal Story, where all of your decisions have influence on what you can do next..that all your decisions can lead also to you having different missions than someone else.
That made it also far more interestign to replay the story multiple times, do do each time a different decision to play all the kinds of possible missions you can get on the way to experience all of the different missions.

that was somethign great with that Anet should have continued with their expansion..because one lined story paths, where you have to do everytime with every character each tiem exactly the same thigns, are BORING, they are already directly borign the very moment you replay them the second time just for achievements only, because the story is nothing new for you anymore unlike on the personal story concept of the main game, where you had from a specific point on for each story segment like 3 different missions you could receive based on your earlier decisions…, the story branched out far more and thats what made the story telling alot better in my opinion compared to Hot and gave the story far more longevity and replay value this way

If we wopuld have received with Hot more maps with a branching out story telling system where your decisions matter what for a personal outcome you get at the end, where just at the very end everyone gets the same results, that would have been in my eyes a far better and higher quality expansion experience, than what they delievered with heir small scale single path content where decisions play absolutely no role over the whole course of the story, where no replay value exists, unless you care for achievement points and some more or less lousy rewards

Anet needs to expand their map design with more features… this game needs more than just only Story Maps!!

There needs to be also a wide varity of other map types to keep the players entertained.

This game shoudl provide this kind of Map Varity:

- Story Maps
- Raid Maps
- Fun Maps (solely for Exploration, Gathering, Looting, Events, Adventures ect)
- Hunting Maps (Maps that are just for Quick Leveling, World Bosses, Money Making/Crafting, Monster Hunts ect in a kind of Monster Hunter Style
- Invasion Maps which are larged scaled PvE War Maps where you fight agaisnt huge amounts of enemies constantly where you have just the goal to defeat the invasions, where you have to play strategeticalyl together with players, where also siege weaponry must be used cleverly and other war tactics to be successful, when you seet your foot into such a kind of map, you should directly feel that here blows a different type of wind in these kinds of maps than in your usual pve maps
- Dungeon Maps which have focus on a varity of different Dungeon Types, from Solo Dungeons, to Dungeon Crawlers to Guild Dungeons over Story Dungeons to the classical Group Dungeons with that they started

Brief said, their world design just needs more variety when they focus completely on working only on one single continent in my opinion and so quicker they make the whole continent of tyria completely explorable, so quicker can they focus their ressources on other things like adding new features or working on other time expensive thigns like legendary weapon completion ect.

“Fluff” maps are a waste of time and resources. There are a plethora of other important things to do.

Fluff maps are no waste of time, they give people somethign to do, somethign new to explore, kep people entrtained, and thats exactly what you want, while you work on the background on other new thigns like an expansion that drives further the story of the game then and adds alot of new features.. however, of these fluff maps are so tiny, that you have them already completely explored on like 30 minutes, then this is a waste of ressources, because they they completely failed their reason for existance to keep the players entrtained for a logner time, so that you can work as developer on bigger new content, before the masses are already screaming again for a new map to explore

Sure, there are a plethora of othr important things to do, I absolutely agree, but this doesn’t mean that anet should completely let everything else out of sight permanently for too long time.

In my opinion was the Living World concept from begin on a complete waste of tiem and a complete dead birth… if Anet would have made from begin on after release of the Main Game Expansions, i think the whole game and the company would be by not alot further,m than we are right now and we would be already alot further I gess also with the whole game’s story….

instead of wasting alot of time with all this karka, sky pirates and scarlet garbage, they could have started directly with HoT and we would have by now then already a second, if not already the third expansion done and the fourth maybe in the works if they would delievr basically yearly an expansion similar how like world of warcraft does it with new content, that is designed around it, that the new added content should most likely keep the players busy for around exactly a year before the next expansion comes, because thats the most ideal way of designing online games, that you always try to deliever enough new content, that players are busy liong enough, so that you have the time to deliever the next expansion before people scream permanently loudly for new content and a content drought starts for a long time….

content droughts should be avoided at any costs, because they are it, which lead to massive amounts of players quittign the game and moving over to otzher games, if the game they want to play delievers for to long time no new content to play and for that cause is constantly adding more consistently fluff maps exactly the right thing, until the point is reached, that the whole map is finalyl explorable, theny they have to use somethign else as consistent filler material to keep the people busy

Orpheal.8263:

Fluff maps are no waste of time, they give people somethign to do, somethign new to explore, kep people entrtained, and thats exactly what you want, while you work on the background on other new thigns like an expansion that drives further the story of the game then and adds alot of new features.. however, of these fluff maps are so tiny, that you have them already completely explored on like 30 minutes, then this is a waste of ressources, because they they completely failed their reason for existance to keep the players entrtained for a logner time, so that you can work as developer on bigger new content, before the masses are already screaming again for a new map to explore

Sure, there are a plethora of othr important things to do, I absolutely agree, but this doesn’t mean that anet should completely let everything else out of sight permanently for too long time.

In my opinion was the Living World concept from begin on a complete waste of tiem and a complete dead birth… if Anet would have made from begin on after release of the Main Game Expansions, i think the whole game and the company would be by not alot further,m than we are right now and we would be already alot further I gess also with the whole game’s story….

instead of wasting alot of time with all this karka, sky pirates and scarlet garbage, they could have started directly with HoT and we would have by now then already a second, if not already the third expansion done and the fourth maybe in the works if they would delievr basically yearly an expansion similar how like world of warcraft does it with new content, that is designed around it, that the new added content should most likely keep the players busy for around exactly a year before the next expansion comes, because thats the most ideal way of designing online games, that you always try to deliever enough new content, that players are busy liong enough, so that you have the time to deliever the next expansion before people scream permanently loudly for new content and a content drought starts for a long time….

content droughts should be avoided at any costs, because they are it, which lead to massive amounts of players quittign the game and moving over to otzher games, if the game they want to play delievers for to long time no new content to play and for that cause is constantly adding more consistently fluff maps exactly the right thing, until the point is reached, that the whole map is finalyl explorable, theny they have to use somethign else as consistent filler material to keep the people busy

Lol, fluff maps won’t fill any content drought time.

Engine improvements to fix lag.

New wvw map and the other carp ton of work it needs.

Better UI, not one from the 90s.

Build savers.

Legendary weapons.

Profession improvements.

Combat system improvements.

Better report functions.

… The list goes on and on

Fluff maps would do nothing except waste dev time and money, and you’d have a bunch of kittened off players complaining about devs wasting time and money instead of producing important stuff…

Swagger.1459:

“Fluff” maps are a waste of time and resources. There are a plethora of other important things to do.

Sorry, I have to disagree. They bring much to the table.

Even on “fluff” maps there are events and enemies, but they are not as saturated.

As mentioned before, GW1 had many maps where the only thing there was an elite skill to capture, but because the map was not overwhelmed with enemies and events, you were able to enjoy the beauty of the map and explore things you may never see in a map like Tangled Depths or Verdant Brink.

I can see the beauty and artistry in the HoT maps, but have never been able to enjoy exploring and looking at the maps because it is a constant battle.

Fluff maps are not a waste of resources, they add to the aesthetics and exploration of the game.

I’m afraid Swagger is correct. While there is a demographic that would benefit, it’s not one of the mainstream demographics to which Anet pays heed. This is especially true when you consider that new gameplay areas for sPvP, WvW or PvE would dip into the same pool of devs as exploration zones. I think the best we can hope for is that they throw a few Easter eggs into new areas designed for event content and don’t lock them behind event completion.

jheryn.8390:

Swagger.1459:

“Fluff” maps are a waste of time and resources. There are a plethora of other important things to do.

Sorry, I have to disagree. They bring much to the table.

Even on “fluff” maps there are events and enemies, but they are not as saturated.

As mentioned before, GW1 had many maps where the only thing there was an elite skill to capture, but because the map was not overwhelmed with enemies and events, you were able to enjoy the beauty of the map and explore things you may never see in a map like Tangled Depths or Verdant Brink.

I can see the beauty and artistry in the HoT maps, but have never been able to enjoy exploring and looking at the maps because it is a constant battle.

Fluff maps are not a waste of resources, they add to the aesthetics and exploration of the game.

This. Sure, I finally completed Auric Basin (all Vistas, HPs, POIs, and WPs), but I couldn’t bring myself to truly “look” at it. It doesn’t help that I tend to keep my graphics low so my laptop doesn’t overwork itself, so therefore I can’t see all the details and such that the creators meant to be seen. So beautiful areas don’t look nearly as beautiful as they really are. :/

IndigoSundown.5419:

I’m afraid Swagger is correct. While there is a demographic that would benefit, it’s not one of the mainstream demographics to which Anet pays heed. This is especially true when you consider that new gameplay areas for sPvP, WvW or PvE would dip into the same pool of devs as exploration zones. I think the best we can hope for is that they throw a few Easter eggs into new areas designed for event content and don’t lock them behind event completion.

I’m afraid that this is opinion just as much as my previous comment was. There are no statistics to back up yours, Swagger’s or my comments. So none of us are “correct” or wrong.

I don’t see new, fluff maps as worth it. The thundering Zerg will rush to it, rush through it, then come to the forum to complain about how there’s nothing to do there and it’s a pointless waste of time.

I’d much rather have the Devs make substantive maps that keep large numbers of people busy than fluff maps that are run through fast then abandoned. (After all, when the last time you (generic you) have gone to and spent a lot of time in the middle level maps after you finished there? Most people don’t return to a map unless it’s to farm or do specific content once they’ve been there and seen that).

What they can do is ease up on the non event mobs to allow relaxed exploration of the maps they do make. It’s those multitudes of hard hitting non event mobs that inhibit casual exploration and imo aren’t really necessary for the map. Make the new maps like the HoT maps and thin out the mobs so people can do both events and explore.

I have noticed that a lot with the new maps… its feast or famine. Cant tell you the number of times I’ve been fighting for my life, and just wanted to stop fighting cuz it goes on forever. Would be nice to see some new explorable areas. When I think of this concept, I think of the Deidre gardens. Pretty place, not a lot of combat, but some… places to explore and discover. or the rookery…

Just a flesh wound.3589:

I don’t see new, fluff maps as worth it. The thundering Zerg will rush to it, rush through it, then come to the forum to complain about how there’s nothing to do there and it’s a pointless waste of time.

LOL. Don’t they do that even with maps like TD and VB?

jheryn.8390:

IndigoSundown.5419:

I’m afraid Swagger is correct. While there is a demographic that would benefit, it’s not one of the mainstream demographics to which Anet pays heed. This is especially true when you consider that new gameplay areas for sPvP, WvW or PvE would dip into the same pool of devs as exploration zones. I think the best we can hope for is that they throw a few Easter eggs into new areas designed for event content and don’t lock them behind event completion.

I’m afraid that this is opinion just as much as my previous comment was. There are no statistics to back up yours, Swagger’s or my comments. So none of us are “correct” or wrong.

No need for “statistics” on this one.

Important stuff > fluff

The devs are already making a bunch of sacrifices and they will not do this because the ROI isn’t there by comparison.

jheryn.8390:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

I don’t see new, fluff maps as worth it. The thundering Zerg will rush to it, rush through it, then come to the forum to complain about how there’s nothing to do there and it’s a pointless waste of time.

LOL. Don’t they do that even with maps like TD and VB?

Yes. Because there’s always people who will play a map ad nauseum till they’ve wrung every bit of content out of it, then complain about having nothing to do.

I doubt that if TD and VD were fluff maps like this thread has suggested that they’d have anywhere near the numbers of people who play on them each day 9 months later. They would have been explored, then abandoned by the crowd. Somehow I also doubt that giving them maps with even less to do would both give them things to do on that map for months on end and stop them from saying those maps are a pointless waste of time. Fluff maps would have been a waste of dev time and money and caused more complaints that the expansion was only half an expansion with nothing to do.

Again, what I think would would be better than fluff maps is substantive maps with the numbers of non event mobs scaled back so relaxed exploration is possible in addition to doing the meta events and minor side events.