Guild Wars 2

I wanted to post some constructive criticism of the play concerning the three Orrian zones. Having spent many hours there, I can say that the zones need quite a bit of refinement. My primary concerns are thusly:

Moving around in the zones is too difficult.
The map is, relatively speaking, solo-unfriendly.
The information about blocking DE’s for the zone meta is poor.

I’ll go over these one by one.

First, movement. Now, when I say that the zone is difficult to move around in, this is both singling out the map itself (this place has been on the bottom of the ocean for 250 years? It definitely seems like it) and the way DE’s interact with waypoints.

The map is very twisty and has a great deal of points to get to, that aren’t really all that obvious looking at the map screen itself. For example, the large “plain” from the shrine of Lyssa southeast to the rally waypoint and the shrine of Melandru in Straights of Devastation is pretty easy, but the areas around are very circuituous. It takes a good while to move around, and the the dense placement of mobs, many with slows or CC make it worse. It is definitely a test of your situational awareness to move around the non-zerg areas without excessive aggro. I realize this is probably intentional. However, it’s also pretty inconvenient, and the game typically removes things that are “inconvenient.”

The mob density causes ancillary problems as well, which I’ll touch on in a moment. What exacerbates the map’s slow movement is that it is frequently the case that waypoints are simply unavailable because of the contested state. This means that if I want to see why a waypoint is contested, I have to determine my route through a twisty, non-obvious map, and face the prospect of wading through a great deal of aggro.

In short, it’s bad.

This leads to the next point: The maps are solo-unfriendly.

I realize this is also intentional. The whole kit of these zones is that this is the stronghold of power for Zhaitan, and that you shouldn’t …well, one doesn’t simply walk into Orr. That’s a lore/thematic thing that I totally understand.

The practical problems are pretty irritating though. For example, we’ve been in several other zones at this point that are central to a given race’s power, and they still afford a feel of “I can do something as an indiviual to push this stuff along. Just not everything.” Renown Hearts are really the center of this. Naturally, there are no renown hearts in Orr. So instead of being guided in a natural progression around the zone, I…can’t do much. Enemy NPC’s holding friendly camps are essentially impossible/very very difficult to solo. I can’t push forward most DE’s because of the amount of standing aggro plus event spawns. I HAVE to find a team, and that’s that.

Honestly, I would be totally fine with that if the team gameplay were something exciting and natural. Unfortunately, the systems actually get in the way here. Allow me to explain.

Since there are no renown hearts, there’s no natural “funneling” going on in these zones. NPC’s will tell me, for example, about the three invasion points on the Orrian side of Straights of Devastation. However, I can’t see the state of these pieces of the meta event past the small amount of instruction given in the current meta update. So if I’m at, say, the Sentry Waypoint, I have no way of determining what the current blocking event or hotspot IS for the northern invasion; any such orange circles and their corresponding descriptions are literally out of my range.

That is really the crux of the issue with these zones. There simply isn’t enough information. The answer to the question “Where can I go, right now, to make the most difference?” is essentially unanswerable without asking in chat. I can’t think of another zone where I have to ask chat “Hey, what’s going on right now?” It’s Really Bad.

Further exacerbating the issue is that, even if I know WHERE I want to go, I probaly can’t GET there because the waypoint most convenient is contested. And I have to ask the question “why?”

The idea of a contested waypoint is one that’s never made as much sense to me. I understand that as a consequence for some failure, a camp might be overrun with Bad Things and I have to hoof it there to fix it.

Okay, sure. I get that. But as I already outlined above, I can’t do that in Orr, because I can’t solo the content. I can’t individually fix the problem. I have to muster, manually, the forces to do so. During primetime, that’s likely a chore but doable, even if it flies in the face of how glueless the grouping in the game has been up to this point. But during the middle of the night? Forget it. That camp is going to sit there for hours, being a pain in the butt to everyone in the zone. It’s Really Bad.

Waypoints, in the absence of renown hearts, need to be the funnels of transport to hotspots, and the map needs to tell me, no matter where I am in the zone, where the fight is. WvWvW does exactly this. I know where there is fighting, at a glance. I don’t need to pester people in chat, and I don’t have to just guess based on contested waypoints. I know. And the PvE maps need to do the same thing.

To do this, a waypoint needs to support the idea of contested without blocking access. I know this removes some of the bite out of failure, but frankly, I just don’t see the impact as being one that motivates me to fix it. Instead of feeling encouragement to try and retake the point, I just think “well, I can’t use that one, gotta look elsewhere.” And if there is no “elsewhere?”

I just go to a different zone. Really. I just leave.

I’m going to run under the assumption that this isn’t what Areananet is going for with the design.

TL;DR
1) Moving around in the maps is difficult relative to other zones. Probably intentional, but it’s the truth.
2) You’ve made it hard to move around, meaning it’s hard to respond to DE’s.
3) I don’t know enough about the current meta status, so I don’t even know a fight or meta step is currently active, much less where it IS.
4) Even if I knew, I probably couldn’t go there, because the nearest waypoint is unavailable. The alternative is wading through a sea of aggro. Nope.
5) As Just A Dude, I can’t do anything. Group play only. Intentional, but poorly supported, in my verbose opinion.

Orr needs a lot of work. Map needs more data. Show me the orange circles anywhere in the zone, from anywhere in the zone.
Waypoints need to be available to use even when contested. I suggest three states:
Silver cube, blue center – Normal state
Silver cube, crossed swords – There be fightin’ here! Expect combat when using. STILL USABLE
Silver Cube, red center – this camp/area is hostile. Expect aggro the moment you zone. STILL USABLE

Instead of zones brimming with lore and complex metas, you have zones that have groups of 50 people running around in a zerg farming 8-12 DE’s over and over again. I’m sure this isn’t what you intended, but it is the path of least resistance. It’s to be expected.

Great posts and hits on a lot of the key fundamental problems I and others have with Orr. I would add to your points that this creates the bottle-necking seen in places like the Penitent Path in the Cursed Shore where players simply run back and forth between the two camps the farm the defense DEs because attempting to travel anywhere else either results in:

A) You dying on the way there
B) You being unable to complete other DEs due to lack of players

While I don’t personally have the information on it, I’m sure a heatmap of Orr would reveal a LOT of hotspotting where people farm certain events, and then virtual deadzones everywhere else that people only check for gathering materials.

I would also enjoy if I wasn’t limited to Orr for the best loot. Having only two zones designed specifically for level 80s was a poor decision, I believe, especially given that they’re about as far in latitude as possible, making the waypoint costs huge. Heck, I’d even spring for more level 80 Orr zones if we couldn’t be provided with level 80 specific content in other areas of Tyria.

Thanks for the comment.

Really, I just want Orr to be a great high-level PvE experience, because if I’m not running a dungeon, I want to be doing something to improve my characters while not actually feeling like I’m grinding. Riding a zerg for hours feels like a grind, and there’s little challenge.

Grouping implicitly with smaller teams to advance the zone’s meta is much more appealing. Too bad that the systems just get in the way rather than catalyzing these desires.

Orr is just a chore. High mob density, large agro range (esp acolytes), fast respawn and it makes traveling across the zone like fighting through a dungeon and it’s just tedious.

Being my highest character is only 50 How BIG are these 80 Zones if there is only 2?