Guild Wars 2

1. Desert Borderlands
- Just bad map design overall
- No gliding, why?

2. Underwater Fractal
- Tedious
- ^ I never used this word in English, this is how it is tedious ^

3. Orr
- Bland enemy and event design (could been something more like zombie horde waves at night…)
- Too much water
- Fell of underwater immersion, got wrong
- Arah architecture, no that’s not ruins of THE greatest city

4. Tangled Depths
- Chak are great, but line concept kills the hive theme
- To hard to navigate (should have been 2 smaller maps I think, or more like Bloodstone Fen)
- In fact it is so bad, that I struggle every time when I need more ley line crystals

5. Ember Bay
- Totally got wrong feel of GW1 Fire Islands
- Bland
- Tokens in JP
- Hungry Hal

Honorable mentions:
Dragon Stand
- Event is good, should be done before final story instance, otherwise HoT story is a joke
Spirit Watch
– Bad map design for conquest game type, more for deathmatch
Dry Top, The Grove and Black Citadel
- Bad navigation
EoTM
- Is there any point in this map after skirmish update?

As I read all the responses, I noticed that a lot of people don’t like the “new” maps in general, which I find interesting. To me, they’re some of the best maps, as they challenge me to think “outside the box” so to speak to get around and adjust for the maze-like quality of some of the maps. They are beautifully rendered, and I love that I cannot simply roll my face across my keyboard to mow through the baddies, although I do like Lake Doric less than the rest.

So, with that in mind, here’s my list, in no particular order since I dislike them equally:

1. Cursed Shore: I firmly believe the inspiration for this zone was someone’s aquarium that got left out in the garage for far too long before they gave it a good scrubbing. I can almost “smell” the place. I understand the lore of Orr being pushed up into the air from the sea floor, but still, it’s way too over the top with the huge corals.
2. Southsun Cove: Nothing going on here except the occasional Crab Toss activity for the daily.
3. Black Citadel/Plains of Ashford: I put these two together, because they kind of go together like they should have been one zone… Both offend my sense of WTF. Here we have a beautiful countryside, being horribly polluted by whatever it is that the Charr are pumping out of the Citadel, but there is literally no sign of the pollution, except for the one heart at the end of the outflow pipe. The incongruity is jarring to me. You can’t have beautiful unspoiled countryside with that much crud. I know it’s a game and all that, but it bothers me that there’s not more indicators of the pollutants. it’s like PoA is too clean…
4. Hirathi Hinterlands: Centaurs, Centaurs, Centaurs… ‘nuff said.
5. Mount Maelstrom: If it weren’t for the necessary heart completion, I wouldn’t ever go there. Way too many “invisible walls” that make it so you can’t just go over some minor hills to get from point A to point B. I just don’t like it.

So, for what it’s worth, there they are, along with my reasons for disliking them.

Yakez.7561:

1. Desert Borderlands
- Just bad map design overall
- No gliding, why?

I don’t think they wanted paratrooper attacks to bypass keep defenses.

Yakez.7561:

EoTM
- Is there any point in this map after skirmish update?

Given that the original point was to give people waiting in queues a place to run around in a competitive map, and that the skirmish update has restored queues to a daily occurrence, it would seem to have more of a purpose than it has for some time.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Yakez.7561:

1. Desert Borderlands
- Just bad map design overall
- No gliding, why?

I don’t think they wanted paratrooper attacks to bypass keep defenses.

Yakez.7561:

EoTM
- Is there any point in this map after skirmish update?

Given that the original point was to give people waiting in queues a place to run around in a competitive map, and that the skirmish update has restored queues to a daily occurrence, it would seem to have more of a purpose than it has for some time.

Correct, and not.

1. Desert Borderland could be designed with gliding areal combat in mind back then. Hold aerodrome until tier 3. Launch airship siege on garri, break shields, gain paradrop kit and paradrop. (just limiting gliding to paradrops…)

2. EotM. Why I would bother with lesser version of the thing in the first place? And why I would force myself through no TS karma train with no actual WvW rewards. There is
no similar gameplay and no rewards. Karma – last time I checked I had 1.5 mil+. Rank, well I need 400 ranks to the next peep, I think somewhere in 2020 I would get it.

1. Tangled Depths
2. Lornar’s Pass
3. Dredgehaunt’s Cliffs
4 (tied). Wayfarer Foothills and Caledon Forest
5. Iron Marches (Post Season 2)
Honerable Mentions:
Brisban Wildlands
Timberline Falls
Orr’s maps

Too big, too long, and the mini map is a mess!

How about 5 of the BEST maps!

1 Draconis Mons – Absoultely the best map since HoT release. Wonderful multi-level map(better designed then TD), each area has its own environment to explore with events going on constantly, plus you get to be Spiderman, come on! The circular nature allows you to explore each area as you climb up while still getting a sense of a flat map, but its high & vertical allowing for more fun things to happen.

2 Tangled Depths – is an explorer’s map. If you love explorations this is the map for you! (Sure it can be confusing at first, only if u really hate mazes,) but after you put in some time into map completion you begin to see why it’s called tangled depths and the beauty of exploring all of it really comes to life. It really feels like you are immersed in your own little world. Btw… there are more than just the 3 levels and fun loot chests hidden throughout. The more massive a map, the better i say!

3 Bitterfrost – who doesn’t love the back country, deep woods, snow environment! (winter my favorite season) Has a nice reward loot farm event with the icecovered chests and easy to farm winterberries and unbound magics! Some of the best trees in the game are here Now only if Anet allowed you to craft them with scribing for our guild halls!

4 Desert Borderland Map – Has multiple ways to go to one spot, huge cliffs to suicide off of or survive by knowing your environment. (If you like exploration then you’ve explored the map and know how to navigate and not kill yourself.) Shrines add small advantages for players. When all 3 shrines tied to a keep are captured, players can travel faster between the 3 shrines by interacting with objects that will launch them in the air to the other shrines. (fun effect!) Great map for roamers!

• The map would have been even better with gliding. It seems like the map was designed for gliding until they couldn’t resolve an issue and eliminated gliding all together. Just throw up invisible walls around the OUTSIDE of keeps and AREAS you want to keep players out or rather allow gliding in certain areas, but let them glide off those big cliffs please anet Air to air combat happens in bloodfen with npcs, player to player air combat…ooh fun!

5 Blood Fen – lots of action & events going on. Easy to farm flax and elderwood as you do events. Much different map environment than anything before it! The whole map is here for your enjoyment. You can glide around and attack things from the air! Ley-lines and magic rifts allow you quick and easy access to different parts of the map. Want to get to the justicar fight quick? No problemo! The map is certainly dynamic and have wonderful mid-air aoes to avoid (popping in and out randomly) making your glide time more fun to navigate (so you can’t just afk your way to glory, you actually have to be present). The enemies are harder then vanilla maps which is a good thing and keeps you on your toes.

• What makes this one of the best maps are the rewards. The best OP ring and amulet in the game are here in bloodfen. Which even after you complete all the chieves people still come back to get these rewards which helps keep this map active and not dead like other ones

JemL.3501:

Desert Borlderlands, couldve been a great PvE map unlike silverwastes but the full potential is wasted in WvW, we just need some dinosaurs around

I couldn’t agree more! I was in awe when I first entered the map, and this very thought hit me instantly: “Why don’t we have such cool maps in PvE??”

Kelly.7019:

How about 5 of the BEST maps!

There’s a thread for that. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/FAVORITE-GW2-maps/first#post6623668

Ashabhi.1365:

2. Southsun Cove: Nothing going on here except the occasional Crab Toss activity for the daily.

I assume that’s not a troll, but I’m surprised to see anyone feel theres nothing going on in Southsun. There’s actually a lot on this map.

Maybe you don’t belong to a guild that runs guild missions?
- Guild Challenge: Southsun Crab Toss
- Guild Race: Crab Scuttle
- Guild Bounty: Ander “Wildman” Westward
- Guild Trek: Monument to the Ancient One, Reef Drake Nesting Grounds, Sandwurm Prowl, Steampipe Perch, Steamy Steps, The Karka Klub

…and maybe you don’t like to get loot from world bosses like the Karka Queen or the associated meta events?

…and maybe you don’t like Jumping Puzzles like Skipping Stones or Under New Management which are sometimes daily achievements?

…and maybe you have no interest in joining groups to farm karka shells?

In that case, then Southsun probably doesn’t have much to offer.

I like the look of HoT maps but I don’t really like how they feel and recently I think I realised why.

It’s like when you’re playing an open world game and you go into a cave or something, it’s pretty cool at first but you eventually just want to get back out into the open world and feel a sense of relief when you finally do.

That’s how most of the HoT zones feel to me, but for the whole map.

Kalendraf.9521:

Ashabhi.1365:

2. Southsun Cove: Nothing going on here except the occasional Crab Toss activity for the daily.

I assume that’s not a troll, but I’m surprised to see anyone feel theres nothing going on in Southsun. There’s actually a lot on this map.

Maybe you don’t belong to a guild that runs guild missions?

I think this is the answer. I also don’t belong to a guild that does anything in Southsun. When I go there, if it is not a daily map (hardly ever), there is usually no one there doing anything.

I forgot about Straits of Devastation. I think the worst part is the unsynchronized meta.

Ashabhi.1365:

3. Black Citadel/Plains of Ashford: I put these two together, because they kind of go together like they should have been one zone… Both offend my sense of WTF. Here we have a beautiful countryside, being horribly polluted by whatever it is that the Charr are pumping out of the Citadel, but there is literally no sign of the pollution, except for the one heart at the end of the outflow pipe. The incongruity is jarring to me. You can’t have beautiful unspoiled countryside with that much crud. I know it’s a game and all that, but it bothers me that there’s not more indicators of the pollutants. it’s like PoA is too clean…

The Charr are actually trying to clean the area up. All the pollution’s in the air, and confined to scrapyards.

Djinn.9245:

Kalendraf.9521:

Maybe you don’t belong to a guild that runs guild missions?

I think this is the answer. I also don’t belong to a guild that does anything in Southsun. When I go there, if it is not a daily map (hardly ever), there is usually no one there doing anything.

Population on this map varies a lot depending on when you arrive.

During the Karka Queen event, which appears to be occur 6 times per day, there should be many players on the map. At times, there may be so many that it forms multiple map instances. In the 5+ minutes before she can spawn, many players will likely be working to clear the camps and then focusing on the final boss after she spawns. However, between the camp clearing and boss fight, most players are probably only there for about 10 minutes.

The guild crab race seems to come up pretty regularly in the mix of random Guild PvE missions, and when it does there seem to be a fair number of guilds that do it. Although ANet changed when the weekly Guild missions reset, many guilds have stuck to the original time of running guild missions around 7pm EDT on Saturday nights (aka guild mission night in some guilds). Once the race is started, anyone can participate, though you’ll only get guild commendations if you’re repping a guild that has the race active. All guilds seem to get the same mix of PvE missions (assuming they’ve prioritized those), so it’s rather common to find multiple guilds there at the same time we run our missions. On guild mission night, it’s common to see that week’s races get continuously activated and by different guilds for a good hour or more. Crab toss is arguably the hardest of the races, and it goes through areas where events spawn that usually need to be cleared to ensure successful completion of the race. As a result, you’ll often find people doing the Broodmother event or the Steampipe events to clear those areas. Some guilds may also do the wurm event, though you can bypass that area by taking an alternate path. If you happen to arrive while a race is active, you’ll often see players spread out along the path clearing events or some of other mobs like Reef Drakes or Reef Riders.

The Guild Bounty, Guild Challenge or Guild Trek can also lead to additional players on on the map during guild missions. Thus, depending on when you show up, you might find quite a few players in certain areas of this map.