Guild Wars 2

Not the story, just the maps themselves. For me it’s:

1) Bloodstone Fen. Yeah, the Jade bosses are hp sponges and Mantle freaks who knock your glider off can (still) go kiss a trash compactor, but I genuinely enjoy the gliding in this map and was sad to see that none of the new skills carry over. As someone who’d really like to see mounts in this game and absolutely loved the mobility my feral druid had in WoW, I find that using the glider in Bloodstone Fen is the most enjoable way of getting around in the game, which often feels like a slog otherwise. This is verticality done right. Plus the dailies don’t take too long and unbound magic is plentiful.

2) Bitterfrost Frontier. What can I say, I am a sucker for winter maps since we don’t get anything worth calling “winter” where I live anymore. Berries are easy to come by, though you also need a lot of them. There are no White Mantle to tick me off. I kind of like the kodan, arrogant gasbags though they can be at times, and enjoyed the new lore about them. Hopefully the Flame of Koda will continue to play a part in fighting Jormag.

3) Lake Doric. Many enemies there are annoying and I don’t enjoy the dailies so much, but the “feel” of it, of a chaotic warzone, works quite well and there’s always something happening. Bonus points for being a map with a cat in it.

4) Ember Bay. It’s ugly, the enemies are kind of boring except for the jade boss and veterans which are a pain instead. There’s too much comic relief for my liking with both the skritt and the circus, which makes it feel more like a whacky holiday destination than a supremely hostile place about to explode under everyone’s feet, and the jumping puzzle is just sadistic.

How would i rate the new maps? Complete and utter helltrash. No, im kidding astheticly they are alright but thats about it, as far as anything else goes i prefer the season 2 maps

Bloodstone Fen.
Pretty much got it all right, from a spectacular environment, a great story and excellent mobs. With a bit of farming as well. The only thing it got wrong was the number of players needed for Jades. Loved the lore as well and all the throwbacks to GW1. The NPC retelling the raid was excellent storytelling. The perfect season starter map and episode

Ember Bay.
This wins for the environment. The JP was one of the worst implemented designs anywhere in the game by a considerable margin imo, the mobs are dull, the events are mostly OK, but lack challenge. It never really felt dangerous and Death/Plant Destroyers look stupid and just made zero sense even with the explanation (which barely holds up to scrutiny anyway). However, despite all the negatives, I simply love the map!! So it gets ranked higher than it should. Plus I loved the drum thumps in the soundtrack.

Lake Doric.
Really I should rank it first or second – the map is decent, the events are well tuned and it has a top notch map story running through it. I am only downgrading it for a personal lack of interest in high end Krytan zones. It’s an excellent map, let down only by the completely ridiculous and out of place centaur farming section.

Bitterfrost.
Bits of it are brilliant (the meta, the forest, the quaggan/kodan city). Bits of it are terrible beyond belief. I mean logically the map shouldn’t even exist in this geographical layout. It is a dumping ground of areas in a small space which make no real sense. This should feel like a distant wilderness, yet Hoelbrak is in regular touch with this area? How did this area feed the Kodan ships into Frostgorge when it’s clearly been frozen for a long time, with no real links to further waterways?

I love all the Kodan lore and as a huge fan of “cold” areas, I love the feel when the storm hits…but even the story is dire. We go to the old zone to find an Icebrood with new corruption…yet a death touched Icebrood event starts at the entrance to the map!!
I wanted to like this map more than any other, since I am desp to see the Northern Shiverpeaks again…but it was the worst episode in the worst map for me. It didn’t even have music which fitted the atmosphere of the map…I think I detected starter zone music at one point which was completely out of place!!

Bloodstone fen was an obvious failure in my eyes.

Bitterfrost was a 9/10 for me. Aesthetically pleasing with little really annoying things.
Lake doric is a 7/10. Looks nice but enemies seem a lot more annoying. The centaur area seems utterly useless. Plus the dams and where the water is technically makes no sense. But it has a lot of nice corners as well.
Ember Bay would be an 8/10. Fits the hostile theme of fire ring very well. Mursaat were annoying as hell tho. Much better after bloodstone fen. Plus points for the funny ley line roller-coaster and one of the best jumping puzzles of all time.

Overall I’d say they are doing a good job with the maps. Not perfect but good enough.

Bloodstone Fen
Easy to get around and it’s vertical in a manageable way. Gliding is a joy here. Visually, it’s exceptional with particularly unique and interesting design of both the environment and mobs. It’s relatively easy enough to farm Blood Rubies but I think as this was the first one out the gate, they borked the acquisition method and/or amount required for purchases. The meta events are also a dreadful, boring slog. Simple enough for sure, but not much fun.

At launch this map was a 9/10 for me, down to a 4/10 now. Would not play again.

Ember Bay
Drab, bleak environment. Navigation is aided somewhat by the Thermal Tubes but it’s kind of a pain getting to some areas. While I understand the lore at work here, recoloured Destroyers just feel like lazy design, and overall the population of the island feels sloppily thrown together. It’s like Southsun and Fireheart Rise had a baby. A really, really ugly baby. The events and hearts are surprisingly fun, at least, but Petrified Wood farming is also a pain in the kitten.

At launch I hated this place, 3/10. Up to a respectable 6.5/10. Worth an occasional visit.

Bitterfrost Frontier
I dig this place. It’s a kittenristmas-y, highlights the best design elements of the Shiverpeaks area with just a touch of verticality and it’s easy enough to get around for the most part. The mobs are unspectacular but not lame or infuriating either. However this map absolutely wins as a farming zone. Winterberries are the easiest and most satisfying items to gather, and this map’s Unbound magic collector offers a good variety of useful items at friendly prices. Icebound chests are also a nice, welcome touch. Loads of replay value in this place.

Was mildly interested but overall positive at launch, 7/10. Grew to love it. Up to a solid 10/10.

Lake Doric
It’s amazingly cool in some places, kind of bland in others. Visually interesting overall and it really captures the feel of a war zone. It’s always a pleasure to beat on the White Mantle, and the peripheral enemy mobs fit the map’s theme well enough. Jade Shards feel like the most balanced of all the new map ‘currencies’. Not quite as easy as Winterberries but not a pain like Blood Rubies. The vendor for ’em also has a decent array of items for sale. giving this map a good bit of potential replay value. The leather farm, albeit a bit disappointing, does add to this as well.

Original rating 6/10, but the Queensdale Extreme!™ vibe kind of grew on me. Will likely be playing this for quite some time. Final rating 8.5/10

I farmed on these maps vipers and commanders trinkets, which is a huge job and required many hours in them. So I believe I have “experience” to talk about.

Aesthetically there’s nothing to discuss, Anet has the trademark of making state-of-the-art maps. The combination of background music, lighting, etc etc is engaging.

The other strong point of Anet is unpredictability with a lot of surprise factor … to compare, as a player of the Warcraft series of the RTS era, a blizzard problem is that the maps are extremely predictable and standardized.

Now the problems ..

The biggest problem in common on the 4 maps seems to me to be the distribution of enemies / economy. Enemies are recycled designs and sometimes badly positioned. In economics, maps like Bloodstone Fen need minor adjustments.

For now, that’s what I remember.

My favorite map is Bloodstone Fen. It looks the coolest and makes great use out of gliding, and is pretty straightforward to navigagate.

Second would be Bitterfrost Frontier. It has variety, and berries are the best. However, I do not like the elxir/junk materials.

Third is Lake Doric. It’s…. alright.

I don’t like Ember Bay. Something about the zone makes me feel like a bother to play with it, and it’s quite annoying to get through. Could have been mistaken for an Ascsalon zone

Of the four, I like Ember Bay the most. Not really due to the theme of it, since I’d agree the plant destroyers aren’t that engaging, the circus seems out of place, the wurm event had so much potential but turned out to just be a defense event, the JP tried so hard to be difficult that it lost the fun factor, and the threat of imminent volcanic eruption just isn’t there.

But all that is okay because I really like the mobility of the map. Whenever an event is called out you can get there in moments with a WP, a lava tube, or a ley line. The Lava Lounge is my main hangout, and I can get anywhere I want in the map quickly.

Bloodstone Fen has high mobility too so it ranks right up there too.

Bitterfrost Frontier and Lake Doric just don’t have that high mobility – both these maps seem to involve a lot more walking. There are tubes in Bitterfrost, but they don’t seem usefully or logically arranged. In Lake Doric there are no tubes, and the few ley lines aren’t really too useful in getting anywhere quickly.

1. Bitterfrost Frontier for scene variety and atmosphere. Minus points on events though. I feel this would have been an excellent one for a big meta.

2. Lake Doric, although simple and somewhat boring has a lot of beautiful hidden areas in it.

3. Bloodstone Fen due to its use of gliding and masteries, plus a meta and more fun boss events.

4. Ember Bay is kind of dull for me. The events don’t intrigue me much and many of them are too close together or spawn at the same time. I haven’t spent that much time here but I haven’t really WANTED to spend that much time here. It took me forever the first time around just figuring out where I was supposed to go.

That being said, I think there are positive aspects of each of these maps that could be combined into one amazing map. Would be interesting to see if each team works together for one final addition.

Bloodstone Fen, looks great, though extremely boring. 8/10 for looks, 1/10 for gameplay.

Lake Doric, Ugly and boring. 1/10 for looks, 1/10 for gameplay.

Ember Bay, Looks alright, but again boring. 6/10 for looks, 2/10 for gameplay.

Bitterfrost Frontier, Looks great, also very boring. 9/10 for looks, 2/10 for gameplay.

I wouldn’t spend any of my time in any of these maps unless it was necessary for a story, achievement for a skin/item, or if I really wanted a skin from a vendor, but even then probably not.

I dislike that all new maps are significantly smaller than the original HoT maps and of course a lot smaller than the original vanilla maps. Other than that: they are okay. But there is no meat: you can do the story and seen all in about 30-60mins and that’s it. The only thing going back to it is for achievements and grinding stuff. Everything seems so shallow though. I really think they should have original and interesting side quests and/or daily quests where you can farm for reputation.

Probably I am just nostalgic, but I liked the reputation farm in GW1 and WoW: Burning Crusade. It motivated me. It’s likely that I would change my mind if that was today though.

Verdant Brink
Auric Basin
Tangled Depths
Silverwastes
All the rest

Bloodstone Fen
Not much to do overall while waiting for the two decent events to start. Flying around the place was cool, except for insta-kill rock throws. I still find the flying skills kinda nifty, so there’s that.
C+

Ember Bay
First intro to repeatable hearts. Shame they take way too long to finish. When I care, my usual course is the spot with the downed golems and then on to the skritt pirate enclave. That’s about it. Jade anything can kiss off, and there aren’t any metas worth doing/waiting for.
Aesthetics have been noted by others above. Also, the addition of “lol crappily designed jumping puzzle is ‘hard’” content shows what the devs think of us.
C-

Bitterfrost Frontier
Obnoxious to travel through because the leyline structure is borked. Chill enemies everywhere, some that deliberately force losing the one mastery-thing you get from the map. (Seriously, torches should prevent freezing by default.) I’ve said ghatkittenit more from traveling there than I have in some jumping puzzles. A bunch of useless item chaff and a story zone that serves no other purpose than to be a daily nuisance. If not for the berry farm for unbound magic and loot chests, it’d be a total failure.
D-

Lake Doric
I might have appreciated more waypoints, but at least the map has plenty of stuff to do. Events tend to take too long, hearts take too long, and White Mantle Clerics take too long. Yeah, it’s mostly a time-waster map, but I appreciate it. It’s close to Divinity’s Reach, so I can use the portal scroll for a cheap bounce, too. Centaur area is a bit of a failure, but if you have friends, make a go of it for random loot. Immelhoof is an occasional nuisance with, apparently, instatarget lifts that do stupid amounts of damage, but can otherwise be an okay fight. Jumping puzzle is cool for the multiple paths approach. I want to see more of that in future JP designs.
Solid B.

Rauderi.8706:

Bitterfrost Frontier
Obnoxious to travel through because the leyline structure is borked. Chill enemies everywhere, some that deliberately force losing the one mastery-thing you get from the map. (Seriously, torches should prevent freezing by default.) I’ve said ghatkittenit more from traveling there than I have in some jumping puzzles. A bunch of useless item chaff and a story zone that serves no other purpose than to be a daily nuisance. If not for the berry farm for unbound magic and loot chests, it’d be a total failure.
D-

Completely agree with the comments. I would change the evaluation, though. Does F- exists?

Ardid.7203:

Rauderi.8706:

Bitterfrost Frontier
Obnoxious to travel through because the leyline structure is borked. Chill enemies everywhere, some that deliberately force losing the one mastery-thing you get from the map. (Seriously, torches should prevent freezing by default.) I’ve said ghatkittenit more from traveling there than I have in some jumping puzzles. A bunch of useless item chaff and a story zone that serves no other purpose than to be a daily nuisance. If not for the berry farm for unbound magic and loot chests, it’d be a total failure.
D-

Completely agree with the comments. I would change the evaluation, though. Does F- exists?

I left off F- because of the berries. :P
It’s a profitable area, it’s just annoying as kitten.

Meanwhile, quick-rates on post-classic zones, just because
Southsun: F ~ Not much to do, numbers-hard-but-dumb-AI difficulty.
Dry Top: F ~ Boring area with few rewards, obnoxious-gimmick navigation.
Silverwastes: B+ ~ Almost always something happening, fairly profitable.
Verdant Brink: B ~ Glider-friendly, generally active somewhere. Marred by very brief meta window.
Auric Basin: B ~ Delightfully flat but big. Meta chains give things to do. Misses A for Balthazar, Vinetooth, and several other nuisances, including shutting me out from entering via guild hall (what feels) almost constantly.
Tangled Depths: E+ ~ Meta chains aren’t run that often, probably because the area is muddled and unclear to navigate. High frustration/low profit map with irritating HPs.
Dragon Stand: B+ for potential, F for execution. ~ Enjoyable map, if you can get into the One Sacred Map that will be empty the moment the next expansion drops.

1: Doric’s Lake has a lot to do and a lot going on, the “battlezone” is a fun style and I appreciate having so variety.

Complaints are that the hearts take waaaaaay too long to complete, and the skirmish events should occur more frequently and in more locations

2: Bitterfrost Frontier is a fun map, I love the forest portion for so many reasons. I wish the Ley Lines were a little more useful, but its not that difficult to get around. The day/night cycle is a fun meta event and the rewards are very well thought out (a nice compromise after taking away AB multiloot)

Complaints are that there isn’t more like this, honestly.

3: Bloodstone Fen edges out Ember Bay only because moving around in BSF is always entertaining. A great showcase of the movement capabilities gliders afford and a great medium between the multi-level stuff of Verdant Brink and less complicated maps

Complaints are that there’s really only 3 events of note (jade, hab, and the bloodstone monstrosity thing). I don’t think much more could have been fit in since its a small map, but it still feels kind of bare

4: Ember Bay gets a lot of crap, but I actually like it. It’s nice to have a map where you can truly run around and explore little unused niches. The motifs are nice and the decoration is a little monotone, but still impressive considering it wasn’t worked on for all that long

Complaints are that the events are very sparse. The mobility around the map is superb, but it would be nice to have a little more density in terms of events in between the main ones. The hearts are in a good place, and the estimated time to completion is just about perfect (Doric’s Lake could have used some inspiration from this). The biggest issue is that there’s very little replayability after having gotten everything you need from a merchant. The events aren’t very challenging and map rewards are lacking. Additionally, it’s far too easy to miss out on an event you need because the map is so large (i’m looking at you destroyer). Speaking of events, the health pools vary so wildly between them that it really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Destroyer has so little while Jade Bow has so much that you miss one and the other takes way too long to complete.

for me the new maps Bloodstone Fen, Ember Bay, Bitterfrost Frontier ,Lake Doric
the story themselves was at best ok at best . the maps tho worse ever idea that has been come up with in this game . playing the story the first time was ok . but the second time i just could not stay in them maps at all , i did not find a thing at all of interest to me at all and have not even gone back since they first came out . and will not do so giving how these maps was put into the game all together under the ruse of the story mode at best .

1. Ember Bay – It’s vast and intricate, even if the Jumping Puzzle is a badly-designed pain in the kitten It’s a jumping puzzle targetted to map-breakers more than classic jumping puzzle enthusiasts. The insanity and inclarity of the jumps turned off the latter group, while the former found a way to break the JP. Aside from the bad jumping puzzle – the hearts are diverse, it’s VERY easy to get around the map – there are plenty of waypoints, and accessible ley-lines and thermal tunnels to let you get whatever part of the island you want to get to.
2. Bloodstone Fen – Like Ember Bay, it’s very easy to get around. It’s also got a clear layout – The blast zone in the east for blood rubies, events, and gliding fun, and nothing in the west but pretty terrain and obnoxious bosses that are easily ignored because everything of value is in the crater. Seriously – what was with the design of the Champion Crazed Whisper Agent? A boss that spams high-DPS attacks that are difficult to block and evade, an permanently protected defiance bar, and nothing of value for loot.

3. Lake Doric. Big, but no way to navigate effectively. Why do the developers hate conveniently-placed waypoints so much? If the events are the problem, then they need to just have more waypoints, and contest the ones involved in events. All three main hearts need a waypoint that’s available when they’re safely under Seraph control.

4. Bitterfrost Frontier. Berries can’t save this awful map. Enemies spam chill, I think some have buggy attacks (or at least badly animated and telegraphed), and there’s even more waypoint hate here than in Doric, and they STILL can’t figure out how to make ley lines and thermal tubes accessible and functional.

First, I think it is hard to rank maps since there are certain aspects of the maps I enjoy and certain aspects I don’t enjoy. For example, none of the new maps having meta events was a huge disappointment for me. However, should meta events be counted with the map rankings or should they be given their own category? Same with enemies, while I may enjoy the layout of a map, I may find the enemies boring. Should the enemy types be counted with map rating? Therefore, I thought I would do something different. Instead of just ranking the maps, I am going to tell you what are my favorite aspects of the maps to pretty much create my “dream” map. Note: Just because this would be my “dream” map doesn’t mean that I believe all maps should be like this. I am a firm believer in a very large amount of map variety for the next expansion since everyone has different opinions.

1. Layout: Verdant brink had by far my favorite layout out of all the maps in the game so far. However, just because it was my favorite so far, doesn’t mean I thought it was perfect. I loved how verdant brink had more “defined” layers than all the other living story maps (perhaps with the exception of bloodstone fen), Auric basin, and Dragon Stand. However, I also enjoyed that it was much more intuitive to navigate than Tangled Depths. As someone else mentioned once in a post, I believe improving the actual map that you get when you click “m” would help with tangled depths tremendously. For example, I like how HoT introduced a map system with different layers. However, when you look at the map, it should show precisely where you can move up or down between layers, just like it might show where a merchant is located. If this was implemented, I would be all for pushing certain aspects of verdant brink more towards tangled depths. In my dream map, there would perhaps be multiple ways to get to a location. There could be a more intuitive way to get there, like verdant brink, for when you are just starting the map, and then there would also be more complicated shortcuts so that those who like the more complicated feel of tangled depths and strong “exploration” factor of that map have more paths and areas to explore rather than just an intuitive landscape. The last aspect of the layout I would change is adding a more “defined” feeling between the the different layers. If you are in the canopy, you should really feel like you are walking on the tops of trees or branches, the ground is self explanatory, and if you are underground in the roots than you should see roots all over the place. Basically, just from the scenery, you should always know exactly what layer you are in at all times. You should never have to click your ‘m’ key to find out what layer you are in. This would also increase the feeling that it is actually 3 maps or map layers instead of one map that just changes elevation.

2. Enemies (well, basic enemies): I love how HoT introduced creatures with skills that are easy to telegraph, but have devastating consequences if you get hit. This is important as the game is actually teaching you dodging and positioning rather than just face-tanking and changing your armor, traits, or class. Many of the creatures in the base game were pretty bad at teaching you these skills, and in the future living stories, I believe some creatures were better than others. For example, I was severely disappointed that they just gave poison to fire elementals. I was also not a fan of many of the enemies skills in Lake Doric (with the exception of the mesmer’s mind stab). In contrast, an example of a skill I like is the Stonehead’s charge attack. You can see them bend down and get ready to charge before they do it, and if you get hit, not only do you deserve it, but you deserve to get hit hard. Even though I feel like the many of the creatures in the living story didn’t live up to my expectations, what I did enjoy is the extra variety they did add. Examples of this are how jade constructs had stability and how you could use your special action key to counter certain attacks. My dream map would have a wide variety of enemies with very different weaknesses, from lots of little pocket raptors, to telegraphed hard hitting Nuhoch, to jade constructs immune to my gravity wells. However, I would also have a wide variety of enemy densities in my map. Some areas would have no enemies and some would have a lot and be very difficult. However, what I wouldn’t have is enemies “constantly” blocking your only narrow path to your destination, like in tangled depths.

3. Meta Events: Silverwastes is by far one of my favorite meta events and unfortunately, I can’t say very much about meta events with the living story maps that came out. I love how there are 3 different bosses for you to choose during the event. I also absolutely love to death the maze they have at the end. The only thing that would make it better for me is if after you beat the 3 bosses in silverwastes, it then allowed all 3 groups to come together for one super boss at the end, a boss similar to the legendary wyvern patriarch.

4. Currencies and Rewards: Not much to say about this with the living story, as they all follow the same design. You obviously can’t just keep adding currencies without a key ring or another feature. I liked how HoT currencies could be kept in your wallet. However, perhaps this wasn’t possible in the living story maps with time constraints. Obviously more rewards in maps is better. There is not much armor to go for in living story maps, but for obvious reasons. However, what I do like is that all the rewards involved with the living story maps are tied to the themes of those maps. What I really don’t like is how predictable the rewards are. Its pretty bad if you can predict that the next living story map will have a different currency that allows you to buy stat selectable trinkets and a back piece. Anet needs to learn that variety is key and that sometimes there isn’t always one answer or one template that always works. I also believe there should be multiple ways to obtain rewards. Silverwaste’s armor followed this concepts pretty well. You could get certain pieces certain ways, like certain bosses on the map, the maze, treasure chests, or from completing achievements in the actual living story itself. However, if one of those ways of obtaining that armor piece didn’t appeal to you, you could always go the second route and save up currency for it. None of the HoT maps or new living story maps had this many variety of ways of collecting rewards. Excluding adventures, all the HoT maps and new living story maps also didn’t have that amount of different group events that kept peoples interests like the silver wastes did (meaning: treasure chest farming, maze, meta events, jumping puzzle etc.) Finally, I would like to see other rewards beside trinkets and weapon/armor skins. Yes, this is fashion wars. However, there has to be a reward that interests players that have enough ascended equipment and already have looks picked out for their characters that they don’t want to change. Anet needs to get their creative thinking caps on. Converters, Koda’s blessing, the region teleporters, and the gliding attacks that you could purchase in Bloodstone fen are good starts. However, there is soooo much more future merchants could sell. Examples might include: an item that temporarily gives you swiftness every so often just from having it in your inventory, new enrichments types (gain more map currency, take less damage “only” from open world enemies, deal more damage “only” to open world enemies, more boon duration in open world, increased gliding endurance, increase open world down state health, etc.), An item that temporarily removes a condition every so often just from having it in your inventory, An item that temporally gives you stealth when you click on it (like harpy feathers from Harathi Hinterlands), Keys that allow you access to exclusive regions or instances from that map for a certain amount of time (examples might include gathering regions or regions full of exceptionally dangerous terrain and enemies that drop valuable items or map currency (perhaps those are the only creatures that drop it)), new guild hall decorations that can be purchased only with map currency and aren’t just a gold sink, weapons that are weak in stats agains most creatures, but are very powerful against specific creature types, poisons that you can coat your weapons with or replace the sigils with that deals damage separate than that of condition damage and perhaps even wears out over time, a musical instrument or toys that aren’t in the gem store, etc. Basically, just anything that players may want who feel like they are done collecting “skins, tonics, and minis”

Bloodstone Fen is very nice visually, and its verticality is great. Generally, I wish more maps made use of gliders as much as Verdant Brink and Bloodstone Fen do. Howevers the lack of variety in events, and the heat-seeking rocks are a let down.

Lake Doric is my favorite event-wise, but the human village setting is quite boring.

Bitterfrost Frontier is beautiful, but the forest area makes me wish they used the large trees to make the map taller, allowing for more gliding.

Ember Bay is the worst of the bunch honestly. Visually it is really dull, aside from the jumping puzzle. Events are spread all over the map in a way that makes it seem like nothing is really going on.

All 4 of the new maps are extremely boring when it comes to gameplay. I have no interest in playing any of the after experiencing all new events. It’s a bit of a shame really because the HoT maps are amazing for this. I don’t think it would be hard for them to make a map that has a big boss event for the whole map to do like the HoT maps do. That is all the maps need to be fun for me to play.

Because of this, I rank the maps on the looks of them and how interesting they were to explore for me when their respective episode first came out.

1) Ember bay. Best looking map off them all imo. I love the JP and the big leyline around the entire zone is a great idea to have for moving around the zone.
2) Bloodstone fen. Another great looking map with great ability to use the glider skills and easy to navigate. Was fun to play for a while.
3) Bitterfrost frontier. Great looking zone with decent events. I love the central area of the map with the kodan and quaggan area.
4) Lake Doric. Really don’t like this map at all. Bad looks. Bad events. Extremely boring after first play through. I hope the next 2 maps are better than this.

All very subjective, of course, but for me:

1) Lake Doric. This is the most fleshed out map. It has a ton of side details and it plays directly into local politics (for humans). It’s easy to mentally expand the terrain so the towns aren’t one minute walk’s apart. It just feels like a more representational slice of the world than the other new maps, like it really filled in a gap and expanded Kryta. I also enjoy that I can go in just long enough to nab the peach and unbound magic, or spend my time on some fairly meaty event chains.

2) Bloodstone Fen. This benefits in ranking from having been the first new map in a long while. It’s also a lot of fun to fly around in (the WM air-stuns were never a huge problem for me), gives aerial skills, and is super fast to complete if I have an alt available for it and want a shot at a BL key. That said, I seldom dawdle in the map, it’s aerial skills and unbound magic collection and on to the next unless I spot another daily quickly doable and have time.

3) Bitterfrost Frontier. I like sunny warm places. Also it takes a while to get anywhere in the map, there are huge sections that the lava tubes don’t point at. And the constant freezes and cripples get annoying. That said, it’s another map that’s good for a relatively quick explore for a BL key chance and has some nice rewards for map currency. Also, while compact, it does suggest a more complex terrain than some maps.

4) Ember Bay. It was fun at first but doing the hearts is a lot more tedious than in the other maps and it’s a convoluted enough map that it takes a good deal of effort to complete. I also don’t enjoy rock and lava backgrounds. I pretty much go in, glide the two leylines to get the unbound magic, and go on to the next map unless there’s something fast to do announced in Map. Also the music, while nicely done, feels like it’s about two bars long on infinite repeat.

Which is not to say I think any of the maps are terrible or would in the slightest resist escorting a new person around as they discover things with glee. Heck, if I decide I want a vendor reward out of any of them that I don’t already have, sure I’ll go in and grind the currency. The question asked me to rank the maps with some explanation, and I did it in order of how much fun I have in the map, how much I look forward to hopping into the map.

We’ll see where tomorrow’s new map fits in

1. Bitterfrost Frontier
I am a sucker for winter-themed maps, plus it looks gorgeous at night. Could have added more waypoints to it, though. It also is most fun/easiest to farm.

2. Lake Doric
While it does look quite triste with all the destruction, its vastly empty spaces and the constant “doom-like” grey skies, it harbors the coolest locations: the forest and dungeon in the North (felt like playing D&D <3), the beautiful cave in the South-East and the nice fishers’ village to the East. Not a fan of farming and daily questing there, though, because farming the hearts takes way too long and there are not enough nodes on the map.

3. Bloodstone Fen
Has the most waypoints and newly added updrafts, which makes traveling across this map quite comfortable. The leyline streams, however, are mostly annoying, because they often get in your way of farming the Unbound Magic, and it gets even worse with those anomalies popping up out of nowhere — these two things can make roaming this map a highly frustrating experience, and it often takes forever to farm it. Not a fan, even though it looks quite nice. (P.S. Also, none of the events on the map are being explained, so they seem illogical and random to newcomers.)

4. Ember Bay
It simply doesn’t have the charme it did in GW1. In GW1, you had dark-grey rocks with a purple touch, which made the whole place look magic. Now it’s all boring, dusty rocks, murky water, and way too much lava. Plus, the JP is by far the most annoying in the history of GW2. (P.S. Totally loved the humor in the story quests, though!)

All of them are complete garbage and I nominate Bitterfrost to be the worst map in the whole game.
It’s like they tried their best to keep people out of them. If not for berries and kitten, no one would revisit them. Can’t help but get the feeling they are putting these maps together without much effort, just to progress the story and not trying to give them some purpose and reason to visit.
If you’re not farming for berries, who in their right mind would want to revisit bitterfrost and navigate through that farting chill mess, flying and evading griffons while kittenting chill, trolls that completely freezes you for way longer than neccessary, winds that for some reason feel they have to chase and freeze everyone that runs by etc…

I’d rather them not release new map every episode and iinstead when they do release, make it like maps from HoT.

serialkicker.5274:

All of them are complete garbage and I nominate Bitterfrost to be the worst map in the whole game.
It’s like they tried their best to keep people out of them. If not for berries and kitten, no one would revisit them. Can’t help but get the feeling they are putting these maps together without much effort, just to progress the story and not trying to give them some purpose and reason to visit.
If you’re not farming for berries, who in their right mind would want to revisit bitterfrost and navigate through that farting chill mess, flying and evading griffons while kittenting chill, trolls that completely freezes you for way longer than neccessary, winds that for some reason feel they have to chase and freeze everyone that runs by etc…

I’d rather them not release new map every episode and iinstead when they do release, make it like maps from HoT.

Yes, because the HoT maps weren’t “complete garbage” in terms of their structure, which turned many casual players off (many quit playing GW2 altogether because of the maps’ complex, initially confusing layouts and the need for mastery leveling in order to get everywhere).

So… Just because you don’t know how to dodge a few chill/freeze attacks doesn’t make the map garbage. Revisiting Bitterfrost Frontier for farming while having a bit of a challenge there is fine with me.

Ashantara.8731:

Yes, because the HoT maps weren’t “complete garbage” in terms of their structure, which turned many casual players off (many quit playing GW2 altogether because of the maps’ complex, initially confusing layouts and the need for mastery leveling in order to get everywhere).

So… Just because you don’t know how to dodge a few chill/freeze attacks doesn’t make the map garbage. Revisiting Bitterfrost Frontier for farming while having a bit of a challenge there is fine with me.

Totally disagree. IMO Bitterfrost don’t get even closer to the ankles of marvels like Verdant Brink. I can like a good ice theme, but Bitterfrost is simply boring.

Ashantara.8731:

serialkicker.5274:

All of them are complete garbage and I nominate Bitterfrost to be the worst map in the whole game.
It’s like they tried their best to keep people out of them. If not for berries and kitten, no one would revisit them. Can’t help but get the feeling they are putting these maps together without much effort, just to progress the story and not trying to give them some purpose and reason to visit.
If you’re not farming for berries, who in their right mind would want to revisit bitterfrost and navigate through that farting chill mess, flying and evading griffons while kittenting chill, trolls that completely freezes you for way longer than neccessary, winds that for some reason feel they have to chase and freeze everyone that runs by etc…

I’d rather them not release new map every episode and iinstead when they do release, make it like maps from HoT.

Yes, because the HoT maps weren’t “complete garbage” in terms of their structure, which turned many casual players off (many quit playing GW2 altogether because of the maps’ complex, initially confusing layouts and the need for mastery leveling in order to get everywhere).

So… Just because you don’t know how to dodge a few chill/freeze attacks doesn’t make the map garbage. Revisiting Bitterfrost Frontier for farming while having a bit of a challenge there is fine with me.

Lol. Crying that you can’t complete the whole map in first few days because you don’t have masteries unlocked is ridiculous. Now, after all this time, those who have played the game at least a month since expansion came out, already should have most masteries unlocked. So, maps are still very fun to do (after more than a year), unless you’ve been overdoing it for the whole year and are burned out. Bitterfrost was boring on day one.
“So… Just because you don’t know how to dodge a few chill/freeze attacks doesn’t make the map garbage.” Is this your best shot? Here, let me use your failed logic against you. Just because you or someone else can’t figure out how to navigate through maps, doesn’t mean HoT maps are garbage. See? Easy.

serialkicker.5274:

Ashantara.8731:

serialkicker.5274:

All of them are complete garbage and I nominate Bitterfrost to be the worst map in the whole game.
It’s like they tried their best to keep people out of them. If not for berries and kitten, no one would revisit them. Can’t help but get the feeling they are putting these maps together without much effort, just to progress the story and not trying to give them some purpose and reason to visit.
If you’re not farming for berries, who in their right mind would want to revisit bitterfrost and navigate through that farting chill mess, flying and evading griffons while kittenting chill, trolls that completely freezes you for way longer than neccessary, winds that for some reason feel they have to chase and freeze everyone that runs by etc…

I’d rather them not release new map every episode and iinstead when they do release, make it like maps from HoT.

Yes, because the HoT maps weren’t “complete garbage” in terms of their structure, which turned many casual players off (many quit playing GW2 altogether because of the maps’ complex, initially confusing layouts and the need for mastery leveling in order to get everywhere).

So… Just because you don’t know how to dodge a few chill/freeze attacks doesn’t make the map garbage. Revisiting Bitterfrost Frontier for farming while having a bit of a challenge there is fine with me.

Lol. Crying that you can’t complete the whole map in first few days because you don’t have masteries unlocked is ridiculous. Now, after all this time, those who have played the game at least a month since expansion came out, already should have most masteries unlocked. So, maps are still very fun to do (after more than a year), unless you’ve been overdoing it for the whole year and are burned out. Bitterfrost was boring on day one.
“So… Just because you don’t know how to dodge a few chill/freeze attacks doesn’t make the map garbage.” Is this your best shot? Here, let me use your failed logic against you. Just because you or someone else can’t figure out how to navigate through maps, doesn’t mean HoT maps are garbage. See? Easy.

People, people. Calm down.

Tangled Depths and Bitterfrost Frontier are both garbage.

It feels like they copy and pasted 2-3 of the last maps and called it new lol. Very minor differences of course, but all in all I give it a 3 out of 10. Just feels(and I could be very wrong) like they did not even try hard on this one. Just pushing content out fast to say there is something new.

After yesterday’s release, I have a new ranking:

1. Draconis Mons
Even though it was probably my least favorite story-wise (although I rejoiced when I saw M.O.X. and Melandru’s guardians, the ghostly Oakhearts), I simply love the design of the new map. Okay, the layout takes time getting used to, but it is its beauty and variety that really struck me as fabulous. <3

1. Bitterfrost Frontier
I am a sucker for winter-themed maps, plus it looks gorgeous at night. Could have added more waypoints to it, though. It also is most fun/easiest to farm.

2. Lake Doric
While it does look quite triste with all the destruction, its vastly empty spaces and the constant “doom-like” grey skies, it harbors the coolest locations: the forest and dungeon in the North (felt like playing D&D <3), the beautiful cave in the South-East and the nice fishers’ village to the East. Not a fan of farming and daily questing there, though, because farming the hearts takes way too long and there are not enough nodes on the map.

3. Bloodstone Fen
Has the most waypoints and newly added updrafts, which makes traveling across this map quite comfortable. The leyline streams, however, are mostly annoying, because they often get in your way of farming the Unbound Magic, and it gets even worse with those anomalies popping up out of nowhere — these two things can make roaming this map a highly frustrating experience, and it often takes forever to farm it. Not a fan, even though it looks quite nice. (P.S. Also, none of the events on the map are being explained, so they seem illogical and random to newcomers.)

4. Ember Bay
It simply doesn’t have the charme it did in GW1. In GW1, you had dark-grey rocks with a purple touch, which made the whole place look magic. Now it’s all boring, dusty rocks, murky water, and way too much lava. Plus, the JP is by far the most annoying in the history of GW2. (P.S. Totally loved the humor in the story quests, though!)

I give the maps a solid “F” along with the typical death grind story.

I love the map, and it has the perfect Mastery to go with it!

It makes me feel like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxDtR-adiD0

Doric and Ember are ranked high due to easy to obtain currency.

Bitterfrost is ranked lower, due to the sheer number of currency required.

Bloodstone Fen is just.. no, its pretty to look at, but impractical. Unless I’m RPing in it I don’t waste my time.

I don’t have the first two episodes unlocked so I can’t rate them.
1. Bitterfrost. The most fun map ever to be added to GW2. I never felt like there was a lack of something to do. Flying over the terrain was also very refreshing.
2. Lake Doric. Almost always something to do, and some challenging but fun enemies to fight.
3. Draconis. I’m not one for a pretty looking map, for me this map is just a lack of content and I don’t enjoy exploring it. Dying in water isn’t too fun either.

I sure need to get my gems out and try the other maps though, I can tell I’m missing out after reading this thread.

Mons Draconis is good looking. Just had an hour or so there yesterday but can’t get back into it today. Whoever thought to make it so difficult to access needs their butt kicked. When I’m online there aren’t any groups or anyone offering to taxi people there. You can’t get a portal scroll unless you in the map! How ridiculous is that! How about opening up access to the map so we can play it.

Now that we have 5…

1. Ember Bay. Long time since we’d been to the Ring of Fire, and I love the atmosphere and map design of this one. Actually enjoyed the jumping puzzle too, though it wasn’t clear enough where to go.

2. Lake Doric. The towns were a lot of fun to play in, it was an open map that still had hidden surprises in it, and the meta-events were interesting. Wish there’d been more water though.

3. Bitterfrost Frontier. The forest was nice, but the map never really grew on me.

4. Bloodstone Fen. Just too small for my liking. I’d much rather have had it feel like the Maguuma rather than some otherwordly disaster zone.

5. Draconis Mons. The map is beautiful but unfortunately it’s horrible to play. Ranged aggro all over the place, very tricky to navigate. Some of the bosses are poor – fighting the wyverns on a character without stability is 15 minutes I’d rather have back. And the jumping puzzle, which would normally be my favourite bit, was ruined by a navigation-by-skill idea that should have been left behind in Dry Top.

TheBandit.7031:

Dying in water isn’t too fun either.

But you can circumvent dying in those wild waters!

I’ll open a thread on that right away, keep an eye out for it.

Boneyard Yogi.8206:

Mons Draconis is good looking. Just had an hour or so there yesterday but can’t get back into it today. Whoever thought to make it so difficult to access needs their butt kicked. When I’m online there aren’t any groups or anyone offering to taxi people there. You can’t get a portal scroll unless you in the map! How ridiculous is that! How about opening up access to the map so we can play it.

I’m having the same problem!!

Ashantara.8731:

TheBandit.7031:

Dying in water isn’t too fun either.

But you can circumvent dying in those wild waters!

I’ll open a thread on that right away, keep an eye out for it.

I’ll be sure to read it

Bloodstone Fen – The gliding and gliding skills are just awesome. I don’t really like the “look” of the zone much, it’s not poorly drawn, just too “red and apocalyptic” for my personal tastes, but it’s fun as hell.

Draconis- Hookshot. Also, I do enjoy the verticality of it, the variety of areas, the interesting visual tricks at play, etc.

Ember Bay- Again, not a huge fan of the volcanic stone aesthetic, although I love the look of the verdant cliffs along the SW corner, but the molten tubes, the leyline highway, the variety of well balanced events (in terms of being able to get to them and join in fairly conveniently), it works out well.

Lake Doric- Cool idea for the map’s “story,” and some lovely areas to it, but the heart quests are suuuuuuuper grindy and with event cycles that run longer than they are interesting, and the methods to traverse the map are primitive by S3 standards, requiring way more jogging than I’ve become accustomed to. I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise sitting right outside Divinity, but it feels the most like a pre-HoT map of the bunch. It would be a lot better if it had more leyline and updraft routes to cross the map. Or Oakheart Essence nodes (hint hint).

Bitterfrost-The torch mechanic is pretty lame and too situational, I don’t see it being used on other maps, and don’t want to see it on other maps. I liked the Sancuary and the leyline route around it, I liked the molten tuns for getting airborne (though there needed to be more of those around), I liked the old growth forrest, but wish there was more to it, like being able to climb ever higher into the trees and maybe a small encampment up there. The Bitter Cold area was a pain because you couldn’t revisit it without an annoying collection quest for non-depositable materials. That should have been a one-time thing for the story. The hot springs were nifty though. Basically a lot of missteps here.

Haven’t played the new map enough to have a definite opinion on in yet, for now I feel that I should like it more than I do. Maybe I’m just burned out again. Part of me likes the variety of enemies, another feels it’s too much crammed into one rather small map, kind of how the writers cram too much into the story. The new mastery rocks, though, without a doubt — mobility is always awesome. I’m going to miss this in other maps as much as I miss the gliding skills when not in Bloodstone Fen.

Draconis is now by far my favorite living story map so far now. You can read my comments above if you want to know why.