Guild Wars 2

I know there are very vocal complainers(Wooden Pottatoes for example) but is there any chance of getting maybe just 2 more waypoints for bitterfrost frontier?(one for either the forest or grawl cave and one for the hotsprings maybe) I honestly never understood why they complain so much when they can just not use them or if they can’t help themselves how they can’t see it’s because they are good >.< as is I’m just getting really tired of running around. the map looks great but it looks less great when you’ve seen the same ice dozens of times on a several minute run to where you’re actually headed. I’m not doing anything in the hailstone floe ever but I’ve seen it more often than the hotsprings where I actually do things because I occasionally die on the way DX

Use the underwater path; it doesn’t take several minutes and one never dies.

Good luck.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Use the underwater path; it doesn’t take several minutes and one never dies.

Good luck.

feel like it’s a bit of a stopgap but thanks for the advice ^-^

The core game was oversaturated with waypoints , I feel like the newer maps, especially Bitterfrost Frontier, have the balance just about right …

Hannelore.8153:

The core game was oversaturated with waypoints , I feel like the newer maps, especially Bitterfrost Frontier, have the balance just about right …

I agree.

At first I thought it could use a couple more waypoints but I’ve changed my mind. After you finish getting achievements (which doesn’t take long because the map is so small), there’s really only 2 things left to do. Chest farming and berry picking. Both activities require you to run anyways so waypointing wouldn’t help. Set up a smart route that requires minimal overlapping and the map works quite well.

You have plenty of ways to travel around this map which is actually quite small. You have waypoints, Thermal Tubes, and flying which is made easier by updrafts over the Braziers.

And a leyline loop! The only ley line current runs in a loop that covers at least 50% of the map! It’s a bit hard to see though, since it’s kind of shimmery-transparent and the sky is white.

I would like to see one in the spring, and I’m ok with it being contested half the time. I don’t see the grawl or forest making sense. This is not a large map, and the grawl are not actually very far from the koda ship. I generally just port to the ship then glide down from it to wherever I need to go.

Honestly, the map isn’t really big enough to justify another waypoint (well, besides the the freeze, but who wants to spawn in the freeze? You’d die from cold on spawn!)

The major farm areas are already around the way points provided, anything else is just exploration. And, in all honesty, you can’t realistically explore a sparsely populated wasteland with a re spawn every five steps – it just isn’t sporting, and honestly would kill the desperate mood/genre of the map. The map isn’t designed to be a quaggans picnic – as the icicles at those "hot"springs can likely tell you.

I’ve played this map on five classes, and while it seems like an endless battle to begin with, you’ll begin to realise that mobs hang in easily avoidable groups outside of events. If you can dodge the first chill (usually the first attack they will leap/shoot you with), you can typically outrun them to avoid combat altogether.

Less waypoints are maybe the introduction to …. MOUNTS ….

runs away

Koda torch skill 1 is a good way to cover distance fast.

Manasa Devi.7958:

Koda torch skill 1 is a good way to cover distance fast.

I can’t agree. I think Bitterfrost is annoying to navigate.

• Thermal Tunnels generally point towards the center, forcing you to retrace your path, e.g. moving east to go west.
• The ley-line loop is higher up than can be easily accessed by most of the thermals. Even then, it takes you through the central area, all spots that can be mostly reached via walking to a different thermal.
• Koda’s Flame can take you from Flamebearer to Flamebearer, but only when they are all lit and you don’t get hit by a storm. If used to unlock chests, they won’t even take you that far.

Of course, the map is really small, so it doesn’t take that long to get anywhere really; it’s just annoying.

tl;dr small maps can be annoying to navigate, too. That doesn’t mean they need a new waypoint.

The original game maps were arguably oversaturated with waypoints, but ANet has been overcompensating on this score for a while (See Tangled Depths, Silverwastes, and now Bitterfrost). The issue isn’t about density as much as about Traversability. The 3 maps I mention all have the issue that getting from one area to the next is not simple due to enemy density, navigation issues, or time pressure, so they all need more waypoints or other measures to compensate. Heck, the positioning of the Waypoints on Bitterfrost is so bad, they can both contest at the same time, which results in players being unable to rez on the map and can cause a game crash if you are trying to waypoint into the map.

Bloodstone Fen and Ember bay both had excellent traversabilty; you could get where you want to go reasonably via the combination of waypoints and other means. Bitterfrost’s single leyline seems like an afterthought, there are thermal vents in several places that would make more sense for Mushrooms, the updrafts are mostly pointless, and the thermal vent loop around the center isn’t even lined up right (there are several spots where you miss the continuing vent by an inch). The entire thing smacks of a rush job to integrate the new thermal vents and an order from on high to have leyline gliding in the map somewhere.

I don’t know. I think it’s an easy map as far as getting from one end to the other. They provided a safe route that’s even full of Unbound Magic. What more could be asked for?

I use thermal tunes, ley loop, gliding (including mushroom launches), and the exceptionally boring under water path.

I think a couple of the above comments sum up a lot of why I made the original post better than I could of. it’s more about traversability and whatnot. where I loved the mastery navigation in the previous maps it instead feels like it’s more work than it’s worth to use it in this map usually so I just run instead.

though something that I don’t think has been mentioned is how the parts of the map that are further from the 2 waypoints are affected. any time I’m not near one of the waypoints the player population drops significantly, and at least partially due to that I’ve never seen the keep the hotsprings warm event succeed(there may also be scaling issues but I wouldn’t know since there’s never more than 1 other person taking the event seriously when I’m there, and that includes day 1) and instead everyone just runs the chests and then leaves. that may seem obvious but it’s not the only map with an easy train and the other maps tend to have a better player spread still(except auric basin … it’s all or nothing there it seems ’>.>)

Edit: just realized I’m a bit unclear on an important point. I’m trying to make it clear that the farms are all close to the only waypoints and that’s part of the problem. some of the more hardcore players don’t care as long as they have their farm waypoints but that concentrates the players into the grinding part of the map which just seems wrong to me. not putting a waypoint in at least the hotspring seems a waste of the best looking part of the map(imo of course, feel free to like what you like) to me. even if there is only really one event and the hot water for the elixer I still think it deserves a waypoint. this doesn’t fix the problems with navigating the map(which just isn’t faster by air or thermal tubes if you can dodge and swiftness good and so ends up with me just running or swimming which is … just not engaging gameplay) but it does alleviate it enough to satisfy at least me. just 1 waypoint PLEASE T^T

Because of the design of the map, there isn’t really any point to anymore waypoints. Putting a waypoint in the hot springs won’t change much because there’s little reason to be there once you finished the story. The event there fails not so much because of no waypoint but because running that event for minimal gain is a waste of time compared to chest farming or berry picking.

Hot Springs are largely meaningless outside of achievements. Bitter Cold is largely meaningless outside of achievements. The Grawl area is largely meaningless outside of achievements. Most of the Svanir encampment is largely meaningless outside of achievements. Putting waypoints in largely meaningless areas will make the rare player who engages in minimal gain dynamic events (because they enjoy them?) happy but overall won’t have much of an impact.

The only worthwhile areas are the middle ice and forest, both of which require the player to run anyways because they are going chest to chest or berry to berry. I wouldn’t object to adding more waypoints, but they won’t change anything.