Guild Wars 2

Puck.9612:

Biermeister.4678:

The Desert BL’s are fun now that they took the PVE laser out if you want to stay a zergling and have blob fights stay on EB. If you want to do different tactics and have different challenges go to the Desert Boarder Lands

What exactly is “fun” about the map? I’m honestly asking.

All the terrain levels and paths, hills and valleys and secret passages all kinds of kitten. Places to hide, places to run, places to sneak attack.. Choke points for big fights, but always more ways to go.. It’s just so dynamic and full of choices.

Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed Alpine for 2 years or so but, I agree it becoming boring doing the same circle loop around the map over and over. Alpine barely has any decent sized spaces for open field fighting and Alpine is full of unused space.

dank.3680:

Puck.9612:

Biermeister.4678:

The Desert BL’s are fun now that they took the PVE laser out if you want to stay a zergling and have blob fights stay on EB. If you want to do different tactics and have different challenges go to the Desert Boarder Lands

What exactly is “fun” about the map? I’m honestly asking.

All the terrain levels and paths, hills and valleys and secret passages all kinds of kitten. Places to hide, places to run, places to sneak attack.. Choke points for big fights, but always more ways to go.. It’s just so dynamic and full of choices.

Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed Alpine for 2 years or so but, I agree it becoming boring doing the same circle loop around the map over and over. Alpine barely has any decent sized spaces for open field fighting and Alpine is full of unused space.

Odd, I found the alpine had a lot more room around most objectives for fighting with 1 or 2 good choke points nearby.
Take the southern towers for example, SW you had the bridge, the arena looking ruin behind it, the entrance to SW camp nearby for chokes, but plenty of space around it. SE tower was much the same, a couple good chokes and small terrain variations to help outmaneuver your opponents but still a lot of open space along side it.

For the most part the chokes on the desert are way too long and result in pirate shipping, which I don’t find fun.

My guild is playing in the DBL´s since the reset almost all the time, EB is queued at the time that we play… 99% of the guild want the ABL back. (Not EB fan before HoT)

As roamer or scout since DBL i am not playing solo anymore, before i was a garrison/bay/hills scout fan.

Puck.9612:

TheGrimm.5624:

Sungtaro.6493:

Unless we were defending home bl, EB always queued first. And even then, if it was Tuesday or later in the week, EB always queued first.

kitten, EB always queued first, don’t let people try and say otherwise.

….do they not have the same population limit? The same number of objectives? Even though the DBL is substantially larger the alpine still has more open space around objectives for fighting. Only thing the DBL has is a lot more wasted space.

Its the size, the ABL were terribad if maxed out like we saw this weekend.

Puck.9612:

Odd, I found the alpine had a lot more room around most objectives for fighting with 1 or 2 good choke points nearby.
Take the southern towers for example, SW you had the bridge, the arena looking ruin behind it, the entrance to SW camp nearby for chokes, but plenty of space around it. SE tower was much the same, a couple good chokes and small terrain variations to help outmaneuver your opponents but still a lot of open space along side it.

The ABL favored the blob. Hold the south and you could block entry into the maps. Map strongly favors the zerg over havok or solo roamers. No room to maneuver or fall back to if being attacked by larger force.

It’s mote anyway, they have said they will rotate maps. So we will end up rotating people in and out of EB depending on what the home borderland is. Just don’t block the EB queue while its not your map preference and vice versa.

TheGrimm.5624:

Puck.9612:

TheGrimm.5624:

Sungtaro.6493:

Unless we were defending home bl, EB always queued first. And even then, if it was Tuesday or later in the week, EB always queued first.

kitten, EB always queued first, don’t let people try and say otherwise.

….do they not have the same population limit? The same number of objectives? Even though the DBL is substantially larger the alpine still has more open space around objectives for fighting. Only thing the DBL has is a lot more wasted space.

Its the size, the ABL were terribad if maxed out like we saw this weekend.

The alpine map was fun as hell when it was queued. You’d usually see some pretty epic keep battles without any random nonsense (like fireballs being shot out of the walls) getting in the way.

DeWolfe.2174:

OMG… did you say a Q? Wow, Alpine would never hold a Q right? /s

Yes… because Alpine was never Q’d before? Because Alpine wasn’t the map used for three seasons??? Please gtfo with such nonsense.

Its apples to oranges. Did ABL have map queues in 2013, yes. 2014, not really. Now we are also in a different situations with the combined servers so its more like 2013. So yes, we had map queues on home in 2013 and again on home in 2016. So…what does that imply. EB always out queued both so stop fooling yourself. Also if DBL was that hated, they wouldn’t have been queued since people wouldn’t have been on them.

Puck.9612:

The alpine map was fun as hell when it was queued. You’d usually see some pretty epic keep battles without any random nonsense (like fireballs being shot out of the walls) getting in the way.

Not saying they weren’t fun at times. They were small and grew stale because the fights always occurred in the same spots because they were small. And if they didn’t they were 30-60 feet from that other spot. And they were terrible for havok and roamers since it was very easy for the zergs to run them down.

TheGrimm.5624:

Puck.9612:

Odd, I found the alpine had a lot more room around most objectives for fighting with 1 or 2 good choke points nearby.
Take the southern towers for example, SW you had the bridge, the arena looking ruin behind it, the entrance to SW camp nearby for chokes, but plenty of space around it. SE tower was much the same, a couple good chokes and small terrain variations to help outmaneuver your opponents but still a lot of open space along side it.

The ABL favored the blob. Hold the south and you could block entry into the maps. Map strongly favors the zerg over havok or solo roamers. No room to maneuver or fall back to if being attacked by larger force.

It’s mote anyway, they have said they will rotate maps. So we will end up rotating people in and out of EB depending on what the home borderland is. Just don’t block the EB queue while its not your map preference and vice versa.

Completely disagree. The desert bl is made for zerging. Objectives don’t threaten each other so you can’t take a small group and slowly expand out by using 1 structure to launch attacks on the next. You have further run times. Making it much easier for larger groups that don’t have to resup. Chokes in this game strongly favor the larger groups, especially with the recent changes to certain CC skills that previously had no limit. The alpines small strategic chokes were good for LoS’ing and making your escape, the deserts tunnels keep you trapped so it’s impossible to stealth and/or scatter to outmaneuver the zerg. On top of that, the desert is still full of dead ends. If the zerg cuts you off from one of the routes you know leads away you can end up being forced off a cliff.
This isn’t even touching on the gimmicks that will slow down your escape by crippling you, putting you in combat, or having walls pop up in front of you.

TheGrimm.5624:

DeWolfe.2174:

OMG… did you say a Q? Wow, Alpine would never hold a Q right? /s

Yes… because Alpine was never Q’d before? Because Alpine wasn’t the map used for three seasons??? Please gtfo with such nonsense.

Its apples to oranges. Did ABL have map queues in 2013, yes. 2014, not really. Now we are also in a different situations with the combined servers so its more like 2013. So yes, we had map queues on home in 2013 and again on home in 2016. So…what does that imply. EB always out queued both so stop fooling yourself. Also if DBL was that hated, they wouldn’t have been queued since people wouldn’t have been on them.

People were on them because EB had queues that lasted for hours and they wanted to see the new changes to WvW. I absolutely hate that awful map and I spent the majority of my play time on them this weekend because there wasn’t an alternative.

Funny thing is kitten near everyone in my TS was constantly complaining about being stuck on the map.

TheGrimm.5624:

Puck.9612:

Odd, I found the alpine had a lot more room around most objectives for fighting with 1 or 2 good choke points nearby.
Take the southern towers for example, SW you had the bridge, the arena looking ruin behind it, the entrance to SW camp nearby for chokes, but plenty of space around it. SE tower was much the same, a couple good chokes and small terrain variations to help outmaneuver your opponents but still a lot of open space along side it.

The ABL favored the blob. Hold the south and you could block entry into the maps. Map strongly favors the zerg over havok or solo roamers. No room to maneuver or fall back to if being attacked by larger force.

It’s mote anyway, they have said they will rotate maps. So we will end up rotating people in and out of EB depending on what the home borderland is. Just don’t block the EB queue while its not your map preference and vice versa.

Actually. As a solo/duo roamer who did roam 3000 hours before HoT. I dislike Deserted BL for roaming. In Alpine what you can see is what you can reach. In Desert Borderland, you are often able to see an enemy sadly you are not on the same level… thus when you get up or down a level, the target is long gone. It’s more like a walking simulator than a map made for solo/duo roaming.

In ABL, you had the whole ruins area to outmaneuver the blobs as a solo roamer. The blobs would usually not give chase when you went in the ruins. The periphery of the map was way more open while the middle still gave the roamers a safe harbor. This made it easy to spot the blob and avoid it while giving chase to the tail or other roamers. In DBL, you often turn a corner or a zig-zag of some sort to be faced with the blob. No sight over it makes it hard to dodge it as a roamer in comparison to what ABL allowed.

Anyway, just my 2 cents on the roaming situation of ABL vs DBL.

Puck.9612:

The alpines small strategic chokes were good for LoS’ing and making your escape,

The only way you escaped in ABL was if you were faster or could port. Been small group and solo roaming on ABL and its much easier to get away from the zerg. Its also easier for a solo person to turn the odds on a group when chased into some of the chokes and chasms. Also if you pick off peeps from the enemy zerg there are much harder pressed then they were in ABL to get back to the zerg. Which is what the players were asking for prior to HoT, a way to spilt up the zerg or allow smaller groups better odds of thinning them out. And all of those nooks means more places for roamers to hunt the zerg and draw some versus all out. On ABL full zergs would turn to chase a small group, now they don’t know what they might find.

Phantom.5389:

TheGrimm.5624:

Puck.9612:

Odd, I found the alpine had a lot more room around most objectives for fighting with 1 or 2 good choke points nearby.
Take the southern towers for example, SW you had the bridge, the arena looking ruin behind it, the entrance to SW camp nearby for chokes, but plenty of space around it. SE tower was much the same, a couple good chokes and small terrain variations to help outmaneuver your opponents but still a lot of open space along side it.

The ABL favored the blob. Hold the south and you could block entry into the maps. Map strongly favors the zerg over havok or solo roamers. No room to maneuver or fall back to if being attacked by larger force.

It’s mote anyway, they have said they will rotate maps. So we will end up rotating people in and out of EB depending on what the home borderland is. Just don’t block the EB queue while its not your map preference and vice versa.

Actually. As a solo/duo roamer who did roam 3000 hours before HoT. I dislike Deserted BL for roaming. In Alpine what you can see is what you can reach. In Desert Borderland, you are often able to see an enemy sadly you are not on the same level… thus when you get up or down a level, the target is long gone. It’s more like a walking simulator than a map made for solo/duo roaming.

In ABL, you had the whole ruins area to outmaneuver the blobs as a solo roamer. The blobs would usually not give chase when you went in the ruins. The periphery of the map was way more open while the middle still gave the roamers a safe harbor. This made it easy to spot the blob and avoid it while giving chase to the tail or other roamers. In DBL, you often turn a corner or a zig-zag of some sort to be faced with the blob. No sight over it makes it hard to dodge it as a roamer in comparison to what ABL allowed.

Anyway, just my 2 cents on the roaming situation of ABL vs DBL.

+1 This was my experience. It was rare that a zerg would keep following through the ruins but it was always fantastic when they did. I have to do some digging but I know there is a video somewhere of my 5 man group shredding a 20 man by splitting up in the ruins and while they focus on catching 1 of us the rest would circle around and tear up the fat kids that fell behind. Until we widdled down the numbers enough to full wipe them.
What was really fun was going into the ruins to build one of the cannons and then having 1 person go lure a small zerg to their death.

i wouldnt mind the dbls changed up a bit for strategy reasons. seems like the objectives are take and not keep the old abls were kind of take one to move to the next stage thing going. the desert bls still got those environmental issues which the abls didnt that i hate and still spots that end up awkward.the dgl are better then they are more open space but still have a few tight spots in them. id like to see the northern towers brought down a bit so they were strategic for taking the side keep possibly moving the side keep closer to the lower towers kind of spring board and maybe move garrison which everyone calls it center keep a but south id like to see two camp on each side of spawn to be jumping points to the first towers which would be moved south a bit. i think those changes would make it more strategic and a big improvement of the dbls just not sure how much that would be

Yay, and may DBL never return without big redesign on keeps / towers! I’m so tired of uncounterable siege spots. pointless towers at nowhere, running miles to the next camp, falling to my death and running into rocks / slows / stealth whatever bs. Please dont hurry with the rotation xD And i think i speak for many when i say we would like the pre-ruins border with the quaggans (though dont make them destroy siege).

A fix would be if you queue to EB and are in a Borderland map you get logout off that borderland map

EB = 350 queue BL = 5-15 queue.

EFWinters.5421:

Since nobody wants to play desert borderlands EB ends up with a crazy queue while the other maps are empty or full of semi-afk players waiting for their EB queue.

ArenaNet needs to quickly roll out the alpine borderlands. It would alleviate many of the concerns on this forum right now.

As a logician, my answer is simple: I want to play in the desert borderlands and I do that nearly exclusively, almost daily. Therefore your claim that nobody wants to play is wrong.

Please do not speak for all of us.

Deaeira.2651:

EFWinters.5421:

Since nobody wants to play desert borderlands EB ends up with a crazy queue while the other maps are empty or full of semi-afk players waiting for their EB queue.

ArenaNet needs to quickly roll out the alpine borderlands. It would alleviate many of the concerns on this forum right now.

As a logician, my answer is simple: I want to play in the desert borderlands and I do that nearly exclusively, almost daily. Therefore your claim that nobody wants to play is wrong.

Please do not speak for all of us.

Ditto! And I know many others who now feel the same.

I am all for rotating the Alpine Bls and Desert Bls; if it had been like that from the start there would have been less heat in this debate. Greater variety can only be good. Please, please don’t throw away the Desert Bls, because of some design problems on launch combined with population problems due to the wider state of WvW.

With last week’s changes to the DBl and WvW, great fun and great fights have been had on the DBls. The changes, the greater numbers and growing knowledge of the DBls has let them prove themselves.

That’s not to say some changes wouldn’t be good – it is a real shame the northern towers don’t have the strategic role they have in the ABls – but please keep them in rotation.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Alpine Borderlands will be rotated back in with the next release (not hotfix.)

Could Tyler or someone provide me with some clarification as to what is meant by “next release”? We talking Friday or further down the line than that? Thanks

An official response would be good, but in the past this terminology has meant a “major build update” rather than the, much more frequent, hot fixes. These are normally every 2 weeks on a Tuesday (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates), so the next one will possibly be on 3rd May.

Svarty.8019:

No.
Also, be aware, I’m taking the names of people who make these threads and will be checking how much they play Alpine.

sure lets add my 4k hours on alpine bl to that. in fact i can remeber the best battles and defenses in alpine. endless hills defenses, awesome bay with 0 walls or doors fights…. yeah and the moment they blob a keep and the mesmers manage to hide.etc. alpine is much better and trust me people will be on alpine a lot. the reasone why eb has such large queues is because many of us try to avoid desert bl. so u wanna act like u are in charge here. fine by me take down my name and check where u will find me most of the time. ALPINE!

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Alpine Borderlands will be rotated back in with the next release (not hotfix.)

when should we expect a revamp with EBG its pretty stale.

Jong.5937:

That’s not to say some changes wouldn’t be good – it is a real shame the northern towers don’t have the strategic role they have in the ABls – but please keep them in rotation.

Just want to second this. IMO the northern towers on desert bl feels like its in the middle of nowhere. No one really cares what happens to it. You don’t see the ‘defend the north if you want to keep garry’ thing anymore, and where defending upgraded north towers would take priority over things like attacking a keep for example, like on alpine.

Steelo.4597:

And i think i speak for many when i say we would like the pre-ruins border with the quaggans (though dont make them destroy siege).

Yesh! So much this! Waaaateeeeer!

Puck.9612:

dank.3680:

Puck.9612:

Biermeister.4678:

The Desert BL’s are fun now that they took the PVE laser out if you want to stay a zergling and have blob fights stay on EB. If you want to do different tactics and have different challenges go to the Desert Boarder Lands

What exactly is “fun” about the map? I’m honestly asking.

All the terrain levels and paths, hills and valleys and secret passages all kinds of kitten. Places to hide, places to run, places to sneak attack.. Choke points for big fights, but always more ways to go.. It’s just so dynamic and full of choices.

Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed Alpine for 2 years or so but, I agree it becoming boring doing the same circle loop around the map over and over. Alpine barely has any decent sized spaces for open field fighting and Alpine is full of unused space.

For the most part the chokes on the desert are way too long and result in pirate shipping, which I don’t find fun.

Pirate shipping was more due to the wider meta, before 19th April. It was happening all the time in EBG too. The latest changes, especially to stability, have fixed that. We’ve had some amazing old-school fights in the borders in the last week. Really the best open field fights I remember, ever, because of the more varied terrain.

Maybe the ABls will be better now too, because of last week’s changes, but don’t dismiss the desert Bls out of hand because of past problems and the consequent population drop.

Our match up all borders were populated with only little bit bigger EB que. The Dbl are pretty darn great now in high pop.

Thank god. Desert borderland is too big, has too much verticality, and has too much pve components. Great news for roamers, especially since TC vs. DB blob wars 2.

I find the changes to borderlands massive. Opened up some cliffs/walls for easier travel. RIddance of the G-Dammed barricades – WP under t3 upgrades so whoever owns the place gets the use of it.

Alpine was a cool map but also had its flaws like this DBL

At least give it a shot now – It is not that bad as many people here on forum will tell ya.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Alpine Borderlands will be rotated back in with the next release (not hotfix.)

Thank you <3 <3
Actually the modifications of DBL in this release is a large step in the right direction, I really appreciate it (along with all other WvW changes). But there are still a lot more need to be changed for DBL, I still prefer Alpine Borderland at the moment.
Keep up the good work, cheers!

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Alpine Borderlands will be rotated back in with the next release (not hotfix.)

Bombs dropped.

Puck.9612:

TheGrimm.5624:

Sungtaro.6493:

Unless we were defending home bl, EB always queued first. And even then, if it was Tuesday or later in the week, EB always queued first.

kitten, EB always queued first, don’t let people try and say otherwise.

….do they not have the same population limit? The same number of objectives? Even though the DBL is substantially larger the alpine still has more open space around objectives for fighting. Only thing the DBL has is a lot more wasted space.

Please, define “wasted space”. Because maybe you forgot how Alpine Borderlands are shaped and how much space is wasted on that map.

Xdreviuse Reborn.3276:

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Alpine Borderlands will be rotated back in with the next release (not hotfix.)

Could Tyler or someone provide me with some clarification as to what is meant by “next release”? We talking Friday or further down the line than that? Thanks

This is fantastic news!
But yeah, I’d love to hear an official response to this question.

you are not speaking for me OP.
There are some issues with DBL still but they are ok. and with the patch actually much improved.
I found them fun to play since I got to know them.
I am speaking about the map per se.
You really think you get Alpine back with the old mechanics?
You wont! (And I am very glad)
I played Alpine for years before Desert, you really think it was different then?
That they were smaller? You legged it same as Desert now.
wierd siegespots.
you could fall to your death if you didn’t know your way.
horrible upgrade mechanics that cost players a fortune.
everybody was qqing they wanted another BL map…

I totally agree, Alpine Borderlands can’t come soon enough

Whenever I play Desert BLs I lose the will to keep playing

When Alpine comes back I hope that Desert wont be re-released at all, unless there is some serious rework to the layout of the map

Also, thanks ANet for listening to the core WvWers and bringing back Alpine

funny ppl still trying to fool themselve by saying dbl is great now when ppl are forced to play it with 100 EB queue lol.

On Gandara EB has always had queues. It’s no different now. EotM means that nobody is forced to play DBl till q pops. So many people post on this forum and just make kitten up to suit their arguement.

I eagerly await the day we have three separate Borderlands maps — alpine, desert, forest — and we can choose to play whichever whenever.

So will it be on rotation? So one week the Alpine and next week the Desert?

No, the plan is to rotate maps once in 3 months. Same with world links. But it is just a plan, does not mean it will happen.

Vael Victus.2654:

I eagerly await the day we have three separate Borderlands maps — alpine, desert, forest — and we can choose to play whichever whenever.

Yeh, at first I thought forest/jungle for the third Bl. But, howabout a city, like Kaineng, with neighbourhoods instead of towers & keeps, warehouses instead of supply camps, and fat Charrs squeezed into 2CV vans instead of dollys?

Oh, Anet. Pls rotate weekly or something. If nothing else, it’ll show once and for all the difference in popularity between Alpine & Desert.

For the record, I used to hate Desert, now I don’t.

I sure hope all of us who really enjoy the DBL can still get to see it very often. But I guess 1 week rotations would be nice if that is really going to bring many people back (I wouldn’t agree with that but who knows).

I think the minimum rotation will likely be 2 weeks since it seems to require an update rather than a hotfix.

Also, I don’t think there’s much ‘strategy’ involved in snowballing objectives on a BL. Unlike EB, the home defenders are outnumbered 2:1 in an even match-up. Giving enemies a tower to treb from means a zerg has to respond as opposed to any possibility of a small-team taking it out.

yep on SFR right now 100q on eb 0 on all bl’s

So for all the peeps that want ABL back, how about you stay out of EB while ABL is out since you will have 3 maps already yes?

Vael Victus.2654:

I eagerly await the day we have three separate Borderlands maps — alpine, desert, forest — and we can choose to play whichever whenever.

This. 4 distinct maps would go a long way.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Alpine Borderlands will be rotated back in with the next release (not hotfix.)

Tyler, is it safe to assume when it is rotated back in that we might get more information on what the rotation plan is at the stage for the people that like DBL? – Thanks!

It’s pretty fair to say most of the players that want the alpine back really hate the dbl, and the few players that really like the DBL are tired of the alpine.
If you absolutely have to rotate them instead of just sending the DBL to EotM or the silverwastes, then keep the rotations short. Something like every week or 2. Having to endure months of the deserted map made me take a very long break from the game and I almost didn’t return. I know plenty of others that quit because of it and haven’t come back. I can stomach the map for a couple weeks at a time but any more than that will likely cost your more customers.

Are we not allowed to like and want both, on rotation, as promised!

But, I agree, frequent rotation, or even random, would be my preference, to keep things fresh.

And, at the real risk of repeating what myself and others have said, if you swore never to go in the DBls again, when they were

A) broken and
B) deserted (partly because they were broken, but also because the whole game was in a bad state and people had to focus on EB to get any fights)

… try them again, now they are neither. Not perfect it’s true, but neither are the ABls, nor EB.