Guild Wars 2

You’re asking the community whether you should delete an entire borderland. You’ve put thousands of hours into the making of this map, which a considerable group of people, when they actually played it stated they -liked- when compared to alpine, and now you’re actually debating whether to delete this content entirely.

What gaming studio does this? Everything I am seeing from you is just so kitten backwards that it boggles my mind that you are the studio that delivered Guild Wars 2. And now… This. On top of the recent Charr and Asura legendary armor mess up, the hugely unpopular shift in policy towards Black Lion weapons, and the debacle that has been Heart of Thorns post launch…

Just… What happened to you? How has it happened? You literally had the gaming population eating out of your hands in the year or two after Guild Wars 2 released because you showed us you were competent and you showered us with content at a a bi-monthly cadence. You were the guys who were up there with Final Fantasy in showing developers like Blizzard how to run an MMORPG! You gave us the Battle of Lion’s Arch and showed just how an open world event should affect your game world and playerbase!

And now here we are, actually seeing you debating whether you should permanently delete content that’s already done, made and polished for the game’s live version. What’s worse is that you’re putting it up to a community poll and that it’s even an option in that poll! There should never be a time when a gaming company looks at a map that is done and in the game files, and then just flat out put the quit option on the table.

You are Arenanet. You are game developers. It is not your job to look at something and say: ‘okay, let’s yank this out.’ Not when it goes live. Your job is to look at this content and think: ‘okay, so some people didn’t like what we put out. They had valid concerns about the verticality of the map, the lack of gliding and certain blobbing issues. How can we fix this and make the map a better experience for our players going forwards?’

Stop putting community polls like this up. It only serves to make you look like an incompetent dev team that’s throwing paper planes at a wall and seeing what sticks. Worse still, when one of those planes that did stick suddenly falls, you drop it like a hot potato and immediately try something else entirely.

Speaking of potatoes, Woodenpotatoes showcases this brilliantly with his series of map viewer videos. There is so, so much potential content in the game files, all already in, coded, hell, a full three way WvW map in a unique style with completed voicework.

Where is that? Why is that not being polished, refined and added to give some much needed variety of content to things like World vs World, dungeons, fractals, anything! We’re sat in the middle of what is effectively a nine month content drought if you don’t raid, and no, I don’t class adding in a few new named bandit NPC’s to the world as new content!

Mr O’Brian, over the last year we’ve seen this game take an alarming turn. It’s gone from being a unique title with a great dev team that did it’s own thing to being something that is looking VERY akin to World of Warcraft in terms of both development direction (time taken for new content, focus of new content (endgame only being raids, ever increasing focus on gem store weapons and outfits) and actual gameplay (grinding the same four maps over and over and over again in order to attain certain pieces of achievement gear and mastery points/ranks).

We thought that maybe Colin was the problem. Perhaps we were right. Perhaps you did have to make some hard choices after Colin left in order to right the floundering ship. But right now, you need to take a hard look at the choices you are making in regard to this game’s direction, both in terms of monetization and development focus. If you don’t change the direction that Guild Wars seems to be heading in, I can see this being it’s worst year to date in terms of player retention and public image.

Make Guild Wars 2 what it was again. Show us that you are still the dev team that brought us the Battle for Lion’s Arch. Show us that you can still deliver to us a quality experience without taking anything else out of the game (yes, I am still slightly salty that you advertised and sold the game in part thanks to a feature that you one-eighty’d on after launch). Only then will you even begin to recover some of the consumer goodwill that you’ve lost from myself and a large number of other players, both current and former.

……….. seriously?
So the devs opening up communication with the wvw community for the first time in years is a problem?

The past few months have been fantastic. If we’d had this kind of interaction before they made all the mistakes like kitten near everything that came with HoT, and the stability change, wvw would be in an amazing place right now.

Self imploding before our eyes lol

Jim Hunter.6821:

……….. seriously?
So the devs opening up communication with the wvw community for the first time in years is a problem?

The past few months have been fantastic. If we’d had this kind of interaction before they made all the mistakes like kitten near everything that came with HoT, and the stability change, wvw would be in an amazing place right now.

I get what you’re saying. I agree, it’s good that we finally have the WvW team communicating with us in some form. But this is not the first thing that anyone here should hope to see from them!

I don’t get how you can call this kind of communication something that would make WvW an amazing place. All it does is promote the devs to just screw around on wild concepts and then just flat out delete them if they don’t work out in live, rather than actually working on them and improving them!

DBL is NOT a bad map. The problem is that it was just a radical shift from the kind of WvW gameplay that this community had experience with in the years leading up to HoT, and as a result, it got a lot of flack, some of which was good, honest criticism of genuine problems with the map, such as it’s difficulty to traverse without things like gliders. Some were people who felt genuinely aggrieved that the style of WvW they’d loved for so long was taken out of the Borderlands maps.

The vast majority of the criticism, however, and this is my personal opinion, boils down to the fact that people just couldn’t be bothered to learn to play on a new map layout during a period which saw the effective death of WvW due to developer neglect. When we finally got something it was just the wrong time.

If we’d had that vibrant community we’d had at launch, the servers would have been swarming and great fights would have been happening all over DBL, just like they did when the new reward track actually brought players back into WvW again and zergs were regularly butting heads there. But back then you just logged in, got lost because you didn’t know the map, couldn’t find anyone to fight, and effectively said ‘to heck with it, I quit’ and condemned the map because of things it had little to no control over.

But anyway, rant aside, we need more open discussions with the devs, more Q&A sessions with them, more questionnaires sent to the players asking them what they’d like in the game that don’t contain this kind of question. That’s what I expect from a competent development studio that actually knows it’s business.

This current poll, combined with some of the other things that A-net’s been pulled up on ever since HoT released, however, is showing me what I’d expect from a bunch of amateurs taking their first video game classes at college. And considering that this game has been out for so long, that is not a good thing.

RodOfDeath.5247:

Self imploding before our eyes lol

And? So I ranted, maybe went off track during my post. So I, as you put it, without proof or actual explanation, I might add, ‘self imploded’. (Unless you actually mean that my anger at these changes and bungles boiled up to the point where I started ranting during my post. If so, guilty as charged.)

The only reason I’m doing so is because I’m deeply concerned about the direction a game that I’ve loved playing for years is heading in.

I’m actually trying to maybe get a message over to the devs that things are looking kinda dicey with the studio and the game right now, and I would rather they change tack to win back some of the folks they lost in the aftermath of HoT.

Actually, if you look at the current poll, it doesn’t look like the dbls are going away. And Anet most likely already had a good idea from their own metrics/data as to how this poll would turn out. I think it was probably a fairly low risk poll for Anet. Just gives them ammo in the future if people scream about the dbls again…..they can point to the current poll.

But I can certainly understand your concern over the direction that Anet might be taking. Some days the ideas/patches look great….other days, not so much.

The result of the poll doesn’t really matter, Teon. I know the community will probably have enough sense to say they don’t want completed content removed from the game.

The whole point of my post was that Arenanet should never have even put this poll up. It makes them look like amateurs and it should never have made it past their PR department because it can only really do harm to the image of the developers, and the image of the game as a whole.

Pahawe.4865:

RodOfDeath.5247:

Self imploding before our eyes lol

And? So I ranted, maybe went off track during my post. So I, as you put it, without proof or actual explanation, I might add, ‘self imploded’. (Unless you actually mean that my anger at these changes and bungles boiled up to the point where I started ranting during my post. If so, guilty as charged.)

The only reason I’m doing so is because I’m deeply concerned about the direction a game that I’ve loved playing for years is heading in.

I’m actually trying to maybe get a message over to the devs that things are looking kinda dicey with the studio and the game right now, and I would rather they change tack to win back some of the folks they lost in the aftermath of HoT.

Easy there saltsaurus rex, I was referring to anet self imploding.

Pahawe.4865:

The result of the poll doesn’t really matter, Teon. I know the community will probably have enough sense to say they don’t want completed content removed from the game.

The whole point of my post was that Arenanet should never have even put this poll up. It makes them look like amateurs and it should never have made it past their PR department because it can only really do harm to the image of the developers, and the image of the game as a whole.

Agreed.

I think it probably comes from the fact that they didn’t communicate with wvw at all for the longest time. So now they’re over compensating somewhat.

Yeah.. to be honest I agree on the bad way these polls have been applied. The questions are very limited almost as if they are predicting the outcome by the nature of the questions.

Personally I am not fond of EB nor Alpine BL’s (boring flat, see the enemy a mile away, etc.). The Desert BL’s for me was the most fun I have had in years. Lots of twists and turns that makes one need to get to know them to navigate in. With alternate routes that don’t advertise ones location.

My biggest beef with the HOT WVW expansion is the stupid sentry spotting system. It’s way to large of an area of detection, which does not enable “sneak” tactics to get around them. And that includes seeing through stealth (seriously?). Mind you I think one should not need stealth to “sneak” a force around behind another force to flank, or attack from rear. Forcing a dependence on using Veil, or mass invisibility makes for boring gameplay for the Mesmer stuck with this chore.

That’s what the desert BL’s enabled to some extent (as long as those stupid sentry’s were dead). The ability to mobilize around choke points to engage the enemy from different angles without advertising where you are coming from.

Also that sentry system pretty much eliminates hiding a Mesmer in a keep (not impossible, but much harder). So you have several viable tactics that are either hampered or made impossible by the combination of map/sentry. Which makes WVW a lot less interesting to play.

Agree with OP! imo the DBL’s never should have been removed. Alpine should have remained GONE and the DBL’s should have continued to be improved. THAT would have shown ANet’s commitment not only to change but to improving the change that they put in to make it fit what people liked. I truly believe it wasn’t the change itself that caused the problem.. It was the very poor design of the DBL’s. Just before Alpine’s came back they improved the DBL’s to the point where they were a lot better, and with a few more tweaks they could have been awesome.. As I’ve said before… clear out the center of the DBL and make it a nice big battle ground.. That would be WAY better than the Alpine (which really isn’t as great for field fighting as people like to suggest). You would then have the two things people wanted to see. More variety in the BL’s, and a good place for field fighting other than EB which is where most people go to blob anyway.

Wow

Just go vote to keep it, dude. Problem solved.

The problem is Free to Play. All the polls and maps changes are smokes to obscure real issues and face the problems.

Free to play made the game less fun by introducing things in order to create other revenues.

Without Free to Play, there are less reasons to introduce all the grinds, the skins, and the expansive Guild Hall Upgrades and players are less likely to create multiple accounts on different WvW servers.

Since business decisions are usually made from somewhere high up in the company that could not be blamed, the middle management and map designs became scapegoats.

Unfortunately, there is no going back once a game is Free to Play without a new sequel.

Nice Speech. I too wish to see new PvE story content arrive, and I hope they properly pace themselves this time so that we don’t have another 1 year content drought. I also agree that Arenanet should focus on polishing WvW maps instead of deleting them. Personally, I want to see new armor sets for lower level characters. Other games have way nicer gear for leveling in than the choice of the 3 or 4 sets until 80. Outfits are alright, but real armor is way better. I feel like Arenanet is trying to get a better grasp on what the community in WvW wants, because the Desert Borderlands were such a disaster at HoT launch that they nearly lost the entire playerbase. On top of that, I want to see the balance team pull it together, because I feel like massive nerf hammers on fun builds that are guaranteed to last 3 months are a major source of players taking “breaks” and never returning. Whether this means asking the players what the majority thinks needs adjustments or adding new staff to the balance team that have a better idea of what people want, It needs to happen.

However, this will take time, so we need to wait and see and hope.

OP should read some of the other threads on this his answer is contained within, anet weer pretty much forced into doing this poll. As to why this granular poll driven approach in general were you not here around the time HOT launched? It was an unmitigated disaster for WvW.

I give this post like a 6.5 on the troll score, but not bad.

Do you realize you’re posting in the WvW section of the forums? Most of what you talk about is PvE.

Pahawe.4865:

you showered us with content at a a bi-monthly cadence

Who got showered with content on a bi-monthly basis? Certainly not WvW. This is the first time since launch that the Devs are paying attention to WvW. It is welcomed. The polls are welcomed.

Have you been following the criticisms of the DBL since HoT? People were calling for the deletion of the DBL for a long time.

I basically disagree with everything you said. I say keep up the recent good work Anet.

Pahawe.4865:

The result of the poll doesn’t really matter, Teon. I know the community will probably have enough sense to say they don’t want completed content removed from the game.

The whole point of my post was that Arenanet should never have even put this poll up. It makes them look like amateurs and it should never have made it past their PR department because it can only really do harm to the image of the developers, and the image of the game as a whole.

Are you not aware that people have been hammering Anet about the Desert Borderlands since they were introduced, claiming that they’re largely responsible for driving people away from wvw? Or that they were hammered by people over the last poll for not giving people the option to vote “no dbl” when asking about rotation?

Anet’s doing the right thing here. It shows them that most people would rather they keep the Desert Borderland around, and it shows the wvw player base too. It puts a nail in the coffin of that particular complaint so they can move onto the next one.

Also, sticking with the Desert Borderland if most of the players hated it, because Anet had sunk tonnes of time into it is called Sunk Costs Fallacy. In other words, it would be an irrational decision.

Anet should be commended for putting the question of the dbl to the test, not derided for it.

Crazy.6029:

I give this post like a 6.5 on the troll score, but not bad.

You might be right.

My argument, Choppy, is that the poll is asking the wrong question. The one thing that no company should ever do is to ask it’s community whether or not it should outright delete content that some people enjoyed from the game entirely, just because it received a bashing from a vocal minority. A-net has those metrics, and the people in game, the vast majority who don’t even use these forums or the reddit threads, couldn’t care less about the storm in a bottle that is these forums.

So long as they get to play what they want to play, everyone is happy. What the poll should have said is ‘do you want us to work on x or y first’ or ‘do you want more of this kind of gameplay in DBL, or in Alpine’. That shows people that the A-net dev team are diligently working on improving the content we enjoy playing, and are trying to let us play it again ASAP.

In my opinion this poll isn’t so much a request for player feedback as it is a bare faced statement from the devs telling people that if enough people don’t like their content, they’re just picking the ball up, going home, and not even -bothering- to improve on it. You liked it as it was? Tough, now no-one can play with the new toy you loved. Go and play with that beaten up old ball that you’ve gotten sick of over the last four years, it’s what everyone else wants!

So yes, I will deride away, because in my view the question they asked was entirely the wrong one. There was a thriving DBL community. It was thriving even before the reintroduction of the old Alpine maps because it came in with the introduction of the reward tracks. The rewards and the actual fresh mechanics of the map are what brought people back. Now, it’s just the rewards that are keeping people around.

Also, Crazy, troll post? What? I was venting. Not trolling. Do I really give a kitten if a-net replies to this, if anyone upvotes it or even reads it? No. I just had to get it off my chest. And Johje, apologies for veering off topic during my OP, but my points turned into a rant. I only posted this thread here because the straw that broke the camel’s back for me was a WvW issue, and it seemed right to post it here.

Pahawe.4865:

My argument, Choppy, is that the poll is asking the wrong question. The one thing that no company should ever do is to ask it’s community whether or not it should outright delete content that some people enjoyed from the game entirely, just because it received a bashing from a vocal minority. A-net has those metrics, and the people in game, the vast majority who don’t even use these forums or the reddit threads, couldn’t care less about the storm in a bottle that is these forums.

So long as they get to play what they want to play, everyone is happy. What the poll should have said is ‘do you want us to work on x or y first’ or ‘do you want more of this kind of gameplay in DBL, or in Alpine’. That shows people that the A-net dev team are diligently working on improving the content we enjoy playing, and are trying to let us play it again ASAP.

In my opinion this poll isn’t so much a request for player feedback as it is a bare faced statement from the devs telling people that if enough people don’t like their content, they’re just picking the ball up, going home, and not even -bothering- to improve on it. You liked it as it was? Tough, now no-one can play with the new toy you loved. Go and play with that beaten up old ball that you’ve gotten sick of over the last four years, it’s what everyone else wants!

So yes, I will deride away, because in my view the question they asked was entirely the wrong one. There was a thriving DBL community. It was thriving even before the reintroduction of the old Alpine maps because it came in with the introduction of the reward tracks. The rewards and the actual fresh mechanics of the map are what brought people back. Now, it’s just the rewards that are keeping people around.

Also, Crazy, troll post? What? I was venting. Not trolling. Do I really give a kitten if a-net replies to this, if anyone upvotes it or even reads it? No. I just had to get it off my chest. And Johje, apologies for veering off topic during my OP, but my points turned into a rant. I only posted this thread here because the straw that broke the camel’s back for me was a WvW issue, and it seemed right to post it here.

The poll is what establishes that it was a vocal minority. And Anet already made changes to dbl in response to peoples’ concerns, and they were still hammered over it. They’re not saying they’ll “pick up their ball and go home”, they’re trying to figure out if they should invest anymore resources in that map or if they should do something else.

The reason people are wondering if you’re making troll posts is that they appear to be completely oblivious to the months and months of hand wringing going on over dbl, and even still being posted now. Seriously, I was just reading another thread about the poll that’s full of complaints that people aren’t voting to get rid of dbl “when it ruined wvw”. To say there was a “thriving dbl community” is also a stretch… most of the servers I interacted with had dbls that were ghost towns.

A poll is the most direct way for Anet to size up the strength of the desire to ditch the map.

Teon.5168:

Actually, if you look at the current poll, it doesn’t look like the dbls are going away. And Anet most likely already had a good idea from their own metrics/data as to how this poll would turn out. I think it was probably a fairly low risk poll for Anet. Just gives them ammo in the future if people scream about the dbls again…..they can point to the current poll.

But I can certainly understand your concern over the direction that Anet might be taking. Some days the ideas/patches look great….other days, not so much.

yeah, i think they told every employee and their family with a gw2 account to vote for this so we get stuck with it.
But, oh well. I am still truly happy for all 17 people that actually like it that are players. Gz! Hope changes are substantial enough to actually put people on them or you will fight the fortified gates alone….again.
Forgive my sarcasm
Just don’t think the stupid thing fits, works, looks appealing (different from graphically nice), creates a since of fun, community, ownership. But i guess it has dinosaurs though, that is a redeeming feature right?

shrek.1046:

OP should read some of the other threads on this his answer is contained within, anet weer pretty much forced into doing this poll. As to why this granular poll driven approach in general were you not here around the time HOT launched? It was an unmitigated disaster for WvW.

Yeah, people kinda voted against DBL already by not playing on them, EOTMing when EB was queued or leaving the game entirely. It’s gotten a tiny bit better, but still needs so much work that I’m doubtful Anet has or wants to put the time it needs to fix it.

Akkeros.1675:

Teon.5168:

Actually, if you look at the current poll, it doesn’t look like the dbls are going away. And Anet most likely already had a good idea from their own metrics/data as to how this poll would turn out. I think it was probably a fairly low risk poll for Anet. Just gives them ammo in the future if people scream about the dbls again…..they can point to the current poll.

But I can certainly understand your concern over the direction that Anet might be taking. Some days the ideas/patches look great….other days, not so much.

yeah, i think they told every employee and their family with a gw2 account to vote for this so we get stuck with it.
But, oh well. I am still truly happy for all 17 people that actually like it that are players. Gz! Hope changes are substantial enough to actually put people on them or you will fight the fortified gates alone….again.
Forgive my sarcasm
Just don’t think the stupid thing fits, works, looks appealing (different from graphically nice), creates a since of fun, community, ownership. But i guess it has dinosaurs though, that is a redeeming feature right?

Let the DBL come back and anet can see firsthand the mode die. Dangerous waters devs

Akkeros.1675:

Teon.5168:

Actually, if you look at the current poll, it doesn’t look like the dbls are going away. And Anet most likely already had a good idea from their own metrics/data as to how this poll would turn out. I think it was probably a fairly low risk poll for Anet. Just gives them ammo in the future if people scream about the dbls again…..they can point to the current poll.

But I can certainly understand your concern over the direction that Anet might be taking. Some days the ideas/patches look great….other days, not so much.

yeah, i think they told every employee and their family with a gw2 account to vote for this so we get stuck with it.
But, oh well. I am still truly happy for all 17 people that actually like it that are players. Gz! Hope changes are substantial enough to actually put people on them or you will fight the fortified gates alone….again.
Forgive my sarcasm
Just don’t think the stupid thing fits, works, looks appealing (different from graphically nice), creates a since of fun, community, ownership. But i guess it has dinosaurs though, that is a redeeming feature right?

Well, because Anet employees voted in the poll, that is most certainly why there is almost a 2-1 advantage to those that want to keep dbls.

I didn’t realize there were that many Anet employees working on this game.

/even heavier sarcasm

RodOfDeath.5247:

Akkeros.1675:

Teon.5168:

Actually, if you look at the current poll, it doesn’t look like the dbls are going away. And Anet most likely already had a good idea from their own metrics/data as to how this poll would turn out. I think it was probably a fairly low risk poll for Anet. Just gives them ammo in the future if people scream about the dbls again…..they can point to the current poll.

But I can certainly understand your concern over the direction that Anet might be taking. Some days the ideas/patches look great….other days, not so much.

yeah, i think they told every employee and their family with a gw2 account to vote for this so we get stuck with it.
But, oh well. I am still truly happy for all 17 people that actually like it that are players. Gz! Hope changes are substantial enough to actually put people on them or you will fight the fortified gates alone….again.
Forgive my sarcasm
Just don’t think the stupid thing fits, works, looks appealing (different from graphically nice), creates a since of fun, community, ownership. But i guess it has dinosaurs though, that is a redeeming feature right?

Let the DBL come back and anet can see firsthand the mode die. Dangerous waters devs

I plan on leaving the game in July, as it will most certainly be dead by then.

/smh /sarcasm

Teon.5168:

RodOfDeath.5247:

Akkeros.1675:

Teon.5168:

Actually, if you look at the current poll, it doesn’t look like the dbls are going away. And Anet most likely already had a good idea from their own metrics/data as to how this poll would turn out. I think it was probably a fairly low risk poll for Anet. Just gives them ammo in the future if people scream about the dbls again…..they can point to the current poll.

But I can certainly understand your concern over the direction that Anet might be taking. Some days the ideas/patches look great….other days, not so much.

yeah, i think they told every employee and their family with a gw2 account to vote for this so we get stuck with it.
But, oh well. I am still truly happy for all 17 people that actually like it that are players. Gz! Hope changes are substantial enough to actually put people on them or you will fight the fortified gates alone….again.
Forgive my sarcasm
Just don’t think the stupid thing fits, works, looks appealing (different from graphically nice), creates a since of fun, community, ownership. But i guess it has dinosaurs though, that is a redeeming feature right?

Let the DBL come back and anet can see firsthand the mode die. Dangerous waters devs

I plan on leaving the game in July, as it will most certainly be dead by then.

/smh /sarcasm

I bought a PS4 today just to prepare lol

Rather spend my money elsewhere as I haven’t spent gems on gw in months. No reason to anymore with the decline.

RodOfDeath.5247:

Teon.5168:

RodOfDeath.5247:

Akkeros.1675:

Teon.5168:

Actually, if you look at the current poll, it doesn’t look like the dbls are going away. And Anet most likely already had a good idea from their own metrics/data as to how this poll would turn out. I think it was probably a fairly low risk poll for Anet. Just gives them ammo in the future if people scream about the dbls again…..they can point to the current poll.

But I can certainly understand your concern over the direction that Anet might be taking. Some days the ideas/patches look great….other days, not so much.

yeah, i think they told every employee and their family with a gw2 account to vote for this so we get stuck with it.
But, oh well. I am still truly happy for all 17 people that actually like it that are players. Gz! Hope changes are substantial enough to actually put people on them or you will fight the fortified gates alone….again.
Forgive my sarcasm
Just don’t think the stupid thing fits, works, looks appealing (different from graphically nice), creates a since of fun, community, ownership. But i guess it has dinosaurs though, that is a redeeming feature right?

Let the DBL come back and anet can see firsthand the mode die. Dangerous waters devs

I plan on leaving the game in July, as it will most certainly be dead by then.

/smh /sarcasm

I bought a PS4 today just to prepare lol

Rather spend my money elsewhere as I haven’t spent gems on gw in months. No reason to anymore with the decline.

I am jealous! I would love to get a PS4, but just for more games, and playing it on my large tv screen. I also play ESO and some other mmos……not because I think one or the other might fail……I just enjoy good games.

They all have their own pros and cons, including GW2.

You have no idea Pahawe, Game companies sometimes have to throw away years of work because of some issue, mistake, executive decision , etc. This happens all the time.

Even guild wars 2 has had a lot of maps just get tossed aside because of issues. Labyrinthine Cliffs is a good example of this, we’re likely to never see this map again due to the fact that the airships that make up most of the map are currently destroyed story-wise. Most of the maps we play on are also heavily re-modified and re-built from their original designs. This is just how the development process works.

That all being said the current map (desert bl) should still stay in my opinion, however it’s not some crazy decision to remove it.

Jim Hunter.6821:

……….. seriously?
So the devs opening up communication with the wvw community for the first time in years is a problem?

The past few months have been fantastic. If we’d had this kind of interaction before they made all the mistakes like kitten near everything that came with HoT, and the stability change, wvw would be in an amazing place right now.

I have to agree…

Besides the recent badge change, WvW dev team have been extremely awesome lately. They seem to be taking suggestions from hardcore WvW players about WvW rather than large PvE guilds who dabble in WvW when the train suits them best.

Really hope the communication continues.

sephiroth.4217:

Jim Hunter.6821:

……….. seriously?
So the devs opening up communication with the wvw community for the first time in years is a problem?

The past few months have been fantastic. If we’d had this kind of interaction before they made all the mistakes like kitten near everything that came with HoT, and the stability change, wvw would be in an amazing place right now.

I have to agree…

Besides the recent badge change, WvW dev team have been extremely awesome lately. They seem to be taking suggestions from hardcore WvW players about WvW rather than large PvE guilds who dabble in WvW when the train suits them best.

Really hope the communication continues.

I have to say it seems wvw is a really big deal, people seem really passionate about wvw compared to spvp, I havent played any real pvp yet but I dont get all the praise of arena pvp in any mmorpg, wvw sounds more interesting and varied.

Why do you post PVE message in WvW thread? Post it in PVE.

The DBL’s were good, i liked them.

But not the amount of multi-tiered terrrain.

If it was almost a copy of alpine, updated graphics, same sort of layout – just scaled to the same size as the DBL, it would have been perfect.

The keeps on the ABL’s are perfect imo, it should have been a re-skined(?) for a desertish theme.

/my2pence.

The desert bl is a disaster right now but i think they will not remake it. We can decide between alpine and desert but dont expect any serious changes

My beef with DBL was the fact that it takes far too long to get from point A to point B in certain areas than you would think just from their distances on the map. Example: going from the southeastern-most camp to the shrine just north of it. Looks like it would take 30 seconds right? HAHA NOPE. Have fun snaking your way down an unnecessarily elaborate scaffolding for 2-3 minutes. Even if there is a way to strategically fall down and cut minutes off of this trip, that route is not obvious enough and perhaps not even intended.

Whether or not someone is used to the way wvw played out on alpine, this just reeks of horrible design. That’s not to say DBL is bad. Certain areas of it are wonderfully designed and far more enjoyable than alpine. Even if players wanted to entirely remove DBL, I highly doubt ANET would do that. A lot of hard work was put into creating these beautiful maps and I would hope they wouldn’t get removed entirely.

Arcaedus.7290:

My beef with DBL was the fact that it takes far too long to get from point A to point B in certain areas than you would think just from their distances on the map. Example: going from the southeastern-most camp to the shrine just north of it. Looks like it would take 30 seconds right? HAHA NOPE. Have fun snaking your way down an unnecessarily elaborate scaffolding for 2-3 minutes. Even if there is a way to strategically fall down and cut minutes off of this trip, that route is not obvious enough and perhaps not even intended.

Actually, if you follow the cliff to the northeast, you’ll find convenient stairs, leading you straight to the shrine you’re looking for in a direct trip. They’ve been put there in the last update.

That’s the big point with DBL : ppl thinking it’s tedious running from A to B actually haven’t explored it thoroughly, and found all the shortcuts there’re everywhere. And it’s especially sad about the last issue of DBL which is far easier.

I actually think the trip from Citadel to, say, bottom middle camp feel far longer in ABL than DBL. Maybe it takes less time, but it’s so boring !

Seriously, I believe they are doing the right thing. They listened to feedback and now they are asking the opinion of the players before taking actions, and trying to act according to the wishes of the majority. I can’t say that is a bad thing.

DBL would be fine if they finished it by adding gliding.

Pahawe.4865:

Just… What happened to you? How has it happened? You literally had the gaming population eating out of your hands in the year or two after Guild Wars 2 released because you showed us you were competent and you showered us with content at a a bi-monthly cadence. You were the guys who were up there with Final Fantasy in showing developers like Blizzard how to run an MMORPG! You gave us the Battle of Lion’s Arch and showed just how an open world event should affect your game world and playerbase!

Here’s what happened:
- Destroyed the Warrior profession pre-spring 2016. The MOST popular profession on launch year and they destroy it.

- 2 years of very little content. 1 year spent setting the game up for China and another year spent on making the expansion.

- Got rid of solo que for spvp.

- Went back on their stance on dedicated healers by creating the Druid.

- Made core game free. Anet banked WAY too much on the expansions success.

- HoT killed WvW till spring update.

- HoT design philosophy: “Masking grind with challenge”.

- Communicating more on Reddit than their actual forums.

Yo have you seen the Vote Results though? It’s currently 61% in favour of keeping the DBL and the poll needs 75% to remove it. Wind your neck in bro.

ThomasC.1056:

Actually, if you follow the cliff to the northeast, you’ll find convenient stairs, leading you straight to the shrine you’re looking for in a direct trip. They’ve been put there in the last update.

That’s the big point with DBL : ppl thinking it’s tedious running from A to B actually haven’t explored it thoroughly, and found all the shortcuts there’re everywhere. And it’s especially sad about the last issue of DBL which is far easier.

I actually think the trip from Citadel to, say, bottom middle camp feel far longer in ABL than DBL. Maybe it takes less time, but it’s so boring !

That’s great; good to know that they are listening to players. I vehemently complained about this issue some time back haha. The issue I brought up is largely the reason I gave up on DBL and stuck to ebg for a while. I think reworking certain parts of the map like that could result in a great design that supports large scale fights like alpine does.

oh my…. watching the posts about how much a disaster DBL’s are makes me chuckle. It’s so obvious that the people that still hated them after the latest changes did NOT explore them much at all. They are so much easier to get around in. Travel from north to south really isn’t much different timewise (if at all) from the Alpine BL’s. As someone else said, there are shortcuts up and down cliffs, shrines, etc that don’t really take very long to figure out. Especially if you actually run WITH a group that knows the map. Keep on saying that the DBL’s suck… all that tells me is that you NEVER really gave them a chance after the last changes…. but… they still need to clear out the center of the map!!! Make it a battle ground! :P

The middle of DBL is called the “Oasis,” so I was really expecting a flat grassy area with a small stream or pond, some nice trees to look at and some creatures. Instead we get this unnecessary terrain, cliffs and obstacles that hinder combat.

It’s not hard to understand. Who did they asked to leave recently that could be considered the co founder? or Resigned rather. Who knows? But clearly there was a bit of power struggle in the company that is why there are polls now so the community can “decide”.

Think about it, starts right at home, if you have a sibling and a decision is needed. It goes all the way to the top, except we fancy it up. Don’t believe me? Think about everything that you ever wanted but can’t because of monetary issues, just remember, everything comes from the ground. Think about that.

I mentioned in my previous post about various issues within the game. For WvW, your commanders are crucial in the long run of the game. It would be a decent thing to consider sponsoring a few commanders on their native servers whether be it support on Youtube video streaming during future tournaments etc. Good commanders attract large crowds long term and if they quit, you will notice a huge reduction in numbers specially zerglings.

I’d love to see the centre of the map have the spire removed and be more like and actual oasis. Some additional changes would be good like reducing the overall verticality of the map a little. There’s a lot of areas where you can be running along and suddenly find you’re in a place where you can’t continue because you’ll die of fall damage. Smooth those bits over and I personally think people will enjoy the maps a lot more.

I certainly liked how keeps had more character.

[/quote]

DBL is NOT a bad map. /quote

See, that’s where you went wrong. It’s an awful map for wvw. My personal suspicion has always been that it was an unused map to go next to Dry Top and would have involved gliders, but got pulled then redesigned a little for wvw and thrown in there.

To the OP, we are finally and for the first time having actual responses from the devs, who are adjusting things and trying to make wvw what the majority of wvw players want it to be.

I have some hope that they might actually slowly get there, so long as they don’t take their eyes off the ball.

LetoII.3782:

DBL would be fine if they finished it by adding gliding.

it sure does seem they had gliding in mind when designing it….. gliding with no fly zones around any objective would be fine with me (like they have around the JPs) ….

Balthazzarr.1349:

oh my…. watching the posts about how much a disaster DBL’s are makes me chuckle. It’s so obvious that the people that still hated them after the latest changes did NOT explore them much at all. They are so much easier to get around in. Travel from north to south really isn’t much different timewise (if at all) from the Alpine BL’s. As someone else said, there are shortcuts up and down cliffs, shrines, etc that don’t really take very long to figure out. Especially if you actually run WITH a group that knows the map. Keep on saying that the DBL’s suck… all that tells me is that you NEVER really gave them a chance after the last changes…. but… they still need to clear out the center of the map!!! Make it a battle ground! :P

Completely agree.

And a definite yes on the center of the map idea. Would love to see that.

The more I got to know and play on DBL, the more I hated it. Even its revised version.

I just can’t stand the verticality, and the jump pads, portals, the wind knockdown thingies, etc.

Travel time on DBL sucks, it is counter intuitive and depends where you are on the map and where it is you are trying to get to, it takes a VAST amount more time to get there then it does on ABL due to the above mentioned elements.

Straight line travel from north (spawn point) to all the way south is only the same as ABL if you assume that your team owns all the applicable portals, has a uncontested WP in ramparts and barricades are all down. Most of the time this is not true, and sometimes, none of these, vastly, vastly increasing travel times to 2 or even 3 times of what it should be.

Yet, I understand that some people are from platformer style PVE environments and are jumping puzzle fanatics etc. so I voted to keep the DBL as the lesser map whenever given the option. I will just sit it out for the vast majority of the time its in rotation, if EBG is not available or no groups running, I will skip WVW or GW2 altogether for that time period. And if another game catches my interest during that period, well … I might not be back for a long, long while.

For me, if I wanna WVW I prefer ABL, if I wanted to do PVE platforming I would prefer DBL.

The option to entirely remove the DBL is there per many players request, while I did not use it as I stated above, I certainly understand why many players might and that if it won the votes, then so be it. DBL will not be missed on my part.

Tongku… you said you played the revised version… but the wind knockdowns were removed except maybe for the ones right at the gates of the air keep… not sure what’s wrong with the portals… The barricades were removed, and the wp’s stopped being contested if you owned any of the keeps (unless under attack that is). It definitely does NOT take a “vast” amount of time to get from north to south compared to ABL regardless of which path you take, if you know the map. Truly if you actually played the revised DBL enough you would have seen it was much better than the original release.

Balthazzarr.1349:

Tongku… you said you played the revised version… but the wind knockdowns were removed except maybe for the ones right at the gates of the air keep… not sure what’s wrong with the portals… The barricades were removed, and the wp’s stopped being contested if you owned any of the keeps (unless under attack that is). It definitely does NOT take a “vast” amount of time to get from north to south compared to ABL regardless of which path you take, if you know the map. Truly if you actually played the revised DBL enough you would have seen it was much better than the original release.

I find it entertaining that so many of these dbl haters post on here that the poll is not valid, because it was skewed by those who truly don’t know wvw, blah, blah, blah.

And yet, when they go into detail on why they hate the dbls, it is obvious that THEY are the ones that don’t know wvw, as most of them don’t even know how to get around in the improved version of dbls, or they list problems with the map that no longer exist due to the improvements Anet made to it before it got yanked.

The obvious irony and hypocrisy is just hilarious!