I know I’m not alone in saying this but with the latest patch the borderlands just don’t feel organic anymore. I remember first stepping into WvW many months ago, making my way around the borderlands and the eternal battlegrounds and feeling like they were natural extensions of the PvE environment. I grew fond of the borderlands – the fort on the bay, the rising hills across the large lake, the sort of marsh land to the south, the snow-covered rocky hills to the north. It all felt natural – like it was a real environment.
With the Bloodlust in the Borderlands patch the middle of the map now seems forced, out of place, almost like someone just slapped it in there. The bay now opens up to… ruins with a little stream? Instead of towering over a majestic lake, the garrison now looks down into the same ruins. The hills used to gently descend into a lake, as one could naturally expect, but not any more. It doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t flow well. It doesn’t feel natural at all.
Here’s what I am suggesting: bring back the lake, with or without quaggans and krait. It doesn’t have to be as big as it was but it needs to be there. Spread out the control points across the map instead of cramming them all into the center of the map. I believe two of the points should be in the northern half of the map, between the Citadel and the skritt/centaurs somewhere – or even integrate them in with those NPCs somehow. One of the points should still be in the middle of the map around where the Temple of Storms used to be. The last two would be on the southern half of the map so invaders would be able to control easily. Ideally, the two southern points would be between the keeps and southern towers on the edge of the lake.
Placing the points in areas like these works out for all three servers. The home server has easier access to its northern two points from the Citadel and invaders have to work to get them. If invaders have a waypointed keep on the map they will have an easier time getting to those points, which in turn will make the home server want to get rid of that waypoint that much more. There will still be effort given to the center of the map by all three servers, as all three servers will have roughly equal access to it.
Instead of forcing the PvP feel onto the WvW (and by extension, PvE) environment, let’s integrate it into the environment and make things flow in a more natural manner. The tactics and strategies will evolve without the cluster in the middle of the map. This isn’t a conversation about the Bloodlust buffs – as that is an entirely different topic I don’t want to address here. This is a conversation about the flow and feel of the map, which has definitely suffered with this patch but it can be salvaged. The question is: how?