Guild Wars 2

If you ask anyone on the planet to draw the picture of a donut they will undoubtedly draw a circle first and follow with another circle in the middle representing the “hole”.
Nobody would ever question the idea of having nothing in the middle of a pastry now that the donut exist. The empty middle has become indissociable from the concept, even if some people make some donuts without holes you can’t help but wonder: Are these really donuts?

Then we come to the new Desert Borderland map. The map has had significant improvements over the last months.
It is pretty good and all, but…
… There is a big hole in the middle and it doesn’t make the rest of it seem better!

The middle of the map should be more important, but that doesn’t mean we need more events, to the contrary.

Proposition:
Make a true donut shaped map, fill the entire central area with deadly lava or a bottomless pit, and have people going around only from the sides. This will shrink the map size, something that can only help bring fights closer together. It will also be interesting from a gameplay perspective. This is an example of doing more with less.

Oh Yeah, and then you can take the middle part and sell it separately…

Like make a King of the Hill smaller-WvW map with it for fight guilds.

If we had an actual donut shape to run around in…wouldn’t that just promote more k-trains that never meet if they all run in the same direction, like going counter-clockwise at the Indy 500?

Obviously there is very little respect for the good ol’ Long John

Big
Giant
>Colosseum<
In The
Middle

Giant Flat Meadow for fighting. Done.

GIANT Colosseum with seating where you can sit and watch from high stands without getting killed from the ground targets inside the collosseum.

They already have a Colosseum, its in Obsidian Sanctum. Just make it so anyone who enters automatically goes red and do a highlander thing, you know “There can be only one” or a quake like deathmatch every 15 minutes.

Giant Colosseum with lots of seating, and a vendor who manages the current fights. Teams register in it,

Vendor acts as heart event guy who takes bets for 1 minute time limit, tax it like the BLTC if you want, no one will care.

matchup commences.

Will never happen. But I’d love to have a full system, and eventually incorporate a ladder system for guilds.

That our give us an objective in the middle. There are a number of options here.

A quick one might be a keep/tower/camp, something we are used to.

An alternate idea might be an open Asuran gate with extra guards that acts like a waypoint that is open on capture. It would be worth zero points to keep the various BLs scoring in line. It could then act like a quick jump point to whatever side controlled it. Again, idea being something of value to be controlled. Which was the original concept, just the mechanic didn’t quite work.

This idea could also work with the big open idea that others had above.

The area in the middle is actually the highlight of the desert borderland in terms of landscape & architectural design. It’s actually a nice place to fight in. Just too bad that back when laser event was enabled, the zone-wide skill lag ruined any fights that occurred there. And now that laser event is disabled, there’s no reason to ever go there to fight at all.

Remove the npc’s and place something of value there for players to fight over. I would play on DBL all night if Anet can make it fun. I like the Colosseum idea, but anything remotely caters to GvG, anything dueling related, anything that would be fun, or anything that does not fit Anet’s vision of a blob-fested, PvE-newbie friendly WvW will likely not make it into the game.

But if we’re just tossing ideas out there, do people remember the Gurubashi Arena in Stranglethorn? (http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Gurubashi_Arena) Something like that would be great fun, and it would likely make the desert BL the most popular BL out there. This is why I don’t think Anet will go for anything like this, because it’d be too fun.

Xenesis.6389:

Big
Giant
>Colosseum<
In The
Middle

Nope. Big giant 100-step tower with a WP at top, and broken, open walls along the way up.

Although I like this idea too as it would encourage community/sport.

Hexinx.1872:

Giant Colosseum with lots of seating, and a vendor who manages the current fights. Teams register in it,

Vendor acts as heart event guy who takes bets for 1 minute time limit, tax it like the BLTC if you want, no one will care.

matchup commences.

Will never happen. But I’d love to have a full system, and eventually incorporate a ladder system for guilds.

Just not sure how you could regulate no-gank zones there (and troll interruptions).

A tall tower in the centre of the map from which many objectives can be trebbed. Hmm…. sounds familiar.

…but seriously. Being able to treb other objectives from your foothold is really good.

I’ve suggested the idea of Towering Towers (no trademark, grab it!). This means that when an objective upgrades, it gets a taller tower to treb from, meaning that;

1. there is a point to upgrading something
2. once upgraded, a tower can be used as a staging post for long range attacks on nearby keeps.

Ofc, it would require considerable alteration on desert map (I’m thinking specifically of the Fire keep), especially considering that all the towers have unique designs. It may be possible to add a generic tower building to the inside of these structures, however.

Lol I already showed you my post from two years ago about that.

I’d like to see a weekly event in the middle of dbl now that there is only 1 dbl. It could be a big final gambit to turn the tide before reset, and it could help provide players with ascended gear without grinding content outside WvW.

Maybe Arena net should scrap the “Home borderland” concept and try make maps that are suposed to work in thirds (Like EBG or even EotM). Most activity in EBG tend to be around SMC. People flock to that one different thing that neither side have.

I’m pretty sure the desert borderland was also created with the thirds concept in mind (thus why the towers/keeps had the WP tied to the server that spawned at that side), but since people still had the ABL “Homeland” mentality, DBL ended up making a poor job (discount all the sheer hate for DBL).

Jayne.9251:

Xenesis.6389:

Big
Giant
>Colosseum<
In The
Middle

Nope. Big giant 100-step tower with a WP at top, and broken, open walls along the way up.

Although I like this idea too as it would encourage community/sport.

/shrug

Whichever, wvw is done at this point. They ran off a good portion of the playerbase with the expansion and there’s no getting them back, unless they have a time machine they can dust off in the basement.

Their main focus is the next expansion, so I don’t expect much in the future to help grow this mode.

Cerby.1069:

Giant Flat Meadow for fighting. Done.

I’ve wanted this for a very long time. Most people don’t care much about score anymore. Of course some still do, but a good chunk of players would prefer to have fights instead as it’s more rewarding and more exciting. You don’t need a complicated map to blob v blob, just an open field where you can kite a bit. The pit in Obsidian Sanctum where GvG’s happen a lot is a perfect example and I would really love to see more wide open fields in WvW. There are a good number of places that are relatively void of trees, creeks etc. but still not enough. Bulldozing down that huge pyramid thing in the middle of DBL would be an awesome spot for blob v blobs.

Cecilia.5179:

I’d like to see a weekly event in the middle of dbl now that there is only 1 dbl. It could be a big final gambit to turn the tide before reset, and it could help provide players with ascended gear without grinding content outside WvW.

That will juse attract pve players though. Although it’s not a bad thing as newer people might actually like wvw, but it might encourage the same mentality as eotm where people come to just farm this event and thats it.

Rotteny.8743:

Maybe Arena net should scrap the “Home borderland” concept and try make maps that are suposed to work in thirds (Like EBG or even EotM). Most activity in EBG tend to be around SMC. People flock to that one different thing that neither side have.

I’m pretty sure the desert borderland was also created with the thirds concept in mind (thus why the towers/keeps had the WP tied to the server that spawned at that side), but since people still had the ABL “Homeland” mentality, DBL ended up making a poor job (discount all the sheer hate for DBL).

Naw people wanted their own home — with the perks — like WPs to go in for last-minute heroic saves, instead of only being able to be used by the enemy. I personally hated the EB-like division on DBL, and I think it turned off a lot of home defenders too.

EB is EB. While it’s popular, it’s more a cultural thing for that map than the architecture. It’s become the natural evolution of where those new to WvW go to learn, there’s less pressure to defend home turf compared to home bls, so ofc it will always be more popular.

I’ve suggested before to remove all the jungle from the center of the map and fill it in with rolling desert dunes with minimal vegetation. It would make it an ideal place for GvG fights. Also, create a world boss like the fire elemental, karka queen, etc. that spawns there on a set schedule. That will bring in lots of pve players (for us to kill, hehe).

Jayne.9251:

Nope. Big giant 100-step tower with a WP at top, and broken, open walls along the way up.

Although I like this idea too as it would encourage community/sport.

Their coliseum and the tower/WP could work well together. And agree a WP that is terribad to defend but may still be worth it if you are zoning into middle of map.

Jayne.9251:

Rotteny.8743:

Maybe Arena net should scrap the “Home borderland” concept and try make maps that are suposed to work in thirds (Like EBG or even EotM). Most activity in EBG tend to be around SMC. People flock to that one different thing that neither side have.

I’m pretty sure the desert borderland was also created with the thirds concept in mind (thus why the towers/keeps had the WP tied to the server that spawned at that side), but since people still had the ABL “Homeland” mentality, DBL ended up making a poor job (discount all the sheer hate for DBL).

Naw people wanted their own home — with the perks — like WPs to go in for last-minute heroic saves, instead of only being able to be used by the enemy. I personally hated the EB-like division on DBL, and I think it turned off a lot of home defenders too.

EB is EB. While it’s popular, it’s more a cultural thing for that map than the architecture. It’s become the natural evolution of where those new to WvW go to learn, there’s less pressure to defend home turf compared to home bls, so ofc it will always be more popular.

I would love them to scrap the Home BL concept. I agree that the 3-way map design is better and wish Anet wouldn’t have created Home BL’s in the first place. But its too late now because of what Jayne said. Its in the culture now that we need to “defend our home”. And that means try to hold all of it which makes for boring play imo. I hate logging in and seeing the BL all the home teams color, it means there’s no fighting going on. Sometimes when I see that I just log right back out again.

As far as what to put in the middle: A giant hill that can treb all keeps. The hill should be so high that counter trebbing is not possible. The enemy would need to come out and try to take the hill. Like King of the Hill.

The problem with the laser event was how mandatory it felt because it was such a powerful mechanic. The old quaggans, bloodlust, and capping SMC never seemed to have the same “we need to do it” feel as the laser event.

Still wouldn’t mind a poll about home BLs and three-sided maps. Long time believer that EBG’s draw is from its design and equal footing concepts. Believe that most BL home defenders view EBG’s home third as an area to protect and fortify as well.

EBG’s draw is it’s the most condensed map with a slightly higher queue cap, and a large objective in the middle that almost guarantees fights if you hold it or attack it. This results in a very low amount of time required to find enemy players to attack.

None of the other maps have ever offered that same list because Alpine is designed with a defender’s advantage that negates most of EBG’s benefits. DBL is design with… something in mind that negates ALL of EBG’s benefits.

Still full in favor of making all maps true 3-ways, and remove “Home” map system. (As most should know by now). And basically what Johje said, single colored map is boring map.

Do like a lot of the suggestions here about what to do with the middle, shout-out to the “giant treb hill” idea, love it.

I’ve talked about some of the advantages/disadvantages about a Donut map design. I’ll try to keep it as short as I can this time.

If you make a map fully circular, and close of some spots with tower and keep walls, you can create a constant 2(3) front fight going on. Where there are natural choke holds that you can fight in to hold back enemy, etc. For players that enjoy the actual mass combat and siege warfare this could be interesting. For those of us that likes roaming, less so.

The idea (example) is that if you have 3 keeps, and 6 towers in a circle, each tower blocks off the circle so you have to take it, or at least break down the wall to get past it. Each keep guards the only entry to the map from Spawn, and stands in a very defensive position.

Starting equal, each server will hold their own keep, and the two nearby towers. Fighting then starts for the neighbours towers. If Server A takes Server B’s tower, then they have access to attack either Server B’s keep or their other tower, if they’re willing to let Server B have free access to ambush them from behind.

At the same time, Server C might have taken Server B’s other tower, and Server A and C clash in front of Server B’s keep. Or, Server C taken Server A’s tower on the other side of the map, forcing Server A to move back to defend their keep and retake the tower.

This creates a system with 3 pushing fronts that will move back and forward (as the population changes). People that just want action, zerging and siege warfare can jump right in and instantly find where to go. And the 3 way system creates a pull and push.

Also if you lose your keep, you’ll have a spawn isnide a “tower” of a sort, that has a crazy defensive advantage (that can only be accessed by going through the keep, think an offshot cave or valley from the keep only). That makes it very easy to retake the keep, very hard to take for the enemy. But can be taken. Then the enemy can retake from spawn super easy if there is no defenders. Basically handicap more and more the further you’re pushed back. The “Spawn Tower” should be defend-able by 3-5 people. And anyone capable of taking a tower lord should be able to take it back if no enemies.

joneirikb.7506:

Still full in favor of making all maps true 3-ways, and remove “Home” map system. (As most should know by now). And basically what Johje said, single colored map is boring map.

---

Do like a lot of the suggestions here about what to do with the middle, shout-out to the “giant treb hill” idea, love it.

---

I’ve talked about some of the advantages/disadvantages about a Donut map design. I’ll try to keep it as short as I can this time.

If you make a map fully circular, and close of some spots with tower and keep walls, you can create a constant 2(3) front fight going on. Where there are natural choke holds that you can fight in to hold back enemy, etc. For players that enjoy the actual mass combat and siege warfare this could be interesting. For those of us that likes roaming, less so.

The idea (example) is that if you have 3 keeps, and 6 towers in a circle, each tower blocks off the circle so you have to take it, or at least break down the wall to get past it. Each keep guards the only entry to the map from Spawn, and stands in a very defensive position.

Starting equal, each server will hold their own keep, and the two nearby towers. Fighting then starts for the neighbours towers. If Server A takes Server B’s tower, then they have access to attack either Server B’s keep or their other tower, if they’re willing to let Server B have free access to ambush them from behind.

At the same time, Server C might have taken Server B’s other tower, and Server A and C clash in front of Server B’s keep. Or, Server C taken Server A’s tower on the other side of the map, forcing Server A to move back to defend their keep and retake the tower.

This creates a system with 3 pushing fronts that will move back and forward (as the population changes). People that just want action, zerging and siege warfare can jump right in and instantly find where to go. And the 3 way system creates a pull and push.

Also if you lose your keep, you’ll have a spawn isnide a “tower” of a sort, that has a crazy defensive advantage (that can only be accessed by going through the keep, think an offshot cave or valley from the keep only). That makes it very easy to retake the keep, very hard to take for the enemy. But can be taken. Then the enemy can retake from spawn super easy if there is no defenders. Basically handicap more and more the further you’re pushed back. The “Spawn Tower” should be defend-able by 3-5 people. And anyone capable of taking a tower lord should be able to take it back if no enemies.

That’s exactly what I was going for. I think it would have the potential to redefine WvW with a more directional gameplay. It could become more strategic that way because you could predict more easily where the enemy is coming from.

The donut is the best idea.

All the other ones are terrible…

joneirikb.7506:

Still full in favor of making all maps true 3-ways, and remove “Home” map system. (As most should know by now). And basically what Johje said, single colored map is boring map.

---

Do like a lot of the suggestions here about what to do with the middle, shout-out to the “giant treb hill” idea, love it.

---

I’ve talked about some of the advantages/disadvantages about a Donut map design. I’ll try to keep it as short as I can this time.

If you make a map fully circular, and close of some spots with tower and keep walls, you can create a constant 2(3) front fight going on. Where there are natural choke holds that you can fight in to hold back enemy, etc. For players that enjoy the actual mass combat and siege warfare this could be interesting. For those of us that likes roaming, less so.

The idea (example) is that if you have 3 keeps, and 6 towers in a circle, each tower blocks off the circle so you have to take it, or at least break down the wall to get past it. Each keep guards the only entry to the map from Spawn, and stands in a very defensive position.

Starting equal, each server will hold their own keep, and the two nearby towers. Fighting then starts for the neighbours towers. If Server A takes Server B’s tower, then they have access to attack either Server B’s keep or their other tower, if they’re willing to let Server B have free access to ambush them from behind.

At the same time, Server C might have taken Server B’s other tower, and Server A and C clash in front of Server B’s keep. Or, Server C taken Server A’s tower on the other side of the map, forcing Server A to move back to defend their keep and retake the tower.

This creates a system with 3 pushing fronts that will move back and forward (as the population changes). People that just want action, zerging and siege warfare can jump right in and instantly find where to go. And the 3 way system creates a pull and push.

Also if you lose your keep, you’ll have a spawn isnide a “tower” of a sort, that has a crazy defensive advantage (that can only be accessed by going through the keep, think an offshot cave or valley from the keep only). That makes it very easy to retake the keep, very hard to take for the enemy. But can be taken. Then the enemy can retake from spawn super easy if there is no defenders. Basically handicap more and more the further you’re pushed back. The “Spawn Tower” should be defend-able by 3-5 people. And anyone capable of taking a tower lord should be able to take it back if no enemies.

You know what is funny? I found these pictures from about 3 years ago when I said the borderland designs were bad and that they should look more like the home team is being pushed from both sides. They work somewhat similary how you propose (We never thought about total barring the way before tho) and it make WvW actually look like a donut.

I also complained somenthing about EBG but i don’t remember what it was. I think it was the lack of more supply routes.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Cecilia.5179:

I’d like to see a weekly event in the middle of dbl now that there is only 1 dbl. It could be a big final gambit to turn the tide before reset, and it could help provide players with ascended gear without grinding content outside WvW.

That will juse attract pve players though. Although it’s not a bad thing as newer people might actually like wvw, but it might encourage the same mentality as eotm where people come to just farm this event and thats it.

Make it impossible for everyone to win. Pressure people to fight. If PvE players come seeking mats. They may get curb stomped, or they may become new WvWers (always welcome). WvW tries to pacify the losers by giving the winners nothing. Objectives that have no strategic value, symmetrical maps, and no noticeable rewards for winning a weekly matchup all exist to make the losers care less about losing. There is a reason why Stonemist is the most popular objective. There’s only one. With some layout improvements, the Desert Bl could be a really strong map due to it being the only one. Adding a final gambit style challenge at the end of the week would draw people to that map to compete for resources, which is what WvW is ultimately about.

EotM is flawed because there is no incentive to do anything other than farm it, and everyone wins by looting the mobs in a clockwise direction. What if you actually had to win the match to get the good rewards? People would defend and compete. EotM could actually work if it saw some love.

Cecilia.5179:

EotM is flawed because there is no incentive to do anything other than farm it, and everyone wins by looting the mobs in a clockwise direction. What if you actually had to win the match to get the good rewards? People would defend and compete. EotM could actually work if it saw some love.

EotM have some gimmicks worse than DBL tho…

Jeknar.6184:

Cecilia.5179:

EotM is flawed because there is no incentive to do anything other than farm it, and everyone wins by looting the mobs in a clockwise direction. What if you actually had to win the match to get the good rewards? People would defend and compete. EotM could actually work if it saw some love.

EotM have some gimmicks worse than DBL tho…

It would need love to be fixed. The objective layout of both maps are awful. Very of the objectives can interact because they are spaced so widely.

Some donuts are like sugar coated buns with jam inside.

Cerby.1069:

Giant Flat Meadow for fighting. Done.

GIANT Colosseum with seating where you can sit and watch from high stands without getting killed from the ground targets inside the collosseum.

This.

put divinity’s reach in the center for some awesome city warfare fun

or put another donut with another donut in the center for infinite profit

I think this style of map is the best as a continuous ring around the ‘eternal battleground’ with the main keep only opening up for battle once in a while.

This requires teams to fight against both sides and there is a middle land for a ‘push and pull’ type point system. Once in a while the central area opens up and it’s a large battle to get in there and take everything for your team (this ends once the lord has been taken).

Navi.9308:

I think this style of map is the best as a continuous ring around the ‘eternal battleground’ with the main keep only opening up for battle once in a while.

This requires teams to fight against both sides and there is a middle land for a ‘push and pull’ type point system. Once in a while the central area opens up and it’s a large battle to get in there and take everything for your team (this ends once the lord has been taken).

Looks pretty interesting, been wanting to see a proper city-fighting map for some time. Would be a good opportunity to bring lots of walls, and height etc, ambush spots, treb positions, and basically make one huge mess, but making everything closer together than what we’re used to. Could be very hectic.

Just to note on the donut idea. It has some severe drawbacks as well, it especially punishes roaming by blocking off most areas by walls. So you’ll need to cata walls down just to roam in enemy territory.

It’s mainly an instant gratification/action map, a more straight forward one, that ignores many of the intricacies of playing WvW, and I expect most of the veteran players would get bored of it pretty quickly. And it unfortunately would lead pretty heavy in the direction of Karma-Train map, it could potentially turn even worse than EotM.

Possible fix for that would be to require you to hold your home Keep in order to gain score/get reward, would be an interesting change (could be interesting in EotM as well, or just a reward penalty on reward track and everything while not holding keep. Correction, make it a BUFF to rewards wile holding home keep, watch players FROTH when they lose it!)

I still think it would be a good thing for ANet to make one such map, as long as it is one map and not replacing all maps. (This is also why I really want to remove home map system, because I want them to open up for more different STYLES of maps.)

/Disclaimer

(My own guild would have killed me if I was responsible for replacing all the BL maps with a donut map…)

Xenesis.6389:

Big
Giant
>Colosseum<
In The
Middle

This actually sounds like a pretty good idea….
Big colosseum in the middle for people to fight and others to watch, kinda like OS.
This is something that will might bring people into the DBLs…

Johje Holan.4607:

As far as what to put in the middle: A giant hill that can treb all keeps. The hill should be so high that counter trebbing is not possible. The enemy would need to come out and try to take the hill. Like King of the Hill.

Yeah, something like my suggestion!