Guild Wars 2

They must have put in years of efforts creating the red desert borderland.

They did a pretty good job with it. I’d have quit long before if it wasn’t for DBL, and I wouldn’t still be keeping an eye on the game if they had removed it. In a series of puzzling decisions, it’s the one thing that gives me hope.

building maps is not hard anymore for anet because they have all base coding, texture , models. all need to do is make map layout is hardest part

i do not know if you guys ever tried to design map for game in general but i have a lot of map they have in game far FAR better then i could come up with. Yes even EOTM is better then what i could come up xD

The map is fine, it is not designed for the one blob by server that is EB, but more for small guilds running around.

Now, of the wvw population would be big enough to have that kind of gameplay.

Problem with desert bl is that its huge compared to alpine. They need more respawn points, maybe in that oasis in the middle.

I love roaming on DBL, and it has far more fun fights IMO thanks to the terrain. Unfortunately, the game mode and general strategies don’t lend themselves to the fights the map craves.

I’m also really thankful for DBL. I must even say I somehow regret the time where there was more movement impairing things (like barricades and shrine effects). I can understand why they were removed though. The map is big, and not too intricate, and it’s current iteration is really easy to move around when you bother to learn, and know it a bit. It also has nice ideas of additions like more powerful lords, or “back entrances” in towers. And I agree it’d maybe need more fast travel convenience like a central WP, or a skritt tunnel network between towers.

I almost only play on that one, because I think it’s far richer, and it provides more fun and varied gameplay, instead of just big blobs in open space. I honestly think it was a good job, and a nice try to shift the dial towards more PPT, more strategic gameplay, and not only got head ahead in a blob vs. blob smash. Unfortunately, it didn’t meet some players expectations, and that’s a pity. I really feel sorry for the devs when I think about them reading some really harsh comment about their work, even now, from people that complain about things that have been fixed months ago.

All this map needs is more population, and more players dedicated to cunning strategy, hold keeps, towers and camps, take care of supply caravans, in addition to massive battles. In a nutshell, WvW players.

Well they seem perfectly fine with tossing away maps for sPvP…

To reiterate what I have said so, so many times before:

- Graphically it’s in the HoT generation, which is way above GW2 1st generation maps. That’s fine. Visually it’s fine.

- The design of the map is kittenpoor for WvW. It’s completely broken. It doesnt follow the basic rules that keeps and towers defend each other. The northern towers are in the completely wrong place, the southern towers are in equally wrong place and when it comes to objectives on the whole the entire map literally screams “go around!”, it’s far too wide with zero chance to scout chokes. It doesnt work.

- Anet has improved it alot since first version and I applaud them for doing that much but… it’s not enough. The fundamental design cant be fixed. Period. It’s an unfixable map.

The two fundamental problems with Desert BL are:

1) Strategic importance of various objectives is lacking. The towers are worthless, and in terms of taking keeps, only the camps are useful because there are treb spots to hit the keeps in the camps, not the towers.

2) It’s a painful map to play offensively on. With the latest shrine changes, it’s defensive enough and defenders can move around fairly fast: but with movement between the northern half and the southern half being so kitten poor for attackers, nobody wants to go on the offensive on this map with a large, fighty group, and so there’s little to no action, so defenders eventually leave the map leaving it open to ktrainers.

anduriell.6280:

The map is fine, it is not designed for the one blob by server that is EB, but more for small guilds running around.

Now, of the wvw population would be big enough to have that kind of gameplay.

But its not really designed for small groups or havoc though. The map was designed, in general, to be a defender’s paradise.
- increased cost of guild catas (havoc’s primary tool)
- structure upgrade speed, auto upgrades
- oppressive keep lord mechanics
- limited approach options to structures
- structures laidout with uncounterable defensive siege placement locations by design
- addition of powerful buffs available via guild halls encourage joining and playing with larger guilds (damage reduction, invuln, supply drop, airship, chilling fog, etc etc)
- addition of emergency waypoints encourage groups to stay blobbed up as the e-waypoint allows the blob to respond quickly if needed
- auto scouting/radar for objectives with no defensive counter option limits the ‘point-blank w/ splash damage’ option for offensive siege placement
- strong defensive siege addition in shield gens (which reach and work through walls and gates)

In fairness to the devs, some of the above has been revised, but it was much too late and the damage was done in the sense that the DBL already had gained the stigma of being a miserable play experience. What further hurt the DBL image is that Anet reached out to their streamers including those that had no interest in WvW content to get their input and hype the maps in the first place. When the maps came out and was very unpopular with WvW’ers those content creators were gone back their new HoT content (primarily PvE) and weren’t around to help steer the community’s opinion even as updates were made. To give this some context: the new shiny thing that WvW players got with HoT was so poorly implemented and received that the player base fought to get it deleted from the game…

Namer.9750:

The two fundamental problems with Desert BL are:

1) Strategic importance of various objectives is lacking. The towers are worthless, and in terms of taking keeps, only the camps are useful because there are treb spots to hit the keeps in the camps, not the towers.

The tower have not become worthless because of some evil dev’s scheme. It should be remembered they got along with barricades that only the tower’s owner could cross. The other ones had to run all the way around the turret, with a risk to be spotted.
They therefore a huge purpose, yet the vocal majority of players that mistake the W in WvW with whine considered the barricades were making the easy steamrolling of the map too tedious, and so they were removed. In that sense, they were perfectly fulfilling the purpose they were designed for : have a strategic value for movement. Just like many other so-called gimmicks around shrines that have been removed ever since for the same reason.
And as the towers can’t be moved without re-doing the whole layout, they stand where they are. In a sense, it’s the lesser of two evils. But it won’t prevent amnesic players to yell DBL’s towers should be the same than ABL. And keep. And layout. And everything actually.

Namer.9750:

2) It’s a painful map to play offensively on. With the latest shrine changes, it’s defensive enough and defenders can move around fairly fast: but with movement between the northern half and the southern half being so kitten poor for attackers, nobody wants to go on the offensive on this map with a large, fighty group, and so there’s little to no action, so defenders eventually leave the map leaving it open to ktrainers.

That one doesn’t fit with my experience (as an attacker and a defender). Fast travel when you’re holding shrine also works for attackers when they’re holding the keep. And that allows for a lot of pressure in the northern half of the map, and easy reinforcement to take earth keep from the border, as long as you’re looking after the shrines. There’s almost no need for keep’s WP.

Idk if the OP actually promotes much discussion outside of speculation. At best, ANET spent about 6 months on the map. There, that’s all.

I don’t think it took 3 years. If it did, then that might only be because multiple projects were happening, and it was chipped away during those 3 years.

Frost.5017:

But its not really designed for small groups or havoc though. The map was designed, in general, to be a defender’s paradise.
- increased cost of guild catas (havoc’s primary tool)
- structure upgrade speed, auto upgrades
- addition of powerful buffs available via guild halls encourage joining and playing with larger guilds (damage reduction, invuln, supply drop, airship, chilling fog, etc etc)
- addition of emergency waypoints encourage groups to stay blobbed up as the e-waypoint allows the blob to respond quickly if needed
- auto scouting/radar for objectives with no defensive counter option limits the ‘point-blank w/ splash damage’ option for offensive siege placement
- strong defensive siege addition in shield gens (which reach and work through walls and gates)

To be even fairer, all of the above also exist in ABL. These are HoT’s additions, and therefore not on topic. Yet, there remains these three :

Frost.5017:

- oppressive keep lord mechanics
- limited approach options to structures
- structures laidout with uncounterable defensive siege placement locations by design

Won’t talk about the first two, which I also think are a pity. The third one is not so bad, considering how ridiculous it is to try to defend while standing on walls or using siege… Quick death granted there.

Its one of the best BL now. Now only if they would update the older ones.

ThomasC.1056:

The tower have not become worthless because of some evil dev’s scheme. It should be remembered they got along with barricades that only the tower’s owner could cross. The other ones had to run all the way around the turret, with a risk to be spotted.
They therefore a huge purpose, yet the vocal majority of players that mistake the W in WvW with whine considered the barricades were making the easy steamrolling of the map too tedious, and so they were removed.
And as the towers can’t be moved without re-doing the whole layout, they stand where they are. In a sense, it’s the lesser of two evils. But it won’t prevent amnesic players to yell DBL’s towers should be the same than ABL. And keep. And layout. And everything actually.

The barriers were meaningless to larger groups though; you could cleave them down extremely quickly. For small groups or solos it was much more annoying.

The old maps you were able to stage an assault on a keep from a tower, it provided an entry point into the map and a point to begin applying pressure to something of significant value. What did the barriers offer again? A few seconds of roadblock to a blob? My what interesting and strategic gameplay that was…

Frost.5017:

ThomasC.1056:

The tower have not become worthless because of some evil dev’s scheme. It should be remembered they got along with barricades that only the tower’s owner could cross. The other ones had to run all the way around the turret, with a risk to be spotted.
They therefore a huge purpose, yet the vocal majority of players that mistake the W in WvW with whine considered the barricades were making the easy steamrolling of the map too tedious, and so they were removed.
And as the towers can’t be moved without re-doing the whole layout, they stand where they are. In a sense, it’s the lesser of two evils. But it won’t prevent amnesic players to yell DBL’s towers should be the same than ABL. And keep. And layout. And everything actually.

The barriers were meaningless to larger groups though; you could cleave them down extremely quickly. For small groups or solos it was much more annoying.

The old maps you were able to stage an assault on a keep from a tower, it provided an entry point into the map and a point to begin applying pressure to something of significant value. What did the barriers offer again? A few seconds of roadblock to a blob? My what interesting and strategic gameplay that was…

I agree with that. Yet I also acknowledge it was a try in a somehow new direction for WvW (less blobs, more tactics, e.g.) that maybe needed more adjustements before plainly removing them. In a way, it’s more an issue about blobs than about barriers.

Dawdler

- The design of the map is kittenpoor for WvW. It’s completely broken. It doesnt follow the basic rules that keeps and towers defend each other. The northern towers are in the completely wrong place, the southern towers are in equally wrong place and when it comes to objectives on the whole the entire map literally screams “go around!”, it’s far too wide with zero chance to scout chokes. It doesnt work.

That’s a very limited definition of WvW and also not quite fair. On Alpine, keeps and towers assault each other moreso than defend. You have a strong defensive structure and then a weak defensive structure which can be used as a staging point for an attack on the stronger one. It doesn’t make much sense. Your keep is much more secure if you don’t give enemies a convenient place to grab and siege from.

As for chokes, I can’t respond much to that. Some people complain that there are too many, some complain that there aren’t enough? I know that if there’s a group on the map and I need to track them, I can do so accurately even without having eyes on them the whole time. It takes a bit more work than the open fields of Alpine, but it’s also more fun and safer for me. Can’t say I have too much pity for anyone who can’t keep up.

Frost

But its not really designed for small groups or havoc though. The map was designed, in general, to be a defender’s paradise.
- increased cost of guild catas (havoc’s primary tool)
- structure upgrade speed, auto upgrades
- oppressive keep lord mechanics
- limited approach options to structures
- structures laidout with uncounterable defensive siege placement locations by design
- addition of powerful buffs available via guild halls encourage joining and playing with larger guilds (damage reduction, invuln, supply drop, airship, chilling fog, etc etc)
- addition of emergency waypoints encourage groups to stay blobbed up as the e-waypoint allows the blob to respond quickly if needed
- auto scouting/radar for objectives with no defensive counter option limits the ‘point-blank w/ splash damage’ option for offensive siege placement
- strong defensive siege addition in shield gens (which reach and work through walls and gates)

Some of the things you mention there are not map specific. Guild catas, for instance. Also, it was pure foolishness having those at 20 supply. It was more convenient for solo roamers but was even more convenient for large groups that wanted to build 8 catas to delete a wall.

Some other things are also off. There are no uncounterable defensive siege placements. There are some that you can’t counter by firing from the base of the wall. However, those can easily be countered by basing your siege out of their range. Note that there’s a band outside of AC range and inside Mortar minimum range. Also, Mortars are always vulnerable to attack and can’t be rebuilt at will. With greater verticality, there are also staging points that can’t be responded to from within the walls at all.

Emergency waypoints have a hefty CD on them. If you get pushed out by one, that structure now has to be rebuilt and guarded until the CD resets. If you keep a small amount of pressure on it and strike elsewhere in another group (splitting up?!) to draw enemy attention, you can break the still damaged walls and take it with ease. Or, if the enemies sit in it to wait out the CD, go somewhere else to punish them. The length of the CD is up for debate, but do recall that pre-HoT structures had a free E-WP every few minutes during an attack.

The auto-scouting radar is not free and requires defending an objective long enough to get it running. After that, you can still siege it from outside of it’s range. Since players complained and got the tower walls downgraded to barricades and then removed from the game altogether, it’s one of the best things towers have left. Imo, Barricades should be an optional upgrade with the final form being walls.

ThomasC.1056:

To be even fairer, all of the above also exist in ABL. These are HoT’s additions, and therefore not on topic.

I think you’re glossing over that the map was also created and added as part of HoT. In essence it’d be understandable if ABL needed some additional tuning or adjustments to account for the fact that those HoT additions had come into the game. However, the DBL was designed knowing that those upgrades were also coming in at the same time, and yet the choice was made to still make a very inherently defensive biased map anyway.

Yes, the HoT power creep for upgrades applies to all maps, but only DBL had the opportunity to be designed to create interesting ways to have that power creep interact with the map and how it plays.

It’s my favourite map for roaming. It just takes way too long to get anywhere. If I die, I’m more likely to alt-f4 and go do something else than spend 10 minutes running back.

I remember when they had a closed beta for the map.
I don’t think they had the numbers to really test the map out, it had so many flaws for a while, it needed changes before it even released, after HoT was released, like the laser event, that lagged the entire map.

Sviel.7493:

Some of the things you mention there are not map specific. Guild catas, for instance. Also, it was pure foolishness having those at 20 supply. It was more convenient for solo roamers but was even more convenient for large groups that wanted to build 8 catas to delete a wall.

I think the change that locations that could hit both inner and outer being eliminated was enough. The supply cost becomes less meaningful the bigger the attacking blob is as they can carry much more supply. Big groups have the option to rush or ninja (because more supply carried), small groups can only ninja.

Sviel.7493:

Some other things are also off. There are no uncounterable defensive siege placements. There are some that you can’t counter by firing from the base of the wall. However, those can easily be countered by basing your siege out of their range. Note that there’s a band outside of AC range and inside Mortar minimum range. Also, Mortars are always vulnerable to attack and can’t be rebuilt at will. With greater verticality, there are also staging points that can’t be responded to from within the walls at all.

This point is going to require more context either way I guess. From what you’ve written here you’re not considering all of the tools that defenders could use. The terrain and elevations often limit (when compared to ABL) attacking siege options. Additionally, some changes have been made to allow additional points to be broken (eg. fire keep).

Sviel.7493:

Emergency waypoints have a hefty CD on them. If you get pushed out by one, that structure now has to be rebuilt and guarded until the CD resets. If you keep a small amount of pressure on it and strike elsewhere in another group (splitting up?!) to draw enemy attention, you can break the still damaged walls and take it with ease. Or, if the enemies sit in it to wait out the CD, go somewhere else to punish them. The length of the CD is up for debate, but do recall that pre-HoT structures had a free E-WP every few minutes during an attack.

It’s true they have a long CD, however my point was that if you are a small group trying to havoc something it makes it very easy for a blob to respond. Whereas before it was: ’hey, what are those white swords that have been on X for a while?" Someone goes and checks, and then once the havoc crew is located the alarm goes out for a response. It was also a good way to remove pressure on your stuff as players generally want to blob (this game is a leader-follower system with the comm tag after all) and so a havoc crew could pull a disproportionately strong response. Now its very low risk to blob as you can just e-wp and save the day, patch everything up and erase all the progress on cracking something (again, I was replying to a guy saying DBL was for small groups).

Sviel.7493:

The auto-scouting radar is not free and requires defending an objective long enough to get it running. After that, you can still siege it from outside of it’s range. Since players complained and got the tower walls downgraded to barricades and then removed from the game altogether, it’s one of the best things towers have left. Imo, Barricades should be an optional upgrade with the final form being walls.

That’s sorta my point. Point blank catas was a common way to sneak something. Now you have to do it from farther range which is easier for defenders to respond to (shield gens, their counter siege, etc). With auto upgrades I’d say it’s about as close to free as you can get though, no? Again, in response to the guy saying DBL is for small groups the radar hurts havoc the most, imo.

(Part 1/2)

I think the change that locations that could hit both inner and outer being eliminated was enough. The supply cost becomes less meaningful the bigger the attacking blob is as they can carry much more supply. Big groups have the option to rush or ninja (because more supply carried), small groups can only ninja.

I really appreciate someone considering how much supply a group carries. It’s much more important than the actual number of people that show up.

That said, consider the case of a group of 50 people with an average of 15 supply each for a total 750 supply. That’s 15 S. Catas or 37 of the old G. Catas. Every supply trap you land removes 2 S. Catas and 5 G. Catas. However, since the most catas one can use on a single wall before the time to destroy difference becomes too small is about 8, you have to land 5 supply traps before you damage the G. Cata destruction speed. Conversely, every trap you land on the S. Cata group slows them down.

On high pop nights (especially reset), supply is often dictated by how much is actually available on the map moreso than how many people there are to carry it. Tactics like Sabotage Depot really shine here as they significantly slow down enemy forces. Supply traps and the like are also great. With the old G. Catas, their effect is greatly diminished.

Meanwhile, if you’re trying to ninja a structure with a catapult, you can resupply before triggering swords and build as many catas as you desire.

Thus, while larger groups do carry more supply, the increase to cata cost was a far bigger curb on their dominance than on roamers. It’s also less effective against ninjas as their pre-attack time is not as critical as how long it takes them from first assault to cap.

This point is going to require more context either way I guess. From what you’ve written here you’re not considering all of the tools that defenders could use. The terrain and elevations often limit (when compared to ABL) attacking siege options. Additionally, some changes have been made to allow additional points to be broken (eg. fire keep).

I’m willing to go as in depth as you want with it, but I’m not sure what kind of things you’re looking for. The point was that some defensive siege placements are uncounterable. I’ve taken that to mean that siege placed in these points can’t be mitigated by an attacking faction. What I sought to show is that any siege placed within the walls can be rendered useless by manipulating range or attacking vulnerable siege. You seem to be saying that isn’t sufficient, so my assumed definition must be lacking somewhere. Can you fill me in?

Also, consider that both Firekeep and Airkeep can be assaulted from higher elevation at some point. They’re not the quickest to open siege options, but they are the hardest to do anything about.

Now its very low risk to blob as you can just e-wp and save the day, patch everything up and erase all the progress on cracking something (again, I was replying to a guy saying DBL was for small groups).

In your example, someone attacks a structure and a scout comes along after the fact (terrible scout; no cookies for them) to check it out. They sound the alarm and the blob swoops in to trample the havoc group underfoot.

Pre-HoT, this would happen by waiting for the timer to expire and then spamming the WP in chat so that everyone could tele into the besieged structure. This had a 3 minute CD, effectively. Post-HoT this happens by someone reaching and pulling a lever and has a way longer CD. I’m not certain why this is considered a downgrade—there’s no scenario that I see in which a blob is not doing less teleporting around than before. You could argue that no WPs at all would be better, but the fact is that the current situation is an improvement by that metric.

On the other hand, while towers remain unchanged, it is harder to ninja a keep since you can’t use double cata spots (except at earthkeep). I’m happy about this, but I acknowledge that it’s an actual downgrade to the ninja capabilities of small teams when it comes to keeps. Still, with less WP capability, it seems like a net positive.

(part 2/2)

That’s sorta my point. Point blank catas was a common way to sneak something. Now you have to do it from farther range which is easier for defenders to respond to (shield gens, their counter siege, etc). With auto upgrades I’d say it’s about as close to free as you can get though, no? Again, in response to the guy saying DBL is for small groups the radar hurts havoc the most, imo.

The problem is that point blank catas don’t have to be sneaky. As you said, they were difficult for defenders to respond to…at all. Any siege that could interact with said proxy catas was simple enough to bomb down. Meanwhile, trying to return the favor was more dangerous. The result is that proxy catas are not practical to respond to without similar force. Paradoxically, they’re also the fastest way of taking down a wall.

If proxy catas are relegated solely for ninja-caps instead of just all the time, that’s ok. In the case of a shield gen, the defenders must build and operate more shield gens than the enemies have siege and can still be thwarted by splash damage or simply changing the attack angle. In the case of counter siege, defenders must build and operate more trebs than the enemies have catas and aim perfectly lest they’re thwarted by bubbles. If the enemies have the smarts to build 1 less cata and 1 more shield gen, things get even more hairy. What this means is that if there are people on both sides, they must interact with each other in a meaningful way to advance their goals. When proxy catas have free reign, that is not the case.

In the instance where you are ninja-capping a structure, though, it’s only a ninja-cap if no one shows up. You can still do the same thing but, now, if you aren’t sneaky enough or fast enough, you don’t always get a free pass even if someone shows up.

Auto-upgrades are, by definition, free. I won’t dispute that. In the previous system, though, upgrades functioned in basically the same way but required someone on hand to activate them. The necessary number of Yaks has not been radically changed. They did well in moving it to a Yak based system from time based. I liked the Yaks+time model, but it may have been too much of a good thing.

Radar definitely hurts havoc, but it’s not a baseline upgrade and is far from free. It’s also only available after owning the tower for 63 minutes and only practical after successfully upgrading it to at least tier 2 (60 Yaks, or about 3 hours). The Yak part can be directly influenced by havoc groups, too. The result is that it’s harder to ninja cap a tower that has been actively defended for an extended period of time. I’m ok with that.

The downside is that it gives more ambient power to a server that vastly outnumbers it’s opponents, but that’s a symptom of a different issue. Anything that helps a smaller server deal with opponent’s will be useful to the larger server as well.

I much prefer DBL for small groups because I’m not always in the open and I have more options to hit structures other than just ninja’ing them. I usually run interference to prevent enemies from accumulating supply and then hit them with siege in between Yaks. It is not uncommon for me to say something like ‘firekeep NE wall 20%, supply 80/1,000’ in team chat. Commanders know that they can rely on me to prevent enemy footholds from getting out of hand. My opponents (shoutout to those Mag scouts) know to keep an eye out for me. I’m satisfied with that level of power.

That sort of thing isn’t necessary or useful on ABL. It’s much quicker to roll onto a map and crack Keeps due to double cata spots and much harder to assassinate Yaks since the whole map is open. It’s also much harder to slow-build kittenince they’re visible for miles around and building a long-range treb is just out of the question.

Jski.6180:

Its one of the best BL now. Now only if they would update the older ones.

Its posts like this which have kept this terrible borderland around despite all the evidence that it is unwanted. The map is empty, to the point where it now unbalances whole matchups regarding whichever team is red (as nobody bothers to go there and the fighting stays on other maps).

The KD and activity ratios show that this map is avoided like the plague and yet people pop up whenever this is discussed to post about how they think its the holy grail.

Its not and its return was a catastrophically bad idea that has been shown to be such as the whole area is almost 24/7 empty.

Ragnarox.9601:

Problem with desert bl is that its huge compared to alpine. They need more respawn points, maybe in that oasis in the middle.

Have you actually taken stopwatch timer how long it takes to run from garrison to each of the camps? I haven’t, but seems it would take very similar times. Desert borderland has those +40% movement speed shrines and portals to speed up travel, which alpine doesn’t have.

Zenith.6403:

Ragnarox.9601:

Problem with desert bl is that its huge compared to alpine. They need more respawn points, maybe in that oasis in the middle.

Have you actually taken stopwatch timer how long it takes to run from garrison to each of the camps? I haven’t, but seems it would take very similar times. Desert borderland has those +40% movement speed shrines and portals to speed up travel, which alpine doesn’t have.

I did. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Offensive-Small-Team-Play-Alpine-vs-Desert/first

Also, does anyone know a website where I can compare data from past WvW matches? The ones I used to use seem to have disappeared.

Namer.9750:

The two fundamental problems with Desert BL are:

1) Strategic importance of various objectives is lacking. The towers are worthless, and in terms of taking keeps, only the camps are useful because there are treb spots to hit the keeps in the camps, not the towers.

2) It’s a painful map to play offensively on. With the latest shrine changes, it’s defensive enough and defenders can move around fairly fast: but with movement between the northern half and the southern half being so kitten poor for attackers, nobody wants to go on the offensive on this map with a large, fighty group, and so there’s little to no action, so defenders eventually leave the map leaving it open to ktrainers.

1. Already stated here with all the towers having walls and later replaced by barricades, which actually helped them control a slightly larger area than they currently do. Now they are similar to Alpine towers where they control nothing and you just walk past. Players didn’t like towers having barricade walls though, so they got removed.

2. Originally each team would have a WP based on their closest major objective, the desert garrison for the home team and the two southern towers for the attacking teams. These Waypoints were gained immediately on owning the objective, no upgrades needed, however the side keeps had no waypoints for any team. Players did NOT like this either, saying the towers having the waypoints were stupid because it was a tower, while this later changed to the nearby keep, players then didn’t like that either because it was too strong because it was a keep, and so waypoints went back to being a t3 upgrade.
Sad to say but the map had better mobility than it currently does at release but many players just didn’t like that.

Okay, the initial title was: “I feel bad about the devs”. It’s been changed to “Desert Borderland Map”.

I didn’t do this.

It’s an EOTM pve map crudely pasted into WVW. See breakdown of desert borderlands issues topic for why it can’t exist in its current form, from a purely compeditive standpoint.

Dinas Dragonbane.2978:

Players didn’t like towers having barricade walls though, so they got removed.

The barricades sucked. They punished anything without maxed out power damage and stopped roamers/small groups dead while zergs brought them down in seconds going “lolololol1111111111111”.

It was one of the worst features GW2 has ever had.

Dawdler.8521:

Dinas Dragonbane.2978:

Players didn’t like towers having barricade walls though, so they got removed.

The barricades sucked. They punished anything without maxed out power damage and stopped roamers/small groups dead while zergs brought them down in seconds going “lolololol1111111111111”.

It was one of the worst features GW2 has ever had.

Yeah, probably. Yet their purpose, and the overall idea about them wasn’t so bad after all : give a tactical value to towers by forcing attackers to run the whole way around, and risk to be spotted.

The core issue with barricades is they weren’t an effective counter to the ktrain strategy, and I feel like devs should really put their efforts into this, should they design new map functionnalities.

chronometria.3708:

Jski.6180:

Its one of the best BL now. Now only if they would update the older ones.

Its posts like this which have kept this terrible borderland around despite all the evidence that it is unwanted. The map is empty, to the point where it now unbalances whole matchups regarding whichever team is red (as nobody bothers to go there and the fighting stays on other maps).

The KD and activity ratios show that this map is avoided like the plague and yet people pop up whenever this is discussed to post about how they think its the holy grail.

Its not and its return was a catastrophically bad idea that has been shown to be such as the whole area is almost 24/7 empty.

It has the best soft objectives of all the maps and some of the best mobility. What is holding it back is the hard to cap keeps. Over all wvw pop has fallen.
If they would add in shrines to EOTM with the ability to jump to far parts of the map (more then just the worm) it would be a great map too.

ThomasC.1056:

Yeah, probably. Yet their purpose, and the overall idea about them wasn’t so bad after all : give a tactical value to towers by forcing attackers to run the whole way around, and risk to be spotted.

The core issue with barricades is they weren’t an effective counter to the ktrain strategy, and I feel like devs should really put their efforts into this, should they design new map functionnalities.

They dont need to put any effort into it, there was tons of suggested ideas. For example making it possible to “portal” through them on a global cooldown. That would stop zergs (it would take minutes to bring a zerg through one by one) as opposed to solo/small groups.

But it was easier just to remove it.

It’s pretty much the same thing that need to be done to that stupid kittening performance hog of a stealth fog that cripples gameplay around garri. Sure you could fix it by simply revamping the effect into just simple AoE stealth bubbles around those floaty thingies. But no, I say just remove it and get it over with.

We did that with the middle event too.

I find desert BL to be great for small mans. I play mostly prime time, and during this time, any BL you play on, if you are the only group it can be rather harsh. Its not the mechanics, its the lack of players. The map needs 2 or 3 groups running to properly be played, whether its fights or PPT. It doesn’t need a full map blob, and even as a small group, you can still have an easier more rewarding time outnumbered on desert vs outnumbered on alpine thanks to more smaller objectives to cap.

Most complaints i hear are based off of false impressions. ie
1. Opinions formed at HoT launch, when it was indeed horrible to traverse.
2. they still don’t know the layout of the map
3. their zerglings die to fall damage (still happens in alpine, but there people laugh rather than blame the map), if you want to take a short cut, aim for the hay and yell it in chat before you jump.
4. claim the map is slow…. They don’t cap shrines to maintain their swiftness AND they dont tell their zerg to interact with the shrine when they miss the cap point. This is a huge mistake to make on this map. Also eliminating shrine bonuses while assaulting keeps is essential. I often find this complaint ties into the lack of familiarity with the map.
5. Defense is greatly Biased vs alpine! not completely true, like alpine, northern towers are easy for defenders to go to. Southern towers take time for defenders to respond, like alpine. Contesting waypoints is how you get away with assaulting most objectives. People are just more lazy now and less people take initiative enough to split off and do this. the only thing that is different is its harder to use player skills to kill siege, you often have to clear siege with siege if its being defended well. So this would be a commander error vs a defense bias.

For small groups i would say the bias towards defense does exist for air keep only, that lord’s CC combined with its hopping around takes way too long for a small group to deal with. Other than that, its pretty much on par with alpine when it comes to a map with an active defense force.

These arent just PPT related issues. WvW isn’t a deathmatch, so stop expecting that you need to do nothing to get the fights you want. If you are a large group looking for fights, if you don’t assault a keep properly, you will be outsieged and it is your fault, not the enemy for being “bad players who use siege.” If you beat them to Lord Room, then you get your fight, focus on clearing siege once you are in to allow the enemy to come. Putting orange swords on lord right away will just make them retreat if they are too far away. I see this happen on Alpine, and on EBG, so don’t blame it on desert bl. if you are a smaller group looking for fights, the goal is to hit things fast and hard, go for the cap, and kill the force responding, giving yourself an objective to fall back on if the enemy far outnumbers you. This is basic map tactics that were used by the old fight groups, and they are still valid for desert BL. Its just everyone is always in EBG going for that open field fight with their metacomped group + always present roamers vs unorganized pugs, so of course they will complain about DBL, it takes effort otherwise and this current generation of WvWers are equivalent to most millennials in today’s workforce.

Dawdler.8521:

It’s pretty much the same thing that need to be done to that stupid kittening performance hog of a stealth fog that cripples gameplay around garri. Sure you could fix it by simply revamping the effect into just simple AoE stealth bubbles around those floaty thingies. But no, I say just remove it and get it over with.

The fog around earth keep doesn’t stealth anyone anymore. Now, it only prevents an enemy from using stealth. The turrets things now apply boons to allies, and movement conditions (I think, I’m not sure…) on enemies.

So they somehow listened to you ! :-)

ThomasC.1056:

Dawdler.8521:

It’s pretty much the same thing that need to be done to that stupid kittening performance hog of a stealth fog that cripples gameplay around garri. Sure you could fix it by simply revamping the effect into just simple AoE stealth bubbles around those floaty thingies. But no, I say just remove it and get it over with.

The fog around earth keep doesn’t stealth anyone anymore. Now, it only prevents an enemy from using stealth. The turrets things now apply boons to allies, and movement conditions (I think, I’m not sure…) on enemies.

So they somehow listened to you ! :-)

Too bad that wasnt the main problem, its the fog effect itself that lowers performance by a fair bit.

neven.3785:

Most complaints i hear are based off of false impressions. ie
1. Opinions formed at HoT launch, when it was indeed horrible to traverse.

Opinions were formed from the very first beta test of the map, which they then failed to fix a lot of the problems players pointed out to them until much later.

neven.3785:

2. they still don’t know the layout of the map

They’re not going to bother learning the layout of the map if it feels like kitten to play in. The ground was also littered with random tree stomps that helped make traveling even more annoying along with the cliffs which you can’t determine is safe to drop from, not to mention making most areas less desirable to even fight in. The whole desert theme sucks as well, why did they even go with desert when the rest of the HoT maps were jungles.

neven.3785:

3. their zerglings die to fall damage (still happens in alpine, but there people laugh rather than blame the map), if you want to take a short cut, aim for the hay and yell it in chat before you jump.

It’s quite clear where you can jump down safely in alpines, you know like the mid ledges on the cliffs south of nwt, or the ones north of net. On desert there’s many spots where that isn’t clear. The hay wasn’t even added till months after HoT.

neven.3785:

4. claim the map is slow…. They don’t cap shrines to maintain their swiftness AND they dont tell their zerg to interact with the shrine when they miss the cap point. This is a huge mistake to make on this map. Also eliminating shrine bonuses while assaulting keeps is essential. I often find this complaint ties into the lack of familiarity with the map.

It is slower, also having to cap shrines to get around the map pretty much gives away your position every time. It’s just another stupid “bloodlust” gimmick they threw in there which most big groups would not care about to bother with. Having to go out of your way to cap shrines for a speed buff doesn’t exactly make it “faster”.

neven.3785:

5. Defense is greatly Biased vs alpine! not completely true, like alpine, northern towers are easy for defenders to go to. Southern towers take time for defenders to respond, like alpine. Contesting waypoints is how you get away with assaulting most objectives. People are just more lazy now and less people take initiative enough to split off and do this. the only thing that is different is its harder to use player skills to kill siege, you often have to clear siege with siege if its being defended well. So this would be a commander error vs a defense bias.

North towers on desert are worthless, they serve absolutely no purpose. South towers serve the same purpose of being early warning signs of a force on the map, but on alpines you can also assault the keeps from them, so you cannot turn your focus away from them for too long, more so for swt.

On desert they were suppose to be the way pointed structure which turned into a major fail, they couldn’t even get it working properly half the time preventing enemies from porting in when they didn’t even own it. Those towers were suppose to be the quick port in and access to the middle area of the map, but the side keeps were then pain in the kittens to defend with only the emergency waypoint available, having no access to permanent port in made those keeps worthless to upgrade to t3. Eventually they moved the waypoints back to the keeps after we cried about it in here.

neven.3785:

These arent just PPT related issues. WvW isn’t a deathmatch, so stop expecting that you need to do nothing to get the fights you want. If you are a large group looking for fights, if you don’t assault a keep properly, you will be outsieged and it is your fault, not the enemy for being “bad players who use siege.”

Why bother when you can just go to ebg or alpines and find those fights much easier in both cases of open field and structure sieges, on terrain that’s much more accommodating, it’s not like the 3 other maps are full all the time. Alpine’s garrison fights still tops my list of areas to get a good long fun fight, especially the three ways on reset nights.

Quite obvious they made the map for small groups to operate in, well, they got what they wanted for the map, smaller groups, albeit because a lot less players even playing. Too bad at the same time they also screwed up small groups with HoT additions.

Ryudnard.2587:

Okay, the initial title was: “I feel bad about the devs”. It’s been changed to “Desert Borderland Map”.

I didn’t do this.

If Anet says you’re kitten then you’re kitten.

Dawdler.8521:

The barricades sucked. They punished anything without maxed out power damage and stopped roamers/small groups dead while zergs brought them down in seconds going “lolololol1111111111111”.

It was one of the worst features GW2 has ever had.

They were supposed to stop single players, that was much of the point. They made more sense as actual walls than barricades since the zergs COULD just roll over them so easily. Still, people just apparently want a flat zone with no objectives to just fight players and only players. That would just be like a war in Antarctica.

Dinas Dragonbane.2978:

They were supposed to stop single players, that was much of the point. They made more sense as actual walls than barricades since the zergs COULD just roll over them so easily. Still, people just apparently want a flat zone with no objectives to just fight players and only players. That would just be like a war in Antarctica.

Gosh… A perma chill WvW-map would probably get even more hate than DBL, even if it was perfectly flat !

Even on a completely flat map, people would still be avoiding each other. DBL just makes it really easy.

If seeking out a fight was actually beneficial no matter whether you were outnumbered or not, DBL would work better. As it is, there are some compromises at the moment that I don’t think have worked for anyone concerned.

Originally, the plan behind the barricades was to make holding ground mean something. If you take the southern towers on ABL, it gives you little real advantage. The southwest tower allows you to treb a small part of outer Bay, and the southeast tower only allows you to be trebbed from Hills – not particularly helpful.

It’s only once you get to the northern towers that you can seriously pressure a keep with them, and by the time you’re that far up the map and can hold the towers long enough to build trebs in them, you’ve got numerical superiority anyway and don’t need the help of the towers.

That’s where DBL is actually better designed. You want to crack open a keep with trebs, you’ve got to defend them in the open field. ABL you just wedge something into your keyboard to hold down the fire key while you go do something else, because there’s little the other server can ever do to take your treb out. EB has exactly the same problem, but with different objectives involved.

DBL’s barricades were actually brilliant for playing the PPT game, because you didn’t have to worry as much about roamers coming by and flipping your camps while you were dealing with the main threat of enemy zergs. It was prohibitively difficult to get all the way to a north camp without being detected – you had to run around so many barricades and pass at least two sentries close to the defender’s spawn. All the defending server had to scout for was the enemy zergs, which should be much easier.

The problem was, of course, the PPT game is deeply unpopular so all of that was a wash. That way of playing hasn’t been particularly satisfying since launch – the running around smashing things way of playing (whether players or doors) is all that’s lasted.

So DBL was designed for the game ANet wanted WvW to be, not for the game it is now.

If they want it to work, they’ll have to find a way to make their original vision work. I hope they do, because it sounded great back then. Just wondering if I’ll have to wait until GW3 to see it.

Ben K.6238:

Even on a completely flat map, people would still be avoiding each other. DBL just makes it really easy.

If seeking out a fight was actually beneficial no matter whether you were outnumbered or not, DBL would work better. As it is, there are some compromises at the moment that I don’t think have worked for anyone concerned.

Originally, the plan behind the barricades was to make holding ground mean something. If you take the southern towers on ABL, it gives you little real advantage. The southwest tower allows you to treb a small part of outer Bay, and the southeast tower only allows you to be trebbed from Hills – not particularly helpful.

It’s only once you get to the northern towers that you can seriously pressure a keep with them, and by the time you’re that far up the map and can hold the towers long enough to build trebs in them, you’ve got numerical superiority anyway and don’t need the help of the towers.

That’s where DBL is actually better designed. You want to crack open a keep with trebs, you’ve got to defend them in the open field. ABL you just wedge something into your keyboard to hold down the fire key while you go do something else, because there’s little the other server can ever do to take your treb out. EB has exactly the same problem, but with different objectives involved.

DBL’s barricades were actually brilliant for playing the PPT game, because you didn’t have to worry as much about roamers coming by and flipping your camps while you were dealing with the main threat of enemy zergs. It was prohibitively difficult to get all the way to a north camp without being detected – you had to run around so many barricades and pass at least two sentries close to the defender’s spawn. All the defending server had to scout for was the enemy zergs, which should be much easier.

The problem was, of course, the PPT game is deeply unpopular so all of that was a wash. That way of playing hasn’t been particularly satisfying since launch – the running around smashing things way of playing (whether players or doors) is all that’s lasted.

So DBL was designed for the game ANet wanted WvW to be, not for the game it is now.

If they want it to work, they’ll have to find a way to make their original vision work. I hope they do, because it sounded great back then. Just wondering if I’ll have to wait until GW3 to see it.

Brilliant post. I wouldn’t have put it better by myself.

Still, there’s a paradox between what you’re saying (people avoiding fights) and the recurring claim of people wanting fights and improving PPK. My two cents on that is : when there’s a duel, one loses, and the other wins, and people usually want to win ;-)

So this is why it’s, to me, healthier to focus on PPT instead of PPK : when the purpose and aim is keeps/towers/etc., the fights become a “side-effect”. Players get thus less “emotionnaly engaged” in these, which keeps the overall environement healthy.

You should add to this the absence of GvG which causes a substantial part of WvW players come in BL’s to replace GvG. This makes me fear we’ll have to wait for GW3 to have a true tactical RvR game, alongside GvG open fields. Mostly because, as far as I agree on the “DBL was a map designed the way ANet wanted WvW to be”, all the cuts made (some were necessary) to DBL show the devs are probably looking for an in between.

DBL is a punishment for the server that get it. It is a very inactive map that most players avoid going too. I will keep on posting this link until people stop telling DBL is fine, it isn’t.
http://i.imgur.com/fWWmFKR.jpg

It does ofc not mean that noone ever like DBL ofc there are players who do. But most of the players do not like it and do not move to the map when being attacked which again is a huge disadvantage to the server who is red.

Leaa.2943:

DBL is a punishment for the server that get it. It is a very inactive map that most players avoid going too. I will keep on posting this link until people stop telling DBL is fine, it isn’t.
http://i.imgur.com/fWWmFKR.jpg

It does ofc not mean that noone ever like DBL ofc there are players who do. But most of the players do not like it and do not move to the map when being attacked which again is a huge disadvantage to the server who is red.

Just to make sure, what is exactly that “Share of the border” thing ?

This map grew on me. I very much disliked it at first. But now I quite enjoy it. As with every map it has it’s good and bad things. But all in all I like it. Especially since they made it a bit easier to travel around now.

re: players not coming out to fight. See this video

Here, we have 5 players in DBL sitting in a keep not coming out to fight 2 players.
Later, that same server pops emergency waypoint and sends in a zerg of 30+ to kill 2 people with a catapult on outer.

Despite that, there are still good fights to be had on the BL. It just takes longer to find them.

Leaa.2943:

DBL is a punishment for the server that get it. It is a very inactive map that most players avoid going too. I will keep on posting this link until people stop telling DBL is fine, it isn’t.
http://i.imgur.com/fWWmFKR.jpg

It does ofc not mean that noone ever like DBL ofc there are players who do. But most of the players do not like it and do not move to the map when being attacked which again is a huge disadvantage to the server who is red.

Where are those numbers from? Also, what do they mean?

Sviel.7493:

Leaa.2943:

DBL is a punishment for the server that get it. It is a very inactive map that most players avoid going too. I will keep on posting this link until people stop telling DBL is fine, it isn’t.
http://i.imgur.com/fWWmFKR.jpg

It does ofc not mean that noone ever like DBL ofc there are players who do. But most of the players do not like it and do not move to the map when being attacked which again is a huge disadvantage to the server who is red.

Where are those numbers from? Also, what do they mean?

Looks like kill ratios and they are generally correct last time I checked – about 80% of kills occur on the two alpine borders (and kills roughly equal overall activity).

I’m less concerned with fact-checking and more with getting my hands on some juicy data.

Though, I had an interaction earlier where a 10-man guild attacked a tower in my scouting zone 3 times. They built all of their catas right next to each other and wasted their bubbles on AC fire which allowed me to disable, so I cleared them the first time with no kills. The second time, they set up catas in the same spot and basically the same thing happened. The third time, they went to the other side of the tower and I had no sup to build more siege. I had to call for help and they were all killed after a brief skirmish (~15 v. 10).

So, there was a whole lot of activity there beyond the fight. This is not atypical of my experience on DBL. On ABL, they would not have stood a chance due to the proximity to Garrison, so I doubt they would have even made the attempt knowing that they were a relatively small sized group.

Of course, it could also just be my server. We had EBG and DBL queued tonight, but that’s all.

https://wvwintel.com/

Pick a server, check the ratio on desert bl.
As ive posted in several of these topics before, Desert bl is clearly less active in every single matchup, every single week.

Stop saying desert bl is fine.
No one bothers to go and cap the camps cus its simply way too far, causing everything to freely upgrade due to the afk dolly method. (different subject, also kitten)

I look forward to the reply of our amazing pve heroes.