Guild Wars 2

It seems there are a lot of changes in the works for wvw in general. Scoring/servers/fights/rewards/upgrades/titles/map rotation. I can’t be more specific, but from what I heard, i like most of the proposed ideas and think they will address a lot of the issues in wvw.

However i haven’t heard anything about changes to the actual desert borderlands themselves which i think is sorely needed. Obviously a lot of time was spent designing them so extreme changes are unlikely but there are some relatively simple changes that can be easily implemented. Here are my suggestions.

-Remove barricades
The barricades that block routes when you own the adjacent tower can be easily broken by a zerg in seconds, however it does punish roamers and small groups forcing them to go around. going on marathon runs is boring, especially solo and is so disheartening to run 5 minutes to take a camp only to find it has already flipped by the time you get there. You can replace it with something like a zerg detector that reveals 10 or more players on the map, so if a zerg wants to move undetected they have to go the long way around but don’t punish roamers and small groups.

-Remove laser central event
Again this is simply biggest zerg wins. it’s a cheap gimmick. it causes massive lag. it’s really buggy.

-Remove all shrines and their effects
I don’t want unfair buffs. I want to know i won the fight because i played better, or my team was more organized or utilized the terrain better. I don’t like any of the pve effects, they are simply annoying and add nothing to the gameplay. I was trying to defend garrison and was running supplies to repair the gate to stop more attackers from entering, when suddenly an earth wall popped up and boxed me into a corner, trapping me there so i couldn’t move anywhere. We owned the earth shrines, they were supposed to be helping my team yet they directly hindered me. The only buffs i find acceptable are ones to mobility or movement speed or ones that help upgrades. Nothing that gives you a fight advantage.

-Bring back manual upgrades
If night cappers have flipped an entire bl, they can immediately leave knowing that things will likely get to t3 until the morning crew arrives. They don’t have to leave anyone on the bl to implement the upgrades it will happen automatically. It’s too much reward for too little effort.

I feel these points can be easily implemented without major work and could help relieve the laborious inaccessibility many players feel towards the desert bl.

ps. before people start the usual knee jerk i’m offended because he has a different opinion to me and start making random assumptions crap…

I have played dozens of hours on the desert map in every possible scenario. I’ve been on the winning server, the losing server, i’ve been in blobs on full maps, i ‘ve been on outmanned maps, i ’ve been roaming solo and in small groups. I’ve tried scouting and running dollies. In every one of these scenarios I do not enjoy the desert map. My guild and friends list, which is 95% wvw players is now mostly empty compared to pre h.o.t while eternal battlegrounds is normally full. You cannot logically deny that the desert borderlands are unpopular among wvw players.

+1 for this post

I don’t agree with every specific detail, but desert BLs are here to stay and there are a lot of minor tweaks that would make it much more enjoyable.

Sounds like you just hate all the features. What do you want? A small flat piece of land where zergs can duke it out? The old borderlands were just that. Large flat areas with no features, a couple of ramps, choke points and towers that didn’t block anything or serve any purpose.

Easy change?

Delete

Aezyr.5304:

Easy change?

Delete

At this stage, this is by far the cheapest option for Anet- although they will never admit it nor do it, rather alpine maps will come back as the ‘rotation’ and then they will ‘forget’ to rotate off them…

I would hardly call any of the shrines and their effects unfair. Fire shrines? The only thing is the hound of balthazar transformation….those things are easier to kill than actual professions if you learn their ‘3 moves’. Earth Shrines? Those only apply in the valley…you don’t even have to go through the valley, and it’s just movement impeding….that’s it. The cloak is nice for ambushing people, but if that’s an issue just take one of the shrines….they are located at all of the entrances to the valley afterall. It’s a gimmick effect, I don’t bother capping them for anything other than the movement speed buff. The wind shrines? air turrets are a gimmick defense that is easily dodges. No death from falling? I think that’s the coolest feature of the shrines. I hardly think it gives you a combat advantage except for running away and defending the keep….which is ridiculously hard to defend in the first place. And again, you need all 3 shrines…..it’s easy for the enemy to cap 1 of them.

If you have a problem with the shrine effects hindering your pvp combat, cap them! Personally I think they are mostly useless so I never bother capping for anything other than the movement speed buff, which you agree’d is a nice addition.

Everything else, sure i’ll agree with you.

Baldrick.8967:

Aezyr.5304:

Easy change?

Delete

At this stage, this is by far the cheapest option for Anet- although they will never admit it nor do it, rather alpine maps will come back as the ‘rotation’ and then they will ‘forget’ to rotate off them…

I would be totaly fine with that. Put some stab changes/pirate ship nerfs into that and most of my server would be happy.

Yes easiest change would be to give us back the old BLs

I’d like to see EOTM be a longer match even though I hate the awful players there and they make me sick.

Maybe have a week long match and use the new BLS in the EOTM instead. Give those little pvers something to do and they just LOVE zergin up and farming so I don’t see how anet can go wrong.

You’d fill your pve maps with pvers so your new designed maps are not wasted, your wvwers can have their alpine maps back and we’ll stop whining a tiny bit…………everyone wins.

I have a feeling the new desert map is designed to give defenders more advantage. So probably/hopefully fewer defenders can hold off larger offending zerg. If that is the case, maybe we can try mixing the old and new maps. Every week at reset, the server with the highest rank of a tier use the old apple map as their home BL, while the other 2 use the new desert map as home BL. It’s like a handicap for the top server at that tier and they have to play harder to advance or keep their rank. You also have the choice to play both maps so people in zombie zerg mode don’t get bored easily. XD Could give this a try before making any change to the new map and see how it turns out~

100% agree with pretty much everything you said. I avoid the desert as often as possible. +1 to them giving us back the Alpine maps, I spent alot of my time there and loved it. It makes the most sense for them to at least temporarily remove the desert BLs and return the old BLs so that, whilst they make the changes to desert that are so desperately needed, we can all get back to enjoying the borderlands again. Because right now, I know of very few people that like the Desert BLs, and Anet can’t possibly afford to leave it as it is else they won’t have anyone playing WvW at all.

BBMouse.6510:

I have a feeling the new desert map is designed to give defenders more advantage.

Eh? Its the complete opposite. Waypoint changes and keep/tower layout mean home server can only hold a single keep (ie garri) reliably and render defense of side towers and keeps completely redundant. And when you think a keep is safe… BAM PvE event.

Desert border is designed on a simple principle – you are meant to split yourself into 3 and hold the following combo: garri on home, bay+SW tower on one border and hills+SE tower on the other border.

Unfortunetly, its hard to split a person into 3. Well, maybe not that hard, but at the very least messy.