Guild Wars 2

Hey, this is my short critique of the EOTM map. I really like it, but at the same time I think it needs some balance work and an easier to read map.

Pros:

• Geography is graphically pleasing and the variety of the desert, ice, and jungle territories make each territory distinct for both new and veteran players.
• The land allows for play on multiple levels which makes the map seem bigger and allows for more variety of fights.
• Veteran and Champion NPCs are unique from territory to territory and have unique abilities.
• No dolyaks. Generators allow players to not have to escort yaks for supply.
• Less goldsinks than borderlands or EB – no upgrading towers or keeps with gold.
  Shorter matches means that bad matches are not as big of a deal.
  More rewards throughout the match to reward players. (Additional chest for taking camps/towers).
• Dynamic events that impact the map make the match more varied- the wurm tunnel, mechanical scorpians, and observatory are all huge elements not seen in wvw before. It would be nice if we didn’t have collection quests however, as they are not as fun as other pve dynamic events.

Cons

• Siegerazer costs gold. I don’t know why.
• Rewards for defeating NPCs is high, so there is sometimes too much incentive to PvE instead of PvP and entire zergs of players can do a champion farm loop.
• No reward for winning the match besides supply (500?) being dropped into your home borderland.
• Unclear map. It’s very hard to tell the geography of the 2D map because there are many levels to the map, thus leading people to get lost.
• Unbalanced territories. Because of the unique properties of each territory, it is not balanced 100%. Some places are more useful than others; for example the Shrine is useless and Altar is useful.
• Boring buffs and debuffs. Overgrowth and Frostreach territories have a buff/debuff which are not fun to play with or against. Playing with -30% movement speed is not fun and playing with ‘free’ regeneration (100hp/s) doesn’t feel fun either. The turrets however, are hilarious.
• Overflow hopping is tedious. The map feels like a wvw hotjoin, but it doesn’t have a hotjoin UI to swap maps or even queue for. I would like to queue for a full map my friends are in.
• Spawn layout is not straightforward. The bridges are both very easy to camp, and also unusually confusing and far away from the action. I especially dislike running to the overgrowth keep from spawn. The issue of how contested keeps and waypoints operate is still an issue in wvw, so this seems to exacerbate that issue.
• No dynamic event circles on the map and no one seems to care about doing the events after one week.
• Easy to get stuck in a generator while it is being built/repaired/spawned.
• Aetherblades and other NPCs are not fun to fight against when they have high amounts of CC.
• Siegerazer is sometimes invulnerable forever.
• Champions are extremely powerful and highlight the problem with banner rezzing.

Overflow hopping is tedious. The map feels like a wvw hotjoin, but it doesn’t have a hotjoin UI to swap maps or even queue for. I would like to queue for a full map my friends are in.

Group with you friends, right click on their name, select “join friend” (or something like that)

Easy to get stuck in a generator while it is being built/repaired/spawned.

Do not forget to use /bug when it happens so that devs can locate the exact problem and eventually have enough data to solve it. Same with getting stuck under a bridge when it’s being built.

Siegerazer costs gold. I don’t know why.

Need a gold sink…

[Unbalanced territories.]
Balance is as a whole… red’s altar and blue’s worm tunnels might give a travel advantage, the travel advantage green gets is not being slowed down in their territory.
It seems pretty balanced, though I agree that green’s having most of its advantages rests on PNJ’s they should do something more than just be there.

The map is hard and confusing to navigate. Every bridge takes you away from where you want to go. If you die, it is a long way to run back. I think the map designers had too much of a kitten for ledges.

Jocksy.3415:

Overflow hopping is tedious. The map feels like a wvw hotjoin, but it doesn’t have a hotjoin UI to swap maps or even queue for. I would like to queue for a full map my friends are in.

Group with you friends, right click on their name, select “join friend” (or something like that)

Rather tedious when you’re trying to get a whole guild into an instance.

I will summarize briefly.

eotm is good for:
Great rewards
Karma trains
Trolling

eotm is not good for:
Actual fights
Real PPT competition
High quality opponents

I don’t know if it’s just me but I feel like red’s territory is farther from all of the other territories, though red is the only color I haven’t been as a server yet. It looks like if you compare the distance between Bell Tower, Airport, and Statuary, the Statuary is further from both by quite a bit actually. I’ve had a lot of fights between blue and green in that region slightly north of the south tower (Inferno’s Needle). These usually end up in stalemates because the one side can always back up into the tower if they are losing and the tower is actually very hard to take if sieged up because there’s no walls or good ways to take out inside siege. Meanwhile, I haven’t been able to have as many fights against red.

IMO they way it should be is all sides being equidistant from the center and each other. It should be just as likely to have a zerg v zerg in the territory between blue and red, blue and green, and green and red. The territory that is between red and the other two servers (supposed to be the equivalent of the territory between blue and green where there’s always fights) is much less traveled and rarely has fights there.

Also, I don’t get why going from any color to red I typically have to go through the annoying Aetherblades (or go a different path) where as going from blue to green or vise versa I almost never have to go after them. It’d be cool if they were just removed and there was a large center for fights (but actually having it equidistiant) or having a capp-able structure or something.

At first it can seem overwhelming.

If you play it with some commanders that know what they’re doing though it’s tons of fun. You quickly get used to the fact that there aren’t road signs all over, and it’s actually kind of nice that if you run on autopilot you might fall to your death. Imagine actually keeping awake while you play. Imagine having to learn the landmarks, terrain, and not just walking in straight lines, finally. I like the change.

I love that the 3 areas are completely different. After WvW predictable fights it’s great to see a map that isn’t simplistic.

I’d say the biggest downside is when there’s no commander it’s very hard for a side to get together. It’s something they need to figure out for another update someday is how to give defenders that don’t have any leadership something to do on a map.