Guild Wars 2

Yay, Anet gave us the old maps back.

Problem is that although we prefer alpine to desert, alpine as still 4 year old maps.

It’s nice to have them back, but we’ll get bored of them a lot faster this time.

So how long do you think you can continue, or has the nostalgia already gone for you?

It is not just nostalgia to a lot of people. A lot of us are happy to have a playable map back because Deserted BL was barely playable. Not great places for open field fighting, too many choke points, too much PvE nonsense, maps were too big making finding fights nearly impossible.

So many reasons, search around. It is so much more than just nostalgia, I hope they leave Alpine there forever.

The Ventari Ele.5812:

YDeserted BLs: Leave a keep, fall a lot, takes 30 minutes to run into someone else and have a good fight, even when zerg vs zerg!

A lot of us on non-national servers enjoy fights, if it takes 30 minutes of running around looking for one, you aint gonna have fun!

That right there. Nothing to add its not nostalgia.

Yeah I’ve never understood the argument that “the map is boring”. That’s like saying a chess board or soccer field is boring. The map serves a purpose, it works. You can have boring opponents but that’s not the maps fault. The dbl doesn’t work for the game mode, that was the problem.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Yeah I’ve never understood the argument that “the map is boring”. That’s like saying a chess board or soccer field is boring.

Man… No truer words ever spoken. That was an excellent way to word that.

Anet said in the ask-me-anything on reddit that they planned to rotate the BLs every three months.

Supposedly the bls are going to rotate on a quarterly schedule

Sorel.4870:

Anet said in the ask-me-anything on reddit that they planned to rotate the BLs every three months.

and that’s a really stupid decision.
Even if the impossible happens and they manage to fix the map so much that it is finally functional, a quarterly rotation is still way too long.
If they can’t do a weekly rotation then they need to quarterly rotate that crappy map with their other crappy map in eotm and leave WvW alone until they design a map that isn’t completely broken for WvW.

For the most part it looks like the people running things now have a much better head on their shoulders than the previous crew so hopefully they won’t stick to that terrible plan.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Sorel.4870:

Anet said in the ask-me-anything on reddit that they planned to rotate the BLs every three months.

and that’s a really stupid decision.
Even if the impossible happens and they manage to fix the map so much that it is finally functional, a quarterly rotation is still way too long.
If they can’t do a weekly rotation then they need to quarterly rotate that crappy map with their other crappy map in eotm and leave WvW alone until they design a map that isn’t completely broken for WvW.

For the most part it looks like the people running things now have a much better head on their shoulders than the previous crew so hopefully they won’t stick to that terrible plan.

I tend to agree. I would prefer having the choice between the two borderlands better than having a rotation. If it’s impossible, rotating every week or every second week would be much better imo.

I agree on a bi-weekly rotation, Sorel. Although, no telling what other improvements they’ll make to the dbls by the time they show up again.

Sorel.4870:

Anet said in the ask-me-anything on reddit that they planned to rotate the BLs every three months.

Well if theyu bring back the dbl and swap out the old bls, Me and many others will be leaving again.

Best areas for Alpines for me is the SE corner.

Fuzzion.2504:

Sorel.4870:

Anet said in the ask-me-anything on reddit that they planned to rotate the BLs every three months.

Well if theyu bring back the dbl and swap out the old bls, Me and many others will be leaving again.

That’s the problem with rotation, we lose people either way. Doesn’t even matter how many, losing people either way is the issue.

TheGrimm.5624:

Fuzzion.2504:

Sorel.4870:

Anet said in the ask-me-anything on reddit that they planned to rotate the BLs every three months.

Well if theyu bring back the dbl and swap out the old bls, Me and many others will be leaving again.

That’s the problem with rotation, we lose people either way. Doesn’t even matter how many, losing people either way is the issue.

The reason we lose players is because of the lack of wvw endgame. The sudden surge in player numbers is due to the Old BL. But whats there after 2 to 3 months? DBL is crap. Anet knows it. But they refused to believe it. So unless new masteries, endgame, tourney make some entrance we will see players leaving in a few months again.

Fuzzion.2504:

The reason we lose players is because of the lack of wvw endgame. The sudden surge in player numbers is due to the Old BL. But whats there after 2 to 3 months? DBL is crap. Anet knows it. But they refused to believe it. So unless new masteries, endgame, tourney make some entrance we will see players leaving in a few months again.

Agree, unless they keep players engaged we will lose people. How do we keep as many as possible?

About the 3 month I think this is because there is no automatic rotation available at the moment. Once the automatic rotation will be ready they will rotate the map more often.

Hopefully forever.

I have more fights every day in the Alpine BL than in a week in the DBL. The size and accessibility of the Alpine are better for zergs and roamers alike. I’m not gonna say I’ll be gone if/when DBL comes back…but I will just be in EB.

Hopefully between now and when they rotate the dbls back in, they’ll have made more improvements to the dbls.

Fuzzion.2504:

TheGrimm.5624:

Fuzzion.2504:

Sorel.4870:

Anet said in the ask-me-anything on reddit that they planned to rotate the BLs every three months.

Well if theyu bring back the dbl and swap out the old bls, Me and many others will be leaving again.

That’s the problem with rotation, we lose people either way. Doesn’t even matter how many, losing people either way is the issue.

The reason we lose players is because of the lack of wvw endgame. The sudden surge in player numbers is due to the Old BL. But whats there after 2 to 3 months? DBL is crap. Anet knows it. But they refused to believe it. So unless new masteries, endgame, tourney make some entrance we will see players leaving in a few months again.

^^ 100%. There are a few on the forums who really like DBL. Those are the few who actually play on DBL as well.

Ever since alpine came back, we see a good balance across all maps. That’s the important thing. DBL was a nice try but it failed. Do not bring it back.

style.6173:

Ever since alpine came back, we see a good balance across all maps. That’s the important thing. DBL was a nice try but it failed. Do not bring it back.

We needed new maps before DBL, we still do. Agree that we need things to keep people interested and engaged. For some that is having different battlefields to play on so that people can have new and interesting strategies to create/try and experience. New areas to fight over, new tactics to use. You never want your WvW to become like dungeons. Ok, stack here, press 1 4 times, 3 steps to right, deploy 2 catas, 2 steps to the right…

There needs to be all scales of combat from zerg to roamer and it needs to be fun and interesting as well as rewarding in entertainment to loot to scoring. I get that maps may take a while, but its been a while. So if DBL was not for many, then where is FBL, SBL, MBL…..for people to try. Again, admit, biased, last WvW/RvR MMO 5+ years of nightly WvW and wasn’t stale yet because there were 30+ maps to choose from that had fights going on to choose from. So expectations are set a bit high.

Good hunting!

TheGrimm.5624:

We needed new maps before DBL, we still do.

I disagree. EoTM showed that we did not need new maps. What we needed and what many of us wanted was simply more dynamic and updated border visuals. The reason Alpine is “old” compared to EB – which has always been the same btw, Alpine has gone through a ton of changes in comparison – is the simple reason that there is 3 of it. Reskinning and tuning up Alpine with different themes was all that was needed. With HoT, desert and jungle on the same design would have been perfect. Imagine bay as a desert oasis or a huge jungle tree. Hills similar to the palace on DBL or all golden like Tarir city. They could also have taken things from EoTM and applied to Alpine, there is tons of new and cool designs. That’s what we needed all along. Variation. Not “new” maps.

Dawdler.8521:

I disagree. EoTM showed that we did not need new maps.

Not sure what metric you use here. EoTM is quite populated. I don’t know how many instances still spawn in a given period, but when checking, its never empty, quite the opposite over the years its been out. Now its hard to tell if that was because of other various reasons or the map, but considering how many threads we have had on the forums saying EoTM is killing WvW I wouldn’t say its not been populated.

Dawdler.8521:

Imagine bay as a desert oasis or a huge jungle tree. Hills similar to the palace on DBL or all golden like Tarir city. They could also have taken things from EoTM and applied to Alpine, there is tons of new and cool designs. That’s what we needed all along. Variation. Not “new” maps.

Side note, the same map reskinned wouldn’t have changed game play. That would have been considered a waste of time by many. In order to keep things fresh you need to have something that creates a change in behavior which creates changes in tactics. Add another wall to bay, add another tower, add more camps. Something that alters tactics and gives people options over, “the best way is…”.

Don’t get me wrong, why is WvW and PvP a longer lasting game mode then PvE and why should ANet invest in it? Because people are unpredictable and keep things fresh because they are that way. If the environment encourages them to be predictable then that edge is gone.

see i just find alpine agonizingly small. I love fights, but on alpine i feel like i am constantly tripping over everyone because the effective area of the map is such a small portion of the map. draw a circle with the 3 keeps along the edge and that is pretty much were everything happens. anything north of that and you almost never stumble into an enemy.

it was so bad that even when we didn’t have tag watchers it still felt that way. desert may have been a bit too big but i enjoyed actually hunting our foes vs just waling for a minute and stumbling into someones side or them into us. only downside is it was designed to keep you out of the middle most of the time making it a giant ring with a dead zone in the middle.

we need a goldielocks map with a bigger effective play area than alpine but smaller than desert with little to no central deadzone.

Teraphas.6210:

see i just find alpine agonizingly small. I love fights, but on alpine i feel like i am constantly tripping over everyone because the effective area of the map is such a small portion of the map. draw a circle with the 3 keeps along the edge and that is pretty much were everything happens. anything north of that and you almost never stumble into an enemy.

it was so bad that even when we didn’t have tag watchers it still felt that way. desert may have been a bit too big but i enjoyed actually hunting our foes vs just waling for a minute and stumbling into someones side or them into us. only downside is it was designed to keep you out of the middle most of the time making it a giant ring with a dead zone in the middle.

we need a goldielocks map with a bigger effective play area than alpine but smaller than desert with little to no central deadzone.

Well said.

On a side note, map space should not be wasted, every bit of it should have value. Now when I say that it could have value, it might be for GvG space or other reasons but have meaning.

To me a waste of space on ABL would be Citadel in general, crafting areas, Centaur, Skrit, Spiders, Ruins. Each area should have value to encourage fights in versus be some where for people to just afk in in safety.

Don’t forget that GW2 game engine can’t work fine with too much people…
Then small map like ABL is better to concentrate people and have more fight.
It’s better to have more map, but smaller maps that only 1 big map.

Lot of small map with map cap reduced will have less skill lag and spread players on different area and different play style.
Maybe Anet should look at this to rework is game mode (more map, but small map). Smaller map are probably faster to build, then they will be able to do more of them…

This is another idea to refrehs WvW and not only the fight about 1 big BL and EB…

Josh XT.6053:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Yeah I’ve never understood the argument that “the map is boring”. That’s like saying a chess board or soccer field is boring.

Man… No truer words ever spoken. That was an excellent way to word that.

Well if you want to be like that, go back to playing Pong!

This isnt chess or football. This is a video game!

The Ventari Ele.5812:

Josh XT.6053:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Yeah I’ve never understood the argument that “the map is boring”. That’s like saying a chess board or soccer field is boring.

Man… No truer words ever spoken. That was an excellent way to word that.

Well if you want to be like that, go back to playing Pong!

This isnt chess or football. This is a video game!

Yes but it’s a player vs player video game. The challenge comes from your opponents. The map is just the playing field.
A common complaint from the people crying that the dbl was removed is that they can’t cap anything without running into players. That is a ridiculous complaint to make about a pvp game mode.
If people only like the map because it allowed them to explore and fight npc’s then they need to just drop the argument because they have the rest of the game to do that in.

TheGrimm.5624:

Dawdler.8521:

I disagree. EoTM showed that we did not need new maps.

Not sure what metric you use here. EoTM is quite populated. I don’t know how many instances still spawn in a given period, but when checking, its never empty, quite the opposite over the years its been out. Now its hard to tell if that was because of other various reasons or the map, but considering how many threads we have had on the forums saying EoTM is killing WvW I wouldn’t say its not been populated.

I use WvW as a metric. Not sure what else there is.

When EoTM came out, we where impressed by its visuals but that was it. We still played WvW. Buisness as usual. Maps still had queues. And we enjoyed it, didnt we? Otherwise we wouldnt be here arguing about it. So that is the metric I used.

Jim Hunter.6821:

The Ventari Ele.5812:

Josh XT.6053:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Yeah I’ve never understood the argument that “the map is boring”. That’s like saying a chess board or soccer field is boring.

Man… No truer words ever spoken. That was an excellent way to word that.

Well if you want to be like that, go back to playing Pong!

This isnt chess or football. This is a video game!

Yes but it’s a player vs player video game. The challenge comes from your opponents. The map is just the playing field.
A common complaint from the people crying that the dbl was removed is that they can’t cap anything without running into players. That is a ridiculous complaint to make about a pvp game mode.
If people only like the map because it allowed them to explore and fight npc’s then they need to just drop the argument because they have the rest of the game to do that in.

There is a difference between running into other players vs the arena being so small you can’t outmaneuver your opponent. Fights are great but the map has objectives to fight over for a reason. Otherwise they might as well just give us a map that is a shallow bowl with all three spawns equidistant and within sight of each other.

Being able to cap objectives with no player inference = boring. Capping an objective because you out played then and managed to get it before they could recover = gold.

Wvw ideally is much like American football. At times the other side will read your strategy and set up accordingly resulting in a quick down. Other times you will manage the first down. And then you get those amazing big plays where you are on the edge of your seat cheering no matter what the outcome.

Alpine is too tight of a field, you end up with too many clashes that gain nothing. Often before either side has even gotten to the line of skrimage. Imagine football where every 5 second after a play they had to snap no matter where everyone was and the field was half as wide. Most “big” plays occur simply because your opponent is off sides.

Now desert is like playing hockey in a rink the size of a soccer field. Oh and with a pillar in the very center making it more hoop than rink Way too much room and if your opponent commits to the wrong half of the hoop you get to run uncontested with little threat of opposition. Nice one or twice but boring when is the norm.

Neither map is really good. For my best one yet we need to play baseball in a pro stadium not on a little league field (alpine) or in a pro football stadium (desert). It’s still possible to play in both but it’s not what’s best for the game

Dawdler.8521:

I use WvW as a metric. Not sure what else there is.

When EoTM came out, we where impressed by its visuals but that was it. We still played WvW. Buisness as usual. Maps still had queues. And we enjoyed it, didnt we? Otherwise we wouldnt be here arguing about it. So that is the metric I used.

But at the same time would not the number of people playing the maps count as the metric? Agree we have queues in EB and BLs, we don’t have any in EoTM because of its ability to just spawn new instances. That also makes it hard to understand exact numbers without ANet providing them. Point is, EoTM is far from unpopulated else no one would argue about it being removed and all would be in agreement.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Yes but it’s a player vs player video game. The challenge comes from your opponents. The map is just the playing field.
A common complaint from the people crying that the dbl was removed is that they can’t cap anything without running into players. That is a ridiculous complaint to make about a pvp game mode.
If people only like the map because it allowed them to explore and fight npc’s then they need to just drop the argument because they have the rest of the game to do that in.

I did like the maps so can say why, which is we both know are going to be counter to your experience was but that is what it is.

• There were more havoc on havoc fights with less one side being run over by a zerg
• When chasing a zerg it had enough twists and turns to be able to attack in and out of it while still having ways of escape, the turns favored smaller groups
• It allowed for tactics that employed jumping down on enemies and using falling traits adding additional dimensions
• It was a longer run back but that meant more people in open field fights
• It was easier to break line of sight when needed
• It had large areas inside keeps for some massive fights
• It had more bottlenecks to hold a larger force back, or to turn and fight if chased
• It had areas where you had to mind your placement or you could be knocked to your death if you opponent timed it right, aka less face rolling of abilities

I know others experiences varied, but you asked why people liked the map. These were things my group were finding when roaming and for soloing.

As far as capping empty structures, if anything ABL’s shorter distance seems to favor that more since you can quickly be at a number of them in no time. But you only need 1 person to take a fully upgraded one on either map if uncontested. Towers close to the same except its easier to hold on ABL since they are smaller and therefore have limited area to defend.

Expand ABL by 25% and shrink DBL by 25% and who knows.

@ANet, rotation schedule?

They have say each quarter….

same as peace. as long as it can.

Josh XT.6053:

It is not just nostalgia to a lot of people.
Not great places for open field fighting, too many choke points, too much PvE nonsense, maps were too big making finding fights nearly impossible.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Yeah I’ve never understood the argument that “the map is boring”. That’s like saying a chess board or soccer field is boring. The map serves a purpose, it works. You can have boring opponents but that’s not the maps fault. The dbl doesn’t work for the game mode, that was the problem.

Quoted for truth. So happy Alpine is back, it made me start playing GW2 more often. Had tons of fun this rainy weekend, having epic 3-way fights in Bay. Imo, WvW works better on smaller and flatter maps where its easier to run into fights instead of looking for any trace of an enemy and PvDing through the night.

I know its a long shot, but I hope Alpine stays for good (or it just gets re-skinned if ppl are “bored”, though IIRC players were bored by stale MUs, not BL). And if it doesn’t stay, well, I guess its useful to have a few months break for other games. Quarterly rotation of DBL is too long (personally), a bi-weekly or so would work much better for players like me who get grumpy in DBL. :p

Got to be completely honest here, I much preferred the Desert BL maps to the alpine maps, and here is why.

Tactics… Desert BL offered many more tactical options with all the alternate routes through the terrain. This applies to both large zergs (if they pay attention), and small havocs. The Alpine BL favors large mindless zergfests where in Desert BL those that prefer that lazy playstyle often get lost, or disoriented (because they are not really paying attention in the first place). And for me at least, I would rather have players I am fighting with to be more astute and paying attention to commands than the “chase squirrel” and “follow the leader mindlessly” types.

I get bored in both EB and Alpine for those very reasons…. they are not geographically challenging maps to play in. I much prefer a map I can use to my advantage for different tactical styles that are very limited in the large open (see a million miles away) maps we have currently. I realize that some prefer easier map to play in, so they can use simplistic tactics that dont take much coordination or thought to apply. This is why I wish we had different BL maps for different play-style preferences. One map, desert, one map alpine, and one another style… and oh my goodness they need to update EB.. (the most boring of them all). I only play now to be with friends on TS, or to get my dailys. I don’t have fun at all in the current map setup.

As mentioned in the past and will be again in the future I like variety. That’s why I don’t get why people appose having all the maps as options. If they don’t then they are siding on Anet not rotating maps, which they have shown they will do. Which leaves people out on both sides depending on rotations. How many out at a given time is debate-able, but still some out in both cases.

Josh XT.6053:

It is not just nostalgia to a lot of people. A lot of us are happy to have a playable map back because Deserted BL was barely playable. Not great places for open field fighting, too many choke points, too much PvE nonsense, maps were too big making finding fights nearly impossible.

So many reasons, search around. It is so much more than just nostalgia, I hope they leave Alpine there forever.

Git gud, learn to adapt to changes.

TallBarr.2184:

Josh XT.6053:

It is not just nostalgia to a lot of people. A lot of us are happy to have a playable map back because Deserted BL was barely playable. Not great places for open field fighting, too many choke points, too much PvE nonsense, maps were too big making finding fights nearly impossible.

So many reasons, search around. It is so much more than just nostalgia, I hope they leave Alpine there forever.

Git gud, learn to adapt to changes.

Apply to yourself and learn play ABL

It’ll last until Anet decides they want another precipitous population decline.

Sich.7103:

TallBarr.2184:

Josh XT.6053:

It is not just nostalgia to a lot of people. A lot of us are happy to have a playable map back because Deserted BL was barely playable. Not great places for open field fighting, too many choke points, too much PvE nonsense, maps were too big making finding fights nearly impossible.

So many reasons, search around. It is so much more than just nostalgia, I hope they leave Alpine there forever.

Git gud, learn to adapt to changes.

Apply to yourself and learn play ABL

I played ABL for 3 years

Josh XT.6053:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Yeah I’ve never understood the argument that “the map is boring”. That’s like saying a chess board or soccer field is boring.

Man… No truer words ever spoken. That was an excellent way to word that.

But for someone chess is boring, and poker is not. This is the difference

What wvw needs: more fights, less long lasting sieges (less sieges overall), new minigames (relic was fun and ruins are not bad). A random event in every 30 mins would be good. King of the hill, escort, ctf… you name it. A small reward, a few war score, a little reward track progress, nothing serious.

less long siege ?
Seriously ?
It take 8H to upgrade something to T3… And you want to take it in 2min ?!?

Tyler Bearce.3427:

The current plan is to rotate the borderlands maps each quarterly update. That said, now that we are actively polling the community, perhaps we can start exploring other options.

For instance, nothing is really stopping us from having a combination of ABL and DBL maps running simultaneously. 2 of one and 1 of the other. If we polled that, and players approved it, then there’d be no need for the rotation, and players on both sides of the issue could play on their preferred map. The downside of course, would be any perception of imbalance that may arise from one map being considered the stronger “Home” map, but we could always give the more defensible map to Red/Blue and leave the less defensible map to Green.

TYLER YES! DBL for redbl and Alpine on blue and green bl.
Give it a shot and see how it goes!

acknowledging green is the strongest color is a key thought point. the advantages are small and insignificant on their own but compound them through out the week and it becomes substantial. further more its easier for servers that roll green to maintain momentum over many months while the other colors accept their place as 2nd and 3rd.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

The current plan is to rotate the borderlands maps each quarterly update. That said, now that we are actively polling the community, perhaps we can start exploring other options.

For instance, nothing is really stopping us from having a combination of ABL and DBL maps running simultaneously. 2 of one and 1 of the other. If we polled that, and players approved it, then there’d be no need for the rotation, and players on both sides of the issue could play on their preferred map. The downside of course, would be any perception of imbalance that may arise from one map being considered the stronger “Home” map, but we could always give the more defensible map to Red/Blue and leave the less defensible map to Green.

Thank you so much for confirming this. The return of Alpine borderlands is good and all, but roughly a week into my play there I realize why it was that I stopped playing in them, and EB as well. The trouble is that the map is too empty, and paths are too straightforwards. I’ll grant you that DBL took the opposite extreme of this issue, but I think that there could be a happy medium reached with both maps.

Right now the zerg rules this game mode, and while there are certain methods of getting around them or decimating them at choke points using siege, Alpine doesn’t really allow for this because the maps aren’t allowing for multiple avenues of approach to an objective and the choke points are few and far between, and usually there’s only really one that the enemy zerg will camp so long as a defense is up, draining your manpower from other areas if you have fewer numbers than them.

Also, compared to the DBL keeps and outposts, Alpine is just… Dated. The plethora of different passive defenses and buffs the locations provided were awesome, as was the idea of having to take one location to advance to the next, something that isn’t really present in Alpine at all.

So, yeah, if you’re gonna bring back both maps at the same time, awesome, and more power to you, but I think that Alpine definitely needs looking at and changes need to be made, if only to discourage blobbing and mindless zerg trains. I’d say the same ideas need to be applied to EB as well, as it’s showing it’s age now.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

For instance, nothing is really stopping us from having a combination of ABL and DBL maps running simultaneously. 2 of one and 1 of the other. If we polled that, and players approved it, then there’d be no need for the rotation, and players on both sides of the issue could play on their preferred map. The downside of course, would be any perception of imbalance that may arise from one map being considered the stronger “Home” map, but we could always give the more defensible map to Red/Blue and leave the less defensible map to Green.

This would be quite nice!

As a modification of this, in the future is it possible you could allow servers to vote just prior to reset which map they’d use that matchup for their home borderland? The way I see it, different server communities prefer different maps and this could be a good compromise, though I’d imagine it wouldn’t be as simple to implement as it sounds!