I don't HATE the desert borderlands, but...
There are lots of things wrong about these maps that goes beyond gliding. You also have to grind various masteries found in HoT to get some of the other features to work. This, like the gliding, wasn’t implemented even though it was designed into it.
The BL map would be a good PvE map, but it’s a poor choice for WvW. The population levels were already in trouble before these were introduced and players had pointed out that the larger maps would make things even more empty than they already were. Making the maps more difficult to transit (near impossible) for even modest size groups let alone small groups just compounded the problems even further.
The maps not only didn’t take into account the root problems of server population differences and night capping (to name but a couple of issues), the actually moved in a more destructive direction, making the situation even worse.
The new BL would be a good PvE map, but not a good WvW. It’s a good looking map with a fair amount of interesting areas.
I would also like to see masteries being able to be earned in WvW much like hero points are done.
I’ve played a lot of WvW in the past and still jump in fairly regularly, so I would really love to see it fixed. I don’t hold out much hope for this any time soon. I just looked up WvW in the official wiki and most of the information hasn’t been updated since 2012-2014.
Gliding has absolutely nothing to do with the poor design – its all about the design of keeps and towers, their positions and how they connect to each other. It was completely sacrificed in favor of a big fancy map design and gimmicks.
There is exactly zero WvW flow on desert border and no amount of PvE gliding will improve that.
I hate them, i dont like anything about them. If you loved the old borders as much as me + my friends did… well then its kinda hard to love these new big dusty boring ones.
Far Shiverpeaks – EU – Since release.