Guild Wars 2

INITIAL RESULTS

With a good chunk of quantitative data in, I can say with confidence that the Desert BLs do not significantly increase travel times between roaming objectives. That is, camp-to-camp, spawn-to-camp/tower and camp-to-tower.

Of note, the northern side camps take the same amount of time to reach coming from the tower but take longer to reach on the Alpine maps when going from the camp to the tower because one has to travel up a switchback instead of jumping down it. Ironically, on the Desert BL, the path between the eastern tower and camp has 0 verticality and the western path has only a minor hill.

For the southern map, getting to the corner camps from spawn is about 25% faster on Desert BL while getting to the southern tower is about 25% slower. Getting to south camp is about the same. Moving between the corner camps and their towers is about 10% slower.

With the current data, the only significant increase in travel time is from SWC to Firekeep which clocks in at about 60s, or twice as long as SWC to Bay. This isn’t a roaming objective, but I figured I’d mention it.

Finally, none of the recorded Desert times require any pathing shenanigans (the road is clearly marked for most of it) or cliffs. There are also no barricades on the paths so they work regardless of who owns what tower.

I’ll be getting more times when it’s not Reset Night.

As a staunchly small-team/solo player, I vehemently disagree with the statement that Alpine is better than desert for my playstyle. However, since I doubt I can convince anyone otherwise with mere talk, would people mind condensing their complaints so that I can investigate them and, perhaps, bring numbers into it?

For example, I see people complaining about the distance between camps and objectives As someone who spent (and still spends) a lot of time putting up solo catas on objectives, I haven’t noticed much difference. Thus, I’m going to go time myself moving between camps and objectives and then compare those times with videos of Alpine or myself on Alpine once it returns.

Constructive complaints are great—they lead to improvement. However, it irks me when things aren’t true…so I intend to put the debate to rest, one way or the other.

I’ll keep track of what I find here. All times are one-directional and from the supply depot in the camp to the gate of the structure. Since finding full paths is hard in videos, I often had to see the time it took to run segments and then piece it together. The times should be accurate +/- 5 seconds, which should be acceptable in determining the general magnitude of the change from Alpine to Desert.

I’m seeing a pattern of ~40s being the quickest. I know going from the northern camps to the northern towers would be longer since one can’t jump up cliffs, only down.

ALPINE
From NET to NEC is ~40s using swiftness and leaping down cliffs. Estimated from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8tHZwsyZR0&feature=iv&src_vid=fP4YCZYrPA4&annotation_id=annotation_546930715 at ~1:20

From SET to SEC is ~40s using swiftness. Estimated from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8tHZwsyZR0&feature=iv&src_vid=fP4YCZYrPA4&annotation_id=annotation_546930715 at ~6:10

From SWC to SWT is ~40s using swiftness. Estimated from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKeLEel6lGY at ~3:50 and ~7:15

From SE Spawn to SET is ~33s using swiftness. Estimated from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3Y1IcwBSFc at 1:45

From SW Spawn to SWC is ~43s using swiftness. Estimated from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUrjWKI822M at 0:25

From NC to NET or NWT is ~1:25s using swiftness. Estimated from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3Y1IcwBSFc at 11:00

From SWC to Bay South Gate is ~25s using swiftness. Estimated from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJdv7a_J5u0 at 1:00

From Citadel WP to NET is ~60s using swiftness. Estimated from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJdv7a_J5u0 at 5:45
—-
This video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9mPSjWsZdE has a chart at 3:07 that lists run times between many objectives on the map…though not towers. I shall refer to it as Exhibit A.

Exhibit A Data – Unsure if leaps were used.

From NC to NWC is 103s
From NWC to NC is 118s
From NC to NEC is 104s
From NEC to NC is 110s
From SE Spawn to SEC is 41s
From SEC to NEC is 96s
From SE Spawn to SC is 63s
From SW Spawn to SC is 65s
From SW Spawn to SWC is 49s
From SWC to NWC is 120s
From Hills WP to NEC is 55s
From Bay WP to NWC is 60s

DESERT – I’ll just time these myself since I have access to the map. No leaps or anything were used. All times are with swiftness. No unit markers because they made the forums censor some times, for some reason.

Citadel WP to NWT back entrance: 45
NWT to NWC: 42
NWC to NWT: 42
NWC to Firekeep: 32
Firekeep to NWC: 37
Firekeep to SWC: 60
SWC to Firekeep: 60
SWC to SWT: 45
SWT to SWC: 45
SWT to SC: kitten
to SWT: 43
SC to SET: 45
SET to SEC: 45
Rampart WP to NEC: 65
NEC to NET: 42
NET to NEC: 42
SW Spawn to SWC: 35
SW Spawn to SC: 70
SW Spawn to SWT: 47
SE Spawn to SEC: 40
—-
This video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wR9t_KMhgc covers how long it takes to break down various upgrades of walls/gates. Trebs are assumed to be at max range while catas are assumed to be at min range.

[all masteries, 10 stacks SV on gate for ram calculations]

BASIC GATE
basic ram: 2.04 minutes
superior ram: 1.36 minutes

BASIC WALL [44% longer]
basic cata: 2.95 minutes
sup cata: 1.96 minutes

REINFORCED GATE
basic ram: 5.11 minutes
superior ram: 3.41 minutes

REINFORCED WALL [34% longer]
basic cata: 6.87 minutes
superior cata: 4.58 minutes

FORTIFED GATE
basic ram: 7.15 minutes
superior ram: 4.76 minutes
alpha: 7.80 minutes [full exotic ptv ranger]

FORTIFIED WALL [59% longer]
basic cata: 11.36 minutes
superior cata: 7.58 minutes

basic treb: 27 minutes [full range]
superior treb: 18 minutes [full range]

Also, this spreadsheet gives damage and DPS info for all siege at all distances, including how much supply is needed to repair the damage. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1S0RkQUsaXhBmv4y1dN7YtFWmuUq8VsUBUk1uxTj4AZw/edit#gid=0

try southwest and southeast tower too with a wp’d bay and hills that the home team can actually use and compare to se and sw desert bl with wp’d fire and air (which you cannot use).
Lemme know how that goes…especially if the se and sw have fully fortified and you want to take them back.

Actually I enjoy Desert, which makes me a minority. I think I can transverse the map quicker than I could in Alpine and by not having the home “owner” starting near the center makes more of the map up for grabs at the start.

Let the telling me I’m wrong commence.

Behellagh.1468:

Actually I enjoy Desert, which makes me a minority. I think I can transverse the map quicker than I could in Alpine and by not having the home “owner” starting near the center makes more of the map up for grabs at the start.

Let the telling me I’m wrong commence.

I like the map too, though I’ll leave the ‘quicker’ discussion until after I have some numbers.

Meanwhile, despite trolling youtube for videos that inadvertently show timing between objectives, I’m still empty handed. Would appreciate help if someone knows the Alpine times or has footage that shows it.

edit: I did find a WvW guide by Hugh Norfolk, though, an Anet employee whose name is on the NEC in the green Desert BL. So that’s cool.

I remember seeing him get wrecked while showing off the Berserker elite spec around HoT too :3

Its important not to make the mistake of confusing quantity with quality. Simply looking at numbers for time and distance is only partly relevant. The alpine map was much simpler to navigate, it was much more straightforward then the desert bl is. This is as much a factor in people feeling like they are spending more/less time traveling between objectives, or needing to cover more ground. The desert borderland has verticality, more paths, often feeling like a jumping puzzle in a maze. It is less of a straightforward layout, and more complex. For those just looking for action, or trying to run back/or to a fight this can prove very frustrating, especially when your are reliant on a coordinated group and half of them are scattered trying to navigate around.

^That’s definitely something to consider, but I want as much concrete (quantitative) stuff as I can get before I go elsewhere. I want to learn exactly what the problem is. If it’s quantitative, it means people want smaller maps. If it’s qualitative, it means that people want to navigate more easily. It could also be both or neither.

I don’t know how much bigger, technically speaking the desert bl is when compared to the alpine map. One thing to keep in mind is that the desert bl makes more use of the land, whereas on the alpine map, much of the north side, mainly the northeast/west was unused and there was little reason to go there, as well as the jp area. This would make people feel as though alpine was a lot smaller, combined with the easier navigation, it becomes more appealing for many players. Smaller maps appeal to people because it makes it easier to find enemies to fight, that is why many fights oriented people choose to go to EB because it is much more of a condensed map with a large structure in the middle that attracts all players. Easier navigation is always nice, but doesn’t mean that everything has to be a straight line or flat terrain, that would be terrible. An appropriate amount of slopes, choke points, ramps, hills, plateaus, or anything similar makes for much more interesting fights because it puts emphasis on proper positioning.

Second edit : I think the dbl could be great if some if the same tower to keep dynamics were introduced, ground leveled and gimmicky pve (barricades ect) removed.

I may be missing the mark on this but I always felt a roaming group on a bl used to be the most effective tool in forcing the enemy zergs to move. And it hardly had to do with the amount of time running around building things.

TL;DR Alpine was simply better because if roamers on south home bl got feisty enough, you’re team looses a wp, that you can use. End of story.

The problem is objective to objective sieging was eliminated while also putting towers on their own “high points” (for the most part). As in it’s both harder to seige towers from a hill or over a sneaky wall or something while at the same time eliminating the possibility for people who take towers to siege a keep/wp.

So most of the towers are able to counter siege most catas placed against them, requiring ninja speed to take(where the time complaints and supply cost complains steam from), forcing you to avoid the most exciting part of roaming, which for me at least, was the fights.

Then if you take a spawn tower, it has absolutely 0 consequence to the defending team.

PPT players used to have to defend the bottom half of a borderland, now they really don’t, there’s no way to treb troll keeps (wps) with lesser numbers from pretty much 100% safety and defenders don’t even have a wp there, people aren’t attacking and people aren’t defending. EVEN if people were attacking, the only reason to defend is because the defenders don’t want the attackers to have a wp. There’s no reason to really want to grip home bl keeps.

So there’s less people running around picking at your stuff trying to take it away from you, so there’s less action and less people playing.

That’s how I see it anyways. Also barricades are straight up sign that says “roamers and small groups are not allowed here” they make me angry and salty and hate anet.

EDIT also a 5-10 man during prime time offsetting a bay attack with a n/e tower cap to trebbing garrison was extremely powerful in changing the map dynamics, I miss that.

Final edit, thnx op in op for all the times ect.

INITIAL RESULTS

With a good chunk of quantitative data in, I can say with confidence that the Desert BLs do not significantly increase travel times between roaming objectives. That is, camp-to-camp, spawn-to-camp/tower and camp-to-tower.

Of note, the northern side camps take the same amount of time to reach coming from the tower but take longer to reach on the Alpine maps when going from the camp to the tower because one has to travel up a switchback instead of jumping down it. Ironically, on the Desert BL, the path between the eastern tower and camp has 0 verticality and the western path has only a minor hill.

For the southern map, getting to the corner camps from spawn is about 25% faster on Desert BL while getting to the southern tower is about 25% slower. Getting to south camp is about the same. Moving between the corner camps and their towers is about 10% slower.

With the current data, the only significant increase in travel time is from SWC to Firekeep which clocks in at about 60s, or twice as long as SWC to Bay. This isn’t a roaming objective, but I figured I’d mention it.

Finally, none of the recorded Desert times require any pathing shenanigans (the road is clearly marked for most of it) or cliffs. There are also no barricades on the paths so they work regardless of who owns what tower.

I’ll be getting more times when it’s not Reset Night.

Sviel.7493:

INITIAL RESULTS

With a good chunk of quantitative data in, I can say with confidence that the Desert BLs do not significantly increase travel times between roaming objectives. That is, camp-to-camp, spawn-to-camp/tower and camp-to-tower.

Of note, the northern side camps take the same amount of time to reach coming from the tower but take longer to reach on the Alpine maps when going from the camp to the tower because one has to travel up a switchback instead of jumping down it. Ironically, on the Desert BL, the path between the eastern tower and camp has 0 verticality and the western path has only a minor hill.

For the southern map, getting to the corner camps from spawn is about 25% faster on Desert BL while getting to the southern tower is about 25% slower. Getting to south camp is about the same. Moving between the corner camps and their towers is about 10% slower.

With the current data, the only significant increase in travel time is from SWC to Firekeep which clocks in at about 60s, or twice as long as SWC to Bay. This isn’t a roaming objective, but I figured I’d mention it.

Finally, none of the recorded Desert times require any pathing shenanigans (the road is clearly marked for most of it) or cliffs. There are also no barricades on the paths so they work regardless of who owns what tower.

I’ll be getting more times when it’s not Reset Night.

+1 – I have said the same before and people told me I was crazy.

I hated the ABL’s as they were too easy to spawn camp and so much of the maps were useless (a jumping puzzle on one side?).

Sviel.7493:

INITIAL RESULTS

With a good chunk of quantitative data in, I can say with confidence that the Desert BLs do not significantly increase travel times between roaming objectives. That is, camp-to-camp, spawn-to-camp/tower and camp-to-tower.

Which is pretty meaningless data, other than for camp flippers, for example when people used to do small group the “defenders” rarely went camp to camp, they used paths like garri to nw camp, which was much shorter on Alpine than it is on DBL.

Same thing for defending south camps, take the old SW camp by bay where there used to be lots of small group action, that it is 25% faster to get there from the SW spawn is irrelevant, that path is fast regardless, that isn’t what has killed fights at that camp, it is that it now takes much longer for defenders do get there (to the point it is simply not worth bothering) because there is no bay WP they can use, the path from garri to SW camp was much faster on the old Alpine map than the new DBL map and to top it off on Alpine people would use the camp area for siege to attack bay from, the result it went from a hotspot of small group action to a deadzone under DBL, whoever designed DBL simply has no clue at all.

I would not expect an analysis of the borderlands with respect to roaming to directly map onto an analysis with respect to defending.

Do you have Alpine run times to the south towers, per chance? I’d be up for doing that one next.

Sviel.7493:

I would not expect an analysis of the borderlands with respect to roaming to directly map onto an analysis with respect to defending.

“Defending” is part of roaming, getting to the fights is half the equation, what you describe is camp flipping, not roaming/smallscale.

zinkz.7045:

Sviel.7493:

INITIAL RESULTS

With a good chunk of quantitative data in, I can say with confidence that the Desert BLs do not significantly increase travel times between roaming objectives. That is, camp-to-camp, spawn-to-camp/tower and camp-to-tower.

Which is pretty meaningless data, other than for camp flippers, for example when people used to do small group the “defenders” rarely went camp to camp, they used paths like garri to nw camp, which was much shorter on Alpine than it is on DBL.

Same thing for defending south camps, take the old SW camp by bay where there used to be lots of small group action, that it is 25% faster to get there from the SW spawn is irrelevant, that path is fast regardless, that isn’t what has killed fights at that camp, it is that it now takes much longer for defenders do get there (to the point it is simply not worth bothering) because there is no bay WP they can use, the path from garri to SW camp was much faster on the old Alpine map than the new DBL map and to top it off on Alpine people would use the camp area for siege to attack bay from, the result it went from a hotspot of small group action to a deadzone under DBL, whoever designed DBL simply has no clue at all.

No, sorry, wrong – There are paths that are the SAME amount of time from Gari to Bay or Hills on DBL’s. Obviously, people who are complaining really haven’t played them and just want to complain.

As I said before, I think the DBL’s are great maps, if they didn’t have all the PvE and HoT Kitten stuff in them.

Dusty Moon.4382:

zinkz.7045:

Sviel.7493:

INITIAL RESULTS

With a good chunk of quantitative data in, I can say with confidence that the Desert BLs do not significantly increase travel times between roaming objectives. That is, camp-to-camp, spawn-to-camp/tower and camp-to-tower.

Which is pretty meaningless data, other than for camp flippers, for example when people used to do small group the “defenders” rarely went camp to camp, they used paths like garri to nw camp, which was much shorter on Alpine than it is on DBL.

Same thing for defending south camps, take the old SW camp by bay where there used to be lots of small group action, that it is 25% faster to get there from the SW spawn is irrelevant, that path is fast regardless, that isn’t what has killed fights at that camp, it is that it now takes much longer for defenders do get there (to the point it is simply not worth bothering) because there is no bay WP they can use, the path from garri to SW camp was much faster on the old Alpine map than the new DBL map and to top it off on Alpine people would use the camp area for siege to attack bay from, the result it went from a hotspot of small group action to a deadzone under DBL, whoever designed DBL simply has no clue at all.

No, sorry, wrong – There are paths that are the SAME amount of time from Gari to Bay or Hills on DBL’s. Obviously, people who are complaining really haven’t played them and just want to complain.

Do you even read what you reply to? I didn’t mention garri to bay or garri to hills…

Dusty Moon.4382:

As I said before, I think the DBL’s are great maps, if they didn’t have all the PvE and HoT Kitten stuff in them.

Think what you like, the reality says different, the maps are a poorly designed piece of kitten, which is why people avoid them.

zinkz.7045:

Sviel.7493:

I would not expect an analysis of the borderlands with respect to roaming to directly map onto an analysis with respect to defending.

“Defending” is part of roaming, getting to the fights is half the equation, what you describe is camp flipping, not roaming/smallscale.

The inspiration for this thread was solo/small-scale as defined as offensive small-team play. Specifically, the complaint was that camps are too far away from towers. I set out to show that this was not the case, but as you said, that’s only one side of the equation. I’ll change the thread title to be more accurate.

Landspeed between camps means very little in terms of small group performance, frankly, unless all you do is flip camps. I’d prefer to maintain the ability for my 5-man to take and defend keeps outnumbered, however. Here are the problems I see in the new BL’s:

- Keeps are convoluted and too large for defense by small groups.
- Barriers and obstacles/shrines make travseral potentially much slower.
- Travel routes are primarily totally linear, making unpredictability in movement difficult.
- Lords take longer to kill and are objectively more difficult via gimmicks.
- Limited open-field fighting space and over-emphasis on vertical design favors some classes or styles of play a little too much and trivializes or over-complicates fighting and skirmishes.
- Everything about the map improves with a ktrain/zerg due to low individual player visibility from scouting players paired with a vast number of corridors to slip through and the highly-linear nature of the maps; if opposed outnumbered, there is little possibility of taking objectives.

Edit:

Sviel.7493:

zinkz.7045:

Sviel.7493:

I would not expect an analysis of the borderlands with respect to roaming to directly map onto an analysis with respect to defending.

“Defending” is part of roaming, getting to the fights is half the equation, what you describe is camp flipping, not roaming/smallscale.

The inspiration for this thread was solo/small-scale as defined as offensive small-team play. Specifically, the complaint was that camps are too far away from towers. I set out to show that this was not the case, but as you said, that’s only one side of the equation. I’ll change the thread title to be more accurate.

Whoops, didn’t see this.

I’ll be doing the defensive side next, so I could use some ideas on what kind of data to gather. The list you have there is a good start but I need more details.

1-By convoluted, do you mean difficult to navigate? Also, does their size matter if they’re only being hit at one or two points?

2-What paths specifically are you worried about? Even a few examples would be enough.

3-This one is fine, though it is the polar opposite of other complaints I’ve heard. I don’t think I’m going to dive into it if there isn’t even mild consensus.

4-There’s too much here. How can a fight be trivialized and over-complicated at the same time? Also, the GWEN meta dominated Alpine forever—I don’t think the limited usefulness of some classes is a result of a lack of open-field fighting space. Finally, the ‘over-emphasis on vertical design’ is too general. I need a specific location where it becomes a problem in order to figure out why it becomes a problem.

5-You say there are a ‘vast number of corridors to slip through’ despite the map being ‘highly-linear.’ This also seems to contradict your earlier claim of unpredictability in movement being difficult. This also doesn’t account for sentries being a huge boost to player visibility. The final claim, being unable to take objectives when outnumbered, doesn’t seem to be related to the others, nor does it seem to have any support in the statement.

i agree with your basic statement and conclusions. I would like an estimate though on the time it takes to capture keeps and towers at highest tier, starting out from the central waypoint to the tower or keep (1), and secondly how much time it would need you to breach outer and inner walls (2) andhow much time you would spend aproximately taking down the lords(3) in the respective towers or keeps.

A 3-5 man, party should have enough supplies to breach outer and inner walls.

In retrospect can you still compare it with the old data of the alpine borderlands on the necessairy time it took to breach towers and keeps? is that still possible?

On a personnal note do you like the evolution of the keeps between the alpine borderlands and the desert borderlands?

At the bottom of the OP, there’s data on how long it takes to break any wall or gate with any piece of siege. Fortified gates are missing, but the rest is still a good start.

I need to verify the data on towers because, in response to complaints about Auto-Upgrades, Anet lowered the hp/def of tower walls and lowered the amount of supply needed to use catapults. The result, I presume, is that towers are easier to take in Desert than in Alpine since their walls are weaker and the camps are about the same distance or closer.

Side Keeps, on the other hand, may take longer. Now, 2 sets of catas are needed. The distance between the supply camp and the side keeps vary, though. West to south is longer, West to North is shorter. East to south is longer if you don’t own the keep. East to north is about the same.

The following examples assume a 5-man group with 100 supply that does not resupply. The cata user is assumed to be a master. Also, while Superior Catapults used 10 more supply when Alpine was out, I did not account for this here, even though it would force a 5 man group to resup in order to put up 2 superior catas. I did this because guild catas were more prevalent before HoT and were identical in function and cost to today’s superior catas.

For Bay:

Assuming 1 Sup Cata on outer and one on inner with the outer also hitting inner with ~80% power. This results in the wall taking 3/5 of the solo time to bring down. Equation figures were rounded—actual times will be a few seconds longer)

PAPER – 120s for outer plus 72s for inner. If we allow 30 seconds to enter Bay and build the cata on inner, the time jumps to approximately 92s for inner (not the full 30 since outer cata is still going. Total: 212s

REINFORCED – 275s for outer plus 165s for inner and the same 20s adjustment. Total: 480s

FORTIFIED – kitten for outer plus 183s for inner and the same 20s adjustment. Total: 658s

For Hills:

Assuming 2 Sup Catas on outer with both also hitting inner with ~30% power. This results in the inner wall taking 7/6 of the outer time to bring down. Equation figures were rounded—actual times will be a few seconds longer)

PAPER – 60s for outer plus 70s for inner. Total: 130s

REINFORCED – 137s for outer plus 156s for inner. Total: 293s

FORTIFIED – 227s for outer plus 260s for inner. Total: 487s

For Firekeep/Airkeep:

Assuming 1 Sup Cata on outer and 1 on inner with a 30s adjustment for running from outer to inner.

PAPER – 120s for outer plus 120s for inner plus adjustment. Total: 270s

REINFORCED – 275s for outer plus 275s for inner plus adjustment. Total: 580s

FORTIFIED – kitten for outer plus kitten for inner plus adjustment. Total: 940s

If the group chooses to resupply by rotating cata users, all times are cut in half, roughly. There are many ways to approach taking a keep that would affect the time, but that dovetails into great complexity—this should be enough unless someone has a specific question.

I used the traditional double cata spots for Hills/Bay. The point of assault does not matter for Firekeep/Airkeep.

FINDINGS:
Side keeps on Desert take ~50% longer to break into inner than Bay and ~100% longer to break into inner than Hills for a 5-man team.

Resources

BASIC GATE
basic ram: 2.04 minutes
superior ram: 1.36 minutes

BASIC WALL [44% longer]
basic cata: 2.95 minutes
sup cata: 1.96 minutes

REINFORCED GATE
basic ram: 5.11 minutes
superior ram: 3.41 minutes

REINFORCED WALL [34% longer]
basic cata: 6.87 minutes
superior cata: 4.58 minutes

FORTIFED GATE
basic ram: 7.15 minutes
superior ram: 4.76 minutes
alpha: 7.80 minutes [full exotic ptv ranger]

FORTIFIED WALL [59% longer]
basic cata: 11.36 minutes
superior cata: 7.58 minutes

basic treb: 27 minutes [full range]
superior treb: 18 minutes [full range]

Spreadsheet that shows siege DPS at various ranges:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1S0RkQUsaXhBmv4y1dN7YtFWmuUq8VsUBUk1uxTj4AZw/edit#gid=0

Thanks m8

Thats more than i needed to know, great to have this information, :-)

Thank you again :-)

this is good data, and i thank you for it.
heres my 2 cents:
1- people are not used to the map, are stubborn, and dont want to learn.
2- most of whats fun in wvw requires a zerg, and the verticality can make it hard to link back up with your group.
3- i think if people broke into smaller groups the map would be a whole lot more active. having one big zerg means theres less chance to find some action.
4- wvw died not from the map, but from other problems. people want something to blame so they choose an easy target.
5- like people have been saying, the towers hold no value. in alpine you used them to siege keeps with trebs.
5- the auto upgrades and pve gimmicks anger the populace. although i dont understand the dislike of auto upgrades, i cant understand how anyone would find doing that manually any fun.

1. take account the waypoint of upgradet keeeps in the alpines
3 . but people whant big fights . tactics that included following the commander around the maps, sieged towers , keeps and made tactics to defend and capture.
4. yes it did die from the map, atleast for me, and ofc alot of oter issuses
5 made purpose and made people give a effort if spend time on upgrading it.

Sviel.7493:

With the current data, the only significant increase in travel time is from SWC to Firekeep which clocks in at about 60s, or twice as long as SWC to Bay. This isn’t a roaming objective, but I figured I’d mention it.

Fun fact:

Stand on the west wall of SW tower and pretend you are standing in the SW tower on alpine. Look toward the west. See the sentry/little hut? Thats where Alpine south bay door and walls would be.

Sure you can nitpick and say that “oh but undercroft to garri is the same distance as bay to garri, ergo its the same!” but If you consider the whole border and relative distances, the difference is massive. Even if bay-garri would be the same, spawn-camp/tower-bay-camp/tower-garri add up to alot of difference in time.

First off, let me say I’m a fan of the quality and design of the DBL’s. My major issue is complexity, size and the amount of PVE distraction that were added along with the basic design.

The time to get to places inside the keeps and towers is very different, and I’m not sure your numbers really take that into account.

I think your understanding of the map also highlights another issue – you’ve studied it intensively as a roamer. I’ve spent a lot of time on the maps – I have over 500 WvW levels to show for it – and I still find myself getting lost trying to find my way from place to place. This plays utter hob with both new players and for anyone trying to coordinate movement of large numbers of players over distance. They get frustrated and drop out.

Your analysis I think also underestimates the effect of size on the range and use of siege and tactics surrounding this. You can easily see how that still plays out on EB.

I think we need either the alpine maps, or the DBL maps scaled down and some of the PvE distractions pulled out. (Sky laser, anyone?)

One key question thats being neglected. Does any of this mean anything to a new player just starting out on the DBL, you see the reaction from veteran players, and those that actually play it quite a bit and still dont like it. Does this type of layout encourage new players, or does a simpler layout like alpine do a better job at that. Simply looking at time between objectives is irrelevant when a person becomes to frustrated to bother.

Before HoT people were quite bored about Alpine.

• Karma train blobs had it too easily.
• Defending an entire bl with a blob was too easy.
• Structures were too simple. Once walls were broken that was no longer a structure, but an extension of the flat map the alpine is. People knew every last spot to attack and to defend so, unless you were ninjaing it without enemies the only solution was to treb from another structure you owned.
• Too easy to take even a keep without enemies.
• Map was too straightforward, and there was no room for mindplay with the terrain.

Anet designed the desert map trying to address these things.

• WP mechanic changed, so now blobs have to spread to cover all structures.
• Map redesigned to a more square solution, so keeps are further from each other.
• Now towers and keeps are more complex. They can be attacked from much more places, and more particularly, those are separated from each other.
• They separated the structures so each one requires an isolated strategy and fight.
• Walls separation became bigger so there’s no room for out/in ninja catas.
• Lords became more complex and difficult, Those days soloing a keep or a tower in a matter of seconds are gone.
• Added complexity to the map. People now can play more with the terrain and it requires more attention and knowledge. No more autorun and I cross the map.

Anet had a promising solution for the map, but as they overtuned some changes (structure separation, map complexity and structure complexity, choke points) and added non-healthy things (auto upgrades, pve stuff, pve grinding guild upgrades), paired with the lack of proper test and feedback of the playerbase, the final result ended up being very underwhelming.

But the player base is also guilty for the actual situation. There have been a lot of exaggerated complains, which show how ridiculous the playerbase can become.
People have taken the new bl with the mentality of the old, and they have forgotten what was making alpine so boring: EASINESS.

• While it is true the complexity or air and fire keeps is too much, the rest of the map is quite well designed in terms of complexity. There are a lot of spots which gives a position advantage, and those seeking for them will have a much easier fight. But people seems prefer to farm enemies in a flat surface instead of quality fights.
  The funny thing is the most and best remembered thing of the playerbase are garrison fights, which were the quality ones with added complexity.
• While it is true navigating through some places can be even dangerous, the general added complexity allows more mindplay and those creative players are rewarded. People only want to rush to straightforward fights and bags. Mindgame and the unknown is not for them.
• While it is true keeps design are too over-elaborate, they are designed for multi-attacks. But people still have the blob map mentality.
• And while it is true DBL is not the most fun bl possible, the hatred over it is silly. EB with 50-100 men queue, the rest of the borderlands empties and people still complain DBL are empty. Move your kitten and start playing them instead of complaining them while sitting doing nothing because EB is full!!!

Personally I’ve had very interesting fights in the DBL. More than 1 hour trying to take keeps, difficulties with the portal, deaths because bad terrain decisions, kills through taking advantage of the map, soloing towers and it didn’t take that much, spending more time capping camps than actually killing the npcs…

The saddest thing is those who will complain about the new alpine bl will be the same who griped about the desert: People unwilling to try new things or to adapt to a new scenario, and well-sit in their comfort zone of blob farming and karma train PPT.

As a commander from a known guild said in one of the Reyana’s interviews:
“Alpine borderlands were just fun, they were great, they were easy, you could flip a whole map in 12 minutes, but that didn’t matter because… you could flip it in 12 minutes and then another blob would full map in the enemy bl. They would run to flip it in 10 minutes, but you would be there waiting for them”.

Dawdler.8521:

Fun fact:

Stand on the west wall of SW tower and pretend you are standing in the SW tower on alpine. Look toward the west. See the sentry/little hut? Thats where Alpine south bay door and walls would be.

Sure you can nitpick and say that “oh but undercroft to garri is the same distance as bay to garri, ergo its the same!” but If you consider the whole border and relative distances, the difference is massive. Even if bay-garri would be the same, spawn-camp/tower-bay-camp/tower-garri add up to alot of difference in time.

This is a post about small-scale play. I’m not drawing any conclusions about distances between keeps and what that might mean. The only goal here was to show that the distances between roaming objectives (camps/towers) did not change significantly.

For the record, I realize that the distance between keeps is larger. If you have any data on the Alpine distances that you can share, I can determine just how much larger it is.

jdallen

First off, let me say I’m a fan of the quality and design of the DBL’s. My major issue is complexity, size and the amount of PVE distraction that were added along with the basic design.

The time to get to places inside the keeps and towers is very different, and I’m not sure your numbers really take that into account.

I think your understanding of the map also highlights another issue – you’ve studied it intensively as a roamer. I’ve spent a lot of time on the maps – I have over 500 WvW levels to show for it – and I still find myself getting lost trying to find my way from place to place. This plays utter hob with both new players and for anyone trying to coordinate movement of large numbers of players over distance. They get frustrated and drop out.

Your analysis I think also underestimates the effect of size on the range and use of siege and tactics surrounding this. You can easily see how that still plays out on EB.

I think we need either the alpine maps, or the DBL maps scaled down and some of the PvE distractions pulled out. (Sky laser, anyone?)

Truth be told, I do not miss the Oasis event at all. Not one bit.

This study focuses on roaming simply because that’s the question that inspired it. I wanted to respond to the common complaint that roaming was dead due to greater distances between roaming objectives. I’m planning to do more with different foci as soon as I have both clearly defined questions and data to help make sense of those questions.

To that end, can you elaborate on your questions? Where do you find yourself getting lost? In the open map or inside of the keeps? You say that the time to get to places inside of keeps/towers is very different. Do you just mean the lord room or is there something else I should consider? What kind of differences do you see with siege and tactics?

X T D

One key question thats being neglected. Does any of this mean anything to a new player just starting out on the DBL, you see the reaction from veteran players, and those that actually play it quite a bit and still dont like it. Does this type of layout encourage new players, or does a simpler layout like alpine do a better job at that. Simply looking at time between objectives is irrelevant when a person becomes to frustrated to bother.

In T2/T3, I actually see a decent stream of new players. None of them ever complain, nor do they seem to have issues getting to my tag even when I’m in weird places to harass enemy objectives. To be fair, if they did have issues getting to me then I wouldn’t see them. Since the time between camps is the same and the paths between all but the eastern camps are marked and do not require any vertical shenanigans, I think people can handle them. The shortcuts sometimes require walking along scaffolding or stairs, but they aren’t particularly treacherous.

However, that’s a qualitative question. We could go back and forth forever. I’d rather stick to quantitative stuff for now.

@Ansau

What I want to find out here is exactly what the issue is with the Desert BL. There’s no shortage of complaints but many of them contradict each other and many more are exaggerated. I don’t think we can expect Anet to improve the map if we don’t have solid, sensible feedback. Thus, I want to establish enough facts about the map (ie: camp distance is same, keep distance is greater) along with verifiable numbers so that we can then sift through the complaints and see what sticks.

That’s not to say that numbers will be the end of it, as several people have said above. Just, I want to create a starting point that isn’t in dispute.

Sviel.7493:

Dawdler.8521:

Fun fact:

Stand on the west wall of SW tower and pretend you are standing in the SW tower on alpine. Look toward the west. See the sentry/little hut? Thats where Alpine south bay door and walls would be.

Sure you can nitpick and say that “oh but undercroft to garri is the same distance as bay to garri, ergo its the same!” but If you consider the whole border and relative distances, the difference is massive. Even if bay-garri would be the same, spawn-camp/tower-bay-camp/tower-garri add up to alot of difference in time.

This is a post about small-scale play. I’m not drawing any conclusions about distances between keeps and what that might mean. The only goal here was to show that the distances between roaming objectives (camps/towers) did not change significantly.

That’s the problem with your tests, everything on the map was a roaming objective. If you were a lone roamer trying to avoid the enemy zerg on the alpine, you could criss cross the map almost anywhere. You weren’t stuck running along a funneled path or forced to take the long way around which will triple the distance.

If I was trying to annoy the enemy I would do things like hit SE camp, tap hills, tap garri, tap bay, tap bay, flip NW. Travel times included, that would take about 5-7 minutes. I don’t even want to think about how long that would take on the deserted bl.

@ Puck

You know, its written all over all your msg’s, evrywhere!

3 things:

1 bring Alpine Borderlands back
2 remove all added game mechanics
3 Turn back the clock

Your msg is getting tiresome!

@Sviel

You are right for obvious reasons

The Desert borderlands have increased the efficiency and the operating possibilities for the small offensive and defensive innitiative.

1) some keep-mechanics allow hiding, not being spotted allows for ambushes
2) the map is bigger, there are more ways to travel around the map
3) there are more choke-points allowing to bring your enemies to a standstill
4)small offensive initiative can work around a map carefully without being detected from the keep to the camps in the south.
5) it takes a bit longer to get from one point to another but atleast it relieves the keeps towers and camps from annoying players that keep tagging them they get bored quicker.(Puck?)
6) if you are smart you dissapear from the enemies sight forcing him to place scouts at all key locations.

Btw your test were done from the right perspective, Puck is wrong.

People complain about roaming because this part of the game is dead.
Why it’s dead ?
Because before you had scout on the map who try to defend the camp, who where connected to upgrade stuff.
Now the scout are gone. I was scout, and for the few time I play I don’t want to defend or scout anything on this map.

Why the scout leaved ?
– Because the auto upgrade make that the scout can’t control anything. You are just here to assist some automatic stuf.
– Separating the upgrade from the supply made that there is no more any tactical decision between storing supply, sieging or starting upgrade.
– Upgraded supply camp was very helpful to defend them. Now you need 20 dolly just to have T1 !!! Just ridiculous.
– Guild hall and guild upgrade completly kill small havoc / scout guild
– Sentry now do the job for the scout and havoc squad, less communication on the map.
– Once you had the WP, you can WP from one side to other from the map to help. Now this is gone. And with the WP if you die defending vale or WC you can just WP back at your keep.
– New keep are too big, really ugly, difficulty to see what happen around. Keep should be build on top of hills with clear view around. UC is underground (WTF ?), and Palace is surrounded with tons of cliff… And North outer wall is undefendable, same for south inner wall.
– Too big keep need tons of siege to be able to build every counter siege required… And if you don’t see the attack fast enough, all your outer siege will be destroyed without being used…
– If you want to play like on ABL, you need to take 1 keep on each map and defend around the WP. This is some interesting, I have try it. But there is not enough people who want to fight like that. You need at least 5 people / map to be able to do something… When you had difficulty to have 5 to 10 people on ABL !
– Because there is no tactical value on keep or tower (siege from tower to keep, WP) the EB zerg don’t jump on the DBL. Because most of people hate the map, because T0 or T3 is the same, and because everyone queue EB and want to be able to come back.
– You can add all the new power kitten, stab issue, annoying condi and you have all you need to kill the game…

Map is not what make all the issue, but it’s a part of them. As I say before, ABL with HoT stuff will probably be the same fail. Maybe some people will come back, but I doubt that we will have the same population before HoT.

you are of topic, your post has no relevance towards the subject being small offensive initiative.

Angel Heart.6739:

@ Puck

You know, its written all over all your msg’s, evrywhere!

3 things:

1 bring Alpine Borderlands back
2 remove all added game mechanics
3 Turn back the clock

Your msg is getting tiresome!

@Sviel

You are right for obvious reasons

The Desert borderlands have increased the efficiency and the operating possibilities for the small offensive and defensive innitiative.

1) some keep-mechanics allow hiding, not being spotted allows for ambushes
2) the map is bigger, there are more ways to travel around the map
3) there are more choke-points allowing to bring your enemies to a standstill
4)small offensive initiative can work around a map carefully without being detected from the keep to the camps in the south.
5) it takes a bit longer to get from one point to another but atleast it relieves the keeps towers and camps from annoying players that keep tagging them they get bored quicker.(Puck?)
6) if you are smart you dissapear from the enemies sight forcing him to place scouts at all key locations.

Btw your test were done from the right perspective, Puck is wrong.

Somebody sounds a little booty bothered.

Angel Heart.6739:

you are of topic, your post has no relevance towards the subject being small offensive initiative.

His post is right on topic. Small team offensive play had dried up because defenders have nothing to do. It was a symbiotic relationship and HoT killed it.

Puck.9612:

That’s the problem with your tests, everything on the map was a roaming objective. If you were a lone roamer trying to avoid the enemy zerg on the alpine, you could criss cross the map almost anywhere. You weren’t stuck running along a funneled path or forced to take the long way around which will triple the distance.

Indeed.

You are getting funneled along paths which means that anyone you meet is less likely to have an escape route. That’s good and bad at the same time. You could argue it help small scale, but it really hinder them as well. You have a tendancy to get rolled by zergs.

Not to mention all the other kittenty things that HoT added that crippled small scale, such as T3 walls/doors and barricades.

But by far the biggest hurdle remain the position of the keeps/towers/camps and their huge layouts. This is unfixable by Anet, short of making a new map. They are simply unfriendly to small parties and scouts. It doesnt work.

no always reading the same msg from the same person gets boring

When you get to read it evrywhere its not constructive, goers past its purpose and makes a person waiste his time typing the same over and over.

btw

1) i only see 1 arguement added each time in your msg towards desert borderlands
2)then you repeat basically the msg you put evrywhere

consisting of 3 points

1 bring Alpine Borderlands back
2 remove all added game mechanics
3 Turn back the clock

Don’t you get bored typing the same over and over? sounds like a waiste of time and its defenitaly not constructive, i wonder if its really about the subject.

You’re talking about tagging keeps

But small offensive initiative is something totally different

i wonder wetter other players like Sviel have noticed it?

Angel Heart.6739:

you are of topic, your post has no relevance towards the subject being small offensive initiative.

I’m exactly in the topic.
You speak about small scale fight.
But to have those fight you need defenders, or all you will do is only PvD and PvE….
HoT destroyed the defensive part, then the attacking part die because there is no more opponent in from on them.
And a lot of players don’t want to do only PvD or PvE, they want to fight real human…

small team offensive initiative is alive well and kicking, my guild does that

@Sich & @Puck

we kill enough defenders, roamers, scouts along the way!

And yes we cap flags, monuments, camps, towers and keeps.
We even fight at the oasis events vs players of other servers, they are out there also
So i’m guessing i’m not the only person who has a guild into small offensive initiative

Desert Borderlands increased it! And you are wrong to present your case with bad arguements!

And i did mention the reasons i will repeat them:

1) some keep-mechanics allow hiding, not being spotted allows for ambushes
2) the map is bigger, there are more ways to travel around the map
3) there are more choke-points allowing to bring your enemies to a standstill
4)small offensive initiative can work around a map carefully without being detected from the keep to the camps in the south.
5) it takes a bit longer to get from one point to another but atleast it relieves the keeps towers and camps from annoying players that keep tagging them they get bored quicker.(Puck?)
6) if you are smart you dissapear from the enemies sight forcing him to place scouts at all key locations.

@Dawdler

You are totally right there are choke-points which can be advantageous or disadvantageous depending on your position but like in any fight you try to set the location where you wish to fight from if you do not have an ideal position you retreat to a better location whilst trying to keep your players alive.

that being said there are also open spot on the map where you can fight without anything being in the way?

sw camp (sandy plain to north)
sm camp (plateau)
se camp (highground)
nw corner map (between tower and hero point)
ne corner map (between tower and hero point)
middle map (on the oasis location)

Yeah, and you have no one to fight… Then you are doing PvD and PvE all the day… Waouw, exciting.

@Sich

Sorry m8, you are trying to use the scout which is DEFENDING a camp as an example for players that work in small OFFENSIVE initiative to say that the initiative is dead isn’t that of topic?

Sich.7103:

Yeah, and you have no one to fight… Then you are doing PvD and PvE all the day… Waouw, exciting.

think you did not read what i said

we kill enough defenders, roamers, scouts along the way!
And yes we cap flags, monuments, camps, towers and keeps.
We even fight at the oasis events vs players of other servers, they are out there also
So i’m guessing i’m not the only person who has a guild into small offensive initiative
Desert Borderlands increased it! And you are wrong to present your case with bad arguements!

Maybe you are on the wrong WvW server?

It’s not off topic, because if you have no one who defend there you are in PvE !
But I understand, you love to make PvE and PvD and then it’s not a issue for you if there is no one to fight.

thats not true you are putting words in my mouth that i didn’t even mention, let go of the sentiment come with valid arguements instead.. :-)

Angel Heart.6739:

And i did mention the reasons i will repeat them:

Seeing you post the same message over and over again is growing tiresome.
Don’t you get bored repeating yourself?
I see you saying the same thing each time:
1. I love playing alone on the deserted bl.
2. I hated that annoying players interrupted my karma train
3. PvE mechanics have made the game so much fun!
4. I am the supreme authority on what roaming/small scale WvW consists of, if you don’t play it exactly the way I do then you are wrong and I’m going to ignore your arguments

Angel Heart.6739:

that being said there are also open spot on the map where you can fight without anything being in the way?

sw camp (sandy plain to north)
sm camp (plateau)
se camp (highground)
nw corner map (between tower and hero point)
ne corner map (between tower and hero point)
middle map (on the oasis location)

Its not that simple.

None of these areas form a natural frontline, no forces will meet there when contesting an objective from another objective (especially not NE/NW towers against the hero points, lol. Only roamers that want to bypass the barricades go there).

To give Alpine examples, open fields with natural frontlines are things like the field between SW tower and bay, the island between the two southern towers, the bridge between SE tower and hills, the open field between hills and garri, the open field between NE tower and garri, the open field between NW tower and garri and the open field between bay and garri.

An example that’s not a natural frontline is the central area. While zergs can (and did) clash here, it happened by chance, not in defense or offense. Another is the wide open fields north of the NW/NE towers all the way to north camp. All of them open fields, but not where you’d generally meet.

Back to DBL, I can point out a few natural frontlines that can also qualify as open fields. Like… uh… gimme a sec… well, between palace and NE tower. That is all. No seriously, its the only place I can think of. The distance between garri and the open field is descent (assuming teleporter travel) and the field is enough distance away from palace while being within view distance of the tower, hence an easily scouted location. Undercroft north you say? No. NW tower is way too far away and hidden behind hills while garri is equally hidden behind a maze. Its an open field right outside the gates yes but a poor frontline.

(on that note, the area between palace and NE tower is actually the only area on DBL that I think has descent design. It sort of remind me of SE tower-camp-hills on Alpine. If the field had been open all the way toward garri and the tower somewhat more to the left, it would have been kitten near perfect as an overlook between two keeps).

Maybe these could be altered to allow bether fighting, just an idea :-)

Puck.9612:

That’s the problem with your tests, everything on the map was a roaming objective. If you were a lone roamer trying to avoid the enemy zerg on the alpine, you could criss cross the map almost anywhere. You weren’t stuck running along a funneled path or forced to take the long way around which will triple the distance.

If I was trying to annoy the enemy I would do things like hit SE camp, tap hills, tap garri, tap bay, tap bay, flip NW. Travel times included, that would take about 5-7 minutes. I don’t even want to think about how long that would take on the deserted bl.

There aren’t funneled paths, though, and the only time you’re forced to take the long way around anything is if you’re trying to reach an enemy north camp without owning a north tower. Perhaps I should say that there are funnels but that they have so many branches that it doesn’t cause any practical issues.

As for your proposed path, assuming SE camp was your start, travel times would be ~1m to tap west Airkeep, ~1.5m to tap south Rampart, ~1.5m to tap north Firekeep and then about 30s to reach NWC. Assuming you can flip camps in about a minute, you’re fine.

Sich

People complain about roaming because this part of the game is dead.
Why it’s dead ?
Because before you had scout on the map who try to defend the camp, who where connected to upgrade stuff.
Now the scout are gone. I was scout, and for the few time I play I don’t want to defend or scout anything on this map.

Your complaints are numerous and only nominally supported. I can’t say your opinion is wrong and I don’t really want to argue about it either. I want to stick to just what I can verify, for now.

Dawdler

Indeed.

You are getting funneled along paths which means that anyone you meet is less likely to have an escape route. That’s good and bad at the same time. You could argue it help small scale, but it really hinder them as well. You have a tendancy to get rolled by zergs.

Not to mention all the other kittenty things that HoT added that crippled small scale, such as T3 walls/doors and barricades.

But by far the biggest hurdle remain the position of the keeps/towers/camps and their huge layouts. This is unfixable by Anet, short of making a new map. They are simply unfriendly to small parties and scouts. It doesnt work.

I think I’ll draw up a map with possible routes to debunk this ‘funneling’ claim, since it comes up so often. Give me a few minutes…

edit: This map shows many of the routes, though others (like the above ground route over firekeep) are missing. It should be enough, though. http://www.gw2wvw.net/image/desert-borderlands-route-map

T3 walls were not new to HoT. T3 gates were, but I don’t think this can be considered an issue since no one ever uses gates anymore. Rather, it’s not likely the issue. Barricades impede some movement but I need more specific examples if you’re going to claim that led to the death of roaming.

Why is keep positioning so important to roamers? Why does increasing the distance between them deal some fatal blow to a roaming party? After all, the camps/towers aren’t further apart, so your statement hinges on some insurmountable obstacle that stems from keep positioning. Saying they’re ‘huge layouts,’ ‘unfriendly,’ and ’don’t work’ doesn’t cut it.

Sich

I’m exactly in the topic.
You speak about small scale fight.
But to have those fight you need defenders, or all you will do is only PvD and PvE….
HoT destroyed the defensive part, then the attacking part die because there is no more opponent in from on them.
And a lot of players don’t want to do only PvD or PvE, they want to fight real human…

Did roaming groups really attack towers on Alpine with the hope that people would come to defend them? Wasn’kitten more often, trying to ninja cap before anyone showed up?

At any rate, could we lay off the petty arguing? I mean, the stuff going on in the posts not quoted here—should be easy to spot. It’s not really helpful for anyone.

Sviel.7493:

I think I’ll draw up a map with possible routes to debunk this ‘funneling’ claim, since it comes up so often. Give me a few minutes…

edit: This map shows many of the routes, though others (like the above ground route over firekeep) are missing. It should be enough, though. http://www.gw2wvw.net/image/desert-borderlands-route-map

…

Why is keep positioning so important to roamers? Why does increasing the distance between them deal some fatal blow to a roaming party? After all, the camps/towers aren’t further apart, so your statement hinges on some insurmountable obstacle that stems from keep positioning. Saying they’re ‘huge layouts,’ ‘unfriendly,’ and ’don’t work’ doesn’t cut it.

Again I reference my earlier post about defense. Roaming isn’t entirely offense-oriented. Most of it is running defensively and countering opposing groups. The keeps are really unfriendly to small groups of defenders due to their size and complexity and non-visible or discrete nooks and crannies which can siege the keeps, and due to the distances involved, make jumping out of the keeps fairly dangerous. Keeps are a huge part of roaming. If you’re not diverting the attention of your enemies by tapping keeps and then crossing the map ASAP to hit an objective elsewhere, you’re not functional in higher tiers. Period. It’s honestly not the auto-upgrades which killed defenders. EBG has more small-group defenders than ever before due to the prospect of defense being more affordable and not requiring permissions on which upgrades to take based on the tag running. They just upgrade, and upgrade faster, enabling more defensive/offensive siege to be used to give a reason to stay in the towers, and because of the faster upgrade process, require more frequent offenses to take structures, again, be it from roaming groups or the primary zerg. The claims about auto-upgrades killing WvW defense are completely untrue coming from a defender. Waiting on dolyaks to press a button is no more interactive than waiting on dolyaks to build an AC, cata, or treb. It reduces the frustrating of dealing with supply trolls/ignorant people who take siege when upgrading major objectives, too. It gives defensive players MORE power than before, not from executive decisions but from how well-fortified a structure will be come the enemy blob to take it in terms of being able to hold them off. Stronger or weaker walls won’t do anything if you’re outnumbered. Having AC’s/ballis/catas built and supply there for disablers while reinforcements come will. And frantically running around trying to hold off a blob is much more interactive than simply waiting for your own one to come to fight while upgraded walls do the work of defense since that’s where all the supply went.

Sviel.7493:

Did roaming groups really attack towers on Alpine with the hope that people would come to defend them? Wasn’kitten more often, trying to ninja cap before anyone showed up?

This one I give you credit. Defenders leaving didn’t kill roaming groups due to a lack of fights. The funneling that occurs on the paths themselves in the Desert BL’s did, and simply, the perpetuating machine of nobody at all there kind of defeated the purpose in general. If you look at the map, it’s very path-focused. Yes, traversal times are not high. The problem is that these assume one runs on specific paths. These increase the likelihood of conflict with effectively no room to run away, and often, numbers aren’t even. Since this made running around the map in general more difficult (especially with barricades as those take several minutes to kill if by one’s self normally), fewer people were interested in running in the maps, and since the emphasis on chokes and fixed-paths pretty much always favored a blob/main zerg with bigger numbers, should conflict arise with increased conflict likelihood, less people in general were to be on the maps. With less people and no real threats on the maps, fewer objectives flip, and since fewer objectives flip, there’s little reason to PPT to attack or defend for small groups.

A meta is now settling where blobs are pushing BL’s for PPT when desired, ktraining the whole thing. Since the map layout is again more forgiving to those with higher numbers and paths are largely preset, defensive/PPT-minded small groups have limited opportunity to defend or flip objectives without being encountered at common intersections/chokes.

Sviel.7493:

Did roaming groups really attack towers on Alpine with the hope that people would come to defend them? Wasn’kitten more often, trying to ninja cap before anyone showed up?

As scout I pushed back a lot of attack from tower, even from keep.
And countless for supply camp.
Small scale fight go to 10 players for me, and 10 players can attack keep without any issue.

DeceiverX

Again I reference my earlier post about defense. Roaming isn’t entirely offense-oriented. Most of it is running defensively and countering opposing groups. The keeps are really unfriendly to small groups of defenders due to their size and complexity and non-visible or discrete nooks and crannies which can siege the keeps, and due to the distances involved, make jumping out of the keeps fairly dangerous. Keeps are a huge part of roaming. If you’re not diverting the attention of your enemies by tapping keeps and then crossing the map ASAP to hit an objective elsewhere, you’re not functional in higher tiers.

I know that there’s a defensive aspect to roaming. That is, after all, largely what I do. However, that’s not what I was looking at here.

Where is the issue with keep complexity? Checking all of the outer walls takes 20-30s. Seeing enemies approaching is now easier and, thus, warnings come more easily. Keeps also take longer to flip so there’s more time to get there if you were, for some reason, super far away.

Here are some screenshots to show how to check the outer walls on the side keeps with a simple run-through, if you haven’t seen them already.

Sich

As scout I pushed back a lot of attack from tower, even from keep.
And countless for supply camp.
Small scale fight go to 10 players for me, and 10 players can attack keep without any issue.

This is about small team play—mostly roaming, not scouting. I would also draw the line for small-team at 5 people. More than that seems more mid-scale since their capabilities change dramatically. For example, they’re unlikely to be seriously impeded by barricades.

I’ll be looking at the impact on scouting later.

Sviel.7493:

This is about small team play—mostly roaming, not scouting. I would also draw the line for small-team at 5 people. More than that seems more mid-scale since their capabilities change dramatically. For example, they’re unlikely to be seriously impeded by barricades.

I’ll be looking at the impact on scouting later.

Taking keep with 5 players is easy, but once the keep is defended by at least 2 or 3 people then is close to impossible to take.
You can use attack spot that defender can’t counter and then the defender can just sit and wait that the keep is open.

And about scouting, it’s dead, don’t worry about that.