Guild Wars 2

There is a reason you see large queues on EB during reset night and nothing on the BL maps. You can argue all you want, but most people just don’t like desert. Sure, some do like it, but they are in the minority.

Sviel.7493:

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.

Sigh…

Roaming by definition is the ability to pick a map and start running. When that means running through a kittening maze where you dont have clear sight on your next objective, people dont seem to like it. Roamers are not playing a different WvW just because they call themselves “roamers”. No, its the same WvW. A WvW that has the same core design philosophy throughout Alpine and EB with the same basic keep/tower/camp positioning and layouts. Desert broke with that common WvW design. So yes, it cut it. Because its the simple truth.

Whether some people like this different type of design is another matter. Some people like EoTM too. But its still not the same WvW as EB and Alpine.

So, you’re complaining about visibility between objectives? Have you considered the run from SEC to NEC on Alpine and how low the visibility was there? Perhaps you should note that, with exception of SWC to NWC, players have as clear a sight to their next objective as they ever did. There’s no question about where to go and there’s often a path that leads there. As such, I can’t take your maze accusation seriously. May I suggest using more specific complaints instead of such dramatic language?

Obviously, there are changes between the maps. I’m not disputing that. What I want to do is create direct links between the changes and the reception.

To that end, what part of the core design philosophy did Desert break and how, specifically, did it hurt players? I’m not saying that it didn’t break some design or that it didn’t hurt players, I just want to know how.

Dawdler.8521:

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,….

~snip~

Bingo! I’ve mentioned this before. The DBL, while huge, offers a whole lot of nothing strategically speaking. There is very little reason to be in many areas of the map so it doesn’t provide fertile ground for even open field clashing.

@gennyt

Bingo doesn’t mean that a map cannot be altered to suit these needs,

Eureka!

Angel Heart.6739:

@gennyt

Bingo doesn’t mean that a map cannot be altered to suit these needs,

Eureka!

If by altered you mean redesigned virtually from the ground up then sure! #keepHopeAlive

@Dawdler

i forgot to add a couple of fighting area’s

plain north of Undercroft
Plateau north of Harrier palace
Highland left of harrier palace

@gennyt

I don’t think there is a chance in hell of that:-)

#keepondreaming

Oh don’t worry I’m not dreaming of a map redesign. If Anet can’t afford to upkeep their trademark fashion wars for their supposedly massive PvE following then the scraggly handful of people left playing WvWvW aren’t getting massive redesigns.

That is actually not my main concern atm.

In my opinion we should be looking for a lasting solution which offers all of us a sense of belonging or being part of WvW.

In that sense i don’t have a problem with the old maps returning, but i don’t believe in devolution being the solution. Returning to the old will not solve the problem we need to look ahead and make the game better together.

I believe firmly that instead of making the new and the old mutually exclusive, we should add the maps together, add some more maps, make a working rotation so players do not get bored with what they are playing in WvW.

I also believe that WvW is more than just fights focussed around blobs and zergs, we have roamers, defenders, scouts, escorters, ambushers, taggers, small offensive initiative (havoc) and maybe even more forms of playing.

Maybe the solution is not only to make the maps what evryone would like them to be, maybe part of the solution is too make the maps more specific allowing a certain kind of fight to be more apparent.

Like introducing an open field map just with multiple locations under different conditions to fight in, or a meta-event spread over several fighting instances which reflect the diverse nature of WvW but which would reflect the fight and have as a real endgame a battlefield victory for a server. This map could also be used for GvG, leagues and competitions aswell.

Do we therefore need to remove things we have, i think that would make WvW even less viable, maybe we should ask ourselves wetter WvW still has a future or as many on the forum have stated is dead, a part of the past.

But all of this stand and falls with the patience and the will of the players to participate actively in WvW.

A good start would be to look at the positive points and to work away the negative points on all the maps and come with suggestions offering opportunities.

Concerning maps there will always be big and small maps, maps with choke-points, maps without, maps with conditions and maps without. Look at how you can improove them to make them playable for all.

You will always have maps that allow either for more PPK or PPT and rankfarm, the answer is to find the balance.

As for automatic upgrades rendering escorting and scouting useless, that is in my opinion a hoax, yes players focus more on escorting dollies they don’t need to stay with the camps as they upgrade, but most do because you need to keep an eye on your enemy if he’s close.

The automatic upgrades are handy to have for defenders if guilds provide them, my guild does, don’t hear any defenders complaining about that and they do allow you to do multiple things whilst your objective is upgrading making you available to do other things.

And yes WvW is way to expensive nowadays and yes it needs to be affordable cause its ruining my wallet , which is not fair, and the upgrades need to go way quicker!!

And Jade Sea is still building Superior arrowcart’s evry 5quare mm of a map wetter it be a tower keep or just a camp, same goes for putting 10 rams or cata’s down in 1 square meter,,, Bringing Alpine back or playing on Desert will never change that!!!!

So many good things in the old and new why do we really have to loose any of it?

sigh

When solo hunting prefer DBL. Have been able to weave and escape bigger groups on DBL where as with ABL it was more of who ever had the best speed mechanism would win when being chased by a group. Open visibility for a solo hunter or havoc favored the zerg, where as in the DBL it favors the tighter knit formations.

its not just that on Abl in the open spaces you would be easily intercepted by roaming thiefs that were hiding around camps, the spacing wasn’t enough to give you the time to escape. Think thats why perma stealth was so polular.

Angel Heart.6739:

its not just that on Abl in the open spaces you would be easily intercepted by roaming thiefs that were hiding around camps, the spacing wasn’t enough to give you the time to escape. Think thats why perma stealth was so polular.

What…….
First off, thieves are easy to kill on kitten near every class. Secondly, open space means better Los to see them approaching and more room to avoid them and escape if you need to. Hell in 2 of the camps you could hop in the water where the thief wouldn’t stand a chance, at NE camp you could move the fight to the southern cliff and drop onto the little ledge. If the thief follows you onto the ledge you could easily kill him since stealth won’t help him there and he has no room to kite.

thats your excuse for giving thiefs a means just to jump back to their spawn?

You are actulaly gonna time it from the spawn-point on Alpine to first camp with a return-skill over 10,000 and perma stealth, Puck are you by any chance working for the players that used to tag evry keep, tower and camp on the map?

Or the players solo that killed all solo initiative on the alpine borderlands?

You seem to know so much? About being a solo thief in WvW? Doesn’t really sound like a scout does it?

Why don’t you tell players for real what store you really working for Captain HooK:-)

Angel Heart.6739:

thats your excuse for giving thiefs a means just to jump back to their spawn?

You are actulaly gonna time it from the spawn-point on Alpine to first camp with a return-skill over 10,000 and perma stealth, Puck are you by any chance working for the players that used to tag evry keep, tower and camp on the map?

Or the players solo that killed all solo initiative on the alpine borderlands?

You seem to know so much? About being a solo thief in WvW? Doesn’t really sound like a scout does it?

Why don’t you tell players for real what store you really working for Captain HooK:-)

Well that was quite the incomprehensible rant you spewed out. Were you drunk when you typed this? What the hell does captain hook have to do with anything?

Seriously the only thing I got from that is that you have a serious hate on for thieves… did a bad thief hurt you? Show us on the doll where the bad thief touched you to make you so angry…

I agree with the OP. DBl is every bit as good a map for small scale play as Alpine. Maybe better. There are a lot of different routes and hiding places. Once you learn the map, and I’m not quite there yet, it’s not that hard to get around. The shrine speedboost is v useful in this respect.

Sich.7103:

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

I agree, BS needs to be called on him. I am on Yaks Bend and I run my dailies every day around 6:00PM pacific. I have been running a staff/longbow shout guardian since HoT. I mention this because it is horrible build for pvp but it gets me around the map fast and clears mobs pretty quick. Sometimes when bored I will go around flipping everything with out walls. Every few days I will run into a havoc group but its rare. If I can do that solo with that build at prime time on T1 then that means the maps are empty. The PVP part is gone unless you go to EB. DBL is now just for those looking to get their dailies. Sure you can go around flipping stuff but its really just recapping what all the people getting their dailies flipped. The only exception is when a map is all one color and the zerg from EB decides it wants some quick loot.

I think the borderlands are more active in T2/T3 than T1, if everyone in this thread is to be believed.

For a group of 4-5 I find -

Desert BL is better for attacking upgraded structures, as the towers and keeps are a lot bigger and harder for one lone siege monkey to stall. Hills keep can not be defended against all attack without leaving the walls.
Conversely, if you’re looking to hold against attackers, Alpine is a lot easier and requires an enemy server to bring a much bigger zerg to deal with 4-5

Desert BL gives more options to hide from a zerg, but if you’ve already been spotted Alpine allows considerably more freedom to escape

Desert also has sentries better placed to keep tabs on zerg locations because you can’t walk around them so easily, but Alpine wouldn’t need huge changes to address that – in fact it’s as simple as moving the sentries

If you have to regroup, it’s a lot faster to cross the map on Alpine. I’d say something about waypoints but my server never had them anyway so DBL has at least given us one to work with

If you’re looking to fight other groups, they’re much the same – with DBL there are more chokes so in theory it should be easier to lie in wait at one, but in practice people followed the roads a lot on Alpine as well, so you’d find them unless they were deliberately trying to stay out of sight.

Sviel.7493:

I think the borderlands are more active in T2/T3 than T1, if everyone in this thread is to be believed.

If everyone is to be believed, T9 is more active than T1.