Guild Wars 2

After watching the live stream add the answers to questions if you got them so we get all the info in one thread maybe. I have to see a transcript to get more than my own out of it but they answered a ton of them.

PariahX.6970:

How set in stone is the decision to initially replace all three borderland maps with the new Desert map?

Answer: 100% set in stone, they already have the new layout with three copies of the Desert map around EB for testing. Bye-bye Alpine . . . for now.

PariahX.6970:

Is the map population cap for the Desert map the same as the current Alpine borderland?

Answer: Yes, the population cap on Desert will be similar to Alpline but they might make some adjustments if play testing indicates a need.

Thanks for the lovely tour guys and so many answers to so many detailed questions. Was nice to see them reading some of the questions word for word and making very complete answers. Have to say, no matter what concerns players might have about how WvW will be in this map, we all have to agree it is incredibly beautiful and well thought out. Human nature and our bad habits are really the biggest variable when it comes to seeing how fights evolve in the Desert. Definitely looking forward to exploring it soon. ~Cheers

Why do I feel like the old borderlands will eventually come back in a rotation? A water keep would have restored my faith in rebalancing of water combat but the map is looking good so far ,not sure it’s enough to break the zerg. Also glad about the open fields.

LOL @Ravezaar, well I guess you will be leaving WvW then possibly the game because they have already said that this map is going to replace the current borderlands map regardless of whether you buy the expansion or not. I know laughing at you is rude but I cant help it since making assertions about something you know nothing about is just too funny.

We had the quaggans (PvE) initially in alpine, it was replaced by Bloodlust (ppk) over the evolution. Whose to say that Oasis (PvE) won’t somehow evolve in time to a PvP centric?

All good things come in time.

If this map replace the alpine one, the borderlands will be a sort of ls story ? So wvw will only take place on cbe ?

Puting in crafting stations is so much fail. Didn’t they learn from the old maps? Many PvE player will just port into WvW to craft and port back to PvE. So you get a queue but have only 10 people at your commander. Very disappointed in this point.

Savoy.6824:

LOL @Ravezaar, well I guess you will be leaving WvW then possibly the game because they have already said that this map is going to replace the current borderlands map regardless of whether you buy the expansion or not. I know laughing at you is rude but I cant help it since making assertions about something you know nothing about is just too funny.

I know they swapping out Alpine for Desert so I know EXACTLY what Iam talking about, and the pvE ascpect in the oasis is just the last straw. But itsfine you and the rest of the EotM karma-heroes can have your EotM 2.0 cause tbh most WvW Guilds already left and this aint bringing them back, lmao

I posted some notes of the livestream for those that missed it. It is mostly Q&A as the other stuff have already been covered at the EGX presentation

http://dulfy.net/2015/03/27/gw2-ready-up-new-desert-borderlands-map-livestream-notes/

I enjoyed the presentation. I have a question though. Will the event in the center take place on all three maps at the same time.

For example: it would be interesting if it went off on each borderlands at a different hour, meaning you would get more three way fights, on different borderlands.

Awesome video Josh thnx for showing us.
Maybe some things you guys can use:
The borderlands are totally awesome 0_0 , but maybe also making a special WvW lobby like the one for PvP. there are a couple of reasons for it, guild groups being more easily able to organise, starter players to learn stuff more easily and safely and having those crafting stations also there, so that people are closer to those spots also.
And if you guys are able to do this (i expect not) maybe having special servers for WvW itself to reduce the lag, but i am just an amateur that barely knows anything about this xD.
But all other stuff awesome! and i hope you guys can use the stuff i just typed xD.

Question #1: Can the Oasis Event Progress be seen from the entire map, or only in the Oasis Area?

Question #2: How long would it take 5 players to complete the Oasis event?

Question #3: Are the research camps where you turn in Power Cores at all defensible… could a zerg split into 3 and camp the camps to prevent the other team from completing the event (without relying on stealth)?

Question #4: If you complete the Oasis Event 500,000 times, what is the Title called? Ultimate Energizer?

Question #5: When you said that there would be more reasons to keep your keeps and defending would be more rewarding… were you talking about actual player rewards or simply the benefits of shortcuts offered by the new tower gates?

Will the titles like yak slapper be revisited, so that we can actually obtain some of them with this WvW update?

Especially since this new map does not have Yaks, and you will only have EB to kill them on.

Very good job, very Impressed and i had fun enjoying the presentation

I hear the word Fun a lot: i know you guys: Arena net will make new map fun and the only thing that need to happen to complete your mission is to make all of the class fun. Only 4 class for now that need to be balanced around fun: Thief, Ranger, Cele-Engineer and Cele-Elementalist.

If you can make that happen before or when Hotw release: it will make wvw a fun game mode to play again.

I have couple question to ask

Weather Effect: Sandstorm/Duststorm/Tornado

Question 0# Will there be any tornado in the desert?
Question 1# Is there sandstorm in the dessert? multiple? Different size?
Question 2# If there is sandstorm in the desert, will there be a sandstorm boss?
Question 3# Will sandstorm play huge role: weather effect in combat?
Question 4# Will there be mud?
Question 5# Question 6# Will there be sandstorm lightning?
Question 6# Will there be mud slide? Can be use to make combat/game play challenge: Example: stay in 1 spot too long, player/party start to sink in mud? Same for sand?

Desert Animal/Mob/Boss? Maybe new pet for Ranger class?

In Desert

1. Will there be Camel?
2. Will there be Scorpion?
3. Will there be Ostrich?
4. Will there be snake: viper, cobra, rattlesnake?
5. Will there be lizard?
6. Will there be vulture?
7. Will there be Antelope?
8. Will there be Roadrunner?

Ok, that is all

Only complaint so far is that they need to take out some of those red and yellow mobs and throw in more ambients for us poor necros

ty for answering most of my questions, even tho the most important still remains open:

What will a-net do to enhance the Server-performance, since the current performance-algorithm obviously fails to prevent (server-sided) skill-lag, even for much smaller engagements than a 3-way in SM.

So I know with the new map ANET is trying to emphasize actually holding objectives rather than just letting things flip and capping them again before the next tick. How do you guys plan to address this in EB, which won’t be a new map obviously?

Personally I’d like to see a change in how PPT works. The points scored from an objective should increase the longer your keep it, so like a fully waypointed keep could have, say, double the PPT income of a paper one. That would encourage both defending and attacking heavily upgraded objectives, and keeping them to upgrade. You could either make this straight point increase with duration held (up to some limit), or tie it to upgrade status. Just an idea of course, but something needs to change about the current system IMO.

A few questions about Shield generator:
1) Is there an AOE cap for the stability that pulsates when a person stands on the bubble?(Like a 50 persons cap?)
2) If there are two bubbles over the same spot, will you get 4 stacks of stab per second ? or is it limited to only 2 stacks of stab per second.

Other questions:
3) Will there be a vertical limit as to how far down you can hit with an arrow cart? (I know that in EOTM you could shoot pretty far down) Because if there isn’t, the lava keep is just going to get arrow cart fired 24/7 from the top.
4) You mentioned Stone/Metal gates, are those going to be tier 3 and 4 gates or are they going to replace existing gates?
(Right now,Tier 1 being wooden, tier 2 being reinforced.)
5) Will the player cap on the BL maps be increased or decreased?. Seeing as the map is so huge and that if a 2v1 were to take place, the defending team would be hard pressed to run from objectives to objectives.
6) Related to question 5, and if so, are you guys going to take any measures to make it any less laggier?
7) Will you reintroduce points per kill now that bloodlust is gone?
8) Will you be adding more guards in towers and keeps? It would seem that keeps and towers are horribly understaffed ._.
9) Will you guys consider changing out the currency to upgrade structures from money to badges of honor?

Thank you for your time!

<edited to add more questions>

Two words that caught my ears in this new map with Heart of Thorns:

METAL GATES

That’s right! Finally be able to get Tier 3 gates in WvW that will further defense and slow the zerg rush tactics. Well, that is assuming that a team will be able to get a decent Yak influx without them being Thief-ninjaed; or that the same team is even able to get upgrades going before the zergs hit the gates before the first upgrade finishes.

thebeaRRRRR.8640:

5) Will the player cap on the BL maps be increased or decreased?. Seeing as the map is so huge and that if a 2v1 were to take place, the defending team would be hard pressed to run from objectives to objectives.
6) Related to question 5, and if so, are you guys going to take any measures to make it any less laggier?

PariahX.6970:

Is the map population cap for the Desert map the same as the current Alpine borderland?

“Answer: Yes, the population cap on Desert will be similar to Alpline but they might make some adjustments if play testing indicates a need.”

We know they can change the borderland population caps when they want to and have lowered them some in the past in response to lag issues (and also raised them at other times) but it seems to be a last resort sort of thing so I am assuming they’ll do as much fine tuning as they can in the beta. Be sure to submit your feedback then on how it feels and hopefully some of those betas will give us experience testing from the outmanned position.

Last I heard Alpine border has a population cap around the 80 per side range. I have always been in favor of lower map caps for lots of reasons but usually that is not a popular stance. The Desert map is not really any bigger, just more 3 dimensional and all that extra open space is a good thing.

thanks for hosting josh. tirzahs a qt and tyler had answers. couldnt ask for any more from a tour!

Wonder if you can build trebs in some towers. It’s fun shoot cows in battlefield.

I have not decided yet if the new shrine objectives and bonussen are worse or better than the current bloodlust one.
It could make it more interesting if they are really well balanced. But with matchups like the picture below it could be also devestating for the non over populated server.

I really hope this map combats the zerg “tactics” of the Alpine map.

I’ve recently come back to GW2 and the zerging seems to be worse now than it was before I left.

I don’t see the point in upgrading towers at all as the zerg can steamroll through anything like a hot knife through butter.

It makes a mockery of upgrading a keep or tower for hours when a zerg can bulldoze it down in minutes.
There is no balance to attack and defence. It should take just as much effort to destroy the tower/keep than it did to upgrade it otherwise upgrading is pointless.

No wonder no one defends any more.

There seems to be a power vacuum in WvW due to players getting much more powerful from upgraded weapons, armour and siege but the buildings in WvW have all stayed at the same hitpoints which creates much weaker towers/keeps than before.

All buildings and guards need to scale to the power of the players or it’s just like fighting in a newbie area to create easy mode for all.

Ravezaar.4951:

Oasis Event (PvE) in a WvW/PvP Map = wont be buying Expansion

From what I understand, you can kill players to steal their cores (and that’s actually the best thing you can do, since you are denying one score for the enemy and scoring for your team). And the event results in damaged gates so you can easily push and flip many objectives at the same time.

There’s some PVE involved, but who cares?

Instead of making these new borders, why don’t you focus on the most important issue in wvw which is lag? Please fix, can’t cast any skills in big fights. It’s terribile!

I’m not gonna buy HoT before you fix it.

As much as I love the new map with all it’s amazing designs, small things such as monsters standing on big open fields in practice will be very annoying. If you want to add ’’filling’’ to the map, rather add some extra trees or small rocks to it. Monsters should be very limited to the oasis in my opinion.

Timelord.8190:

Instead of making these new borders, why don’t you focus on the most important issue in wvw which is lag? Please fix, can’t cast any skills in big fights. It’s terribile!

I’m not gonna buy HoT before you fix it.

Agreed!

OMG when they went to map view and zoomed out, I almost vomited!

At least try to do a better job of blending it in! You literally just copy pasted over the old borders!

Orochimaru.4730:

OMG when they went to map view and zoomed out, I almost vomited!

At least try to do a better job of blending it in! You literally just copy pasted over the old borders!

Yes, hopefully that was just a make-shift layer-on just so they can do some tests. It would get annoying seeing just copy-pasted squares whenever you’re looking at the map.

Orochimaru.4730:

OMG when they went to map view and zoomed out, I almost vomited!

At least try to do a better job of blending it in! You literally just copy pasted over the old borders!

Oh no they probably can’t change it anymore.

Aezyr.5304:

Timelord.8190:

Instead of making these new borders, why don’t you focus on the most important issue in wvw which is lag? Please fix, can’t cast any skills in big fights. It’s terribile!

I’m not gonna buy HoT before you fix it.

Agreed!

There have been overwhelming amounts of post and threads calling g for new maps. Not entirely sure how you missed that. But why shouldn’t we have both, new maps and a lag fix?

1-Are you going to adress stuff that is importanthere and now and not several months away.
2-Are you going to attempt to fix the skill lag up to 10 seconds.
3-Are you going to change your game server provider as they clearly run of woefully inadequate hardware as most other mmo’s fair alot better.
4-Will you for the first time since release actually listen to your community, interact with and NOT cherry pick everything that makes you look good and bury everything that makes you look bad.

As to #4, since the community constantly makes post with different posters demanding contradicting changes, which side do they listen to? Some of the problem as I see it, is that poster can have no intention of playing the game again, and post feedback, request, or demands.

GROMIT.7829 well WvW requested a new map so they gave a new map… about how the map works thats another story….. just give them time until HoT comes arround.

Wait…. they are removing the alpine map completely? I thought this PvE nightmare was going to be added in a rotation with the current map.

How about you replace EBG with this map instead? Leave the Alpine map for the BL’s so roamers don’t have to spend their time playing Running Wars 2

Puck.9612:

Wait…. they are removing the alpine map completely? I thought this PvE nightmare was going to be added in a rotation with the current map.

How about you replace EBG with this map instead? Leave the Alpine map for the BL’s so roamers don’t have to spend their time playing Running Wars 2

They said they’re going to replace it initially[since everyone’ll want to try out the new map, even the skeptics if only to confirm their skepticism], then depending on circumstance may begin a rotation between Desert and Alpine.

coglin.1867:

As to #4, since the community constantly makes post with different posters demanding contradicting changes, which side do they listen to?.

Well that’s what tests are for, the did one test, but we need to do a hell of a lot more!

Not only that, but they still need to listen to us! Not just T1 for the feedback!

Of course there are going to be contradictions, different players have different playstyles. But I am sure you can agree that everyone complains about lag, there’s no contradiction there.

What if a siege troll burns supplies and a blob comes to do the event where theres no suplly to repair 50% of the metal/iron gate???
Or if gate gets down due event and theres no supply due supply grief on random siege?
what about places where theres no need to hit gate/ wall with catas and still damage those infrastructures like the actual wvw maps?

coglin.1867:

Aezyr.5304:

Timelord.8190:

Instead of making these new borders, why don’t you focus on the most important issue in wvw which is lag? Please fix, can’t cast any skills in big fights. It’s terribile!

I’m not gonna buy HoT before you fix it.

Agreed!

There have been overwhelming amounts of post and threads calling g for new maps. Not entirely sure how you missed that. But why shouldn’t we have both, new maps and a lag fix?

Do you realy think people will wait for the HoT release to get a playable product again?

A new map is totaly fine but it is also clear that less and less player (and paying customer for the expansion) will be left over to use the kitten thing.

The stability and condition changes going hand in hand with the release of the desert map so I will take it in correlation.

Aezyr you’re in the minority.

Will we be able to op out off the new map ? If I don’t buy the dlc, will I be able to stay on the pvp borderlands ? I’m worried because I only do wvw in the borderlands and I wouldn’t want to have to go on eb for wvw.

they already confirmed that the new wvw borderlands will be available to everyone.
and since the HoT-pve-masteries are not active in wvw, the worst impact you’ll feel is that you can not play revenant and the new class-specializations yourself.
For your wvw-expirience, not buying HoT shouldn’t be such a big impact.

why would you op out of the new map? current wvw maps make me cry tears of boredom. I feel nauseated upon entering wvw after 1500 hours playing the same stuff.

The current borderlands are balanced and familiar to us, I’m afraid a lot of mechanics and terrain is trying too hard to make it a fresh experience, which will not address the issues with balance (and lag), and it will make it even more frustrating experience for alot of people, but we’ll see.

Way too many meaningless map mechanics. It looks like EotM, and if we wanted to play EotM then we would. Look for long ebg q times as ppl flock to the familiar.

So if I put a Stealth Trap in the canyon with sandstorm/dust, the enemies will get revealed…
The map seems nice and a new thing is always a nice refreshment. I only hope it won’t be lagging much when big zergs decide to fight somewhere. I know there is a lot pressure on making ppl split around (and kinda solve the lag problem this way too) – escort dolyaks, take care of sentrys/shrines/supply camp/oasis – but still it’s a nice thing to take part in those huge battles from time to time.

Ravezaar.4951:

Oasis Event (PvE) in a WvW/PvP Map = wont be buying Expansion

Watching the video this was my first thought as well. What the hell is this crap doing in a WVW map? Even worse, it has a large gameplay impact.

Why force players to do some boring PVE/fedex quest? PVE quests in WVW should be small and peripheral and certainly NOT result in game-changing rewards.

scerevisiae.1972:

Ravezaar.4951:

Oasis Event (PvE) in a WvW/PvP Map = wont be buying Expansion

Watching the video this was my first thought as well. What the hell is this crap doing in a WVW map? Even worse, it has a large gameplay impact.

Why force players to do some boring PVE/fedex quest? PVE quests in WVW should be small and peripheral and certainly NOT result in game-changing rewards.

I am a little confused here. When did they state we were “forced” to do it?

Out of curiosity, do you have an issue with keep lords?

coglin.1867:

I am a little confused here. When did they state we were “forced” to do it?

It’s “forced” because the super weapon is gamebreakingly strong. Nothing should be that strong for starters, and rather lame PVE quests (killing mobs and fedexing items) is the kind of thing that belongs in <level 10 PVE zones, it should definitely not be the “IWIN” mechanic of a WVW borderlands map.