Guild Wars 2

This is coming from ~2.5 years of Wxp ranging from t7 to t4. Currently in t5-t6.

I used to be very much into home borderland defence on the alpine bl. It got a lot of action, be it from small groups or from zergs trying to take our keeps.

After observing the desert bl play patterns for quite a while now I have come to some conclusions.

1) BL defenders no longer exist. The auto upgrade system eliminated the need for players to stay on the map. Furthermore, nobody gives a kitten about losing upgraded objectives anymore because the auto upgrades are so effortless.The only action that the bls get now is just mindless capping without resistance to gain PPT/retake what you lost. This is not fun in any way.

2) The 3-way map model of giving the enemies WPs in the side keeps just doesn’t work. What anet is trying to do is create 3 clones of the same map. The thing that made the previous model work was that it promoted 3 distinct maps. One for your home, one for attacking one team, and one for attacking the other team. By giving the enemies free WPs on your home bl, the 3 desert borderlands become three 3-way oriented maps with the same environment, which is boring and removes the identity of “the home bl”.

3) It takes too long to travel in the desert borderland. By restricting the side keep WPs to enemies only, the home team has travel times that are far too long. This is another reason why BL defenders no longer exist. Without the side keep WPs, it is such a chore to travel down south where the enemies would be. Because of this, home BL defenders don’t play on that map anymore; which in turn deters offensive BL groups because they know there will be nothing to fight.

Now, here are the solutions. They are very easy to implement, and can easily be included in the January 26th patch if these are widely agreed on.

1) Don’t make WP’s free. Tie WP’s into the T3 upgrade on the keeps, just like SM. This will make keeps more meaningful, and people will actually want to defend them. Also, the upgrade changes coming in the Jan 26 patch are a step in the right direction, but to make objectives more meaningful so that people will defend them, upgrading has to have a human activation component. Something as simple as talking to the quartermaster to start tier 1, tier 2, or tier 3 will work. This will require players to actually be present on the map for the upgrades to go through. When players are on the map, players are on the map. Its that simple.

2) Allow any team to have a waypoint on any keep in the BL. This pairs up with the WP’s being tied to T3 upgrades. Very similar to what was present in the alpine BL.

3) Same fix as #2. If the home team is able to access the side keep WPs, the BL defenders won’t have such a hard time getting from place to place to defend objectives and fight enemies.

All of these changes, again, are very easy to implement. They will promote players playing on the desert BL regularly. The changes with HoT just made the desert BL a PPT zone (from my experiences). Its a place to take objectives without resistance and let them upgrade by themselves. These new changes I proposed will bring people back to the borderlands, which will produce fights (small or large).

Fighting is the foundation of WvW. When there is no fighting, there is no WvW.

There is no simple fix. What you suggest is a bandaid on a cut off limb. Ultimately, its the positioning and design of camps/towers/keeps and overall layout of all the canyons that make people shun away.

In my server, and doubtless many others, the players who were trying to upgrade stuff were broke and either bored or outmanned. Now, they don’t have to waste their time, and the karma trainers who flip the borderland have to PvD a bit harder.

Requiring players to kick off the upgrades is going to do one of two things, depending on server population and time of day: one or two players will run around the map every 30 minutes flipping switches, thus contributing nothing to fights – not that solo players ever provided useful competition to karma trains anyway – or the karma trains will be taking paper stuff because no-one was online to upgrade them, or more likely no-one cared.

Waypoints will fix travel time and that’s about it. The previous borderlands were actually more homogeneous precisely because anyone could waypoint any keep. In the desert BL, you get one third that’s easily reached and two thirds that aren’t; which third differs depending on the map. Each borderland still gets more focus from the defending team, when they’re available.

Requiring players to start the upgrades will in fact boost the numbers on the BLS. Think about it. If it is all paper to begin with, it is more likely to be attacked by enemies because taking paper objectives is a lot easier than taking fortified. Knowing this, the home team will need to keep players on that map to defend it while they upgrade it. Running in a circle every 30mins wont cut it. Also, people will care a lot more about objectives that they put work in to upgrade, making them more likely to defend it instead of leaving it to flip and then reflip it later.This is part of what made the alpine BLs successful (apart from the actual layout). The mechanics promoted people actually playing on that map to defend it and upgrade it.

Looking at point 3), you probably didn’t spend much time in the desert borderlands. I can get from the waypoint in north keep to inside the outer of either of the other keeps in 1 minute 5 seconds on a mesmer.

With regard to the waypoint fee, I don’t think that’s a good idea.

It’s already difficult enough for WvW only players to keep their gold and it would be detrimental to players that waypoint often to buff up siege etc in keeps and use the waypoint to save time.

I agree alot. My suggestions, bring old maps back, remove auto-upgrade.

psizone.8437:

With regard to the waypoint fee, I don’t think that’s a good idea.

It’s already difficult enough for WvW only players to keep their gold and it would be detrimental to players that waypoint often to buff up siege etc in keeps and use the waypoint to save time.

Sorry about the confusion. What I meant by not making WPs free was to not make them available as soon as a keep is captured. The WPs will still cost 0 gold to make, they will just be a part of the T3 upgrade (just like on SM). This will make waypointed keeps more meaningful, because if you lose the keep you will lose the waypoint until you recapture it and upgrade it again.

This is all about making people want to defend their home bl, rather than retaking it.
When there are people defending, the offensive groups have something to fight. When they have something to fight, they are more likely to play on that map. (This could be the case with roamers, small groups, or large zergs).

Zollec.5734:

psizone.8437:

With regard to the waypoint fee, I don’t think that’s a good idea.

It’s already difficult enough for WvW only players to keep their gold and it would be detrimental to players that waypoint often to buff up siege etc in keeps and use the waypoint to save time.

Sorry about the confusion. What I meant by not making WPs free was to not make them available as soon as a keep is captured. The WPs will still cost 0 gold to make, they will just be a part of the T3 upgrade (just like on SM). This will make waypointed keeps more meaningful, because if you lose the keep you will lose the waypoint until you recapture it and upgrade it again.

This is all about making people want to defend their home bl, rather than retaking it.
When there are people defending, the offensive groups have something to fight. When they have something to fight, they are more likely to play on that map. (This could be the case with roamers, small groups, or large zergs).

Ah, that’s fair. Yeah having the waypoints tied to a later upgrade would definitely sway people towards defending, more-so at the start of the capture.