Guild Wars 2

I love how every time I go to a forum of a GW2 game mode, I immediately think: wow, THIS must be the worst sub-community in GW2.

You have seen a few minutes of made-up gameplay and an explanation of two ANet representatives of some of the new mechanics. You don’t know anything about the flow of this map, about how much time it takes to do something, not even about how it feels, what the countermeasures are… Yet you already know for sure that you are not going to like it.

A square flat map without NPC’s would be boring after seconds. The best fights I can recall happened, because there is a keep lord that needs to go down before you can tap.

There will be beta events, I suppose even for this new map. Why don’t you at least wait for that to have happened to collect the experiences made?

Halvorn.9831:

I love how every time I go to a forum of a GW2 game mode, I immediately think: wow, THIS must be the worst sub-community in GW2.

You have seen a few minutes of made-up gameplay and an explanation of two ANet representatives of some of the new mechanics. You don’t know anything about the flow of this map, about how much time it takes to do something, not even about how it feels, what the countermeasures are… Yet you already know for sure that you are not going to like it.

A square flat map without NPC’s would be boring after seconds. The best fights I can recall happened, because there is a keep lord that needs to go down before you can tap.

There will be beta events, I suppose even for this new map. Why don’t you at least wait for that to have happened to collect the experiences made?

Anet did plenty of describing how much they’re buffing defending. Defenders with even numbers have had an advantage over attackers ever since launch and continue to be buffed with every (few and far between) update to WvW. Despite it never needing buffs and getting nothing but buffs, you rarely see much effort put into defending outside a select few servers. That tells me that the player vote is in: people don’t enjoy defending. It’s just as rewarding to kill a zerg open field as to kill them while defending yet defending is less common than open field fights, so rewards can’t be the reason either.

How much does Anet have to buff defence before they’re happy? Will it be when the only things that ever get capped are camps?

By the way, the best fights I ever had were GvGs against EP and Agg. At least in a GvG you actually have to play instead of just watching siege do all the work.

i foking love the new map idea.

blobbers can stay eb w/e, same 3 way sm fights will be 4eva, even devs loving them.
all the small tricky thingies to do will be fun activity for 3-15man groups and i’m more then happy with it.
Nowadays what is going on in wvw is boring me to death, not all the time but still it’s there and low ammount of actions and stale fights to do are pretty said…
I’m looking forward how this map will work out with new class, specialization, conditions, boons, siege, structures etc, because the current “kitten ship” meta quickscope, 360 com snipe…welll…let it go pls..
Though still would like to get:
- offencive aoe cap rising to 10-15 for the best.
- OS megaserver system.
While i don’t imagine how they want to fit all the people into 2 maps (BLOB-B and New desert bls)

Coldtart.4785:

That tells me that the player vote is in: people don’t enjoy defending. It’s just as rewarding to kill a zerg open field as to kill them while defending yet defending is less common than open field fights, so rewards can’t be the reason either.

Reason why people hate defending and go attack is different.
When you are defending you cannot anyhow influence the ammount of rewards and action. Is it fun stay in keep for 3 hours looking on Moas outside and then in 3 minutes the keep is gone because of golem rush? Its not fun and reward for this boring job is nothing.
But attacking? Even if the zerg dont have enemies, the zerg will just go flipping camps. You took whole borderland, then zerg will just move to otherone and will keep getting exp and rewards.
Thats the problem, pasive role vs active role while passive role dont even get anything for it.

Any business that has customers telling it exactly what they want from a product and it ignores them, is doomed to failure.

Blow / split up zergs with the shield-generator, tower-lords that punish stacking, keep lords that actually support the defenders, shrines to get tactical advantages over other servers (or remove them), many mechanics that require more careful movement as a zerg.

I like it.

And yes, it feels much like eotm mechanically, but there still is a giant difference there.
These maps provide PPT. Eotm doesn’t.
The biggest reason why Eotm turned into a giant farm-fest is because you get punished for defending, since you don’t contribute to your faction by doing so, and get more loot if you abandon captured stuff and recapture it later.
Doing this on these new maps is not an option since you need to defend your objectives, which will automatically call in more commanders / guilds who are willing to defend than the common LOOT-commanders in eotm.
Lets face it, EOTM could be so much more fun if people would have a reason to defend objectives there.

Still I’m worried about the oasis event and how they implement it. From what it looks currently its more like the final stab in the back from the superior server than a come-back mechanic for the smaller one, especially since it spawns to definite times and gets announced 15min in advance. Regardless how fast your havoc group will be, the zerg has more than enough alarm-time to already wait and camp there. And zergs in general are not that slow anyways, especially since the oasis will not feature any shrine-based anti-zerg mechanics, at least none that we know of yet.

If you guys have the time, I highly recommend watching a small portion of a VOD from a twitch streamer, Docgotgame, and his take on the new borderlands and the future of WvW which I found very interesting and exciting.

(Discussion goes on for around 15 minutes.)

http://www.twitch.tv/docgotgame/v/3899667?t=7h22m0s

Bubi.5237:

After watching “the video” (the presentation they streamed), for me it seems like an eotm +skyhammer+pve combo.

Ledges to knock enemies off.

you mean like there’s ledges close to hills and to the northern towers in the current borderlands map? Shocking.

Bubi.5237:

Automated Turrets which shoots you.

without playing the map, the effectiveness of the turrets remains to be seen: I hope those are not as annoying as the cannons in EOTM

Bubi.5237:

Big Boom Cannon which destroys every enemy outer gate (basically opening every tower), so you can capture everything faster when you have superior numbers (timezones for da win!).

because a zone blob building 20 omega golems couldn’t wipe your borderlands clear, right?

instead, it looks like this event requires a lot of coordination: there’s 3 collection points to camp, and 4 towers and 3 keeps to conquer as quickly as possible after the event is completed, that means you’ll probably need a lot of smaller, coordinated groups, instead of a huge blob of mindless zerglings spamming staff 1: scary, uh?

Bubi.5237:

Keep Lord, which are.. “fun to fight”.
’Cos wvw players love to fight npcs, yup.

no, we don’t like fighting npcs
but when we are defending against bigger numbers, we’d rather have useful NPCs to our side, instead of wooden puppets that will die in seconds

Bubi.5237:

The map is nice, it’s beautiful, but.. I fear the mechanics will make it close to unplayable for me

your opinion is based on like… 2 minutes of random footage?

ANet said they wanted to make defending more interesting (and hopefully, more rewarding); I think the design shows it. Choke points, powerful mechanics for the defending forces holding the shrines around the keep (improved mobility and stealth) and defending NPCs that can actually make a difference in a equal-numbers fight.

Calling the “Big Boom Cannon” a “PVE event” is just plain ridicolous: there will be players from all the factions trying to win the event (by killing each other, mainly, I guess, since killing a player damages the enemy AND gives you a point), and you’ll need to decide how many players have there and how many to have close to the towers and keeps for a quick cap. Endless possibilities of taking advantage of the enemy hard work…

And they are trying to split the blobs, by making it impossible to cover all the objectives with one single group.

I’m not saying they succeeded, but the ideas are sound, and I hope there will be some form of beta testing before the release.

Exciton.8942:

The map certainly looks fun.
But I am a little afraid that all those environmental factors may exaggerate the population imbalance problem.
Most of those powerful buffs will be claimed by the side with more people and make it even harder for the side with less number.

You are correct: i agree with you 100%.

Example: It is like create a big game park where everyone can pay to go but only give front row seat to the one with more money but still you show commercial of the game park available to everyone

Arena net still have not resolve problem with low tier server: this new map will only continue the same routine.

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them”.

Menaka.5092:

Bubi.5237:

After watching “the video” (the presentation they streamed), for me it seems like an eotm +skyhammer+pve combo.

Ledges to knock enemies off.

you mean like there’s ledges close to hills and to the northern towers in the current borderlands map? Shocking.

I don’t remember legdes next to the gate on the current maps, neither ledge-stairs from where the falling equals death.

Menaka.5092:

Bubi.5237:

Automated Turrets which shoots you.

without playing the map, the effectiveness of the turrets remains to be seen: I hope those are not as annoying as the cannons in EOTM

The Knock-Back Turrets next to a ledge means certain death if not dodged/no stability. Effectiveness is big.

Menaka.5092:

Bubi.5237:

Big Boom Cannon which destroys every enemy outer gate (basically opening every tower), so you can capture everything faster when you have superior numbers (timezones for da win!).

because a zone blob building 20 omega golems couldn’t wipe your borderlands clear, right?

20 omega golems need “a few gold” (~50g), “some supply” (let’s say.. 3k?), and they can be destroyed by good defensive siege placement/scouting.
An event which occurs every 3 hours, where a big blob can just split up to 3×20 man groups, use the cannon, blob up again and take towers (no gate), take keeps easier (no outer gates, so supply needed only for inner), so it gives little chance for defending.

Menaka.5092:

instead, it looks like this event requires a lot of coordination: there’s 3 collection points to camp, and 4 towers and 3 keeps to conquer as quickly as possible after the event is completed, that means you’ll probably need a lot of smaller, coordinated groups, instead of a huge blob of mindless zerglings spamming staff 1: scary, uh?

‘Cos during the night, when your server has 5 ppl defending against the enemy’s 40 man nightcap, the cannon will make your defense easier, yupyup.

Menaka.5092:

Bubi.5237:

Keep Lord, which are.. “fun to fight”.
’Cos wvw players love to fight npcs, yup.

no, we don’t like fighting npcs
but when we are defending against bigger numbers, we’d rather have useful NPCs to our side, instead of wooden puppets that will die in seconds

As long as the boss scales, its not THAT bad.. but instead of making pve-bosses, I would like to see defensive layout, where the defensive players have some advantage.. like you can shoot them from the wall while they cant you? On the video I saw the same walls as now, providing close to zero defense for defenders.

Menaka.5092:

Bubi.5237:

The map is nice, it’s beautiful, but.. I fear the mechanics will make it close to unplayable for me

your opinion is based on like… 2 minutes of random footage?

The “2 min random footage” was a ~40 min tour on the map with developers discussing it.
Not the same.

Menaka.5092:

ANet said they wanted to make defending more interesting (and hopefully, more rewarding); I think the design shows it. Choke points, powerful mechanics for the defending forces holding the shrines around the keep (improved mobility and stealth) and defending NPCs that can actually make a difference in a equal-numbers fight.

If the attacker have harder time when equal numbers are fighting, they’ll bring more numbers. That’s all.

Menaka.5092:

Calling the “Big Boom Cannon” a “PVE event” is just plain ridicolous: there will be players from all the factions trying to win the event (by killing each other, mainly, I guess, since killing a player damages the enemy AND gives you a point), and you’ll need to decide how many players have there and how many to have close to the towers and keeps for a quick cap. Endless possibilities of taking advantage of the enemy hard work…

I don’t remember calling that event PVE event, I was calling the map one with filled pve. NPC sentry golems (shrine reward), NPC lords with pve mechanics, jumping-puzzle-like jumppads, etc.

Menaka.5092:

And they are trying to split the blobs, by making it impossible to cover all the objectives with one single group.

I’m not saying they succeeded, but the ideas are sound, and I hope there will be some form of beta testing before the release.

With the towers-blocking-the-path change (which is actually an interesting one), dunno if you can split the blob up better or they’ll just blob themselves past the tower THEN split up, or just continue blobbing as always.

And don’t forget, there was a reason to take out the Orbs from normal maps.
Afaik it was the FLYING/FASTRUNNING ppl.. They’re still here, so I don’t know what to think about it.

The map looks nicely designed, geographically. I don’t have a problem with that aspect, and I’m very interested to see how it plays. Unfortunately, they had to go and mess it up with a load of gimmicky, annoying mechanics. Like the shrines, and the dinosaur cannon.

And did they think about how WvW is often one of the laggiest parts of the game? I do not look forward to dealing with any of the jump pads or bird statues or whatever if there’s even a small amount of lag.

Olvendred.3027:

Unfortunately, they had to go and mess it up with a load of gimmicky, annoying mechanics. Like the shrines, and the dinosaur cannon.

But these create objectives for small-scale fights for an advantage. Isn’t that what everybody and their dog requested? Ways to split up zergs, so you can finally have these small-scale fights?

And btw. why on earth is fearing someone off a ledge not PvP? A player gets killed because another player used one of his skills to kill him. How can that not be PvP?

The biggest worries I have is that there are not enough servers which have enough players left to make this map alive. But as has been said numerous times: lets wait and experience ourselves.

Halvorn.9831:

Olvendred.3027:

Unfortunately, they had to go and mess it up with a load of gimmicky, annoying mechanics. Like the shrines, and the dinosaur cannon.

But these create objectives for small-scale fights for an advantage. Isn’t that what everybody and their dog requested? Ways to split up zergs, so you can finally have these small-scale fights?

Is that what people asked for? I remember when people used to ask that, so Anet took away the lake and gave us all the bloodlust nodes. A load of work which was, on the whole, wasted since it’s rarely used and never to the full advantage they explained in the gameplay videos. And, of course, a lot of the time when a commander wants bloodlust, they use an entire zerg just to make sure of getting it.

The dinosaur cannon thing is going to be the same as that. If it’s powerful enough that it offers a massive advantage, then servers are going to bring as much manpower as they can to make sure of getting it. Sure, bringing a zerg might be less efficient than a small havoc group… but inefficiency is usually better than not only losing out on getting a massive advantage, but having it turned on you.

Worse, the way the cannon apparently destroys stuff in all objectives means a lot of extra boring grunt work for the players who actually stick around and take care of defenses (if you have any at all on your server).

As for the shrines, my understanding is that they are supposed to be taken in conjunction with attacking the keep. Meaning they’re not going to be separate small-scale combat between random roaming havoc groups, but will have to be taken in close coordination with the zerg that is going to take the keep. Otherwise, capping them is kind of pointless. Since they give extra buffs, you can bet the entire zerg is going to hit at least one, as well.

So I doubt the particular mechanics I named will be very helpful in splitting up zergs at all. The geography of the map should be a lot more influential at doing that… assuming players want to play in a manner generally consistent with what Anet thinks WvW players do.

None of which was my point. I dislike gimmicky mechanics like wind-blowing, special transformations, jump pads, auto-turrets, and mazes with changing walls. They add nothing good to the game mode.

Cannon- i can see karma train jumping the maps, collecting gems, firing cannon and then just rolling throught enemy keeps because defenders wont have supply to repair every gate, something like omega rush just without omegas, come on oyu jump on a map with karma train and every single enemy gate is destroyed?

The cannon is also open to trolling and spies. If a server has almost everything on the map but then one of their team activates the cannon..

Zetsu not really as it affect only enemy gates

Hule.8794:

Zetsu not really as it affect only enemy gates

Pretty sure in the stream the dev explains it destroys all gates hence why the mechanic on paper favours the losing server. I might be mistaken though.

Even it would destroy all gates, server that is outnumbered on their borderland so much taht enemy is able to hold all the keeps whole week, that server is without a chance even with 2 cannons

I feel bad for those servers that already have to fight outnumbered….this will make people not even think about going into WvW on blowout weeks.

Arantheal.7396:

Doing this on these new maps is not an option since you need to defend your objectives

Lets face it, EOTM could be so much more fun if people would have a reason to defend objectives there.

For these two quotes, I’d like to answer that with a question, why? Why do we “need” to defend and what is our “reason” for doing so???? Just pointing out the biggest issue with WvW, it’s all meaningless. The lack of physical rewards, the lack of back story to Worlds, and the lack of community, it all leads to a lack of attachment and meaning. The concept and community of Worlds is what needs work, not so much the maps themselves. It’s why EotM is a light hearted loot map, because there’s no meaning beyond it. Now, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that. There should be an EotM like place in game just as it is now. Well, maybe a little less easy to defend since it’s too easy to troll. But, EotM is in a good place otherwise.

What the Dev’s should be thinking of is, how can we give them a place, here on the forums and in game, to help them build their Worlds.

Only way you’re going to actually split up zergs is to make them capture and hold multiple meaningful objectives at the same time to access bigger things, and I don’t mean holding 3 ruins to get bloodlust.

While towers look like they will have a bigger purpose in accessing shortcuts for the map, they need to tie them to keeps, such as capture and hold these 3 defending towers at the same time to open the first door to the keep, then take the keep with whatever you have to go kill the second door. With the new lord mechanics you can make them hard enough that you require 15 people to capture the towers in a decent time. They already do this in silverwastes to access the last boss area with three lanes.

Want to take the zerg to capture the 3 towers before the keep sure go ahead, but if you don’t keep people on them to defend the door will close on you. You can use the environment to funnel people all you want like eotm tried, but zergs will learn to get around anyways.

Other than that looks like way too many pve elements are going into the new map, so much so people will probably not even bother after a time and just queue up ebg even more.

Xenesis.6389:

Only way you’re going to actually split up zergs is to make them capture and hold multiple meaningful objectives at the same time to access bigger things, and I don’t mean holding 3 ruins to get bloodlust.

While towers look like they will have a bigger purpose in accessing shortcuts for the map, they need to tie them to keeps, such as capture and hold these 3 defending towers at the same time to open the first door to the keep, then take the keep with whatever you have to go kill the second door. With the new lord mechanics you can make them hard enough that you require 15 people to capture the towers in a decent time. They already do this in silverwastes to access the last boss area with three lanes.

Want to take the zerg to capture the 3 towers before the keep sure go ahead, but if you don’t keep people on them to defend the door will close on you. You can use the environment to funnel people all you want like eotm tried, but zergs will learn to get around anyways.

Other than that looks like way too many pve elements are going into the new map, so much so people will probably not even bother after a time and just queue up ebg even more.

My point what PvE is there in the new maps? Are mobs that mark as keep/tower holder pve? If so then its no more then what the first bl had. I guess some of the traps are some what pve though there only seem to be one of though. There the auto turrets but ppl have been asking for auto sieges for ages now i am not sure if you can call that true pve. There the event every 3hr but that going to be more of a point to fight over more then a pve event (if you think only small groups are going to be fighting over this event and the npc mobs are going to be part of it your fooling your self this is a major event that will changes the map.)

I just do not see the full on pve that ppl are talking about at least compared to the first bl maps. Look at it this way the maps are open 24hr humans do not play for 24hr most of the time you need npc and events to help sides that simply cant cover every thing. There always going to be an air of pve in these type of games becuse its just not a real thing to think ppl are going to be def/attking all the time for all maps at an = level for any game out there.

I haven’t read all of this, so apologies if this is a repeat, but my concern is that if defending is made much easier then there is, at least initially, good reason to doubt the claim that the new map will do much to disperse map-queue sized blobs. In t1, the disgusting amount of siege that gets placed (inside keeps and towers, but also in open field) by just a handful of defenders encourages mega-blobbing since, a lot of times, its the only way anyone can take anything. Greater numbers is the solution to the ridiculous amount of siege. So now in the new map it looks like there are a lot of dangerous choke points where defenders can aim their 12 sup acs and effectively prevent anyone from ever taking their objective. The ANet presentation described (seemingly ridiculous and overpowered – perma invis for a zerg? c’mon!) defenses that can be disabled by dispersing the zerg and breaking into smaller groups, but unless disabling those defenses includes an option to negate choke points, it still seems to me that people are going to have to mega blob to take objectives that are defended with inordinate amounts of siege. So my question is: what does the new map do to mitigate the current situation that demands greater numbers to counter siege?

The response on this forum is really making me laugh. All of the “hardcore” wvw players complaining about what? The fact that this map isn’t flat? The fact that you have to actually defend something to gain any progress? The fact that you cannot just blob everything? Everything I’ve read in this forum is ridiculous. The point of this map is to break zergs up, force you to defend meaningful objectives, and to add diversity into the game play. I’m sorry but if you want a flat, plain battlefield, go organize a minecraft map and make room for those who want in the map. Anet, thank you for taking wvw and diversifying it. The current BL are BORING, especially on a larger server like TC. It’s the same rotation, Server X takes this, followed by Server Y, followed by Server Z. WvW has never felt meaningful, it’s always which team is smart enough to blob. I’m confident the new map will force blobs to break up and actually play wvw strategically. You don’t have to agree with my opinion, but I do think its a kittenildish to instantly say this map is trash from a 10 minute teaser presentation. Anyone who believes anet divulged every detail is a fool.

Its about time they introduced anti zerg mechanics to WvW. I left because it became a complete joke, running around mindlessly in a zerg is NOT intelligent play…. like Anet mentioned, people just shut off all thought processing in a zerg, its why a necro gets 50+ loot bags in EotM from a fear wall, cant wait to see how many zergs get trashed on day 1 !!!

Sorel.4870:

RolandMode.2749:

Anet should make one plain EB size meadow, 3 spawns, a large hollow middle field for zerg v zergs without objectives, wildlife(npc’s), PPT or “interesting” mechanics. Low budget, lot of fun.

When I want to just press one and watch stuff die, I slay golems in HotM. You should try that sometimes.

If all your press is 1 in WvW, I thank you for all the loot bags you provide.

It really bothers me that they are willing to release a new map without addressing the core problems of WvW. A new map is nothing if 2 servers even working together are dwarfed by the third. Add all the fancy mechanics you want, it means nothing if one side is able to steam roll every thing.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

It really bothers me that they are willing to release a new map without addressing the core problems of WvW. A new map is nothing if 2 servers even working together are dwarfed by the third. Add all the fancy mechanics you want, it means nothing if one side is able to steam roll every thing.

That something you cant addressed beyond saying to each side “you must play the way we say you do” and that simply not going to fly. That is the aim of 1v1v1 so if one side is going crazy the other 2 sides can join up and take the big one down.

I hate the idea of taking elements from existing maps, EOTM, fractals, PvE and PvE and putting them into WvW…

That’s not a new map and those with balance and eye problems are going to hate you again Anet… what is wrong with you?

If you wanted it to be a decent map, why didn’t you ask the players? Why?!?!

Jumping; disorientation, nausea, headaches, dizziness… Why do you think so many don’t do some of those instances much if they do them at all?

I have a damaged brain – yep, functional but so twisted easily by “direction” it’s nauseating.

You’re making my only outlet without major jumping (WvW) uncomfortable to impossible to maneuver.

This is sad… This is very very sad.

We needed so many things balanced / fixed and then a new map, but even to this day you won’t fix the problems that are known in WvW and you won’t allow the game to have more input from players at all – we have no weight in your game design, which is insulting, come to think of it.

Why is it I have so much more power/damage in PvE than I do in PvP or WvW?

Why is my pet never growing up?

Why do thieves get the choice to be continually stealthed by bouncing off surfaces of any kind?

Why are players allowed to jump into ’unassailable" areas and kill all the vendors?

Why aren’t the fights in WvW balanced to insure you don’t die within a quarter of a second but PvE the many more who are there, the harder it is to kill anyone or anything?

I could go on all day and every single one is an issue that WvW’ers deal with every single day and have for over two years.

I didn’t find WvW until eight months into the game. It’s been my replacement for what I called my most favorite MMO of all time, and I don’t play any other game, I never leave GW2 – nothing does what it does and it’s a joy when it works, but WvW is still broken, the siege is still not always working, the towers still don’t always upgrade and fights that aren’t fair in a large group is a zerg not a test of skill or will.

Zerg fighting is what we all despise… it’s mindless and the strongest win, period. If we all had to fight to kill a single player in a larger group, it would change the way the MMO world works… and would draw far more into fights where one’s skill is far more important than how many hit points or conditions clears they have.

Jski.6180:

bloodletting wolf.2837:

It really bothers me that they are willing to release a new map without addressing the core problems of WvW. A new map is nothing if 2 servers even working together are dwarfed by the third. Add all the fancy mechanics you want, it means nothing if one side is able to steam roll every thing.

That something you cant addressed beyond saying to each side “you must play the way we say you do” and that simply not going to fly. That is the aim of 1v1v1 so if one side is going crazy the other 2 sides can join up and take the big one down.

I’m thinking that you haven’t spent much time in the t3 match ups lately. There have been a lot of decent suggestions beyond the lets merge servers or shut off WvW in off hours post. If the players hadn’t created the problem themselves by stacking to win for validation Anet wouldn’t have so much to fix. More needs to happen than just putting some saw dust in the transmission and a new paint job.

este.8651:

This needs to be play tested by over 200 person battles before the features are finalized. WvW is an entirely different game when you have more than a few dozen which is what it looks like they designed the map with.

The new PvE dynamic is way out of left field. We thought the hyleks or dredge were what we thought of as “PvE” in wvw and the community has had a gripe over that forever.

“But you don’t know what pain is!!!”

Thats how it feels. Now the PvE is something we have to deal with and cannot go around. Its not the immersive experience we were after, we can do that in Tyria. It attacks all objectives? what kind of damage are we talking about?

But most importantly, Why do the direct opposite of what the community asks for?? I mean I can understand a little different, but why specifically the direct opposite?

GG

The Devs turned a totally deaf ear to the players.

//headslap to us// Thanks Anet, we through you were listening and then we get this.

It’s horrid, it’s reused from PvE, fractals and Dungeons, but it’s not new and it’s not a good idea.

PvE should be out of WvW and the areas that we take should be ours after doing tasks maybe but not depending on tricks when so much is wrong with WvW right now.

It’s hard enough to convince some that the NPCs are necessary to watch and turn, now you’re added elements to stop many players from ever returning because, end game, they are totally disappointed and feel completely dismissed.

Bubi.5237:

Menaka.5092:

you mean like there’s ledges close to hills and to the northern towers in the current borderlands map? Shocking.

I don’t remember legdes next to the gate on the current maps, neither ledge-stairs from where the falling equals death.

All the cata spots in Hills have a ledge behind them. Cata spots on both northern towers have ledges close by.

Bubi.5237:

(…) 20 omega golems need “a few gold” (~50g), “some supply” (let’s say.. 3k?), and they can be destroyed by good defensive siege placement/scouting.
An event which occurs every 3 hours, where a big blob can just split up to 3×20 man groups, use the cannon, blob up again and take towers (no gate), take keeps easier (no outer gates, so supply needed only for inner), so it gives little chance for defending.

(…) ‘Cos during the night, when your server has 5 ppl defending against the enemy’s 40 man nightcap, the cannon will make your defense easier, yupyup.

If you have 5 players you can’t defend from a 60 man blob even if they faceroll on the gates swimming in burning oil. Your logic is faulty.

The wild population imbalance is a different problem, that we don’t know if ANet has bothered to tackle, even if everyone on the WvW forums is asking for them to fix it since 2012.

Bubi.5237:

Menaka.5092:

Bubi.5237:

Keep Lord, which are.. “fun to fight”.
’Cos wvw players love to fight npcs, yup.

no, we don’t like fighting npcs
but when we are defending against bigger numbers, we’d rather have useful NPCs to our side, instead of wooden puppets that will die in seconds

As long as the boss scales, its not THAT bad.. but instead of making pve-bosses, I would like to see defensive layout, where the defensive players have some advantage.. like you can shoot them from the wall while they cant you? On the video I saw the same walls as now, providing close to zero defense for defenders.

One of the screenshot showed that there’s walls all around the gate and you can hit attackers from every position up there.

A position where you cannot be hit back (like arrow carts on south hills for example) has no counterplay and it’s stupid and pointless.

Bubi.5237:

If the attacker have harder time when equal numbers are fighting, they’ll bring more numbers. That’s all.

To bring more numbers they’ll need to move people from somewhere else, so you can strike there instead.

I already stated that the population imbalance is a different problem and we don’t know yet if ANet has even bothered to fix it. They talked about Alliances during the CDI, but they didn’t say anything about that after it. Maybe they are working on those, maybe they are working on something different, maybe not. We don’t know. But it’s a different problem and changing the map design won’t solve it.

Bubi.5237:

I don’t remember calling that event PVE event, I was calling the map one with filled pve. NPC sentry golems (shrine reward), NPC lords with pve mechanics, jumping-puzzle-like jumppads, etc.

maybe you didn’t notice, but there’s PVE in the current maps as well
if we can’t have “less” of it, I’ll take “better” PVE over the clumsy current IA…

Bubi.5237:

Menaka.5092:

And they are trying to split the blobs, by making it impossible to cover all the objectives with one single group.

I’m not saying they succeeded, but the ideas are sound, and I hope there will be some form of beta testing before the release.

With the towers-blocking-the-path change (which is actually an interesting one), dunno if you can split the blob up better or they’ll just blob themselves past the tower THEN split up, or just continue blobbing as always.

And don’t forget, there was a reason to take out the Orbs from normal maps.
Afaik it was the FLYING/FASTRUNNING ppl.. They’re still here, so I don’t know what to think about it.

There’s no Orbs in the current map design as far as we know. And, as you admit, we don’t know enough to tell if the zerg-splitting will work.
So, what’s all the fuss?

I’ll give ANet the benefit of the doubt at least until the beta.

HitmanHaydon.1053:

Any business that has customers telling it exactly what they want from a product and it ignores them, is doomed to failure.

It’s a given that you only like what you know. You would never really know you’d like a first-person portal-based puzzle game (Portal) until Valve created it. Lots of people thought destructible terrain would be fun, and then when it was implemented in Edge of the Mists opinions became more divided. Sometimes even a “good idea” can turn out bad.

Menaka.5092:

All the cata spots in Hills have a ledge behind them. Cata spots on both northern towers have ledges close by.

Those spots are walls, not gates. Gates are used a “bit” more often, any ledge next to a gate will have bigger effect. (And btw they don’t have automated knock-back turrets next to them.)

Menaka.5092:

If you have 5 players you can’t defend from a 60 man blob even if they faceroll on the gates swimming in burning oil. Your logic is faulty.

The wild population imbalance is a different problem, that we don’t know if ANet has bothered to tackle, even if everyone on the WvW forums is asking for them to fix it since 2012.

So if you can’t defend anyway, let’s give an easier time to the bigger blob, yupyup.

Menaka.5092:

One of the screenshot showed that there’s walls all around the gate and you can hit attackers from every position up there.

A position where you cannot be hit back (like arrow carts on south hills for example) has no counterplay and it’s stupid and pointless.

The keep I saw had the same walls, even if you can stay on more spots, the enemy still can dps ya.. Did you see any medieval keep? They provided defense for the ones on wall, making them hard to hit while they could shoot the enemy.

Menaka.5092:

To bring more numbers they’ll need to move people from somewhere else, so you can strike there instead.

When they have Q on every BL, they’ll have the same ppl everywhere, not like you can strike somewhere else. So let’s provide more benefit for the bigger server.

Menaka.5092:

I already stated that the population imbalance is a different problem and we don’t know yet if ANet has even bothered to fix it. They talked about Alliances during the CDI, but they didn’t say anything about that after it. Maybe they are working on those, maybe they are working on something different, maybe not. We don’t know. But it’s a different problem and changing the map design won’t solve it.

Maybe won’t solve it, but to make it stronger…

Menaka.5092:

maybe you didn’t notice, but there’s PVE in the current maps as well if we can’t have “less” of it, I’ll take “better” PVE over the clumsy current IA…

Dunno, I don’t wanna fight players while perma-crippled (pve sentries), I don’t wanna fight while there are turrets which can knock me off the ledge to death..
Why we can’t have less pve? The Old Borders have little pve, most of them are on EBG (as centaurs/skritts are doing nothing on bls, and quaggans are dead now..), but it’s still too much for some..

Menaka.5092:

There’s no Orbs in the current map design as far as we know. And, as you admit, we don’t know enough to tell if the zerg-splitting will work.
So, what’s all the fuss?

The Big Boom Cannon event is something like:
1) Kill the pve-thingy
2) Get the Power Core back to the Cannon
3) Repeat Step 1-2 to get all Cores

As killing a pve-thingy is not a wvw-event, I believe Anet wanna the Run-the-Core-to-Cannon part to be the main-focus, where the enemies are trying to kill the runner, stealing the Core, whatever. It’s pretty similar to the orbs for me

Menaka.5092:

I’ll give ANet the benefit of the doubt at least until the beta.

I gave Anet the benefit of the doubt during the last years since beta-weekends where we duo-flipped camps with our lvl 11 chars with my friend, but seeing the updates after release….

It’s difficult to put all those changes into perspective. I really didn’t expect that different of a map so this is a surprise. I’d be interested in a developer doing a video where he or she discusses how all these new things in the desert borderland facilitate a better wvw experience and player issues.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/essential-elements-of-the-new-borderlands/

dolyaks’ defense.

Squeeeeeeee

I love what they’ve shown in the new BL! I want it already! Screw all you haters, I actually get tired on constant 60 vs. 60 blob fighting. I mean, if you guys want that so bad, go to the kitten arena in OS.

EoTM is terrible because of what the PvE community did to it, and because it resets after 3 hours. I want to be able to see progress of my hard work when upgrading stuff. Also, I enjoy being able to provide boosts to my server through our hard work (the PPT).

I want this BL! Grabby Hands I would rule the Fire Keep with a Firey Fist, hahaha, and watch all my enemies melt as I stand on lava unharmed. Or watch as 30 people jump from the tallest point in the map and crush their enemies from fall damage as they themselves are unharmed. These new boosts and keeps (and towers .) are awesome!

Also, I love the fact that they’re making it worthwhile to walk Dolyaks now. I just wonder what the camps will be like.

Thank you Anet!

The only thing left is to change those Achievement Requirements…

The terrain is more complex, the cliffs are higher, and the paths are windier, resulting in an even deeper field of battle.

After reading the new article https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/essential-elements-of-the-new-borderlands/ , the dolly protection buffs seems nice

As long as an allied player is near the dolyak, the dolyak gains an effect called Protected Caravan. While this effect is active, the dolyak is greatly resistant to both damage and conditions.

, same with a bit upgraded sentry,

They now guard tiny outposts and have a skill that cripples enemy dolyaks for several minutes,

but the shrines..

…interacting with a shrine that your team controls, you will gain a five-minute elemental blessing effect. This effect increases both your movement speed and either your attack damage, critical-strike chance, or defense, depending on which elemental blessing you received.

Just.. Why… Why more stats.. Stat bonuses are never good for fun fights..

And ofc the Big Boom Cannon will open the enemy thingies only, and not yours.

Once a team has collected enough cores to power the weapon, the cannon will begin firing blasts of energy at the outer gates of all enemy-owned towers and keeps in the map, gradually obliterating them.

I would like to have the dolly/sentry update on the old borderlands, would be a lot more fun for (defensive-)roaming..

Bristingr.5034:

I love what they’ve shown in the new BL! I want it already! Screw all you haters, I actually get tired on constant 60 vs. 60 blob fighting.

Can you please say what exactly will make the 60 man blob split up? ’Cos all I saw was more reason to blob..

Can we make sure we get some areas void of hills, npcs, and obstacles just for the GvG guys??? kthanks.

SkylightMoon.1980:

“The Desert Borderlands Map will be replacing the old Borderlands map (Alpine Borderlands) when the expansion releases and we might reintroduce the old map in a rotation or tournament.”

Wait, they’re actually removing our borderlands for this jumping puzzley pvey thing??? :O
That… might make me quite GW2 actually. Not a fan of the layout, I don’t do JP, and dislike EotM. I was hoping the new map might be added like a special bl, a la EB, or to have 3 maps of Alpine, Desert and EB. Not happy about this at all, as WvW is the only thing that still interests me and I can’t believe Anet is removing yet more of the content that made the game great.

Excellent, a combination of pve, npc bosses, jump puzzle, an event every 3 hours that ends with being able to open every enemy gate on the map, wind that blows you off ledges if your not a guard, npc turrets, huge numbers of ledges to fire AC’s from that you won’t be able to touch. Add in removal of the current map meaning there is still only one BL map (are they still keeping three identical copies of this new one?).

I loved seeing all those trebs up, and the defence trebs not firing at them, and the players still running around in front of the trebs (why? they seemed to think dying while waiting for the trebs to take down the wall was preferable to dying of boredom from siege wars?)

Oh and wait for it..NINE cap points to gain attributes from, hooray for being outnumbered. Oasis event for making sure it’s easier for the big blob to open all your towers.

Personally I’m loving the look of those walkways, couple of sup ballista on the end of those, couple of necros to strip stab boons and fear anyone else off that survived the ballys, send me those loot bags!

Sounds perfect. If this doesn’t make more people play their beloved spvp, nothing will.

So should we go clockwise or counterclockwise for the karma train ( as long as rewards are better than EoTM, otherwise may as well carry on training there).

So when they start designing and testing the next wvw map in 3 years time, any chance some (probably ex-) wvw players, groups, roamers and guilds from various tiers could help in the development and testing of it..because this map looks more like some devs xxx xxxxx (censored) than something that was designed with any player input or real wvw mechanics in mind.

Sounds pretty disapointing. It’s like the big problems of WvW are completely ignored, or deliberately exacerbated.

Controlling one of these towers not only allows your team to pass easily into another section of the map but also creates a noticeable impediment to the movement of enemy armies.

At least when fighting a losing battle against an overstacked server you can still move around, back cap some stuff. But in the new borderland map you’re movement will be heavily impeded. So getting around is harder, and the bigger blob finding and jumping on you is made easier.
It’s like we didn’t just get out of a 2.5year complaint-train about unbalanced matchups.

At the fire keep, controlling Shrines of Fire grants the defending team the ability to transform into fiery hounds, turns on fireball-spitting gargoyle turrets, and grants immunity to burning and lava damage.

They seem to explicitely destinguish between Burning and lava damage. So, this means certain builds for whom Burning is a considerable source of damage better not bother playing on certain parts of the map? That would just be the most ridiculous thing ever.

Once a team has collected enough cores to power the weapon, the cannon will begin firing blasts of energy at the outer gates of all enemy-owned towers and keeps in the map, gradually obliterating them.

More “lets pretend population inbalance isnt a thing”. This is just a Faceroll Harder for the most stacked server in the matchup.

First, by interacting with a shrine that your team controls, you will gain a five-minute elemental blessing effect. This effect increases both your movement speed and either your attack damage, critical-strike chance, or defense, depending on which elemental blessing you received.

Because even more power creep, that of course will be most easily acquired by the stacked server, is the answer.

The Dolyak and Sentry changes are all pretty good to be fair. Really like those. But overall i am not exactly enthralled by this Borderland, which seems to limit which builds can play and favors stacked servers more so than ever.
And with the alpine borderland going on an extented hiatus, this could be a pretty big deal breaker for some people to just not bother with WvW anymore.

Bubi.5237:

Bristingr.5034:

I love what they’ve shown in the new BL! I want it already! Screw all you haters, I actually get tired on constant 60 vs. 60 blob fighting.

Can you please say what exactly will make the 60 man blob split up? ’Cos all I saw was more reason to blob..

I fail to see how? If you constantly blob up, your buffs are going to disappear, as well as your controlled towers and keeps.

Kanashi.5104:

Can we make sure we get some areas void of hills, npcs, and obstacles just for the GvG guys??? kthanks.

There’s this nice arena in OS…

Bristingr.5034:

I fail to see how? If you constantly blob up, your buffs are going to disappear, as well as your controlled towers and keeps.

Buffs need 1-2 players, that’s what scouts are for.
Your supply camps will be blocked off by your towers, enemy roamers can’t get them easily, meaning you can have your scouts watch the border of your territory. (So you’ll have enough scouts to mainain the few shrines.)
As you have to break down the wall of the tower to get to the “inner camps”, you’ll need the same force to do that as now you need to take a tower (the moment the wall is open most of the time the tower is lost.)
How will this map split up the blob?
Less way to get inside = more ppl to the blob.

Nowadays you can attack 3 objectives of the defensive server on their home bl at the same time, but we still don’t see blobs splitting up so often. If you have to get through a choke-point to get the keep, the blob will defend it with all their might, so you’ll need your blob to break through. Or at least this is the way I see it with the informations we got so far.

People keep asserting the new map will discourage zerging, yet I haven’t seen a plausible case made for why that will be true.

The parts I object to are jump pads, wind turrets to knock people off cliffs, being able to transform into lava puppy dogs and other absurd mechanics that take away from playing your class against other players.

And doing the Silverwastes pick up and run cores mini-event, only with Dinosaurs in a pvp zone is just horrible.

Honestly, it really doesn’t have to be so difficult. We don’t need anything complicated for a fun WvW map, just some objectives to get enemies together, some interesting terrain to fight on and a few guards and lords for flavor.

All the rest of this they’ve added is just awful.

Lack of an open field means less ways to get places, making it less likely your opponents will be in a lot of places, making roamers less needed, which in summary means more reason for people to be in a big group.

I’ll just throw in my two cents on this thing. (wvw is not my main game mode, mainly use it to get some small scale fights and command once in a blue moon when the enemy night crews come on)

I think the new features will be interesting. I’m a little worried about the super cannon, but think it could help make small group and roamers more valuable. I love the dolyak buff, as i hate that when i’m escorting a dolyak a thief just pops up from stealth, bursts it, then runs the moment I retaliate. I am a little bit worried about the enforced chokepoints, but I think that will be good to help defend against night karma trains.

Overall, I think it’ll be interesting. Seems like they’re trying to add more objectives to the map that affect your priority list more than just “Which building will give us a better PPT?”

Bristingr.5034:

Bubi.5237:

Bristingr.5034:

I love what they’ve shown in the new BL! I want it already! Screw all you haters, I actually get tired on constant 60 vs. 60 blob fighting.

Can you please say what exactly will make the 60 man blob split up? ’Cos all I saw was more reason to blob..

I fail to see how? If you constantly blob up, your buffs are going to disappear, as well as your controlled towers and keeps.

Kanashi.5104:

Can we make sure we get some areas void of hills, npcs, and obstacles just for the GvG guys??? kthanks.

There’s this nice arena in OS…

Let me get this straight. So the enemy attacks our keep and we rally the map to save the keep… we will lose our buffs?

Hexin.5603:

Bristingr.5034:

Bubi.5237:

Bristingr.5034:

I love what they’ve shown in the new BL! I want it already! Screw all you haters, I actually get tired on constant 60 vs. 60 blob fighting.

Can you please say what exactly will make the 60 man blob split up? ’Cos all I saw was more reason to blob..

I fail to see how? If you constantly blob up, your buffs are going to disappear, as well as your controlled towers and keeps.

Kanashi.5104:

Can we make sure we get some areas void of hills, npcs, and obstacles just for the GvG guys??? kthanks.

There’s this nice arena in OS…

Let me get this straight. So the enemy attacks our keep and we rally the map to save the keep… we will lose our buffs?

If the whole server zergs, roamers and maybe havoc squads can take out your shrines, which lowers your home-field mobility and defenses, and your towers, which will apparently now be gateways to traverse the map with greater ease. This means if you only focus on being a blob, you’ll likely be getting crippled much more than a slightly smaller zerg with numerous roaming groups hitting the smaller, but now more important objectives. That’s likely what he meant.