Guild Wars 2

I keep seeing snipits of dbl updates, but it would be nice to know what major changes are coming to dbl that address the common concerns about the map.

WvW—BORDERLANDS
The Desert borderlands map layout has been updated with a large number of adjustments to improve navigation and create better spaces for fighting, especially around the three keeps.
General
Barricades have been removed entirely.
Added hay bales in some locations to negate falling damage when players land on them.
Fire Keep
Reduced the number of fireball turrets in and around the keep.
The lord room now has more of the lava covered and additional bridges leading into it.
Widened many of the pathways outside the keep, leaving less lava exposed.
Opened new routes leading to the keep.
It is now easier to navigate around the outside of the keep due to the removal of some barriers.
Half of the sand dunes above the keep have been removed.
Moved some creatures, like the Veteran Sand Wurm, to compensate for this change.
Air Keep
Reduced the number of wind turrets in and around the keep.
Changed many locations that were accessed via jump pads to be sloped terrain or staircases instead.
Added additional staircases leading up to the lord room.
Improved the layout of certain walls that were difficult to defend.
Widened many of the bridges outside the keep.
Opened new routes leading to the keep.
It is now easier to navigate around the outside of the keep due to the removal of some barriers.
The bamboo bridge area south of the keep has been simplified, and the terrain has been raised.
Earth Keep
Added additional staircases leading up to the lord room.
Widened the canyons outside the keep.
Removed many of the teleporters that were in the canyons.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-April-19-2016/first#post6102561

They have done minor bugfixes. They already did the major changes. I seriously doubt we will see another iteration that actually fixes the core issues, no matter how much the yes to desert peeps kept imagining the glorious possibilities.

those changes were made april 19th, but the core issues remain. let me pull something out of the magic hat::

in alpine borderlands, if you can an objective, lets say south west spawn tower (briar), that objective has a strategic advantage of taking down the outer walls on Bay. if you were to take down DBL south west spawn tower, you can do jak kitten with that. No objective in the DBL has any strategic positioning. its just there for points.

Roaming in alpine, or Defending, to use a better word for that, is useful on ABL. because it won’t take 5 or 6 minutes to run from spawn (citadel) to south spawn towers / camps.

those core issues, makes me want to get rid of the dbl in the first place. since the majorty voted otherwise, i hope anet will work on the lay out and positioning inside the DBL, rather then remove a few hills, some barricades and some turrets inside lordrooms.

The keeps are massive, hard to go around in and ez to get lost to. the difference in hights makes it impossible to defend…

there are many core issues with the DBL, but also with the ABL which they recently fixed, like the ability to chuck down siege at invulnerable places, close to citadel and such.. so please anet, fix CORE issues on the DBL, not minor changes pls

If there are any significant changes that they are planning… they will likely be deployed as part of the next quarterly big patch and not sooner. There is no reason to announce major changes to a map that has not re-entered play yet.

This probably also has to do with QA, I assume anything that is part of a release notes for a build has gone through QA pass by the time that build goes out. So by not finalizing the changes there is no pressure on QA from content that is not playable at the moment.

Last, but certainly not least… what they have said on the subject of DBL changes is that for the time being their philosophy is smaller changes with big impact. This is also in line with the assumption that they probably would want to have a poll about a major map overhaul, if they keep following their current mantra about polls, and this is not likely before majority of the scoring changes have been implemented or are well underway most likely.

Whoa, the devs do care about us! <3

Makes me want to buy more gems when I see stuff like that! Keep it up team!

The biggest change is a reduction in 80% of the wvw population. Good update. I joke