Guild Wars 2

I think we all have to realize that Desert Borderlands will not be going away anytime soon. I know a lot of people absolutely despise the Desert BLs but I think it’s in everyone’s interest to suggest improvements to the Desert BLs, rather than constantly calling it a failure and asking Anet to remove it completely. A few weeks before Anet removed the Desert BLs and brought back Alpine BLs, there were some big changes to the Desert BLs that I really thought significantly improved Desert BLs. After that change, I actually started enjoying my time in the Desert BLs, instead of complaining about every little thing about the Desert BLs. IMO Air keep especially got huge improvements. So to attempt to get Desert BLs at least half as popular as Alpine BLs, will Anet rollout any more patches for the Desert BLs?

If yes, here are some changes I would like to see.

• Fire Keep: I still think Fire keep is a disaster, even after the improvements that Anet made to Desert BLs. The biggest flaw of Fire keep, I think, is the area just outside of the inner gates and walls. The design of all other keeps/garrisons/smc allow many angles of attack for the attackers and many ways for defenders to slip by the attacking zerg into the inner. Fire keep, however, has only ONE way for anyone to access the inner gates/walls, which is the big open area in front of the supply depot. Attackers and defenders eventually have to funnel into that small opening, not to mention the annoying little pillars which you have to jump through for passage. I suggest that Anet adds more ways to enter Lord’s Room. That’s my biggest complaint about Fire keep, but there are a few others, like the stairs being too narrow.

• Sand Dunes: I think this was one of the biggest complaints that fight-oriented guilds made since Day 1 of Desert BLs. With huge wide open areas, fight guilds should – in theory – absolutely love the Desert BLs, but I can’t help but feel like every single open-field fight is quite literally an uphill battle or downhill battle because of how massive the sand dunes are. I suggest reducing the sizes of the sand dunes again. I believe Anet addressed and somewhat fixed these in the Desert BL overhaul, but I don’t think they were enough.

• Absolutely random crap in the way: These I can’t exactly address in general terms because I find them one-by-one. There’s a big fat tree Southeast of the Northwest tower that I think I will name Camera Molester. Every time there’s a fight near that tree, your camera gets tangled in that tree and you will be looking at tree branches for the rest of the fight. The trees near the Skysplitter (R. I. P. in Peace 2015-2016) are not as bad as Camera Molester, but they are all definitely the runner-ups to that title. I don’t think they need to be removed, but rather shrunk down width-wise and height-wise. Please get rid of random crap like that Camera Molester. This issue also ties into the next point:

• Map Navigation: The multi-level design of the map had everyone complain about the map being too big (or at least feeling too big) since the release of Desert BLs. I personally never had any issues with the size of the map, but rather the path from any Point A to Point B was always too round-about. In Alpine BLs, if I want to get from Southwest spawn to Northeast camp, I could probably figure it out all on my own even if were my first day in WvW. In Desert BLs, however, with that same situation, I would either end up underground next to Fire keep or next to the Skysplitter (R. I. P. in Peace 2015-2016) looking for a ramp up a sheer cliff Northwest of Air keep. My suggestion would be to make the entrances to every camps/towers/keeps easily accessible with wide pathways. Why do I say “wide”? It’s because “mini jumping puzzles” seems to have been the theme when Desert BLs were being designed. For example, if I want to get from North gate of Fire keep to the Northwest camp, I have to jump up 3 or 4 small ledges. Why? Why is that even there? Just make it a wide pathway. The wooden bridges leading to South Air keep were definitely improved, but they could still use more. The bolded statement is what I think could save Desert BLs. People complain about Desert BLs because the time it takes to get to a place is ridiculous: the map’s not big, it’s just that the Desert BLs were designed with the phrases “Narrow pathways”, “Sheer cliffs”, and “small cliffs you have to jump over”.

If Desert BLs are here to stay, I would much rather fun on them, not question the intent of the map developers every time I run into Camera Molester. Oh, and please keep Skysplitter dead. That was such a bad idea that I don’t even know what to suggest other than just forget it ever happened.

Please share what you want changed about the Desert BLs other than “remove it from the game” because that’s not going to happen.

They can’t improve on it without basically making a new map. The BL’s issue is it’s way, way, way, way too kittening big. This in the face of the game’s WvW population being smushed together because playerbase is shrinking.

They designed EoTM and the #1 complaint by FAR from us that actually did roam there for a while is the size is way too large. Eventually, WvW people completely abandon EoTM. So they move to make another oversized map and put it in WvW. Surprise, most WvW people don’t play on the map because it’s still too kittening big.

edit: Even Alpine BL’s are a bit too large, people only embrace them because of shell shock of just how bad a map can be with DBL. The entire northwest/northeast of the map is functionally useless. You could make Alpine 30% smaller or more and lose nothing of consequence.

I belive Desert Borderlands was created with the intention of seeing it played in thirds (Like EBG or even EotM) and not as a map entirely controled by a single server. ABL problably had the same purpose (that’s why each team start with the keep close to it’s spawn) but ABL being smaller make it easier for total domination, whereas DBL being larger do not.

We tend to see more action in EBG than the borderlands (regardless of which) anyway. Why? Honestly, I can’t say for sure. But I feel that people are attracted by the big shiny castle in the middle of the map. Most of activity tend to be around it or in the towers around it. Maybe Arena Net should scrap the whole “home borderland” concept and do more maps that are meant to be played like EBG. Where each server get it’s third of the map and there is somenthing different to be contested on the middle and/or between the thirds.

A lot of people don’t dispise the dbl, a lot of people voted for it.

Easiest and fastest solution so people stop crying about “its too big” move spawnpoint with northcamp so its more south e.g. equal to Alpine Borders. It will give the people the feeling that its smaller and it will be more equal and fair in comparison with Alpine.

Fixed.

tony.9425:

Easiest and fastest solution so people stop crying about “its too big” move spawnpoint with northcamp so its more south e.g. equal to Alpine Borders. It will give the people the feeling that its smaller and it will be more equal and fair in comparison with Alpine.

Fixed.

That does very little to fix it.

The fundamental issues remains simple to define:
- NW and NE towers are too far from garri and doesnt offer any home defense in terms of movement.
-SW and SE towers are too far from east/west keeps.
- All 3 keeps are so big and complex its hard to overview and scout paths around them.

These issues also remain impossible to fix unless the map is redesigned on the whole. Just like we knew day 1 of HoT release. You can only bandaid it.

I’m honestly not sure DBL are bigger than ABL. When you look at the 3 maps (just call maps and de-zoom, you’ll see), I’d say they’re slightly broader (W-E direction), and clearly shorter (N-S direction) than ABL.
Yet, I admit they’re clearly more intricate than ABL, because of verticality. The patch just before they put back ABL fixed the most of it. For now, I still think that the area around Air keep may be not so easy, but it’s also the part I’m the less familiar with.
Anyway, the map isn’t so hard. Having a look at minimap is really helpful, and you can read most of paths. Of course, you can’t really do it well when running away from a blob, but it helps for “explore and learn” part.

Mammon.9508:

• Fire Keep: I still think Fire keep is a disaster, even after the improvements that Anet made to Desert BLs. The biggest flaw of Fire keep, I think, is the area just outside of the inner gates and walls. The design of all other keeps/garrisons/smc allow many angles of attack for the attackers and many ways for defenders to slip by the attacking zerg into the inner. Fire keep, however, has only ONE way for anyone to access the inner gates/walls, which is the big open area in front of the supply depot. Attackers and defenders eventually have to funnel into that small opening, not to mention the annoying little pillars which you have to jump through for passage. I suggest that Anet adds more ways to enter Lord’s Room. That’s my biggest complaint about Fire keep, but there are a few others, like the stairs being too narrow.

There’re many entrances at the outer wall, but indeed far less in the inner wall, and most of the fights are in that courtyard. A possible solution would be to provide an underground access, somehow like ABL’s garrison’s southern gate you enter at lake level. Could be some kind of tunnel linking the two camps (north and south from fire keep) with a gate leading to inner fire keep and some room below lord’s room, and another gate leading to staircases climbing up to lord’s room (south and north of the catwalk thing).

Mammon.9508:

• Map Navigation: The multi-level design of the map had everyone complain about the map being too big (or at least feeling too big) since the release of Desert BLs. I personally never had any issues with the size of the map, but rather the path from any Point A to Point B was always too round-about. In Alpine BLs, if I want to get from Southwest spawn to Northeast camp, I could probably figure it out all on my own even if were my first day in WvW. In Desert BLs, however, with that same situation, I would either end up underground next to Fire keep or next to the Skysplitter (R. I. P. in Peace 2015-2016) looking for a ramp up a sheer cliff Northwest of Air keep. My suggestion would be to make the entrances to every camps/towers/keeps easily accessible with wide pathways. Why do I say “wide”? It’s because “mini jumping puzzles” seems to have been the theme when Desert BLs were being designed. For example, if I want to get from North gate of Fire keep to the Northwest camp, I have to jump up 3 or 4 small ledges. Why? Why is that even there? Just make it a wide pathway. The wooden bridges leading to South Air keep were definitely improved, but they could still use more. The bolded statement is what I think could save Desert BLs. People complain about Desert BLs because the time it takes to get to a place is ridiculous: the map’s not big, it’s just that the Desert BLs were designed with the phrases “Narrow pathways”, “Sheer cliffs”, and “small cliffs you have to jump over”.

I’m not sure making it plainer will make it more interesting. I’d suggest, for a beginning, to improve the minimap. Have a better outline of pathes, and add “ramp up/ramp down” icons like in HoT PvE maps. Also, why not put icons like “safe jump spot” near some clives ?
To me, going from A to B isn’t a matter of turning the character to the appropriate compass direction, and then press “autorun”. There’s a learn and experiment part, and also a landscape and minimap reading.

Dawdler.8521:

• NW and NE towers are too far from garri and doesnt offer any home defense in terms of movement.
• SW and SE towers are too far from east/west keeps.

Towers are indeed a big problem. Solutions have been suggested in old topics I’m too lazy to dig. Roughly, ideas were :

• Have towers provide their specific guards (which are more powerful than camp ones) to guard camps, keeps and supply dollies ;
• Implant in towers a network of skritt holes for fast travel from one tower to another.

As far as I’m concerned, I’m not really for providing towers with a tactical interest like in ABL (i.e. treb keeps from towers) for two reasons : it’s too hard to move towers from the map in its current state, and DBL shouldn’t be “ABL with a different landscape”. Let’s invent something new and cool !

Dawdler.8521:

The fundamental issues remains simple to define:
- NW and NE towers are too far from garri and doesnt offer any home defense in terms of movement.
-SW and SE towers are too far from east/west keeps.

All 4 towers are just kinda there, you can’t use them to defend any of the keeps. In EBG you have to go by the gauntlet of towers to attack the keep and on alpine the NE and NW towers protect the garrison from the North.

- All 3 keeps are so big and complex its hard to overview and scout paths around them.

These issues also remain impossible to fix unless the map is redesigned on the whole. Just like we knew day 1 of HoT release. You can only bandaid it.

I like these keeps, they lead to really epic battles. Since the updated Desert came out (before Alpine) it was made possible to treb the keeps, which was difficult before. An enemy at the gate means things are going to get interesting.

On Alpine it’s like build a couple catapults, hit both walls. One blob hits the other and the fight is over in 5 minutes. Which is fine if that’s how you like to play, but the variety of situations on Desert is nice.

An improvement that would really help navigation is waypoints in the towers at T2. It creates urgency to flip them or run yaks and allows any of the towers to be used as staging points.

Hesacon.8735:

All 4 towers are just kinda there, you can’t use them to defend any of the keeps. In EBG you have to go by the gauntlet of towers to attack the keep and on alpine the NE and NW towers protect the garrison from the North.

Or you can just go straight for the double gates and ram it down (with the same rams in the case of Lowlands and Valley Keeps) while ignoring completely all 4 towers.

Honestly I prefer the structures being far because that way people cannot just sit on trebs behind walls with a buttload of siege until their blob arives. To make progress you need to actually be in open field, which promote more fighting and less bunkering.

Some good ideas here. I think the 3 main issues of the DBL have been hit on.

1. Map navigation/apparent size
2. Tower usefulness/purpose
3. Keep design

1. Map Navigation/Size

Mammon.9508:

• Map Navigation: The multi-level design of the map had everyone complain about the map being too big (or at least feeling too big) since the release of Desert BLs. I personally never had any issues with the size of the map, but rather the path from any Point A to Point B was always too round-about…. My suggestion would be to make the entrances to every camps/towers/keeps easily accessible with wide pathways. Why do I say “wide”? It’s because “mini jumping puzzles” seems to have been the theme when Desert BLs were being designed.

I once said Anet needs to take a giant bulldozer and fill in the canyons and valleys and flatten the whole thing out. But the simplest thing may be to do what Mammon bolded.

Yes the map is bigger but its not that much bigger – and they’re not going to be able to change the size of the map. The problem is the convoluted nature of the map that makes it seem even bigger than it is.

2. Towers
Currently towers are perceived as useless. The question is how to make them useful and have a purpose.

I agree with ThomasC that DBL shouldn’t just be ABL with a different landscape. Simply moving them closer so they can treb the keeps is not the best way to deal with them imo. The best idea I’ve seen was in another thread and involved the towers have an effect on the keeps depending on ownership of the tower (like home team owned NWT it would give a bonus to Gari). That’s probably too much work though so I think having a waypoint upgrade in the towers would be the best simple idea.

3. Keep design
Man I hate the keeps on DBL. They’re ugly, convoluted and huge. I don’t even know what to say. Barring a total re-design, at least make them simpler by doing what Mammon said in #1.

Maybe adding players to the map could help?

RodOfDeath.5247:

Maybe adding players to the map could help?

Impossible… Arena Net tried, but players didn’t work with the map. We’ll have to think about somenthing else.

The only improvement that would make me consider playing that kitten map is the removal of the shrines, or completely changing their affects to something waaay less gimmicky and annoying.

kitten their stupid stealth sandstorms, pop up rock walls, aoe cripple, knockback turrets, fire turrets, immunity to fall damage, etc.
This stupid PvE bullkitten does nothing except interfere with fights.

Removal of shrines, much less rock walls with longer changes, i tihnk a litle bit is ok we can lure some range players to that place and play with their LoS, but how it is now it is to much.
Remove Keeps buffs, walk in lava, jump form cliffes , to much gimmicks killed the game.
Improve rewarding system on keeps besides ppt, capped stuff needs to server for something valuable, players dont care about ppt, only to farm nodes that are inside and the chest.

Oh and health, why on hearth or tyria in this case, the server that is outmaned since has less capped stuff players have less HP????

i think sandstorm is nice :P, altough valeys should be clear of sandstorms.

Jim Hunter.6821:

The only improvement that would make me consider playing that kitten map is the removal of the shrines, or completely changing their affects to something waaay less gimmicky and annoying.

kitten their stupid stealth sandstorms, pop up rock walls, aoe cripple, knockback turrets, fire turrets, immunity to fall damage, etc.
This stupid PvE bullkitten does nothing except interfere with fights.

What this guy said, too much BS and copy + paste crap from pve.

You think the people who just plopped it back in — not even considering that bloodlust was missing — are going to improve the map?