Guild Wars 2

Swift.1930:

Kaiser.9873:

Okay, so this is my opinion and should only be construed as such.

A good BL map for this game should have:
1. Three equidistant spawn points
2. A central keep with a moat(think SMC but larger), and a waypoint.
3. Two towers near each spawn point(home towers)
4. 4 towers nearer the central keep(preferably within treb range)
4a. These towers would “guard” bridges over the moat.
5. 1 supply camp feeding each tower with all supply camps ending at the central keep
6. Plenty of open space for open field near the towers/supply camps(think rolling hills)

This is all that would be needed to supply any and all WvW players with their chosen form of excitement. Now we all know that Anet would want to throw in some PvE mechanics as well even if not needed. I propose that they be minimized to the following.

1. A jumping puzzle that would be within range to shoot treb shots at the keep
2. A “Gigacannon” that could be captured(like the EotM statue cannon) by beating 3 Champion rabid Charr
3. A wyvern lair that was capturable, and the server that owned it could call the wyvern once per tick to drop wyvern breath on an area(area denial attack with lots of burning damage)

Some very curious ideas. The jumping puzzle would have to be quite tricky, or… perhaps there could be a few parts that can be destroyed (by defenders) and require supply to repair before trebbers can get to the top. Not overly sure about the cannon or wyvern, but they might work. Not a big fan of wedging PvE in, myself.

When you say equidistant spawn points, do you mean primary points or keep waypoints? And further; if you mean keep waypoints, do you mean one per server or the way it used to be – the owner of the keep decided the owner of the WP?

The rest of your suggestions sound a lot like the alpine map (except the moat on the central keep). That’s a plus in my books, haha. xD

Alpine map thematically, but think more Spain than Germany.

When I say equidistant what I mean is home in the far north, red SE corner, and blue SW corner. No home keep at all. One keep per BL that’s it. This serves a couple of purposes. One, it makes the towers far more important, especially the “inner” towers. Two it makes whoever takes the keep need to control the keep. It also promotes more of a three-way battle rather than the old; “You take that side, we take this side, and try to keep the home team in the top third.”

Ideally there would be plenty of open field action going on as well, since in my vision PPK is a real thing again. Also unlike the current EBG model home towers would be a bit more spread allowing more “used” space rather than all the unused space in the corners of the map. The moat should act like a real barrier. Not many places to get out once you are in. Control of the inner towers would be a huge boon for people trying to cross the moat, or to exit the moat.

Terrain would be flatter than the old Alpine maps, but not flat. There could easily be ravines, river beds, and other low spots that would allow a force to move relatively stealthily without the amount of terrain disadvantages that were present in the Alpine maps, and are even more present in the Desert maps.

Believe me those PvE options were completely spur of the moment thoughts. We all know Anet wouldn’t design a map without some kind of PvE elements, and so I tried to think like a dev for a moment.

Okay, so this is my opinion and should only be construed as such.

A good BL map for this game should have:
1. Three equidistant spawn points
2. A central keep with a moat(think SMC but larger), and a waypoint.
3. Two towers near each spawn point(home towers)
4. 4 towers nearer the central keep(preferably within treb range)
4a. These towers would “guard” bridges over the moat.
5. 1 supply camp feeding each tower with all supply camps ending at the central keep
6. Plenty of open space for open field near the towers/supply camps(think rolling hills)

This is all that would be needed to supply any and all WvW players with their chosen form of excitement. Now we all know that Anet would want to throw in some PvE mechanics as well even if not needed. I propose that they be minimized to the following.

1. A jumping puzzle that would be within range to shoot treb shots at the keep
2. A “Gigacannon” that could be captured(like the EotM statue cannon) by beating 3 Champion rabid Charr
3. A wyvern lair that was capturable, and the server that owned it could call the wyvern once per tick to drop wyvern breath on an area(area denial attack with lots of burning damage)

Posting multiple threads on the same topic also triggers DR.

It would be a disaster to make enemies more intelligent than an average player.

Masori.3528:

Phantom.8130:

There’s problems on so many levels, that even fixing one level completely won’t have much impact. Everything from the very foundation all the way up needs redesigned and completely reset. And that even includes the mindsets of a loooooot of players. Unfortunately, that’s just plain not possible. Anet isn’t going to fix the foundation as well as all of the details built on top of said foundation, and the playerbase isn’t going to go do some studying of actual strategy. So….. we end up with the constant karma train. Because that’s what it’s set up for, and that’s all a lot of people know.

+1

The blobmentality is what broke WvW.

Well…. yes and no. The maps are a major part of the problem. They need completely redesigned. The layout of where the areas are needs fixed. The design of each of those areas needs fixed. The overall structure of the system needs fixed. That’s all on Anet.

However, I think back to previous MMO’s I’ve played, and look at how the PvP went with that. There was always a small portion of players who played for the objectives and wanted to focus on them, and learn the best way to capture/defend them. But there was always a larger portion of players who just….. facemashed against each other in every match, and were entirely irrelevant to the outcome of the matches. They just wanted to fight each other and didn’t care about anything else. Or anyone else. Many of those players would be the ones who ignored everything and just focused on grinding so they could get top PvP gear and have easier wins in their useless fights. Look at TOR as the perfect example of that playing out. How many Huttball matches had a tank and a healer just….. standing in the acid pit the whole time to get their medals for healing and soaking, while ignoring the entire match and just being a burden on the rest of their team? It was commonplace by the time I quit that game.

There’s players who want to focus on strategy, there’s players that just want to focus on the fighting mechanics themselves, and then there’s a LOT more players that just want easy wins for selfish reasons. And the kicker is, I’ve noticed that there’s a lot of PvP guilds across all of the MMOs, that start off with one or two big names that excelled at either the strategy/objectives or the mechanical fighting, and then the guild was filled in with some people that legtimately wanted to improve in either aspect, but also a LOT of people that just wanted that tag recognition so they could try to lord it over people. “I’m in (insert guild name here), so you HAVE to do what I say!” yet…. when it came down to it, those people were completely useless buffoons.

So it’s the combination of several factors. Bad design being a major portion of it. But some lazy, selfish, narcissistic players, who pretty much suck the life out everything they touch, because that’s all they’re good for. And then the odd dynamic of the good players who actually know what they’re talking about, but end up being drowned out by a combination of ignorance, psychotic politics, and sometimes even outright harassment.

However, Anet can’t fix the problems with the playerbase. Those are problems that exists in every MMO, and furthermore every online game. Good parenting is the only solution for that. But Anet can fix the problems with the game itself, but…. they have to actually know what they’re doing in order to be able to do that. All signs point towards them not only not knowing what they’re doing, but being able to admit that they don’t know. An error doesn’t become a mistake until it’s refused to be corrected, and by that standard, Anet’s made a LOT of mistakes concerning WvW. The sad part is, they can’t even really trust the playerbase to teach them. There’s so many conflicting answers, from people who actually know what they’re talking about and people that just think they do, that the whole thing is a wash. They need to do some legitimate studying of the subject matter. Research maps of battlefields from real historical wars, read The Art of War by Sun Tzu, and similar literature. Learn what actual militaries learned over centuries of trial and error, and apply that knowledge. Look back to the Renaissance era, to see how battles were fought then, how battlefields were selected and prepared, and apply that knowledge. But…. they’re not going to. The do PvE, they make PvE, they know PvE. That’s their wheelhouse. They’re not going to broaden their horizons. They’ll just keep quiet until people are sick of complaining, take whoever’s still left, and spin a new narrative. That’s much easier than actually cracking open a book and learning.

Walls need to be made higher, so that people can’t AoE up onto them. That would also make cannons and oil useful, instead of the death traps they’ve always been. Then the only way to attack someone that’s on a wall is to set up siege, and to put it far enough back to have an angle to reach the top of the wall. Then counter siege can be built by the defenders, to take out that siege. Then counter siege can be set up by attackers to take out that siege. It’s all about counter play.

For a typical scenario, the attackers set up catas against the wall. The defenders set up a cart on the top of the wall, to attack the catas. The attackers set up carts (or even balistas) back from the wall to attack the carts on top of it. The defenders set up a treb to hit those carts. The attackers set up a couple trebs in different spots to attack those defensive trebs from different angles. Unless the defenders have trebs/mortars already facing those spots, the defensive treb will go down, then the cart on top of the wall will go down, then the wall can be dealt with. A smart group would just start with taking out the trebs/mortars first, and narrow in from there. A bad group would just drop 3 rams, and then come to the various WvW forums to demonize siege and try to shame anyone that uses it properly, because they didn’t understand anything beyond simple facemashing. Or they’ll blame PUGs for their bad choices. Sometimes even both.

Unfortunately, that process has already been going on for a very long time, because there’s a lot of people that think that all it takes to be good at WvW is to just watch some old youtube videos of RG, and scream into their microphone. Failing to realize that they’re not par, and that while RG was fantastic at GvG, they weren’t really famous for focusing on the objectives.

And then the game gets dumbed down to the point where bad tactics and strategy not only is ok but actively encouraged by the way things are set up. And good strategy gets tossed completely out the window and ends up as some bizarre foreign concept. Though ironically, when taking an objective, actual good strategy will always hold the advantage, simply because it’s good strategy. But everything else gets nerfed to the point where bad strategy is almost on par, and the maps end up being changed to where a karma train is pretty much all that’s left. Because it’s easy, and not much thinking involved. Just like the champ trains in PvE. Then Anet can look at the silent blobs, and call it a “social experience”.

There’s problems on so many levels, that even fixing one level completely won’t have much impact. Everything from the very foundation all the way up needs redesigned and completely reset. And that even includes the mindsets of a loooooot of players. Unfortunately, that’s just plain not possible. Anet isn’t going to fix the foundation as well as all of the details built on top of said foundation, and the playerbase isn’t going to go do some studying of actual strategy. So….. we end up with the constant karma train. Because that’s what it’s set up for, and that’s all a lot of people know.

Actually, HOT killed the Anvil Rock server.

Same few servers to play against before and after HoT? Check.
Same servers waypointing the moment they see an angry goat with a rusty spoon? Check.
Same double teaming [Insert imaginative words here] servers? Check.
Same ktrain [Imaginative words as above] servers who face rub wood? Check.
Same roaming scene of stealth and mobility blowing people up? Check.

Yeah yeah totally the maps that ruined it not the players.
I’m not burned out, I just have more fun things to do for the time being.

Well the thing here is a lot of the strategy goes out the window.

“We gotta target their t3 tower; it’ll break their upgrades and waste their resources and time! And hold it for a tick! Then we can use this location to lay siege to their keep! O”

“Which one? All of them are T3!”

I think when things come too easily, they start to slowly lose meaning. I certainly don’t oppose auto upgrades entirely because you should be rewarded for holdings things for a long time. It’s just that the definition of long time doesn’t seem very long. The way it happens so fast and killing dolyaks seems to only slow it a bit just makes the whole process feel very tedious.

IMO, an issue of tuning.

If the complaints were reasonable, this might work. Instead, people are using hyperbolic statements that are easy to ignore due to being demonstrably untrue.

For example, people say that yaks don’t matter anymore. The truth is that yaks make upgrades go 3x faster. Thus, the real complaint, that yaks are no longer essential, goes unheard. Instead, the speaker just looks like an idiot and gets brushed off.

For a real-world example, look up the student protests in France circa 1970. There was a ton of hullabaloo and they accomplished just about nothing because they were brushed off as not to be taken seriously.

We need less shouting and more calm, nuanced analysis. Less protesting and more willingness to try adjusting and report what things are difficult to swallow.

Contrary to a popular point of view; “if you are really into WvW, you are NOT really into PVE.”

There are players and guilds who log in for the sole purpose to play WvW. HoT has tremendously increased the amount of PVE required to WvW. Guild Halls reinvented the benefits system of guild perks and requires guilds to work together for upgrades that rely upon abundant amounts of materials found in Tyria, the Jungle maps and PvP matches. (e.g. ley line sparks, silver waste shovels, course sand, heavy supply bags).

WvW’ers have been forced off the borderland maps to earn the abilty to provide the upgrades available prior to HoT (e.g. camp/keep claiming, +5 supply). It would be awesome if WvW gameplay was a source of these materials!

Actual WvW gameplay with rewards to provide WvW guild hall upgrades and support the WvW population – what an idea!

As a consumer who purchased the HoT upgrade and looked forward to added content for WvW and improvements, I am disappointed with the current state of affairs.

Fight WvWers Fight. Do not go quietly into the night.

Nightcapping is NOT a thing… Call it for what it is people AND ANET…. A limitation on the PPT scoring system! It has nothing to do with the time of day.

For example-
Prime Time – God forbid, the server with the most players gets the Higher PPT in WvW

In your off time- (how dare someone play and get points, when you’re not playing be it Night time or whenever!) – God forbid, the server with the most players get the higher PPT in WvW…
……………
I believe that’s called WvW PPT people. That’s how the game is scored.
Stop being ignorant and insensitive by blaming it on people outside of your time zone, by saying it’s “night capping”. It is not our night.

Anet please stop offending your global players, otherwise on behalf of your global players, turn your servers off at ‘night’ and provide us all with refunds.

Is anyone else wincing at the phrasing of “Katana Dagger” and “Katana Sword?”

It’s like saying sword-sword and sword-dagger. A dagger in that style is a tanto and the sword, depending on length is a Wakizashi or a Katana.

Belinda’s Greatsword on the other hand, is more resembling a “Zanbato” which is a fictional/fantasy sword that’s uber long. Translates to somewhere around “horse-slaying sword” or “horse-chopping sword.”

Zanbato swords are most commonly seen in fighting-style anime, highlighted most especially by Bleach.

Anywho, just wanted to know if anyone else winced when they read that.

Looks like they finally recieved the nerf hammer too.

The price is rapidly dropping, which is a good thing I guess as it’s still relatively stronger than most foods for WvW.

Well, I would think of a 3 sided desert BL and EB.

Does anyone see more than 2 maps queued these days?

zinkz.7045:

Phantom.8130:

To be fair, EB has the best setup of the three. Not necessarily the spacing, which does tend to make the pace a lot faster, but how the layout made the areas in each third strategically relevant. If you want to take a keep, your best bet is to take out a few of the towers first, because the towers assisted in the keep’s defense. Both versions of the borderlands lacked a strategic layout. Being able to treb the garrison from the northern towers was a minor bit of strategy, but that’s the equivalent to a fingernail compared to an entire person. Now, with the new maps, there’s not even that fingernail.

I disagree, borderlands were much superior to EB, for a start EB is very imbalanced, there is a fair difference between how strong each keep is, there is a difference in towers such as green does not really have a weak tower, when you compare it to Durios (blue) or Anza (red), etc.

Then you have waypoints, on borderlands upgrading to / preventing / taking down / defending a WP was far more important than those on EB, it was probably the biggest strategic map based objective in WvW and biggest strategic driving force, things like preventing the opposition getting a WP in bay/hills have been removed from the game. (that this is gone with perma WP & autoupgrades is one of the reasons the new map is such a failure, the basic lack of understanding of WvW by whoever came up with the map and new upgrade system is well…).

The fact there were three keeps, and that it was reasonably common for the home side to get garri + 1 other upgraded at times meant that defense was generally much more interesting than EB, where all that really counted was your keep, then the 1 or two defensive towers like Veloka, jerri, etc, but they are right next to the keep, which is kind of dull, part of what made defending say garri + hills both getting attacked at once interesting is the distance between the two, not too far that it was impossible to get reinforcements in or react, but not so close that you can virtually defend two things at once, like you can in EB, and beyond that it was the importance and strategic value that made it interesting and worth defending, losing Veloka might not be good, but really pales into insignificance compared to losing hills or bay with a WP.

Furthermore you have the actual keep design, the keeps on the old borderland gave far more tactical options and produced far more interesting fights than the simplistic, rather one dimensional ones on EB (garri especially).

As for the “northern towers was a minor bit of strategy”, I look it like this, every tower except the SE one on the old BL had some strategic value for attacking a keep, on EB most of the towers are redundant (mendons for example) or very minor (those that can treb SM) and SM is the biggest red herring in the game.

Which is why, or at least what I found on multiple servers (on EU) that most veteran players whether they wanted fights as a guild, decent fights as an open raid or liked scouting / upgrading or whatever, preferred the borders, often leaving EB to newer players / casual players.

But in comparison to the new map? EBG has the best setup. At least that’s what I feel after wandering around the borderlands for several hours that were – somewhat ironically – a mixture of boredom and confusion. Don’t get me wrong, the new map isn’t trash, but it would suit gameplay better as an alternative map, not as the borderland map.

Sinbold.8723:

So points they score aren’t equal in value to points you score?

I always find that argument hilarious. Because in reality, its the complete opposite.

That’s why we see lots of T3 stuff when waking up. If I capture a camp during primetime my server get maybe a boost of 5 ppt. 10ppt if we’re lucky. Someone will more than likely come and recap it soon because during prime there’s always some enemies around. Hell sometimes it made no difference, because its recapped within the 5 minute timer and I was silly enough not to take it too soon for tick. If I capture something in the middle of the night while the servers are sleeping… Chances are I get a major boost in PPT during the 5+ hours it will probably be held.

So no, the score of primetime cappers like me is not equal that of the score of nighttime cappers. My score is worth far less.

If WvW score was only based on kills, I’d agree with you. Primetime would see much more action, much more death and thus be worth alot more. But its not. Its the complete opposite. WvW score is based on PPT, where low population periods, or “nighttime” if you will, is potentially worth so much more than primetime. Score will always snowball when servers are are sleeping. One point gained for one server is a point lost for another, giving a double whammy. WvW score is pretty much a sinuscurve. A sinuscurve that need to be more flat in order for things to be more balanced.

I mean, I wouldn’t mind changes and things taking a long time if only there was someone responding to queries occasionally. They wouldn’t even have to say a lot, just so long as we can see that Anet is actually watching and interested in legitimate feedback. Prolonged silence followed by comments on Reddit or the occasional vague mention in a Guild Wars news post doesn’t taste so great – this is neither a fan-made nor fan-moderated forum. Some minor sense of conversation would be encouraging. Haters/flamers? They’re always going to flame/hate. I’d like a space for people who want legitimate, thoughtful to-and-fro conversation with other players and devs.

Ross Biddle.2367:

ArchonWing.9480:

The dailies were fixed, not the maps.

But that is fine too, atm. I really wished the veteran slayer would be more relevant to the actual map itself though. I mean, the monuments do make sense.

You want to talk relevance? These adjustments cater to the PvE’rs entering WvW looking to get their dailys.

It doesn’t get anymore relevant than PvE’rs for Anet.

I really wish people would stop rattling off their laundry list of issues that might be tangentially related to the topic at hand, regardless of topic. That being said, you have a point.

But hey, the pve population is larger, and maybe one could actually convince them to stay if the content was actually good. Of course, if.

Not even worth going for the tactics, just getting the auras cause makes more sense even if the most useful one is the last one…

Yea, the costs associated with this new system far surpasses a night’s objective upgrade costs. I thought the goal was to reduce such costs to WvW players.

The other way is just to ignore all that kitten… Ignore the guild upgrade, ignore the scribe, ignore the guild level…
And just play…. I do not want to grind and spend hundred of gold to unlock something that I had before HoT !!
I do not even try to do some upgrade on my small family guild…

The problem is that ANet seems to be completely blind with population issues, otherwise they would have made the new borderland a complete map for all three sides like EB and the EotM map.

The WvW could be just 1 EB and 1 Borderland map and everything would be much better.

With the currently available collection of maps there are only these possibilities:

1. WvW with EB and 3 new BL; EotM with EotM-map (and old BL?), i.e. current
2. WvW with EB and 3 old BL; EotM with EotM-map (and newBL?), i.e. pre-HoT
3. WvW with EB only; Eotm with EotM-Map and old and new Borderlands
4. WvW with EB and EotM map; EotM with old and new borderland-maps
5. WvW with 3 old BLs; EotM with EotM-Map, new BL and EB
6. WvW with 3 new BLs; EotM with EotM-Map, old BL and EB

The passive tick over time has always been issue for me. Specially since I play in last tier server where even before HoT people rarely managed to fill up more then 2 maps. usually keep were only flipped once per day by bigger zerg and then they just ticked for next 24h. Sometimes keep were taken at reset night and then they were not even attacked during the matchup week, not even once.

Like I said before passive tick simply rewards one side on the match for doing nothing. Its not reward for defending it (actually defending a structure has always been least rewarding part in wvw), its just free points. The same thing when you walk on the street and someone gives you money.

Also, in many matches the passive tick already boosts one server ahead for so much during weekend so its not interesting to play in next 5 days. The match is already won or lost, there is no way you can catch up anymore. So people wont bother.

I would say remove the passive tick completely.

What I propose instead is to award points only for capturing structures. When structure gets tagged, event is started with potential points up for grab. How many points exactly depends on number of upgrades, tier of walls/gates, number of sieges within structure and number of defenders showing up. So basically tower without any upgrades and no defenders is worth 1 point. Tier 3 maxed keep with 14 acs, 6 trebs and 60 people defending it, is worth 300 points.

Attackers only gain wvw xp, chests and other awards when the number of points awarded is greater then number of attackers. Group of 10 people will probably get no personal rewards for attacking tier 1 towers without any defenders. Zerg of 50 people would perhaps not get any personal rewards even from keep. So we remove reason for zerging up, we remove reason for people to gather up into more populated servers.

Now if structure gets untagged without flipping, defending server earns points based on the structures value, siege used by attackers and number of attackers. If lonely roamer tagged the tower, killed some guards and left, defenders get 1 point. If zerg of 50 people attacked keep, used 10 rams, 10 acs and still did not get the keep, defenders are awarded with 100 points (about half what attackers would earn).

This way there is very little point to run away from enemy into empty maps and take structures when nobody is defending because you would earn very few points. To earn more points you want to find heavily sieged up structure and take it while there is a lot of people defending it. Also, there is more reason to defend everything as you could earn points for succesful defend too. Overall, if there are enemies somewhere doing something – go and fight them and your score will increase.

Is it possible to win a wvw(=pvp) match without facing enemies?

YES, for shure and it’s common!

We remember nightcapping as a big advantage for ‘bad servers’ to win a match. I mean servers that lost most fights and structures in primetie when all borderlands were croweded. Nightcapping was about 8/24h or less.

Considering today those 20/24 empty new boderlands, the best strategy seems to be PvDoor for up to 20 hours circle raiding. Capturing all structures where is no human defense. Avoid getting in contact, just run away to an unscouted object or another BL. This makes attackers and defenders who search for PvP rage the game. Consequently doing the PvE Aspect and avoiding PvP … leads to victory in points. But this is not the game I like to play.

I remember a good time on Desolation where we had much fun defending keeps, supporting scouts, sieging and upgrading objects and a good TS-communication over all maps, EB included. And PetricaK had much more than only 15 on his tag because people liked what he did.

New BL could be fun, when there is a queue from all 3 opponents on them but the vote is done every day by most players not to join this.

Boa

Swagger.1459:

ArchonWing.9480:

Swagger.1459:

ArchonWing.9480:

Oh god, put it away before it gets taken seriously.

Just wondering, what’s more important, a healthy and thriving wvw environment where 4 maps are packed more regularly or server pride?

I pick the later.

Personally, I would suggest to provide for free transfer off low activity servers, but do it so voluntarily. This gives almost the same effect. Oh, by the way, since 3 of the maps are desert BL, I’m afraid that’s not really going to help the situation.

The problem I see is where exactly do you draw the line on what to close, and who decides it? If someone thought everything below tier 2 should be closed, I’d tell them to kitten off. I mean, why would I change the nature of my WvW just to satisify someone else’s idea of balance? But if people see that WvW is not suitable here and the server is not worth staying on, then they will take the chance to leave and there you go, servers merged.

It only costs 500-1000 gems per person to “merge” tiers, honestly.

Unfortunately, though, a healthy wvw population trumps server pride.

Think about this… Guilds cross server lines. Guild “initiative” with guild halls and guild arenas and guild must do “this and that” together… Guild wvw achievements… Eotm megaservers work and are always busy, fast paced and fun…

If you put it all of the above together what do you get? Guild Wars…

Servers don’t bring people together like guilds do so it only makes sense now.

Server pride is what keeps people defending and fighting. Removing that is the last step to turning WvW completely into eotm. People will just k train.

While most of us agree that the Desert Borderlands (DBL) are visually stunning, almost all of us can agree that they are extremely boring to play in. The following are just a few of my thoughts on why that is and what could be done to change it

1. Why were the Alpine borderlands seen as fun?

This would come down to several factors, but the main reason is that the terrain allowed for you to re-enter fights extremely quickly due to not having any environmental obstacles. Moreover, the fights were centred around 4 main areas and 4 more minor areas being – between Bay and Garrison, between Hills and Garrison, South of Bay, South East Tower being the more major points of conflict, with the more minor ones being the 4 side camps. This is just from my experience in WvW since early 2013

If we look at the locations of most of the conflicts, you could see that they all occurred in mostly flat terrain with very few environmental hazards or choke points. We can probably safely assume that this is what would lead to more fights in either open field or contentions for objectives. I’d disagree though, that having flat open terrain is the main reason why the fights were in those locations. I would assert that instead, it is the location of the major objectives in the map that funnelled players towards these objectives, allowing for an easier time for players to find other players to fight or interact with.

The locations of the camps easily lead to either a tower or a keep. Holding a keep on an enemy borderland allowed you to more easily attack their garrison, which made it worth something. Especially if you were able to upgrade it to having a waypoint, which allowed you to control more than your 1/3 of the map. This made it important for zergs to pressure the side keeps, for roamers/havoc parties to snipe/contest camps and for the server as a whole to maintain defense on their borderland. This play style became the norm for many WvW players, even spawning the term “home borderland defenders”.

The only downside to this was the snowball effect when you have a server that can significantly outnumber the others in their matchup, which is more of a problem with the scoring system than with the design of the map (especially since it’s actually worse now). Another downside to the Alpine borderlands was in its overall design. While not a necessarily a bad thing in particular, over 2/3 of the map hardly ever saw action or rarely used at all. In particular, north of the north towers and south of the south towers saw little to no interaction outside of the 2 camps. That’s a huge chunk of the map that was never used. In fact, you’d find that the Alpine borderlands are actually larger than the Desert borderlands – just that the Desert borderlands is much better with objective placement.

2. Why are people avoiding the Desert Borderlands?

Well, there are many reasons, but the main reason I think is the fact that it actively funnels people away from each other. The pathing and environmental obstacles don’t allow for 2 enemies (either roamers or zergs) to easily encounter each other due to all the twists and turns on the map. You could be right next to each other, hidden by a single wall, and you wouldn’t know it. This makes the map seem extremely empty and desolate, which then forces players onto a map that doesn’t have this issue – Eternal Battlegrounds.

Of course, the shrine effects, keep effects and the oasis event all adds onto this as well, as they are rather bad at funnelling players into a “hot zone” like what the alpine borderlands did, and instead spreads players out around the map away from each other. The oasis event in particular forces groups to spread out, meaning that if your group is the one trying to complete it, you’re extra vulnerable to being ambushed by a group that has no interest in completing the event, but simply wanting to kill you.

This all leads to a vicious cycle whereby there are less and less players on the borderlands because they can’t find enemies to fight, then people coming on find less friends to fight enemies with, resulting in even fewer players on the map.

My opinion is that the terrain needs to be changed in a big way. Remove a lot of the cliffs, gorges, ravines and valleys and allow an easier path from your waypoint to where the action should be (around the major entrances of the keeps) and instead replace the Oasis with those kinds of terrain for roamers to play hide and seek in with the Oasis objectives – making it a roaming/havoc only objective. Tone down a lot of the environmental hazards and obstructions to where it would slow down a large zerg to give enough time for defenders to call for backup, but not to the point where groups are de-motivated to try at all. Both the side keeps need their effects removed as well, since all it does is make it harder to take for the outnumbered side – were it to be defended.

Defense sorely needed a boost, but it got too much of a boost. WvW stays interesting when you have delicate balance between the attacking and defending forces – not when defenders can split your zerg before you even got to your objective. The new borderlands went overkill with the aims in splitting up zergs and buffing defense on keeps and towers, which kills action even faster than before when attacking was too easy.