Guild Wars 2

wow, I am surprised so many people seem ok with (or totally oblivious to) a late Friday nite reset time for the prime time EST NA crowd. Friday or Saturday make no difference to me since I am PST NA with a flexible schedule but I have a feeling 9/10pm EST reset time will make more of a difference than some people might consider.

I have always thought the original community proposed option to initial announcement of the reset day to Saturday in considerations of the reasons for it made much more sense. Thursday prime time seems like the best day to involve the the maximum number of players in the early parts of the reset and get the most enjoyment of their weekend playtime. /shrug

I do remember all the patches after resets that created huge kittenstorms on the forums so I always figured we kind of asked for it when ANET went to Saturdays for expressing our distaste so vehemently. Sort of like how we sort deserved this failed Desert Borderland map for all those salty tears demanding new maps when the Alpine map was the least of our problems.

my concern is so few players even bother to post their opinion here anymore that it is very hard to gauge what the majority of ideas may have morphed into lately and a lot of us have gotten so jaded we don’t see the options as clearly anymore. I know my current views on WvW are so tainted with bitterness that I’ve been keeping them to myself.

Range can’t stay king, it makes battle so stale.

Stability needs something to compete.

Community is key in any population balance ploy. EotM is not the answer but maybe a dynamic # of maps could be.

Skins, rewards, drop variety & cash should be on par with other game modes.

Defense & scouting requires a human element for better engagement.

Reward tracks for WvW have been asked for ever since PvP got them. I am guessing there is some reason we can’t have them . . . hopefully that is just yet and being worked on but who knows anymore.

have you guys seen all the different maps ANET has worked on but never put in game? Check out any of WoodenPotatoes Tyria3D videos like https://youtu.be/R-SYZDpDNq8 from over last summer for another trip down wasted potential lane. There are a ton of them and some even look they would work TDM/KotH arena idea.

I think the OP’s # of maps and point values for them sound about right given current populations but it would need a way to shrink or grow as active WvW population changes, maybe even within real time, a different # of maps available outside of primetime hours?

One thing I wonder about is how ANET would develop and enhance community in this kind of situation. Maybe if they made the different maps themed up to different playstyles but TBH, the best thing about WvW is all the different playstyles feeding off each other so then maybe making the rewards targeted to different community types? I don’t know, I just want to be able to find maps to play on with people of similar mind and focus as me, people I enjoy playing with and know the habits of but might not be in my guild or friends list. That is a much harder nut to crack I fear but maybe their megasever algorithm is working on it.

I find WXP (and hence Proof gain) much greater on EotM fight maps than the Ktrain onessince the train often gets derailed so I look for those guilds that run regular battles in the map and avoid those who don’t. Doesn’t take very long to figure out who the Ktrain comms are and leave maps where the game play isn’t as fun for you. Lately (since HoT) I’ve found it easier to hit fight maps just because more regular WvW players are in EotM unlocking their alts specializations and they are more interested in going up against other players than lords.

alain.1659:

Well if the balance in the game was settled, these changes would be great. Except the ressimg part, it needs a clarification whether or not getting attack and cancellation of res is used.

However with the latest pvp problems I think these changes will force bunker meta into wvw. And the difference between new and core specs will be a huge issue. Also player numbers and mega blobs vs smaller zergs will be back.

All in all these changes were made with good intentions and should be reviewed and criticised with the same attitude.

agreed, these sound like great changes for the most part and things one might wish the game had been balanced around for awhile now but given where things are today I am not so sure the rally nerf is going to have the effect most seem to think it will. It is going to hurt the smaller team more than you might realize. Try think back on how often you get downed in battle and what percentage of the time you are back up from rally as opposed to rez. Smaller teams have fewer bodies to dedicate to picking up the downs but a well placed stomp can do so much more while zergs are rarely so strategic with it.

I’d be in favor of decreasing DPS across the board, PPK on stomp instead to prevent extreme turtling, and some stability nerf fixes to accompany these changes for better balance but they will be interesting to test regardless. Looking forward to something different sooner rather than later.

SloRules.3560:

I would love to see where my subgroup members are(make their name diferent color).

This is already in game . . . kind of. Your subgroup mates are the more shiny shade of blue on the map which is really hard to see or even notice when stacked up with other squad members until you get use to looking for it.

Kaliny.8265:

You see the yellow dots for guilds are made for pve maps, they don’t NEED to be implemented on all maps, its not “all or nothing” you know? They could program so that the dots wouldn’t appear on EoTM.

It took ANET 3 years to figure out the yellow dot thing (yes they have been talking about it for that long) and you think it is some easy fix for them to turn it off in a certain kind of map? I am pretty sure it is an all or nothing option for them at this point and very likely some changes coming to the game are going to make it a moot point soon anyways. So yes, I would rather have spying yellow dots than nothing at all and guilds that care should be working double time to get all their players on the same world (or not seeing as how everything might be going to change with the upcoming big WvW patch).

no green >< definitely green

This is the reason it originally never really bothered me that much when a lot of ANET’s changes to the game got the “not listening to your players, out of touch” whine given their track record of staying true their development plans in GW1. Sure I don’t agree with a lot of their choices and it can irk me to no end to see all that wasted potential being glossed over but if they have a well thought out long term goal of what they want the game to be then I trust the developer over us, the selfish short sighted players. Maybe it would not be a game I wanted to play in the end but that would be ok if it stuck their plan and actually worked well for most.

Only problem now is I am not so sure they still have that vision and planning going on. HoT in general doesn’t feel especially well conceived and road-mapped. Instead it feels like we are getting some messed up amalgamation of what the devs want for the game to be and what the most demanding players want with neither side happy in the end which is a shame. I agree a lot of the stuff on in the new Desert map are things people were asking for here for a long time and yet somehow came out twisted and lifeless which is really hard to blame on the devs since it is the players and how they interact to with the game environment that creates that spark of unpredictable chaotic fun that games need to thrive.

Yes they build us the sandbox but what we decide to do with it speaks volumes and yes they can try incentivize us to build sand castles instead of dig giant boring holes but they can’t force us to. Granted, ANET incentivation department seems to gone out to lunch with the Desert map but I remain hopeful something is coming with those WvW changes that will make everything more clear soon. Just a little bit worried about what. =/

Multi-server guilds working across the map on all sides has always been an issue in EotM that I assume most regular players are aware of, the yellow guildie dots just make it easier. That is how some of the mega Edge of the Mists farming guilds like JUST & Venture of the Mist can coordinate their peaceful little ring around the rosey k-train maps. While it highly discourages me from playing there for all the kittenfooting around you can always try to switch maps or find one of the zerg busting server tied bag farming guild tags to follow around instead like HK which can be a lot more fun. I never thought multi-server guilds were a good idea for this game anyways but can’t seem to be helped with all the megaserver junk getting tied together now.

The best thing you can do is avoid being in one of those guilds if it bothers you but then you’ll still get stuck on maps where others are doing it sometimes so then I would suggest going to play real WvW where it wont happen as often. The positives for seeing guild members across the map far out weigh the negatives but might speak volumes for those upcoming WvW changes.

I would just be happy with some decent things like unique armor/weapons skins to spend badges & now proofs on. A way to slowly unlock that missing WvW legendary backpack would be nice and more mats for ascended back pieces would be lovely as well. I am not really fussy myself, just ways to earn reward levels similar to PvE ones would be a good start. The PvP reward tracks are pretty awesome for that. Something similar in WvW has been asked for ever since they were added to the game.

Some kind of “rotation” was given as the original plan but with zero details so we are left pretty clueless as to when or how the Alpine Borderland map might make a return.

My suggestion would be for ANET to rescind the Desert Borderland until the new WvW updates happen since that map was obviously designed with some of those changes we don’t yet know about in mind (April 2016 maybe? or is that too optomistic?) and then declare the last two months a special “new” map preview phase. ANET can then take a look at the metrics of its widespread play across tiers, populations & timezones to decide where to tweak & balance before its “official” release in conjunction with those incoming major WvW updates.

That would give some of us, depending on what the WvW updates entail, one last hurrah on Alpine in the current game mode before things make a drastic change. I have a feeling those three or four months until the WvW update happen would start to feel a bit like a season with some good ole fashion gamers nostalgia mixed in. Could make for some fun times.

well that’s a bummer, stronghold was a fun place to play for dailys and not worry about all that other messy stuff.

Straegen.2938:

(although it would be nice if some of JQ’s SEA would move over to BG and YB).

Totally unrelated to the topic at hand but I just have to point out that SEA teams generally do not move servers the way others might and especially not to their competitors so good luck with that proposition. Honor and pride hold a different level of importance in different cultures.

On topic, just have to say not all medium servers are “dead” for WvW and it is very sad how easily you all are convinced of that. Of course we would want more details about what the OP is looking for exactly in which time zones before we could make a good recommendation but I find plenty of people on and fights to be had if you know where to look with Ehmry Bay down in the middle tiers.

I haven’t been in T1 for several months but given what WvW populations are doing across the tiers right now the large 3 ways battles are just more rare now. However if they happen the lag issue has not changed since the problem in the spring when they lowered to map caps to help alleviate lag slightly. My understanding is the severe level of lag is only experienced by some players so not everyone has the same problems and I don’t know if that ever got tracked down to some particular system or IP difference but the number of players who are affected by it is not small. I think it is fairly safe to say if you had problems before it has not changed much except that large 3 way battles are less common than before. I went down a few tiers to avoid the worst of it but still experience skill crippling lag from time to time.

thankfully the change isn’t retro-active if you happen to have a pile of chests in your vault those are still account bound so far. Still a very stupid “fix” that will actually cause me to quit WvW on specialized toons (need more things to buy with them besides superior siege) and where the rest are alts not yet geared for real WvW I guess I’ll be in EotM farming which is not optimal for my level enjoyment or the health of WvW. >.<

and it works for PvP track boost too so I like it

briggah.7910:

Swagger.1459:

Well, I’m 99% sure megaservers are coming so everybody will have to put away their server pride for the greater good and future health of wvw.

I’m 99% sure you are the dev working on this but you do not want to post as red to make it official because that will cause the forums to go into a rage over this POS idea for a fix.

And I am 90% sure he is some kind of troll with an agenda. I just haven’t decided which kind yet, someone looking to foment the world pride crowd or the rumor spreading type. No one other than troll responds to their thread so kitten much with so many kitten quotes.

I doubt it was a planned conspiracy type of deal but it looks like it might just work out that the majority of the players who would not like the upcoming changes are no longer around to squawk about it. WvW isn’t in this sorry state because ANET deliberately sabotaged it, if anything it is the players who made them pay double for every mistake they made and magnified every exploit we found by doing what people do and playing games in ways the designers never anticipated. I don’t think they built EotM with the K-train in mind and all of the worst things about the new Dessert borderland are actually things I’ve seen suggested on these forums for awhile but just didn’t turn out as expected.

It’s just frustrating that ANET’s development cycle for WvW is such that they are constantly fixing and responding to last years problems. Still will be interesting to see what ideas they got out of last years CDI and what they decided to run with for the upcoming “major WvW overhaul”. While I am bitter over the possibility of losing community identity somehow I can see how it is not as important to the players still left around and I guess they shouldn’t be punished for the game I wish I was playing. Still hurts to see so much wasted potential.

Xillllix.3485:

It’s a glimmer of hope for WvW, but it’s very imprecise in regards to what we should expect. They’ve been working for over a year on a “Major overhaul”. This implies that it’s going to be a huge change, bcause I doubt you would work a year on something as simple as a server merge when it was already done for PvE a long time ago.

Hopefully this “Major” update is a new scoring mechanic, a new reward system, and a new alliance-based server system that prevents the accumulation of empty maps.

Read the above again if you are in this thread to spread wild speculation and or stressing out over what this means . This is not news to anyone who has been paying attention. The questions about what and when remain unanswered and likely will continue to be so until they are ready to talk about them now matter how many temper tantrums we throw on the forums.

The only things left for us to discuss is how much the game landscape may have changed since last year when these changes first started being worked and what we as players might need to do to help ANET see where our opinions have evolved on some issues since then. We only need to go back to last years mega WvW CDI’s thread to get a sense where they might be going with things. Lets just hope they have one of the trendy adaptive management strategies in place to adjust to changes the WvW scene has undergone recently.

pretty please to any and all of the above with tons of sweet bean buns piled on top. I was totally expecting some new customization with HoT and am very sad we got nothing at all. My sylvari dervish . . . I mean revenant, still can’t find the right look for channeling her legends and I am running out of style kits trying. >.<

Wolfric.9380:

Realm 1: Alpine
Realm 2: Reworked EB as homeland.
Realm 3: Desert

I think that could work as well but the less we “require” them to rework EB to be a borderland map the better since I have so little faith in the amount of dev time available for WvW related changes. SM would basically end up functioning as one teams Garrison and while Red spawn is closest and can counter treb for it, is that enough of an advantage to the lowest rank team when we were forgo having 3 identical borderland maps for balance?

joneirikb.7506:

Home Borderland Defense: This is your corner of EBG.

Would only one WvW EB map with zero borderlands be enough at this point? Maybe it will be if things keep going as their are right now but I want to remain hopeful that this downturn is just an instablity of some sort. It sure as heck would force the top tiers to spread out a bit (which could be a good thing) if they actually wanted to get their whole guild into WvW at once.

I am pretty sure due to the extremely low map population caps and lag issues with SM the big guilds would scream bloody murder if only 80 -100 players per world could play WvW at once while the rest would be stuck in an EotM type of queue map. Maybe without the borderland maps resources could be devoted to EB for increasing its map cap without worse lag but I don’t think it would ever be able to hold much more than 150 per side anyways (the original number ANET talked about having) which still is not that many players total. It would probably also require shorter matches of a few days instead of a week to feel more responsive to change.

I would be in favor of seeing some alterations to how the Edges of Mist map(s) affect your worlds score, especially if megaserver tech could be used somehow to create more alliance style groupings. I assume given how the new Desert Borderland map is designed this is the direction those upcoming WvW changes that could not fit into HoT will go so I am trying to brace myself for that and find some compromises where more variety of play-styles can continue to coexist though I expect that is being entirely too optimistic at this point.

while I agree with the sentiment, megaserver stuff is bad for WvW I am willing to admit there are currently too many maps for the present WvW population across the tiers. Such an idea wouldn’t really change anything other than having 3 borderland maps instead of the 4 we have now with Eternal Battlegrounds.

Who is to say EB would turn into a ktrain map if moved the EotM rule set anyways? Just in the Edges map alone there is already a strong conflict between those who want fights and ktrains which usually results in one color stacking for fights and farming the other two so no one has fun in the end. I think just having SM alone would be a huge dynamic change in that rule set where all three sides would clash often. And wouldn’t the GvGers across the tiers who are already trying to find each other in EotM for battles enjoy the EB map with more open space?

Not to mention all the threads recently from people saying WvW has to go to alliance based system or have server mergers to survive. This could be a quicker change than many we’ve come up so far and even temporary if need be. Seems like a win win to me. /shrug

I was going to say get rid of the borderland maps entirely but I actually happen to love the idea of defending a home map so how about we just remove Eternal Battleground and make it an optional EotM megaserver style map instead. Give the Edge of a Mists a drop down choice so you can play on the original Edges map or a no falling EB version with as many copies of each as needed.

Yeah I know, everyone loves EB now but that is only since the new Desert map is still so frustrating and EB has always been guaranteed action (and lag around SM). Tier 1 in NA hasn’t had queues on any of its borderland maps beyond reset nite for over a year so this is not exactly a new problem. The real problem is that Edge of the Mist exists and makes some people very happy while the active WvW population can’t fill up the maps it has and the new Desert Borderland map needs to played with large numbers to even feel populated. So then maybe T1 might have some queues in prime times and players have to decide if they want to move down with only 3 WvW maps but I have a feeling it might not even be that much.

The other part of is this is only have one copy of the new Desert Borderland going to which ever color people seem to agree on would be most beneficial. I honestly haven’t played it enough to know what its advantages truly are and if red would be most benefited in its defensibly or if it would work better as a handicap to the green side tilted to invaders. Then the other two maps should be Alpine v1.0 (Quaggan Lake) & 2.0 (Ruins). I think they could even find a way to keep the Bloodlust buff from Alpine 2.0 and just make that be its unique map mechanic like laser event is for Desert and maybe they could even bring back an Orb for Apline 1.0, maybe wouldn’t cause as many problems with only one of them instead of three. Sounds like more variety and fun to me. I am all about choice and having options, you never know what you’ll be in the mood for on a given nite.

Then everyone gets something they like and let things sort themselves out or revisit in a few months if it doesn’t seem to be working out. Let us Realm vs Realm pride folks keep our world albeit smaller identities while the alliance crowd can go flock to EB or EotM maps for 24/7 action.

since this is a thread necro I think it could use a serious update. I tend to agree with Straegen’s assessment of distinct world personalities falling by the wayside recently but I can only base most of that opinion on forum attitudes. Having recently moved down to Ehmry Bay from JQ I will say it feels like the middle worlds (the one I am on and the ones we battle) have probably done a better job preserving some of their identity being tight enough to hang together but big enough to battle through some of the HoT hardships. Meanwhile the top tiers lost a lot of their personality awhile ago between megaservers and stacking for seasons so probably even more so in the current environment of PvE kings and the bottom is likely hurting for numbers too much to even figure out what its community wants to be right now. I certainly do not see some of the same well known names representing particular worlds posting as much these days but that could be for a lot of other reasons too.

in the past many lower tier communities were against the idea of server mergers for the damage it would do their identities and because of a lot people played on the lower tiers for a reason. Even if a lot of those vocal posters no longer play the game I expect ANET would have to hear from a large percentage of low tiers players that their feelings on this issue have changed (with consensus on how it be handled which was even harder to come by previously) before they might even consider the idea.

Even then I have a feeling their upcoming WvW “fixes” might already be going to address this somehow so lets just hope it is in a way that will foster strong world identities rather than tearing communities apart. It certainly does feel like the new map was designed for larger numbers of players than even the middle tiers are fielding right now during weekday prime times so something is going to have to change and sooner might be for the best.

there was some discussion about poor taste in timing considering yesterdays other events, not to mention was apparently not really a very popular idea right now so stopped trying to promote it.

sure lets double the lag, we are using too many skills as it is. Much easier to balance the game on the #1 skill only. :|

ugh . . . I don’t what is worse, that the game has been driven to the point where more people actually think EotM style Alliances are a good idea or the fact that most of the people who use to vehemently oppose such posts for the community killers they would be no longer bother to post here. Very sad times indeed

it is very unlikely they will be revisiting the reset day move any time soon, maybe early next year. I suggest those of you who feel strongly that Friday is the better night keep queuing up WvW maps during those hours hard so ANET has some good metrics to compare to the new reset time.

Tonight is Friday the Thirteenth, so maybe go along with the murder and mayhem event theme and try to get as high of WvW turnout as possible.

The new borderland map has a lag issue outside of the Oasis Laser tag event? Worse than an SM 3way? I wouldn’t know, we don’t queue borderland maps down in T5.

Anyways doesn’t seem like an event many people can get behind so I’ll just have to hope for map lessons the old fashion often dying way.

If you find the new borderland a tad bit intimating (beautiful but a little scary) I suggest checking out Catalin and Chaba’s guides to siege and getting around. They are very helpful.

For me tho, I navigate by landmarks and am completely dyslexic so I have run the routes myself and pick-up tricks from others. I just need more people to follow around & learn from with some enemies to kill mixed in to keep the excitement up, hence the hoping I can bribe you all into playing there on Friday nite . . .

very well thought out ideas that could enhance the game-play of these maps and which mostly feel very doable and possible. Nicely done. Someone make sure a copy of this gets to reddit just in case we don’t have enough ANET eyes around here.

~Cheers

I still don’t feel like I’ve given the new map a fair shake under optimal circumstances but lately if I feel like going against some builds for dailies I go to sPvP instead (I am one of those weirdo’s who thinks Stronghold is really fun & the reward tracks are pretty nice). I was not doing that much WvW before HOT either but that was because it fell out of habit with me when my friends all quit playing last year so now I am trying to make new friends in a new place and when we do WvW it is usually in EB since that is where the fights are right now.

We can try and change that tho. Maybe lets give the desert another taste, see my lame attempt at making this Friday nite a green desert borderland free-for-all event thread. Maybe with a little help from all you disaffected players we can at least say we tried our best to find some enjoyment in the desert.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to jump into WvW on the Green Desert Borderland map on Friday November 13th whenever you can play and if your map is queued, share a screenshot of it for the community to show we are actually making it work and then join the queue while running around doing whatever else you enjoy. That way we can try to keep as many of the maps across the tiers full on all sides for as long as possible so the maximum number of players get a taste of how this map feels at full population. You might find you don’t like it much and that is ok, there are still tons of things about the Desert borderland I am not sold on but I know I can’t make a fair judgement on some of those things without experiencing what it feels like to play on when full. How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat?

I expect the top tiers may have already started to see this on the borderlands this past reset but some of us lower down likely never will and it makes no sense for us offer opinions and ideas on how to improve something we have such little understanding of at this point in the cycle. Of course there needs to be ways for this map to be enjoyable across the tiers but I still think I would be better suited to comment on that with more information in hand. I would very much love many bodies out there willing to help educate me. Think of it as WvW beta test 3.0 now with more creme filling.

So if you are a GvGer, jump into the Green Borderland on Friday and try to make the Fire Keep your kitten while enjoying open sand battles and vast hallway ambushes with the occasional fire puppy madness, if defense and epic siege battles are more your thing, hang around in the northern 1/2 of the map to defend or take the Rampart keep or north towers, if ganking havoc is more your style the Oasis and southern side of the map should be prime hunting grounds, and for those jumping puzzle obsessed who like pushing others from great heights the Air keep will be your domain. There is something for everyone and every play style, the only question remains if we can find ways to make it fun for everyone and what exactly that means. Lets find out FOR SCIENCE!

Some perks of trying on Friday might include showing off for ANET how big of queues we can get going on the original reset for those who are still bitter over the change to weekend resets. Hopefully with a lot more people done with their shiny HoT PvE masteries and such there are some needing a break to let off some steam so there are lots willing participants. Those that might now be leery of visiting the new WvW map without tags around or given what they’ve read around these boards about empty abandon spaces will turn out for the opportunity to see how this new map plays when full with big three-way battles. And of course it is FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH where anything could happen! Jason could show up as Dhuum and kill us all wielding a green scythe and a hockey mask. o.O

WHAT: WvW free for all fun night for science! (& death, lots of messy falling from great heights death )

WHERE: Green desert borderland map no matter your world, region or tier

WHEN: Friday November 13th, previous regular reset time (on NA 6pm PST, 9pm EST)

WHY: Too queue a desert borderland map on all three sides and test how it plays in that capacity regardless of tier or rank using the green map on a Friday before Saturdays reset to get maximum players with minimum impact to over all score, leave your PPT at the door.

What say you WvW forum goers? Want to give this a try? I am no one here or anywhere really to get something like this going but I’ve found if you start the ball rolling and it is a workable suggestion good things can happen, like GvG’s in OS, duels at Windmill & back in the old days when DAoCer’s would declare a zone for a mythical 8v8 nite. Sure sometimes some griefer decides to hide in the Ice Giants shoe and pull a three-way agro wipe, but still plenty of good fun to be had all around.

I could use a lot of help on this if it is agreed to be a decent thing worth trying so if you could drop a link to this thread on your favorite guild, world, reddit, anime, ex-girlfriends mom or darkness forbid, ign forums that would be lovely. Maybe we can even pick up a few red tag posts to help us along. Gaile loves a good player driven event, even if it is just a WvW one. I want to give this crazy layered yet oh so beautiful environment a fair shot and so far it has been very hit or miss out there for me. Judging from these forums, I am not the only one who feels this way so lets try to do something about it. It’s turning into a self enforcing negative feedback loop which is not good for anyone.

If this thread quickly falls off the front page we will know it was a bad idea and let it die a merciful death.

Jayne.9251:

And given this mode of play has been manipulated by personal agendas in the past — (see guilds spamming one topic nonstop, gaming the server rankings, gaming the population caps, etc …) — they have to err on the more conservative side for responses/reactions now.

Heck, they had to implement changes to stop stacking servers because the players wouldn’t do it themselves (some still don’t want to, lol) — so in effect, Anet has to act like parents.

I suppose they can update this forum in parental mode — and just tell everyone they’re grounded

Well put. I think we can be the grown-ups here and try to have a little patience. In the meantime I suggest people find elements they enjoy doing in whatever game mode and maybe take a little break from the forums. I love seeing how much we all care about our favorite part of the game (WvW) but I think the points about the new maps flaws have been well made and more new threads on the same issues are probably not really all that helpful. By all means keep some of the more in depth discussions bumped but 10 new threads about the same broken daily issue in one week might be a bit extreme.

By the way Janye, did you know your inbox is full?

I think it was the first one plus a bit of a third option. They thought they could create one map that would please everyone with every different kind of play style and in doing that tried to anticipate it being ultra popular by designing it in such a way that the most effective way to control such a map was spread everyone out.

It feels like the devs were actually trying to help us break up the zergs and yet somehow failed to get any zerg to even show up. Right now I can’t say why exactly it is not working as intended but it seems like it was meant for much higher population caps if only the engine could support that. I’d love to try and play that map with all three sides full (never going to happen in T5) just to see how it works then but for now it has only been an exercise in frustration (or pure exploration and awe for the scenic value) whenever I visit there.

That feeling of the map needing more bodies to even be functional is problematic when T1 wasn’t filling all its borderland maps at reset 6 months ago. The last thing we need is more people thinking they can only enjoy this game when they are in the top tier.

The old Alpine map was empty right before HoT because everyone was waiting for HoT and getting kind of sick of stale match-up and population imbalances. If the new map alone could have fixed either one of those underlying issues than maybe this wouldn’t be such a big deal right now but it didn’t and some would say it only exacerbated them so now we wait to see what they do next. ANET says they couldn’t fit all their WvW updates into the xpac so it is very likely some of those changes will actually impact how the Desert borderland plays for the better. Too bad they couldn’t have waited to add it if that was the case.

What I don’t like seeing right now are so many threads clamoring for server mergers or mega-server like solutions. Don’t overreact with bad ideas just because everything is a little messy right now. Granted, whatever option ANET is currently working on (that we will not see for awhile yet) will likely be addressing the problems the community was expressing over the WvW maps about a year ago so it might need some tweaks but I would hate for them to kill what is left of the world pride community thinking that is the magic bullet to save the game mode.

In the past they have seemed to understand the importance of permanence and community ties and yet also did a lot of contrary weird stuff for player convenience like free world transfers for the first 6 months which makes me think some of the folks at ANET who “get” what makes WvW successful are not the same ones in control of the purse strings or have to bow the broader vision. Like Colin for instance who is probably too far removed from the development side of things anymore but a true old school DAoC’er at heart.

They know how to build worlds that encourage interconnection and yet somehow Guild Wars fails in this which leads to me wonder if it us the modern players who don’t fit the mold of a true online community anymore. As a casual player I have to admit to liking the accessibility of GW2 while at the same time waxing nostalgic over past games where you actually had to rely on others to get things done and caring if others were succeeding. Sheesh, I must be getting old.

yep, it sucks but then they might “fix” some other part of it we don’t want fixed so . . .

This is only in regards to EotM tho right? People don’t play sub 80’s in regular WvW maps anymore do they? I mean, why would they when there’s EotM but I could be totally clueless. My inclination for anything EotM related is well . . . it is EotM & doesn’t matter.

Firelysm.4967:

1

• Where are seasons? 1 season in 3.5 years WTF ? So disrespectful. Seasons should be 2 months long with 14 days break.

Just going to have to respectfully strongly disagree with this point as I am sure many other regular WvWers would as well. Did you read the forums during seasons where lots of people were begging for them to end or go away entirely? Seasons are meant to be something special for once in awhile where worlds really try to work together and play a bit harder. If they were more frequent it would become like any other match up and no one would care or still be totally burnt out from the last one. I think more seasons would hurt WvW participation more than the new maps in the long run.

Frankly I think ANET is aware of all the base line mechanics that need to be changed or improved in WvW before they can start tinkering with the top layers. You wont see another Season until after they finish off whatever these big bunch of WvW improvements that couldn’t fit into the xpac and given their development cycle I don’t expect we will see that for another 6 months so maybe they squeeze a spring tournament in there by April.

I just wish we didn’t have the new map until all those changes were in place. Whatever they are, I expect the map would play better once they get all that other stuff worked out. Sure its delay would have caused a kittenstorm across the forums but I am pretty sure we would all been happier to waste our time in the pretty new PvE maps without the added stress of needing to test and worry about how to get around in the new Desert borderland.

Dawdler.8521:

Sort of.

EB, 2 alpine and 1 desert. Desert border would go to the middle ranked server.

At least that way we can keep WvW a little functional while still having the new map in to trial (not that we really need to now, we already know everything thats wrong with it).

That might be the simplest change to make and would be a very good test. Not sure if there was only one copy if the new map should be Blue or Red. If the auto upgrade business only worked on the new map then maybe Red needs it more. Also Red home border map is usually the one to get most pillaged by Green & Blue when you would think Red and Blue would be tag teaming Green instead.

No.

They will not be going backwards no matter how much we cry about it so we are going to be at least stuck with one copy of it somewhere for a good long while, might as well get use it. I don’t think the Desert map would make that great of a EB layout as currently designed so whatever they can do with the EotM map or EB map to make 3 different borderland maps, bringing back Alpine as one and one version of something as central. Heck they could use to two versions of the Alpine map, with and w/o Quaggan Lake to make 3 different maps and re-skin the north zone to be no snow.

Have you guys seen some of the Tyria 3D tours of unused GW2 maps dat ming Wooden Potatoes has put out? There are a bunch 1/2 done maps out there that could have been very interesting to play on and when a lot of the WvW crowd would be happy with simpler maps, finishing something existing off might not take as long.

same thing could have been said for WvW at launch. It has taken a very long time but I’ll be very interested to see what they come up with for their next vision for WvW. If the new map is a clue it might be a little different than we expect.

Nov 1st, so after this reset for those that are in daylight savings time now will go back to PST for the winter and our reset will be an hour earlier. Time is all relative anyways right?

sorry had my PST and PDT times backwards. Silly daylight savings time. ><

Just go with 24hrs later than whatever yours use to be.

On NA, Saturday 4pm PST (or 24hrs later than previously for both NA & EU) and will continue to be such until that particular sore spot gets a revisit which is looking further and further in the future given all the other squawking going on lately.

kitten it Tom Cruise . . . it’s always Tom Cruise ><

Poo poo I wanna play.