I always liked that there were a few spots that you could hit outer and inner walls. The spots were obvious (and the first place people would check) making it riskier to use them.
I think hills did it best since you were on a ledge. Very little room to escape. I remember a number of times where I went 1vX defending hills and sent groups of people flying to their deaths.
@Puck
That’s a problem with the people, not the system. There’s ample reason to defend a keep besides having achieved a waypoint. To list a few: Better walls, built siege, difficulty in retaking versus difficulty of holding. Of course, I doubt you personally are motivated by those things, but it’s not fair to say that they don’t exist.
You are talking about busting upgrades which now has nothing to do with the wp’s. The only way your argument works is if you are only talking about sm.
Pre HoT the majority of my game time was spent hitting hills and bay. I could spend hours tapping all the keeps, setting up sneaky catas to drain supply, keeping the camps flipped and sniping yaks. There was a good number of times when I’d get in and kill the few defenders and flip it before their zerg arrived. There was also a lot of times where I had to call in a guild and we’d have an epic fight.
None of this happens now. Fire and air wp’s don’t belong to the home server, and no one put any effort into building them. There is no reason for roamers to devote the time and effort it takes to slowly bust a T3 keep.
Keeps are taken now if you have overwhelming numbers. If they put up a solid defense you just move on because they only matter for ppt.
Just yesterday, I devoted time and effort to push enemies out of our Airkeep. I flipped camps, sniped yaks and set up sneaky catas until I had the place drained of supply and without an outer wall. Then, I let a guild know and they came by to break inner and flip it. I was motivated by popping the enemy WP in Airkeep so that they could no longer threaten our northern triangle so easily. It worked well in that I was then able to defend against enemy pushes because I could predict their movements more easily.
Until I had to log off, I defended the keep in order to get it upgraded so that it could better withstand sieges and would take longer to blitz in case I was caught doing something elsewhere. Also, I wanted to make sure that the enemies wouldn’t be able to take and upgrade it before someone came to replace me.
Anyway, my point is that there is still ample reason to attack/defend the side keeps. The WPs are part of it, albeit a smaller part than before.
And if they took it back they would immediately have their wp again.
I hope you had fun babysitting an empty keep, I’m sure anyone that saw it was defended simply moved on because they knew no matter how many hours you sat in it you could never set up a wp for your server.
People who like current BL maps are playing the game, not whining in the forum about it. Removing them will upset lots of players who actually like them, and possible make them quit. People who demand old BL maps do not even play the game anymore, and they will not return once there are old maps again.
Sure, sure continue the clear and rapid downward spiral by catering to the people who like empty maps. Recipe for success right there.
Can you explain how old maps will generate more WvW players? So many players waited for HoT to solve actual WvW problems (server population, nightcapping, skill balance etc) and people were just sticking around to see if these will be adressed. Nothing was done about these so people left the game, making the maps emptier then ever and creating an illusion that new maps were to blame for everything.
The issue with reverting back to old maps is that it takes a lot of work and wastes even more time that should be spent fixing real WvW problems. The BL maps were empty before the HoT and will be even more emptier once the old maps are returning because there just is not enough WvW players anymore to cover 4 maps, at least below tier 1. So, things get changed, work is being done, time is wasted, and result is exactly same as before, if not even worse.
WvW could be great even on completely flat green square if the basic problems are first taken care of. And it will still suck and continue to lose players no matter which map is used if nothing is done about the basics.
A solo roamer was able to make a big impact on the alpine bl without it feeling like such a grind (camps being closer to towers, towers threatening keeps, people defending because upgrades took effort and structures threatened each other, being able to go through outer and inner walls with 1 cata, etc.), this meant solo players and small guilds had something fun to do while waiting for friends to log in.
Right now we have zergy EB, or a crappy PvE map where everything is fortified and no one shows up to fight. Neither of these will keep a lot of roamers playing for hours like the alpine map did.
If they being back the alpine bl without the kittenty HoT upgrades they will give solo players something to do while waiting for friends to log on. Right now people log in, check their friends list and see no one and log off, because kitten sitting around for an hour hoping someone else logs on.
Hadn’t actually seen a decent fight on the borderlands since before stability change on T3, so that must be around a year now. I’m wondering -
With such low population that everyone has to play on EB to find something to fight, would anyone even notice if it got changed back to Alpine?
I think a lot of the roamers would play the bl, I know I would.
If they bring them back without doing any stupid kitten to “fix” them (give us classic upgrade system and waypoints) it would be easy for a good roamers to cause enough havoc to pull in large groups from EB.
Chasing a nearly perma-stealth, multi-blink class through one of the huge DBL keeps is a nightmare. One person’s hobby shouldn’t ruin the day of everyone else.
That’s a problem with the kittenty bl, not the mechanic.
For me this is the first mmo I actually felt part of a little community. At launch I started on Kaineng and joined BMS guild. It was so kitten ed fun to raid nearly every night and I still have fun memories of the BMS and CNB tag team guilds going up against insane blobs together. I remember commander Sano from CNB on Kaineng, the great 47 from BMS, Guardian Angle, and Ajax Blue being a jerk in map chat. Little did I know, the fun times would only last a few months till the transfer rave started. That’s when I left with BMS to Fort Asp. where I have tons of fun memories on that server.
Lol I forgot about Ajax, he annoyed us on AR as well.
Depends how they do alliances, EVE Online uses alliances and has a far stronger, deeper community than WvW.
No idea about the alliances in other games.. BUT on all servers I’ve been to at least half was not in one of the bigger wvw guilds. So you’d either have to press them into one or get rid of them. That’s ~ half of the wvw population.
And personally: I hate guilds, I’ll leave any guild I’m ever part of and always did at some point – I wouldn’t be comfortable if someone forces me to be in one just to “get back what I had”. And our map cap is too small to have a whole server count as an alliance and then you’d have the problems that the servers come in different sizes and so on.
Don’t know, I still think the smartest way to go would be to fix all the stuff that’s wrong with wvw before fixing population issues (that means: scoring, siege/structure balance, autoupgrades, DBL, rewards).
Maybe that’s why they gave roamers and small guilds the shaft when they introduced the HoT guild upgrades, they are trying to phase them out of the game.
If they get rid of the stealth fountain (which they should), they’re going to have a lot of unhappy people who grinded their balls off getting the upgrades. The funny thing is, if they hadn’t made everything so grindy this wouldn’t be a problem. They doubly screwed themselves here.
Of course, it could be that they don’t want to get rid of the fountain because they think it’s a great mechanic. That’s most likely the case.
I’m sure it would kitten off a few people if they removed it, but there is also a good amount of players that are kittened off that it exists in the first place.
The question is who is the bigger group, and is it healthier to have it in the game or to admit they made a mistake and remove it.
Judging by the responses in this thread I think they are better off removing it.
@Puck
That’s a problem with the people, not the system. There’s ample reason to defend a keep besides having achieved a waypoint. To list a few: Better walls, built siege, difficulty in retaking versus difficulty of holding. Of course, I doubt you personally are motivated by those things, but it’s not fair to say that they don’t exist.
You are talking about busting upgrades which now has nothing to do with the wp’s. The only way your argument works is if you are only talking about sm.
Pre HoT the majority of my game time was spent hitting hills and bay. I could spend hours tapping all the keeps, setting up sneaky catas to drain supply, keeping the camps flipped and sniping yaks. There was a good number of times when I’d get in and kill the few defenders and flip it before their zerg arrived. There was also a lot of times where I had to call in a guild and we’d have an epic fight.
None of this happens now. Fire and air wp’s don’t belong to the home server, and no one put any effort into building them. There is no reason for roamers to devote the time and effort it takes to slowly bust a T3 keep.
Keeps are taken now if you have overwhelming numbers. If they put up a solid defense you just move on because they only matter for ppt.
While the intensity is a bit lower (perhaps due to lower population overall?), the waypoint fights still exist. Now, they happen immediately rather than after a night crew sets them up. Additionally, invaders gain an immediate advantage which is amazingly potent given that it’s more difficult to run from corner spawns to northern objectives.
Thus, I don’t think we an fault the new style with destroying WP fights. There’s still incentive and, if anything, it is greater than before when trying to destroy an enemy WP on your home BL.
As for allied WPs, allowing them to pop back immediately means the home server can recover from a bad period more quickly. One empty hour no longer means that your BL is out of reach for another half a day.
I’d love to see discussion on this, but perhaps it would be more productive if it considered every point instead of just lamented what was lost?
Player A: “Guys our way pointed keep is under attack!”
Player B: “Who cares we’ll just flip it back, it’s not like we had to invest any time or effort into getting it.”
Player A: “Oh yeah I forgot, I guess just keep the k-train rolling then.”
It’ll be eotm 2.0
You’ll be thrown in with a bunch of randoms, they won’t bother to set up voice comms, and they’ll wash their hands of the situation until half a year later when some streamer wanders into WvW and comments on how empty it is.
2) Reintroduce Map Completion (Gifts of Exploration) this is a necessary pipeline to bring new players to WVW experience.
^this^
I was actually disappointed to see it removed; it was a sure-fire way to get everyone to have to at least “stop in” WvW. Perfect time to “hook line and sinker”!
Link it to the New Legendary Armor!
Put in a Gift of The Borderlands for completing all 3 Borderland maps, and a Gift of the Invader for completing EB, and make them a required part of the collection to complete Legendary Armor.
I think that would revive WvW a bit.
This will just put people in wvw who don’t want to be there and it generates animosity toward the developers and the game.
As is, “play for free” players are not converting to “paid” players, so we don’t need more reasons for people to keep their wallets closed.
There are lots of rifts in this game and players are getting fed up with a lot of stuff, so let’s not encourage even more.
Not an issue with paid players, since it would be for Legendary Armor, they would need to be paid players, as Raids are part of HoT Expansion.
Everything else is totally unfounded, Since it’s enticement is purely for the Legendary Armor, we have already purged the Casuals, by putting the raid up as a requirement, we are left only with skilled players that like a challenge.
Since They were ambivalent to the plight of the casuals to need to up their game to face the content, why should they expect to be pandered to in the face of this new challenge, you would think they would be excited for the chance to work towards such a goal with such opportunity to up their own game.
Maybe instead of including wvw in the legendary armor grind they should just give wvw its own set of legendary armor that is a different skin.
That way it could be achieved in either game mode but if PvE players want to unlock the skin for their fashion achievement (or whatever the hell it is they care about) they will have to play wvw
You can bring back the map, but Alpine alone won’t bring back the players. WvW was dying long before HoT.
Why does everyone ignore this?
Why won’t people acknowledge this?
We really need to start being honest with ourselves and while a few of you will rush to those Alpine borderlands. You just dont understand the long term ramifications of such actions.
The instant gratification won’t last long.
It has nothing to do with instant gratification, it has to do with once again having a bl that is viable for WvW.
No one expects it to bring back everyone that left, but it will bring back some, and it will return the play style that kept a lot of us logging in every day.
Fairly often I see it posted that we didn’t make any changes to WvW or the Desert Borderlands map as a result of our Desert Borderlands stress tests. While it’s totally true that we didn’t attempt to completely overhaul the entire map a month or two before the Expansion shipped (as that was definitely out of scope),
Don’t try to make it sound like having the map overhauled was an unreasonable request. Maybe if y’all would change your terrible policy of keeping everything a secret until right before it releases you would have had time to fix the design problems.
Now would be a good time to learn from this mistake. You are supposedly working on a big WvW overhaul, why don’t you tell us what you actually have planned so you can get feedback before it’s too late.
It’s a bullkitten “feature” that only helps the strongest server. It should be removed entirely.
Who was the kitten that said, "Hey do you guys remember culling? Wouldn’t it be fun to have that game breaking bug back again? "
I’m looking forward to the next “feature” that allows you to fly if you get over 400ppt. That way whoever is winning can just speed up their karma train and not have to waste money on siege.
I’ve been on AR since 3-day-head-start, therefore been with the server during it’s ups AND downs.
That’s cool, but WvW’s server match-making is not equivalent to RvR designs in which a “server” holds the entire tri-realm match. That is what breaks loyalty for WvW, and that is why server pride is a non-fun thing to hold on to in the majority of experiences.
AR once got up to what, T3/T4, now we sit at the very bottom of the barrel again T8/24th!
False. We capped at rank 14, which is T5, and it was then that the majority of our commanders and PPTers were ready to accept the facts that had ended my pptmanding. Then we left, and:
Funny thing is, we’ve had many people leave that ended up just eventually disbanding anyways!
The disbands had nothing to do with the transfers, and would have happened regardless. Your strongest remaining roster is TWIN, which spans most of the NA servers (I’m in it), and it is not a WvW guild.
- because if you have any “issues” on one server (say for example internal guild issues), you’re going to have them on ANY server you play on. Sure things being different may keep you enticed for a LITTLE bit longer, but you’re ultimately doomed to quit, just depends how many times you’re willing to rinse lather and repeat before you do.
This is a non-causal observation. It says nothing true about the real dynamics of a WvW guild in GW2.
Exactly as we’ve done. Including the people who rode the death spiral to rank 24, then left, and regretted not leaving sooner.
( ° v °)
Well said.
I’m still in LGN and TM, and if anything they are going even stronger now that they have left AR. Being able to raid without having to carry a dying server on your back removes a lot of the stress from the game.
@ sparc
I’d been with AR since the betas up until a few weeks ago when I finally moved my last alt account off of it. I took a break from the game because HoT turned it into a kitten show and I came back to find AR completely dead. You guys weren’t even using a server TS anymore. The few remaining people were using their own individual voice comms and not working together as a server.
NA prime during the week in T8 is about as populated as 3 am est is for T3. Maybe that’s why you enjoy the deserted bl so much. You don’t have anyone to fight so you like having the oversized dungeon to pve in.
I have no regrets about moving my accounts. A community isn’t locked to a certain server. I have friends playing in pretty much every tier at this point. I’d probably put an account on every tier if anet didn’t make the new specs such a pain in the kitten to grind.
IDK why people keep saying the maps are too big!? They’re actually WAY too small! Having maps so small only encourages the blob/zerg mentality since the entire ‘group’ can get to any destination rather quickly.
I think they need to make ALL maps BIGGER! Our WvW “world” should be about 2 or 3 times as much “real estate” as it currently is!
Also, I really wish people would stop talking about “scrap DBL PLZ” and how “terrible they are”, that is VERY insulting to ANET. Think about all the time and effort that went into them and their design! Instead, if there are specific things you don’t like about them, why not ask for specific “tweaks” instead of slapping ANET in the face like that!?
I for one LIKE the new maps! I wont argue there may be some things that could be “tweaked” here and there, but there’s NO reason to stoop to the level of insulting anet and slapping them in the face telling them how “crappy” they are and to “just scrap them”! HOW RUDE . (Lucky I don’t work for ANET or I’d perma ban all your rude kittens!)
If people would get off their lazy kittens and go LEARN them (like I’ve been saying from the start) – they too would like them!
yes, we are hundred players who are completly dumb, unable to learn a map, and unable to learn new game mechanics…
Or maybe the map and all the new hot stuff are really a piece of kitten…
The reasons ic players wanting old bl is:
Easy and faster karma/ppt train or because new map has less places to hide when taking castle fails and start trerb wars, since no tower is near to hide or run away, this map is fine, but needs a few fixes in design tho.
The new map can be easilly improved, but since players need more effort well… most gw2 players hate effort.
And sorry by being so obtuse, people should give feedback on ideas how to improve the new map, asking for a better castle layout if possible, add more 2 or 3 towers, change how waypoints work etc, not just say new map out and want the old easy BL.
I fear when Anet launches the “new” wvw stuf will not be what players want either…i dont see much feedback in both ways.
You got that right, all they wanna do is run in a massive blob/zerg, not have to “think” at ALL, and mash their “1” key… I win 11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
I have the feeling you like the desert bl because there is no one left to fight in T8 so you get excited by the PvE mobs.
WvW was already losing people because it was stale. Scraping the DBL and putting back in the ABL would just re-introduce something people were already tired of…
Exactly.
I guess not many people have been hanging in the forum long enough but before the HoT one of the most complained theme in WvW forum was how bad Alpine maps are, how we absolutely need new maps to bring more players into WvW.
People weren’t complaining that the maps were bad. They were complaining that they had been playing the same map for 3 years. The Alpine map worked fine, it was just stale.
If Anet had provided a new map that wasn’t a hot steaming pile of garbage, the majority of players would have been happy.
People are asking for them to return an unchanged alpine map because Anet is so out of touch with what the majority of WvW players want that there is no telling what kind of PvE crap they will try to force down our throats next.
A better compromise would be to bring back the alpine bl and rotate the deserted bl with eotm.
That way they can test out any changes they make to the map without disrupting wvw and still get player feedback.
Yes, they have to fix the scoring first or there wont be any point fighting over any objectives no matter which map you in.
Yes, they have to fix population unbalance or the matches will remain boring zergfest and winning remains pointless.
Instead of picking pointless and irrelevant stuff from forum or reddit and waste time and effort on these changes to map rotation, we need Anet to grow a pair of balls and step up with clear vision about WvW as gamemode. All I see is Anet trying to please most vocal complainers without any word about the actual future of WvW.
yes these two points are more important, but in case you havent noticed the people that are still here are not playing the new maps. if people arent used to it they wont like it, and wont try to adapt. it would be great if human nature wasnt so, but it is.
there are vocal complainers because there is no clear vision for wvw. again, this vision cant work against human nature or it will fail. the people have chosen what they want wvw to be and to fight against that would be pointless and moronic. most of the people want to help, because they love wvw and want it to prosper.
I’m pretty sure the majority of WvW players that are still around have spent their fair share of time on the deserted bl. The “get to know the map” argument doesn’t really work anymore. People don’t like the map because it’s poorly designed for WvW. They aren’t going to waste their time on something that doesn’t play well and they don’t enjoy.
People have legitimate reasons for avoiding the new maps. The design itself is anti PvP because it forces players to play hide and go seek just by traversing it. With the added CC compounding the stability issues, there are many points on the map that are not conducive to fights due to ledges and chokes. The overload of elevation variation often means pathing and los obstacles as well. The constant falling to get from point A to B, the air turrets, pop up rock walls, barricades and the many narrow winding paths where people have no reason to hang out means players aren’t going to be interacting. The terrain interferes too often to be a good competitive map. It would need massive changes.
The map design is also anti strategy since the objectives are so isolated. The new waypoint rules don’t help either. On alpine BL, some of the most consistent activity came from efforts to break/protect a building waypoint or a northern tower. Being on one map and seeing a Bay or Hills waypoint get contested in another allowed players to scout and mobilize if necessary. Both of those were good rally points for invaders as well. On the new map, they offer little support as one is largely tucked away underground and the other is perched on a cliff surrounded by narrow ledges that offer dicey engagements. They don’t really allow invaders to be a menace so defenders don’t care and for obvious reasons, scouting the map is largely pointless.
And poof, just like that, dead map.
I’m fine if they rotate the maps but the desert BL still needs major work.
Actually, the maps are PRO-STATEGY if you really look at it. Pinch points, to kill incoming forces, Land Height differences, that allow better siege placement (by that I mean trebs and catas), etc. I mean real war is based on land that HAS 3 dimensions, not just a flat plain with potholes for altitude changes. I mean if altitude didn’t matter in RL wars and battles, then the Golan Heights would not be held by Israel, it is that simple.
The problem with the Alpine BL’s is they didn’t have any of these and just allowed for blob on blob mentality. This is why people do not like the new BL’s they have to think on HOW to do things. The old BL’s promoted blob on blob mentality and that was probably the first mistake done in WvW. The new maps while not perfect (I agree with Air Keep being too big), they at least prevent this incessant use of the blob.
Alpine is about a thousand times better for small groups than the deserted bl.
-It wasn’t full of random barriers that prevented you from criss-crossing the map.
-You could capture and upgrade/siege towers and use them to launch your assault on keeps (because they were close enough to threaten them.)
-It wasn’t full of PvE gimmicks that discourage fighting (stealth sandstorms, cripple spam, no falling damage, etc.)
The map might be fun as a dungeon or even as a replacement for eotm but it fails hard as a WvW map.
I don’t see any ‘argument’ on the ‘barricades’. If you’re in a large enough group they’re nothing to stand in your way. If you’re a small group or even a solo roamer sure they may take a while to get through, but if you actually took some time to LEARN the new maps you’d also know there are ways around them (and by NO means are they random >.<). So, granted you may be taking “the scenic route”, there are ways around the map WITHOUT having to bust down those dreadful “barricades”.
Take some time to actually learn the maps, unless you’re afraid that you’d actually wind up liking them!
I for one have to say, these new maps are WONDERFUL!
How about you learn to read instead?
I’ve stated multiple times that I have learned the kittenty map. I don’t enjoy “taking the scenic route” to find that by the time I made it to where I saw swords there is no one left to fight.
The map is terribly designed for WvW, you spamming that you like it won’t change that.
They are not the same, on the Alpine map with swiftness from Garrison lords room to Bay or Hills keep lords room was 1 minute and 15 seconds +/- 10 seconds. On the newer Desert map with swiftness from Garrison lords room to the Fire or Air keep lords room takes between 2 minutes and 30 seconds +/- 10 seconds depending on the route.
This is one of the first things I tested when I played the new maps during beta and again at HoT release because as someone who’s been a commander for 3 years in WvW I care about response time when I am making a judgement call about whether to defend something or let it flip.
They the same, with swiftness, as I said my guild has timed the whole thing. You didn’t use the special cutoffs (the portals) that Gari owners have. We have timed it and it is the same. It is not hard to get to either – in fact Bay in the new BL is even easier to get to since there is a cutoff through the wall right by the west gari shrine. There are videos on youtube that show exactly what I am talking about.
That is why understanding the maps is important, as the DBL are not hard to get around once you really understand them. Even if it was a little longer, so what, people were sick of the alpine BL because it was so one dimensional and WvW because the map never changed. Now that the map is changed, people are complaining.
That only works if you are trying to get from 1 point to another that happens to fall along the funneled path. It doesn’t work if you are trying to cut across the map to join in a fight. You either have to go way out of the way to get to one of the paths or spend 10 minutes breaking through a barricade.
DBL does not encourage fighting. To big and to many paths that you can use to avoid fights. Then you have all of the barricades in the middle of the map that force you to the outside. On the west side of the map you have 4 paths that you can take to get north and the same amount on the east side. We got a map as complex as the HoT map. Its nice in pve since you are willing to explore a bit but in pvp you are looking for enemies and objectives to take.
Alpine Bl is more open and its easier to see enemies at max distance so you can determine do I want to fight a 1v2 or can I link up with the green dot and fight a 2v2. Alpine Bl was getting stale everyone want something new. I still avoided the events in the middle of Alpine bl the ruins which only helped the bigger server. The old krait island was a treb spot but Zergs avoid the lake and stuck to the outside most of the time.
The point is you need choke points when dealing with a mindless blob (it is not a zerg as a zerg actually sometimes does think ).
The Alpine BL’s, as I said, were terrible maps. They were poorly thought out, just like EBG is (but that is another topic). They were what actually made zerging possible. People complained about the mass blobs continually on the ABL’s.
I did hate the desert BL’s until I learned the ins and outs of them and then I learned to really appreciate them. They need tweaks is all.
The Abl didn’t encourage zerging, the game mechanics do. Having an AoE limit and shared rewards without diminishing returns makes it so blobbing up is safe and effective.
At least with the Abl small groups could quickly move around the map and use the towers to assault defended keeps. They could quickly navigate around keeps to cut off yaks and starve supply.
The deserted bl sticks cliffs and barricades (that stop roamers but not zergs) in the way. The travel time between objectives is longer. There are no defensive positions (towers) for small groups to launch assaults against a defended keep. The best strategy on the deserted bl is to zerg it with overwhelming numbers. Since the bl is so crappy that most people avoid it, overwhelming numbers can be as low kitten people.
Good idea to switch out EotM for the new BL and use that for testing. Go back to a non HoT alpine BL.
I mean that was eotm’s supposed purpose right? A testing ground for WvW so they don’t add in a bunch of crap that drives off 3/4’s of the population…..
Weekly rotations for the deserted bl shouldn’t go into effect until after a lot of serious work has been done on them.
The better option would be to return the alpine bl, unchanged by new HoT stuff, and replace eotm with the desert bl. Test out any changes to it there so you can get player feedback without interrupting WvW.
Once The map becomes playable as a WvW map (actually pay attention to player feedback) you can bring it into rotation with the alpine or even EBG. Just make sure you are able to rotate it on a regular basis, don’t just delete a map again for several months and tell us the tech isn’t in place to rotate them.
People have legitimate reasons for avoiding the new maps. The design itself is anti PvP because it forces players to play hide and go seek just by traversing it. With the added CC compounding the stability issues, there are many points on the map that are not conducive to fights due to ledges and chokes. The overload of elevation variation often means pathing and los obstacles as well. The constant falling to get from point A to B, the air turrets, pop up rock walls, barricades and the many narrow winding paths where people have no reason to hang out means players aren’t going to be interacting. The terrain interferes too often to be a good competitive map. It would need massive changes.
The map design is also anti strategy since the objectives are so isolated. The new waypoint rules don’t help either. On alpine BL, some of the most consistent activity came from efforts to break/protect a building waypoint or a northern tower. Being on one map and seeing a Bay or Hills waypoint get contested in another allowed players to scout and mobilize if necessary. Both of those were good rally points for invaders as well. On the new map, they offer little support as one is largely tucked away underground and the other is perched on a cliff surrounded by narrow ledges that offer dicey engagements. They don’t really allow invaders to be a menace so defenders don’t care and for obvious reasons, scouting the map is largely pointless.
And poof, just like that, dead map.
I’m fine if they rotate the maps but the desert BL still needs major work.
Actually, the maps are PRO-STATEGY if you really look at it. Pinch points, to kill incoming forces, Land Height differences, that allow better siege placement (by that I mean trebs and catas), etc. I mean real war is based on land that HAS 3 dimensions, not just a flat plain with potholes for altitude changes. I mean if altitude didn’t matter in RL wars and battles, then the Golan Heights would not be held by Israel, it is that simple.
The problem with the Alpine BL’s is they didn’t have any of these and just allowed for blob on blob mentality. This is why people do not like the new BL’s they have to think on HOW to do things. The old BL’s promoted blob on blob mentality and that was probably the first mistake done in WvW. The new maps while not perfect (I agree with Air Keep being too big), they at least prevent this incessant use of the blob.
Alpine is about a thousand times better for small groups than the deserted bl.
-It wasn’t full of random barriers that prevented you from criss-crossing the map.
-You could capture and upgrade/siege towers and use them to launch your assault on keeps (because they were close enough to threaten them.)
-It wasn’t full of PvE gimmicks that discourage fighting (stealth sandstorms, cripple spam, no falling damage, etc.)
The map might be fun as a dungeon or even as a replacement for eotm but it fails hard as a WvW map.
DIsagree. You can easily Ninja keeps if it weren’t for all the Tactivators and high damages needed on walls, gates. I mean I did 4-man a T2 gari before (but no guild had it claimed). It is not hard. Since you obviously haven’t tried it on the new BL, I will disregard your opinion in it.
The DBL’s, as a WvW map, make you actually think more logically and tactically on what to take to make in roads on a BL. In the ABL’s it was BLOB mentality (just as it is in EBG) – just overwhelm and be done with. The chokes were small and could be overwhelmed easily.
There are positives and negatives to both. One needs to take out the MAJOR negatives that cam along with the DBL add I; the Stability nerf, Tactivators (emergency WP’s etc.), Shield Gens, increasing the HP of walls/gates (I mean at T-3 you can not ‘man-mode’ gates anymore), and of course Dragaon and other banners.
Don’t assume you know me. I soloed fire keep a couple days after HoT came out. Being able to PvD an empty bl doesn’t make it fun for most people. I gave the deserted bl a chance, and it failed. Roaming fights have completely dried up. The only strategy being used is hop on the empty map and k-train because you no longer have to upgrade keeps to get wp’s so nobody rushes to defend things like they used to.
The alpine map actually promoted fights because upgrades took time and effort. The towers weren’t just out of the way structures that held no value except for PPT. There were choke points you could use if you were smart enough (the entrance to the camps, broken gates/walls, etc.) but there was also open space to have real fights instead of just pirate shipping. The map was just a much better design.
On our Tier – the BL’s aren’t empty, just have roamers, etc because the Blob guilds only play where Blobs can do well (with the PPT mentality) EBG.
The map is fine, it just came out with a bunch of other garbage.
I’m calling bullkitten on that. I’ve hopped around to multiple tiers since the expansion hit, the only roamers I find are now on EBG, unless your idea of roaming are the PvD heroes that jump off cliffs to avoid fighting actual players.
The map is not fine. The map is visually appealing but poorly designed. All the choke points have ended up doing is
-making it so large groups can pass right by each other without ever seeing one another
-funneling small groups right into zergs with no room to escape
-if the stars align and 2 large groups happen to be funneled together you get a boring pirate ship fight because they nerfed stability and increased the hell out of cc.
One thing that happened daily on the alpine map that I have yet to see happen on the deserted map is an epic, several hour long keep fight. The majority of people don’t care to defend, but if there are defenders people won’t bother attacking. They will just move on or map hop because fighting a bunch of siege and annoyingly cc heavy bosses for a structure with no strategic value isn’t worth it, especially when you aren’t taking away the wp they worked hours for.
Bad map is bad.
Well, the main guilds left are PPT guilds and they like to blob – blobbing only works in EBG well.
What time zones did you go in, when you hopped around? That also makes a huge difference since lower tiers do not have 24/7 coverage and even T2 outside of NA (if that is what you were looking at) does not have much coverage. That mostly has to do with loss of players because of the poor design ideas used (Stakittenf, PvE in WvW, etc). Your argument is a non-issue because players are continually bleeding because of these problems I mentioned. At the beginning of HoT there were plenty of players in all times zone on T2, not now.
Yeah players were slowly bleeding from the game and then HoT hit and that slow bleed turned into this….
People have legitimate reasons for avoiding the new maps. The design itself is anti PvP because it forces players to play hide and go seek just by traversing it. With the added CC compounding the stability issues, there are many points on the map that are not conducive to fights due to ledges and chokes. The overload of elevation variation often means pathing and los obstacles as well. The constant falling to get from point A to B, the air turrets, pop up rock walls, barricades and the many narrow winding paths where people have no reason to hang out means players aren’t going to be interacting. The terrain interferes too often to be a good competitive map. It would need massive changes.
The map design is also anti strategy since the objectives are so isolated. The new waypoint rules don’t help either. On alpine BL, some of the most consistent activity came from efforts to break/protect a building waypoint or a northern tower. Being on one map and seeing a Bay or Hills waypoint get contested in another allowed players to scout and mobilize if necessary. Both of those were good rally points for invaders as well. On the new map, they offer little support as one is largely tucked away underground and the other is perched on a cliff surrounded by narrow ledges that offer dicey engagements. They don’t really allow invaders to be a menace so defenders don’t care and for obvious reasons, scouting the map is largely pointless.
And poof, just like that, dead map.
I’m fine if they rotate the maps but the desert BL still needs major work.
Actually, the maps are PRO-STATEGY if you really look at it. Pinch points, to kill incoming forces, Land Height differences, that allow better siege placement (by that I mean trebs and catas), etc. I mean real war is based on land that HAS 3 dimensions, not just a flat plain with potholes for altitude changes. I mean if altitude didn’t matter in RL wars and battles, then the Golan Heights would not be held by Israel, it is that simple.
The problem with the Alpine BL’s is they didn’t have any of these and just allowed for blob on blob mentality. This is why people do not like the new BL’s they have to think on HOW to do things. The old BL’s promoted blob on blob mentality and that was probably the first mistake done in WvW. The new maps while not perfect (I agree with Air Keep being too big), they at least prevent this incessant use of the blob.
Alpine is about a thousand times better for small groups than the deserted bl.
-It wasn’t full of random barriers that prevented you from criss-crossing the map.
-You could capture and upgrade/siege towers and use them to launch your assault on keeps (because they were close enough to threaten them.)
-It wasn’t full of PvE gimmicks that discourage fighting (stealth sandstorms, cripple spam, no falling damage, etc.)
The map might be fun as a dungeon or even as a replacement for eotm but it fails hard as a WvW map.
DIsagree. You can easily Ninja keeps if it weren’t for all the Tactivators and high damages needed on walls, gates. I mean I did 4-man a T2 gari before (but no guild had it claimed). It is not hard. Since you obviously haven’t tried it on the new BL, I will disregard your opinion in it.
The DBL’s, as a WvW map, make you actually think more logically and tactically on what to take to make in roads on a BL. In the ABL’s it was BLOB mentality (just as it is in EBG) – just overwhelm and be done with. The chokes were small and could be overwhelmed easily.
There are positives and negatives to both. One needs to take out the MAJOR negatives that cam along with the DBL add I; the Stability nerf, Tactivators (emergency WP’s etc.), Shield Gens, increasing the HP of walls/gates (I mean at T-3 you can not ‘man-mode’ gates anymore), and of course Dragaon and other banners.
Don’t assume you know me. I soloed fire keep a couple days after HoT came out. Being able to PvD an empty bl doesn’t make it fun for most people. I gave the deserted bl a chance, and it failed. Roaming fights have completely dried up. The only strategy being used is hop on the empty map and k-train because you no longer have to upgrade keeps to get wp’s so nobody rushes to defend things like they used to.
The alpine map actually promoted fights because upgrades took time and effort. The towers weren’t just out of the way structures that held no value except for PPT. There were choke points you could use if you were smart enough (the entrance to the camps, broken gates/walls, etc.) but there was also open space to have real fights instead of just pirate shipping. The map was just a much better design.
On our Tier – the BL’s aren’t empty, just have roamers, etc because the Blob guilds only play where Blobs can do well (with the PPT mentality) EBG.
The map is fine, it just came out with a bunch of other garbage.
I’m calling bullkitten on that. I’ve hopped around to multiple tiers since the expansion hit, the only roamers I find are now on EBG, unless your idea of roaming are the PvD heroes that jump off cliffs to avoid fighting actual players.
The map is not fine. The map is visually appealing but poorly designed. All the choke points have ended up doing is
-making it so large groups can pass right by each other without ever seeing one another
-funneling small groups right into zergs with no room to escape
-if the stars align and 2 large groups happen to be funneled together you get a boring pirate ship fight because they nerfed stability and increased the hell out of cc.
One thing that happened daily on the alpine map that I have yet to see happen on the deserted map is an epic, several hour long keep fight. The majority of people don’t care to defend, but if there are defenders people won’t bother attacking. They will just move on or map hop because fighting a bunch of siege and annoyingly cc heavy bosses for a structure with no strategic value isn’t worth it, especially when you aren’t taking away the wp they worked hours for.
People have legitimate reasons for avoiding the new maps. The design itself is anti PvP because it forces players to play hide and go seek just by traversing it. With the added CC compounding the stability issues, there are many points on the map that are not conducive to fights due to ledges and chokes. The overload of elevation variation often means pathing and los obstacles as well. The constant falling to get from point A to B, the air turrets, pop up rock walls, barricades and the many narrow winding paths where people have no reason to hang out means players aren’t going to be interacting. The terrain interferes too often to be a good competitive map. It would need massive changes.
The map design is also anti strategy since the objectives are so isolated. The new waypoint rules don’t help either. On alpine BL, some of the most consistent activity came from efforts to break/protect a building waypoint or a northern tower. Being on one map and seeing a Bay or Hills waypoint get contested in another allowed players to scout and mobilize if necessary. Both of those were good rally points for invaders as well. On the new map, they offer little support as one is largely tucked away underground and the other is perched on a cliff surrounded by narrow ledges that offer dicey engagements. They don’t really allow invaders to be a menace so defenders don’t care and for obvious reasons, scouting the map is largely pointless.
And poof, just like that, dead map.
I’m fine if they rotate the maps but the desert BL still needs major work.
Actually, the maps are PRO-STATEGY if you really look at it. Pinch points, to kill incoming forces, Land Height differences, that allow better siege placement (by that I mean trebs and catas), etc. I mean real war is based on land that HAS 3 dimensions, not just a flat plain with potholes for altitude changes. I mean if altitude didn’t matter in RL wars and battles, then the Golan Heights would not be held by Israel, it is that simple.
The problem with the Alpine BL’s is they didn’t have any of these and just allowed for blob on blob mentality. This is why people do not like the new BL’s they have to think on HOW to do things. The old BL’s promoted blob on blob mentality and that was probably the first mistake done in WvW. The new maps while not perfect (I agree with Air Keep being too big), they at least prevent this incessant use of the blob.
Alpine is about a thousand times better for small groups than the deserted bl.
-It wasn’t full of random barriers that prevented you from criss-crossing the map.
-You could capture and upgrade/siege towers and use them to launch your assault on keeps (because they were close enough to threaten them.)
-It wasn’t full of PvE gimmicks that discourage fighting (stealth sandstorms, cripple spam, no falling damage, etc.)
The map might be fun as a dungeon or even as a replacement for eotm but it fails hard as a WvW map.
DIsagree. You can easily Ninja keeps if it weren’t for all the Tactivators and high damages needed on walls, gates. I mean I did 4-man a T2 gari before (but no guild had it claimed). It is not hard. Since you obviously haven’t tried it on the new BL, I will disregard your opinion in it.
The DBL’s, as a WvW map, make you actually think more logically and tactically on what to take to make in roads on a BL. In the ABL’s it was BLOB mentality (just as it is in EBG) – just overwhelm and be done with. The chokes were small and could be overwhelmed easily.
There are positives and negatives to both. One needs to take out the MAJOR negatives that cam along with the DBL add I; the Stability nerf, Tactivators (emergency WP’s etc.), Shield Gens, increasing the HP of walls/gates (I mean at T-3 you can not ‘man-mode’ gates anymore), and of course Dragaon and other banners.
Don’t assume you know me. I soloed fire keep a couple days after HoT came out. Being able to PvD an empty bl doesn’t make it fun for most people. I gave the deserted bl a chance, and it failed. Roaming fights have completely dried up. The only strategy being used is hop on the empty map and k-train because you no longer have to upgrade keeps to get wp’s so nobody rushes to defend things like they used to.
The alpine map actually promoted fights because upgrades took time and effort. The towers weren’t just out of the way structures that held no value except for PPT. There were choke points you could use if you were smart enough (the entrance to the camps, broken gates/walls, etc.) but there was also open space to have real fights instead of just pirate shipping. The map was just a much better design.
People have legitimate reasons for avoiding the new maps. The design itself is anti PvP because it forces players to play hide and go seek just by traversing it. With the added CC compounding the stability issues, there are many points on the map that are not conducive to fights due to ledges and chokes. The overload of elevation variation often means pathing and los obstacles as well. The constant falling to get from point A to B, the air turrets, pop up rock walls, barricades and the many narrow winding paths where people have no reason to hang out means players aren’t going to be interacting. The terrain interferes too often to be a good competitive map. It would need massive changes.
The map design is also anti strategy since the objectives are so isolated. The new waypoint rules don’t help either. On alpine BL, some of the most consistent activity came from efforts to break/protect a building waypoint or a northern tower. Being on one map and seeing a Bay or Hills waypoint get contested in another allowed players to scout and mobilize if necessary. Both of those were good rally points for invaders as well. On the new map, they offer little support as one is largely tucked away underground and the other is perched on a cliff surrounded by narrow ledges that offer dicey engagements. They don’t really allow invaders to be a menace so defenders don’t care and for obvious reasons, scouting the map is largely pointless.
And poof, just like that, dead map.
I’m fine if they rotate the maps but the desert BL still needs major work.
Actually, the maps are PRO-STATEGY if you really look at it. Pinch points, to kill incoming forces, Land Height differences, that allow better siege placement (by that I mean trebs and catas), etc. I mean real war is based on land that HAS 3 dimensions, not just a flat plain with potholes for altitude changes. I mean if altitude didn’t matter in RL wars and battles, then the Golan Heights would not be held by Israel, it is that simple.
The problem with the Alpine BL’s is they didn’t have any of these and just allowed for blob on blob mentality. This is why people do not like the new BL’s they have to think on HOW to do things. The old BL’s promoted blob on blob mentality and that was probably the first mistake done in WvW. The new maps while not perfect (I agree with Air Keep being too big), they at least prevent this incessant use of the blob.
Alpine is about a thousand times better for small groups than the deserted bl.
-It wasn’t full of random barriers that prevented you from criss-crossing the map.
-You could capture and upgrade/siege towers and use them to launch your assault on keeps (because they were close enough to threaten them.)
-It wasn’t full of PvE gimmicks that discourage fighting (stealth sandstorms, cripple spam, no falling damage, etc.)
The map might be fun as a dungeon or even as a replacement for eotm but it fails hard as a WvW map.
Bring back alpine bl (unchanged by the Hot gimmicks and auto upgrade crap)
Revert stability change.
Reward tracks and update WvW armor/weapon vendors
Auto loot
Balance the professions.
Once these are done you can start looking into server balance, there isn’t any point in trying to work on that until you fix the changes that ruined WvW for so many people (and don’t even think about going to some crappy eotm system! )
Signed. I haven’t posted in months, I barely play the game anymore since they ruined WvW. They need to return the alpine map and the old upgrade system so roamers and defenders have something to do.
Good changes but it’s not enough to bring me back to the game…
You need to do away with that kittenty bl or at the very least bring the alpine back in a weekly rotation, and the game desperately needs a balance patch.
You do realize that eotm is the testing ground for wvw right?
Yes and they’ve shown what doesn’t work for WvW. Eotm has proven that megaservers promote casual play and k-trains.
That’s the purpose of a testing ground, you find out what works and what doesn’t. You don’t test something out, find out it would destroy what’s left of competitive play, and then implement it anyway…
People don’t bother to defend anymore since no work goes into upgrading them and they aren’t defending WP’s they spent hours building.
Pls remember that you are basing your opinion here on a stupid bug that hasn’t been fixed since day 1 of GW2 (when it’s contested you teleport in the first second before going into contested again). If this bug was fixed, then that WP would be pointless because enemies will tag garri for one hour before attacking it and you wouldn’t know exactly when the big push is coming. Also, people were defending garri because of the reinforced gates and fortified walls, not just because of that waypoint.
Honestly I would rather not have WPs at all on the map only at spawns. This makes the zerg less mobile. And if you want a reward put into your scouting effort then getting T3 (wall+gates) should be good enough without the WP upgrade.
Being able to teleport in when the counter ended has nothing to do with what I’m talking about. WP’s offered a huge tactical advantage to the server that controlled them, that’s why it is important for them to be a T3 upgrade. It promoted fights because they took hours to build. This means the opposing server wants to bust the T3 keep to deny the home server the mobility the wp offered for hours. The home server obviously doesn’t want to lose the wp so they come and defend.
By removing WP’s or giving the WP as soon as a keep flips they removed a huge incentive for players to fight over them.
WvW didn’t become “harder”, it became more tedious and soulless now that everything is on auto pilot.
If you never did scouting where you had build a superior treb from supplies taken from camps even form other maps and spend like 40minutes only on that you would appreciate the auto-upgrades a lot. Supply is important now because you can build your siege painlessly and of course you get to fully repair your walls/gates.
Right now there are lot of more supplies than needed (which can be resolved by decreasing the dolyak spawns) and this makes camps a bit pointless.
You just said supply is important now but then you made the argument explaining why it’s not important now. I’ve been playing the game for 3+ years, since the early betas. I know the effort that goes into repairing walls without draining a keep, or running back and forth from camps to build defensive siege because you know an attack is on the way.
These were the kinds of decisions that added depth to the game. Making things easier isn’t always better.
I don’t want to play a game where every other character plays like Puck, and half their play-style revolves around becoming invulnerable long enough to wait for cooldowns or allies to show up.
Love how ppl talk about druid as if it is one build. There so many druid builds out there, bunker/support, condi, zerk, melee, trapper, all kind of flavours. And not all countered in the same way and certainly not all with 0 damage. Maybe not all as efficient in certain roles, but they are all out there
People were replying to the op who specifically complained about full bunker druids.
They finally are achieving their goal:
Killing wvw mode once and for all
Most people on the unofficial wvw forums (the serious wvw’ers) disagree
That’s a straight up lie. The only thread about it on the unofficial forums is titled EOTM 2.0 and they are saying the exact same thing that people are saying here.
More like a few people saying that while the rest shut them down with facts
“This map is so PvE”
Except the map actually has less pve mobs than before…
Stuff like that
Good try though
More like the majority agreeing with the op while a few k-trainers argue and the rest make genital jokes. Good try though.
They finally are achieving their goal:
Killing wvw mode once and for all
Most people on the unofficial wvw forums (the serious wvw’ers) disagree
That’s a straight up lie. The only thread about it on the unofficial forums is titled EOTM 2.0 and they are saying the exact same thing that people are saying here.
).
