Guild Wars 2

Since we mostly have two servers allied together why not a set of borderlands for each server with the two themes. This also addresses the server link issue and identity questions that were raised in other threads. That would also create two EBs since EB continues to be consistently the queued map during DBL and ABL times.

Do I go to my server’s maps or do my allied server’s map need aid.

Fuzzion.2504:

The reason we lose players is because of the lack of wvw endgame. The sudden surge in player numbers is due to the Old BL. But whats there after 2 to 3 months? DBL is crap. Anet knows it. But they refused to believe it. So unless new masteries, endgame, tourney make some entrance we will see players leaving in a few months again.

Agree, unless they keep players engaged we will lose people. How do we keep as many as possible?

lil devils x.6071:

The object of a large scale PvP mode in a Massively multiplayer game is to have massive amounts of people playing it with you and against you. You should EXPECT everything to be defended. You should EXPECT to be outnumbered. You should EXPECT to have to avoid the blob

Spoken like a zerger. Devil you just provided why you don’t get it. Not everyone likes to be zergling #178987662 but instead like to make a difference. Small maps favor the zergling versus the organized force and/or the havoc or roamer. None stop is not the same as he who has bigger force wins. Massively means you have to choose where to fight not who has the biggest zerg wins. Stop taking 50 to take a camp already, you need 1. We need maps where the right force at the right time make sense. Stop K-Training already. Give us maps where there are fights, but not just he who zergs wins. We lost peeps before because we needed new maps, we are back there even if we gain old peeps that were not sticking around post HoT, which may still notbe HoT.

Allow players to choose. Don’t restrict us. Give people all maps as options at all times. People like different maps for different reasons. Keep as many as possible. Normal decay will remove players overtime. Don’t force any out that you don’t have to.

Fuzzion.2504:

Sorel.4870:

Anet said in the ask-me-anything on reddit that they planned to rotate the BLs every three months.

Well if theyu bring back the dbl and swap out the old bls, Me and many others will be leaving again.

That’s the problem with rotation, we lose people either way. Doesn’t even matter how many, losing people either way is the issue.

Josh XT.6053:

Have 3 maps be alpine, 3 desert, 1 EBG. Tada – problem solved, people get both maps, we have less fighting to get in to maps due to queues, all is well.

See compromise. Many are against sadly because they feel its their way or the highway. If they could allow both maps at the same time then a lot of people could be happy. Why lose players on either side.

I worry a little about the superior siege addition. Not sure why yet, but made me go, wait a second.

Wouldn’t this directly conflict with the reason they are testing the two server concept? People were looking for more people to fight. Or are you picturing that discontinuing and this taking its place. Since players have to pay for transfers this might be rough.

Heimlich.3065:

I agree, the rewards for the [Outnumbered] buff are insufficient for any purpose. The only reason to participate and play from behind is if you’re bloody-minded stubborn and don’t mind getting kicked around a lot.

If you’re motivated by spite, it helps. Occasionally you can put your thumb in the eye of the dominating server, and that’s very very enjoyable.

Well said on both counts. The question is if adjusted what should it do. Are we talking gains the player makes or changes to mechanics.

The WxP gain made a lot of sense when it seemed that they might further expand WvW abilities, but the previous decision was to reduce abilities to more level the playing field for vets versus new comers. Still think there are other options out there for this but that’s off topic.

So maybe up their participation rates? What encourages people to fight against the odds, besides stubbornness which is rewarding in its own way, what helps the players that stick it out. Possibly up their coin and badges on kills/takes since they could use that to fund their WvW efforts. A bounty buff of sorts. I say this instead of reducing costs since that could be gamed versus rewarding the player for actions they do.

Not in favor of stat buffs since it would encourage people to say leave the map so my group is boosted.

If you are talking mechanics then that’s a bigger discussion. Things like upping point values and/or map reaction times of swords and the like would need to be thought out more.

Food for thought.

Azakael.3019:

So, fairly new to WvW. I know I need to git gud and have a build that’s intended for WvW and not just using my PvE build, but otherwise – I’m mostly enjoying it.

Enjoying your time is the important part. You may find that your gear setup matches your play style and you will do fine in it, don’t discount yourself so fast.

Aezyr.5304:

He isn’t the only one. Since HoT most action was on EB and we are finaly, with the reintroduction of alpine, at a point were the borders getting more active played (and the vet commander bother to tag up there instead of Eb).

That’s why I was fishing to see how many strongly favor a home. Have some on my server as well but more map hop. That’s a major issue with this plan, no home field advantage or not in the normal sense.

Xenesis.6389:

That’s nice, but doesn’t change the fact that two of the maps are designed as home borderland maps, where the home team has the advantage with the north half of the map.

If they were all designed with ebg concept in mind where everyone had equal amount of structures to hold, and equal travel times through the map then yeah we can go with the 4 maps idea, I’d like nothing better and I have already mentioned it in the past.

In the meantime if you want to shoehorn the idea, then my thoughts on who owns what bl are up above. Red will take desert because less people will go there, easier to hold north towers cause they’re only useful for ppt. Roamers won’t spend time there either. Blue will get alpine since that’s a little more popular, roamers enjoy it so more action, more things will flip. Green will get eotm easiest to flip stuff with no upgrades, make green with the higher population and better coverage work for their points.

I agree, the maps that are designed as home lands would need to be adjusted. And if they were then they would need to be adjusted but also keep the concepts that people like. Example for ABL it would need to allow for towers that were in range of keeps and such.

I understand your point now about the other concepts, wanted to make sure we were talking apples to apples.

zinkz.7045:

TheGrimm.5624:

style.6173:

@OP: You have no clue what you are talking about. A vocal minority?

Forum posters are a minority of the players that actually play the game.

The phrase ‘vocal minority’ is simply a piece of empty rhetoric used with dishonest intentions by individuals (politicians are prime example) who wish to discredit a view they disagree with by implying ‘the silent majority’ have a different view, without any actual evidence or data.

I used the term vocal forum. I also stated that are more players than forum posters, which is where the minority statement came in, which is true. The mixing of words is yours.

That said I do side on the side of variety which is why I wanted to see what people think about multiple maps versus rotation. Rotation is what they have said, but if players never suggest other things then we have no right to grumble to ANet when they go another direction. ANet also just started doing the polling thing. Not sure how many have used or possibly seen it but they did add it to the front page so its matter of whether or not people looked at their splash page. ANet used the term majority, but to your point without them polling the people in game that step was questionable. Might be completely true had they done so, but don’t know. Hence my wording.

The concept about multiple maps is not new, nor is the fact that people were asking for more maps from years ago, or do you disagree?

So if we are at a stage where they are developing but not planning on giving us more maps, then give us options. Rotating is one, so would be having multiple maps available at the same time. This isn’t even about ABL vs DBL its about the question on how rotation might impact populations versus an option that leaves maps open. If they had an array of more maps then might favor rotating more, but we are effectively rotating 1 map but 3 copies of it.

So, if you favor rotation, then say that.

Small guild as well, if you have some focused people you can get up there. We run about a havoc group and are at level 49 focusing on guild buffs and WvW buffs were priority. But a number of our group figured that ANet would make this vast material sinks and started stock piling before HoT release so we were ready to run.

That said this one is tough. I like the idea but its the active buffs I am concerned with too. And this could be trolled the other way to. Imagine a troll guild upgrades its guild. It then runs to each of your objectives, forces their claim over someone elses and then releases the claim. Then they circle the map and in short order nothing is claimed. Not sure which is the lesser of evils here.

The issue with the troll report is as other have mentioned, some well intentioned people might be reported when they really were trying to help since no one else was claiming it.

Have seen a few squads using it but agree w/ Skynet, most scouts want to scout their way. On the flip side it’s also still a new feature so may take some time for people to understand it and use it more.

Xenesis.6389:

They can’t have 4 of the current maps for a matchup, they have 2 maps suited for home borderland and 2 which are neutral, but there’s 3 teams playing, so one team will not have a “home field advantage”.

Unless you say screw it to green and maybe you can work it out like this.

Red bl = desert bl, some people like it here.
Blue bl = alpine bl, some more people like it here.
Green bl = eotm, ktrain central.
EBG.

But it isn’t exactly fair, the reason why they have the home bl the same is so that all teams have equal access and advantages to the map. Not that it’s fair anyways since green usually has better population or coverage anyways.

In this concept there is no more home borderland, there are just 4 battlefields. Your home becomes your third on each map where you move forward from.

style.6173:

@OP: You have no clue what you are talking about. A vocal minority?

Forum posters are a minority of the players that actually play the game. Do you really think that there are more people that post on the forums then play the game? Really?

A lot of people didn’t even know about all this until it went live. Most people don’t use the forums.

T3, night 3. EB queue. 0 borderlands queued except a few minutes when EB commander would take force to borderland and then jump back to EB.

Sich.7103:

Because if ennemy control keep on your map then you are invaded… You feel attacked… Stuck in a small part of the map… Not being able to control your world…

Sich, thanks for the reply, helps when trying to ponder options.

So for you it creates a sense of purpose to have a single map to try and keep them completely out of. A last stand type location I assume?

Used to be a big time homeland defender as well but realized it was creating an unneeded sense of stress when people wouldn’t return to defend home. I get why they weren’t but still was annoying to see hours of build up work and coin wiped out by one mass ktrain rolling through the BL.

If we are rotating then yes, weekly or every other week. +1.

lil devils x.6071:

I don’t think you understand, your solution would have the players leave the game mode all together, not just play on EBG. Many LEFT over the DBL’s and are coming back only as long as they are gone. They settled for EBG while waiting for them to come back ( but NOT being able to play the game mode as they see as " properly"so they can play the whole game mode, again you make it so they cannot ( same situation they were in before) They want to be able to play on the entire court, not just part of it. Rotation would be better at least as they would ONLY play when there was no DBL present at all.

We will have extremists in any scenario even as normal population decline occurs over time as people grow bored or new things are developed. I will continue to favor options with variety that gives people a choice. I understand that your belief is rotation would better fit peoples needs. If that is the case then I will hope that both our bench times are short. I am happy people are enjoying the game mode enough to come out here and voice their opinions, it shows there is something worth playing else none of us would care. Good hunting!

lil devils x.6071:

They have to make the score matter.

We agree that scoring needs to be adjusted. How is a long discussion in of itself. Again though we need a solution that is fun and rewarding and encourages as many people as possible to participate.

Thought about this actually, just wasn’t certain about the population levels to support it. I think we would need ANets numbers to understand where the queues are at for all servers. Last night prime time in two US time zones the only map queued was EB in T3. Some of the forum posters in EU T1 had queues on multiple maps, some posting that T1 NA had none but EB. As I said we would need ANet’s numbers which we don’t have.

lil devils x.6071:

This does not work in a game mode where the score is kept due to it giving teams “bad map handicaps”. Not sure who all you think this makes happy due to the fact that many players will not play on EotM map or DBL, it certainly will not make them happy, because as long as there is a score kept they need to be able to play on the entire court.

This is a compromise to keep most people playing. You are a good example. When DBLs come back into rotation you are back to just EB. Rotations are going to leave some of the player base out each time it cycles. You know people that won’t play on DBL, I know people that aren’t playing on ABL. Why limit our population.

So to continue your analogy, you prefer to sit out half your play time on the bench when the game rotates?

Jski.6180:

EOTM is not viable in ppt. If we where going to have a 3ed BL map it needs to be a new one altogether. Maybe a Sea map?

Not sure I follow what you mean. Not valid in that it doesn’t have a similar amount of available points per tick compared to the other maps? If that is what you meant, that is something that could be adjusted by various means and/or plan on them having different values. Once again these aren’t any one sides home any longer, they are different battlefields that people can choose from where everyone has close to equal options on taking and holding.

Zetsumei.4975:

This is because the server that gets alpine as their home will always win. Alpine is the one map where it is easier to control your entire home border. The other three maps all make it extremely difficult to do anything but only hold your corner.

They will do this as soon as they turn the alpine into a square border so that the intended playstyle is that you hold your corner on all four maps and attempt micro pushes from there.

Alpine would need to be adjusted to be more square. The point that people are making that the towers have roles in capping the keeps is valid and the concept should remain so it might also require an addition of a few more towers to keep its balance.

The same thought of adding some additional smaller towers to DBL might be something to consider as well, but the difference is the keep size differences. DBLs being so much bigger meant you didn’t need a fortified tower to assault it from since you have so many areas you can attack at the same time already. But DBL changes are separate thread and bigger conversation.

LetoII.3782:

As long as advantages are given to the weaker servers in match, maps don’t really need to be balanced. I’d go so far as to say the winning server should have no home BL and the loser 2

I see where you are coming from, but the concept is to try and allow for close to even footing.

Daggos Skelito.2910:

So your saying I can warm up in EoTM, switch to EB next, then head to ABL for some exiting fights. AND I never have to play DBL!!!
Ohhh Im liking this concept! Yes vote

I am saying with choices absolutely you can play on multiple maps and still avoid ones that does not interest you. And if one day you want to try it out again to see if its now more interesting you have that choice without them forcing you to do or leaving the game mode.

Sich.7103:

Because BL with 3 side will fail… They have try this with DBL… Remember that the side keep WP only work for 1 team at the begining.
I want a home border, where my team can control all the map and feel like home… Not a 3 side map… I hate EB for that !

Sich, I was thinking about you when I was trying to get around the home BL bit and find a solution for it. I admit I was watching for others about the Home BL but you are the only (so far) that I saw consistently in threads about wanting an individual home BL. Still don’t have an answer there yet. So to you, whats the difference in defending your third versus a full borderland that you call home?

TheBandit.7031:

TheGrimm.5624:

TheBandit.7031:

I honestly think the opposite. I think more allies should scale it down because they clearly shouldn’t need much help.

Its 2 AM and work in 4 hours so I am tired so please forgive me. Trying to understand what you meant, so your thoughts are they never ramp up, but start at a base level and then downscale from there based on number of allies? Or am I mis-understanding your idea?

I think I may have misunderstood what you wrote originally, are you saying that the lord should scale down with more allies present or less?

I am saying scale down with more allies present. But I also want it to scale up if there are no allies present too. It should be challenging if no defenders are present.

TheBandit.7031:

I honestly think the opposite. I think more allies should scale it down because they clearly shouldn’t need much help.

Its 2 AM and work in 4 hours so I am tired so please forgive me. Trying to understand what you meant, so your thoughts are they never ramp up, but start at a base level and then downscale from there based on number of allies? Or am I mis-understanding your idea?

Klypto.1703:

Overcome and adapt bring the desert bl’s back!

lol, allow for both. I feel the need to support DBL because it was fun too, but can’t fault the people that missed ABL. They were having fun that was taken from them. Give us both at the same time in some solution. Give people a choice.

DeWolfe.2174:

I believe Lord scaling needs to be toned down. Lord room fights should be about fighting people, not having to fight the Lord for 10 minutes plus players.

Wolfe, agree and disagree here.

Lord should scale to match the enemy force, but should scale down based on the allies present. You don’t want to further encourage or assist the empty take.

The issues with ABL weren’t addressed since they weren’t ready to bring it back yet but felt the need to do so since they were now under new direction from a different game director. I think a lot of us would be shocked on the number of changes and how the game was delayed at launch because of staffing changes internally as people were moved or replaced during development. I wouldn’t fault the teams hard work on probably a quick change over, nor would I fault them for not applying changes to a map that was out of play and still had open issues if other deadlines were applied to them. And no, even if Anet uses “soon” too often I doubt that their teams weren’t given internal deadline to meet, never seen a business that didn’t self impose deadlines else nothing would ever advance.

That said, continue to report bugs else they might not be prioritized correctly in the long run.

Agree. And honestly this is the time to talk about it again before we get to that next swap time period and people that are enjoying the ABL are once again disenfranchised when DBL comes back. Really would like a solution that doesn’t irritate different segments of the population every couple of months. Its the people that feel they can’t compromise at all that I don’t get since they will be negatively impacted again as well when things rotate.

Side note, spot checking thru prime times US East and Centeral T3, EB only map queue for extended periods. Also spot checked EoTM to see how populations were impacted and found full instances, will have to monitor and see how weekend goes since some people may still not know of changes.

Helzy.4036:

I’ve been on Hiatus since just after HoT release, main reasons I left were, lack of attention to WvW, horrible new maps, and all garbage that came to WvW with HoT.

Reasons to try it again:

• No cost to do so since you already own the game
• WvW rewards have been added
• New server links have increased populations by effectively condensing have the servers without actually forcing transfers
• WvW is getting some attention so more changes might occur
• Squad functionality continues to improve
• Arctic Borderland returned if you were a fan

Reasons not to depending on which HoT items you disliked:

• HoT Elites are still present
• WvW structures do still auto-upgrade but based on Dolyaks
• Guild halls still required to grant your guild passive buffs for controlled structures
• Scribes still needed if you want to create activate-able structure boons

Hope that helps. Good gaming!

Swagger.1459:

EB

ABL

Revised DBL

New Arctic BL map, not eotm map.

I went with EoTM because its a currently created and a functioning map that draws a good number of people, the why of its draw is the debatable part. Again a lot of this would be easier with ANets statistics but we won’t be able to see those. It also offers some vertical scale to that’s a blend of the maps.

Sich.7103:

And eotm is a 3 way map, DBL and ABL are not !

What prevents them from becoming 3 sided maps and why is that bad? EB draws more people over time. A big part of that is the 3 sided structure that doesn’t greatly favor one side.

Sich.7103:

And you can’t balance those 4 maps…. ABL is far smaller than DBL… EOTM is… bah, it’s eotm….

Again, why? PPT can be set to balance out if need be but the EB and ABL are already not equal in points. More risk/more reward.

Sich.7103:

Stop asking for different map, we have EBG and all server have his home BL. Then no balance issue, everyone have the same map.

Yes we have 2 maps, why don’t you want more? And what happens when DBL comes back around, wouldn’t you want more options to fight in then?

Sich.7103:

Having 4 different map mean the need to make MU 3 weeks long to rotate each team on each map…. Fighting the same opponent for 3 weeks will be boring like hell…

3 sides maps mean no one is favored on a given map so this is moot. And a lot of people already encountered having to fight the same people for 8-12+ weeks in a row besides.

Helzy.4036:

From what I have heard and read it seems with the old maps being brought back the game mode had been rejuvenated, there are Queues on all maps which leads me to believe the Majority like this change. I haven’t played in months but

To be fair differnt match weeks but, T3 last night, EB queued and home BL, others not queued.

Previous weeks EBs queues were higher but there were 2-3 DBLs queued before as well. We will have to see how the next few weeks play out.

Agree with OP, only counter I would add would be to potentially up the base value of these items since they should have some value. Then it at least wouldn’t feel so bad just selling them.

Ok, there is no way to make everyone happy. The vocal forum, which is a minority of actual players were able to bring the alpine back. I am happy that they are having fun, its a game and we are all paying for entertainment so good on them. A good number of actual in game players were surprised that this was even going on, be them happy or sad about the change which should be an indicator of its own.

That said there were also a lot of players that were not happy since they were enjoying the new maps. Neither set of maps are perfect and both had issues. So some people are now back to WvW and some people are now leaving WvW. ANet has said they will rotate which many have said if they do they will step back out and others back in. That still leaves us with less people in the game mode.

There are some that favor a home BL but a lot people are looking for maps they enjoy fighting on. Some people prefer more flat maps and others more varied maps. So instead of working on a rotation system, why not let people have a choice and give us 4 maps. This has been brought up in a number of threads but not one of its own.

1 EBG – Flat style
1 ABL – Flat style
1 DBL – Vertical
1 EoTM – Mix

For the people that like both, variety to choose from, for those that favor one or the other, 2 maps each. EBG/EoTM are already 3 sided maps. It wouldn’t be hard to adjust ABL and DBL to be the same. This also brings EoTM in line with regular WvW and may impact populations or more clearly define the number of people for and against the current server logic versus the Red/Blue/Green logic.

Now what this doesn’t fix is the people that need a home BL, which I don’t have a solution for. A lot people already see their map’s third as home and defend it as such. Having read the various form posts I am not sure how many this is out of the forum goers though.

In the least ANet, include this is your new polls before you spend a lot of resource dollars on a rotation. We have a lot of extremists on the forums, this is a middle ground that gives a number of options to people even as all maps evolve over time.

Now the argument was made, no I don’t want maps I will never play on, but this does not restrict maps where as a rotation will. So for the people that don’t want DBL back, this gives you options versus when DBL rotates back in and vice versa. The more times people leave, the more likely that might be the last time they leave and don’t come back. Some people have said I want 4 maps to choose from, you only have 2 right now so when a rotation occurs you will be impacted. Why can’t we have variety?

If against, why and how does this impact you more adversely then when they rotate?

Where-ever you WvW, good hunting!

Agree, happy for the people that wanted it back, but yeah, already bored. Biggest zerg rules. Maybe they will restart the PvP season soon.

Dinas Dragonbane.2978:

That being said though if they keep pushing in this strategically backwards map direction we’ll have a plain gray flat field with 3 veteran lords where the keeps used to be that are behind a fence that you can jump over.

Hey, I think some of the sPvP team are in the WvW team now, maybe we can just replace the map with a copy of Courtyard and have everyone spawn in the middle of the circle.

Balthazzarr.1349:

lolol…. seriously I must be one of the only ones that loves the current maps. I’m sure the old ones will be just fine but soooooo boring running through them… ah well… I concede to the ‘majority’

Your not alone.

What’s annoying is I am happy that people are happy that wanted ABL back and they can play there again. But at the same time irritated since the new maps were a lot of fun. So its now up to ANet to provide good customer service and make up the loss of good will to those that like DBL or even liked both.

So again, why do we have to have 3 copies of the same map. Lets move to a 4 map solution then both sets of people have options.

Josh XT.6053:

that was about 20 hours in desert BL

So you never took time to adapt and learn new tactics, got it. You could have just said that.

When are we getting new maps?

Aeolus.3615:

Players love pvd karma train, i think for many that equals a GG and skillfull play, reason most players might be want the pvd alpine bl….
Most players did not like the desert BL because they needed more effort.

That’s the part I love is all the outcrys that no one pvd karma trains in WvW, its only EoTM. Yeah right.

Good hunting!

mcarswell.3768:

Xillllix.3485:

Would have been much better to implement a new system with 4 different maps, instead of having 3 copies of the old map back.

yes…why does it have to be all the same? 4 different maps would be great…even better would be if they were all connected, with EB in the middle. (like DAoC frontiers)

4 maps would have covered both sides and given people variety. They have now pleased one group to the determent of another.

@ABLers, gratz, enjoy.

@ANet, what’s the plan on rotations?

Just rechecked and it does say cross map team chat, so this should be communicating with your server, not the others.