(edited by ionix.9054)
I have played GW2 since beta, and I’ve been on a single server – through thick and thin – since beta. I’m also 38 which also seems relevant as context for my perspective.
Former DAoC player, WvW (or realm vs. realm as us old farts used to know it) has been my gaming life. For over a decade I went from MMO to MMO trying to find one that would replicate the joy I found in DAoC. For me, Guild Wars 2 did that.
And HoT has utterly trashed WvW and thrown it in the toilet.
My review is pretty simple, here is how the new BLs fail and will mark the death knell for WvW unless something very drastic is done. I know of not a SINGLE person who considers WvW they’re primary interest who would ever – EVER – ask for more PvE in their WvW. Not one.
And yet, not only has PvE “events” of various types been jammed into the new BLs all over the place, but the thing that has the most power to influence events in the BLs is a PvE event that happens every three hours. The big crescendo, the big “feature” of WvW BLs is now a PvE gather quest.
This design shows that Anet has absolutely no idea why WvWers do what they do. If you primarily PvE, and only occasionally go out to WvW for some off time, you aren’t looking for PvE in your WvW either. You’ll go to every other part of the game to get that – done better. But if you WvW as your main gameplay, its because PvE isn’t what you are really looking for in a game. Now non-player activities are the defining feature of BLs.
The second total failure is the utter GIMMICKY nature of BLs. All of the gimmicks are of pveish variety as well. Sandstorms, pve control points that grant different global environmental effects, cute little maze little portal hops and on and on. None of this makes for quality WvW of either large or small scale.
The final failure is in map layout design itself. These are some of the most over-designed maps I’ve ever experienced. If the intent was to eliminate large blob open field fights, Anet might have partially succeeded, but only due to making the BLs total ghost towns. WvW has been and will always be, a home for large force battles. Yup. That’s why WvW is WvW. Yes, sometimes we all complain when one server feels like they have a map blog three times as big as ours, or at times when we want to have small group skirmishes, but all we can find are large zergs roaming about.
But the truth is – we whine – but don’t want that fixed. At least not like you have done – by introducing more PvE and more gimmicks into WvW. Zergs are part of WvW. We complain sometimes, and then we love them and join in on the action other times. They can be a problem, but they are also a natural and unavoidable consequence of WvW done RIGHT. You can’t fix numbers imbalance by map engineering. My old fart WvW relics and I have a saying: “Find PvP solutions to PvP problems.”
You’ve made PvE maps confusing and tedious to navigate, floored them with gimmicks, and increased the PvE in them to biblical proportions…. And now no one goes there. I usually try hard to be at least a little balanced in reviews. But I honestly give WvW int he HoT expansion a true “F.”
Sad.
+1.