Gliding and Mounts and Maps

With Gliding now a thing in WvW... and hopefully mounts in the PoF will be in WvW too, has there been any word on any new WvW maps or if they are going to be further changing the current ones? Falling off a cliff or taking a bit longer to navigate terrain seem to be lesser issues now. In the desert borderland it would be awesome if they could make a Stonemist like castle in the middle area that incorporates each of the elemental attributes.

Eternal battlegrounds is actually designed very well you notice this even more if you've tried to create your own map before. Taking towers feels lackluster though I feel something else should happen once we break down the wall but I'm not sure what.

I wouldn't mind eternal battlegrounds getting retextured though and maybe alternate textures like green being on snow/ice or a beachlike area sometimes and just alternating textures randomly each matchup.

The side maps I never cared for as much.

In some areas they have great design it seems to be the lead/directions they go in thats the problem.

Considering how much hate desert maps got, I highly doubt they will try to add new maps any time soon.

I've never understood the hate for the desert maps. The center needed reworked... but the overall design was cool.. I love the slot canyon part in particular.

@Link.1049 said:I've never understood the hate for the desert maps. The center needed reworked... but the overall design was cool.. I love the slot canyon part in particular.

I guess the majority of it was from people with no sense of direction, lazy to go any certain distances or finding shortcuts, and falling to their deaths :PI myself have always loved it but definitely something needs to be done at the center, I feel like it is wasted potential however I don't want it to be something that might potentially cause poor performance or crashes like before. I've tried fighting in those areas but 99% of the time I don't find anyone travelling there (possibly just not crossing paths), and when I do they are going to die hehe.

players follow who they perceive to be the it guy of gw2 wvw and when that guy whom they idolize says something repeatedly, they tend to herd mentality into that mindset.

back then the it guys disliked desert bl and so they left taking players who thought the same.

in a way, charisma and morale play a lot in this game because numbers.

simply, the herd needs to be guided more responsively by the community popular guys.

idealy this is how it should be but i cant force others to change their preference. got to respect it. and games live or die based on it.

Desert is a very pretty map, and gliding did reduce some of the pathing frustration, but I still am not a fan. The natural-looking formations are beautiful, and I don't mind climbing out of canyons. The issue comes with trying to find other players. It's not fun to me to try to join a group and have the mini map be useless because they are five hundred feet above me or on the other side of a wall that extends to a canyon that has one way out and it points in the wrong direction, etc. The Desert BL becomes more about managing routes than fighting the other team. There isn't a prettier place in the game to stand around and cap ruins, though. The center of the map is beautiful.

I do wish there were only one Alpine Borderland. A Beach Borderland like Southsun would be excellent.

DBL is actually a lot better now than it was at release. The way it was originally structured took far more of the bad things associated with adding 3D complexity to maps, than good.

For example: Initially, if you wanted to from the southeast-most camp to the shrine directly north of it (the shrine just south of air keep), it looks like they're maybe 15-25 seconds apart form each other, right? WRONG. You had to take a very convoluted path down the scaffolding, turning around a large rock/cliff before finally making your way into the gulley that lead to that shrine. This took a good 1-2 minutes and you could often get lost. That's bad design for a map/game mode associated with engaging players in a pvp setting.

What DBL is right now is far better and enjoyable in my opinion. Unfortunately the damage has been done. DBL has a bad reputation so people no longer play there. As a result of low population, any other players who would enjoy playing on it, such as myself, also avoid it.

From what I recall Anet has said they do not have any plans for new WvW maps. I am hoping someday we will get that underwater map. Now that would be epic!!

@Arcaedus.7290 said:DBL is actually a lot better now than it was at release. The way it was originally structured took far more of the bad things associated with adding 3D complexity to maps, than good.

For example: Initially, if you wanted to from the southeast-most camp to the shrine directly north of it (the shrine just south of air keep), it looks like they're maybe 15-25 seconds apart form each other, right? WRONG. You had to take a very convoluted path down the scaffolding, turning around a large rock/cliff before finally making your way into the gulley that lead to that shrine. This took a good 1-2 minutes and you could often get lost. That's bad design for a map/game mode associated with engaging players in a pvp setting.

What DBL is right now is far better and enjoyable in my opinion. Unfortunately the damage has been done. DBL has a bad reputation so people no longer play there. As a result of low population, any other players who would enjoy playing on it, such as myself, also avoid it.

My server plays there often... I liked that it broke up the zerg circle a bit. To be honest, I actually kind of liked that it wasn't popular, allowed for more strategic attacking rather than "my blob is bigger than your blob".

I'd like to see a beach borderland, and possibly a bl where most of it was underground, in like a crystal cave sort of area.

@Link.1049 said:I've never understood the hate for the desert maps. The center needed reworked... but the overall design was cool.. I love the slot canyon part in particular.

The map was poorly designed in many ways.

-Pathing and navigation were a nightmare, gliding has made it easier but its still annoying in many parts. It often feels like a jumping puzzle + maze trying to move around in it.

-Lord mechanics are annoying, just a constant cc spam fest.

-No strategic value whatsoever of objectives. On alpine borderland, there is a focus on progression with objectives in that everything can be used to hit the next objective...towers can treb keeps etc. On dbl everything is spread too far out providing no reason to cap or defend other then PPT.

-While it is cool that the keeps are large and have different themes and designs, they can be a nightmare to scout. Especially since contesting a keep is so easy, scouts need to constantly run a long path around the keep to see if it is being attacked. Fire keep has like 6 or 7 outer walls alone, and don't get me started on air keep...its a pain to scout if you are by yourself.

-Original oasis event caused massive lag for every server, and made the game unplayable. Thankfully it was disabled.

Those are just some of the issues, and combine these with the implementation of broken and overpowered tactics, the silence we had from Anet for around 6 months...and yea a lot of unhappy and angry players.

I don't see the need for mounts in wvw, what purpose would they serve?

@X T D.6458 said:I don't see the need for mounts in wvw, what purpose would they serve?

I didn't try mounts yet, do they offer any speed bonus over the base? Movement abilities? I'd love mounts in WvW it it meant all builds could get to fights easier.

@Hackuuna.4085 said:

@X T D.6458 said:I don't see the need for mounts in wvw, what purpose would they serve?

They provide an increase in movement speed, I believe its 33%. Also each mount has a unique movement ability, raptors have a physical forward leap, jackals can teleport, the bunny can jump high etc.

I don't see what practical purpose they can fill in WvW aside from being a cosmetic novelty. Because those abilities can easily be abused.

Being able to move faster, hop over your walls into (or out of) your keep if there is a blob at the gate, glide over your lava before the perk is unlocked... mounts would be quite powerful in WvW and much more than a novelty. Also imagine a bunch of Raptor and Bunny bombs in a blob where the enemy blob's initial attacks will be plinking mounts instead of players? While mounts are a blast and I love them, they are FAR too powerful for WvW.

As for the DBL - I personally think the maps are beautiful, and being able to go to additional maps helps keep me interested in WvW. I also like the shrine mechanics. The scale is fun, but it does make it too big and convoluted to play effectively. I personally hope they add more - I want there to be a unique Borderland for each side, and if there was, I'd do a lot more WvW. New maps would need to be more on the scale of Alpine, but hopefully in a way that balances the interest of DBL (varied keeps/tower themes) with the play-ability of ABL (limiting points of entry enough to be defensible and not make navigation too cumbersome). If they ever decide to replace DBL, I want them to make it fit somewhere in a real map so we can keep the beauty and explore. Lords could be metas, and shrines can be daily hearts to unlock the abilities. Obviously it would be a lot more work than that, but I want the DBLs to always stay in some form.

@X T D.6458 said:I don't see the need for mounts in wvw, what purpose would they serve?

Agreed. The maps aren't big enough for mounts to be useful. If they combined all the current maps into one giant one then I could see it being very useful if not necessary.

I personally have very mixed feelings about DBL.

Even after becoming familiar with the layout, it still feels like a chore getting to your commander (or anywhere else), because the terrain is so layered compared to the nice, flat Alpine maps or EBG. On the other hand, I love the diversity DBL brings; it's not the same, boring snow/forest/flatland all around. The nooks and crannies also bring tactical advantage in some situations. Not to mention the tower and keep lords, who at least fight back rather than standing still and sponging in all the damage. Like Raymond said, the map is not all that bad once you become familiar with it. If we ever see mounts in WvW, they're going to be super fun in DBL.

The keeps are horrible though. So much impractical and questionable architecture and design in and around both of them, it makes me cringe.

@X T D.6458 said:I don't see the need for mounts in wvw, what purpose would they serve?

on the larger maps it would solve the complaint people had of time to get around.

@Link.1049 said:

@X T D.6458 said:I don't see the need for mounts in wvw, what purpose would they serve?

And it would allow for different map mechanics...like if you have your raptors here's a shortcut....etc..

@Link.1049 said:

@X T D.6458 said:I don't see the need for mounts in wvw, what purpose would they serve?

I can see them being useful for DBL, especially because of the verticality and so many dead ends in the map.The problem is always balancing use with preventing abuse.

@X T D.6458 said:

@Link.1049 said:

@X T D.6458 said:I don't see the need for mounts in wvw, what purpose would they serve?

@"Raymond Lukes.6305" said:

I had this issue a lot before I started playing on the desert map more regularly. The Map is defiantly less "run in a line to where I want to go" then the other maps but after playing on it a bit it's not as bad as I originally thought it was.

This is kind of a double edged sword when it comes to map design for WvW/PvP. While it is nice to add some variety and interesting mechanics, this can often times add frustration to players. One of the biggest annoyances with DBL is that it often feels like we have to fight the terrain before actually getting to fight players.

Now if you port to DBL, and need to run to a keep that is under attack to defend it...do you want a bunch of people scattered everywhere, zig-zaging all over the place, waiting for everyone to gather up so you can start fighting, and losing valuable time for the sake of aesthetics.

Having the attitude that well people will like it eventually is not a good selling point...first impressions matter a great deal. And although many will give a second chance, the frustration and distaste has already set in and for some people no matter what changes and improvements are made it will not change their minds.

My guild almost always raids on DBL, I do a good amount of solo runs on it as well. But I had such a hatred for the map right from the start, that no matter what, it will never be a good map to me because of its fatal design flaws. It has only become...more manageable to me...but not really fun. I appreciate all the changes and improvements that were implemented but the essential issues are still present.

Maybe we could use the raptor to ram doors. ;)