10 reasons to remove desert map

[Riba.3271]

1. It is too hot for warclaw and camel skin is missing
2. It gives unfair advantage/disadvantage (competitiveness)
3. Its half as popular as one alpine map
4. The keeps and towers are too large
5. The lords have too much CC
6. The siege spots are too high
7. It has ton of bugs (falling through gates, leaping past walls)
8. Lord rooms are designed for clouding and everything else is 1000 chokepoints
9. Scouting it is impossible with every keep and tower having multiple cata/treb spots that can't be countered with siege in combination with 100 hiding spots
10. It takes spot of a real map

The map need some serious fixing and holding onto it is just failure to admit it isn't what the playerbase wants. Replace desert with 3rd alpine map. Design a new EB with different middle castle and throw it in, so we can have 5 maps instead of 4. Reduce map cap by like 15 as 60 man fights are much less fun than 45 ones

[Bristingr.5034]

This is a joke post, right?

[God.2708]

There are two flaws with desert BL

1. The two northern towers are 'lonely' and should be moved close enough that if an enemy takes them they can impact stoic rampart (objective hopping). The southern towers don't leap either, but that's less problematic from an overall map strategy view since borderlands are meant to be 2v1 situations and it's expected the defenders have to hop from one side of the map to the other and one keep will eventually fall.
2. The lords incorporate to many uncounterable/obnoxious PvE elements. A single strong element that defenders might take advantage of is fine (Stonemists Lord with his multiple AoE KDs, Alpine Keep lords and their single huge AoE burst), but the desert BL lords, especially keeps, are a constant string of problematic attacks and it makes it frustrating for an attacker to fight around.

Most other flaws people find with the maps are simply an element of the lack of population and interest in PPT scoring mattering. The original design was to give small parties a better edge when trying to havoc around a single large zerg, and it does actually do that. The motivation for trying to 'play' the map as is intended though isn't there. And, I don't think the map should be dumped because of problems that are not actually with the map.

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

probably; EBG and alpine borders have the same amount of "bad terrain" as in buggy spots, we're just way more used to them.

but yeah, it'd need a proper workover. i'm highly against removing it completely. Anet would just party if they could present another cutting of content as a "world restructure balance update"... and the alpine borders are rather boring by now. just work better, because the core settlements are closer together.

the lords are rather just fine. all lords should be stronger, not as useless as they currently are. would be nice if the scaling works differently. like outnumbered should buff players stat and make lords way stronger for example.

the siege spots are silly, because too many abusable spots exist. towers of keeps in all maps should have higher spots, so treb VS treb works better and doesn't stay completely one-sided.

also, everything is too large in desert border, not only the keeps. it needs to get way more even ground simply, and the size would play less role. too many spots where the camera bugs out, and the ways between tower-keep-spawn is just far too long.

[Riba.3271]

@"kamikharzeeh.8016" said:probably; EBG and alpine borders have the same amount of "bad terrain" as in buggy spots, we're just way more used to them.

but yeah, it'd need a proper workover. i'm highly against removing it completely. Anet would just party if they could present another cutting of content as a "world restructure balance update"... and the alpine borders are rather boring by now. just work better, because the core settlements are closer together.

the lords are rather just fine. all lords should be stronger, not as useless as they currently are. would be nice if the scaling works differently. like outnumbered should buff players stat and make lords way stronger for example.

the siege spots are silly, because too many abusable spots exist. towers of keeps in all maps should have higher spots, so treb VS treb works better and doesn't stay completely one-sided.

also, everything is too large in desert border, not only the keeps. it needs to get way more even ground simply, and the size would play less role. too many spots where the camera bugs out, and the ways between tower-keep-spawn is just far too long.

Issue is that they reworked desert bl multiple times already and it is better but the timeline for good reception is way past. Many people wouldn't step into the map even if it was fixed. You have only so many shots to make things work.

Only way to fix map is add big castle in the middle, move the side keeps around and make it neutral map similar to eb instead of home borderland. This map just wasn't designed for small amount of players, you need all 3 servers on the map.

[TheQuickFox.3826]

Terrain is hard to navigate with the verticality. Too many chances to drop to my death.I would not miss this map when removed.

[subversiontwo.7501]

My biggest gripe with the map is that so little of it is commonly used for the day-to-day content, leaving alot of dead spots and just transversal areas.

The map is like a broken donut with very little ever taking place in the middle. The sides with the fire and air keeps are also mostly only played around when necessary. The vast majority of content, regardless of scale, takes place in the south with the towers and camps or the north with the backtowers and garri. North-south is very dominant whether we talk about roamers, closed squads or pickups.

Then add to that alot of stuff that has already been mentioned, that the size of the keeps also means that alot of the map is just swallowed by the structure interiors and those fights are rarely fun and just gives both defensive advantages ( that has worse class-class [weight] balance than open field) and rewards heavier composed groups who can just constrain space and leverage mass. That is not unique for DBL, that is any objective or structure fight but as they take up so much space on DBL that such fights are usually prolonged on DBL and take up more of the content relative the other maps' spread of content.

While the map was certainly improved with the changes that came some time after its inception, it still suffers the same kind of issues, it's just the same problems light. I also still maintain that I believe most people who say that they prefer that map do not actually prefer the map and rather prefer that it tends to be less populated or that it attracts their peers to find matched up content at smaller scale. That is supported by the above since while people claim they prefer the map they rarely create content in the areas of the map that contrasts it from the other maps. Whether we're on EBG, ABL or DBL flat surfaces with possible slight terrain shifts seem preferred by everyone.

As for changing the map. I don't know. I don't necessarily see a removal of DBL and a return to all ABL borders as a step forward anymore. I'm far more in favour of moving away from borders completely and using overflow technology to do away with queues and enable rotating map variations with EBG as the blueprint for variations. I've toted that for a while now, that EotM should just be reskinned and/or that overflow tech should come to WvW so we can have map carousels like WoT has and then use the overflows and outnumbered to change the scoring to enable on-map scoring balance and do away with queues so friends can actually get on the same map or enemies can get on the same map to match up without having to go through the hoops of socially engineering around the shitty queues.

At the end of the day, the two biggest problems these days are that servers are full and maps are full. Population balance has fallen to a close second or overlaps since it is kind of the same issues bundled together. That kinda goes for map design too. Finding a system around the full maps like the one described would also provide a better overall strategy for map design, variation and replayability.

[Ashantara.8731]

No, no, and no.

It's my favorite map. It could use some polishig for mount movement (!) and a few other things, but other than that I would cry if it was removed. I'd rather see one of the two Alpine Borderlands replaced with a brandnew map.

[gert.7698]

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/110052/which-map-do-you-prefer#latest

Seems that a lot of players don’t agree with removing the map

[len.7809]

I liked the map when the air keep "bird statues" actually blows wind when 2 shrines are captured.But people bitched about it and it got removed. Shrugs

[Yasai.3549]

I actually like DBL's different strategies and approaches.

It's more wild and refreshing.

If anything I want one of the Alpines replaced with something new, or replaced with EotM.

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

yeah EotM is so nice, yet so dead. the now-and-then happening GvGs or BvBs often go unannounced so idk much about that. my server lost all real fighting guilds, cannot really participate in that kind of content therefore anyways.

desert border still has a ton of flaws. what has been said is correct, the amount of content not used there, bc it's just on the very edges of the map or has too difficult terrain for fights, is quite a problem. or think about all the boss mobs that only camp the most isolated spots of the maps (desert border Great Wyvern, EBG the arboreal spirit etc), where the little pests like brakish scales tag keep you 100% in combat for minutes, till the unfriendly nearby gankerpack of 5 glasscannons has the nice option to jump you.

also the alpines could use minor reworks. like, all maps need updates with the mercanaries outside of EBG. the skritt and centaurs of alpine borders are pretty much good for nothing. also the ruins and the borderlands bloodlust are not really a good thing. the most numerous servers usually cap them, and then even get buffs for that? while the [Outnumbered] only gives u what, magic find%? great.

[Sviel.7493]

It's so wild to me that people don't realize EBG and the borderlands are essentially two different games. You really can't just interchange them.

EBG is all about zergs and momentum. It has a faster pace and a very strong mobility difference for home corner versus enemy corner that cannot be mitigated outside of the indefensible (without constant zerg presence) SMC. Supply lines are not a huge consideration and sneaking behind enemy lines is both difficult and unrewarding.

The borderlands prioritize different things, but they're similar in pace to each other.

ABL is closer to EBG as it's also about zergs and momentum and has a strong (but less than EBG) mobility difference for home corner versus enemy corner. However, there are fewer objectives and they're more spread out so you need to have a bit more scouting. Taking one objective often gives huge advantages for taking nearby objectives. Like EBG, you can't really sneak around because the whole map is super open, but there is a bit more room for small teams to maybe steal a camp. Supply lines are meaningful here but vary wildly in importance. The two northern towers are only served by one yak and take 12 hours to fully upgrade--more than twice as much as the next highest objective. Meanwhile, the side keeps get 3 yaks apiece and have the fastest upgrade times of any keeps.

DBL prioritizes scouting, defense and havoc. Zergs are still effective, but since it's possible to delay enemy zergs for longer (due to fewer double-duty assault points and a greater emphasis on supply), it's less important to have one in every location at every moment. It's not like ABL where you often can't do anything to slow enemies down short of engaging them in a full on fight. The map doesn't increase most inter-objective travel times by much but it does block lines of sight and offer multiple paths. This means that enemies can mask their movement much more easily whether they are zergs or small teams. Thus, scouting is critically important (also because an early defense is actually useful) and havoc is far more effective. Supply lines are incredibly important on this map because they are all much more vulnerable to attack. There's no easy SWC->Bay nonsense and plenty of cover for would-be assassins. Also, since playing the map well requires jockeying with enemy zergs to delay their breach time, upgraded walls are far more important than on ABL/EBG.

---

Whether people like the various map flavors or not is up to them. I'm not here to blast folks for opinions. But I do object to suggestions that would change everything to EBG flavor.

[Grand Ethereal.6075]

If they removed Desert, I'd legit quit GW2 completely

[Frederic.5176]

Seconded, I would maybe not quit GW2 (though I understand if someone just plays WvW) but that'd be the end for my roaming. Fortunately, it's not gonna happen, Anet is not that stupid.

[Skada.1362]

@Yasai.3549 said:I actually like DBL's different strategies and approaches.

It's more wild and refreshing.

If anything I want one of the Alpines replaced with something new, or replaced with EotM.

100% agree. why the F do we have 2 identical alpine maps? never made sense to me. also EOTM is one of the coolest maps, such a shame it got neglected like that

[aspirine.6852]

I hate it. Good enough reason for me to remove it, but I dont get to decide :(

[Dawdler.8521]

@Skada.1362 said:

@Yasai.3549 said:I actually like DBL's different strategies and approaches.

It's more wild and refreshing.

If anything I want one of the Alpines replaced with something new, or replaced with EotM.

100% agree. why the F do we have 2 identical alpine maps? never made sense to me. also EOTM is one of the coolest maps, such a shame it got neglected like thatRemember when Anet said that if the community didnt vote to delete DBL and instead voted to keep it, they would do more maps?

Not even Pepperidge Farms remembers.

I will reiterate my stance since its launch - DBL fails because it doesnt follow the most basic rule of WvW. Towers threaten keeps, keeps threaten towers. Commanders can yell bUt mAh FiGGiTs! and scoff at PPT all day long but this is the way of WvW and what drives it. Not all maps does it the same way - EB does it best, ABL varies it a little but DBL just ignore it completely. EoTM isnt any better than DBL last I looked.

This doesnt mean I dont like playing on it. I do. Its playable. I have fun on it. They improved it 10x from the horrible original iteration. But it still fails and nothing going to change that because the locations of objectives is simply a part of the map. They cant improve.

[Grand Marshal.4098]

It's meh, I wouldn't care if it was removed. But it is a change of environment compared to the stale, dead, boring alpine BL with the depressing (as someone said in the forums) Soule music from 10 years ago. I at least dig the soundtracks used as ambience in the desert bl. But the lords need a nerf. they serve no purpose being unique. We are there to cap the thing, not stare at it. the structures already look different, no need for the lords to be so different either. Especially with those god awful skills, looking at you birdman and hammer bitch.

[Dawdler.8521]

@Grand Marshal.4098 said:Especially with those god awful skills, looking at you birdman and hammer kitten.Would you like to have them replaced with a much tougher, much faster keep lord version of Grella?

[Grand Marshal.4098]

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@Grand Marshal.4098 said:Especially with those god awful skills, looking at you birdman and hammer kitten.Would you like to have them replaced with a much tougher, much faster keep lord version of Grella?

Nah all lords suck. Standard keep and tower lords will suffice. Still require effort to be killed, but without being so troubling. i'n not talking about making this easy or anything, but you don't pay and don't want to pay attention to lords when you fight zergs. You capture objectives guarded by players not NPC bosses. Raids have a spot for those.

[Sviel.7493]

The purpose of unique keep lords isn't to turn caps into mini-raids, but to change the tactical landscape for each fight. The lords themselves aren't hard to bring down unopposed, but if a defending zerg is present then they can, ideally, tailor their tactics to take advantage of what the lord is throwing out.

Practically speaking...I'm not sure it's actually working out so well. I'd be down for a redesign to better chase that dream.

[subversiontwo.7501]

@Sviel.7493 said:It's so wild to me that people don't realize EBG and the borderlands are essentially two different games. You really can't just interchange them.It's not like we haven't understood that EBG is map-control and ABL was designed to be home-defense. However, most of us also realized that home-defense is pretty pointless when PPT/scoring is out of whack. Some of us also see throwing ABL out with the garbage as a worthy sacrifice if that can ultimately lead to EBG getting many more maps, no queues and scoring that works. That is worth infinately more than clinging to an idea of defending a map that most players do not really view as a defense/attack map anyway and do not care about the PPT outcome of.

In fact, ABL have some of those issues that EotM or DBL has too if you just look at common behaviour patterns. Many k-trainers on old EotM did not really like EotM when organized squads came and farmed them. Roamers on DBL finds DBL far less entertaining when there are blobs filling up the map. The people who who still play home defense on ABL tend to be pretty defeated if a competent raiding squad comes around and takes all their upgraded stuff.

That's not to say I am against all those players preferred content. I roam and have friends who roam on DBL alot. I occassionally cloud ABL and have friends who do that alot. However, I've played this game long enough to see how the enjoyment is pretty hollow and often hinges on how content commonly is, rather than how content easily can be. It is relatively easy to break the spirit of alot of those players by just moving the apex-content into their content zone.

[Sviel.7493]

@subversiontwo.7501Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you're saying that the borderlands aren't 'real' fun, as defined by you, so they should be replaced by a drastically different form of gameplay that you do consider to be legit?

Anyway, it's obvious that WvW as a whole is pointless because it doesn't have any lasting effect once the week ends. That part is fact. However, a bunch of us continue playing it for various reasons that, while not objectively meaningful, are meaningful to us individually. It sounds like you find meaning in some forms of roaming and...clouding? That's cool. And pointless. I find meaning in securing PPT, but only when it's actually a challenge to do so. That means when the 'apex-content' is in my 'content zone,' I'm having the most fun provided I can meaningfully interact with said content which is only true on DBL. Of course, PPT is pointless too, but I still enjoy it.

For example, today I scouted a mid-size group setting up to attack SE firekeep. They flash-built 4 catapults but, since I had been tracking them, I managed to disable all 4 catas before they fired a single rock. I called out their location in team chat and a tag confirmed. Up to that point, I was having fun--they made a risky play bunching all of their catapults up and failed to realize they were being tailed (due to the less open map). But then, they simply ported away; abandoning their catas. That wasn't much fun at all. All of that was technically pointless, but it was still fun. It was fun not because of a high PPT, but because of a conflict borne of PPT. When the enemy squad left, they took the fun with them. Thankfully, several other squads showed up so it was still a fun night.

That said, I definitely do not enjoy playing on ABL because, outside of a cloud, my contributions are nigh worthless. It's cloud or bust and I don't much enjoy clouds. I also do not enjoy playing on EBG for similar reasons.

[subversiontwo.7501]

@Sviel.7493 said:@"subversiontwo.7501"Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you're saying that the borderlands aren't 'real' fun, as defined by you, so they should be replaced by a drastically different form of gameplay that you do consider to be legit?No no, not at all. I like the typical borderlands content too. I'm just saying that ABL and DBL to some degree have the same issues as EotM had in that many of the players who prefer those maps prefer them from a perspective of the biggest blobs or strongest groups not being there. They like that content but have no control over it and it is pretty volatile as other players can just take that content away from them.

However, a system more akin to the original vision of EotM (ie., a system with world-restructured overflows) and a scoring system built for that has so much more potential to let the developer build more map variation (within the frames of a blueprint) and deal with some of the age-old problems we have, like queues. Even if it isn't completely unavoidable, the whole idea of Borderlands somewhat stand in the way of making such changes that could open up the game mode simply by the nature of what they are. The slightly different mode as you called it. I am definately willing to sacrifice that. Part of the reason I am willing to do that has to do with the paragraph above: If people's enjoyment of the borders can be stifled by players simply chosing to blob there.

In fact, already today on a number of servers that relationship between the borders and EBG has been swapped. The nomad communities in EU tend to use the borders for organized play and keep EBG for clouding and defense as some sort of overflow map. Other servers in EU use DBL and (if on an ABL) their HBL for that. The difference of course lie in those servers' balance between pickups and closed squads. The root behaviour is not entirely different since many guilds prefer to run closed on ABL. That too however has less to do with the map and more to do with queues and propensity among the populace.

That too has the ability to change if there are no queues. Think about it as the lab farm. During Halloween you will see many overflows of the same map but they are all designated in different ways (mounts or not, all bosses or not, some bosses or none etc.). A similar system for WvW could let pickups match pickups, guilds match guilds and roamers match roamers etc. However, such a system is best managed with one type of map for the developer to balance. Alternate modes within such a mode quickly becomes complex and perhaps that is not something for Anet. That is what EotM was a beta of and still is. As the players did not like the "PvE map" that it got, Anet just abadoned the project in typical Anet fashion and it has been in forever beta ever since, with only some minor experiments being tried on the map.

It is the potential to build something better using only the even 3-way system that has appeal. It has little else to do with the maps and I certainly wouldn't want ABL to be replaced with EBG under the existing system, for the same reason I see little point in removing DBL under the existing system. However, if they are to build a better system then the core idea of WvWvW combined with overflows is best done on an even 3-way and not on attack-defense maps.

Overall, this has been my spiel for a while now: That we have alot of unfinished systems that were all once good ideas but were never fully implemented and Anet only seemed to get scared when they dipped their toes in. Those systems were not well-received as they were never fully sampled or explored. There are many mechanics and systems that have plenty of good sides to them that could be salvaged and combined whether we talk about EotM, Outnumbered, Guild Upgrades or something else. There are also many flaws to them that obscure the good stuff or the good stuff may just be so pre-nerfed that it has never been visible. If I was Anet and had to start somewhere that is where I would start: I would reskin EotM with EBG, I would finish the Outnumbered scoring components, find some way to create a leaderboard from that score (eg., a guild leaderboard) and I would make sure the overflows were more visible and informative - informing players on using the LFG system to denote map content. Those are all relatively small changes with existing tech even if there is pasta code and should be implementable within a couple of months. That's a foundation to work from if they can not deliver on Alliances.

Let's end this behemoth of a post on a different perspective to serve as an example: Let's assume that we had an overflow system (so people could just see the numbers/scale and pick any map they wanted to) and we had a scoring system adapted to that (so uneven maps gave no score). Then, even if ABL's and DBL's were kept around, do you think they would be played? It's not like they have to be deleted. However, it's pretty likely that alot of the content on them today would choose to move elsewhere if the queues were gone and maps were chosen on the merits of the maps themselves or the scoring would make holding onto a dead map pretty pointless. Guilds and pickups don't play attack/defense much there anyway. It's not like it would be in the way of anything but I'm just not sure if it is worth keeping around or at least not developing for. It wouldn't hurt me though if we had 20+ maps and maps 18, 19 and 20 were ABL's or DBL's. If people choose to play those maps then score could be attributed and it would be easy for Anet to just follow demand and slot maps.