Is Desert Map still viable

[MarkBecks.6453]

The date that Desert Map was Stress tested was 08th May 2015. The map was tested and put into operation along with the 2 Alpine maps in the same year. Today, 27 th Nov 2023, 8 YEARS LATER, 3 Blues using the usual exploit to get into Lords room with no siege. How long does it take to upgrade, run Dollys to get your T2/T3 Stoic and Air instantly capped by Despicable Exploiters, nice one guys, some of us know about it but we don't exploit because of a little bit of integrity. So, question is, 8 years later, and we still getting exploiters jump into keeps, is there no Dev that can either look at this, or if it cannot be resolved in any way, have a 3rd Alpine map for Red team. 

[Bias.4306]

Was it ever viable?

[Chaba.5410]

Dolyaks out of north camp upgrade garrison much faster than they upgrade on Alpine.

Edited November 27, 2023 by Chaba.5410

[Dawdler.8521]

35 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Dolyaks out of north camp upgrade garrison much faster than they upgrade on Alpine.

True it’s where you go AFK to finish weekly escorts when you are lucky enough to be red. I bet many chumps still run alongside the dollies to the door and don’t know you get it from just popping the bubble for a second, lol.

Anyway, is the cornerstone fixed yet? I mean they will probably be working hard on that before they get to exploits, priorities are important.

[Galmac.4680]

I don't get your point. Some classes can bug into towers or keeps on the alpine borderlands as well. So that's not a thing against the desert borderland. That is a general problem for years. 

[Justine.6351]

I don't think they will remove desert bl. There is no incentive to do so on their end. Why don't they fix exploits? Not a clue. Too busy making pve maps I presume.

[Deniara Devious.3948]

Desert map is NOT viable. I use it as example when I teach game design to my students, how NOT to design a game level for large-scale multiplayer. 

Desert BL has so many problems that they cannot be fixed without completely redesigning the map:

1. The keeps and towers are way too far from each other. In Alpine the closest tower can reach a keep with trebuchet and vice versa. Removing of this aspect of play, plus forcing the players the travel through dull ugly-looking desert is a massive turn off. That is why Desertl BL sees much less players than the other maps.
2. Spawn should have 3 exits, not two and the exits should be like in Alpine or Eternal Battlegrounds. Going through a portal (like Desert) and not able to even see what is on the other side is a massive NO for any competitive game mode. Enemy gankers can wait on the other side. Imagine a new player comes to this play, goes through the portal and instantly multiple enemies spawn camp him. She will permanently quit this game mode soon.
3. North camp should above the spawn, not below it. See also #2
4. Towers and keeps are way too big and unbalanced as they all have non-standard guards, lords and mechanisms. To make matters worse earth keep (aka Garrison) is the worst keep to defend and the easiest keep in the game to solo as an attacker. It should be other way around: earth keep is the home keep for red and it should be the easiest to defend. TO make matters worse Eternal Battleground has the worst design for the red. So why punish red side in both home and EBG?
5. Poor visibility. Especially near earth keep. This is extreme NO for a competitive game.
6. Gimmick mechanisms, where only two make sense (no damage from falling at air and no damage from lava at fire). Any veteran game designer understands that more it not always the best. Adding tons of rules to extra rules, new pieces and maps to chess would not make it better.  WvWvW needs stream lining and not more gimmick mechanisms. I would also remove the ruins of power from ALL of the borderlands and replace the middle part with lake and fully neutral island in the middle. That center island could be used for duels and group-vs-group and there would be NO guild objective auras (by neutrality I mean the nobody can claim the island, thus no guild auras).
7. Desert BL is full of exploits, which further ruin the fun and make defense a nightmare.
   
   
    

Edited December 1, 2023 by Deniara Devious.3948

[TheIceman.1039]

Best map. One Alpine map should remove and replace with underwater map or smth.

[TheGrimm.5624]

We can agree to disagree here but I will make some points since there are a lot of bias in these statements and since people were asking for a replacement to ABL after just two years of the game release says a lot by itself of ABL's design. 

39 minutes ago, Deniara Devious.3948 said:

Desert map is NOT viable. I use it as example when I teach game design to my students, how NOT to design a game level for large-scale multiplayer. 

Desert BL has so many problems that they cannot be fixed without completely redesigning the map:

1. The keeps and towers are way too far from each other. In Alpine the closest tower can reach a keep with trebuchet and vice versa. Removing of this aspect of play, plus forcing the players the travel through dull ugly-looking desert is a massive turn off. That is why Desertl BL sees much less players than the other maps.

People complained about ABL that the structures could reach other and that an attacking zerg can just camp a tower without much risk. people asked for more distance so that there would be less just siege on siege warfare and more open field fights. The fact that one structure can also just attack other and they couldn't return fire have also been called to question over the decade.

39 minutes ago, Deniara Devious.3948 said:

1. Spawn should have 3 exits, not two and the exits should be like in Alpine or Eternal Battlegrounds. Going through a portal (like Desert) and not able to even see what is on the other side is a massive NO for any competitive game mode. Enemy gankers can wait on the other side. Imagine a new player comes to this play, goes through the portal and instantly multiple enemies spawn camp him. She will permanently quit this game mode soon.

When was the last time you saw a ganker waiting at RBL spawn? It is a blind exit, but for both sides. So a waiting ganker runs an even larger risk that a group or more is going to come thru at anytime which is why they don't do it. They will watch the exits towards north camp but I really can't recall every seeing anyone waiting at the port exists. Not saying it couldn't happen but the risk versus reward isn't there. If this was actually an issue they could have easily added Leggo defenders on the portal exit. Since there aren't any there you can surmise that its a low occurrence event. 

39 minutes ago, Deniara Devious.3948 said:

1. North camp should above the spawn, not below it. See also #2

This is a waste of space on the map and wouldn't agree its a good design. Its a concept for this map but EBG which is the more populated map is not like this. DBL was designed more in a three way map design versus ABL was designed as a HBL. This is calling out an apple for not being an orange or a pear. They are similar but not the same. Now that's also why some people don't like DBL because they got caught up in all of the HBLs need to be the same. That's where people on the forums have had a lot of back and fourth over time. Your thought I am guessing is they should. Myself I think each map should be unique if not rotating weekly with even more different maps to get combat and tactics used fresh and innovating.

39 minutes ago, Deniara Devious.3948 said:

1. Towers and keeps are way too big and unbalanced as they all have non-standard guards, lords and mechanisms. To make matters worse earth keep (aka Garrison) is the worst keep to defend and the easiest keep in the game to solo as an attacker. It should be other way around: earth keep is the home keep for red and it should be the easiest to defend. TO make matters worse Eternal Battleground has the worst design for the red. So why punish red side in both home and EBG?

Personally I think the keep designs are better on DBL than ABL. There is more space for internal fights to occur inside the keeps. More potential for fights to occur between the walls and options for both attackers and defenders. There is also less visual clutter and less issues of having the camera pan thru a wall. I would rate Hills as the worst of the designs though on paper it would sound good with the approaches but in reality the bridge just becomes the side with more wins. Earth does have the issue with a single siege assault point but all three keeps on ABL allow for single siege capture points, which likewise based on their size makes then little different than fighting at towers on ABL.

39 minutes ago, Deniara Devious.3948 said:

1. Poor visibility. Especially near earth keep. This is extreme NO for a competitive game.

Another of the longer term complaints about ABL is the lack of points to break line of sight from a zerg chasing down smaller groups. The dust storm effect I do feel should be reversed and create visibility issues just to the non-owners. It serves two fold purpose in either case. It encourages attackers to deal with the shrines acting as an early warning and draws defenders out if they want to take back. Again people at the time were still asking for objectives but they wanted bigger ones but they also wanted more open space mixed with areas to break combat chases that people weren't getting on ABL. One of the common complaints was a HBL zerg could spawn camp the two assailing servers by super sieging SET and SWT and then with a couple of scouts in the camps they could park their zerg at the center bloodlust and wipe players trying to enter the map. So they wanted less channeling of routes into the map with a new design.

39 minutes ago, Deniara Devious.3948 said:

1. Gimmick mechanisms, where only two make sense (no damage from falling at air and no damage from lava at fire). Any veteran game designer understands that more it not always the best. Adding tons of rules to extra rules, new pieces and maps to chess would not make it better.

Chess is a two player game, how well would chess stand up to a 50v50v50? 

39 minutes ago, Deniara Devious.3948 said:

1. WvWvW needs stream lining and not more gimmick mechanisms. I would also remove the ruins of power from ALL of the borderlands and replace the middle part with lake and fully neutral island in the middle. That center island could be used for duels and group-vs-group and there would be NO guild objective auras.

We can disagree here. We need more options for more strategy in game play. Dumbing down features just gets us back to playing Pong. Again when the map comes down to someone asks where are we attacking and the answer is cata wall and people know where that's at. That gets pretty dull pretty fast. Took a new player out months ago to EoTM after they had been playing in ABL for about 2 months and still new to WvW. After we toured and talked about the differences one of the first replies they had was why wasn't more of this design used for the ABL map. That was after just 2 months of playing on ABL. So different players will have different experiences.

39 minutes ago, Deniara Devious.3948 said:

1. Desert BL is full of exploits, which further ruin the fun and make defense a nightmare.

Exploits we have on all maps, these should addressed along the way everywhere I agree.

[Zepoolpe.9217]

7 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Anyway, is the cornerstone fixed yet? I mean they will probably be working hard on that before they get to exploits, priorities are important.

They ordered the stones and everything, but the stonemason just retired so they have to find a new one

[Jitters.9401]

Eh.

Desert bl is my favorite map, including ebg. 

Running to check fire from air or air from fire takes too long if the jump pads are not working. 

But it is my favorite map.

[Mistwraithe.3106]

I like desert borderlands too. I am firmly in the camp that Anet should add more WvW maps and rotate them once they have more than three.

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

I love dbl. You can be sneaky. You can be brutish. The structures are far apart, so no 'enemy holds a tower and screws you over'. 

Fighting in the keeps is way more fun than on alpine border.

I have been ganked leaving spawn on alpine. Almost never on dbl.

I like the aesthetics of dbl.

I like the different mechanics of the lords. Give a small amount of variety the alpine maps and ebg lacks.

Defending stoic on reset against constant attacks by two blobs is actually possible, fun and rewarding. Which can not be said of any other keep (exception: big shiny on ebg).

We need more maps like dbl and less snore fests like alpine.

[Thomas.2564]

9 hours ago, Deniara Devious.3948 said:

the middle part with lake and fully neutral island in the middle

No thx, we dont need more area's that ppl can abuse, and run and hide when they cant win. One SM is MORE then enough. We already have OS for ppl who wanna gvg, dont see the need for neutrals areas in alpine bl's. Plus it would make the q's on alpine bl's even worse. 

But the rest of ur arguments are spot on 👍

[Jobber.6348]

9 hours ago, Jitters.9401 said:

Eh.

Desert bl is my favorite map, including ebg. 

Running to check fire from air or air from fire takes too long if the jump pads are not working. 

But it is my favorite map.

I on the other hand hate EBG. Arguably the worst map if you sat down an analyzed it.

Red side is just bad. It has a permanent open wound on its left side because Anz is a lost chicken and Spleden is lmao distance away from civilization.

Only green on EBG is hilariously defensible. Other two sides have gaping hole in their defenseses which is why half the time the walls of Anz and Quintin Blake are blasted wide bloody open.

[Nekos.3649]

it's my favorite map :<

[urd.8306]

15 hours ago, TheIceman.1039 said:

Best map. One Alpine map should remove and replace with underwater map or smth.

No, scrap EBG and put Desert on it's place. Two alpine, one desert, one underwater map.

[hugeboss.5432]

Just wanted to add that the Desert Borderlands map is still in the game because the wvw community voted to keep it in rotation years ago (rather than completely removing it).

For the weaker team (red), it is a good + easy source of points if tactically maintained (it's big and takes longer to ktrain than alpine maps). However, these days ppt tactics isn't usually a focused priority anymore, and the desert map just became the "goto map" for any team wanting to ktrain lots of undefended objectives (most of the time).

 

[Firefly.5982]

Hm. I really disliked Desert BL when I started playing WvW. It was disorienting, everything was so far apart, I constantly felt run over by enemies who knew the map well enough to use the terrain to their advantage...now, some 4 months later, it's my favorite map.

The environment is so much more interesting to play in. I love that you can't just attack another objective from within an objective.

You can avoid fights pretty easily, if you want to. You can provoke and find fights pretty easily, if you want to.

Regardless of what I feel like doing, I can usually find it in desert - except zerg fights which are very rare (but I don't mind that anyways lol).

I love desert for small scale roaming. Have been getting very fun fair numbered fights instead of starting a fight with 3v3 and then getting steamrolled like it always happens in EBG. I also find that because of how the map works, it has less AFKers, less PVErs, and just feels less annoying for me (except for the occasional exploiter, sure...but that's a problem in Alpine maps too).

I can see why some people dislike desert. Just like I can now see why some people enjoy it.

And because it offers a very different experience from the other maps, IMO, it is viable.

My only real issue with desert is that it is sometimes a little too empty - which I understand, given how many players dislike the map xD

Edited November 28, 2023 by Firefly.5982

[Swamurabi.7890]

3 hours ago, hugeboss.5432 said:

Just wanted to add that the Desert Borderlands map is still in the game because the wvw community voted to keep it in rotation years ago (rather than completely removing it).

For the weaker team (red), it is a good + easy source of points if tactically maintained (it's big and takes longer to ktrain than alpine maps). However, these days ppt tactics isn't usually a focused priority anymore, and the desert map just became the "goto map" for any team wanting to ktrain lots of undefended objectives (most of the time).

 

Yeah, about that vote... I remember during the voting period that someone at Anet went on another site and said that it took over a year of development to get DBL and if the players voted DBL out then Anet would stop map development for WvW. The optimistic players, I was one, took that as if we voted to keep DBL then Anet would develop a third BL map in the future. Still waiting on that third BL map.....

[Nekro.3096]

Desert BL is only good for one thing: Roaming.

[hugeboss.5432]

1 hour ago, Swamurabi.7890 said:

Yeah, about that vote... I remember during the voting period that someone at Anet went on another site and said that it took over a year of development to get DBL and if the players voted DBL out then Anet would stop map development for WvW. The optimistic players, I was one, took that as if we voted to keep DBL then Anet would develop a third BL map in the future. Still waiting on that third BL map.....

Yeah, I do remember the devs felt kinda handicapped in regards to wvw development... everything they did, was always getting flamed. Posters on the internet always flame first, u might get a few likes after a while, but there's always gonna be flamers that hit the reply/post buttons first. Devs kinda need abit of tough thick skin, just like commanders 😄

DBL does have a few really good unique things too tho... like Fire Keep (dbl) is an awesome, fun & always interesting place for large scale battles... There's so many different ways to play it, that almost all zerg battles fought here, end up being unique. I don't think any other keep offers this amount of battle variety, tactics & space.

[Plus, after looking at alpine borderlands everyday for 10 years.. it's nice to switch onto a desert themed map once in a while, just for the visual variation lol]

[Swamurabi.7890]

1 hour ago, hugeboss.5432 said:

Yeah, I do remember the devs felt kinda handicapped in regards to wvw development... everything they did, was always getting flamed. Posters on the internet always flame first, u might get a few likes after a while, but there's always gonna be flamers that hit the reply/post buttons first. Devs kinda need abit of tough thick skin, just like commanders 😄

DBL does have a few really good unique things too tho... like Fire Keep (dbl) is an awesome, fun & always interesting place for large scale battles... There's so many different ways to play it, that almost all zerg battles fought here, end up being unique. I don't think any other keep offers this amount of battle variety, tactics & space.

[Plus, after looking at alpine borderlands everyday for 10 years.. it's nice to switch onto a desert themed map once in a while, just for the visual variation lol]

I do think that the devs created DBL by listening to the players and their issues with ABL. However, I think that the root cause of most of the problems with ABL were not in the map design but rather in the imbalance in populations of the glicko match system. Only hills and it's choke points could be defended by a lesser population. The tower-keep treb range was only a problem if your side wasn't large enough to take out the other side's siege. And if you were the lower pop server in a locked match the same thing happened day after day after day.

Another issue the players brought up was you could wipe the opposition in garri but they could respawn and get back in before you could get enough supply to close the gates. On one side you can say that if you defeated the opponent at garri you should be rewarded by being able to repair the gates. But I remember one match where both sides of garri was open and we spent a couple of hours constantly fighting. When I logged out that night I just exhaled. It was the best time I spent in WvW. I've never seen anything like it since.

The idea of having the event in the middle of DBL was to get a three way fight but that usually ended up being such a lag fest it wasn't worth the time. It was worse than a three way SMC fight.

 

 

[T G.7496]

Yes.

[Justine.6351]

lol @ people bashing alpine bl. If anet didn't add the 2 back in then the borderlands would be dead altogether, possibly even wvw as a whole.