10 reasons to remove desert map

[DaVid Darksoul.4985]

Desert map is actually pretty fun to play. There are bad points to it such as Towers being too expansive, an extra supply hut would help with that. Also Lords are kinda weak compared to Alpine Lords, I can solo them easier then Alpine especially Stoic. I also miss Skyhammer, the event was fun but should have been reworked so that lead server would only be able to prevent it's activation. The vastness of it I like also, is a nice break from the crampness of alpine

[Sansar.1302]

Desert map had been good if playerlimit could be 2-3 times higer without servers goining into potato mode.

As it is now i want it gone.

[manu.7539]

Dont touch my favorite bl!

@"radda.8920" said:so we have absolutely no mcm contents for years and you want to delete the only map added since the start of the gamethis community is very special sometimes....

Special? You are so polite! Sometimes I understand ANET to be careless about WvW since a large part of the WvW community is so "special" as u say! Dont lose hope, there is some normal people too!

[JTGuevara.9018]

Remove? Hah! Good one!

But seriously, I felt the same way years ago back in post-HoT when it was the only BL. (Alpine was removed at the time) I've slowly warmed up to it for roaming. However, it's fine as it is. It's part of the rotation, shared with Alpine. So leave it alone...

[Riba.3271]

Alright, let me summarize my thoughts once again:Claims:

• Desert map has about half activity compared to Alpine maps so it is advantage/disadvantage for that side
• It reduces the amount of maps most players can choose to play: Do note that map state and owner of the map is very important so having option to go to bad alpine map doesn't justify lack of one extra alpine map
• Majority of the activity on that map is "forced minimum activity" to keep enemy score at check or defending home bl. You can remove same numbers from alpine map activities and it becomes blatantly obvious that desert map isn't what the playerbase prefers
• People like EB the most.
• Desert map has already failed in minds of many and there is no coming back from it

So following should be done:

• To make roaming and running in smaller groups more fun: rework claim buff to only include non combat buffs so people don't have to rely on maze map to have epic moments.
• Make following map composition: 2 EBs (with other one having different middle castle) and 3 alpine borderlands. Reduce mapcap on each map by 10 (so from 70 to 60, total of 300 people in wvw instead of 280). No one likes 70 man oneshotty blobfights
• Remove the abomination that is desert map, people will come around once they realise their options have improved

What would happen:

• Everyone would be happy, and I mean everyone. More ebs, more alpine maps, less desert maps.
• Camel skin for warclaw wouldn't be necessary anymore so they can focus on PvE mounts and make more money
• Scoring wouldn't be affected by map layout of the matchup

[manu.7539]

@"Threather.9354"

A game without challenges is a game that get me bored very quickly. Everything seem so hard for many peoples in wvw. Some dont even want to win the game they play because its too hard for them to try!

Seriously, this mentality of "everything must be easy" is killing that game, why not consider playing pve?

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

@Threather.9354 said:What would happen:

• Everyone would be happy, and I mean everyone. More ebs, more alpine maps, less desert maps.

Except there are whole guilds of people liking desert map, so they would not be happy with your proposed changes, or rather one of them.

just saying :)

[kratan.4619]

Don't remove DBL, as a mainly PvE player I can go here to capture two camps for a daily to complete the Gift of Battle reward track because there is nobody there.

[Riba.3271]

@manu.7539 said:

@"Threather.9354"

A game without challenges is a game that get me bored very quickly. Everything seem so hard for many peoples in wvw. Some dont even want to win the game they play because its too hard for them to try!

Seriously, this mentality of "everything must be easy" is killing that game, why not consider playing pve?

Challenge is a 2-way street. If winning fights is too hard at enemy objectives is too hard for one side, it is too easy for other side.

Your argument that challenging things are good is actually void if it involved 2 sides. 90% of the players will choose easy mode of just defending. And already have.

Same applies to desert map, it makes it too easy to defend if no one goes there because it is terrible and no one plays games "just for challenge" as Tetris would suffice for that.

Yes losing objectives and taking away a map from massive minority of desert bl lovers will induce strong emotions, but that is exactly what wvw is lacking: See relinking system and what it caused to commanders.

What desert bl is in example: You have city where 99 people out of 100 prefer taxis and 1 limousine. And city has option to get either 100 taxis or 75 taxis (not enough) and 25 limousines. They choose to get 25 limousines just for 1 guy while rest 99 have to struggle finding taxis and some being left without. Maybe having 1 desert bl would be fine if WvW would have 7 to 10 maps, but it has only 4.

[Riba.3271]

@Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

@Threather.9354 said:

What would happen:

• Everyone would be happy, and I mean everyone. More ebs, more alpine maps, less desert maps.

Except there are whole guilds of people liking desert map, so they would not be happy with your proposed changes, or rather one of them.

just saying :)

Whole guilds that like only the 1 map out of 4 that 90% of WvW wouldn't touch with a long stick? Maybe catering to them isn't a best move but rather provide those 90% another map.

Yes desert map has easy fights against PvE players and is basically EotM lite but they should rather revive EotM for those lads.

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

@Threather.9354 said:Whole guilds that like only the 1 map out of 4 that 90% of WvW wouldn't touch with a long stick?

I, also can pull out numbers out of my.... place where the back looses it's noble name :)

And I also possess the ability to shift the goalpost to my liking.

But I rather try to avoid those activities, they tend to ruin any semblance of trying to have a logical discussion. Not that this thread had many of those anyway.

So in the name of not pulling random numbers out of thin air I will point you out to the links already posted in this thread showing results on the global poll made by AN on wether or not to remove desert borderland. Majority have spoken to keep the map. That's facts and hard data.

@Threather.9354 said:Yes desert map has easy fights against PvE players and is basically EotM lite

Actually for the guild I play wvw with, Deserts Borderland is a fun map not because of "easy fights against PvE players", enemies we run into there are very serious WvW guild blobs, and fights are anything but not easy. What makes the map fun is that it actually encourages knowledge of the terrain, and not only tactical use of that terrain, but also strategical moves, exploiting different traversing methods. It ain't simplistic tiny map where you can without any issue mantain the map just by the merit of having full map's worth in single blob that runs around and is able to get from any point on the map to any point of the map fast enough to protect anything that matters.

Some people just like to outmaneuver enemies instead of everything boiling down to who's main blob is better. And desert map provides best opportunity for such gameplay for the moment being.

[Swamurabi.7890]

@Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

@"Threather.9354" said:

So in the name of not pulling random numbers out of thin air I will point you out to the links already posted in this thread showing results on the global poll made by AN on wether or not to remove desert borderland. Majority have spoken to keep the map. That's facts and hard data.

I remember that poll, where in the middle of voting someone from Anet had a post saying that if the DBL was voted down then ANet would probably NOT do another map. Nice way to influence an election.

Of course all the optimistic WvW players thought that ANet would work on a fourth map if they voted yes. We're still waiting on that. Just like we're still waiting on the fix for "Night Capping", Alliances, Map bugs, bots, Skill balance.......................

DBL is a failure because WvW was meant from its inception as a place where LARGE numbers of players could compete. When the map doesn't entice large numbers of players to compete it should either be fixed or replaced, but that would require someone at Anet to actually do something major for WvW, which hasn't happened for YEARS.

[Dawdler.8521]

@"Threather.9354" said:Yes losing objectives and taking away a map from massive minority of desert bl lovers will induce strong emotions, but that is exactly what wvw is lacking: See relinking system and what it caused to commanders.

What desert bl is in example: You have city where 99 people out of 100 prefer taxis and 1 limousine. And city has option to get either 100 taxis or 75 taxis (not enough) and 25 limousines. They choose to get 25 limousines just for 1 guy while rest 99 have to struggle finding taxis and some being left without. Maybe having 1 desert bl would be fine if WvW would have 7 to 10 maps, but it has only 4.Except thats not what DBL is if you spent the effort to look at the overall activity with kills/deaths.

Sure DBL got less activity than any given ABL - we all know that - but its around 50%. Thats your "massive minority" comparison. Not 1%.

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

@Swamurabi.7890 said:I remember that poll, where in the middle of voting someone from Anet had a post saying that if the DBL was voted down then ANet would probably NOT do another map. Nice way to influence an election.

didn't heard of that one, but if it's true then fair point I guess.

@Swamurabi.7890 said:Of course all the optimistic WvW players thought that ANet would work on a fourth map if they voted yes. We're still waiting on that. Just like we're still waiting on the fix for "Night Capping", Alliances, Map bugs, bots, Skill balance.......................

Night capping sort of ceased to be an issue since the whole skirmish thing on scoring. It used to be an issue because just after blobs left for sleep on reset night, the server with nightly coverage could take everything, upgrade it and amass so much points overnight that even if you managed to flip all those T3s the gap was to high and was only opening with each night, Which discouraged people from even trying to contest it. Now no matter what kind of PPT shenanigans you pull over night the impact of it over whole match is not bigger than that of a prime time, which was the whole point. Skill balance, is ongoing thing, it's not something you just get done, and they do tweaks over time (maybe not as frequently as some would have like), unsure about the bots thing as I didn't see any player I would be sure was botting, but hey I am just one player on one server so it ain't any hard data to come off, and I suppose you have a point about those map bugs. As for the fourth map I believe why they naver made it, is the same case as with legendary armor sets. They've put in work, Forumites have set everything aflame, they've spent alot of time to get it to the point where most of them stop whining about it all the time, and at this point would YOU want to make effort and design next one? Just to be probably flamed in same way?

@Swamurabi.7890 said:DBL is a failure because WvW was meant from its inception as a place where LARGE numbers of players could compete. When the map doesn't entice large numbers of players to compete it should either be fixed or replaced, but that would require someone at Anet to actually do something major for WvW, which hasn't happened for YEARS.

I am unsure what do you mean about Desert Borderlands not "enticing" "large numbers of players to compete".Everytime I am there there are about as many players competing there as on any other map. Just because it's not a tiny simple box for blobs to smash repeatedly on, does not mean people are not competing there. And so far the only hard data in this thread I see being shown, is just kills/deaths which obviously will be smaller on a map that isn't small box for blobs to smash in like the rest of the maps you are comparing to. Dunno, maybe it's NA/weird tiers thing, or just you guys not really visiting the place and just looking at K/D numbers thinking they are meaningfull activity meter.

As for major things happening. I guess we didn't get anything big for the last couple years, because every single time we were getting "something big" all the forums/reddits etc. were up in arms raging how dare AN touchie muh WvW in one way or another, so they obviously wouldn't spend too much manpower on that part of the playerbase, and those two devs, that would be working are working at the huge thing that takes years when it's two people working on it.

[Sylvyn.4750]

@Threather.9354 said:Alright, let me summarize my thoughts once again:Claims:So following should be done:What would happen:

In between Claims and your conclusion, I was expecting to see Proofs/Evidence/Actual Data...but alas, our divisive world of today finds that facts just get in the way...

[Biermeister.4678]

DBL is the best map for fights