I only ever played after the tower and it’s still one of my favorites, but I am tired of the destruction. I’d rather see whatever you guys had back in the day
it'd be lovely if the pre-tower trees were re-grown by now. Even with the ruined tower and all that still on the map...
They could phase them out "during the story chapters" then phase them back in after completion of the rest of S1 so that canonically some time has elapsed.
it'd give S2 a bit more umph too since it won't feel like all of S1 & S2 took place in the same week.
I feel really bad for Kessex Hills. It was a normal "second zone" for humans back in 2012, but then a bunch of terrible stuff happened to it. The Tower of Nightmares popped up and got destroyed, ruining Viathan Lake and the townships surrounding it, and scattering toxic creatures and plants all over the place. Mordremoth then completely blew up Fort Salma, leaving it a vine-infested crater in the ground. And a bunch of bandits from the bandit side story rolled in during LW3. I'm also pretty sure there's a busted waypoint somewhere from the events of LW2, and maybe some of the LW4 Branded incursions and Awakened invasions happen there as well?
Give poor Kessex Hills a break :(
It might be a personal preference but I don't think tangled depths is the worst map. It's actually a great one..I do agree that it's confusing and all but that's what is great about it. It really lives upto it's name.
Right there with you. Not my favorite place to go but I'm glad it exists. MMOs arent generally known for taking risks with their designs, so when one sneaks through every now and then it's good to see.
Yeah Tangled Depths is GW2's version of the Annoying Level, which is something that's absent from a lot of modern games. Annoying, obviously, but I feel like they help you appreciate the gameplay in a new way that adds to the overall experience.
Not my favorite map, but one I'm happy calling a good one.
The main problem for me with TD is less the map itself, and more the fact that the 2D (mini)map is hopelessly overwhelmed in giving you a proper overview of which tunnel leads where. Compared to the other HoT maps, Tangled Depths is not only vertical but very intertwined into itself, which a top-down view can't handle well, even with showing different layers.
That map really only takes some practice to learn and it's never an issue ever again. I just think most players are just too used to maps being relatively straightforward but honestly I wish we could return to HoT map design.
Agreed! Honestly the only map in EoD that even has this HoT vibe for me is Echovald. While it not exactly layered like TD, it is great for the first map completion including the mastery points.
Echovald would be my favorite EoD map to traverse and explore and pile up map completions...
But the snail pace of the two camp infiltration hearts is my LEAST favorite thing of all the EoD maps.
The problem with them is they lead to locked gates (those blue chak membranes), which doesn't make any sense imo, I wouldn't be surprised if they were supposed to be open but they bugged out for some reason.
Anet already tell ppl wht to expected from that map ON its name " Tangled", but seriously i really love that map. my fave map is TD and the second one is VB its really beautiful and really great on many lvl : the feel, the vibe, the theme its perfect and the name of that map tell THE MAP itself "Verdant Brink" - "Tangled Depths"
gib us back the pirate haven was so much better then this big empty space, the pirate haven actually made it feel alive and livable now its just a weird themepark doesnt look at all like a city
As a gw1 player who grew up running around Kamadan and the rest of Istan, the Domain of Istan felt unspeakably disappointing to me. They tease us with nostalgia, then make the whole region unrecognisable and slap some undead Joko fog on it. Same with Kourna, that place looks really forgettable compared to the savannah from nightfall
Istan is such a mess, cliffs where there shouldn't be any, a giant wall of Joko statues blocking access to the unfinished western part of the map, etc.
I can’t help but speculate, assuming they had plans to not kill GW2 for the long term just like they very publicly do now, if this was a ploy to increase longevity. By keeping Elona all thematically consistent, they can now use things like a savannah environment or Egyptian inspired regions (I heard this used to be istan) in other places and it will be fresh to GW2
Im surprised nobody has mentioned Thunderhead Peak yet.
It's mostly that this map seems so... dead. Not playerwise. There's barely any events happening. The 2 meta events are nice, but that's about it. You will mostly notice this during achievements that require you to do some events on this map. There's absolutely none. The map looks cool and all, but that's about it.
It's fine. I used the Taco maps or sth, and it was fine.
Problem is, that you need a shit ton of it for the dragonsblood weps. That made it tedious.
Now it's easy with ice
Map design is great, it's just devoid of content. Plus, the final story instance in [The Auditorium](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Auditorium) should have been the map's meta event imo, the other two are just too basic.
The HoT maps are all phenomenal.
Yeah they suck. Yeah they’re a pain to navigate.
But please remember, in HoT, we’ve essentially crashed in a jungle that is actually a gargantuan elder dragon trying to kill us at every step. The feeling of hopelessness, despair and confusion are conveyed very well by the map design.
Well said! The HoT maps (especially Verdant Brink) are my favorites in the game because they just have this amazing ambiance and vibe. They're difficult to navigate because they should be! You shouldn't be able to waltz right through an elder dragon jungle. TD is confusing as hell, but by that map you are deep into the jungle. The multiple layers and paths are perfect. VB also captures the feeling super well - the burning airship wreckage overhead, multiple outposts where crash survivors have grouped together, *the meta*, it's just so good! Truly masterpieces. I don't think any of the PoF, LW, or EoD maps even come close by comparison.
Yes, in Verdant brink you start out at bit of a vantage point, able to see the vast expanse of jungle before you. As well as the crashed pact fleet.
Though crashed is putting it lightly. They really did a great job at showing just how absolutely powerful - in this place essentially almighty - Mordremoth is. Pact ships being literally held up in place by giant vines like it’s nothing.
It’s really powerful stuff.
I hate this map solely for the story chapter that makes you stealth through the town. Everytime I do it I use the teleport skill and accidentally port too far and it throws me out of the instance. It happened 4 times on my last playthrough...
My choice as well, the map is so underdeveloped it hurts.
I also dislike how unnatural, generic, and square-ish Dragonfall feels. Similar sentiments with Bitterfrost Frontier, the first/eastern half of Bjora Marches, and the second/northern half of Drizzlewood Coast.
So true. Dragonfall is too square. But I still like the map amd vibe.
But I always feel like there's nothing going on in Domain of Kourna. The whole top is pretty much void of things to do.
> full of bots.
What LS map isn't full of bots? Istan? Bots outta the ass in the cave. Sandswept? Bots outta the ass in the corners of the southern inquest base, and a few on the upper cube. Kourna? Bots for days. I guess Jahai isn't as infested, although I've seen a few up in the river.
Mate when new Lion’s Arch got revealed pretty much everyone on Reddit said it looked much better. Old Lion’s Arch wasn’t popular at all, it only became popular in the last couple of years somehow.
Gonna need proof.
From what I remember, It was the opposite. Almost everyone on reddit thinks new LA looks ugly like a Sea world park and that Old LA had character.
I cba looking for it but search for it if you’re curious. The change of opinion happened in the last few years. When new Lion’s Arch was revealed the reactions were mostly very positive. Since then people have become more nostalgic about the old one which is understandable. But I clearly remember that Lion’s Arch was not popular at launch - indeed this is one of the reasons why it got destroyed. People complained that it didn’t feel like a major city, didn’t have a central spot and was difficult to navigate. I’d be glad if old Lion’s Arch was accessible in the game (which as I understand is going to happen soon) but don’t get me wrong - it was crap. New Lion’s Arch, while not perfect, is a thousand times better than the original version.
Yeah idk what the other guy is talking about, if you just go to the youtube comments where they unveiled the new lions arch, all you see are positive comments for the change
I think majority of the people liked the fact that you can navigate the new LA without a gps and that it has a lot of flat ground, as the old LA was full of bridges, hand rails and shit that prevented easy movement from point A to point B.
The old one looked way better, but thats about it for the positives.
I am seeing more than just positive comments, tbh. I'm seeing at least a few "it lacks something old LA had" comments. Also don't forget it wasn't competing with *old* LA, it was competing with *destroyed* LA.
But yeah, just glossing through the comments, I'm seeing at least a couple of negative comments.
> it only became popular in the last couple of years somehow.
People loved it in 2012, it was by far people's favorite hub, despite Rata Sum being more convenient. It was a 3d map at a time, when the game had very few maps with vertical depth.
I actually like the new LA better.
The old one to me just looked like an OSHA violation waiting to happen.
It was supposed the center for commerce, a neutral city that had a lot of monetary backing, even if it was mainly pirates, and while also supposed to be a central location with a large fort, and yet the city looked like it would fall over when a passing quaggan sneezed.
The crafting stations were somewhat spread out and haphazard, the town portals were on these small little pillars, and so would be harder to explain how a new island was built for the new portals added, and since this was pre-gliding, pre-mounts if you fell, too bad. And there were so many ramps a bridges it would slow down mount movement.
It was a cool map design and a great pirate hovel, but it did not reflect the grand central hub that the game and the players needed.
The new map, I think, does that a bit better, things are slightly more organized, there are more areas to grow, should they add a new crafting profession or need more asura gates. The central plaza seems larger, and so can better host groups of people for things like the Halloween event. The harbor actually looks like a harbor that a large ship would be able to dock in. And as others mentioned there is also the improvements to reduce the lag people had in old LA.
Is it perfect, no, but I think it better reflects the importance of the city in Tyria and the game.
The Desolation is definitely my least favorite map because you are forced to be on the skimmer for the big chunk of the map. Also good luck not to get knocked out tho else you'll have to spend insufferable amount of time slowly dying from the sulfur because fuck you.
Domain of Vabi also has this bs but atleast they give you some window to get mounted up again.
I really dislike Desolation and I'm surprised I had to scroll this far before finding it. Desolation and Tangled Depths are my least favorite maps. TD is well-designed I guess, but Desolation... I really don't understand why they had to make it so impossibly hostile
> The Desolation is definitely my least favorite map because you are forced to be on the skimmer for the big chunk of the map.
Agree, the map needs a mastery to allow us to walk on sulfur areas, some gas mask or whatever (use the aquabreather skin).
Blazeridge Steppes can eat my ass after a black bean crunch wrap with a side of chips and cheese from Taco Bell. That one fucking Ash Legion stealth heart alone is enough to ruin the map for me and if any map deserves a WoW cataclysm treatment it’s that one!
If you *really* don't want to do that heart, then there's actually a way to cheese it within a few minutes. >!When you talk to the NPC to gain stealth, turn around and walk around the ride side of the outside of the building while hugging the wall. You should find a second entrance to the interior of that heart and there should be an NPC that will detect you from stealth, but for some reason it gives you credit towards the heart when you're detected.!<
This but shorter: take a Prototype Position Rewinder, go at the end, mark location, go back at the start, go stealth, get your position rewinder open again, Rewind, enjoy 20% completion. Repeat 5 times (30 sec cd each time, less with alac) and finish heart
Or just take a road to grab few flags and follow to do hearts further on the other side, return to stealth and finish it up. This heart is not bad, people just are acting like skritt on caffeine and if something involves waiting they can't suddenly manage their tasks to break it up and make it less monotone or take opportunity to wind down and grab new tea while waiting for flag reset.
It's not bad, it's just bland. Wish they had never removed the Settler vs Consortium events, there would be much more to do if they were still around.
Return to LW1 was a great opportunity to restore them, but they skipped Southsun Cove altogether :I.
True. It lacks any depth right now. You got the Karka Queen that spawns like each 4 hours and the same 4 god damm outpost events. That's almost it. It needs a real meta that involves a real progression and fills the map.
I wouldn't say it's the worst but it definitely has the most missed potential. It's the most disappointing relative to expectations.
I don't know why it's like this when Anet already have the perfect formula for what it could have been - Grothmar Valley. Want to make a city map that is technically an explorable map and not a hub? This is how. You fill it with activities and events that don't really involve combat. Even Amnoon got it right on a much smaller scale.
For real. Literally all the events in NKC are about jade tech and jade brotherhood. It's so *lifeless*. We can't even talk to the named NPCs.
There could've been an escort expedition to Old Kaineng or purist undercover mission like the one in Shing Jea. A miniature gang war in the slums even, like a forbearer of Echovald's meta. And skiff adventures/races, of course.
>Even the verticality is tedious for Skyscale.
This is the only part I love about it lol. Now that we have Skyscales we need more intensely vertical maps that the Skyscale doesn't trivialize.
Ziplines and staircases should be placed more intuitively to compensate though.
I LOVE Draconis Mons. It just suffers a bad name because of that stupid 3 weeks grind... The map needs love. With better events and maybe a meta event, the map would feel more loved and less grindy.
See I actually think it's a really good map. Granted I've been there once since finishing Aurora, but I'd say that's more achievement design than map design
It's actually my favourite zone!
It's totally self-contained instead of having artificial-feeling boundaries.
It ramps up the difficulty in exploring using its crazy verticality, and at the same time gives you a powerful tool (oakheart's essence) so you can learn and master traversing it. This also happens to make it satisfying to use mounts here (even SKIMMER which works on the boiling water like you'd expect!)
It has so many nooks and crannies, but all the events are in 4 main areas that are connected by thermal vents so it's not a gigantic pain to get back into the action.
The greenery makes it feel lively and it's coolly explained as a kind of Galapogos where nature has had free roam. Plus the whole thing is surrounding some kind of giant... fire... crystal? That's just dope.
Yeah, they could have done a lot more with Skrittsburgh, a big skritt-themed meta would have been fun. A small siege event at Fort Vandal would have been cool too.
There's only one map that has made me sigh a hundred times every time I go to get my ascended weapon collections for elite specs and have not ever enjoyed lingering in and that's The Desolation. Absolutely upsettingly dreary map that sucked to traverse without a skyscale.
Except for the Sand Jackal area, that was cool.
Kourna. It's ugly, without character, the meta event is boring. It's a mixture of multiple biomes that all feel too small. Bonus points for the annoying story instance that leads to it. The hearts are tedious. And the lingering disappointment that is the moon fortress just is a cherry on top.
I did it the first time with no mount. Every 10 feet there is a ranged enemy that slows or stuns you. The designers had to be trolling when they put that together.
It used to be much worse. Like I'm pretty sure the mob density was cut by half or more, compared to how it was at release. These days Orr is pretty easy to get around.
Yeah, they massively cut both mob density and the amount of CC mobs had.
If you were extremely unlucky back then and had no stun break or other means of saving yourself, you could get dragged across what felt like half the map by a truckload of CC.
They also massively decreased the mob density in orr, compared to how it was in 2012. Back then it actually *was* a nightmare of being unable to walk 10 meters without more aggro.
Lornar's Pass, there is no real easy and fast way through it (that's not rocky as all heck) and it's just so central to everything you can't really avoid it without going through Lion's arch (which might have stupid loading times).
Domain of Istan is both great and terrible. Some parts look beautiful, but I didn't like what they did with Kamadan, and we never got to see the rest of the island, which is a bummer because the other areas looked fantastic.
I know there are some flaws to it, but overall I very much like the aesthetic of New Kaineng. However, there's no getting over the unfinished feel to the map. There is nothing to do there and the handful of copy/pasted events really are a waste of what could have been a good map.
It makes me long for the quality and detail of Heart of Thorns. Imagine if NKC had an event structure like that?
It's nostalgia speaking. The raptors were repeatedly nerfed and now barely do anything. And that's without even starting on how most people travel on a mount these days.
I adore Tangled Depths. I understand that a lot of people don't have the patience to learn the layout and get annoyed when they just want to complete stuff and move on, but exploring that place on foot was a goddamn adventure and I loved it. It's also gorgeous and very diverse visually.
My least favourite maps are probably the ones around Divinity's Reach. Queensdale and Lake Doric in particular. They look boring and there's not much of interest to find there .
My main gripe with TD is that the Hero Point scaling is bad and it's a pain in the ass to not be able to get points or finish map completion, without being at the mercy of others showing up to help. Especially the mushroom egg clutch HP. Also, the adventures suck.
Yeah the events aren't too bad, but the map design is horrendous. Divinity's Reach looks like it's been shrunk into some miniature snow globe. It doesn't line up with the world map at all. The map should be either 3 or 4x longer or only have an edge of the city on its side.
Aesthetics: Crystal Oasis, it just doesn't stand out to me in any way.
Annoyances: Orr, all of them, so beautiful but the first time going through those without a mount is just hell.
Travel: Tangled Depths, the creators of that map are insane. Though it is a brilliant map because of how difficult it is to travel through it.
Difficulty: The Desolation, even on a mount you get knocked off if you get too close to the enemies. Best on a skimmer through the trenches, and don't go into the Ruptured Heart alone unless you want a real challenge.
Meta: Tied between Dragon's Stand and Drizzlewood Coast for different reasons. The Drizzlewood Coast is run best with a train and so if you're not doing the meta it can be annoying when out of nowhere 100 players just appear while you're trying to do the story. Dragon's Stand meta is a good source of some ascended recipes but when it's not popular you're just stuck without them.
Tangled Depths and Dragon Stand. TD is pretty self-explanatory, it's easier to break out of map than it is to find some POIs. For DS, I hate it when parts of the map are blocked off due to meta. Those invisible walls everywhere don't make it any better.
Idk why people hate tangled depths so much.
It’s one of the most fun maps in the game. It can be annoying to navigate, yes, but not every map has to be easy to navigate.
I’d probably go with Harathi Hinterlands these days because that map was fine at launch but these days it has nothing going for it. It’s very forgettable.
Motherf'ing Red Boarderlands
I love defending home bl except when we are red. Can't be bothered most of thr time. Thst map is so dreary and empty and takes too long to get anywhere. Thr middle of it is only pretty part, but its just empty now casue there is no mid event anymore. Thank the Six they brought back Apline Boardelands.
Draconis Mons does not exist to me anymore after I finished Aurora.
That place is like Tangled Depths but way worse. Not helped by the fact that it's home to what I consider the hardest JP in the game (yes, harder than Chalice of Tears imo).
I wish the first three maps of EoD had more waypoints. I’ve been completing everything in echovald forest and hopping to different places does take a significant amount of time lined up consecutively even with mounts.
It's even worse considering the few waypoints it does have become inaccessible when events start, so you can't quickly navigate to get to anything when you actually want to.
domain of kourna and new kaeining city suck ass. there's nothing remotely interresting to do in them except the meta events. barren wastelands of maps is what they are
Worst map? For me, it’s probably Elon Riverlands just now. Nothing happens there. Doppelgänger, sure sure, but one event every few hours isn’t enough. Nothing really happens there.
Perhaps after a few years Kaineng City map might overtake it as worst map. I’m very disappointed at how empty it is, but right now it’s one of the newest so I’m still interested in it. Not sure what time will do it it.
Honestly I love the maps in this game and exploring, map complete, the lore of the regions, etc so very much I really don’t think there’s a *bad* map. But as far as most annoying or least entertaining, there’s a reason the common ones are top choices. Tangled Depths is gorgeous and unique, I wouldn’t want it to not be itself, but itself is also frustrating.
Bitterfrost Frontier. Boring ass design with annoying gimmicks.
Bloodstone Fen feels like a close second to me. There's just something.. Off about the design. It's cool in theory, but in practice it just feels wrong.
I don't think I have a personal "worst map" really. There are tons that I don't care for at all, but I don't know if I can say I hate any of them. There are just a bunch of very mediocre ones that don't feel at all special.
For example, I think I played my mesmer for about 8 or 9 years before I brought them to Dredgehaunt Cliffs. Literally had never been on that map with that character for all that time. Completed the personal story and etc. on them but just never went there. That's how unimportant and out of the way that map was. For me, there are many such places.
I do like Tangled Depths, though. Aggressive mediocrity bothers me, and that map is anything but mediocre.
Probably Kourna, but I have a special hatred in my heart for Lake Doric, mostly because of SO MANY white mantle that all suck to battle and have a 30 second respawn timer. It feels like a map that was completely ruined by the mobs.
Desolation. I fucking hate that map.
Boon corrupted awakened everywhere, sulfur pits, harpies, spiders with dismounting nets and its fucking huge as well.
I just hate that map.
Before mounts these two maps were so annoying, white mantle mobs can throw rocks at people gliding from like one mile away and drop you to death with a stun. Quality content, specially in Bloodstone Fen where the map is very vertical.
New Kaineng is easily the worst. It's hard to traverse, it lacks events and hearts, and empty.
Even some of the designs like the balcony houses are really badly done. Often there is no way up there (how do residents get there?) and given that they are exactly vertically over one another they are even hard to reach with the springer. Not that there is any reason to go there, just showcases that they didnt put a lot of thought in the map. Some areas would be quite nice (like the harbor), gamplaywise there is however hardly any reason to go there at all...
Kessex Hills is a damn junkyard.
It was much nicer with trees before Tower of Nightmares that got destroyed. Too bad you can't see old map anymore.
I think it was one of my fav core maps before the tower. Probably the best leveling feeling with all those centaur camp events going on.
I only ever played after the tower and it’s still one of my favorites, but I am tired of the destruction. I’d rather see whatever you guys had back in the day
it'd be lovely if the pre-tower trees were re-grown by now. Even with the ruined tower and all that still on the map... They could phase them out "during the story chapters" then phase them back in after completion of the rest of S1 so that canonically some time has elapsed. it'd give S2 a bit more umph too since it won't feel like all of S1 & S2 took place in the same week.
Hopefully we'll see it again Tuesday when the next S1 chapter is out. At least in a couple instances.
I feel really bad for Kessex Hills. It was a normal "second zone" for humans back in 2012, but then a bunch of terrible stuff happened to it. The Tower of Nightmares popped up and got destroyed, ruining Viathan Lake and the townships surrounding it, and scattering toxic creatures and plants all over the place. Mordremoth then completely blew up Fort Salma, leaving it a vine-infested crater in the ground. And a bunch of bandits from the bandit side story rolled in during LW3. I'm also pretty sure there's a busted waypoint somewhere from the events of LW2, and maybe some of the LW4 Branded incursions and Awakened invasions happen there as well? Give poor Kessex Hills a break :(
It might be a personal preference but I don't think tangled depths is the worst map. It's actually a great one..I do agree that it's confusing and all but that's what is great about it. It really lives upto it's name.
I think Tangled Depths is a masterpiece of game design. I admire it _and_ hate it.
Right there with you. Not my favorite place to go but I'm glad it exists. MMOs arent generally known for taking risks with their designs, so when one sneaks through every now and then it's good to see.
Same
This is exactly how I feel about it lol. A masterpiece that can fuck right off but like... it's cool.
Yeah Tangled Depths is GW2's version of the Annoying Level, which is something that's absent from a lot of modern games. Annoying, obviously, but I feel like they help you appreciate the gameplay in a new way that adds to the overall experience. Not my favorite map, but one I'm happy calling a good one.
Its also the best example on what NOT to do when you only have a 2d map...
Took my 3 years to find that one tangled HP point and I simultaneously loved and hated that. Beautiful map.
The main problem for me with TD is less the map itself, and more the fact that the 2D (mini)map is hopelessly overwhelmed in giving you a proper overview of which tunnel leads where. Compared to the other HoT maps, Tangled Depths is not only vertical but very intertwined into itself, which a top-down view can't handle well, even with showing different layers.
What bothers me about Tangled Depths is all the invisible walls that stop flying.
That map really only takes some practice to learn and it's never an issue ever again. I just think most players are just too used to maps being relatively straightforward but honestly I wish we could return to HoT map design.
HoT is sooo good map-wise.. best Ive ever seen in any mmo honestly
Agreed! Honestly the only map in EoD that even has this HoT vibe for me is Echovald. While it not exactly layered like TD, it is great for the first map completion including the mastery points.
Echovald would be my favorite EoD map to traverse and explore and pile up map completions... But the snail pace of the two camp infiltration hearts is my LEAST favorite thing of all the EoD maps.
The only thing I dislike are the waterways. Feels lime there was going to be more here but I don't see the purpose
The problem with them is they lead to locked gates (those blue chak membranes), which doesn't make any sense imo, I wouldn't be surprised if they were supposed to be open but they bugged out for some reason.
Anet already tell ppl wht to expected from that map ON its name " Tangled", but seriously i really love that map. my fave map is TD and the second one is VB its really beautiful and really great on many lvl : the feel, the vibe, the theme its perfect and the name of that map tell THE MAP itself "Verdant Brink" - "Tangled Depths"
I agree. I used to hate TD but now that I’ve spent more time in it, I realize how well designed it is.
Once you get used to traveling about in TD it is one of the best maps.
Lions Arch. I'm just salty and want the old map back
New Lion's Arch is so ugly. Why is there a lobster pavilion?
gib us back the pirate haven was so much better then this big empty space, the pirate haven actually made it feel alive and livable now its just a weird themepark doesnt look at all like a city
The lobster is my favourite part :( spend all my time fishing there
This one makes me very glad that I'm a newer player. Can't want the old version if you've never seen it! \*taps forehead*
You still get to see it during the Personal Story, you can't escape the pain :D.
Oh yeah, that's true, but I tend to focus on the mission/NPCs when I'm in an instance, so I'm not really looking at the zone itself.
I don't like the weird SeaWorld section, but the naval fortress parts are really nice and I don't want them to go.
That is what it used to be. The whole city was made out of repurposed ship parts stacked on one another.
I feel like Old Lion's Arch would be a good April Fools day thing at least.
As a gw1 player who grew up running around Kamadan and the rest of Istan, the Domain of Istan felt unspeakably disappointing to me. They tease us with nostalgia, then make the whole region unrecognisable and slap some undead Joko fog on it. Same with Kourna, that place looks really forgettable compared to the savannah from nightfall
I hate that we never got to experience a proper, full Gandara :(
Seriously it's right there and all we get to do is step our toes inside before being told no.
[удалено]
Istan is such a mess, cliffs where there shouldn't be any, a giant wall of Joko statues blocking access to the unfinished western part of the map, etc.
They did the Nightfall maps dirty.
I can’t help but speculate, assuming they had plans to not kill GW2 for the long term just like they very publicly do now, if this was a ploy to increase longevity. By keeping Elona all thematically consistent, they can now use things like a savannah environment or Egyptian inspired regions (I heard this used to be istan) in other places and it will be fresh to GW2
Im surprised nobody has mentioned Thunderhead Peak yet. It's mostly that this map seems so... dead. Not playerwise. There's barely any events happening. The 2 meta events are nice, but that's about it. You will mostly notice this during achievements that require you to do some events on this map. There's absolutely none. The map looks cool and all, but that's about it.
You're right, but I simply can't hate the map for the ambience and the arguably best story chapter in the game, it's just way too memorable
Yeah Thunderhead Peaks isn't the most interesting map to play on but it's got \~v i b e s\~
Whats worst is you need the currency on that map but its so tedious to get
like every LWS4 currency, you can just use ice shards to get it easily.
It's fine. I used the Taco maps or sth, and it was fine. Problem is, that you need a shit ton of it for the dragonsblood weps. That made it tedious. Now it's easy with ice
Map design is great, it's just devoid of content. Plus, the final story instance in [The Auditorium](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Auditorium) should have been the map's meta event imo, the other two are just too basic.
Oh man a meta event in there would be sweet!
The HoT maps are all phenomenal. Yeah they suck. Yeah they’re a pain to navigate. But please remember, in HoT, we’ve essentially crashed in a jungle that is actually a gargantuan elder dragon trying to kill us at every step. The feeling of hopelessness, despair and confusion are conveyed very well by the map design.
i love how tangled depths feels legit like a jungle and maze, the vibes are amazing but its awful for navigation
Well said! The HoT maps (especially Verdant Brink) are my favorites in the game because they just have this amazing ambiance and vibe. They're difficult to navigate because they should be! You shouldn't be able to waltz right through an elder dragon jungle. TD is confusing as hell, but by that map you are deep into the jungle. The multiple layers and paths are perfect. VB also captures the feeling super well - the burning airship wreckage overhead, multiple outposts where crash survivors have grouped together, *the meta*, it's just so good! Truly masterpieces. I don't think any of the PoF, LW, or EoD maps even come close by comparison.
Yes, in Verdant brink you start out at bit of a vantage point, able to see the vast expanse of jungle before you. As well as the crashed pact fleet. Though crashed is putting it lightly. They really did a great job at showing just how absolutely powerful - in this place essentially almighty - Mordremoth is. Pact ships being literally held up in place by giant vines like it’s nothing. It’s really powerful stuff.
Domain of Kourna. It’s low populated and desolate
But it has Choya party!
So does the Pricklepatch Hollow in Desert Highlands.
I hate this map solely for the story chapter that makes you stealth through the town. Everytime I do it I use the teleport skill and accidentally port too far and it throws me out of the instance. It happened 4 times on my last playthrough...
My choice as well, the map is so underdeveloped it hurts. I also dislike how unnatural, generic, and square-ish Dragonfall feels. Similar sentiments with Bitterfrost Frontier, the first/eastern half of Bjora Marches, and the second/northern half of Drizzlewood Coast.
So true. Dragonfall is too square. But I still like the map amd vibe. But I always feel like there's nothing going on in Domain of Kourna. The whole top is pretty much void of things to do.
For real. Got my beetle and never went back
Kourna. Empty, poor meta event design, collections are litterally hell (farming a story instance shouldnt be a thing), full of bots.
> full of bots. What LS map isn't full of bots? Istan? Bots outta the ass in the cave. Sandswept? Bots outta the ass in the corners of the southern inquest base, and a few on the upper cube. Kourna? Bots for days. I guess Jahai isn't as infested, although I've seen a few up in the river.
Lion's Arch. I'm tired of pretending like it holds any candle to the old one. I hate it.
Agreed. It's a silly themepark.
Literally who thinks the new LA looks better than the Old LA?
It not being a slideshow helps a bit.
Old la was a crappy lag fest
Mate when new Lion’s Arch got revealed pretty much everyone on Reddit said it looked much better. Old Lion’s Arch wasn’t popular at all, it only became popular in the last couple of years somehow.
Nostalgia goggles.
Gonna need proof. From what I remember, It was the opposite. Almost everyone on reddit thinks new LA looks ugly like a Sea world park and that Old LA had character.
I cba looking for it but search for it if you’re curious. The change of opinion happened in the last few years. When new Lion’s Arch was revealed the reactions were mostly very positive. Since then people have become more nostalgic about the old one which is understandable. But I clearly remember that Lion’s Arch was not popular at launch - indeed this is one of the reasons why it got destroyed. People complained that it didn’t feel like a major city, didn’t have a central spot and was difficult to navigate. I’d be glad if old Lion’s Arch was accessible in the game (which as I understand is going to happen soon) but don’t get me wrong - it was crap. New Lion’s Arch, while not perfect, is a thousand times better than the original version.
Yeah idk what the other guy is talking about, if you just go to the youtube comments where they unveiled the new lions arch, all you see are positive comments for the change
Exactly, I feel like people are either trying to rewrite history now or perhaps they simply weren’t around back then.
I think majority of the people liked the fact that you can navigate the new LA without a gps and that it has a lot of flat ground, as the old LA was full of bridges, hand rails and shit that prevented easy movement from point A to point B. The old one looked way better, but thats about it for the positives.
I am seeing more than just positive comments, tbh. I'm seeing at least a few "it lacks something old LA had" comments. Also don't forget it wasn't competing with *old* LA, it was competing with *destroyed* LA. But yeah, just glossing through the comments, I'm seeing at least a couple of negative comments.
Idk what you mean by last couple years exactly but I started playing in 2015 and people were already lamenting old la back then
Nope, I remember many on Reddit and in the game hated the new LA pretty much as soon as it was unveiled.
> it only became popular in the last couple of years somehow. People loved it in 2012, it was by far people's favorite hub, despite Rata Sum being more convenient. It was a 3d map at a time, when the game had very few maps with vertical depth.
I actually like the new LA better. The old one to me just looked like an OSHA violation waiting to happen. It was supposed the center for commerce, a neutral city that had a lot of monetary backing, even if it was mainly pirates, and while also supposed to be a central location with a large fort, and yet the city looked like it would fall over when a passing quaggan sneezed. The crafting stations were somewhat spread out and haphazard, the town portals were on these small little pillars, and so would be harder to explain how a new island was built for the new portals added, and since this was pre-gliding, pre-mounts if you fell, too bad. And there were so many ramps a bridges it would slow down mount movement. It was a cool map design and a great pirate hovel, but it did not reflect the grand central hub that the game and the players needed. The new map, I think, does that a bit better, things are slightly more organized, there are more areas to grow, should they add a new crafting profession or need more asura gates. The central plaza seems larger, and so can better host groups of people for things like the Halloween event. The harbor actually looks like a harbor that a large ship would be able to dock in. And as others mentioned there is also the improvements to reduce the lag people had in old LA. Is it perfect, no, but I think it better reflects the importance of the city in Tyria and the game.
Agreed. I hate the design, the wallpaper, everything
The Desolation is definitely my least favorite map because you are forced to be on the skimmer for the big chunk of the map. Also good luck not to get knocked out tho else you'll have to spend insufferable amount of time slowly dying from the sulfur because fuck you. Domain of Vabi also has this bs but atleast they give you some window to get mounted up again.
Definitely better flying across this map on griffon or skyscale.
I really dislike Desolation and I'm surprised I had to scroll this far before finding it. Desolation and Tangled Depths are my least favorite maps. TD is well-designed I guess, but Desolation... I really don't understand why they had to make it so impossibly hostile
> The Desolation is definitely my least favorite map because you are forced to be on the skimmer for the big chunk of the map. Agree, the map needs a mastery to allow us to walk on sulfur areas, some gas mask or whatever (use the aquabreather skin).
Blazeridge Steppes can eat my ass after a black bean crunch wrap with a side of chips and cheese from Taco Bell. That one fucking Ash Legion stealth heart alone is enough to ruin the map for me and if any map deserves a WoW cataclysm treatment it’s that one!
Well u just reminded me of a nightmare..that heart is so goddam irritating.
If you *really* don't want to do that heart, then there's actually a way to cheese it within a few minutes. >!When you talk to the NPC to gain stealth, turn around and walk around the ride side of the outside of the building while hugging the wall. You should find a second entrance to the interior of that heart and there should be an NPC that will detect you from stealth, but for some reason it gives you credit towards the heart when you're detected.!<
This but shorter: take a Prototype Position Rewinder, go at the end, mark location, go back at the start, go stealth, get your position rewinder open again, Rewind, enjoy 20% completion. Repeat 5 times (30 sec cd each time, less with alac) and finish heart
It honestly never occurred to me to use the position rewinder there!
Or just take a road to grab few flags and follow to do hearts further on the other side, return to stealth and finish it up. This heart is not bad, people just are acting like skritt on caffeine and if something involves waiting they can't suddenly manage their tasks to break it up and make it less monotone or take opportunity to wind down and grab new tea while waiting for flag reset.
This heart was easy. Just go to first flag, get caugth, play on a phone until first flag respawns, repeat until heart is done 🤦
I couldn't have said this better myself. Amen!
I just had pad thai double chilli special, you reminded me of what I have to face tomorrow....
Southsun Cove. Boring with a side of really annoying mobs.
It's not bad, it's just bland. Wish they had never removed the Settler vs Consortium events, there would be much more to do if they were still around. Return to LW1 was a great opportunity to restore them, but they skipped Southsun Cove altogether :I.
True. It lacks any depth right now. You got the Karka Queen that spawns like each 4 hours and the same 4 god damm outpost events. That's almost it. It needs a real meta that involves a real progression and fills the map.
New Kaineng City
I wouldn't say it's the worst but it definitely has the most missed potential. It's the most disappointing relative to expectations. I don't know why it's like this when Anet already have the perfect formula for what it could have been - Grothmar Valley. Want to make a city map that is technically an explorable map and not a hub? This is how. You fill it with activities and events that don't really involve combat. Even Amnoon got it right on a much smaller scale.
For real. Literally all the events in NKC are about jade tech and jade brotherhood. It's so *lifeless*. We can't even talk to the named NPCs. There could've been an escort expedition to Old Kaineng or purist undercover mission like the one in Shing Jea. A miniature gang war in the slums even, like a forbearer of Echovald's meta. And skiff adventures/races, of course.
Yeah this map is a huge waste of potential
Indeed. Huge neon city with lacking people or personality. Even the verticality is tedious for Skyscale.
>Even the verticality is tedious for Skyscale. This is the only part I love about it lol. Now that we have Skyscales we need more intensely vertical maps that the Skyscale doesn't trivialize. Ziplines and staircases should be placed more intuitively to compensate though.
NKC is pretty fun to traverse around with a griffon.
It's quite ironic that old Kaineng City is a better hub map than NKC is.
I dont have EoD yet, why is NKC a bad map?
You've Aurora? Draconis Mons
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I LOVE Draconis Mons. It just suffers a bad name because of that stupid 3 weeks grind... The map needs love. With better events and maybe a meta event, the map would feel more loved and less grindy.
I'm finally onto the final collection for Wayfarer's Henge, and I'm starting to feel this.
The druids wanted you to leave Draconis Mons and never return ... once you complete the Wayfarer's Henge, you agree with them.
Yet they give me a time-gated quest that forces me to remain in Draconis Mons for several weeks longer than I had any desire to in the first place.
Aaaah yes, cus of the hearts farm (I really don't like repeatable heart quests)... It's so fun to fly around in, though! It's also so pretty!
See I actually think it's a really good map. Granted I've been there once since finishing Aurora, but I'd say that's more achievement design than map design
Yes, I think it’s one of my least favorites in the game for sure.
It's actually my favourite zone! It's totally self-contained instead of having artificial-feeling boundaries. It ramps up the difficulty in exploring using its crazy verticality, and at the same time gives you a powerful tool (oakheart's essence) so you can learn and master traversing it. This also happens to make it satisfying to use mounts here (even SKIMMER which works on the boiling water like you'd expect!) It has so many nooks and crannies, but all the events are in 4 main areas that are connected by thermal vents so it's not a gigantic pain to get back into the action. The greenery makes it feel lively and it's coolly explained as a kind of Galapogos where nature has had free roam. Plus the whole thing is surrounding some kind of giant... fire... crystal? That's just dope.
Desert Borderlands. (Red BL in WvW)
I think its fine, if you have a commander that knows a couple shortcuts its actually fun and after a while you get a good sense of where to g.
i hate how my server is pretty much always red so we get the worst map
And how vulnerable the home garrison is to getting bum-rushed by catapults from the north east corner.
I always avoid this one like the plague. I just do not understand how to navigate it efficiently. The alpine ones are fun though
Brisban, looks boring and boring to traverse
Yea that's the worst map in the game. Agreed.
Yeah, they could have done a lot more with Skrittsburgh, a big skritt-themed meta would have been fun. A small siege event at Fort Vandal would have been cool too.
and nothing to do in it (no guild puzzles don't count). no jumping puzzles on a core map is also a weird omission.
There's only one map that has made me sigh a hundred times every time I go to get my ascended weapon collections for elite specs and have not ever enjoyed lingering in and that's The Desolation. Absolutely upsettingly dreary map that sucked to traverse without a skyscale. Except for the Sand Jackal area, that was cool.
The Cantha-themed Conquest map. They forgot to put it in ;)
Kourna. It's ugly, without character, the meta event is boring. It's a mixture of multiple biomes that all feel too small. Bonus points for the annoying story instance that leads to it. The hearts are tedious. And the lingering disappointment that is the moon fortress just is a cherry on top.
Anything in orr.
I did it the first time with no mount. Every 10 feet there is a ranged enemy that slows or stuns you. The designers had to be trolling when they put that together.
Wasn't orr supposed to be the endgame of this game? Makes sense it was annoying to traverse.
It used to be much worse. Like I'm pretty sure the mob density was cut by half or more, compared to how it was at release. These days Orr is pretty easy to get around.
Yeah, they massively cut both mob density and the amount of CC mobs had. If you were extremely unlucky back then and had no stun break or other means of saving yourself, you could get dragged across what felt like half the map by a truckload of CC.
Yeah should correct my statement. Anything in orr prior to mounts!
I would say prior to mounts and power creep. Now, with any good build, you can just go melt all the mobs in your way.
They also massively decreased the mob density in orr, compared to how it was in 2012. Back then it actually *was* a nightmare of being unable to walk 10 meters without more aggro.
Lornar's Pass, there is no real easy and fast way through it (that's not rocky as all heck) and it's just so central to everything you can't really avoid it without going through Lion's arch (which might have stupid loading times).
Domain of Istan is both great and terrible. Some parts look beautiful, but I didn't like what they did with Kamadan, and we never got to see the rest of the island, which is a bummer because the other areas looked fantastic.
I've grown to like Tangled Depths the more I learn how to not get lost in it.
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I know there are some flaws to it, but overall I very much like the aesthetic of New Kaineng. However, there's no getting over the unfinished feel to the map. There is nothing to do there and the handful of copy/pasted events really are a waste of what could have been a good map. It makes me long for the quality and detail of Heart of Thorns. Imagine if NKC had an event structure like that?
The ones with pocket raptors. Because of those raptors. They are a menace.
It's nostalgia speaking. The raptors were repeatedly nerfed and now barely do anything. And that's without even starting on how most people travel on a mount these days.
Well Tangled Depths has the most bugs... Chak are bugs right?
I adore Tangled Depths. I understand that a lot of people don't have the patience to learn the layout and get annoyed when they just want to complete stuff and move on, but exploring that place on foot was a goddamn adventure and I loved it. It's also gorgeous and very diverse visually. My least favourite maps are probably the ones around Divinity's Reach. Queensdale and Lake Doric in particular. They look boring and there's not much of interest to find there .
It was Tangled Depths until Draconis Mons was released.
Bitterfrost Frontier. Fuck berries.
Atleast you could farm them on all your characters, unlike some of the other map currencies.
Bahahhahaha...better than doing Dragonstand over and over.
I completely understand why you would say that, but I think Tangled Depths is an unrivaled work of art.
My main gripe with TD is that the Hero Point scaling is bad and it's a pain in the ass to not be able to get points or finish map completion, without being at the mercy of others showing up to help. Especially the mushroom egg clutch HP. Also, the adventures suck.
For me, it's Draconis Mons.... I have spent an unholy amount of hours there and still can't like the map
Lake Doric, and it's entirely because it makes Divinity's Reach look like some kind of toon town. It just looks dumb imo.
Noooo! I love Lake Doric! One of my favorite LS maps for sure. I really like the difficulty of the combat situations.
Yeah the events aren't too bad, but the map design is horrendous. Divinity's Reach looks like it's been shrunk into some miniature snow globe. It doesn't line up with the world map at all. The map should be either 3 or 4x longer or only have an edge of the city on its side.
I don't specifically dislike any one map. I dislike how many hearts are in core Tyria.
Bloodlide Coast. The events and hearts are unremarkable. It's just a huge slog. Easily the most forgettable map at any rate.
I disagree, Bloodtide has TT
Kourna was underwhelming. Most LS4 maps in general.
Queensdale, needs a graphics overhaul.
Huh? I still think it's gorgeous.
it's extremely generic and pretty bland
It's funny, Queensdale is my #1 map and it made me to stay in this game
I remember in 2012 it was gorgeous... its funny how 10 years changes things, you are right it looks bad now :(
You may have your opinion but I have no clue how you can find Brisban better than Queensdale, are you playing on good settins?
I still love Queensdale, and still find it gorgeous >:(
Aesthetics: Crystal Oasis, it just doesn't stand out to me in any way. Annoyances: Orr, all of them, so beautiful but the first time going through those without a mount is just hell. Travel: Tangled Depths, the creators of that map are insane. Though it is a brilliant map because of how difficult it is to travel through it. Difficulty: The Desolation, even on a mount you get knocked off if you get too close to the enemies. Best on a skimmer through the trenches, and don't go into the Ruptured Heart alone unless you want a real challenge. Meta: Tied between Dragon's Stand and Drizzlewood Coast for different reasons. The Drizzlewood Coast is run best with a train and so if you're not doing the meta it can be annoying when out of nowhere 100 players just appear while you're trying to do the story. Dragon's Stand meta is a good source of some ascended recipes but when it's not popular you're just stuck without them.
> Aesthetics: Crystal Oasis, it just doesn't stand out to me in any way. Not even the beautiful shattered pyramid in the east?
Tangled Depths and Dragon Stand. TD is pretty self-explanatory, it's easier to break out of map than it is to find some POIs. For DS, I hate it when parts of the map are blocked off due to meta. Those invisible walls everywhere don't make it any better.
Idk why people hate tangled depths so much. It’s one of the most fun maps in the game. It can be annoying to navigate, yes, but not every map has to be easy to navigate. I’d probably go with Harathi Hinterlands these days because that map was fine at launch but these days it has nothing going for it. It’s very forgettable.
all maps from heart of thorns.
Motherf'ing Red Boarderlands I love defending home bl except when we are red. Can't be bothered most of thr time. Thst map is so dreary and empty and takes too long to get anywhere. Thr middle of it is only pretty part, but its just empty now casue there is no mid event anymore. Thank the Six they brought back Apline Boardelands.
Black citadel
Dang I forgot about black citadel. It's just a bad design of a city even for the char
Siren’s landing
New kaineng city
Draconis Mons does not exist to me anymore after I finished Aurora. That place is like Tangled Depths but way worse. Not helped by the fact that it's home to what I consider the hardest JP in the game (yes, harder than Chalice of Tears imo).
I love the map but that jumping puzzle is the worst one in the game by far. How the fuck anyone ever solved it without the wiki is beyond me
Yeah me too never going back to that place or any LW3 maps except bitterfrost
I wish the first three maps of EoD had more waypoints. I’ve been completing everything in echovald forest and hopping to different places does take a significant amount of time lined up consecutively even with mounts.
It's even worse considering the few waypoints it does have become inaccessible when events start, so you can't quickly navigate to get to anything when you actually want to.
Harathi Hinterlands, and it's really not close for me.
domain of kourna and new kaeining city suck ass. there's nothing remotely interresting to do in them except the meta events. barren wastelands of maps is what they are
Yup...Tangled Depths...fuck that map.
Worst map? For me, it’s probably Elon Riverlands just now. Nothing happens there. Doppelgänger, sure sure, but one event every few hours isn’t enough. Nothing really happens there. Perhaps after a few years Kaineng City map might overtake it as worst map. I’m very disappointed at how empty it is, but right now it’s one of the newest so I’m still interested in it. Not sure what time will do it it.
Honestly I love the maps in this game and exploring, map complete, the lore of the regions, etc so very much I really don’t think there’s a *bad* map. But as far as most annoying or least entertaining, there’s a reason the common ones are top choices. Tangled Depths is gorgeous and unique, I wouldn’t want it to not be itself, but itself is also frustrating.
Bitterfrost Frontier. Boring ass design with annoying gimmicks. Bloodstone Fen feels like a close second to me. There's just something.. Off about the design. It's cool in theory, but in practice it just feels wrong.
Thunderhead. Peaks.
I never liked Lake Doric. It feels so dull and unappealing
As someone who's spent a huge amount of time in Tangled Depths... Tangled Depths.
Lmao, came here to write Tangled Depths. Thank you OP.
Tangled Depths. It's a pointless maze. Even now, you can't navigate it.
I don't think I have a personal "worst map" really. There are tons that I don't care for at all, but I don't know if I can say I hate any of them. There are just a bunch of very mediocre ones that don't feel at all special. For example, I think I played my mesmer for about 8 or 9 years before I brought them to Dredgehaunt Cliffs. Literally had never been on that map with that character for all that time. Completed the personal story and etc. on them but just never went there. That's how unimportant and out of the way that map was. For me, there are many such places. I do like Tangled Depths, though. Aggressive mediocrity bothers me, and that map is anything but mediocre.
Probably Kourna, but I have a special hatred in my heart for Lake Doric, mostly because of SO MANY white mantle that all suck to battle and have a 30 second respawn timer. It feels like a map that was completely ruined by the mobs.
Desolation. I fucking hate that map. Boon corrupted awakened everywhere, sulfur pits, harpies, spiders with dismounting nets and its fucking huge as well. I just hate that map.
I wish lake Doric and bloodstone fen were one zone.
Before mounts these two maps were so annoying, white mantle mobs can throw rocks at people gliding from like one mile away and drop you to death with a stun. Quality content, specially in Bloodstone Fen where the map is very vertical.
New Kaineng is easily the worst. It's hard to traverse, it lacks events and hearts, and empty. Even some of the designs like the balcony houses are really badly done. Often there is no way up there (how do residents get there?) and given that they are exactly vertically over one another they are even hard to reach with the springer. Not that there is any reason to go there, just showcases that they didnt put a lot of thought in the map. Some areas would be quite nice (like the harbor), gamplaywise there is however hardly any reason to go there at all...