Brisban Wildlands deserves more love imo. It’s GW2’s equivalent to the Barrens from classic WoW, as sylvari, asura and some human players will all converge here after level 15-20, so you get tons of activity and variety. The flow is just fantastic, as each race gets their own entrance to the map, focused on their main antagonistic faction, but the events eventually lead into dealing with the Sinister Triad, an “alliance” between bandits, Inquest and Nightmare Court, (which is basically what inspired Scarlet’s whole plan). Also, Skrittsburgh is an awesome area.
Lowland Shore is a proof that Anet still got it when it comes to map design. It just boiles down to having enough time/resources to deliver good map experience.
Wayfarer Foothills will always have a special place in my heart, just for the fact, i completed that map on the very first beta weekend of GW2.. It's my ultimate entry into the game. S Tier.
Divinity's Reach and Old Lion's Arch, to this day, are among the best fantasy cities I have ever saw in any media in the genre. They are both perfect visually, lore and world-building wise. It absolutely breaks my heart that old LA got swapped to a MOLD tear waterpark.
Wayfarer foothills at least (!) B tier, maybe A tier. Why? There are so cool and variable quests like the raven riddles, playing as snow leopard with the little ones is so cute, throwing snowballs on childs, catching bear kegs, how can you rate this C tier? 😂 And Caladon forest need to be A tier for tjmhe hidden quaggan organ alone. Tjar creates just goosebumps this gw2 theme under water.....❤
I love how this is bringing back memories of all the cool stuff you find in core. Caledon Forest was my starting map and it started my love for jump puzzles.
Grothmar has gone up recently for me thanks to the Wizard's Tower gobbler. Previously I had no reason to go back aside from doing the Ooze Pit every once in a while. Now that there's an actual use for hatched chilis I feel a bit better about hanging out there and doing random events.
Honestly, Wayfarer Foothills is the best starter map by far. You have the small village/ valley part that introduces you to the Spirits of the Wild and the Svanir, Jotun, Dredge and Grawl with actual lore about them. You have cool events and event chains even. A vista that introduces the idea of jumping puzzles. Then the separate tutorial area opens up as the story takes you over/through the mountains. You have homesteads, hot springs, a jumping puzzle, ice cliffs and when you fought through it all the ice citadel at the top. The only downside is that the shaman is the most boring World Boss by far - also, why does he appear at a random lake and not in the citadel?! But when it comes to a new player that knows neither the game nor the lore of the world/their race, Wayfarer Foothills is without a doubt the best starter map
Nah justice for Wayfarer Foothills, the best starter zone. It's the prettiest, varried settings and evemy factions (svanir, grawl, dredge, and jotun), hidden caves, jumping puzzle, even a mini-meta whete you asssault the svanir. Snowball fight heart is S tier, and jackalope hunt is a classic fun event. Also, it leads to a level 70 map, so it gives new players a chance to explore and get a taste of higher level enemies if they want.
On fields of Ruins, I want to highlight the fact that in Ebonhawke, by the waypoint there is a hub with alll the crafting stations and a bank/ TP very close by. I used this as my crafting hub before I got the mistlock sanctuary pass. So FoR is top A tier for sure
Thunderhead Peaks is my favorite map of all time. I dont like the meta, but the map itself is so amazing. the elevation changes and depth of the map is so good it makes u actually feel like ur on/inside of a giant mountain. its unfortunate that it lacks interesting gameplay though. its the one thing i would take from dragonfall and that would make it the best map in the game imo
I really like all of these tierlists but this one is the best one both of you have ever done, this tier list is S++. Would love to see more collabs like these, Fractal Tier List, Raid/Strike Tierlist maybe?
I had a chance to play story and subsequently dry top and silverwastes in order (same living world 3) and those maps hold up even today. Yes now I have my skyscale, but since i progressed everything in order, oh man, when it wasnt mount-crept that was a blast. (ofc my rewards gold wise sucked but i had fun and thats what counts)
Started playing a year ago, played in order, and caught up at the end of inner nayos. I'm right there with them up through Seitung. Everything in EOD and SOTO, though, they cooked this. Look at every map they placed above those maps and compare, that's wild. Edit: imo, only gyala belongs below A tier of the maps after Living world 4.
I strongly disagree with Gendarran fields, its got LLA, Sunken Chest, a really fun Roller beetle race, Vigils Keep, while not the greatest, i personally like the other two options better base wise, its still neat, its got fun events like the Heart in the top right in the snow, its special wave event makes heart completion a breeze, thats another, its got really easy map comp there's like 2 or 3 hearts that i can recall that were a little slower than the rest, but still pretty fast, and its pretty easy to Traverse the map with and without mounts
Dragonstand, is a totally coherent map. beautifully crafted, and it makes you participate in everything as you push forward, in whichever lane you follow. Even though Gyala delve follows the same idea, it's not annoying like gyala. The first time you meet Modremoth, it was such an epic moment, I can still remember the feeling of awe. powercreep and mounts have trivialized it but it was such a good experience and memory. Top grade map.
Oof did Straits of Devastation dirty... Really good vid though, like how you presents arguments to eachother and not agree on all, adds another level to the tierlist! 😊
They literally put Amnytas (which is created and tiled from 2-3 identical 3D models and looks boring AF) HIGHER than Lions Arch (which is RICH from the perspective of 3D and exploring) and New Kaineng City with all this gangs and insane atmosphere for GW2. OMG i cant believe in that lol. They put the most confusing map (which is Rata Sum (even though its upper area looks cool)) HIGHER than Black Citadel which have 10 times more interesting RP areas, and one of the best night views of the city (which you can get if you stay from the lake side). P.S. For me one of the best "vibe" maps is Gendarran Fields. It reminds me TES: Oblivion & Witcher landscapes cause of those little cities on the hills. There are no more such true places in this game.
So this was originally going to be a rant about the Asuran cubes like Rata Sum, but I did the maths and it turns out the area is basically 1:1 with a normal cube standing on one side rather than a corner. However: - How do you expand? Once the cube is built, you can't effectively expand upwards or downwards, you have to expand up-and-sideways along the normal of each side. - The space efficiency is horrific. You can't effectively divide the cube into rooms because eventually you'll run into the side of the cube and even as an Asura there's some space along the walls you can't use. If I had calculated the volume of each floor I think the difference would be larger. - With a normal cube, there's a floor at the top of the cube you don't have when on the Asura cube. This obviously also means it's easy to expand upwards or downwards.
Rata Sum is MOLD tier. Out of all of the races architecture at least have a hint of where people are living. Not so for Asura architecture. Asura apparently never sleep, because they have no place to ever do.
I just thought how would I have put some maps... I think Lara's negative "it's a swamp" would be my "but it's the shiver peaks". I fell in love with guild wars with the eotn expansion of gw1 and I love being in the shiver peaks. Norn main city way above Charr and Sylvary though... Just think about Dragonbash Festival there
Like Lara is against swamp, I'm against snow. Every snow area looks the same. Still pretty new to the game and haven't even been to every map yet, but T-Line Falls is just another snow map to me. Also she seems to be rating maps on visual aspect, and you seem to be rating them based on what you can actually do there and how good it is. 2 completely separate lists are fighting each other this whole time lol.
I agree with most of this rating (with the exception of Dry Top, hate that map so I think it should have been lower) but I did want to be devil's advocate a bit for current Lion's Arch. I think if they had spread out the textures some so that it doesn't look like bare concrete on the usual camera angle walking around the city, people would like it more. Seriously. Go to the Jellyfish plaza and look south at the buildings. Then tilt your camera up about 20-30 degrees. The building textures are there, but they are elevated... perhaps to be flood ready? The sad part is that even doing the 4 treasure chest jumping puzzle won't give players a different view since the roofs you are jumping between all stick out enough from the walls that all you see are green tiles. There's no real variance. Now go to the Memorial on the west side, the one that goes underground with the waterfalls. Those textures, the green-blue-teal seaweed tiles, should have been sparsely distributed around the city's building bases, giving a feel like you are in the bay looking at the original underwater LA that the quaggan live near (in the water near the lighthouse) and drawing your eyes upwards to where the wooden buildings stand. Or, there should have been some murals or something to go with the sea theme (though that may make it seem even more themeparkish) - or tell season 1's story by showing it during the tour (something like what the real life Romans did with their tileworks, art that reflects life). To also make the city look less like concrete, there should have been worn wooden plank paths embedded in the concrete ground between the common buildings in the main area - bank to the Trading Post to the crafting area to the Mystic Forge. Just so long as it doesn't look too manicured, it won't contribute to the themepark feel but adding paths would make it look like the area *is* well trod and needs maintenance (like knowing a road is used because it has potholes) as well as serving as a call back to original Lion Arch's arched wooden plank paths. Old Lion's Arch would still have a better "lived in" feel because it had verticality (especially doing the jumping puzzles!) and all the wooden ships everywhere giving texture. But, I think that current Lion's Arch isn't irredeemably terrible.
I do think that all they need to do to make EotM popular to play again is give it pips and let you use your warclaw and glider. That’s my genuine opinion. Cause as of now the only time I play that map is if the gates bug out on reset and our guild is queued out.
Heavy disagree with black citadel placement. Its industrial aesthetics fit iron legion to a T. And for navigation it is so much better than grove and rata sum. The crafting locations are also centralized around one point and the home instance was one of the easier do the home instance farm prior to homesteads.
I Love LOVE Tangled Depths. The jungle HATES ME so much the MAP ITSELF hates me, Mordremoth will know my name 😂🎉 I do mean it btw, TG loves since 1st time without mounts there. People need to use the burrows more
I gotta say I agree on MOST of the spots you placed the maps BUT Thunderhead is as bad as Kourna if not worse. I really noticed that during the current return to week. This map literally has NO CONTENT other then achivements, 2 meta events and 2 other events. _"Do 3 Events"_ while the meta isn't up is just straight up pain because there are no events.
I disagree with the placements of the home areas. I unironically think that the Charr starting area is the best, followed by the humans, Sylvari, Asura, then the Norn area.
Amnytas bastions being all the same architecture-wise was exhausting. meta event needs to be removed. Then being in the ashy halo flood hell maps later made me want to go back to the first map.
They compromised a ton throughout the video, wdym? At most it's a tad teapot biased bc lara's not as assertive but overall i think it's a pretty balanced result.
"One texture ugly-boring EMBER BAY - A TIER (with litterally one good thing on the map - Jumping Puzzle (wich build 100% of boring volcano rocks)) The Desolation: - Mold" (with 4-5 bioms in the map, and really good concept of Dead Eye scouts and cosmic sulfur lakes, and it's just have SO MANY GORGEOUS VISTAS to make screenshots that will sell this game to any MMO player. And yeah, i know there are NO really good events, but cmon. WTF 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Some maps are judged based on their current state, the others are judged based on original release. Some are judged based on content, others get a pass because of the art. E.g. dragons stand is weak map today and your alkost 10 year old nostalgia to reality that never comes back make it sound like people trying it today gonna experience some real gaming, which is false. This tierlist lacks cohesion and is basically teapots nostalgia trip. I dont even know why Lara is here, when teapot mansplains against everything they dont agree on. Fingers crossed you gonna do better next time.
I can't take this list seriously if he puts Tangled Depths anywhere but the 'total fail' section .. seriously, only an extreme masochist could possibly even think it's a tolerable zone at best!
Tangled Depths is a pinnacle of MMO level design. Yes, it is hard to navigate but the problem is not the map itself. The problem is that 2D minimap is totaly inadequate for this case.
The map is completely learnable. Not everyone is incapable of building up a mental map. And I really enjoyed getting lost and finding random locations when I was learning it. There are so many interesting locations.
