Guild Wars: Map Balance

While listening to the latest Weapon of Choice (Which features a lengthy interview with Izzy as the pal Clamatius already pointed out. Definitely worth a listen. WoC is one of those projects that I always like to see. Tried to do something similar with IRC myself back in the day but, ugh, the work involved was soul-crushing.) I heard Izzy and Kestrel talking about map balance. It's something that's been on my mind lately for a lot of reasons. There's Jade, the newest four letter word, of course. But my guild's recently switched maps so I've been contemplating maps in specific and the reasons for using them in general. For the record, we went against the grain and switched from Corrupted to Meditation, what I'd consider a much more flexible map (We're trying to work on our 8v8 but we think our ability to split which we've been honing is a plus we didn't want to completely do without.) or what WoC calls a balanced map – the sort you can split, spike, and pressure on, depending on how things go.

So, why does Corrupted get used while Uncharted is underused?

Simple, Corrupted is the map that pushes that basic template to the extreme. All things being equal, teams want to get as many advantages as they can. If a map pushes the game to one extreme or the other - favors one type of build over another - then you're rewarded for playing a certain way twice. Once because you've tailored your build to your players and again because you've chosen a map to compliment that decision. It amplifies advantages you might already have. There's no percentage in playing on a more balanced map where your opponent might have a build they can use to their advantage there as well, at least on an extreme map you know what's gong to play best and can react accordingly.

While I think there should be some interesting twists from map choice and maps that encourage certain styles of play over another – big maps like Ice and small maps like Corrupted - I think the answer is that they can't get too far to one extreme or the other. Every map needs to have some way of rewarding a specific style of play. It's the maps like Jade (And the old Burning) that eliminate one whole approach that are problematic.