Guild Wars 2

Since it was suggested on reddit that I post this here:

There is currently a lot of debate about the Orbs of Power in WvW – mostly that they are too powerful and once a server has three of them they will proceed to dominate the game until the end.

I’m going to use an example from another game that I have more experience tweaking the gameplay of: Quake 3 Arena.

In Q3A Team-Deathmatch, the Quad Damage powerup spawns every 90-seconds and lasts for 30 seconds. How well a team controls this powerup tends to decide who ultimately wins the game. It needs to be timed, the area around it needs to be secured before it spawns. If a player gains the Quad they tend to go on the offensive while everyone else spends 30 seconds playing hyper-defensive to not just give free points to the Quad carrier.

Now this works really well. It creates a focus for the gameplay. Grabbing weapons and controlling armors between powerup spawns tends to be to give you a better chance at that powerup.

It would be quite easy to mimic the problems WvW seems to have by tweaking this system; If Quad damage spawned once at the start of the game – and its effects persisted the entire game – then you would immediately have two problems. First, whoever got the Quad at the very start of the game would win 99% of the time unless the teams were implausibly unbalanced. Second, the interesting strategic aspects surrounding the powerup itself would simply degenerate in to “zerg Quad at start of game, give up if you don’t get it”.

From this situation there are a few ways you could try and fix things, many of which have been suggested for WvW.

You could reduce the advantage the powerup gives but it would have to be reduced down to almost useless. This would make it hugely less desirable and alter gameplay significantly as it would no longer be the must-have buff.

You could give the side that didn’t get the Quad some sort of buff but this has much the same effect has simply reducing the power of the Quad itself with the added problem of rewarding a team for failing.

So, this leads to my proposed changes to the Orbs of Power – Make them respawn every two hours (even hours servertime) and have the buffs given only last 60 minutes (wearoff at odd hours servertime). The times are pulled out of thin air and are likely too short but they will do for discussion. The _ behaviour_ is solid.

This would have the following positive effects on gameplay:

• Eliminate the problems with “3 Orb domination” that players are currently complaining about.

• Create a more consistent focus on the Orbs as something worth fighting for as currently many players miss the Orb spawns as they are not in WvW after reset.

• Push sides more towards offensive play (if they have the orbs), defensive play (if they do not have the orbs) or strategic play (if the orbs are currently unspawned).

• Significantly reduce potential balance problems with the Orbs themselves. They would have to be extremely overpowered before they had a negative impact on the game. It could probably be made more powerful (and thus more desirable) under this system.

A breakdown of how matches would likely run under this system:

• At 11:30, small groups of players will move North to the orb spawn and attempt to set up defensive structure while hindering other sides trying to do the same. All players would be on an even playing field as far as buffs go. The “home” team will have a moderate advantage because of the close proximity of their spawn. Teams must evaluate the risk vs reward of being there early; They have a chance to greatly improve their chances at the Orb but also have a much higher chance of being killed.

• Close to 12:00 the bulk of players will begin heading North for what will inevitably be a huge, 3 way battle for the orb. Smaller groups will inevitably use this distraction to capture minor points like Supply camps. Teams will have to make decisions about going for the orb, capturing more land or attacking forts in an attempt to deny enemy players anywhere to actually place the orb.

• At 12:00 the orb will spawn. Whichever team has be the most successful in battle will begin moving the orbs towards one of their keeps, ideally along the safest path past well defended towers. Enemy players will be attacking the orb carriers whenever possible to attempt to secure it for themselves. This is strategy that already exists in WvW in theory but I’ve never been around to see it as I’ve never been online near a reset. Since the despawn time is predetermined, teams will either want to capture the orb quickly (to receive the maximum duration of the buff) or delay the winning side as long as possible (to reduce the time the enemy spends buffed).

• At 12:XX the orb will have been captured and placed. Whoever owns the orb will likely go on the offensive, using their buff time to take down as many defences and capture as many points as they can. The other sides will likely turtle up and go defensive, preparing the areas they already own for the inevitable, orb-fuelled onslaught. They will build all the defensive structures they can, their best chance at holding out against the attack.

• At 1:00 the Orb will despawn and once again all teams will be on a level playing field and progress will be entirely down to strategy, communication, skill and so on. The side that previously held the orb will go defensive, trying to hold the new areas they captured. The other sides will return to offensive, trying to reclaim what was taken from them.

• At 1:30, players will begin preparing for the next orb spawn and the cycle repeats, hopefully with a different outcome. That hope is an important factor that will stop players from giving up for 2 weeks because they can’t break team with a 3 Orb bonus. They can however vow “never again”.

Under this system, a 3 Orb bonus would continue to be a significant advantage but only for a short time. I would imagine the most common outcome is that each team manages to capture their “home” Orb, once again meaning all teams are on even ground. Capturing more than one Orb becomes the focal point of WvW games with the eventual win going to the side that had the best control of the orbs and used their buff time the most efficiently.

As I said in that post, I think this is a fantastic idea. The problem when designing a PVP game is balancing a risk vs reward system that keeps players active. If players are able to turtle or camp their enemies giving them little hope of succeeding other then to endure then there is something wrong with your design and it is evident in how Orbs are currently implemented in WvW. They give far to much power to the faction that controls them all and the only way to deactivate them is through brute force.

This idea in the long run establishes a risk vs reward system that could better the flow of WvW then how it stands now. Teams have to risk their currently owned land in order to gain a bonus that would give them an edge on the offensive but if it is not utilized properly then the orb benefit would be wasted.

Personally, I would rather that holding the orbs gave server wide bonuses to things like exp, karma, influence, etc. instead of a combat advantage buff to the server controlling them.

In any case though, the current problem is that the orbs are a “snowball” mechanic that make the currently winning server, which is likely at a population advantage, even more likely to win in the future, making it even harder for the other servers to ever comeback. Which in turn leads to boring WvW and spawn camping.

Pretty sure this is a genius idea. The issue of one-sided WvW is going to drag down anyone’s ability to enjoy the feature, whether you are winning the whole time (boring and easy) or losing the whole time (frustrating and lame).

+1’d this because I think it would help mitigate the more general problem of WvW balancing.

@Creslin: My initial thoughts were the same – simply make the buff less of a WvW advantage but I think that ends up wasting what could potentially be the most interesting aspect of WvW.

It would fix things if you simply made it an xp/kama/etc boost but I think most teams would simply end up ignoring it. The risk vs reward just doesn’t pan out well. You would end up with WvW players having more important things to do than secure a buff for people who are not even in WvW.

@Everyone else: Thanks for the feedback/support. I was a little disheartened to see this post becoming buried under “Plz add more dance styles” style posts.