Guild Wars 2

Easy solution to get people into Orr: make Crystalline Dust a drop from all Risen, not subject to DR.

I’d like a zone harder than Orr. All mobs are Veterans minimum. Lots of Champions. No waypoints. Even the zone wants to kill you. Burning lava, fireballs dropping from the sky quicksand traps that swallow you whole.

I want NPC’s to tie me up and slowly roast me on a camp fire then have an argument over which piece of my body they’re going to eat first.

I hate it. First, I can’t stand the Risen. They’re just a pain in the kitten to fight. Second, it’s ugly, dreary and soul sucking. I know that’s the point — I mean, how else should it look? But that doesn’t make it any more enjoyable an experience. When I want to play in an 80 zone, I go to Frostgorge. I realize only a small slice of it is actually at level 80 so the farming is worthless, but it’s a 1000x prettier than the alternative.

I’m specifically leaving out Southsun because there’s nothing to do there and karkas are almost as irritating as Risen — plus the veterans hit like champs. Fighting them is pointless.

The Risen aren’t my favorite monster type, not by a long shot. At level 80 open world it’s either Karka or Risen. Orr is bearable now, before it was just sadistic, I still prefer it to crab land..I mean Southsun Cove.

Zaitan is such a one trick pony, at least Abaddon mixed it up some with Torment creatures and Margonites.

I did not read this entire thread, so this may have been said. Here are my 2 cents on Orr.

I am not a huge fan of the look of it. I prefer beautiful, colourful areas. It is too dark and brown/grey for my likings. On that note, I would like to see more bright and colourful areas added.

I am not a huge fan of playing in it. I often like to run around from place to place, but in Orr you instantly get attack and pulled by Risen and knocked over and crippled and everything in between. I find this very frustrating. They are added simply to stop running and not at all for adding challenge to fights.

I am not a huge fan of the fights as they are not challenging nor entertaining. The enemies are dull (especially after awhile as they are all the same), but mechanics are simple and the fights are either insanely easy or insanely hard. This means that you can either faceroll it or find a zerg. There is very little middle ground imo. Most of the rest of the areas has ample middle ground.

To sum it up? I race through Orr for the story and leave it and never go back.

If the devs are reading this, I do not mean to offend, but am only trying to provide my personal preference and criticism. I do love the game as a whole and am grateful for the hard work you have put into the game.

I don’t understand why people dislike Orr. It does have colors, both black AND white (well, more of a grey). A multitude of different creatures, risen this, risen that AND risen whatever. How can you look at this and not see a deep variety? True, everything hates you so no slacking off and smelling the undead flowers. True, farming isn’t so great there anymore. True, the temples are contested most of the time making getting around a pain and a chore. Whaddya want? Some kind of fun experience?

I havent tried the nerfed Orr, so will mostly comment on the general look and feel of the place. In short…. way overuse of the undead / zombie theme. It might be fun for a smaller zone, but to have 3 maps covered in this goo is just painfull and insulting to my senses. The Shiverpeaks lvl 80 (unfortunately small) area is way better.
I didnt mind the difficulty of the original, was not even that difficult … just very tedious. Really boringly so.

Hate is a strong word but I could definitely say that I sort of dislike the place. Aesthetically it fits with the whole undead theme and it looks exactly like what a city that has been submerged for hundreds of years would look like. The whole gloomy and hopeless feel of the place is a nice departure from all the other lush and bright zones, so I hope they never change it to its former glory.

My dislike about the place is that it really is not solo friendly. I often get overwhelmed by Risen when traveling around the place and and there’s hardly ever anyone on the maps (well at least Straits and Malchors’s anyway) so good luck doing some of the events. I feel that Anet should give players more of a reason to go there to “liven” it up a bit so it doesn’t feel so lonely there, or else we might as well just pull a GW1 and make the zones instanced.

I think the problem is that there are 3 zones of unremitting Orrness, where there could be just one. The 2 top zones could be more gradiated in darkness, bleakness, number of zombies, and removal of other mobs, including non hostile yellow mobs until you get to true Orr. Which is then completely bleak with only undead. To break it up, even some of those could be yellow nonhostiles, such as ghosts. There could even be a range of yellows such as vampires, ghouls or creatures taken from other cultures.

The human eye and psyche does not enjoy looking at bleak wastelands. It’s depressing. It turns people off and makes them avoid the area. To overcome this natural aversion, the rewards for going there have to be fantastic, which they aren’t. So this leads to an emptying out if the area. As people stop going there, it becomes harder for soloers. Which leads to further avoidance. To bring people back to Orr, they need to change the appearance or increase the rewards.

Only thing I truly HAAATE about Orr… I want more but they keep working on other parts of the game.
Ahd moor plz
I <3 zombie apocalypse

I think the place looks really ugly and by the time I got there I was sick of fighting undead, everything in the personal story after like level 30 is basically fight undead>fight undead>fight undead> fight undead>MORE UNDEAD>Oh look time to fight Zhaitan, the zombie Chuthulu dragon or something. I don’t mind that the entire region of Orr is hostile but it’s JUST constantly zombies, I think Orr should’ve had more variety like have each region around the god temples could have a different aesthetic and enemy types.

Now I cant make it to my last personal story because the kittening zombie crap has too much cc. Like wtf, horrible zone.

Khyber.2693:

Now I cant make it to my last personal story because the kittening zombie crap has too much cc. Like wtf, horrible zone.

You know they nerfed Orr right.. it was soo.. sooo… sooo much worse before. Mobs would always use a pull and a snare on you. always

Now its less annoying. Still annoying but less annoying.

It has plenty of enemy types, just of the Risen variety. For some odd reason, Zhaitan also uses the Human Gods Elementals in his army as well.

And truth to be told, people still farm Penitent and other areas to this day. More than a specific point last year. The area is not dead (save for the Risen…), and Melandru’s temple is not that ridiculously hard to liberate any more. I actually play there daily at some point, not just to farm nodes, but to do the occasional zombie hunting and occasional chain of nice and drop-rewarding events. Remember, “death… good!” :P

Dear holy mother of Sheba. This zone was designed from the get go to be a challenge, hence the annoying factor. It used to be a whole lot worse. As a note, the monsters can’t snare you if you dodge the snare, learn it and it becomes laughable unless you’re fighting 20 of the kittens. The place is dreary because it was recently in a most allegorical fashion at the bottom of an unwashed fish tank. It’s supposed to be bleak and depressing, a whole civilization was wiped out, sunk beneath the ocean, raised, and zombified in it’s boundaries. It covers so much area because it was designed as a majority of the premiere story to be in a fashion “The End Game.” the ultimate challenge of skill and cooperation between players. That all fell through, of course. As another peeve that must be answered, why is anyone expecting anything else but Risen in an area where an elemental force of undeath has turned almost everything that isn’t in itself an elemental force into… Risen?

Orr is a really confused sort of place, in terms of where it fits into GW2, gameplay-wise.

- GW2 has no traditional “endgame”! The whole world is the endgame, so don’t all crowd into Orr, okay?

- Have you got your Legendary yet? They’re really cool, and pretty much pushed on you indirectly through every aspect of the game, so you should work towards one. By the way, you need TONS of materials from Orr before you have any hope of getting it.

- Uh, not that we want you farming, of course! GW2 is not a grind game! So we won’t have cool events and stuff going on here or incentivize this place at all. When’s the timer on the Orr Dragon due? Have you done “Orr Kills” for the dailies yet? LOL, I’m just trolling you, there are none!

- But seriously, we want there to be a lot of players in Orr. All the event chains and bosses require a steady, massive amount of players always buzzing around the zone. Bring all your guildies with you! How come no one’s ever here, guys? This place is cool and important to the lore! Zhaitan, raaawwrrr, am I right?

- But don’t stay too long! The camp you’re standing in right now will probably be a zombie-infested ruin in two minutes. Move along now! Get in, and get out!

- Come back and do your Personal Story, though. That’s a big deal, and you should feel proud of yourself once you did it. What’s that? You want a title for defeating Zhaitan? Well, that’s a bit much, don’t you think? How about a hat instead? Just like the other story dungeons! Very fashionable. Huh? Story completion required for Legendary? No, no, that would be asking too much. It’s interesting you bring that up, though. Have you got your Legendary yet? I hear Shatterer is up. Guaranteed rare! That means delicious Ectos!

No, I love it. The sheer amount of “unoffical” jumping puzzles is awesome. I love exploring orr and I love discovering new hidden areas.

Khyber.2693:

Now I cant make it to my last personal story because the kittening zombie crap has too much cc. Like wtf, horrible zone.

Have you ever heard of ‘stability’?? Try it sometime, you might like it …

Yup, Orr has a lot of undead, a huge steaming mass of risen types, so what??
Get over it..
They also drop fancy exotics and a lot of rares. Orr has every type of elemental in the game. and the only PvE place outside of dungeons that drop lodestones.

Frostgorge is full of icebrood and svanir, Derdgehaunt is full of dredge and they have CC as well! Are you going to start complaining about these maps as well??

Last evening, I passed by Wren in Malchor’s and it was contested, full of risen with few vets standing about the place. I began pulling out the normal mobs a few at at time, then went it and cleared out the vets. All done solo, and got a rare drop for the effort.

Someone explain to me how this is any different than clearing out a bunch of flame legion or centuar in a different zone??

Sorry, but being level 80 and down-scaled in a starter map is more difficult than running around in Orr these days. There are so many safe paths and places outside of the camps where nothing will attack you if you stand there all day.

As for the ‘look’ of Orr ..

I do not understand how anyone can find the Orr colours drab and boring. Each Orr map has it’s own overall theme – Malchor’s is green/blue, Cursed Shore is an ocher, SoD ranges from jungle green in the north to more yellow in the western sections.

Within each map you find fantastic colours of plants and coral,, both on land and underwater The Orr maps have the most diverse range of colours of any of the other regions of the game.

Do not worry about these zones. I too find them not appealing because of its visuals and zombie-like creatures. Much prefer Frostgorge.

In the future ANet will release new high-level maps as they continue to reveal the Jungle Dragon, the Deep Sea Dragon, the Crystal Shard dragon, Vayne Dragon and more.

I foresee that the maps will be visually stunning as they introduce landscapes of north-america of the 1500s and the amazon jungle which will contain monsters that go beyond your wildest imaginations. The time has come.

Flamenco.3894:

Do not worry about these zones. I too find them not appealing because of its visuals and zombie-like creatures. Much prefer Frostgorge.

Frostgorge is the most awesome map. Ever!

There is some variety of views here on the specifics, but I think most of us agree it’s just plain not fun. Three of the highest level areas of the game world wasted because they are not fun to play in and not rewarding enough to overcome the lack of fun.

I think one redesign clearly wasn’t enough. They don’t seem to get why the zone isn’t fun for anyone except the few sadistic devs on the team who seem to prefer making content too annoying to play, rather than making content that is fun and people will actually want to play!

For the most part, a large portion of developer errors have been the result of the belief that super-challenging, annoying or very hard to overcome content is some how supposed to be fun for all but a tiny percentage of “hard-core” players. Also, part of the flaw seems to be the belief that “end game content” is something that should only be designed toward the most elite of the player base, because the rest of us couldn’t possible be interested in high level game zones, doing dungeon runs, etc…

Orr just is not fun. Rewards for playing in Orr are way too pitiful to overcome the fact that the zones are not at all fun. About 15% of the entire world, including the equally fun/reward challenged Southsun Cove, is currently just a giant waste of space.

The easiest attempt at a fix would be to tone down the prevalence of annoying crowd control abilities found on the mobs in Orr even further, make Temples about half as difficult as they currently are and completely revamp the loot tables to make Orr worth the effort to play in.

Sadly, I tend to wish that they would just wipe the region off the map and devote future resources to adding three new zones to the map for high level play that won’t repeat the mistakes that are Orr.

awe extender.1908:

Flamenco.3894:

Do not worry about these zones. I too find them not appealing because of its visuals and zombie-like creatures. Much prefer Frostgorge.

Frostgorge is the most awesome map. Ever!

I agree. That’s how a high level zone should be designed. I’d rather have three more zones of similar quality and character, each befitting of the other three major regions of the game world, Kryta, Ascalon and Maguuma, or even something completely different, than the mess that is Orr.

I get the concept of what they tried to do with Orr, but it just didn’t work. It’s sad that so much development time and company resources were wasted there.

bri.2359:

Khyber.2693:

Now I cant make it to my last personal story because the kittening zombie crap has too much cc. Like wtf, horrible zone.

Have you ever heard of ‘stability’?? Try it sometime, you might like it …

Yeah – but only if you play with “ANet approved” class. With guardian/warrior I have no problems maintaining stability… For thiefs it’s little bit different. Only elite skill allows you for some kind of CC ignorance. (but fortunately stealth is solution for some problems). Play with ranger – without option to hide a pet, without stability without staealth.

I had and have now no problem running around orr on my ranger.

Szamsziel.5627:

bri.2359:

Khyber.2693:

Now I cant make it to my last personal story because the kittening zombie crap has too much cc. Like wtf, horrible zone.

Have you ever heard of ‘stability’?? Try it sometime, you might like it …

Yeah – but only if you play with “ANet approved” class. With guardian/warrior I have no problems maintaining stability… For thiefs it’s little bit different. Only elite skill allows you for some kind of CC ignorance. (but fortunately stealth is solution for some problems). Play with ranger – without option to hide a pet, without stability without staealth.

Rangers do get stability on Rampage as One, 20 seconds on 120 second cd. Though I usually don’t need to use it for most of Orr, mobs attack my pet and I keep running. When I’m far enough away I switch out pets before it dies, first group of mobs leash and a new set attacks pet #2.

Though the only time I’ve been south of Shank’s Anchorage lately is when I ran the gauntlet to arah when I was really bored.

I like some of the small events in the pact-controlled area in Straits of Devastation. Undead control an area and it visibly changes, but if you get control back it changes back. If this could happen in Malchor’s and Cursed Shore it would be much more interesting. Uncontesting temples makes better loot drop from nearby enemies!

Hmmm, I’m not very often in Orr. Not so much because I hate it but I got so many zones to explore before I think of going back there.

I’m pretty fine with the mobs but the whole atmosphere is quite depressing. On the other hand the whole design catches that former grandeur which is now rotten and corrupted in a perfect way.

Actually I run through Orr similar (avoiding fights, looking for events). I’d wish we could have “no mob mode” just in order to run. I do not attack them so they ignore me

Even if its only in a dream-sequence, or a flashback, whatever, I would like to be able to see what the temples and various broken ruins looked like before it sank.

Go back in time, see the sights, buy awesome gear, and inadvertently do something that leads to the sinking of Orr in the first place?

I’ve finally got an 80 and went there a couple days ago. It royally sucks. I don’t know that I want to return.

Fyrebrand.4859:

Have you done “Orr Kills” for the dailies yet? LOL, I’m just trolling you, there are none!

Nor is it going to happen. I’m pretty sure ANet wants people who are just starting the game to be able to complete the dailies, thus why the kills/events that are regional can be completed in starter zones. Still, you can complete the generic “Daily Kills” in Orr.

awe extender.1908:

Frostgorge is the most awesome map. Ever!

looks really good, but not much going on there, hence it’s mostly empty. It mainly gets populated when it’s time for the Jormag to show on schedule, then the zone empties out apart from some gatherers and a few people leveling. Cursed Shore is loaded with meta events, lots of farming, good amount of gathering nodes. Frostgorge needs revamping, though not as bad as lost shores needing total revamp.

I don’t exactly hate Orr as an area, i just hate that the main baddies are… whooptykittendoo zombies. Was really disappointed with that. It’s lazy, unimaginative and overused to hell and back.

Belcebub.8421:

I don’t exactly hate Orr as an area, i just hate that the main baddies are… whooptykittendoo zombies. Was really disappointed with that. It’s lazy, unimaginative and overused to hell and back.

The risen are not the main bad guys, they’re pawns used by the elemental dragon of undeath. The dragons themselves are the main “Bad Guys.” and they cover a variety of things.

Geesh, people hate orr now, imagin what they would be saying 6 months ago…

Daywolf.2630:

awe extender.1908:

Frostgorge is the most awesome map. Ever!

looks really good, but not much going on there, hence it’s mostly empty. It mainly gets populated when it’s time for the Jormag to show on schedule, then the zone empties out apart from some gatherers and a few people leveling. Cursed Shore is loaded with meta events, lots of farming, good amount of gathering nodes. Frostgorge needs revamping, though not as bad as lost shores needing total revamp.

More high level meta events (read better drops) in Frostgorge would be really cool!

Beautiful scenery, awesome music, the right temperature (I’m Norn), and mjød (beer) as much as you can dream of!

today i have to run for like 4 min in circle looking for a safe place to port to Shatt, of course, overflow win the race. stupid kitty orr

Yes. Orr is my absolute least favorite area in the game.

I like Orr. It feels like the end of the line to me and in terms of open world forces me to stay awake without having the unforgiving instakills that popular instances. I like the dynamic event spam and temple raids that happens as well.

I hate Malchor’s Leap though. The terrain is ridiculously annoying to navigate and screw risen catapults.

The zones really suck underwater though.

If I were to pick something to hate, I pick Dredgehaunt Cliffs, or anything that has infinitely respawning dredge.

It’s hard to hate the place that got me full cultural and 3 special mystic forge weapons (so far); none of the legendaries suit my character(s). If you travel in a groups your more likely to enjoy it more, solo however is a royal pain. Still the second best place to make gold IMO, next to the infamous CoF P1 if you can tag enough risen to get them to drop loot.

After the changes to it, it’s rather easy. The only thing I’m kitten about is that every event seems to be broken right now.

At release, Orr was doable, but completely annoying. Then, they nerfed it, and it got a lot more tolerable. Once we got used to that, they ramped it up again with all the champ mobs running around in the DE’s. As a result, Orr is annoying again.

It’s entirely possible to make challenging, difficult, fun content without relying on cheap, lazy, annoying mechanics like stuns, snares, knockdowns, and absurd mob health pools. Perhaps someday…

Spiral Architect.6540:

At release, Orr was doable, but completely annoying. Then, they nerfed it, and it got a lot more tolerable. Once we got used to that, they ramped it up again with all the champ mobs running around in the DE’s. As a result, Orr is annoying again.

It’s entirely possible to make challenging, difficult, fun content without relying on cheap, lazy, annoying mechanics like stuns, snares, knockdowns, and absurd mob health pools. Perhaps someday…

Easy fix, add mooor risen chickens! Also, the zone is missing those big guys that explode…
Otherwise, it’s still really easy, maybe apart from trying to run glass cannons thru it.

Well… Orr consists of undead, undead, wasteland, and more undead. So yea, I’m pretty sick of Orr. I would like a new viable farming zone that actually has another theme to it. Just don’t create a new zone with nothing to do there cough Sunsouth cove cough.

The only thing that annoys me in Orr are those events that spawn Champion mobs because of the number of participants who lob an anchor at you for over 8k damage and then hit you again for over 8k or his roomies roll over you in less than a second while you’re immobilized for what feels like an eternity. Same with a Champion Spider reeling you in for 8k damage and then doing a bite for another 8k.

And this for a character with 2800+ armor and 20k health.

Right after the patch I was hit by an arcing shot for 24k. I was alive one moment, dead the next, and had to review the combat log to find out what happened. Haven’t encountered another one of those in the last week, just the usual annoyances of an Orr that has been returned to annoying in the last two patches.

The only ting I hate about Orr is the Loot DR that isn’t supposed to affect “normal players”

It is pretty drab but I love the new changes made to it. You SHOULD be cc’d and inconvenienced every few steps…you’re in Zhaitan’s back yard. What did you expect? Some small person at the door asking you silly questions then proclaiming it’s a horse of a different color and inviting you in? Holy crap, adjust your tactics if it gives you that many problems. Now I will admit some fo the events areimproperly labeled. they should be group events but they’re not, but those aren’t usually show-stoppers anyway. Other than overused scenery and such a drab appearance (It’s supposed to be a risen breeding ground so it should be nasty looking but too much is recycled, it needs a fresh look between zones) it’s an awesome zone, aside from DR being a monster there worse than any other zone. I get about 20-25 mins of good farming then I get hit with DR until dailies reset, then it repeats. Once they truly fix the drop rate problem for some people then it will be a stellar place to go hunt some squishy zombies.

Orr sucks, its a cluster kitten of mobs, i hate it, they could delete 50% of the mobs, and there would still be to many.

i just came back to the game a wekk ago. i’d previously been playing for the month after launch, and in that time i remember gettng to 80 and trying Orr. after a few days of it just being ridiculous i eventually stopped playing, it just put me right off everything.

i’ve come back now and i do love this game still, but i tried Orr again and it’s just terrible. granted it’s nowhere near as bad as it used to be, but the place is ugly and a chore to navigate and zombies zombies zommmbbiiieeeessss ugh

the fact that nobody seems to be quest there anymore means the events are even more of a chore, somehow. i dunno. it’s not my cup of tea. i’ll stick with the other, more pleasant zones.

I don’t mind Orr.