Guild Wars 2

Orbs were the whole reason that Borderlands were balanced and players were forced to fight against the strongest server because orbs made them even stronger.

When you bring back orbs, they cannot be worth magic find or karma or any of the other crap that people have proposed as solutions because the whole point is for players to CARE about who has the orbs.

Orbs need to return and they need to be worth the same amount of stats as they were when they were removed.

The entire point was each server started with one and the strongest server would eventually get all or most of the orbs. If the other two sides did not stand up to the strongest server, they would be crushed by the cumulative stat boost. This also forces worlds to play on every borderland or sacrifice more than the “easy PPT” of full capping their borderland because that is only worth 1 orb.

With the return of orbs, SMC would need to be worth +50 PPT again in order to make EB a more dynamic map as well.

WvW has been unbalanced for months on end. They have been gone for so long, many players do not even remember orbs as they haven’t played when they existed. It is high time that they are returned as a lot of the community feel as though they have been swept under the rug.

Many people are feeling as though the patch was “lackluster” not because of no ascended gear or the fact that skill lag exists, but because WvW is still stagnant and sometimes boring because maps are not dynamic and objectives are linear meaning that, in a borderland, it is easier to move laterally than vertically in a map as it is designed to favor the home server so an invading server won’t want to attack north unless they are incentivized to do so through the existence of orbs.

The bottom line here is that, without orbs, WvW is broken and has been broken for a very long time. Orbs need to return and SMC needs to be worth a substantial amount of points to be the dynamic piece of EBG. Hitting the stronger side needs to be rewarding for the server that does it instead of just making for a higher repair bill than if they hit the weaker side. It needs to be a trade off. Hit the stronger server, work harder, get an orb and a keep, or hit the weaker server, get a keep, and still be weaker than the strongest server.

To me, it sounds as if orbs simply make the strong servers stronger. How would this bring balance to WvW? The incentive to move north are the towers and camps that lie north

Everyone know that orbs caused an huge imbalance since the dominant server can hold’em all and crush the oposition with the buffs… Still you want to bring’em back saying they are good for WvW…

Also, SMC actually worth much more than 35ppt if you actually use it to your advantage… You have 6 tower within SMC range that can be easily “trebbed” from the safety of the castle (and I won’t even count the overlook keep).

You want things like this to repeat?

The point is that they are supposed to make the strongest server stronger. Then, it forces the other 2 servers to fight against the strongest server, then pick new targets based on who has the orbs afterwards. If there was ever an incentive to fight for first based on who was strongest or you will be crushed for trying to take the “easy points” in the long run, this is it.

It is the entire reason for 3-faction PvP. You want no orbs? Then just have 2 servers play each other instead of 3.

While i might not agree wholly with this, i will say my server used to hold keeps on each borderland through the nights just to keep our orbs. Now during the nightshift we don’t bother with the hold at all costs, we just use keep defense as a delay tactic, to stop the enemy zerging elsewhere(this is due to always being massively outnumbered during the night). There isn’t any other major incentive to hold something in someone else’s borderland now(other than for bragging rights), as everything can easily be taken in the day when we have even numbers.

Jeknar, that screenshot represented impossible coverage. They had players with queues 24 hours a day on every map. There was nothing close that could even hope to compete with them. WvW has finally “stabilized” the best it is going to and orbs need to come back. It is a fallacy of false cause saying orbs were the reason that HoD crushed everyone.

I was under the impression that the main reason for the removal of orbs was the huge amount of hacking that occurred because of them.. Maybe I’m wrong, I didn’t join the game until just after they were removed, but I’ve heard stories from guildmates, but I think if this hacking was the reason they were removed there needs to be a new solution to make it impossible for them to be so easily stolen before they are added again.

I agree 100%. Orbs need to come back. It’s clear that the dominant team will get every orb in most borderlands, but this will create an incentive to attack the team in the borderlands as people won’t be playing solely for points but for orbs as well. Currently there’s nothing to gain in borderlands that people would defend for a long amount of time.

jamesigall.5938:

I was under the impression that the main reason for the removal of orbs was the huge amount of hacking that occurred because of them.. Maybe I’m wrong, I didn’t join the game until just after they were removed, but I’ve heard stories from guildmates, but I think if this hacking was the reason they were removed there needs to be a new solution to make it impossible for them to be so easily stolen before they are added again.

They could have just made the orbs tied to the keep, making it not removable unless the keep was captured. Yes, this would only be a band-aid fix and it would need to revert to grabbing the orb if you destroyed the altar once they solved the actual problem, but a WvW where orbs do not exist is much worse than a WvW where you have to capture the keep to move the orb.

Wouldn’t it be cool if the orbs would yield points, but give a negative buff? So the winning server would want them (for the points), but this makes them more vulnerable to the “lesser” servers..

Just an idea..

Tribio.8531:

Wouldn’t it be cool if the orbs would yield points, but give a negative buff? So the winning server would want them (for the points), but this makes them more vulnerable to the “lesser” servers..

Just an idea..

It has to be positive so every server wants them. If it is a negative buff, it makes people not care as much and be willing to sacrifice the orbs.

Make the orb add +500 to max supplies in a keep and the whole problem is solved. The whole stealing the orb and protect your orb carrier was great fun, I also want it back.

The main reason they were removed was due to hacking, secondary was the fact it did cause imbalances. If they could find a way to make it so that the keep in question had to be taken to retrieve the orb then it would solve the hacking issue to some degree, although that might require them to make a new tower/keep at the very north where the orbs start out so it is possible to take them/hold them there. They could more easily make a rework of the bonuses the orbs gave i think so the secondary problem wouldn’t be so bad as before.

So because a handful of people are hacking they are removing good fun of gameplay? I don’t think that was the main reason they got removed. Main reason was they made WvW unbalanced with the stats.

Magnetron.5823:

So because a handful of people are hacking they are removing good fun of gameplay? I don’t think that was the main reason they got removed. Main reason was they made WvW unbalanced with the stats.

It was a big part of it. I think Habib also had no idea what was going on in the actual game given that 5 months ago, there was still relative lack of stability in the tiers and that was largely due to coverage, not orbs. It was a case of servers literally not having people to fight back and not the fact that a server had stat bonuses.

An even better solution could be that you have to kill the keep lord and break the altar in order to get the orb.

Just as a reminder. This is what the devs said:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Orbs-will-be-removed-from-WvW-in-an-upcoming-build/first#post608170

I want to have the Orb back – but NOT under current circumstances that it can be bugged, flyhack-hijacked, etc pp…. that effected the teams in a very unfair and unpopular way, so that a lot of good players gave up wvw…

So first fix the bug – then reactivate Orbs

Nalexa Torch.1235:

I want to have the Orb back – but NOT under current circumstances that it can be bugged, flyhack-hijacked, etc pp…. that effected the teams in a very unfair and unpopular way, so that a lot of good players gave up wvw…

So first fix the bug – then reactivate Orbs

There are band-aid fixes they could use such as having to kill the lord first or having to capture the entire keep in order to remove the orb, in addition to destroying the altar. Altars should also be able to be repaired with supply to solve the problem of it being broken so an orb could not be placed there.

If they would give us orbs back they should grant some buff on the keep area itself that is holding it.
+100 points in all skills / +500supplies max / +hp walls and gates / more guards / +5level on each npc defending that keep etc… but these buff should affect only people in that keep like the guild buffs are doing.
Then orbs should allow the place holding it to be tougher to take.

You guys dont understand that servers were beyond unbalanced back when orbs were in play. By re-introducing them now where tiers are stable and servers are pretty evenly matched against each other in most servers is fine.

You could even make it so that the stat bonuses for each orb are different, with the strongest being on the Green BL to convince people to fight in green territory.

Ok, my two cents:

Ideas for anti-hacking of Orbs, simple things that can be done. Orbs are teleported back directly from players hands to the original place if: player is above ground more than game allows it for player to be. Same thing should happen when speed is more than 50% ( which i believe is the top speed for players ) and some other mechanisms that will directly hurt any kind of hacking. Hire me, i will deal with them, i dare you!

Controlling all the 3 ords , doesnt award points , but instead give access to ur server , for the <<secret>> dungeons they mention at the start of the game :P

The orbs were removed because back when the orbs existed, the majority of the community wanted it gone.

Now it’s gone, everyone wants it back.

Orbs must be back in a revisited manner. Remove buffs and add points and maybe wxp. Even there were a only 5pts for orbs that would be ok.

DAOC Darkness falls-like access :p well good idea !

The Orbs were removed because flying teleport hackers would come in and steal them and there was nothing any legit player could do about it. From the amount of hacking I see going on on a daily basis right now, I think it would basically ruin WvW like it was doing before the Orbs were removed, if not worse.

What you are saying is from a T1 perspective. The lower tiers all still have massive population coverage imbalances. In T3 DB is “night” capping our opponents and taking all their keeps. Your idea to bring the orbs back as they were would just make the hill our opponents have to climb even steeper. If anything Anet made a mistake at the beginning with outmanned and the orbs. Outmanned should have given the stat buff and the orbs should have been mf%/karma buffs.

rhodoc.2381:

Orbs must be back in a revisited manner. Remove buffs and add points and maybe wxp. Even there were a only 5pts for orbs that would be ok.

People need to WANT the orbs though. Having them be worth 5 can be written off as just needing to capture more supply camps. SM also needs to be worth 50 so people focus the server who owns it. They need to be necessities, not options. The same way you need your keep on a borderland, you should need to get the orb.

eithinan.9841:

What you are saying is from a T1 perspective. The lower tiers all still have massive population coverage imbalances. In T3 DB is “night” capping our opponents and taking all their keeps. Your idea to bring the orbs back as they were would just make the hill our opponents have to climb even steeper. If anything Anet made a mistake at the beginning with outmanned and the orbs. Outmanned should have given the stat buff and the orbs should have been mf%/karma buffs.

Orbs would have no point then. They are designed for balance. Who cares if it gives mf? No one is going to fight over that. Orbs need to mean something.

i still see speed hackers and terrain hackers to this day

Orbs will not work in previous form because these guys will just get them and laugh as they did when they moved them before

Make it so SM has a hidden dungeon to those who own it! Like Aion did for capturing Forts! >.>

Adun.3254:

Make it so SM has a hidden dungeon to those who own it! Like Aion did for capturing Forts! >.>

Hall of Heroes was the multi-national tournament PvP from GW1 where the region who held the “gods’ favor” (won) got access to a special dungeon where you could get ectos and other expensive items/mats. The same thing could be implemented, but then you may see server stacking again and PvE players leaving their communities for dead in order to go to dominant WvW servers. Of course, it could also give PvX guilds the incentive needed to play, but it seems as though that would only be on EB.

Also, hacking is a terrible excuse for not bringing them back. They can change the mechanics to prevent that and alternate ways of taking an orb to prevent hackers exploiting it are mentioned in this thread.

I personally don’t miss orbs at the moment there’s much chatter about imbalance in tiers regarding population and coverage blobbing etc, throw orbs back in to the mix and it will upset the situation further.

Dragonbrand appears to be very even with their competition, night capping or not. Also, orbs would actually help the 3rd place server more than anyone else because it would force the 2nd place and 3rd place servers to fight the 1st place server in order to overcome the odds. This is something that should happen now, but very often doesn’t because people take pride in being 2nd, for some reason, instead of trying to win.

Most of the matches look okay to me.

http://mos.millenium.org/matchups#NA

Esoteric.5490:

eithinan.9841:

What you are saying is from a T1 perspective. The lower tiers all still have massive population coverage imbalances. In T3 DB is “night” capping our opponents and taking all their keeps. Your idea to bring the orbs back as they were would just make the hill our opponents have to climb even steeper. If anything Anet made a mistake at the beginning with outmanned and the orbs. Outmanned should have given the stat buff and the orbs should have been mf%/karma buffs.

Orbs would have no point then. They are designed for balance. Who cares if it gives mf? No one is going to fight over that. Orbs need to mean something.

This is exactly what orbs destroyed. How does placing an objective which boosts player stats into a CTF style meta game balance things when there are already unbalanced populations.

You also make an argument about how balanced T3 is based off of monday morning mos rankings of a brand new matchup. Does Mags have the after NA peak coverage to really make this a good match? we’ll have to see. But I still say that your perspective is skewed by T1 coverage and not taking into account the situation in any other tier.

When you hold the orb in a keep you gain 1% of your points on that map per tally.
When you hold an orb, SM is worth 10 addition points.
When you hold all three, SM is worth double the points.

I don’t understand why it gave a damage buff in the first place. WVW is about holding structures and gaining points to win. If the battlegrounds are that close, having a 3% boost to that per tally is significant.

It also brings in decision making by commanders to defend the orb or allow other groups to capture lesser towers. Especially if you hold SM on eternal. It means that you need to pay attention to OTHER map when defending or attacking for the orb.

I’m not going to comment on the hacking, as its an obvious thing that needs to be fixed, however I think anet are on top of that now.

What about removing waypoints (keeps and castle upgrade, war camps) from WvWvW and replacing them by spawnpoints (usable only if you’re dead and onlys in war camps) in order to reduce the effectivity of one single big blob to cover the whole map ?

Then, orbs could be used as an extra spawnpoint for its owners.

Esoteric.5490:

orbs would actually help the 3rd place server more than anyone else because it would force the 2nd place and 3rd place servers to fight the 1st place server in order to overcome the odds. This is something that should happen now, but very often doesn’t because people take pride in being 2nd, for some reason, instead of trying to win.

You’ve mentioned this twice and I just don’t see how orbs would force anything.

In fact, if the 1st place server had all the orbs, that would be even more motivation for 2nd&3rd to focus on each other instead of trying to tackle the first place server’s buffed players.

I would not mind having the Orbs with magic find buff or even lower repair costs.
It would not hurt the balance of WvW but would add something to fight for, and would cause it to be much more fun atleast for me.

I think your missing one key point. A-net can not control how a server plays. If they bring orbs back this idea that It would make the weaker servers go after the strongest can also go the other way. The server controlling the orbs can still gang up on another server but with an added power now with the orbs. Ultimately it’s the players who decide how to play and no added feature will change the way people want to play.

Mike.3742:

Ultimately it’s the players who decide how to play and no added feature will change the way people want to play.

Disagree. Given the right incentive, players would change Priorities. People do wvw to be the best and hold everything, gaining the most points. Give points based on orbs would give orbs importance. You would dedicate most of your defence to keep it for a point tally if it meant you jumped up a place

The stat bonuses orbs gave were ridiculous (especially in situations where 1 server had 2+ of them).

The ease with which they could be hacked was ridiculous (and, in the situation described above, some people might have justified doing so on account of those ludicrous stat bonuses they had to fight against).

So then, I can only describe the idea of bringing them back in their original form as…ridiculous.

Orb should not be in the game; at least until some bugs and hacks addressed correctly.

If orb is implemented to the game, it should not give more power to a team who hold it. But make it something else (point, mf, karma, exp, reduced siege cost, reduced repair cost, etc).

I remember the days of the orbs reset was a 3 way push to north camp to take orb then form a blob the whole way to escort it to bay or hills. the remainder of the time it encouraged servers to stay blobbed and focused on the orb and not the remainder of objectives.

Right now there are a majority who are calling for Anet to find a solution to encourage servers to distribute their manpower and break up zergs the return of orbs will only encourage stacking further.

Orbs are not back for a reason either there is no easy solution to prevent exploiting them or bringing them back could cause further issues down the line with tier imbalance etc.

Personally i do not support any mechanic that can boost the fighting capacity and further reward an overwhelmingly strong server in a matchup as currently we have servers locked in tiers with a single dominating server that can’t move up and ones that can’t go down orbs in this situation will just rub salt into the wound. Orbs are the least of the communities worries right now.

How about having the orbs to increase the ppt by a %? If you want to win you would have to fight for the orbs, or take control over most of enemy bases…

Orbs cannot give magic find if they are meant to be successful. How many times do I have to say that worthless kitten like that on an orb is nothing that players would seriously try to get. Orbs being worth stats would FORCE players to take them into their strategy for both defense and offense. You would put more effort to defend a keep in an enemy borderlands if it had an orb, you would also have to make choices between hitting the stronger server for maximum point gain or hit the orb belonging to the 3rd server and take it for yourself while the stronger server lives.

I don’t get how people connect the stat bonuses to being “overwhelming”. They were significant, yes, but people had no idea what they were doing when orbs still existed and those that did were members of huge alliances like HoD who simply had more coverage than any other server by a long shot. WvW has stabilized and needs to have its intended objectives back.

And GrandmaFunk, the whole point of orbs is so that the keep with the orb will be prioritized. It dynamically moves the objective and creates a cause for pressure across multiple maps. Can you explain to me why, if a server has limited manpower, they would ever venture out of their home borderland? Well now, they would have to. It becomes far more about strategy and, sure, there would be population imbalances that existed anyway. Maybe on servers that fail to adapt to the meta, those population “imbalances” would mean you’d get crushed, but then you would learn and decide how not to get crushed. Or, you could always fight for the scraps with the 2nd place server and play like dogs, your choice.

I’m not from the #1 server in my tier and I don’t care if the first place server had all the orbs, it would force 2nd and 3rd to both try and get them back. Without a significant stat or ppt bonus from the orbs, they might as well leave them out of the game because mf, karma, or cheap armor repairs are worthless. Orbs need to be something that servers HAVE to fight over or they will be crushed by the server with the most. Now that server that picks on 3rd for all its points will have to hit the 1st place server for the orbs. The orbs would help the 1st place server handle the strategic 2v1 that it experiences, but it would also make sure that 2nd and 3rd stop picking on each other or 1st place will wield the power to crush both of them. So, yes, if you play really stupid, you will get +710’d by a server with all 3 orbs because of a fundamental lack of understanding in game theory, but that would tend to happen anyway if you can’t figure out the fastest way to first is by hitting whoever is in first most of the time.

Orbs make the game balanced because they are a wash if every server has their orb and they provide a passive boost for the strongest server while they get 2v1’d in order to take their majority orbs. It makes a server attack who has the most orbs instead of always who is the easiest points and they have to make a TRADE OFF if they don’t go for the orb. You can sit here all day and theorize why I’m wrong, but the fact is, I’m not. Orbs would be played for heavily by anyone who had a clue and it would actually make the borderlands balanced since the ENTIRE CONCEPT of a borderland was designed around ORB PLAY.

You are intentionally ignoring the fact that orbs that give combat related stats are, by their nature, unbalancing. In reality, they make the already stronger server in a 3 way battle even more powerful. We already saw how that played out before their removal.

The more you post about this, esoteric, the more this thread seems to be qq about the 3rd place server in your tier not attacking the first place server enough for your liking.

“Orbs need to be something that servers HAVE to fight over or they will be crushed by the server with the most.” this is the definition of T1 mentality I mentioned earlier. Take another look at http://mos.millenium.org/matchups#NA that you pointed out to me earlier today. look at t3 and below. Tell me how the orbs as they were wouldn’t be held by the point leaders in each tier because of the unbalanced populations. WvW and the tier setup is a numbers game. Putting objectives in that can be captured will go to who has the most numbers and coverage. If this objective has combat related buffs it makes it harder if not impossible to capture.

It isn’t QQ. My server has been 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in a tier plenty of times. Orbs are needed to make WvW balanced. 2nd and 3rd are supposed to hit 1st. That is the literal definition of 3 faction PvP.

Go play Planetside 2 where you can actually lose all your territory and the game won’t care. Do you think those players prioritize the one who has the most territory or do they kill off the 3rd place faction so they are the only ones left to fight against #1? Why would you want a meta in the game where it encourages you to target the weak because there is nothing to get from targeting the strong?

Seriously, think for a second what you are saying. Maybe, just maybe, tiers are maybe unbalanced because servers just take the easy points all of the time? Maybe this has something to do with the fact there is NO incentive to EVER hit a keep of the stronger server when you can just go hit the weaker server instead. This isn’t about what tier I’m in, that I could care less about. If I was in Tier 8 I would want orbs. Orbs bring balance and stats being added to them literally force players to play 3-faction PvP the way it is intended or they get crushed as well. Orbs can also be strategically captured by the server with less coverage in order to overcome the numbers of the stronger server. Orbs can reward strategic play and targeting to get an advantage even with less population. Did you ever consider that? If they even have 2 orbs, that is an advantage they can use to edge out against the strongest server. It creates dynamic play where orbs can put any server that isn’t first in the driver’s seat and it can make any 1st place server better equipped to fight the 2v1 that should be coming their way since they are in first and, assumedly, hold the most orbs. This isn’t about me, my guild, my server, or my tier, this is about WvW as a whole, and it is fundamentally broken in its current state without orbs.

I do not even think that switching the stats instead for PPT would be effective because then it can be a trade off and can be sacrificed. If orbs were worth 5 or 10 PPT, a server could just resolve to capture more camps instead of actually attacking the server with the orb. Stats are tangible, but they cannot be made up for through any style of play other than owning at least 1 orb yourself. The same way you are limited strategically if you don’t own SMC in EB, you should be limited if you do not have an orb until you capture it. Orbs, to start, go to each server, so it begins balanced. You get to have it in Garrison, the most defensively designed keep in the game. Orbs are supposed to be BIG objectives and THAT is why they gave such huge stats. If every server has an orb, then it is free game. If one server has more than one orb, then that server should be focused. The orbs are the critical element to balancing 3-faction PvP the way ANet has designed it. The only way that orbs coming back would be broken is if the servers in the tier couldn’t figure out how to play a meta with them in it.

To be crystal clear: ORBS ARE SUPPOSED TO GIVE STATS SO IT BECOMES “UNBALANCED” IF ONE SERVER OWNS MORE THAN ONE. That is why it balances the game because it forces the other two to attack the one with more orbs. This is TYPICALLY the strongest server. If a weaker server has the orbs, it puts them in prime position to push for first, which can be accomplished by pushing against the stronger server to capture them, then using them to leverage a comeback.

This phenomena is also known as dynamic objectives and strategy. The 2nd place server in a tier may let the 3rd place server have 2 orbs or set it up so that the 3rd place server can get them so they can weaken the 1st place server. There are so many ways this could play out in game and it is a million time more interesting than the WvW we are playing now.

A. fly hacking has never been dealt with so robs would just be hacked back and forth again as they were before, so no thanks.
B. If you think orbs ever brought balance then you have clearly forgotten how bad matches were when we had them.