Guild Wars 2

Heres my suggestion:

Change orb buffs to be viable, but not overpowering, they should give you an advantage, but not in stats.

Each Orb should give a buff like this:
+33.3% Chance to get an Honor Token on Kill. (I’ve been pvping since the start, and I only have 200 tokens, I need 250 to get a piece of gear and i’ve already leveled 3 80s with full sets, honestly.)

-33.3% Repair Cost. (The side has an advantage if they are winning, NOT by stats, but the more orb buffs they have the less they have to pay to come back in the fight.)

This way, the orb buffs are STILL very viable, but they don’t give the players a HUGE advantage in a fight.

Out-manned Buff:
-15% Repair Costs.
-15% Siege Weapon Damage.
+150 to all stats.

With all 3 Orbs.
100% Chance to get an honor token on kill.
Repair costs are free.

This will make WvWvW alot more fun and balanced for the losing side, and STILL make orbs a viable asset to have.

So if you’re being dominated you also should pay more for repairs? Ha! Really? Just swap the buffs(Outmanned/Orbs).
The % to get a token is actually better than magic find, so yeah I like that idea, but it should be 33% with all, 11%/Orb(100% is too much). The same goes for repairs, 33% for 3 Orbs.

If its like that, nobody would bother getting the orbs, orbs have to give the team an huge advantage in some way. (JUST not make them kitteny stronger…)

Imo just switch the buffs. Also upping repair cost for the losing side is a terrible idea, although I like the increased BoH droprate idea.

Honor Tokens are HARD to get, making them a 100% drop rate per kill would not be overdone at all, if you kill 250 players you should get an exotic piece.

Outnumbered people need to not pay more repair costs. If anything they need to pay NO repair costs.

I agree that the orb buffs should give the winners vastly higher karma/honor token drops.

Basically you don’t want to discourage the losing team from coming out and you want to make the orbs desirable without making the team that has them way better than the team that doesn’t.

Exactly, but the thing about higher repair costs for losing side would encourage them to not just zerg the base and die over/over, they have a stat boost now so they are not as easy to kill.

Not many people realize how deep a 150 stat boost is.

I changed it though.

Wondering what people think of it.

Whatever they do, the Orb stuff needs to be changed. Giving a massive force multiplier to the team that is already winning and already has more players is horribly bad game design. Any game designer with even a modicum of experience knows that force multipliers for the winning team is pure fail and pretty much some of the worst game design you could even implement.

There’s a reason the entire design concept is universally reviled in the games industry.

I disagree on swapping the Outmanned/Orb buff. I do, however, agree on changing the orb buff.

I don’t think the outmanned buff should give supernatural strength just because you’re losing or outnumbered. It makes no strategic or logical sense.

Daecollo.9578:

If its like that, nobody would bother getting the orbs, orbs have to give the team an huge advantage in some way. (JUST not make them kitteny stronger…)

Who cares if Orbs become less important? How is that more important than making the game balanced and fun?

HellsMachine.4083:

Daecollo.9578:

If its like that, nobody would bother getting the orbs, orbs have to give the team an huge advantage in some way. (JUST not make them kitteny stronger…)

Who cares if Orbs become less important? How is that more important than making the game balanced and fun?

I’d argue that putting strategic importance in having orbs leads to a more strategic gameplay, which people find more fun than just straight up zergfest.

HellsMachine.4083:

Daecollo.9578:

If its like that, nobody would bother getting the orbs, orbs have to give the team an huge advantage in some way. (JUST not make them kitteny stronger…)

Who cares if Orbs become less important? How is that more important than making the game balanced and fun?

This. The Orb mechanic is terrible and makes for unfun and one sided matches. It’s not like this is an occasional occurrence either. Ever week’s match goes the same way… One server starts to dominate, grabs all the Orbs and then the match is a lockdown for the rest of the week. It’s boring and it’s not fun. The utility of the orbs does not outweigh having balanced (and thus actually fun) matches, not by any stretch of the imagination.

BAEK.8561:

I’d argue that putting strategic importance in having orbs leads to a more strategic gameplay, which people find more fun than just straight up zergfest.

I’d agree, except for the fact that that’s not what happens right now. The orbs are strategically important for a half a day to a day tops. After that the server with the most players is all but guaranteed to hold all three orbs, after which they contribute exactly zero strategic importance, because the already-lower population servers have no shot at recovering even a single orb from a server with vastly more players and all three orb buffs.

Right now as they stand, the orbs are actually making the gameplay less strategic, in that they only matter for a very short period of time, after which there’s no option except to zerg.

If orbs don’t have combat value, they just won’t be worth going after until you’ve already won. therefore, to make orbs a interesting objective, they must have enough of an effect on the battles to make them desirable. that’s why the orbs the way they are.

The Orbs having value is vastly less important than fun matches.

well the orbs can make matches more fun in an even match. and if a server is so much better then both of it’s opponents, then the orb buff is not going to make that much of a difference

Having orbs make repairs cheaper is giving them a combat value, just not … stat wise.