Guild Wars 2

I enjoy a decent battle. I like a good challenge. I love PvP and what WvW could be. But I have a really big problem, and the clue is in the title. Orbs of Power.

Games in WvW are now turning on which team secures the orbs in the early hours after the server resets. Personally I am not able to play at these hours. The likelihood of a third orb being captured once two are owned is increased. This is the “escalating” power that people are complaining about elsewhere on the WvW forum. Once three orbs are owned, it is extremely difficult for the other teams to re-balance the difficulty level in their favour.

Let’s think about what it would take to re-balance a three-orb in one world match, a common occurrence. It would require a lot of players joining both the weakened teams, for starters. This is a difficult hurdle to pass at stage one, since people may look at the WvW screen and see that their server is at a vast disadvantage, and prefer not to play. On the flipside, if players see their world owns two or three orbs that is, I would suggest, encouragement to most people to join the match and further improve the power of the orb holding team.

Assuming we have the unlikely scenario where there are equal numbers on each of the three teams, what would we need to do to get the orbs back in balance, or even shift the balance to a different team? We would need a boost in morale, and a coordinated effort, possibly involving the two weak teams collaborating … somehow … and enforcing some kind of siege scenario to prevent the strongest team from repairing any damage that is done to it’s orb locations’ defences. This is a frighteningly difficult prospect, even for the best of teams. With a 15% health boost and +150 to all stats, the orb-controlling team is so totally overpowered it is ridiculous.

And remember, most of the time there will be fewer players on the losing sides. So in short, orbs are ruining WvW for me, and many others. Get rid of them please, ArenaNet. Let us use tactics to break through defences, and not have to rely on what our fellow server players did or did not do at some unearthly hour in the morning (or earlier on in the week if it shifts to weekly resets) when the orbs were first secured.

If they are destined to remain, please change their effect – reduce it at least, or even better, turn it into something less combat oriented and more defensive, such as players can carry a few more supplies, or defensive structures for that team become tougher. We could then compete on a level playing field when it comes to fighting other players face on, and it would keep a sense of achievement around stealing an orb. It would make an assault more challenging for a non-orb holding team, but would not make it depressing as it is currently when even a large number of players gets wiped by the orb-wielding folks who don’t have to try very hard to maintain their position.

Another thought just occurred to me – perhaps have the orbs reset every hour? Or every 2 hours? Just please, do something about it. I’ve been on teams where we have had all three and it’s great running around the place being able to kill two people at once when you are all alone. I then shed a tear for the dead, who have to pay out for the repair bills who inevitably give up on WvW for a while. But I’ve more often been on the non-orb-holding team and it’s not fun at all. It’s not how I would define good PvP. It’s imbalanced, and it must change.

Ruith Seimh

I agree that gaining orbs fast gives one team an advantage.

There is a counter, though. The teams without the orbs focus only on hitting the team with orbs. This has been going on in my server’s matchups and it seems to work very well to stop one team from hoarding the orbs. This alliance will offset and overcome the orb advantage until the playing field is level again.

The idea is when one server gets all the orbs, other two servers attack that server

Do nothing about this lmao

Recently, my server rushed all the orbs, had all 3, grabbed some buildings near them, but then practically everything else on the map got taken by enemies lol. So yeah, we had the orbs, but we were pretty much stuck in small areas around the orbs afterwards. They’re not overpowered, I don’t think.

Neither of those strategies really work tho. One side in our match up has had the orbs 24/7 since 30m after reset and 80-90% of the map to boot. They have been under attack from both other servers, there’s just nothing we can do against a foe who is inherently 15-25% stronger then us and already entrenched.

It is my belief the orb mechanic only further advances the dominant side. The WvW team should take a look at the amount of time the dominant side has held the orbs vs the sides that are not dominant.

To me this is like fighting someone who always out gears you.

How would I change it? For every orb your side doesn’t own your side has %33 reduced repair bill. Since you’re probably out matched this would make it less painful. Even if one side gives up the orbs you get the stat bonus so it works out all around.

I like the orbs.
They add an objective and sure, gives a huge advantage. that’s why you should fight to gain them and defend them.

Sure they can be ninjad in the middle of the night and every day when you get home might be one big battle to retake your orb from an over-protected keep but that’s WvW.
If you remove the orbs then what do you have?

DO NOT REMOVE ORBS.

Then you have an even fight over a keep to gain control of the map instead of a slaughter.

My problem with orbs is that they give the controlling team an actual advantage in combat. Which means, that it gives the winners MORE power, making it even harder for the losing servers to win.

And in WvW, one or two servers are almost always at a significant population disadvantage, so when the winning server not only has twice as many people as you do, but those people also have major buffs from the orb…it makes it nigh impossible to compete. I think this isn’t the best mechanic to have.

Instead, I would recommend that orbs do give good bonuses, but those bonuses should NOT help you in combat. They should be things that affect your whole realm, PvE and WvW, for example: Exp bonus, gathering bonus, karma bonus, influence bonus, gathering bonus, etc. etc.

So the server would WANT to hold them for the bonuses, but they aren’t going to be any tougher in combat. In fact, I would suggest the following to make the orbs more interesting…

If a server holds more than one orb they will get pretty major bonuses, like maybe if 1 orb gives a 2% exp bonus, then holding all three gives a 10% bonus. HOWEVER, holding more than one orb would incur WvW combat penalties on that server. Like maybe -10% hp for holding all three.

This would make it hard to hold all three, but it would be something really desired. And it would be a fun game of how long can we hold the orbs?

You should not be able to ‘capture’ your own orb, it should remain at its minimally fortified location for the other 2 servers to fight over and for your server to retrieve.