should of just put the orbs in a room with a long corridor underneath each castle with the only one way in and out and have legendary defenders lining the walls. Have some nasty beast holding the orb.
I do agree that making the winning team stronger was a bad idea, the orbs buff and the outmanned buff should of been switched around.
I understand why you’ll remove them, but on the other hand I’m sad to see one thing that is different from your every day capturing, zerging and sieging taken out of WvW.
It was fun trying to get the orb, attacking zergs that were transporting it, focusing a keep where an orb was installed and everything around this mechanic.
It could be better without the orbs, yes. But try to implement some things that make WvW more variable.
The only good thing about the orbs was that holding them generated a bonus for every map. While I like the idea of swapping the current outmanned bonus I think that the bonus should be something that applies to wvwvw but doesn’t give a direct advantage like the current orbs. Faster Yaks/more supply per yak would be my suggestion.
I agree that orbs give to much bonus to servers who already winning, but they did provide one more dimension of fight. Defending or attacking to get orb was fun. One of better moments in WvW was when we run wit orb and two other servers tried to stop us.
In my opinion, it is a good decision for the time being to remove the orbs completely and re-think the way of implementation for the future.
Many people are ignoring the fact that these orbs will be back once the required setup is completed and implemented to prevent these sort of hacking actions – it was driving many people crazy and de-motivating more than anything to fight for the orb to teeth and lose it in matter of minutes sometimes.
Point on decision, thank you.
Onurx – Elementalist – Affinity [BADS]
Sea of Sorrows
Can we expect to see something like Blizzard’s Warden system for catching the speed/fly hackers at some point?
The Orbs are certainly something that needs to return in a retooled form, but without hacking detection in place they will always be a source of drama.
I wonder if the solution to fighting hacking software would be something like an anti-virus – where the scanner checks for any of the latest softwares being used and confines it – this way you can simply update the anti-virus software signature database for latest hacks as opposed to constantly having to change the game itself.
IBM PC XT 4.77mhz w/turbo oc@ 8mhz 640kb windows 3.1 hayes 56k seagate 20 meg HD mda@720x350 pixels
Swap orbs passive stat bonus for a re-occurring point value like camps, towers, keeps and Stonemist. somewhere between 10 and 25.
Remove Keep lords invulnerability whilst the keep holds the orb.
Add new buff halfing the damage the keep lord takes whilst the keep hold the orb.
Make the alter untouchable until the keep lord dies.
Four simple steps, all the problems sorted. Orb hackers will no longer be able to swoop in and break the alter taking the orb because he’d have to kill the boss and orbs remain a high value target to capture, hold and defend.
These ideas have been suggested again and again and again, whats so wrong with them? You could of done this by now and would have no need to remove this feature of WvW.
Have you ever thought of making the orbs a stationary object held in each border lands garrison? who ever holds the garrison in that BL gets the orb buff? would favor the home team, while still being achievable for the other two.
I hope you are going to fix issues with the orb and really put it back.
I Consider Orb the most interesting thing in WvW and I’m extremely sad about it being removed. Without the orb there will be even more hit and run and nothing would really worth defending . WvW is going to be way more simple and switching to an undefended place to attack will be an easy choice that all will make… I think it will result in a way more straight forward hit and run mechanic of WvW which is quickly going to be boring.
Please work hard on the issues regarding orb exploit. Do not give up on it, it’s the best concept this game has.
I laugh at people thinking the orbs were the motivating factor for WvW. You know, the fact points means how many buffs your entire server gets. I guess people don’t want chances of critical crafting success, or chances to get more stuff off a gathering node.
Nope, its just the orbs man, the numbers. Its almost the equivalent of “peep my k/d bro”. Peep my orbs brah.
The issues surrounding server/client side information is worth reading up on people. It will be hard for Anet to counter hackers given the level of client side information that’s handled.
A warrior, a guardian, and an elementalist walk into an open field…
The Warrior turns to the guardian and says, “Did you hear something?”
Guardian replies, “No, but how’d the elementalist die?”
The Orbs Offer a point of important which drives the WvW content.
Just change the power levels on the orbs, as well as put a drawback to having to many orbs.
Your realm controls:
1 ORB: 5% increase to damage/healing
2 ORB: 10% increase to damage/healing, keep/tower walls/doors your team controls take 5% extra damage
3 ORB: 15% increase to damage/healing, keep/tower walls/doors your team controls take 10% extra damage
Out manned buff:
keep/tower walls/doors your team controls take %Less Damage
Siege Engines Deal % more damage and take % less damage
please don’t take away our ORBs, they bring so much value to the WvW lakes, and help push the battle and focus on some keeps over another. Making one team make a tough call as to what they really need to defend and focus.
Without Orbs… nothing will have value =(
They’re not taking them away permanently. The inclusion of orbs in the first place shows that they’re interested in having that extra layer of strategy. But the current system is just not very good in some ways (snowballing), and they need time to come up with a replacement.
Also whoever said points was worthless cause of nightcapping, here is something that may just blow your mind:
They can also nightcap the orbs. Enjoy fighting people with 15% more health and 150 to all stats cause they got the orbs with no resistance while you slept!
just swap the buffs for orb and outmaned. outmaned servers need the boost to keep fighting and that will give it to them. plus this way we still get the fun of going for orbs and hacking them wont matter as much.
But I’d like to ask about hacking in this game. Is it really difficult to fix known hacking or the staff is undermanned in WvW department? I am not a programmer so I have no idea of how complex the task is, but in this game it seems to be more frequent and “deadly” than in all other games I played so far. GW1 hacking was almost non-existent, and when detected fixed within 48hrs.
Unemployed people should not receive any social benefits if they are already working in an MMO.
I’m going to say this right now, DO NOT switch the outmanned buff with the orb bonus. That will make the orbs useless since no one will care for a small bonus to karma and such. They already have bonuses in the game by point scoring.
I’ll quote what i said in another topic:
To avoid the advantage it gives to teams that are already winning it might be more beneficial to give it a point value so lets say an extra +15 point gain but we could make it a bit more interesting by instead of being in keeps which don’t always transfer very often but inside towers which are much more plausible targets.
This should make the orb something that changes hands much more often due to it being in something that hasn’t got 2 walls and a tonne of siege guarding it. Since all the towers are within easy reach for another faction.
Make the orbs do something different but don’t give it a rewards bonus, that doesn’t add anything to WvW.
I love the idea of Orbs or something like them in WvW, but I agree with this temporary fix 100%. Thank you Anet for having the courage to pull them for now.
Nice work Anet and thank you for listening to the community.
I hope when everything gets sorted out that an orb type mechanic does come in, not with those stat bonuses but just something extra… maybe like more badges earned or some such thing, It just adds that little extra something to strive for on the borderlands.
Gamey Blog: Healing the Masses - with the soul of thine enemy
Eriena of JQ-warrior forever
Thank gorosh! I hope the new system is better than the last one. For now, I will just be super happy orbs are >gone<.
When you had all three it was like you were a tiny God and couldn’t die unless you did something really stupid. The reverse, well, that was like you were so much pond muck on those invaders boots.
Very good rationale for this change. It’s not because of people complaining about orb power, since that is not justifiable really, but instead because hackers were able to make too much impact on WvW by going after the orbs.
Remember they said they are bringing them back eventually. This is a good thing because they are a good mechanic. I think people will realize this once the orbs are gone and they are still getting owned by the same servers. Orbs help a bit to be sure but they are far from match determining like many people suggest and indeed even smaller forces with no orbs can overcome larger forces with orbs.
Rashanala – 80 Elementalist
Ehmry Bay – Legion of the Iron Hawk [Hawk]
From the bottom of my heart i’d like to thank you.
I can finally fight people without feeling bad when having orbs, i always felt that with them i never proved anything in fighting other people and winning. Glad to have an even playing field now that i dont have to worry about holding back
thanks anet!
- Tzenjin
Ehmry Bay – Good Fights Guild Leader
Lvl 80 Sylvari Guardian – Tzenjin [GF]
Lvl 80 Human Elementalist – Tzenkai [GF]
well done, just wish the match ups were better more consistently and we had some kind of additional motivation to w3, still entertaining to play it lots though of course.
Whether disabling the Orbs is the best thing to do or not, the fact you’re willing to make changes like this gives me hope. This is the ANet that willingly shut down online purchases of the game during launch in order to keep the servers from getting swamped and ruining launch week for those who were already in, possibly costing them customers. This is the ANet that really impresses me with how willing they are to make big changes and big sacrifices in order to improve the gameplay experience.
Going back on a design decision that was likely made early on in WvW development is tough, but you’re willing to do it. I was beginning to get a little disappointed with the lack of changes made to WvW to improve what, to many in the community, are obvious problems. But after showing us that you can make changes like this, I’m confident you’ll do whatever is necessary to give us the best gameplay experience possible. We just need to be patient.
Finally. Orbs were a horrible idea from the start. I could have told you a month back that orbs would “strengthen teams who are already winning and make it even more difficult for underdog teams to fight back” and how unneeded and counterproductive it was to week-long battles but I’m glad that it is becoming obvious now.
About time something was done about this particular issue. Now hackers will still have an impact (ie. killing siege) but not as game breaking as the orbs and giving over powered buffs to winning teams.
Great change. Possibly a little late, but still a great move. Hopefully we can get them back in the game with a more reasonable buff.
Obviously giving the winning team a combat buff was just silly. Maybe it’s as easy as just switching the outmanned buff with the orbs. Can’t wait to see some much needed WvW fixes.
I made another post about this called “Why Orbs of Power are a good thing” but I wanted to copy and post the text here in response to this move from the devs and wanted to see the community’s thoughts on it.
I see a lot of concerns regarding the orbs of power. I gave it some thought and I actually believe that they are a good thing to give stat bonuses and extra HP. Although I think the stat bonuses may be a bit high and maybe should have diminishing returns. (1 orb 5%, 2 orbs 7.5%, 3 orbs 10%).
The reason orbs are a good thing is because it gives the enemy team a reason to defend your map. Not all keeps are worth the same and if there was no significant bonus from an orb held on your enemies map, people wouldn’t care to port there to defend it. Right now, towers and camps are tradeable, keeps are a little more worthwhile but an orb keep is usually fully upgraded and defended. An orb on your home map in a fully fortified central garrison which is under serious attack? You bet that most people from the maps will come to defend it.
Imagine if all the orb gave you was a diminished repair bill cost? Would you really care if your enemy was coming to take it so that you could save 60c every time you died?
The orbs should grant a significant bonus to the team across all 4 maps so that it gives people incentive to defend keeps on other people’s BLs. Otherwise we’d all just focus on our own borderland and wait until its fully capped before occasionally meeting in EB.
In addition, think of the loss of this experience: taking the orb from the altar and running it back to your garrison, all in the meanwhile trying to defend the enemy from killing your orb carrier and resetting it/ stealing it. It’s one of my favorite moments in WvW when an orb is on the move and it just goes crazy trying to secure it. By removing the orbs of power, we will no longer have this experience available to us. I highly urge Anet to fix the altar problem and put them back in (maybe modified)
Spetrix l 80 Sylvari Thief l Yak’s Bend
Grawls Gone Wild (GGW)
you guys are awesome over at GW2 hq.
