Guild Wars 2

Suggestion for a simple fix to the orb/outmanned buff in the confines of the current system.

1. Move the orb to the garrisons and make it a permanent, non-removable fixture. You can easily do this by making the orb spawn in the garrison, and altar perma invul. Whoever owns the garrison, gains the orb buff.

2. Make it so the orb, if owned by the home team of that BL, gives everyone WvW-wide 5% stats and HP. Enemy teams who own the garrison and orb get a WvW-wide PVE buff (basically 1/2 of the current outmanned buff).

So if you hold all 3 garrisons you will at best have a WvW-wide 5% hp/stats buff and the current Outmanned PVE buff.

3. Make the new outmanned buff give a local map only 5% boost to stats/hp.
Also make a new buff for teams who have less than 150 PPT gain a buff that increase the supply they can carry by +5. It might also help to make supply camps owned by these teams generate supply every 15 seconds instead of every 30.

All of this has incentives to keep your own garrison, incentives to deny your enemies their own garrison, stops hackers from meddling with the orb, should give a boost to people on outmanned maps, and give a boost to teams getting their butts kicked in ppt by helping them build siege.

Turn the outmanned buff into orb buff…

Deeply troubling…. Half baked, partial measures shouldn’t take eight weeks to announce. If you believe this is a flawed design, double shame on you for your inability to maintain a clear design perspective.

This is tantamount to Bank of America saying,” Thieves continue to persist in attempting to illegally steal money from our banks, so we are removing all paper money from our retail stores and ATM’s until we rethink it’s value. – Hope this doesn’t affect your desire to keep banking with us. “

You are falling down in supporting WvW, the centerpiece of your product. Even anecdotal evidence shows the steep drop off in participation week over week.

If you need more reasons to wvw than what there already are then you are missing the point. This won’t change anything for true players and guilds that want to compete. It will simply fix huge issues with balance and hacking. I love the orb idea, as long as it is working. The boons given for having the orbs were much too strong for an already dominating team. I would support this change even if it was only done to stop the hackers though. Hours of team work wasted to see some kitten fly away with it. That alone makes this change worth it. Good job ANet.

mortisha.6341:

<snip>
This is tantamount to Bank of America saying,” Thieves continue to persist in attempting to illegally steal money from our banks, so we are removing all paper money from our retail stores and ATM’s until we rethink it’s value. – Hope this doesn’t affect your desire to keep banking with us. “
<snip>

No it is not like that.
It’s like ANet admitting they’ve messed up with orbs and can’t fix it fast enough, so instead they remove the orbs to avoid jerks exploiting the orbs to grief legit players.

Nothing more to it than that – they finally took some action to address a serious issue for many. Disagree with the action, fine, but it’s better to quickfix faster than to avoid the issue driving people away while trying to fix permanently.

Ninein.4782:

How about adjusting the orb mechanic where if a team controls 2 of the 3 orbs, a lucrative dungeon portal is open for the team that controls it. This will attract the PvE crowd to jump into WvW and it will also force the winning team to decide whether to field numbers to defend the orbs or farm the lucrative dungeon before it closes off.

This mechanic is like Darkness Falls in DAOC and I think it did wonders for motivating PvE and PvP people to partake in RvR.

One interesting facet of the keep taking in Daoc (and opening Darkness Falls) was that when that realm opened DF some of the population in the frontiers left so they could go to DF, making a little easier for the other realms to take it back. Perhaps a similar distraction would be welcomed in GW2 as a way to thin a particularly strong server from dominating the match? Although Daoc didn’t have a player limit for their frontiers compared to WvW, so I’m not sure how much a dent opening a DF type area would be on the “dominating” servers population if they have a sizable queue.

If you are seriously bellyaching about this temporary fix you either enjoyed the overpowered boons or are one of the people who loves flying around with an orb.

While I think you should have done it sooner, I am glad to see that you are taking steps. Please get them fixed asap and get them back in the game. Orbs shouldn’t change hands so often and easily. Make them more like relics in DAOC.

i see a lot of people crying about this change……. Good job Anet orbs where a win more input, yes they where fun to cap and defend but the broken code and hackers just caused to much annoyance with orbs. like the stupid orb protectors that would spawn and attack the alter and npc’s was just bugged, then people swipeing orbs without taking keep or garision was the cheepest and most dishonest way to gain advantage which almost unanimously is disapproved of by the community.

people don’t see the silver lining we are getting a change later down the road with some type of new orb type objective, at the same time simplifing the game design dealing with bugs and explots in a timely manner. Yes orb explots ruin a ton of peoples time playing WvW, i am sure it was the number one gripe about the current WvW, hacking/exploiting the orb bonus was most dishonest way to gain advantage which is almost unanimously disapproved of by the community. I know my server YB would let the other server take it back if we saw someone on our server exploting the orb, because it brings no honor or pride to your server by doing it, you just make all of us look bad.

+1 Anet way to keep things improving , don’t listen to the haters they will still go after keeps and garrison without there precious orb bonuses. you fixed my major issue i had with having a good time on WvW without some script kiddy ruining the fun by giving unearned bonuses to entire servers mine or theirs. i want an even fight not a win more bonus that is exploited on almost every tier of WvW play.

Was about time. Thank you. It was just insane if you had 3 orbs.

Please give this buff to out manned.

Thanks

Neat. It’s a good kind of idea. People making a quick strike into the heart of enemy territory and trying to plow through way back through enemy forces to a recently seized keep. Fun. Except it didn’t work that way most of the time.

I second the notion that all that needed to be done was swap the buffs: Orb for Outmanned and vice verse.

Amins.3710:

I second the notion that all that needed to be done was swap the buffs: Orb for Outmanned and vice verse.

Except they already said its not that easy. Hence, quick and -temporary- removal. Why complain when they say they will bring it back or something better?

I hope this isn’t as temporary as the yak escorting rewards removal..which I remember was also temporary…

Removing orbs from wvwvw is for the best. If they simply swap the bonus with the unmanned buff and orb buffs, the orbs will still be stolen by cheats because movement is all handled by the client without server checks apparently. Secondly, extra magic find and gold find buffs would draw more bots to wvwvw. Do you really want more bots clogging up queues?

I think this is the right choice. I wouldn’t be against them re-introducing the orbs in the future when they can figure out how to stop hackers. But even if they did they would need to drastically reduce the buff. Agree with others that the current unmanned buff would be more appropriate for the orb since it doesn’t affect wvw at all.

Agree with the decision.

However both I and many of my guildmates are tinged with disappointment as Orb capture/defence added complexity and provided some of our most memorable WvW moments.

One happened just this week where we had a three way scrum for the orb and portal bombs were going off all over the place yet in the end, it was one guy who picked it up and unbeknown to the majority calmly walked it back to our keep before annoucning it on TeamSpeak..

We need more epic moments like this not just banging on doors. Thank you.

This is a good change, I look forward to what you come up with to replace it.

Took you guys long enough to figure out you FAILED with this.

I guess its a start, tho not enough to come back to GW2.
As a pure WvW guild / players we all stopped by now, there are so manny things wrong in WvW.

But its a start in the right direction, keep add it and you might actully win a good amount of WvW players / Guilds back to the game.

Orb hacking is a mechanical/design issue and that is what ANet should have worked toward resolving. Taking away a tangible prize tied into realm pride is generally not a good idea.

Like others, I’m disappointed that the orb buffs aren’t simply being swapped with Outmanned.

If i read correctly Anet said they where looking into adding an Orb like mechanic in the future so I don’t understand why people are complaining about the BL maps being useless forever. As For keeps they are still strategically valuable for keeping other servers controlled in their spawn are. I’m glad that Anet removed the orb I’m exited to see how this will effect the upcoming WvW match ups.

While I applaud the action, I hope it’s only temporary. The orbs add a dimension to WvW that will be missing without them. True, the current bonuses are way too overpowering IMO, but there should be some bonus for capturing the orbs. Several have suggested an exp/magic/karma boost – that would be a great idea I think!

I’m going to be sorry to see the orbs go. The buffs were overpowered sure, but they were necessary to bring one of my very favorite mechanics to WvW. My very favorite moment in WvW was attacking a keep, realizing that you didn’t have the numbers to actually take it, so focusing on the alter instead. Followed by a mad cap run across the map with the forces from both teams chasing you while you make off with the orb. The orb being any less valuable would make moments like that impossible…

I still like my idea to change the orbs into double edged swords. If the orb ate supply for example, then to keep the orb you might need to hold onto the supply camps or two keeps on a map and move it between them every so often. If you don’t then your keep run out of supply and will become more vulnerable to being siege and the orb resets. Then you could have ambushes set up to capture the orb from a server that is about to move it or alliances could see servers sharing the orb between them rather than see it reset to the third, and other tactics like that.

Obviously only after the hacking is fixed though.

I do wonder tho….

Did Anet really come to the conclusion that Orbs are a SILLY thing or atleast the current bonus it gives. ( more exp / karma / money would make more sense as orb buff )

ORRRR

Cant they stop all the (orb) hacking and decided to go for the easy fix and remove the orbs :S

Kuldebar.1897:

Orb hacking is a mechanical/design issue and that is what ANet should have worked toward resolving. Taking away a tangible prize tied into realm pride is generally not a good idea.

And removing them while working towards resolving it is sensible. Letting them stay to cause more grief until resolved is definitely not sensible.

Thank you very much, finally.

Taedirk.9145:

Like others, I’m disappointed that the orb buffs aren’t simply being swapped with Outmanned.

Give the hackers plus gold and magic find to their many bots?
Not the best solution in the world either.

Small adjustment for the greater Good.

Would of been nice to just have reductions but i guess that’s fine.

It would be no surprise to me that the orb hackers were doing it to cause people to leave WVW and get the outmanned buff – so their bots in wvw could farm more gold. I’m totally serious. They do anything they can to make more gold per hour.

Good decision to remove them due to their vulnerability to hacks. I’m not a big fan of the bonus to begin with but it’s that much more of a problem due to the cheating.

If you did bring it back I’d like to see a twist on what some have previously suggested. I agree that the effect needs to be tied with holding something permanently but I would suggest making it a tower/keep where the orb currently starts. It’s the hardest spot to hold for the other servers so it would mean consistent effort by servers to maintain a 3-0-0 advantage. Maybe flip garrison and current northern supply camp.

Good thinking there Anet!!

Great move.

Also I can’t really support a change to give the orbs a substantial non-combat bonus. All that would do is cause the people who are concerned with actually winning the matchup, which is most of the Commanders, to be in a constant struggle with the people just out there to farm karma/experience/etc, who will spam attacks on orb areas and ignore commands that actually benefit the server’s overall score.

IMO if the orbs are re-implemented they should simply affect PPT. Either a raw base value for each orb owned, or a small multiplier applied to the PPT gained on other maps (if it was same map it’d have the same rich get richer effect since the strongest on a given map tends to own the orb anyhow).

I’m a bit torn…

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 take 5% extra damage
3 ORB: 15% increase to damage/healing, keep/tower walls/doors take 10% extra damage

Out manned buff:
keep/tower walls/doors 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 =(

I don’t like this change. It’s the wrong way to fix a problem. I am worried about how this will change WvW in a negative way. Entire strategies are often built around the progression of conquest with the taking of an orb being the primary goal. I believe this will make WvW less strategic, less interesting, reallly.

I agree there is definitely a problem. It bothers me that this is the best possible solution.

I like orbs. Anet should:

1. Add orbs back in as-is when they fix the hack-ability of the mechanics.

2. Take a look at other ways to help the losing team make a comeback, probably related to supply, supply decay, and nerfing large supply pools of the winning team. This would have a more direct impact than raw stats of individual players.

Honestly the largest impediment to getting a foothold and making a comeback is the fact that every tower and keep is fully upgraded, the upgrades never decay, and has kittenloads of siege (or tons of supply with which to spam kittenloads of siege).

Fix the pooling and stacking of supply, and the losing team has a much larger window of opportunity.

To those who made suggestions. Keep in mind that leaving the orbs around as you play around trying to fix them is only going to upset people.

Some of the ideas might have worked, but its hard to say what repercussions they might have had.

By removing the orbs, the devs end an exploit. It gives weaker teams a better chance. And it lets the devs play with different ideas on the in-house server without mucking up the live game.

About time.

Don’t bring them back as a movable object. I recommend redesigning the center of the map where all 3 servers fight to control the orb. Make it capturable like a tower or a keep and also very difficult to defend.

removing the orbs was the best thing to do

Well done and as an immediate solution tis a good thing.

Longer term, simply swap orb and outmanned buff.

1 orb = 15% karma, magic find, experience buff
Outmanned 3:2= 1 current orb buff, 2:1 = 2 orbs, 5:2 or more = 3 orbs.

Voila. Two dead birds one orb (or stone).

That’s really too bad, honestly instead of fixing them so they can’t be exploited, just removing them is an ok temporary fix but they need to be back. Having a “mini-game” or objective in the Borderland maps was what made them fun. EB has SM, the BLs need something too.

Just do what DAoC did, it took 2 groups “to bring down the relic altar” so it can be picked up-the altar was just too powerful for anything less, do the same thing here so one or two people can’t hack the orb, make it so that the altar isn’t something destroyed but something turned and requires 10 people to stand around it to be destroyed.

As for the snowball effect when a team is under-manned, that is more the fault of a terrible out-manned buff than anything else.

A team that is losing can come back and has, the matches have already shown 50-80k comeback wins.

Arrr! It be about time, mateys.

This thread just proves that no matter what they do (or did)…someone will complain.

So is this their way of saying they can’t stop the hacking?

Holy kitten, what is this?
Forged in God’s very flames.

Do mine eyes tell me lies,
Orbs removed from game?!

…

Finally. It’ll give a chance to low-populated servers and now fights won’t be such one-sided.
But just removing them was very lazy decision. Why not make orbs work like outmanned buff and outmanned buff like orbs? Oh well, guess it will take another two-three months.

So now this is being “fixed”… will the commander title also change? just wondering..

Very nice, I am glad ArenaNet analyzes and adapts. Well done.

Good move, listening to your player base and also a right step in balancing out the issues in wvw while halting the hack issues Keep up the good work Anet!! Maybe the orbs will be able to return in the future or perhaps something else entirely, but at least everyone now has an incentive to fight back! WvW will certainly become more interesting and tactics will change!