Guild Wars 2

Great move. I’ve also been playing MMORPGS for about 15 years now (started with great titles such as Darkness Falls, Legends of Kesmai and UO, then EQ from launch to 2003, and just about every other major title inbetween EQ and GW2 Except WoW because I hate blizzard trash games) and I agree that Anet is by far the best MMORPG dev team, ever.

They have shown us that they really care about this game by actively listening to the player base, fixing major issues with speed and hosting great live events

Great move Anet, keep em coming.

P.S. A team in any RvR game should never get a “combat bonus” because it often leads exploiting and unnecessary imbalance problems. The ranking/rotating system is helping a lot in terms of keeping servers from getting steam rolled by “heavy zerg servers” and the PVP itself is very balanced as far as mechanics go.

The only time a “stat bonus” makes sense would be if a team falls well below a certain threshold of points, to the effect of demoralizing the other team into not participating any more. Say, 100k score vs 9k score. In this case a decent stat boost would make sense for the underdog team to give them motivation to catch up. But in the case of the orbs, they were often making the already powerful team “more powerful” which is terrible for RvR pvp.

No bonuses, or small bonuses for extremely underdog teams, are the only real way to do RvR.

But again, good choice Anet, keep up the good work.

In response to the concept of Orbs being stacked in the winning team, we have overcome this problem many times by hitting the orb keeps directly when porting to a new map. If you port 40-50 people onto a map that is fully in your enemy’s control and can stealth move across the map to the enemy keep, you can easily take down a fully upgraded orb keep before anyone can respond. It’s really not that big of a deal.

I truly love how the orbs fit into WvW play, and feel like I was one of the few who thought the stats they give were fine even if it was to a winning team(they were insurance for the two weaker servers to pester the stronger to even the playing field). However not having them at all does give hackers much less room to cheat, as they can’t alter the state of a match in a major way now.

It’ll just be nice to end all the “this server hacked our orb” posts!

I disagree with those who wanted the outmanned buff switched with the orb bonuses. If thats the case noone will really care about going after the orb. Part of the appeal of WvW was going after the orb that give your side something worth fighting for. If you give the orb some weak power, then its pointless going after it

@sil , dude they are removing the orb.Giving a switch on orb buff is better than no orb.What’s the point than if they remove?You are defencing the wrong way than you think

I am so proud of you Anet for realizing the problem, then acting quickly to neutralize it. Way to go, bravo. I am very impressed.

I’m glad concrete action in taking place. I’m guessing it won’t be until next round that we’ll see it, though?

It’s a good thought for a mechanic, but between the hackers and how much of an advantage the orbs are, it’s not worth it. While I’d love to see some form of orb mechanic come back to spice up gameplay, it’s better that they take them out to get it right. It really does make for an imbalance.

Hurray! Thank you for listening to your fans!

About time. Wonder what WvW will be like now.

A little less exciting. See my post about 10 people above for reference

Good move. Even if you can fix hacks, don’t bring orbs back in a current form.

Instead, I suggest that orbs should provide harsh penalty and start at a Garrison.

Here is why:

1. Orbs with penalties would discourage complete map domination by a single side. If you take over entire map, you also have to take over 3 orbs. 3x penalty should be substantial enough that people would try to avoid it.

2. Defending team would have an advantage of placing orb in a keep they want to protect, if invaders take that keep they will be stuck with an orb an no ability to get rid of it without giving up keep.

Awesome. I think that was the right idea.

its a good idea to stop cheating, but not by loosing content IMO

i also think giving more things to “outmanned” like stats, dmg/healing or something, not just karma and xp :s

Great solution even if temporary!

Borderlands were for Orb fights , while Eternal was for stacking points.Now server borders will be less important and pugs gonna try to get in Eternal instead of other borders…

I hope WvW wont lose it’s point and hope it wont turn in to a deathmatch…

Obviously hacking is bad. I hope you step up permanent account bans for proven hackers.

However I think some form of orbs are needed for WvW. It adds a different dimension to the game. I don’t agree that orbs should give power to the player character, because that’s counterproductive to creating a level playing field. It never should have been power/health bonuses. But I think some bonuses should be implemented, like maybe %magic find or %supply delivery/generation. Something that doesn’t directly affect player vs. payer gaming but does offer benefits.

I just hope that when orbs, come back, that’s what you take into consideration Habib. And not something that gives more direct power to an already powerful side.

Good move. Even if you can fix hacks, don’t bring orbs back in a current form.
Instead, I suggest that orbs should provide harsh penalty and start at a Garrison.
Here is why:
1. Orbs with penalties would discourage complete map domination by a single side. If you take over entire map, you also have to take over 3 orbs. 3x penalty should be substantial enough that people would try to avoid it.
2. Defending team would have an advantage of placing orb in a keep they want to protect, if invaders take that keep they will be stuck with an orb an no ability to get rid of it without giving up keep.

Logged in just to say, this sounds like a really fun idea.

A mechanic that strategically affects supply is brilliant. Maybe adding +10 supply to every camp you own throughout the 4 borderlands for each orb or better yet, supply generation to the team that owns it. (maybe +1 supply to every owned objective per minute) that would really balance out the stats problem and yet make them very desirable to have

I look forward to seeing how that build will change things.

After seeing everyone’s thoughts I think a good change would be…
Keep the altar and orb mechanic. Make the altar invulnerable until the inner door goes down (this will prevent hackers after the first door comes down).

Make the orbs give +x supply regeneration to every tower/ keep owned on all 4 borderlands instead of stats or health.

This will keep the orbs as a very powerful objective and maintain the whole fun of chasing orbs/ going after orbs while not empowering the winning side too much. Besides it just potentially prolongs sieges a little bit more as +x supply won’t do much after you drain the supply in a defense.

Thoughts anyone?

Good move A-net.

Suggestion:

- Change the out manned buff to underdog buff. It’s kinda useless and encourage underdogs to PVE instead. Underdog buff means the 2nd and 3rd places will get % of stats, HP and damage output depending on every 5% score gap with the 1st placer. Also make it so it doesn’t include NPCs to be OP (To be fair unlike Orb bonus where 1 NPC with 3 orbs normally kitten players unless you’re full sets of 80 exotics).

- Put the out manned buff to Orbs. They are fine (except for the hack part and the mechanics need to be improved) PVE buff alone from outmanned is so unattractive alone so mix it with few minor defense benefits and other rewards that wont make a winning team too Godlike but also make it desirable for everyone like NPC bonus stats goes here, slight discounts on siege equip and upgrades, healing, hp, etc.

- The rewards on total points gathered on WvW should be focused on the benefits that you could bring with you in PVE world like +% on gathering, crafting, defense vs monsters, damage vs monsters, Exp, etc.

I believe giving advantage to underdogs in terms of “Scores” (Not ranks or population imbalances). Both sides will win. Giving losing sides reason to fight back until the gap closes. No one likes winning without a fight and no one likes getting stomped on over and over by a Zerg with 150+ more stats (Who were already stronger than you before they got all 3 orbs), have more population, more NPC guards (w/ stats) . The only reward you get for fighting as an underdog are repair damages and tons of it. Sometimes 1 server completely destroys the other 2 in just 1 day. Reason the underdogs rarely 2v1 or will have to back stab each other again eventually.

Thank you arenanet

While I understand your motives, I fear the deep implications this change will have on WvW. Hopefully we’ll still see people going for the Garrison and epic battles at the mid map keeps…

In any PVP arena, buff rewards exacerbate imbalance. They do function well as incentives, but at great cost.

I think the most incentivizing reward, with the least imbalance to gameplay, is coin.

This is sad news, orbs add an extra dimension to WvW and they are one of the highlights of it (the thrill of attacking or defending an orb keep)

The hackers were a major problem, but i would prefer hacked orbs compared to no orbs for everyone.

Removing orbs is a major step backwards for WvW, I hope it doesn’t set a precedent where arenanet only listens to the complainers, the rest of us are having an amazing time in WvW, win or lose.

I read

It is likely that orbs, or some orb-like mechanic, will return at some point in the future, but only after we are confident that they will not exhibit the sorts of issues that we see with orbs today.

as never…

Wouldn’t an easy solution be to make it impossible to touch an orb unless you actually own the keep? It would render the hackers useless.

It simply should just be a directive application to the team which is underpopulated until some what balanced.

Level 1, 2 and 3 is based on how underpopulated it is.

No matter what they do I think there will always be people that will complain (or at least I know not think). It’s their opinion.

I don’t think orbs should be removed but if they were switched with outman like most people want and the outman scales to how bad you are outmanned sure there would be hacks, and you know orbs dont have to give the karma boost whatever they could make them something else that is passive or give them the current outmanned with other added things, maybe even making it add new things for each orb you hold.

Sure there would be hacks but the hacks wouldn’t give that full on server buff to increase bursts to uncontrollable levels for the winning server, it would be different. There would still be upsets about orb hacking it just wouldn’t be terribly game changing that the orb got hacked. It would be much more dealwithable until the orb hackers are halted in place. it would also keep the getting the orb strategy from the other teams on those borderlands.

Sooo much more fun tonight. It was a great call. I love the idea of the orbs, but the boons/buffs it gave were CLEARLY too powerful. Thanks for making WvW fun again.

Cirus.5748:

<snip>
The hackers were a major problem, but i would prefer hacked orbs compared to no orbs for everyone.
<snip>

I wouldn’t – simply because any joy in defending or taking an orb would be instantaneously destroyed by the exploiters to the degree where many left the WvW zones when it happened.

On the contrary, we’ve had epic defences and sieges on my server over simple things as supply camps and towers. There doesn’t have to be an orb to mount attack or defend.

The orbs are a decent idea, but they should not change hands as much as they do, they shouldn’t be as vulnerable to PvDoor players, vulnerable to exploiters and they shouldn’t be as powerful as they are.
Removing them for now makes ever so much more sense when they can’t fix them ‘fast’.

This is very sad. With removing orbs we’ll lose very interesting part of gameplay. And why the “hackers/cheaters” are the problem of orbs? They are the only thing that cheaters can affect? Looks like declaration of ArenaNet inability to fix bugs, associated with orbs displaying on the map etc.

Over all i think this is a good thing but i think there should be as a replacement a temp. buff that only usable by a map for though on it at the time of the event and only for that map for say 3hr or until some one is full down.

Side note for though who turly hate this put all the blame on the haxers and though who think haxing is part of games. If you play with something beyond the rules then tend to get changes for the worst. How dose the saying go “they don fed it up for every one now.”

the reason to go for any garrison/tower/keep is points, that should be enough reason to go for it. look at it this way, say your red team and you take a garrison from green team, green team looses 25 points and your team gains 25 points that gives a 50 point difference straight away from the team you took it from.

shouldnt this be enough reason to try take control of any objective?

It’s not necessarily the incentive to attack. It’s the incentive to defend.

An orb that gave your team world wide map bonuses which mattered gives a strong incentive to upgrade the keep and defend the keep, even across borderlands. When you had fully upgraded keeps attacked with an orb is when you saw big groups of 40-50 people port maps to come and defend it because the strategic value of the orb is what made it worthwhile.

Without them, all keeps become worth the same and it doesn’t matter which keep you are attacking or which keep you are defending except for some strategic positioning on the respective borderland. It also fosters greater teamwork between your entire WvW team.

An orb keep was a world wide priority objective. Now the keeps are tradeable points.

Fine move.

If and when they do come back, my vote would to be give the Orbs a point value of some magnitude, say 20 points a tick or so. Perhaps they could give an added PvE bonus as well, but nothing that effects WvW.

This should give players the incentive to take them.

To a form DAoC RvRer, who has desperately been seeking world vs. world pvp as good as Dark Age for the last ten years, this is a sad and scary day.

Orb hacking was a problem, and the statement that orbs may return once those issues are address is hopeful – if I could really believe that it won’t just fall by the wayside.

DAoC relics and assaults on the ultra fortified relic keeps plus the relic runbacks were some of the best wvw experiences of my life, and fighting over the relics was something that kept wvw (or RvR as it was known) going strong and interesting for a long, long time.

It is true, that relics (like orbs) granted bonuses to the realm that controlled them. And it is true if there was a dominant realm, this was no minor buff. But it did not break the game, instead it inspired even more rich and creative community. It lead sometimes to 2 realms vs. 1 realm alliances. For those frustrated by being double teamed, those alliances never last, but they are a counter balancing force to dominance. Sometimes it lead to huge rallies by the losing realms who managed to come together, coordinate and take those relics back.

Relics and the bonuses they gave were fantastic things, even if sometimes dominance was lopsided. That’s part of the excitement of WvW. If you want perfectly (artificially) balanced matches, you have STRUCTURED PVP. What I want in WvW is the chaos and the challenge of imbalance. I write this as my server is in last place in our matchup this week, same as last week. That’s OK by me. After some initial crying, it is motivating us to rally together and get better. It’s fun.

Actually, its incredibly fun.

Again, I’m OK with some balancing changes to Orbs, and I’m begrudgingly OK with them being TEMPORARILY removed until hacking can be sufficiently addressed. But please, please, please, don’t get rid of the mechanic in which each server has some objects with some worth to their server efforts to attempt to capture, return, and defend. That is a KEY dynamic of exciting WvW.

The main differences between Relics in DAoC and Orbs in GW2 is the ease of taking Orbs and a larger benefit from them.

However, this game is not DAoC v.2 – it just share a few elements.
Orbs in the form of them being in GW2 (again – ease of capture, benefit) would also have caused issues in DAoC.
Relics from DAoC in GW2 would not work without the rest of the RvR elements (specifically size of zones, power of guards and so on).

I hope the removal of orbs is temporary too (they claim it, but we’ll see)…. and I wouldn’t mind seeing other objectives to fight over than just the scoreboard – but I gotta admit, that like in DAoC – I fight for the fight itself, not for the objective.

Selwynn, well written and I 100% agree with the sentiment. I WvW 90% of the time in this game and PvE 10%.

ANet, there is an enormous contingency of players who are searching for quality combat like the maps you have created. In terms of growth strategy, WvW is the “dynamic event” that will keep an enormous portion of your player base and draw more to it. Especially the ones that are always looking for a fight. If you can develop a mass PvP experience that is fresh and well maintained without hackers and exploits, you will have a true competitive advantage. I’ve been looking for a game like this for years. You’ve got a good headstart but don’t fail to see the value of WvW in growing this game as well as keeping the current playerbase coming back.

this is a shame, i actually quite enjoyed fighting AGAINST servers who had a 3 orb buff, gave a massive sense of satisfaction when a small group of our players was able to wipe forces considerably larger, even when they had the orb buff.

never understood why people choose to hack these games, it can’t be any fun to just fly around like this, where is the sense of achievement?

hope they manage to find a solution for this soon, but understand completely why they decided to remove them to fix them and agree with it completely, it will be alot more effective than trying to put an ingame fix in place , and should mean the solution will be much better when they do release it.

and as for people saying what is the point of rvr now, how about to win? to have fun? to enjoy the fight? for the sense of satisfaction and accomplishment you get when you finally take a heavily defended fortress after 3 hours of hard fighting? the sense of pride when you see your guild banners on the walls of a keep?

the orbs have always been a minor concern for my guild, and i would say my entire server. yeah they add a fun strategic element, but we would much rather have some good fights

Brettonian
Unity of Aurora Glade and proud of it

Saw it coming a long time ago and it is a really good decision but i wouldn’t go as far as removing orb’s completely. May I sugest that instead of removing them you create a time-to-time event that would reward the capturing team with some Influence Points, Karma and perhaps Magic Find? It would turn out to be something like a Capture the Flag kind of thing. Even tho I agree with the Dev’s decision to remove the perks from the Orb’s I have to face the fact that it was extremely fun the escort part of the thing!

I did world vs world before and after and I’ve never actually noticed how over powered the orbs where, I’m glad they’re gone, hopefully in the future WvW can be more, exciting with things to do, but this had to happen, sorry for those people who felt they are needed, because it’ll be much harder for you now. >:D!

Have orbs give structural bonuses to either the keep that holds it or all of the structures in the borderlands

I vote they change it to Orbs of Destabilisation.
Anyone in control of an orb gets a DEBUFF!! yes reverse the buff, that way stronger teams have to work harder to keep their status.

The Orbs were very exciting. I hope they can be brought back in some form.

After seeing so many orbs flying out of fully upgraded and repaired structures I’m glad to see them disabled for the time being. Cheaters turned them from a really nice addition to WvW into an annoyance. Now ANet can take care of issues with much less stress to all of us.

Good..now u have to remove very poorly designed puzzles in WvW that can be 24/7 spawn camped, and renders them (all of them) useless. Whoever controls the map..controls puzzles…nice free sieges..multiplied by X characters 1 account can have multiplied by 7 days. What is up with that?

Not to mention putting sieges behind waterfalls and so on.

Better gone than broken. I think this will make wvw better.

Thanks you for removeing orbs,now try to keep only eternal battlegrounds map and make only 2 team map

I’m not in favor of this change. There are quite a few reasons:

- The orbs gave the borderlands a real sense of purpose
- Orbs were a real constant objective to fight over
- Losing but taking an orb would swing a LOT of momentum to your realm
- The human nature of zergs will mean any upgraded keep with no orb will be ignored
- The best sieges were always over the orbs, could take hours and needed strategy
- Removing them means we could just see karma trains again
- Places too much emphasis on Eternal Battlegrounds
- Forces everything to be about points, which when you are 50k down is, ahem, pointless!

Yes I know the orbs could be hacked – solution would be to fix the bugs, short term fix it so orb can only be removed if you own the keep. Yes the orb bonus was too great, should have been +10, +25 and +50 for all three (no stacking, so if you hold 3 your bonus was +50 and forget the health boost).

The orb system (resetting etc) was confusing for most new players. It was often bugged that much is true – half the time you didn’t know how many orbs you had and nearly all of the time an orb was on the move I couldn’t see it on the map. But it was almost more exciting that way, something that didn’t happen every 5 minutes like taking a keep/tower/camp.

The outnumbered buff is also stupid and worthless, instead what it should allow is the outnumbered team to carry more supply. If you are outnumbered it is likely you own nothing, you can’t build any siege and small teams cannot effectively have access to the tools to take anything down. Should allow the outnumbered team to have 250 supply in camps they do own and to carry 20 supply instead.

While I’m on the subject I’d also like to see WvWvW jumping puzzles changed – give them their own area/instance somewhere so the 20 people doing them aren’t reducing the number of people I can get in my area to fight. And stop mesmers being able to use portal in those areas, completely takes away the point of them.