Guild Wars 2

I have decided to start this topic – read title – because the current Orb system in WvWvW seems to bring imbalance to the borderlands!

So here’s what I am suggesting: change the way Orbs work.

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From having each Orb give stat bonuses to players of holding world -

Change it to have each Orb give a debuff to the holding world (or a buff to the other worlds) while offering a % increase in more trivial stats like Magic Find, Karma Gain and Potential Points.

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- Why this change?

Mainly the issue is that, I’m sure many of us will have experienced: the Orbs of Power promote monopoly. When I use the word monopoly, I mean the one world winning in the rotation will, most of the time, hold all 3 Orbs, while leading over the other two worlds by about half a billion points (exaggerated), leaving the other two worlds with close to no hope to win the rotation: after pretty much the first day of the rotation (exaggerated). This is because players of the winning world get stronger as they win more. Precisely the definition of monopoly.

By changing the Orbs such that they give debuffs to the holding world while offering other bonuses, there is an incentive to capture these Orbs and defend them, but it does not allow the winning world to monopolize the game. Having the Orbs give increased Potential Points for the holding worlds also mean that there is a better chance of turnover for the losing worlds!

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Okay, I might have exaggerated a little, but the monopoly is true – take Henge of Denravi – my home world, for example, dominated the battlefield completely less than a month ago, and held all 3 Orbs almost 90% of the time. Today HoD, completely shattered, gets dominated by Sea of Sorrows – which is holding all 3 Orbs and leading over the second place (Isle of Janthir) by over 250k total points and is also holding over 600 of the 695 potential points (as opposed to HoD who currently holds 0).

Populations across servers are never balanced, so worlds having more people always have the advantage of being able to zerg enemies – but as if being outnumbered 2:1 isn’t bad enough for the small pop worlds – now the big pop world also has an army who have a 150 bonus to all stats and are 15% (on paper) harder to kill. So you can’t so much defend your own properties without an Orb, because you’re outnumbered, but you cannot get an Orb either, because each enemy member is stronger than you. Results: current HoD rotation results given as example above.

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Maybe the Orbs had shaped less of WvWvW today compared to the server hoppers (thank goodness it’s going to be changed to a weekly basis!), but it is contributing to the imbalance nonetheless. So, help consider this topic and help suggest ways of which WvWvW can be improved aside from just stopping server hoppers, because that’s only part of the problem.

I don’t thin Orbs should give a debuff to holding worlds ..

As many have said simply switching the outmanned and Orb bonuses might do the trick.

WvWers will keep defending keeps and garrison because of the switch (imho).

I think a switch of the buffs received from Orbs and Undermanned would do the trick. I also believe that the server hopping is the real issue.

I’ve considered a few options in regards to changing the orbs, because I agree that having the top team with all 3 orbs just because they have more population doesn’t exactly promote much competition.

1. Make each orb stat bonuses attached only to their homelands. So for instance as the teams the op pointed out. Each orb is worth 5% hitpoints +50 to all stats to their team, if SoS captures IoJ and HoD orbs they do not get their bonuses, but rather they take away that bonus from those other two servers. This way we don’t see a huge shift in stats on an already dominating team, but rather you keep the stats away from your opponents. You still have to reward the team for making the effort of taking away those orbs.

2. Make each orb have different stats, so for instance green bl orb would give 150 vitality, red bl orb would give 150 power, blue bl orb would give 150 toughness. What this does is it gives the different servers a boost in areas to help them start the matchup. So red being the lowest in ranking here would get an extra bonus to damage to help compete.

3. I would drop the orbs all together because of the constant complaints about hacking and bugs surrounding them. I would instead attach bonuses to each keep(garrison, bay, hills, eb keep)x3 for a total of 12. Each keep you own would give +1% hitpoint and +12 to all stats.

Also the undermanned buffs needs to change, +magic find doesn’t help at all if the enemy outnumbers me 2 to 1, especially when I’ll probably be doing less killing if anything this only encourages me to go pve in there. Give me more hit points or stats you actually use in combat to help me cope with being overrun until more people get into the zone.

Thanks for the replies, Xenesis I like your idea of how the Orbs can be specific to each defending world.

I think having a ‘capture-able’ object on the battlefield is one of the bigger contributors to the fun factor of the current WvWvW setup though, so I, for one, disagree on the thought that they should be removed completely.

As for putting buffs onto held keeps, well, that’s pretty much the same problem I originally mentioned, just put into a different form. The current problem is that people that are already winning gain bonuses to help them keep winning, rather than the losing teams get bonuses to help them catch up with the winner.

Just like how being first place in Mario Kart leaves you vulnerable to the Blue Shell, the first place in GW2, I reckon, should be put under some form of pressure rather than just being able to rejoice in victory all day long and win without putting in any effort.

Which was why I suggested the Orbs to give a debuff to the holders / stat buffs to the other worlds while offering more trivial bonuses.

As for the undermanned buff, I totally agree with you. The first time I entered a borderland with that buff I was both surprised and somewhat, disgusted? By the fact that I am on an ‘undermanned’ team and all I got was Magic Find. The logic really does not hold for me there – how was I supposed to use the Magic Find bonus if I could barely set foot in the battlefield?

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And thanks Fiction and Rhongomaniad for giving a clearer thought to what I was trying to pursue with this thread

I’ve considered an idea that made the orbs a little more complex.

1.Having it setup so that when first place team reaches a 7k lead over second place a debuff would start on first place..

2.A timer would start off and count down for about twelve hours, within that twelve hours first place has to get all the orbs to stop the debuff from happening.

3.The debuff would be an over time gradual decrease of stats, kind of a reverse of the buff itself,where it would work its self up to -15% -150 stats if all orbs are not owned by first place.Having two of the orbs would negate it by 10% so it would only be a 5% debuff.

I think it would help with the morale factor knowing one team couldnt just run away with a lead unless they owned all 3 orbs or they would take a stat decrease making them bit easier targets.And in a situation where say first place has 2 orb and second place has their orb still , that would give third place free rein to come in and start taking first place’s stuff while they are focused battling it out with second for their orb, which helps further close the points gap of all three teams.

While I do understand the need to put a mechanic in so that the other two servers can catch up and make the match interesting, I am still not sure about penalizing the top team. You still have to reward them for taking the lead, whether or not they have more population, servers will take leads because they are more organized and not just because they have more people or more overnight presence, you still need to reward them for that. I would rather deny them the bonus stats and keep that to the teams behind the lead, which is part of what the undermanned buff should be doing.

As for the orbs while they do provide that extra objective out in the field, they’re not usually on the field often or for very long, most times they’re just involved in another hacking story. I think attaching the stats to the keeps would provide that extra push for sides to beef up defenses of keeps, which of course needs supplies to do and so an extra drive to capture the surrounding supply camps. Plus the dolyaks supply runs already provide that field objective to do, which I don’t think a lot of people take seriously enough.

The undermanned buff, what were they thinking to attach a magic find buff to it. If you look at a game like Planetside they gave bonus stats to the two other underpopulated teams, and the buff scales according to how much population they were under. Wow had the same thing in Wintergrasp open pvp area, they applied a stat buff on the undermanned side so that they could compete and it wouldn’t be a complete steamroll. The orbs just completely do the opposite of that.

I’m not hot about the debuff ideas as there would be no incentive to hold orbs at all, unless it was changed to a risk reward system. More importantly, orbs shouldn’t have anything to do with the score whatsoever. Scoring should be determined solely by the servers fighting it out.

We all know getting the high end gear takes some time to get with karma and badges, so why not provide an incentive to get that gear, but with a catch.

For Example;
For each orb you hold karma/badge drop is increased by X% amount while at the same time it decreases your servers vitality and power by X%.

An idea with this type of risk reward would be something to fight over, but at the same time dangerous to hold, especialy three of them.

Just an idea, but the current system adds to the lopsided battles.

Arawn.2890:

I’ve considered an idea that made the orbs a little more complex.

1.Having it setup so that when first place team reaches a 7k lead over second place a debuff would start on first place..

2.A timer would start off and count down for about twelve hours, within that twelve hours first place has to get all the orbs to stop the debuff from happening.

3.The debuff would be an over time gradual decrease of stats, kind of a reverse of the buff itself,where it would work its self up to -15% -150 stats if all orbs are not owned by first place.Having two of the orbs would negate it by 10% so it would only be a 5% debuff.

I think it would help with the morale factor knowing one team couldnt just run away with a lead unless they owned all 3 orbs or they would take a stat decrease making them bit easier targets.And in a situation where say first place has 2 orb and second place has their orb still , that would give third place free rein to come in and start taking first place’s stuff while they are focused battling it out with second for their orb, which helps further close the points gap of all three teams.

That way is interesting in that you don’t give the leading team the extra stats to completely run away with the game, at the same time you turn the orbs into a must get objective for that leading team. Extra work for the the leading team, which if they’re a heavy populated server it wouldn’t be a problem to capture all 3 orbs eventually.

This could also leave the matches to be a close back and forth for most of the week and then leave the last push for the lead in final couple days.

The only problem once again is the orbs will be very valuable, and you will end up with even more hacking of them, until anet can figure out how to make them unhackable.