Guild Wars 2

One idea I had which might help a little is what I am calling the “Garrison Mechanic”. Each realm has a set number of guards in it’s Garrison (not to be confused with the name of the keep – this is a different concept, as in a traditional garrison of guards). These will be spread across all the keeps that realm owns, so if they have only a few keeps, each keep has more guards. If they have lots of keeps, they have less guards per keep.

It isn’t a solution to everything, but it might help.

Orbs of Power should either;
i) not buff people in the WvW zones, just in PvE zones, maybe,
ii) give a non-combat related buff i.e. magic find or something else. Sure, it ultimately means the winning realm gets an advantage, but it’s not immediate, it’s not huge, and ultimately winning is about being incentivised.

Erasculio.2914:

The Outmanned buff need to be completely reworked, beginning with its name. Right now, being seen as Outmanned is almost like having a “Fail!” symbol stamped over your character – the game is telling you that you are likely going to lose, and everyone knows it. The name of the buff and its description need to be changed to something else; just to give an example, it should be called something like “Determined”, and its description should be something like “Never surrender, never retrear”, giving the idea of fighting against the odds, not of being on the losing side.

I like that idea a lot. The stats need to be changed for sure, but something purely “cosmetic” can make a difference, too. The name and description of the buff should induce players to keep on fighting, not induce them to log off…

And changes that are purely cosmetic will definitely not break the game. It is costless to try this.

- Xeeron

I had done a post that was very similar to this during the BWE. Touching on many points you have.

TBH its not so much that I disagree with this thread but rather am just sick of the fact that we are still talking about them.

If Anet at least were able to elaborate on some of this, that would be great. Things are silent and its not a good sign.

DAOC was much better I think, but WVW was at least a good try (unlike downed state, which was always a terrible idea).

Switching the outmanned & orb bonuses is a pretty reasonable suggestion.

Other things I can think of are:
- supply accumulation rate and supply cap per keep both drop as your empire expands
- NPC guards and gates get considerably tougher as the number of keeps you own drops

on a side note:
- add a DAOC-style Darkness Falls-like dungeon that links all the BGs with multiple exits in EB, with the main entrance accessible only to the current leader.

Actually, I think the orb buff should be single map only… not orbs for all maps in WvW (meaning if my server owns an orb in map 1 and an orb in map 2, we do not get the major bonus…). Also, the buff is only applied to players of that server in that map.

This avoids tipping the scales too much but still gives enough incentive to get the orbs or for them to matter in strategic choices.

At which point, I would also consider changing the bonus for a single orb to be the major orb bonus.

I know why ANet made the orb bonus’ the way they are, but I do not agree with the stacking of bonus effects or with how the effects translate to other maps.

EDIT: because i may sound a lil confusing… an orb bonus is no longer universal across all maps but only on the map that the orb resides. So, if my server owns hte orb in our borderlands, we get the bonus but only when we are in that zone. Furthermore, the bonus is the Major bonus. The effects of owning orbs in other borderlands will not matter to me unless I go to those borderlands.

The problem with the Orbs is not that they “buff” the winning team and make them harder to take down, it’s that the controlling team gets the benefit of the Orb while it is in the most protected area of the map and they are free to do other things.

If the alters were in less protected areas of the map, players would be forced to protect the Orb or risk losing it very easily. This would pull them away from the other objectives, and make the game more balanced and more strategic.

Right now it is simply too easy to rally around the keep holding the Orb if you see it is being attacked.

I do endorse this message. Let us hope ANet has some plans in place….
and hope they throw us a bone with a sticky that gives their intent.