Guild Wars 2

Easy Hacking Fix:
-Patch Up your guys Privacy Policy
-Create a database of all known hacking and botting programs
-3 pt database check to see if the players is running the program
~On client Launch
~At Character Select Screen
~Switching zones
-If a player is running a hack and the check confirms it via database check:
~Flags the account as being a possible hacker, No actions are taken (no auto bans)
~A message is displayed to the correct anet staff to investigate it
~Anet takes the proper action
-If no action is taken within 30 minutes (anet asleep on the job) a 24 hour ban is issued as a precautionary event. Message sent to the correct anet staff saying "acctname has been automatically banned for 24 hours for running ____ hack. "
It would then be up to the anet staff member to increase, decrease or let the 24 hour ban stand.

Lots of successful games run a system similar to this, if not a lot more complex or robust…. why GW2 is stuck with an archaic report and wait 2-3 hours system is beyond me.

Just as a note to those that are saying “it’s not that hard to detect a player that moves too far / too fast”. It really isn’t that hard, but remember that every process that runs takes up a certain amount of server resources.

It’s entirely probable that implementing a process that monitors every character’s every movement for being “within normal” would take up enough resources to bring the servers to a crawl / crash in high demand situations (like say a multiplayer fight with a lot of calls and checks – exactly the situation that WvWvW is supposed to promote).

This next bit is conjecture on my part – but based on what I’ve seen in other MMOs, the current trend towards “action-oriented gameplay” has created a lot of vulnerabilities which are being exploited quite frequently across many or most modern MMOs.

Not to say that hacking and exploiting hasn’t always been a problem, but I think the drive to make modern MMOs more responsive and reflex-based has made it so that developers are forced to offload some of the responsibility to the client and trust the responses to a certain degree (violating Koster’s Law). As such, there is only so much that the GM team can do to proactively limit hacking – and the exploiters are always morphing and changing such that a “known hacks” list is pretty much out of date as soon as it’s put together.

Why not give orbs 5-10 ppt for the team that holds the orb? its relatively insignificant yet still offer wvwers an objective. sure people can hack them but its not like it would unbalance the fights

also since the winning server would usually hold the orb, what is an extra 5 ppt per orb?

Vi Au.8341:

Why not give orbs 5-10 ppt for the team that holds the orb? its relatively insignificant yet still offer wvwers an objective. sure people can hack them but its not like it would unbalance the fights

also since the winning server would usually hold the orb, what is an extra 5 ppt per orb?

If it doesn’t matter then why bother with it in the first place?

did i ever say it didn’t matter? no. it gives ppl an extra reason to defend keeps and orbs were always fun to capture.
the previous orbs created an unbalance environment. this wont change that as much. you will only receive the wvw bonus faster.

Instead of allowing players to carry the orb, have an NPC escort event spawn that heads to an appropriate altar.

Holding an orb would provide nice QoL buffs in the borderlands, combat or supply buffs in EB, and if they hold all 3 orbs, Stonemist becomes much more attractive. The idea is that teams who hold the orbs will be encouraged to capitalise by taking EB by storm, which will leave them more vulnerable in the borderlands.

Ascii.9726:

DevonCarver.5370:

Unfortunately, this particular mechanic is far too susceptible to any number of hacks of this sort and while we can do as much as possible, it doesn’t prevent it from happening all the time

I’m sorry Devon but i have to jump in here. It has been suggested by me and tons of other people that by implementing a simple mechanic were the Alter of Power is completely invulnerable to damage whilst the Keep Lord is alive would stop the type of hacking we saw during the Orb of Power era.

Has this suggestion gone completely ignored all these months?

Orbs need to return to the borderlands soon with a flat PPT value per orb held and the fail-safe mechanic.

They know all these suggestions as I’m sure they check the forums. The problem is too little man power is put into wvw or class balancing. This will be the death of pvp/wvw, obviously.

It really just blows my mind how they can not change the mechanics of orb carrying to bypass the single hack that paralyzed their dev team.

Wolfey.3407:

Easy Hacking Fix:
-Patch Up your guys Privacy Policy
-Create a database of all known hacking and botting programs
-3 pt database check to see if the players is running the program
~On client Launch
~At Character Select Screen
~Switching zones
-If a player is running a hack and the check confirms it via database check:
~Flags the account as being a possible hacker, No actions are taken (no auto bans)
~A message is displayed to the correct anet staff to investigate it
~Anet takes the proper action
-If no action is taken within 30 minutes (anet asleep on the job) a 24 hour ban is issued as a precautionary event. Message sent to the correct anet staff saying "acctname has been automatically banned for 24 hours for running ____ hack. "
It would then be up to the anet staff member to increase, decrease or let the 24 hour ban stand.

Lots of successful games run a system similar to this, if not a lot more complex or robust…. why GW2 is stuck with an archaic report and wait 2-3 hours system is beyond me.

This would involve work and directing people away from the staggering job of crafting dragon penyatas. And how dare you provide simple logical suggestions?

PVE is the major aim of Anet. Don’t believe me? How many of you have been spawn camped and zerged in the past few weeks using this incredible new match up system while dragon penyatas filled with virtual candy were passed around?

Switch the orb buff junk into a defence feature for a tower the orb is in,have npc razer type to be an option to move the orb through pre determined paths to another tower/keep/garrison/ or maybe even stonemist.
Unique buffs would also be nice for each different tower.
For example aldons could offer swiftness to supply yaks and allies around the tower.
On the other hand wildcreek could offer might or some other boon.
The possibilities for more strategy and fun are endless,and for crying out add a belltower on each tower so we can ring the bell so the pugs can listen and get in to defend instead dying outside leaveing no defenders inside the tower.

The solution were a NPC come and take the orb when you “pic it up” like Dolys from Camp sounds promising, and then the one that “pic it up” get question with building he want it to move to and when he click on Bay/Hill/Garrison it simple start walking.

Wolfey.3407:

Easy Hacking Fix:
-Patch Up your guys Privacy Policy
-Create a database of all known hacking and botting programs
-3 pt database check to see if the players is running the program
~On client Launch
~At Character Select Screen
~Switching zones
-If a player is running a hack and the check confirms it via database check:
~Flags the account as being a possible hacker, No actions are taken (no auto bans)
~A message is displayed to the correct anet staff to investigate it
~Anet takes the proper action
-If no action is taken within 30 minutes (anet asleep on the job) a 24 hour ban is issued as a precautionary event. Message sent to the correct anet staff saying "acctname has been automatically banned for 24 hours for running ____ hack. "
It would then be up to the anet staff member to increase, decrease or let the 24 hour ban stand.

Lots of successful games run a system similar to this, if not a lot more complex or robust…. why GW2 is stuck with an archaic report and wait 2-3 hours system is beyond me.

Detecting hacks (client side) isn’t as easy as you think. I’m guessing they don’t detect illegal movement server-side because it’s too processor intensive, or at least I hope that is the reason. Considering how laggy things already get because of CPU overload I can’t really blame them for not adding extra checks into that laggy mess.

It would be a lot easier than trying to detect what hacking programs people are running on their own PC though. Blizzard has attempted this a LOT and dedicated a lot of time and money towards making it work and hacks and bots are still prevalent in their games, simply because the owner of the client has full access to all of the anti-hack code running there.

Nebilim.5127:

DevonCarver.5370:

Orbs will never come back in the form they had as they simply were too easy to hack around. With that said, we are definitely working on finding a suitable replacement for the best parts of the orbs, while avoiding as many of the downsides as we can. It’s not simple task though, so it isn’t as simple as deciding to do it one day and finishing it the next. Our goal is to get a new and improved version out when we can, but we can’t say yet when that will be.

There are several ways of dealing with that. You could just add a very tough champion that would require a zerg to defeat him to be able to take the orb out, much like the giant grub.
.

Flyhack + Mesmer = massive zerg on any point anywhere with only one hacker.
End of story.

@ Devon why not try to bring the orbs back but prevent them from being moved from a central location, for example replace the temple of storms with a tower of the orb, maybe even still on a timed event this would add a different dynamic to the game and force some very interesting fights. Could even bring the orbs back as a permanent fixture in the garrison to give servers a reason to defend their borderlands and hold their respective garrisons.

The orbs were disabled in November 2012 and they still represent some of the biggest wvw problems:

Curo.2483:

Orbs bring further imbalanced to matchups that are already not balanced…

Balancing:
Turn the tables and let the orbs be an instrument of match balancing. Besides other effects the orbs could grant a stat buff in the hand of the losing server – and hold by the winning team they could mean a stat penalty. That way the orbs would do a better job than any type of outmanned-buff…

Grimthagen.6019:

…It’s entirely probable that implementing a process that monitors every character’s every movement for being “within normal” would take up enough resources to bring the servers to a crawl / crash in high demand situations…

Hacking:
Change the mechanics so that it always requires a large group of players to get access to an orb. And in addition implement some check routines that don’t cause appreciable server load – e.g. if it is possible to validate a players/orbs coordinates, then only observe the path of the orb-runner…

XII.9401:

…The problem is too little man power is put into wvw or class balancing. This will be the death of pvp/wvw, obviously…

Focus:
Draw attention to the development of wvw by linking it directly to the gem-store…
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/How-to-make-devs-care-about-WvW-solution

Draygo.9473:

Even if there is a group requirement to ‘unlock’ the orb you still have the issue of a single player picking it up and flying it away.

A better system would utilize NPC’s that carry the orb to its target location.

so, a dolyak run? Only if someone can issue stop/go commands to the dolyak- maybe commanders only

Piogre.2164:

Draygo.9473:

Even if there is a group requirement to ‘unlock’ the orb you still have the issue of a single player picking it up and flying it away.

A better system would utilize NPC’s that carry the orb to its target location.

so, a dolyak run? Only if someone can issue stop/go commands to the dolyak- maybe commanders only

Not a dolyak, way too slow, a whole server could get there before it reaches its destination. Need more of a mad max road chase vibe, regular NPC’s (maybe a veteran or champion) running at full speed.

multivira.7925:

Wolfey.3407:

Easy Hacking Fix:
-Patch Up your guys Privacy Policy
-Create a database of all known hacking and botting programs
-3 pt database check to see if the players is running the program
~On client Launch
~At Character Select Screen
~Switching zones
-If a player is running a hack and the check confirms it via database check:
~Flags the account as being a possible hacker, No actions are taken (no auto bans)
~A message is displayed to the correct anet staff to investigate it
~Anet takes the proper action
-If no action is taken within 30 minutes (anet asleep on the job) a 24 hour ban is issued as a precautionary event. Message sent to the correct anet staff saying "acctname has been automatically banned for 24 hours for running ____ hack. "
It would then be up to the anet staff member to increase, decrease or let the 24 hour ban stand.

Lots of successful games run a system similar to this, if not a lot more complex or robust…. why GW2 is stuck with an archaic report and wait 2-3 hours system is beyond me.

Detecting hacks (client side) isn’t as easy as you think. I’m guessing they don’t detect illegal movement server-side because it’s too processor intensive, or at least I hope that is the reason. Considering how laggy things already get because of CPU overload I can’t really blame them for not adding extra checks into that laggy mess.

It would be a lot easier than trying to detect what hacking programs people are running on their own PC though. Blizzard has attempted this a LOT and dedicated a lot of time and money towards making it work and hacks and bots are still prevalent in their games, simply because the owner of the client has full access to all of the anti-hack code running there.

It actually is that easy….
I will admit that creating it would be the most time consuming aspect if you are hand scripting every line.

Blizarrds issue is that they allow every 3rd party program known to man kind to run with their clients. So if you ban some one on a blizzard game they can just say “Oh i was just updating my hud skin and trying to play custom mp3s” and they would get off with no problem.

That is not the case with Guild Wars 2, with Guild Wars 2, you aren’t authorized to run 3rd party programs to alter the game.

If server lag is an issue, you can always outsource to a security company like:
VAC
PunkBuster
Game Guard
Game Shield

Game Guard & Punkbuster are probably the best of the 4
Since Game Guard is based in Korea along with NCSOFT, there may be a better partnership and discount possibilities.

Ascii.9726:

It has been suggested by me and tons of other people that by implementing a simple mechanic were the Alter of Power is completely invulnerable to damage whilst the Keep Lord is alive would stop the type of hacking we saw during the Orb of Power era.

Has this suggestion gone completely ignored all these months?

Orbs need to return to the borderlands soon with a flat PPT value per orb held and the fail-safe mechanic.

^ This.
We said it well over six months ago:

• Altar invulnerable until Keep Lord is killed
• Orbs power buff replaced with PPT value

I would throw in an extra for Orbs to boost Wuxp, Karma & MF (Non-Combat buffs) because Need Moar Wuxp

Flip the out man buff and orb buff make hacking boring.

Wolfey.3407:

multivira.7925:

Wolfey.3407:

Easy Hacking Fix:
-Patch Up your guys Privacy Policy
-Create a database of all known hacking and botting programs
-3 pt database check to see if the players is running the program
~On client Launch
~At Character Select Screen
~Switching zones
-If a player is running a hack and the check confirms it via database check:
~Flags the account as being a possible hacker, No actions are taken (no auto bans)
~A message is displayed to the correct anet staff to investigate it
~Anet takes the proper action
-If no action is taken within 30 minutes (anet asleep on the job) a 24 hour ban is issued as a precautionary event. Message sent to the correct anet staff saying "acctname has been automatically banned for 24 hours for running ____ hack. "
It would then be up to the anet staff member to increase, decrease or let the 24 hour ban stand.

Lots of successful games run a system similar to this, if not a lot more complex or robust…. why GW2 is stuck with an archaic report and wait 2-3 hours system is beyond me.

Detecting hacks (client side) isn’t as easy as you think. I’m guessing they don’t detect illegal movement server-side because it’s too processor intensive, or at least I hope that is the reason. Considering how laggy things already get because of CPU overload I can’t really blame them for not adding extra checks into that laggy mess.

It would be a lot easier than trying to detect what hacking programs people are running on their own PC though. Blizzard has attempted this a LOT and dedicated a lot of time and money towards making it work and hacks and bots are still prevalent in their games, simply because the owner of the client has full access to all of the anti-hack code running there.

It actually is that easy….
I will admit that creating it would be the most time consuming aspect if you are hand scripting every line.

Blizarrds issue is that they allow every 3rd party program known to man kind to run with their clients. So if you ban some one on a blizzard game they can just say “Oh i was just updating my hud skin and trying to play custom mp3s” and they would get off with no problem.

That is not the case with Guild Wars 2, with Guild Wars 2, you aren’t authorized to run 3rd party programs to alter the game.

If server lag is an issue, you can always outsource to a security company like:
VAC
PunkBuster
Game Guard
Game Shield

Game Guard & Punkbuster are probably the best of the 4
Since Game Guard is based in Korea along with NCSOFT, there may be a better partnership and discount possibilities.

What I meant was, any program running on my PC can be altered by me to not report me using external programs. In the end it’s the server that’s not supposed to trust anything the client sends it, as the client should rightfully be assumed to be compromised.

Mythic had Orbs(relics) for over a decade now with little problems. Maybe just copy them?

Simple as making the Orbs unattainable unless owning northern 2 towers and garrison in the map or something similar.

DevonCarver.5370:

Orbs will never come back in the form they had as they simply were too easy to hack around. With that said, we are definitely working on finding a suitable replacement for the best parts of the orbs, while avoiding as many of the downsides as we can. It’s not simple task though, so it isn’t as simple as deciding to do it one day and finishing it the next. Our goal is to get a new and improved version out when we can, but we can’t say yet when that will be.

Thank you for your response. And it’s great to hear that you’re working on an alternate. However, it’s been a while….a long while. I know “Rome wasn’t built in a day”, but Orbs were removed on November 1st. Since that time we’ve heard nor seen a spec of what might be worked on as a “solution”.

And other people have found alternate workarounds those Orbs as they were, such as requiring a wall/door of outer and inner sections of the facility holding it before the Orb Shrine becomes vulnerable in the first place.

But, the issue is that the Orb added central objectives on the maps and allowed for an obtainable goal that gave your server a justifiable reward for going all-out in a siege for the shiny ball. Now? Now it’s just random roaming zergs.

So, exactly what solution are your guys working on to reduce the random roaming zergs?

the orbs could be brought back if they hold some nice buffs that dont make you stronger stat wise in a fight.
something like:
+x% MF
+x% Wxp
-x% on repairs
-x silver on upgrades in towers, keeps, castles and camps
and there are also others mentiont in this tread tho i dont want to name all of them

you could make it so it where an event like the dolyaks going from camps as surgested that will remove any hacks for carring it.
make it so you cant take it unless you own the keep its in and make it so that if the keep is claimed it cant be moved if its not someone from the guild doing it, or make it so its a event kinda thing like siege gazer so x amounf of people need to do it before its possible.

but i like the ide of the orb tho i think it would be a shame touching the stats of our toons giveing a winning server a to strong boost

I think we’re at a point where some of us dont care that people can hack their way to get the orbs, it’s just something DIFFERENT to do. We want them back even if they will continue hacking their way them.

WvW needs more features which it hasnt got since release whilst PvE get new content every month!

The orb is needed in WvW. I’m sure everyone here has noticed one server just dominating one borderland and having no presence on other. That’s because the incentive to switch and not control an entire borderlands isn’t as high without the orb.

The the problem of it being to beneficial to the winning team. I’m all for giving the orb karma, magic find, gold find, and give WvW exp. This way their is no direct combat difference for the winning team but controlling them makes kills and capping things more efficient. This gives incentive to control orbs and makes the big zergs need to split up among the borderlands to control the orbs.

Instead of saying fix the hackers which is almost impossible to get them all fix around them. If the problem was them fly hacking in and stealing it, make it so the orb cannot be moved until the keep lord has died and circle is up. This way if a fly hacker comes in he would have to kill the lord before he can move it, which makes it harder to hack. If a regular zerg comes to cap, kills the lord, and wants to move the orb they need to kill the lord and move the orb before circle is down. Which is plenty of time if you want to move it. If you want to leave it then let the circle cap and it locks there until next team kills the lord and circle is back up.

I would like to throw in my idea, since I was thinking about this recently.

1. Don’t put their resting place in a keep or tower. Make it an undefended area – maybe in one of those bizarre wide open plains that every map has.
2. Don’t make it just an orb with some boring NPCs. Make it an Epic boss defending it, and while you’re at it, make it based on the race’s aesthetics not fully represented in WvW. (Giant Charr tank, for example.)
3. Don’t let it influence the entire map(either make some dead zones or just make it influence the holder’s “section” of the map), and don’t let it influence keeps or Stonemist.

Making it linked to an Epic boss located out in the open, first of all, gives a new clear objective on the map for the other teams. You want more power running around and grabbing towers, so there’s incentive to grab it, especially when you need to make a foothold in a map. However, it does not make a keep easier harder to capture directly; it forces more strategy, as now you’ll want to engage the enemy outside of the keep, before they get in, to utilize your advantage. You will want to provoke them – and that shiny new orb Jormag or whatever is holding in your borderlands will be tempting to get for a counterattack.

And since an epic boss is superglued to the orb, nobody can just hack their character to it. An assault is required, and if the epic boss has at least a slight gimmick to it(invulnerability phases and the like), a massive zerg can’t just snag it immediately. They’ll be required to call attention to their movements.

As for the specific bonus the orbs would provide in this idea, I didn’t play WvW when the orbs were around, so I can’t say with any certainty whether the bonus itself was fair or not.

I’d say instead of making orbs impact WvW, lets screw over PVE crowd (force them to help us in WvW) and have the Orbs impact the PVE World. If we lose our orb for example, mobs in PVE will gain aggression and hit harder, increased HP, bosses are harder, etc. Orbs pass back and forth so you should have to hold the enemies orb for a bit for the PVE mobs to get increased stats. So technically us WvW folk are fighting for the peace of the PVE world and if they don’t like us losing our orb then they better come help us instead of sitting around Lions Arch doing nothing.

orbs could give just one time bonus for everyone on the map when orb is taken to altar. maybe like 10 silver or something. once orb is taken to altar it will give no further bonuses until some other faction captures it.

supply camp could also have supply crates you could run to towers. runner would be limited like the ones running orb on that one newer pvp map. it would be less than dolyak of course, but it would give little reward like few silver to anyone who has spent x seconds near carrier or something

Force.2841:

I’d say instead of making orbs impact WvW, lets screw over PVE crowd (force them to help us in WvW) and have the Orbs impact the PVE World. If we lose our orb for example, mobs in PVE will gain aggression and hit harder, increased HP, bosses are harder, etc.

It’s bad enough that we have people who enjoy WvW that only want to zerg and win without strategy – forcing people to do something they don’t want to do will just result in less people playing the game period. Furthermore, that would just encourage people to move to the stronger servers, since of course they’ll have the orb more often.

Besides, I’d rather not be fighting a dungeon boss when something happens in an entire world removed from PvE that makes the group wipe.

Wolfey.3407:

multivira.7925:

Wolfey.3407:

Easy Hacking Fix:
-Patch Up your guys Privacy Policy
-Create a database of all known hacking and botting programs
-3 pt database check to see if the players is running the program
~On client Launch
~At Character Select Screen
~Switching zones
-If a player is running a hack and the check confirms it via database check:
~Flags the account as being a possible hacker, No actions are taken (no auto bans)
~A message is displayed to the correct anet staff to investigate it
~Anet takes the proper action
-If no action is taken within 30 minutes (anet asleep on the job) a 24 hour ban is issued as a precautionary event. Message sent to the correct anet staff saying "acctname has been automatically banned for 24 hours for running ____ hack. "
It would then be up to the anet staff member to increase, decrease or let the 24 hour ban stand.

Lots of successful games run a system similar to this, if not a lot more complex or robust…. why GW2 is stuck with an archaic report and wait 2-3 hours system is beyond me.

Detecting hacks (client side) isn’t as easy as you think. I’m guessing they don’t detect illegal movement server-side because it’s too processor intensive, or at least I hope that is the reason. Considering how laggy things already get because of CPU overload I can’t really blame them for not adding extra checks into that laggy mess.

It would be a lot easier than trying to detect what hacking programs people are running on their own PC though. Blizzard has attempted this a LOT and dedicated a lot of time and money towards making it work and hacks and bots are still prevalent in their games, simply because the owner of the client has full access to all of the anti-hack code running there.

It actually is that easy….
I will admit that creating it would be the most time consuming aspect if you are hand scripting every line.

Blizarrds issue is that they allow every 3rd party program known to man kind to run with their clients. So if you ban some one on a blizzard game they can just say “Oh i was just updating my hud skin and trying to play custom mp3s” and they would get off with no problem.

That is not the case with Guild Wars 2, with Guild Wars 2, you aren’t authorized to run 3rd party programs to alter the game.

If server lag is an issue, you can always outsource to a security company like:
VAC
PunkBuster
Game Guard
Game Shield

Game Guard & Punkbuster are probably the best of the 4
Since Game Guard is based in Korea along with NCSOFT, there may be a better partnership and discount possibilities.

I will quit this game and not come back if they use Punkbuster. I personally classify Punkbuster as malware. A system like VAC I would support, but VAC is owned by valve and anet might prefer to develop their own VAC like system.

Punkbuster is the worst, too many issues with false positives. Not to mention how intrusive the kitten thing is. I don’t need punkbuster running while i’m in Microsoft word.

Just make the orbs available the team with the lowest score. If that team manages overtake one of the servers, the orbs reset and available to the server with the lowest score.

Piogre.2164:

Draygo.9473:

Even if there is a group requirement to ‘unlock’ the orb you still have the issue of a single player picking it up and flying it away.

A better system would utilize NPC’s that carry the orb to its target location.

so, a dolyak run? Only if someone can issue stop/go commands to the dolyak- maybe commanders only

I love where this idea could go. The old orb was great because it wasn’t a stationary fight like a tower or keep. If instead of the orb being an object, lets say its a capture the NPC commander type thing. Enemy team has to get to the old orb location att he top of the map. Then defeat him and the large army of lvl 82 npc’s gaurding him plus any human players defending him. Then they have to escort him to wherever they can jail him and hold him ransom. And they pretty much ransom him for points from your borderland. That would take care of my biggest concern with the old orbs aside from the hacking stuff… the buffs stunk.

The orbs were important because they gave organized groups/zergs a secondary target aside from keeps.
Someone suggested that a unhackable NPC carry the orb, but that they should follow players to make the paths unpredictable. That’s a great idea. To simplify things maybe they should only be able to follow a player commander.
If Anet added a second, lower or more specific, tier to Commander, as I’m suggesting since the beginning, those could make the Orb NPC follow them as well.

The suggestion of some that the orb should receive the Outmanned or other economic buffs isn’t terribly good, because then it would become an absolute low-priority target the higher in the Server leaderboard you go. An organized server simply can’t spare 10+ people chasing after some karma/gold during prime time, even if it benefits everyone. It’s like wasting them on the champion grub.

I think the orb should give a buff that is inversely proportional to map domination. That could be accomplished by buffs that simply and elegantly decrease in effectiveness/duration the more keeps you own and the higher they’re upgraded. i.e. to visualize this, the orb’s power would get “used up” much less fast if you only have wood keeps and mid-sized zergs.
So even if you’re so outmatched that you’re only able to secure the orb once out of 5 times, you’d still get about as much out of it as the map hegemon.

The orb would still have value to a team that owns the whole map, not least to prevent the other team from acquiring it.

did someone say grub?

DevonCarver.5370:

Orbs will never come back in the form they had as they simply were too easy to hack around. With that said, we are definitely working on finding a suitable replacement for the best parts of the orbs, while avoiding as many of the downsides as we can. It’s not simple task though, so it isn’t as simple as deciding to do it one day and finishing it the next. Our goal is to get a new and improved version out when we can, but we can’t say yet when that will be.

You know, you can get around the issue with hacks by having a dolyak carry the orb. The server wins through to the orb, which then spawns the dolyak with the orb to head to the nearest keep that can house the orb. Have a ring of control follow the dolyak, which is invulnerable due to the magics of the orb. To stop progress of the orb, the control ring needs to be challenged. To reverse course on the orb, another server must wipe the initiating side from the control ring and gain control. This would send the orb either towards the nearest suitable keep for that side, or back towards to orb spawn point.

Have a suitable time limit on how long this tug of war can go on before it resets and then have a cool down after it resets before the ordeal can be triggered again.

It might even be a good idea to have a timer on how long the orb can stay in a server’s keep before resetting.

This is just the basic idea. Having a non-player entity carry the orb will prevent hacking the orb to a destination. The tug of war over the orb could be an epic experience. A time limit on how long a side can maintain the fickle orb would make the thing even more interesting. having to fight over each orb, say, once a day, would recreate the reset day rush on a daily basis.

No Punkbuster with my gw2 please and thank you. So many false positive bans I can remember from my Wolf:ET days.

Also, I don’t need a third party program scanning everything on my computer 24/7.

Keep the orbs where they belong- locked away.

Lord Kuru.3685:

In terms of the hacking problem, what about: whoever picks up the orb goes into a transformed state where you have fixed set of skills (or even no skills) and no buffs can be applied to you (possible as golems currently can’t be buffed).

If you teleport, you drop the orb (there are bundles in the game that are dropped upon teleport, so this is possible).

If the server detects you are moving too fast, you’re definitely hacking and the orb is dropped, your file is forwarded to the ban-team, and you’re banned. (As you have no skills and can take no buffs, “moving too fast” shouldn’t be too hard to detect.)

But if you’re lagging, you can be perceived as a hacker and subsequently banned. Especially if you’re moving in a large zerg. Lag can potentially do weird things with packets.

Easiest fix would be to make it an escort mission once you capture the area where the orb is in. Only it wouldn’t be an orb obviously, instead it would be somekind of acolyte/priest that summons an orb where you take him to the destination.

I think there should be just 1 Orb which can be carried around from map to map. It should despawn after 30 minutes of being unplaced and once placed cannot be removed. As before, it shouldn’t allow you to carry it into safe areas.