WvW in Guild Wars 2 will become a little more level in a future build as the amped up orbs of power will be removed from the game. The orbs have been a hot topic on the WvW scene for a while given the huge edge that they can provide to a faction if they manage to capture all 3, often after a WvW reset. The orbs often benefited the stronger servers, making it even more difficult for underdog servers to mount an offensive. The problem with orb hackers has also been an issue, one that ArenaNet feels this move will put to rest right away.

The announcement came by way of the Guild Wars 2 forums today from ArenaNet programmer Habib Loew.

After a careful reevaluation of orbs of power we have decided to remove them from WvW in an upcoming build. As implemented, orbs tend to strengthen teams who are already winning and make it even more difficult for underdog teams to fight back. In addition, the current implementation seems to be irresistible to hackers/cheaters and will require significant modification to prevent cheaters from having an unfortunately large impact on the state of any given WvW game. Under the circumstances we believe that removing orbs completely is a better choice than attempting an in-place redesign/re-implementation as it will immediately put a stop to all orb hacking. 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.

Source: Guild Wars 2 Forums


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Last Updated: Mar 14, 2016

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Stacy "Martuk" Jones was a long-time news editor and community manager for many of our previous game sites, such as Age of Conan. Stacy has since moved on to become a masked super hero, battling demons in another dimension.

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