“We notice you’re outnumbered 4 to 1 in World vs. World. Please enjoy this magic find buff while you die.”
I had to laugh tonight when I saw this buff. We’re holding out against both servers attacking us at our last tower in the zone, nearly pushing us to our spawn point, and the game is kind enough to give us an experience, karma, and magic find boost — But not too much magic find! Because 33% would be just unfair to the enemy.
I always thought that they should reverse the orb bonus buff with the outmanned buff, it’s the only way they make sense to me.
The only problem I see with that buff is whether it’s incentive enough to go out there and participate in WvW even when your server is being roflstomped, I think it might not be.
But considering GW2s server ranking system I think that a buff that changes players powers and survivability (like in wintergrasp on wow) can’t be used, it would mess up the ranking.
By the time you get it, you know you’ve already lost anyway.
For massively outnumbered servers, the outmanned buff is inconsequential. At the very least they shouldn’t have to pay for armor repairs. Short of a double damage and/or double health buff, outmanned servers will not show up to play. If this situation isn’t fixed prior to switching to 2 week server matches many players on smaller servers will just transfer to larger ones.
I think these problems are the worst for the lowest ranked servers as they can only be matched up with higher ranked ones as no lower ones exist (Devona’s Rest and Kaineng for example).
It rewards the organized group and tried to encourage people to at least put up a fight(as they took it from WAR). In WAR, it goes up to 400% depending on how outnumbered you are. It really shines if your team gets out there and happens upon pugs.
“It rewards the organized group and tried to encourage people to at least put up a fight”
What is missing from your sentence are the words “in theory”; in reality there is likely no karma/magic find/exp bonus that will make up for getting farmed on your spawn points stairs, especially if you have to pay for armor repairs every few minutes.
Outmanned buffs that substantially increase power and/or health, and/or NPC ally spawns would help to balance for game play, but should somehow be balanced to not overtly increase victory point generation; increased NPC spawns that didn’t aid directly in taking victory locations could work in theory.
In this way the greater populated server would still win the war strategically, while their opponents could at least have fun trying to hold their own tactically.
In any case a armor repair discount, ranging up to 100% should be implemented as just playing under extremely outmanned circumstances is taxing enough.
@Gankatron: No armor repairs is actually a really awesome idea. Last night I paid half of my money in armor repairs because I was WvW’ing for 3 hours. My server was dying non-stop because we were truly trying our hardest to fight against two servers.
There’s been alot of discussion about how the outmanned buff should be swapped with the orb bonus on various forums.
I completely agree with it. Give the advantage of spoils to the server that’s winning, and give the fighting advantage to the other two servers.
The Outmanned Buff is also bugged that you will often lose it when you die. If you leave the battleground and reenter you get it back.
If you are getting farmed on your spawn stairs then you only have yourself to blame. There is 3 ways out of your spawn. Try one of the others – they are extremely unlikely to all be camped.
When I say spawn camped, I mean they literally have all 3 exits camped. 😉
@Humakt: You might be overlooking the big picture here. The concern for people who are in an extreme server imbalance is not that they can’t leave the front gate, but is that the situation has deteriorated to such a point that it is actually possible for another server to spawn camp the front stairs. 😉
I think they should swop the buffs with the orbs/outmanned AND add an armour repair cost reduction to the side with outmanned. It’d help encourage folks to “get out there”.
They also need a way to stop servers just giving up and removing themselves from that weeks match once the other server/s get too far ahead. Matches like that suck for every one involved. Not too sure what they could do for that, maybe have a cap on how far ahead any given server can be?
I agree that armor repair costs are the biggest hinderance to fighting a losing battle. This buff does reward the night crew to try and defend keeps against another servers night zerg though, rather than just giving up. Though the repair costs are brutal.
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