The_Tree_Branch

Before a dungeon run with a PUG, make everyone showcase their AoE spells' effects at a corner outside .

"Yeah, see this fountain of water coming from a rock in the ground? Its the ranger Healing Spring I will be casting."
"No... its not a bidet."

First off this isn't for the bugs and secondly its all my own opinion I pretend nothing here is fact.

I was reading some other posts (credit on this belongs to DeContrust who maybe some of these points in another thread) and I was wondering what people thought of Orr. Its a set of three zones that have no Hearts and its 'quests' are triggered Events, some are Dynamic Events like retaking temples. My question to the community was, is it what you expected and if not what did you expect and what changes would you like?

For me I don't really like the zones. These are suppose to be the zones when the Pact form up in Trinity and begin the long drive to Arah for the final campaign against the Dragon. It doesn't feel that way, I don't feel as if my character is part of a war effort pushing on, I fell like I'm in a zone littered with walking corpses and sporadic fights are happening.

In fact the only real changes in the zones seem to be losing entrance to Arah and the Armor Karma vendors at the various temples. What I'd like to see is a set of zones that don't just have events, they have world shaking events that echo not in just the three zones but may be across all of Tyria. You are marching against an Elder Dragon, one of them flying to say hi to Glint scarred the some of the world, it shouldn't be easy or small in scale.

My suggestion would be to almost turn Orr into a PvE verison of World vs World. (NOTE: I'm tossing ideas out, possibly terrible, but I figured I'd try to offer something) If the server is losing the battle Undead could start showing up further and further north causing troubles and possibly other things. Stuff happens in Tyria that remind everyone that the Dragon's power is growing and something needs to be done.

The Events in Orr become Troop Movements Escorts (either in retreat or moving forward), Camp Defense, Resource gathering for Camp Construction, Raids on Undead, Battles, and so on. The idea being that you are part of the Pacts effort to push to Arah and then break into the city to capture the gates allowing us to Raid it and kill the Dragon.

Preface:
I believe this matter has been highlighted many times by many players but very seldom have proper suggestions been put forth with some thought. A thread was brought up here with regards on how to improve Orr as a whole.

In its current state, the dynamics of the zone are simply one of messy, random Dynamic Events that have very little impact on the overall state of the zone as a whole. I strongly believe that, utilizing some base concepts derived from WvWvW as well as using the overall theme of the zone, we can definitely improve this zone to be something well worth being called end-game.

To begin, we need to understand how Orr functions and what is the storyline behind the zone. The zone was essentially meant to be a constant war zone in which the combined effort of Tyria assaults the home base of Zhaitan and his army -- in reality, this is however not the case. Events in the zone often have very little impact and here is where we take some basic concepts of WvW and apply it to Orr.

The most crucial aspect of WvW is the concept of *supply*. Each and every Keep and Tower has this resource. It is used to repair the keep, maintain it and otherwise fortify the keep. The effect of this is tremendous. A well fortified (and supplied) keep allows for its world to push deeper into enemy territory and gives them ground in which to fall back (A prime example would be the Hylek Camp and Quentin Lake in the Eternal Battlegrounds which is often considered a crucial position).

Likewise, cutting supply to the keep allows for opposing worlds to wage a battle of attrition exhausting the stored supply within said keep (which will eventually fall). Naturally, by losing keeps, you lose footing in the battlegrounds.

Taking this concept and applying it to Orr can be a start. Let us take Fort Trinity as the main base and staging grounds for the assault (which it is). Supply is delivered via Asuran Gate to this point and from thereon is delivered via three paths denoted in this picture: http://imgur.com/mgf5y

This supply route is important. It is critical and it is crucial to the war effort in Orr. Without it, soldiers will starve, morale will drop and combat operations in Orr will be non-existent. *Supplies in each camp will dictate how many troops said camp can sustain, how far they can push out and how strong and well equipped these troops are.*


In the above example, losing Shelter Gate means Jofast Camp as well as Meddler's Camp no longer have access to any form of supplies. Troops there can no longer regenerate and equipment can not be repaired.

The repercussions are huge; It is no longer possible for the Pact to assault and take hold of the Temples of Grenth and Melandru nor can they assault the Gates of Arah. Consequentially, players may no longer access Arah as an INDIRECT result of losing Shelter Gate. Furthermore, the loss of footing and momentum for the Pact rallies the undead forces of Zhaitan allowing them to push the Pact further off their home grounds.

This motivates players to see and notice the impact of losing a single camp instead of simply just losing a waypoint. Now players will WANT to take back the camp because it will make their fights easier and it will give them greater access to resources on Orr.

The execution of recapturing the camp can further be enhanced. If losing Shelter Gate via land meant that a huge barricade of risen exists there, a flanking assault from Winterknell would possibly assist the main assault via land -- and as with the Pact having supplies, the Risen too should have supplies (in the form of dead bodies to fuel their army) and as such *small skirmishes* to disrupt the enemy's supply lines would be an effective and indirect way of contributing to the war effort.

This simply mechanic alone, can change the entire meta of Orr and turn it into what truly is and should be a warzone.

Thanks for reading, I'll update the post soon as I expand on the core concept.

tl;dr: The strength of your forces on Orr is determined by the supply you have available. Likewise, the strength of the Risen force is determined by their supply.



The above picture depicts the supply routes for Pact forces in the Straits of Devastation (Orr-side). As you can see, Rally Waypoint is a crucial camp for the Pact because all supply lines direct to that location. Should the Orrian forces take it down, resources to fortify all forward camps will be cut off, weakening the assault deeper into Orr.

Another crucial point is the Sentry Waypoint which acts as the primary checkpoint for resources flowing into Malchor's Leap (which will be covered later). Risen forces will be aware of this and will dually try to assault both the camp while supply starving the Pact by cutting their lines (so in essence, you do need to defend and escort the caravan).

Eventually, should you fail to retake Rally Waypoint (or any other crucial supply line or even fail to secure your supply routes), you will lose all other camps in Orr as a result of attrition warfare and would have to retake the entire zone starting from square one and work your way back to the Cursed Shore.

It doesn't just have to be that though. Remember those Risen Miners? Killing them could cut off the Orichalcum and Mithril supplies to Zhaitan's armory lowering the attack strength of Risen Forces (damage debuff?).

What about those Risen Farmers? Maybe if you kill them they'll stop raising their Risen Chicken and the Risen Army won't have Risen KFC. Now they move slower or have lower health!

Cross-post from the official forums here: https://forum-en.gui...concept-of-Orr/