No this was not by design and it's already changed. It effectively makes retrieving from orcs a hero only job, which is not how we want cabal retrievals to work. We want a level 20+ to have a fighting chance at getting their item back.

I don't really buy 'woe is orc player' these days. The past few chiefs have piled up a lot of bodies and been pretty formidable. They've both done a good job of making temporary allies (And pissing them off..and joining up with them again) Most hero level orcs I see kill a lot more than they die and aside from ones that really embraced their orcdom, actually had some regular allies.

I don't really see things like they were back then where everyone guns for the lonely orc for an easy kill. Orcs have been tweaked so they're no joke and have a lot of power potential and some unique survival skills that let them do things no other class can do.

Tremblefist is currently the hardest to retrieve from of any cabal by a longshot. It's almost to the point where if you see an orc+someone else raiding? You can bet the orc downs the item and there's a non-zero chance the Scion or whoever will pop in the orc village to help defend. Orcs don't need any additional help defending, especially with mobs that hit like hero level things. We want to create a game where a level 20+ can reasonably have a chance to retrieve a cabal item. With this exploit that effectively goes away.

Anyway, I don't see this change as hurting orcs much at all, but it makes retrieving from Tremblefist feasible again for lower levels.