You mean the best snare in the game that Knights get? One Trick Pony that works for EVERY single warzone objective. Alderaan? Fight on the nodes... Easy AOE Novare - Fight on the node - Inside a bunker sometimes - Easy AoE Voidstar - Fight near the door or on the middle - Easy AoE Huttball - Grouping up around the ball carrier - Easy AoE Not so one trick when it works in ANY WZ objective capture scenario.

Are you referring to the class as a whole or Rail Shot? Because a 10M range class that can rock people still from 30M range and be outta the "Melee mosh pit" sounds like smart playstyle to me.

I think my biggest problem with Powertechs and Vanguards is Rail shot being 30M Consider this if you claim I'm QQing. Sage can cast TKT and Project from 30M. Shadow can cast them from 10M or use Force Potency to get TKT to 30M. Commando can cast HiB from 30M Vanguard can cast HiB freely from 30M including buffing it to obscene proportions on supposed Tank/MDPS 10M range class. Also I don't know a lot about the Powertech or Vanguard but if Pyro or Assault is supposed to be the DoT Spec?!?!?! What DoTs does this class have lol? Seems the build is centered around 30M ranged Rail Shot. Yet they also have a Pull AND Storm? I personally feel if any class needed a slight tone down with the new Expertise system it's this one.

I'd like to see the individual benefits of +Damage Reduction / +Damage For / +Healing be used more individually. It allows tanks who want tank ... to buy tank gear with effective PvP tanking stats. It allows Healers to buy Healing gear with effective Healing stats. It allows DPS to buy DPS gear with DPS PvP stats It also prevents Problems with Hybrid Gear/Spec classes like Shadow and Vanguard who some consider over powerful. It also prevents Sentinels and any other DPS or Healing classes to become too powerful in any other stat other than their main trinity role DPS. In order to make sure classes have enough of their off-PvP stats there could be a static bonus applied to all the classes as a minimum. Or there could be a system implemented that totaled the number of PvP gear pieces equipped in the main 5 slots. 5 slots giving a natural bonus to ALL Expertise stats. Ad the base number rising the more of the set you get ie Recruit/BM/WH 15%/20%/25% (with each piece representing 1/5 of the 15/20/25% so 3.75/5/6.25% a piece of gear of respective set) Then you just figure out how much base stats all the classes would have across the board and how much Main stat they would receive from the gear pieces. You could naturally balance the numbers individually for all classes if really necessary. And it seems the ONLY way to balance classes based on Gear/Role. It would also allow people to figure out the best combination of + to each of the 3 PVP Expertise stats they would want simply by buying one of the 2 sets the class has available or buying a different classes set piece and taking out the item and replacing yours. Allowing full customization sound familiar? Thoughts suggestions? I kinda just came up with it so don't hesitate to shoot me down it all sounds good on paper.

THanks, I wish the original author was still around to take credit. I still remember theorycrafting with Astral way back when. Shout out to all the theory crafter Shadows / Assassins we've lost Astral / Parthis / Philosmanic(still playing?) / Kitru / Power (still playing?)

A valid point. I was hoping the timefram spreading everything out along with the rivalry created through the fighting might provide enough incentive to not give up. Now that I think about it I think a 3 planet system might work better. 1 Neutral and Rep and Imp. That way its either the nuetral one to go offensive, the offensive one to win or the defensive one to prevent getting scored on/lose. But I'm sure BIgSkill is right on with that assessment

VERY WELL SAID!!! That's exactly what I am shooting for with this system. Something static and sandbox, relavant to ALL aspects of SWTOR including PvE and PvP and then tie it all together in a factional conflict that sets up those server rivalries and competition which encourgaes interest and people logging in. Also the significance of death is so true. There needs to be a heftly time frame between when you die and when you are back in the fight. I always figured it to be 5-10 minutes from dying to stepping your first step back into the Open world zone. 5 being if your solo and 10 I guess if your grouped and are waiting to grp up. This makes troop movement and strategy significant and more important than numbers and pop imbalance. An organized but under populated server would be able to outmaneuver a larger zerg that chose not to break up which is how it SHOULD be.

+3-5% Expertise or make it a round +100 Expertise/additional Valor gained per kill. Cheaper costing PvP gear. Maybe reduce commendation cost by 5%

Crew Skills Crit/Efficiency Bonus - 5% Additional Exp(Legacy and Leveling) - 5% Improved Credits earned by 5% from everything The bonuses would have to reflect important things that would give incentive without making the faction who has them any more powerful in PvP and PvE.

Nice idea thanks! Yeah Ill put this up in the Suggestions forum as well. The good thing is everything is changeable to further balance the limitations of the Hero Engine and server population. It could be a 3 planet system as well.

I;ve actually heard they took the engine while it was under-developed and attempted to manipulate it in a way they wanted and just failed basically giving us a horribly optimized engine that's incomplete. Basically the biggest challenge to my idea yes I agree. The worst part is there is like literally nothing anyone can do about it now... not even BW or EA lol.

LOL. I basically took Vanilla WoW's AQ World Event and Combined it with WARs Front system. Basically an great example of a successful PvE event and a successful PvP system (to a degree) and then combined and let them make little swtor open world babies. The problem is there is some large scale content that would need to be developed and at the rate Bioware is going its going to be a miracle if they even create a new planet for it and not just try to change Ilum again.

Yup, if any Mythic developers are reading this they will notice some similarities to their Keep system from Warhammer. I just think we have such a naturally epic system with the planets for it. Instead of 3 fronts to fight across you keep it to one. The objectives and natural difficulty of everything with it being spread out over good distances with No way to travel between them except to Player Speeder (not travel speeder). This should naturally spread people out to try and complete the objectives instead of forming up a big zerg ball. I like the gear idea. Truthfully it should all be cosmetic in difference however. Keep balance simple and allow players to look different and customize more. I truly think a system like this could bring a lot of people back as well.

Did you even read the OP dude? There are like 6-8 things I listed that will determine it. WZs / PvE quests and kills / PvP quests and kills and objectives Oh and whens the last time you logged in to a War in this game never mind a Star lol. Foot meet mouth.

Obviously you care more about medal farming and your personal numbers than the object or winning the WZ. SO not important.

THis is true, but there are small work around within the logic of the PvP itself. Hero engine cannot handle lots of people in the area. So you spread them out over entire zones. Some will be doing PvE, others will be fighting in PvP and others will eb doing WZs. By making the system encompass everything you don;t funnel everyone into one little zone like Ilum. In order to achieve success EVERYTHING has to be done.

Well thats the beauty of it. You only fight on 1 planet at a time. In order to progress you need to "Lock" a planet and move to the next. Once a planet is located everyone would need to travel to their spaceships and fly their and start working on the content there. It would provide a never ending source of content to provide resources etc for the warfront effort. Thus it would keep everyone together on 1 planet but allow for a more immerse system and allow PvP in multiple environments. And would UN-trivialize the lower level planets people barely visit (and perhaps give incentive to level alts to those planets to continue aiding the war effort)

I just hate the idea of having one Open World PvP planet. Ilum was awful and was NEVER any fun to do. It was always a time sink grind. THE SYSTEM: 7 Planets total. 3 Neutral Planets 2 Republic Planets 2 Imperial Planets <---- <---- <---- ----> ----> ----> The fighting starts on the middle of 3 neutral planets. Both the Republic and the Imperials have claim to the 3 subsequent planets outside this neutral one. 2 for their own factional controlled planets and a neutral planet that's in their favor. Each planet will be played like a WZ but on a MUCH MUCH grander scale. The system will run Bi-Weekly. Call them Week A and Week B. Week A will consist of fighting over the Neutral Planets. I say a week because it's a stable amount of time and runs with the maintenance schedule. Points can be tallied etc. When the week is complete one of the sides must have advanced to their opposing factions planets and have a sufficient enough lead to turn the planet over to their control. This will not lock out Leveling players (I will detail why later). Week B can only happen if one faction can satisfy the requirements to lock a planet and advance to their opposing factions opening planet. This will also be a week long and operate dynamically between servers as not every faction will be able to push every week. Well what determines if a planet flips? Well that's the best part IMO. THE POINT SYSTEM Open-World PvP Objectives -Bases/Force Temples/Rakata Ruins/Insert Important location here. -Bunkers/Towers Open World PvP Turn Ins -Kill Quests -Collection quests -PvP Dailies for the zone Warzone win turn in's should apply to the currently fighting planet. PvE Operation Quest Turn ins (end game content should be relevant to the Civil War struggle to balance) PvE World Boss kills on the planet with turn in PvE Daily quest turn in on the planet No point listing the numbers but PvP should be weighted more heavily for obvious reasons. It should weigh on a 60/40% I'm thinking although that's purely on paper. This way every aspect of the game contributes in some way to the overall effort forcing factions and communities to form to progress through the content. This gives even more incentive to continue to log in and play the content. THE PLANETS AND A NEW ZONE /w STARPORT I'd personally like it if an entirely new Star port was created on each of these 7 planets that allowed our ships to choose which Port we want to land at. The new Starport should be some type of base that has specific vendors and everything the Open -world PvPer might be looking for. One shuttle should drop you in the WARFRONT (that's what I am calling each Open-World zone on these 7 planets) and it should not take ANY LESS than 5 minutes to get back into the action. There needs to be a minor penalty for dying in Open World, namely being out of position if an enemy force is moving on objectives that time spent respawning if you got separated could change the course of the fight. Placing a much higher emphasis on tactics and strategy over numbers and zerging. I was debating on suggesting adding more PvE zones to encompass PvE Daily quests for these new areas. I guess it depends on how much content that is. THE WARFRONT'S THEMSELVES Each should be different but focus on taking objectives, killing opposing players, collecting resources and other things your faction needs. The main objective should always be something that can be captured, but only if certain other specific requirements are met. I see them as surrounded by a neutral objective or goal per planet. Both factions are there to oppose the other in the effort to seize and utilize the planets overall objective. Example: Rakata Weapon of Destruction found on Voss Mission: There are 4 bridges surrounding the Rakata Weapon. In order to successfully power the weapon you need to bring supplies to one of your factions two bridges and successfully cross into your camp. Once your faction has received the required amount of supplies you will be able to fight for the weapon. The Weapons guards are PvE but Imperials can also fight their own PvE because both doors will open. The side that has the resources needs to capture the weapon to successfully use it which means destroying the imperials and killing Imperials. The other side that has not captured it is still collecting resources in the first phase but needs to now stop the other side from finishing the second phase. You could add a third phase but the whole thing should take about 36 hours to do. For balance it might be easier to just set it on a timer and see which side has more of their objective done when the timer finishes. Anyway this doesn't even really seem possible with the speed Bioware develops content but I was bored at work and thought I'd post this idea. Would love comments critiques and adjustments. It's a very basic idea at the moment so go easy on me haha.

It's like why did the planets have to be restricted to level brackets anyway? Its a PLANET! You can technically make as many different level areas as you want, multiple star ports etc.

This... and a complete lack of understanding history in regards to MMOs. If it's like WoW only worse... why wouldn't people just play WoW? 1.2 should have been the games release. And 1.3 Should have dropped Rateds and other goodies. WHAT HAPPENED TO: 1) Ability Delay fixes? 2) Guild Capital Ships? 3) Nightmare EC 4) Grey Alignment viability (No we didn't forget this promise BW) BW you need to keep us in the loop on what you are working on. All you do is claim you fix one things in a 15mb patch like we are dumb and don't understand that's far too large to fix a tooltip issue. I personally think it's a lack of respect for your customer. That mentality was good when this game was on top of the world. Now it's life blood is slowly seeping out. What will you do to fix it?

Agreed but it was the planets environment and Dark side tangibility that made it so epic in SWG. There are plenty of reasons to go to Dathomir and more than .... Ilum? Imagine fighting Open-World PvP with Sith Temples and other objects as the objectives. Whiel fighting each other Imperial and Republic have to deal with Rancors and Grauls and whatever else they come up with for living there. I really like the whole dark purple / green swamp woodsy dangerous Sith Dark side planet idea. Ilum was so generic Ice planet. We already have Hoth. It could be like Dromund Kaas but a lot darker and more jungle / woods theme I guess.

High level content planets: Dathomir (Open -world much??? WHat a great environment for it) / Dantooine / Kashhykk High level social planets: Naboo / Manaan maybe another Nothing like linking the KOTOR games to this by revisiting the old sites we traveled through. Similar to the crashed Endar Spire on Taris.

I'll update this when I get home.

This. I hate my KC Shadow after 1.2 - I get melted in under a second by 2 Powertechs I don't want to play a DPS class I wanted to play a Tank. They cannot tank ANYTHING. This game is dying it's slow death though. I will not be doing the PvP anymore and will probably drag my sub on until GW2 comes out. Too bad the PvE is just as buggy and crap as the PvP

You can craft Battlemaster gear.