Community Blog Post Discussion: New Year’s PvP Update

[Kamidake]

I just read the part about the Empire winning about 53% of overall matches Aldaraan and the Voidstar. With regards to the Aldaraan Civil War. The Empire has the advantage. As soon as they cap from the get go the Republic loses pts. Where as if the Republic caps Empire loses pts in about 5 sec intervals. I have submitted a ticket for this and I am working on getting the proof. However whenever I do a screen shot it comes out all black. So if anyone enters a Aldaraan/Civil War match please take note of the pts.

Another thing I notice though and many will think I am just complaining at this point, but the Imperial Operative and Bounty Hunter are too OP. Imperial Ops can backstab you to death within 7 secs. If you think I am joking just let one of them do it to you. I counted 6x stabs with no breaks each hitting me for about 2500 health pts. Then you have Bounty Hunters who just spam their rockets and pretty much your dead.

I understand at this point there are other issues to be worked on that affect game play that are more of a priority at this time. But I look forward to any balancing system in the near future. Thank you for your time.

[Edrand]

Honestly.....Really?

I can't see how the majority of you are complaining about the faction imbalance on Ilum.

It's only been over 2 weeks, and not everyone is level 50 yet, and those which are 50 may prefer doing the Flashpoints/Operations, creating new characters or something else.

 

Give Ilum like a week or so to actually get some more players in and hopefully rebalance the factions a bit more evenly and only then it might seem worth it for you.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Edrand

[ProfessorWalsh]

Honestly.....Really?

I can't see how the majority of you are complaining about the faction imbalance on Ilum.

It's only been over 2 weeks, and not everyone is level 50 yet, and those which are 50 may prefer doing the Flashpoints/Operations, creating new characters or something else.

 

Give Ilum like a week or so to actually get some more players in and hopefully rebalance the factions a bit more evenly and only then it might seem worth it for you.

 

On most servers the faction imbalance is so bad that more people hitting 50 won't matter. Almost all servers are reporting between a 2:1 Empire:Republic to a 5:1 Empire:Republic.

[Hyppyrotta]

cool, more warzones. Playing huttball all the time was starting to get boring

[Fliksan]

Why is the guy in charge of PvP also in charge of PvE??

 

Gabe Amatangelo

Principal Lead PvP, Operations & Flashpoints Designer

 

I just don't understand how a guy can focus on 2 completely different spectrums of the game, and do a stellar job at both.

[Spuck]

I want more Huttball, but I'm Republic.

[RepublicMaverick]

Sounds Awesome, can't wait!!

[amazingben]

Sounds amazing !

[vizionblind]

need more endgame content

[corebit]

On most servers the faction imbalance is so bad that more people hitting 50 won't matter. Almost all servers are reporting between a 2:1 Empire:Republic to a 5:1 Empire:Republic.

 

Ilum needs to restrict same number of players for both sides just like Tol-Barad in WOW. Otherwise all those incentives to PVP there are really useless in imbalanced servers. Empire won't find enough Republic to kill to complete their quests, and Republic won't have the numbers necessary to retake Ilum.

[HelterSkelter]

Good way, go ahead!

[Tekkstar]

Things that SHOULD happen to fix many of the issues:

 

- The bracket they add should not just be level 50. It should be 40-50. Have the low bracket be 10-39 and the high one be 40-50. Level 40 is where people get the first set of PvP gear (well there is a lvl 20 set but hte 40 set is the first one with endgame stats like surge, alacrity etc etc). This will also help the queue times a bit for level 50's.

 

 

- Illum should have 2 sets of balance mechanics....

 

- Dont allow one side to have more then a 10-15% population advantage before sending to new instance of zone.

 

- If one side has the full 10-15% advantage give the underdog side a 10% stat boost.

 

 

- Encourage people to queue PvP at least 1-2 times daily by giving a large valor boost for first say...2 matches played each day. This will help get queues at endgame from dying completely.

 

- A better CC immunity system needs to be worked out. Something to the effect of once your CC'd you get a 5-8 second immunity. You can take a note from your in-house Mythic people. They (very late in the game) finally separated CC into like 2 categories I think and gave them different immunity timers.

 

- Healers need more rewards in PvP. If you heal in a Warzone you typically get shafted on medals while dps people get 6+ healers get maybe 4.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Tekkstar

[NinjaScroll]

The lvl 50 bracket will be a great benefit to this community.

It's not quite perfect yet but it's one good way to start off!

[jayderyu]

I was hoping there would be just a 50 bracket. I don't like the idea of more than that. Though the previous poster made a good point that at 40 PVP gear starts. It might be an idea to go with that.

 

I always had the rough idea that if the population was unbalanced for PvP. Then make a against the odds buff. Where when being out numbered you get a buff to balance the odds. I've never qauntified it into solid numbers, but throwing out a simple example would be. If one side outnumbers the enemy in a zone by 30% then the smaller population get's a 30% damage increase and reduction... or whatever % it would be to balance it out. Keeping in mind that multiple attackers carries a lot of weight in battle.

[joeypesci]

People are still going to exploit the dailys on ilum by using friends on other factions to stand around and be killed so they can get their rewards, so adding that isn't going to stop the exploiting. You'll see friends rolling low level toons to stand around and be killed.

 

A 3rd faction (although probably to late for that now) would of sorted out the imbalance. You give numbers claiming Imps are winning the warzones but forgetting to mention the imps have the most Imp v Imp warzones due to the imbalance so of course the numbers are going to show them as winning. And the fact half of them are now level 50s with epic gear and expertise making them near untouchable they have even more benefits (you still need to orientate the imp compass on the Alderaan map though as it's well confusing when you play imp).

 

Good that they are being bracketed off though. But would be nice to be able to choose to stay at level 49 because 10-49 battles are decent and low levels can still beat the higher ones. So it's sometimes more fun in those matches than the elites level 50 matches.

[FestivusStarWars]

Wondering about people who join PVP warzones and then AFK for the entire thing or scoot to a safe location to hide out? How about no exp unless they did something?

 

Also, I am kind of staying away from PVP warzones until some things like force lighting get looked at or rated battles, because often times I join a warzone, the top player slots are almost always sith that use force lightning... stun locking people sucks and that is a lot of what it feels like. Put some tiers in, I'll come back and play it.

[Brodsterr]

To all the players who think faction imbalance is awful, well in previous games I have played being on the side with less players is a blessing and a curse. You will probably die more than the other faction but if you are a solid player and play with great teammates you will have no problem finding kills. Actually you will score more kills than the other faction because there are way more targets to find, unfortunately you will be zerged more than half of your own deaths. Also the opposing faction will own more of the points but whatever, if you enjoy pvping all you care about is killing the players and your nemesis's. Have a good day! Hope the update comes out soon!

[Pazzels]

I want arena!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[DarkGreenGames]

Please keep companion characters!! It adds an interesting twist on pvp. It would be nice to have some different things going on in ilum than we get in all the pvp warzones.

[Onepro]

To note again: The basic requirement for open PvP are Factions with a balanced population.

SWTOR is lacking that.

 

Ilum with Kill quests (or in general also) will never work without any sort of Buff for the underpopulated faction.

 

You will rarely have balanced open world pvp. Only thing you can do is get more organized, better tactics, better gear, and better players. You can beat 2 to 1 odds.

[CriticalMasses]

Add more PVP games like Huttball. It's a huge success. Let's design another one.

 

Ever see Deathrace 2000?

 

Do that for speeders on Tatooine. hehe.

 

Or how about something like Aliens.

 

Drop a team of 8 people into an instance. Overpopulate it with crazy mobs from whichever planet. Person with the most kills before dying, wins.

 

Oh, and no teams. It's you against the environment and the other players. Give them each different starting points.

Edited January 6, 2012 by CriticalMasses

[Catahoula]

Personally, I think that while some of the fixes sound promising, it won't be enough to hold my interest.

 

Right now, Ilum is a single-climate zone where it's dark all the time. I couldn't stand playing for hours and hours in the same icy, dark zone. That would get old real fast. They should have at least made it dusk or daylight. Perhaps with some plant-life as well. Aesthetics do matter, believe it or not. It sets the mood.

 

But aside from aesthetics, I am at a loss as to why this game seems to be going in the direction of tiered armor, whether for PvP or PvE. It segregates the community very quickly. For example, when LOTRO introduced raid/instance gating with their armor, I could no longer pop in to help my kin get their gear, because I wasn't geared up enough myself. I ended up isolated in a corner, and finally stopped playing my hunter. I would hate to see something similar happen to this game's PvP. I know it's already coming for the PvE raids, which is why I was hoping the PvP would leave this casual player something to do instead with my guild. I am very concerned Bioware will take even this away, leaving me nothing to do but solo PvE. *Yawn*

 

To keep PvP interesting, yes, it should reward you with armor. But keep it at one tier only, please. It should be roughly on par with Ops gear. I strongly feel that any player should be able to mix and match their gear from various activities (raid, PvP, solo PvE) and be viable for PvP. (Besides, all the PvP gear so far is ugly. I'm not wearing that! No way!) Good teamwork should trump good gear any time. Good gear, whether from PvP or raids, should only give the player an edge. It should not make them superman.

 

By providing alternate gear paths, casual players aren't feeling left out of the PvP experience. It doesn't have to be the best gear for them. It just has to be good enough to compete.

 

The other issue is that kills need to reward you with increased valor. Whether that kill happens at Ilum, in the open world, or in Warzones, it needs to happen. And valor should play a part in unlocking new gear pieces and other goodies (perhaps new speeders and other status symbols?). Your level of valor should also be publicly displayed, perhaps by an emblem. It's a status symbol, and that is a very powerful motivator. One of the few places Turbine got it right with LOTRO was having "ranks" earned by killing the opposing faction, and having the ranks displayed publicly. It took exponentially more time to earn each rank, making high ranks a huge status symbol.

 

Also, stats need to be tracked for things like killing blows, protection, and heals. When you get a certain number of each, a new title can be bestowed. Another area where Turbine got it right. (Yes, whenever Turbine gets something right in their PvP, it's more like a freak accident rather than something intentional.) Laddering boards would also be fun.

 

The reason we need things like the above? To continue to give people fun things to earn after they've gotten all their gear.

 

I would also like to say that having faction buffs for PvE isn't a good motivator to take objectives. I've seen this in LOTRO. Nobody cares if their faction gets an XP buff, because it doesn't affect them personally. Think about it. If you're at level cap, who cares if you got your faction an XP buff? It doesn't affect you. Players want things that affect them personally. I think having objectives drop some sort of loot that the ops group has to roll on is more of a motivator.

[Asnine]

Introduce a 3 side warfront. You've already proven you can mix and match with Huttball....do it with a new 3-way warfront (like in Wrath of Heroes)

[brothermoose]

Glad to see that PvP is becoming a priority. Keep up the good work.

[maximusedward]

Im guessing our tears filled up your stomach.