The Ilum problem

[Kjetl]

This post is written for the Bioware team more than for the SWTOR player base. I welcome any and all discussion, however. For the ADD crowd, there is a TL;DR below.

 

With all due respect to BW, 1.1 will only exacerbate the real problem with Ilum.

 

People aren't trading caps because they don't want to kill one another in pvp. Ilum isn't a ghost land because people don't want to fight.

 

Ilum is the way it is simply because BW created an avenue of getting geared that makes pvp on Ilum counter-productive.

 

1) the luck based gear bag system makes it seem very important to get as many bags as fast as you can. The risk/reward of the bags is vastly skewed away from 'reward' -- the bags are tremendously expensive from anything other than a quest, and the reward from the bags is a very small chance you will get something you need, plus a guaranteed chance of getting 1/5 of the cheapest, and least worthwhile piece of centurion gear. Each bag costs 800 wz commendations (200 commendations + 200 merc comms, which are 30 wz comms per 10, or 600 wz commendations) -- meaning the cheapest piece of cent gear costs 4000 wz commendations and the most expensive piece (blaster weapon) costs 32000 wz commendations.

 

Excluding Ilum for the moment, you can get 10 champ bags from quest rewards for the wz daily and weekly quests. If you can guard someone, then you can average 75 commendations per wz win, which means in addition to the 10 bags from the quests, you've also won at least 1575 commendations (I know not everyone can guard, but the easiest way, non-exploit, to get extra commendations is to guard, so we are talking about the best average case here). So from the wz quests, you generate the equivalent of 9575 commendations. That means if you want the blaster weapon and are not lucky enough to get a token for it, you need an additional 22,425 wz commendations at 75 per win -- in other words, you need to win an additional 299 times. That is for a single piece of gear.

 

Ok, so most of the armor costs 13600 wz commendations, fine let's use that instead -- you still need to win 54 times on top of the 21 wins required for the dailies. For another single piece of centurion.

 

Of course players are looking for a faster way of getting geared.

 

2) The Ilum dailies provide that way -- with another 10 bags per week. Fine, there should be another avenue towards gearing, and this way is perfectly acceptable, except for one glaring flaw: the Ilum dailies require cooperation between the empire and republic forces to complete.

 

Wait. Stop sputtering with indignation for a second and I'll explain. The Ilum dailes require you to recapture points that the enemy has captured, right? Even if you are alone in Ilum, completing your quest requires the cooperation of some earlier opposite faction player having captured all the points. Why? Because they have to be owned by the opposite faction before you can flip them.

 

So yeah, empire players should be opposing 1.1 as well as rep players. If no rep players come to Ilum, you will not be able to complete your dailies any better than they will. In fact, you need to make sure the rep players feel safe and rewarded for going to Ilum solo, or the day will come when you will be able to get half the champ and bm gear bags you can get today.

 

The only people who can afford kill people with impunity are republic players (only after they've completed their weeklies) and people in full battlemaster gear.

 

It is counter-productive to kill anyone on Ilum prior to finishing your BM set, unless you don't believe BM gear makes a difference in pvp.

 

3) Population imbalance requires the sort of "flip this thing" method of alternate path to gearing. This system was a good idea from the perspective of population imbalance, and has worked in that regard. In 1.1, however, this system will become broken and will favor the side with the most population again (just like the wz quests).

 

IT WILL NOT STOP QUEST REQUIREMENT SWAPPING in any way, shape or form. Either things will go one exactly as they are with both sides swapping points, or the low pop side will stop going to Ilum as they won't be able to complete their quests anyway.

 

TL;DR:

 

In other words, 1.1 will either: do nothing, or completely crush world pvp on Ilum, and the reason is, 1.1 does not actually address the real problems behind what Ilum has evloved into (gear is hard to get, especially on the under populated side; Ilum as is is a relief valve of sorts for the under populated realm to get some gear, population balance sucks in this game).

 

My suggestion to BW:

Create another avenue for players to get pvp gear that won't require them to be demoralized by constant pop imbalance (or leave ilum alone). Create another area for flat out killin' and put additional quests in that area based on killing, and reward the underpopulated side with more tokens and more valor for going there. For instance, allow the over populated realm a very small chance of getting gear tokens from killing players and provide the under populated realm with significantly higher chances of getting the tokens (and spread the rewards through the entire group so healers get some love too).

 

Another alternative would be to greatly increase the number of lower tier commendations provided and greatly increase the gear token chance based on population numbers. 5:1 population imbalance? Low side gets 15 lower tier comms, or a 5x better probability of getting gear tokens.

 

Thank you for your time.

Edited January 13, 2012 by Kjetl

[Terrestrial]

Interesting post.

 

One of the few things I liked about WoW in the later expansions is that they created war zones with objectives and the winning side was able to unlock an instance to gear up in and collect commendations etc.

 

I don't think the commendations system is a problem (RNG might be with Champion but I digress). The problem is how you get them outside of Warzones.

 

What if, for example, you took Voidstar a bit farther. Suppose that once you downloaded the information (or won the game otherwise), you got access to a special instance with dailies or weeklies that were more like PvP Flashpoints.

 

In any event, I am looking forward to the Ilum changes because anything is better than a system requiring cooperative play among competing factions.

[Kjetl]

Thanks for the comments.

 

 

In any event, I am looking forward to the Ilum changes because anything is better than a system requiring cooperative play among competing factions.

 

1.1 doesn't change the parts that require cooperation. It just adds on a part that is antithetical to cooperative quests. If it was totally a kill quest, it would make more sense, but requiring us to continue to flip these things, and kill off the people who are allowing us to flip them is just plain silly IMO.

[pseaton]

The game just came out. Give it time. WOW has been out since dirt.

[Kjetl]

Who cares about WoW? WoW's PVP is worse than SWTOR

 

This has nothing to do with the length of time the game's been out, it has to do with trying to fix Ilum with a flawed idea that does not address the actual causes of Ilum.

[Ryddenn]

I also see one other problem with illum.

The problem aint illum itself its more teh player base.

 

I dont know how many times i started figths there going all over the palce killing ppl,just to get flamed at from both sides.

 

So the real problem dosnt lay int he bags or the planet.

Ofc they have abit of the problem but the main problem i think is that ppl are to right out lazy and want to stand afk show of there pvp/pve gear.

Instead of being productive and actually encourage OPvP.

 

I will copntinue going illum gank and slay everything thats red to me and hopefully some other guilds/ppl will hopp on teh wagon and start SEARCHING for pvp themself aswell.

 

In the end its us as players that form the game and do our own content BW can only add the tools to us.

 

Hopefully the change to illum will encourage more ppl to activily kill other players or atleast i hope that will happend.

 

OHHHH also forgott to mention my biggest point.

I have done my dailies at illum by ONLY killing ppl sometimes when i kill a rep player i get cvredit towards teh daily so I jsut contunie to kill ppl there and in teh end my daily is done before i even can say FOR THE EMPIRE

 

/Ryddenn

Edited January 13, 2012 by Ryddenn

[Kjetl]

I also see one other problem with illum.

The problem aint illum itself its more teh player base.

 

I dont know how many times i started figths there going all over the palce killing ppl,just to get flamed at from both sides.

 

So the real problem dosnt lay int he bags or the planet.

Ofc they have abit of the problem but the main problem i think is that ppl are to right out lazy and want to stand afk show of there pvp/pve gear.

Instead of being productive and actually encourage OPvP.

 

I will copntinue going illum gank and slay everything thats red to me and hopefully some other guilds/ppl will hopp on teh wagon and start SEARCHING for pvp themself aswell.

 

In the end its us as players that form the game and do our own content BW can only add the tools to us.

 

Hopefully the change to illum will encourage more ppl to activily kill other players or atleast i hope that will happend.

 

OHHHH also forgott to mention my biggest point.

I have done my dailies at illum by ONLY killing ppl sometimes when i kill a rep player i get cvredit towards teh daily so I jsut contunie to kill ppl there and in teh end my daily is done before i even can say FOR THE EMPIRE

 

/Ryddenn

 

The reason you are getting flamed is the cooperative quest bit.

[Ryddenn]

Yepp i know but i also tried to tell them its a PvP zone and u DO get credit towards teh daily/weekly by killing ppl.

But noone is listening sadly and i can bet its msot fo thoose afk ppl that post that theres no pvp in swtor.

 

/Ryddenn

[Cydel]

the bags are tremendously expensive from anything other than a quest, and the reward from the bags is a very small chance you will get something you need, plus a guaranteed chance of getting 1/5 of the cheapest, and least worthwhile piece of centurion gear. Each bag costs 800 wz commendations (200 commendations + 200 merc comms, which are 30 wz comms per 10, or 600 wz commendations)

 

Seriously? The game has been out less than a month and there's tons of people with full Champ gear already including myself. Gear is not hard to get at all, if anything it needs to be harder. In 2 months from now there will be nothing to do. Im not talking about Hardcore players here, a lot of casuals have a lot of Champ gear already. The cost for the bags is fine, if anything they should remove the randomness and increase the amount needed to gain a set.

 

As for Ilum, ya it definitely has issues. They do need to make it worthwhile to Defend.

[Kjetl]

Seriously? The game has been out less than a month and there's tons of people with full Champ gear already including myself. Gear is not hard to get at all, if anything it needs to be harder. In 2 months from now there will be nothing to do. Im not talking about Hardcore players here, a lot of casuals have a lot of Champ gear already. The cost for the bags is fine, if anything they should remove the randomness and increase the amount needed to gain a set.

 

As for Ilum, ya it definitely has issues. They do need to make it worthwhile to Defend.

 

They are expensive in terms of what you get out of them (3 cent tokens). I've been 50 for 3 weeks and still have some of my lvl 40 pvp gear on and the pvp weapon from the pvp vendor (I've had a lot of multiples of the same item). I've got a friend who has had 2 item drops -- both main hand weapons -- who's been 50 for over 2 weeks. That's expensive.

Edited January 14, 2012 by Kjetl

[Kjetl]

Yepp i know but i also tried to tell them its a PvP zone and u DO get credit towards teh daily/weekly by killing ppl.

But noone is listening sadly and i can bet its msot fo thoose afk ppl that post that theres no pvp in swtor.

 

/Ryddenn

 

So you get credit for every kill you make (e.g. kill 5 people, daily done?)

 

Because I've killed imps who attacked me and gotten 0 credit, and then couldn't finish the daily...

Edited January 14, 2012 by Kjetl

[Ryddenn]

So you get credit for every kill you make (e.g. kill 5 people, daily done?)

 

 

Its abit buggy atm it seems like u need the actuall KILLING BLOW to get credit for teh daily.

[Kjetl]

Its abit buggy atm it seems like u need the actuall KILLING BLOW to get credit for teh daily.

 

strange. I solo'd a guy with no credit. I was on a rep owned flip point too.

[Ryddenn]

strange. I solo'd a guy with no credit. I was on a rep owned flip point too.

 

Strange indeed as i jstu completed my daily by jsut interupting and killing of republics in teh way of capping a "base" dunno if that has something to do with it maybe.

 

Worth looking into ill keep u posted tomorrows when i get a new daily to sovle if its a prequsition for getting credits for player kills.

 

/Ryddenn

[yukirshiro]

I made another thread which is getting ignored so I'll post here instead.

 

The problem with Ilum is it is based around daily quests. This is an AWFUL model for persistent PVP. For persisent PVP you want a system where people want to go there and stay there, not just go there until they finish their daily and then ****.

 

It is mind boggling BW didn't realize this since they supposedly have a PVP team made up of DAOC and WAR people.

 

Ilum needs forts to hold and capture which reward people for holding and capturing them instead of for completing a stupid daily quest.

[Kjetl]

I made another thread which is getting ignored so I'll post here instead.

 

The problem with Ilum is it is based around daily quests. This is an AWFUL model for persistent PVP. For persisent PVP you want a system where people want to go there and stay there, not just go there until they finish their daily and then ****.

 

It is mind boggling BW didn't realize this since they supposedly have a PVP team made up of DAOC and WAR people.

 

Ilum needs forts to hold and capture which reward people for holding and capturing them instead of for completing a stupid daily quest.

 

I couldn't agree more strongly.

[Maximilus]

Seriously? The game has been out less than a month and there's tons of people with full Champ gear already including myself. Gear is not hard to get at all, if anything it needs to be harder. In 2 months from now there will be nothing to do. Im not talking about Hardcore players here, a lot of casuals have a lot of Champ gear already. The cost for the bags is fine, if anything they should remove the randomness and increase the amount needed to gain a set.

 

As for Ilum, ya it definitely has issues. They do need to make it worthwhile to Defend.

 

Just becasuse you got "lucky" doesn't mean the system is perfect or easy, I have open close to 70 bags, and I'm rank 54 and I still don't have a full set of Champion gear, vs people like you or a rank 13 I saw today that have a full set. What happen to you is not happening to others, stop assuming.

 

Its abit buggy atm it seems like u need the actuall KILLING BLOW to get credit for teh daily.

 

You are sadly mistaken, the quest get's complete even if you are near the objective when it turns, even if you are not the one turning it, not by killing anyone at the moment, this has already been tested due to someone else claiming the same. The quest even tells you what the req is, it has nothing to do with killing anyone.

 

I made another thread which is getting ignored so I'll post here instead.

 

The problem with Ilum is it is based around daily quests. This is an AWFUL model for persistent PVP. For persisent PVP you want a system where people want to go there and stay there, not just go there until they finish their daily and then ****.

 

It is mind boggling BW didn't realize this since they supposedly have a PVP team made up of DAOC and WAR people.

 

Ilum needs forts to hold and capture which reward people for holding and capturing them instead of for completing a stupid daily quest.

 

The problem is the design of it. If you actually pvp (like you are suppose to right?), you stop them from completing their quest, but at the same time you cut yourself and your faction also because now none of you can complete your quest either, flawed and very horrid design, I Know.

 

Then people rejoice for patch 1.1 and were so happy they actually didn't even read the patch correctly or basically stop reading after they saw "player kills", what most miss is that the patch notes actually say: player kills and/or collect armaments from the center objective. which turns into "NOTHING CHANGE" for Ilum. people will go the center and trade the cap while grabbing the armaments, no kills involve, nothing. Why? Cause people can care less about valor gain, even if it is 600x the gain as valor don't gear you, the broken down flawed "lucky bags" do. The important thing on their eyes is getting the bag, so basically getting the quest done, which in turns mean, "if i kill the other faction, I can't get my own quest done, so no bag = no gear (well a chance at it anyway).

 

The entire system is crap, relaying on luck for gear is crap, Ilum is crap and no incentive for Open World pvp is worst. Don't blame the player base, they are playing with what BW/EA gave them, blame the design of it, which atm is, well like I said, crap

Edited January 14, 2012 by Maximilus

[raduph]

 

The entire system is crap, relaying on luck for gear is crap, Ilum is crap and no incentive for Open World pvp is worst. Don't blame the player base, they are playing with what BW/EA gave them, blame the design of it, which atm is, well like I said, crap

 

This. I am currently lvl 23 valour and have only 1 piece of the champ set - no centurion pieces. I do have the offpieces but some are centurion not champ. Centurion gear is pet material as i will still need to upgrade to champion simply because they are better in terms of stats. All the while getting soloed by imperial operatives in warzones does not help my morale. Of course i want gear faster, not spend hours on ilum hoping to achieve my stupid daily credit.

 

 

Make the bags more expensive if you have to but let me choose what i want.

Those complaining about node swapping are either extremely lucky or have an excessive amount of time on their hands. I dont. In the few hours i have for pvp i want to achieve maximum efficiency. When i am in battlemaster gear Bioware will release a new season and so on. It never ends.

 

Edit: i started pvp at lvl 50 with rank 1 or 2 valour. The only pvp i did was during leveling the occasional skirmish with opposite faction.

Edited January 14, 2012 by raduph

[Teslamatic]

If nothing else works, a free-for-all PvP zone with quests is still easier to implement than faction-balanced World PvP.

 

I played Wow on a server with a 4:1 disbalance for the underpopulated faction. Nothing, and I mean nothing, that Blizzard has ever implemented, made the horror go away. I was a nightmare, it never worked, we won one match in four, maybe five.

 

Have the World PvP events instanced, with re-rolling starts every full hour and random player redistribution into two (or more) even-numbered teams? Battle Huttale? Or, what the *, look at Battle.net forums - threads with reasonable suggestions number in the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands. This was (and I imagine still is for some servers) a massive problem. Free data, right there.

 

Unless you solve the player numbers, you are looking at one side needing buffs, or extra rewards, or whatever. I am very sceptical anything of the sort would be much help. I do remember War presented XP boosts for the underdog faction on any given server to incentivize new players to pick it, and others to re-roll.

 

Currently, Illum is a farce, but at least everyone gets the gear. Imagine a system based on holding the objective and beat back attackers. You`d have even more QQs.

[Cydel]

Just becasuse you got "lucky" doesn't mean the system is perfect or easy, I have open close to 70 bags, and I'm rank 54 and I still don't have a full set of Champion gear, vs people like you or a rank 13 I saw today that have a full set. What happen to you is not happening to others, stop assuming.

 

Im rank 58, and im still missing the helm. I agree the random chance kind of sucks, but the amount of time it took (less than a month) to even get here is super easy. I'd be fine if they change it to the way they're going to make battlemaster bags, where its all tokens. But i don't think the system is too expensive in its current state. Its as if you have something else to do with your time at 50 other than PVP? What are you gonna do after you get a full set lol?

[Maximilus]

Im rank 58, and im still missing the helm. I agree the random chance kind of sucks, but the amount of time it took (less than a month) to even get here is super easy. I'd be fine if they change it to the way they're going to make battlemaster bags, where its all tokens. But i don't think the system is too expensive in its current state. Its as if you have something else to do with your time at 50 other than PVP? What are you gonna do after you get a full set lol?

 

It's not that it's expensive, it's that relies 100% on luck, the amount of effort person A puts into getting a full set will never be the same as person B, C, or D, never, which turns into an unfair play ground.

 

I do a lot of thinks at 50 currently, plenty if you ask me, from daily comms, to pvp, to crafting, to completing each planet and unlocking every secret, flashpoints (HM), raids etc, there is plenty to do, but that has nothing to do with the current gear system, which favors only the lucky ones.

 

My problem with this system is that if you and me run the exact same wz's and we both worked the same, and we manage to get around 15 bags. Now, that's 15 bags of luck, because you may end up with 0 champion tokens while I get a full set, for the same amount of effort and time, see the problem here now? champion Gear should have the same valor req like Battlemaster do, if you are not a Champ, you should not be wearing Champ gear at all.

[AdamLKvist]

Im rank 58, and im still missing the helm. I agree the random chance kind of sucks, but the amount of time it took (less than a month) to even get here is super easy. I'd be fine if they change it to the way they're going to make battlemaster bags, where its all tokens. But i don't think the system is too expensive in its current state. Its as if you have something else to do with your time at 50 other than PVP? What are you gonna do after you get a full set lol?

 

Are you not listening to a word they're saying? <insert insult here>

 

Some people will have the gear in a week. Some in 6 months, the amount of RNG included is too much. I'm valor 61 and a half and I am not yet fully CHAMPION geared, now I began my quest towards BM and, yeah.

 

Seeing newbies ( no offence, but worse players with less experience and less time put into it) running around with full champion gear makes me sick. No, good for them, really! Though, my time and effort becomes even more wasted after seeing such a sad result of a pure RNG system...

 

Reward effort and skill , not luck.

[ZeffSide]

How long was this game in development? 4 years? If you are going to add PvP to a game please don't think of it the last month before release. This reward system, illum, (bugs I can live with for a while), it all just seems half-arsed to me and not even thought through. I don't know if it's stress on the developers part that has caused these problems, or that the developers are actually bad at their work. If it's the latter... Lets just say PvP in this game won't last more than 3 months and that's being generous.

[Cydel]

Are you not listening to a word they're saying? <insert insult here>

 

Some people will have the gear in a week. Some in 6 months, the amount of RNG included is too much. I'm valor 61 and a half and I am not yet fully CHAMPION geared, now I began my quest towards BM and, yeah.

 

Seeing newbies ( no offence, but worse players with less experience and less time put into it) running around with full champion gear makes me sick. No, good for them, really! Though, my time and effort becomes even more wasted after seeing such a sad result of a pure RNG system...

 

Reward effort and skill , not luck.

 

Which is why at Rank 60 you have the option to buy anything you didn't get on the way up. I understand its not fair on the way up, its random. But being as it is, its still not that bad. Like i keep saying the game has been out only a month and most people are already in mostly Champion gear (from the current system), and once you're rank 60 you can choose what you get. Its not worth crying over because it might take you a week or two more than someone who was lucky. Gear is still way too easy to get, yet some of you still complain. Which brings me back to What are you gonna do when you have the best gear in every slot? Should only take a few more weeks for a lot of people.

 

I'll answer that, you'll move on to ************ about there not being enough content.

[Kjetl]

Which is why at Rank 60 you have the option to buy anything you didn't get on the way up. I understand its not fair on the way up, its random. But being as it is, its still not that bad. Like i keep saying the game has been out only a month and most people are already in mostly Champion gear (from the current system), and once you're rank 60 you can choose what you get. Its not worth crying over because it might take you a week or two more than someone who was lucky. Gear is still way too easy to get, yet some of you still complain. Which brings me back to What are you gonna do when you have the best gear in every slot? Should only take a few more weeks for a lot of people.

 

I'll answer that, you'll move on to ************ about there not being enough content.

 

This isn't about your opinion of the gear system. This is about the proposed changes to Ilum quests in 1.1 and why I think it will fail.