Update on Ilum Open World PvP issues

[mcGowd]

BW wont do a valor roll back. They're lazy. A valor roll back will be the only solution to address the issue.

[Noer]

Its way too late to rollback now, so don't bother asking for it.

 

That is the problem really. Bioware acted way too late. Servers should have been pulled offline emediately the issue was located to disable the taxis to Ilum.

 

Way way waaaay too slow reaction from Bioware. Not to mention horrible communication to the players yesterday when it was going on. 8 hours of "we will get back with an official response" will just fuel a lot of forum rage.

 

It is gonna take some time for Bioware to actually get some goodwill back on these forums...

[Exerio]

by the time i did my daily, i went from 44 to 47 with no bonuses (20 honor per kill), while being constantly camped in base getting 1 or 2 kill / minute, outnumbered 70+ vs 20 roughly. They were getting TONS of kill (~80 with all the objectives i guess), do the math...

 

 

Actually, with all the objectives it's more like 140 valor a kill then 80.

 

- Exerio

[CoachEgg]

An idea from the SWG days.

First, nerf existing Battlemaster gear. Make it nearly worthless, but maybe a collector's item worth alot on the market.

Second, establish a "safe zone" around the entry port, with a clearly visible line to show where players can attack one another. Make it a large enough circle and it will be hard to attack all players, plus players arriving can look to see if it is worth it to go past the line. If it isn't, he can call friends/allies, and if he gets enough there, we can have the war that we all really want.

 

FWIW

Egghead

[ChaoslegionX]

Congrats empire we all took advantage of a huge flaw and now 75% of the republic are gonna cancel there subs, go us i bet we feel like big boys now.

 

no one wants to admit that we need to have the roll back you guys realy want to play against each other all the time sounds like dog **** to me if it ends up being 99% 1% empire to rebublic i will end up canceling my sub aswell, its pointless to play a game with only the same faction in it....

 

THERE IS NO GAME WITH OUT THE REPUBLIC PLAYERS so atleast try and make i seem like you care..

[Hadrians]

Plzzzzzzzzzz dont patch this aweseom Buff for low Imp Players we need more Valor

[dronepilot]

You're glossing over a couple of points.

 

1. This was clearly players exploiting a vulnerability in the system architecture.

The Dev response here acknowledges that they did not intend for players to be able to invade Ilum's "safe zones." For them to do so, constitutes an exploit.

 

2. "Spawn camping" is specifically mentioned in the TOS as an example of in-game harassment -- particularly when it's accomplished as a result of exploitation of a bug or design flaw in the system architecture.

Did the individuals indulging in this behavior agree to the TOS? Yep. Otherwise, they would not be allowed into the in-game environment.

 

3. We are responsible for our own actions.

Protestations that it's somehow BioWare's "fault" for screwing up their game architecture are unpersuasive to me. The bottom line is clear: these people WERE exploiting a flaw in the architecture, and they WERE griefing opposite-faction players, and they WERE acting in a manner they bound themselves NOT to engage in, in their TOS agreement. In the words of my late grandmother: "If everyone else jumped off a cliff, would you jump off too?"

 

I for one think every player who indulged in this activity will be lucky just to get off with a valor forfeiture. I'd expect account suspensions, and maybe even in some cases for the ringleaders or those with a history of malicious exploitation of in-game systems (such people know who they are), permabans.

 

Totally agree with this. I think perma bans need to be handed out for sure, and suspensions - depending on the level of the exploitations the players have done. I am not just saying this about Empire Players, of course its to anyone who took part in this.

 

I didn't go to Ilum I saw messages popping up in game about what was going, on so just used common sense not to go there. I with draw from PVP entirely until several issues are fixed about farming players in general.

[skygon]

And now all the people who exploited this get to choose what they get. I had a stretch of over 30 bags with nothing in them and now they get to choose what they get.

 

Still no chestpiece, boots, main-hand, 1 implant, and bracers.

 

Its harder to gear leading up to battlemaster than it is when you are ACTUALLY a battlemaster now. The flood of new battlemasters because of this exploit is only making the gear gap widen.

 

This only makes this patch hit harder, and increases the need for the patch to be addressed.

 

The gear gap between a full champion set and battlemaster is not that big, and still u gonna need the full battlemaster set and with only 2 bags a day, it gonna take u some time.

[Seelenleid]

"Your subscription has been cancelled."

 

i regret that i bought a 60 day Gamecard

[Southjerseyguy]

i think the forcefield is going to be a mistake anyway all that will be is either a bunch of rebs or imps in the base pulling the others in from outside. they should just have the base zones be a non pvp area so as soon as you run in the zone you cant fight. yeah sure so people run out fight and run back in to prevent dying well if they are dotted up they still might but at least it is a fair chance to survive and doesnt cause easy kills to pullers and pushers. ehh?

[Febibi]

Hello everyone; I wanted to update you on the issues we’ve been seeing today on the live servers, specifically within the Open World PvP area on Ilum. We’re aware that on some servers, either Republic or Empire groups have been capturing the Ilum control points, entering the enemy’s base and ‘camping’ the medcenters, preventing the opposite faction from leaving their base to recapture control points. This is not a fair or balanced gameplay experience and can also severely affect client performance, so we’re taking steps to address this.

 

Our intended design for Ilum Open World PvP is that players are instantly killed when entering the enemy’s base safe area, just like in Warzones, and that the defending faction can take taxis to other points within the zone. In Game Update 1.1, this is not working as intended. We have found the issue preventing this from happening under server load and will be publishing an Emergency Patch to address the issue. We’re aiming to have this patch published early tomorrow morning (January 19th, 5 AM US CST). [Note, please check the launcher and the main thread for the latest information on patch deployment timing -JG]

 

In addition to these changes, we’ll be reducing the population cap on Ilum. This should help increase performance by requiring your client to render fewer characters on-screen at once.

 

Regarding Valor gains, with the 1.1 update, players now receive a base reward of 20 Valor per unique enemy player defeated in a short time, and this base reward is modified by the number of objectives that the player’s faction owns. The gains are rate limited per player killed, encouraging players to attack unique players, not to pursue vendettas. The Valor gains players can see over time will vary greatly depending on the activity level in the zone. This is expected.

 

To dispel a couple of rumors that have been seen today – there is no Valor gain from destroying turrets within enemy bases, and none from killing NPCs.

 

We encourage players to avoid Ilum until our patch is deployed. As a temporary measure we will be disabling taxi services which would normally take players into the Open World PvP area. However, players will still be able to taxi out of the area.

 

We will continue to monitor Ilum across all servers and will make further changes to gameplay if required. We welcome your feedback here on the Forums, but please ensure your feedback is constructive and specific. Feedback based on rumor does not help us isolate potential issues.

 

Update: Please see Associate Community Manager Joveth Gonzalez's update below:

 

 

 

patch delayed again to fix this?

 

847am cst and no fix

[Febibi]

"Your subscription has been cancelled."

 

i regret that i bought a 60 day Gamecard

 

call phone support and unused time since none of the 60 days was used is required to be returned by law

[Sicknss]

You're glossing over a couple of points.

 

1. This was clearly players exploiting a vulnerability in the system architecture.

The Dev response here acknowledges that they did not intend for players to be able to invade Ilum's "safe zones." For them to do so, constitutes an exploit.

It's only an exploit if there's some expectation that you're doing something that was specifically not intended. Why could the turrets be killed if we weren't even supposed to be there?

 

2. "Spawn camping" is specifically mentioned in the TOS as an example of in-game harassment -- particularly when it's accomplished as a result of exploitation of a bug or design flaw in the system architecture.

Did the individuals indulging in this behavior agree to the TOS? Yep. Otherwise, they would not be allowed into the in-game environment.

It's going to be hard to claim harassment when most Republic players were opting to respawn because they were getting significant gain as well... but feel free to jump to conclusions and disregard the statements from people who were actually there.

 

3. We are responsible for our own actions.

Protestations that it's somehow BioWare's "fault" for screwing up their game architecture are unpersuasive to me. The bottom line is clear: these people WERE exploiting a flaw in the architecture, and they WERE griefing opposite-faction players, and they WERE acting in a manner they bound themselves NOT to engage in, in their TOS agreement. In the words of my late grandmother: "If everyone else jumped off a cliff, would you jump off too?"

BW wanted to give people a reason to pvp, they probably went too far. This isn't an exploit (item duplication is an exploit) this is people being encouraged to do exactly what BW intended for them to do. Were you harassed? No, you weren't even there were you? You cannot harass a willing participant... even while being spawn camped, Republic players could get significant valor by rezzing, aoeing and earning honor from the turret killing Imperials. This is why the Republic players who actually PLAYED the game didn't rage log.

 

I for one think every player who indulged in this activity will be lucky just to get off with a valor forfeiture. I'd expect account suspensions, and maybe even in some cases for the ringleaders or those with a history of malicious exploitation of in-game systems (such people know who they are), permabans.

 

I agree that exploiters should be punished and likely banned. This, however, is a very poor example of exploiting and if I were Bioware I'd have an easy time choosing between people that participated, like Bioware wanted, or people who are up in arms threatening to cancel when they don't even understand the facts. No matter what Bioware does they won't please the latter as they're simply looking for reasons to feel cheated and it'll just be something else tomorrow or next week.

[Artlu]

To everyone saying they are going to cancel their accounts or keeping it canceled...WE DON'T CARE! You remember in WoW when the mages could instant cast any spell? Everyone rolled a mage and used that exploit and the current mages were unstopable. Well they DIDN'T do a rollback. Now shaddup already. Just shuddup. Noboooody careeees.

 

I care! I have not nor will not cancel my sub over this because I like this game and I will continue to play it, but I do not want a repeat of SWG where I log on one day and find my server is empty do to the way issues like this are handled by the company in charge.

[TwoHearted]

lol congratz Battlemasters

 

Did you read what he said? The valor gains are diminishing. I for one went out there and camped the repubs for an hour... it wasnt worth it. Id rather do WZs.

 

Yet another huge forum uproar over a minor bug... i hope you idiots did cancel.

[Febibi]

It's only an exploit if there's some expectation that you're doing something that was specifically not intended. Why could the turrets be killed if we weren't even supposed to be there?

 

 

It's going to be hard to claim harassment when most Republic players were opting to respawn because they were getting significant gain as well... but feel free to jump to conclusions and disregard the statements from people who were actually there.

 

 

BW wanted to give people a reason to pvp, they probably went too far. This isn't an exploit (item duplication is an exploit) this is people being encouraged to do exactly what BW intended for them to do. Were you harassed? No, you weren't even there were you? You cannot harass a willing participant... even while being spawn camped, Republic players could get significant valor by rezzing, aoeing and earning honor from the turret killing Imperials. This is why the Republic players who actually PLAYED the game didn't rage log.

 

 

 

I agree that exploiters should be punished and likely banned. This, however, is a very poor example of exploiting and if I were Bioware I'd have an easy time choosing between people that participated, like Bioware wanted, or people who are up in arms threatening to cancel when they don't even understand the facts. No matter what Bioware does they won't please the latter as they're simply looking for reasons to feel cheated and it'll just be something else tomorrow or next week.

 

thats why a rollback is the only option

 

they admitted it was unintended....

 

valor 100 cannot be justified as earned at this time and there are thousands now.

 

game is on its 30th day...last day for a full refund on the game itself from retailers if you provide the proper case against bioware. either they rollback or they flopped

 

i hope rollback becasue its star wars... but i wont waste my time in a game that allows this gross exploitation to occur...

[tigerico]

Your official response blows. No rollback. Unsubbed. Serious fail of a game.

[TwoHearted]

They said they would look at players individually. What's the issue?

[Thaderin]

Congrats empire we all took advantage of a huge flaw and now 75% of the republic are gonna cancel there subs, go us i bet we feel like big boys now.

 

no one wants to admit that we need to have the roll back you guys realy want to play against each other all the time sounds like dog **** to me if it ends up being 99% 1% empire to rebublic i will end up canceling my sub aswell, its pointless to play a game with only the same faction in it....

 

THERE IS NO GAME WITH OUT THE REPUBLIC PLAYERS so atleast try and make i seem like you care..

 

Indeed.

 

I'm a Republic player on the fence about cancelling too. I enjoy the game and have been leveling as if it were KOTOR3 (stretched out into an MMO, which it basically is.) However, I am also an experience pvp healer from multiple recent games and seeing the same mistakes being repeated over and over again, especially in a game like this which has such massive pedigree of designers and ungodly budget is rather disheartening.

 

I may stay for a while to hit 50 and finish my class quest, and enjoy the actually fantastic pvp in the sub-50 warzone bracket. But once I get to 50 and jump into that bracket against Imperials dripping in expertise gear thanks to a glitch (and the few weeks of sub50 farming)...well, we all know that's why they had to be segregated from the rest of the population in the first place.

 

Yes, I know I'm not at endgame yet but it's the principle of it above all else.

[Febibi]

Did you read what he said? The valor gains are diminishing. I for one went out there and camped the repubs for an hour... it wasnt worth it. Id rather do WZs.

 

Yet another huge forum uproar over a minor bug... i hope you idiots did cancel.

 

people could log out and back in to reset diminishing, while gaining any valor they would have gotten while they were logged out if fast enough as non dimished returns.

 

also turrets were shown in youtube and streams to be giving valor.

 

bioware has stated unintended..... pvp is forever ruined.... rollback a must

[DevQT]

call phone support and unused time since none of the 60 days was used is required to be returned by law

 

thats not exactly how that works ... gametime will just remain on your account until the 60 days go by.

[Wepo]

Yeah well that's fair enough, call a GM.

 

But for others saying things like, i'm quitting cause i worked so hard for my valor, and bioware should do this and that etc etc, should play the game and let bioware police it.

 

You haven't tried calling a GM in this game have you?

[TwoHearted]

Your official response blows. No rollback. Unsubbed. Serious fail of a game.

 

That is not what they said, they said they would look at players that got huge gains. They are just not rolling back EVERYONE.

 

BTW I think the spawn camping screens were from a few servers, most people in the other threads just had big fights outside the bases. Same on my server.

[Dificeman]

Alot of blanant lies going around here. First off turrets WERE/ARE giving valor @ 3k worth per kill. And to the idiots saying ilum as an imp wasnt worth it is full of **** too. I am a reb and I was out there for a hour or so before all the imp raids showed up and I made 38,39, and 40 valor rank in that hour of killing. was making 120 valor per kill and it went very fast.

[Vyndeta]

Glad i rolled Republic. I wouldn't want to b Empire and fighting nooone but only empire. If empire wants to help this, then just say u want to b rolled back.