So... BIOWARE why hasn't there been a valor rollback

[Darth_Philar]

I for one am cancelling my subscription and voting with my wallet if there is going to be no rollback on this.

 

So you are saying that your enjoyment of past achievements has somehow been damaged through the current achievements of others?

 

I was under the impression that time travel into the past was impossible, but apparently it is possible and is being used exclusively to ruin the game for you.

[orson]

So you are saying that your enjoyment of past achievements has somehow been damaged through the current achievements of others?

 

I was under the impression that time travel into the past was impossible, but apparently it is possible and is being used exclusively to ruin the game for you.

 

lol, yeah all those people that exploited to gain valor rank certainly achieved it fair and square.

 

I think you will find in this situation time travel is more than possible, see what Bioware does is go back over the logs, the ones that were in past and remove all the exploiters gear and valor.

 

fact of the matter is legitimate players are now forced to play against geared players who exploited to get their gear.

 

therefore effectively punishing the legitimate players by making games hard and more time consuming in order to gear up

[Madmage]

This is coming from a Battlemaster imp, I was BM before the patch.

This has to be the worst patch in history of MMO gaming, and than you just tripled how bad it was by not shutting down the servers soon after people were reporting in mass all of the issues.

 

I can think of "monoclegate" for EVE and NGE for SWG being at least in the same ballpark. Although the fact that this game is far more popular might make it's effects larger scale from purely an effect on number of subscriptions but we'll see.

 

 

 

You clearly show your design and management incompetence when:

 

 

A. Rollback has yet to happen or be announced. (-20 MMO points)

 

Agreed. I can understand the concern of not wanting to penalize players that might have earned legitimate rewards in XP, credits, valor, legacy, affection, etc through other venues like questing, flashpoints, etc but the issues were flagged extremely early, as of 2-3 hours following the patch, in a thread over 100 pages in length. However, the long term health of the game is perhaps compromised because it lessens the feeling of accomplishment for those that earned their valor ranks legitimately but also cheapens the game experience. Furthermore, once higher ranked gear is made available, the players that benefitted (read imperial) from the major issues impacting Ilum will have an even further leg up on future players or players that are not quite 50 or just couldn't play yesterday.

 

Sure Blizzard maintained its popularity by appealing to the casual players but that's because they were envious of the "hardcore" players' gear and accomplishments. If you throw the hardcore playerbase under the bus from the get go they'll not be motivated to continue at their pace and instead you create an environment of entitlement rather than participation.

 

I work as a Crisis Manager for a major telecommunications company and such a large failure in a deployment would have been flagged likely somewhat later and still the urgency would have been greater to respond and perform a partial (if possible) or full rollback.

 

 

B. Showing a clear favoritism to empire not only in design, animations, armor textures, and damage delays. Now it looks like the ones who abused it (empire) in 1.1, will not be getting their rollback. Clear Favoritism. Making a patch to force fighting but not fixing imbalance issues. Clear Favoritism. (-50 MMO points)

 

I somewhat disagree with the first sentence of the above statement. Like WAR, I think it is very possible designers underestimated the appeal of the Republic. Jedi were certainly going to be popular, so too the smugglers because of their respective places in SW lore (the Skywalkers, Obi Wan, Yoda and Han Solo respectively), but I think the appeal of a Trooper that did not have any iconic character in the movies other than the incompetent imperial storm troopers was somewhat lacking. Although I have to give props to the writer of the Trooper storyline for a good job from what I've seen so far.

 

As for actual game imbalance between mirror classes, these are easily corrected. The Smuggler/Imperial Agent Flash Grenade has been corrected. I still think the IA version of Dirty Kick should be "nerfed" such that it forces the IA to stop in his/her tracks while delivering the blow just like the Smuggler must do to perform the kick. The animation could be as justified as the IA has to prepare his attack to hit the perfect spot.

 

I also somewhat disagree in stating there is a clear favouritism in forcing players to fight without addressing the population imbalance. I'd more than likely chalk it up to lack of foresight or simple testing rather than any pre-conceived intent to screw over or benefit one faction over another.

 

 

 

C. Making a world pvp map with large scale battles in mind on an engine that doesn't support over 15-20 vs 15-20. (-10 MMO points))

 

 

 

D. RNG bags and bugged RNG. People with 40+ bags and 2 pieces only of duplicate gear?

 

Random is random. I got very lucky so far with my drops as a gunslinger but I know others that have not been so lucky. Introducing an element of chance creates more anticipation for the reward but I can see both arguments. Perhaps the "compromise" solution would have been to make each bag only contain commendations but a random number of them?

 

 

 

E. Most imbalance classes seen in an mmo at launch TO DATE. A 500 expertise tank getting killed in 3-4 seconds by a 45 operative? Shouldn't matter if it was a tank or any class for that matter, I have never played any mmo that failed that much. Everybody knows people like to see BIG numbers when it comes to a damage hit or healing hit, and people like fights that last a good amount of time. NO IT IS NOT JUST BIOCHEM.

(-20 MMO Points)?

 

I'd beg to differ. I've played 4 MMOs (WOW, WAR, DDO, and SWTOR) to date and this is by far the one with the best class balance I've seen at the start of the game. I've never seen a 500 expertise tank get killed in such a short time frame by a level 45 operative. I play a gunslinger with 400 and at best they get me to 50% life. Are there imbalances? Yes, but most of them can be solved with minor tweaks rather than wholesale changes like say Warlocks or Bright Wizards.

 

 

Unfortunately, you can't get any positive points since everything that is good about this game was taken from other games.

 

From an MMO perspective, objectively Bioware has pushed the limits of the genre with the story & voice acting, companions, and the process of crafting abilities (the end product of certain craft skills still need some work though). Huttball, while can still be classifed as a variant of capture the flag, still introduced the element of passing which is a step forward.

 

 

Now to add my own criticism of the new Ilum, let's proceed chronologically:

 

-The original production (or live) version of Ilum was seriously lacking and well farcical. Hardcore players will ALWAYS look for ways to optimize or hasten their progression. It was obvious they'd be the first to arrive on Ilum and as such they'd also be the first to try to find ways to game the system. The necessity to only destroy the crawlers/transports was a large oversight in that it didn't involve player vs player interaction and in fact favoured the opposite.

 

-The design team later admitted that there was a timer originally slated in the system that unfortunately failed to work at launch. Now, we'll never know the exact details of whether this timer would reset all the transports/crawlers at a point, or just the ones for the faction that had previously captured the point so I'll address the issues for both:

 

Reset only for the faction that captured the point: It favours the same behaviour as we had seen in Live, except now people will wait longer. Which leaves you with a whole slew of people just standing around waiting for things to happen and inevitably to boredom. You never wish to engender a feeling of boredom in your players.

 

Reset for both factions: A better solution as it actually causes both factions to vie for control of the area. However, this creates two other issues:

 

The first is that it forces a large number of players in a small area. Like Ciboro first expressed, the client framerate begins to suffer once more than 20 players a side are locked in combat. The numbers we saw in Ilum last night on The Swiftsure were much greater than the 20v20 example he listed and I was dealing with an average frame rate of 3-4 fps with frequent crashes to desktop. For the record, we had about 30-40 Republic and I can only guess upwards of 100 Imperials from the ocean of red nameplates (until i turned them off). I was running at a latency of 110 ms and usually run at 50-60 fps with the highest settings in the questing areas.

 

The second follows directly from my example for the first when faction imbalance is involved. Last night we were essentially besieged at our base for the better part of the evening. We did successfully manage a push when out of sheer happenstance everyone actually bothered to listen to a fellow guildmate (<3 Bliza) in coordinating using all our AOE abilities at the same time. This was successful because of the choke point at the base allowed us to hit many Sith while they were too afraid to press forward in fear of the Turret. Secondly, another guildmate (<3 Gallus) also captured the turret outside the base and hit the Sith from behind. We were able to press the advantage gained and almost pushed the horde back to the Southern Assault point before the respawned Sith rejoined the fight and the open ground turned it back into a numbers game we were sorrowfully undermanned in.

 

With the assault points being more open ground, this favours whichever faction can bring the most members to bear.

 

Conclusion: Nevertheless, both options were scrapped for last night's version. I haven't seen the changes made today but I'd say the Republic Motto on the Swiftsure was: "In Turret we Trust."

 

 

Now, for last night's version of Ilum, the issue that Gabe expressed were that the Turrets were doing less damage than expected. While this may be the case, it changes very little. It only forces the Imperials to lie in wait a few extra meters back. Certainly, it prevents the valour respawn farming but it doesn't change the fact that the Republic is boxed in. While we could move to the other respawn points, the open ground doesn't favour us at all. For all its faults, WAR did have collision detection which gave beleaguered defenders more options than SWTOR because you could artificially create a line and it also involves tank specialized classes more in the proceedings.

 

I'd add that there was also the issue that you did not seem to gain any valor in killing players outside of a certain radius from the assault points or bases. The few occasions guildmates and I snuck out of the base to destroy crawlers we managed to fall upon lone Sith but did not earn any valor for our kills unless it was at an assault point. I'd imagine this was also the case for Sith that in larger groups smashed our faces' in. This only further exacerbates the symptom of poor client performane by encouraging mass battles. With the current faction imbalance, this results in either a siege or a complete massacre by the significantly larger faction.

 

 

My solution: Well hindsight is 20/20 but chatting in ventrilo with my guildmates, I expressed to them what solution I'd have argued for within the first 2 hours of this "crisis". Obviously, the final decision comes from up above and requires approvals, etc.

 

Firstly, I'd have explored the possibility of a partial rollback with the development team while simultaneously asking the deployment team to prepare a full rollback.

 

Secondly, once a partial rollback would be confirmed or ruled out I'd have pressed for the PR department to issue a conciliatory apology on behalf of the company for the incoming downtime and extended by 1 week the free period in an effort to make amends/appease customers.

 

Third, if possible I'd have closed off Ilum entirely using the in-game excuse of solar flares or what have you forcing an evacuation of the planet for a time to allow a redesign of the zone. I think players are more frustrated with lack of quality than quantity at this stage. There's still plenty of content to explore/do for players with the various class storylines, new flashpoint, etc.

 

Fourthly, I'd keep the daily and weekly quests of 30 kills/armaments and 150 kills/armaments in tact. This was a good move forward but still needs some work as I'll write below.

 

Fifthly, change the valor gain to be split between the number of players in combat. I.E. the total valor of the kill is divided by the number of participants. This encourages smaller group fighting or even solo killing. I haven't had a chance to actually see any armaments but I'd make sure they'd be scattered accross the entire zone to add further incentive to explore and roam. Additionally, I'd try to keep the number of people that get credit from looting armaments to at most 8 people.

 

The change to add diminishing returns for kills is a good one that I whole-heartedly support. While it doesn't necessarily do anything regarding the faction imbalance, it does remove the incentive of spawn camping.

 

I have mixed feelings regarding the population caps. On the one hand, it's necessary to balance out the forces between both factions and improves the likelyhood of responsive framerates. On the other, it risks locking out players of different play times out of the zones. While I did argue in some favour for hardcore players, I do so for their commitment to achievement. It's one thing for casuals to try and fail to achieve, but quite another to never even allow them the chance. A solution could be death results in you respawning outside of the zone and thus at the back of the queue, or a timer on how long players can remain in the zone. Of the two, I'd favour the latter because the former encourages players to play it safe and avoid confrontation or travel in large warpacks.

 

My two cents.

[Darth_Philar]

lol, yeah all those people that exploited to gain valor rank certainly achieved it fair and square.

 

I think you will find in this situation time travel is more than possible, see what Bioware does is go back over the logs, the ones that were in past and remove all the exploiters gear and valor.

 

fact of the matter is legitimate players are now forced to play against geared players who exploited to get their gear.

 

therefore effectively punishing the legitimate players by making games hard and more time consuming in order to gear up

 

So you are being punished when forced to play against people who have the same gear as you?

 

You see, you don't actually have a logical argument as to why the valor should be rolled back, merely an emotional one. You don't think it is "fair".

 

You are allowing the actions of abusers to influence your opinion of the game as well as damage the sense of accomplishment you received in the past when you legitimately achieved your valor. Your pursuit of pride via status is causing you emotional distress. Rather than face the fact that you are not actually being harmed you are going to throw a temper tantrum and scream that everyone should be of a lower rank than you.

 

Should people who exploited the game be punished? Yes. Should you care so much that you are willing to cancel if they aren't? Of course not. That shows an unhealthy obsession with your digital ego.

[rzrknight]

This is coming from a Battlemaster imp, I was BM before the patch.

This has to be the worst patch in history of MMO gaming, and than you just tripled how bad it was by not shutting down the servers soon after people were reporting in mass all of the issues.

 

 

You clearly show your design and management incompetence when:

 

 

A. Rollback has yet to happen or be announced. (-20 MMO points)

 

 

B. Showing a clear favoritism to empire not only in design, animations, armor textures, and damage delays. Now it looks like the ones who abused it (empire) in 1.1, will not be getting their rollback. Clear Favoritism. Making a patch to force fighting but not fixing imbalance issues. Clear Favoritism. (-50 MMO points)

 

 

C. Making a world pvp map with large scale battles in mind on an engine that doesn't support over 15-20 vs 15-20. (-10 MMO points)

 

D. RNG bags and bugged RNG. People with 40+ bags and 2 pieces only of duplicate gear?

 

 

 

E. Most imbalance classes seen in an mmo at launch TO DATE. A 500 expertise tank getting killed in 3-4 seconds by a 45 operative? Shouldn't matter if it was a tank or any class for that matter, I have never played any mmo that failed that much. Everybody knows people like to see BIG numbers when it comes to a damage hit or healing hit, and people like fights that last a good amount of time. NO IT IS NOT JUST BIOCHEM.

(-20 MMO Points)

 

 

 

F. Still no rollback? Ive been writing this thread for over a couple hours, one tid-bit at a time. /fail.

 

 

G. Screwing up the que times just to satisfy the altaholics, and the slow levelers. Im not getting reports that the que times are not only 5x longer since the patch but reversed. As in republic are now waiting in que MUCH longer than imps... this could obviously be that most of the repubs were getting farmed on illum.. but still. (-10 MMO points)

 

 

E. Not listening to the community that relayed 80% of the present issues to you in BETA!.

(-20 MMO points)

 

 

Unfortunately, you can't get any positive points since everything that is good about this game was taken from other games.

 

Wanna know why?

Cause BW should NEVER HAVE LEFT the single player market ... clearly they are unfit and unprepared to deal in MMO market and make this joke of 1.1 ... really , if they had ANY test servers , they would actually notice this.

[Nanotech]

Just accept that the game you hoped this would be IS NOT the game that it is.

 

Agreed. Been saying this since beta, actually.

[Sylriana]

Worst patch in the history of MMOs? This must be your first one. It's a pretty minor issue given that it only effects high level characters (which, to be blunt, does not constitute a significant portion of their subscriber base) and even then only ones that PvP, and even then, not in a particularly significant fashion. The reactions here are mind boggling (well, not really, anyone who's played any MMO before knows how dumb the forum going community tends to be)

[orson]

So you are being punished when forced to play against people who have the same gear as you?

 

You see, you don't actually have a logical argument as to why the valor should be rolled back, merely an emotional one. You don't think it is "fair".

 

You are allowing the actions of abusers to influence your opinion of the game as well as damage the sense of accomplishment you received in the past when you legitimately achieved your valor. Your pursuit of pride via status is causing you emotional distress. Rather than face the fact that you are not actually being harmed you are going to throw a temper tantrum and scream that everyone should be of a lower rank than you.

 

Should people who exploited the game be punished? Yes. Should you care so much that you are willing to cancel if they aren't? Of course not. That shows an unhealthy obsession with your digital ego.

 

I never achieved level 60 and never said I did, the fact of the matter is this is not an emotional response but a logical one. I am in no way emotionally distressed by this. I made a factual statement that if action was not taken to restore a fair game then I would simply leave and not play anymore.

 

I am entitled to quit playing the game for whatever reason I so choose, does not the fact that you are willing to continue playing the game with blind resolve in the light of such a disregard for your subscription and loyalty mean that you are the one with the unhealthy obsession to your digital ego?

 

There is no temper tantrum in any manner, a simple factual statement was made that I would not continue to play this game if there was no resolution to the current situation.

 

People exploited a broken system in order to gain, this is not an achievement as you seem to mis-understand what it means to actually achieve something.

 

The actions of the abusers influence my game by the fact they have attained an unfair advantage with no cost what so ever, whereas now in order for me to attain the same level as them I am penalized by having to face them and work my way up legitimately, I choose not to pay for that kind of service.

 

So your attempt at trying to evoke or perpetrate some kind of fictitious emotional response, which doesn't even exist, in a vain attempt to give your argument validity is.. well... it's null.

Edited January 19, 2012 by orson

[Fictionfanatic]

I made a post like this and they closed it.

[Pappus]

Get real bro. You are either an imperial, under level 50 or some kid who plays 16 hours a day to give your empty life meaning through a video game.

 

The average republic lvl 50 player just got put months behind because we will still be working on champ gear through the god awful system while imps are picking up battlemasters which in turn makes the 50 bracket much harder to win putting us behind even further.

 

As the game stand 1 hour of imperial playtime is worth 5-10 republic hours in terms of pvp gear.

 

The only reason I didn't cancel immediately is because I am in a guild which is capable of raiding regularly so I can see some progression without pvp.

 

I smell someone that does not know the stat difference between battlemaster and champion gear. Maybe you should check it out it is so big, that I let my valor 58 assassin that wa the highest on the server at that time just drop dead to play my marauder. Not even bothering playing him to 60 because BM is more of a prestige thing that will just be grinded by a lot of people eventually.

[Astarica]

I smell someone that does not know the stat difference between battlemaster and champion gear. Maybe you should check it out it is so big, that I let my valor 58 assassin that wa the highest on the server at that time just drop dead to play my marauder. Not even bothering playing him to 60 because BM is more of a prestige thing that will just be grinded by a lot of people eventually.

 

BM gear is arguably easier to get than Champion gear if valor isn't a concern (and now it is not) since currency for BM gear is now universal. While the individual difference between BM/Champion is small, the fact that you can get any piece of BM and not be at mercy of Champion is huge. Also, BM implant and earring can be bought for the cost of one Champion bag.

Edited January 19, 2012 by Astarica

[Pappus]

Nothing?

 

You are the joke here.

 

I am a Battlemaster sin, and was before the patch. I have opened tons and tons of bags and have been shortchanged A LOT. Getting to 61 is NOT easy mode, Especially with a full time job, kiddo.

 

The problem me, and anyone else who actually "worked hard" for their ranks have is that these people were exploiting (AKA abusing) something they knew was wrong, and we got a scripted response as if they are going to do something about it. If they were going to do something about it they would have by now, and a roll back is still needed. You can't ban all the players that participated in the exploit. The number of those who participated is much greater than those who unsubbed, if they banned them, forget the prediction of 2 months and this game is free to play, knock it down to 2 weeks. That is why a roll back of valor only is the only logical solution.

 

The patch SHOULDN'T even have been on the drawing board until all the below were fully implemented :

 

A. Pop imbalance was fixed

 

B. Class imbalance was fixed (dont troll with the biochem excuse)

 

C. Bugs/Graphical/Connection/Que issues fixed

 

Battlemaster means nothing as protection class. Getting 1.6k-1.8k valor per round... And guess what I played a sin myself it is chewing through the ranks but go ahead and think you where great to actually achieve nothing more then a grind. It doesn't matter if you lost all rounds or won all at the end of the day it just decides how many battlegrounds you had to do.

[NoWais]

Give the Bioware reps a few days to read through the posts and research the issue. There is ALOT going on in this game, as is any MMO within its first 3 months. Instead of trying to rank the company with your meaningless points system, try putting together an intelligent and comprehensive report of what you experienced and how it has affected your gameplay.

 

Threats against your account status is no way to professionally address a company that has been doing a fantastic job of keeping up with bugs, exploits, and general issues (as compared to other MMOs).

[Schwartz]

They literally went from valor 40-60 and even 60-90 in one day.

 

There are multiple warlords now because of said exploit. The freshly ressed were worth 400 valor a kill IN A FULL OP - and freshly ressed!

 

 

The most one could get from any kill, with all the objectives held, was 180 +20 bonus. Mostly it was 120 or less with 10 bonus.

 

40-60... maybe if you did it all day and all night (assuming you were on a server that didn't spawn camp in which case the other side got that too)

 

60-90 absolutely not

 

The facts... Jack

Edited January 19, 2012 by Schwartz

[TheRealBrave]

because devs

[TheRealBrave]

The most one could get from any kill, with all the objectives held, was 180 +20 bonus. Mostly it was 120 or less with 10 bonus.

 

40-60... maybe if you did it all day and all night (assuming you were on a server that didn't spawn camp in which case the other side got that too)

 

60-90 absolutely not

 

The facts... Jack

 

50-60 is supposed to take weeks to farm up through warzones. Not merely hours. Herp derp i'm an imp logic is hard

[Dreadspectre]

There will be no rollback becuase, believe it or not, the majority of people didn't get hundreds of thousands of Valor in a couple hours.

 

I spent a little over an hour in Ilum last night just getting the 30 kills and I only earned about 3-5k max. Warzones blow that away.

 

If they did a rollback it would do more harm then good. I ended up gaining another 10k or so from WZ's that night, I would very much like to not lose that, I also got 2 more duplicate Champ pieces from the bags that I put towards a tank set. I would like to keep those as well.

 

I'm rank 56 btw.

[Dreadspectre]

50-60 is supposed to take weeks to farm up through warzones. Not merely hours. Herp derp i'm an imp logic is hard

 

Newsflash: Random anonymous people claiming rampant Valor gains in a forum are to be believed 100% instantly.

 

Gullable people are gullable.

[rdyornot]

You see, you don't actually have a logical argument as to why the valor should be rolled back, merely an emotional one. You don't think it is "fair".

 

Wrong.

 

The rate of valor gain is alot higher in ilum now then it ever was doing warzones, winning or losing.

 

Thats why Bioware should rollback.

[Schwartz]

50-60 is supposed to take weeks to farm up through warzones. Not merely hours. Herp derp i'm an imp logic is hard

 

Which is why 40-60 yesterday is very unlikely.... you see how well reason works when it is explained to you in terms you can understand.

 

FYI... you can do 50-60 in a two days or less

Edited January 19, 2012 by Schwartz

[Thelegendiryoku]

Show evidence someone gained extreme amounts of Valor, say over 100k, in one day and maybe they'd consider a Valor rollback. Right now I don't think anyone gained extreme amounts of Valor. The only exploiting that happened was the turret exploiting. It's all forum rumors and hysteria.

 

Lol...

[TheRealBrave]

Which is why 40-60 yesterday is very unlikely.... you see how well reason works when it is explained to you in terms you can understand.

 

FYI... you can do 50-60 in a two days or less

 

Yeah, it's called 1.1 Pre Fix Ilum...

[Kelticfury]

@OP - I can answer your question quite simply.

 

1) because they have the actual data on how much valor was gained, and don't have to rely on the obviously fair and unbiased reports from the forums.

2) because the percentage of the player base that may or may not have been affected by this is massively outweighed by the percentage of the playerbase that:

a) aren't level 50, or

b) don't pvp, or

c) didn't go to ilum.

[G-Tek]

corporate America loves sheep like you.

 

Actually people like us are the type that don't jump to conclusion and not take a ride on the hate bandwagon . You talk about sheep, what do you think you're doing?

Edited January 19, 2012 by G-Tek

[Pappus]

Which is why 40-60 yesterday is very unlikely.... you see how well reason works when it is explained to you in terms you can understand.

 

FYI... you can do 50-60 in a two days or less

 

50k valor takes at least 25 bgs and for 50-60 you need a lot more then 50k.

 

A single bg can yield 1.8k valor tops with 15 medals and Ilum buff stacked. Let's say you can always drag those matches to 15 minutes and get your 15 medals, then you will need:

 

6 hours only for 50k ( which is about what 59-60 takes ) in 6,25 hours without a single second wasted between the matches basically joining the second it starts to tick from 15 downwards.

 

Maybe you can see how realistic 50-60 in two days is now.