Community Blog: Ilum PvP issues

[Scan]

If you were one of the players that was exploiting an obvious oversight, and thereby making it impossible for players of the opposing faction to be able to even spawn without instantly being killed, then you definitely deserve a punishment on top of the Valor roll back. It's in the TOS, read it during your forced downtime.

 

But the game was designed for imps to be able to get into the bases.

 

The oversight is the imbalance not the game mechanic, thus the playerbase cannot be to blame.

 

The error is the designers fault, however as have said before I got no problem with a rollback on valour as im not really a pvper, banning or account infractions are a totally different matter though.

 

I would possibly take it as far as I could to clear my name of the crazy insinuation I cheated etc.

[pmlough]

Through several games now, which i'm sure many of you are veterans of SEVERAL MMO's by now, because SWTOR has to be the game to attract most "already occupied" players, that i've ever seen. We have ALL seen exploiters to its finest and still do IE: People lagging themselves into the scorezone in Huttball (Come on, we know you do it on purpose when everyone is standing on you and next thing your 40m down field, alone and unstoppable) But coming from other MMO's Exploiting is aggitating, unacceptable and to the short stick.......Disgusting, pvp is where people gloat of skill and complete dominance...if you want those titles, play with honor. FOR BLOOD AND GLORY!

[Scan]

Camping inside of the the opposite faction's base, not allowing them to leave after spawning by instantly killing them falls under the definition of "Griefing" in the TOS.

 

Can you link exactly where it says you cannot camp or spawn kill please?

 

I have looked for it and do not read anywhere where killing a mob repeatedly or player repeatedly is against ToS.

[Hansuki]

CAPS LOCK FOR EFFECT

 

THEY DIDNT ROLLBACK CREDITS FOR PEOPLE WHO EXPLOITED SLICING

 

THEY WOULDN'T ROLLBACK LOOT GAINED FROM WHEN BIOCHEM WAS OP AND MADE THINGS EASIER

 

THEY SURE AS HECK WONT ROLLBACK OPERATIVE/SMUGGLER VALOR DESPITE STATING QUITE CANDIDLY THAT THEY WERE KILLING IN PVP MUCH FASTER THAN INTENDED

 

 

My point is that when Bioware makes a change to the game, everyone is affected and there's nothing you can do about it but cry and keep playing or cancel and move on. Other player's valor shouldn't be your concern, just like other people's credits aren't.

 

I'll offer another example - at lvl 50 you can get past most city guards and kill the other faction in their cantina or coming off a taxi if you wanted to (as I have done many times). Should I be punished for this? I've killed the same guy a few times over for fun in his own base - should my account be banned?

[Dowdy]

Maybe Bioware should fix the massive bugs in the game play instead of penalizing players for doing something the devs forgot to think of. Honestly, these bugs are crushing the game for me at points in the game and I don't feel like I want to continue. Then I hear about the devs more worried about a exploit in end game pvp then some bugs that make it near impossible to finish class quests. Not all of my friends and guildys have migrated over from WoW and most are holding back until they see if this game will sink or swim. So far I really hate to say this as I have been looking forward to this game since first hearing about it back in the day, it is looking like this game has more lead then float in it.

[Aeywyn]

Maybe Bioware should fix the massive bugs in the game play instead of penalizing players for doing something the devs forgot to think of. Honestly, these bugs are crushing the game for me at points in the game and I don't feel like I want to continue. Then I hear about the devs more worried about a exploit in end game pvp then some bugs that make it near impossible to finish class quests. Not all of my friends and guildys have migrated over from WoW and most are holding back until they see if this game will sink or swim. So far I really hate to say this as I have been looking forward to this game since first hearing about it back in the day, it is looking like this game has more lead then float in it.

 

 

To be fair. This was a major issue that would have had a massive, negative impact on the enjoyment of a large number of players.

 

To compare it to a very small, minority of players being unable to finish class quests because they haven't chosen to spend their points or money wisely, well.... the two issues aren't comparable in terms of game impact.

 

If there actually were serious, widespread issues with classes being unable to finish class quests there would be a very obvious lack of level 50s, which the devs could spot a mile off.

[Icedlemonnestea]

If they allow people to keep their illicit gains:

 

Do you think it is fair that people have to deal with opponents with inflated stats?

 

Do you feel it is fair that other people have to work and spend time earning what they got in a day of exploiting?

 

Do you think anyone will refrain from exploiting the next time the opportunity arises?

 

Action should be taken, yes, but why ban the players? Like i said, a simple valor reset and something for those who got farmed repeatedly (Like a cool social item, not useless though or it would just piss them off more ). Nobody gets hurt AND resetting the valor negates the whole point of farming so if they know its going to be reset, they wont have any incentive to farm anyway.

 

By the way, why does the course of action have to be reactive? Isn't preventative better then reactive? More rigorous testing and listening to the test player base means that there will be lesser bugs around which means lesser chance of 'exploitation' happening.

 

And you are missing the bigger picture ...even though some action should be done,..... gah why do i bother ...laters

Edited January 24, 2012 by Icedlemonnestea

[Brad-]

To be fair. This was a major issue that would have had a massive, negative impact on the enjoyment of a large number of players.

 

To compare it to a very small, minority of players being unable to finish class quests because they haven't chosen to spend their points or money wisely, well.... the two issues aren't comparable in terms of game impact.

 

If there actually were serious, widespread issues with classes being unable to finish class quests there would be a very obvious lack of level 50s, which the devs could spot a mile off.

 

 

Also, the effect are the exploiting is long lasting. Republic players are facing opponents with more Valor and better gear than they should be. So, in addition to being outnumbered, they are facing enemies that are stronger than they should be. It only makes matters worse. Why PvP under those conditions?

 

 

 

Action should be taken, yes, but why ban the players? Like i said, a simple valor reset and something for those who got farmed repeatedly (Like a cool social item, not useless though or it would just piss them off more ). Nobody gets hurt AND resetting the valor negates the whole point of farming so if they know its going to be reset, they wont have any incentive to farm anyway.

 

By the way, why does the course of action have to be reactive? Isn't preventative better then reactive? More rigorous testing and listening to the test player base means that there will be lesser bugs around which means lesser chance of 'exploitation' happening.

 

Every game has issues that crop up where people can exploit. 1,000,000 players can always find something 100 Developers and testers miss. The question is, what happens when we find the loopholes? Do we bug them and avoid taking unfair advantage, or do we use the loophole to get as much as we can, no matter how it affects other players?

 

A lot of people are inherently selfish. They don't care how their actions affect other people. When the chance to get an unfair advantage appears, they will use it. The only way to stop them is to make the consequences of exploiting so severe they won't risk it.

Edited January 24, 2012 by Brad-

[suzy_lee]

This is stupid. Bioware makes a horrible mechanic for Ilum then blames the players that took advantage of the horrible mechanic. It reminds me of 4th grade when we made our own games on the playground, got beat at them, then blamed the kids that won the games we made. Go ahead and change the rules again Bioware, and when you end up crying because your game is broken try to remember it's your fault. Full disclosure: I'm not one of the people talented enough to farm valor, my PC can't even handle the 150 people fighting at the base at once anyway, so I'm not upset because bioware changed a mechanic i was good at. It's just ****** to punish the player-base because the highly esteemed design team somehow didn't see this coming.

 

I appreciate your viewpoint. I have encountered several statements on these forums from bioware,,,I twitch at the pretentious opinions of the developers, they always seem to be making threats to ban accts for exploits.

 

They do not seem to realize that they have created this vast game for people to play (as they like) and then claim that players are not playing as intended, how on earth can they possibly expect every player to play the game as intended?, this is a naive expectation. IMO, any problems that arise on the topic of exploits are a direct result of game design.

 

IE: if I discover a security chest-loot it, play in the area a while then stumble on the same chest,,,I'm going to loot it again, and again, and again. Personally I will not camp it, there should be timers, and spawn counters on a (per-player) basis, which will eliminate the possibility of exploiting it, if a chest can re-spawn every 5-7 mins like clockwork, they should expect a problem.

 

PVP,,,Ummm, again they threaten to possibly ban accts, or rollback valor. I would like the development team to publicly admit that they are acting like underfed sharks that have been released into an aquarium filled with tasty morsels. I'm sorry I just can't understand them at all. THEY CREATED THIS GAME, how can they deny creating the problems within??? Don't start banning accts, in fact don't even roll back Valor, FIX IT!!

 

BTW I am not defending myself as you (the reader) may assume,,,I have never been to the Ilum PvP area,,,I've only looted the same chest twice. I'm just a gamer that hopes the best for this game, there are soooo many wonderful things about this game, on the other hand there are toooo many things that need attention. I'm off now, back to the game,,back to spend many hours LFG'ing:D

[BoomBapBeast]

I think it's stupid to punish players for "exploiting" something because of bad planning on the developers part. It's like you made a mistake and now to cover that fact you are scapegoating people who took advantage of that mistake. It's not their fault you planned and coded something into the game wrong, it's yours. It sucks you made a mistake. Just learn from it, fix it, and stop wasting your resources on "punishing" people for being smarter than your team. Hell you should be hiring them, not punishing them.

[artilleryshell]

I trusted you, bioware, i really did.

 

This response is simply inexcusable. Actioning accounts because you did something wrong?

 

Reset the valor points. that's *the* solution. You not only are not imploying the appropriate solution, you are going to ban people for exploting *your development team's* failures.

 

I liked this game, but this is too much. goodbye, SWTOR. Clearly, this development team does not know how to run an online community.

[Rollcageuk]

From the huge amount of posts that appeared on these forums after the patch went live commenting on the illum issue, it was obvious to a lot of poeple that things were not working as intended, so to then come back here complaining that BW have decided to action on the worst offenders is just childish and certainly hypocritical.

 

Yes, BW are the ones who created the issue, but it's the players who responded by taking full advantage of the issue to reap the maximum amount of valor in the time available.

 

Most of the serious exploiters knew they were exploiting so they should be punished.

You want to play the game, then play it as the developers intended. Why are some people only happen when they are cheating.

 

In RL there are very few situations where an unintended advantage will be used without some repurcussions, so to the kids who are posting thinking it's wrong, I say welcome to the Real World.

[JabbasHat]

Bioware: We are introducing an all out open world PvP zone on Illum

Players: Cool, but faction imbalance will really screw this up

Bioware: No worries we have metrics and leet skills

 

Players: Look BW, see our screenshots? There are a million imps on each server and only a

hand full of reps, all holding hands while farming illum pvp objectives

 

Bioware: We do not believe in your screenshots, they are the devils work. Faction

imbalance is grossly exaggerated. We know because we have metrics. Reps just

level slower. To force you to PvP in illum, we will require you to kill more

opponents than there are reps on illum. Kills will be counted at random.

 

Players: But this will be aggravating for both sides because the reps will be farmed

and the imps will spend all their time looking for reps to kill

 

Bioware: We are not listening. Also each kill will be rewarded with a lot of valor, dependent

on how many bases you control.

 

Players: Guys, after the patch, reps are farmed in their base, imps have insane valor boni.

Reps can't even get close to that because 1. They are overrun and 2. No way in

hell will they control any bases in illum at peak PvP times.

 

Bioware: We did not expect this to happen! We opened an all out PvP zone despite heavy

faction imbalance and rewarded kills with valor. We did not expect you imperials

to kill reps and we are very upset about it. Those Imps that killed the most will

likely be punished. They should have known that this is not the gameplay we

intended.

 

...true story

 

Honestly, not everything is an exploit, and if you mess something up so massively, why do you want to punish the players? Sure, you guys should respond to people abusing game mechanics. But hell if I want to spend time during the game wondering if I'm playing the game according to the unwritten rules that Bioware had in mind.

 

Please for the love of god, pay people to play your game. Im not kidding, employ like 10-20 people that actually play full time on different servers and give you some feedback. I bet that beats your metrics. For ages I've had the feeling that you devs never really touched your game. Sit down and see for your self.

[VvDingovV]

Can you link exactly where it says you cannot camp or spawn kill please?

 

I have looked for it and do not read anywhere where killing a mob repeatedly or player repeatedly is against ToS.

 

In the Rules of Conduct:

http://www.swtor.com/legalnotices/rulesofconduct

 

Under Mods, Hacks, and Cheats:

B. Mod, Hack and Cheat Prohibitions

Using mods, hacks and cheats can give players an unfair advantage over others. To help ensure a level and fair playing environment for the community and for everyone, you may not engage in any of the following behavior:

 

3. You may not take any action that imposes an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our System.

 

6. You may not engage in any conduct or practice that results in an Account containing items, objects, currency, character attributes, rank, or status that are inappropriate for the level or rank of the character contained in the Account, i.e., "item loading,".

 

Note: That one is where exploiting the valor of killing at the spawn point repeatedly, for hours, would come into play.

 

Under Harassment:

C. Harassment Policy

Our goal is to build a strong community that offers a comfortable atmosphere for all of our players. This means seeing that players have the ability to combat antisocial behavior

 

1. Harassment consists of misuse and/or abuse of game mechanics and verbal harassment with the intention of distressing and offending other players. Game mechanics allow players to interact with the world and each other. For example, the ability to block a doorway is a game mechanic. Use of game mechanics like these is by no means considered harassment in and of itself. The key to determining whether the mechanic is being misused or abused is to determine "intent." Reported incidents are not considered harassment until it is determined by the SWTOR CS that it was done to intentionally to cause distress or to offend other players.

 

5. Player versus Player (“PvP”) activities, where available, are not exempt from this policy.

[Brad-]

From the huge amount of posts that appeared on these forums after the patch went live commenting on the illum issue, it was obvious to a lot of poeple that things were not working as intended, so to then come back here complaining that BW have decided to action on the worst offenders is just childish and certainly hypocritical.

 

Yes, BW are the ones who created the issue, but it's the players who responded by taking full advantage of the issue to reap the maximum amount of valor in the time available.

 

Most of the serious exploiters knew they were exploiting so they should be punished.

You want to play the game, then play it as the developers intended. Why are some people only happen when they are cheating.

 

In RL there are very few situations where an unintended advantage will be used without some repurcussions, so to the kids who are posting thinking it's wrong, I say welcome to the Real World.

 

 

Excellent post.

 

Yes, it was obvious to anyone (with intelligence at all) that something was amiss. At that point they had two choices: 1) they could bug it, and move on ... or 2) they could take advantage of the situation to reap the illicit benefits.

 

The people who chose door #2 should be punished severely.

 

 

 

For those that blame BW, you simply do not understand MMOs. Every MMO has issues that crop up, from time to time, where people can exploit. It is obvious that 1,000,000 players can always find something 100 Developers and testers miss. The question is, what happens when a player finds the loopholes? Do we bug them and avoid taking unfair advantage, or do we use the loophole to get as much as we can, no matter how it affects other players?

 

A lot of people are inherently selfish. They don't care how their actions affect other people. When the chance to get an unfair advantage appears, they will use it. The only way to stop them is to make the consequences of exploiting so severe they won't risk it.

Edited January 24, 2012 by Brad-

[tacoknite]

being a one sided player, i only pvp, pve'd just to level.

 

ilum is a disaster. the 30 armaments + 3 wz dailies are just too much in a day for a person with at most 3 hours to play at night.

 

there isn't much pvp it's 10or11 people riding around in circles farming armaments. I don't like gathering items on a pvp warzone. In a pvp warzone there is hardly any pvp going on, at least on my server.

 

i basically que warzones, ride around in circles. winning 3 matches a night is hard sometimes with que's and lack of 50's. riding around in circles while doing this nets me 5-7 armaments an hour.

[TheRealMandalor]

Ilum is wonderful when the battlefield is full and working as intended. The core issue is, how do you sustain an open world pvp environment. Two components, its got to be fun and it has to provide a sustainable reward system both over the short term and long term.

 

Before getting into the components, you need to fix a major issue. The current issue Ilum is facing is that is it suffering from attrition. Warzones are canabalizing Ilum open world pvp. Open world pvp is only successful when it is the focus objective. Dark Age of Camelot (DAOC) did just that as did Planetside. Warhammer failed for similar reasons, canabalizing pvp environments for pve objectives, too many distractions for players and thus created either imbalance or no player involvement. The current system in Ilum and WZ's are quite silmilar to Warhammer, if it does not change you will lose your playerbase and a current hobbling pvp system will become a cripple.

 

Once you focus on Ilum open world pvp you are ensuring that everyone who wants to pvp is in this space. More dogs in the fight, bigger the fight, more aggression in the dog and more fulfilling the win.

 

Balance the fight to remain competitive, you can do this by implementing a vehicle system (which can grow into long term goals ie. piloting license for an AT-ST/AT walker etc) or similar system that allows smaller groups of players compete against larger groups without having that balance be based on population or other things players cannot control.

 

Once balance is restored and players are funneled to this environement, you have the base for a successful fight. Now you have the will to fight. Which is important. Next you create the motvation to fight. Hence, long term goals. You need to create reward systems that require sustained growth much like the experience and leveling system but these rewards are focused on pvp allowing players to not nessisarily become mroe powerful (hence unbalance) but more versatile in the battle and earn prestige. The more applicable the prestige the better (having other players that require high pvp ranked players to do certain tasks, peer influence = highest satisfaction).

 

Before this becomes a wall of text, i think the important things here are said.

 

1. funnel players into the world pvp environment, no canabalization

2. balance the fight by adding an obtainable balancer (no free 200% buffs, but like a 5 man vehicle and a support walker that can fend off 20 players but moves slow, something like that)

3. long term goals that focus on prestige and vesatility of the battle depends on high ranked players (if no high rank players exist and unbalance exists, battle field promotion occurs with the highest ranked player abling them to pilot a vehicle as an example.)

 

 

I look forward to seeing great open world pvp. I see the vision, just needs some fine tuning!

[Caedyron]

<snip>

 

[...] it doesnt make any sense, that if a player is hit by multiple targets that those people are getting full valor awards. It should be getting chopped up amongst the people who are hitting the target.

 

If 1 person gets hit by 10 people, instead of 10 people getting a full valor award it should be the valor award divided by 10. That means when 1 target gets Zerged down by 20 people those people should only be getting 1 to 5 points of valor not a full award. The system as is heavily favors massive ops roaming around and rolling people with numbers.

 

<snip>

This ^

 

As for the main issue; after reading through all posts I'm not sure I would label it an "exploit", but I'd say Bioware's response is reasonable and fair, and tries to cater to all parties. No solution is perfect, however; nor should we expect every wrinkle to be flattened in mere hours. Don't forget this game is just a month old. (I know I do -- it's like I've been playing for years!)

 

Loving the game, by the way.

[Fallensouls]

I do so love when exploiters get whats coming to them. LOL

[kobypolish]

How can you punish people for camping... It's a PVP server! BW even basically said that if you're on a PVP server and you keep getting killed and don't like it then maybe you should move to a different server. I don't see how people should get "punished" for killing in PVP regardless of how they did it, BW allowed the mistake to occur with poor planing and decision making. Their mistakes should not cost people anything. I've lost countless items, exp, etc.. because of BW mistakes, hell I can't even finish my story line because it's bugged. Is BW doing anything to reward or compensate me for any of this? NO! So why punish people for their own mistakes and miscalculations.

 

I was on ilum for a short while when all that took place and I got my Valor/Kills for the daily/weekly and I had better not get penalized because of BW's inept programming or inability to see things through. What they should really do is put Ilum back to the way it was in the beginning (pre 1.1) until they can test somethign out that actually works! Like, oohhh I don't know, maybe making the part where all the major debate has been over a WZ. Leave the rest of Ilum alone but put up a queue for the main battle area with all the cap points. Make it a timed WZ (15 maybe 30 mins) and have even teams. whoever controls more cap points at the end of the time limit wins... YOu still get the same Valor and what not as you do now (bonus kill valor for places capped) but you also get more valor and comms for your contribution just like in the other WZ's. and then if you win you get a certain bonus amount of valor based on the Cap points you have.

 

BW needs to quit pointing fingers and wasting time looking into every single account that might have had something to do with hardcore camping and start focusing on actually fixing what is broken. Don't blame others (esp paying customers) for your mistakes BW!

[Brad-]

BW needs to quit pointing fingers and wasting time looking into every single account that might have had something to do with hardcore camping and start focusing on actually fixing what is broken. Don't blame others (esp paying customers) for your mistakes BW!

 

 

 

How can you defend people who exploit? They are the ones who made a conscious decision to take advantage of the situation. There is no way to justify that behavior.

 

If I lay my wallet down at the store check out, and forget to pick it up, and the next person steals they are still accountable for their actions? Yes, I made a mistake forgetting my wallet. Yes, it was tempting to them.. But, they made a conscious decision to steal, so they are ultimately responsible.

 

Blaming BW shows you simply do not understand MMOs. Every MMO has issues that crop up, from time to time, where people can use a design flaw for personal gain. It is obvious that 1,000,000 players can always find something 100 Developers and testers miss. The question is, what happens when a player finds a loophole they can exploit? Do we bug them and avoid taking unfair advantage, or do we use the loophole to get as much as we can, no matter how it affects other players?

 

A lot of people are inherently selfish. They don't care how their actions affect other people. When the chance to get an unfair advantage appears, they will use it. The only way to stop them is to make the consequences of exploiting so severe they won't risk it.

Edited January 24, 2012 by Brad-

[JabbasHat]

How can you defend people who exploit? They are the ones who made a conscious decision to take advantage of the situation. There is no way to justify that behavior.

 

Blaming BW shows you simply do not understand MMOs. Every MMO has issues that crop up, from time to time, where people can use a design flaw for personal gain. It is obvious that 1,000,000 players can always find something 100 Developers and testers miss. The question is, what happens when a player finds a loophole they can exploit? Do we bug them and avoid taking unfair advantage, or do we use the loophole to get as much as we can, no matter how it affects other players?

 

A lot of people are inherently selfish. They don't care how their actions affect other people. When the chance to get an unfair advantage appears, they will use it. The only way to stop them is to make the consequences of exploiting so severe they won't risk it.

 

I'm not sure in what alternate reality you live but BW ran into illum desaster with eyes open. This is not a "some people found a loophole" situation, this is a "bioware seriously effed up" situation, casting players into no holds barred pvp and then judging in retrospective what was appropriate and what not. And they know it. Hence no rollback.

Edited January 24, 2012 by JabbasHat

[Brad-]

I'm not sure in what alternate reality you live but BW ran into illum desaster with eyes open. This is not a "some people found a loophole" situation, this is a "bioware seriously effed up" situation, casting players into no holds barred pvp and then judging in retrospective what was appropriate and what not. And they know it. Hence no rollback.

 

The people who participated knew something was amiss. At that point they had a choice: 1) Take advantage of the situation, or 2) Bug it and move on.

 

If I lay my wallet down at the store check out, and forget to pick it up, then the next person in line has a choice: 1) take it, or 2) turn it in to the cashier. If they take it, they are accountable for their actions. Yes, I made a mistake forgetting my wallet. Yes, it was tempting to them. But, they made a conscious decision to steal.

Edited January 24, 2012 by Brad-

[JabbasHat]

The people who participated knew something was amiss. At that point they had a choice: 1) Take advantage of the situation, or 2) Bug it and move on.

 

Nonsense, thats an assumption. Without given rules, how do you know that something is against the rules? And how can killing a player in an area that has neither mobs nor quests and is designed for killing players be called bugging OR harrassing?

 

If I lay my wallet down at the store check out, and forget to pick it up, then the next person in line has a choice: 1) steal it, or 2) turn it in to the cashier. If they still it, they are accountable for their actions. Yes, I made a mistake forgetting my wallet. Yes, it was tempting to them. Butl, they made a conscious decision to steal.

 

Wait what? if you loose your wallet and i take it how is that stealing? You say you're a lawyer, point me to the paragraph saying that, until then I call BS.

Edited January 24, 2012 by JabbasHat

[dproederjr]

Maybe someone has already said this. I only have a lvl 18 max level toon. If the developers lack the foresight of an exploit to this degree, why should players be punished for working within the games parameters. Maybe it hurt the fun of other players, but that is Biowares fault. They are only punishing these people to satisfy the masses and to use them as scapegoats.

 

Please correct me if I do not see all the facts here.