Community Blog: Ilum PvP issues

[Brad-]

I know there would be people on the forums complaining that Bio did something but yet to see anything. This to me means its all hot air.

 

I hope they follow through and take appropriate action, but I am afraid you are right. It has been over a week - something should have been done by now. Maybe they have decided that SWTOR will allow cheating and exploiting.

[DarthSublimitas]

Funny that he posts this after the biggest star wars fan site out there bashes the hell out of Ilum and its design.

 

Sounds like a bunch of damage control to me.

 

And you thought anything else lol! It doesn't take a blind person to see garbage...

[Cutnail]

Sounds like Bioware made a horrible world pvp zone that wasn't tested thoroughly and is trying to put the blame on people exploiting their inadequate ability to test something thorougly before deploying something live.

 

If you pour water on some cement... it will find the cracks.... the key Bioware is to make sure there are no cracks in the first place.

[KenNoegs]

Sounds like Bioware made a horrible world pvp zone that wasn't tested thoroughly and is trying to put the blame on people exploiting their inadequate ability to test something thorougly before deploying something live.

 

If you pour water on some cement... it will find the cracks.... the key Bioware is to make sure there are no cracks in the first place.

 

All true, this is Bioware's fault for allowing an environment that was exploitable. Compensate those who were wronged by it instead punishing those who exploited your own system. I wasn't there so I don't know the actual nature of the exploit, but it seems the larger fault was with game design if they are coming out and admitting that Ilum needs to be revamped. It's PvP and people are going to exploit any weakness they can to win, even if that weakness is with game mechanics. That's why there's such a rage over the Sage/Sorc animation disparity. For whatever reason it seems Bioware is okay with ignoring that unfair advantage though...

[Brad-]

All true, this is Bioware's fault for allowing an environment that was exploitable. Compensate those who were wronged by it instead punishing those who exploited your own system. .

 

The problem is, that everyone that faces the people who exploited are affected. They are all facing opponents with stats artificially inflated by exploitation. How do you compensate for that? How do you compensate every Republic player that will ever face them in PvP?

 

What some of you do not seem to realize is, that abusing a flawed implementation is wrong. It is against the code of conduct. The flawed implementation is not the issue. The issue is how people responded to it. Did they bug it and move on as they should have ... or did they abuse it to get an unfair advantage.

Edited January 27, 2012 by Brad-

[Scan]

The problem is, that everyone that faces the people who exploited are affected. They are all facing opponents with stats artificially inflated by exploitation. How do you compensate for that? How do you compensate every Republic player that will ever face them in PvP?

 

What some of you do not seem to realize is, that abusing a flawed implementation is wrong. It is against the code of conduct. The flawed implementation is not the issue. The issue is how people responded to it. Did they bug it and move on as they should have ... or did they abuse it to get an unfair advantage.

 

You are over inflating the gains, you (pretty much all you tbh as I do not see anyone else crying for "justice") have to move on Brad, no-one is going to be punished over this.

[KenNoegs]

The problem is, that everyone that faces the people who exploited are affected. They are all facing opponents with stats artificially inflated by exploitation. How do you compensate for that? How do you compensate every Republic player that will ever face them in PvP?

 

What some of you do not seem to realize is, that abusing a flawed implementation is wrong. It is against the code of conduct. The flawed implementation is not the issue. The issue is how people responded to it. Did they bug it and move on as they should have ... or did they abuse it to get an unfair advantage.

 

I agree with you, and it's true: implementation would be a challenge. I guess I just feel that some of the fault belongs with both parties. Bioware seems to be placing the blame for a flawed system that they created and then apparently didn't properly test solely on the people who, admittedly, exploited that flawed system. The article they released, at least as I read it, seemed highly accusing and without any remorse for their own part in the situation.

[Brad-]

I agree with you, and it's true: implementation would be a challenge. I guess I just feel that some of the fault belongs with both parties. Bioware seems to be placing the blame for a flawed system that they created and then apparently didn't properly test solely on the people who, admittedly, exploited that flawed system. The article they released, at least as I read it, seemed highly accusing and without any remorse for their own part in the situation.

 

I have played MMOs for 12 years now, and bugs and flawed implementations are a fact of life. From time to time, in every game, situations will arise where people can exploit. Simply put, 1,000,000 players will always find things that 100 Developers and testers will miss. That is why there are rules of conduct (think honor code) that tells players not abuse these situations when they arise.

 

This of it this way. If I leave my car unlocked and leave the keys in the ignition, I have made a mistake. If someone decides to take advantage of that mistake, and steal my car, they made a choice to take advantage of my mistake. He is not, in any way, relieved of the responsibility of his decision, because of my mistake.

Edited January 27, 2012 by Brad-

[KenNoegs]

I have played MMOs for 12 years now, and bugs and flawed implementations are a fact of life. From time to time, in every game, situations will arise where people can exploit. 1,000,000 players will always find things that 100 Developers and tests will miss. That is why there are rules of conduct (think honor code) that tells players not abuse these situations when they arise.

 

This of it this way. If I leave my car unlocked and leave the keys in the ignition, I have made a mistake. If someone decides to take advantage of that, and steal my car, they made a choice to take advantage of my mistake. He is not, in any way, relieved of the responsibility of his decision, because of my mistake.

 

This seems as close to negligence on Bioware's side as it is to theft from the exploiter's side. Sure it's wrong to commit an illegal act even if the victim makes it easy to do so. Bioware is not the victim, though. The opposing players are. It's also wrong to create an environment that allows preventable harm to others, ergo negligence. These are obviously both totally blown out of proportion, but to use your metaphor, Bioware is again also at fault for what happened and my previous post holds the same weight as it was intended to.

 

I will assume, for arguments sake, that all people making intelligent points on this also have extensive experience in MMOs and gaming in general. Exactly as you said, these kinds of things happen and they happen often. In my humble experience, however, the creator of the game admits some flaw in the programming, does what it can to band-aid the problem and make all sides happy, and moves on as quietly as possible. It simply seems odd to me that Bioware would go on some righteous crusade and publicly post that these exploiters will be dealt with accordingly, a statement that seems meant to carry some assumption of punishment, and circumvent any admission that the exploitation's existence was their fault in the first place. To put it back in to your real world legal metaphor, a "settlement" to keep things quiet seems to be the most frequently occurring precedent for this type of situation.

[Brad-]

Exactly as you said, these kinds of things happen and they happen often. In my humble experience, however, the creator of the game admits some flaw in the programming, does what it can to band-aid the problem and make all sides happy, and moves on as quietly as possible. It simply seems odd to me that Bioware would go on some righteous crusade and publicly post that these exploiters will be dealt with accordingly, a statement that seems meant to carry some assumption of punishment, and circumvent any admission that the exploitation's existence was their fault in the first place. To put it back in to your real world legal metaphor, a "settlement" to keep things quiet seems to be the most frequently occurring precedent for this type of situation.

 

 

Maybe I am overthinking things, but I always felt that any time a company indicates a problem with exploiting, they are admitting a mistake. Absent a bug, or implementation flaw, this type of exploit can not occur.

Edited January 27, 2012 by Brad-

[STD_Skindancer]

The problem is, that everyone that faces the people who exploited are affected. They are all facing opponents with stats artificially inflated by exploitation. How do you compensate for that? How do you compensate every Republic player that will ever face them in PvP?

 

What some of you do not seem to realize is, that abusing a flawed implementation is wrong. It is against the code of conduct. The flawed implementation is not the issue. The issue is how people responded to it. Did they bug it and move on as they should have ... or did they abuse it to get an unfair advantage.

 

why would they compensate republic players, they are doing the fight clubbing as well.

[KenNoegs]

Maybe I am overthinking things, but I always felt that any time a company indicates a problem with exploiting, they are admitting a mistake. Absent a bug, or implementation flaw, this type of exploit can not occur.

 

The admission of guilt is there. The admission of remorse is a different story. This is usually shown by a desire to compensate those hurt by the exploit instead of throwing the other half of their own problem under the bus. This is why "settlements" to the hurt section of the player-base are far more common.

 

I honestly think at this point, because of the way it's been handled so far, the best thing Bioware can do is call this instance a wash. This issue is a rather small issue that will be dimly remembered at best. They should make some sort of well-written explanation of the consequences of future exploits so that next time there is a usable precedent for them to refer to so that players can not complain about punishments.

 

Someone is going to lose in this. It would help Bioware in the long run to make it themselves. I wasn't involved so I'm not sure, but bans will almost certainly lead to some amount of lost subscriptions, especially with "that other game" coming out with an expansion fairly soon. Come out and say, "Our bad, but to make sure this doesn't happen again, here is what will happen if it does. Sorry about that..."

[KenNoegs]

why would they compensate republic players, they are doing the fight clubbing as well.

 

I was thinking more along the lines of a gift of "x" valor to all not involved in the exploit but involved in Ilum PvP to even it back out. They claim to know who were and weren't involved. Maybe not exactly that, but something to that effect.

Edited January 27, 2012 by KenNoegs
Edited for clarification.

[Leroy_Jackson]

Imagine a world where you get valor gains from any world kill on any planet (slighty nerfed gain) . Now imagine no pvp daily quest and gaining rewards from warzone accomodations.

 

Seems like a simple fix to this issue...

[Voraxus]

Imagine a world where you get valor gains from any world kill on any planet (slighty nerfed gain) . Now imagine no pvp daily quest and gaining rewards from warzone accomodations.

 

Seems like a simple fix to this issue...

 

Too easy, BioWare wants to keep attempting to force organized world PvP in a community and environment (Ilum) where mindless zerging is rampant (and ironically the most rewarding).

 

The internet is fairly easy to gauge as a social experiment. 60 - 75% of the time, people are going to do it for the incentive/reward. Which means that, in an MMO climate, you want to structure the reward around feats of achievement and skill, as opposed to who can tag the most red names.

[Xumaximus]

Ilum.....lets be honest the only thing thats going to save this train wreck is SERVER BALANCE makes no sense to put a cap on it of 100 people per district when 80 are IMPS and 20 are REPS....come on bioware do I really need to tell you this.....comn' man!

[Bagns]

Ok let try to understand the post i put up and the rules of conduct and harrassment pls. Bare with me because like i said before some people read with a blind eye.

 

The rules state that.

Rule 17. "look it up" exploit any bug to gain an unfair advantage ingame. Now lets reflex on this and think. Was there a bug, YES. Did it get exploited, YES. Did the players know that they were doing this, Most likely "well the smart ones". It doesn't take an idiot to sit there and say "I had no idea" when in fact, so many people have come on to the forums bragging about it.

 

Harrassment

Rule

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.

 

Now lets talk about the harrassment side of this whole ordeal. It states and for the example used above, BLOCKING A DOOR can be used as a sign of harrassment, BUT its up to BW "Bioware" to figure out if it was an ACT or just some jerk off that went afk in a door way.

-Now could those republic player say anything to the oppostie faction: NO. You can't SAY anything when your dead.

-Did they have time to say "Hey guys i want to leave the area pls stop". NO. You can't say anything when your dead. And by say i mean /say command.

BTW im making this a point that the dead players couldn't say anything as BW's fault

 

NOW RULE 5.

 

PVP PLAYERS ARE NOT EXEMPT FROM THIS POLICY WHERE AVALIBLE. The west part of ILUM is a PVP AREA. Which means PvP players are still held accountable for actions like the Ilum 1.1 release.

so i hope that made more sence for some people.

[Leroy_Jackson]

Daily's leads to boredom - boredom leads to finding quick ways to finish them - quick ways leads to exploits - exploits lead to the darkside

 

Question on grounds of exploits:

If an assassin uses Force cloak to quickly finish a quest by looting a item and bypassing having to kill the mobs guarding it. Is that an exploit?

[Bagns]

Daily's leads to boredom - boredom leads to finding quick ways to finish them - quick ways leads to exploits - exploits lead to the darkside

 

Question on grounds of exploits:

If an assassin uses Force cloak to quickly finish a quest by looting a item and bypassing having to kill the mobs guarding it. Is that an exploit?

 

no he is using the abilities given to him

[DarthOvertone]

Question: Why is this not stickied in the PvP Forum?

 

I rarely make it to the General Forums.

 

Question: Where is the blog?

 

I saw one article.

 

Peeps in this thread have already mentioned this, but the faction imbalance, more than anything, is ruining the potential of Ilum. There aren't enough band-aids you can put on the zone until you address that core problem. Now I'm not for capping sides and turning Ilum into another instanced zone. But you need to offset the imbalance with something else, like area specific NPCs, random turrets, speeder tanks, or something that spawn when the imbalance becomes too harsh. Just throwing ideas out there. You get the drift though. Use your imagination, it's what you are paid to do.

[dotter]

The zone is way to big. It needs to be a quarter or half it size. Our server gets maybe 10-12 on each side at a good period and having a zone the size of taris makes no sense. Its needs to be smaller and more centralized. Have us fighting over 1 objective not 5. Scale it way way down or add in more npc's to help the side that is imbalanced. It's very broken and horrible to play in its current form

[XxCRAFTYxX]

How is it an oversight that the base turrents were destructable?.....How do you accidently put hitpoints on something?...Does Bioware think we have ESP? Or do they believe we are able to use "The Force" to decern their intent?...You give hitpoints to anything in a game and my first thought is that it can be killed as was every other players on patch day....The sentiment that Bioware is an innocent baby in all this and the big bad level 50 Imperials were commiting abusive crimes against them makes little to no sense.

 

Most people playing on patch day were clueless. People playing at the time of "the great valor rush" thought that by killing turrents you would get valor....at least that was the rumor going in chat for a while...It was a new patch, most people had no idea what they were doing or how the systems worked because they were newely implemented without testing on the Public Test Realm...

 

People believed destroying opponents in PVP was....gasp....how PVP works ....

It's not like faction imbalance has never happened in an MMO before anyone that was in Wintergrasp on WOW knows Horde would face roll Alliance 9 out of 10 times and Blizzard never accused Horde of exploiting, they knew it was their own fault for letting the factions be unbalanced and took steps to correct it ala the broken buff system and eventually a queue.....which was also broken but was better then nothing...

 

By the way whinners ....Repubs dont spawn in their base they spawn on platforms outside their base the same as Imperials. The only thing in the Base is a flight path and you can just drive to Illum pvp area through the caves so it's not a mandatory thing to use.....noone was getting spawn camped...

 

Dont you think at least one Repub said in general chat. "Dont use the Illum Flight Path because Imperaials standing on it." If they didnt, it's their own fault...thats how PVP works... The Idea that Imperaials were cheating is laughable it was PVP poorly implemented in the game and the lack of a system that would thin out the obviously unbalanced factions that led to this problem...

 

A day latter when 200 Imperaials are standing under the Republic's respawn point instead of at the mouth of their base waiting for the recently rezed repubs to jump down and die in a 5 -1 fight is that going to be an exploit too?

 

How about when I'm leveling an alt and a level 50 repub comes and slams my level 30 is that an exploit?...Under some of these posters rules it is and a much worse one because I have no way of winning that fight.....

 

If faction imbalance is an exploit how about Bioware stop people from rolling any more Imperials when the numbers are too stacked? Or come up with a queue system for Illum?

 

 

What many posters fail to realize is well over half the people playing THE Old Republic arnt even on the forums reading updates let alone patch notes or dev suggestions on gameplay and these people certainly didnt wade through the user agreement they scrolled down and mouse clicked like the other 90% of the player base...

 

For all they know Bioware is owed their first born child and they sold EA their dog when they signed up.....imbuing these people who would rather just play the game then read about it with sinister motives is not only laughable but dangerous because they make up the masses of Star Wars Fans playing this game....

 

Want to roll back valor,have at it, start banning and Bioware is just shooting themselves in the foot because the first guy who thought he was just playing the game that gets banned and still owes Bioware/EA 15 bucks for the month is going to start a wildfire on the internet Bioware cant afford right now...EA stock already took a hit because of the SWTOR subscription rate was lower then what was previously projected by an analyst....

 

....So now not only do people who have no idea how to play an MMO or who started playing because of the Star Wars license have to pay a monthly fee you expect joe blow to tread through a 24 page legal contract first, read every line understand the legal jargon and cosign it or he's getting banned? realy?...I doubt it...That aint ever going to happen.....and you me and Bioware know it.....

Edited January 28, 2012 by XxCRAFTYxX

[eMPthreeDanie]

PVP on this game is ****. enough said.

[Bagns]

How is it an oversight that the base turrents were destructable?.....How do you accidently put hitpoints on something?...Does Bioware think we have ESP? Or do they believe we are able to use "The Force" to decern their intent?...You give hitpoints to anything in a game and my first thought is that it can be killed as was every other players on patch day....The sentiment that Bioware is an innocent baby in all this and the big bad level 50 Imperials were commiting abusive crimes against them makes little to no sense.

 

Most people playing on patch day were clueless. People playing at the time of "the great valor rush" thought that by killing turrents you would get valor....at least that was the rumor going in chat for a while...It was a new patch, most people had no idea what they were doing or how the systems worked because they were newely implemented without testing on the Public Test Realm...

 

People believed destroying opponents in PVP was....gasp....how PVP works ....

It's not like faction imbalance has never happened in an MMO before anyone that was in Wintergrasp on WOW knows Horde would face roll Alliance 9 out of 10 times and Blizzard never accused Horde of exploiting, they knew it was their own fault for letting the factions be unbalanced and took steps to correct it ala the broken buff system and eventually a queue.....which was also broken but was better then nothing...

 

By the way whinners ....Repubs dont spawn in their base they spawn on platforms outside their base the same as Imperials. The only thing in the Base is a flight path and you can just drive to Illum pvp area through the caves so it's not a mandatory thing to use.....noone was getting spawn camped...

 

Dont you think at least one Repub said in general chat. "Dont use the Illum Flight Path because Imperaials standing on it." If they didnt, it's their own fault...thats how PVP works... The Idea that Imperaials were cheating is laughable it was PVP poorly implemented in the game and the lack of a system that would thin out the obviously unbalanced factions that led to this problem...

 

A day latter when 200 Imperaials are standing under the Republic's respawn point instead of at the mouth of their base waiting for the recently rezed repubs to jump down and die in a 5 -1 fight is that going to be an exploit too?

 

How about when I'm leveling an alt and a level 50 repub comes and slams my level 30 is that an exploit?...Under some of these posters rules it is and a much worse one because I have no way of winning that fight.....

 

If faction imbalance is an exploit how about Bioware stop people from rolling any more Imperials when the numbers are too stacked? Or come up with a queue system for Illum?

 

 

What many posters fail to realize is well over half the people playing THE Old Republic arnt even on the forums reading updates let alone patch notes or dev suggestions on gameplay and these people certainly didnt wade through the user agreement they scrolled down and mouse clicked like the other 90% of the player base...

 

For all they know Bioware is owed their first born child and they sold EA their dog when they signed up.....imbuing these people who would rather just play the game then read about it with sinister motives is not only laughable but dangerous because they make up the masses of Star Wars Fans playing this game....

 

Want to roll back valor,have at it, start banning and Bioware is just shooting themselves in the foot because the first guy who thought he was just playing the game that gets banned and still owes Bioware/EA 15 bucks for the month is going to start a wildfire on the internet Bioware cant afford right now...EA stock already took a hit because of the SWTOR subscription rate was lower then what was previously projected by an analyst....

 

....So now not only do people who have no idea how to play an MMO or who started playing because of the Star Wars license have to pay a monthly fee you expect joe blow to tread through a 24 page legal contract first, read every line understand the legal jargon and cosign it or he's getting banned? realy?...I doubt it...That aint ever going to happen.....and you me and Bioware know it.....

 

Ok so just so im clear, it sounds like you maybe getting ban. The way your ranting sure as **** sounds like it and for christ sakes man use some good examples, not this "i'm out questing and i get ganked cuz im flagged or on a PvP server".

 

Those rules of conduct are there for a reason. It's so that company can have a way of backing themselves incase of a ban, so people can't turn around and sue that company. Plus it's always good to know what your accepting, i mean if you signed something with out reading it before you bought it and it broke and you couldn't take it back for the fact the what you signed void any defects.

 

I'm sorry but all the rants i've read, this one takes the cake.....i mean how long did it take you to look up the stocks for BW/EA. from the sounds of it most of the day.

 

-Bad examples

-No idea what your talking about

-Talking out your ***

=you

[Jourge]

Seriously? I thought that was what PVP is about. If you outnumber or outgear your opponents you are supposed to win. It's totally understandable that players would camp their opponent's base. If I had been high enough level, I would have done it. That doesn't strike me as exploiting. It just sounds like winning. ROLLBACK? BANNING? Seriously weak.