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BioWare's Gabe Amatangelo speaks on faction imbalance.


Zyanzor

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seriously my biggest turn off on republic side is the lack cool looking skills. Bounty hunters shoot fire, missiles galore, rail gun lasers jet pack charges/uppercuts. Sith shoot lightning/choke people. i mean troppers have one gun that dose all of there moves... boring as ****. and jedi shoot rocks for god sake. Why do they not shoot massive energy blast like in the hope trailer i would rather them shoot kamehameha's then pebbles.. lol seriously.

 

I must be the only one that actually prefer Consular abilities over Inquisitor. I mean, I like lightning as much as the next star wars fan, but when every single ability is more lightning, more lightning and even more lightning it feels like I'm watching a parody of ""Unlimited Power"".

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seriously my biggest turn off on republic side is the lack cool looking skills. Bounty hunters shoot fire, missiles galore, rail gun lasers jet pack charges/uppercuts. Sith shoot lightning/choke people. i mean troppers have one gun that dose all of there moves... boring as ****. and jedi shoot rocks for god sake. Why do they not shoot massive energy blast like in the hope trailer i would rather them shoot kamehameha's then pebbles.. lol seriously.

 

Troopers can leap at opponents to close gaps, troopers have a AoE skill that shoots rockets hitting multiple targets. If I'm not mistaken Jedi Knights have a force choke that not only lifts the target in the air but also throws them like 10yards. Also, again I could be wrong but I think Sages can cast huge Ryu looking force balls at targets.

Edited by Zyanzor
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No doubt and, you're entitled to your own opinion. One thing you should take into consideration when playing this game is this isn't any other mmo where you can just overgear the dungeon and fly thru it in 15-20mins. SWTOR has objectives, you have to hack computers to open doors, you have to watch cutscenes as missile are launched at the opposing faction, there is dialog in most flashpoints everyone in the group has to participate in ie social points etc.

 

The only thing I can suggest to you is, trying another mmo that is more to your liking. Don't take me wrong, I'm not telling you to leave I just hate to see people play a game they don't like.

 

Or, you know, they could massively up the exp. There's no good reason a group oriented task should result in slower leveling than easy solo activities.

 

Part of the problem is how blue gear is barely a step up from green gear. In other MMO's, you'd use your dungeon drops for quite a while. In this, you use flashpoint gear while leveling for like a day or two. They should basically drop a purple or two per boss.

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One possibility would be to allow one faction's actions to turn them to the other side. Make this the only way to have a faction change option in place (and not pay for faction change option). Also adding Neutral points (not just light/dark) especially for smugglers/bounty hunters.

 

If people have the option to play as they chose more freely by having a jedi consular convert to a sith inquisitor because of his/her actions this is quite the incentive if you ask me.

 

I would also like to see a bit more flexibility with the way gear looks (although as previously mentioned the jedi really had no sense of style). Perhaps even letting players dye their gear.

 

Anyhow, this is my two cents,

Edited by Arnathos
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Or, you know, they could massively up the exp. There's no good reason a group oriented task should result in slower leveling than easy solo activities.

 

Part of the problem is how blue gear is barely a step up from green gear. In other MMO's, you'd use your dungeon drops for quite a while. In this, you use flashpoint gear while leveling for like a day or two. They should basically drop a purple or two per boss.

 

That's why there is orange gear so you can keep it as long as you want. All you have to do is upgrade the mods.

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Aion did this. They had the same faction imbalance, even though they took the initiative before launch and capped servers for a certain faction when it was too lopsided. Originally at launch, most servers had a faction locked, until the other faction caught up in number, then it was opened again. This however did not solve the problem. It eventually got to how it is in SWTOR, one side heavily out numbered. So no world PvP was going on cause you just got zerged down by the major faction.

 

Then Aion introduced a Faction Incentive Program, coined "welfar system" by the Elyos, to servers that needed faction balance to roll a new character on the minority side, Asmos.

 

This incentive included, things that increased leveling exp by +50%, access to Faction control locked areas, even though your faction did not control it, extra pvp medals for PvPing, free pvp medals just sent to you in the mail for doing nothing, an increased % drop rates for items/gear in open world and dungeons. Free gear as you leveled up, every level you hit, you would receive "gifts" of your choice. these were normally upgraded gear for your level, +exp items, etc. The gifts were actually pretty good, and were nearly always best in slot for your current level.

 

All this together made playing the minority faction tolerable, and a ton of people switched. It was eventually successful in balancing the faction numbers. It wasn't even per say, but it has certainly helped a lot. So much so that most of the servers that had this incentive program had it turned off as the faction balanced out to an acceptable level.

Edited by Xyzed
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How would they fix it? Obviously they could make some really cool things for Republics, but with people already entrenched with classes they like, and guilds formed, etc., getting them to change is going to have to be more than look how sexy this Jedi Knight's new belt is...

 

How about some easier things:

 

  • If a faction has 5% fewer players online they get a 1% bonus to all stats/effects/abilities etc. If they have 10% fewer, this goes to 2%, continuing on until a 5 or 10% bonus... Or this could be bonuses to XP gains, or legacy gains, or credit gains, or mission success rates, commendation gains, or whatever...
     
  • If legacy gets implemented and its something players desire, you could give a bonus to legacy gains for the under represented faction (meaning it might be desirable to have characters of both faction on your account), since the legacy crosses to both factions.
     
  • Allow guilds to have a faction mirror guild. The guild leader creates an opposite faction guild and the guilds link to each other, allowing cross faction guild chat. They could share a guild bank (once guild banks are implemented), not sure of the ramifications of allowing items to freely cross the faction barrier. Could even allow characters in the linked guild to group for operations, WZ, etc....

 

Just throwing out some ideas, many may have ramifications or loopholes that need to be carefully considered. Consider this a brainstorming session.

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It's called cross server ques witch was done years ago.

 

This did not balance the factions on the server, cross realm did was help with dungeon finder and battleground ques...the servers are still unbalanced today. That's why there is NO world PvP in WoW.

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After seeing everything that is going on around here, since I joined from the Thanks giving beta last year, I have to say, I think they got PVP totally wrong. Open PVP is a bad idea too, and should just be removed from the game altogether. I think if people want to fight against another team, then there should be just that, TEAM matches, via the WZ button. Cue up and play against other players, in War Zones. I think the rest should be just PVE. Ilum has a very strange idea, that does not work either, PVE on a PVP world ? what ? I refer to the solo quest you have to go there to do. However, you are being drawn into more of the vision that is PVP that Bioware has been trying to get right for that past month since the game launched. Oh I don't know ? maybe I just want to complete my solo quests on Ilum BEFORE I PVP on Ilum ? Is it not possible to flag yourself off from PVP - if your trying to do other things in the game ?

 

I joined a PVP server, I want to take part in that, but the whole way its going on at the moment, is still unappealing to me. I was quite merrily PVPing right up until a week or so ago. When things just got worse. Then of course there was the trouble with Ilum. When you have faction imbalance, especially when going to a world like Ilum it becomes more apparent that you can't not only get your dailies done, but your going to be be harassed as well while trying to do your solo quest, if its still up there to do. Ilum is just plain wrong, not to mention the problems caused because of faction imbalance.

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I am Imperial, like most players. I chose it as I prefer the darker more sinister aspect of the game. I don't like being a goody-two-shoes. I'd rather be light side Sith.

 

Here are some things that would need to be done for me to consider faction change (not necessarily all):

 

1) Add some darker classes to the Empire side. I don't want to be Jedi or Trooper. Smuggler... hmm not really thanks.

2) Add a cross-faction transfer, only to the weaker side. Sure, charge us a fiver or so to do so.

3) Balance open world PvP, or at least Ilum, by bolstering the underdogs. Few would consider a transfer if they would end up on the weaker side. Some would love that however.

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I must be the only one that actually prefer Consular abilities over Inquisitor. I mean, I like lightning as much as the next star wars fan, but when every single ability is more lightning, more lightning and even more lightning it feels like I'm watching a parody of ""Unlimited Power"".

 

Not at all, the official census for 2012 found seven other people in world who prefer the Jedi animations. You could form a very small Facebook group.

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The damage has been done but it can be "healed", Bioware is going to come up with some fantastic ideas that may even make Republic more popular than Empire, just wait and see.

 

Exactly what I foresee.

 

Just see how they fixed Biochem by making it the only crew skill able to trade crafted items that were no trade. It just made this skill even more appealing now since you can sell them. It was already a great money maker so why start with this one? Why not making the other crew skills interesting first?

 

It's not hard to tell you that their way of fixing faction imbalance will just swap the population from one side to the other one and it will fix nothing at all.

Edited by demotivator
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The damage has been done but it can be "healed", Bioware is going to come up with some fantastic ideas that may even make Republic more popular than Empire, just wait and see.

 

Post submited to Wikipedia as an example of for the term Fanboy.

 

In advance, thank you for the infraction.

Edited by HelinCarnate
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Ah, at least this is the area which doesn't bother me, as far as I am concerned you can sit there in your war zones, grow old and die of old age, I don't bother with the PvP as it sucks :) But as for game improvements, well, we can hope.
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I joined a PVP server, I want to take part in that, but the whole way its going on at the moment, is still unappealing to me. I was quite merrily PVPing right up until a week or so ago. When things just got worse. Then of course there was the trouble with Ilum. When you have faction imbalance, especially when going to a world like Ilum it becomes more apparent that you can't not only get your dailies done, but your going to be be harassed as well while trying to do your solo quest, if its still up there to do. Ilum is just plain wrong, not to mention the problems caused because of faction imbalance.

 

You do not belong on a PvP server if you can't take being ganked or harassed. Join a group when you enter ilum? Join a guild so you always have a partner to do dailies with. Then you will be less likely to be ganked....or better yet, don't play on a PvP server? Very simple solutions. You can't expect players to not do what they like (ganking inexperienced pvper's), just because you don't like it.

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The decision that BW made to allow faction vs faction pvp really is the reason this got much worse. On the Imperial side the warzones still come up quick, granted you are playing huttball vs another Imperial group, but still getting xp, valor which turns into gear, etc. On the Republic side there is no advantage to this. Rarely do you see Republic vs Republic huttball matches. So basically what BW did without realize it, is empower the Imperials with faster leveling, faster valor gains, faster gearing. So in the end, the fix they made hurt the Republic side more than it helped. If this change wasn't made, it's altogether possible that players may have switched over to Republic in hopes of faster warzones. Since you get instant warzones Imperial side, that faction now is in itself fully sustainable. You could completely remove the Republic faction from the game, and on some servers, the Imperials wouldn't even notice the difference.
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The decision that BW made to allow faction vs faction pvp really is the reason this got much worse. On the Imperial side the warzones still come up quick, granted you are playing huttball vs another Imperial group, but still getting xp, valor which turns into gear, etc. On the Republic side there is no advantage to this. Rarely do you see Republic vs Republic huttball matches. So basically what BW did without realize it, is empower the Imperials with faster leveling, faster valor gains, faster gearing. So in the end, the fix they made hurt the Republic side more than it helped. If this change wasn't made, it's altogether possible that players may have switched over to Republic in hopes of faster warzones. Since you get instant warzones Imperial side, that faction now is in itself fully sustainable. You could completely remove the Republic faction from the game, and on some servers, the Imperials wouldn't even notice the difference.

 

Atleast you get to fight against the opposing faction and not the same faction.

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