Why the Ettermoors are Fun... and Illum is Not

[KiboshHD]

I'm not saying Illum is perfect, but I certainly wouldn't change it to the Ettenmoors style. In the moors you wind up having to PvE to complete quests. I don't PvP to kill NPC's

[Scoobings]

I'm not saying Illum is perfect, but I certainly wouldn't change it to the Ettenmoors style. In the moors you wind up having to PvE to complete quests. I don't PvP to kill NPC's

 

NPCs serve a function in even World PVP.

[Scoobings]

I spent 3 months exclusively in ettenmoors, I spent 3 minutes in ilum (well, a bit more but not much), guess that shows which one I liked more.

 

Yeah, I stopped playing Ilum a long time ago (even though all I need is valor now). WZs are just so much more enjoyable than Ilum. I hate roaming around for sometimes up to a half an hour looking for something to kill.

 

Now the only time I ever go to Ilum is just to get the valor buff for owning Ilum. Even that, though, bugs out and I don't get it most of the time.

[EternalFinality]

NPCs serve a function in even World PVP.

 

Exactly, they require you to get a group of players together.

 

Simultaneously, this encourages people on the other team to defend them.

 

And suddenly, you have PvP.

[Azesino]

Ilum, is so broken is not even funny, 50v50 even if u have a great cpu/vidcard u will get lag (i got a 570 gtx with i7) and still lag bad when more than 25vs 25 goes on

Wolrd pvp on this game is nonexoistent, tatooine pvp zone dont make me laugh is always empty even of chests

There is no world pvp on swtor and one of the reasons is u get nothing for killing a player outside ilum, hell even killing on ilum sometimes u get nothing

[Sykomyke]

I should also add, I primarily solo'd and duo'd with my other half in Lotro. Everyone in TOR just zergs. There seems to be no love of a good, close fight - or even the hunt to find one.

 

People just zerg for valor and gear in this game. It take zero strategy to "PvP" here.

 

I wouldn't mind finding a "close" fight if in a 1v1 I could conceivably beat another class through intuitive use of my skills. Sadly as a Tank in PvP that is not the case. A plethora of abilities either bypass my defenses directly or don't even roll against them, rendering my tank stats "useless" in PvP. Sure I have my defensive cooldowns, but so does the other class. And when other classes mitigation with lesser armor classes (I.e. Light/Medium) and the mitigation difference is 2% it makes me wonder who did the balancing for the classes.

 

If you haven't guessed by now, yes I'm a Juggernaut. The only reason I'm decent in PvP groups (warzones) is because I can taunt/shield allies/cc enemies to reduce the damage my allies take.

 

When they implement tank stats to work against more attacks in pvp or they finally decide to stop handing out armor penetrating attacks like free candy then I'll start looking for 1v1/close fights more often.

[TUXs]

Agree. I have a Rank 12 Minstrel and think Ilum is the worst PvP I have ever seen in a game to be honest. The objectives aren't objectives that take any thought beyond clicking, lol.

 

That said, Lotro PvP is pathetic for a host of different reasons. They are both really bad - but Ilum's design is ... not even a design. It's a joke.

 

I prefer Lotro PvP conceptually to SWTOR, however Lotro PvP balance is currently nonexistent while SWTOR doesn't actually have open PvP at all.

 

VERY well said!

 

I too played lotro and spent the majority of my time in the Moors. For what it was (faux PvP), it was fine...the ideas they had with the different keeps, the distances needed to travel to get to them, the way a group of 4 could actually DO something vs 30+ with PvE missions or by holding a keep, I liked.

 

But overall...lotro's PvP is the joke of the MMO world imo. A 1 of 10 on any scale. Creeps didn't even play with their main characters, they had no gear, in any even fight, they'd lose because the heals and buffs were a fraction of the Freeps and a Freeps DPS was ungodly vs a Creep. Creeps relied on numbers or strategy.

 

PvP on Ilum, overall, I prefer more than lotro's. I like some of the "ideas" Turbine had with the Moors though.

• Buff for outnumbered group
  
• Multiple locations to take/defend, making covering all of them near impossible
  
• Enemy keeps took 30min to take, neutral ones 5
  
• PvE objectives if no PvP
  
• The ability to use your own NPCs so that if you were outnumbered, you still had a chance
  
• The open spawn area exit, allowing you to go off in (almost) any direction vs left or right
  
• The neutral keeps that you could temporarily capture
  

 

The Moors had some very good ideas that would work well here...but I do NOT want the Moors copied here.

[EternalFinality]

Also remember when they forced everyone in Alterac Valley in WoW to be in the same raid group?

 

That was a good change. Ilum should be doing the same thing.

[Drakks]

I'm not sure what the arguement is -- Ilum is terrible.. is someone disagreeing with this?

 

The objectives mean nothing, and are only there so that you have some idea where to look for the other faction's players... more to the point, Ilum is not FUN. 99% of the time I go out there either we outnumber the Imps, or they outnumber us, so greatly that it's just a wave of people competing to get credit for a kill for their daily/weekly and then immediately leaving. The other 1% of the time we have a small group and find another small group to fight, and the winner is usually the team that brought more ranged (generally Imps who, I swear, have a 1:3 ratio of Inquisitors to anything else) because they don't suffer from the same lag melee (who have to be in the middle of stuff) does.

 

Ilum is such a blatant afterthought, rush-job, I'm totally unclear who, of any crop of people who played any recent-ish MMO, thinks this is solid design. It's not even so much that it's just bad.. it's just nothing but a place to complete poorly conceived Daily quests at the moment, and what's worse is those daily quests are a far cry from enjoyable to do most of the time as they completely hinge on the faction popluation of the area at the exact time you try and do it.

Edited February 9, 2012 by Drakks

[Kunari]

I think that would help the issue, but I have the feeling it would take it from waste of time... to semi-bearable. So I would support your idea, but I think further measures need to be taken, and I think the measures I've suggested are fine.

 

PVE in a Warfront quickly turns in to PVP. The difference is you aren't just standing around waiting for a fight.

 

Ilum currently is only fun with both sides have a 20+ person Ops group(s) in laggy zergs at center. I want to play a game not a sub-20fps slide show. Zergs also get a bit old even if it wasn't laggy.

 

The zone is a huge map and there is potential to make it better than it currently is. I agree that my suggestions are just a starting point but I'm still against more PVE in a PVP zone. I agree there needs to be more incentive/objective to being there than just collecting boxes or trying to get on kill mails.

[ccfire]

All your concerns are premature. The game has been out a month, Ilum will improve. And Soon.

[Robogoofers]

The OP raises an excellent point in that Ilum is insanely-minimum-security prison boring if there is no one around and you have to try and ninja boxes from the 15 other people collecting boxes.

 

Make something in the zone more interesting than box vulturing.

[Azesino]

Exactly, midless zerg vs zerg require no strategy, all I do when we face 20+ vs 20+ is try to hit as many enemies as possible before they die so i get credit to get valor

1v1 or 2v2 or even 2v3 require some skill, zerg vs zerg does not. You might argue that u can flank etc, but remember this is pug vs pug so no one will listen

[Olympic]

All your concerns are premature. The game has been out a month, Ilum will improve. And Soon.

 

I agree that it will change, likely "improve" to some degree, but its going to depend on how the dev's are influenced.

 

If they listen to the "we need more NPC's and PvE objectives", I don't see that as improvement.

 

---------------------

 

The reason Ilum is being compared to the Moors is because its similar. A better open world PvP system would have been the Warhammer model, but they missed that boat. We have all these huge game worlds like Tatooine that would make for great open world pvp, but instead we got a big grey rectangle of lag with neat objectives like firing a rocket at a walker.

 

But since its more like the Moors, as bad as many aspects of PvP was on one hand, the map was more dynamic than Ilum. You have several objectives to attack/defend that took some effort. Ilum has NO effort or sense of accomplishment attached to it.

[DarthOvertone]

I wouldn't mind finding a "close" fight if in a 1v1 I could conceivably beat another class through intuitive use of my skills. Sadly as a Tank in PvP that is not the case. A plethora of abilities either bypass my defenses directly or don't even roll against them, rendering my tank stats "useless" in PvP. Sure I have my defensive cooldowns, but so does the other class.

 

There is a solution for you. In PvP, gear for DPS. In PvE, gear for Tankage. My Shadow Tank is decked out in full Champ Sage DPS gear. Peeps laugh until he wrecks their face, and 1v1s are cake unless you run into a BM who actually PvP'd to get their gear and rank (which is rare).

[Greyfeld]

ITT: OP makes a constructive post on how he thinks Ilum can be improved. Many people agree with him that Ilum needs improved and some like his ideas. One, and only one person says Ilum is perfect the way it is, and has about 40x more posts than anyone in the thread.

 

 

I wonder who is correct.........?

 

My favorite part was where a handful of people got all up in his nuts because he leads a few raids now and again. He's already a legend in his own mind, and other people are perfectly fine with feeding into that delusion.

 

I wouldn't join a raid with somebody like that if they begged me. A little modesty goes a long way in my eyes.

[ltankhsd]

I agree with OP. When I played LoTRO I spent more time on my monster character than my good guy.

 

I've mentioned to my guildmates that I also wouldn't mind them seeing a "session play" type addition to Ilum so that the outnumbered side can have some people spend some tokens to turn into a large battledroid or walker or something similar to how you could be a ranger or troll in the Ettenmoors to help even the odds in an outnumbered situation.

[Greyfeld]

I agree that it will change, likely "improve" to some degree, but its going to depend on how the dev's are influenced.

 

If they listen to the "we need more NPC's and PvE objectives", I don't see that as improvement.

 

I'm sorry, but those of you who have a problem with this approach completely miss how good world pvp works.

 

Good world pvp develops when two opposing players fight over an objective they both want to complete. Many objectives are PvE-driven, and end up creating fantastic PvP opportunities.

[Xandire]

I have to agree somewhat. I was disappointed with Ilum. I didn't realize at first that only a narrow sliver of the map was open pvp. I've been there many times with guildies and just random pugs. And yes, it is all about Central Assault. Try to be clever and roam the map some to look for some action? Nah, not usually worth it. Central Assault is the big magnet. It can be fun for sure when there are equal numbers of people from each faction on, but the percentage of time that that actually occurs is not very high. A good seemingly 80% of the time it's completely dominated by one side of the other.

 

And everyone is roving around Central Assault looking for armament boxes to swipe before someone else can. For those who don't like some form of PVE in a PVP zone---well, those armaments are pretty much that, a pve component in a pvp zone that everyone does in the slow time. So I don't see any problem in adding some more forms of quests similar to that in Ilum. You all are already doing it anyways, whether you realize it or not.

 

And as far as the Northern Assault, Southern Assault, Imperial Base and Republic Base.....there really isn't a ton of incentive to go to anywhere other than Central Assault. Yet, despite that fact, your quest log gets spammed with Battle of Ilum quests to flip them, even though you don't really get any tangeable rewards for completing them.

 

I definitely think adding some things in to encourage people to move around the map some more would be beneficial. And more quests that give rewards wouldn't hurt---whether it's merc's or commendations, maybe a little valour. Something. That way when the times are slow, people do have something to do rather than trying to beat each other to a handful of armaments at Central Assault.

 

In summary, I think the OP's suggestions and sentimentes hold a lot of merit for anyone that wants to think objectively with an open mind. More variety to the current state of Ilum can never be a bad thing. Roving around Central Assault for armaments all day and then hoping some people form the other faction log on sooner than later has to wear out even the most rabid fans of the current state of Ilum.

[Olympic]

I'm sorry, but those of you who have a problem with this approach completely miss how good world pvp works.

 

Good world pvp develops when two opposing players fight over an objective they both want to complete. Many objectives are PvE-driven, and end up creating fantastic PvP opportunities.

 

You can fight over objectives that don't involve NPC's. NPC's and PvE objectives such as launching rockets at a "walker" do not create good open world PvP.

[thanealpha]

Two basically similar open world PVP instances. One insanely fun, and comes a long way to addressing the complete lack of any other form of PVP in Lord of the Rings Online and made for hours of fun, the other is so terrible I've almost entirely stopped bothering with it unless I am really desperate for PVP bags.

 

Why do I love the Ettenmoors, but think Illum is one of the worst attempts at Open World PVP in the history of online gaming? Well let me cover the basic differences and similarities, and well see what you come up with.

 

The Basics of Both Illum and The Ettenmoors:

 

Both Illum and the Ettenmoors are open world PVP instances which take place on a map covered with a series of control points. Both are fought between two factions, with no neutral parties involved, and in both, the objective is to make kills for a major reward (Renown/Infamy or Valor) with minor benefits for holding more control points. That is where the similarities end.

 

Ettenmoor Keeps vs. Illum Control Points:

 

In the Ettenmoors there are a series of keeps. Some heavily defended (Tirith Rhaw, Tol Ascarnen, Lugazag) and some lightly defended (Isendeep Mines, Lumber Camp). You take control of a point by fighting your way past the enemy guards up until you reach the Captain General or Tyrant who controls the point. The guard can be considerable in the case of the larger keeps you fight your way through a lower and then upper floor filled with elites, and the CG/Tyrant is a full out boss that takes a full party or a very elite small party, and a considerable amount of time to kill. During this whole process enemy players can show up to defend their fort so it tends to make the transition of the map from one faction to the other a very slow process.

 

On Illum the points fall very easily. The NPCs don't even fight back. I've ninjaed the center map by myself in around 1 minute before. You basically blow up undefended targets, that take no time to destroy.

 

Ettenmoor Side Content vs. Illum Side Content:

 

In the Ettenmoors the area outside the keeps are filled with NPC's and resources. Your starting area and the keeps under your control all give repeatable quests revolving around these NPCs and resources, so you can run around doing them when the action is not good. As the quests are only reapeatable every hour or so and hinge on resources and NPCs it also tends to spread players out quite a bit and keep them moving around the map. This means that if one side is too heavy of a zerg players tend to disperse around the map to do quests instead. While out doing those quests there is a high chance of player encounters given the whole map is a concentrated PVP hotspot. It gives a point to showing up even if your side is highly out-numbered.

 

In Illum there is only one form of side content. In the center of the map are armaments. These are in relativly low numbers and ONLY in the center map. They count as kills toward your daily or weekly quest. As such whichever side has the zerg tends to cluster around the center map, while a few members might go out and ninja back any points that are stolen.

 

Why This Means So Much: The Ettenmoors are a paradise of open world PVP. Players can spend all day there fighting for renown/infamy when the action is good, and running quests for great rewards when the action is bad. Even as a solo player or in small teams there is plenty of action to be had just running around gathering quest resources and having random fights with those doing the same. The fights over the keeps tend to be epic. During periods of high activity the forces arrayed against eacho ther are so massive that the NPCs guarding keeps don't mean much and there is a lot of keep swapping going on. During periods of low activity. It tends to be small bands trying to ninja keeps from each other, and can lead to some really interesting fights where even one well played character can make the difference between victory and defeat.

 

On Illum, PVP is entirely one sided 95% of the time. It's either so many enemies you are just feeding them valor, or so many allies your presence is entirely unnecessary. The entire time in Illum is spent utterly dominating your enemy, getting utterly dominated, or sitting around the center map fighting over the extremely limited supply of armaments with team-mates.

 

What Needs To Be Done: I think my opinion should be pretty clear by now for anyone who read the whole topic. Add strong guards to control points and in general just make taking them over a lengthier more challenging and involved process. Add quests to the Illum PVP area that can be repeated every hour or so in quantities that you can quest in Illum all day if you want to. Give them a worthwhile reward like credits, merc commendations, or daily commendations. Add NPCs, resources, and perhaps widen the Illum PVP area and spread out existing control points, or add more.

 

TL-DR: Make control points harder to take, give PVE sidecontent to spread out forces and promote random encounters when one side has a massive zerg.

 

QFT.

 

Luc R12 Champion of Landroval

 

Every day in SWTOR I ask myself if I'd just be happier going back to finishing up R13. Every day.

 

I'm being held back only by 2 things.

 

1> My friends playing SWTOR

2> Promise of a better tomorrow.

 

To those saying the moors is worse than Illum...I'd say this.

 

I CAN have fun in the moors. Will I always? No. But I CAN.

 

I cannot fathom ANY way to have fun in Illum. It's a terrible PvP mechanic from top to bottom and just a trainwreck in the middle of a trainwreck of a PvP system.

Edited February 9, 2012 by thanealpha

[Greyfeld]

You can fight over objectives that don't involve NPC's. NPC's and PvE objectives such as launching rockets at a "walker" do not create good open world PvP.

 

What if you have to fight over the rocket silos to grant your side the ability to shoot down the walkers and give your side an advantage?

 

As a 2-faction system, SWTOR needs an equalizer to make the unbalanced populations have less impact in world pvp. Pure player-versus-player situations will always benefit the faction with the larger numbers.

[Sykologist]

Ettermoors were insanely boring and a pain in the *** to find a fight

[Opossumist]

I've always said it's a pity Turbine doesn't make a pvp based game, Ettenmmoors is fun, the only thing I hate is all the blatant inf swapping, and the fact the pops are to small, so everyone knows everyone. And fighting at elf/orc camp all the time gets a little old and cold.

 

I'd like a similar type of pvp in a much larger format with higher pops.

 

WAR almost met the mark, but fell a little short.

[Pulpp]

First...LOL @ the few people that like Illum as-is and the self described legends.

 

On topic, Moors is terrible because Turbine has consistently failed to give it any noteworthy attention for YEARS. But that said, Moors is 100x better than Illum because at least there is actual content and purpose behind LotRO's "pvp".

 

Because of the way SWTOR is made (pve heavy) and the way Illum is set up, I think the Moors approach is the ONLY way it can really work, sadly. With the inherant faction imbalances, the NPC spawns can be scaled based on current Illum pops. The big question is whether the TOR engine can actually handle AI/NPCs added to the empty Illum landscape...my guess is it will choke everyones PC and that's why they haven't done it yet.

 

And lets not forget one thing...LotRO is FREE and old. It shouldn't be better.