Has Bioware already lost the PvP base?

[Zunayson]

Yes, Bioware really has lost the PvP base for Mass Effect 1 and 2.

 

Oh, wait.

[ReaperSW]

Meh, this game launched like 2 months ago - I'm certain there will be DLC and expansions.

[golfwang]

Meh, this game launched like 2 months ago - I'm certain there will be DLC and expansions.

 

Content is not the only problem. Thanks for the bump but try reading the original post.

[Baredevil]

There is no reason to play this game for dedicated pvp because of how bad the game engine is with pvp combat. It's just flat out terrible.

[PinkSugar]

This was never meant to be, or was it advertized as a PVP based game.

 

I think I remember 'Story Driven MMO' somewhere..

 

You are right, it was not advertised as a PvP Titled game. I said this in a forum post last month and my Thread was closed by moderators. They know that it isn't a PvP driven game, however, they still don't want to lose the money coming in from that specific player base. My opinion is that they want to keep them by stringing them along with false hope.

 

The truth of the matter is (again imo) that they do not have a competent PvP team that can work out all these things.

 

If you are looking for a PvP system that is anywhere close to what you want, you need to look elsewhere. To hope for anything more from a game that obviously is not a PvP titled game is pure foolishness. It's similar to looking for a freshwater well in the middle of a desert.......

 

The fact of the matter is that most of us will all leave and take our money to a PvP titled game that comes close to our expectations. It probably wont be perfect, but will at least come close enough to Suffice.

 

My guild has already begun making plans to make a smooth and easy transition to Guild Wars 2. Bioware has our money from Subscriptions until then. After that, it's pretty much over.

 

How could they have kept us?

 

1. If they never had introduced Early Access
    
   
2. Never implemented a RNG PvP bag system in the first place
    
   
3. Made ACTUAL world PvP instead of force feeding us useless Ilum
    
   
4. Made PvP more skill based instead of just a "Who can spam their numerous CC abilities the fastest" Zerg vs Zerg Fest.
    
   
5. Made a WORKING TAB TARGET SYSTEM!! **** this drives me ABSOLUTELY INSANE and is a prime example that this is not a game for PvP'rs.
    
   
6. Corrected faction balance from jump street. If this was impossible then putting a faction cap on Ilum
    
   
7. Giving us more World PvP on other planets by allowing us to see the opposing faction more! The planets are just simply TOO FREAKING LARGE! By the time you see the opposing faction, its on your way out the door to another leveling planet. smdh
    
   
8. Gave us some HEROIC feeling task to do in World PVP i.e Destructible player cities and or bases similar to SWG experience
    
   
9. The ability to personalize your ship with in-game items that are obtainable through continued game-play
    
   
10. Player cities/housing
     
    
11. More balance between Classes.
     
    
12. Actual classes that are Mirrored
     
    
13. Reduced Travel time. The travel time and load screen spam is simply rediculous! It takes forever to travel. Especially, since we are "living in the time of LIGHT SPEED". ROFL. That ish crazy!
     
    
14. More customer responses instead of a copy/pasted response
     
    
15. if they spent less time deleting post and more time answering their customer's concerns
    

 

Oh AND ESPECIALLY THIS!!!!! ------V

There is no reason to play this game for dedicated pvp because of how bad the game engine is with pvp combat. It's just flat out terrible.

 

By now companies should know how to make money and how to keep making money. First you know your customer by building a rapport with them. This rapport that you built should let you know what they want. Of course you cant give them everything they want because the idea of perfection does not exist. However, you can meet them half way. Bioware has not come close to the midway point. I have never done business with this company but sadly, they remind me of Sony in many ways. They don't REALLY listen. They are too consumed with what they want to do and what they think is best. It will eventually ruin the game....

 

They should have researched what worked and went with that when building their foundation. After that they could have built upon that foundation with innovative ideas. No, I am not talking about a WoW clone. I am talking about the different elements in various games that worked and have proved to pacify the community. Different elements that kept even the most aggressive players busy.

 

It's pretty much cake, but apparently not so much for Bioware. They make it all seem like it's Rocket Science.

Edited February 19, 2012 by PinkSugar

[Atenhara]

Bioware just closed a few other threads concerning constructive comments so this thread is most likely next to close. I have always hated pvp myself in 15 years of gaming. I only pvp when I am really bored or I have to. The few times I have tried pvp here certainly left much to be desired compared to all other mmorpg's.

 

Now for the constructive part of the post. Huttball requires you to pass a ball around. Well when all 4 hot bars are full, you never get the icon. Ilum wz is a joke. Folks just trade valor back and forth. I don't intend to even try the others until I am so bored theres nothing left to do.

[--Grim--]

Most real PvP'rs never even bought this game, or if they did it was only for the PvE. Most PvP'rs knew SWTOR's PvP was garbage long before it was released and passed.

 

They also passed on Rift btw. EQ / WoW clones do nothing for most serious PvP'rs who think arena games are lame.

 

My guild from Daoc / War / Aion is just waiting for GW2. Only a couple of us play SWTOR and mainly for the PvE. All of our discussion on our guildsite has been about GW2 for the last couple of years.

[Tetrablade]

How has Ilum been groundbreaking? Where in it's design is it innovative or even successful?

 

Bounty Hunters were in Galaxies and cover was first in Tabula Rasa.

 

I don't care about game graphics, I'd rather have an awesome game engine anchoring the entire experience. ToR doesn't have that and at the end of the day it's a huge indictment of the developers.

 

You clearly know nothing..

 

*Gently turns Golfwang around and points at her post.*

 

Try actually reading it this time.

[Swordsaintt]

Dear OP,

 

If you thought a game made by Bioware would really launch with a rated PvP system you're not very bright. However I was shocked to see it launch with no cross-server platform because every game that has launched post WOW has failed without it. Bioware is adding cross-server technology and will probably add a rating system with it eventually. So cheer up butter cup:)

[golfwang]

*Gently turns Golfwang around and points at her post.*

 

Try actually reading it this time.

 

I've already read your post. It's cool if you can't come up with a response.

[golfwang]

Dear OP,

 

If you thought a game made by Bioware would really launch with a rated PvP system you're not very bright. However I was shocked to see it launch with no cross-server platform because every game that has launched post WOW has failed without it. Bioware is adding cross-server technology and will probably add a rating system with it eventually. So cheer up butter cup:)

 

Dear Troll #2345465,

 

If you didn't read my original post, kindly do not waste space in this thread or bother addressing me. You've nothing to add to this discussion but a thread bump. Thanks I guess.

[Oldgrimm]

The PvP base is on the run, and as a dedicated PvP player myself, I dont think they will return.

And for my part I wait for the rest of my gaming time to run out, and I never will look back to this game ever again.

It is the first MMO, where allmost everything in the PvP system is wrong.

 

We could begin with the selection of the wrong engine for this zergfest (falsely named as PvP in this game).

And the problem is, the zerg is everywhere in this game.

If someone looks for the need of tactical gameplay in the WZs, he will be terribly dissappointed.

 

- Voidstar is the Zerg in an allmost pure form.

The distance between the doors is too short. It is possible to zerg through the whole 15minutes.

 

- Civil War is not much better.

Because the distance between the capturepoints is too short and it is very much possible to defend 2 points with bland the bland zerg.

 

- Huttball.

Slightly better, but very frustrating with the plethora of CC and Knockbacks in combination with the design of the WZ.

 

And with the bugs everywhere its getting worse.

 

And last but not least, the "revard" system.

Its the first MMO where you dont get the (good ol' chap) carrot dangling before your nose, to keep you going.

 

No, in SWTOR you get only the image of a carrot, which you could get.

 

You cannot calculate on a specific time, where you can get your desired piece of gear and thus this game gets more frustrationg.

 

I'm, as a MMO vet, used to the grind, but SWTOR got this to a new and very unpleasant level.

And I want to play a game, which favors tactics / better play and teamwork.

In the zerg all this gets drowned and its getting old very fast.

And for my part, I dont intend to play a game, where you cant escape the zerg.

[ReaperSW]

Again.. meh some people will never be satisfied. Definitely a good idea to post your concerns so maybe BW will see. But still, very early since launch.

 

 

 

Content is not the only problem. Thanks for the bump but try reading the original post.

[golfwang]

Again.. meh some people will never be satisfied. Definitely a good idea to post your concerns so maybe BW will see. But still, very early since launch.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=7jzHdXHwDt0#t=7s

[Winteria]

The PvP base is on the run, and as a dedicated PvP player myself, I dont think they will return.

And for my part I wait for the rest of my gaming time to run out, and I never will look back to this game ever again.

It is the first MMO, where allmost everything in the PvP system is wrong.

 

We could begin with the selection of the wrong engine for this zergfest (falsely named as PvP in this game).

And the problem is, the zerg is everywhere in this game.

If someone looks for the need of tactical gameplay in the WZs, he will be terribly dissappointed.

 

- Voidstar is the Zerg in an allmost pure form.

The distance between the doors is too short. It is possible to zerg through the whole 15minutes.

 

- Civil War is not much better.

Because the distance between the capturepoints is too short and it is very much possible to defend 2 points with bland the bland zerg.

 

- Huttball.

Slightly better, but very frustrating with the plethora of CC and Knockbacks in combination with the design of the WZ.

 

And with the bugs everywhere its getting worse.

 

And last but not least, the "revard" system.

Its the first MMO where you dont get the (good ol' chap) carrot dangling before your nose, to keep you going.

 

No, in SWTOR you get only the image of a carrot, which you could get.

 

You cannot calculate on a specific time, where you can get your desired piece of gear and thus this game gets more frustrationg.

 

I'm, as a MMO vet, used to the grind, but SWTOR got this to a new and very unpleasant level.

And I want to play a game, which favors tactics / better play and teamwork.

In the zerg all this gets drowned and its getting old very fast.

And for my part, I dont intend to play a game, where you cant escape the zerg.

 

Amen.

[Darth_Eclipses]

My sub ends tonight but I wanted to contribute a little bit more than my previous line in this thread.

 

Basically, TOR's pvp is junk. Trash. Garbage. *****. Worthless. Unenjoyable. Forgettable. Horrid. Terrible. Unplayable.

 

But mostly it's just bad.

 

As I said in one of my recent threads: I cannot support a game that treats my primary form of content like a 2nd citizen. This is why they have lost me and why I suspect many more PvP'ers will end up quitting TOR.

 

I cannot fathom why they would separate factions on planets. Whatever reasoning they had I can't say I want to hear, as my already low opinion of them would sink even further at marveling their stupidity. The primary form of PvP is achieved through sitting in the Fleet and queuing for warzones and as someone who signed up on a PVP SERVER - I find that unacceptable.

 

I firmly suspect that TOR releasing rated warzones are only going to exacerbate the problem - by a huge margin. TOR's pvp is so full of holes and and the only bandaid was that people were able to progress winning or losing.

 

When people's rating and their player/guild/server image is on the line in terms of rating and that is lost due to TOR's poor pvp mechanics: expect a huge drop out.

 

TOR's engine is so full of glitches it's insane. My favorite is the falling animation glitch, especially when it happens in huttball. Seeing people fall off the ledge and following them down to kill them, only to see them rubberband back to the ledge is tons of fun. Games will be lost due to this glitch. Rating will be lost. I do not expect PvP players to abide by this for very long.

 

Basic MMO mechanics aren't even functioning in TOR: i.e. the prime example is Tab Targeting. In a frantic voidstar you will target those behind you, in and circle around you before you target the person in who you're simply looking at. Expect games to be lost due to this poor production quality. Rating will be lost. I do not expect PvP players to abide by this for very long either.

 

I find it hilarious that they are going to be releasing Rated Warzone commendations and bring along a new tier of PvP gear considering the already vast gear disparity. At top rating gear will be all but mandatory - nevermind skill. This means new teams will have to grind for weeks in unrated warzones to gear up before they can even crack into rated wzs. Fun.

 

I could go on and on, but I do not think for a second they actually care about this post. They do care about my money though and they will not be receiving any more of that until they decide to take this game's pvp seriously.

[PinkSugar]

If I could fit the Quote below into my signature, I WOULD!

 

A Great QUOTE By: Balmuck

 

"1. Healing is atrocious with way to many interrupts, stuns and low medal counts for trying to actually heal on a healer. Even basic, "get info the fight:, melee abilities, such as leaps, have roots and interrupts associated with them, which means that healers almost have no place on the battlefield when fighting organized groups. Better to have two tanks and two DPS then one healer who can't get one cast off when getting assisted on. If you wanna heal in this game, level up Biochem to 400, roll a heavy armor DPS or a stealther and you're basically god mode.

 

2. Boring and repetitive Warzones with fairly horrible PVE mechanics. They reward mindless zerging and suicide instead of strategic re spawns and killing opponents. The medal system is completely horrible. It encourages individualism and selfishness because most people don't care for nothing more then to rack up their own medals. Who cares for a win when you can end up with 11 medals for a loss and still get 100 commendation. Seeing someone let their side die so they can get the solo kill medals is beyond ridiculous and truly sad. I would be ashamed if I was a game developer and came up with such a pathetic PVP mechanic. Not only that but as I stated... the game LITERALLY ENCOURAGES this type of behavior.

 

 

3. Class balance is horrible. Majority of the melee classes have some sort of vanish to get out of fights, allowing them to not only control the start of the fight with leaps or stealth but also decide when the fight will end and when they feel like they'll pull out. The range classes all have multiple forms of CC so basically whoever sees each other first, wins. No skill required since most classes can spam one button for easy kill. While range, especially the force users dominate the battlefield at lower levels, the game is completely turned upside down at level 50. Melee become untouchable while RPDS blow up like paper dolls. While it's somewhat satisfactory to see this, it however, is nothing to be proud off. People that play melee operatives or scoundrels for example, think they're gods with the ultimate amount of skill, even thought they know that their class is way OP.. I don't really care if they do as such but the dev team should be on top of classes as such. Each day and week that passes by, more people leave the game.

 

4. CC and CC immunity is horrible. Majority of the time, your resolve bar goes off inside your respawn area while you're waiting to get back into the fight. While some claim that resolve works, 99% of the time, it works as I said. You get stunned once, choked, rooted and then immobilized with full resolve bar and it only activates after you're dead. The 8 second immunity is practically useless since most classes that have vanish, will and do, in fact vanish or stealth during this time to continue the charade after their target's CC immunity is down. The 2 min CC break is a joke since stuns are on 20-30 sec cool down timers. The CC is also a huge problem on the RPDS since they can literally chill on the side lines, CC their targets while the target can't even defend or fight back. (Resolve is basically useless. The golden rule of any game when playing healers or kiters is that if you stand still, you're dead. However, in this game, majority of the classes have roots and abilities that immobilize targets which if used correctly, can and will keep the target in once place for more then 15 seconds at one time. This of course results in a death of that said target)

 

5. Open world PVP is a joke. It's very poorly implemented, rewards not killing the other faction and the valor and comms you get from it is laughable at best. This of course encourages people to only go to Illum to win trade for their daily quests. Outside of that, most people actually void the PVP zones since there is nothing to do in them. The chest and really good crafting nodes were all removed because of hackers and such, which means that 99.9% of the populations gets shafted because Bioware wants to "warn" these users. Only warning they should have gotten for blatant exploitation of the game is a ban.

 

6. UI and lag and latency are pretty horrible as well. People with top end machines, myself included, will and still do experience sporadic lag spikes that decide outcome of fights. This of course is a well known issue and Bioware, even in the beta, knew about this and still take no direct approach to deal with the issue. This is especially frustrating when playing melee classes because the client response is so horrible that they can't even hit the target they're chasing due to all the stuttering and rubber banding. UI itself is a complete and utter nightmare. It's hard to tell who needs cleansing or healing due to very bad UI frames which do not keep up with player's ACTUALLY HP. A lot of times people will die even thought they show as having full HP on the raid frames. This also applies with tanks or anyone else who needs to pay attention to raid bars to do their jobs properly. Targeting friendlies by clicking on them is pretty much impossible in this game so if the UI doesn't work or the person does not show up on the UI frames, (this happens ALL the time), they're basically screwed that whole Warzone.

 

7. The aesthetics of animations take away from the functionality of the game. As many people have complained, animation lag, length and such do effect the time stamps of abilities, which in some cases decide the outcome of fights. Project on the Consular for example, has 1.8 second delay between the activation of the ability and the damage application on the target, which in PVP can make a huge difference. 1.8 seconds, when trying to interrupt objective caps, is an eternity and can cause you to actually loose that objective even thought you've clearly interrupted the cap about 2 sec prior to completion.

 

 

 

How about that? I bet I get a ton of hate for that, lol. I do wanna inform ALL of you that all the issues listed above have been in the game since August of last year. That's when I started testing this game and nothing has changed since. "

[Rasstavad]

Most real PvP'rs never even bought this game, or if they did it was only for the PvE. Most PvP'rs knew SWTOR's PvP was garbage long before it was released and passed.

 

They also passed on Rift btw. EQ / WoW clones do nothing for most serious PvP'rs who think arena games are lame.

 

My guild from Daoc / War / Aion is just waiting for GW2. Only a couple of us play SWTOR and mainly for the PvE. All of our discussion on our guildsite has been about GW2 for the last couple of years.

 

So, competitive venues like Arena and RBGs with ladders (visible to all that care) with concrete and tangible indicators (rankings) of your skill vs. others in a controlled environment are lame?

 

But world type pvp where numbers are the deciding factors or ganking in an uncontrolled unrated environment are the paramount examples of "serious" pvp?

 

Edited February 20, 2012 by Rasstavad

[Darkrite]

-Design intentionally detrimental to world pvp. Factions are split horribly when they finally meet on Tatooine and only meet with any kind of regularity on Voss (in my experience). On top of that, flash points are located in each factions respective fleet instead of inside the game world(s), making empty planets feel that much emptier...I won't even take Ilum to task.

 

Segmenting a piece from your post, I wanted to direct my agreement with this statement.

 

Also, I enjoyed reading your post thoroughly. It was well written, and directed to the target audience intended, though I had little doubt you would follow through with gaining a hook in the mouths of those with little to no expectation of a higher standard.

 

The above quoted is something that could have and should have been addressed before launch. There are several debates on population cap during the time of faction seizure. However, it would have been resolved easily with a 1:1 basis. Eventually both sides would have evened out, and those pre-registering would have had to do so under the guidelines of those same statistics held by a database running an algorithm to calculate balance.

 

Unfortunately this did not happen. Instead we have large gaps in ratio of server balance across the boards, and with that many original faction members switching sides to play the less over populated side. This happened with WoW as well, for example.

 

What is the worst in my opinion, is the unstructured planning of open world PvP. The truth is, you can not have "open world" PvP without an open world. Without the illusion of ships travelling from one world to the other, the truth of the matter is, we're all centralized in one main zone, instancing to various other zones. This cuts the seamless aspect from the game entirely, thus ruining "open world" pvp. Even Ultima Online, in 1997, was able to achieve this open world pvp structure because there was no instancing.

 

So now we need to address Ilum solely since it is truly the only world most of us PvP on, as any other world after 50 with the exception of Belsavis and perhaps Hoth, are mostly barren or riddled with lower levels...which the sadistic player looking for a thrill kill to bash on a lower level may jump onto.

 

In this players opinion, the only thing short of ultimately killing pvp on this server is for Bioware to introduce arenas as a last ditch resort of subscribing to cloning WoW entirely.

Short of that, they have cloned a poor platform of pvp all together, and possibly without even realizing it.

 

For those with little experience in other MMOs, the above is mentioned as an example of what kills most PvP in a game. Open world PvP with reward and substantial benefit without a controlled or ranked environment such as that found in a FPS type game is exponentially more fun to a true MMO PvPer in most cases than not. Bioware should look to increase the reward for open world PvP and take a tip from older generation games such as Dark Age of Camelot or Ultima Online.

 

Remove the "kill players" for end rewards as well from quest lines. The objective should always, always, always be a third point objective. Examples of such could be a base taken, a vehicle or PvP world boss taken down, a breach in enemy defenses. You had it right the first time Bioware. The problem is you didn't make it difficult to achieve with resistance by offering the other faction reward for killing their aggressors. You make the objective third point, and the sub reward killing aggressors. That's how you stimulate world PvP; give the players a common goal for offense and defense.

[golfwang]

le bump

[Daeromas]

couldn't speak for how others feel, but if 1.2 doesn't do alot for PvP in many areas I don't see myself sticking around much longer.

[Hellblazze]

i just jumped around this thread....

1. yes it is a pve leveling type game(the story is great and all the talky talk has already broke 1 keyboards space bar) but if thats what the game is then why put any form of pvp in at all....the 3 wz are semi fun...illum is a joke (still havnt figured out what the point to the place is) i just hit 50 and im still finding new FP that im in no hurry to run cuz there are 50 people in fleet with 75% of them low level....

2. ill take the star wars brand over the panda bs wow is putting out or wanna be copys of wow that i wont even name... but again if you cant put alittle work into pvp then why bother.( im not a balance nut or a gear nut. just wanna have fun)

3. i get its a new game speech... i get that its gonna be changeing all the time...iv used talk on at least 10 people i had switch over from wow.... but i cant find any talk on changes or new pvp content besides rated wz.... the devolopers blog has looked the same for awile...

 

i donno my sub is running out soon and i cant even find time cards at any of the 50 stores around me so maybe just move on

[golfwang]

couldn't speak for how others feel, but if 1.2 doesn't do alot for PvP in many areas I don't see myself sticking around much longer.

 

1.2 pvp changes I know of:

-New pvp gear progression system (no more daily dependence)

-New Warzone

-Maybe Rated Warzones

-afk vote kick

-deserter penalty

 

I don't think it's enough for most pvpers tbh (and I might have missed something).

Edited February 20, 2012 by golfwang

[Sylare]

Real pvp'ers dont QQ about pvp, they just kill people

[me_unknown]

not the planets are too big. the server capacities are too small.

 

what is it, 200 of each faction at max? it should be at least 500 of each faction.

use a cluster of servers for each "server" (or to name it like another mmo, realm) to distribute load.

 

it is ridicules to expect open pvp along with pve and warzones if during rush hours you only can get 200 players in total of each faction, including low level chars/twinks!

 

this is the biggest mistake they did.

 

on my server you have to search 1-4h to get 4 people for a fp, no matter if heroic or low level or what ever. but warzones are opening up in seconds, while the population on most planets is between 2 and 20 (most are around 14) and in the rep fleet you get between 50 and 90.