Suggestion - A Simple Way to Fix Ilum

[WittyRaevyn]

Let me start off by saying what I think Ilum should be. (You folks may disagree, and if so, please disregard this suggestion)

 

Ilum should provide us with equivalent incentive to be there as being in a Warzone. In fact, It should actually be like one giant warzone ALL THE TIME. It should be a place that always can give us the same rewards whether your server is balanced or not. The rewards should be based on killing and completing objectives, not riding in a circle collecting random stuff or trading kills with the opposite faction to complete daily quests. People should be able to use the planet to rank up just as easily as they do in Warzones. This will give people who love World PVP an equal opportunity to gain ranks as those who love Warzones. What is the point of having a PVP planet if no one wants to be there?

 

DISCLAIMER!!! This plan is based on current mechanics within Ilum at this time. Although there are a million better ways to do world PVP than what Bioware has done, I'm trying to offer a suggestion that works with their current set-up as much as possible so that they might actually take this seriously.

 

 

PLEASE READ THE ENTIRE SUGGESTION - there are many interlocking parts that address afkers, battlemaster gear, rewards, and faction imbalance. Thank you in advance for your time, comments, and critiques.

 

THE INITIAL PLAN

Make any person within the PVP area of Ilum receive TICKING VALOR based on each objective that their faction owns. (a very small amount, my suggestion would be 2 valor per objective every 5 minutes, so a maximum of 6 valor every 5 minutes) I'll address AFKers later.

 

Each time a player is part of overtaking an objective (in the area when it is taken) they receive a bonus in Valor for doing so. Objectives can be taken in the same way they are now. You don't need to change that.

 

Players who are killed will drop Mercenary Tokens and also give valor. They will have an increased drop rate based on the number of objectives your faction owns. ANYONE WHO DOES DAMAGE TO THE PLAYER, OR HEALS SOMEONE WHO HAS DONE DAMAGE TO THE PLAYER SHOULD RECEIVE CREDIT FOR THE KILL.They should not be required to be in the same group.

 

Fully staff the Republic and Imperial Base with guards that can be killed and that remain despawned for a good amount of time to allow for seiging to take place.

 

Place an item at the center of each base worth a large amount of valor (Equivalent to 1 Warzone win) that also rewards any players who were in the Base, assisting with its domination, with a certain number of Mercenary Commendations. Once this item is destroyed on either faction, ALL OBJECTIVES ARE RESET TO NEUTRAL.

 

A faction MUST OWN ALL OBJECTIVES (N, S, Central) before they can enter the opposing factions base. My suggestion would be a shield surrounding each base that does not go down until all objectives are held.

 

If the final objective (Faction Base) is not overtaken within a certain amount of time (we'll say 2 hours, but this will need testing or feedback from you, the reader) ALL OBJECTIVES RESET TO NEUTRAL.

 

Remove the WZ buff from Ilum. It will not be needed since the objectives/ownership will be flopping so much and players will already have incentive to be out there and hold objectives. This will also stop people from constantly leaving llum once they own things.

 

LASTLY - Allow Battlemaster Bags to be purchased with 1000 Mercenary commendations. This will encourage Battlemasters to participate in World PVP more and free up the warzones for the newer 50's and the Battlemasters who still enjoy them.

 

THE PVP DAILIES/WEEKLIES

 

PVP Dailies for Ilum should now be: Overtake 3 objectives

PVP Weekly for Ilum should now be: Seige and capture the Republic/Imperial Base OR Overtake 30 Objectives

 

These new dailies discourage trading kills and encourage groups to work together to complete objectives. You can still potentially trade "objectives" however there are no mercenary drops that come from that, so you'll likely want to kill the republic rather than bargain with them.

 

BALACING ISSUES

 

AFKers - First of all, people who are legitimately afk get booted from the game after about 15 minutes of inactivity. This means (at most) they would receive 18 Valor. For someone to abuse the above system and actually get something substantial from it - they would need to follow the objectives as they get taken over, and then be in the Republic Base when it is captured. Even then - they would ONLY get Mercenary Commendations at the very end. So technically, the only people that could do this would be stealthers.They would not receive any Mercenary commendations for killing players, they would only receive them IF they were in the final base at the end. Now, there could be players that just move from objective to objective gaining the ticking valor bonus - but again, why would they do this when assisting with kills gives them far more valor and mercenary tokens? Although there are always people who will do this, I don't see it being advantageous enough for it to be abused substantially. People go AFK and hide in Warzones right now, but the vast majority of them get found and killed and don't gain nearly as much reward.

FACTION IMBALANCE - The great thing about this plan is people get Valor just for COMING to the zone. So, at the very least, they will get continuous ticking valor just for owning their base and they'll be able to kill people for drops as well. Also, the objectives will be resetting to Neutral very frequently. This will allow for people to complete their dailies on an outnumbered server without having to control the Central area for armaments or having to kill people who AREN'T THERE or who VASTLY outnumber them. There are certain times where the low population faction WILL have people online to be able to complete the entire zone. With the TWO ways you can complete the weekly, you don't always need to have a full raid group out there.

Edited February 11, 2012 by WittyRaevyn

[WittyRaevyn]

Gratuitous Bump.

[WittyRaevyn]

The only reason I am bumping this is I am legitimately wanting to hear feedback, ideas, and critiques from the player base. Please also see my thread regarding Social Points in PVP. Thanks!

[Mcfree]

Nice post I noticed it on the link you posted from the other Thread. Yes all your ideas would make it much more enjoyable Imo.

 

I see some similarities from WAR and DAOC which were fantastic and I couldn't agree more. This next statement is just for BIOWARE.

 

EVERYTHING GOOD AND WONDERFUL HAS BEEN DONE BEFORE AND DONE WELL IN MOST CASES. So yea take some advice from the, widely known, best pvp games in the genre. The ones I, noticed how i use the word"I" here wink wink nudge nudge, know many of your employees/studio partners have worked on. Your this close to making Ilum and the rest of SWTOR pvp amazing

 

Good Job OP constructive criticism is the only kind that is helpful. Bump Bump.

Edited February 11, 2012 by Mcfree

[Syrellaris]

add in a headliner to fix the effing framedrops and lag on Ilum and Ill support you 2000%!

[JackBauerFTW]

Fix the lag, and for the imbalance, create something similar like AAO was in warhammer. Atleast give the lesser team an incentive to get rolled.

 

Oh and increase the ammo cost or cast timer for tracer/grav while your at it

[OldJarJar]

I love this idea!

 

I hate llum, i only go there to complete the quest 'dailes' and i hardly ever go in the warzone 'cos the wait for one now is STUPID.

[WittyRaevyn]

Thank you all for taking the time to read this. I truly feel it would be VERY VERY easy for them to implement these changes with very little work.

[DarthMikesta]

Pretty good idea. Obviously the passive valor gain numbers would probably need to be tweaked to make sure they are in line with valor gain in Warzones, but i would much prefer this to the current ilum.

 

Then again, I would prefer anything to the crap that is current ilum

[Syrellaris]

My suggestion posted a couple of weeks ago

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=217565

 

A combination of mine and her would be pretty sweet

[Mcfree]

Bumping again for 1st page. Can someone go Bump my thread "Loving SWTOR PVP"....I'm trying to keep it on the front page.

[Nomeld]

Sounds good to me, The only issue I have with ilum that you haven't addressed is the current respawning system, it heavily promotes mass zerging with no tactical elements in it what so ever.

 

I'd rather they link spawn points with control points, It allows the smaller numbered team to tactically cut off the enemy zerg and adds at hell of alot more value to the control points...

Edited February 11, 2012 by Nomeld

[WittyRaevyn]

My suggestion posted a couple of weeks ago

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=217565

 

A combination of mine and her would be pretty sweet

 

I read your thread, and although some of your ideas are good - they sound a lot like PvE

 

Also, they require Bioware to create NEW things, which is very hard on developers time and money wise.

 

This plan that I've outlined requires them to create NOTHING new aside from a few NPCS and a clickable item within each base. It only asks them to alter the objectives for the zone and for players to help eliminate kill trading and also people coming to Ilum just to get their dailies done.

 

I'm not saying some of your suggestions couldn't be implemented - but what I'm looking to accomplish is a suggestion for Bioware that is incredibly easy for them to implement.

 

Regarding the ticking valor - I did the math on it. If you get approx 1000 Valor from a WZ (when you win), you would need to spend 166 minutes (or about 2 and a half hours) in Ilum owning ALL THREE OBJECTIVES to gain that amount. The ticking valor amount I suggested is miniscule.

 

The rewards for obtaining objectives should be 200 Valor and 10 Mercenary commendations (approx. half of what you get when you lose a WZ).

 

The reward for capturing the base should be 1000 Valor and 50 Mercenary Commendations (approx. one warzone win).

 

Since both of the above things can only happen a certain number of times, playing in Ilum for 2 and a half hours will net you approx 2000 Valor and 70 Mercenary commendations if you're there for EVERY SINGLE EVENT. (This is NOT COUNTING KILLS, which will substantially increase your rewards).

 

A player when killed will drop 1, 2, or 3 Merc commendations (depending on the number of objectives you own) and give 50 Valor.

 

These numbers are meant to align being in Ilum for 2 and a half hours with being in Warzones for 2 and a half hours. I think they're fairly accurate.

[Mformature]

The imps on my server already have a 3 to 1 advantage at any given time. This would only make it worse.

[DrIzzt-DoUrden]

Let me start off by saying what I think Ilum should be. (You folks may disagree, and if so, please disregard this suggestion)

 

Ilum should provide us with equivalent incentive to be there as being in a Warzone. In fact, It should actually be like one giant warzone ALL THE TIME. It should be a place that always can give us the same rewards whether your server is balanced or not. The rewards should be based on killing and completing objectives, not riding in a circle collecting random stuff or trading kills with the opposite faction to complete daily quests. People should be able to use the planet to rank up just as easily as they do in Warzones. This will give people who love World PVP an equal opportunity to gain ranks as those who love Warzones. What is the point of having a PVP planet if no one wants to be there?

 

DISCLAIMER!!! This plan is based on current mechanics within Ilum at this time. Although there are a million better ways to do world PVP than what Bioware has done, I'm trying to offer a suggestion that works with their current set-up as much as possible so that they might actually take this seriously.

 

 

PLEASE READ THE ENTIRE SUGGESTION - there are many interlocking parts that address afkers, battlemaster gear, rewards, and faction imbalance. Thank you in advance for your time, comments, and critiques.

 

THE INITIAL PLAN

Make any person within the PVP area of Ilum receive TICKING VALOR based on each objective that their faction owns. (a very small amount, my suggestion would be 2 valor per objective every 5 minutes, so a maximum of 6 valor every 5 minutes) I'll address AFKers later.

 

Each time a player is part of overtaking an objective (in the area when it is taken) they receive a bonus in Valor for doing so. Objectives can be taken in the same way they are now. You don't need to change that.

 

Players who are killed will drop Mercenary Tokens and also give valor. They will have an increased drop rate based on the number of objectives your faction owns. ANYONE WHO DOES DAMAGE TO THE PLAYER, OR HEALS SOMEONE WHO HAS DONE DAMAGE TO THE PLAYER SHOULD RECEIVE CREDIT FOR THE KILL.They should not be required to be in the same group.

 

Fully staff the Republic and Imperial Base with guards that can be killed and that remain despawned for a good amount of time to allow for seiging to take place.

 

Place an item at the center of each base worth a large amount of valor (Equivalent to 1 Warzone win) that also rewards any players who were in the Base, assisting with its domination, with a certain number of Mercenary Commendations. Once this item is destroyed on either faction, ALL OBJECTIVES ARE RESET TO NEUTRAL.

 

A faction MUST OWN ALL OBJECTIVES (N, S, Central) before they can enter the opposing factions base. My suggestion would be a shield surrounding each base that does not go down until all objectives are held.

 

If the final objective (Faction Base) is not overtaken within a certain amount of time (we'll say 2 hours, but this will need testing or feedback from you, the reader) ALL OBJECTIVES RESET TO NEUTRAL.

 

Remove the WZ buff from Ilum. It will not be needed since the objectives/ownership will be flopping so much and players will already have incentive to be out there and hold objectives. This will also stop people from constantly leaving llum once they own things.

 

LASTLY - Allow Battlemaster Bags to be purchased with 1000 Mercenary commendations. This will encourage Battlemasters to participate in World PVP more and free up the warzones for the newer 50's and the Battlemasters who still enjoy them.

 

THE PVP DAILIES/WEEKLIES

 

PVP Dailies for Ilum should now be: Overtake 3 objectives

PVP Weekly for Ilum should now be: Seige and capture the Republic/Imperial Base OR Overtake 30 Objectives

 

These new dailies discourage trading kills and encourage groups to work together to complete objectives. You can still potentially trade "objectives" however there are no mercenary drops that come from that, so you'll likely want to kill the republic rather than bargain with them.

 

BALACING ISSUES

 

AFKers - First of all, people who are legitimately afk get booted from the game after about 15 minutes of inactivity. This means (at most) they would receive 18 Valor. For someone to abuse the above system and actually get something substantial from it - they would need to follow the objectives as they get taken over, and then be in the Republic Base when it is captured. Even then - they would ONLY get Mercenary Commendations at the very end. So technically, the only people that could do this would be stealthers.They would not receive any Mercenary commendations for killing players, they would only receive them IF they were in the final base at the end. Now, there could be players that just move from objective to objective gaining the ticking valor bonus - but again, why would they do this when assisting with kills gives them far more valor and mercenary tokens? Although there are always people who will do this, I don't see it being advantageous enough for it to be abused substantially. People go AFK and hide in Warzones right now, but the vast majority of them get found and killed and don't gain nearly as much reward.

FACTION IMBALANCE - The great thing about this plan is people get Valor just for COMING to the zone. So, at the very least, they will get continuous ticking valor just for owning their base and they'll be able to kill people for drops as well. Also, the objectives will be resetting to Neutral very frequently. This will allow for people to complete their dailies on an outnumbered server without having to control the Central area for armaments or having to kill people who AREN'T THERE or who VASTLY outnumber them. There are certain times where the low population faction WILL have people online to be able to complete the entire zone. With the TWO ways you can complete the weekly, you don't always need to have a full raid group out there.

 

Quite possibly the best post ever.

[WittyRaevyn]

The imps on my server already have a 3 to 1 advantage at any given time. This would only make it worse.

 

You need to read through the thread.

 

Right now - you cannot complete your dailies because either

 

A) You can't get to the middle to get armaments

 

=or=

 

B) You can't kill the Imps because they vastly outnumber you

 

Now - what CAN you do in Ilum with your current population problem??

 

You CAN capture the objective points by sneaking around the Imperial raid group.

You CAN sit in your base.

You CAN, when you have an influx of people, actually go out together and kill some folks

 

So - with my proposition, all of the things you can actually do right now you will get REWARDED FOR. You will actually get to complete your dailies because all you need to do is sneak around and capture ONE objective. You can complete your weeklies the same way. Or...if you guys happen to have a lot of people in the zone...you can take over the base if you want.

 

I don't understand how my suggestion will "make it worse" for you. Please explain more thoroughly.

[WittyRaevyn]

Sounds good to me, The only issue I have with ilum that you haven't addressed is the current respawning system, it heavily promotes mass zerging with no tactical elements in it what so ever.

 

I'd rather they link spawn points with control points, It allows the smaller numbered team to tactically cut off the enemy zerg and adds at hell of alot more value to the control points...

 

Good point. They will need to heavily adjust the spawn points in the area if what you say is true. I haven't experienced it myself, but I'm sure that is an easy fix.

[BioShout]

I think this is quite a good idea. But if lets say Empire outnumber Republic 3 to 1, wouldn't Empire always win Ilum? There is absolutely no chance that lets say 33 republic could win against a 100 Empire players NO WAY! - This would make warzones even more unbalanced when its Empire against Republic on some servers, as we've seen in threads before. Why? Well, since they could gain a lot more from the system you've come up with. Sure with some tweaking it may be great.

 

+ The current state of Ilum is so horrible this actually look promising.

[Izmaeth]

That's nice idea and I agree that there need to be different way valor counts. The same concept is for the Alderan WZ - your score depends on the amount of points you've captured. It's a good system that prevents trading (apart from taking care of afkers). Simply giving a decent score (that also depends on the current Ilum population) for just holding the objectives could be an easy fix.

 

There's however one problem. Noone in BW cares and noone will read it unfortunately .

 

Id rather propose we act other way around. Instead of posting more and more proposals to fix Ilum, lets just post in one thread and ask BW to state how do they perceive current Ilum status and what are their future plans concerning world PVP. One thread with hundred pages that they cant ignore.

 

Please head to : http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=292397 and just sign in, so that we can get our answers.

[EndgameTOR]

As an additional suggestion:

 

On Ilum, add Rakata teleporters underneath the Central Capture area - there are 2 teleporters with a Mind-Prison outside - 1 Republic 1 Empire. The Mind-Prisons hold 2 different Rakata whom are trying to prove their superiority over the other through arena combat.

 

Only 8-16 Players from each faction can enter at a time. The teleporters take you to an arena (Rakata Mind-Prison?) with a central capture point like the ones you see in Civil War, but Rakata in design.

 

Say the Empire captures the node:

Each time X number of Republic players are killed inside the arena, every Empire player in the zone gains 1 valor/1 Merc Commendation. The number of Republic killed is tracked.

 

Once the Republic retake the console, they get a 'Revenge!' for Imps or 'Justice' for Repubs buff that increases their damage by 1%, maximum of 20%, for each Republic that was killed trying to retake the console. This buff lasts for between 3 to 5 minutes.

 

Players who are INSIDE the arenas max health are reduced by 1% every few seconds while inside the arena. Their only recourse is to die fighting or teleport out. Teleporting out puts you a 30-60 second run away from the teleporter to get back in. You can only teleport out if you control the node.

 

If your faction controls the Rakata console for 10 minutes or 50-100 enemy faction kills - everyone who's been inside the Arena in the past 30 minutes (tracked by a buff) gets a unique commendation. 8 of these commendations can be used to purchase rating 57 Expertise Mods/Enhancements/Barrels, among other items.

The enemy faction also earns the commendations for every 50-100 kills inside the arena

 

These mods CAN'T go into Battlemaster gear.

 

This is effectively a way for people to beef up social/cosmetic gear to Champion equivalent in PvP.

 

Hell, have there be a Purple Crystal for 100 of these commendations. That'd mean someone had to complete a mix of 5000 to 10000 enemy faction kills, and spent somewhere near 10-20 hours of pvp on Ilum. Seems like a worthy time-investment to earn a crystal!

[Spero-Mcgee]

I think this is quite a good idea. But if lets say Empire outnumber Republic 3 to 1, wouldn't Empire always win Ilum? There is absolutely no chance that lets say 33 republic could win against a 100 Empire players NO WAY! - This would make warzones even more unbalanced when its Empire against Republic on some servers, as we've seen in threads before. Why? Well, since they could gain a lot more from the system you've come up with. Sure with some tweaking it may be great.

 

+ The current state of Ilum is so horrible this actually look promising.

 

It definitely can't get any worse. Plus 1337 rep points to OP.

[Psiwolf]

O hai~

[StrifedRevan]

just nuke the planet and televise it = profit

[WittyRaevyn]

I think this is quite a good idea. But if lets say Empire outnumber Republic 3 to 1, wouldn't Empire always win Ilum? There is absolutely no chance that lets say 33 republic could win against a 100 Empire players NO WAY! - This would make warzones even more unbalanced when its Empire against Republic on some servers, as we've seen in threads before. Why? Well, since they could gain a lot more from the system you've come up with. Sure with some tweaking it may be great.

 

+ The current state of Ilum is so horrible this actually look promising.

 

I answered this concern in the thread, but I'll address again.

 

Right now, on an imbalanced server, you can't complete your daily at all because you can't get to the armaments and you can't gather enough people to kill any of the opposing faction because they just destroy you.

 

So what CAN you do?

 

Well, on my server the Republic is vastly outnumbered...but they can:

 

a) Stay in their base and hide

b) Roam out and kill random Imperials, and occasionally group up and kill quite a few of them

c) Sneak around and capture the objectives that the Imperials aren't at

 

Even on our server, there ARE times when the Republics outnumber the Imperials - and they dominate when that happens.

 

So - with this system, we would be able to allow the Republics to finish their dailies by either A) Sneaking around and getting the objectives, or B) When they actually do have a good amount of people they can complete the full zone. The Pubs will be encouraged to be out there more because at least they'll get the ticking valor for having their base and one or two objectives. It gives people an incentive to be on Ilum rather than on their Fleet.

 

Since the Objectives reset to Neutral Every 2 hours, and sometimes sooner if the Imperials complete the full zone quickly, the Republics will easily be able to snag an objective or two fairly often.

 

Secondly, the random kills that the Republics are able to get will actually give them something useful (Merc Commendations and Valor), which they may not be getting much of.

Edited February 11, 2012 by WittyRaevyn

[Du-Sith]

I fully support these ideas! When I joined SW:TOR I was hoping for epic large scale battles via World PvP... alas... I failed due to my lack of vision.

 

These ideas would at least make the planet enjoyable. I don't know how much longer I can fly around in circles looking for crates and think to myself, "Wow! This is such fun PvP!" *sarcasm*

 

Let's hope a Bioware developer or rep actually sees these threads and takes it seriously.