Ilum the Last Frontier

[Ozzone]

There has been never-ending discussion on what to do about Ilum (or open PvP in general). I just wanted to throw my idea in which I believe is the best short-term solution.

 

So many ideas have already been presented. I have looked at many. Here's my proposal:

 

The main problem with Ilum is there's no incentive to fight at control points. While some battles do take place, all too often one side (which is always Republic on my server) turtles at their base door way too much. It then turns into the "see who can pull who" camp fest. People get so bored with this that they go afk all too often. Not to mention the lag seems to be worse near base entrances.

 

BASIC PLAN

 

To offset that, make it very worthwhile to control more points and hold them. Each control point a side captures, and controls for 5 minutes, locks the previous captured control point. For example, if Republic captures Center and holds it for 5 mins, this locks South. If they capture North and hold for 5 mins, it locks Center. However, Republic can never lock North which gives Empire the opportunity to push them back to Center by capturing North.

 

This helps concentrate battles near control points. Recapturing points can only be done in order except when their base is captured then the defending side can recapture the nearest point (South for Republic and North for Empire). If they do, the attacking side loses both the base and that point and now has to defend Center.

 

For example. Empire controls all points and are at the Republic Base. A contingent of Republics attacks South and captures it. Now Empire only controls their own base, North and Center. Republic can push and attack Center and Empire has to go defend. If Republic captures Center, they can now attack North and push back up to the Empire base.

 

Increase the cast time on the rockets (that players use to cap) to at least 30 seconds (to give the defending side time to at least get to the control point). The attacking side needs to hold them off long enough for the rocket shooters time to finish (without being interrupted).

 

Controlling points (other than base) gets constant tics of valor every 5 minutes for players near the unlocked control points.

 

Players must be near a control point to receive it. A player doesn't have to be in combat at that moment, but cannot be in AFK status to receive it. Here's how valor is given:

 

VALOR

 

Republic gets no valor tics for controlling their base.

Republic gets 10 tics of valor for controlling South.

Republic gets 60 tics of valor for controlling Center (10 + 50 for center).

Republic gets 70 tics of valor for controlling North. (60 + 10 for north).

Republic gets 100 tics of valor for controlling Republic Base. (70 + 30 for base).

 

Empire gets no valor tics for controlling their base.

Empire gets 10 tics of valor for controlling North.

Empire gets 60 tics of valor for controlling Center (10 + 50 for center).

Empire gets 70 tics of valor for controlling South. (60 + 20 for north).

Empire gets 100 tics of valor for controlling the Republic Base. (70 + 30 for base).

 

BASE CAPTURE

 

If one side controls the other's base for 15 mins, the zone resets, all control points become neutral and all players in the PvP area are given the opportunity to teleport back to their base to regroup. In addition, as a reward, the side that controlled the zone when it resets gets a bag and bonus valor equivalent to 10x their valor rank.

 

Players will still be able to get valor for kills anywhere as they do now and must be in combat at the following rate:

 

1 control point = 10

Center control point = 60

3 control points = 70

Base control point = 100

 

As you can see, valor will add up considerably during combat and reward the stronger force.

 

Put Centurion, Champion and Battlemaster vendors in the bases.

 

Add daily/weekly terminals (just like on fleet) in the actual bases.

 

Add (direct to fleet) shuttles in the bases so players can quickly go back and forth to fleet.

 

Have War Hero gear implemented soon.

 

Reduce the damage of the base cannons but still make them deal out decent damage to give the defending team an advantage. Once activated (only by defending side), they can be shot 30 times with a 3 minute cooldown. One idea I had was make each shot that hits a player do about 2k damage for any targets in the direct line of fire.

 

OPERATION GROUPS

 

To ensure equality, cap the zone at 2 ops groups per side for a maximum of 96 players. This should help reduce some lag as players won't be clustered around a base door. While FPS will always be an issue (until they fix it if they ever do), it is less of one when players are out in open areas fighting. My FPS is better away from the base.

 

Develop a Ilum Ops Interface, via an NPC at their base, that shows the different instances (Ilum 1, 2, 3 etc.) and how many of each side are in them. Allow full size ops groups (or partial groups) to join whichever instance they want. This will provide immense flexibility for guilds to create their own full or partial ops groups and join with allies easily and quickly Without having to go to leave the PvP area.

 

SUMMARY

 

What I have proposed above does not involve a lot of development and actually should be simple to do. It's not perfect, but would be a great start. It won't completely fix open PvP but it would be a dramatic improvement to what it is now.

 

Thoughts?

Edited February 12, 2012 by Ozzone

[Sundragon]

It's more strategic than the current ilum setup. The downside is that it doesn't reward people for 1vs1 fights and promotes larger fights. Nothing wrong with that, but it is what it is.

 

The only thing I would change in your plan is the zone-reset after 15 minutes when one side holds all the points. It makes it a penalty for "winning" and you'll probably see people yell at others not to cap all the points as a result.

 

Instead, make enemy NPCs begin to spawn more aggressively as you cap more control points. That way the overwhelmed side will have more forces to combat the zerging side. A coordinated large zerg could still hold all the points, but it shouldn't be easy. The number of enemy NPCs should be relative to the number of players in the PvP zone. That way, during off-peak times or low population servers, you still can do the same thing but with fewer people.

[DarthGenos]

This is a helluva good idea. Ilum is large scale world PvP, and should be rewarding to do so. I must say, this would be a vast improvement over what Ilum is now.

[SupeD]

I like it only thing it seems to be missing is the small bonus to stats/xp on Ilum when outnumbered.

[Isyy]

I think this idea is ridiculously accurate if they would ever want to do something to fix the game. Just need more people to see this thread so it catches BW's eye.

[WarPuppy]

IM sorry I see nothing but fail in your idea. Ill just assume by the way you talk about Ilum that your IMP. You think republic likes turtling at base? HArd to have fair fight when imps out number repubs 2-1 or more.

 

The idea that you would make it so being stuck at your base gets you ZERO valor while the tam farming you gets extrea... Yup sounds like IMP logic to me. Slso sounds like the logic that cost BIO 300k subs after the first month.

 

Anything you want to do to ILum to make a better open world PVP has to be combined with something to help out the less populated side. Otherwsie we will have a repeat of the of the JAn 20 patch where IMPs becasuse of thier numbers will get easy reward system.

 

I came from WArHammer where they had a pretty deccent open world PVP system.

I would like o see something similar. Reward taking a major point on the map not just with a valor bonus that is useless to anyone over 60 valor like my self but with a epic chest that maybe drops BM token or champ tokens.

 

Open world pvp can be fixed but you need to stop trying to make thins "even" The game is not even one sides has much more people and you need to take that into consideration when comming up a plan for Ilum because "even" is not "even"

[Ozzone]

IM sorry I see nothing but fail in your idea. Ill just assume by the way you talk about Ilum that your IMP. You think republic likes turtling at base? HArd to have fair fight when imps out number repubs 2-1 or more.

 

There's nothing fail in my idea. Yes I am Imperial and I know that Imperial players outnumber Republic players about 2 to 1 on my server. As I clearly stated, it would only be a short-term fix. I know that the population is imbalanced.

 

Correcting imbalance is going to take a fundamental change in the game which would require considerable amount of development. As long as players have complete freedom to choose their faction, as the game stands now, there will always be more Empire than Republic on PvP servers. That is an entirely different discussion.

 

The caps could be worked out to minimize the imbalance in each instance of Ilum. The toughest part of my idea would be the manipulation of caps to ensure that both sides are fairly equal in numbers.

 

In order for my idea to work, would require coding an interface that people could queue up for entrance into Ilum PvP. Allow ops groups to queue. When they are balanced on both sides with a MINIMUM OF 12 PLAYERS EACH, launch the instance. Only allow more to join equally for both sides.

 

Unlike a warzone though, once you enter the instance there is no timer. As long as both sides are balanced, valor will award like I stated above. Should one side start losing numbers en masse, for whatever reason, cancel valor tics. The next part is tricky, one idea is to decrease valor substantially and to offer players on the majority side an option to switch to another instance to balance it out. This coding would be fairly complex but doable.

 

For example. Ilum1 has 2 full ops groups of Imperials and 2 full ops groups of Republics. 12 players on the Republic side leave the instance. Now it's 48 to 36. Decrease valor for Imperials by 25%. Basically decrease valor about 2% for the dominant side.

 

48 to 24 - less 50% valor.

 

If one side reaches 50% of players vs. the other side, again allow the majority side players to change instances.

 

Eventually players will come to realize that balancing out instances provides the most valor gains and will adjust. Let's say you are there solo or with a couple other guildies, it would be in your benefit to leave that instance and join one that is more balanced. Large guild heavy ops groups might find it more difficult because they want to stay together as an ops group but it's too large to move entirely to another instance.

 

Like I said, there's possibilities and there's potential issues with anything.

 

Limit instance changes to once every 10 mins (so people don't find some way to abuse it).

 

The idea that you would make it so being stuck at your base gets you ZERO valor while the tam farming you gets extrea... Yup sounds like IMP logic to me. Slso sounds like the logic that cost BIO 300k subs after the first month.

 

The idea that being stuck at a base would only apply if players had no way to get out of their base. Not only do they have two exits far enough apart, but taxis. They stay in the base because they can get valor that way. Even if they aren't outnumbered. Are you proposing that they can continue to get valor by playing turtle?

 

Anything you want to do to ILum to make a better open world PVP has to be combined with something to help out the less populated side. Otherwsie we will have a repeat of the of the JAn 20 patch where IMPs becasuse of thier numbers will get easy reward system.

 

As I previously stated, restricting caps and using balance design would not require any form of bolstering to one side.

 

I came from WArHammer where they had a pretty deccent open world PVP system.

I would like o see something similar. Reward taking a major point on the map not just with a valor bonus that is useless to anyone over 60 valor like my self but with a epic chest that maybe drops BM token or champ tokens.

 

I agree. Capturing a point and holding it 5 mins pops a chest in the middle of the point. Exactly how that would be implemented needs more discussion. Maybe have the chest drop one epic and only that class can roll need.

 

Another option is to award commendations (cent and champ). Maybe 4 cent and 2 champ. Can't be much or people will farm it too much.

 

Give both. A chest and comms.

 

Build it and they will come.

 

Open world pvp can be fixed but you need to stop trying to make thins "even" The game is not even one sides has much more people and you need to take that into consideration when comming up a plan for Ilum because "even" is not "even"

 

No, I disagree 100%. You have to make things even FOR NOW. Fixing faction imbalance is a massive undertaking and may be almost impossible as long as people have freedom to choose. My idea again is a short-term fix.

 

It helps with FPS by spreading out battles. I have much less lag when in open areas than I do around the door.

 

It keeps the sides fairly balanced and thus encouraging more open PvP and less turtling especially by not awarding valor inside your base.

 

It provides decent valor and increases greatly when both sides choose to engage. Of course valor 60 players won't be as needy for valor but they still want it (I do).

 

It provides rewards to capture a point and hold it.

 

It provides a bag reward to capture the others base.

 

It would not take a ton of developers and a long time to implement. That is the main point. It's doable.

Edited February 13, 2012 by Ozzone