va_wanderer Posted February 15, 2012 Share Posted February 15, 2012 The biggest problem with Ilum is that it's nothing but PvP targets, other than the derp of putting rockets into crawlers/turrets. There need to be significant, Op-level and Group-level targets to take down in the map for weekly/daily rewards that are worth more than the derp of Valor farming and kill/objective trading. Ones that have significant PvE defenses that require organized effort to take down and long (4+ hr) respawns for Op-level targets, less (1hr or so) for group-sized ones. Use these to determine Valor bonuses. Say, five Op-level targets, one for each area. Twenty group-sized targets, each with significant PvE defenses that reset fairly rapidly unless the target is destroyed, in which case they respawn with mobs for the opposite faction but a new target respawns (to allow the other faction a chance to take control again) with them only after the proper time elapses. Say a group-level area has an Imperial general and a small army of L50 troops/droids/turrets for his defense that respawn rapidly. If he's killed, any Imperial defenders in the area will now respawn as Republic ones, and a Republic leader will show up an hour later. Likewise, Op-level ones will work much the same way, with larger-scale defenders and the same change to respawn when the main target is destroyed, leaving the Op-level target under control of the victor for at least 4 hours (when the new target will spawn, allowing the other side a chance to take it back). Rewards for killing group or Op-level targets will be considerable and superior to simply killing players endlessly, and of course any area full of friendly-to-you defenders also serves as a haven from enemy forces- and people going after those area-control targets will have to deal with players who will be looking for easy pickings in the chaos or a chance to disrupt the attempt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bnol Posted February 15, 2012 Share Posted February 15, 2012 This is a good band-aid fix before the necessary complete Ilum overhaul. I support this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashes_Arizona Posted February 15, 2012 Author Share Posted February 15, 2012 This is a good band-aid fix before the necessary complete Ilum overhaul. I support this. I think it could definitely hold Ilum over, as I stated, by using resources already resident in the game mechanics so it wouldn't actually require an intensive amount of development to make it happen. And yes, then they could at least leave it in a more "playable" and engaging state while they work on a more effective total overhaul. To be honest when I first envisioned Ilum I was envisioning outposts to storm and defend. What we ended up with...well seems like it didn't get as much thought as I was giving it even before I ever saw it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cinc Posted February 15, 2012 Share Posted February 15, 2012 Zerg fights can be a lot of fun when the graphic engine isnt a piece of crap. I couldnt believe the lag in a fight only involving mayne 30 people on each side. Was as bad as a relic raid in DAOC except those usually involved 100+ per side not to mention 30+ npcs. When the fights are reduced to tab targetting and using whatever ranged attack or ae you have then you have failed. They need to fix the graphic engine first and foremost if they want to see anything resembling DAOC style open world fights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashes_Arizona Posted February 15, 2012 Author Share Posted February 15, 2012 Zerg fights can be a lot of fun when the graphic engine isnt a piece of crap. I couldnt believe the lag in a fight only involving mayne 30 people on each side. Was as bad as a relic raid in DAOC except those usually involved 100+ per side not to mention 30+ npcs. When the fights are reduced to tab targetting and using whatever ranged attack or ae you have then you have failed. They need to fix the graphic engine first and foremost if they want to see anything resembling DAOC style open world fights. This is a given and another reason I believe attempting to create incentives to spread the zerg out into smaller "zergling" groups would be a good idea for the moment. Its going to take them quite a long time to get 100 person battles to run smooth on the Hero Engine. To be honest I think we'll be lucky if they achieve it at all. So you need mechanics to actually make it more efficient, or expedient or simply necessary for these groups to split up into smaller groups to efffectively "win" on Ilum. Piling everyone up at central til one side loses Red Rover in a 10 frame per second environment is rather horrible, all told. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Litefire Posted February 15, 2012 Share Posted February 15, 2012 this is a better version of what i was thinking and hadn't quite had time to write up. I like it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JefferyClark Posted February 15, 2012 Share Posted February 15, 2012 They need to decrease the overall area in the map. It is too large. Then they can reduce it to allow only 30 per side in, and they'll have plenty of fight in them. Will things still lag? Probably. However, reducing the area by over half and simplifying the terrain will reduce what the computer has to think about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
venjinze Posted February 15, 2012 Share Posted February 15, 2012 (edited) Open World PvP has worked in a lot of games. Its not so good here and WoW's experiments with it weren't exactly stellar examples of OPvP. DAoC and Shadowbane got it about as right as you could get it. Warhammer's OPvP model wasn't too shabby either, which makes it a damn shame that the rest of the game was sort of crap. WoW had great open world PvP, until they implemented battlegrounds. Nothing has come close to DAoC sadly... DAoC 2 already please. Warhammer also had a decent system, the fact there was open PvP with siege type objectives in almost every zone was awesome. Edited February 15, 2012 by venjinze Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bnol Posted February 15, 2012 Share Posted February 15, 2012 I think it could definitely hold Ilum over, as I stated, by using resources already resident in the game mechanics so it wouldn't actually require an intensive amount of development to make it happen. And yes, then they could at least leave it in a more "playable" and engaging state while they work on a more effective total overhaul. To be honest when I first envisioned Ilum I was envisioning outposts to storm and defend. What we ended up with...well seems like it didn't get as much thought as I was giving it even before I ever saw it. I totally agree. I guess band-aid comes off as negative, which was not my intent, just that for future enjoyment they would need a complete overhaul of the zone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashes_Arizona Posted February 15, 2012 Author Share Posted February 15, 2012 I totally agree. I guess band-aid comes off as negative, which was not my intent, just that for future enjoyment they would need a complete overhaul of the zone. I definitely agree with that. I don't think what I'm offering up here is a permanent fix but I do think its a good fix that could be done quickly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kunari Posted February 15, 2012 Share Posted February 15, 2012 (edited) As a designer myself I am well aware that players will find a way to exploit anything they can exploit. The idea here is to try to present more situations of engagement, thus to promote higher levels of non-exploitative play, and higher levels of "quality" play... I agree that splitting up the zerg into smaller groups would make Ilum so much better than the laggy-zerg-fest it is currently. I commend your idea however, it seems that the over-populated side would just shift to North/South to farm the normal & faction "bonus" boxes. I think your idea would get the zerg to split a bit but I still think they'd have a Zerg waiting in Center to move N/S with smaller scouting parties to watch N/S. Edit: again, I like where your idea is going and it shouldn't be a huge task to make happen. Edited February 15, 2012 by Kunari Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flexo Posted February 15, 2012 Share Posted February 15, 2012 I like it, seems like it'd help, at least a small amount. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashes_Arizona Posted February 15, 2012 Author Share Posted February 15, 2012 I agree that splitting up the zerg into smaller groups would make Ilum so much better than the laggy-zerg-fest it is currently. I commend your idea however, it seems that the over-populated side would just shift to North/South to farm the normal & faction "bonus" boxes. I think your idea would get the zerg to split a bit but I still think they'd have a Zerg waiting in Center to move N/S with smaller scouting parties to watch N/S. Edit: again, I like where your idea is going and it shouldn't be a huge task to make happen. Again this is where the defensive buff comes in for held assault points. Even if you're facing a larger group, depending on the total number of your faction on planet, the defensive buff from the shield generators scales to adjust for your lack of population. It won't make you immortal, but it will make people actually defending a held point harder to uproot if they're in a 2:1 fight against a superior force. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keltoigael Posted February 15, 2012 Share Posted February 15, 2012 Someone hire this guy. It took him ten minutes what ten dev's couldn't do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashes_Arizona Posted February 15, 2012 Author Share Posted February 15, 2012 Someone hire this guy. It took him ten minutes what ten dev's couldn't do. I'd love to work for BW:A, game system dynamics are part of what I do professionally. But I'm not sure I could handle Texas summers, I am not a fan of heat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anti_Bodies Posted February 16, 2012 Share Posted February 16, 2012 This is so much better designed. This would make people actually flock to Ilum and it would be the widespread open PVP zone it was meant to be. Currently every1 zergs middle, and the larger pop side (usually empire) will form a massive ops group and wipe out whoever is there. Zerg middle or don't do anything. <-- Bad design. Influence players to specifically go out to a numberous number of areas that discourages massive ops groups (leading to massive lag) <-- good design Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashes_Arizona Posted February 16, 2012 Author Share Posted February 16, 2012 This is so much better designed. This would make people actually flock to Ilum and it would be the widespread open PVP zone it was meant to be. Currently every1 zergs middle, and the larger pop side (usually empire) will form a massive ops group and wipe out whoever is there. Zerg middle or don't do anything. <-- Bad design. Influence players to specifically go out to a numberous number of areas that discourages massive ops groups (leading to massive lag) <-- good design Thats pretty much my thoughts on the matter. Appreciate your thoughts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashes_Arizona Posted February 16, 2012 Author Share Posted February 16, 2012 Popping this back from under 14 pages of flaming and forum fighting. My apologies for this thread not having enough inflammatory material in it to allow it to perpetuate itself on the front page like an incurable virus. So, anyways, we'd love some nice, simple changes to Ilum, that would make Ilum more fun for everyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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