Feedback request from James Ohlen: PvP

[Calista_ZK]

I see a lot of requests for open world PVP with objectives, which would be good, but having played other faction-based MMOs in the past, I know what it's like when the factions are unbalanced.

 

So, my question is, are there ANY plans to work on improving the current faction imbalance on many servers, in which usually the Republic is outnumbered, so that either one faction doesn't die out, or so future activities such as open world PVP aren't horribly imbalanced?

[Felioats]

Make everything within melee range (4m) count as "in front" for casters.

 

It was said at the Summit that autoface wouldn't happen because positioning changes from being too much of an issue (with circle-strafing and bunny-hopping through) to a total non-issue.

 

This would offer the best of both worlds.

 

Rift did something similar shortly after release: If a target is in front at the start of the cast, the spell goes off when it finishes regardless of where the target is, so long as there is unbroken LOS.

 

Beyond that, I'd just make the case that allowing this twitchy dance is not heroic and it is not balanced. Furthermore, balancing classes around the assumption that it will be done is both nonsensical and very difficult -- as well as very frustrating for casters. And frustration is the #1 killer of a good game experience. And mouse-turning does NOT solve the issue. Not by a long shot.

[Yardbird]

RvR

 

===

[Klatzy]

A more consistent Resolve system (or diminishing returns) that prevents long stunlocks.

[pogmahone]

Stop screwing up PvP

[Dyvim]

Do something about the rampant faction imbalance by upping the coolness factor of the republic side...doing something about magic rock throwing shamans instead of jedi would be a start (Project and Throw for consulars). In a game where other classes get lightning, missiles, autocannons, flamethrowers, and blasters, jedi consulars get rocks, pebbles and junkyard rejects. It is ridiculous and a vile disregard for the IP. Jedi arent comic relief junk throwers. I am specifically playing sith atm because of it. Edited March 22, 2012 by Dyvim

[Alaron]

RvR with meaningful territory control, the Star Wars equivalent of seiges, etc..

[Edgecase]

You know what, on second thought, just let me duel in the stupid fleet.

[nosmos]

As so many suggest, more persistent world pvp action - but for all of this to happen, the majority of the servers need to be merged together.

 

Sure, Fatman will benefit no matter what from pvp - but most of the servers that say light 90 percent of the time - and when its 'standard' its still quite light - will not benefit enough from whatever pvp changes come into effect.

 

Server merges please

 

Also, i think some type of pvp class tree system has to come into effect, all of these people crying nerf over stuff are pvp'rs, and this effects the pve balance issues.

 

So, yeah - Merge

 

Edit: when i say 90 percent of the servers, i mean more like 65 percent or so

Edited March 22, 2012 by nosmos

[Boedullus]

For PvP to be fun, you have to diminish the potency of healers. I have heard a hundred healers whining about being targeted, but every time I am against a team with 3+ healers (and of course, almost everyone can heal at least somewhat) they cannot be beaten. Without overwhelming force (3:1 or more) you cannot kill a healer in time to take an objective before reinforcements arrive. I see 4-5 guys whaling on a single target for a minute or more without ever killing them because of a single healer. That's insane.

[AnandaS]

I thought the bolstering system made for an awesome approach to making a fair playing field in PvP matches, but it kind of fell apart at level 50. So my one thing to change would be this:

 

Stop making gear a significant factor for success in PvP combat.

[Vaergoth]

CHIEFLY: PVP must continue to reward me with things that are useful outside PVP.

 

The removal of credits from warzones was a step in the wrong direction. I can tell you right now that if there were no tangible rewards for PVP, I would never do it.

 

Secondary:

- Resolve now builds 33% faster and decays 10% slower. In addition to its other effects, resolve now reduces the duration of snares and roots by 50%.

- Players must now select (via a new ability in the General panel) whether their expertise applies to damage, defense, or healing. This setting can only be changed when a character is not flagged for PVP.

[RobNightfall]

Fix the graphics engine so 40 players on the screen no longer guarantees single digit FPS.

[ViperI]

Remove Expertise.

 

This.

[Elarion]

Remove/reduce the effectiveness of expertise. Looking at the 1-49 bracket things just seem to work smoother.

[Funick]

change resolve system to not allow repeated use of the same type of cc repeatedly in a short period, for example being stunned back to back or being pulled back to back. Also rooting is an issue, under the current system I'll agree that roots should not build resolve but people simply chain rooting you until your resolve wears off is an issue, there should be some means of preventing being rooted at least for a short period of time.

[Lorthor]

^^^^ A better resolve system would be great.

[Ozdogg]

A level 50 bracket without expertise. Or let level 50s into the sub-50 bracket with a reverse bolstering mechanic that negates their expertise.

[reindahl]

Remove Expertise.

[Flixtar]

 

If you could make one change to PVP in SWTOR, what would you want it to be?

 

 

Animate open world pvp. Remove fleets and teleports to the instances. Universe have to be enigmatic and dangerous place.

[swooper]

Remove expertise.

[Tonymitsu]

If you could make one change to PVP in SWTOR, what would you want it to be?

 

...I only get one?

 

Well, okay fine. If I only get one it's actually a pretty easy choice:

 

 

Remove Expertise.

 

 

PvP in SWTOR has a lot of problems at the moment, but this is by far the biggest.

 

Please bear with me while I elaborate.

 

 

For some insane reason, there appears to be a disproportionate number of players that see Expertise (or the presence of any PvP stat) as necessary for PvP to exist in this game. I don't know why this is, but from the arguments made in it's favor I can only assume they have no idea why it was added in the first place.

 

Since this mechanic seems virtually cut and pasted from WoW's current mechanics, let's talk about why Expertise, also known as Resilience in that game, was implemented.

 

See back during the launch of Burning Crusade, Blizzard made the decision to introduce rated arena matches and attempted to balance all of PvP entirely around one-on-one class combat in an effort to get WoW taken seriously as an e-sport...

 

 

 

 

....Okay, stop laughing. I'm trying to make a point here....

 

 

 

The majority of the feedback to Blizzard stated, quite accurately, that gear and damage scaling was out of control, and certain builds of mages, rogues, and hunters had an overwhelming advantage in 1-on-1 combat due to their ability to blow up classes with damage from critical hits.

For anyone who isn't already aware, the longer a fight goes on the less likely it is to be decided by an accident instead of by the actions of the more skillful player. This is why in fighting game tournaments, matches are always set to three rounds in spite of the default being two. Same thing applies here. These characters inflicting critical hits basically cut the projected length of the fight in half, if not winning it outright almost instantly. It introduced such a degree of randomness that the fight was never decided by skill, but by how much the RNG hated you.

 

But Blizzard's problem was that they had programmed themselves into a corner with their large-scale-encounter-style raid design. Pulling back the damage players needed to do to succeed at raids would have required major changes to how raids were conducted. Essentially, it would have meant completely redesigning the game from the ground up.

 

Resilience was introduced as a band-aid fix this problem.

 

In it's original inception, Resilience directly addressed the problem at hand: it reduced the chance for an opposing player to land a critical hit on you by a scaled amount, reduced the damage taken from a critical hit by a scaled amount, and reduced the effectiveness of mana-draining abilities from players. While this answer functioned for a while, it severely crippled any class or build (rogues, fury warriors, three-minute mages) that relied largely on critical hits. This caused Blizzard to pointlessly tinker with class balance, literally for years, until they decided to change the way Resilience worked to it's current form: providing a scaling damage reduction against other players.

 

Since the stat was introduced in Burning Crusade, when the level cap was increased to 70, and because PvP apparently only takes place at the level cap (/rolleyes), the stat was, and to this day still is, found almost exclusively on gear for level 60 players and above.

 

 

Now in SWTOR we have this similar mechanic that feels pointlessly shoe-horned into the game without any real understanding of why it might be needed, if it is needed at all.

 

Currently, Expertise in SWTOR does 3 things:

1) Increase damage done to players

2) Decrease damage taken from players

3) Increase healing done to players

 

So let's break down the problems with the mechanic by itself.

Numbers 1 and 3 on that list are ultimately rendered moot by two opposing players of equal gear. The same damage bonus that you get against a player is negated entirely by that players protection from it. So that effect might as well not even exist. I have a hard time wrapping my brain around this decision, assuming it was intentional. Unlike in WoW, where Resilience makes matches last longer, Expertise serves no real purpose other than to make you completely un-killable by a player who doesn't have expertise, which means that PvP boils down almost entirely to gear.

 

Number 2 is the only effect that really makes a difference.

 

...And it is terrible.

 

It's a forgone conclusion that gear will eventually scale upwards in this game. Unless there is an entirely different formula in place for the healing bonus, or DPS stats on gear are scaled to match it, this means that eventually we will reach a point where no one can kill each other as long as a healer is present. Get it? This means you will HAVE to change the way the stat functions at some point.

 

 

Secondly, the implementation of the stat is quite baffling. SWTOR had an advantage over WoW here, in that they introduced their PvP stat in an expansion several years down the road, while you guys had one planned from the start. With that in mind, what was the logic behind the decision to make Expertise only available to level 50 players? Why wouldn't you put it on all PvP gear? This is even more baffling by the fact that you planned for people to be able to level AND gear extensively in PvP by providing all that extra armor and weapons in the vendors, yet for some reason you omitted Expertise. I mean seriously... why? I can only assume the ramifications for this were made blatantly obvious by the end of the first month when every single person under level 50 was getting slaughtered so badly that you had to put 50's in their own bracket.

The easier solution? Get rid of the stat altogether. Then 50's don't need their own bracket, because we have Bolster. I don't think I words can make it any clearer how much it detrimentally affected PvP than exactly what happened.

 

 

Finally, the entire premise of the stat itself is self-defeating and stupid. It serves only to drive a gigantic wedge firmly between the camp of players that prefer PvP and the ones that prefer PvE, and ensures that virtually no one can cross between them.

 

Back during the Beta, a rather brilliant post was made on the forums by a player (whose name I have since lost) who suggested a system be set up such that the entire game was balanced, scaled, and designed entirely around PvP. Damage values and abilities were calculated only with how they affect other players in mind. Then you give players a PvE buff that scales their damage upwards to the levels necessary to do the large scale raid encounters. PvP stays balanced, and you can still execute raid designs that follow the current trends.

Fair warning that I am in the process of securing a patent on this design, unless your development team beats me to it.

 

Two of the most common counterarguments to the removal of expertise are as follows:

You need to have a PvP stat so you can have PvP gear, otherwise people will bring their raid gear in to PvP.

So what? How can you stil there with a straight face and say that like it's a bad thing?

If you are such a great PvPer, then your PvP purples against equally-statted raid purples shouldn't matter. The fact is that a system like the current one forces players to waste time grinding two sets of gear to compete in either system and vehemently discourages, if not outright preventing, someone who prefers one system from even dabbling in the other. I'm all for someone in their PvP-grinded gear filling a last minute raid slot, just as I know many PvPers who would welcome a new challenge from someone who normally raids. Instead, having a PvP stat does the exact opposite.

 

It's not fair to someone who just raids and gets gear for PvP. I had to work hard to get mine.

Yes, because raids are so easy, right? It's a simple matter to run hard modes over and over and over again to get a set of gear that barely allows you to survive in the earliest stages of a raid until you can replace it with better drops that allow you to finally finish the raid to get the best drops. There is no difference between that and someone who grinds out countless hours to get the Valor required for PvP gear (except perhaps, that the PvP gear will provide actual PvP experience). In either case, time served gets you to the goal. Again, if you are such a great PvPer, what's the problem?

 

 

Most arguments in favor of a PvP stat... not all, but most... inevitably boil down to one of those two points. A depressingly large number of posters seem to defend the necessity of this stat without even understanding themselves why it is or isn't necessary. I could go on for days about how bad of an idea a PvP stat is, but I think you get the point. In short, removing Expertise and implementing a major design change now, is much better in the long run than following WoW's footsteps of pointless class tinkering. Let's be honest: WoW sucks. It's the king of MMO's in terms of market share, for sure... but it's still a terrible game.

 

I hope some of that up there helped.

Edited March 22, 2012 by Tonymitsu

[QuietusOSC]

Remove Expertise.

 

Make normal defensive stats more meaningful by changing more offensive abilities to be affected by accuracy/defense. Currently tanks dodge so little to make it relatively meaningless and abilities such as evasion on operatives/smugglers of minimal value.

Edited March 22, 2012 by QuietusOSC

[Dieinfire]

Huttball leagues!

 

Like arena teams. Let the teams have custom names and uniforms. Have tournaments and such.

 

Huttball sucks in pugs, but it's wicked fun when you have a strategy.

[Theology]

James, please read the thread linked below regarding the Pyrotech 1.2 change. Thank you.

 

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=371363&page=8