On Warzone Scoring and Rewards

[JAVAjedi]

I don't understand two things;

 

Why lower the required medals from three to one; one is EASY to get. If your goal to help people joining late/replacing leavers to get rewards then make the number of medals needed variable based on the length of time left/progress in the WZ when a player joins. Lowering the reward threshold just puts us back to players doing the minimum to AFK/farm.

 

Secondly the gap between fresh 50's and geared 50's is huge. I don't understand why the blues were introduced; making the Champion tier purchasable by credits would make more sense, and not only that gives you an easy upgrade route later (you can simply down-step the tiers as you introduce new ones).

 

(Bold for emphasis) I'm not even a "hardcore" PvP-er and I agree with this (I PUG warzones most of the time, but I also queue with my guild on a PVE server). I've got to say if you can't get a measly 3 medals, you probably don't deserve rewards - regardless of whether your team wins or loses. Honestly, BioWare is being a little carebear-ish by reducing the minimum requirements like this. There are so many different way to earn medals, so that if you aren't earning them, you probably aren't trying hard enough.

 

EDIT: I would also like to add that the rewards you do get for earning 3+ medals on the losing team might as well be non-existent though, considering how low they are. Example: A really close Huttball game - like a tie score, but the other team happened to be in possession of the ball, so they win. I get a few commendations a few hundred credits as my small consolation prize (honestly, I get more credits completing a daily quest that I can finish in 5 minutes than I do for losing a WZ that took 15 minutes and far more effort). Sure, it motivates me to be more competitive and win so I can get the big rewards, but it also hinders progression. How am I supposed to be more competitive when I can't get enough commendations to pay for the better gear (i.e. the gear of the pre-made team that just won the match)? Let's be realistic: there are quite a few pre-mades out there that can give PuGs like me pretty long losing streaks. That's a lot of grinding for a single piece of battlemaster equipment. I suppose the one good thing about this is that I felt really satisfied after I bought that pair of boots - dammit, I earned those boots!

 

/end rant

Edited April 17, 2012 by JAVAjedi

[Ashlian]

I think the changes are fantastic, please keep up the great work. Despite what many posters are saying, the gear gap for a fresh 50 is SOOOO much better.

 

I leveled an assassin to 50 and was getting pummeled for a few days all while having to read immature players /emoting how bad i was.

 

When i hit 50 with my vanguard i was able to purchase the recruit gear and it made such huge difference from when my first toon hit lvl 50. Makes the pvp much more about the skill rather than the gear. If anyone hit level 50 before 1.2 they know what im saying.

 

The only way i can imagine someone not to hit 3 medals is if you join the game late, i understand you guys need to keep players so you will make it easier and drop it to 1.

 

I am not a fan of making things too easy for players not willing to work for it and enjoy the excitment of the challenge. I think the reward system based on your teams preforace is spot on.

 

Several games i have lost still earning 66 commendations and 2.5k credits. Sure if you lose badly and earn 300 credits for 20 minutes of playing isnt fun, but be better and win next time.

 

You're speaking as a class that gets medals from guarding and dps. As a healer who now falls over dead rather easily with full recruit and a couple pieces of battlemaster, playing mainly on a server with a 2-1 ratio of Imps vs Reps, where we often start our games down because the good pvp players quit when they see they're grouped with someone not of their stellar pvp rank (fricking ranked pvp would have solved this, I was looking forward to never seeing the beautiful people in pvp again after the first week of ranked), then really, except for the 25k healed medal for what I slap on myself, I die too damn quickly no matter where I go to get the 75k healed, let alone the single kill or the 10 kill assists. The other healers in my guild report the same disheartening results, and we're instituting a pvp moratorium until something changes. Simply put, previously pvp was fun, now it isn't. Previously, we felt we had a chance to learn because we didn't die instantaneously when faced with someone who outgeared us. Now we do. You can't learn jack when you're gone in less than 10 seconds every time you meet not one opposing player, but three or four of them because they travel in packs to camp the spawn spots. If anyone can tell me how, precisely, I could improve my game under those conditions, I'd be happy to listen. If it involves suffering for several months under these conditions while being buttowned, I'll find something better to do, and pvp will lose another guild.

[DarthKaine]

So basicly another example of Bioware claiming they are listening to player feedback and then making an alteration to the system we are complaining about that doesnt actually address any of the comments being made by the players.

 

Sounds about right.

 

I suck big time at PVP. That said i really try my hardest to do the best i can in any given warzone to help my team win and maximise my own rewards.

 

Now- I get nothing. Every time. Nothing. Casual players screwed over once again.

 

Apologies to the hard core PVPers, but some us like to partake in PVP for a change of pace and fun. That said constantly queing for 20 minutes plus to either come in on a match that is about to end, or recieving ZERO reward EVERYTIME wont encourage me to PVP even for the fun aspect.

 

So now i dont.

 

Forget the metrics, YOUR PLAYERS DONT LIKE IT

 

I dont expect everything handed to me on a plate but im fed up of missing out on content just because my skill levels at certain game play elements arent at Olympic Champion level.

[joeypesci]

I'm a level 50. I'm an amatuer in PvP but do a lot better than I use to. I got 18 medals just a few games back and we won. I only got 63 comms. At that rate, someone who's low level is going to have a nightmare getting anything.

 

http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/162/swtor2012041719070096.png

 

And another match, granted we lost in the next image. But 11 comms yet no credits, no valor.

 

http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/8263/swtor2012041720055423.png

 

The reward system is currently in a total mess. I'm also pretty sure everyone would love to see these metrics. Considering I got asked "What planet were you on, what were your co-ords" etc when I logged an in game ticket for an issue. If you had so called "Metric data" then CS shouldn't need that info or the Devs should allow them access.

Edited April 17, 2012 by joeypesci
Made pics larger

[Coyotecalls]

Hey folks,

 

There's been a lot of discussion about the changes to the Warzone rewards system in Game Update 1.2 and the type of play style that it encourages. I wanted to help out a bit and point out a major change not all players may have noticed and share some of our plans.

 

First of all, rest assured we are keeping a close watch on the results of our reward changes to Warzones in 1.2 and we will continue to pull constant metrics to make sure they are going in the right direction as players get used to the new rules.

 

To refresh everyone's memories, one of the most important aspects of the new changes is that your team's performance inside the Warzone has a direct impact on a portion of the rewards you are given at the end of the Warzone. Even if your team is losing, the closer you can make the game the better your rewards will be - so don't give up hope! Giving up and letting the other team 'win faster' is now the worst possible route you can take to rewards.

 

Secondly, one of the things we have already identified to fix is to reduce the minimum amount of medals a player must receive to gain any reward at all. Currently that value is three (3), and we are going to reduce that to only needing one (1) medal to gain rewards. This should make sure we cover that all important backfill player while still protecting against the freeloaders.

 

As we move forward, we will continue to meet and discuss other possible changes based on the feedback here on the Forums as well as the data coming in from the live servers. As always, we appreciate your comments and want to hear from you.

 

 

3 medals was a good plan if you didn't throw people into the match at the last minute where it was a total waste of time. I leave more matches than I play because people abandon ship and I get tossed into a zero-sum game. So I leave then someone else gets shoved into it. Maybe you should just make it so that when half the enemy team leaves the other team wins and life moves on?

[Coyotecalls]

So basicly another example of Bioware claiming they are listening to player feedback and then making an alteration to the system we are complaining about that doesnt actually address any of the comments being made by the players.

 

Sounds about right.

 

I suck big time at PVP. That said i really try my hardest to do the best i can in any given warzone to help my team win and maximise my own rewards.

 

Now- I get nothing. Every time. Nothing. Casual players screwed over once again.

 

 

If you suck so much you can't get three medals a game, two of which can be received for standing in the right place long enough, you really are bad. They can't fix what is wrong with your play experience. You are doing it wrong. For the rest of us, if we have time to actually play the game we can easily get medals. I have no idea how you can fail that epically.

 

The game changed, you can't just run around willy-nilly shooting things and expect to score big. You have to actually play the game part of the game.

Edited April 17, 2012 by Coyotecalls

[JAVAjedi]

3 medals was a good plan if you didn't throw people into the match at the last minute where it was a total waste of time. I leave more matches than I play because people abandon ship and I get tossed into a zero-sum game. So I leave then someone else gets shoved into it. Maybe you should just make it so that when half the enemy team leaves the other team wins and life moves on?

 

ROFL - I can't tell you how many times this has happened to me. It can be pretty frustrating - waiting 10 minutes in the queue and then suddenly you're placed game with less than 6 minutes on the clock (a half-finished game) and - surprise! - you're on the losing side.

[DarthKaine]

If you suck so much you can't get three medals a game, two of which can be received for standing in the right place long enough, you really are bad. They can't fix what is wrong with your play experience. You are doing it wrong. For the rest of us, if we have time to actually play the game we can easily get medals. I have no idea how you can fail that epically.

 

With Practice

 

And the fact every match i have played since 1.2 went live ive joined late..to a loosing team.

 

Im probably slightly overhyping my PVP suckiness to ilustrate the point that as a casual player there is little incentive for me to par take in PVP now, because the system is no too harsh in terms of rewards for loosing teams- which is why folks are leaving and others join late and get zero reward. I dont expect a free ride but some kind of reward for participating might be nice.

 

Anyway to be honest its a moot point now as i really cant be bothered with PVP anymore. I just needed a rant

[Torcer]

 

The game changed, you can't just run around willy-nilly shooting things and expect to score big.

 

Sure you can, DPS has no problem getting medals. What your quote should say is" you can't just run around willy-nilly HEALING things and expect to score big." Because, you know, DPS should be rewarded for performing their role, but healers should not be. You all have heard of Learn2Play, but healers need to LearnNot2Play in order to score big.

[rjkishida]

It seems like most of the critical comments are what I would say, so keep raising those points people! Let the devs know what you want!

[pxlhunter]

10 medals and ZERO credits - epic job BW!!!

 

Do you not realize some people grind their 2,3,4th toons by PVPing because they don't care about the storyline and questing???

 

Seriously??? No credits for WZs now????

 

come on - have some common sense please!

Edited April 17, 2012 by pxlhunter

[Fallensbane]

Hey folks,

 

Some follow up news from observations of play and feedback over the weekend. In the next couple of days we will be deploying a small patch that will address the following issues:

 

• As discussed, minimum medals to gain rewards will go from 3 to 1 to better reward those who are backfilled.
  
• Warzones will once again be shutting down when population imbalance is detected. This was an unfortunate bug where a feature of Ranked Warzones (in full team play it is not desirable to let one team end the game prematurely by quitting out) was incorrectly implemented globally.
  
• Completion of Warzones will gain a large increase in the percentage of rewards it represents, so while scoring is still the primary driver, you will cease to see games that give no rewards if players have a minimum of 1 medal earned.
  
• We are extending the time we wait for a full team of eight to better make sure Warzones pop with complete teams.

 

A huge thank you to everyone who played this weekend and provided valuable feedback and analysis.

 

This is what we call too little too late. You need to learn to use these things called 'hot patches'. I have been playing MMO's since EQ1 and nearly every MMO I have played would do them faster than you. You guys have a lets wait and see approach that hurts the game more than it helps.

 

You need to start pulling servers offline when it becomes obvious that something is wrong. This game had and still has a ton of promise, but atm it seems that you are killing it via a death by a thousand cuts approach.

 

Get a plan together to act faster on stuff. Each patch the players who have stuck it out thus far are slowly leaving. Sure 1.2 brought back a lot of people, but many of those who had already unsubbed and just popped in to check it out real fast, how long do you think they are going to last if they have already quit previously?

 

Get a tool to copy existing 50s to PTS now, its the only way you will ever be able to get accurate feedback because your QA department is obviously just not doing their job.

 

This may be your first MMO but in the end that is no excuse, the genre has no room for excuses just look at all the 'big mmos' that have fallen.

 

And I know those with their fanboy goggles will just think I am hating and being negative or even impatient. Well I stood my last MMO out for over a year being patient and nothing came of it and I am seeing history repeat itself right now but at a much faster pace.

Edited April 17, 2012 by Fallensbane

[hypershadowcat]

Whats funny is nothing has changed for winners. Only if the losing team put up one hell of a fight do they get less. Just the losing team gets far less now.

 

Good Call.

 

Thanks BW.

[pxlhunter]

Whats funny is nothing has changed for winners. Only if the losing team put up one hell of a fight do they get less. Just the losing team gets far less now.

 

Good Call.

 

Thanks BW.

 

Actually winners get no credits now either...

[LarryRow]

To me THE problem with PVP is that it is gear based and not skill based. Everyone is talking and talking about how many commendations one should get because they NEED to get that gear to be competitive in PVP. THAT"S THE WHOLE PROBLEM!!!! PVP should Not be based on the gear you wear it should be based on your skill.

 

Expertise should be GONE. Everyone should have a "pvp" set of gear you wear for your class at lvl 50 that has base stats only. Your reward for doing well in PVP should be getting new titles and cool sets of PVP armor that are COSMETIC only, new vehicle, etc, nothing that gives you an advantage in PVP.

 

PVP should be based on a person's skill not their gear. Until they figure this out pvp will always have the issues it currently has.

 

I agree in principle but Bioware is a business so they will never do this. They need that gear carrot hanging out there to keep us playing. "I may lose a lot now, but once I grind out that gear I will wreck face. Oh wait, I'm still not wrecking face, guess I need to grind out another set for mods. Almost done.... Shoot, another set just came out."

 

Also, to those of you on low pop servers complaining about matches starting 4v8: the people you need to yell at are the people on your faction! You know, the ones who are leaving queues when they pop or letting them expire and gimping your team. I'm pretty sure matches don't pop unless there are 16 queued players.

[LanceCorporalDan]

i have not won a single game since the 1.2 the best coms ive gotten in a game was 54 from me beeing doing great and having a team that put up a hell of a fight. even so if the other team wins, let them get a little extra for it if we loose dont punish us so harshly. I just finished a game where we fought really well, and the average among us was 2-3 medals.. here you go BW ,,|,, -.- ,,|,,

[Y-n-T]

Hey folks,

 

Some follow up news from observations of play and feedback over the weekend. In the next couple of days we will be deploying a small patch that will address the following issues:

 

• As discussed, minimum medals to gain rewards will go from 3 to 1 to better reward those who are backfilled.
  
• Warzones will once again be shutting down when population imbalance is detected. This was an unfortunate bug where a feature of Ranked Warzones (in full team play it is not desirable to let one team end the game prematurely by quitting out) was incorrectly implemented globally.
  
• Completion of Warzones will gain a large increase in the percentage of rewards it represents, so while scoring is still the primary driver, you will cease to see games that give no rewards if players have a minimum of 1 medal earned.
  
• We are extending the time we wait for a full team of eight to better make sure Warzones pop with complete teams.

 

A huge thank you to everyone who played this weekend and provided valuable feedback and analysis.

 

I would like to give a big thank you to the Dev Team no game is perfect there are always pros and cons but you guys are really working hard to make things better all the time and your lstening to us keep up the good work guys

[Cobb]

The only way i can imagine someone not to hit 3 medals is if you join the game late, i understand you guys need to keep players so you will make it easier and drop it to 1.

 

Try playing a support role instead of DPS.

 

Healing got a serious nerf in 1.2. The medal reward points don't seem to have been lowered to compensate. Most healers will heal the whole WZ and get 1 healing-specific medal (2500 single heal). The rest of the medals they get are based on other stuff.

 

In Voidstar and Huttball, some of the best things you can do to win (timely knockbacks and CCs) do not award medals.

[tjwarren]

This PVP system is a joke.. As a healer ( who has horrible luck getting bad teams) I get to spend my time being jumped, watching people leave and having nothing to show for my time.. As a fresh 50 gearing feels impossible... Most of the time its more rewarding to leave and try for a reque then get nothing for a bad group. Never before have i seen a game that encourages people to quit battles.. there is no debuff or punishment for quitting so its more common then playing the game.. Is SWTOR punishing people that prefer PVP, and punishing even harder if you like healing????? The reward system is horribly flawed. Its horrible to get nothing for your time because your team gets rolled, and having people leave and being down 1 or 2 people almost every game... I'm Dangerously close to qutting this game over this system... If you didnt hit 50 at the very start of this game, good luck enjoying it...

[xMercx]

I dont know what the point of this thread is theres a really high chance bioware won't listen to anyone an just make some crazy change thats unnecessary I mean why read to post after post when you can just wing it an make a silly changes lol if there not gonna change the the amount of comms you get don't take away my ability to leave an immediatly enter a new wz to get a team that is gonna win.

[Cbrinegar]

On my now 38 Sorc alt i dont have one bit of trouble with the current system, sometimes i get medals and comms sometimes i dont. I get wins, and sometimes i dont. If you are seeing less rewards, then try something different. I was lightning/madness(i think thats the name) spec until 1.2 then i switched to total healing, I get better rewards now then when i did dps spec. Its all in how you play, i use lightning storm to assist in slowing/stopping enemies from capping objectives, cast my bubble, and instant HOT constantly as i dont have revive yet lol. But i have seen a good team win yield 0 rewards, ohh well its rare.

 

.Even my 7 year old son can get 10-14 medals on his assassin and he plays with just using a mouse.

[Leman]

any more news on this pvp patch eta other than the initial "couple days"?

[MrDrez]

Hey folks,

 

There's been a lot of discussion about the changes to the Warzone rewards system in Game Update 1.2 and the type of play style that it encourages. I wanted to help out a bit and point out a major change not all players may have noticed and share some of our plans.

 

First of all, rest assured we are keeping a close watch on the results of our reward changes to Warzones in 1.2 and we will continue to pull constant metrics to make sure they are going in the right direction as players get used to the new rules.

 

To refresh everyone's memories, one of the most important aspects of the new changes is that your team's performance inside the Warzone has a direct impact on a portion of the rewards you are given at the end of the Warzone. Even if your team is losing, the closer you can make the game the better your rewards will be - so don't give up hope! Giving up and letting the other team 'win faster' is now the worst possible route you can take to rewards.

 

Secondly, one of the things we have already identified to fix is to reduce the minimum amount of medals a player must receive to gain any reward at all. Currently that value is three (3), and we are going to reduce that to only needing one (1) medal to gain rewards. This should make sure we cover that all important backfill player while still protecting against the freeloaders.

 

As we move forward, we will continue to meet and discuss other possible changes based on the feedback here on the Forums as well as the data coming in from the live servers. As always, we appreciate your comments and want to hear from you.

 

 

The biggest mistake the development team has made here is that they have tried to punish failure. Not only is punishing failure impossible to do without hurting some people, it breaks the Golden Rule of Gaming: Games are supposed to be FUN. You shouldn't have to worry about whether or not you "did enough" to get rewarded. MMO's are not mid-term exams; they're videogames, and we play them to enjoy ourselves.

 

Prior to these changes, I could drop into a Warzone, have some fun, and come away with some rewards. Now there's all this pressure to perform, this knowledge that if I fail to make some arbitrary mark of contribution I will get NOTHING.

 

Where this hurts the most...and this may cause permanent, long-lasting damage to the game's PvP base...is in the casual player. I am not a hardcore PvPer. I just like to drop in and have some lightsaber duels with the Sith every now and again. Though that's still fun, it's hard to justify doing that in this game when grinding mobs and repeating quests will not only allow me to do the same thing, but will give me some kind of tangible benefit for doing so.

 

Changing the medals down to one is a good start, but frankly it will not be good enough. For every one AFKer you successfully deny, there will be ten players who dropped in late, didn't know what they were doing, or are simply not very good at PvP, and they will get nothing. I would much, much rather see a couple of lazy players exploit the system for easy gain than hear about even one honest, fun-loving player getting turned off from PvP play in this game because there's a penalty for failure.

 

Punishing those who exploit the system is a noble goal, but if even one player is falsely affected by these rules, then the system as a whole fails. And that, unfortunately, is the case here.

[LanceCorporalDan]

On my now 38 Sorc alt i dont have one bit of trouble with the current system, sometimes i get medals and comms sometimes i dont. I get wins, and sometimes i dont. If you are seeing less rewards, then try something different. I was lightning/madness(i think thats the name) spec until 1.2 then i switched to total healing, I get better rewards now then when i did dps spec. Its all in how you play, i use lightning storm to assist in slowing/stopping enemies from capping objectives, cast my bubble, and instant HOT constantly as i dont have revive yet lol. But i have seen a good team win yield 0 rewards, ohh well its rare.

 

.Even my 7 year old son can get 10-14 medals on his assassin and he plays with just using a mouse.

 

i need to switch to your server. i havent seen a single win since 1.2

[Anelitt]

The biggest mistake the development team has made here is that they have tried to punish failure. Not only is punishing failure impossible to do without hurting some people, it breaks the Golden Rule of Gaming: Games are supposed to be FUN. You shouldn't have to worry about whether or not you "did enough" to get rewarded. MMO's are not mid-term exams; they're videogames, and we play them to enjoy ourselves.

 

Prior to these changes, I could drop into a Warzone, have some fun, and come away with some rewards. Now there's all this pressure to perform, this knowledge that if I fail to make some arbitrary mark of contribution I will get NOTHING.

 

Where this hurts the most...and this may cause permanent, long-lasting damage to the game's PvP base...is in the casual player. I am not a hardcore PvPer. I just like to drop in and have some lightsaber duels with the Sith every now and again. Though that's still fun, it's hard to justify doing that in this game when grinding mobs and repeating quests will not only allow me to do the same thing, but will give me some kind of tangible benefit for doing so.

 

Changing the medals down to one is a good start, but frankly it will not be good enough. For every one AFKer you successfully deny, there will be ten players who dropped in late, didn't know what they were doing, or are simply not very good at PvP, and they will get nothing. I would much, much rather see a couple of lazy players exploit the system for easy gain than hear about even one honest, fun-loving player getting turned off from PvP play in this game because there's a penalty for failure.

 

Punishing those who exploit the system is a noble goal, but if even one player is falsely affected by these rules, then the system as a whole fails. And that, unfortunately, is the case here.

 

According to your logic losing should give exactly the same rewards as winning.

 

Getting less for losing is not puishment, its simply loosing.

 

If people actually got com's/valor taken away after a loss it would be a punishment.

Edited April 17, 2012 by Anelitt