On Warzone Scoring and Rewards

[Celebrus]

God forbid they make their MMO feel like a MMO, where the actions of others can impact your gameplay/rewards.

 

In a perfect world, none of us would be impacted by you either. I'm sure I would win more Warzones if most of you would spend more time *trying* inside of them instead of giving up and running to the forums.

 

My gameplay would be better if you were better.

[thestormiscoming]

Since 1.2 I had never had the issue of getting only 1 to 2 medals until today. We had 4 people leave the match and by the time we were on the offensive we didn't have enough time to get to the end to the computer room. To add to the already one sided match I ended up with just two medals. I was healing my butt off but the match was apparently too short and I rarely had time to heal as I was being beat up by a lot of DPS. I'm almost always #1 in healing, so this isn't just an unfounded gripe.

 

They can't change it back to 1 medal fast enough.

 

 

PS Please add the PvP queue pop up sound play when the game is minimized. I've missed a couple of matches already and I hate having to check on the game every 30-60sec while waiting.

 

Well this just happened AGAIN in Novare Coast. I was #1 healing and 20k dmg yet I only had 2 medals. Cool system BW.

[VanTesla]

The reward system is now so bad that I am not even going to pvp anymore.... I had MVP and top heals and badges and only recieved 64 wz commendations... Also losing and getting nothing or almost nothing gives me little reason to stay in groups that are doing bad... Also I always have bad luck in getting bad groups or facing premade groups that just wreck...

 

Also before 1.2 and not reading the new notes till it was to late i spent most my WZ commendations on champion bags that now sit around and cant do anything with... *** Bioware! let me sell my centurian/champion commendations for wz!

[Motro]

Am I the only one who is absolutely sick of hearing them talk about how everything is perfect according to their secret "metrics"? Newsflash: Your metrics suck. You need to scrap them and whoever is responsible for their creation. Quit trying to take a shortcut to game development. Get more involved and hands-on with your product and listen to your player base. Quit changing things, with which nobody has a problem, just because your "metrics" tell you to make adjustments.

 

As it stands, most people think your game development meetings are somewhat like this:

[superseba]

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.

 

congratz

 

you ruined the best thing of this game... pvp

 

it was challenging and fun now it's stupid and noob friendly

[rakuenCallisto]

Man BW has made this game so depressing..

 

Now PvPers look forward to NOT hitting LvL 50 - how do you think that reflects BW's decision making for PvP?

[robotkar]

changing from 3 to 1 is a good move. However, agree with other poster that the lack of rewards in a losing effort is the major issue. I've gotten 10 plus medals and still been shocked at how few commendations (approx 40-50, so not enough to buy replacement medpacs and save for new gear) and how little credits ( 500-750, so 20-40 matches to buy 1 recruit piece if only doing pvp).

 

As a result, i believe people will still drop quickly from matches in a search for the 'winning' match, condemning the rest of us remaining players to a more certain loss.

 

so true!!!!

[Erasimus]

What bothers me the most is that bioware made changes to the PVP system that are UNIVERSALLY HATED, DO NOTHING TO IMPROVE THE EXPERIENCE and were OBVIOUSLY HORRIBLE DECISIONS.

 

MMO PVP is not new. It's a tried and tested game platform with defined expectations. How is it possible for an experienced game company to make such obvious blunders? I guess it's more fun to sit around a table with executives and theorize about what gamers might not know they want rather than create a simple, equitable reward system.

 

Oddly, bioware seems to both encourage alt. characters but, at the same time, discourage anyone from having any hope of gearing two toons. The WOW model for normal people was one toon for life, too much effort to level a second. SWTOR seemed to encourage multiple toons for normal people by having less grinding to 50 but the PVP gear grind is just as bad as WOW.

 

IDK. I leveled to 50 to PVP but it's disappointing. I'm not going to forever-grind, just to get decent gear, so I don' t get squished in the BGs.

 

Also, thanks a bunch for the epic weapon kit that I can't use on my main. Totally useless.

 

This is simply not true. I played WoW since release and still have my accounts. I probably averaged 10 - 12 hours a week, it was one of my hobbies. I have 11 85s and don't know anyone I've played with over the years that doesn't have at least 3 or 4 85s. If you were in a good guild most of your mats/items/etc for alts were free along with questing leveling assistance. You can also level through PvP they changed that some time ago.

 

It is easier to get the starting PvP set in SWTOR than it was in WoW. In both you could just buy starter sets (although in WoW someone had to craft them.)

 

My experience with the starter set has been acceptable. One of my toons had only the starter set after 1.2 and did alright in the WZs.

 

There are major issues, but to me they are:

1. Class imbalances - there still seem to be classes that are OP and this has been exaggerated by the changes.

2. No cross server queuing for WZs - Unless they can fix both the server population issues with low pop servers through transfers and the faction imbalance cross server queues should be a very high priority. I played some WoW BGs the other night, average queue time during off peak, 2 minutes.

 

Get cross server queues/sever merges going. Dial back the damage just a tad. Then see how it goes after a few weeks of reasonable queue times. I don't think with the reward tweaks they are putting in that getting your BM gear will prove too difficult even on a casual schedule.

Edited April 18, 2012 by Erasimus

[Bluenitro]

Am I the only one who is absolutely sick of hearing them talk about how everything is perfect according to their secret "metrics"? Newsflash: Your metrics suck. You need to scrap them and whoever is responsible for their creation. Quit trying to take a shortcut to game development. Get more involved and hands-on with your product and listen to your player base. Quit changing things, with which nobody has a problem, just because your "metrics" tell you to make adjustments.

 

As it stands, most people think your game development meetings are somewhat like this:

 

lawls

[Metalmac]

What do your numbers say about Imperials being favored by already a wide margin in PVP gear but now you ensure they can not be caught up to permanently?

 

You give the best rewards and gear to the side already ahead and say this is fair?

 

You screwed the Republic on purpose by not equaling the animations or damage then say it is fair?

 

Then go the next step and continue to provide even less incentive for Republic to PVP?

[DeaconCielFrost]

Daniel,

I have to agree with many of the others. You think the changes you made to wz rewards encourages performance? It does not! By providing no baseline rewards and requiring a minimum of 3 medals all you inspired people on a losing team to do is worry less about winning and more about getting medals. Or, they simply quite in the middle of the wz because they know they are going to get little to nothing. Low-level players who are generally targets for others often struggle to get medals and if they don't or can't they are severally punished. I have been playing the game regularly and getting involved in guilds and events. I actually prefer PvE play but the changes you have made to was with 1.2 is honestly causing my faith in this design team to produce a fun and playable game to dwindle down to nothing. If you want to be strict about rewarding performance and punishing lack-luster results then get it in gear and roll out the ranked wzs you promised. Establishing prowess is the entire purpose of ranked wzs. At this point I am seriously considering walking away from this game because I really don't want any more disappointment from this company and design team.

 

In addition, who is designing bounty hunter gear and why is probably themist hideous collection in the game? Who decided to put a cape on the BH war hero gear? Prior to 1.2 I would have said ugliest gear was a neck and neck race between BHs and Sorcs, but their war hero gear actually looks pretty cool. I honestly do not believe that the same group of people are designing the gear for all classes . If so, did they take a nap, smoke pot, or just stop caring when they got to BHs.

 

Finally, my main is a 50 Merc and even I have to comment on the nerfs to the operative ac. Come on guys you have made them all but irrelevant. Who decided that ops and every other class except warriors needed to be nerfed and marauders needed additional buffs? Again I ask do you ever actually play the game? Otherwise there must be some sort of marauder union out there that has a controlling interest in this game.

 

Long story short, at this point I want my money back or a better game not more free play time for a game I don't enjoy. Stop throwing out free play time and fix it. If you stopped giving away free time you might be able to take the money from whatever subscribers you have left and make improvements. Oh, and combine some servers. I play on Fatman and 1,000 person ques at peak hours is rediculous and you should not need me to tell you this.

 

BTW... You know PvP is bad when complaining about in an ops group gets you extra MVP votes (more than one occasion)!

Edited April 18, 2012 by DeaconCielFrost
Typos

[Luceus]

Just wanted to add to it. 8 medals, 200k+ damage and only 55 comms for losing? I know you want to reward winning but it's crippling to people who lose a lot because they're not in constant premade groups. Losing motivation to pvp with the massive nerf in comms.

 

I was told length of battle in factored in, but this match was about 10% to 0% in novare, so it's not like it was extremely quick. I'd expect 80 comms at least while winners received the 100 cap.

[BrianEvol]

I'm not one for posting on here and complaining, but after PVPing extensively prior to 1.2, I have unsubbed until it is fixed. I don't mind getting rolled by a premade, premades are using voice chat most of the time, their coordination causes them to win even if 1v1 they are mediocre players. I have a problem when my progress towards improving is impeded to the point of being laughable.

 

I don't want gear handed to me on a platter, I don't mind putting in time to work towards it. However, getting 9 medals, fighting until the very end of the match to turn it around and getting 40 commendations is atrocious when compared to Battlemaster prices, let alone War Hero.

[Isrem]

Those are nutty figures for commendation rewards, everyone would have battlemaster in a matter of days.

 

There needs to be challenge in pvp

 

Just in case you do not know what competition means ... it means a match where the opponents will be close in skill and gear. Steamrolling new 50s on their way to BM set is not competition, it is just rubbing your long joy stick.

When all have the same base chances, that is the same equip, then you have competition. Then you will see who has more skill.

Edited April 18, 2012 by Isrem

[MMaverick]

Just, you know, throwing this out there to reinforce the point that something really does need to be implemented, I played 11 straight matches this afternoon, the first 10 I lost, and after about 3 solid hours of straight PvP, I finally won a match. I'm a Republic player that isn't 50, and I played against the SAME team that kept rolling the SAME Republic players for 3 solid hours. This murdered my desire to PvP at all, these changes that are being talked about need to be implemented on the double. I don't care if you need to take the servers down in peak hours, if it means a fix to this broken PvP system.

[Fortyniners]

OK, today I only need 18 commendations to get a new piece of gear. I played 2 warzones, and each time we got rolled badly. In both cases I received zero of everything. End result: Players on my teams didn't help themselves one whit, while the other teams scarfed up on commendations for better gear. More future game imbalance.

 

So was so wrong with the 1.1 warzones. Granted, there was nothing gained from your team winning, but at least you got something for trying. As it was, between waiting in the queue and suffering through these two defeats, I totally wasted about 40 minutes of my day.

 

Devs, give some thought to the unintended consequences before you roll out something like this change.

[Viless]

Dear pvp Designer,

 

Thanks for wasting my time.

 

Five warzones and i manged to get my 3 medal + before the match ended. this means i can now spend 1,046 credits - On... oh not even a repair bill or a stim -

 

If your a sportmans and your team sucks - you still get paid in some cases even more then the opposite team.

but if you spend 5mins playing huttball and your in a PUG and the other team is all PVP Geared 4man premades i spend my afternoon wondering why i still play this game

 

Please fix this as alot of my friend have Unsubbed and i dont want to be the last to play this game.

 

- The Squeeky Wheel is the first wheel to get fixed.

 

Viles

[Tkara]

What do your numbers say about Imperials being favored by already a wide margin in PVP gear but now you ensure they can not be caught up to permanently?

 

You give the best rewards and gear to the side already ahead and say this is fair?

 

You screwed the Republic on purpose by not equaling the animations or damage then say it is fair?

 

Then go the next step and continue to provide even less incentive for Republic to PVP?

 

This!

I wish a better Star Wars mmorpg would come out that is made by a company that listens to the players etc.

[Deviron]

They don't care. They are going to do it the way that they want it no matter what. Clearly they have a direction they want to take the game which is fine its their game. All I can say is make sure the people coming up with these changes can pay for the subs that they are willing to throw away for there "ideal" direction.

 

P.s. don't send me any emails about how much my companions miss me or or anything of that stupid like that.

Edited April 18, 2012 by Deviron

[Abdielle]

What is Bioware trying to accomplish with this reward system? Discourage people from afking? Well it's not going to work because you're not seriously penalizing them for afking. What happens if someone gets caught afking? Nothing really. So, you might as well do it.

 

This isn't a new problem with MMOs. This has been an issue for years and until you inflict SERIOUS penalities on afkers, they're always going to do it. Give them a week long ban from pvp and they'll stop, or only be able to do it once a week.

And it's really not that hard to catch them at it, if you put a little effort into it. But if it means spending a few extra $ on some GMs to monitor WZs or something like that, then apparently no MMO company is willing to do it. They'd rather just hope that a few token efforts towards discouraging AFKers will pay off enough to keep people from quitting because they're sick of that kind of crap.

Will players quit over one thing they don't like? No, but those "one things" add up with other things and then players quit and you're losing subscriptions because you don't want to put forth a serious effort to fix things.

 

And here we have the issue of dealing with the NEW problem Bioware has created which is the decent odds of getting nothing from a WZ you join late. For one thing, if a match ends after a player has only been in it for two minutes, and ergo has had very little chance to get a medal, then they should still get a reward for their time and effort. This is not hard to program. I could write a program using BASIC that could accomplish that.

I've jsut stopped pvping after getting burned too many times this week. My sorceror has a 55 in Valor, so I'm obviously a fan of pvp. But my computer is a bit slow and it takes about 2 minutes to load a planet like Hoth after I leave a WZ. So if you put in the minute of loading time to get into the WZ, the 2 minutes there, and the 2 minutes to load my planet again, I just spent 5 minutes and got nothing for my time.

Of course that's not as bad as when I spend 10 minutes and get nothing for my time when I'm on my marauder. Because I am dps my options for getting medals are pretty limited. At least on my sorceror I can pop recklessness and get a crit on a heal for more than 2.5k and get an easy medal. That's not on option on most of the other classes.

 

Right now, if I enter a WZ that's even a quarter of the way done, I just leave again. Especially if we're short a person on the team and losing. Why even try to help anyone when the odds are I'll get nothing for my efforts? Oh, that'll get a bit better for me once it only takes one medal to get some rewards but I could easily go on my sorceror, do the above named trick for an easy medal, and then afk the whole rest of the match. So what has Bioware accomplished with this little idea? Not a damn thing except to piss a lot of people off.

[SinnedQWERTY]

Just in case you do not know what competition means ... it means a match where the opponents will be close in skill and gear. Steamrolling new 50s on their way to BM set is not competition, it is just rubbing your long joy stick.

When all have the same base chances, that is the same equip, then you have competition. Then you will see who has more skill.

 

Above is worth repeating time and time again... So I'll quote it. <there ^^ done >

 

Bioware you went from a friendly casual pvp reward system to a "everyone is leeching, DIE YOU BA.STARDS DIE!" system. To bad it took long, you waited to long, now there is a gap...

 

Why do you devs always take to slow upper road of minimum adjustments, to balls to the wall "screw everyone that doesn't confirm to our idea" adjustments. For a company that keeps repeating "metrics" so much I would really be ashamed. Try another one ... "Vision " is already taken btw. Here is an idea, when you change something so dramatically... also be ready to change it asap. Just so that it's clear, after almost a week, combining it with you newest 1.2 patch thats intended to lure players back... is to late.

 

BW, don't believe me, go ask the guy/gall thats keeping track of subs. Enjoy...

 

I could say you don't know better and that your new to this ... but seeing I actually do know better, I can only say it's a freaking -insane let down- ... It's also more then bloody obvious you screwed up. Yeah, I'm wrong... right, but just look at your forums.

 

It's a pretty safe bet you could go back to the pre 1.2 rewards and with the new costs of items you'll be still be safe. The biggest thing you have to worry about then is that the players still bothering with the game end up with a equal start when it comes to your "ranked games" ... something you all should be looking forward too.

 

Everyone, because the die-hard-pvp-its-all-skill group won't mind, it's all skill after all.

Edited April 18, 2012 by SinnedQWERTY

[Desist]

The Cash hurts. I haven't wanted to level an alt because of it. Pre 1.2 I leveled up an alt purely through PvP and I couldn't really afford to buy the speeder skills. I did level up biochem too, but I don't like being required to level slicing if I choose to level up by mostly PvPing. I also don't want to have to do PvE to get credits. The best PvPers are going to be using the best stims and consumables. That stuff costs money and you just aren't going to win against them if you can't afford it. I can't afford to live and work in SWTOR.

 

The Win a Warzone faster medals don't really scale for Alderaan. You can 3 cap a team the entire time and end up with less medals than if you completely owned in any of the other warzones.

[Glzmo]

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.

Okay. I just did Voidstar...it started with 3(!) Republic vs. 8 Imperials.

Plus, other friends I told to join couldn't join either, didn't get the popup, so there seems to be a bug (it also doesn't help that the warzone invitation popup sound isn't heard when being tasked out with background audio enabled).

 

Simply put, The current situation is simply frustrating and thus no fun at all. It causes many players, especially more casual ones to quit PVPing altogether in frustration (or even leaving the game) - and that's certainly not what should be happening.

 

Ideally, warzones should always have even numbers of players on both sides.

It doesn't matter if it's 3 vs. 3 or 8 vs. 8 , there should just always be even numbers, so both sides have even odds to win (even one player more or less on one side can make a difference, so you should strive to always keep the numbers even - so no 7 vs. 8 or 6 vs. 5, etc.!).

 

Here is an idea on what could be done to achieve this:

 

Manage even numbers through the force fields that already exist. Only allow the same number of players on each side to be outside the actual force field and actively battling inside the warzone at any given time.

The players on the side where more people joined the warzone will have to take turns fighting, until the outnumbered side has more people join.

This would mean that you wouldn't have to shut down warzones once an imbalance is detected. The team with higher numbers would just have to take shifts.

 

 

Here is an Example on how this could work:

 

A warzone starts. 4 Republicans and 7 imperials accept the invitation and load in.

 

There is a timeframe before the warzone starts where more players could join just like it is now, but maybe a little longer as Daniel said is currently in planning.

 

The warzone match begins.

 

Now, all 4 Republicans will be able to cross the forcefield when the warzone starts and enter actual combat, because they are outnumbered.

However, as long as there are only 4 Republic players, only the first 4 Imperials that entered the warzone get to pass the force field as well, ensuring an even number fight of 4 vs. 4.

 

The other 3 Imperials will have to wait until one of the Imperials actively fighting in the battlefield dies, in which case the one that loaded into the force field first (be it initially loading into the warzone or as the warzone progresses, the one who died first) will be released into the battlefield.

 

If another Republic player joins the warzone in progress, the next Imperial in line behind the force field is also released from the force field and into the actual battle, making it a 5 vs. 5 with only 2 Imperials waiting behind the force field now for one of the imperial in the actual battle to die to replace them or another Republic player to join.

 

If 3 Imperial players quit the warzone in progress, an extra Republic player would be kept behind the force field after their next death, making it a 4 vs. 4 again.

 

This would go on and on, keeping the numbers of people actively fighting even on both sides all the time (except for short times when a player quit the warzone).

 

Of course, the rewards would have to be adjusted as well and players should also be rewarded for having to sit out one of their teammates' lives or wait for another opponent to join the warzone to make up for the time they can't earn rewards in the actual battle. Maybe even add some minigames with rewards for the people that are waiting to do - cheering their team, for example, giving them hints by looking down at the battle from above, maybe marking opposing players, etc.. There should also be rewards for joining a warzone in progress to make up for the time lost.

 

The above, of course, isn't a fully fleshed-out concept (that Bioware will have to come up with themselves, unless they choose to hire me, of course, which is unlikely ) and it's certainly nowhere near perfect, but it's an idea and a start to steer warzone player number balance into the right direction.

Edited April 18, 2012 by Glzmo

[B_RAN]

i agree with just about everyone speaking on this thread i just finished pvping just now , and this so called new imporvement is wayy worse than what it was before you shouldnt have touched anything i say you guys completely screwed it all together it was fine the way it was, i am not a very good pvper but it was fun to do and even tho my team lost alot or i would practically lose every day i would get quite a bit of exp and money and WZ COM, and i was able to get my gear and keep playing , if you wanted to make a change like this then you should group ppl in pvp by level , i mean just because i am level 18 and you give me that bolster perk doesnt mean i could take down a level 47 one on one they obviously have better gear , so boosting my stats does nothing, so maybe you should group ppl starting from 10 -20 , then 21-30 , 31-40 , and 41-50 that would be logical in my opinion , this is just bogus at this point i was really starting to like pvp , i thought you guys did a hell of a job its not hard to pick up and learn to do but now you just dragged it to hell

[Leman]

maintenance you are doing tonight

implement pvp fixes you will?