On Warzone Scoring and Rewards

[Achyllis]

The vast disparity of rewards encourages leaving early. Please fix this by tightening the reward differential, not solely with a "quitter" penalty. There will be jerks in MMOs - just part of the territory.

 

The comm disparity feels directed at the casual player. That's no good for anyone.

[mordredz]

Despite BW ignoring the overwhelming amount of criticism and suggestion on Test?

 

Seriously there were pages and pages telling BW what would happen.

 

I was there and didnt see 1/10th of what ppl are complaining about right now, not sure if you were...

[horded]

I thought I read at some point with the revamp of the PVP in 1.2, that Objective points would actually mean something? as in getting rewarded for doing the objectives? Am I missing something or was that part taken out. It's disappointing when you have 9 medals and over 12k of objective points for a lost match and receive so little WZ commendations.

[DralenBrand]

What I would really like to ask is that Daniel, could you take a fresh 50 in Recruit Gear and go on one of the Standard/Low Pop servers for a day and do nothing but PVP?

 

I think that would tell you beyond question what needs to be fixed.

 

 

This is the problem: it seems like the PTS isn't a good predictor of what will happen on my server, Saber of Exar Kun. Maybe this system works on hihg-pop servers, I don't know but I have seen many worlds on that server with single-digit populations. This includes high-level worlds. I can tell you that WZ's on SEK are not working.

 

I played a few WZ's last night, and my team did win 1. However, we lost the majority. We did get some small reward, but it was small and no credits. That means, for every WZ I lose, I am lsoing money versus had I been PvEing. Surely that is not working as intended?

 

 

[KangasCollective]

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.

 

This contradicts patch notes which seem to promise a multiplier based on magnitude of your score.

 

From 1.2 patch notes:

The amount of Valor, Commendations, and credits awarded at the end of a Warzone is now based on your team's score, with a bonus for the winning team. Experience rewards are still based on the amount of time spent in the Warzone.

 

So doesn't this mean close-fought 1-1 or 1-2 scores are much less comms for both teams than a 1-5 game?

[DarthOvertone]

Hey folks,

 

• 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.

 

This all sounds perfectly reasonable. Thank you for acting quickly to remedy some of the issues in PvP.

 

 

Erm.....Where are the PVP devs? With all due respect I don't want to see what a RP/PVE dev has to say about PVP. I would like Gabe to come here and tell us what he's doing and why.

 

Why does it matter who gives us feedback as long as problems are being fixed? The information Daniel has passed along could have come from the janitor at BW for all I care. It's good to see that they are listening to feedback from the community and taking quick action.

 

 

I refuse to log in a play with the current rule set.

 

Why? Right now it's easier than ever to get medals in a WZ, even when you join late (just play the objectives). Why would you not PvP in the WZs right now unless you are just really, really bad or don't enjoy PvP?

[Heideggar]

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.

 

I'm quite familiar with how your rules work, but in now way do I plan to get used to them. The dynamics you have set up, and what you're trying to accomplish contradict one another in several areas. In fact, there are so many scenarios that result in almost no rewards that it seems crazy that you would create a system like this and be happy with it.

 

 

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.

 

If the teams have similar experience and capabilities, yes, this is true. Ending a match closely nets descent rewards, BUT you have to make sure you were there the entire time, and got enough medals.

 

If you know your team is going to lose pretty badly, and for a lot of us it's pretty obvious, you should leave. Why would I want to stay for 10 min for a loss that gets me next to no rewards? It is not my responsibility to train and coordinate a pug group. In fact, trying to do so can sound bossy, and net me fewer votes at the end. I can leave, join up with another group in 0-120s, and at least have a chance at a win and/or good 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.

 

While that's nice, it's wasted development time. So, instead of getting 0s for all my rewards I get 2 commendations, 50xp, 7 credits? It's a joke.

 

I joined up for the 2nd half of Void Star on my Sith Sorcerer as a healer last night. Two people had left prior to me joining, and an 8th never showed up. When I join up mid-way through, it tells me there was probably a reason two people left, and this group is probably not good. I coordinated our attacks with our stealthers, we did a lot of CC'ing, and beat the other team's progress. I had the most heals on our team (there was another healer), I helped us get the win, and guess what I got for my efforts? nothing. No commendations, credits, valor, or XP. NOTHING. I WON AND GOT NOTHING. Why? Because I ran mechanics instead of padding my medals.

 

You said you were going to reward people for running mechanics didn't you? Does your team even know what running mechanics means? Throwing the ball to someone isn't running a mechanic. I can run to the middle of huttball, grab the ball, and throw it to someone on my team near our goal. To your system, that's running mechanics. To me, it's CC'ing and pulling people off ball carriers, making forward advancements with the ball, taking out key opponents (healers, their ball carriers, etc.). It's definitely much harder to code, but don't tell me your system rewards for running mechanics when there are huge holes in its design.

 

This is why whenever I join up with a group I leave right away. Even if we win I may get NOTHING.

 

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.

 

My advice: You need to hotfix your PvP system within the week.

 

 

Here's the scenarios that you aren't properly covering. It's extensive, and so much so that I question your experience developing anything.

 

 

1) Joined late /w loss

- You get nothing, or real close to it.

 

2) Joined late /w win

- You get nothing, or real close to it.

 

3) Run mechanics /w win

- If not enough medals, you get nothing, or close to it.

 

4)Run mechanics /w loss

- If not enough medals, you get nothing, or close to it.

 

5) Known losses and leaving early

- Get nothing, but can queue into something else that has a chance of rewards.

 

6) Game starting with uneven teams

- Extremely high chance of loss. Leave and requeue.

 

 

 

On a pseudo-tangent to the PvP system:

If I leave a warzone, why would I want to queue up for a warzone and be put back into the same one? I've obviously made the choice I don't want to play with those people.

 

 

PvP used to be something I would do on non-raid nights to kill some time, or use to break up the huge monotony of traveling while questing. I used to do space missions for the same reason. Both systems got their rewards "adjusted", and now I have no reason to play swtor outside of raids.

 

btw, outside of me the past couple days, and my buddy one night, my guild has stopped PvP'ing entirely since 1.2. That should tell you how great of a job you're doing.

[mordredz]

This contradicts patch notes which seem to promise a multiplier based on magnitude of your score.

 

From 1.2 patch notes:

 

 

So doesn't this mean close-fought 1-1 or 1-2 scores are much less comms for both teams than a 1-5 game?

 

No... Reading what he said and also having exp in current wz's would tell you otherwise...

[Rachiia]

Wow! Are you even playing this game??

 

You're telling us to keep plugging away and it will be fine. I've played dozens of warzones where my character came in late and played it out to the end and got zero. Why should anyone keep doing that, especially when the team is way behind?

 

"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!"

 

Seriously, go roll a toon and play PvP with the rest of us. Don't queue with your BW buddies or friends at Mythic, PUG like the vast majority of your subscribers. You know the lifeblood of your MMO. Go into warzones solo and see how long you keep playing. You can play really, really hard and not "give up hope" and still end up with zilch or almost nothing.

 

I think you think everyone queues with a team. They don't. Check your "metrics". The lifeblood of any MMO is the "casual" pvper, the player who logs and decides to pvp a little, or starts an alt and PvPs for variety. Even if you PvP with a team, if you enjoy pvp you're not always going to be pvping on a team, because the team isn't always around. So you're going to queue solo, because you like pvp and want to have some fun.

 

Do you even understand this?

 

You need to play your own game.

[mordredz]

Wow! Are you even playing this game??

 

You're telling us to keep plugging away and it will be fine. I've played dozens of warzones where my character came in late and played it out to the end and got zero. Why should anyone keep doing that, especially when the team is way behind?

 

"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!"

 

Seriously, go roll a toon and play PvP with the rest of us. Don't queue with your BW buddies or friends at Mythic, PUG like the vast majority of your subscribers. You know the lifeblood of your MMO. Go into warzones solo and see how long you keep playing. You can play really, really hard and not "give up hope" and still end up with zilch or almost nothing.

 

I think you think everyone queues with a team. They don't. Check your "metrics". The lifeblood of any MMO is the "casual" pvper, the player who logs and decides to pvp a little, or starts an alt and PvPs for variety. Even if you PvP with a team, if you enjoy pvp you're not always going to be pvping on a team, because the team isn't always around. So you're going to queue solo, because you like pvp and want to have some fun.

 

Do you even understand this?

 

You need to play your own game.

 

There fixing that, read the notes, GL...

[Cataphractone]

Last game I played: http://i.imgur.com/LmxAR.jpg

 

Case and point of the bad system.

 

We held them to one door taken, and we won. Got 60 marks as a team.

[Chockalot]

Im on the imperials myself, and most people on my server do not know what they are doing most of the time, even some conquerers do not know, the republic on myserver are very coordinated and all seem to know what they are doing in comparison to the majority on my server *shrug*

 

I would transfer in a second if I could play against uncoordinated imps. Deathwind Corriders Imps seem to have there stuff together pretty well.

 

A lot of the issues may have their roots in server populations. If the only people left in the opposing faction are the hardcore, or vented guilds, it will be tough sailing until the populations on the light servers (mine) get to heavy or very heavy.

[Pvpingwithnoobs]

Originally Posted by DanielErickson

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 disgusts me with BW

 

We told you about removing the timer, you still didn't bother to listen, you also knew ranked was only going to be for 8v8 (if it had of been kept in) but you still would have had the problem for everyone else.

 

Sorry, start to try actually reading the forums and not scrolling through them looking for anything you can jump on that isn't a good idea and implement it.

 

As in another thread where the list of "I told you so!" was already said prior to 1.2 and you chose to ignore so many problems.

 

Sorry, I bet you have already felt the damage to your wallets by this monumental screw up!

 

For once instead of blaming a bug (anyone with half a brain can see the flaw in that statement) actually own up and confess, you were wrong and apologise for not listening to the community of people who actually know how your game works.

Edited April 16, 2012 by Pvpingwithnoobs

[Leman]

ok, so under the new system and especially:

 

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.

 

so getting at least a medal and completing a WZ will see an increase in reward from currently? or are we still looking at 15 -20something

[DralenBrand]

Sorry, im a little bit angry and its coming out as a little bit of rage. But still, getting 8 medals even in a loosing match is not rocket science either, if you bang your head against a 4 person defended turret BY YOURSELF everytime in hopes to get a medal you will not get one ever. I don't think that people should be allowed to complain about how hard to is to get 8 medals, although i do agree that the amount of rewards is a bit low in general for a loosing team.

 

Sorry, im a little bit angry and its coming out as a little bit of rage. But still, getting 8 medals even in a loosing match is not rocket science either, if you bang your head against a 4 person defended turret BY YOURSELF everytime in hopes to get a medal you will not get one ever. I don't think that people should be allowed to complain about how hard to is to get 8 medals, although i do agree that the amount of rewards is a bit low in general for a loosing team.

 

 

No need to apologize - it's cool. I just hope you understand that, under the current system, at least on my server, stupid tactics are not required to get a crappry reward or no reward. It isn't, in my case, a question of stupidly attacking points solo all the time. I am a sentinel, and so I rarely try to cap all on my lonesome versus four players. I am not the best player on SEK, but I am far from the worst, and I do at least attempt to play for the team and use tactics to the best of my ability. Despite putting forth a genuine effort, I found that I largely was wasting my time last night in WZ's save for the one (1) my team actually won...

 

So while you are right that people shouldn't be rewarded for the sorts of patently stupid behavior you describe, which does not, benefit their team, that is not really the issue here (hence my use of the term "straw man"). Skilled players making genuine and thoughtful efforts to win are getting more or less screwed.

 

[LanceCorporalDan]

i see no "bonus" for when i win, just what was normally roughly awarded when i won before the update. now when i loose, i see a harsh punishment even for when my team fought very hard and made it a tough fight for the opp-for. Tell me how this is "fair" please.

[JMKnave]

Thank you for the explanation. However you're being idealistic and very shortsighted.

 

Gamers will always choose the path of least resistance. -> always <-

 

Even if you drop the medal requirement to 0, people will still leave a losing warzone. They will leave because it's much easier to re-queue for a new match which they can potentially win than to play out a losing match for less rewards and lose 15 minutes of their time.

 

Feel free to add a deserter debuff as well, it wont help. This will just kill PVP pug queues completely. People wont sit and wait out the 10-15 min deserter queue lockout to finish; they'll just choose to stop queueing altogether and spend their time doing something more rewarding.

 

Penalties don't encourage participation, they encourage attrition. If you want to encourage participation, you need to add more incentives not penalties.

 

There's even an old adage about flies, honey, and vinegar. You should look it up.

Edited April 16, 2012 by JMKnave

[Pourekos]

Thanks for the changes, but unfortunately I have to repeat what I and many other posters have said before: implement the lvl10-49 system for lvl 50 instanced pvp and provide cosmetic/bragging rewards that do not give you an advantage in instanced pvp.

 

Also, please put back the previous levels of xp and cash gained in WZs.

 

Thanks for the communication.

[gwrtheyn]

Thank you for the explanation. However you're being idealistic and very shortsighted.

 

Gamers will always choose the path of least resistance. -> always <-

 

Even if you drop the medal requirement to 0, people will still leave a losing warzone. They will leave because it's much easier to re-queue for a new match which they can potentially win than to play out a losing match for less rewards and lose 15 minutes of their time.

 

Feel free to add a deserter debuff as well, it wont help. This will just kill PVP pug queues completely. People wont sit and wait out the 10-15 min deserter queue lockout to finish; they'll just choose to stop queueing altogether and spend their time doing something more rewarding.

 

Penalties don't encourage participation, they encourage attrition. If you want to encourage participation, you need to add more incentives not penalties.

 

There's even an old adage about flies, honey, and vinegar. You should look it up.

 

100% agree.

[Tirium]

Unfortunately, as many have said, this response only begins to address the wealth of issues offered by 1.2, and the silence on the other issues is perhaps most concerning.

 

BioWare is beginning to break my heart.

[pxlhunter]

Why so many medals now? Do we get one for tying ours shoes, remembering to breathe???

 

Nothing was wrong with old system.... yeash...

[TomC]

Nothing will change until you don't start lopsided WZs and punish people who leave early. Leaving a WZ should kick you out of the queue and give you a 30 minute debuff that doesn't let you queue for WZs

[onfireguy]

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.

 

Seems like a core issue is the reward system has been designed for Ranked Warzones. Since there are different levels of WZ pvp, maybe the reward system needs to be tiered for those levels (10-49, 50, ranked).

 

That being said, I think it is beneficial to lower rewards for losing.

[wrathofturks]

Daniel ; fix the commando healer first. Commando healer is getting the less medals at warzones already becasue of your the most harsh nerfs on commando healer than other healer classes!!!! First balance the classes... But you doing what ever you want!!!

 

Improve getting more commendations from warzone too. with these features . We getting full war hero ger with 77.250 warzone commendations!!!! we have work on real world too( I just can play at nights ). What are you thinking realy that when will we make that much of commendations???? 4-5-6 months ?.

 

I think Daniel you have lot's of free time at your job...To win warzones for daily and weekly getting too much time.... Daniel ,you and your designers/develepors ruining this game .

 

We don'T have open world pvp (fortress battles, territory wars, castle sieges ) ;or outer space battles with ships ( guild ships ,player vs player ,guild vs guild ) nothing. When do you think to br,ng these first? after 2 years ?.Last thing fix your game coding at this game. We even cannot make 16 vs 16 battles at warzones ; or when ilum was alive, when the siths and republic meet each other- huge lags begins/game becomes slower etc. things.

 

If you realy consider our comments here as you said at your post , do these things to make some pleasure to star wars fans...

 

Everyone can QQ to Daniel now if he realy consider our thoughts and comments here. I hope he fixs this game soon and makes better this game fast ;but when?

[Reek]

The core issue is that we are only now beta testing their PvP and this should have been done long ago.