"play to win" VS " play for medals"

[Letallis]

Why not play to win? If you're going to be a bear, be the biggest bear in the woods. This all goes back to having graduation classes for kindergartners, and not keeping score at kiddie league ball games. Mediocrity is now the level to aspire to. Seriously though, play to win, the medals will follow.

[RefugeASSASSIN]

Only needed the title.

 

You play to win and medals just fall into place.

 

This.

[JayEmmKay]

I think alot of people think that if they play objective they wont get as much medals, but that is pure bull crap! I get over 10 medals each time in huttball as a vanguard, my record are 13, and i could have gotten more if i wasnt such a noob back then and used taunt! Play objective and you will be rewarded.

[RogueNights]

I actually like the current system.

 

The only time i find myself medal farming is when we are dominating on the objectives and I am trying to set a record, or am getting absolutely dominated and trying to get the minimum, which is rare and does not last long.

 

As far as ordering on the score board, well, they have to pick something. Better medals (which weights everything a little than another stat). Will say tho that some classes are a little better at getting medals than others...

[Khoraji]

 

Edit:

Also since people just randomly click the mvp button like frantic monkeys instead of picking people that did the most in something mvp is broken too. Also I dont think mvp helps you anyways. Win Lose mpv stats dont help at all if I remember right. Doesnt get you gear. Doesnt lower gear required levels. Doesnt get you higher pvp rank levels to get gear. You get a big bunch of nothing. So whats the point of even bothering?

 

each mvp vote gives you 1 extra comm, so it does help.

 

Most people vote their friends/guild mates.

[Zaodon]

Lots of people think "you get more medals for winning than for farming" but that's provably false.

 

Actually, no one says "you get more MEDALS for winning than for farming."

We say "You get more REWARDS (valor, comms, credits) for winning than for farming."

 

This is provably true. And you get 8 medals if you just play to win.

 

Win with 8 medals, lose with 8 medals. Compare the results. Its a no-brainer.

 

People who allow their team to lose so they can push those 8 medals up to 12, 15, 20, etc. are... what's the word I'm looking for here.... morons. Yes, that's the word. Morons.

[Varicite]

Why not play to win? If you're going to be a bear, be the biggest bear in the woods. This all goes back to having graduation classes for kindergartners, and not keeping score at kiddie league ball games. Mediocrity is now the level to aspire to. Seriously though, play to win, the medals will follow.

 

Wait, they really do this?

 

Man, what a sad state of affairs... : /

[Larius]

each mvp vote gives you 1 extra comm, so it does help.

 

Most people vote their friends/guild mates.

 

When I play healer, I vote for whomever put a guard on me, or whomever DID guard something. When I play DPS, I vote for the highest healer.

[Dein_Cathair]

Dear Designers/developers.

 

I hope you can see how diametrically different people are playing your warzones from this thread.

Some are playing to win, others are not, others have their own agendas.

This clearly shows how the design is flawed.

I see arguments and comments ALL day long inside warzones. The best today was a guy calling another totally useless and how that person should go west in cw and cap and stand there. It actually made me laugh, but I suspect the guy whom was being told they were an idiot did not appreciate it.

 

You need to get people on the same page otherwise this is only goingto continue and escalate as I can tell you for certain I've yelled at morons before and they still don't listen, they just continue to do their own thing and ruin it for the group. This is a design error and you can't really blame them as you have designed it this way.

 

I know you have good intentions, and do not want to bury your heads in the sand. I also know you added several medals in the recent past to promote players to play the games, but all it has done in essence is teach them to farm the medals. By eliminating the display of them during the game you would be telling the players they need to work toward the big picture goals.MANY in this thread are saying " play and you get medals/comms/etc. By eliminating the display of said medals, you encourage players to actually work towards a goal as a team rather than being individuals who are not team players. They still get the medals in the end as we all know they exist. This change is designed to get players off their butts and do the things that are required to win rathe than sitting around waiting on little medals to pop above their heads, which should not be the goal of a pvp match.

 

Thanks in advance

-Dein

Edited June 14, 2012 by Dein_Cathair

[Astarica]

If you're not getting medals while playing to win, you're almost certainly not winning either.

 

Assuming you're not trying to win an unwinnable game and wonder why you keep on die in 5 seconds 1on4, it's really hard to be making any progress toward winning and not get any medals. It's also very hard to be gaining medals at any reasonable speed while completely making no progress toward winning. Defender points are nowhere near the fastest way to get medal. You'll usually only get 3-4 defender medals even if you never left the node in a straight up loss. Again, not counting attacking in completely futile situations, it is much easier to get 8 medals by mounting a quasi-effective offense than just waiting at your node.

 

And if you can't mount even a quasi-effective offense then you can't be playing to win anyway, so you might as well play for medals. You're not hurting your team because your team isn't going to win at all.

[SteffizleESQ]

If you're not getting medals while playing to win, you're almost certainly not winning either.

 

Assuming you're not trying to win an unwinnable game and wonder why you keep on die in 5 seconds 1on4, it's really hard to be making any progress toward winning and not get any medals. It's also very hard to be gaining medals at any reasonable speed while completely making no progress toward winning. Defender points are nowhere near the fastest way to get medal. You'll usually only get 3-4 defender medals even if you never left the node in a straight up loss. Again, not counting attacking in completely futile situations, it is much easier to get 8 medals by mounting a quasi-effective offense than just waiting at your node.

 

And if you can't mount even a quasi-effective offense then you can't be playing to win anyway, so you might as well play for medals. You're not hurting your team because your team isn't going to win at all.

 

This post hits the nail on the head. The system is working as intended. Move along... move along...

[Kanana]

My example for today was this morning in Novare Coast. I was in a pug that was over classed by another team, Not a big deal to me, I don't give up. But I tend to pay attention to what is going on and who is around and who is not,

Well, I noticed one shadow tank was missing most of the match and when the scoreboard came up the shadow tank had 8 medals, while everyone else on the team had 1-3. How do you think he got all 8? It sure as heck was not by fighting with us or at any node beyond the initial start of the game..... And guess what? the guy gets 2 mvp votes from the clueless other people in our pug.

 

I don't look at medals when awarding MVP, I look at objectives, unless I specially noticed someone during a match. But you don't get 8 medals doing nothing.

 

Someone has to guard the node our side has. Shadow tanks are good for that since they can CC at the start from cloak, buy some time, then last some in tank stance, and then disappear before dieing, and after a few seconds spoil the capping with an AE before finally dieing, hopefully having bought enough time for reinforcements to arrive.

[denpic]

You can get 10+ medals just standing at a node

I play for objectives and the winning team usually has the most medals

[Mnemomeme]

Actually, here are some examples of play tactics that do not get medals.

 

As a tanky CC,you rush to a point between two cap zones and hold back a group of 2-4 people for a few seconds to allow the defenders on the point they were rushing for to thin out the ranks a bit before the second wave arrives to reinforce and overwhelm them.

 

As a DPSer, you rush to a point being guarded by 2-3 people and take one or two of them down, probably dying in the process, while a slower less tactically skilled player or two work their way in your general direction and maybe take out what's left of the last guy and start capping the node before anyone else can arrive.

 

As a healer you strategically heal the good players in a huttball match that are running the ball and scoring points, instead of the horrible players that are standing around losing healthbar on defense and not killing anything. (healing the score-bearers ends the match faster and gets you less medals, while healing bad defenders racks up that healing score like a winning lottery ticket).

 

Any and all CCs, the definitive ability set for PvP, period.

 

Waiting for a group to form and try to overtake a point rather than rushing in alone over and over for no obvious reason when you don't expect help (because if you wait, you're not scoring any DPS or heals or attacker points at all, instead of the minimal you'll get from rushing alone against impossible odds).

 

(^^^) These are the behaviors that lose matches most frequently on purpose for medals. I can keep listing incredibly poor play behaviors that result in medals and losses, I could go on for hours about this problem. However, instead I'll tell you about a match I was in tonight.

 

Novare Coast, five people rushed south, and ran into seven from the enemy team. They wiped, so they went to the near north point, in this case the eastern point, and sat there trolling eachother about gear and expertise for the rest of the match, bragging about their skill and the proof of it in their medals at the end of the match. One player, a sorcerer healer, didn't even have recruit gear on, and his pre-50 PvE gear was sorely lacking in stats. A guy in full War Hero gear was berating him for being the reason the game was a foregone failure. For the last couple minutes of the match the bored enemies assaulted the group of campers. At the end, the scoreboard showed that the ungeared healer (who could have been naked for all it mattered) score more medals as well as more DPS than the guy in War Hero gear that failed at assaulting the south point right away. Also, he had the highest heals in match, including the other team's players. On the losing team, he came in fourth with six medals, the three above him tied with eight medals each.

 

At least six of the people in that match didn't even try to win. They didn't even pretend to try to win. They gave up before they even entered the queue. This is what the medals system is fostering, and it's getting worse every day.

 

Kill it.

Edited June 16, 2012 by Mnemomeme

[SajmanPeetee]

I am one who plays primarily for medals, I'll explain why I do it. Feel free to rip on me, I can take it.

 

1) Huttball

 

I am a Sentinel. I force leap, I get hit with knockback, what do I have to do for the next 15 seconds until Force Leap comes back? I can either stand there or look for a random guy alone to try and get my assassin medal. One of those is fun, the other is boring. I choose fun.

 

2) Civil War

 

We're trying to retake mid from the other team. I can kill 100 of them, but their still going to respawn, fly back, and defend. It doesn't matter how many we kill or what point we attack, if the opposing team has good communication they will be able to get there and defend. When it's two premades against each other, the team that takes the second node first wins everytime......every single time. Why keep trying to win at that point?

 

3) Voidstar

 

Same as Civil War with respawn rates and same as Huttball with class imbalances. The probe that just sits on the door and pulses flame every 3 seconds for 18 seconds is so frustrating. If you're playing against two snipers in engineering forget about it, you'll never get past a door.

 

4) Novare Coast

 

I love Novare Coast, it's the only warzone that doesn't make me rage and punch holes in my walls. This is the one I play to win, but the other 3 they suck.

[Dein_Cathair]

I am one who plays primarily for medals, I'll explain why I do it. Feel free to rip on me, I can take it.

 

1) Huttball

 

I am a Sentinel. I force leap, I get hit with knockback, what do I have to do for the next 15 seconds until Force Leap comes back? I can either stand there or look for a random guy alone to try and get my assassin medal. One of those is fun, the other is boring. I choose fun.

 

2) Civil War

 

We're trying to retake mid from the other team. I can kill 100 of them, but their still going to respawn, fly back, and defend. It doesn't matter how many we kill or what point we attack, if the opposing team has good communication they will be able to get there and defend. When it's two premades against each other, the team that takes the second node first wins everytime......every single time. Why keep trying to win at that point?

 

3) Voidstar

 

Same as Civil War with respawn rates and same as Huttball with class imbalances. The probe that just sits on the door and pulses flame every 3 seconds for 18 seconds is so frustrating. If you're playing against two snipers in engineering forget about it, you'll never get past a door.

 

4) Novare Coast

 

I love Novare Coast, it's the only warzone that doesn't make me rage and punch holes in my walls. This is the one I play to win, but the other 3 they suck.

 

I won't flame you, it's how the system is poorly designed that is really at fault. It's not really PvP anymore, it's Player VS "Candybar" you can stop off and eat instead of PvPing.

 

I'm seeing people doing it more and more each day now, saw 5 people all heading West initially for Novare coast this morning, So they could get that 1 medal from all capping and they just sat there.

 

Heck, I'm geting tired of being cheated out of equal medals for playing to win, So this morning in CW I'd run West with speed and capped quicker than anyone else could hope too and then began using Noble sacrifice and healing myself over and over until I had more medals than anyone else.

We lost of course as I as the best healer around just standing at west was probably a bad move. But I got MVP votes/

 

Yay for swiss cheese as a design mechanic.

[wyrmac]

The system needs a major redo, it happens mostly in civil war, but as others have pointed out, all the War Zones have issues when players just give up, those who actually want to PvP are doomed, this is especially frustrating when a player enters a game in progress where their team has already given up, they have little choice but to become solo attackers without much chance to even get a medal, their only hope may be to just give up as well and stand around with everyone else hoping there is enough time to get a defender medal. There is unfortunately a point to just standing there getting defender medals, but it certainly isn't any fun. and I wouldn't really call it PvP. At this point taking away the medal system is probably the only thing to do. I don't really have a fix , but something along the lines of no points for losing unless the Team (not individual players) accomplish at least some predefined criteria that takes actual effort to do might be the direction to look into, also if players leave a WZ there should be a penalty imposed to discourage this from happening. and the tabulation for healing and damage should somehow be altered to not apply to healers who damage themselves and then heal themselves, a time limit on when healing done to yourself actually counts after using a health sacrificing ability is probably the direction to go to stop that behavior. All of the things that people are doing in these situations aren't as much their fault as they are examples of people trying to get the best they can out of a broken system. It may make a lot of us feel frustrated, but its hard to really blame individuals in these situations.

[funkiestj]

The system needs a major redo, it happens mostly in civil war, but as others have pointed out, all the War Zones have issues when players just give up, those who actually want to PvP are doomed, this is especially frustrating when a player enters a game in progress where their team has already given up, they have little choice but to become solo attackers without much chance to even get a medal, their only hope may be to just give up as well and stand around with everyone else hoping there is enough time to get a defender medal. .

 

The root of the problem (IMO) is that weaker players get curb stomped way too frequently. This teaches them to give up and farm defender medals. They get curb stomped too frequently because the match making algorithm pits much stronger teams against weaker teams far too often. If you are on a weak PUG against a medium or better premade (+ 4 randoms) then giving up and farming defender medals is optimal. It gets you to full WH sooner. Full WH won't turn a bad player into a good player but at least strong teams will have 1 fewer advantage over you. They still have: voice chat, familiarity with teammates and better skill but at least when you are in full WH they don't have much of a gear advantage on top of all their other advantages.

 

Fix the match making algorithm and folks will not give up at ridiculously early points in a WZ match.

Edited July 1, 2012 by funkiestj

[BurnsTwoThree]

Nope, a majority of players PUG it. The current system promotes poor play.

The system "teaches" p[layers to farm medals, rather than play to win.

 

Yeah cause it's not obvious you get like 5 medals for winning very quickly on top of being able to get tons from just doing what you have to do to win.

 

The only people who are dumb enough to farm medals are the ones who are terrible at their class.

 

The only instance I can remember that good players did it was with healers because of how little medals we used to get.