Do NOT Remove Ilum Boosting! I Am Against It!

[Talon_strikes]

Hey folks,

 

I wanted to give you all an update on this now that I have all of the information in place.

 

First, we are not considering this an exploit so anyone who had fear of action being taken against their characters, etc, should not be afraid. We will not be doing anything to players who used the Ilum pylons to get to 50.

 

I will say that player ingenuity never ceases to amaze us all. This was not a part of the intended design of the Gree event running simultaneous to the Double XP Weekends. Due to this, we are going to be having a maintenance later this week to deploy a fix to this issue.

 

I wanted to talk a bit about the fix itself since it will mix up things on Ilum temporarily. Our immediate fix to this issue is that for the time being, we are going to disable bolster on Ilum. This will have a couple of different affects.

 

• Low level characters will no longer be treated as level 50 in regards to experience. They will now have the normal experience penalties associated to grouping with a player of a higher level. Meaning those players will now gain little to no experience when grouped.
  
• Players who are levels 45-49 will have a slightly harder time completing some Gree event quests as they are no longer bolstered to level 50.
  

I want to again reiterate that this is only a temporary solution. We are continuing to investigate the issue and intend to have a more permanent solution in place before the Gree event returns.

 

-eric

Please, for the love of bantha poodoo, do NOT implement this emergency patch. I am totally against it, and I'd rather grind to near-50 this way then leveling with the side-quests and class Stories. If it wasn't intended but you don't consider this an exploit (I believe everyone has their own definition of an "exploit"), why develop a patch to "fix" something that really doesn't need to be fixed?

 

Besides the amount of baddies entering Warzones (as some players are saying), I couldn't care less as long as I'm getting my toons to near-50 really easily by killing the mobs on Ilum. People just need to learn how to kick others from Warzones if they're in this gear, and same applies if they queue for HM FPs.

 

Additionally, someone stated this:

He's basically saying "We don't consider it an exploit, because then we'd have to punish people for being inventive and creative beyond what we had perceived and anticipated. But, we also don't approve of bypassing the leveling process entirely, so we're negating this inventive side-step before the next Double XP weekend."

Well I approve of bypassing the leveling process "entirely"! I approve of this way of leveling! I got into an Ops Group and I met some great players; some who even expressed their disliking to the PvE leveling.

 

Ugh, QFT:

I'm disappointed. I think that this weekend was the most fun many people have had in some time. Leveling in SWTOR can simply be boring as hell and an alternative was obviously welcome.

 

Please post if you're against this! Hopefully we can stop EAWare from implementing a patch that is NOT needed.

[Pscyon]

I look forward to the patching.

[theUndead]

I support Bioware on this. I feel that although not inherently against the rules it is still an unintended consequence that te devs feel should be looked at. Saying that they also said that disabling the bolster is a temporary move meaning they going to look at other ways of dealing with it.

 

But on principle this was done not to punish people but rather to see if there are alternative ways to use the xp.

[Toweleeeie]

I dont think it should be patched either. I didnt get a chance to play this weekend so i missed out. I agree with the quote above, quest leveling is now boring as hell when trying to level my 7th and 8th toon. It would be really nice if i could level on Ilum. Edited March 20, 2013 by Toweleeeie

[NogueiraA]

I'm level 47 doing Ilum dailies with NO PROBLEM. Now I'm ****ed because of the WHINNERS AND NO-LIFERS.

[Tachenko_Yuri]

They probably calculated that they would piss off less people by leaving things as they are and gating off who's still grinding, than to do something about the eploiters that grinded their toons to 50.

[darkov]

It seems silly to patch this when the Gree event finishes next Tuesday any way. One more weekend of this isn't going to hurt anyone.

 

Though I haven't done it myself, I don't have a problem with other people using it.

[jovianus]

I find the idea of saying, "Here! Double XP for all so you can speed level to get ready for the expansion! Hey wait a minute, people are levelling too fast! This is never what wee intended!" to be a bit..bizarre.

 

Nevermind the fact that, as noted above, the Gree event ends in a week anyway.

Edited March 20, 2013 by jovianus

[Screaming_Ziva]

Besides the amount of baddies entering Warzones (as some players are saying), I couldn't care less as long as I'm getting my toons to near-50 really easily by killing the mobs on Ilum. People just need to learn how to kick others from Warzones if they're in this gear, and same applies if they queue for HM FPs.

Pretty sure you can only kick someone from a WZ if they are AFK. You can't kick them for gear.

[xxAtticusxx]

It seems silly to patch this when the Gree event finishes next Tuesday any way. One more weekend of this isn't going to hurt anyone.

 

Though I haven't done it myself, I don't have a problem with other people using it.

 

This, and, I would like to actually TRY the Gree event?

[saremun]

oh wow, they did what all the WHINNERS wanted,lol.

 

i wish they fix other things in the game in the same speed

[Talon_strikes]

Are you kidding me? This fell off the front page. Some of you guys are right. The Gree event ends very soon and I'd just love bolster to be back so we can finish this Race to 50 with the event + double XP. I can't believe the whiners got what they wanted. I really want this back.

[CaptainBlackjack]

This is a poor decision by BW it may answer the wailing cry of not fair and exploit however you are now making impossible for my level 45 characters to participate in the Gree event. The diminshed level of effectiveness will cause people to refuse them in groups and make it impossible to solo any of the dailys. This is a slap in the face all of us who have leveled the normal way and are ready to play the world event. Why the cutoff has to be at 50 may be due to your programing I dont know but by doing this you are alienating people who play by the intended design of the game and that I say "Bad decision BW":( Edited March 20, 2013 by CaptainBlackjack

[Eillack]

I don't support this at all. I support Not allowing X level players from going on the planet.

 

Stop punishing those who followed the rules. My 45 would never have been able to go on Ilum without the boost.

[pooks]

This really reminds me of the old SWG grinding on Gurk or Piket lairs. It was fun to be in a group just killing mobs, talking in Teamspeak or in chat. It was building a community which this game totally lacks.

Devs, please learn from this and maybe implement a flashpoint where you can have fun without having to have 1 tank, 1 healer, 2 dps etc.

It was very very refreshing to be in a large group, without having to worry about spec and just chatting and getting to know the other players.

I wasn't going to level a 12th character to 50, but decided to because of this Ilum thing. So I leveled a 12th and now my 13th is 42! And I am having fun. I was doing the Bounty Hunter story line and quests for the 3rd time and I was half asleep.

Please have a team look into some way of leveling other than the class/quest stuff.

You need to work on fostering a community and not punishing players for wanting to play with others while leveling.

(These 2 are crafters and will never see combat ever)

Edited March 20, 2013 by pooks

[uniz]

nice. sounds like the exp weekends will be in game more often than we think. i mean after the gree event is gone some of the mobs are still there so you can just continually farm mobs on a lowbe during the exp weekends to pl them. wonder if you could even do this now with no event? just might be slower but still doable.

 

also does this mean i can now use my pve clicky power relic while doing pve gree quests while there in the nonpvp area? not that i really need to as all 50s have 61/63 gear. just wondering is all.

[Tommot]

I completely support Bioware in this. People shouldn't be punished for it, but it's time for it to go.

[Anzel]

oh wow, they did what all the WHINNERS wanted,lol.

 

i wish they fix other things in the game in the same speed

 

This times 10 billion quadrillion zillion. They are able to hotfix this in record time but they can't make other basic fixes and quality of life improvements?

 

Yes, I am quite familiar with how development items get prioritized however this is just silly. Who cares if someone else levels their characters one way vs another? I mean really. OMG OMG OMG OMG someone is doing something that I don't agree with!!!!! Quick, force them to do it my way, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Talon_strikes]

This times 10 billion quadrillion zillion. They are able to hotfix this in record time but they can't make other basic fixes and quality of life improvements?

 

Yes, I am quite familiar with how development items get prioritized however this is just silly. Who cares if someone else levels their characters one way vs another? I mean really. OMG OMG OMG OMG someone is doing something that I don't agree with!!!!! Quick, force them to do it my way, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOL and the funny thing is, we can't sit in chairs yet!

[oompadouche]

I agree with the Op, this is the first time in this game where i saw this game actually feeling like a Multi player game. People actually getting together and fighting stuff or and actually interacting with each other.

[TUXs]

I understand Bioware's decision to "fix" this - it was unintentional. But I also agree with the OP that it's a mistake to do so because people were having FUN doing it. It was a much needed, and very welcome alternative, to running the same missions over and over. Sadly, this was the best "community" content we've had in game yet.

[MillionsKNives]

LOL and the funny thing is, we can't sit in chairs yet!

 

Yes, I'm sure adding chairs that you can sit in is at the top of their list. Because all game companies want their players to spend their time watching their avatars sit on their ***. "Come to SWTOR for the amazing chair sitting action! It's just like what you're doing right now, but VIRTUAL!"

 

 

 

I side with BioWare on this. This is a situation of a set of systems that together work fine, but used in a certain way gained players an unintended boost to experience gains well above the expected levels. Whether you like it or not, or think that players should be punished for it or not it needs to be fixed. As far as punishment goes, it's not such a serious offense that players need characters rolled back, it'd only server to make players angry (though there's really no way around that anyway).

 

And how well did [whine] "but Johnny got to have ice cream, why can't I?!" [/whine] work when you were a kid, because that's all you're doing when you cry that you weren't able to do it. Likewise saying, "but that other guy was also driving fast and you didn't pull him over," wouldn't stand up in court.

Edited March 20, 2013 by MillionsKNives

[Andryah]

I support Bioware on this. I feel that although not inherently against the rules it is still an unintended consequence that te devs feel should be looked at. Saying that they also said that disabling the bolster is a temporary move meaning they going to look at other ways of dealing with it.

 

But on principle this was done not to punish people but rather to see if there are alternative ways to use the xp.

 

I have to agree. It was brought to there attention, they reviewed what players were doing and determined that it was not considered exploiting, but was considered unintended game play.

 

Their game OP, so they decide if/how/when to address unintended game play. True for all MMOs by all companies to be honest.

 

Rather then going postal about it (regardless if you support it or oppose it)... why can't people just grow up and realize that 1) things like this happen in MMOs because people are clever seekers of the path of least resistance 2) sometimes game design provides an unintended path of least resistance and it gets corrected accordingly?

[uziforyou]

I dont think it should be patched either. I didnt get a chance to play this weekend so i missed out. I agree with the quote above, quest leveling is now boring as hell when trying to level my 7th and 8th toon. It would be really nice if i could level on Ilum.

 

Because doing the same thing on Ilum over and over again wouldn't be boring.................?

 

Interesting.

[Andryah]

I also agree with the OP that it's a mistake to do so because people were having FUN doing it.

 

You know.. in any large audience... what some people think is fun, others will be appalled at, and every feeling in between.

 

Terrible though it is... some people feel it is fun to be cruel to animals.

 

TL;DR: local authority is there to protect the overall welfare of the community. As is true in real life, so it is true in virtual life as well. Bioware is the local authority in matters such as this thread topic, not the OP.