Post mortem analysis on why STWOR PVP gameplay failed

[RodneyMcNeely]

I think the OP nailed it.

 

I don't even care anymore. I'm going to sleep in a few minutes and - when I wake up - I will bound out of bed and enjoy the fruits of my Elder Scrolls Online pre-order.

 

Won't look back for half a second. It's been fun. Shame it couldn't have been great.

 

Ah, well. Them's the breaks.

 

[Groncho]

nice post

+1

and

buff VG / Pt's

[Prototypemind]

For all the issues, I think most could have lived with them had they not one, gotten rid of 8v8 ranked completely, and more importantly two, added cross-server queues. The first move caused many PvP teams to give up the ghost, and the second failure to move causes more and more issues each day with a lack of server populations for PvP. Almost no feedback from Devs, just "no", or it's too technically challenging and that's that.

 

I know I'm going to hit a wall with PvP eventually. The majority of the time I have a good idea of how the match is about to go just by who pops into the match with me. The fact that I'm coming to know so many is indicative of how small the player pool is. New players often don't stick around to grind the gear if they get unlucky enough to get rolled a few times--which is pretty much guaranteed to happen at some point--all the more so if they end up in arena against a group of friends able to coordinate over voice, or who all simply happen to be geared when the other team isn't.

 

I don't want to see all the regular PvPers gone and the casuals unsubbing between end game releases, but that's where we're headed if the team keeps /ignoring every valid request.

 

The answer to every single request at this point is "no", so that tells us where PvP sits for the moment, and the longer it sits there the more likely it is to end up dead and gone. PvP is definitely not just for the hardcore. There are plenty of us who focus on PvE, but enjoy what at least starts out as something different and unpredictable. If PvP in this game completely dies out it's going to hit the entire game population and that's one thing the Devs just don't seem to get.

 

I don't want to see all the PvP regulars leaving the game entirely and PvE players leaving between end game updates, but that may be exactly where we're headed if the Devs keep up the /ignore response to all valid suggestions.

Edited March 30, 2014 by Prototypemind

[TonyDragonflame]

- You cannot play against opponents of your level. In SWTOR it's basically perma PUG. For a real PvPer this is not fun.

 

lolwut

[Marstrike]

PvP would be a whole lot better with a few changes:

 

1. Cross server queue, not sure how this would work for West and East Coast guys from the states but for EU i would like to see it across all server languages.

2. 8v8 Ranked returned, Ability to queue for WZ or Arena independent of each other. For ranked, the ability to queue for 4v4, 8v8

3. Other subs may not agree but i would like the restrictions on F2P and Pref dropped considerably. Possibly allow them to do PvP freely with restrictions possibly being considerably less tokens, valor, exp etc. They could even be locked out of some of those rewards after a certain point but still have unrestricted access to join PvP at anytime. I really think a lot of the f2p guys could get into the game and PvP more because of this and subs could increase as a result.

[Ryvirath]

You raise a -lot- of excellent points. Particularly perma pug, no team play support, no cross server, and resolve. Also, the decision to implement the warzone to ranked comm conversion was one of the worst to date.

 

Sidenote: Is there a game besides WoW that has met all those criteria?

Edited March 30, 2014 by Ryvirath

[MidichIorian]

- You cannot play against opponents of your level. In SWTOR it's basically perma PUG. For a real PvPer this is not fun. When I enter a WZ I'd want to play with similar level players against similar level opponents. Not going to happen. This causes adverse selection. That is, good players are dragged down, they just can't carry 7 terribles. Potentially good performing players get slowly discouraged, jaded, "grinded" by endless boring, mediocre gaming experiences, even if they win it's still either boring. Half opponents left or sit at one base waiting for match to end.

There's no mechanism to kick pure dead weight players, including those straightly saying they are going AFK. The vote kick has never worked once in my life (they just need to not go totally AFK)

This is my main problem with the game. I've always played games with either proper matchmaking systems or where I had the option to sign my team up on some site such as Gamebattles to play competitive games against likeminded. Swtor offers none of that.

 

This is why I think "normals" on PvE servers are more fun. If you play 20 "normals" on a PvP server your're probably going to steamroll the other team or get steamrolled in 19 of them. Why? Because one team will always end up with a significally higher skill average, either by chance or through a premade. On the PvE servers it's always more balanced. Not saying that people are better, they're probably worse at playing their classes, but it becomes more of a team effort since you don't have four players rolling through everyone els.

Edited March 30, 2014 by MidichIorian

[IInox]

I'm getting fun...

[Marstrike]

This is my main problem with the game. I've always played games with either proper matchmaking systems or where I had the option to sign my team up on some site such as Gamebattles to play competitive games against likeminded. Swtor offers none of that.

 

This is why I think "normals" on PvE servers are more fun. If you play 20 "normals" on a PvP server your're probably going to steamroll the other team or get steamrolled in 19 of them. Why? Because one team will always end up with a significally higher skill average, either by chance or through a premade. On the PvE servers it's always more balanced. Not saying that people are better, they're probably worse at playing their classes, but it becomes more of a team effort since you don't have four players rolling through everyone els.

 

I have recently re-rolled onto then english speaking PvE server (The Red Eclipse) after being on the PvP one (ToFN) since around rlease and i can confirm what you say, at least in the 10-30 bracket. I play IMP and i think win / loss has been 50/50 and have yet to see a face roll or smell a pre-made. I was originally concerned that there would be a lack of PvP but for the most part it has been fine with queue pops etc.

 

I seriously hope PvP doesn't die as although i would consider myself a PvX player, this game without PvP would become quite stale at times.

[Frsot]

...

anyway can someone tell me about Warhammer? Never played it myself did not even heaer about it til one thread brought it up a few months back

 

 

i played WAR since its release, and ive loved every hour spent on it. im not saying it was perfect it had its flaws and bugs(what game doesnt?)and it was certainly not a game for everyone. but the PVP in that game was the best ive ever played. nothing before or since has came close to the adrenaline rush that it provided(and i have played ALOT of mmos). the biggest part on what made the pvp great from the beginning tho was its community, there was real "Realm pride" at first and even after that subsided, the community kept the game competetive. sadly the game was a rushed release and the neglect of devs and all that were in charge of it became obvious rather quick. which is a damn *********** shame since there was such vast potential with that IP and all! despite the game being so neglected an mistreated it was still giving the action injection i needed pvp wise all up until the last day it was online. i will always miss that game. really sad it got shut down, tho it did not come as a surprise for anyone.

[varietasplus]

Nice post mate, +1, a brief answer for all the conlcusions you had: NO (read: GET OUT!).

[Zoom_VI]

You know I wish the day would come that all these blind defenders who accuse anyone who says anything 'hateful' about this game about being a former banned person banned themselves, but sadly EAware tolerates that sort of disgusting behavior and even breaches the forum rules themselves for allowing that disgusting behavior to continue

 

Well I'm sorry it seemed like a logical conclusion to reach once you consider that your post history starts on the day after MrJurgen-II's ends, its also interesting that a account that as only been active for two days is already running around with a full vocabulary of forum slang.

[MotorCityMan]

This game has a lot going for it. Of course, it's the Star Wars Universe. I have enjoyed leveling in this game more than any other. There are some things this game does very well. It has a lot of content for as young a game as it is. They seem to have made a successful transition to F2P also, which isn't easy to do mid stride.

 

Unfortunately, they followed the Blizzard pvp paradigm of throwing random groups and players into a king of the hill instance and calling it pvp. Blizzard admits themselves that pvp was tacked on. In SWTOR also pvp is tacked on.

 

Some things a game does well, other things not so well. I think it's a bit of a pipe dream to expect there to be a game that does everything well. As players, in these days of F2P titles, we can afford to have a number of games on our hard drives and play the portions of games that we find rewarding.

[laiboch]

I think the OP was dead on.

 

The other points some other have made along the way are also solid.

 

Bioware needs to expand the FTP to include warzones and OPS. Why? It would attract more players that would get involved in the game and be far more likely to either subscribe or buy their junk on the Cartel market, and most of it is junk. Look Bioware you can only re-skin the same crap so many times..

 

I honestly think they kind of want the game to tank. Then they can dump it and move on like they have before to hype up another title and get people to jump on.

 

The community doesn't want the game to fail, but a lot of us are getting really tired of the same lip service answers or silence from the Bioware.

 

I guess the real question I have is why support a game where the developers seem to have lost any drive or desire to maintain the game?

 

You guys really need to implement not only Cross server PVP, but PVE as well.

 

Fix the failed resolve system. You could make it so using your break free ability triggers your resolve, but it seems more like you would rather put time into something that doesn't work then say "O.k. guys that didn't work so we are working on a better system".

 

Reduce the time on hard CC. 2-3 seconds on a hard CC is plenty of time in a strategic fight.

 

Reduce the time on soft CC. 4 seconds is plenty of time and promotes actual play instead of using chain CC and calling it skill. For instance OPS can sleep you start a cap. If you don't stun break they get the cap. If you do they flash bang you and guess what? They get the cap! That is not skill that is just a bad mechanic. Do I blame them for doing it? Not one bit. Now If using your break free also filled your resolve bar many of those issues would be fixed.

 

Add diminishing returns to CC. If 5 players all CC you it should have less effect every time. This is part of the problem with StunWars: The CC'd Republic.

 

Balance healing. Yes pulling over a million in heals is simply broken, and in no way improves the game. I have personally pulled over 1.3 million in several matches and well over 750K on a consistent basis . So by myself I completely remove 3-4 players from that match. We might as well have been in a 4V8 at that point. Now ill have even more defense and be harder to kill while losing nothing from my ability to heal. Well thought out Bioware.

 

Realize that over balancing is as bad as not balancing at all. Why have changes on PTS when you don't listen to the players when they tell you things are broken? Make small adjustments to damage or abilities instead of huge buff's/nerfs. Wouldn't it make more sense to make small adjustments than sweeping changes?

 

Stop favoring class A over class B. Balance promotes a more stable player base. FOTM promotes dissatisfied players that are more likely to leave.

[AlrikFassbauer]

- You cannot play against opponents of your level. In SWTOR it's basically perma PUG. For a real PvPer this is not fun. When I enter a WZ I'd want to play with similar level players against similar level opponents. Not going to happen. This causes adverse selection. That is, good players are dragged down, they just can't carry 7 terribles. Potentially good performing players get slowly discouraged, jaded, "grinded" by endless boring, mediocre gaming experiences, even if they win it's still either boring. Half opponents left or sit at one base waiting for match to end.

There's no mechanism to kick pure dead weight players, including those straightly saying they are going AFK. The vote kick has never worked once in my life (they just need to not go totally AFK).

 

What I find actually funny is that you claim that you want "to play with similar level players against similar level opponents".

 

I want this as well. And I'm not a top player.

 

Meanwhile you write that "That is, good players are dragged down, they just can't carry 7 terribles.",

you fail to see that the other side of this coin consists of 7 top players farming everyone who is bad.

 

Instead of those top players just refusing to farm bads, they just carry on farming them. And at the same time they [iinsist[/i] that they want "to play with similar level players against similar level opponents".

 

There is not only adverse selection this way (goods carrying bads), it is also the other way round : goods farmning bads.

 

A Bad has THE SAME RIGHT "to play with similar level players against similar level opponents" as top players have !

 

But I see that you have a severe case of tunnel vision,. because you see it exclusively from the position of someone whjo is standing at the top, looking down.

 

There do actually exist 2 layers :

 

The High Society

The Low Society

 

Although that the High Society members insist on not being put into the same room with the LOw Society members, they won't protest when they (the High Socuiwety members) get the chance to farm Low Society members. Yes, it goes even so far that High Society members claim that they have "the right" to farm "bads".

They even claim that bads are only there to be farmed, to be their steady income for Commendations, that being farmed is their own purpose in life. Like cattle farmed by ranchers.

 

To me, this is sheer hypocsisy. The High Society does not want to play together with bads, but if they get the chance to farm bads, they play with them. The amount of hypocrisy couldn't be higher.

 

So, why don't top PvP players insist on bad players getting their own matches, so that both tiers of PvP players never mix ?

[Trevor_the_Bruce]

Duran'del here:

 

You can't do a "postmortem" analysis of something that hasn't died yet.

 

Competitive PvP is mostly unseen and a very low amount of people play it, but regs pops are mostly instant on BegCol(A RP-PvE server).

 

Is the PvP here healthy and thriving? No. Is it being played? Yes. Because its fun. I played ME3's multiplayer a few hours ago, and I didn't have to wait long to find a lobby.

 

TL;DR- People will continue to play something of it is fun. That is why SWTOR's PvP, and by extension, SWTOR, is still being played. Becuase it's fun.

 

I 100% agree with this post. I play on Begeren Colony also and pvp pops quite frequently when i pug. There is a large group of good players, and for the most part people know what they are doing. I've seen you on pvp before and you are one of the better people that play, so if we get more players like you in swtor playing pvp the whole experience will be much better across all the servers. Begeran Colony need not be included in the made up "post mortem" analysis thread about how pvp is dead. Pvp is not dead. Not even close.

[Gnoblesse]

Balance healing. Yes pulling over a million in heals is simply broken, and in no way improves the game. I have personally pulled over 1.3 million in several matches and well over 750K on a consistent basis . So by myself I completely remove 3-4 players from that match. We might as well have been in a 4V8 at that point. Now ill have even more defense and be harder to kill while losing nothing from my ability to heal. Well thought out Bioware.

 

1 million heals is not broken, DPS classes are just as capable of putting out the same numbers. Heck, I have a screenshot from this past week with 1 healer at nearly 2mil and the other at 1.5 - and they lost. (The other team had 3 DPS over a million and one at 900k.)

 

If your 750k/1mil completely negates 3-4 people on the other side - the other side's DPS is really, really, REALLY bad.

[cycao]

PvP is only going to get worse. The one thing that is tied into almost every problem is population restrictions and the one thing which could solve this issue is cross server which is never going to happen.

 

Sucks because I loved this game at launch and still like it but it's just bad decision after bad decision that continues to drive players away.

[Vodrin]

this^^

 

Its also obvious that hes utterly noob. Resolve works like a charm. Bet hes one of those guys who put you two times into mindtrap and then wonder why their stuns wont work....bugged resolve...yeah....

 

Resolve isn't bugged that I can see, but I do think it fails somewhat in it's intended purpose (providing diminishing returns on CC). Removing the full effect of overlapping CC was a mistake in my opinion as it rewards noobing it up and just spamming CC's more than the original version of resolve.

 

I also think you have to be careful about leveling judgement based on someones current ranked ratings. It's very possible the OP has never played ranked, or it is also possible that the OP played ranked extensively back in the 8v8 days and dropped it since. I was originally part of one of the top 8v8 teams on the old Kaas City server on my tank jug, but I have not played the toon since my first stint away from the game and now only have a crap rating on my sentinel.

Edited March 31, 2014 by Vodrin

[TUXs]

- Besides the bad performance, BW repeated another Warhammer fatal mistake: not implementing cross server queues. This factor was one of several which quickly removed lots of players from Warhammer and is doing the same for SWTOR.

 

- Unlike Warhammer, SWTOR is not a "Realm vs Realm" oriented game. Coupled with the tiny limits (4 men per group and so on) it completely failed fostering tight and enduring player communities. SWTOR playerbase grew volatile, not cohesive, not tied to this game.

 

- Grind based PvP like Warhammer. To mitigate the huge disparities they implemented the infamous Bolster. An excellent idea on paper, it resulted in "just" providing a flawed experience for years.

 

- A distant, silent development team that is acting like we were in 2004. These days of social media, tight contact developers has never arrived here. You see an obvious flaw and it takes months or years just to see it acknowledged, much less fixed.

 

 

Specific gameplay flaws

 

- There's no good team play support. I am not talking about providing in game voice comms or 3rd person recording etc. (present in other games). The basic foundations are missing: no team oriented objectives, or rewards, you can't form a proper 8 men premade for WZs nor the current minuscule player base would allow to match it with another. I still recall 2007, looking at other games top world teams etc. etc. Not in SWTOR. Not in 2014.

 

- Resolve is utterly obsolete. These days you can be perma-stunned and killed before it even budges.

 

- Vastly enormous amount of hard CC. We have hard hitting classes that ALSO can disable an opponent for half or more his health. There's NO stacking penalty so you can spend your whole (painful and unfun) lifetime stunned, then rooted, then bubbled, punted away unable to do anything while 4-5 guys jump on you. No other decent game allows these things. Why? Because being unable to control your character for many seconds is the apex of "not fun". A sense of hopeless-ness and discouragement takes over when you see there's NOTHING you can do while you see you die. I am speaking from my shadow experience (that is hard stun and big damage dealer) so it's not a "complaint" of somebody playing whichever "weak perceived" class.

 

- Now, you'd wonder: "with such amount of CC, it means this is a tactical game with relatively low damage involved, where players carefully pick the long cooldown strategic CC skills and outplay the opponents".

 

Totally the opposite! CC are often on very short timers so there's no need to play smart, just spam "whichever lits up first".

 

- Boring battle objectives. I play shadow. I SHALL die of boredom, stuck guarding pylons, after pylons, after pylons. Objectives are off the "beaten path" so who goes there is pretty much sure to see no fun and rare action.

You'd think: "well this is so boring, then it's probably well rewarded!" Nope. You get half the "medals" the others got while also having fun. You just stand there waiting for two stealthers to kill you fast. At the end of the match, 90% of the time you won't get any "MVP vote" for having played for the team. They shall give MVP to the guy who did 2M pure fluff damage and 2 kills.

 

- There are probably a number of other reasons but I think I have typed enough already. Feel free to add them!

I agree with them all, but those above echo my feelings exactly...I've hated the CC in this game from beta.

 

And my favorite reason is your last one. As you said, the objectives Bioware has in PvP suck...they dictate that the single most important job in a WZ is doing absolutely nothing. If there were capture and ignore objectives (more akin to huttball), rather than capture and hold, I think PvP would improve drastically.

[AxeDragoneth]

<3 this thread.

 

Here's a little song for all who think there is hope:

 

Edited April 1, 2014 by AxeDragoneth

[Damsyl]

With anyone that has any sort of common sense (by the way, rating doesn't mean anything, not in this game. Not when it's not cross server and you aren't going against people who are as good if not better than most of the people here. Plus, solo rating is equivalent to you gambling in Vegas. For Healers, we 9 times out of 10 have to kite to win ) you can look at Warhammer and see the future of SWTOR. Anything that EA touches dies, this has been proven many many times.

 

Their refusal to put in cross server, and to give us any answer that can be appreciated other than NO, or NOT IN OUR ROADMAP has really just set the RIP in stone for SWTOR.

[phalczen]

I agree with them all, but those above echo my feelings exactly...I've hated the CC in this game from beta.

 

And my favorite reason is your last one. As you said, the objectives Bioware has in PvP suck...they dictate that the single most important job in a WZ is doing absolutely nothing. If there were capture and ignore objectives (more akin to huttball), rather than capture and hold, I think PvP would improve drastically.

 

Which is interesting, since they seem to have learned from their mistakes and made sure that in GSF Domination, capturing/guarding the satellites nets you more medals than blowing up your enemy.

[Vaerah]

What I find actually funny is that you claim that you want "to play with similar level players against similar level opponents".

 

I want this as well. And I'm not a top player.

 

Meanwhile you write that "That is, good players are dragged down, they just can't carry 7 terribles.",

you fail to see that the other side of this coin consists of 7 top players farming everyone who is bad.

 

Instead of those top players just refusing to farm bads, they just carry on farming them. And at the same time they [iinsist[/i] that they want "to play with similar level players against similar level opponents".

 

There is not only adverse selection this way (goods carrying bads), it is also the other way round : goods farmning bads.

 

A Bad has THE SAME RIGHT "to play with similar level players against similar level opponents" as top players have !

 

1) In the very part you have quoted, I stated: "When I enter a WZ I'd want to play with similar level players against similar level opponents".

 

"Similar" does not mean "I want to enter, meet a bunch of the lowest scrubs and farm them for hours".

 

Similar means that there's some mechanism that tracks how many wins and losses a player gets over time and tries to put him in fights against similar record players.

 

My personal amount of skill is not even mentioned as it'd be just statistics in a match database.

 

 

 

2) Also, there's an important factor you missed: all new and succesful MMOs have a number of established, social players who act as "motivators". They tend to get consensus, to command guilds, to organize "meta" game like players meetings, in game events and so on.

Those players tend also to perform well both in PvE and PvP (their popularity also helps them find other good players).

Those are players who tend to attract more players to the server and to generally create a good "mood".

 

Now, enter SWTOR (and other MMOs) adverse selection mechanism: these players are the first to get hit as they are sort of the contrary of the permanent doom-atmoshphere, rarer and rarer queues (PvE wait times too) and an expanding feeling of being abandoned, of "anything I do is pointless".

 

So they start quitting for other games, those who remain suddenly find "holes": guild leaders who suddenly quit, server events stop being done, organized PvP guilds dissolve.

Shortly after comes the decline.

 

 

Begeran Colony need not be included in the made up "post mortem" analysis thread about how pvp is dead. Pvp is not dead. Not even close.

 

There are always happy islands but they are in a sea along with the others.

I also have played on happy servers (in other MMOs) that resisted much longer before going down. But in the end they also dried up, perished and died. Because when a MMO dies, it dies for everyone, you just don't see it as readily as others do.

 

SWTOR is not technically dead but the developers have basically raised the white flag. PvP speaking, it's on life support.

 

 

I also think you have to be careful about leveling judgement based on someones current ranked ratings. It's very possible the OP has never played ranked, or it is also possible that the OP played ranked extensively back in the 8v8 days and dropped it since. I was originally part of one of the top 8v8 teams on the old Kaas City server on my tank jug, but I have not played the toon since my first stint away from the game and now only have a crap rating on my sentinel.

 

 

You are very correct. The OP (that is me) plays in one of the last ranked arena guilds left on my server, with TeamSpeak and all.

However I don't queue with them, because every day I play at vastly different and unpredictable hours and I am not going to damage my guild mates by forcing them to play in disadvantage as they can't know my play style and become a true competitive team. There are teams made with guys playing together for 6 months, each other knows exactly how the others (will) react, think, move and this is important in the long term.

 

I do regs, with those of them who are currently not queued for ranked and win enough that I already have today the coms to buy the full future PvP gear including replacing mods with the min maxed one. On 2 characters.

[foxmob]

PvP is only going to get worse. The one thing that is tied into almost every problem is population restrictions and the one thing which could solve this issue is cross server which is never going to happen.

 

Sucks because I loved this game at launch and still like it but it's just bad decision after bad decision that continues to drive players away.

 

x-server isn't saving sheeit anyway. we're past that point. far too many PvPers are long gone. grp ranked has no hope. it's a casual game. casual rated is the only hope for rated. that means yolo solo. and even that needs a lot of work. I've reconciled myself to this. we've done the unsub thing. I preordered my copy of WS. I'll hook up with my old guildies there. life will continue.