About PVP: Here's the deal Bioware

[JP_Legatus]

I think after playing a lot of MMO games I can honestly say I'd like to be playing SWTOR for pvp the most out of all of them. I absolutely love huttball and you can't find it anywhere else. I grew up on star wars and if I had a choice there would be more SW MMO's. PVP in SWTOR is, IMO, more fun than PVP in other MMO's as well, even on the underpowered classes (though some like PT, merc, and sniper get really boring for me). I feel like if there's one game in the world that really had a chance to become the biggest PVP MMO, it was SWTOR.

 

 

Here's the problem though: You killed your pvp base with poor decision making and unacceptable time frames on the real changes that needed to occur.

 

No cross server, and servers aren't big enough to support real pvp matchmaking.

This hasn't changed much since release. Even when the game launched there were a number of teams in the queue and you pretty much knew who those teams were, whether or not you had a team that could beat them, and which warzone choice would net you the most comms per hour when deciding between rated/regs. Unless you were the top team during that time period, you went regs, and the top team had trouble finding opponents to play against in rateds. Cross server needed to happen from day 1, and years later no concern has been given to the fact that pvp is dying due to simple unwillingness to handle this issue. There's a minimum number of people you need in a matchmaking queue to support proper operation of that system, and anyone with a brain can tell you SWTOR's servers didn't meet that requirement.

With the population so small now, even if this were done today would the community be large enough to support proper matchmaking accross every server? Probably not. If this had been handled early on PVP would still be alive today.

 

PVP balance updates: Once every year or two?

At the very least, nerf the top performing class and buff the bottom class at least once every 2 or 3 months. Give every class their day and don't make them wait 6-24 months for a buff. This isn't really asking a lot. It could be a damage buff, a utility buff, a movement buff, a dcd buff, whatever the hell you want to do. Even if it's half-assed, do SOMETHING. Not all buffs and nerfs need to affect PVE, and this has been demonstrated quite easily with some of the recent changes to undying rage, smash, and other changes that largely left class performance unchanged in PVE while leaving drastic implications on that class' PVP performance. Unfortunately, you left smash OP for over a year and a half (did it reach 2 years?), concealment ops trash for about the same amount of time, likewise for madness sins, the list goes on. Finally in (2.8?) some real changes were made, and I applaud the effort, but it's too little too late. Nobody can find opponents to play against.

 

World pvp: Why no support?

Sure, some people complain about it. But that's probably because you poorly designed it. Put some PVP turrets or something in there so even if one side is getting farmed, they can still knock people into range of turrets and to their deaths or whatever. Maybe put some NPC's on the side with less people or put powerups or vehicles on the maps that let you account for numbers. Make some big damage AOE artillery to thin crowds out. It doesn't take a lot of work to come up with some ways around imbalanced factions. Just a little EFFORT.

 

Exploits and bugs: fixed every year or two.

Well we all knew on the PTS that bolster would be broken. Surprise, it was broken. People spoke out on the PTS. And it remained broken after that update went live for several months. I believe people were still discovering exploits to bolster 6 months after bolster went live. Not an acceptable time frame for a game with a "rated" system to work out an exploit with a bolster system. How about force shroud? How about operative roll? How about capping while stealthed or walking through the barriers? How about being able to death field THROUGH THE WALL in places like voidstar to stop caps? This stuff took way too long to fix in a game with rated pvp, these kinds of things should get an immediate hotfix at or before the next weekly maintenance.

 

I could go on, but I'm not sure there's anything I can say at this point that will fix the damage you've already done to this game. Maybe something will be learned from this and maybe next time a game comes out some better decision making will occur. Best of luck in turning this game around bioware, I hope for your success.

Edited July 11, 2014 by JP_Legatus

[Pistols]

Here's the problem though: You killed your pvp base with poor decision making and unacceptable time frames on the real changes that needed to occur.

 

Even when the game launched there were a number of teams in the queue and you pretty much knew who those teams were, whether or not you had a team that could beat them, and which warzone choice would net you the most comms per hour when deciding between rated/regs. Unless you were the top team during that time period, you went regs, and the top team had trouble finding opponents to play against in rateds. Cross server needed to happen from day 1, and years later no concern has been given to the fact that pvp is dying due to simple unwillingness to handle this issue. There's a minimum number of people you need in a matchmaking queue to support proper operation of that system, and anyone with a brain can tell you SWTOR's servers didn't meet that requirement.

With the population so small now, even if this were done today would the community be large enough to support proper matchmaking accross every server? Probably not. If this had been handled early on PVP would still be alive today.

While I do agree on what you're conveying here, Rankeds were not around at launch, as that didn't come into play until June of 2012. But yes I agree with you here for the most part.

 

PVP balance updates: Once every year or two?

At the very least, nerf the top performing class and buff the bottom class at least once every 2 or 3 months. Give every class their day and don't make them wait 6-24 months for a buff. This isn't really asking a lot. It could be a damage buff, a utility buff, a movement buff, a dcd buff, whatever the hell you want to do. Even if it's half-assed, do SOMETHING. Not all buffs and nerfs need to affect PVE, and this has been demonstrated quite easily with some of the recent changes to undying rage, smash, and other changes that largely left class performance unchanged in PVE while leaving drastic implications on that class' PVP performance. Unfortunately, you left smash OP for over a year and a half (did it reach 2 years?), concealment ops trash for about the same amount of time, likewise for madness sins, the list goes on. Finally in (2.8?) some real changes were made, and I applaud the effort, but it's too little too late. Nobody can find opponents to play against.

 

Yeah the balance changes are coming way too slow, and let's not forget about Bubble stuns and how long those wrecked PvP gameplay as well. I think it's gotten even worse ever since the cap was raised to 55, but IMO I think that is due to the new "combat people" developing this stuff, who quite simply don't PvP enough to recognize failure and how it plays out in WZ's/Arenas either.

 

World pvp: Why no support?

Sure, some people complain about it. But that's probably because you poorly designed it. Put some PVP turrets or something in there so even if one side is getting farmed, they can still knock people into range of turrets and to their deaths or whatever. Maybe put some NPC's on the side with less people or put powerups or vehicles on the maps that let you account for numbers. Make some big damage AOE artillery to thin crowds out. It doesn't take a lot of work to come up with some ways around imbalanced factions. Just a little EFFORT.

I disagree with this request (to some degree, hear me out first). OWPvP is dead because their engine is horrible. On top of their implementation of what it used to be (also horrible design), but the fact of the matter is this game cannot support OWPvP to a degree that is fun due to their limitations on engine itself. That ship sunk early in 2012 when they admitted defeat and removed it. The only viable OWPvP that could work, is having periodic events (such as Gree and perhaps other stuff), and even that is hit or miss. Players usually want "rewards" for OWPvP (which I could careless about personally), and with OW rewards comes "farming, see Ilum Valor farms on youtube". The Old Republic vs. the Sith "struggle" has been lost in this game, simply due to terribad coding and hardware/engine issues and the wrong focus. Watching the old SWTOR trailer videos before the game came out, pumped me up because it looked like a legit faction vs faction fight, lol now faction means crap and nobody (and the team itself) even cares.

 

Exploits and bugs: fixed every year or two.

Well we all knew on the PTS that bolster would be broken. Surprise, it was broken. People spoke out on the PTS. And it remained broken after that update went live for several months. I believe people were still discovering exploits to bolster 6 months after bolster went live. Not an acceptable time frame for a game with a "rated" system to work out an exploit with a bolster system. How about force shroud? How about operative roll? How about capping while stealthed or walking through the barriers? How about being able to death field THROUGH THE WALL in places like voidstar to stop caps? This stuff took way too long to fix in a game with rated pvp, these kinds of things should get an immediate hotfix at or before the next weekly maintenance.

 

Totally agree, and let's not forget the STILL live in-game exploit of using "guard". The Dev team simply fails bro, this is what we have, and will hardly get better. Their failure on Bolster was icing for many, on top of the infamous "No" thread from Eric. Skeleton staff running a skeleton game milking $$ from the CM, that about sums up TOR as a whole, as well as giving green Devs some experience at this point.

 

I could go on, but I'm not sure there's anything I can say at this point that will fix the damage you've already done to this game. Maybe something will be learned from this and maybe next time a game comes out some better decision making will occur. Best of luck in turning this game around bioware, I hope for your success.

 

I'm just hoping Disney finds a way to make another SW MMO....sandbox style. EA/SOE failed at it...maybe if SW hits it off well in theaters with the new releases, we might see another company try again, but I think the old school developers (who understood sandbox themes) would need to be in on it or a company that actually cares about their product, but we all know that is one big pipedream.

 

/cheers

Edited July 12, 2014 by Pistols

[xX-Archangel-Xx]

couldn't agree more, fact is i will contine to play it cuz i grown up with SW and ilike it, but if one day i will find the game has been closed i will not be surprised by it ... Edited July 12, 2014 by xX-Archangel-Xx

[Uber_the_Goober]

Money talks, bulls&** walks.

 

Bioware caters to the demographic bringing in the most money. That's not PvP right now.

 

So the PvP'ers all walked.

[Suryi]

Money talks, bulls&** walks.

 

Bioware caters to the demographic bringing in the most money. That's not PvP right now.

 

So the PvP'ers all walked.

 

Depressingly accurate post.

[ronniehenlau]

Money talks, bulls&** walks.

 

Bioware caters to the demographic bringing in the most money. That's not PvP right now.

 

So the PvP'ers all walked.

 

This made me a sad panda :<

[DarthRaika]

A lot of money comes from casual (in time played per week) but rather competitive pvp'rs like myself. I used to buy 80-120 dollars worth of CC a month to fund my pvp chars. I know a lot of people don't do that but I am sure there were others. PVE'rs don't need to do this since they make enough money as is.

 

I would still buy that amount except I decided that I would only buy $40 a month if they didn't add x-server by early this year and they did not .

 

Also, if they added wardrobe so I didn't have to wear legacy gear then I would have bought a lot more CC.

 

I really think they could have made a bunch off of pvp'rs via the CM but they have just dropped the ball so hard and now it is likely too late to fix it.

 

Take ranked for example. There is a pub guild on POT5 that everyone knows q syncs most weeknights, they have admitted to it, and several of them berate anyone q'n who is not in their guild. I never enjoyed arenas in other games but I had some fun in yolos this season and I got several chars over 1500. However, now most imps have quit q'n during the pub q sync period and yolo has pretty much died. I bet this guild still gets their rewards at the end of the season. There is really no chance for pvp in this game if BW allows this in their ranked pvp. Sad but true.

[Ravenschild]

My guild averages between 7-10 hypercrates per month. Sometimes its higher and sometimes its lower. Were 90% pvp and 10% pve. WE do GSF as well as ground pvp and are already looking at Star Citizen if things do not change. Especially the constant shake ups in pvp due to the double xp events. When we had the 3 in 6 weeks pvp didnt shake out and get back to normal until early to mid June. This also happened last year. Frankly they need to find something else other than speed-leveling to endgame and as a result having a ton of people influx in and mess up the pops for 6 weeks or so. Or fix it so you need to have a minimum of 40 valor to do 55 pvp.