For developers (about world pvp)

[omaan]

I know that new instance system which you provided was created to save world pvp... so, it didn't worked out and pvp community of swtor are still hoping that you won't end with it and that developers will think, plan and provide something else to renew world pvp in swtor. Instance system isn't working, all pvp instances are empty even though there are many pvp players who wants to enjoy world pvp (just go to pvp forum part and check many threads about it). Pvp community hopes that devs will find a way to save world pvp so please don't stop if you are doing it and start to do it if you haven't started it yet.

Why world pvp is dead?Personally i think that this game wasn't created for world pvp at all and those who were creating it didn't had any intentions To make good world pvp system. Why? If you fly to any planet you can notice that territories of these planets are made seperatly so republic and empire players just can't meet each other (with some exceptions e. g. the dune sea).Reps and imps territories are always devided Into two parts and in the middle there are water, mountains, walls etc. Those who were creating this game had an "defensive" policy:they wanted defend players from being killed by other players even on pvp servers. Such "politics" ofcourse ruined pvp system of this game. And now with instance system world pvp is dead. Especially when there are so many zones where people can be in pvp instance and still can't attack each other (all KOTFEE zones) which is amusing because makes this instance thing absolutely useless.

Other pvp problems are:no cross-server warzones ques, huge faction inbalance (republic is dominated by imps (anyway it's not dev's problem and definitely not their fault), no dueling zone where people can /duel their own faction players (pls don't confound it with free-for-all zone.

So, dear devs, i hope you read this (i think you won't ofcourse) but anyway PVP community is waiting for changes, there are also many suggestion in pvp topic of our forum, thanks.

Edited July 29, 2016 by omaan

[DirtyDiggler]

World PVP will never work on this game. The best thing we can hope for is cross server PVP

[Erevan_Kindelar]

I, and probably quite a few other people here, am quite confused by the conflicting messages coming from the open-world PvP "community", and I dare say that the devs are probably also confused.

Disclosure: I am a player with several characters on ToFN, Bastion and PoT5.

 

The basic reason for my confusion is that, when we have dedicated PvP servers, people do not play on them. Granted, I know that in recent months the reason for that has been the low/non-existent populations on those servers leading people to transfer to the more populated PvE servers, but even when the PvP servers were at their most popular open-world PvP seemed to consist primarily of large packs of high-level players ganking lower-levels on the opposition side at a few hotspots, and then retreating when a group of similarly leveled players reacted.

 

Now that the devs have given us the option of entering a PvP instance on any server, the open-world PvP crowd do not use that option, citing the (entirely accurate) fact that the PvP instances are empty or nearly so. The issue there is that the people complaining are the ones who can solve the problem - if everyone who wants open-world PvP were to switch to the PvP instances, then surely the PvP instances would not be empty... or if the people looking for open-world PvP were to announce on the server forum that their Guild is running an event in the PvP instance, and that players from both sides are welcome to join in, then the instances might not be so empty. That might encourage more people to engage in open-world PvP. Because as it stands, it seems as though the open-world PvP community consists of about 5 people and somebody's pet dog - we have been given an option that we can make use of, and if we do not make even a minima effort to use it, then what is the point of the devs giving us anything else?

 

Contrast that with the endgame PvE crowd, who would be all over a new end-game Operation like a group of starving Hutts on an all-you-can-eat buffet - they will critique the content, some will complain about the difficulty and everyone will complain about bugs, but they WILL use and experience the content. The OWPvP crowd seem to be like a spoiled cat - pestering for food, and then when they finally get some they sniff it and turn away without touching it because they might have to, heaven forbid, chew it.

[omaan]

open-world PvP seemed to consist primarily of large packs of high-level players ganking lower-levels on the opposition side at a few hotspots, and then retreating when a group of similarly leveled players reacted.

 

And that was cool! Players were defending their faction and killing low levels is a part of world pvp. There also were many random, non-predicted 1vs1 fights on pvp servers.... Now, when this instance system appeared everything gone, free or cheap transfers gave many players a chance to transfer their characters to pve servers and pvp servers died... anyway, as i wrote in second part of my message, devs didn't had any intentions to create good pvp system with decent open-world pvp even on creating game stage. Defensive policy took away wish to pvp from many players, maybe people are right and this game is doomed...

Anyway, i still have a small hope that devs will think something and change current situation...

Edited July 29, 2016 by omaan

[DarthMaulUK]

World PvP wont happen simply because the game engine can't handle it. Clearly you weren't there at launch with the days of Ilum and 2fps.

 

The only way any kind of World PvP would take off, is if it was to be part of conquest or something additional like it was in SWG - where you raid enemy bases on planets, which flags you for pvp - word got round, so the Rebels turned up to defend the base - creating open world pvp - it rocked

 

But this game is all about story, so pvp is rock bottom on the list of priorities.

[omaan]

World PvP wont happen simply because the game engine can't handle it. Clearly you weren't there at launch with the days of Ilum and 2fps.

 

The only way any kind of World PvP would take off, is if it was to be part of conquest or something additional like it was in SWG - where you raid enemy bases on planets, which flags you for pvp - word got round, so the Rebels turned up to defend the base - creating open world pvp - it rocked

 

But this game is all about story, so pvp is rock bottom on the list of priorities.

 

Well,i have a powerful pc and iam playing on maximum (ultra) graphics with max shadows and i don't care about fps. Anyway,it's sad that swtor has such poor world pvp policy....what sense to play this game then? We have small chapters each month for 30 min. and then nothing....the purpose of this game is just to log in once per month?

[AlrikFassbauer]

And that was cool!

 

*facepalm*

[Tsetso]

I know that new instance system which you provided was created to save world pvp...

 

Wrong. They created it to kill world pvp on the only place it was happening - pvp servers, and they did a remarkably good job at it - pvp servers are ghost towns atm.

[JediQuaker]

Actually, they have created an open-world PvP environment. It's called Star Wars: Battlefront.

 

I've never quite understood why people join an RPG to do PvP. When I want to do PvP, I just play good old TFC for a hour or so.

(Believe it or not, there are still a few active TFC servers. Btw, I play TFC because I already have it. I consider myself to be an MMORPG player these days, so I'm not willing to spend the time learning a new FPS game - not even Battlefront.)

Edited July 31, 2016 by JediQuaker

[josephxp]

PVP instances are empty for a good reason on worlds, people do NOT like being ganged up 4 vs 1 with level 65's with 2016 expertise and the guy being a level 40 with 0 pvp gear. Ya with level sync they will be the same levels but the expertise boost can make someone go 2 vs 1 and win solo assuming the other 2 have 0 pvp gear.

 

So ya, open world pvp best thing you will get is the PVP instance, PVP servers were not popular for the above said reasons which is why they implemented the instance system.

[Tsetso]

PVP servers were not popular for the above said reasons which is why they implemented the instance system.

 

On the contrary. At launch i've been in queue for 6 hours just to log on ToFN. At that time TRE was light. So don't tell me that pvp servers weren't popular. The fact that the devs made everything possible to chase players that liked owpvp led to the current situation with the former pvp server.

Edited July 31, 2016 by Tsetso

[josephxp]

On the contrary. At launch i've been in queue for 6 hours just to log on ToFN. At that time TRE was light. So don't tell me that pvp servers weren't popular. The fact that the devs made everything possible to chase players that liked owpvp led to the current situation with the former pvp server.

 

That was at launch, pvp servers declined and by 3.0 there population was small/low and that was 2 1/2 years ago and those servers went downhill.

[Tsetso]

That was at launch, pvp servers declined and by 3.0 there population was small/low and that was 2 1/2 years ago and those servers went downhill.

 

That's exactly what i said. And there is 0 evidence that is has anything to do with

people do NOT like being ganged up 4 vs 1 with level 65's with 2016 expertise and the guy being a level 40 with 0 pvp gear. Ya with level sync they will be the same levels but the expertise boost can make someone go 2 vs 1 and win solo assuming the other 2 have 0 pvp gear.

If that was true, people wouldn't have flocked to pvp servers at launch. So my point stands - world pvp is dead because BW killed it.

[Rolodome]

Maybe I'm wrong and just don't know the history, but in my experience with world PvP in games like these, the main issue is the same thing every time: One faction dominates the other, people get ganked/trolled, and unless you're on the favored side/team, your play experience is exceedingly riddled with untimely death.

 

The best experiences I've ever had with world PvP in other games was when I was part of a guild with some force behind us, up against another guild with some force behind them. Solo play on a PvP server is bleak, unless you're a king of 1v1ing and 1v3ing, and such.

 

Invariably, it seems, you need the community there to support it, but the guilds who might have been interested in fighting at launch slowly grow tired of stomping baddie guilds, or getting stomped by superior numbers and/or superior guilds, and give up.

 

One could say this is the fault of the developers, but the devs can only give people things to do in a contested area. They can't force people to fight with even numbers, or force gank squads and trolling not to happen. There has to be a strong maintained interest in doing it from the community and frankly... a lot of the types who would do world PvP regularly are probably off playing simpler games, like CoD.

 

Now again, maybe I'm wrong and the devs messed up world PvP somehow, but I'm been reading these forums a lot in the past few months and this is the first time I've seen someone bring up world PvP at all.

[Tsetso]

One could say this is the fault of the developers, but the devs can only give people things to do in a contested area.

 

Yes, and instead of giving, they took away. For instance world bosses - there is no sense to contest them since they drop junk. At launch the Primal Destroyer was dropping a recipe for magenta crystal. With the CM crystals this became obsolete.

 

After several reworks of Ilum they finally made the event. It was a lot of fun until the change with pvp/pve instances.

 

We were having a lot of fun on planets like Alderaan, Quesh, Voss - but that was before there was a teleport to everywhere and people actually traveled in the world.

 

The conquest system was fun too - denying the kill of commanders led to some great battles. Now people do it in pve instances and there is nothing someone can do. Well i guess you could heal the commander - and then the raid cannot do anything to you!!!

 

Let's see what we had when the pvp/pve instance patch dropped(talking about pvp servers)

• All H2s can be done in a pve instance.
  
• Gree event - even the so called "contested zone" is pve in pve instance. The only quest that require pvp instance is the orb one and it only gives a small amount of wz commendations.
  
• Oricon - before that patch there was a lot of fun while waiting for the ops groups to gather. Now nobody actually gathers at the entrance - someone just goes there and summons the whole raid.
  
• Rakghoul event - same thing as Gree.
  
• All worlds are mostly empty - except for the DvL characters leveling at the moment. There is no reason to go anywhere by ship/speeder - all important locations you can just port to.
  

[Rolodome]

Yes, and instead of giving, they took away. For instance world bosses - there is no sense to contest them since they drop junk. At launch the Primal Destroyer was dropping a recipe for magenta crystal. With the CM crystals this became obsolete.

 

After several reworks of Ilum they finally made the event. It was a lot of fun until the change with pvp/pve instances.

 

We were having a lot of fun on planets like Alderaan, Quesh, Voss - but that was before there was a teleport to everywhere and people actually traveled in the world.

 

The conquest system was fun too - denying the kill of commanders led to some great battles. Now people do it in pve instances and there is nothing someone can do. Well i guess you could heal the commander - and then the raid cannot do anything to you!!!

 

Let's see what we had when the pvp/pve instance patch dropped(talking about pvp servers)

• All H2s can be done in a pve instance.
  
• Gree event - even the so called "contested zone" is pve in pve instance. The only quest that require pvp instance is the orb one and it only gives a small amount of wz commendations.
  
• Oricon - before that patch there was a lot of fun while waiting for the ops groups to gather. Now nobody actually gathers at the entrance - someone just goes there and summons the whole raid.
  
• Rakghoul event - same thing as Gree.
  
• All worlds are mostly empty - except for the DvL characters leveling at the moment. There is no reason to go anywhere by ship/speeder - all important locations you can just port to.
  

Aw, so they made it a lot more instanced then? That's sad.

[Andryah]

Aw, so they made it a lot more instanced then? That's sad.

 

PvP was always instanced. There were entire servers that = a PvP instance and rule set... albeit at the server level. Which is by the way.. an dated and perhaps outdated approach for most of today's MMO players.

 

And like it or not.. North America PvPers have been abandoning PvP servers since launch.. beginning when they made the great exodus to The Fatman and declared it the defacto PvP server. They griefed each other for a while and then when the actual server merges came.. they mostly abandoned The Fatman. Rinse and repeat this a couple times.. and you end up with the server farm we have now.. and lo and behold.. as soon as the studio gave the PvPers super cheap transfers for 10 months.. they largely abandoned their PvP servers to go play on The Harbinger.... EVEN BEFORE the change of servers to use PvE/PvP instancing.

 

TL;DR PvPers, in general, are restless nomads who are perpetually angry about the state of PvP in an MMO (not just this one) and have little or no server loyalty, much less any particular MMO loyalty.

 

What actually happened with the recent implementing of PvE/PvP instancing AND making all servers now run the same rule set is..........coupled with long running transfer discounts.... it gave players more choice and in effect, more personal control over PvP or not to PvP. Now.. why would this result in what we see today? Easy... PvPers will pile on the biggest server they can find.. and since this is not a PvP centric MMO...a majority of players prefer to be able to decide when they engage in PvP or not (ie: not be griefed by numbers or levels). I concede that the direction the studio took works against those who like to gank by numbers, level, or positional advantage (stealth). I also concede these folks who get their jollies via PvP grief are of zero concern to my or my playing of MMOs.

 

World PvP is largely a myth in this game. It is largely a myth in many MMOs to be honest. Been that way for most MMOs since studios began focusing on instanced PvP (which in spite of the grumbling heard by some.... is what most PvPers seem to want in the genre these days).

Edited August 1, 2016 by Andryah

[Rolodome]

TL;DR PvPers, in general, are restless nomads who are perpetually angry about the state of PvP in an MMO (not just this one) and have little or no server loyalty, much less any particular MMO loyalty.

I just had to stop by to LOL at this.

 

To be fair though, you could say this about raiders too and any other crowd who expects the same stuff from every new MMO. For PvP, there's just too much competition for them to bother being loyal and nobody in MMORPGs is stupid enough to put all of their budget into PvP because it's a failing prospect. Other game types, like MOBAs and FPS, beat it out by a country mile. GW2 is kind of trying to, but even they are only betting part of their horse on PvP. They even added raids to their game, so they're clearly feeling the heat of their PvP MMO dreams being crushed.

 

PvP has become a spectator sport and MMOs are one of the worst possible forms for spectators. The learning curve to understand a thing about what's going on (if you don't play the game and just want to watch) is enormous. So nobody wants to fund it because the $$$ profit isn't there.

 

BTW, I think my forum access is going out soon (unless it bugs or something), so if you respond to this and I don't say anything, that's probably why.

[LyraineAlei]

*facepalm*

 

That was my response as well.

 

I will admit to using the PvP instance more for Heroics chasing (Dromund Kaas comes to mind as an example) and some people have used it for World Boss and Worthy Jaggernath Trophy Hunting because it is empty and no one is there.

 

But I only once rolled a character on a PvP server because I was concerned about being ganked as a lowbie. Sure, groups of midbies and highbies could ride in to the defense of the ganked victim, but OWPvP always seemed like it was supposed to be groups of people of about the same level duking it out in the world. Not level 65s swarming a small group of 20s and stun-locking them into death.

 

PvP Instances are good for cross-guild or cross-faction RP sessions though.

 

So I queue up for Unranked PvP, travel on the PvE instance, and deleted the lone PvP server character I rolled.

[DarthMaulUK]

Well,i have a powerful pc and iam playing on maximum (ultra) graphics with max shadows and i don't care about fps. Anyway,it's sad that swtor has such poor world pvp policy....what sense to play this game then? We have small chapters each month for 30 min. and then nothing....the purpose of this game is just to log in once per month?

 

PvP has no Cartel coin value - therefore it hardly gets any love. Bioware hate pvper's for a reason. Shortly after they tried and failed to Cartel coin PvP with GSF they have just slapped the PvP community down time and time again as punishment.

 

During the time of the first great server merge, those who PvP'ed transferred to ToFN. A ton of guilds and players went gearing up for the new seasons, the open world pvp and more. Then yet ANOTHER Bioware brain fart saw them remove 8v8 ranked without warning and replacing it with the mess that are Arenas.

 

That opened the door for a mass exodus of players and pvp has never recovered from the glory days. Then, adding insult to injury, Bioware have made no effort to bring any kind of combat balance to PvP leaving one or two classes as FoTM for months (or in the case of Sorcs - 24 months).

 

You can also throw in the endless amount of times bolster has been broken. Naked bolster, Ship components adding to bolster, weapon tuning slot breaking bolster - a few of the recent ones.

 

They haven't even posted in the PvP forum for almost 2 years which sums up how much love they have for pvp. Its ultra casual, and should be treated that way going forward.

Edited August 1, 2016 by DarthMaulUK

[ImmortalLowlife]

And that was cool! Players were defending their faction and killing low levels is a part of world pvp....

 

 

And you wonder why ppl left/avoid PvP servers..... yea let's get a bunch of maxed out characters and go harass some lvl 20 cat who's still trying to figure out HOW to play. THIS is as bad as those lvl 65's who hang around Korriban & DK challenging lvl 12's to duels.

[TUXs]

Wrong. They created it to kill world pvp on the only place it was happening - pvp servers, and they did a remarkably good job at it - pvp servers are ghost towns atm.

EXACTLY! It was done so they didn't have to close and merge more servers. Nothing more.

[Lularapio]

On the contrary. At launch i've been in queue for 6 hours just to log on ToFN. At that time TRE was light. So don't tell me that pvp servers weren't popular. The fact that the devs made everything possible to chase players that liked owpvp led to the current situation with the former pvp server.

 

OWPvP is a joke wherever it exists for the most part. It only consists of a bunch of higher leveled characters ganging up on low levels and when they are about to face some retaliation they disappear just as fast.

[-PassingStar-]

I just had to stop by to LOL at this.

 

To be fair though, you could say this about raiders too and any other crowd who expects the same stuff from every new MMO. For PvP, there's just too much competition for them to bother being loyal and nobody in MMORPGs is stupid enough to put all of their budget into PvP because it's a failing prospect. Other game types, like MOBAs and FPS, beat it out by a country mile. GW2 is kind of trying to, but even they are only betting part of their horse on PvP. They even added raids to their game, so they're clearly feeling the heat of their PvP MMO dreams being crushed.

 

PvP has become a spectator sport and MMOs are one of the worst possible forms for spectators. The learning curve to understand a thing about what's going on (if you don't play the game and just want to watch) is enormous. So nobody wants to fund it because the $$$ profit isn't there.

 

BTW, I think my forum access is going out soon (unless it bugs or something), so if you respond to this and I don't say anything, that's probably why.

Well said, and I would like to add... First let me preface by saying that I really enjoy pvp. It can be really fun, and a diversion from the basic game.

 

How many of you have read PVP chat, on any server? For the most part it's filled with vulgar, and obscene comments about who did what wrong and why. Griefers, trolls, and angry little man-children who never learned to communicate without insulting another person seem to be the norm.

 

Most of us play SWTOR for a diversion from RL, a bit of fun that adds a little spice to the every day. Hence, when we log on the last thing any of us want is to read is hate-laced comments that are based on nothing more than the childish attitudes of adult children who believe it's acceptable to threaten one another.

 

I played SWG, and really loved that games open world PvP. Something ugly has happened in the world of PvP in the last 10 years. It's not the game, or the game company, it's the players who are making PvP so non-entertaining.

[Tsetso]

OWPvP is a joke wherever it exists for the most part. It only consists of a bunch of higher leveled characters ganging up on low levels and when they are about to face some retaliation they disappear just as fast.

 

And what exactly has that to do with the post you quoted? I get it - you hate world pvp, but when you quote someone make sure your post has at least some connection to the post.