Cross-faction warzones is a serious mistake

[StormForceDax]

A serious mistake?

Problem here is different players wanting different things. So a serious mistake for you, won't be regarded as such for someone else.

[Andryah]

A serious mistake?

Problem here is different players wanting different things. So a serious mistake for you, won't be regarded as such for someone else.

 

^^ Rational human being sighting.

[Andryah]

Yeah, but all they need to do is remove the words republic and imperial. There is no need to even add Alliance or make it complicated

 

“This is a republic training exercise...” with the “republic” removed... “This is a training exercise...”

 

It’s an extremely easy fix.

 

Yep. Seems like this would be easy and prudent on the part of the studio.

 

Though I think everyone can relate with ----> sometimes "walking and chewing gum at the same time appears to be a challenge" for the studio. So even if they do not do an "Imperial" "Republic" scrub of the announcement texts... it's still cross faction PvP which many PvPers have been begging for.

[Joonbeams]

They don't even need to do that - just get cross faction in-game and move on to things where story actually matters.

 

I know what you're trying to say - don't do anything that mucks things up or makes bringing this online take any longer than it should. Here here!

 

But it does matter to some players. You and I personally would be able to adjust, but some players clearly would be bothered by it. The devs can't cater to every whim and want. But where there is such a simple, easy, common-sense fix that hurts no one, and takes almost no time/resources, I would expect the devs to just go ahead and implement it. They are already working on bringing x-faction live, so they're already spending resources on it. This additional change is blue on black...

[omaan]

Yeah, but all they need to do is remove the words republic and imperial. There is no need to even add Alliance or make it complicated

 

“This is a republic training exercise...” with the “republic” removed... “This is a training exercise...”

 

It’s an extremely easy fix.

 

What about removing reps and imps overall? And make one faction for everyone so that you finally get your fair, balanced fights and instant pops? Or maybe lets just make this game a single-player game? You wont need to worry about any low pops, disbalance etc.

[AscendingSky]

What about removing reps and imps overall? And make one faction for everyone so that you finally get your fair, balanced fights and instant pops? Or maybe lets just make this game a single-player game? You wont need to worry about any low pops, disbalance etc.

 

There you go with the hyperbole again. All she's saying is that you can cut one single word out of the 'training exercise' voiceover track and use it to frame all cross-faction WZs easy peasy. Your ludicrous assertion that such ideas as one faction for all or turning TOR into a single player game are equal in scale to what Trixxie proposes is a very poorly made strawman argument.

[Aulus_Claudius]

There you go with the hyperbole again. All she's saying is that you can cut one single word out of the 'training exercise' voiceover track and use it to frame all cross-faction WZs easy peasy. Your ludicrous assertion that such ideas as one faction for all or turning TOR into a single player game are equal in scale to what Trixxie proposes is a very poorly made strawman argument.

He does have a point, though: The entire pro-cross-faction crowd keeps repeating the argument that factions have been a non-factor in the story for the past four years. That the idea that faction matters is somehow silly. And then you call the idea to get rid of factions senseless hyperbole?

 

Seems to me that's the logical next step if I chose to see the game through the eyes of cross-faction proponents. Once mortal enemies kiss and sing kumbayah and start fighting alongside one another (against their own, not some greater threat), what use do factions still have? Let's just have generic force users instead of Jedi and Sith. That's not what I want to see happen, but if you're going to make an argument it has to be followed to its logical conclusion.

Edited May 25, 2018 by Aulus_Claudius

[Joonbeams]

There you go with the hyperbole again. All she's saying is that you can cut one single word out of the 'training exercise' voiceover track and use it to frame all cross-faction WZs easy peasy. Your ludicrous assertion that such ideas as one faction for all or turning TOR into a single player game are equal in scale to what Trixxie proposes is a very poorly made strawman argument.

 

Yeah. It's hard to take the points seriously when they are that far over the top. A large portion of the player base won't care enough about this to make it worth the devs spending a ton of time on it -- that's a well-substantiated, empirical observation. And if we know anything from the studio it's that once there is an announcement, it's pretty much as good as done. So if you really want to get devs attention, one has to be realistic in the ask and see if there is still possibility for some minor tweaks. "DOOOOOOOOOOOOOM" really isn't going to get any attention...

[AscendingSky]

He does have a point, though: The entire pro-cross-faction crowd keeps repeating the argument that factions have been a non-factor in the story for the past four years. That the idea that faction matters is somehow silly. And then you call the idea to get rid of factions senseless hyperbole?

 

Seems to me that's the logical next step if I chose to see the game through the eyes of cross-faction proponents. Once mortal enemies kiss and sing kumbayah and start fighting alongside one another (against their own, not some greater threat), what use do factions still have? Let's just have generic force users instead of Jedi and Sith. That's not what I want to see happen, but if you're going to make an argument it has to be followed to its logical conclusion.

 

You should work on your reading comprehension. Please actually read what I wrote. What I said was ludicrous was his assertion that cutting one word out of a voiceover track was equivalent in scale to removing factions entirely or turning TOR into a single player game. Obviously a small edit to a sound file involves nowhere near the amount of work as his 'options' would, and is therefore a much more reasonable expectation/request.

Edited May 25, 2018 by AscendingSky

[kodrac]

We need cross faction PvP far more than we need some goofy *** story to pretend this isn't just a video game.

 

Oooh it's a guess who is the double agent story again!

[Eshvara]

I'm quite happy that we're finally becoming interfactional.

 

I know it isn't a word, but it is now!

 

!!

[Aulus_Claudius]

You should work on your reading comprehension. Please actually read what I wrote. What I said was ludicrous was his assertion that cutting one word out of a voiceover track was equivalent in scale to removing factions entirely or turning TOR into a single player game. Obviously a small edit to a sound file involves nowhere near the amount of work as his 'options' did, and is therefore a much more reasonable expectation/request.

That wasn't a case of poor reading comprehension - more of only having read your post and not his, and assuming the best on the part of both parties involved in the argument. It just never entered my mind that someone could actually claim an equivalence of scale between changing the voiceover track for the WZ cutscene (which is the very least that needs to happen) and converting the game to single-faction, and so ruled that interpretation of your post out from the start. Mea culpa.

 

That said, it raises a good question I hadn't thought of for those who continuously claim that faction has become a non-factor in the game. How far do they actually want to take this insanity? Does it stop with WZs, or do they intend to advocate expanding it to being able to chat with the opposing faction, to OPs, grouping for quests, or even abolishing factions entirely? I mean, once the argument has been made that faction is irrelevant (in a universe built entirely upon the eternal conflict and enmity between Light and Dark/Rep and Imp, but I digress), what role does it still play?

Edited May 25, 2018 by Aulus_Claudius

[Batwer]

I do not understand. You can also look at the whole story technically, everything happens then just within the alliance. Exercises. Team A must take the territory of Team B. Or you have to ally with the enemy to defeat a group that has also allied. I really do not understand the whine. You should be glad if you do not have to wait forever for something to pop. This is just a whine of people who have no imagination.

 

The same applies to Fp's. You have to band together to eliminate a dangerous enemy. (It would not be all FP's but already a few)

[EightiesMonkey]

First as an RPer, i start with a little bit of fun:

 

Baron Deathmark: Greetings Frogdogs and Rotworms! The Hutt Cartel has decided to invest a great deal of credits into galactic conflict! Not only do they have more Huttball planned, You will be forced to adapt and play with your enemies! All in the name of Giradda's entertainment! Say goodbye to Rotworms and Frogdogs and welcome the Rotdogs and Frogworms! From the Pit to Alderaan you will provide Hutt Entertainment for your sponsors!

 

Second, I can see where people are coming from, personally I think its a good idea to fix the faction imbalance. But that's just my opinion.

[omaan]

There you go with the hyperbole again. All she's saying is that you can cut one single word out of the 'training exercise' voiceover track and use it to frame all cross-faction WZs easy peasy. Your ludicrous assertion that such ideas as one faction for all or turning TOR into a single player game are equal in scale to what Trixxie proposes is a very poorly made strawman argument.

 

By removing faction elements you are changing this game from mmo to multi-player game, and you know it is not the same. Players in this game often discussed the nature or essence of swtor whether It is mmorpg (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) or just a simple multiplayer game (http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=909134) and by removing faction fights devs are making further steps for turning this game into a simple multiplayer game with no mmorpg elements. It will be soon like watchdogs 2 with its multiplayer elements without any role-gaming aspects. Maybe in future swtor will stop even being as mmo at all.

[JamaicanCastle]

By removing faction elements you are changing this game from mmo to multi-player game, and you know it is not the same.

 

Except that the distinction between MMOs and other multiplayer games has nothing to do with factions. There were MMOs with two factions, MMOs with three factions, MMOs with no factions. The distinctive features that make them MMOs are 1) size - in normal multiplayer games you have up to dozens of other players in your gamespace at a time, in an MMO you can have hundreds or thousands - and 2) continuity - in a normal multiplayer game, "out of game" spaces (like lobbies or queues) are the site of matchmaking and between-game socializing, whereas in MMOs those take place while you're still in an in-game space. That is, a key difference between queuing for a warzone or flashpoint in TOR and queuing for a match in, say, SC2 is that in the latter case, I'm in a chatroom - I'm not meaningfully in the setting and world. In TOR, I am - I'm on my character, in an in-game space, potentially interacting with other people who are also there.

[dugua]

By removing faction elements you are changing this game from mmo to multi-player game, and you know it is not the same. Players in this game often discussed the nature or essence of swtor whether It is mmorpg (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) or just a simple multiplayer game (http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=909134) and by removing faction fights devs are making further steps for turning this game into a simple multiplayer game with no mmorpg elements. It will be soon like watchdogs 2 with its multiplayer elements without any role-gaming aspects. Maybe in future swtor will stop even being as mmo at all.

 

Nope UO had pvp factions but other outside of that you were free to go wherever you wanted and it was one of the first mmos , EQ had cities but still you could go whereever you wanted with out be hindered and it never stopped them from be mmos

 

 

The first mmo for me that introduced factions was DAOC with its realms , that had realm/faction pride but still it was the same concept mmo like the rest.

 

Heck even if we take SWG it had empire va rebel theme but still you could go anywhere and it was still mmo..

[AscendingSky]

Nope UO had pvp factions but other outside of that you were free to go wherever you wanted and it was one of the first mmos , EQ had cities but still you could go whereever you wanted with out be hindered and it never stopped them from be mmos

 

 

The first mmo for me that introduced factions was DAOC with its realms , that had realm/faction pride but still it was the same concept mmo like the rest.

 

Heck even if we take SWG it had empire va rebel theme but still you could go anywhere and it was still mmo..

 

For a more modern example of this, look at ESO. While ESO technically still has the three factions with different tutorial/starting areas, with the One Tamriel update in 2016, players are free to adventure and quest in any zone they wish, they can be in guilds with members of any factions, AND they can group up together for all PvE content. ESO also happens to be doing a ton better than TOR right now in terms of number of players and delivery of content on a regular basis. It's where I've been indulging myself in between tiny content updates on here. Guess factions being able to interact and group together actually HELPS an MMO instead of hurting it.

Edited May 26, 2018 by AscendingSky

[TrixxieTriss]

What about removing reps and imps overall? And make one faction for everyone so that you finally get your fair, balanced fights and instant pops?

 

AWESOME IDEA... Bioware please take note ^^

 

Edited May 27, 2018 by TrixxieTriss

[Aulus_Claudius]

For a more modern example of this, look at ESO. While ESO technically still has the three factions with different tutorial/starting areas, with the One Tamriel update in 2016, players are free to adventure and quest in any zone they wish, they can be in guilds with members of any factions, AND they can group up together for all PvE content. ESO also happens to be doing a ton better than TOR right now in terms of number of players and delivery of content on a regular basis. It's where I've been indulging myself in between tiny content updates on here. Guess factions being able to interact and group together actually HELPS an MMO instead of hurting it.

For a counterexample, look at WoW, which in terms of subscribers is still the top MMO out there. With every update, it feels like Blizzard does everything it can in their zone design to make sure the two factions are in each other's way as much as possible.

 

On PvP servers, which are very much alive and well, this means getting ganked while questing is a constant possibility, and it foments the enmity between the two factions' players which also exists in the story. Even on PvE servers, Horde and Alliance cannot quest together, communicate, send goods to the other side without a bit of risky trickery (and then limited to what you can list in the basically-dead cross-faction auction house). They can and often do also disrupt each other's questing by killing quest mobs. You find isolated incidents of players helping someone of the other faction, but this isn't the norm. And players love it, because there's a real, tangible enemy in the world who can screw with you and is not limited to some OP boss and set of daily quests.

 

The difference in ESO is that faction allegiance is not key to the Elder Scrolls identity. The three factions were made up for ESO and never existed in any other ES game. In the others, you had to choose sides between one group or another frequently enough, sure, but it was on a small scale and never made the primary focus of The Elder Scrolls. Sure, all three want to control the Imperial City, and that's shown in the main PvP attraction in which factions are segregated, but outside of that the story is that all denizens of Tamriel must work together to keep Molag Bal from consuming Nirn. This is like making the Republic core worlds, Tion Hegemony, and Republic-alligned Hutt worlds the playable factions - they all vie for political supremacy, but ultimately the Empire is the enemy. In ESO, if players could choose between playing the denizens of Nirn on the one side and the daedra on the other, then cross-faction would be antithetical to the story there as well.

 

World of Warcraft defined itself as Alliance vs. Horde to the point where, for most players, it's central to their identity in the game. Which faction you play is the first question anyone asks, followed by approval or disapproval depending on the answer. SWTOR takes this a step further not by any gameplay decision by BioWare, but simply by virtue of being Star Wars, the entirety of which is defined as an eternal struggle between two sides. The non-canon story can diverge from this for a time, and given budget concerns and their subsequent inability to make more than one storyline at a time this can easily be forgiven, but the everpresence of this conflict on some level is necessary for the game to continue being Star Wars, otherwise it's just a generic MMO with lightsabers, blasters, and lightning bolts.

Edited May 28, 2018 by Aulus_Claudius

[JamaicanCastle]

For a counterexample, look at WoW, which in terms of subscribers is still the top MMO out there.

 

I feel like you have cause and effect mixed up here. WoW can get away with a factional divide because half of a region's population is still a vast number of players. (There could easily be more North American Horde players - or equally Alliance players - than there are TOR players in total.)

 

Even so, WoW has gotten a lot less strict over the years, both in terms of cross-server groups (any players of the same faction in the same region can group up for any content except the very hardest-mode raids) and factions (if one faction is underrepresented in PvP, members of the other faction can queue on the other side to even things out). And there are still period calls for those restrictions to be loosened further. In particular there's a perennial debate over which side has "better" racials and every time it comes up, somebody is bound to ask for cross-faction queues and guilds - which would put that particular debate to bed, sure enough.

[DavidAtkinson]

Yesterday on DM Republic fleet had 70 players while Empire had 160-170...

 

Not sure what to say. Coruscant was very populated however and the rest of the planets had plenty of reps on them...

 

Maybe fleet populations isn't indicative of anything ? Pub side isn't very popular these days it seems and unless they form premade groups, they are pretty bad in warzones.

[omaan]

Except that the distinction between MMOs and other multiplayer games has nothing to do with factions. There were MMOs with two factions, MMOs with three factions, MMOs with no factions. The distinctive features that make them MMOs are 1) size - in normal multiplayer games you have up to dozens of other players in your gamespace at a time, in an MMO you can have hundreds or thousands - and 2) continuity - in a normal multiplayer game, "out of game" spaces (like lobbies or queues) are the site of matchmaking and between-game socializing, whereas in MMOs those take place while you're still in an in-game space. That is, a key difference between queuing for a warzone or flashpoint in TOR and queuing for a match in, say, SC2 is that in the latter case, I'm in a chatroom - I'm not meaningfully in the setting and world. In TOR, I am - I'm on my character, in an in-game space, potentially interacting with other people who are also there.

 

You are ignoring mmoRPG elements in swtor, and while the quantity of people playing the game is one of the criteria of distinguish between mmo and multiplayer, i can't agree with queue system since in watch dogs 2 if you are in queue you still can run in open world, and meet other people. What you are talking about is old mutiplayer games which were pretty closed and you really couldn't meet or see any other players before you get a pop for something or join a server. But now it is 2018 and much have changed. New games from EA and Ubisoft are combining single player and multiplayer so hard that you often wonder isnt the game you play an mmo? In any case mmorpg )which most of the players thinks swtor is) has a more serious and complex system of coordination and participation which includes different factions fighting each other for domination. Sometimes people can change or shift between these factions (like in ESO) yet they exist and they arent stupidly mixed

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

Yesterday on DM Republic fleet had 70 players while Empire had 160-170...

 

Not sure what to say. Coruscant was very populated however and the rest of the planets had plenty of reps on them...

 

Maybe fleet populations isn't indicative of anything ? Pub side isn't very popular these days it seems and unless they form premade groups, they are pretty bad in warzones.

 

It's the same way on Star Forge. Pubs have a nasty habit of running double premades while using voice against Imp pug teams. They invariably run 2-3 healers, a skank or two, alongside FOTM DPS [Commandos, Gunslingers, and Concentration Sentinels. I have never once seen a double-premade Impside. I'm sure it has happened a couple of times at least, but I have never seen one and I play everyday. Imps do on occassion run premades but they are almost always just a bout a few friends or guildies wanting to play with each other and they aren't even full premade, 2 or 3 at most and not made up of a trinity most times. Most Imps solo quece by and large I'd say.

 

There's nothing wrong with a few friends playing together, but that's not what it's about pubside. Pubside it's about stacking the deck in their favor mostly, You see the same Reps who were curb stomping Imps when in trinity stacked premades or 4 - 8 with voice getting their asses handed to them when they are solo or with 2 man premades. 2 or 3 healers in Rep teams with skanks to guard is the norm. I can go 3-4 matches in a row without a single healer being present [not fun as a Carnage Marauder].

 

Cross factioning is not going to solve the problem of Repside being smaller, it's still going to stay that way which while perhaps might help a bit for wz quecing, it does nothing to address the issue repside in all the other areas of group content.

 

They need to incentivize players to play in publand or it's going to stay the smaller faction as it has been.

I think they should make some pubside-only events, have some different rewards for normal content that are repside only [nothing that would effect combat performance tho], unique mounts, new titles, repside only decorations, some adaptive ware, and perhaps some other unique rewards.

 

Speaking as someone who only plays Impside, repside having such incentizes to attract more players to that side of the fence with special rewards would not bother me in the slightest. As long as the incentives don't grant advantages over Imps in combat, I can't see how it could hurt. I'd fully support such measures taking place for the sake of the game and I friggen hate Pubs!!!! Muahaha.

 

Cross faction WZs is akin to treating the symptoms, not the illness.

 

We have no idea what the ratio of people who are pro-cross faction to people against cross faction is. We have no idea which one has more support with regard to the player base. So unless the playerbase consists of no more than 15 players in total, the 8 or 9 people commenting on the forums who are pro cross faction do not represent the majority of the actual player base. Total cross factions may have more supporters than those that are against it, that is certainly possible, but it's just as possible they don't.

 

85% of the player base do not comment on the forums, maybe even more than that [or somewhat less]. I'd venture to say that a good amount of players couldn't care less either way and many don't even know this is on the table yet or simply do not even read the forums at all. If comments on fleet among players in the know are any indication there are plenty of people who are not in favor of total cross factioning. We are already seeing people leaving the game over it. In fact a long time player and poster on the forums has already said his goodbyes over it in the PVP section - http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=949727

 

Even if we concede the point for argument sake and say there are more players in favor of it than against it that doesn't change the fact that there will be a noticable amount of players upset about it and it will definitely come at the price of losing players. I can't speak to the amount [no one can either way] but some will leave over it.

 

I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do yet, at this point as a full cross faction action is not yet assured [from the wording in the roadmap] and so I gonna wait and see if they leave some maps not cross faction. As long as a decent about aren't cross faction [no more than half] I won't leave the game over it, that I can say for sure. I'm more than willing to meet the opposition half way. If it is a problem currently, I don't want people leaving over it as it is now. Half the maps are first would be the prudent first step and see how that effects things, than it can always go from there. If they just make it all the maps right out of the gate? Between Carnage being unreasonably eviscerated and ruined in both style and effectiveness and never being able to fight against Pub teams in the only group content I still do, as much as I love the game I'm not sure I could stomach it. But, I'm only one person and I don't matter anymore than anyone else.

 

Only one thing is for certain, there is no good way out of this, either way it's bad. Games going to lose more players over this which ever way it goes.

[omaan]

Yesterday on DM Republic fleet had 70 players while Empire had 160-170...

 

Not sure what to say. Coruscant was very populated however and the rest of the planets had plenty of reps on them...

 

Maybe fleet populations isn't indicative of anything ? Pub side isn't very popular these days it seems and unless they form premade groups, they are pretty bad in warzones.

 

Yet yesterday pubs premades won more than 10 fights against imps (leksyas and fagtang premades (the names are changed of course). Rep side isn't dead, reps win many fights, cross faction wont solve the problems with reps population since the reasons why players prefer imps over reps are much different from faction balance, and were discussed in many other threads.