Update to PvP Medals coming in 7.2.1

[Shabir_Dhillon]

Hey everyone, 

With PTS opening soon, I just wanted to give an update on some changes coming in 7.2.1 to the medals system specifically on the Alderaan map and our philosophy behind some of these changes. To start with here are the changes: 

• Defender points per tick have been increased from 500 to 700 points per tick. 
• Turret Control Zones have been increased. 
• When within the control zones of a turret controlled by your team, you will receive 500 defender points when defeating a player. 
• When within the control zones of a turret controlled by the opposing team, you will receive 500 attacker points for every player you defeat. 

These changes should help players reach higher Defender and Attacker point medals as well as reward the team for winning fights as an objective. These adjustments should also assist players in reaching 8 medals while positively contributing to their team. 

Why are these changes coming only to the Alderaan map? 

We chose the Alderaan Warzone for two reasons. The first being that it can set a good baseline for the other control point modes such as Novare Coast and Yavin Ruins and secondly, it is one of the more popular maps. It is important to note that we intend on rolling out these changes to various maps over time as each map is constructed and built differently.

Our philosophy behind these changes and the medal system as a whole is to encourage players to play the objective and play to win in order to improve quality of matches for their teammates and progress in their own individual PVP Reward Track. With that said, medals are designed to recognize the accomplishments of tasks a player or team completes. This to encourage players to not only put their best effort forward, but also reward the team accomplishing those tasks with improved progress on their PVP Reward Track. 

In the future, we are going to be adjusting more PvP maps with improvements to help alleviate the difficulty of receiving medals especially when succeeding in a Warzone. As noted above, these changes will roll out in batches, and as always we appreciate everyone for taking the time to deliver feedback on these changes. 

Shabir
 

[Ferrouswheel]

Definitely think this is a good change, specifically the rewards for defeating players on points. I hope it's successful on Alderaan and expanded to the other maps.

[RikuvonDrake]

thanks new KappaChris for allowing 8 man premades am happy to play with friends

Edited February 9, 2023 by RikuvonDrake

[Chryptyk]

Why not test these changes for ACW on PTS and then apply it as a whole on other maps in 7.2.1?  Also does that mean the pop rate will be increased for ACW in 7.2.1?

[Bar-Da-Voya]

Guess I won't get to test as between 5 warzone weeklies per week I only see Voidstar, Ancient Hypergates and Huttball matches 95% of the time. Almost never get Yavin, Alderaan or Odessen on Satele Shan and Star Forge.

[Pandoras_Jar]

Just to clarify (since there seems to be some confusion) these changes to ACW are currently only on the 7.2.1 PTS right and will go live once 7.2.1 goes live?

These changes are a step in the right direction for ACW + other node maps. I like this change in particular 'Turret Control Zones have been increased' I assume this means the radius for earning objective points around objectives has been increased? Hopefully this change will happen to all the node/door maps.

My main concern as I pointed out in my previous feedback is stalemates. Will objectives points still tick if neither team owns the objective but both teams are actively fighting around it? Even if it's smaller ticks, I think that would be helpful. Stalling (especially long stalls) similarly is also problematic for getting medals.

Another concern is losing (especially when one team is significantly outperforming the other team). Teams that lose get a lot less medals than they used to. This is again another consequence of removing combat (role) medals. In scenarios where your team was losing badly prior to 7.2, you could still get some additional combat/role medals to help get close to 8 medals. With these gone, losing a match is more punishing than it used to be. Combat medals provided a means for players to individually get rewarded for the effort they were putting in when their team was outmatched by the other team. 

To summarise, while the proposed changes to ACW look okay on paper, I'm not sure if they will help with earning medals in certain scenarios. 

I'll hopefully be able to get on the PTS for the dev testing tomorrow at 1:30pm CST (and possibly Stream)!

[SilverChap]

1 hour ago, Pandoras_Jar said:

Will objectives points still tick if neither team owns the objective but both teams are actively fighting around it?

I got 500 defender points for killing enemies near neutral turrets, same amount as if it would have been ours.

[TrixxieTriss]

12 hours ago, Shabir_Dhillon said:

Hey everyone, 

With PTS opening soon, I just wanted to give an update on some changes coming in 7.2.1 to the medals system specifically on the Alderaan map and our philosophy behind some of these changes. To start with here are the changes: 

• Defender points per tick have been increased from 500 to 700 points per tick. 
• Turret Control Zones have been increased. 
• When within the control zones of a turret controlled by your team, you will receive 500 defender points when defeating a player. 
• When within the control zones of a turret controlled by the opposing team, you will receive 500 attacker points for every player you defeat. 

These changes should help players reach higher Defender and Attacker point medals as well as reward the team for winning fights as an objective. These adjustments should also assist players in reaching 8 medals while positively contributing to their team. 

Why are these changes coming only to the Alderaan map? 

We chose the Alderaan Warzone for two reasons. The first being that it can set a good baseline for the other control point modes such as Novare Coast and Yavin Ruins and secondly, it is one of the more popular maps. It is important to note that we intend on rolling out these changes to various maps over time as each map is constructed and built differently.

Our philosophy behind these changes and the medal system as a whole is to encourage players to play the objective and play to win in order to improve quality of matches for their teammates and progress in their own individual PVP Reward Track. With that said, medals are designed to recognize the accomplishments of tasks a player or team completes. This to encourage players to not only put their best effort forward, but also reward the team accomplishing those tasks with improved progress on their PVP Reward Track. 

In the future, we are going to be adjusting more PvP maps with improvements to help alleviate the difficulty of receiving medals especially when succeeding in a Warzone. As noted above, these changes will roll out in batches, and as always we appreciate everyone for taking the time to deliver feedback on these changes. 

Shabir
 

This is a step in the right direction. But what are you going to do about putting solo players against premade teams?

[Chryptyk]

@JackieKo is there an achievement tracker of some kind so we know we got credit for the pvp match on pts to qualify for the mount?

[VegaMist]

It's a start. Wish they would also look into Huttball maps medals since these need some serious attention sooner rather than later - too many matches end up with a winning team having only one or two players reaching 8 medal threshold and sometimes it's none at all.

[Chryptyk]

1 hour ago, VegaMist said:

It's a start. Wish they would also look into Huttball maps medals since these need some serious attention sooner rather than later - too many matches end up with a winning team having only one or two players reaching 8 medal threshold and sometimes it's none at all.

 

agreed, i find huttball maps the hardest to get medals on as well.
 

[Shabir_Dhillon]

Hey everyone just wanted to take the time and answer some questions that have come up in the thread. 

 

First, I wanted to address what a Turret Zone is. This is essentially the radius in which you gain Defender points when standing near and objective for 30 seconds. This radius also accounts for gaining Attacker and Defender points on player kills. This allows for highly mobile fights that can stray further away from the node to still count towards each player's objective score who is within the radius and contributing to the fight. 

 

The second thing I wanted to address is on the topic of stalemates. Currently, if a node is unable to be captured by either team due to a stalemate then neither side will gain objective points. If this situation happens, players should be rotating to other points or attempting to take other objectives on the map. If a team is unable to retake an objective after the other side has taken it, then they will naturally struggle to get objective points. This is because medals are designed to reward the team accomplishing tasks in the Warzone which also encourages players to put their best effort forward in any given match. 

 

Lastly, I wanted to address changes in regards to other maps. And the answer to that is yes, we will be making adjustments to the other Warzones in batches since they are all constructed differently and we want to make sure we have a solid amount of time to test the changes made on the various maps. A good example of this would be Alderaan and Denova, very similar in concept but have rule differences between them that could influence how we approach changes to that map. With that in mind, we want to make sure we give our team the ability to iterate on proposed changes. Changes to other Warzones will be rolling out in future releases. 

 

I would like to thank everyone for taking the time to give their feedback. Hope everyone is having a great day.

[iakona]

2 hours ago, Shabir_Dhillon said:

The second thing I wanted to address is on the topic of stalemates. Currently, if a node is unable to be captured by either team due to a stalemate then neither side will gain objective points. If this situation happens, players should be rotating to other points or attempting to take other objectives on the map. If a team is unable to retake an objective after the other side has taken it, then they will naturally struggle to get objective points. This is because medals are designed to reward the team accomplishing tasks in the Warzone which also encourages players to put their best effort forward in any given match. 

I'm sorry, but this just comes across as completely tone deaf. You're either not hearing or not understanding the player feedback on why this medal system (objective points based on kills) is bad. You're incentivizing players to stop playing tanks and healers in warzones with these changes by significantly limiting their medal potential relative to dps players, and indirectly encouraging toxicity toward anyone who brings a tank or healer to a warzone since they lower the total medal potential for everyone in the warzone. Please stop thanking us for feedback when you don't actually demonstrate any understanding of the feedback we're giving you.

[Screaming_Ziva]

2 hours ago, Shabir_Dhillon said:

The second thing I wanted to address is on the topic of stalemates. Currently, if a node is unable to be captured by either team due to a stalemate then neither side will gain objective points. If this situation happens, players should be rotating to other points or attempting to take other objectives on the map. If a team is unable to retake an objective after the other side has taken it, then they will naturally struggle to get objective points. This is because medals are designed to reward the team accomplishing tasks in the Warzone which also encourages players to put their best effort forward in any given match.

You have got to be kidding me.  Is this really your "solution?" If each team has a side turret and are stalemating in the middle, the first team to give up middle and go to the other team's turret is going to lose mid and most likely lose the match.  By the time your team gets to the other team's turret, they will have capped mid and sent more defenders over to their turret.

When teams are both fighting over a turret, they are both attacking that turret.  Attacker points should be given to both teams when attacking a neutral turret.

[steveerkcanjerk]

37 minutes ago, Screaming_Ziva said:

You have got to be kidding me.  Is this really your "solution?" If each team has a side turret and are stalemating in the middle, the first team to give up middle and go to the other team's turret is going to lose mid and most likely lose the match.  By the time your team gets to the other team's turret, they will have capped mid and sent more defenders over to their turret.

When teams are both fighting over a turret, they are both attacking that turret.  Attacker points should be given to both teams when attacking a neutral turret.

So that is always true, if you are stalemating at some point either 2 things need to happen, you win the battle at mid. Thats kind of the goal and if nobody is dying on either side or dying to slowly someone has to go make a play. This could be even your defender or 1 person from mid rotating and winning a fight at their node and taking it. A stalemate is basically there because nobody is good enough to get a win on the other so something needs to happen. This makes alot of sense because this is how other games work as well. Like if nobody controls the obj who is supposed to get attacking and defending points? Techncially both teams are attacking also this could easily then be abused where people will just farm attacker points. Like there needs to be a point where if 1 person can't peel off and go win a fight and they can well you lose. Thats how it goes but eventually someone should cap and thats when the game returns to normal. 

[Nee-Elder]

2 hours ago, iakona said:

 (objective points based on kills) is bad.

You're incentivizing players to stop playing tanks and healers in warzones with these changes by significantly limiting their medal potential relative to dps players,

You make a fair point , although  as a Sage/Sorc healer what i try to do (in warzones) is a mix of both  objectives & healing  ( and "killing" , by tossing a DoT or AOE here & there when the moment of opportunity presents itself ) .

Perhaps  @Shabir_Dhillon could figure out a way to add a couple more medal catagories  exclusive to only tank/healer?

2 hours ago, Screaming_Ziva said:

When teams are both fighting over a turret, they are both attacking that turret.  Attacker points should be given to both teams when attacking a neutral turret.

i must agree ^ , logically that makes perfect sense yep.

So maybe  @Shabir_Dhillon there could instead be some type of  'diminishing returns' on stalemate turret-node situations?  ( could also guard against possible win-trading & kill-trading groups , which amazingly i still see happening quite often even now in 7.2 era   )

1 hour ago, steveerkcanjerk said:

Edit: I just want to add I solo queue 99% of the time.

 i am able to maintain a 66% win rate in warzone and a 78% in arenas its really not that bad.

i solo queue most always  too ( on my mains, Sage & Sorc healers )  but unfortunately my win-rate is more like 55% in warzones ....and.... ugh 50% in Arenas for Sage and 45% for my Sorc.  ---  Still managed to complete PVP 'Seasons'  though a couple days ago , even being a casual player.   But i just cannot bring myself to finish the  '25 ARENA weeklys'  achievement.  ( since it wouldn't be good for my mental state   )

Looking forward to getting a solid  (and reliable)  premade group for whenever PVP 'Season 2'  arrives.

However, i also agree with the overall sentiment about somehow creating a sub-queue or whatever  to separate premades (or at least high Valor  players ) from your average solo  low-skill inexperienced/undergeared type  player.   Tricky to limit premades to only 4-players though, because for a while everyone had been waiting for 8's to finally come back.  Now they're sorta back-ish  and we gonna lose them again?!

Edited February 15, 2023 by Nee-Elder

[Pandoras_Jar]

23 hours ago, Screaming_Ziva said:

You have got to be kidding me.  Is this really your "solution?" If each team has a side turret and are stalemating in the middle, the first team to give up middle and go to the other team's turret is going to lose mid and most likely lose the match.  By the time your team gets to the other team's turret, they will have capped mid and sent more defenders over to their turret.

When teams are both fighting over a turret, they are both attacking that turret.  Attacker points should be given to both teams when attacking a neutral turret.

THIS! ^^^

I don't have the energy to go into all the semantics of earning medals today. Except to say that there is already an easy solution to largely solving the medal problem across all maps.

Bring back the role-specific medals you took away.

This would help address both stalemate scenarios and losing scenarios (where your team is 'outmatched'). As a healer main it does not feel good to be doing everything you can to keep your team alive and to come away with 2-3 medals. I understand you want to encourage objective play. But role/combat medals prior to 7.2 served the secondary purpose of allowing players to get individually rewarded for their efforts in scenarios where their team was 'outmatched' or even in stalemates + more scenarios I'm too tired to go into. Now you're having to put a lot of work into filling in the hole those medals left.   

Edited February 15, 2023 by Pandoras_Jar
Redacted but also removed some over use of caps lock.

[Qson]

Hello Dev's,

Hope you find time to see this. I appreciate the work you've been doing to manage issues in PvP. Your suggestion might work. Increase medal rewards when damage/healing/guarding happens close to objective areas in warzones (non-arenas) is a good start. Example of other areas. would also include the doors in Voidstar, the gates and orbs in Ancient Hypergates,  or near the ball carrier/ball respawn place/endzone in Huttball (same for quesh), etc. I often see players fighting in places far away from objective areas and then bragging about most damage/heals done in the match. For those types of players, maybe adding/increasing medal objectives in arenas that focus on kills/damage/heals only.

In this post, it looks like, at least two types of PvP players are identified...Objective players and personal stat players. It seems that you're heading in the right direction with medal rewards in regular warzones but think adding medals rewards to arena would draw personal stat PvP players to an area better suited for that focus.

Here's a wild thought...Have versions of warzones (Alderaan Civil War, Ancient Hypergates, Huttball, etc.) with objective turned off and make it a like a giant arena where only players who a grouped in a team of 8 can queue up for. 

Welp, I'm sure there's pros and cons to this and you'll give it some thought. I figured I'd mention it.

Once again thank you for the work you're doing to improve the game,

Q (aka: Daxiodus)

Edited February 18, 2023 by Qson
To clarify point.

[Backonin]

Just wanna ask about achievements ; please dont give us finishing 25 weeklies of warzones and arenas anymore.

[Nee-Elder]

1 hour ago, Backonin said:

Just wanna ask about achievements ; please dont give us finishing 25 weeklies of warzones and arenas anymore.

The 25 for WZ's is easy , but the  25 for Arenas  is absolute  gamer torture. ( especially for solo-queue'ing healers like me   )

Should've been 12 weeklys for Arenas  imo.

[TrixxieTriss]

9 hours ago, Backonin said:

Just wanna ask about achievements ; please dont give us finishing 25 weeklies of warzones and arenas anymore.

I finished the weekly for WZ’s in a day. Even against part premade groups. That achievement isn’t the problem.

The real problem is the Arena one because every time I’ve queued, I’ve only seen full 4 man ranked grade premades on the other team. It’s totally obnoxious & a waste of time. 

BioWare needs to reduce the requirement for Arena achievements or they need to split the queue so premades don’t go against solo players (which is what most solo players would prefer). 

[KumbayaGOD]

i absolutely support to reduce arena to 12 not 25 which is too much 

[fabsus]

i think there are several ppl who already listed (nearly) all medals you can achieve, like us.
if you know them, it really doesn't seem hard at all, to get your 8 medals (if u win). if you
win a match and don't get the 8 medals, no matter what spec you are playing, you really
should ask yourself, how you could improve your gameplay, to support your team better.

maybe some minor changes are okay, but in total i think it is fine. but just take a look at
the medals and how to get them.

regarding the weeklies i support the idea to change them.
12 warzones feel right, even if you would lose every match.
but 24 arenas is just a pain. the pop up time is way longer, because
less ppl are playing arenas, especially on smaller servers and if you can't play during prime time.
it takes me double the time to play an arena weekly, even with more wins than defeats, because
of pop up times and matches also could take longer.

so shortly before the season ends, we will see even more groups trading for the weekly matches.

also i could notice many players stucking in second round, after the first one is lost. 

[SoontirMorillo]

19 minutes ago, fabsus said:

so shortly before the season ends, we will see even more groups trading for the weekly matches.

And i thought, that they removed Ranked.

You can take away the Ranked from the Ranked Player, but he will always stay true to "advanced" strategies to get his rewards efficiently.

Edited February 21, 2023 by SoontirMorillo

[fabsus]

There are already groups doing this. They are the same people who wintraded back then.

If you hold out the prospect of a reward, there will be people who will try to grab it with as little effort as possible.