Ideas for Improving PVP (in its current state and the future)

[Samcuu]

Someone in the general discussion thread made a great post about being a long time wow vet and recently starting to play swtor pvp. He was complimentary about the pvp in this game compared to wow. There's absolutely no reason swtor pvp shouldn't be great and maybe even the best game for pvp when it comes to mmos. 

Obviously balancing the classes better is important. The idea that there needs to be sweeping changes is wrong. Little tweaks here and there can make a massive difference. The issue is they need to be done more often and the changes need to be thoughtful. This way the meta can change on a more consistent basis. I play leth op and the tactical was broken when it was first introduced in October 2019. They fixed it about 4 months ago. That kind of stuff needs to be addressed much sooner and more often. 

I'd like to see a more engaging scoreboard at the end of matches. Mvp votes were removed which was a terrible idea. On a micro level when u complete a match you want to see what you've accomplished by playing that one match. If you ran the ball and scored all the goals in hutt ball and ur teammates recognized that, it felt good. It gave u that dopamine hit gamers need to continue playing. If you played an arena and didn't even do much dmg but u off healed ur ass off and gave ur team a chance to win, ppl recognize that and vote u mvp. Again dopamine to the brain 😂😂 as of now the match ends and there is little to no fanfare. My idea would be adding a hype video or something like that at the end of a match similar to how if u win a mini game in GTA your character features at the end and you can do a little dance or emote (I've never played but pretty sure fortnight does something similar). Maybe have an animation where the top heals/dmg/objective/protection get their time to shine at the end of a match and they can flex a bit. It's supposed to be a competitive game mode, there should be no issues in a bit of bragging when u play well and win. 

Finally the ex wow dood mentioned that pvp could be really great if there were a better rewards system and also a ranked mode. I never liked ranked the way it worked before, so I wasn't necessarily upset when it was removed. However he's completely correct. I don't think ranked should return in its original form but it got me thinking how it might work. 

What if ranked was like a quarterly or bi-yearly event? Where every match you joined for one or two weeks kept a record and was private or shareable if you so choose (which we now have in the form of the scorecard they created which is already divided by which combat style ur playing at the time). Make the rewards much greater, hand out different tiers of rewards based upon what you achieve (of course this is similar to the old system, but still.) Give the pvpers and players who currently don't play, an event to look forward to. If it were a rare occurrence and didn't run for like 6 months at a time I'd imagine you'd have greater participation and matchmaking would be infinitely better. 

Anyways just some thoughts I had about maybe updating a mode that hasn't had much love in a long time. I know they are farfetched ideas but maybe something the devs can look into if they are looking for ways to rejuvenate the community. Again the building blocks are in place just needs a bit of work to make it really good. 

[krackcommando]

15 minutes ago, Samcuu said:

I play leth op and the tactical was broken when it was first introduced in October 2019. They fixed it about 4 months ago. That kind of stuff needs to be addressed much sooner and more often.

bubble stun. 😄

 

 

 

[RACATW]

1 hour ago, Samcuu said:

I'd like to see a more engaging scoreboard at the end of matches. Mvp votes were removed which was a terrible idea. On a micro level when u complete a match you want to see what you've accomplished by playing that one match. If you ran the ball and scored all the goals in hutt ball and ur teammates recognized that, it felt good. It gave u that dopamine hit gamers need to continue playing. If you played an arena and didn't even do much dmg but u off healed ur ass off and gave ur team a chance to win, ppl recognize that and vote u mvp. Again dopamine to the brain 😂😂 as of now the match ends and there is little to no fanfare. My idea would be adding a hype video or something like that at the end of a match similar to how if u win a mini game in GTA your character features at the end and you can do a little dance or emote (I've never played but pretty sure fortnight does something similar). Maybe have an animation where the top heals/dmg/objective/protection get their time to shine at the end of a match and they can flex a bit. It's supposed to be a competitive game mode, there should be no issues in a bit of bragging when u play well and win.

MVP votes being removed was definitely counterproductive. Because (especially in regs) good players who used to get MVP votes for playing objectives don't get the "dopamine rush" anymore.

It's hard to tell if anyone actually recognized your effort of both doing BIG DAMMMM / HEASL / TANKNG and objectives at the same time until the very end when we used to get MVP votes.

[TrixxieTriss]

Until they address the systemic issues with the PvP eco system, it will continue to keep declining.

So because the game doesn’t have the player numbers to accomodate seperate  solo & premade queues (even if we’d like them), they should make the following adjustments so the matchmaking system has a better chance of working with the current & future PvP population numbers. 

Premade sizes need to be reduced in Warzones back to 4 man or even 2 man(?) & better matchmaking needs to be implemented to put those premades against each other more often than against pugs. 

Premades should be eliminated in arena all together because it’s impossible to balance premades vs pugs. (Edit: another possibility is reducing them to 2 man size limit. Or the other alternative is to make Arena a “4 man Group” queue?)

Gearing needs to be more streamlined & less convoluted for newbies to understand how to gear up for PvP. Personally I would bring back PvP Comms that could be earned at any lvl of PvP, but are only used to buy or upgrade gear for PvP at max lvl.

And proper stat distribution wouldn’t require augments just to make some of the classes work properly. I would even go as far as adding a special PvP augment slot to gear that only works in PvP & normal augments don’t work in PvP. The PvP augments would be available with PvP Comms & only fit in the PvP augment slot. They would be for min-maxing secondary stats only. They would not have power or mastery added.

Non PvP gear, regardless of how it is spec’d & what lvl it is, would be capped at entry lvl cookie cutter PvP stats & could never be improved in PvP. The only way to have better stats or gear while in PvP would be to wear PvP gear earned from PvP Comms. 

Pvp Comms would be rewarded more for winning than losing & for completing missions or earning more medals in matches. 

As for actual gear pre max lvl, there are a couple of ways to do that.
Either make all gear bolster to each classes bare minimum cookie cutter stats for the classes to work properly & remove any set bonuses in pre max lvl PvP. Or add PvP set bonus gear sets for each class at PvP entry lvls. So that everyone has the same opportunity to be on a lvl playing field, gear wise. 

But to really improve the lack of player skills, they need to address 2 major things.

1. An incentive for new PvP players to be learning to PvP as they lvl their characters up & not in endgame PvP. 

2. There needs to be a reward track of some sort for getting better & improving skills via competitive reward system in PvP. 

My suggestion for number 1 is to do away with lvl brackets in entry lvl (lowbie) PvP. Boost every player to max lvl with all abilities available. 

You could even allow max lvl players to participate in this bracket to get better for end game pvp. Rewards for seasons would be lower in this bracket & you would accumulate pvp Comms slower than end game pvp. Also end game pvp gear wouldn’t work in this bracket, it’s stats/bonuses would revert to the max lvl stats/bonuses available for players in this entry lvl bracket & the PvP augments wouldn’t work either. I would even argue that premades be limited to a maximum size of 2 man. 

End game PvP would be where most people would progress too, so they could complete PvP seasons rewards track faster & get rewards only available in end game participation & achieving certain feats in end game PvP that are calibrated to improving players overall skills in a more competitive mode. 

Then 4 times a year I would run ranked type competitive PvP events split up like this.
Two events would be for arena & two events would be for WZ’s. But they would not run at the same time. Each calendar event would run for 6 weeks. With 4 weeks in between. With a 3 month break (December to February) before the new calendar season starts (ie while the devs are on their usual content hiatus after they launch a December content patch). 

So a calendar year might be setup like this.

* Mid February to end of March Arena event.

* Beginning May to mid June Warzone event.

* Mid July to end of August Arena event. 

* Beginning October to mid November Warzone event. 

To Sum up. These changes to the PvP eco system would stream line the gearing system for PvP participation & allow a more lvl & fair playing field.

It would also condense the lowbie & new player numbers into one bracket, while providing a path to learning & preparing for end game PvP. Matchmaking would also have a better chance at working better.

And the ranked events would lure competitive pvpers back to the game & provide a goal for new pvpers to aspire to. This would help build player skills in ALL endgame PvP. 

Edited October 17, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[krackcommando]

1 hour ago, TrixxieTriss said:

Premades should be eliminated in arena all together because it’s impossible to balance premades vs pugs.

^this is patently false. but I would like to see it reduced to 2 in arenas.

I could pair with one top tier player against a pair of gold plates, and it would balance itself out. and I'm not even gold. it would still come down to the other two players on each team. honestly, the only issue I see in a 2m cap is that they're h/t, and I don't mind that at all so long as the other team has a h/t (not necessarily premade) on their team. there are very very few combinations of players who actively grp that would hurt the SF queue if they always grp'd together. 2m is just not a big deal in arena most of the time - unless (ironically) it's a BAD 2m team. 😄

edit: e.g., 1 gold player solo queues. 2 golds premade. a silver on the solo gold's team will basically balance out the premade. and there are A LOT of really good players who solo q anyway. I think you need to take my word on this unless you've actively started playing the past (how long has it been?) 10 months? the only time a 2m could kill arenas is if they have the only tank or the only heal or everyone else in the queue isn't merely solo but absolutely terrible.

Edited October 14, 2023 by krackcommando

[krackcommando]

56 minutes ago, Lord_Malganus said:

Trixx, thanks for taking the time to write that very well thought out post. Great suggestions there indeed.

However, due to their long proven propensity to ignore all player input and feedback, I also have to doubt their willingness to even consider putting that much honest effort into improving PvP design.

Though I would be glad to be proven wrong.

untrue, young bucky. prime example: a bunch of players complain that ppl are quitting matches the second the first "point" is scored or that they end up having to back fill (sometimes 5 seconds before a match ends). so BW takes action. what do they do? they institute a deserter debuff. now every player who would have just left the game afks, /stucks, etc. until the timer runs out. literally the only players unperturbed by this are those who only play to kill other "players" regardless of the win conditions of the match. they're fine b/c the hapless fish cannot escape the barrel (not that they'd care if they were replaced  by other fish; just don't end the slaughter early b/c nobody is willing to backfill it). literally every other player, be they talented or noob, is left holding a wet noodle b/c half his team is afk or hiding someplace where they won't get obliterated. good job BW!

careful what you wish for, friend. they'll find a way to give it to you while simultaneously making it taste sour in your mouth. (maybe an op can roll fire but wars cannot leap to players on an EZ ledge? half-crap "fixes" created to patch poor design choices in the first place).

[Whykara]

4 hours ago, krackcommando said:

now every player who would have just left the game afks, /stucks, etc. until the timer runs out. literally the only players unperturbed by this are those who only play to kill other "players" regardless of the win conditions of the match. they're fine b/c the hapless fish cannot escape the barrel (not that they'd care if they were replaced  by other fish; just don't end the slaughter early b/c nobody is willing to backfill it). literally every other player, be they talented or noob, is left holding a wet noodle b/c half his team is afk or hiding someplace where they won't get obliterated.

I don't know where you get those horror scenarios from. You're acting like something like this is a common occurrence when it is not. Even when the lockout times where longer, this did not happen. There is no need to conjure up imagined problems when PvP has enough real ones. 

[Samcuu]

15 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

My suggestion for number 1 is to do away with lvl brackets in entry lvl (lowbie) PvP. Boost every player to max lvl with all abilities available. 

If this were to happen there's no reason to even have lvl 80 pvp. You could make a lvl 10 toon and be bolstered immediately to best stats plus all abilities? (and as u mentioned before you'd add set bonuses at early levels as well). Ppl would just sit in lowbies and never have to level an 80 toon or get gear. This would split the queue, and as much as I hate gear grinding as content, aspiring for better gear and better stats is a hallmark of mmos. 

[krackcommando]

11 hours ago, Whykara said:

I don't know where you get those horror scenarios from. You're acting like something like this is a common occurrence when it is not. Even when the lockout times where longer, this did not happen. There is no need to conjure up imagined problems when PvP has enough real ones. 

it's quite real and does happen all the time. "this team's better than us?" ok. hide. 3-4 "teammates" sit on own node leaving 4-5 remaining to deal with the 8 of the other team. afk under spawn. sit in corner and argue in ops/gen about how bad your teammates are or premades are. iunno how you don't see this every other WZ but w/e. give me freedom to leave or get a back fill that doesn't just afk any day of the week.

don't follow someone's arena strat round 1? rage hide in corner or stuck. change around the markers? same. lose first round? rage and /stuck.  I liked it better when a player just left and my team at least has a roulette chance of getting back fill to compete in round 2. not in this system. not anymore. /shrug

Edited October 14, 2023 by krackcommando

[SoyElSenado]

Respect to both of you guys but let’s not get lost in the finer details unnecessarily. This thread shouldn’t be about debating very specific issues in pvp like the length of the deserter debuff timer. Things like that are not the driving factor on why pvp sucks right now. We should be presenting a united front on the two problems everyone agrees on: premade queuing issues and the poor reward structure. Fixing the latter issue would indirectly solve most of the deserter problems you guys are talking about, for example. 
 

Those two things are 80-90% of why the pvp system sucks right now. They negatively affect the competitive player, the noncompetitive player, and the prospective player. We don’t want to get stuck in the weeds on little stuff and give the devs license to ignore everything and say this is just another example of a bunch of clowns who don’t know what they want. 

Anyway I think I was the wow pvp vet that’s new to swtor pvp the op was referring to. I’ll reply again later with more substantive thoughts but I just wanted to mention we should try to focus on the big problems and not get bogged down in debates about smaller stuff.

 

Edited October 14, 2023 by SoyElSenado

[TrixxieTriss]

8 hours ago, Samcuu said:

If this were to happen there's no reason to even have lvl 80 pvp. You could make a lvl 10 toon and be bolstered immediately to best stats plus all abilities? (and as u mentioned before you'd add set bonuses at early levels as well). Ppl would just sit in lowbies and never have to level an 80 toon or get gear. This would split the queue, and as much as I hate gear grinding as content, aspiring for better gear and better stats is a hallmark of mmos. 

True, but I would still keep end game PvP seperate from people starting out in PvP or it degrades end game PvP quality even more than now. Which drives more pvpers from the game.

Plus, combining end game PvP with lowbie players would make it difficult to make a gear grind work as defacto end game content. Which we know the swtor devs are addicted too. 

Edited October 14, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[TrixxieTriss]

3 hours ago, krackcommando said:

it's quite real and does happen all the time. "this team's better than us?" ok. hide. 3-4 "teammates" sit on own node leaving 4-5 remaining to deal with the 8 of the other team. afk under spawn. sit in corner and argue in ops/gen about how bad your teammates are or premades are. iunno how you don't see this every other WZ but w/e. give me freedom to leave or get a back fill that doesn't just afk any day of the week.

don't follow someone's arena strat round 1? rage hide in corner or stuck. change around the markers? same. lose first round? rage and /stuck.  I liked it better when a player just left and my team at least has a roulette chance of getting back fill to compete in round 2. not in this system. not anymore. /shrug

This happens more often than people realise. Especially in Arena. And yes, I’ve been playing some PvP lately to see what the situation is myself. 

[TrixxieTriss]

23 hours ago, krackcommando said:

this is patently false. but I would like to see it reduced to 2 in arenas.

What I said isn’t false. It is impossible to properly balance 4 man premades against solo players.
But your compromise of 2 man size limit would make it work better as long as the matchmaking doesn’t put 2x 2 man premades on the same team against solo players. 

[krackcommando]

31 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

What I said isn’t false. It is impossible to properly balance 4 man premades against solo players.
But your compromise of 2 man size limit would make it work better as long as the matchmaking doesn’t put 2x 2 man premades on the same team against solo players. 

yes it is. you said "premades." as in any premade of any size. and if you spent any time at all playing arenas, you'd know that running into 3m is rare and 4m extremely rare (as in one guild one night in a month of queuing). the matchmaking is just bad. period. it is rarely, if ever, caused because a healer and tank are in the same premade. in fact, the most common MM screwup, is putting two heals on the same team or two tank, or back filling with support rolls. and it does this when I KNOW that the support roles are not even grp'd with each other. it just a really bad MM.

i just played 3 matches where one team has a tank and heal where the other only has a heal, and I know for a fact that everyone in there was solo. the MM is really bad (for role balance). it' ain't the premades. i'm not a fan of premades in arenas, particularly more than 2. but that isn't the problem. SF doesn't have a premade problem in arenas and the MM is still garbage.

edit: fwiw, you're arguing theory. in theory, a 4m or 3m or even a 2m could break or bully the queue. in practice, however, this isn't the case. one time in a month. and they were all dps, and they weren't even good. it's just the queue was that bad. srsly, the MM has very little interest in balance. role or ability (kinda hard to build around the latter). yes grps are usually opposed to each other. but honestly, it's role that's more obviously mismatched, and I stated above, the MM is frustratingly bad at that. most likely b/c someone did not accept or declined early and it paid no attention to other possible options? iunno.

Edited October 14, 2023 by krackcommando

[TrixxieTriss]

9 hours ago, krackcommando said:

yes it is. you said "premades." as in any premade of any size

I don’t want to get stuck debating semantics on what I meant, if that’s ok with you?

I’d prefer to discuss alternatives to fixing the whole PvP eco system. Like your compromise for reducing Arena premade sizes to 2 man limit, which I also think is a very good & workable idea 👍

Edited October 15, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[Prapcaster]

17 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

What I said isn’t false. It is impossible to properly balance 4 man premades against solo players.
But your compromise of 2 man size limit would make it work better as long as the matchmaking doesn’t put 2x 2 man premades on the same team against solo players. 

It isn't imbalanced there's an entire queue option missing that's supposed to be there. queue group arenas and queue solo arenas. Removing it has resulted in the death of 4's as a whole. The only thing imbalanced is when you queue solo and your entire team is nothing but tanks and the other team is a solo queued perfect meta.

[TrixxieTriss]

5 hours ago, Prapcaster said:

It isn't imbalanced there's an entire queue option missing that's supposed to be there. queue group arenas and queue solo arenas. Removing it has resulted in the death of 4's as a whole. The only thing imbalanced is when you queue solo and your entire team is nothing but tanks and the other team is a solo queued perfect meta.

That’s more of the matchmaking algorithm not working than 2 queue options. Unless you’re saying the 4 tanks are in a pre-made 🤷🏻‍♀️

What you have to understand is the game really doesn’t have the PvP population anymore to have 2 seperate solo & group queue for arena or probably WZ either.

When I was advocating for seperate queues 7-10 months ago, there was still a chance that seperate queues might have worked if the devs hurried up & implemented it. But since that time, the current mixed system & non competitive reward design setup has driven many players from PvP & from the game who will never return. As well as conditioning some other players to think that PvP can only be played in premades. 

IMO, the best chance to stop PvP from completely dying now is to make either drastic changes to the mixed queue system or find a compromise that stems the exit of existing players. 

The drastic changes Im referring to would be very unpopular with a portion of the population & may even make them leave too. That would be to remove all grouping/premade options for BOTH current queues & make them completely solo queue only. And while this is what some people want, I think it could be as just as detrimental to PvP & retention numbers than the current mixed setup because of how BioWare have conditioned some players in the last 10 months to think they need premades to win.

The compromise I mention is to either make Arena a solo queue only & keep Warzones mixed, but with reduced premade sizes than now OR keep both Arena & WZ’s as solo/premade mixed, but both with reduced premade sizes. I can see the benefits & pitfalls of both options.

But the real question we should ALL be asking is, “are the devs ready to admit the current setup isn’t working & is driving players away”. 
If they refuse to even discuss the topic or listen to the player base or reflect on their own data, then PvP is going to continue to lose more players & the matchmaking system will never work. At that point, they may as well remove PvP from the game because it will be more detrimental to games rep as keeping it 😞

Edited October 15, 2023 by TrixxieTriss

[Prapcaster]

7 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

That’s more of the matchmaking algorithm not working than 2 queue options. Unless you’re saying the 4 tanks are in a pre-made 🤷🏻‍♀️

What you have to understand is the game really doesn’t have the PvP population anymore to have 2 seperate solo & group queue for arena or probably WZ either.

When I was advocating for seperate queues 7-10 months ago, there was still a chance that seperate queues might have worked if the devs hurried up & implemented it. But since that time, the current mixed system & non competitive reward design setup has driven many players from PvP & from the game who will never return. As well as conditioning some other players to think that PvP can only be played in premades. 

IMO, the best chance to stop PvP from completely dying now is to make either drastic changes to the mixed queue system or find a compromise that stems the exit of existing players. 

The drastic changes Im referring to would be very unpopular with a portion of the population & may even make them leave too. That would be to remove all grouping/premade options for BOTH current queues & make them completely solo queue only. And while this is what some people want, I think it could be as just as detrimental to PvP & retention numbers than the current mixed setup because of how BioWare have conditioned some players in the last 10 months to think they need premades to win.

The compromise I mention is to either make Arena a solo queue only & keep Warzones mixed, but with reduced premade sizes than now OR keep both Arena & WZ’s as solo/premade mixed, but both with reduced premade sizes. I can see the benefits & pitfalls of both options.

But the real question we should ALL be asking is, “are the devs ready to admit the current setup isn’t working & is driving players away”. 
If they refuse to even discuss the topic or listen to the player base or reflect on their own data, then PvP is going to continue to lose more players & the matchmaking system will never work. At that point, they may as well remove PvP from the game because it will be more detrimental to games rep as keeping it 😞

I agree with most of that. My thoughts on the pvp dying is that this next live stream will either bring pvp back or be the nail in the coffin

[DragoslavRadanov]

I doubt there's even going to be any talk of pvp in it, and if there is it'll most likely just be quickly mentioning season 4, otherwise it'll just be story stuff

Edited October 16, 2023 by DragoslavRadanov

[Lord_Malganus]

It will probably be a mostly pre-recorded extended version of the introduction post with similar substance.

If there is an actual live portion, someone should ask about PvP!

[Darkestmonty]

I would be shocked if Broadsword even considers PvP an issue.

[Samcuu]

15 hours ago, Prapcaster said:

I agree with most of that. My thoughts on the pvp dying is that this next live stream will either bring pvp back or be the nail in the coffin

Is pvp dying tho? Pvp was kinda already dead on SS with a couple matches popping in prime time, where ur facing all the same ppl. That's why I transfered to SF and this was like 3 years ago. SF feels exactly the same since in transfered. Imo pvp had already bottomed out and you've mainly got the ppl who are swtor lifers in queue for the most part, in fact the seasons probably brought more ppl into matches than were previously playing. The loss of ranked obviously has contributed to more pvpers leaving, but then again you'd never really see ranked players venturing into regs. Guess I'm talking purely in the sense of 8v8 regs here but again I don't see a massive drop off in player base. 

Edited October 16, 2023 by Samcuu

[krackcommando]

1 hour ago, Samcuu said:

Is pvp dying tho? Pvp was kinda already dead on SS with a couple matches popping in prime time, where ur facing all the same ppl. That's why I transfered to SF and this was like 3 years ago. SF feels exactly the same since in transfered. Imo pvp had already bottomed out and you've mainly got the ppl who are swtor lifers in queue for the most part, in fact the seasons probably brought more ppl into matches than were previously playing. The loss of ranked obviously has contributed to more pvpers leaving, but then again you'd never really see ranked players venturing into regs. Guess I'm talking purely in the sense of 8v8 regs here but again I don't see a massive drop off in player base. 

there's an obvious decline between seasons. during seasons the pops pick up much faster than I remember in late 5.x and all of 6.x. keep in mind there are 2 "reg queues" going in 7.2, and they both pop quickly during seasons. I also don't recall rated pops being as fast as the 7.2 arena queue or as populated, so it really is 2 full queues. but if you take away the absolute lemmings who are there only to feed numbers to the population during seasons, I don't think anything has changed since well before 7.0. more like late 5-something. being honest though, I'd avoid WZ queue just to not have to play vandin, quesh, and opg. I would love it if ahg and nc popped non-stop. but that's neither here nor there.

[Samcuu]

Quesh is the only map for me that has massive problems because of the 3 different levels. Vandin is alright, and I actually really enjoy OPG. 

[TrixxieTriss]

19 minutes ago, Samcuu said:

Quesh is the only map for me that has massive problems because of the 3 different levels. Vandin is alright, and I actually really enjoy OPG. 

I actually like the Quesh map design the most. But its so horribly broken with bugs & lag inducing, that it should probably be removed from the rotation “if” they can’t fix it (which it seems they can’t). 

Edited October 17, 2023 by TrixxieTriss