Few things needed to fix the state of PvP

[Monterone]

After re-subbing a few weeks ago, I can now tell the state of the PvP is the worst it's been since the game launched, for various reasons. Here are a few ideas on how to improve the game and make PvP more even and more fun for all.

1. This is a big one but it would absolutely improve the game, not just for PvP but also in other game modes: In-Game Voice Chat. Having the ability to talk to other people and share strategy or call incs would be a huge improvement. It would take time to develop and implement, or it would take purchasing the system from a third party and incorporating it into the game.

2. Some matchmaking would be a huge bonus. As it is, there does not appear to be ANY matchmaking in the game at all. The games are one sided most of the time. That rare occurrence when the teams are even and you have a solid, fun match is about one in twenty, and is probably just by chance it happens that way. If there was matchmaking in the game that would happen much more frequently. The fact it does not tells me matchmaking is either turned off, or is very poorly coded. Anything bigger than a 4-man premade should only be matched with another team of the same size.

3. Bring bolster back into PvP. Not the downward bolster we have, but also the upward bolster. I saw a guy in a warzone yesterday with 165k health. And he had gear on, it was just atrocious; he kept dying in two hits, coming back out and dying in two hits again. There are people in PvP often with under 300k health. This is like playing with 7 people. And sometimes they even group up and play together, effectively throwing the game for everyone else and wasting 10-15 minutes of everyone's time. PvP is about skill, not about gear -- everyone should be on even ground. The bolster should not only bring everyone up to 336, or close to it, it should also account for augments, at least some basic blue augments. This would make PvP much more even and would be conducive to a fun environment.

4.  a) Let people leave warzones and remove the deserter de-buff. This is old stuff and does not belong in a game without a ranked mode. Without these other things being done, we need to be able to control our time investment and we need to be able to queue dodge some under-geared people or some trolls who cause recurring losses. Otherwise we get stuck in the same cycle and it becomes depressing after a while. A game should not feel this depressing. This should especially apply to subscribers. Putting in time penalties for people who pay for the game is most likely against the TOS and should be revisited. In case this is not to be effected in full, move on to plan b below.

b) Let people leave the game before the game starts. The minute we have before the game begins should be enough to determine if you want to be in that game. Perhaps you don't like the map, or you have a troll on your team, or you have that guy with 165k health -- one should be able to drop in the first minute, before the game begins, without any penalties. Back-fillers should also get a grace period they could leave the game in, perhaps 45 seconds or so.

Having some of these things in the game would make it exponentially better, having all of it would make PvP last another 10 years.

 

 

Edited February 7 by Monterone

[Anhkriva]

1 hour ago, Monterone said:

After re-subbing a few weeks ago, I can now tell the state of the PvP is the worst it's been since the game launched, for various reasons. Here are a few ideas on how to improve the game and make PvP more even and more fun for all.

1. This is a big one but it would absolutely improve the game, not just for PvP but also in other game modes: In-Game Voice Chat. Having the ability to talk to other people and share strategy or call incs would be a huge improvement. It would take time to develop and implement, or it would take purchasing the system from a third party and incorporating it into the game.

2. Some matchmaking would be a huge bonus. As it is, there does not appear to be ANY matchmaking in the game at all. The games are one sided most of the time. That rare occurrence when the teams are even and you have a solid, fun match is about one in twenty, and is probably just by chance it happens that way. If there was matchmaking in the game that would happen much more frequently. The fact it does not tells me matchmaking is either turned off, or is very poorly coded. Anything bigger than a 4-man premade should only be matched with another team of the same size.

3. Bring bolster back into PvP. Not the downward bolster we have, but also the upward bolster. I saw a guy in a warzone yesterday with 165k health. And he had gear on, it was just atrocious; he kept dying in two hits, coming back out and dying in two hits again. There are people in PvP often with under 300k health. This is like playing with 7 people. And sometimes they even group up and play together, effectively throwing the game for everyone else and wasting 10-15 minutes of everyone's time. PvP is about skill, not about gear -- everyone should be on even ground. The bolster should not only bring everyone up to 336, or close to it, it should also account for augments, at least some basic blue augments. This would make PvP much more even and would be conducive to a fun environment.

4.  a) Let people leave warzones and remove the deserter de-buff. This is old stuff and does not belong in a game without a ranked mode. Without these other things being done, we need to be able to control our time investment and we need to be able to queue dodge some under-geared people or some trolls who cause recurring losses. Otherwise we get stuck in the same cycle and it becomes depressing after a while. A game should not feel this depressing. This should especially apply to subscribers. Putting in time penalties for people who pay for the game is most likely against the TOS and should be revisited. In case this is not to be effected in full, move on to plan b below.

b) Let people leave the game before the game starts. The minute we have before the game begins should be enough to determine if you want to be in that game. Perhaps you don't like the map, or you have a troll on your team, or you have that guy with 165k health -- one should be able to drop in the first minute, before the game begins, without any penalties. Back-fillers should also get a grace period they could leave the game in, perhaps 45 seconds or so.

Having some of these things in the game would make it exponentially better, having all of it would make PvP last another 10 years.

 

 

1. PVP Premades and raid goups use voice chat from outside the game. Many if not most solo players will turn it off anyway so they don't have to listen to shrill 12-year-olds or "pvp experts" complaining and hating on them. I agree that this feature should be in the game, but it won't change anything.

2. No matchmaking will work well with such a small pool of players signing up for a match, at least not without significantly increasing the already ridiculous wait times. So the choice is between unbalanced matches or no matches at all. Unless the number of players magically increases a hundredfold, of course.

3. Is this really necessary? Thanks to Hyde and Zeek, 340 gear is very easy to obtain, 336 pvp gear and accessories drop for daily/weekly pvp quests, and blue augments have dropped below a million since the GTN changes so even f2p players can buy them. If someone doesn't have at least what I mentioned, it means they don't want to have it.

4. I agree 100%, punishing subscribers for leaving a match, even one that has not started yet, makes no sense.

[kjarnage]

You should look at the two threads on Fixing 8x8.

The penalty delay is necessary. It is the stick to the galactic seasons carrot. If you do not have it instead of 1 or 2 people dropping out you will have entire teams dropping. I have been in matches terminated due to drop outs. The penalty needs to be kept at least until the PVP matches are better balanced.  Some people drop out as they do not like the map. sometimes it is because the map is repeated even though it was a previous blowout.  Repeat maps in close games, do not repeat for blowouts.

If the match making were better based on actual stats as damage, healing, protection... then boosting would be unnecessary. Stats over time so someone entering half way is prorated. Someone dropping out the stats are not used.

Voice comms are  big advantages and so is people watching the chat box.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MotorCityMan]

The issues destroying the ability for the average player to enjoy using the pvp queue are well known. Swtor devs would do well to listen to players that have years of active playtime not only playing but in helping others learn and play the game at a competent level.   I suggest they head over to Vulkk and at least read some suggestions https://vulkk.com/2024/01/25/swtors-pvp-is-burning-to-the-ground/

 

Edited February 10 by MotorCityMan
grammer

[Zunayson]

That vulkk article is well written (I'm always amazed at their content since most people writing about videogames are terrible) and I agree with most of it. Unfortunately that nice big list of bullet points is mostly driven by a single factor: career pvpers that kept the queues alive have quit the game over the years and new players don't become career pvpers. By career pvper, I don't mean top 1%, I just mean someone who knows the basics of using their class to burst (not follow a brittle pve rotation), uses their defenses, and maintains reasonable APM on a moving target.

Tanks have always been too survivable relative to the skill it took to play them, but in the past skill levels were high enough that didn't matter. Now that everyone is garbage, we're seeing passive tank mitigation starting to outshine players, which is a little sad.

You could fix this by giving tanks an equivalent rotation-esque minigame to play in order to keep up their mitigation, similar to how healers and DPS need to execute a rotation. A proper implementation of this would mean that an idling tank doing nothing but auto-attack or whatever dies exactly as quickly as a DPS player. No passive mitigation. 

[kjarnage]

The https://vulkk.com/2024/01/25/swtors-pvp-is-burning-to-the-ground/ makes at lot of good and sensible points some of which will be difficult to program. Some such as moving the healing nodes further away from the doors in voidstar should be easier. The PVP maps should be required reading whose links are there in the url. I wonder how difficult it would be to allow single players training mods to run through the maps like a mission tutorial.

Even simple changes in visual effects can help such as making sage shields easier to see through especially when over lapping. 

Altering, (not elimanating) the premades and match making changes should be top on the list to do.

Certainly part of the difficulty in changing abilities is it also affects operations. Changing the looks of icons probably not so much.   The need to change the abilities is there. There are a lot of thoughts out there on what and how so I am not going to get into those aspects.

I await expecting to see some changes being announced.  I hope I will not be disappointed.

 

 

 

 

[meddani]

you know what else needs fixing? when there's no people and the warzone ends after 30 secs, you get literally nothing. no exp, no valor....

[VegaMist]

On 2/10/2024 at 12:01 PM, Alericus said:

3. 100% disagreed a minimum level of 336 to pvp at 80 is all we need.

I'd say if the minimum was set at 332, it would be sufficient. But whenever I see someone in 270 and below... it's like, seriously? And when there are several players like that, you usually know how a match is going to go (with the exception of when the opposite team gets similar players as well).

[Anhkriva]

2 hours ago, VegaMist said:

I'd say if the minimum was set at 332, it would be sufficient. But whenever I see someone in 270 and below... it's like, seriously? And when there are several players like that, you usually know how a match is going to go (with the exception of when the opposite team gets similar players as well).

I would say that a person at level 80 with IR 270 simply does the implant quest as the first thing after leveling up, and pvp is unfortunately the fastest way. Many times I have seen players apologizing for this in chat, and I fully understand it because I did the quest on alts this way.

[VegaMist]

27 minutes ago, Anhkriva said:

I would say that a person at level 80 with IR 270 simply does the implant quest as the first thing after leveling up, and pvp is unfortunately the fastest way. Many times I have seen players apologizing for this in chat, and I fully understand it because I did the quest on alts this way.

They should do H/Z first instead, or at least buy basic greens for conquest comms. Then gearing up in pvp will go way faster since the level of the pieces you get from PVP boxes is based on what you wear.

[Anhkriva]

25 minutes ago, VegaMist said:

They should do H/Z first instead, or at least buy basic greens for conquest comms. Then gearing up in pvp will go way faster since the level of the pieces you get from PVP boxes is based on what you wear.

They should do hundred FPs for H/Z without implants because it's so convenient for you? For a pvp match you get 10/100 for the quest, so completing arenas is the fastest no matter what you are wearing. Sure they could buy conquest gear but they are not obliged to do so, and even with this equipment but without implants and augments it is still 3 vs. 4 in the arena.

Starting with implants makes sense because you can upgrade them with techfragnets you earn from doing FP for H/Z, but if you do it the other way around, you will waste thousands of them.

Edited February 14 by Anhkriva
Adding a paragraph about improving implants.

[VegaMist]

1 hour ago, Anhkriva said:

They should do hundred FPs for H/Z without implants because it's so convenient for you? For a pvp match you get 10/100 for the quest, so completing arenas is the fastest no matter what you are wearing. Sure they could buy conquest gear but they are not obliged to do so, and even with this equipment but without implants and augments it is still 3 vs. 4 in the arena.

Starting with implants makes sense because you can upgrade them with techfragnets you earn from doing FP for H/Z, but if you do it the other way around, you will waste thousands of them.

Why would you do 100 flashpoints for H/Z? They should start with it because it's faster and way more convenient for them. You can buy FPs and OPs with conquest comms, plus by the time you get to 80, you already have some and may even have some upgradable pieces (and if it's not your first character - it's even easier). Getting your first gear set via PVP is one of the slowest ways possible. If someone shows up that low in PVP, that means they couldn't spend 15 mins to do research.

Oh, and with some crafting skills, you also get FPs and OPs from lockboxes - huge time saver.

Edited February 14 by VegaMist

[kjarnage]

On 2/14/2024 at 1:32 AM, Anhkriva said:

I would say that a person at level 80 with IR 270 simply does the implant quest as the first thing after leveling up, and pvp is unfortunately the fastest way. Many times I have seen players apologizing for this in chat, and I fully understand it because I did the quest on alts this way.

Historically PVP non ranked has had certain abilities set to a minimum. It was not uncommon for people to enter PVP without any armor although they did need weapon(s). So in 80 the grouping I believe even if you have 306 gear rating certain stats would be raised to something like 320 equivalent or maybe now it is  322.  You are still out gunned by 340 plus especially fully augmented. There is nothing to apologize for having low implants. The match making should be designed to take into account not only the gear but the actual previous damage, healing, protections....  Threads on Fixing 8x8 discuss this and other issues.

[Artemisswtor]

Premades are a matchmaking issue and the matchmaking software should strive for perfect balance and should put premades into their own separate queue and this needs to be addressed by SWTOR because it will provide the biggest balance to matchmaking that you can do.  8 man premade bad but 4 man premade okay???  Asking for 4 man premade is like asking for a lesser bad and those that ask for 4 man premade shouldn't be taken seriously by SWTOR.

if I was SWTOR and I read someone asking for 4 man premade, I'd think that this person doesn't desire competitive pvp because he doesn't strive for perfect balance. Since he's asking for a lesser bad, let's just keep it at 8 man.

[Darkestmonty]

3 hours ago, Artemisswtor said:

Premades are a matchmaking issue and the matchmaking software should strive for perfect balance and should put premades into their own separate queue and this needs to be addressed by SWTOR because it will provide the biggest balance to matchmaking that you can do.  8 man premade bad but 4 man premade okay???  Asking for 4 man premade is like asking for a lesser bad and those that ask for 4 man premade shouldn't be taken seriously by SWTOR.

if I was SWTOR and I read someone asking for 4 man premade, I'd think that this person doesn't desire competitive pvp because he doesn't strive for perfect balance. Since he's asking for a lesser bad, let's just keep it at 8 man.

3 people in a pug knowing what to do can generally win a warzone.

3 people in a premade knowing what to do while communicating will probably win every warzone except those against a better premade.

2 person premade probably won't tip the balance significantly except maybe in Huttball and Voidstar and only if they are good at playing the objective.

Edited March 6 by Darkestmonty

[Artemisswtor]

My constructive part of my post is to let the matchmaking software do its job of striving for perfect balance and put all premade in a separate queue(SWTOR please look into this issue). This would be the biggest thing the matchmaking  software could do when striving for perfect balance.  
 

8 man premade bad (unacceptable)

7 man premade slightly less bad (unacceptable)

6 man premade again slightly less bad (unacceptable 

5 man premade again slightly less bad (unacceptable)

4 man premade again slightly less bad (unacceptable)

3 man premade again slightly less bad (unacceptable)

2 man premade again slightly less bad (acceptable)

 

I got it.