Actually, my recommendation for the system:

 

- Commendations are based on Medals, and are the same, win or lose. Add about 2 more Damage-related Medals... say 150k Damage Done, 5 Killing Blows, so that classes like Marauder, Sentinel, Sniper, and Gunslinger aren't at a medal gaining disadvantage.

 

- Exp based on Medals, and is the same, win or lose. Commendations and Exp are your personal advancement rewards, and so should be based on personal participation.

 

- Valor reward adjusted by win/loss.

- Credit reward adjusted by win/loss.

Getting tired of matches that start with ~3-4 people. It's not fair. It's not fun. You can't recover from it. Fix it.

Whilst lowering the requirement for medals down to 1 is good I still think that even if you loose but get 1 medal you should still get some credits, valour and xp even if its like 1k or 1.5k

Getting tired of matches that start with ~3-4 people. It's not fair. It's not fun. You can't recover from it. Fix it.

 

I 100% agree, on the flip side just last night this happened 3 times and we came out to win the game because people joined or the other side was even less, for a variety of reason we should not give up.

I like how Voidstar now ends early once you get past the point that the other team did. However, I have seen a (major) drop in rewards if that point is the first door and it's achieved relatively early.

 

In fact, I believe rewards have been nerfed too much, especially with the increased price of WZ adrenals / med packs. Why not (like War Hero Gear) allow Biochem professionals the ability to craft WZ adrenals / med packs?

Edited April 16, 2012 by JasonV

I would like to add my observations from the weekends pvp in 1.2

 

First off let me state, i am not a hardcore pvper, i am a pvp enthusist however. I feel i am middle of the pack.

 

Also I like to PUG Wzs sometimes and other times I like to play with my guild. We are a PVE server

 

The issues i have seen pop up since 1.2 hit:

 

1. There needs to be a deserter debuff on people quitting WZ's It needs to be long, like 15 minutes + new reque time. Currently what is happening alot on my server is as soon as one team is losing, 2-4 players quit leaving the rest of the team shorthanded and in farm mode the rest of the match. I do not quit a match, i fight to the bitter end in these games. But if this continues as it is, i would likely just move on from PVP in general in this game and do PVE only or move on to the next game completely (this is not a threat, just what happens when players lose interest in a current game)

 

2. Matches need to end when outnumbered like they did previously to patch 1.2. Nothing worse than being stuck in a WZ 8 vs 4...my options at that point are to stand around and do nothing to prevent farming, or fight outnumbered and allow them to farm Warhero on me.

 

3. Premades rule all now. As in all other games previous to this, premades destroy pugs. I actually really thought the 4 member max premade was a brilliant move previously. It allowed players to group up with freinds and que, but also added a random element to each WZ. Now it seems it is a steamroll fest. Yes the pro premade crowd is going to say "join a premade then" which i do at times, but sometimes, i just like to log in que for a couple WZ's then go about other business for the night too. I used to win about 40-50% of my matches as a PUG and about 80% as a 4 man premade....now I win about 10% pug. Premades are a fact of life in MMOs i guess i was just really enjoying the 4 man premade max before to make PUG wzs more fun and hoped this was not int he works to change.

 

4. Lesser rewards and quest tracker not working. I am actually not to worried about only getting 40 coms now in a lose, cie la vie...but what does happen now is i am relying more than ever on the daily / weekly quests. I had never had a problem getting credit for my matches or wins previous to 1.2 but now half my WZ matches are not counting towards the quest. Like previously stated i am starting and finishing every WZ i enter and fighting on objectives getting my medals. Can you expelain on the Warzone daily yesterday why after 6 WZ matches my daily and weekly quest only gave me 9 points instead of 18?

 

5. Recruit -> Warhero gap seems harder than fresh 50 -> Battlemaster did. Maybe its just me but i seem to be doing much much worse in my recruit armor + 1 BM and Champ piece then i did as a fresh 50 earning my Cent armor vs BM's

 

 

Anyways, just my 2cents. I enjoy PVP in some games, other games i do not. I enjoyed PVP up till this patch in this game, and with some tweaks i think it can fall back in line.

I left my first WZ the other day. Never did that before in all the pvp i have done. I will start doing it from now on. There is no point to doing my very best and at best i get 45-50 coms and little valor. If i am stuck with a group of 50's who decided that once they hit 50 it was time to pvp i will get this feeling in my stomach of here we go again and watch as they dont pass the ball or run around all over the map trying to one on one someone.

 

I will fight to the bitter end on a real game but I wont stay for a crap game.

 

Its not worth it to bite my lip and take a loss anymore. I just leave.

I don't understand two things;

 

Why lower the required medals from three to one; one is EASY to get. If your goal to help people joining late/replacing leavers to get rewards then make the number of medals needed variable based on the length of time left/progress in the WZ when a player joins. Lowering the reward threshold just puts us back to players doing the minimum to AFK/farm.

 

Secondly the gap between fresh 50's and geared 50's is huge. I don't understand why the blues were introduced; making the Champion tier purchasable by credits would make more sense, and not only that gives you an easy upgrade route later (you can simply down-step the tiers as you introduce new ones).

Wining is better than losing and I get that it should be rewarded more. The problem is the disparity is still too high. Even when I lose a match, but get the highest medals on my team (typically 10 or more) I still get almost no reward based on the time I spent. This has made it so that I find PvP extremely annoying now, and this is coming from someone that was PvPing almost exclusively.l

 

As it stands, I really have no incentive to warzone queue without grouping with an established team before hand, because I run too high a risk of getting stuck with bad players when I pug it, and then get put against an established team.

 

So now I simply don't pug it, and I'm starting to see a lot of people who don't, which will quickly have a diminishing effect on the number of people queueing, and extend the wait times.

 

If anything I think maybe there should be a 20% bonus for winning vs. losing. Something to give that incentive and make you happy you won, but not enough to discourage people from pugging.

Hey folks,

 

There's been a lot of discussion about the changes to the Warzone rewards system in Game Update 1.2 and the type of play style that it encourages. I wanted to help out a bit and point out a major change not all players may have noticed and share some of our plans.

 

First of all, rest assured we are keeping a close watch on the results of our reward changes to Warzones in 1.2 and we will continue to pull constant metrics to make sure they are going in the right direction as players get used to the new rules.

 

To refresh everyone's memories, one of the most important aspects of the new changes is that your team's performance inside the Warzone has a direct impact on a portion of the rewards you are given at the end of the Warzone. Even if your team is losing, the closer you can make the game the better your rewards will be - so don't give up hope! Giving up and letting the other team 'win faster' is now the worst possible route you can take to rewards.

 

Secondly, one of the things we have already identified to fix is to reduce the minimum amount of medals a player must receive to gain any reward at all. Currently that value is three (3), and we are going to reduce that to only needing one (1) medal to gain rewards. This should make sure we cover that all important backfill player while still protecting against the freeloaders.

 

As we move forward, we will continue to meet and discuss other possible changes based on the feedback here on the Forums as well as the data coming in from the live servers. As always, we appreciate your comments and want to hear from you.

 

Hi PVE Dev, please back away from the keyboard and allow a PVP-Centric Dev interact with PVP players from this time on.

 

 

First, BW should allow players to copy their level 50 characters to Test so that metrics can be 'tested' there.

 

Second, the current reward system doesn't encourage team work and playing the WZ. Instead, players immediately ditch a losing team- even if the loss is perceived. Premades have an obvious advantage in this instance (and I support premades), but without the rated WZs, PUGs become farming fodder.

 

Third, WZs remain active even with half a team (4:8 ratio). Have you ever played a WZ in these conditions? Let me tell you, it is a farm fest for the short team. Its ridiculous.

 

Fourth, Gear disparity has never been higher. What happened to removing the gear treadmill encouraging skill to differentiate players rather than time invested?

 

Fifth, why was DPS increased in WZs? I loved the idea of a Death Match style WZ, but not implemented like this. Any given WZ is like watching Keystone Kops running around, dying, dying dying.

 

 

I unsubbed from SWTOR BECAUSE of the PVP changes that were pushed to live from PTS. I am not the only disgruntled customer that cancelled their paying account as a direct result of those PVP changes heaped upon us.

 

Correct the above issues, and I may resub. Keep on your current path/mission and I won't grace BW with another dime for this game!

 

/Signed,

A Disgruntled Formerly Paying Customer

You said:

"To refresh everyone's memories, one of the most important aspects of the new changes is that your team's performance inside the Warzone has a direct impact on a portion of the rewards you are given at the end of the Warzone. Even if your team is losing, the closer you can make the game the better your rewards will be - so don't give up hope! Giving up and letting the other team 'win faster' is now the worst possible route you can take to rewards."

 

Have you ever really played warzones? This portion of your game is nowhere NEAR setting up and running groups that work as teams. Everything is random. Players with all levels of gear and ability AND ATTITUDE are thrown together and it is an absolute mess in there now, specifically since 1.2 Update.

 

One of my first games (Huttball) after the update was with a team that I did a lot of running around, trying to be in front of the ball for passing, etc etc etc, I was only able to garner 1 medal... and most of the times I was stunned and slowed and frozen and strangled by the opposite team over and over, unable to really accomplish anything. There was no way that one person in our team, who was typing insults towards the rest of the team, was going to work together with the rest of us to pull it out, let alone the rest of the team pulling together to work to get a win. In general, you have perhaps 2-3 people who may step up and lead and succeed. This is the way YOU have set these warzones up.

 

Pay attention to your game. Spend a few days of doing warzones day in and day out, and then come up with an equitable system to support your dream of how warzones should go.

 

Thank you.

Edited April 16, 2012 by Appletaz

Hey folks,

 

...

 

To refresh everyone's memories, one of the most important aspects of the new changes is that your team's performance inside the Warzone has a direct impact on a portion of the rewards you are given at the end of the Warzone. Even if your team is losing, the closer you can make the game the better your rewards will be - so don't give up hope! Giving up and letting the other team 'win faster' is now the worst possible route you can take to rewards.

 

 

I understand that you think that "giving up" is the worst possible route to rewards, but it really isn't. You can say that is true, but I have played some WZ's post 1.2 that I wish I had given up on - even when you try hard and lose, you don't get enough to be worth the time. I like to play PvP even when I lose, but I do not like to play PvP at all when I am at a disadvantage to the opposition. I admit I am not good enough to play with a handicap. Sue me.

 

I prefer to stick it out in WZ matches, but this is a game, and it is one I am paying to play. If I am not enjoying the game, if it is one-sided (for whatever reason), and if I am risking zero reward for playing through to completion (including zero credits), then I will either quit and re-queue or quit and PvE for a while. That should be my right: freedom to choose what I play in the game and when and with who.

 

I make no apologies for this. No one should be penalzed for quiting when they are not enjoying a game they are paying to play. The answer/solution is not to disincentivize quitting but to incentivize staying. I don't need to win to enjoy myself. Losing can be fun too when there is not a huge dispartiy building between the winners and the losers. The knowledge that the winners are going to be outpacing me in gear progression just ruins it for me.

 

PvP should be about skill and the fun of fighting other players first - not about gear progression. Gear can be a fun reward for participation, but when only the winners are able to gear up with any degree of speed, the losers are ensured that they will continue to lose. Worse still, the competition ceases to be about skill and gear becomes the focus. Gear progression is great, but it should not be the reward for winning. It should be something all players get as they play.

 

The reward for winning should be obvious to anyone: winning is its own reward - bragging rights, etc. Valor SHOULD be a way of charting your status of a winner (the ilum debacle a while back has left me skeptical that valor means anything, really). Beating other players is fun, but conversely I don't enjoy winning over others simply b/c I have better gear (not that this is often an issue for me in the 50 bracket). If I win, then I want to win b/c I am better - not because I am better geared - but because I performed better. I don't mind losing to someone, on the flip side, who performed better than I did. I do mind losing to someone primarily bc his gear was sweeter.

 

This is all quite obvious to me. I should think that, if you really are watching the game and forums this closely, then you would see this too. People who take the position that gear should be awarded only to the winners are clearly defending their advantage - they do not trust their skill alone to maintain their status as "winners." You can side with them if you like, but it isn't the perspective of a true competitor to seek the "upper hand" in this fashion.

 

Fixing this should be a relatively simple matter, assuming you agreed with the foregoing. As there has been no fix, I presume that you disagree with what I have written above. For the life of me, I cannot understand why. I am sure others will flame me to explain it.

 

 

Secondly, one of the things we have already identified to fix is to reduce the minimum amount of medals a player must receive to gain any reward at all. Currently that value is three (3), and we are going to reduce that to only needing one (1) medal to gain rewards. This should make sure we cover that all important backfill player while still protecting against the freeloaders...

 

 

That does sound like a good idea. To some degree, I like that rewards are based on team efforts rather than constant dueling (at least until we get a good deathmatch WZ - something many people want). However, some players may make a legitimate effort but come up short for whatever reason. I don't think it is wise, generally speaking, to make life harder for the players with the least amount of skill, which is what happens when you penalize (by failing to reward) players who make a legitimate effort to cap points and get trophies but fail to do so due to lack of skill.

 

The bottom line: no competition should be about giving the best players and advantage over the worst players. There is a reason that, in sports, the best players play at a handicap (not the worst). We want good, fun competition don't we? Why should we focus on making the best players better? Why would they want that?

 

Why am I punished if I can defend a node or cap a node over and over again, but my team is too stupid to do anything but Zerg something?

 

Last night I was in the new Warzone on an alt. We won 100% to 0%. We got 100 commendations. I don't know how many the other team got, but I bet it wasn't a lot.

 

You shouldn't reward a single player based on the teams success or failure. You as a developer are getting paid less because someone you work with sucks at their job. Why should I get less reward now because I randomly get put in a queue with 7 people who may not be good, or undergeared, or whatever.

 

The system is flawed.

On Warzone Scoring and Rewards | 04.13.2012 , 08:08 PM

 

Report Post

Hey folks,

 

First question, why is his post dated from 3 days ago and only showing up now on the forum?

 

Second... the whole premise of basing rewards on how well your team does, when 90% of the time THE TEAMS ARE NOT BALANCED is utterly flawed. Seriously, play your own damn game. Log in to a random server... good chance it'll be a low pop server because most of them are that way. Copy a pub toon over and join a wz. You might have to do this at prime time even to get a wz to start. Watch as the match starts 8v4. Watch as it stays like that for a few minutes and drops to 8v1 (you.)

 

Seriously. You cant base a system on rewarding team accomplishment even in the face of a losing battle when the fight was not even fair to start. Dont give up hope.... dude do you play the game? If you get screwed in the first 2 minutes of any of the maps, 90% of the time it's a guaranteed loss. IF and ONLY if a cross server wz system is implemented, preferably with an actual matchmaker that takes class and gear composition into account, will that even be a relevant metric on which to measure performance and rewards. (Side note, much as WoT players love to hate on it, that matchmaking system actually does a fairly decent job most of the time. Also, guess what... if you lose you arent screwed over just because your side got roflstomped... your rewards are based on a good combination of personal performance and objectives, with a minor bonus for a victory.)

 

To sum up: Garbage idea in... Garbage pvp out. Players out.

Edited April 16, 2012 by Polebreaker

It is not just the commendation but extreme nerf to cash that hurts the most. Please don't force us PVP players to grind PVE dailies. Options are good for the game.

 

Pre 1.2 i wasn't swimming in cash but i used to get by just doing PVP. PVE players on other hand got coreilla dailies added to belsavis and ilum and we PVP players got nerf to credits..how is that even fair?

 

Even if i start getting cash rewards like i used to before 1.2 i can tolerate reduction in commendations, but getting zero cash in a losing match where i manage to get 3 medals despite of being rolled over is just very dis heartening. As of now it seems that credits awarded at end of match are not attached to medals at all.

 

I completly agree with this. Why even touch credits at all? Why would anyone mind if both winners and losers got the exact same credit payout per game?

 

-I say let everyone get max credits upon completion of a WZ or give us a pvp daily that rewards us with simular ammounts of credits as the pve dailies.

 

Regarding Comms, Exp and Valor - Imo these 3 should be left static per game. Instead there should be separate rewards that only can be purchased by tokens gained from winning a WZ - But not anything that halts gear progression for bad/inexperienced/unlucky people.

 

Stuff like uniqe titles, uniqe moddable armor, SMALL boosts to base stats (Think datacron), emotes, uniqe companion mods, uniqe pets/mounts etc etc whatnot.

 

If not, then i think the winners should still have a significantly higher payout compared to the losing team. But - it should be their payout being extraordinary, not the losing team being nerfed.

 

We are all used to the comm gain pre 1.2 and imo noone should get less comms, credits or exp than they got back then. Being good and winning a match should give you a boost, not the other way around...

You are basically forcing a reward system that would be good for 8v8 groups in Rated Warzones on pugs of regular warzones.

 

In a rated you would pick your own team. You can talk about why something went wrong and how to fix it. It is generally a complete team effort.

 

In a regular warzone, you don't get to pick your team even if you have a 4 person group. Being rewarded based on their success or lack thereof is a terrible idea for a system that groups 8 random people together.

Pay attention to your game. Spend a few days of doing warzones solo-queueing day in and day out, and then come up with an equitable system to support your dream of how warzones should go.

 

Thank you.

 

I fixed that one important statement for you.

 

My overall thoughts are similar to some. Overall experience 10-49 is enjoyable. At 50, expertise still plays a bit too much of a role, but it's not as tragically bad as some make it think. Some people seem to think they can waltz into a 50 warzone fresh with minimal expertise. It didn't work pre 1.2, and it won't work now. Buy the recruit set. Stats are meh but the expertise total is worth its weght in gold.

 

Constructive criticisms - not that many:

 

1) People would rather not participate in a warzone then get outmanned/farmed.

 

Solution: Never allow less then 6 in an active zone.

If you drop to 6, give it 60 seconds then call it.

If it drops to 5, give it 30 seconds.

 

The 'cheap wins' will generally balance out over time, and less people will have to experience hopeless battles.

 

2) The gear grind for a complete warhero set is insane. Someone estimated about 270 hours of warzones, assuming short queue times. That's 3 months of 3 hours a day nothing but warzones. 1.3 will be here in three months!

 

Solution: Alter the conversion rate of warzone to ranked warzone comms to 2 to 1, instead of current 3 to 1.

 

 

edit: Also, don't sit there (other posters) saying "PvE dev, back away and let's talk to a PvP dev". Why? Daniel is extremely knowledgable on PvP matters from beta, and also - you remember our PvP dev, Gabe A? Well he's been doing a pretty meh job with it so far.

I'd be ready for a NEW PvP dev, tbh.

Edited April 16, 2012 by islander

Giving up and letting the other team 'win faster' is now the worst possible route you can take to rewards.

 

The fact that you had to state this is a clear indication of just how many baddies play this game. lawl

 

Currently that value is three (3), and we are going to reduce that to only needing one (1) medal to gain rewards. This should make sure we cover that all important backfill player while still protecting against the freeloaders.

 

This is probably a good move for lowbie WZs where the greatest skill/gear gap exists. Your average level 10 walking into a WZ for their first time is going to have it rough. Good move for them.

 

Not so great move for the level 50s that don't know what WZ objectives are or how to play their toons.

Edited April 16, 2012 by DarthOvertone

Thoughtful feedback from the weekend:

 

1. It is, and has been, extremely frustrating to join a match-in-progress as a backfill player on a losing team. PvP queue times on my server can be long (5-15 minutes), and it's a slow process to queue, load, hop into a match, play for 30 or 90 seconds, watch the game summary screen, rinse, and repeat. What's worse is I'm now not rewarded in the least for this, even if I hop out of the gate, kill the ball carrier, and get 3 medals (e.g. 2.5k damage in one hit, finishing blow, 1k Defender Points).

 

Thanks for addressing the medals/rewards issue by dropping the minimum requirement to 1. However, this still doesn't change the fact that being a backfill player is a waste of time and, more importantly, is not fun.

 

2. I think it's great that Voidstar now ends as soon as Team 2 makes more progress than Team 1 does. However, it can be really frustrating to be on the winning team and not get appropriate rewards for this. My team receives fewer rewards for winning than we would have if we intentionally perpetuate the match; and the other team is rewarded more if we "toy" with them and refuse to cap. Rewards are not being distributed based on performance, in this case.

 

3. Related to point 2 above, matches in which I've earned the most experience are matches in which I've been on the losing team and played very well. I was playing through levels 34-38 on a Sniper this weekend. In matches I won, no matter how long it took, I would receive no more than 10k experience. When we rolled the other team in Huttball or Voidstar, I would get maybe 7k XP. Not a lot. On the other hand, I could earn 8 or 9 medals in a losing effort and would gain over 17k XP. This happened twice. I would receive over twice as much XP for losing as I would for winning. It doesn't make sense!

 

As I understand it, XP is distributed based on time spent in a Warzone, but that just encourages players to make matches last as long as possible - it doesn't encourage teams to win. That's pretty frustrating. I realize you also need to reward players who stick with a warzone and see it all the way through, but I'm personally dissatisfied with the current system and think it sends the wrong message and inappropriately rewards players.

 

I don't want to start spewing "You must change items A, B, and C to X, Y, and Z." I don't have the solution. But I think improvement is needed in how players are rewarded (or not) for participating in warzones.

Daniel,

 

If your polling of WZ results were accurate and reflective of real game PvP, you would not have gone forward with these changes. That is blindingly obvious.

 

The current system is causing a significant divergence between haves and have nots, and it gets worse with every game played. I tried to PvP all weekend and not once, not once, did our side (Republic) start the game with a full group (in games that I was present at start). There were numerous instances of the group getting full well after it was too late to do anything for a win.

 

So what does that mean? It means that the high population Imperial side continues to gain rewards at an alarmingly higher rate than the Republic. The gearing disparity gets bigger and they get stronger.

 

At least in 25% of the games I played, I got in during the final moments. Yes, you say you're going to address that, but you're not addressing the real issue. So what if my one medal allows me to get a token WZ Com, the Imps got the full amount and our side got squat in comparison...back to the real problem.

 

P.S.: If your data *is* accurate, then you need to explain to us why you think this current disparity (as expressed above) is considered by BW to be a good design.

 

^^^

The way it goes today, the imbalance is awarded.

well put Dralen.. the reason <50 pvp is more fun? 0 consideration for gear. give level 50s a bolster buff and award vanity items for valor ranks.

 

anyone that disagrees with this is playing for gear, not competition.

 

 

 

oh and implement server transfers ASAP.

Most of the changes post 1.2 seem to be trying to point players to PvE more. Are you guys upset that PvP turned out to be as popular as it has and players are not doing the PvE content as much as you had hoped? That is no reason to punish everyone who enjoys PvP! It's like every major patch, you guys take a nice step forward... but at the same time do another change that takes you two steps backwards.

well put Dralen.. the reason <50 pvp is more fun? 0 consideration for gear. give level 50s a bolster buff and award vanity items for valor ranks.

 

anyone that disagrees with this is playing for gear, not competition.

 

 

 

oh and implement server transfers ASAP.

 

This is a given.

 

I am speculating part of the reason ranked warzones were shelved last minute was because of just that.

 

Imagine how long queues would be if you took these 50-60 light server pops every night and split up the 35-50 pvpers into 2 groups, ranked and unranked?

 

Disaster.

 

I'm thinking they are hoping they can get cross server queueing working - at least for PvP - in 1.3

Edited April 16, 2012 by islander

Hey folks,

 

Some follow up news from observations of play and feedback over the weekend. In the next couple of days we will be deploying a small patch that will address the following issues:

 

• As discussed, minimum medals to gain rewards will go from 3 to 1 to better reward those who are backfilled.
  
• Warzones will once again be shutting down when population imbalance is detected. This was an unfortunate bug where a feature of Ranked Warzones (in full team play it is not desirable to let one team end the game prematurely by quitting out) was incorrectly implemented globally.
  
• Completion of Warzones will gain a large increase in the percentage of rewards it represents, so while scoring is still the primary driver, you will cease to see games that give no rewards if players have a minimum of 1 medal earned.
  
• We are extending the time we wait for a full team of eight to better make sure Warzones pop with complete teams.

 

A huge thank you to everyone who played this weekend and provided valuable feedback and analysis.

 

That's a good start but we still have the armor gap issue. Get rid of the recruit junk and give us back champ gear with better expertise added.