Ilum : Constructive criticisms and suggestions for Bioware

If this is the development of former Warhammer PvP "guru's", then where is the Warhammer?

They had a pretty decent concept, multiple RvR zones with battles for control. Win control of a zone and it locks and the battle moves to another zone. Multiple zones can be in play at any given time thus dispersing the crowds.

We have all these great planets with great terrain and we are fighting in a straight up and down direction on a dark block of ice for daily/weekly kills?

Take ALL quests out of the equation and make it a straight fight for control with valor earnings for player kills, and a bonus for a "base conquest".

Not only have they promoted a zerg environment, they can't handle the number of players. Compounding this is their own lag machines. The objectives have those ships dropping every few minutes, notice the freeze when it happens? The CONSTANT updating of who controls which objective, notice the freeze when that happens?

And then they added the feature of a system update to CONSTANTLY let you know who just rode by any of the objectives. Not only is this an additional spam we don't need, it totally hurts the smaller force who is trying to maneuver around.

They placed all the objectives in one straight line down the map. Not a real good way to get people moving around the terrain. I would axe the way objectives are taken and replace it with a simple terminal flip like you have in the Alderaan war zone. Negates the lag and we all know its not the simplest thing to flip one of those during a fight.

They have a lot of work to do, most people will be patient for awhile, but eventually they are going to have to consult a range of idea's from actual OPEN WORLD pvp'ers and not just design things that "they think will be fun for people".

The big reason the PVP is so different in this, is that there is no body blocking. Body blocking allowed for chockepoints, and a 300 style hold-out. Where-as this just allows the largest group to reap the reward. I think it would be cool to see collision detection implemented, but it isn't feasible with all the leaps and what-not.

I agree with your 2 and 3 here. I think what you fail to see is that Ilum is big, and that if you don't direct people towards a common objective it too, will be boring. Driving around a wasteland looking for armaments and getting 2 minutes of excitement every 20 (when you finally see a player to kill), is also not fun. This also supports solo gameplay, discouraging small group PvP, which is what you want. (having to share armaments you find with the players in your group).

Now there are solutions to breaking up the zerg. You can spread the current objectives horizontally across the zone more, and require all 3 to be destroyed in order to proceed to the next point. This will make it so the group has to split up more (into 3 groups), and cap all 3 and hold them, in order to progress. You can see how effectively this can play out simply by looking at alderran warzone, and see how often all 3 points get crapped. It happens, but it requires a lot of teamwork or a very certain degree of luck.

I came here to this forum hoping I'd find a topic like this.

I quit doing Ilum. I know this will set me back by a considerable marging pvpgear wise. Sucks for me, but I can't bear Ilum. This is the first grind ever I simply refuse to do.

These are the bandaids I suggest:

- The zone is huge and traveling through it takes forever. With the population issue on many servers, and even on populated servers, getting from A to B and hoping to catch anyone there is practically impossible. Create more graveyards and a more reliable way to get somewhere, such as flightpaths scattered around strategic locations that cannot be capped, just are available to everyone. That will make the needlessly HUGENESS of this zone at least somewhat surmountable.

- Armaments. Honestly. Scatter them all over the map and center them around capture points, NOT JUST THE MIDDLE. I'm tired running that 1 circle for 3 hours (yes, that's how long 1 daily is gonna take on my server, grouped with friends, AND I'M IMP I can't fathom how the pubs are getting it).

- Repeatable kills. Why a repeated kill does not count towards your daily is beyond me. Not grant valor - whatever, who cares, if that's what it takes to stop farming. Do you honestly expect me to grab a notepad and write down all player names I killed in the past 10 minutes for 3 hours?

- 30?!?! objectives? Honestly. And the weekly: 150?! Are you.. i mean. Seriously. All weeklies are on a 1:3 basis: warzone weekly requires 9 wins (3 wins for daily), hardmode weekly requires 3 hardmodes (1 hardmode for daily). So what went wrong with the 30x3 math?

- Anyway, bring back the 30 to something managable: 15 tops. A daily doesn't mean you spend your entire day doing it.



Long term fixes I came up with on the fly now:

- The zone is just to big for the population on any server, and even if a big server can support the hugeness of it, Ilum is giving many players a FPS headache as it is. Think of a 200vs200 warzone and you can imagine where I'm going. Ilum needs to be reduced in size.
~ A way to do this would be to split Ilum in several smaller zones, that open at random at set intervals so people don't get bored by the same landscape.

- A solution I personally do not like much, is making Ilum timed based like Wintergrasp. Say it's up every 2 hours, and a maximum of 30 players can join (because of performance/lag, more would be unwise in the current state of the game). It kills the openworldness intent of Ilum however.

- Make capping points a bigger deal. Say capping one point grants you 1 update towards your daily (the valor bonus will still exist), killing players gives you 3 points. This will stop the pointjuggling we had prior to the changes while encouraging movement, exploring, and killing.a

plz sticky

This is seriously constructive feedback, as an analyst, true game player, and competitive gamer, that dont ever call OP, rather call the player ignorance card, there is nothing they can fix.. its far to badly designed... can only redo from start and that is my serious assessment and the only solution you can hope for.
Resolve was a horrible design, the classes were designed around lore and trying to fit to a game, where in any game mechanics must come first...

We will eventually learn, that lore games, controlled by suits.. will never be good games, because they must cater to the lore and will be sacrificed to the ultimate levels of disaster.

I see your point. The only issue with the whole "required to get to the next point" thing is again faction imbalance. The lesser faction needs to be able to sneak behind enemy lines. Doing the 3 horizontal points creates a hard front line still. However slightly concentrating the pickups in smaller camps while still having a few in-between isn't a terrible idea. That would lead people around the map in thinly spread patterns. Its a matter of if people want just another warzone or a real open world pvp area. Your Idea leans it more toward warzone then anything. But thats really up to the player base.

Nonconstructive? Is that a joke?

The point of valor and the whole grind is that it separates the hardcore PvPers who worked their *** off to get battlemasters and get all the gear and the casuals who sat in Ilum for a week and got to rank 60.

IF YOU DONT REMOVE ILUM EVERYONE WILL HAVE BATTLEMASTERS + GEAR.

WHATS THE POINT OF IT THEN? LOL

Nonconstructive. Let's post suggestions on how to fix it while people are getting to the point where they won't even NEED to go to Ilum anymore. Once everyone is 60+ they'll do their dailies and leave because they got the valor they need.

Valor is something that you should be working to get, not sitting there AFK. Remove it until you can figure out something that works. When someone gets the same rank in a week sitting AFK in Ilum as someone who grinds warzones all day for a month, then it should be removed until you can figure out something that works.

There is no more casual / hardcore PvPer anymore. There are no arenas or competitive PVP. With this Ilum easymode Valor, PvP is DYING.

Here i have something for you

If you actually read my post you would see that there is reasons for them to go back on a constant basis through out the week. No one is getting all their gear out of the first 5 bags they get. Right now Ilum attendance is down to a minimum because whatever faction is outnumbered does not want to go there. You don't want everyone there all the time that would create the same problems that it already has. Your comments have no use in this thread find somewhere else to cry. And if you are a "hardcore PVPer" as you claim to be then you would know the most satisfying pvp is when you overcome odds in small scale fights and thats where you would go to have fun once you have your gear. Unless you only want your gear to sit afk in the capital.

They are not going to disable Ilum. Thats completely out of the question. This thread is about how to improve it and nothing else.

ive yet to make it to ilum.just lvl 38 snipier here.i hope they fix these probs all i hear is crying over ilum.i would hope it would be my favorit part of the game,i love world pvp.ilum needs lots of pvp quests that requier you to explore the hole planit.i dont worry about the pvp stat ill have plenty of that in time.the part about the fun and getting to now your opponits and community is the best.you know picking out you favorite opponit across the feld of battle and sending him/her a smart *** tell and procedding to atack even if they kill you this time theres always next time,or next mounth,or next year and soforth.i plan on playing this game for years hopfully the pvp will evolve in to a great,fun experience.