Stop forcing PVP on PVE servers

Well you're twisting the words of what I wrote to make them seem objectionable in some way... nonetheless I will respond with a more clear description of the obvious:
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One of the two main purposes of this thread is to make sure that the rights of PvE players are promoted in the Gree Event and other events so that they are not forced to flag for PvP in order to earn the maximum daily number of Gree Trophies.

The only reason the Original Poster had gone on one of the 2 [PVP] missions in the Gree Event in the first place was because he had finished all [PVE] missions on the Event terminal, saw the 2 [PVP] daily missions and realized in order to get the full number of Gree Trophies for the day and have the maximum chance of attaining enough rank to even purchase rewards sooner than never, he would have to attempt to complete the PvP mission without getting attacked, and I think it's safe to say that he shares the sentiment with many other PvE players in that he very much dislikes being attacked. The fun of the event and the promise of the awesome rewards that we can all see on the Gree Vendor is what led to him wanting to go ahead on the [PVP] mission in the Event.

It's not at all unreasonable to request that the Gree Event missions that are [PVP] be changed in some way so that PvE players can also complete the mission, except in an alternative way that does not require flagging for PvP. The mission doesn't need to change for PvP-flagged players, it just needs to have an alternative method of completion.
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...Actually you're the poster who looked at the reprehensible initial responses (*FOUR* of them) to the Original Poster on the first page, and called them tame. Given what you are condoning in the past and in the future against the Original Poster (and against every other PvE player in SWToR who doesn't like it when PvP players intrude on their gameplay), you are very likely to be the most uncivil poster in this thread. Which is quizzical, since nothing you have responded to was uncivil.

Not only that but you threatened to break the forum rules in my general direction in that same post on page 13. Do you not see a pattern of belligerence and forum lawlessness in your postings? If there were anyone genuinely moderating this thread, you would have been locked out of this thread the moment you sent that post on page 13. And take very close note of my message that you were responding to: in which I warned you that your forum postings had already become uncivil.

On the contrary, the fact that PvP servers are only for PvP players (by virtue of the fact that there is no such thing as a non-PvP player on PvP servers), it's only fair to customize the PvE servers 100% for PvE players. If BioWare decides to make a change such as this, it's also only fair if any servers currently labeled as PvE servers will be the exact servers that get changed to be strictly PvE-only servers (with absolutely no PvP features whatsoever) so that strictly PvE-only players are also provided with a game environment that is 100% tailored to their choice of play style.

Obviously this creates a huge gap where hybrid PvP/PvE servers once existed (the servers that are currently deceptively labeled PvE servers). In order to not horrendously upset all of the players who want to both PvE and PvP (and already have massive equipment sets dedicated to both), they would clearly have to, at the same time, create a new set of servers that are that hybrid PvP/PvE style of environment.

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I'm no fool. I know this will never happen because of how much effort it would require, and how much disruption it will bring to the game community on each server. But it's still what would be fair. And as long as everyone understands, that PvP players have been handed entire servers that are dedicated to their playing style, and PvE players have been given no dedicated servers at all.

But... I still have a small hope that maybe BioWare will find time to do not what's perfectly fair, but rather create at least one auxiliary server that is a strictly PvE-only server, having no PvP features at all, and leave it up to the dedicated PvE-only players to leave all their friends/guilds/familiarities behind in order to migrate to a server where they won't experience the heinous abuses that are regularly inflicted upon them by PvP players running amuck on the PvE servers.

Leaving aside the drama and hyperbole from both sides of the discussion, there is no real need to create a PvE exclusive server.
Unless the game is specifically designed to be PvP only (and then it would function a lot more like CoD and a lot less like a RPG) there is only a small fraction of the player base that is really interested in open world PvP. This has been proven time and again by games that attempted to mix up PvE and PvP. (The PvP servers are struggling to fill up and players are not exactly running to PvP on the PvE servers).
However there is a much larger proportion of the players who like the occasional PvP. Thus the popularity of arenas and warzones, and the (very) occasional brawl in contested zones. These are not the players who cause (the majority of) the problems highlighted in this and similar discussions and it seems unfair to lock them out of something that they occasionally enjoy because of the relatively few who abuse the system.
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The problem is not the PvP as such (though it creates other unrelated problems for a PvE game) but the autoflagging that allows PvP players to force their gameplay on unwilling PvE players. Fix that and you fix pretty much all the problems discussed in this thread.
Except I guess for the griefers who want a steady stream of unprepared victims for their 'entertainment'.

Exactly.

1. Fix that stupid flagging bug. Being a good Samaritan or team player should not be a trap or an invite for some griefer to stun you in the middle of a boss battle and send you back to start with a nasty repair bill. At the very least, having to scratch your rear in a cantina for five minutes after an accidental flag to get rid of it is bad design.
   
2. Don't try to railroad PvE players into a contested zone to complete quests (because a 30% penalty for opting out of PvP during a limited-time event is railroading). It does nothing to increase the PvE player's interest in PvP, and just gives the idiot branch of PvPers a slaughterfest.
   
3. Make the PvP area good sport by emphasizing teamwork and goals between equally matched teams. There needs to be more to it than "HURR DURR, juz ganked n00b. I iz l33t!" Put some goals in place, have some rewards for winning/holding objectives, limit the amount of people from each faction inside the area so one faction doesn't outnumber the other by double or triple. Reward in commendations, credits, and PvP gear.
   
4. I'll also add this; I really liked the opportunity for cross-faction cooperation. Think about the opportunities this opens up. Many guilds have both Republic and Imperial branches, and there are battles where, realistically, a group of Imps and a group of Pubs could grit their teeth and work together to take out a common enemy. The galaxy is crawling with Eldrich abominations, freelance terrorists, Knight Templar Jedi, General Rippers in the respective fleets, and Sith that went past Dark Side and into pure insanity. With Makeb, the Hutts are now throwing their considerable weight around, so that opens up even more opportunities for Enemy Mine scenarios.

Interesting thoughts, and I agree that if the servers were more "pure" with PvE being strictly PvE and with PvP servers having only the PvP options that many problems would be eliminated. As those who enjoy PvP and PvE can simply roll on a PvP server like I did (since BW won't remove PvE content)



The only problem I see (as you stated) is that we can't predict how this will impact the servers population wise. We don't know accurately how many strict PvE'rs there are versus the casual player who enjoys both PvE and PvP,

Some of these players may want only PvE servers with wz's as we have now, and no open world PvP as there is on PvP servers.

Others like myself prefer PvP servers with PvE content so we can enjoy all aspects of the game, be it PvE PvP and RP.

And then there are the players like yourself it seems, that wish to have PvE only servers with no PvP content at all.


So what would this look like in aplication? You make an account and choose a server from the listings of PvP PvE Hybrid or PvE with a description of what each type of server offers?

Wow that's a presumptuous thing to have said. In fact there is a gargantuan reason to create a PvE exclusive server. It's not so much the very high probability that a large part of the user base would prefer a server type that is strictly PvE-only, the reason is WHY some players would prefer a PvE-only server. Have you genuinely considered the player atmosphere on a server that has no PvP play? If contrasted with any server with any type of PvP enabled, it would be a verifiable paradise, filled largely with people who consider respect of others to be a top priority. Abuse of other players would be limited to kicking them out of an FP or an Op for no good reason, or maybe the occasional emotional outburst or personal insult; but all of that I think would be a much lower rate. Gone would be the predation against PvE players in many scenarios, and the environment would be far more serene and civil as a result.

Now, this would create an odd lack of factional competition that would seem to violate the entire theme of the game (which interestingly enough already exists if you don't ever PvP). What is needed is some kind of weekly faction-performance statistics, such as Boss achievements to see how many times each faction has defeated the FP/Ops bosses on SM and on HM, or such as fastest Boss battle as timed in-game, and at each Weekly Update time, the winning faction receives a reward item in their email box. Actually the idea of all-time records for fastest boss battles is interesting, it makes me think of the original video games like Frogger and PacMan that had the high-score listing. BioWare could also consider creating direct competition scenarios that don't involve any PvP, for example one of the galaxy's crime syndicates has taken hostage ambassadors from a multi-factional peace conference on Coruscant, and each faction has to race to fight through the syndicate mobs to reach and rescue their ambassador... the first faction to rescue their ambassador gets the mission rewards. And there's always the possibility of a factional tournament for Pazaak, Dejarik, or Sabacc!

I'm aware that there are a large number of occasional PvP'ers... however it is BioWare's mistake of not creating strictly PvE-only servers from the start that creates the problem. What seems fair would be for PvE players to not have to move servers, since they chose the PvE servers specifically to avoid PvP. The new servers (that would be pretty much required at the same update) would be the hybrid PvE/PvP servers (identical features to the current servers that are labeled "PvE") which people interested in only occasional PvP would need to transfer to.

What would be left as far as server types I think is interesting. There are the PvP servers, which contain only PvP players, then the PvE servers which contain only PvE players... then you would have the hybrid PvE/PvP servers which contain players who enjoy both styles of play at one time or another. PvP players are the ones highly favored by the server setup as it is now; they have a server that is for ONLY PvP players.

I would be 100% fine with it if BioWare were to decide to instead create new servers that were the strictly-PvE-only servers and require the PvE-only players to be the ones who have to leave friends & guilds and move servers. I wouldn't complain for even a second, rather I would be there with every single one of my characters the first day they went live. I would be happier with the gaming environment than you can possibly imagine ...

Yup that's pretty much it. And I thought I'd restate something that's been mentioned at least a couple of times in this thread, there aren't 2 classes of players in SWToR, there are 3 distinct classes of players...
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• players who prefer the PvP servers where everyone is always flagged for PvP and who will likely always prefer the open PvP environment
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• players who would prefer strictly PvE-only servers where flagging for PvP doesn't exist
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• players who would be just as adamant to be on a hybrid server that has a base of PvE activity mixed with PvP where the PvP is accessible only by intentionally flagging (if the flagging rules are made more restricted)... people here can be balanced or lopsided in their focus on PvP or PvE, though their focus can shift over time for many reasons

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Of course, any individual player can create characters on any or all of the servers, so as a playerbase, individuals don't all fall into only 1 of the 3 categories of style.

Upon the creation of PvE-only servers, I really can't think of a perfect way to transition from the current server arrangement that has the PvP & Hybrid-PvE-PvP servers to the theoretical new server arrangement with PvP & PvE & Hybrid-PvE-PvP servers, though what would help dramatically would be a Guild Migration Tool that would automatically group migrating guild-members together into the same guild on the new servers (no matter whether those new servers end up being PvE-only or hybrid-PvE-PvP).

I don't even want to get started talking about the Roleplaying servers, I guess that means there are actually 4 server types now, and there would be 6 server types if PvE-only servers were introduced.

I just realized even if the theoretical 3rd class of servers were put in place, players who choose to be on the hybrid PvE/PvP servers still need to be more buffered from the mxing-in of PvP activity in the gaming environment. Along with the needed changes to the flagging rules, there should be a more accessible griefing-reporting system specifically to curtail in-game abuses & interferences, and other similar changes or tools might be needed.

I enjoyed that analogy lol. Thanks. I myself will just go to Arby's...

I did hate getting killed by people in the PVP area though, but it wasnt too bad because it doesnt cause repair costs. But there will always be a-holes who cut in line just like the lunch line in school used to be. There simply isnt any adults around to do anything about it and a fight develops. However, I did find it funny though how the killing of the droids quest had nothing to do with PVP at all. There was plenty of droids around so we didnt have to fight over them, well except for the bonus.

Did I understand that correctly? Those 2 [PVP] missions that were on the Gree Event terminal, the only way it qualified as PvP was through a forced contention (inside an auto-flag zone) over a PvE mission target?

Not that I would have gone on the missions anyway, since it was obviously in a forced-flagging zone... but if that's all the missions were then I think it's a little humorous.

BioWare should really come up with some far more sophisticated Event missions for both PvE and PvP that require a much more elaborate set of interesting cooperative activities to complete.

It is a bit rich to call me presumptious when you claim to speak for a large part of the user base.
However, I am not saying it wouldn't be nice to have a PvE exclusive server. I am only saying that there is no need for it. The problems currently caused by mixing PvE and PvP on the same server can be solved in other, less drastic, ways.

That said, I certainly would not mind seeing a PvE exclusive server. I am however not holding my breath for one and therefor would like to encourage the developers to fix the root of the problem, namely PvE players tricked or forced into PvP because of flawed game mechanics and event design.