Events bringing the trolls out from under their bridges, and how to fix it.

Wow... this sparked more of a debate... and sometimes even a civil one, than I had expected when I first wrote the post.

After reading through most of the 10 pages here, there are a few points I'd like to address.

First, I'd like to say that having open-world PvP on a PvE server is a contradictory design. People sign up for a PvE server specifically to avoid combat with other players, and thus griefing. For those players who love PvP (though I find this laughable considering what it actually is... but that's another post entirely) the game provides an entire system to allow like-minded players to get together and PvP away from questers... hence Warzones. Placing any quest with PvE objectives within a PvP zone is simply bad design, and only likely to lead to the sorts of problems we see with the Gree event, and with the Outlaw's Den on Tattooine.

Now, as I acknowledged in the original post, the quests ARE flagged for PvP. However, at least everyone can agree that despite the flagging, there are no actual PvP objectives. Your challenges and mission goals for these missions are entirely PvE, and not require, nor do they even encourage, player interaction. There simply is no point to it. I think the most believable incentive that has been relayed to me as to why the vast majority of players go into the southern terminus merely to run quick quest objectives, while a mere handful of individuals seeks to grief that vast majority is the achievement reward. I am told that there are certain achievements which are largely unobtainable to the average PvP player while doing normal PvP activities, but are very easy to achieve during the Gree event.

Since there is no reward other reward for killing players in the PvP area, and no objectives for player interaction involved in completing quests there... it seems that without the incentive the achievement offers, or the simple satisfaction of bullying other unsuspecting players, a PvP'er that's out merely for the WZ comm quest rewards and Gree rep would do exactly as normal questers do - go in, get the objective, get out. Since this is NOT the case, it can be inferred that anyone actually killing players in the PvP area is simply clueless as to what's actually being done in the PvP area, and thus honestly believes he has a need to attack other players, or (and I find this more likely) that player is just a jerk.

Now... a second point to address. There was another post saying something to the effect of, "you don't have to do the PvP quests because there are plenty of other quests to do to earn rep." In reality, this is not as true as you might say. The total number of solo and Heroic PvE mission in the Gree event does not even total the same number of the same sorts of missions available in other level 50+ dedicated areas - like Section X, Black Hole, or Makeb. In fact, those areas have 7 daily-repeatable PvE missions that offer creds, xp, and faction rep - one Heroic 4, and 6 solo - and I believe Makeb actually has more, especially when you factor in the staged weekly.

The Gree event also offers 7 daily-repeatable rep quests... except in this case, 2 of the daily PvE missions occur within, and thus are flagged for, PvP. Now, if a player were to ignore the PvP quests, that player would be denied about 28% of the reputation, experience, and credit gains that can be achieved doing any other set of 50+ rep dailies. This, of course, would be ridiculous in any normal 50+ daily area... imagine Section X if a full 28% of rep was undesireable to obtain for the overwhelming majority of players - it would be obsurd and unacceptable. For a limited time and rare-occuring event like Gree, it's even more baffling, and seems little more than a remnant of an original miscalculation on the part of BW as to just how compelling PvP would be.

So my third solution is easily the best for all concerned. Removing the 2 "PvP" missions from the PvP area, and reworking them back into proper PvE missions gives a total of 7 repeatable daily PvE missions - just the same as any other area - allowing PvE-only players to get full rep and still completely avoid griefing. Further, you can breath new life into the PvP arena, and give dedicated PvP'ers a true event-worthy experience by creating 2 new, wholely-PvP missions that offer a sort of experience that you just can't get in a Warzone, and might even attract PvE'ers into as well. I'd honestly suggest some sort of repeating-staged event... something where players could jump in and jump out very easily at any point... maybe even something that has Rebublic and Emperial players fighting each other in one stage, an absolute FFA melee in another stage, and then maybe require that Pub and Imp players actually fight together against a common enemy in yet another stage....

I'll include an example of how this could work in a seperate posting below, just to give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

So, an example of how a staged, event-worthy PvP "mission" could work in the confines of the existing objective structure in the Southern Terminus:

Stage one could be similar to the orb-collecting, pylon-activating mechanic that exists in one PvP mission. In this case, though, make it so that the orb score counts not merely for yourself, or members of your group, but for all members of your faction that are within the pylon arena at the time the orb is cashed in, and have this count towards both a main and a bonus mission with lucrative rewards. Obviously, player-to-player damage in this stage will be limited to the opposing faction. For the main mission, any orb scored by either faction counts toward the main objective for both, but only orbs scored by your own faction counts towards the bonus. Make going to get the orbs a bit dangerous, such that you're going to want groups out there going after the orbs, and groups defending other groups or objectives- more enemy mobs around the orb pylons, for instance. Get to, say 5 total orb drops between both factions (and first faction to 3 gets the bonus), and you get to start the next stage.

Here in the first stage you have both an incentive to cooperate, and an incentive to compete, all within the same objective. Every player is going to want to see all 5 orbs dropped into the pylon to move onto the next stage, but those bonus rewards will be tempting too. Maybe you could even make it so that the orbs are transferrable to the attacking player upon the death of the current orb holder... so you could see some very cunning strategies. Will the pubs and imps work together and take turns getting the orbs/ bonuses? Is there going to be an honest, all out battle for the orbs? Or will there be some trickery going on... let the enemy get the orbs, but steal it from them and take it for your own?

One of the following stages could be truly FFA... give the players incentives to attack anyone they can, and open player-to-player damage into full FFA. The objective could be as simple as to rack up a certain number of kills or points, or could be more involved than that. You could make it a timed stage such that every player gets a debuff added by the activation of the pylon which causes health to slowly drain away, until eventually you are incapacitated. Incapacitated players go immune... can't be damaged, can't move, can't be attacked OR revived... until the next stage. So while incapacitated they can't be killed outright, and return to full health when the stage is over. The trick? Doing damage to other players heals YOU, thus making you live longer. Get through the stage when the time runs out without being incapacitated, earn a bonus.

And then one of the phases could be a cross-faction "cooperation" phase. Maybe spawn a number of hard enemies like the Gree Destroyer (but not that one, obviously) and turn player-to-player damage off. Have an objective that requires killing one or more of these big enemies. Pubs and Imps get to work together to take down foes. Or in alternative to a small number of large enemies, which might be hard for smaller groups to manage, instead spawn a larger number of lower-level enemies for players to attack, like the various droids around the arena, and require they kill x number of them. Probably make this a timed event as well, so again smaller groups aren't forced to battle a huge number or enemies to finish the stage, and make mobs continue to respawn as long as the stage is active, ensuring players aren't necessarily competing for kills. Once all 3 stages are done, the arena resets to phase one.

Each stage would have different player-damage models, thus ensuring that players can't grief other players during the stages and remain "on task." And each stage would have seperate and distinct objectives that would be active as soon as you picked up the mission, meaning you could jump into whatever stage is just starting when you arrive in the Southern Terminus, and leave whenever your particular objectives are complete. You could even do just ONE objective, leave, and come back to do other ones later, if you want. To makes sure players can't just walk into a stage mid-course, you could have energy barriers that barr players from entering the central pylon arena, where the PvE and FFA stages will occur, while those stages are active. You could only access the central pylon arena freely during the orb stage, or during a short "respite" phase between stages. This helps to make things a little more fair, and ensures the various stages work as intended.

Wouldn't something like that be more compelling for your Gree event PvP challenges?

That is probably the biggest crock of crap that has ever been posted on this forum.

No, not everyone agrees that there aren't PVP objectives. Read the replies, plenty are in here disagreeing.

Without the threat of PVP, why even have the pylon quest? Pick up the orb, stand in line and turn in your orb. Would be a quest with absolutely zero risk. Other players are the mobs that can make these quests challenging, and it's a different experience every time you do it.

Most of the PvP kills I;ve seen on Ilum are conducted by 2+ groups of guildmates ganking solo/duo people, there's no PvP, it's just stun-splat pre-teen ePeen growth stuff.

I agree with the OP. there should have been proper PvP objectives to give the real PvP players something productive and fun to do (yes I know "fun" to some PvPers is gang splatting one or two at a time), real battles and objectives would have been fun.

I'll bite. What is the PvP objective? There's nothing requiring you to attack other players. Hell, it's not even encouraged. You're given absolutely no incentive to do so. You're not told to do it, and you're certainly not rewarded for doing it. You don't earn comms,. xp, or even credits for killing other players, or even preventing them from achieving their objectives. There's no you vs. me... or you vs. anybody. There's no winner or loser. For all intents and purposes, there's no competition at all.

What purpose is served by attacking other players or preventing them from being able to achieve their own mission objectives? Nothing.

So to the tone of your post, I completely agree. Why have this mission at all? Why even have a PvP area at all? If you're just going to put missions in there that don't require PvP contact, why not just have those missions, and the area, be PvE? Otherwise, you've just got a big wasted part of the map like the Outlaw's Den on Tatooine... another open-world PvP area where missions not requiring any PvP area accomplished.

The only arguement being rendered here as to why attacking other players during the pylon and droid missions during those missions is that the area is PvP, and thus PvP attacks are implied. This is such a paper arguement that it's worthless to even attempt. Everyone... and I mean everyone, who walks into that area knows precisely what the missions are and what they require. Everyone knows full well that there is no gain to be had from or requirement to attack another player. The vast overwhelming majority of players understand this, and manage to simply go in there, get their objectives, and get out with incident. The danger/risk of PvP combat is implied, but entirely unexpected because there is utterly no point to it at all.

The PvP objective is to use your orb before anyone else does. This means killing/interrupting other players trying to use their orb. By killing other players, you get your quest finished faster, therefore you are rewarded for participating in PvP.

Yes that is one way you can do it; But as he was saying the pvp missions don't give any reward for killing other players. Like war zones give you the medals and the more you get the more comms. Now the gree pvp gave me 1000 and I didn't kill anyone.

too bad expertise removes all fun from the world pvp. Any good fights, or skill based combat is completely trivialized by expertise, it provides such a stupidly overwhelming advantage.

The free for all aspect also screws everything up. We got a nice force together and took on the imps in a massive battle.. and it quickly turned to a mess because outside my group of 4 I could hurt my friends.. I kept having to second guess my targets and carefully click through the battle field.

It was dumb and didn't last long.

I just avoid the pvp area because nothing is sporting, nothing is fun. Its just stealthers ganking singles at the pylon. woopdee-doo.

The reward for killing other players is completing the quest faster.