I think you guys have just failed on Ilum. I'm not trying to be a jerk, I know its hard to create end game content that the majority of players are happy with. Personally I think you should just scrap it and focus your efforts on a PVP Arena instead. However, here are a couple of suggestions in case you really want to keep it.

My best suggestion is to make the PVP map SMALLER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, especially since you lowered the amount of players allowed in the zone.... its 99% empty unused space 99% of the time. You could have a huge group of players go from North Assault to Central, while opposing players went from Central to North... and I would say that 50% of the time these two opposing teams will never even see each other.

So my suggestion is to REMOVE Southern Assault, REMOVE Northern Assault, and the medical droid/taxis for both, and delete all that space on the map. ILUM PVP IS TOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BIG. If it was only Imp Base - Central - Repub base, that would be so much better. And since there are only armaments at Central, N and S are pretty much completely useless other than the Valor boost.

Now aside from the map being way too large, everything about this area encourages, promotes and rewards unbalanced teams and unfair odds. Let me give example:

30 players on Imp side attack 1 player on Repub side, who obviously dies. Results:

+30 total quest updates, +1000s of total valor depending on how many bases are controlled.

Is that really Valorous? Is that what should be rewarded? Now lets say that repub just happened to be super skilled and lucky and was able to take out just ONE of those imps. Result: +1 quest update, +20-200 valor. Really? This guy should get like 100000 valor for going up against such odds and actually getting a kill.

In general, this reward system encourages players to "GANK" a lesser group of players with extreme odds in their favor, and then they get super rewards for it. This is not Valor. This is what causes both: 1 side to have 0 players on Ilum pvp, depending on which side has the advantage in numbers AND players to BAND TOGETHER with the opposing faction to TRADE group wipes for valor and quest updates.

And why shouldn't they? If the side with the serious numbers advantage does not agree to this, the side without the numbers advantage will disappear and there will be no fighting at all on Ilum. If the side with the smaller numbers does not agree to this, they will basically have to fight inside their base and harpoon pull people in to get insta turret slayed.... anything else is simply banging your head against a steel plated wall.

I dont know how to fix this, but maybe you could actually reward valorous play rather than 50 vs 1 odds giving extreme rewards to the side that had 50 players.

If a player is attacked by 50 players, then those 50 player should have to split the Valor gain, meaning they basically get none. I don't know its just extremely lame right now and you are killing this area by promoting unfair gameplay.

Another suggestion is to remove the graphical spritey cool flashy effects when players cast their abilities. Yes I know its not only cool looking, it also has a purpose because you can tell what the player you are fighting is doing... But really, in the large Ilum battles you can't tell what anyone is doing anyway. Leaving the graphical effects on just KILLS frame rate... it provides no intel to the opposing player. So just turn them off or you will need to AGAIN reduce the number of players allowed in 1 instance.

Sorry about the TLDNR, but really ILUM is a mess and most times I log on one side has 0 players on it. And I have an Imp 50 and Repub 50 on separate servers, so this is not a QQ im on the wrong faction post. It sucks for BOTH.

Also I have noticed extreme lag (NOT FRAMERATE LAG, INTERNET LATENCY LAG) occur when someone dies and the +valor rewards are distributed. Everytime an opponent dies, my connection freezes for a long burp before it catches up.

Why does a death cause so much lag?

Bring back the FORTS!

oh wait wrong game back to Warhammer online oh wait i cant!

i am going to assume that since there are *NOT* ten million trolls attacking this post that everyone agrees.

bumping so that bioware can see good ideas even tho its not being trolled so there are not 10,000 replies.

Kill trading seems to be the only way to get the quest done on some servers with extreme population imbalances.

On my server the republics don't come to ilum, and central is perma camped by many racetrack hotshots. It is 95% of the time a complete shut-out of republic players.

Trying to finish the daily is a mind-boggling multi-hour adventure into patience and masochism.

I do agree. Ilum being so big just makes it worse. I think maybe they should also spawn armaments every where. That way people who want to finish the daily just farming armaments can do so, while people who want to gank/pvp people can have their opportunity.

The problem started before ilum in my opinion and is just being magnified there. You make great points about the reward system. The problem initially was the draw to the imp side...better looking chars/skills...etc. Now that the population scale is way off balance (I know on Saber of Exar Khun it is rediculous), it is very easy for new level 50 imps to go out to ilum and be carried to battlemaster. They get their dailies done in an hour and their weeklys done in two hours. As Republic... I can only hope to get my dailies done in a week and my weeklys done in a month. This allows imps to gear up quickly in full battlemaster gear while i am sitting at valor lvl 50 and have only 1 pc of champion gear because all the bags i have gotten so far have been empty save for 3 centurion marks...and you can have those. So now ilum is so broken between the lag, the time dump in travel, and the crappy reward system....we go back to pvp in WZ where lvl 50s with 13 to 15k life go against BM imps that have 16-19k life. I know a lot of imps saying "adapt and learn how to beat that challenge". It is not a challenge when my damage is nerfed...their damage is buffed (expertise from the free gear they get), and they are running around with a few more 1000s of life. I want to have fun...that is why i game....this is not fun for me. Another thing adding insult to injury besides all my bags being empty so far.....when we finally win a WZ....WE DON'T GET CREDIT FOR IT!?!

I know the trolls will come out of the woodwork for this post...but the people that truly pvp to pvp on the imp side (as opposed to those that enjoy a carry and unfair ganking due to being baddies in general...not just in trolling) want the challenge. Some on our server want the challenge so bad they are making republic toons to come over and help Repubs gear up by allowing "free valor kills" to try to gear up some competition and their alts. That is not fun...that is a carry just like any other.

I just hope that the Devs aren't in their comfort zone thinking "MMO players are addicts by nature.... we are safe...they wont leave." Might hold for a bit...but when D3 or some other new game comes out... i think you will feel the pain at that point if this is not fixed. Maybe sooner.