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PvP in it's glory day, a reflection on 1.1.5


KhalDrogoe

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I decided to write a post on what BW did right, and how they managed to screw it up.

 

After release, there was an incredibly terrible way to get the best PvP gear in the game. By RNG (random number generator), and endless popping bags hoping luck was on your side. However, you couldn't start this not very fun grind until you hit Valor rank 60. Which coincidentally brought the whole Ilum fiasco.

 

All that aside, BW had finally fixed PvP from something terrible, to something enjoyable and playable. 1.1.5 had actually solved almost every problem people were complaining about (aside from rateds etc.)

 

The Good:

 

PvP Players had 2 daily quests to complete each day, and 2 weeklies. 1 which made people queue into WZ's, and the other which forced people to Ilum.

 

PvE players have a whole smorgus board of dailies which grant them end game comms to which they can use to purchase end game.

 

PvP'ers weren't dirt poor, and could actually afford to maintain crew skills as well as be a productive member of the economy. Each WZ granted credits, each bag popped had credits, and each daily awarded credits. So by completing your PvP dailies, it would net you 2 BM bags, 2 Champ bags each bag had roughly 5-8k credits in it and the quest rewards would grant you about 5k. The WZ's you won also gave you credits, so PvP'ers by doing their dailies in 1 day could net about 50k credits a day (not including the extra from the wz's). Which in of itself was enough to sustain your modding/remodding. Though back in the day, this wasn't as big of an issue because the sets were much closer to what was optimal (Champion had almost perfect mods for it's level). So 50k a day you could use to send companions out on missions etc.

 

Now I say modding wasn't as big of an issue back then, because each bag had a boatload of correlating comms in each bag, with 2 chances to net bonus BM tokens. Regardless of the performance in WZ's, you had to complete your dailies in order to advance. Which was a perfectly acceptable design. There was no shortage of gear I could purchase for myself/alts/companions on this old system. Not to mention I could get multiple sets of gear for different specs. Granted it was a step behind, but it was bonus gear I didn't have to work any harder or win any more wz's in this design.

 

Whoever says this bag system was a bad system is a complete moron. This was an absolutely perfect system! Everyone had to PvP to complete their dailies. Once complete, they were advanced significantly in their gear progression. So regardless of performance in WZ's, as long as you were able to complete your dailies you were on track with everyone else in the gear grind.

 

Now understandably so, the drawback was that you were at the mercy of RNG. A cruel mistress she may be. So BW had developed a trade in system! 1000 warzone commendations = 1 BM commendation! Perfect! For people that were wanting to grind out BM comms, you could trade in 1k wz comms for 1 BM comm! (The most expensive pieces of gear cost 3 BM tokens for if you had to trade in wz comms, it would equal 3k wz comms max!)

 

3000 warzone commendations is not that much of a grind in todays standard anymore! Heck, you NOW NEED to grind 9000 warzone commendations for the WH chests! How is this a better system!? You morons see that something is achieveable, yet when there was something better in place already you complain to make it worse! If I was a developer, I would implement your grind-nasty idea too! Which would equal more game playing which equals no dog food for victor tonight!

 

Now you see the plus side, is that you could also get free tokens in your bags too! 2 chances a day, 20 chances a week! Now talk about reducing your grind time! Imagine if we had 20 chances a week now to get free WH pieces! Who in their right mind would complain about this!? But no, people like grinding for some reason:rolleyes:.

 

Now after getting your full BM set, you still had 20 chances a week for free BM gear, so you could still easily outfit for a second spec, and hell even your companions could get in on this action!

 

In 1.1.5 I had a full BM healing set, and a full BM dps set. All of my companions were slowly getting cent gear that eventually turned to champ, and then eventually BM gear of their own! Which would allow me to assist people in PvE because I had fully equipped end-game toons. Granted they weren't as efficient as full end game pve gear, but it was enough to get by.

 

Now in order to get 2 full WH sets, I have to grind over 100,000 warzone commendations and change them into rated warzone commendations, and have ZERO chances of getting a free piece... ALSO, the mods on the WH gear isn't no where NEAR optimal, so I have grind out MORE wz comms to buy the 1 piece that has the correct enhancement or mod on it, to where I can compete competitively.

 

BW's fail in 1.2 was scrapping this wonderful gearing scheme, and reducing the amount of credits PvP'ers earned as well as no more free gear. In order to gear up you were given a second currency and the wz comms were either saved for BM tokens or were useful in supplying medpacks and adrenals. There wasn't such a high premium on the WZ comms, and I was able to use them to stay competitive on usables instead of choosing either gear OR medpacks and adrenals to keep the competitive edge. Because I still had 20 chances a week to progress my gear without slowing the grind to 3 steps forward 2 steps back because I had to keep my medpacks and adrenals supplied.

 

Which brings me to the point where new players are NOT going to be using these required items in PvP because it will affect their grind and make it take LONGER to get gear. Now people can buy/sell the medpacks and adrenals, but in order to make enough money, I no longer have 2 dailies to do, I no longer get the bonus credits in the bags, and because the WH gear is so badly modded, I need to save whatever money I DO make in order to pluck out mods and remod gear. Not to mention I now have the additional grind of getting the augment slots and paying 30,000 credits to put an augment slot on a piece. Which further takes away from my available credit pool.

 

People even after completing their dailies, would still PvP for FUN afterwards. They wouldn't be super queueing 8 people so they can fast farm noobies.

 

The whole recruit gear is an utter joke too! I was able to be full champ (would be BM now in today's terms) within a week, while STILL being able to advance my BM (now WH) grind.

 

And lastly which brings me to my last point.

 

WHY ON EARTH would you break something and attempt to "fix" it when it wasn't even broken in the first place (since the 1k WZ --> 1 BM token exchange). For content, always add, never take away. The addition of ranked comms would've been fine to tack on ON TOP of what it was. People would still be able to easily progress gearwise while still being allowed to purchase expendables so that each match would be fun and playing to their potential. Not having to CHOOSE whether to get medpacks/adrenals OR gear.

 

In conclusion, if BW wouldn't of slapped PvP'ers in the face by removing one of their daily/weeklies, and increasing the grind x30 and keeping currencies different for gear then for expendables with the added option of exchanging expendable currency to gear currency, you're developing a pvp atmosphere which is NOT friendly for new people, and force people into finding the easiest way to gear up (AKA farming noobies in WZ's). As far as I'm concerned BW dug their own grave as to why PvP is in the utter disaster state that it is in now, and even with giving people free complete set of recruit mk-2, it doesn't change the premium of warzone comms to gear grinders. They will find the easiest way to win wz's and complete their own means faster. And new people in WZ's will always pay that price. People don't need a free set of sub-par recruit gear, they need the bag system that we had in 1.1.5. As well as bring the nascar back to Ilum. By forcing people there it will generate open world PvP regardless. So back in the day people were exploiting it and trading kills, whup-di-freakin do! I never saw how this negatively affected gameplay there... As far as I was concerned, I was able to get free kills while being able to piss off the republicans. A reason to play the game outside of WZ's.

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I agree with your general point OP. The best PvP this game ever saw was in 1.1.5. It was the most closely balanced class and gear-wise, the TTK was reasonable, there was more variety of PvP (OPvP and WZs), and the gear grind was quite reasonable.

 

It would certainly be a shame if BW fails to improve PvP at some point beyond what it did with 1.1.5.

Edited by DarthOvertone
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Yup 1.1.5 was the most balanced. After it we had the Healing ACs dps trees made broken. Since 1.2 most of the balance changes have been either buffs to classes that never needed it or fixes that still don't bring the classes nerfed in 1.2 up to a competitive level.
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I think the pros and cons of the past and current gear system can be debated and I'm not sure one was really better than the other. Ilum was fail and BW knew it, perhaps Ilum 2.0 will work better and give you that second daily you are looking for. As for balance, it was a joke. Smash was 2-3k better than it is now with everyone complaining. Sorcs/Sages were dominating warzones and I know of sorc healers (myself included) that felt 500k was a bad game healing. 800k healing in PUG warzones was an expectation, not a goal. Mercs were spamming Tracers for 6-7k crits with no CD. Operatives were back to back to back stabbing people to death. 0 expertise people were facing full BM geared players, a far bigger gear gap than what we have with recruit.

 

TL;DR you have a point with the gear, but not much else.

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ilum is destined for failure without some massive changes to the game engine. and given by the fact that every "optimization" to the engine has only resulted in WORSE performance, i doubt that will happen.

 

this version of the hero engine can barely handle 8v8 warzone pvp, you think it will be able to handle 50v50 any better than it did in 1.1.5?

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I thought the old gear system was confusing with all the different tokens, comms and the such. Most of your gear arguments are based on being valor 60, which to us that did that grind then know that it is as rough as going from 80-95 or so. Some ppl; myself included, didn't pvp much till 50, so imagine grinding that out in pve gear.

 

The rng was horrible. I was at 57ish and had 6 or 7 pieces of champ gear while my buddy at 30 had 13. I went on a 41 bag streak of nothing but nothing or relics (which is worse than nothing if u have yours already). My other friend needed 3 pieces of gear, opened the bags from the weekly (4) and got all three from those (and the fourth bag gave a duplicate). Yeah when u got to 60 the gear system wasn't too bad with the trade ins.

Edited by Ravashakk
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The rng of the bags was bad, the pvp itself was awesome.

 

PvP is now a cc instagib fest which I totally dislike, and I'm a Rage Juggernaut having had to respec from Vengeance to be competitive. They buffed the wrong bloody tree, Vengeance/Vigilance needed the damage buff not Rage. The dots in Vengeance/Vigilance need to scale, and that would have fixed the spec. I still don't see why they nerfed it instead :confused:

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The RNG bag system wasn't that bad, the pvp was indeed good. However I got ****** with Ilum and the terribad pvp quests there and the game engine that can't handle properly more than 20 people. Seriously, the game wasn't playable if you were on Ilum on Tuesdays/Wednesdays. That's why I quit for like 6 months and just came back recently.
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The RNG bag system wasn't that bad, the pvp was indeed good. However I got ****** with Ilum and the terribad pvp quests there and the game engine that can't handle properly more than 20 people. Seriously, the game wasn't playable if you were on Ilum on Tuesdays/Wednesdays. That's why I quit for like 6 months and just came back recently.

 

This ^^

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The Good:

 

PvP Players had 2 daily quests to complete each day, and 2 weeklies. 1 which made people queue into WZ's, and the other which forced people to Ilum.

 

People complained about Ilum being really badly designed and how forcing them to do those quest is terrible. They asked for Ilum to be removed. DX Sadly, BW listened.

 

Oh, I forgot to add: In my opinion damage is the problem for pvp. :eek:

Edited by Boyana
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People complained about Ilum being really badly designed and how forcing them to do those quest is terrible. They asked for Ilum to be removed. DX Sadly, BW listened.

 

Oh, I forgot to add: In my opinion damage is the problem for pvp. :eek:

 

It's because OWPvP is unplayable in this game due to how Bioware coded their character models. You get 30+ people in one area spamming abilites, say hello to 5 FPS.

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They knew that they wont add anything to the game for a looooooong time so they made tremeduous grinds.

 

It will not change in the future, when you have no content you have grinds.

 

People complained about Ilum being really badly designed and how forcing them to do those quest is terrible. They asked for Ilum to be removed. DX Sadly, BW listened.

 

Oh, I forgot to add: In my opinion damage is the problem for pvp. :eek:

 

People didnt ask for it to be removed, people asked for it to be FIXED.

 

Since they obviously cant fix it they just removed it instead.

 

I guess you have to be very careful about demands to fix their game because stuff could just....vanish instead lol

Edited by GrandMike
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It's because OWPvP is unplayable in this game due to how Bioware coded their character models. You get 30+ people in one area spamming abilites, say hello to 5 FPS.

 

Let's assume the engine is ok (which is not and will not be), Ilum would still suck big time. Just recall what was happening with the faction imbalance in early 2012... one faction camping the other base entrance hoping for a lucky kill... that's not open world pvp, it's a joke. Unless they can actually come up with some really objective based open world pvp other than "capture this point" there will be nothing worthwhile but warzones.

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The TTK was much better, heat wasn't as bad for mercs, but some of the changes were good for the game. I don't even want to know what the game would be like with adrenals as they were. We'd probably have seen a 2 mil damage screenshot by now. Smash's for 10k, etc would be comedy. Edited by Draekos
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Let's assume the engine is ok (which is not and will not be), Ilum would still suck big time. Just recall what was happening with the faction imbalance in early 2012... one faction camping the other base entrance hoping for a lucky kill... that's not open world pvp, it's a joke. Unless they can actually come up with some really objective based open world pvp other than "capture this point" there will be nothing worthwhile but warzones.

 

Dunno about you but my game performs night and day better now than back in those days. There is alot of random NPC stuff going on on Ilum(the removal of which could be part of their fix) but I see no reason why the game cant handle 30ish v 30ish. I've seen some pretty big fights in the black hole without any lag.

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As mentioned the hero engine is one thing, but the biggest issue with ilum imo is the horrible design.

If you have a design that causes the whole server to fight at the spawn of the map ofc it is going to lag like hell, I mean cmon, huge map with 3 meaningless and poorly designed objectives. If they had any clue they would have a design that forced people to split up and not all gather at one spot.

Then again BW has done no effort at all to make people do Opvp after ilum, like why do you only get valour from kills on ilum.

How difficult would it be to make a simple kill quest or modify outlaws den in some way. Like make the chests drop something meaningful or have a chance at dropping something really rare.

 

The rng bag system wasn't that bad, it was just frustrating putting in the same effort as your friends, then watching them get full BM in no time while you got nothing.

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with the skeleton crew BW still has on SWTOR, I doubt we will see any improvements in this area. How much time did they have to come up with something? And we got a stunning 1! new warzone since game launch. Actually if you consider it, we have less pvp content altogether than at launch. So do the math. They don't care about pvp, and I don't expect they will prioritize it any time soon, and there's an even smaller chance for an Ilum overhaul.
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I'm going to have to disagree with you OP.

 

The old system was confusing, with too many different types of commendations for too many disparate things. The RNG was terrible, I NEVER got a piece of gear from a bag.

 

let me say that again

 

NEVER

 

The current system is too grindy, but it is superior to the broken bag system hands down.

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I'm going to have to disagree with you OP.

 

The old system was confusing, with too many different types of commendations for too many disparate things. The RNG was terrible, I NEVER got a piece of gear from a bag.

 

let me say that again

 

NEVER

 

The current system is too grindy, but it is superior to the broken bag system hands down.

 

It takes longer now to get the top tiered gear than it did back then.

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