You know why it didn't work in Aion. Besides the fact that it DID work overseas in Korea,China and Japan that were all playing the game a year to 6 months prior to NA/EU release. It didn't work because in NA/EU servers were crap and you had a slide show any time there was a keep seige. Tied to that the fact that people wanted the Baluar to own objectives because they gave considerable rewards for killing them and you have a failure waiting to happen. The rewards for killing Balaur was a change made prior to NA/EU release so that people could complete the PvE set and so people could get pvp gear.

 

Any time you tie rewards for killing NPCs in PvPvE you have a problem. NPCs should be there strictly for balance purposes and not for a method of farming reknown so you can buy gear, get drops (bloods in Aion), grind exp or grind cash.

 

It also DID work in Warhammer until they changed the castles to drop loot boxes with PvP gear in them. Then people started trading castles for the boxes so people could gear up. Once again, tying rewards to killing PvPvE NPCS is the problem.

Rofl, I played every MMO since 1997 UO, including Warhammer and the NPCs being at the keeps did absolutely nothing to balance the faction imbalances. You even claiming that is beyond hilarious.. The only game that ever balanced factions correctly was DAOC because it could be controlled by the players. If Albion got too big, Hibernia and Midgard could then team together and fight the zerg and vice versa. It was all player controlled which is why Guild vs guilds will be the most ideal situation. Guilds would be able to ally against zerg guilds and destroy the zerg. Everything would be player run, I don't understand why people can't understand how that would work. They automatically assume that the zerg guilds will run everything, when in fact other guilds can team and completely decimate the zerg guild.

I really want to believe that SWTOR can have fun, meaningful, well populated Open World PvP, but I my experience in Warhammer has taught me that without a 3rd faction that plan is doomed to failure.

 

Now, obviously, Bioware can't really make a 3rd fully fleshed out faction. But they can create a pseudo 3rd faction fairly easily. A faction that accepts both Republic and Imperial players and only exists for the purposes of Open World PvP.

 

Probably the best way to implement this is to just have an NPC on the fleet that reports on approximately how many people for each side are actively participating in Open Wolrd PvP at that point in time and allows players to toggle between their normal faction alliance and this 3rd faction, again, only for the purposes of Open World PvP.

 

This would allow people on servers that are totally dominated by either Empire or Republic players the chance to get some action beyond spawn camping and zerging their horribly undermanned opposites. The sort of stuff that was the eventual downfall and ruination of Warhammer Online.

This is actually not a bad idea if they can't do the PvPvE concept right. Have it a togglable option only after imbalances exist in the Open world zone and cap it so that you can't have more people in the 3rd faction than you have on Empire or Republic.

Rofl, I played every MMO since 1997 UO, including Warhammer and the NPCs being at the keeps did absolutely nothing to balance the faction imbalances. You even claiming that is beyond hilarious.. The only game that ever balanced factions correctly was DAOC because it could be controlled by the players. If Albion got too big, Hibernia and Midgard could then team together and fight the zerg and vice versa. It was all player controlled which is why Guild vs guilds will be the most ideal situation. Guilds would be able to ally against zerg guilds and destroy the zerg. Everything would be player run, I don't understand why people can't understand how that would work. They automatically assume that the zerg guilds will run everything, when in fact other guilds can team and completely decimate the zerg guild.

No, it didn't work because it was GvG it worked in DAoC because you had 3 factions. It still wasn't trully GvG because you still had a faction behind you. In true GvG it's a free for all and everyone outside your guild is an enemy. Thus leading to mega guilds owning everything.

I also find it funny that you state your play time. I have been playing since 99 in Everquest and you are still wrong about PvPvE.

We need bounties for the bounty HUNTERS to hunt!

End of story!

My thoughts are that you need to have a little bit of all of them in order to have fun OW pvp. You need to have the option for players so the pvp can just roll out naturally.

1. Open Faction PvP - Already have Outlaws Den for this, but it needed a boost to incentive. The new boxes will do that as long as they aren't on a 4 hour timer. Maybe add another area like this.

2. PvPvE boosted - Ilum needs to be your PvPvE area. You already have the walkers there, just make them spawn and shoot players. You also need to just add the Faction limit to Ilum as well. It is already set up perfectly for this since it is sectioned off you can just close the area down. By doing this, you can set the pop limit to no greater than 2 to 1 or something like that instead of a 1 to 1, since you have the PvE help.

2b. It helps to combine the PvPvE and population limiting here because an extremely large zerg can still wipe a PvE situation if the difference in faction pop is that large. Also, if you just do a faction pop limit alone, you are just making another warzone without objectives.

3. Tru OWPvP - You need to add valor to ALL pvp kills, no matter where you are at. There is literally no reason for this not to be here; Worried about griefing? Going to happen anyways. Worried about farming each other? Going to to happen wherever valor is awarded. Worried about no one going to "PvP Zones"? Just log in and go to them now...You keep the objective in all pvp areas, even add to Outlaw's, to award bonus valor, there's your incentive for taking the PvP there. But the PvP has to start in the OW and spill into a zone, that's how these things unfold. It's not, meet me at the playground at high noon, we all know no one shows up when that's the case...

Would be great if we had something like Battlefront where you have several planets to fight over in a larger campaign of say 5 planets.

Vehicles, starfighter battles, all tied in together.

More realistically I'd like to see opposite faction loot (red robes for my smuggler Scarla) and objectives to win outside of 'gearing up'.

Less Warcraft and more Battlefront

... You already have the walkers there, just let players attack and control / drive them and shoot other players.

Better idea. Wait, server just crashed.

...nevermind.

You should have had 3 factions; Empire, Republic, and Hutt. Failing that, the only way to balance two factions in the event one has the upper hand is NPCs, I guess.

Dark Age did it right and did it best. I want to punch myself in the junk when I'm driving around picking up crates. There's no pride in that. Why am I fighting over this useless planet for Valor ranks that don't mean anything?

Give me something to care about. A base where my guild can hang its banner; something to inspire some PRIDE. Open-World PvP objectives have been implemented in other games to much, much better effect. Why didn't you look at what came before? Why didn't Gabe listen to me at E3?

My friends and I are fed up with the poor implementation of the PvP end game and are bored to tears with having to create new characters and slog through those planet quests over and over again.

The PvP system they had in LOTRO was always a TON of fun (if you ignore the stupid leveling system they had in place for the Creeps).

There was plenty to do if the otherside had not showed up yet, and on good nights it was a constant back and forth of capturing keeps.

PvPvE balanced is such a perfect solution in my mind. I loved the concept in SWG when a base came fully operational with NPC fodder. Immersion comes to mind..

I don't know what this would do for lag, but man would it add to the excitement to see some real heavy fighting between faction NPCs as part of the PvP scenery.

I'd just ask that the battle be further swayed, not only by participant #s, but by contributions around crafting, PvPvE questing dailies, server story line quest hand-ins, and MONIES!

in SWG (I know, shoot me, right?), knowing you were "destroying" someones credits was such a nice reward.. as far as credits go or time/currency, putting it all on the line for the opposing faction to beat is just balls out fun!

I don't want to say make a pot of player credits for everyone to fight over.. but i'm saying get pretty darn close to it SWTOR needs to inact the "Put your PvE Money, where your PvP Mouth is" policy.

I would suggest that any bolstering in a PvPvE scenario extend a bit beyond simply additional turrets and the like. Offer some benefits to those who are currently winning to give them incentive to control a zone (ie. Valor rate gains, faster loot spawn time in controled zone, etc.) but also offer sufficient aid to the faction which is behind. Both in terms of NPC support and perhaps a small "Back Against the Wall"/"Hold the Line" type of buff towards Expertise or something of the like.

NPCs can help balance out the problems but open world PvP, by it's nature, needs to encourage combat between players a majority of the time and not, say, focus on some high level General character or something. I would say that striking a balance should be a key concern.

No, it didn't work because it was GvG it worked in DAoC because you had 3 factions. It still wasn't trully GvG because you still had a faction behind you. In true GvG it's a free for all and everyone outside your guild is an enemy. Thus leading to mega guilds owning everything.

 

I also find it funny that you state your play time. I have been playing since 99 in Everquest and you are still wrong about PvPvE.

DAoC did do GVG, it was called the pvp server. On those servers their were no factions, albs could guild with hibs and mids. You could go anywhere in Ablion, Midgard or Hibernia as anyone of the classes. Guilds fought and controlled towers, keeps and relics. The bonuses from keeps, towers and relics affected that guild only. It was awesome and worked very well, even the biggest guilds couldn't control everything, they just simply did not have the resources to do so. Plus guilds could band together to put a dent in their strongholds. The coolest part was the group dynamics brought on by playing with other faction members.

What I'd like to see from Open World PvP, is simply more of it and the incentive to do it. First off, I love the game, love the story, and love the combat in the game. Yet many friends of mine have already left or are planning to do so, when a certain "Free to Play" Fantasy MMO launches soon. We are a group of former DAOC - Warhammer players who have gotten used to running in large guild/alliance warbands, where open RvR was to be found from start to finish (not just end game) during the leveling process.

There isn't much point of a PvP server when you rarely encounter anyone during PvP in the open world. Example; I'm flagged for PvP the moment I enter Tattoine but rarely ever see anyone from my own faction, let alone run into an enemy player. Where is the adrenaline rush of an impending battle lying in wait around the corner? Even in PvP specific zones, I rarely ever see anyone in the "Outlaw's Den" because there is no incentive to go there.

What keeps people playing and coming back, is PvP. Objectives to take for planetary domination and reward, brings people together and gives reason to form guild alliances ... which leads to grouping together for support, strategy, and communication. This leads to a community.

As it stands, I believe there are far too many servers and it could be condensed. The world is vast in scale and yet the population spread thin across so many servers. I want to see my allies celebrating victories in the cantinas, yet they are often empty as well. I need more planets to offer RvR style lakes with motive behind them. Battle stations to claim, resources to fight for, and warbands to run with. A tier system for RvR or Warzones might work nicely.

Here's a setting; You are in the Fleet Station, when suddenly the station trembles and quakes in a bombardment of explosions! Outside the windows enemy ships can be seen doing a flyby and dropping ordinance. An alarm goes off "Red Alert" and over the intercom a panicked voice alerts the players to enter the ship bays to prepare for battle. Sirens and flashing lights - We are under attack!

Perhaps there is the reward of invading the other faction's capitol city after a push has been made that week to capture the majority of planets. "King Raids", such as were found in Warhammer. Those of appropriate level can enter instanced dropzones from the hangars to do battle and defend or attack. That would liven up the Fleet General Chat, now wouldn't it? A common cause to rise up against that can catch you offguard, will light a spark and get the adrenaline going.

Additionally, if may offer a suggestion: the creation of one zone in which you declare your "side" upon entering. Say, a zone in which you choose which criminal faction to back, support, and claim objectives for. With three, possibly four factions to choose from. With the proper story justification, I do not see how this would not be possible.

"Karraga the Hutt is seeking a mercenary force to control an industrial zone on Hutta. Nem'ro and Fa'athra are offering similar contracts. Join the cause of one of these duplicitous Hutts in their crusade to control the important Hutta Ironworks!"

I implore those of you who read this post to please read it in its entirety before responding or arguing against it.

Since most of the developers are ex/current WoW players I think they will appreciate this post.

I think Open World PvP should be like Original Alterac Valley. My fondest memories of PvP are from that Battleground. When Blizzard made the decision to limit the time spent in AV by implementing a resource cap it was a dark day in Azeroth.

Let me back up my suggestion with ideas though so you guys don't think I want such an Open PvP area only for the nostalgia.

As an opening point, I totally understand why Blizzard had to put a limit on AV and why you guys couldn't implement a Warzone like it. Having a 4 hour match with Ranked Warzones just isn't feasible because it would take months for people to raise their ratings, and most people want to be able to complete their PvP daily for winning warzones in a timely manner and not after 8 hours of rigorous play. Open World PvP is not bound by such restrictions though and I think that lack of restriction should be utilized.

There are Essentially 2 Main Parts to this Post

1. Reasons to Open World PvP

2. Epicness of World PvP

These points represent the changes that I believe should be implemented to save Open World PvP.

1. Reasons to Open World PvP

I remember a Saturday all those many years ago where an AV match literally took 8 hours. Did any of us care? Nope. We were all having so much fun. When I say "we" I'm talking about my fellow players on the server. I have never felt so close to a server community then during that match and other such matches like it. We coordinated strike teams, had patrols looking out for stealthed players, and made sure everyone collected the items off enemy corpses to turn in for NPC reinforcements and buffs.

I think the big reason why it was such a great experience was that, for the most part, it was purely for fun. Was there rewards and gear to be had? Sure. Did we play only for the reward? No.

That is where I believe Ilum went wrong. It was a requirement in order to get the best PvP gear. That shouldn't be. With the removal of Mercenary Commedations as a requirement for the best PvP gear you guys are already on what I believe are the right steps to fixing Ilum. You should be able to gear up by playing in Ilum but it should only be another option, not a requirement, so you can pick whether you want to run a lot of Warzones for gear or play in Ilum for gear. With that being said you guys would need to make Open World PvP a viable alternative to Warzone grinding, which could be easily accomplished with dalies and rewards for taking/holding objectives.

I like what you guys are doing with the Ranked War Hero Gear being the same as War Hero gear but looking cooler. I think such rewards would work great with Ilum and would be the next big step in fixing Ilum. Have an Ilum War Hero set that has the same stats as regular War Hero gear but a different appearance (perhaps being covered in crystals?) would be a nice incentive to play in Ilum and a nice reward for people who took that route instead of Warzone grinding.

Since we are talking about keeping Open World PvP alive for the long term, instead of suggesting that Ilum Commendations be introduced, I'm going to suggest that Open World PvP Commendations be introduced...so basically that you keep Mercenary Commendations around, but they are spent on cosmetic things only.

You may now be thinking, well then how do Open World PvPers get BM and regular War Hero gear if they receive these commendations other than Warzone Commendations? YOU ARE JUST RECREATING OLD PROBLEMS!!!!!

Out of the several solutions that come to my mind this one seems to be the best.

You rename "Warzone Commendations" to "Valor Commendations" or something else and make that the shared currency between Warzones and Open World PvP. This makes sense because both people that do Warzones and those who do Open World PvP should be able to get up to regular War Hero gear doing what they prefer. Then you have "Ranked Warzone Commendations" and "Open World PvP Commendations" that allow players to purchase cosmetic items that reflect their PvP choice. To nail the point home once again, no one should be forced to do one or the other to get the best gear.

Fundamentally I believe this is the way it has to be because Open World PvP and Ranked PvP in Warzones are almost as totally different animals as PvE and PvP are. Trying to make the two mix together is like making you have to do Ranked Warzones to get Campaign Gear.

2. Epicness of World PvP

I remember watching the gameplay trailer for Ilum and thinking. THIS IS GOING TO BE FREAKING AWESOME! I saw walkers being destroyed by rocket launchers and transports being air dropped in and I couldn’t wait to jump in.

The reality is that the walkers don’t move and don’t die; they sit in place and shoot at the opposite factions walkers for eternity. The transports are only dropped in when you destroy the other faction’s transports and they too sit in place for all time. Finally, what are we fighting over? A large patch of snow, there is no sign of crystal mines anywhere near the battlefield. I understand that we are technically fighting over landing zones, but there is no evidence of that.

To sum it up, Ilum feels static and dead with or without players. What is the fun in that? This is the part where I state why an Original Alterac Valley type zone is the solution. It actually felt like a long and bloody campaign for control, not a sleigh ride over snow.

The first thing that I want to point out is that although Alterac did have some unused space, it wasn’t too bad and the battle mostly stuck by the objectives or in the choke points. Ilum has A LOT of wasted space and it is just so big. The speeders do help in moving around but it is still hard to move troops around coordinate effective strike teams. That is why I believe that Ilum should be redesigned from the style it is now to a tug of war kind of map. I believe that such a style where you push the enemy back slowly but surely to their base is a lot more fun than running around grabbing objectives in any random order. With that being said you could also introduce NPC reinforcements and defenses to help hold the enemy back.

In OAV there were guards at the object points that could be upgraded, riders could be sent out, bombing runs could be conducted, and an elemental giant could be summoned. Obviously we would need Star Wars themed reinforcements and defenses and I’m sure your team could come up with great ideas. One such idea is allowing the walkers to fight and be destroyed, not be part of the terrain.

However, I would like to see more signs over war over the terrain. There is a wreck here or there but there should be a lot more. The landscape should be scarred by craters, wreckage and bodies al over.

Now you may be thinking “We would love to do those things, but people with low end machines really wouldn’t be able to play then.” This could be a true statement. That is why as many people have already stated, there has to be population caps in for the zone. You can’t have all of these needed additions and also have 200 people fighting at once. That is why Raw Open World PvP is not the future. I will state as has also been previously stated in this thread is that the cap still has to be kind of high, or else this just becomes another Warzones. 50 on 50 combat?

Another way to alleviate the performance problem without just having a lot of empty space is making side objectives. In OAV there were mines that you could capture in order to help the war effort. On Ilum we could easily have crystal mines to cap and landing pads too. This would split up the players so it isn’t one big glob of players verses another big glob of players. This coupled with the creation of patrols and people staying back to defend territory should help those with low end machines find some place to help even if they lag too hard on the front lines.

I thank you all for taking the time to read this post and I hope you take these ideas to heart because I believe the changes here are the only way to save Open World PvP, but certainly not the only changes that could be made.

Thank you for your time and attention,

BigGun

You can start with this Mr. Ohlen - http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=234156

^This

You should have had 3 factions; Empire, Republic, and Hutt.

That is a win idea right there. I'd so go Hutt.

Facts

There is something that is very important that is being overlooked here that is too important to pre-judge PvP Raw (like Ilum) to being successful.

• Transfers (paid or not)
  
• Server Wide bonus to underdog ( to make aware and to encourage new players to roll on those factions)
  
• In Game rewards (like AAO in WAR)
  

Don't consider and don't even offer the given choices to the players until you implement that. I know this team has professional ambitions, but not offering these is super un-professional.

cheers

Thoughts

PvPvE - Bleh, no NPCS please, but given the scope of the game this might be popular and successful. There can be elements of PvPvE in all models with success and popularity (1/2 people are already here for PvE)

PvP Raw - Probably the potential to be the most successful. This must be designed to adapt and change (climactic) with the Peak-hours 'waves' of logged in players. (think WAR city siege). Any changes to PvP Raw should be scalable to be able to implement to most all Planets which are considered for OPVP (except Outlaw Den). Usually there is also a 'raid boss' included somewhere just for giggles and as a general organization-check. The main problem with this model however is the game is just not designed well to support this well (lack of objectives in Planets), no forts/keeps structures designed... In WAR it's easy to travel to any of the 9 Zones, but not in SWTOR, so really moving 'wars' are not really a option I'm afraid. Doesn't mean Ilum isn't big enough to do something good though, because it is very big...

PvP Balances - NO - except for Warzones and PvP Operation - which should indeed exist, but in a 1 or 2 off situation ( 1 or 2 PvP Operations) available. This would be huge fun for everyone if done right, and I don't mean balanced instanced OPvP, that's just silly and lame. The beauty of

PvP Guilld - NO - except for Outlaw Den or other similar concept - which should be left AS IS and under no circumstances to be removed. This is a very nice and unique concept which doesn't hurt anything when left to it's own ends. In short Guilds are not designed for this purpose (obvisously), and would need a complete Guild overhaul to make this sort of ruleset available in a larger format. I mean at least there needs to be Guild Bonuses like Standards and Guild Leveling and Guild general building.

Note of Philosophy : Don't judge success by popularity when there is no alternative (eg. Warzones/single zones/instances)

Open World PVP

Something that I haven’t seen directly addressed in the other answers to this thread are large-scale open world pvp encounters, where you have upwards of a hundred, two hundred to a side. For some of us, that’s one of the main things we’re looking for in an MMO, and it’s definitely a staple of the RP-PVP server community.

Before you start considering how to change world pvp play mechanically, you really need to fix the servers and rendering problems that make even the players with the best gaming rigs get a slideshow as soon as you get more than a couple dozen people in a small area. Even in relatively smaller fights, where you’ve only got maybe two full ops groups to a side (yes, to me that’s a “smaller” fight), half the players are getting constantly DCed or lagged out to the point where the fight is nearly impossible and the greater portion of participants don’t actually get much participation.

Please, please, please, go talk to the folks at Tor-Talk.com about their Hoth event on Jung Ma a few weeks ago. After the event there was a lot of discussion about ways to work around the technical limitations that the game poses for putting together massive wpvp. I’m looking forward to seeing their solutions at their next event but the fact is, they shouldn’t have had to come up with work arounds for sharding and slideshowing. I am positive that they can give you a solid list of the limitations we’d all like to see resolved.

That size of fight occurring randomly (not pre-planned as an event) is common (on Jung Ma anyway). Had one a couple nights ago, with maybe 60 or so to a side. Probably will be at least one more before the week’s out, maybe more. We’ve got multi-guild organizations whose sole purpose is to organize large-scale pvp and to serve as a well of reinforcements for the small amount of random wpvp that the closed maps allow. Our organization on the Republic side has over a thousand members. It would not be out of the question for a pre-planned event to draw in as many as 200-300 to a side, if we weren’t forced onto separate shards and it wasn’t guaranteed to just D/C most of us.

Regarding sharding. If you absolutely cannot remove it, please make it max out at equal numbers. When you have 150 Imps show up in one spot, they take all the slots on the server right now so when the Pubs show up in force, half of us end up in the other shard. Now, I don’t mind the imbalance in a fight -- it’s half of what makes pvp fun because you never know what you’re going to face, and fights always go back and forth as each side calls in reinforcements. But if you’re wildly outnumbered and the game mechanics forbid you from calling in your friends to help because they’ll get shunted to another shard, well, that’s no fun at all. If 200 people is your max for a zone, it should be 100 Imps and 100 Pubs, not “the first 200 people to show up”. But those numbers are laughably low. If you want real wpvp, the zone needs to be able to accommodate a good 500 to 600 total people at a minimum. Most fights won’t ever get above 300 or so total but there will still be times we’ll hit the higher mark with pre-planned events as the community grows.

You also need more areas where the two factions run into each other randomly while questing. Make most of the map accessible to both sides (not all areas but most), even if it’s through crazy amounts of lvl 50 champions. People who don’t want that rolled on pve servers where they can unflag. People who rolled pvp want the opposite side to have access to most of the map (and expected it in the first place). While levelling, I ran into almost no Imps, and that was during the rush at the beginning while everyone was levelling so they should have been out in force. At this point, there’s not much difference between a pvp and a pve server. We rolled pvp for the fight. Don’t hide the fight away by closing off our access to each other.

I love pvp. I hate warzones (as my under-geared-ness attests...). Give us equal rewards for killing players out in the world so that I don’t have to grind WZs with their random group composition (there’s always someone I end up putting on ignore or wanting to hit. I don’t mind bad pvpers. It’s the obnoxious rude louts that I can’t simply walk away from without ditching the WZ itself that make me hate WZs so much), inability to decide where I’m heading, boring guarantee of equal numbers, and just outright repetitiveness. We don’t need extra objectives in wpvp or complicated rewards. Just make them equal to the rewards for WZs, some valor, maybe some tokens of some kind to put toward gear.

Something that I think is already well done, and I’d like to see more of, is interesting terrain that allows more strategic battles than just “we all converge on an open plain”. We were fighting on Belsavis the other night and all the walls and the sniper perches and choke points and the possibilities for ambush I just really enjoyed. Not “objectives” set out by the game. Objectives and strategies that _we_ created on the spot.

Something that would promote world pvp is a faction-wide (not just zone-wide) pvp channel, and notifications in the channel when an area is being attacked by the opposite faction. One place to see this in action is the World Defense channel in WoW. I don’t entirely like the way Blizzard implemented it, but a prime way to call-out the opposing faction is to go to a spot and “ping” the world defense channel by attacking the npcs. I’d prefer to see it not spam the channel by listing every npc kill (maybe, no more than once every ten seconds on a notification for a particular location), but those notifications are what let the avid pvpers know what zone there’s a fight available in, and the greater the spam for the location the more likely it was that it was a big group. Making it its own default channel lets those who want to know, know, and those who don’t can turn it off.

PvPvE

PvPvE is a fine idea for a warzone or a spot like Ilum that’s meant to be somewhat equal, and it would let people complete their dailies even if no one from the other side is in the zone. But in areas where we might want to have large-scale fights, it’s going to lead to whichever side loses claiming it’s because the other side had npcs helping them, just like the way people already complain that the winner was too close to their spawn point or too close to their base (even when you’re nowhere near a spawn point or your guard npcs).

This could work, however, if control of the area changes based on completing objectives. In that case it would be a necessity to fill out whichever side has less. I would base it partly on gear and maybe WZ rating though. If you’ve got two war heroes in full BM, they’re probably a match for, say 4 or 5 people with no pvp gear at all so adding NPCs to their side is just overkill. Balancing is not a bad idea in itself, but you need to base it on something other than sheer numbers because the best pvpers can take on five or six people and have it still be an even fight.

And make sure the rewards for killing non-players are far less than players. Otherwise you’ll just get people farming the relatively easy npcs instead for the points. Maybe a daily would be “kill 5 players or 50 guards”. Then if there’s no one there from the opposite side you can still complete the quest but if there ARE other players there, there’s reason to seek them out.

Faction pop cap

I think if you’re going to have population caps and sharding at ALL, they should max out at equal numbers for each side. I’d rather see you fix the servers and graphic rendering so they can handle hundreds of people fighting at the same time in a small area and do away with sharding and pop caps entirely. See what I wrote above about population caps in large scale wpvp. And don’t ever, ever call it “world pvp”. It’s not. “World” means anyone and everyone out in the world can join in.

Sharding is a quick and dirty answer to the problem of more people being in the zone than your game engine can handle. I get that. And maybe some people would say it’s a better answer than crashing the whole server (been in fights that were so big they did that in other games...). But it betrays the fact that your focus on this game is still “A bunch of soloers who are moving through the same zone.” That mindset is the antithesis of “MMO Server Community” and it is not the reality of the way people play in an mmo.

This is basically “more warzones”. I really hate warzones. If you go this route, at least give us the option to take an ops group in that’s up to the max number of the WZ. And while being able to randomly queue is a great idea, sometimes I’d rather pick the WZ I’m heading into. I had planned to have a Company Huttball team, for instance, but since we can’t fill out more than half the team with our own people and can’t decide that we’re going into Huttball specifically, that kind of died on day 1.

Guild v Guild

As the Guildleader of a very small guild I have to ask: Why do you hate me?

GvG would be great with, say, guild Capital ships. Yeah, I can see that being a lot of fun, where each member of the guild gets their own job on the ship but the rest of the ship is manned by npcs (so that small guilds aren’t just destroyed for having only half their guns active).

But just in general... this would totally screw over small guilds like mine, and probably even the mid-sized guilds. This could _only_ work if you allow some kind of allies mechanic where smaller guilds can band together and all gain the same benefits of control of whatever resource the fight is over.

The “Guild” is not some monolithic ideal. We’ve all got different ideas on what constitutes a guild, and for many, finding the largest zerg guild is not part of that ideal. But in strict gvg environments, this will make recruitment for a smaller guild even harder than it already is, and member retention almost impossible, as a good number of people, even those who would otherwise prefer a small guild, will feel the need to apply to whatever is the largest guild just so that they can stay “competitive.”

Having areas like the Outlaws Den that are “ops vs ops” is a much better idea than gvg for random open world combat. That lets smaller groups join forces and larger ones are forced down to a manageable number. It makes it difficult to do larger fights though and risks just becoming another warzone, albeit with more than two ops groups fighting each other.

Someone suggested a very original idea which also has merit :

Darkside / Neutral / Lightside PvP.

Create PvP of that and you have instant 3 factions in a 2 faction game!

I'd say it's worth a try, hell Mythic is releasing a 6v6v6 format arena game WoH soon...

open world pvp

 

regarding sharding. If you absolutely cannot remove it, please make it max out at equal numbers.

this!!!!

We just want Shadows/Assassins nerfed.

All that other stuff doesn't matter.