Bioware has no idea how to design for world pvp, and doesn't intend to. And no, I'm not just talking about Ilum.

If you need proof, look at how the zones are designed. None of them put Imperial players near Republic players. They keep each other neatly secluded on opposite sides of the planets. Questing areas don't overlap, you never compete for sparse resources or NPC kills, and you never have a reason to deny the other side anything. There is no world PvP during the leveling phase of the game. None.

Then look at the death penalties. You kill someone? They just revive exactly where they died. No penalties. No stakes. No point.

The engine also can't support large amounts of people in one area, so large scale battles are out the window. Bioware thus intentionally kept large amounts of people from having reason to be in the same area (until Ilum and we know how that went)

You access all flashpoints and operations from the fleet. No need to travel to any zone and be thus exposed to other players on the other faction traveling to the same dungeon. (UBRS jump and Molten Core chains, anyone?) Barely any need to travel out into the worlds at ALL once you're max level.

No matter what they may say in interviews, world PvP was NEVER a design consideration when they made this game. Do not expect it to "get better" in a patch - they're not designing for you and never have been.

If you are really into world pvp, read up on GW2. It's the first game since warhammer that has the same potential as DAoC had. If you've never experienced it before, I encourage you to check it out! It might not be your thing, but if it is, you'll never be able to play a mainstream arcade MMO RPG again. I've been trying since DAoC with no luck.

Have you seen the new vid about their 2 week long RvRvR?

/drool

And I agree with the OP. wpvp should be natural, you shouldn't have to go out of your way to "try" and get involved.

Unfortunately very true, TOR is not a world pvp game, it's an instanced pve game.

If you're looking for world pvp GW2 is your game, not TOR.

If you are really into world pvp, read up on GW2. It's the first game since warhammer that has the same potential as DAoC had. If you've never experienced it before, I encourage you to check it out! It might not be your thing, but if it is, you'll never be able to play a mainstream arcade MMO RPG again. I've been trying since DAoC with no luck.

As a former DAoC player, I don't have high hopes for GW2 at all. I know, everyone is raving about it, I just have a hard time believing it is going to be any better/different than GW1.

For real, DAoC style not Warhammer style, RvR, Im keeping my eye on Dominus (and to a lesser degree, Secret World).

SWTOR is fun to play in PVP, but it was not built for large scale open RVR.

It's a shame as it would be quite fun if it worked, but really, they just didn't build the game that way.

SWTOR is fun to play in PVP, but it was not built for large scale open RVR.

 

It's a shame as it would be quite fun if it worked, but really, they just didn't build the game that way.

Only rank 72?

Man...slacking.

Bioware has no idea how to design for world pvp, and doesn't intend to. And no, I'm not just talking about Ilum.

"and doesn't intend to." How you've come to this conclusion one can only speculate.

If you need proof, look at how the zones are designed. None of them put Imperial players near Republic players. They keep each other neatly secluded on opposite sides of the planets. Questing areas don't overlap, you never compete for sparse resources or NPC kills, and you never have a reason to deny the other side anything. There is no world PvP during the leveling phase of the game. None.

Agreed, and it kinda sucked. Would have liked more, but leveling takes no time at all. so, considering the fact that the majority of your time will be spent at endgame, meh, its not all that big of a deal. but i agree, it would have been nice.

Then look at the death penalties. You kill someone? They just revive exactly where they died. No penalties. No stakes. No point.

yeah, in pve. and it think its fantastic. this is totally acceptable with working ilum. but even though ilum doesnt work right now, there's nowhere world pvp takes place anyway, so its somewhat irrelevant.

The engine also can't support large amounts of people in one area, so large scale battles are out the window. Bioware thus intentionally kept large amounts of people from having reason to be in the same area (until Ilum and we know how that went)

its less to do with the game engine, and more to do with the fact that the game has large assets. which is good, because the game looks great. wow is SUPER low polygon, i mean super low. which is why you can run wow on a high end toaster. its easy to create low res textures, its really hard to have low and high polygon world objects.

You access all flashpoints and operations from the fleet. No need to travel to any zone and be thus exposed to other players on the other faction traveling to the same dungeon. (UBRS jump and Molten Core chains, anyone?) Barely any need to travel out into the worlds at ALL once you're max level.

traveling to dungeons in wow was a tedious timesink. you have to understand that this is a product with the sole purpose of making money. convenience is a delicate balancing act. YOU as an individual might have had fun camping MC but there are plenty of people who hated not being able to get into their pve experience because of pvp players griefing.

No matter what they may say in interviews, world PvP was NEVER a design consideration when they made this game. Do not expect it to "get better" in a patch - they're not designing for you and never have been.

i think your full of **** and have little to no idea what your talking about. how you can make these wild accusations to begin with is beyond me. ill concede that pvp was likely not the focus, and thats a good business decision given the games objective. you can be pretty sure that pvp is an element they want in the game, and they want it to be enjoyable, and world pvp is one of the aspects they want to deliver.

if ea and the devs didnt care about pvp at all, as you insinuate, then we would have the same ilum today we had day 1. but we dont. they have made pretty big changes pretty quickly in an attempt to fix a system they quickly recognized did not work in a release environment. not giving props where props are due just makes you look like a whiner. the most logical assumption one could make from projected patchnotes is that the wz changes counting for wpvp dailys/weeklys would be temporary, while they completely redo ilum.

If you are really into world pvp, read up on GW2. It's the first game since warhammer that has the same potential as DAoC had. If you've never experienced it before, I encourage you to check it out! It might not be your thing, but if it is, you'll never be able to play a mainstream arcade MMO RPG again. I've been trying since DAoC with no luck.

All games have potential until they're released.

All games have potential until they're released.

Yep, you just hope they don't go the "same ol, same ol" route once they launch.

"and doesn't intend to." How you've come to this conclusion one can only speculate.

The shuttering of Ilum thanks to 1.1.5 seems to indicate they have no intentions on repairing the zone, and considering that was their ONLY open world pvp effort I'd say they have no intentions to do anything about the problem.

its less to do with the game engine, and more to do with the fact that the game has large assets. which is good, because the game looks great. wow is SUPER low polygon, i mean super low. which is why you can run wow on a high end toaster. its easy to create low res textures, its really hard to have low and high polygon world objects.

If you asked people whether they wanted their MMO to perform well or look good, what do you think the results of such a survey would be?

traveling to dungeons in wow was a tedious timesink.

You know, I thought this way at first. Now that I've been exposed to TOR's "teleport everywhere!" style, I miss traveling to places and encountering people on the way. Even if you could just teleport to an area and then have a short run to the dungeon, encountering other people naturally fostered world pvp. This "instance everything, teleport straight there" approach murders it.

YOU as an individual might have had fun camping MC but there are plenty of people who hated not being able to get into their pve experience because of pvp players griefing.

Those people played on a PvE server and no one could stop them from getting there.

you can be pretty sure that pvp is an element they want in the game, and they want it to be enjoyable, and world pvp is one of the aspects they want to deliver.

Actions speak louder than words. World PvP cannot be injected into the game magically at max level. It has to be an organic presence throughout the entire game.

Stranglethorn Vale in WoW was so successful because lots of people of ALL level ranges were constantly passing through the area, sometimes out of necessity. This fostered natural conflicts to develop. Then people would call for help and you'd have a brawl on your hands. It was fun, even while you were the level 30 being ganked. Having a swarm of 35s take down a 60 who was terrorizing them was a sight to see.

if ea and the devs didnt care about pvp at all, as you insinuate, then we would have the same ilum today we had day 1. but we dont. they have made pretty big changes pretty quickly in an attempt to fix a system they quickly recognized did not work in a release environment. not giving props where props are due just makes you look like a whiner. the most logical assumption one could make from projected patchnotes is that the wz changes counting for wpvp dailys/weeklys would be temporary, while they completely redo ilum.

You'll note that my first sentence explains this: Bioware has no idea how to design for world pvp,

As a former DAoC player, I don't have high hopes for GW2 at all. I know, everyone is raving about it, I just have a hard time believing it is going to be any better/different than GW1.

 

For real, DAoC style not Warhammer style, RvR, Im keeping my eye on Dominus (and to a lesser degree, Secret World).

just because swtor is no different than kotor 2 ... doesnt mean wow wasnt very different from wc3. i'm not holding my breath either though.

No 2 faction game will ever have good open world pvp.... some fringe might like ganking lowbies but that's about it.

^Yep.

Bioware needs to add a 3rd faction, like the Hutts or Pirates... something.

The shuttering of Ilum thanks to 1.1.5 seems to indicate they have no intentions on repairing the zone, and considering that was their ONLY open world pvp effort I'd say they have no intentions to do anything about the problem.

 

 

 

If you asked people whether they wanted their MMO to perform well or look good, what do you think the results of such a survey would be?

 

 

 

You know, I thought this way at first. Now that I've been exposed to TOR's "teleport everywhere!" style, I miss traveling to places and encountering people on the way. Even if you could just teleport to an area and then have a short run to the dungeon, encountering other people naturally fostered world pvp. This "instance everything, teleport straight there" approach murders it.

 

 

 

Those people played on a PvE server and no one could stop them from getting there.

 

 

 

Actions speak louder than words. World PvP cannot be injected into the game magically at max level. It has to be an organic presence throughout the entire game.

 

Stranglethorn Vale in WoW was so successful because lots of people of ALL level ranges were constantly passing through the area, sometimes out of necessity. This fostered natural conflicts to develop. Then people would call for help and you'd have a brawl on your hands. It was fun, even while you were the level 30 being ganked. Having a swarm of 35s take down a 60 who was terrorizing them was a sight to see.

 

 

 

You'll note that my first sentence explains this: Bioware has no idea how to design for world pvp,

Well said. Agree.

^Yep.

 

Bioware needs to add a 3rd faction, like the Hutts or Pirates... something.

smugglers + bounty hunters + somethingelse .. would have been obvious to a 6 year old. but thats not what blizzard did .. so logic goes out the window.

The shuttering of Ilum thanks to 1.1.5 seems to indicate they have no intentions on repairing the zone, and considering that was their ONLY open world pvp effort I'd say they have no intentions to do anything about the problem.

i would disagree, i would submit that they have identified a serious problem that cant be fixed by tinkering with what ilum was, or is today. but to assume that regulating daily/weekly world pvp events to WZs hardly confirms an intent to do away with it entirely. i stand behind my current speculation, which is this is a temporary change until they rework ilum entirely. they seem committed to making pvp work, hence all of the pvp specific changes in recent patches. if they had no intentions of fixing these things, like i said, we would still have the ilum we had day 1.

If you asked people whether they wanted their MMO to perform well or look good, what do you think the results of such a survey would be?

depends who you ask. i dont mind spending a large portion of my disposable income on having a really high end machine, so i can have both.

You know, I thought this way at first. Now that I've been exposed to TOR's "teleport everywhere!" style, I miss traveling to places and encountering people on the way. Even if you could just teleport to an area and then have a short run to the dungeon, encountering other people naturally fostered world pvp. This "instance everything, teleport straight there" approach murders it.

so your proposal could be executed one of three ways i can think of,

1) scatter FPs OPs throughout the existing planets - which would result in lvl 50s crushing lowbies far more often then they would today, because there is no reason for 50s to go to lowbie planets

2) create a planet with entrances to all the FPs OPs so its communal, and fosters world pvp - which would yield simmilar results to Ilum, whereby the Imperials would spawn camp Reps and make it virtually impossible to complete content during peak hours.

3) create a seperate planet for each FP and OP but still have it communal - which would be scenario 2 on a lower scale.

i understand the want for world pvp, i want it working badly as well.

Those people played on a PvE server and no one could stop them from getting there.

i agree but upset customers are upset customers, and the faction imbalances are so great on some servers that i dont think its practical.

Actions speak louder than words. World PvP cannot be injected into the game magically at max level. It has to be an organic presence throughout the entire game.

why? please explain why this has to be this way.

Stranglethorn Vale in WoW was so successful because lots of people of ALL level ranges were constantly passing through the area, sometimes out of necessity. This fostered natural conflicts to develop. Then people would call for help and you'd have a brawl on your hands. It was fun, even while you were the level 30 being ganked. Having a swarm of 35s take down a 60 who was terrorizing them was a sight to see.

yes, i agree 100% that this should have been the goal for planet design on lvl 25+ planets.

You'll note that my first sentence explains this: Bioware has no idea how to design for world pvp,

well simply as a function of Bioware being a great game developer for years gives them far more credit then your casual observations, sorry. im not defending what bioware had at launch, but your comments are made in ignorance. you have zero idea what thought process led them to these descisions. the original ilum was good on paper, and would have worked well if people didnt have the innate tendency to go for the easy way out, which is trading objectives. they at least tried something new, instead of just replicating wintergrasp.

Well they sure aint talking about it thats for sure. There not promoting it anymore i notice. I dont see gabe going its amazing and all this anymore.

If i owned gw2 i would honestly mass launch the game today after this interview where the say its ok to kill trade and ilum whats that

i would disagree, i would submit that they have identified a serious problem that cant be fixed by tinkering with what ilum was, or is today. but to assume that regulating daily/weekly world pvp events to WZs hardly confirms an intent to do away with it entirely. i stand behind my current speculation, which is this is a temporary change until they rework ilum entirely. they seem committed to making pvp work, hence all of the pvp specific changes in recent patches. if they had no intentions of fixing these things, like i said, we would still have the ilum we had day 1.

They've made three tries, failed at each turn, then gave up. I'd say they've struck out.

depends who you ask. i dont mind spending a large portion of my disposable income on having a really high end machine, so i can have both.

I asked you what the results of such a survey would be. On average. That you didn't answer suggests you know what the answer would be - MMO players prefer performance.

so your proposal could be executed one of three ways i can think of,

 

1) scatter FPs OPs throughout the existing planets - which would result in lvl 50s crushing lowbies far more often then they would today, because there is no reason for 50s to go to lowbie planets

Flashpoints should already be scattered around the planets, in areas of equivalent level. The system today is horribly broken - people spam the fleet for things like Mandalorian, Athiss, Hammer, etc but the people of that level who'd want to go are ON A PLANET IN A DIFFERENT CHAT CHANNEL. The complete lack of cross chat channels or a global chat LFG channel (or hell, a LFG tool) with the flashpoints set up this way shows utter incompetence in design.

And yes, there's no reason for 50s to go anywhere except Ilum (or Belsavis). Have you seen a level 50 anywhere else? I haven't.

Compare to something like WoW - there were 60s all over the place.

2) create a planet with entrances to all the FPs OPs so its communal, and fosters world pvp - which would yield simmilar results to Ilum, whereby the Imperials would spawn camp Reps and make it virtually impossible to complete content during peak hours.

You assume everyone griefs all the time. In WoW this was not the case in my experience, so I believe it would not be the case in TOR either. A group may fight while waiting for that last member of the raid to show up, but what reason would they have to "camp"?

3) create a seperate planet for each FP and OP but still have it communal - which would be scenario 2 on a lower scale.

See above!

i agree but upset customers are upset customers, and the faction imbalances are so great on some servers that i dont think its practical.

They have a term for this: PvP happened. That's what WoW devs told people. They're not going to quit over it anyways, because it's the reason they rolled on a PvP server!

why? please explain why this has to be this way.

Because world pvp is not a sideshow, a minigame, or a diversion. It happens while you're doing other things. It happens while you're questing, while you're waiting around for a zepplin, while you're buying from a shop in a neutral town, while you're heading to your destination. You can seek it out but it must be able to seek you out as well.

TOR is not built around any of this.

well simply as a function of Bioware being a great game developer for years gives them far more credit then your casual observations, sorry.

Bioware is a great game developer...of single player RPGs.

Would you think that the Chicago Bears would be a good Rugby team? Who knows, they actually might since they're good athletes. But it's not their specialty, and it's not their experience. They clearly do not know what they are doing, and it shows often in their design decisions.

the original ilum was good on paper

No, it never was. The design is fundamentally flawed.

1. It's too big and too sparsely populated with points of interest.

2. There's no point. You cap all 5 objectives aaaaannnd....well...nothing.

3. It's too easy to switch objectives. One guy can solo cap in 30 seconds. And there's no incentive to defend either.

4. No population caps. No population constraints. Nothing for the undermanned population to do that could get them "back in the game."

Ilum is crap on paper. It's no coincidence it was crap in execution.

They've made three tries, failed at each turn, then gave up. I'd say they've struck out.

 

i guess we can agree to disagree on this one. i fully expect it to be re-written from the ground up.

 

I asked you what the results of such a survey would be. On average. That you didn't answer suggests you know what the answer would be - MMO players prefer performance.

 

i would expect to see a pretty even 50/50 split. hardcore mmoers want perfomrance, casual mmoers want a nice visual experience

 

 

Flashpoints should already be scattered around the planets, in areas of equivalent level. The system today is horribly broken - people spam the fleet for things like Mandalorian, Athiss, Hammer, etc but the people of that level who'd want to go are ON A PLANET IN A DIFFERENT CHAT CHANNEL. The complete lack of cross chat channels or a global chat LFG channel (or hell, a LFG tool) with the flashpoints set up this way shows utter incompetence in design.

 

And yes, there's no reason for 50s to go anywhere except Ilum (or Belsavis). Have you seen a level 50 anywhere else? I haven't.

 

i see lvl 50s in HM FPs every day. sending 50's to lowbie worlds to do HMs would end in disaster.

 

Compare to something like WoW - there were 60s all over the place.

 

no, there where 60s around places where there was stuff for 60s to do. or ganking.

 

You assume everyone griefs all the time. In WoW this was not the case in my experience, so I believe it would not be the case in TOR either. A group may fight while waiting for that last member of the raid to show up, but what reason would they have to "camp"?

 

griefing is fun for a while. provided the action is consistent, we used to sit in front of dungeon entrances for hours starting fights and generally being ******es.

 

 

They have a term for this: PvP happened. That's what WoW devs told people. They're not going to quit over it anyways, because it's the reason they rolled on a PvP server!

 

people role on pvp servers for the chance at world pvp. they still get frustrated when they want to do pve content and cant. which i suspect is a possible reason why worlds are so evenly split for each faction.

 

 

 

Because world pvp is not a sideshow, a minigame, or a diversion. It happens while you're doing other things. It happens while you're questing, while you're waiting around for a zepplin, while you're buying from a shop in a neutral town, while you're heading to your destination. You can seek it out but it must be able to seek you out as well.

 

 

When Quel Danas (sp?) came out during BC thats pretty much all me and my friends would do. is gank people and start wars with people doing dailys. no objective, nothing to gain, its just fun starting little wars. everyone is max level and it was pretty fun.

 

 

TOR is not built around any of this.

 

 

 

Bioware is a great game developer...of single player RPGs.

 

 

Bioware is a good game developer, full stop. not everything they make is OMG AWESOME, and not everything is working 100% at release, but a good game developer they are.

 

Would you think that the Chicago Bears would be a good Rugby team? Who knows, they actually might since they're good athletes. But it's not their specialty, and it's not their experience. They clearly do not know what they are doing, and it shows often in their design decisions.

 

 

 

 

No, it never was. The design is fundamentally flawed.

 

1. It's too big and too sparsely populated with points of interest.

 

the only point of interest was where the vehicles are to blow up. the other control points are secondary.

 

2. There's no point. You cap all 5 objectives aaaaannnd....well...nothing.

 

the point was to blow up the drop ships to complete quests, and to stop the opfor from doing the same. we just traded instead.

 

3. It's too easy to switch objectives. One guy can solo cap in 30 seconds. And there's no incentive to defend either.

 

no incentive to defend is the only real issue.

 

4. No population caps. No population constraints. Nothing for the undermanned population to do that could get them "back in the game."

 

population difference seems to be the basis for most of the issues. which is hard to foresee, it was pretty even in beta. most polls showed a pretty even spread pre-release as well.

 

Ilum is crap on paper. It's no coincidence it was crap in execution.

if the populations where equal and people didnt trade, it would have worked pretty well.

Because world pvp is not a sideshow, a minigame, or a diversion. It happens while you're doing other things. It happens while you're questing, while you're waiting around for a zepplin, while you're buying from a shop in a neutral town, while you're heading to your destination. You can seek it out but it must be able to seek you out as well.

 

TOR is not built around any of this.

This point nails it for me. For world pvp to work properly it needs to have strands througout the game. Be a part of the very concept of the game. You can bolt on an extra raid but you cant 'patch' a complete lack of world pvp. Its what really turns me away from the game, the feeling that it was a lazy afterthought.

I'm fine with that. I expected it to be different but hey, not every game is going to cater for my personal tastes.