It's a troublesome issue that plagues many MMOs, and SWTOR is absolutely no exception.

When the only incentive to enter the PVP instance on a planet is achievements that are usually gained via planned massive gankfest events. what is left?

I'd like to see changes made to OWPVP to make it fun and worthwhile to be flagged for PVP.

First, take a look at the Warmode system that WOW inmplemented. I know it isn't perfect, but the idea of offering scaling rewards for being in the PVP instance has merit. Also, the assassin and bounty hunter system could be really fun as well.

Second, companions should be disabled in PVP instances.

Third, there should be PVP instance related quests and rewards. Maybe if we had PVP currency and gear again there is an added reason for PVPers to go out and quest instead of queuing. An important step here though is ensuring that the quests are not just kill x players, as those will be exploited the same as OWPVP cheevos.

Also, if we had PVP currency (I'm thinking of the TelVar coins in ESO Imperial City) that you can gain in the PVP instance, and if you get killed while they are in your inventory you drop them and can be looted by other players. This creates some tension for you to either party up or be discrete in your quest and regularly bank your loot so you don't lose it.

Fourth, there has to be some kind of limit on grouping or number of players in a PVP instance. This is solely to deal with the engine issue of managing multiple players in combat. What if a PVP instance has a maximum of 16 players per faction, or whatever will keep a reasonable performance experience should everyone happen to be bunched up?

Fifth, grouping. I like the idea of limiting to maximum of 4 player groups, to further encourage skirmish play instead of massive slideshow battles.

Sixth, what if some the OWPVP zones were free for all? Not only do you have to worry about the opposing faction, but you also need to worry about your own as well? This flag could be based on the faction control of the planet, or based on what guild controls the planet on conquest?

Speaking of Guilds. This could be a great use of the conquest system as well as the guild challenge system to use OWPVP as a lever to attack a guild that has conquered a planet. What if you could 'steal' conquest points from a guild that controls a planet, forcing them to come and defend their claim? Defending could be as simple as completing some additional crafting supplies to create a defensive shield around your base commander so they cannot be attacked for 24 hours, protecting them and giving you additional conquest points.

I'm not sure if any of this is interesting to anyone else, but for me I really would like to see some kind of activity around OWPVP that isn't just slideshows every time a new planetary cheevo comes out. We had a brief flare in OWPVP activity when Conquest first released, but since the Commander objective is large group based, it just turned into another slideshow. Solo and small group OWPVP can be a lot of fun. An assassin and bounty system sounds awesome.

Anyways if you have ideas to share on how you would like to see OWPVP improved in SWTOR please share them in this thread. If you hate OWPVP and don't want to participate that is fine too, part of an MMO is that there are many different ways to play.

The idea has already been posted to make a larger war zone say 16v16 or 24v24 using the outlaw's den, and ilum Rishi ship areas as backdrops with conquest points to encourage use. Keep the programming easier. This I can get behind.

Here are some problems with the rest of the ideas:

Item 2 These 3 pvp areas already disable comps. Disable comps in pvp instances means you can not run many regular and heroic missions there and can not do the existing pvp area special reward activities solo.

Item 3 There are in some cross faction pvp instances special activities which next to ops have the most valuable rewards. Do not mess with these! Does the commenter does not know about this?

Keep it simple we do not need to return to 2 sets of gear and even more currencies. People are confused enough. Keep the playing field equal for pvp and pve players alike.

Item 4-5 For limiting groups we already have limited pvp fights called 4v4 and 8v8 war zones. Limiting the size of groups in all pvp instances would it impossible to do some special activities on certain pvp instances. Do not mess with the size of groups in PVP instances!

Item 6 The outlaws den and all pvp instances are not cross faction groups. There is no free for all and I think we are better for not adding that. In fact. what you would have in free for all is groups of people especially guilds using voice coms to act as a group and dominate the activity killing off the solo players and smaller groups. No way to balance that! If you could disable that, do it for regular war zones to balance the field! So guilds have a vested interest in promoting freedom to use voice coms.

Add more content please.

The idea has already been posted to make a larger war zone say 16v16 or 24v24 using the outlaw's den, and ilum Rishi ship areas as backdrops with conquest points to encourage use. Keep the programming easier. This I can get behind.

 

Won't work, the engine has difficulty for a lot of people in 16 man operations, in OWPvP, it struggles with large groups, 16v16 would probably crash everything...ok maybe not, but a lot of people would freeze.

Won't work, the engine has difficulty for a lot of people in 16 man operations, in OWPvP, it struggles with large groups, 16v16 would probably crash everything...ok maybe not, but a lot of people would freeze.

I ran a world PvP event for my guild with 20+ people for this week's Gree event, actual 16vs16 battles rarely happen as it's mostly about chasing/getting isolated and going between objectives and safe points until enough opposition forms up.

That said I'll take large scale OWPvP over small OWPvP skirmishes any day, companion cheese tactics are rampant and if I want "balanced" small scale PvP I'll queue up.

How to incentivize it? Rewards are important but they have to be catered towards what large guilds want, which in my eyes is Conquest. You don't have to be rewarded for killing other players too, you can just be rewarded for farming certain mobs in a tightly contested PvP area.

When the game launched, we had the Ilum PvP area with an Imp base, Pub base, and 3 control points that were always open for capture. Participating in the battles there rewarded players with a buff that increased valor gain in WZs. It was simple and I enjoyed it. Unfortunately the game engine did not enjoy it and struggled to handle 2 full Ops groups in a small area. Sometimes there were additional Ops groups participating at the same time. The frame rates for a melee class in the middle of the battle could drop to 1 frame every 3 seconds. Ranged classes could stay back out of the mob and see things unfold a little better. Despite the engine's limitations, I still managed to have fun.

The devs decided to nuke the area and it eventually became the Gree event area. There's a little memorial (lore item) near what used to be the pub base. It's kind of nostalgic to go back there and walk around.

The reason why there are no PvP servers (any more) and why the PvP instances are virtually empty is because there are not enough players interested in PvP - particularly open world PvP - to make them viable.

I could understand if Outlaw's Den was too crowded, that they might expand the area or create other areas, but the simple truth is that the vast majority of SWTOR players are not interested in open-world PvP.

The reason why there are no PvP servers (any more) and why the PvP instances are virtually empty is because there are not enough players interested in PvP - particularly open world PvP - to make them viable.

I could understand if Outlaw's Den was too crowded, that they might expand the area or create other areas, but the simple truth is that the vast majority of SWTOR players are not interested in open-world PvP.

The vast majority of SWTOR players are not interested in ranked, Nim raiding, GSF, and RP either, but those continue to exist in the game, and with support from the dev team. The reason I made this post is because throughout the history of this game there HAS been interest from the player base in OWPVP. For those that are interested as well I hoped to get some feedback and share their ideas on how to make it work given the engine constraints.

It seems the majority of PVP players were killed off patches ago. The game only caters to people who want to press 3 buttons on their toolbar for brain-dead combat to get to the next cutscene, and spend ungodly amounts of Cartel Coins on outfits.

Did you have a suggestion on how to make OWPVP viable in SWTOR?

How to incentivize it? Rewards are important but they have to be catered towards what large guilds want, which in my eyes is Conquest. You don't have to be rewarded for killing other players too, you can just be rewarded for farming certain mobs in a tightly contested PvP area.

I agree, guilds and Conquest are are great place to focus. But not every Conquest guild will want to participate in PVP so having objectives to help support the war effort could be great. War supplies could now be used to bolster defence, upgrade amd repair, purchase more adds to defend the base, etc. A guild challenge system would be fun too, if we could find a way to keep it from being exploited by mega guilds just challenging themselves

The vast majority of SWTOR players are not interested in ranked, Nim raiding, GSF, and RP either, but those continue to exist in the game, and with support from the dev team. The reason I made this post is because throughout the history of this game there HAS been interest from the player base in OWPVP. For those that are interested as well I hoped to get some feedback and share their ideas on how to make it work given the engine constraints.

While I agree the devs do support Nim raiding and GSF, they really do not do anything for RP. RP is pretty much something the players do on their own and there are no rewards for RP. RP is not something that the devs actually have to do anything for since it has to do with the players themselves.

While I agree the devs do support Nim raiding and GSF, they really do not do anything for RP. RP is pretty much something the players do on their own and there are no rewards for RP. RP is not something that the devs actually have to do anything for since it has to do with the players themselves.

Do you have suggestions on how to make OWPVP viable in SWTOR?

Did you have a suggestion on how to make OWPVP viable in SWTOR?

Besides the engine limitation of too many players on the screen, at the end of the day if you like PvP gameplay you will play it, if you don't, you wont. And as long as it has good unique rewards, it would be enjoyable.

However, expertise was removed so the whole progression of PvP for PvP players was removed and most rage-quit.

It will never be viable with the game in its current state, especially with Ilum gone. And at its core Open-World PvP will always need to be somewhat unbalanced and for some reason many people can't get over that.

2 equally skilled players at different levels with similar armor, the higher level one should always have an innate advantage that the lower level one will have to overcome through skill, modifiers like stimpacks/medpacks, and/or the other player just being bad at combat. And then we come into the issue of class-balancing for PvP which causes a whole other issue.

Open-world PvP is dead and unviable for many reasons, but without even going into those, the population for it is already gone.

The vast majority of SWTOR players are not interested in ranked, Nim raiding, GSF, and RP either, but those continue to exist in the game, and with support from the dev team. The reason I made this post is because throughout the history of this game there HAS been interest from the player base in OWPVP. For those that are interested as well I hoped to get some feedback and share their ideas on how to make it work given the engine constraints.

This issue is the engine, and unless they have some magic rabbit they are going to pull out of the hat that will fix the engine issues, OWPvP will never be a thing. If you really want some , try organising it here, see how many players you can get together, see how it works.

All the events that you mentioned

The vast majority of SWTOR players are not interested in ranked, Nim raiding, GSF, and RP either, but those continue to exist in the game, and with support from the dev team. .

Because they pop, people organise groups, and go do the stuff, or que up, and the ques pop, as for RP, the devs don't have to do anything for that, they don't cater to it. For them to see OWPvP as viable, people have to organise, run events, show them that it's wanted, show them what you need.