Star Wars: The Old Republic (MMO)

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

Open world stuff like Ilum and Wintergrasp are always a pain in the ass because they have objectives that usually generally favour larger groups. For it to be fair you NEED population control (either arbitrary or something which forces people to spread out). which is why Wintergrasp ended up being an outdoor battleground which you queued for.

TBH the zone as it is, needs to be scrapped. They should add daily or constantly repeatable "pve-ish" quests out there that reward commendations that can be turned in to get PVP bags. Get rid of kill X number of player quests. If they need something like that maybe have scraps that drop from players that 10 = 1 commendation passively and not a quest. They need to give people an objective in the zone that isn't farm other players and isn't something static like the points as they are now. Old school AV had quests like collect supplies and stuff which had people all over the zone, which could result in skirmishes everywhere. Or they could have a control points that change randomly, like in a war sense. "The Empire is planing to take Frozen Pointy Ridge, assist us!" and the republic gets a similar quest ("We must destroy the Empire's Carebear protection shields!") somewhere else randomly (which can be close or far away) which gives players the opportunity to defend their point or attack the point and it's, constantly changing, and being assisted by NPC's the players have to keep alive or they fail that objective. Each point could have a specific zone buff that provides a small benefit, and you cant attack points your faction isn't attacking. Depending on the resources people collect or the quests they do solo, might influence what objectives your faction makes a move on or what reinforcements you get (kind of like a mini Gates of Ahn'Qiraj opening). Anyways, something that intertwines PVP and PVE, and discourages rolling mauls.

A a slightly different take on the WG buff that used to exist could be a pulsing buff on each player that updates every few seconds or so. I'm not sure how it'd go connection wise though, it'd probably be quite laggy. But anyways, a pulsing buff that detected how many players were in say 40 yards of your character and increased/decreased your stats by 10% (health/damage etc) to match the population imbalance, so if its 1 on 1 you'd be fine, but say if it was 4 on 1 you'd be a dungeon boss essentially. It'd kinda force small group solo combat, since 50 folks attacking someone with 500% extra damage and health would be bad for them (just randomly pulling numbers fpr arguments sake). Or if not damage, make it a valour bonus.


Also, more Warzones. I'm a fan of the idea of inter-faction warzones an idea, I came up with, for a themed one would be an arena similar to that of Huttball with the crowd and all except it's deathmatch, king of the hill, control points, or conquest (like BF3, TF2 etc, where you hold it passively without clicking something) whatever... Set in a faux city block. Players of either faction, same or otherwise, against each others team, with the crowd watching on and cheering with the commentator calling the shots. Such a setting would fit the grimy underworld of the Hutt's and other Sci-Fi cultures - kind of like Solaris 7 from Battletech.

* Loading screens no longer appear when other platers spawn nearby

I guess that explains all the random loading screens I was getting on Fleet.



I'm enjoying the game, I'm kind of leveling a Jedi Shadow atm, along with my Marauder and Operative/Sniper (keep rerolling lol), and bounty hunter. PVP in the Warzones is fun. Im really not surprised Ilum bit them in the ass the way it did, the zone should probably have been more or less shutdown till they got a working model for it. Hopefully what happened is a BIG wakeup call for them that they can't half ass it like you might be able to do in a SP game. I'm surprised that they are not rolling back character that got non-warzone Valour in the last two days. They really should to keep the games integrity even if people (somehow) thought it was 'totally legit' aoe farming in graveyards like that. But if they don't, meh... I'll get over it or I just won't PVP anymore.

[Kyero Fox]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Diminishing returns on kills would screw over the casual player who's looking for a good time, as well as the skilled player who's trying to get his kills the proper way.

The lamers, meanwhile, will simply find another way to easily farm their stuff.

Lamers gonna lame.

Some times its just exploiters and lazy people who ruin a games PVP... if the gaming community was a bit.. NOT that, it would be a better place.

[Xion Valkyrie]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Diminishing returns on kills would screw over the casual player who's looking for a good time, as well as the skilled player who's trying to get his kills the proper way.

The lamers, meanwhile, will simply find another way to easily farm their stuff.

Lamers gonna lame.

You need punishment for dying/losing. Losing valor/rank when you fail your objectives/die to opponents. That's really the only way to to prevent trading. Of course, that comes with its own sleuth of problems.

Another method is to do what GW/GW2 does/is doing. Get rid of any kind of PvP equipment, period. Everyone who goes to Illum wears a standard set of equipment (they will still look like whatever they're currently wearing) and PvP is purefly for win/loss kill/death ratio.

Thus, PvP will only be for PvP's sake, not for any kind of actual reward. Well, maybe some EPEEN for people with ridiculous stats. Have some kind of ranking where people must really try to get to the top. Then give some kind of cosmetic reward, like the top 10 players per server per side gets to have shiny special effects around their characters or something.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by Xion Valkyrie

Another method is to do what GW/GW2 does/is doing. Get rid of any kind of PvP equipment, period. Everyone who goes to Illum wears a standard set of equipment (they will still look like whatever they're currently wearing) and PvP is purefly for win/loss kill/death ratio.

Thus, PvP will only be for PvP's sake, not for any kind of actual reward. Well, maybe some EPEEN for people with ridiculous stats. Have some kind of ranking where people must really try to get to the top. Then give some kind of cosmetic reward, like the top 10 players per server per side gets to have shiny special effects around their characters or something.

Yes, I really like what GW2 is doing. Removing the biggest complaint about MMO PvP (gear > skill) and making gear useful for PvE, but cosmetic in PvP.

[Nixl]

I did not realize TOR had so many launch servers. It kind of seems like far too many by the looks of the population.

http://www.torstatus.net/shards/us/stats

It appears that there are way too many light population servers. You certainly do not need to be on a heavy or standard population server to have fun, but it certainly helps when you are pursuing endgame content such as raids and and dungeons.

We have 124 US servers and about 90 EU Servers. Around a total of 214 servers. Only 1 server, (Swiftsure US) seems to have reached a heavy population. Only 11 of the 214 have reached a true standard population level (some are close, but still below). That means there are 202 servers that have a light population. The free month is just about up and so I think think Bioware already stated that there will be transfers, but hopefully it will be free the first time so some player migration can create more standard population servers.

edit: To clarify, what "light" means in terms of numbers is vague. It could be more than enough people and it could also very well be barren landscapes with 10 people on an entire planet. I'll admit, remembering my WoW days I was inclined to to moderate to heavy servers for the raid opportunities due to a larger max level player pool. Then again, in TOR you can get by with 8 people to raid, but still I feel like standard servers should be standard.

[Keroko]

Believe it or not, almost all those servers were heavy or full during launch, and the whines about queues went through the roof. It was either get more servers, or risk losing players because of queues.

[Nixl]

True Keroko, but Holidays+beginning of free month always sees large traffic. One mistake that I have seen in other MMOs is that developers lag behind on population trends and thus you have a lot of players dispersed between way too many servers, which hurt them I believe. Hopefully Bioware will not fall behind and get the transfer option ready

They may have got the servers to accept the high traffic for the holidays, but they also need to be wary of the level traffic now and in the future. It is a rat-race and most developers seem to lose it.

[Kyral]

Originally Posted by Nixl

Only 1 server, (Swiftsure US) seems to have reached a heavy population.

Jupp, US servers seem very "Light" populated these days, on the other hand, most EU servers atm are "Standart" with people are coming home from work right now. (Exception is Tomb of Freedon Nadd, it's already Heavy but it is also the most populated EU server I believe.)

My server (Sith Triumvirate EU) is also Heavy during peak times. I am happy it's not Full as it was before, I had to wait up to 50 minutes to join. xD

[Nixl]

Wait... why does EU get more Kotor 2 name inspired servers?

Yep, this the biggest issue right now. US servers has one called Fatman, but Kotor 2 referenced severs? Nooooope.

This is the last straw Bioware.

[Kyral]

Originally Posted by Nixl

Wait... why does EU get more Kotor 2 name inspired servers

Now that you mention it...

We have Atris, Bao-Dur, Brianna, Darth Nihilus, Darth Traya, Handmaidens of Atris, Star Map, T3-M4, The Exile's Crystal, The Ravager even Trayus Academy... we have a lot of KotoR named servers. ôo

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by Nixl

Wait... why does EU get more Kotor 2 name inspired servers?

Cuz we didn't hate on KotoR 2 as much when it was released.

[Nixl]

Oh, I see how it is now...

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

Harbinger is almost always at Heavy or Full, it's somewhat rare if it drops below that.

[Westlo]

I was kinda pissed @ the renerfing of slicing after 1.1 and was going to drop it... but I kinda don't want to drop a near max skill especially since Bioware will more than likely buff it again once everyone hits 50 and realizes that dailles that net you 150k a day make slciing look like a joke (omg I have 100,000 @ level 22, slciing is TOO GOOD!!!).

But than my 23 warrior had 2 slicing crits in a row, 8k + Underworld 340 and 6.6k + Treasure Hunting 340.

I'll keep this shit lol.

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

meant to link this here too, but put it in the laugh-a-day thread for those that might not see it.

[Nixl]

Originally Posted by Mr Hat and Clogs

The hero's journey come to life.

Score

Spoiler for .:

FARCON PAWWWWWWWWWWWWWNCH

[MeisterBabylon]

Originally Posted by Mr Hat and Clogs

meant to link this here too, but put it in the laugh-a-day thread for those that might not see it.

Did I ever say how much the BT-7 is the BEST starship in the Galaxy, or what?

[Keroko]

"A blind, deaf, comatose lobotomy patient could FEEL MY ANGER!"

One of the best lines.

[Kyero Fox]

Originally Posted by Mr Hat and Clogs

Harbinger is almost always at Heavy or Full, it's somewhat rare if it drops below that.

figures, people still crying about paladins, guess we wont ever catch a break till we're as crappy as Pre BC

[Kyero Fox]

how does my con look? http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images...dicondude.png/