PvP Changes (1.1)

[Tbone]

The new PvP changes are going to frustrate you. Just getting that out there right now.

I saw this coming, which is why I've been focusing on grinding my valor (up to 56 now). Here's what you need to know:

Ilum Changes

Ilum dailies are now to kill 30 unique people. Weeklies are 120. The Ilum buff now lasts an hour, but decreases in stack when you lose an objective. You do not have to be near an objective for it to count. If you're in the PvP area of Ilum, you get credit for the entire world.

Farming enemies is now the most effective way to get Valor. For controlling everything, you can get 150-200 PER KILL. There are diminishing returns, so farming the same person won't help you.

To get credit for a kill, you need to either do damage or heal someone who is doing damage. If you are AoE or range, congrats. If you're melee, welcome to getting screwed over by the new system.

Empire outnumber Republic about 3:1, so a lot of your time on Ilum will be spent dying at the Republic base. As a result, we will need to better organize Ilum runs en masse to take advantage of this new system. Soloing Ilum isn't an option.

Warzone Changes

If you're level 50, your now stuck playing with only other level 50s. I didn't notice this affecting my queue time, but it did affect my success ratio. Queuing with 2 other random FAs, I still haven't won a single warzone. Before I could solo queue to avoid the Battlemaster groups, but now they are unavoidable. As a result, we will need to better organize Warzone groups to overcome this new system.

They've also changed some of the metals. I'm not sure what all changes they've made, but either they've taken out the 2.5k heal metal or medpacs no longer count towards those metals. As a result, I tend to get 2-3 less metals now than I did before the patch.

Going Forward

There's going to be a lot of bitching. Hopefully Bioware will address some of the balance issues. Right now it's kind of a "rich get richer" scenario. I urge you to focus on better grouping and organizing instead of raging and getting pissy. Like I said at the beginning, you're going to get frustrated, and I understand if you need to vent. Do your venting, but then get over it and let's get to work!

[Fuse]

As I mentioned in the original thread before it was removed...

If you are not yet 50, I would suggest you grind valor. The closer you are to battlemaster before 50, the far better.

[Tbone]

As I mentioned in the original thread before it was removed...

I figured this thread was a bit more of a constructive version...lol

[Anamodiel]

Ahhhhhh! Why do i have class?! I want to playyyy!

[Tbone]

Just read up on what will probably be deemed an exploit, but has basically broken the valor system.

Apparently the new turrets they've put in to the opposing faction's base give hundreds of valor when you destroy them, respawn instantly, and have no diminishing returns. As a result, the Empire is zerging Republic bases and killing the turrets repeatedly for thousands of valor every couple of minutes.

There might be some rollback from today...

[Anamodiel]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=TL0kDP_Cexo#t=9s

O_O

[Fuse]

No clue how they're going to fix this... Valor=0 for everyone?

[Phyroxis]

Yikes.


I wonder, what if Bioware put something like Bolster into Ilum based on at-the-time population? Like, if one side has 100 people and the other has 300, the lower numbers side gets a %bolster that closes the gap. Not necessarily to make the sides equal, but brings them up a little bit so it's not so much a slaughter as a fighting chance.


Also, how to break out of the Ilum Death Cycle:
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=195086

[Baobinga]

This was me about 20 min ago. Unable to spawn and running oh I'd say like 1fps? Maybe 2. If I was lucky.

[Lithium]

So much for thinking PvP in a bioware game could be fun...

[likwidtek]

I'm sure they'll roll back all valor since patch, fix it so the turrets give zero valor and all will be right.  Mostly.

[Keeloth]

Sorry if the original thread topic came off as irritated, I posted it as an earnest warning before I headed to work so that none of our members got permacamped.

[Fuse]

From: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=1822494#post1822494

Hello everyone; I wanted to update you on the issues we've been seeing today on the live servers, specifically within the Open World PvP area on Ilum. We're aware that on some servers, either Republic or Empire groups have been capturing the Ilum control points, entering the enemy's base and 'camping' the medcenters, preventing the opposite faction from leaving their base to recapture control points. This is not a fair or balanced gameplay experience and can also severely affect client performance, so we're taking steps to address this.

Our intended design for Ilum Open World PvP is that players are instantly killed when entering the enemy's base safe area, just like in Warzones, and that the defending faction can take taxis to other points within the zone. As of Game Update 1.1, this is not working as intended. We have found the issue preventing this from happening under server load and will be publishing an Emergency Patch to address the issue. We're aiming to have this patch published early tomorrow morning (January 19th, 5 AM US CST).

In addition to these changes, we'll be reducing the population cap on Ilum. This should help increase performance by requiring your client to render fewer characters on-screen at once.

Regarding Valor gains, with the 1.1 update, players now receive a base reward of 20 Valor per unique enemy player defeated in a short time, and this base reward is modified by the number of objectives that the player's faction owns. The gains are rate limited per player killed, encouraging players to attack unique players, not to pursue vendettas. The Valor gains players can see over time will vary greatly depending on the activity level in the zone. This is expected.

To dispel a couple of rumors that have been seen today - there is no Valor gain from destroying turrets within enemy bases, and none from killing NPCs.

We encourage players to avoid Ilum until our patch is deployed. As a temporary measure we will be disabling taxi services which would normally take players into the Open World PvP area. However, players will still be able to taxi out of the area.

We will continue to monitor Ilum across all servers and will make further changes to gameplay if required. We welcome your feedback here on the Forums, but please ensure your feedback is constructive and specific. Feedback based on rumor does not help us isolate potential issues.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=1825473#edit1825473

Please be advised that the servers will be unavailable beginning at 5AM CST (3AM PST/ 6AM EST/ 11AM GMT/ 12PM CET) as we deploy a new patch. This deployment will fix a few high priority issues in the game. We expect the service to be available again by 10AM CST (8AM PST/ 11AM EST/ 4PM GMT/ 5PM CET). Please watch this thread for updates and information as they become available. To view the status of your server, please visit the Server Status Page

[Keeloth]

Hopefully, there will be a rollback  on valor earned since the patch hit.

[Lithium]

Well according to the dev nobody gained valor from killing turrets...