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Star Wars: The Old Republic |OT| EA: "Let's blow this thing and go home!"
- Thread starter Emitan
- Start date
I actually prefer Republic over imperial, but it's a shame I'm part of the minority. The only class on Imps I want to play is Assassin, but on republic I'm still curious about Commando, Vanguard, and even Sage as well as my current Sentinel.
Speaking of Commando and Vanguards, which of the two gets more bad ass equipment? I remember seeing a NPC in all white that looked basically like an awesome Spartan from Halo: Reach by the door to the Esseles quest.
If anyone knows who I'm talking about, could they let me know which class could get to wear similar equipment? I'd definitely make that my secondary.
I've been trying to reroll republic but every server I try that I think may have a decent population is a ghost town after you leave Coruscant when compared to the empire that has anywhere from 150 - 200 people on any planet at peak times.
There was no reason for every single shadow in this game to be dynamic. No reason. The vest majority of these should have been baked in, FPS would have gone way up, and damn near nobody would have been the wiser.
Azzurri
Member
Prime time we might have 160-180, when the imp's have close to 300.
Hari Seldon
Member
Bioware should allow free faction transfers for heavily imbalanced servers. Unlike warcraft, every class has a mirror on the other side, so it wouldn't be as big of a nightmare as trying to port over Pallys/Shamans back in OG WoW.
They won't do it for story reasons.
The problem with faction transfers is the class story. They're not compatible with each other, even if they are mirror classes.
The only way I see faction changes working is to change your class and then reset your story completely, meaning you will pretty much loose everything story related(titles, etc.) and you would need to start the story from the beginning. But then what happens to your ship, companions, etc? It's so much harder to implement a system like that in this game than WoW ever had.
Winterblink
Member
As a bounty hunter I would stay with Imperial just for the fun of lighting wookies on fire with my flamethrower.
They should have put a series of missions in place to let people switch from a dark side Republic player to the Empire and from a light side Empire player to the Republic and then threw in a story based on that. Maybe available once you hit Lv50 or something.
The fully voiced aspect of the game seems like it'll end up limiting what they can do in a reasonable amount of time, to be honest.
The fully voiced aspect of the game seems like it'll end up limiting what they can do in a reasonable amount of time, to be honest.
would this actually work? A free change would make people flood the winning side causing an even bigger imbalance
Just don't open transfers to the bigger faction. They should have plenty of data telling them which faction is bigger on each server.
cpp_is_king
Member
Faction transfer is basically impossible the way I look at it, or at the very least unfeasible. A lot of gear is faction specific, what gear would you have? What quests would you have completed, where would you be in your class storyline? This would be a major undertaking for them to even implement, they would basically have to construct a brand new character for you and try to decide how to fixup every single little thing that doesn't map over between the factions. I just don't see it happening.
BattleMonkey
Member
Give them a character of the same level or design level breaks where you will transfered too. All companions in with their standing with you set to 0, story advanced already to a specified point for transfer purposes, etc.
Really transfers though are likely never going to happen.
They need to roll out incentives to get people to roll. Do litte things at a time to promote it but keep adding things further down the line. Like start giving small xp bonus to players to roll on Republic side for servers that are not in balance or close to it. Then when Legacy rolls out, give another bonus to players who have alts of the other faction to a certain point.
Companies don't like admitting to balance issues, but they should accept it and simply offer some kind of benefit... like exclusive in game item or something for playing on specific faction during a set period of time or whatever.
Faction balancing is also probably just too much work for them to worry about really as it really only affects open world pvp. Faction population really has no bearing to majority of the game and regular warzone pvp. They would be doing a ton of work just to keep things balanced pop ways just for a small sect of pvp. This isn't like Warhammer which was a game that depended on the faction balance and reliance on pvp.
Yes. Rollback is the only option here, and every second they waste is going to make it more painful.
BattleMonkey
Member
Unless they can't rollback Valor
I'm talking about server rollback since I doubt valor-only is a viable option.
It might not be easy, but they can. Worst case would be a total rollback to pre-patch.
Also, I feel bad for the people who are stuck on ilum being spawn camped for hours. That's the kind of shit that makes people quit games. They really need to just shut down ilum ASAP. Unflag it as a pvp zone or something.
BattleMonkey
Member
Sadly the amount of time that has gone by, a server rollback is probably going to cause more outrage than just the outrage over people exploiting the Valor here.
I think the last time I've seen something as extreme as that was like in Ragnarok Online or something.
I doubt it will happen here because BioWare would be too afraid of the PR or whatever from all the people, especially non-PvPers, complaining about lost progress. I bet by now, someone finally got that piece of gear they worked so hard for or whatever. There would be a lot of rage from a lot of people.
BattleMonkey
Member
So people are claiming turrets give no valor now? Hotfixed? Looks like people are still being camped and can't get off Illum though.
PVP also only makes up a small portion of the playerbase, rolling back the server will piss off majority of players.
They want you to buy non ATI cards
PVP also only makes up a small portion of the playerbase, rolling back the server will piss off majority of players.
They want you to buy non ATI cards
cpp_is_king
Member
Well, it's either that or they can watch their 500 million dollar investment evaporate. Yes, it's that severe IMO. It doesn't matter what percent of the population are PvPers, you simply don't have a successful game unless you have balanced content for hardcore pvpers, casual pvpers, hardcore pve, and casual pve. If you lose any of these populations, you've lost the game basically.
There is basically NOBODY online in the game right now. It looks like about 30% of the normal population I see on at this time. Resubscription time is in 3 days, and closing out with something like this will easily cement peoples' decisions to cancel their subs.
how about a dynamic xp/valor/wz point system based on population ratio.... if imps:reps are 2:1 then reps get 2x more everything. You might lose more often on the underpopulated side, but if you win, you win more points.
Doesn't help that they address it as "potential issues."
That's why I said they needed to do it fast.
As someone who will continue to play this game mainly because of PVP, this is a deal breaker for me. And I'm not one to say that lightly.
FieryBalrog
Member
Faction imbalance heavily impacts PvE and warzones, not just the world PvP. There's plenty of examples of this in other games that use a hard faction system like WoW or WAR. Below a certain critical mass of top level raiding players, its impossible to get a healthy raiding scene going. Even above it, progression is harder for the lower pop faction, as there's simply less talent available and less cross-pollination. The AH and trading scene is also greatly constricted.
The ease with which Imps are suiting up in Battlemaster on Ilum should give a clue as to how faction imbalance affects warzones. That also ties into the previous thing, since PvP gear in this game is quite viable for PvE progression. You can skip one or two tiers of PvE gear and go straight to the top tier which is a HUGE time savings.
In short, being on the underpop faction is a large disadvantage in every sphere of the game, which is why I rolled an Empire main. Also the lore/stories for Empire seem decidedly cooler.
The ease with which Imps are suiting up in Battlemaster on Ilum should give a clue as to how faction imbalance affects warzones. That also ties into the previous thing, since PvP gear in this game is quite viable for PvE progression. You can skip one or two tiers of PvE gear and go straight to the top tier which is a HUGE time savings.
In short, being on the underpop faction is a large disadvantage in every sphere of the game, which is why I rolled an Empire main. Also the lore/stories for Empire seem decidedly cooler.
I have an nVidia.
BattleMonkey
Member
Warhammer after a while eventually put in some similar ideas and other systems into place to help bolster the less populated side. They got some mythic folk on the team, they should really look at what that game did. WAR was a mess at launch but they really fixed it up nicely later on, but no one cared anymore and since they never went F2P, the game was left to rot and was forgotten. The population balance ideas they implemented there would be nice to be put here.
But again it could be a lot of work for something that only is a small part of the overall game.
Angelus Errare
Banned
I think the reason more people roll Sith over Jedi/Republic is simple
1. Even if you're a dark side 3 jedi...you're still a Jedi and overall you're still a "good guy."
2. Sith Sorcerer spells and abilities look and sound cooler than Sage equivalents.
3. Empire classes have the better stories overall (IA > Smuggler, SI > JC).
4. UNLIMITED POWER!!
5. All the SW Universe fashion designers went empire.
These apps use your drivers to force AA or any other feature. Like for instance Nvidia Inspector =)
1. Even if you're a dark side 3 jedi...you're still a Jedi and overall you're still a "good guy."
2. Sith Sorcerer spells and abilities look and sound cooler than Sage equivalents.
3. Empire classes have the better stories overall (IA > Smuggler, SI > JC).
4. UNLIMITED POWER!!
5. All the SW Universe fashion designers went empire.
These apps use your drivers to force AA or any other feature. Like for instance Nvidia Inspector =)
Ditto. I wasn't expecting it, but my endgame activity is mainly PVP. It's rough enough being on republic side for that. Now if every lvl50 imp has battlemaster rank, they get access to tier3 pvp gear without having earned it. Will make endgame PVP even more unbalanced towards empire.
You seem to be a technically minded person.
Would they be able to do something like compare valor for each character in their database or whatever? And just change those back to what they were pre-patch? I'm sure it would take a long time and a lot of work, but it seems better than a full restore on everything back to pre-patch. And like, in the meantime, maybe turn off valor gain.
Not to mention that getting to BM in minutes instead of weeks lessens the need for those players to resub once they get their gear.
That's what makes this sting even more. We already were at a disadvantage. Now it's been made worse.
I think Faction imbalance definitely affects PvE players. I've definitely noticed that on Keller's Void, there are a lot less Republic players on the mid-planets than there used to be.
The first time I did Tattoine, there were always 100 to 150 players in my instance. Now I'm lucky if there are 80, and it's usually around 50.
That's a much smaller group of players to find a group to run the Heroics with, and the Tattoine Heroics definitely need a group.
The chat also has noticed this lower amount of people, and I'm seeing people saying that the Imp side is much more populated, and people were thinking of switching to an Imp character just to have people to quest with.
[sadvoice]I like being the good guy.[/sadvoice]
The first time I did Tattoine, there were always 100 to 150 players in my instance. Now I'm lucky if there are 80, and it's usually around 50.
That's a much smaller group of players to find a group to run the Heroics with, and the Tattoine Heroics definitely need a group.
The chat also has noticed this lower amount of people, and I'm seeing people saying that the Imp side is much more populated, and people were thinking of switching to an Imp character just to have people to quest with.
[sadvoice]I like being the good guy.[/sadvoice]
BattleMonkey
Member
Population problems affect grouping/raid/guilds more than actual faction imbalance, people are acting like NO one plays Republic. Even in games with faction imbalance, guilds/raids/etc have no problems being prosperous.
Faction imbalance only affects open world pvp, when there is an imbalance, one side simply can't compete while the other side has no one to fight, and gain no benefits from it, hence why in most these games everyone just plays in warzones/battlegrounds/scenarios where things are balanced out with instanced play. And in the case of TOR, the Republic side player gets into more warzones faster than Imperial players and able to gain their pvp gear faster because of it.
The issue here though is the exploiting of Illum is causing a problem that is going to trickle down to the other parts of the game and just piss off customers. Without the Illum problem, the faction imbalance really has little impact on the game outside of the world pvp just dying off, which isn't very active already.
Now what is true though is long term if this is too much of a perceived problem that players just jump ship to the other faction to have people to play with, which they have to really consider incentives and making Republic seem like a cool place to hang out in before things get too bad. I don't see a major issue outside of PVP now, but with time it's going to erode away the Rep population even more.
Watch it live!
http://www.twitch.tv/skrigg
http://www.twitch.tv/skrigg
cpp_is_king
Member
Probably no, but even if they were able to do that, it would probably take at least a week to implement a valor-only rollbac, and by then people will have spent a week earning valor legitimately, and that would all get erased too.
I suppose they could take a snapshot of their database right now, compare against a backup that they have from last night, subtract, then spend a week or whatever implementing the valor-only rollback and silently apply only the delta. But by that time you would have done many other things in the game that were unlocked specifically because you had a higher valor rank. People could have bought new gear, and farmed more commendations because they were stronger.
The effects trickle down and there is no way to stop it and put everyone on an even playing field without resetting everyone. They should have immediately shut down the servers with a 5 minute warning at most as soon as this was discovered. Which means about 4-5 hours ago.
This is definitely going to affect their bottom line, and the longer they wait the deeper they are digging the hole. It's already to the point where anything they do is going to piss off a lot of people. Had they made the tough decision earlier to shut downt he server, it would have only pissed off a few people.
Wow, they really need to fix this and fast.
Added to that, on later planets like voss, i see only 15-30 players at around 6-7 pst and general chat is dead for long periods of time...ive had an amazingly tough time getting a group for heroics on voss...much tougher than any previous planets.
The population inbalance is evident when i run into more empire players than republic....
BattleMonkey
Member
The game devs and mods should be there watching this shit live too *shakes head*
Seriously needs to stop
FieryBalrog
Member
Greatly alleviated by Huttball and BW is adding more same-faction WZs, which only encourages the problem to continue.
Well that's the problem, isn't it? Many people have now acquired in one day the equivalent of 3 or 4 weeks of gear for progression, jumping over 2 tiers of PvP and 2 tiers of PvE gear, all or nearly all on the Imp side. Moreover, this is an ongoing problem because even without the 'exploit', Ilum is still a fountain of Valor for Imperials and not for the Republic. Most likely Republic will just stop showing up unless something changes drastically. Or even worse, as you point out, reroll Empire.
So the chances are they're not going to do anything about the extra valour and just hope it blows over?
This really sucks. I don't PvP really, but it directly affects me in that the Republic population is already low enough as is. There are 2 50's from our guild who already said they're quitting over this in this thread :-\
Bugs happen. Shit happens. Whatever.
The fact that they STILL haven't even said anything outside of "We're looking at a potential issue" is completely mindblowing. It's not even the weekend or in the middle of the night. It's the day after a major patch. All hands should be on deck.
Ridiculous.
The fact that they STILL haven't even said anything outside of "We're looking at a potential issue" is completely mindblowing. It's not even the weekend or in the middle of the night. It's the day after a major patch. All hands should be on deck.
Ridiculous.
As with any game, Huge team size and length of production has a lot more to do with it than the VO budget.
FieryBalrog
Member
There's no easy solution now. There's not much more they can say. The real mistake was letting it go live.
Discordian_taco
Member
I hit Battlemaster two weeks ago and after this patch I feel like all my hard work has been trivialized.
BattleMonkey
Member
Free Twilek slaves should be given out as Republic door prizes