BioWare's Patch Messed Up The Old Republic

[Rosr24]

So it sounds like the republic is QQ'ing because they don't have enough people. Someone explain to me how that's the dev's fault? They can't control what faction people roll.

-EDIT-
Ah, now I see what the issue is.

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).

Okay makes sense, least they've already fixed the issue and are rolling out a patch come the morning.

You've still got a point dude - this would've been less of an issue if the PVP numbers were balanced - or at least, the Republic would've been able to do it as well, if they managed to push the Empire back into their base.

The EU server I play on has got at LEAST three times as many Empire players as Republic ones at any given time. I know this because I have characters on both sides, and have checked at various times, both peak and off-peak. There have been times when there's been 150+ players on a world for the Empire, and ~20 players on the same world for the Republic. It's ridiculous.

If anything, they need to introduce some kind of reward for going Republic...because freaking NO-ONE is doing it! I like my Republic character, and the PvP is inherently fun, but it's impossible to play at the moment because of this imbalance.

 

[Veloxe]

fuuuuuuuuuuuckkkk, I just realized if I wanted to play TOR I'd have to install Origin. Damn yet another game I can't play until EA changes the data mining on Origin >.<

Nope, don't need to install Origin. Just need an Origin account to buy the digital version and then you get an exe that installs the SWTOR launcher which downloads/updates everything you need. I don't think you need the Origin account if you buy physical but I'm unsure on that point.

 

[Maxwell Miller]

Games have bugs, especially game this big. When Cateclysm came out, I spent all of opening night getting a worgen to lvl 20, and I managed to bug out 3 out of 4 quests. then, leveling to 60 i found at least 2 broken quests per area. but you didnt hear people freaking out over every little problem. and as a computer software designer myself, things happen that are unforseen whenever you launch a new system, and no ammount of QA before hand will find every little problem, or even every big problem. I think people just need to settle down.

 

[Carnagath]

I watched about 30 seconds of this video and I can already feel the beginnings of a headache. I had read that the game's engine is unoptimized, but holy shit, that is fucked up.

That many characters using aoe abilities at once is bad in any game even wow. Also you need to take into account that the person computer might be complete garbage and just runs horribly when a few people are around.

No sir, that is easily recognizable as bullshit engine (or bullshit servers, as someone mentioned above). And no, WoW never had framerate lag, even back in the Tarren Mill world pvp days the framerate was fine, and that was before dual cores. The only MMO that I've seen (and, unfortunately, played) that was THAT laggy was Lineage 2 during castle sieges, and guess what... yep, bullshit engine. But at least Lineage 2 castle sieges had 1000+ people. What's TOR's excuse for crapping its pants with 60 people on screen? That's pathetic.

 

[GaltarDude1138]

Whew, glad I'm not playing PvP on Ilum yet...

Ah well. I'm pretty sure in exchange for an anti-aliasing option was entirely worth it.

 

[tehroc]

I watched about 30 seconds of this video and I can already feel the beginnings of a headache. I had read that the game's engine is unoptimized, but holy shit, that is fucked up.

It's all the particle effects going on. It's like 1 in 3 imperials are sorcerers casting omg force lightning spam. They need to add more options including being able to reduce particles.

 

[Mathak]

Oh god, and I thought the news about that 0,5 sec delay being caused by their DRM was hilarious. This is even better...no roll-backs possible? Nice engine you have there, Bioware.

That, plus EA stock being at 17.7 and still dropping, plus this;

Spoiler

This game is a damn goldmine of unintentional hilarity.

Seriously though, I do hope they manage to make ME3 at least of acceptable quality, since I'd really hate having to give that one a pass.

 

[KeyMaster45]

You've still got a point dude - this would've been less of an issue if the PVP numbers were balanced - or at least, the Republic would've been able to do it as well, if they managed to push the Empire back into their base.

The EU server I play on has got at LEAST three times as many Empire players as Republic ones at any given time. I know this because I have characters on both sides, and have checked at various times, both peak and off-peak. There have been times when there's been 150+ players on a world for the Empire, and ~20 players on the same world for the Republic. It's ridiculous.

If anything, they need to introduce some kind of reward for going Republic...because freaking NO-ONE is doing it! I like my Republic character, and the PvP is inherently fun, but it's impossible to play at the moment because of this imbalance.

Faction imbalance is something you're always going to have in games like ToR. I know it was a fairly large issue when I was playing WoW. When it came to server faction imblanaces blizz would offer free transfers to one faction or the other, on specific servers, to try and balance out the population.

Incentives for joining one of the other sounds like a good idea on the surface, but then you run into the issue of people beginning to think you're playing favorites.(not that they won't find reasons on their own to think that) There's really not much the devs can do to fix it other than offer server transfers, least when it comes to world PvP.

 

[Sonicron]

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the main reasons why I avoid PvP in MMOs like the plague.

 

[Aerodyamic]

I wonder what it is that made BioWare decide to hire Obsidian for their QA testing

I think I still have coffee dribbling out of my nose, after reading your assessment of the situation.

Honestly, I find the combat system doesn't especially appeal to me, so my interst in PvP is pretty minimal.Mind you, I know that part of the issue is simply my preferred playstyle, and the fact that none of the classes truly mesh with said playstyle, which is to say: I like to run around in circles like a retard and shoot things until they fall over, dizzy and dead.

Maybe I'm crazy, but I'm left wishing WaR had been a better and/or longer lasting game? There's something bizarrely satisfying about playing an undersized, ambulatory bit of fungus that pisses itself as a detaunt and has a mouth with legs as a pet.

 

[Croaker42]

I am loving the rage going on in the TOR forums.
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=1822494#post1822494

I had no idea that anyone who enjoyed PvP could get so emotionally pained. I can almost taste the tears over the internet.

It all... yes it might be a little sad that a glaring imbalance got through in the patch. But the saddest thing I have see so far is the Republic players allowing this exploit to continue. Way to spot a problem and not bail from that world / character. Now its your own fault for valor imbalance.

 

[Darks63]

And this is one of the prime reasons a 2 faction system doesn't work for a pvp game. It nice to see that the devs didn't learn anything from the game they bought 2 years ago warhammer when it comes to pvp.

I just wonder if the same mistake that was made in that game will be made in this one where the devs overbuff the republic in order to compensate for the imbalance leading to a polarshift in the other direction.

 

[Fearzone]

There is nothing in the article about why the new patch messes up the game any worse than it was messed up before.

But this is a pattern I've seen in MMOs--Warhammer Online and Champions Online--where each patch creates as many new problems in PvP as old ones it solves. Bioware really, really needs to avoid this pattern, especially this early on, for as big an MMO as SWTOR is.

As much as some players will argue PvP isn't important and game balance should not revolve around that, PvP is important, and bad PvP breaks the game. We've seen that happen before in the above examples; hopefully it won't happen here.

The makers of SWTOR really, really need to be closely reading that one thread, reading the player issues and fixing those issues only, really focusing on common patterns of player complaints and closely listening to any suggestions--rather than addressing the problems in a half-assed way then making half a dozen other irrelevant changes that break the game.

 

[UberFische]

Wait, what? Am I the only person who doesn't see any sense to this news?

"New patch introduces bugs"

"There's faction imbalance on a server"

Is the bug producing a faction imbalance (how the fuck?) or is this an exercise in non sequiturs?

The bug allowed for the faction imbalance to become completely gamebreaking. It was bad before, but the bug gave them incentive to go in and spawn-rape and kill the bases turrets (which shouldn't have been able to be killed in my opinion) over and over again

 

[Aerodyamic]

And this is one of the prime reasons a 2 faction system doesn't work for a pvp game. It nice to see that the devs didn't learn anything from the game they bought 2 years ago warhammer when it comes to pvp.

I just wonder if the same mistake that was made in that game will be made in this one where the devs overbuff the republic in order to compensate for the imbalance leading to a polarshift in the other direction.

WaR did alright, although DAoC obviously proved that 3 factions will lead to sheer awesomeness in the RvR lakes.

Side note: I`ve gotten used to the captcha system, and I understand the relevance, but whatever has been changed recently is actually making it insanely difficult for my to read the partially blurred, distorted, two-tone text. No exaggeration, I had to flip through the `Get a new Challenge`button about a dozen times before I got somethign I had a bare hope of being able to type into the appropriate box.

 

[Maze1125]

Which computer game recently - or even ever - had a Good side that was more numerous than the Bad side?

Er... most of them.
Pretty much every single player game has the player be the good guy, not the bad guy. Sure there are exceptions, but that just emphasises the point, they are the exceptions.

As for specific examples of good outwaying evil in MMOGs, World of Warcraft (at least before the Blood Elves were added) and City of Heroes/Villains come to mind.

 

[Ashannon Blackthorn]

Bioware should be able ot figure out on average how much people who have been using this exploit (is it even really an exploit?) have gained for pvp gear. Then lower the costs of the pvp gear on the other side to compensate for it. Not the best way, sure there are flaws, but should be something to help even the sides out and would hopefully break the whole "Imperial has a month long advantage in pvp gear now"

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Which computer game recently - or even ever - had a Good side that was more numerous than the Bad side?

Er... most of them.
Pretty much every single player game

I'd sort of assumed that defining a choice based game would have given that part away - but Baldur's Gate, Mass Effect, Prototype? I'm betting lots on more Evil than Good.

But let's just see - NOLF? Super Meat Boy? X-3? Tony Hawkes? Aren't there a LOT more Bad Guys than your single good guy?

"Pretty much every single player game"-"has a Good side more numerous than the Bad Side?"

Really?

As for specific examples of good outwaying evil in MMOGs, World of Warcraft (at least before the Blood Elves were added) and City of Heroes/Villains come to mind.

That's Alliance versus Horde - With both sides being dicks. That exaggerates it by having both sides have ganking contests.

CoX? Again - You've stacked sides to start with (By Two Years) - and then made Evil Better than Good.

Bring me your Level 50 Claws/SR Scrapper and watch my 40 Dark/Avatar Robot MM stomp them into the ground. Before I TPO them into the Sentinels.

And then beat down the En/En Blaster, Rock Tank, Grav Controller and Rad Defender simultaneously.

 

[MBergman]

It's hard to blame bioware for dick players

No it isn't.

This is a problem that the players are creating

No it isn't

and I think in the end the republic will benefit for it.

No they won't.

This is a display of absolute inexcusable incompetence from Bioware, They knew about the faction imbalance and they should have know about the effect that a change like this would have on the PvP system.

Claiming that the players are being dicks for doing it is like claiming that a school of piranha are being "dicks" for eating a chunk of meat you throw into their river, this is just how MMOs work, and if Bioware had an ounce of competence they would have known this.

And no, the Republic won't benefit from this, PvP is now permanently broken in favour of the Empire. The engine can't do rollbacks so the Empire players will get to keep all the valour points they've earned forever, unless Bioware feels like conducting mass bans for a problem that's their fault. The Empire players will be able to buy the best PvP gear for months to come and there's nothing Republic players can do about, Bioware has permanently broken their own game through the power of their sheer incompetence.

No they won't, since there is a limit on how many pvp commendations you can have on you (and honestly it's not that much), they won't be "months" ahead in getting gear.