We will see how this works out, but at first glance I found myself thinking, "Why the hell didn't I think of that".
"The Mercenary system seeks to slash queue times by queuing some players and groups as mercenaries – this designates you as a team mate of the opposite faction as a sword for hire, you’ll receive a Mercenary buff and on-screen callout. Expect to see shorter waits between warfronts and while we realize it might be hard to not kill the dwarfs, remember: they could be on your side now!"
Sounds like a great plan that cuts through a lot of fluff and gets down to just getting teams arranged and players playing.
I dont see a fix here, I see a patchwork bandaid for a problem they created themselfs by splitting factions to begin with.
Oh come on now....it's a good solution to the two faction problem that exists on most MMORPG's. It's OK to hate, but you have to give credit where it is due.
I dont give credit for trying to bandaid a problem they created themselves. A player faction split never was really needed, it always been unneeded and all it did was create all kinds imballance issues, Look at WoW vanilla. if they let people team up with who ever they want to the pvp nor pve(raid) imballance issue just wouldnt have been there at all.
Rift removed the faction split barrier parcially at release by alowing people to communicate but there STILL was no real reason to force a split.
10+ years ago they found a way to resolve the accidently attack a opposing faction-team member in the group or raid, you know.. in AO, so not even from that perspective there was a split needed.
We will see how this works out, but at first glance I found myself thinking, "Why the hell didn't I think of that".
"The Mercenary system seeks to slash queue times by queuing some players and groups as mercenaries – this designates you as a team mate of the opposite faction as a sword for hire, you’ll receive a Mercenary buff and on-screen callout. Expect to see shorter waits between warfronts and while we realize it might be hard to not kill the dwarfs, remember: they could be on your side now!"
Sounds like a great plan that cuts through a lot of fluff and gets down to just getting teams arranged and players playing.
I dont see a fix here, I see a patchwork bandaid for a problem they created themselfs by splitting factions to begin with.
Oh come on now....it's a good solution to the two faction problem that exists on most MMORPG's. It's OK to hate, but you have to give credit where it is due.
I dont give credit for trying to bandaid a problem they created themselves. A player faction split never was really needed, it always been unneeded and all it did was create all kinds imballance issues, Look at WoW vanilla. if they let people team up with who ever they want to the pvp nor pve(raid) imballance issue just wouldnt have been there at all.
Rift removed the faction split barrier parcially at release by alowing people to communicate but there STILL was no real reason to force a split.
10+ years ago they found a way to resolve the accidently attack a opposing faction-team member in the group or raid, you know.. in AO, so not even from that perspective there was a split needed.
AO did it perfect.. You have 1 side.. You have another.. and then you have NO side.. And even on a side, you could still end up bacon to your "allies" if they found you lucrative enough a kill to do it..
Thing is, AO didn't have instanced PvP (when I played it at least) so the "balance" between forces was more of a "who's right here, right now" type of thing.. If there was a tower being attacked, you'd call whoever you'd feel would help you defend, there wasn't a set number or anything..
I just played the Wrath of Heroes beta, and you'd figure that if any game were to ake instanced PvP so setup and balanced that they would at least throw the 3rd team in there as a "balance and check" of the other 2 teams..
A mercenary system would be fine, if it went further than just a battleground queue.. Seperate them into their own faction, like a band of mercenaries that constantly work for whoever offers the best deal.. In instanced and open world pvp alike..
We will see how this works out, but at first glance I found myself thinking, "Why the hell didn't I think of that".
"The Mercenary system seeks to slash queue times by queuing some players and groups as mercenaries – this designates you as a team mate of the opposite faction as a sword for hire, you’ll receive a Mercenary buff and on-screen callout. Expect to see shorter waits between warfronts and while we realize it might be hard to not kill the dwarfs, remember: they could be on your side now!"
Sounds like a great plan that cuts through a lot of fluff and gets down to just getting teams arranged and players playing.
I dont see a fix here, I see a patchwork bandaid for a problem they created themselfs by splitting factions to begin with.
Oh come on now....it's a good solution to the two faction problem that exists on most MMORPG's. It's OK to hate, but you have to give credit where it is due.
I dont give credit for trying to bandaid a problem they created themselves. A player faction split never was really needed, it always been unneeded and all it did was create all kinds imballance issues, Look at WoW vanilla. if they let people team up with who ever they want to the pvp nor pve(raid) imballance issue just wouldnt have been there at all.
Rift removed the faction split barrier parcially at release by alowing people to communicate but there STILL was no real reason to force a split.
10+ years ago they found a way to resolve the accidently attack a opposing faction-team member in the group or raid, you know.. in AO, so not even from that perspective there was a split needed.
AO did it perfect.. You have 1 side.. You have another.. and then you have NO side.. And even on a side, you could still end up bacon to your "allies" if they found you lucrative enough a kill to do it..
Thing is, AO didn't have instanced PvP (when I played it at least) so the "balance" between forces was more of a "who's right here, right now" type of thing.. If there was a tower being attacked, you'd call whoever you'd feel would help you defend, there wasn't a set number or anything..
I just played the Wrath of Heroes beta, and you'd figure that if any game were to ake instanced PvP so setup and balanced that they would at least throw the 3rd team in there as a "balance and check" of the other 2 teams..
A mercenary system would be fine, if it went further than just a battleground queue.. Seperate them into their own faction, like a band of mercenaries that constantly work for whoever offers the best deal.. In instanced and open world pvp alike..
ANd you are right, they didnt have a instanced BG system, but the principle remains. Infact in a instanced BG or even for dungeons it work work even better.
In ao you had to remove someone from group in order to be able to attack him/her IF he/she is from the opposing faction.
To take the dungeon group as excample, removing people from group while in a instance(using LFG system) would remove the player from the instance entirely after I think it was.. 30seconds. Even for that AO found a sollution, a 60 second PVP grace period. You wouldnt be able to attack the player you just removed before the autokick because the grace period would be longer then the auto-kick delay.
So yes as a bandaid its ..ok, but the fact remains they are trying to bandaid a problem they created themselves which they could have avoided with ease.
So far the reviews are mixed. Yes, the queues are faster, but the cost can be steep. Sometimes the mercs dont gve a crap about winning, they just go off and find guildies to kill or just do as little as possible to not be afk. And i dont blame them, do yu *really* want to help the side thats normally your enemy?
Uhhh...so are you saying that ideas from other games that are extremely applicable to major problems in SWTOR shouldn't even be considered?
All right it is a great idea. I just thought this thread was going to start a flame war or something, sorry.
Love the concept too and it could totally works with TOR.
On top of that you could add specific (fluffy?) gear for mercs/grey Jedi etc, And in the long term have a 3rd faction emerge without even needing to add more dialogs.
Seems like an interesting experiment & quite a bold move.
A third force-points choice (neutral) was planned in for BioWare's SWTOR & it got pulled as it required a lot more involved work than originally anticipated, this wasn't a third player faction though, just a "force points" choice so you didn't have to be either Light or Dark but could sit in the centre, but a third faction of those neutral players comprised of a mix of classes from both sides would appear quite viable with the lore SWTOR has behind it.
I think it could work well, but it should stick to the non-faction warzones (pretty much just Huttball at the moment). Theres really no reason that Republic and Empire couldnt team up for Huttball. But doing so in Alderaan / Voidstar is counter-intuitive to the storyline.
Would like to see them add this cross-faction grouping for the non-faction warzones though when they introduce the new one.
From a Rift lore standpoint, it makes no sense. Neither faction would work for the other...even if they would work with the other, but it's a good balance idea.
Funny how this idea seems to fit SWTOR much BETTER than it fits Rift.
A sith that gets temporarily sided with the jedi? His lightsabre could turn blue and his skin tone a bit lighter. A jedi gets sided with the Empire? His sabre could turn red and skin darker/veined. All effects temporary of course.
In the movies it wasnt unheard of with switching sides even for force users, and for bounty hunters, agents, smugglers and soldiers the temporary side switching makes even more sense.
Of course Illium would need to be capped for this to be a possible solution, and they could still just try to balance it with NPC forces ("Dogs of War" anyone..?)
Not to mention that most Force users get a companion that they coerced from the other side.
Sith Inquisitors get a Jedi Marauder apprentice (Ashara Zavros).
Jedi Knights get a Sith Warrior companion (the Emperor's own executioner - Lord Scourge).
Sith Warriors get a Jedi Shadow apprentice (Jaesa Willsaam).
I think the only person that misses out on the cross faction action is the Jedi Consular.
Solved the problem of cross-faction imbalance? O'rly?
I'll tell you how exactly Mercenary works: you mostly get assigned to the other faction team when they basically already lost the WF and somebody left in frustration. So, if in 1.6 defiants mostly lost WS but once in a blue moon we still won. It wasn't great but it was something. But now when our faction wins I find myself assigned to guardians.
From incredibly low chance to win WS I'm now down to 0% chance. A great solution to faction imbalance indeed.
/facepalm
PvP in Rift used to be quite lackluster. Since 1.7, however, it's broken to the point of being unbearable.
MMORPG genre is dead. Long live MMOCS (Massively Multiplayer Online Cash Shop).
Cross faction works very well. War Front queues are popping instantly. Seems the luck is with me as I've not yet lost a match where I was a merc, and when my friends end up on the wrong side of things...there is just nothing more entertaining than chain-squirreling a guild mate that is in your vent channel.
I think its a really great thing for those idiot players that for some reason blame thier team for never winning. Switch sides and find they still don't win. Maybe this will bring it home that its THEM playing badly and not the other players.
The only real problem we've had so far is when a merc gets lead and refuses to mark, which to be fair most of our side does the same thing
Had only a few WF's last few nights, but of the 20 or so instances it seems things are much more balanced score-wise than they have been for a while. Not sure what is causing that, whether its the increased valor, reduced damage, or just that people really enjoy hunting down thier friends, dunno. There was the required 20:500 BG where the other team was insta-shelfed, kind of expected when a bunch of us from the same guild end up on the same team in vent. That was the exception though as it appears to break up tandem-queues very well and we found ourselves opposing each other more often than not.
Hmmmm will this just lead to people that become mercs just not fighting to give their guildmates on the opposing team a better chance of winning?
I've heard of it happening a couple times. Its self-destructive in a couple ways though. The winning teams gets a large contribution to favor. Also...people are simply reporting trouble makers and seems Trion is monitoring. We had a merc on guard side last night who was watching one guy screw off. That team reported them and they were removed from instance within a few seconds.
Hmmmm will this just lead to people that become mercs just not fighting to give their guildmates on the opposing team a better chance of winning?
Maybe i don't see the whole picture, but why would they join the other side as merc's just to not fight? Wouldn't it be less work to just...not join them? Then fight them themselves? Is there a limit on how many merc's can join?
Since when were instanced PvP battlegrounds faction imbalanced. It is the open world RvR two faction system that are usually imbalanced and to my knowledge that barely exists in Rift.
why other havent done it cause some will show strat of the team you are in to their fellow on THEIR FACTION!dont sweat it it was thot of sadly they should just have put the mercanary with the npc faction .maybe even replace npc with these!in fact this is a great idea !but i this idea need invistigating it might not be eccelent but it give idea for proper ways to do something with this idea!
Since when were instanced PvP battlegrounds faction imbalanced. It is the open world RvR two faction system that are usually imbalanced and to my knowledge that barely exists in Rift.
What is imbalanced is the number of available players. One side has more than another, so folks end up sitting around waiting to fight. This allows Rift to take the side with overflow of players and put them into a 3rd neutral faction just to give people a chance to fight, even if its against members of their own faction.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Since when were instanced PvP battlegrounds faction imbalanced. It is the open world RvR two faction system that are usually imbalanced and to my knowledge that barely exists in Rift.
What is imbalanced is the number of available players. One side has more than another, so folks end up sitting around waiting to fight. This allows Rift to take the side with overflow of players and put them into a 3rd neutral faction just to give people a chance to fight, even if its against members of their own faction.
Ok then we are talking about different things I guess. For me imbalance is when one side is much bigger than the other in actual batte, in battle grounds that is never the case but yes queue times will get longer for one side if they have more people in the queue.
I don' t think it breaks immersion at all. There are all shades to life. Why not so in virtual life? Fantasy MMOs (and all MMOs) don't have to be so black and white all the time. Some of the best times I've had was when I couldn't find a group and stumble across the enemy...only to develop a silent bond of sorts as we help each other with nearby quests. Alternating back and forth until we were both finished then bidding each other a fond farewell. Kinda like that scene in "Warhorse". If you've seen the movie... you'll know to what i am referring.
Since when were instanced PvP battlegrounds faction imbalanced. It is the open world RvR two faction system that are usually imbalanced and to my knowledge that barely exists in Rift.
What is imbalanced is the number of available players. One side has more than another, so folks end up sitting around waiting to fight. This allows Rift to take the side with overflow of players and put them into a 3rd neutral faction just to give people a chance to fight, even if its against members of their own faction.
Exactly.,,besides ..I don't know how many times I've been asked to fight by all those duelling fools on Defiant side. Now they can leave me alone and go kill their own kin in warzones.
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inb4 Puremallace
I dont give credit for trying to bandaid a problem they created themselves. A player faction split never was really needed, it always been unneeded and all it did was create all kinds imballance issues, Look at WoW vanilla. if they let people team up with who ever they want to the pvp nor pve(raid) imballance issue just wouldnt have been there at all.
Rift removed the faction split barrier parcially at release by alowing people to communicate but there STILL was no real reason to force a split.
10+ years ago they found a way to resolve the accidently attack a opposing faction-team member in the group or raid, you know.. in AO, so not even from that perspective there was a split needed.
how is swtor differen't?
also having a few players on your team from the other faction is not the same thing as fighting an entire team of the same faction sorry..
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339443/Video-FollowUp-Guide-For-Enhancing-Graphics-and-Performance-in-SWTORSorry-still-Nvidia-Only.html
AO did it perfect.. You have 1 side.. You have another.. and then you have NO side.. And even on a side, you could still end up bacon to your "allies" if they found you lucrative enough a kill to do it..
Thing is, AO didn't have instanced PvP (when I played it at least) so the "balance" between forces was more of a "who's right here, right now" type of thing.. If there was a tower being attacked, you'd call whoever you'd feel would help you defend, there wasn't a set number or anything..
I just played the Wrath of Heroes beta, and you'd figure that if any game were to ake instanced PvP so setup and balanced that they would at least throw the 3rd team in there as a "balance and check" of the other 2 teams..
A mercenary system would be fine, if it went further than just a battleground queue.. Seperate them into their own faction, like a band of mercenaries that constantly work for whoever offers the best deal.. In instanced and open world pvp alike..
ANd you are right, they didnt have a instanced BG system, but the principle remains. Infact in a instanced BG or even for dungeons it work work even better.
In ao you had to remove someone from group in order to be able to attack him/her IF he/she is from the opposing faction.
To take the dungeon group as excample, removing people from group while in a instance(using LFG system) would remove the player from the instance entirely after I think it was.. 30seconds. Even for that AO found a sollution, a 60 second PVP grace period. You wouldnt be able to attack the player you just removed before the autokick because the grace period would be longer then the auto-kick delay.
So yes as a bandaid its ..ok, but the fact remains they are trying to bandaid a problem they created themselves which they could have avoided with ease.
No prob
.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
So far the reviews are mixed. Yes, the queues are faster, but the cost can be steep. Sometimes the mercs dont gve a crap about winning, they just go off and find guildies to kill or just do as little as possible to not be afk. And i dont blame them, do yu *really* want to help the side thats normally your enemy?
Killing guildies is fun though.
Love the concept too and it could totally works with TOR.
On top of that you could add specific (fluffy?) gear for mercs/grey Jedi etc, And in the long term have a 3rd faction emerge without even needing to add more dialogs.
Seems like an interesting experiment & quite a bold move.
A third force-points choice (neutral) was planned in for BioWare's SWTOR & it got pulled as it required a lot more involved work than originally anticipated, this wasn't a third player faction though, just a "force points" choice so you didn't have to be either Light or Dark but could sit in the centre, but a third faction of those neutral players comprised of a mix of classes from both sides would appear quite viable with the lore SWTOR has behind it.
I think it could work well, but it should stick to the non-faction warzones (pretty much just Huttball at the moment). Theres really no reason that Republic and Empire couldnt team up for Huttball. But doing so in Alderaan / Voidstar is counter-intuitive to the storyline.
Would like to see them add this cross-faction grouping for the non-faction warzones though when they introduce the new one.
Not to mention that most Force users get a companion that they coerced from the other side.
Sith Inquisitors get a Jedi Marauder apprentice (Ashara Zavros).
Jedi Knights get a Sith Warrior companion (the Emperor's own executioner - Lord Scourge).
Sith Warriors get a Jedi Shadow apprentice (Jaesa Willsaam).
I think the only person that misses out on the cross faction action is the Jedi Consular.
Solved the problem of cross-faction imbalance? O'rly?
I'll tell you how exactly Mercenary works: you mostly get assigned to the other faction team when they basically already lost the WF and somebody left in frustration. So, if in 1.6 defiants mostly lost WS but once in a blue moon we still won. It wasn't great but it was something. But now when our faction wins I find myself assigned to guardians.
From incredibly low chance to win WS I'm now down to 0% chance. A great solution to faction imbalance indeed.
/facepalm
PvP in Rift used to be quite lackluster. Since 1.7, however, it's broken to the point of being unbearable.
MMORPG genre is dead. Long live MMOCS (Massively Multiplayer Online Cash Shop).
Cross faction works very well. War Front queues are popping instantly. Seems the luck is with me as I've not yet lost a match where I was a merc, and when my friends end up on the wrong side of things...there is just nothing more entertaining than chain-squirreling a guild mate that is in your vent channel.
I think its a really great thing for those idiot players that for some reason blame thier team for never winning. Switch sides and find they still don't win. Maybe this will bring it home that its THEM playing badly and not the other players.
The only real problem we've had so far is when a merc gets lead and refuses to mark, which to be fair most of our side does the same thing
Had only a few WF's last few nights, but of the 20 or so instances it seems things are much more balanced score-wise than they have been for a while. Not sure what is causing that, whether its the increased valor, reduced damage, or just that people really enjoy hunting down thier friends, dunno. There was the required 20:500 BG where the other team was insta-shelfed, kind of expected when a bunch of us from the same guild end up on the same team in vent. That was the exception though as it appears to break up tandem-queues very well and we found ourselves opposing each other more often than not.
Hmmmm will this just lead to people that become mercs just not fighting to give their guildmates on the opposing team a better chance of winning?
Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom
I doubt that would be the case in SWTOR where you actually get more valor / commendations for earning medals in a warzone than actually winning.
Everyone gets rewards based on their own participation.
I've heard of it happening a couple times. Its self-destructive in a couple ways though. The winning teams gets a large contribution to favor. Also...people are simply reporting trouble makers and seems Trion is monitoring. We had a merc on guard side last night who was watching one guy screw off. That team reported them and they were removed from instance within a few seconds.
Maybe i don't see the whole picture, but why would they join the other side as merc's just to not fight? Wouldn't it be less work to just...not join them? Then fight them themselves? Is there a limit on how many merc's can join?
The Deep Web is sca-ry.
Since when were instanced PvP battlegrounds faction imbalanced. It is the open world RvR two faction system that are usually imbalanced and to my knowledge that barely exists in Rift.
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why other havent done it cause some will show strat of the team you are in to their fellow on THEIR FACTION!dont sweat it it was thot of sadly they should just have put the mercanary with the npc faction .maybe even replace npc with these!in fact this is a great idea !but i this idea need invistigating it might not be eccelent but it give idea for proper ways to do something with this idea!
What is imbalanced is the number of available players. One side has more than another, so folks end up sitting around waiting to fight. This allows Rift to take the side with overflow of players and put them into a 3rd neutral faction just to give people a chance to fight, even if its against members of their own faction.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Ok then we are talking about different things I guess. For me imbalance is when one side is much bigger than the other in actual batte, in battle grounds that is never the case but yes queue times will get longer for one side if they have more people in the queue.
My gaming blog
I don' t think it breaks immersion at all. There are all shades to life. Why not so in virtual life? Fantasy MMOs (and all MMOs) don't have to be so black and white all the time. Some of the best times I've had was when I couldn't find a group and stumble across the enemy...only to develop a silent bond of sorts as we help each other with nearby quests. Alternating back and forth until we were both finished then bidding each other a fond farewell. Kinda like that scene in "Warhorse". If you've seen the movie... you'll know to what i am referring.
Exactly.,,besides ..I don't know how many times I've been asked to fight by all those duelling fools on Defiant side. Now they can leave me alone and go kill their own kin in warzones.
Translation:
Rift is trying to save a dying game because there isn't enough people left on some servers to do anything.
Bad translation. Though its clear no amount of proof will sway you.