Development Cycle Archive

Battlefields, PvP's unknown savior

Anyone been out to a battlefield yet? One that isnt bugged? They are AMAZING. I finally found an imperial PvE battlefield where the structure contructor worked, and i literally went back and ran through the battlefield 4 times i had such a blast. But along with such a great and novel idea comes its great and novel bugs =D.

1. Bugged - VERY few of these battlefields work, i have yet to find a single PvP battlefield that worked, all that i have visited punt me 5000m away when i enter.

2. Duration - The battle's don't last long enough and force players who wish to group and destroy to just run in, blast away and run out.

3. Difficulty - the battlefields are WAY too easy, I've gone to all 3 of the imperial PvE battlefields and have managed to solo each one, which is honestly pathetic. This is a battlefield, a place quarantined off because there is a known enemy force in the area, ive faced more of a struggle taking imperial destroy missions on dantooine. These battlefields should require groups of 10+ to accomplish the goals within.

4. Lack of publicity - now i know they were posted with coords on the last GCW FAQ, but very few people actually bothered to read or keep track of those coords and i have yet to see anyone else on a battlefield with me. The largest problem with this is the PvP battlefields, so many battlefields, so few people actually being informed about them.

5. Size - these battlefields are never more than 300m across, this is sad, especially in the BF's where you are allowed to construct your own base, i managed to get one barracks and a couple walls up.....then i ran out of room.

Now, i wouldn't dare make a post like this without the handy dandy CONTRUCTIVE CRITICISM......YAY!

1.Bugged - Debug =D, i have /bugged all the problems i have found, but i cant even get inside a PvP battleground so i dont know what to say about it. The one major issue is the TEF problem when trying to enter a BF. I will discuss a solution to this lower down

2.Duration - Extend the time frame from 30 minutes to something like 2 hours, we dont need people spamming into battles, and those that fail in accomplishing goals should be banished for a good deal of time.

3. Difficulty - See abelow, solution would be in the size of the map

4.Lack of Publicity - See #5 for information on Military Troop Transports

5.Size - Ok, here's the doozy, instead of making all the battlefields part of the existing maps, i feel that they should be zoned outside of and not included in the current planet geography, no more funky ribbon poles out in the middle of nowhere. Instead, make them their own level/map, have them remain on the same planets, but only accessible via a Military Troop Transport.

The military trooper transports will be located in factionally declared cities, i.e. an imperial military shuttle in theed and a rebel shuttle in anchorhead. These shuttles would have extended delivery times to try and enforce battles in waves and discourage zerging, maybe a 15-20 minute timer, maybe more. You would spend faction points to buy a ticket onto the shuttle and it would transport you to that planets battlefield(s), this way battlefields are easily accessible and reliably populated, encouraging PvP in a more GCW-esq sense, MMOStyle.

Now because these battlefields would be zoned on their own and would be loaded by the client as completely seperate maps, this would allow for much larger battlefields, maybe 5km square tiles of nothing but pure carnage, also allowing for individaual nodes on the server clusters to handle these independantly reducing lag and making them able to support the large scale combat. Give ample room for players to actually create large scale bases that have intricate defense systems too give the opposing faction a true run for their money.

I feel that this would also lead to large faction sinkhole helping to rid the mass AT-ST herding and factional HQ exploiting, yet still allow for the unexpected suprise raids on cities because of the primary focus being set on Battlefields.