Welcome to the new Darth Hater weekly PvP column where we will collect and update the news about PvP that matters to the community. This thread will receive updates periodically throughout the week, so you can refer back to it for new information. If you have any tips on current content that you would like to see featured, send them to darth@darthhater.com with the subject line PVP Column: *Subject*.
For the rest, hit the jump.
Official
News:
Patch 1.3 Launches, Brings Debut of Ranked Warzones.
SWTOR Blog:
Gabe Amatangelo discusses Ranked Warzones in Game Update 1.3.
Rob Hinkle clarifies the Voidstar tiebreaker mechanic changes in the June29th Q&A.
Devtracker Highlights:
Allison Berryman asks for your feedback on when the “respawn prone and can’t move” bug happens in PvP Warzones.
New Darth Hater articles:
The Front Line – Ranked Warzones Debut
Notable PvP changes in Patch 1.3 include
- Several major like buffs and debuffs no longer stack with one another. This system effects several debuffs like armor reduction, healing reduction, and accuracy reduction (through abilities like Tracer Missile, Flourish Shot, and Diversion), and buffs like armor increase, healing received increase, and damage dealt increase (through skills like Force Shelter, Kolto Residue, and Bloodthirst).
- An issue that could prevent a team member from properly appearing as a member of the Warzone group has been corrected.
- Attacking characters that enter a room in Voidstar before their team has destroyed its door are now killed.
- Numerous class balance changes.
Community
Around the Forums – Discussion Highlights:
Bestworld (formerly Remedy) of The Bastion presents his newest Sorcerer PvP video.
Bewoulff discusses using compass points instead of “Grass” and “Snow” for referring to objectives in Alderaan Civil War.
lord-durrp asks you what your most satisfying PvP kill is.
PvP guild spotlight:
Prophecy of the Five,
“Zerg is a Republic PvP guild, formed back in the early days of Star Wars Galaxies. Many of us have played together across several MMOs. We’re not big on PvE or Flashpoints. We prefer our opponents to have a pulse.
Always press forward, regardless of the odds. We never retreat, never leave the field of battle to the enemy. We’re there to fight back. No one in is interested in “kill swapping” or babysitting turrets until the clock runs out. Our core principle is that our opponents on Prophecy of the Five deserve the best PvP service the Republic has to offer.
Recruitment happens in Warzones. Look for us, we’ll be watching for you. We don’t care if you fight with us or against us, so long as you show up ready to crack some skulls."
Op-Ed: Server Transfers and PvP Quality
Now that every server has been listed as either a destination or origin server, many players have already made the jump to a new home. The influx of new players to servers has the potential to re-shape the PvP environment for all players involved.
I consider the change to be a net gain for the average PvP player, and for the community at large. I believe that the new opponents and upswing in population on destination servers has contributed to a “PvP renaissance” of sorts, where players cannot always be certain of their opponents’ tactics. In addition, guilds find themselves with new recruits from origin servers, and can now build towards ranked warzones in a position of strength.
Not everyone is in agreement with this position, though (see this thread for example). On some destination servers, newcomers from origin servers have sometimes been met with hostility as some players claim that the destination server was fine before they arrived.
Poll
Got a tip for some interesting PvP news or content? Send it along to darth@darthhater.com with the subject line PVP Column: *Subject*!
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Posted 7/10/2012 7:41:41 AM@Thasri: Healers are really good in PvP specially commandos/mercs and operatives/Smugglers. There is a myth that they are bad now in PvP since they got "nerfed"... BS.
I disagree about the quality of PvP. If you think there are a lot of newbies PvPing now, try some RWZ and then come back to tell us your experience.
Queue times are much much better and facing different players match after match is good for a change.
Cross server PvP + one new WZ = possibility to choose which WZ we want to play. That will pretty much make the instanced PvP experience in SWTOR much better overall.
Add some new Open World PvP and we sold.
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Posted 7/10/2012 8:17:08 PMI can subscribe that. one.... cross-server, open world ... ka-ching ;)
btw. I think that operatives/scoundrel healers might be even a bit overpowered... nice heals while running around, awesome heal when running <30% hp ...
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Posted 7/11/2012 2:20:40 AMI can already tell their going to do something about that. Probably along the lines of after two UH/TA refunds you get no more in a 10 sec window or something. Only to stop the excessive scenarios where this turns them into "overpreformers"
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Posted 7/12/2012 11:06:32 AMOperatives are not overpowered, I play an Operative and have been since Beta last summer, I know every skill inside out and still don't heal more/better than SI or BH healers, and I wish the better heals could have lower activation time, then I couldn't care less about not being able to run while activating them, only the lesser heals may be activated while running ...
Regarding Open World PvP, yes please, and while they're at it, please look at TESO and their plans ...
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Posted 7/9/2012 3:46:26 PMI chose to stay behind on my origin server; mostly because the boyfriend liked where we were with fewer players around that could get in the way of some parts of the solo PvE experience. And then of course I'd hate to give up the server name 'The Defenestrator'; it tickles my funny bone. The drawback, however, is a much worse PvP experience; there just aren't enough interested parties to get a Warzone going.
The best option to get any PvP action short of leveling new characters on another server will be to duplicate the ones I have onto the PTS during prime testing periods. I'm hoping others in similar situations will get this idea too otherwise SWTOR's gonna have to get a lot more popular with the masses to bring in new faces to my server before I'll ever be able to PvP again.
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Posted 7/9/2012 5:39:26 PMI hope you're prepared for that server to eventually get shut down. There's a reason why WoW always had the same "New Players" servers along with the same destination servers when it came to free transfers. People usually flock to the more populated servers. Even if this game got another 2 million subs, it's unlikely you would see your server have any kind of bump in activity.
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Posted 7/9/2012 6:57:20 PMThanks for sharing! It's definitely an uncommon decision to choose to stay behind, but it will be interesting to see what they ultimately do with the origin servers.
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Posted 7/9/2012 7:39:31 PMI'm thinking that you will eventually get pushed to a destination server weather you want to or not. I don't think they are going to keep a server running for just 3 to 9 players activity.
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Posted 7/9/2012 8:21:05 PMThat makes sense, but will they push you to a specific server? Give players the chance to choose a server? Will there be a new server opened for origin server players who didn't transfer initially? That's what interests me :)
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Posted 7/9/2012 11:00:49 PM-
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Posted 7/9/2012 11:06:46 PMYou're right, there's no doubt that BioWare wants people to transfer to their assigned destination server. In fact, I think the only reason we have a "choice" on whether or not to transfer is because otherwise they would be forced to call this process a server merge. I'm just genuinely curious to see what they do with the stragglers
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Posted 7/10/2012 9:19:03 AMI was gonna provide an answer as to why one would stay behind, but you've already done that for me. I suppose I also like the idea of holding onto the names of my characters and Legacy too. I don't think they'll ever actually close down servers with people on them until they retire the game. If they do, there will likely be a lot of compensation in the form of cool in-game swag and free game time. I hadn't considered them creating a new server for those of us who've stayed behind; would make it more likely that we'd be able to keep our created names.
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Posted 7/10/2012 11:37:35 AMBased on today's community blog, it looks like you will be forcibly transferred to another server... no mention of compensation of any kind.
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Posted 7/10/2012 12:58:24 PMYou guys want to make me laugh right?
Compensation?
ROFL... the compensation you get is to play a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE game with people... that is your compensation right there...
Gee... I lol'd.
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Posted 7/10/2012 1:22:09 PMYeah, I did not mean to say that it should be offered, I was just responding to G_Rett's point. If anything, the incentives they've already offered coupled with the blog post today seem to suggest that it would be better to transfer sooner rather than later.