Darth Hater

Welcome back to yet another installment of the Darth Hater PvP column, where we’ll collect and update the news about PvP that matters to the PvP community. This thread will be updated periodically as necessary throughout the week, so you can refer back to it for new information. If you have any tips on current content that should be featured, or if you think your PvP video or PvP guild should be featured in a future column, send them to pvp@darthhater.com.

This week’s installment looks at ranked warzones in the new payment model, a fantastic Scrapper Scoundrel PvP video, and some great discussion topics in the forums. Hit the jump for all the PvP news from the past week.

News

Official SWTOR Posts:

The Free-to-Play focused Q&A that came out on August 10th doesn’t have much in the way of PvP news, but we can discern a couple of things from it. Firstly, it looks like it could be possible to spend Cartel Coins to increase the number of warzones available per week:

Damion Schubert

Yes! When the Free-to-Play option goes live, players will be able to purchase key upgrades to their game experience allowing them to bypass some restrictions, and this list will expand as time goes on. We will have more information about some of these in coming weeks.

 While we don’t know for sure, it definitely seems possible that this could apply to weekly warzone restrictions.

Secondly, BioWare states that the exact nature of the restrictions will be the focus of their communications in the upcoming weeks. That means that hopefully we’ll soon have the answer to last week’s poll regarding weekly warzone limitations, and any other PvP restrictions that might be in place.

Devtracker Highlights:

No Devtracker posts of PvP note for this week. However, as mentioned above, we should be getting more information regarding Free-to-Play restrictions soon, and it is possible that this could be communicated via the forums. Keep those eyes peeled.

PvP Patch Changes:

There have been no Patch changes affecting PvP since last week.

Community Highlight

Around the Forums – Discussion Highlights:

Akatoshia asks how often you find yourself in a warzone that starts with mismatched numbers.

Drunkshade of The Fatman announces The Fatman’s dueling tournament on September 9th, with some big credits up for grabs.

Banderal asks how often you get competitive (read: not one-sided) warzone games.

Xinika introduces Ladispute’s Guardian Tank PvP video.

SweetOldBob argues that the camaraderie of PvP is one of its underrated aspects.

PvP Video Spotlight:

This week’s PvP video spotlight comes to us from xFomortiisx. Some great Scrapper Scoundrel play is demonstrated here. Honestly, I’ve seen a lot fewer of them since the nerfs, but xFomortiisx doesn’t seem to be bothered by it at all. What really stood out here for me was the attention paid to target selection and general situational awareness. I’ve seen Scrapper Scoundrels / Concealment Operatives get tunnel vision in PvP situations, but you don’t really see much of that in this video: in fact, you actually see them break away from a low-health target to attack healers who are turning the tide.

Check out more from xFomortiisx on their YouTube channel. I really think that the quality of play here is worth a subscribe and/or a like!

Also, if you liked Revenantes’ video from last week’s video spotlight, he does have several new ones out for you to check out.

Op-Ed: Free-to-Play and Ranked Warzones

We should soon be getting the details on the nature of the PvP restrictions that free players will have. BioWare will be communicating the Free-to-Play restrictions over the next few weeks, and Darth Hater will be attending Gamescom and attempting to get answers there, as well. For the moment, there is a lot we still don’t know.

One of the seldom-asked questions regarding the PvP Free-to-Play restrictions is whether or not free accounts will have access to Ranked Warzones. We still don’t know for sure if Ranked Warzones will be accessible from a free account. At first glance it is easy to say that this probably won’t happen – in a way, Ranked Warzones are like the Operations of the PvP world. As we know, Operations will not be accessible for free accounts. Ranked Warzones are supposed to represent the most competitive PvP matches, much like Operations are supposed to represent the culmination of group PvE content.

On the other hand, with the weekly limit on warzones, you have to imagine that the new players coming to the game with free accounts will be a long way back gear-wise for a while. This would make ranked warzones difficult for free players to win anyways. Even if free players are allowed to play Ranked Warzones, it would likely come out of their weekly warzone allotment.

I personally think we will see Ranked Warzones limited to subscribers only, but will be able to spend Cartel Coins to unlock access to ranked warzones.

Polls: What about you?

Last week’s poll:

Question 1 – Single Choice

Between 1-4 warzones weekly – 0%
Between 5-9 warzones weekly – 42.1%
Between 10-14 warzones weekly – 26.3%
Between 15-20 warzones weekly – 10.5%
Over 20 warzones weekly – 21.1%

Well, no one who responded thought that BioWare would go as low as 1-4 warzones weekly, but many of you thought it would be less than the 10-14 weekly warzones I predicted. With BioWare’s indication that we will be seeing more details on these restrictions in the coming weeks, we should soon see the truth of things.