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 me via PM.
News
Official SWTOR Posts
No official posts about PvP this week, but I’d like to point you to Darth Hater’s BioWare Livestream Q&A Coverage.
There are a few quotes of note regarding future PvP changes.
Q: What new things can we expect for PvP after the launch of 1.6?
Hickman: We love PvP. We have lots of interesting plans for PvP. We haven’t forgotten about it. There’s that one thing we can’t really talk about coming in February or March. Can’t say any more.
Q: Any plans to reboot Ilum or introduce more open world PvP?
Schubert: It’s something we want to do. It’s going to be different from the original Ilum because, well, that didn’t work too well. We think people will like it. It won’t just be a PvP thing.
Q: Any plans to have separate Warzones for non-elite level 50 players?
Hickman: I don’t think so.
Schubert: Not a true separation, but we hope to improve the match making system in the future. We also want to improve the bootstrap gear a new max level players receives so skill becomes more important than gear. Right now, gear is very important in PvP.
Devtracker Highlights
No PvP-centric devtracker posts since last week.
PvP Patch Changes
No PvP Patch changes since last week.
Community Highlight
Around the Forums – Discussion Highlights
Vanderll asks what you think about tank classes in PvP.
Scorpiooooo announces the R.A.W Championship: a SWTOR PvP e-sports event.
islander asks for your healer UI.
PvP Video Spotlight
A great Powertech 1.5 tutorial, covering everything from gearing to optimal ability usage. This is the kind of video I like to see: some in-depth explanation that helps players become better at PvP instead of just showing off flashy video editing skills. Check out Malkiv Mayhem’s channel on YouTube.
Op-Ed: “Hard to see, the future is”; part 1
This past week the most interesting PvP news we got this week was from the LiveStream Q&A, but we got a few choice bits indeed.
Firstly, the confirmation that there will likely not be a separate “casual” level 50 bracket. This probably does not come as a shock to a lot of people, even though the idea was gaining some traction on the forums. What we did get was a confirmation that gear is currently incredibly important in PvP, and that they will be looking at making the baseline PvP gear better. BioWare also mentioned that the matchmaking system could use some improvement, and that this was also and area of concern.
I really think that both these acknowledgements are very important to the continued development of PvP in this game.
Gear needs to be downplayed, and individual skill emphasized. I see a lot of people become discouraged from the steep gear curve in PvP, and I’m hoping this will start to address the issue. Also, it should increase the quality of competition across the board. That BioWare acknowledges that this needs to change is a very comforting development.
As for matchmaking, I definitely support any improvements to it, but wonder how effectively people can be sorted in the current population situation. If it ends up increasing queue times, is it worth the wait to have slightly more equitable matches? Either way, we have no ETA for when these changes would make it in.
On the other hand, I’m not sure how many people agree that gear is too important. So what do you think: is gear currently too important in PvP?
Last week’s poll
PvP and F2P – Postmortem – Single Choice
I believe PvP has improved 16.7%
I believe PvP has not changed substantially 55.6%
I believe PvP has deteriorated 27.8%
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