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 darth@darthhater.com.

News

Official SWTOR Posts

At the time of this writing, there was no indication that Patch 1.4 was launching today (Tuesday, September 25th). If the past is any indication, we will likely see maintenance delayed (Edit 9/25: It did) until later in the week and the patch will launch after it. We will keep you updated as information becomes available.

Nothing to report on the official post front. Since the Community Team has refocused their efforts primarily on the forums and the Q&A has been suspended for the time being, we will likely see PvP-focused official posts less frequently.

Devtracker Highlights

Allison Berryman responds to concerns regarding players who leave warzones early:

Allison Berryman

Hey everyone! I talked to Senior PvP Designer Rob Hinkle about the issue of players leaving normal Warzones. This is something that’s important to us, and if we introduce any changes to the system, we want to make sure we do it right. To that end, we’re considering several options, like applying the deserter debuff we have for Ranked (or another penalty for leaving) or the possibility of additional incentives to stay in the Warzone. We’ll keep you updated on any changes and appreciate your feedback!

Allison Berryman responds to concerns regarding the slot-binding restrictions on PvP gear:

Allison Berryman

I talked to Senior Game Balance Designer Jason Attard about mods that are bound to slots and our plans for them. Here are some comments he had about the system and its future:

Many (but not all) of our current endgame Armorings, in both PvP and PvE, are bound to specific slots. This is because some less expensive items, like gloves and boots, are much easier to acquire than “expensive” items like a Chestpiece or Helmet. We’ve seen that instead of acquiring an entire set of gear players would often purchase the “cheap” slots multiple times and simply move the mods over into the “expensive” items, allowing players to acquire their gear much more quickly than intended. Now that most of our offhand items have mod slots we are seeing a similar pattern occur with main hand and offhand items.

We plan to make these slot restrictions more consistent in the future, with any Armoring, Hilt, or Barrel you extract from an item becoming bound to the equipment slot you extracted it from. We do not intend to add the same slot restrictions to Modifications or Enhancements, as those item mods have a smaller impact on the overall power of the item.

PvP Patch Changes

There have been no Patch changes affecting PvP since last week. Update 3 and Update 4 of Patch 1.4 were pushed to the PTS earlier this week, but neither patch contained PvP changes. 

Community Highlight

Around the Forums – Discussion Highlights

Order-Sixty-Six argues for a Protection Per Second metric on the scoreboard.

JoshDizzy asks you to weigh in on whether or not you feel PvP leveling is viable.

BigGoatBR asks for your feedback on PvP Tanking stat priority.

Curmedy asks for your opinion on fun classes to play in PvP.

PvP Video Spotlight

This week’s PvP video is somewhat different from others that we’ve featured, because it is not focused on a particular class. Rather, Geldarion shares his tips regarding defending objectives with you. These tips are applicable to any class, and are well-explained in a guide-style video.

For more, check out Geldarion’s blog.

Op-Ed: The changing face of PvP

After the forced server migrations, PvP communities have been uprooted and are again re-establishing themselves. In some cases, populations of the different servers are reaching out to their new arrivals and trying to establish connections (see this thread, for example). As before with the previous migrations, this change will be perceived by some as being positive, giving them new and varied opponents against which to test themselves. Others will resent the new arrivals, claiming that the server was better off before the migrations occurred.

As before, I think this will be an overwhelmingly positive change for PvP players. The larger-capacity servers should give us a wider array of opponents, and this will be doubly true once F2P launches later this year. While some adjustments may have to be made by players, I feel this is for the best.

Poll

Last week’s poll: Your Server Migration Experience

Perfect, no issues at all. 52.4%
Smooth, but details were not perfect (like losing character names). 33.3%
Rougher than I’d like, but not terrible. 4.8%
Overall, it was horrible. 9.5%