Ranked Warzones are coming at 1.3!

Good news everyone! Rated Warzones are officially announced for 1.3!

Mindspore: Any update on Ranked Warzones in 1.3?

Daniel: Ranked Warzones is on track for 1.3. All the heavy lifting (ratings, group persistence exiting warzones, etc) is done and right now we are working through some emergent conflicts with Group Finder and the process of queuing for multiple activities at once with multiple temporary groups.

Sith Juggernaut Rage Spec Burst DPS Guide/Tutorial

After spending some time with my family and friends, I'm back in game and I'm pushing myself through the 1.2 content. With the introduction of dummies, I decided to make a video guide about jugg's rage spec burst damage. Through the next days, my old guides would be updated and new ones would be posted. Also expect more and more videos on youtube so, I recommend you to subscribe in my channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/kingofkalamos/

Hope you'll like the guide and I'm looking forward for your thoughts and comments

1.2 state of PvP

With 1.2 being live for a couple of days now, it's time to talk about the state of PvP. To be clear from the beginning, I won't go through classes' nerfs and buffs as I've done it in a previous post. So, let's start.

One big change is the adjustment to the expertise rating. They have changed the curve of the diminishing returns and now, expertise gives a hell bigger advantage in PvP making PvP gearing up a true upgrade. If we add the healing reduction for all healing classes, you understand that damage dealt means more right now. Melee classes seem to have gotten an overall buff, as they stand better toe-to-toe against ranged dps. Overall, fights are faster and more bursty and for me, Bioware hit in the nail in the head with those changes as their battle system has been accused many times for being clunky and slow.

Sadly, they let a of people down as they didn't solve the low population servers problems. They could either allow cross-server queueing or/and allow server transfers. The second big dissapointment is the withdraw of the rated warzones. Let's hope that they make the correct changes and make rated PvP a smooth and enjoyable feature.

As far as the new warzone, Novare Coast, I'm having a blast and Ι have to admit that it's now, along with Huttball, my favourites. I really really hope, they add some new warzones soon, even if they are different stadiums for Huttball.

To coclude this post, I can't say that I'm dissapointed with 1.2 but I feel that they could do better. Giving free game time is a way to appease the subscribes but if they don't solve the problems, especially the low population servers ones, soon, people are just gonna lose their faith in BW and leave the game.

Small changes that would rise SWTOR above competition!

SWTOR is doing good since launch. The first couple of days were a blast for BW that show more than 2million copies sold. In the past 3 months, bugs have been corrected, issues have been addressed and the game is polished enough with some exceptions of course.


Some would say that SWTOR is doing fine and everything is great but... even I really enjoy the game, there are some things that should be changed. Guild Wars 2 are coming this year, in a month more or less people would play Diablo 3 and last but not least, Mist of Pandaria is somewhere in the horizon. 1.2 is good, would make the game better overall, but would definitely won't save SWTOR against competitors. There are things that should be done, I'm sure Bioware has some ace hidden in their sleeves but if they don't use them in time, SWTOR will fail. I'm not saying that it won't be good anymore, I'm saying that EA, Lucas Arts and Bioware wanted to make the best and most successful MMO and with 2million subscribers you can't say that they'll reached their goal. If they don't kill the competition soon enough, they won't make it. Now, here some ideas that would make SWTOR better in my opinion.


I've put this post in the official site, please visit, read and comment: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=3740918#post3740918


1) Competitive, balanced high level PvP. Don't be afraid to make the game a e-sport. Ranked warzones must be something that would make people want to play the game. A competitive PvP player base would generally help improve the status of the game and would attract more subscribers.


2) Links to stream in www.swtor.com . Pay people to stream to educate others. People that play for lots and lots of hours everyday, people that are good with their class would help and educate worse players. See what Swifty, Hydra, Athene for example are doing to WoW. That's free advertisement!


3) Custom PvP and Tournaments once in a while with big prizes. Promote tournament streaming and make events where the best players will compete with each other.


4) More customisation in the UI. Macros are a must, better ops portraits to help healers, Power Auras and finally ADD ONS! You should restrict add-ons from the official site as to control and permit which ones should be used, something like the Apple Store (but free). By giving tools to the players, you can make harder and more challenging PvE content.


5) A LFG tool There's tons and tons of content, many Flashpoints and I see very few people doing any. Seriously, I am not bothered in creating a group from the general channel but LFG is necessary. I don't care if it would be cross-server or not, it would help people jump in a group and spent their time playing the game, instead of searching for a group. Let people vote for MVP or something after last boss and give prizes for good tanks, good healers and good damage dealers. It could be something like credits, commendations, crafting materials or a shorter queue time for the next Flashpoint.


6) Instead of dailies solo quests, create big ass hard quest that need 2 players to complete. Create something like a smaller scale of a Flashpoint that would take several time for players to complete. It could be done to a new planet, in a group-phase area with mobs to kill, puzzles to solve and some bosses that would require some team play to kill. You don't have to create many of those, just a single one that would have a different enemies, puzzles and bosses each day. That way, people won't get bored and would have something to spent their time.


Those are my suggestions, I really want to hear you opinions and thoughts

1.2 Novare Coast PvP video!

I've played my Sage in the PTR for the last days and I've spending my time on PvP and Class Quests only as I want to finish Act 1 and see the new features. I have to say that the changes in medals have made matches more fast paced and that something I really, really like. Needless to say, I've tried Novare Coast and I LOVE it! This WZ has a lot of fighting, as the objectives are close to the bases and it's easily to turn the table. I've recorded a full match, hope you'll enjoy it; I know I did. Expect a guide coming soon, so stay tuned!

1.2 PvP: Medal Changes

During Guild Summit, Developers said that they won't to redesign the medal system as it was not working as intended. So they make a cap to the medals that can be earned in a match. When you get 10 medals, a buff named HIGHLY DECORATED that will prevent you from earning more. Still, if some requirements are met, more than 10 medals can be earned after a match has ended. That medals are named DAUNTLESS and is rewarded depending how fast you won a match. 

Medal list from Hutball

Medal list from Voistar

 Also, there more objective medals. Additionally to the original medals for damage, healing and defensive done, new objective medals are introduced, divided to OFFENCE and DEFENCE. Passing the ball at Hutball rewards 500 Attacker Points, killing the ball carrier rewards 500 Defender Points, interrupting enemy capturing an Emplacement rewards 500 Defender Points at Novare Coast. Collecting enough defender and attacking points, rewards offence and defence medals. Surely Bioware reacted fast and solved the imbalance of the medal earnings. Healers tended to be left behind whereas dps with taunting abilities could easily get 12+ medals in a match. Also, those changes will avert dragging the matches for medal farming and also encourage more teamwork, more fast paced and more engaging battle.

PvP Changes in 1.2

With the introduction of 1.2 a lot of changes will come in PvP

CHANGES IN DAILIES AND REWARDS

Right now, daily missions require players to win 3 matches. From 1.2 daily missions will require players to win a certain number of medals. That will make a lot of people happy, as people that don't play WZ in groups, tend to get steamrollered from premades. One day, a friend of mine that was PvPing solo had 9 consecutive loses... It took him more than 5 hours to get 3 victories. I know he's excited about this change.

Now, remember that winning and losing both reward medals. Hopefully this will address the situation where people that had a bad group would just leave the WZ. They said that they will be some restrictions for people abandoning the WZ before it finish but they din't give any details. I speculate that they'll do something like a penalty for leavers that would prevent them to queue for another WZ that would last for some minutes. 

Luckily for us, there are 18 new medals, many of which are objective based, like scoring a goal in Hutball or defusing a bomb in Voidstar. Healers right now are in disadvantage against other classes about wining medals, the new ones will boost them too. Like if an ally you are healing gets a killing enemy point, the healer will get one too. Now, to prevent medal's farming by dragging out matches, there's a cap of medals that can be earned in every match. To encourage faster games and more activity from players, finishing a match fast gives more medals. For example, finishing Huttball under 5 minutes will give you one more metal, finishing it under 4 will give two more metals. Now, there's a lot of AFKers in PvP, especially in Civil War and finally we have some good news: In order for players to earn medals, a minimal level of activity is required and  Vote to kick inactive players is in 1.2 where the open spots would be filled by players in the queue. There are measures in place to prevent abuse, like kicking someone because his level 10.

RANKED WARZONES AND RANKED GEAR

Ranked warzones will be introduced in 1.2. There will be a ranking system for bath group and solo play. For 1.2 Ranked Warzones will be SERVER SPECIFIC ONLY, cross-server matches will come later. Coming in the future will have cross-server queueing. When the new feature will be implemented will have a pre-season period. Each ranked game will reward a specific currency that would buy the new PvP gear. There going to be more than one tier of gear  but all tiers will have the same stats. Gear that require a higher rating are going to have different colours, only for prestige reasons.

NEW PvP GEAR AND VALOR CHANGES

Valor system will not be centralized from now on. It will still be in game and will also provide titles but will not be fundamental for acquiring the PvP gear. A new intro PvP set for new 50 players will be introduce to fill the gap in gear. More emphasis on expertise will be given on PvP to make it less powerful in PvE as they want to address  issues where people with Battle Master gear were raiding Eternity Vault and Karagga's Palace. 

NEW WARZONES AND SAME FACTION MATCHES, NEWS ABOUT ILUM AND WORLD PvP

The new warzone will be Novare Coast. It can also be played with two teams of the same faction. It would be object orient and would has 3 points of focus. Two out of three must be captured from a team to 'do damage' to the object. Existing Warzones will be made same faction. That would either happen in 1.2 or 1.3. For now the matches will be from same servers. Sometime in the future cross-server matches will be introduced.  They want to introduce Tournament brackets to allow for mini-tournaments between PvP teams. Another new feature that would make a lot of people happy, YOU CAN NOW QUEUE WITH A FULL 8 PERSON GROUP AND YOUR GROUP WILL NOT BE DISBANDED AFTER A MATCH. They also enlightened us about some world PvP changes. They will pull back Ilum for a while to redesign it as they are not very pleased with it's current state and there were some technical difficulties. PvP in Outlaw's Den will be supported from now on. For world PvP in general, they said that they'll add a reward drop for world kills.

Add-ons, Combat Log, Cross-Server, Ranked PvP coming soon in SWTOR!

Game Amatangelo gave an interview to an Australian site and said this things:

Gear/Warzone/Commendation Changes
-Lesser end-game commendations (Champion, Centurion, etc.) will not be exchangable.
-There will be two levels of warzones. Regular and Ranked warzones.
-Regular warzones will give out regular WZ commendations, and Ranked warzones will give out ranked WZ commendations.
-New intro PVP set for new level 50 players to fill gap in gear.
-There will be some “fun” uses for commendations you dont need anymore.

Ranked PVP
-Phase one will be server specific.
-Phase two (coming in the future) will have cross-server queuing.

UI Changes & Add- ons
-Combat log coming soon.
-DPS meters/Parsers will be done by 3rd party addons via combat log.
-Free/Paid Server transfers are being worked on but no date provided. They want to make sure the process is perfect before releasing this.

Cross-Server Queuing
-Coming in phase two of pvp changes
-Priority is on playing with people from your own server.
-As soon as you start choosing certain things (which warzone, ranked, etc.). It becomes more difficult for you to get a WZ with server players so you go into the cross-server

When he says phase two he means after patch 1.2 that is meant to come this month. I don't know about you guys but I'm very excited about this changes! Especially for Add ons that were much needed from hardcore players

PvP Suggestion for Arena and Warzones

SWTOR's PvP is quite good right now. Open world PvP in Ilum is good, excluding the bugs and exploits that benefit some player, is actually what it was advertised. Big, open war. The truth is, Rated WZ will do wonders for the game and will attract more players. Even better, a small scale PvP that would be ranked would provide a big time sink and also create a good competitive environment that'll push the game to a better experience. I suggest an arena ranked and unranked battleground where people will fight in a deathmatch.

Only one bracket should be made. A 3v3. You can balance the whole game around arenas and most of the times what is balanced in a small scale it will also be balanced in the large scale. 2v2 is too individualistic and very limited. Instead of creating some healthy competitive arena, 2v2 would be actually be a combination vs combination that decreases the skill and creativity required from the player and would lead to a huge flaming and crying forum outbreak where people will demand from the developers to adjust the game to their class' combination. 4v4 even though would be ideal since the whole game was build in the number 4 in mind it would not work in arenas. 2 healers and 2 dps or 1 tanks 2 healers and 1 dps would make really slow and long fight. On the other hand 1 healer and 3 dps would make zerg battles that would be frustrating and unsatisfying. 5v5 and more is just overcrowded, zergy and messy. 3v3 is optimal, the base of the mmo genre and the holy trinity. Tank, dps and healer or 2 dps and a healer would make a fight last enough, won't be crowded and every member of each team can coordinate without problem.

Balance the PvP around 3v3. The problem for the developers is the performance some classes have between PvP and PvE. Instead of nerf and buff every time, just give a bolster to dps in PvP if healers are overpower or on the other hand put a debuff of the healing received. Exactly what the devs did with the Trauma debuff.  It's obvious that you can't balance a game around PvP and PvE at the same time with the same damage and healing multipliers for both.

As for the maps, don't make anything more than a basic, normal arena map. Avoid eruptic cannons, flame that rise every 5sec. No RNG elements in general. Let the best team win, with no luck involved. The winner should be decided by his skill, timing and coordination. Also avoid a map with many different leveled platforms. Being knockback to the ground to run up to the platform to be knockback again is not fun. Put some platforms that are easily accessible, some crates or other items that could get in the line of sight and maybe a pit of acid like in Huttball. Please make functional maps that will allow for competitive play.

I have to add here a little something. Make interrupts/knockbacks/standing up instant! Make it happen at the beginning of the animation so it would land as soon as the player wanted. The server lag, the internet lag, the human reaction time are already making it hard to land a interrupt. Having to wait for the animation to end, that means almost a second- only makes the things worst. Also, sometimes if I'm knockdown from an Operative in to the pool of acid in Huttball, I find myself dying not because of his attacks, neither for the damage from the acid. He throws me down for 1.5 sec and it gets 0.5-1sec to stand up. Please, make it so I can react instantly to the attacks of my opponent and not be restricted because of animation. A lot of people are raging about giving Imperials a lead. For example, It seams that Telekinetic Throw has the object that is threw to hit the target for the damage to be dealt where as the sorcerer's counterpart Force Lightning is instant. Same goes for some Bounty Hunter's abilities in comparison to the Trooper's ones. If it's just an animation thing, it's easy for you to correct it. To be honest, almost all of the abilities should has damage be dealt at the end of the animation. Especially for PvP, gameplay should be an priority over animation, so please, make it so.

My final suggestion for PvP is an introduction of two new type of Warzones. The first should be Team Deathmatch. People really like Ilum because it gives them the chance to play against other players without any other goal than killing or be killed. I believe it can be easily constructed and would be a huge hit from the community. Two teams of 8 people, 100 tickets, each death cost a ticket, first team to reach 0 tickets lose, no PvE element involved. Simply enough. You can add two chokepoints, like a bridge or a cliff and if you believe that would be helpful for more strategically playstyle, add two bases that would provide a 5% bonus to all damage and healing done to the group that controls them. The second one could be a map like League of Legends or DOTA. Two bases, each with an Inner Sanctum to the center, and only two or three different paths that connects them. Every faction has 3 turrets along the paths to their base to protect them. The winner is the team that gets to destroy the Inner Sanctum of the enemies' base. I'm not sure if it can be implanted into SWTOR but would totally make a lot of people happy and willfull to try PvP.