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.

1.2 Republic PvE & PvP Gear Preview!

1.2 bring new set of PvP and PvE gear. Here, I give you the looks of the sets as well as the prices for each piece. PvP gear sets have the same set bonuses as the previous tier. No bonus are yet implanted to PTR for the new PvE gear tier.

PvE Gear 

PvE gear can be obtained by either Black Hole Commendations or Unassembled Campaign Tokens, one for each piece. Now, in the PTR BOTH sets have the same rating. Black Hole Commendations can be earned from the new dailies in Corellia. Below are the prices for each piece

BELT	35 BLACK HOLE COMMENDATIONS
BOOTS	50 BLACK HOLE COMMENDATIONS
BRACERS	30 BLACK HOLE COMMENDATIONS
GLOVES	50 BLACK HOLE COMMENDATIONS
HEADGEAR	60 BLACK HOLE COMMENDATIONS
LEGGINGS	55 BLACK HOLE COMMENDATIONS
EARPIECE	35 BLACK HOLE COMMENDATIONS
IMPLANT	35 BLACK HOLE COMMENDATIONS
CHESTGEAR	60 BLACK HOLE COMMENDATIONS
OFF HAND	50 BLACK HOLE COMMENDATIONS

PvP Gear

There are two tiers of PvP gear, the War Hero and the new Rated Gear. They have the SAME stats and rating but rated gear requires a good rating in ranked matches so it's harder to be acquired. Below are the prices for the standard War Hero PvP gear:

BELT	1250 RANKED WARZONE COMMENDATIONS
BOOTS	1800 RANKED WARZONE COMMENDATIONS
BRACERS	1100 RANKED WARZONE COMMENDATIONS
GLOVES	1800 RANKED WARZONE COMMENDATIONS
HEADGEAR	2150 RANKED WARZONE COMMENDATIONS
LEGGINGS	2000 RANKED WARZONE COMMENDATIONS
EARPIECE	1250 RANKED WARZONE COMMENDATIONS
IMPLANT	1250 RANKED WARZONE COMMENDATIONS
CHEST	2150 RANKED WARZONE COMMENDATIONS
OFF HAND	2275 RANKED WARZONE COMMENDATIONS
MAIN HAND	3475 RANKED WARZONE COMMENDATIONS
RELIC	1100 RANKED WARZONE COMMENDATIONS

Ranked gear is more of a prestige reward and requires a specific rating and the standard piece of gear before the ranked one is bought. Here are the prices for Ranked gear:

BELT	1200 RATING AND 250 RANKED WARZONE COMMENDATIONS
BOOTS	1600 RATING AND 360 RANKED WARZONE COMMENDATIONS
BRACERS	1200 RATING AND 250 RANKED WARZONE COMMENDATIONS
GLOVES	1400 RATING AND 360 RANKED WARZONE COMMENDATIONS
HEADGEAR	RATING AND 430 RANKED WARZONE COMMENDATIONS
LEGGINGS	1800 RATING AND 400 RANKED WARZONE COMMENDATIONS

That's all for now, when I have the time, I would do the same for the Empire side.

SWTOR PTR: 1.2 Patch UI Changes Video Guide

1.2 has hit PTR for a some hours now and I'm rushing myself to more future contend. I want to hit level 10 ASAP to try the new Warzone so, instead of a big article, I've created a video about the changes in the UI.

Hopefully you'll find this guide helpful, stay tuned for more information about 1.2.

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.

PvE Tier 2 Preview!

This is the previer of PvE Tier 2 Preview from Guild Summit's video

Republic

Empire

Legacy and Racials!

I hope you are as excited as I am for yesterday's Guild Summit. A lot of things were showed for the first time and some theories and guesses came true. I will post as often as I can for the days coming to give you as much informations I can.


For now, I would give you some insight of racial attributes that would be added in the future.


Daniel Erickson revealed that reaching level 50 with a species will unlock that species for all other classes. Like having a level 50 Sith Pureblood would allow us to make a new Sith Pureblood of all other classes, regardless of faction. Like a Sith Pureblood Bounty Hunter or a Sith Pureblood Jedi Knight. He also said something about new racials. He said that reaching level 50 with a human, would give to all humans in that Legacy a new passive bonus to the presence attribute (to those that don't know about it, presence increase the performance of your companions). Those kind of racial where introduced back to October's beta testing along with the social racial abilities that are now in the live version.




So, this is the list of the beta stat racials:

Human: 3% Bonus to Presence

Miraluka: +1 Stealth Detection

Twi’lek: 5 Minute Reduction on Rapid Travel

Zabrak: Increase healing given and taken by 1%

Miralian: Increase precision of Force and Tech powers by 1%

Cyborg: Increase precision of Force and Tech powers by 1%

Sith Pureblood: 1% force damage and force healing.

Chiss: +1 stealth bonus and +1 stealth detection

Rattataki: 2% Crit Damage

Those abilities where in the creation page and where soon deleted. It seems that some of them would be introduced in Live at 1.2. Miralians and Cyborg were sharing their racial stat bonus, something that would most likely change in the future. Also Precision is a not existent stat right now but I wouldn't be surprised if  accuracy takes it's place in 1.2.

To summit up, race selection WILL matter after 1.2. They also said that they WON'T allow race change in the future. So, for all of you that want to max their performance, I suggest you roll a new character, of a different race than the level 50 you already have.

If the racials are going to be introduced unchanged from the beta, I suggest, those race combinations:

Human and Twi'lek: Shitty racials, I would avoid them for every class.

Miraluka: A small benefit. I would avoid this race for every class.

Zabrak: Great for tanks and healers. Every tank should be Zabrak as it's the only racial that benefits them. Zabrak healers are also in an advantage but Jedi Sages/Sith Sorcerers have the same benefit from Pureblood's racial.

Miralian and Cyborg: If we presume that precision is accuracy in not that good racial. Force and Tech abilities seems to reach accuracy cap easier from talents. Still, with tanking stats changes for PvP in 1.2, it would probably help killing enemy tanks. Should be avoided from healers.

Sith Pureblood: All Force User classes, disregarding their role should be Sith Purebloods.

Rattataki: The best racial right now. I presume that they gave it to boost this underplayed race.

Chiss: PvP boost for stealthers. A good choice for Assassins/Shadows and Operatives/Scoundrels that are damage dealers in PvP. Not that great in PvE, still it has it's uses.

Those are my though right now, things could change in the future. I'll be in the testing of 1.2 and I would see how BW will implant this system. I would update this guide as soon as possible.

Until then, see you online

Republic Gear Sets Preview!

For the past two days I've spent my time playing a fresh Scoundrel. When I got to the Republic Fleet, I though to spent some time and take some pic of the republic gear sets. Hope you like it!

PVP JEDI KNIGHT GEAR

 PVP SMUGGLER GEAR

 PVP TROOPER GEAR

PVP JEDI CONSULAR GEAR

FINALLY, THE PVE RAKATA SETS

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

SWTOR UI Suggestions!

Waiting for 1.2, there aren't many things to write about right now so I decided to do something else. I decided to write some suggestions for the game. This time, I'm presenting my though for the UI. Don't forget to comment, I really want to hear your ideas.

UI Changes

Right now, SWTOR’s UI is nothing more than a basic UI. I was positive surprised when I saw how fast you implanted more options for the UI in weekly and major patches. There are things that need to be changed though.

1. Threat and Aggro.

When I’m tanking with my Juggernaut, I want be able to know if I have enough aggro from the mobs I’m fighting. Please, if you can implant add a bar above the enemies’ portrait with the percentage of the thread I’m generating. Even better, make the mobs’ portrait that are attacking me red, the mobs’ portrait that I’m losing aggro yellow and mobs’ portrait that are not attacking me grey. An additional flash of screen’s corners could help dps know that have pulled aggro. I really hope that this addition would be implanted soon.

2. Visual Procs.

It’s a little frustrating figuring out that your abilities have procced. To begin with most classes’ rotations are based on buffs. Even though the current place of the buffs are convenient (much better above the portraits than the upper corner of the screen) it’s hard to track it down. I would really really want my procs to be visually highlighted to the middle of my screen when they are up. I’ve made a small example, sorry for the bad Windows Paint skill. I’ve attached the photos. Some classes will benefit a lot by visual proc indicator more than others. Operatives would know how many stacks of Tactical Advantage they have and if after using Lacerate they regain their stack when Tactical Opportunity procs, Mercenaries would better track how long the Supercharge Gas last. Also display targets’ and focus’ buffs and debuffs as duration bars. That way I’ll know if the tank has the buff Kolto Residue that would increase my healing done to him and how much is left. That would also help dps that would be able to calculate their rotations easier, knowing how much they got left before their DoT drops from their target. I really think this as one of the top priority additions and I really hope to be applied as soon as possible.

2. Move bars.

Please allow us to determine both the size, the position of the quickbars. Plus, let us make the two sidebars horizontal and then to be able to stack them on top of the center ones. I want to have all of my quickbars stacked so I will be able to track the cds of my abilities easier.

3. Raid UI.

Raid UI is actually pretty good. That doesn’t mean that couldn’t be better, especially for healers. Please make it so that I can know how much my healing abilities would heal my allies. Keep the current health red in the bars and make the incoming healing being indicated as a darker red. That way I would know if other healer is casting his heals to my target and if his heals will top his health so I can either cast him a weaker healing spell or heal another person. On top of that, I would love the raid bars to change color when someone is affected by a negative effect. That way I would be able to know to whom I have to use my Cure ability (my merc’s ability).

4. Casting Bar.

The casting bar is doing its job fine; just make it so I can adjust the size of it. Plus make displayable the amount of time spent between cast send and start events, in the form of a bar at the end of your casting bar, with optional text that displays the actual duration of the lag. That way I would know how to queue my abilities and would also help avoiding canceling channeling abilities that are interrupted by me because I had a lag spike that prevented me from seeing the proper time left to my ability’s activation time.

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.