One of the most exciting portions of the guild summit for many players was the talk of PvP.
Here is an overview of the discussion as well as the follow-up Q&A.
- Player vs. Player Discussion medal system- not balanced across classes right now.
- No specific queues for warzones
- Novare Coast: majority control objective – 3 point objective. You need least 2 out of 3 to do damage to fortification.
- Character warzone ratings for both solo and group player
- New warzone dailies – based on medal system as opposed to wins.
- We didn’t finish all the medals – we are introducing a lot more medals for objectives, catching a ball, scoring in huttball, be the first to plant a bomb
- 18 new medals
- “We want to discourage medal farming” – medal rewards are capped. We are doubling the amount of medals but cap it at ~8. If you finish a warzone fast, you can get a bunch of subsequent medals.
- We are introducing more rewards per medal
- Vote to kick: players can vote inactive players out of the warzone.
- Efforts to combat AFK – needs minimal player contribution to get medals – if you just sit around you not going to get much.
- New tier of PvP gear – War Hero.
- Greater stats differences from PvE gear. more leaning on expertise and leaning on other stats that are more PvP focused
- New lightsaber colors
- New PvP crafting – adding expertise crystals.
- Future of warzones: existing warzones will allow for same faction vs. faction – training mode scenarios. Timeline – 1.2-1.3
Cross server warzone queuing – “we will have incentives for grouping with people of the same server” – this allows for a lot more competition. Will include ability to choose a specific warzone.
Tournament system – get qualification for 1st, 2nd places, etc.
Ranked warzone: full 8 people group allowed. Timeline is TBD.
Persistence groups across warzones so you don’t have to reform them between warzones – something to be added in the future (yes!)
Ilum is going “back to the drawing board”. Quests will be removed. Zone will still exist but no in-game incentive to go there.
- “We got a bit too ambitious with Ilum” –Plans to redesign Ilum to be more fun and engaging – if it is the right time and right place it is going to be fun – we want to make timed objectives.
Warhero gear from ranked warzone commendations. more focused on expertise and not as viable in pve.
- Less randomness from rewards for PvP progression.
- With ranked warzones we can tier our PvP content and therefore able to tier our PvP gear . minor changes to Outlaw den – we want players to get there quick. We will be introducing some quick travel. Leaving it as a PvP sandbox.
- “We are aware of speed hacking/exploiting – we want to control them before we get to season 1 of ranked warzones.”
PvP Q&A Discussion
Q: Any plans for just pugs in normal warzones right now so you don’t have to worry about getting steam-rolled by premades.
A: We do have some things in place right now to prevent pre-mades.
Q: With changes to pvp gear – will you also change the diminishing returns on PVP gear.
A: Yes.
Q: Ilum performance issues – issues with Hero engine?
A: Some of the engine issues don’t show until you go live – a lot of optimization issues with environment (turrets, walkers) in the area.
Q: Changes to Ilum to prevent trading – the new deathmatch system is just not as good. Any plans to return to objectives-based system?
A: We had issues with objectives permanently locked to a faction. We weren’t able to do much before the game went live and as such there were trading were going on. We had to change it to killing for the meantime but it is not our long –term goal. It will be objective focus – something for the long term.
Q: Pre-forming guilds before game was launched, we had allies and adversaries; any plans to utilize them or bounty offered on players?
A: This is something the PvP team would love to see but we don’t have any definite timeline. We will talk more about allies and adversaries once we get to the guild stuff.
Q: With pre-formed 8 mans, can we challenge other guilds to a 8vs8 match in a warzone?
A: It is something we have implanted – warzone challenges. Not going to be in 1.2 but in the future, definitely.
Q: We have a few guildies are battlemaster – are you going to make it less grindy to obtain higher level PvP gear?
A: Right now, if you are valor 60, and trying to get BM gear the only way is via quests – this leads to bad behaviors as you need to win to get quests. It takes away the incentive to perform in warzones. In 1.2 the ranked warzone commendations will be used to purchase war hero gear (no valor or other requirement) . Warzone rating will allow you to get a different color version of the warhero gear.
Q: I run 24 vs 24 pvp matches in outlaw dens. How I am suppose to maintain my large PvP guild if you give us only 8 man content?
A: Large warzone battles is something we want to do in the future but 8 man content is just what we have right now. 8 is a good number in ranked warzones – everyone has a part. We do like to have players get together and have massive battles – this is what Ilum and Outlaw’s Den were intended for. We will have more content for larger PvP battles in the future.
Q: Current valor system will go away with ranked warzones? Need a clarification. What about guild vs guild PvP?
A: Guild vs guild PvP will be initially 8 vs 8 premades and open world PvP in the future. Valor is a recognition of your experience rather than your specific gear progression.
Q: Tab targeting improvements? clickable nameplates?
A: Yes we want to do them, larger boxes to click on, class based labels etc but not for 1.2
Q: As an RPer I don’t like watching someone running circles around me in PvP: any plans to move away from running around circles? any plans to be able to face the target you are on?
A: Auto-facing in PvP – Definitely two camps on that. Auto-facing we feel diminishes some game mechanics like positioning etc. we are planning to improve PvP animations but auto-facing is not something we want to have. If you have auto-facing it just becomes who has a better command of their rotation.
Q: Will obtain a set of Bis PvP gear will be achieved only through PvP or you need PvE/crafting as well?
A: The bis will come from only ranked warzones. However, you can use use mods from war hero gear to put in critted orange gear. So there is a path to even better gear after war-hero via crafting
Q: Right now defense/shield/absorb is strong in PvE but nearly useless in PvP- any plans to make those stats more useful in pve?
A: As a tank, you are vulnerable to force/tech attacks but if you don’t use defense stats are you going to be vulnerable to high dps classes like sentinels/snipers. With 1.2 there will be some under the hood adjustment to all stats so all theorycrafting will have to be done.
Q: Any plans to add more than just quests/dailies for PvP? ranked warzones: ranked warzone commendations.
A: Not at this time, that’s not to say we won’t in the future.
Q: Dynamic events – are there any focus on dynamic pvp events?
A: We don’t want give away any of the dynamic event info – we want it to be a surprise. We don’t want you to be able to predict them.
A: “It’s fun” – we want to give you a drop list when you kill random players – some kind of commendations maybe.
