World PvP and Rated PvP in SW:TOR

[RAFFLES]

Saw alot of people saying in various threads there is no rated pvp and no world pvp in SW:TOR which is absolutely wrong. So made this thread to just clear up confusion and give some information regarding SW:TOR PvP.

Rewards in PvP

This was posted by Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller.

People will do what they like. If the majority likes to queue, then that's what they want to do.

If people prefer to do Warzones over open world PvP or vice versa, then that's their prerogative and we won't force them to do the other thing. As for where the best rewards are, you'll earn rewards by doing either.

Warzones will give Warzone Commendations.
Open-World PvP will give Mercenary Commendations.

Both commendations are required for the best PvP gear but you can exchange Mercenary Commendations for Warzone ones and vice versa, so you can get PvP gear doing what you like.

I honestly really like the stance of BioWare on PvP gearing, we can get PvP gear doing what we like, be it World PvP or warzones.

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Warzones

The following was posted by the Lead PvP designer of the game :

Q: Will there be any kind of arena system? If so, which brackets will it support?

A: ‘Arena System’ has come to mean two different things depending on the context: Single Elimination PvP game mode and Ranking/Tournament Systems. Whether or not we add that game mode to The Old Republic’s current lineup (domination, assault and bombing run) is TBD.

One of the top things on our list for post launch is a rated Warzone system where players can form teams, earn team ratings, earn individual ratings, as well as participate in tournaments, etc.

Warzones are 8v8 objective based battlegrounds for which we can que solo or with a couple of friends up to a maximum of 4man groups. These warzones are basically a mix of WoW's arenas and battlegrounds by mixing the small scale PvP with the objectives based gameplay.

Warzones can be rated and non-rated.

An important point to note is that rated PvP will not provide the best PvP gear just because its "rated". BioWare's Lead Designer has stated that they do not want to force people to do stuff and therefore all forms of PvP will reward equal gear.

Warzones and World PvP both will give the best PvP gear and rated warzones will probably provide other items ( titles, visual stuff, different coloured PvP gear, mounts etc).

Additionally you are rewarded the PvP currency (like honor in WoW) based on your performance in warzones because the game tracks damage done, healing done, damage absorbed, objectives earned and rewards you honor based on that. This will greatly remove AFK-ers in warzones.

There are 3 warzones at launch.

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Open World PvP

And to all people saying there is no large scale battles, there is. There is one whole planet of Ilum for organised world PvP as well as there are small open world PvP areas scattered across the game on various other planets.

The following is posted from the recent world PvP information revealed :

If there is one that is going to be hard to explain completely, it is Ilum. There is a lot that is still shrouded in mystery but it is a lot clearer than it was yesterday thanks to the presentation. Gabe started by showing off some of the capture points players can control, such as turrets that you can click to use. These turrets have a decreasing channel time that periodically fires a large bolt of energy down range. Turrets can also be destroyed by the other team, so players defending while using them should take note of this.

As the presentation progressed, Gabe displayed the several objective areas players will need to take as they continue to the opposing faction's base on the other end of the zone. Both sides will collide in the middle of the map where the objectives are for players to complete along the way. Each objective area has its own unique style of objective to capture. To progress the map, players have to take out the opposing side's walkers with a rocket launcher. The rocket launcher has quite a lengthy amount of time to lock on before the rocket actually launches at the targeted walker. During this time, a red light surrounds the player who attempts to use the rocket launcher and looks similar to the way the color loot system works today. This allows the opposing faction to easily find the person they need to target on a chaotic battlefield.

Once the rocket hits the targeted walker, it destroys it in one hit. Throughout the map, there are areas that you can use to avoid the walkers all together or use to flank the opposing faction. These areas are primarily valleys that surround some of the major objective points in the middle of the map. Once one of the sides takes down the opposing side's walkers, transport ships will drop walkers to progress the battle.

There are also several other non-controllable turrets that players can destroy in the same manner as the walkers. When the bigger turrets are destroyed, a swarm of bombers bombard the opposing faction's base. As the factions progress the objectives, quests count down the time in which they have to complete the battle before the objectives re-spawn. Players will have to make use of the momentum they gain when capturing the objectives because it appears that it can quickly turn in favor of the other faction. Gabe did mention during the Q&A that there is a limit to the amount of people that can be in this zone, but it is not one that they expect the area to reach. How the zone limit interacts with balance and server populations is a big, unanswered question.

There is still much to learn, but from what we saw, it looks like Ilum is progressing well. The only thing we could possibly nitpick about is that it felt a little sterile, but what they showed was really really early, so we're sure BioWare will have it polished before launch.

Features :

-Endgame level50 world PvP planet.

-There is no exact number but approximately 100 vs 100 battles will take place.

-The zone has 2 fortress, one for Empire and one for Republic.

-5 capture points with objectives in the middle. Each objective area has its own unique style of objective to capture.

-Both sides will collide in the middle of the map where the objectives are for players to complete along the way.

-Vehicles need to be destroyed with rocket launchers. Once one of the sides takes down the opposing side's walkers, transport ships will drop walkers to progress the battle.

-When the bigger turrets are destroyed, a swarm of bombers bombard the opposing faction's base. As the factions progress the objectives, quests count down the time in which they have to complete the battle.

-No timers, you can do this world PvP at anytime of the day, all day long, it is an on going battle.

Although much has been revealed about Ilum there is still much more information needed for the planet.


The lead PvP designer also answered some questions regarding the faction and population imbalance relating to the world PvP zone :

In the open world zones, how are you doing population balance? For example, one side is really outnumbered than the other.

So that's why the mechanics is what it is. We went through and tested a bunch of different mechanics. It's five captures so you have to keep all five. If you're 100 vs 20, that 20 is going to get in somewhere. You have to spread out to keep them off, and the sort of war effort buff that you get. You get stacks and it gradually increases. How much you get for killing and how much you can get out of Warzones happens from defending at a place that you have and you can keep stacking it when you take new ones. So if there is a group of 20 vs. 100, they're sitting at one, they're keeping one, and if that whole 100 decides, hey, they're at the northern assault, they all start moving there, you guys can move elsewhere, so keep it spread out. But obviously we want to keep killing players because that's where the Valor is coming from.

One of the challenges of open world PvP is two factions -- what if one is not populated versus the other? Is there any sort of incentive or anything, any mechanics built in to help balance two faction populations.

That is the challenge with open-world PvP, and as soon as you start introducing systems, then it stops becoming open-world PvP to an extent. So what we decided to lean on, and of course we'll be moderating and we might adjust stuff afterwards, but we we're leaning on right now is the mechanics. And like I was saying is that there is five different objectives and you've got to keep all five to have control. If they're 100, they've got them all and they spread like 20 to each objective, and there's only 20 of you, then you're greatly outnumbered.

You can go have a fight at one of those objectives and you can have, theoretically, a fair fight at one of those objectives. As soon as they all start to shift over there, they're leaving some other place so you can go for that point, one of the other assaults, or another base or something to that effect. Now the war activity you have throughout, you keep stacking these war effort buffs, the war buffs enhance how much Valor you get from kills but it also enhances how much Valor you get in a bonus at the end of Warzones as well. So if you're there at 4 AM, and no one is in there, you're like, "Ah, I'm going to go in and take a couple objectives and then run some Warzones." It's like you can build up that buff regardless, so you have a purpose to go there whether there's people there or not.

Hope this is helpful!
Cheers.

[Trollsbane]

Thanks for putting accurate info out there. =)

[Deleted]

Should lock it and sticky else it's going to look like the other PvP thread soon.

[Fermin]

Didn't I see that some DAoC developers came to bioware? I wonder if they will have RvR?

[Deleted]

Didn't I see that some DAoC developers came to bioware? I wonder if they will have RvR?

Elaborate what you mean with RvR as it can mean different things to different people.

[Srg56]

One of the top things on our list for post launch is a rated Warzone system where players can form teams, earn team ratings, earn individual ratings, as well as participate in tournaments, etc.

Oh dear lord here we go again. Why don't they learn from the mistakes blizzard made.
If this makes it into the game, i pray that their "this game was built with pvp in mind" excuse will really pay off. I don't mind people growing their weeners with ratings and shiny purples, i just mind when nerfs affect my game because of a minority that needs to be catered to due to money.

If this turns into another nerf bat merry-go-round joke of a game i'm done with MMOs for a while.

Thank you for your post Smithe, i wasn't aware of this.

[Thatfire]

Oh dear lord here we go again. Why don't they learn from the mistakes blizzard made.
If this makes it into the game, i pray that their "this game was built with pvp in mind" excuse will really pay off. I don't mind people growing their weeners with ratings and shiny purples, i just mind when nerfs affect my game because of a minority that needs to be catered to due to money.

If this turns into another nerf bat merry-go-round joke of a game i'm done with MMOs for a while.

Thank you for your post Smithe, i wasn't aware of this.

Im pretty sure it will not be required to do these to get the best PvP rewards so you dont have to participate in these unless you want to.

[Zachyveng]

Oh dear lord here we go again. Why don't they learn from the mistakes blizzard made.
If this makes it into the game, i pray that their "this game was built with pvp in mind" excuse will really pay off. I don't mind people growing their weeners with ratings and shiny purples, i just mind when nerfs affect my game because of a minority that needs to be catered to due to money.

If this turns into another nerf bat merry-go-round joke of a game i'm done with MMOs for a while.

Thank you for your post Smithe, i wasn't aware of this.

Along with what Thatfire said, they're also making it to where moves perform different things based upon if you're using them against players or NPCs. An example would be that in PvE a tank's taunt would work like normal, in PvP it reduces damage the damage of the person it was casted on, unless that person is attacking the tank. They've also stated that tank's Guard ability works similarly. (but I don't know exactly what that ability does in PvE so I'm going to just leave it there)

[Deleted]

I vote for a sticky very good clear and factual information. Good job.

[RAFFLES]

Updated the original post with :

Q: Will there be any kind of arena system? If so, which brackets will it support?

A: ‘Arena System’ has come to mean two different things depending on the context: Single Elimination PvP game mode and Ranking/Tournament Systems. Whether or not we add that game mode to The Old Republic’s current lineup (domination, assault and bombing run) is TBD.

[Ap0calypse]

Along with what Thatfire said, they're also making it to where moves perform different things based upon if you're using them against players or NPCs. An example would be that in PvE a tank's taunt would work like normal, in PvP it reduces damage the damage of the person it was casted on, unless that person is attacking the tank. They've also stated that tank's Guard ability works similarly. (but I don't know exactly what that ability does in PvE so I'm going to just leave it there)

Thank you for posting this, it means PvP *can* be balanced without affecting PvE, something Blizzard refuses to implement to fix the class imbalance problem.

[RAFFLES]

An important point to note is that rated PvP will not provide the best PvP gear just because its "rated". BioWare's Lead Designer has stated that they do not want to force people to do stuff and therefore all forms of PvP will reward equal gear.

Warzones and World PvP both will give the best PvP gear and rated warzones will probably provide other items ( titles, visual stuff, different coloured PvP gear, mounts etc).

[RAFFLES]

Sticky this thread!