The much-anticipated behemoth Patch 1.2 is finally here!
The Good
- The UI customization is excellent
- Game performance seems significantly improved
- The addition of Recruit PVP gear provides a viable option for fresh 50s to get decently geared quickly
Since SWTOR launched back in December, the UI has been the main source of criticism across the playerbase. The new Interface Editor provides a high degree of customization, is usable and intuitive, and allows for sharing of the UI settings across characters. My only nitpick is that it lacks “snap-to” functionality for aligning interface elements. But overall, big thumbs up.
Tip: make sure to turn on your Target of Target frame in the Interface Editor. You can do this by clicking on the Target of Target frame and checking the Enabled box.
The other sticking point for many players pre-1.2 has been the poor or inconsistent game performance. Players suffered from low / inconsistent FPS, lag in populated areas, and issues related to animations and their timing. In 1.2, the game performance is significantly better – the game plays faster.
I’m glad the Recruit PVP gear was added to the game, as fresh 50s were cannon fodder pre-1.2. Of course, not all fresh 50s will have or be willing to fork out the ~320k credits to buy the whole set. But the option is there at least for those who can afford it and want to help their team.
The Bad
- Ranked Warzones were delayed
- The PVP commendation rewards are out-of-whack with the cost of PVP consumables
- 9 of the 14 War Hero gear slots require the corresponding Battlemaster piece
PVP fans have been eagerly waiting for Ranked Warzones (RWZs), so it was disappointing to hear just 2 days before the Patch went live that RWZs were being delayed. That being said, as I wrote earlier, the planned temporary “flexible” and “mixed” matchmaking systems were unattractive, as they respectively paired solo-queued players against premades and RWZ-queued players against non-RWZ-queued players. In addition, these matchmaking systems did not address the real underlying issue: some servers have low populations and there is no cross-server queueing functionality. I am relieved that BioWare pulled the plug on RWZs instead of going live with those matchmaking systems and risk having them flop out of the gate – especially after the failure with World PVP in Ilum.
The PVP commendations rewarded from warzones no longer cover the cost of actively using warzone medpacs and warzone adrenals because of 3 synergistic factors:
- The amount of warzone commendations earned from matches (particularly losses) has been reduced, and
- The cost of the warzone medpacs and adrenals has doubled (10->20), and
- The cooldown for these consumables has been cut in half (180->90 seconds)
Some of my guildees are getting around this by relying on their re-usable Biochem medpac, which is great if you went Biochem. While some folks stockpiled PVP consumables pre-1.2, many players will experience a commendations deficit per warzone if they use 4+ consumables per match.
Most of the War Hero gear pieces require the corresponding Battlemaster piece to trade-in. This is fine for players who only play 1 spec, play classes where there aren’t multiple viable sets to choose from, or already have all the Battlemaster pieces from various sets that they might use. And keep in mind that Battlemaster pieces are competing for the same commendations that are used to purchase the overpriced PVP consumables.
The Ugly
- The quality of the PVP experience experience has suffered due to much lower Time-to-Kill (TTK)
- Class balance is heading in the wrong direction
I hadn’t played on the 1.2 PTS due to the lack of character copy (there’s no way I’m going to re-level a character on a test server, that’s rubbish), but my guess was that TTK in 1.2 was going to be roughly the same or higher (due to the number of nerfs to burst damage and talents across classes, and Expertise scaling). For whatever reason (lower Endurance on gear, gap between damage and mitigation provided by Expertise, etc), the opposite is the case. TTK is down dramatically, and this has taken away SWTOR’s best attribute in PVP: drawn-out fights that allow for tactical gameplay. Fully-geared Battlemaster players melt under any kind of focus fire. PVP is now a gibfest.
Since November and up through 1.1.5, I have stated that SWTOR had the best class balance of the major MMORPGs. Of course, the balance was not perfect, but I thought BioWare was taking the wise approach from 1.0->1.1.5 of incrementally making class changes to improve balance. However, in 1.2 BioWare decided to make multiple, significant changes to 7 of the 8 Advanced Classes. In my gaming experience, so many class changes at once has rarely produced a positive overall outcome (with the exception of WoW’s Cataclysm expansion, which streamlined talent trees and added new class mechanics).
In 1.1.5, here is what I thought was overpowered in PVP and needed to be looked at in future patches:
- 31-pt Shadow / Assassin tanks had it all: high survivability (Resilience, Deflection, plus self-healing), high mobility, very good damage, good debuffs, and Guard
- Sentinels / Marauders had too much on-demand survivability and the best group buffs in the game
- The friendly pull and sprint for Sages / Sorcs gave them a significant tactical advantage in group PVP, especially compared to the other 2 healing ACs
- Assault Spec Vanguards / Pyrotech Powertechs had too much burst capability due to Ionic Accelerator / Particle Prototype Accelerator proc’ing multiple times in a short window
- Scrapper Scoundrels / Concealment Operatives could easily gib people in smaller-scale fights (although they faced the same issue that other Rogue classes have faced in longer-scale combat)
- Commando / Bounty Hunter healers were too mana efficient
Of the above issues, the latter 3 were changed in 1.2 but the first 3 were not. Sentinel / Marauder was buffed and Shadow / Assassin tanks were untouched. Simply put, the class balance in 1.2 is the worst I’ve seen since the game was launched, and I no longer believe SWTOR’s class balance is positively differentiated from other games on the market.
Closing Thoughts
I’m getting a sense of déjà vu: the sweeping changes in SWTOR 1.2 remind me of the sweeping changes in RIFT 1.5 and 1.6, in terms of having a negative impact on the quality of PVP. Yes, I know 1.2 went live yesterday, but I’ve been fairly accurate in projecting the impacts of live changes in the past.
I greatly enjoyed PVP in SWTOR from Beta through 1.1.5, even with the bugs and issues, because those are par-for-the-course with any new game. I am, simply put, bummed and disappointed with the PVP in 1.2. Things that were “broken” in terms of class balance were not addressed, and many things that were fine are now “broken” – and I mean in terms of how they work not bugs. I’m also concerned with the shift from careful, pinpoint class tweaking to across-the-board class changes. Is this going to happen again post-1.2, like it did with RIFT in 1.6?
P.S.:
- If you play a Vanguard / Powertech, give me some time to sort out the changes
- I haven’t had a chance to try my Gunslinger in PVP yet
- I’m not planning on re-rolling as Shadow or leveling my 20 Sentinel, although both are fun classes and are very strong
- Yes, I know Guild Wars 2 is coming, and yes, I pre-ordered it on April 10th as you probably did too. And yes, I know TERA early access on live is happening later this month. It doesn’t change the fact that I’ve been a huge SWTOR fan and want the game to flourish. The more games that are successful, the better it is for gamers and for the industry
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A Fair Distribution would be:
1/3 of the rewards should come from your 8 cap commendations
1/3 of the rewards should come from winning the game
1/3 of the rewards should come from participation.
That is based on no research or complex math of any kind.
I just had a thought, and I was wondering what other people would think about it.
What if Bioware were to remove gear effects from warzone PVP?
Upon entering into a WZ an AC would get normalized to a certain baseline value which would in turn be tweaked based upon what spec the AC was using.
PVP gear could still exist, it would carry similar stats to the appropriate level PVE gear, but with different more PVP-centric set bonuses like they already do. The stats would be competitive for open world or PVE applications.
I think the biggest problem was that most of these class changes are amplified at max level. And with character copy to the PTS being pretty limited (I only heard about them towards the end of the testing cycle) it’s really hard to get accurate data on how so many class changes are going to affect balance.
I agree that a lot of stuff should probably be rolled back. Will it happen… probably not, and if it does it most likely won’t be as fast as people want. My first impressions of the commendations change for the losing side was that it was to combat the afk/warzone leechers (in lieu of a working reporting feature)… but instead of punishing the guilty, it’s a sweeping pentalty for everyone on the team.
Like you said, surgically changing things here and there has much less disruption on enjoyable gameplay than broad, sweeping changes.
You can adapt to any change… or just move on. Those are our options. I ve been playing the most underrated and underplayed class (sniper) already and with success at that too. So i am adaptive despite anyone else says.
But the latest 1.2 patch, as its current states ensures to drive away more fresh PvP players than it would attract surely. Or at best it will lead to a monotype of a single-class (or bi-class) domination throughout the servers. Once you get the diversity and tactics out of the PvP, even the laziest “i wants it all!” type PvP player will fed up with the mechanics and leave.
In my opinion this last patch mechanics (if they stay as they are) are a sure ticket to ghost-town PvP zones/ Servers. Because with the new reward system the gap will get wider and wider beyond an untolerable point for the new PvPers.
Having said that i (or many of us mature, cool headed PvP players) can adapt to changes, the real question is: “Should we even try? to adapt to a system that is destined to fail at its current state?”
Regards to all of you and thanks for the review lad.
Here is a pretty thought provoking collection of posts I saw by FireSomething on the forums(warning, I haven’t checked the math on this so I can’t attest to how fuzzy or not it is):
“I’ve been seeing a lot of dubious math considering the changes to expertise in patch 1.2 so I would like to post my take on what the goal of the changes actually are for 1.2.
I’m making one assumption on how the damage calculation works: expertise is multaplicative.
Thus the formula for deriving how much damage you take is based on the following formula:
(AttackDmg)*(1+AttackExp)*(1-DefExp)*(1-DmgReduction) = DmgRecieved
And for the sake of argument I will be ignoring armor/resistance because they are unaffected by expertise. So that leaves the formula as:
(AttackDmg)*(1+AttackExp)*(1-DefExp) = AdjustedDmgRecieved
So pre-1.2 the battlemaster gear gave ~11% to all three categories. So pluging this into the formula as % values we find that expertise was behaving this way for the values of expertise that were available.
(100)*(1.11)*(1-0.11) = 98.79%
If they had just relaxed the dmr curve for expertise and allowed the pvp bonuses to grow evenly ending up with new battlemaster gear giving 22% to all three. It would lead to damage being reduced across the board in fights between similarly geared players.
(100)*(1.22)*(1-0.22) = 95.16%
Now I assume everyone is now thinking, “so what does it matter if everyone’s damage is reduced?”
the problem comes from the fact that healers would also be putting out 22% more healing. Healing is unchecked by pvp bonuses.
With the new values of the pvp buff what is indeed happening is that the damage is being brought closer inline to what people thought was happening with expertise pre-1.2. Dulfy has an excellent chart in this article detailing the gearing changes. http://dulfy.net/2012/03/22/pvp-gearing-in-1-2/
With the new values of expertise on BM gear (22% dmg, 18% reduction) the cancelling is indeed happening like it was before 1.2.
(100)*(1+0.22)*(1-0.18) = 100.04%
For WH gear the same is true.
(100)*(1+0.24)*(1-0.195) = 99.82%
So as these two curves continue the stats do indeed cancel each other when two characters with equal amounts of expertise are fighting each other 1v1.
Since this is getting kind of long I’ll break this into a few posts.
Summary: The new damage curves actually lead to 2 characters at equal levels of expertise doing exactly 100% of their pre-buffed damage to each other as the expertise buff cancel with the new dmr curves.
Next I’ll take a look at what happens when characters of different gear levels meet each other 1v1.
This post is going to be short and focus on the input/output differential for players of unequal gear levels fighting 1v1. Again I’ll be using Dulfy’s graph that I linked in my last post for approximate values.
This will just be a list of the % dmg received in the case of [Player 1] ->(attacks) [Player 2] and using the buff values as follows:
Dmg Reduc
WH: 24% 19.5%
BM: 22% 18%
Rec: 18% 15.5%
WH -> BM: 101.68%
BM -> WH: 98.21%
Diff: +- 3.47%
WH -> Rec: 104.78%
Rec -> WH: 94.99%
Diff: +- 9.79%
BM -> Rec: 103.09%
Rec -> BM: 96.76%
Diff: +- 6.33%
Then in the case of fighting a fully pve geared player the differentials are as follows:
WH -> PVE: 43.5%
BM -> PVE: 40%
Rec -> PVE: 33.5%
So in the case that you are wearing a full set of pvp gear that is obtainable in 1.2 you will never be at more than a 10% disadvantage expertise buff-wise, but it makes PvE gear completely non-viable for PvP which was BioWare’s stated goal. This is not much of an entrance barrier to a new 50 if they plan ahead and buy gear pieces as they level to use when they hit 50.
Now the reason they reduced healing or rather did not increase it by much is because healing in pvp is unchecked by anything that a character can do except for stat inflation. Thus the PvP healing curve needed to be reduced to reflect what BioWare felt the increase in damage output sans expertise buff would be. This allows the game to have a PvP gearing dependency that creates a large zero-sum arms race.
The nerfs that they gave to Merc/Comm and Sorc/Sage seem to be intended to bring them more in line with where Ops/Scound were pre-patch. From my experience in PvP fighting a BH/Comm that was in full BM gear require 2-3 people to kill depending on the skill of the dps and the timing of interrupts. Good sorcs/sages could easily achieve this as well. Ops/Scound on the other hand could be killed with 1-2 good dps interrupting/stunning intelligently. This is without the assistance of a tank or other dps.
With a tank Merc/Comm were able to tank 4-5 dps without dying. (Maybe only 3-4 well geared/skilled players). That is over half of a WZ team.
But by nerfing the resource management of Merc/Sorc it brings them more in line for PvP, and by not inflating pvp healing increases to offset anything other than stat inflation they make sure they don’t get to a point where healers are nearly immortal again.
But with the way expertise is working now is not making the fights shorter. Between 2 evenly geared players they will take exactly the same amount of time as they did pre-patch as long as the increases to endurance on the PvP gear matches the stat inflation on the other gear.
A lot of people that are perceiving the fights taking a shorter amount of time are most likely having trouble with a spec that was changed in the patch or they are trying to PvP in PvE gear which is not something that BioWare wants to encourage.
If you mainly PvE it should be easy to pick up enough PvP gear through the recruit vendor to be competitive. What it stops is people that mainly PvE coming into PvP and rolling people that primarily PvP because the gear is the same or better. It offers two different progression paths with a low barrier to entry to each but a time investment goal to the player in each path. This is the fundamental way that MMO games work. They give you a progression path usually gear wise that you work through with a combination of skill and time investment where skill usually reduces the time investment required.
WZ comm payout is a little low compared to the usefulness of the gear you get from it, and that some of the healing changes may have been a little harsh. But if the sky is indeed falling BioWare will most likely see it and catch it as they have with quite a few other things in this game so far. ”
I’m not saying I agree or disagree with what he is saying exactly I just thought that he expresses his thoughts well and so far has been the only reasonable counter arguement to the kind of “sky is falling” posts that have cropped up on the pvp forums.
P.S.: I am in NO WAY saying this blog post is a “sky is falling” kind of post.
I have to admit after they brought the servers up today it seems to be a lot different. I am actually not dying after 3 or 4 seconds and my TTL has gone up a lot. I dunno if they screwed something up yesterday and didn’t have something switched on, but it seems like night and day compared to yesterday. I have only tried one match so far so it maybe different in other matches.
May I ask you what your thoughts are on Commandos in general.
They seemed squishy before 1.2 (obviously heals could keep them standing) now their armor feels like its made out of tissue paper and have no survivability.
I personally cannot take on anything melee 1 on 1.
As for the healing efficiency. You have to remember too as a commando, im either healing your or healing me. Cant really do both due to damage output, we dont have a bubble like Sorcs/Sages to mitigate and trauma probe was to weak a heal. I dont think the efficiency was an issue really as we are kinda the paladin healers of SWTOR.
Broke my heart but I unsubbed a few weeks ago.
For some reason the problem of low population servers is lower on the totem pole for BW, even though it has rendered the game nearly unplayable to those of us on low pop servers. After all the time and effort I’ve put in, I have no inclination to reroll on Fatman like everyone else and do it all again.
The negatives here, and in particular I find TTK and the blatant gear-grind obstacles the most egregious, just made me remember why I cancelled my account. It’s no longer fun.
As with Rift, I really enjoyed playing SWTOR, so I hope they are able to make a think a little harder about the changes they are making. Until then, Diablo 3, TERA and GW2 just seem more fun, and I’m here to have fun, not work a second job.
I play a Powertech Tank. Since 1.2 there is no longer any need for people to focus me. A single Knight/Marauder can destroy me even with a focused healer aiding me. This means that healers have little hope for protection. Mt spec is only viable in PvE now as PvP has become a gibfest.
It seems as though there are no real functions for classes now outside of preferred gameplay. As a Tank PvP is boring. You deal very little damage and you cannot take much more than most other classes. You can no longer survive a 2 V 1 situation long enough to receive aid from allies. Healers cannot keep up with dmg output anymore.
As far as gear goes, I am utterly dissapointed. After grinding and grinding for Battlemaster rank so I can finally get the top tier of PvP gear, it is no longer top tier. The recruit gear is better EXP than the champion gear I had. I have to now grind WZ comms for Battlemaster gear, just so I can gring more comms for War Hero gear? All this while needing to spend more of the same comms on pots? Not to mention that I average 30 comms per WZ now even with 17 medals! The Battlemaster comms that I saved trying to get 3-comm gear can only be traded for a PvP crafting material. Daily PvP quests reward 99 wz comms and 99 RWZ comms. Quess what? Weekly PvP quests reward 99 WZ comms and 99 RWZ comms. That is 16 completable quests each week for 1584 RWZ comms. It will take you about 15 weeks to get full War Hero gear; that is while we wait for RWZs to be implemented.
BioWare has stated many times that SWTOR is a story and PvE game. PvP is secondary and they treat it as such. Every “update” they make is focused on dragging people into the story content, creating multiple “alts”, etc. Open world PvP is…umm…a small free-for-all area on Tatooine?
I too play a Powertech tank using the Iron Fist spec. After the patch have now respecced to Pyro as ceing a tank was not viable. I barely took longer to take down and could not do enough damage to make a difference. It’s a real shame as we were just getting really interested in SWTOR over the past few weeks. I hope BW fixes some of these issues sooner rather than later.
Well, we are trying to give this game another try with 1.2. Decide to try the PvP, which was fine before IMO, but now it’s not even worth the stress.
Don’t know what is the problem at Bioware but they have the wrong idea about how MMOs.
I need to stop posting on Iphones…
They nerf the surge during 1.1 series patch while TTK was to low, now I am dying inside of 3s with 1.2 PVP
I tought the purpose of this patch to create a difference between PVE gear and PVP gear with more expertise so people will not use PVP gear PVE purpose…..
So extreme change of TTK is consequence of it while they didn’t apply the formulas correctly and it was the main purpose that was never communicated….
I am lost, in 1.2 PVP I am stun locked and dead in 3 s, pre 1.2 I had a chance to counter act, now who ever Zerg the other side wins.
I don’t know I ever bother to PVP, I was planning to level my Alts with PVP but with losers gets nothing philosophy it is not possible, I will not way play the class story again and again…..
If this is a strategy to force people leveling with PVE and sub longer, it is going to backfire…..
If I all of the thing I am citing are consequences instead of main purpose, it is much worst then I tought and MMO company that has no clue about its own mechanics….
I am not big MMO player but I am Star Wars fan it will break my heart that another SW games fails like this….
A very accurate post, as always. A couple comments:
I agree the PvP medpaks and adrenals seem overpriced compared to our comm income. Otoh, I like the balance because it creates a real choice between using them to win, or gearing up. Also, it gives an advantage to optimised players who have no gear to grind for, but (when time comes) ranking to gain. They have the small advantage of being able to afford to use pvp medpaks, a kind of “gear advantage”.
31 pt Assassins are definately hugely OP in huttball. On the three other WZs, I am quite confident my pyro Powertech is contributing more than them, all things considered. Overall, imo, it balances out. If so, this may be why they’re untouched. (whether we’re both overpowered compared to the average AC is another matter :)
oh wussup taug!Bw finally nerfed bh and ia a bit and u starting waging whining-war on them? If u wanna go play guild wars 2 and tetra then go ahead-by all means. Cant rly say we will miss u-Cause lets be real here for a sec-Why are u doing all this? u know the blogs about all those mmorpgs(wow,rift and now lotro), in which u provide ppl with info and hints on how to play their class efficiently in pvp. Do u do it as a gesture of good faith? Cause u rly wanna help these guys? Or maybe cause of the money u make out of it!?:P Lets face it u earn huge sums of cash per month by donations, adds, ur t-shirt and so on and so forth stuff that ure selling..Thats why u dedicate such portion of ur free time in all this-for the money. And when 1 game stops attracting u and going towards the direction where u want it to go, u leave it carrying tons of ppl(ur so called-fans) in the next mmoprg who will prolly do as u wish and wont fail u. U gotta accept that vanguard/powertechs were insanly op and had to be nerfed sometime- they couldnt be killed in1v1-bubble with only 2min cd, sick burst dmg, tons of ccs, heavy armor- wtf!abundant oh-crap skills and usee where this is going..
I started writing Guides in 2005.
I started making narrated videos in 2008.
I created this blog as the home for my content in 2009.
I didn’t receive monetization on my YouTube channel until Oct 2011.
I didn’t start streaming on TwitchTV until Nov 2011.
I didn’t have any ads on taugrim.com until Feb 2012.
So basically, I’ve been providing content for about 7 years, and only in the last 0.5 years did I earn a single penny from any of it.
I write Guides and provide content because of I love sharing information, correcting misconceptions, and dialoguing about game design and mechanics with other players.
If you want to believe that my primary motivation is money, that’s up to you.
I wish I were making “huge sums of cash per month”.
I play games because they are fun for me. When they are heading south or no longer fun, I look for something else to play.
I learned from my experience with Warhammer Online, which I played for 12 months despite watching most of my friends and guildees stop playing it within the first 6 months, that it’s too depressing and discouraging to continue sticking with a game when I know that it’s dying.
SWTOR is not at that stage yet, but 1.2 is a significant step in the wrong direction. If you read the dozens of comments on this article, a lot of people agree.
And if what you wrote is true, I’d be playing and blogging about League of Legends, which is by far and away the fastest growing and most popular game.
Again, I play games because I enjoy them. It’s that simple.
Assault Spec Vanguards (Pyrotech Powertechs) were very strong 1v1, although there were a 3 classes with better counter-mechanics that would beat them consistently assuming equal gear and skill.
Really no need to respond to these kind of posts, Ed. Something about pigs and mud… and most pigs have better punctuation.
Understood.
I do think it’s sometimes worth the time to nip inaccurate perceptions in the bud, as they say.
dont get me all wrong taugrim-i’ve been watching ur progress since wow and i may say that i was captivated by ur effort and u work in general- But lets face it u always pick the opest class in an mmo and provide hints just for it lol- Paladins were/still are the opest class in wow and correct me if i am wrong but last time i checked u were playing a pally back then:P Anyways man everybody is entitled to his own opinion and that is mine. What did u expect? to have vanguard as it is forever? it was ridiculously op and a class that required no skill at all to be played- flame thrower i think was and flame jet or smth imo sick…u could actually spam these and get plentiful kills.. Plus u selling t-shirts for 27 euros or so which is pure scam! t-shirt on its own costs like 2 euros on a good store in my country-seemingly u must have a sort of a provisions guy who sells them to u for like 0,5 each or even less. These prints cost no morethan 5euros if u go do it by ur own – so total 7euros- And again u will have a guy who does this for 2,5 or so- total 3 euros imao- half price than a genuine one.. And u actually sell them for 27 plus shipping cost..But ofc there always will be suckers around to buy them so:P
Agreeing most part of the article, but why is sentinel’s group buff overpowered in pvp?
imo its not that the group buff is OP, its that sentinels/maraduars get so many kick ass group buffs. we get transcendence, inspiration, passive heals as watchman (although weak, they do add up, i had 100k healing in a voidstar match once), heal debuff, on top of already very strong damage.
Youre about as dumb as rocks, the man ain’t whining about a particular class. He’s stating the obvious about the state of pvp as a whole. Taug puts out quality stuff and he does it because he enjoys it not because he has alternative motives of a fortune 500 company. Come on man pull your fanboy head out your arse.
The thing I find most baffling is the changes to the rewards and costs of pvping.
Looking at pre 50 characters it looks like BW is trying to discourage poeple from leveling through pvp. Fewer rewards, encreased prices. Taking away the Valour equirement on
the first two tiers of pvp armor so you can into them quicker as a fresh lvl50.
It’s like they said: ”PvP is all well and good, but we made this wonderfull pve leveling experience. Go experience it!”
After that it has become a game of maximizing your commendation gain instead of maximizing your play. You can use that medpack to try and squeeze the most out of your play during a loosing game, but it might end up giving you a net loss in commendations. Do that often enough and you’ll be broke. Then you can’t use medpacks even if you wanted to. (Unless you’ve got Biochem as your proffesion, which I do believe is something they wanted to get away from with previous patches)
This seems counter productive towards pvp being competative to me aswell as encourages people to leave matches that their team are loosing.
While thinking about how to phrase my thoughts about this I started thinking about competition, sport and e-sport and came to the conclusion that many MMO’s/Games can’t be classified as a sport (e-sport) because a large section of gamers/game developers are somehow of the mindset that winning means you get an advantage over your opponent the next time the two of you meet.
Does winning the Superbowl mean you get to play with a better football next season?
The increased price for pre-50 pvp gears and the fewer comms gained when you lose is a bad move on BW’s part. Now the weapon’s costs have almost doubled, it’s ridiculous. Maybe they did that so people would buy crafted gears instead? I don’t know but I still think it’s a bad idea.
err correction:the weapon cost went from 580 comm to 900. It’s still a significant increase.
I’ve not personally noticed a reduction in TTK however the extreme reduction in warzone rewards for the losing side really worries me to the point where I feel I’m wasting my time.
Add to that the fact that someone at Bioware thought that giving ZERO rewards for a warzone ,under any circumstance, and I’m now really concerned for the future of PvP in this game.
The fact that PvPers just got a new war zone and a new gear grind feels like just an obvious CARROT to me. Couple that with all the annoying changes to the classes and stats just makes pvp in swtor GRINDY & FRUSTRATING rather then fun or competitive.
OK, after two days, I’ll give my final verdict of 1.2 PvP system.
Basically it composes of two parts.
1) Gear is the dominant factor that determines winning or losing.
2) The main reward for participating in warzones is better PvP gear, but when you lose, you get little to no reward.
and that is, by dictionary definition, catch 22.
And that, I think, is a problem with any game that has (especially PvE) gear progression.
Hope GW2 can invent something new. I can only hope.
After reading this blog post and all the comments I am glad I stopped playing a month ago. That ranked WZs didn’t make it into the patch and Bioware withholding that information until a day before deploying the patch speaks volumes. Guess they are in panic mode due to plummeting subscription numbers.
Well, pre-purchased GW2 and I am sure it will put the final nail into SWTORs PvP coffin. If this game didn’t have the Star Wars IP people would turn away laughing hysterically.
You are sadly mistaken. I can understand that you do not agree with what Taugrim has posted…and to be fair it IS his opinion. However, an objective mind would see that he did not “whine” about anything. He simply stated his premise and supported his observations with facts. Is this not the way to submit a review?
Bounty Hunters/Troopers were never OP. There were simple problems that allowed them to be more effective than intended. Tracer Missile/Grav Round spamming and the high frequency of Rail Shot/High Impact Bolt procs which reset this ability obviously needed to be addressed; and Taugrim pointed this out in earlier reviews and guides.
Imperial Agents/Smugglers also need a bit of tweaking. First to eliminate their ability to “Double Tap” as well as their Stealth burst capability.
This argument can be made for most of the classes. However, there is a difference between “tweeking” classes in order to create a more balanced PvP experience and committing to a full spectrum change. Rather than fixing a system that needed only a bit of TLC, they have created entirely new problems that will take them months to sort out. For a game still in its early stages, this move does not bode well for future changes and/or “fixes.”
The “new” system favors DPS over strategy, utility, and skill. Rather than concentrated team-effort and tactical engagement it is a matter of “who can kill the other team first.”
I generally do not like to make negative comments about other people’s opinions, but in the case of your reply I feel obligated to state the following:
Your comment cannot be classified as an opinion. It is a simple troll post. If your attitude is an indication as to the majority “opinion” of SWTOR “fan boys” then the game is truly doomed. I bet you laugh when you are able to gib other players, but you also whine and cry when you are gibbed. You probably troll the internet searching for ways to cheat your way to victory because you are too insecure with your own ability to become a truly competitive and competent PvPer. I would not doubt that you have your own blog begging BioWare to implement your single button “instant-death” ability.
I would ask you if it ever gets lonely on the sidelines watching other people play will skill and mastery, but it seems that the sidelines are full of other trollers like you.
BTW, this was a reply to Ezel.
As a tanking Jugg I actually found that I was lasting, on average, longer than before, but only when I pop all my CDs. Without them I feel a hell of a lot more squishy than I did pre 1.2 (and that’s saying something, even pre 1.2 I hated by over reliance to CDs to survive without a healer). The only saving grace so far has been the fact a lot of the people I have been up against have only had recruit gear.
I can’t help but feel the change to healing was needed though. They were way to effective when properly organised and all of the old WZs could be steam rolled by healer heavy groups (score and ball hog in HB, heavily defensive play in both Voidstar and ACW). Having said that they did slingshot it in the other direction this time around, although I suspect this isn’t a case of lack of healing, but that there is way to much damage flying around. Especially now I am seeing a lot more Maras and Sins around.
As for the class changes; the new heal is a lifesaver, but I do find myself more prone to rage starvation. That’s not really a complaint though, pre 1.2 I never had issues with rage and it I often forgot it was even part of my class. So its good to see I’m having to manage it more carefully than before.
The one thing I wish they would change is my reliance on CDs. The only time I feel like a tank is when I have all of them off CD, without them I’m nothing more than a slightly less squishy DPS that hits like a fly.
On a PvP side note I would love to know what people think about PvP exp legacy bonus coming in 1.3 and not 1.2. I stupidly assumed it would be in this patch and the lack of it has, surprisingly, really pissed me off. That may sound strange, but I would love to level another class and PvP is by far my most preferred way. The only thing stopping me so far is the small amount of exp gained through WZ passed level 30. The fact I have to wait yet another patch just to gain some assistance with that grind is infuriating.
hehe taug u, ure good^^ A clever person never himself in business just out of sudden! He takes time to test his product, see how the crowd and the potential buyers respond it-are they interested, are they not? do they like it-would they like more on it? and then by taking into account all these u start to move on- What determines a clever business man is his patience and his passion about his job-and allow me to say that u have them both tag. And a clever business man never starts expanding too fast-he waits he gives it some time and he plays his most powerful card:time! in the end.That if he wants to be successful.And thats exactly what u did. U started out a few years ago like u already mentioned-back when mmorpgs were firstly being introduce and gamers werent in the same numbers as they are today and u began writing guides etc in order to attract ppl’s interest and make them become ur fans- U spent years manipulating their minds up to a point when if someone was to say something slandering/bad about u-they would rush at him and him.And it seems that u have achieved that as well-And nowadays while we are going through this massive and harsh financial crisis u are carrying out ur plan and start raising money for the future :P Cause come on dont tell me that these adds which show up while ure live-streaming dont pay u off at all or that u dont make at least a 600% profit out of these t-shirts and whatever else u re selling:P Cause like i said if i were to go to a store i would pay 2 euros for the t-shirt and like another 5 for the print- but u will be paying way less apparently like 3 euros- by selling them for 27euros – u make at least a 600% profit.So dude dont try cover this up.
This has f* all to do with 1.2? Take your envy and your grudge elsewhere, dude. If you don’t like what he has to say, write a counterpoint (something better than your stupid little diatribe about how tanks shouldn’t do damage (news flash – every tank class has a dps tree – you should see a Vig guardian if you think a dps vanguard has sick dps).
If you think the author is taking advantage of someone, do it yourself and do it better. And if you don’t like him making money, just don’t buy the damn t-shirt, don’t watch the stream, don’t contribute to the readership. It’s that simple.
Let me point out a couple things before I begin to address the so-called “points” you feel you have made in your post. First, if you are going to make a post, and expect others to read it, make it legible. Your use of punctuation (or lack thereof) as well as your grammar and spelling is atrocious. Fragmented sentences, run-on sentences, etc make it difficult to understand what you are trying to say.
Secondly, before you can spout the mnemonics of business you must first understand them. In the real world, people who possess a skill usually create a business model supporting that skill to get paid for it. At least Taugrim has found something that he enjoys doing and possesses a talent for. If he chooses to make it a career opportunity, I say congratulations! His “guides” are not misleading and speak the harsh truth whether it angers some people or not. That is to be respected and commended. The moment Taugrim decides to “sell out” by making false reviews at the behest of some contributing organization, he will loose credibility with me, and many other people who follow his blog.
Your post sounds like you are upset because you cannot afford a Taugrim t-shirt. I know many people, myself included, are under financial stress during these hard times but simply ask rather that insult. If you really want a Taugrim t-shirt let me know. I would be more than happy to buy you one.
It is painfully transparent that you have an agenda with these nonsensical “I can read Taugrim’s mind” trolls. The only reason you are back is because you managed to bait Taugrim into actually replying to you. Guess what? That lends no credence what so ever to your poorly constructed, barely legible “ballon juice”. Everyone here with a little brain-matter can see this and I would hope that Taugrim will just ignore you or, better yet, block you from posting.
Or, hoping against hope, you might just fuck off on your own. We can always dream I guess.
You’re just a BOY. Your TShirt math is flawed, now get to bed before your “mum”catches you on her computer.
Great write-up on everything that i’ve been seeing on the forums regarding the 1.2 release – expecially regarding the TTK issue. I’m a LOTRO vet and was really happy that the PVP in SWTOR had a similar feel ( and speed ) as LOTRO 1v1’s, where strategy and mechanics, used correctly over a period of time, won more matches over who could blow-up the other person the quickest.
I actually haven’t played 1.2 on my Sorc yet, because as soon as I read the blog post about RWZs, SWTOR was uninstalled from my computer and then after watching the PVP forums i felt no reason to reinstall or resub.
Good luck to ya Taugrim and everyone else from AP that’s posted here. I had a blast PVPing on that server, and SWTOR PVP prior to 1.2, and hope to see y’all in GW2 in a couple of months!
Oh by the way, I don’t know if I have seen this posted anywhere but it seems that Ion Pulse, while procing the Plasma Cell DOT, isn’t procing the snare component from the talent Sweltering Heat. However, the Plasma Cell auto-refresh from High Impact Bolt through the High Friction Bolts talent IS procing the snare from Sweltering Heat. So “refresh” (from High Friction Bolts) seems to proc snare but “trigger” (from Ionized Ignition) isn’t procing the snare. I’ve tested this out on random elite mobs. I’ll kite them spamming Ion Pulse till I proc Ion Accelerator and the Ion Pulses, while applying the Plasma Cell DOT, isn’t applying the snare from Sweltering Heat. But as soon as I pop off my Ion Accelerated High Impact Bolts they get the Sweltering Heat snare from High Friction Bolt proc.
NEVERMIND THE ABOVE, FALSE ALARM.
I think the problems I was seeing was lag related and was why I was getting inconsistencies with the Plasma Cell procs. I found the snare to VISUALLY show effect one to two seconds after the animation of Ion Pulse and therefor showed the APPEARANCE of a problem where there isn’t one. Sorry about that.
Sorry, typo of “balloon juice” got past my proof-read.
I think your summary of 1.2 is pretty much spot on. I do not agree with your comments on Shadow/Assassin tanks being OP. I play a 31/10 Trooper Vanguard Tank and a 31/10 Shadow Tank and I find both to be very comparable in damage and utility. My stats in warzones are very similar on both in terms of overall damage and protection. Sentinel/Marauders hit like trucks now which I’m ok with. They needed to put warzone rewards for the losing team back at pre 1.2 levels. As it is now the rewards for losing are way too small. There is no incentive to finish a losing warzone.
There is no balance in this game pvp wise. A sage can tank a tank, which is silly. Scoundrels still have their double tap ability, as do operatives. In pvp as a powertech I feel uber gimped especially when imps roll nothing but dps. Heals rarely happen imp side which is sad. Given heals my tank becomes god like and can last a long time, without heals he is just a lousy dps. Bioware seems to shy players away from healing for whatever reason. I ask people in warzones all the time why are you a dps sorc? “Cause I spend more time dpsing then healing, why should I heal?” Give healers rewards for healing, well better rewards then what they get currently. Get rid of the cc fest and pvp would be more fun, more action orientated. I am all for stuns but have a system set up for stun immunity, cause the resolve system is broken. All too often I go to grapple a lesser geared non attacked, no resolve on their resolve bar sorc/ sage or sin/ shadow and they just walk right through the grapple. When I run to the goal line and have a full resolve bar, I get stunned, knocked back, rooted etc. While I know resolve does not do anything against rooting, it should.
Gunslinger is slighty improved. The burst output with an ability to trama almost constantly at range allows you to burn down targets getting heals. Interrupts, trama, solid burst specials makes it more viable. we never had solid survivability to comment on staying alive rates and time to kill for us was never that appropriate. IMO it was not the same opinion on these stats if you played gunslingers.
Also, the ability to enter Cover while rooted was another very positive change, since Cover provides so many benefits, especially if you have points in Sharpshooter (Marksman).
Seems with patch 1.20c (http://www.swtor.com/patchnotes at the moment of writing) they’ve adjusted the warzone commendation reward for the loosing side. Haven’t been able to check it out yet, but I hope it is restored to the old values.
I only played in 3 warzones today (all PUG wins), so I haven’t seen how much the losing side gets. Hopefully it’s been tuned appropriately.
Lost a Warzone yesterday and still got 88 comms. Nice!
First i agree on almos everything in your blog post, but i think bioware disagrees with you, there actually are a official response on pvp forums on the time to kill issue http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=4066157#edit4066157
if im reading it right it says that bioware have changed direction for pvp.
If you read points b, c, and d they have not changed their approach. They are actually fixing things that are causing TTK to be faster than it should. The only thing they have changed in their approach is the viability of PvP and PvE gear in their particular aspects of the game. PvP is no longer viable in PvE and vice versa.
[…] As I wrote over a month ago, Patch 1.2 had a very negative effect on the quality of PVP. […]
[…] As I wrote over a month ago, Patch 1.2 had a very negative effect on the quality of PVP. […]
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