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Star Wars: The Old Republic: PvP Hands-On Preview
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
During a recent visit to EA's Redwood Shores studio for Star Wars: The Old Republic "Immersion Day", MMORPG.com Community Manager Mike Bitton had the opportunity for a hands on preview of one of the game's most closely guarded features: PvP and Warzones. See what Mike saw and check out his thoughts about PvP in the Old Republic.
Our PvP demo was set for our second day at the event, and following a successful day grouping with some of my colleagues in the press I decided to approach the rest of the group with a new plan: beat the developers at their own game. Let’s face it, they were tossing us into the deep end here with PvP and this is probably the only time the developers will be better than the players as they know their game and the Warzone better than we did. So, why not rob them of this small pleasure and add a little competitive twist to the demo?
Read more of Mike Bitton's Star Wars: The Old Republic: PvP Hands-On Preview.
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Comments
Awesom!
Sounds like a lot of fun! Can not wait to try this game with my friends.
Blizzard was highly favored to the Horde at launch. I certainly hope that Bioware does not make the same mistake.
Omg omg omg omg omg!
Thanks for the write up Mike, your enthousiasm is really contagious ^_^
The focus on tactics sounds like music to my ears. But I do wonder whether them 'Rauders aren't a little overpowered in this build. Either that or you have mad skills, that is, taking on three experienced players solo and killing two like that.
Anyway, really cool that you got to whack some devs
My brand new bloggity blog.
I hate PvP. Why? I suck. I'm a faceroller, I'll admit it. But this, this sounded fun. Normal tank abilities being useful and the resolve bar seem like a good way to liven up PvP.
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
Fantastic article. Loved hearing about it... as usual this is the first I've read, but I can only imagine the other articles will feel the same.
Heres a question Mike, when you build up CC on a player, if you don't use it on them, does it start going back down?
For example, if you are a DPS and I set someone to focus you for a little but to hold you off so I can kill a healer, but stop before you reach the CC cap, will the meter go down, and if so, about how fast did it go down?
Enjoyed the article.
Couple of questions.
1)How long were the matches taking? Were they relatively quick, and did it "feel" about right.
2) The 21-0 comment. Honestly did the Marauder feel overpowered, were the Dev's cutting you guys a break? Did anyone else come close to that? Or was it the result of working with a good team?
Yes. I don't remember how fast it went down unfortunately, sorry.
1. 10-15 minutes
2. It didn't feel overpowered. We had just come off playing together for a full day and tackled a lot of heroic content which helped us in PvP as we knew what abilities to look for and how to use them. It also helped that at least three of us playing were all avid PvPers. We were just better than they were.
The Marauder was certainly strong, but as I noted in the preview it wasn't like I was fighting alone most of the time. We'd call out targets and focus them down. In fact, just about every team fight we'd set target priorities and take them out. We'd often set targets to be CC'd out and targets to be killed immediately, all the communication and careful use of CC helped us get the upper hand. While the fact we sweeped them out makes it sound like they did terrible, the individual skirmishes were always fun and most of the time did not feel one sided.
Awsome write-up mike. sounds like a alot of fun. can't wait till sunday to here what the other mikeb has to say about it on gamebreaker
Did you find any classes on the Republic side particularly annoying for your class, or tough to kill?
The Trooper tanks! They were tough nuggets.
Excellent read as always. I'm really looking forward to this!
Just remember what ol' Jack Burton does when the earth quakes, and the poison arrows fall from the sky, and the pillars of Heaven shake. Yeah, Jack Burton just looks that big ol' storm right square in the eye and he says, "Give me your best shot, pal. I can take it."
I likey that Mikey likey.
Where is my beta key Bioware!
Awesome writeup, thanks, Mike.
Sith Marauders sounds too powerful, though. They should be preemptively nerfed!
Looking forward to gamebreaker.tv show number 39 where Fony aka 'the other MikeB' will talk with Gary about how he experienced the pvp as a Sith sorcerer, healing and kicking assas you say
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Darthater guy wasn't so terribly happy with the agent in pvp it seems.
Operative: all health pools being high / fights taking long doesn't fit a high damage - low defense, stealthy melee class so much. Looks like there will be no stunlock supported surprise buttseks like in WOW
Sniper: cover mechanic kind of awkward in pvp: you don't really want to have to stay in one position for long, but the cover mechanic forces you to do just that to use the classes' strongest abilities.
I can understand Darthhater not being as positive as our MikeB who played a Marauder.
Some interesting points even though this was just one impression. Could be that they will have to tweak the agent some more to make the class a little more viable in pvp.
My brand new bloggity blog.
*before the pvp match Daniel E cocks his head and whispers to the others, "We should go easy on them so they write a good review"*
heh, nah j/k
Sounds like you had alot of fun. Me jealous.
well he tends to prefer that high burst damage insta-kill kind of pvp like in fps
This was never more apparent then when I was trying to capture objectives solo. Once the opposing team realized I sneaked past them, I would be forced to fight by myself at the newly captured turret. I quickly found myself out of cover as melee classes converged on me and ranged classes circle strafed my position. I assumed that I would be easy prey, but my health pool was deep enough that I could put up a fight even without cover or stealth. At one point, I even managed to kite four Republic players for a good thirty seconds while using heals and line of sight tricks.
This depth of health was the only real sticking point for me with SWTOR's PVP. I personally prefer a PVP style where short burst damage and massive criticals can utterly destroy opponents. This is probably an artifact of my affinity for First Person Shooters. I love the feeling that comes from catching a target unawares and decimating them. Unfortunately for yours truly, that was not the style of combat seen in The Old Republic.
PVP combat in SWTOR felt more like an MMO boss fight, where players needed to use every skill in their arsenal, and found the greatest success when working as a team.
sniper:
My skills made fighting in the center of the map a great deal of fun. The Alderaan Warzone tended to funnel combat oriented players to the center of the map, and provided a great deal of distraction. This constant distraction let me set up shop behind Portable Cover or on one of the second story balconies and rain destruction on the Republic forces. This was made even more fun by the increase damage power-up sitting near the balcony's sniping spot. So long as one of my teammates drew the enemy's attention, I was doing good.
The tables were quickly turned when I found myself solo or headed for the side objectives. I was always able to drop into portable cover and get one high damage attack off, but the mobility of the other classes always seemed to instantly circumvent my defenses and attack me from behind. At this point, lack of experience and instinct took over and I tried to out maneuver my attackers. In retrospect, if I relied on Entrench more then I might have stayed alive longer. However, my history of playing PVP in MMOs taught me that if I was standing still then I was as good as dead.
All in all the cover system is an unusual addition to traditional MMO PVP. It felt like an awkward system to get used to, but I was dropped into a level 20 character and an acclimation period is to be expected. I believe if someone organically earned level 20 as a cover class in The Old Republic the cover system would be second nature, and they would be much more comfortable with its roll in PVP.
I'm extremely happy that I was able to finally play PVP in The Old Republic. I personally prefer PVP focused around bigger damage and quicker kills, but I still came away feeling like the combat was fast paced and enjoyable. The odd combination of slow kills and fast paced combat really made it feel like a fairly natural evolution in the design of PVP in MMOs. It might not be the direction I hoped it would go, but I still had a good time.
Seems like he still had a good overall experience. it might not be what he prefers but personally i like the fact that agents won't be insta-killed if cuaght alone
Yeah it was positive overall. Sorry to give the wrong impression.
But still these two points regarding the agent advanced classes' viability stand out a bit for me.
My brand new bloggity blog.
i can understand that (and agree somewhat). just wanted to point some things out since some people may not take the time to read thru it
Sounds amazing, looks like this game could offer a real PvP experience if they take notes from WAR for the world PvP like they're doing with the gaurd and taunt abilities.
Let's hope the world PvP information comes soon.
We are the bunny.
Resistance is futile.
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I believe in another write-up from Darthhater said that they didn't have all the cover points in the warzone yet. So it should get better with more cover points in the future.
Nice article, I am looking forward to trying these warzones out. I am also very interested to see open world PvP and Objective areas in the open world. But I guess that will have to wait for a while.
How many people long for that "past, simpler, and better world," I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them?
R.A.Salvatore
Looking good. Now I would like to hear some Open World PvP info. For example do you earn the Same rewards for taking out enemy players, ect....
Yeah, I really want to hear more about Open World PVP. Instanced battlegrounds are easy to implement, but Open World PVP takes a lot of thought.
I'm also a bit dissapointed it doesn't seem that there is a high crit stealth type character, as I too prefer that style. Having every class have to go through a slugfest won't suit my tastes I don't think. But no one thing is a game killer, except no open world PVP that is...
GW2 "built from the ground up with microtransactions in mind"
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2) Mystic Chests = Crass in-game cash shop advertisements
this was all they were willing to say during the fan summit(i know mike went to a different event so maybe different info came out of it, but this is what i have seen today):
http://darthhater.com/2011/05/05/fan-site-summit-gabe-amatangelo-interview/page/1
Gabe Amatangelo: I want to touch on open world PvP. We're going to have PvP servers, and on the PvE servers there will be designated PvP areas. On a PvE server, you aren't going to flag unless you want to flag yourself, or unless you go into a designated PvP area that is going to be completely isolated from quests and story lines and that kind of stuff. Now, we're not talking about the goals inside those areas today, but we are saying that it is there. People can go and fight each other there.
Are these Open World PvP areas guild- or faction-based?
We're not talking about the goals of those areas. I know Darth Hater and all the people who follow you are really group conscience. You guys are guilds. We want to do everything we can to accommodate that type of game play.
Today we're focusing on a few systems that we haven't talked about before. The focus of them is promoting a good, healthy PvP community and allowing players to play the role they want in PvP. There are a number of systems that roll into those two points.