SWTOR PvP Warzones Changes Coming This Summer

This Summer is all about PvP in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Community manager Eric Musco just posted a list of pthe upcoming Warzones changes. The developer’s goal is to shorten the duration of each match.

Learn Everything About SWTOR Update 5.9 The Nathema Conspiracy

As you probably already know from the Summer Roadmap that was posted not long ago, this Summer will be all about PvP in SWTOR and along with the upcoming Warzone, Arena and the Rishi PvP Stronghold, Bioware is looking to improve the player experience of the existing Warzones too.

Community manager Eric Musco posted on the forums a list of proposed changes that will be introduced to some of the maps that often fall outside of the ideal duration for one match – 12 minutes, according to the developers. These changes are expected to appear on the PTS for testing as well.

Apart form shortening the duration of the matches, the other major goal is to fix and/or prevent exploits in some of the classic Warzones, such as Alderaan and Voidstar.

VOIDSTAR

Door now take 6 seconds to arm (down from 8)
Defenders now have 15 seconds to disarm door bombs (down from 20)
Extending the bridges and lowering the shields now takes 6 seconds to channel (down from 8)
Forcefields are now blocking the reactor room doors until the bridges are extended
Characters who hack their way into the last two rooms of the Warzone before the bridge has been extended or the forcefield is down will be killed
Characters who attempt to hack through the hangar doors to place a charge from inside the hallway, will die.

We want to give the offense a much better chance of completing the objectives. We want to make Voidstar more about a race to complete the objectives as opposed to a map which often ends in a stalemate. Less stalemates will shorten the overall time of the map

ANCIENT HYPERGATE

Orbs now score more points (up from 6, review below)
Orbs scores ramp up each round of the game:
- Round 1 = 12 points per orb delivered
- Round 2 = 15 points per orb delivered
- Round 3 = 18 points per orb delivered
- Round 4 = 21 points per orb delivered
- Round 5 = 24 points per orb delivered
- Round 6+ = 27 points per orb delivered
Player corral forcefields have had their up-time reduced, the forcefield is now down for 10 seconds and up for 15 seconds (previously 30 seconds)

We want running orbs to be more impactful to the WZs gameplay, with the goal of shortening each map.

ALDERAAN

Turrets now damage ships for 12 damage per tick (up from 10)
Characters exploiting by hacking inside of the capture terminals will now die when they do so

Shortening the match time.

According to Bioware, the “Farming Kills” strategy will NOT lead to a win. If, for example, one team holds two turrets and the other team holds one, but is “farming kills”, the first team will still win the match. The punishment for getting killed is not meant to change how the warzone is being played, it is a result of current data from the games played on this map, said Eric Musco.

YAVIN 4

Teams now start with 500 points (down from 600)
When players die they reduce their teams score by 2 (up from 0)
Characters exploiting by hacking inside of the capture terminals will now die when they do so

RELATED ► SWTOR Yavin 4 Warzone Guide

Further differentiate the map from Alderaan Civil War along with shortening the match time.

NOVARE COAST

Any characters who leave the starting area prior to the match starting will die.
Players will no longer be able to cap a point outside of the intended 20m range (we’re looking at you, Phase Walk)

HUTTBALL AND QUESH HUTTBALL

Carrying the Huttball now applies Hinder to the character. Hinder prevents the use of high mobility actions such as Force Charge, Force Speed, Scamper, and more. (read the bottom of the article for an update on Hinder!)
Due to the Hinder changes above players holding the Huttball will now move at 80% movement speed (up from 67%)
Players can no longer catch the Huttball while stunned. This creates more opportunities for counter-play, such as intercepting passes intended for a target you stun.
Adding attacker points for catching a pass from a friendly target:
- Currently the thrower of the Huttball receives 500 points, but not the receiver. We will increase the receiver to gain 250 points.
- We would also like a touchdown pass to award both players equally (currently the thrower gets 500 more points). Here is what the new breakdown would look like:
  - Thrower: 2750 Attacker Points total
    - 500 Attacker Points from completing pass successfully
    - 2250 Attacker Points for throwing a scoring pass
  - Receiver: 2750 Attacker Points total
    - 250 Attacker Points from receiving a friendly pass
    - 2500 Attacker Points for possessing the ball for a score3

We have some concerns about the dominance of Classes with movement abilities in Huttball. The proposed changes will help encourage more teamplay in the Warzone. We also want to create more situations for counterplay and competition in Huttball while ensuring all players are rewarded for their efforts.

We know these changes will be pretty substantial in affecting how you play Huttball. Before we make these adjustments, we want to know your thoughts. We are getting your feedback early to see what changes we should, or should not make.

ARENAS

Characters who hack their way into places they shouldn’t be, such as outside the arena or in the ground, will die.
Currently, acid causes characters to take 10% of their max health in damage every second, prevents stealth and all healing.
Acid will now work as follows:
- Characters will take 1% of their max health in damage every second (does not stack) and reduce all healing done/received (this one stacks) by 2% per stack.
- Characters affected by acid will begin with one stack and gain one stack per second.
- Acid will still inhibit stealth.

There are quite a few places where players can exploit to prevent themselves from dying. We plan to address them and implement ways to penalize those players. Additionally, we wanted to take another look at how the acid mechanics work at the end of Arena matches to see if we can improve that experience for stalemates.

This will mean the very end of an Arena match will now get progressively more dangerous. This gives more time for players to fight each other and counterplay, before their inevitable acid death. This should also address cases where stealth characters in particular can just CC and run away to win a match.

Currently the developers are planning to implement these changes at the same time with the “matchmaking update”. Details on the latter will come soon in a separate announcement – most likely a blog post or a forum post. As soon as they post news about this, you can be certain I will make sure it reaches you. The best way to stay informed and learn the latest news right away – Sign up to receive New Posts Notifications.

UPDATE 06.06.2018

Later the same week Bioware announced that the dev team is also looking at an alternative solution to Hinder to achieve the goals for Huttball – balance the classes and roles and not give huge advantage to classes with speed moving abilities. As soon as this alternative solution is tested and confirmed as valid or disproved and they announced the final decision, I will let you all know here as well.

UPDATE 07.06.2018

Based on overwhelming player feedback, Bioware announced that the studio is abandoning the idea of applying the Hinder debuff to ball carriers in Huttball. In addition, the players, who carry the ball, will have their speed set at 67%.

Although we are fine with tanks being the best ball carriers while under the effects of Hinder, we hear your concerns that these changes could cause Huttball to become a stalemate too often. We are also sensitive over your feeling that certain Classes would be too limited and unable to defend themselves while carrying the Huttball, since many defensive capabilities are tied to movement abilities for several Classes.

With this in mind, the team has decided to keep the proposed earlier “Attacker Points” changes.

We feel that players who properly position themselves to receive a Huttball pass should be rewarded. We also plan to keep the change that prevents stunned targets from catching the Huttball, as it allows characters that lack a knockback ability to have a viable and reliable way to intercept passes. It also has an additional benefit of giving players another reason to use their stun abilities on characters other than the ball carrier. Ultimately, it should mean that you get stunned a little less often while carrying the Huttball.

These are the new planned changes for Huttball for the moment (it’s all to be tested before release):

New Huttball (and Queshball) Changes

The Hutt will become bored of a single ball carrier and kill them after 45 seconds (down from 2 minutes)
To win before time expires, the winning team will need to score 10 times (up from 6 times)
The match will now last for a maximum of 10 minutes (down from 13 minutes)

The first change is intended to encourage passing the Huttball and increase tension when attempting to turtle for a win in a close match. The latter two changes will adjust how we approach this Warzone. If you see Huttball as a sport within SWTOR, we want to have the Warzone play out more as “who can score the most points within a 10 minute match” as opposed to “race to 6 points to win.” This will also ensure that all Huttball matches are 12 minutes or less (if you count pre-match). We hope that these changes along with our updates in matchmaking will lead to a lot closer and more compelling Huttball matches.

POST YOUR FEEDBACK IN THE COMMENTS BELOW AND I’LL FORWARD IT TO THE BIOWARE DEVS