Bioware announced another set of changes for the next update to SWTOR. Patch 5.9.2 (currently expected in July) will offer a lot of balance tweaks to the queues mechanics and it will also introduce cross-faction PvP queue.
Stay in the loot with Everything About SWTOR Update 5.9 The Nathema Conspiracy
Here’s all we know about SWTOR Update 5.10 (5.9.2)
MATCHMAKING CHANGES
Bioware has announced their plans for a serious overhaul of the matchmaking systems in Star Wars: The Old Republic. With the next update – 5.9.2 (was rumored to be 5.10 or 5.9.2) in July we will see the following:
- All Warzone and Starfighter queues are now cross-faction
- The Unranked Warzone queue will now always prioritize Warzones over Arenas. An Arena match will only pop if there are not enough players to populate a full Warzone match at that time.
- Role Balancing:
- Matchmaking will never place more than 2 tanks or healers on the same team in a Warzone or 1 tank or healer for an Arena.
- Matchmaking will always do its best to balance the amount of tanks and healers on each team. If there are 2 healers, each team will receive one if possible, the same is true of tanks.
- In situations where there are an odd number of tanks / healers, matchmaking will do its best to place the combined number of tanks and healers evenly (example: there are 3 healers and 1 tank, matchmaking will attempt to make the teams 2 healers vs 1 tank 1 healer.)
- Skill Balancing:
- Matchmaking will more strongly take player skill into account when making teams.
- Premade groups queuing for Ranked and Unranked Warzones and GSF will now have their matchmaking skill based on the highest rated member, not the team’s average rating.
- Galactic Starfighter matchmaking has been improved to better account for player experience along with their currently selected ship loadout.
Regarding the mentioned “ratings”, community manager Eric Musco confirmed that these are stats Bioware has been using since the launch of the game behind the scenes. This “rating” is not the same rating as what you may see based on your Ranked PvP performance.
Actually, since SWTOR launched players have always had a “rating” behind the scenes. I am hesitant to say rating since this isn’t the same thing as your Ranked score, but it’s the easiest way to explain it. This is more of a way that we approximate player skill solely for the purposes of matchmaking. This is also the reason we don’t expose this information, since it is not really a rating (like Elo, etc).
In 5.9.2 we are making optimizations in how we use this information along with things like role, spec, gear, and more to try to create the most balanced teams we can.
Another clarification regarding the matchmaking is that now a premade group of four players cannot consist of more than one healer and one tank player.
WARZONES SUMMER CHANGES
A few additional notes have also been added to the upcoming Warzones Changes that have been announced a few days ago:
For 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)
For Void Star:
- Characters who attempt to hack through the hangar doors to place a charge from inside the hallway, will die.
