“This is not your Grampa’s PvP Guide to PvP. Move Along.”

[galadimana]

TLDR: (Almost) No game in PvP has a goal of “kill other players.” Work toward the GOALS, not your tiny E…go.

 

Ok, so I’m old. And I suck at this game. And I HATE PvP. Ok, not really, I USED to hate PvP. Because it’s kinda hateful. It’s not really helping your friends, like what I like to do usually.

 

But a couple of weeks ago, during 2xp weekend, I started PvPing for the leet expees. And I did advance very quickly, as advertised. But I really actually started to like PvP. [i played a PT tank.] Reason: Among all the screw-ups, the failures, the terrible teammates, the unsportmanslike enemies, the stunlocking, etc., ONCE In a VAST while, there was the Crowning Moment of Glory. (You’ll notice how much I loves me some grapple )

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The last second grapple-pull to prevent the cap. No one would ever know.

 

Strategically dropping Oil Slick to slow 5 enemies so they couldn’t get to the last instaclicky in Voidstar before the timeout. <shakefist!!!!>

 

Kiting 3 (!) defenders away from the Voidstar node while popping all my cooldowns and keeping their attention for like 15 seconds while my sneaky buddy caps the node unbothered. Tunnelvision!

 

Pulling someone just back outside the mid area in Hypergate and Oilslicking them, then Jetpacking inside to safety so they die inches from shelter. <Nerdrage!!>

 

Yank-hold-leap interrupt cap at Voidstar. So efficient and elegant.

 

Sitting in enemy pit in Huttball, spot ball carrier who just stole my guy’s Huttball. Yank-hold-slay-pass Huttball-jetpack up-receive pass-score. Priceless. The Triple Reverse of Huttball.

 

NOT killing an enemy in Huttball because my ball carrier is pretty close to scoring, and I don’t want to give him a free TP to his defensive area.

 

Dying on purpose in Huttball because I know I’ll be more useful near my goal line at this moment.

 

Getting a clue with a healer so they heal me while I Guard them and take a load off their damage. Best in Alderaan Civil War or Novare Coast.

 

Yank at the edge across the open space in Voidstar, dropping the enemy into the void. Dangerous, but immensely satisfying.

 

Getting into the green deathgoo in Huttball and Yank-hold-leaping away to safety. <What… I can’t… AARRGH!!!>

 

The hilarious self sacrificing homi/suicide move in Huttball that prevents the ball carrier from getting down that last ramp to the goal, grapple-pulling him onto an already burning Hotplate, and dying, and when you rez back in the safe area, the little Eagle thingy is over your head and it says you killed the ball carrier. Good Times.

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Alas, most of these things get me zero achievement points at the end of the game. But they are usually their own reward.

 

Meanwhile, some dude puts up 648,987 damage points in huttball, and gets 4 MVP votes, and never scored, never passed the ball, never got into a passing lane, never protected the ball carried – they just got 36 kills of people anywhere except near the ball, and pat themselves on the back for a game well played. And apparently the other players think so too.

 

This is not a Cry for Me post. I don’t care how many MVP votes I get. (Ok, I do, but I can deal with that.) What I Absolutely HATE is seeing a scrum of 6 teammates killing 2 of theirs while we are losing the actual GAME. So here’s the skinny:

 

How many of the PvP scenarios are based on Number of kills, or damage to enemy players?

 

ZERO.*

 

Goals in PvP games:

 

Huttball: Score more than the other guys.

 

Voidstar: Get thru the doors to the clicky thingy Faster than the other guys.

 

Alderaan Civil War – capture more nodes than the enemy team for more time because each node does some damage to the enemy ship over time.

 

Novare Coast – Capture at least 2 of the 3 nodes to do damage to the enemy’s fort. Capturing one is worthless; no damage. (Edit - had these 2 mixed up first time)

 

Ancient Hypergate: Hmm, this one’s complicated. Capture and HOLD the Hypergates (at least one, 2 if poss.) at the moment the timer runs out. While you ‘own’ a hypergate, click the glowies in the Mid area and once you successfully click, run to one of the gates you own to score more points.

*(Also, in this one, one added goal is to kill the enemy players to score some extra points – but these points are worth ZERO if you don’t own at least one of the gates when the timer runs out – which makes the Primary goal to capture AND HOLD at least one gate when the timer reaches 0.) Also, corollary to ‘kill enemy players for points’ – STAY ALIVE. Dying gives them points.

 

(I’ll leave guides to the individual warzones to players who don’t suck at this game as much as I do.)

 

So as you see, killing other players is never the primary goal. Pay attention to the GOAL. Pursue the GOAL. Kill other players to prevent them from achieving THEIR goal.

 

Now granted, Bioware, in their INFINITE wisdom, has deigned to make many of the achievements in PvP based on kills. Oh well, if you want to be THAT GUY, I suppose I have no power to stop you. Just remember, it’s a team game.

Edited April 25, 2013 by galadimana

[sanchito]

i think you mixed up Novare Coast and Civil war.

 

Anyway awesome post, this is why people should play pvp, not to get gear as fast as possible :-)

[Polymerize]

I love love love this post.

 

I will be adding in some more moments that rustle my jimmies that no one ever knows about. Thanks for putting my rage into words.

[sauerkraut]

Unfortunately most imp players don't even know SWTOR has objective based WZs. They think it's all about K/D and damage.

[Butwaldgrim]

*bump*

 

+1

[BraveSirRobin]

Great post!

 

I have to add some of my favorites:

 

Sapping someone capping a node .5 seconds before its completed.

Watching keyboard turners trying to keep up with me jumping/strafing all around them.

Pulling someone off the bridge as soon as the spawn door comes up knowing that they have to wait awhile behind the door.

[Avicii]

This post sums up exactly how I feel, nothing bugs me more then 5 tools in huttball attacking 2 people off to the side, instead of helping the ball carrier through support and getting ahead for a pass or going for the enemy ball carrier instead of the enemy running into their own pit with a sliver of health left.

 

There is no better feeling then capping the enemy pylon with 20 secs left before the last nuke or pulling the enemy call carrier into the pit or better yet into the fire to win a tie game. No one gives MVP votes for that. I try to vote for the guy that guards the node in CW or NC or HG as they are doing their part to win. I rarely vote for the top DPS, protection and heals get my vote if there isnt someone I noticed doing the little things it takes to win.

 

Really though people PvP for different reasons, I PvP to win. Others PvP for the scoreboard. Its frustrating for sure at times. I need to find other like minded people like the OP.

 

Good day and great post.

[Luckeyduckey]

Mmmm. I agree, sort of. I'm one of those guys who likes to get big numbers, but I like winning even MORE. So I kill people, and play objective. So... I'm like a god or something

[dscount]

Sweet Post!

 

Add - pretending not to see the stealthy (Selective Tunnelling like during GF/wife aggro) in VS while he starts to cap door and BAM you whack him down with dots and wipe him out. LOL

[Banderal]

Yes, love this post.

+1

Agree with pretty much every point it makes.

[Kerensk]

Love this post.

 

As a commando I love when people are foolish enough to fight me near the cliffs on the coast. They thought I ran behind the bunker to hide, the come around the corner and get knocked back over the edge. Bye!

 

Or knocking an enemy receiver out of the way for a huttball interception and piledriving across the floor uninteruptable for a pass. From ourside to theirs in seconds.

 

But hate grabbing the ball running forward to pass only to see all my teammates behind me in our pit fighting the enemy 6 on 2. Meanwhile the other 6 enemies are pressing down on me and the one lone healer who thought "maybe I should follow the ball".

[Monterone]

My favorite was when I was playing Ironfist back in the day. I loved that both the pull and the charge have a 4s root on them, which plays out just beautifully in Huttball.

 

One of my favorite moves was for defense, when you have two enemies running the ball ahead of you. You wait until they try to cross the fire and you charge one, rooting him... then you pull back the other, also rooted. And in case they pop a cc break, you carbonize both and walk out.

[quantumsheep]

Fantastic post OP, couldn't agree more!

 

QS

[Elboc]

Great post. These are the same reasons I pvp, and I wish that more of the medals revolved around things that win you the game.

 

As a sniper I feel this the worst on voidstar because I am barely ever near the capping / defending area. My role is either preventing caps or throw cc's while my teammates cap. But in the end it's all about the win.

[wishihadaname]

+1 to the OP, awesome post.

 

One thing I gotta add though, 8k crits are more addicting than crack, and this is coming from a commando who used to never hit above 5k. Take my word kids, Demo round, not even once.

 

On a serious note though, dps does have its uses. Its a question of how its used. I play full gunnery and in Huttball i'll play the linebacker. I sit up on our ramps removing anyone who tries to run ahead for a pass, spraying down anyone that gets into mid, and saving my net for the ball carrier. I often times end up doing over 600k damage just because I shoot at anything that gets into range to let them know they aren't welcome. So doing a ton of damage/kills doesn't really mean that the player is clueless.

 

Also: my main is a lethality operative and doing a ton of damage to a bunch of targets at once is exactly our job. We're sappers, dot up everything in sight and then burst anyone who drops below 50% while keeping ourselves safe. It can be very useful to have one of these sort of players on your team just because they force the enemy to offheal, cleanse, strain healers, and do anything but what they are supposed to be doing. Again, depends who you are sapping and when though.

[SystemProcess]

Agreed. I get so tired of pointless deathmatching in PvP when only two or three of us (usually coordinating in vent) are trying to capture objectives.

 

And when we guide the rest of the team (because they have NO idea what to do 90% of the time), we either get ignored or yelled at. Lol. It sucks when people would rather get 800k damage than win the game, just to inflate their own egos.

[galadimana]

Thanks for all the feedback. Glad to see I'm not alone in the way I play. One note: I usually vote for big Protect numbers, because that person has to actually be near damage being done to Protect; Unless, of course, I see HUGE heal numbers on me from a particular healer. then it's payback.

 

And if I see DPS guys doing awesome stuff supporting the team goal, that's my vote.

 

But I HAVE heard that some healers merely self-heal to boost their numbers, and that it's a large percentage of their scores... which is why I often (not always) vote Protect over Heal most of the time.

 

What almost always gets my vote is moderate numbers in all 3 categories - seems legit.

Edited April 23, 2013 by galadimana

[DinesenDK]

TLDR: (Almost) No game in PvP has a goal of “kill other players.” Work toward the GOALS, not your tiny E…go...

.

 

Didn't wanted to quote the complete post. But just wanted to give you thumbs up on it. I'im with you all the way. Playing my Assault vanguard much similar like that..love grapple, and all the small moments that no achivement never can or will reward you for. So great job.

[Viperswhip]

Well, the medals for defending went a long ways towards helping more responsible behaviour. I just quit Hutball though.

 

I do notice that I get more votes when I play my healer than I used to, but if I top the healing and don't get any votes, I log onto a different tune, normally the other faction. It's nice for the OP and the poster talking about Voidstar to post all these tips though, we can all learn a little bit.