Planned Warzone Changes

[EricMusco]

Hey folks,

 

As Keith mentioned in the roadmap we are looking to make some Warzone changes this year, starting in July. It is our plan to try to get these on PTS as well, but before we get to that point we wanted to get your opinion on our plans. Below you will find the changes along with our goal for these changes. Let us know your thoughts.

 

The goals of these changes are:

• To shorten the average time of our Warzones to be around 12 minutes. We have a few WZs that are taking quite a bit longer than that currently.
  
• We have some WZs that are exploitable due to environment hacking, we want to fix that.
  

Voidstar changes - 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.

• 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

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

• 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)

Alderaan - Shortening the match time.

• 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
  

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

• 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
  

 

-eric

[Mycroft-Tarkin]

These look good to me. I'm not sure about reducing the Hypergates spawn gate time though. If you want to give attackers the advantage then the gate should be up for longer.

 

Also, in Voidstar you've been using the term "hack" when all you need to do is use certain abilities at the right moment. That's not hacking, and calling it that will give people a very wrong idea of what hacking is. Glitching or even to an extent exploiting is fine, but not hacking.

 

The being said, the maps that need the most "fixing" are the two Huttball maps. Using a roll/speed ability on any of the ramps makes players un-targetable for a few seconds and this makes both the maps extremely broken. Huttball is awesome and I hope it can be evened out to a proper glitch-free warzone someday.

 

I can't wait to see what happens at Yavin Ruins after these changes - should be interesting if anything!

 

The thing I like most, however, is the team actually apparently wants to hear players' opinions before making changes.

Edited May 30, 2018 by Mycroft-Tarkin

[supertimtaf]

*snip*

 

-eric

 

Hey, great news ! However, I don't see any mentions about the two huttball maps.

 

As a lot of peoples have already stated, there is a lot of bugs in these maps tied to the different level of the warzone, leading to a lot of desync (as an example, using Force Speed or Exfiltrate on a ramp will make you go up the ramp, but every other player will see you rolling through it. There was also some issues where you couldn't see another player because the game thought that player was above or under yourself).

 

We would love to hear more about those, and if there is a fix planned for that. Huttball can be a great map, but this kind of bug is really removing all the fun you can have there.

 

 

Also I believe someone already said this idea, but having an option to remove a part of the visual effect used by friendly players (like particles effect) would really benefit the overall performance in PvP. Currently this is one of the least optimized area of the game, and we would love to have that change :3 Having FPS drop isn't something you want when playing against other players.

Edited May 30, 2018 by supertimtaf

[Rheshalea]

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

 

When players die they reduce their teams score by 2 (up from 0)

 

I PvP so little that I don't even understand most of these changes, but the one quoted feels kinda bad to me.

I tend to die A LOT in any and all WZs, and already feel a bit guilty over my noobness. But so far, I at least feel as if being cannon fodder and dying means the better players have a few seconds longer to live, and maybe they can do some good in those seconds.

 

If my death reduces my team's score, I'll PvP even less. I already feel like a burden to any team I end up on. This change would make that feeling worse.

[Rekzek]

Hey folks,

 

As Keith mentioned in the roadmap we are looking to make some Warzone changes this year, starting in July. It is our plan to try to get these on PTS as well, but before we get to that point we wanted to get your opinion on our plans. Below you will find the changes along with our goal for these changes. Let us know your thoughts.

-eric

 

Snave did an interview with you a few years ago, there are several good points/changes brought up then, that are still valid to this day:

 

[Mycroft-Tarkin]

I PvP so little that I don't even understand most of these changes, but the one quoted feels kinda bad to me.

I tend to die A LOT in any and all WZs, and already feel a bit guilty over my noobness. But so far, I at least feel as if being cannon fodder and dying means the better players have a few seconds longer to live, and maybe they can do some good in those seconds.

 

If my death reduces my team's score, I'll PvP even less. I already feel like a burden to any team I end up on. This change would make that feeling worse.

 

If you die by keeping at least more than one player busy with you for a while then you ARE contributing. Know that somewhere your team has a numbers advantage and will likely clear the enemies there faster because of you

 

But yeah I can see this not going down too well. We already have premades who just farm kills without capping anything. At least they used to let the other team have the pleasure of winning in most cases. Now, farming kills will simply give them a win unless the other team is somehow 3-capped.

[RACATW]

I PvP so little that I don't even understand most of these changes, but the one quoted feels kinda bad to me.

I tend to die A LOT in any and all WZs, and already feel a bit guilty over my noobness. But so far, I at least feel as if being cannon fodder and dying means the better players have a few seconds longer to live, and maybe they can do some good in those seconds.

 

If my death reduces my team's score, I'll PvP even less. I already feel like a burden to any team I end up on. This change would make that feeling worse.

 

Don't worry that already happens in hypergate. (deaths counting toward the score)

Everyone starts as a noob and dies a lot. I'd suggest though, that you pick a different class where its harder to die on if you are new and not having fun with your current one.

 

 

Try either a tank (easiest to be a noob on probably but one of the hardest to master), or a healer.

Edited May 30, 2018 by RACATW

[Estelindis]

Sounds good. Voidstar is one of my favourite maps but it often feels like it favours the defender too much. I'll be very interested to try this change.

[masterceil]

These look like they'd be some fairly excellent changes. Probably even enough, along with cross-faction queuing, to get me back into playing the game more regularly - always nice to see a focus on people playing the objectives, and any carrot BW can give for that is welcome!

 

[Rockula]

Hey devs!

Will the matchmaking changes also be a part of the first round of PVP changes?

 

From the summer roadmap:

>We’re taking an in-depth look at our unranked PvP matchmaking system overall to see what kinds of improvements we can make to better ensure every match is a good one.

 

Some of the WZ changes will be bad with crappy matchmaking.

Thanks!

-B

[Banderal]

Hey folks,

 

• To shorten the average time of our Warzones to be around 12 minutes. We have a few WZs that are taking quite a bit longer than that currently.
  

 

I'm not sure why you want to shorten the WZs. Sure, a lopsided farm fest can seem awfully long, emphasis on "awful"... but as someone who PUGs almost always, it can often take several minutes for a group to sync up. I like the bit of extra time to get the group cohesion going, and having that chance to turn things around. I guess it's a balancing act, but I'm curious as to why "we" want the matches shorter.

 

Voidstar changes - 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.

Nice. There needs to be an "applaud" emoji for the forums.

 

• 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

 

Hmm. I'm not sure what you mean by "hack there way"... if that includes when some foolish defender stands on the other side, right next to the ledge, and I'm able to phantom-stride to them, then I don't like that change. To me, that's taking advantage strategically (or maybe "tactically?") of their positioning.

 

A lot of players stand there hoping to port/leap BACK to the pre-extended bridge side so they can continue on defending the bridges again after they were already killed. If you make it so that the offense side cannot use that tactic but the defense can, then it seems like that goes against your stated objective of making it easier for the offense.

 

If you want to keep people from "leaping back across", I think a better way would be to just extend the forcefield all the way across for on both sides, to prevent the leap/port to begin with.

 

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

 

• 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
    

I think a better way to make orbs more important is to remove the "you get points for every kill EVERY ROUND AFTER THAT" part of the score. If I understand the scoring correctly, then if my teams gets 10 kills in round one, then when we cap in round 2 we start with 10 kills already "on the books" for round 2. This, in my opinion, makes early kills too valuable, makes the scoring unnecessarily complicated, and makes it really hard to catch up later on (which is why strategies shift to pylon control).

 

I think make it so that 10 kills in round 1 only count for the round 1 score.

 

Unless I don't have it right about how the scoring works... in which case, never mind.

[*]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)

 

Which seems to have an effect of making kills now count "more" - because there will be more chance for them. A strong team now can wipe the other side, and then wait for them at their spawn. I don't know though, maybe if the door opens quicker it will be harder for the original wipe to happen, if reinforcements can make it back in time (like a healer that got killed off can get back in time to keep the wipe from happening). It will also make what I called "pylon control strategies" much easier, I would predict.

 

But I guess, actually, I'm in favor of anything that lets me play more and stand behind a door less.

 

But by far, I think the best things in this post is that you are going to put changes on the PTS. You should consider giving out some goodies for people to go to the PTS, and also announce dev-play-times like you have sometimes in the past. I remember a lot more PTS participation when that happened.

 

Thanks for posting things in advance too.

[RACATW]

Hmm. I'm not sure what you mean by "hack there way"... if that includes when some foolish defender stands on the other side, right next to the ledge, and I'm able to phantom-stride to them, then I don't like that change. To me, that's taking advantage strategically (or maybe "tactically?") of their positioning.

 

A lot of players stand there hoping to port/leap BACK to the pre-extended bridge side so they can continue on defending the bridges again after they were already killed. If you make it so that the offense side cannot use that tactic but the defense can, then it seems like that goes against your stated objective of making it easier for the offense.

 

If you want to keep people from "leaping back across", I think a better way would be to just extend the forcefield all the way across for on both sides, to prevent the leap/port to begin with.

 

+1

 

If I can't get to someone and then knock them off the ledge and charge over to the door plant the bomb and feel like a hero, why not just put a force field completely across that area?

 

 

I thought it was open for a reason. Clarity about that would be nice.

[tyrningada]

What happens to operatives who holotraverse to the enemy player standing on the edge before bridge is open ?

[ilfiriel_azurian]

Strategic use of phantom stride/holotraverse in Voidstar is absolutely not hacking, it's due to the other team stupidity by standing so close to the edge and smart play from players doing that. It's absolutely not hacking as it is within the realm of possibilities defined by the map. What you are doing is excluding smart stealth players by discourse, excluding them from the norm and placing them in the zone of non-being through the epistemic normative use of the discursive term "hacker."

[Trlance]

This changes really works for me. FINALLY stupid players who play pvp only for DPS will more care about objectives. With this changes im sure republic side will be more determinate to win the match better than ever. I have to admit this is first good news from last ... year what i read.

 

If my death reduces my team's score, I'll PvP even less. I already feel like a burden to any team I end up on. This change would make that feeling worse.

- here we go .. first who cry and play only for damage and be happy after losed match with 5 mvp near his/her nickname. Objectives points? Near 0.

 

~ Tsukito, Alliance Commander

Edited May 30, 2018 by Trlance

[Banderal]

What you are doing is excluding smart stealth players by discourse, excluding them from the norm and placing them in the zone of non-being through the epistemic normative use of the discursive term "hacker."

 

I have no idea what you just said, but I think I agree.

 

(Now to go get a dictionary. )

[Vissionary]

• 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

 

Well that's an aggressive approach I guess ... I mean I would probably start with a ban or something before jumping right to the end game!

[Banderal]

- here we go .. first who cry and play only for damage and be happy after losed match with 5 mvp near his/her nickname. Objectives points? Near 0.

 

~ Tsukito, Alliance Commander

 

That's not what I took away from his/her comment. I took it that they were just aware of being new and not very good, and thus worried about contributing to the LOSS because of dying a lot.

 

Personally, I think if someone dies "with purpose" (i.e. defending or helping to take one of the turrets) then the benefit will outweigh their "death toll". Useless deaths from death matching not so much. I thought the original poster of that comment you were reply too was talking about the first kind of death.

[Banderal]

well that's an aggressive approach i guess ... I mean i would probably start with a ban or something before jumping right to the end game!

 

+1

 

lmao.

Edited May 30, 2018 by Banderal

[Rheshalea]

This changes really works for me. FINALLY stupid players who play pvp only for DPS will more care about objectives. With this changes im sure republic side will be more determinate to win the match better than ever. I have to admit this is first good news from last ... year what i read.

 

- here we go .. first who cry and play only for damage and be happy after losed match with 5 mvp near his/her nickname. Objectives points? Near 0.

 

~ Tsukito, Alliance Commander

 

And attitudes like this is one reason I don't PvP more. Unlike the nice persons who were encouraging and helpful, you seem to draw weird conclusions about how I play. How in the world did you assume that I don't go for objectives just because I die a lot? Being bad at PvP doesn't have to mean someone is totally clueless. Unless, of course, I actually AM totally clueless and there's some legit, non-hacky way to become immune to damage while going for objectives...

Edited May 30, 2018 by Rheshalea

[KendraP]

Interesting... i like the increased focus on objective play, and as someone who plays a tank, it seems like this will make my preferred role more important.

 

Thus, I feel obliged to ask: is anything being planned in regard to matchmaking (per the roadmap) and/or group queueing? I frequently play with friends and guildies in warzones (as i prefer objective play over arenas), and these changes will make the increased communication and pre-matchmaking potential an even bigger factor than it already is.

 

That said, an inability to pvp with my friends outside of team ranked, which is only arenas, would kill the primary reason i continue playing (and ergo, paying for) the game.

 

I especially like that this will be put on PTS! This fact is highly encouraging and i sincerly hope you continue to accept feedback and issues pts players report. I also hope this pattern continues in regards to feedback attentiveness.

 

Thank you for the information.

[kissingaiur]

Nice. Looking forward to the voidstar changes. One of the reasons I dislike the map is because matches take so long to finish. Majority of the games end up as snooze fests trying to cap or defend first door. Edited May 30, 2018 by kissingaiur

[Vissionary]

And attitudes like this is one reason I don't PvP more.

 

Like some others have said don't worry about the number of times you've died so much, rather concern yourself with taking the time to learn a bit each time you do. It's unlikely that your individual death count will turn a win into a loss but rather the change seems to promote a quicker end to a game that would otherwise be a killing farm for the winning side.

[yellow_]

[*]When players die they reduce their teams score by 2 (up from 0)

THANK YOU!!!

 

Now please add it to Civil War and Novare too!

[kissingaiur]

THANK YOU!!!

 

Now please add it to Civil War and Novare too!

 

I second this. “Tactical dying” shouldn’t be part of pvp.