The Fanatical Swordsman

There are so many wonderful features of Star Wars: The Old Republic. I got the immense pleasure of playing the Beta this last weekend, and I want to share some screenshots and opinions. I will be putting out a series of posts with the Top 4s of the many things I got to try, including the classes, the PvP, the systems, and the experience in general.

I played three Warzones that were available to me at level 15ish: Alderaan, Huttball, and Voidstar.

Alderaan was a really interesting Warzone, where tactics and battlefield knowledge will definitely come in handy. You have to control turrets that are constantly firing at either the Republic ship or the Imperial ship. The amount of time you control the objectives will directly influence whether you win.

Huttball is a blast, especially if you like football. It is either incredibly difficult to score or we had a bad group that just wanted to shoot each other, because only one team scored when I played, and only once. You are given a skill to pass the ball which is automatically put on your skillbar. It also remains there even outside of the Warzone, which I thought was interesting, so you can place it on a little-used bar and keybind it.

Voidstar was my favorite. The match lasts a little over 10 minutes, and you play either attacking or defending, switching off immediately after the match ends. You have 5 minutes to access a datacore by breaching two sets of doors. The bombs that you place take a few seconds to do so, and the defenders can disarm them as well. Whoever gets the farthest or completes it in the fastest time wins.

Here are the top 4 things to know about PvP in SWTOR!

1. Stat boards
   Great feature: after a Warzone, we can see the damage done, the healing done, the number of badges you’ve won, and basically how awesome you are. You can then nominate the MVP for the match, and you can vote for anyone on either side.
   Bad feature: The only place I can find stats is on the board at the end of the match. There is really no panel with PvP stats that I saw, so I really hope that they add a place that you can see your killing blows, kill/death ratio, etc.
   

   I was second in number of medals won 😀

   

   Fourth in damage though, not terrible...but I can do better 😉

2. Classes are balanced
   Because the classes are exact mirrors of each other, there are no balance issues. This is really nice, because coming from LOTRO, where the classes of the Free Peoples are built for PvE, and the classes from the Creatures of Sauron are built for PvP, the balance here makes for a much more fun PvP.
3. Warzones are really entertaining
   The objectives of the matches are really enjoyable, since there are still story elements. The PvP seemed very fast paced, and the downtime was minimal. Death only takes you a little out of your way, and you are back in the fray quickly. I don’t know what the world PvP will be like, but the instanced PvP is worth it.
4. Levels are balanced
   I remember back in vanilla WoW when you would have people who would twink a character that would only PvP, not quest, at level 19. As long as they didn’t get any experience, they would stay the top of the field. I much prefer the system that SWTOR has incorporated, which is very similar to the systems of City of Heroes and Warhammer. There is a buff that is automatically given to you upon entering the instance called Bolstered. This buff raises your health, damage, and healing to a level that is scaled with everyone else for your class, so the best weapon mods and armor for your level will still be important, but you can go PvP with level 25s when you are level 16. The only differences and disadvantages are that you do not have the skill points to spec as deep into your specialized line, and you have fewer skills. However, it is a very fun boost to get, and it places more emphasis on the skill of the player rather than the level.

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