- I only got 1 Voidstar and it was really just a parsing practice, so I can't comment on that much. I'm a little worried the 6 second timer is going to make the unpleasant duty of guarding even more unpleasant, but didn't get to experience it much.

I've had 2 voidstars now. In the 1st one the 6s timer pretty much is what allowed us to get the first door. We had 3 on one side against 1 defender, 1 guy started capping, and I was able to use hard stuns to stop him for 6s even though the 3rd was continuing to attack (thus, mezzs would have been no good). From that point, I think the 6s cap just made it super easy to breeze on through the rest of the map without them having much of a chance to catch up. They finally did get a chance to stop us at the final "barrier" area. But we still made it to the core.

Round 2 had them not even getting through the 1st door. But we never left a solo guard at any time. And with the healer-issue mentioned in other threads, no one was dying so they could not really plant that way.

Game 2 we defended first. We stopped them cold. We did have a solo defender for a while (me - but I defend from stealth and call inc), and the team was paying attention so they never got the cap. We finished it with a mezz cap that would have worked even if the timer had been at 8 seconds.

So, overall, I'm currently of the opinion that the 6s timer didn't change things that much... actually. I had good "defense" teams both times, and I never felt like "OMG, 6 seconds! I'll never stop the cap!" We played objectives, and for us on defense, 6 seconds I don't think mattered. Maybe people who have spent more time on the "highly contested side" have a different opinion (I play a sin, so usually I'm solo guarding in stealth somewhere). Or maybe if we did not have 3 healers per side it might be different.

So, overall, I'm currently of the opinion that the 6s timer didn't change things that much... actually. I had good "defense" teams both times, and I never felt like "OMG, 6 seconds! I'll never stop the cap!" We played objectives, and for us on defense, 6 seconds I don't think mattered. Maybe people who have spent more time on the "highly contested side" have a different opinion (I play a sin, so usually I'm solo guarding in stealth somewhere). Or maybe if we did not have 3 healers per side it might be different.

Well, that's nice to hear. Voidstar is my favorite warzone, I'd hate to start to loathe it because I don't want to have to guard. I dislike the 6 second cap time in Hypergates due to how easy it is to get ninjacapped, and having to stand next to the damn door as a dps sorcerer so I can stop a sap cap with a bubble stun puts me in a horrible position if there's attackers. Nothing to use for LoS :/

more from the games today...

I still cannot express in polite words how much I hate the new "10" score in huttball. I had several quesh (which I forced myself to stay in this time ) and original huttball games. Not ONE did it ever happen that it was a close game and someone got to 6 and we all said, "hurray, we get to keep going!". I suppose that might happen once in a blue moon, but for the most part, good hutball games just don't score that high (in my opinion and experience).

We did have 2 (I want to say 3, but maybe it just seems like there were more because they are so painful) games where it got to 6 to 0, and pretty much everyone went "oh god, it's not over yet!?". Both the ones I remember explicitly there were about 2 minutes left, and the final score both times was 7 to 1. No, it was not a good trade off to play 2 more minutes of those games to get the 1 goal.

I got to see quite a few people explode with the huttball. That works a lot better than I thought it would. Basically, it seems that if the ball carrier can be delayed much at all, they better pass it, or they won't make it to the goal. Which is the desired effect I guess.

I also saw some stun-interceptions. One was done to me, where I mostly likely would have scored if I had caught it (was at the top of the enemy ramp). The other I did to the enemy when they were headed for a score. I have changed my mind about this. I originally thought I would not like the stun-intercept at all, but find that it adds more options to the game, and it was actually fun.

The arena acid changes seem to work well. Had a couple arenas where we went to acid. Tested that acid still brings out stealthers (it did). One thing I saw, I think (never got a definitive answer from the person it happened to)... without thinking about it I did a lift on a healer during acid, and it immediately got broken. I'm not sure if they had a breaker ready, but I suspect that the acid ended it. Acid is damage, and it ends on damage, so that make sense to me.

I like the 6 second door in voidstar. I don't think it makes *that* much difference, but I did miss stopping a cap where if I'd have had 2 more seconds to finish "switching sides" I probably would have made it. I still did not see any successful solo stealth caps that happened because of the 6 seconds - but that probably speaks more about the players on the PTS than the odds of that happening when it goes live. But I'm not sure. "We" seem to be able to guard against the 6 second cap in AHG when the team decides that's important. I don't know why Voidstar guarding would be any different.

I had one time where I was paying attention to the new force fields in front of the 2nd set of doors. That seemed to work correctly. They were up until the enemy got one bridge extended, then both door force fields dropped.

I only played one Yavin. We got stomped, so the change to include points for deaths didn't matter at all.

Had a few hypergates. The only really noticeable one was a match where in the last round it was pretty close, with us slightly in the lead - and then they "cashed in" some orbs and went ahead. I did not do the math to see if it was the new orb score that made the difference. However, the most important thing they did that got them the win was to stall our node the round before to let them catch up from the big lead we had. If we had managed to cap that round, then the orbs would not have mattered.

Huttball must end at 6 points, not at 10, period. I've seen a lot of one-sided Huttball matches during the playtests, and not once did a team reach 10 points. The highest I've seen was a 9:1 and the timer ended when I was carrying the ball and was like 10 meters away from the goal line. It is very unlikely that one team will actually manage to get to 10 points, making it non-sensical to put in any limit if it is never reached.

I assume that the reason for the change is that all matches should have a similar length, there should be no short matches. But I disagree. Balanced matches, with a close score where any team has a chance to win, are the best, those can go the full length because everyone enjoys them. One-sided matches are very unbearable for the losers, and should end as soon as possible.

Please reduce the score limit back to 6, this was perfectly fine.

I really enjoy that I can click the Civil War objectives without leaving stealth. But in other warzones (e.g. Voidstar and AHG), I still get the error message "Can't use this in stealth." Please ensure that all PvP objectives automatically unstealth players, this would be a huge QoL improvement for stealth classes, and make it easier for new players on stealth classes to compete.

Not sure what to say to the new Voidstar intro cinematic; I guess it looks better now. However, there is still the bug with two shuttles: one already on the pad, one landing. This is very immersion-breaking, please fix this bug.

Also, one match where we started on the defending side, we spawned in the final area and were not put into taxis. Instead, we had to /stuck and go to medcenter to get to the spawn area. This is not a new bug, it already occured in the first PTS patch for 5.9.2 (when Voidstar was bugged and the match wouldn't start).

If you don't /stuck, you will stay in that area. And once the match starts, the door stays closed (since it is the ending zone) yet you get the timer that you have to leave the area. Please ensure that players will always be put on the taxi, so they don't have to enter /stuck.

For some reason, the scoreboard for Voidstar now shows two colors on the map. I assume this was added to fix the long-standing confusion between left-/right-side in Voidstar. But this is not helping. If you want to ensure players use the light/dark terminology, make sure that these colors always show up, and not just after the match starts. Because before the match is the time where players will actually talk in chat and coordinate which side they are going to. Also, make some environmental changes, e.g. lighten up the west side (change the textures, add more lamps) so that this side actually feels brighter as well, and you don't have to check the scoreboard to figure out what color you are on.

I have one suggestion for AHG: Please shorten the duration of the orbs (the ones you pick up in the center). Similar to the shorter duration of Huttball, this would make the gameplay more dynamic.

Right now, when you pick up an orb it is pretty much guaranteed you will deliver it in time. There's no point to stalling players with orbs unless you can kill them. Please shorten the timer so that one mezz, a pull and some slowing effect will ensure that the timer runs out.

There is one advantage to having a long duration: If you haven't capped a node yet, you can have 4 players with a orb so that once you cap the node, you immediately get a score boost. However, this situation happens so rarely that I don't think it is worth it to keep the orbs on that long of a timer.

Regarding the new arena acid: I am still not sure what to do here.

Right now, the best tactic seems to be to group up in the center, have a short skirmish and then whichever player has the highest HP should run off and hide somewhere. The other three players can continue dealing damage to ensure the enemy has low HP, and then the single player can just wait it out since as long as he takes no damage, he'll live the longest.

If this is intended, it seems really weird. Maybe there is a better tactic and I'm not noticing it yet. But in any case, at least it is better than before. On live, the acid kills you so quickly that it is more or less RNG which team wins. Most of the time, you actually have to look at the scoreboard to figure it out since players die at seemingly the same time. Therefore, thank you very much for the change to acid; it is definitely better now.

Also, one match where we started on the defending side, we spawned in the final area and were not put into taxis.

OH! I bug reported that in the Bug Report forum, but I didn't have a screen shot! I don't suppose you have the time and would care to add your screen as a reply to the thread... http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=951565 If it's not too much hassle? I would do it myself, but that feels kind of like stealing your picture.

I have one suggestion for AHG: Please shorten the duration of the orbs (the ones you pick up in the center). Similar to the shorter duration of Huttball, this would make the gameplay more dynamic.

Right now, when you pick up an orb it is pretty much guaranteed you will deliver it in time. There's no point to stalling players with orbs unless you can kill them. Please shorten the timer so that one mezz, a pull and some slowing effect will ensure that the timer runs out.

This is a great point. I always get annoyed when I see someone carrying an orb and as a healer have no way of killing them, they just run off and almost always get the orb to their pylon. Heck, even on DPS if someone is intent on getting an orb to their pylon it's nearly impossible to stop them solo. Orbs ought to not be allowed to be carried for as long as they are now.

This is a great point. I always get annoyed when I see someone carrying an orb and as a healer have no way of killing them, they just run off and almost always get the orb to their pylon. Heck, even on DPS if someone is intent on getting an orb to their pylon it's nearly impossible to stop them solo. Orbs ought to not be allowed to be carried for as long as they are now.

I also like this suggestion, but I'm worried bioware might see it as going against their stated objective of having orbs be MORE important in AHG. I don't know if they just decided they wanted that (orbs being more important), or if that's in response to player feedback.

I like the mechanic of orbs mostly for the chance to use them for an "insta win" upset - where both teams are very close to 600 and one team is way ahead in "potential" point - but the about-to-lose team manages to run in an orb or two for the instant points that puts them over the 600 mark (which I've seen happen a few times). But usually the orbs are used to boost the score of the team that's winning anyway, so I never thought they needed to count for more.

So, overall, I'm currently of the opinion that the 6s timer didn't change things that much... actually. I had good "defense" teams both times, and I never felt like "OMG, 6 seconds! I'll never stop the cap!" We played objectives, and for us on defense, 6 seconds I don't think mattered. Maybe people who have spent more time on the "highly contested side" have a different opinion (I play a sin, so usually I'm solo guarding in stealth somewhere). Or maybe if we did not have 3 healers per side it might be different.

I definitely notice the 6s timer as a stealther. Since the mezz lasts for 8 seconds, it was always hit or miss if your cap would go through or if the other player attacked in time (depending on latency and on how fast you can unstealth). The 6s timer means it is more reliable to get a stealth cap, especially when playing on a bad connection with high latency.

On the "busy" side, I noticed the 6s change a little bit. It certainly makes a difference if you have 4 or 5 GCDs to stop a cap. You need to pay way more attention to the door now, and can focus less on the actual fighting. I really like that in Voidstar (unlike other BGs), players don't have a white pillar above their head while capping. That way, you actually need to watch the cast bars, and occasionally players can cap a door unnoticed..

I also saw some stun-interceptions. One was done to me, where I mostly likely would have scored if I had caught it (was at the top of the enemy ramp). The other I did to the enemy when they were headed for a score. I have changed my mind about this. I originally thought I would not like the stun-intercept at all, but find that it adds more options to the game, and it was actually fun.

Totally forgot about stun-interceptions, thanks for reminding me.

From my experience, the stun-interceptions are super hard to execute. You need to pretty much already be standing next to the player, have him targeted and have the finger on the stun key. Otherwise, there is not enough time between seeing a pass and stunning the player.

I don't really like standing next to a player in stealth for 10+ seconds and do nothing, while waiting for the ball to be passed, but it seems to be correct tactic here.

Nevertheless, I was able to successfully get the ball this way 2-3 times, so I really like the change. Intercepting a ball has always been difficult. On live, I would try to stand in the center of the pass area but I could never get the ball that way. Now with the stun-interceptions, there finally is a way to counterplay a winning team.

In one Queshball map, the enemy team had stealthers standing in our ending zone, and would pass the ball to them. During the whole match, I was trying to stun one of their stealthers to intercept the ball but it was impossible. Once I saw a player unstealthing, I had to hit tab to target them, then hit holotraverse to get in range, then hit my hard stun. (And I need to be lucky that tab will actually target that player and not end up targetting another enemy).

In addition, I was never able to stun a Jugger or Mara player. I assume they have some buff that prevents stuns (I don't play their class too much), but it is super annoying to waste a hard stun, only to see it not go through and the player still getting the ball.

All in all, I definitely do appreciate the new stun-intercept mechanic, but it is very hard to master and there will only be very few situations where it will work.

I had another Voidstar last night (you know, when I made bad life choices and stayed up until 3AM playing warzones and now feel like I haven't slept at all ) and I have to say that if it's gonna be like this in live, too, I will start disliking this. My experience was that:

1. Guard on the other side calls incs, I try to move there to help out but get mezzed. More enemies have arrived at the other side by the time the mezz ends, me and a merc try to make our way to there but get slowed and rooted all the way. I was maybe 5 meters away from stopping the cap when I get hardstunned, I break cc but it's too late, cap goes through. This was fine though, if the enemy team is clever enough to slow the people responding to the calls and our team doesn't notice people trying to respond aren't getting through, they deserve to get the cap.

2. Enemies speed through the bridges and the second doors. They get both done before we even arrive.

3. Knowing that, I decide to just try to /stuck it as soon as the bomb on the second door goes off, hoping I'd be able to intercept the enemy at the third set of doors. I might have been able to get out of spawn before the force fields went down if I had used Force speed... But I didn't use it, and got stuck behind the spawn door. Enemies planted the bomb before our team arrived. Again.

Based on this experience, the optimal strategy for this warzone is that if the enemy manages to blow up the first doors (and they have some idea on how to mess, root and slow the defenders), you leave to make yourself a drink so you'll be properly hydrated for your attacker round. As long as the healers keep pretty much everyone alive, there are no respawners to stop the attackers, and 6 seconds seems to be short enough that you can't catch up if the attackers get ahead.

Agreed! It should be kept at 6. I've seldom had any games that were 5-6 where more time would have been nice...10 is far too many.

Maybe 6 goals but must win by 2 up to a max of 10?

This way the 0-6 matches would still end as quickly they are now, but the 5-6 matches would run longer and likely end by time rather than score.

One suggestion I would like to make is having some specific warzone tests. That is, have only Voidstar for, say, an hour or half-hour, then move to a different warzone. I've only had one Voidstar pop, for example, so it is hard to tell how the changes are working. If this is a problem, how about a set rotation between the maps? At least then if you queue right away you know what you are likely to get.

I did have one bug in Voidstar. An invisible bridge occured. That may be a client issue, but if you are at the other bridge controls not being able to see that a bridge was extended is annoying. (I tend to glance that direction to see if the bridge is out.)

Agreed! It should be kept at 6. I've seldom had any games that were 5-6 where more time would have been nice...10 is far too many.

I agree with this. 10 goals just doesn't feel fun. If you are getting stomped having to wait until 10 goals isn't enjoyable.If you fall behind too much people will just give up or, worse, bail from the match. 6 goals are fine because you have the chance to catch up without the match feeling like it is dragging out.

Oh, so a funny thing happened to me in Voidstar last night.

A Juggy pushed me off the bridge (as they *********** do cause Juggy's). I landed at the bottom but it didn't kill me. I was half stuck in this post thingy. Couldn't do anything cause I was moving but stuck (you know how that is). 30 seconds(ish) later, I got teleported back to the bridge. Then that round ended. It was super weird haha!

But anyway I think the lighting change is pretty cool. Looks weird at first though. Might make it easier to call incs for those who don't know directions.

But anyway like Pallais said, we need more Voidstar's to test things cause only 2 popped in the evening session.

I had an amusing bug with Odessen Proving Grounds. I was messing around in my Nar Shaddaa stronghold and decided to jump over to the platform outside the entrance. Of course, right as I jump the WZ queue pops and I frantically clicked the Enter Warzone button. Just as the screen goes black I hear the death sound and OPG starts loading.

When I load in I'm unsurprisingly dead. The seven second wave respawn timer starts counting down, but every time it hits zero it just restarts and I can't res. Ok, I figure I'm stuck dead until the match actually starts. Even then I couldn't res so I finally had to just exit the warzone. When I returned to Nar Shaddaa I was below my stronghold. At that point I just used my fleet pass to get out and requeued.

So Odessen, at least, could use some better detection of dead players before the match starts.

In Voidstar did anyone notice the starting room for the attackers was differently lit on the east and west sides? Also on the mini map- he west side was light blue and the east was dark blue? Initially I knew something was off but couldn't place it, then when I realized what it was it was very distracting.

Yes, I saw the same thing. Not sure if it’s a bug or intended?

I really liked the cross-faction queue. We played some really great warzones. I'm not sure if they got faster though.

My observations

• The first 4 matches I played took 70 minutes - from joining the first until leaving the fourth. That is 17.5 mins on average with almost instant pops. Maybe it's just me, but they didn't seem faster.
  
• One of the reasons why the warzones didn't seem faster can be the changes to tank sturdiness. Dealing with heal-tank combos became a LOT slower.
  
• The 10 goals needed in Huttball seem way too many. In my opinion most games will run until the timer ends.
  

Suggestions

• Leave the target goals in Huttball at 6.
  
• Change how much of the incoming damage to a guarded target gets redirected to the tank. Either make it based on tank stats as others have suggested already OR make it affected by Trauma (PvP) so it won't mess with PvE. It would decrease both heal and guard efficiency in PvP situations. This is something I would gladly test on the PTS. And I'm saying that as a healer main.
  

Suggestions

 

• Leave the target goals in Huttball at 6.
  

Please...10 is too many. 6 is painful at times. 10 is just far too many though.