Welcome to all you players who either once played SWTOR, or have never touched it. Now, you folks are no doubt raring to get into some pvp, and you are probably wondering, as you look at those awesome geared folks with double your health and damage, the same thing everyone in a grind to win mmo wonders when they get in.

How long will it take for me to get that?

Well, here you go.

Step 1- Get the recruit armour. Now, this is a free set they just give you at level 50. You'll still be grossly outmatched and stand no chance whatsoever, but you'll see a big difference from pve blues and most importantly, you will have expertise.

Step 2- Get the BM armour. There's no saving up and skipping this point- you must get BM gear first, then you can get WH gear after. So, how do you get BM armour?

You need to save up something called 'warzone commendations'. These nifty things drop from- you guessed it- warzones! Here is a break down of every piece you will need to get. (note- you can skip the weapon and offhand and go right to WH)

Boots- 875.

Bracers- 550.

Gloves- 875.

Headgear- 1075.

Pants- 975.

Belt- 625.

Chest- 1425

Weapon- 1550

Offhand- 1550

Implantx2- 1250.

Earpiece- 625.

Relicx2- 1100

Total- 12475 WZ comms

Well gee golly whiz mister, that's an awful big number! It sure is, but don't fret, for this entry level set can be yours in a minimal length of time- as many pvp experts have said 'a week of grinding' or 'I got my set in a weekend'.

It is going to depend all on your rate of gain.

Let us pretend you are an average player, on a server with no premades, and you win 50% of your games while getting 90 WZ comms per match, which is generous considering you will likely not get all medals in recruit gear. Every three matches you will also get a daily reward of 100 (and 100 RWZ which you want to save- DO NOT CONVERT THESE), and every 18 matches you will get a weekly reward of 400 (and 400 RWZ which again, save).

Every 18 matches you will thus get 400 weekly, 600 daily, and another 1620. That is 2620 every 18 matches. At 15 minutes a match, you're looking at 4 1/2 hours. You would need to do this about five times, so about 22 hours of play time, or about 90 matches.

Remember though- you are limited to 3 matches per week. So you are looking at 30 weeks to get a full set of BM gear as a f2p player, over half a year! Yay!

Step 3-

Wow sir, that's a long time to play a game before being viable, but I think I can handle it, after all it's good for competition to spend eight months being squished like a bug.

Slow down there billy, it ain't over yet. You've only done the easy part, now it's time for War Hero gear.

What's War Hero gears precious, what's war hero gears!? I don't know, but I wants it!

Of course you do! War Hero gear is beyond even BM gear, it is something available only to the greatest, most talented players in the massively online game we call SW NGE2 I mean SWTOR. How do you get as good as them? Well, that's simple.

A beautiful, beautiful thing known as 'ranked warzone commendations'. Using the magic of 'prolonging the game through increasingly lengthy grinding' and fairy dust, BW has given us the option to turn our lousy normal WZ comms into the vastly superior, more intelligent RWZ comms- you can guess what the R stands for! See, you'll now be earning WZ tokens faster- because you are now maybe getting medals like 5k hits or 300k damage per game, and you may average as much as 6 medals a game!

So we'll say you're going to get 120 WZ comms per game.

Gee mister, now I'll be swimming in comms, I can taste the WH already!

That's the can-do attitude we like to see sport. Those 120 comms are then traded in for 40 better comms.

Wowwie, but sir, isn't 40 less than 120?

It sure is.

So does WH gear cost less to get?

Hahahaha, kids say the darndest things.

Even better, they cost more! Now, we'll ignore the BM token costs since you've already spent 30 weeks earning that. Instead we'll go right to the new, improved WH costs!

Boots- 2000

Bracers- 1250

Gloves- 2000

Headgear- 2425

Pants- 2225

Belt- 1425.

Chest- 3200

Weapon- 2000

Offhand- 2000

Implantx2- 2850

Earpiece- 1425

Relicx2- 2500

Elite Weapon+Offhand- 6950

Total- 32250 RWZ comms.

Now, remember, you're making 40 per match, but, you are also going to make another 133 every 3 matches from the daily, and 533 every 18 matches from the weekly. You will also have about 5000 RWZ tokens from weeklies/dailies you did while grinding BM gear.

So, every 18 matches you will make 720 from matches, 533 from weekly, and 798 from dailies. 2051 RWZ per 18 matches. It'll take about 15.5 of those periods to earn 32250- or 15.5x6 weeks. You've already done twelve weeks worth during BM. That's 260 matches, about 60 hours, and 80 weeks (1 year and 8 months approx).

So to all you free to players out there, don't worry, you will have the current best in slot pvp gear in about two and a half years. For one character.

Step 4- Paying to Play for Free!

That seems like a long time, but if they don't release any new armour sets by 2015 I'll be able to play on par with others, pretty sweet for free, right?

Wrong again! You also have to pay a 1200 cartel coin fee (which is 12USD).

What if I really like the pvp, because the f2p experience of being crushed beneath the boots of others inspired me to love this game. I don't need a sub, I can just pay for the WZ alone- it's only 2.50USD a week! What a bargain!

Very true, and it is a bargain, you would only be spending 10USD a month to get only one part of the game with numerous other restrictions, while a subscriber pays 10USD a month for everything, plus a mandatory 5USD purchase of 500 cartel coins they can use on cosmetics or boosts (unless they use the 3/6 month subs, in which they pay less per month for the full game).

Wow, it sure doesn't look very nice to be a f2p and do things outside of story in this game.

Exactly, you should sub! Because basing their game around sub fees has worked out so well for BW in the past!

Thank you for your time f2p players, please leave your questions and comments below... just kidding!

Join me next week for "F2P Players- Social Rank X and You!" Where we answer the important questions- like how awesome it will be to bust out your brand new galactic party bomb to celebrate your candidate winning the 2020 election! Provided BW doesn't remove it by then- but what are the chances!?

**Please inform me on incorrect math, most numbers are rough estimates and you may earn commendations at a slower or faster rate per match.

TL: DR version.

F2P players- it'll take you 2 1/2 years and 12 bucks to compete on even terms with the current WH players, provided no new gear comes out by then.

Ya... F2P is actually just an extended trial, and/or a pay less to pay.

Really though, it's 15 bucks a month. Don't be cheap =P

It takes about 1-2week to get full BM casually and grinding from 40-50 you can Can easily get you MH and OH war hero weapons, Full BM aug'd is the cake war hero is just icing

Yeah, life is good for us subscribers.

It will take longer for F2P'ers since they are limited to 5 WZs/week (IIRC)

If they win all 5, they can do 2½ daily per week

and 1 weekly every other week

+1 internets for such a well-written post.

But I have to draw attention to three things.

1) You make it sound like you can't PvP until you have either full BM/Full WH. But even at half BM/half Recruit you start to become viable.

And the difference between fullBM/Full WH is nowhere near as great as the difference between full BM/Full Recruit.

2) You're talking about lvl 50 - F2P'rs have had a whole 50 lvls of fun before they get to that point, and if they want to take it further, it seems reasonable they should pay for it.

3) Full WH isn't a right - it's the reward you get for fighting your way to the top. If you want it, you've got to earn it.

F2Pers, my advice is to ask around your server at Fleet for same-faction RWZ that focus on training and progression.

You can ask, but I would be astounded if any RWZ team wants someone that has effectively no gear and only plays 5 games total a week. If they have an empty spot, it's easier to ask on the fleet for someone with Valor rank 90+ and mostly war hero gear and stand a far better chance of not lowering their team rating.

F2P players also pay 20% more for their stuff, so it will take them even longer to get geared up.

(Only minor error I noted above is that you apparently get 2 Battlemaster relics for free as part of the Recruit Mk-2 package at 50, and you don't have to have the Battlemaster mainhand weapon, offhand, earpiece or implants in order to buy the War Hero ones).

So, unless it's someone that's fully WH geared decides to drop to free-to-play except for PVP, there's no serious likelihood that a F2P player will be in any way competitive in PVP at level 50.

(Unless they pay to unlock the features, they only have 2 hotbars, and can't equip purple gear).

10-49, they might be able to have some PVP fun, but that effectively stops at 50.

You can ask, but I would be astounded if any RWZ team wants someone that has effectively no gear and only plays 5 games total a week. If they have an empty spot, it's easier to ask on the fleet for someone with Valor rank 90+ and mostly war hero gear and stand a far better chance of not lowering their team rating.

 

F2P players also pay 20% more for their stuff, so it will take them even longer to get geared up.

 

(Only minor error I noted above is that you apparently get 2 Battlemaster relics for free as part of the Recruit Mk-2 package at 50, and you don't have to have the Battlemaster mainhand weapon, offhand, earpiece or implants in order to buy the War Hero ones).

 

So, unless it's someone that's fully WH geared decides to drop to free-to-play except for PVP, there's no serious likelihood that a F2P player will be in any way competitive in PVP at level 50.

 

(Unless they pay to unlock the features, they only have 2 hotbars, and can't equip purple gear).

 

10-49, they might be able to have some PVP fun, but that effectively stops at 50.

True enough- yeah, I must have missed the recruit mk-2 somehow.

The point isn't whether or not a f2p deserves to pvp on equal footing, but more that f2p are on such a long grind to get the gear (though, with 5 matches rather than the 3 I noted, it may be faster, yet if prices are higher, it may be slower, I'm p2p so I don't actually know their exact costs, I didn't expect with them already limiting f2p WZ/week they'd also raise the costs)- they won't get any gear sets even with dedicated pvp until long after that set is irrelevant.

AND- that for f2p who ONLY want to pvp- the current system makes it actually more expensive to buy access passes for just pvp than to get a sub, which to me seems silly.

I won't do a break down of recruit vs WH augmented- but I can tell you it is not small at all, and while you are not useless- you are fighting a very one sided battle.

F2Pers, my advice is to ask around your server at Fleet for same-faction RWZ that focus on training and progression.

Yes, those RWZ teams that want players in blues that barely can play... sorry, but players in NORMAL WZ are already starting to complain about sub-14k health players flooding the WZ, why would RWZ bring in what's essentially a place holder?

Remember though- you are limited to 3 matches per week. So you are looking at 30 weeks to get a full set of BM gear as a f2p player, over half a year! Yay!

**Please inform me on incorrect math, most numbers are rough estimates and you may earn commendations at a slower or faster rate per match.

I believe it was changed to 5 matches per week.

There's some good advice in there, but I don't think it helps that they're really camouflage for criticism of the PvP gear system in general and the specific point of how much PvP F2Pers have access to.

As it happens, I can handle people not liking the gear system (even if I haven't seen one I think would be a vast impovement). I also agree that the restriction on number of games F2Pers get is much too low, even at 5 per week.

The objective should be to give them a taste, to want more that they'll pay for. 5 games a week, for most of them, will see them stomped and get no chance to learn how to improve. Even if they'd be willing to tough it out, the low number of permitted games will block them from getting good enough to enjoy it in any reasonable timeframe. 15 per week would be better, it would give people a chance to get into the PvP, so that they decide they like it enough to want to pay for more (and a chance to gear up a little).

But I thought it a bit of a shame the helpful advice had to come with the negative spin, as that'll only discourage people from trying something they might enjoy.

Are you both deliberately ignoring the 'training and progression' part of my post? Some servers queue same-faction PUG games and switch teams for balance after every game.

Not my problem if you're not aware of this.

That's not really ranked though, is it? More of a gearing-up exercise.

They are ranked WZ.

it is something available only to the greatest, most talented players in the massively online game we call SW NGE2 I mean SWTOR.

I lol'd. Well said.