In an interview with fansite TORWars this week, we found out from Senior Designer Rob Hinkle that BioWare has plans to make endgame PvP more fun- at least, that’s their idea. They want to make the PvP stat (expertise) equal across the board, no matter what the set of PvP armor. For some players, this is a welcome change but of course, there will be those who oppose.
As is typical with an MMORPG, Bioware has struggled to keep endgame balanced for all players. There is a slippery slope in giving seasoned gamers something for their hard work and dedication yet not making them so overpowered that others cannot enjoy the game as well.
Hinkle said in this interview that he commonly hears from players that they enjoy levels 10-49 but that at 50 (the current level cap), things change. Many players complain about the lack of imbalance in those who are freshly 50 and those who have had time to get better gear, making them unkillable to what should be an equal class.
It’s a common problem in MMOs and in PvP in general. Blizzard’s World of Warcraft has struggled for years with the issue of “twinking” where players would max out stats, enchants, buffs and even potions and scrolls on a character in a PvP bracket in order to win against “regular” players in that bracket. Level 19 was a favorite to twink in WoW. Normal level 19s have little for gear and usually do not bother spending the gold on buffs and enchants. Twink level 19s would max out (with the help of higher level characters or alts) gear, enchants, weapons and any other buffs they could get and then just play PvP over and over instead of leveling.
One way that Blizzard combats this is by giving PvP experience now when you complete battles. They also put caps and minimums on certain enchants, items and buffs. It’s all part of an effort to keep the battles more balances for players of the same levels. It’s obvious that BioWare needs to do something similar to endgame PvP for 50s in SWTOR. They have something in mind, as Hinkle tells us.
He says, “Instead of Expertise being a stat that you’re chasing as you’re getting better and better PvP gear, all the PvP gear no matter what tier it is will have the same Expertise level. It’s just the normal stats that will be getting better as you getting higher in PvP gear.”
So what do you think about their proposed changes? Do you think it’s going to help endgame PvP in SWTOR?
