PvP in Star Wars: The Old Republic

by Nick Kolan - IGN.com | 05 May 2011 12:00
 
Because killing people is basically all that happens in Star Wars.
 
The Star Wars universe is a one of constant peace. No one ever dies, there are never any wars, and everyone carries around Lightflowers (which are retractable flowers made of light). Except that's all a complete lie, because anyone who even has a passing knowledge of Star Wars -- and I proudly boast that I have exactly a passing knowledge of Star Wars -- knows that everyone is always killing everyone else. In BioWare's upcoming MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, you tend to kill someone or something approximately once every 48 seconds.
 
Like other MMOs where killing things and collecting their innards is the modus operandi for the core game, Star Wars: The Old Republic supplements this cartoony genocide with another, very important, gameplay element -- Player versus Player combat (PvP). There are eight basic classes in The Old Republic -- four for the Republic, four for the Empire -- which can each branch off into two more sub-classes. That means that by level 10, which is when players gain access to TOR's first PvP content, each side potentially has access to eight classes. Giving those classes a playground to run around and hurt each other in is one of the most important parts of a fun PvP system, but BioWare is doing more than that.
 

Voidstar promises multiple objectives.

I had the opportunity to play a few rounds on the Alderaan Civil War map. The map is a massive snowy valley, with spacecraft floating above either side. These craft serve as the spawn locations for the two opposing teams. In the center of the map, in a line that runs parallel to the craft, sit three giant, grey turrets. The objective for both teams is to capture and maintain control of the turrets. When you control a turret, it rotates to face your opponent's craft and starts shooting lasers at it, chipping away at its shields. When you don't, it's your craft that's being attacked.
 
It's a very fancy setup for the map that gives you immediate context for the battle. There's no back-story necessary, and you don't have to close your eyes and imagine what the consequences of failure to beat the other team might be. You get to see it happening right in front of you.
 
As a battleground, Alderaan Civil War has a few key points of interest. Beneath the center turret is a tunnel system that connects the two outer turrets. You can't access these tunnels from the center though -- only from the outer turrets themselves. This makes holding all turrets at once quite difficult. There are power-ups hidden across the map that will boost your speed or rapidly heal you. These can go a long way to turning the tides of battle.Progress is tracked by numbers in the upper-right that represent the health of the two ships. As they tick down, they edge closer to defeat (which in the release version of the game will result in a cool visual of the ship exploding, though it wasn't ready in our build).
 

The center turret -- sure to be home to many a massive battle.

It doesn't take very long for a turret to fall under your control after you activate it. I expect the switch-over time might be increased, or there will be a more obvious warning that a change of hands is occurring in the final version. As it is right now the only indication that a turret is being assaulted is a little icon in the corner of your screen that changes from your team's color to grey, and then to the opponent's color.
 
One issue I found during my session was that communicating which turret to assault was not very easy. As all the turrets and their surroundings essentially look the same, I relied on saying "Right" or "Left" turret, but the turret icons that represented turret control on our user interfaces were mirror images of the turrets we were trying to assault. Capturing the "left" one made the right turret on our UI change to our color. Calling them "east" and "west" turrets is a simple solution, but an even simpler one would be to make them visually distinct -- say, one tinged gold and one tinged silver, with the center being bronze.
 
While the playground is important and Alderaan was genuinely fun to play, 16 total classes means there's a lot of potential for crowd control. Being stunned for thirty seconds isn't fun and BioWare recognizes this. Whenever a crowd control ability is used on your character, a "resolve" gauge fills up a little on your character. When it's full, you become completely immune to crowd control for 8 seconds. It's a novel and effective solution to a problem that other games have dealt with in more frustrating ways (diminishing returns, I'm looking at you).
 

Control the turrets to win.

BioWare also recognizes that every class should play a role in PvP. Traditionally, healers and damage-dealers know what their job is, and tank-classes need to change to a damage role to be very effective. Moves like taunt ordinarily have no role whatsoever in PvP. In TOR, tanks are key. Taunting an opponent reduces their damage output to everyone but the tank who taunted them. Tanks also gain an ability called Guard that, when placed on an ally, transfers 50% of the damage they take to the tank. Playing as a Sith Juggernaut, I found taunting and the use of Guard to be of utmost importance, and found playing a defensive character in PvP to be surprisingly enjoyable.
 
To encourage tanks, and in fact all classes, to fulfill their roles properly, players are awarded Badges mid-fight as they reach certain milestones. I got badges for capturing a certain number of turrets, getting a killing blow, and absorbing a certain amount of damage. At the end of the game, badges allow you to quickly see who did their job properly. Then you get to reward them by giving them a Valor token (which can be exchanged for PvP items).
 
I have had my criticisms of The Old Republic in the past, but BioWare has set up what I perceive to be one of the most well conceived and rewarding PvP systems regardless of how you want to play your character. I'm seriously looking forward to playing the next PvP game-type, the Voidstar (a room-by-room attacker-vs-defender match inside a spacecraft) some time soon.
 
Supplied by IGN.com