Yesterday saw the release of patch 1.6, named "Ancient Hypergate" after its main feature, a new warzone. After failing to get a look at it on the PTS, I was quite excited to finally try it on live. Apparently I wasn't the only one either, as my usually more PvE-focused guild seemed to turn into nothing but PvP enthusiasts for the night, with multiple teams chain-queueing for warzones all afternoon and evening. We saw a lot of teams from other well-known guilds as well.
I got into four or five matches of Ancient Hypergates and my main impression of it was that it's... interesting. The scoring mechanics aren't exactly complicated, but they aren't really intuitive either, so there were always people around who didn't seem to know what to do (including us to be honest). However, even once you did figure out the gist of it, nobody really had any experience with what's the best way to win.
Initially we spent quite a lot of time focusing on picking up Gree energy orbs, but somehow we always ended up losing our pylon(s) and I didn't win a single match that night. (Though to be fair, it didn't help that in several matches we were seriously outclassed in terms of raw PvP skill.) It felt like a real aha moment to me when I managed to ninja the enemy pylon shortly before the explosion once and it caused my team to score high while the enemy got nothing. Dying in the explosion afterwards seemed like a small sacrifice to make for that kind of advantage.
I'm still not quite sure what would be the best place to hang out as a healer though. It felt like I got mugged pretty badly no matter where I went, as the whole warzone is very open and there are few objects to break line of sight and save your hide when overzealous snipers and leapers got their eyes on you.
I recorded a couple of our matches last night and created a little compilation of clips showing off the confusion and fail we got into. NSFW warning as my guild leader overused the F word a little bit in his excitement (though in his defense, he probably didn't expect to end up on YouTube).
Either way, it was a very fun experience and I'm looking forward to messing around with that Hypergate some more. Today I already managed to win both of the matches that I got into so far - and yes, we did focus on the pylons both times.
The two matches I was in, we lost. The first I didn't even get to finish because I got a phone call while in the spawn area, so got booted from it. The other, we lost big time, with the enemy managing to get a kill just as the pylons overloaded again.
ReplyDeleteI have noticed one thing. It seems, at least the games that I played so far, that many people actually intentionally run into the explosion/overload, so they respawn and can immediately run back to a pylon without being slowed due to being in combat, something that does happen if you take the effort to survive and get into a fight in the bunker. That seems to be a serious exploit/oversight, as there is no real incentive to survive through the explosion phase.
Thoughts? ;)
I haven't seen that happen yet. I can sort of see the point of doing it, but it would also mean completely surrendering the middle and all the energy orbs to the enemy. Something to experiment with I suppose, to see whether it's worth it. :)
DeleteI don't know. It would perhaps be interesting to try I'm wondering whether sending 4 dps to cap a pylon while the other 4 collect the energy spheres as soon as they spawn and then run to help the cap would be a good idea.
ReplyDeleteI dunno, you'd risk losing both pylons if they end up sending more than four to the one you're going for... maybe it would work in a team that communicates well, but I can't really see it being a good pug strategy.
Delete(And yay, not anonymous. ;))
Hello (=
ReplyDeletei read your blog for some time now (= and i really just wanna say THANKS =D (maybe sound weird...) And keeps my breaks a work fun =D
im still new to Swtor (the endgame atleast), but your blog makes it seem so fun and i enjoy playing it (=
- Kira
Sorry for posting anonymous -.-' stupid google acc dident want to work.
ReplyDeleteFrom one "Shin" to another: Thanks for the comment and I'm glad you're enjoying the game! :D
DeleteWell found out we play ón the same server =P NOT to seem stalkerish but agter you for five mins to be sure it was you =] same as you usede you old wow preist name, i did that too =P weird
Delete* ran agter you...
DeleteAnd please keep up the good blog =]
****after
DeleteStupid iPhone auto corect to Danish.