I'm Thinking About Getting Back Into PvP

I think one reason I haven't been as upset about the news of no new flashpoints or operations coming for another year or so as others is that I've also been seeing this announcement as an opportunity. I recently looked back at some older posts from when I started this blog and was reminded that I didn't even want to raid when I initially started playing SWTOR. And while I do love it now, there are still a lot of other things that I enjoy doing in the game.

The last year has driven home the point to me of just how time-consuming raiding can feel when your free time is limited, and I can definitely understand now why many people feel the need to drop that part of the hobby when work or family commitments "take over". On weekday raid nights I pretty much come home from work, make dinner, run ops (while eating for the first half hour of it or so), and then go almost straight to bed. This doesn't leave much time for other things. Raiding also has a way of making you prioritise it, along the lines of: "Well, actually I kind of feel like doing something else tonight, but I'm signed up and seven other people depend on me to get this run going."

I think that raids becoming less interesting for a long-time player like me for a while, as Bioware retunes them with an eye on new and returning players, could therefore be an opportunity to devote some extra time to other parts of the game that I've been neglecting - such as PvP. I've been doing the occasional match on lowbie characters of course, and just after 3.0 I spent a bit of time working on getting the basic Exhumed sets for my Commando main, my Sage and my Scoundrel. That surge of interest didn't last long however (as grinding for ranked commendations without actually doing ranked is just sooo slooow), and to this day, my main is only valor rank 94 - after hitting Warlord rank back in October 2013!

The upcoming patch 3.3 will be a great opportunity to get back into the fray, what with the massive reduction in gear costs and the removal of ranked warzone commendations. Full Dark Reaver sets for all the alts!

1% there...

The already increased warzone commendation cap of two hundred thousand will also provide an incentive to keep going after you've got all your gear, in order to save up for the next tier. To be honest I'm not sure if Bioware fully thought this through... but then again, maybe not letting people save up in advance is actually an outdated concept and not as beneficial as we used to think? If gearing up is really quick anyway, any imbalance created by people being able to buy their full new set on day one is bound to not last very long.

Also, there's that PvP stronghold decoration vendor... I did a bit of maths and if I wanted to buy all the currently available decorations and add their maximum number to my stronghold ("Why would you even want fifty of the Makeb Pergola, you can't actually place that many!" you might say... "Because I want them," I reply), that would require over five hundred thousand warzone comms! Talk about a long term goal! Of course, I could also change my mind at any point and start selling them instead - as I found out on the Progenitor, selling stronghold decorations is actually quite profitable considering the small amount of time that is needed to earn enough comms to buy a single item. I can see this keeping me busy for a little while.

Fighting for furniture.