Let’s face it, SWTOR did a lot of things wrong. People kitten and moan about gw2, but really it’s a different beast. One nice thing is that although spvp development can look a bit sluggish sometimes, the wider game (PvE primarily) seems very robust. This matters more in the long run IMO, for those of us reluctant to hop around games (I know I should more).
But this post isn’t about that, or about SWTOR’s shortcomings. Lets look at what it did right in pvp; and what we can take from it. It may be that sufficient time has passed… and taking influence from their pvp development wouldn’t be as toxic as it once was.
My key suggestion would be a change to the way the orb is handled on spirit watch. I for one loved the huttball mechanic, and for me it was one of the best ideas in pvp game type design in years. The ability to throw or pass the huttball to allies (or intercepting opponents!) was fresh, and really emphasised (or could emphasise) positional play (without insta death) and team coordination. It also fits neatly into the current free casting aoe and positional CC mechanics employed by gw2.
So what do you think? Worth trying it out on spirit watch? What if we could take this mechanic and emphasise it on a new map, doing away with capture points altogether?
Also, what about other mechanics such as a CC cap. Personally I feel that stability, stunbreaks and the dodge mechanic solves this problem, but I have heard it mentioned on the forums. This was certainly a key mechanic in SWTOR.
Are there any other cool skills/mechanics people liked in that game worth mentioning? The devs seem to have their hearts set on new traits for each class in the near future… This could be a good time to make suggestions…
The cc cap was good in that it punished people for randomly throwing cc… but that’s about it. You could still stun someone for 13 consecutive seconds, which was more than enough time to get a kill. I prefer GW2 multiple stun break options and stability, and I wouldn’t try to combine systems.
You’re right that huttball was fresh and awesome, but it’s also nearly impossible to balance. Classes with movement skills, cc, and instacast abilities were clear favorites. I’m sure you could theoretically balance that game mode, but you’d have to be pretty much focused on that only imo.
So, I’m a little biased maybe because I left SWTOR pvp for a reason, but I thought those were pretty big flaws. I think cc immunity could have worked if it was tweaked down (needs to be balanced carefully vs TTK). Huttball was awesome, but it would be hard to balance in gw2. There’s already a lot of qq about orb carriers here, and rightly so.
Huttball was horrible. It was basically a premades playground because it was so ridiculously easy to faceroll a pug there. I also found space football to be rather boring personally.
Give me Voidstar from TOR (siege attack and defense).
Give me WSG from WoW (standard CtF).
Give me Arathi Basin from WoW (similar to conquest but 5 point and huge map, but give me the WoW was of switching a base instead of the GW2 way – which means you don’t have to stand on the point to protect it, you just make sure they don’t have 8 seconds to change the flag uninterrupted).
Huttball was horrible. It was basically a premades playground because it was so ridiculously easy to faceroll a pug there. I also found space football to be rather boring personally.
Give me Voidstar from TOR (siege attack and defense).
Give me WSG from WoW (standard CtF).
Give me Arathi Basin from WoW (similar to conquest but 5 point and huge map, but give me the WoW was of switching a base instead of the GW2 way – which means you don’t have to stand on the point to protect it, you just make sure they don’t have 8 seconds to change the flag uninterrupted).
Lucky for you the premade vs pug issue has been resolved in this game. I think the coordination and excitement of passing the ball in Huttball was really great and would work well in GW2.
Voidstar was too dependent on spawn waves. Something more like “payload” from Team Fortress 2 or “de” from Counterstrike (no respawns) would work better.
Warsong Gulch – w00t! Would love to see this in GW2.
Arathi Basin (and Alderaan Civil War for that matter) both use inferior capture mechanics to GW2. These maps snowball way hard in a premade v premade situation and would not add anything useful to the current conquest mechanics. Area control is more volatile than the ability to channel a node.
SWTOR had an amazing PvE personal storyline, and Huttball was the greatest thing ever. That’s pretty much all I got from that game. The rest of it felt like WoW with glowing swords.
That being said, maaaaan did I love Huttball. I swear, if there were a Huttball league, with like, 4-5 Huttball maps and you could just play that, as opposed to getting in queue for a pvp match which had like a 40% chance of being Huttball and a 60% of being one of the boring game modes, I’d still be doing it. Leaping around, knocking people off ledges and into fire traps and acid pits, it was pretty much the only part of that game that felt fluid and dynamic.
The other big bonus to a huttball style of map, would be from a spectator’s end. It’s MUCH easier to follow the flow of the game when there is a single central objective, aka: the huttball itself.
Had an idea for this the other day.. what if when you threw the orb, a circle appeared similar to that found in huttball.
If you pressed jump while in that circle, you’d jump (perhaps slightly higher), however the person highest within the circle when he orb lands would ‘catch’ the orb.
As immob, cc, knockbacks etc all inhibit jumping it would make for a very fluid yet rewarding mechanic for catching the orb.
Also to any devs if this sort of thing is being considered at all a bump would be great
No joke, all MMOs borrow from each other in same capacity or another. Give us huttball! Keg Brawl is fine but like, don’t know why there are multiple kegs (balls) or why it’s just an ice field, or why all our normal abilities get replaced by punches and kicks. Where are the fire traps and acid pits?
Expand this gameplay style, give us better maps, and give us leagues. It’s cool if you still keep it as Keg Brawl. Just, flesh it out a bit, give us exciting maps, let us use our normal PvP abilities as opposed to generic punches, and then let us have teams for it.
…I’ll give you candies. Seriously…so many candies.
Huttball was/is great, but the map was just a tad too small. Some of the different class mechanics (like jugg leap) made it far too easy to score.
In GW2, it would be ideal for certain maps which all have enough room that no individual class would be super dominant.
Some non-mobile classes like necros/engy would play the same role as snipers in Swotr.
Also agree with the PvE side of Swotr…it was very well done and few games made you feel as attached to a character/storyline. Companions in PVE was brilliant from both a gameplay and storyline perspective.
I think swtor got soloq right and that’s a new feature they added to arena.
It looks at professions and spec, you don’t end up with 4 dagger pistol hero thieves.
Arathi Basin (and Alderaan Civil War for that matter) both use inferior capture mechanics to GW2. These maps snowball way hard in a premade v premade situation and would not add anything useful to the current conquest mechanics. Area control is more volatile than the ability to channel a node.
Sorry, but to me their capture mechanics are superior to GW2 capture mechanics. For instance, their mechanics make it much easier for something other than a bunker to guard a node.
I think swtor got soloq right and that’s a new feature they added to arena.
It looks at professions and spec, you don’t end up with 4 dagger pistol hero thieves.
Hmm
SoloQ arena? I may have to see what is going on in TOR..
I think swtor got soloq right and that’s a new feature they added to arena.
It looks at professions and spec, you don’t end up with 4 dagger pistol hero thieves.
its worse when you end up with 4 useless dagger dagger one shot trick ponies
Why not take something from the best MMO of all time, GW1.
Seeing as this is a completely messed up sequel to the best MMO why not reverse some of the awful, awful changes?
I heard a lot about Huttball when SWTOR was released, amongst all the negatives. The fact that people are again talking about it in this thread makes me curious about a GW2 variation. I’d like to see it.
A warrior, a guardian, and an elementalist walk into an open field…
The Warrior turns to the guardian and says, “Did you hear something?”
Guardian replies, “No, but how’d the elementalist die?”
Why not take something from the best MMO of all time, GW1.
Being a GW1 vet I’m not against this either. The fact that were a year+ into GW2 and still playing conquest mode is disappointing.
A warrior, a guardian, and an elementalist walk into an open field…
The Warrior turns to the guardian and says, “Did you hear something?”
Guardian replies, “No, but how’d the elementalist die?”
Why not take something from the best MMO of all time, GW1.
Being a GW1 vet I’m not against this either. The fact that were a year+ into GW2 and still playing conquest mode is disappointing.
I mean there are loads of GW1 gametypes we can take and the only one they used was the one they got rid of because it was pretty awful (HB). Why not give us GvG, AB (my 2 favourites by far), FA (the best semi-competitive gametype I’ve seen in an MMO), HA….
FA would be ideal to come first, a place where people can chill out, ideal for pve players to join in and not ruin the match and just a generally really fun game type.
This allows people to have an easier time jumping into competitive matches and competitive players a chance to relax.
) and team coordination. It also fits neatly into the current free casting aoe and positional CC mechanics employed by gw2.