SWTOR – Patch PTS 11/03

Designer Note: Thanks to everyone who has tried out the new warzone on PTS, made videos, guides, etc. We are blown away with the support y’all have shown and want to thank you for your enthusiasm. We are pleased with the gameplay after the last Update so we spent more time on polish and optimization this last PTS patch. Of course, we will continue to eliminate bugs and listen to feedback, so please keep the bug reports and constructive criticism coming! While we don’t have any major optimization results for this patch we have identified a culprit and are working on fixes to eliminate its impact on the Warzone’s performance.

• The Speed Up Battle Mod now decreases the tick rate of Control Points to .5 seconds, up from .3 seconds.
  Designer Note: Getting both the multiply and speed up battle mod on a single point is a little too awesome. We want to tune it down some but still make it impactful and desirable to coordinate. Slowing down the Speed Up Battle Mod will allow opposing players more time to react and provide some counter play.
• Speed Boosts have been placed under the northern Battle Mod spawn locations, and the Speed Boost directly south of the Defense Cannon has been removed.
  Designer Note: Players were having to run too far out of the way to get a speed boost and this isn’t ideal. The speed boost should be roughly on the path you are headed instead of out of your way.
• A greyed-out icon of the Control Point will be visible on the ground when the Control Point is deactivated.
  Designer Note: More in-game communication that matches the scorecard user interface is always a good thing.
• Objective Points (Attacker and Defender) are now given out for capturing a Control Point and defending/attacking a Control Point.
  Designer Note: We are giving out 25 points to anyone in the general area (larger that the control point area but smaller than the room) of control points if they are controlled, depending on if the character owns the control point or not. In addition, characters are going to receive 1000 Attacker Objective points by capturing a control point. This is in addition to using a Battle Mod on a control point, which we added last PTS patch. If there are more opportunities for distributing objective points you feel would help out the gamemode, please share your feedback!

• A visual effect now plays after a Battle Mod has been used.
  Designer Note: More in-game communication that matches the scorecard user interface is always a good thing. See a theme here?
• The map has been updated to more clearly show the play area.
• The loading screen has been updated.
  Designer Note: It is a complex warzone to cover in 3 images but we are hoping we can nail the big pieces. Please let us know what you think the 3 ‘bullet points’ of the warzone should be.
• Various Lana voice-over improvements have been made, including adding a filter.
• Players are no longer able to use Phase Walk and Force Leap/Charge abilities in the Northern spawn rooms.
• All Power Ups (Heal, Expertise and Speed Boost) are now correctly applied to the character that runs over them.
• Battle Mod map note icons are now displayed when active on both the main map and mini-map.
• Players are no longer able to wiggle their way out of the spawn area.