The WildStar PvP Team has made a post about future changes for PvP.
These changes are currently in development and are targeted for drop 5.
PvP is a big part of MMOs and engages players who love the thrill of intense combat against the most dangerous foes of all - their fellow gamers. We want to make sure the exciting competition of arena seasons and the organized teamwork of battlegrounds and warplots are an essential part of WildStar. With 2015 underway, it’s time to talk about our PvP plans for WildStar throughout the year. The team believes it is crucial to give our PvP Community a chance to share their input. We hope that you take some time to look over these planned changes and tell us what you think. Steven “Meerkat” Engle, Brett “Timetravel” Scheinert, and other WildStar developers will be participating in a player-organized Town Hall on February 3rd. If you want to ask any questions based on these plans, or give your feedback, please make sure you check out the details here.
We sincerely appreciate all the feedback our players have already given us on PvP and we’re eager to hear more. So, let’s take a look at the year ahead.
In our next game update, The Protogames Initiative, we will be adding:
- Daily PvP quests that provide players with a variety of PvP related goals to achieve.
- New PvP weekly quests that are accomplished over the course of an entire week.
- Random-queue bonuses that reward players every time they use the ‘random’ queue option.
While these additions will not directly affect the balance or playstyle within PvP, we feel they should provide players with more incentives to participate in PvP on a regular basis.
Coming later in 2015:
Please keep in mind that future updates are still a work in progress and susceptible to change due to testing and player feedback.
- The End of PvP Season 1
- PvP Season 2 will launch some time later, once we make needed adjustments and improvements to systems and PvP gear.
- Same-Faction Battlegrounds
- Exile and Dominion teams will be able to practice their PvP skills against teams of their own faction. Let the Exile vs. Exile and Dominion vs. Dominion battles begin!
- PvP Contracts
- The upcoming Contracts feature keeps gameplay fast, rewarding, and fun. We’ll talk more about how Contracts affect PvP in a future update.
- Gear Changes
- The current “Blue” PvP set will be available by spending gold instead of Prestige.
- The rating requirements will be removed from all PvP gear, allowing players to save up Prestige for the current 1800 rating gear.
- New Prestige Purchases
- Resource bags might let you spend Prestige to purchase a bag that gives out a selection of random rune fragments, or perhaps the same thing for elemental signs.
- Additional AMP/Ability Points
- We are planning to increase the current cap on Prestige and allow players to work their way towards a full set of AMP and Ability points - solely through PvP.
- Gear Normalization (Rallying) in Instanced PvP
- In PvP, instances will rally all players to the same item level, which will be around the current 1800 PvP Rating gear.
- As PvP gear has PvP Offense/Defense, it will often be far stronger than equivalent PvE gear. However, Legendary PvE gear advantages will likely be greatly reduced.
Coming Before the End of 2015:
- We will kick off PvP Season 2 and introduce a new gear set that includes:
- A brand new set of PvP gear that can be purchased with Prestige. Imbuements will then offer ways to gradually improve that gear through PvP play.
- This set will have the same number of rune slots available as equivalent PvE gear.
- This gear will likely be a higher item level than the current 1800 rating gear, and so the rally-point will be adjusted to match.
- Rating-gated cosmetic gear will enable players to truly display their inner badass.
These are just some of the changes we are considering for future updates aimed at ensuring a fun, compelling, and smooth PvP experience for everyone. These plans are all subject to change. If we find (or enough people tell us) that these plans will not have a significant positive impact on PvP in WildStar, we’ll revise them.
As a note, we have not included detail on any class changes in this overview. However, we understand that many players have feedback with regards to class performance, and we are listening. This is an ongoing process and something we will continue to monitor and adjust as necessary.
If you have any questions based on what we’ve discussed here, then please let us know in the forums, or join us for the PvP Town Hall.
See you in the battlegrounds!
