Tactical Strike: Ancient Hypergates and Update 1.6 Preview – Part 1

Nov 232012

Briefing

Welcome to the war, comrades. You have been selected to receive the latest training and tactics fresh from the warfront. The tried-and-true strategies you are about to hear are extremely effective and CLASSIFIED. Let’s get to the briefing. Today, we will discuss the new offerings for PvP in Update 1.6, now on the Public Test Server!

More after the Jump…

Update 1.6 is now available for testing on the Public Test Server! This is the long awaited PvP patch, including a new warzone, Ancient Hypergates! Another new offering is the addition of Elite War Hero gear to the game with price changes to match. Today, we will talk about the warzone and will leave the discussion of the gear to next week.

The new warzone is called Ancient Hypergates. You will notice it is probably the most beautiful PvP map in the game if you have time to enjoy the scenery, which fortunately, you don’t! This is a dynamic and enjoyable warzone, with lots of movement and lots of killing.

Map

Here is the map of Ancient Hypergates with some notes.

The Imperial spawn point and the Republic spawn point are reversed from those of Alderaan Civil War, so it is the Reps’ turn to decide how players start designating sides (like “grass” and “snow” in ACW). “Left” and “Right” just won’t cut it.

Scoreboard

The user scoreboard looks like this:

A: This is the countdown timer to the end of the round. At the end of the round, the pylons will explode and the only safe places are the spawn points and the middle area.
B and C: These are the West Pylon and East Pylon indicators, respectively. Green means your team owns it, red means the enemy team owns it. When the pylons are about to blow, the little circles around the big circle in the middle start charging up.
D and E: These are the “accumulated energy potentials.” These are the scores for the round plus the permanent scores.
F and G: These are the permanent scores. The accumulated energy potentials become the permanent scores after the pylons explode in each round (it is possible to lose accumulated energy potential, but not permanent score).
H: This is a multiplier which starts at 3x and increments by one every round. This multiplier affects how many points you will get for each kill and Gree energy orb (see below).

Basic Rules

Ancient Hypergates consists of rounds that cycle among capturing pylons, killing players and gathering Gree energy orbs, and running for safety at the end of the round to avoid dying in the shockwaves produced by the pylons.

Capturing Pylons

Capturing the pylons works just like it does in Alderaan Civil War. It is pointless to attempt to capture a pylon that someone else is already capturing. You can be interrupted just like in ACW and will have to start completely over. It does seem to be a shorter cast time to capture than is needed in ACW, which is nice, but it also seems to be affected by Alacrity, which may be a bug.

Scoring

The first way to score is by capturing a pylon. It seems there are different rules governing how many points you will get based on whether or not your team already owns a pylon. If you capture a pylon when you don’t have one already, it awards some number of points, depending on round (the reports of others and my observations seem to be inconclusive on how many). Double-capping (getting both pylons) seems to double your score for that round. Double-capping also completely erases the other teams score for that round, but leaves their permanent score intact (i.e. resets their accumulated energy potential to their permanent score).

The primary way to score is by killing other players. Kills grant points to your score, depending on what the multiplier is and how many pylons you have. For example, in the first round, the multiplier is 3x, so you will gain 3 points for a kill if you have one pylon and 6 points per kill if you have both pylons.

Another way to score is by running to the middle, picking up a Gree energy orb, and bringing it back to a friendly pylon. Picking these up gives you 1000 attacker points, and killing an enemy orb carrier gives you 500 defender points.

There are only four Gree energy containers in the middle, and they have a respawn timer. Once you have the orb (which comes in the form of a buff), you run back to the pylon to deposit it. You only need to get back to the area and the buff will disappear.

Once you deposit the orb, it seems to give a straight number of points which is twice the current multiplier. These points are added to the permanent score (i.e. you cannot lose them in the case of a double-cap).

NOTE: No points can be gained when you do not have at least one pylon. Kills will not count toward your score, and the Gree energy orbs need to be deposited at a friendly pylon anyway.

End-of-round Explosion

There is a 2.5 minute timer that ticks down as you are capturing pylons and gaining points. When this timer finishes ticking down, the pylons will charge up and the energy will disperse in a giant shockwave that kills anyone outside. The only safe places are the spawn points and the middle area. Needless to say, CC-breakers will be very important in this part of the game.

Once the shockwave explodes, the accumulated energy potential will turn into the permanent score. If either team’s score is higher than 600 points, the game is over. Note that you can get over 600 points before the shockwave starts but you will still have to finish out the round. This can result in games that end up scoring higher than 600 (I saw one that went up to 888).

Overall, this is a really fun change of pace from the other warzones, and it is unique in the ways you can play it. The addition of the Gree energy orbs opens up alternative opportunities for unusual team makeups. DPS classes will really enjoy a warzone where you win by killing people, and CC-heavy classes will enjoy the chance to CC people in the path of the shockwave, which I will admit caused evil laughter to come out of me a few times!

Let me know in the comments what you think about the new warzone, and check back here next week for more coverage of the changes in Update 1.6! I will leave you with a video of my time in Ancient Hypergates.