The Secret World: Issue 6 PvP Detailed

Funcom's The Secret World is big with its content updates. It's a delight to find out about new updates, also known as Issues. Having seen five issues so far, I must say, Funcom has done incredibly well, bringing fresh content to the MMO. Today, we are going to listen to the PvP designer Tim Donks, who is also Age of Conan's long-term designer. Read on for upcoming matchmaking changes and battle ranks. 

The Secret World: PvP changes coming with Issue 6

It looks like Issue #6: The Last Train to Cairo will not only bring new missions and content to The Secret World, it will also introduce PvP related changes and improvements, thanks to the game's new designer Tim Donks, whom we know (should know) from Age of Conan. 

Age of Conan's long-term designer started working on The Secret World two months ago. According to his post today, the first thing he did when he came to The Secret World, was to identify PvP related weaknesses in The Secret World. In other words, guys, The Secret World is up for PvP related improvements in the coming months. It's not like reinventing the wheel. Any players who played the Secret World would tell them anyway. (including myself).

Battle Ranks and PvP rewards

The Secret World fans have been asking Funcom to at least add a rewarding system to the game, give them a reason to keep on doing PvP and continue fighting. So, what is exactly changing? Donks says, they are going to introduce a system that rewards PvP experience points that will be shared among group members within a certain range. When a player gains enough experience to fill his experience bar, he will gain a new Battle Rank. And with each rank, they will gain tokens they can use to buy PvP rewards. The rewards will be items like uniforms players can equip anywhere in game.

Matchmaking Changes

Donks compare matchmaking to a chicken and egg problem. He is right. I remember joining a PvP Battleground and waiting forever in The Secret World as there weren't enough people to join. That also explains how bad the Battlegrounds were at that point. There was simply no point in playing it and noone cared about it. That wasn't the only reason tho, at least not in my personal experience. There were plenty of solo missions in game, I never cared for a half-assed system.

One of the rewards in The Secret World's upcoming PvP system is a new Templar uniform

One of the positive changes Donks listed is the addition of a new feature that will allow players to sign up for multiple battlegrounds. This is a such a simple but clever solution to one of the biggest problems. 

The new Glicko2 system will be monitoring players in battlegrounds and rate them based on their performance. So the new matchmaking system will match players of equivalent skill levels. In other words, they are doing what should be done a long time ago. We still have to wait and see how this works in practice. It's still something to look forward to testing when The Secret World: Issue #6 is out. Devil out....

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