The 9 layers of PVP hell in SW:TOR

“YEAH! TAKE THAT NOOB!” I felt elation run through me as I struck the final blow and defeated my assailant, my lightsabre crackling with joy. I began a dance over his corpse to further establish my dominance. Ah yes, PVP is good. Just then I noticed a small green figure that looked like Yoda emerge from the horizon, he approached me and said, “Done well, you have. L33t, you must feel. I am Virgil. Come with me, you must.” Not knowing what this was about I followed him.

“A dangerous path, you walk. You must be made to see.” We approached a clearing where a multitude of players were standing in a group, engaged in what appeared to be a flame war. Many different topics were being shouted into the air, ranging from bugs favoring certain players to classes that are OP and need to be nerfed. Every time somebody made a statement, the others merely ignored him and made their own statement louder. They were all repeating the same things over and over again. “What is this madness, Virgil?” I asked, he said, “These are the souls of the Uncommited, the forum posters, those who have in life done nothing. They exist neither in hell nor out of it. They will forever be locked in an eternal debate where neither side hears the other and the same topic is discussed again, and again, and again. Come, to hell we must go now.” I shuddered and walked with Virgil, passing under the Star Wars loading screen where the phrase, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” was written.

First Circle (Leavers)

We approached an Alderaan battlefield. As we watched one team captured the middle turret, then the entire enemy team quit the war zone causing the match to end. A few minutes later the same players were in again, and this time the other team captured middle and the opposing team quit the whole war zone and it ended once more. I watched in horror as this process was repeated. “Welcome to the First Circle, the Leavers. Their sin is leaving a war zone as soon as it appeared the other team gained an advantage, their punishment is forever to play Alderaan and leave and rejoin matches that end prematurely with no rewards given. They cannot queu anything else, and they will forever be chasing their daily quest reward never to achieve it.” Shocked, I said, “Such a terrible fate, this is only the first layer… what could be worst than this?” “Come, follow you must, you have seen little.”

Second Circle (Gankers)

We came upon an area that resembled Tattooine, and we watched a group of level 50 players running around on the roads that connected the major bases, they appeared to be looking for something. Just then a level 1000 NPC Death Star blotted out the sky, and cast a beam upon the whole area, one-shotting all the level 50 players for one million damage. It then Roflcopter’d and left the area, and we watched as the 50’s all respawned and began searching the roads again for something. “This is the circle for Gankers, their sin is seeking out players that have no chance of winning against them in open world PVP. They will forever be doomed to seek out lowbies, only never to find them, and to be themselves ganked by an enemy they cannot possibly defend against.” Shaken, I followed Virgil into the next layer.

Third Circle (Medal Farmers)

An arena awaited us in the next layer. In the center was a ball, and at the ends were scoring zones completely undefended. It was obvious the ball could be brought to the one of the end zones with little effort. However, scattered around the arena were players doing random useless things. One player walked through fire then healed himself. Another kept casting guard on random people. Many players were engaged in pointless side duels around the arena, while others sat there and cast aoe at them to run up their damage meter. I watched as this continued on, still nobody touched the ball… it was then I noticed that the 15 minute game timer was frozen and the true nature of this punishment dawned on me. “Yes,” Virgil said, “Now you understand. This is the circle for Medal Farmers, those who care not for the warzone objective and only for personal achievement. The game timer is stuck at 15 minutes, and none of them see the need to pick up the ball and score, they will forever be locked into the same meaningless actions and the match will never end, they will never even get to see the stats screen to show them how well they did.”

Fourth Circle (Pre-Made Players)

We came upon a clearing where a group of Battlemasters from the same guild stood, we could see their group composition was perfect. Across from them stood an identical group with different names and a different guild, but their composition was the exact same. Both groups charged and met in the center, and combat raged. We soon noticed that both groups were performing the exact same moves, CC’ing the exact same players, healing the exact same damage, running out of energy at the same time, and neither seemed to gain an advantage over the other. The battle raged on and still both sides performed exactly the same, with nobody dying. Virgil said to me, “Welcome to the fourth circle, for players who wish to play pre-mades. They are doomed to forever face each other in combat with their cookie cutter builds, forever doing the same moves, neither side able to gain an advantage.” Disgusted I said, “But why punish them for playing well?” And Virgil responded, “Their sin is seeking to gain every possible advantage over the opposition and wishing to only play the perfect composition against those less coordinated, they will be stuck in mirrored combat for eternity.” I mulled this over as we proceeded to the next layer.

Fifth Circle (FOTM’s)

Two players stood, an Ops and a Sorceror. As we watched, the Ops came out of stealth and attacked the Sorceror and hit for 1 damage and CC’d him for 0.1 seconds. The Sorc’s resolve bar was filled and he used shield that was on 1 hour cool down and absorbed 1 damage then CC’d the Ops for 0.1 seconds, whose resolve bar also filled up, then cast lightning on him for 1 damage. This went on for a while, both hitting each other with extremely gimpy moves and CC’s that had no effect, and using heals that had 10 second cast times and healed 1 damage. Clearly the battle was going nowhere, until a Sentinel came along and quickly dispatched both the Ops and the Sorc completely unhampered. “This is the fifth layer, reserved for flavor-of-the-month players. Their sin is only wanting to play the class that is perceived as the best at the time, and their punishment is to be nerfed to the ground so bad as to be unplayable and to be stuck on that class with gimpy moves for the rest of their days.” I shuddered at the thought at having my own class nerfed, and prayed that there weren’t players out there abusing my class so bad that such a fate would become of me. We moved on.

Sixth Circle (Spawnzone Campers)

In the center of the next field, there were neutral NPC’s standing around at a respawn zone. As we watched some players rez’d but were quickly turned on by the NPC’s and dispatched quickly without any hope of surivial, and they lay helpless as their revive’s were on cool down waiting to respawn. “What is this punishment, they didn’t even have a chance!?” Virgil said, “This is the sixth layer, reserved for those who would camp spawn-zones, their sin was camping noob‘s at their spawn point and not allowing them to go free. The tortured souls you see here are unable to log off, unable to switch revive points, all they can do is wait for their revive counter to come off cool down then rez where they will be destroyed instantly. Thus is their punishment.” As we left, the players rez’d again and were quickly burst down by the NPC’s, their cries of agony filling the air.

Seventh Circle (AFK’ers)

We came upon a ridge overlooking a war zone where a fantastic battle raged. Upon the ridge stood dozens of players, just standing still, doing absolutely nothing, watching as the battle raged in front of them. Every now and then one of them would shout, “u newbs. hurry up and win. l2p.“ We stood with them a while, and finally I asked, “What is going on, why are these players just standing here?” And Virgil said, “This is the layer for AFK’ers, their sin was joining war zones then going AFK without participating. They are doomed to stand here forever, never able to join the war zone, only able to watch the action and occasionally blurt out random nonsense. All they can do now is watch and wait but the war zone never ends. They will never be free.”

Eighth Layer (Exploiters)

Virgil spoke, “We now come upon the eighth layer of PVP hell, here the tortured souls have committed sins so grave that their punishment is second only to the ninth layer. Watch.” And as I watched in horror, I saw a player that was stuck in a wall… he tried running, but did not come free. He tried jumping and stuttered in the air for a moment but then came back down to the ground, still not able to free himself. He tried typing /unstuck but it did nothing. I saw another player stuck in jump animation floating slowly through the air, he looked at me and said, “Help me… I can’t get down… Open a ticket… Please…” I was unable to meet his eyes and turned away as he floated past. “This is the layer for exploiters, those who tried to cheat and take advantage of known bugs and exploits in the war zone to gain an advantage. They are forever stuck in the process of exploiting, never to have their tickets answered, forever doomed.” As we walked down the corridor, I noticed many more players stuck in the walls trying to run out only to stay in place, I averted my eyes in disgust and closed my general chat tab as we proceeded to the final layer.

Ninth Layer (Ilum exploiters)

As we approached the final layer, I recognized the frozen wastes of Ilum… before I could do anything my FPS dropped down to 1 per second, and as I tried to turn away Virgil grabbed my arm and said, “Be strong! You mustn’t back out now, gaze upon those of the ninth layer, the most vile souls in all SW:TOR PVP!” I watched in horror as in the first frame 1000 Imperial Battlemasters suddenly rez’d in one spot, then the next frame showed a massive explosion that took up the whole screen covering everything we saw with numbers… we waited 5 more seconds before the next frame was revealed, all the Imperials lay dead in the same spot. “This is the layer for the Ilum exploiters, those who joined Ilum during the bugged patch and quickly gained Battlemaster rank without any work at all. They are forever doomed to 1 FPS or less and they are unable to log out, all they can do is revive only to lag more and be unable to activate any abilities and get nuked down. This is their fate for the rest of eternity.”

“Now that you have witnessed what happens to those who end up here, take what you have learned and show others. Know that there are consequences for those who abuse PVP, and do not make the same mistakes yourself.” And with that Virgil disappeared over the horizon and I found myself back where I was. The noob I had killed respawned himself and was mounting his speeder, I thought about it and let him drive off, not wanting to give into temptation after witnessing all the atrocities of SW:TOR PVP hell.

ValKrice wrote:I have no mood to log in any more... even still have 50+ days to play.