Hi folks, I wanted to follow up on my original post here as I’ve seen lots of confusion around what is and isn’t in the latest patch 7.0.2: In 7.0.2: Companions should no longer miss taunts or heals, and should be performing better overall. Players with gear over 326 in PvP Warzones and Arenas no longer have a stat advantage as their stats are now properly synched to 326. Working as intended: The base Presence stat scales when Level Synced, but no bonus Presence scales. Bonus Presence includes all Presence gained through higher Influence with companions, Legacy Unlocks, and Datacrons. This can be observed in the Details button on the Character Sheet. In a future update: Maintaining Accuracy (and additional stats TBD) thresholds in Level Synced content. Relic bonus stats when activated or triggered on their own applying in Level Synced content. Augments and Color Crystal stats applying properly in Level Synced content. In my original post, I wrote out specifically what would be in 7.0.2 to set player expectations. When ‘future update’ is mentioned, that means the work is in active development but a specific patch has not been identified for a roll out. When the work is closer to completion and we are ready to deploy that content, it is at that time when we will communicate the patch number. Outside of those things identified above, you should not expect any major changes to the Level Sync system until we communicate otherwise. Other related aspects, such as individual content difficulty and tuning, we will continue to address with each patch. Thanks, -Chris

Hi folks, I just wanted to take a moment and clarify Bonus Presence as I saw several questions around that. Stats earned from datacrons are never modified in the Level Sync system, including Presence. Presence earned from any Legacy unlocks or a companion's influence level are also never modified. These all count as Bonus Presence, and can be observed as never scaling in the live game. To check this out, you can open the Character Sheet, click the Details button, and mouse over the Presence stat. You can notice Bonus Presence will remain unchanged in all areas, Level Synced or not. Hope this adds some clarification! -Chris

Hi folks, I wanted to chat about the history of Bolster, how it’s evolved over the years into what is now known as our new Level Sync system, and how we’ve been tuning and adjusting Level Sync based on your feedback. One note on terminology: I’m going to refer to Bolster as the pre-7.0 technology and Level Sync as the post-7.0 technology. We’ve used several terms interchangeably over the years, but for the purposes of this post I’m referring to the technology difference between the two. In the 4.0 release, we introduced the concept of Bolster throughout the wider game. It was previously launched to specifically address PvP Warzone balance in order to help undergeared players, but the 4.0 release brought the feature to PvE content. When your character visited a planet they had completed the story on, we shifted the character level down to a range we expected players to be in for that planet. Bolster enabled the game to give better and more relevant rewards for high level players going back to older content. We could finally reward max level characters with useful items or currency, whereas previously they would receive rewards far below their actual level. The reverse was also true: we could Bolster players upwards in order to give more content options to lower level players. This mostly occurred in PvP Warzones in order to keep the queues more active and provide a better Warzone experience for those players in the lower levels. Unfortunately, this implementation of Bolster brought a host of problems with it. To peel back the curtain a bit, that system relied on applying an ability on the player, and that ability would dictate the level and stat scaling to apply to the player. All of this data was defined by hand in tables, with specific stats defined per planet or per difficulty level per piece of content. Not only was this difficult to maintain and update, but it introduced a host of bugs and undesirable problems that we worked hard over the years to address. Sometimes lower level mods would actually provide better stats in PvP, for example. Or the Bolster ability would fail to apply in Operations or Flashpoints leaving one or more players over leveled for the content, and introducing exploits that allowed players to reliably force the bug and easily complete content balanced for several levels below their own. This implementation also limited the ideas we had for the future of repeatable content, so for 7.0 we invested in modernizing our Bolster system, and effectively removed it and replaced it with the current Level Sync system. Level Sync works from a new codebase that is more predictable and less prone to exploitative behavior. Designers can effectively enter item rating ranges per planet/piece of content, and the NPCs in that content are using the same scaling and stat ranges, making the balance relationship more predictable. This was a large change, so it required lots of per-content testing and iteration. We made this change last fall and it went through several PTS iterations. We were able to address lots of balance feedback back then and continue to do so to this day across the game in order to get the system feeling better with each iteration. With this new system came a few side effects that removed some of the quirks of the older Bolster system. One oddity we solved was the way primary stats were scaled in the old Bolster system, especially when leveled down. They were far from accurate, and the system merely capped stats, so everyone over the defined thresholds had identical stats. With the Level Sync system, primary stats are actually scaled downwards according to how much of each stat characters have equipped. So if you have a high Mastery build, you should see more Mastery than another player who is running a high Endurance build in the same scaled content. One side effect of the new system is all stats are scaled down when Level Synced. Under the Bolster system, tertiary stats such as Accuracy, Critical Rating, and Alacrity were never scaled. This had both advantages and disadvantages to how players would experience content. The plus side is Accuracy and Alacrity thresholds that players had taken care to optimize would be maintained when playing lower level content. But stats like Crit not scaling made older content more trivial than intended, which set the wrong expectation for game balance when facing other players in other modes such as PvP, or NPCs in Operations, and Master Mode Flashpoints. We intend to update the new system to maintain Accuracy and Alacrity thresholds when scaled up or down in a future update. This would be very similar to how the old system worked for Accuracy and Alacrity specifically. Another side effect involves Relics. These typically provide extra stats when they are activated or trigger on their own. As all stats now scale in Level Synced content, there currently isn’t a method to scale the extra stats provided by Relics, so they currently provide no stat bonuses when activated or triggered while Level Synced. We’ve been working on resolving this problem and intend to address it in a future update. There is similar behavior with Augments and Color Crystals. We identified some issues both internally and thanks to your feedback on the PTS servers where it was possible to manipulate Augments and Color Crystals to provide huge stat bonuses outside of the bounds of the system. We have identified the root cause of these bugs, and have been working on solutions to both, to be introduced in future updates. Finally, we’ve had a couple of issues prevalent in PvP modes that we’ve identified and fixed incrementally over several updates. PvP Warzones and Arenas in 7.0 introduced a valid item rating range in level 80 matches. The Level Sync system was intended to allow players with gear from 318 through 326 to compete and upgrade their gear, while synching down players with higher gear (such as 330 gear) to the ceiling of 326. The system was also intended to reduce the stats and effectiveness for equipped gear below the 318 minimum threshold, such as 306 gear. Once 7.0 launched, players noticed they were not less effective wearing 306 gear in level 80 Warzones and Arenas, and in fact in some cases their equipped stats were the same or better than 326 gear. We found the root cause of this bug and resolved this odd behavior in the 7.0.1 patch. We have also determined the root cause of a bug that was causing item ratings in Level Synced content to be inaccurately computed. This didn’t result in major stat changes, but was the cause of some stats appearing to be worse after the 7.0.1 update in content that was Level Synced, and also that players with better than 326 gear in Warzones and Arenas had a slight stat advantage. We have a fix to this bug coming in the 7.0.2 update. One last thing I wanted to address is companions, and their effectiveness in combat. The root cause for companions suddenly becoming worse tanks or not drawing aggro or dealing damage as expected was a bug in how their base stats were applied when loading into a planet or area. This caused some of their stats to be missing or inaccurate, which made things like their taunt ability or area of effect damage abilities miss their target NPC every time. The fix for the companion issue is also coming in the 7.0.2 update. An additional note on companions and their effectiveness: the Presence base stat does scale in Level Synced content to reflect the amount of base Presence a player would expect to have in that level range. This would apply to Presence earned through character level-up and from equipment. However, the system does not scale any bonus Presence earned from raising the influence levels of companions, so companions with high influence levels will always be more effective across all content where companions can be used. All of the fixes described above for the 7.0.2 update can be currently seen on the PTS, and we continue to keep an eye on your reports and experiences both in the live game and the PTS server. We made over 100 balance tweaks and adjustments to existing content thanks to your feedback in the 7.0 PTS cycles, and continue to address any areas as they are reported by players, our internal testing, and our own playthroughs of the game. Hopefully this post sheds a bit of light on some of the issues and resolutions with Level Sync in the game. We’re still very excited about the content possibilities unlocked by modernizing this huge and fundamental system of the game. Thanks! -Chris EDIT on 4/28/22: Follow up post for further clarification on what was included in 7.0.2.

Hi folks, I wanted to follow up on Keith’s post here with a little more context, background, and most importantly some changes you will see in the 7.0.1 release. First, a little peek behind the scenes in the world of Game Design. When designing changes for a game as large and complex as Star Wars: The Old Republic, there are many things that need to be taken into account. Between the interplay of lots of different systems and features in the game, and understanding how any change to one can affect the experience of all the rest, it’s sometimes difficult to fully simulate on paper how the sum of all the parts fit together into a greater, cohesive whole. So we prototype, test, iterate, and test some more. Some of these may be public test opportunities of a particular piece of the puzzle we’re curious about on the PTS, but internally the test and iteration cycle repeats as often as possible. To understand the mindset of a variety of players, we gather feedback from as many places as possible to measure against the goals of the updates, in order to see if that cohesive whole we’re going for is lining up. For 7.0, we had a vision for how players could experience repeatable content, and how the game would incentivize and reward content around the galaxy, especially to highlight our new shared tagging feature that we’ve been very excited about. One major aspect of this was ensuring that some of our various systems which reward players for being active in the game, such as Conquests, Galactic Seasons, and Weekly Missions, have a bit of interplay between them to ensure if players wanted to target a particular sort of reward (like gear, cosmetic, or guild ship upgrades), there would be other players completing the same content in any given week, regardless of what rewards they were after. This brings us to our Featured Content vision. We intended to reward featured content over non-featured content in a more substantial way for a few reasons: To make groups easier to form for similar content, even when reward goals differ To make it easier to get help from other players via shared tagging in heroics and dailies To make Operations more accessible to players who've never tapped into Story Mode before, by adding more options each week in Group Finder. Many aspects of a design like this are extremely difficult to test at scale outside of a live game environment which houses many players piling into the game, all with different ways that they play, and all with different backgrounds and interests. Using our Public Test Server enables us to gather some early feedback, since it’s the closest thing we have to a live game environment, but it’s not a perfect substitute for the live game when it comes to how systems interact at scale and the data that provides. So this brings us back to our Featured Content vision. The team worked hard to deliver on that vision, but when we saw how it was performing at scale (in a live environment), and especially taking your feedback into account, we decided to work on some changes that we believe will address many of the friction points in that vision. In 7.0.1, we will not be making all Veteran Flashpoints available at level 15. Instead, we will retain each Flashpoint’s existing level restrictions, and make all Flashpoints available in Group Finder every week. We will also adjust some rewards, reducing slightly the number of materials gained by deconstructing gear earned by running any individual Flashpoint, and boosting materials rewarded in the repeatable weekly Group Finder Missions. We are also committed to addressing some long overdue discrepancies in difficulty, length, and time to complete among all of our Flashpoints. That work will not be in 7.0.1, but will be patched into the game over time as we assess each flashpoint individually. The first step in this direction can be seen on the latest PTS build that went live today: Enemy health in the Spirit of Vengeance Solo-Story Mode has been reduced across the board Enemy damage and health have been reduced by 20% in Veteran and Master Modes of Traitor Among the Chiss, Crisis on Umbara, and The Nathema Conspiracy Enemy damage and health have been reduced for the Jakir and Selden, and Tau/Malgus encounters in Objective Meridian in Master Mode. Additional adjustments will come in a later patch for other difficulties. [*]In 7.0.1, we will make all Weekly Missions for dailies and heroics available all the time. To compensate for the addition of all the extra weeklies, they will be repeatable 2 times per week as opposed to 3 as they are currently. Legacy Operations and the new weekly Operation Missions will remain in rotation each week, as well as story modes in Group Finder, primarily due to how they tie into specific Conquest objectives in order to make finding a larger group easier. Once R-4 Anomaly launches, its Weekly Mission will be available every week, to highlight the new content and gear that comes with it. We’re excited about this one, and encourage everyone to take a look and try out the bosses on the PTS! Thanks for your time, care, and passion. We’re excited to get these changes to you and look forward to hearing what you think! -Chris

Hi all, I wanted to jump in and try and clarify some of the potential confusion in this thread. There are two different topics here: The ability for existing players to change the Combat Style upon logging in to the 7.0 Game Update, and the rules around characters with Force Origin Stories when they are offered an option to swap Combat Styles with their opposite-aligned mirror. Existing Characters and Combat Styles As Jackie posted, we fully intended for current characters to be able to choose a preferred Combat Style upon logging in for Game Update 7.0. We have worked for some time to try and make this happen, but recently ran into some technical hurdles that unfortunately prevents us from supporting this. So, as a result, when you log into the game after 7.0, your primary Combat Style will be your current Advanced Class. Choosing your Advanced Class was designed to be a permanent choice, and we will continue this with Combat Styles. We have no current plans to introduce a method to change one of your Combat Styles. As we previously stated, the ability to have a second Combat Style and the additional Loadouts that come with it are features for active subscribers. Related to this topic, we did see a question being asked of “what happens to my second Combat Style if my subscription lapses?”. In short, your “second” Combat Style will become unusable including its Loadouts. Note the quotations around the word second. If your subscription lapses, your useable Combat Style will be the one you last logged out on when the cancellation hits your account. This means that if you log out on your primary Combat Style, you will continue to be able to play with that one and its Loadouts. If you log out on your secondary Combat Style, you will continue to be able to play with that one and its Loadouts. Essentially, whichever Combat Style is active when your sub lapses is the one you will continue to use when you log back in. Force Origin Story Considerations Force Origin Stories have some special considerations, since there are some restrictions in Combat Style choice that Tech Origin Stories do not share. To a brand new player, or a player who has not unlocked their Dark V/Light V achievements in their Legacy (Legacy of Sacrifice and Legacy of Unity), they are not presented with the option to choose an opposite-aligned Combat Style at character create nor when they unlock their second Combat Style, with one exception: If a player without these unlocks has been playing their character with opposite aligned morality, such as a Jedi Origin Story as a Dark Side character, or a Sith Origin Story as a Light Side character, they will receive the option to swap their current Combat Style to the opposite alignment equivalent upon completing their Act 3 story. In addition, when they are prompted to select their second Combat Style, they will have all Force Combat Styles available to them. [*]Force Origin Story players who have already unlocked Light V/Dark V achievements will not see any restrictions, and all Combat Styles are available to them at both character create and when choosing their second Combat Style There has been no change in the design of the Force Origin Story Considerations, which was first shared in this post. You can listen to me talking about all of these restrictions, and expand on why and the philosophy behind these decisions in the linked podcast in the post. However, to build upon Jackie’s clarification post here, we wanted to give Force Origin Story players some choice when the 7.0 update releases. So all pre-7.0 Force characters that have opposite alignment to their current class will be given the option to swap their primary combat style to the opposite aligned equivalent upon logging in post-7.0. This means if you are a Jedi Knight or Jedi Consular, and have at least 1 Dark Side point away from 0, you will be given this choice. Likewise, if you are a Sith Warrior or Sith Inquisitor, and have at least 1 Light Side point away from 0, you will be given this choice. This will be regardless of any Legacy unlocks or otherwise. Once that character is in the game, and the swap choice has been made or refused, the rules as described above will still apply. Finally, I wanted to address some comments around my clarifications in Discord about the above topic. What I stated in this post is still true. I have recently been trying to clarify confusion around swapping Force Combat Styles by repeating the same information we revealed in the podcast and linked in the official forums. I will typically include a link to the official sources to reinforce where this information originated from. Any new information around Combat Styles or any other topic will be shared through official channels such as our blogs, the forums, our livestreams, etc… and those mediums will be used to reinforce or clarify any questions being answered elsewhere. Thanks, -Chris

Hi everyone, I recently did an interview with Max and Sema, the content creators behind SWTOR Escape Pod Cast about Combat Styles. We covered quite a bit of information, including the team’s goals and philosophies behind them. Hopefully this interview also addresses lots of questions that y’all have been asking about Combat Styles in general. Below are some high level points that we chatted about: We had the opportunity to take a close look at the state of the game for this release and address things such as balancing classes and the way we developed new abilities, thus opening the door for some fun stuff we can do in the future Goals of Loadouts and Combat Styles, how many players can have, and our vision behind how they work How we are managing flexibility and restrictions when it comes to switching Combat Styles What the player experience is like if the player is brand new to SWTOR Gearing changes will be coming to level 80, but we aren’t able to share details at this time. This will be something that players can look forward to testing in a future PTS phase Changes that are coming to Utilities Light vs Dark alignment and unlocking Light/Dark 5 for Legacy Excited to share more through PTS and we are looking forward to sharing how all the pieces will fit together Definitely check out the interview for all of the details about the above points! Thanks all!

Hi everyone, Now that players have had a chance to experience Game Update 6.3, we wanted to follow up on a change we had made with PvP brackets. Currently, there are now two brackets instead of three. Previous brackets: Levels 10-42 Levels 43-74 Level 75 Current brackets: Levels 10-74 Level 75 The intention behind the change was to increase the number of PvP players available for the whole queue. We are in the process of analyzing the data for this change and also gathering feedback from players who participate in PvP. We understand the impact that this had on our PvP community, and will be mindful of communicating changes such as consolidating the number of total queues and their intentions ahead of time before they are implemented. While we are on the topic of PvP, we are aware of the questions regarding the future of PvP and what that looks like. We briefly touched on some of the longer-term plans in a post last fall <link>. Our overall goal for PvP is to support modes that accommodate safe, healthy competition. We believe that if we can do this, we can encourage more players to try out PvP and foster a growing, positive community. The more players we have playing PvP modes, the better quality the experience becomes overall. As a result, queue times are reduced and matchmaking algorithms have more players in the pool to work with. To get there, we have been working on what the future of PvP could look like. We have made great progress here, and laid out a couple of initiatives in-line with the transition. First, we’re keeping the existing Seasonal structure and rewards plan through Season 14 to allow us the time to finish our exploration and implement the next version of PvP. Next, we’ve been gathering feedback from the community on what sort of changes you would like to see. We are exploring things like map voting/selection, accounting for classes in matchmaking, tighter brackets in matchmaking, and the reward structures in all of the current ranked and unranked modes. Thank you all for your continued feedback! -Chris

Hi all, I just wanted to clarify one point that's come up in this thread: the timer would not start when the patch is released. The timer will start when the item is purchased from the vendor, so I would not anticipate any ability to sell back any items currently being held in this way on alt characters once the patch goes live. Part of the reason for this post was to give y'all ample time to sell back any items being stored in this manner before the patch goes live. -Chris

Hi folks, We wanted to give you an early heads up about a change we’re making in the upcoming game update 6.3. Previously, the refund timer for items purchased off of a vendor only counted down while that character was in-game. As of the 6.3 update, this will change to real time. What this means is if you purchase an item off of a vendor, and that item has a refund timer on it, the timer will count down whether that character is logged in or not. This is in-line with how the current timer for Cartel Market items works. The ability to exchange items looted between party members in Flashpoints and Operations, which also uses a timer, will not change and count down via in-game time only. The reason behind this change is we observed some unintended behavior where the mechanics of the refund timer were being used to store more resources than intended by limits intentionally set in order to balance the game economy’s inflows and outflows. -Chris

Hi folks, We’ve received feedback regarding the Mandalorian Battle Ring arena map, and in an effort to isolate a fix for some of the problems currently in the live game, we plan on forcing only this map to fire on the PTS for all PvP modes. We’re looking for some folks to jump in and try it out. Mainly we are looking for all of the various ways players are reporting dying to the map in the live game: Running out of the spawn area Running against torches on both the interior and exterior of the ring Running against crates underneath the center arena Running over ramps If you experience any deaths to the arena map itself, please let us know in this thread. And what was the last thing you recall doing when you were killed. We do have some new logging implemented on the PTS build in order to allow us to isolate the fixes required before the 6.3 (and Season 14 start) game update, so even just hopping in and playing will help us out. Thank you! -Chris

Hi folks, I wanted to pop in here and clarify a few things that have been brought up. First and foremost, the official forums (where you are now) are the official platform for news and announcements, and are accessible to all subscribers. Second, it is true I am present in many Discord communities. I do so primarily so I can get a feel for what these different communities are chatting about in an effort to gather as many points of view as possible. I do this in tandem with other platforms where players self-organize that I’m aware of. I do these things in my personal capacity, however if I interact at all I make it clear who I am in my official capacity for transparency. Since Discord seems to be the primary platform brought up here, I want to address some points.. I started joining Discord communities related to the game when I returned to the team over a year ago. Discord is interesting in that it provides real-time communication via text chat, which is vastly different than the turn-based dialogue offered by forums. I use Discord interactions in several ways: General human chatting Discussing hobbies Gathering additional info on reported bugs or exploits Guiding folks to official channels who ask where/how to report something Guiding folks to official channels when asked about any information that’s unannounced (dates/future plans, etc) Discussing game design in general When discussing longer-term plans or philosophies, I use the official forums. And I refer folks back to these posts if it comes up in other communication channels. Generally, I very much enjoy spending some of my personal time on Discord as long as the interactions are healthy. As a reminder, these servers are player-run and non-official, so the rules of each community are determined by those who own the servers. Hopefully this sheds some light on how I interact with various communities in various capacities. But it’s worth re-stating again that official information will only come from official sources, including the forums here. Thanks, -Chris

Hi all, I wanted to discuss some changes we’re bringing to some crafting objectives in Conquests. The full list is below, but I wanted to share some thoughts as to why, and our goals here. We aim to create engaging, healthy competition and play. One of our goals for how crafting interfaced with Conquests was to allow crafters to contribute in a meaningful way. We took the approach of allowing many of these objectives to be open-ended (aka infinitely repeatable) since they would still be constrained by the resources necessary to craft. However, we have seen this in practice turn into unhealthy, and often times problematic, play. Many activities around crafting (gathering, missions, the actual crafts) are very repetitive, and could be automated in ways that violate our Terms of Service. While we think about how crafting and the crafting economy can fit into the greater game in more meaningful ways in the long term, we are making the following changes to promote a more healthy playing environment: New Objective called ‘Crafting: Inventor’ will be added This will be a Weekly and require twice the number of crafts (100) Base Points = 6,400 Upon completion opens up to ‘Crafting: Inventor 2’ Daily Objective [*]The former ‘Crafting: Inventor’ Objective will change from an Infinite Repeat to a Daily Repeat Will change names to ‘Crafting: Inventor 2’ Base Points = 1,100 (up from 750) [*]‘Crew Skills: Harvesting’ will change from an Infinite Repeat to a Daily Repeat Base points = 1,100 (up from 750) [*]‘Crafting: War Supplies’ will change from an Infinite Repeat to a Daily Repeat Base Points = 2,000 (up from 1,100) [*]‘Crafting: Dark Project Eternal’ will be removed from Conquest as there is already a Daily version [*]‘Crafting: Aid the War Effort’ will change from an Infinite Repeat to a Daily Repeat Base Points = 3,350 (up from 750) In addition, we want a bit more equity between professions. Going forward, a ‘craft’ for the purposes of conquest objectives will equal one ‘craft’. Previously a ‘craft’ would count each item in a stack of items crafted, shortcutting our intent for the system. For example - if a Biochem crafter produces a single craft that consists of a stack of 3 stims: Previous: Conquest objective credits that as 3 crafts New: Conquest objective credits that as 1 craft All of these updates will arrive in Game Update 6.2.1, currently targeting February. I also wanted to share that we are mindful of making large Conquest changes, after doing so a couple of times last year. We are happy in general with where Conquests stand at the moment, but as a live service will continue to make tweaks as needed (such as these) to promote our goals of engaging, healthy competition and play. If you would like to read updates on general Guild Conquest changes, please see David’s post here. Thanks, -Chris

Hi all - we really appreciate the discussion! I wanted to let you know we're going to take a look at Reputation rewards for Grade 5 and below missions for a future update. Thanks! -Chris

Great discussion in here! I wanted to jump in and let y'all know we're going to take a look at Remote Slicing for an upcoming update. Thanks! -Chris

Hello again! We have had various discussions around toxicity, especially as it related to PvP (previous thread here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=985281). I wanted to let y’all know about an upcoming change that hopefully very few of you may experience. Currently, the PvP lockout timer triggered by declining matches or leaving early in Ranked modes, and by being vote kicked in Unranked, prevents players from being able to queue for any PvP activity. This includes Ranked, Unranked and Galactic Starfighter modes. One of the actions we may take on a player’s account due to violations of the Terms of Service is a seasonal queue ban. This prevents players from being able to queue for Ranked PvP modes for at least the current season. We are updating this type of queue ban to mirror that of the lockout timer: Players actioned with a queue ban will now be unable to queue for any PvP activity, including Ranked, Unranked, and Galactic Starfighter. This change will be live in game update 6.2.1. Finally, I wanted to offer thanks to all of you as we continue to find ways to decrease toxicity. -Chris

Nine years is an incredible run for any game, but to see SWTOR still delivering original Star Wars stories set in the Old Republic era the entire time is truly something special. It takes a passionate team, incredible players and fans, and support from too many people to name to accomplish such a feat. I’ve enjoyed so many lasting memories through the years as both a player and a developer: The Orange Pixel (RIP), double Kephess, light sword in box, dance parties on the fleet, walker parades...the list goes on and on. Some say there’s even an NPC golfing somewhere on every planet. Who can say? And yet, after all of these years, we find ourselves looking forward still. There are so many more stories to tell...so many more experiences we want to deliver and share with the community. What could be next? We dream big in Texas, so buckle up y’all!

Hi friends, I wanted to take a minute to talk about the Deserter changes coming in Game Update 6.1.4. As part of our efforts to reduce toxicity, it’s important to understand how game rules themselves can contribute to the problem. I previously talked about how behaviors like declining multiple matches in a row or leaving matches could be used to intentionally degrade the quality of PvP matches, particularly in Ranked modes, and how we planned on addressing the problem. Unranked: In Unranked matches, the 15-minute Deserter lockout will still apply for leaving a match. In addition, the 5-minute lockout penalty for being vote kicked will still apply. Ranked: In Ranked modes (both solo and group) there are a few changes. First, as previously discussed, vote kick has been removed in these modes. Next, the Deserter lockout timer has been increased to 20 minutes for declining a match or leaving early - the first time. Over time, if a player continues to decline or leave matches that lockout timer will increase until they hit the maximum threshold. If a player hits the max once, all declines or leaves for the rest of the week in ranked modes will use the maximum lockout timer. An important change here to note is the lockout timer prevents queueing for ALL PvP activity: Unranked, Solo Ranked, Group Ranked, and Galactic Starfighter. In addition, all Deserter lockouts will be account-based. Some of the philosophy behind this change is to still allow a smaller penalty for one-off accidents, such as missing a queue due to a bad internet connection or stepping away for a few minutes. Where the penalty increases is when we can begin to assume the likelihood of an attempt to manipulate the queue or gain an advantage in Ranked matches is greater than the likelihood of missing several queue pops on accident in a row. This is based on data and observation of past player behavior, so these changes to the game rules are an attempt to change that behavior, and ultimately provide a more fun and safe place to play. As always, we will measure the results of this change and adjust as needed if we see any opportunities for improvement. Thanks! -Chris

Hi friends, With Game Update 6.1.4 we are introducing a new tier of augments to the game, with materials added to our prestige game modes. For a little background, we try to strike a balance between the right time to introduce new power to chase into the game and respecting your time invested in getting to the current maximum level of gear. We also want to refresh interest in our prestige modes by adding a very clear incentive while we work on the next batch of new content. We have a few goals here. First, in PvE, it has been several months since Dxun Master Mode released. Top-end guilds have cleared the content and achieved the timed run achievements. Guilds still progressing in Dxun could use a slight boost to help get over the hill of that next boss, and a slight power bump should help. We don’t want progression to stagnate, and we would also like to make it worth people’s time to farm older Master Modes in order to gear up the next batch of recruits for the most current content. In PvP, we want to continue to foster more high quality matches in Ranked, especially Group Ranked. So far this year we’ve boosted rewards to that end, but haven’t seen as much movement there as we would like. So, in addition to boosting conquest rewards for Ranked (as indicated in David’s post), we are introducing an additional exclusive reward which is required to build the new augments. To be clear, these augments will require BOTH the PvE material (only available in Master Mode Operations) AND the PvP material (only available in Ranked) to craft. We acknowledge that many players prefer one mode over the other, however we have a robust trading economy that rewards those who make these scarce materials available either via the Galactic Trade Network or simply trade chat. Basics The new Augments will require materials from Master Mode Operations, Ranked PvP Missions and Boxes, and the Cybertech Crew Skill to assemble the new materials. They will be Item Level 300, and named “Superior _____ Augment 77”, depending on the augment. Crafting is split between Armormech, Synthweaving, and Armstech (like existing augments), and those schematics will be available from the Crew Skill Trainer for 35,000 credits. Details Master Mode bosses will drop a new material: OEM-37 Most bosses drop 1 in 8-person, 2 in 16-person Final bosses drop 3 in 8-person and 6 in 16-person Dxun bosses will drop 2 in 8-person and 4 in 16-person Apex Vanguard in Dxun will drop 6 in 8-person and 12 in 16-person [*]Ranked PvP Missions and Boxes will drop a new material: RPM -13 50% chance in weekly group ranked box 5 on Weekly Group Ranked Quest [*]10% chance in daily group ranked box 1 on Daily Group Ranked Quest [*]25% chance in weekly solo ranked box 0 in Weekly Solo Ranked Quest [*]5% chance in daily solo ranked box 0 in Daily Solo Ranked Quest [*]Cybertechs will craft a new material: CM-1337 This schematic can be purchased from the Crew Skill Trainer for 15,140 credits [*]The 300 Augments ingredients are: 5 Artifact Combo Materials 3 Artifact Secondary Combo Materials 5 Solid Resource Matrix 1 CM-1337 5 Processed Isotope Stabilizer [*]CM-1337 ingredients are: 15 OEM-37 25 RPM-13 5 Legendary Embers These will be available in the upcoming PTS to try out, so don’t hesitate to pop in and let us know what you think! -Chris

Hi friends, As I mentioned in my previous post, I want to chat a bit about toxicity and what actions we’re taking to reduce friction points in the game that can lead to toxic behavior. In general, our philosophy in regards to toxicity and harassment is there is no room for it in our service. But it’s not quite as simple as ‘find the toxic people and remove them’, because there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Often times folks are just having a bad day, and some friction point in the game rules or mechanics can exacerbate this and lead to a negative or harmful social experience. So we have to take a bit of a holistic approach to toxicity, and remain committed to improving the game and the service over time across several avenues. Reporting As a member of the Fair Play Alliance, EA is committed to providing a safe space to play where all are welcome. As part of this, toxicity and harassment actions that the Customer Service team apply to folks violating the Terms of Service are being escalated to more severe actioning. Backfill and Decline/Deserter Improvements We’re always trying to improve our matchmaker, especially the backfill mechanism in Solo Ranked PvP matches. Players have manipulated the system in order to gain an advantage or to try and mis-match teams missing certain roles, typically by declining matches as a particular role. In Game Update 6.1.4 we’ve improved the backfill system so that if a tank or healer declines a match, it will backfill with the same role if one is available. In addition, we are increasing penalties on players declining multiple matches for Ranked PvP. Vote Kick Vote kick was a feature implemented years ago with the best intentions, giving players the power to remove a toxic member of their group. However, we’ve seen behavior change over time towards vote kick being abused not to remove harmful players, but harass or troll legitimate ones. In Game Update 6.1.4 we are removing vote kick from Ranked PvP, which is where we see the greatest abuse of this feature. If we see continued abuse we will remove it from other game modes. I would like to add that some of the original intent for Vote Kick (AFK players, etc) has been mitigated over the years by increased detection methods and data logging. However, we will continue to closely monitor for the behavior Vote Kick was intended to curb, and continue to invest in more advanced detection methods. Gear Requirements in Ranked PvP In an effort to welcome more new players into Ranked PvP, we implemented our Bolster system which would scale player’s power to the equivalent of iLevel 306. As a barrier to entry we also require a Valor Rank 25 in order to queue for Ranked PvP. We would like to find a balance between keeping the queues populated with players and giving a high quality game experience in that game mode. We believe this barrier to entry has been too low. In Game Update 6.1.4 we are adding a gear requirement of iLevel 306, in addition to Valor Rank 25, in order to be able to queue for Solo Ranked PvP. Legacy Ignore Currently the game supports character-based ignore lists, but not Legacy-wide ignore, meaning harassers could just create another character and persist in ruining the experience for another player. In Game Update 6.1.4 we are updating the Ignore list to ignore an entire Legacy. If you add a player to this list, it will apply to every character they create in their Legacy. It will behave very similarly to the current Ignore list, with the addition of not allowing an Ignored Legacy into your Personal Stronghold. Future As we look forward, we have lots more opportunities we’re pursuing, including improving our in-game reporting tools and automated detection methods. We’ll share more about what additional changes are coming as we get closer to these showing up in-game. All of the game-side improvements coming in 6.1.4 will be available to check out in the upcoming PTS. We’re eager to hear your feedback and look forward to you all trying them out! -Chris

I just wanted to update some of the timing around Replica rewards, as promised in my previous post. As a reminder, we talked about rolling out the remaining replica rewards throughout the course of Season 13 (the current season) and Season 14, with the longer term goal being returning to exclusive, new rewards after Season 14. Since then, we've identified some additional Replica rewards we would like to add to the vendors. See below for the updated and expanded reward plan: Available starting in Game Update 6.1.3 (Targeting Wednesday, September 9): Predacious Weapon Set (Season 6) - 50,000 pvp tokens Commanding Weapon Set (Season 8) - 50,000 pvp tokens Baron Deathmark's Predacious Wrangler mount (Season 6) - 200,000 pvp tokens [*]Available starting in Game Update 6.2 (Targeting early December): Gladiator Weapon Set (Season 5) - 50,000 pvp tokens Giradda's Acklay mount (Season 7) - 200,000 pvp tokens Baron Deathmark's Swashbuckling Cutter mount (Season 4) - 200,000 pvp tokens Gladitorial Nexu mount (Season 5) - 200,000 pvp tokens [*]Available in a future Game Update (but well before the end of Season 14): Furious Armor Sets (Season 3 - there are four sets) - 100,000 pvp tokens each Furious Weapon Set (Season 3) - 50,000 pvp tokens Baron Deathmark's Furious Walker mount (Season 3) - 200,000 pvp tokens Ember Makrin mount (Season 8) - 200,000 pvp tokens In addition, we've heard your feedback around bringing back Replica Color Crystals, and we're working on a plan for those. Both pricing and timing TBD, but we will likely make some available beginning in Game Update 6.2. We've heard lots of your feedback around pricing as well. We have no plans to adjust pricing, however we will certainly evaluate boosting the end of season token payouts for all rating tiers (Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum). I also mentioned in the last post that we would be converting non-seasonal Ranked PvP Reward Tokens to a Legacy currency in a future update. That future update is here! The conversion will take place with the 6.1.3 Update. Finally, we've seen and heard lots of reports about harassment and general toxicity in the game, in particular in PvP. I'm looking forward to sharing more about the things we've been working on to address toxicity in particular and the state of PvP in general in a future post. As always, we appreciate any feedback you have! -Chris

Hi Friends! I wanted to talk to you a bit today about Conquests, specifically Guild Invasions and how they relate to the Swoop Gang Mayhem Conquest. When we created the new Swoop Gang Mayhem Conquest, we wanted to thematically mirror the planets Guilds could invade with the planets that had tracks and content for the event: Dantooine, Tatooine, and Onderon. Unfortunately, this created a situation where there was an imbalance in the size of planets available to invade, punishing those Guilds who coordinate their Conquest activities around a Small Yield planet being available each week. What we’re doing about it: Beginning in the next All Worlds Ultimate Swoop Rally event on September 22, there will be a Small Yield planet (in addition to Large and Medium) available every time the event returns. In the longer term, we are exploring de-coupling planets from Large/Medium/Small Yield rewards to add some variety to each invasion week. Meaning a planet now categorized as Small Yield could show up as a Large Yield planet, and vice versa. We’ll talk more details later as we have them, but for now, to recap: Every Conquest week will feature at least one Large, Medium and Small Yield planet to invade going forward. The Swoop Gang Mayhem Conquest will be updated to reflect this for all future occurrences. Longer term, we’re exploring more variety in which planets you can invade and what size tier they are in. We appreciate your continued feedback, and let us know what you think! -Chris

Hey Friends, Just wanted to follow up on some of the conversations happening around the changes we’ve talked about in this thread, and what action we’re taking over the short and long term to address a couple concerns. First, let’s start by talking about the change that has driven the most discussion: The extension of the Deserter debuff to Unranked for those that leave a match early (coming in patch 6.1.2d). The premise of this change is in-line with our goal of PvP being a fun, fair place to play. When a player leaves a warzone (or afk’s), they are affecting the experience for the other 15 players in the match. This sort of behavior artificially adds friction to the experience, and disproportionately affects the ‘fun’ and ‘fairness’ for everyone else. We will not support this behavior with our systems, but we must ask ourselves why players are motivated to use this type of action? Well, y’all have been very clear and vocal about many of these reasons. So let’s get into it: Performance We hear you that performance in warzones continues to be an issue, especially since the 6.0 update. In particular, you have all indicated performance in the Vandin and Quesh Huttball maps are especially egregious. What we’re doing about it: In the short term, in the upcoming patch 6.1.2d, we will remove the Vandin and Quesh Huttball maps from rotation until we can solve the performance issues with those particular maps. Longer term, we are profiling the root of performance issues in general (de-syncs, hitches, slide show experiences) across the board in order to provide you with a smooth, fun experience. No ETA on this, but we have already begun in earnest and are committed to fixing it. Preference We hear you that you would rather choose which maps or modes to play, to avoid the ones you don’t like and play what is the most fun for you. In particular, Odessen Proving Grounds comes up often as one of the least popular modes, in particular in Unranked since it can be difficult to coordinate team play in a random queue situation. So let’s talk a bit about the map rotation. Currently, and for some time now, we favor map variety over match type variety. We categorize match types into 5 categories, plus arenas: Capture Point Alderaan Civil War Novare Coast Yavin Ruins [*]Huttball Nar Shaddaa (Original map) Quesh Vandin [*]Odessen Proving Grounds (OPG) [*]Ancient Hypergates [*]Voidstar In favoring map variety, each map has an equal chance to pop once a match is created. One note about Arena maps - they are not in the regular rotation, and will only pop when there is insufficient population to support an 8v8 match. So you will most often see these in lower level brackets or when the queues have low population in general. An arena match should be relatively rare. Back to map variety, you would be right to note if each map is equally weighted, you are three times as likely to get a Capture Point or Huttball match type than any other, since there are three times as many maps in those modes. So if you’re a player who dislikes one particular mode, particularly if that mode is OPG, why should you be forced to play it? What we’re doing about it: In the short term, in the upcoming patch 6.1.2d, we will adjust the map rotation to favor match variety over map variety. What this means is that you will have an equal chance to have a Capture Point, Huttball, Ancient Hypergates, or Voidstar match type pop. The exception is OPG, which we hear from y’all is the least popular match type currently. We aren’t removing it completely from the rotation for now, but the likelihood that match type will pop will be very small. Longer term we will take a hard look and address the issues with OPG that makes it less popular. Longer term, we agree that a welcomed and healthy addition to the game would be the ability to choose which match types and/or maps you want or do not want to play. As with any new feature, this requires investigation and an assessment of the scope of work before we can commit to a timeframe, however that work has already begun. We are committed to this feature and will update y’all with more information, especially on timing, when we have it. Miscellaneous A couple of other topics that were asked about: The currency for the remaining Replica Rewards will not be Season specific tokens, but the non-seasonal Ranked PvP Reward Tokens. We will also convert this currency into a Legacy currency in a future update, so feel free to earn tokens on whichever character you like until then. We intend to bring back Replica versions of the remaining mounts as well. Stay tuned for the rollout plan there. Thanks again for engaging in discussion around these topics. I look forward to updating everyone on our progress in the future! -Chris

Correction: We will be extending the Deserter queue lockout to Unranked matches. Yes.

Just a couple points of clarification to the original post here: Instead of giving you 18 Satchels, we are giving you 2 Medium Satchels (which is the equivalent of 18) You actually get 36 rolls for Processed Isotope Stabilizers, which practically means you will receive about triple what you receive now One other addition for Season 13, in regards to this: We will be extending the Deserter queue lockout to 15 minutes, to disincentivize leaving matches early. That price is for the full set. This would be for everything but GSF. Those missions remain unchanged in completion requirements.

Hi friends, As we alluded to in our Season 12 ending post, we wanted to make sure we had a lot more clarity around what rewards you can expect in Seasons going forward. Season 13 will be kicking off in a few weeks (currently targeting the last week of July), so let’s talk a bit about some of our thoughts on PvP going forward, including upcoming changes and rewards! PvP Rewards Longer term, we’re looking at the season and reward structure for PvP to make sure they fulfill our guiding principles: meaningful rewards for meaningful effort, and a compelling reason to play each new season. In the short term, this means trying some new things to see if we can create more healthy queues and a better playing environment. For Season 13, we want to increase the overall rewards earned from playing, and more specifically winning, PvP (especially ranked) matches. There are quite a few changes coming in patch 6.1.2b this week to move towards that goal. Here goes: Note: In the update kicking off Season 13, all missions will be changed to require wins for completion and rewards. Requiring wins for mission completion allows us to increase the quality and quantity of rewards, in addition to lowering any incentive to play poorly or farm gear and materials via losses. The goal is to increase the overall quality of matches. The TL;DR: of all of these changes are you should expect to see an increase in rewards for winning matches, anywhere from 2x to 4x Tech Fragments and Embers, especially if you are disassembling the additional mod and gear rewards. There are quite a few changes coming to PvP match rewards in Season 13 - let us know your thoughts! Season 13 Rewards, Replicas, and Beyond When we moved to bringing back prior Season (Replica) rewards, we did this to help supplement existing Seasonal rewards. In general, we weren’t distributing as many larger, unique rewards as we did previously and so we wanted to make sure there was a larger quantity to choose from. There was also certainly a desire to be able to earn those retired rewards. We know there was friction around the ending of Season 12 and lack of clarity around the Season 3 Replicas. Our plan is to get the rest of the replicas to you in a quicker manner than we have so far, but also to resolve some of the bigger concerns around Seasonal rewards. Season 13’s unique reward will be a brand new armor set in addition to all of the standard Seasonal rewards, such as the Seasonal Titles, Flairs, Frames, and Battle Flags. Stay tuned to our next livestream or the Season 13 launch article for a sneak peek at the armor set. Also, throughout the course of Season 13 and into the start of Season 14, we are going to bring out all of the remaining replicas. No more waiting for one to come back each Season! Stay tuned for a future update on exactly when you can expect each drop, starting later this Summer. It is not intended that they return in a sequential order, so we want to be clear in what order they will drop: Predacious Weapon Set (Season 6) and Commanding Weapon Set (Season 8) 50,000 pvp tokens for each Weapon Set Gladiator Weapon Set (Season 5) and Giradda’s Acklay Mount (Season 7) 50,000 for the weapon set, 200,000 for the mount Furious Armor and Weapon Sets (Season 3) 100,000 each for the armor sets (there are 4), 50,000 for the Weapon Set Reminder that Replica rewards do not use unique currency for purchase so you can start saving now! As mentioned above, replicas were meant as a supplement to Seasonal rewards as we were no longer doing our bigger PvP rewards. The underlying reason that we are moving the replicas out at a quicker pace is that we want to return to doing exactly that! Here is what that means. Sometime (at least a few months) after the Replica Furious Armor set returns, we are going to completely retire the replica rewards from the vendor going forward. We want to make sure we give everyone ample notice, and ample time to get all of the rewards that they want. At that point, it is our intention to move back to higher quality PvP rewards than we have been giving you recently. To be frank, we want to make new, unique PvP prestige rewards worth battling over! This is many months away,so there aren’t a ton of specifics to share yet, but just know that our intention is that PvP should be a fun, fair place to battle it out, and one where you are properly rewarded for those efforts! We will share more when we get closer. And there it is! Big changes to the rewards you can expect from PvP, details on what rewards you can expect in S13 (images to follow with the Season start), and a roadmap on the remaining replicas. We hope this adds clarity to PvP Seasonal rewards going forward! Stay tuned for more updates, and thanks for making it through the post of many words! -Chris "BioChris" Schmidt, Lead Designer