What I learned from the Second Galactic Seasons

[Zarahemla]

When I saw how appreciative the SWTOR community was on the forums, for the painstakingly detailed information I gathered and provided on the First Galactic Seasons (found here) I knew that I had to do it again for the Second Galactic Seasons. Actually, that isn't true, this community was ungrateful and toxic, but I was going to do the Second Galactic Seasons on all the servers anyway, for the cartel coins, and figured I might as well post again here.

 

I learned that you have to check achievements when Galactic Seasons comes out. I didn't even know there were achievements associated with Galactic Seasons until I saw a forum post. I had already completed the Second Galactic Seasons at this point, and figured I was done. I checked, and I was missing three achievements, that I would have to go out of my way for. They can be found in your achievements, under the Galactic Seasons heading, which is under the Legacy heading. Those three achievements were Season Objective Master, One With the Shadows, and The Shadows of the Underworld.

 

The Shadows of the Underworld achievement was just to do all the achievements I naturally got from completing the Second Galactic Seasons, as well as the Season Objective Master and One With the Shadows achievements.

 

The Season Objective Master was to do 100 Weekly Objectives during the Shadows of the Underworld Season and even though I had done enough Objectives to finish the entire Second Galactic Seasons (I didn't buy any of the season tiers with cartel coins or credits), I needed to go out of my way to complete the Season Objective Master. This was a bit of a challenge as not only did I have to find the motivation to do more objectives, after finishing the event, but you can only do seven weekly objectives per week (the daily objectives didn't count for this achievement). So this took an extra four weeks beyond what was required to complete the Second Galactic Season tiers. I was glad that I came across the forum post that mentioned that the Second Galactic Season had achievements, as I would have felt bad if I had missed out on any.

 

However, the other achievement that I didn't naturally get was One With the Shadows, where you have to max out your reputation with the Shadow Syndicate during the Second Galactic Seasons event. I had started the event by purchasing the purple reputation tokens, with my Underworld Syndicate Plans. In fact, after doing the quest chain to recruit Fen Zeil as a companion and learning there was reputation to grind,

 

I immediately went to Brrazz on the fleet, and bought Jaw Intel for 500 purple Jawa Junk. It was expensive, but it helped the drop rate of Underworld Syndicate Plans, and I figured I needed that extra drop rate to max the reputation, and I feared missing out on being able to earn enough Underworld Syndicate Plans to max the reputation before it became impossible to earn reputation. I then did an operation and while killing trash noticed that no Plans were dropping. I then noticed that I would be earning Underworld Syndicate Plans from completing the objectives, and figured I didn't need to go out of my way to buy more Jawa Intel. I could save my purple Jawa Junk.

 

Indeed I earned a ton of Underworld Syndicate Plans, and used them to buy the purple reputation tokens (Large Syndicate Reputation Commendations) and used one per day to get conquest points, as well as naturally level my reputation. I assumed the purple reputation tokens for 100 Underworld Syndicate Plans was just the most efficiently way to buy the reputation tokens, and that buying the blue reputation tokens (Shadow Syndicate Note of Appreciation) would give a comparable amount. Trying to be efficient, I started the event by buying the purple Large Syndicate Reputation Commendations. I would use one per day on whatever toons I didn't want to play that week, so they would get conquest with minimal work. However, that was just seven reputation tokens per week, and you could use 14 purple reputation tokens before maxing out the weekly reputation limit.

 

I then realized that I could buy the reputation tokens with my Underworld Syndicate Plans before the event ended, and keep those tokens in my inventory, and earn easy conquest well past when the event would end. I couldn't buy more reputation tokens, but I could still use the reputation tokens in my inventory. It was then that I switched to buy the blue Shadow Syndicate Note of Appreciation tokens and would use one of those per day. Doing that, I noticed that the blue Shadow Syndicate Note of Appreciation tokens only gave 42 reputation, where the purple Syndicate Reputation Commendations gave 862 reputation. Even though 20 Shadow Syndicate Note of Appreciation cost the same amount of Underworld Syndicate Plans as one Reputation Commendation, 20 Shadow Syndicate Note of Appreciation would only give 840 reputation, where a single Syndicate Reputation Commendation would give more at 862 reputation. As you can see, even though I was using one token per day for the conquest, I was falling behind in the reputation game.

 

Once I read on the forums about the One With the Shadows achievement, I began to only buy the purple reputation tokens, and to use enough per week to max out my reputation for the week (12,000 reputation per week). I began to worry that I wouldn't get enough reputation before the event ended. My fears were confirmed when, on the last day of the event, I maxed my reputation weekly allowance and only had 63,505 reputation out of the 70,000 reputation required for the achievement. Because of the weekly reputation cap, my remaining 46 purple Syndicate Reputation Commendations and 298 blue Shadow Syndicate Note of Appreciation tokens (for a combined 52,168 reputation), on my main server, could not help me obtain the remaining 6,495 reputation I needed to obtain the One With the Shadows achievement.

 

I don't know why Bioware required players to max their reputation with the Shadow Syndicate BEFORE the event ended, while maintaining the 12,000 weekly reputation cap. If Bioware just wanted players to complete the battle pass without paying credits or cartel coins, that could be done before reaching max reputation. If Bioware wanted players to do the battle pass consistently, that could be accomplished with the Season Objective Master achievement. My only thought is Bioware wanted to punish players who though of earning easy conquest by using one blue Shadow Syndicate Note of Appreciation token per day, for easy conquest, instead of using the purple Syndicate Reputation Commendations.

 

As far as the break down for all the servers, here it is:

 

I first finished the Second Galactic Seasons on my main server of Star Forge. Again, couldn't keep track of how long it took me to complete it, as I was playing multiple characters.

 

The second server I finished the battle pass on was the Satel Shan server, and it took 1 day, 7 hours and 20 minutes. I earned $1,214,961,427 credits from selling my tech fragments (OEMs and RPMs), log in rewards, and the decorations you got from the battle pass. I had a gear score of 322 and Valor rank 38. I now have 4,965 achievement points.

 

The third server I finished the battle pass on was the Darth Malgus server, which took 1day, 8 hours and 16 minutes. I earned $856,619,600 credits from doing the battle pass. I had a gear score of 322 and Valor rank of 34, with an unknown amount of achievement points (as I transferred a character from Darth Malgus, to my main server of Star Forge to get the Republic Fleet apartment, and then transferred it back to unlock my legacy skills (like heroic moment class abilities and rocket boost).

 

The fourth server I finished the battle pass on was the Leviathan server, which took 1 day, 0 hours and 46 minutes. I earned $873,590,181 from doing the Second Galactic Seasons battle pass. I had a gear score of 322 and a Valor rank of 26, with an unknown amount of achievement points (as I transferred a character from Leviathan to Star Forge to get the Empire Fleet apartment, and then transferred it back).

 

The fifth and final server I finished the battle pass on was the Tulak Hord server, which took 1 day, 7 hours and 56 minutes. I earned $1,430,598,697 credits doing the battle pass. I had a gear score of 322 and a Valor rank of 33 with 4,670 achievement points.

 

I also learned that the decorations you get from the random packs from the battle pass are not that random. I got several of the same decorations on like three of the five servers.

 

Even with the bug where you got double galactic season rewards, about halfway through the event, (I got about $300.00 worth of cartel coins instead of the $200 that was intended to earn if there was no bug) you would still earn more cartel coins by getting a second job, but this Second Galactic Seasons felt a lot better than the First Galactic Seasons. Not only did it take about three times less to complete, but thanks to inflation you earned around eight times as many credits.

 

Hope this information is better received than the First Galactic Seasons information.

[Chryptyk]

at the last level it is 5K max rep per week. even after today, the npc on the promenade will still be there. the dev tracker post did not say for how long. so you'll still be able to turn in rep tokens, just not earn anymore starting tomorrow. however, it did not say whether or not the titles would still be rewarded.

[hillerbees]

I'm one of those people who has maxed out the battle pass on more than one server. I think I have all the achievements except one - Maxing out the reputation on a single server and getting the related Veil of the Shadow Title.

 

I have to say its a royal pain in the butt (sorry no other words for it)....that you can complete weekly conquest goal every week and complete the battle pass easily and yet fail to pick up the maximum reputation in the process.

 

Surely the battle pass completion should automatically tick all achievements along the way as it is the most visable track. It should not be the case that you finish 100 levels of something and then have to look back over your shoulder and see somewhere buried in the long list of achievements on a back water page of text that "Oh! I haven't done 100 missions!" or "Oh, I should have banked the absolute maximum reputation each and every week to get a title"....especially when there is an artificial cap on rep accepted each week.

 

At the start of the Season, I was leaving excess tokens in the field as you could only take in 200 and ones on my track were also being wasted as there were no warning notes, by mid season I had moved to another server because I was at 100 on the battle pass and bored. So naturally when I go back to my main server I find I am short.

 

I'd like the devs to look at this. At the end of the day I've stopped caring really because I got plenty of cartel coins and I have loads of nice titles anyway and who in god's name looks through another persons achievements to see which ones they have ticked off. Easy or hard, they are a tick on the page (Unless of course like DvL they erase a Summer's worth of ticks).

 

I'm waiting now to see what nonsense gift has been thought up for the Nightlife Event and whether I have a better chance of winning the lotto. The shades last year were a joke they were so hard to get. Good for you if you got them in a handful of tries but that was not most people's experience.

 

I long for the day where we have time limited events that make the world feel real (like the very first one on Tatooine many moons ago - or the 1st gree one). There is room for repeatable content but if thats all thats there people will (AND ARE) leaving the game.

 

The saddest thing I experienced this season was when I came back to my main server and a Founder player and guild member had mailed me all their in game items and filled the guild bank with mats and billions of credits and told me they were deleting all their toons because they were done with threading water waiting for something new to do. I could not even send a note to say thank you and good luck!

 

Devs please! People are grieving for this game and some are getting closure by leaving.

[danski_dreng]

Thank you very much for sharing this info with us. Much appreciation for the work that went into it!

 

*salute*

[Zarahemla]

at the last level it is 5K max rep per week. even after today, the npc on the promenade will still be there. the dev tracker post did not say for how long. so you'll still be able to turn in rep tokens, just not earn anymore starting tomorrow. however, it did not say whether or not the titles would still be rewarded.

 

Even if I can earn the rep, I would not be able to earn the achievement, as the achievement says it must be earned while the event is going on.

[Chryptyk]

Even if I can earn the rep, I would not be able to earn the achievement, as the achievement says it must be earned while the event is going on.

 

I know how the achievement is stated. However, with the vendor still being there, you can still earn rep. I asked the other day if achievements would still be awarded. I did not get a reply. There is no harm in trying though, if you have enough tokens stored up to complete it.

[hillerbees]

I know how the achievement is stated. However, with the vendor still being there, you can still earn rep. I asked the other day if achievements would still be awarded. I did not get a reply. There is no harm in trying though, if you have enough tokens stored up to complete it.

 

If its a case that we can complete it after the event - it was wrong of them to have a misleading tooltip all this time.

 

I worked out that I'd just miss out on it because I wouldn't have the rep applied by the 4th July so I gave up on it...had I known much earlier I'd have collected up tokens for sure.

[Zarahemla]

On 7/4/2022 at 11:58 PM, Chryptyk said:

 

I know how the achievement is stated. However, with the vendor still being there, you can still earn rep. I asked the other day if achievements would still be awarded. I did not get a reply. There is no harm in trying though, if you have enough tokens stored up to complete it.

I hit max rep toady, as I heard Galactic Seasons 3 is on the way, and worried that I could turn in rep tokens during Galactic Seasons 3, and I did not get the achievement.  The vendor was there, and you could still buy tokens, but you could not get the achivement to get the companion skin.

[Nee-Elder]

8 minutes ago, Zarahemla said:

I hit max rep toady, as I heard Galactic Seasons 3 is on the way, and worried that I could turn in rep tokens during Galactic Seasons 3, and I did not get the achievement.  The vendor was there, and you could still buy tokens, but you could not get the achivement to get the companion skin.

When you get a chance,  you might wanna add those important details to the existing  'Known Issues' thread here:  https://forums.swtor.com/topic/923999-game-update-71-known-issues  .... which  somewhere in that list shows  what might be a related issue:  https://forums.swtor.com/topic/922336-underworld-exchange-items-not-unlocked-in-collections/

Edited October 15, 2022 by Nee-Elder

[Zarahemla]

On 10/15/2022 at 1:48 PM, Nee-Elder said:

When you get a chance,  you might wanna add those important details to the existing  'Known Issues' thread here:  https://forums.swtor.com/topic/923999-game-update-71-known-issues  .... which  somewhere in that list shows  what might be a related issue:  https://forums.swtor.com/topic/922336-underworld-exchange-items-not-unlocked-in-collections/

The achievement specifically says that it must be done during the battle pass.  I didn't read that until it was too late, hence I learned to check achievements before it is too late.  I tested it, and yes, you have to get max reputation during the event to get the achievement.  It is not a bug.

[Nee-Elder]

4 minutes ago, Zarahemla said:

The achievement specifically says that it must be done during the battle pass.  

It is not a bug.

ah ok but hmm what exactly do you mean by  "battle pass" ?

Or did you mean to say during the  Galactic Season ...?

[Zarahemla]

On 10/20/2022 at 7:08 PM, Nee-Elder said:

ah ok but hmm what exactly do you mean by  "battle pass" ?

Or did you mean to say during the  Galactic Season ...?

Battle Pass = Galactic Seasons. Just like Dungeons = Flashpoints or Raids = Operations

Edited October 22, 2022 by Zarahemla
clarity