Game Update 7.3.1 coming soon!

[JackieKo]

But wait, there's more! Here's an overview of what will be coming in Game Update 7.3.1 and the general timing of when it will go live. Please give the article a full read through. We will have more details to share next week and we will be adding to this specific thread. So for now, I will be locking this space to keep dev posts in one spot and front and center. Once we publish additional details, the thread will be unlocked. 

In the meantime, enjoy this cute photo of 3V-1L.  

[EricMusco]

As you may have seen in our "Game Update 7.3.1 is Coming Soon" Article, there are a few changes coming to Galactic Seasons starting this next season. With GS5, we are going to try something a little different, there will not be a seasonal Companion. We are doing this for a variety of reasons that we hope will improve the Galactic Season experience (along with creating some separate opportunities as well, more on that later).

For starters, you can still expect a great character driven story within each season, it just won’t need to operate around the limitation of a single companion. That story will unlock based on your Galactic Season Progress.

We obviously have a lot of companions in SWTOR, a lot. So when we make the decision to give you another one we really want to be sure that it is meaningful and more fleshed out where possible and we think that Galactic Seasons may not be the place for that. But we’ll see, let us know what you think.

In that same vein though, we do have some ideas of places where we could achieve those goals with a companion, but more on that another day… *makes a quick comlink to Lane*

Over to Joe who is going to update you on how we are going to adjust the reward to track to account for the lack of a Companion.

-eric
 

[JoeStramaglia]

FIRST! 

Hello folks! But wait, there’s more!

1. We’re adding new rewards to take up the slots that would have been companion related
2. Season story will now be driven by Galactic Season Progress

We’ll continue to make changes here and evolve the format over time based on your feedback and data!

New Rewards:

Removing Companion from the season leaves a pretty large hole in the reward structure. To make up for this we’re adding some new reward types, giving more of the seasonal reputation items, and adding a new item from the Cartel Market (which will bind on legacy).

More explicitly, here is a list of new items that would have not been on the track prior to this change:

• More Seasonal Reputation items
• FIVE New Personnel Decorations based off of popular Armors
• A new unique consumable item that grants Jawa Intel to yourself as well as other players
• An exclusive new Pet
• A White and White Dye Module

We will continue to make adjustments here as we grow the seasonal reward structure based on your feedback and the data.

Season Story:

Although we won’t have a companion, there will still be character driven stories unique to each season. Progress in the story will be based off of special transmission items that are gained from the Seasonal Reward Track and mission completion. Players can progress on the track regardless of mission progress, you don't even need to do the missions if you don't want to. The unlocks work similar to the alert items we had with the companions except there are more of them, when you get to that unlock you get an item that can be consumed if you have completed the requisite missions before it.

The new season is a bit more lighthearted but also explores some intricacies in the dark side of the force. We hope you will enjoy it!

With all of that, I look forward to reading your feedback on all of these changes. There will be more coming in the future for Galactic Seasons 6 and onward!

May the Force Serve You
Joe
 

[BryantWood]

FIRST! (dangit Joe!)

Hey Community!

I’m here to follow up on some additional changes you’ll see in Galactic Season 5!

Here’s your tl;dr for the min/maxers:

• New objectives for companions, space missions, and operations
• Changes to Flashpoint and Uprising objectives
• More objectives for Subscribers

New Objectives:
Looking at the content offerings of Galactic Seasons, we have added a few new objectives with the goals of creating more variety in play, and making objectives easier to understand.

• Objectives involving companions have been expanded to require companions in specific roles
  • Defeat enemies with a companion set to the DPS role
  • Defeat enemies with a companion set to the Heal role
  • Defeat enemies with a companion set to the Tank role
• Space Mission objectives have been split into regular and Heroic objectives
  • Complete Space Missions
  • Complete [HEROIC] Space Missions
• New objectives will be added for players doing Operations content
  • Complete specified Operations on Story difficulty
  • Complete specified Operations on Veteran or Master difficulty

Reworking Group Content Objectives:

With Season 5, we’ll be making changes to Flashpoint and Uprising objectives. Previously these objectives used a point system which allowed players to complete any Flashpoint and gain bonus completion for specific flashpoints. Throughout Galactic Seasons we’ve seen that this point system has a large potential to create bugs and makes it harder to understand how to progress the objective. We will be simplifying these objectives to remove the do any portion and the bonus boss portion.

Here’s an example of an objective from Season 4 and how that objective will appear in Season 5.
Season 4: Complete Flashpoints (1 point). Earn bonus progress for completing Depths of Manaan, Assault on Tython, Korriban Incursion, or Secrets of the Enclave (requires content) (4 points). Earn additional bonus progress for defeating their Bonus Bosses (3 points).
Season 5: Complete Flashpoints from the following list: Depths of Manaan, Assault on Tython, Korriban Incursion, or Secrets of the Enclave (requires content).

This same pattern of change will apply to Uprisings, requiring the player to complete specific Uprisings rather than any Uprising.

More Objectives for Subscribers:

We’ve heard your feedback on adding more group content to Galactic Seasons, and specifically more Operations content. To achieve this, we will be adding an additional subscriber or preferred only objective each week, increasing the number of objectives available to players from 10 to 11. Players will still only be able to complete 7 objectives per week but will have more options available. This new objective will create more opportunities for players to tackle Uprisings, Chapters, and Operations!

Those are your objective changes coming to Galactic Season 5. We’re excited for the new season to release and can’t wait for you all to experience it. As always keep the constructive feedback coming and we’ll continue to make Galactic Seasons the best SWTOR experience for everyone.

Bryant out! 
May the Force be With You
 

[MaximusRex]

35 minutes ago, EricMusco said:

We obviously have a lot of companions in SWTOR, a lot. So when we make the decision to give you another one we really want to be sure that it is meaningful and more fleshed out where possible and we think that Galactic Seasons may not be the place for that. But we’ll see, let us know what you think.

This is fair, but I want an Imperial Astromech that is the total opposite of T7 personality wise.  Please.

[Darthjantom]

So just to be extra clear because english isn't my native language. When you say the Galactic Seasons 5 missions work similar to the companion alert items you mean that they will unlock in collections and still be available to do on other characters/alts even after the Galactic Season 5 ends right?

[JoeStramaglia]

39 minutes ago, Darthjantom said:

So just to be extra clear because english isn't my native language. When you say the Galactic Seasons 5 missions work similar to the companion alert items you mean that they will unlock in collections and still be available to do on other characters/alts even after the Galactic Season 5 ends right?

They will not be in collections, however if you've completed the mission on any character you will be able to re-acquire the mission items on other characters from the Galactic Seasons vendor Jaliet Nall.

[Salient]

Sounds like interesting changes. Cool!

I'd be careful about the Heroic Space and Vet/Master Ops being featured prominently. Heroic Space is not trivial and takes preparation and practice to do efficiently... not too bad but may lock some players out. For vet/master, if something like R4 comes up you'll block that objective for the vast majority of players. I realize you don't have to be able to do every objective but it doesn't feel good to have objectives you have little chance to complete (especially when those are the 12 point objective... the "good" ones). 

I'd want to keep something like the Galactic Season as accessible as possible for the vast majority of players and leave the "hard" content out since that has its own intrinsic and extrinsic rewards.

 

Glad to see new approaches and I'm particularly excited to see the story content woven in again. Can't wait to see what EVIL... I'm sorry... 3V-1L has in store for us!

[Darthjantom]

8 minutes ago, JoeStramaglia said:

They will not be in collections, however if you've completed the mission on any character you will be able to re-acquire the mission items on other characters from the Galactic Seasons vendor Jaliet Nall.

I would have preferred collections unlocks like the companions so i'd be able to unlock them account wide with CC. But this will do as well. At least it means I can do the story on my alts still even after Galactic Season 5 ends.

Rest of changes sound good, more operations/group objectives is good for my guild as well, I usually organise some guild events around those group activities like operations, world bosses or those kill champion base guard objectives. More personnel decorations are also always appreciated, they populate my strongholds nicely. Looking forward to 7.3.1 to see all the rewards Galactic Season 5 will have and to grind Galactic Seasons again.

[Nee-Elder]

1 hour ago, BryantWood said:

Reworking Group Content Objectives:

 

With Season 5, we’ll be making changes to Flashpoint and Uprising objectives. Previously these objectives used a point system which allowed players to complete any Flashpoint and gain bonus completion for specific flashpoints. Throughout Galactic Seasons we’ve seen that this point system has a large potential to create bugs and makes it harder to understand how to progress the objective. We will be simplifying these objectives to remove the do any portion and the bonus boss portion.

This ^ is a good change and good thinkin' !

Also,  i know communication has been tricky lately cuz of finalizing 'Broadsword'  transition, etc. ... but i just wanna say THANKS  @EricMusco & @JoeStramaglia & @BryantWood (and of course @JackieKo too ) for a bit more behind-the-code details today in this thread.

Really hoping for MORE of these types of info/intel (and yes, promo tease)  posts  rest of this year and into 2024.

Although---wait for it---i still don't see anything more about how GSF is gonna be incorporated and finally developed further....?

*coughs* STAR Wars!

Edited August 17, 2023 by Nee-Elder

[BryantWood]

Hey Players!

I’m back to quickly touch on changes coming in 7.3.1 regarding Kai Zykken and his Spoils of War set bonus armors. We’ve gone through a few iterations of distributing these armors and various bugs have popped up preventing the system from working as intended. Well no longer! In 7.3.1 players will discover Kai Zykken has disappeared from the Fleet pending investigation by both the Republic and Empire! 

Instead, set bonus armors will be directly purchasable in armor crates from a new vendor in the same location on the Fleet. Each crate will contain all pieces of the set bonus armor, and will cost 10,000 Tech Fragments and 1,000,000 credits. 

Please note the set bonuses obtained by Armormech and Synthweaving schematics will not be purchasable in crates, but the schematics will always be available on the new vendor for the current price of 2,000 Tech Fragments and 1,000,000 credits. The tactical schematics for Armstech, Artifice, Biochem, and Cybertech will also remain available from the vendor for the current price of 2,000 Tech Fragments and 1,000,000 credits.

Gotta run! I have to chase down a rumor on Rishi about the Corellian Run Scoundrels.

[NeoBlakkrstal]

What about a reduction in price for the old Command Crate armors? The current per piece price is ridiculously high. How about putting the full sets of these armors in crates as well?

[Saeten]

This is great! But, many of us only need pieces to complete the sets we are striving for.  Please add pieces in addition to crates! Please please please!

[Darthjantom]

14 minutes ago, BryantWood said:

In 7.3.1 players will discover Kai Zykken has disappeared from the Fleet pending investigation by both the Republic and Empire!

Good! Now add him to the Bounty event so us players can hunt down that scam artist! I would love to see him trying to outrun me on his log speeder.

[RadarOMalley]

2 hours ago, JoeStramaglia said:

We will continue to make adjustments here as we grow the seasonal reward structure based on your feedback and the data.

I was very happy when the Galactic Seasons rewards track and vender offerings launched because I had the ability to unlock older items that I did not have an opportunity to unlock previously, such as certain pets or mounts. Are there plans to add more of these items to the vendors in the future? I'm talking about some of the pets that were available via promotions or cartel coin purchases, or attended a community cantina event ten years ago as examples. 

[RadarOMalley]

2 hours ago, BryantWood said:

Looking at the content offerings of Galactic Seasons, we have added a few new objectives with the goals of creating more variety in play, and making objectives easier to understand.

I'm very PRO on these changes/new offerings. If I can offer an additional recommendation--the World Boss kills are great and they offer people an opportunity to engage with World Bosses they may not ever have an opportunity to fight otherwise; however, the past few seasons have been the same World Bosses. I'm assuming that the GS5 objectives are probably mostly set in stone by now, but something to consider for GS6 and beyond. There's the other Ossus WB and Yavin Walker that come to mind off the top of my head. 

[akdonkey]

Space missions? Who does space missions?

[OlBuzzard]

An old fashion salute .. and tip of the hat to the team for the responses here lately.

TYVM!

[Whykara]

53 minutes ago, BryantWood said:

In 7.3.1 players will discover Kai Zykken has disappeared from the Fleet pending investigation by both the Republic and Empire! 

Seems like now is the time to get those last 6 pieces of armor I'm still missing, before I have to pay double!

[RadarOMalley]

All my above comments aside, thank you for this information. I always appreciate the clear articulation of the changes AND understanding the thought processes behind the changes. 

[emilydeylan]

So to reiterate, we are not getting a new companion for galactic season 5 and onwards? because the wording on the first post was a bit wonky, it sounded like you said "We are no longer making the seasons focused on the new companion" but does that exclude new ones being added?

[Spikanor]

2 hours ago, EricMusco said:

We obviously have a lot of companions in SWTOR, a lot. So when we make the decision to give you another one we really want to be sure that it is meaningful and more fleshed out where possible and we think that Galactic Seasons may not be the place for that. But we’ll see, let us know what you think.

its a good thing that the developers now also see that we have to much companions and a realy small limit of options to use then since most of the companions we have now by story line, cartal market. achievement,old sub rewards and gelactic seasons that most of then are doing notting since we all not going to use the 20+ companions at all only use 9 off then.

 

[emilydeylan]

3 minutes ago, Spikanor said:

its a good thing that the developers now also see that we have to much companions and a realy small limit of options to use then since most of the companions we have now by story line, cartal market. achievement,old sub rewards and gelactic seasons that most of then are doing notting since we all not going to use the 20+ companions at all only use 9 off then.

 

I'd still like a Rancor companion

[doomandew]

2 hours ago, EricMusco said:

As you may have seen in our "Game Update 7.3.1 is Coming Soon" Article, there are a few changes coming to Galactic Seasons starting this next season. With GS5, we are going to try something a little different, there will not be a seasonal Companion. We are doing this for a variety of reasons that we hope will improve the Galactic Season experience (along with creating some separate opportunities as well, more on that later).

For starters, you can still expect a great character driven story within each season, it just won’t need to operate around the limitation of a single companion. That story will unlock based on your Galactic Season Progress.

We obviously have a lot of companions in SWTOR, a lot. So when we make the decision to give you another one we really want to be sure that it is meaningful and more fleshed out where possible and we think that Galactic Seasons may not be the place for that. But we’ll see, let us know what you think.

In that same vein though, we do have some ideas of places where we could achieve those goals with a companion, but more on that another day… *makes a quick comlink to Lane*

Over to Joe who is going to update you on how we are going to adjust the reward to track to account for the lack of a Companion.

-eric
 

First, I want to say thank you for all the hard work that you all have put into the game, and continue to put into the game. 

I will also be the first to acknowledge that I am of a very small group of players that is very rarely influenced by what the entire community believes, but I am a firm believer that "change" within how content is presented is a good thing (provided it's flushed out and conveyed accordingly). For example, I've taken the time to develop a story on each of my characters and within that a story behind the recruitment of each companion and a story behind their participation in seasonal events, one could look at PH4-LNX and their ties to the Hutts (its been awhile since I did a recruitment of PH4 (and I haven't done the recruitment on any of my main toons) but I believe they mention one of the Hutts who hosts the Feast event). Based on the news that is currently available both from past seasons and how you plan to direct this moving forward there will be a story within the season, but that story will only be available during that season and thus it locks out a development of my character and how I view them based on the current events in the main story that they are going through. 

Assuming this is the "path" you wish to continue (and maybe you've already taken this into account) hopefully the story that the season brings will be available past the conclusion of the season.

Again, thank you all for the hardwork that you put into the game!!

[Bar-Da-Voya]

1 hour ago, BryantWood said:

Hey Players!

I’m back to quickly touch on changes coming in 7.3.1 regarding Kai Zykken and his Spoils of War set bonus armors. We’ve gone through a few iterations of distributing these armors and various bugs have popped up preventing the system from working as intended. Well no longer! In 7.3.1 players will discover Kai Zykken has disappeared from the Fleet pending investigation by both the Republic and Empire! 

Instead, set bonus armors will be directly purchasable in armor crates from a new vendor in the same location on the Fleet. Each crate will contain all pieces of the set bonus armor, and will cost 10,000 Tech Fragments and 1,000,000 credits. 

Please note the set bonuses obtained by Armormech and Synthweaving schematics will not be purchasable in crates, but the schematics will always be available on the new vendor for the current price of 2,000 Tech Fragments and 1,000,000 credits. The tactical schematics for Armstech, Artifice, Biochem, and Cybertech will also remain available from the vendor for the current price of 2,000 Tech Fragments and 1,000,000 credits.

Gotta run! I have to chase down a rumor on Rishi about the Corellian Run Scoundrels.

Is the achievement for Fanged God form tactical that is no longer in the game finally going to be removed so we can get 100% on the achievements for tacticals. All the other tacticals that were removed had their achievement removed except for this one. I've been waiting over a year for this to be fixed and submitted so many tickets I was threatened with disciplinary action if I sent any more tickets in. Please fix broken achievements.