Bioware is proposing a change in how Ranked PvP Seasons are set and the rewards at the end of each one. The studio wants shorter seasons, less tiered rewards and more!
SWTOR Community manager Eric Musco posted on the forums a new proposal regarding the game’s Ranked Seasons. Starting with Season 10, Bioware is considering yet another change to how Ranked Seasons are handled. The aim is for the duration of each season to be shortened significantly. Currently each season has different duration, which is considerably longer than intended. The devs acknowledge the fact that longer seasons give them time to “put together awesome rewards”, but they also realize that longer seasons are often a drag for the players.
Having a new currency to collect each season can be very clunky and confusing. It also adds unwanted complexity to earning and spending it on the items you want to.
Based on the community’s desire to bring back old and currently unavailable Season Rewards back, Bioware is considering allowing old items to be available for purchase at a premium price.
Based on the aforementioned goals, here is a list of proposed changes that the devs are placing before us, the community and is asking for our thoughts and opinions:
- Seasons will now run 3-6 months – Our goal is to be around 3 months, but timing will be determined by Game Updates.
- Due to shorter Seasons we would adjust our Seasonal rewards
- Seasonal bracket rewards would be reduced overall. Ex: Each Tier might receive a Stronghold Deco, Title, and Flair
- All Seasons will now use the same type of currency
- We would implement a permanent Ranked Rewards Vendor which we would periodically add new items to, such as mounts, armor sets, weapon sets, etc.
- Starting at the end of Season 10 we would add Season 1’s rewards to the vendor for purchase. These items would be priced at a premium. This would mean they are available for purchase but they will be quite pricey to be fair to those who earned them at the time of the Season completing.
- As we complete future Seasons we will continue to add prior Season rewards. Ex: We add S2 rewards as we complete S11.
These changes will keep some exclusive rewards per season tied to your rank, while allowing us to continue releasing “bigger” rewards on roughly the same cadence we did previously. This will also allow us over time to build an extensive list of goods on the vendor which keeps a greater incentive for players to continue participating throughout the Season.
Based on initial feedback, Eric Musco came back to the forums to add a couple of clarifying notes:
- The “returning old rewards” are cosmetic rewards (mounts, weapons, armor) not things like Top 96 titles.
- These older items on the vendors would be very expensive to purchase with seasonal tokens. Devs want to avoid “everyone” having the older top-end rewards. The intention would be for them to be accessible but still very rare.
Earlier this year the developers of the game announced that this will be the Summer of PvP in SWTOR. While PvE content will be short (or completely absent), the PvP updates are rolling in waves. Any moment now we expect to see the PTS open after an incredibly long time since it was last accessible to the community. On the PTS Bioware wants to test a number of changes and improvements to the existing PvP maps including mechanics, durations and more.
The July update is also bringing a new Arena map. Later this Summer (or Fall?) we expect to see a new Huttball warzone map too.
If you enjoy PvP in Star Wars: The Old Republic, don’t hold back your opinions and suggestions! Any meaningful comments you want to post here, I will forward directly to Eric Musco as feedback and make sure the devs hear and read your ideas.
