Bioware releaseg game update 5.9.2 to Star Wars: The Old Republic – Galactic Legend on 7th of August. Here is everything you need to know about this patch!
Please, Consider white-listing VULKK.com to support the website. Thank you!)
I usually do such an in-depth global overview of big updates. Even thought 5.9.2 is labeled as a minor update (internal reasons, I suppose), this patch introduces a large number of content, new gameplay features and fixes to the game. Most of all are related to PvP. We’ve got a new Stronghold on Rishi with unique PvP features, a new Arena map, a ton of changes to PvP gameplay including matchmaking, tank buffs and more.
Let’s take a look at each one of them in more details!
THE RISHI STRONGHOLD
Bioware released a gigantic new Stronghold located on Rishi. The pirate hideout offers unique for the housing system in SWTOR PvP features. Special designated PvP areas allow for the hosts and owners of the Stronghold to organize player-driven PvP matches and tournaments. There are two special zones where you will be automatically flagged for PvP. One of them is designed to be a small confined arena, while the second is a much larger open space suitable for both death matches and Huttball.
New systems have been introduced to the Stronghold, allowing you, the host, to control the PvP environment by locking players and/or teams inside and giving them a chance to prove their worth. You can also place various decorations that can serve as Line-of-Sight obstacles in the PvP zones.
The Stronghold is not cheap to purchase. It’s slightly more expensive than the Yavin 4 one, offers nice expansions and is by far the biggest housing structure in the game currently.
For a much larger and detailed look at the Rishi Stronghold, check out my Complete Guide. There you will find exact information on pricing, unlocks, hooks, PvP areas and their rules and more!
NEW DECORATIONS AND MK-4 PREFABS
Along with the new Stronghold, you have a brand new decorations vendor to explore. The droid is located in the Strongholds area on the Fleet and will sell you a number of cool new decorations. Most of them are quite expensive.
A new tier of crafting materials, used for purchasing Stronghold decorations, has been released. You can get the MK-4 Prefabs crafting schematics from the Crew Vendors on the Fleet (or your Capital worlds).
After the launch of the update, Bioware will start adding new decorations available for purchase at the Cartel Store as well (for real money).
These are just a small highlight of the new decorations. For an in-depth look, check out the New Decorations Guide. There you will find information on the new vendor location, its contents and crafting materials required for the new decorations.
MANDALORIAN BATTLE RING ARENA
There is a brand new arena map available for both Unranked and Ranked PvP players. It’s designed for 4v4 battles between players. The arena is themed in a typical Mandalorian style.
- Fight to the death in teams of four to prove yourself worthy of the legendary warriors of Mandalore.
- Whether you’re unleashing damage atop the fire-lit plateau or force leaping between ancient artifacts to evade opponents, the fight to galactic glory will require skill, precision and teamwork
PVP TANK CHANGES
Following the nerf in the previous update to the tank classes, which was provoked by the studio’s desire to fix the Skank Tank issues, tanks became kind of undesirable and weak in the eyes of the players. To fix this Bioware boosted the Shield and Absorb. Critical Hits that tanks receive will now be affected by the tank’s Shield and Absorb stats. This change is strictly for PvP as it relates only to hits by Players, automatically ruling out PvE.
This change will give a nice boost to the tank’s survivability in PvP.
UPDATE: On 2nd of August community manager Eric Musco announced that due to critical bugs discovered with this change, it has been pushed back to 5.9.3 or even further. The Tank Changes are not happening in 5.9.2 for sure.
Quick heads up, this change will not be happening for 5.9.2. It is still something we would like to do in a future update (likely 5.9.3) but there are some critical bugs we discovered which prevent it from being introduced in this patch.
PVP MATCHMAKING CHANCES
As you no doubt have figured it out – SWTOR Update 5.9.2 is mostly about PvP. It’s released in the middle of the “Summer of PvP” as I called the season when Game director Keith Kanneg released his Summer Roadmap and plans.
The are a number of changes made to how queueing and matchmaking works for PvP now. All with one idea in mind – to make PvP pop more often, to have more balance between the teams and, of course, tone down the possibilities for exploits.
The biggest change is probably the fact that all warzones and arenas are now available cross-factions. When players are queuing for a PvP match, the system will take under account their ratings and skills. A premade group of four players cannot queue for if there is more than one healer in their ranks.
CHANGES TO EXISTING WARZONES
The existing warzones have seen some significant changes too. The ultimate goal is, as I mentioned above, to create a more balanced environment for the players and to prevent cheating and exploiting as much as possible.
The duration planned for an average PvP match is 10-12 minutes. With that in mind some of the maps, like the Voidstar, have seen significantly reduced timings to taking Doors, Disarming Bombs and Extending Bridges. The Ancient Hypergate’s orbs now have a much bigger impact on the team’s performance as the reward from delivering them to the home pylon now brings a significantly increased amount of bonus points. Alderaan’s turrets now deal more damage and the possibility to capture turrets by sitting inside the terminals, has been fixed.
Additional fixes and alterations have been made to the rest of the maps too. You can check the full list at the link below or from the Patch Notes, which you will find further down in this article (Patch Notes become available a day before the release of the update).
SEASON 9 RANKED REWARDS AND FUTURE CHANGES
With the launch of Update 5.9.2 ends the longest PvP Ranked Season in SWTOR so far. Season 9 rewards have also been announced. They consist of the usual flags, decorations, titles and some cool unique looking items like the new mount and weapons. All are available for purchase with the PvP Tokens that players earn based on their ranks and performance.
In addition to the Tier exclusive rewards listed above, there will also be rewards that can be purchased from a vendor for Season 9 Tokens.
Because of this unusual and unpleasant drag that we experienced with Season 9, Bioware is planning to shorten the duration of each PvP Ranked Season. Each season will now run from three to six months. The developers want their length to be around three months, but timing will be determined by Game Updates. Because of the new shorter duration, the seasonal rewards will also be adjusted. All seasons will now use the same type of currency. Prior season rewards will be available for purchase with this new currency, but the prices will be quite high.
CARTEL BAZAAR VENDORS REPUTATION CHANGES
The old Cartel Market reputations have been combined into a single one – Underworld Exchange. This will allow players to more easily purchase items from the vendors, because with the release of the Ultimate Pack, the studio announced that there are no plans to bring back older shipments and packs any time soon.
All Cartel Market related reputations you have from the previous system will now be combined and added together. If you were a Legend in one of the previously available reputations, you will be Legend with the Underworld Exchange too. Reputation tokens are a guaranteed drop from Ultimate Cartel Packs unless you are at Legend status. Cartel Market Certificates are being added into the pack as a rare drop.
PATCH NOTES
NEW AND UPDATES GUIDES
This is a list of my newly released Guides for SWTOR 5.9.2 as well as all the updated old ones.
NEW GUIDES
- SWTOR Rishi Stronghold Guide
- SWTOR Rishi Stronghold Secret Achievements Guide
- SWTOR 5.9.2 New Stronghold Decorations Guide
UPDATED GUIDES
GAME NEWS
Links to all news and updates about SWTOR Game Update 5.9.2 from before and after the patch.
- SWTOR Summer Roadmap 2018
- SWTOR Khem Val Returning This Year, Rishi Stronghold and Summer of PvP Updates
- SWTOR PvP Matchmaking Changes Announced for Update 5.9.2
- SWTOR PvP Warzones Changes Coming This Summer
- SWTOR PvP Season 9 Rewards Announced!
- SWTOR PvP Tank Shielding Changes Coming With Update 5.9.2
- SWTOR PvP Ranked Season Timing and Rewards Changes
- SWTOR 5.9.2 Cartel Bazaar Vendors Reputation Changes
- SWTOR Update 5.9.2 Release Date Delayed With One Week
- SWTOR 5.9.2 Introduces a Fix for Lana Beniko Marriage Bug
- SWTOR Stronghold Lag Issues Temporary Fix and Future Plans
