BioWare dropped a surprise announcement moments ago. SWTOR lead designer Chris Schmidt revealed the studio’s plans for upcoming PvP changes and updates in the game’s next patch. The rewards for the upcoming Ranked Season 13 have also been released – way too early – as promised!
For all seasoned players the fact that BioWare is focusing on PvP updates during the Summer months in SWTOR is no surprise. In the recent years the studio has been doing mostly class balancing changes and some PvP tweaks during the hottest months of the year (based on where you live, heh).
“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!”
The main focus for the upcoming changes is to encourage players to participate regularly in Warzones and Arenas. Healthy queues and genuinely correct behavior will be rewarded as the hunt for cheaters continues as usual.
“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.”
The patch notes are now finalized and BioWare has officially announced when SWTOR Game Update 6.1.2b will be released – July 16, 2020.
General Changes:
- Increased the number of Renown points and Tech Fragments received from PvP Missions.
- Warzone Medpacs and Adrenals have been added to PvP Missions.
- Player will now receive Legendary Ember as rewards in the following Missions:[DAILY] Arena of Death!: 1 Ember[WEEKLY] Go Berserk!: 5 Ember[WEEKLY] Time for Pain!: 1 Ember
The following changes have been made to Solo Ranked Rewards. Similar changes have been made to Group Ranked Rewards and Unranked Rewards and full details for those will be in the upcoming patch notes this week.
Players now receive a Premium Warzone Crate for a Solo Ranked loss, and a Prototype Warzone Crate for a Solo Ranked victory.
The following changes have been made to the Daily Ranked Warzone Lockbox:
- Increased chance at a random set bonus or tactical item
- Now receive 4 equipment pieces (up from 3)
- Now receive 4 mods (up from 3)
- 5% chance for a Legendary Ember
- New chance for a Satchel of Crafting Mats (Grade 11)
- Warzone Adrenals and Medpacs have been removed from lockboxes
- Renown Trophies have been removed from lockboxes
The following changes have been made to the Weekly Ranked Warzone Lockbox:
- Increased chance at a random set bonus or tactical item
- Now receive 8 equipment pieces (up from 5)
- Now receive 8 mods (up from 5)
- 10% chance for a Legendary Ember
- Now receive 18 Satchels of Crafting Mats (Grade 11) (up from 5)
- Now receive 36 Processed Isotope Stabilizer
- Warzone Adrenals and Medpacs have been removed from lockboxes
- Renown Trophies have been removed from lockboxes
The following new Conquest PVP Objectives have been added. Group Ranked and Unranked have the same Objectives, but with differing point values.
Solo Ranked Objectives:
- 9750 points: Achiever – Weekly Repeatable (Complete Weekly PvP Mission)
- 4000 points: Infinite Domination – Infinite Repeatable (Win 10 or more matches)
- 1100 points: Medalist – Infinite Repeatable (Gain 8 Medals in a single match)
- 9750 points: Total Domination – Weekly Repeatable (Win 10 matches)
- 2000 points: Victorious – Daily Repeatable (Win a match)
- 5800 points: Victorious 2 – Daily Repeatable (Win 2 matches)
- 7500 points: Victorious 3 – Daily Repeatable (Win 3 matches)
Note: In the update kicking off Season 13, all missions will be changed to require wins for completion and rewards.
With the change to the missions’ objectives now demanding won matches, BioWare feels confident to increase the rewards.
Chris promises 2x and even 4x the amount of Tech Fragments and Embers, especially if you disassemble the extra gear items you get.
None of these are implemented yet and although there is no time for our feedback to actually affect them, the studio is still looking for players’ input to find out how the community would react to the new rewards and the idea of rewarding wins instead of participation.
The topic of returning rewards from previous seasons is also among the most popular ones and Chris touched on that too:
“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.”
The unique Ranked Season 13 rewards will include a new armor set in addition to all of the standard Seasonal rewards, such as the Seasonal Titles, Flairs, Frames, and Battle Flags.
BioWare is planning a live stream to announce the start of Season 13 and there we will most likely get to see the visual representation of the new armor set.
During the course of the upcoming season and continuing into the fourteenth one BioWare will release all of the previous seasons rewards replicas.
The items will not be released all at once and they will not come in the same order as they were introduced to the game. Here is the official list:
- 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
None of the replica items require unique currency. This means that you can save up in advance to be able to purchase whatever you need or want when it is released instead of having to wait to get the needed amount.
“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.”
Hardly any seasoned PvPer would be happy to see a replica of their hard-earned reward in a slightly different color scheme being worn by someone else, who started the game years later. The studio should focus on new items and not re-release old rewards to fill in the gaps.
“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.”
Many months away? What could be preventing them from working on these now? Should we go deep into speculation and attempt to connect this announcement of an announcement with the SWTOR’s Big 2021 plans BioWare teased about for the game’s tenth anniversary? I prefer not. But you could share your thoughts with me and the rest of the community in a comment!
Note: paragraphs in quotations are from Chris Schmidt’s forum post announcing the upcoming changes and the next season’s rewards.
REMINDER ► SWTOR Nightlive 2020 Event Guide has been updated to match the changes introduced to this year’s edition of the event that went live earlier today!
