SWTOR 6.1.4 brings New tier of Augments

SWTOR design director Chris Schmidt dropped a very controversial bomb on the forums announcing a brand new tier of Augments coming with Update 6.1.4. These will require crafting materials obtainable from both PvP and PvE!

Since the release of Onslaught SWTOR has not see a jump in power. The vertical progression has always been the same and the cap iRating has been 306 for gear and 276 for Augments.

Almost an year later BioWare is adding a new tier of Augments. This is intentional, Chris Schmidt (design director) said:

“For a little background, we try to strike a balance between the right time to introduce new power to chase into the game and respecting your time invested in getting to the current maximum level of gear. We also want to refresh interest in our prestige modes by adding a very clear incentive while we work on the next batch of new content.“

It’s the right move to allow players to play with their shiny new gear for a while after they have acquired it. Update 6.1.2 introduced new Master Mode Operations (almost exclusive) armor sets. Not all of these turned out to be best for each class and spec they were designed for, so not all players had to go through this slice of the progression chain again.

SWTOR 6.0 All New Armor Sets Guide — Click on the image to visit this guide

“We have a few goals here. First, in PvE, it has been several months since Dxun Master Mode released. Top-end guilds have cleared the content and achieved the timed run achievements. Guilds still progressing in Dxun could use a slight boost to help get over the hill of that next boss, and a slight power bump should help. We don’t want progression to stagnate, and we would also like to make it worth people’s time to farm older Master Modes in order to gear up the next batch of recruits for the most current content.” – Chris said.

The wait is nearly over and your character can become a tiny bit more powerful with the new tier of Augments coming in 6.1.4. They are labeled as IR 300 in Chris’ post.

At this point we don’t know how much of an increase we will see in the new Augments. What we know, though, is how BioWare plans to introduce them into SWTOR’s gameplay features. And that’s where the bad news start coming for most players.

The new tier of Augments will require a two new types of crafting materials that are being introduced with 6.1.4:

OEM-37 – obtainable from Operation Bosses (PvE)
RPM-13 – obtainable from Ranked Missions and boxes (PvP)

That’s right. To be able to upgrade your gear your character will have two options: participate in both the highest tiers of PvE and PvP in SWTOR or pay the incredibly inflated prices these Augments will show up at on the GTN.

Chris confirmed this and from his post he even sounds kind of proud with his decision, I think:

“To be clear, these augments will require BOTH the PvE material (only available in Master Mode Operations) AND the PvP material (only available in Ranked) to craft. We acknowledge that many players prefer one mode over the other, however we have a robust trading economy that rewards those who make these scarce materials available either via the Galactic Trade Network or simply trade chat.”

You know why he is so sure that this move is the correct one? Credit sinks (my theory)! In an interview for Aviriia he and Musco openly stated that credit sinks are not randomly created (in case someone is thinking that still).

Credit sinks are official method BioWare uses to attempt to bring balance to the SWTOR economy. This is one of the several attempts the developers have made in this direction since 6.0. Expensive Strongholds and decorations for them as well as the insane lottery that is the Amplifiers system are other credit sinks that already exist in the game.

Now, let’s take a closer look at what the new augments will require from crafters.

5 Artifact Combo Materials
3 Artifact Secondary Combo Materials
5 Solid Resource Matrix
1 CM-1337
5 Processed Isotope Stabilizer

The new guy here is the “CM-1337”. Quick side-note, did you know that “1337” is a slang word for “leet” (elite).

Here is what you will need to craft one CM-1337 item, craftable by Cybertechs:

15 OEM-37
25 RPM-13
5 Legendary Embers

Sounds a lot, right? Wait until I show you how you earn the OEM’s and RPMs.

Master Mode bosses will drop a new material: OEM-37
- Most bosses drop 1 in 8-person, 2 in 16-person
- Final bosses drop 3 in 8-person and 6 in 16-person
- Dxun bosses will drop 2 in 8-person and 4 in 16-person
- Apex Vanguard in Dxun will drop 6 in 8-person and 12 in 16-person
Ranked PvP Missions and Boxes will drop a new material: RPM -13
- 50% chance in weekly group ranked box – 5 on Weekly Group Ranked Quest
- 10% chance in daily group ranked box
- 1 on Daily Group Ranked Quest
- 25% chance in weekly solo ranked box
- 0 in Weekly Solo Ranked Quest
- 5% chance in daily solo ranked box
- 0 in Daily Solo Ranked Quest

As tradition dictates BioWare gives a big lead to the newest content – the Dxun operatoin. Players participating in Master Mode Nature of Progress will earn double drops of the new crafting material OEM-37 compared to players, who clear any other NiM operation content.

Ranked PvP queues have been getting more stretched and less populated lately and to address this Chris thinks it’s a good idea to force high tiers of PvE players to participate in Ranked PvP as well.

What’s even worse than making you play Ranked PvP if you are not interested in it, is the fact that if you queue as a team you will get better “chances” to get the rewards.

Complete SWTOR EndGame Gearing Guide for Level 75 — Click on the image to visit the guide

But Ranked PvP is at the top of the food chain and only the most elite of the elite PvP players go for it… usually. Let’s not forget that 6.1.2b changed how PvP missions reward you. You are now required to win a certain amount of Arenas for a Daily and Weekly mission to be completed.

From the other side of things the picture doesn’t look too bright either. Elite PvP teams are now forced to participate in structured PvE environment combat scenarios to earn the PvE tokens (crafting materials) for their new Augments.

I find it funny that in the same day Chris posted twice on the forums and his earlier post addressed the toxicity issues SWTOR is having at the moment:

“In general, our philosophy in regards to toxicity and harassment is there is no room for it in our service. But it’s not quite as simple as ‘find the toxic people and remove them’, because there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Often times folks are just having a bad day, and some friction point in the game rules or mechanics can exacerbate this and lead to a negative or harmful social experience.”

There are some changes in that regard coming with 6.1.4 and some coming at a later time as well. Since now two usually distant parties are forced to gather together (or against each other, based on queues), it is important to now what you can and cannot do when someone pisses you off in Ranked PvP.

The first step is to increase the severity of the actions taken against players who harrass others and violate the Terms of Service.

The Backfill and Deserter situations in matchmaking is getting an update. Starting with 6.1.4 if a specific role, like a Tank or Healer, declines the queue for a match, the system will backfill their place with the same role, if it’s available at the time.

Declining multiple matches in Ranked PvP will get you an increased penalty as of 6.1.4 as well.

The Vote Kick feature has been available in SWTOR for many many years. Its original idea was and still is to give the power to players to remove a toxic member of their group. AFK is a kind of toxic, I guess. It is considered bad behavior at least.

Vote Kick will not be available in Ranked PvP as of 6.1.4! With the increased number of PvE players forced to participate in PvP there will be more fresh waves inserted to the Ranked PvP environment.

If you are an elite PvE raider this will almost never make you instantly a great Ranked PvP player. PvP is so different in terms of player skills requirements that you might feel like a newbie again.

If you are new at both, the SWTOR Beginners Guide for PvP at level 75 may come in handy!

SWTOR PvP at level 75 - A Beginners Guide — Click on the image to check out this guide

“In an effort to welcome more new players into Ranked PvP, we implemented our Bolster system which would scale player’s power to the equivalent of iLevel 306. As a barrier to entry we also require a Valor Rank 25 in order to queue for Ranked PvP. We would like to find a balance between keeping the queues populated with players and giving a high quality game experience in that game mode. We believe this barrier to entry has been too low.” – it’s not all bad news for the elite PvP players, Chris said!

The biggest and probably most asked for was for a higher barrier to be created, so new PvP players would not be able to participate in Ranked PvP right away as they reach 75.

“In Game Update 6.1.4 we are adding a gear requirement of iLevel 306, in addition to Valor Rank 25, in order to be able to queue for Solo Ranked PvP.” – Chris announced.

Problem solved? We all happy now? I don’t quite think so. You?

There is one more thing addressed with 6.1.4 – legacy ignore. Starting with the next update to SWTOR a player will be able to ignore another player’s whole legacy, not just the character they were playing with.

If you believe someone is so toxic and beyond any hope for redemption, you can now make sure that you will never hear from them again by ignoring not only the character that harrassed (or annoyed you), but all other characters that player has within the their legacy.

With the promise to pay more attention to the in-game tools for reporting and the automated system detections of wrong behavior like cheating and AFK, BioWare is far from done and promises to keep working on improving the environment in the game for all types of players.

Combining PvE and PvP has never been a good idea and in the past it never brought the desired results. I like being positive and optimistic, but I have a hard time seeing this as a successful experiment.

The idea of acquiring your gear from both PvP and PvE or paying crazy amounts of credits on GTN may fall in line with the Ossus Gearing Method that was tested and quickly pushed aside and forgotten. I have a feeling players will not leave this to rest any time soon.

What do you think?

In case you missed the previous news and info updates, here is a quick reminder for you: BioWare plans to bring up PTS back up for 6.1.4. This should happen very soon, but no date is announced yet.

6.1.4 is planned for release in October. This patch will introduce a new Seasonal event, called Feast of Prosperity.

UPDATE: Patch 6.1.4 is now live and I have a complete guide to the Feast of Prosperity Event available!

The Conquest System is also seeing its regular big change. It’s been about two patches without messing around with it, so it was time!

Links to related content for 6.1.4:

To prepare for the upcoming Augments grind, here are a few more useful related resources you can use: