SWTOR 7.0 Weapons Outfitter Feature delayed to 7.1, updates to Kai Zykken and Guild Perks bugs

BioWare has announced several unfortunate delays to the weapon slot in outfitter as well as the fixes for Kai Zykken and Guild Perks!

Why is Weapon Outfitter not coming out with 7.0

The weapons as part of the Outfitter system are being delayed to 7.1. BioWare has explained that this is because they want to gather feedback from players on the PTS before it is released to the live game and that won’t be possible since the PTS is coming down on January 28th.

I don’t understand why they need to gather feedback about this feature; it either works or it doesn’t. I think most of the feedback people will be offering is how the implementation of the feature won’t align with how some players imagined it would be based on the limited information BioWare has given us.

Many players think that weapons in outfitter will be decoupled from Combat Styles (the new term for Advanced Classes) where a Jedi Guardian might be able to use 2 lightsabers or a saberstaff instead of the single saber they can use now. Just so we’re clear, there is no evidence to support that idea.

It seems more likely that weapon proficiencies will remain linked to the Combat Style just as they are now. This does raise questions about what happens if you try to activate an outfit that has a saberstaff when your current Combat Style is not proficient with that weapon, like activating a saberstaff outfit as a Guardian.

Maybe BioWare will surprise us and let us use different weapons than our Combat Style is traditionally proficient with, even in combat. If I were you, I wouldn’t get my hopes up. BioWare will probably just make it so you can’t activate the outfit or default to the weapon that’s currently equipped if you’re in a Combat Style that can’t make use of that weapon.

BioWare is hoping to release the 7.1 PTS either the week before or after 7.0 launches.

UPDATE: The Weapons Outfitter is now available on SWTOR 7.1 PTS for testing. The feature is still set for release with the 7.1 patch.

UPDATE 2: The feature has been pulled from Update 7.1 and released with Update 7.0.2. You can learn everything you need to know about Weapons in Outfitter from the dedicated Guide.

Kai Zykken and Guild Perks Woes

As many of you have noticed, Kai Zykken has only been selling the Unidentified Unique Item for some time now and more recently, players have had very few choices for Guild Perks. Initially, BioWare said that they weren’t planning to fix Kai Zykken before 7.0, but then the Guild Perks thing happened, and they said it would require backend downtime to implement the fix and that they could fix both issues.

Now, BioWare is saying that the fix is ready, but in order to actually apply the fix, a patch would be required, not just downtime, and they can’t do a patch this week (probably because of 7.0), so 3 more weeks of limited Guild Perks and 3 extra weeks of Kai Zykken being fairly similar to what he’ll be like in 7.0.

How Kai Zykken Will Work in 7.0

BioWare elaborated further on Kai Zykken’s inventory when he’s working again with the release of 7.0.

Unidentified Unique Item Crate

This is the crate he currently sells and will continue to sell once 7.0 is released, but it will be a bit different. In 7.0, the crate will only contain an individual set bonus (for the cosmetic shell) piece from 6.0. You can obtain any set bonus piece from this crate, including “the sets previously only available from Dxun or crafting.”

It will no longer drop tactical items and there is some RNG protection regarding the set bonus pieces:

If an item exists in the player’s equipment or inventory, the RNG protection will prevent that item from dropping. Items will only drop if they match the player’s current Discipline (or Loot Discipline if they have it set)
This duplicate protection existed in 6.0 but didn’t apply to the Set Bonuses that could be worn by any class. We’ll be extending this protection to include generic Set Bonuses as well.
Important to note with this change is that when you have acquired every item from the crate, it will no longer have anything to give you. To ensure the crate always rewards the player with something, the Taskmaster’s Chestguard will remain in the crate with no duplication protection. If you start receiving duplicates of the Taskmaster’s Chestguard, you’ll know you’ve collected everything from the crate.

Rotating Selection of Tacticals Items and Schematics

Alongside the Unidentified Unique Item crate, Kai will sell a rotating selection of Tactical Items and crafting schematics for the craftable set bonuses and tacticals from 6.0.

It seems that Kai Zykken’s purpose will be to let players get those final pieces they were looking for to complete the sets from 6.0 as well as help people who didn’t play in 6.0 catch up with obtaining Tactical Items.

Summary of what launches with 7.0 and what with 7.1

It’s really depressing that BioWare is having to push yet another feature out of 7.0 and into 7.1. It feels like it’s only a matter of time before 7.1’s release gets pushed back too.

So far, we know 7.0 will include

The Manaan story
Elom Flashpoint
Introduction of Combat Styles
Introduction of Loadouts
New Character Creation UI + New Hairstyles
New Character Customization Window
Galactic Season 2
The end of Ranked Season 14

Here is what 7.1 will include

R-4 Anomaly Operation SM and HM
Manaan Daily Area
Weapons in Outfitter

Given that BioWare has not released new content since the Secrets of the Enclave Flashpoint and Galactic Season 1 so that they can focus on the expansion, I wonder if they are trying to shift to a content release schedule centered around Galactic Seasons.

How would you guys feel we got these near-annual content drops for each Galactic Season instead of smaller, more frequent updates?

Sources used for this article:

If you have fallen out of the loop, hurry up and catch up with all things SWTOR 7.0, because Legacy of the Sith is set to launch on February 15th, 2022. You still have time to prepare for the new SWTOR expansion!