Everything We Know About SWTOR 8.0: Masters of the Force

SWTOR’s 8.0 expansion is called “Masters of the Force”. Broadsword will be drip feeding us information about it until it drops this holiday 2026. We’ll continue to consolidate those sweet deets here.

New Planet: Ryloth

Ryloth is the rocky Twi’lek homeworld located in the Outer Rim. It will be the main area to explore during the new “Galaxy in Chaos” storyline, which picks up right after the events of Legacy Reborn.

This unforgiving planet is marked by brutal terrain, dangerous factions, and a proud people fighting to endure. Confront the Hutt Cartel, uncover new threats, and take part in a wide range of Dynamic Encounters across Ryloth’s hostile landscape.

We haven’t seen a whole lot of Ryloth in Star Wars movies or TV shows, but it seems like Broadsword is taking inspiration from the planet’s depiction in Star Wars: Clone Wars.

Initially, I was concerned that Ryloth might just end up being Ruhnuk 2 because their environments are so similar. Both are cavernous with limited greenery, but after seeing the concept art, I think they’ll feel sufficiently distinct.

I’m most intrigued by all the different fabric in the shot. It could very well be all static or rely on SWTOR’s existing cloth physics, but there have been significant breakthroughs in efficient fabric simulation in the past few years.

The devs are well aware of the rampant clipping with capes and such, but perhaps SWTOR’s migration to DX12 will enable them to take advantage of these advancements. I’m no expert on graphics APIs, so take that with a grain of salt.

While this hasn’t been confirmed, either, we can say with far greater confidence that Twi’lek faces will probably receive the modernization treatment that other races got earlier in 7.0. After all, they’re making fancy new planet full of Twi’leks. They wouldn’t just skip the facelift.

Alongside story content featuring Force-sensitive Twi’lek siblings Sa’har and Ri’kan Kateen, Ryloth will offer a smattering of Dynamic Encounters.

Dynamic Encounters (November Let’s Play)

Rather than being a traditional daily area, the Twi’lek homeworld will feature a slew of Dynamic Encounters featuring a progression structure similar to Wreckage on Dantooine.

Ignore the dread that may well up inside you upon hearing Ryloth being compared to Wreckage on Dantooine. Broadsword has taken the lessons they learned on Dantooine to improve the experience on Ryloth.

The overall time it takes to do an entire cycle on Ryloth is significantly faster than it takes to align the Orbital Core on Dantooine.

On the PTS livestream, we were able to complete the whole cycle in under 2 hours, and that’s maybe only enough time to get through the first level in each biome on Dantooine.

The final boss is much easier and accessible to everyone as well. The Orbital Core was basically a NiM flashpoint boss, whereas the Hutt Sky Palace flying over Ryloth is essentially a series of 3 world bosses. The mechanics are simpler and there’s no group formation required.

The sky palace doubles as a fly vault, and at the end, after you beat all the bosses, you get to ransack the place, grabbing as much treasure as you can carry before the poison gas failsafe triggers.

Instead of a trio of biomes each with their own level, everyone contributes to progressing the same zone at the same time, and then the objectives switch to the next zone when you finish.

Level 85 and Balance Changes

As is customary with a new expansion, we’ll get a level cap increase (and gearing changes), so once 8.0 drops, the new max level will be 85 and gear will be around iRating 370+ (compared to the current 344).

There will also be combat style balance changes, which currently means a baseline ability for the combat style will get transformed to have a new discipline-specific effect.

You can read the preliminary changes analysis for all combat styles on the PTS:

• Sorcerer | Sage
• Powertech | Vanguard
• Marauder | Sentinel
• Sniper | Gunslinger
• Operative | Scoundrel
• Assassin | Shadow
• Mercenary | Commando

In short, they have some neat ideas for some of the specs, but I don’t think their one-size-fits-all standardized approach is going to work. I hope they focus on refining the ability tree choices rather than trying to shoehorn another ability into the spec and rolling the core 3 discipline-specific tactical items into a choice in the ability tree.

It’s unclear if these are the extent of the balance changes coming with 8.0 or if they have other things planned.

New Operation: Children of Nul

There will be a new 3-boss operation called Children of Nul. At launch, CoN will be available in SM/VM, but they have announced that a MM (NiM) difficulty will arrive later, likely as part of Update 8.1 or 8.1.1 based on their past release timings.

The new operation takes place on Darth Nul’s flagship, the Enigma, where she conducted experiments and examined the idiosyncrasies of the dark and light sides of the Force.

Currently, the first boss, Nul Acolyte, is available on the PTS in both SM and VM with consoles players can use to adjust the balance of the fight and provide better test data to the devs.

Will there be a NiM CoN?

The devs did break their promise to make R-4 Anomaly MM, so raiders are justifiably skeptical about the Broadsword staying true to their word, but I don’t think they will make the same mistake twice.

The new operation is shorter, so MM will require fewer resources, and it would be much safer for Broadsword not to announce the highest difficulty for the operation if they weren’t certain. It’s not like they’ve abandoned MM, either. Relentless Replication, SWTOR’s most recent lair boss, has a MM version.

Old Ops Will Be Scaled to 85

There was a bit of confusion from the PvP livestream at the end of September regarding whether older operations will be scaled up to level 85. We reached out to Broadsword for a clear answer and can confirm definitively that older operations will be scaled up to level 85.

Somehow Former Ops Designer Returned

Broadsword re-hired Martin Smith as the Operations Designer for SWTOR. He was part of the original dev team for SWTOR until his departure in 2016, during the KotFE and KotET era.

Then-BioWare released The Ravagers and Temple of Sacrifice as part of 3.0 Shadow of Revan in December 2014 and halted development on new Operations, then, a mere 10 months later, released 4.0 Knights of the Fallen Empire on the heels of Star Wars: The Force Awakens in December 2015.

The last piece of Operations-style content released was [Solo] The Eternal Championship, which came as part of Update 4.4: Profit and Plunder (Vandin heist Chapter) in May 2016 until development resumed with the release of Tyth of Gods from the Machine in Update 5.2 in April 2017, which was developed by other gameplay designers, like Matt Pucevich.

Hello everyone,

I’m Martin Smith, the Operations Designer on Star Wars: The Old Republic.

[…]

Going forward, the intent for Story Mode Operations is that a pickup group or Group Finder group should be able to enter Story Mode and defeat the boss as long as a couple of players understand the mechanics.

Ideally, you should be able to explain the core mechanics to a new player in text chat in a few sentences, then defeat the boss within a few attempts.

Right now, the Nul Acolyte fight is too difficult on Story Mode, and some mechanics are harder to understand than intended. I’ll be working to address those issues.

[…]

If my name sounds familiar, it may be because I was part of the original launch team and worked on Operations until I left BioWare in 2016. Broadsword brought me back to focus on Operations content.

My goal is to make the best Operations content I can, but to do that I need your feedback. I want to know what you want from future Operations, and what you would most like to see fixed or changed in existing Operations.

I am working on improving the process of making new content and building better tools to help design, build, and balance Operations more effectively.

Martin Smith, Ops Designer for SWTOR on forums.swtor.com

I find it noteworthy that Broadsword rehired someone specifically to be an Operations designer and they’re focusing on improving the process for making new content, including future Operations.

It seems likely that they will continue to release new raids for each expansion but perhaps they could try something like including a lair boss with every major story update (every 6 months).

That’s just speculation on my part and Broadsword declined to comment on this matter. The only info we have is that which is contained in Martin’s forum post quoted above.

Open World Difficulty Settings

All players will get to set their difficulty mode in the open world. Options match the rest of the game’s difficulty settings and include Story, Veteran, and Master mode.

• Story difficulty is the same game experience we have now
• Veteran reverts the game difficulty to what it was like a launch
• Master will offer a more challenging experience likely akin to MM Chapters.

The difficulty setting works by increasing the damage you (and your companion) take from enemies, reducing your healing received, and reducing the XP you earn. It does not affect enemy health or your damage dealt.

This approach means that it can apply seamlessly to the open world and allow two players fighting the same enemy to experience separate difficulties without directly reducing their contribution to shared objectives.

Please note that these difficulty settings do not apply to group content like Flashpoints, Operations, or PvP because difficulty settings there already exist.

Eric Musco, SWTOR’s Game Director, hosted a 2-hour “let’s play” livestream, mostly about the new difficulty settings, but he also answered questions from the audience.

SWTOR 8.0 Difficulty Modes, New Legacy Perks, and PvP Expertise’s Return (Musco Livestream Overview)

New Ventures: Classic and Expert

Ventures are subscriber-only prestige-oriented endeavors designed for solo players. They are meant to take quite a bit of time and effort and cannot be progressed unless you are subscribed.

The only one we’ve had so far is the Basilisk Prototype Venture that gives you the Bessie companion.

Coming alongside the open world difficulty settings are a pair of Ventures that reward you for playing through the game exclusively in either Veteran or Master Mode.

To be clear, you can play through the game in any difficulty regardless of whether you are subscribed, but you can only progress through Ventures if you are subscribed.

You’ll need to create new toons to progress through the venture and those toons will be locked into the associated difficulty (unless you choose to hit the irreversible “eject button”).

Classic Venture

The Classic Venture will reward you for playing through each origin story in the original Era (Acts 1-3 taking place from level 1-50) on Veteran difficulty. You’ll also need to do the planetary story arcs, level up crew skills, and complete the original story FPs.

The name of the venture is a nod to the difficulty of the game at launch. The point is to play the game like it was back in the day.

Expert Venture

The Expert Venture will reward you for completing heroics and dailies, defeating rare enemies, and exploring the galaxy, all on Master difficulty. It has a completely separate set of objectives focused on different content than the Classic Venture.

It seems that the Expert Venture is more oriented to completing side-content in MM, but the details are a bit hazy. On the 7.9.1 livestream, they mentioned that you’d have to play through it with all 8 origins as well, but that sounds like it will be extremely repetitive.

Rewards

Broadsword hasn’t shared details on the specific rewards you can earn from completing these ventures, but we know there will be a gear set for each origin story (that will be available in Collections) and some sort of XP boost.

Unique Gameplay

Currently, Ventures feature some unique gameplay elements and challenges that mainly serve to invalidate the main point of the Ventures, which is rewarding you for taking on a higher combat difficulty.

• Godmode-style grenades that just wipe out entire groups of mobs
• Combat-oriented challenges that reward you with some sort of temporary buff for completing them
• Mysterious Maps that point you to challenging enemies
• Additional Quick Travel (QT) points
• Shiny enemies that drop grenades, challenges, and gear upgrades

Character Slots

Some altoholics are concerned about not having enough character slots to do the Ventures. Broadsword plans to ameliorate this by raising the floor and ceiling on available character slots.

All subscribers will get 2 more character slots on each server, so you will have 26 characters as a subscriber baseline. The maximum number of characters you can have on each server will be increased by 16, so you will have enough slots to complete each Venture.

Restrictions and Allowances

Broadsword is trying to prevent offering one button that lets you skip through all the hard stuff, so DvL gear, Master’s Datacrons, and XP Boost consumables will not work (but Legacy Perks will).

Since rewards will be in collections, you can just spacebar through the story, transfer your rewards to your main, and delete the Venture toon if you like, but the Venture toons are just like normal characters.

The only differences between normal characters and ones created for the Venture are that the Venture toons cannot change the game difficulty freely and are locked into the original Advanced Classes associated with each class (origin) story (e.g. Sith Inquisitor venture toons can only be Sorcerer and Assassin).

You can choose to leave the Venture at any time (including from the login screen in case your sub runs out), but it’s a permanent decision. You’ll retain your progress for that origin story, but you’ll have to relevel the new Venture toon.

Quality of Life Improvements

There are a host of quality of life (QoL) improvements coming alongside 8.0 including putting Fitted gear in Collections, turning Toys into abilities, making interactable SH decos persistent, and redistributing XP away from main story quests.

Fitted Armor and Weapons in Collections

Fitted Armor Sets and Fitted Weapons are getting added to Collections, which includes over 500 different items. This is a pretty major step towards including all equipment in the game in Collections, with the only remaining carveout being some endgame gear sets and crafted equipment.

Toys as Abilities

In order to reclaim precious inventory space, items classified as Toys will become consumable ability unlocks, so they’ll function like mounts and minipets where you right-click the item, it gets consumed, and then you have a permanent ability you can stick on your bar. They listed the following categories of items that are classified as Toys:

• Cosmetic effects (Jawagrams, Glowing Eyes, etc.)
• Trainer Holostatues (AKA Driving Instructors)
• Rest and Recharges (Regen Items)

Some of the Legacy Perk Droids from the recent Master the Fight: Cargo Transport Edition Bundle have been converted to toys but not all of them.

Stronghold Decoration Persistence

Once 8.0 drops, interactable SH decos will remain in the state they were in when you left, which is big news for Ambient Machines and Jukeboxes, but it applies to a bunch of different types of decos as shown below:

I am a bit curious about how this will affect decos with timers on their interactions. Like Jukeboxes stop playing automatically after a set time and the hologram on the Jedi Small Council Table disappears after a short while. Hopefully, these timers are removed.

It’s also worth pointing out that there’s a Luxurious Oval Rug (Purple) in the corner of the picture. This deco has never been obtainable by the player but has existed in the deco list for as long as I can remember.

Leveling Experience

Broadsword will be making changes to the leveling experience with 8.0 so that players don’t become over-leveled so easily by exclusively doing the main story quests.

This is a problem because it reduces the incentive to do side quests, makes content easier than it should be, reduces the amount of time you have to learn and understand how to play your class, and makes gearing while leveling irrelevant.

They didn’t go into a lot of detail, but it sounds like they’re redistributing some of the XP provided by main story missions to other activities like side quests and almost certainly for defeating enemies.

PvP and Expertise

We will not get a new Warzone or Arena alongside 8.0, though Broadsword is not neglecting PvP. We expect PvP Seasons will continue and PvP will continue to be SWTOR’s third pillar of combat style balance (alongside boss fights and trash mobs).

The Expertise stat (that was removed as part of 5.0) is slated to make a return as part of 8.0. Expertise is a scalar on how much damage/healing you deal to other players and take from them in PvP.

Currently, as listed in the character sheet, a full set of 14 gold Expertise augments will net you 14,000 Expertise, which will scale up your damage dealt by 60%, reduce your damage taken by 37.5%, and increase your healing dealt by 35%.

If Broadsword makes the right decision, they’d fund future PvP support with revenue from players who buy the PvP season with Cartel Coins along with the proportion of subscriber playtime spent in PvP matches.

They plan to offer a set of base green gear and expertise augments at little to no cost (a la Recruit gear from back in the day). This base tier conveys the existence of augments, so it needs to remain even though you could achieve the same balancing effect by truncating the stat boost.

It seems like PvP gear may not be its own thing (nor does it really need to be with Expertise augs), like the gearing track for PvP might only consist of augments.

Broadsword believes this controversial move will enable them to offer a dedicated gearing track for PvP with less incentive for win trading while incentivizing more players to queue, but I think it will have the opposite effect.

Players will be gatekept from PvPing (which is why they removed Expertise gear in the first place) because they will get curbstomped even harder because they don’t have the special gear and will have no incentive to PvP to get said gear unless it’s useful outside of PvP.

This doesn’t really change the gear requirement because optimal stats are different in PvE and PvP due to differences in average defense chance between players (~5%) and bosses (10%) and reverse bolster (336 is the cap).

The current reverse bolster system already silently penalizes you if your iRating goes over the cap by dropping you down to iRating 336, so if you bring in min-maxed 340-344 gear, your Accuracy and Alacrity will drop down below the optimal stat thresholds.

Players who don’t look at the details may not know that these augments are worthless outside of Warzones and Arenas, either, and sticking Expertise exclusively on augments also means you lose access to fine-tuned min-maxing of your stats.

Broadsword plans to make a post in the future detailing how Expertise will work, and some of these numbers, particularly the max percentages provided by Expertise are subject to change.

8.0 Release Date and Other Tidbits

The 8.0 Masters of the Force expansion is due out this holiday season, most likely either December 15th or 22nd, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it had to be delayed until the new year like they did for 7.0.

Gladiopodling Minipet Code

You can redeem the code GETRDY4MOTF at https://www.swtor.com/redeem-code to get your very own Gladiopodling minipet. This code is available until December 26th, 2026. They’re almost certainly going to get 8.0

PvP Season 11, Life Day, SWTOR’s 15th Anniversary

We expect Life Day, SWTOR’s 15th Anniversary, and PvP Season 11 as part of the 8.0 update, though we have no details on Broadsword plans yet.

DirectX 12 Migration (Not 8.0)

DirectX 12 migration is not part of 8.0, but Broadsword is working towards bringing a technical alpha to players. The current hurdle is the game UI.

Broadsword has been working on migrating SWTOR from the ancient DirectX 9 to the modern DirectX 12 version of the graphics API for a couple years now.

Game developers rely on APIs like DirectX as a standardized language to communicate with GPU drivers without needing to worry as much about specific hardware configurations.

DirectX 9 was released all the way back in 2002, and DirectX 12, the modern standard, was released in 2015.

DirectX 10 was released in 2006, around the time that development on SWTOR likely began, but it required Windows Vista or later to run, and Windows 7 didn’t surpass Windows XP in market share until late 2011, when the game came out.

We don’t know if this was the reason, but if I was making an MMO, I wouldn’t want to exclude a third of the market from being able to run my game.

We expect DX12 to enable improved game performance and provide access to new rendering techniques like ray tracing, but we’ll have to wait and see what Broadsword does.