News

If you were unable to watch everything we showed off during our Summer Livestream, don't worry! Here's a breakdown of what we talked about.

Active Twitch Drop 

Watching 1 hour of live content on Twitch will grant you the Ruhnuk Poster Decoration! As announced on the livestream, when 7.9.1 goes live in the near future, the poster Drop will briefly become inactive but will return with the Vectron Colette EM4 Mount Drop in a two tiered campaign. 

Watching 1 hour of SWTOR Twitch content will again grant the poster, and watching 5 hours will grant the mount. 

This campaign will be active for 28 days beginning 7.9.1’s launch.

Game Update 7.9.1

Galactic Season 11 “Light and Shadow” will begin August 18th and will operate similarly to Season 10. Rewards from Seasons 2 and 4 will be making their return including their respective companions, Fen Zeil and Amity. New rewards will also be added to the GS11 including customizations for both companions, a new armor, companion compatible mounts, titles, and Stronghold labels. 

A GS11 article with all the finer details will be published closer to when the season goes live. 

Cartel Market  

Game Update 7.9.1 will introduce a new Accessories Category to the storefront! Accessories are individual items (rather than full sets) that allow players more customization of their appearance. While there are several of these in game already, 7.9.1 will bring a new round of accessories that are primarily focused on cybernetics.

A Cartel Market article will be published closer to launch! 

Feast of Prosperity  

Our seasonal fall event returns October 6th and will be active through November 3rd! A new Waiter Droid Customization for C2-N2 and 2V-R8 has been added!

Game Update 8.0 Features Check-In

We covered more features that will be coming in 8.0!

Quality of Life

• Fitted Pack weapons and armor will be added to Collections. Meaning all of those weapons and armors you have been getting from Fitted Packs from daily logins and Galactic Seasons can now be unlocked in Collections starting in 8.0!
• Toys will be converted to Abilities!. That means your favorite Rest and Recharges, Trainers, and more will no longer be items clogging up your inventory and are now abilities that you can put on your hotbar.
• We will be rebalancing the leveling experience to ensure that players going through the game avoid things like dramatically overlevelling their main story content and leveling up to fast to be able to properly learn their classes
• The state of interactable Stronghold decorations will persist when you leave and return to your home. Just like in the real world if you leave those lights on, they will now actually stay on!

Difficulty Modes

In 8.0, players will be able to toggle their difficulty in the overworld! The overworld will include non-multiplayer phased areas meaning players will be able to toggle their difficulty out in the world doing everything from Daily Missions, World Bosses, or of course, playing their crit path stories!

Players will have 3 difficulties to choose from, just like you see across our multiplayer content, Story, Veteran, and Master. When a player is in one of these difficulties it will impact their damage received, healing received, and their experience gains. Difficulties set this way are also a personal effect, meaning one player can have themselves set to Master and their friend playing nearby could have themselves set to Story!

The difficulties themselves are meant to be balanced roughly in the following way:

• Story - The way the game plays today!
• Veteran - Balanced around the way the game played at launch. Enemies present a challenge, they can actually kill you. You will need to rest between every couple packs.
• Master - A true challenge. Elite enemies by themselves are a true threat. Pull more than one pack? Hope you have cooldowns up. Not for the faint of heart.

Ventures: Classic and Expert

Now that you understand Difficulty Modes, a quick reminder on Ventures. They are solo, Subscriber only, aspirational content. In 8.0, we are introducing new Ventures based in Difficulty Modes! To participate in these new Ventures, players will need to create a brand new Venture character. At that time, you will select which Venture you wish to play, Classic, or Expert. Note whichever Venture you pick, that character is locked into their respective difficulty until that character has completed all of its Objectives! Venture characters will also experience unique gameplay during their travels such as special consumables that allow them to complete time limited challenges to gain powerful temporary buffs!

• Classic = Veteran Difficulty
• Expert = Master Difficulty 

The Classic Venture is really meant to evoke that feeling you had playing SWTOR for the first time, the closer to launch you played the more true this is. The Objectives will take you only up to completing the main vanilla game story, level 50, and other objectives will be things like getting a crew skill, completing planetary story arcs, you get the idea. Playing like you did the very first time, all while in Veteran Difficulty.

The Expert Venture is for the true challenge seekers. You are going to go into level 80+, explore the galaxy, completing Heroics and hunting down rare enemies. All in the hardest difficulty SWTOR has to offer, Master.

Keep in mind this is a Venture and that means there is a bounty waiting for you. There are a host of unique rewards for completing every venture as all 8 Classes can complete both Classic and Expert Ventures. Stay tuned for more details!

8.0 Content on the Public Test Server

The first phase of 8.0 PTS is now live! Players will be able to test new abilities for: 

• Sentinel/Marauder
• Vanguard/Powertech
• Sage/Sorcerer

Players will also get their first hands-on experience with the first boss of the new Operation “Children of Nul”. This boss will be available in Story and Veteran mode. 

Read all the PTS details here! 

Over time, we will be hosting Let’s Play stream to explore the above features in more detail as they roll out. Players should expect to see more PTS phases in the coming months that will include the other Operation bosses, Ryloth Dynamic Encounters, Difficulty Modes, Ventures, and more!