Shintar's Galactic Season 6 Diary, Week 1

It's been a while since I last posted a detailed diary of my Galactic Seasons exploits - in fact, the last time I did so was almost exactly two years ago in Season 2. I basically stopped writing these posts because I found that the changes to the system after Season 1 made it so much easier to get both the daily and weekly objectives done that I didn't really think it was worth going into detail about how exactly I completed them each day/week.

This was quite a contrast to Season 1, when my blog basically turned into nothing but my Galactic Seasons diary for three months. This was because the first Galactic Season used a very different model that relied a lot on randomised daily objectives and was a lot more demanding of your time. It fills me with a certain degree of amusement now to look back at the time I fretted about whether I could get two rounds of dailies done before having to shoot off to an emergency dental appointment. I mean, that toothache sucked ass, but the circumstances seem funny in hindsight.

Anyway, the reason I decided to give this diary thing another shot this season was that, now that I'm effectively doing seasons on five six servers, it's actually somewhat demanding again, and it's only going to be more so this season with the nerf to the reputation Conquest objective for easy points! I thought it would be interesting to document my journey as it happened once again, and maybe approaching the whole endeavour with more awareness might also help me with not going too crazy pushing myself through too many objectives every week.

I think for clarity it would be good to start by listing all the available weekly objectives for week one as well as my thoughts on them, as my descriptions of my daily play sessions might seem incredibly random otherwise.

• Earn 200k Conquest points: This is one that kind of takes care of itself while you work on other objectives, so pretty much a freebie on all servers.
• Earn the seasonal currency: Same for this one.
• Kill 100 mobs with a tank companion: An easy filler that can be done in a variety of content and stacks well with other objectives; I figured I'd do this one on several servers.
• Kill four named champion mobs on Quesh (2 Republic, 2 Imperial): Not one of my favourites since you have to do a lot of driving around for not much action and minimal Conquest points, plus if you're unlucky there can be quite a bit of wait time for respawns, but it's an objective that's easy enough to do as long as you have a high enough character on both sides of the faction divide.
• Complete 15 missions as a Jedi consular or Sith inquisitor: Wanting to be able to complete these origin story-based objectives is why I have at least four alts on every server now, and it's almost guaranteed to be one of my picks on each of the secondary servers.
• Complete 8 repeatable or side missions and kill 100 mobs on the Outer Rim planets Tatooine, Hoth, Belsavis or Rishi: Another one I choose often as it can be completed easily and in so many different ways, which counters repetition while playing across multiple servers.
• Complete 2 out of 4 selected flashpoints (Mandalorian Raiders, Cademimu, Directive 7, Spirit of Vengeance): I like flashpoints but this objective can be kind of time-consuming compared to others. I'll always pick it on Darth Malgus as an opportunity to play with Mr Commando, but I'll want to limit myself to only doing it on one or two of the other servers.
  
• Kill the Quesh and Nar Shaddaa world bosses: Very easy and rewarding if a group can be found within a reasonable amount of time. Camping them by myself while waiting for a raid to come by gets boring however.
  
• Play 3-6 GSF matches (wins count double): Like the flashpoints, this one's a bit time-consuming, so probably something I'd choose to do on a few servers but not on all of them.
• KotFE chapter 14 on veteran mode or higher: The only objective of the week that I knew I definitely wasn't going to bother with anywhere as I don't enjoy replaying chapters on characters that have already done them.
  
• Kill the Kessan's Landing world boss: Another quick and easy one if a group is available but that "if" does matter.
  

Day 1 - Tuesday

Patch day was an office day for me, which meant that I didn't come home until late, and as soon I had the game patched up it was time to jump into a scheduled operation with my guild. After that I didn't have a lot of time or energy left to work on seasons objectives. I just did a bit of puttering around on alts to earn enough Conquest points to complete the daily seasons objective, such as raising a companion's influence level here and doing a bit of crafting there.

I thought it was interesting that the preview of the first four weeks of seasons objectives didn't include a single one that could be completed in PvP (not counting GSF), which means no overlap between the two seasons for at least a month. In order not to neglect my PvP ambitions right away, I did three warzones on my level 80 dps Juggernaut and won all three. I wish I could just be happy about good luck like that, but since it's so random whether I end up on the winning side or not I always just feel like I'll "pay" for the lucky streak later (by having an equal or worse losing streak).

Since it was late, I wanted to limit my efforts on the other servers to quickly grabbing the daily seasons objective. On Leviathan I did some quests on Korriban on the lowbie Sith inquisitor I created last season, which got me there quite quickly, but I also knew that I didn't actually feel like questing this much on every server that late at night. In the past I would've just popped a reputation token everywhere else to get it over with, but of course that was no longer an option. Through a bit of trial and error I found out that I could still get to the required 25k points on Tulak Hord, Satele Shan and Star Forge with (relatively) minimal effort by using a reputation item, raising a companion's influence, levelling up a crew skill, doing five crew skill missions (they can be low level to make it quick) and placing five stronghold decorations - give or take one or two of the smaller objectives depending on my stronghold bonus on each server and on whether the character is in a guild with any additional bonuses.

On Shae Vizla, I put myself in the queue for warzones and GSF just to see whether the transfers had already made a difference (even though it wasn't prime time for the Aussies) but I had only been in the queue for a few minutes when I saw someone looking for dps for the two weekly world boss objectives. This was too convenient to pass up, so I ended up completing three weekly objectives in quick succession (the two world boss ones plus the one to find blueprint fragments). Ironically, this meant that I unlocked the Copero stronghold on Shae before I did so on Darth Malgus, though it was 1 a.m. for me at that point and I was too tired to even look at it; I just wanted to go to bed.

Day 2 - Wednesday

I tried queueing for warzones and GSF on Shae Vizla again for a bit before the daily reset (which happens at noon in my time zone) since that's closer to APAC prime time and I actually got into a level 80 warzone... though that just ended up being a reminder of why doing PvP with a higher ping can be frustrating, as I jumped out of the starting zone into the pit in Huttball, and then watched - while down there - as an Operative holotraversed up to where I had stood before and scored.

I continued queueing past the reset and got into another warzone and two GSF matches. I won both of the latter, which completed my first GSF weekly mission since Galactic Season 5 and also got me two thirds of the way to the GSF weekly seasons objective. The matches themselves were a bit weird though. In the first one I was top damage, which never happens, and in the second one we had more than twenty self-destructs before either team even had time to capture the first satellite. I actually asked in chat what was going on and someone responded that they were "cycling through ships for Conquest points". (I later saw this behaviour to a lesser degree even in a death match. Just... ow.) Sooo... when the devs inevitably nerf that Conquest objective or change it to require more interaction to get credit for flying a given ship, you'll know whose behaviour is to blame.

In the evening I started my game time by doing some PvP on Darth Malgus. It may surprise some, but in a way I'm actually the least focused on seasons on my home server, because I spend so much time there that objectives will basically get done one way or another. It's the other servers where I really have to work on it to achieve the desired progress. Either way, doing this also completed the 200k Conquest points weekly so that I could finally unlock the new stronghold on Darth Malgus.

After also completing one GSF weekly mission, I decided that it was time to do the rounds on the other servers again. I played two GSF matches on Tulak Hord that were horrible losses and decided that was enough GSF for me for the day. I saw someone talking about world bosses in general chat so asked whether there was a group going and got a whisper in reply that there wasn't one "but why don't we make one?" Turns out that "us" making one meant that the other person sent me a group invite, made me leader and then just sat there expecting me to do the work of getting more people. I tried to LFM a few times but got literally zero responses so just excused myself after a few minutes.

On Leviathan I continued my baby inquisitor's journey across Korriban, and on Satele Shan I did some side questing on Belsavis, since my level 80 consular was already there for his class story anyway. On Star Forge I kept things quick by just doing two dailies on Rishi (which also gave reputation!) using my boosted inquisitor, and then doing a few more clicky things to make up the difference for the daily objective. (This would generally become my MO throughout the week if I didn't quite hit the required number of daily Conquest points with my initial choice of activity, and I didn't always mention it anymore.)

Day 3 - Thursday

Another day at the office meant limited play time once again. Once home, I decided to log into Tulak Hord first this time and arrived just in time for the formation of a world boss group. However, they didn't want to do FR3-D0M for some reason, so I hopped over to Ord Mantell by myself just to check whether anyone was doing the boss there at all. One (1) guy from the previous world boss group showed up too and decided to pull. I'd heard that FR3-D0M was technically soloable, but technically and practically are two very different things, so I was unsure how we would do with just the two of us, but we killed the boss just fine.

I logged into Leviathan to keep an eye on fleet chat there while eating dinner in case I could catch another world boss group. However, there wasn't much going on there, so I eventually relocated to Quesh to see whether I could leech off any passing guild groups that were there to kill the world boss, but had no luck on that front either. I just learned that like Gargath, the Rogue Cartel Warbot doesn't move until you get too close to him. His personal cut-off between caring and not caring about your presence is at 70m.

I decided to leave Leviathan for now and played a GSF match and two warzones on Darth Malgus before returning to doing the rounds on the rest of the other servers. On Star Forge I did another two Rishi dailies, and on Satele Shan my consular did some more side-questing on Belsavis. Back on Leviathan, I decided to return to my little inquisitor, who only killed like five mobs on Korriban before triggering the "gain five levels" Conquest objective - I was happy to take the easy win for the day and moved on to Shae Vizla for the evening.

I unlocked the stronghold there and put my warrior in the queue for GSF, warzones and flashpoints, but got impatient when nothing popped within ten minutes, so I ended up swapping to my consular to do some side-questing on Tatooine instead.

Day 4 - Friday

Since there was a login reward of eight seasons points for four consecutive days of logins this week, this meant that after the daily reset on Friday I was able to unlock the Copero stronghold on all servers that day, even where I hadn't completed many objectives yet.

I tried queueing for some activities on Shae Vizla around lunch time again (mostly keeping the game in the background while doing something else) but only got one warzone pop in over an hour of waiting. After the daily reset I saw someone put together a group for the Dromund Kaas world boss, which I decided to join for easy daily objective completion (plus I had the weekly world boss quest on 3/4). Just as I was thinking about logging off again, I got a GSF pop though, which allowed me to complete the GSF seasons objective and another weekly mission.

In the evening I did some PvP and a couple more GSF matches on Darth Malgus before it was time for ops with my guild team again. Afterwards I did some more PvP before finally switching to Star Forge. There was a world boss group forming in general chat there, so I jumped right in and was able to tick those two weekly objectives off on this server too. I then just hopped over onto my inquisitor to do two more dailies on Rishi.

After that I returned to the Leviathan and finished off the last few quests on Korriban to get credit for my 15 missions done as an inquisitor, before switching to my level 80 knight and killing the two named Imperial champion mobs on Quesh.

It wasn't that late for a Friday, but I was tired so decided to leave the dailies on Satele Shan and Tulak Hord for the next morning.

Day 5 - Saturday

Ah, the weekend! I logged into Satele Shan in the morning and first checked general chat on the fleet to see whether there were any world boss groups going on, but there was just some paragraphs-long discussion about philosophy and science, so I continued my consular's questing on Belsavis once more. Within a matter of minutes, I ticked off four weekly objectives in a row: Outer Rim missions, questing as a consular, playing with a companion set to tank, and finding currency. I love it when things line up like that, and this also sorted my Conquest for the day with ease.

After that I hopped over to Tulak Hord and did a GSF match there, which completed my trooper's GSF weekly mission and the daily seasons objective. Having achieved my goals much quicker than expected, I logged into Shae Vizla to queue for some PvP and was happy to complete a warzone weekly mission there for the first time since PvP Season 4 ended.

Later in the afternoon, after the daily reset had happened, I logged into my knight on Leviathan and started doing some exploration missions on Tatooine while also putting myself into the queue for all four flashpoints eligible for the seasons objective. I got a pop for veteran mode Cademimu after a while, which pushed me over the number of Conquest points needed for the daily objective.

Next I went to Tulak Hord and put myself in the GSF queue on my trooper while getting started on the Tatooine bonus series. I got a pop about halfway through it and won the match, which completed that seasons objective and my Conquest for the day, however due to the bonus series being known to bug out if you pause halfway through, I pushed on to complete it the same afternoon anyway. This completed the Outer Rim missions and questing with a tank companion objectives, making Tulak Hord the first server on which I was on 7/7 weeklies completed for the week.

Checking in on Star Forge, I did two more Rishi dailies on my inquisitor and completed her weekly Conquest target, but I noted that this hadn't really advanced me all that much throughout the Outer Rim objective since while I had done eight missions, they'd been so easy that I'd only killed fewer than thirty mobs. Since I don't like just grinding mobs without a purpose, I made a note to myself to tackle the requirements for the remaining, only partially completed objectives on other characters over the next two days.

On Satele Shan, I consulted my missions spreadsheet and realised that my consular had never done the Directive 7 story, so I decided to do that flashpoint on story mode for a triple whammy of story, seasons and progression of the first quest you get in the Copero villa (more on that another time).

In the evening it was time for my guild's social night on Darth Malgus, which helped me tick off the two world boss objectives there before we launched ourselves into an operation. Afterwards Mr Commando and I conscripted two damage dealers to run D7 and Spirit of Vengeance on master mode for another seasons objective. After that I was properly conked out and went off to enjoy an early night.

Day 6 - Sunday

I started my Sunday morning by logging into Shae Vizla and continuing my side-questing on my consular on Tatooine. She was effectively working on three objectives at once that way, but I only needed two more for the week. The Outer Rim and companion tank ones completed way before I would have hit 15 missions as a consular, which made Shae Vizla the second server on which I completed 7/7 objectives for the week.

As this meant that I was caught up with daily objectives for the current reset, I decided to return to Star Forge and do some work on the consular missions objective on my newest baby alt there. Being only level 2, she wasn't going to contribute to Conquest anyway. Breezing through the early Tython quests, she hit the 15 missions completed (keeping in mind my boosted inquisitor had already done 8 missions on Rishi as well) by level 7.

I returned to the game in the late afternoon/early evening. Starting on Leviathan, I logged into my level 34 bounty hunter and travelled to Quesh to kill the two named Republic champions there. At 34, he was a bit low for the planet, but my experiences on Taris last season taught me that this wasn't really a problem. I did however arrive just in time to see someone quick travel away from the first champion's corpse, so that I had to wait for him to respawn. On my way to the second one, I saw a level 80 zoom past me as I got dismounted by a group of weak mobs and quietly went "nooo" in my head as I figured that he'd also kill the second champion just before I could get there, but I managed to catch up in time to get a few hits for credit in. After that I continued to putter around a bit longer for Conquest purposes, which pushed me over the 200k weekly objective.

On Tulak Hord, there wasn't much to do since I was done with the weekly objectives, but since I had invaded small yield with the two-person guild again, I had incentive to still fill that bar up as well. Fortunately I had a half-finished GSF weekly mission in my log, so one GSF win later I was done with my daily Conquest and the guild's Conquest target was most of the way there as well.

On Darth Malgus, I played two warzone matches to complete another character's warzone weekly and knocked out all four champion mobs on Quesh to get myself to 7/7 seasons objectives on my home server at last.

I continued on to Star Forge, where after some contemplation in regards to what I could do to complete my remaining weekly objectives while minimising boring repetition, I decided to do the Hoth bonus series on my trooper. It had been so many years since I'd last done it, I literally couldn't remember a thing about it at first, though some bits started to sound familiar once I got going. When I got to the mission about the Onderonian beast-lord I literally shouted "oh snap" out loud, much to the consternation of Mr Commando, since I had never realised that the blackmail you can use on Akoru as an Imperial during Onslaught isn't just made up, but based on this actual quest chain. Ahh, this game is still so good, you guys! Anyway, that finished my companion questing and Outer Rim missions objectives, leaving me with just a smidge more Conquest points to gain for both my personal target and the 200k Conquest points objective, but I decided to leave that for Monday.

On Satele Shan, I decided that after playing nothing but my consular there all week, I should give some love to my level 62 knight instead, so I had her kill the Imperial Quesh champions and put her in the queue for vet mode Cademimu and Mandalorian Raiders. She quickly got into a run for the former, which was fast and smooth. I then sent my level 38 agent to kill the Republic targets on Quesh, and with that Satele Shan was on 7/7 weeklies completed too.

Shae Vizla was already done as per my earlier paragraph about questing in the morning, and I had the Taskmaster Conquest objective for sub-80 characters sitting at a partial completion of 9/10, so I basically just had to make my Jedi do a companion mission for Qyzen to tick it over and that was that done for the day as well.

Day 7 - Monday

With four out of six servers sitting on 7/7 and the other two being as good as done too, there fortunately wasn't too much left to do. On Darth Malgus, Star Forge and Tulak Hord I completed my daily objective with some clickies and a bit of puttering around. On Star Forge this also completed the 200k Conquest points weekly objective for me, and on Tulak Hord it achieved my guild's small yield Conquest target.

Leviathan was where I had the most work left to do, as I needed one more flashpoint plus a bit more questing on Tatooine to wrap up my last three weekly objectives, plus my bounty hunter had (unintentionally) gotten really close to reaching his personal Conquest target the previous day, so I wanted to make that tick over as well. The latter was easily achieved by having him do a bit of story questing on Balmorra. After that, I got back on my knight and queued for all seasonal flashpoints on both difficulties again, which got me into veteran mode Mandalorian Raiders this time. It was another uneventful run, except that someone asked to "focus boss" on the last encounter, which is not usually a good idea... as it turns out, you can indeed burn him down before the turrets kill you nowadays, but I still didn't see the benefit as the turrets don't despawn and you can't exit in combat, so you need to run around and still kill them all afterwards anyway. A few more Tatooine exploration missions later, another personal Conquest target was achieved, as well as 7/7 season weeklies.

This just left the daily objective on Satele Shan and Shae Vizla, and I took care of that on both servers by completing Conquest on an alt each.

Week 1 Thoughts

Well, that whole "not going too crazy with the playing on multiple servers" thing didn't quite work out, did it? Seeing how I pushed myself to completing 7/7 weeklies on all six of them once again. In fairness, this week had a lot of very easy objectives, several of which could be completed in multiple ways, so it was honestly just pretty fun. I do think that based on the information we've been given, I'll want to take it easier in week two since the objectives on offer will be different.