Yesterday it was time for another dev stream, this time focused on the upcoming patch 7.7. There was some competition for my attention as the new pope had gone live mere moments earlier, but I loaded up Twitch on my laptop and dived right in.
There was a new Twitch drop to be earned (a purple-framed Dromund Kaas poster), for watching one hour of live SWTOR content, but apparently Twitch measures time a bit differently from the rest of the world as it took almost the full one and a half hours of the stream for it to show as earned. Yes, the stream lasted one and a half hours! I wish I could say this was a sign of it being chock-full of exciting updates, but to be honest I get the feeling that they've just got better at fluffing up what they have to make it look bigger. For example there was a whole section about fixing a bug with the sprinter guild perk, which... don't get me wrong, fixing bugs is a good thing, no arguments there! But is a single bug fix of that nature really important enough to warrant a segment with the game producer on your livestream to get players hyped up? Personally I don't think so.
The thing that we of course all wanted to know above all else was whether there was any update on the story content and sadly, the answer was not really. Basically, they've built 7.7, but the voice actors' strike is still going on, so we're still not getting anything. The only thing I noted down here was that they showed the little trailer from Star Wars Celebration again (the one that included [Spoiler?]) and the accompanying slide said it featured "a mysterious figure that has been pulling the strings behind the scenes", which does seem to confirm that this person's role is going to be more than a throwaway cameo.
Anyway, having the second major patch in a row release without story content will be a bummer, but I guess I can't really complain as we know the voice actors' strike is still a thing. I'd just gotten my hopes up a little as a "datamining-adjacent" friend had told me that something had happened and somehow the 7.6 story looked ready for release now. (You know who you are; consider yourself given the side eye!) But that's not the devs' fault, and just goes to illustrate once again why you shouldn't put too much stock in things that are datamined.
Anyway, they still managed to fill a one and a half hour stream, and it wasn't all bug fixes, so there obviously were some other things announced.
Among a number of UI updates to the mission log and map, the one that stood out the most was the addition of the so-called "eras window", a new tab on your mission log. All this does is basically show you the storyline split into "eras" (which mostly align with expansions, but not 100%), to show you where you are and what's coming up. This seems like it could be a major boon to returning players who don't remember where they left off in terms of story. It was also noted that it doesn't "currently" include notes on any decisions you've made, though I guess this is something they could expand on in the future. Either way, it's a good feature but won't do much for me as a "power user". I wrote about how I had to create a spreadsheet to keep track of all my alts' progress almost seven years ago, which is much more detailed and most importantly, let's me see where each character is at without having to log into them in game to check. I still rely on that to this day, but for less hardcore Swtorites this new window will be useful.
In terms of group content, we got the official announcement for master mode XR-53, which is cool for the relevant target audience but I suspect it will be too hard for me and my guildies so I can't muster too much enthusiasm for it right now. I was also a bit disappointed by the clarification that the new augment schematics it will drop will be brand-new gold augments that will outclass the purple ones that people spent the last few months researching and crafting. We don't even know whether you'll be able to reverse-engineer the gold ones by deconstructing the purple ones (it was asked in chat multiple times but not answered). So eh. As a side note to this, they said that PvP weeklies will start rewarding small amounts of corrupted bioprocessors, the (until now) unique crafting material dropped by XR-53, which is nice I guess, though for me personally the bottleneck has actually turned out to be other mats.
Speaking of PvP, PvP Season 8 will launch with 7.7 and in order to align it more with how Galactic Seasons work, it will now also include an option to just buy out levels with Cartel coins. I've got to admit there was a small part of me that bristled at this because isn't PvP about skill? You shouldn't be able to buy that, right? But then, these new PvP seasons have always been just about participation with no particular requirement to succeed, so I guess it's not that big a deal.
They talked about Nar Shaddaa Nightlife returning in July, which just felt weird to think about this early in May, but I guess summer isn't that far away. The main thing that irked me here was that there was no comment about making the various slot machine chips a legacy-wide currency. They talked about this last year and said it was complex and would take time - but then they managed to change the DvL tokens from character- to legacy-bound within a couple of weeks, so I was really hoping we'd be able to start this year's Nightlife with something similar. But nope, nothing. I guess I can still hope that it will be addressed later, but for now I'm just disappointed that the main thing I was curious about in regards to this event was not mentioned at all.
The biggest and most universally accessible bit of gameplay to be added with the patch will be new dynamic encounters on seven planets, which will include all the starter planets, the two faction capitals and Ilum. The starter planets won't have that many encounters due to how small they are, but still. I thought going for these early planets next was an interesting choice when I first heard chatter about it during the previous PTS. I thought Tatooine and Hoth made great sense as first locations for this new feature, and in my mind the best place to use it going forward were going to be other large planets with a lot of empty space, such as Quesh, Belsavis or Voss. Cramming them into the tiny starter planets is kind of the opposite of that, but I can understand the devs wanting to introduce the feature to new players early on in order to get people interested and familiar from the get-go. I'm still a little concerned that it might end up being a bit of a pain to have god knows how many players compete for the same six k'lor'slugs on Korriban (which would not improve the new player experience I reckon), but we'll see how it goes. In general I've really enjoyed dynamic encounters and am looking forward to getting more of them.
One interesting thing they announced closer to the end was "combat updates", which is to say they are going to make some changes to combat styles, such as which discipline is selected for new players by default and what order you get some abilities in. The example they gave was that Guardians/Juggernauts don't really have any AoE other than Force Sweep/Smash for a long time, so they want to pull Cyclone/Sweeping Slash forward and grant it automatically at level 7 instead of making it a level 27 optional choice like it is right now. This sounds like a good idea in principle, though I could have thought of better examples to choose. From what I recall there are currently some utilities that actually give you buffs to certain abilities several levels before you actually get that ability, which is just weird, and I'm hoping that this kind of thing will also be included in this overhaul. (I quickly logged in to find an example and e.g. Deception Shadows have a talent option at level 27 to add functionality to Force Cloak when they don't actually get Force Cloak until level 31.)
I do wonder a little though, as another example they gave about something they want to change was to make the default spec for Shadows Serenity (the dot spec) instead of Deception (the direct damage one). I just wrote down "why?" in my notes here as the latter is much easier to play, so why change to the more difficult one as default? So I have some reservations as well, not fully understanding what they are going for here.
The big surprise at the end of the stream (including one here seems to be a pattern they are settling into) was that they'll be adding lots more skin colours for aliens in the patch, and I do mean lots. Like, Nautolans will go from having 10 colours to 95 different shades. Now, only some of those will be completely new colours, like the (inexplicably, to me) popular purple Twi'leks, but just getting a lot more different shades of say, green, will be cool too. I think this was the most exciting announcement of the stream for many players, and I liked it too. It's just no replacement for actual story content, you know? I continue to wait.
Meanwhile, further info about the patch and stream, should you want it:
I see some people wondering what the point of Eras window is and considering it a waste of resources. BUT, as a guild leader, I think it's a good addition. Over the years I have seen quite a few guildmembers joining my guild who are either old players returning after years wondering what story they did on a character, and Eras will give them a handy recap. And this will also be nice for those newer players always asking what the story order is.
ReplyDeleteI am very happy to see devs pushing out dynamic encounters to so many new planets so soon, as I have been really enjoying the Tatooine and Hoth ones. And also the new alien skin colors are very nice addition too.
Yeah, I think as a frequent and long-time player it can sometimes be hard to fathom just how lost a new or returning player can be. The eras window isn't really for people like us, it's for those less knowledgeable players and I'm cool with that. I said long ago (including in that post from seven years ago where I talked about creating my story spreadsheet) that as much as I like level sync, it's also made it harder to understand where you are in the story since levels and story progression are barely connected anymore. Having alternate pointers can only be a good thing.
DeleteEras remind me a bit of Guild Wars 2 Story Journal. That give a nice narrative retrospective of what you've done, plus it a spot for you to go when you want to continue a Living Story / Expansion. I find it really handy when I drop back in to play my character for a bit.
ReplyDeleteThe rest feels like decent QoL / Patch features. Since the voice actors' strike has them stopped on story, their main big feature these days, I can understand them pushing all the stuff they can release. Even if it sometimes feels like filler on the streams. I'd rather have some filler than them go silent due to the lack of story content.