Best Ding in a While

I overestimated my guildies' interest in generating Conquest points on Imp side this week... which meant that I buckled down over the weekend and put in extra effort myself to make sure that we'd still hit our large yield target. As part of this I dusted off my old DvL Merc, who'd been sitting at level 79 for ages, and did some PvP on her, even though I finished the PvP season a few weeks ago.

PvPing at level 79 can feel a bit like cheating, considering how much more powerful you are compared to most other characters in the bracket, but since you can't halt your XP gains, it's a fleeting pleasure that I'm simply happy to enjoy while it lasts. Even without any augments and with gear that had never been the best even back when 75 was the level cap, my Merc was rocking the damage charts hard, and the matchmaking algorithm blessed me with a winning streak to boot. There was one match where I was startled to find upon consulting the scoreboard at the end that we'd apparently been a man down the entire time but had still come away victorious somehow.

With only a tiny sliver of my XP bar left to go, I knew that my next match was going to be my last one in the midbie bracket, and since my warzone weekly mission was on 9 out of 12, I really wanted one more win in order to complete it before levelling up. I still would've been able to finish the quest at level 80, but then I would've had to sort myself out with level 80 gear before queueing again, which would've meant extra effort.

I got into a Voidstar that started with both teams severely under strength and my team on attack during the first round. I wouldn't swear by it, but it certainly felt like we were a man down again at least to begin with, which made it difficult to make any headway for a long time. However, we did eventually manage to breach the first door and cross the bridge, with the round ending at the second door - a situation that isn't really a clear indication of an impending win or loss, as matches that end there can very much still go either way.

As we started the defence round, it quickly became apparent that the rest of my team (which had filled out by then) seemed decent enough at watching the doors, however there was zero communication going on. I just kept running back and forth between both sides as I noticed our opponents changing their angle of attack repeatedly.

At one point I ended up fighting on the left side with only one other person against about four enemies. The other guy died and I soon followed, realising too late that nobody else had moved over and I had been the last person standing. I typed "left" into the chat but it was too late. Waiting inside the respawn area, I saw one person still try to reinforce from the right but they didn't make it over in time to prevent the enemy team from planting the bomb.

I got out of the respawn just as the door was blown off and hurled myself right back into the fray in an attempt to stall the enemy forces. They enjoyed taking me down but sadly I barely slowed them and soon found myself in the respawn again, this time on the other side of the bridge. However, this turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as the rest of my team did not do a great job at halting the enemy advance at this point, and one of the bridges was activated mere seconds later.

I typed "bridge open" into the chat in an attempt to get those who were still brawling wherever to pay attention to the objectives, and then ran forward to shoot the first enemy that came into my range, to make sure that I was in combat and couldn't be CCed by one of the enemy's stealthers.

I frantically shot two attackers going for the right door, but then saw a stealther appear at the left door as well, so I quickly whirled around and interrupted them too. I knew I wouldn't be able to hold both sides by myself for long, but by god I was going to try (while hoping that nobody had a stun or root up because that definitely would have screwed me over in that moment).

After what can't have been more than thirty seconds but what felt like an eternity of me having to cover both doors by myself, a friendly arrived and started defending the left door, freeing me up to fully focus on the right one. Eventually the rest of the team trickled in as well and we established a more solid defence.

Finally, it was over, my quest ticked over and I dinged 80. The final scoreboard showed me as having the most kills and damage taken out of everyone (the enemy clearly hated me), most damage and healing on my team (apparently we had a proper healer at one point who had left), and third highest objective points to boot.

It's rare that I get to rock the numbers like that in a warzone (I'm not usually focused on them and happy to spend a match just standing guard for example), nor do I generally feel like I did the bulk of the work, but in this one I feel confident in saying that I carried a heavy load for my team, especially with that solo defence of the two doors across the bridge. Too bad there are no more MVP votes to earn, so I'll never know whether any of my team mates appreciated it... but it sure was a great and memorable way to hit max level.

10 Types of Annoying PvP Match

PvP Season 7 is in full swing and I'm taking part in it as usual. I wouldn't do so if I didn't enjoy PvP, but even with the best will in the world, PvP can also be filled with frustrations sometimes. Inspired by some of those feelings, I bring you a list of ten different types of annoying PvP match that I regularly come across in my journeys.

Note that this is not a top ten list because the severity of annoyance with each of these types of match can vary a lot depending on the exact circumstances of the situation, and you can have both mild cases and ones that are really bloody annoying in each category.

The one that's doomed from the start due to numbers

By that I mean the number of people on each team, not dps numbers. This is more likely to happen in arenas than in warzones and mostly happens in lower level PvP, though it can technically happen in any mode depending on your luck. If the difference is only one person and the skill difference between the teams is big enough, you can still have an interesting match sometimes, but there's nothing quite like starting an arena with only one other person on your team vs. a full group of four, or the game pitting you against three enemies all by yourself. You just know it's not gonna happen no matter what. (Though the other day I was put into an arena by myself vs. three opponents and actually managed to kill one of them before they killed me - I considered that a win on a personal level.)

The one where desync keeps screwing you over

Mostly this happens in Huttball. I've written about desync in the past, and I remember they even took two of the Huttball maps out of the game for a while to "fix" them, though I don't think that ultimately went anywhere. It's not always equally bad, but there are definitely times when you desperately want to intercept the ball carrier but the game just can't decide what floor they are even on until after they've already scored.

The one where your whole team is just clueless

Everyone's got to start learning at some point, and I can't hold it against anyone if they don't know the rules and objectives of each warzone on day one. Nonetheless, being saddled with a whole team of players like that at once can be frustrating. The prime example I always think of for this was an Odessen Proving Grounds match that started with the southern and middle nodes active... and the moment the spawn point opened, everyone but me ran north, where there was... nothing. I just knew right then that I wasn't in for a good time. I mean, I couldn't even be mad, but it sure is deflating to be literally the only person in a team of eight going for the objective while the other seven bumble around in the middle of nowhere.

The one where you're just getting completely steamrolled

Whether it's because you're up against a premade or the matchmaker is just doing its usual thing of not giving a damn, it's not very fun to be in a match where you basically get murdered the moment you come out of the spawn point. If you're lucky, at least it'll be over quickly, but if you're unlucky, you might end up against a premade that intentionally tries to draw things out so they can farm more numbers before finishing you off.

The one where your team is trying but just not good enough

This is a very peculiar kind of annoyance because when both teams are trying but one is just a bit better, that should make for a good match, right? Even if you lose in the end, at least you had a chance? Well... I'd say that's true in principle, but there' a certain point where it can in fact make the match extra annoying, when you can tell that everyone is really trying but then you always get foiled at the last moment anyway, and still lose the Huttball match 0-6 or whatever. It's like you get your hopes up over and over again just to have them dashed repeatedly. This kind of match doesn't so much leave you mad at your team mates, but more like you're going insane from a terrible itch that you just can't scratch.

The one where people are going crazy with the insults

Honestly, I never quite got the idea of "smack talk" in PvP. I get that it's a thing that some people like, but I'm more in camp "good sportsmanship" where you try to not take it personally and treat everyone involved with respect, which is kind of the opposite really. Anyway, usually the sorts of comments I'm thinking of here wouldn't even remotely qualify for friendly banter anyway and just involve people outright yelling insults at each other. I'm not so thin-skinned that I consider a match immediately ruined if someone starts ranting, but depending on the intensity and how many people are doing it, it can definitely bring the vibe down. Though I've learned that /ignore really does help here.

The one where you're in a warzone with damage farmers

Look, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with just wanting to beat up the enemy, but there's arenas for that, right? Warzones have objectives for a reason, and it's very frustrating when the majority of your team is not on board with that. In fact, it's quite ironic how sometimes being in a warzone with a bunch of elite damage farmers is almost indistinguishable from being in one with a bunch of complete noobs. The only difference is that when you look at the scoreboard at the end, the veterans will have some big numbers and will presumably pat each other on the back about how well they did spamming AoE at the spawn for the entire duration of the match. However, you yourself will still end up just as frustrated being literally the only person going for the objective and ending up easily foiled by the enemy. The rare amusing exception to this is if both teams are damage farmers, and you can do objectives pretty much undisturbed while they all brawl in mid.

The one where you meet "that one guy"

Who's "that one guy", you might ask? The answer is: your nemesis, at least for the duration of the match. It doesn't matter what else is going on, you keep running into that one person and they piss you off every time! The prime example I always remember when thinking of this was a Huttball match where a Shadow was pretty much solo-running the ball for the enemy and would always have the perfect counter to every attempt of mine to stop him. It was so frustrating! More recently, I played a few matches on Star Forge where this one tank seemed to be absolutely intent on spending the entirety of each match crawling up my rear, no matter where on the map I went. I was healing, and to a certain degree getting focused as a healer is normal, but there were other healers on my team and yet that person was always on me. It's not even that I got killed all the time or anything, but it got very annoying rather quickly to be the target of seemingly every single stun and interrupt of that guy for the entire match.

The one where people give up and go AFK the moment the enemy gets ahead

I tend to think of AFKers in PvP as the bane of my existence, and a couple of seasons ago I ran into them quite frequently, but recently things have fortunately been better on that front and I haven't encountered that nearly as often. Interestingly, often when I hear people talk about AFKers, the blame gets (rightly or wrongly) put on people who actually don't like PvP and just queue up for certain rewards, hoping they'll get by just sitting in stealth for the entire match. I mention this because while I have no doubt that this does happen sometimes, my personal experience has been almost the opposite, that AFKers are often very much into PvP in general and may even be skilled players, but they just absolutely cannot deal with losing and will stop trying the moment their team falls behind, and then just stand in a corner while complaining about how much everyone but them sucks. In arenas this is often even worse, where you'll see certain people kill themselves with /stuck in the spawn at the start of the second round if their team lost the first round.

The one where you just need that one win or have been waiting forever

I think I've occasionally mentioned before how the way daily and weekly missions reset since 7.0 has made me feel more pressured for time when it comes to completing them, and that I actually often have more fun PvPing when I'm not trying to tick any boxes. As it is though, spending a lot of time in the queue and running out of time to, say, complete a daily, really ramps up the pressure for the match to be good when it finally pops, and there's nothing quite like the despair you feel when you've waited half an hour or longer to get into a game and then it just goes sideways immediately and you know it's going to be a waste of time.

PvP: Queues, Rewards & Healer Power

I originally planned to name this post "PvP Ponderings", but a quick search on the blog revealed that I already made a post with that exact same title back in 2012. That post was mostly about how unexpectedly enjoyable SWTOR's PvP had turned out to be for me (and others).

The last time I really spoke about PvP on the blog was back at the start of PvP Season 5 in March. My lofty ambitions to progress through the PvP season track on more than one server didn't really end up going anywhere, since Galactic Season 6 ended up eating most of my time soon afterwards and had no overlap with PvP at all for its first five weeks. As a result, I only completed the PvP season on Darth Malgus this time... though I did get all the achievements again, and was actually fully done (even with the medals achievement) a couple of weeks before the end of the season. I think most of that was due to the crazy Total Galactic War we had in April, as I did something like nine PvP weeklies during that week, which obviously gave me a major leg up in terms of achievement progress early on.

At the time of me writing this, we're already into the fourth week of PvP Season 6... and while I'm having fun, I'm honestly also a little concerned. I've previously written about how my experiences PvPing on different servers have heightened my awareness of how different these places can be in terms of activity levels and queue times, and to be honest I've always viewed the Darth Malgus server as a good place to be in that regards. Sure, pops might be marginally quicker on Star Forge, but at that point you're just splitting hairs.

However, this season so far, things have felt different somehow. Like during the last two seasons, I'm trying to get my arena credits done in the lowbie bracket, but I don't remember having to wait quite so long between matches before. I know the lowbie bracket isn't the most active, and I haven't exactly pulled out a stop watch while sitting in the queue, but fifteen to twenty minutes between arena matches seems quite normal now even during prime time, which means that if (like me) you lose a bunch of those matches, it can take up to two hours to just get the daily "play arenas" mission done, which means that completing a whole arena weekly (which basically requires four dailies worth of play) is turning into a considerable time investment. I'm thinking about switching to the midbie bracket this week just to see if that's any better. Still, I probably wouldn't even have commented on this if I hadn't noticed my queue times at max-level increasing as well. I remember when I used to boast about unranked PvP pops being near-instant on my server, while now it can sometimes take ten minutes to get into a warzone even at level 80 during prime time.

I'm trying to tell myself that it's not a big deal, or even that I'm just imagining these queue times being longer than they used to be, but I can't help but worry. Back in 2017, shortly before the last big set of server merges, I wrote a post called "The Curse of Queues", in which I pondered the way automated queueing systems shape our gameplay expectations and how the more of them you add to your MMO, the bigger your population needs to be to appear somewhat lively. Accordingly, when the devs decided to split the unranked queue into warzones and arenas, I was a little worried about what that might mean for wait times, since you'd now need more players queueing to keep both modes active at the same time. I didn't notice any negative effects immediately - but now I wonder whether the consequences of this split might be starting to catch up with reality.

My first thought once I considered the subject of queues "drying up" was something along the lines of: Okay, for whatever reason not enough people are queueing for PvP. Could the devs offer some incentives to make more people join in? However, the more I thought about it, the more I realised that unranked PvP has probably never offered more rewards than it does now. I don't remember the details of all the PvP gearing systems throughout the years, but it was basically always a matter of completing daily and weekly missions to work towards some gear upgrades and that was mostly it. Oh, and you'd gain valour ranks for titles I guess. But otherwise, people just kind of had to PvP for fun, because there wasn't much else in it.

Nowadays on the other hand, we still have all that other stuff, plus seasons rewarding things like cosmetic armours and stronghold decorations. Shouldn't PvP be more popular than ever? Then I remembered that there's this thing called the Overjustification Effect (I had to look up the exact name), which basically means that things that we find inherently enjoyable become less so once we start doing them for extrinsic rewards. And then I wondered whether there isn't some of that at play here, especially as the requirements in terms of when and how to play (in order to earn those rewards) are much more stringent now than they used to be.

What I mean by that is that before 7.0, to earn rewards from PvP, you just had to pick up the daily and weekly mission from the PvP terminal, press the queue button, and that was it. Progress might be faster or slower depending on your win-loss ratio, but you could always take a break and pick up where you left off at a later point without losing anything.

Since the devs changed it so that dailies and weeklies reset every day/week, you need to keep playing to get them done within the specified time frame or lose all your progress. I used to hop around between alts a lot more, playing a warzone here or there as different roles or specs, but nowadays I'm much more focused on sticking with the same small number of characters, because else I can't complete my weeklies, which would mean progress towards tech fragments and seasonal achievements going to waste.

I also no longer get warzones and arenas served at random, with both giving me equal credit towards my goals, but I need to queue for them separately, and complete a certain number of matches in both modes if I want to get full rewards - all within the week of course. It's kind of strangely demanding, and I actually noticed that it makes me more cranky when I have a losing streak. Obviously I never liked losing all the time, but at least in the past I could decide to take a break and come back later. Nowadays though there's always that feeling of, "Grr, I need to complete this today, why can't I get one bloody win? I don't have all evening for this!" I've definitely noticed that the matches during which I'm most relaxed and enjoying myself the most are those with the lowest "reward stakes", for example when my weekly is already at 15/16 and I literally just need to complete one more match regardless of outcome.

I can obviously only speak for myself, but the requirements for progress really do feel quite different from a casual PvPers point of view compared to how it used to be, and I wouldn't be surprised if that affected more people's enjoyment.

Of course, when it comes to PvP, everyone tends to have their own pet issue that they think is ruining it at any given point - usually certain classes being over- or under-powered - but I honestly feel like I don't have enough knowledge about that area of the game to have strong opinions on the current state of class balance. I'd argue that things have never been perfectly balanced though and that the game has weathered all kinds of "flavours of the month" throughout the years.

One thing that was interesting to me on that subject though was when I watched a PvPer's "react" video the other day and he mentioned that he thought healers were actually kind of weak right now, since a good dps could easily beat a good healer one on one. This made my ears perk up because I did mention at the end of Season 4 that I had found myself surprised by how much more I enjoyed dpsing in PvP nowadays when healing had been my passion for over a decade. I didn't think to blame anything systematic for that; I figured it was just me, but now it seems likely that those two things are related, because that feeling of powerlessness has definitely contributed to me being turned off healing in PvP for the past year or so.

It's weird because I can't off the top of my head remember another era of the game when healers in general were quite so weak in PvP (as opposed to one specific class being over- or underpowered). More often the complaint has been that they are too powerful, and that this made matches tedious when it's too hard to kill anyone. With that in mind, I funnily enough can't even claim that the current situation has necessarily been bad for the quality of matches as a whole - it definitely seems to be that, going in as a dps, I see far fewer of those "slug fests" where people just hammer each other in a big pile around an objective forever without anyone actually going down. Ball carriers in Huttball actually need to be fast or good at passing now; you can't just brute force your way through a wall of enemies with some heals behind you. And those are not bad things! So I wouldn't blame the weakness of healers for a decline in interest in PvP, even if it has affected my personal enjoyment somewhat. It's just another interesting thing that I've observed.

This has turned out to be quite rambly, but these are just some of the things that have been going through my mind in regards to PvP lately. What are your personal experiences with this game mode recently? Do you think I'm completely wrong about declining participation and that queues are fine? I'm happy to hear other points of view.

Shintar's Galactic Season 6 Diary, Week 10

As mentioned at the end of week 8, there was no seasons diary for week 9 as I was away and travelling. I did have my laptop with me and logged in a few times to get my free points from the weekly login bonus, but that was it.

Returning to my regular routine, I was actually a bit uncertain about how I felt about jumping right back into grinding for seasons, though I thought the weekly objectives for week 9 looked pretty promising and varied at a glance:

• Earn 200k Conquest points: Yes, of course.
  
• Earn the seasonal currency: Would also get done automatically once again.
  
• Complete 8 repeatable or side missions and kill 100 mobs on the Empire Space planets Taris, Oricon, Yavin IV, Ziost or Dantooine: I figured I was going to do this one on several servers as usual, though this particular selection of planets is not great for exploration missions, which are usually my preferred way of hitting this target.
  
• Do the CZ-198 weekly twice or the Iokath weekly once: I was probably going to do Iokath where I could, and CZ is short and sweet, though it carries a bit of a risk of burnout when I do it on too many characters in quick succession.
  
• Complete 15 missions as a trooper or agent: I was definitely going to do this one.
  
• Craft prefabs and fabricator crystals/designs: I previously noted that I usually only do the crafting objectives on Darth Malgus since I'm not set up well enough with crew skills on the other servers, but this objective was an exception in the past in the sense that prefabs can be crafted at a lower skill level and don't require as much in terms of materials, meaning I could buy mats from the GTN or with jawa junk and get this done on other servers too. I figured I might do this again.
  
• Play 4-8 warzone matches (wins count double): While the PvP season was approaching its end, I figured I was still going to be happy to do this.
  
• Play 3-6 GSF matches (wins count double): I don't mind this one, but I probably wasn't going to do both PvP and GSF across multiple servers due to time constraints.
  
• Complete four uprisings on veteran or master mode: As established previously, I'm not a huge fan of uprisings so I probably wasn't going to bother with this one.
  
• Do dailies on Ruhnuk or Kessan's Landing: I was probably going to do another round of Kessan's Landing with Mr Commando on Darth Malgus, but I don't have this content unlocked on the other servers.
  
• Complete the Eternal Championship on Zakuul: I had skipped this one last time, but figured that enough time had passed that I might end up doing it again on at least one server/character that had access.
  

Day 1 - Tuesday

I spent the day travelling back home and was pretty tired by the time I was settled in and ready to play games. It was also immediately time for an ops run with my guild, so I didn't do too much in terms of seasons. On Darth Malgus I just started on the crafting objective and played one GSF match. I then did a couple of missions on my agent on Leviathan and played two warzones on Tulak Hord, but by that point I was falling asleep on my keyboard, so I just logged into the remaining servers to quickly get my daily objective done with some clickies.

Day 2 - Wednesday

Even though I had a long day in the office, I still wasn't as tired in the evening as I had been the previous night. On Darth Malgus, I finished the crafting objective, played a GSF match and did a few warzones, all of which were losses. This took me to two weeklies completed and progress made on another three. 

On Leviathan, I also did a bit of crafting and played three warzones there too, which were also all losses. One of them was a Queshball in which I saw someone pass the ball from the corner of the bottom floor straight to someone in front of our line on the top floor, which I didn't even know was possible. At that point I'd had quite enough of PvP for the evening.

To achieve the daily objective on the remaining servers, I did a round of CZ-198 on Tulak Hord and Shae Vizla, a round of Iokath on Star Forge, and a few story missions on my agent on Satele Shan.

Day 3 - Thursday

I started my evening with a GSF match and a warzone on Darth Malgus, which completed my GSF weekly and made some more progress towards the warzone one. On Leviathan, I did some Taris heroics on Imp side, followed by another CZ-198 on Tulak Hord. On Star Forge, I played a few warzones on my midbie knight.

Day 4 - Friday

Before reset, I did a round of CZ-198 on both Satele Shan and Shae Vizla. Since I noticed people saying in SV general chat that warzones were popping, I queued up for those as well and got a few matches in.

In the evening, I didn't feel like playing a lot of SWTOR. I just played two more GSF matches on Darth Malgus - not for seasons, but to complete a partially done weekly mission, and did an operation with my guildies.

Day 5 - Saturday

Since I had neglected them the previous evening, it was time to catch up with the other servers the next morning. I did some Taris heroics on Leviathan and Tulak Hord, continued my Star Forge trooper's main story progression on Corellia and completed another round of CZ-198 on Satele Shan. On Shae Vizla, I tried queueing for warzones again close to reset, but sadly nothing popped this time. I used the time to get some crafting going instead and eventually had my trooper chat with her companions for some missions, which also earned me the required points for the daily objective. I stayed and crafted some more until after the reset, so once the crafting weekly ticked over, I was also immediately done with the daily for the next day.

I once again didn't play very much in the evening, just logging in with Mr Commando at some point to knock out both the Eternal Championship and the Kessan's Landing dailies on Darth Malgus, which got me to 7/7 on that server. I also did a couple more warzones just to finish off a weekly mission.

Day 6 - Sunday

I once again did the rounds on the remaining servers before reset. On Leviathan I did one Taris heroic and finished the crafting objective while queueing for warzones, though nothing popped. I then did the same on Tulak Hord, though I got into a Huttmall match there just before I was about to log off. On Star Forge, I continued my trooper's questing on Corellia, and on Satele Shan, I once again did a couple of Taris heroics while also getting started on the crafting objective.

In the evening I set to doing some catching up, since I was still pretty behind on weekly progression. On Darth Malgus I only needed to unlock another room in the new stronghold to earn enough Conquest for the daily objective though, and I figured this would give me plenty of time to work on the missing weeklies on the other servers. However, things turned out to be more time-consuming than I expected. On Leviathan I completed the warzone weekly, did a round of CZ-198 as well as a few missions as an agent. On Tulak Hord I also completed the warzone weekly and did a couple of additional missions on my trooper. On Star Forge I completed yet another warzone weekly... by that time it was getting really late though, so I just did a Taris heroic on Satele Shan and finished the weekly crafting objective before logging off.

Day 7 - Monday

In the morning, I quickly knocked out my daily objective on Shae Vizla by finishing up my trooper's class story on Belsavis. I then put my warrior main in the warzone queue again while I was working. I was getting a bit annoyed by the fact that it looked like I might not be able to finish the warzone objective even though my counter was on 7/8, but matches did eventually start popping and I got it done.

Later in the day, after the reset, I got back to finishing off more weeklies, as there was still quite a bit left to do on the other servers. On Darth Malgus, I only needed to get my daily done with some clickies, but then it was off to the races again.

On Leviathan I needed to do one more round of CZ-198, another Taris heroic and a flashpoint on my agent to get to 7/7 weeklies completed. (I was only on something like three missions completed as an agent, but then I queued for my introduction to group finder quest and got a Black Talon... mission completions for days.) On Tulak Hord, I also did two more Taris heroics as well as a few more story quests on my trooper. On Star Forge, I did three more missions on Corellia on my trooper, finished my crafting objective, and finally did a round of Yavin IV dailies on my boosted character.

This got me to 7/7 weeklies completed on all of those servers, but while it was reasonably fun, it also took absolutely forever. I decided to only push for 6/7 on the last two servers by having some more companion conversations on my trooper on Shae Vizla and doing a couple more Taris heroics (plus a few extra mission hand-ins) on my agent on Satele Shan.

Week 10 Thoughts

While my holiday had left me feeling quite refreshed, I was not as happy to jump back into the seasons action as I had hoped, plus I vastly underestimated the amount of time my weekly objectives of choice would require.

However, I did hit season level 100 on Darth Malgus, which is one milestone ticked off. I have to keep completing weeklies there regardless since I want to get the two additional achievements as well, but the other servers are actually not that far behind in terms of levels, so at least the end of my cross-server efforts is in sight now.

Shintar's Galactic Season 6 Diary, Week 6

Week 6's objectives excited me for two reasons: It was the first week without a flashpoint objective, and it was the first week with not just one, but two PvP objectives. I don't like that it took six weeks to get any overlap between PvP Season 5 and GS6, and looking at the PvP track made me realise that after my initial excitement about the new PvP season, with plans to do at least the basic reward track on multiple servers, too much time had passed already for me to still complete the PvP track on Star Forge and Shae Vizla without buyouts, due to how focused I'd been on Galactic Seasons instead.

Anyway, in detail, the weekly objectives were:

• Earn 200k Conquest points: As usual.
  
• Visit another player's Rishi stronghold: Easy enough to do.
  
• Craft war supplies and two invasion forces: Once again something I was likely going to do on Darth Malgus but nowhere else, due to the lack of skilled crafters in my stable of alts.
  
• Dig up 3 treasures at a seeker droid dig site: Probably something I was going to do at least on some servers.
  
• Complete 15 missions as a trooper or agent: I was definitely going to aim for this one everywhere, as I usually do with the origin story objectives.
  
• Kill four named champion mobs on Corellia (2 Republic, 2 Imperial): Once again, not my favourite but one I was likely going to do at least on some servers to get the numbers.
  
• Kill both Taris world bosses: Easy and fast to do, I was counting on getting this one done on most servers again.
  
• Play 5-10 arenas (wins count double): I was definitely going to do that one on Darth Malgus, and maybe on other servers depending on whether I could get pops in the sub-80 brackets.
  
• Heroic space missions: I've never been good at space missions, to the point that I haven't even completed all the normal ones, so this was a definite no.
  
• Play 4-8 warzone matches (wins count double): I was probably going to aim to do that one on all servers, even if it's a bit time-consuming, but I do love warzones.
  
• Do dailies on Ruhnuk or Kessan's Landing: I figured I might do that one on Darth Malgus with Mr Commando, but nowhere else as I don't have that much story progression on any of the other servers.
  

Day 1 - Tuesday

I had another surprise working from home day after it turned out that the previous night's heavy winds had caused damage on my usual train line and I couldn't get into London. I was also feeling a bit tired and unwell though, so instead of using the time saved not commuting for gaming, I ended up napping instead.

In the evening I did ops with my guild, and then expanded my Copero stronghold to hit the daily seasons objective (I'd been saving up the unlocks for this kind of thing instead of using them the moment I got them).

I then logged over to Leviathan, where I had weird server lag problems when trying to transition between areas. It didn't just seem to be me either, as I played a warzone match and everyone else seemed to have issues leaving at the end as well, though it did eventually resolve itself. I then killed the Taris world bosses on both factions, which was nice and easy as lots of people were doing it and it basically took no time at all to find an impromptu group. I did the same circuit (one warzone plus both world bosses) on Tulak Hord, Star Forge and Satele Shan.

On Shae Vizla, I had no luck with warzone pops or world boss groups at this time of night, so I just parked two characters at their locations, visited a Rishi stronghold and did a couple of missions on my trooper.

Day 2 - Wednesday

In the morning I logged into Shae Vizla since I figured that was a better time for group content with the Aussies. I got both world boss kills done, and since level 80 warzones were popping instantly for me, I also played enough matches to complete the weekly. 

After the reset at lunch time, I returned to Shae Vizla to do some questing on my trooper, followed by a Black Talon run with my agent on Leviathan, which counted as 7/15 missions completed.

Later I was supposed to help out with an ops run on Star Forge, but it kinda ended up being cancelled, so the four of us that actually showed up ran a couple of master mode flashpoints instead (in the one week where this wasn't a seasons objective - typical! Still, it counted as ten missions done as a trooper.)

In the evening I first logged into Tulak Hord, where I did a warzone and a couple of missions on my trooper over there. I then spent some time PvPing on Darth Malgus, and finally I did exactly one warzone again on Satele Shan; plus I paid a visit to a Rishi stronghold.

Day 3 - Thursday

I was back in the office so didn't get any play time until relatively late in the evening.

On Leviathan, I visited a Rishi stronghold, did some warzones and killed the Imperial named champions on Corellia. Logging over to Tulak Hord, a single warzone there was enough to get my daily Conquest done, so I left it at that.

I then did some more PvP on Darth Malgus (both warzones and arenas), followed by a few warzones on Star Forge. While in the queue there, I also went around and killed the Republic champion mobs on Corellia. I started doing a couple of missions on my agent on Satele Shan, but it was late and I was tired, so I decided to leave any additional action for the next morning.

Day 4 - Friday

In the morning I logged back into Satele Shan and did an Esseles run on my little trooper there. Because of the Galactic Rampage Conquest objective, this completed her personal Conquest immediately, while also giving me several missions worth of credit towards questing as a trooper or agent. I then logged onto Shae Vizla and continued my trooper's class storyline on Belsavis for a bit.

In the evening I did more PvP on Darth Malgus, which resulted in me completing the arena weekly before it was time for ops. After that I logged into Leviathan where I played exactly one more warzone for the weekly mission (it was a Vandin Huttball in which I rocked by the way). Then I did the same thing on Tulak Hord, except that the match I played there was a Voidstar where we got properly spanked but still won on objectives.

On Star Forge I queued for a few midbie arenas (since this was the only other server where I could get them to pop without too much of a wait), followed by a couple of level 80 warzones on Satele Shan. Finally I did some PvP on Shae Vizla as well, even though I didn't need any more games for seasons there, but the guild I'm in was organising some level 80 warzones and I wanted to take part, so I completed another warzone weekly mission while killing some champion mobs and digging up treasure between matches.

Day 5 - Saturday

I didn't play until after reset, and then I started by going to Leviathan, where I dug up some treasures on my knight and did a few missions on my agent. Later on Tulak Hord, I visited a Rishi stronghold, and since that was my fourth weekly objective, I was immediately close to being done with the daily, so I just hopped over to Corellia and killed the named champs there to get myself over the finish line.

On Satele Shan I did some more missions on my agent, before logging into Shae Vizla to kill the champion mobs on Republic side. I was surprised by how tough this was on my level 74 Sage (my highest level Republic character on the server). I basically spent five minutes kiting Lord Rashal around a nearby pillar, whittling down his health one DoT at a time, until finally someone else showed up and helped to kill him. This was relevant in so far as I'd kind of forgotten at the start of the week that the reason I never did this objective on all servers before was that I never had a high-enough level Imperial character to kill stuff on Corellia. Now my Imps on Leviathan and Satele Shan were in their low forties, which is high enough to go to Corellia, but still low when it comes to killing level 48 champions. I'd been optimistic about my chances since I previously had pretty good experiences while doing the equivalent objective under-levelled on Taris, but my level 74's struggles made me seriously doubt myself.

I wanted to put the matter to the test right away, so I returned to Leviathan and took my level 42 bounty hunter to the first Republic champion on Corellia. Killing any mobs that dismounted me during the trip was definitely a lot slower than usual, but perfectly doable. I was happy when I got to the droid's spawn spot and saw someone else already waiting there. Unfortunately it turned out that person was also in their low forties and clearly waiting for help! Fortunately an 80 came by and took charge, so we were able to leech off their success easily. Unfortunately the trip to the next champion took a while since I didn't have any of the quick travel points unlocked yet, so I arrived just in time to see the 80 port away from the second champion's corpse. Fortunately another 80 was right there when he respawned.

I then re-did the same tour on Tulak Hord, where I'd forgotten that I actually got my Sorc up to 51 already. She killed the droid by herself with no problems whatsoever and would have done the same with Jimmy Weasle if someone else hadn't shown up to contribute some damage near the end. Are the Imperial champions just that much harder than the Republic ones? Let me know your experiences in the comments!

Emboldened by my success, I was going to try my luck soloing the champs on my level 42 Sniper on Satele Shan, but it just so happened that there were always other players present to support her anyway.

In the evening it was time for social ops with my guild on Darth Malgus, and doing Scum and Villainy on 16-man counted as completing four missions as a trooper. I finished the evening by completing the arena weekly in the midbie bracket on Star Forge.

Day 6 - Sunday

In the morning I logged into Shae Vizla and did a few missions on my trooper there, since I hadn't quite hit the Conquest target before getting distracted by the whole thing with the Corellia champions the previous day. This also took me to 7/7 weeklies completed.

In the evening I did a round of Kessan's Landing dailies with Mr Commando, which got me to 7/7 on Darth Malgus as well. On Leviathan, I did some questing on my bounty hunter for the daily - I still needed a few more missions on my agent as well but wanted to work towards my bounty hunter's personal Conquest target first. This was followed by a round of freeing Sobrik on Tulak Hord to get credit towards 15 missions completed as a trooper.

On Star Forge, I continued my trooper's class story on Corellia until I hit 15 missions completed there too, and swung by the remaining two champions as well since I was already in the neighbourhood, taking me to 6/7. Similarly, I did two warzones on my consular on Satele Shan and killed the champions during the wait time between matches, which took me to 5/7 weekly objectives completed.

Day 7 - Monday

In the morning I wanted to quickly catch up on what I had been a bit too tired to finish the previous evening. I did some quests on Shae Vizla for the daily and visited a Rishi stronghold on Star Forge. On Satele Shan I wanted to "quickly" dig up three treasures on Hoth but had the worst luck. The first dig site I visited was inactive, and the second had a guy already there who found the special treasure and depleted it just as I was honing in on my first target (and this was middle of the night for the west coast, FFS). I went to the last remaining site on Hoth in the Glacial Fissure and eventually got my objective done there, but for some reason every single treasure I found was inside a lava flow, which made it a pain to hone in on it without getting my poor guy set on fire. 

In the evening I logged into Leviathan to finish off my last few agent missions, though since I also had some juicy Conquest objectives close to completion, I also played other alts for a bit to easily reach their personal targets for extra rewards. On Tulak Hord I dug up some treasure (less painful in the Outlaw's Den this time) and then did some questing on my inquisitor for the daily Conquest.

On Satele Shan I completed my agent's class story on Tatooine to tick off my daily and last weekly objective, and on the other servers I only needed to do a bit more stuff on alts to finish off the daily objective there too.

Week 6 Thoughts

I had weirdly mixed feelings about this week. On the one hand I was happy to finally see a PvP objective pop back up as part of the regular season, but on the other hand they take ages to complete across all servers (and I was actually quite lucky with wins vs. losses). I think I completed a total of seven warzone weeklies and two arena weeklies this week, which is similar to the kind of craziness I would usually only engage in during a Total Galactic War.

In general there was little overlap between objectives, so getting to 7/7 felt quite time-consuming, no matter which route you decided to take - though again, this is in the context of doing it all on multiple servers. If I had only focused on a single one, it still would've been a breeze.

Shintar's Galactic Season 6 Diary, Week 2

The second week of GS6 started with some deep thoughts for me. I know that doing this whole thing across all servers is weird. It doesn't make me unique, there are many others who do it, but compared to the player base as a whole, we're definitely a small hardcore fringe group. People may wonder whether it isn't stressful to play this way, and I guess it can be? But I do like playing in different environments and in different ways, as well as figuring out how I can get the most boxes ticked in a way that is somewhat efficient but still fun. Because it is fun for me!

That said, there's definitely a risk of hitting a point where the gameplay crosses over from fun into tedious. I remember there was a week last season when I did the same flashpoint something like three times in two days and I really didn't want to do it yet again... but it actually took a bit of effort to make myself stop and remind myself that I wasn't losing anything by not going 7/7 everywhere that week; completing the seasonal track on that server would just take one reset longer.

After I had achieved all my goals during GS5, there was also a moment when I looked at some of the objectives for the remaining weeks of the season and thought: "That would've been fun to do again on some servers... but instead I did Black Hole ten times in week one. Probably not the most fun path to take."

So with that in mind, I wanted to fight my self-imposed urge to push for 7/7 weekly objectives on all servers every week this time. My goal was to do only as many as I found fun, because I'd rather my overall season lasted a couple of weeks longer than burn myself out on grinding too hard in too short an amount of time.

With all that out of the way, the weekly objectives and my thoughts on them were as follows:

• Earn 200k Conquest points: Once again, a freebie on all servers.
  
• Visit another player's Mek-Sha stronghold: I wrote a whole post about how much I enjoyed this new objective, and it was effectively also free seasons points on all servers.
  
• Kill 25 mobs without a companion: An extremely easy and fast objective, I figured I was probably going to do this on all the secondary servers as well.
  
• Kill 100 mobs with a healer companion: Like all companion objectives, easy to do and easy to get done while also doing other things.
  
• Do the Black Hole weekly twice or the Onderon weekly once: Now this is where things got a bit tricky, because while I like the Onderon weekly, I only have access to it on Darth Malgus and Star Forge. I don't mind the Black Hole either, but having to do it twice on each of the remaining servers would be quite grindy (especially without stealth) so I wasn't planning to go that far.
  
• Complete 8 repeatable or side missions and kill 100 mobs on the Coreward planets Alderaan, Balmorra, Corellia, Mek-Sha or Onderon: Another easy choice that can be done in a variety of ways and also synergises nicely with the companion kills and the above objective to do daily areas (the Black Hole counts for Corellia).
  
• Complete 2 out of 4 selected flashpoints (Assault on Tython, Korriban Incursion, Depths of Manaan, Secrets of the Enclave): Like always, I never fancy doing twelve flashpoints across six servers, but I figured I might do this on a couple at least. Especially since three of them are part of the prelude to Shadow of Revan story chain, which I'm generally happy to start on alts before I've actually reached that point in the main storyline.
  
• Complete the Eternal Championship on Zakuul: I figured I might do this on Darth Malgus with Mr Commando, but otherwise I only had access to it on Star Forge and probably wouldn't fancy doing it again with the same character there.
  
• Hive of the Mountain Queen on any difficulty: An easy enough one-boss operation, but I couldn't count on doing this anywhere but on Darth Malgus due to the challenges involved with finding a pug group at a time that might not be the most active in the server's time zone.
  
• Explosive Conflict on veteran mode: First off, I'm very grateful that they took the feedback about the operations objectives introduced last season and reduced this to only requiring one operation. Nonetheless, the same rule applied as for the previous objective. I wouldn't say no to an opportunity to do this with a guild group, but I wasn't going to actively push for it anywhere. Even on Darth Malgus we'd just done EC VM the week before (since nobody had thought to look ahead at the objectives for the next week...) and I wasn't sure people would feel like doing it two weeks in a row.
  
• KotFE chapter 10 on veteran mode or higher: As before, not really interested in re-doing chapters.

Based on that list, I could easily see myself going 5/7 everywhere, and probably 6-7/7 on some servers, but whether I'd feel like pushing for 7/7 on all of them would kind of depend on luck and time. I didn't want to completely neglect my PvP season progression either.

Day 1 - Tuesday

It being another day in the office, I came home late again and then jumped straight into operations with my guild team. We spent most of our time wiping on Dread Master Brontes on master mode, which is actually oddly good for Conquest and completed my daily objective all on its own. I "influenced the galaxy" by running away from her zappy tentacle things. I then visited a local Mek-Sha stronghold before logging over to the other servers.

Since I didn't want to stay awake until 1 a.m. again, I just visited a Mek-Sha stronghold everywhere and mostly got the daily objective done with clickies, except for on Leviathan, where I did a bit of questing on Balmorra with my bounty hunter.

Day 2 - Wednesday

I got a bit of play time in around lunch time and used it to do a few warzones on Darth Malgus as well as a round of Onderon dailies. This completed two more weekly objectives (the one for the dailies and the 200k Conquest points one). I also used one of those buff items to increase the drop rate of the blueprint fragments and got 15 from my daily round (while killing fewer than 75 mobs) - not sure whether that's a good return on investment or not, though a guildie later posited that he got close to 60 from an hour of grinding on Oricon, so your mileage may vary.

In the late afternoon, an opportunity arose for me to join Swtorista's raid team for a run of Explosive Conflict veteran mode, which I was happy to come along to and which was good fun. This completed the associated seasons objective for me on Star Forge and also made my trooper there hit her personal Conquest target. (Also, since the operations missions terminals are often slow to update, I managed to re-pick last week's EC mission for bonus currency; go me.)

In the evening, I took part in a bit more PvP on Darth Malgus and then did some more questing on Balmorra on both the Leviathan (on my bounty hunter) and Tulak Hord (on my trooper). On Satele Shan, I did a round of the Black Hole on my stealthy consular. On Shae Vizla, I was wondering which Coreward planet to quest on, since I'd mostly levelled up through class stories there and had barely done any of the side content. I eventually settled on visiting Alderaan on my warrior for a bit. None of this took too long but I needed an early night.

Day 3 - Thursday

Another office day meant limited play time in the evening. I started with some PvP on Darth Malgus again, and then repeated most of the questing circuit I'd done the day before. My bounty hunter on Leviathan did more missions on Balmorra until he got credit for his 100 companion kills and Coreward missions. My trooper on Tulak Hord did the same for the Coreward missions, but didn't get the companion kills because she's a healer, and contrary to what a lot of people will tell you, I've always quite enjoyed levelling as a healer in this game... but questing as a healer with a healing companion is a level of masochism even I'll avoid stooping to.

My warrior on Shae Vizla did some more Alderaan missions, hit her personal Conquest target and completed her companion kills, but not her Coreward worlds objective because most of her progress had been through main planetary storyline missions and had only advanced the eligible mission tracker to 4/8.

On Satele Shan I did another stealthy round of the Black Hole, which completed the daily missions objective, but due to the stealth I hadn't killed enough mobs to complete the other two related weeklies. On Star Forge I did a round of Onderon on my inquisitor, which yielded similar results.

Day 4 - Friday

In the morning I visited Tulak Hord and logged into the knight I'd created there at the end of last season without ever playing him. I sorted out his inventory and then did the first couple of quests on Tython, because getting 25 mob kills without a companion is easy to do either way, but I particularly enjoy doing it on a character that doesn't actually have a companion yet. The same logic made me do a few more missions on Tython with my littlest consular on Star Forge.

Around lunch time, just after reset, I decided to queue for some warzones on Shae Vizla. Not only did I get quick pops, I won four matches in a row, completing my warzone weekly in the minimum amount of time possible. That is so rare that I was stunned, but I still ran around Alderaan for a bit as well to kill a few mobs without a companion so I could also feel like I'd done something for my main season progression.

In the evening I started my play time with some more PvP on Darth Malgus, followed by an operation with guildies. After that I hopped over to Leviathan and idled on the fleet for a bit while looking at something else on my second monitor, which is when I noticed that a pug group for Hive of the Mountain Queen was forming in general chat. I happily tagged along and got to tick that weekly off my list on the French server. I didn't expect to be as lucky on Tulak Hord when I logged over there, and I wasn't, but someone was forming a group for the Coruscant world boss instead, which I decided to join on a whim. It was still very good for Conquest if nothing else and pushed me over the 200k needed for the weekly objective.

Over on Star Forge, I decided to do another round of Onderon on my inquisitor - I didn't need it for the daily objective, but it was a handy way of getting my remaining Coreward worlds and companion kills, and I just like Onderon. This completed my inquisitor's personal Conquest and put me on 7/7 weekly objectives completed on Star Forge.

On Satele Shan I decided to grab my Imperial agent and continue her class story on Balmorra, first killing a few mobs without a companion and then continuing with Kaliyo by her side. I also got my Coreward mob kills but still had some left to go with a healing companion (since I'd forgotten to set Amity to heals on my first day of doing Black Hole with my consular).

It wasn't that late for a Friday but I was tired and felt quite satisfied with my in-game accomplishments so decided to call it an early night.

Day 5 - Saturday

The weekend! I was up nice and early, and since I'd achieved all my daily seasons objectives the night before, I decided to put some more work towards additional weeklies before the reset. I started by putting myself in the group finder queue on Satele Shan, for any of the four featured flashpoints on either difficulty. I ended up being put into a veteran mode Assault on Tython with a full group of 80s, and it was weird. One person ran past all the trash and then just stood there at the boss while the other two milled about uncertainly. I figured maybe the guy who had run ahead expected me to stealth the first three objectives since I was on a Shadow and I'd seen people do that before. I hadn't succeeded at it myself yet, but I decided to give it another go and pulled it off this time, go me! Meanwhile the other two players pulled some more trash though and died. I eventually put into chat "sooo, what are we doing?" since everyone seemed to have run off into a different direction, to which the guy at the boss responded that we needed to kill those three things... so they weren't expecting me to stealth but just wanted to go AFK while the rest of us did the killing?! It ultimately didn't matter, we just killed all the trash from then on, but that whole situation was a bit awkward. After that I queued again for the remaining three flashpoints and got a vet mode Depths of Manaan which was fast and uneventful.

Next I hopped over to Tulak Hord, where I did a solo mode Assault on Tython since I had the story quest for it, followed up by a round of Black Hole. Then I changed to my Sith inquisitor for a bit of story questing with a healer companion. I no longer needed anything on the Core worlds, so I was grateful to find that her class story was actually up to Nar Shaddaa already. (I'd thought she was still on Balmorra too and I'd had quite enough of that planet for the week.)

Leviathan was my next destination, where I hit up the group finder queue for the featured flashpoints again and got an instant pop for vet mode Depths of Manaan. Since we had two healers it was a bit slow, but otherwise alright. I did get a little worried on the last boss with the five minute timer when one of our two damage dealers suddenly had to go AFK, but we did still manage to beat the timer.

Finally I returned to Shae Vizla. I had to have a bit of a think about how I was going to go about the flashpoints and Black Hole runs if I was going to go for them there as well. The rewards would have been best on my level 80 warrior, but she'd already completed her Conquest for the week and I craved something slightly different, so I opted to go on my level 68 consular instead. The guild I'm in often alternates events between Republic and Imperial side, and I keep getting reminded that I don't yet have a level 80 on Pub side that can go to operations there, so it seemed prudent to milk these objectives for some XP at least.

I first queued for three of the eligible flashpoints (Secrets of the Enclave was out of reach due to level) and got into another Depths of Manaan. The irony of me running that same flashpoint three times in one morning after I wrote that whole intro about not wanting to burn myself out by repeating the same content too many times wasn't lost on me, but fortunately all the Shadow of Revan prelude flashpoints are pretty fun and not too long, so I genuinely didn't mind. Afterwards I did a round of the Black Hole and was reminded that the heroic is still somewhat challenging in levelling gear, as I actually had to run back out of the first room to save myself after starting with a bad pull. I proceeded with a bit more care after that and was fine though. The whole adventure netted me two levels, something I was quite pleased with.

After lunch and the daily reset I logged right back into Shae Vizla with the goal of repeating what I'd done earlier, one flashpoint and one round of the Black Hole. I put myself in the flashpoint queue (unticking Depths of Manaan this time, but at least Secrets of the Enclave was now available to me) and returned to Corellia, but nothing popped for the entirety of my daily run. I did have the pleasure of someone actually asking to group up for the Black Hole heroic though, something I happily accepted and which filled me with massive nostalgia.

Just as I was starting to wonder whether I should leave the flashpoint for another time, I got a pop and found myself in Secrets of the Enclave. A level 80 from my guild was in the run as well, and they instantly took off like a bat out of hell. Someone else said that they were new to the flashpoint, which prompted our bat to type out a few instructions at some point, so I can't even complain that they were being inconsiderate or anything, but they were still absolutely racing. Mr Commando went off to take a shower just when I got the flashpoint pop and he wasn't even done by the time we finished. With that, my consular completed her personal Conquest, gained another level (almost two actually), and Shae Vizla became the second server on which I hit 7/7 weekly season objectives for week two.

Later in the afternoon I went to cycle through the other servers again. On Leviathan I queued for flashpoints again, once again unticking Depths of Manaan, and ended up in yet another round of Assault on Tython. I sighed a little to myself, but it went fine. Feeling a bit flashpoint-ed out after that, I opted to just continue questing on my inquisitor on Tulak Hord to tick off the 100 companion kills objective. On Satele Shan I did the same with my Imperial agent, and finishing off her class story on Balmorra also pushed me past 200k Conquest points, bringing Satele Shan to 7/7 weeklies completed as well. Since I was already done with weeklies on Star Forge, I just spent some time on a somewhat neglected smuggler alt there to get my daily dose of Conquest done.

In the evening it was time for social night with my guild on Darth Malgus once again, where we did 16-man Hive of the Mountain Queen on story mode and Explosive Conflict on veteran mode, ticking those two objectives off for me.

I had held off on working more on my progress on Darth Malgus partially because I counted on getting those two objectives in specific done on social night and partially because I thought Mr Commando might want to do flashpoints and the Eternal Championship with me over the weekend, however it turned out that he was already on 7/7 himself after the operations. With that in mind, I logged onto my newest lowbie alt on Ord Mantell and did a bit of questing there for 25 kills without a companion.

Day 6 - Sunday

On Sunday morning I did a bit more questing to get to 7/7 weeklies done on Darth Malgus, specifically by doing some story missions on one of my inquisitors on Corellia until I'd achieved the last few kills for the Coreward Worlds objective.

I'd been so focused on completing weeklies on all servers that I hadn't even done the (admittedly quite time-consuming) first part of the new seasonal storyline yet, and neither had Mr Commando, so we made up for the missed shared play time from not doing the seasonal flashpoints by working our way through the first two chapters of the new storyline together.

After that I didn't log back into the game until evening, at which point paying a visit to each server to get caught up didn't take long at all. On Darth Malgus I just did some clickies. On Leviathan I did a bit more putzing around on Balmorra on my bounty hunter, which completed his personal Conquest target, the 25 kills without a companion objective, and the 200k Conquest points for seasons, taking me to 7/7 on that server as well.

On Tulak Hord I had one round of Black Hole and a flashpoint left to do. In an attempt to mix things up a bit, I only queued for the master mode version of the four featured flashpoints. It was European prime time and healers were even flagged as the role in need! However, I did the entirety of the Black Hole and nothing popped. Since that did earn me enough Conquest for the day though, I decided to leave the flashpoint for Monday.

Since the other three servers were all done with weeklies, I just had play a little bit on each one to earn my 25k Conquest points for the day. On Star Forge I did a few more missions on my smuggler, and on Shae Vizla the same on my trooper. On Satele Shan, I was just getting ready to make a start on Nar Shaddaa on my Imperial agent when I got a warzone pop! I've historically had bad luck with getting into PvP in the non-max level brackets on that server, presumably due to time zone conflicts above anything else, so this was exciting. In fact, the whole reason I was queued for warzones was that I still had the "introduction to PvP" quest in my log at level 39 - I'd originally picked it up at level 10 and had got the arena part done pretty quickly, but just never managed to get into a warzone. Apparently I got lucky that night and the game actually found enough people for a 4v4 lowbie Huttball. I did more damage than anyone else (Snipers are so brutal in the lowbie bracket, it's kind of amazing) and we dominated the other team 6-0. Sorry guys, but I did wait a long time for this.

I actually still felt like playing some more after all that and found myself at bit of a loss for what to do outside of seasons content that evening, so I ended up doing a bit of midbie PvP on Star Forge.

Day 7 - Monday

I decided to start my play session in the late afternoon by logging into Tulak Hord to get that last weekly seasons objective done. I thought I'd try the master mode queue for the featured flashpoints again while taking care of some errands like crew skills and GTN listings (since I'd done nothing but solo and veteran modes all week), and I could always switch to queueing for vet mode if nothing materialised within a reasonable amount of time. However, this time I got a pop almost immediately, which was for Depths of Manaan. What followed was a super smooth run that even included the bonus boss; I was very pleased. Since I was also on the story step for Depths of Manaan, my Shadow of Revan prelude progressed as well. And with that I was once again 7/7 on all servers.

Since I now only had to earn some Conquest points on the other servers, I just did that by cycling through various alts and playing them a little bit at a time.

Week 2 Thoughts

Okay, so... I was wrong again! I was quite sure that I wouldn't be able to do 7/7 weekly objectives on every server this week without feeling stressed, but not only did I do it again, I was almost fully done by Sunday. That was really surprising to me as this week featured a lot more repetition than week one, with me doing the same four objectives across all servers (while in week one the two "automatic" ones were the only ones I did everywhere). I think those lucky ops runs on Star Forge and Leviathan (which I definitely wasn't counting on) really helped me out, because I don't think I would've been able to stand any more flashpoints and dailies than I already did.

Now, next week - things really will be different I think, because in a classic case of "be careful what you wish for", after I bemoaned the lack of a Total Galactic War during the between-seasons break, the devs decided to give us one next week, right in the middle of the Galactic and the PvP season! It's simultaneously exciting and a completionist's nightmare, as I'll probably find myself wanting to focus on helping my guild on Darth Malgus win at Conquest, which would then leave little time to do anything on the other servers. We'll see how it goes I guess.

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.