about 1 year ago - BryantWood - Direct link

Hey SWTOR community!

 

We’re into the development stages of Galactic Season 4 now, so it’s a great time to gather your feedback! We want to hear your thoughts on Galactic Seasons and how they can be improved in the future.

To make this feedback request easier, here’s a quick recap of our Galactic Seasons system. 

 

What are Galactic Seasons?

Galactic Seasons is a reward track that aims to encourage players to explore various parts of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Galactic Seasons provides high-value rewards, centered around a new companion each season.

 

How do I make progress during a Galactic Season?

Progressing a Galactic Season requires earning Season Points. These points can be gained in a variety of ways to progress through the 100 levels of the reward track.

  1. Each day players can earn Season Points by acquiring 25,000 Conquest Points.
  2. Each week players can complete up to 7 Season Objectives from a pool of 10 to earn larger amounts of Season Points.
    1. Season Objectives require the player to complete content such as Flashpoints, Operations, Daily Areas, PvP, Crafting, World Exploration, and more.
  3. Season Points are also rewarded as part of the Daily Login system.

 

What can I earn by playing a Galactic Season?

The Galactic Season reward tracks provides items such as

  • New Companions
  • Companion customizations
  • Season armor set
  • Season mount
  • Cartel packs including Weapons, Armor, Mounts, Decorations, and Ultimate Cartel Packs
  • Galactic Seasons Tokens
  • Decorations
  • Titles
  • Cartel Coins
  • Dye Packs

 

How do I raise my Companion’s influence level and progress their reputation track when a season isn’t active?

Each seasonal companion comes paired with a Reputation Track related to their story. While that companion’s Galactic Season is active, players can earn reputation trophies from group content and defeating mobs around the galaxy. When the companion’s Galactic Season is not active players can still obtain reputation trophies by defeating mobs around the galaxy as long as that desired companion is fighting with you! To earn more influence for the companion players can defeat mobs around the galaxy or use the companion in crew skill activities.

 

What if I can’t play the entire season?

To be respectful of our players’ time, players who fall behind the pace of a season can use credits to Catch-Up some missed levels. This Catch-Up mechanic unlocks part way through the season, but players are only able to use Credits to purchase up to a defined level. Completing a Galactic Season will always require player effort. Players are also able to purchase ahead levels using Cartel Coins.

 

What Seasons have already happened?

If you want to revisit past seasons before making your responses, check out their launch articles here:

Galactic Season 1: The Stranger from Kubindi

Galactic Season 2: Shadows of the Underworld

Galactic Season 3: Luck of the Draw


 

Now onto the feedback questions! We want to continually improve Galactic Seasons and keep the system exciting for players so we have some questions for you all.

  1. How are you enjoying the Galactic Season system overall?
  2. Do you like the Companions offered through a Galactic Season? Is there any way you think the Companions can be improved? What companion has been your favorite so far?
  3. Do you like the rewards offered from Galactic Seasons? Are there rewards you wish were included in the reward track?
  4. Do you enjoy the content used in Season Objectives? Are there parts of the game you wish you saw more, or less?
  5. Have you been able to complete Galactic Seasons? Do you feel the season requires too much effort, or is too easy to complete?
  6. How does completing a Galactic Season fit into your desired play session? Are you able to progress the Season while doing your normal activities, or do you feel Galactic Seasons prevent you from completing the content you enjoy?
  7. Do you have any other feedback or suggestions for Galactic Seasons?

 

Please answer as many questions as you want! We’ll be gathering and using this feedback as we develop Season 4 and beyond to continue providing the best version of Galactic Seasons for our players.


 

One thing we want to address as we expect feedback around it, is the change to Cartel Coin rewards that came with Galactic Season 3. I want to provide more context around this change for players. 

One goal of Galactic Seasons is to provide an opportunity for players to earn some Cartel Coins for their efforts in game. This helps players obtain Galactic Season rewards on alternate characters via Collections and allows players to experience the Cartel Market and the awesome armors, weapons, and other items the team creates. For this reason we rewarded Cartel Coins directly from the Galactic Seasons reward track. After a couple seasons’ worth of data, some things came to our attention. The initial collections unlock prices were not set to our standard values, and players to a surprisingly large degree were using the system in an unintended way by completing Galactic Seasons across multiple servers to earn a large amount of Cartel Coins. The combination of this flood of Cartel Coins and low Collection unlock prices unfortunately contributed to worsening the economic inflation the community has been facing and the team has been fighting against.

To combat this situation, we decreased the overall Cartel Coin grant from the Galactic Season reward track from 4000 to 2000, replaced the removed Cartel Coins with Ultimate Cartel Packs, and increased the Collections unlock prices to our standard prices. By rewarding Ultimate Cartel Packs we can maintain the goal of allowing players to experience the offerings of the Cartel Market and earn valuable items to wear or sell. While reducing the Cartel Coins rewarded, we made sure to keep our goal that players can unlock all items earned during a Galactic Season in Collections for alternate characters. Players who do wish to complete Galactic Seasons on multiple servers will still receive extra Cartel Coins and Ultimate Cartel Packs, but the new amounts will have a lesser impact on inflation and the economy. We thank you all for understanding that these changes maintain the goals of Galactic Seasons and continue to battle our economic inflation. It’s our continued desire to provide the best experience in Star Wars: The Old Republic.


 

Catch you later, I’m off to give a rundown of the Galaxy to our Season 4 companion!

Bryant