21/10/2019

A Farewell to Galactic Command

Assuming all goes well, Onslaught will be arriving on our digital doorsteps tomorrow and with it ends the controversial system known as Galactic Command. While we're seeing a similar system, Renown, take its place the two are functionally quite different.

Command started life as the way to get gear before eventually turning into a more-or-less supplementary system. Renown is purely a supplementary system as gear is designed to come thicker and faster from other sources from the get-go. Command had various tiers which controlled what type of gear you'd be getting, while Renown only relies on your characters' gear rating to determine what gear it drops. Command had a large part of its 'income' come from CXP packs whilst Renown won't rely on these even half as much.

Finally, Command had a 'goal', a final tier that became easier to reach as time went on while Renown has no 'final' tier. While there is an Achievement for hitting Renown Rank 999, this is not something which is meant to be easy to accomplish.

It is this number that I shall be looking at today. Ever since hitting Command Rank (hereafter "CR") 300 on my first character, I decided to keep a running tally of the number of crates, and therefore ranks, that I would be acquiring from that point forth.

I can't exactly remember the reasons why I started this, but I've convinced myself that it's because I wanted to see how far I would get before CR 400 showed up. It never did, of course, but still I kept going with it. The end result is that, with nine characters above CR 300, I have a rough estimate for how much I have poured into this system across the past two years and eleven months.
  1. Miorahna - Jedi Guardian - CR 2,774
  2. Cal Pheiya - Gunslinger - CR 2,605
  3. Pippera - Sniper - CR 910
  4. Phirella - Powertech - CR 611
  5. Vhiallia - Jedi Sage - CR 523
  6. Vahnora - Sith Sorcerer - CR 498
  7. Ferok'ia - Sith Juggernaut - CR 435
  8. Jehnira - Vanguard - CR 353
  9. Vihala Relles - Jedi Sage - CR 324
Because of the nature of Command, these numbers aren't at all indicative of the amount of times these characters have actually been used throughout 5.0. Notably, my Powertech is fourth on the list because she is the one who I funnelled various CXP packs to when I decided to start acquiring 248 Hunter / Trooper gear. While she did see a fair bit of use, I don't think she would have advanced much beyond CR 200 in her natural play-time. 

To further illustrate this point, my second Sage Vihala has only been in-existence since mid-August yet she had almost managed to catch up to Jehnira, a character who has been in existence now for just over two years. Both characters gained CXP largely from doing their class stories and any quests they could find along the way, but Jehn still has the advantage due to doing ever so slightly more stuff after the fact while Vi still has got a few things left to catch up on. If either character had relied on CXP packs alongside this, they would likely both be closer to where Fero and Vahnie are. 

Additionally, this list does only include characters who reached CR 300. There are two characters who got to 70 who would still have earned their own Command crates, but the only one of those who would likely have got into double-figures wouldn't have got all too far (I want to say he got to about CR 40). 

Still, I find it quite amusing that my Guardian ended up being highest of all, given that she was actually the second character to hit CR 300. Due to the above factors I genuinely can't begin to estimate whether she saw more use than Cal, but I know the two are the most-played of all nine characters.

I'm looking forward to not needing to keep this list going throughout Onslaught. Even if one of my characters does manage to hit RR 999, it won't be for a while. Every character will conveniently have their Renown number increasing up until that point, so that's a large part of my work already done. 

Although, if they do decide to reset Renown Ranks sporadically as they've hinted at in the past, that may require a bit of list-making... 

I'll cross that bridge when it comes.

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