2021 is a big year for The Old Republic. Come December 20th, the game will have officially been live for ten whole years (discounting any early access periods). For quite a while now, it has been hypothesised and teased that BioWare would release an expansion to coincide with the big date, and finally we have our answers about exactly what BW have planned.
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2021
After much speculation, 7.0 will indeed be launching later this year in the holiday period (I'm estimating late November at the earliest). Titled Legacy of the Sith, it continues the trend of adding five more levels to players’ characters as well as including a bunch of changes, both small and big, to the game. The main story of the expansion will return focus on the war between the Empire and the Republic, as well as allowing us to continue our attempts to uncover exactly what Malgus has been planning since Dantooine. As part of this, we will be asked to travel back to Manaan! Yay!
I love the fact that we will be able to explore more of
Manaan. The little hub created for Forged Alliances: Part 2 and its
associated flashpoint is decent enough, sure, but it always left much to be
desired. Now, we will have the opportunity to finally explore more of this
beautiful planet properly, both on the surface and underwater! And there’s a
daily zone included! Wheeeeeee!
Interestingly, this also marks the first occasion since 2.0
that an expansion has only included one levelling planet. Coincidentally, both
planets start with “Ma”.
There will also be some group content, including a
flashpoint where we pursue Malgus in a Sith fortress on the planet Elom (which is one heck of an
obscure planet to include in this game!) and a new operation set on a derelict space-station superweapon
– totally original stuff in Star Wars, as always – featuring more of
that wonderful Czerka technology after their last stint on Dxun. Good stuff,
good stuff.
While they touched on scaling and levelling changes, nothing
is confirmed yet. We have no idea if all group content will still involve
scaling of some sort or whether or not group content will be put back up to
max-level. I really hope that the latter will happen, as dealing with SWTOR’s
scaling technology and Veteran’s Edge for raiding has been a bit of a dampener
on proceedings in 6.0.
We’ll see about that as time goes on!
The second Galactic Season, Secrets of the
Underworld, was also revealed to be going live with 7.0. The Stranger
from Kubindi is, I believe, still set to end in September, so this will
give players a nice little break to cool down between one Season and the
other. The new companion this time around will be a bright blue duros gunslinger
named Fen Zeil.
Obligatory Cad Bane reference.
Finally, there will also be UI updates and a revamped
character creator. The UI updates seem to have been a recurring issue with BioWare
since 6.2.1, which turned the pretty much perfect character menu from 6.0 into
a really quite obtrusive bit of kit, with a great big ugly Amplifier menu stuck
to one side that couldn’t be closed until a later update. So hopefully with
these UI updates they finally find a look that works that doesn’t involve
a later update that just isn’t aesthetically-pleasing.
We don’t have many details about the revamped character
creator, but it’s being updated just as another way to modernise the playing
experience. Speaking of modernising the playing experience, it’s time to talk
about BioWare’s newest initiative.
Combat Styles.
It seems that with each of the past four expansions, BioWare
has decided to try shaking things up a bit with how their game was played. 4.0
brought in level-scaling and all bits of group content being viable at
max-level. 5.0 brought in Galactic Command and removed Expertise, making
gear universal for the first time. 6.0 changed Command to Renown,
made gearing incredibly fast and alt-friendly, and introduced Tacticals and
multiple sets intended to change how a class played in small-to-medium ways.
Now it seems that BioWare are doubling down on
changing how classes operate by completely separating their identity and playstyles.
Currently, a Trooper can only spec into one of two advanced classes: Commando
or Vanguard. Come 7.0, a Trooper can become a Sniper, an Operative, a
Gunslinger, a Scoundrel, a Mercenary, or a Powertech alongside their original advanced
classes. These advanced classes are now being rebranded as “combat styles”, making
it so that players have much more flexibility in how they want to play a
particular class. Oh, you really enjoy the Consular story but you hate the
playstyle of both Sage and Shadow? Easy solution: spec as a Guardian or Sentinel,
whichever you enjoy most, and away you go!
This also introduces the first functional instance of
advanced class switching ever introduced into SWTOR. Previously, if you wanted
to experience a different advanced class you had to roll a new character, which
could be tedious if you’ve already done a lot on their predecessor and aren’t
keen on doing it again. With 7.0, experiencing the other combat style is but a
few clicks away. This also means that, if a Hunter chooses to play as a Vanguard, they can wield a rifle for the first time in the game's history!
This also brings in more alignment-based flexibility. A Jedi
can select a dark side combat style, while a Sith can select a light side style
if desired. I already know of more than a few people who will be really looking
forward to this for head-canon reasons, so I’m really pleased for them.
Apparently, aspects of these will be alignment-gated. Presumably, this means
that a player cannot get their Sith Juggernaut to use the Guardian combat style
if they’re Dark V? We’ll see!
The best news to come
from this by far is that finally SWTOR is introducing loadouts
into its functionality. While intended to allow for quick switching between gear,
utilities, and abilities associated with combat styles, I can imagine that this
will see a lot more use in allowing, for example, a Dirty Fighting Gunslinger
to quickly switch to become a Sharpshooter Gunslinger.
We’ll be able to get some more insight on all this likely as
early as next week, as the first batch of PTS testing is surprisingly very
imminent: the first class for testing, Jedi Guardian, is intended to go live on
the 5th of July! It’s going to be interesting to see what other changes
may be visible at that time…
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2022
2022 is essentially going to be a year-long celebration to
mark the tenth anniversary. Alongside the Master Mode R-4 Anomaly
operation, there will of course be more story including at least one Flashpoint
and apparently some new locations! Ooh!
Now, 6.0 has repeated one of the major issues I have with Fallen
Empire and later the chapters of Eternal Throne. Too much of it was
instanced. Onderon and Mek-Sha were great, but then we had flashpoint this, special
story instance that, flashpoint this again, oh, and flashpoint that one more
time. So hopefully with 7.0 we will get more planets to visit that aren’t
instance-bound. That’s my one request for this whole expansion. Just somewhere
other than Manaan to visit, please?
There will also be a PvP revamp. They’ve touched on a system
that would allow players to apparently set a preference for map types in the
past year, so maybe this will be the inclusion of that system? Aside from the crucial
fixing of maps and the changes to lowbie brackets – which seem to have reversed
themselves with 6.3.1 – 6.0 has actually been surprisingly devoid of any PvP
stuff. Not one jot of anything new. I can understand why – given the issues
that some maps have been having, adding new stuff while a good portion of it is
actually unplayable is not wise. But it’s still quite surprising, even as a
non-PvPer, that this game mode has received very little tangible love this
whole expansion!
Beyond that, just more UI updates, visual updates, the third
Galactic Season and beyond, pretty standard but good stuff. I look
forward to seeing all that comes out during this time.
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All in all, Legacy of the Sith sounds like it could
be quite an intriguing expansion. The thing which I am looking forward to most
by far is revisiting Manaan. I’ve been wanting to see more of this world than
just the little hub, flashpoint, and stronghold for so long, and finally
we can actually explore more of it! YEE!
I am at least intrigued to see how many players push the new
combat styles system to its limits, even if the idea of someone switching from
a Gunslinger to a Vanguard without even needing to relog just seems so weird
right now. All I know is that I almost certainly will not be switching any of my characters' styles around. I do look forward to seeing actual Dark Jedi, however!
Everything else, currently, is just a matter of wait and
see. While I’m intrigued to see the new operation, I’m more interested in
learning about how the scaling will function this time around. Will everything
be level 80 or will we still be going into level 70 ops and contending with
some form of Veteran’s Edge?
Lots of things to receive information on in the coming
months. I absolutely love that the PTS will be going live (or at least intending
to be so) next week; that’s much earlier than I had anticipated! Until
then, it’s just a matter of digesting all this information...
far too excited for my own good tbh
ReplyDeletedo ypu have any opínons on zenith's return?
To be honest, I meant to write a post about it before news about the anniversary plans kinda got in the way a bit!
DeleteSummary: short but sweet. While I anticipate that he will receive more content in a later update, the reunion scene for Consulars was really nice and although I would never say that I truly 'liked' him before, I am definitely pleased to have him back.
I also really liked that he does not immediately sign up to the Alliance for other Republic characters due to there being Imperials among their ranks. It made perfect sense for his character.