Star Wars: The Old Republic news » Onslaught PTS: Round Two

The second round of testing for the ‘Onslaught’ Expansion on the Public Test Server is now live! With this round, a bunch of new things have been added to the PTS. We’ve added the loot acquisition from Spoils of War, Crafting progression, and the Dxun Operation for testing!

Spoils of War Acquisition

As we’ve previously discussed at cantinas, on livestreams, forum posts, and our Reddit AMAA, there are a lot of aspects to the “Spoils of War” changes for gearing. Increased loot drops across the board, Amplifiers, deconstruction, a slot-targeting vendor, and Galactic Renown changes are all now live on the PTS! Are some of these changes news to you? If so, here’s a quick breakdown:

In general, a lot more loot will be dropping at a faster rate. Amplifiers can now be found on all newly acquired pieces of gear that are eligible. For example, for an Amplifier to appear on a Shell piece, the Shell must be Premium quality or above. Amplifiers have a lot of different effects, but if you don’t like which effect you rolled, you can re-roll them for credits. Rerolling will give you a selection of three different Amplifiers to choose from. If you prefer your current Amplifier over the new options, you can simply stick with what you already have. The cost for rerolling an amp increases each time you reroll in succession on the same item, so it may be more effective to go find some more gear in the world rather than burning all your credits on a single item!

With the increase in loot drops it’s a safe bet that players will find themselves with loot they don’t need. Thanks to our new deconstruction system, players will now be able to break down items into either crafting components or Jawa Junk depending on the item type. If a broken-down item was crafted, and you have the required Crewskill to reverse engineer that item, crafting materials will be gained. If the item is either a world-drop or you don’t have the needed Crewskill, Jawa Junk will be granted instead. Jawa Junk can be turned into a special vendor, granting either crafting materials or randomized gear for a specific slot. You can throw as much Jawa Junk at the vendor until you get a piece that meets your needs, allowing you to really hone-in on what item you’re trying to get.

Lastly, the Galactic Command system will be reset and rebranded to Galactic Renown. Renown will essentially function the same way as Galactic Command, by earning Renown Experience through completing various tasks (killing certain enemies, completing activities etc.) The main difference is, this won’t be the main way for players to attain gear. This will be a supplemental system that rewards players as they complete group activities, PvP, and more!

Crafting Progression

With this testing round there will be a lot of changes coming to the Crafting system. Crafting and Crew Skill specific materials, such as Armormech’s “Armormech Combined Component”, have been expanded to have three quality types - Premium, Prototype, Artifact. Let’s say you’re an Armormech and want to craft the highest quality Armormech Combined Component. You can take your lower quality materials, such as premium, and with a handful of other materials, create an Artifact quality one. Additionally, Crafting materials needed for upper tier crafting can also be obtained via Flashpoints, Operations, or PvP. These aren’t limited to specific activities, but instead can be obtained from any of them. Conquests will also offer a Crafting material of their own. You can currently acquire all crafting materials from a variety of different content modes.  Coinciding with this, a new Profession-wide Legendary Component can be attainable from either broken down Legendary items or Wealthy Yield Profession Missions.

Dxun Operation

The upcoming Dxun Operation is now available for testing! If you would like to see what dangers await you in Dxun's jungles, head to Odessen. There, your adventure will begin with an ominous bridge leading into the sky.

Story mode will be available for testing. This may not be quite balanced yet, so some encounters may be challenging, while others may be easy. Ideally, the team is looking for Story Mode to be significantly easier than the Gods from the Machine Operation. We strongly encourage players to try a variety of Set Bonus and Tactical combinations to really push the boundaries of these encounters! We will encourage Veteran Mode testing and feedback as we get closer to PTS Round Three.

Feedback

To coincide with these targeted PTS rounds, we will be looking for specific feedback. This feedback will help the team not only make changes for the classes, but help us balance them against other classes as well. What we’re looking for is:

• How do the Set Bonuses look and feel while playing?
• How do the Tactical Items look and feel while playing?
• How easy or hard is it to understand what certain Set Bonuses, Tactical Items, or Amplifiers do?
• Which Set Bonuses, Tactical Items, or Amplifiers seem underpowered or overpowered, and why?
• What are your thoughts on the Amplifier system and how to reroll them?
• How do the gear drops feel? Are they rewarding, is there too little gear, or too much etc.?
• How do Flashpoints and Operations (especially Karagga’s Palace/Eternity Vault) feel? What needs adjustment in these areas?
• How does Dxun feel? Is it too easy or too hard? Do certain aspects need further balancing?

Feel free to start your theory-crafting early, as long as you keep in mind that any numbers you see are not final. Once all Classes are made available for testing, we’ll start asking for more focused balance feedback across all Classes! Head over to our PTS forum to share your thoughts.

How to Get Started

1. Create a new character and leave your starting phase to find a teleport terminal which will send you to Odessen, boost your character to 75, and grant you credits.
2. Click on the boost terminal on Odessen to jump your character to level 75 and grant you credits.
3. Interact with the class-appropriate PTS Gear Vendor on Odessen to choose from a variety of Set Bonus gear and Tactical Items.
4. Now test them out to your heart’s desire! Play any content you’d like to help get a feel for these changes and how they work. Whether it’s practicing on training dummies, random enemies in the wild, Warzones, or Flashpoints, the choice is yours! (Remember, most content has not been balanced for level 75 yet, so things will likely be far too easy or too hard.)

Would you prefer to copy one of your own characters? If so, you can follow these easy instructions below!

1. Log into www.swtor.com.
2. Click on your account name in the top right hand corner of the site.
3. Click “My Account.”
4. In the left column, scroll down and click the link entitled “PTS Character Copy.”
5. Select the server and then the character that you wish to copy from.
6. Click the “Copy Character” button.
7. The site will display the current status of your character copy at the top of the page. Additionally, you can click the “View your character transfer history” link to see if the copy has completed.

Rewards

As mentioned in the previous PTS article, during this round there will be the first of two PTS-exclusive Achievements, which will require you to complete five in-game group activities. Earning both Achievements will grant exclusive rewards when 6.0 releases!

Completing these Achievements will earn you the following rewards*:

• Complete the first PTS achievement - The Strike Team Specialist and Strike Team Commander Character Titles.
• Complete the second PTS achievement (available in a future PTS update) - The new Kai Zykken MK-85 Test Log Mount. Warning - Mount may move at the speed of an actual log.

What to Expect

• There will be multiple rounds of testing on PTS, expect that we may wipe characters in between rounds.
• Some rounds will allow for character copy, while others may not. Keep your eyes on each round’s PTS blog for details.
• The PTS may not be available at all times as it is a test server. Downtime with little or no warning is possible. Please watch the PTS forum for details.
• Everything shown on the PTS is subject to change.
• At the beginning of each round of PTS testing, expect to see a new blog like this one!

The team is hard at work bringing a lot of changes to the PTS over the course of this summer, so please jump in and give us your feedback!