Apr 25, 2022

STAR WARS™: The Old Republic™ - SWTOR Community Team

Highlight

Weapons in Outfitter - The new customization functionality is now live! You can now have one weapon (or weapons for dual-wielding combat styles) equipped which will determine the stats applied to your character, and stamp the appearance of another weapon of the same type via Outfitter. More information here.
Double XP Event - Starting May 3rd (12:00 UTC) and lasting until May 10th (12:00 UTC) there will be a week-long Double XP Event! Enjoy a full week of Double XP and Valor.

General

The following currencies have been renamed to clarify what content the currencies are related to:
- Medal of Commendation is now Conquest Commendation
- Aquatic Resource Matrix is now Daily Resource Matrix
- Hazardous Matter Catalyst is now OP-1 Catalyst
- Thyrsian Production Accelerant is now WZ-1 Accelerant
- Decurion Isotope Stabilizer is now FP-1 Stabilizer
Currency is no longer lost when opening a currency lockbox while the player is at the Weekly cap.
- There is now a message “You have exceeded the < currency limit > weekly limit!” informing that the currency limit has been reached and the lockbox returns in the inventory.
Currency icons no longer appear dimmed when the Inventory window is reopened while the Materials window is active.
Fixed an issue where companions were missing attacks, taunts and heals, as well as some of their stats.
It is no longer possible to claim Guest Companions’ gear once they become unavailable.
Updated the Companion icons in the Legacy “Global Unlocks” to match the other icons size.
Added the “details” button to the Companion tab in the Character Sheet window.
Updated the description of the following Companion’s effects to remove the Strength, Aim, Willpower, and Cunning mentions as those no longer exist.
- Mark of Power
- Force Valor
The compact option in the inventory window is now correctly working.
The comparison pop-up is now correctly displayed when hovering on gear from the inventory.
There is now a clear distinction between locked and unlocked Utilities in the Character Sheet window.
Fixed sound effect issues on several buttons across the game.
Fixed a few typos across the game.
The zoom in/out and rotation buttons no longer appear on the “Origin” screen as this option is not available on this screen.
Fixed an issue that was preventing Manaan from appearing in the ship arrival scene for the Invasion Zone destination.
Slugfall Cantina on Mek’Sha is now a rest area.
The Ability icons in the Loadout tab no longer light up when selected, as intended.
Discipline names no longer overlap with the item ratings.
Improved the readability of the Item Recovery number from the Inventory window of the Character Sheet.
Emotes window now correctly displays a list of locked and unlocked emotes when redeeming an emote from the Inventory window while the Emotes window is opened.
Healing Ability tooltips are now correctly updated based on the level scaling.
Dragging an unbound weapon into an occupied off-hand slot no longer automatically equips the weapon to the main-hand.
Fixed the issue where the armor values were sometimes incorrect when shifting the level of a player. This occurred if the player was being shifted to an item rating that did not exist for the quality of the item they were wearing.
The Damage value shown in the character sheet is no longer displaying higher than intended. Players will notice the value has been reduced by roughly half, this is only a display change and has no impact on the damage they deal.

Cartel Market

Claiming Darth Vindican’s Lightsaber from Collections or purchasing it from the Cartel Market now correctly gives the Lightsaber instead of the Dualsaber.
Fixed the names of the following Advanced Mystic Hazel Color Crystals on the Cartel Market to match the item names:
- Advanced Mystic Hazel Eviscerating Crystal
- Advanced Mystic Hazel Indestructible Crystal
- Advanced Mystic Hazel War Hero's Crystal
- Advanced Mystic Hazel Hawkeye Crystal

Items + Economy

Fixed texture issues on the following weapons:
- Raider’s Cove Med-Tech’s Blasters
- Blastech T-189 Rifle
- Blastech T-189S Sniper Rifle
Spoils of War set bonuses now correctly state that they do not apply above level 75.
Fixed an issue on several Pummeler’s Lightsaber items which incorrectly had Alacrity instead of Critical Rating.
Premium Gear Containers from Onslaught Missions are now correctly rewarding gear.
Kai Zykken’s Unidentified Set Bonus boxes now correctly grant items.
Fallen Master Ranos Customizations 1 and 2 can now be unlocked in Collections, as intended.
Artifact Lockboxes from Ossus can now be opened.
It is now possible to change the default position of the “Seeker Probes” decoration.
Gear icons of Galactic Season 2 weapons are now correctly updated when a mod is added.
Locked Supply Crates are no longer destroyed if the Alliance Specialist conversation to unlock those is canceled and the player’s inventory is full.

Combat Styles
General

The Ability window is no longer overlapping with the Ability Tree after opening the Combat Style window and alternating between the Abilities tab and Ability Tree tab.

Combat Styles Changes
Guardian
Defense

Updated the tooltip of Hord’s Makashi Strike Tactical to mention the “Riposte Form” buff.

Shadow
Infiltration

Fixed an issue with the Blade of the Elements Tactical where the critical hit chance bonus wasn't correctly being applied when building Clairvoyance with Whirling Blow.

Sage
Seer

Keeper of Peace now correctly consumes Conveyance.
Keeper of Peace now heals the lowest health target within its AoE range.

Balance

Center Point - When the AoE damage is triggered it no longer hits the primary target twice.
Returning Light - Sever Force triggers Returning Light when it ticks. Rate limit reduced to 3 seconds (from 5 seconds).

Sorcerer
Madness

Eternal Torment - When the AoE damage is triggered it no longer hits the primary target twice.
Creeping End - Creeping Terror triggers Creeping End when it ticks. Rate limit reduced to 3 seconds (from 5 seconds).

Corruption

Rally now correctly consumes Force Bending.
Rally now heals the lowest health target within its AoE range.

Marauder

Fixed a discrepancy between Marauder and Sentinel Ability Tree with a mod related to Rebuke / Cloak of Pain.

Juggernaut
Immortal

Fixed the issue where Immortal Juggernaut did not receive damage reduction after activating Retaliation.

Vanguard

Tactical Armor and Infused Kolto Packs stacks can no longer be clicked off.

Shield Specialist

Pulse Cannon now does all ticks of damage.

Tactics

Kill Zone - When dealing AoE damage the primary target no longer gets hit twice.
Ricochet Rounds - When dealing AoE damage the primary target no longer gets hit twice.

Plasmatech

Tactical Strike - When dealing AoE damage the primary target no longer gets hit twice.

Powertech

Energy Yield and Energy Heal stacks can no longer be clicked off.

Pyrotech

Open Flame - When dealing AoE damage the primary target no longer gets hit twice.

Advanced Prototype

Heat Zone - When dealing AoE damage the primary target no longer gets hit twice.
Retracted Refresh - When dealing AoE damage the primary target no longer gets hit twice.

Scoundrel
Scrapper

Pugnacity now correctly applies a +20% crit damage buff.

Gunslinger
Sharpshooter

Fixed an issue where certain Sharpshooter passive mods were activated by offhand weapon damage.

Saboteur

Fixed an issue with the “Aim Assist” Ability mod so it properly gives the correct critical hit chance bonus.

Operative
Concealment

Stim Boost now correctly applies a +20% crit damage buff.

Crewskills

It is no longer possible to craft Nightmare Fury Crystal.
Corrected an issue preventing the creation of GSI Triangulation Enhancer Mark II.

Flashpoints
General

Reduced the health and damage for all enemies of the following Flashpoints:
- A Traitor Among the Chiss (Veteran and Master Mode)
- Crisis on Umbara (Veteran and Master Mode)
- Lost Island (Veteran and Master Mode)
- The Nathema Conspiracy (Veteran and Master Mode)
Reduced the health of all enemies in Spirit of Vengeance (Solo Mode)
Completing any Activity Finder Flashpoint now correctly grants 2 points towards “Technological Advancements” Mission.
The German description of the Ranked Arenas in the Activity Finder is now correctly displayed.

Flashpoints
Directive 7

Fixed the visual effect during the clone fight in Directive 7 Flashpoint.

The Esseles

Completing the Esseles Flashpoint is now correctly granting credit for “Technological Advancements” Mission - Story and Veteran Mode.

Ruins of Nul

Sa’har’s collar is no longer clipping through the neck during the cinematics of Ruins of Nul Flashpoint.
Fixed the visual issue on Apex Ranphyx’s teeth and horns during the Ruins of Nul Flashpoint.

Operations
General

The description of the [WEEKLY] The Nature of Progress (Story and Veteran Mode) now correctly shows the complete list of required bosses to complete the Mission.
OEM-37 has been removed from Operations drops and Missions.
Rewards have been adjusted throughout Operations to be more balanced. The new Tech Fragments values per boss are listed below. More information in this forum post.
- Story Mode Operations
  - Boss 1: 150 Tech Fragments
  - Boss 2: 300 Tech Fragments
  - Boss 3: 500 Tech Fragments
  - Boss 4: 500 Tech Fragments
  - Boss 5: 550 Tech Fragments
  - Total: 2000 Tech Fragments
- Veteran Mode Operations
  - Boss 1: 200 Tech Fragments
  - Boss 2: 450 Tech Fragments
  - Boss 3: 600 Tech Fragments
  - Boss 4: 600 Tech Fragments
  - Boss 5: 650 Tech Fragments
  - Total: 2500 Tech Fragments
- Master Mode Operations
  - Boss 1: 225 Tech Fragments
  - Boss 2: 450 Tech Fragments
  - Boss 3: 750 Tech Fragments
  - Boss 4: 750 Tech Fragments
  - Boss 5: 825 Tech Fragments
  - Total: 3000 Tech Fragments

Operations
Scum and Villainy

It is no longer possible to avoid the effects of the Sandstorm during the Dash’roode encounter in the Scum and Villainy Operation.

Missions + NPCs

Changes to rewards for PvP, GSF, and Operations have been made. More information in this forum post.
- Tech Fragments rewarded from individual Daily Area and Heroic Missions increased to 30 (up from 10)
- Tech Fragments rewarded from the Personal Conquest goal increased to 500 (up from 250)
- Players will be able to exchange extra Conquest Commendations directly for Tech Fragments at the Spoils of War vendor at a rate of 50 Conquest Commendations for 50 Tech Fragments.
Broonmark is no longer hostile to Republic players during the Alliance Alert “The Last of His Kind”.
Elite Droid enemies are no longer spawning during the Regnant encounter in the Ruins of Nul Flashpoint - Solo and Story Mode.
Rebalanced the Purifier Droids encounter in Chapter IV: Where Dreams Die - Knights of the Eternal Throne.
The dialogue line in the cinematic for converting Tech Fragments now mentions the correct amount of Tech Fragments required.
Players are now teleported to the Odessen’s Alliance Camp Headquarters after defeating Aries in Chapter V: Ascension - Knights of the Eternal Throne.
Player characters with Scoundrel or Powertech as the active combat style no longer draw an invisible weapon in the cinematics of “Eve of Destruction” Mission.
Player characters with Assassin as the active combat style now correctly use a dualsaber during the following cinematics:
- Mashallon encounter in “To Kill a Legend” Mission.
- Overseer Tremer encounter in “A New Master” Mission.
Mission Rewards in the Activity Finder window no longer overlap each other when there are Provided rewards and Selected rewards.
Fixed Colonel Gallo’s position during the “Rig the First Emplacement” step of “Dead in the Water” Mission - Republic side.
An invisible Ephemeris has been removed from the Ephemeris encounter in the Star Fortress - Story Mode.
The camera shake no longer persists during the final cinematic of Echoes of Oblivion Mission.
Koth’s Crew is no longer hanging out on the Gravestone before being recruited in Chapter IV: The Gravestone - Knights of the Fallen Empire.

Arenas + Warzones

/stuck command can now be used in PvP Arenas and Warzones.
Level Shift is now correctly scaling gear down in PvP matches.
The following Missions now allow progress on loss (Wins will count 3x):
- [DAILY] March Them Down
- [DAILY] No Quarter
- [DAILY] United We Stand
- [DAILY] Zero Tolerance
- [WEEKLY] Conspicuous Valor
- [WEEKLY] The Spoils of War
- [WEEKLY] The War Front
RPM-13 has been removed from Group Ranked Daily and Weekly Missions.
[WEEKLY] A Surprising Offer Missions have been removed from the Fleets.
Improved Unranked Weekly Mission Rewards for [WEEKLY] Conspicuous Valor and [WEEKLY] The Spoils of War:
- WZ-1 Accelerants are now 110 (up from 55)
- Tech Fragments are now 1500 (up from 450)
- Daily Matrices are now 20 (up from 8)
Improved Unranked Daily Mission Rewards for [DAILY] March Them Down and [DAILY] No Quarter:
Tech Fragments are now 150 (up from 75)
Reduced Ranked Weekly Rewards:
- Tech Fragments from [WEEKLY] Go Berserk! has been reduced to 1750 (down from 2000).
Changes made to Galactic Starfighter rewards:
- Tech Fragments from [WEEKLY] Galactic Starfighter are now 850 (down from 1000)
- Processed Isotope Stabilizers have been removed as reward and added to Jawa Vendors for exchange.
The cost of OEM-37 and RPM-13 on the Spoils of War vendor has been reduced to 4,000 (down from 10,000).
- The required OEM-37 and RPM-13 to create a CM-1337 has been reduced to 5 OEM-37 and 5 RPM-13 (down from 7 OEM-37 and 14 RPM-13).

Conquests

Adjustments made on Conquest Commendations:
- The currency cap of Conquest Commendations has been raised to 2500 (up from 999)
- The weekly cap of Conquest Commendations has been raised to 1500 (up from 999)
- Conquest Commendations can now be exchanged for Tech Fragments at the Spoils of War Vendor.

Galactic Seasons

Players who didn’t receive the “Sliced Cybernetic Visual Enhancement Implants” prior to 7.0.1 fix can now claim it back from the rewards track.
The tooltip of the Galactic Season Token from the Galactic Season Login Rewards window now correctly disappears when moving the mouse away.

Apr 25, 2022

Dev Diary #1: Simultaneous turns

Stolen Realm - Santo

Hello and welcome to the first entry of the dev diary for Stolen Realm! We’ve been hard at work for months after the Early Access release to expand the base of the game (and we've got some quite relevant updates to prove it!); but now that the dust has settled and we feel we’re heading in the right direction, we wanted to open our metaphorical doors a little bit to share with you the development process of the game – and sometimes how’s our daily work as indie developers. For this first entry we want to discuss how we came up with one of the basic pillars of Stolen Realm: its unique blend of the depth of turn-based strategy games and the white-knuckle ride of action-RPG.

Stolen Realm is our passion project, borne of our love of turn-based games, but it’s also our answer to a problem we stumbled upon very soon in the design process: we wanted to do a TBS game, and one we could play with our friends because we love shared gaming sessions; but most of these turn-based games are usually designed for single player experiences. They also run into issues when you start adding multiplayer options, such as a massive downtime between turns during combat.

This particular problem meant we found it very difficult to get into a lot of turn-based games, especially since many titles required you to start the game together rather than just jump in and out with a character. So we realized that, for our game, we needed to find a way to conduct drop-in sessions with your friends at any given time without feeling slowed down by too many players, which is how many action-RPG games tend to work. It had to be fast-paced as well – but without sacrificing a satisfyingly deep tactical combat system with a lot of strategic options. There was another challenge attached to this: when to lock people together, and when to let them free roam making up their own adventures on the go.

A battle balanced for just one player

Just like any other game, we had our own deep well of inspirations and ideas that we researched and looked at the pros and cons of before we jumped into development of Stolen Realm. We loved that concept enough that we felt that we had to bring that mechanic to the world of deep tactical combat, considering that this would allow us to make a tactical turn-based game with fast paced gameplay vs long, drawn out rounds with multiple players in the game. As for other inspirations, we looked at games we love from both genres and took the best elements. For turn-based we’re inspired by Divinity Original Sin 2, Pillars of Eternity, Baldur’s Gate 1-3 and on the action RPG side we’re heavily inspired by Diablo 2, Path of Exile and others. We also draw a bit from the exploration mechanics from Slay the Spire.

It honestly just worked right out of the box a lot better than we thought. We were worried that it would downplay the importance of the strategy layer and everyone wouldn’t play off each other, but it ended up resulting in more strategic gameplay. When the fight is straightforward, everyone kind of moves forward and the battle progresses quickly. When you need a more strategic move, everyone kind of talks about it and then you have the full freedom of every team member executing their moves in any order, which actually creates a more synergistic strategy.

There were certain mechanics we gave up to make it work a little better. Heroes don’t get a lot of action points, although you can build your character towards a lot of free actions. And there wasn’t much we could do with a hero getting more turns than another, but we think the benefits outweigh any sacrifices we had to make.

This battle, significantly more difficult, is balanced for a full party

But what was exactly the solution we found? It’s what we call “simultaneous turns” – probably the most defining feature of the game. You can really have 20 enemies that all move together and execute their turns at the same time. As an example, if you have 20 enemies in say for example Divinity 2, that usually results in long down time while you wait for everyone to take their turn. This also meant that the AI for Stolen Realm had to be tuned for performance and avoid any clashes for the mechanic to function successfully. Another big part is quick story decisions that play a big role in how the team places, as well as bringing everyone together in the game’s narrative.

Let’s talk about the simultaneous turn system first. Basically, if you’re on the same team, everyone gets to trigger their actions all at once. The resolution for this is just like a real time battle, although due to a small number of action points per turn, there is still a high degree of turn-based combat feeling to the game. With regards to the adaptive AI, at the start of their turn, they sequentially map out what they are going to do next. This calculation takes less than a second, but it allows each enemy to know what the other is planning on doing, so they don't make mistakes such as trying to move to the same hex as each other. Once this is completed, they all execute their actions in real time, so the end result is the enemies act and move at the same time, effectively giving us the same great strategic feel without the absurd wait times.

An enemy turn with our simultaneous turn system

Balancing is one of the hardest things as a game developer. Having said that, we’ve taken great lengths to ensure that you don't need to play with extra characters that you don't feel obligated to take with you. Most turn-based games don't have this mechanic: a lot of them are just meant to be played with a full party, and this puts you at a disadvantage if you don't. Action RPGS on the other hand generally scale up in difficulty whenever more people join the game, and this is what we wanted. Effectively, you get to choose the party size, and the game adapts even if it’s a party of 1.

In order to ensure every aspect of the game worked harmoniously with each other, we had the core philosophy of making a great turn based RPG without waiting times from the beginning, which made it easier to add everything around that core gameplay design. There are still many design choices that are made along the way, but we always try to keep as much strategy without causing a large wait.

Thank you for reading today’s dev diary! Remember to check out Stolen Realm on Steam, add us to your wishlists and we’ll catch you again in the near future with some more information. You can also drop by our Discord channel to say hello, meet other fellow heroes of the realm, and give us your feedback about the game!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1330000/Stolen_Realm/