Broadsword revealed what SWTOR 7.4 will offer. The game update is titled “Chains in the Dark” and will introduce a new daily area on Ord Mantell, a GTN revamp, gearing changes, lightning and shadow tech improvements, and new dyes and coloring options available in the Cartel Market!
Several members of the SWTOR team over at Broadsword hosted a live stream event on October 18th to announce and preview the upcoming game update 7.4 to Star Wars The Old Republic. This article details every segment of the live stream and some additional announcements that follow it.
Exclusive Livestream Code
As is tradition with these SWTOR livestreams, a code is given to players that can be used for a certain reward.
To get the Shae Vizla and Heta Kol stronghold decorations, use the code LotSVizla. Capitalization does not matter when entering this code on the SWTOR website.
Not-a-Surprise Appearance from Keith Kanneg
Keith Kanneg, Executive Producer of Star Wars: The Old Republic, made a surprise appearance at the start of the 7.4 livestream! He hinted at this appearance a few days ago in a message to the community featuring Broadsword Online President, Rob Denton, and Keith Kanneg.
Keith provided an overview and recap of technical and performance upgrades introduced since the switch to Broadsword Online Games along with a preview of what’s to come during the livestream and 7.4. He mentioned that there’s a roadmap introduced to Broadsword that spans from 7.4.1 to 7.6 but details were not given.
It’s nice to see an executive have an active role in the SWTOR community by showing up for a livestream. The fact that there’s a 7.5 and 7.6 in the works means that we have more SWTOR content to look forward to next year! Keith even mentioned that the team is working on their plans for 2025.
New Ord Mantell Area: Kessan’s Landing
A new daily area was revealed in the 7.4 Livestream, oddly enough it’s on Ord Mantell. A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one. Imperial characters will also be able to go to Ord Mantell to access Kessan’s Landing!
There will be new daily quests where you can earn new reputation, a new title, and reputation goodies such as a mount, armor set, and a “Unique Tech” side mission. Details weren’t shared about this side mission as this requires players to explore the galaxy to complete this mission, but it is supposedly useful on Kessan’s Landing. We’ll have a guide to it, of course.
Unfortunately, we were not given a preview of the new armor set available at Kessan’s Landing. But we did get some pictures of the new area!
New World Boss: FR3-D0M
FR3-D0M is a new world boss introduced in Kessan’s Landing. This battle droid was made by remnants of the Separatists and was described as a “propaganda bot”.
Not too many details were shared about its capabilities but we do know that players need to watch their footing. This droid can create pools of plasma on the ground which players will need to stay out of.
New Mounts
Players will have access to two new mounts unique to Kessan’s Landing. These are the Mantellian Hover Turret earned from the Reputation Vendor, and the Mantellian Separatist Hover Turret that is dropped from the world boss.
The Story continues in 7.4
As for the story, after the Separatist movement lost momentum, the Republic Military withdrew efforts on Ord Mantell. This caused the locals to feel left behind and a few Separatist sympathizers lurk about. Meanwhile the Hidden Chain, led by Heta Kol, is invading numerous worlds including Ord Mantell. This series of attacks is what leads your character to Kessan’s Landing.
Between the Separatists attempting to make a comeback along with the invasion by the Hidden Chain, things on Ord Mantell are in disarray. Though there are a good chunk of familiar faces returning for story progression in 7.4!
New and Returning Characters
We’ll see the return of Rass Ordo! This is good to hear because his voice actor always put in a lot of heart and effort into his lines, particularly in the battle cutscene on Ruhnuk.
When being introduced to Kessan’s Landing, a different character will join you depending on which faction you’re on.
For the Republic, this is Arn Peralun. Now a full-fledged Jedi Knight, he could have more chance for more character growth. It’s been a while since we’ve seen him, so this is a nice touch.
Imperial players going to Kessan’s Landing will be joined by Darth Krovos.
There are a couple of characters returning that were featured in the starting missions for the Trooper and Smuggler storylines. The first of these characters is Captain Blyes, who is working hard to defend Ord Mantell from the recent trouble.
Gizmel Gam is making a return to the story as well. He was part of the “Buying Loyalty” mission.
Petra Nihrum is a Cathar searching for her sister who was lost during the assault on Ord Mantell.
Lane Vizla will have more progress on her attempts to repair the Basilisk droids rescued on Ruhnuk.
A mysterious Zabrak man known as “The Curator” is a collector of antiquities. He’s after a rare, discontinued Czerka droid that was outlawed by the Republic.
If you heard “Czerka” and “droid” only to think of “HK Series Droids”, then you’re a true KOTOR / SWTOR fan! The droid The Curator seeks is an HK-24. This droid was designed by Czerka for the purpose of fighting Mandalorians and their Basilisk droids during the Neo Crusader conflicts.
Cinematic Lighting Changes
Lighting in cinematic cutscenes are getting an update. The goal was to make the lighting less harsh and more natural. Lighting from the environment has been expanded upon and it’s a great improvement overall.
Galactic Trade Network Revamp
The GTN will receive a significant UI overhaul that can create a more precise and concise experience. It includes the following:
- A new layout
- Basic and Advanced search options
- A new sale duration of 7 days
- A new “Claim” button to claim items purchased on the GTN
- A list including the tax for the sale, the buyer’s price, your listing fee, and total profit of the sale.
One thing to note is that when there are multiple copies of an item, you won’t see all of them at once when you search them. Instead, the amount of copies are seen under a new “Quantity” column along with the lowest available price. To compare prices and see the copies, you’ll need to inspect the item on the GTN.
As for items that stack such as Stims, Medpacs, or other consumables, the process to sell these will be much easier. When you sell a stack of items, you can set the unit price of the items instead of the total. The GTN will now do the calculations for you!
This is a great quality of life update as you can now more easily price items and know what your profit will be once the items are sold. This new layout was mentioned to be expanded upon and is designed to do just that, however further plans for the GTN have yet to be seen.
Gearing Changes in 7.4
There are a good amount of gearing changes coming to 7.4 that PvE, PvP, and Solo mission players will enjoy. Late game gear will be more accessible to a wider array of players overall in 7.4!
Item Ceiling Increase
The most significant change to gearing is the Item Ceiling increase. This includes:
- Noble Decurion (Conquest) gear can be upgraded to 340
- Supreme Decurion (Flashpoints) gear can be upgraded to 340
- Tionese (SM Operations) gear can be upgraded to 340
- Columni (VM Operation) gear can be upgraded to 340
- Rakata (MM Operations) gear can be upgraded to 344
- Thyrsian (PvP) gear can be upgraded to 336
Legendary Implant Ratings and Non-Legendary Implant Changes
Legendary Implants purchased from SN-4RK can reach item rating 340. Now would be a good time to upgrade your implants to 336. Even though the achievement is retired, the Implant Destiny: 330 and 334 achievements still function to give you a 4,000 tech fragment discount. Simply apply two 330/334 Legendary implants on a character to unlock the discount for your legacy! It is unknown if there will be an Implant Destiny: 340 achievement in 7.4.
To put a bigger emphasis on upgrading legendary implants, non-legendary implants will no longer from from bosses or item crates beyond item rating 336. If you want to get 338 or 340 implants, you’ll need to upgrade some legendary ones.
PvP Changes
With the Thyrsian item cap now being changed to 336, it’s safe to say that this will be the new recommended item rating for PvP purposes. If you’re into PvP, start gearing up now and prepare yourself for 7.4 as item rating differences in PvP can be unforgiving.
If you’re new to PvP and need tips on the warzones, check out our PvP Map Guides for SWTOR so you can better prepare yourself for 7.4!
Rakata Gear Accessibility
The devs stated that players can earn Rakata gear no matter how they player. As of 7.3, Rakata gear is end game gear earned from Master Mode Operations. We have yet to learn how exactly this becomes more accessible but there was one feature listed.
Players can earn OP-1 Catalysts by completing Master Mode Chapters from Knights of the Fallen Empire and Knights of the Eternal Order. Players will earn eight OP-1 Catalysts for every Master Mode chapter they complete. It is not currently known if you can repeat this to farm OP-1 Catalysts or if it’s only once overall per chapter.
Convert Virulent gear to Rakata Gear
Virulent 340 gear can be exchanged for Rakata 342 armor at the R-4 Veteran Exchange vendor on the fleet. This will cost R-4 Veteran Gear tokens, OP-1 Catalysts, and Credits.
Hyde and Zeek
With the new item rating ceilings, Hyde and Zeek will offer new missions for you to earn item modifications for 340 gear. This should help all of your alts get geared up to 340 when you unlock the mods, allowing you to have your alts partake in the updated activities!
New Cartel Market Items and Life Day
With the return of life day, you can expect to hug Wookiees, be pelted by endless snowballs on the fleet, and earn rewards from Snow Covered Parcels. Along with this, a new armor Life Day Armor Set will be available!
Life Day Officer Armor Set
This is the Life Day Officer Armor that will be available during the Life Day event as of 7.4 The design may be subject to change.
Defiant Maverick Armor
This Mandalorian Armor set was modeled after Sabine Wren’s armor. You may recognize her from Star Wars: Rebels and the Ashoka series. This armor supposedly works very well with dyes (as it should) but no alternative and additional examples were given during the stream.
Suppression Trooper Armor
This armor set is a solid looking trooper set that features new lighting features that will be introduced in SWTOR 7.4. This feature is known as “Specularity” and offers great finishes to the armor. This armor set has a Metallic Black and Pearlescent Red finish.
Specularity and New Dyes
Specularity is an adjective that describes how reflective something is. The SWTOR devs seek to add various levels of reflectiveness and matte appearances to items through texture upgrades and dyes. For the time being, this will be done primarily through dyes. You can see some previews of how this looks here!
This last image was made to show how these new dyes interact with non-metal components. It still adds a brilliant sheen to the armor and can be a good fit if you’re trying to fit into the Canto Bight scene. Alternatively, perhaps you could pull off a High Republic Jedi look if you put this on some robes? Only time will tell!
There are six new dyes in 7.4 that will play with specularity are:
- Metallic Black and Pearlescent Red
- Pearlescent Red and Metallic Black
- Chrome White and Metallic Gold
- Metallic Gold and Chrome White
- Metallic Black and Matte Black
- Matte Black and Metallic Black
Unfortunately, no previews of the Metallic Black/Matte Black dyes were shown during the livestream.
Suppression Trooper Rifle
This blaster rifle is designed to pair with the Suppression Trooper armor set seen above. Like the armor set, this rifle will also feature specularity in its design. We got some concept art during the stream but no in-game pictures.
Westar 19 Weapon Sets
There will be a new set of blasters known as the Westar 19 Weapon Set. This will be available in the Cartel Market in three sets of colors. You will have the Western 19 set in black, Westar 19-B set in blue, and the Westar 19-C set in orange. It is currently unknown if these are all available in a bundle or purchased separately.
Darth Nul Dualsaber
We’ve had the Darth Nul lightsaber available for some time, though in 7.4 we’ll now have access to the dualsaber variant in the Cartel Market.
Best View in SWTOR 2023 Finalists Revealed
As the judging process is still going on for the Best View in SWTOR 2023 contest, the winners have yet to be announced. Though we did get to see all of the finalists for the contests and many of these pictures are quite stunning.
It’s easy to forget that a lot of effort went into the maps and we should admire the view from time to time. If you want to see the finalists’ images, check out the VOD of the Livestream on SWTOR’s Twitch channel!
New Key Art for SWTOR 7.4
With the release of 7.4, we’ll get new loading screen art that features Heta Kol holding a holocron. Whatever she is up to, it cannot be good for the galaxy. This will provide a nice change of pace of the current art showing Shae’s forces combatting Heta Kol’s.
SWTOR 7.4 Release Date
SWTOR 7.4 is slated to be a “Holiday Release” according to the developers. Because of the inclusion of Life Day in the presentation, this could mean that the update is set for a target release date sometime in December 2023.
An exact date has not been shared yet but if you’re eager to try out the new content, try it out on the PTS when it becomes available!
The dev team aimed to have PTS available this week, but an update post on the forums after the live stream revealed that this goal will not be met and the planned launch of PTS 7.4 is “early next week”.
Summary and Thoughts
Overall the progression of item ratings and story is nice and should keep players busy for a bit of time. However, once players max out their items, they’re going to want more content.
The addition of specularity to the game is great but it leaves me concerned with how it can clash with many of the older textures in SWTOR. This game came out in 2011 and parts of the game, particularly the core vanilla planets, have textures that didn’t age well. It would be nice if we received a texture upgrade in the future but only time will tell if that actually happens.
Overall it was a good stream and this can help raise hopes for players that feared there would be less content for SWTOR after the move to Broadsword. It seems like there’s more to come in the following year.
Keep up to date with VULKK.com by regularly checking out our SWTOR Update 7.4 Coverage Archives.
