Battlefield Briefing: Welcome to 2042
Update - September 3: We wanted to give you a heads up on a change we've made to Falck based on findings from our Technical Playtest last month. A big finding was that Falck's S21 Syrette Pistol was causing a significant enough imbalance in gameplay to warrant making some changes. Previously we shared that Falck's Gadget would Revive, and Heal at Range., but going forward the gadget will simply Heal at Range, and not Revive. REPORT FOR BRIEFING Get ready for the next generation of all-out warfare! You’ve learned a lot about Battlefield 2042 over the past few days, through our Reveal Trailer, Gameplay Trailer (which is still just Pre-Alpha footage, by the way) and via our website. We’ll have plenty more to discuss in the months ahead, but first it’s time to recap everything we’ve talked about so far. Battlefield is bigger than ever. Using the power of new generation consoles and latest PC hardware each match will feature up to 128 players on Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PlayStation® 5 and PC. On Xbox One, and PlayStation® 4, maps and modes will be optimized for a 64-player experience. Three Distinct Multiplayer Experiences Within Battlefield 2042’s All-Out Warfare experience, fan-favorites Conquest and Breakthrough once again make their return. In Conquest, two teams fight to control various points on the map in order to reduce the enemy’s strength to nothing. Breakthrough pits a team of attackers against defenders, with attackers having to capture all sectors on the map to overcome the defenders and win. Conquest is bigger than ever, with multiple Sectors (each Sector containing several control points) ensuring battles are constantly happening all over the map during a match Using Battlefield 2042’s increased map scale, Conquest matches will now contain multiple smaller areas, called Sectors. Each of these Sectors consist of a grouping of control points, filling out each map with even more battles happening concurrently during a match. Expanded vehicle and traversal options have also been added into the mix to make navigating these large spaces fully streamlined. Also new is the introduction of AI Soldiers (Artificial Intelligence) to the series. As a multiplayer-only experience, it’s important for us to let you play Battlefield 2042 when and how you want. Here is what that looks like in the All-Out Warfare experience of Conquest and Breakthrough: Multiplayer – AI soldiers are used for server-filling capabilities, ensuring your matches remain full, no matter your location. Co-Op – Allows you to play together with friends, against AI soldiers. Solo – If you wish to perfect your skills for multiplayer, you can even play alone against AI soldiers. And lastly, a reminder on the two other distinct multiplayer experiences coming to Battlefield 2042. One is being built by our team in LA, which we’ll show you at EA Play Live on July 22nd. And finally, Battlefield 2042 will introduce Hazard Zone, a brand new Battlefield game mode we’re excited to talk more about later this year. Set in the near future, the world has changed. Both the United States and Russia are once again on the brink of war as nations struggle over resources. As entire countries collapse, people find themselves with no nation to call home. These nomads are known as the Non-Patriated (“No-Pats”), a diverse group of people who have bound together in various clusters across the globe in order to survive the new turbulent world. In Battlefield 2042, you’ll play as Non-Patriated soldiers with unique skills who’ve taken up arms to secure dwindling world resources such as food, water and energy. They are known as Specialists, tasked with trafficking intel and supplies, and carrying out military missions that serve No-Pat geopolitical interests. Each of these unique Specialists have their own specialty and trait that you can use to give yourself the advantage in combat. Specialists mark a change from the Loadouts of previous Battlefield games. Every Specialist now has a Specialty and Trait that ties into their class of either Assault, Engineer, Recon, or Support. These Specialties and Traits are unique to their respective Specialist, which for your Loadout means you can now fully customize it to your liking: Primary Weapon Equipment (items anyone can use such as a Medical Crate or Supply Crate) Secondary Weapon Throwable (such as Frag or Incendiary Grenade) Class type will no longer restrict what weapons, equipment or throwable you can equip, offering you more flexibility than ever before in the series when it comes to Loadouts. You can also save these custom Loadouts, and select them for any Specialist you’d like to play with. Similar to personalizing your Loadout, you will also be able to customize the appearance of your Specialist. You’ll have the freedom to choose how you’d like to stand out on the Battlefield. There will be plenty of customization options available to ensure your Specialist doesn’t look the same as other players, and you can expect more details on customization at a later time. "With Specialists, we're excited to offer our players more flexibility than ever before when it comes to customizing their loadouts and adapting to situations on the battlefield," says Daniel Berlin, Design Director on Battlefield 2042. Battlefield 2042’s maps are filled with countless tactical positions for you to use to dominate the battlefield. Just be ready to move at a moment’s notice since storms, powerful weapons, and other dynamic events can tip the scales of war. At launch, you’ll be able to play as 10 unique Specialists. We’ve selected four of them to give you a closer look: Webster MacKay Lone-wolf survivalist MacKay is all about traversal. His Grappling Hook allows him to maneuver around the map more freely, while his Specialist trait (Nimble) prevents a movement penalty when aiming down sights or ziplining. Wikus ‘Casper’ van Daele Technologically savvy and a practitioner of subterfuge, Wikus’ abilities and specialty equipment make him a huge resource to any team. His OV-P Recon Drone can designate targets for lock-on weapons, spot nearby enemies, and detonate EMP blasts. Wikus’ trait (Movement Sensor) alerts him about approaching enemies, both when on the ground or piloting his recon drone. This makes him an absolute master of situational awareness. Maria Falck The true medic of the group, Maria’s S21 Syrette Pistol fires a syringe that can heal or revive friendlies at range and with increased speed, or damage foes. Her Combat Surgeon trait sets her apart from other Specialists by allowing her to revive fallen allies back to full health. Pyotr “Boris” Guskovsky A necessity for any squad, Pyotr’s engineering skills allow him to place a SG-36 Sentry Gun to defend locations, while his Sentry Operator trait makes his Sentry Gun even more efficient in combat when he’s standing near it. Additionally, any enemy the Sentry Gun locks onto will be spotted for Pyotr. But that’s just a taste of Battlefield 2042’s roster of capable characters! We’ll have more Specialists to show you in the months to come. Alongside the increase in players, the spaces of these sandboxes are also growing, allowing for more vehicles and battles to be spread out across the entire map. With unprecedented scale and choices in gameplay, each map is specifically designed to provide a unique experience that directly impacts strategy for you and your squad. Battlefields have multiple distinct combat areas housed in a single playspace and this extra space means more variety and more meaningful vehicle gameplay. In Breakaway, you’ll be taking the fight to the ice with hovercrafts, helicopters, and more. Here’s a quick look at Breakaway, which is set on Antarctica. Tread carefully on this dynamic map, where oil extraction has turned the freezing area to a strategic hot spot. Take advantage of destructible fuel tanks and silos that create debris fields and permanent fires when destroyed. At launch, Battlefield 2042 will have seven maps for the All-Out Warfare experience. You can find out more about them by heading to our map overview. Battlefield has built its name on being a chaotic sandbox where you are encouraged to use the massive arsenal of weapons, vehicles and abilities at your disposal on a battleground rife with strategic opportunity and player freedom. Battlefield 2042 brings a host of new enhancements to the series. In Breakaway, you’ll be taking the fight to the ice with hovercrafts, helicopters, and more. Massive events, such as tornadoes capable of whipping Specialists across the map and exploding space rockets, will impact the map before you. Altering safe spaces and forcing you to adapt to the ever-changing battlefield with your gadgets and even use such powerful forces of destruction to put pressure on the enemy. "The enhancement afforded by the new generation of console technology has allowed us to make the world of Battlefield bigger than ever before,” says Daniel Berlin, Design Director. “Dynamic events will constantly encourage players to adapt to situations and create those Battlefield moments we've come to know and love from the franchise." Weapons and Attachments To succeed on the battlefield, every Specialist will need to utilize their entire arsenal, from powerful weapons to useful gadgets and a wide array of vehicles. Battlefield 2042 brings a new level of player agency to Battlefield, giving you access to the weapon modifications and tools you need at any given moment in a match. No matter where you’re at in-round, you can equip your weapons in real-time with modifications that the situation calls for via the Plus Menu. You will be able to wield assault rifles, SMGs, LMGs, DMRs, shotguns, sniper rifles, pistols and explosive ordnance. Weapons are no longer restricted by loadouts, with every Specialist capable of wielding any weapon. Depending on the weapon used, you have up to four categories for customization: Scopes/sights Muzzles/barrels Ammo types/magazines Underbarrel attachments Gadgets While every Specialist has their own unique specialty, like Mackay and his trusty Grappling Hook, classic Battlefield items will be accessible to every Specialist including the C5 Explosive, Anti-Tank Mine, and Frag Grenade. But a Battlefield game wouldn't be complete without some new hardware. We’d like to introduce you to Ranger, an agile and mechanized companion that can be called in to faithfully follow you into combat. Here’s a quick look at Ranger rushing across Kaleidoscope. Vehicles Vehicular gameplay remains an essential part of the Battlefield experience. And with Battlefield 2042, you will have access to vehicles such as jets, hovercrafts, tanks, troop carriers, armored cars, and the long-awaited return of helicopters. Also new to Battlefield 2042 is the vehicle call-in system, which allows you to airdrop vehicles to wherever you are on the map, instead of spawning into them. This system will allow you more freedom than ever before when it comes to navigating Battlefield’s massive spaces and terrain in search of a tactical advantage. We’re also going back to Battlefield’s roots where you once again can find vehicles on the battlefield, instead of solely activating them from the deploy screen. In Battlefield 2042, you’ll be able to call in any vehicle to where you are on the map, giving you more mobility power than ever. We’re taking a new approach to live service with not only a commitment to new content, but a goal of enhancing the Battlefield experience through Seasons that will continue to build the world of Battlefield 2042. “In Battlefield 2042 we’ll continue our commitment to keep the community together during the live service,” says Ryan McArthur, Senior Producer on Battlefield 2042. “In our first year, we plan to deliver four seasons, each evolving the sandbox, while delivering its own Battle Pass, Specialist, and more great content that you’ve come to expect from a Battlefield game.” We’ll be evolving our world and expanding on the fiction through Seasons, each one lasting for about three months. Every Season will come with a new free and paid-for Battle Pass, delivering new content to chase after. This also means everyone can progress towards earning all content that impacts direct gameplay such as Specialists, through natural play. In our first year of live service, we will deliver four Seasons, with four Battle Passes, four new Specialists, along with more fresh content. In The Next Briefing… And that’s all for today. Battlefield 2042 marks the start of a new journey for Battlefield and all-out warfare, and we’re excited to give you more updates and reveals in the coming weeks and months. We’re also looking forward to seeing you at EA Play Live on July 22nd, where we’ll talk more about the experience being built by our team in LA. Stay safe, No-Pats. END OF BRIEFING REFERENCE TO A PARTICULAR MAKE, MODEL, MANUFACTURER, AND/OR VERSION OF WEAPON, GEAR OR VEHICLE IS FOR HISTORICAL ACCURACY ONLY AND DOES NOT INDICATE ANY SPONSORSHIP OR ENDORSEMENT OF ANY TRADEMARK OWNER If you'd like to discuss your thoughts and comments with us, please join us here.
Crystal Pop Up Notification Clarification
Hello Holotable Heroes, If you closed down the pop up that gave you Crystals, it'll pop up again tomorrow so be on the look out. Also note: You had to be level 85 to see the pop up And screw it, if you decided to read this post, let me know about a character you'd like to see in SWGOH and why, leave your Ally code and ill swing through here in a couple days to sling some more Crystals, just don't tell the PMCompensation Update
Hello Holotable Heroes, During our 10-year anniversary and the launch of Coliseum over the last few weeks, the game has suffered various issues that needed to be hotfixed and resulted in a poor gameplay experience. We recognize the frustration this has caused, and appreciate your patience while we work to resolve those issues. It's important to us that our 10-year anniversary is an exciting celebration of the game we all enjoy playing. In the spirit of that, we are providing a compensation package to show our appreciation to you, our players. This compensation will be for EVERYONE over player level 20. All you need to do is login between tomorrows update (12-10-2025) and 1-1-2026 to receive it. Compensation: 5,000 Crystals 1x All Legacy Tier 5 LST 25,000 Episode Points 5,000 Era Currency 2,750 Mk I Grek Ability Module 150 Mk I Basic Performance Core 300 Mk II Forn Ability Material 10,000 Era Level Currency 3x Clone War Chewbacca shards Again, thank you for your patience, understanding and feedback during this time. We look forward to seeing you on the Holotable. SWGOH Dev Team Update: 5,000 Era Currency will be sent out next week, enjoy the other currency that was provided instead.Battlefield Briefing: What We Learned From The Open Beta
Our Open Beta was a special moment for all of us who work across the project – you all finally got hands on with our game. Before we get into the various learnings, takeaways, and improvements that we have in motion for the launch of Battlefield™ 2042, and beyond, we have two special thank yous. Thank you for jumping in and playing! We know how much you all look forward to a new Battlefield game, but we saw more of you on that first day than we could possibly have imagined. Watching you each discover the tools of our sandbox, and the different ways in which you can use them to Play the Objective was truly very special for us. Thank you also for taking the time to talk to us, and share your feedback. We don’t take it for granted. First Things First… Let’s Talk About Specialists Today we are happy to reveal the final five Specialists for Battlefield 2042 at launch, bringing the total to 10. Armed with a unique Specialty and Trait, we see Specialists as the next evolution of the classic Battlefield class system that will not only enable individual players to have a bigger impact, it will elevate teams that cooperate to newer heights. During the Open Beta we heard some feedback that Specialists were limiting team work, and we wanted to address this concern head-on. There were multiple factors in play during the Open Beta that we feel contributed to the perception of how the Specialists role contributes to squad play in Battlefield 2042. First, we recognise that numerous improvements to the user interface, identifying between friend and foe, the ping system, and in-game team communication that were missing during the Open Beta (and are all explained in detail below) are vital to team play. You didn’t get to experience all of those, and so today we want to help talk you through the many different changes that you’ll experience in the full game. Second, you weren’t able to go hands on with all Ten of our Specialists, and see them all in action on the Battlefield. Now that all the cards are on the table, let us know what you think! What we learned in the Open Beta Over the past few weeks since the Beta, we’ve shared some limited insight into some of the changes that are coming in time for launch, relative to the experience you had playing Conquest, on Orbital: Increased the number of Tanks that you’ll experience on Orbital. It’s up from 4, to 8 on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5. Made changes to movement, adding strafe input to sliding, adding the ability to vault on moving objects, and toning down jump spamming. A nearby Grenade Indicator has been added. Entry and Exit animations are now shorter, with some being removed entirely. Elevators have been fixed so that you see less funky behaviours with doors. But there’s much more beyond that, and we want to give you insight on the opportunities an Open Beta presents us when we invite the world to come and play an early look at our game. Firstly, we can test how our technical systems behave in the wild, bringing forward with us the learnings we had from the Technical Playtest in August, to ensure that the solutions we developed were successfully applied in the real world. Secondly, we get to compare the behaviors of how we see things behaving internally, with how they behave in the hands of you, the players. Finally, an Open Beta on this scale provides us with the opportunity to hear directly from you on how the game feels. There’s plenty of good discussion below covering some of our thoughts on the feedback that we’ve read, and seen shared and discussed across various Battlefield Communities. What we all appreciated seeing most was just how much joy you were having living your best sandbox life. We heard lots of positives about the gunplay, the fidelity, and the welcome return to our modern setting. We also heard plenty of constructive feedback around Performance, Team and Squad play, and the User Interface. An overview of Vehicle vs. Infantry hotspots across the entirety of Orbital. Click to see in High Resolution! Below, we’re helping to summarize that feedback, to let you know how it performed against our designs, and to give you a look at where we’re at today, as well as where we may yet go with the quality of the experience in Battlefield 2042. Performance We’ve previously talked with you about the age of our Open Beta build, but haven’t talked with you about why it is that you experience something older compared to what we’re playing, testing, and polishing every day across our studios. In order to ensure that we can have an Open Beta, we do something called Branching, where we identify our most stable build, and split it off from our active development branches that receive daily check-ins, new content additions, and bug fixes. This took place back in August, where we were in the process of compiling what we have today, internally, as the complete package of Battlefield 2042. Branching allows us to strip out all of the unnecessary systems, content, and mechanics that are still under various forms of testing, and polish up what you sometimes hear referred to as a Vertical Slice of the game. We work hard to optimise it, stamp out critical bugs, and drive for maximum compatibility and performance on known hardware. By stripping out other content and systems, we remove potential conflicts that keep things running in the best possible manner. We knew that the Open Beta build would therefore not showcase where we’re at today with polish and how the game plays, not benefiting from all the additional work that’s been done on the game since we branched in August. In addition to what you’ve seen today from our full line up of Specialists, and many of the updates that you can read about and see here, expect more Battlefield 2042 updates over the next few weeks that let you get a glimpse on the great progress that the teams have made. Servers We gained a mountain of valuable data about the performance of our servers, and the processes we use to keep them successfully scaled, right across the experience. Through the Open Beta, we sustained multiple pingsites, in central locations all over the world, and took some important learnings from that. Bot heavy servers were too prevalent across those first few hours for many players. Too many of you were being dropped into games that weren’t being successfully backfilled, and left you fighting against Bots. Our Bots are designed as a good way for new players to learn how to play Battlefield, and to provide new options for veterans of the franchise to take new players under their wing and show them how to PTFO. Bots are not designed as a replacement for other players. Throughout the Open Beta, we were able to dedicate a great deal of time into looking at why the servers were sending certain groups of players into predominantly Bot populated matches. Our teams were then able to make real time changes to the behaviours of Matchmaking to ensure that servers were being stood up with heavy majority human players, and that appropriate backfilling was happening where we expected it too. We were also able to monitor the behaviour of Matchmaking and study why it is that players were sometimes being sent to servers outside of their region. With full appreciation that some players didn’t have the optimal experience, we want to thank them for persisting as it allowed our teams to breadcrumb trail the way back through our systems to understand why they were being sent out of their region, and experiencing higher pings than expected. We’ve ironed out a great deal of those creases in time for launch, and will be as agile as we were during the Open Beta in helping address anything new in real time during launch of the game. User Interface (UI) Stepping aside from our review of how the technology of our game performed, let's get into the experience side of the Open Beta, and start talking about the systems that you were interacting with. Our User Interface in the Open Beta wasn’t fully representative of the final experience. It was missing some essential components, some of which we disabled to remove debilitating (and now resolved) bugs, and some of which we chose to continue to focus work on for launch from when we branched in August. Big Map as we refer to it internally, was disabled. Some of you spotted it in the Key Bindings, and many of you simply expected it based on past behaviours in Battlefield games. We have it in our builds today, and you can see it in action below. You’ll be able to pull this up at any time during live gameplay, by pressing the View/Touchpad button on Console, or M on PC. It provides an immediate overview of where the battles are taking place, where your squad mates are fighting, and the live breakdown of how the flags are flying inside of each sector. We’ll keep you updated on when to expect this in the game, there’s a chance it makes it into the start of the Early Access start for 2042, and there's an equal chance that we hold it back to make sure its inclusion isn’t disruptive to the performance of the game. But what use is Big Map, if you’re without the ability to then help communicate with your squads on how you intend to react to the battle? Commorose was also absent from the Open Beta, but is very much present in our builds today. This is a staple of in-game communication for Battlefield games, the ability for you to hold a single button, and use quick actions to give an indication of where you’re at, and what you need. This is how that looks today. We want to ensure that you’re best equipped with the right tools to communicate with your Squad. As a further example with this, we’ve modified the default behaviour of the Compass that appeared whilst aiming down the sights. At launch, you’ll see that this is now always on, so that you have the ability to easily communicate with your squad on nearby dangers and opportunities. We know that Battlefield plays best when you’re coordinated. In addition to our Ping System, the ability to quick tap an input to give contextual indicators, we have some great tools to hand over to you at launch. Ping wasn’t working as well as we would have liked during the Open Beta, but at launch, you can expect it function more responsively when you’re pinging locations, assets, and enemy soldiers. Elsewhere in the UI, let's quickly talk about the Heads Up Display, and the information that's presented to you during minute to minute gameplay. We’ve moved the score events, visible on the right side of the screen, into its final state, centrally beneath the crosshair. It provides you with that more traditional kill confirmed dialogue, that affirms who you’ve killed, healed, and helped across the experience, and how it's helping to show you the rewards you’re getting for doing so. Speaking of which, a note for regular Support-style players. There were multiple scoring events related to Transport Assists, Spawn Support, Resupply, and Heal support that were absent in the Open Beta build. They’re in our full game, we’ll always reward strong teamplay in Battlefield. Over on the left side of the screen, the kill log is now more readable, with highlighted colors denoting friend or foe killed. There is also more appropriately sized messaging on the status of sectors and flag capture events. These changes help to prevent UI elements from diverting your attention away from the crosshairs, and the battlefield in front of you. We’ve also performed significant performance passes on our colorblind settings to help support those with color deficiencies that were struggling to have the colors used across our UI properly distinguish themselves, and we’ll continue to take feedback on the application we have around this, and all of our final suite of accessibility options through live service. A special note to close out this section on UI – let’s talk about the Critical Alert messaging which appears at key moments at the top of the screen. We hear you, it's too big. We’ve reduced it in size, lowered the frequency of the alerts, and will continue to take feedback on it from you all once you get hands on with the full game. Team and Squad Play There are improvements that tie into both Team and Squad Play discussed in the previous section. Both Commorose, the Ping System, and the Big Map all play significant roles in changing up the experience you had with the Open Beta, and will have in the full game. There are other systems that were either in the Open Beta, but only partially represented, or in the final stages of development in the full game, and so not part of what you got hands on with. First up, let's talk loadouts. In the Open Beta, we unlocked more of the sandbox than is experienced when you first start playing the game, as an important way of testing the behavior of certain gadgets in a live environment. For the first 4-6 hours in the full game, expect to be working with a reduced array of gadgets for your open gadget slot, with your journey through the ranks slowly introducing new ones for your loadouts. That traditional experience of a Battlefield game, where classes fulfill traditional roles is an experience that you graduate out of through the first ten levels. Your Specialists will have the options to choose from a Medical Crate, Ammo Crate, the Recoilless M5 Launcher, and our Repair tool as starting gadgets, and enable the experience of playing in ways that allow players to feel the benefit of playing in more supportive roles. As you progress beyond those levels, you’ll gain access to more specialised hardware, and Specialists, that help to solve scenarios you can encounter, and we expect you to be regularly interacting with your loadouts on the deploy screen to react to the ever changing nature of Conquest and Breakthrough gameplay. Loadouts are fully customizable. In the Open Beta, we set you up with four loadouts, that mirror that traditional class structure of Assault, Medic, Support, and Recon. They’ll be there at launch too, for all players as default, but there’s actually a much bigger suite of tools available to you to help speed up the act of switching to different setups, and let you get right back into the action. From the Collections screen of the main menu, you’ll be able to define what your loadout is, and to provide your loadout with custom names that can allow you to quickly switch between your best setups. Diving deeper, a frustration we saw shared from the Beta was feedback around inconsistencies you experienced with our plus menu, and the need to reset your best setups on each of your weapons on each round, and in the case of the AK-24, unintentionally on every respawn. We wanted to share this deeper look into the complete behaviour of the plus menu, and to showcase that you have more control over this function than you got hands on with. There are multiple slots per attachment type that you can assign different items into, drawn from an extensive pool of weapon specific attachments that unlock as you play more with the weapons. Anything assigned into slot 1, those closest to the centre, is your effective spawned setup. When you deploy with the weapon in hand, you’ll always be set up with your preferred attachments. This can be accessed from the Collections Screen on the main menu, and from within the deploy screen during gameplay. Moving away from loadouts, let's talk squad composition. We hear you loudly on this topic. Squad comp matters. You each experienced four of the ten specialists coming to Battlefield 2042 at launch, so we can appreciate that experiencing the full diversity of our gameplay, nor variety of customisation, wasn’t accessible for you during the Open Beta. In Hazard Zone, we’re keeping things tight and deliberate on squad comp. Specialist selection will be unique, and we’re not running with duplicates inside the squad. In All-Out Warfare, we’re not using the same restrictions; we’ve been learning since Battlefield 1942 that our game just isn’t fun when you can’t play to your strengths, and there’s been lots of iteration done in this area in all of our games across the franchise’s history. In Battlefield 2042, you’ll enjoy the freedom of moving between the Specialists and loadouts that you need to support the Squad, and there are parts of the experience that we have in our builds today that help to reinforce that. First, there’s our Insertion flow. Your squad mates will be shown your Player Cards, where you’ve got the chance to personalize, and flair it to show off your playstyles. There’s then additional time in pre-round, which was disabled during the Open Beta, to chat and make further changes to your squad comp so that you hit the ground running straight out of the gates. Better still, we’re celebrating our strongest team players at the end of the round in our full End of Round (EOR) flow. Again, this one didn’t make the cut for Open Beta, but expect that when the round wraps up, we’ll be paying tribute to the best squad players, and recognizing the contributions folks made to capturing objectives, reviving fallen teammates, and keeping ammo stocked up. To help you achieve this acknowledgement, there are UI elements that help you to know who’s in need of healing, repairs, and resupplies coming to the game for our worldwide launch on November 19. There’s also been changes made to Health Regeneration, slowing down the time it takes for the healing effect to start, and helping to increase the need to work with your Medics. To help support those changes, you’ll find that Maria Falck’s Syrette Pistol has received enhancements and tweaks to improve the feedback you receive when you’re successfully healing an ally, and making it easier to land a syringe on a friendly target by having the Syringes magnetise to friendly targets. We’ve also worked to make revives faster, across the board. More things we heard from you We’ve covered a lot today, and there’ll be plenty of room between now and launch to talk more about where things are at, and the finer details of the experience that you’re yet to encounter. Some closing remarks though on key topics that we saw you talking about during the Open Beta. We use the term IFF to describe the approaches we take to ensure that you can always, and easily identify between friend and foe. IFF is being improved. In our current builds, we’ve adjusted the behaviour of the systems we use to improve the experience. Our IFF lighting is in the process of being further enhanced to enable enemies to more readily stand out on the battlefield. We’re also adjusting the tint that applies to enemy soldiers, and made changes to the UI so that when you’re inside of 10m, an icon is now present above the heads of enemy soldiers, provided they wouldn’t be otherwise occluded by any terrain, or map objects. Similarly, we’re working to ensure that friendly icons will no longer be occluded through walls within 40m to address instances of our systems failing to represent a player as a friendly team mate before they’ve entered your field of view. You’ll see some of these changes active when the game goes live in our early access window on November 12th, with more changes taking effect for our worldwide launch on November 19th. Controller players, we want you to know that we already have improved mapping in our final options suite that will provide you with better overviews of the controls, and options that enable total controller mapping if ever you think we’ve got the default preset wrong. We really appreciated all the nuanced feedback that we got around this topic during the Open Beta, including the specific examples of how managing the Hybrid Scopes on the Legacy Mapping was causing you to crouch each time you changed the setup. Thanks for helping to flag this stuff to us! We’ve also heard your feedback on Aim Assist strength on controllers. You helped to show us that it was too low, so we’ve worked to improve this experience, making it more familiar to players who played with us in past titles. Another improvement coming to consoles is the ability for you to engage with Text Chat for the first time. Now that we’re Cross Platform, we know how important it is to sustain accessible options for communication, and we’ve got you covered here. As we discussed recently in our Commitments to Healthy Play in Battlefield 2042, we’ll be arming you with all the tools you need to help keep this function useful, and usable on the battlefield, including the option to hide the feature outright if you’d rather not see it, or make use of it. We know that many of you prefer to use. For many of you, we know that you’ll prefer to use VOIP to keep the lines of communication open during gameplay, and a heads up that this is presently set to come in after launch. Cross Platform invites for squadding up will otherwise be in at launch. This was again absent from the Open Beta, and something we know helps to make sure you’re playing with your best squad, and PTFO’ing right to the last ticket. That’s all for today. Thanks again for playing during the Open Beta, and sharing your feedback with us. We’re looking forward to hearing your thoughts, and any new questions you may have. We’ll see you soon, No-Pats.Battlefield Briefing: Answering Your Reveal Questions
On June 9 we revealed Battlefield 2042, and gave you an extensive look at All-Out Warfare, one of the game’s three core experiences. Your reactions to our unveiling have been memorable for the entire Battlefield team, and we look forward to sharing even more with you in the near future. We’ve since read your feedback and sat down with Daniel Berlin, Senior Design Director for Battlefield™2042 to answer your questions. In this post, you can expect to learn more about the following topics: A closer look at Specialists, Maps, Vehicles and AI Soldiers Why we’re moving the Technical Playtest to later this summer How we’re building cross-play and cross-progression functionality for Battlefield 2042 And as a bonus, we added an interview about how the much beloved penguins of the map Breakaway came to life. Let’s jump in! In Battlefield 2042 you will step into the boots of Specialists, an all-new type of playable soldier for the franchise. Inspired by the traditional Battlefield Classes, Specialists will be equipped with their own unique Specialist Trait and Specialty, and will have fully customizable Loadouts. At launch there will be a total of 10 Specialists. So far, we’ve shown you 4 of them: Boris, Casper, Falck and Mackay. You can expect further details on the remaining 6 later this year. How do Specialties and Traits work? The Specialty and Trait of each Specialist is unique to them, and can’t be changed. So as an example, we’ve noticed your excitement for a certain Specialist using a Wingsuit to navigate around the battlefield. That Wingsuit is their specific Specialty and cannot be used by any other Specialist. As for Traits, let’s take a closer look at Falck, equipped with the Combat Surgeon Trait. Combat Surgeon allows Falck to revive allies to full health. This gives her an advantage over players using Squad Revive, which we’re bringing back to Battlefield 2042. Squad Revive takes longer and does not bring players back to full health. How do customized Loadouts work? Class no longer restricts which weapons you can bring onto the Battlefield thanks to a fully customizable Loadout. As a Specialist, you’ll be able to customize the following: Primary Weapon Equipment (items anyone can use such as a Medical Crate or Supply Crate) Secondary Weapon Throwable (such as Frag or Incendiary Grenade) Here is what a customized Loadout could look like: Primary Weapon: M5A3 (Assault Rifle) Equipment: Supply Crate Secondary Weapon: G57 (Sidearm) Throwable: Frag Grenade As with all Specialists, Mackay’s Specialty and Trait are unique to him and cannot be changed as part of his Loadout: Specialty: Grappling Hook Trait: Nimble Will all players have RPG’s / SRAWs / SMAWs? All Specialists now have the ability to fully customize their Loadout, which means you have to make a choice about your focus on the battlefield. For example, you could opt for a Carl Gustaf M5, which is a unguided rocket launcher effective against vehicles at mid range. Or would you instead like an anti-air approach via the FIM-33 AA Missile? Choosing a more explosive approach for your Equipment slot would mean you won't be able to carry a Medical Crate, or a Supply Crate, and thus leaves you without health or ammo replenishing options. So choose wisely. Whenever we introduce a feature such as Loadouts, we also think about balancing the individual mechanical elements, such as missile ease of use, or range and effectiveness against vehicles or infantry. We then also introduce counters and scenarios, such as against rocket launchers, where you may have been better off picking something else. Battlefield is all about player choice and freedom to play however you want, and your decisions are vital to your squad and ultimately, team's success. Can Squads use any combination of Specialists? In Battlefield 2042, a Squad will consist of a maximum of 4 players. In Conquest and Breakthrough, squads can contain more than one unique Specialist. How can you differentiate between Specialists on your own and enemy team? The series icons highlighting your team (blue) and squad (green) will make their return and also help you differentiate between a friendly combatant and an enemy. There are also other options and systems we’re still testing that will assist you in distinguishing enemy players on the field. One last note on customization: There will be plenty of options available to you in the form of skins, which can alter your appearance and allow you to choose how you’d like your Specialist to stand out on the battlefield. The same two Specialists can look vastly different when wearing different skins. Is Ranger a Trait or Specialty? We can confirm Ranger is neither a Specialty nor Trait and won’t be unique to any Specialist. Instead, everybody has the opportunity to call-in them when in need of support. However, when you make that choice, you are choosing Ranger over other options available within the call-in system. There is of course also a limitation on the amount of Rangers available at any given time. Once safely on the ground, Ranger will follow and protect you and even put your life above their own! You’ll also be able to issue orders such as scouting a location, having them return to you and follow you. If a situation becomes dire, you can also command Ranger to self-destruct. This gives you several new interesting tactical options, such as do you send Ranger into the line of fire, or maybe as a decoy in order to flank the enemy? Your choices are critical, as Ranger is a light unit designed for anti-infantry combat but can easily be knocked out by enemy fire, explosives or EMP. And yes, before you ask, you can place a C5 Explosive on Ranger and send them into an enemy squad… We’ve shared that you can expect 7 new maps at launch for the All-Out Warfare experience of Battlefield 2042 (be sure to check out our dedicated Maps section if you need a refresher on each individual map). In terms of gameplay opportunities and land mass, this is the biggest and boldest Battlefield we have ever built. So what does that mean for you? Here’s a rundown of some of the most popular questions about maps you’ve asked. How does Clustering and Sectors optimize gameplay in Conquest? For Conquest we’ve made two distinct gameplay changes for Battlefield 2042 that will optimize larger-scale battles while preserving the classic essence of the experience: The first is called Clustering. We’ve introduced this to create deliberate areas of activity and capture areas for players to engage with. We’ve also added Sectors, which changes how players gain control of an area. In order to successfully capture the Sector, teams must seize and maintain control over all flags within a Sector, otherwise it will be treated as a neutral and contested area. Here’s an example of more fluid and targeted combat in a Conquest match. You are attacking a Sector and you capture the first flag. Previously, you and your squad would immediately be on the move towards another flag. But due to the Conquest changes in Battlefield 2042 you’ve now established a foothold in the Sector and can spawn and confront the enemy to take further flags. This creates a higher intensity fight for the full Sector. Only when the full Sector has fallen do you make the decision on where to go next. This reduces the back and forth running between flags and puts focus on the Sector itself. And lastly, different game modes will use different areas of our large maps. For example, when playing Conquest you’ll fight on certain areas of the map that aren’t available in Breakthrough and vice versa. This is one of the strengths of our massive play-spaces where different game modes bring more variety of experiences. Optimizations and differences between the 64 and 128-player experiences On Xbox One and PlayStation®4 you will have access to the same gameplay features that we’ve announced for Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation®5. Weapons, Vehicles, Specialists and Gadgets all remain the same no matter what generation of console you’re playing on. Dynamic Weather events such as tornadoes, or Environmental Hazards like EMP storms will also be experienced by all players. Our intention is to ensure that nothing detracts from the overall experience of playing Battlefield 2042. The main differences between console generations is that we’ve made adjustments to the playable area on the maps to ensure a fluid play experience for Xbox One and PlayStation® 4 consoles. Can you fight on every floor of skyscrapers? You will not be able to play on every level of a skyscraper. But you can expect lobby and rooftop combat, which can be accessed via elevators and ziplines. As fighting on all levels of a skyscraper would be an entire map of its own, this prevents detracting from the rest of the map. How does increased map size impact limits such as going out of bounds? We have taken onboard feedback from past titles where the airspace is considered to be too cramped and expanded upon this to allow for more dogfighting scenarios. With the improvements made towards map scale, you can expect to be running or driving much longer before you hit an out of bounds warning. Will there be more maps? At reveal we talked about the 7 maps for our All-Out Warfare experience, and the addition of further maps through our live service. But that’s not all we have to share about maps! Be sure to tune in to EA Play Live on July 22 as we dive into the experience created by our Ripple Effect team (formerly known as DICE LA). We’re highly excited about this one! Vehicles are more easily available and more squad focused than ever before. We looked at how we can both balance out the scales between vehicle and infantry-play and create an anchor point for conflict. Earlier we mentioned the importance of balancing your Loadout (having a Medical Crate or Ammo Crate vs explosive ordinance for your Equipment slot). As infantry this boils down to how you engage with a vehicle, how you help others to do so more effectively, or how you stop the enemy from destroying too many of your team's tanks. When in a vehicle, the situation is about providing recon for your gunner, triggering defenses or even knowing when to hit the gas and boost off to freedom. How does the vehicle call-in system work? While you can still spawn directly into vehicles from the Deploy screen, one other important change we’ve made to accommodate the increased map scale is to make it possible for you to call-in vehicles when and where you need them. The vehicle call-in system can be accessed via a tablet interface and is available to all players, no matter which Specialist you are playing. There’s some further things to keep in mind: Use of the call-in system is dependent on map, mode and will have a specific budget assigned to each team. You still spawn into Air vehicles such as Aircrafts and Helicopters from the Deploy screen. Once you’ve called-in a vehicle, you will incur a cooldown so everyone has a fair chance to call-in support. Do the Factions have their own vehicles? Yes, the iconic vehicles you’ve come to know and love will still be faction-specific. The No-Pats taskforce that you follow in Battlefield 2042 will team up with either Russia or the US depending on the location in the world. This means that you will get to utilize either the iconic Russian or US hardware as you go into battle. As an example for Tanks, Russia will get to play with the T28 versus the M1A5 on the US side. You can also still expect to encounter vehicles that anyone can play with, such as the MD540 Nightbird Helicopter, or the EBAA Wildcat Heavy Ground vehicle. Will there be naval vehicles and sea warfare? You can expect to see naval oriented vehicles such as the LCAA Hovercraft, however there isn’t a focus on naval specific warfare right now. We’ve seen your comments about how excited you are about naval warfare, so stay in touch with us about what you’d like to see in the future! So far we’ve told you about the three distinct experiences where we’re introducing AI Soldiers, and how you can play with them: Multiplayer – AI soldiers are used for server-filling capabilities, making it easier for you to matchmake when you want to play. Players always have priority over AI when playing multiplayer. Co-Op – Allows you to play together with friends, against AI soldiers. Solo – If you wish to perfect your skills for multiplayer, you can even play alone against AI soldiers. If you’re new to Battlefield, AI soldiers are a great option to learn the mechanics of Battlefield 2042 at your own pace without the pressure and competition that comes with multiplayer. So how will AI Soldiers actually play on the Battlefield? AI Soldiers are intended to play the game like how you would play it yourself. However they are not designed to be Specialists and cannot use Traits and Specialties. You will see them undergoing certain tasks such as using the vehicle call-in system and engaging with vehicles, or capturing objectives. Whilst they can’t use the Wingsuit, they do have the intelligence to decide between engaging with you via enemy fire, flanking, throwing grenades or even reviving a downed squad mate. Can you completely opt-out of using AI Soldiers? In the All-Out Warfare set of experiences of Conquest and Breakthrough, AI Soldiers are used to backfill servers and you cannot opt-out of playing with them. However, there is a cap to how many of them you can encounter in a multiplayer match. In general, you will not experience more AI soldiers than players unless the match is still filling-up, or almost empty. Players will always have matchmaking priority over AI. As an example: if there are 120 players out of 128 players currently playing in a server, 8 AI Soldiers will join the match to help even out the teams. Should a player leave, another AI Soldier will temporarily replace them until a new player joins the game. We’re providing them as a helpful option to ensure you won’t have trouble matchmaking and can fully enjoy the all-out warfare chaos you can expect from a Battlefield match. Since AI Soldiers can be used in Solo mode, does that mean I can play offline? Battlefield 2042 is a multiplayer-only experience. So while you can play Solo against AI Soldiers if you’d like to practice, it will be in an online setting. One of your most frequently asked questions is about cross-play. We can confirm it’s a function we’re looking to build and test for Battlefield 2042. To accommodate that, we’ve made the decision to move the Technical Playtest to later this summer so we’ll have the opportunity to test the cross-play functionality. This means a few thousand participants will join us to help us test some of our new features and functionality that we’re building from the ground up for Battlefield 2042. Do keep in mind that the Technical Playtest is purposefully not intended to be the full experience you will see in the Open Beta, or at launch. It is a development-led environment with only a subset of features, focused on technical performance. How can I join the Technical Playtest? No need to contact us, we’ll contact you! The Technical Playtest will be in a closed environment and under strict NDA. Only a small group of participants will be able to join. If Playtesting is something that interests you, then we recommend you update your EA Playtesting profile. Registering for EA Playtesting will not guarantee you access to this, or other Playtests. Testing cross-play during the Technical Playtest We’ll test a subset of cross-play functionality during the Technical Playtest. This means during this test, PC, Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation® 5 consoles will be able to test playing together. Cross-play in Battlefield 2042 beyond the Technical Playtest We are still building cross-play functionality, and the first opportunity for us to test it with a wider, invite-only group will be within the Technical Playtest. Right now, we’d like to give you an understanding of what we’re looking to achieve as final functionality beyond the Technical Playtest, so here is an overview of what you can expect that to look like: PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation®5 system (PC and console can opt-out from playing together) Xbox One and PlayStation®4 systems Cross-progression and cross-commerce Alongside cross-play we’re also building cross-progression and cross-commerce for Battlefield 2042, which will be shared across all platforms and travel with you wherever you go. For example, your unlocked progress and purchases in your PlayStation® copy of the game will carry over onto the Xbox or PC version, and vice versa*. One of our favorite reveal reactions is the surprising popularity of a new set of waddling friends first seen for only a brief moment in the Reveal Trailer. It was definitely love at first sight between you and the penguins in the new Battlefield 2042 map, Breakaway! We’ve since followed your fan art, memes and further penguin related discussion with much enjoyment. We felt this was a perfect moment to recap and sit down with the person who brought these lovely penguins to life. Meet Joel Zakrisson! Can you tell our penguin fans more about your role at DICE? Hi! I’m Joel Zakrisson, a 3D artist at DICE and I’m mainly focusing on environments. We have both level artists and 3D artists here at DICE, so the 3D artists are doing most of the hard surface art, like anything that’s man-made on the map such as the oil rig on Breakaway. The level artists make most of the nature assets, such as rocks and trees as well as the placing of props and sculpting the terrain. How did you get into this role? I first decided I wanted to make games when I was 14 and built Little Big Planet 2 maps in my spare time. I then did a game design orientation program in high school, but was torn between art, design and programming. After testing out each field I ultimately landed on art because of the creative aspect, and 3D in particular since it would give me a better chance to work on the AAA games that I'm a fan of, such as Battlefield. After that I went to university, finished some art projects and published them online. They got quite a bit of attention with even companies like Rockstar contacting me, which was crazy! But I really wanted to work at DICE, so I ended up talking to DICE’s Head of Art about open positions, and that’s how I managed to get in! Can you give us an example of something else you worked on for a map? On Breakaway we have an oil rig for instance, so I’m creating that one. Like building it from scratch, composing it and building the systems that we use to construct it. The building blocks, and the entirety of it pretty much. I’m managing most of the 3D art on the map, which includes an oil port with architecture such as small living quarters for the workers who work there. As well as a research station up on the glacier. Oh, and I also made the huge mountain base you can see in the beginning of the Reveal Trailer. So, let’s talk about how the penguins of Breakaway came to life? When I first started on Breakaway I thought... we’re on Antarctica, I just have to do this! I love adding these little things that add more soul to the game. While resource extraction is still at the core of the map, adding these little fellows and adding more life to the environment was a no brainer for me. Adding something like penguins to the map isn’t easy, though. Once I was done with the models, I handed it over to the VFX artist Tobias Ahlgren, who did the animation and implemented their behaviour in game. In the end, it’s worth it and I love that myself and the team can add personal touches. We hope you get to see our passion when you play! What has your overall reaction been to all the penguin hype? While I’ve added Easter Eggs to games before which received attention through Reddit etc, nothing blew up like the penguins. That was a total surprise to me! So I feel a bit overwhelmed I guess? I love it. I love all of the tweets, and all of the fan art that I’m even getting, that’s just crazy. I love it all. It’s really fun to interact with the community. Anything you’d like to say to the community? So what I’d like to say to the entire community… I hope that you like the penguins and will have fun seeing them when you’re playing Battlefield 2042. It really means a lot to me. We’d love to thank Joel for being here with us today. We’re looking forward to you seeing the penguins in their full glory when Battlefield 2042 launches later this year! Up next… We know there are more questions that you would love us to answer right now. We’ve read them, and we want to thank you for staying in touch with us. We’re still only at the start of our journey unveiling Battlefield 2042 to you, and still hard at work to finalize the exciting features you can expect to see at launch. We’ll check back in with you once we have more details to share with you. At EA Play Live on July 22 we’ll show the next feature we’re ready to talk about and we’re looking forward to seeing you there! Be sure to visit our EA Play Live website to learn more about the upcoming event where we unveil the brand new mode that the Ripple Effect team in LA has been working on! *CONDITIONS AND RESTRICTIONS APPLY. SEE https://www.ea.com/games/battlefield/battlefield-2042/disclaimers FOR DETAILS. REFERENCE TO A PARTICULAR MAKE, MODEL, MANUFACTURER, AND/OR VERSION OF WEAPON, GEAR OR VEHICLE IS FOR HISTORICAL ACCURACY ONLY AND DOES NOT INDICATE ANY SPONSORSHIP OR ENDORSEMENT OF ANY TRADEMARK OWNER.Game Changes + New Item
Hey Holotable Heroes, We have a massive update coming to the holotable! We will be introducing a brand new item and some fundamental changes to how you power up your roster. Let’s get to the first major piece of information! Gear and Relic Changes Relics at 4 Stars! Yes, you read that right. We’ve removed or drastically reduced star requirements on gear pieces, so characters can now reach Relic levels at only 4 stars! The only requirement is that applying gear pieces at Gear XII needs a character to be level 85 and 4 stars. New Relic Star Requirements: While you can get to Relics earlier, there are now star requirements for higher Relic levels: Relic 3 requires 5 stars. Relic 4 requires 6 stars. Relic 5+ requires 7 stars. This will be retroactive New Item: Lightspeed Tokens (LSTs) Lightspeed Tokens are a new consumable that instantly upgrades a character to a specific power level , think of it like an item that will boost specific characters similar to the Hyperdrive and Lightspeed Bundles. How They Work LSTs come in five tiers: Tier 1 - Carbonite: Level 85, 3 stars, Gear X, Ability level 3 Tier 2 - Bronzium: Level 85, 4 stars, Gear XII, Ability level 4 Tier 3 - Chromium: Level 85, 5 stars, Relic 1, Ability level 5 Tier 4 - Aurodium: Level 85, 6 stars, Relic 3, Ability Level 6 Tier 5 - Kyber: Level 85, 7 stars, Relic 5, Ability level 7 What You Need to Know Don't hoard! A LST is tied to a specific list of characters when it's released, and that list will never be updated to include units released later. So, there’s no reason to save them for a future character drop. Additionally, in order for us to eventually remove old and unused LSTs from data, all LSTs in your inventory expire exactly 6 months after the date and time you acquired them. Use them when you get them! Era Locked: Initially, LSTs can only be used for characters from the "Legacy Era" (everything before the Era of Apprentices that started on Nov. 19, 2024 with Huyang). Generally, tokens are for units from Eras that ended at least a year ago. Launch Factions: The first LSTs available at launch will be for Smugglers and Separatists. Excluded Units: You cannot use standard LSTs on these types of units: Galactic Legends Conquest units Journey Guide units (this includes Territory Battle and Raid rewards) Capital Ships These tokens won't apply Zeta or Omicron abilities Got a useless LST? If you get a token but all your eligible characters are already past that upgrade level, you can dismantle it for some rewards. Tier 1 10x Mk 7 Kyrotech Shock Prod Prototype Salvage 10x Mk 9 Kyrotech Battle Computer Prototype Salvage Tier 2 20x Mk 7 Kyrotech Shock Prod Prototype Salvage 20x Mk 9 Kyrotech Battle Computer Prototype Salvage Tier 3 10x Carbonite Circuit Board Tier 4 5x Fragmented Signal Data 5x Incomplete Signal Data 10x Carbonite Circuit Board 10x Bronzium Wiring 5x Chromium Transistor Tier 5 5x Fragmented Signal Data 5x Incomplete Signal Data 5x Flawed Signal Data 10x Carbonite Circuit Board 10x Bronzium Wiring 5x Chromium Transistor 5x Aurodium Heatsink You’ll find LSTs in the Store and as rewards on the free Episode Track and the Episode Pass. We also plan to use them as rewards in other ways in the future. Updating Unit Progression To make LSTs work more effectively we tore down some old walls in the unit upgrade system. Here’s a list of restrictions we’ve removed: Unit level is no longer gated by your player level. Units now have all their abilities unlocked right from the start. Unit ability tiers are no longer gated by a unit's gear tier. Unit level no longer gates ability upgrades. The only exceptions are Zeta and Omicron abilities, which keep their original requirements. Ship reinforcement abilities are no longer gated by star level. Ship ability upgrades are no longer gated by the crew's gear tier. Not changing: Capital ship ability upgrades are still gated by the ship's star level. A Few Exceptions Remain: There are three specific characters whose abilities do not unlock immediately: General Skywalker's leader ability still needs Gear VII. Merrin's Special 1 ability still needs Gear X. Nightsister Zombie's unique ability still needs Gear X. In addition to that, for LST to work well with our current and future systems, many units have had their Star unlock requirements reduced to 2 Stars. The changes are in the table below: Former 5-star Unlocks Former 4-star Unlocks Former 3-star Unlocks Hermit Yoda Wampa Characters: Admiral Ackbar ARC Trooper B2 Super Battle Droid Barriss Offee Boba Fett Captain Han Solo Colonel Starck CT-7567 "Rex" Darth Maul Darth Sidious Darth Vader Dathcha Finn General Grievous Geonosian Brood Alpha Geonosian Spy Grand Moff Tarkin HK-47 Ima Gun-Di Jawa Engineer Jyn Erso Kylo Ren Mace Windu Nute Gunray Old Daka Poggle the Lesser URoRRuR'R'R Wedge Antilles Ships: Cassian's U-Wing Comeuppance Ebon Hawk Emperor's Shuttle Hyena Bomber Imperial TIE Bomber Kylo Ren's Command Shuttle Marauder Mark VI Interceptor Outrider Raven's Claw Rebel Y-wing Rey's Millenium Falcon Slave 1 TIE Advanced x1 TIE Dagger TIE Defender Characters: Aayla Secura Asajj Ventress Baze Malbus Cad Bane Captain Phasma Cassian Andor CC-2224 "Cody" Chief Chirpa Chief Nebit Chirrut Imwe Clone Wars Chewbacca Count Dooku CT-21-0408 "Echo" CT-5555 "Fives" Darth Nihilus Director Krennic Eeth Koth First Order Officer Gamorrean Guard General Veers Hoth Rebel Scout Hoth Rebel Soldier IG-88 K-2SO Lando Calrissian Lobot Luke Skywalker (Farmboy) Luminara Unduli Moff Gideon Obi-Wan Kenobi (Old Ben) Plo Koon Poe Dameron Savage Opress Shoretrooper Sith Assassin Sith Trooper Stormtrooper Stormtrooper Han Sun Fac Tusken Raider Tusken Shaman Zam Wesell Ships: Bistan's U-wing Poe Dameron's X-wing Rex's ARC-170 Scimitar TIE Reaper But Wait, There’s More!: Quality of Life Upgrades Here are a few more updates to make your lives easier: Leveling up your units just got cheaper. The credit and ship material cost has been slashed by 50% across the board. If you’ve earned all possible rewards from a recurring event, that event will no longer appear on the Events table. This includes all re-run Marquee events, Fleet Mastery events, and Proving Grounds. Yes, you can finally say goodbye to the Finalizer and Raddus events hanging out at the end of your Events list. You can now sim up to 100 battles at once on campaign nodes, as long as you have the energy. This doesn’t change the daily attempt limits on Hard Nodes. A new icon next to the unit’s name on every Unit Details Screen displays the icon for the Era in which that unit was released. Tapping/clicking this icon will create a pop-up with the name of that Era as well. You can now sort your character inventory by Relic Amplifier Level. We've added new filters to see which characters have upgrades available for: Lightspeed Token Application Relic Amplifier Level Omicron Ability Zeta Ability Gear Upgrade "Any Ability Upgrade" and "Unit Level Upgrade" filters are also now available for both characters and ships. A number of changes have been made to streamline tutorials for new players and let them get into the Holotables faster! This includes the creation of two new quests granted to all players under level 40. We are excited to deliver this to you all and cannot wait to hear your feedback as this is the foundation for our next large update coming later this year! See you on the Holotable!
An Important Update From The Sims Legacy Team
Sul Sul Simmers! We recognize some fans are currently experiencing various issues with The Sims: Legacy Collection and The Sims 2: Legacy Collection. We are currently investigating these issues and hope to have more information on fixes soon. To help with our investigations, please ensure you're including screenshots, videos, dxdiags, and (for TS1) vulkaninfo.exe files in your bug reports.
Our Next Update, and this weeks Weekly Mission
Hey Folks, Just a quick note to share that we are now expecting our next game update (Update 3.3) to drop next week. We had intended to release it later this week, but made the decision to hold it back so that we're best positioned to support in case of any issues that might have cropped up over the weekend. Our decision to release the update next week will mean a further suspension of Weekly Missions, and the system will remain inactive this week. Next week's update will provide new content that will allow us to reenable this feature. Update 3.3 will introduce a refreshed Scoreboard, incorporating requests from across the Community to update our format to display Deaths alongside Kills, and a team split to help differentiate leaders per team. Thank you for your feedback and suggestions on this, it's deeply appreciated by us all. Gold Edition, Ultimate Edition, Year 1 Pass Holders, Upgraded edition owners, and EA Play Pro subcribers will also be receiving the Steadfast Exclusive Legendary Bundle as shared last month, when this update goes live. We'll also have a small range of additional fixes live as part of the game update which will be detailed in our Update Notes next week. I will keep you updated on our deployment schedule here, and via @BattlefieldComm on Twitter. Freeman // @PartWelshTitle Update and 10-Year Anniversary Announcement Post
Hello Holotable Heroes, Ten years. A decade. It's difficult to believe that it's been this long since we first invited you to pull up a seat at the Holotable and begin your journey in Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes. Together, we've achieved numerous milestones, assembled legendary squads, and watched as this incredible community has grown and flourished. Thank you for being the heart and soul of SWGOH. To properly honor this momentous 10-year anniversary and set the stage for the next exciting era of the game, we are thrilled to announce a foundational overhaul in the biggest update we’ve ever made! We're bringing sweeping changes to the structure of the game, designed to revitalize the core experience, enhance progression, and introduce new ways to play. There is a lot of information below, so grab a beverage, find a comfy chair and enjoy the update notes! Eras Last year we released Episodes, and with them we mentioned this concept called Eras. These are Galaxy of Heroes’ new seasonal structure. The guiding principles for seasonality can be found at the end of this document. Each standard Era will consist of: Three Episodes per Era Six Marquee units A Journey Guide event and associated unit Weekly Episode Quests Era Challenges to test your Marquee Squads And multiple pieces of content for all players to enjoy Periodically we’ll have non-standard eras that may only last one Episode or that may not have a Journey Guide event, but we will communicate about these as they occur. As part of these changes we are also expanding the availability of Episode Quests, the Episode Track, and the Episode Pass to all players starting at Level 10 instead of Level 85. Players will get a different set of Episode Quests in each Episode depending on their level when the Episode starts. Players who are below Level 85 receive a standard set of introductory Episode Quests Players at Level 85 receive the bespoke set of Episode Quests for that Episode Additionally, Character Quests will become available for all players at Level 20, which is the same level that unlocks Marquee Events Era Isolation Eras will be isolated from the rest of the game, which we’re referring to as “Legacy” content. During the Era in which each Marquee and Journey Guide unit is released, both the Journey Guide and Marquee units will be considered an “Era Unit”. When an Era ends, all of the current Era units will become Legacy units. When the next Era begins, the newest Marquee and Journey Guide units released during this new Era will be considered Era units for its duration. This is an important distinction for a few reasons: Era units can only be used in Era modes and will not be allowed in Legacy modes. Era Units only use Era resources for progression while Legacy units will continue to use existing materials and recipes for upgrades. Legacy units cannot be used in Era modes or be upgraded with Era materials This isolation is primarily to allow players to progress in both the latest content and grow their rosters with Legacy content without having to choose where to put their resources, but a more detailed explanation of why this distinction and isolation is important can be found at the bottom of this update. Era Journey Guide will work a little differently than normal Journey Guide events. The Era Journey Events will start in week 9 of the Era, which is when the 5th Era Marquee is released. Era Journey Guides Units will be available at 4* to allow players to use them early during the Era. This Era Journey Guide will be structured as follows: Tier I requires the first 5 Era Marquees at 4 at Era Level 45 and will unlock the Journey Guide Unit at 4 The 5 Era Journey Guide Unit will require 5 Marquee units at 5 The 6* and 7* versions of the JG will become available when the 6th Marquee releases and will require all 6 Marquees at 6* and 7* respectively. A significant amount of time after the Era, the Journey Guide will become a Legacy event, but it will have different requirements as the Marquees will no longer be Era units Era Levels To support our design pillars, we’re introducing a new progression system for Era units. This system uses new resources instead of Legacy gear or Relic materials, allowing all players to simultaneously continue their existing farms and chases while building up and playing with new units. Era Levels are a linear progression path that unlocks stats or abilities at each level. Unit Stars is another way to power up your Era units and are required to upgrade Era Levels beyond certain levels: 4* is required for Level 66+ 5* is required for Level 76+ 6* is required for Level 86+ 7* is required for Level 91+ Players will need a variety of Era Materials to upgrade a unit’s Era Level. These can be earned from participating in the Era through Coliseum, Era Marquee Events, Era Journey Events, and Episode Track milestones or purchased from the store. When Era units become Legacy units at the end of an Era, their Era Level will convert into the Character level, Gear tier/Relic level, and Ability level associated with that Era Level. Any Era Materials and Era currencies will be converted to Legacy materials at the end of an Era. The specifics of this new economy are still being finalized, but here are some examples of how your Era Units will be converted over: Era Level 65 - Lv 85/Gear 12(Base)/Ability Level 7 This is where we expect most players to reach with F2P Era Level 80 - Lv 85/Relic 2/Ability Level 7 Era Level 95 (Max Era Level) - Lv 85/Relic 6/Ability Level 8 (Zeta abilities!) Now let’s look at the first round of changes coming to the game in support of Eras, followed by what players can look forward to next year. Coliseum Coliseum is a new game mode and the first Era mode to be added to Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes. Unlocking at Player Level 10, this game mode pits individual players against formidable foes from the Star Wars universe. Bosses will rotate daily, with players attempting to achieve new high scores each day. These high scores will earn rewards in two ways: one-time rewards for reaching certain score milestones (that reset each era) and daily leaderboard rewards competing against other players’ high scores for the day. The Coliseum leaderboard is one of the primary places to earn the new Relic 10 materials. More on Relic 10 below. To support this new leaderboard, players will be randomly assigned to new Era Shards. These are similar to Squad Arena and Fleet Arena shards, but are completely separate. An Era shard is not tied to a player’s Squad or Fleet Arena Shard and will not affect either of those in any way. Players will be randomly assigned to a new shard each Era, giving everyone an opportunity to prove their mettle against a variety of opponents. Era Challenges Era Challenges are another place to use Era units in this release. These will be replacing Galactic Challenges in an effort to help manage how much time players spend completing their daily tasks. The difficulty tiers are balanced around having Era units & squads at certain Era Levels, and the feats reward those appropriately. These will be available during the weeks between marquee releases, and players will have the full week to complete as much as they can on their own schedule. Time In Game Time needed to complete all the events and modes daily is an important topic to discuss as part of all these changes. With the addition of Coliseum and managing an Era roster on top of your existing roster, it is critical that we ensure the time spent in game daily doesn’t increase significantly. We designed the systems and the scale of Eras to something far more manageable. For this release Coliseum is a huge focus, but we were careful to ensure that only a few battles a day are needed to complete most of the Era content and advance up the leaderboard. Your score for each Coliseum boss is a high water mark that persists over the Era, which means once you achieve your best score, you don’t need to keep battling over and over again that day. A new type of event is Era Challenges, which replaces Galactic Challenges. Every other week, Players have 7 days to complete Era Challenges and use their newly powered up Era Squads. This should make Era Challenges less time intensive than Galactic Challenges overall. Lastly, we wanted to reduce some time spent in Conquest and Territory Battles. For players who are over-invested in the Squads needed for the zone, Relic Delta will make those battles faster and need less micromanaging during the encounters. In the future, we will continue to examine which modes should be supplanted by the Era system and which ones are the important drivers of your Legacy roster that should stay front and center. We are also scrutinizing which areas of the game are not only time intensive but become repetitive once mastered. This is a space we are continuing to examine and determine if they should be addressed with quality of life changes or removed entirely. More on this in the future as we watch this release closely for how it impacts time spent in the game. Cantina We have long wanted to spice up the cantina with new characters, story elements, tie-ins to current events within Galaxy of Heroes, and more. While our Art team is hard at work preparing larger changes, we wanted to put seasonal content front and center. To facilitate this, we’ve condensed the Light Side and Dark Side tables into the Cantina Battles table and renamed it the Campaigns table. We will be continuing the work to modernize our Cantina in an update scheduled for next year. Our goal is to provide an easily-navigated home screen that informs you of the most relevant information to you and what exciting new content has been released. Future Seasonal Content Oftentimes players will be building two or even three squads out of the marquee and Journey Guide units they unlock during an era, and we want to support player agency in developing those squads. Early next year we plan to release what we’re calling Loaned Units - a system where players will temporarily be granted a variety of additional Era units based on Legacy units for use in Era modes. Loaned units will not require direct investment to increase their power, and they will go away at the end of the era. Until then, we’re utilizing summoned units within Coliseum to provide a better and more well-rounded combat experience. We recognize that there are players who want to duke it out in direct PvP rather than fight big bosses. With that in mind, we want to bring a PvP mode to Eras in the future. For this to be the compelling PvP experience we want it to be, it needs to be supported by Loaned Units and a system for stat differentiation. However for Era PvP, mods can be complicated, and they introduce a wide variance in player experience and competitive viability based on random rolls. While the system provides interesting texture to legacy content and long-term progression, it is not conducive to seasonal content where all players start from the same place each era. With all that said, any Era PvP will be introduced alongside a new system for stat differentiation among Era units that will allow Era PvP to be an intriguing competitive landscape for players to deeply engage with. More on the next Era features as we get closer to their releases. We should note that this is not the end of "Legacy" content as the Era system works in conjunction with new events and modes that are outside of Eras. We have many plans to release more features and content like Raids, Territory Battle Planets, and Units in the future. Legacy Changes Alongside the new era content, we have a number of changes coming to the rest of the game. Let’s take a high-level look at what those are. Marquee Cadence A long time ago, we established a cadence for Marquee units. Since then, we’ve added to the cadence (shards become accelerated approximately one year later) and introduced new versions of Marquee events. With the introduction of Eras, we are evolving Marquees to the next stage. Players will be granted all of the Marquee units from an Era the first time they log in during that era. These units will not be accessible for upgrades or battle use until their individual marquee event starts, but they will exist in your roster. This way, all players will have access to the same Marquee units at the same time, even if a particular Marquee event is missed during an Era. (You’ll still want to play the Marquee while it is active to earn more shards for your Era Units, though!) It also helps players jump straight into Era content. The other notable change to marquee units is when they transition to shipments, nodes, and accelerated status. Marquee characters’ shards will be available in Shipments approximately the second week after their release Era ends and they become legacy characters. Marquee characters’ shards will be farmable on a node approximately 13 weeks after their marquee event. Marquee characters’ shards will become accelerated around one year after the start of their release Era, even when this would mean an individual character may become accelerated earlier than one year after their marquee event. This is also when Marquee units are eligible for Lightspeed Tokens, as a change from our earlier plan of having them become eligible one year after the end of the Era. Relic Economy Changes As part of this major Eras update, there will be a number of changes to the Relic economy. Eras create a path for players to reach the higher tiers of Relics if they want to invest deeper into their squads. Relics are also a critical part of the rewards for the Era, and there are three ways we are improving the Relic experience for players: Reduce the Pinch of Gear and Relic Materials Increase inflow of Relic resources to majority of players Improve Access to Relics Reduce the Pinch of Gear and Relic Materials The first way we are reducing some of the Relic pressure on your roster is through the changes to Eras. Eras significantly change how players interact with Legacy unit progression as Era Levels provide a head start on new units when they convert at the end of an Era. This reduces the amount of Gear needed for new units and instead can be used at the Scavenger to obtain the Relic materials you need. Outside of the newest units, Era rewards will also impact many older Journeys. Lightspeed Tokens are rewarded from engaging or investing in the Era and can be used on Legacy units to accelerate access to squads and Journey Guide events. Again, this reduces the amount of Gear you need to get Journey Guide requirements up to speed and freeing up Gear to be used elsewhere. Our goal for Eras is to be an efficient way to acquire Journey Guide units and power up your roster. Additionally to alleviate some pressure on Relic materials for Relic 9, we are removing Fragmented Signal Data, Chromium Transistor, and Aurodium Heatsink from the Relic 9 recipe. All of these changes combined allow you to use less Gear for upgrading Units and save Gear for the Scavenger to get the Relics you want faster. Increase amount of Relic Material inflows While reducing the number of places you need Gear, it is important to get more Relic materials into players’ inventories. This primarily comes from the updates to milestones on the free Episode Track. Relic 1-5 materials and Tier 1-3 Signal Data will be replacing existing GC Salvage Boxes on the free Episode Track milestones. Players engaging daily in Eras will still be able to complete the Episode Track, and we expect most players to be able to earn these resources monthly. On top of that, we are updating Episode Shipments to include items like Signal Data (Fragmented and Incomplete) so players can use their extra Episode currency to also boost their Relic farms. Improve Access to Relics More resources and less pressure on Gear when upgrading Characters is great, but without access to more of the important materials to upgrade higher tier Relics, players would be unable to utilize these additional resources. With that in mind, the Scavenger will be updated with the following changes: New Relic Material recipes Aeromagnifiers Mk 12 ArmaTek Tactical Data Prototype = 270 points Mk 12 ArmaTek Tactical Data Prototype Salvage = 9 points Mk 7 Kyrotech Shock Prod Prototype = 450 points Mk 7 Kyrotech Shock Prod Prototype Salvage = 9 points Mk 9 Kyrotech Battle Computer Prototype = 450 points Mk 9 Kyrotech Battle Computer Prototype Salvage = 9 points Points to create 1x Aeromagnifier = 175 points Droid Brains Mk 12 ArmaTek Tactical Data Prototype = 270 points Mk 12 ArmaTek Tactical Data Prototype Salvage = 9 points Mk 7 Kyrotech Shock Prod Prototype = 450 points Mk 7 Kyrotech Shock Prod Prototype Salvage = 9 points Mk 9 Kyrotech Battle Computer Prototype = 450 points Mk 9 Kyrotech Battle Computer Prototype Salvage = 9 points Points to create 1x Droid Brain = 245 points New Relic Signal Data recipe Corrupted Signal Data Fragmented Signal Data = 6 points Incomplete Signal Data = 8 points Flawed Signal Data = 10 points Points to create 1x Corrupted Signal Data = 145 points In addition to the Scavenger, Raid Shipments are being updated: Electrium Conductor and Zinbiddle Card are being changed from costing Mk III Raid tokens to Mk II Electrium Conductor Cost = 75 MKII Raid Tokens each Zinbiddle Card Cost = 100 MKII Raid Tokens each Carbonite Circuit Board, Bronzium Wiring, Chromium Transistor, and Aurodium Heatsink are being changed from Mk II Raid tokens to Mk I. Carbonite Circuit Board Cost = 35 MKI Raid Tokens each Bronzium Wiring Cost = 40 MKI Raid Tokens each Chromium Transistor Cost = 50 MKI Raid Tokens each Aurodium Heatsink Cost = 55 MKI Raid Tokens each The goal here is to make these Relic materials easier and cheaper to acquire. Updated Rarity Requirements The number of Stars required for certain Relic Amplifier Levels has been reduced as well: Relic 4: Now requires 5 Stars, reduced from 6. Relic 5: Now requires 6 Stars, reduced from 7. Relic 6: Is now the first Relic Amplifier Level to require 7 Stars. While we lift the floor of Relics for many players, we also want to raise the ceiling with the introduction of Relic 10. Earned from Era Shipments, Relic 10 materials will be the most valuable for players competing at the high end of Grand Arena Championships and Territory Wars. While new units and content are exciting for our most veteran players, the competition at the top end of our PvP modes is what drives the excitement for many of our top players. Increasing the accessibility of Relic 9 means players should feel more comfortable with pushing their competitive squads to higher Relics. This is some major context for why Relic Delta is important and how the access to Relics is becoming easier. Speaking of which… Relic Delta Thanks to the efforts of those involved in the recent playtest, we have finalized the values for Relic Delta as shown below. This system will not be active in Conquest during the Stranger arc. For the Conquest arc after the Stranger, we are working on changes to improve quality-of-life and ease pain points so that the Relic Delta’s effect on the Conquest experience is purely positive. We knew this was a critical but difficult change to make, which is why we ran a playtest to help tune this to the appropriate levels. Thanks to your feedback, we lowered the overall impact of these modifiers at lower Relic differences and reduced their power at the top. Even now, the numbers above are something we will monitor closely to ensure there is a robust meta based on squad synergy and strategy that respects players’ ability to theorycraft and push squads to their limits. If you want to know more about Relic Delta and our intentions for its impact, check out our Design Fireside Chat on Relic Delta here. Episode Track Updates This release also contains a number of changes to the Episode Track. With the release of Era Levels, a variety of Era Materials will be added to the Episode Track. The Pass and the Pass+ will contain even more Era Materials to accelerate your Marquee upgrades and help you climb the Coliseum leaderboards. Additionally Relic 1-5 materials and Tier 1-3 Signal Data will replace Gear on the free Episode Track milestones. Overall, this adds more value to the Episode Track, the Pass and the Pass+ while the price will stay the same. Galactic Challenge Episode Points Migration With this release we are discontinuing Galactic Challenges in their current form and adapting the GC system to create new Era Challenges as detailed above. Episode Points awarded from these feats have been fully distributed across Episode Quests. Only the points from feats requiring Episode Pass ownership were applied to quests requiring it. Specific point changes to Episode Quests are as follows: Free Episode Quests award 5,000 EP, up from 2,000 Episode Quests requiring the Episode Pass award 7,000 EP, up from 4,000 Chapter Headline Quests award 11,000 EP, up from 8,000 There is also a new Daily Quest for playing in the Coliseum, making eight total. Individual Daily Quest rewards have changed as follows: Daily Quests reward 300 EP, reduced from 350 Completing all Daily Quests rewards 1600 EP, increased from 1500 This results in an overall increase of 50 EP/day from Daily Quests, (3,950 vs 4,000,) or 1400 per Episode. Lightspeed Tokens Future Lightspeed Tokens will have tiers updated to better match current character power levels. These consumables still instantly upgrade characters, but now grant higher Gear and Relic tiers. Note that this does not affect any existing Lightspeed Tokens. Updated Tiers Tier 1 – Carbonite: Level 85, 3 Stars, Gear XII, Ability Level 3 Tier 2 – Bronzium: Level 85, 4 Stars, Relic 1, Ability Level 4 Tier 3 – Chromium: Level 85, 5 Stars, Relic 3, Ability Level 5 Tier 4 – Aurodium: Level 85, 6 Stars, Relic 5, Ability Level 6 Tier 5 – Kyber: Level 85, 7 Stars, Relic 6, Ability Level 7 All other upgrades granted by each LST remain the same. The Anniversary Era For our 10th Anniversary, we wanted to do something special with our Marquee characters. We looked at characters that were in the game in our original launch back in 2015, and paid homage to them with new characters that have a modern place in the SW:GoH meta. The ones we chose all focus on either lifting squads that we feel could use a little help in certain areas, or building entirely new squads out of currently “homeless” characters. Anniversary Era Marquees Stormtrooper Luke - One step up from Farmboy Luke, this somewhat short Stormtrooper makes Stormtrooper Han and Princess Leia part of a real Rebel squad along with R2-D2 and Old Ben prior to unlocking Leia Organa. IG-90 - Counting up from IG-86 and IG-88, we get IG-90, a notorious bounty hunter who provides Doctor Aphra and her squad with a much-needed tank. Yoda & Chewie - Take Clone Wars Chewbacca, add one Jedi master, and bake into a powerful addition to Tarrful’s Wookiee squad. Asajj Ventress (Dark Disciple) - As a bounty hunter, Asajj Ventress looked for a place to belong as she made her way through the galaxy… much like the Scion whose squad she’ll join. Inquisitor Barriss - As Barriss Offee falls from grace, she will be part of a strong Inquisitiorius squad in 3v3 as well as a potential Unaligned Force User for Cere Junda to take under her wing. Darth Vader (Duel’s End) - As a Stranger steals away Vader’s apprentice from legend, this Elite Marquee joins his new master and the Emperor’s Hand as the backbone of a true Empire squad. Anniversary Era Journey Maul (Hate-Fueled) - Rebuilding his broken body from scrap metal and pure rage, the former Sith apprentice Maul will seek out a Stranger to give him new purpose and lead him in battle. Important Note: The Era Journey Event will now begin with the fifth Marquee unit’s release. This will allow you to unlock the Era Journey Guide unit at 4* and can get enough shards to get to 5*. When the final Era Marquee unit releases you can then play the last tiers of the Journey Event and get enough shards for 6* and 7*. Like their Era Marquee companions, the Era Journey Guide unit also uses Era Levels until the Era ends. Anniversary Era Coliseum Bosses Dryax - A vicious pair of apex predators from the planet Wayland! Jotaz - A bulky, ferocious brute from the mysterious planet of Zeffo! Pirate AT-ST - Abandoned by the Empire and salvaged by a bloodthirsty crew of pirates! Zeffo Tomb Guardians - An emotionless trio recovered from Zeffo’s Jedi tombs! 10th Anniversary Quest Celebration Starting with the release of this Title Update, and continuing over the next six months, we are releasing a series of Anniversary Quest chains that will appear in all players’ Journey Quest logs starting at Player Level 10. These quests will take a little longer to complete than a typical Journey Quest, but will be especially attractive for brand-new or returning players, granting Lightspeed Tokens to accelerate them through unlocking a number of Journey Guide characters. That said, all players should see at least some benefits from these quests! These quests will remain available until November 17, 2026. Unless otherwise specified, LSTs rewarded in these quest lines upgrade the character to 7 Stars and Gear XIII (a.k.a. Relic 0), with all abilities upgraded to maximum level. This includes Zeta upgrades but not Omicron upgrades. Below are the total rewards granted by each Anniversary Quest chain: Quest Chain 1-A (Start Date 11-18-2025): Hera Syndulla LST Sabine Wren LST 10x Zeta Ability Materials 3x Omicron Ability Materials Quest Chain 1-B (Start Date 12-2-2025): Ezra Bridger LST Chopper LST 10x Zeta Ability Materials 3x Omicron Ability Materials Quest Chain 1-C (Requires completing chains 1-A and 1-B): Captain Rex LST Rebel LST Emperor Palpatine LST (Requires completing final quest in chain to unlock Palpatine) Does not grant Star upgrade, but all other upgrades are the same Quest Chain 2-A (Start Date 12-16-2025): Ahsoka Tano (Snips) LST Jedi Knight Anakin LST 10x Zeta Ability Materials 3x Omicron Ability Materials Quest Chain 2-B (Start Date 12-30-2025): Mace Windu LST Shaak Ti LST 10x Zeta Ability Materials 3x Omicron Ability Materials Quest Chain 2-C (Requires completing chains 2-A and 2-B): Kelleran Beq LST Jedi LST Grand Master Yoda LST (Requires completing final quest in chain to unlock GMY) Does not grant Star upgrade, but all other upgrades are the same Quest Chain 3-A (Start Date 1-13-2026): Eighth Brother LST Ninth Sister LST 10x Zeta Ability Materials 3x Omicron Ability Materials Quest Chain 3-B (Start Date 1-27-2026): 5th Brother LST Seventh Sister LST 10x Zeta Ability Materials 3x Omicron Ability Materials Quest Chain 3-C (Requires completing chains 3-A and 3-B): 2nd Sister LST Empire LST R2-D2 LST (Requires completing final quest in chain to unlock R2) Does not grant Star upgrade, but all other upgrades are the same Quest Chain 4-A (Start Date 2-10-2026): Princess Leia LST Luke Skywalker (Farmboy) LST 10x Zeta Ability Materials 3x Omicron Ability Materials Quest Chain 4-B (Start Date 2-24-2026): Obi-Wan Kenobi (Old Ben) LST Stormtrooper Han LST 10x Zeta Ability Materials 3x Omicron Ability Materials Quest Chain 4-C (Requires completing chains 4-A and 4-B): Admiral Ackbar LST Droid LST Commander Luke Skywalker LST (Requires completing final quest in chain to unlock CLS) Does not grant Star upgrade, but all other upgrades are the same Quest Chain 5-A (Start Date 3-10-2026): Boba Fett LST Bossk LST 10x Zeta Ability Materials 3x Omicron Ability Materials Quest Chain 5-B (Start Date 3-24-2026): IG-88 LST Dengar LST 10x Zeta Ability Materials 3x Omicron Ability Materials Quest Chain 5-C (Requires completing chains 5-A and 5-B): Fennec Shand LST Bounty Hunter LST Chewbacca LST (Requires completing final quest in chain to unlock Chewbacca) Does not grant Star upgrade, but all other upgrades are the same Quest Chain 6-A (Start Date 4-7-2026): The Mandalorian LST Cara Dune LST 10x Zeta Ability Materials 3x Omicron Ability Materials Quest Chain 6-B (Start Date 4-21-2026): IG-11 LST Kuiil LST 10x Zeta Ability Materials 3x Omicron Ability Materials Quest Chain 6-C (Requires completing chains 6-A and 6-B): Greef Karga LST Mandalorian LST The Mandalorian (Beskar Armor) LST (Requires completing final quest in chain to unlock BAM) Does not grant Star upgrade, but all other upgrades are the same Pillars of Seasonality Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes has evolved so much over the last 10 years. As we looked at the future of the game, we wanted to build an ecosystem where all players could enjoy the latest content together. We established a few pillars for this ecosystem, eventually called Eras (seasonality), around which all of our design decisions were based and where we looked for guidance whenever an issue popped up. Let’s walk through the following 4 pillars to understand why they exist and how they affected the design of this release. Pillar 1: Seasonal Play is for All Players Whether players have been playing for 10 days or 10 years, we want everyone to play with the newest Marquee characters together. The first step to getting all players to experience the newest content together was to put all players on the same footing at the start of an Era. One option was to simply grant everyone the units for each event tier, but “borrowing units” doesn’t allow players to upgrade units in a unique way or support theorycrafting. Just using borrowed Units for an Era fundamentally didn’t feel like a fun or compelling way to grow a roster. This led to the creation of a new progression system called Era Level. Now everyone would start from the same place each Era when playing with the new Marquee Units, and players could invest as they wanted. Great! But now we had some questions to answer: How would these Era units interact with existing rosters and game modes? If it’s not the highest relic level, how can players get that unit to a state of competitive viability? What constitutes game-wide competitive viability when players could have a roster full of G7s or R7s? Ensuring that these Units felt competitive for all types of players in existing modes regardless of where they are going on their journey was impossible. What was viable for one player in Grand Arena for example was completely useless or overpowered for another. We could have picked an average spot that would have these units be competitively viable for most players but we would be leaving someone out and it would violate our pillar of “Seasonal Play is for All Players.” Additionally, having these units live side by side also creates an in-game communication issue where the unit could exist in two very different states based on which mode(s) you used them in. This left us with a choice: Allow players to use characters at a level that may or may not be competitively viable, which could mean the unit is usable by some and unusable by others Isolate seasonal play so that all players could use the new units in modes specifically designed to accommodate the new progression system We chose to isolate seasonal play as we believe it is the cleaner solution that results in a better player experience across the board and lets everyone enjoy the newest content together. Pillar 2: Focus on the Fun One of our main pillars with introducing Seasonality was to create an experience for all types of players that focused on doing what is fun in Galaxy of Heroes. Fun means different things to different people, but here we are defining this as getting new characters, using them in exciting battles, and experiencing epic Star Wars stories. This distills not only what makes character collecting games exciting, but also why Star War: Galaxy of Heroes is a game we have loved for years. So how do we do that? In our early game, players see rapid advancement in Gear levels and a matching pace of progression through early content. It’s fun watching multiple numbers go up every day, making clear progress toward content goals, and frequently getting stronger. It’s natural that as players get to higher investment and content, pacing slows down. This is evident in practically every RPG or game with a leveling curve. It’s something to embrace, yet it can sometimes leave us wishing we could experience that rapid progression again. To that end, we wanted new Marquee units to be usable in content immediately with rapid and consistent incremental progress. This means Marquees need to be relevant at lower power levels and to receive frequent upgrades that result in direct improvement in gameplay performance. Eras should provide a consistent progression experience to all players. This pillar informed some of the shaping of the Era Level system, but its primary impact was on the content landscape. We needed one or more new game modes that could be designed specifically for this new, isolated ecosystem. Content where players could feel the impact of upgrades while witnessing large accomplishments over the course of an Era. Enter the Coliseum! The first of our new seasonal modes provided opportunities for boss encounters on a rotating schedule so players could feel the experience of making significant progress on a daily basis. It also gives our designers space to come up with fun and exciting content more frequently while revisiting some of the awesome units we have created in the past but were only used a handful of times. Now remember Pillar 1, Seasonal Play is for All Players. With this in mind, we aimed to keep the Coliseum boss encounters simpler. However, the Coliseum still needs to be a place where veterans and new players alike can experience the fun of mastering a new challenge together. A variety of bosses at the right level of complexity allows theorycrafters to have a space to explore nuances while others can enjoy the progression from day to day. In short, we’re aiming to bring the whole community together to have fun. Pillar 3: Tell a Star Wars story Our love of Star Wars is what brings us together. It’s a wonderful universe full of stories we enjoy reading, watching, hearing, and playing. We wanted to make sure that through Eras we were providing deep, immersive stories and rich narrative experiences for players. While the Coliseum provides some narrative elements, we want to do more. The Cantina and the overall game need to evolve to better support the Star Wars stories we want to tell. This is arguably our largest update ever to the game, and yet it doesn’t contain nearly all of the stuff we wanted to build for you, our players. We have much more in store for Eras in the future, and that’s where we want to continue to grow this Pillar with more story-driven content. Pillar 4: Eras are the Most Efficient Path for Player Progress This Pillar has been a top priority as we’ve developed these systems. At every turn we kept asking “how is this helping players grow their roster?” Players who’ve played for 10 days have drastically different goals than those who’ve played for 10 years and require very different rewards. All players need to see durable progress from participating in Eras. For Eras to be the most efficient path for growing your roster, any progress made during an Era needs to translate directly into progress after the Era ends. It is critical that players did not feel like they lost any progress or their resources were wasted when upgrading characters during an Era. This is the reason for several choices, including (but not limited to): Why Era Levels use unique materials instead of Gear/Relics - Players no longer have to choose between progressing toward their goals or playing with the newest characters. Lightspeed Token Rewards and Era Units Conversion - Seasonality provides players with Lightspeed Tokens to help them achieve their goals while also growing their roster with the newest Era units, all without using their Legacy resources. Relic 10 Materials Rewards - For veteran players, Eras allow them to power up their existing Legacy units to greater heights by competing on Era leaderboards to earn Relic 10 materials. Era Currency gives Players Agency over their Rewards - Players need to earn relevant rewards for their legacy roster, and Era Currency and the new Shipment tab allow you to earn the resources that are most valuable to you. With these, players can continue to work on Territory Battle and Raid squads, hone their PvP capabilities, and unlock new Journey Guide chases while still acquiring, using, and advancing the newest characters. Conclusion Hopefully this post provides you with a better understanding of how we made some of the choices we did for this monumental 10th Anniversary update. We want to move to a world where Galaxy of Heroes players both new and old are strategizing and playing together in the latest events and with the latest characters without feeling like they are missing out on their favorite Star Wars experiences. Where newer players can feel like they are contributing to Guilds meaningfully without years of catching up while respecting our most engaged players who have been playing for years. Ultimately, Seasonality needs to provide real progress towards your existing goals. We don’t want you choosing between playing the latest cool stuff and actually preparing your roster for long term success. It’s a tough balancing act and we know there will be feedback on how we achieve this. It won’t be perfect but we are truly excited to continue this journey with you all! Thank you again for 10 years of amazing holotable stories. We could not have done it without you. - SWGOH Dev Team We know this was a long post, so if you have questions, feel free to submit them HERE Shameless Plug for Charity Event Live Stream
The 12 Days of Simsmas - 2025
Sul Sul! It’s the most wonderful time of the year - The 12 Days of Simsmas is back! Get ready to celebrate another season of holiday fun packed with daily activities and a festive giveaway! This year we're celebrating alongside our official Holiday Gift Guides - we've got something for every kind of Simmer, whether you're a hopeless romantic or a chaotic storyteller, be sure to check out each collection here. For the next 12 days, we’ll be dropping a brand new seasonal challenge for you to participate in, so be sure to check back every day for more Simsmas fun! 🎄🎁✨ Day 1 - A Very Merry Makeover - The 12 Days of Simsmas Day 2 - Present Hunt - The 12 Days of Simsmas Day 3 - Holiday Hustle - The 12 Days of Simsmas Day 4 - Ink the Halls - The 12 Days of Simsmas Day 5 - The Great Simsmas Mix-up - The 12 Days of Simsmas Day 6 - Faery Winter - The 12 Days of Simsmas Day 7 - Once Upon a Simsmas - The 12 Days of Simsmas Day 8 - Where's Father Winter? - The 12 Days of Simsmas Day 9 - A Simsmas Carol - The 12 Days of Simsmas Day 10 - Child's Play - The 12 Days of Simsmas Day 11 - Simsmas Movie Magic - The 12 Days of Simsmas Day 12 - New Year, Old Flame - The 12 Days of Simsmas And just like last year, we're giving you a chance to win your choice of a Kit, Stuff Pack, Game Pack, or Expansion Pack for The Sims™ 4! To enter the giveaway, players on PC, Mac, Xbox and PlayStation will have until the 12 Days of Simsmas ends (December 31, 2025 at 11:59 PM CT) to comment on this post and share what the holidays mean to you; make sure you also include the hashtag #EASweepstakes to be considered! Two lucky winners will be contacted via EA Forums Private Message, so keep an eye on your DM's! For full details on how to enter, how winners will be selected, and which countries are eligible to participate, check out the official contest rules below: We’re also kicking things up a notch this year with a special Festive Challenge exclusively for our Discord members - share your in-game screenshots of what the holidays mean to you and decorate your Sim’s home for the season! 10 lucky winners will be chosen randomly to win 1 Expansion Pack of their choice, so be sure to join the Official Sims Discord here to get started!
