What to expect in Update 7.3 in SWTOR, Old Wounds / Shrine of Silence! – NOW LIVE!

News Date: May 3, 2023 Patch: 7.3 News Source

What’s coming up in update 7.3 in Star Wars: The Old Republic? The developers revealed what is coming up with the next big update through a developer livestream!

UPDATE: Update 7.3 is now live! It launched June 13th on schedule.

Update 7.3

What is in Update 7.3?

  • New Story Continuation: Old Wounds
  • New Story Area: Interpreter’s Retreat on Voss
  • New Flashpoint: Shrine of Silence
  • PvP Medals Update
  • Class Changes
  • Economy Changes
  • Gearing Changes
  • New Cartel Market Cosmetics

In addition, all this stuff is coming out soon:

  • Public Test Server
  • Free Sa’har decoration with code (May 4 – 18, 2023)
  • Free May the 4th Droid (May 4 – 18, 2023)
  • Double XP (May 4 – 18, 2023)
  • Collections Sale (May 4 – 18, 2023)
  • PvP Season 3 (July 18th)
  • Nar Shaddaa Nightlife (July 11th)

Guides & Posts:

Patch Notes Update 7.3 – Old Wounds!

Livestream

You can watch the livestream recording on youtube or on Twitch.

Story

MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW! Skip past this and the New Voss Area and Flashpoint sections to avoid spoilers (table of contents above).

The Old Wounds storyline is going to take you back to the planet of Voss, in a whole new area called the Interpreter’s Retreat with a series of missions and a new Flashpoint called Shrine of Silence.

Ashley Ruhl (Narrative Director) and Caitlin Sullivan Kelly (Lead Writer), talk about the new story you can see in 7.3 in Old Wounds!

“In Update 7.2, we spent a lot of time with Heta Kol and the Hidden Chain and Shae Vizla, and people might be asking, what’s Malgus up to?”

The story is returning to the Darth Malgus storyline, to find out what his plans are for the galaxy. We’ll also see some cameos form the siblings Sahar and Ri’kan, and a couple Mandalorians, and some familiar faces along the way.

Players have been eagerly searching for clues about Darth Nul now that the holocron that belonged to her is in the hands of Heta Kol, and we don’t know what she is going to do with it. Darth Nul is the ancient Sith who built the mysterious machine in the temple on Elom that was saw in the Disorder trailer.

Malgus is still safely in prison, but with Heta Kol having the holocron in her hands, it’s now more improtant than ever that we figure out what it was about Darth Nul that Malgus likes so much and what it is he is trying to follow and the plans he has for the galaxy.

While he has been safely put away, our allies have been hard at work trying to find any piece of information related to Darth Nul. Luckily for us, some of our allies have discovered something, but unfortunately, our enemies have also found something.

Darth Rivix + Tau Idair

A teaser clip was shown of Darth Rivix with an artifact of some kind in-hand, in an encounter with Tau Idair.

Darth Malgus

We are going to get “another crack” at interrogating Darth Malgus and try to see if we can get any information out of him, but this time, we might have a little help from someone else. After our allies find this new relic, his interest may be peaked as well, and he may be more forthcoming.

Shae Vizla

Shae Vizla, the leader of the Mandalorians, is going to make an appearance in Old Wounds. She’s still reeling, still heated, about the aftermath of her duel against Heta Kol in Ruhnuk. She’s still very focused on hunting down Heta Kol and doing whatever it takes to find her.

Sana Rae

Sana Rae is also going to be making an appearance.  She’s the former Voss Mystic turned Alliance Advisor. She has been summoned to her homeworld of Voss by its mysterious leaders The Three, to talk to her about something and that’s where she also hears about an unsettling rumor that she wants to share.

If you made the choice to send Sana-Rae on a mission to a planet in Wild Space to investigate the origins of one of Darth Nul’s relics, she’ll also have an update about that.

If you happened to send another character on that mission in Wild Space, “could be anyone really”, they return from this mission to let you know what they found.

Torian Cadera

For those of you with Torian Cadera in your alliance, you’ll be able to support him through a companion conversation, he is doing a bit of soul searching about what it means to be a Mandalorian, because he is very shaken about what he saw on Ruhnuk, with Heta Kol burning the banner of his Clan Cadera, and reflection what it means to be Cadera now.

Want to brush up on your Voss lore?

New Voss Area

MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW! Skip past this and the Flashpoint section to avoid spoilers (table of contents above).

The new area / landing zone being added to Voss is called Interpreter’s Retreat. It has some of the storyline of Old Wounds but also a lot of gameplay. On the test server, we could see a set of one-time quests that then unlocked repeatable daily missions.

SWTOR Voss Interpreter’s Retreat Guide

Story-wise, there’s a group called the Shrine Restoration Initiative which is a group of Voss and Gormak working together to repair the damage from the Eternal Fleet from Vaylin’s bombardment in Knights of the Eternal Throne.

The developers said this area is not as big as a daily area like Ruhnuk, but there’s still a lot to do including:

  • Side Missions
  • Achievements
  • New Voss-themed decorations and armors you can earn

SWTOR Interpreter’s Retreat Hidden Achievements Guide

It uses many of the existing assets of Voss, but if you watch the clip there seems to be a whole new temple area / cliffs. You can also explore this area on the Public Test Server now!

New Characters

This are also brings two new characters you can speak with, who are a part of the new-ish Shrine Restoration Initiative group that is only a few years old.

These side missions are look into the partnership between the Gormak and the Voss. Traditionally, these two groups hate each other – for generations they’ve been at each other’s throats trying to eradicate each other, but when Vaylin attacked, they had to make a tenuous alliance to fight back and save their home world.

Over the years, more and more people have dropped out, but there’s still a shaky alliance between the two people trying to restore things the way they were before the attack. The player is helping this group rebuild around the Interpreter’s Retreat, and there will be several choices you can make along the way to either strengthen this precarious bond between the two people, or you can make choices to make the cracks start to show and put things a little more on shaky ground than they were before.

Kodom the Gormak Representative

Kodom is a curiosity among his kind, even though he is a staunch and steadfast proponent of the Gormak, he really values things more like candor, honesty and integrity. He holds these things to a higher value than things like strength and brute force, unlike the rest of the Gormak typically do.

Maton-Ja the Voss Mystic

Maton-Ja has a long storied career of helping people as they trek on their pilgrimages about Voss, and he’s also very adamant about preserving the traditions of old voss.

Voss Decorations

With a new area comes new decorations and new armor sets!

Voss Armors

We also have a lot of new armor sets – we have 16 armor sets that you can buy pieces from a vendor within the Interpreter’s Retreat area, and there will also be rare drops within the Flashpoint to get full armor sets. Voss Armor Guide

Voss Interpreter’s Retreat Armor

These armors look like representations of Voss culture. None seem to be 100% new, but many are armor sets we did not have access too before and were only for NPCs, or are reskins of existing armor but with unique Voss-themed patterns or colors.

Here are the only three current voss sets we have in-game, all which are the same shape but different colors:

Flashpoint

MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW! Skip past this to avoid spoilers (table of contents at top of page).

The new Flashpoint being added will be called Shrine of Silence and is set on Voss.

Flashpoint Mentality

Flashpoints in past updates have often been the capstone of the critical path / main story path, for example the Ruins of Nul flashpoint, as both new group content and the solo capstone to the story. This new Flashpoint, Shrine of Silence, is a little different, and is more like the classic Flashpoints like Red Reaper that has narrative, but is not inherently a part of the critical story path.

It has story, and is very narrative relevant, but it’s a bit shorter, and it can be played separately from the story, and the structure is a bit different. This is a new way for the developers to look at Flashpoints.

The Shrine of Silence flashpoint is related to the storyline of Old Wounds, but it is not required to play this Flashpoint to complete the Old Wounds story line.

You’ll be getting a lot of stuff related to what’s happening in Interpreter’s Retreat, but it’s much more focused on repeatable group and solo content. It will have story, veteran, and master mode. It’s not required, but it’s there to enhance the story the developers are trying to tell within the Interpreter’s Retreat area.

 

Shrine of Silence

In this area, there are several shrines that are very important to the Interpreters of Voss. The Shrine of Judgement, the Shrine of Contemplation, and the Shrine of Silence, which has fallen into disrepair and it has stayed that way for years, because the Voss say that it is cursed, and the Voss do not want to rebuild it, except for two very plucky mystics who then went missing. Shrine of Silence Guide

SWTOR Shrine of Silence Voss Flashpoint Guide

A Voss Commando who is in charge of their safety and well-being reaches out to ask for help, as no one else will come to their aid.

A teaser video of the environment of the Shrine of Silence:

Corrupted Vorantikus

Daniel Cefaratti, Encounter Designer for SWTOR, gave some details about the first boss in Shrine of Healing, which is the Corrupted Vorantikus in the ruins of the shrine.

The developer made a fun reference to this Vorantikus not being “as chatty” as the one you may have encountered in your class storyline – this is a reference to the Gormak Guardian in the Jedi Knight story on Voss.

The Corrupted Vorantikus proximity to the curse lying deep within the shrine has given it great power and some cool abilities.

Tantrum is a new mechanic unique so far to this new flashpoint, and has been nicknamed “donut targeting” and does damage in rings.

“If dancing in and out of range sounds fun to you, you’ll certainly enjoy weaving in and out of tantrum’s danger zones, as the Vorantikus repeatedly slams the ground, creating these rings at various distances around the boss. In Master Mode more rings will appear, making the dance a bit more complicated. I won’t reveal the whole fight, but I will reveal at the end of the Tantrum, the Vorantikus will be pretty tuckered out, which might allow the curse in the Shrine, to let its presence known.

Players thought the reveal that we would be fighting a Vorantikus was hilarious due to a bug late last year – due to an error in the Cartel Market Sales Schedule, the Savanna Vorantikus went “on sale” multiple days in a row, prompting jokes like “our lord and savior Savannah Vorantikus” and many memes.

My favorite response to the Vorantikus reveal after the developer stream was titled, “The Return of the King” by Maultaschensuppe on reddit:

View post on imgur.com

The Curse

Victoria McCreary, Encounter Designer at Bioware ha been in the game industry for ten years and introduced one of the bosses she worked on.

The Curse is a Sith Monstrosity that has been lying in wait in the Shrine of Silence for centuries waiting for new victims to corrupt.

On Master Mode, players will find that The Curse has the ability to sense your weakness and destroy any players that the boss deems as weak, so keeping your party healthy will be integral to your success. “Have a good healer if you want to do Master Mode!”

The Curse is quite large and will tower over the players fighting it. It was abandoned and left alone and experimented on, but because it was left alone for so long, it pulled from its environment which is why it looks this way. It was inspired by Old God fiction, but instead of tentacles, it has vines and roots.

PvP

Shabir Dillon, Gameplay Designer (who has been posting on the forums about balancing changes, and has been playing SWTOR for 11 years and a designer for 5 years) shared what PvP changes are coming to the game.

Medals

In PvP Season 3, players can expect the following changes to PvP maps:

  • In Voidstar, they increased the points defenders and attackers get for defeating the players near the doors.
  • In Novare Coast, they are adding in points for defeating players near the objectives and increasing the defender points gained for guarding an objective.
  • In Huttball maps, players will gain increased points for defeating players near endzones, increased points gained when defeating the ball carrier, and when the team scores the entire team will be rewarded for the score.

These changes will be available on the Public Test Server (PTS) when it is available, and a feedback thread will be available. Full info

PvP Season 3

PvP Season 3 starts on July 18th and will run for 12 weeks (the current season ends June 20th). The PvP Seasons many not necessarily start/end in sync with the Updates schedules (it may not be with Update 7.3).

PvP Seasons Guide

Preview of the new Sandstorm Soldier Armor Set in PvP Season 3:

Pssttt I found these on the PTS too:

Class Changes

Class changes had already been discussed on the forum for 7.3, here’s the post.

Planned Class Changes for 7.3

Economy

Joe Stramaglia, System Designer discussed the continuation of the Credit Economy Initiative.

The biggest notes are that the GTN in the future will be getting a full overhaul, including lots of new features and a ‘buy order’ system and ‘market data’.

You can see the 7.2.1 Credit Economy Initiative changes here!

Here’s what he had to say, transcribed from the live stream!

7.3 – GTN/Mail/Trade Tax

In 7.3, Bioware will be adding a new tax/fee to all the different ways credits can be exchanged, so there will no longer be a reason to skirt the GTN tax by trading person-to-person or through the mail. Some items will also adjust the value of a transaction when transferred via Trade, Mail, and COD and will be subject to the same fee

  • Trade between players (Secure Trade)
  • Mail (Mailing Credits)
  • Collect on Deposit aka COD (selling something through the mail)

Trade/Mail Fees – who pays?

The party responsible for all fees is the one who is sending the credits or taxed items. If an exchange is occurring that has taxed items or credits on both sides, then both parties would be paying a fee depending on the value of their side of the exchange.

So if I am sending you a mail with credits, the amount you enter is the amount the receiver will get, but the amount you will pay to send it will be that amount + 8% (plus the normal postage fee). This does mean that if you were to gift someone credits they will receive the amount you are intending to give them, but it will cost you that amount plus the associated fee. This means if I want to send a friend 1 million credits, it will cost me 80,000 credits – I’ll pay around 1,080,000 when I send the mail and my friend will get the full 1 million. If you are sending a friend 100 million credits, it would cost 8 million credits for the fee.

If you are sending items or mail between your own characters there will not be any additional assessed fees currently. Receivers of items and credits will not pay a fee.

How do Item Transaction Fees work?

Some items initially will have a value associated with them, this is based on their average value on the GTN and some other conversions based on the current economy. Eventually, this will be completely driven by the GTN.

The primary reason we need to have items that have fees is to limit tax avoidance through the use of barter-only trades and prevent folks from moving off of credits entirely to facilitate transactions.

My original guess was that this will include items that are commonly exchanged instead of credits, for example Hypercrates and Cartel Packs, OEMs and RPMs, and Master’s Datacrons, or other items that have a really steady value when a trader goes to resell them.

When I tested on the Public Test Server, I was dead wrong – almost every item was highly taxed when trading. You can see my findings and feedback here,

Post 7.3 – GTN Rehaul

  • After 7.3 we will be implementing a new suite of features that focus on the galactic Trade Network also known as the GTN
  • This will be an overhaul of how the GTN Works to increase usability make finding what you want easier and buy or sell items at a fair price all while providing you with more Market information than ever before to help players make informed decisions
  • We will also be building a commodity order system that lets you place orders for specific items and get them at a competitive price
  • Along with those changes we’re going to be making adjustments to the buy out price limit (This is the cap on prices in the GTN. We’re looking to increase this so that most items except potentially the rarest can be sold easily but details will come later when we unveil the overhaul.) – (Note: the current limit is 1 billion credits. Players sell items worth more than that in trade chat.)
  • As well as changes on taxing to be a progressive scale
  • This combined with what’s coming in 7.3 will make the GTN the premier place for trading the galaxy

Economy Initiative Going Forward

Hello everyone, I’m Joe Stramaglia,  System Designer.

Today I’m going to be sharing some exciting news about our credit economy initiative. Before I go into the changes coming to 7.3 I do want to say thank you to everyone who provided constructive feedback this initiative when it was first introduced in early February.

We’re dedicated to addressing the credit economy as it has been an ongoing issue. I want to reiterate that we are taking a lot of care in the adjustments that we make over time, and that this is an ongoing initiative.

While we are seeing some slight trends back down, we want a sustainable level for trade between players and engagement in our game systems.

Some of the things that we’ve done in the recent patches:

  • We’ve begun making system level adjustments to credit inflows and added new sinks such as adjusting the vendor item values and catchup systems in seasonal content
  • We’ve got more changes of this type coming in the next patch and subsequent patches
  • We’ve added costs to some forms of travel that would otherwise required costs and we’ll be addressing more of those in future changes as well
  • We’ve reduced the durability loss on armor on character death, but balanced it with a slight increase in the chance for durability loss through normal combat
  • In conjunction with that we’ve increased the repair costs to be relative to idle level
  • Expect to see these 7.3 changes on the PTS with details to follow on the forums
  • This is to align the cost of interacting with the market ahead of the most exciting changes that will follow

upcoming:

  • We want to start communicating these plans ahead of time so we can better gauge your feedback and course correct as needed, similar to the stronghold travel costumes
  • I would like to invite you to share feedback concerns or suggestions related to the GTN as we’ll be rolling out these changes over the course of more than one release
  • In the long term are philosophy is:
    • Credits should be the primary driver of our economy
    • The Galactic Trade Network should be the premier place for trade
    • Ultimately, if inflation is not controlled it creates a difficult environment for meaningful rewards
  • To achieve these goals and improve the game we’re taking a holistic approach to address a multitude of issues that will take several phases
  • We’re working on plans design not to just improve our credit economy, but the entire game ecosystem, and I look forward to assuring that with you
  • I want to reiterate that this is a conversation – we will be making active changes based on your feedback, and the data that is gathered as these changes are implemented in the live game
  • At the end of the day, quality is our focus. We want to deliver the best version of Star Wars: The Old Republic
  • Keep an eye out on the floor forums for further details and updates
  • Thank you for your time and May the force be with you 

Gearing Changes

Bioware also announced some new gearing changes that I really like, which simplify the entire system a bit. The big change is that Daily Resource Matrices, aka DRMs the purple daily material, are being removed from the cost of buying or upgrading gear, so you are no longer required to play Daily or Heroic areas to upgrade gear you got from Flashpoints or Operations. Read More

Newly Planned 7.3 Gearing Progression Changes

Cartel Market

Sneak peak of SWTOR cartel items – it sounds like there will be more for 7.3 that they didn’t show.

SWTOR upcoming blasters – Obi Wan inspired and Andor inspired.

The Hermit’s Vigil, Obi-Wan inspired blaster and the CP-2 Bryar Pistol, Cassian inspired blaster.

Once the Public Test Server went live, we also saw some other items in collections that might come out with 7.3 including two new armor sets, and two new mounts, once which is clearly inspired by the Slave I owned by Boba Fett!

New Cartel Market items on the PTS! New Vehicles, Armor Sets, Kenobi and Cassian Blasters, and a Lightsaber!

Nar Shaddaa Nightlife

Oh! The Nar Shaddaa Nightlife Event wont be coming with 7.3, but will go live July 11, 2023.

Nar Shaddaa Nightlife will begin July 11th and will run for 6 weeks! The High Roller Skiff Mount will be added as one of the rewards players can obtain during this event.

SWTOR Nar Shaddaa Nightlife Event Guide

Community Mount

“A new jetpack community grant mount is coming to 7.3 and can be obtained from our content creators, the community team, or earned through other marketing initiatives. We will have more details available soon!”

There is an official list of creators on the forums: SWTOR Content Creators

Intisar, a blogger in the program, made this graphic to show what Jackie’s sweater/hoodie said!

Broadsword

Some major news broke just before the update launched. Broadsword News

Star Wars: The Old Republic potentially being handed over from Bioware studio to Broadsword

After 7.3

What will be coming up after 7.3? While we don’t have many hints yet, we do know that there will eventually be…

AWS Cloud Servers

The developers are working on moving the servers to the Cloud, and have already tested out a temporary APAC server. Read More

SWTOR opens test server hosted on the cloud! ‘Shae Vizla’ APAC Server, April 3 – April 18, 2023! Now open.

GTN Rehaul

While it doesn’t sound like the GTN rehaul is coming with 7.3, we learned a lot about what it might contain in the 7.3 livestream (see above).

Stronghold

We already got the first stronghold mentioned in this post, the Mek-Sha stronghold, but perhaps there’s another one down the line.

We are tentatively looking to add a new SH with GS4 next year. Take that statement with dump trucks of salt as we are still early in reward planning for GS4 and a lot can change between now and then. There has also been some chatter about a new non-GS Stronghold but nothing concrete on the schedule right now. I know you will be very curious regarding possible locations but since this all early days and tentative I am not gonna speak to that now.

Thanks all.

-eric (Forums, August 30, 2022)

Warzone Medals

With the other Warzones getting knocked out in 7.3, the only warzones that haven’t been rehauled yet will be Odessan and Ancient Hypergates.

Story

We got a tease of where the story might go in the future as well, though this may be alluding to what is coming in 7.3!

And after that, more of everything. You can always expect more Flashpoints, more story, like Malgus says, ‘this is only the beginning.’ I talked a little bit about when 7.0 launched how much we had planned out the storyline and everything happening with Malgus, and how is plans are unfolding, and how the Mandalorian civil war storyline ties into that, we’ve got some stuff that I can not wait to see go live, and to see ya’lls faces and your reactions and your comments as it comes down the road.” – Charles Boyd (Former Creative Director, Developer 7.1 Livestream)

Seasons

We will see the continuation of PvP Seasons and Galactic Seasons – both of which are currently underway!

Graphical Updates?

With 64-bit now in the game, it’s possible we may see graphics updates in the future.

We’re also eager to upgrade our visuals elsewhere in SWTOR: starting with Tython, Korriban, Hutta, and Ord Mantell, we’ll be starting a process of upgrading the visual fidelity of our planets to bring them more in line with the amazing work the team has created in recent years. -Keith Kanneg (news article, December 20, 2021)

Crafting Update / Augments?

How does this affect crafting? Augments and Augmentation Kits are still craftable, and able to be used on all 7.0 gear. We are not raising Crew Skills, Gathering or Crafting levels upon the 7.0 release, but they are a part of our 10-year celebration plans. – Jackie late 2021, before the 7.0 launch

From an interview by Vulkk.com with the developers:

The official answer stated that while the developers “cannot provide a definitive timeline right now, a change to the Crafting system will not be implemented in the immediate future. At this time, players can continue spending credits on augments.” When the time comes that a crafting revamp will happen, BioWare said that they will give everyone plenty of time to adjust to the changes accordingly.

Based on BioWare’s answer, it seems that they are planning a more significant rework to the crafting system in line with other modernizations we’ve gotten with 7.0. Furthermore, it should theoretically be pretty trivial to just add another crafting tier if that’s all they wanted to do. – August 2022

Master Mode R-4?

It is unclear if Master Mode R-4 is still coming out, due to the large delay in launch of both 7.0 and the R-4 Anomaly operation in both story and veteran mode, but it is currently the only outstanding item on the list from the tenth anniversary, originally shared on a livestream July 1, 2021.