Two things the Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes community has clamored for, an improvement to the Jedi faction and better Mod Management tools and options, are coming to SWGoH. While one is an indirect response as two one Jedi are planned to be added from Knights of the Old Republic, the other, Mod Management, is a direct response to requests from the community over the past 12-18 months. Let’s take a look at what we know about both topics.

Celebrating the 15th Anniversary of Star Wars™: Knights of the Old Republic

To begin, July marks the 15th anniversary of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Originally created by Bioware, KOTOR was an enjoyable RPG that many fans used to break into the Star Wars™ video game experience. To celebrate the anniversary, SWGoH will be adding even more KOTOR characters to the game from the original Knights of the Old Republic. Those characters are expected to include, but may not be limited to, Jedi Padawan Bastila Shan,  and the utility droid T3-M4. More information on these characters, including how they will be available in SWGoH, will be coming in the next few weeks. While we have been told previously that no Jedi rework is pending, the addition of new Jedi certainly is a nice work around for this statement.

New Mod Management Tools Are Coming!

Adding to the excitement of new characters coming to SWGoH is one of the most highly requested items ever in the game – improved Mod Management. The devs have been hard at work on how to make the use of Mods in SWGoH easier for both new and advanced players for months if not years, and we are finally able to get the first glimpses as to what this will look like. First introduced in Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes two years ago in July 2016, mods have changed the game and have been a huge source of income for EA Capital Games as a result. While Speed continues to reign supreme, efforts are being made to improve the value of other stats and make the use of mods easier without changing the core of what they are and do. Call it a “Mod Faction Rework” if you like.

The four areas that CG is looking to improve include:

• Clarity – Making mods easier to understand for players
• Ease of Use – Improve the usability of the Mods interface and how players interact with them
• Balance – Improve the diversity of Mods so that one specific stat does not dominate
• Depth – Deeper investment in mods while respecting the investment required to get existing mods

When addressing the Clarity of the Mod changes, one of the items that is eye-opening to this site is that a large number of SWGoH players do not even engage with Mods. “Many players don’t engage with mods at all” is a statement that is mind-boggling to the staff of Gaming-fans.com, especially when we have mod Guides for nearly every character in Galaxy of Heroes and have a fantastic breakdown of how mods work in our SWGoH 101: The Comprehensive Mod Guide. However the fact remains that mods are seen as too difficult by many players, and a new mod screen which will make mod use much more like equipping gear is expected to help. An auto-assign button and the ability to find mods of the specific type will also improve the process. With this, a Basic View screen within the Mods section for each character will be available alongside the current screen which will be seen as the Advanced View.

On the topic of Ease of Use, the Destroy button is set to be, well, destroyed. The key in this area of improvement is the addition of Mod Loadouts. Similar to the ability to save squads for characters, the mod loadouts will introduce the ability to use groupings of mods which are saved and to name them for easy reference. Players can use that Mod Loadout on another character in just a few simple steps. This will also allow the removal of equipped mods and the assignment to a new character in one step.

Balance will be all about increasing under-used stats gained from Mods. We all know that some statistics gained from Mods simply do not matter enough to justify the use of the Mod. The goal here is to not decrease the value of any existing mods and simply make other Mod stats more valuable/powerful. Oh and don’t worry, Speed sets will not be changing.

Additional Depth will be seen in Mods with the introduction of Mod Slicing. The basic idea of Mod Slicing is that this will allow players to improve the Tier of their 5-dot Mods. Special salvage can been acquired through Mod Battles which allows Mod Slicing to upgrade a random secondary stat and increase the Tier (Color) of the Mod.

Testing will be underway shortly and more information will be released on all of this in the coming weeks, but it is clear to this publication that the devs are indeed listening and working hard to make SWGoH better for all of us.