TU16, Grand Arena Championships & “Exhibition” Championships Schedule

CG_SBCrumb
685 posts EA Community Manager
From our Feature Producer:

(This is a continuation of information about Grand Arena Championship. If you haven’t read them already, please read the previous posts here, here, and here, as some presumptions are made about understanding their context in this post.)


Grand Arena Championships are intended to play a major part in the day-to-day gameplay of veteran players. Because we have big plans for the future of this game mode, we’re planning to run an “exhibition” program first, to make sure that the player experience, technical smoothness, and competitive integrity of the experience is as good as it can be before we ramp up rewards, competition, and really make it count.

Here’s the schedule. Please note that while we have planned dates for this rollout, all dates are not final and are subject to change. (We’ll be able to confirm this schedule as soon as the update rollout begins.)
  1. (6/17) Client Rollout Begins: This is the initial deployment of the TU16 update (and this begins the 24 hour rollout process). We are targeting Monday/Tuesday and it may move, but while you’ll be able to download it, you won’t be able to play Grand Arena or the Dark Side Territory Battle until their event dates start. Other items in the patch notes (like rewards etc.) may be event dependent.
  2. (6/20) First exhibition GAC: a straightforward, 1-week-long Grand Arena embedded in a Championship – you’ll see basic League progression and a few interesting Feats. Players won’t be able to reach the top League. Rewards and progression speed will not be final.
  3. (6/26) Cooldown & Geonosis Dark Side Territory Battle: A 1-week downtime where players can focus on the new Geonosis Territory Battle while we can collect and respond to feedback from the first exhibition Championship.
  4. (7/2) Full exhibition GAC: A 5-week exhibition Championship. Rewards & progression won’t be final, but other than that this Championship is very much a “dress rehearsal” for the real thing. We’ll mostly be focused on monitoring for cheating and technical stability, and ensuring that even non-competitive players make solid progression across all GP Divisions. Rewards and progression speed will not be final.

From there, we’ll take 1-2 weeks off GAC in August to process feedback and make more significant changes, including rewards, for all Divisions. Then we’ll proceed to Championship 1 – the first “real” Championship. Depending on the overall results of the first Championship, we may end up doing a stat wipe on Championship Score and other Championship-specific profile stats as well.

All players who participate in the exhibition period will receive an exclusive Title that will only be granted this one time.

Through exhibition and Championship 1, Grand Arena Championships are going to run exclusively in the 5v5 format, with characters only. We’re considering mixing 3v3 and Ships in soon after, but for now we’re sticking with a “purer” format.

Thanks again for reading another GAC TED Talk. We’re looking forward to putting this in your hands.
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