Kabam’s Star Wars: Uprising (Free) is not a very forgiving freemium game. With multiple in-game currencies along with a premium counterpart that’s pretty expensive to purchase that aspect of Uprising would be tough enough to navigate. Combine that with the expansive equipment system, mission structure and the extracurricular battles and there is plenty of opportunity for players to lose out on potential rewards. However, with the right timing and knowledge, there’s also opportunity to be taken advantaged of. A few of us here have been playing pretty regularly since launch and have compiled a few tips on how to potentially put the odds in your favor.
Player Rating and the Soft Barriers of Uprising
It’s no surprise that Star Wars: Uprising, as a freemium title, has a lot of soft barriers associated with it that will encourage payment in some form or fashion. Probably the biggest element of Uprising that encourages that is the player rating concept that governs mission difficulty. All missions (whether story or side) have difficulties attached to them, with higher rewards for the more difficult versions. Uprising uses the player rating concept to restrict players from playing those harder difficulties (and thus earning those much better rewards) unless they have a high enough player rating. Player rating is calculated based on player level and equipment level. The higher your level and the more you upgrade your equipment, the higher your player rating is, which means you can play those harder difficulties and earn that cooler loot.
Sounds simple, but here are the issues associated with the above system. First, as your player level rises, the minimum player rating for those higher difficulty missions also rise. In addition, as you progress further and further into the story missions, the player ratings for each difficulty also rise in turn. Obviously, this means that as you get further into the game, it’s expected that you upgrade your equipment more and more in order to keep up with the difficulty curve. This works up to a point, as players will eventually hit the level limits for their weapons and equipment, forcing them to either find higher leveled equipment or use crystals to upgrade the gear already owned (assuming they can in fact be upgrade). The first approach is pretty hard to do as Uprising has a tendency to restrict difficulties that might reward players with the higher leveled equipment beyond the theoretical maximum limit where it is needed. So, for example, if you have a full set of maxed out three star equipment and you’re now looking for four star stuff, the difficulty level for missions that actually have four star equipment as potential drops is still out of reach.
Therefore, there’s really only two ways to get better in Uprising: using Chromium to potentially win equipment, and earning crystal to upgrade the equipment already in possession. We’ll go through both approaches below.
Chromium – What It’s For and How to Earn it
As Uprising’s premium currency, Chromium is used for a variety of different things in the game that I suppose could be considered ancillary in some regards. For example, you can use Chromium to re-roll your crew runs as well as take a chance at winning some nice equipment in the premium crane game. The game will on occasion also throw some special deals at players that will bestow crystals, upgrade materials and regular currency for some Chromium. The potential purchases with Chromium are all well and good but the biggest drawback is the real money expense associated with Chromium. As of the writing of this guide, 150 Chromium was being sold for $4.99 USD. To put into perspective what 150 Chromium will get you, a single pull from the premium crane game costs 120. When you put like that, the cost is simply outrageous.
Thankfully, there are a few ways to earn Chromium in-game and while you’ll never earn a ton, you can eventually earn enough to do a little bit. For example, you can occasionally find a crew run that will earn a small amount of Chromium. In addition, on occasion the daily Cartel Missions will have Chromium as a reward (typically between 15 and 50 per mission). While there’s little you can do to make Chromium-reward missions come at a greater pace, the best thing I can recommend for the cartel missions is to simply log in and play that daily mission at a minimum. Even if you don’t earn Chromium, odds are you’ll pick up some crystals which are just as important. As for the crew runs, the only advice I can give you is that the more you do, the faster they reset. Thus, you should check in on a regular basis each day to complete your runs and unlock new ones.
In addition to the above, one of the easiest ways to earn Chromium is to max out the level of any equipment owned. Uprising keeps track of every weapon and piece of armor owned. The game also keeps track of those items that you’ve maxed out, as well and rewards 15 Chromium for each item. While this bonus is only rewarded once per unique equipment item, there are a lot of items for you to max out. Even if you only focused on working on the five or six early sets of equipment that don’t require too much time and resources to upgrade, you can easily earn 600 or 700 Chromium with relative ease. Considering the going USD rate for Chromium, that’s not a bad haul. The easiest way to work this strategy is to use your script to play the regular crane game and upgrade every low level piece of you find (obviously using the Armory to makes sure that you haven’t already maxed that piece out).
Crystals Are Your Best Friend
In my view, crystals are the bread and butter for any player hoping to eventually get to a decent player rating without the assistance of Chromium. Simply put, crystals are used to upgrade everything you own. Obviously, you can use them to upgrade weapons and equipment to the next tier, but they can even be used to upgrade your crew as well.
Crystals are primarily earned as mission rewards and drops, but they can also be given as daily log-in rewards and even as crew run rewards. Thus, some easy ways to earn crystals are to log in every day, and take place in the daily assault missions which can potentially offer them as drops. Low level crystals can also be picked up in the regular crane game, and can be salvaged from equipment as well. If you’re dedicated enough to actually get ranked in a sector battle, you can also earn crystals as rewards in that mode as well.
So based on the above, players have a wide variety of activities to partake in to pick up crystals. Participate in sector battles to earn lots of requisition script which can then be cashed in for pulls that will hopefully reward some crystal. Always keep your crew runs active (similar to the above) so you an get more chances for crystal runs. If you have excess equipment, I’d always recommend salvage vice simply selling as the potential crystals you earn are far more valuable than the minimal basic currency earned. In fact, I’d recommend using some chromium to pick up some currency whenever one of those specials come around so that way you can focus on salvaging.
Meanwhile, once you obtain enough crystal, it’s really just a matter of taking the lesser crystals earned and upgraded them up to the level you need. Of course, this is going to require a ton of work to acquire all the crystals needed to continually upgrade all your equipment but honestly, outside of the actual gameplay, this is the crux of getting better in Uprising so players are going to have to get used to it.
Other General Tips
Beyond trying to work the freemium systems, there are a few other general tips that can be employed while playing. Make sure that the abilities that you take into battle compliment your play style and equipment. For example, if you’re melee based you aren’t going to want the abilities that focus more on ranged attacks and vice versa. In addition, enemies come out in waves in Uprising so I always recommend that you take the missions relatively slow to make sure you can methodically take out each wave before more come at you. There are also some obvious tips, such as always using your abilities when necessary (there’s no point to ‘save’ them, even an ultimate one) and be sure to strategically use the batca tanks in boss battles.
There are certainly more tips out there for folks looking to succeed in this Star Wars freemium title. If you have anything else to add feel free to contribute in the comments.
Isn't this typical with Activision now?
To be fair, Neversoft had always developed GH til Activision (producer) fired them a few years ago so this is the first GH to have been made by a different team. Not that it's any excuse but the fact that it didn't end up being a flawless release doesn't surprise me for that reason
I'm not talking about GH, just their apps in general
Neversoft was not fired by Activision they were merged with Infinity Ward.
Just want to clarify, Guitar Hero was created and developed by Harmonix. They made they first two, and then went on to make Rock Band after being purchased by a publisher. Red Octane, the publisher of Guitar Hero, were bought by Activision, who proceeded to run the games into the ground by over saturating the market with too many releases.
Well TA wanted real console games for iOS? Now you have them: games delivered broken and/or incomplete and day one patches.
It's a GameCenter bug. Not something Activision did or didn't do (shockingly enough). Other games are experiencing this issue after 9.1 (and some were experiencing it before--9.1 seems to have made it worse).
For the end-user it doesn't matter. Doesn't change the fact that the author wanted his experience to be console-like and got exactly that: a bug ridden game rushed to market.
EDWIN CONSOLE GAMES EXPERIENCE THE SAME DAMN PROBLEM
Um ... That was exactly the point he was making.
Uh.... yeah, that was what I said....
Lol burn......Go PC
Consoles are pcs. Overpriced, locked down, zero-standards PCs with proprietary closed off operating systems! What more could you want? :D
Yeah, as if PC gaming got off any better. Is Batman Arkham Knight running at a decent frame rate now? Or does it still require a beast of a machine to barely achieve 30FPS?
Are... Are you retarded? That is 100% on the developer. Of COUrSE my computer gets 60FPS in that game but if it doesn't on your machine that is the game dev's fault not the platform is that not utterly obvious?! Dumbass. Probably playing on a toaster.
So you ask if I'm retarded right before you go full-retard?
Of course day-one glitches and bugs are 100% on the developer (and everyone involved in the game development process over them). The platform solely exists thanks to developers. They are what makes the platform a platform in the first place.
If your computer runs that game at 60FPS then it must really be a beast. That game, not only was removed from Steam a day after its release because it was unplayable, but has a 57% negative review score just because everyone had performance issues.
Seems that more than half of Steam users, dedicated PC gamers with dedicated PC rigs, are playing on toasters. Dumbass.
The fact that you asked if I could play something at 30 measley FPS tells the whole story. My GPU cost less than your console and I wouldn't give the time of day to a dev that can't get their game to do 60 on it.
Gg.
Are you a retard full-time or do you take days off?
I was answering to EvanJO14. Not to you.
I doubt your GPU cost less than my Xbox 360 I bought second hand 8 years ago, which would be the last console I have ever bought.
And really, dude, are you that dense to refuse to acknowledge that Batman AK for PC came out with so many bugs and performance issues that Valve removed it from Steam just a day after its debut? The game has been criticized by every PC gaming centered media for it's awful port to PC. It has 57% negative reviews on Steam just because everyone is complaining about performance issues.
If you get 60FPS on it, then good for you. What do you want? A medal?
Well, that was anticlimactic.
Looks like a neat game, with a few early-stage issues...
Apple breaks their own crap and after all the paid games being removed from game histories and then this I like to call them a** holes.
Picked my 360 controller back up.
Right cause Apple should be responsible for each Developers inept ability to deliver and maintain a product?
Get some business sense kido
Well the gamecenter bug is not a developper issue :/
The game enter bug was fixed and is not causing this
Gamecenter bug wasnt fixed at all
Yes it was.
Sure as shit isn't fixed on my iPad.... Lucky you.
GC bug is now fixed on my device.
Strange.
Have you downloaded 9.1?
When they get a 30% cut, damn right they should. Get some common sense junior.
They get a 30% cut for the ridiculous marketing platform and serving as publisher. And that's actually pretty damn low as publisher cuts go. God you're an idiot.
Yeah I guess apples Game Center bug blocking developers apps from loading is the developers fault? Should rethink your business sense, toddlero.
The removal from history bug lasted only days and was fixed. And affected only certain situations: only if you deleted an app, kept no backup, then wanted to un-delete. Not the end of the world.
I agree that GameCenter should work more reliably—although I've had no problems since iOS 9.
360?! Lol have fun with that outdated shit
It has to be that gamecenter bug!
It is. Some companies are having to manually reassociate gamers' accounts with Gamecenter ID to work. Not Activisions fault surprisingly enough.
Holy hell, with all the recent horror stories of games breaking because of iOS updates and them being removed, the last thing I would do is buy a $99 iOS game.
Removal is simply what a responsible developer should do until they have a fix ready. They shouldn't keep selling it until it works again.
Are they serious, you can now get a guitar for your phone to.... I can't this is the stupidest thing I've seen today. Phones should stick with "time waster" games
Not since when they cost three times a home console
It's hilarious to me how many people are so retarded that they don't realize a mobile device can plug into a TV same as a console. I mean how unbelievably low IQ are all these losers!?
Got an odd amount of anti-mobile gaming trolls here today for this.
My own opinion, been iOS gaming since 09, hardcore on and off, wasted over 100+ hours with some games. So it's not like I'm full anti mobile, but really this is just stupid. How the f*** can u play with a guitar peripheral on your phone while out and about without looking like an idiot. And if your at home playing why not just play on a console?
It doesn't make sense on a phone unless you've got AirPlay (and then only if the lag isn't too bad). It's just about okay for an iPad and perfect for the Apple TV though.
It works fine on a 6s+. Just sit it in a dock. Idk why this guy thinks you're going to do it "while out and about". That's retarded.
It seems like the appropriate amount.
That stupid gamecenter bug strikes again...when will it get fixed? Ios 9 has beem a complete disaster for me. :(
It's fixed for most people as of yesterday's iOS 9.1 release (or earlier for people who used the beta)
It's pretty common on the console side of gaming for games not to work on day one, especially from the big stinkers (EA, Activision, Take Two, etc) Sometimes I wonder if these companies even have a beta tester section or if they consider day one buyers their beta testers. Guess an early release draws iOS into that as well from the look of things. It didn't use to be like that, as it used to be pretty rare to get a broken game. Nowadays I tend to avoid buying from western game companies until their game has been out a few weeks in case they need patched.
Eli, et al - If you want this to "work" in it's current...state...
Turn Off WiFi.
Yep.
Turn off WiFi. These guys made a *great* game...but do *not* know what they are doing on iOS...take it from an iOS Dev that's been doing this for a long time.
I hooked the thing up to Xcode so I could watch what it was doing...if any "regular" developer would have submitted this to Apple there is no way it would have gotten thru with how much it is spamming the radios...
Anyway, yeah, an update is surely forthcoming.
That said...to those that are like "$50/$99...really?" - This is the console version. I have it on XBONE and if they bundle the AppleTV version into the update as I suspect they will, there will be no perceivable difference between this and the other console versions, except the iOS version actually has a Mobile Play mode...and I'm not sure if one can sing over Bluetooth with the iOS version, didn't try...it was a PITA even getting it to actually run :)
I still don't get it. Isn't this basically the exact same game we all got addicted to, played to death, and lost interest in 10 years ago? Why a new version now?
First of all, not everyone lost interest just because you did.
Secondly, no it's not the same game at all. The fretting is different. It's literally a completely and utterly different game with zero similarities besides genre.
I wonder if this is related to the Game Center bug that's holding back multiplayer in Deathwatch.
No it's not.
For those people saying that GameCenter is still bugged--I obviously can't speak for everyone, but I was having the same issue until I installed the 9.1 update today, which claims to have fixed GameCenter login errors.
This should mean that Guitar Hero Live iOS game works--unless it's a problem with the app itself being unable to access GameCenter, rather than GameCenter itself just being nonfunctional (which was my previous issue). Games that I couldn't play before due to a lack of working GameCenter (Happy Haunting, Marvel Champions, Soda Dungeon, etc.) now work. In theory.
But as Eli says he's tried it on previous versions of the OS on various devices, it seems as though unless his GameCenter has FUBAR'd on every single other device he owns, chances are, it's an issue with Activision's app.
Okay! I got it to work with the guitar bundle but you have to launch the game on your carrier network, once the game is loaded, switch back to WiFi and it works. FIX THIS GLITCH, Activision!
Not working for us. :(
I've tried every combination of disabling LTE, enabling WiFi, and vice versa.
Major bummer. I am seriously shocked they released a game that, for the most part, fails to work.
It is pretty convoluted, Eli, which is why I didn't type out all of the steps...and on the iPad I have (non-SIM) it was even more spotty (I basically had to Bluetooth PAN/Personal Hotspot to my phone) but on my phones I was playing for a couple of hours over hdmi. Basically, once it gets past not being able to connect to Game Center over WiFi it is playable and you don't have a useless $50 piece o' plastic.
Kai, exactly. Turn off WiFi on both iPhone/iPad > turn on personal hotspot (iPhone) > connect iPad to iPhone via Bluetooth > launch game > connect guitar > start playing game > disconnect Bluetooth > enable WiFi on iPad. Then I am able to play without any hiccups.
Crap, you are allowed to do it without the guitar and I thought it was because I didn't have a guitar. Now I know lol. Thanks for the info, if I didn't hear it, I would have bought the guitar😂
as a owner of the ps4 version, i wish there was some sort of discount for the ios version :/
Yeah I'm with you there, in fact in general I'm sad that was lost. As an ex Mac user things you bought for Mac always used to include a license for the PC version. You were buying the intellectual property access, not the specific code for one OS. Sad that while this trend grew in cloud-based services it seems to have come to a complete halt in regular software except for Blizzard games.
I'm wondering if this ever got resolved? Looking at for two kids for Christmas. Also, with two guitar consoles, can two people play at once on the same Apple TV 4th Gen? Thanks in advance.
That's weird, mine works perfectly... iPad Air II with the latest update
Hello, I have the last Apple TV and OS10. GH crash and goes back to the menu of my apple TV after entering the few needed parameters needed to start... What is the prob ?? Who should I contact ??