Dianiss' Guide to Life Day

It's the most wonderful time of the year!
With red speeders we're riding
and Rebel in hiding
when guild-mates are near!
It's the most wonderful time of the year!

It's the hap-happiest season of all!
With the load screens all bugging
and Wookiees for hugging
while throwing snowballs!
It's the hap-happiest season of all!

There'll be people all meeting
at droids overheating
and Parcels all covered with snow

There'll be fast snowball cannons
and guides from Dianiss
to help you all be in the know....

Life Day comes but once a year, so I thought I'd write up a quick guide to help everyone get the most out of it. This guide includes everything that's been added to the event up to and including the 2020 event, and there have been no subsequent changes made to the event for 2021 through 2023 other than new items for sale on the event vendors.

(P.S. Rebel, mentioned above--and below--is a former guild-mate from <Hellbent> who famously HATES it when people throw snowballs at him in-game.)

Part 1: Snowballs

The first thing you need to do is go to the Fleet and purchase a Life Day Snowball Bomb for 1000 credits from the Life Day vendor named Master of Ceremonies. He's the Santa-Claus-looking dude near the GTN consoles where your frame rate starts tanking because of all the snowball-throwing that's going on there.

Now you can target basically anything: friends, enemies, NPC's, ops bosses, your own companion, other players (but not Rebel), and use this new item. (Put it on your quickbar somewhere.)

When you throw a snowball like that, you have a 15% chance of getting a mission completion called A Special Snowflake where you get some Renown points, LS/DS points, and a Snow-Covered Parcel. The Parcel is the special event currency for Life Day, and you can use them to buy lots of other things from the Master of Ceremonies.

Part 2: How Snowballs Work

When you hit someone with a snowball, they get a buff called Snowflakes that lasts for 5 minutes. If you hit that same person with another snowball, you just reset the countdown timer to another 5 minutes. Also:

So long as that same target has a Snowflakes buff that YOU put on it, your chance of getting a Snow-Covered Parcel by hitting it with another snowball is ZERO.

So what can you do?

You can throw snowballs at other targets which don't have the buff.
You can wait 5 minutes for the buff to fall off.
In the case of other players, they can right-click off the buff themselves.
In the case of your companion, YOU can right-click off the buff yourself.
You can get someone else to reset the buff for you.

This last one is important, because most people don't understand this detail about how the Snowflakes buff works:

Your chances are only ZERO if YOU are the player who put the buff on that particular target.
If someone else resets the buff's countdown, then THAT player and ONLY that player has a 0% chance of winning a Parcel--but YOUR chances are back to being the same as if the target is not buffed at all.

This is why multiple people can repeatedly throw snowballs at the same target and get Parcels over and over again. As long as you're not the last person to hit the target, it's the same for you as if the target has no buff at all.

Some other noteworthy things:

If you do get a Snow-Covered Parcel, you have to actually accept the "Mission Complete" dialog box. You will not win any more parcels so long as that dialog box is still on-screen.
You must be at least 1m away from your target. (This is not normally an issue, but it can make hitting your own companion tricky because they like to stand just under 1 meter from you and chase you around if you move too far away.)
The snowball bomb is an instant-cast ability, but its cooldown IS affected by Alacrity.
You can only buy the Life Day Snowball Bomb during the Life Day event. The Master of Ceremonies disappears when the event ends and there's no other place to get it any other time of the year.

Part 3: Overheated Gift Droids

On the Promenade of Nar Shadda and the Senate Plaza of Coruscant you will find a series of Lifeday Gift Droid NPC's that look like C2-N2 but painted red and decorated in colored lights. These will randomly spawn and de-spawn in predetermined locations around the area. (NOTE: I expect you can find them on Dromund Kaas as well, but since I'm primarily a Republic player, I'm focusing the Republic side of things.)

Occasionally, though, there will also be an Overheated Gift Droid that randomly spawns. Like any other target, you have the same 15% chance of getting a Snow-Covered Parcel from each throw. But every time you hit an OGD with a snowball, you ALSO have a 20% chance to win a holo-tree decoration in your choice of 4 colors. In fact, these chances are independent of each other so you can even win both a Parcel and a deco from a single snowball throw!

You can eventually hit your 100K Conquest total just by doing this too, since there's an infinitely-repeatable CQ objective for getting 5 Parcels (but the decos don't get you any CQ points).

Please note:

These particular holo-tree decorations ONLY come from the Overheated Gift Droid, and nowhere else.
When the Overheated Gift Droid first spawns, it's RED like an enemy, so it's a bit easier to see.
Once it gets hit by a snowball, it turns GREEN like any other friendly NPC.
While it's red, it can be attacked and killed. Don't do that.
The same rules for the Snowflakes buff apply to the decorations. You can't get another decoration from the same OGD if it still has a buff that you put on it.
This is why you'll see crowds forming around a single OGD. They are all resetting each other's buffs, allowing everyone to benefit from repeated throws. It's also why you'll see people calling out their locations in General Chat.
Just like with the Snow-Covered Parcels, you have to choose and accept one of the decos to remove the dialog box from the screen before you can win another one.
If you attack a red OGD without killing it (use a zero-damage ability like an interrupt with your companion in Passive mode), it will chase you while throwing snowballs at you, rapid-fire. It's pretty funny to see.
In game versions 5.x and 6.x you would also win renown points and Light-Side or Dark-Side points as an additional reward for the Parcel and Deco wins, which would let you build up Conquest points even faster from raising the character's Reknown level. Those mechanics were removed in version 7.0.

If you want to actually put some time into this, you'll want to pay attention to the crowds and join them. Most people will congregate around the same OGD and stay with it until it de-spawns, then move in a herd to find the next one. It's also very common for people to call out locations (including the instance number) in General chat. You're better off finding and following that herd than striking out on your own because even if you call out a new location in chat, the larger group will usually not come to you if they've already found one themselves somewhere else.

Alternatively, you can team up with a friend and agree to stay together. It really only takes two people to alternate resetting the buffs for each other.

...and if you want to go REALLY professional, you can even build a super-high-Alacrity gear set to wear so as to minimize the cooldown times on both snowball devices and maximize your fire rate. (At least 2 pieces of the Taskmaster's set bonus--if you're still below level 75 and can still use it--will get you an extra 2% bonus to your Alacrity too.)

Part 4: Life Day Tinsel Bomb

The Life Day Tinsel Bomb is a Cartel Market item that works just like the Life Day Snowball Bomb, except it puts a different buff on the target ("Life Day Cheer") and the visual effect is colorful rather than just white.

The Tinsel Bomb does not allow you to get Snow-Covered Parcels or holo-tree decorations, so don't bother trying.
It's really only useful for annoying Rebel. (Don't do that.)

Part 5: Life Day Snowball Cannon

The Life Day Snowball Cannon is a Cartel Market item that works just like the Life Day Snowball Bomb, except it puts a different buff on the target (it's still called "Snowflakes" but with a different icon) and the same white visual effect.

However, the Cannon DOES also allow you to win Parcels and Decorations just like the Snowball Bomb.

This is important because:

Because it's a separate buff, it works independently of the Snowball Bomb, doubling your opportunities to win a Parcel and/or Decoration.
The cooldown on the Cannon is less than half the cooldown of the Snowball Bomb, so you can fire it about twice as often. This effectively TRIPLES your chances to win a Parcel and/or Decoration because you can fire off a total three shots in the same amount of time as you'd fire one shot using just the Snowball Bomb.

Also worth noting:

All the same rules for the Snowball Bomb's Snowflakes buff apply to the Cannon's Snowflakes buff (but again, independently of each other).
The cooldown is also affected by Alacrity, same as the Snowball Bomb.

So if you haven't already done it, BUY ONE NOW and unlock it for all characters in Collections.

It's also useful for annoying Rebel. (Don't do that.)

Part 6: Hugging Wookiees

Wookiee Hugging was added to the 2019 Life Day event and while it doesn't have the direct rewards of the snowball fights, it is at least kind of silly and endearing (but also frustrating) and more in line with the spirit of the holidays.

You can find huggable wookiees on the Fleet (though just a few), on the Nar Shaddaa Promenade, and outside the Slugfall Cantina on Mek-Sha. They'll be labeled as "Wookiee Reveler" (the tall, brown ones) or "Wookiee Caroler" (the shorter, white ones).

When you approach a huggable wookiee, your temporary ability bar will pop up with a new ability called "Hug a Wookiee". But--and this is where it can get frustrating--to use this ability, you need to (1) have that Wookiee as your target, (2) stand in front of him, and (3) be JUST THE RIGHT DISTANCE AWAY. It will be grayed-out until you're in position, so you can use that as a guide.

Tips:

You have quite a bit more latitude for standing "in front of" your target since it appears to be at least a 90-degree arc. You'll know that you are officially NOT in front of him when you get the super-helpful "Effect Condition Failed" message pop up when you try to use the Hug ability. (It will also still be grayed-out.)
It doesn't matter what direction you face, your character will automatically spin around to do the hugging animation.
If there is someone else near the same wookiee, you might have to wait for them. The game will only allow the animation to play out for one player at a time, and your "Hug" ability will gray-out while another player is mid-hug.
If you have a wookiee targeted, look at the green circle on the floor. You can use this as a guide. Note that it does expand and contract a bit, but not so much that you can't use it.
For the tall brown Revelers, you want to put your character's feet more-or-less on top of the point of the little triangle in front of him.
For the shorter white Carolers, you want to put your character's feet just outside of the green target circle. (These shorter wookiees have smaller target circles, so you have to adjust your own footing to compensate. In the picture below you can see the proper positioning for a Caroler wookiee.
When dialing in the proper distance from your target wookiee, it helps to turn off Sprint. It also helps to stand sideways and move back-and-forth in front of him (to his left and right). This uses geometry to your advantage to turn larger side-to-side moves into MUCH smaller in-and-out moves. Also, moving BACKWARDS is slower than forward or side-to-side, so that might help too. It gets easier after a bit of practice.
The game does take note of which wookiees you have and have not hugged so that you can't just repeatedly hug the same one. But you can still change instances and re-hug all the wookiees in the new instance for as many instances as exist (or at least as many as the game will allow you to enter).
Of course, this is all done on a per-character basis, so you can also boost your hug counts by simply making the rounds with multiple characters--each of whom can visit multiple instances.
Plus, you might as well do it across as many characters as possible and get the benefit of multiple completions of the daily mission to hug 10 wookiees.
The lock-out for hugging the same wookiee twice does eventually time out, but the timeout is LONG. I haven't been able to measure it, but I'm told that it's close to an hour.
The Master of Ceremonies vendor has a decoration called "Embracing Wookiee" which is triggers the temporary ability bar just like the ones you find elsewhere. Unfortunately, hugging this deco wookiee in a stronghold does not count towards your achievement progress, so it has no practical use except maybe for practicing your positioning.

The two best places to find huggable wookiees is the Nar Shaddaa Promenade, and the Mek-Sha Slugfall Harbor. There are also two of them on the fleet near the Master of Ceremonies vendor. If anyone has found any other places where huggable wookiees appear, please let me know.

There are 12 of them on Mek-Sha and they are conveniently lined up on the boardwalk in one location. To get there, Quick Travel to the Slugfall Harbor and then go up the ramps to the main level. Once you're there, there are two wookiees behind you and ten in front of you (along with another Master of Ceremonies vendor). You don't need to go inside or duck down any of the ramps--they're all in plain view on the main walkway.

On Nar Shaddaa, there are 13 of them scattered around the Promenade, although they're mostly concentrated in the northern half of the main area. They are all in plain view and none are tucked away in the Cantina, the GSI area, nor the ramps to the upper taxis.

...and there are three more on the Upper Promenade deck, mapped out for you here:

(Of the two areas, Mek-Sha is arranged way more conveniently, but personally I still prefer Nar Shaddaa. For some reason, being on Mek-Sha tanks my frame rates down to about 6-7 FPS on my non-gaming computer making it difficult to do anything there, let alone careful fine-tuned positioning. Everywhere else in the game is fine. Also, if you go into a PvP instance on Nar Shaddaa, the Promenade is a neutral territory zone, so you can run around all you want without worrying about someone attacking you.)

I don't know if Rebel gets annoyed by being hugged, but it's worth a try. :-)

Part 7: Achievements

The Achievements are fairly straightforward and there are no hidden achievements.

You'll find them under Events -> General -> Life Day and there are 10 of them for a total of 265 points.

THROWING SNOWBALLS
Name	Points	Description	Year	Legacy Title
Jolly Parcel Peddler	25	Win 1 Snow-Covered Parcel	2013	Life Day Celebrant
Merry Life-Day To All!	25	Win 25 Snow-Covered Parcels	2013
To All A Good Night!	25	Win 100 Snow-Covered Parcels	2013	A Special Snowflake
Holiday Hero	25	Win 1 Snow-Covered Parcel	2014
The Celebration Continues	25	Win 200 Snow-Covered Parcels	2020	Cheer Delivery Expert
HUGGING WOOKIES
Name	Points	Description	Year	Legacy Title
Spreading Joy	5	Hug 10 Wookiees	2019
In the Spirit	10	Hug 25 Wookiees	2019
The Gift of Love	25	Hug 100 Wookiees	2019
Wookiee Hugging Champion	50	Hug 1000 Wookiees	2019	Wookiee Hugging Champion
Hugs for All	50	Hug 1500 Wookiees	2020	Hug Everlasting

Of note are the The Celebration Continues and Hugs for All achievements, which were added in 2020 but started at zero for everyone rather than the previous total from the similar 2013/2019 achievements--so you'd have to do all 200 parcels and 1500 hugs starting from zero to get the achievement.