We are moving toward a death spiral
There are some good and exciting things happening in the game but there is a looming problem that will get worse as time moves forward. Mostly they have to do with the same old gripes people on the forums have had for months, but it is about to reach a crescendo.
Speed and Gear
TLDR; Increase speed secondaries and Gear drops so older f2p do not get left behind by the expanding deck and new content requirements while allowing newer p2p players to see a value proposition to staying with the game. New players that are ultimately f2p but include p2p will need a leg up to stick with the game and keep it from becoming stale. And a small rant about the Nihilus quagmire.
Normally these issues are dismissed and in the past it made sense since the deck was limited and there needed to be a time sync to gate player progression. Some of the sync could be mitigated with the p2p system and for the most part worked. As the deck is expanded you are now reaching a point where veteran f2p and new p2p players are going to start walking away, see some of the posts on stale shards.
In order to keep the game from running away from f2p and loosing the value proposition from new p2p players the game is going to need to become more generous with speed secondaries and gear drops. Without some improvement the walk away rate is going to start edging up with not only first time players but accelerate with veteran players. All of the new content is geared toward the necessity of speed modded and highly geared toons. It takes the average f2p player a good 7 to 8 months to even start to make a dent in the newer content due to speed and gear, but they can breeze through the earlier content in just 2 leaving them in a black hole of progress.
The HAAT already caused a reshuffle of guilds as players tried to find spots with guilds that could complete it leaving newer players and many guilds simply out of luck and no hope. Most of the average guilds that are still whole are still trying to gear up for it but find themselves stuck behind the speed and gear wall. New guilds and new players will just end up out in the cold or searching for that hand full of p2p players that decreasingly decide to stay.
One last problem that is tangential and related to my own experience. I bought Darth Nihilus the hard the way, not getting a single 30 pack. I kinda waffled with him for awhile then finally committed and 7 stared him early last week. Total spent $450. No big deal I made the decision to do it. But with the new update I pulled not one, not two, but 4 three star Nihilus toons from chromium packs plus an extra 20 shards for him. All this while his normal pack is still available in the store. Those of us that spend money on games do notice things like this and it makes us less likely to spend money in the future. The heavy use of RNG in the p2p system exacerbates oversights like this. Drop the RNG from the packs and put a set price on the p2p toons.
Speed and Gear
TLDR; Increase speed secondaries and Gear drops so older f2p do not get left behind by the expanding deck and new content requirements while allowing newer p2p players to see a value proposition to staying with the game. New players that are ultimately f2p but include p2p will need a leg up to stick with the game and keep it from becoming stale. And a small rant about the Nihilus quagmire.
Normally these issues are dismissed and in the past it made sense since the deck was limited and there needed to be a time sync to gate player progression. Some of the sync could be mitigated with the p2p system and for the most part worked. As the deck is expanded you are now reaching a point where veteran f2p and new p2p players are going to start walking away, see some of the posts on stale shards.
In order to keep the game from running away from f2p and loosing the value proposition from new p2p players the game is going to need to become more generous with speed secondaries and gear drops. Without some improvement the walk away rate is going to start edging up with not only first time players but accelerate with veteran players. All of the new content is geared toward the necessity of speed modded and highly geared toons. It takes the average f2p player a good 7 to 8 months to even start to make a dent in the newer content due to speed and gear, but they can breeze through the earlier content in just 2 leaving them in a black hole of progress.
The HAAT already caused a reshuffle of guilds as players tried to find spots with guilds that could complete it leaving newer players and many guilds simply out of luck and no hope. Most of the average guilds that are still whole are still trying to gear up for it but find themselves stuck behind the speed and gear wall. New guilds and new players will just end up out in the cold or searching for that hand full of p2p players that decreasingly decide to stay.
One last problem that is tangential and related to my own experience. I bought Darth Nihilus the hard the way, not getting a single 30 pack. I kinda waffled with him for awhile then finally committed and 7 stared him early last week. Total spent $450. No big deal I made the decision to do it. But with the new update I pulled not one, not two, but 4 three star Nihilus toons from chromium packs plus an extra 20 shards for him. All this while his normal pack is still available in the store. Those of us that spend money on games do notice things like this and it makes us less likely to spend money in the future. The heavy use of RNG in the p2p system exacerbates oversights like this. Drop the RNG from the packs and put a set price on the p2p toons.
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Replies
I believe you're missing this game point... It's a PROGRESSION game buddy... Patience it's your best friend. While many will give up because of "poor mods and gear drop rates"... Those who stay will prosper... In time.
These are the right words and they are perfectly right.
Cash is king and it always will be.. for the new players and old.
On one hand I feel as though I really need to formulate a new game plan going forward -- what's the inevitable meta shift going to be, etc.? because relying on RNG and favorable matchups in a shard that's increasingly going all zM is a losing proposition. Same old story, though, no matter who the flavor of the month is: speed secondaries will always be king -- I don't think I've gotten one greater than +5 in three-plus months of NONSTOP simming, I quite honestly can't remember the last toon I farmed in Cantina. Now I'm stuck with a stockpile of garbage mods, maybe 2-3 of them out of literally over a hundred have provided nominal upgrades to a couple of toons. I don't see a way up as the biggest speed secondary I ever got was +11 and that was back during precraft 2.0. At what point do other Mods have comparable value? The game, for me at least, is going to die on the vine if it just continues to be a battle of haves (those with all the fat speed secondaries) vs. have nots (everybody else.)
Heart
Only real spiral is the push to put out untested broken toons rather than balanced content
@ViperPete
wait I have 5 zeta and am first in fleet every day and I'm ftp.... (though I'm only 8/20 towards my 6th)
cash isn't always king.... though I accept it helps !
I have no problem with p2p, Im also usually 1st in arena but working on my new meta so waffle between 1-5. Im top 15 in fleet but dont really care too much for it. I have a deep deck approaching completion and I have *spent thousands to do so. Im not talking about me but I watch my guild mates struggle every day and many of them are about to throw in the towel.
Classy, but we dont need pictures of your grandmother. K Thx.
with the new release model, you get a 3* char with little effort, the progression then is to 7* as quickly as possible, something that even the fattest whales are opposed to, so wait a bit and promote through chromiums or in shipments and finally be available in another store to be purchased. so ea's last great reserve to have people spend is gear and mods.
doubt theyll change this. if you cant beat em join em
Mods, particularly speed, made stars unimportant. There has been some improvement in the rate of shards with the new avenue afforded by the fleet shop, expanded missions, and now the new shard shop exchange the real story is that stars take a back seat to mods and gear. I don't know what the happy ground is that will help with retention but it feels behind the curve and I believe that the community will soon feel the effect.
To the earlier poster, not increased speed.. but increased speed drops. Personally I think the addition of the speed mod was a major mistake by the devs that will haunt them for the life of this game. You can already see some of the contortions they go through trying to keep things balanced and challenging yet comes at the expense of the new players and f2p players.
With regards to pvp I think this game has done a generally bad job.
For a good game a meta should have two elements. 1) be balanced and 2) not change often.
This game fails on both of those with meta's changing faster and faster since the game began
Lol. You can't be serious.
RNG is good when done right. It is one of the basics of any game that accomplishes the functions of gating and hard meta negating near everything in a game. But any game has to adjust ecconomies and rng as a game ages and new content is added that allows newer players and even some slower vets an avenue to catch up and participate in the higher end and newer content. I started playing in July last year and I'm just about parity with the dolphins that started at the beginning but has to spend like a whale to do so. No problem with me doing that, but I can't imagine being a new f2p coming into this and seeing the frustration of my f2p guild mates makes the future outlook shaky.
How did you know I was Yahoo?
Being mad and in a position in life to spend hundreds or thousands on a phone game is a good place to be in life and I'm in good company.... so yes I'm ok with that. I started with nothing, I'll end with nothin.
Same boat. The value of money is relative. I can say this game has brought me more enjoyment than countless console games I've bought over the (many) years and the cash was well spent. If one can afford it, might as well enjoy it in what one values before eventually we're all dead anyway.
Holy ph*ck you are a whale
Yes Sir. Anyway, it wouldn't take much. 10-15% increase in drop rates on mods and a 5-10% increase on gear drops. The more radical idea would be to rework the speed mechanic or drop speed mods entirely so the devs can balance a toons speed with it's abilities as it was in the beginning and reworking gear requirements so it is more even spread across toons. On some raid gear i have hundreds of pieces in once case over a thousand while the same old pieces, stun cuffs, mk 5 stun guns, and mk 7 sec scanners I need hundreds and some cases thousands of.... and that is with buying ever single one that shows up in the store. I love Star Wars and have for 40 years.... but if I was to start this game today I would more likely than not bounce.
this is the most true thing and i know from experience. while everyone else is complaining about drop rates or paying out the river to speed their progression i'm just quietly sitting in the shadows making use of what i get when i get it.
Thank you for your contribution to my server space. I appreciate your service to us all.
Ouch - that sucks. It's like everyone who did the major Vader grind to 7* only to have him appear in fleet shipments to make everyone happy / get the participation trophy.
Those packs are now completely obsolete and should be removed. Who in their right mind is going to pay the ±1300 crystals for 5 shards of those toons when they're in the shipments now for either 320 for 4 or 640 for 8. Don't even go there about the "possibility of getting 30 shards".
If folks are still dropping crystals on those packs, well, that's their problem and now EA/CG's / Disney's money.