Bleargh

cosmicturtle333

I'm disappointed angry and sick of cookie cutter teams. I'm sick of this meta rubbish.



Edit: I'll be using this as a draft for a while, hoping nobody sees this.

SWGOH, the spark has gone.

Disclaimer: This is very long and probably very boring. I'm creating this so that all problems with the game are in one (hopefully we'll written) post.

The spark has well and truly disappeared. The wow-factor is almost non-existent. If the players aren't interested or entertained then spending will decrease and players will quit. The wow-factor has disappeared for one major reason, lack of variety.

Variety is the reason games like this are popular, the 'gotta catch 'em all' approach has been adopted by many games, but this game is different. The reason there is such a lack of variety is due to several reasons, the first being the grind.

The grind is the biggest issue with this game. It negatively affects both the largest spenders and free-to-play. If you are playing a game and you say, "My new squad is going to be awesome, I can't wait until six months from now when it is complete!" then something is seriously wrong with the state of the game. One purple piece of gear that requires 50 parts can take up to a week to obtain as F2P. Each player has an option when they hit the gear wall, 'Do I spend the next week farming this one piece of gear or do I just find another game to play?' The onus is on the developer to ensure that they make the right choice. Shards rake even longer. If a player wants an all ewok team they can look at the available heroes and see that Ewok Elder and Ewok Scout will take them almost 12 months to farm. Which choice will they make in this instance, spending an entire year farming these two heroes or quitting and finding another game?

Each player's experience is affected by the players around them. For example, if I am the only one in my server who farms an Ewok squad and every single other squad is made up of Jedi and Sith then I am probably going to be very bored facing the same heroes every single day in Arena and Galactic War. This problem is compounded due to the fact that it takes months to farm a new hero. Variety is punished in arena (and to a lesser extent Galactic War too). If you spend weeks leveling, starring and gearing a hero and it turns out that they aren't viable in the current meta then you are at a massive disadvantage. Emulation is in most players minds the key to success. A player can see that the best teams are made up of Sidious, Luminara, Kylo Ren, Qui Gon Jinn, Geonosian Soldier . . . They know that they can get high ranks with these heroes. They can also see that there isn't a single ewok in the top 100. Nor are there many Rebels, Nightsisters, Scoundrels, Jawa etc. It doesn't matter if each hero is viable in arena, because if they can't be farmed fast enough or people are too scared to farm them then variety will never be seen in arena.

Another reason for the lack of variety is due to imbalances between heroes. Most heroes should be viable in Arena. Currently very few are. If the majority can't be made viable then something has to change to make them viable, for example faction bonuses. This would bring weak, lesser used heroes like Nightsister Acolyte into arena. Currently the only place you will see her is in the very uncommon full Nightsister teams or the even rarer full stealth team. If faction bonuses existed then you would see more faction squads. If these full (or even part) squads were in arena you would see far more variety. Instead of seeing the only one or two decent scoundrels in arena you might see five scoundrels in arena. This would certainly bring the wow-factor back.

One of the most influential reasons for the lack of wow-factor is the lack of content. In almost five months we have had two events and no new modes of gameplay. That means that I have said 'wow' twice in five months regarding content. Since after The Force Awakens heroes were released we have had five new heroes released
(Chief Chirpa, Rex, General Grevious, Yoda & Magmatrooper) That means I have said 'wow' five times in as many months regarding new heroes. If we're going by the theory that someone is entertained each time they see a new hero then most people have said 'wow' less than 50 times due to not seeing a large enough variety of heroes. For a game which takes so long to achieve any progress you have to hold our attention. In doing so you will retain players and therefore retain current spenders while getting new ones along the way too. You will make this game more enjoyable which will improve everything. There should be new heroes and events far more often than there currently is.

joelightyear

Haha, you've hit the nail on the head. Arena should be renamed the Poe Battles