Breaking!! Improved Matchmaking for GW after Feb
February 6, 2016 8:10PM
edited February 2016
Changes coming to Galactic Wars!
CG_JohnSalera wrote: »Hi all -
I know I've been away from this thread for a couple of weeks. I have been reading and keeping an eye on the conversation, though. I wanted to give it a bit of time for people to have a chance to play with the new Retreat for a while, and share their thoughts. Thank you all for taking the time to provide your feedback and perspectives.
Feedback on GW still seems mixed:
- Some like it.
- Some don't like it.
- Some find it too hard.
- Some find it too easy.
- Some think we're evil, we broke the game, and should go hurt ourselves.
As always, you can't please everyone.
I had my own account reset a little less than three weeks ago. I'm playing through this time as completely FTP. I'm currently at level 49 and have 13 characters. I've been able to complete GW each day I was able to get to it (I don't have an exact record, but it's been a big majority of the days since I hit 40).
I wanted to do that to ensure I could correlate my personal experience to what people were talking about here. (My previous play through had a lot of spending and thus a lot of characters.)
And, I do expect some will say that since I'm only at 49 I'm not experiencing their full GW concerns. That may be, but I'm playing it as fast as I can.
However, I did want to mention two things:
- First, having listened to the feedback here, and reviewed the data of how people are doing in GW, we are planning on making a change to the opponents you'll face in GW. Currently, as people have noted, you can get paired up against players who are a "significant" number of levels above you. (Quoted because it's a subjective assessment.) We are planning to restrict the level variance much more than is currently happening. I don't have an exact date for this change, and we'll update you once that's locked. We're hoping that this will lead to a better experience overall. That being said, I do want to re-iterate that GW is meant to be hard. You are likely not going to be able to complete it every day.
- Second, we are having conversations internally about how to grow this feature. We have some interesting ideas -- and have heard some good ideas here in this thread as well. This change is longer-term. We have the February update coming next week, and that's locked. We also have plans locked for the next release which @EA_Jesse will speak to once we're well past the February update. So, to set expectations, the earliest GW would be augmented would be after that next release.
Hope that helps. Happy to hear your thoughts.
BTW - As some have mentioned, this thread may have run its course. I do want to hear reactions to my comments above, but we'll likely close this thread if the conversation is either wrapping up or going in circles.
Thanks!
Post edited by xJazzx on
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Howdy, Stranger!
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I could (and sometimes do that and more for testing purposes).
But actually playing the live game, as the rest of the world plays it, is uniquely valuable.
And this is what I'd call my third "play through" of the game. I got to 58 with the soft launch version. Reset when we launched world wide. Got to 60, and had it reset again when we opened the cap to 70.
And that's just the live game. We also play the builds while they are still in development quite a bit as well.
In other words, we play the game a lot.
Thanks John, appreciate it.
I don't really have a problem with that. Sid can be often dealt with before he blocks anyone because he usually starts with his AoE. And if I recieve massive damage before I attack, I just heal up and destroy the other team (with repeated tries to not lose anyone, if needed)... I use Phasma (L), Lumi, JC, Luke and IG86, so enough non-jedi damage for Sid. But I do agree that a team with more heal blockers could be pain in the a**, but why would anyone do that? It would only mess with the players who get matched against it, giving no real benefit...
1. Prioritize heal blockers. Sid is not my #1 priority in arena but he is in GW. Because it's a long haul you need to get rid of the heal blockers. Kylo of course is harder to get rid of. Fortunately I don't see many teams with both.
2. Use stunners like Old Daka and Dooku, with a bit of luck you can slow them down long enough to stop them before they heal-block. Stuns are incredibly useful in GW.
3. Put a "striker" on your team, someone like GS who can quickly burst down a Sidious type.
4. If you have Barriss, time her heal carefully to save someone who is near death. If you don't have Barriss, consider getting her.
5. Kylo's only really dangerous when near death or when he starts chaining the AoE/counter move. Ability-block him if possible, then burst him down. His heal block is only about half the time, and only for one turn.
6. Keep trying and hope for good RNG.
Gw should be viewed no different as light side and dark side tables, if someone has a squad of lightside characters no greater than 3 stars and low level gear then they should not be able to complete level 7 darkside hard which they cannot as per the design of the game. The same is and should be with GW, if hour entire collection is not powerful enough then you should not be able to complete GW.
I find myself frustrated every time I play GW but I know thats the way it is, it just makes completing it all the more exciting. There's no glory in winning if the road there is simple.
I do however believe that it would calm a lot of people if the levels were capped at 5 levels above the players account level, that keeps it both difficult and reasonable.
I also think a possible change that would satisfy nearly everyone is to impliment a way to replace fallen players during the match. The problem with the old retreat was that it resetted the buffs, debuffs and turn meters, which was obviously an unfair cheat, if there were a way to add a player without retreating or having everyone keep their buffs, debuffs and turn meters this problem would be solved.
Excited to see any new features you may be adding. Cheers
This is what frustrates me, GW is no challenge at all, it's a coin flip, heads it's too easy, tails it can't be completed.
I've said too much.
I haven't said enough.
That's me in the corner.
I know that there are some juicy toons to farm in Cantina, but very few people who get Daka to at least 6* regret it.
Also, they indicate that although they are working with GW to make opponents perhaps match your level better, they don't want GW to be easy and don't necessarily think you should win every time.
That being said, my advice to you would be to get Daka to 6* and at least a 4* Bariss. Arena is only one aspect of the game. Who knows who they could add to GW shipments in the future. Dooku could also help RNG stun you to victory. Just my 2 cents.
Go in the spotlight and tell us your rank u freaking whale !
Cheesing RNG is not fun and reducing the level variance should help a lot in putting the emphasis on squad composition and tactics over just mashing your face into the battle until your luck is good enough to clear it.
In case it matters to anyone, I'm a level 51 account and I bought the Dooku and Barriss packs, but have self farmed the rest of my roster. For most GW battles I run Barriss (L), Geo, QGJ, Sid, and Lumi.
That's me in the spotlight
Loosing my religion
Had to finish it.
Great news. I grew into the new GW. My real issue is that I run into multiple Poe DPS teams per GW, often 2-3 in succession, all LVL 70, all 7*. Yes I'm LVL 70, but multiple in a row when the non Poe teams you fave are also all 7* level 70 purples is very frustrating.
I get it is supposed to be hard, but honestly I have 5-6 teams and plenty of fodder and there are days I barely make it. The vast majority will not make it through. Each day, despite my LVL remaining the same, and my "power" growing very slowly due to drop rastes and expensive energy and gearing requirements, my march is growing 2-3x more difficult each day. It was a Poe team, then 2-3, now half my march minimum is against Poe DPS, or Poe QGJ with a cannon, Sid and Old Ben builds.
While it feels awesome to get through it, and forces you to really be strategic. The other day for Instance I faced mind you all Purple 7* 70 level
Fight 6
Phasma
Kylo
Sid
QGJ
Poe
Fight 7
QGJ
Secura
Ben
Kit
Dooku(at 7* he is just obnoxious,lol)
Fight 8
QGJ
Poe
Leia
Rey
FOTP
Fight 9
QGJ
Lumi
Poe
Dooku
FOTP
Fight 10 (Got a break from Poe)
Han
Leia
Rey
JC
Phasma
Fight 11
HK
86
88
Poggle
Poe
Fight 12
Sid
QGJ
GS
FOTP
Poe
I understand it is supposed to be difficuylt but that was a bit obnoxious there. My 1st fight was the only fight that did not have all 70 lvl purples with at least 3/5 being 7*
The only 5* I saw the whole fight was Dooku and Barris in fight 1, Dooku in like fight 3. I saw a 6* Dooku, 6* Barriss, and 6* Daka, 6* Rey, aside from thaqt everyone was 7* in the first 6. The last were as shown above.
Am I complaining? No. Pointing out that there is a definite flaw in the match making and mechanics. Honestly I had zero business passing that. I had some good RNG luck and dozens of retreats. I had to sacrifice many. My Poe was dead by fight 10. I sacrificed Lumi because the only way not to I lost Sid or GS. GS speed and burst too valuable, Sid aOE around Poe too valuable compared to a heal. Had I subbed out some of what I had left(I'd lost a lot) I'd have lost 2 level 70 Purple 5-7 toons and limped out. Made you strategize heals, specials, and sacrifice of very good toons. A max lvl star gear Lumi is a huge loss.
It is awesome the elation afterwards getting through. But that same run 10 times, as(no brag) good as I am at this game, I'd be hard pressed for a 50% complete rate, and after so much time, money and energy it is very frustrating to feed your team to a grinder. You face a Poe DPS team you win your heals are used or if you match it up vs the same, you are damaged. Go in again, they are full health, all specials, you are damaged, Poe on cool down, as many of your toons are. switch teams up, take your lump. Use Fodder draw it out, ect, then again you walk into a suped up Poe team or QGJ team.
Maybe tweak it so you are not in a grionder for 8-10 strait fights, toss in every 2 grinder fights a softy to heal up against reset cool downs. Or give a % health gain after each victory and a -2 on cooldowns. Some this would reset, some would still have a couple, some only one. Or an RNG that resets 3 totalcooldowns(Not whole toons, but cooldowns on moves. So Lumi who has 2 with CD might only have 1 reset, ect.)
Just some ideas to keep it hard, but alleviate. I no longer call it Galactic War I call it Galactic H you know the rest, Galactic Bloodbath, Galactic Slaughterhouse, or Galactic Massacre. Far more fitting, lol.
Very excited though on the changes John. Thank you.
Daka is awesome in GW. She can really help you control the fight. She can bring back people at perfect times. My post showing my final 6 there I ONLY made it through because last fight she brought JC back who healed the team and got a Attack as D in to finish off GS. I was a dead man walking and would have failed GW for the first time in like 40 strait. Yes she is very RNG based. If not there she is just decent, if it is there she is a Goddess, an MVP that can win the fight for you. Thing is you just never know.
Great advice, as you typically give. I'll expand some. Kylo is pretty easy to stun and not too fast. I'll toss a stun at him, and use my GS to Ice Sid when they are together. Timing your Barriss heal is essensial. I try not to use it really unless I have to. Only time I leave Sid is if their is a Cannon. I always take them first. I can live with heal immune, You are unlikely to live after a FOTP, Rey, Leia, or GS attack.
That actually surprisingly made me laugh
I love you John! Even if I still don't agree with your lack of nerf on Poe I appreciate everything you are doing and looking forward to more communication from you
losing my #1 position xD
I have multiplenty epic toons at 70, and quite a few from 60 to 70 range. Finish in arena anywhere from top 20 to top 100 depending on RNG gods. Yesterday I barely made it to node 7, and no further. Facing "significantly harder teams" isn't even in the realm of subjective for me, just the normal modus operandi.
Although in all honesty John, the fact that you haven't lost a single GW can be attributed to your skill and experience;
1) Being a dev you innately understand the mechanics of the game at a superior level, also factoring in your end game builds for fun/testing you know quite well what works and what doesn't.
2) Having completed the game almost twice (two resets) gives you a major skill/experience advantage over other players your level and even beyond.
But so far I'm happy with the amount of attention and updates this game is getting, almost feels like an MMO getting weekly updates and patches. Really nice!
Side note: Yeah I'm around lvl 49 atm too and when I was 46 I faced a team of level 59's. Was not too jovial about that
Currently we are running against actual teams, teams other players have built. But since so many people follow the "meta", we tend to run into the same group over and over. This makes certain nodes feel repeatable. DarthMasterShawn's post illustrates this point.
If you are at the very top level, then there is no more real challenge, since you have the best team and can beat any 7* team, even multiples. It then becomes a game of attrition and RNG, which is less fun.
Instead of seeding actual teams.....why not you, as the developer, just create a fixed team for each node? That helps in a lot of ways:
1) People will stop complaining about random nodes being harder than others. Everyone is facing the same opponents.
2) You can set the strength of each node to be of increasing difficulty. Currently it bounces all over the place. The last node is rarely the most difficult, for example.
3) As the game grows and people get more levels.....you just add more nodes!
4) You can test out your own characters and how they behave in teams. So many people complain of Poe. Create a Poe node. Collect your own data and see how successful people are against that meta. Do they need to bring their own Poe? How successful are people without Poe doing against the team?
5) On the same note....you can test out new toons prior to release. Let's use Yoda as an example. Create a new node (node #13)...put Yoda in it with a team you expect people to create. Do his abilities work as you expect? Do they need to be buffed/nerfed? You can do all this before actually releasing the character, and it gives us a preview of the toon to get us excited.
So people who just hit level 40 (or whatever it was to unlock GW)....the first 3 nodes let's say are just up to level 40 toons. So they can clear those as well as the rest of us. In fact, the rest of us can even test out some of our lower level toons if we wanted. Nodes 4-6 can be cleared by level 50 people reliably, level 7-9 by people up to level 60, and nodes 10-12 by people at level 70. Nodes 13-15 in the future by people at lvl 80.
Again, each node is preset. You adjust it as you see fit. 100% of people clearing node 12? Make it harder. Bring in gear 10 toons. 60% of people clearing node 12? Make it easier.
This will mean eliminating the variability of teams we see on our part. I think people would also complain less (hopefully at least people will understand that when they are level 60 they woould be able to clear only up to about node 9 and no further), and also a lot more ease of control for you to edit and add features to GW.