I would echo that since I only need to wait 2-3 months I no longer have a need to spend on toons/packs. My arena ranking hasn't suffered. The game is a F2P paradise at the moment, soak it in while it lasts!
I hear all this arguing while I keep humming to myself "GG will save us, GG will save us all."
Note: I'm not a whale
GG is available in fleet shipments though... not quite as hard to obtain as before, he's about on par with Chirrut in terms of farming speed now. GG won't save us all....
Well I knew there'd be those out there that would understand and those that wouldn't. I'm not asking for dominance in arena because I spent a bit. I'm asking for the fact that I'm a player who has gotten a diverse and deep roster over a long period (Dec 14 shard) to have a way to be rewarded for that. If it's a game mode or some other way that's cool.
Some in here are getting it, there has to be incentive for spenders to keep doing it, another Chaze setup is not it. I don't see anyone asking for OP toons just an appreciation for keeping this game ftp for the rest of you.
Try to see it from a reasonable perspective.
You are absolutely right. There's a pattern on the forum of people holding onto fixed self serving position and childishly not listening to other perspectives at all. Some kind of payoff for deep rosters is needed. Only people asking for whales to automatically win are being unreasonable from my perspective.
Well I knew there'd be those out there that would understand and those that wouldn't. I'm not asking for dominance in arena because I spent a bit. I'm asking for the fact that I'm a player who has gotten a diverse and deep roster over a long period (Dec 14 shard) to have a way to be rewarded for that. If it's a game mode or some other way that's cool.
Some in here are getting it, there has to be incentive for spenders to keep doing it, another Chaze setup is not it. I don't see anyone asking for OP toons just an appreciation for keeping this game ftp for the rest of you.
Try to see it from a reasonable perspective.
You are absolutely right. There's a pattern on the forum of people helping into a position and childishly not listening to other perspectives. Some kind of payoff for deep rosters is needed. Only people asking for whales to automatically win are being unreasonable from my perspective.
This is a silly thread. This is a Star Wars game, new spenders download this app every day. They don't care how much you've spent before, they already got you for hundreds, or thousands, and they still rake in cash from new sources all the time.
When I see a gross exaggeration like triple cleanse being over a year old, I lose faith in the rest of the post. Rogue 1 came out in December... how can the triple cleanse meta be at year old? Rex wasn't even F2P a year ago.... During June of last year I was still farming Old Ben for his double taunt dodge meta. I remember clearly the team being Old Ben lead, Rey, Leia, RG, and STH in June.
I stopped reading after that sentence lol. Thought id read some responses to see if im not the only one that bugged.
This game is built on a 3 tier system of whales, dolphins and FTP. It has historically been a balanced ecosystem, where one cannot survive without the other. The whale is becoming an endangered species, however.
The meta leader of the "Rex triple cleanse" team is over a year old, almost everyone has him. All other members of the team are farmable. As an aside, Nihilus works best on a non-Sith team, which I find a little sad!
New characters released since Nihilus have been non-meta-impacting, and even if they were they could be farmed in shipments, 8 shards at a time, by dolphins and moderate spenders after just 4 weeks. There's no significant exclusivity for buying at the top of the market.
Mods used to be the whale advantage, now not so much. Speed mods sold well to dolphins in the recent packs, now they drop 100% in challenges. I'm not complaining here, I'm really torn on this as I mostly approve of this change, but it's further narrowed the gap between whale and FTP in the arena, no doubt.
Ships ... where do I start? Whales have no advantage, period. It's a FTP paradise.
The only thing whales have is a large roster, and where is that an advantage? GW? No, 2 teams are needed at the most. Raids? Who cares after you have the featured character?
I think a few things need to be considered. New characters need a longer period of exclusivity, putting them in shipments for 33% of the initial price, while the premium packs are still on sale, is insulting (as happened with Nihilus).
Aside from this, roster size needs to play a bigger part in the game. The whale may not be popular, but to a freemium game it's an essential component of the business model.
I expect this post will attract some hate, but with a foresight buff you'll know that it's the truth.
Sorry, what? I'm a dolphin stepping on the divide to whale, and I find the new packs ridiculous (fine, I bought 1 vault to get ATF). IMO the new packs prices should go DOWN (i.e. for the 5-30 pack it should be half the price). This will make whales AND dolphins happy. Whale =/= Kraken. Whales buy characters when they go chromium, while Krakens buy the 5-30 packs. Sorry, but you are mistaking Whale for Kraken. Whales and Dolphins are happy with the new system, while Krakens are not...
They should have kept Chaze Whale exclusive just like Rex was for the longest time.
Some toons should be Chromium pack and shipments only for crystals. Example ATF, and DN
Well I knew there'd be those out there that would understand and those that wouldn't. I'm not asking for dominance in arena because I spent a bit. I'm asking for the fact that I'm a player who has gotten a diverse and deep roster over a long period (Dec 14 shard) to have a way to be rewarded for that. If it's a game mode or some other way that's cool.
Some in here are getting it, there has to be incentive for spenders to keep doing it, another Chaze setup is not it. I don't see anyone asking for OP toons just an appreciation for keeping this game ftp for the rest of you.
Try to see it from a reasonable perspective.
You are absolutely right. There's a pattern on the forum of people helping into a position and childishly not listening to other perspectives. Some kind of payoff for deep rosters is needed. Only people asking for whales to automatically win are being unreasonable from my perspective.
Whale deep rosters or f2p deep rosters?
When I say deep roster I'm not choosing between ftp and ptp, if you did the work you get the benefit no matter if you're ftp or ptp.
The Fulcrum packs actually gave the game a nice boost in revenue- it rose to around #10 on the various app revenue charts over the weekend.
They also got a nice boost during the May 4 double drop boost (although I think that was more dolphin/fish driven).
Eventually they will release level 90 gear or 6 dot mods and will have one of their best weeks ever revenue wise. But I think they want to release more new content first so more players feel the cost is justified.
They already have a new event (GVG or whatever it will be) coming that will allow players to use their whole roster, although it remains to be seen whether they will release any new mods/ gear or whether it will just be Zetas or something.
I've also got a feeling they will release a meta breaking dark side character at some point (maybe Thrawn soon). So I don't think you'll be waiting for too long.
Over the long run, I think that games will have to become less whale focused as many if not most whales are low to mid income and will likely avoid whale-focused games in the future. Mobile game makers will have to focus on getting tens of dollars out of a substantial fraction of their playerbase rather than thousands out of a tiny percentage (or fraction thereof). Although this will presumably result in less income and fewer games overall it will also probably result in better games as well (not P2W or overly grindy with low QOL).
If the whales are dead, so too will be the fate of this game. If you like playing it, make sure the whales keep feeding it. As much as I hate the current model, I'm content with just being middle of the road and not pay a dime to EA. I have been playing since November of 2016 and I barely got to level 78, and most of my players are just gear 7 and 5-7 stars. Besides the Jedis, I don't have a full team of anything. I conserve my resources to just the few players that are viable, and I let the rest fall where it may.
This game was designed to reward the paying customers. End of story.
I agree with the OP that there needs to be something that requires the use of whole rosters. There's simply no incentive, right now, to farm/gear anyone if you already have a decent arena squad and decent raid squads. The recently released toons have had no impact on arena (-yet-, I know FAT is very new), and the recent reworks have had even less impact. If you're going to create an entirely new faction and release or rework toons for that faction, at least make them worth investing in. Nobody gives a crap about Phoenix squad or Imperial Troopers (there should have been a biker scout toon with that recent Empire pass with crazy speed, low damage, and great synergy/team benefits... Or maybe a unique "jam comlinks" that prevents enemy toons from buffing teammates, buffs only apply to self (sorry Chaze!) ... but I'm biased, I've always loved the biker scouts).
Bottom line, if you want people (besides whales) to drop coin, give them a reason to do so. Give me a reason to care about the 80% of my roster that I currently do not care about. At all.
Let me ask this question: if there are a sufficient number of active whale users of this game, does it really matter if F2P players like us are around much?!?
I'm pretty sure they can simply create zombies in GW, Arena, ships and every facet of the game (if they haven't already) to take up the slack for lack of F2P players.
I know it sucks for the 50% of people of us who do not spend any cash with EA, but the other 50% is what pays the bills. We might want something, but the paying players will be the one who get what they want. This is capitalism at its best.
@Publica_Persona thank you. You actually get the point of this thread.
@IdraRage do you have inside information on how GvG is going to actually work or something? Anything past "GvG is coming" is purely speculation at this point in time. We can think of many different ways to implement GvG and not all of them require a massive collection score or deep rosters.
I know it sucks for the 50% of people of us who do not spend any cash with EA, but the other 50% is what pays the bills. We might want something, but the paying players will be the one who get what they want. This is capitalism at its best.
It's not really specifically capitalism, it's just common sense. Literally the game developers rely on the whales for their jobs/income. If people aren't putting money into the game, there's no more game and no more job. So are they going to listen to the people signing their paychecks, or random strangers on the street?
If you think it's wrong for EA/CG to try to make money from the game and listen to feedback from paying customers, well then I really just don't know what to tell you.
Let me ask this question: if there are a sufficient number of active whale users of this game, does it really matter if F2P players like us are around much?!?
I'm pretty sure they can simply create zombies in GW, Arena, ships and every facet of the game (if they haven't already) to take up the slack for lack of F2P players.
Who needs whom, and who needs whom more? There's no satisfaction in paying inflated prices to win a wrestling match against a scarecrow.
The developers can change the game as they see fit. If I think that the game doesn't treat its players equitably enough, I might quit and go play any of 5 or 10 mobile games that are almost identical to this one. If a whale thinks the game treats its players too equitably, he might quit or he might complain in the forum about the declining value of his "investments." My concerns are paramount to myself, and another person's concerns are paramount to himself. In the end it's all pretty frivolous. But it's foolish to act as though a free player (or even a guppy) has no leverage at all and no other options but to be a whale's whipping boy.
@Publica_Persona thank you. You actually get the point of this thread.
@IdraRage do you have inside information on how GvG is going to actually work or something? Anything past "GvG is coming" is purely speculation at this point in time. We can think of many different ways to implement GvG and not all of them require a massive collection score or deep rosters.
At Star Wars Celebration EA Jesse confirmed that a new game mode is coming that has a social component and will allow users to use their entire character and ship roster. That's all we know for sure, and it sounds like GVG to me.
Some of the top guilds supposedly have members that are in contact with CG employees, and they seem to think GVG is coming soon.
But some guy on Reddit claims he has received confirmation that it will NOT be GVG, so maybe the speculation is wrong. We'll see in a week at EA Play I guess.
I think whales are not proper whales anymore, need to spend more if what you've spent isn't making enough of an impact. Spend enough and the advantage will show. Whale more!
I know i wrote this in the other thread, but i thought I should post here as well,
I've only been playing this game for a few months, so I'm still learning how everything works with whales, dolphins and ftp. But I did play clash of clans for years, pretty much from the beginning and I saw how that game went through a lot of changes.
Its important to point out, as with other freemium games, most people aren't really f2p, or at least completely free to play. And that should be the goal of any company that has game like this.
In the beginning with clash, and probably with this game as well, the whales were huge and led to massive profits. Im not sure on the numbers, but I would definitely surmise that the whales in clash created much more revenue for supercell than the whales in this game. And for years, supercell just raked in the profit from the whales and tried their best to suck every dollar possible out of them. for those who played this game, just think level 11 walls. Anyway, this went on for some time. The powercreep was on. But at some point supercell saw the writing on the wall and began to make some drastic changes. They didn't do this all at once, but over time, they completely changed the game. Now of course, the whales revolted and many did leave the game. Some even were able to get their money back via apple (long story). But supercell stuck to it and didn't budge.. why?
Because they knew that if they continued down the path (powercreep) they would lose both kinds of revenue, the micro purchases from the casual player and the whales. So they made the smart decision to focus on the casual player and gear their game towards them. Well not just casual player, but also the hardcore player who is mainly free to play, but may spend 20 dollars a month.
Now from what I can tell, EA is not going down this path. But I don't think they are trying to rely solely on whales or even dolphins. They seem to be going for both, giving the whales what they want, but also not alienating their f2p player and enticing them to spend a small amount (I do think they can do a better job of this)
There may come a time, when EA has to decide who they are going to build their business model around, but I don't think EA is ready for that.
I know it sucks for the 50% of people of us who do not spend any cash with EA, but the other 50% is what pays the bills. We might want something, but the paying players will be the one who get what they want. This is capitalism at its best.
It's not really specifically capitalism, it's just common sense. Literally the game developers rely on the whales for their jobs/income. If people aren't putting money into the game, there's no more game and no more job. So are they going to listen to the people signing their paychecks, or random strangers on the street?
If you think it's wrong for EA/CG to try to make money from the game and listen to feedback from paying customers, well then I really just don't know what to tell you.
Sandybard
I think what you just said is capitalism;) EA is doing what they need to in order to maximize profit. This is not a non profit shop we are dealing with. I think we both agree on the same thing.
Let me ask this question: if there are a sufficient number of active whale users of this game, does it really matter if F2P players like us are around much?!?
I'm pretty sure they can simply create zombies in GW, Arena, ships and every facet of the game (if they haven't already) to take up the slack for lack of F2P players.
Who needs whom, and who needs whom more? There's no satisfaction in paying inflated prices to win a wrestling match against a scarecrow.
The developers can change the game as they see fit. If I think that the game doesn't treat its players equitably enough, I might quit and go play any of 5 or 10 mobile games that are almost identical to this one. If a whale thinks the game treats its players too equitably, he might quit or he might complain in the forum about the declining value of his "investments." My concerns are paramount to myself, and another person's concerns are paramount to himself. In the end it's all pretty frivolous. But it's foolish to act as though a free player (or even a guppy) has no leverage at all and no other options but to be a whale's whipping boy.
One look at their 10k tells me they will continue to do what they need to do to make a billion a year in net income.
I'm sure the developers have some inputs, but I'm certain that the project managers in charge of the title has his or her marching orders from a financial perspective as well. Developers cost money to staff. Servers cost money to maintain. I'm not saying us average joes don't have any leverage, but any leverage we have is minimal. This is why they give us the new shards for free after a few months of satisfying the whales first. They keep us hungry enough to stick around, but won't starve us so we never come back.
What I get out of their changes is they are trying to get more revenue out of people who spend $100-$1,000 rather than the 0.00001% which fall into the "whale" category.
I know i wrote this in the other thread, but i thought I should post here as well,
I've only been playing this game for a few months, so I'm still learning how everything works with whales, dolphins and ftp. But I did play clash of clans for years, pretty much from the beginning and I saw how that game went through a lot of changes.
Its important to point out, as with other freemium games, most people aren't really f2p, or at least completely free to play. And that should be the goal of any company that has game like this.
In the beginning with clash, and probably with this game as well, the whales were huge and led to massive profits. Im not sure on the numbers, but I would definitely surmise that the whales in clash created much more revenue for supercell than the whales in this game. And for years, supercell just raked in the profit from the whales and tried their best to suck every dollar possible out of them. for those who played this game, just think level 11 walls. Anyway, this went on for some time. The powercreep was on. But at some point supercell saw the writing on the wall and began to make some drastic changes. They didn't do this all at once, but over time, they completely changed the game. Now of course, the whales revolted and many did leave the game. Some even were able to get their money back via apple (long story). But supercell stuck to it and didn't budge.. why?
Because they knew that if they continued down the path (powercreep) they would lose both kinds of revenue, the micro purchases from the casual player and the whales. So they made the smart decision to focus on the casual player and gear their game towards them. Well not just casual player, but also the hardcore player who is mainly free to play, but may spend 20 dollars a month.
Now from what I can tell, EA is not going down this path. But I don't think they are trying to rely solely on whales or even dolphins. They seem to be going for both, giving the whales what they want, but also not alienating their f2p player and enticing them to spend a small amount (I do think they can do a better job of this)
There may come a time, when EA has to decide who they are going to build their business model around, but I don't think EA is ready for that.
Every title has a shelf life, and this title will run its course. How long depends on how profitable it remains. It is entirely possible this game will move to an ad based revenue platform as it continue to mature, with pop ups raining like a tropical forest, or it will shift to a environment like you described where it will make purchases more affordable for everyone. No matter what form it evolves to, one day it will end. When we no longer see new contents being introduced regularly to make the game sticky, we will know that the game has entered maintenance mode.
Sunken cost is a powerful weapon for the game developers because they know how emotionally attached people are to their "investment."
I would have been happy to spend 20 for just the game if it meant no freemium (all characters farmable at cantina level/arena) and a much less p2p advantage.
So if whales aren't spending, and the game keeps rolling along as it is, what does that tell you? It tells me that whales aren't the sole reason this game keeps rolling along.
In my opinion, whales are deluded into thinking they are the reason that FTP can play at all. "We should have an advantage because we pay for it blah blah blah" Which is just nonsense. It's the people that drop 10$ here and there, maybe 20$ on payday, that keep the money flowing. Treating yourself every now and then is a much better system than gorging yourself into extinction.
Replies
They could change that with his rework
You are absolutely right. There's a pattern on the forum of people holding onto fixed self serving position and childishly not listening to other perspectives at all. Some kind of payoff for deep rosters is needed. Only people asking for whales to automatically win are being unreasonable from my perspective.
Whale deep rosters or f2p deep rosters?
I stopped reading after that sentence lol. Thought id read some responses to see if im not the only one that bugged.
Sorry, what? I'm a dolphin stepping on the divide to whale, and I find the new packs ridiculous (fine, I bought 1 vault to get ATF). IMO the new packs prices should go DOWN (i.e. for the 5-30 pack it should be half the price). This will make whales AND dolphins happy. Whale =/= Kraken. Whales buy characters when they go chromium, while Krakens buy the 5-30 packs. Sorry, but you are mistaking Whale for Kraken. Whales and Dolphins are happy with the new system, while Krakens are not...
As FTP, I plummeted in arena after the 85 increase, and I've climbed back up since hitting the cap.
I disagree about character exclusivity--it really turns me off. Having viable 3* toons has made the game way more fun for me.
I also think that the game has an exploitative aspect for people with gambling problems. The current system is way less exploitative, and that's good.
Some toons should be Chromium pack and shipments only for crystals. Example ATF, and DN
When I say deep roster I'm not choosing between ftp and ptp, if you did the work you get the benefit no matter if you're ftp or ptp.
They also got a nice boost during the May 4 double drop boost (although I think that was more dolphin/fish driven).
Eventually they will release level 90 gear or 6 dot mods and will have one of their best weeks ever revenue wise. But I think they want to release more new content first so more players feel the cost is justified.
They already have a new event (GVG or whatever it will be) coming that will allow players to use their whole roster, although it remains to be seen whether they will release any new mods/ gear or whether it will just be Zetas or something.
I've also got a feeling they will release a meta breaking dark side character at some point (maybe Thrawn soon). So I don't think you'll be waiting for too long.
Over the long run, I think that games will have to become less whale focused as many if not most whales are low to mid income and will likely avoid whale-focused games in the future. Mobile game makers will have to focus on getting tens of dollars out of a substantial fraction of their playerbase rather than thousands out of a tiny percentage (or fraction thereof). Although this will presumably result in less income and fewer games overall it will also probably result in better games as well (not P2W or overly grindy with low QOL).
This game was designed to reward the paying customers. End of story.
Bottom line, if you want people (besides whales) to drop coin, give them a reason to do so. Give me a reason to care about the 80% of my roster that I currently do not care about. At all.
I'm pretty sure they can simply create zombies in GW, Arena, ships and every facet of the game (if they haven't already) to take up the slack for lack of F2P players.
I know it sucks for the 50% of people of us who do not spend any cash with EA, but the other 50% is what pays the bills. We might want something, but the paying players will be the one who get what they want. This is capitalism at its best.
@IdraRage do you have inside information on how GvG is going to actually work or something? Anything past "GvG is coming" is purely speculation at this point in time. We can think of many different ways to implement GvG and not all of them require a massive collection score or deep rosters.
It's not really specifically capitalism, it's just common sense. Literally the game developers rely on the whales for their jobs/income. If people aren't putting money into the game, there's no more game and no more job. So are they going to listen to the people signing their paychecks, or random strangers on the street?
If you think it's wrong for EA/CG to try to make money from the game and listen to feedback from paying customers, well then I really just don't know what to tell you.
The developers can change the game as they see fit. If I think that the game doesn't treat its players equitably enough, I might quit and go play any of 5 or 10 mobile games that are almost identical to this one. If a whale thinks the game treats its players too equitably, he might quit or he might complain in the forum about the declining value of his "investments." My concerns are paramount to myself, and another person's concerns are paramount to himself. In the end it's all pretty frivolous. But it's foolish to act as though a free player (or even a guppy) has no leverage at all and no other options but to be a whale's whipping boy.
At Star Wars Celebration EA Jesse confirmed that a new game mode is coming that has a social component and will allow users to use their entire character and ship roster. That's all we know for sure, and it sounds like GVG to me.
Some of the top guilds supposedly have members that are in contact with CG employees, and they seem to think GVG is coming soon.
But some guy on Reddit claims he has received confirmation that it will NOT be GVG, so maybe the speculation is wrong. We'll see in a week at EA Play I guess.
I've only been playing this game for a few months, so I'm still learning how everything works with whales, dolphins and ftp. But I did play clash of clans for years, pretty much from the beginning and I saw how that game went through a lot of changes.
Its important to point out, as with other freemium games, most people aren't really f2p, or at least completely free to play. And that should be the goal of any company that has game like this.
In the beginning with clash, and probably with this game as well, the whales were huge and led to massive profits. Im not sure on the numbers, but I would definitely surmise that the whales in clash created much more revenue for supercell than the whales in this game. And for years, supercell just raked in the profit from the whales and tried their best to suck every dollar possible out of them. for those who played this game, just think level 11 walls. Anyway, this went on for some time. The powercreep was on. But at some point supercell saw the writing on the wall and began to make some drastic changes. They didn't do this all at once, but over time, they completely changed the game. Now of course, the whales revolted and many did leave the game. Some even were able to get their money back via apple (long story). But supercell stuck to it and didn't budge.. why?
Because they knew that if they continued down the path (powercreep) they would lose both kinds of revenue, the micro purchases from the casual player and the whales. So they made the smart decision to focus on the casual player and gear their game towards them. Well not just casual player, but also the hardcore player who is mainly free to play, but may spend 20 dollars a month.
Now from what I can tell, EA is not going down this path. But I don't think they are trying to rely solely on whales or even dolphins. They seem to be going for both, giving the whales what they want, but also not alienating their f2p player and enticing them to spend a small amount (I do think they can do a better job of this)
There may come a time, when EA has to decide who they are going to build their business model around, but I don't think EA is ready for that.
Sandybard
I think what you just said is capitalism;) EA is doing what they need to in order to maximize profit. This is not a non profit shop we are dealing with. I think we both agree on the same thing.
One look at their 10k tells me they will continue to do what they need to do to make a billion a year in net income.
I'm sure the developers have some inputs, but I'm certain that the project managers in charge of the title has his or her marching orders from a financial perspective as well. Developers cost money to staff. Servers cost money to maintain. I'm not saying us average joes don't have any leverage, but any leverage we have is minimal. This is why they give us the new shards for free after a few months of satisfying the whales first. They keep us hungry enough to stick around, but won't starve us so we never come back.
Every title has a shelf life, and this title will run its course. How long depends on how profitable it remains. It is entirely possible this game will move to an ad based revenue platform as it continue to mature, with pop ups raining like a tropical forest, or it will shift to a environment like you described where it will make purchases more affordable for everyone. No matter what form it evolves to, one day it will end. When we no longer see new contents being introduced regularly to make the game sticky, we will know that the game has entered maintenance mode.
Sunken cost is a powerful weapon for the game developers because they know how emotionally attached people are to their "investment."
Gamorrean Guard is already our savior
lol, but yeah Greivous along with seperatists reworks could be the answer.
And I also have GG 7*... Both GGs
Dolphin here btw. The game model is fine but it does need a new mode that uses various factions(so many toons, so little need for them), badly!
In my opinion, whales are deluded into thinking they are the reason that FTP can play at all. "We should have an advantage because we pay for it blah blah blah" Which is just nonsense. It's the people that drop 10$ here and there, maybe 20$ on payday, that keep the money flowing. Treating yourself every now and then is a much better system than gorging yourself into extinction.