The Ever-Increasing Time Investment for Casual Players
Let me start off by saying this might be a bit of a rant, as usual to the forums, but I will try to provide some feedback. Now I am a casual player, I play once or twice a day and have been since a month after launch. I get my daily activities done about once every two days, sometimes better. I am mostly F2P but have spent a little. My main problem with this game currently is not the content, but the time crunch. The content I am really enjoying, and I know as a casual player I may not get all the benefits in the same time a dedicated player will get. I have noticed there are so many aspects of the game that just waste my time. Now I know I am speaking to the dedicated players, those that roam the forums often, but I remind you that you are the minority. I speak for many when I say: we don't have the same free time you do. It's not to say it's a bad thing, if I had more free time I would certainly spend more time on a game I love. But the point is to remind you that most players don't check the forums or have the time or effort to come here daily and voice their opinions. I come here maybe once a month at most to check evetns, that's pretty much it. Now, back to the topic.
1st: The daily activities need revision. I am not for removing all dailies, I think they provide a reason to play every day. But there are certain dailies that are just complete wastes of time. Among these: Buying 1 pack in the store, level a mod, compete in a GW, complete a ship challenge (AKA waste a sim ticket on ship training droid challenge). My problem is that these are tasks that seem more like chores. a bronzium does borderline-nothing, ship challenge is often a waste, and GW is a waste as well.I have all the mods that are decent already leveled, WHY do I have to spend credits every day and waste more time to upgrade a mod I will never use. I know it seems petty to criticize things that take a few minutes max, but over time, every day, the wasted time really builds up.
2. GW needs an overhaul: I don't even bother with it anymore. I start the battle and end it immediately to finish my dailies. The rewards are fine. People who put the time in deserve the rewards, but for god's sake please remove the first 6 battles. This has been requested for over a year and a half now, and the devs continue to scream with their fingers in their ears trying to avoid it. I get the same crap team over and over from early 2016 from nodes 1-5 and 7-8. nodes 6,9, and 11 are the challenging ones. node 12 is impossible for many. For instance, every day I get a full g12 squad with multiple zetas when I don't even have a single g12 toon. Even with preloaded TM on all my decent toons and near max protection and endless retreats, it is impossible about half the time. The algorithm is incredibly outdated and barely takes mods or zetas into account, it needs revising asap. So even if I decide to slave through all 11 nodes, it is a guessing game on whether I will be rewarded for being able to complete the last node. GW should be a challenge, but never impossible. It more often than not is a complete waste of my time and is not worth the rewards. If the devs reduced it to say, 6 battles, I might at least consider attempting it.
3. The worst culprit of all for the casual player: SIM tickets. I already know the responses: "Just put on auto and go to the bathroom","I have 10,000 sim tickets and they always increase!", "don't farm 6 energy battles noob", "just finish your dailies". For the casual player, sim tickets are a DAILY problem. For this I refer back to the whole point of the game: to collect your favorite characters and level them up. We should not be restricted to what battles we should do. If for whatever reason, I miss a day of playing, I will not have enough sim tickets to spend all of my energy (unless I do 10 hard nodes). The point is that if I want to spend 120 energy farming g7 gear at 6 energy/node, WHY should I be punished? Same goes for cantina, I am punished if I want to farm an 8 energy toon. It quite literally limits what toons I farm or gear I get unless I want to throw away crystals every other day on sim tickets. Or I can spend even more time auto-ing battles. SIM tickets should be completely scrapped. It's not like people wouldn't play the game. We still have arena, GW (those that do it), ship arena, and now the rise of multiple TB in-game battles, raids, and now-incoming Wars. We have more than enough different currencies to handle, sim tickets just hold people back from getting the toons or gear they desire. I understood them at launch, but now they are just unnecessary. Just let us sim the battles we want without having to worry about stupid sim tickets. This also goes hand in hand for casual players with completing dailies, for they are the main source of sim tickets. Miss a day of dailies? expect to buy in store or don't bother farming. -Me every day
(many of you don't have this problem, so I can't expect everyone to understand this one)
The former ease of access updates (forget what they were called) are VERY helpful and reduced the time needed to invest in this game, and I urge the devs to at least consider the casual player in future ones. I am a college student and don't have the time others do. Many players work long hours and have families to attend to and dinners to cook and kids to take to sports or whatever. My point is I feel my suggestions would be a benefit to all players, especially casual players, and reduce the unnecessary time needed for basic progression.
PS the continuing output of fresh content has been great, keep it up!
1st: The daily activities need revision. I am not for removing all dailies, I think they provide a reason to play every day. But there are certain dailies that are just complete wastes of time. Among these: Buying 1 pack in the store, level a mod, compete in a GW, complete a ship challenge (AKA waste a sim ticket on ship training droid challenge). My problem is that these are tasks that seem more like chores. a bronzium does borderline-nothing, ship challenge is often a waste, and GW is a waste as well.I have all the mods that are decent already leveled, WHY do I have to spend credits every day and waste more time to upgrade a mod I will never use. I know it seems petty to criticize things that take a few minutes max, but over time, every day, the wasted time really builds up.
2. GW needs an overhaul: I don't even bother with it anymore. I start the battle and end it immediately to finish my dailies. The rewards are fine. People who put the time in deserve the rewards, but for god's sake please remove the first 6 battles. This has been requested for over a year and a half now, and the devs continue to scream with their fingers in their ears trying to avoid it. I get the same crap team over and over from early 2016 from nodes 1-5 and 7-8. nodes 6,9, and 11 are the challenging ones. node 12 is impossible for many. For instance, every day I get a full g12 squad with multiple zetas when I don't even have a single g12 toon. Even with preloaded TM on all my decent toons and near max protection and endless retreats, it is impossible about half the time. The algorithm is incredibly outdated and barely takes mods or zetas into account, it needs revising asap. So even if I decide to slave through all 11 nodes, it is a guessing game on whether I will be rewarded for being able to complete the last node. GW should be a challenge, but never impossible. It more often than not is a complete waste of my time and is not worth the rewards. If the devs reduced it to say, 6 battles, I might at least consider attempting it.
3. The worst culprit of all for the casual player: SIM tickets. I already know the responses: "Just put on auto and go to the bathroom","I have 10,000 sim tickets and they always increase!", "don't farm 6 energy battles noob", "just finish your dailies". For the casual player, sim tickets are a DAILY problem. For this I refer back to the whole point of the game: to collect your favorite characters and level them up. We should not be restricted to what battles we should do. If for whatever reason, I miss a day of playing, I will not have enough sim tickets to spend all of my energy (unless I do 10 hard nodes). The point is that if I want to spend 120 energy farming g7 gear at 6 energy/node, WHY should I be punished? Same goes for cantina, I am punished if I want to farm an 8 energy toon. It quite literally limits what toons I farm or gear I get unless I want to throw away crystals every other day on sim tickets. Or I can spend even more time auto-ing battles. SIM tickets should be completely scrapped. It's not like people wouldn't play the game. We still have arena, GW (those that do it), ship arena, and now the rise of multiple TB in-game battles, raids, and now-incoming Wars. We have more than enough different currencies to handle, sim tickets just hold people back from getting the toons or gear they desire. I understood them at launch, but now they are just unnecessary. Just let us sim the battles we want without having to worry about stupid sim tickets. This also goes hand in hand for casual players with completing dailies, for they are the main source of sim tickets. Miss a day of dailies? expect to buy in store or don't bother farming. -Me every day
(many of you don't have this problem, so I can't expect everyone to understand this one)
The former ease of access updates (forget what they were called) are VERY helpful and reduced the time needed to invest in this game, and I urge the devs to at least consider the casual player in future ones. I am a college student and don't have the time others do. Many players work long hours and have families to attend to and dinners to cook and kids to take to sports or whatever. My point is I feel my suggestions would be a benefit to all players, especially casual players, and reduce the unnecessary time needed for basic progression.
PS the continuing output of fresh content has been great, keep it up!
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Replies
You as a casual player already feel is too much, there will be a moment when even the more dedicated player will say enough is enough.
The issues is when you ARE trying to do everything, ensure your guildies keep up, help with the TB, push them for more GP. When you're trying to farm all possible events to keep your roster growing.... that's where there is a time crunch.
And yeah, been a while, but Sim tickets DO suck when you don't have enough. It's been a long time though, I don't think anyone cares - the game just wants your 30 crystals for more sims.
A harder option with better rewards would be pretty nice, but as it is now it may as well just be simmed.
And, on the topic of increasing time commitment, a change to the arena payout system would help a ton. Since everyone beats each other on offense as it stands right now then it's all about sniping each other for first every day or coordinating payouts in shard chats, although there are likely those in shards that don't join. This makes one feel like they HAVE to be on for the final hour, particularly the last 20 minutes or so glued to their phone to try to get a top spot. This is a daily occurrence, and gets people burnt out. I wouldn't have as much of an issue with this system if defense wasn't so weak, but even if your team is significantly better than others fighting for your payout then they still win on offense every time. I know it may be complex to change the system, but it really needs to happen.
My guild has lost 3 or 4 high level players that had been playing since the early days of the game just in the past week cause of burn out. These are players that have spent a fair bi ton the game and had 2.3- 3million GP.