The recent CG AMA and gear

floppytechie

Although this gesture by CG in frankly answering our questions is appreciated, I noticed there was one class of questions CG devs purposefully decided to ignore. These questions (including one from me) were about the gear grind and why challenge gear still drops from raids. I understand that it's not possible to answer every question in an Ama only 2 hours long (kudos and respect for going above and beyond with the extra 30 min after that) but this avoidance to this question is curious, don't you think?

Pa_lin

The only response to the challenge gear in raids is “we are always reviewing” when I believe they have no intention of doing.

Cstone812

They said they are reviewing raid gear...then in another answer they said they will re-evaluate it when they get back to raids so who knows. These people are all about the money. Grinding gear will never change. I think we are gonna be stuck with the challenge gear garbage.

Carrie

Bonus answer before I crash, I’ll post it in the megathread later.

Challenge gear wasn’t explicitly called out but we answered a Raid gear question in there and specifically about gear where there is a lot of excess. (Near the top.) I think that’s why in all the question pulling we didn’t answer the ones that explicitly mentioned challenge gear, because we thought the answer was implied. However, since there are still open questions...

We didn’t remove challenge gear for the Sith Triumvirate because we want to address all raid gear for all the raids together and we need to find a solution that works for all players. That being said, we know this is a topic people care about a lot, as well they should, the solve is just going to take a little longer than some of the other QoL stuff.

AnnerDoon

I'm not buying this answer. Gear reward crates are already different for each raid. How hard would it have been to not include challenge gear in the reward crates for the Sith raid? Seriously.

It was obviously a conscious decision to include the challenge gear, not a matter of 'needing to find a solution'. Because, the solution is also obvious.... let people continue to collect challenge gear from the older Raids, but don't include it in the new raid rewards crates. If players are still upset about getting challenge gear as rewards for the older Raids, then that could be addressed independently. If that had happened, I seriously doubt there would be any more complaints about it.

floppytechie

CG_Carrie wrote: »

Bonus answer before I crash, I’ll post it in the megathread later.

Challenge gear wasn’t explicitly called out but we answered a Raid gear question in there and specifically about gear where there is a lot of excess. (Near the top.) I think that’s why in all the question pulling we didn’t answer the ones that explicitly mentioned challenge gear, because we thought the answer was implied. However, since there are still open questions...

We didn’t remove challenge gear for the Sith Triumvirate because we want to address all raid gear for all the raids together and we need to find a solution that works for all players. That being said, we know this is a topic people care about a lot, as well they should, the solve is just going to take a little longer than some of the other QoL stuff.

Thank you for the answer, really appreciate this flood of communication, its a refreshing blast of fresh air

Cossin

CG_Carrie wrote: »

Bonus answer before I crash, I’ll post it in the megathread later.

Challenge gear wasn’t explicitly called out but we answered a Raid gear question in there and specifically about gear where there is a lot of excess. (Near the top.) I think that’s why in all the question pulling we didn’t answer the ones that explicitly mentioned challenge gear, because we thought the answer was implied. However, since there are still open questions...

We didn’t remove challenge gear for the Sith Triumvirate because we want to address all raid gear for all the raids together and we need to find a solution that works for all players. That being said, we know this is a topic people care about a lot, as well they should, the solve is just going to take a little longer than some of the other QoL stuff.

With all due respect, I do not understand what your reasoning on this raid is, regarding challenge gear:

1. this raid is aimed at the top guilds, it‘s not for all players
- Those guilds that do not have need for challenge gear anymore! They do have all their meta-relevant toons maxed and stacked 1.000s of challenge gear. I am 1.000% positive, provided that I‘d have all the other gear, I could max like 20 toons with g12 challenge gear through the piles that accumulated through... well.... daily challenges... new or smaller low power guilds struggle way too much with the STR to benefit from those... daily challenges provide way more than they can use or anybody else... (besides the traditional bottlenecks, which we will never have enough of: carbantis, cuffs,....)
- While I can see your argument being valid up to (at most tier 3- lower power guilds struggle way too long after that) of the STR, I don‘t think it is valid after that.
- That being said: if you fear that player progression might become to fast, if you‘d change it, why not communicate it that way? I am sure the majority would more likely understand such a desicion, rather than the 50% expose nerf (which in the long run HAS to be changed again eventually, unless you won‘t ever release another raid with more health)

2. just keeping stockpiling things:
- theoretically you could cut the rewards for those pieces in half and no one would complain, but seriously, if people sell their stuff accidentally, it is their fault. There are so many farm games similar to SWGoH which have upgrade and/or selling features in place and it works, too. I think you are overprotective in this regard. Combine higher numbers like 50 piece, credits/ship mats like 100.000 for 1 higher quality shard. That way we can choose ourselves (our fault) how many items we scrap, we could thus maintain a certain threshold for new releases AND had a use for the 1.000s of excess pieces.

@CG_Carrie

DarthKijutsu

CG_Carrie wrote: »

the solve is just going to take a little longer than some of the other QoL stuff.

**** CG... I know you're trying your best but you know what the "solve" is? Remove it.

"Guys I know this nail on your hat is a work hazard but we have to first form a committee to investigate the nail and see how we may replace it", CG

swgohfan29

4

Cossin wrote: »

CG_Carrie wrote: »

Bonus answer before I crash, I’ll post it in the megathread later.

Challenge gear wasn’t explicitly called out but we answered a Raid gear question in there and specifically about gear where there is a lot of excess. (Near the top.) I think that’s why in all the question pulling we didn’t answer the ones that explicitly mentioned challenge gear, because we thought the answer was implied. However, since there are still open questions...

We didn’t remove challenge gear for the Sith Triumvirate because we want to address all raid gear for all the raids together and we need to find a solution that works for all players. That being said, we know this is a topic people care about a lot, as well they should, the solve is just going to take a little longer than some of the other QoL stuff.

With all due respect, I do not understand what your reasoning on this raid is, regarding challenge gear:

1. this raid is aimed at the top guilds, it‘s not for all players
- Those guilds that do not have need for challenge gear anymore! They do have all their meta-relevant toons maxed and stacked 1.000s of challenge gear. I am 1.000% positive, provided that I‘d have all the other gear, I could max like 20 toons with g12 challenge gear through the piles that accumulated through... well.... daily challenges... new or smaller low power guilds struggle way too much with the STR to benefit from those... daily challenges provide way more than they can use or anybody else... (besides the traditional bottlenecks, which we will never have enough of: carbantis, cuffs,....)
- While I can see your argument being valid up to (at most tier 3- lower power guilds struggle way too long after that) of the STR, I don‘t think it is valid after that.
- That being said: if you fear that player progression might become to fast, if you‘d change it, why not communicate it that way? I am sure the majority would more likely understand such a desicion, rather than the 50% expose nerf (which in the long run HAS to be changed again eventually, unless you won‘t ever release another raid with more health)

2. just keeping stockpiling things:
- theoretically you could cut the rewards for those pieces in half and no one would complain, but seriously, if people sell their stuff accidentally, it is their fault. There are so many farm games similar to SWGoH which have upgrade and/or selling features in place and it works, too. I think you are overprotective in this regard. Combine higher numbers like 50 piece, credits/ship mats like 100.000 for 1 higher quality shard. That way we can choose ourselves (our fault) how many items we scrap, we could thus maintain a certain threshold for new releases AND had a use for the 1.000s of excess pieces.

@CG_Carrie

My probelm is with point 2. Do you know the number of threads demanding refunds for zetas, or for mods accidentally destroyed, or for gear accidentally put on, or gear accidentally bought? How they claim CG s at fault? If you can garuantee that those claims will not pop up, i m all for this idea.

Nauros

Gotta give them the point that cahllenge gear is a bit more complicated. I personally would take Mk. 3 Carbantis (challenge gear) from any source in any amount, there is never enough of those. Other challenge gear, not so much. I think this is really about imbalanced gear requirements, and that is a whole new can of worms...

Huatimus

There is a space to type DELETE when you try to link a device and it’s way more implausible to miss that than a “double confirm” button and still we have people messing up when they try to link a device. Even a “double confirm” button did not stop people from accidentally Zeta the wrong character. And you honestly believe no one will mess up if they implement a Sell Gear function?

ImYourHuckleberry

floppytechie wrote: »

Although this gesture by CG in frankly answering our questions is appreciated, I noticed there was one class of questions CG devs purposefully decided to ignore. These questions (including one from me) were about the gear grind and why challenge gear still drops from raids. I understand that it's not possible to answer every question in an Ama only 2 hours long (kudos and respect for going above and beyond with the extra 30 min after that) but this avoidance to this question is curious, don't you think?

The whole session of Q and A was above and beyond. Is was 8.30pm to 11pm on a Saturday night when they already put in a full work week. I personally think their time would have been better spent with their wives, husband, children, friends, or even at a concert, a bar, dinner, coffee, basically enjoying themselves after a long hard week of work spending their free time on themselves. I would hope you can see that.

Foxer

CG_Carrie wrote: »

Bonus answer before I crash, I’ll post it in the megathread later.

Challenge gear wasn’t explicitly called out but we answered a Raid gear question in there and specifically about gear where there is a lot of excess. (Near the top.) I think that’s why in all the question pulling we didn’t answer the ones that explicitly mentioned challenge gear, because we thought the answer was implied. However, since there are still open questions...

We didn’t remove challenge gear for the Sith Triumvirate because we want to address all raid gear for all the raids together and we need to find a solution that works for all players. That being said, we know this is a topic people care about a lot, as well they should, the solve is just going to take a little longer than some of the other QoL stuff.

First off I was one who was very upset, 7* Gear 12 Sion owner and NS owner here. I also may have said “use my $400 dollar Sion and a couple hundred others and hire a PR person”

Well in my many years of business, this was high level people putting off time with families to address an immendiate issue. I applaude this and for the moment has kept me and possibly my wallet (how you handle those who zeta’d Sion put him in areana and fell 50-100 slots overnight will determain that). This was needed and you addressed it in a professional manner, released what you could and for all the guys still mad you appeased a Thousand more.

My hats off for this effort and I look forward to more in the future. Be aware you are loosing footholds with your game and I have seen these ledges before. Payed content cannot continue on the path it is on and Free to play needs separation.

Thank you for your time and thank your family’s as well.

kindlekm

Cossin wrote: »

CG_Carrie wrote: »

Bonus answer before I crash, I’ll post it in the megathread later.

Challenge gear wasn’t explicitly called out but we answered a Raid gear question in there and specifically about gear where there is a lot of excess. (Near the top.) I think that’s why in all the question pulling we didn’t answer the ones that explicitly mentioned challenge gear, because we thought the answer was implied. However, since there are still open questions...

We didn’t remove challenge gear for the Sith Triumvirate because we want to address all raid gear for all the raids together and we need to find a solution that works for all players. That being said, we know this is a topic people care about a lot, as well they should, the solve is just going to take a little longer than some of the other QoL stuff.

With all due respect, I do not understand what your reasoning on this raid is, regarding challenge gear:

1. this raid is aimed at the top guilds, it‘s not for all players
- Those guilds that do not have need for challenge gear anymore! They do have all their meta-relevant toons maxed and stacked 1.000s of challenge gear. I am 1.000% positive, provided that I‘d have all the other gear, I could max like 20 toons with g12 challenge gear through the piles that accumulated through... well.... daily challenges... new or smaller low power guilds struggle way too much with the STR to benefit from those... daily challenges provide way more than they can use or anybody else... (besides the traditional bottlenecks, which we will never have enough of: carbantis, cuffs,....)
- While I can see your argument being valid up to (at most tier 3- lower power guilds struggle way too long after that) of the STR, I don‘t think it is valid after that.
- That being said: if you fear that player progression might become to fast, if you‘d change it, why not communicate it that way? I am sure the majority would more likely understand such a desicion, rather than the 50% expose nerf (which in the long run HAS to be changed again eventually, unless you won‘t ever release another raid with more health)

2. just keeping stockpiling things:
- theoretically you could cut the rewards for those pieces in half and no one would complain, but seriously, if people sell their stuff accidentally, it is their fault. There are so many farm games similar to SWGoH which have upgrade and/or selling features in place and it works, too. I think you are overprotective in this regard. Combine higher numbers like 50 piece, credits/ship mats like 100.000 for 1 higher quality shard. That way we can choose ourselves (our fault) how many items we scrap, we could thus maintain a certain threshold for new releases AND had a use for the 1.000s of excess pieces.

@CG_Carrie

have a link for 1.? , their posts in the AMA makes it sound like this would only apply to the heroic level and that all others are intended for lower level guilds to work up to (still be difficult maybe to much time will tell there) to slowly work their way up to heroic

AnnerDoon wrote: »

I'm not buying this answer. Gear reward crates are already different for each raid. How hard would it have been to not include challenge gear in the reward crates for the Sith raid? Seriously.

It was obviously a conscious decision to include the challenge gear, not a matter of 'needing to find a solution'. Because, the solution is also obvious.... let people continue to collect challenge gear from the older Raids, but don't include it in the new raid rewards crates. If players are still upset about getting challenge gear as rewards for the older Raids, then that could be addressed independently. If that had happened, I seriously doubt there would be any more complaints about it.

because they want to evaluate the entire raid reward system at once rather than 3 times? (plus any future raids) this seems like a completely reasonable optimization from a time management perspective

Sewpot

Ummm all those complaints (and yes I’m one) would not achieve what the Devs are trying to achieve. Our game is to collect resources. The Devs game is to make us spend them.
They gave us gear in shipments and guild store for purchase.
If they start giving it away then they start to lose the battle against us.
I agree that the STR should have better gear but once again the Devs would lose and we would progress way to fast.
We had a gear sale shop and that was great and would address people accidentally selling off something they didn’t want if it was a separate room like it use to be and not just a button.

Vettes4Fetts2

Just remember, this is only the start of some sort of transparency. There is still more that needs to be done to repair the trust that eroded. More will have to come, and we must hold them to it.

Having said that, I do appreciate the time taken, (on a holiday weekend, after work hours) to start this discourse. It's much better than an update out the door, and a weekend of no communication.

Although some answers weren't quite there in terms of what we wanted, I'll take them over nothing. We can always keep asking.

ddlooping2

swgohfan29 wrote: »

My problem is with point 2. Do you know the number of threads demanding refunds for zetas, or for mods accidentally destroyed, or for gear accidentally put on, or gear accidentally bought? How they claim CG s at fault? If you can guarantee that those claims will not pop up, i'm all for this idea.

Why not add a confirmation pop-up for all these "important" decisions?
"Are you sure you want to sell xxxx?"
Some already exists: equipping Zeta, destroying Mods...

swgohfan29

ddlooping2 wrote: »

swgohfan29 wrote: »

My problem is with point 2. Do you know the number of threads demanding refunds for zetas, or for mods accidentally destroyed, or for gear accidentally put on, or gear accidentally bought? How they claim CG s at fault? If you can guarantee that those claims will not pop up, i'm all for this idea.

Why not add a confirmation pop-up for all these "important" decisions?
"Are you sure you want to sell xxxx?"
Some already exists: equipping Zeta, destroying Mods...

Guess what: They are still complaining about it. Its not even funny anymore

Mullato

ImYourHuckleberry wrote: »

floppytechie wrote: »

Although this gesture by CG in frankly answering our questions is appreciated, I noticed there was one class of questions CG devs purposefully decided to ignore. These questions (including one from me) were about the gear grind and why challenge gear still drops from raids. I understand that it's not possible to answer every question in an Ama only 2 hours long (kudos and respect for going above and beyond with the extra 30 min after that) but this avoidance to this question is curious, don't you think?

The whole session of Q and A was above and beyond. Is was 8.30pm to 11pm on a Saturday night when they already put in a full work week. I personally think their time would have been better spent with their wives, husband, children, friends, or even at a concert, a bar, dinner, coffee, basically enjoying themselves after a long hard week of work spending their free time on themselves. I would hope you can see that.

Were they specifically told they had to do it at this time?

Just being curious btw.

Areceni

@CG_Carrie
Sorry but that's just bollocks. What you mean is that you haven't decided to stop slapping your players in the face w/ worthless rewards yet because you aren't 100% sure it wouldn't have an adverse effect on monetization.

Areceni

Cossin wrote: »

There are so many farm games similar to SWGoH which have upgrade and/or selling features in place and it works, too. I think you are overprotective in this regard.

Sure, those games exist, but how many of them are EA games? I'll put the over/under at 0 and take the under.

Emmant

CG_Carrie wrote: »

Bonus answer before I crash, I’ll post it in the megathread later.

Challenge gear wasn’t explicitly called out but we answered a Raid gear question in there and specifically about gear where there is a lot of excess. (Near the top.) I think that’s why in all the question pulling we didn’t answer the ones that explicitly mentioned challenge gear, because we thought the answer was implied. However, since there are still open questions...

We didn’t remove challenge gear for the Sith Triumvirate because we want to address all raid gear for all the raids together and we need to find a solution that works for all players. That being said, we know this is a topic people care about a lot, as well they should, the solve is just going to take a little longer than some of the other QoL stuff.

@CG_Carrie

Your answer, while reasonable, is addressing the symptoms, not the illness.

If you could elaborate on the decision to add “challenge gear” to new content in the first place, I believe you would draw closer to the root of the frustrations, which I don’t believe are really pertaining so much to the speed of altercation as much as of the implementation.

Thanks!

John_Matrix1985

Nauros wrote: »

Gotta give them the point that cahllenge gear is a bit more complicated. I personally would take Mk. 3 Carbantis (challenge gear) from any source in any amount, there is never enough of those. Other challenge gear, not so much. I think this is really about imbalanced gear requirements, and that is a whole new can of worms...

The target audience of the devs no longer has a need for mk3 Carbantis. We should all have out toons at G12, a point where that gear is irrelevant

Mischen1

Emmant, the devs didn't "add" challenge gear to the new content. The raids are based on a template, some of the mechanics change, surely the pixels change (rancor vs tank vs sith) and there are a lot of tweaks, but all three raids are essentially the same version with some modifications. You cannot just start a totally new feature from scratch without taking a long time. It made more sense to use the old raids and spiff them up, with enough changes to make it a Sith raid instead of another AAT. The issue is not about them adding challenge gear to the new raid, the issue is how to best change what is there without taking the game offline for too long.

scuba

Cossin wrote: »

CG_Carrie wrote: »

Bonus answer before I crash, I’ll post it in the megathread later.

Challenge gear wasn’t explicitly called out but we answered a Raid gear question in there and specifically about gear where there is a lot of excess. (Near the top.) I think that’s why in all the question pulling we didn’t answer the ones that explicitly mentioned challenge gear, because we thought the answer was implied. However, since there are still open questions...

We didn’t remove challenge gear for the Sith Triumvirate because we want to address all raid gear for all the raids together and we need to find a solution that works for all players. That being said, we know this is a topic people care about a lot, as well they should, the solve is just going to take a little longer than some of the other QoL stuff.

With all due respect, I do not understand what your reasoning on this raid is, regarding challenge gear:

1. this raid is aimed at the top guilds, it‘s not for all players
- Those guilds that do not have need for challenge gear anymore! They do have all their meta-relevant toons maxed and stacked 1.000s of challenge gear. I am 1.000% positive, provided that I‘d have all the other gear, I could max like 20 toons with g12 challenge gear through the piles that accumulated through... well.... daily challenges... new or smaller low power guilds struggle way too much with the STR to benefit from those... daily challenges provide way more than they can use or anybody else... (besides the traditional bottlenecks, which we will never have enough of: carbantis, cuffs,....)
- While I can see your argument being valid up to (at most tier 3- lower power guilds struggle way too long after that) of the STR, I don‘t think it is valid after that.
- That being said: if you fear that player progression might become to fast, if you‘d change it, why not communicate it that way? I am sure the majority would more likely understand such a desicion, rather than the 50% expose nerf (which in the long run HAS to be changed again eventually, unless you won‘t ever release another raid with more health)

2. just keeping stockpiling things:
- theoretically you could cut the rewards for those pieces in half and no one would complain, but seriously, if people sell their stuff accidentally, it is their fault. There are so many farm games similar to SWGoH which have upgrade and/or selling features in place and it works, too. I think you are overprotective in this regard. Combine higher numbers like 50 piece, credits/ship mats like 100.000 for 1 higher quality shard. That way we can choose ourselves (our fault) how many items we scrap, we could thus maintain a certain threshold for new releases AND had a use for the 1.000s of excess pieces.

@CG_Carrie

To me I could care less about stock pilling. To me the issue is when rng gives us "challenge gear" that is less chance of getting something useful. "challenge gear" is needed sure but is useless with out the other parts that go with it. Needing gear and being able to use it are 2 completely different things.

Was_Whut

swgohfan29 wrote: »

My probelm is with point 2. Do you know the number of threads demanding refunds for zetas, or for mods accidentally destroyed, or for gear accidentally put on, or gear accidentally bought? How they claim CG s at fault? If you can garuantee that those claims will not pop up, i m all for this idea.

But those threads could then be instantly dismissed as the irresponsible, unwilling to accept personal accountability for one's own actions, nonsense that they are?

Was_Whut

scuba wrote: »

To me I could care less about stock pilling.

So you care about stockpiling quite a bit?
Can I ask why? Is it because you want to save the pieces for a later purpose, or something?

Was_Whut

Mischen1 wrote: »

Emmant, the devs didn't "add" challenge gear to the new content. The raids are based on a template, some of the mechanics change, surely the pixels change (rancor vs tank vs sith) and there are a lot of tweaks, but all three raids are essentially the same version with some modifications. You cannot just start a totally new feature from scratch without taking a long time. It made more sense to use the old raids and spiff them up, with enough changes to make it a Sith raid instead of another AAT. The issue is not about them adding challenge gear to the new raid, the issue is how to best change what is there without taking the game offline for too long.

But they added the new G12 pieces? So, if they can add something to the template, surely they can also remove (or replace) something just as easily.

scuba

Was_Whut wrote: »

scuba wrote: »

To me I could care less about stock pilling.

So you care about stockpiling quite a bit?
Can I ask why? Is it because you want to save the pieces for a later purpose, or something?

The stock pile doesn't really hurt and the kitten rate they had before for selling it wasn't really worth it. I don't see them doing a gear exchange (which I would be all for) so the only thing I see them doing to get rid of stock pile is a sell which was just bad and lots more work. I am not against the selling either but understand why they got rid of it.

Again the problem with challenge gear in raids is that if you get challenge gear you didn't get something else. Gear is only useful if you can equip it and the challenge gear most complain about require 50-60 of challenge gear and 50 of something else. Just give us a better chance of getting the 50 of non challenge gear by removing the challenge gear from raid rewards.
Example I have 500+ mk8 biotech implant salvage but 35 biotech implant prototype.
Do I need those 500+ yes I do, can I use them no I can't because in need another 500 of the prototypes to make the 500+ salvage usable.

To add For the developers to pretend they don't know what the players mean by this is crazy. They know what gear we are talking about but are choosing to keep these along with other things as a gear gate. Again if you get challenge gear in a raid drop that means you didn't get something else you could use.

kindlekm

John_Matrix1985 wrote: »

Nauros wrote: »

Gotta give them the point that cahllenge gear is a bit more complicated. I personally would take Mk. 3 Carbantis (challenge gear) from any source in any amount, there is never enough of those. Other challenge gear, not so much. I think this is really about imbalanced gear requirements, and that is a whole new can of worms...

The target audience of the devs no longer has a need for mk3 Carbantis. We should all have out toons at G12, a point where that gear is irrelevant

How Elitist can you be , theres this thing called NEW PLAYERS and GUILDS