How the Sith Raid fun factor could be increased

Hepatox
53 posts Member
I think I may have identified a flaw in your current raid model:
The raid system implemented in SWGOH seems to be designed to artificially force mass guild participation. Each new raid that's released has boss mechanics deliberately designed to counter strategies developed for previous raids. This isn't necessarily a bad thing as strategy diversity should be encouraged, but has resulted in some serious problems in it's current implementation.

In relation to the target audience for this game, you obviously want paying players. Although my guild does not fit the mass guild participation model for raids and is primarily free to play, we have some dolphin purchases going on. Even if we're not your big bucks, you're still making money off my guild. It's in the interest of your company to cater to the largest playerbase you can access. Not only does it give you more avenues of income, it also gives the Whales people to beat and/or dominate. We may not fit the mould, but expanding the mould to fit more players would be beneficial to everyone.

CG_Carrie's comment during her 27/03/2018 Dev Blog update struck a chord for me:
"Coming from an MMO background, I find myself often making comparisons between MMOs and mobile games."
https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/discussion/164407/dev-blog-communication-on-galaxy-of-heroes-3-27-18

SWGOH has an asynchronous battle system that is a personal battle between your team and the raid. It is nothing like the co-operative and dynamic teamplay you get in an MMO raid. I believe trying to push MMO style ideals onto the SWGOH playerbase is the key cause of the extremely poor reaction that large sections of the community has had to the Sith raid.

Reviewing the forums I found some interesting splits in the player opinions and have a theory on how the split came to be. Do players see the Sith Raid in terms of the Journey or in terms of the rewards?

Replies

  • Hepatox
    53 posts Member
    A large amount of people don't like the raid, potentially 77% of your player base in fact:

    - Is this raid unfun poll:
    https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/discussion/161766/anyone-else-find-this-raid-unfun
    - Raid is boring:
    https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/discussion/163416/sith-raid-is-boring-just-saying

    But high end guilds are ok with it:

    - Players responding to a user that the raid is fine:
    https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/discussion/163900/swgoh-we-are-waiting-for-sith-raid-re-work
    - Evidence that guilds are clearing Heroic, proving the raid is not only doable but that people think it's worth doing:
    https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/discussion/163601/icbw-a-131-million-gp-guild-has-cleared-the-heroic-sith-raid

    My opinion is that free to play and dolphin players in lower GP guilds don't like the raid because their personal experience with it is low. The journey is poor and painful. As an individual, you have no control over anything because the bosses are immune to everything.

    Whale players who are more about winning and being the best are obtaining Traya shards and are happy with the raid. The destination is great and they can achieve the destination enabling them to get a super powerful Sith character unlocked over time.
  • Hepatox
    53 posts Member
    Possible solutions to the Sith raid problem:
    1. Give players more control. I'm pretty sure the most detrimental thing to the player experience is the lack of control and our inability to apply anything except for irresistible debuffs like Jedi Training Rey's expose. Currently, tenacity increases by huge chunks whenever the boss takes damage.

    In order to allow a larger variety of teams and to make the raid more fun, how about you change the raid boss passives, eg: Change Nihilus passive "The Darkness In Which All Life Dies" to:
    "Nihilus is immune to tenacity down and his tenacity is increased by 20% per active debuff on him. Every time Nihilus fails to resist a resistable effect his tenacity is increased by 20% (stacking) until the end of his next turn. Ever time Nihilus is affected by a turn meter removal effect his speed increases by +30 until the end of his next turn."

    This change has a few benefits for the player experience:
    1. Irresistible effects will not increase Nihilus' tenacity, meaning that a greater variety of debuff-based alternative units can be mixed in with irresistible ability characters.
    2. Resisted effects will not further increase Nihilus' tenacity. Having resists increase Nihilus' tenacity causing even MORE resists is just annoying and cripples debuff-reliant characters like zeta Vader leadership.
    3. Debuff-reliant characters will be prevented from becoming TOO powerful. For example, a zeta Vader leadership will be able to apply SOME damage over time effects but the more that get applied, the more that Nihilus will be able to resist new applications. This will prevent the super high stack counts you see in the tank raid that make Wampa so overpowered but will give zeta Vader some utility and power. Additionally, with the above wording, the active debuff tenacity increase and the "failure to resist a resistable effect" tenacity increase will stack until Nihilus' next turn meaning if Vader does Force Crush and applies 3 damage over time effects and the slow debuff, Nihilus' tenacity will be increased by 160% until the end of his next turn but it will then reduce down to 80%, due to the 20% per debuff bonus only. This gives Nihilus a high level of tenacity increase when the debuffs are initially applied but will reduce again after Nihilus has made it to his next turn.
    3. The combination of +30 speed, increasing tenacity whenever a turn meter removal effect isn't resisted, plus the 5% turn meter gain that happens from the "Fearsome Foe" passive, should all prevent infinite turn meter removal cycles without making resistible turn meter removal effects completely useless.
  • Hepatox
    53 posts Member
    Similarly, change Sion's "Impervious Foe" to:
    "Sion is immune to tenacity down and his tenacity is increased by 20% per active debuff on him. Every time Sion fails to resist a resistable effect his tenacity is increased by 20% (stacking) until the end of his next turn. In addition, he has +100% defense and is immune to Turn Meter removal effects and defence debuffs."

    This change has a few benefits for the player experience:
    1. Irresistible effects will not increase Sion's tenacity, meaning the player won't accidentally cripple their ability to debuff Sion.
    2. Resisted effects will not further increase Sion's tenacity.
    3. Debuff-reliant characters will be prevented from becoming TOO powerful.
    3. Sion can't be controlled using turn meter removal effects and he will still gain 5% turn meter from the "Fearsome Foe" passive whenever he is damaged. As such, turn meter gain teams will still increase his turn meter whenever he is hit, he won't be turned into the super speed-boosted monster that he can become currently.
  • Hepatox
    53 posts Member
    Finally, Traya's "Patience Has Its Limits" should be changed to:
    "Traya is immune to tenacity down and her tenacity is increased by 20% per active debuff on her. Every time Traya fails to resist a resistable effect her tenacity is increased by 20% (stacking) until the end of her next turn. Ever time Traya is affected by a turn meter removal effect her speed increases by +30 until the end of her next turn. If Traya is toppled, she becomes immune to turn meter removal effects.

    When Traya becomes enraged, she dispels all buffs from all enemies and inflicts buff immunity for the rest of the encounter (can't be resisted or dispelled.)"

    Once again, similar to Nihilus:
    1. Irresistible effects will not increase Traya's tenacity, meaning the player won't accidentally cripple their ability to debuff Traya.
    2. Resisted effects will not further increase Traya's tenacity.
    3. Debuff-reliant characters will be prevented from becoming TOO powerful.
    3. The combination of +30 speed, increasing tenacity whenever a turn meter removal effect isn't resisted, plus the 5% turn meter gain that happens from the "Fearsome Foe" passive should all prevent infinite turn meter removal cycles without making resistible turn meter removal effects completely useless.
  • Hepatox
    53 posts Member
    Understandably, if the above changes are made then other balancing changes will likely need to be done as well to make sure the Heroic level of the raid is not accidentally made too easy. Due to the effectiveness increase of debuffs, perhaps the Heroic tier health level should be increased even further.

    Lower tiers of the Sith raid should be tweaked for less powerful/active guilds by having the raid maximum health levels reduced proportional to the participation rates of players attacking. A 50/50 participation rate seems unlikely when a guild of level 85 players is doing a T4 or T5 Sith raid.
  • The raid is a chore. I hate doing it and I'm considering either not doing it or quitting the game.
Sign In or Register to comment.