Everything a gaming company does is profit driven, nothing is by chance, nothing is accidental...
Of course absolutely true. That some don't believe this, or even more oddly, believe it is some grand conspiratorial truth they've discovered, is staggering. I get to enjoy this game because someone makes money out of it. Take the ability to make money out of it and the game ceases to exist. Everything in it is designed to make money. Simply that. This is not something dirty and underhand, this is simply the games sole reason for existence.
Stepping away from the OT for a second. To any in a similar situation, build one team at a time. Whatever the team, build one at a time. Ignore meta, events, and just focus on one. You will be surprised how fast it goes and you have a viable team. Then on to the next.
This is beautifully put and entirely accurate. I've learnt it in the last few months - focus on one thing and one thing only. Let all the bright and shiny new temptations come and go without paying them any heed. They are there to keep you from your goals, get you tangled up and then have to panic farm to get what you want. Panic farming, for many, inevitably means spending money. Much better to pick your goals and grind towards them single-mindedly, avoiding temptation. Grind for teams and not for events and eventually you will have your teams in place and ready for when the event comes round.
[As a free player myself I will tell you that we have a choice. When it comes to event requirements I choose to stick to one team until I have put the bare minimum amount of resources into them needed to get them to do what I need them to do. If something else comes along I choose to miss it, and that's lousy. But I finish one team, then get the next one. Doing that, the only thing I've been excluded from lately was the upper levels of that Bounty event. I had no chance there. Next time... maybe.
Again- very well put. Bounty Hunter event, Mythic Ewok event...I didn't have a chance for either so I ignored them. They are not for me right now. I know what my goals are (and they were not my goals) so...I avoided them. Investing into either of them is not my plan so I didn't. Maybe in the future when they I come around again then I will be ready for them. Maybe not...either way - all good
Of course absolutely true. That some don't believe this, or even more oddly, believe it is some grand conspiratorial truth they've discovered, is staggering. I get to enjoy this game because someone makes money out of it. Take the ability to make money out of it and the game ceases to exist. Everything in it is designed to make money. Simply that. This is not something dirty and underhand, this is simply the games sole reason for existence.
Stepping away from the OT for a second. To any in a similar situation, build one team at a time. Whatever the team, build one at a time. Ignore meta, events, and just focus on one. You will be surprised how fast it goes and you have a viable team. Then on to the next.
This is beautifully put and entirely accurate. I've learnt it in the last few months - focus on one thing and one thing only. Let all the bright and shiny new temptations come and go without paying them any heed. They are there to keep you from your goals, get you tangled up and then have to panic farm to get what you want. Panic farming, for many, inevitably means spending money. Much better to pick your goals and grind towards them single-mindedly, avoiding temptation. Grind for teams and not for events and eventually you will have your teams in place and ready for when the event comes round.
Long loyal player here since Dec'15 but i have to disagree with Kyno. Make an event difficult, sure. But it shouldnt be absolutely crushing even g12 well-modded teams (e.g. Thrawn mythic phoenixes anyone?). Things should be benchmarked against similar events, so mythic events should generally be of similar difficulty.
In part my comments reflect that I also dont care about how they setup the challenge. If they feel a a string of attacks puts us on the defensive in a way that they desire, I'm ok with that.
I'm a big fan of events putting us on your heels and in away we are not used to.
I'm also ok with losing, even with a team of g12 toons ,but that is definitely just me.
I think what some may feel is, trial and error is fine. But sometimes the deck is stacked against you, to increase revenues, not enjoyment. Some mechanics are a tad obvious. "Your hero is passe, but our new and improved..".
I'm sorry, but no. Something being difficult, even extremely difficult does not all have to do with revenue. The feeling that you need to do this the first time is what people choose to use as a driving force behind their enjoyment of the game is not the devs choice.
Nothing in this game is $$ only. If someone "cant wait" to beat an event as a business they will gladly take your $$ and help you out, as just about any business will. If a raid/event/anything is out of my reach I am immediately planning my moves to either change my current long term plan to fit it in or see where it will fall if I wait.
Yes events are built with a team in mind as was explained with thrawn event originally, but it was doable with at least 2 different combos. Same can be said for the mythic, people did claim to do it without shore, but as soon as anyone says that the response is only because they had "great rng".... I think there is more to be said for strategy and mods, but that's just me.
Everything a gaming company does is profit driven, nothing is by chance, nothing is accidental, nothing reaches daylight without being carefully weighed (pros and cons, impact short term, long term). Even when it's just in the idea stage they toss the idea around internally, and rip it apart. Revenues are one of if not the most important topic in any discussion. Will it boost revenues, restrict the games overall development (player base progress etc.,), will it hurt the game over time, detract from building new teams, etc.. The list is endless. But this is not some dark plot, it's called keeping the bottom line in sight....
Yes absolutely it's a business, but this would be done in a grand scale, and overall design and concept of an event type ,and maybe even some elemental concepts of what will make an event type different and difficult.
It wouldn't make business sense to burn salary time to have a meeting about each event individually at the play level of detail to say for example, "will TM loading a team to start the event increase revenue". That was my point. Those design details would have been worked out well before the actual event was made. Which is why event types end up with similar mechanisms designed into them.
@kyno That is how it was explained to me. But that is neither here nor there. Our points are similar in that, it's not some grand conspiracy, it's business. Which I will admit are not mutually exclusive. LOL
The saddest part of video gaming is, it's us against them (Devs vs Players) . And it must be. But still..
kyno That is how it was explained to me. But that is neither here nor there. Our points are similar in that, it's not some grand conspiracy, it's business. Which I will admit are not mutually exclusive. LOL
Yes, we are on the same page. I'm taking my experience in product development in a different industry, so it could be more what you describe. In my firm if you called that meeting you would owe everyone in the room lunch for burning that much salary time to talk about details on 2 different levels that far apart since they would have been handled in a different meeting.
General idea - difficulty and requirements promotes spending, mix in some surprise
Event series - focuses, themes and mechanics to make it unique and fill the General idea
Event itself - will it work, keep with the theme, and have the appropriate level of difficulty
QA - same as above just after development
The people in the first meeting would not generally be in the 3rd meeting, they are not paid to work out in-game details, that's what you pay people for. But again, not my industry.
Anyway we are getting off topic.
I love different difficulty, I like feeling off my game when I was expecting one thing but they throw a curve ball in.
There job is to keep people interested and challenged, those 2 along with the finer details make them money. Yes, all designed to work for the business.
New question, same topic. How easy is too easy? When your team is "finished" and you blow thru content, what then? Part of the ongoing balance and difficulty dialogue, is keeping people interested. Endgame boredom is lethal to games. I loved, loved, loved, Dragon age Origins. Played thru all storylines. Played all races. I rang it out and left no stone unturned. Would I replay it now? No. Nothing to accomplish. (Let's keep back and forth about that game out of this thread. Stay on topic ) But that type of game has a Beginning, Middle, and End. Online games are always in a state of flux. Growing, changing, evolving. Not all change is appreciated. Not all changes or adjustments are immediately understood. Some unfold over time. So, while waiting for enlightenment, how do they keep our interest? How do you the player stay interested?
New question, same topic. How easy is too easy? When your team is "finished" and you blow thru content, what then? Part of the ongoing balance and difficulty dialogue, is keeping people interested. Endgame boredom is lethal to games. I loved, loved, loved, Dragon age Origins. Played thru all storylines. Played all races. I rang it out and left no stone unturned. Would I replay it now? No. Nothing to accomplish. (Let's keep back and forth about that game out of this thread. Stay on topic ) But that type of game has a Beginning, Middle, and End. Online games are always in a state of flux. Growing, changing, evolving. Not all change is appreciated. Not all changes or adjustments are immediately understood. Some unfold over time. So, while waiting for enlightenment, how do they keep our interest? How do you the player stay interested?
I think we may be seeing this issue right here, but it depends on who they consider end game players.
They obviously have a large scale of player to cover, but maybe not enough steps towards the top end of the scale. Level is almost nothing in this game, you hit max level way before you are near top level in most content.
I think the top end content seems more accessible than it is (kinda the point, from our earlier discussion), which is why we end up in alot of the discussions we have here.
I would say too easy is anything that doesn't in some way start that conversation. I would also classify easy as things we have seen and figured out before in a different event, but that could still have some interest.
Sorry for talking so much in this thread, game development, joins my 2 passions in life. (That and a slow weekend)
Here is an issue I see. When you first start some things and events are locked behind a level wall as they should be. This makes the game manageable and player friendly. You do X to unlock Y and there is accomplishment, an end goal. You can’t participate in lots of stuff, but you also can’t see it to worry about it.
Once you hit 85, you realize you’ve invested in the wrong characters for everything. Nothing you’ve invested in is useful to any team and worse things you want to do to improve are locked behind team walls (challenge mods, credit heist etc) or you lack every character needed to advance on the tables. You also see the raids you only do 15-80k damage in, fleets you are decimated in and arena where your team suddenly isn’t performing anymore and you drop to the 2500-3500 ranks. And you get to see all the events that would help you fix the problem that only the 7* GS12 teams that don’t need the stuff can do.
So you throw a little money at the game and then feel robbed when you spend 300 cantina energy trying to get Old Ben, Capt Han, or vets and only net 3 character shards every day. It overwhelming to most people. There is too much to do and people feel a need to catch up but can’t. By the time they get a single meta toon, the next meta is out and you fall behind more. Plus old characters are not getting reworks fast enough so you are forced to buy the cards to get characters. There is no sense of accomplishment. Just throw money at the game and the problem is fixed.
That’s a poor business model, but the one EA has chosen. Blizzard at least make throwing money at the game cosmetic changes only.
New question, same topic. How easy is too easy? When your team is "finished" and you blow thru content, what then?
Interesting question - has anyone finished SWGOH?
I'd love to know.
How can you finish this game though?
I guess you get every toon and ship fully maxed?
And then they release something new and you're not finished anymore.
Yeah I agree.
But then maybe that person has all the resources to instantly get that new something.
So...the player furthest along maybe?
I remember seeing roster of totally maxed everything a while back. Person had obviously spent thousands. I'm not quite sure what their raison d'etre for playing the game would be?
Interesting.
Anyway - it's a great game and I enjoy it very much. Obviously, or I wouldn't play it. I hope it continues and flourishes.
Okay, let's say Johnny Gamer hits the mega mega lottery. And can spend billions on whatever. He decides to play SWGOH. He buys the max gems allowed at one time (is there such a thing?). He then pays his butler to keep buying packs until those gems are gone, then buys more. Rinse and Repeat. Can he quickly build all the teams and eventually complete all content? From a business standpoint I can't see EA/CG saying "Ummm sorry you can't do that.." they are in business after all. So can whales simply throw money at the game and have complete teams quickly. It's been a while since I played from scratch. Are there any level restrictions on buying from the shops?
Okay, let's say Johnny Gamer hits the mega mega lottery. And can spend billions on whatever. He decides to play SWGOH. He buys the max gems allowed at one time (is there such a thing?). He then pays his butler to keep buying packs until those gems are gone, then buys more. Rinse and Repeat. Can he quickly build all the teams and eventually complete all content? From a business standpoint I can't see EA/CG saying "Ummm sorry you can't do that.." they are in business after all. So can whales simply throw money at the game and have complete teams quickly. It's been a while since I played from scratch. Are there any level restrictions on buying from the shops?
No level restrictions on most shops other than you have to be able to do the event. So fleet store won’t open until you get the right level to do fleets. But nothing stopping someone from buying the packs in the store to shard up.
Okay, let's say Johnny Gamer hits the mega mega lottery. And can spend billions on whatever. He decides to play SWGOH. He buys the max gems allowed at one time (is there such a thing?). He then pays his butler to keep buying packs until those gems are gone, then buys more. Rinse and Repeat. Can he quickly build all the teams and eventually complete all content? From a business standpoint I can't see EA/CG saying "Ummm sorry you can't do that.." they are in business after all. So can whales simply throw money at the game and have complete teams quickly. It's been a while since I played from scratch. Are there any level restrictions on buying from the shops?
No level restrictions on most shops other than you have to be able to do the event. So fleet store won’t open until you get the right level to do fleets. But nothing stopping someone from buying the packs in the store to shard up.
And they would still need to gear them etc.. So throwing money initially may build 7* teams but they are far from finished. I had a feeling there are checks and balances to slow overnight success's.
Here is an issue I see. When you first start some things and events are locked behind a level wall as they should be. This makes the game manageable and player friendly. You do X to unlock Y and there is accomplishment, an end goal. You can’t participate in lots of stuff, but you also can’t see it to worry about it.
Once you hit 85, you realize you’ve invested in the wrong characters for everything. Nothing you’ve invested in is useful to any team and worse things you want to do to improve are locked behind team walls (challenge mods, credit heist etc) or you lack every character needed to advance on the tables. You also see the raids you only do 15-80k damage in, fleets you are decimated in and arena where your team suddenly isn’t performing anymore and you drop to the 2500-3500 ranks. And you get to see all the events that would help you fix the problem that only the 7* GS12 teams that don’t need the stuff can do.
So you throw a little money at the game and then feel robbed when you spend 300 cantina energy trying to get Old Ben, Capt Han, or vets and only net 3 character shards every day. It overwhelming to most people. There is too much to do and people feel a need to catch up but can’t. By the time they get a single meta toon, the next meta is out and you fall behind more. Plus old characters are not getting reworks fast enough so you are forced to buy the cards to get characters. There is no sense of accomplishment. Just throw money at the game and the problem is fixed.
That’s a poor business model, but the one EA has chosen. Blizzard at least make throwing money at the game cosmetic changes only.
But isn’t that the model of All Freemium mobile games? And isn’t this one of the better ones?
Not defending at all just stating my findings which are small.
I do enjoy more challenging events and have no problem with developers modifying event toons how they please, to make it more challenging.
Ive heard alot of complaining and suprise about event units doing different things then the regular toon, but doesn't really make sense because devs have been specifically clear that they can alter traits and ablities of event units how they please.
I do like a challenge but one thing I don't like as much is when the challenge is basically only beatable with 1 toon. Like Thrawns mythic basically if you didn't have a good Palp or really good Dtroop it was impossible to kill Kanan, even vader could do a massive swing when he had a dot of health and not do visible dmg. And Sith Raid counters every team except for one team... Jtr. There should be a plethora of good teams since its a raid thats meant for entire roaster and guilds vary not everyone wants to work on jtr. Personally I think Sith Raid is killing this game. Its more okay for mythics to rquire a specific toon, tho it would make more sense if thrawns was thrawn not palp since its his mythic. But for a whole raid to be meant for 1 team is absurd.
...Now, with all that and concepts some will no doubt mention (and please do) what is your point of view? Do you prefer impossible tasks, and completing them? What would you prefer as a happy medium?...
Difficulty and enjoyment are totally different things, at some point they are linked, because if the game is too easy it becomes boring and if it is too hard it can become frustrating, but just finding the correct difficulty balance is not enough, mechanics matters too, and even more.
Example: Biggs in ship arena the (especially while combined with Vader), it is a challenge, not unbeatable nor easy neither, but the mechanic is a disaster totally RNG and time consuming. Same with Thrawn's fracture, Palpatine area-stun, Hoth battle's TM and protection gain, etc. they are a challenge that can be defeated, but it does not mean they are fun, blocking you from playing is not fun even when it is a challenge.
... So, while waiting for enlightenment, how do they keep our interest? How do you the player stay interested?
I think there are 2 kinds of games, when we love the Lore and when we do not care about the Lore. When we do not care, the Devs need to keep adding content in the same quality of the original content.
When I care it depends more on me than the company, even adding too much and increasing difficulty affects me negatively, I like to enjoy my roster and as EA increases the difficulty they force me to farm the powerful character over the fun to play characters, pushing me a bit more out of the game in each move.
Examples: since the GW was nerfed and became simable, I m enjoying it a lot, I can put in a team whatever I want and do it for fun, I have tried single characters or duos instead of a full team, etc., and if I ruin it too much I just sim the remaining nodes. Forest moon is another example, instead of auto the 1rst tier, I try to succeed with a different team composition, characters that are not geared enough or have junk kits.
Okay I knew this would happen at some point, and I cannot point at any one comment or comments, but.. I think I have an idea why the difficulty of something is as it is. Maybe. In an MMO, you can play organized content or just wander around. Here, not so much. Soooo... harder content is an STD (something to do)?
But isn’t that the model of All Freemium mobile games? And isn’t this one of the better ones?
Not defending at all just stating my findings which are small.
This is by far a great game. I have only played Clash of Clans on the phone. I was an avid MMO player since Ultima Online. Now my job in social media keeps me really busy so breaks and time away it is easy to invest in this quick pocket platform. I was browsing our platform sponsors when I saw the R2 event last year and said to myself, looks cool, I’ll give it a try since I don’t have time for WOW or TOR anymore.
I actually have few complaints about the overall experience. The folks on the forums are very willing to help and give input which has been exceptionally helpful and helped me improve my game as well as understand some mechanics which are not intuitive. And having come from both Blizzard and EA games, I prefer the model the MMOs use: anything bought is for cosmetic purposes only. Not too much of a fan of this gear for a kings ransom crystal platform, but CofC is responsible for that.
These "very very difficult" events are meant to push people to waste hard earned gear on certain characters which I usually find very misleading and unworthy, a sabotage and distraction to our original plans: my advice is if you can't complete them, just ignore them and stick to your plan for your long term wellbeing in this game, eventually, it's their plans v.s. our plans, you win if you can hold onto yours.
Difficulty is not in the sith raid, not in mythic, not in gear, but all things combined. The difficulty is needing JTR for sith raid, which requires vets, and gear, which takes from others, whichruins chances at these flash events. You focus on one team, you grind them to 7*, gear 12, and at the end of those 3-6 months, you have nothing to offer your guild in TW, most of TB, Rancor, Haat, STR, or something else. You can be hyper focused, but you will miss a lot of chances at other things. You can spread yourself thin, but you will be mediocre at everything. Point is, spend money or accept that you won't be able to do everything. We aren't gamechangers, our crystals are limited, and it sucks.
In games like this, it's a very, VERY fine line you have to balance events on when it comes to difficulty if you want people to enjoy it, because the enjoyment of this game is split into two parts.
The first part is the enjoyment of the event itself and the mechanics within. P2 of the Sith Raid is a good example of mechanics done very well; you have the constantly stacking offence on both sides that you have to balance carefully to avoid getting one-shot while still dealing as much damage as possible. It rewards playing attention and playing well, incentivises going for risky plays, yet punishes overstepping your bounds and playing badly.
P3 of the Sith Raid is an example of bad mechanics, because Isolate messes with the second part of the game's enjoyment, which is the fun you get from playing the teams you enjoy. Sure, many of us often end up using teams we don't enjoy by themselves for things because they're good at the things in question, but I'd hazard a guess that most players have 1 or more factions who they enjoy playing and will go out of their way to play. For me, they're Imperial Troopers and Phoenix. I love the way those factions play in battles, and I take any opportunity to use them. That's why P3 of the Sith Raid is bad: Isolate destroys the way those teams (and the majority of other teams) play and removes half the fun of the game.
When making an event, you have to keep those two in balance. For example, if I'm getting to play the full force of my Troopers, but the event has barely any mechanics, it's not going to feel very special or interesting. It's practically a GW node at that point. If my Troopers are being extremely hampered and not doing what makes them fun, but the mechanics of the event are interesting, I'm gonna get sick of it pretty quickly.
And if my Troopers are being made boring and the event has bad mechanics, you've failed completely.
Ok, so too hard is no good, nor is too easy. Ok Goldilocks, whats in the 3rd bowl? Ohhhhh. Balance. Bleh.. Balance is a myth. Often sought, rarely achieved. Actually, we are the 3rd bowl. What is missing here, is us. Real time interaction, in a turn based universe. Mmorpg elements, in a phone it in system. I think there are those here, like me, that struggle with this the most. Letting go of rezzing, running back just in time to get back into the fight. That mindset doesn't work here. I still try to react quickly or be defeated, when the enemy is happy to wait for me to decide what I will do (turn based combat). It's a chess game. We have to think several moves ahead.
One constant in both universes. Loot still sux. So, there's that..
There's two major factors driving the difficulty/enjoyment balance for me: time required and adequate rewards.
This is a mobile game. I'm not sitting down in front of a console for four dedicated hours trying to beat the boss, I'm pulling this out of my pocket on my lunch break or while I'm watching Netflix. Everyone's experience and expectations concerning the amount of focus that the gameplay requires varies, but mine personally is that most of the time I want to do comparatively easy things (GW daily) and infrequently I'd like to do challenging things that I have to prepare for (legendary events).
Rewards need to be worth the effort for difficult content to be enjoyable. Getting R2 without Palp or Thrawn was hard. Really hard. It took me days. I had to farm more mods. I had to hone strategy and retry for good RNG. But I got him! It was rewarding because I got a reward I wanted. On the other hand, I tried tier 1 of the mythic once and went "nope, too burned out for this" - there was no super great reward that justified my time and effort in that moment. And that's fine, because it's infrequent, and when it comes back I can tackle it then, in better shape for it.
The Sith raid in particular doesn't meet my personal criteria to enjoy it. Getting a good run on Nihilus takes time and focus. If I had to do it once and never do it again, it would be fine, but we run the raid 2-3 times a week. And at the end of it, I get gear I'd get if I ran tier 4 of Rancor and can farm pretty easily. There's a separate place to talk about guilds managing raid burnout; this is just my example of too much time + crap rewards = unfun... I think it's a poor design when managing burnout is how balance is found rather than effort/reward.
Difficulty is good. It requires you to play skillfully and you should be rewarded commensurate with the difficulty you've overcome. Difficult content, when done properly, enhances a game.
It's not 'difficulty' when there's no skill involved. When the only challenge is getting your whole guild to do their five "hit auto, go make a sandwich" attempts per day, that's really not a challenge.
If an event or tier has no function or mechanic other than adding more of the same, functioning just as a gear check or a silly timesink even after they are trivial for you (like the 7* ship events needing to be passed 7 times), that isn't difficulty. When progression is walled off behind a million stun guns and cuffs, which are not difficult to get, just a timesink, that's not difficulty. It's just meant to artificially delay someone's progress.
There's two major factors driving the difficulty/enjoyment balance for me: time required and adequate rewards.
This is a mobile game. I'm not sitting down in front of a console for four dedicated hours trying to beat the boss, I'm pulling this out of my pocket on my lunch break or while I'm watching Netflix. Everyone's experience and expectations concerning the amount of focus that the gameplay requires varies, but mine personally is that most of the time I want to do comparatively easy things (GW daily) and infrequently I'd like to do challenging things that I have to prepare for (legendary events).
Rewards need to be worth the effort for difficult content to be enjoyable. Getting R2 without Palp or Thrawn was hard. Really hard. It took me days. I had to farm more mods. I had to hone strategy and retry for good RNG. But I got him! It was rewarding because I got a reward I wanted. On the other hand, I tried tier 1 of the mythic once and went "nope, too burned out for this" - there was no super great reward that justified my time and effort in that moment. And that's fine, because it's infrequent, and when it comes back I can tackle it then, in better shape for it.
The Sith raid in particular doesn't meet my personal criteria to enjoy it. Getting a good run on Nihilus takes time and focus. If I had to do it once and never do it again, it would be fine, but we run the raid 2-3 times a week. And at the end of it, I get gear I'd get if I ran tier 4 of Rancor and can farm pretty easily. There's a separate place to talk about guilds managing raid burnout; this is just my example of too much time + **** rewards = unfun... I think it's a poor design when managing burnout is how balance is found rather than effort/reward.
This sums it up perfectly. I just choose to skip Sith raid altogether, maybe once or twice hit auto, silence the phone and put it away. Few people in my guild actually kill it, most do as I do. We only do it tier 3-5, depending on if we have to burn tickets fast. We could go for tier 6 but it would take days and days, maybe a week - who knows.
I can cope with getting another 50 of challenge gear I have 2-3 thousands of, because Rancor takes me 3 minutes of actual effort and I get some guild currency at least. HAAT is bit different. Takes over an hour to go through, yields - mostly - similar nothing of interest in gear department, but at least credits and guild currency are good enough to make it worthwhile.
Now, Sith raid is another thing. Requires specialized teams which are useless elsewhere, extremely hard to get (hello there, Rey!), got nerfed (hi Rey!) or made useless elsewhere by recent reworks (still looking at you, Rey!).
So, sticking to - doable in a reasonable time - tier 4-5, what do we get? Nothing. I can pretty much get the same stuff from shipments for few credits every 6 hours. Why would I devote my already limited time? Challenge? Maybe, but it's not challenging, it's waste of time if only a handful of guys have something which can scratch the bosses. I could move to a more advanced guild and made a significant contribution in tier 6 and leave my friends in the dust, banging their heads against HAAT.
Someone mentioned risk-reward thing and got countered by "there's no cost in trying". There is, a lot of it. Credits to move mods, time to move the mods. The actual time spent on attempts. The actual money spent on the game already - this is another discussion of course, but since cash is mostly speeding your progression, losing your focus is effectively losing what you spent. And again - time. People in their teens or twenties don't really care (generalising here obviously), they don't see time as a limited resource in your real life, but as it goes by, you can see the end, especially after you've been to some funerals. Don't want to get too serious, but that's the reality.
To make another example - I could spend 3 hours fiddling with my characters, burning through my credits, get Sith tier 3 (which is currently up in my guild) done and get some mk 4 droid callers and mk 5 keypads. Instead, I went to see Infinity War. That was way more entertaining - time well spent. When tier 4 launches tonight, I think I'll go and see the film again because I have enough mk6 syringes and mk7 scanners for rest of the game's life.
It's impossible to please everyone, especially because we're all at different points in the game.
Also worth noting is that the majority of the players are noobs and overestimate their own tactical/strategical abilities. Just scroll through those mythic complaint threads and pay attention to how many players eventually are able to beat it when using a proper strategy (often shared by someone else).
Normally it won't matter since this game is mostly about resource management, but events like these show that most of us don't really put any thought into battling. It all boils down to what you expect from a game, if you want to be challenged strategically, this game probably isn't the best choice.
What annoys me most however is all these players expecting to beat the mythic tier. Just accept the fact that it's not designed for you and skip it. Seeying as the overwhelming majority of ingame content is aimed at mid-game players, it's totally fine to have something to strive for somewhere down the line. Not having something to strive for and only facing trivial challenges is way worse for player enjoyment, fortunately that won't happen for most of us because the devs luckely keep adding challenging content (and not just to make more money).
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Of course absolutely true. That some don't believe this, or even more oddly, believe it is some grand conspiratorial truth they've discovered, is staggering. I get to enjoy this game because someone makes money out of it. Take the ability to make money out of it and the game ceases to exist. Everything in it is designed to make money. Simply that. This is not something dirty and underhand, this is simply the games sole reason for existence.
This is beautifully put and entirely accurate. I've learnt it in the last few months - focus on one thing and one thing only. Let all the bright and shiny new temptations come and go without paying them any heed. They are there to keep you from your goals, get you tangled up and then have to panic farm to get what you want. Panic farming, for many, inevitably means spending money. Much better to pick your goals and grind towards them single-mindedly, avoiding temptation. Grind for teams and not for events and eventually you will have your teams in place and ready for when the event comes round.
Again- very well put. Bounty Hunter event, Mythic Ewok event...I didn't have a chance for either so I ignored them. They are not for me right now. I know what my goals are (and they were not my goals) so...I avoided them. Investing into either of them is not my plan so I didn't. Maybe in the future when they I come around again then I will be ready for them. Maybe not...either way - all good
TY
Yes absolutely it's a business, but this would be done in a grand scale, and overall design and concept of an event type ,and maybe even some elemental concepts of what will make an event type different and difficult.
It wouldn't make business sense to burn salary time to have a meeting about each event individually at the play level of detail to say for example, "will TM loading a team to start the event increase revenue". That was my point. Those design details would have been worked out well before the actual event was made. Which is why event types end up with similar mechanisms designed into them.
The saddest part of video gaming is, it's us against them (Devs vs Players) . And it must be. But still..
Yes, we are on the same page. I'm taking my experience in product development in a different industry, so it could be more what you describe. In my firm if you called that meeting you would owe everyone in the room lunch for burning that much salary time to talk about details on 2 different levels that far apart since they would have been handled in a different meeting.
General idea - difficulty and requirements promotes spending, mix in some surprise
Event series - focuses, themes and mechanics to make it unique and fill the General idea
Event itself - will it work, keep with the theme, and have the appropriate level of difficulty
QA - same as above just after development
The people in the first meeting would not generally be in the 3rd meeting, they are not paid to work out in-game details, that's what you pay people for. But again, not my industry.
Anyway we are getting off topic.
I love different difficulty, I like feeling off my game when I was expecting one thing but they throw a curve ball in.
There job is to keep people interested and challenged, those 2 along with the finer details make them money. Yes, all designed to work for the business.
I think we may be seeing this issue right here, but it depends on who they consider end game players.
They obviously have a large scale of player to cover, but maybe not enough steps towards the top end of the scale. Level is almost nothing in this game, you hit max level way before you are near top level in most content.
I think the top end content seems more accessible than it is (kinda the point, from our earlier discussion), which is why we end up in alot of the discussions we have here.
I would say too easy is anything that doesn't in some way start that conversation. I would also classify easy as things we have seen and figured out before in a different event, but that could still have some interest.
Sorry for talking so much in this thread, game development, joins my 2 passions in life. (That and a slow weekend)
Interesting question - has anyone finished SWGOH?
I'd love to know.
Once you hit 85, you realize you’ve invested in the wrong characters for everything. Nothing you’ve invested in is useful to any team and worse things you want to do to improve are locked behind team walls (challenge mods, credit heist etc) or you lack every character needed to advance on the tables. You also see the raids you only do 15-80k damage in, fleets you are decimated in and arena where your team suddenly isn’t performing anymore and you drop to the 2500-3500 ranks. And you get to see all the events that would help you fix the problem that only the 7* GS12 teams that don’t need the stuff can do.
So you throw a little money at the game and then feel robbed when you spend 300 cantina energy trying to get Old Ben, Capt Han, or vets and only net 3 character shards every day. It overwhelming to most people. There is too much to do and people feel a need to catch up but can’t. By the time they get a single meta toon, the next meta is out and you fall behind more. Plus old characters are not getting reworks fast enough so you are forced to buy the cards to get characters. There is no sense of accomplishment. Just throw money at the game and the problem is fixed.
That’s a poor business model, but the one EA has chosen. Blizzard at least make throwing money at the game cosmetic changes only.
How can you finish this game though?
I guess you get every toon and ship fully maxed?
And then they release something new and you're not finished anymore.
Yeah I agree.
But then maybe that person has all the resources to instantly get that new something.
So...the player furthest along maybe?
I remember seeing roster of totally maxed everything a while back. Person had obviously spent thousands. I'm not quite sure what their raison d'etre for playing the game would be?
Interesting.
Anyway - it's a great game and I enjoy it very much. Obviously, or I wouldn't play it. I hope it continues and flourishes.
No level restrictions on most shops other than you have to be able to do the event. So fleet store won’t open until you get the right level to do fleets. But nothing stopping someone from buying the packs in the store to shard up.
And they would still need to gear them etc.. So throwing money initially may build 7* teams but they are far from finished. I had a feeling there are checks and balances to slow overnight success's.
But isn’t that the model of All Freemium mobile games? And isn’t this one of the better ones?
Not defending at all just stating my findings which are small.
Ive heard alot of complaining and suprise about event units doing different things then the regular toon, but doesn't really make sense because devs have been specifically clear that they can alter traits and ablities of event units how they please.
I do like a challenge but one thing I don't like as much is when the challenge is basically only beatable with 1 toon. Like Thrawns mythic basically if you didn't have a good Palp or really good Dtroop it was impossible to kill Kanan, even vader could do a massive swing when he had a dot of health and not do visible dmg. And Sith Raid counters every team except for one team... Jtr. There should be a plethora of good teams since its a raid thats meant for entire roaster and guilds vary not everyone wants to work on jtr. Personally I think Sith Raid is killing this game. Its more okay for mythics to rquire a specific toon, tho it would make more sense if thrawns was thrawn not palp since its his mythic. But for a whole raid to be meant for 1 team is absurd.
Personally I can't stand hyperbole.
Difficulty and enjoyment are totally different things, at some point they are linked, because if the game is too easy it becomes boring and if it is too hard it can become frustrating, but just finding the correct difficulty balance is not enough, mechanics matters too, and even more.
Example: Biggs in ship arena the (especially while combined with Vader), it is a challenge, not unbeatable nor easy neither, but the mechanic is a disaster totally RNG and time consuming. Same with Thrawn's fracture, Palpatine area-stun, Hoth battle's TM and protection gain, etc. they are a challenge that can be defeated, but it does not mean they are fun, blocking you from playing is not fun even when it is a challenge.
I think there are 2 kinds of games, when we love the Lore and when we do not care about the Lore. When we do not care, the Devs need to keep adding content in the same quality of the original content.
When I care it depends more on me than the company, even adding too much and increasing difficulty affects me negatively, I like to enjoy my roster and as EA increases the difficulty they force me to farm the powerful character over the fun to play characters, pushing me a bit more out of the game in each move.
Examples: since the GW was nerfed and became simable, I m enjoying it a lot, I can put in a team whatever I want and do it for fun, I have tried single characters or duos instead of a full team, etc., and if I ruin it too much I just sim the remaining nodes. Forest moon is another example, instead of auto the 1rst tier, I try to succeed with a different team composition, characters that are not geared enough or have junk kits.
This is by far a great game. I have only played Clash of Clans on the phone. I was an avid MMO player since Ultima Online. Now my job in social media keeps me really busy so breaks and time away it is easy to invest in this quick pocket platform. I was browsing our platform sponsors when I saw the R2 event last year and said to myself, looks cool, I’ll give it a try since I don’t have time for WOW or TOR anymore.
I actually have few complaints about the overall experience. The folks on the forums are very willing to help and give input which has been exceptionally helpful and helped me improve my game as well as understand some mechanics which are not intuitive. And having come from both Blizzard and EA games, I prefer the model the MMOs use: anything bought is for cosmetic purposes only. Not too much of a fan of this gear for a kings ransom crystal platform, but CofC is responsible for that.
The first part is the enjoyment of the event itself and the mechanics within. P2 of the Sith Raid is a good example of mechanics done very well; you have the constantly stacking offence on both sides that you have to balance carefully to avoid getting one-shot while still dealing as much damage as possible. It rewards playing attention and playing well, incentivises going for risky plays, yet punishes overstepping your bounds and playing badly.
P3 of the Sith Raid is an example of bad mechanics, because Isolate messes with the second part of the game's enjoyment, which is the fun you get from playing the teams you enjoy. Sure, many of us often end up using teams we don't enjoy by themselves for things because they're good at the things in question, but I'd hazard a guess that most players have 1 or more factions who they enjoy playing and will go out of their way to play. For me, they're Imperial Troopers and Phoenix. I love the way those factions play in battles, and I take any opportunity to use them. That's why P3 of the Sith Raid is bad: Isolate destroys the way those teams (and the majority of other teams) play and removes half the fun of the game.
When making an event, you have to keep those two in balance. For example, if I'm getting to play the full force of my Troopers, but the event has barely any mechanics, it's not going to feel very special or interesting. It's practically a GW node at that point. If my Troopers are being extremely hampered and not doing what makes them fun, but the mechanics of the event are interesting, I'm gonna get sick of it pretty quickly.
And if my Troopers are being made boring and the event has bad mechanics, you've failed completely.
One constant in both universes. Loot still sux. So, there's that..
This is a mobile game. I'm not sitting down in front of a console for four dedicated hours trying to beat the boss, I'm pulling this out of my pocket on my lunch break or while I'm watching Netflix. Everyone's experience and expectations concerning the amount of focus that the gameplay requires varies, but mine personally is that most of the time I want to do comparatively easy things (GW daily) and infrequently I'd like to do challenging things that I have to prepare for (legendary events).
Rewards need to be worth the effort for difficult content to be enjoyable. Getting R2 without Palp or Thrawn was hard. Really hard. It took me days. I had to farm more mods. I had to hone strategy and retry for good RNG. But I got him! It was rewarding because I got a reward I wanted. On the other hand, I tried tier 1 of the mythic once and went "nope, too burned out for this" - there was no super great reward that justified my time and effort in that moment. And that's fine, because it's infrequent, and when it comes back I can tackle it then, in better shape for it.
The Sith raid in particular doesn't meet my personal criteria to enjoy it. Getting a good run on Nihilus takes time and focus. If I had to do it once and never do it again, it would be fine, but we run the raid 2-3 times a week. And at the end of it, I get gear I'd get if I ran tier 4 of Rancor and can farm pretty easily. There's a separate place to talk about guilds managing raid burnout; this is just my example of too much time + crap rewards = unfun... I think it's a poor design when managing burnout is how balance is found rather than effort/reward.
It's not 'difficulty' when there's no skill involved. When the only challenge is getting your whole guild to do their five "hit auto, go make a sandwich" attempts per day, that's really not a challenge.
If an event or tier has no function or mechanic other than adding more of the same, functioning just as a gear check or a silly timesink even after they are trivial for you (like the 7* ship events needing to be passed 7 times), that isn't difficulty. When progression is walled off behind a million stun guns and cuffs, which are not difficult to get, just a timesink, that's not difficulty. It's just meant to artificially delay someone's progress.
This sums it up perfectly. I just choose to skip Sith raid altogether, maybe once or twice hit auto, silence the phone and put it away. Few people in my guild actually kill it, most do as I do. We only do it tier 3-5, depending on if we have to burn tickets fast. We could go for tier 6 but it would take days and days, maybe a week - who knows.
I can cope with getting another 50 of challenge gear I have 2-3 thousands of, because Rancor takes me 3 minutes of actual effort and I get some guild currency at least. HAAT is bit different. Takes over an hour to go through, yields - mostly - similar nothing of interest in gear department, but at least credits and guild currency are good enough to make it worthwhile.
Now, Sith raid is another thing. Requires specialized teams which are useless elsewhere, extremely hard to get (hello there, Rey!), got nerfed (hi Rey!) or made useless elsewhere by recent reworks (still looking at you, Rey!).
So, sticking to - doable in a reasonable time - tier 4-5, what do we get? Nothing. I can pretty much get the same stuff from shipments for few credits every 6 hours. Why would I devote my already limited time? Challenge? Maybe, but it's not challenging, it's waste of time if only a handful of guys have something which can scratch the bosses. I could move to a more advanced guild and made a significant contribution in tier 6 and leave my friends in the dust, banging their heads against HAAT.
Someone mentioned risk-reward thing and got countered by "there's no cost in trying". There is, a lot of it. Credits to move mods, time to move the mods. The actual time spent on attempts. The actual money spent on the game already - this is another discussion of course, but since cash is mostly speeding your progression, losing your focus is effectively losing what you spent. And again - time. People in their teens or twenties don't really care (generalising here obviously), they don't see time as a limited resource in your real life, but as it goes by, you can see the end, especially after you've been to some funerals. Don't want to get too serious, but that's the reality.
To make another example - I could spend 3 hours fiddling with my characters, burning through my credits, get Sith tier 3 (which is currently up in my guild) done and get some mk 4 droid callers and mk 5 keypads. Instead, I went to see Infinity War. That was way more entertaining - time well spent. When tier 4 launches tonight, I think I'll go and see the film again because I have enough mk6 syringes and mk7 scanners for rest of the game's life.
https://swgoh.gg/u/xezee/
Also worth noting is that the majority of the players are noobs and overestimate their own tactical/strategical abilities. Just scroll through those mythic complaint threads and pay attention to how many players eventually are able to beat it when using a proper strategy (often shared by someone else).
Normally it won't matter since this game is mostly about resource management, but events like these show that most of us don't really put any thought into battling. It all boils down to what you expect from a game, if you want to be challenged strategically, this game probably isn't the best choice.
What annoys me most however is all these players expecting to beat the mythic tier. Just accept the fact that it's not designed for you and skip it. Seeying as the overwhelming majority of ingame content is aimed at mid-game players, it's totally fine to have something to strive for somewhere down the line. Not having something to strive for and only facing trivial challenges is way worse for player enjoyment, fortunately that won't happen for most of us because the devs luckely keep adding challenging content (and not just to make more money).