How do you justify hard node farming to new players
If I started the game today, have you calculated how many years it would take me to farm some of the best characters in the game who are in hard nodes only? Added the fact that I would have missed the Marquee releases so that's even more shards I would have to farm.
The game is completely unfriendly towards new players who have way more distractions than we had when we started over 2 years ago. I simply can't see how it's possible to make choices when there's so many squads to work on. On top of that a single hard node farm can take 6-8 months so the meta can easily change several times by the time you're done with just one squad.
The entire game revolving around hard node farming may be best for whales but the average player has mountains to surpass. I feel like this is bad for the future of the game as many people will be discouraged to pick it up. People will eventually start quitting because of life and then nobody will be able to replace them which is going to gradually decrease the player base.
I want to see complete reworks of all the stores and characters being added. To address the resource stacking issues you can nullify resources by exchanging tokens from GW, Arena, and Cantina Tokens for credits and replace it with a different token for all 3 stores. This new token will be earned the same way but it will be spent at different amounts depending on how new or old the character is. For example Leia and STHan will be 400 tokens per 5 shards whereas a new character will be 600. Or something along these lines.
We need ways to expedite shard farming to keep the game interesting for new players. The bottleneck will be gear and not shards but a new player will feel like they are making decent steps instead of feeling like they are making a hole in the water.
The game is completely unfriendly towards new players who have way more distractions than we had when we started over 2 years ago. I simply can't see how it's possible to make choices when there's so many squads to work on. On top of that a single hard node farm can take 6-8 months so the meta can easily change several times by the time you're done with just one squad.
The entire game revolving around hard node farming may be best for whales but the average player has mountains to surpass. I feel like this is bad for the future of the game as many people will be discouraged to pick it up. People will eventually start quitting because of life and then nobody will be able to replace them which is going to gradually decrease the player base.
I want to see complete reworks of all the stores and characters being added. To address the resource stacking issues you can nullify resources by exchanging tokens from GW, Arena, and Cantina Tokens for credits and replace it with a different token for all 3 stores. This new token will be earned the same way but it will be spent at different amounts depending on how new or old the character is. For example Leia and STHan will be 400 tokens per 5 shards whereas a new character will be 600. Or something along these lines.
We need ways to expedite shard farming to keep the game interesting for new players. The bottleneck will be gear and not shards but a new player will feel like they are making decent steps instead of feeling like they are making a hole in the water.
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I started like 15 months after the game was released. And it was hard to try to catch up. The later you start the harder it is. This is how the game is designed.
I’ve played this game for a little over a month and have a few 7* characters and a total of 44 characters- it takes time dude. Deal with it
Also, dont set the goal of 7 starring every character in game. Its practixally impossible and more importantly, completely unnecessary. Get 5 strong ones, get legendaries, and the rest will come naturlly.
Those players only face players who started around them at the same time.
How is this not fair?
What disadvantage does a player have playing against someone who started the same time as them?
Also, and correct me if i’m wrong, but I don’t think there are any hard node farm characters that are needed in order to unlock anything else. The closest thing was the first couple of runs of the BB-8 event, when there were only 5 first order characters, so you had to farm FOST. But at that time, FOST was available on 3 different hard nodes, so even that wasn’t so bad. The only similar one I can think of is Sabine, who is really helpful for the Thrawn event, but you can 7-Star him with Chopper instead if you work at it.
In short, I’ll be outraged if one of these KOTOR toons, who will be needed for a Revan’s event, winds up on a single hard node. But until something like that happens, I think the devs have done a decent job at making the hard node toons potent vanity projects: very helpful in various game modes if you sink the time into farming them, but there isn’t any additional content gated behind them.
Make it consistent at least and I'll be a moderately satisfied man.
Though, people are quite right, none of those toons are really needed to "get ahead". You can do just fine with store toons and lower end farms. Most of the better toons are in legendary events, most of whom can be acquired with the cheaper farms.
Even CLS who is one of the best toons in the game can be acquired with some older (but solid toons, with one exception).
My Empire squad, which is really powerful, consists of Vader (achievements and later fleet store), Thrawn (arguably the biggest pain to get, his event is hard and needs a full phoenix squad), Tarkin who you effectively get for free (more shards in the squad arena store), TFP (fleet store/Cantina) and Palpatine (easy legendary event).
Now, two of those are supremely good (Thrawn/Palp) with Palp being part of the current meta. TFP you'll possibly need as a pilot anyway, Tarkin runs arguably the best Cap ship in the game, Vader flies the one of the better ships in the game too and Thrawn is just fantastic (and runs arguably the best cap ship in the game.....yeah, he's why there's an argument).
You're best of farming muti-purpose teams that work everywhere to start with, I went Phoenix, who I still use for the majority of GW and also have their uses elsewhere. They also run two excellent ships as well.
Sabine is the black mark with Phoenix though as her farm is the most nut aching nightmare I've ever inflicted on myself, alongside Sion and shoretrooper.
Here is a very recent post.
It may not feel like it but if you record the data you can see that it is.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if they were adjusted slightly every now and again, even a fractional adjustment either way completely dumps those results in the toilet. Now I know you're a company man Kyno, but a high degree of cynicism is required in these types of games.
Now, while I'm not willing to spend crystals compiling data on this, I suspect there's an adjustment in the algorithm when you get close to max shards/gear. It amazes me how often you'll be one or two away and all of a sudden have the rate drop off the planet. Why? You'll be more inclined to spend crystals.
This is a casino, and doesn't want you winning without paying. Now I know you'll come back with the tired line time = money, but best part of a year is ridiculous.
Back up to 8 goes again would be a fantastic start in convincing me to not find something more fruitful to play once I get tired of the game (it'll happen, it always does). Not to mention placating the angry mob railing against that awful raid and the nerfs relating to it.
Then again, much like the card collection games before these gacha things turned up, it'll be gone soon anyway and this will be moot.
Then you make that choice and farm them. A single hard node farm with the occasional refresh can move along pretty quick. It's all about focus.
Planning and execution of that plan with focus and not getting distracted by the new and shiny will result in the roster you want.
@Hellsteeth30 those were posted yesterday.
And it's not my data, so it has nothing to do with what you think my stance is. Just another community member who is willing to actually collect and analyze data, vs just talking about what it "feels like". Statistics is not something that will feel exactly the way it is, it takes actual data.
Why u run Maul? Thrawn is x10 better, you can use Kenobi, Shoretrooper, 3 star Sion, Tarkin, SA, Raid Han, CLS, Old Ben, Talzin and more. Seriously seeing Maul in there makes me think this is either a very specific counter team or you like Maul way too much
That's my point Kyno, even if you want to farm them it would take way too long at one hard node at a time... Also Nihilus is meta, Sion is meta, Talzin is anti meta, Shore can be used in meta teams. It's not like all these characters are just for fun, they can easily be part of arena teams so in a way they can be essential. Baze is essential to do well in TB. I wouldn't paint those characters as just extras
yes you can farm them. Please dont jump back and forth. anyone who can make a plan and focus on it can make it work. many have done it. pick one, farm for pleasure and what looks fun or farm for meta and be competitive. either way, you are only facing players who are in the same boat as you are. thats why this is fair for players.
the game is a grind and it always has been. many players have made it work and i promise even new ones can.
the feeling of "having to have them all" is what we all "fight" or balance with our level of investment (both time and $$). but still it all comes down to a focused plan. pick what you want and make it work.
It's not only harder, it's simply incredibly limiting
the game feeling limited has nothing to do with hard node farms. the game is a grind, it takes time to get where you want to. There is no rush, as new players are only pitted against new players.
Listen kyno, you can't convince me that a new player wouldn't struggle to keep up in this game. Obviously the game is meant to be a grind but nobody said it's not. The problem is that for a starting player there's too many squads go work towards at this point and too many hard nodes to farm. We had to farm these hard nodes 1-2 at a time, we had time to finish a couple before the next toons rolled in. New players have all these toons and the ones will be added in the process.
I for example, didn't start the game until almost a year after release, I still haven't geared my Jawas, Clones, OG droids, Ewoks, separatists, OG BH, Tuskens, even most of my Phoenix, FO, R1.
I jumped into the Wiggs meta, before I could finish them the meta switched to Sith so I switched my focus to them, then Chaze R2, Rex, then CLS Titans, then Talzin and Rey. Added all the required toons for TBs like the Hoth toons and Imp Troopers. Then the meta switched to Palpatine and now we have Bastila. I just never had the time to go back and complete my clones and ewoks and phoenix and FO and all these other squads.
With the same logic and new player would have to jump into the Traya and Bastila meta after they finish Phoenix for Palpatine and Thrawn. They will have to get a bunch of Jedi to make sure they can unlock Yoda so they can use him with Bastila.
By then the meta could very well change because eventually we'll get a separatist rework with Grievous which means that all this hype for Bastila could be a fluke, I don't think it will be but you never know. By that time they must already be working towards unlocking Rey which requires FO, R2 and Vets. Untill all that's done we could be looking at well over a year.
Do you know what this means? It means they are NEVER going to have the time and resources to EVER get a team of: clones, Jawas, Ewoks, FO, BH, Scoundrels, R1, Nightsisters, Phoenix, imp troopers, empire, droids and more. Unless of course they spend MAJOR bucks. So what I want to say is that we need a system where newer players can catch up but unfortunately we aren't making older characters easier to aquire.
For example, Baze, Shoretrooper, Krennic, SA, ST, Nihilus they all have been in the game for so long and we still don't have easier methods to aquire them than hard nodes and big cantina nodes. Why should a new player have to go through a 7 month farm to get Baze or to get Krennic or to get Shoretrooper?
The game is simply refusing to make characters who have been in the game for ages, easier to farm which cloggs the game and creates problems. So what if I had to spend 7-8-9 months to farm Nihilus? This doesn't mean that 1.5 years after his release he should still take that long to be farmed. Why aren't they using stores to add characters like Baze and Shoretrooper so that people can farm them sooner if they choose, instead of keeping them behind single hard nodes? That's all I want to know
There's always the "missing puzzle" characters which will take time to aquire so there's balance. You just build a core and build up from it. Also for a new player gear will be an issue. I don't think my suggestion is "giving too much too soon"
New players can farm characters and develop their rosters at a far faster pace than long—time players did back when they were new. There are soooo many more sources for shards, that shard farming already _is_ expedited.
Furthermore, new players don't farm the same META as long—time players. Players farm there own META. And a change of META while farming your new team happens for both new and long—time players. It's the same for all.
Because everyone else had to do the same? With all the new content newer players can actually acquire more gear, tokens and shards than older players could when they were new (from TB, TW, 3 instead of 2 raids).
The point is that newer players might feel like having to progress quickly in every area of the game. But that is not true. What is true: if you really want to have a roster like someone who started months or a year before you did you have to invest a lot of money.
I am at 2,85 mil GP now. I have ~50 toons I did not touch at all except for farming shards. And many more I gave up on investing. No Clones, Jawas, Ewoks, old Jedi toons, Geonosians, Droids ... What you want to be changed in this game is just perfectly normal.
That's not an excuse, yes everyone had to do the same because there was nothing else to be done at the time. It's completely logical to gradually make things easier to get after so long and after so many newer and better things become available
I agree. And that's exactly what is going on with all those many new sources that have been added. Within the last year Rancor raids were made trivial with the introduction of CLS. Heroic AAT was made almost trivial with the introduction of CLS, Thrawn and BB8. TB, TW, sith raid, guild event shop and recently fleet hard/normal nodes were all introduced as well as new sources for characters and gear.