Easy Solution To Our Sandbox Needs... with Upside!
September 7, 2018 2:56PM
edited September 2018
As most players know, testing new toons and teams - especially against meta opponents - is exceedingly difficult. Presented below is a simple solution to the community's need for a test environment.
First, I want to mention upfront that the proposed solution places no additional burden on players. Use of the environment is entirely OPTIONAL. Moreover, failing to use the environment will not cost you any rewards. Please read and understand the solution because many redditors seem to miss this point.
Second, the proposed solution is specifically designed to be a low level-of-effort to implement. This is important! Intra-guild combat/arena, or a training room, or other solutions would all require a completely new interface. This solution involves a minimum amount of change, and leverages existing code, to avoid asking "too much."
Third, I'd like CG to carefully consider the benefits of providing their players with a tool like this. The obvious question is, "What's the reward realized versus the effort spent? How does this impact the bottom line?" I originally wrote a lot in this section to explain, but I think it is best summed up thusly: More players testing = more players building = more excitement about new combos = more options being presented to the community = more spend.
OK - on to the meat!
The solution could be implemented in three phases, with each phase adding additional value.
Phase One - Hard Mode
At the start of GW, when you reset it for the day, you get a pop-up that asks, "Do you want to set GW to Easy or Hard mode for the day?" If you pick EASY mode, GW is populated with the kind of teams we see now, allowing you to test weaker teams with toons that aren't fully built out. If you select HARD mode, GW is populated with the kind of team difficulty we USED to see, allowing you to test out more well-developed teams.
Behind the scenes, CG would dig up the old algorithm for populating the table and use the new algorithm or old algorithm based on user selection. The selection has no impact on rewards.
IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT YOU CAN STILL SIM!
Phase Two - Sim Slider
This is a simple improvement that allows players to rapidly advance to the node they want. Back in the day, you were relatively certain to get the most challenging teams on nodes 11 and 12. Many players won't want to wade through 10 early nodes just so they can test teams on nodes 11 and 12. To alleviate that, players would be able to sim at ANY point and select the number of undefeated nodes to sim.
Heck, you could even sim to node 11. Try node 11 out a few times. Decide you can't beat that specific team, sim one to advance to 12, and resume testing there. (If say one was Bastila and the other was Traya.)
Phase Three - FREE PLAY MODE
After the table is cleared by either combat OR sim, the entire table enters Free Play Mode. In Free Play Mode, you could pick ANY node and initiate combat. All of your toons would be available and reset as if unused, the enemy team would always be "fresh" and undamaged when combat started, and you would receive no reward for completing combat.
So, maybe node 11 had a "more reasonable" Traya team than node 12. You decided you wanted to test a zIG-88 lead with Talzin and M3-T4 on that node. Oops! The first try was a disaster... let me change my support toons and try again. Hmmm... better, but let me switch out my Offense mods for Crit Damage on IG-88 and see how that goes. Ah, better! I feel like if I put the second zeta on M3-T4, I may get there! Cool! Let me start working on that!
As CG knows, it's usually a good idea to meter play in some way to prevent burnout and maintain daily anticipation. Therefore, it would be completely acceptable to put a cost on Free Play retries, as long as it is NOT crystals. It has to be some kind of currency that is available to EVERYONE in the quantities needed to make the tool valuable. Therefore, I propose Ally Points. 200-500 Ally Points per retry would be perfectly acceptable and prevent most players from burning themselves out by running 100 tests a day.
This final mode requires the largest LOE, of course, but it uses the vast majority of an existing interface to provide value, so - if implemented in a savvy fashion, it would still be lower LOE than, say, building out an intraguild arena or training ground.
First, I want to mention upfront that the proposed solution places no additional burden on players. Use of the environment is entirely OPTIONAL. Moreover, failing to use the environment will not cost you any rewards. Please read and understand the solution because many redditors seem to miss this point.
Second, the proposed solution is specifically designed to be a low level-of-effort to implement. This is important! Intra-guild combat/arena, or a training room, or other solutions would all require a completely new interface. This solution involves a minimum amount of change, and leverages existing code, to avoid asking "too much."
Third, I'd like CG to carefully consider the benefits of providing their players with a tool like this. The obvious question is, "What's the reward realized versus the effort spent? How does this impact the bottom line?" I originally wrote a lot in this section to explain, but I think it is best summed up thusly: More players testing = more players building = more excitement about new combos = more options being presented to the community = more spend.
OK - on to the meat!
Galactic War as a Testing Ground
The solution could be implemented in three phases, with each phase adding additional value.
Phase One - Hard Mode
At the start of GW, when you reset it for the day, you get a pop-up that asks, "Do you want to set GW to Easy or Hard mode for the day?" If you pick EASY mode, GW is populated with the kind of teams we see now, allowing you to test weaker teams with toons that aren't fully built out. If you select HARD mode, GW is populated with the kind of team difficulty we USED to see, allowing you to test out more well-developed teams.
Behind the scenes, CG would dig up the old algorithm for populating the table and use the new algorithm or old algorithm based on user selection. The selection has no impact on rewards.
IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT YOU CAN STILL SIM!
Phase Two - Sim Slider
This is a simple improvement that allows players to rapidly advance to the node they want. Back in the day, you were relatively certain to get the most challenging teams on nodes 11 and 12. Many players won't want to wade through 10 early nodes just so they can test teams on nodes 11 and 12. To alleviate that, players would be able to sim at ANY point and select the number of undefeated nodes to sim.
Heck, you could even sim to node 11. Try node 11 out a few times. Decide you can't beat that specific team, sim one to advance to 12, and resume testing there. (If say one was Bastila and the other was Traya.)
Phase Three - FREE PLAY MODE
After the table is cleared by either combat OR sim, the entire table enters Free Play Mode. In Free Play Mode, you could pick ANY node and initiate combat. All of your toons would be available and reset as if unused, the enemy team would always be "fresh" and undamaged when combat started, and you would receive no reward for completing combat.
So, maybe node 11 had a "more reasonable" Traya team than node 12. You decided you wanted to test a zIG-88 lead with Talzin and M3-T4 on that node. Oops! The first try was a disaster... let me change my support toons and try again. Hmmm... better, but let me switch out my Offense mods for Crit Damage on IG-88 and see how that goes. Ah, better! I feel like if I put the second zeta on M3-T4, I may get there! Cool! Let me start working on that!
As CG knows, it's usually a good idea to meter play in some way to prevent burnout and maintain daily anticipation. Therefore, it would be completely acceptable to put a cost on Free Play retries, as long as it is NOT crystals. It has to be some kind of currency that is available to EVERYONE in the quantities needed to make the tool valuable. Therefore, I propose Ally Points. 200-500 Ally Points per retry would be perfectly acceptable and prevent most players from burning themselves out by running 100 tests a day.
This final mode requires the largest LOE, of course, but it uses the vast majority of an existing interface to provide value, so - if implemented in a savvy fashion, it would still be lower LOE than, say, building out an intraguild arena or training ground.
Post edited by Kyno on
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Replies
I don’t think CG would let that happen. Maybe I am wrong, but I doubt they will allow that.
Otherwise a great solution.
Um... have you seen swgoh.gg? Pretty much all the mechanics and stats are detailed out there. So no big mystery, actually.
Also, the cost could compound, like node refreshes. 500 Ally Points for the first 3, 1000 Ally Points for the netx 3, etc
Back to reddit!
If you limit the amount of trials / node to a reasonable... dunno 10 wins each node, then it could work...