Please fix the Galactic War difficulty! Something is very off lately
November 3, 2018 3:02AM
edited November 2018
The Galactic War used to be challenging but fun up until level 60. Sometimes I managed to finish all nodes, sometimes I didn't. But I always managed to earn at least 400 GW currency and felt that I accomplished something. But lately, I'm facing teams on very early nodes that are impossible to beat at my level.
I believe I've done everything right by diversifying my roster and building up several strong teams. Scoundrels, nightsisters, Jedi, Empire, Phoenix, and a second rebel team under Ackbar. I build up turn meter on early nodes, I only use basic abilities against easier teams, I sacrifice weaker teams to take out at least one enemy, and so on. But none of this is any use when I'm up against a 7* team 7-10 levels above my own equipped with golden speed mods who wipe out my top teams before I have a chance to retreat.
The game strongly suggests I should first build up a single 7* team for arena and raids. Had I worked towards this goal and quest reward, I believe GW would be even harder since the difficulty is supposedly based on my top 5 characters. Which means GW currently punishes those who follow the ingame strategy guides and quest suggestions the hardest. But it also punishes those of us who diversify instead. There currently is no right way that makes GW remotely fair in the level 60-80 range.
Together with the seemingly random difficulty (it should get slightly harder with each node; instead, I'm facing a level 50 team on node 1 and a level 75 team on node 2), I consider GW to be seriously bugged. The algorithm behind the enemy team selection simply doesn't work. It's not just challenging, it's impossible and a source of great frustration in my level range. Especially for those of us who invest a good deal of $ in this game in the hopes of seeing improvements and instead see the opposite. That's not a great incentive for future investments, or to keep playing at all for that matter. Please consider looking into this.
I believe I've done everything right by diversifying my roster and building up several strong teams. Scoundrels, nightsisters, Jedi, Empire, Phoenix, and a second rebel team under Ackbar. I build up turn meter on early nodes, I only use basic abilities against easier teams, I sacrifice weaker teams to take out at least one enemy, and so on. But none of this is any use when I'm up against a 7* team 7-10 levels above my own equipped with golden speed mods who wipe out my top teams before I have a chance to retreat.
The game strongly suggests I should first build up a single 7* team for arena and raids. Had I worked towards this goal and quest reward, I believe GW would be even harder since the difficulty is supposedly based on my top 5 characters. Which means GW currently punishes those who follow the ingame strategy guides and quest suggestions the hardest. But it also punishes those of us who diversify instead. There currently is no right way that makes GW remotely fair in the level 60-80 range.
Together with the seemingly random difficulty (it should get slightly harder with each node; instead, I'm facing a level 50 team on node 1 and a level 75 team on node 2), I consider GW to be seriously bugged. The algorithm behind the enemy team selection simply doesn't work. It's not just challenging, it's impossible and a source of great frustration in my level range. Especially for those of us who invest a good deal of $ in this game in the hopes of seeing improvements and instead see the opposite. That's not a great incentive for future investments, or to keep playing at all for that matter. Please consider looking into this.
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It's designed to frustrate you. Frustrated whales drop money to win. They want you to buy crystals to spend on energy to get to level 85 quicker. If you pay to get your 5 teams to level 85, you'll always face teams at or below your level and it'll be beatable. And if you pay to g12 those teams, you'll beat it everyday.
Now you'll eventually get there ftp if you're patient but that takes time. There are really two options. Do the best you can or whale out.
They won't change it. It is working as designed. A gw only a few levels higher wouldn't frustrate enough whales to soend so they won't make it work that way.
If you are able to see difference between node 1 and node 12 opposition, humor me. Try to reset after node 10 today/tomorrow and see if you meat harder enemies in node 1 and 2 tomorrow than 3 to 12.
I've read all recent threads on the subject, as well as a bunch of older ones here and on Reddit for strategy tips. In all the recent topics, I see people pointing out two things: (a) GW used to be fairer and has only very recently become impossibly difficult for them, and (b) it's not working as it should according to the devs. The difficulty doesn't scale to your top 5 characters, and it doesn't increase gradually with each node like it's supposedly intended to do.
Maybe it was a deliberate change. Maybe there has always been a system in place that makes GW impossibly hard in the 60-84 level range, although I've also seen level 85 players complain as far back as 10 months ago that they suddenly can't get past node 6 anymore (e.g., here: https://www.reddit.com/r/SWGalaxyOfHeroes/comments/7ocqoo/why_am_i_being_paired_with_high_level_people_in/ ). It would be nice to hear an official statement on this, if only to know exactly what the best strategy is. Maxing out a single team versus diversifying. Maybe if enough people bring this up, someone will weigh in on this or look into it eventually.
For me, it was node 2 a few days ago. It's incredibly frustrating when you don't get a chance to earn *any* GW currency and still need to farm Zeb, Cad Bane, Phasma and NS Initiate at the very least. I can't put all of them on hold until level 85. That alone – the fact that some early and important farms are GW only – is evidence to me that GW is seriously broken and not working as intended.
You are assuming they want you to beat it to get gw currency everyday without spending money to gear up your characters faster.
Also, you are assuming just because they are level 85, they are unbeatable. There are several examples of pve content being beaten with a level difference.
Cantina node 8 and hard nodes 9 have level 86 bosses. Ship hard battles stage 5 have level 90 bosses. And the ship node can be easily beaten with level 85.
It is geared this way to make it challenging and gw is no different. Level 85 teams can be beaten with level 77 teams depending on team comp, wheter the team is well geared, rng, and mods.
And the example you use may be beatable depending on what teams you have. Vader doesn't have synergy with the rest of the team so that helps. They may still be undergeared. Level isn't everything. If the zeta is on vader's lead (which is likely considering most newer players use that for the pit raid) then it adds nothing if vader isn't in the lead. Revan isn't all that great withou his zetas so he's likely beatable. Also the mods may suck on them. If you have ns that have decent mods and the gear is similar, you probably could win. Or you may need to send a b team in to kill vader. He can't be resurected by savior. And then send a team in for a 5 vs 4. Kill order would be ezra then jolee then revan then bastilla. A bastilla lead should give some survivability even without the zeta
And yeah, the final cantina nodes are hard too, but we're not talking about the final nodes here. The problem is that very early nodes have these vastly overpowered teams. Node 2 or even node 1 in Teg's case. Maybe that never happened to you, but that doesn't mean that GW isn't broken and unbalanced for others based on who-knows-what. It never happened to me either up to a certain point. There are bugs that will never affect most users and only occur when all the wrong stars align. Maybe something doesn't reset properly when GW is restarted without being close to being finished and just keeps getting harder every day.
Regarding your link:
The poster complains about having a tough opponent in GW — several levels higher than him. The response is, that opponents are chosen based on GP and not level, as well as how the progression is through the nodes. The response also describes how the difficulty (GP of opponents) hard caps at some point (probably when reaching level 85) after which GW becomes easier and easier as you develop your roster. This is all well known information and it supports my post, so...... what's your point?
(Many players complaining on forums does not make it bugged).
I have only seen those zillion posts here on these forums where players complain about being unable to complete GW or meeting hard teams early. Typicaly they compare the opponent levels to their own. I have yet to see a discussion with a comparison of the GP of the opponent team at different nodes to the combined GP of the player's 5 highest GP toons. If you could throw me a link to one, which prooves a bug, then I'm very interested in reading it.
I wasn't referring to the thread starter. Perhaps I should have mentioned that. Further down the thread, someone called TechieJordan writes:
"Except it’s not {easy at level 85}. With the new update that changed GW {about 10 months ago}, at level 85 it got harder for me, and I went from completing easily every day to it then being so difficult I only make it past the 6th battle 50% of the time."
This was my point, that some level 85 players reportedly encounter the same problem. I'm currently level 72, so I can't confirm this. All I know is that this is happening to myself, that many others complain about the same issue, and that not all of them are under 85.
This wasn't directed at me, but I posted a comparison of an impossibly overpowered team (compared to my own roster) on node 2 a while ago in another thread: https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/discussion/comment/1684070#Comment_1684070
I didn't add my own GP, but you can see from the level and star difference alone, as well as the maxed golden speed mods on the opponents, that they were vastly superior to my own top 5 characters. I couldn't even get speed mods back then since stage 8 of the mod battles was too hard to finish and the corresponding mod challenge is still locked for me.
The next time this happens, I'll make sure to take note of my top 5 GP and that of the enemy team. I have gained 3 levels since then and slightly upgraded all my top characters, but even now, my top 5 GP is 34,586, which averages at 6917. As you can see, this team was around 12,800 per character, almost twice as high as I am now 3 levels later.
ETA: Also note the team's composition. A full Nightsister team with Old Daka, Zombie tank, and Asajj lead (speed & offense bonus plus enemy turn meter removal). Usually, GW teams are relatively mismatched, but that isn't the case with these unexpected brick walls. This looks like the arena team of someone who is far above my own level.
The response to that comment (made by Stevesd123) was, that he had experienced that the difficulty still went up after reaching level 85, but then got easier and stayed easy (he completed it everyday for a month since). The poster called TechieJordan never responded, so we don't know wether it became easy for him again later as well. I wouldn't rely too much on his comment.
Interesting. That would be the stat power of my top 5 characters, right? So I'm basically shooting myself in the foot by farming good blue or purple mods, occasionally slicing one to gold, and buying extra credits to upgrade them to 15. Maybe I should have only slapped 2 health mods on my highest starred and leveled characters, but of course that would hurt in other areas of the game.
If you've been following the GW difficulty-related threads here on the forums, you would have seen at least one other level 85 player who also had this problem. I don't have the time to read through them all over again though. And even if only lower level accounts had this problem, it would still be an issue. It's a long way to level 85 and many never get there before they lose interest, or quit out of frustration over the fact that improving their roster only seems to make things disproportionately harder.
Hardly game breaking if the next day it behaves normally. Yes, it sucks when you can't pass an early node but likely nothing more than bad rng.
Threads of players complaining isn't evidence of something being broken. There are threads complaining about almost every event being too hard by simeone. There were even threads complaining the basic training rebel event was impossible. And that one gave you characters and was beatable rather easily.
It's just a fact that some people are better at this game than others. To make a challenge for the skilled players, it'll be hard for unskilled players. And most of the skill comes from farming and building the right teams. By the time you enter the battle, if you haven't prepared, it is often to late.
If I had to guess on the reason why you get an impossible team sometimes. They have stated that it is pulled from what players near your level have. While that leads to teams with no synergy most of the time, because most new players probably don't get the characters for great synergy until well after hitting level 85. There are those late game players that start alt accounts and have the years of experience playing their main so they have better teams. And then there's whales. Revan was buyable by early game players so if they pick from player rosters, it is possible to get a well put together team as an opponent.
But it does eventually get easy. I was level 85 for awhile before it did but you eventually broaden your roster enough that it is easy. I can confirm it is still easy. I manually played it today and beat it with one team on auto withou losing even a quarter of my protection. You'll get there but it takes time.
This bad RNG is precisely what I'm talking about though. Random number generators work within set parameters. If this RNG selects extremely overpowered teams on very early nodes, the parameters must be wrong.
I wouldn't say easy. I know that it's doable with a lot of patience and a bit of luck. But you have to admit that it's a lot more difficult than the basic Empire, First Order and Resistance training events, all of which were a breeze in comparison. If those other 3 events are the benchmark, the Rebel training does indeed seem frustratingly hard in comparison. Especially since it's the first event of this kind.
I'm afraid this is where my eyes glaze over. I totally understand that you had to crawl uphill through the snow until GW became a walk in the park, and now it seems that we young whippersnappers want everything served on a silver platter. But from my perspective, this comes across as rather condescending. I mentioned early on that I read all I could find on GW strategy and built up several teams with good synergy. I don't believe that I'm beyond advice from seasoned players, but this is definitely not just a matter of me being green and clueless.
My other high speed & damage team is a Scoundrel squad under Jango with Boba, ST Han, and a 3* but properly geared Zaalbar as tank (I spent some money on the two Old Republic faction packs). For the 5th slot, I either use Zam, Mission Vao, or a healer (Consular or Luminara). I've also had great results with Boba as leader and Vader on the team. He is my best developed character and has a great damage output with Boba's crit bonus.
These are my last resort teams. I usually try to finish GW with four other, slightly less developed teams. First there's a Jedi team with Bastila lead plus GM Yoda (very recently unlocked and still on gear lvl VI), Ahsoka, Anakin, and either Ezra, Kanan or Luminara. Usually I go with Ezra for the last slot since this team has great damage mitigation and doesn't need Kanan's tanking or a healer. Eventually, I want to use Jolee Bindo and maybe my freshly unlocked Qui-Gon Jinn on this team. Gearing up GM Yoda has priority though.
The other teams are a Phoenix squad (usually without Sabine unless one of them dies and needs replacing), a second Rebel squad under Ackbar with Leia, Biggs, Luke and ST Han, and either an Empire squad with Tarkin lead plus Vader, TIE pilot, Death Trooper, and Royal Guard or Snowtrooper, or a mixed Sith / Empire team under Vader's lead with Dooku on the roster.
When I'm down to my last characters, I still have a couple of mismatched but geared and leveled toons that I built up for their ships. Geonosians, Kylo Unmasked (who makes a great tank on any team), Clone Sergeant and Resistance Pilot. Also Clone Wars Chewie (still useful in a bind, so I try to pull him along) and Mace (didn't plan on leveling him at first, but needed a 5th 5* Jedi to unlock GM Yoda). I think that's quite a bit to work with in GW and raids at level 72.
The rebel basic training was easy if you understood how the toons kits work. Took me literly two tries. Yet there were complaints about it being broken.
And from your post showing your teams on the other thread, you haven't followed most of the advise seasoned players give. Your top toons have absolutely no synergy.
Sounds like you may be spreading yourself a little thin. It is great to have several teans to fall back on. But you still need one team with the punch to take out these tough teams you run into. Pheonix or ns are both good options with protection regeneration but run into trouble if faces with a hard counter. The combo of Phoenix and empire works for a lot or so I've seen. Empire strong for tough battles and Phoenix for the tedious battles that dwindle your protection.
But if they put it out, there would be several level 85 players with less developed rosters complaining because it is hard and their one g12 team and several g10 teams can't beat it. So the devs may look at posts like this and stop new content because they can see the potential backlash.