The Cost of Blurring the Lines: Whales and FTP

Prev1345
I've looked at the rancor (the word, not the monster) on the forums this past week, the visceral bitterness, and I think I know why CG have ended up with this barrage of hate.

The lines between whales and FTP (I'm including dolphins here) have been blurred over a period of time. CG is now course correcting, and FTP don't like it.

Hard Nodes

You used to get 3 attempts, then it was changed to 5, then it was changed to 8!

Refreshing your attempts used to cost 50 crystals, now it costs only 25.

Daily Crystals

You used to get 500 crystals for placing first in squad arena, now you get an extra 400 crystals for placing first in fleet arena.

Legendaries and Journeys

The impact of the above two gifts to FTP players is that they can obtain legendary and journey characters and ships much easier.

In comes instantly meta JKR with so much time to prepare and hoard, obtainable with severely under-geared characters - and he returns within just 3 months. Furthermore, slower and less well modded JKR teams can beat the very best on the shard with ease.

The result of this? Large numbers of FTP can now get #1 in arena for the first time, and they love it (understandably)! Add to this the Falcon, which is equally effective at 5 stars as it is at 7 - again, large numbers of FTP can get #1 for the first time. Easier than ever to hoard crystals.

Then in comes the heavily leaked DR with more time to prepare than ever, everyone knew he was coming, a FTP hoarder's delight, and once again obtainable with under-geared characters.

Remember Those Whales?

Guess what the big spenders are thinking about all this? Well, they're wondering why they bought the characters and ships from marquee packs and shipments with ... you know ... MONEY. They're wondering why they paid so much just to be batted out of the top 20 by players with half their GP and pitiful mods.

Like it or not, this is a mobile game, and people used to understand that whales got a significant advantage after the first release, then dolphins and FTP got to catch up later.

But now, because the lines have been blurred, the FTP Revan Horde expect to get everything else on the first release - hence the entitled Malak outrage.

Really? So what is the actual point of whales spending on this game? And what will happen when they inevitably stop?

Conclusion / TLDR

CG are course correcting, and yes it's hard to take things away after they've been given, but the whale > dolphin > FTP ecosystem has been unbalanced for some time, and that delicate balance MUST be restored if the game is to survive.

Whales get slapped in the face all the time by CG constantly eroding their advantage, particularly during this last year, but they don't have the numbers to generate the kind of outrage and petitions that we've seen this past week. They just quietly quit and walk away.

If paying for an advantage isn't worth it, then the game is truly done - and I for one am glad CG have remembered this important fact.

Replies

  • Nauros
    5429 posts Member
    On the other hand, this environment is the perfect breeding ground for dolphins - they can achieve top ranks with less meticulous planning (and larger margin for error) than ftp without spending nearly as much as the whales. The question is whether pods of dolphins outweight a few whales.
  • XxDougyDougyxX
    75 posts Member
    edited April 2019
    You probably aren't even a F2P so u don't know what ur talking about. Have u seen the recent struggles that we as F2Ps have had to go through: both Revans, requirements were too late and us F2Ps were left panic farming;as well as, Malak, he needs bother Revans and a team that has extremely powerful toons that it takes us months to farm where as whales can just by the crystals for the gear and shards. Of u would like to try going F2P and see how it feels. It will not be easy.

    While I thank CG for creating this great game, sometimes it goes too far.

    And by the way, for your correction, whales pay do they can get a few months advantage not for long term hold.
  • So all of this is basically an answer to whales whining because they can't win even after spending. Vey nice.
  • You probably aren't even a F2P so u don't know what ur talking about. Have u seen the recent struggles that we as F2Ps have had to go through: both Revans, requirements were too late and us F2Ps were left panic farming;as well as, Malak, he needs bother Revans and a team that has extremely powerful toons that it takes us months to farm where as whales can just by the crystals for the gear and shards. Of u would like to try going F2P and see how it feels. It will not be easy.

    While I thank CG for creating this great game, sometimes it goes too far.

    Of course I'm a whale, that's why I'm giving this perspective, because it's not being heard.

    What I CAN see is the top 200 of my shard full of Jedi Revans that can beat pretty much any team they like, what I can also see is the latest Darth Revan meta trivially beaten by a year old Palpatine counter.

    There's not much here for spenders to be happy about. And quite frankly, for FTP it's not meant to be easy - otherwise, as I said, where is the incentive to spend?
  • leef
    13458 posts Member
    You probably aren't even a F2P so u don't know what ur talking about. Have u seen the recent struggles that we as F2Ps have had to go through: both Revans, requirements were too late and us F2Ps were left panic farming;as well as, Malak, he needs bother Revans and a team that has extremely powerful toons that it takes us months to farm where as whales can just by the crystals for the gear and shards. Of u would like to try going F2P and see how it feels. It will not be easy.

    While I thank CG for creating this great game, sometimes it goes too far.

    You're probably not a whale, so you dont know what you're talking about...
    see how those arguments work? they don't...
    Save water, drink champagne!
  • leef
    13458 posts Member
    This game has always been very f2p friendly and super expensive for whales. Personally i don't think this "course correction" you're talking about is going to change that by much.
    It mostly affects new f2p players negatively, me ( a 3y+ f2p player) will still be able to compete with the whales on my leaderboard quite easily.
    Save water, drink champagne!
  • I agree with the initial post, great points. I know that it is possible to get the requisites for Malak without spending, it "only" needs great planning ahead, and to actually be good at the game or some shard luck to get the 900 daily crystals.
  • rokota
    166 posts Member
    Palanthian wrote: »
    If paying for an advantage isn't worth it, then the game is truly done - and I for one am glad CG have remembered this important fact.

    Well, i don't think that MUST be the case! It is was just CGs decision to develop a pay2win mobile game. Other examples on different platforms (pc, ps/xbox etc.) showing that it may possible to run a REAL f2p game AND make profit, sometimes over decades! There hasn't to be a (playable) difference between f2p, dolphins and/or whales at all.

    Look at the ones like Fortnite, where they only make money by selling content that would not harm the gameplay or give anyone a significant advantage. LoL is another example of that strategy.
    The business model CG is using with swgoh is complete different, and if it wouldn't be Star Wars, it would have been dead already. Paying to have an advantage over other players feels like cheating in other games! No strategy, no tactics, just pure wallet power.

    I was a bit of a whale myself in WoT over years, and sunk a few thousand Euros into my garage, but it had NEVER such an enormous effect as it would have been here! Yes i got premium time, premium tanks, premium consumables but almost everything was also obtainable from a f2p. There was no auto-win button, if i played not good enough, i lost.

    What i want to say is that IF you're not taking care of the majority of your player base, and that might be the f2p ones, over lone or short you will lose a lot of players. Trying to get them back will be much more difficult than hold them with a fair gameplay! CG has to make the decision between their whales, and the 95% of the rest.
  • E3P0
    109 posts Member
    I don't think it's entitled to expect a company to act in good faith in living up to their past promises about cadence. Personally, the short notice and the precedent it sets for the future is 99% of my outrage.

    Yes, in general whales should have an advantage, since more resources equals more power. These powerful characters should require a strongly geared set of toons to unlock them. That I can fully understand and agree with. That JKR and DR were both able to be unlocked with undergeared squads is another fault I set at the foot of CG, for either subpar design or inadequate testing of the event difficulty. And while big spenders should get rewarded, so should players who have planned effectively and deployed their more limited resources optimally. But in order for them to plan, they need both good information (not an event that we have to commit to while knowing maybe an ability and a half worth of a kit) and a consistent and predictable time scale on which to act (not a week for one thing, two weeks for another, and three days for the next).
  • Great post. I spend a lot on the game and you are spot on. There are many points where I’ve thought about quitting for the reasons you point out. Like it or not, any business is about taking care of your top paying customers. For the first time in a long time, I feel like CG is doing just that.
  • "If paying for an advantage isn't worth it"
    Therein lies your problem: there shouldn't be an advantage to paying in a game full stop.
    You should pay if you want to have fun, not to purposefully get ahead of the competition.
    If you paid for something, and then people got the better thing for free, perhaps you need to rethink your habits. Alternatively, you could welcome the fresh diversity into the previous paywall-only club that you "enjoyed".
    I understand the frustration with the Revan-only meta: everyone does. However, that's a problem unto itself, not as a result of the f2p-ers: remember, only whales and the like could get him first time around proper. Being at the top insensitives people to spend money to continue to be at the top.
    The fact that people who don't spend a single dime on this game can get into the top place is a sign of greatness on the part of the developers: they designed a functioning system, where everyone has a chance!
    The cost of blurring the lines is simple: EA gets more money from frequent spenders than they do from people who shell out in one fell swoop. By nurturing a ground that encourages people to regularly spend money over time they get a higher profit. The truth is, whales and f2p-ers are much more similar than you think they are.
    #MakeTuskensGreat
    tenor.gif
  • KeKattia
    1118 posts Member
    You probably aren't even a F2P so u don't know what ur talking about. Have u seen the recent struggles that we as F2Ps have had to go through: both Revans, requirements were too late and us F2Ps were left panic farming;as well as, Malak, he needs bother Revans and a team that has extremely powerful toons that it takes us months to farm where as whales can just by the crystals for the gear and shards. Of u would like to try going F2P and see how it feels. It will not be easy.

    While I thank CG for creating this great game, sometimes it goes too far.

    And by the way, for your correction, whales pay do they can get a few months advantage not for long term hold.

    I am a whale, one of maybe 3 or 4 that have survived on my Dec'15 shard. I compete for first daily with FTP that have both Revans and several of them will be getting Malak also.

    JKR, the required toons were released not much before the event, I can agree with that but if you looked at the signs and planned looking forward, you were able to get Revan the first time around. I know for sure @Gavstar and @Agi managed to do so, they did have to spend their crystal stash, however. So I can see how a FTP who didn't plan well would have missed Revan the first try.

    If you look at DR on the other hand, it was obvious for many players on the forum and reddit in December that he was coming and which toons were required, so unless you lived under a rock in that time or were a very new player there is not really an excuse to not getting him. Even me as a whale I only spent for Carth and farmed the rest like a FTP, I didn't even refresh HN until shortly before the announcement and managed easily.

    I can see that for FTP that have not been in the game very long the issue is bigger than for long-time players and that's maybe something that could be addressed. Making entry for new players easier by giving them a bit more than just CS, Chewie and Jawa to work with.

    As others have already mentioned, if you choose to be FTP, from a dev standpoint, it doesn't make sense to give you everything on the silver platter, because then also whales would either stop playing or stop spending. On the other hand, I will acknowledge that too big of a disparity will be discouraging and not beneficial either. A balance has to be found and, for me as a whale, making Malak a bit harder to get compared to DR is a step in the right direction.
  • I can see your points and I can agree to an extent. My only counter argument is that a new character when it is released shouldn't cost as much as my rent every month. If this game actually had reasonable prices for their content, we wouldn't be having this debate about who has more of an advantage.
  • I do remember in the beginning there were a lot of exclusive characters that were only available to players that spend money (Lando, Old Ben, Princess Leia, etc.) and getting those characters to 7 stars via only chromium packs cost a lot of money. Granted all of those exclusive paid characters weren’t all great or meta defining it did allow that separation between F2P players and whales and in some cases gave them an advantage.

    The game has changed a lot since 2015/2016 and back then I just accepted it as part of the game that big spenders would have characters I couldn’t even farm or would have an advantage. Since then I have gotten used to being able to eventually farm everything and own every character a whale could own. I think that because we have gotten used to being able to get every character is why so many are angry about Darth Malak, but maybe the game is reverting slowly back to it’s original model. I was OK with it back in 2015, maybe I should be OK with it now.
  • leef wrote: »
    You probably aren't even a F2P so u don't know what ur talking about. Have u seen the recent struggles that we as F2Ps have had to go through: both Revans, requirements were too late and us F2Ps were left panic farming;as well as, Malak, he needs bother Revans and a team that has extremely powerful toons that it takes us months to farm where as whales can just by the crystals for the gear and shards. Of u would like to try going F2P and see how it feels. It will not be easy.

    While I thank CG for creating this great game, sometimes it goes too far.

    You're probably not a whale, so you dont know what you're talking about...
    see how those arguments work? they don't...

    I understand I'm not a whale; however, this being F2P is harder than spending money and having everything have easy access in front of you
  • Gorem
    1190 posts Member
    I thought the OP was good, but then I kept reading, and then I stopped reading and moved on. :)
  • Whales still have a significant advantage over the ftp by a long long margin;

    mods and farming / upgrading (more so under the previous system, but it’s still there as an advantage),

    gear acquirement which for whales is far easier than for ftp - stun gun / carbanties / gold balls etc issues don’t affect the whales early as much as they can just pop to the whale shop and buy it out,

    early game advantage where whales buy up all the packs and romp up to the top spots in the arena still exists,

    I doubt many ftp got revan the first time around, so whales still had the early lead on that, Drevan maybe not so much, but that was more to do with CG being as organised and coordinated as a drunk than ftp getting longer farming time. Let’s no forget drevan’s new gear requirement that popped up out of nowhere, ftp couldn’t plan ahead for that, while to the p2w guys, it was a barely noticeable speed bump.
    Where are the Stun Guns?
  • I love how you up talk the petition and down talk whales quitting and walking away. So out of touch with how things work you are.
    That petition was a pointless endevour that CG don't care about but people stopping spending is significant.

    This is the most holier than thou post I've seen in a good while
  • Just remember if this game doesn’t make any profit the game goes away.

    So don’t be upset that a business wants to make money and can’t give everything away for free.

    I’m sure you and your business don’t give everything away for free.
  • Well, I'm a FTP and I agree with your post, a great analysis.
  • As a ftp, it's all about planning. I didn't get Revan first round but I was ready for the second. I'll be ready when DRevan comes back around as well. But I had to sacrifice not getting C3P0 or a 7☆ chewbacca. It's all in how you invest in the faction
  • This is the most holier than thou post I've seen in a good while

    Agreed

  • Is it possible that they’re course correcting to events like GA where your roster should become more important than your top 5 characters? It’s harder for f2p players to build a good roster than it is for them to build 5 good toons.

    There’s other games out there similar to this that course corrected from a few overpowered toons to a diverse broad base of toons. It became more fun and I bet they were making more money since whales needed to buy everyone and not just the Revan requirements.
  • sying
    982 posts Member
    I’m just laughing because these toons were all necessary in the past and are pretty good in their own right. Sure, some are niche toons that fit into certain comps in certain situations, but still necessary. Yes, that does include Juhani and t3.

    Sadly, people only took some of these heroes to the bare minimums for the events. Shame on you.

    As far as ftp vs ptp, as a dolphin (probably) I do agree there should be more separation and not just because I’m a fairly smart dolphin that makes good decisions and am typically ahead of the curve anyway. What’s the point in paying for anything if you can’t get ahead?
  • Reyalp
    738 posts Member
    Please go look up how much this game turned over in the last financial year. Then defend your position. They make more than some countries do.
  • Devian
    663 posts Member
    edited April 2019
    Palanthian wrote: »
    In comes instantly meta JKR with so much time to prepare and hoard, obtainable with severely under-geared characters - and he returns within just 3 months. Furthermore, slower and less well modded JKR teams can beat the very best on the shard with ease.
    hey, First JKR event had big Z for 1 week before actual event and Juhani and t3 or Mission 3 weeks before event.
    More so, to get Chewie you needed BHs which occurred 1 w before JKR event. And it was hard to do event without Bossk. And no one new if it's going to be some OR event or Jango's Legendary or Legendary for Solo movie. Tons of characters(and ships) and none is certain.
    Summing all, it was nearly impossible to get JKR first time for F2p. Unless you hoarded 30k crystals and farmed characters.
    Palanthian wrote: »
    Guess what the big spenders are thinking about all this? Well, they're wondering why they bought the characters and ships from marquee packs and shipments with ... you know ... MONEY. They're wondering why they paid so much just to be batted out of the top 20 by players with half their GP and pitiful mods.

    Like it or not, this is a mobile game, and people used to understand that whales got a significant advantage after the first release, then dolphins and FTP got to catch up later.
    If ppl loved to play the games where money means win - they'd be playing with Exchange. Like it or not money helps to cut the time and affort in gaining victory not just arrogantly shutting smn up with your status.

    I dislike negativity for Malak myself, but you are not right with using wrongs
  • Nauros
    5429 posts Member
    sying wrote: »

    As far as ftp vs ptp, as a dolphin (probably) I do agree there should be more separation and not just because I’m a fairly smart dolphin that makes good decisions and am typically ahead of the curve anyway. What’s the point in paying for anything if you can’t get ahead?

    Umm, appreciation for the game? There are games running purely on that, Path of Exile being an excellent example. But since this game started as one where you pay for advantage, it's fair to stick to that.
  • I lost it as soon as they said 5 star falcon is "equally as effective as 7 star"
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