I'm not a whale. And quite frankly, not sure what is a 'dolphin' is. I do occasionally pay for content though but I expected that going in. Like any other freemium game.
You just explained what a Dolphin is. Someone who pays occasionally.
So heres my less trolly take on this topic. So my first thing I want to point out to everyone is show me 1 successful mobile game (ie being fun for the players and profitable to the company) where there isn't a pay to win or pay to accelerate model? Ill wait... With that said I person wouldn't call myself a "whale" persay in the context of always being bleeding edge. If there is something I want I will go all in. For other things meh. I am more like a big bear. I hibernate for long periods than I get hungry and POUNCE. For example when Talzin came out I was big on the NightSisters I spent maybe 3-400 to get Talzin and G12 that team day 1.Than I didnt really spend till the 2nd coming of JKR and DR and now Malak between those 3 I have spent north of 1500 easily. Fast Forward and we have had all sorts of big time setups JTR Chewie C3P0 JKR. I am grossly behind JTR cause I am not interested in the character. Chewie is cool but feel BH is kinda underwhelming and I didnt know enough of those BH backstories to care. C3P0 I refuse to gear murder bears that high. and JKR I grabbed on the 2nd pass. If you want to be passive and toss a couple bucks here and there when you please that is cool. If you want to be like me and go ham on stuff that interests you thats cool too. If you have the income to be Number 1 24/7 props to you as well. People have different ideas on how they want to play and different income levels and that should be respected. BUT at the end of the day making a mobile game isnt a charity its a cash grab period. And to the whales killing it deserve it they keep the lights on. So if you cant accept the simple fact the whales earned the right by having the shiny toys faster due to there wallets than maybe mobile gaming isnt for you. And you know what? Thats okay too! Now dont take this the wrong way and think I want people to quit. You just need perspective! So stop hating the whales or phins or bears or whatever **** flavore you are. We are all SW fans period
TLDR
Spend if you want to or dont but dont be hating because someone plays differently than you.
I agree with a lot of what you are saying - I love original trilogy content and pounce on it. Or at least I did until this painful year of KOTOR and Revan made the game just plain not fun. There it is. Revan, Darth Revan, and Malak are fun killers. Maybe Jedi Luke will reignite my interest in the game, but you'll probably need 7* Randy Thom and R5-D4 to get him unlocked.
As long as people are willing to spend, it's not foolish.
You seem to have missed and/or ignored a large part of the debate here. Having people willing to spend is, by definition, vital for business.
But - making it so lots and lots of players don't think it's worth spending smaller amounts and hammering the very few big, big spenders whilst giving them a terrible deal - is foolish. Because it's unsustainable.
As long as people are willing to spend, it's not foolish.
You seem to have missed and/or ignored a large part of the debate here. Having people willing to spend is, by definition, vital for business.
But - making it so lots and lots of players don't think it's worth spending smaller amounts and hammering the very few big, big spenders whilst giving them a terrible deal - is foolish. Because it's unsustainable.
A freemium game is unsustainable by defealt.
Thriving on super large spenders also doesn't mean players don't think it's worth it to spend smaller amounts.
terrible deal or not, people are willing to spend, so in a way it would be foolish to not offer said deal. I mean, there are people who buy white t's for 300 bucks..
There's probably a reason ea/cg uses this model/strategy don't you think? Or do you really think you'd do a better job running a game like this one?
Thriving on super large spenders also doesn't mean players don't think it's worth it to spend smaller amounts.
There's probably a reason ea/cg uses this model/strategy don't you think?
Largely, I'd agree with the first point but I think Malak has changed this. There's loads of comments on this forum about smaller spenders not willing to do that anymore. Loads of comments within my guild about smaller spenders not willing to do that anymore. And I'm a smaller spender not willing to do that anymore. So, yeah, I may well be wrong but just speaking from what I'm observing.
And second point - of course there's a reason. It's called greed. And I think it's about making as many bucks in the shortest time as possible. And I think I know the reason why that might be, but it's just my personal theory.
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?
Translation:
The game should suck up to whales at all costs and F2P people have no business being in the top 200 of arena.
the game dies just as much if the whales disappeared or all the F2P disappeared..
A game, in general, is much better when everyone has a chance at the same level of success, regardless of means. There's zero fun in guy with the biggest wallet, or credit card limit wins.
I wasn't around when the game started, but it had a fraction of the characters it does today. I've been around nearly a year and half and in that time the number has nearly doubled.
So, when it started, there were many fewer toons and they needed to limit growth so people wouldn't max out the system. Hence, 3 HM tries. More toons came along and they also probably realized 3 wasn't really viable, so it went 5. It was 5 when i started, and as i said, the number of toons has nearly doubled in that time frame, if not more more than doubled. You could give people 15 tries per HM (not advocating that) and they'd not get everyone to 7* in a year.
Thousands of people have started this game only knowing 8. Substantially more started only knowing 5. The bigger the game gets internally (number of toons and things to do) the more the internal structure needs to grow. When you let something like the 8 tries go on 8 months, NO ONE is thinking it's temporary and giving people a whopping 3-4 days before taking it back down is pretty bush league.
You know what would get people to spend crystals? Telling them that limit ends in 2ish months, not 3 days.
Sure, you like it as it benefits you. Is it better for the game overall? no. Is it going to generate more spending? I doubt it.
If you want to let people buy success, you ought to segregate them to their own corner of game. Whale vs Whale. What's the point of having a F2P person face off against some one spending 1000's in a month? It's not a contest.
Frankly, the 'I spend tons of money, people should cater to my wants and ignore everyone else' is what's wrong with society in general today.
After they buff Malak and your TW comes down to mirror matches in the front walls what then. Bet you wouldn’t mind a soft counter then. Ep is a very soft counter against the maxed Malak comps . Can’t wait for your forum thread after a Tw post Malak buff .
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?
Translation:
The game should suck up to whales at all costs and F2P people have no business being in the top 200 of arena.
the game dies just as much if the whales disappeared or all the F2P disappeared..
A game, in general, is much better when everyone has a chance at the same level of success, regardless of means. There's zero fun in guy with the biggest wallet, or credit card limit wins.
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.
CG doesn’t pay for this game. Whales do. And considering they allow you to play in the first place... I wouldn’t anger them. As a F2P myself, I’ve never done very well. But I’m just here to play a fun game, not to crush everyone with my exotic characters.
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?
Translation:
The game should suck up to whales at all costs and F2P people have no business being in the top 200 of arena.
the game dies just as much if the whales disappeared or all the F2P disappeared..
A game, in general, is much better when everyone has a chance at the same level of success, regardless of means. There's zero fun in guy with the biggest wallet, or credit card limit wins.
If you ran a game that was F2P and everyone had an equal chance with equal difficulty, it wouldn’t exist in 6 months.
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.
How about eliminating the shard chat collusion and youll lessen the # of crystals in the game, without screwing over half the people playing this game the right way. Also stopping GD nerfing toons, thats when I stopped spending. Its cgs fault not ftp players. So the fix is not to screw over ftp players , who if there were none, the game would die just the same as if it lost its whales.
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?
Translation:
The game should suck up to whales at all costs and F2P people have no business being in the top 200 of arena.
the game dies just as much if the whales disappeared or all the F2P disappeared..
A game, in general, is much better when everyone has a chance at the same level of success, regardless of means. There's zero fun in guy with the biggest wallet, or credit card limit wins.
We have always had the chance at the same level of success.
Same shard as OP and ftp.
Top 200? I don't know about other shards but we don't have 200 whales on mine.
His point was clear. Those paying for the advantage aren't getting much of one. And he's right...it doesn't matter if other players care...it only matters if EA cares.
Your point is built on a false premise. Most early metas were built on characters who were farmable from cantina nodes or the easy stores (old Ben, wiggs, sthan, QGJ). It wasn’t until recently that the meta came to dominated by the latest legendary release. Whales had an advantage because spending allowed them to easily adjust to new changes in the game (mods being released/spliced, new meta shifts due to releases and reworks, new content like raids, etc)
The game model has always been that every character gets released to F2P eventually, and Revan was no exception. The difference is that Revans kit is significantly stronger than most other characters, which allowed someone who unlocked him on the second try to climb into the top 50, because all that existed at that level were mirror matches
Replies
You just explained what a Dolphin is. Someone who pays occasionally.
I agree with a lot of what you are saying - I love original trilogy content and pounce on it. Or at least I did until this painful year of KOTOR and Revan made the game just plain not fun. There it is. Revan, Darth Revan, and Malak are fun killers. Maybe Jedi Luke will reignite my interest in the game, but you'll probably need 7* Randy Thom and R5-D4 to get him unlocked.
You seem to have missed and/or ignored a large part of the debate here. Having people willing to spend is, by definition, vital for business.
But - making it so lots and lots of players don't think it's worth spending smaller amounts and hammering the very few big, big spenders whilst giving them a terrible deal - is foolish. Because it's unsustainable.
A freemium game is unsustainable by defealt.
Thriving on super large spenders also doesn't mean players don't think it's worth it to spend smaller amounts.
terrible deal or not, people are willing to spend, so in a way it would be foolish to not offer said deal. I mean, there are people who buy white t's for 300 bucks..
There's probably a reason ea/cg uses this model/strategy don't you think? Or do you really think you'd do a better job running a game like this one?
Largely, I'd agree with the first point but I think Malak has changed this. There's loads of comments on this forum about smaller spenders not willing to do that anymore. Loads of comments within my guild about smaller spenders not willing to do that anymore. And I'm a smaller spender not willing to do that anymore. So, yeah, I may well be wrong but just speaking from what I'm observing.
And second point - of course there's a reason. It's called greed. And I think it's about making as many bucks in the shortest time as possible. And I think I know the reason why that might be, but it's just my personal theory.
Translation:
The game should suck up to whales at all costs and F2P people have no business being in the top 200 of arena.
the game dies just as much if the whales disappeared or all the F2P disappeared..
A game, in general, is much better when everyone has a chance at the same level of success, regardless of means. There's zero fun in guy with the biggest wallet, or credit card limit wins.
I wasn't around when the game started, but it had a fraction of the characters it does today. I've been around nearly a year and half and in that time the number has nearly doubled.
So, when it started, there were many fewer toons and they needed to limit growth so people wouldn't max out the system. Hence, 3 HM tries. More toons came along and they also probably realized 3 wasn't really viable, so it went 5. It was 5 when i started, and as i said, the number of toons has nearly doubled in that time frame, if not more more than doubled. You could give people 15 tries per HM (not advocating that) and they'd not get everyone to 7* in a year.
Thousands of people have started this game only knowing 8. Substantially more started only knowing 5. The bigger the game gets internally (number of toons and things to do) the more the internal structure needs to grow. When you let something like the 8 tries go on 8 months, NO ONE is thinking it's temporary and giving people a whopping 3-4 days before taking it back down is pretty bush league.
You know what would get people to spend crystals? Telling them that limit ends in 2ish months, not 3 days.
Sure, you like it as it benefits you. Is it better for the game overall? no. Is it going to generate more spending? I doubt it.
If you want to let people buy success, you ought to segregate them to their own corner of game. Whale vs Whale. What's the point of having a F2P person face off against some one spending 1000's in a month? It's not a contest.
Frankly, the 'I spend tons of money, people should cater to my wants and ignore everyone else' is what's wrong with society in general today.
But thats 90%+ of all ea games
CG doesn’t pay for this game. Whales do. And considering they allow you to play in the first place... I wouldn’t anger them. As a F2P myself, I’ve never done very well. But I’m just here to play a fun game, not to crush everyone with my exotic characters.
If you ran a game that was F2P and everyone had an equal chance with equal difficulty, it wouldn’t exist in 6 months.
How about eliminating the shard chat collusion and youll lessen the # of crystals in the game, without screwing over half the people playing this game the right way. Also stopping GD nerfing toons, thats when I stopped spending. Its cgs fault not ftp players. So the fix is not to screw over ftp players , who if there were none, the game would die just the same as if it lost its whales.
We have always had the chance at the same level of success.
Same shard as OP and ftp.
Top 200? I don't know about other shards but we don't have 200 whales on mine.
His point was clear. Those paying for the advantage aren't getting much of one. And he's right...it doesn't matter if other players care...it only matters if EA cares.
The game model has always been that every character gets released to F2P eventually, and Revan was no exception. The difference is that Revans kit is significantly stronger than most other characters, which allowed someone who unlocked him on the second try to climb into the top 50, because all that existed at that level were mirror matches