Please fix the grand arena matchmaking
Please do something to fix the grand arena matchmaking. This grand arena the toons gp is the basis for match up, @1.7m for my group of 8. The problem is there are 6 members with rosters that while they total 1.7m each they aren't very strong. My roster, while not the greatest, is adequate and competitive. The 8th member has a roster that includes amongst others 7☆ gr12 JKR, Darth R, malek, traya, chewbacca, 3po, RJT, CLS, raid han and on and on!! How is this supposed to be competative when one player has a super killer elite roster, one player has a okay roster and 6 are rosters that seem only there to fill out the grouping of 8! May as well just do one battle as opposed to this sham of a 8 person tournament!
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As long as we all fight for the exact same rewards, the current system is fair. Players, who built a strong roster (strong for GA) have an advantage, which is fine. There really isn't anything to fix.
However, you can look forward to the tiered GA with tiers based on previous performance and tiered rewards.
Preparing for the actual GA by building a strong roster in between GAs is part of the competition. This match-up IS competitive.
Preparing for the actual GA by building a strong roster in between GAs is part of the competition. This match-up IS competitive.
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Right, and the argument that people who have JKR or DR should only go against other people who have them is just lazy. That's the whole point of taking the time to go through the awful grind to get them.
The matches are jacked
if that's typical of the other 5 then you are in a very weak GA minus the whale
@Babyhewy gets it.
It's a very competitive match-up. The participants who built strong rosters have an advantage. That's competition right there for you. The better you prepare for the actual GA, the better you will perform. What's not competitive about this?
Build the strongest possible roster, use the best possible strategy and execute your strategy in the best possible way. That's what GA is about.
Of course it's competitive. Preparing for the actual GA is part of the competition. Claiming that it's not is simply ludicrous.
The entire gamemode is based on having the strongest possible roster for the GP you have.
So, it's perfectly fair that somebody who focused intensely on being efficient with his GP have an advantage, and another player who has just being horsing around and "having fun" with the game (I never understood why being competitive and efficient couldn't be fun), instead has a clear disadvantage.
Sometimes you'll be in a group of 1 focused player and 7 casuals, sometimes it'll be the other way around.
But remember, Roster alone isn't everything.
Strategy matters. Preparation for each individual match matters. Mods matters a lot! Understanding of how kits work matters. All of these things makes it possible to beat a player with "better" toons. Especially if you can device a few unsual strategies (most applicable in 3v3 where some truly weird teams can be an absolute pain).
Just like in every other game mode you have to ask yourself if you want to be competitive. If you do, it's pretty obvious what you need to do. Otherwise, well, just be casual about GA. You get rewards for 8th places, so it's not a total loss.
Still, it would be nice if total playtime / account age were added to the matchmaking equation. A much older account typically has more zetas and vastly better mods, both of which is not adequately reflected by the GP metric.
I'm assuming you are newer players, but the way GA currently works is actually not fair, especially for those of us who have been playing since launch.
Here's the thing, before GA existed, there was a little game mode called Territory Battles. Territory Battles was billed by EA as a game mode where "every upgrade counts". As a result, many of us who have been here for a long time leveled trash toons (CUP, Ughnaught, etc) to 85 and took them to gear 8. This was done specifically done to help our guilds with platoons and deployments for that particular game mode. Further, don't give me some **** about "building your roster smart", because leveling the trash was done (at the time) without an opportunity cost. Credits at end game have been plentiful for long periods of time (I have had 300M banked forever), and gear below level 8 is plentiful and not a roadblock.
So let's now illustrate why the current GA mode is not fair.
I am in the 4.9M GA bracket. I have 90 g12. My last GA, I had to play a new Kraken in the finals. Based on his swgoh.gg account, it looks like he started mid last year. This means, he built his roster with the knowledge that he would have an advantage in GA (if it was his preferred game mode) if he did not level or gear trash toons for TB. Basically, he could prioritize the individual game mode over the collective game mode. He was given the opportunity to make a decision that I was never given.
This Kraken had 140 g12 and the rest of his roster was sitting unleveled, ungeared, and unstarred. He had the luxury to put most of his top meta teams on defense secure in the knowledge that he could throw additional solid toons at any of my teams to whittle them down and clear them if he failed his first attempt. This is pretty clearly an unearned advantage given to him by his game start date.
This. I have never lost more than 1 match, despite being a launch player (i.e. have a major bloating problem...ermm...with my roster.)
Not too many newer players have a highly leveled or geared Jawas (for an event that no longer exists) - or IG86 for a droid team that is no longer viable, or strong Lumi, or g9 Eeth Koth (had to get GMY back in the day) or a zQGJ, or 7* Lobot or Lando, etc., etc.
But it's also worth noting that due to power creep and kits, those older characters are even weaker than their gear level, zetas, mods might be representing in GP. As an extreme example, which would you rather have - a 7* g9 Jedi Knight Revan with 1 zeta? Or a 7* g9 QGJ with one zeta? And QGJ's zeta was one of the best at the time....
All of that said, GA is solid. It needs some tweaking - but what about this game is perfect?
In game guild: TNR Uprising
I beat the REAL T7 Yoda (not the nerfed one) and did so before mods were there to help
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Since we are all battling for the same rewards, it's completely fair that players, who built a strong roster also have an advantage.
Shortly after TB was introduced, TW was also introduced. Building up characters, you won't be using for battles anyway has the same impact on match-making in TW as it does in GA. We had more than a year to adjust between the introduction of TW and the introduction of GA. If you kept taking all your characters to lvl 85 / g8 since the introduction of TW, your chose your current situation yourself.
I think this is the most sensible thing you've ever written and I completely agree. Player start date could help make things more competitive without overly punishing those that have built their rosters for PVP. It wouldn't even have to be as tight as Arena and could be a window of a few months.
Not sure what the same rewards have to do anything, but otherwise, your statement is fine in a vacuum. It's not fine when applied to a game where people were building their rosters at different start dates under different assumptions. If two people started the game today, I would agree 100%.
1. It was 3 months. The damage was permanently done by that time. The roughly 50 unusable toons leveled and geared to 85/g8 at that time is equivalent to roughly 550,000 GP. That's a huge difference in the level of competition you would face. That GP number also doesn't account for characters that I have to 11 that were good at one time but are more or less completely useless now (Lando, IG86). No new Kraken levels those characters.
2. Not all guilds (or their members) like TW. If your guild didn't like TW, there was no reason to adjust your leveling and gearing of new toons. Especially, if you were still trying to get higher stars in TB.
Positive Nikoms is my favorite Nikoms.
All those characters probably helped you win a lot of gear, mods etc. which helped you build your roster to what it is now. I know my IG-86 helped me in the early days (months) of the AAT raid, Lumi helped me in GW, Eeth Koth helped me unlock GMY, QGJ and Lando helped me gain a lot of crystals in arena. I don't regret having those in my roster now. I still enjoy the gear and what not they helped me win.
All those characters probably helped you win a lot of gear, mods etc. which helped you build your roster to what it is now. I know my jawa helped me gain crit dmg. mods, my IG-86 helped me in the early days (months) of the AAT raid, Lumi helped me in GW, Eeth Koth helped me unlock GMY, QGJ and Lando helped me gain a lot of crystals in arena. I don't regret having those in my roster now. I still enjoy the gear and what not they helped me win.
1. It was 3 months, and the permanent damage to GP was already done. I leveled roughly 50 otherwise unusable trash toons to 85/g8 with all mats other than omegas. That equates to roughly 550K GP. That is a huge difference in the level of competition. Not even included in that number is probably another couple hundred K GP that comes from characters who are g11 that were good at one time but no longer viable under most circumstances (Lando, IG86). New Krakens in my bracket don't bother leveling those characters either.
2. Many guilds (such as all 3 of them in my alliance) dislike TW, and basically just set defense for rewards. If this was the case, there was no reason to adjust your leveling/gearing practices. Especially if you were trying to get the most stars possible in both LS & DS TB.
What is your point? The fact that those toons helped you at one time and that you enjoyed them is irrelevant to this topic.
They now exist as bloat in your roster that ends up falsely stating your overall roster power and result in getting you matched against newer people who never had to level them.
I disagree a little bit with the bloated GP argument - there are only so many viable teams and only so much GP that's required. We need between 60 and 72 toons depending on GP in this GA. Even at the latter, assuming 20k per quality toon, you're looking at 1.54M of lean GP, which leaves a lot of wiggle room for bloat.
Matchmaking at lower GP levels is especially fraught, since there's much more variability in roster composition.
Fair doesn't mean competitive. I would love it if they gave you an option to be matched on GP or on a "roster quality". If it's the latter, then you're prizes are based on the quality of your roster. After all, why should a "low quality" 2.8M GP roster get the same prizes for winning against a lower level of competition probably at a lower GP than a "high quality" 2.8M GP lean roster should get?