Because you aren't going to see the actual data. See above.
What you (and the above post) actually are saying is that we won't see "the data as spun by CG to EA execs". Profitability is one thing. A drop in sales over the past year clearly indicates a decline in player spending - no matter how you want to spin it.
I don't really care one way or the other. But suggesting there's "no data" isn't being completely honest. I'm just trying to be objective - CG_Carrie has every reason not to be.
Sure there's data. Claiming anyone here fully knows what it means or how relevant it actually is isn't being completely honest either.
Because you aren't going to see the actual data. See above.
What you (and the above post) actually are saying is that we won't see "the data as spun by CG to EA execs". Profitability is one thing. A drop in sales over the past year clearly indicates a decline in player spending - no matter how you want to spin it.
I don't really care one way or the other. But suggesting there's "no data" isn't being completely honest. I'm just trying to be objective - CG_Carrie has every reason not to be.
There's no data that supports the claim that many players are quiting the game, which is what carrie said isn't the case.
That the spending is down is a different discussion.
TL;DR:
You don't like mirror matches.
Ahnald is losing subscribers.
The sky is falling!
Do you have alternative data to show the numbers are static, or growing?
Why would i have? youtubers said its true so it must be...................
Just to be fair - the DATA the youtubers are citing is not "made up" - it's based on actual in-game purchase data, which is accessible to the general public.
Incidentally, the youtubers (and the data itself) have no bias (apart from getting views). CG_Carrie does, so I take her completely vague (and unsubstantiated) point in the Q&A with a very large grain of salt.
And no - no actual data I have seen contradicts the real data cited regarding the drop in-app spending.
A drop in in game spending =/= falling player numbers.
In the 6 month time period called out by OP (Dec 2018 - May 2019) there were significantly fewer marquee releases than the prior 6 months and possibly fewer than the corresponding 6 months last year (Dec 2017 - May 2018). I don't care to look it up and I'm not trying to make the point that marquees are the reason for the drop. Just pointing out that players leaving is not the only (and possibly not even the most likely) explanation for a drop in in game spending. It's just the one that fits the OPs argument the best. Just another example of (likely) confirmation bias.
Uhh another one of these posts. Just because you feel you see a lot of people leaving the game, doesn't mean the game is in a bad state at all. After all, a lot of people play the game, like millions. Of course there are people leaving. There are also people joining the game all the time, but you won't see them as they're not on your shard or in your guild, and it usually takes some time for new players to take to the forums.
Also, every time I see one of these threads, or someone making a post like it, I never see any concrete numbers at all. It's only "whine whine CG you're killing this game" "whine whine people are leaving everything is terrible" "oooh no everyone I know is leaving you completely destroyed this game yet still somehow here I am still playing and complaining on the forums", meanwhile CG officials are stating that the exact opposite is true.
The game is in a healthy state lol. At least I'll be playing for a while longer.
TL;DR:
You don't like mirror matches.
Ahnald is losing subscribers.
The sky is falling!
Do you have alternative data to show the numbers are static, or growing?
Why would i have? youtubers said its true so it must be...................
Just to be fair - the DATA the youtubers are citing is not "made up" - it's based on actual in-game purchase data, which is accessible to the general public.
Incidentally, the youtubers (and the data itself) have no bias (apart from getting views). CG_Carrie does, so I take her completely vague (and unsubstantiated) point in the Q&A with a very large grain of salt.
And no - no actual data I have seen contradicts the real data cited regarding the drop in-app spending.
Except nothing sells like doom and gloom. It's the bread and butter of those youtubers, and I don't think I've ever seen them make a single sensible video, let alone an unbiased one. From what I've seen they're more interested in bashing CG (mostly rather unfairly) painting them like evil overlords, rather than actually inform people about the game, as is their supposed function.
A drop in in game spending =/= falling player numbers.
In the 6 month time period called out by OP (Dec 2018 - May 2019) there were significantly fewer marquee releases than the prior 6 months and possibly fewer than the corresponding 6 months last year (Dec 2017 - May 2018).
It doesn't look like marquee events move the needle on spend all that much. 8 of the past 10 months on the Sensor Tower data fall below the average value over the entire set of data. Per swgohevents.com, there were 23 marquee releases between June 2018 and May 2019 and 16 prior to that (assuming Talzin was the first marquee starting on October 2017 - I don't personally remember how characters were released before that). Lower average revenue over a time period with more marquees.
Of the past 10 months, the only two months that exceeded the overall average were December (Christmas? Chewie, 3PO) and October (JKR). The one conclusion you can draw from this data is that people will spend money on a new raid (Hello, March 2018).
While I haven't seen a "mass exodus" from either guilds or arena shards, I have seen a number of players "take it easy" and step away to lower guilds where daily play isn't as required. I've also seen two guilds close to the 200M GP range take a few step backwards in GP as there appears to be some guild consolidation at the upper tiers. This guild consolidation would be a natural outcome of longer term / higher GP players moving to less competitive guilds or retiring from the game altogether.
I completely agree with the sentiment that prescriptive arena metas are the best way to ruin this game. I also think that DSTB and GA championships cannot come soon enough. The lack of diversity in arena really saps the fun out of the game and with all of the other content being old hand, some new infusion is desperately needed.
A drop in in game spending =/= falling player numbers.
In the 6 month time period called out by OP (Dec 2018 - May 2019) there were significantly fewer marquee releases than the prior 6 months and possibly fewer than the corresponding 6 months last year (Dec 2017 - May 2018).
It doesn't look like marquee events move the needle on spend all that much. 8 of the past 10 months on the Sensor Tower data fall below the average value over the entire set of data. Per swgohevents.com, there were 23 marquee releases between June 2018 and May 2019 and 16 prior to that (assuming Talzin was the first marquee starting on October 2017 - I don't personally remember how characters were released before that). Lower average revenue over a time period with more marquees.
Of the past 10 months, the only two months that exceeded the overall average were December (Christmas? Chewie, 3PO) and October (JKR). The one conclusion you can draw from this data is that people will spend money on a new raid (Hello, March 2018).
While I haven't seen a "mass exodus" from either guilds or arena shards, I have seen a number of players "take it easy" and step away to lower guilds where daily play isn't as required. I've also seen two guilds close to the 200M GP range take a few step backwards in GP as there appears to be some guild consolidation at the upper tiers. This guild consolidation would be a natural outcome of longer term / higher GP players moving to less competitive guilds or retiring from the game altogether.
I completely agree with the sentiment that prescriptive arena metas are the best way to ruin this game. I also think that DSTB and GA championships cannot come soon enough. The lack of diversity in arena really saps the fun out of the game and with all of the other content being old hand, some new infusion is desperately needed.
Just going to add this back in for context (since you conveniently left it out): " I'm not trying to make the point that marquees are the reason for the drop (in spending)."
Maybe their subscriptions are down because people have realized they don’t actually have anything useful to say.
I unsubbed from a number of them because they started spouting a lot of unsubstantiated rumors as confirmed, turning everything into the kind of CG is evil I can get here or in the forums, and just spread the kind of information I can get better from Discord.
Maybe their subscriptions are down because people have realized they don’t actually have anything useful to say.
I unsubbed from a number of them because they started spouting a lot of unsubstantiated rumors as confirmed, turning everything into the kind of CG is evil I can get here or in the forums, and just spread the kind of information I can get better from Discord.
We removed most of them from our Discord server for the same reason.
I completely agree with the sentiment that prescriptive arena metas are the best way to ruin this game. I also think that DSTB and GA championships cannot come soon enough. The lack of diversity in arena really saps the fun out of the game and with all of the other content being old hand, some new infusion is desperately needed.
that's your personal opinion, which many may share, but isn't necessarily the reason for the drop in sales. Apparantly it hasn't lead to that many players quiting either, that is if you take carrie's word for it.
Obviously a drop in sales is never a good sign, but as long as players keep playing and the game still makes quite a lot of money, the game probably isn't in as horrible of a shape as some people try to make it seem.
Personally i feel like people are using the drop in sales and the percieved drop in players as an argument when complain about what they would complain about aswell if there was no drop in sales or playerbase. In reality it's not a certainty that what they're complaining about is actually causing the drop in sales. Don't get me wrong, it's entirely possible that it is, but since the game isn't losing players rapidly there may very well be an alternative explanation for the drop in sales.
With all that said, i too look forward to geo TB and GAC, but at the same time i do not know if those 2 features coupled with g13 will lead to more players quiting or more players enjoying the game more/again...
A drop in in game spending =/= falling player numbers.
In the 6 month time period called out by OP (Dec 2018 - May 2019) there were significantly fewer marquee releases than the prior 6 months and possibly fewer than the corresponding 6 months last year (Dec 2017 - May 2018).
It doesn't look like marquee events move the needle on spend all that much. 8 of the past 10 months on the Sensor Tower data fall below the average value over the entire set of data. Per swgohevents.com, there were 23 marquee releases between June 2018 and May 2019 and 16 prior to that (assuming Talzin was the first marquee starting on October 2017 - I don't personally remember how characters were released before that). Lower average revenue over a time period with more marquees.
Of the past 10 months, the only two months that exceeded the overall average were December (Christmas? Chewie, 3PO) and October (JKR). The one conclusion you can draw from this data is that people will spend money on a new raid (Hello, March 2018).
While I haven't seen a "mass exodus" from either guilds or arena shards, I have seen a number of players "take it easy" and step away to lower guilds where daily play isn't as required. I've also seen two guilds close to the 200M GP range take a few step backwards in GP as there appears to be some guild consolidation at the upper tiers. This guild consolidation would be a natural outcome of longer term / higher GP players moving to less competitive guilds or retiring from the game altogether.
I completely agree with the sentiment that prescriptive arena metas are the best way to ruin this game. I also think that DSTB and GA championships cannot come soon enough. The lack of diversity in arena really saps the fun out of the game and with all of the other content being old hand, some new infusion is desperately needed.
Just going to add this back in for context (since you conveniently left it out): " I'm not trying to make the point that marquees are the reason for the drop (in spending)."
LOL. Didn't include it because I wasn't contesting it, just trying to add some detail to the discussion. When you look at spend in context of in-game events, looks like it generally goes up with exclusive in-game unlockable content (Legendary, Journey and Heroic Raid locked characters). I'm assuming that the April numbers from that data set are incomplete, because Malak doesn't appear to have moved the needle at all. If they are complete and the Malak surprise netted them their worst month in almost two years....
I love how people complain that CG is evil and money grubbing and it's killing the game... then when they grub less money, the sky is falling and the game is dying.
that's your personal opinion, which many may share, but isn't necessarily the reason for the drop in sales. Apparantly it hasn't lead to that many players quiting either, that is if you take carrie's word for it.
Obviously a drop in sales is never a good sign, but as long as players keep playing and the game still makes quite a lot of money, the game probably isn't in as horrible of a shape as some people try to make it seem.
Personally i feel like people are using the drop in sales and the percieved drop in players as an argument when complain about what they would complain about aswell if there was no drop in sales or playerbase. In reality it's not a certainty that what they're complaining about is actually causing the drop in sales. Don't get me wrong, it's entirely possible that it is, but since the game isn't losing players rapidly there may very well be an alternative explanation for the drop in sales.
With all that said, i too look forward to geo TB and GAC, but at the same time i do not know if those 2 features coupled with g13 will lead to more players quiting or more players enjoying the game more/again...
Agreed on almost every point. I do, however, think there are people that are genuinely concerned about the direction of the game, arena in particular, and are attempting to make cogent arguments to make that concern known.
I don't think ALL of these people should be trivially dismissed as "trolls" or "whiners". Maybe that's because I'm in the same boat and, despite Carrie's inability to distinguish between "sentiment" and "passion", am sort of "meh" about the game in its current state.
i feel like people are overreacting when they're talking about the health of the game, that's about it.
Ofcourse there are legitimate critisisms to be had about the state of the game. Just to name one; While i currently love arena, i can understand that many don't.
Comparing downloads against other games of it's size... SWGOH is doing very poorly, as it shows that growth is definitely not happening comparatively to other games of it's size.
A lot of it is down to how much difficulty near players face, ad CG has never done a single thing to make the game more approachable from a new player stand point. I've been playing for less than a year, and every time they make a change, it feels like they're direct nerfs to me (being new) and my ability to catch up.
It's always going to be a game of choosing priorities for resources, and energy, but there are things that are never going to be a priority, and they're incredibly difficult to achieve.
The GEO TB is just another slap in new players faces. So, you need to get into a big guild to do the new content and have a chance at getting the G12+ finishers... but you also need to forego Probe Droid, and getting the achievements from Hoth TB to do so. You're never ever going to get Probe Droid unless you drop back into a smaller guild, or convince your guild to go back and farm you up a Probe Droid.
What is that nonsense?
The hardnode nerf? Yea, that directly hurt the new players. G13? Directly hinders new players abilities to compete against players in a position to G13 things, and also hurts casual players in smaller guilds. The "pick your poison" TB? Terrible idea. Cut off content.
All these events for specific teams to get omegas/zetas/shards/etc. Ok, I have to not farm the meta (which they tell us I must farm if I want to have a chance to compete), in order to farm teams to get the resources that i'm sorely lacking... because I'm a new player that hasn't had years to build up everything.
It's ridiculous that they're not trying to make the game more inclusive to new players, and are making the 'cost of entry' crazy high.
And, no, Carrie... 5k a year to catch up is not feasible.
I highly doubt a lot of potential players don't download this game because of the reasons you're giving, mainly because they don't even know those issues exist prior to downloading the game...
I used to spend money but don’t anymore. Still playing for now but interest is waning as the Arena is a boring mode and GA is not competitive unless you have DRevan
As you can see it is broken down by month, and the financial revenue is falling month on month since December 18.
Hey man when you post here you dont get to talk to any players, maybe 1-2 if your lucky
You get what im saying?
Same “users” all day, every day, everythread
Counter signaling all your points, whether theyre valid or not
Its quite a coincidence really!
"and i will show you ... where the iron crosses grow..."
Hey man when you post here you dont get to talk to any players, maybe 1-2 if your lucky
You get what im saying?
Same “users” all day, every day, everythread
Counter signaling all your points, whether theyre valid or not
Its quite a coincidence really!
As you can see it is broken down by month, and the financial revenue is falling month on month since December 18.
Hey man when you post here you dont get to talk to any players, maybe 1-2 if your lucky
You get what im saying?
Same “users” all day, every day, everythread
Counter signaling all your points, whether theyre valid or not
Its quite a coincidence really!
Even if there is some coordinated effort to counter signal posts like you're implying, it's super ineffective. The forum is pretty much all complaints nowadays. Some more valid than others, some plain ridiculous. Frequent visitors are probably more unhappy than players who don't read the forum at all because their believes get reinforced by the thousands of other complaint threads. The (former) gamechangers are tapping into that market as well currently. Imo it all just makes it worse. Me disagreeing with all of the negativity probably adds to that as well, people like yourself get annoyed by it, but it's mostly for my own entertainment. Your post was pretty funny to me for example.
While I can't verify that the player count is dropping, we have concrete evidence that revenue IS down. Why revenue is down is speculation, both on the player's part and on CG's part. CG's inability to turn that revenue decline around tells me they're off the mark about what's causing it.
For my part, I think the OP makes some good points. Closing off the meta to one or two overpowered teams without proper hard counters really hurt the enjoyment of the game's PvP modes (Arena, TW and GA). It made it virtually necessary to possess those teams. I'm sure that sounded great to CG's marketing team, but it comes with a myriad of problems.
By messing up the balance of the game, some players will leave out of frustration. That includes everyone from free-to-play to whales. Prior to JKR coming out, we hadn't had a single member leave our guild (willingly) in over a year. Since JKR has come out, we've lost three whales, half a dozen dolphins and about as many free-to-play. That's a significant change. We're a fairly tight-knit group, so most of them offered explanations for their leaving. Mirror matches in arena, choke points in TW/GA (formed by non-counterable meta teams), and the bore of playing as the same OP team time and time again because it's the only viable team.
Aside from the balance being off, changing the meta the way they did narrowed the focus of the game. Instead of using gear and materials on a wide variety of toons, players started hoarding that gear to use on the only teams that really mattered: the one or two overpowered meta teams. Combined with CG's purposeful lack of communication, the hoarding problem was born. Worse, at least from CG's perspective, with non-meta teams being rendered virtually useless, whales stopped spending so much except on the few teams that mattered. This further dropped the revenue numbers.
In other words, they didn't care about the balance of the game, thinking their actions would yield great financial results, and their error bit them in the butt.
They can still turn things around, but only if they understand the reason for the decline and address it. What they should do is find ways to broaden the meta. This will quickly make the PvP modes enjoyable again, broaden the whales' spending, and reduce the hoarding problem.
There's a lot of good content in this game. GAC in particular is a bright spot. But they'll bury it all six feet under if they don't address the very real issues the game has.
Aside from the balance being off, changing the meta the way they did narrowed the focus of the game. Instead of using gear and materials on a wide variety of toons, players started hoarding that gear to use on the only teams that really mattered: the one or two overpowered meta teams. Combined with CG's purposeful lack of communication, the hoarding problem was born. Worse, at least from CG's perspective, with non-meta teams being rendered virtually useless, whales stopped spending so much except on the few teams that mattered. This further dropped the revenue numbers.
In other words, they didn't care about the balance of the game, thinking their actions would yield great financial results, and their error bit them in the butt.
Agreed. Whales pay for the game. If they only need to spend on 5 characters to be top or near top of the Arena, once they've spent on them, that's it. It was a short sighted strategy.
On the more positive side, it seems that CG have been trying to balance the game somewhat. The recent boosts to 80 or so characters helps make them somewhat more viable, but it wasn't enough. It's a positive step forward, to be fair, but it's not enough. There are still only 2 really viable teams - D Revan with Malik, and D Revan without. The Padme teams aren't coming through yet, because the event was v difficult and most people were focussing on being ready for D Revan or Malak.
With the launch of Geo TB, separatists are now more important again. I suspect that the next time the Padme event comes around, the Arena will be flooded with Padmes.
Meanwhile Geo TB causes other challenges for the game. Don't get me wrong. I love that there's new content. But the Geo TB is a Guild-breaker. Only top-end Guilds can compete for the rewards, and so it results in lots of people leaving / being tempted to leave Guilds 140mill GP or below to try and get into a Geo TB competitive one.
This leaves 100 to 140 mill GP Guilds in a quandary - struggling with the Heroic Sith Raid, and just as the get close to beating it ambitious members leave for Guilds with higher GP.
Game changers are dropping subscribers, oh well in that case the game is obviously failing..
Or it could be that they are losing revenue on twitch or whatever and need to generate, so publish dubious content that generates interest etc etc..
Man I hate the gc program, entitled, pointless and always the lowest common denominator in what they do. Yet people lap up the drivel.
Nothing to see here, move along...
Gamechangers program ended in November of 18. Just saying. Hell they make 19 of the same video for 4 different channels two times each everyday. Crying about revan and whining over grievous. Besides that, I don't think drevan is all that nor krevan. Pretty useless without the proper supporting cast. Every meta floods the arena for a period. Cls jtr NS Phoenix imperial chiggs etc etc. Nothing new.
I'm not really all that into the discussion one way or another, but I am curious about one thing.
The difference between total player count, and the total players who actually stick with the game and grow to the point of being "endgame" ready.
Because none of us would want a game filled with 500 million players at 500k GP or less filling out all the guilds when all of the content is aimed at players with 2.5mil or more.
If those total players are people making it through the long haul, that's one thing, but if it's just a bunch of revolving door newbies who try the game and quit, but there just so happens to be A LOT of them, then you could claim that "player counts are healthy" or whatever business talk, while ignoring that it's in no way contributing to the long term health of the game as it is being designed long term.
I have no clue either way, so don't take this as me taking a side, but I fear that both positions in this discussion could be "right" if that's the case. Which would not be good for anyone, especially those of us who genuinely enjoy the game.
Replies
Sure there's data. Claiming anyone here fully knows what it means or how relevant it actually is isn't being completely honest either.
There's no data that supports the claim that many players are quiting the game, which is what carrie said isn't the case.
That the spending is down is a different discussion.
A drop in in game spending =/= falling player numbers.
In the 6 month time period called out by OP (Dec 2018 - May 2019) there were significantly fewer marquee releases than the prior 6 months and possibly fewer than the corresponding 6 months last year (Dec 2017 - May 2018). I don't care to look it up and I'm not trying to make the point that marquees are the reason for the drop. Just pointing out that players leaving is not the only (and possibly not even the most likely) explanation for a drop in in game spending. It's just the one that fits the OPs argument the best. Just another example of (likely) confirmation bias.
Also, every time I see one of these threads, or someone making a post like it, I never see any concrete numbers at all. It's only "whine whine CG you're killing this game" "whine whine people are leaving everything is terrible" "oooh no everyone I know is leaving you completely destroyed this game yet still somehow here I am still playing and complaining on the forums", meanwhile CG officials are stating that the exact opposite is true.
The game is in a healthy state lol. At least I'll be playing for a while longer.
Except nothing sells like doom and gloom. It's the bread and butter of those youtubers, and I don't think I've ever seen them make a single sensible video, let alone an unbiased one. From what I've seen they're more interested in bashing CG (mostly rather unfairly) painting them like evil overlords, rather than actually inform people about the game, as is their supposed function.
It doesn't look like marquee events move the needle on spend all that much. 8 of the past 10 months on the Sensor Tower data fall below the average value over the entire set of data. Per swgohevents.com, there were 23 marquee releases between June 2018 and May 2019 and 16 prior to that (assuming Talzin was the first marquee starting on October 2017 - I don't personally remember how characters were released before that). Lower average revenue over a time period with more marquees.
Of the past 10 months, the only two months that exceeded the overall average were December (Christmas? Chewie, 3PO) and October (JKR). The one conclusion you can draw from this data is that people will spend money on a new raid (Hello, March 2018).
While I haven't seen a "mass exodus" from either guilds or arena shards, I have seen a number of players "take it easy" and step away to lower guilds where daily play isn't as required. I've also seen two guilds close to the 200M GP range take a few step backwards in GP as there appears to be some guild consolidation at the upper tiers. This guild consolidation would be a natural outcome of longer term / higher GP players moving to less competitive guilds or retiring from the game altogether.
I completely agree with the sentiment that prescriptive arena metas are the best way to ruin this game. I also think that DSTB and GA championships cannot come soon enough. The lack of diversity in arena really saps the fun out of the game and with all of the other content being old hand, some new infusion is desperately needed.
Just going to add this back in for context (since you conveniently left it out): " I'm not trying to make the point that marquees are the reason for the drop (in spending)."
We removed most of them from our Discord server for the same reason.
that's your personal opinion, which many may share, but isn't necessarily the reason for the drop in sales. Apparantly it hasn't lead to that many players quiting either, that is if you take carrie's word for it.
Obviously a drop in sales is never a good sign, but as long as players keep playing and the game still makes quite a lot of money, the game probably isn't in as horrible of a shape as some people try to make it seem.
Personally i feel like people are using the drop in sales and the percieved drop in players as an argument when complain about what they would complain about aswell if there was no drop in sales or playerbase. In reality it's not a certainty that what they're complaining about is actually causing the drop in sales. Don't get me wrong, it's entirely possible that it is, but since the game isn't losing players rapidly there may very well be an alternative explanation for the drop in sales.
With all that said, i too look forward to geo TB and GAC, but at the same time i do not know if those 2 features coupled with g13 will lead to more players quiting or more players enjoying the game more/again...
LOL. Didn't include it because I wasn't contesting it, just trying to add some detail to the discussion. When you look at spend in context of in-game events, looks like it generally goes up with exclusive in-game unlockable content (Legendary, Journey and Heroic Raid locked characters). I'm assuming that the April numbers from that data set are incomplete, because Malak doesn't appear to have moved the needle at all. If they are complete and the Malak surprise netted them their worst month in almost two years....
Agreed on almost every point. I do, however, think there are people that are genuinely concerned about the direction of the game, arena in particular, and are attempting to make cogent arguments to make that concern known.
I don't think ALL of these people should be trivially dismissed as "trolls" or "whiners". Maybe that's because I'm in the same boat and, despite Carrie's inability to distinguish between "sentiment" and "passion", am sort of "meh" about the game in its current state.
Ofcourse there are legitimate critisisms to be had about the state of the game. Just to name one; While i currently love arena, i can understand that many don't.
A lot of it is down to how much difficulty near players face, ad CG has never done a single thing to make the game more approachable from a new player stand point. I've been playing for less than a year, and every time they make a change, it feels like they're direct nerfs to me (being new) and my ability to catch up.
It's always going to be a game of choosing priorities for resources, and energy, but there are things that are never going to be a priority, and they're incredibly difficult to achieve.
The GEO TB is just another slap in new players faces. So, you need to get into a big guild to do the new content and have a chance at getting the G12+ finishers... but you also need to forego Probe Droid, and getting the achievements from Hoth TB to do so. You're never ever going to get Probe Droid unless you drop back into a smaller guild, or convince your guild to go back and farm you up a Probe Droid.
What is that nonsense?
The hardnode nerf? Yea, that directly hurt the new players. G13? Directly hinders new players abilities to compete against players in a position to G13 things, and also hurts casual players in smaller guilds. The "pick your poison" TB? Terrible idea. Cut off content.
All these events for specific teams to get omegas/zetas/shards/etc. Ok, I have to not farm the meta (which they tell us I must farm if I want to have a chance to compete), in order to farm teams to get the resources that i'm sorely lacking... because I'm a new player that hasn't had years to build up everything.
It's ridiculous that they're not trying to make the game more inclusive to new players, and are making the 'cost of entry' crazy high.
And, no, Carrie... 5k a year to catch up is not feasible.
For you. Or me. But for some, absolutely.
Hey man when you post here you dont get to talk to any players, maybe 1-2 if your lucky
You get what im saying?
Same “users” all day, every day, everythread
Counter signaling all your points, whether theyre valid or not
Its quite a coincidence really!
Good observation.
Even if there is some coordinated effort to counter signal posts like you're implying, it's super ineffective. The forum is pretty much all complaints nowadays. Some more valid than others, some plain ridiculous. Frequent visitors are probably more unhappy than players who don't read the forum at all because their believes get reinforced by the thousands of other complaint threads. The (former) gamechangers are tapping into that market as well currently. Imo it all just makes it worse. Me disagreeing with all of the negativity probably adds to that as well, people like yourself get annoyed by it, but it's mostly for my own entertainment. Your post was pretty funny to me for example.
For my part, I think the OP makes some good points. Closing off the meta to one or two overpowered teams without proper hard counters really hurt the enjoyment of the game's PvP modes (Arena, TW and GA). It made it virtually necessary to possess those teams. I'm sure that sounded great to CG's marketing team, but it comes with a myriad of problems.
By messing up the balance of the game, some players will leave out of frustration. That includes everyone from free-to-play to whales. Prior to JKR coming out, we hadn't had a single member leave our guild (willingly) in over a year. Since JKR has come out, we've lost three whales, half a dozen dolphins and about as many free-to-play. That's a significant change. We're a fairly tight-knit group, so most of them offered explanations for their leaving. Mirror matches in arena, choke points in TW/GA (formed by non-counterable meta teams), and the bore of playing as the same OP team time and time again because it's the only viable team.
Aside from the balance being off, changing the meta the way they did narrowed the focus of the game. Instead of using gear and materials on a wide variety of toons, players started hoarding that gear to use on the only teams that really mattered: the one or two overpowered meta teams. Combined with CG's purposeful lack of communication, the hoarding problem was born. Worse, at least from CG's perspective, with non-meta teams being rendered virtually useless, whales stopped spending so much except on the few teams that mattered. This further dropped the revenue numbers.
In other words, they didn't care about the balance of the game, thinking their actions would yield great financial results, and their error bit them in the butt.
They can still turn things around, but only if they understand the reason for the decline and address it. What they should do is find ways to broaden the meta. This will quickly make the PvP modes enjoyable again, broaden the whales' spending, and reduce the hoarding problem.
There's a lot of good content in this game. GAC in particular is a bright spot. But they'll bury it all six feet under if they don't address the very real issues the game has.
Agreed. Whales pay for the game. If they only need to spend on 5 characters to be top or near top of the Arena, once they've spent on them, that's it. It was a short sighted strategy.
On the more positive side, it seems that CG have been trying to balance the game somewhat. The recent boosts to 80 or so characters helps make them somewhat more viable, but it wasn't enough. It's a positive step forward, to be fair, but it's not enough. There are still only 2 really viable teams - D Revan with Malik, and D Revan without. The Padme teams aren't coming through yet, because the event was v difficult and most people were focussing on being ready for D Revan or Malak.
With the launch of Geo TB, separatists are now more important again. I suspect that the next time the Padme event comes around, the Arena will be flooded with Padmes.
Meanwhile Geo TB causes other challenges for the game. Don't get me wrong. I love that there's new content. But the Geo TB is a Guild-breaker. Only top-end Guilds can compete for the rewards, and so it results in lots of people leaving / being tempted to leave Guilds 140mill GP or below to try and get into a Geo TB competitive one.
This leaves 100 to 140 mill GP Guilds in a quandary - struggling with the Heroic Sith Raid, and just as the get close to beating it ambitious members leave for Guilds with higher GP.
Gamechangers program ended in November of 18. Just saying. Hell they make 19 of the same video for 4 different channels two times each everyday. Crying about revan and whining over grievous. Besides that, I don't think drevan is all that nor krevan. Pretty useless without the proper supporting cast. Every meta floods the arena for a period. Cls jtr NS Phoenix imperial chiggs etc etc. Nothing new.
The difference between total player count, and the total players who actually stick with the game and grow to the point of being "endgame" ready.
Because none of us would want a game filled with 500 million players at 500k GP or less filling out all the guilds when all of the content is aimed at players with 2.5mil or more.
If those total players are people making it through the long haul, that's one thing, but if it's just a bunch of revolving door newbies who try the game and quit, but there just so happens to be A LOT of them, then you could claim that "player counts are healthy" or whatever business talk, while ignoring that it's in no way contributing to the long term health of the game as it is being designed long term.
I have no clue either way, so don't take this as me taking a side, but I fear that both positions in this discussion could be "right" if that's the case. Which would not be good for anyone, especially those of us who genuinely enjoy the game.