GAC Rewards & role in the game loop
Hey Folks,
This is my first post here and I'd like to say I am a huge fan of this game. Being a game developer myself I totally admire the depth and variety of system & character design and, of course, I love Star Wars
Having said that, I do not fully understand the current policy for GAC rewards.
GAC seems to me as an ultimate game mode currently, the final goal and challenge for my collection. It's core design is awesome, requires planning, strategic thinking on various levels, perfect battle execution. With the overall game design clearly targeting multi-team diverse collection development, GAC seems to be the reason I play all the other modes - I use them to build my collection and then use it in GAC. Of course I am simplyfying a little bit, but I hope you get my point.
Then, GAC takes a month to complete - which also is cool as you're building the tension over the 4 GAC tournaments, players climb higher and higher, get better rewards etc. The last weekly tournament - especially if you're doing well - feels like a great finale and can render really strong emotions.
However, I do not understand the policy behind the rewards we are getting for GAC, which are, to put it mildly, discouraging.
First of, the game does not encourage me to get to higher divisions. Quite the opposite, I'd rather restrain from building my total GP to stay as long as possible where I am. I do not see any real difference in rewards between higher divisions and the one I am currently in (4th). This works against the other game modes - especially TB - which I find odd (but perhaps I am missing something?). Even with a new matchmaking algorithm the feeling does not change much. Why should I want to go to higher divisions?
Then we have rewards for getting to the higher leagues - irrelevant of divisions, they are rather minor. Only for getting to Kyber we get 2 zetas, that's ok but other than that - c'mon, comparing to what you can get from playing daily on squad/ship arena they are really poor...
The rewards for weekly GAC tournaments are probably quite ok as long as they contain Zeta materials. Without Zeta, they also seem kind of poor. Nice touch with 6-dot mod materials though
Finally, the rewards for the whole monthly tournaments, there are 2 issues imho:
First, they are very poor overall. After a month of extensive playing I get ~3000 GAC tokens (if I finish 200+ Kyber) which converts to ~30 G12+ shards - almost every sith raid gives me more valuable stuff.
Second, there are not many thresholds, it is relatively easy for me to get to Kyber, but very hard to get to top200 (for which effort I'd get +300 GAC tokens, wow...) and almost impossible to get to top100 and higher (probably this would require remaining unbeaten through entire month).
Both these factors result in losing motivation if something goes wrong early, for example if I lost more than once through Week 1+2. I am kind of - ok, I'll just get to Kyber and all, whatever. Yeah, some motivation remains because the rivalry itself is cool and it is just fun to play, but I do not feel rewarded for my effort properly - especially comparing to other game modes.
Obviously, we players cannot fully understand the economy behind the game, but basing on the knowledge and experience we can get from playing, reading and discussing our experiences with the game, I'd recommend a few changes:
1. Significant increase of value of full GAC rewards.
2. Significant differences between full GAC rewards & league promotion rewards in respective divisions, so that players are much more motivated to climb to higher divisions.
3. More thresholds in Kyber so that players do not lose motivation midway through the GAC cycle.
4. Keep Zeta as mandatory weekly tournament rewards
Still, I want to say I enjoy playing this game very much and want to thank development team for all the hard work they have done, I hope to work on this type of game myself one day
Cheers,
Havelock
This is my first post here and I'd like to say I am a huge fan of this game. Being a game developer myself I totally admire the depth and variety of system & character design and, of course, I love Star Wars
Having said that, I do not fully understand the current policy for GAC rewards.
GAC seems to me as an ultimate game mode currently, the final goal and challenge for my collection. It's core design is awesome, requires planning, strategic thinking on various levels, perfect battle execution. With the overall game design clearly targeting multi-team diverse collection development, GAC seems to be the reason I play all the other modes - I use them to build my collection and then use it in GAC. Of course I am simplyfying a little bit, but I hope you get my point.
Then, GAC takes a month to complete - which also is cool as you're building the tension over the 4 GAC tournaments, players climb higher and higher, get better rewards etc. The last weekly tournament - especially if you're doing well - feels like a great finale and can render really strong emotions.
However, I do not understand the policy behind the rewards we are getting for GAC, which are, to put it mildly, discouraging.
First of, the game does not encourage me to get to higher divisions. Quite the opposite, I'd rather restrain from building my total GP to stay as long as possible where I am. I do not see any real difference in rewards between higher divisions and the one I am currently in (4th). This works against the other game modes - especially TB - which I find odd (but perhaps I am missing something?). Even with a new matchmaking algorithm the feeling does not change much. Why should I want to go to higher divisions?
Then we have rewards for getting to the higher leagues - irrelevant of divisions, they are rather minor. Only for getting to Kyber we get 2 zetas, that's ok but other than that - c'mon, comparing to what you can get from playing daily on squad/ship arena they are really poor...
The rewards for weekly GAC tournaments are probably quite ok as long as they contain Zeta materials. Without Zeta, they also seem kind of poor. Nice touch with 6-dot mod materials though
Finally, the rewards for the whole monthly tournaments, there are 2 issues imho:
First, they are very poor overall. After a month of extensive playing I get ~3000 GAC tokens (if I finish 200+ Kyber) which converts to ~30 G12+ shards - almost every sith raid gives me more valuable stuff.
Second, there are not many thresholds, it is relatively easy for me to get to Kyber, but very hard to get to top200 (for which effort I'd get +300 GAC tokens, wow...) and almost impossible to get to top100 and higher (probably this would require remaining unbeaten through entire month).
Both these factors result in losing motivation if something goes wrong early, for example if I lost more than once through Week 1+2. I am kind of - ok, I'll just get to Kyber and all, whatever. Yeah, some motivation remains because the rivalry itself is cool and it is just fun to play, but I do not feel rewarded for my effort properly - especially comparing to other game modes.
Obviously, we players cannot fully understand the economy behind the game, but basing on the knowledge and experience we can get from playing, reading and discussing our experiences with the game, I'd recommend a few changes:
1. Significant increase of value of full GAC rewards.
2. Significant differences between full GAC rewards & league promotion rewards in respective divisions, so that players are much more motivated to climb to higher divisions.
3. More thresholds in Kyber so that players do not lose motivation midway through the GAC cycle.
4. Keep Zeta as mandatory weekly tournament rewards
Still, I want to say I enjoy playing this game very much and want to thank development team for all the hard work they have done, I hope to work on this type of game myself one day
Cheers,
Havelock
1
Replies
isn't division 1 the highest?
The OP said he was in division 4.
I know. I'm in division 1. I wasn't aware the rewards could get any worse than in my division
I saw literally no difference between div5 and div4. Are these rewards described somewhere so that we can verify?
Next if CG is going to in fact put ships in GAC then don’t take away people’s favorite thing with zeta mats. If anything everyone should be rewarded more for dealing with the foolishness of ships in GAC.
This isn’t a hate post, because I love the idea of ship battles. I just think the balancing is way too off to add into GAC especially this quick into it.
Well they can.
Not that I know of. Did you screenshot them to actually compare or are you going by memory?
By memory, though if there is any difference, it is minimal.