All the reasons Grand Arena is terrible
This game's players are naturally divided into 2 camps: those that like to work up characters and ultimately defeat a PVE event, and those who work on the latest meta squads in order to defeat all PVP opponents. I'm in the first camp. Until Grand Arena, the game did a fairly decent job balancing those two often times competing interests. I do the PVP events because I have to for the rewards (really the only good source of crystals). But the events, raids and territory battles are where my heart is. An achievable goal. With that premise, here are all the reasons Grand Arena is terrible:
1-GA touts itself as allowing players to "use their whole roster." The PVP component of the game is and has always been based on a particular meta squad. Sometimes accidental, sometimes intentional. Nevertheless, it means that all GA is is a collection of past and current meta. Fully 2/3 of the roster is useless. I'm not talking about the occasional Lobot lead team for fun, but actual chance of success. Most characters will never find themselves assigned to a team in GA. Hardly using your whole roster.
2-In order to succeed in GA, if you don't have every single meta team, especially in Division 1, requires a Herculean amount of time and effort. Researching past battles, checking every individual character's stats, takes a very, very long time to do correctly. And it's not over the course of a few days, but an entire month. And what do we get for all that time spent? IF it works, the same number of zetas I get for beating the Wicket event again, enough Championship currency for 1/5th of 1/2 of 1/6th of the gear I need to elevate a character to gear 13, and a chance to upgrade a single mod to tier 6. Those rewards are so not worth it it's not even funny.
3-Like all PVP events, the stat that continues to be most determinative of the outcome is speed. It all comes down to whether you've been lucky enough to have enough 25+ speed mods to have 10 or more characters over 300 speed. If you have them, winner winner chicken dinner. If you don't, sit back and don't even bother. For all the nuances the game purports to have, an involved event such as GA should not be so dependant on a roll of the RNG dice when buying and upgrading mods.
4-Related to #3, the calculation for GP HAS to include speed mods. It's the only way to draw a true comparison between players. Zetaed characters will still be crushed by omega characters if their speed is significantly better, but zetas add a significant amount of GP to your total, while speed mods don't.
5-The GP calculation determining the division is weighted against long-time players. Newer players have followed the character building road map put in place by those of us who started at the beginning, and now by the journey guide. They also have skipped over many of the challenges we all faced when parts of the game were new, and had to join guilds that have moved past those older challenges. What does this mean? It means that in division 1 you have a slew of players who don't have imperial troopers because they never did Hoth TB, they don't have rogue 1 for the same reason, they don't have a 7* ugnaught because maybe it would be helpful in the tank raid when it was new. As a result, my personal GP is artificially higher because i have a slew of characters built up for events that my opponents never had to do. Toon for toon, I should be in a lower bracket as far as those that are actually useful in a PVP environment.
6-As previously mentioned, my preference is PVE events. I appreciate that to someone who enjoys PVP, the concept of territory battles is a similar pain in the butt. However, the rewards for TBs are significant for all the time it takes. GA, on the other hand, is like the PVP arena on steroids and crack, with nothing to show for it at the end for someone who doesn't already like that style of play in the game.
So, maybe somebody will,listen, maybe they won't. Maybe someone will agree, maybe they won't. The only thing I can say is that every time Grand Arena comes up, I ponder whether to continue playing the game anymore. My heart sinks when I see the Feat countdown timer at 20 days, knowing that I have to wait that long just for the torture to be over for a week or two.
1-GA touts itself as allowing players to "use their whole roster." The PVP component of the game is and has always been based on a particular meta squad. Sometimes accidental, sometimes intentional. Nevertheless, it means that all GA is is a collection of past and current meta. Fully 2/3 of the roster is useless. I'm not talking about the occasional Lobot lead team for fun, but actual chance of success. Most characters will never find themselves assigned to a team in GA. Hardly using your whole roster.
2-In order to succeed in GA, if you don't have every single meta team, especially in Division 1, requires a Herculean amount of time and effort. Researching past battles, checking every individual character's stats, takes a very, very long time to do correctly. And it's not over the course of a few days, but an entire month. And what do we get for all that time spent? IF it works, the same number of zetas I get for beating the Wicket event again, enough Championship currency for 1/5th of 1/2 of 1/6th of the gear I need to elevate a character to gear 13, and a chance to upgrade a single mod to tier 6. Those rewards are so not worth it it's not even funny.
3-Like all PVP events, the stat that continues to be most determinative of the outcome is speed. It all comes down to whether you've been lucky enough to have enough 25+ speed mods to have 10 or more characters over 300 speed. If you have them, winner winner chicken dinner. If you don't, sit back and don't even bother. For all the nuances the game purports to have, an involved event such as GA should not be so dependant on a roll of the RNG dice when buying and upgrading mods.
4-Related to #3, the calculation for GP HAS to include speed mods. It's the only way to draw a true comparison between players. Zetaed characters will still be crushed by omega characters if their speed is significantly better, but zetas add a significant amount of GP to your total, while speed mods don't.
5-The GP calculation determining the division is weighted against long-time players. Newer players have followed the character building road map put in place by those of us who started at the beginning, and now by the journey guide. They also have skipped over many of the challenges we all faced when parts of the game were new, and had to join guilds that have moved past those older challenges. What does this mean? It means that in division 1 you have a slew of players who don't have imperial troopers because they never did Hoth TB, they don't have rogue 1 for the same reason, they don't have a 7* ugnaught because maybe it would be helpful in the tank raid when it was new. As a result, my personal GP is artificially higher because i have a slew of characters built up for events that my opponents never had to do. Toon for toon, I should be in a lower bracket as far as those that are actually useful in a PVP environment.
6-As previously mentioned, my preference is PVE events. I appreciate that to someone who enjoys PVP, the concept of territory battles is a similar pain in the butt. However, the rewards for TBs are significant for all the time it takes. GA, on the other hand, is like the PVP arena on steroids and crack, with nothing to show for it at the end for someone who doesn't already like that style of play in the game.
So, maybe somebody will,listen, maybe they won't. Maybe someone will agree, maybe they won't. The only thing I can say is that every time Grand Arena comes up, I ponder whether to continue playing the game anymore. My heart sinks when I see the Feat countdown timer at 20 days, knowing that I have to wait that long just for the torture to be over for a week or two.
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