So are impulse detectors included in any of this? It says R1-7 but I'm not sure what they classify impulse detectors as. Those are the only thing stopping me from taking a few toons to R8
Nothing in the SOTG indicates that Impulse Detectors are being eased up
So are impulse detectors included in any of this? It says R1-7 but I'm not sure what they classify impulse detectors as. Those are the only thing stopping me from taking a few toons to R8
Nothing in the SOTG indicates that Impulse Detectors are being eased up
I think for the sake of argument we need to separate the game from the community. These changes seem to be good for the game but are a kick in the teeth to each of the guilds in the 200-300 million range. Sad.
With gear changes coming, those guilds in that range will be able to build into the place they want to be, and most guilds in those ranges are benefiting from the CRancor changes.
Can you specify the bad parts for them?
By making an even bigger incentive for their top players to leave the guild since they will be almost guaranteed to get R8 material in another guild. Those that are left will continue to spiral down because of the lack of access to R8 material that started with the recent Conquest changes.
People just do not understand yet the whole issue with the R9 being TW only.
Things what will happen:
A) hard sandbagging (to ensure win - x3,x4 is better than to get swhoosed away for maybe x5) fast kicks (a loose is now really expensive for everyone)
C) big pressure for TW officers (no one wants to explain why the strategy didnt worked out...and all just got the shaft)
D) medium sized guilds get nothing of the good stuff - nothing at all (enjoy community and players around you - so you still play? forget that you wont be competitive anymore!)...death to medium sized guilds
Galactic challanges or freaking conquest would have been the right place to R9 - but your poor MM TW is a bad place for it.
For crying out loud, play. your. own. game.
Aeromagnifiers aren't the problem.
Other changes are good, but I swear, every single post from CG includes something that they apparently think we should throw a party about, but anyone who's spent 5 minutes on this game can see is not the case (remember kryos were supposed to alleviate the gear crunch? ahahahahahahah)
They dont expect anyone to throw a party, although Doja and Crumb to deserve one.
The changes listed are only phase 1. They are aware there is more to all of this.
They deserve sod all. They're doing nothing positive for the community.
If this is how you feel, then you may little to understanding of what the job is they do.
The truth is that Impulse Detectors are the bigger bottleneck to R8 than Aeromags. Forces a strategic decision on players for sure (Do I want more R8 or more G13 toons), which really is a personal choice. But the focus only on aeromags on the gear changes doesn't really make R8 easier to attain. Need to address both materials if it truly is the goal.
Wouldn't it be better to have the TW reward structure similar to what's already in place?
i.e R9 pieces 5 for a win / 4 for a loss, decreasing with signed up GP. Still gives incentive to play but doesn't harshly penalise for a loss.
The truth is that Impulse Detectors are the bigger bottleneck to R8 than Aeromags. Forces a strategic decision on players for sure (Do I want more R8 or more G13 toons), which really is a personal choice. But the focus only on aeromags on the gear changes doesn't really make R8 easier to attain. Need to address both materials if it truly is the goal.
The bottleneck sits behind a large wall. If you can't beat rancor, with changes to conquest it is almost impossible to geat aeromagnifiers without purchasing packs.
I am in a 270 Mio guild, we are working on our members for months now and even did a fusion. Still being stuck at 50% P4 and big players leaving because progress is to slow. Problem is if you have a lot of older and/or bloated roster but not enough legends, Crancor is a sad joke
I think for the sake of argument we need to separate the game from the community. These changes seem to be good for the game but are a kick in the teeth to each of the guilds in the 200-300 million range. Sad.
With gear changes coming, those guilds in that range will be able to build into the place they want to be, and most guilds in those ranges are benefiting from the CRancor changes.
Can you specify the bad parts for them?
By making an even bigger incentive for their top players to leave the guild since they will be almost guaranteed to get R8 material in another guild. Those that are left will continue to spiral down because of the lack of access to R8 material that started with the recent Conquest changes.
Unfortunately yes any time something changes in a guild event guilds do shift around. It would probably take a very lack luster change to have this not be the case.
The thing is, with gear economy changes guilds can grow into end game content vs needing a few big fish to hold them up.
The truth is that Impulse Detectors are the bigger bottleneck to R8 than Aeromags. Forces a strategic decision on players for sure (Do I want more R8 or more G13 toons), which really is a personal choice. But the focus only on aeromags on the gear changes doesn't really make R8 easier to attain. Need to address both materials if it truly is the goal.
You can obtain Impulse Detectors with crystals, you can only get Aeromags through CPit and Conque$t. The changes to Conque$t made Aeromags twice as hard to obtain (at least during this round of 3) if you aren't in a CPit guild. The bottleneck for those people is not addressed at all, except with encouragement to leave their guild.
I think for the sake of argument we need to separate the game from the community. These changes seem to be good for the game but are a kick in the teeth to each of the guilds in the 200-300 million range. Sad.
With gear changes coming, those guilds in that range will be able to build into the place they want to be, and most guilds in those ranges are benefiting from the CRancor changes.
Can you specify the bad parts for them?
I think others explained it well enough.
A guild with 220 mil GP is not desirable for their own top10 players anymore. They probably contribute well above 30% (probably 40%) to the CHPit, and they are getting less aeros. Sooooo, they either wait until they get (as a guild) to 260 million, which is...... noble, to say, but probably not their most rational choice or they leave. (if they find a guild to accept them, which seems to be harder albeit not impossible) Oh and if that 220M GP guild loses 15-20 M more GP, they are likely to not beat the ChPit anymore.
Something really similar can be concluded for a 270 M GP guild, just with r9, not r8.
At this point it is really hard to argue for a guild to accept someone less than their average GP.
It is also hard to argue for someone to stay in a guild where he has more GP than the guild average.
There will be exceptions, of course because loyalty and friendship is still a thing, but I only said it is a kick in the teeth. Might be a death sentence, as others claimed it but I wouldnt rush for that so early. But I am pretty sure they will suffer a lot. If a 7.5 Mil GP player leaves a 260M GP they are not going to replace that player easily.
So, I'll say the positives first.
This looks like by far one of the best overall changes this game has seen in a long, long time.
Stun guns being this much more accessible is going to be amazing, and the TW matchmaking stuff, while I still think most guilds that I've seen complain about it have nothing to blame but themselves, is still definitely warranted.
With that said...
Here's the negatives I'm seeing.
R9 is locked behind a 6M GP average, and over 7M GP average for a guild with 50/50 TW participation for actual decent amounts of the mats. This is going to completely cannibalize not just smaller guilds of higher GP players, but also high GP guilds of non-actively-participating players - There's going to be a LOT of guild kicking people that don't participate in TW because it's going to push them down tiers of rewards for an exclusive material.
Additionally, the C.pit change is going to completely remove almost any incentive a high GP player had to merc C.pit for lower powered guilds, which is going to further reduce the amount of people clearing C.pit, and thus getting R8 mats, rather than do anything to actually improve the universal R8 acquisition rate.
These 2 things, combined with C.pit in general and the ever-growing likelihood of KAM eventually being required for a GL, Wat already being required at 7* for a GL, and the GL R8 requirements and whatnot significantly growing.... are going to do a very, very bad thing for guilds.
Remove the human aspect.
This is VERY MUCH pushing guilds to become a thing purely for utility, and remove any desire for human interaction in exchange for just finding the highest GP guild you can that has 50/50 participation in TW.
And then those guilds are in turn going to be highly incentivized to start kicking their lower GP members and kicking people for daring to take a vacation or have a power outage, which is going to make finding a guild that's higher GP than what you're at nearly impossible, and is going to make high-level guilds absolutely horrendous to actually be a part of.
The huge effects this is going to have on guild structures over the coming months is going to completely destroy most guilds that have any members that remotely care about optimal progress, and a lot of guilds are going to be losing both their bottom and top players - Bottom because it's now even worse to have a single person at 3M GP in a guild that otherwise averages 6M, top because that mega-whale that was carrying a guild through C.rancor now needs to be in a guild that's actually GP-appropriate in order to be able to even get R9 mats.
I'm really not sure tying this stuff to guild events is really the best idea.
On one hand I'm super hyped for the gear changes, because I can finally get characters and teams up and running in a actually decent amount of time once the changes start kicking in.
On the other hand I'm very much realizing that I'm going to be nearly forced to completely abandon my guild that I'm literally an officer in and nearly co-lead because I'm in the top like 5 people in the guild and that's now a very, very, very bad thing for my ability to continue competing in arena,.as my ONLY option to get R9 characters is to either convince the other high-GP people in the guild to basically kick well over half the guild, or to just leave the guild and go try and find something at or near 300M+ that's willing to take me, which is by far the easier and arguably better option.
And I can say, with 100% confidence, that over my 20-something years of gaming, this is the first time I've been forced to make that decision. All of my world-first-tier guilds I've ever been in have also had extremely bad players that just weren't invited to events, not that were straight removed because the guild as a whole had to reach a certain minimum ilvl or w/e.
Not to mention just how ridiculous all these recent GP locks for the sake of GP locks have actually been.
I've loved the shard economy overhaul.
I've loved basically every remotely recent character addition.
I've loved the new modes and content.
But all the recent relic levels and GL requirements and whatnot feel like they're just completely needlessly locked behind being a very high GP player, in a very high GP average guild, for absolutely no reason.
Games are supposed to be fun.
Games are supposed to be games.
Not... Meritocracy simulators.
Wouldn't it be better to have the TW reward structure similar to what's already in place?
i.e R9 pieces 5 for a win / 4 for a loss, decreasing with signed up GP. Still gives incentive to play but doesn't harshly penalise for a loss.
I believe this part was done to more directly deal with the sign up and " do nothing" element of the game mode. Trying to actively push playing the game mode, and really trying to win.
Also with loss tracking the numbers should average out, in theory.
The truth is that Impulse Detectors are the bigger bottleneck to R8 than Aeromags. Forces a strategic decision on players for sure (Do I want more R8 or more G13 toons), which really is a personal choice. But the focus only on aeromags on the gear changes doesn't really make R8 easier to attain. Need to address both materials if it truly is the goal.
The bottleneck sits behind a large wall. If you can't beat rancor, with changes to conquest it is almost impossible to geat aeromagnifiers without purchasing packs.
I am in a 270 Mio guild, we are working on our members for months now and even did a fusion. Still being stuck at 50% P4 and big players leaving because progress is to slow. Problem is if you have a lot of older and/or bloated roster but not enough legends, Crancor is a sad joke
We have been able to clear CPit for 6 months now (guild GP is now 290M but we were around 260M the first time we cleared it) and the templates for beating CPit are well known now. There are no prize boxes that award impulse detectors. You either need to spend cash, crystals, big time conquest currency or liquidate G12 pieces (Medpacs, Multitools or Bayonets) to acquire them. Like I said strategic decision on using the gear in the scavenger ... do I want more relic 8 or G13 characters? If they want to make R8 truly easier to attain, they either put impulse detectors in prize boxes or increase the amount of convertible G12 gear awarded. Pretty simple.
Oh, finally some change to the matchmaking, I was honestly no longer expecting that.
But there just has to be at least one stinker in every update from CG. Locking r9 behind guild gp gate sucks big time, especially when it will be inevitably required for GLs in the future. It seems that they are simply moving the divide between whales and the rest of the ecosystem from gear in general to r9.
Doesn’t this say that if you’re not in a 300M guild (and win at that tier) you have no access at all to r9 brains? If that’s the case, it’s atrocious and designed to kill good guilds in the 250-299 range.
Have I misread?
No you read this correctly, but may have some misunderstanding about what has happened each time new end game elements are released.
They always start at the top and move them down over time. They also set this up to give a reward to development, and an incentive to develop more.
So, if your guild gets paired against someone in a higher division, and you beat them, you get the rewards from your own division? Sounds unfair, you should get the higher division rewards for beating someone in a higher division.
so my guild of 220 million is shafted.. we can't clear CPIT, Conquest changes have negated any chance of Aeros for me (5.9 GP, 1 GL} and now I am sitting with the requirements of GLOW almost done and still only have one R8 character.
This is not ideal..
Yes, addressing the Gear Crunch is good. I know it's just Phase 1 and will wait for more info but the restrictions of R8 is STILL NOT ADDRESSED when it restricted to High-end Guilds and the TW...
It's a first step... waiting for the other shoe to drop..
In general, I would say that an updated TW misses the mark ... I'm not saying it doesn't need an update, but an updated TW was not what folks have been generally clamoring for. Before Conquest came out, there was a lot of discussion on having a game mode that folks could play and enjoy more frequently (rather than logging in and staring at nothing to do). Conquest came out and 'scratched that itch' for a lot of folks, but Conquest 7 (and 8 and soon 9) went the other way and made it a more grindy event that needs to be done if you wanted better rewards. The updates to GAC were similar ... requiring more teams and ships (at least for my GP) and the time needed to play the event, and which really ends up facing the same teams over-and-over again (I see far more players setting atuo-defense than before the change) ... and, to be clear, I'm fine with having to have better teams to get more/better rewards, but the increased time sink really does need to be considered as does the playability/enjoyment of the events.
With this proposed TW, I'm not confident that it won't just add another grindy component that folks who want to move ahead feel that they "need" to play rather than "want" to play (and I realize no one "needs" to play any of these games, but if you want to keep progressing than you do need to play these events). While it's entirely possible the match-making will be far improved, my concern is that it still seems to be focused on 'power'. With the recent nerfs to non-GLs, GLs will primarily be the name of the game ... the team with more GLs will likely be the winner (as it generally is in GAC) ... and power does not equal # of GLs. It would be nice to get a better idea of the matchmaking mechanisms to better understand what goes into matchmaking.
As for rewards, I'm looking forward to seeing more details/clarifications on reward structures. I'm interested in what happens to the raid boxes for guilds above 220M ... will we be getting equivalent or better rewards than before? For the core box, is it based on win/loss as the text suggests, or is it for everyone over 60M? The ratio of gear for winning and losing at the higher GP seems a bit too lop-sided. To be competitive in TW takes a reasonable amount of time to coordinate and get through, and the rewards need to reflect that fact ... to put in a fair amount of time and effort and come away with nothing in some areas just sucks (I realize that this is to incentivize folks to play the event after many have given up on it, but if the event is enjoyable, people will play it without being incentivized to play it). Also, when added to the time it takes to get through TBs (which run in series with TW), Conquest (which run two weeks at a time) and expanded efforts in GAC ... there's starting to be too much grindy type game play to keep moving ahead, while we (ironically) can still find times where we want to "just play a game" and still find nothing to do.
As for the proposed gear changes, they sound positive, but it's tough to determine since there's really no information on the actually increases (the closest we have is that hard node drop rates are going to almost double). [and, e.g., still no removal of things like Mk IV stun guns in Conquest reward boxes for those of us that have 1000s of them already and get plenty of them from other areas ... nothing worse than grinding an event for two weeks to get Mk IV stun guns]
In the end, as a 6.4M GP player that's definitely not a top end player, and I'm not sure that range is "mid" either, I feel like so many of these changes are aimed at the top-end players who can reach these upper goals, or the low/mid folks to help them catch up.
Finally, many of the guilds I know had just stabilized after CPit, and were in the early phases of recovering from shake-ups from the Conquest changes ... with these changes and the (poorly) timed introduction of R9, I suspect this will add to the folks already leaving the game and more instability for those of us that stay.
So, again, while this could be positive, the track record with CG is that things sound positive, but when the details come out, there's generally more disappointment over the changes (the exception might have been the original release of Conquest).
For crying out loud, play. your. own. game.
Aeromagnifiers aren't the problem.
Other changes are good, but I swear, every single post from CG includes something that they apparently think we should throw a party about, but anyone who's spent 5 minutes on this game can see is not the case (remember kryos were supposed to alleviate the gear crunch? ahahahahahahah)
They dont expect anyone to throw a party, although Doja and Crumb to deserve one.
The changes listed are only phase 1. They are aware there is more to all of this.
They deserve sod all. They're doing nothing positive for the community.
If this is how you feel, then you may little to understanding of what the job is they do.
What is the job they do exactly? Perhaps player sentiment would be a bit more positive if we actually knew.
According to you they are doing great, but if the amount and subjects of the communication we've seen over the last couple of months are what is deemed satily rather be without "community managers". Some anonymous CG account making announcements without follow-up when something changes would pretty much yield the same result and there would be no expectations to meet.
I'm sure they are nice people but from where I'm sitting they add (at least very close to) nothing to the community, so I won't be chipping in for party hats
Wouldn't it be better to have the TW reward structure similar to what's already in place?
i.e R9 pieces 5 for a win / 4 for a loss, decreasing with signed up GP. Still gives incentive to play but doesn't harshly penalise for a loss.
I believe this part was done to more directly deal with the sign up and " do nothing" element of the game mode. Trying to actively push playing the game mode, and really trying to win.
Also with loss tracking the numbers should average out, in theory.
All nice in theory but with potential cross division matchmaking and smaller matchmaking brackets, I think they have just given platform to increased sandbagging to ensure a stable income of Relic mats.
Is the loss tracking seasonal or just total from day X?
Wouldn't it be better to have the TW reward structure similar to what's already in place?
i.e R9 pieces 5 for a win / 4 for a loss, decreasing with signed up GP. Still gives incentive to play but doesn't harshly penalise for a loss.
I believe this part was done to more directly deal with the sign up and " do nothing" element of the game mode. Trying to actively push playing the game mode, and really trying to win.
Also with loss tracking the numbers should average out, in theory.
The concern that I have with with the thought process in your response is that they're using rewards to drive folks to play the event, not giving us an event that is fun and enjoyable that we want to play. Folks would still play TW if it were enjoyable, but every TW looks and feels about the same (same teams, same process, etc) ... and with the new changes to nerf non-GLs it will likely be even worse as it will primarily be dependent on GLs ... and pulling a GAC approach to expand the number of teams needed to be placed on defense or offense just makes the game more of a chore, not more enjoyable.
So, I agree with you that the changes in gear was done to remove the "do nothing" element of TW, but it's likely just going to make the game mode a grind, not increase the enjoyment and that is (to me) the core potential problem with the proposed change. Better matchmaking will make TW more fair, but it won't make it more enjoyable ... and neither will expanding the number of teams on defense and offense ... that's just more work/effort on top of the other game modes that have undergone similar changes.
One last comment, I will agree that changes to the divisions and reward structures were merited, but the mode itself needs to be changed, not just the reward structure or number of teams to be used.
Replies
I wouldnt expect relic recipes to change much in the 8,9 range. But that is just my speculation.
They want to get people into the relic system, but r8 and r9 are still "end game".
Are you surprised?
By making an even bigger incentive for their top players to leave the guild since they will be almost guaranteed to get R8 material in another guild. Those that are left will continue to spiral down because of the lack of access to R8 material that started with the recent Conquest changes.
Things what will happen:
A) hard sandbagging (to ensure win - x3,x4 is better than to get swhoosed away for maybe x5)
C) big pressure for TW officers (no one wants to explain why the strategy didnt worked out...and all just got the shaft)
D) medium sized guilds get nothing of the good stuff - nothing at all (enjoy community and players around you - so you still play? forget that you wont be competitive anymore!)...death to medium sized guilds
Galactic challanges or freaking conquest would have been the right place to R9 - but your poor MM TW is a bad place for it.
If this is how you feel, then you may little to understanding of what the job is they do.
The truth is that Impulse Detectors are the bigger bottleneck to R8 than Aeromags. Forces a strategic decision on players for sure (Do I want more R8 or more G13 toons), which really is a personal choice. But the focus only on aeromags on the gear changes doesn't really make R8 easier to attain. Need to address both materials if it truly is the goal.
i.e R9 pieces 5 for a win / 4 for a loss, decreasing with signed up GP. Still gives incentive to play but doesn't harshly penalise for a loss.
I am in a 270 Mio guild, we are working on our members for months now and even did a fusion. Still being stuck at 50% P4 and big players leaving because progress is to slow. Problem is if you have a lot of older and/or bloated roster but not enough legends, Crancor is a sad joke
Unfortunately yes any time something changes in a guild event guilds do shift around. It would probably take a very lack luster change to have this not be the case.
The thing is, with gear economy changes guilds can grow into end game content vs needing a few big fish to hold them up.
You can obtain Impulse Detectors with crystals, you can only get Aeromags through CPit and Conque$t. The changes to Conque$t made Aeromags twice as hard to obtain (at least during this round of 3) if you aren't in a CPit guild. The bottleneck for those people is not addressed at all, except with encouragement to leave their guild.
I think others explained it well enough.
A guild with 220 mil GP is not desirable for their own top10 players anymore. They probably contribute well above 30% (probably 40%) to the CHPit, and they are getting less aeros. Sooooo, they either wait until they get (as a guild) to 260 million, which is...... noble, to say, but probably not their most rational choice or they leave. (if they find a guild to accept them, which seems to be harder albeit not impossible) Oh and if that 220M GP guild loses 15-20 M more GP, they are likely to not beat the ChPit anymore.
Something really similar can be concluded for a 270 M GP guild, just with r9, not r8.
At this point it is really hard to argue for a guild to accept someone less than their average GP.
It is also hard to argue for someone to stay in a guild where he has more GP than the guild average.
There will be exceptions, of course because loyalty and friendship is still a thing, but I only said it is a kick in the teeth. Might be a death sentence, as others claimed it but I wouldnt rush for that so early. But I am pretty sure they will suffer a lot. If a 7.5 Mil GP player leaves a 260M GP they are not going to replace that player easily.
This looks like by far one of the best overall changes this game has seen in a long, long time.
Stun guns being this much more accessible is going to be amazing, and the TW matchmaking stuff, while I still think most guilds that I've seen complain about it have nothing to blame but themselves, is still definitely warranted.
With that said...
Here's the negatives I'm seeing.
R9 is locked behind a 6M GP average, and over 7M GP average for a guild with 50/50 TW participation for actual decent amounts of the mats. This is going to completely cannibalize not just smaller guilds of higher GP players, but also high GP guilds of non-actively-participating players - There's going to be a LOT of guild kicking people that don't participate in TW because it's going to push them down tiers of rewards for an exclusive material.
Additionally, the C.pit change is going to completely remove almost any incentive a high GP player had to merc C.pit for lower powered guilds, which is going to further reduce the amount of people clearing C.pit, and thus getting R8 mats, rather than do anything to actually improve the universal R8 acquisition rate.
These 2 things, combined with C.pit in general and the ever-growing likelihood of KAM eventually being required for a GL, Wat already being required at 7* for a GL, and the GL R8 requirements and whatnot significantly growing.... are going to do a very, very bad thing for guilds.
Remove the human aspect.
This is VERY MUCH pushing guilds to become a thing purely for utility, and remove any desire for human interaction in exchange for just finding the highest GP guild you can that has 50/50 participation in TW.
And then those guilds are in turn going to be highly incentivized to start kicking their lower GP members and kicking people for daring to take a vacation or have a power outage, which is going to make finding a guild that's higher GP than what you're at nearly impossible, and is going to make high-level guilds absolutely horrendous to actually be a part of.
The huge effects this is going to have on guild structures over the coming months is going to completely destroy most guilds that have any members that remotely care about optimal progress, and a lot of guilds are going to be losing both their bottom and top players - Bottom because it's now even worse to have a single person at 3M GP in a guild that otherwise averages 6M, top because that mega-whale that was carrying a guild through C.rancor now needs to be in a guild that's actually GP-appropriate in order to be able to even get R9 mats.
I'm really not sure tying this stuff to guild events is really the best idea.
On one hand I'm super hyped for the gear changes, because I can finally get characters and teams up and running in a actually decent amount of time once the changes start kicking in.
On the other hand I'm very much realizing that I'm going to be nearly forced to completely abandon my guild that I'm literally an officer in and nearly co-lead because I'm in the top like 5 people in the guild and that's now a very, very, very bad thing for my ability to continue competing in arena,.as my ONLY option to get R9 characters is to either convince the other high-GP people in the guild to basically kick well over half the guild, or to just leave the guild and go try and find something at or near 300M+ that's willing to take me, which is by far the easier and arguably better option.
And I can say, with 100% confidence, that over my 20-something years of gaming, this is the first time I've been forced to make that decision. All of my world-first-tier guilds I've ever been in have also had extremely bad players that just weren't invited to events, not that were straight removed because the guild as a whole had to reach a certain minimum ilvl or w/e.
Not to mention just how ridiculous all these recent GP locks for the sake of GP locks have actually been.
I've loved the shard economy overhaul.
I've loved basically every remotely recent character addition.
I've loved the new modes and content.
But all the recent relic levels and GL requirements and whatnot feel like they're just completely needlessly locked behind being a very high GP player, in a very high GP average guild, for absolutely no reason.
Games are supposed to be fun.
Games are supposed to be games.
Not... Meritocracy simulators.
I believe this part was done to more directly deal with the sign up and " do nothing" element of the game mode. Trying to actively push playing the game mode, and really trying to win.
Also with loss tracking the numbers should average out, in theory.
We have been able to clear CPit for 6 months now (guild GP is now 290M but we were around 260M the first time we cleared it) and the templates for beating CPit are well known now. There are no prize boxes that award impulse detectors. You either need to spend cash, crystals, big time conquest currency or liquidate G12 pieces (Medpacs, Multitools or Bayonets) to acquire them. Like I said strategic decision on using the gear in the scavenger ... do I want more relic 8 or G13 characters? If they want to make R8 truly easier to attain, they either put impulse detectors in prize boxes or increase the amount of convertible G12 gear awarded. Pretty simple.
But there just has to be at least one stinker in every update from CG. Locking r9 behind guild gp gate sucks big time, especially when it will be inevitably required for GLs in the future. It seems that they are simply moving the divide between whales and the rest of the ecosystem from gear in general to r9.
No you read this correctly, but may have some misunderstanding about what has happened each time new end game elements are released.
They always start at the top and move them down over time. They also set this up to give a reward to development, and an incentive to develop more.
This is not ideal..
Yes, addressing the Gear Crunch is good. I know it's just Phase 1 and will wait for more info but the restrictions of R8 is STILL NOT ADDRESSED when it restricted to High-end Guilds and the TW...
It's a first step... waiting for the other shoe to drop..
With this proposed TW, I'm not confident that it won't just add another grindy component that folks who want to move ahead feel that they "need" to play rather than "want" to play (and I realize no one "needs" to play any of these games, but if you want to keep progressing than you do need to play these events). While it's entirely possible the match-making will be far improved, my concern is that it still seems to be focused on 'power'. With the recent nerfs to non-GLs, GLs will primarily be the name of the game ... the team with more GLs will likely be the winner (as it generally is in GAC) ... and power does not equal # of GLs. It would be nice to get a better idea of the matchmaking mechanisms to better understand what goes into matchmaking.
As for rewards, I'm looking forward to seeing more details/clarifications on reward structures. I'm interested in what happens to the raid boxes for guilds above 220M ... will we be getting equivalent or better rewards than before? For the core box, is it based on win/loss as the text suggests, or is it for everyone over 60M? The ratio of gear for winning and losing at the higher GP seems a bit too lop-sided. To be competitive in TW takes a reasonable amount of time to coordinate and get through, and the rewards need to reflect that fact ... to put in a fair amount of time and effort and come away with nothing in some areas just sucks (I realize that this is to incentivize folks to play the event after many have given up on it, but if the event is enjoyable, people will play it without being incentivized to play it). Also, when added to the time it takes to get through TBs (which run in series with TW), Conquest (which run two weeks at a time) and expanded efforts in GAC ... there's starting to be too much grindy type game play to keep moving ahead, while we (ironically) can still find times where we want to "just play a game" and still find nothing to do.
As for the proposed gear changes, they sound positive, but it's tough to determine since there's really no information on the actually increases (the closest we have is that hard node drop rates are going to almost double). [and, e.g., still no removal of things like Mk IV stun guns in Conquest reward boxes for those of us that have 1000s of them already and get plenty of them from other areas ... nothing worse than grinding an event for two weeks to get Mk IV stun guns]
In the end, as a 6.4M GP player that's definitely not a top end player, and I'm not sure that range is "mid" either, I feel like so many of these changes are aimed at the top-end players who can reach these upper goals, or the low/mid folks to help them catch up.
Finally, many of the guilds I know had just stabilized after CPit, and were in the early phases of recovering from shake-ups from the Conquest changes ... with these changes and the (poorly) timed introduction of R9, I suspect this will add to the folks already leaving the game and more instability for those of us that stay.
So, again, while this could be positive, the track record with CG is that things sound positive, but when the details come out, there's generally more disappointment over the changes (the exception might have been the original release of Conquest).
I sincerely hope I'm wrong here.
What is the job they do exactly? Perhaps player sentiment would be a bit more positive if we actually knew.
According to you they are doing great, but if the amount and subjects of the communication we've seen over the last couple of months are what is deemed satily rather be without "community managers". Some anonymous CG account making announcements without follow-up when something changes would pretty much yield the same result and there would be no expectations to meet.
I'm sure they are nice people but from where I'm sitting they add (at least very close to) nothing to the community, so I won't be chipping in for party hats
All nice in theory but with potential cross division matchmaking and smaller matchmaking brackets, I think they have just given platform to increased sandbagging to ensure a stable income of Relic mats.
Is the loss tracking seasonal or just total from day X?
The concern that I have with with the thought process in your response is that they're using rewards to drive folks to play the event, not giving us an event that is fun and enjoyable that we want to play. Folks would still play TW if it were enjoyable, but every TW looks and feels about the same (same teams, same process, etc) ... and with the new changes to nerf non-GLs it will likely be even worse as it will primarily be dependent on GLs ... and pulling a GAC approach to expand the number of teams needed to be placed on defense or offense just makes the game more of a chore, not more enjoyable.
So, I agree with you that the changes in gear was done to remove the "do nothing" element of TW, but it's likely just going to make the game mode a grind, not increase the enjoyment and that is (to me) the core potential problem with the proposed change. Better matchmaking will make TW more fair, but it won't make it more enjoyable ... and neither will expanding the number of teams on defense and offense ... that's just more work/effort on top of the other game modes that have undergone similar changes.
One last comment, I will agree that changes to the divisions and reward structures were merited, but the mode itself needs to be changed, not just the reward structure or number of teams to be used.
Thanks.