Question for top ranked FTP players
My supposition is that the only way for a FTP (a true FTP, not a "I spent money but now I don't" one) to get rank 1 on a server is to have the level pause like there was at level 60 then level 70. This must have allowed FTP's to get caught up to the PTP's.
Otherwise I don't see how an FTP player can get to #1 competing with people that are leveling and gearing much more rapidly than others.
Would you top ranked FTP players agree or disagree with this? Did the level pauses assist you?
Otherwise I don't see how an FTP player can get to #1 competing with people that are leveling and gearing much more rapidly than others.
Would you top ranked FTP players agree or disagree with this? Did the level pauses assist you?
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and not a dime spent right? No crystal packs, no $5 starter bundle etc....
Now as the game progresses the numbers of high spenders per server drops so the caps likely wouldn't be as high. But the pause at 70 allowed me to get to number 1 and then keep pace from 70-80.
Disclosure: I bought the $5 ewok pack so no longer true FTP
Pauses definitely help. I'm FTP (sans $10 on a dooku pack and one-time $5 subscription) and am fortunate to only see a few whales on my shard. I was able to catch up at 60 with a single dedicated team (Sid/Poe/IG-86/GS/Poggle). There also weren't many meta shifts at 60 but the one that did happen (Poe) was one that I was a part of early. I got ahead of the whales on my shard that had been primarily running Jedi. When the speed meta came along with 70 I had stored up ~4k crystals from being routinely top-5 in my shard and was able to outpace other FTP and stay within a few levels of my resident 2 whales (there are now a few more at the top) . I had also made sure I spread out my stars and wasn't getting anyone up to 7* so I was prepared for meta shifts. 6* toons are perfectly fine top tier arena but if you have too low of a score, even though it's meaningless, you do get targeted more frequently and there is still no foolproof defensive team.
With the level 80 move I struggle a little more to stay top-5 causing me to typically buy two refreshes instead of one. I think that is much more due to the current Dooku/RG meta being unfriendly to people who don't spend money and farmed RG legit since his buff and haven't farmed Rey. I'll have RG up to 6* in another week or so but I suspect both him and Dooku will get nerfed soon so I'm trying to build up a Rebel team which along with a Droid team seems to be the most likely to survive future changes.
But for example there is a my friend @Dooku_for_days , FTP, that can reach and keep rank 1 each day more easily..
Only in the recent 3 weeks I've managed to climb into top 10 with the speed meta.
And slowly I gotten top 5 every day.
There were times I got number 1, but ever since the capped lifted and some of the whales managed to pre-craft gears, it got harder to get number 1 spot, but still, I get number 2 which is great for f2p too.
Yes, the pauses helped F2p greatly because things become stale and almost everything is evenly matched with p2p except for gears.
You catch up on all those eventually until it's lifted again.
So keep playing! and be active all the time!
I'm actually not FTP, I'm a ptp player. I have seen a lot of ftp people touting that they can keep top ranks etc and I just don't see how that's possible for someone just starting out. Those that have commented on this thread have for the most part confirmed that most that are ftp and on top benefited from the level pauses.
It is this reason that I wrote this thread a while back: https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/discussion/26674/why-do-they-not-lock-down-each-shard
People don't always realize now how they benefited in ways that new players don't benefit from. All they see is what impacts themselves and can't see past their own myopic viewpoint. For instance, all the talk of pre-crafted gear and how EA doesn't care etc when in fact the total userbase this would have actually impacted has to be such a low percentage and with all the bugs impacting 100% of the user base, it is obvious where the focus could be.
People say that some things are "just a blip in the radar".... every few seconds you hear a "beep"....."beep"....."beep"
But for the person actually *in* the blip.... it sounds like "beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep"
Everyone sounds from their beeeeeeeeeeep
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Not in this game no. But I did do a lot of research and things when I got started so I farmed good toons from early on which helped a lot
This allows them to finish GW consistently and have a roster that is not significantly behind the average PTP.
Then once at cap compete for number 1
Level pauses obviously help. So did starting out with the game. There are more avenues for people to P2W now so the gap between have and have-nots will be higher in arena. Since arena is the source of the crystal lifeblood of a competitive FTP player that matters.
But I've never seen a shard other than the soft release shard that had more than a handful of true whales that are spending thousands of dollars to stay in front. And the difference between spending thousands and spending a couple hundred are huge. All it takes for a FTP player to catch someone who's spent $200 is a one or two bad farms by the paying player.
So while getting #1 is going to take longer because of those things getting to the top 10 should be very doable by any FTP in a month or two of playing. It's obviously helpful if you get in a fresh shard at start (ie. first day you do arena you're already in the top 200 and not in the 10000s) but even a slightly older shard will still be something you can catch up to.
This update that was just rolled, showed me the difference between p2p and f2p. Sure, you can get almost same characters as f2p, the difference is it will take me 4 months to get what he has and it took him 2 days, because he already had them. And one of the characters, Leia, the most broken one, i can't get. So it pays to be p2p i guess!
One thing that I noticed is that many times the big bottleneck is stars, yet eventually you'll max out on a toon and that part will be done. Gear and levels come relatively quickly compared to stars, so it's easy to make those up. I think getting those 7* characters is probably a bigger deal than the level cap.
However, if you don't choose who to star up optimally you can end up behind the meta and limited on how high you can go. For me, investing in the Yoda event and not using refreshes well the first couple months meant no 7* Dooku which is a disadvantage. I also didn't jump on RG right away, so I'm a bit behind on him. I also don't have Rey. None of these are deal breakers when it comes to arena, but the combination has left my team options a bit limited.
So you can catch up even if you're behind, but to be top level you have to be very careful on who you focus on and may not be able to "waste" time and resources on things like the Yoda event or Droid/Ewok events without potentially sacrificing your arena team.
There's also no real way to confirm if these f2p players have actually spent no money - the Internet has an abundance of trolls and lack of honesty, after all.
This. Older shard f2p players are at a disadvantage, as many of them (if they were trying to compete in arena) have undoubtedly chased bad metas. Barris, then Poe, etc. The issue is that on an older shard, if the p2p players are still spending money to stay ahead of the curve, the f2p player takes longer to catch the new meta.
The level cap increases over time also hurt. Just before the level cap was raised I was in the top 20 and even snagged top 10 (with no refreshes) a couple of times. Now I am staying in the top 50...just barely. And I have to be fairly active at payout to do so. I did bank a day's worth of energy prior to the cap raise, that helped (I'll hit 75 in 12 hours or so).
I think what f2p players have to do with the level raise is simply push their arena team up as fast as they level. Then, when they finally hit the cap, continue to focus on your "B" heroes - just in case the meta shifts again. That way, you can swap in "B" heroes if they are the new meta over your "A" squad. At least this seemed to help when the cap hit 70. I worked on Ahsoka, ST Han and Droids. ST Han will hit 7* in 3-4 days and that will help a lot.
In game guild: TNR Uprising
I beat the REAL T7 Yoda (not the nerfed one) and did so before mods were there to help
*This space left intentionally blank*
QGJ
Lumi
Yoda or Daka
Dooku
ST Han
All gear 9. 34000+ power. How? I spend all my time on 6 characters.
Whales can gear up 20 toons. Until more than 5 are allowed in arena it doesn't matter much.
The issue of course is, if they hit one or two of those heroes with the nerf bat, you (as most f2p players would be) are screwed. Ask any f2p players that lived through the Poe meta with Barris (or the current one with Poe). You just happened to guess correctly, with heroes that worked in previous metas and are still viable. A majority of f2p don't get so lucky.
In game guild: TNR Uprising
I beat the REAL T7 Yoda (not the nerfed one) and did so before mods were there to help
*This space left intentionally blank*
I'm sure it doesn't hurt that you had the foresight to precraft (I still have no idea why they allow the equipping of this gear while not opening it to general farming).
How would you get Yoda if you didn't focus on jedi?
i call ****
and this claim only proves that f2p players cant addapt fast to meta changes because they can only focus on 6 toons
Well not only this, but if you read my supposition it is that any FTP player that is top ranked had to benefit at some point of a level pause. There's just no way without incredible luck otherwise that you'd keep top rank and yet I see far too many ftp players claiming that they don't need to spend money to be top ranked.... maybe not but they absolutely did need to spend time and a lot of it. Always 2 sides to every coin
A lot of it is luck for sure. Both to have what works in the meta and be on a server that doesn't have insane whales going for the high rank.
This game has strategy but not to the point where you can outsmart your opponent with subpar pieces. This isn't chess.
I don't think that's true; I just don't think people have had the time to adapt quite yet. Give it time, there's a new meta for sure....
Besides pre crafted gear and level, there aren't that many ptp exclusive charecters that are in the meta. They get Leia, a few more stars for RG, or an ewok or clone squad.
In fact, I think this past update was good for ftp players. Why? Because protection is the same reguardless of stars! With the same gear a 5* RG and a 7* RG are now closer to strength with protection than they were pre update.