Recent change to Galactic War - open conversation

Replies

  • A few more things to mention:
    1. Random number seed – ...Currently if you change positions of the members in your party, that will invoke a re-roll of the seed. So, some players are focusing in on that as their “strategy” in order to keep re-rolling the seed in order to get a desired result. That isn’t how the feature is meant to work. Stay tuned, and don’t be surprised if we make a change here.

    @CG_JohnSalera At first I thought this was the case, however after a few attempts I found this not to be the case. If you swap any members around with existing members, say I move Lumi from slot 2 to 5, and Daka from 5 to 2. They both give the same results. The only time moving members around produces different results is if you change the leader, like swapping Sideous with Lumi. So unless you change your leader, the only other way to change the result is to sub in a new character. (This is all barring changing actions in the match).

    This is my observations too. After tring all combination's of attacks swap a new toon in and retry to find desired results.
  • Schmozart
    7 posts Member
    edited January 2016
    +1 Cpt Dan

    so basicly i like the change, there should be a reason to train more than 5 toons and GW is the best place for that

    however the way the changes were (not) announced made ppl angry/frustrated. it hadnt to be like that, let me suggest the sandwich model: http://www.wikihow.com/Give-a-Feedback-Sandwich

    you pair bad news (GW will be harder) with good news (BUT youll get some XP/more shards/....) if you manage2 complete it

    would ve been a fair deal and not hard to implement. right now it just feels so bad to retry fights for the best outcome (with full health) and then finally get the same rewards which were 'free' b4 the update hit live....
  • There is close to zero strategy involved in GW now. You simply throw your characters at the enemy teams until you either win or run out of characters. You can't swap out low hp heroes or rotate in specific heroes to use high damage skills to take out specific characters. You can't even use tanks to eat the first wave of high damage skills from the AI and then bring in dps characters. All you can do now is constantly retreat or reset the game when you reach an OP whale team and hope the enemy AI doesn't crit/double attack/apply debuffs on the next RNG roll.
  • Cpt_Dan wrote: »
    adaylife80 wrote: »
    Do you really want discuss about this topic? Then how did you delete other posts about GW? There are over 400 opinions. This seems like you don't want to talking with players.

    They merged them into a new thread for good housekeeping, they weren't deleted.



    Ah...I found it I could not realize cause there are no new reply notice. thanks!!

    Cpt_Dan wrote: »
    adaylife80 wrote: »
    Do you really want discuss about this topic? Then how did you delete other posts about GW? There are over 400 opinions. This seems like you don't want to talking with players.

    They merged them into a new thread for good housekeeping, they weren't deleted.

    @CG_JohnSalera if GW is intended to be the pinnacle of end game achievement and the difficulty is designed to match that, I'm more than okay with that idea. The issue then, is that the rewards Aren't in a place to match. The credits are nice, but not enough to do more than gain one level or so or a lower end promotion. The ability mats won't do anything beyond one skill improvement (maybe a rank 3-4) and the single shard is mostly laughable for the final reward.

    I don't have the perfect solution here but could we get some sort of meaningful increase? At least base it on level. This could also be a way to give free players a chance at harder to obtain shards. Whatever you guys decide there just increase the value and then have GW as the grand game me that I think it was dreamed of.

    Disclosure: I'm not a f2p player, nor a whale


    Ah....I found it. I could not realize cause there was not new reply notice thanks!!

    and sorry @CG_JohnSalera
  • Varlie
    1286 posts Member
    edited January 2016

    First, here’s how Retreat used to work:
    1. Previously, you could start a GW Battle and then Retreat as soon as the AI team had taken at least one action. When doing this, a few things were retained and a few things weren’t.
    2. Things that were retained:
      • Character death
      • Health loss
      • Special Ability cool downs
    3. Things that were not retained:
      • Turn meters
      • Buffs, debuffs, and status effects (like stun)
    4. The net result is you could go in and out of battles and take advantage of the things that are not retained. For example: if the AI party had built up buffs for them or if your team had debuffs / dots / status effects / etc., by using Retreat you could wipe out that part of the game. Couple this with the turn meters being reset, and the player could use the menu system to greatly impact the outcome of the battle.
    That was never the design intent of this feature.

    The goals of the Galactic War feature were to:
    1. Provide a real challenge to players. In other words: it’s meant to be hard! 
    2. Provide a place in the game where your entire collection can be brought to bear. Potentially every character can help you succeed (more on this below).
    3. Provide a “war of attrition” where health is persisted as you progressed in battles, not as you danced in and out of a given battle as was previously happening.
    4. And this will have more impact as the meta continues to expand,) provide a place where there’s an ever-evolving set of challenges in terms of which characters / parties / builds can be most effective.

    In pursuit of bringing the feature back in line with the original intent, here’s what we changed:
    1. Now, as long as you press Retreat before the battle ends, you exit the battle and everything is reset as if you hadn’t started the battle. It’s an instant rewind.
    2. This allows you to try different party compositions to unlock the victory. As a result, progression happens at the “Battle level” and not at the “turn level” as before.
    A common concern expressed is that this removes strategy.

    Thanks!

    Thank you for your detailed post but I still think the change completely alerted the attrition factor of galaxy war.

    Wouldn't the following change kept both the attrition factor and the original idea of the war better than being able to reset each battle at whim?
    1. Things that were retained:
      • Character death
      • Health loss
      • Special Ability cool downs
      • Buffs, debuffs, and status effects (like stun)
    2. Things that were not retained:
      • Turn meters

      By maintaining buffs and debuffs on retreat you completely bypass the "cheat aspect" of the retreat while still marinating the war time feel of sending in tanks first (or pawns/cattle) to take the big hits and then bringing in your "A team" to clean up.
  • Nonemo wrote: »
    @adaylife80 Let's be honest. When emotions start flaring a lot of topics get posted. All of them don't contribute to the quality of the discussion. I'm an offender myself there. Getting a fresh start for the discussion is a good thing. And this thread has so far been very level headed and constructive.

    I found new merged post now even I could not realize that. But I can not agree 'all of them'
  • Hi everyone –


    [*] Provide a real challenge to players. In other words: it’s meant to be hard! 
    [*] Provide a place in the game where your entire collection can be brought to bear. Potentially every character can help you succeed (more on this below).
    [*] Provide a “war of attrition” where health is persisted as you progressed in battles, not as you danced in and out of a given battle as was previously happening.
    [*] And this will have more impact as the meta continues to expand,) provide a place where there’s an ever-evolving set of challenges in terms of which characters / parties / builds can be most effective.
    [/list]

    In pursuit of bringing the feature back in line with the original intent, here’s what we changed:
    1. Now, as long as you press Retreat before the battle ends, you exit the battle and everything is reset as if you hadn’t started the battle. It’s an instant rewind.
    2. This allows you to try different party compositions to unlock the victory. As a result, progression happens at the “Battle level” and not at the “turn level” as before.
    A common concern expressed is that this removes strategy. What is or isn’t strategic is a surprisingly subjective thing, so I don’t want to belabor this point. However, the strategic elements are now focused where they were meant to be:
    1. What decisions have you made in terms of how you build out and upgrade your overall collection. In other words, beyond your “A Team” how strong is your bench?
    2. When approaching a battle, how can you use your collection as a whole to overcome the challenge? Here is something we haven’t seen anyone mention (apologies if we’ve missed it…): there is still very much a use for the lower power “pawns” in your collection. If you want to absorb the special attacks from a given opponent party, you can send in one or more lower power characters. They’ll likely take one for the team (e.g., die), but then you can bring in your stronger characters to mop up.
    3. How can you dismantle a given opponent party while minimizing loss of characters, minimizing lost health, reserving your special attacks until they’re absolutely needed, and micro-managing the cool-downs of all of your characters?
    4. When facing a certain kind of party (stun lock, crit damage, Jedi party, healers, revive, etc., etc., etc.) what elements of your own collection can you best bring to defeat that challenge?

    I have a few objections to what you are saying here:
    1. Provide a “war of attrition” - If the matches were generally even throughout it would be a war of attrition. As it is, it is a game of playing luck, both in terms of matchups and the RNG. In today's GW (8th battle), my 4* level 51 team went up against a 5* level 60 team featuring Poggle, Kylo Ren, Maul and Sidious. Most of the iterations I tried involved me being annihilated, with Poggle's offense up causing one of the others to smoke my entire team. I beat it only because on about the 20th (or more) try, some of my players were able to dodge the first few moves. If you flip a coin enough times, you will get heads 10 times in a row. This was not a war of attrition. No strategy I chose could have had me winning with a 50/50 chance.

    2. Allowing to switch out players mid-battle would be a better way to encourage a deeper bench. Right now, it is forcing you to go with your A-team for every battle. Int he prior version, I would mix it up some time. For example, I had been more likely to throw in my lower level Geonosian occasionally if I needed to take some shots quick in a battle (if the other team had some glass cannons and taunters). I could then replace his corpse with someone else. Now, I will never use him.

    3. I agree with the earlier posters that this is not as big a deal for people who have been playing a while and were able to build a big bench. It has now become much more difficult for newer players to progress, and are more likely to lose interest. For me, this won't cause me to give up the game for good, but it has pushed me closer (combined with the bigger issue of the time commitment it requires).
  • I think the easiest fix for the random number seed would be to remove retreat entirely. I feel like GW is still too easy which from your explanation does not seem to be in the spirit. I feel like the rewards should be increased and it should be made more difficult. The sheer number of lumis running around shows that it was far too simple and that hasn't really changed.
  • Nonemo wrote: »
    @420_Fett With all due respect, you're bringing up a point here that I personally have a very hard time grasping. I just never understood why it's so much more fun to retreat mid battle (and effectively nullifying a lot of abilities that are part of the game experience) than to restart the battle and try an entirely new strategy. The second option, to me, just seems much less "chopped up" and more fluent.

    When I did the old form of retreating I just got caught up with the tedious task of keeping EVERYBODY alive, literally only playing the battle for a few swings at a time, switching in the right team for the heal, then quickly taking them out again. It took forever and I didn't get the feeling that the battles really mattered.

    I wasn't playing the battle, it was more of me playing the game dynamics.

    But that's just my point of view. What I really want to stress though is, that even though you feel that this change is a terrible turn for the worse, I think it might be appropriate to not start speculating in how all the other players feel... Or claiming that now people will stop spending money... I don't see how ANYBODY could possess knowledge about that at this point in time. So it's very hard to take those claims seriously. Sorry for being frank here.
    Nonemo wrote: »
    @420_Fett With all due respect, you're bringing up a point here that I personally have a very hard time grasping. I just never understood why it's so much more fun to retreat mid battle (and effectively nullifying a lot of abilities that are part of the game experience) than to restart the battle and try an entirely new strategy. The second option, to me, just seems much less "chopped up" and more fluent.

    When I did the old form of retreating I just got caught up with the tedious task of keeping EVERYBODY alive, literally only playing the battle for a few swings at a time, switching in the right team for the heal, then quickly taking them out again. It took forever and I didn't get the feeling that the battles really mattered.

    I wasn't playing the battle, it was more of me playing the game dynamics.

    This is my feeling exactly. I spent so much time and frustration swapping chars out and grief when an unlucky rng killed one of my characters. I never used fc so I had to keep trying to win without my main team. This way is more fun and more about the battle and squad makeups instead of swapping in and out. As mentioned you can still throw some level 30 toons in to eat the enemy AOE or stuns. You just have to let them be defeated.
  • A common concern expressed is that this removes strategy. What is or isn’t strategic is a surprisingly subjective thing, so I don’t want to belabor this point. However, the strategic elements are now focused where they were meant to be:

    [*] When approaching a battle, how can you use your collection as a whole to overcome the challenge? Here is something we haven’t seen anyone mention (apologies if we’ve missed it…): there is still very much a use for the lower power “pawns” in your collection. If you want to absorb the special attacks from a given opponent party, you can send in one or more lower power characters. They’ll likely take one for the team (e.g., die), but then you can bring in your stronger characters to mop up.
    [*] How can you dismantle a given opponent party while minimizing loss of characters, minimizing lost health, reserving your special attacks until they’re absolutely needed, and micro-managing the cool-downs of all of your characters?
    [*] When facing a certain kind of party (stun lock, crit damage, Jedi party, healers, revive, etc., etc., etc.) what elements of your own collection can you best bring to defeat that challenge?
    [/list]

    John, Thanks for your post. Still too early for me to judge on the merits of the update (only one GW, which I completed), so I'll reserve full judgement on that.

    That said, one suggestion did occur. A lot of what I've been reading (from @Qeltar and others) is that GW now an "RNG" game, where you basically play the same match again and again until you win while suffering the least amount of damage. It is not worthwhile to move on otherwise, since losing a member of your "A" team is just too dangerous.

    Separately, I see you write above that part of the goal is to maximize your whole collection and think about synergies. Even considering using a "pawn" strategically. I think players will not adapt this behavior quickly because, given that GW is so difficult (i.e. you play against higher level teams pretty early on), playing a match with a pawn and the rest of your "A" team will probably be way too costly to your other four "A" team members. I.e. it is unlikely that the rest of your "A" team emerges victorious unscathed.

    I think a way to incentivize the behavior that you want is to allow us to see the entire 60 players that we will face in the galactic war in the beggining. It'll allow us to "plan" for the war of attrition and add a huge layer of strategy!

    If I'm at node 8 and I got a semi-difficult match in node 8, but I know that the match at node 9 is a very tough match, I'll want my "A" team for the very tough match. So let's make some miracles happen with the "B" team on this semi-difficult match! Also, let me better plan my cooldowns and characters buffs, because I know that here comes Poe in Node 9 with his taunt/expose early in the Node 9 match. If I don't know what's coming after node 8, I will just use my "A" team over and over again until I win with the least amount of damage, since that's the safest path to maximizing daily rewards. It does not spur creativity.

    Anyways, food for thought. Keep up the good work. @CG_JohnSalera @EA_Jesse
  • Reddplague
    766 posts Member
    edited January 2016
    Subbing out team mates was how I used it but, now it's pointless. Before I could sub a healer to heal the team once I killed most of the AI team. Swapping healers was very important for me to advance each node.
  • I'd just like to inform FTP peeps that big spending on this game does not impart the huge advantage you think.
    The diminishing returns are brutal. (i have about $600 USD in) .
    I'm58 and have quite a rooster with 18 level 1s , only 6 are 58. Another 6 are over 50 the rest mostly low level.
    I have tons of unused gems for use over time. I stopped spending crazy because at higher levels it's impossible to afford on any budget.
    All that to make this point GW changes are in fact pretty good. A lot of my battles contain pure level 60 teams that seemed invicible.
    I came here and read more about the change and found the pawn sacrifice concept effective.
    I can use more of my level35-45 roster than I thought possible in this format.
    The replay value and play time became fun again after trying new configurations.
    Don't give up so easy tomorrow, be thoughtful with your roster don't try to steamroll with your A team.
  • Nonemo
    1656 posts Member
    @Relsch I really want to second this point... People just seem to give up way too quickly.

    I also read a post by somebody who didn't like the new GW because he can't beat it without spending a lot of time manipulating the RNG. In my opinion that's a kind of weird logic that makes this discussion so difficult. Instead of simply realising that this element of the game is too tough (just like the first time Savage Oppress pwned me in the Healers and Support challenge) and that s/he should work to get a better roster, they go to the forum and complain that they are missing out on stuff.

    I just can't understand this mindset. If I have a roster that clearly isn't up for the task at the level of the game I'm playing, and I still can get a few sneaky wins anyway by spending a long time manipulating RNG, shouldn't I be happy for that at least?
  • I think GW is still very doable and my team is pretty bad.
  • Nonemo wrote: »
    @Relsch I really want to second this point... People just seem to give up way too quickly.

    I also read a post by somebody who didn't like the new GW because he can't beat it without spending a lot of time manipulating the RNG. In my opinion that's a kind of weird logic that makes this discussion so difficult. Instead of simply realising that this element of the game is too tough (just like the first time Savage Oppress pwned me in the Healers and Support challenge) and that s/he should work to get a better roster, they go to the forum and complain that they are missing out on stuff.

    I just can't understand this mindset. If I have a roster that clearly isn't up for the task at the level of the game I'm playing, and I still can get a few sneaky wins anyway by spending a long time manipulating RNG, shouldn't I be happy for that at least?

    Not sure if you are referring to me Nemo, but how should I have dealt with beating a team 9 levels and a full star better than me? I have a relatively deep bench with 8 similarly skilled players, but when the difference between my level and the opponent is so high, my only chance is luck (aka RNG). You talk a lot but your logic is flawed. I am all for a skilled game of attrition. That would happen if the battles were more balanced throughout.

  • Nonemo wrote: »
    @Relsch I really want to second this point... People just seem to give up way too quickly.

    I also read a post by somebody who didn't like the new GW because he can't beat it without spending a lot of time manipulating the RNG. In my opinion that's a kind of weird logic that makes this discussion so difficult. Instead of simply realising that this element of the game is too tough (just like the first time Savage Oppress pwned me in the Healers and Support challenge) and that s/he should work to get a better roster, they go to the forum and complain that they are missing out on stuff.

    I just can't understand this mindset. If I have a roster that clearly isn't up for the task at the level of the game I'm playing, and I still can get a few sneaky wins anyway by spending a long time manipulating RNG, shouldn't I be happy for that at least?

    This. People think they are entitled to win GW. It is far too easy. Make it a challenge, nothing in this game is a challenge...GW was supposed to be the challenge. Make it so.
  • Varlie wrote: »

    First, here’s how Retreat used to work:
    1. Previously, you could start a GW Battle and then Retreat as soon as the AI team had taken at least one action. When doing this, a few things were retained and a few things weren’t.
    2. Things that were retained:
      • Character death
      • Health loss
      • Special Ability cool downs
    3. Things that were not retained:
      • Turn meters
      • Buffs, debuffs, and status effects (like stun)
    4. The net result is you could go in and out of battles and take advantage of the things that are not retained. For example: if the AI party had built up buffs for them or if your team had debuffs / dots / status effects / etc., by using Retreat you could wipe out that part of the game. Couple this with the turn meters being reset, and the player could use the menu system to greatly impact the outcome of the battle.
    That was never the design intent of this feature.

    The goals of the Galactic War feature were to:
    1. Provide a real challenge to players. In other words: it’s meant to be hard! 
    2. Provide a place in the game where your entire collection can be brought to bear. Potentially every character can help you succeed (more on this below).
    3. Provide a “war of attrition” where health is persisted as you progressed in battles, not as you danced in and out of a given battle as was previously happening.
    4. And this will have more impact as the meta continues to expand,) provide a place where there’s an ever-evolving set of challenges in terms of which characters / parties / builds can be most effective.

    In pursuit of bringing the feature back in line with the original intent, here’s what we changed:
    1. Now, as long as you press Retreat before the battle ends, you exit the battle and everything is reset as if you hadn’t started the battle. It’s an instant rewind.
    2. This allows you to try different party compositions to unlock the victory. As a result, progression happens at the “Battle level” and not at the “turn level” as before.
    A common concern expressed is that this removes strategy.

    Thanks!

    Thank you for your detailed post but I still think the change completely alerted the attrition factor of galaxy war.

    Wouldn't the following change kept both the attrition factor and the original idea of the war better than being able to reset each battle at whim?
    1. Things that were retained:
      • Character death
      • Health loss
      • Special Ability cool downs
      • Buffs, debuffs, and status effects (like stun)
    2. Things that were not retained:
      • Turn meters

      By maintaining buffs and debuffs on retreat you completely bypass the "cheat aspect" of the retreat while still marinating the war time feel of sending in tanks first (or pawns/cattle) to take the big hits and then bringing in your "A team" to clean up.

    Not keeping meter why? This only favors fast teams. Basicaly you acquire the 5 fastest toons and hit 5 to 1 every time. Where is the fair fight in retreating after your team goes? Makes GW totally trivial.
  • Hi, if you view the very top of the forum you might find what you're looking for.


    https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/discussion/6490/recent-change-to-galactic-war-open-conversation/p1
  • Honestly this really did not effect t me on the completion front. It did on the fun front though. I loved the old retreat not to cheat, I frankly do not need to cheat no retreat, no reset no FC I have a collection that can walk through GW. not to brag, but just fact. Now I loved the old retreat it gave me a fun factor. I've spent a good deal on this game. I'm quite disatisified on this change. I repeat it HAS NOT EFFECTED MY ABILITY TO BREEZE THROUGH GW. I simply do not like it as it lessened my fun factor of subbing. I'd like to see some kind of comprise on tis before I go back to spending my 3-400 per week here.
  • A common concern expressed is that this removes strategy. What is or isn’t strategic is a surprisingly subjective thing, so I don’t want to belabor this point. However, the strategic elements are now focused where they were meant to be:

    [*] When approaching a battle, how can you use your collection as a whole to overcome the challenge? Here is something we haven’t seen anyone mention (apologies if we’ve missed it…): there is still very much a use for the lower power “pawns” in your collection. If you want to absorb the special attacks from a given opponent party, you can send in one or more lower power characters. They’ll likely take one for the team (e.g., die), but then you can bring in your stronger characters to mop up.
    [*] How can you dismantle a given opponent party while minimizing loss of characters, minimizing lost health, reserving your special attacks until they’re absolutely needed, and micro-managing the cool-downs of all of your characters?
    [*] When facing a certain kind of party (stun lock, crit damage, Jedi party, healers, revive, etc., etc., etc.) what elements of your own collection can you best bring to defeat that challenge?
    [/list]

    John, Thanks for your post. Still too early for me to judge on the merits of the update (only one GW, which I completed), so I'll reserve full judgement on that.

    That said, one suggestion did occur. A lot of what I've been reading (from @Qeltar and others) is that GW now an "RNG" game, where you basically play the same match again and again until you win while suffering the least amount of damage. It is not worthwhile to move on otherwise, since losing a member of your "A" team is just too dangerous.

    Separately, I see you write above that part of the goal is to maximize your whole collection and think about synergies. Even considering using a "pawn" strategically. I think players will not adapt this behavior quickly because, given that GW is so difficult (i.e. you play against higher level teams pretty early on), playing a match with a pawn and the rest of your "A" team will probably be way too costly to your other four "A" team members. I.e. it is unlikely that the rest of your "A" team emerges victorious unscathed.

    I think a way to incentivize the behavior that you want is to allow us to see the entire 60 players that we will face in the galactic war in the beggining. It'll allow us to "plan" for the war of attrition and add a huge layer of strategy!

    If I'm at node 8 and I got a semi-difficult match in node 8, but I know that the match at node 9 is a very tough match, I'll want my "A" team for the very tough match. So let's make some miracles happen with the "B" team on this semi-difficult match! Also, let me better plan my cooldowns and characters buffs, because I know that here comes Poe in Node 9 with his taunt/expose early in the Node 9 match. If I don't know what's coming after node 8, I will just use my "A" team over and over again until I win with the least amount of damage, since that's the safest path to maximizing daily rewards. It does not spur creativity.

    Anyways, food for thought. Keep up the good work. @CG_JohnSalera @EA_Jesse

    Good idea. Though some will whibe about hiw knowing does A o B, let me see what's coming so I plan ahead with all my toons. Kylo and Sid 7* in match 10? I need Barris cooldown right then, and better make sure she lives.

    Also, GW could have some battles in Challenges fashion. Maybe only allow one type or anither, or a fsction. But this ideally should be a more interedting "Challenge" than the biring grind challenges has become. The only reason O finish a challenge is reward. But GW is still somewhat fun.

  • Joser
    23 posts Member
    edited January 2016
    d3gauss wrote: »
    I think the easiest fix for the random number seed would be to remove retreat entirely. I feel like GW is still too easy which from your explanation does not seem to be in the spirit. I feel like the rewards should be increased and it should be made more difficult. The sheer number of lumis running around shows that it was far too simple and that hasn't really changed.

    Isn't that more a comment on how ridiculously fast you can grind Lumi vs other characters (coupled with the fact lumi is one of the best characters, even compared to ones that take forever to get). An example being I've been grinding Anakin for about a month or more, I'm half way to the 4*! Where as Lumi can be grinded at 10 shards a day without any crystal cost. Lumi I've had at 7* for quite awhile
  • dkredsox
    242 posts Member
    edited January 2016
    Hi, if you view the very top of the forum you might find what you're looking for.


    https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/discussion/6490/recent-change-to-galactic-war-open-conversation/p1

    Thanks, but I don't think that answers my first question. Unless that is this?:

    "When approaching a battle, how can you use your collection as a whole to overcome the challenge? Here is something we haven’t seen anyone mention (apologies if we’ve missed it…): there is still very much a use for the lower power “pawns” in your collection. If you want to absorb the special attacks from a given opponent party, you can send in one or more lower power characters. They’ll likely take one for the team (e.g., die), but then you can bring in your stronger characters to mop up."

    I wouldn't think that's it though because you have to have a full lineup of 5 characters no matter what for every GW battle. So you couldn't "send in one or more lower power characters" as the John says. You'd have to send in 5 lower power characters.
  • Dario
    326 posts Member
    Ok so I was unhappy with this because I used it too add a new member once someone died and I always auto attacked.. I have 11 level 60 VII gear toons, they all died except Ben and lumi 2nd to last battle. I had a few rough rounds l. But as I got to the last battle I put in 3 level 30s, maxed lumi and Ben and with just these two players I won!, my point is should the final battle be the hardest? Or is it pure luck?.. I should mention this was the first time I didn't auto attack during my GW journey and i feel a sense of achievement, Iam guessing this is what the devs wanted to happen.
  • dkredsox wrote: »
    I had a couple questions about the new GW:

    If you send a team out there and they all get killed, will the enemies health and cooldowns refresh once you come back with a different team, or will they be at whatever they were left with?

    If you "retreat" a match, will the next match that you go into play out the same exact way (as in critical hits, attacks dodged. etc.) if you do the same exact actions? This has seemed to be the case in my small sample size, so I was wondering if this was the case for others.

    Yes it will, though if you swap toons or even shift positions it will alter it.
  • Nonemo wrote: »
    @Relsch I really want to second this point... People just seem to give up way too quickly.

    I also read a post by somebody who didn't like the new GW because he can't beat it without spending a lot of time manipulating the RNG. In my opinion that's a kind of weird logic that makes this discussion so difficult. Instead of simply realising that this element of the game is too tough (just like the first time Savage Oppress pwned me in the Healers and Support challenge) and that s/he should work to get a better roster, they go to the forum and complain that they are missing out on stuff.

    I just can't understand this mindset. If I have a roster that clearly isn't up for the task at the level of the game I'm playing, and I still can get a few sneaky wins anyway by spending a long time manipulating RNG, shouldn't I be happy for that at least?

    Yeah. They sound like rhise "I can't pass Hard Side 6B". Of course, if you try 1000 times one may do it. But you are either needing a different squad approach, or battle strategy. I can understand those level 52 fighting 60 max gesr, it is a pain if tou absokutely don't want to five up the reward, and don't know what to do. Sometimes the enemy is too powerful. Yet I have been learning how to neutralize them much efficiently.
  • Qeltar
    4326 posts Member
    edited January 2016
    We wanted to have an open conversation with you all regarding the recent change to Galactic War. We made the change to bring the feature back into alignment with its original design vision.
    This is a very confusing statement.
    Last night Aaron said this was done because some people were retreating and some were force-closing, and since you couldn't stop the force-closing (which is not even really accurate) you wanted everyone to be on equal footing, so you changed retreat into force-close. This makes more sense than the idea that you intended the game to mimic behavior that 48 hours ago required force-closing the app.
    Clearly this one change has driven a ton of forum activity. While many folks have said they like the change to Retreat, many others are quite unhappy about it.
    So why didn't you ask us about it before making the change? It's nice of you to ask our views now, but the damage is done. It's not like anyone actually thinks you are going to back it off now.
    The net result is you could go in and out of battles and take advantage of the things that are not retained. For example: if the AI party had built up buffs for them or if your team had debuffs / dots / status effects / etc., by using Retreat you could wipe out that part of the game. Couple this with the turn meters being reset, and the player could use the menu system to greatly impact the outcome of the battle.
    And let's be clear that this could also be used against the player. Figuring out the right time to retreat was part of the strategy.
    But if you didn't want it to be used to clear buffs/debuffs, why didn't you change the code to prevent this from happening? Yes, I know "we're working on it but it takes time". Fine, so take time. GW has been the way it was for months. Only a tiny handful of people complained about it. There was no reason to change it.
    There's a list of bugs a mile long in the Bugs area. Virtually none of them were addressed in this patch. But a major change to GW was? Why?

    (Goals)
    Provide a real challenge to players. In other words: it’s meant to be hard!
    It's easier now than it was before for experienced players. Since you have now legitimized the formerly-exploitive "reload save game" method, there is no longer any risk of losing a character, and no risk means no challenge.
    It's not hard. It's just tedious.
    Provide a place in the game where your entire collection can be brought to bear. Potentially every character can help you succeed (more on this below).
    And you've gone in a backwards direction here too. Because there is now no practical way to heal back up a character that has been removed from a fight with low health, the optimal strategy is now to ensure that you never end a fight with low health. This points to a team with healers, stunners and ability blockers.
    There is no longer any use for my bench. I have now completed 24 straight GW fights using only the same 5 characters. Before I would use my tanks and secondaries as part of a strategy to manage healer cooldowns. They are no longer of any use to me, because if I put them in I have to leave them in until they are dead, and there's simply no point to it.
    Provide a “war of attrition” where health is persisted as you progressed in battles, not as you danced in and out of a given battle as was previously happening.
    Because of the ability to replay over and over with different random numbers, this doesn't happen either.
    And this will have more impact as the meta continues to expand,) provide a place where there’s an ever-evolving set of challenges in terms of which characters / parties / builds can be most effective.
    There is no challenge to GW now. It's boring.
    This allows you to try different party compositions to unlock the victory. As a result, progression happens at the “Battle level” and not at the “turn level” as before.
    You don't need different party compositions. Seriously, why would anyone run anything other than a healer-heavy build with this change?
    Say I ran my Arena team led by Phasma. That team often wins in Arena, but at the end of a round, it is in tatters. If I use that for GW, they will be wrecked after one round. What am I supposed to do in the second round? My guys will get knocked out by the fresh enemies because they have their cooldowns blown and their health gone. So I'd have to start over with 5 other guys. How many players do you think have 60 fully geared and starred characters?
    The old GW allowed people to use diverse teams because you could rotate guys in and out. Now there is no strategy.
    What decisions have you made in terms of how you build out and upgrade your overall collection. In other words, beyond your “A Team” how strong is your bench?
    My bench is irrelevant. I have 12 characters level 60 or higher with purple gear. 7 of them now gather dust. Someday I might need them but right now using them is less efficient than not using them.
    When approaching a battle, how can you use your collection as a whole to overcome the challenge?
    I used to do that. Now I don't. It's a step backwards.
    If you want to absorb the special attacks from a given opponent party, you can send in one or more lower power characters. They’ll likely take one for the team (e.g., die), but then you can bring in your stronger characters to mop up.
    This is a desperation move that only works for 1 or maybe 2 battles. It may be of use to newer players or whales who have 30 guys maxed out. It is of no use to anyone else.
    How can you dismantle a given opponent party while minimizing loss of characters, minimizing lost health, reserving your special attacks until they’re absolutely needed, and micro-managing the cool-downs of all of your characters?
    Okay, finally something I do have to worry about: healer cooldowns. But that's it. Everything else is irrelevant. And if a fight isn't going well, I can just "reload save game".
    That being said, we are still discussing the ideal way for this to work. Currently if you change positions of the members in your party, that will invoke a re-roll of the seed. So, some players are focusing in on that as their “strategy” in order to keep re-rolling the seed in order to get a desired result. That isn’t how the feature is meant to work. Stay tuned, and don’t be surprised if we make a change here.
    This is what some people have been doing from the start. Those of us who were using the actual provided in-game feature were doing so to avoid this. But you have now made force-closing a viable and legal strategy, so of course everyone is using it. Some guy even figured out how to change the RNG seed without changing the players on your team.
    I'm actually glad to hear you are considering changing this. If you really want to make GW hard, then really make it hard and get rid of the retreat feature entirely. Or only make it available if a character dies. Because GW right now is a farce.
    However, I doubt anyone will disagree with me on the following: please make fixing matchmaking the number one priority in GW tuning. Maybe level 45 players shouldn't be able to finish GW, but they also shouldn't have to face level 55s with higher-star characters. This is frustrating, unfair and is costing you customers and money.

    John, I appreciate you wading into this lion's den, but I'm sorry, I cannot see this change as anything but a step backwards, and worse, one that simply wasn't necessary. There was no crisis here. You could have taken a couple of weeks or months and implemented a real solution rather than giving us.. this.

    I loved GW. It was the only game mode where I actually had to think and plan and keep track of cooldowns. I wrote a 5,000-word guide to it. And now the whole thing is a bore. There's nothing challenging or interesting in the game now at all.

    I simply fail to understand how any of this had to happen at all. As a programmer myself, I find the idea that force-closing couldn't be dealt with a myth. You already deal with it just fine in PvP: if you start a PvP match and force-close, you lose. GW could have been made so the first time you start a match and don't finish it, the fight is reset, and you get a warning, for the sake of people who might be on a bad connection, so they can save GW for later. Thereafter, every restart, each character that started the fight but didn't finish it loses a cumulative 10% of their health every time it happens: 10% the first time, 20% the second time, etc. If you get to 100%, you automatically fail GW for the day. Problem solved. You already have the technology in the game.
    If you didn't want retreating and you couldn't fix the buff/debuff thing, you could have dealt with that also. Say, for example, by limiting the number of retreats allowed to 1 per fight, or even 6 or 8 per entire run. This sort of change would have INCREASED strategy, by still allowing rotation of characters, but forcing players to carefully consider when to use this limited resource.
    Instead, you put in a "quick fix" that doesn't fix anything, and makes the game either impossible (for newer players) or a cheesy bore (for older ones). Such a waste. :(
    Quit 7/14/16. Best of luck to all of you.
  • I find GW tedious now. Simply put, it's not as fun to me. Only two matches in, I'm slightly less effective than the other method, so it has nothing to do with not being able to finish it every time, and given the fact I'll adjust to a different mindset, I've no doubt I'll have the same success as before. What won't change is me having fun with this mode as it is. Notice I didn't say anyone is wrong in their opinion, either way.

    What I would liked to have happen with this adjustment is keep the old method without the status wipe. Beyond that, my ideal structure for the mode is pattern it after a survival mode in a fighting game. You survive the round, you get a portion of health back based on your current health pool. Further, the last 4 rounds are always extremely tough. Not the cheap tough with AI doing impossible things, but rather buffed enemy AI from the start, before ability locks or stuns.

    You make it to those last four rounds, you get the standard reward, with completion of all rounds giving better rewards. As GW is now, I'll still play it til I finish a couple players, then I won't bother with it because I don't find it enjoyable now.
  • Joser wrote: »
    d3gauss wrote: »
    I think the easiest fix for the random number seed would be to remove retreat entirely. I feel like GW is still too easy which from your explanation does not seem to be in the spirit. I feel like the rewards should be increased and it should be made more difficult. The sheer number of lumis running around shows that it was far too simple and that hasn't really changed.

    Isn't that more a comment on how ridiculously fast you can grind Lumi vs other characters (coupled with the fact lumi is one of the best characters, even compared to ones that take forever to get). An example being I've been grinding Anakin for about a month or more, I'm half way to the 4*! Where as Lumi can be grinded at 10 shards a day without any crystal cost. Lumi I've had at 7* for quite awhile

    That's the point. You shouldn't be able to grind her so ridiculously fast. And I don't think from what they said you were ever intended to. I think GW was something you were never supposed to beat before 60 and not even then until you had collected a ton of other characters.

    It needs to be made harder. I think removing retreat entirely will help that. So you put in the wrong characters and they all died? Oh well. Try again with different characters.
  • DrpPnts4Food
    224 posts Member
    edited January 2016
    Personally I like the change. Unfortunately it's definitely a handicap to the player and GW is very difficult. How are we expected to face and defeat 3-5 consecutive toons that are higher level and better geared on full health each battle? The retreat option made it fairer for the player by giving us an advantage. Since you guys have removed that feature, then I believe that the difficulty too should be subsequently lowered since we are forced to fight them toe to toe now.

    The opponents should be weaker than us since we have to face 12 rounds of them. Maybe the 12th round could match our strength or be slightly higher for the challenge.

    Does that sound reasonable?

    EDIT/TL:DR - I agree with everyone that likes the change but MATCH MAKING is absurd in it's current state.
    Tekken 7
  • Personally I like the change. Unfortunately it's definitely a handicap to the player and GW is very difficult. How are we expected to face and defeat 3-5 consecutive toons that are higher level and better geared on full health each battle? The retreat option made it fairer for the player by giving us an advantage. Since you guys have removed that feature, then I believe that the difficulty too should be subsequently lowered since we are forced to fight them toe to toe now.

    The opponents should be weaker than us since we have to face 12 rounds of them. Maybe the 12th round could match our strength or be slightly higher for the challenge.

    Does that sound reasonable?

    Nope
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