Recent change to Galactic War - open conversation

Replies

  • @CG_JohnSalera
    Thanks for the update and the new challenge that is GW.I enjoy it a lot more and glad it's now fixed. Looking forward for coming updates!
    439-259-888 I have a bad habit of editing my typo's after posting
  • IG69
    31 posts Member
    I like that the new GW makes it more of a strategy game than before.
    Really my only complaint is that under the old system I was spending time to farm new characters and getting them up to the 40s range to become a strike force to take out 1 enemy, normally a healer, then retreat and bring in my A or B team of stronger characters. Under the new system these pawns are utterly useless and I now wish I spent that time on beefing up 6 or 7 characters. So eventually I will be okay with these changes, unless you are going to change the system again.
  • jeremyj26 wrote: »
    Ajizay wrote: »
    I like the new changes, GW is now my 'training area', where I can experiment with new strategies and group compositions - it's proven to be quite educational for me!

    The two times I've tried the new GW I've made it to the end, but not without losses. Which is how it's supposed to be. But I'm genuinely and positively in favour of the new change thus far - it's made for more of a challenge without punishing each mistake I make. I feel like, before I was fighting the mechanics of the game, but now I'm fighting my opponents team. The latter feels much more rewarding for me.

    I encourage you to try the new GW a bit more, adapt your playstyle to fit the new mechanics, and then just experiment with new and different combinations. At least I'm finding it surprisingly rewarding :)

    Agree. I usually lose a few toons during the GW, but lose fewer now. Society has such a short attention span that your approach isn't common. I ran into a 7* Leia, 6* Rey, 7* Phasma, 7*Lumi, 7* Poe team. My A team lost a few times before I decided to switch it up. Brought in some different toons, Poe mostly, and beat them despite losing Poe. He did his job. Personally i love the change and I am not a big spender, don't have Dooku or Barris.

    What's your team like?
  • IG69 wrote: »
    I like that the new GW makes it more of a strategy game than before.
    Really my only complaint is that under the old system I was spending time to farm new characters and getting them up to the 40s range to become a strike force to take out 1 enemy, normally a healer, then retreat and bring in my A or B team of stronger characters. Under the new system these pawns are utterly useless and I now wish I spent that time on beefing up 6 or 7 characters. So eventually I will be okay with these changes, unless you are going to change the system again.

    Pawns are not useless, you just have to give up 5 at a time to get that benefit. You can send in a mid-ranked squad against that super squad of 7* purple gear maniacs. You kill a couple of the enemy and deal some damage, and when your squad is dead you come back in with your A team. It's more like a suicide squad, but I have enough mid level toons to get through about 4 to 8 battles this way.
  • Simple solution, tier GW difficulty and rewards like any other challenge
  • Have you ever considered a selectable difficulty setting (easy, Medium, hard) and adjust drops based on selection. Or the ability to select the ‘old way’ of playing GW vs current play
    From what I am reading in previous post:
    • Not all players have a good roster to work with (limited toons or low level , bad equipment etc..)
    • Some players are just better than others (not all skill level are the same)
    With a selectable option it will appease all the different players out there then try to create a single perfect game setting that makes everybody happy.

    Personally
    I like the old way GW was and know it was a bit of a cheat, but it was still a challenge for me and the game felt more of a stratigic game play. Now GW is to hard as I am not that great of a player,can't spend the $$$ to improve/get toons or time to find the right team combo to defeat the current battle. GW is depressing and no longer as fun and I look at this as a dreaded task than a fun game area.
  • Hey everyone -

    Thanks for the feedback. My goal is to respond to each of the (currently) 152 responses and any subsequent ones off and on through the weekend.

    I haven't had a chance to sit at my computer since the announcement (I'm on my phone right now), but I've been keeping an eye on the flow of posts and have read pretty much every one.

    Keep 'em coming. :)

    Thanks!
  • AdamW
    692 posts Member
    edited January 2016
    Strategy can be a highly debatable term, but imho the new retreat takes away from strategy simply because now you go through a sequence of rinse & repeat to come out with the best outcome as for before you would have to set it up.

    Example:

    Say your asked a math question 4(6-2)=x Whats the value of x?

    You can count 1 at a time to see if you have the right answer, 1? no. 2? no. 3? no ect up to the correct answer.

    But planning ahead and solving the situation to reveal the correct answer is more fun and thought provoking.

    Id rather have a game with the old kind of strategy than rinse and repeat until I get the absolute best results. But Im still gonna play and love the game either way.
  • xJazzx
    808 posts Member
    edited January 2016
    Hey everyone -

    Thanks for the feedback. My goal is to respond to each of the (currently) 152 responses and any subsequent ones off and on through the weekend.

    I haven't had a chance to sit at my computer since the announcement (I'm on my phone right now), but I've been keeping an eye on the flow of posts and have read pretty much every one.

    Keep 'em coming. :)

    Thanks!

    @CG_JohnSalera thanks. One thing that you must do is to verbally state in the galactic war section that this is a really challenging and difficult part of the game. You can do this easily by having some textual description at the top saying something like only the best heroes can conquer this attrition war. If you guys do not communicate the depth of the challenge, you will continue to have alot of whining and complaints because most people expect to finish it and assume it's clearable with anything reasonable roster.
  • Hey everyone -

    Thanks for the feedback. My goal is to respond to each of the (currently) 152 responses and any subsequent ones off and on through the weekend.

    I haven't had a chance to sit at my computer since the announcement (I'm on my phone right now), but I've been keeping an eye on the flow of posts and have read pretty much every one.

    Keep 'em coming. :)

    Thanks!

    Please respond because GW right now is really not fun. I feel like the meta just switched back to healer spam because thats like a NEED in order to finish. It is possible to finish but it is honestly not fun and its just tedious and feels like more of a chore than a game. Since im not really interested in any other characters from GW i dont even feel like playing it as often anymore.

  • I have to say, I think I like the original retreat mechanic better, but I don't like the way it was being "cheesed".

    Maybe we can institute a limit of retries or force closes to limit the cheesing, but still keep it fun?
  • "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."

    Can someone just clarify this for me please? I thought once you lost OR retreated everything reset including deaths etc. So if I am facing a Sidious, Dooku, Lumi + 2 others team and I send in 2 low level characters, assuming my 2 characters die after sidious aoe and dooku lightning, when i come in again with my 'A' team both those abilities for my opponent will still be on cooldown?
  • Mahluus wrote: »
    "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."

    Can someone just clarify this for me please? I thought once you lost OR retreated everything reset including deaths etc. So if I am facing a Sidious, Dooku, Lumi + 2 others team and I send in 2 low level characters, assuming my 2 characters die after sidious aoe and dooku lightning, when i come in again with my 'A' team both those abilities for my opponent will still be on cooldown?

    Correct. When you get to an end screen, either win or lose, everything is kept from that battle. Cool downs and hp and all.

    So you can send in a low level team to absorb the initial attack specials. The only caveat is they must all die. You can no longer absorb specials and retreat. You can absorb specials then die. You can use this tactic to send a C or D ranked squad to try to kill one opponent character and die in the process. Or send in a bunch of level 20 characters to take the AOE and die. I suggest 1 mid level tank and a bunch of level 20 characters.
  • Thanks Daishi, I think if this point was made clearer perhaps some of the fuss would have died down. I finish table 9 every day and my arena rank is 40-50 every day. This might help finish a few GWs, maybe not every day but lets see how it goes.
  • I'm going to try one more time to say something worthwhile. I already quit the game.

    Not only GW, but
    Missing shards (you say graphics, but I an a geek, I don't miss things like this), you are the ones who can't count evidently
    Constant missing awards. I have lost daily activity rewards, shards, arena awards, GW awards
    (Deny it all you want... It is a fact, admitting it and apologizing would be nice... Saying it is inconclusive and acting like customers are lying or can't count or fooled by graphics, etc, just makes you look stupid, dishonest and that it is all on purpose)
    Horrible customer service
    Lazy programmers
    And disingenuous developers.


    GW.

    Sure people already leveled up love it. They got Luminara in three days...

    For those of us not leveled up but in the top 100 or 50, can't do that any more...
    For us it is not fun farming one character for 20 days... This is just an example.

    Then you want to listen to the level 60s and tell us how many people love the changes....

    Again, maybe someone buys this, but it just makes it look like you think I'm stupid to me...
    There is something wrong with any low level player, who started building a team to play GW the way it used to work, who says the change was positive. No way!

    This leads to my other point.

    I am an IT guy... I test programs for a living...

    The program was working the way it was designed with the exception of debuffing..

    You can say what you want, but no intelligent programmer would have even put a retreat button there if it was not intended to allow substitutes... So again, don't act like I'm stupid... And quit lying to me!!!!

    Anyway... I'm done. Didn't play yesterday, not playing today, so I'm done...

    I wish people would hold them accountable for their treatment of players!!! If they can snowball you like this, they will never learn

    It is an individual decision and I respect everyone's decision to do what they want...

    As for me.... You lied to me, you can't conclude I was ripped off, imagine that... And to me, that means you are not worthy of my participation in your game..

    No more EA games for me....


  • d3gauss
    311 posts Member
    edited January 2016
    @TheDocotr those of us who know how this works know that they are feeding us half truths. But it is unfair of you to say the programmers are lazy.

    I have met my fair share of lazy programmers in my day, but most are actually incredibly hard working and meticulous.

    The real culprit here is administration. They could have fixed both people wiping buffs and the force close exploit but that would have been way more costly than to just turn the retreat into force close and call it a day.

    I think it actually made the game easier which is a shame. GW is pretty boring now. Had one difficult match up today that I just retreated out if switching my characters until RNG went my way. Kind of just tedious and boring.

  • Azraelrulez
    1908 posts Member
    edited January 2016
    Better matchmaking, like someone posted -+ 5 levels, cool down or health resets/ a little higher percentage regen, I'll feel better. I don't dislike the change enough to stop playing but dislike it at it's present form, I do.

    Better match making is my most requested for feature, btw.

    Edit: I saw some posts saying level 40~50 or anything below 60 should not be able to finish GW. Do you guys really support a game mode that is unbeatable? Hard, I can understand, unbeatable? Why unlock the mode at 40 then? And do any of you beeps even understand that as soon as people start reaching 70, your statement would have to adjust itself to anything below 65~70 should not be able to finish GW, a game mode unlocked at 40?

    Btw, stun/heal team, cleared GW twice since update abusing RNG. Basically doing the same thing as earlier, just force closing much more (retreat before some of you start shouting). Admit it, this is the most optimal team that will consistently beat GW all the time. Of course, I'm not including those of you ethical gamers who would hate to use the earlier retreat or the earlier force close/present retreat as it doesn't involve any strategy and is cheating. It doesn't seem to get through your thick heads that using any in-built feature (like throwing money or using retreat) is perfectly ethical.

    As of now, F2P and P2P guys should concentrate on said stun/heal teams. Easier to clear GW as long as you force close, oops, retreat often. P2W, you have additional options (I know most of you don't need advice, just throwing it out there before you guys come back at me, there are other options!)
    Post edited by Azraelrulez on
  • IG69 wrote: »
    I like that the new GW makes it more of a strategy game than before.
    Really my only complaint is that under the old system I was spending time to farm new characters and getting them up to the 40s range to become a strike force to take out 1 enemy, normally a healer, then retreat and bring in my A or B team of stronger characters. Under the new system these pawns are utterly useless and I now wish I spent that time on beefing up 6 or 7 characters. So eventually I will be okay with these changes, unless you are going to change the system again.
    IG69 wrote: »
    I like that the new GW makes it more of a strategy game than before.
    Really my only complaint is that under the old system I was spending time to farm new characters and getting them up to the 40s range to become a strike force to take out 1 enemy, normally a healer, then retreat and bring in my A or B team of stronger characters. Under the new system these pawns are utterly useless and I now wish I spent that time on beefing up 6 or 7 characters. So eventually I will be okay with these changes, unless you are going to change the system again.

    Pawns are not useless, you just have to give up 5 at a time to get that benefit. You can send in a mid-ranked squad against that super squad of 7* purple gear maniacs. You kill a couple of the enemy and deal some damage, and when your squad is dead you come back in with your A team. It's more like a suicide squad, but I have enough mid level toons to get through about 4 to 8 battles this way.

    You can anything from 1 to 5. But 1 needs to sit in the leader's position. The ganme will alert you haven't completed the 5 position. Click Battle again and it sends you incomplete squad.

  • Now that I think about it there are a bunch of different directions to go with GW.
    You could add heal boost drops from certain missions and they could be used between GW battles to heal one hero a small amount. This would take away the need to fill your team with healers just to survive all the GW battles.
    You could bring back the old retreat option but limit it to a certain number of uses a day. Heck, you could even make it a special drop from some missions just like a healing item.
    You could add an item or limited use ability to revive a hero that died in GW. Either with full or partial hit points.
    Some of these would add a little more depth to GW and perhaps make it less brutal.
  • If eqch battle was a fresh start, so your hp, abilities, everything was reset, I'd think it was a pretty good approach. Granted, may make it too easy, but right now the goal of making use of all your toons to find the right team isn't being met, because it's a moot point when you can only use them for one battle for any sort of strategic attack. Add in the avg players depth chart, and it's just a big fail.
  • I created an account just to post this.

    I think the main problem with gw in general is that it's just too hard for most people. Not having the old retreat feels so much more punishing and the amount of time it takes to finally clear gw has gone up astonomically. For instance, I used to clear the whole thing in about 45 minutes, now I'm spending upwards of 4 hours constantly retrying each mission until I learn the proper series of actions that will lead to a completion with most of my team healthy enough to move on and even with that much time invested I will not be able to complete my run today. The matchmaking pits you up against teams that are way stronger than can be handled by one single party even with pawn characters thrown in,so newer players are held back while the upper crust of players continues to improve. The reason people relied on the retreat exploit so much was because of the difficulty. I understand that the old retreat was unintended, but it now brings into light how difficult gw really is. I'm not saying we should go back to how it was, but it just feels like we need something else to improve the experience, more health between battles or something else mentioned previous.

    Here's the bottom line: Not being able to complete content is unfun. Especially when just a few days previously it was doable.
  • MeetraSurik
    313 posts Member
    edited January 2016
    EM650 wrote: »
    Someone (P2W) got to level 67 within the first day. Some else just posted the ability mats they get at level 70. GW pulls from other teams (it is assumed) +/- your level. When P2W are able to jump so far ahead so quickly, how difficult will their opponents be in GW who are still at level 60 or 61? Do you think that this change effects them very much?

    Now how much do you think that this change effects not only F2P, but smaller spenders who are still at 60 or 61? Not to mention how do you compete against those people in the arena. They just turned GW into one long grind of arena battles.

    The diminishing returns severely punish the high end of P2P players. The crystal costs expand exponentially, so that level 67 first day player spent a TON of money to do that. There aren't going to be many that do what you're talking about. The effect they have on GW is miniscule.
    Better matchmaking, like someone posted -+ 5 levels, cool down or health resets/ a little higher percentage regen, I'll feel better. I don't dislike the change enough to stop playing but dislike it at it's present form, I do.

    Better match making is my most requested for feature, btw.

    Edit: I saw some posts saying level 40~50 or anything below 60 should not be able to finish GW. Do you guys really support a game mode that is unbeatable? Hard, I can understand, unbeatable? Why unlock the mode at 40 then? And do any of you beeps even understand that as soon as people start reaching 70, your statement would have to adjust itself to anything below 65~70 should not be able to finish GW, a game mode unlocked at 40?

    Btw, stun/heal team, cleared GW twice since update abusing RNG. Basically doing the same thing as earlier, just force closing much more (retreat before some of you start shouting). Admit it, this is the most optimal team that will consistently beat GW all the time. Of course, I'm not including those of you ethical gamers who would hate to use the earlier retreat or the earlier force close/present retreat as it doesn't involve any strategy and is cheating. It doesn't seem to get through your thick heads that using any in-built feature (like throwing money or using retreat) is perfectly ethical.

    As of now, F2P and P2P guys should concentrate on said stun/heal teams. Easier to clear GW as long as you force close, oops, retreat often. P2W, you have additional options (I know most of you don't need advice, just throwing it out there before you guys come back at me, there are other options!)

    The only thing I'm going to come back at you with is where you said using the earlier retreat and/or force close are cheating. No one at CG or EA ever said anything like that, only that using those things in they way they were bing used, was not how they intended them to be used. FYI, that "not intended" bit is exactly how you now use retreat to defeat the psuedo-random number generation in GW, so saying that the previous methods were cheating is quite hypocritical, imo.

    Also, @CG_JohnSalera, this heal/stun team is the exact kind of cheese I was describing in my earlier (long) post. This kind of thing is going to become more, not less, common because of this change.
  • So if you retreat now, does your OWN team's health refill to 100%? I know the enemies does.
  • Personally, I think the changes made the GW feature a lot worse! It used to be fun. It used to be a war of attrition, because when I retreated from a battle, the characters I lost were gone! This was difficult, but rewarding to come back with new characters and finish the fight.

    Now that the changes were made, GW is frustrating and quite frankly, the worst part of the game now. When the war isn't going my way, I retreat and start over. And over. And over. This is not a war of attrition, it is a war of frustration.

    The original GW was 10x better and more fun.
  • [*] Random number seed – A random number seed is a common programming practice where one number is generated randomly, and then used for a bunch of subsequent calculations. We know there have been active discussions around the random number seed being saved at the start of a battle for a given squad that you bring in. The result of this approach is if you repeat the exact same actions you will get the exact same results. Some folks have interpreted that as meaning there is no randomness in the battle. It’s an important distinction to make between the randomness set at the start of a battle vs. a bunch of randomness re-rolled within the battle. 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.

    Been discussing this elsewhere, and here's the problem I'm having with the approach, this moment in GW. The seed has determined I'm going to lose the battle. I've tried about 40 different combinations of the only toons I have capable of dealing with this enemy team, and though the battle changes in response to my tweaks in the team and moves i make, it isn't winnable. End of story. Go ahead and make the lrn2play comments, whatever. But their dooku stuns two people, sid's debuff doesn't land, lum dodges, and on and on. That's the problem with what appears to me to be the "lazy" programming approach of one number handling everything else.
  • WhIle I don't have much concern with current mode, I actually had more fun before, with suicide squads, feints, and reinforcements. Now I can mostly stick with the A team reroling the random seed as needed.

    I think GW has a lot of potential, and easily it has been my favorite feature of the game. I would suggest following improvements:
    1. Return old retreat mode, but with all buffs/debufs retained.
    2. Retain current Reset feature.
    3. Allow different game modes with appropriate rewards:
    * No Retreat - retreat button disabled
    * No Reset - Save progress during match, not before start. So restart just picks up where player left off.
    * Iron Man Mode - no healing between rounds.
    * Timed Run - finish all 12 battles by X amount of time.
    4. Allow for 4 difficulty levels (with appropriate rewards ):
    * Easy - all opponents at or below players level
    * Normal - some below and some above player level, like now.
    * Hard - all opponents at or above player level
    * Nightmare - Available at max level only, all opponents at max gear max level max skill, maybe even few levels above player. Probably need computer generated toons rather than using a pool of existing player squads in that case.
    5. Tie different achievements to completing different modes.

    Biggest problem with GW for many people is lack of a geared deep bench, so maybe increasing drop rate of mats would help as well.
    Ally Code: 253-747-318
  • Another option for old style retreat: you can summon characters out, after
    EM650 wrote: »
    Someone (P2W) got to level 67 within the first day. Some else just posted the ability mats they get at level 70. GW pulls from other teams (it is assumed) +/- your level. When P2W are able to jump so far ahead so quickly, how difficult will their opponents be in GW who are still at level 60 or 61? Do you think that this change effects them very much?

    Now how much do you think that this change effects not only F2P, but smaller spenders who are still at 60 or 61? Not to mention how do you compete against those people in the arena. They just turned GW into one long grind of arena battles.

    The diminishing returns severely punish the high end of P2P players. The crystal costs expand exponentially, so that level 67 first day player spent a TON of money to do that. There aren't going to be many that do what you're talking about. The effect they have on GW is miniscule.
    Better matchmaking, like someone posted -+ 5 levels, cool down or health resets/ a little higher percentage regen, I'll feel better. I don't dislike the change enough to stop playing but dislike it at it's present form, I do.

    Better match making is my most requested for feature, btw.

    Edit: I saw some posts saying level 40~50 or anything below 60 should not be able to finish GW. Do you guys really support a game mode that is unbeatable? Hard, I can understand, unbeatable? Why unlock the mode at 40 then? And do any of you beeps even understand that as soon as people start reaching 70, your statement would have to adjust itself to anything below 65~70 should not be able to finish GW, a game mode unlocked at 40?

    Btw, stun/heal team, cleared GW twice since update abusing RNG. Basically doing the same thing as earlier, just force closing much more (retreat before some of you start shouting). Admit it, this is the most optimal team that will consistently beat GW all the time. Of course, I'm not including those of you ethical gamers who would hate to use the earlier retreat or the earlier force close/present retreat as it doesn't involve any strategy and is cheating. It doesn't seem to get through your thick heads that using any in-built feature (like throwing money or using retreat) is perfectly ethical.

    As of now, F2P and P2P guys should concentrate on said stun/heal teams. Easier to clear GW as long as you force close, oops, retreat often. P2W, you have additional options (I know most of you don't need advice, just throwing it out there before you guys come back at me, there are other options!)

    The only thing I'm going to come back at you with is where you said using the earlier retreat and/or force close are cheating. No one at CG or EA ever said anything like that, only that using those things in they way they were bing used, was not how they intended them to be used. FYI, that "not intended" bit is exactly how you now use retreat to defeat the psuedo-random number generation in GW, so saying that the previous methods were cheating is quite hypocritical, imo.

    Also, @CG_JohnSalera, this heal/stun team is the exact kind of cheese I was describing in my earlier (long) post. This kind of thing is going to become more, not less, common because of this change.

    They may spend a lot, but not as much as you imagine. If you forego free energy, you can accumulate Energy as if it where a currency. Each day invest 450 crystals for 6 refreshes (1 Cantina and 5 regular).

    In a month you'd have saved 150 refreshes. Now apply those in a single day. Total spend is 13500 Crystals. But since this kind of player usually ranks rop 3 in arena for good reason, substract 400 crystals average from spend. And you have 50 per day as cost or 1500 which is a little more than $10.

    I am not sure this scenario was anticipated by the devs but it's completely valid as per the rules. Infound it a bit grossing that day one we had level 70 for them, kudos. I am glad to be in a different arena though :-)

  • This change achieved only one thing: making it hard to beat for low level players, period.

    Was the retreat/FC function cheesy before? Yes you can say that. But who is forcing you to use it?? You can take pride and try to beat GW without it. Leave it for those who cant't beat it otherwise, so they can get their 15 shards and progress the game.

    That being said, I think GW actually got easier after the update. I am F2P level 55 player with mediocre team (5* sid/lumi/jc and 4* hk47/poe), I can rather easily beat 10-11 battles, the 1-2 hard ones, I just play with changing my squad leader until it gives me a weaker opponent. It actually take a lot less time now to complete GW daily.
  • somplemproposal for OP users. Pass GW without using retrrat of any kind for an achievement called GW Hard Mode. First 10 gives 5 Vader. 50 of these give another 10 and 100 gives 15.

    The game lacks Awards: the very few games I played in the past gave awards for all sorts of scenarios. For example in World of Tanks you have the Ace Master award, given to a player that achieves certain score (XP) with any one tank. Tou can accumulate, and playing better than 99% of players isn't easy by definition.
This discussion has been closed.