Dear Devs: Please make a challenging mode of play

Aluxendr

So I've come to a conclusion: nothing on this game is a real challenge to high level play.

Now, when I say this, I mean that with a roster of synergized (or at least good) 6-10 7*, geared characters there is not much challenge right now in any mode of the game. If you don't have this, then you aren't on "high level play".

LS/DS Battles and Cantina, you need to beat once at 3* and then you just sim for gear (and you can bring an extra character)

Challenges, you follow the proscribed strategy (kill droids, debuff, apply healing immune, or just rip through with damage) and you get your reward.

GW is easier than ever, with "Edge of Tomorrow" mode activated.

And Squad Arena at rank 1-20 is more about sniping, since the team comps available are just homogeneous enough not to require real rock-paper-scissors play. (In other words "Any Given Sunday", a team that isn't massively offense or defense oriented can beat a defensive, tanky team, and can also beat a hugely offense oriented team when controlled by AI). So you can't do much to hold a spot, and it isn't difficult to beat other teams at that level either; you simply wait around til rewards are close then the snipe wars begin.

Can we get a mode that challenges people at this level?

Good ideas I've seen are:

Endless battle (pick your 5, the AI selects other peoples teams of increasing difficulty, no breaks between battles, go as far as you can)

Modes that inflict random debuffs, buffs, require a kill order or bad things happen, etc.

Time Challenge style modes (kill as many as you can, kill huge life boss in x time, etc)

And specifically tune these modes to be EXTREMELY challenging.

Replacing those stupid "Events" with something like this would be satisfying. I would definitely pay 100 energy a day to play vs a mode I knew would be extremely difficult, even if the rewards were somewhat mediocre compared to the challenge.

Anyone agree?

JohnnySteelAlpha

I agree - but you're just in the wrong game if you want to play at a high level (I'm assuming big chrome purchases) and be challenged. These types of games span free players to mega mega whales. So they have to balance content to something in between. If you are on either extreme, you may tend to find the game either too easy or too difficult and neither is a good place to be in. You're either bored or really frustrated.

In these games, and any game really, this is the P2P whale's curse. You outspend the content and difficulty level. I like to use chess as an analogy vs. these games as it's an age old game that's very well balanced with the pieces. If there were purchasable upgrades in chess...imagine how boring it would be if you eventually got to where you had a team of full queens. That would make the game stink as it would be too easy. The other option is you play other large whales that have all queens too...but then you're just fighting clone battles, which also stinks. Essentially purchasable upgrades in a game ruins the game aspect of it and the planned content. It makes $ though...so there they are

The sweet spot is low-spending or mid-spender maybe. Otherwise you'll have to decide if being #1 and having all the best stuff is worth making the game boring because of advancing too fast.

In these games I think mentally you always want to keep a carrot dangling out in front of yourself - if you spend enough, CG will let you eat all the carrots - but you won't have anything to eat later (work toward). This leads to whale burnout.

Good luck OP - I'd consider things in how you play. Probably only if guild wars come soon will you feel like your high level roster is being put to good use.

Lastly, this isn't a criticism, just an observation having been around these games a while - I'm a much higher than average P2P myself so this isn't a F2P / P2P war attack. Your complaint is valid, but it's something you'll want to consider in your playing style. Either way you need to find peace in your approach.

Yarzahn

I'm not in your place at all (i only bought 60€ worth of gems, i'm only level 58 and only have 2 purple gear characters, with everyone in my main squad between 4 and 6 stars).

The game is still challenging to me (arena rating hovering 200-350 daily and the new galactic war is a pita, because i can only afford to have 7 chars decently geared and star'red at my level and somehow i keep facing teams full of lvl 60 purples from the 7th fight on), but I kind of understand your point regarding end game. I think your problem could be fixed with real time PVP instead of taking advantage of a slightly **** AI.

Out of your suggestions, I think an Endless Gauntlet game mode would be the most fun, where you would get ranked daily based on how far you could progress compared to other players.

I disagree that the enemy squads should be player squads, simply because you would be fighting the same comp over and over - it's bad enough we get that in arena. Maybe mix up player squads with a large pool of premade squads:
- For example every 3rd battle you get a player squad. The rest would be drawn daily from a large pool of premade squads with some synergies (lots of squads possible, poggle/ droid, jedis, sith, counter, crit, aoe, turtle/heal, turn/speed control, cc/ disable, dot/dispel). Obviously some repeated characters, but it beats facing the same characters over and over, i'm getting tired of the phasma/sidious/luminara/ teams, with the occasional dooku/luke/daka/fives/barriss/ 86.

RamzaBeoulve

Thank you for this post I have been preaching this exact thing. Endless battles is the answer and its not like it would be difficult go code. I am a dev and they already have the functionality required to implement a change like that pretty easily.

Aluxendr

Yarzahn wrote: »

I disagree that the enemy squads should be player squads, simply because you would be fighting the same comp over and over - it's bad enough we get that in arena. Maybe mix up player squads with a large pool of premade squads:

That sounds like a much better idea compared to all player squads; I hadn't thought about how FOTM Arena is. It would also be a good way to see synergies played out AGAINST you.

TommySitt wrote: »

As far as an additional challenge, HC had the Grand Arena, where you use three teams, and have to win 2 out of 3. Top players can hide between 1 and 3 of their teams depending on rank. You need to have a large bench, or at least 2 good teams and guess if their hidden team is op or cannon fodder, and match up accordingly. That was the most challenging part of the game for me. We should have a GA here as well.

Yet another good idea, and it would make Arena less of a snipe battle.

I don't think this would be good for the F2P crowd though; a lot of them only have a "top 5" squad

RamzaBeoulve wrote: »

Thank you for this post I have been preaching this exact thing. Endless battles is the answer and its not like it would be difficult go code. I am a dev and they already have the functionality required to implement a change like that pretty easily.

Here's hoping they implement that one at least; they can easily get rid of those garbage Events and put it in.

Qeltar

JohnnySteelAlpha wrote: »

I agree - but you're just in the wrong game if you want to play at a high level (I'm assuming big chrome purchases) and be challenged. These types of games span free players to mega mega whales. So they have to balance content to something in between. If you are on either extreme, you may tend to find the game either too easy or too difficult and neither is a good place to be in. You're either bored or really frustrated.

I'm not a whale, and I don't think I have any uber insights into strategy, and I'm also now getting very bored. For the amount of revenue this game takes in, updates are infrequent, and there is genuinely very little to do in the game. The change to GW has made this even worse.
There are many ideas such as the OP's that could be implemented with a minimum of development time. Yes I know, CG is "working on wonderful things for the future". So, we wait. But again, the lack of challenge right now is pretty palpable even if you aren't a big spender. There are many things they could implement quickly to keep us occupied. But they don't.
How about the challenges themselves? They have new modes that unlock at level 60/61/62 etc... and they can be autoed as soon as you unlock them. Why?

BrodieWan

Surely they're going to replace the keycard Battles with something. They're pretty pointless as it is. I like the "go as far as you can mode" idea. Or if the "challenges" were tied to character level like GW. They're waaayy to easy.

ExoticPK

*post has been removed*

Nonemo

I agree with OP. GW is way too easy at high end gaming.

We need a Rancor. Or a quest to take out a Gundark nest. Or an endless fight mode where any character you kill is instantly replaced by another. Anything really.

ThePedroKid

For myself, it hasn't been so much about lack of challenge but, rather, more about lack of diversity.

I wish I could actually do the things the development guys keep referring to in their GW posts and other places concerning using multiple build strategies, etc. That is a fantastic idea! Too bad it simply is not possible in their current model.

You either are extreme P2P to get that diversity or you end up using the same 5-8 toons over and over for everything. If you are the P2P, you suffer from having the diversity but not enough other people with your diversity level so you keep fighting the same team setups far too frequently. PvE becomes your only change; however, the PvE game can never be at the hardcore P2P level as it would shut out too many players causing far to great a reduction in players (and, as such, more diversity loss).

So, I conclude the problem is with diversity and availability of it. If everyone had more access to a more diverse portfolio of meaningful toons for team building, the game would be far more robust in all game modes.