I've been playing for six months this game. I'm advanced enough to have a zVader, a 7* Darth Nihilus and can solo P1 and half of P2 of Heroic Rancor. My guild still has a way to go before we can tackle the HAAT, but we are on a good path. I used to enjoy it a lot. Why? Because I could go with Light side or Dark Side characters. Because I could chose from exiting teams, and play with synergies for strange combos. I found myself getting up to three crates per month, to get that precious Darth Nihilus or gear up my Wiggs combo.
And each Legendary Event was something I craved. My first one was Yoda, and it was good, because JC you get for free, and Mace is given with ships, and Lumi was a very easy farm. And QGJ and Ahsoka were my Cantina priority anyways. And they have good ships, and they are useful in AAT, Rancor, GW early on. And they are easy to gear up at first (Ahsoka g11 requirements are another matter).
Then I tackled Emperor Palpatine, I loved my Rebels anyways, I had craved Wiggs from day one, and Ackbar was given with ships and he still is my flagship. And the first toons I took to 7* were Lando and STH, because they got me through heists, GW, Arena, battles and AAT.
Then came R2D2, and I was excited! I loved my Empire even before the pass. I spent all my Ship Shop credits on Darth Vader, and each new shard from achievement made me proud. And I used EP, a toon so good that even without zetas is still viable everywhere. And Royal Guard was the tank that I was given early on and is still viable in GW and AAT. Also used TFP which is still viable and useful everywhere, and so is Tarkings, specially now that they have given him some love.
And then I could do Jawas if I wanted to do the Crit Damage challenge. I found them fun to use, and discovered that they also work great on AAT. And I am farming Clones, because I plan to do a zCody team. Overall, the game gave me choices and allowed me to have fun.
Then came the Phoenix fiasco. And I'm talking about the introduction. Even when I had the event where you could play with a full strength team for free, I hated because I got stuck with a full DN lead Sith team that killed 3 characters before I could do my first move. As a team they where underwhelming, their ships slows, weak and unfarmable and if you took away their Hera lead synergies, only Ezra was exiting, with Sabine a second to third tier as free farm.
But then they have to make the flash event not even Phoenix exclusive, but even excluded Chopper (the easiest farm). And then also made them exclusive for Thrawn. But I was not that worried. Until that moment lvl 75 g8 characters would make getting a 6* Legendary even a breeze. Well, guess what? Now you need lvl 85 g9 for that. And there I hit the ridiculous requirements for gear this mediocre characters to even g8, making g9 an insufferable hell and g10 basically an exercise of masochism.
Did I mentioned that gearing Darth Nihilus to g10 is easier than Zeb, Sabine or Chopper?
So, you took away my joy. In response, I went from three crates to one per month, and that's only because I'm buying Shoretrooper and Baze shards from Shipments. I'm very specifically not buying gear there, and even though I could have spent money, I decided that it was no longer fun. In fact, I see how I can't get to the fourth tier of the flash event because of the gearing requierements, and I won't get Thrawn at 6* because of the same problem.
I'm seeing how I'm stuck with gearing characters that I don't like, that I won't have any real use in the future, and hating every time I see my Jawas, my Jedi, my Sith and my Clone teams crying for some love.
At this point the game has me depressed and the only reason I'm still putting some effort (and money) is because I love my guildmates. I'm dying to get a new game mode that involves all my guild. And I'm getting nothing about it. I'm giving the game a few months, but you managed with just two events to take me from a fan and my time sink to a status that I don't want to leave only because of my guild. Please go and think hard about taking away all the joy of this game, because once you leave a game like this is very difficult to get back. And I will very specifically not play EA games for a long time.