Summary
This week we will be making the following changes to Raids in Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes:
- [CHANGE] The Expose debuff has been reduced from 0.0004 of Raid Boss health to 0.0002 of Raid Boss health across all raids.
- Testing indicates Rey (Jedi Training) remains one of the most effective squads in the Sith Triumvirate Raid in spite of the 50% reduction in damage from Expose.
- [CHANGE] Sith Triumvirate Raid Boss health in Phase 1 has been reduced by 5% across all tiers.
- [CHANGE] Raid Darth Traya’s Bonds of Weakness will no longer activate “on-damage” abilities.
- This change will prevent Storm Trooper Han’s infinite loop in the raid.
- [CHANGE] When Raid Darth Traya becomes Enraged she will dispel all positive status effects on her enemies and apply an undispellable, unresistable buff immunity as well.
- [FIX] Sith Triumvirate raid Phase 2, Darth Sion will no longer incorrectly remove 100% turn meter using "Torment".
- Why Change “Expose”?
We’ve been actively monitoring play patterns, player behavior, and community sentiment since the release of the Raid. This change is part of our commitment to maintaining a healthy game for the long-term, which means we occasionally need to make changes when unintended play patterns emerge.
Late last week, we determined a change needed to be made to the Expose mechanic. However, we still needed to undergo rounds of tuning and testing before settling on specific numbers. In our ongoing commitment to communicating with our players, we wanted to let you know changes were coming (in advance of specific details) to give everyone time to consider how that might impact their investment in certain characters.
We’d like to let you in on our thinking and the process on how we arrived at that decision.
- Expose’s Design Intent and History
Expose was originally intended to be a high risk, high reward mechanic. The intention was for it behave like a Damage over Time (DoT) with the added complexity of requiring interaction to make it most effective. As a reward for this extra interaction, Expose did four times the damage of a DoT. When Expose was initially launched this worked out as we intended.
With the introduction of Zeta abilities, Finn's Zeta Leader ability changed Expose to be a source of cool-down reduction and turn meter manipulation (in the context of a Resistance squad).This solved a couple problems with the Resistance faction, making it more powerful as well as giving it a clear identity (e.g., the Expose squad). However, Expose at this point stopped being as much a source of damage and more a source of making Resistance squads go faster.
When we introduced Rey (Jedi Training), we wanted to add strategic options to the Resistance. Finn-led teams would rotate cooldowns more quickly. Rey (Jedi Training) led teams would do more damage output. We were satisfied with distinction between the two.
When we decided to give Rey (Jedi Training) an unresistable ability, Expose changed from being a high-risk/high-reward strategy, to a strategy that had few (if any) downsides. At the time, this didn’t present as a significant issue. Rey (Jedi Training) was performing as intended in PvP and in the existing raids. We were in the process of designing the Sith Triumvirate, so we knew we’d have a fresh challenge for Rey (Jedi Training) soon enough. Or so we thought….
- Raid Mechanics
As we build raids, they become interesting time capsules of the state of power, gear, synergies, and status effects at their initial release. When the Rancor and the AAT were originally released there was no Gear Tier XII, no Zeta abilities, nor many of the synergies that now exist in the game. Furthermore, guild sizes and dynamics have shifted dramatically over time, also changing the way players strategize and interact with the raids. Raids have gone from something a dedicated few do, to the thing many dedicated Star Wars fans do together… which we think is awesome.
As we develop new raids we have two primary tuning levers: health and mechanics. There are other, more subtle tools, but those are the largest and most obvious. Health naturally increases in the raids as synergies and raw power trend upward over time. Additionally, our intent is for players to leverage as much of their roster as possible to accomplish larger and more heroic challenges.
The Sith Lords are such iconic and interesting characters, that the Sith Triumvirate Raid was an obvious opportunity to introduce significant and intricate mechanical design decisions. So much of what makes Galaxy of Heroes interesting is understanding the interactions between the many characters and abilities, and gaining mastery over opponents in combat. With this raid, we wanted to add new layers of depth and see what strategies guilds would come up with, AND use the results to inform emergent strategies for the future.
- The Dilemma
To keep raids challenging over time, we have had to increase the amount of raid health and the complexity of the mechanics. The problem is percent-based health mechanics become increasingly more powerful as boss health goes up. The Expose mechanic has become so powerful it now virtually snuffs out most other strategies.
Our perspective is that an overwhelming single-solve undercuts what makes the game interesting, and presents a threat to the future of the game.
The question then is: do we remove the ability to use one of our most fun and powerful teams by saying, “No Expose” (for a raid that is currently difficult)? Or, do we compromise and change Expose so its effect is mitigated, but still powerful. We’ve opted for the latter.
- The Solution
After testing, we believe moving Expose from .0004 to .0002 will keep Rey (Jedi Training) teams competitive in the Rancor and AAT (and will also keep Finn Zeta Leader Ability teams competitive as well), but will mitigate them being overpowered in the Sith Triumvirate raid. Additionally, the gap between Expose and other emerging strategies is less pronounced, which we believe will help spur on additional, lively theorycrafting.
In making this change to Expose, we’re attempting to balance short-term enjoyment of the new raid content with the continued overall health of the game.
- The Future
As we introduce new mechanics, game modes, and as the game’s power level increases over time, we will continue to evaluate all aspects of long-term game health.
At times, there may be cases where changes to the game are necessary. When those cases arise, we will try to be as transparent as possible with the community.
We appreciate your passion and commitment to the game, and with your help, we will continue to improve Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes.
CG_TopHat
Replies
Talk to you tomorrow!
RyDiggs
Trying to apply dots after round 3 is like licking an electric fence, slightly amusing but mostly painful
All we did was complain about jtr being the ONLY VIABLE TEAM in the new sith raid, NOT that she is OP NEEDS NERF. If you close a door, you need to leave a window OPEN.
Lower the tenacity, increase viability of other squads! We don’t like chipping away a brick wall! 100 million health nihilus -5% still has 95 million!
Can’t land dots, cant slow, fracture gives more tm and speed than it actually takes away, nothing sticks, nihilus regain protection, special ability does next to nothing...
The problem with the raid is it’s LONG and DRAGGED OUT and makes so many teams UNVIABLE. If you take away 50% expose, then at least take away 25% of nihilus health, make the buffs 50% shorter cooldown in p1 p2, 100%—> 300% bonus in p3/4, lower protection regain by nihilus, drop that ridiculous tenacity and tell us just ONE squad that is currently viable except jtr!
We're trying to let you know what we do and be more transparent on why we do it when we can. If this still isn't meeting expectation, know we'll keep working to do so as best we're able. As always, we'll be considering the overall long-term good of the game in every change and addition we make.
Tks for the support!
RT
You know what would help spur theorycrafting? Not nerfing every theory that pans out to the point it is no longer useable.
Still nothing on Tenacity stacking, huh?
I want to understand, I do. Help me understand.
Not much else to say to CG except, you won’t be getting any of my money any time soon.
I would love an answer, why impact all raids if the problem is only in the Sith raid not behaving as intended?
Thanks in advance.
While the current transparency is at least a step in the right direction, th trust level with various screw ups in the past is so low that there is not much creditibility left. A good next step would be an explanation/adjustment of the challenge/unused gear in rewards - topic that has been evaded forever. It cannot be that your current most difficult challenge gives gear that players have in thousands - that doesnt count as rewards.
Also, I like the way the zFinn expose mechanic vs the JTR expose mechanic was explained. The only problem with that explaination is that zFinn expose was characterized as purely TM manipulation and not damage dealing as intended. I don’t think you realize that by being able to manipulate the TM, one in fact increases overall damage output.
Want to keep Tenacity Down from applying? Ok, sure. Forces us to improve potency.
Remove health under protection? Alright, bring healers back.
Annihilate is permakill? With the special raid buff, this is workable.
Stacking speed? This is more annoying but again can be worked around.
Stacking tenacity? There's the problem. There's the pigeonhole. There is the lack of diversity in teams. That was the force to JTR teams as all others failed miserably in phase 1.
Stormtrooper Han suddenly useful? An unexpected benefit but one that is now lost to us. I agree that it was OP and not intended so stopping this strategem, while disappointing, was the right thing to do.
Vast majority of guilds only have a handful of RJT teams anyway. In effect you are punishing players that forth the time and effort to get a great team. The reality is these guilds are depending on those few with the RJT teams. So again, your argument is not only moot but null and void as additional theory crafting is involved.
No one disagrees with adjusting the storm trooper han mechanic in the raid. It made a phase soloable by I a single team. However changing the way every other toon that uses a receive damage mechanic is again utter nonsense. Especially considering the newest toon released is even affected by this.
The community has offered several viable alternatives but once again CG has proved they do not listen to the players. Don’t insult us again.
Heya @Delmon_Ciiidrr
There are MANY places and features we would love to affect in the game given time and resources to do so. Unfortunately, we have to prioritize. Currently for this conversation, we need to ensure Sith Raid and all future Raid Bosses do not have continuing issues with the Expose ability. The old raids are affected somewhat, however, being nearly 2+ years old, they are pretty well beatable without Expose being the sole strategy.
Thanks for the feedback and thoughts. We'll keep working to improve both communication and meeting expectations as we move forward.
Cheers,
RT
Thank you for your explanation. Now, I only have one question:
The people who are testing now, are they the same that tested the raid before release? Cause you know, they didn't see JTR coming...I can understand STH, but JTR...
I would just like to point out that, if you also been actively tracking damage output, you undoubtedly realize that the two quotes above are in direct opposition to one another. JTRey IS the single-solve undercut for the Sith Raid. And, despite the slight nerf, JTRey teams are still 5 times more effective in dealing damage than any other team, regardless of RNG, strategy or synergies.
And, if you have been tracking player and guild behavior, as you claim, you know this to be true by virtue of the fact that many guilds and guild alliances are shuffling players to maximize the number of JTRey teams per guild.
Please stop trying to pay lip service to the "many strategies" and "lively theorycrafting" nonsense when you have intentionally set up a "have" and "have not" system designed to punish players who did not panic farm JTRey.
In game guild: TNR Uprising
I beat the REAL T7 Yoda (not the nerfed one) and did so before mods were there to help
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The massive tenacity just makes the abilities of every toon useless. It's not fun. It's like hacking down one giant big tree.