Just in summary, Sith Raid has
- sloppy design
- Not thoroughly thought out rewards structure
- Lousy player life cycle management
- Poor communication throughout
- Poor management and oversight
Just in summary, Sith Raid has
- sloppy design
- Not thoroughly thought out rewards structure
- Lousy player life cycle management
- Poor communication throughout
- Poor management and oversight
Just in summary, Sith Raid has
- sloppy design
- Not thoroughly thought out rewards structure
- Lousy player life cycle management
- Poor communication throughout
- Poor management and oversight
Design is not sloppy, it's too tight. Which is why there's only like 1 team per phase that works.
Your bottom three criticisms aren't constructive. Give them something specific to fix.
What GP is your Guild that is attempting the raid?
What teams you did you attempt the raid with?
What part of the raid motivated or demotivated you to continue trying?
What about the raid did you enjoy? What did you dislike about the raid?
T5/6
125M gp. We've lost 4 or 5 members due to the raid, but have been able to replace them so far. However, overall participation is down across the board.
Same as everyone else, JTR and then auto whatever, since it doesn't matter much. (About 70% of our guild has a decent JTR at this point.)
Reward/effort ratio for anything under heroic is the worst I've experienced in any game. It's not just the raid time, though, it's the game economy collapsing under its own weight: farming the characters, gear, mods for months; managing teams, fighting RNG , watching kitten strategy videos, etc.... all work, no fun, and insultingly bad rewards.
I enjoy watching Sion whiff on an attack, which happens with some regularity. Other than that, it's awful. Flush this redacted and start over from scratch.
-in P1 we have no control over who gets the second unbreakable will buff after the first was given. For instance, if bb8 gets the UW, there's no reason to continue the run because he's the catalyst for the team, and must take turns. Eliminating this feature and replacing it with something more controllable would alleviate this frustration. Perhaps whoever defeats the menacing foe gets the buff. This would be much more efficient and would allow us to strategize accordingly.
This!! So much this.
We need to be able to establish some control over what is going on, who gets the Raid buff is absolutely fundamental to strategising effectively.
It randomly going to someone I specifically do not want it to, is utterly useless. This is not a buff, it's a drawback & requires yet another restart.
As the quoted post above suggests: Why not simply make it so that whoever gets the kill gets the buff?
If the toon that gets the kill already has it, then assign it randomly, as this will be our mistake.
This will then require us to time our attacks on the minions correctly & add in a bit of actual strategy, which is currently sorely missing, replaced instead with randomness.
A player needs to be able to control the game in order for them to be successful & for the experience of playing to be satisfying. If they cannot control the game, there should be a clear route of progress to follow in order to be able to, when more advanced.
Fixing it so that only one team is of any use in P1 & that team will still require multiple restarts to get things to fall correctly, so that they can score well, is ridiculous. Even more so when you consider which team it is.
The statement was that you wanted all guild members to get involved, in order for us to beat this.
Well, the way that it has been designed has produced precisely the opposite reaction.
I believe it was also that you wanted all guild members using the depths of their full roster, in order for us to beat this.
Well, the way that it has been designed has produced precisely the opposite scenario.
There are 14 pages in this thread alone. There were thousands of previous posts in multiple previous threads, all presenting precisely the same information presented in these 14 pages.
The reddit thread is entirely full of exactly the same information, as are the multiple other discussions there, on the same subject.
Just face the glaringly obvious fact: This Raid is an abject failure in its current format.
Updated Sion’s “Cycle of Pain” ability description to correctly reflect that units can gain Cycle of Pain if they damage Any enemy during a friendly or enemy turn instead of only during the enemy’s turn. Note: Cycle of Pain has also worked this way since we released the Sith Triumvirate Raid but the ability description did not mention that players could receive stacks of pain even if it was their turn. The difficulty of the Raid should remain unchanged.
Wow we had to wait that long for the fix to be the ability is WAI. That is just kitten. I mean really couldn't this information have been shared when the bug was acknowledged instead of the sneaky slight of hand that made it sound like the ability was going to be fixed to match the description?? This is just....... I am going to stop before i make some moderator come in and do that stuff we are not allowed to talk about. Thanks for nothing.
lol doesn't cost anything - time, money or reputation - to change the text of the description.
Having to fix the issue would mean a) spending money on appropriate development for the game & b) acknowledging that they messed it up.
Not sure how likely either of those are to happen, in all honesty.
I'll add this. Currently we're about to finish another t4 raid. There are 5-7 of us who carry this raid. Currently people are so apathetic to it that 10 guildies haven't even bothered hitting the Sith Lords. Not even a 0. That is demoralizing. That is how monotonous and unrewarding this raid is. In 2 days 10 people don't even think the rewards are enough to tap a Sith Lord for a 0. Much less try.
CG you have got tons of feedback here. For once listen to the people and make this game fun again. Don't screw it up again.
I'm not sure if this point as quite been made clear enough. The cyclical nature of this raid is such that, as 1 single person in the guild becomes apathetic and stops, the raid then becomes 2% longer. When 20 people give up (that's us-btw) the raid is now 40% slower.
The truth is only 10 of us are really carrying this thing... other's are maybe hitting auto and popping a little damage... but only 10 out of 50 meaningfully hitting the raid means it's more 80% slower then whatever the devs may have tested.
Again - People checking out of the raid is breaking the parameters of the raid were likely tested for.. It's not even a guild event any more.
Rewards have to be fixed, no question, which will be the carrot. BUT ALSO, the general malaise that makes it simply BORING needs to be fixed, as well.... the stick has to be worked over.
[*] What GP is your Guild that is attempting the raid?
35 millions.
[*] What teams you did you attempt the raid with?
VaderL, Thrawn, Sidious, Deathtrooper, Yoda Ep.V
AckbarL, Luke "jedi", Han Solo, Leia Ep.IV, BB8 (not against Nihilus)
Nightsister team with TalzinL
Resistence team with FinnL (not against Nihilus)
Sith team with NihilusL (not against Nihilus)
Jedi team with Qui Gon JinL
And a few other rebels permutations depending on the phase
[*] What part of the raid motivated or demotivated you to continue trying?
Motivated: Playing against the Sith Lords from one of the best Star Wars games ever made.
Demotivated: Excessive grind in a raid that is harder than the Rancor and AAT combined just to get gear rewards that are worse than what i can receive from the daily gear challenges.
[*] What about the raid did you enjoy? What did you dislike about the raid?
Like:
*Right now nothing. We only do it for the guild shop credits, at least they can be used to grab some useful gear parts.
Dislike:
*Too much HP on the bosses plus the absurd tenacity up that cripple most teams damage, making the raid take too much time to complete.
*Gear rewards are ridiculous compared to the time needed to finish, which is 3 or 4 days depending on how much time people have to waste on this raid. As mentioned before the Triunvirate takes too much time.
*Nihilus gaining protection. Don't you think he is already way too much overpowered compared to the other sith lords in phase 2 and 3? Does he really need a shield on top of a killing blow, stealing buffs and messing with skills cooldowns?
There is nothing I like about this raid. I am over 3 mil go and my guild is in the 130 mil category. We have just finished our first heroic, but our guild is discussing moving people out that aren't contributing enough. This means multiple attempts to get the perfect rng for the highest score. Often taking 1 to 2 hours for one attempt. I had so much less interest in this raid after my first experience with it, than the other two. Those I wanted to improve my roster and gameplay to succeed at. This one I just am looking forward to the next level bump so I can become easy and irrelevant. I don't have the hours this raid requires available or the inclination to find that kind of time for this raid.
We have received a wide range of feedback about the newest raid, The Sith Triumvirate and we would like to hear more about your experience. Please include the following information in addition to your feedback:
What tier or tiers did you play?
What GP is your Guild that is attempting the raid?
What teams you did you attempt the raid with?
What part of the raid motivated or demotivated you to continue trying?
What about the raid did you enjoy? What did you dislike about the raid?
Tiers: T6 and T7
GP: 168M
Teams: all the obvious ones to get to roughly 11M damage in heroic
Motivation: Now that I have the raid mechanics nailed and the raid dies in just over an hour it’s not a chore at all. I see the posts above and see that it’s obvious that the raid isn’t fun because it’s last for almost a week for terrible rewards. So because I’m now one raid away from unlocking traya. I’ve had a full G12 piece from every raid I’ve done pretty much so that’s my motivation right there.
Enjoyment: maxing the damage for the teams that I use and building the teams for the phases that I’m not doing as well on.
Basically it’s a fairly easy solve. Just change the T1-6 so that it can be done in 2 days maximum for people and put a high chance for full G12 pieces in the reward structure and I guarantee you this would solve problems. That way the rich aren’t the only ones getting richer. The only reason for doing heroic should be to get Traya shards. Don’t ruin the raid for 90% of gamers because it’s actually pretty fun when it only lasts a couple hours.
Once you feel you have as good of a representative sample as you are going to get with this initiative, could you possibly summon up what your conclusions are, and then get back to us with response / feedback from the studio?
It appears quite a few have spend some time here giving feedback, I am sure a lot would like some back
T5/6 ( did one incomplete 7 as a merc in another guild )
- What GP is your Guild that is attempting the raid?
Currently 108m ( has dropped a bit after losing a few people in the last couple of weeks ).
- What teams you did you attempt the raid with?
Think I've used just about my entire roster and various times, but most success with JTR, Troopers, Chex Mix, Nightsisters, some FO.
- What part of the raid motivated or demotivated you to continue trying?
The only real motivation is getting geared for T7. For demotivation the long grindy nature.
- What about the raid did you enjoy? What did you dislike about the raid?
I find it really tough to zero in on anything that I actually enjoy in this raid. If there wasn't a very slight glimmer at the end of the tunnel I probably wouldn't be doing it.
For dislike:
The Grind. Lower tiers should have the same mechanic as T7, no character refresh, 2 day timer. Then you can balance the health/damage around those expectations, and they're useful as a tool to work towards T7.
At the moment, optimal T7 is pretty much 1 Team for each phase, plus stuff to finish P4. ( with some bits in between ). For all the other Tiers, it's use 5 teams over and over and over and over and over again, with maybe a little variance. But using JTR in every Phase on T6 isn't doing anything to prepare you for T7, it's just more grind.
If the 2 day, no refresh mechanics were the same, then if you couldn't do T7, you could try T6, or T5 ( etc ), until you can find a level you can do. When you can clear it easily you know that you're ready to move up to the next Tier. Currently, just because you can clear T6 in a few days gives no real indication on whether you are ready for T7.
The other thing that would be really useful, is partial rewards per phase. Wouldn't need to be much, but some reward for managing to clear to P3 of T7 ( even if it was only a little currency ), would make it so that it didn't feel like a complete waste of raid tickets and time spent. ( I'd still expect character shards and the best of the gear to be only for full completion ).
Once you feel you have as good of a representative sample as you are going to get with this initiative, could you possibly summon up what your conclusions are, and then get back to us with response / feedback from the studio?
It appears quite a few have spend some time here giving feedback, I am sure a lot would like some back
I wish to second this. @CG_SBCrumb As the quoted post requests: Please pay us the courtesy of providing, at least, the same level of detail in the studio response, as we have provided you with our feedback.
Problem comes with this Raid, where pretty much all of the known methods for managing your opponents, therefore defeating them, have been completely invalidated.
Make buffs & debuffs viable, for crying out loud!
CG created the toons which have these as their methods of control. Now removing the ability to utilise these options, either at all or without massive penalty, is, quite simply, insane.
Oh, and his AI doesn't consistently use the abilities correctly. For example, if all three of his abilities are available sometimes he uses the ally call and the force drain, other times he goes straight for annihilate."
Oh man, so many times this happens! You can almost guarantee that if you use UW he will call allies then Drain Force. If you guess the other way and don't use UW it's almost guaranteed that he'll use Annihilate instead of Drain Force - for me, this is the most annoying aspect by far, yet it still comes back to the same root cause as the vast majority of the other issues - the sheer and utter randomness of the whole thing!
Sometimes I wonder what the depth of gaming experience is that the developers have. Do they play RPGs, have they ever played any mmo's? it sounds crazy I suppose but being a game developer does not mean they are an avid gamer (developers in general).
To be quite honest, I'd settle for them giving me the impression that they have at least played this game and understand it.
This Raid & the player experience strongly supports the widely shared opinion that they have not & do not.
Let me explain... No, there is too much. Let me sum up.
It seems mostly the only people who enjoy this raid are some of those able to do heroic. Because Traya shards. The rewards for t1-t6 are atrocious. Also it takes longer for the lower tiers to complete than the hardest tier for a variety of raid design issues which have caused player apathy. Which causes the raid to last longer. If you can't do heroic it seems most just do t4.
Very few viable squads. For a raid designed to "show off your lineup" the raid design it's self bottlenecks squad use. And if you don't have jtr you're just trying to ice skate uphill. From over tuned bosses (DN/traya) to over tuned tenacity it makes roster depth null and void.
The look of the raid is awesome. The Kotor theme is awesome. Actually playing the raid is like being Sisyphus having to push a boulder up a hill only to have it roll back down the hill. For eternity. Barefoot.
To CG_SBCrumb and all other members of the dev team,
I am writing this as an open letter to the developers who have shown an interest in hearing from the community. In this I will express the opinions of myself and my fellow guild members regarding the new sith raid. I will also explore the impact the release of this raid has had on our guild overall. Finally, I will talk about the individual mechanics in the raid that we have issues with and any suggestions for change or improvement we could think of.
The third raid released for SWGOH on 28/2/18. It was a highly anticipated event for our guild as most members were looking for something new to renew interest within the game. Many players within our guild actively follow CG’s ‘Game Changers’ and had been following the releases they had leading up to the raid coming out as well. Safe to say I personally had never seen the guild be so excited. Then the day finally came were the raid dropped and we jumped straight into a T5 thinking that would be a reasonable starting point given the relative strength of our guild. This was the start of a string of problems that we are still dealing with to this day.
As a guild we dived straight into the new raid. Beginning the process of learning the new mechanics, teams that work well and riding the waves of joy and frustrations anything new brings. Things were great at first. The excitement had us overlook the flaws and we eventually finished out first raid. For context this took us well over a week. While we had been progressing through this raid the first heroics were being completed by the top tier guilds. After seeing screenshots of the rewards that had multiple full drops of g12 pieces we were looking forward to our first look at what we could expect for the next few months. Boy was our guild disappointed by the rewards that dropped. Especially those who had put in big numbers to pull us through the entire thing. This alone had us pause on starting a new raid even though we had maxed our tickets as we took a few days to discuss what we should do. Eventually we agreed to running a T4 for two reasons. The rewards for T5 weren’t worth the effort of the time it required, and the hope was multiple T4s would end on par. Thankfully information had started to filter down from the top tier guilds about important teams and exploits to use. A quick decision was reached to run a T6 to allow us to run heroics in the future before the exploits had been removed. A good decision by us because CG removed the exploits and took it two steps further.
It was at this point that people in the guild were already struggling to remain interested in the raid. The rewards weren’t worth the effort it took to complete and the early exploits that the community had found were the only thing keeping the clear times down. This is when CG stepped in and removed the exploits that hadn’t been found through questionable play testing before release. This step alone would have been fine if this was where it ended. Before long guilds had found that applying expose was the next best solution to bringing down these raid bosses. Again, CG removed this as an option and went a step further to make most parts all but immune to debuffs. This was the first time we actively lost people participating in the raid. They had made a raid that was already difficult and raised it to an eleven. We had a fair amount of people swap from actively hitting the raid to posting autos and we started having people dropping off from hitting it altogether. Meanwhile the mood within the guild chat was terrible. Almost everyone was angry at the raid mechanics. Nobody was enjoying the raid. There also was no sense of progression in time taken to complete or roster development. It quickly became a chore to post our five hits or to even hit the raid at all. This was the first time I had seen a lack of participation in any portion of the game from the guild.
Fast forward three months and the guild is still facing the same issues. We have lost members from the game because this raid had sapped the fun out of the game for them. We have multiple members that have stayed only because of their monetary investment in the game. We alternate running T4 and T5 just so we aren’t wasting tickets but there is no sense of progression. The rewards in place have gotten us no closer to another tier/heroic. It has made the guild refocus their efforts in getting ready for the RJT event as that is the main team that sees any repeatable success by this point. Animosity to the raid has only grown worse and we regularly miss participation from members even on the T4. The main reason things haven’t improved is the lack of suitable rewards for the difficulty of the raid and the mechanics themselves which are at the best of times punishing or otherwise game ruining.
This brings us to the individual mechanics in the raid. The opinions here are mostly my own after reflecting on what guild members have had to say about each part. There are two major problems I see with the raid in its entirety. Darth Nihilus and his annihilate ability and Darth Traya and her isolate ability. I also have ideas on other aspects of the raid that I will go into also.
P1 – Darth Nihilus
· Annihilate should not be random. When it is available it should be used. We are given a single use buff to counter this ability. More often than not DH does not use his ability and it is wasted. This leads to runs being cut short because of RNG
· The protection gains he has. Thematically this ability is fine. However, the absurd health pool behind it is an issue. If the health pool was reduced and the protection side of this ability was doubled down upon it would make players consider teams more carefully than just dps to outpace the gain. It would also lead to a healthier interaction in p4 where players can choose between giving DH significant protection on autos or sink them into Sion and risk stacks and taunt.
P2 – Darth Sion
· Overall the guild and I agree that this is actually the most reasonable phase out of the four. It is the closest we have to a well-balanced fight and the mechanics fit the theme of the character.
P3 – Darth Traya
· Isolate. It is by far the worst mechanic in this entire raid. By design it at best hinders a team comp and more than likely flat out ruins them. Again this leads to people bringing a high dps team to the fight and looking to sink damage as opposed to bringing a team with synergy and trying to play around the mechanics to maximise damage outputs.
· Traya already has an iconic ability you could have drawn from. Her force bond. I believe this would be an excellent alternative to the isolate debuff. When this is placed on a toon all buffs and debuffs could be shared between traya and the victim and a percentage of the healing and damage can be shared also. Still keep in cleansable in the same fashion as isolate but easier to reapply given the difference in absolute power. Trayas stacking tenacity will keep most debuffs off her while only gaining the positives and the damage returned will force it to be removed with just as much haste and isolate currently has.
· The buffs the lightsabers spawn with are also too determinate on the outcome of the run. Either the spawns could be set to a particular combination of buffs or use the class of character that took her into solo combat (support, damage or tank). The difference these buffs provide to the outcome of the run is staggering.
To summarise everything here quickly is simple. The raid is too difficult. The rewards based on that difficulty are not nearly rewarding enough. The mechanics are overbearing as they currently are. Every time we as a community find something that works you are just as quick to take it away from us. Progression is non-existent without the next wave of guild members getting event toons. The gear sink that every player finds themselves in hasn’t been alleviated at all. Morale of guilds is down because of these things. Players enjoyment of the game overall has been sullied by this raid. A lack of communication from your end hasn’t helped this process at all and it's only now you are openly looking for feedback from the downtrodden.
What tier or tiers did you play?
3, 4, 5 What GP is your Guild that is attempting the raid?
80k What teams you did you attempt the raid with?
P1: Thrawn Magma
P2: FO
P3: ChexMix
P4: Whatever else What part of the raid motivated or demotivated you to continue trying?
Motivate: nothing.
Demotivate: The grind. It's a lot of work to participate in the raid, and the rewards hardly feel worth it. What about the raid did you enjoy? What did you dislike about the raid?
I enjoy the overall look and thematics for the raid. However, the difficulty and low payout really take a toll on it. A large portion of the group doesn't even attempt to try the raid anymore, leaving it to just the top heavy hitters. Since we cannot possibly do Heroic, that means the raid just stretches out for days upon days.
As said above, the major problems of the raid mostly come from Nihilus and Traya's Isolate. I don't have a problem with the RNG nature of Annihilate being used (it almost always seems to go off when ready); the buff eating, cooldown increasing, and protection regeneration part get me. There isn't much worse than knowing a character MIGHT gain a buff from one of their abilities, and, if Nihilus chooses to attack exactly that character, Annihilate will go off cool down. At that point, using the protection shield isn't worth it, since he might not hit the buff anyway, but failing to use it is fatal. If the shield is used, he definitely won't hit the buff (unless it's on the person with it already), which means he'll have it ready next turn instead.
Additionally, the Enrage mechanic is particularly frustrating, at least in the lower ranks. Most phases are basically a dance around tricky mechanics (annihilate and isolate) until enrage triggers. That's about it--no strategy, no feelings of success, just a slow wait for enrage to hit.
This is somewhat off topic, but I feel that the raids themselves have changed from the original outlined goal. Their intentions are to be places where guilds can pool resources to defeat enemies much stronger than a single player. However, over time, they've become more bureaucratic, where several members can defeat most or the entire raid on their own, requiring rules and enforcement in the guild to protect those who cannot. I feel the Sith Raid was a hypercorrection on this, an attempt to create a raid which can definitely not be soloed or unfairly monopolized.
Personally, I'd like to see a system in place more like the Territory system, where the guild accumulates points for stars, and the more stars earned, the more rewards shared among the the guild. In this way, raids could be simplified a bit (remove enrage and mechanics designed specifically to keep the raid stretching out), allowing each member to face off against their own instance of the raid. To help weaker members of the guild who specialize in exactly one or two phases, make the starting phase optional, increasing the choices available based on the number of stars earned (ex: the Pit starts in P1, but after X number of starts have been earned, someone who has yet to participate in the Pit can start in P2, then P3 after X+, and P4 after X++).
I'm sure there are unseen problems with this model, but I think it would solve a large number of issues with the raids (management, enforcement, and even placement and ties).
What tier or tiers did you play? Tier 1, took 8 weeks. 4 guild members left during that time (2 who came in after the raid started and couldn't participate). We finished a couple weeks ago and no one cares about starting a new one, so we haven't. What GP is your Guild that is attempting the raid? 2,286,971, currently 18 members. What teams you did you attempt the raid with? Whatever we had available, mainly Phoenix. For players in the mid levels (40-70, roughly), they don't have the luxury of trying different combinations to see what works. You use the one or two squads that can do any damage at all to Nihlus. What part of the raid motivated or demotivated you to continue trying? The only thing that motivated me was getting it over with. I just put it on auto a couple times a day. What about the raid did you enjoy? What did you dislike about the raid? Phase 2 was fun enough. The rest was terrible. Nihlus' unpredictability with Annihilate, and the fact that protection only lasts for one turn means you're constantly wasting a turn to use it only for him to wait until it's gone to attack.
Forgot to add how absolutely absurd this raid is to be centered around Jedi Training Rey doing max damage over all other teams and locking her behind 2 vaults of crystals to get vHan and vChewie who are good for absolutely nothing.
When cls was introduced balance went out the window. You either had him and had a massive advantage, or you didn't and fell behind. Now this raids introduces two unbalanced aspects, a way overpowered champion and farmable g12 gear. While everyone else sits at a massive disadvantage. Also, how are people clearing herioc in mere hours? For those rewards it should take them a month so the feel the same burden as us. Because it will take a month of rewards from this raid to make any impact at all to my roster.
What GP is your Guild that is attempting the raid?
140GP now, it was less when we completed Heroic first time.
What teams you did you attempt the raid with?
JTR -P1
Phoenix - P2
Chexmix - P3
Whats left - P4
What part of the raid motivated or demotivated you to continue trying?
As a guild we did zetas and gear ups for what was needed, we all stepped up to do the 2% each phase as minimum. Failed Heroic the frist couple of times but made it happen after learning what was needed. Motivation came from being part of a great team and to get the shards and rewards.
What about the raid did you enjoy? What did you dislike about the raid?
I like the rewards, P2 is fun enough still as u can try some new teams there.
Dislike rng most, but as we have it on farm now there is no need to reatreat for hours and push for maximum damage.
What tier or tiers did you play? T4/5
What GP is your Guild that is attempting the raid? 107m
What teams you did you attempt the raid with? Troopers, sith, aa hoda CLS rhan gk
What part of the raid motivated or demotivated you to continue trying? Demotivated by p1, p4. Nihilus protection should not recover, anhilate is random. P4 is a slog. P3 is boring. Rewards are next to useless compared to rancor and effort.
What about the raid did you enjoy? What did you dislike about the raid? See above. Unless one has jtr the impossible to get a good score.
What tier or tiers did you play? T5 & T6 Rotation
What GP is your Guild that is attempting the raid? 108mil
What teams you did you attempt the raid with? A wide variety...trying to get more "mandatory" JTR teams.
What part of the raid motivated or demotivated you to continue trying? As a guild, participation is quickly waning...the event takes way too long and members state it feels more like a chore than a game.
What about the raid did you enjoy? What did you dislike about the raid? No one in the guild likes the event, we just do it because we feel we have to. Two biggest complaints across all 50 members is veteran farming and sith raid.
Are we going to hear back from you on this anytime soon? @CG_SBCrumb
Yep, today is a bit busy with releases and tracking down Territory Battle Compensation info. Meeting in the next few days to review further. Expect an update here before EOW
Are we going to hear back from you on this anytime soon? @CG_SBCrumb
Yep, today is a bit busy with releases and tracking down Territory Battle Compensation info. Meeting in the next few days to review further. Expect an update here before EOW
Thank you for a quick, clear and concise response. Looking forward to the update.
Replies
- sloppy design
- Not thoroughly thought out rewards structure
- Lousy player life cycle management
- Poor communication throughout
- Poor management and oversight
*mic drop*
What I would like is devs to actually play this game and give their honest opinion on how fun it is to play.
Something tells me this raid will get a 1/10 from them too if they were honest.
Design is not sloppy, it's too tight. Which is why there's only like 1 team per phase that works.
Your bottom three criticisms aren't constructive. Give them something specific to fix.
We need to be able to establish some control over what is going on, who gets the Raid buff is absolutely fundamental to strategising effectively.
It randomly going to someone I specifically do not want it to, is utterly useless. This is not a buff, it's a drawback & requires yet another restart.
As the quoted post above suggests: Why not simply make it so that whoever gets the kill gets the buff?
If the toon that gets the kill already has it, then assign it randomly, as this will be our mistake.
This will then require us to time our attacks on the minions correctly & add in a bit of actual strategy, which is currently sorely missing, replaced instead with randomness.
A player needs to be able to control the game in order for them to be successful & for the experience of playing to be satisfying. If they cannot control the game, there should be a clear route of progress to follow in order to be able to, when more advanced.
Fixing it so that only one team is of any use in P1 & that team will still require multiple restarts to get things to fall correctly, so that they can score well, is ridiculous. Even more so when you consider which team it is.
The statement was that you wanted all guild members to get involved, in order for us to beat this.
Well, the way that it has been designed has produced precisely the opposite reaction.
I believe it was also that you wanted all guild members using the depths of their full roster, in order for us to beat this.
Well, the way that it has been designed has produced precisely the opposite scenario.
There are 14 pages in this thread alone. There were thousands of previous posts in multiple previous threads, all presenting precisely the same information presented in these 14 pages.
The reddit thread is entirely full of exactly the same information, as are the multiple other discussions there, on the same subject.
Just face the glaringly obvious fact: This Raid is an abject failure in its current format.
Having to fix the issue would mean a) spending money on appropriate development for the game & b) acknowledging that they messed it up.
Not sure how likely either of those are to happen, in all honesty.
I'm not sure if this point as quite been made clear enough. The cyclical nature of this raid is such that, as 1 single person in the guild becomes apathetic and stops, the raid then becomes 2% longer. When 20 people give up (that's us-btw) the raid is now 40% slower.
The truth is only 10 of us are really carrying this thing... other's are maybe hitting auto and popping a little damage... but only 10 out of 50 meaningfully hitting the raid means it's more 80% slower then whatever the devs may have tested.
Again - People checking out of the raid is breaking the parameters of the raid were likely tested for.. It's not even a guild event any more.
Rewards have to be fixed, no question, which will be the carrot. BUT ALSO, the general malaise that makes it simply BORING needs to be fixed, as well.... the stick has to be worked over.
Tier 3.
[*] What GP is your Guild that is attempting the raid?
35 millions.
[*] What teams you did you attempt the raid with?
VaderL, Thrawn, Sidious, Deathtrooper, Yoda Ep.V
AckbarL, Luke "jedi", Han Solo, Leia Ep.IV, BB8 (not against Nihilus)
Nightsister team with TalzinL
Resistence team with FinnL (not against Nihilus)
Sith team with NihilusL (not against Nihilus)
Jedi team with Qui Gon JinL
And a few other rebels permutations depending on the phase
[*] What part of the raid motivated or demotivated you to continue trying?
Motivated: Playing against the Sith Lords from one of the best Star Wars games ever made.
Demotivated: Excessive grind in a raid that is harder than the Rancor and AAT combined just to get gear rewards that are worse than what i can receive from the daily gear challenges.
[*] What about the raid did you enjoy? What did you dislike about the raid?
Like:
*Right now nothing. We only do it for the guild shop credits, at least they can be used to grab some useful gear parts.
Dislike:
*Too much HP on the bosses plus the absurd tenacity up that cripple most teams damage, making the raid take too much time to complete.
*Gear rewards are ridiculous compared to the time needed to finish, which is 3 or 4 days depending on how much time people have to waste on this raid. As mentioned before the Triunvirate takes too much time.
*Nihilus gaining protection. Don't you think he is already way too much overpowered compared to the other sith lords in phase 2 and 3? Does he really need a shield on top of a killing blow, stealing buffs and messing with skills cooldowns?
GP: 168M
Teams: all the obvious ones to get to roughly 11M damage in heroic
Motivation: Now that I have the raid mechanics nailed and the raid dies in just over an hour it’s not a chore at all. I see the posts above and see that it’s obvious that the raid isn’t fun because it’s last for almost a week for terrible rewards. So because I’m now one raid away from unlocking traya. I’ve had a full G12 piece from every raid I’ve done pretty much so that’s my motivation right there.
Enjoyment: maxing the damage for the teams that I use and building the teams for the phases that I’m not doing as well on.
Basically it’s a fairly easy solve. Just change the T1-6 so that it can be done in 2 days maximum for people and put a high chance for full G12 pieces in the reward structure and I guarantee you this would solve problems. That way the rich aren’t the only ones getting richer. The only reason for doing heroic should be to get Traya shards. Don’t ruin the raid for 90% of gamers because it’s actually pretty fun when it only lasts a couple hours.
Once you feel you have as good of a representative sample as you are going to get with this initiative, could you possibly summon up what your conclusions are, and then get back to us with response / feedback from the studio?
It appears quite a few have spend some time here giving feedback, I am sure a lot would like some back
T5/6 ( did one incomplete 7 as a merc in another guild )
- What GP is your Guild that is attempting the raid?
Currently 108m ( has dropped a bit after losing a few people in the last couple of weeks ).
- What teams you did you attempt the raid with?
Think I've used just about my entire roster and various times, but most success with JTR, Troopers, Chex Mix, Nightsisters, some FO.
- What part of the raid motivated or demotivated you to continue trying?
The only real motivation is getting geared for T7. For demotivation the long grindy nature.
- What about the raid did you enjoy? What did you dislike about the raid?
I find it really tough to zero in on anything that I actually enjoy in this raid. If there wasn't a very slight glimmer at the end of the tunnel I probably wouldn't be doing it.
For dislike:
The Grind. Lower tiers should have the same mechanic as T7, no character refresh, 2 day timer. Then you can balance the health/damage around those expectations, and they're useful as a tool to work towards T7.
At the moment, optimal T7 is pretty much 1 Team for each phase, plus stuff to finish P4. ( with some bits in between ). For all the other Tiers, it's use 5 teams over and over and over and over and over again, with maybe a little variance. But using JTR in every Phase on T6 isn't doing anything to prepare you for T7, it's just more grind.
If the 2 day, no refresh mechanics were the same, then if you couldn't do T7, you could try T6, or T5 ( etc ), until you can find a level you can do. When you can clear it easily you know that you're ready to move up to the next Tier. Currently, just because you can clear T6 in a few days gives no real indication on whether you are ready for T7.
The other thing that would be really useful, is partial rewards per phase. Wouldn't need to be much, but some reward for managing to clear to P3 of T7 ( even if it was only a little currency ), would make it so that it didn't feel like a complete waste of raid tickets and time spent. ( I'd still expect character shards and the best of the gear to be only for full completion ).
@CG_SBCrumb As the quoted post requests: Please pay us the courtesy of providing, at least, the same level of detail in the studio response, as we have provided you with our feedback.
Make buffs & debuffs viable, for crying out loud!
CG created the toons which have these as their methods of control. Now removing the ability to utilise these options, either at all or without massive penalty, is, quite simply, insane.
This Raid & the player experience strongly supports the widely shared opinion that they have not & do not.
It seems mostly the only people who enjoy this raid are some of those able to do heroic. Because Traya shards. The rewards for t1-t6 are atrocious. Also it takes longer for the lower tiers to complete than the hardest tier for a variety of raid design issues which have caused player apathy. Which causes the raid to last longer. If you can't do heroic it seems most just do t4.
Very few viable squads. For a raid designed to "show off your lineup" the raid design it's self bottlenecks squad use. And if you don't have jtr you're just trying to ice skate uphill. From over tuned bosses (DN/traya) to over tuned tenacity it makes roster depth null and void.
The look of the raid is awesome. The Kotor theme is awesome. Actually playing the raid is like being Sisyphus having to push a boulder up a hill only to have it roll back down the hill. For eternity. Barefoot.
I am writing this as an open letter to the developers who have shown an interest in hearing from the community. In this I will express the opinions of myself and my fellow guild members regarding the new sith raid. I will also explore the impact the release of this raid has had on our guild overall. Finally, I will talk about the individual mechanics in the raid that we have issues with and any suggestions for change or improvement we could think of.
The third raid released for SWGOH on 28/2/18. It was a highly anticipated event for our guild as most members were looking for something new to renew interest within the game. Many players within our guild actively follow CG’s ‘Game Changers’ and had been following the releases they had leading up to the raid coming out as well. Safe to say I personally had never seen the guild be so excited. Then the day finally came were the raid dropped and we jumped straight into a T5 thinking that would be a reasonable starting point given the relative strength of our guild. This was the start of a string of problems that we are still dealing with to this day.
As a guild we dived straight into the new raid. Beginning the process of learning the new mechanics, teams that work well and riding the waves of joy and frustrations anything new brings. Things were great at first. The excitement had us overlook the flaws and we eventually finished out first raid. For context this took us well over a week. While we had been progressing through this raid the first heroics were being completed by the top tier guilds. After seeing screenshots of the rewards that had multiple full drops of g12 pieces we were looking forward to our first look at what we could expect for the next few months. Boy was our guild disappointed by the rewards that dropped. Especially those who had put in big numbers to pull us through the entire thing. This alone had us pause on starting a new raid even though we had maxed our tickets as we took a few days to discuss what we should do. Eventually we agreed to running a T4 for two reasons. The rewards for T5 weren’t worth the effort of the time it required, and the hope was multiple T4s would end on par. Thankfully information had started to filter down from the top tier guilds about important teams and exploits to use. A quick decision was reached to run a T6 to allow us to run heroics in the future before the exploits had been removed. A good decision by us because CG removed the exploits and took it two steps further.
It was at this point that people in the guild were already struggling to remain interested in the raid. The rewards weren’t worth the effort it took to complete and the early exploits that the community had found were the only thing keeping the clear times down. This is when CG stepped in and removed the exploits that hadn’t been found through questionable play testing before release. This step alone would have been fine if this was where it ended. Before long guilds had found that applying expose was the next best solution to bringing down these raid bosses. Again, CG removed this as an option and went a step further to make most parts all but immune to debuffs. This was the first time we actively lost people participating in the raid. They had made a raid that was already difficult and raised it to an eleven. We had a fair amount of people swap from actively hitting the raid to posting autos and we started having people dropping off from hitting it altogether. Meanwhile the mood within the guild chat was terrible. Almost everyone was angry at the raid mechanics. Nobody was enjoying the raid. There also was no sense of progression in time taken to complete or roster development. It quickly became a chore to post our five hits or to even hit the raid at all. This was the first time I had seen a lack of participation in any portion of the game from the guild.
Fast forward three months and the guild is still facing the same issues. We have lost members from the game because this raid had sapped the fun out of the game for them. We have multiple members that have stayed only because of their monetary investment in the game. We alternate running T4 and T5 just so we aren’t wasting tickets but there is no sense of progression. The rewards in place have gotten us no closer to another tier/heroic. It has made the guild refocus their efforts in getting ready for the RJT event as that is the main team that sees any repeatable success by this point. Animosity to the raid has only grown worse and we regularly miss participation from members even on the T4. The main reason things haven’t improved is the lack of suitable rewards for the difficulty of the raid and the mechanics themselves which are at the best of times punishing or otherwise game ruining.
This brings us to the individual mechanics in the raid. The opinions here are mostly my own after reflecting on what guild members have had to say about each part. There are two major problems I see with the raid in its entirety. Darth Nihilus and his annihilate ability and Darth Traya and her isolate ability. I also have ideas on other aspects of the raid that I will go into also.
P1 – Darth Nihilus
· Annihilate should not be random. When it is available it should be used. We are given a single use buff to counter this ability. More often than not DH does not use his ability and it is wasted. This leads to runs being cut short because of RNG
· The protection gains he has. Thematically this ability is fine. However, the absurd health pool behind it is an issue. If the health pool was reduced and the protection side of this ability was doubled down upon it would make players consider teams more carefully than just dps to outpace the gain. It would also lead to a healthier interaction in p4 where players can choose between giving DH significant protection on autos or sink them into Sion and risk stacks and taunt.
P2 – Darth Sion
· Overall the guild and I agree that this is actually the most reasonable phase out of the four. It is the closest we have to a well-balanced fight and the mechanics fit the theme of the character.
P3 – Darth Traya
· Isolate. It is by far the worst mechanic in this entire raid. By design it at best hinders a team comp and more than likely flat out ruins them. Again this leads to people bringing a high dps team to the fight and looking to sink damage as opposed to bringing a team with synergy and trying to play around the mechanics to maximise damage outputs.
· Traya already has an iconic ability you could have drawn from. Her force bond. I believe this would be an excellent alternative to the isolate debuff. When this is placed on a toon all buffs and debuffs could be shared between traya and the victim and a percentage of the healing and damage can be shared also. Still keep in cleansable in the same fashion as isolate but easier to reapply given the difference in absolute power. Trayas stacking tenacity will keep most debuffs off her while only gaining the positives and the damage returned will force it to be removed with just as much haste and isolate currently has.
· The buffs the lightsabers spawn with are also too determinate on the outcome of the run. Either the spawns could be set to a particular combination of buffs or use the class of character that took her into solo combat (support, damage or tank). The difference these buffs provide to the outcome of the run is staggering.
To summarise everything here quickly is simple. The raid is too difficult. The rewards based on that difficulty are not nearly rewarding enough. The mechanics are overbearing as they currently are. Every time we as a community find something that works you are just as quick to take it away from us. Progression is non-existent without the next wave of guild members getting event toons. The gear sink that every player finds themselves in hasn’t been alleviated at all. Morale of guilds is down because of these things. Players enjoyment of the game overall has been sullied by this raid. A lack of communication from your end hasn’t helped this process at all and it's only now you are openly looking for feedback from the downtrodden.
Sincerely Jettyy, a member of GYST.
3, 4, 5
What GP is your Guild that is attempting the raid?
80k
What teams you did you attempt the raid with?
P1: Thrawn Magma
P2: FO
P3: ChexMix
P4: Whatever else
What part of the raid motivated or demotivated you to continue trying?
Motivate: nothing.
Demotivate: The grind. It's a lot of work to participate in the raid, and the rewards hardly feel worth it.
What about the raid did you enjoy? What did you dislike about the raid?
I enjoy the overall look and thematics for the raid. However, the difficulty and low payout really take a toll on it. A large portion of the group doesn't even attempt to try the raid anymore, leaving it to just the top heavy hitters. Since we cannot possibly do Heroic, that means the raid just stretches out for days upon days.
As said above, the major problems of the raid mostly come from Nihilus and Traya's Isolate. I don't have a problem with the RNG nature of Annihilate being used (it almost always seems to go off when ready); the buff eating, cooldown increasing, and protection regeneration part get me. There isn't much worse than knowing a character MIGHT gain a buff from one of their abilities, and, if Nihilus chooses to attack exactly that character, Annihilate will go off cool down. At that point, using the protection shield isn't worth it, since he might not hit the buff anyway, but failing to use it is fatal. If the shield is used, he definitely won't hit the buff (unless it's on the person with it already), which means he'll have it ready next turn instead.
Additionally, the Enrage mechanic is particularly frustrating, at least in the lower ranks. Most phases are basically a dance around tricky mechanics (annihilate and isolate) until enrage triggers. That's about it--no strategy, no feelings of success, just a slow wait for enrage to hit.
This is somewhat off topic, but I feel that the raids themselves have changed from the original outlined goal. Their intentions are to be places where guilds can pool resources to defeat enemies much stronger than a single player. However, over time, they've become more bureaucratic, where several members can defeat most or the entire raid on their own, requiring rules and enforcement in the guild to protect those who cannot. I feel the Sith Raid was a hypercorrection on this, an attempt to create a raid which can definitely not be soloed or unfairly monopolized.
Personally, I'd like to see a system in place more like the Territory system, where the guild accumulates points for stars, and the more stars earned, the more rewards shared among the the guild. In this way, raids could be simplified a bit (remove enrage and mechanics designed specifically to keep the raid stretching out), allowing each member to face off against their own instance of the raid. To help weaker members of the guild who specialize in exactly one or two phases, make the starting phase optional, increasing the choices available based on the number of stars earned (ex: the Pit starts in P1, but after X number of starts have been earned, someone who has yet to participate in the Pit can start in P2, then P3 after X+, and P4 after X++).
I'm sure there are unseen problems with this model, but I think it would solve a large number of issues with the raids (management, enforcement, and even placement and ties).
What GP is your Guild that is attempting the raid? 2,286,971, currently 18 members.
What teams you did you attempt the raid with? Whatever we had available, mainly Phoenix. For players in the mid levels (40-70, roughly), they don't have the luxury of trying different combinations to see what works. You use the one or two squads that can do any damage at all to Nihlus.
What part of the raid motivated or demotivated you to continue trying? The only thing that motivated me was getting it over with. I just put it on auto a couple times a day.
What about the raid did you enjoy? What did you dislike about the raid? Phase 2 was fun enough. The rest was terrible. Nihlus' unpredictability with Annihilate, and the fact that protection only lasts for one turn means you're constantly wasting a turn to use it only for him to wait until it's gone to attack.
5,6,7
What GP is your Guild that is attempting the raid?
140GP now, it was less when we completed Heroic first time.
What teams you did you attempt the raid with?
JTR -P1
Phoenix - P2
Chexmix - P3
Whats left - P4
What part of the raid motivated or demotivated you to continue trying?
As a guild we did zetas and gear ups for what was needed, we all stepped up to do the 2% each phase as minimum. Failed Heroic the frist couple of times but made it happen after learning what was needed. Motivation came from being part of a great team and to get the shards and rewards.
What about the raid did you enjoy? What did you dislike about the raid?
I like the rewards, P2 is fun enough still as u can try some new teams there.
Dislike rng most, but as we have it on farm now there is no need to reatreat for hours and push for maximum damage.
What GP is your Guild that is attempting the raid? 107m
What teams you did you attempt the raid with? Troopers, sith, aa hoda CLS rhan gk
What part of the raid motivated or demotivated you to continue trying? Demotivated by p1, p4. Nihilus protection should not recover, anhilate is random. P4 is a slog. P3 is boring. Rewards are next to useless compared to rancor and effort.
What about the raid did you enjoy? What did you dislike about the raid? See above. Unless one has jtr the impossible to get a good score.
What GP is your Guild that is attempting the raid? 108mil
What teams you did you attempt the raid with? A wide variety...trying to get more "mandatory" JTR teams.
What part of the raid motivated or demotivated you to continue trying? As a guild, participation is quickly waning...the event takes way too long and members state it feels more like a chore than a game.
What about the raid did you enjoy? What did you dislike about the raid? No one in the guild likes the event, we just do it because we feel we have to. Two biggest complaints across all 50 members is veteran farming and sith raid.
Yep, today is a bit busy with releases and tracking down Territory Battle Compensation info. Meeting in the next few days to review further. Expect an update here before EOW
Thank you for a quick, clear and concise response. Looking forward to the update.