The Marquee release structure owns bones.

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NicWester
8928 posts Member
Releasing characters via Marquee event is the best thing to happen to this game. You get the character to 3* for free, you get a chance to test them out with any squad, you get a bunch of mods that you're probably going to sell but sometimes get a few to keep, you get an omega. i wasn't paying attention to the amount of credits I got off this one, but in the past I remember getting a few hundred thousand. If you like the character there's a bundle you can get for an instant boost, and if you really like the character you can guarantee yourself 5 shards for a bunch of crystals. But, if you're like me, your job doesn't pay enough and your landlord wants too much, so you don't buy these bundles or packs. Instead, in 4-6 months you farm them up free. In the meantime, you get them to G11 and work on their abilities--That's a lot of gear and an increasing nuber of zetas each time, but you have a minimum of four months to do it. There's time.

There's a myth out there that there was a magical time when characters were released in other, better ways. It doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Pao, Chopper, Bistan, Scariff Rebel Pathfinder, and Dengar were released through the daily login, giving you 30 shards if you logged in every day. Chopper and Bistan had separate events every day for their release month where you would get an additional shard if you completed it. The consensus was this was too slow, and the one shard a day events were "a slap in the face" because no one who plays this game has ever actually been slapped in the face and doesn't know how silly they sound to those of us who have when they say that.

Baze and General Greivous were released to the Shard Shop--Baze for a limited time, then moved exclusively to Chromium packs and shipments. The consensus with shard shop characters was that they only rewarded "whales" because no one else had that many 7* characters laying around. (Fun side story--I started farming Greivous the day he came out despite having only been playing for about 6 weeks at the time. I already had at least one 7* character in each store and figured, eh, why not?) Baze made people suuuper mad because he was a limited time purchase and people felt that since he was so good, they were being forced to spend.

The only time you were actually forced to spend money to unlock a character (and even then, "forced" is a bit of a strong statement, since you could always just not unlock it) was Chief Chirpa, who was given a pack that cost $5, if I'm remembering correctly, as part of an Earth Day charity promotion. All proceeds from his pack went to the World Wildlife Foundation to, I don't know, feed pandas or whatever.

Technically you didn't have to spend money to buy Aurodium packs, since they were bought with crystals and crystals are given freely in the game. But in order for Aurodium packs to show up in your store you had to first spend $200 in the game. If you were free to play, or even if you were just a light spender, too bad, so sad, you didn't get a chance at Aurodium packs, which is where Tusken Shaman, Wedge, Geonosian Spy, and B2 all debuted. I have to admit that I'm a little more iffy on the history of Aurodium packs because I hadn't spent $200 and wasn't even allowed to look at them with my dirty unwashed peasant eyes, so I'm reconstructing it from Game Updates and what I remember people talking about on the forum at the time.

When Guilds were announced they gave us four new characters, and people were mad. They were mad that it took dozens of Heroic Rancors to unlock Han Solo, and then they were mad that he was bad, and then they got mad again when they made him good much later. They were mad because Gamorran Guard and Jawa Engineer shared a slot in the Guild Store. For funsies, search for "Has Engineer Been Removed" on the forum and take a look at how many people were certain that the Engineer was stealth removed. Sun Fac was also added at this time, but not to the Guild Store--no, he was put directly into Chromium packs along with nearly every other character in the game at the time, albeit with increased odds of opening him. So the only way to get him was to buy Chromium packs and hope you got him 10 shards at a time--but don't unlock him! Once you activate a character, if you open the full version later you got less shards, so it behooved you to hold off on unlocking him until you'd cracked enough packs that the full 4-star character unlocked. On the plus side, you'd get shards for a whole mess of other characters, which you could then turn into shard shop currency for General Greivous or Baze Malbus.

Sun Fac wasn't the only character exclusive to Chromium packs, though. Lando, Rex, Maul, Aayla, Old Ben, Qui-Gon, Cad Bane, Leia, Kit Fisto, Tarkin and probably others were Day 1 characters, but they took their sweet time trickling down into cantina nodes and stores. For that matter, Sun Fac wasn't even the only character released directly into Chromiums--Echo, Zam, Cody, (and more, but I've been at this for too long) were all exclusive to the packs.

So who got put directly into a store upon their release? Well, historically speaking, Baze and Greivous in the Shard Shop; Chief Nebbit in Arena, Jawa Scavenger in Cantina. Bodhi Rook was a free gift to us, and then put into Galactic War after a little while.

Not going to lie, there might be more, and if there are bring them up and we can discuss them individually. But I started this post 72 minutes ago and I'm only through August 2017's Game Updates, (and I haven't even touched on Tournaments yet!) so you'll forgive me if I'm a little tired of opening new tabs to see who was release when and to where. So let me sum up to my main point:

Marquees own bones, guys, don't even act like they don't. Is it annoying that you have a level 85 3* character for a couple months? Of course. But it's better than the alternative that we've had in the past--dozens of characters that released initially and exclusively to players who had spent $200, then trickling down to players who spent crystals for a chance at them, and then onto the board or into stores. It would be nice to have more Legendaries and Hero's Journeys, but do you remember what the board is like when those first launch? Because I remember each one distinctly--"What a blatant money grab, forcing us to farm Phoenix Squad for Thrawn, when they're useless everywhere!" "What a blatant money grab making us farm First Order Stormtrooper for BB8!" People always want more Legendaries, and then get upset when they don't have the characters for them because those characters weren't on some reddit checklist of "Get These, Ignore Everyone Else."

Marquees are great. This post is taking too long and already crashed once (thank you, Drafts!) so I'm done.
Ceterum censeo Patientia esse meliat.

Replies

  • Iy4oy4s
    2923 posts Member
    As I’ve said before, marquees are fine, but really stale now. Need a new fresh way to get toons.
    Iy4oy4s wrote: »
    Are we ever going to get a new way that a toon is released? Since legendary and hero’s journey are very few and far between, marquees are getting really boring. Time to come up with something new huh? Maybe ( as I’ve suggested before) release a toon entirely in bronzium packs. That way, you give the people a way to spend those Ally points....or maybe as a reward for completing the dailies, 5-10 shards a day for completing them all? I dunno, but we need something new here!!
  • Rebmes
    376 posts Member
    edited July 2018
    I really liked how Jawa Engineer and Gam Guard came out. I was excited by how I was supposed to try to get Mother Talzin. I didn't need rules or regulations applied to how EACG releases new characters, and I was extremely disappointed when they switched to "all releases will be marquee releases."

    The marquee events themselves are pretty cool but I miss having to get different characters in different ways.

    The Old Republic for example - we could have had a huge release with a lot of variety, but instead it'll pretty much all go to marquee. Seems like a waste of a good opportunity; the game is getting stuck in a rut.
    Post edited by Kyno on
  • Jaconis
    39 posts Member
    The fact that these are characters are released via Marquee events with the following chromium/farm release 6 week later each is not the problem, IMO. The problem is that they are almost all only being released on a single, 20 energy, hard node. This means that truly ftp people will need ~9 months, at a minimum, from the date they are released, to get these characters available for raids.

    If there was more of a mix of these chars being put into Cantina nodes, or if they reverse their decision to add these chars to the existing stores as well, I would agree that the marquee release structure is fine. As it is, there are too many hard node chars to farm, given that they take 6 months to 7 Star. The problem will only get worse as they are committed to this structure.
  • The amount of new toons released as of late and haven’t had ability Mat Packs with them is just ridiculous...
  • Wil
    140 posts Member
    I'm just here to find out if "owns bones" is a good or bad thing.
  • I don’t mind the marquee releases as long as they follow the cadence they have established to get them to farmable locations. What I do mind is the continued marketing of shard packs as having a chance to drop 3-330 character shards without the disclosure of odds for the various drop rates. It’s predatory, it’s essentially gambling, and I thought Apple was going to clamp down on it. The loophole of forcing people to convert their real money into virtual currency before spending it on packs and pretending this makes it something other than an impermissible “loot box,” is ridiculous and insulting to players. If you simply priced the packs more reasonably and were honest about the odds, I expect you could generate a similar amount of revenue. But instead, the choice is to continue using the worst business model in gaming.
  • For those who don't like marquee releases because they're stale, we could ask for the tournaments to be reinstated.... IMHO the marquees are fine as is. Lets not get something that works reasonably well ruined.
  • For those who don't like marquee releases because they're stale, we could ask for the tournaments to be reinstated.... IMHO the marquees are fine as is. Lets not get something that works reasonably well ruined.

    All we really need is a continued path to make f2p grinds a bit easier.

    This guy nailed it:
    https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/discussion/175452/proposed-revision-to-the-character-release-cadence#latest
  • Vertigo
    4496 posts Member
    Shardshop farms were actually extremely nice for older f2p who had that many 7* characters laying around. I farmed Baze and Nihilus to 5 and 6* respectively before they had left the shard shop.

    I'm not against Marquee events, but if they're going to release so many characters in mass succession, I don't think they should all follow the exact same cadence. Prime example being the Solo toons. We got a bunch, on or two right after the others, and now we all have them at 3* yes, but that's it. Can't use them in raids, can't use them in any later TB phases, I think they should have some follow the typical cadence, but would like to see a couple of them just hit a node at the same time they're released (doing it a week later is a bad choice because it would let people spend and then ruin their investment) so people can at least have a chance to work on one or two of the 6 or 7 new characters.

    I probably didn't articulate this super well, but I'm sure people understand where I was going.
  • This thread is whacked, wasted time and rambled on. So what if it's released on hard. Put the work in or don't play. I haven't spent a dime and I farm characters like Nihilus because I wanted him. Took me 9 months but who cares, he was free.

    We all have to play the same way and I choose to play free. I've been playing since the begining and the game is so much easier then it was 2 years ago. Actually, new players have it way easy in my opinion.
  • I don't mind marquees. I do not like ONLY marquees.

    Put a character or two in the shops for goodness' sake. I now have 9 untouched L1g1 3-4* marquess languishing at the bottom of my roster. Would be 10 if I didn't foolishly level up Bastila before realizing how slow she really is (thanks for clouding that fact with 100% TM boost, marquee!).
  • Dosky
    13 posts Member
    IMHO the marquee events are the ruin of this game
  • Lol, you wrote this whole thing but didn't convince anyone, 3 stars? Seriously? 3 star characters have long been unviable for arena, unusable for raids and if you think you can tell what they are going to look like at 7 stars, you'll know nothing.

    Single hard node farms are absolutely the worst, 1-2 shards a day on average adding another 5-6 months! I mean what's the point? Why not just make them 2 month farms after they go "f2p". I sense a pro dev bias in this post, so much like an apologist
  • Dosky wrote: »
    IMHO the marquee events are the ruin of this game

    Not only yours man
  • I just want characters to be immediately added to where we’ll eventually be farming them. I don’t care if there are packs for whales to instantly bring new characters to seven star. I would much rather farm a toon from a hard node/cantina node on day one of its release, than get 50 shards on day one and no more for 3 months.
  • Vertigo wrote: »
    Shardshop farms were actually extremely nice for older f2p who had that many 7* characters laying around. I farmed Baze and Nihilus to 5 and 6* respectively before they had left the shard shop.

    I'm not against Marquee events, but if they're going to release so many characters in mass succession, I don't think they should all follow the exact same cadence. Prime example being the Solo toons. We got a bunch, on or two right after the others, and now we all have them at 3* yes, but that's it. Can't use them in raids, can't use them in any later TB phases, I think they should have some follow the typical cadence, but would like to see a couple of them just hit a node at the same time they're released (doing it a week later is a bad choice because it would let people spend and then ruin their investment) so people can at least have a chance to work on one or two of the 6 or 7 new characters.

    I probably didn't articulate this super well, but I'm sure people understand where I was going.

    I barely remember when characters were in the shard shop, but I do remember that helping pretty decently! Can we go back to a bigger shard shop devs?? There's literally like 2 slots with useful stuff in there..
  • How about changing up the toons in the shops now? Arena and GW toons are stale. With soooooo many marquee toons being released in such a very short amount of time, add a few into the shops. Sell the packs to whales to instantly 7* then put them in the shops or make them farmable.
  • Mr_Sausage
    1869 posts Member
    Dosky wrote: »
    IMHO the marquee events are the ruin of this game

    How so exactly? As said in the OP, some early characters were PAY ONLY. Would you rather them revert to the old style? New characters are pay only and we get zero free toons??
  • UdalCuain
    4991 posts Member
    How about changing up the toons in the shops now? Arena and GW toons are stale. With soooooo many marquee toons being released in such a very short amount of time, add a few into the shops. Sell the packs to whales to instantly 7* then put them in the shops or make them farmable.

    They've already said those stores won't be added to.
  • How about changing up the toons in the shops now? Arena and GW toons are stale. With soooooo many marquee toons being released in such a very short amount of time, add a few into the shops. Sell the packs to whales to instantly 7* then put them in the shops or make them farmable.

    They've already said those stores won't be added to.

    They have said a lot of things. Things can change. Things should change.
  • Buddy
    197 posts Member
    Remember when they first released the Rogue One characters, and you had to compete with each other using the Ally currency to get shards? And only the top player would unlock a full character?

    That being said, I would still love it if they put some older characters into different stores, like, oh, I dunno.... Lobot and urorororororororororororororororor...

    Pretty please?
  • Mzee
    1777 posts Member
    edited July 2018
    Disagree. I wouldn't mind if there were other methods of adding characters to the game, but outside of the legendary characters and the couple journey characters there is nothing. Few characters have any use outside of being 7* so having to wait for half a year to use them is unexciting to me... Territory Wars has finally added a use, but not being able to use for TB (platoons and battles) or raids is meh to me. Not to mention that almost every new character that is made F2P is put on a single energy hard node or high energy cantina node now.
  • Baze and few others were first released in god awful tournaments.
  • UdalCuain
    4991 posts Member
    How about changing up the toons in the shops now? Arena and GW toons are stale. With soooooo many marquee toons being released in such a very short amount of time, add a few into the shops. Sell the packs to whales to instantly 7* then put them in the shops or make them farmable.

    They've already said those stores won't be added to.

    They have said a lot of things. Things can change. Things should change.

    You may be right.

    If they do it'll be when their data tells them players have their lowest levels of stockpiled currency.
  • I'm sure this has been said several times here already but I'll say it again!

    Marquee events are fine, it's a way for players to try new characters, whales get something new to whale out on and CG makes money. The PROBLEM is the eventual release to a single hard node weeks/months later and the MONTHS after that you'll spend farming a single character. Sure maybe characters like Sion who are amazing can spend some time on a single node but not EVERY SINGLE NEW RELEASE!

    Swgoh isn't like most games where it starts to stale out the more characters you collect, quite the contrary in fact, so **** is the point in making so hard to farm the majority of newer characters?! The only reason I can see is this, we now know that marquee characters will always be a long farm as a F2P so if a character comes along that you don't want to wait 6-12 months for then you better break out that wallet!
  • SoonerJBD wrote: »
    I don’t mind the marquee releases as long as they follow the cadence they have established to get them to farmable locations. What I do mind is the continued marketing of shard packs as having a chance to drop 3-330 character shards without the disclosure of odds for the various drop rates. It’s predatory, it’s essentially gambling, and I thought Apple was going to clamp down on it. The loophole of forcing people to convert their real money into virtual currency before spending it on packs and pretending this makes it something other than an impermissible “loot box,” is ridiculous and insulting to players. If you simply priced the packs more reasonably and were honest about the odds, I expect you could generate a similar amount of revenue. But instead, the choice is to continue using the worst business model in gaming.

    I agree with OP and you. Marquee accompanied with staying true to release cadence is a great. It's not right they don't publish the probabilities for shard drops in the 5 - 330 packs. Especially with such a wild range. The crystal cost I'm less concerned by, just tell people the odds.
  • Rebel_yell wrote: »
    SoonerJBD wrote: »
    I don’t mind the marquee releases as long as they follow the cadence they have established to get them to farmable locations. What I do mind is the continued marketing of shard packs as having a chance to drop 3-330 character shards without the disclosure of odds for the various drop rates. It’s predatory, it’s essentially gambling, and I thought Apple was going to clamp down on it. The loophole of forcing people to convert their real money into virtual currency before spending it on packs and pretending this makes it something other than an impermissible “loot box,” is ridiculous and insulting to players. If you simply priced the packs more reasonably and were honest about the odds, I expect you could generate a similar amount of revenue. But instead, the choice is to continue using the worst business model in gaming.

    I agree with OP and you. Marquee accompanied with staying true to release cadence is a great. It's not right they don't publish the probabilities for shard drops in the 5 - 330 packs. Especially with such a wild range. The crystal cost I'm less concerned by, just tell people the odds.

    They would have to lower the cost if they disclosed the odds (or increase the odds) because far less players, especially newer players, would bother with the packs if they knew how low the odds were to get anything more than the lowest three drops.
  • HK666
    1263 posts Member
    Appreciate this post and the over an hour it took to make. I concur, I'm fine with Marquee how it is now. I'm also fine with Traya being released in a raid that's out of most people's (and my) grasp. I'm also fine with arena and gw stores chars not changing. New still need to get them up. I guess they could just add more toons and not replace, but meh.

    I did think that the NS and Ewok were neat side farms before they were given nodes, but that's probably because I didn't plan on farming NS so I was getting shards for no work

    I think the Devs are doing a pretty darn good job, blunders n all.
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