I am not complaining here, just trying to point out a poor design in the game. While I've only played about 7 months, I have noticed an annoying pattern, then was shocked when I found the evidence at swgoh.gg.
Keep in mind, the name of the game is "Star Wars, Galaxy of Heroes"
So this galaxy has 162 toons (presumably heroes) as of Sep. 23, 2018
Rank 1 squads: 4,638
- 57% leader = Traya
- 28% leader = Palpatine
- 9% leader = Bastila
So in the top 4,638 teams, 3 toons out of 162 (1.8% of toons) represent 94% of leaders.
Rank 1-10 squads:
- 56% leader = Traya
- 27% leader = Palpatine
- 11% leader = Bastila
Still 94% of leaders, thus no real variation for an entire "galaxy of heroes"
Rank 1-100 squads, based on 57,862 arena teams.
- 28% leader = Palpatine
- 25% leader = Bastila
- 25% leader = Traya
- 14% Leader = Ray (Jedi Training)
Here, based on 57,862 teams, with 162 toons to play, only 4 characters represent 92% of leaders. Where again is the variation for a "galaxy of heroes"?
When you look at the team compositions:
Rank 1 teams and character inclusion
- Darth Nihilus = 90% inclusion
- Darth Sion = 86% inclusion
- Darth Traya = 82% inclusion
- Grand Admiral Thrawn = 62% inclusion
In other words, with 162 toons to play, to achieve a top 100 spot, and certainly a top 10 or #1, you are essentially forced to play the same 4 characters as everyone else.
Another indicator of poor game design, of the
top 11 team compositions in 1-10 ranking (12,921 teams as of Sep 23)
- 8 are 100% Dark Side
- 1 is 100% Light Side
- 2 are mixed Light & Dark, though Enfys is the only light toon in both teams, thus no variation.
In other words, the odds of achieving a top 10 spot in Arena is nearly impossible unless you play almost exclusively Dark Side, lead by one of 3 toons, and include the other 3 mentioned above.
Here's another way to look at that. 67% of top 11 are entirely Dark Side toons. Splashing Enfys as the token, and pumps that to 79%.
Here's another unfortunate fact. If you look at ALL of the top 100 ranked teams, 100% of them, and remove every Light Side team that includes Yoda, then you would remove every single Light Side team. Yes, there is not a single top 10 LS team that does not include Yoda. In other words, if you want to achieve top 100 with a Light Side squad, you MUST use Yoda. Again, no variation for an entire "Galaxy of Heroes".
"Galaxy" implies massive scale and unlimited variation. Yet, the only way to get to the top is to play 5 specific toons, arguably 6 if you include Thrawn who's in 65% of teams....
"Heroes" implies good guys who do amazing things and are admired by others, yet the vast majority of top 10 teams are DS, and only a couple LS toons even stand out as being potential to get there . . . Yoda, Rey and Bastila.
So Devs, if you are listening......
- Please do something to provide more variation rather than pushing us all into the same corner of his galaxy.
- Please make the Light Side more viable in competition. If you did not notice, the Light Side won the day in most of the movies... So can we at least get equal representation in this "Galaxy of HEROES"?
Thanks,
Replies
The Sith presence in the meta has lasted as long as anything before it, though, and it does appear that we’d need a good couple of significant LS toons to appear before it will change any.
P.S. Darth Traya is my hero
Of course there will always be a meta which will be ever changing, that doesn't mean you can't use toons in other game modes
PS:Light side was meta last year incase you missed that
It is poor design when a balance is not maintained to provide diversity in a character base of 162 toons. I've been playing for 7 months, this meta has been the same nearly the entire time.
Ya, I missed it, but the point remains, no variation at any given time. It's all one or the other then, which is still poor design in the inability to balance diversity and viability.
Ya, I missed it. As I said above . . . . the point remains, no variation at any given time. It's all one or the other, which is still poor design in the inability of the devs to balance diversity and viability.
CLS lasted for 6-7 months IIRC until JTR showed up whose tenure was short (2 months IIRC) until you had counters to her (Nightsisters, Emperor)
EP meta lasted from feb till Bastilla's release (LS) which I think was June? So its short reign. Enfys was also a counter to EP lead teams.
Traya is the hardest toon to acquire and is here to stay for a long time similar to Raid Han (LS) and General Kenobi (LS) before her. The biggest issue I've had with Darth Traya is that she is not as good as the Light Side characters. Her reign will be short because she is NOT a plug and play character. Thrawn's fracture is better than her isolate. She requires at least Darth Nihilus or Darth Sion to be viable. I tried running her without a triumvirate at 5 stars g11 and she was a dead weight. Raid Han and GK can fit in any team still.
The top 10 is not a good indicator of anything. Alignment of characters isn't a big deal. Alignment only matters when you are doing certain PvE nodes.
As you said. You are only at seven months in, that’s very little experience to base arena on. And, swgoh.gg only shows a very very very very VERY small percentage of players. The vast majority of players have never made a swgoh.gg account. That website only provides info based on users who have made an account. And it in no way reflects or shows the usage of all shards and all players.
Game design is more than "number of characters" belonging to certain faction. It includes player progression, content management (how energy is accumulated, how much energy is acquired per hour, game modes, gearing, farming, modding etc.)
Bulk of your argument is team compositions for arena
That is made by the players not the developers. Developers aren't forcing you to use certain teams in the top 10.
You DON'T have to use Darth Traya. Its what everyone else decided to run. Poor game design would be not well thought out mechanics such as the numerous amount of nerfs given to characters due to the heroic sith raid (On damage nerfs, NS nerfs etc)
You have some great points and I appreciate them, but devs do control the toon's abilities, synergies, etc, which guides, and in some cases, forces us in our team compositions. (ewoks, jawa, Nsisters, etc. are all mostly worthless outside of their factions). As such, it is their fault for 94% dominance of 3 characters over the remaining 159 characters. As people are pointing out above, last year it was all flipped... till the devs updated and caused the meta to change. What people are not realizing, is the Devs control the meta with updates, of new characters, features, nerfs, etc. Each meta shift directly correlates to a change in the game from the developers. The devs are ultimately responsible for the meta monopolies mentioned above others and myself.
It might help to understand the problem if you look at another game, similar in theoretical concept, Magic the Gathering. In Magic, there are 5 "colors" (like our Light and Dark sides), and hundred of sub categories. It is a card game, played globally, with more than 20,000 different cards and world champions winning cash prizes in the tens of thousands of dollars. However, in the global competitive leagues, nearly all colors are viable and represented. No 1 deck, at anytime, has real dominance. Some fall in and out of fashion, but the games designers have kept it vibrant with diversity and playability.
However, in SWGOH, this year, if you want to win, you must play X, while last year if you wanted to win you had to play Y.
The only way this is not a design fail, is if it is deliberate to encourage Pay to Win, by purposefully shifting the meta to encourage people to go "me too" and buy those toons, as they are so often are for sale at $9.99 to even $39.99. If this is the Dev's goal, then I admit it is not poor design, rather a brilliant and effective marketing tool to increase revenue.
I know for a fact that pretty much everyone in my arena top 30 has got the Traya team AND uses a Bastila team as a quick solution to defeating some of the other squads when they’re climbing up to Payout position.
And there’s the rub. Most top end players do not have a simple 1 squad fits all for arena, yet swgoh.gg only ever reports the one that was in place when he snapshot was taken.
You may not believe this, but there was a time, when Luminara was the best all—round character in the game, genosian soldier was the most awsome stand—alone character, and the arena was dominated by droids (HK—47, IG—88, IG—86 with a fast Poe). The first time I took 1st place was with Dooku lead, Old Daka, Royal guard, QGJ and Genosian soldier, which back then was a viable team with a viable concept/strategy.
My point is, that METAs change. Today the triumvirate dominates top ranks in a month or 3 it may be bountyhunter, Chewie or ugnaught.
While Swgoh is also a ccg in design template it's hardly comparable to a typical card game.
On the meta...it has more diverse periods than this. This super team is the culmination of hardest to beat content where it takes a good amount of a guild having to build multiple teams. It's not the only meta you see, I've seen multiple different teams rise to arena top during this very meta. But it also happens to have the highest win percantages in offense and best on defense. So we are all playing statistics...for one single end, to get the highest payout on daily basis...may the ends to that goal be creative or not.
As others said the times we only focus on a single arena team is way long gone. We build multiple teams for different purposes. While power creep is high in stride, the amount of useful cards that can be developed in the game is at a healthy level imo. About %30-40 of the cards has different uses around the game.
power creep is why we keep getting stronger and stronger toons. And then the strongest few sit on our Arena teams and dominate the rest.
without power creep, the toons almost everyone has from the game's release would be more or less equal to the new content. Which sounds fine, but this game is driven by people buying things to get ahead/ get stuff quicker. If they remove the power creep and make all teams more or less equal, that takes away incentive to buy things and then the revenue for the game is gone and the game will follow. (or go to ads or something, which, ew).
To keep this game free and alive, I'm fine with the power creep, hard/long farms, and the metas that come and go while take steaming dumps on everything that isn't it
Hey! Great points. I think you are right, perhaps my issue is more the power creep that pushes the changes in meta, preventing older toons of being viable in arena. Did not think of that. Thanks.
I also appreciate your comment about creep pushing rev to keep the game supported. Another good point. I'll try to shift my thinking.
Thanks again,
In other words, what a noob.
Enjoy the game ! Love
Not true. Dropping money, and participating in shard chats will maje it easier, but f2p players like myself can get into top—20 simply by consistently working towards getting into top—20.
Instaquit.
However, while I do see your point, I don't agree with it seeing as there would be no incentive to play the game long term if you didn't have to farm for unnecessary toons like the Vets for RJT. There would be almost no incentive to raid to get raid han, GK or, especially, Traya (with how difficult heroic STR is). If every team was top arena viable, what would be the point of getting more than just the 5 toons you wanted and focusing only on them?
The arena "meta" shifts every few months or so and even now there are 2-3 viable teams that can hit the top (Chewie might add to that too) instead of just 1 like we've seen in the past. I think, aside from the frequency of recent marquee events (More specifically the single hard node farms) which I know they say they're changing/spacing out, the game is in a very good spot right now. But then again, you can't please everyone.
There are other places for many of the characters