State of Arena and Looking Towards Diversity

Taviffs
25 posts Member
edited May 2019
The top 100 teams leading arena are all either Jedi Knight Revan or Darth Revan. Wouldn’t it be nice to see a little more diversity?

I am nostalgic for the early years of this game where you saw teams from all eras and incarcerations of Star Wars leading the arena. One day it would be Ackbar in the #1 spot, the next it would be Phasma, or Old Ben, or Dooku, or Maul, or Palpatine. As time went on, we saw CLS dominate for a while, then it was JTR, but even then you still had a variety of leaders in the top 100, and possibly a different team tomorrow than it was that day. Never was it down to literally only two leaders across the entire top 100 as it has become now.

Ironically, as more characters have been added, diversity in arena has vanished. You’d think the opposite would be true.

I believe the Kenobi/Anakin/Snips adjustments were a step in the right direction, but not enough to see a major presence of those characters in arena nor alter the redundancy in the current top 100. It’s still JKR or DR in all the lead spots.

It would please a fan that has been playing since the beginning to see more reworks aimed at increasing diversity of leadership (and their supporting casts) in arena, especially those that would give new life to old characters, ones that we farmed up and now just get destroyed in every mode of the game. This could be done in a way that still gives players incentive to farm (or possibly even pay) even if it’s for an “old” character. I would shell out for a Vader force choke that severely disables an opponent (similar to the way Thrawn’s fracture does), or Ackbar zetas that increase assists and survivability (at least enough for a classic rebel squad to stay alive against the Revans of the world). Just make it interesting. It doesn’t have to be these ideas specifically.

Finally, I’m not asking for an aggressive or curt explanation from commenters as to how this game makes its money or how its “always been this way.” Nor am I attacking the developers who made this great game that has entertained me for so many hours. I just want the force of the game to stay alive and well where, sadly, it’s feeling like the opposite when I see the same JKR team over and over no matter how many teams I refresh, hoping for a new opponent.

Replies

  • CoastalJames
    2971 posts Member
    Taviffs wrote: »
    The top 100 teams leading arena are all either Jedi Knight Revan or Darth Revan. Wouldn’t it be nice to see a little more diversity?

    They were going that way. And claimed they wanted it. And then halted it...

    :neutral:

  • SemiGod
    3001 posts Member
    Padmé is getting there and with reworks she will be another part of the meta.
  • Nauros
    5429 posts Member
    Well, it's still an improvement over the previous state where it was only JKR...
  • Elda0111
    1 posts Member
    edited May 2019
    Padme will be next JKR/DR. They need massive rework, not just add new if they want to save arena. And same is with borring ship arena
  • The reason it’s still only dr and jkr is because people don’t have there padme geared, modded, or zeta’d well enough yet for arena. It’ll get there.
  • Meta changes every three months. Regardless, don't cry it's running your make up
  • No diversity funnels people to spend money to gear/mod. That's all they want.
  • Si7h_
    2 posts Member
    Same with TW. If the opposing guild has more JKR than we do, we don't advance past the first two territories. We have categorically lost the last 5-6 TW for this specific reason and it makes them boring.
  • I'm amazed at how many players buy into and actually support the concept that the fresh new character/team should be more powerful than the rest. Maybe step back and look at what the concept and appeal of this game used to be, and could be again: a large number of characters from the Star Wars universe for players to unlock, power up, and combine into teams... based on how you want to play, not who the devs have decided will overpower the rest of the content they continually render obsolete and worthless.

    In a balanced game, this would mean no useless characters; it would mean any character could at least be somewhat useful/viable. Realistically, some would of course function better with certain other characters or factions, some would be useful in a wider range of scenarios, etc., but they'd all be viable/useful. So if you're a fan of character x, you could put in the time, effort, and/or money, and have yourself a useful character you like and want to play as, not one you HAVE TO play as to be successful because developers decided a small percentage of characters will be useful and intentionally more powerful than others.

    When did the fun factor and the joy of trying out all sorts of combinations become irrelevant? When did the great appeal and supposed goal of having a giant pool of balanced, useful characters and teams disappear, and why isn't that still the goal?

    People will say it's all about making $. Okay... I'd argue there's more money to be made with 100 viable characters than with say 15. There'd be more characters to collect/improve and more incentive to do so, because in a balanced game they would all have a role. Many would continue to buy the fresh, new, unique characters, for sure. But instead of developers essentially discarding the vast majority of characters they made and writing them off as useless, why not make them useful so players would see value in spending money to obtain and level them as well? Why produce lots of content just to let it die and lose its value? Seems to me there's much more incentive to pay, and more reasons to pay, if more characters are useful.

    Please. Bring balance to the game, characters, factions. Or at least put an in-game stamp that says "useless" over the vast majority of characters so everyone knows exactly what characters are to be leveled, since devs want to dictate how we play, rather than let our imaginations, creativity, experimentation, and FUN be the guiding factors.
  • OBoogieIII
    400 posts Member
    Yes to all of this. I hate spending so much time building certain toons, then they’re worthless and I have zero need for them. I hardly ever get to use my favorite ones because I’m forced to use who dev wants me too. Worse yet, I have to spend months farming and gearing the same team as everyone else , or I can’t compete in certain areas. More diversity would be amazing
  • Yeah I remember when top 100 had ten + squads not two. When one squad in tw couldn't Outlast ten of my squads and 12 more other clan mates and still be standing. Like I remember when ns came in and made us rethink squads but it never took more then 1-5 to kill it. You had hope if you didn't have them. If I'm playing tw or ga aang see jkr or Dr I just don't play is not worth my time bc I can't win. My bounty Hunter, sith , Jedi, ns, rebel, resistance, empire, fo, non of my teams stand a chance it's just discouraging I feel like I can't go up.
  • Rath_Tarr
    4944 posts Member
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  • I'm amazed at how many players buy into and actually support the concept that the fresh new character/team should be more powerful than the rest. Maybe step back and look at what the concept and appeal of this game used to be, and could be again: a large number of characters from the Star Wars universe for players to unlock, power up, and combine into teams... based on how you want to play, not who the devs have decided will overpower the rest of the content they continually render obsolete and worthless.

    In a balanced game, this would mean no useless characters; it would mean any character could at least be somewhat useful/viable. Realistically, some would of course function better with certain other characters or factions, some would be useful in a wider range of scenarios, etc., but they'd all be viable/useful. So if you're a fan of character x, you could put in the time, effort, and/or money, and have yourself a useful character you like and want to play as, not one you HAVE TO play as to be successful because developers decided a small percentage of characters will be useful and intentionally more powerful than others.

    When did the fun factor and the joy of trying out all sorts of combinations become irrelevant? When did the great appeal and supposed goal of having a giant pool of balanced, useful characters and teams disappear, and why isn't that still the goal?

    People will say it's all about making $. Okay... I'd argue there's more money to be made with 100 viable characters than with say 15. There'd be more characters to collect/improve and more incentive to do so, because in a balanced game they would all have a role. Many would continue to buy the fresh, new, unique characters, for sure. But instead of developers essentially discarding the vast majority of characters they made and writing them off as useless, why not make them useful so players would see value in spending money to obtain and level them as well? Why produce lots of content just to let it die and lose its value? Seems to me there's much more incentive to pay, and more reasons to pay, if more characters are useful.

    Please. Bring balance to the game, characters, factions. Or at least put an in-game stamp that says "useless" over the vast majority of characters so everyone knows exactly what characters are to be leveled, since devs want to dictate how we play, rather than let our imaginations, creativity, experimentation, and FUN be the guiding factors.

    Excellent post, thank you for it.
  • I don't see a practical way to "increase diversity" at this point other than to create wilder RNG swings and less predictability.

    Maybe I'm looking at it too simply, but instead of just talking about what you want conceptually, you should also think practically about how things can be done.
  • mellamoroberto
    259 posts Member
    edited May 2019
    Devs can tweak older characters to make them competitive/useful. Even if they do so the fast, easy way and simply adjust base stats and damage so otherwise useless characters at the very least do decent damage and/or can take more damage.

    Adjusting or reworking abilities, synergy, AND stats, etc. is also doable and much faster than creating a new character or team from scratch, but would obviously take longer and require more testing than simply tweaking stats.

    The only real problem is that's not the vision they have for the game. They believe the fresh new characters/teams should be significantly stronger than everything else. So I guess yeah, it's not feasible if they have that perspective, but if they see the appeal of a more balanced roster, things could change quickly.
  • TVF
    36527 posts Member
    They see the appeal of money.
    I need a new message here. https://discord.gg/AmStGTH
  • TVF wrote: »
    They see the appeal of money.

    True. But every existing character that's useless now could become a reason to spend money if it ceased being useless. With less dev time and effort required vs making a new character. They're missing the big picture IMHO.
  • TVF wrote: »
    They see the appeal of money.

    I'm getting a bit tired of whining like this. The truth is money coming in makes it possible for anyone to play for free. It's socialism in the gaming world, and paying more is always going to provide an advantage.

    They can tweak older characters but then they might become the meta or the meta becomes less of an incentive to buy and the whole game goes splat.
  • TVF
    36527 posts Member
    darthdavid wrote: »
    TVF wrote: »
    They see the appeal of money.

    I'm getting a bit tired of whining like this. The truth is money coming in makes it possible for anyone to play for free. It's socialism in the gaming world, and paying more is always going to provide an advantage.

    They can tweak older characters but then they might become the meta or the meta becomes less of an incentive to buy and the whole game goes splat.

    It's not whining, it's fact. I made no judgement about it.
    I need a new message here. https://discord.gg/AmStGTH
  • TVF wrote: »
    darthdavid wrote: »
    TVF wrote: »
    They see the appeal of money.

    I'm getting a bit tired of whining like this. The truth is money coming in makes it possible for anyone to play for free. It's socialism in the gaming world, and paying more is always going to provide an advantage.

    They can tweak older characters but then they might become the meta or the meta becomes less of an incentive to buy and the whole game goes splat.

    It's not whining, it's fact. I made no judgement about it.

    Then, I misread your post. I apologize as it's quite common around here. Money drives content that is even available if you don't pay a dime for this game. That's pretty amazing no matter what inconveniences a player has to do to get that content. I especially detest the whining judgments on "morality" of the developers. They have made it available for free for crying out loud! It's also a frickin' voluntary video game, not health care. In a sea of complaints and real issues, it becomes harder to identify and solve real issues when complaints litter the forum.
  • Don’t forget that recently we were experiencing some degree of diversity in arena: people used Palpi to defeat DRevan, Anakin gave a huge help to Jedi Revan teams to climb, someone used Traya again, CLS and “New Hope” had some chances in that environment.... so we had 5 strong different teams at the same time.......
    Unfortunately, this lasted few days, this diversity was actually killed by the Devs. They nerfed Anakin, Palpi lead (enemy Sith can’t gain TM vs Malak).... they decided that only players having DRevan AND Malak should reach top ranks.
    Since then, you can see only DRevan/Malak in the best arena ranks, and a ocean of JKR teams and some weaker DRevan team (= no Malak) in the remaining top 50.
    Many players have completely lost their interest in arena due to this.
    I don’t have DRevan, so the days in which I used Anakin in my JKR team to kill them all and continue to reach top spots were great. Now I only play my 5 free fights (often only 2-3) to stay in top 50, no refresh ... because there is no chance to climb, and no fun.
    Sadly, a point of view like this is growing quickly among hundreds of players....
    I wrote this the day Devs announced Darth Revan (so I didn’t suspect the garbage they were planning with Malak!): too much end-game beasts in a too short time frame.... too brutal power creep.... the clear sensation that they are trying to maximize brief-term money grab instead of planning a slope, future game development.....
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