Duplicate squad arena and remove the payouts and timer.
I've been clamoring for some sort of game mode that can be played for fun. You know, because a game should be able to be played for fun, whenever you have a moment, and not only when certain events happen to be running.
Well, what if they duplicated squad arena and removed the payouts and removed the timer? They would literally be taking something that already exists and just putting it in a new place in the cantina. Sounds like something easy enough an intern could take care of in a fairly short amount of time (or you would think).
In any case, the idea being it is a squad arena completely for FUN. No payouts, no timers, you would find all different kinds of squads to battle against, can use all the different squads you want to battle other teams, try things out, try different mod configs, etc. I really don't see a downside. It would be nice if things were modified a bit so perhaps rank doesn't even change, you can just pick who you want to battle and have at it.. but of course we are getting into "that would take too much development time blah blah" arguments. Start cheap and easy and give us a playground that is just a duplicate of what already exists.
Well, what if they duplicated squad arena and removed the payouts and removed the timer? They would literally be taking something that already exists and just putting it in a new place in the cantina. Sounds like something easy enough an intern could take care of in a fairly short amount of time (or you would think).
In any case, the idea being it is a squad arena completely for FUN. No payouts, no timers, you would find all different kinds of squads to battle against, can use all the different squads you want to battle other teams, try things out, try different mod configs, etc. I really don't see a downside. It would be nice if things were modified a bit so perhaps rank doesn't even change, you can just pick who you want to battle and have at it.. but of course we are getting into "that would take too much development time blah blah" arguments. Start cheap and easy and give us a playground that is just a duplicate of what already exists.
6
- 60.9K General Discussion
- 9 Developer Q&A Archive
- 2.6K New Players
- 30.5K Arena and Character Strategy
- 4K Individual Events
- 4.6K Guild Events
- 4.6K PVP and Rivalry
- 50.1K Guild Recruitment
- 731 Art and Media
- 4.1K Off Topic
Howdy, Stranger!
Replies
Not to say we should press them for more to do, but they seem to have a decision on a game mode with no rewards.
Something like this though, I wouldn't think requires much development time. It will allow players to try things out, figure out which characters need the most love, which kinds of mods maybe they're lacking, etc. I believe it would "yield progress" (in a sort of indirect way) and drive player engagement, which is ultimately good for the game. But I could be wrong..
no rewards = no spend to get said rewards
Simple and true.
I believe this to be true as well. Most rewards given these days are lackluster, at best, and provide nowhere near the value of the time investment put in. Does anyone who still participates in HAAT that has played for over a year do so because of the rewards??? No, it's because it's a way to actually play, not sim, the game and use our rosters and test/theorycraft/tune.
What better way to test/theorycraft/tune than what I am proposing? and with minimal cost to the development team.
Completely hypothetical, say I want to work on my JKR counter to GG. I go into the test arena, find an awesome GG squad to try my JKR against and find that after 5 tries I just can't win, even get like one or two characters down. Now I start swapping my arena mods over. If I find I still cannot beat GG then I know I need to gear up some of my Jedi.. I have a new goal. Or say I find my arena mods are making a big difference and I can beat the GG squad 4 out of 5 times, now I know what mods I need to work on, what I need to farm. I'm not going to keep my arena mods on my JKR team, so now I have a clear, precise mod goal that I know I need to farm for.
Taking it a bit further, say I do enough testing and I now I have new goals of X, Y and Z. But say I can't complete goal Z (6E mods maybe) without completing goal X (bringing JKA to g12 to equip said mods). I may be inclined to rush the gearing of JKA, spend refreshes, resources, money maybe? so that I can work on goal Z and ultimately be able to beat the GG team.
You see what I'm getting at? Being able to test out your squads, try out mod configurations, figure out who to gear, I believe, will essentially "yield progress" and is rewarding in itself. It may not give you a tangible reward but it gives you goals, an exact thing you know you need to work on. Will it not drive player engagement? Will it not prove to be "rewarding" when you do complete your goals?
We're stuck watching YouTubers and other people tell us what works and what doesn't and how to mod our characters and what to work on. I'm an engineer.. I like figuring things out for myself, I like troubleshooting. I like playing around and finding out what my goals should be and how to prioritize them. I don't feel the current state of the game lends itself to that sort of fun and creativity.
Since this game is becoming more focussed on pvp modes, it makes sense that players are also more focussed there. So an area to practice with different teams may not have direct “rewards”, but using it would indirectly impact rewards.
It could also indirectly be monetized by offering a “limited time” opportunity to try out newly released/re-worked toons.
As an example: clones just got reworked so this area could offer players a chance to try out a fully geared clone team 5 times (similar to the way that newer events offer 5 replays each day for no reward).
Think of it as a test drive area: Now that you’ve seen what these clones can do and how much fun they are, you can break out the AMEX to farm and gear up your own.
How many players play GW manually? Playing it manually doesn't yield extra rewards. Players sim GW. I, for one, rarely play GW manually.
To my knowledge, we have never had a game mode or event that is both challenging and does not provide rewards outside of the Malak event. I played that a few times and then stopped because it became routine (execute a certain strategy). If given the opportunity to use more characters, I would have played much more.
Of course players won’t spend time on game modes that can be simulated and don’t provide rewards. That is not a relevant data point for what people are asking for.
I would agree to some extent, but we have many opportunities to play things for for no rewards or play something that can be simmed and these are valid data points to some extent.
They cant get a direct indication of something exactly like this without having something "exactly like this".... kind of a catch 22 on that point.
We also dont know what they may do behind the curtain in BETA, or data they get from similar games or other resources.
Also the most "effective way" to implement a game mode like this would be to have it simmable and playable, or infinitely playable but with a set number of "reward" tokens. The idea they are expressing is that a game mode without rewards would be played by a subset of players and that is an ineffective use of resources to develop something that will not be used by a majority of the player base.
To make a completely open sandbox as I believe you are referring to by "what people are asking for" is a huge development, and they may be airing on the side of caution about how many players will play it, it does make sense that players that dont want to spend more time playing, the first thing to go would likely be the thing that doesnt help them develop.
After some thought on this topic, I think there would be some issues with the suggestion the OP has made
-unless you are in touch with players around you, you will not be able to really practice anything other than arena.
This may be fine for the top 50ish players who are in a chat already, but nothing for the rest of them.
-it would be very cumbersome having to line up in range of someone and then have them change a team attack, then swap back and repeat
Those 2 alone would make it very difficult for the players to manage and would cause frustration that seems a little unnecessary. In the end it would just open the door to complaints and requests for it to be refined into it's own game mode, which is what they are trying to avoid sinking resources into, due to their current reasoning.
Not to mention it does carry some development time, we cant pretend it doesnt.
If it could be done with relatively little development time and cost, it would seem worthwhile even if only "a handful of players" would use it. If those handful of players would otherwise get bored and quit the game entirely, it makes sense to give them something to play, test with, etc to get them to stick around.
Without digging too much into detail on this comment, I was more or less saying giving people a reason to play the game mode. I can’t think of anything offhand that can be simmed and provides rewards that people would want to play vs simming. Omega battles are a good example. The rewards are decent for the difficulty, but at the end game, I’d rather sim than go through the 45 seconds it used to take to pick a team and hit auto (and then wait).
If people have a fun or challenging experience from a sandbox mode, that would be the reward in itself. Everything I can think of that can be simmed, is typically no longer challenging to an end game player. The only things I can think of that provide no reward are events like Malak that can just be replayed. These events are typically easy to beat and not always a good gauge. I know most marquees, I simply hit auto.
I’m not saying the OP’s suggestion was ideal, but knowing that I could test a padme team against DR/Malak without the consequence of getting targeted and losing rank in arena (and most importantly rank awards) is very appealing.
My initial comment was more in response to the CG comment you quoted than anything else.
I just don't see anybody complaining that they are able to play the game at will, test out various squads, identify goals to work on, etc. The reward will be taking what you have learned and applying it to GAC/TW/Arena thereby performing better in those modes and ultimately obtaining better rewards from them.
People already complain about rewards ("GAC rewards are terrible!"). There's zero chance they won't complain about a mode with no rewards.
I agree we dont have anything that is a direct challenge, there is no debate against that.
There have been many situations where players could use underutilized teams to "practice and play", i.e. - GW, marquee events, and to some degree wars that are lost in both GA and TW, and possibly other events.
They are as close as the dev team can get without actually making it to see if it will be played.
I dont think their comment is anothing other than they dont want to invest time into a game.mode that would not be used by a larger % of the player base, it doesnt matter how much fun the segment of players will have if they are taking development away from something that all players could do and enjoy.
I agree what is proposed here seems on the surface to be the least intensive way to get close, but it could also look to them like the "slippery slope" to be forced to put time into something that is not utilized as much as its talked about. (The whole squeaky wheel and what not.)
GW is a joke because up until the last battle it's a slog. If I could aim the first 11 battles then that would be nice. But I can't, so I sim all 12 and get rewards.
Every other mode that doesn't offer rewards is just replayable events that have no meaning to today's meta landscape. Why replay the marquees if the squad you go against isn't remotely relevant or has been changed?
Even Mythic events are so skewed in pre loaded TM that they offer no fun in testing teams because it's not a fair fight.
I would love a sort of guild arena because I want to use my teams that aren't Arena ready, and GAC requires me to set defenses which means I rarely get to use those "defensive" teams because they're best for defense.
I think they need to reevaluate their "numbers" and make a poll on the forums.
I dont disagree that if they went down this road they would probably find more people play it than they think, if they don't think players are going to play it. 100% agree.
But I also dont see them making a place that will reduce the play in arena. Which is basically what you are describing it would be the use. Every time an meta changes or a counter is introduced, people are paying (either to refresh or for more battles) to test and fine tune their game play.... unfortunately I don't see them introducing a way to do that for free for no reason.
Because #1 they do suck and #2 we were told that the rewards were reduced for the 'exhibition' testing GAC.... now we have the actually real championship but rewards are still at the reduced exhibition rewards level we were sold as exhibition rewards.
They never said rewards where reduced for exhibition. They said they would be re-evaluated after exhibitions.
On topic: best/easiest way to do a sandbox imo is an open tw mapyou can both place defense and attack. Simple, effective, cheap.
We agree ppl will complain about anything, so is that a reason not to do it?
By calling it "sandbox mode" does that not imply that it's just a test area with no rewards? Sure a few ppl may complain, but we'll be here to set them straight
They could charge crystals, or energy, or ally points....or stun guns lol. They can monetize it, trust me.
with sandbox mode, player will have time to find better meta than the meta they want you to play.
So if you can find better team than DR + Malak or JKR before, people don't farm and use money to be the first to have the new Malak team and being on meta...
Nothing, they dont exist yet. But my guess would be $0, just like everything else in this game. It will take time to get them up to full strength and there will be a way to make that go quicker, which will have a price tag, but that is not the cost of the relic.
And having worked in research for three decades, I will confirm that any "data" they have about non-reward events is irrelevant and useless. If they are truly comparing the concept of "sandbox" to continously battling one faction, one skill point, with one team over and over and over (like a new character path event), then they are ****. Independent play "sandbox" could just be used as a stomping ground for teams and character interaction set at our pace. And it would be used a lot... and zero revenue stream.
They say lack of interest by players which is absurdly false. MANY more players would participate in "Sandbox" than in their stupid Galactic Arena that is broken and boring, but the biggest thing on our screens. They try to push something we don't want thinking it will force-drive revenue...and pretend what we DO want isn't worth putting together. Well immediately EA and Disney, no... but you millennial developers have to stop looking at the tip of the finger when someone points. There is future in listening to the customer. There is no future in the pathetic GA.