Developer Q&A - Grand Arena Championship Changes - 12/02

Replies

  • Since you are moving away the crystal income from squad arena, why aren’t you doing the same with fleet arena?
  • Gale_Toral wrote: »
    Can you go into any level of detail regarding the new anti-cheating policy/prevention that you will be implementing?

    Will there be compensation to players who were cheated? Assume that the case is investigated by the team and the conclusion is that foul play happened.

    Will there be a guarantee that new tickets raised regarding a player who is suspected of cheating being answered in a timely manner since players are now so reliant on fair opponents who do not use exploits? Can you commit to a timeframe in which you intend to review and answer players after a complaint is raised i.e. 48 hrs, 72 hrs etc?

    Accurate and fair GAC matches, regardless of matchmaking, are now the backbone of every player. Someone who feels their opponent cheated in some manner will be at an exponentially larger disadvantage with the new model if the case is not investigated in a timely manner.

    Asking the important questions
  • Confused. An hour in and one GAC unrelated reply?
  • Confused. An hour in and one GAC unrelated reply?

    It doesn’t start for 45 more minutes (5pm EST)
  • Are tie-brrakers being changed? Highest GP wins was always a questionable approach, was rendered obsolete with the change to top x matchmaking 2 years ago and will be truly perverse when matching by performance, essentially saying that your performance matters except in the case of a tie when you automatically lose if you are the better player tieing with an opponent who has more resources than you.
  • TVF wrote: »
    Ultra wrote: »
    TVF wrote: »
    Ultra wrote: »
    If CG is considering auto-joining, then autoset defense should set the weakest GP toons of a roster instead of top GP imo

    Is this a Q?
    Good question

    but we are keeping this Q&A to GAC related questions today

    I wasn't expecting an A.

    Like me my senior year of college.
  • In past GAC seasons there was a big emphasis (especially at lower divisions) on keeping a focused roster without a lot of “roster bloat” to get the best matchups possible. With the new changes it seems that after the initial placement, your roster and what characters you upgrade will not directly impact matchmaking. Is there any disadvantage to “bloating” your roster beyond the resources spent explicitly on characters under the new GAC model?

    Also when will we be able to see an omicron indicator similar to zeta indicators on the portrait of characters?
  • WD_40
    113 posts Member
    TOPIC: General Questions

    Was this the plan the whole time when we changed up the divisions earlier this year?
  • TVF
    36519 posts Member
    TVF wrote: »
    Ultra wrote: »
    TVF wrote: »
    Ultra wrote: »
    If CG is considering auto-joining, then autoset defense should set the weakest GP toons of a roster instead of top GP imo

    Is this a Q?
    Good question

    but we are keeping this Q&A to GAC related questions today

    I wasn't expecting an A.

    Like me my senior year of college.

    "Senior year"
    I need a new message here. https://discord.gg/AmStGTH
  • I'm a little confused as to how this gives every player the same opportunity to reach max payout - let me give an example to make my question clear:

    Assuming two players of equal "skill" - Player A with an 8m GP roster, and player B with a 6m GP roster and assuming that these two players grow their rosters at the same rate - is there any possibility that player B meets player A in GAC? It would seem that under this system, player B will NEVER be able to get the same level of rewards that player A is since A will always have a stronger roster and the two players are objectively equal in skill.

    So will player A always get better rewards just by virtue of having the stronger roster?

    In a nutshell - do newer players have any hope of hitting the top ranks of Kyber if the veteran players don't quit to make room?

    If I'm misunderstanding something, please set me straight. Thanks for doing this Q&A - I appreciate the interaction and the opportunity.
    F2P since the last time I bought Kyros, Crystals, or the Conquest Pass.
  • I sent these questions before hand, but just reiterating them:

    Q1. What matters are you taking to help prevent cheating? This is going to increase the likelihood for players to resort to cheating, and smart cheaters know how to cheat in such a way that it grantees their victory but doesn't make it seem so obvious. Example: Instead of using a g1 CUP to take down a Darth Revan team by himself, they may use their low-gear/terribly modded padme team but simply increase all their stats by 30% or whatever it takes to win. You'd see the team and feel it's reasonable in the swgoh.gg GAC tracker, but they totally would have cheated and you'd never know.

    Q2. What is the estimated initial population of Kyber going to be?

    Q3. Since it's constantly sending the bottom 10% to Aurodium 5, this will eventually thin out the numbers in Kyber and make it harder for people to maintain their placement in Kyber. Will rewards be rebalanced in the future when less people can maintain their status quo of crystal income?

    Q4. We noticed that you left Fleet Arena untouched. Is there a plan to eliminate this too one day?

    Q5. With the current sign up method to GAC, there are times that I have forgotten to double check if my mods were in order after a TB, and then I join and realize minutes after that I doomed my entire week of playtime. Is there going to be a way to back out and rejoin like in TW so I'm not dooming not only a full week's worth of crystals, but potentially my whole month's?

    Q6. With this change, it makes forgetting to sign up for GAC a hundred times more punishing. Will you make it so that by default you are signed up for GAC and have a way to back out and rejoin similar to what I listed in Q5? If something happens and I'm in the hospital for the day of gac sign up, it could essentially ruin my crystal income indefinitely.

    Q7. Will there be changes to SA to potentially remove the limited attempts per day (and eliminate the refresh after 5 battles for 50 crystals)?

    Q8. 3v3 GAC has a severe imbalance issue with galactic legends, especially post the non-GL nerf that we experienced earlier this year. When I notice I go against a player that has 2 more GLs than me in 3v3, I personally give up for that round. It's a rare occurrence, but it may be more common in this type of proposed matchmaking. Will you factor GL count into matchmaking to try to keep it within 1 GL more or less than each other?

    Q9. With omicrons being tied to GAC and now GAC is tied to crystals, will there be an increase of methods to earn Omicrons outside of conquest, weekly shipments, challenges, packs, and the incredibly rare cantina node drop? It feels like it'll be really hard to convince me to not omicron GAC related toons first and therefore leaving my upcoming new Boba, SOJ in the dust for TW, because in the end, crystals are king above all other payouts in the game. Potential locations would be to give everyone an omicron at the end of the week for gac, add them to the fleet arena drops, add them to a weekly crate, or more.

    Q10. Another question I have is regarding swgoh.gg. I know you aren't directly affiliated with them, but their gac history feature can really hurt matches and I'd like to have it remain private so I don't give away some of my strategy. I understand that they can see what I did after our match and that's fine, I'm more referring to what I did in the match prior. Could that type of information be hidden until after a season is over?
  • TOPIC: General Questions

    1. Can you please confirm that payout for fleet arena will remain as is.
    2. I have twice forgotten to join GAC because life happens. While this was bad, it wasn't devastating. It seems with these changes it will be much more devastating. Any thoughts to having an auto join system with a button to lock your mods and if you forget to lock them it just locks the mods you have at the start of the event?

    Currently no plans to change Fleet Arena.
    As far as your other question, pretty sure that'll be addressed when the devs join.
  • With these changes to GAC, the importance of specific Omicron upgrades has shifted dramatically. Any chance of a refund of early Omicron purchases made without this insight before the next GAC launches? It feels like a real bait and switch right now.
  • My question is your going to eventually take out the gp factor correct? So will there be a possibility of a player with 3 gl’s facing off with a player with 5 gl’s? Regardless of the skill of the player with less gl’s their probably gonna lose due to there is no non gl counters to gl’s any longer? I don’t see how this is avoidable with the matchmaking system you mentioned in original post. And that doesn’t even take into account if first player doesn’t have executor as well n 2nd player does. No skill will get u by tht big of a advantage.
  • So I am currently studying Games in college, and I was wondering, how do you test character balancing? Do you just test a character with as many characters as possible, or only ones with synergies? Also on average how many iterations would you say a character goes through?
  • Porgalicious
    73 posts Member
    edited December 2021
    Ultra wrote: »
    If CG is considering auto-joining, then autoset defense should set the weakest GP toons of a roster instead of top GP imo

    That would make more sense if the person autosetting is then locked out of attacking.
  • Re: 3v3 Questions:

    We are not planning on splitting 5v5 and 3v3 GAC brackets at this time, but we will only be running 5v5 Grand Arenas while we monitor the initial tuning of the system. Once we run 3v3 we will keep a close eye on how this performs.
  • JeyLucki7
    7 posts Member
    edited December 2021
    I am looking forward to this thanks
  • Is Lifetime GAC score going away in favor of the new skill rating?
  • Will fleet arena still have a singular hour for PO climbing? The best part of about these huge changes is that I dont have to climb a certain time everyday for Squad Arena (real life gets in the way often) - and I hope that would be true for fleet arena as well.
  • Would you ever consider a mechanic that allows players to create a full defense and place it akin to squads?

    Semi related are there plans to add ship squads with this update?
  • I'm a highly engaged and competitive new player (account just over a year old) and get top 2 SA every day. I like the idea of putting the rewards in GAC, and I do like the framework of what the change is doing. I understand no GP brackets to prevent people sandbagging/keeping GP low on purpose, but this is going to destroy my crystal income just because I'm newer. It feels like especially now I have no chance of ever coming close to "catching up" Could you consider or did you consider something like account age brackets - they can't be gamed, and don't disproportionately hurt rewards for newer players?
  • Why can't you ask the player base what they want instead of making drastic changes? The vast majority don't want these changes. You're trying to encourage more spending is how it looks which isn't ok. We don't want this
  • With Omicrons being such a high impact change to gameplay, and Squad Arena seeming completely open to a new purpose, could we see the option to choose a simulated game mode before entering a Squad Arena battle?
  • 1) Can you change the name of the new rating system from “skill rating” so really super skillful people stop whining that a character collection game requires them to collect characters to win despite their undeniable and very impressive skill?

    2) More seriously, are there concerns that a crystal rewards system that weighs crystal income towards those that are already ahead will be bad for long term health of the game with people thinking they can never catch up?
  • Any plans to address the crystal income lost on newer shards for players who were taking the top spots but don't make the GP cut to be placed in Kyber league?
  • With Omicrons each day coming to the game, will we have the ability to test these abilitys? limiting it to one test at a time i feel is a clear disadvantage.
  • Oli_Ikey wrote: »
    Why can't you ask the player base what they want instead of making drastic changes? The vast majority don't want these changes. You're trying to encourage more spending is how it looks which isn't ok. We don't want this

    You don't speak for everyone, I think the changes will be awesome
  • Monel
    2776 posts Member
    Ultra wrote: »
    Can i get 3 wishes on CG_Shortpaw

    Yes you can, all 3 wishes will come shortly
  • Will there still be an "off week" between GACs? That would be a week without crystal income now.

    Do banners play into skill rating at all? Is there any benefit to a "high banner" win vs a lower banner defensive focused win? Or is it just wins/losses that matters and banners are irrelevant other than determining who wins a match?
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