State of the GAC-axy: Beautiful Thing that urgently needs Repair before it turns Ugly

Set the scene. Director Krennic. Looking at his new prototype weapon firing on Jedha City. Witnessing the bright orange fireball and the shockwaves of the rings of destruction on the planet and calling it...."Oh! It's Beautiful".

This is GAC. We all know the fate of that new prototype weapon, that beautiful weapon, meant to bring peace and security to the galaxy, meant to spread fear to subordinates to stay in line, fell through the grasp of the palm of the Grand Moff, and the Emperor in which he serves.

This game lives and dies with GAC, but there's some serious holes, and I'm not talking about cheating, or hacking, or scandals, or a lack of Death Star sandals. I'm talking about the system of GAC itself, defying the very purpose it was advertised to be. It was meant to bring attention to the game, to elevate the game to higher grounds, but if left unchecked, will bring destruction.

Let's talk about crystal income. Pretty important. New players need it more than veteran players to catch up...yet, it appears GAC sort of screws over these new players by denying the chance to ever earn high crystal income that they used to earn with Squad Arena when they get thrown against heavy-hitting roster who just came back from the game after AWOL-ing for a year or two.

Let's talk about absences. Affects crystal income for everyone. When you compete and lose, at least your skill rating goes to your opponent. But when you are absent, your skill rating goes to no one and disappears into the void. Then, you come back, and ruin some new players or smaller roster chances at some crystals. Why does this matter? Well, aren't returning players supposed to be quote-on-quote beat the same opponents as the smaller-roster opponents, according to the philosphy of the matchmaking process...well, it takes a long time for returning players to return to their true rating, and during that long time, a bunch of smaller roster or newer players take a hit trying to help gauge where the returning player belongs to. Once again, newer and smaller-roster players take a hit.

Let's talk about skill rating squish. Affects crystal income, again, for everyone. It's gotten so bad that Kyber 1 no longer has any player above 4300 rating, and not 10 players above 4000 rating. At this rate, Kyber 1 bracket could just vanish. But it's just the tip of the iceberg, as it could be indicating that not just the most elite players are getting their average crystal income reduced over time, but the average players too. CG did say 10%, 25%, 30%, 25%, 10% per league, but the question is, is this still true with Kyber 1 shrinking as it is....or is it indicative of the game population fading away.

For me, I hope Capital Games puts a bunch of effort back into the core mechanics of this game mode. It's not something one small team can solve, because by the time they act, this problem could be too late to address. Sure, keep the challenge, but make sure that the long-term vision is sustainable, because if anything in the past year has shown, it's that this game mode is putting a literal downer on everyone's skill rating, and enjoyment of this game.

Replies

  • Starslayer
    2413 posts Member
    Zhangster wrote: »
    it appears GAC sort of screws over these new players by denying the chance to ever earn high crystal income that they used to earn with Squad Arena
    But their crystal income increased when crystal moved from arena to gac. Maybe it’s not the case for a very small amount of new players, but it’s anecdotal (also i don’t have any number to back this up).
    So even if it’s not perfect (because facing huge rosters and hoping they don’t play, which happen about 50% of the time, is definitely not fun), new players are better off with new gac reward-wise than with the old system.
    About the squish, other post tried to tackle the problem extensively. It’s only a K1 shrinking problem, total population of Kyber isn’t impacted, nor other divisions. Still a problem though, but not for the majority of the player base.
  • Your wasting your breath, capital games is only in it for the money. When I had an issue all I got was a robot response to a general question. Whether your a free to play or you spend money there is no help from them. I only continue to pay because of my guild.
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