The real problems with the current meta: too many consecutive attacks, and too much damage
January 9, 2016 9:38PM
edited January 2016
Games like this are meant to simulate a battle, where everyone ideally would act roughly at the same time. Some a bit faster, some a bit slower, but all within a few seconds of each other. There is no way to realistically implement something like that in a mobile platform, so instead, we have a turn-based game. That's what SWGOH is: a turn-based strategy game.
Turn-based games have been around for centuries. And in all of them there is the issue of deciding who goes first, because that always provides some sort of advantage. Successful games, however, mitigate this imbalance by limiting how much of a difference the turn order makes on the outcome of the game. SWGOH is completely failing in this area right now.
Successful games also do not allow one player to take many turns in a row between opponent actions, except perhaps on a very limited basis. Again, SWGOH fails here, allowing 2, 3, 4 or more turns by one team between turns by the other. This leads to imbalances, allows dogpiling, and creates an arms race where all teams must focus on speed and little else.
There's nothing wrong with having some characters be faster than others, or even having some that can manipulate turn meters. What's wrong is the ability of certain characters and combinations to wipe out other characters, even of comparable level and gear, before they even get to act. What's wrong also is the ability to manipulate turn meters to the point where someone's first turn occurs with their team 2/3 dead, and where even tanks can be taken out before the opponent can use them.
Imagine a game of chess where you got to start first and make 4 moves before your opponent could make 1. How often would your opponent win? Assuming equal skill, probably close to never.
How to deal with this situation? Many options exist, but here are my suggestions:
1. Cut all damage output from all characters and all sources by 50%. (Cut all healing likewise by 50% so it doesn't become impossible to kill anything.) You read that right, -50% across the board, because damage output right now is completely out of control. This would get rid of all the one-shotting, make health pool totals at the start of the game actually matter, and make it possible for defensive teams to get set up before they are wiped out. Team build variety would greatly increase.
2. Tweak characters that offer a combination of excessive speed and turn meter manipulation. Poe would be at the top of the list. (And please don't even bother trying to argue that he doesn't need adjusting; we all know he does.) If you want to be fast you shouldn't muss with turn meters. If you muss with turn meters, you shouldn't be fast.
3. Add characters with counters to turn meter manipulation. One suggested in another thread was along these lines: "Any effect that would reduce your turn meter adds to it the same amount instead". Make that a leader ability for the whole team and that would make Phasma users think twice...
4. Impose a game rule limiting the number of times characters on the same side can begin a turn consecutively under any circumstances, such as 2 or 3. This wouldn't include attacks not on the character's turn.
There's my view, tear it apart.
Turn-based games have been around for centuries. And in all of them there is the issue of deciding who goes first, because that always provides some sort of advantage. Successful games, however, mitigate this imbalance by limiting how much of a difference the turn order makes on the outcome of the game. SWGOH is completely failing in this area right now.
Successful games also do not allow one player to take many turns in a row between opponent actions, except perhaps on a very limited basis. Again, SWGOH fails here, allowing 2, 3, 4 or more turns by one team between turns by the other. This leads to imbalances, allows dogpiling, and creates an arms race where all teams must focus on speed and little else.
There's nothing wrong with having some characters be faster than others, or even having some that can manipulate turn meters. What's wrong is the ability of certain characters and combinations to wipe out other characters, even of comparable level and gear, before they even get to act. What's wrong also is the ability to manipulate turn meters to the point where someone's first turn occurs with their team 2/3 dead, and where even tanks can be taken out before the opponent can use them.
Imagine a game of chess where you got to start first and make 4 moves before your opponent could make 1. How often would your opponent win? Assuming equal skill, probably close to never.
How to deal with this situation? Many options exist, but here are my suggestions:
1. Cut all damage output from all characters and all sources by 50%. (Cut all healing likewise by 50% so it doesn't become impossible to kill anything.) You read that right, -50% across the board, because damage output right now is completely out of control. This would get rid of all the one-shotting, make health pool totals at the start of the game actually matter, and make it possible for defensive teams to get set up before they are wiped out. Team build variety would greatly increase.
2. Tweak characters that offer a combination of excessive speed and turn meter manipulation. Poe would be at the top of the list. (And please don't even bother trying to argue that he doesn't need adjusting; we all know he does.) If you want to be fast you shouldn't muss with turn meters. If you muss with turn meters, you shouldn't be fast.
3. Add characters with counters to turn meter manipulation. One suggested in another thread was along these lines: "Any effect that would reduce your turn meter adds to it the same amount instead". Make that a leader ability for the whole team and that would make Phasma users think twice...
4. Impose a game rule limiting the number of times characters on the same side can begin a turn consecutively under any circumstances, such as 2 or 3. This wouldn't include attacks not on the character's turn.
There's my view, tear it apart.
Quit 7/14/16. Best of luck to all of you.
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If it continues, I agree that some of the changes you outline would probably result in more diversity in the pool of commonly played characters and open up more options for team design.
Whether they do it by decreasing damage or increasing health, I think it's worth taking a look at.
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Right now we have teams winning in under 60 seconds, and people who get their first turn with 2/5 of their team gone. There has to be a reasonable balance here.
I agree to an extent. However, I'd rather have shorter matches than matches than can not be finished in time.
Much less ok with the unfortunate, overlapping combination of things resulting in repeated "multi-multi-multi attacks" from a single character so early in round 1. I'd be fine with Tie Pilot/Phasma/Leia combinations if they didn't each fire 3-4-5 times each because of Assists/Chance to extra attack leader skills/Abilities + turn meter manips on top.
I'm not calling a nerf at all on any specific unit, however, rethinking a few things about how some basic abilites overlap "exponentially" (and put some limits to this) would nudge balance in the right direction.
A match that is "short" because one side never had a chance is the worst possible outcome in ANY game.
+1, I prefer some strategy (and a chance to actually start a strategy, and change it on the fly depending on the opponent results) above overkill. I've lost a couple arena matches because of Barris healing constantly Fives and my damage output was not high enough. Made me rethink my next arena matches. I like this.
But the new level cap is coming and along with it a new meta. We could see a return of big health and heal heavy turtle teams and bring back the cries of arena timers being too short (at least early on). Maybe AOE teams become the new flavor everyone wants. I do like that the meta has changed like 3 times in just over a month as I see it as a good sign even if certain comps become dominant, they don't seem to stick around for too long.
I get that Arena is a big part of the game but there are other parts too that don't involve only 3-5 5 minute PVP matches a day with hopefully new game modes coming soon (come ooooooon space ship and alliance events!! Lol).
I'm taking the wait and see approach before I pull out my pitchfork and fire. But I agree, if a new level cap and the tweaks that come with still result in what we have right now, I'll join the mob to take the castle!
So you'd rather have a match not finish in time?
Just because a match is short doesn't mean it was one sided.
Actually, most often that is in fact what it means. But I don't care so much about the length of the matches as their fairness, and too many matches end quickly now because one team decimates the second before it can do anything.
Like maul with his speed and fragility. Fotp is just crazy with potential for 12k hp
There is a simple solution to this: Make bonus attacks only deal physical damage.
The problem with bonus attacks right now is that characters perform their base attack and get any/all benefits that come with that attack. This quickly results in stacking abilities that really shouldn't stack, suddenly a Phasma/Sid/Daka/Luminara/Poe team can potentially heal block, ability block, and stun lock your whole team before you get an action because their bonus attacks and normal attacks trigger their debuffs.
It's a terrible system, and one that feels as though no one ever thought to take into account how powerful base attack buffs and debuffs actually are in quick repetition... The worst part about it is that there is literally no meta-game to combat this sort of synergy, all you can do is pray for luck.
In general though I believe there are two big issues with the current environment aside from this though.
1) Defending teams seem to have significantly higher proc rates for abilities, on average appearing to be 2-3 times higher than attacking teams. The result of this is that bonus attacks and favorable effects of said attacks happen a great deal more for defending teams, this creates a great deal of unbalance and leads to instances where you watch teams consistently get 7-10+ attacks off in quick succession at the beginning of a round even though the odds of it happening are insanely low.
2) Some characters have absurdly strong base attacks even when only used once per turn, nevermind successively, characters like Sid, Dooku, Leia, Old Daka, Kylo Ren, Darth Maul, etc... all have incredibly powerful base attacks; attacks that one could argue should come with cool downs and definitely shouldn't be able to proc multiple times per 'round'.
I like your idea for a character or ability that reverses turn meter gains/losses. That's the type of neat twist that would keep the meta fluid and exciting.
I know it sucks when the other team can all go before you, but it's not really Poe that is overpowered but the heavy hitters like Leia and FOTP that HAVE to be nullified before they get a single attack off. We will see what happens at 70 but I feel either a boost to health pools or a drop in damage output will turn Poe's taunt from a match-deciding advantage in certain cases to a mere useful tool in overall match strategy.
And I will reiterate that Stormtrooper Han has a much bigger impact on overall turn meters throughout a match unless dealt with correctly.
In either case, I wouldn't be concerned with what the "whales" think. They will always QQ over F2P obtainable characters that level the playing field over their expensive bought power squads.
Can you give an example of Pvp bonus? Have no idea of what you mean..
This was the case with Rogues in WOW
With Magic the gathering 2 turn wins
Snipers one shotting with a body/limp shot in any fps (you dont find that anymore, only headshots are 1 shot/kill)
etc
If they dont do something about it, this game will be completely unbalanced and not fun to play at all. ESPECIALLY since the one shot/kill characters are P2w and that in turn makes the players feel like they are being cheated and that they waste their time in a game like this.
I have faith in this game, the devs will probably fix those issues soon, unless they dont care about the pvp portion of the game (which is possible) and just care for a quick milking of the IP and running to greener pastures (also possible, since its an EA game).
Maybe his ideas to fix it could work. I don't know, I've never designed combat system. I want to see a match between a high offense and high defense that isn't a total blowout for the former. Right now with the way it is, it's not possible.
OP everyone with limited knowledge screamed, where there were already known toons that could 1 or 2 shot. We could (for a change) wait till update and see what changes and complain afterwards. Update should be done already, doubt they will add things when they are prolly polishing up.
For example, a special arena leaderboard where empire units get x00% buff on offense and defense. Do this for one weekend, for example.
Then people get their empire units out to play this board, which makes us use units no one is using right now. Next weekend: ewok buff. ETc.
No matter how some people may want to claim otherwise, this is a game where the outcome of a match is often and largely dictated by RNG. Hence, calling out the system as terrible and broken is challenging the very fundamental aspect of the game. Indeed it is very possible that the stars could align and a team could fire away a series of buffs/debuffs before the other side could make any move, but 1) how often do those extreme cases occur, and 2) both sides are equally exposed to such advantage/disadvantage.
Furthermore, making bonus attacks only deal physical damage is not the solution to the "problem" either.
1) If RNG shines upon you, Dooku and Daka could each stun two heroes with their normal turns. Are you then going to suggest they should only do physical damage even during their normal turns? Stun is their bread and butter. It's just that the best possible, but highly unlikely scenario happened
2) Their ability to go fast and stun comes with trade-offs. Unlike what you claim, their base attack is quite average, if not subpar and they are both squishy; if they fail to stun, the opponent can easily take them out with 1-3 hits
3) People will simply adapt and the game will be even more flooded with heavy hitters. That would further hurt the diversity of the teams that we see - which isn't already the strongest suit of this game due to the way how hero acquisition and upgrades are designed
Finally, despite what numerous people have raised, CG has repeatedly stated the defense does not get any boost to the proc rates. Even if that were the case, I don't think that is much of a big issue. After all, the current A.I isn't too great and most people seem to have little trouble defeating teams with higher power.