The real problems with the current meta: too many consecutive attacks, and too much damage

Replies

  • Qeltar
    4326 posts Member
    edited January 2016
    Cythis wrote: »
    Have to disagree on this. Turn meter has a very easy counter in the form of Dooku (Stun Ben not Poe) have a dispel and the build falls apart. Rock, paper...
    Not everyone runs Dooku. Even if you do run Dooku, he only has a 40% chance to stun a non-Jedi. And Poe has among the highest resistance to stuns in the game. At best maybe 1/3 of the time will this work, and that's only if you run Dooku.
    The rest of the time, you lose in the first round. That is not proper balance.
    There's a reason that top PvPers are saying "you must have Poe on your team, if for no other reason than a chance to counter the other team's Poe". This is the clearest sign of a broken character that can possibly exist.
    Quit 7/14/16. Best of luck to all of you.
  • Qeltar wrote: »
    Cythis wrote: »
    Have to disagree on this. Turn meter has a very easy counter in the form of Dooku (Stun Ben not Poe) have a dispel and the build falls apart. Rock, paper...
    Not everyone runs Dooku. Even if you do run Dooku, he only has a 40% chance to stun a non-Jedi. And Poe has among the highest resistance to stuns in the game. At best maybe 1/3 of the time will this work, and that's only if you run Dooku.
    The rest of the time, you lose in the first round. That is not proper balance.
    There's a reason that top PvPers are saying "you must have Poe on your team, if for no other reason than a chance to counter the other team's Poe". This is the clearest sign of a broken character that can possibly exist.

    Even better, these top PvPers can test my counter and confirm. With out FoTp's gear advantage these builds lose some of their burst. I just feel your missing the full picture and I don't want a fun strategy shredded into dirt.

    I can get behind new counters and strategies.
  • Qeltar
    4326 posts Member
    It's not just FoTP's gear advantage (though he is broken, and there's also some weird issue where at some star level his stats swap or something, which is why his health is so high?). Even without that, damage dealt is too high compared to health pools. It's like old-school D&D with first-level characters who get killed by the first goblin that lands a hit. Not fun.
    Just thought of another idea: why shouldn't there be a way to resist taunts? Base it off tenacity or something.
    Quit 7/14/16. Best of luck to all of you.
  • I think taunt is easy to get around and with the cap level you will see increased tenacity to resist Poes meter reduction. I just feel we are in an odd place until the cap is lifted, it's also why I don't feel these builds will dominate as they do now.

    I just don't want to go back to slow heal games that just drag on.
  • Part of the problem is the depth of the "problem" :) Speed in general of all kinds is just really strong.

    For example, I've been experimenting with a full speed build - no Poe - no TIE - no Ben - no meter manipulation. I've had early success beating Poe / TIE / Ben / Jinn teams with this configuration (and it's still in progress in terms of ability levels, stars, etc.): Sid leader, Rey, Dooku, Jinn, and Leia. So far I can kill Poe reliably before he even moves just with faster toons....no synergy, no meter, no TIE or Poe or FOO...just fast stuff that hits hard. As I get it built up better, especially higher stars on Leia (near 6*) and Rey (@5* working toward 6*), I think it will be a pretty reliable counter to a Poe / TIE / FOO type build. Right now it's just 50/50, but that's against higher star / more mature builds.

    Poe is just most frequently mentioned, but FOO has near the same speed and has the same kind of effect on meter manipulation. If Poe is being criticized for early meter manipulation, than FOO would have to be nerfed as well.

    My preference is lets just get to end game though before being too critical of what is going on. We saw Barriss and the heal meta was so strong, and now we know heal is a joke pretty much in PVP once people got other stuff built up and started optimizing speed / damage. As a result she was nerfed for being "OP" which in hindsight was totally unnecessary. Little did we know there was a little ole 1* sitting there named FOTP that would later be much more "OP" supposedly. Maybe this ends up being a problem that needs solved, but I think we just don't know for sure yet given how immature the game is. I'm tempted too to make judgements, but I also know that at various points I thought multiple toons were "OP" and then later proved not to be.
  • pay2win wrote: »
    So you'd rather have a match not finish in time?
    Just because a match is short doesn't mean it was one sided.

    That's what it actually means. Either you're oponent was very weak or you're killing equally ranked/powered oponents with ease, which shouldn't be happening.
  • How about focusing on the what, and not the how?

    Maintain brevity (it's a mobile game). And make the meta closer to rock,scissor,paper.

    This should be agreeable to most folks I think. Then agreeing on the how becomes a bit
    more productive.
  • xJazzx wrote: »
    Reddplague wrote: »
    They only way to fix this is to give extra bonuses similar to HODA. HODA had the same problem. Ppl only use 5 characters once the PVP bonuses started ppl expanded their collection. The same thing is happen here ppl are using the same characters. Not sure how they would do this since acquiring characters are at such a slower pace than HODA. They just need to shake things up so Lumi is not so great for a PVP event but ewok scout just kills it.

    Can you give an example of Pvp bonus? Have no idea of what you mean..
    Fantazy wrote: »
    xJazzx wrote: »
    Can you give an example of Pvp bonus? Have no idea of what you mean..

    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.

    Yes, this is what I mean.
  • Skye
    795 posts Member
    Erm the only real problem is the Poe-Phasma combination when it comes to too many consectutive attacks

    The reason is simply Poe takes away 25% of your turn meter on all your characters and sticks an expose on your team.. this pretty much means your team will not act before Poe's Phasma... So when Phasma hits her AOE, it does significantly more damage than on its own because of the expose. Followed by the Phasma's AOE has an additional effect of potentially sticking speed down on all your team... which combined with Poe's 25% turn meter reduction.. could mean none of your team which is slower than poe will take a turn before the rest of the Poe/Phasma team.. Such that if they have a bunch of glass canons, especially AOE ones, your team could pretty much be gone before anyone on your team has a chance to take a move if they hadn't had a turn before Poe...

    The silly thing is Poe and Phasma on their own is fine, indeed on their own they're pretty much a non-issue. The real issue pops up is when they are used on combination with each other... The synergy between the two is very much like Pre-nerf Obi-wan, it can easily turn a losing situation into a winning one. And if both you and the enemy team both use the Poe-Phasma combination... the team that uses Poe first will have a very significant advantage.

    Prior to this combo coming to light, I never really had a problem with the enemy team having two or more characters take turns before anyone on my team did.

    I think it's great Poe is a fast taunter, but his taunt in my opinion does way too much in terms of adding an expose AND turn meter reduction. For me one of these effects needs to go, but the rest kept the same... cause like I said these characters on their own are fine, the issue is when they are used together.

    With regards to the OP, I can understand where you are coming from... but a flat out 50% reduction on everything is not really a good idea. So matches are slow.. you don't want to make a game come to a crawl... These days people get impatient they don't like slow games, but said, you don't want to make a game too fast.. finding the right pace in this kinda game is difficult... but u definitely don't want to slow a game down to a crawl especially considering the platform this game is on. I'd rather have some battery left for an important phone call than it drained completely because I was playing on this game too long.
    Former crazy person of the guild "Shard Awakens"... *quit game 13th July 2016*

    Game used to be fun when it wasn't a grind... if I wanted a grind I would have went and played old school Everquest or some Korean MMO!
  • Coming from HODA game model it's hard to adjust to so few characters. HODA had a far better PVP model than GOH does which is ironic since it's the same company that created both. I don't know why they just didn't take what they created In HODA and just expand on that rather than create something far worst. I don't see why they can't just clearly mark characters quick, normal, or slow speed. I think ppl would understand that than how it is currently.
  • There are two issues CG would need to address to the comunity for everyone to be calm about how the meta will/would change on the next update:

    1.Have they or will the fix current bugs and balance the current pool of characters before raising the cap and introducing new characters?

    And...2.Will the new characters be ready to enter the game without major fixes in balance after they are released?

    There are many issues with abilities and character stats to be checked before having 5-6 new characters change the meta.

    As for the speed of the game and one shot kills. I enjoy the pace, the counters and multi attacks but it can get very one sided. High damaging crit teams can end things in one turn and as soon as a match gets 4vs5 it's pretty much done in most cases. If you want to run a tanky high hp team to counter high damage then you are stuck with a pool of characters that won't make much damage in a 5minute window. I could be ok with a change of pace and try more strategy like the OP suggested. Compare the fights in the high level holotable missions. Obviously those require more turns becuase of the HP boost on the AI. In the end more turns or play time not necesarily means more strategy. Maybe less damage in the meta and more buffs/debuffs. There are many characters that use advantage wasting a turn for it, take Finn or the stormtroopers, the AI uses it but people mostly skip those abilities. Make them more important to charge certain attacks or as relevant bonuses affecting the matches.

    Sippycup wrote: »
    How about focusing on the what, and not the how?

    Maintain brevity (it's a mobile game). And make the meta closer to rock,scissor,paper.

    This should be agreeable to most folks I think. Then agreeing on the how becomes a bit
    more productive.

    Having a meta like rock, paper & scissors may seem ideal but for that all of the current roster of characters NEED to be used at any level of gamplay. Most aren't used either because people on the forums don't recommend them and people don't try them or they simply can't compete. When CG realeases the new characters they want people to buy those and it's pretty hard to maintain that balance with the old characters when they put out new ones. Take the last release as an example. Kylo, Phasma, FOTP all are the top choices for teams because they have a certain edge

  • obiwan1011
    396 posts Member
    edited January 2016
    Reddplague wrote: »
    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.

    Good idea on paper, but not really viable in the current hero acquisition and upgrade model - or at least for the majority of F2P players. Most struggle to acquire, level up and field a competitive 5-man team, yet introduce modes where it requires you to have a deeper bench? Eh... not good.
  • A solution could be CD's cannot be used for the 1st turn of any character. That might help a little.
  • I came to make some of the same points about HODA. Power to health ratio is way off in that game. When they would run events with a health bonus, everyone loved it. Those were some of the favorite events for all the players. You got to see so many more toons made relevant because of their mechanics. I have always thought that game needed to boost the health across the board. I haven't seen the power/health issue as badly in this game, mostly because I don't have these OP teams. But I tend to agree with Qeltar.
    IGN: Malmsteen's Comet
  • Reddplague wrote: »
    Coming from HODA game model it's hard to adjust to so few characters. HODA had a far better PVP model than GOH does which is ironic since it's the same company that created both. I don't know why they just didn't take what they created In HODA and just expand on that rather than create something far worst. I don't see why they can't just clearly mark characters quick, normal, or slow speed. I think ppl would understand that than how it is currently.

    Respectfully disagree. I don't care for HODA pvp. It's simply an auction. Whoever put's more coin in the slot wins the game.
    IGN: Malmsteen's Comet
  • SaVaGeTnK wrote: »
    pay2win wrote: »
    So you'd rather have a match not finish in time?
    Just because a match is short doesn't mean it was one sided.

    That's what it actually means. Either you're oponent was very weak or you're killing equally ranked/powered oponents with ease, which shouldn't be happening.

    Or you lose quick.
  • I'd only get behind this if the timer was removed from Arena.

    As it is, you can game the ranks somewhat by using a snipe squad for gains then swapping to a turtle squad for your last battle to hold your spot (just go in and lose a fight). Only time it doesn't work out is if you are going for rank 1. Not fun though and I never do it for that reason (and others) but the timer adds an 'interesting' dynamic. Speed and damage nearly always ends up the meta in any game I've played (I'm old... I've played A LOT). Developers are just not fans of Turtle metas... I think they figure players would find them boring in the long haul (no pun intended). They are probably right. Especially with younger players.
  • pay2win wrote: »
    Back to stalling out arena timers we go.

    This. If they cut damage by 50% most matches would end in a draw. I think this is a great post and I agree 100%. Tho I have no clue how to fix it I do see that there is a problem. I built my new team around speed. So I can't sit here and deny there's a problem lol.
  • I wondering if they introduced gears to early? Maybe gears should have been released much later to give time to see how characters performed. They only message that ppl are communicating is Dooku and Lumi are a must have for any team.
  • WhipiT wrote: »
    pay2win wrote: »
    Back to stalling out arena timers we go.

    This. If they cut damage by 50% most matches would end in a draw. I think this is a great post and I agree 100%. Tho I have no clue how to fix it I do see that there is a problem. I built my new team around speed. So I can't sit here and deny there's a problem lol.

    I'm looking into doing the same thing. I wish I could filter by speed because I hate open every character to see the speed.
  • Qeltar
    4326 posts Member
    edited January 2016
    WhipiT wrote: »
    This. If they cut damage by 50% most matches would end in a draw. I think this is a great post and I agree 100%. Tho I have no clue how to fix it I do see that there is a problem. I built my new team around speed. So I can't sit here and deny there's a problem lol.

    I don't even have a high-DPS team and it's rare that I need more than 2:30 to beat a team in Arena.
    Personally, I think trying to stall out the other team on defense should be a viable strategy. Why not? Why shouldn't it be possible to build a defensive team that is hard to use on offense but shines on defense? Why does every team have to be full of speedy glass cannons?
    Of course I don't want every team doing it, as in the "hard launch level 40 pre-nerf Barriss" era, but we are a million miles from that now. Many fights are essentially over in the first round. We have top people saying "whoever's Poe goes first wins the fight". That's crazy.
    Quit 7/14/16. Best of luck to all of you.
  • Qeltar wrote: »
    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. :)

    Even if i 100% agree with you, i don't think it will change in the incoming months.

    Why ? Just because SWGOH is the typical pay to win game (and look, it's EA after all.. ), everything is expansive, look at that heroes pack, $100 for 2 characters, are you serious ?

    Leia is probably the best damage dealer of the game, and she is pay only, FOTP even if he looks like F2P is really hard to farm without money investment.

    You want the best team ? Then give us your money.

    And it's working, i don't think it will change in the near future, not until EA had earned enough money from his game.
  • Azalel wrote: »
    Qeltar wrote: »
    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. :)

    Even if i 100% agree with you, i don't think it will change in the incoming months.

    Why ? Just because SWGOH is the typical pay to win game (and look, it's EA after all.. ), everything is expansive, look at that heroes pack, $100 for 2 characters, are you serious ?

    Leia is probably the best damage dealer of the game, and she is pay only, FOTP even if he looks like F2P is really hard to farm without money investment.

    You want the best team ? Then give us your money.

    And it's working, i don't think it will change in the near future, not until EA had earned enough money from his game.

    This game makes 150k per day so, I think their making money for only two months in. They could make more if the game were more polished visually.
  • FWIW I would prefer about a 20-25% increase in HP across the board with an eye to some chars maybe getting a little less. Glass cannons like 6* FOTP or Leia are still able to get taken out round 1 if they're not protected. But tanks like Poe/Han/Chewie should be able to live long enough to get their affects and attackers like Geo/Luke/IG-86 might be able to get taken out in round 1.

    Turn meter manipulation and healing will be more important, not less, if you reduce damage or increase HP but it is what it is. Personally I'd prefer that AOE turn meter manipulation wasn't in the game. It should be limited to singular characters. Make people choose who they apply it to rather than wrecking an entire team's ability to react.

    Also I think there's a disconnect between low level arena and top-level arena. I've been helping someone else getting started and at level 30 with FTP the 'good' toons and the meta are totally different. Also the 5 minute clock is much more likely to come into play. If there is a problem it is very clearly with level scaling and strong synergies.
  • Idle thought, but... what if having a character die automatically forced your team to take the next action? Just make whoever was closest to going next on your turn go next?

    I'm sure it could be abused but... it would solve the problem of your entire team being dead before you got a chance to go in most cases.
    You have to be a bit of a liar to tell a story the right way.
  • Qeltar wrote: »
    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.
    I don't think "decimate" means what you think it means.
  • SlyGambit wrote: »
    FWIW I would prefer about a 20-25% increase in HP across the board with an eye to some chars maybe getting a little less. Glass cannons like 6* FOTP or Leia are still able to get taken out round 1 if they're not protected. But tanks like Poe/Han/Chewie should be able to live long enough to get their affects and attackers like Geo/Luke/IG-86 might be able to get taken out in round 1.

    Turn meter manipulation and healing will be more important, not less, if you reduce damage or increase HP but it is what it is. Personally I'd prefer that AOE turn meter manipulation wasn't in the game. It should be limited to singular characters. Make people choose who they apply it to rather than wrecking an entire team's ability to react.

    Also I think there's a disconnect between low level arena and top-level arena. I've been helping someone else getting started and at level 30 with FTP the 'good' toons and the meta are totally different. Also the 5 minute clock is much more likely to come into play. If there is a problem it is very clearly with level scaling and strong synergies.

    At low lvl, droid teams with Poggle and Poe are really really effective, there are 2 of them in my top 3 ladder, they really hit hard, if you can't stun Poe or Kill IG-88 early on, you are screwed.
  • Rolf
    1032 posts Member
    Azalel wrote: »
    At low lvl, droid teams with Poggle and Poe are really really effective, there are 2 of them in my top 3 ladder, they really hit hard, if you can't stun Poe or Kill IG-88 early on, you are screwed.
    Quite so. There's a high-level team with that, usually top spot in my ladder. Quite painful.

    Anyway, Q makes some great points in the OP. Overall I think the game could really benefit from longer matches. Would make it all much more interesting.

    However, until the Arena process is revamped to where we no longer *need* the timer I'm not sure it's viable. If they go to a cumulative score basis as opposed to defending arbitrary ranks then there's no need for a mechanism to end battles quickly. And then we're free to have 20-minute nail-biting matchups.
    My ally code: 296-673-769. Wish we could have more than 35.
  • Telaan
    3454 posts Member
    Rolf wrote: »
    And then we're free to have 20-minute nail-biting matchups.

    This really isn't realistic in a mobile game. They're meant to be quick. In general though, the days of long fights like this in video games are over. They pretty much died with SWG. Long fights like this are only one of the many reasons why I loved Pre-CU SWG.
  • Rolf
    1032 posts Member
    But why does it have to be that way? Just cause it's a mobile game doesn't mean it has to be lean and fast. Many of us addicts still play for extended times, so I believe there's a market for a more robust strategy game.

    (I'm also waiting in vain for some storyline. Glutton for punishment...)
    My ally code: 296-673-769. Wish we could have more than 35.
Sign In or Register to comment.