Launch day player's thoughts / Open Notes to devs (LONG POST)
So I've been playing this game for a decent amount of time. I started on the day of hard launch, and have played daily and have remained ahead of the pack, consistently placing in top 5 of arena, holding 1st for majority of those placements. I clear my GW on a daily basis, and I am virtually f2p, only have spent money on daily crystal boosters and like one 8 pack of chromium (which gave me nothing I use). I also am a very strong advocate of not following the meta/FOTM/Cookie cutter teams. The most notable exception would be Luminara. Now that you know a little bit of myself, I'll start addressing the biggest issues I see in the game.
1) Character roles (tank, attacker, healer, support)
In the current game's state, character roles literally have no worthwhile affect on their design or their game play.
Tanks - Have lots of hp which is great! Have virtually no resistances so they literally die just as fast as an attacker/healer/support, give or take a hit. A tank can usually take 1-2 more hits before dying (without heals) than someone else who is not classified as a tank. A tank shouldn't be dying so quick if they're a true tank. I understand that some tanks such as STH and Poe bring lots of turn meter to their team so they have less hp, which is completely fine. But every tank is lacking on their resistances. There's a reason you don't see tanks in the higher tier of pvp.
Attackers - Are the implied dps of the game. I say implied, because let's face it. every character does damage with a few exceptions. They are supposed to be the heavy hitters of your team. The ones who do massive amounts of damage, but usually have slow speed, low health, or low resistances. This isn't the case when it comes to attackers in GoH. The biggest culprit to this is FOTP. FOTP is a heavy hitter attacker. Which I like. What I do not like is his health pool. For someone who can one shot a tank, he needs to have lower hp or lower speed. Unlike Leia, there are not many weaknesses to FOTP, he hits like a truck, has a great health pool, and isn't super slow. Where as Leia, uses her first turn to stealth (so no damage to your team), has a smaller health pool, and only one shots someone when she multi-hits someone.
Healers - Yes healers! Everyone loves a good healer. Healers from experience, possess a very high health pool, with a good heal once in a while, or a low health pool with more frequent heals, albeit weaker. Healers do not do damage, when they do attack, the damage is so small that even tanks do more damage! I understand that a healer should scale with magic/intelligence/whatever you want to call it. So that they might have a special skill that does damage, but no damage on basic attacks. Jedi Consular is a great example. He has a great health pool if you star him up, a relatively short cd on his heal, and a decent single target damaging ability. Now, I'm not arguing that JC is in any way broken, I am simply stating that someone who's purpose is to heal, you shouldn't hit your enemies for 3-4k crits on your basic attack. It's not healthy.
Supports - Lastly, support characters are usually the most versatile character class in any game. Supports are there to well, surprise! Support your team. Supports are just like healers, and healers are supports. The only difference being, a healer's support is healing their team, while a support's support is debuffing enemies/buffing your team. So they follow the same respective ideas. Supports should have lower hp with strong buffing/debuffing capabilities, or high hp with minor buffs/debuffs as well as some damage. As it stands now, Phasma is a complete joke. She has a great health pool, does decent damage, has a great leader ability, and also has tide turning buffs and debuffs. Why should someone, have amazing health pool as well as such game changing abilities?
2) Character availability
Currently this game is severely limited in character farming opportunities. Yes, the game is supposed to be a grind. Yes, the game is supposed to have some pay only characters. I understand both of those, but if the game is already such a grind, why do you limit so many other characters the possibility of being farmed? I would absolutely love to see new team comps. I wanna new teams, and new comps that work. What if Anakin is really good and we just don't see it because without dropping a ton of money farming him would literally take months to get him just to unlock at 4* if you didn't refresh with crystals. What if Stormtrooper or Hoth Rebel Soldier are actually good tanks, but we can't farm them because it would take months to get them to competitive level? These are important things to the players. The game is based off who can you farm from Cantina, arena shipments, and GW shipments. And when it comes to those characters there's not much of a choice. Yes each character could be farmed quickly, but some of those characters are not standalone characters, many rely on a team built around some type of synergy to be decent. My solution would be to rotate shipments. Not every 6 hours, but rotate them every 2-4 weeks. Even if you just move arena shipments to GW, GW to Cantina, and Cantina to arena. It would really spice things up with the team comps.
3) Gearing your characters
Gear is such a tedious and annoying thing in this game. What's more annoying then having to farm 20 purple items for one character's item? Farming 20 purple items for a character's item that doesn't even benefit them! Why does a tank need crit rating and physical damage when he could be getting more resistance and health? Why does a physical damage dealer need an item that adds special damage? Gear optimization is absolutely pathetic. I understand "fill all the gear slots to get a boost" mechanic, but why are some of those gear slots filled with gear our character does not get any benefit from? I guess I wouldn't be so up in arms about the gear slots if it was easier to farm the gear. Blue items that require 5 of it to make one item, drop so rarely that it usually takes 1-2 energy refreshes to completely make the gear. Purple items take 20 of each on average, and that makes sense. The blue item drop rates do not make sense though.
4) PvP
I already know you're working on an overhaul of the current PvP system, so I'll keep this short. I like the current PvP, but it shouldn't be the only form of PvP. I would suggest 2 different things.
A) Make the current Squad Arena a sort of training ground. A place to test new team compositions and have fun. Unlimited play, none to little rewards. While adding a second PvP that is real time against an opponent who is also online. Limit the course of action per player to around 15 seconds to prevent stalling. It would also allow us to be a little more tactical instead of "pick the strongest characters and hope the AI can defend"
Keep the current Squad Arena as is and add "Battle Arena", a PvP zone based on win/loss ratios of real time combat. You would matchmake with a similiar power level, across all shards. The better your win/loss ratio, the higher you'll be rewarded.
5) Bugs and Bundles
1) Bugs - It's safe to say you guys have a pretty big fanbase in such a small time frame. I understand the game was rushed to be launched before TFA released in theaters, but some bugs that aren't taken care of right away leave that character incredibly behind in terms of star levels and gear levels. Why would anyone want to waste their valuable materials on a character that may or may not have their bug fixed?
Notable Bugs I've personally encountered:
Admiral Ackbar not cleansing healing immunity when using his "It's a Trap" ability.
Asajj Ventress not removing buffs properly, and instead removing her own buffs
Plo Koon not removing buffs properly on his basic attack
Old Daka reviving herself upon death, when her tooltip states "when ANOTHER ally dies"
I'm sure there are way more bugs than I listed, but that's for a different thread.
2) Bundles
I personally love bundles! I want to support the game because I have enjoyed it quite a bit. But I also can't bring myself to spend money on a chance to get a character. I don't mind a random drawing of a character, but to have the pool be out of 70 possible characters, full unlocks and shards, that's too much. Let's say all the characters are an even draw chance.I want to draw Aayla Secura full character unlock. That's still a 1/70 chance to pull that character, 1/140 if you include the chances for shards. This is assuming that all character are equal to drop, which we all know is not true. 1-2* are abundantly more possible to pull than any 3-4*. Those odds do not entice me to buy things and I played Yu-Gi-Oh my whole childhood, where the whole point of the game is to buy random packs. If you guys implemented more bundles at a more friendly cost, we'd buy them. Don't make $100 bundle that forces you to buy $40 worth of crystals.
Possible solutions could be:
Limited pool in random card packs. Example) Light side chromium pack vs Dark side Chromium Pack. You can only pool a character from the respective alignment
A tier system for data packs.
Bronze pack - $3 pulls any of the 1* characters
Silver pack - $5 pulls any of the 2* characters
Gold pack - $10 pulls for any of the 3* characters
Chromium pack - $20 pulls for any of the 4* characters
We would still have to gamble to get the character we want, but it would encourage people spending money. I would rather spend $10 pulling one gold pack then pulling 4 of the current chromium packs.
TL;DR
-No clear design element in character attributes and stats
-No effective way to try out new characters, let alone unlocking new characters without spending money
-No clear design element when it comes to gear for characters
-PvP is a mess and while under development for an overhaul, it can't come quick enough
-People want to spend money on the game, but you have very little options for us to even get our money's worth.
I really like the game and I want it to last and prosper, but eventually the whales will get bored when the f2p players get sick and tired of the odds so immensely stacked against them and stop playing altogether.
1) Character roles (tank, attacker, healer, support)
In the current game's state, character roles literally have no worthwhile affect on their design or their game play.
Tanks - Have lots of hp which is great! Have virtually no resistances so they literally die just as fast as an attacker/healer/support, give or take a hit. A tank can usually take 1-2 more hits before dying (without heals) than someone else who is not classified as a tank. A tank shouldn't be dying so quick if they're a true tank. I understand that some tanks such as STH and Poe bring lots of turn meter to their team so they have less hp, which is completely fine. But every tank is lacking on their resistances. There's a reason you don't see tanks in the higher tier of pvp.
Attackers - Are the implied dps of the game. I say implied, because let's face it. every character does damage with a few exceptions. They are supposed to be the heavy hitters of your team. The ones who do massive amounts of damage, but usually have slow speed, low health, or low resistances. This isn't the case when it comes to attackers in GoH. The biggest culprit to this is FOTP. FOTP is a heavy hitter attacker. Which I like. What I do not like is his health pool. For someone who can one shot a tank, he needs to have lower hp or lower speed. Unlike Leia, there are not many weaknesses to FOTP, he hits like a truck, has a great health pool, and isn't super slow. Where as Leia, uses her first turn to stealth (so no damage to your team), has a smaller health pool, and only one shots someone when she multi-hits someone.
Healers - Yes healers! Everyone loves a good healer. Healers from experience, possess a very high health pool, with a good heal once in a while, or a low health pool with more frequent heals, albeit weaker. Healers do not do damage, when they do attack, the damage is so small that even tanks do more damage! I understand that a healer should scale with magic/intelligence/whatever you want to call it. So that they might have a special skill that does damage, but no damage on basic attacks. Jedi Consular is a great example. He has a great health pool if you star him up, a relatively short cd on his heal, and a decent single target damaging ability. Now, I'm not arguing that JC is in any way broken, I am simply stating that someone who's purpose is to heal, you shouldn't hit your enemies for 3-4k crits on your basic attack. It's not healthy.
Supports - Lastly, support characters are usually the most versatile character class in any game. Supports are there to well, surprise! Support your team. Supports are just like healers, and healers are supports. The only difference being, a healer's support is healing their team, while a support's support is debuffing enemies/buffing your team. So they follow the same respective ideas. Supports should have lower hp with strong buffing/debuffing capabilities, or high hp with minor buffs/debuffs as well as some damage. As it stands now, Phasma is a complete joke. She has a great health pool, does decent damage, has a great leader ability, and also has tide turning buffs and debuffs. Why should someone, have amazing health pool as well as such game changing abilities?
2) Character availability
Currently this game is severely limited in character farming opportunities. Yes, the game is supposed to be a grind. Yes, the game is supposed to have some pay only characters. I understand both of those, but if the game is already such a grind, why do you limit so many other characters the possibility of being farmed? I would absolutely love to see new team comps. I wanna new teams, and new comps that work. What if Anakin is really good and we just don't see it because without dropping a ton of money farming him would literally take months to get him just to unlock at 4* if you didn't refresh with crystals. What if Stormtrooper or Hoth Rebel Soldier are actually good tanks, but we can't farm them because it would take months to get them to competitive level? These are important things to the players. The game is based off who can you farm from Cantina, arena shipments, and GW shipments. And when it comes to those characters there's not much of a choice. Yes each character could be farmed quickly, but some of those characters are not standalone characters, many rely on a team built around some type of synergy to be decent. My solution would be to rotate shipments. Not every 6 hours, but rotate them every 2-4 weeks. Even if you just move arena shipments to GW, GW to Cantina, and Cantina to arena. It would really spice things up with the team comps.
3) Gearing your characters
Gear is such a tedious and annoying thing in this game. What's more annoying then having to farm 20 purple items for one character's item? Farming 20 purple items for a character's item that doesn't even benefit them! Why does a tank need crit rating and physical damage when he could be getting more resistance and health? Why does a physical damage dealer need an item that adds special damage? Gear optimization is absolutely pathetic. I understand "fill all the gear slots to get a boost" mechanic, but why are some of those gear slots filled with gear our character does not get any benefit from? I guess I wouldn't be so up in arms about the gear slots if it was easier to farm the gear. Blue items that require 5 of it to make one item, drop so rarely that it usually takes 1-2 energy refreshes to completely make the gear. Purple items take 20 of each on average, and that makes sense. The blue item drop rates do not make sense though.
4) PvP
I already know you're working on an overhaul of the current PvP system, so I'll keep this short. I like the current PvP, but it shouldn't be the only form of PvP. I would suggest 2 different things.
A) Make the current Squad Arena a sort of training ground. A place to test new team compositions and have fun. Unlimited play, none to little rewards. While adding a second PvP that is real time against an opponent who is also online. Limit the course of action per player to around 15 seconds to prevent stalling. It would also allow us to be a little more tactical instead of "pick the strongest characters and hope the AI can defend"
Keep the current Squad Arena as is and add "Battle Arena", a PvP zone based on win/loss ratios of real time combat. You would matchmake with a similiar power level, across all shards. The better your win/loss ratio, the higher you'll be rewarded.5) Bugs and Bundles
1) Bugs - It's safe to say you guys have a pretty big fanbase in such a small time frame. I understand the game was rushed to be launched before TFA released in theaters, but some bugs that aren't taken care of right away leave that character incredibly behind in terms of star levels and gear levels. Why would anyone want to waste their valuable materials on a character that may or may not have their bug fixed?
Notable Bugs I've personally encountered:
Admiral Ackbar not cleansing healing immunity when using his "It's a Trap" ability.
Asajj Ventress not removing buffs properly, and instead removing her own buffs
Plo Koon not removing buffs properly on his basic attack
Old Daka reviving herself upon death, when her tooltip states "when ANOTHER ally dies"
I'm sure there are way more bugs than I listed, but that's for a different thread.
2) Bundles
I personally love bundles! I want to support the game because I have enjoyed it quite a bit. But I also can't bring myself to spend money on a chance to get a character. I don't mind a random drawing of a character, but to have the pool be out of 70 possible characters, full unlocks and shards, that's too much. Let's say all the characters are an even draw chance.I want to draw Aayla Secura full character unlock. That's still a 1/70 chance to pull that character, 1/140 if you include the chances for shards. This is assuming that all character are equal to drop, which we all know is not true. 1-2* are abundantly more possible to pull than any 3-4*. Those odds do not entice me to buy things and I played Yu-Gi-Oh my whole childhood, where the whole point of the game is to buy random packs. If you guys implemented more bundles at a more friendly cost, we'd buy them. Don't make $100 bundle that forces you to buy $40 worth of crystals.
Possible solutions could be:
Limited pool in random card packs. Example) Light side chromium pack vs Dark side Chromium Pack. You can only pool a character from the respective alignment
A tier system for data packs.
Bronze pack - $3 pulls any of the 1* characters
Silver pack - $5 pulls any of the 2* characters
Gold pack - $10 pulls for any of the 3* characters
Chromium pack - $20 pulls for any of the 4* characters
We would still have to gamble to get the character we want, but it would encourage people spending money. I would rather spend $10 pulling one gold pack then pulling 4 of the current chromium packs.
TL;DR
-No clear design element in character attributes and stats
-No effective way to try out new characters, let alone unlocking new characters without spending money
-No clear design element when it comes to gear for characters
-PvP is a mess and while under development for an overhaul, it can't come quick enough
-People want to spend money on the game, but you have very little options for us to even get our money's worth.
I really like the game and I want it to last and prosper, but eventually the whales will get bored when the f2p players get sick and tired of the odds so immensely stacked against them and stop playing altogether.
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You probably should have made it a series of posts rather than just one long one, but that's my opinion. I applaud you for providing possible solutions etc.
Please keep thinking and posting!
Thanks.
Would make popcorn next time.
Namely Poe and Phasma being the most obvious offenders, heck Finn is almost as bad if not worse than Poe, but not many people are aware of his abilities... And soon we will have a bunch of Rey's running around.. and people will realise how insane she is... mind you the FOTP was already in the game prior to those Force Awakens characters
Now that hole that I mentioned about Barriss? If they nerf all four of these characters... it's gonna create even more outcry!
What they should have done first was not make characters as power as they were and buffed them up slowly and carefully... But doing that.. no one would have bought the packs considering the insane pricing on them....
There's a lot that needs to be done.. unfortunately a lot seems to be done on impulse rather than thinking it out...
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!
CG is much better than most teams at being involved and part of the community but with EA running the show, the corporate timelines and roadmaps will be followed for the most part. Especially on promotional content and pricing.
@EA_Jesse and co wouldn't say it and I don't expect them to, but I'm sure there are at least a handful of clashes between the day-to-day devs and the corporate overlords. I say this having been a developer for over a decade, and working on both sides of "the force"
I truly hope that EA/CG are the chosen ones and can bring balance to the force. All of the bugs, the crazy decisions and such could still amount to one heck of a game.
On the Gear itemization though, I'm all about having gear that ISN'T minmaxed (in other words, having every item on a tank be +400 hps and + 10 armor and resist, etc.) A perfect example is a lot of Old Ben's gearing; he gets a lot of health, some potency, some tankiness, and some damage.
What IS garbage, and frustrating however, is seeing USELESS stats on items given constantly to a character.
A good example of THIS is again, Old Ben. Why is his special damage higher than his physical damage? Why does his gear list include Special damage AT ALL? (I'm using a 5* level 61 with maxed gear; both stats are around 900 ).It does NOTHING for him. He doesn't even have a second damage ability that you could say "well, we initially planned to implement that as Special damage base"
Armor and Resistance are, as noted, a joke. As far as I can tell, they mitigate a flat numerical amount of incoming damage, calculated AFTER a critical strike. Which is laughable, considering "tanks" has values of 100-200 and there are few characters that hit for less than 1500 at 7*. It isn't balanced at low level play, and it sure as hell isn't balanced at high star/gear play.
Overall, this game would benefit from the corporate zombies taking a good look at any decent MMORPG, MOBA, or heck any FF style game.
Because you might be able to get a player base to P2W for awhile, but eventually that'll taper out and you'll have essentially ruined what could be a pretty good smartphone/tablet game in a cash grab.
Oh, and Leia's Crit DMG increase on stealth does nothing. Add that to the bug list