Recent change to Galactic War - open conversation

Replies

  • The only thing I'm going to come back at you with is where you said using the earlier retreat and/or force close are cheating. No one at CG or EA ever said anything like that, only that using those things in they way they were bing used, was not how they intended them to be used. FYI, that "not intended" bit is exactly how you now use retreat to defeat the psuedo-random number generation in GW, so saying that the previous methods were cheating is quite hypocritical, imo.

    To be clear, I do not, did not nor will ever say the earlier retreat is or was cheating. Maybe I did not phrase my statement correctly. I was being sarcastic of the people who were earlier shouting about how the force close was a cheat punishable by bans and how they never even used the earlier retreat as it was "unethical" and not a strategy expected from the awesome gamers that they were. They're applauding force close now. Somehow naming it retreat and giving it a button makes it awfully strategic. I'm still trying to figure that out...
  • I managed to win all GW since update.

    Am I happy about the change? Not really, because in the end, it all comes to how lucky you are with opponent party composition. I could very well lose next 10 GWs if luck doesn't help.

    It seems that 50% of players are satisfied about the update, and 50% are furious about it.
    Probably some Shadenfreude coming from the satisfied ones.

    From a purist point of view, even if I hate to admit it, I can understand why the change was applied.

    From a commercial point of view, it's like shooting oneself in the foot, and I hope we won't lose too many co-players because of it.

    That was one hard-to-swallow pill, guys! Please no more hardcore changes for a while! = P
  • To summarize my thoughts after reading through up to this point.

    1. GW is not harder now, it's just tedious and not fun.

    2. Based on a post regarding using 4 healers and FOTP, on the 9th battle on my trip through, I figured why not. The enemy team was Phasma lead, Kylo, Gundi, JC, Lumi. My FOTP is lvl61, epic gear, only 3 stars, ability lvl 4. I hit auto, and when the smoke cleared, my team was full health. Everyone. Expect FOTP to be nerfed to oblivion.

    3. If GW is, in fact supposed to be one of the endgame features why unlock it at lvl 40? And add that level 40, even 50, shouldn't be able to finish it? Why not unlock it at 55 or 60 unless your aim is to purposely frustrate players, especially the numerous casual gamers that want to play a Star Wars game.

    4. Please, do something to GW to make it fun again. I may change my feelings on GW being tedious now to that of it being a joke due to the ease of completing it with next to no strategy, and using only five characters.

    5. Please note these are my thoughts on the matter. One more thing, I'd really appreciate it if people could stop attacking not only the developers, but also each other. Players have a right to their thoughts, opinions and feelings. Reading through these posts, some peoples main purpose for posting here is to misrepresent what others say, degrade their opinions and feelings on the situation at hand.
  • Merkur0m wrote: »
    Please no more hardcore changes for a while! = P

    Second that. Targeting bugs like sudden changing of targets and not being able to change targets, imo, were/ are more important in a target and time based game. These bugs have lost me countless battles where I would have made it by a red bar of health.

    New game, most of us are forgiving and will continue playing what is still a very good game. But sudden major changes like this will definitely cause a major upheavel among older players.
  • For myself, I found this mode to be the only truly entertaining and strategic part of this game. It has now IMO, become a tedious chore with infinite resets and no true challenge.
  • Another option for old style retreat: you can summon characters out, after
    EM650 wrote: »
    Someone (P2W) got to level 67 within the first day. Some else just posted the ability mats they get at level 70. GW pulls from other teams (it is assumed) +/- your level. When P2W are able to jump so far ahead so quickly, how difficult will their opponents be in GW who are still at level 60 or 61? Do you think that this change effects them very much?

    Now how much do you think that this change effects not only F2P, but smaller spenders who are still at 60 or 61? Not to mention how do you compete against those people in the arena. They just turned GW into one long grind of arena battles.

    The diminishing returns severely punish the high end of P2P players. The crystal costs expand exponentially, so that level 67 first day player spent a TON of money to do that. There aren't going to be many that do what you're talking about. The effect they have on GW is miniscule.
    Better matchmaking, like someone posted -+ 5 levels, cool down or health resets/ a little higher percentage regen, I'll feel better. I don't dislike the change enough to stop playing but dislike it at it's present form, I do.

    Better match making is my most requested for feature, btw.

    Edit: I saw some posts saying level 40~50 or anything below 60 should not be able to finish GW. Do you guys really support a game mode that is unbeatable? Hard, I can understand, unbeatable? Why unlock the mode at 40 then? And do any of you beeps even understand that as soon as people start reaching 70, your statement would have to adjust itself to anything below 65~70 should not be able to finish GW, a game mode unlocked at 40?

    Btw, stun/heal team, cleared GW twice since update abusing RNG. Basically doing the same thing as earlier, just force closing much more (retreat before some of you start shouting). Admit it, this is the most optimal team that will consistently beat GW all the time. Of course, I'm not including those of you ethical gamers who would hate to use the earlier retreat or the earlier force close/present retreat as it doesn't involve any strategy and is cheating. It doesn't seem to get through your thick heads that using any in-built feature (like throwing money or using retreat) is perfectly ethical.

    As of now, F2P and P2P guys should concentrate on said stun/heal teams. Easier to clear GW as long as you force close, oops, retreat often. P2W, you have additional options (I know most of you don't need advice, just throwing it out there before you guys come back at me, there are other options!)

    The only thing I'm going to come back at you with is where you said using the earlier retreat and/or force close are cheating. No one at CG or EA ever said anything like that, only that using those things in they way they were bing used, was not how they intended them to be used. FYI, that "not intended" bit is exactly how you now use retreat to defeat the psuedo-random number generation in GW, so saying that the previous methods were cheating is quite hypocritical, imo.

    Also, @CG_JohnSalera, this heal/stun team is the exact kind of cheese I was describing in my earlier (long) post. This kind of thing is going to become more, not less, common because of this change.

    They may spend a lot, but not as much as you imagine. If you forego free energy, you can accumulate Energy as if it where a currency. Each day invest 450 crystals for 6 refreshes (1 Cantina and 5 regular).

    In a month you'd have saved 150 refreshes. Now apply those in a single day. Total spend is 13500 Crystals. But since this kind of player usually ranks rop 3 in arena for good reason, substract 400 crystals average from spend. And you have 50 per day as cost or 1500 which is a little more than $10.

    I am not sure this scenario was anticipated by the devs but it's completely valid as per the rules. Infound it a bit grossing that day one we had level 70 for them, kudos. I am glad to be in a different arena though :-)

    This is another edge case scenario that I'm sure isn't common at all. It's definitely the most optimum way to spend crystals, though. With regards to the person I was responding to, in that context, this type of player, while quite savvy, won't ever have any bearing on balance in GW.
    The only thing I'm going to come back at you with is where you said using the earlier retreat and/or force close are cheating. No one at CG or EA ever said anything like that, only that using those things in they way they were bing used, was not how they intended them to be used. FYI, that "not intended" bit is exactly how you now use retreat to defeat the psuedo-random number generation in GW, so saying that the previous methods were cheating is quite hypocritical, imo.

    To be clear, I do not, did not nor will ever say the earlier retreat is or was cheating. Maybe I did not phrase my statement correctly. I was being sarcastic of the people who were earlier shouting about how the force close was a cheat punishable by bans and how they never even used the earlier retreat as it was "unethical" and not a strategy expected from the awesome gamers that they were. They're applauding force close now. Somehow naming it retreat and giving it a button makes it awfully strategic. I'm still trying to figure that out...

    I'm so sorry! I'm really bad at reading sarcasm in text. In my defense, Poe's law makes a cosmic joke of these forums. Sorry I lumped you in with all the chicken littles!
  • i also agree that the fun factor is mostly gone. I hope they get some changes out soon because GW was a lot of fun before.

    I like that I have to consider each enemy team now as I build mine but I don't like that I don't have to be right. Just reset and try again. Suicide squads still work so I don't think they've really fixed anything yet. You just can't wipe debuffs and continue now.

  • ilyanor wrote: »

    Hate the change. Cleared gw with the same 5 characters tonight. No point in changing anything anymore. I used to use all my 17 lvl 60s. "Gaming" the rng system is not strategy. "Oh dang they won every roll, let me just use the exact same toons in different slots and see if it gets better for me. .."

    That's horrible.

    This..
    ilyanor wrote: »

    Hate the change. Cleared gw with the same 5 characters tonight. No point in changing anything anymore. I used to use all my 17 lvl 60s. "Gaming" the rng system is not strategy. "Oh dang they won every roll, let me just use the exact same toons in different slots and see if it gets better for me. .."

    That's horrible.

    This..

  • Here is a better summary for EA.

    1. The retreat fix was good, and needed. You need to address the bug of being able to move the same characters into different slots to reseed the rng

    2. The scaling of difficulty (and rewards) should now be refined. With the functionality working as intended you can now make the challenge scale properly.

    Thanks for the updates!
  • sadly I haven't been able to finish a GW table since the update, lvl 60's from round 3 and by round 9 they are just too much. I'm not mad, just a bit bummed...I enjoyed GW but now I kind of dread doing it...but I get that it suppose to be hard.
    More frustrating for me is how often characters dodge. There are characters with high dodge chances but quite often after dodging one attack that same character will dodge 3 or 4 more in succession, often these characters are lower level than me, have no buff etc. I can live with it but I have definitely started to see patterns. Force push attacks on palpatine...barely ever lands.
    If I attack palpatine with luminara it's usually 50/50 if it hits and if it doesn't then no matter who attacks after he will dodge at least another 2 - 3 attacks...does that have anything to do with this random seed number? Because it happens a lot!
  • Steemo wrote: »
    sadly I haven't been able to finish a GW table since the update, lvl 60's from round 3 and by round 9 they are just too much. I'm not mad, just a bit bummed...I enjoyed GW but now I kind of dread doing it...but I get that it suppose to be hard.
    More frustrating for me is how often characters dodge. There are characters with high dodge chances but quite often after dodging one attack that same character will dodge 3 or 4 more in succession, often these characters are lower level than me, have no buff etc. I can live with it but I have definitely started to see patterns. Force push attacks on palpatine...barely ever lands.
    If I attack palpatine with luminara it's usually 50/50 if it hits and if it doesn't then no matter who attacks after he will dodge at least another 2 - 3 attacks...does that have anything to do with this random seed number? Because it happens a lot!

    The only way to clear it for f2p is to have at least 3 healers. Start working on your healers if you want to clear it in future.
  • Cpt_Dan wrote: »
    .

    Just reset and try again.

    Cry some more and you will make them nerf the number of readers to just 3 times
  • I echo the "tedious chore" sentiment. So many other parts of the game are a repetitive chore. This is now the worst offender. Leveling up my deep field through the rest of the grind fest was given meaning by GW. Now I gotta use the same uber leveled toons.....over and over until they are taken out. The excessive restarting. Gawd. Dreadful. Skipped it for today. Started Star Wars Uprising today. Spent my money there till this game goes back to being interesting.
  • Qeltar
    4326 posts Member
    Increased challenge update: GW completed again in 12 consecutive matches with the same 5 characters. Retreats used: 0 (except for test fights I used as part of a data-gathering exercise).
    Yawn update: Greatly increased since the patch.
    Quit 7/14/16. Best of luck to all of you.
  • Just joined in order to comment on this thread. Been playing for about 5 weeks now, spent only $5 for the 1000 crystals over 7 days package and that's it, and I have really not spent those. I bought one chromium pack a while back then decided I'd rather spend crystals on characters I wanted as opposed to random shards/characters, so I spend 100 crystals per day on two recharges and occasionally 60 crystals for training droids.

    I've been in the 50-100 rank range for the past week in arena, probably in the 100-200 rank for a few weeks before that. Currently level 56. I spend most of my energy farming shards for JC, Dooku, Fives, Talia and FO Stormtrooper. I spend my cantina energy on Chewie to get him to 5 star and now working on Luke shards. I have Sid from arena shipments (6*) and Luminara from GW shipments (6*). Couple of purple gear characters and the rest of my top 10 is just below that. Finally got Old Daka unlocked this morning from Cantina shipments, but it will be a couple of days before she is levelled up and geared up to contribute to GW.

    I liked the retreat option the way it was, swapping characters out and so forth, and I find the new way of basically force-quitting any battle that's not going well to be rather tedious. Still, there is some strategy, and so I'm going to give it a week and follow the conversations here and see what else changes before I make a final judgement.

    What I haven't seen here yet, though it is indirectly referenced, is the basic outline of the best strategy for GW now. I think some people are posting just assuming that everyone knows it, and others maybe are assuming they should be doing one thing but are wrong, which is making it too hard. Maybe by seeing how tedious or easy to basic winning strategy is, that will provide the devs with needed feedback. I've won every GW since the change, and I was winning almost every time before the change.

    1. Start every battle with your best five. Typically for me, that's Luminara and JC for my healers, Sidious, Luke and Dooku. I will probably insert Old Daka for Luke once she is geared up and leveled up completely. More healers is better, for sure. Talia doesn't really count as an effective healer for this purpose.

    2. Generally fight battles with the goal of having at least one of your healer cooldowns and all of your special attacks reset for the next fight, with all of your characters at or close to full health if possible. That means save soft hitting tanks and healers as the last enemies standing. It is important that Sidious' heal prevent procs, and this can usually be achieved if you are patient for a good RNG seed.

    3. Fight the battle, and if you lose a character, shuffle the lineup and try a different RNG seed. If this doesn't work after 5-6 tries, I will probably take out Luke (who is a glass cannon) and insert Chewie for his taunt. Try this for 5-6 different RNG seeds.

    4. If it still isn't working, I'll throw in Poe and sacrifice him for the team with his fast-acting taunt. Try this 5-6 times. You can only do this once per GW, so there is some strategy here. You have to choose wisely if it is worth it to sacrifice Poe or Chewie, but they are expendable. I suppose Royal Guard might be worth it to level up now because he can taunt with the right RNG seed and be another pawn sacrifice.

    5. I've never gotten to this step, but I suppose if I had to, I will put in five mid-level characters to absorb AOE spams and specials and hope to take out one of the five bad guys before putting my "A" team in.

    6. During battle 11, you can stand to lose a character or two. But during any battle 1-11, if you lose a healer, that's an automatic restart no matter what. During battle 12, you can lose your whole "A" team as long as there are only 2-3 bad guys left. You should be able to take those out with your remaining bench.

    --
    That's it. A lot of the strategy is tedious, waiting for the right RNG seed and right combination of your attacks and so forth. My first target is usually Sidious because he prevents my healing. I also have to go after Phasma because I can't escape those buffs any more. If Rey or Darth Maul is present, they may get priority. Likewise Kylo because he can also apply a no-heal debuff.
  • Steemo wrote: »
    sadly I haven't been able to finish a GW table since the update, lvl 60's from round 3 and by round 9 they are just too much. I'm not mad, just a bit bummed...I enjoyed GW but now I kind of dread doing it...but I get that it suppose to be hard.
    More frustrating for me is how often characters dodge. There are characters with high dodge chances but quite often after dodging one attack that same character will dodge 3 or 4 more in succession, often these characters are lower level than me, have no buff etc. I can live with it but I have definitely started to see patterns. Force push attacks on palpatine...barely ever lands.
    If I attack palpatine with luminara it's usually 50/50 if it hits and if it doesn't then no matter who attacks after he will dodge at least another 2 - 3 attacks...does that have anything to do with this random seed number? Because it happens a lot!


    Try to attack Sid with non-Jedi chars. Lumi, JC, Barris, etc. Are Jedi's and Sid has native 35% dodge against Jedi's, plus high resistance to Specials. Remember Sid is also a paper toon. When specials hit, he is gone (but don't let other deaths heal him).
  • Just joined in order to comment on this thread. Been playing for about 5 weeks now, spent only $5 for the 1000 crystals over 7 days package and that's it, and I have really not spent those. I bought one chromium pack a while back then decided I'd rather spend crystals on characters I wanted as opposed to random shards/characters, so I spend 100 crystals per day on two recharges and occasionally 60 crystals for training droids.

    I've been in the 50-100 rank range for the past week in arena, probably in the 100-200 rank for a few weeks before that. Currently level 56. I spend most of my energy farming shards for JC, Dooku, Fives, Talia and FO Stormtrooper. I spend my cantina energy on Chewie to get him to 5 star and now working on Luke shards. I have Sid from arena shipments (6*) and Luminara from GW shipments (6*). Couple of purple gear characters and the rest of my top 10 is just below that. Finally got Old Daka unlocked this morning from Cantina shipments, but it will be a couple of days before she is levelled up and geared up to contribute to GW.

    I liked the retreat option the way it was, swapping characters out and so forth, and I find the new way of basically force-quitting any battle that's not going well to be rather tedious. Still, there is some strategy, and so I'm going to give it a week and follow the conversations here and see what else changes before I make a final judgement.

    What I haven't seen here yet, though it is indirectly referenced, is the basic outline of the best strategy for GW now. I think some people are posting just assuming that everyone knows it, and others maybe are assuming they should be doing one thing but are wrong, which is making it too hard. Maybe by seeing how tedious or easy to basic winning strategy is, that will provide the devs with needed feedback. I've won every GW since the change, and I was winning almost every time before the change.

    1. Start every battle with your best five. Typically for me, that's Luminara and JC for my healers, Sidious, Luke and Dooku. I will probably insert Old Daka for Luke once she is geared up and leveled up completely. More healers is better, for sure. Talia doesn't really count as an effective healer for this purpose.

    2. Generally fight battles with the goal of having at least one of your healer cooldowns and all of your special attacks reset for the next fight, with all of your characters at or close to full health if possible. That means save soft hitting tanks and healers as the last enemies standing. It is important that Sidious' heal prevent procs, and this can usually be achieved if you are patient for a good RNG seed.

    3. Fight the battle, and if you lose a character, shuffle the lineup and try a different RNG seed. If this doesn't work after 5-6 tries, I will probably take out Luke (who is a glass cannon) and insert Chewie for his taunt. Try this for 5-6 different RNG seeds.

    4. If it still isn't working, I'll throw in Poe and sacrifice him for the team with his fast-acting taunt. Try this 5-6 times. You can only do this once per GW, so there is some strategy here. You have to choose wisely if it is worth it to sacrifice Poe or Chewie, but they are expendable. I suppose Royal Guard might be worth it to level up now because he can taunt with the right RNG seed and be another pawn sacrifice.

    5. I've never gotten to this step, but I suppose if I had to, I will put in five mid-level characters to absorb AOE spams and specials and hope to take out one of the five bad guys before putting my "A" team in.

    6. During battle 11, you can stand to lose a character or two. But during any battle 1-11, if you lose a healer, that's an automatic restart no matter what. During battle 12, you can lose your whole "A" team as long as there are only 2-3 bad guys left. You should be able to take those out with your remaining bench.

    --
    That's it. A lot of the strategy is tedious, waiting for the right RNG seed and right combination of your attacks and so forth. My first target is usually Sidious because he prevents my healing. I also have to go after Phasma because I can't escape those buffs any more. If Rey or Darth Maul is present, they may get priority. Likewise Kylo because he can also apply a no-heal debuff.

    Best shot guide I read ever. Everything is accurate here, and key. I don't find this tedious, and there are other things you can do. But if you have 8 toons this pretty much sums things. Good job.

  • I personally vehemently detest the new GW. I can understand wanting to make it challenging but this isn't enjoyable in the least. I could use strategy before. Bring in a weaker character to do a specific job and then replace them with a stronger character to finish it off. Or defeat the leader to remove their ability. I hate it now and it frustrates me so much I don't want to play at all. I've spent money on this game. Enjoyed it, but I may not spend anymore.
  • I like the change personally. As a f2p player

    The old retreat was super lame, you could just avoid everything unpleasant and "keeping track of CDs" meant putting in 1-2 people whilst the enemy only has 1-2 low damage people (one of them a healer) over and over until everyone was full health and full CDs. Not strategy, just boring tedious stuff to avoid having to think about how you played the fight.

    Let me tell you now, even if you keep debuffs and buffs, it can still be super easily abused, it will just be more tedious as you have to wait extra turns with 2-4 people on the field. It will require like 7 people.

    People keep saying about how they only use 5 people now just stack up on healers...****? Seriously? You could do that before...I have been running 3 healers for as long as I can remember and I have cleared gw every day (except my first, only node 11, didn't really know what was going on, rushed into it) and I figured it was how the game was meant to be played... Most days I only used 5/6 people, occasionally 7...so no you did not need an especially deep bench before. So you can accomplish the same thing now...? Great... You likely could have saved yourself 30 retreats before the patch doing the same thing all because you felt you wanted to use your roster...well you can still make that choice, you can still use multiple people who are less than optimal (as I assume you must have been doing before because I know from experience you did not need to be using them).however using them will now actually have an affect on how you finish the battle. You might not finish so pristine, so optimising your team against the enemies actually has a point now, whereas before you could just use basically anybody and everybody in the manority of situations.

    As to those who say it is not harder it is just more tedious...I mean personally I think not being able to void half of the characters in game does not make things easier...nor is it easier when you have to try and end a battle on high health and decent CDs compared to just throwing people at it then having a huge 2man sub fest to bring your whole roster back to full no matter what happened. Sure you have a buffer against your key characters getting one shot (which is a huge help to f2p I imagine because if qui gon pulls a fotp assist on your best healer at node 6 and kills them immediately your chances of getting further it just dropped massively without a revive in every squad you use) but you still need to actually win the fight and win it well if you want to continue, not just scrape by then basically reset all your people on a jc. Not only that but it limits the super cheese of picking a really fast squad and getting basically a full round of free attacks, having one guy on the enemy team attack you then retreat rinse repeat.

    Now sure...you can complety avoid the spirit of the mode by not adjusting your team in the slightest and just sitting there for hours hoping for the correct random rolls (although this could be done beforehand anyway...and you still need a fairly competent team and you still need to be able to win well). Great! with huge amounts of extra time invested you can still get your rewards, without having to think about it or adjust in any way. You call it tedious but that is because you choose to use the most tedious of strategies ahah...I mean I have been using 5-7 characters every day so you do not need to build a full stun team and then sit there for hours resetting and hoping for better rng...but you can if you really want and cannot find a way to beat it and all it will cost you is loads of extra time. But to take this away takes away literally the only sandbox type of thing f2p people have to pratctice different things against powerful squads. Which means even less time able to be spent on the game for people that do care about optimising their stuff. With the previous retreat you could still basically choose to never lose anybody, as long as you invested the time in resetting them at the end of fights. So...you can invest a load of time to finish in the same state as you previously did by investing loads of time...whatever, if you want to waste time doing that for 5 extra shards and a tier 3 ability mat when you could just go ahead and win it normally then so be it. There will always be people in any game that seek to abuse things instead of doing them "properly" (we all have our own definition of that) and for the amount of unfun time invested for such a small progression it is probably worth it.

    As for the fixes on closing the game...the suggestions suck. I am not sure if it is because o have low space on my phone or what but this game crashes a lot for me(more than any other game) and I see a lot of other people mention theirs do too. Having a team lose 30% of their health in 2 retreats/closes effectively stops them from entering any of the higher nodes without just dying. Punishing people for a game that crashes chrashing is going to lose even more customers then anything else...not to mention those people that get a phonecall..."**** I cannot risk going back into GW till 11pm just incase I get another call" or "I can't do this in work any more, waaaAy too risky". It becomes no longer a casual game but one you need to be alone with zero distractions to play.

    So yeah, I think it is better, I prefer having to actually care about the team I am fighting and deal with them using only the party I chose. I am guilty of using the old retreat to nullify debuffs and buffs because it was easier and less risky than actually playing around them (and Plx if you think keeping buffs on will help...first round have asajj... Buffers will go early, she will go last, make her dispel, sub her out, sub her back in at the end to reset cd, same ****).


    What I would say though is this super high damage speed game does make it less fun...I mean if you don't go with loads of healers and a res or 2 then you will lose people within just a turn or two...which really does then force your hand into what kind of parties you pick.'so really it is not increasing diversity or encouraging 'wide' use of your bench(i do think a lot of the 'diversity' we saw before though was unnecessary and only came out because it did not make a difference who you used so you had the choice to use everyone at points, if you felt like it).
  • Wispsi
    255 posts Member
    edited January 2016
    Qeltar wrote: »
    Increased challenge update: GW completed again in 12 consecutive matches with the same 5 characters. Retreats used: 0 (except for test fights I used as part of a data-gathering exercise).
    Yawn update: Greatly increased since the patch.

    And you could not do this before?? (Well if you didn't force close you could not do the data gathering part before I guess...what a horrible change*sarcasm*).

  • Best shot guide I read ever. Everything is accurate here, and key. I don't find this tedious, and there are other things you can do. But if you have 8 toons this pretty much sums things. Good job.

    Thanks. I should probably add, though people will learn from experience, that my top five is sufficient for a satisfactory battle outcome about 80% of the time, and 90% within the first 3-4 tries. I've only had one battle where I got to the point I had to sacrifice Poe, and that worked on the 2nd try.

    GW is a perfect distraction for me on my iPad to get me through my daily treadmill exercise, and I usually finish the map in 40-45 minutes. I don't use auto until it is clear I have the very last battle in the bag.
  • To summarize my thoughts after reading through up to this point.

    1. GW is not harder now, it's just tedious and not fun.

    2. Based on a post regarding using 4 healers and FOTP, on the 9th battle on my trip through, I figured why not. The enemy team was Phasma lead, Kylo, Gundi, JC, Lumi. My FOTP is lvl61, epic gear, only 3 stars, ability lvl 4. I hit auto, and when the smoke cleared, my team was full health. Everyone. Expect FOTP to be nerfed to oblivion.

    3. If GW is, in fact supposed to be one of the endgame features why unlock it at lvl 40? And add that level 40, even 50, shouldn't be able to finish it? Why not unlock it at 55 or 60 unless your aim is to purposely frustrate players, especially the numerous casual gamers that want to play a Star Wars game.

    4. Please, do something to GW to make it fun again. I may change my feelings on GW being tedious now to that of it being a joke due to the ease of completing it with next to no strategy, and using only five characters.

    5. Please note these are my thoughts on the matter. One more thing, I'd really appreciate it if people could stop attacking not only the developers, but also each other. Players have a right to their thoughts, opinions and feelings. Reading through these posts, some peoples main purpose for posting here is to misrepresent what others say, degrade their opinions and feelings on the situation at hand.

    +1

    I wish they had fixed the debuff clearing and turn meter issues and left the retreat mechanics as they were.

    I didn't always finish GW before, I used retreat though I didn't use Force Close, now it seems easy and I'm not even swapping spots to regen the RNG roll, you only have to change the action sequence and in one permutation, it will work and it makes the opening gambit predictable.

    I can easily pass the first 9 battles then for the last 3 I just have to send in a suicide squad of sacrificial lambs to soak up the specials. Using the lowest 5 guys for 10, the next lowest 5 for 11 and the next 5 for 12.
    By 12 I'm throwing in 3* and 4* toons, often Jedi like Ayala and QGJ with level 5/6 gear so they can often even soften up one or two opponent's toons. I'm fortunate to have a moderately deep bench and have no problem completing GW now whereas before it was harder (if you didn't FC) and you actually had to strategize on a turn by turn basis. Now, it's like playing a round of golf and taking a Mulligan on every other shot or as another poster put it, it feels like Groundhog Day.

    It's not more fun or even harder, though I can definitely see where it would be for new players, just tedious.
    Ally Code: 945-699-762
  • Imo it is great that CG is asking for feedback from players on the GW change hopefully leading to an improved game.

    About me:
    I am currently lvl 54 and have completed all my GWs (in total) successfully (i.e. winning the last fight) except the first 3 where I finished 11 fights and could not win the last one.

    Key: Enjoying the game
    • I think most important for a game is the fun aspect regardless of whether you are a new player or an experienced one.

    Let me give you some examples of aspects of the game I (and presumably many others ) enjoy:
    • I like composing squads with interesting synergies and fight in challenging diverse battles against opponents squads (especially arena to a lesser extend light side and dark side battles and also GW - I write more on GW later )

    There are other aspects I don't like in this game:
    • Why do I need to wait to run an easy battle (for shards, gear) in autoplay mode as opposed to using sim tickets to get an additional 10 ally points or because I have run out of sim tickets?
    • It was interesting to learn how to do the challenges , but currently all challenges I can currently do are easy for me. I normally do not enjoy running the challenges on autoplay or even manually (as the AI fails to do some challenges) . I wonder why sim tickets cannot be used in challenges which were previously completed with no character loss like it is possible in light side and dark side battles.
    • If you run out of energy (and refreshes) and have completed your challenges, GW and arena battles you can do nothing in the game
    • Absurdly high prices for most content (i.e. the force awakens bundle which gives you a few 4 star characters costs as much as full price games )
    • Buying chromium packs is of little use. A shard conversion system could really help here.
    • Also waiting 10 minutes in order to be able to redo a challenge is negative / pointless.
    • The AI is not good at fights (i.e. uses non-equalizing heal when the only low health character has healing immunity debuff on it and has often poor target selection).
    • It is not possible to set AI tactics for defense in Arena - Dragon Age: Origins is a good example for goodtactics options
    • The number of arena fights you can do per day is severely limited.


    Regarding GW change:
    • Imo it is more comfortable of having a restart battle function (called retreat) than force closing the game in any situation where you are interested in restarting a GW battle.
    • I like having the option to restart a battle - it allows you to experiment with different characters / combinations as far as you have a sufficient number of characters with a level and gear sufficient.
    • Let me give an positive example of my last GW run:
      I was running Barris (Leader), Lumi, Sid, Daka, Geo Soldier and was up vs a full druid team (HK 47 (Leader), Poggle, IG 86, IG 88, Geo Soldier) and relalized that my Daka gets killed very early due to high power droids with poggle's buff and I realized that I needed to take out IG 86 and IG 88 very early to win the fight. I switched out daka for Poe and could get a quite favourable outcome for the fight (Poe died my other characters make it out with nearly full health) .
    • I personally did not miss the (old) retreat option a lot and I did not really enjoy things like bringing ticklers in for cooldown management . I am neutral to the change done here. I think the best way here would have to have an restart battle function (which was done) but also maintain the old retreat function, but in a way where and buffs debuffs, status effects and turn meter would be kept in case of retreat.
    • I like the mentioned idea of having players select different difficulties (with different rewards) for GW like it is possible for challenges.


    GW change for new players:
    • The lack of the old retreat option should make it much harder for new players to do well in GW. It is key to have strong healers there , ideally 3+.
    • The starting healers available are just JC (which is useful) and Talia, which can be problematic as her heal damages herself. The starting healers available are just JC (which is useful) and Talia, which can be problematic as her heal damages herself.
    • Replacing Dooku(strong 3 star character) in the dark side starter pack with Greedo (2 star character, rather weak) made it a lot harder for new players.
    • A solution could maybe be a (low priced) galactic war starter bundle which provides you a character which is very good for galactic war, like a 3 star luminara along with a few credits and training droids.
    • For new players it might be helpful to rate & comment the game in the Google play store and App store after CG has acted on our feedback.


  • One other thing I should mention about GW, which is so obvious to most top players that it isn't even mentioned in this thread but for relatively new players, they may not realize how important this is.

    I really found it a *LOT* easier once I had my top 8-10 characters geared up to at minimum level 6, just below purple, which I finally put a priority on a couple of weeks ago (which is when I moved up a lot in the arena, too). If your top characters are below gear level 6, then it would be very much worthwhile to spend most if not all of your energy in a given day just working on gearing up your characters (it may take a few days of this). If you have the items to get someone to gear level 7, I would recommend healers first, followed by Sidious and Dooku.

    I just got Dooku a few days ago, finally farming enough shards to get him at 3*. Can't wait to get him to 7*, but it will take forever since shard-farming is all I've got. In the meantime, a 3* gear level 7 Dooku is not that bad! Still a bit glassy in GW, but surprisingly good to me.
  • @CG_JohnSalera and @EA_Jesse

    im actually really happy with the GW changes, to me the whole point of the 'war of attrition' style is not to flex out your arena/a team muscles but to showcase your strength and depth of your roster.

    I havent lost a GW since the update (beforehand i would lose maybe 1/2 a week). the changes have given me the space to try out a new combo and team line ups without the potential loss of a major character/jeopardizing the whole GW for the day.



  • J7000
    2059 posts Member
    One thing I have noticed is how many players who never were active in the forums before have registered to give themselves a voice. Good for them. Its easy to forget how many play this game that have no desire to be in the forum.
  • I retract all my bashing. It was never explained that you can start with a 'B team' and when they are all dead you can kick the fight off again with new team and pick up where your last team left off. I have finished my last 2 GWs with this knowledge. I still don't think I can do 4+ phasma lead teams in a row though.
  • The change to GW has made GW laughably easy for me. I doubt ill miss any GW rewards at this point. I roll with the following strategy (oh, and p.s.: while i enjoy the easy and often good rewards from the new GW, i think the recent change is pretty bad; whatever the "intention" was, the pre update GW was challenging and the retreat strategy made sense (didnt seem like a glitch) and didnt at all gaurentee me success.

    So I load my team(depends on opponent, including:
    5*sid
    7*lumi
    5*JC
    4* old ben
    4* chewy
    4*ventress
    5*daka
    5* phasma
    3* FOTP
    5* kylo ren

    I then engage opponent. When required, i use cool down abilities liberally to remove high dmg threat. Once the low dmg tank(e)/healer(s)/support(s) are all that remain, i use only basic abilities and try to get special abilities available for next engagement. Should a valuable character die, i retreat; likewise, if i am not happy with the cooldowns for the next match, i retreat. Keeping track of which abilities i used, and when i used them, i am able to improve my tactics after each retreat. Success is inevitable. I have finished the last two galactic wars with zero dead characters.

  • There definitely needs selection tuning. From level 3 forward all teams were WAY above even the best of my characters. I've got a deep bench and the way it is structure now pretty much guarantees I'll not finish it for months. I'm all for a challenge, but this is just torture. Worse than enduring the drop rate for purple gear. I am NOT ftp. I spend a moderate amount, at least 50 a week. This is the first Friday I did not buy any crystals. Frankly the sheer impossibility this change suddenly made is making me lose interest. It was my favorite part of the game until you suddenly made it demoralizing. Change something fast, or I think I won't be the only one shifting from pay to play to free to not at all.

    Read my strategy in my post. I hope its helpful. I am so jealous of spending $50 per wk!! I wish i could do that. I can afford $10-15 per wk and it all goes to ls/ds/cantina energy.

    I hope you are able to find success in GW again. I am in ur boat in that i think the change was over all a negative, but for the complete opposite reason: its not a challenge. Try my strategy in other post. Also, feel free to pm me to discuss strategy and tactics. I know its frustrating and i hate when i myself am frustrated (often...) but i hope you are helped by my strategy/tactics. Please share the results on your next attempt!
  • The implementation seems lazy to me. Would have been better to keep the retreat as it was, add a button to do what force quitting does, and balance appropriately.

    That said, I think I've made it through the last day or two with one team, just changing out JC for Barriss if the team I'm fighting has a Sidious.
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