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lr52cmqn7u2l's avatar
lr52cmqn7u2l
Seasoned Rookie
10 days ago

Assault Battle Cadence Change

CG_MeatheadI know you wouldn't have a say in this decision that's been made but I'm hoping you'll pass this on to the ones who made it to explain to them why this is such a bad change. The fact that this is the very first thing that I've felt has ever been serious enough to create a post on the forums should hopefully add weight to why this is so bad.

 

1.) Accessibility: These new assault battles require hyper specific character, specifically brand new ones that FtP and smaller players likely won't have access to. While yes, tiers 1 and 2 provide shards for said characters to help unlock them, the difficulty of them are in question for actually being able to gain the shards. Peridia Patrol specifically feels way overtuned on the lower levels for what they're intended to be used for. Tier 2 practically requires all three characters already at 7 stars and G12 in order to complete the mission meaning you need the rewards from this assault battle to get the assault battle. If these two tiers were adjusted to use rental version of the characters (even if you still need to own a 5 star version of the characters personally to complete the second tier) or ensuring that the character level mentioned in the tier at the mentioned level can complete it would alleviate this concern but it should in no way be this difficult for the first two phases.

 

2.) Return of Investment: Time for Math class. For Duel of the Fates, we need 40 droid brains applied to the characters (20 each) to get them to R9. With the final tier of the AB providing either Droid Brains OR Gyrda Keypads as rewards, assuming the likelyhood of each type of drop is 50%, that means, on average, it'd take 16 months to recuperate those costs (40/5 = 8, 8/0.5 = 16) Paridea Patrol is even worse for this. PP requires 60 droid brains and the last tier drops Droid Brains OR Gyrda Keypads OR Omnis. Again, assuming an equal chance of each item to drop would be 33%, this means it'd take 36 months to recuperate those pieces of gear (60/5 = 12 12/.33 = 36). This is already a daunting ask considering basically the only place in the game you can get droid brains for the majority of players without spending crystals would be these new Assault battles but I'll get more into this issue later. There's not real fix required for this issue specifically if all other issues are properly addressed however this point is necessary when considering the other problems with this rotation that I'm going to be mentioning.

 

3.) Reward Separations: To be fair, the amount of rewards in the newer ABs is much higher. However, they are not all equal compared to the old battles. DotF doesn't provide any kyros to help gear characters up. Neither DotF or PP provides Injector pieces or Zetas to get characters to relic and finish off their kits. For earlier players, ABs are the main way that players can get these pieces. It may be possible that CG is working on releasing another new AB that contains these as rewards however, even if that's the case, chances are said new AB would likely not have either the Kyros or Mod rewards. Even with the older ABs rewards being less, they still provide a small bit of everything meaning newer players can focus on one team at a time and get a little bit of everything to help them get the next team up and running and then the next. By lowering the rate these battles appear, it makes it take even longer for newer players to get up to speed.

 

4.) Longevity of these battles: You stated that the plan on the rotation would be to rotate out mostly the older battles. Even ignoring the lowering of current rewards for newer players, this begs the questions of how many new Assault Battles are you planning on Making per yer and What Happens if the newer battles outnumber the current ones? I'm going to work with the following assumptions. That the maximum number of Assault Battles per month you're aiming for is 8 and that you'll release 2 new battles per year. This would mean, in 3 years time, the total number of the newer assault battles would be 8 meaning the next one to be released would have to start pushing out the current new ones (DotF and PP) to make room. As stated in point 2, to get a return of what you're putting into PP, it'll take an average of 3 years already. For ftp and newer players, it'd likely take them at least a year just to get them up to 7 star let alone work on getting them up to relic. For these players, they would likely never recuperate the cost as they'd, on average, have to run the event at least 36 times to get those materials back and the frequency of the event running would slow more and more as time goes on

 

5.) Just Why: Why do you need to limit the number of Assault battles per month to 8? What arbitrary reason is that number a necessity? I know it'd involve gear economy and trying to limit how fast a roster can grow but the two types of ABs are vastly different. Why did you combine them into the same pool when one benefits higher powered players/whales and the other type benefits newer players/ftp? Why didn't you just treat these new ABs as their own unique type of event to give bonuses/incentives for larger players without punishing smaller/newer ones?

 

Don't misunderstand me. I do like the newer Assault Battles (at least DotF, PP is too difficult for me atm) and the fact their aimed at larger players/whales is perfectly fine. But it shouldn't be at the expense of getting players into the game by removing the main avenue for newer players to gear up. All this will do, will make it even harder to get newer player to play the game leading to a diminishing of the player base as current players leave for various reasons with no new blood to take their place.

  • J1mmy_Duk's avatar
    J1mmy_Duk
    Rising Novice
    10 days ago

    As a returning player I certainly used the Tier 2 & 3 Assault Battles as an incentive to build up the characters gear and ultimately drive me to want to play the game to beat those hard Tiers and then drop some coin a little later. 

    I also was at point where I had a roster full of G12's and finally getting hold of those later relic pieces to deploy once the XIII had been achieved really helped to provide a good boost to start the relic climb, so there is hook value of gaming effort & reward towards a then spend path. This ultimately helps to keep players going and continuing to invest. Removing these progression battles randomly when actually the number in days in the month has hardily been breached at all, looks exactly what it is, a bean counter Executive corpo move. Fair safe to say I think that most here are not sports game consumers wanting to bust open packs! so this type of move is easily seen through.

    Most I'm sure are strategists in this game which of course the game promotes and we generally love Star Wars despite the franchise just being horribly mismanaged to the point where fans have or are becoming apathetic to the brand. Honestly CG brace yourself if you have Acolyte characters lined up. I'm not sure how much Smiler or Nepo people could take especially if the power creep by then one shots all Skywalker lead characters.

    If space for newer content has to be done, just phase out those battles runs which gives out training pieces or purple Mats, I doubt many players would miss those redundant routine battle filler slots.

    May the light side prevail to keep some rewards to those that strive to play before they have to resort to pay.  

     Excelsior

  • omkz2's avatar
    omkz2
    Seasoned Newcomer
    10 days ago

    To be honest, I did not expect that from CG. They usually add new ways to get rewards (and speed up the process of getting such rewards with money) instead of taking away the rewards to make you spend 💵 

    this is really low move, I hope they at least move kyros/zetas to lower tiers of new AB if for some unknown reason there need to be a limit of 8 ABs

  • Tenebrae-3626's avatar
    Tenebrae-3626
    Seasoned Veteran
    10 days ago

    Very well put. What we are experiencing with ABs is very much different from Raids and TBs for example. The new raid system does force you to gear/relic up 20+ toons every 8 or so months for each new featured raid, but at least we were told in advance what to expect. With TBs, Hoth and Geo are still present within the game even after RotE was released. You get to the point where you outgrow Hoth, so you move on to Geo and eventually to RotE, and in each case, the rewards keep improving to match your current growth.

    With ABs, you spent months farming the appropriate teams for each event because said events are a reliable source of gear and mats. I would just like to add that, unlike the case I mentioned with TBs, the old ABs are still useful across all stages of the game. I'm at 12.1M GP, and I still rely on them for Zeta mats, Kyros and to a lesser extent Relic mats and Signal Data. As such, I would also like to repeat what I said in another post about the new cadence. The progression in GoH is this: absolute beginner, early game, mid-game, late game. To move from one stage to the next, you rely on the events accessible to your current stage. Take early game to mid-game, the Forest Moon AB gives out Ewok shards, which gets you closer to unlocking C-3PO, who, while useful in many LS teams, is especially strong in a CLS squad, which in turn is not only very useful in the Military Might AB but also still a strong team even with today's massive power creep, which in turn has a good chance of getting you more crystals and gear to develop for other events. These new ABs are by no means accessible for early-gamers. Like you said, event the initial tiers in the PP battle are ridiculously overtuned (fyi I have all three troopers at R7, so...). Aside from that the rewards for those tiers in either AB are of little to no use for early-game players. It'll take months for them to 7 star the required toons and a much longer time to get them to G12 and then relics. Then, factor in the RNG of what kind of rewards we get (one or the other), which means it will take a very long time for ROI. And then, factor in the longevity of these new ABs. Let's face it, we're more than likely to get to a point where there are so many new ABs that even DoftF and PP are put on rotation. What's the point of investing so much for a single event that is more than likely to get replaced by a new one with much stricter and higher requirements?

    With all the reasons you and other players have outlined, there is just no reason for me to get any of these toons to R9. In fact the only reason I got the PP toons to R7 is because they're required for Ahsoka. The Droid Brains are available in weekly shipments (for now at least, since there is apparently a good chance CG might remove them as motivation for us to farm for the new ABs) for 5 pieces for 1500 or so crystals, so I have no trouble getting them from there. And the Gyrda Keypads, I can easily get enough pieces for 1, maybe 2 R9 toons a month through the Raid store. So, unless CG guarantees some kind of longevity for the new ABs and makes the rewards more static, i.e., you get both pieces instead of just one or the other, I foresee none of these toons reaching R8, let alone R9, in the near future.

  • HeinerHeinrich's avatar
    HeinerHeinrich
    Seasoned Rookie
    10 days ago

    I doubt I'll R9 the zombie troopers for their assault battle. Doing so doesn't make much sense from a ROI point if there's a high probability the AB could rotate out before the investment pays off.

    • Tenebrae-3626's avatar
      Tenebrae-3626
      Seasoned Veteran
      10 days ago

      Same here. The one-or-the-other reward system in the new ABs alone means it'll take well over a year for ROI even just for one event. The whole rotation thing makes it even more meaningless. Truth be told, it's because they're required for Ahsoka that I took the Peridia troopers to R7, otherwise I probably would have stopped at R3 or at most R5.

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