Forum Discussion

hbk146's avatar
8 years ago

Balancing the meta

Balancing the meta


We have come far in this game and arrived in a place where a select few characters combine multiple roles in a team overwhelmingly well so that only extreme synergy like resistance or jedi can hope to defeat them. I am of course talking about Chaze, GK, R2, Thrawn and DN. The one thing they all have in common is that they perform outstanding supporting abilities while also filling other roles.

Chaze: I do not know what the developer were thinking when they put together their kit other than to create a powerful pay-to-win tool but this game does not need that to make money. Chaze combines everything and is great at it: dps, taunt, heal, anti-crit, dispel, cleanse, ten up and therefore desperately needs a nerf.

GK: He is an outstanding tank with a cleanse and a mass call to assist, which are support abilities.

R2: R2 seems to be the most balanced out of this list as he strictly sticks to his role as a support. Only in a Jedi lineup does his dps seem considerable.

Thrawn: Other than R2, Thrawn has a very high dps for a strict support character.

DN:Here is the guy that makes attackers and dps in this game basically obsolete and is therefore the greatest threat. In addition to a mass cooldown increase, which is unaffected by ten up and a dispel on his basic, he gets basically unlimited damage every 4 turns. He is important to keep those barriss time-out-teams in check though.


I don't want CG to release the "same" character over and over again in terms of filling multiple roles better than other toons fill their single role. I am not generally against a character combining more than one role but he/she should be worse at those than others who are more specialized. I would therefore nerf the before listed character in the following way.


The Nerfs

Chaze: I would like to see a complete rework here so they have a more specialized synergy with "rogue one" characters but if i wanted to make it simple then I would remove Baze's "Unload" ability and Chirrut's "As the Force Wills" to narrow down their roles in a team composition. They have 5(!) abilities. For two minor characters from a minor Star Wars movie this is ridiculous. Compare that to Vader.

GK: As he has adopted two powerful support abilities he should sacrifice some of his viability as a pure tank. Therefore I would decrease his health/protection by about 15%. Why would you ever prefer another tank otherwise?

R2: Does not need a nerf. He is just a very good support that doesn't harm the game.

Thrawn: As previously mentioned he needs a nerf to his dps. Considering his powerful abilities and speed his damage should be almost non-existant.

DN: Now here comes the tricky one. We do not want to nerf him into the ground because he has to counter time-out teams so i would either change "Annihilate" to killing the opponent with the least amount of health (this would have synergy with Sith Assassin and Trooper as they attack health directly) or increase the cooldown to 14 so DN can only use it every 5-6 turns, which should give enemy dps toons enough time to break through before he gets too crazy.


In the end it is about diversity in arena and not about cramming the 5 most op toons available with little to no synergy in a team and win lol.

P.S.: Attackers are dearly missed in arena.

  • I have no idea what you're talking about. Last I checked, no one team dominates, and almost any team can finish rank 1. Jedi, empire, sith, rebels, even ewoks, and then there's rex and the mixed squads. There's probably 20 top toons that can be mixed and matched. Nothing stands out, and all lose on defense. My point is, there really isn't a true meta. Therefore, no balancing of the meta is required.

    I for one want stronger teams that can hold on 'D'.
  • No one needs a nerf. A year ago, everyone was running Wiggs/Lando/STHan. They didn't get nerfed and life went on. I have a sneaking suspicion that some toons are going to come along in the next few months that are going to change everything (except maybe Rex, he's like a cockroach) again.
  • "ImYourHuckleberry;c-1197455" wrote:
    I have no idea what you're talking about. Last I checked, no one team dominates, and almost any team can finish rank 1. Jedi, empire, sith, rebels, even ewoks, and then there's rex and the mixed squads. There's probably 20 top toons that can be mixed and matched. Nothing stands out, and all lose on defense. My point is, there really isn't a true meta. Therefore, no balancing of the meta is required.

    I for one want stronger teams that can hold on 'D'.


    So you dont find that toons like thrawn, dn, gk are on a much higher power level than others? and the composition of individually great toons that have no synergy making for one of the best arena teams does not concern you in any way? again people seem to misunderstand. this is NOT about pointing out that there is a team that is unbeatable. NOT at all. and yes you have a pretty wide variety of team comps that are viable to semi-viable. They are however held back by the fact you can simply go for the newest powercrept toons, cram them into a team and be top 10 without an incentive to specialize in a specific faction or using unique synergies. this is just not a very interesting state of the game in my opinion and can be improved upon. You should just not be able to use thrawn much outside of an empire team or dn outside of sith. synergy should be king not individual class.
  • "Sandybard;c-1197532" wrote:
    No one needs a nerf. A year ago, everyone was running Wiggs/Lando/STHan. They didn't get nerfed and life went on. I have a sneaking suspicion that some toons are going to come along in the next few months that are going to change everything (except maybe Rex, he's like a cockroach) again.


    they dont nerf, they just power creep so yeah if i just release more and more powerful toons the older ones will become weaker in comparison but this will lead to a huge imbalance between newer and older toons. so unless cg wants to rework 20 toons a week this is a problem
  • "hbk1468;c-1197752" wrote:
    "Sandybard;c-1197532" wrote:
    No one needs a nerf. A year ago, everyone was running Wiggs/Lando/STHan. They didn't get nerfed and life went on. I have a sneaking suspicion that some toons are going to come along in the next few months that are going to change everything (except maybe Rex, he's like a cockroach) again.


    they dont nerf, they just power creep so yeah if i just release more and more powerful toons the older ones will become weaker in comparison but this will lead to a huge imbalance between newer and older toons. so unless cg wants to rework 20 toons a week this is a problem


    why is that a problem though? You want 109 endgame viable characters ingame at all times?
  • "leef;c-1197754" wrote:
    "hbk1468;c-1197752" wrote:
    "Sandybard;c-1197532" wrote:
    No one needs a nerf. A year ago, everyone was running Wiggs/Lando/STHan. They didn't get nerfed and life went on. I have a sneaking suspicion that some toons are going to come along in the next few months that are going to change everything (except maybe Rex, he's like a cockroach) again.


    they dont nerf, they just power creep so yeah if i just release more and more powerful toons the older ones will become weaker in comparison but this will lead to a huge imbalance between newer and older toons. so unless cg wants to rework 20 toons a week this is a problem


    why is that a problem though? You want 109 endgame viable characters ingame at all times?


    Considering that their advertisements say: Create YOUR dream team. I'd say that'll be the day when the game is functioning as advertised. But I concede that it's ridiculous to even try balancing 100+ characters on a regular basis.
  • "leef;c-1197754" wrote:
    "hbk1468;c-1197752" wrote:
    "Sandybard;c-1197532" wrote:
    No one needs a nerf. A year ago, everyone was running Wiggs/Lando/STHan. They didn't get nerfed and life went on. I have a sneaking suspicion that some toons are going to come along in the next few months that are going to change everything (except maybe Rex, he's like a cockroach) again.


    they dont nerf, they just power creep so yeah if i just release more and more powerful toons the older ones will become weaker in comparison but this will lead to a huge imbalance between newer and older toons. so unless cg wants to rework 20 toons a week this is a problem


    why is that a problem though? You want 109 endgame viable characters ingame at all times?


    No that is not possible. i would sure appreciate an effort though. this will constantly degrade your roster. do you like that? just adding new mechanics that counter others without blatant powercreep is enough. i mean they did when they released dn. they saw barriss time out teams becoming a problem and they introduced a counter. they saw maul being overused and they released r2. the problem is just they make those new toons too strong so that they are not only a counter against the current meta but also against everything else. They become a problem as well then until the next op toon is released. it could be so much more interesting than that.
  • "hbk1468;c-1197751" wrote:
    "ImYourHuckleberry;c-1197455" wrote:
    I have no idea what you're talking about. Last I checked, no one team dominates, and almost any team can finish rank 1. Jedi, empire, sith, rebels, even ewoks, and then there's rex and the mixed squads. There's probably 20 top toons that can be mixed and matched. Nothing stands out, and all lose on defense. My point is, there really isn't a true meta. Therefore, no balancing of the meta is required.

    I for one want stronger teams that can hold on 'D'.


    So you dont find that toons like thrawn, dn, gk are on a much higher power level than others? and the composition of individually great toons that have no synergy making for one of the best arena teams does not concern you in any way? again people seem to misunderstand. this is NOT about pointing out that there is a team that is unbeatable. NOT at all. and yes you have a pretty wide variety of team comps that are viable to semi-viable. They are however held back by the fact you can simply go for the newest powercrept toons, cram them into a team and be top 10 without an incentive to specialize in a specific faction or using unique synergies. this is just not a very interesting state of the game in my opinion and can be improved upon. You should just not be able to use thrawn much outside of an empire team or dn outside of sith. synergy should be king not individual class.


    But that's exactly the point. Thrawn, gk, dn are all very beatable. And if beatable then it follows there is no balancing problem. It's not meta when gamers just "copy" each other and inflate swgoh.gg meta report, which is more an assessment of the latest "trends" report than meta report And that is the problem with the long grind and farming. Gamers seldom take risks, on the whole, not that there is a balancing problem.

    So no, there isn't a meta, but there is an absolutely abysmal ai, and then gamers tend to be trendy.
  • As I reread this thread, let me clarify one thing. When I say there is no 'Meta', here it's in the terms of a meta requiring balancing because it's the best. The game in its current state is balanced, and in that sense, there's no one team required to win. Thus, I say there's no meta.

    In another sense, there is a meta, that gamers tend to gravitate towards, and is commonly used. In this sense, 'protect Nihilus' is meta. It's just a meta that doesn't require balancing, so it's not necessarily the 'best' team comp. While not the singularly best toon, nihilus is by far the most used balanced toon who has plenty of counters.