Gear Crunch

"Ravens1113;c-2286371" wrote:

"Starslayer;c-2286365" wrote:

"Ravens1113;c-2286358" wrote:

"Starslayer;c-2286336" wrote:

"Ravens1113;c-2286297" wrote:

Did I miss something? You keep saying “options”. No kyno, their recent nerfs to non GL counters and explicit statement that they don’t want non GL counters bearing GL’s makes it a demand. A demand that if we are to stay competitive in arena, GAC, TW and possibly even conquest, we need as many GL’s as we can get.

You don’t need as many GLs as you can get to stay competitive in arena, gac, tw, or conquest. In arena you need to follow meta, so far getting 1 every 2 GLs was enough to be very confortable (so far). In gac there is a matchmaking system; if you have an efficient roster with zero or one GL, you don’t need an extra one to stay competitive; you can stop farming altogether and you’ll stay as competitive as you are now for a long time. As Conquest could be finished, you didn’t need as many as you can get. You need enough to finish it. So far, 2 seemed quite enough, maybe even 1 was (so far. It doesn’t seem far fetch what we’ll need more later on, via a mythic difficulty or something).

So to stay competitive in arena you NEED one of the new GL’s when each pair is released.

With the nerfs coming you NEED more GL’s to beat an opponent who has more since non GL counters are being systematically nerfed. So no, once the nerfs go into effect, with no changes to matchmaking, you need to get as many GL’s as you can. Beating GL’s in conquest will now require GL’s as well with the changes

I’m not saying you don’t need GLs to stay competitive in pvp, just that you don’t need as many as you can. I miss 2 older GLs, I wont be more competitive in arena, gac nor conquest if I unlock them.

In gac you need GLs if you used a non-GLs counter roster, meaning that you used resources to build specific counters when you could have unlock a gl instead. This I fully agree. However, if you already did well in gac with zero GLs or one without using non-GLs counters (which depends on how you developed your roster and the matchmaking that goes with it), then you don’t need to unlock some more to stay competitive. You do need the new ones (so far only one of the duo) to stay competitive in arena, no argument there.

But with the new changes to non GL counters, you have no choice but to go after GL’s now for GAC and conquest. The old counters won’t work anymore so people are forced to go after them now. I can’t use my Vader counter against Rey, the imperial trooper counter against SEE, Rex/Zarris against SLKR, or JKR against SLKR anymore. They’re actively eliminating any non GL counter that’s out there so for the purposes of GAC and conquest, players are going to be at massive disadvantages when paired against people with more GL’s than they have.

People have no choice to go after GLs just like they had no choice to go after meta before to stay competitive.

About the "you have more GLs so you are at massive advantage": let's take this other way around. Let's say reliable non GLs counters are a thing. With 5 Relic characters, you're able to counter a GL requiring 12 Relic'd characters. Then people going for GLs are at massive disadvantage, because they're stuck with prerequisites when their opponents have good teams than they chose. In this particular scenario, the GL guy will always lose, just as the non-GL guy will always lose in your scenario. Imo, it's unhealthy that players would be concerned about the quality of their investment (which is massive) when they unlock a GL who is suppose to be the strongest characters around. I dont know if GLs are good for the game or not; but protecting their status as top of the meta makes sense, considering the huge resource investment needed to unlock them. I feel bad for a new player spending 6+ months to unlock SEE only to have him beaten by a marquee/rework that would arrived to the holotables 2 weeks later.

GLs are top of the meta. If players choose not to go for one because they dont like the prerequisites, then they'll be less competitive just as any player before GLs who chose to not go for the meta teams was, no argument there.

Back on topic: yes GLs demand a lot of gear, so gear crunch is a valid concern, I'm with you. Imo, bottom line is: are you able to chase meta ftp in a GL world just as you were able to do so before GL (with a lot of time and effort) ? I have no idea. I can only say that I managed to stay competitive ftp but I didnt unlock all GLs, and more dedicated ftp players were able to unlock them all. However, now that relic resources are depleted and without knowing the release cadence of GLs (and the arrival of mini GLs ships), no idea if it will be still possible in the future.

Sidenote: GAC is more complex than "more GLs=Victory" imo, non-GLs counters or not. It depends on what you have in your roster instead of the prerequisites your opponent had to gear. Happy to discuss it in a more appropriate post to avoid too much digression ;)