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Killer_PQ_Magee's avatar
Killer_PQ_Magee
6 years ago

Hot take Geos Raid assessment

My thoughts on Geos TB after 1.5 Phases:
Capital Games has taken the lazy route, and has produced an uninspired event that I/we WILL do, but that doesn’t make the game more fun or more interesting.

In the face of not having released any new significant Guild or PvE content in...1.5 years (??)—in the form of the Traya/Sith Raid—CG has launched the this new Geonosians Territory Battle with the same layout and same concepts as the existing Hoth Territory Battles.

What has changed? Capital Games has set themselves up for no obligations to produce any additional new content (except for the Light Side version of this event) beyond this event for at least another 1-2 years. How? Why? Well, the challenge of the event does not appear to be a challenge of strategy or tactics or squad compositions or even Zetas. The Geos event is a simple “brute force” exercise in which full G12.5 teams are insufficient to complete the Missions.

In other words, this event appears designed to withstand all rosters until folks are operating 100% on Full G13 characters, possibly even with whatever the next level of Mods turns out to be. So, it’s a power creep event launched well ahead of the available power curve.

To repeat my initial point: That is simply lazy. Here is what this means to me: Other than PvP, there is ZERO content in the PvE game geared to the goal of achieving Gear 12. G12 (and especially G12.5) is more than necessary to beat the Sith Raid, and the other two Raids are far behind in the wake. Daily Challenges? No. Daily/Heroic Events? No. Galactic War? Of course not. (I just wanted to remind folks that this is still a “thing.”) Marquee Events? No. Mythic Journeys? Not exactly. Those have been proven to be exercises in RNG and (to a lesser degree) Zetas.

So, the Sith Raid came out 1.5 years ago. The last 18+ months have been occupied by new mechanics (Bounty Hunter contracts; Jedi Revan’s Kit; Darth Revan/Darth Malak; Padme’s Kit; Gunray’s Extortion; etc.) and by significant paywall characters (Jango Fett; Han’s Falcon; Jedi Revan; C3PO; Darth Revan/Darth Malak; Padme). Everyone paying/participating to unlock and Gear up those characters has done so knowing that the goal is Gear 12 (and some Zetas).

News Flash: that was only the goal for PvP. None of these characters and none of your pursuit of Gearing these characters is congruent with the arc of the game. Capital Games has not produced any innovative content in Geonosian Territory battle. They “invented” a rule book and level of difficulty that are beyond the capabilities of the current best options in the game. If that is representative of the outer bounds of CG’s imagination (and 1.5 years of work), then why not just turn up the difficulty in the existing Hoth event instead, making its last two phases line up with G12 and G12.5, respectively?

My verdict: 👎
  • Shuvd_Gorilla's avatar
    Shuvd_Gorilla
    6 years ago
    First off, really good post. You mentioned some awesome points that are certainly not completely inaccurate. But I like to play devil's advocate, so here we go.

    I would not consider the Geo TB "lazy". A better word might be inelegant, as we will have to brute force our way through a lot of the challenging content. But you need to look at all the new mechanics that have been added. Exhibit A: The Acklay battle. A 1v1v1 battle that, while perhaps not very usable in regular aspects of the game, does add a certain charm to that battle in the context of the Geo TB. The AT-ST in hoth, while new for its time, was not particularly inventive. Just a very large enemy. Exhibit B: Summoning Ally units. Being able to summon a sixth unit into the game is ridiculously fun in my personal opinion. It might seem simple, but it does represent the next evolution of gameplay in SWGOH. And unlike the Acklay battle, it is applicable in all types of game modes. They could have not added this, and we would never have known the difference. Exhibit C: We only have half their work. Yeah, it's been a long time since we had some new, major PvE content. But we only have the DS version. The LS version will be coming in probably 3-6 months, something that I'm sure they have already done quite a bit of work on. Making these massive gamemodes, complete with AI kits and new character designs, cannot possibly be easy. And let us not forget, this is a free app. It is hard to find a free app with a development team this devoted to the game. Yeah, you might have to spend money to beat the challenge faster, but that is not technically necessary, and the development team has to do that to pay the bills. It's just the way of life.

    One more possibly unintended benefit of these territory battles. YouTube. All of our favorite YouTubers like Ahnald, Mobilegamer, ect, will be set up for months with videos detailing tips and tricks to beat this new challenge. Yeah, its ridiculously, maybe even unreasonably difficult. But things like this TB wake up the community, and can be just what a game needs to get people interested again. Admittedly, that can work both ways, driving people away from the game, but who can know for sure?

    My point is, this is a lot of work put in for what is, even with micro-transactions, a free game. If you're expecting AAA title levels of gameplay, well that just isn't going to happen, but I think they've done a pretty dang good job. All this is my opinion though. The opinion of a fan and pretty devoted player of the game. Is this perfect? No. Far from it. And like I said, a lot of your points are spot on. But sometimes, you just got to enjoy what you get. Like you even said, you WILL do it, regardless of whether you like it. So might as well focus on the positives.
  • MattSumner's avatar
    MattSumner
    6 years ago
    lets not forget about the new chars to be released too. yea the geo TB is difficult af but I personally love it. (even though we'll be getting 7-8 stars only)

    its something to work towards to
  • KaiMulai's avatar
    KaiMulai
    6 years ago
    Power creep is part of the game. The Geo TB acknowledges that better than any other content they released in the year and a half I’ve been playing. With the Sith raid and both Revans and Malak, the developers made numerous changes after the new feature was released because they didn’t work out “as intended,” and in doing so, punished players for coming up with new and different viable strategies by changing existing mechanics so the new shiny thing remained the best. The difficulty jump thus seemed not only extreme but also unfair, and more so because they were all required. Forget any chance of doing well in arena or Grand Arena without a Revan was the message that the developers seemed to be saying.

    Geonosis territory battle is much much better than these previous releases because it addresses the problems inherent in power creep in a much clearer and more logical way.
    First, there’s an entry limit. CG flat out admitted guilds lower than a certain GP point won’t be able to do it.
    Next, there is a solid difficulty progression. Combat missions in phase 1 were difficult but doable. Phase 2 was harder. Only a handful of teams can do well in phase 3. And pretty much nothing currently works in phase 4. It’s that way by design and there are no teams that can get around it.
    It’s also optional. Yes, it does allow the potential to get gear 12 finisher pieces. But those are available other ways too. And even though it is the only way to get the Negotiator capital ship, that’s a long farm so we don’t have to worry about a big group of players who bought it and can’t be beaten for months.
    And finally, it’s cooperative. Yes, the sith raid is a guild event too. But with that, there’s a big difference in rewards between top 10 and everybody else. With this, everyone gets the same rewards so everyone in the guild is more motivated to do well.

    So overall, I really like the Geonosis territory battle. This is the type of solid content that will keep me playing the game.
  • Killer_PQ_Magee's avatar
    Killer_PQ_Magee
    6 years ago
    Thanks for the response. I agree that the new Clone/Jedi characters are awesome. And the Acklay node—while generally unachievable to 99.9%—is a cool reimagining of the 5-member squad vs enemy format.

    My quarrel is that Phase II—haven’t even seen Phases III and IV—is overmatched for G12+ squads. Where do you go from there? Therefore, CG still doesn’t have PvE content that matches up with G12 characters after G12 has been a part of the game for a long time.

    The game can be challenging to the G12 players without relying on RNG and intentional mismatches.
  • Tbirds2001's avatar
    Tbirds2001
    6 years ago
    "Nadebotfm;c-1903320" wrote:
    lets not forget about the new chars to be released too. yea the geo TB is difficult af but I personally love it. (even though we'll be getting 7-8 stars only)

    its something to work towards to


    Yeah, I’ve not had something to strive for in the game for a long time, I’m liking the idea of gearing up new squads, thinking of new strategies, and helping my guild with it.

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