I guess this is what GAC is now

Let me amplify what I'm saying here. Back when I first started playing this game in 2016, I noticed a pattern. When taking on certain events, you would get destroyed. Then you would slowly start to make progress, get closer to beating it. With a little luck, you'd finally beat whatever it was. And then it became easy. In short, the nature of SWGOH made the power curve very steep. You spent a lot of time on the Slopes of Utter Failure. But then you got to a fun place where you were close enough that strategy and modding could bring victory. Then it was over the summit into the Valley of "I Can Do This with My Eyes Closed".

GAC was fun because it was the apotheosis of this. In the last round of GAC before relic delta, I threw 13 teams at an LV before I managed to get him down, each either failing or chipping away until he was beaten. I lost the match but it was a fun match to lose. THIS is why I play the game.

What Relic Delta has done is make that curve into a vertical. Even small difference in power level mean huge differences in result. A tiny push takes you from "I can do this with the right mods" to "this is impossible no matter what I do". So if I throw 13 teams at an LV now, that will be 13 failures. Not 13 chipping aways. Not 13 building toward an eventual victory. 13 complete wastes of my time. And it's no fun on the other sides where I can just auto a lot of matches and not worry about strategy because they can't touch me.

This game had a balance. An uneasy balance, but a balance. That's now gone.

Sorry but they haven't cared about GAC or TW for years.  The only effort and resources they put into PVP is for datacrons because datacrons are a revenue source.  Don't expect any updates to GAC or TW for at least another year while we're at it.

Oh and I just watched troopers revive twice after my raddus team defeated them with spark of rebellion active.  But that was probably broken with three other systems due to the recent update they did.

I’m feeling the same way. Playing since 2016. GAC was my favorite game mode. Relic Delta completely ruined it for me. Along with the new era changes I may need to make a hard decision. 

It used to be a hard decision but CG are starting to make it a lot easier.

Brozium 2 and the 12-14 million GP have sand bagged 3v3 so far by just putting up R9 and 10 walls of GLs.  Relic Delta has made this miserable. Even 2-3 relic levels difference makes a huge impact on SLKR performance.

Relic Delta has dramatically wrecked two game modes: TW and GAC. Combine the Relic Delta with CG’s trash matchmaking algorithm for TW and GAC, and the result is that both modes turn into absolute garbage. Forget well-modded squads, knowing the mechanics, or carefully tuning your team’s speed order... basically, forget about “having skill.” Now it all comes down to how many R9s your opponent has to throw on the front walls so you can enjoy slamming into them helplessly.

And there’s a second layer to this mess... Relic Delta + garbage matchmaking algorithm = a perfect recipe for encouraging sandbagging. There’s nothing better than entering with fewer players so you get matched against a weaker guild you can abuse by stacking R9 front walls they have absolutely no chance of breaking through ... because, of course, they’re a lower-tier guild with no tools to deal with that kind of nonsense.  A brilliant strategy… if you’re fine with winning in a way no one could be particularly proud of

And you know what’s truly pathetic? CG doesn’t give the slightest **bleep**. The matchmaking algorithm in GAC and TW has been a steaming pile of garbage for years, and they won’t even twitch a muscle to fix it,  because there’s no money in it. Giving players a fair and enjoyable experience? Not their concern. If it doesn’t make the cash register ring, it might as well not exist. Quality of gameplay? Irrelevant. All they care about is how deep they can dig into your wallet. 

I mean, it's completely wrong, but i think i get their thinking with this.

The point is to get everyone to push everything to R9-10.

When they went with the relic system, people generally took their toons to R5-7. With the addition of R8 and R9 fewer and fewer people took their toons to those level. The vast majority of people have but a handful of R9's prior to the update. Yeah, 9's were hard and expensive to get, triply to so if you weren't in a high end guild. That made it nearly impossible.  But, buy and large, it wasn't required - except for certain events (legendary, GL) to get toons to 8 or 9, so, generally, people didn't. And, yeah, i know people will want to chime in here with the huge numbers of 8's and 9's they got. And it isn't to say there aren't those who did. It's just those who did were the vast minority, not remotely close to the majority. Maybe those in K1 or 2, but that's about it.

Clearly, all they care about is how much they can force out of people's wallets. Quality and enjoyment aren't anywhere near they top of their list. I don't think that's the developers though, that's the people above them.  You'd think with a game so far in the black they could make everything free for the next few years and still be in the black, they'd be fine with the status quo, but no. It's how far can we open the wallets before they walk away. I think they're finding out.

GAC has fallen into the same category as daily quests, something to do while taking a dump. if you win a battle great, if you lose a battle great. Just let the chips fall where they may.