Is F2P dying a slow death?

I am running four accounts at the moment. Two are from very early game (soft launch and Jan 16 shard) and two newer accounts (Jan 2018). It was much easier to keep up with the meta and maintain high arena ranks (top 5, top 10) as FTP on the earlier accounts than on the newer accounts. The best I can manage with the newer accounts is top 20 on a good day and that was with a 3 month energy horded phoenix to ep empire to ep sith focused meta chasing account.

"Kyno;c-1635091" wrote:

"Pacyn4life;c-1635033" wrote:
As a almost F2P player one thing that i can say. Ships 2.0, Mods 2.0 - ok i can manage those changes, but letting 20+ marquess in the first part of the year out, most of them are presumed to lead to a Legendary there is no "smart" choice" Kyno talked about. I cant farm them all, F2P needs to farm always teams P2P alreday has, we cant just dive into each project CG throws at us. Thats why i dont have a viable BH team, my prepared team sucks as i have decided to farm KOTOR characters. This may be a good decision or may be a bad one. I dont know. I wish its the right thing to do. With 2 new energy types F2P cant use them all, you have to decide which ones to focus on. With Mods 2.0 you have another thing to buy with crystals. It just spreads our focus to thin. If you combine this (new energy) with many new "needed" characters that land on the hard nodes, constant need to gear characters it becomes a chore. I can see people dislike it.

There absolutely are smart choices. If you feel that any of the new toons are not worth making a priority, then dont.

If you farmed some of them and they are not up to par, do you want to chnage that? Focus on gear.

Maybe you just want to focus on the raid, and making teams for that.

That's the issue, you think they are "needed". Maybe they are maybe they are not, as a f2p you need to make smart choices. Focus on the most effective farms and hope it's enough.

I didnt say you need to make the right choices, there is no crystal ball saying what direction to take. Smart choices check the most boxes on the path you choose.

You don't need to make smart choices because that is impossible. You need to make very lucky guesses

"Warp3dM1nd;c-1637957" wrote:

People forget when they want to throw how they are F2P and in top 10 in arena and fleet that it all depends on your shard as well. Take my shard for instance it is full of whales. It's nothing for me to run into a NS, Empire or CLS team with 3 + zetas and complete G12 gear in the 900 range of my arena shard. The top of my shard is even more ungodly. It is the same with in my fleet arena. Just at the 200 range I'm looking at 190k ship power with 7 star ships across the board. The top 50 are insane.

Some people get lucky and either get put on a half dead shard or maybe it's made up of more F2P but as far as my shard goes no F2P stands a chance really. So you can't sit there and say it's doable just because you have managed it in your shard. I would gladly let you visit my shard and you fight against the top 400 whales with 4mil+ GP.

Three Things coming to my mind:

First I assume you did a break of the game, wich inevitable leads to such situations. You stand still, while others progress. Espacially in early to mid game, even small breaks of a month or two completely break your neck. It's truly a problem of this game, that there is no catch up mechanic.

Second you state about any teams of G12 and multiple Zetas. Right now arena works like rock paper scissors. For every team, there's a counter. Palps kills NS, NS kill Jedi, Jedi kill Palps. But most important: Arena is a game of mods. You can have tons of G12 Toons and still suck if you didn't really understand mods.

Third... 190k Ship Power? That's really a beginners fleet. If you have an account of more than 3 months into ships and you have problems beating any 190k fleet, you clearly took the wrong choices. Sry Bro. No fault from CG here.

"Mirkraag;c-1638090" wrote:
Since Traya took over the arena, no more strategy, same toons everywhere, same matches over and over. They had a good stuff for what 2-3 weeks and then Traya. She killed the game, no more diversity allowed period. Even there so-called Super Jedi teams are just obliterated in auto by Traya and co

No fun. And wait for the legendaries that will require ALL the marquee toons we just had. Tons of fun youhou

Traya monotony in arena is getting old already and it's hard to make an argument that she's currently balanced in any way. She's beatable at 5* G11, but I'm not sure how much longer that's going to last. Jedi are one piece away from being consistently able to compete. Would be nice if a particular jedi were to make his journey onto the stage sooner rather than later.

"RufusDogbreath;c-1638281" wrote:


IF CG IS GOING TO ADJUST END GAME, THEY HAVE TO ALSO ADJUST EARLY GAME- otherwise the light at the end of the tunnel is so far away from new players, the journey is no fun.

Again, not everyone will agree, and I’m not going to argue over this. I’m saying it as a disheartened father who wanted to play this game with my son. (And for the record, he’s not a fast quitter - he’s an Eagle Scout and he played SW Force Collection for a couple years before it closed).

I can't afford to pay too much in, but the sheer frustration with the midlevels hit me badly. I've put in some money since I've been a star wars fan since I could speak, but I may be pulling back if things don't get better. 40-50 was ok, especially once I started to get the rhythm, but 50-60 was horrible; then learning that I wouldn't be able to do the ships I wanted until 65 was ugly, and then finding that even having prepped and researched and even thrown some money at it, 65-69 has been a horrible disappointment.

Gearing to VI and 5+ stars is absurdly boring, and the rewards just aren't inspiring enough. You can get a little money from love of star wars and frustration, then lose a player, or you can get long term investments if you make the whole thing fun, not just the end or "spend 30% of salary" on it.

Having speed read most comments here I'd like to say my part. Im strictly f2p since september of 17 but I think I have at least a good sense of how the game works by now. So as it's already been said the main problem for f2p now is not that they are not able to catch up with p2p. That was always true. The problem is the rate of growing in the game

So many new things have been introduced lately (more or less since Mother Talzin came) which one the one hand is positive because the game is growing etc but on the other side the devs basically fuck the f2p ones because the payouts are basically the same. Even if you choose a few specific new toons to focus now you have 6* mods to worry about (which will reflect on your pvp rank) and then jtr for the sith raid if you want traya at all and then you have the new ship omegas. All that makes the f2p's attention thinner as it has to spread to cover these areas in order to stay competitive

And that is the game's actual real problem and why people complain it's turning more p2p. The competition. All these new features are for getting the best of the best to perform as good as you can in the arenas. And with that comes the big crystal payout so you can get better even at a faster rate. That reflects on new players coming now to the game who are completely lost and stuck behind a slow rate of advancing for months and for the already existing f2p players because many go 'well nothing I can do so f*ck it' . If the game continues like this in the long run there will only be p2p left. And do you think the whales will keep paying to spar in the arena alone? No way the game will die and they'll move to something else

The solution: Alleviate the problem by turning already existing features more f2p available. For example instead of putting the new mod material in the guild shop where there are already a shit ton of characters & gear to keep farming, give it a node or move it to the cantina/arena store (I know that last part is not going to happen just saying)

Even better create new modes in game that are not competition oriented (like the new ship pve table) . Give an alternative for people that cant be on the top competition or simply are not interested so that they have a reason to keep playing. The boredom wall that has already been mentioned is very real especially when everything speeds away from you. I mean the only truly not competition oriented side of the game is the galactic war (and the raids but in my opinion they get too boring too fast)

Lastly, I said in the beginning that the payouts are the same. If I was not clear I meant that while we have more shit to do the resources are still pretty much the same. I get that zetas & omegas are supposed to be rare but they fixed it putting omegas on more & more places and some ships in galactic war so that you can farm zetas at your own rate as well. The next thing that needs fixing is absolutely guild currency. So in the new not competition oriented mode put guild currency as a reward or if that cant happen increase the guild currency payouts from already existing guild activities or if even that cant happen increase the crystal payout (to all not just top arena) so that players can use it to relieve pressure where they want to

CG can fix these things...but I’m not sure they’re really think long term. It’s taken them months to finally realize the STR is an atrocity and needs to be fixed. The game has spiraled quickly since STR and Traya made her way into arena. Do the devs care? Or are they simply just trying to milk what’s left of this game? They could have turned this game into a very long term investment, but their refusal to fix long term issues has created a countdown for many casual spenders.

You don't need a meta team to be competitive in arena, their are plenty of counters to traya and if your in your shard chat you'll climb higher either way. For f2p the game for a lot has become a hobbies especially with strong reddit and discord server interactions and community so the game transcends being a game for a lot more than you think. As far as being p2win well of course but that doesnt mean its pay to compete, my fleet shard has quite a few ftp top 10 we swap daily they picked the right stuff to farm and didnt stray, and they like being competitive and working thru challenges with their fellow gamers then complain and give up. Also p2p just gets it faster sure but your mot far off f2p i had jtr the second go around because i stopped everything and went vets the day I missed her and voila had her next time. Most meta toons will.still be on the meta time frame the second time.they go around and not for nothing but fame something obscure you never know when it will come in.handy and just have fun stop.worrying about an evga few crystals a day from PO.

"cannonfodder_iv;c-1638133" wrote:

"Mirkraag;c-1638090" wrote:
Since Traya took over the arena, no more strategy, same toons everywhere, same matches over and over. They had a good stuff for what 2-3 weeks and then Traya. She killed the game, no more diversity allowed period. Even there so-called Super Jedi teams are just obliterated in auto by Traya and co

No fun. And wait for the legendaries that will require ALL the marquee toons we just had. Tons of fun youhou

Traya monotony in arena is getting old already and it's hard to make an argument that she's currently balanced in any way. She's beatable at 5* G11, but I'm not sure how much longer that's going to last. Jedi are one piece away from being consistently able to compete. Would be nice if a particular jedi were to make his journey onto the stage sooner rather than later.

Sorry I am not agree with you. She's beatable at 5* G11 against full G12 7* squad and under palp lead. I think you never tried Jedi against a Traya 7* G12 lead. You will see the fun. It is ridiculous. I am ok she's good as she is the hardest character to get but c'mon at least give us a chance in attack. Top arena is pathetic right now.

"RufusDogbreath;c-1638281" wrote:
I think the real concern CG should have as regards F2P is new players. Existing F2P (depending on tenure) are in an ok position, but new players starting cold are so far behind the 8 ball it’s discouraging to the point they quit. It’s not just the pay wall—it’s the series of walls built into the “early” game. (“Early” meaning reaching at least lvl 65 so you can do guild events, which can take weeks-to-moths to reach, depending on how much time you have to sink into the game).

The early game has players on a leash and it keeps you held back in one or more ways until you finally get to level 85. Only then- weeks or months into the game- can you truly start trying to catch up.

My son is 18 and a huge Star Wars fan. He’s started and quit the game twice because as a college freshman he doesn’t have the free time, plus it’s just not fun, to sit on the sidelines and grind for weeks until he finally can play the game the way he wants.

Some may disagree with me on this, but the way the game is structured, it severely discourages fresh blood from becoming log-term players. And you have to wonder how long the game can continue without cultivating a new-player base.

I’d be willing to bet that most of the new accounts that are actually laboring through levels 40-65 and coming out on the other side are alts of established players.

IF CG IS GOING TO ADJUST END GAME, THEY HAVE TO ALSO ADJUST EARLY GAME- otherwise the light at the end of the tunnel is so far away from new players, the journey is no fun.

Again, not everyone will agree, and I’m not going to argue over this. I’m saying it as a disheartened father who wanted to play this game with my son. (And for the record, he’s not a fast quitter - he’s an Eagle Scout and he played SW Force Collection for a couple years before it closed).

I came form Force Collection (played on and off for about 4 years) and I kind of agree with you to an extent. As a new(ish) player (late Feb 2018) I have had moments where I've felt like I'm crawling along that tunnel following the road to unlocking the legendary/hero's journey characters when I'd much rather build some Bounty hunters, Ewoks or Imperial Troopers. The problem is if I divert for those I end up in a weaker position to help my guild so I trundle along farming characters I don't really want to for the sake of unlocking other characters. By the time I'm ready for JTR; there will be new legendaries etc. and the road will get longer.

But then there are also times where I feel like I've actually made good progress on that road, especially compared to the grind SWFC was, and I still enjoy the game sooo I keep going grinding to the point "the real game begins" and I can choose my own path with being at a disadvantage or slowing my guild down.

There's also mods, ships, arena squad, raid teams and TB/TW teams to build up along the way. The game tries to pull you in so many directions to get you to spend, I get that, but there are times as a newer player I've felt a little overwhelmed. I can understand people quitting out of sheer frustration and that feeling of being so massively overwhelmed.

I'm quite lucky because neither my squad arena nor ships arena seem to be bloated with whales (they exist but not in huge numbers) so I can take 1st in ships everyday and the 50-100 bracket in squad arena every day (I've spent a total of £9.99 on this game in the 6 months playing). Between these rewards and crystals from dailies/GW I get a reasonable income of 600ish crystals a day which has helped me out in a big way. I'm honestly not sure I'd still be playing if it wasn't for that as progress would feel glacial.

TL;DR - I don't think FTP is dead but it's quite overwhelming for new players especially.