Is F2P dying a slow death?

I don’t think F2P has a problem and they will stay.

It’s like anything you collect in life. Some want more of something but as long as you have your favorite collections you are good.

Also us “whales” can have every toon 7* G12, and we still are held back by Zetas and G12+. So our max toons still aren’t fully utilized.

The mod packs were a head start but it’s not like giving 4 mods a 6 dot mod right now will make any team invincible. Once everyone has a month/2 months into this everyone’s Arena team likely will be fully 6 dot.

No reason to make a bigger deal out of this. People aren’t quitting. This is adding value, the same value people complain about the mods in the first place. Let’s be positive about the change and know this is for the better. It does no good for the devs to make a bad product because the game wouldn’t last. We would all lose.

This is the best mobile game on the planet and I could see this going another 5+ years. But we as a community have to know that the devs try to think of every scenario to allow whales to pay and for F2P to still have s lot of fun in this game!

I think f2p are used to scraping by. I'd be more worried about whales, how can anyone keep up with the pace, all the characters 7* g12 fully zetaed, all the ships fully omegaed and now this mod slicing thing.

OP : No

"Zanads;c-1635595" wrote:

"BubbaFett;c-1635584" wrote:

"Zanads;c-1635575" wrote:

"BubbaFett;c-1635552" wrote:

"Zanads;c-1635546" wrote:

"BubbaFett;c-1635540" wrote:
So you guys expect to be ftp and "keep up"...... Good.luck with that......

I am not completely ftp, but I am no whale either..... But, I built a solid g12 triple zeta arena team that ranks top 50, if not top 20 daily...... I have decent enough depth in my roster that I punch well above my weight in TW and TB...... And I solo rancor, finish top 5 in Haat......

All.of this without whaling to 7* a toon, I buy the odd pouch of crystals, bought the 4* upgrade for Bastilla and Sion, and bought a bigger crystal pack when double drops was on...... I don't mind supporting the game, I enjoy it, and EA deserves something for the enjoyment they give me ... Heck, I am about to 6 dot my first mod already..... And I that is without spending crystals on mod energy refreshes or crystals on the last piece needed.....

If you guys don't think this game is ftp friendly, then you will never think any game is....

Squeezing out F2P makes your low spend strategy less viable too. Eventually you'll be unable to build enough "depth in your roster" at the current rate of spend to "keep up" as well. Enjoy your smug sense of satisfaction though. EA will get around to ruining your enjoyment soon enough.

Instead of taking pot shots, make an argument...... I have yet to see anyone on here doing so that doesn't think they should be able to get the newest shimmery toons 7* right off the bat, or at the same time as p2p.... Or any ftp that doesn't feel they should have a shot at a heroes journey or legendary first time around.....

....right. Because you've made such a convincing argument beyond what is essentially "get good"?

The argument was made above, but since you missed it or can't extrapolate:

"Zanads;c-1635473" wrote:
Thinking about it a little more. If you consider the daily refresh cost as a sort of baseline for the minimum standard of participation (what CG actually measures against is anyone's guess) the bar has been slowly raising now over the last several updates to make F2P less and less tenable to obtain end game levels of progression.

OG: 3 Normal & Cantina Energy refreshes = 450 crystals/day
Ships 2.0: 3 Normal, Cantina, & Ships Energy refreshes = 750 crystals/day
Mods 2.0: 3 Normal, Cantina, Ships, & Mods refreshes = 900 crystals/day

That's becoming unreasonable if not impossible to maintain as F2P, yet it is also likely that CG is gearing progression in ALL aspects of the game to at least that level of spending. So, F2P lags behind in gear progression, lags behind in arenas, and then loses MORE in game income because they can't hold higher ranks. What kind of motivation does a F2P, or even a low spender, have to stick it out?

Seems like a "buy something or get out" kind of model if I ever saw one.

If CG keeps upping energy requirements without also increasing in game payouts, it forces F2P players into a situation where they top out without ever hitting end game content (i.e., end game is replaced with new content before a player reaches the first goal). Particularly since CG never really makes it easier for new players to catch up to current development, and continues to place things to assist in one aspect of the game behind progression in other parts (e.g., legendary acquisition behind hard nodes, arena characters on fleet nodes) which spreads out already limited F2P resources. That becomes a lengthy demotivating grind with little help since larger guilds will ALWAYS want players that can help with the NEW challenges, and not just farm HAAT and Rancor.

Following the same logical progression, they do it again, which puts low spenders in similar circumstances. Again, moderate spenders become mired, etc. etc. Eventually, enough people are subjected to such lengthy grinds that they stop spending or playing altogether.

It isn't about getting all the new shiny toys for free immediately. It's about being put farther and farther behind the progression curve with no way to keep pace other than throwing money at it. Again, "keep pace" as in stay where they are and not fall behind, which is different from saying to compete with top tier players in arena. Eventually a F2P player MIGHT get to the end game, but at this point that's years out if they start fresh.

I'm not the only one who sees it and is concerned about it. The Game Changers have been increasingly pointing out the growing division being fostered in recent changes in everything from STR rewards to Mods, most recently AhnaldT101 in his Mods video specifically pointing out the 6* pay wall CG has engineered.

TLDR; "Buy something or get out" becomes "Buy at least $30 a month or get out" turns into "Buy $15 of stuff a week or get out"....etc.

You are tiptoeing and tap dancing..... Nobody told you to "get gud"......

All of these new shiny toons are great..... But they aren't necessary for anything yet.....

Do you or do you not feel yiunshkukd have the same opportunity as PTP, and if you do, his do you propose cg srsnges that?.....

Life is full of people presenting "problems".... Very short on people with answers though ...

I expect that I could eventually reach end game at a somewhat reasonable pace, at sometime behind when the P2P crowd has gotten there and maintained their advantage. I've explained how the current rate of expansion, and taking it logically further, is problematic to that end.

If your opinion is that this is WAI, then I guess we fundamentally disagree on what a healthy game looks like.

Again, enjoy your smug sense of satisfaction. Happy forum trolling.

Don’t think they are forum trolling at all. But maybe it’s just a matter of when a person joined.

Daily logins are greatly improved since I started. More crystals. Zetas!

I’m not saying this game is totally ftp. But I know many that are ftp and compete and endure with many whales. That’s being near perfect in Tb,top of arena (1-5)
, top of fleet.

I am a big proponent of new players catching up quicker. I have a friend that just came back and was helping on who to farm and still think those JTR requirements are pure kitten.

As of rn though - I think your main bone of contention is energy and refreshes.
Mods, hardnodes, ship, cantina. Nest doesn’t need to be 7* as of now. A plug and play toon that works well in arena. Bast with Jedi at 3* can beat most teams as well.
Mods 2.0 are too new for me to say anything at this point. I do think the slicing is over-complicated but I am happy that they just didn’t release 6* mods in a pack to be bought with cash or purp.

I’m not trying to shame at all or say get gud. But what level are you? What is your biggest road block rn? What is making you shake your fist to the sky and say d a m n you CG?

There is no end game in this kind of set-up -- and that's ok! In some ways, its what makes the game fun. That said, the game's last 12 or maybe 18 months have been over the top and everyone feels it. Too many toons to farm -- and that's ok -- all demanding too much gear to farm -- and that's ok. All with payouts that are a bit over the top, which is not ok.

Thrawn broke the game way back when. Since the release of fracture, arena has been all about whatever next toon can keep up with it. This wasn't this way when droids were the meta, or when Anakin / Asoka was actually useful. Everything since Thrawn has been some new mechanic that makes your inventory basically useless.

For example, I still don't have the Chaze meta. Frankly, I don't need it. There's no use to it at all, hardly even a use for Territory War. All you need is the next "big thing" to overcome it. And chances are the next big thing is still going to struggle if it gets fractured. It's the most broken mechanic in the game right now. That's what happens when you add stuff that cannot be resisted, countered, or dispelled. It was a dumb move then and it still is. All they have done since then is to continue to add this kind of thing, which just narrows the game rather than widening it.

What the devs have to do at this point (and forget my son, he already threw his hands in the air and quit) is to try to find a way to make newer players relevant. Right now, they aren't. Are you a new player? You don't matter. You aren't going to matter for at least six months and maybe a year. The game isn't for you because you haven't been padding EA's account.

That's gotta change before anything else. New players need to feel like they can drop a $50 on this game and get somewhere. Right now, you could drop $250 on it and still not be in a position to do much. That doesn't feel good and in the long run, it's going to hurt us all.

It’s just a game, something to do while I’m going number 2. Just keep releasing content and I’ll keep playing F2P.

Whales are already pushing nest to 320 speed.

Oh well lol

Every single thing released widens the gap so maybe but very slowly

If a player must be at the very top, with all toons and ships maxed, all zetas, following the meta and staying in the top 5, then yes, you must pay money and a lot of it to have it all.
But for those players who view this as just a game and not a lifestyle, then it will always be f2p. I have almost sliced my first mod to completion, but I don't care how long it takes, I am f2p and always will be.
I am farming holdo, shore, sion and krennic from hard nodes right now, and it will take me a long time to get visas, vandor chewie, wicket, ns zombie, talzin, and bossk to 7 st, but I am f2p and always will be. I will get them eventually. I don't have sith fighter ship 7st, nor lando's falcon, nor cap ships 7st, but I will one day because I am f2p and always will be.
CG doesn't have to make money from me. They have made plenty from others. Many people just buy one or two packs, or just the crystals a few times, and that is fine. Very few people spend thousands, most of the time it is thousands of people spending $20-$100. There's your profit, right there, if repeated enough.
No
one
has
to
spend
a
penny.
If they don't want to. F2P is always going to be strong in this game, until the game is gone.

I'm a Dec. '15 player; 3.6m gp, minnow category - did the daily crystal pack until they pulled that. Probably dropped about $300 total on the game. Not put off by grinding, I have probably missed less than one energy refesh a month on avg., and I don't need every shiny new meta toon.

But I am not having any fun these days.

The really good 130m gp guild I was in was destroyed by HSTR, so I joined a 150m gp guild that can farm it. ...but I can't make the top 10, since we have about 12 dolphins running Bastila, Nest and Bossk at 7*.

So I keep falling further behind, and I am out of top 100 in ships and top 200 in arena for the first time ever, purely because I am being outspent. (The shard leadersvalready have arena teams with multiple six dot mods.) I could quit and join some newby shard if that was all I cared about, but it's not. (Arena is actually my least favorite part of the game, due to cabals and the horrible payout time that doesn't fit my schedule.)

Anyway, it feels like punishment, and a cash grab, and if something doesn't change soon, I will quit and let the whales eat the dolphins, and then each other.