Is F2P dying a slow death?

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

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).

Sith Raid kinda screwed things up, and the horrible drops in the raids

I do agree a string of recent Marquee characters have a distinct paywall slant being slotted into hard nodes. They are expanding hard nodes to 8 attempts, but that just equates to 1-2 shards a day average instead of 0-1. That's still a significant paywall slant to players that but the blind pull packs or shards in shipments. But the big difference in swgoh over most mobile games. NOTHING stays behind the pay wall. Every single hero and ship eventually makes it into a farmable location. And free players actually get to see how the paywall tank of whales deals with the new addition. Is the new hero/ship worth the hype or is it a flash in the pan as it's quickly countered or virtually useless. The ones that turn out to be big game changers often see heros that most free players have get reworked to counter it and bring the game back into balance. So even if they are released to a hard node, free players have a good idea whether it's worth the long grind and the smart ones even have a full shopping list of all the gear needed to get from gear 1 to 12.

"Abflexer;c-1637590" wrote:
I think playing competitive as a complete F2P from the beginning is nearly impossible. But tbh that's okay. You can't expect to get anything for free in life.
The question is more, how much you have to spend, to play competitive. So for me, starting in February 18, it was around 300 Euros to get where I am. I never thought I'd ever spend that much on a mobile game, but tbh the 90 Bucks for Des****2 were a harder waste of money. While Level phase, I had to spend to catch up with the people at high arena ranks. When this was over, there was no need to spend any more, since crystals from arena (mostly 1 or 2) and ship arena (Top 5) fuel anything of relevance. Obviously I can not get every shiny marquee toon to 7* right away. That's fine. Most of them are useless anyway. I earn enough crystals to buy those mod salvage thingies from weekly shipments, so no real advantage for whales over me.
If you people now cry over not having energy to buy all the energy refreshs, I can only say "Get your priorities straight". Get your arena teams viable (Gear and Mods) first, then with any crystals you have spare, invest in future/fun projects. There is absolutely no need to chase every Meta and espacially Nest, who lots of people strive for, is not a necessary toon in any aspect of the game. If you want her... Okay fine. But if you priorise her over the obvious right choice (Arena Teams), don't cry if this won't pay out.
So no, complete F2P isn't dying a slow death. It wasn't ever alive this year.
Spending a bit on the other side is perfectly alive and can compete with full whales, while they obviously get to highest end content (HSTR) faster and that's okay.

I only spent $50 to get JTR when she came the second time (arguably I didn't need to spend that money if I focused more on farming vets during those three months period). Now I am doing good in a top 100 guild, placing top 10 in HSR if I want to (which is 90% of the time), making significant contributions in TW. The key is keeping patient and investing time in this game.

f2P is at an end truthfully. No it won't happen over night but over the next 6 months it is going to get worse. As far new player retention that is gone and won't be coming back CG and EA let their greed cloud their judgement on the long term health of the game. Tbh it's not even just new players but also the players mid level who are starting to walk away and find better games to invest there time and actually have fun.

With the release of 6 dot mods and CG deciding not to tell us during the whole development phase that they would be equippable only on G12 Toons which was never stated in ANY of the MOD Threads started by any the CG developers at any point. That's a ridiculously important piece of information to "overlook".

So now you have people slicing some of their best mods only to realize they can't even put them back on do to something that was never once told or explained to us through this whole mod debacle. This is one of the final nails in the coffin. Sure there maybe a few long term F2P that have G12 geared teams. I assure probably more then 90% of the F2P community doesn't. So CG and EA just widen the gap even further then before as if G12 lives didn't already do that now them combined with 6 star spliced God mods unless you are F2P and luckily enough to be on a dead server you can forget those top rewards.

Once several months go by the gap will be even further and then if these new legendaries whatever they are coming out it will be increased farther. Traya is still unobtainable for 98% of the game CLS and JTR probably a good a good 70% to 80% game doesn't even have these yet either so gap is increased further. All of this combined with this sneak attack on 6 dot mods only for G12 will just push the minnows and F2P who were barely hanging on straight off the edge.

GOOD JOB SC AND EA! FANTASTIC JOB RUINING ANOTHER GREAT FRANCHISE.

Just to pushback on the marquee releases and maybe legendaries coming- Carrie has said that she wouldn’t want to run marquees like this anymore. They went off data.

It’s kind of obvious who will be needed and where. - I’m farming all the solo toons (not nest) to atleast 5*

When KOTOR toons are farmable I will get them to 5* (and prob try to push to 7*) if feasible lol

FTP have to make really resourceful decisions. It’s a skill. One that I never mastered at all. That’s holding on to gear and zetas and credits.

I do agree - beginning this game seems so daunting. There are some nice steps that have improved - any team being used for mods. Starter guilds. I am totally open for newbies being able to level gear and Star faster than we did.

"JerrickKharr87;c-1638533" wrote:
...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.

In the current business climate of the West - short-term is everything. Immediate profit. Now, tomorrow, next week is about as far as anyone looks. Just how it is. Long-term investment is frowned upon. Of course that's short-sighted but these days, in business, after the turmoil of the last twenty years - nobody know if they will even exist in a year's time so all profit is to be made now, now, NOW!

FTP and casual spenders are dying because no matter how much “progress” you make, CG will always find a way to screw you. I’ve built up an excellent Sith arena team but CG decided to make a 3* marquee toon lead able to defeat a fully geared 12 EP lead team. CG builds up then destroys. This is their strategy and in their DNA. All that’ll be left in a few years are the addicted whales and they alone don’t be able to sustain the game.

While i agree the 3* team that can defeat a full 7* G12 team is a load of crap and poor design - in theory that would actually HELP F2P, not hurt it. It'd mean you could quickly get up and compete in arena.

The entire problem being it invalidates all the work you do to build up that 7/G12 team - and i'm in that boat. Why bother to build a team if they're just going to up and toss out shard busters like that.