"BubbaFett;c-1646179" wrote:"RufusDogbreath;c-1646171" wrote:"Shadowscream;c-1646162" wrote:
@RufusDogbreath - you lost me with your last post. Arena, is a straw man. New players go in a new Arena e.g. no Traya teams in my Arena.....
Set up an alt today and see how many teams run Bastila or Bossk in your arena shard. I guarantee you’ll run into a wall of them when you hit a certain point. They pop up frequently in GW too.
I’m not trying to go to war arguing with folks here. If you think it’s a total nonissue that new F2P players missed great free 3* toons, ok, great. Personally I’ve seen it be it a discouragement to people I know, and I don’t see any downside to doing all that can be done to retain new players.
“Join SWGOH- you may not be competitive or excel for about a year or two, but relax and have fun.” I just don’t see that as a great recruiting tag line.
New shards are created every couple of weeks, nobody that starts today is going to be facing a freebie bossk or bastila.....
"BubbaFett;c-1646170" wrote:"RufusDogbreath;c-1646158" wrote:"BubbaFett;c-1646150" wrote:"RufusDogbreath;c-1646141" wrote:"Shadowscream;c-1646118" wrote:"Roopehunter;c-1646096" wrote:"Shadowscream;c-1646042" wrote:"JerrickKharr87;c-1645921" wrote:
FTP are about to fall behind even more when the new legendary requirements are announced. Casual spenders like me will as well. Only the addicts will keep rolling.
Really? How will it be anymore than previous Legendary/Heroes Journeys when FTP had to get it 2nd time round....I’m puzzled what’s changed this time?
Its changing for new players, not ppl with 1.5 years+.
Reason is simple, yes you can get all legendaries and heroes as ftp,but it takes like a half year each. Or buy them instantly. Having 3-4-5 legendaries will extend the ftp journey to 3 x half year, 4 x half year, 5x half year... Or buy it instantly.
So the point is, if you dont spend, youre in a half year delay.
If these legendaries come online, then if you dont spend, youre in a 2 years delay.
(in case of new accounts)
Being in a 2 years delay is an enormous disadvantage, so you either start spending, or you wont have any success at the competitive areas of the game (arena, fleet, raids..). Essentially, both of these outcomes are the end of ftp, so yeah this game is moving to p2w model very soon.
Going to question your maths here - I’m FTP. Started 17th Dec 2017.
Got 7* Palps, 7* Thrawn, 6* Chimera, CLS, 7* R2D2, 7* GMY, 7* BB8
Working on Vets....
If we ignore Chimera...
That’s 6 heroes journey or Legendary characters out of 7 (No JTR - plus I’ll probably miss her this next time)
6/7 in 9 months for a new FTP player doesn’t seem that depressing?
I think the key is starting nearly a year ago. I started close to the same time. I’m not doing as well as you, but I’m also doing ok. The issue going to be the F2P players that missed out on the string of marquees this year. As legendary events come out that require those marquees, new players will find themselves starting at 0 with no way to farm those needed toons from their hard nodes for months. Just take the Solo movie toons for example. 5x 50 free shards = 250 shards. That’s how far behind new players will be before they ever grind their way up to the hard nodes to farm these characters.
They are focusing on getting all the money they can now from the current player base (to which I say more power to ‘em; its business) with little regard for what the current business model means for the recruitment and retention of new players (to which I say, you’re racing past the gas pumps toward the finish line like it’s the final lap of the race instead of planning for more laps).
CG seems to be content with effectively making sure no more F2P players join & stay. The current model could not be set up in a way to discourage them more. And I can only assume CG is making every effort to turn current F2P players into p2p. So those existing F2P players with time invested and a decent roster of toons can chug along for non competitive fun, but I highly doubt many new F2P players are going to see this game as worth it.
Keep in mind, there will always be more content and toons to farm, so the slog will only get more daunting for new peeps.
TL, DR notes: If you’re F2P and didn’t start playing before the 2018 marquee run, you’re in a very deep, dark hole, and CG is ok with that.
What you are missing is that players don't NEED all of these toons to play the game....This game is plenty of fun without having to have every single legendary.... You can only have one arena team at a time, so raids and TW are the only spots where multiple teams are an absolute necessity..... Just have fun, play the game and everything comes over time ....
True but how far are you going to get in arena without either the strong marquees or the legendary toons they unlock? How fun will it be for new players when these new legendaries are hyped and a new new player is unable to participate?
I’m only concerned about the long term health of the game. I don’t see it thriving without new players, and the current state of the early game for new F2P players (who may eventually turn into p2p players, as I have) is rough. I personally have recruited multiple people (SWfans) to play who ended up quitting because the early game is too restrictive and boring.
The question isn’t CAN you play the game without these toons; the question is will new players want to? Moreover, what does it hurt to make the game more new-player friendly? It’s in all our best interest to make the sure the game continues to bring in more new players.
You are going to get just as far as every other new player in your newly created shard..... You all start on the same equal footing (give or take a week or so).... It's not as if new players are competing against veterans in arena.....
Of course, their newly created shard will have its newly created pod of whales that will leap to the front, but someone has to pay the bills... And if we are worried about the long term health of the game, we have to acknowledge that those who pay will, and should, have the advantage..... it's what keeps the game going....
I'm all for incentivizing new players to join and stay, I just don't think the mentality that they need to "catch up" that is prevelent here is helping that in any way..... The fact is they never will. What new players should be focused on is:
1- Develop a farming plan and stick to it
2- Join a good guild and focus on building teams to help in raids, tw etc
3- Have fun
Watching my roster and my guild progress is the most rewarding part of the game for me, and I am farming for legendaries, not because I need them or want to "catch up", but because they will help me and my guild get better.
One thing I would suggest is giving every new player a decent free 4* toon..... Like they did with OG Kylo.... Seeing what a decent 4* can do when you have only the dregs they start you with made me want to progress a whole team to 4* and beyond....
I would like to see them.let new players pick a faction and get a 4* toon from that faction.... Say you pick BH, they give you Boba, FO they give you Kylo, etc.... Give each new player a toon worth building a team around.....
"Asifab;c-1646332" wrote:
Here is a great example of why shard drop increase will solve the entire issue. I just spent 300 crystals on cantina refreshes. Which comes out to around 18 tries for a vet chewie shard. I ended up getting 4 shards. This is just ridiculous. If those 4 shards would of been 8 or 12(which 3x current drop rate would be a little excessive imo) then the grind would not put me 6 months away from being able to be any help in heroic sith raid. This doesn’t even take into account the time it took to farm the other characters for JTR...who is 100% needed by a majority of your guild to make it past phase 1 heroic sith raid.
"Asifab;c-1646327" wrote:
Everyone keeps talking about the new shard as if arena is the only thing that matters. Any new players who remain F2P will never partake in any new raid content in this game. Most guilds right now can’t even bed or attempt heroic sith. Those are guilds made up of players with 1.5+ years of play time as well. No one starts a game and says hey once I’ve spent some decent time grinding in this game I’ll be fine never being able to do the neeedt raid content. That’s just ****. Sith raid has been out for a fair amount of time now and there are still so many guilds who are unable to reach traya shards. With the current path this game is on it will certain loose many F2P people. If any of you out there think loosing the F2P means less then loosing the whales you are wrong. If a huge player base is not kept in a game like this then it will certainly die off. Whales do not make up enough of the population to keep this game going for years to come. The easiest way to fix everything is to increase shard drops on all nodes.( space, cantina and hard nodes) if each time you run 1 sim you have the chance to get 2 or maybe 3 shards this would close in the gap of farming squads. That gap closing is all that is needed. Shard increase per sim is the way to go. It doesn’t cost CG any money from the whales and it keeps the F2P clients in game.
"JohnAran;c-1646369" wrote:"Asifab;c-1646327" wrote:
Everyone keeps talking about the new shard as if arena is the only thing that matters. Any new players who remain F2P will never partake in any new raid content in this game. Most guilds right now can’t even bed or attempt heroic sith. Those are guilds made up of players with 1.5+ years of play time as well. No one starts a game and says hey once I’ve spent some decent time grinding in this game I’ll be fine never being able to do the neeedt raid content. That’s just ****. Sith raid has been out for a fair amount of time now and there are still so many guilds who are unable to reach traya shards. With the current path this game is on it will certain loose many F2P people. If any of you out there think loosing the F2P means less then loosing the whales you are wrong. If a huge player base is not kept in a game like this then it will certainly die off. Whales do not make up enough of the population to keep this game going for years to come. The easiest way to fix everything is to increase shard drops on all nodes.( space, cantina and hard nodes) if each time you run 1 sim you have the chance to get 2 or maybe 3 shards this would close in the gap of farming squads. That gap closing is all that is needed. Shard increase per sim is the way to go. It doesn’t cost CG any money from the whales and it keeps the F2P clients in game.
Wouldn’t solve anything because character shards are absolutely not the problem. You earn shards so much faster than credit, gear and ability materials it’s like the last thing you actually need. I have dozens of characters needed for raids teams or other events that are 7* but useless because going from g8 to g12 is so long, i have around zero omega, zero zeta and even zero purple mat cause you need so much. The gap has never been and never will be character shards. It’s 100% ability mat and gear, and to a lesser extent credit.
@BubbaFett Just a quick thing regarding your talk about responsability. You should check some articles and stuff on the internet about marketing, com and neuroscience (friendly reminder that the people spending the most money in the world on neuroscience are google, amazon and the like).
Won’t go too far cause a you said it’s not the place, but a lot, and i mean a lot of what you would think to be « your choices » are actually anything but.
EA Staff (Retired)
Capital Games Team
