[MEGATHREAD] Road Ahead: June 2022 - Datacrons

"SparkyBurns;c-2365609" wrote:
You're not going to believe this, but the people on the forums are being overwhelming negative about something

True, but the people on the forums are the ones who will keep this game going. I was a daily poster here for many years, haven't commented in a long long time and that's because I don't care about the game anymore. It's fun occasionally, but now I'm mostly going through the motions and simultaneously wanting them to listen to the players and make the game fun (which I know after almost 7 years they're never going to listen) but also shut swgoh down to free up my life (I'm impressed I made it 6.5 years playing this game before hitting the sunken cost fallacy).

"ShadowJediKnight;c-2365671" wrote:
So you're character specific datacron requires that one character to be R7, and the rest of their team to be R5? And if the player doesn't have those characters at that mark they can't benefit from it?? And then the benefits are gone after a few months???

CG, how does this even benefit you guys? You're shooting yourself in the foot. This is a terrible idea! No one wants this!

The relic cargo packs are big sellers. This will encourage players to bring more teams up to R5 (R7 lead).

So, I have a primary question, but have some set up for it.

I generally find the concept of Datacrons to have potential. I think they could do well to prevent things from becoming to stale. And, some of them are interesting enough that I might consider remodding, gearing, or upping relics on a character - the Aalya one for instance could be interesting to see if she can go infinite with her basic stun, and I am intrigued enough that I would consider spending resources to get her to R7. Same with the Resistance ones - Rey is the next GL I am planning to go for, so I might have shifted my farming order to take advantage of using the Resistance Datacrons. Inquisitors are a little different, but the root of the problem is the same. For inquisitors, the shards are too limiting. But, if the datacrons were interesting enough, maybe I would go for them.

Notice my use of the words "would consider", "might", and "maybe". Right now, the problem is simple: I cannot gear up the toons/faction fast enough to actually get them to R3/5/7. This is amplified for Inquisitors because they take so many Kyrotech. I'll spend money in the game (I am not a whale, but will spend when it seems worth it). I could have seen myself spending a little bit of money to finish up a character or get better datacrons. But since I haven't geared Resistance yet, it would take me hundreds of thousands of dollars to get them ready in time to use the Datacrons before they expire.

Question: With Datacrons requiring relics to use, can we get the rest of the gear changes, or an update? Even if I want to invest in Datacrons, and perhaps spend money, I cannot because of the gear/relic gate.

For context: The State of the Gear-alxy stated:

The following outlines Phase 1 of the changes, and we will be announcing more details regarding future phases as they are closer to release

Phase 1 announcement included this:

Approximately double drop rate of Gear on PvE Hard nodes with Character Shards
All PvE nodes with Character shards will have the Gear drop rate increased
This is intended to increase the amount of Gear earned while farming characters
...
More Core Gear added to the Shard Shop
Adding in a new dedicated slot in the Shard Shop that only provides Core Gear
This slot will be available every refresh

Neither of those have occurred, and that is Phase 1, announced 9 months ago. One of the state goals was:

Accelerate all player’s ability to unlock and engage with Relics

We've been given more things that require relics, now including Datacrons, but it's still a bit ridiculous to get to relics. Finally, the State of Gear-alxy also stated, 9 months ago:

and we will be announcing the next phases in the near future.

Emphasis added. The October 2021 road ahead stated:

Once are complete, we will begin speaking to what Phase 2 encompasses in the near future.

Again, emphasis added.

TL:DR - Question: With Datacrons requiring relics to use, can we get the rest of the gear changes, or an update? Even if I want to invest in Datacrons, and perhaps spend money, I cannot because of the gear/relic gate.

"Eddiebee23;c-2365610" wrote:
I have been playing this game for five years and never even registered on these forums. Never saw a need until now.

How can this developer be so inconsistent and frankly pathetic at just fixing their game? This game has so many issues with it. Instead, CG chooses add other fluff in that absolutely nobody wants. This is embarrassing. I hope the day EA is sold, these developers are immediately removed from developing this game. How can you mess up this type of game with this IP?

Been playing for almost 7 (download it 3 days after it's official release) and this has been the standard practice since day 1. They cared for a like a week when Marvel Strike Force was released and threatened them, but it has literally always been 1 step forward, 3 steps back with CG. They're got a increasingly smaller number of players dropping enough $$$ to pay the bills and that's all they care about.

first, I'm with community, when people want new game-mods, better interface(especially for mods. current one is ridiculous), banned cheaters, fixed bugs. And I'm sad, that nothing is done about it. again. mb if community were crying less how unhappy they are with EVERYTHING and focus on these important things, than situation would be different. or may be not) fixing bugs doesn't bring money directly. especially if you carefully plant some of these bugs in order to maintain balance. (immortal RC/not assisting vultures/not dispelling unyielding loyalty/etc/etc/etc)))

second. all guys, who want more gear for free.. well, you miss a point. this game IS bottleneck. if CG increase amount of gear in ten times(for example) in couple of years almost ALL players will have nothing to gather. just ask yourself: Will u continue to play it after everything is unlocked and when every character is released u can instantly max it and almost every player will be doing the same? well, some guys will continue. most won't. so..yeah they want bottlenecks to be present. yeah, they want u to donate. nothing new here. yeah, they have promised increasing of gear. yeah, nothing is done and it is bad to break a promise. but nothing devastating happened. CG should watch, what they promise (mb that's why there is almost no information about future plans?)))
in less then two years: they gave conquest (u may like it or not, but it is resources. a lot of them), they increased gear amount from challenges, they doubled income of shards for characters, they increased income of crystals for most of the players. it is MUCH easier to develop a character from scratch, then it was before.yeah, when some bottlenecks are removed, then new ones are appearing , because one more time: this game IS bottleneck.

third. datacrons. I'm against community with all this whining. this idea has potential. I like mods. Mods gave me an ability to beat much stronger guys, who plays longer, but badly. This looks like a new version of them. Yeah, it could be better without extreme rng. yeah, it would be better, if game was more balanced. still, in my humble opinion, game is better with mods, than without them. DC have potential to do even more. I don't know why first set is for jmk. it either really stupid or well planned. we will need to wait for at least fourth set to determine it.
and yes! I like theory-crafting. I love thinking and developing strategy.(especially, when I'm drunk lol))) it is a bit sad, that I can't earn for living with this) it is really satisfying for me to beat much stronger opponents in GAC (have u ever kicked a guy with 7M gp roster and 2 GLs, while u have 2-2.5M and no GLs? I had. and if u think, that he simply wasn't attacking, than u are wrong. of course, he was pretty bad. I'm not telling, that every match can be won of smth similar) DC could give me an opportunity to kick even stronger guys with good planning. I don't know, what will happen. DC may turn out to be too oriented on donations. still, right now I still believe, that idea has good potential.

"Teron;c-2365703" wrote:
second. all guys, who want more gear for free.. well, you miss a point. this game IS bottleneck. if CG increase amount of gear in ten times(for example) in couple of years almost ALL players will have nothing to gather. just ask yourself: Will u continue to play it after everything is unlocked and when every character is released u can instantly max it and almost every player will be doing the same? well, some guys will continue. most won't. so..yeah they want bottlenecks to be present. yeah, they want u to donate. nothing new here. yeah, they have promised increasing of gear. yeah, nothing is done and it is bad to break a promise. but nothing devastating happened. CG should watch, what they promise (mb that's why there is almost no information about future plans?)))
in less then two years: they gave conquest (u may like it or not, but it is resources. a lot of them), they increased gear amount from challenges, they doubled income of shards for characters, they increased income of crystals for most of the players. it is MUCH easier to develop a character from scratch, then it was before.yeah, when some bottlenecks are removed, then new ones are appearing , because one more time: this game IS bottleneck.

That's not quite how it works. As you keep adding more gear/relic levels you need to make the old stuff easier to obtain so that new players don't see an insurmountable wall and quit immediately. If you look at MSF, Purple gear was very hard to obtain until they added Orange gear and then it became much easier and Orange was the wall. Now Teal is the wall.

The past year has made a lot of purple easier to obtain in general but Kyros are still a huge bottleneck and then there's another painful bottleneck with Circuit Boards and Wiring. There's not even any story in the game (okay, you do feud with the Hutt guy at the fleet table but other than that) so it would be simplicity itself to just add another tier to one or more of the existing tables and toss some Circuit Boards there along with some of the newer characters instead of removing double nodes from JKR requirements for some bizarre reason.

So who is going to play CG’s crappy new LOTR game? ? FOH with your mierda.

"joebroni;c-2365572" wrote:
Booooorrrrring. What do these guys do with all their time?

You know damn well what these twats do with their time. It ain’t regular guy stuff either.

"Ripleymay;c-2365663" wrote:
What currency do I spend to reroll the contents of this road ahead?

The short answer is US Dollars. OR CA Dollars if you live there. Or JP Yen if you live there. Or SA Rand if you live there. Etc. Etc.

I appreciate this Road Ahead. Truly. Now I have a script that will fill my next filibuster. It’ll be like I said nothing at all.