[MEGATHREAD] Road Ahead: June 2022 - Datacrons

My first question: when will the remainder of the gear economy changes be implemented?

My second question: does CG have a plan for managing the expanding complexity and time burden of this game? One of the biggest frustrations I have with SWGOH is the amount of time required every day for an advanced account to complete all the necessary activities to simply keep up. Conquest and the increased importance of GAC have turned this from a game you could play for 20 minutes a day, into a game requiring a significant investment of time to complete all the relevant activities. Datacrons seem to make this problem worse, by significantly increasing the complexity of GAC, forcing you to spend more time researching your opponent and preparing for matchups. I understand some players will enjoy that increased complexity, but for many others with limited time to play it can become a real burden. Is there a plan in place to address this?

Please for the love of god don't make Conquest a necessity to be competitive in the game...
Conquest is my least favorite game mode and it takes so much time to do, losing GAC and a potential income would really grind my gears and push me away from the game as a whole...
Don't let it affect GAC please and if it has to, please don't force us into conquest.

Agree with so many hear that we should've had the Gear changes addressed first, before adding something that consititutes a massive investment.
Overall not really a fan of this idea, feel it adds even more time spent staring at the screen trying to theorise your next move and how to attack an opponent. adding something else into this that is completely RNG is not ideal, and takes away from the skill based matchmaking they have been so keen to try and implement (even though there are flaws there too). If you get a really rubbish roll from the datacrons and your opponents get a more optimal roll then you are screwed for 3 months, or you have take a hit for another month and try and spend loads of time and resources getting a reroll or another data disk up and running.
Like politics in the UK. its the wrong Tax (feature) at the wrong time.
They need to replace Doja ASAP as he was the only reason things actually got better with this game, as he actually communicated with us and addressed some of our concerns. Crumb and Tusken aren't doing this, granted tusken is on loan from DSA, so it really compounds the fact that Swgoh has a systemic problem in that they cannot pay people to smash their heads against the wall when it comes to collating feedback for the higher ups to ignore.
Honestly, i have enjoyed a long time on this game, but like so many others, we're getting burned out, and close to quitting

"rangojr;c-2365852" wrote:
I'm convinced CG is trying to shut down the game to focus on LOTR. However, given the money people have spent in game, they can't just shut it down. Instead, they've create a system that nobody can understand and nobody wants. Their goal is to drive people to quit the game in droves so by the time they are done they can close down the game without having to worry about people who spent money on it.

Issue with this is that Star Wars is a much bigger name compared to LOTR. don't get me wrong, i love LOTR and would be into a game like that, but solely because CG is developing it, i won't be playing it, absolutely no point in getting shafted by the same people twice. CG don't know how to keep a community happy, partly because they are subservient to EA, and anyone who is actually good at their job gets sniped by another company that will be nicer to work for

The descriptions of datacrons is so long. This is something they obviously put a lot of work into given all the mechanics. Past Road Ahead posts have had videos or they have worked with content creators. For this big of a rollout, they did "nothing".

So, I am left to read it on my own and it sounds horribly complicated and unnecessary. So I look for videos that might be positive. No, none. So I come here and read the comments. There are usually a few CG apologists putting a positive spin on things. Not really seeing any positive.

Not only did this Road Ahead lack any real new content other than datacrons, the way they are rolling this out, shows a complete lack of care about how the community receives this. They will make these changes, and they do not care if you like them or understand them. They only need 5% to 10% of the player base to spend on them, and they will be financially worth it. If the changes destroy the game for half of the player base, it does not matter.

This Road Ahead is the clearest signal that CG is no longer focused on SWGOH. They have another launch to work on and this game is going to slowly die if we do not complain loudly.

If you don't have Razor Crest, CAT, Maul and Interceptor, not doing Conquest is already having an adverse effect on your GAC performance.

"KakashiLord;c-2365836" wrote:

"harvestmouse;c-2365830" wrote:
1. The bandwagon must be nearly full now?
2. I have a feeling that a lot of people pooing on this, don't fully understand it.
3. I doubt there's anybody who fully understands it yet.
4. Worst thing in the game for me is the jump in the power curve between top legendaries and GLs. I've liked how CG have tried to address this over the last year.
5. This may help let teams punch up to GLs.
6. Oh JMK is getting a datacron in the first batch. :( I guess he really needed it............

I don't fully understand the fuss about gear shortages. As I understood it, CG were going to make changes until they were happy with the balance. I guess they reached that. Personally, I don't overly care about mk3 carbantis and mk5 stun guns anymore. I never have a shortage like I did.

It does annoy me that they created a new gear sticking point with the shock prods though......

So I'm not sure if I don't get carbanti and stun gun shortages because they addressed it enough or collecting shock prods stops me getting short of them. A bit of both I guess.

You say you don’t understand so I’ll just at least address that point. There are 4 phases to this gear fix they were thinking. We are in phase 1 still…. Where is the rest?

You don’t have problems with cabantis and stun guns… I do. And the kyrotechs. Some characters needed if between 100-300 of each. People are annoyed because we’ve had these issues for a couple of years now. And now there is a new system to dedicate our time and resources to for both old and new players, except for new players.

I’ve been relatively quiet on CG and their issues but this new system is complete bull and releasing a good year or two too early.

My understanding was they'd 'address the point' until they were happy with the fix. It started off by them unwilling to go all in on fixing gear shortages. They stated and felt that gradual fixes until they were happy was the way to go. Adding fixes until they were happy with the balance. Rather than an all in on all mentioned fixes. Agreed, looking at the 'promised' fixes it did appear that's what they were going to do. However, I don't believe this was the clear plan.

I lived for years with stun guns and carbanti shortages and it's much better now. I'm not going to say I don't run short, but it clears quickly. Which it never did a year or so ago. I think newer players are much better of than what I was and what I am now with the shock prod shortages. Which for me is much much worse than I ever had with stun guns and carbantis.

This whole thread feels like somebody shouted 'Witch' and everybody else joining in without even knowing what a witch is.

So far not a fan.

There's been so many other cool ideas on the boards, why this?

Could anyone see the potentials of these ideas?

• a Raid for ships. Yes it's just like Rancor and Tank, but with a different skin. Ships are barely used in a game called Star Wars.
  
• how many existing playable characters are eligible to be pilot for a starfighter or a ship? We've seen them in movies, or games, or comics, or in a TV series piloting one. Kit Fisto gets a Delta-7, GM Yoda gets an ETA-2, Magnaguard gets a "Xanadu Blood", Veteran Han and Chewie, Kyle Katarn, Sith Empire Trooper, Asajj Ventress, Dengar gets The Punishing One, Bad Batch, Count Dooku, Lando and Chewpio gets a new Falcon, etc
  
• introduce "Speeders" with a new gameplay style similar to ships.
  
• random events that require 1 or 2 or 3 underused characters. Similar to Galactic Challenge. Imagine an event where you must use Ugnaught & NS Acolyte; or Jedi Knight Guardian & NS Initiate; or Lobot & Ewok Scout. That'll force people gear up these underutilized characters, and have a possibility to get decent (not premium) rewards. CG must have data on the usage of every character in the game.
  
• give us a 2nd Mace Windu. Change the name to the existing to "General Mace Windu" to keep with the capital ship. While the 2nd one can be called "Jedi Master Mace Windu", and he can get his purple ETA-2 starfighter.
  
• try a Hoth TB 2.0: where it's 12 Phases in 6 days (12 hours each); keep Platoons as is, instead of 1-2 Combat nodes per section, make it 4 or 5, and increase level of difficulty, but not the point of a Geo TB, and increase the threshold for stars. Can only do this if your guild got max stars in Hoth TB 1.0.
  

There's plenty of ways to monetize the game without killing the fanbase, or changing the fundamentals of the game.

Have only skimmed. Did anyone point how ridiculous this statement is?

Datacrons give you a stronger reason to care about upgrading a character over time and have it be a valuable addition to your roster at day 1

You can't use datacrons unless your entire squad is r3. Not only is this only happening on day 1 if you are whaling on it, but an r3 character is already useful.

"Dianora;c-2365765" wrote:

"Teron;c-2365716" wrote:

"Dianora;c-2365704" wrote:

"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.

why it isn't how it works?
I tell you this: mk5 stun guns were worse, than kyros for me. they gave me mk5 from challenges -> kyros are problem now. and kyros aren't needed(except for 100 from g12 to g13, which isn't a problem really) for a lot of characters. yeah, they split content a bit, trying to control how new players develop. I don't see any harm here, to be honest. ccb also was never a problem for me, but they gave me conquest, where I can grind g12. now I relic characters faster. now I need more mats. now I have problems with ccb, cos I need more of them. and so on and so forth.

if u remove bottleneck from kyros and low relic mats, than main problem would be mk3 carbanti. what's next? remove it as well? a lot of guys ask for it even now.. remove? than one probably will be able to get character to r5 from scratch within a week, while logging once a day for less then half an hour.honestly, I may be mistaken, but this doesn't sound like a right approach for me.

100 kyros from g12 to 13? I don't know what game you're playing but I wish. Mon Mothma alone requires 500 kyros from g9 to 13.

Like I said in my post which maybe you weren't able to read, you remove the bottlenecks in steps. Currently the top gear level is relic 9 which no one is even bothering with. Ideally, the bottleneck would be somewhere around r7 at this point. If/when they add r 10 then the bottleneck would move to r8. That's how better games handle it.

omg.. we already at the state where one starts assuming, that his messages aren't read, and make offensive hints? that was quite fast. I guess, couple messages more and I will hear pure insults?
ok. I guess, you understand everything perfectly by yourself, but I will still try to explain it to u just in case:
I have written above, that u need 100 kyros for *A LOT OF CHARACTERS*. not "all of them", but "a lot of". yeah, MM needs much more. as most relatively new characters do. And DR needs more and Padme and Piett and Wat and so on. still there are a lot of characters, who doesn't need more than 100.

oh.. so.. u DO want to give almost for free not just r5, but even r7. wonderful idea.
do you understand, that after this all of this whiny community will come to this forum and start crying, that:
1. they were playing hard and were spending a lot and now u give it for free?!
2. they have hard-earned r8-r9 squads, which are destroyed by mirror-squad, who have crappy r7, but with better mods? even now there are a lot of guys in this topic, who are afraid, that their shiny toons would be obliterated by weaker squads with the help of new DC mechanics.


I don't know about marvel. and "better games" (this is the place, where u want me to tell, that u can go and play "better games" instead of this one, right?)) not gonna happen. play whatever u like for any reason u have)
tbh I hate Marvel's universe so I have never tried their game.
I played MMORPGs decades ago. let me use it as an example. when new major update("expansion"/"addon") comes, there is always new gear. new gear is extremely better in comparison to old one. junk from quest are almost the same quality as the best gear from before. junk from dungeons on a new max level is simply better, than best gear from before. new best gear is ridiculously better than the best before update. When u wear old gear there are literally no chances to beat a guy in currently best equip.
it is more close to trying to beat reliced character with g5 squad. not an r7 against r8 fight. u can give g5 almost for free, but r7? it is too much.
your ideas can work, if u remove mods and most of rng from the game. this way r8 will be simply better. will it be fun? I don't think so, but different people have different things in mind, when they talk about fun.
it can also work if u make every next level of relic ridiculously more powerful and much harder to obtain.
in current state.. well, I honestly believe, that such idea won't bring anything good.