I really wanted to get a chance to play through many of the new mechanics on a lot of different squads and characters before giving any feedback.
I'll be brief.
I think the update was an overall positive for Arena. It took many of the ideas I've been proposing over the past few months and found a creative way to apply them (protection). Kudos.
That said, I do not believe the complete re-balancing of characters was completely necessary. In fact, I think 'protection' alone would have sufficed (except for perhaps a small adjustment to Dooku who since day 1 I've argued was the most OP character in the game bar none). Arena battles tend to take a lot longer now but still fall in the 5minute range fairly easily; however, all of my characters feel very 'samey' now. I don't feel the excitement when I use certain characters that I used (Yoda is a very specific example... I have NO FREAKING CLUE why you would have nerfed the second hardest character in the game to obtain AT ALL).
Honestly, it feels kinda drab now. Like the energy has literally been sucked out of it. Hard to explain it but I believe it's simply less fun. Should have stuck to the protection mechanic only.
Moving on... 'Protection' should have been limited to Arena only. It should have never been a game wide addition nor should the character balancing. This is not a console/PC title. It is a MOBILE title. Although I'm sure you guys have ambitions to be like 'the big boys' over in console/PC (and, you should be) mobile is not the place to showcase it. I'm sorry, my time for Dark Souls III and The Division are far more valuable than my time for a mobile title that is a fun grind when I'm otherwise not occupied. That said, I think it was a huge disservice to your playerbase to literally triple the amount of time this game demands per day to stay current. Battles and everything are just too much now and feel like they are dragging on and on and on when it's already clear in the first 30 seconds if you are winning or not. Which leads to...
Challenges... Most of the challenges are probably still okay as far as completing them; however, the wrong logic was applied here. Harder is not better when the net result is still 'win' every time... That doesn't make them harder. That makes them LONGER. And, speaking for myself, I simply do not wish to spend 5+ minutes on each and every challenge. That's 40 MINUTES per day, except on Sunday when it is 135 MINUTES! That is an ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS expectation. Even a console/PC title does not demand that much time for DAILY activities! I'm not even considering special events in that time or the fact that some of the challenges (I'm looking at you STR) seem just flat out bugged. Which leads to...
Special events. I actually like these! They are quicker, not so heartbreakingly time consuming and payout better rewards in most cases than other Challenges that require 10x more effort. These should be the model your Challenges are built off of! And, in the case of Ewoks, the fact that proceeds go directly to a worthy cause is even more outstanding. I greatly appreciate that.
Now, for the big one... The main event of everyone's SWGoH day. GALACTIC WAR.
WTF were you guys thinking?! Seriously... You just barely came off all the blow back on GW from the previous changes a couple months ago and what do you do? Turn the dial right back up and completely break the entire mechanic of the thing! Seriously, what were you thinking? The 'protection' dynamic has no place in GW unless you are going to automatically refill it to full after each battle (tbh, at this point in the balance you should just reset all health and cooldowns between battles also as the characters are all so flat it probably wouldn't make much difference). Completing GW is a complete nightmare now. If you do beat it, you can plan on at least two hours to make it happen. I personally have more level 72++ characters with 7* than I can count without looking it up (and, I pretty much clear every GW except a couple during the bad times 1.5 months ago in the first go round on this) and I'm still six waves out from the end today sitting on toons that are getting destroyed by parties with essentially double the health pool. Let me tell you, it IS NOT a fun game mechanic to see all your specials wasted before the real battle can even begin (aka, you have no protection but you can't do anything to your opponents for two rounds while you wear them down). The attrition is absolutely ridiculous and unfair. I have enough top tier toons to make at least 4 squads and it still is an issue (that and the fact that the squads becoming insanely less powerful with each iteration).
GW is completely broken by these changes. Completely. I mean, I can not stress this enough how broken it is. In fact, I have to wonder if you even considered it or tested it in congruence with these changes. It sure seems like you did not. It is FAR too long and FAR too unrewarding at this point. If you want it this hard, move the top rewards from beating it to the middle of it and add some truly insane rewards for completing it. Even then, it still won't be fun and will take too much time.
TL;DR: The game in it's new state of balance simply takes FAR TOO MUCH TIME daily (over 3 hours if you want to clear all daily opportunities) to participate in at this point. It's not fun and it's driving me away from it. GW is completely broken. COMPLETELY BROKEN. Arena benefits from the 'protection' idea; however, the balancing of characters was a largely unnecessary change. 'Protection' would have been more than enough to level off Arena and increase diversity.
Good luck. Call me when you fix things. I play your game so you have my number. I'll start playing again then. Until then, I'll most likely be taking a much needed break.
EA Staff (Retired)
