Message from the EP

GW was challenging enough before. Now I don't even want to try GW. Which is bad because it is the lifeblood of this game. If you cant complete GW you will not make any gold to upgrade, promote your toons. If you can't do that players will stop playing as it will be pointless to play.

I like the changes in the arena as it sounds like you accomplished your goals. I believe we will start to see more variety in matches.

However Gw needs IMMEDIATE attention. Like several users suggested earlier if your armor completely refreshed after each round (at least for now to buy time to refine it) Gw would be fun again. The way it stands is ridiculous.

The challenges take way to long for a FTP game.

With several of your pricing models on gem packs I believe you guys are still confused and think this is a AAA MMO like WOW or SWTOR.

I think you guys jumped the gun on this update and tried to do to much to fast. Also as several users suggested earlier it would of been wiser to just start with protection first to see how the game evolved form there. You cut to deep to fast IMHO.

Yoda also needs IMMEDIATE attention. Take the 2nd hardest toon to achieve in this game and make him useless, not wise.

All in all if you can can fine tune GW and the daily challenges I believe this update can be successful. However if GW stays unrefined this game could easily collapse upon itself .

"gobears21;302152" wrote:
I've been very critical of the changes as I truly do understand the rationale for changing "something", however don't understand the rationale for this being the "something".

It seems to me the thesis for the changes was "characters are dealing too much damage and matches aren't taking long enough as a result"

With that as a thesis there are multiple ways to skin the cat. You chose "protection" for some odd reason rather than just re-balancing health / damage. I can live with it but think it wasn't the best decision for the game.

Ultimately I understand the conundrum and I'm not sure there really is a great solution; you have a game where you allow people to continuously "upgrade" and we play and play and play to get a character to a certain level to deal an amazingly fun amount of damage and then you neuter him. That makes no sense...

GW took me 80-90 minutes; this is wayyyy too long... it was fine as it was before. I was able to beat all LS / DS battles with my level 64 team against level 70 teams; this probably shouldn't have been the case and a slowing of that type of progression is probably in order so that by the time you are getting through the last battle on the table you are unlocking the next level not waiting 5-6 more levels before unlocking the next table. On the other hand; I ONLY worked on my main 5 guys for arena so my team "was" fairly powerful so perhaps I earned the right to march through those battles?

It makes no sense having your protection rubbed off after the first couple battles and then face fully protected teams. Is it beatable? Yes, does it make a difference in the outcome of the battles? Yes, they take forever now and at times I need a taunter and at times I need 3 healers... did adding protection to MY characters help me in ANY form or fashion get through GW? Absolutely not... it did zero for me and I didn't even try to strategize because the inevitable was well... inevitable. All my main dudes were going to lose protection. My Barriss who was key for me to get through GW is only gear level 6 and I see no reason to upgrade her gear level just for the purpose of protection as it adds nothing. This needs to be rethought...

Challenges - I'm only level 66 so they're still doable but the savage challenge was always annoyingly long (kind of like this post?)

Arena - you state that we'll start seeing more team compositions used and viable; this is ultimately only going to be true if you treated the characters damage / health / protection with the mind of a socialist where everybody can beat everybody.... otherwise as a community we will figure out what works best (and to me it still looks like speed / damage with a flavor of healing) and the above average characters will be everywhere just as it was before. This reminds me of the old let's raise our taxes because our teachers have below average pay argument.... by definition, someone will always be below average and someone above average. It is a moving target and that's all you have done is moved the target. The above average toons will be found and will be everywhere.... you didn't stop that.

#notafan

21

Forgot to add:
1. @EA_Jesse admitted a stunned player dodging was a bug and needed to be fixed; why was this not a top priority bug? Especially with this release
2. The new animations / sound effects need to be addressed... "dodging" should not mean my jedi stumble on their way to deliver a blow and miss.... if you are going to change that then change the other teams dude to move, not my eloquent jedi to stumble.
3. A swing and a miss with a light saber is not silent; perhaps it is time for the team to do a movie marathon and re-watch :)

I appreciate the message from them EP. I accept that the game needed adjustments for longevity, and I also accept that I need time to learn how to best play the game now.

What I have a hard time accepting is the fact that virtually all of my maxed characters are now of very limited utility. Like most FTP players, I followed the path EA gave us, leveling up my startup characters like Poe and building a Jedi team. Now, those characters' viability is significantly decreased. No, it's not the end of the world, but being faced with the prospect of having to start from scratch after having put all effort into getting Yoda is daunting, especially when my existing 8-10 maxed characters are now so weak that I can't even progress in the Arena or GW to gain the components to upgrade replacements.

I'm ok with challenges being challenging; I'm a little disappointed that the rewards are not useful. Maybe I've been updating the wrong characters (see above), but only one of the three drops is even required by my characters for gearing. And since I can't complete the omega challenge, I can forget about progressing anytime soon.

And that's the crux of my frustration--those that had large stables of maxed characters will love the update, because they have lots of options and can truly experiment and play the game you want them to. Those of us who had one good Arena/GW team and a backup GW team now have limited options other than to start from scratch, and that's not fun.

"jeremyj26;301823" wrote:

"Snoochiebear;301727" wrote:
The only way to come close to salvaging this horrible horrible debacle is to undo the update and then implement a new rule that forces a team to be constructed as

1-tank
1-heal
1-attack
2-support

I think we should be encouraging diversity, not stifling it.

Good idea!!

Who do i contact to get my money back spent to get 5 7* Jedi so i could get yoda all worthless now i need a huge refund and the i will stop playing the game is ruined

"Relish_Yoda;301888" wrote:
@EA_Jesse @CG_JohnSalera @CG_NotReallyAJedi

Guys, probably the most impassioned response on updates so far, reading the above.

I don't have a lot of time but want to provide a couple quick thoughts. I'm on the camp of being happy with the changes. I follow what you are doing and I think you did a good job at it.

- Careful with the 'Burn the Clock' Meta. Run tests with this team (or a variant thereof) and let's make sure you can beat it in 5 minutes. Barris (L), Lumi, Old Daka, RG, Fives. Maybe change (L) to Lumi, too.

- Consider letting players have a say on defense. An idea might be to let us choose the first action of every one of our heroes. Not who to target, just the first button to press. Yoda Battle Meditation? Phasma Advantage? Not only will it angle the meta a bit, it'll make it more fun to go against teams composed of broadly the same heroes.

- Address the graphic design issues that I'm sure you're all over of. An easy one is cleaning up the health bar on the top right. My vote is to make it a double colored bar for PTX and health, like Halo.

- Please, please, please, let us see the dodge/deflection ratings on players!

- Barris' clothing still moves when she's stunned. Kidding! LOL


Good job guys!

One other thing: Careful with the increase in time asked from your users. Now I can't auto-challenges. GW takes X% longer. Now the arena battles take 3-4 minutes each instead of 1-2. That's an extra ~hour or so that you're asking your user base to play each day. Nope. Careful. Fine line between chore and game.

The long, well written, perfectly elaborated post by John Salera is very nice, kudos, but I can't get around the fact that they seem to have been too late adapting. Again.

I mean, "the speed meta was getting out of hand". What speed meta? Everyone and their dog are playing Dooku dodge because his leadership has clearly been overcompensated with the last update.

A lot of things about this update are good and indeed add longevity to the game, but longevity doesn't mean every single battle has to be a tedious, endless chore. Basically, just removing protection from the Challenges and reverting the AI opponents to before wouldn't be too much of a drama, wouldn't it? Because now I spend 10 minutes wasting through the endless mobs of level 1 and 2 before finally wiping the boss within the minute. That ain't balanced.

I like the update. I guess I've just been around the block with games like this. In clash there are updates where characters are nerfed or buffed so you have to get a balanced lineup. Otherwise everyone attacks with one team and it gets boring.

Well done, guys.

And my Jedi team that I built up for yoda (now ready for next 7* yoda challenge) is still very useful.

One point I agree has merit is the lack of protection refresh between GW stages. It seems like either we should get it or the opponents shouldn't have protection since opponents can already be several levels stronger.

My .02 :-)

"Naifreak;300539" wrote:

"XelNaga;300529" wrote:
It took me almost 2hours to finish galaxy wars.And what I find is the protection sucks.When you meet LV74or LV75 teams in gw，it is a tough battle.Hope EA could let theprotection recover after finish every battle

I think its better if they just get rid of the protection at the moment since we have no way to recover protection. The change they did with the defence is enough to make the game balance in my opinion.

Or at the very least remove protection from things like GW.

The bottom line for any game is enjoyment. These updates have affect every area of the game play and I now find the game a joke and not so enjoyable anymore. I spent a few months getting into the top 500 ranks and building characters to combat higher players.

Now I'm lucky enough to complete tier 1 challenge and get pass three Galatica war missions. I would recommend talking to people like marvel alliance on how they overcame similar problems in their game.

A major change like this should have been beta tested by users and these flaws in the game would have been quickly identified. Get your characters right and I dont want to see 6,000 critical do nothing to my enemies, it's a joke.