Message from the EP

"djwarcr;304482" wrote:
I thought WWF , was for wrestling show..

Lol... wait, its not?! My charity dollars arnt going to roided up gorillas? Its going to real gorillas? ...I want a refund.

I appreciate the EP's post about the reason for the update--its nice to see upper management take such an interest in how a product is received. Here are my initial thoughts on how the update has been.

TL:DR

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how things have played out so far with the update. The new events are great. I'm also enjoying the new diversity in which characters I use and face. Good job. Balance-wise for characters, its a nice breath of fresh air (though I'll admit I'm a little sad that my FOTP doesn't seem quite as powerful as he used to). However, the amount of time it takes The difficulty in events/challenges and especially GW is problematic and likely unsustainable--especially with the impending addition of guild raids.

Full post:

I've played online games for a long time and many of the gripes people have about game balancing here are on par with gripes made in other games. For example, Diablo III--every time your chosen character got nerfed (read: wasn't the most OP), everyone who invested time and energy into developing that character complained...and complained...and complained. Thousands threatened to leave--very few (if any) actually did. I'm confident that the same thing is happening here. People are angry that they cannot dominate fights the way they were accustomed to doing. They, including me, need to and will adapt their strategies.

Initial Impressions:

Arena (8/10)

I enjoy the fact that, at least so far, no one team is completely dominant. I've faced top teams with Daka, Savage Oppress, Fives, Leia, Rex, Greedo, Kylo, ST Han, Ayala, Ima-Gun-Di and many others. It's nice to see diversity in the top teams. Sure, RG, QGJ, and Dooku are still staples. But I think that will change as people learn the mechanics of the update, get to level 80, and get top abilities. So far, arena has been more fun, although the fights take longer.

New Events (10/10)

I LOVE the Ewok event even though I don't have the characters/gears/levels to beat Tier III. More events like this would be greatly appreciated--even if they don't have shard rewards. Fighting with lesser-used characters for smaller rewards makes sense--I'm not going to run an mid-level 4-toon Ewok squad in Arena or GW because I run the risk of losing out on something. Using them in a different event lets me test them out with no downside.

The Omega Battles are fun as well--though I understand why they will not be a staple in the game. I also appreciate that we actually get to fight through each level. Given the rewards, this makes sense.

My only gripe in the New Events is that the communication on the differences in the events wasn't the best: each of the Omega Battle Tier levels can be completed whereas in the Ewok event you get a total of three finished battles. While I caught on quick, I wasted one of my Ewok battles on a Tier I.

Old Events (0/10)

The Profit Mining and Training Droid Hunt are pointless. The energy-to-reward ratio is beyond discouraging. There are enough posts about these events. My suggestion on changing them would be to combine the Bounty Hunter / Profit Mining and Training Droid Challenge / Training Droid Hunt activities respectively into single events. Remove the energy requirement completely. And move them into events. You could make up for it in the Challenges by having a "Random Gear Challenge" (using full character list, successful completion results in "random gear"), or "Random Credit Challenge" (using full character list, successful completion results in "random credits" for arena or gw shop). Or take any of the various suggestions throughout the forums as substitutes. Whatever. Just consider getting rid of the Old Events.

Challenges (6/10)

So far I don't see much of a change in the full character list challenges in terms of difficulty/strategy. The only thing that has changed is how long my auto-attacking takes to complete the mission. This is a push.

On the Agi/Int / Str Challenges, the forums have observed a lot of change. I haven't had the same experience yet on the Int / Agi challenges. For Int., I had to level up my characters and include Teebo (another reason why I like the Ewok event). It makes sense that I would have to level / gear my characters to complete the top tier. My guess is that most of the complaints are from people (like me) who used to dominate the top tier without more than one or two geared tanks. Since the meta is changing, people are going to be leveling/gearing their tanks anyway. I suspect this will go back to being easy shortly enough. Full disclosure--I've spent money on the game, so my roster is more rounded and I can level characters quickly if needed. I recognize that I may not feel the same way about these challenges as others because I can adjust faster.

For the AGI challenge, I didn't notice any difference at all (other than that it took longer).

I haven't faced the new STR challenge so I can't speak to that one.

Overall, I these seem to be moving in the right direction. Higher Tiers should require players to use stronger characters and more strategy to complete them. This update accomplishes that.

So why the 6/10? Because the rewards "seem" underwhelming. The higher tier challenges require more of a time committment to the game--whether it be my time actually fighting, time gearing, time leveling, time gaining credits to do so, etc. The rewards should be more, well, rewarding. At top tier, I should have a chance to get a full purple gear, an a high tier ability mat, or a significant credit / training droid reward. It shouldn't happen every time, or even most times. But there should be a shot of something bigger for my time committment. Maybe that could be baked into the daily rewards (perhaps the reward could change depending on the highest average challenge completed).

Overall, this change hasn't affected me that much.


Galactic War (6/10 - very early impression)

I'll make this one quick. Using and facing more diverse teams is a huge plus. But having each fight take five to ten minutes to complete is a total time-suck. I've only done one GW with the new protection mechanic but it is incredibly monotonous once you lose your protection on your "A" team--even with a diverse roster the last half of my GW march consisted of Bariss (L), Lumi, QGJ, RG, and JC. I had to constantly heal just to keep my characters in the game. Obviously I need to figure out a better mechanic. Maybe that's all there is to fixing GW--I need to change my tactics.

What I am concerned about, however, is that I will be forced to take an hour or so out of my day to complete GW. That's not sustainable. I like the protection mechanic so far--because it encourages diversity of character use--but if it stays the same, maybe consider cutting GW down a bit. Perhaps 3 sets of fights instead of 4. This will become especially important once guild raids are implemented. While no one here knows how long those events will take, that time should be balanced out by decreasing the time in other areas (such as cutting down on GW battles).

In sum, my early impression is that you did a good job on the update. Nothing's perfect. Keep your head up.

"Merked;300612" wrote:
Terrible, tragic, disappointed in the update, I want my game old bak, the way it was, horrible additions , don't feel like playing anymore,

+1

Anyone know of any android games which are NOT made by CG/EA?

I have seen this type of response before from producers... Mainly in MMO's. It always seems to be the case, and an issue, when increasing level caps where they have to make a drastic change to the entire game. I remember when EQ2 did this with armor and now we have it here in Star Wars. Don't worry, it won't be the last time they make this type of change.

It's the same excuse also...We had to do this to keep the life of the game going..Ummm no.. You did this to slow down the community progress in hope people will focus on a wider range of characters and potentially pay more into the system.

This is why I would never spend $$$ on these games compare to a "Real" game. I find people who spend a car payment per month on this type of game insane! when there are WAY better games out there and more content. If you really look into it, there is really no content in this game. All you do is fight other characters and grind..that's it! Try to collect all the characters and finish battle lines. As of yet, there is no quest like lines where you may get something cool or fight a big boss character.

I would rather see an ability to develop a character with say items.. Not just pre-static stats that you have to find gears for to upgrade. Have the ability to find say a light saber with so call stats to give a player an edge who may of been playing a long time. As of now the way it is.. A max toon is the same for everyone else..There is no uniqueness in them from person to person.

With the guilds coming, this change had to be seen..

The health bars are just horrid now.. You are better off making them into a solid health bar instead of blocks or just put a number over the toons head.

For me, the game play has now come to a crawl and boring! Why is auto battle so much faster in animation compare to manual? Now with so much dodging and missing, it just drags!! It's one thing to grind when you are actually killing stuff..it is another when you are missing and dodging left and right....

Of and the STR challenge was just nuts.. All my guys dead in one blast on the 3rd stage!! WTF?!?!

I am also not max out like many here, I have about 5 toons that just hit Gear Lvl. 7. Those at lower levels.. year, have fun working your way up..because it is going to take you longer now..

Oh and the Guild pre challenge.. I can't even do it... Why..Ohhh I don't have 3 toons at level 3... I lose!!

I had started a thread but I think I should have posted my thoughts here. This is basicly how I feel about the game and hope the Devs read it.

"TheRenegade;28420" wrote:
The more time I have had to try the update the more I have liked it. While its not perfect, I can see what the Devs where trying to do and I feel with a few tweeks the game will be a lot better than before.

Yes it takes longer to complete some of the games activities now especially challenges which can no longer be done on auto to some extent. GW takes slightly longer as well but its not that bad at all. Both take more strategy now, especially challenges which seem to work how the devs intended them to work from the beginning.

Arena battles take longer and some matches end in a draw because of time but I feel that is because we are basicly starting over again. I remember when the game launched when everyone was asking for more time because the 5 mins wasn't enough but eventually we where able to complete battles in under 2 mins sometimes even less. We need to give it time and try out different strategies, most players are sticking to the same teams they had before the update and aren't testing as much as they should (although I blame this on the lack of a practice mode in the game, and no GW doesn't count as a practice mode)

The update is still fresh and I for one am only level 75. We won't get a clearer picture until we are level 80 with gear 9/10 and ability level 8 characters. For now the changes seem pretty good except for a few which I don't understand. Like why is Rey still able to hit for such high amounts when she is among the fastest characters in the game, and why some of the slower characters don't hit harder like we where told they would. Again that could all change when we reach level 80 but for now it is at it is.

Here are some of the changes I hope we see once characters reach max level and gear.

* Characters that are slow and have low health (Maul, IG88, etc) will have better protection. These characters don't have as much protection as they should and still go down before they can get an attack off. While characters with large health pools like RG get a ton of protection when they don't need it.
* While the update did lower the damage for some of the speed characters like Dooku, QGJ, Yoda, and Anakin, it didnt touch others. While testing my Rey who is only 6* and gear 8 was able to OHK many characters under Boba's lead. While I am glad that Boba seems viable for his leader ability, Rey with her speed should not be able to take down characters that are at max health and protection. GS also seems to be hitting hard for his speed although I believe once he is at level 80 and max gear he will be more balanced with other characters at the same level.
* While I like the challenge missions needing some strategy now instead of just being able to auto them, having to repeat the same challenge 5 times can begin to lose its fun. I think the amount of times we should be able to run all challeges should be dropped to 3 and those gear challenges should have an increase in the amount of payout to adjust for the reduced amount of times we need to complete them.

Aside from those changes I actually like this update and hope it does well on the devs intent to bring more balance to the game. I think we all need to be a little more patienf and wait until we have reached level 80 to be able to make a better judgment on these changes and as of right now I can see there being a bit more diversity in the game than previously.

Please no ranting or childish behavior in the comments, would like to hear others constructed opinions on the state of the game.

I played this game quite a long time but casualy.
My team was finally strong enough to farm the challenges i wanted in order to level up and equip more stuff.
Update happend, my team can't do anything, I quit

The EP is talking about how many people enjoy this update? What a joke! I haven't seen anywhere near the volume of people appreciating it as I have seen absolutely hating it. Did anyone else notice that alongside your arena point claim decreasing (which they told us about) that your crystal claim was also decreased? (Which they didn't inform us of) what a bunch of greedy fuqs!

You broke it. Update is terrible. Shield idea not going to get it done in its current state. Challenges are brutally long and GW is too long too. Completing the dailys, challenges, arena, and GW every day is no longer a viable option for a lot of us who work for a living and have a family. Sunday would be even worse. I think your "fix" broke the game. Please take into consideration the concerns and issues of the people paying for the privilege to play as well as those free to play people who really like this game. Be mindful of the firestorm coming, (as is evident in 90% of the posts above me).

This is an awesome game, my post is meant to be constructive. Please see it for what it is. I know this is my opinion, but I can already see, many share it. Here's to hoping a hot patch is already in the works.

"Turukano;300615" wrote:

"Witblitz;300568" wrote:
The genius who put this shield bs, not thinking to make it regen with every battle in GW needs to be shown the door. In GW you already face the next battle with some health missing, specials used (and now no shields). Whereas the other team has Full shield, full health and all specials at the ready. This just stacks the odds completly against you and is un unfair method.
GW is crucial to me as this is the main source for my credits to upgrade toons.
Update needs to be fixed fast. Because if i cant upgrade toons due to this absurd grind then bye bye.

agreed...

+2

I have spent about 4 hour/day since December and some money in this game that I would not normally spend on any mobile game. In fact, this game is the only game I think I have diverted these much resource but this update is a clear sign that I should give up this game and use my time and money on something more productive.