8 years ago

Open letter about Zetas

I am writing this as a warning. I know I am only one person and you probably won't care. I've been playing since November 2015 as a pay to play player who spends several hundred dollars a month so I hope you listen.

You need to fix your Zeta system or I will be leaving the game and assume that many more will as well over time.

I spend money on this game buying shards and gear and mods and ship materials and so on. I play every single day, many many times a day, to maximize my position in the game. So I do everything I am supposed to according to your game design and business model, yet I am falling further and further behind because of zetas.

I did what I was supposed to and completed all the ship requirements and challenges to enable the challenge that rewards zetas. Even with that I haven't seen a zeta in weeks. I can't buy them with dollars and the only other way to get them is through the ship store which I am currently stuck farming ships to stay current in that aspect of the game. If I stop that I will drop rank in ship arena and then earn fewer fleet arena tokens allowing me to buy fewer and fewer zetas. See how is also a long term losing proposition? I know, I know, I could spend on maxing out my ships right away and shift focus but as I said, my budget is several hundred a month and not several thousand.

So in a nutshell you introduced an element to this game which is proving to be absolutely critical and yet you leave it to chance?

I've had a bad run of luck which has set me back pretty drastically. If that doesn't change I will be so far down the wrong direction and so far back that I will abandon this game.

A fundamental tenet of game design for games like this is that you blend skill with chance because when you leave it entirely to chance, games implode, people leave and the game dies. If I wanted to spend hundreds of dollars a month on a pure chance game I'd go play slots.

Good night and good luck.

feedback

Lili-Jedi
8 years ago
+1
bzmr94
8 years ago
i agree with you about the zeta challenge. I'm F2P but i was always around Top10 in Arena. When Zetas came out i started farming ships instead of buying zeta materials. Im now done with the ships and completed the zeta challenge like a week ago. My arena shard is full of Zader, Zaul and zQGJs and some people already having their 2nd and 3rd zeta ability. Since i completed the challenge i got ONE zeta material, ONE!! Thats 1/8 and some guild mates told me they didnt get one for 2 weeks straight. I think if you completed the challenge you should at least get 1 garanteed zeta material every try. To make it all about luck makes arena very unfair.
Neo2551
8 years ago
+1
But if you really spend hundreds of dollar a month, you should have uber mods which should compensate your lack of Zeta. (My 288 speed TFP and 270 Boba annoy a lot of players).
Saturnix2025
8 years ago
Spent first 30 days farming 20 zetas and just Boba's ship.

I now comfortably sit in top30 ship arena.

Purchasing blueprints from there is not essential, unless you really wanna be n.1 (which doesn't give you that much more ship credits). Besides, you can buy ship packs if you wanna excel in both zetas and ship arena.

Sorry, what you say is wrong. You've just planned your strategy badly. You'd have a somewhat decent fleet and 40 zetas by now, if you did differently.
nite0wl29
8 years ago
"Joseph2025_777;899345" wrote:
Spent first 30 days farming 20 zetas and just Boba's ship.

I now comfortably sit in top30 ship arena.

Purchasing blueprints from there is not essential, unless you really wanna be n.1 (which doesn't give you that much more ship credits). Besides, you can buy ship packs if you wanna excel in both zetas and ship arena.

Sorry, what you say is wrong. You've just planned your strategy badly. You'd have a somewhat decent fleet and 40 zetas by now, if you did differently.

^^+1 I don't have any zetas yet but purchasing them in shipments seems like the best route to go when I'm ready. I have many toons to Omega for Heroic AAT squads otherwise I would've invested in them by now. And like what the above said, you don't need zeta to beat zeta toons. I beat a zAder team in GW yesterday just because I had more speed and a better squad comp. I wish you the best of luck!
NyKynoe
8 years ago
As a currently f2p, working on zeta #3 and have a completed zeta challenge, with staying in the top 30 of my ship shard and top 5 (mostly 2nd) in arena....maybe you should consider a play that doesn't have you relying on them changing a game mechanic and/or rng and figure out a plan to budget and buy them. IMO

As a player who spend $100s a month I'm sure you have not had to make hard choices but this is one of the hardest for f2p.

Due to their importance zetas should be rare and hard to get, what's the point to all they deliver if everyone can get them right away. Could drop rates be better, probably, but then it wouldn't be such a hard choice to buy them.

We would hate to see you go. Good luck.
MrBlackPanther1
8 years ago
Give me a break, be grateful that you're able to spend that much money on this game. Zetas are the one thing you can't buy, you probably just don't have much patience while farming them because you're used to just getting all of the shards and gear quickly, just because there's one thing in the game that you can't buy and need to wait for doesn't mean you have to complain to the devs like they did something wrong.
Beholderlolo
8 years ago
You guy are completely wrong about ship store : you should buy zeta on it.
Not to hard to keep yourself in top 50. 1300 token is enough for 1 zeta every 2 days + 5 shard of slave or cimetarry as a bonus.

My first zeta asks me 30 days. Very bad rng on challenges. I received 8 zeta with them and bought 12 in shop store.

What is the point of being more competitive on ship fights ? Unless you get top 3 every day there is quite no difference between top 100 and top 10 if you think on duration and not on a single day.

Just ignore ship competition for the moment. We will all end 7* ship and g11 pilots. Then you'll be able to compete with you dollars, buying new ships before others.

Remember, cristals >>> all. So focus on zeta >>> ships
MrBlackPanther1
8 years ago
"DarthxMaul;899359" wrote:
Give me a break, be grateful that you're able to spend that much money on this game. Zetas are the one thing you can't buy, you probably just don't have much patience while farming them because you're used to just getting all of the shards and gear quickly, just because there's one thing in the game that you can't buy and need to wait for doesn't mean you have to complain to the devs like they did something wrong.

Literally ONE thing gets added to the game that you can't buy and you instantly call it a "pure chance game", Calm down.
daddyngo007
8 years ago
To the OP. If you spend that kind of money each month and you are, from the sound of it, way behind f2p. So some thing is very wrong with what you are doing. Seriously you need to have a good look at how you prioritise your game plan and spending habits.