Relics – The tale of a Kraken
To give you a little background, I started playing during the last week of November 2017 (less than 2 years ago). Most people categorize me as a Kraken. I currently have 27 G13, 66 G12, and 425 10+ speed mods. I haven’t kept track of the amount I’ve spent, but if I had to guess I would say somewhere between $10,000 and $15,000. Probably around $500.00 a month. I make a good living and the expenditure is not an issue. It has no impact on my life, it doesn’t prevent from doing anything, and I’m not neglecting anything like my bills, retirement savings, etc. I am providing this info so you can better understand where I’m coming from.
Unfortunately, Relics are going to force me to quit the game. I still love the game as much as I did when I first started playing, but the introduction of Relics simply crossed the line. Whereas before I felt I was getting value for the money I spent, I no longer feel that way. The money itself is not the issue. I can afford it. Here are few of the issues:
• Relics were released too close to G13. I have 27 G13, which is a lot compared to most people, but that’s not even close to making me feel like my roster is complete. I have a ton more characters I’d like to G13, but instead I now have to focus on level 7 Relics for certain characters.
• The stat gains from Relics are WAY too high. 80k health Nest? 11k damage DR? 225k+ Health Malak? It makes it an absolute requirement to obtain certain characters’ level 7 Relics to be competitive. This is not a new phenomenon, but its pushed it to the extreme. I’m watching videos of Grievous with a level 7 Relic one-shotting entire teams, including DR, on TURN ONE.
• The damage increases are not relative to the defensive increases. Going back to the previous bullet, I’ve seen GG one shot some of the tankiest of tanks on turn one.
• Speed just became even MORE important. If you have characters that can now one-shot entire teams or even just one-shot single characters on turn one, speed becomes even more important than it was previously (and it was all-important even before this).
• The price point is way to high compared to the value. We were discussing this in Discord earlier, and we (by we, I mean my guildmate, Ender) came up with a rough estimate that it will take anywhere from $360-$900 to take a single character from 0 to max (the variance depends on if you buy shards, packs, or farm the character). Emphasis on rough estimate. CG has always stressed that they want you to be able to utilize all of your characters, but what they are doing with Relics completely contradicts that.
• Lastly (I could go on forever but lets just leave it with this last bullet), we don’t receive enough information to know where to spend our money. I understand this on purpose to get people to spend money, but I simply can’t justify spending several hundred dollars on a character today, that may not even be meta tomorrow. Do you have any idea how angry people would be if they bought all those packs in the store and leveled up the Relics for DR and Malak, and General Anakin is released next week and the meta shifts? Additionally, I don’t even know which characters to focus on because we don’t have a sandbox mode. With the prices so high, even whales and Krakens are only going to level up Relics for a couple characters first. Which characters though? It’s anyone’s guess because we can’t do full testing. Imagine taking DR’s relic to 7 today, and tomorrow someone finds a Grievous team with a level 7 Relic that outperforms it on both offense and defense. Now I have to spend another couple hundred dollars for GG in order to remain competitive?
I absolutely love this game still. I want to keep playing but you’re forcing me to quit. You crossed a line where the content and price of that content just simply isn’t greater than the value. That line is different for everyone, but I have a feeling you crossed it for a LOT of people this time. You just went one step too far. I’d love to keep playing, I have the money to keep playing and remain competitive, but I simply can no longer justify it. Unless something changes in the next day or two, you just cost yourself at least $500.00 a month.
Unfortunately, Relics are going to force me to quit the game. I still love the game as much as I did when I first started playing, but the introduction of Relics simply crossed the line. Whereas before I felt I was getting value for the money I spent, I no longer feel that way. The money itself is not the issue. I can afford it. Here are few of the issues:
• Relics were released too close to G13. I have 27 G13, which is a lot compared to most people, but that’s not even close to making me feel like my roster is complete. I have a ton more characters I’d like to G13, but instead I now have to focus on level 7 Relics for certain characters.
• The stat gains from Relics are WAY too high. 80k health Nest? 11k damage DR? 225k+ Health Malak? It makes it an absolute requirement to obtain certain characters’ level 7 Relics to be competitive. This is not a new phenomenon, but its pushed it to the extreme. I’m watching videos of Grievous with a level 7 Relic one-shotting entire teams, including DR, on TURN ONE.
• The damage increases are not relative to the defensive increases. Going back to the previous bullet, I’ve seen GG one shot some of the tankiest of tanks on turn one.
• Speed just became even MORE important. If you have characters that can now one-shot entire teams or even just one-shot single characters on turn one, speed becomes even more important than it was previously (and it was all-important even before this).
• The price point is way to high compared to the value. We were discussing this in Discord earlier, and we (by we, I mean my guildmate, Ender) came up with a rough estimate that it will take anywhere from $360-$900 to take a single character from 0 to max (the variance depends on if you buy shards, packs, or farm the character). Emphasis on rough estimate. CG has always stressed that they want you to be able to utilize all of your characters, but what they are doing with Relics completely contradicts that.
• Lastly (I could go on forever but lets just leave it with this last bullet), we don’t receive enough information to know where to spend our money. I understand this on purpose to get people to spend money, but I simply can’t justify spending several hundred dollars on a character today, that may not even be meta tomorrow. Do you have any idea how angry people would be if they bought all those packs in the store and leveled up the Relics for DR and Malak, and General Anakin is released next week and the meta shifts? Additionally, I don’t even know which characters to focus on because we don’t have a sandbox mode. With the prices so high, even whales and Krakens are only going to level up Relics for a couple characters first. Which characters though? It’s anyone’s guess because we can’t do full testing. Imagine taking DR’s relic to 7 today, and tomorrow someone finds a Grievous team with a level 7 Relic that outperforms it on both offense and defense. Now I have to spend another couple hundred dollars for GG in order to remain competitive?
I absolutely love this game still. I want to keep playing but you’re forcing me to quit. You crossed a line where the content and price of that content just simply isn’t greater than the value. That line is different for everyone, but I have a feeling you crossed it for a LOT of people this time. You just went one step too far. I’d love to keep playing, I have the money to keep playing and remain competitive, but I simply can no longer justify it. Unless something changes in the next day or two, you just cost yourself at least $500.00 a month.
