Retrospect: Ships 2.0

So its been a year since Ships were revamped and Ships 2.0 launched, taking away the 5v5 format for the sake of more enjoyable, and faster, engaging fleet battles

I'm interested in hearing everyone's opinions on Ships 2.0 after a year, I enjoyed 5v5 ships, so I was skeptical of the 3v3 change but I like ships so I gave it an unbiased open-minded approach

And I think its worse than it was before. I liked the 5v5 format more, because you are utilizing your ships as a team. I find support ships more useful and versatile, such as Kylo Ren's Command Shuttle. In 3v3, its basically first one to focus fire and take out a ship wins. When it initially came out, it was just kill a ship first and then win 4v2. The other mistake of 3v3 was to release Hounds Tooth 2-3 months later, soon after Ships 2.0 debuted. By the time you were done gearing your bugs, it was no longer meta

With 5v5, there are ways to go around this ship, but in 3v3, even after 10 months after its release, its still a giant sore thumb that ruined the fleet arena. Relying on gimmick tactics like Reinforcements aren't as interesting as the developers made them out to be. One year later and things feel very limited and narrow. The battles are long, boring, and you hardly can utilize your entire ship fleet.

Meta Review:

1. Ships 2.0 launches with a Geo ships meta -- Biggs + TIE Advanced + TFP as an alternate meta fleet with TIE Reaper (old meta), Either Tarkin or Thrawn Capital Ship
2. Hounds Tooth + 2 ships or Geo ships
3. Mace Windu time out meta. Yeah, remember avoiding boring long fleet battles in favor of faster, more engaging fleets? (Mace capital ship)
4. Rebels RNG Meta (Ackbar lead; Current meta)

Previously, to be top end, you would need about 8 top end ships, but now you need to focus on 5 ships and rely two of those starting ships

I also think that with the big emphasis on ships, CG missed a great opportunity in introducing more capital ships with 2.0's launch, such as the popular Resistance and First Order faction, an era lacking capital ships

Ultra's final rating: 2.2/5.0

EDIT: The low rating is mostly for how stale fleet battles have been. I still like ships, and I think we need more diversity + content for it to be fun again

ships

97 Replies

eddiemundie
6 years ago
Yes, ships 2.0 is horrible. It could have been balanced by making it a 4-ship start instead of the current 3-ship starting. Speed matters so much now, and non-meta fleets generally stand no chance of winning. Even with a meta fleet, bad rng and u instantly lose (50% assist on assist on assit?)
Devian_Ers
Seasoned Ace
6 years ago
I said it before, I'll say it again:
Real trouble is durable meta.
It matters not if it's 5v5, 3v3, 4v4, 6v6.
As long at there are meta units which purpose is to withstand any damage - there won't be any fun.
Right now there's no difference between 3v3 and 5v5. (Though the more units there are on board - the more versatile battle is)
I think devs made 3v3 simply to ease their own life with testing.
P.S Mace's ship rework was horrible
hantal86
6 years ago
Ships has so much potential but we’re now seeing so little variety it’s dull
eddiemundie
6 years ago
To add on, the lack of capital ships is annoying. It’s annoying that in TW i can on average place 1 on D and win 2-3 battles (against falcons) with spare ships, but cant do anything thereafter because i only have 4 capitals
Ikky2win
6 years ago
3v3 also pretty much neutered the ultimate ability of capital ships. Or perhaps it’s was falcon. I’m not sure but I haven’t used an ultimate ability on a capital ship in quite some time. Fights never last even remotely close to that long. In some ways that’s good because it means fights are going faster, but in other ways it’s bad because you took away the big ultimate ability.
NasRegal
Rising Adventurer
6 years ago
I like ships.
I've liked them from the beginning and still like them now.
I do agree that we need more capitol ships though.
And as I like ships, it's be nice to get more ships, although avoid the Revan trap, not everything has to beat the Falcon on release, just help a faction become stronger and as a group, take down the Falcon.
Sometimes.
Armaturbatyr
6 years ago
I liked ships. But ship 2.0 was a real garbage.
Good things:
- reinforcements was a great feature, something to think about
Bad things:
- 3v3 instead of 5v5 made battle much much less entertaining and sufficiently lowered diversity of fleets. There is only one. Or you out of 50. How did they think that would be more entertaining I simply do not know.
- Omegas. They are sooooo pain in the neck. Worse, either you have them on a ship, or it is ended with t, not p. And you need tons of them. Even for a single ship. With changing meta (like from geos to falcon). That is not fun at all.
so, nah, my rate is 2 out of 5 just because of reinforcements.
pulsehammer
6 years ago
100% disagree aside from the need for new capital ships. Love ships 2.0 -- it introduced far more diversity and strategy into fleet Time for the dinosaurs to evolve or go extinct. :)
Legend91x
6 years ago
5v5 was more strategic, 3v3 is all about DPS push (geos were amazing at that) and the ridiculous tank ship soaking it all up (HT). While 3v3 definitely is amazing when it comes down to saving time with that HMF lineup I'm quite worried what the future meta is going to deliver because either it's going to be "insta-kill" stuff or a new "Nest" ship (inb4 Malak being transformed into a ship with his drain life feature...) with pretaunt.
DarthBrob
6 years ago
I love ships as it currently stands. In my experience battles are 2-3 minutes (i rank top 5 every day and can beat any squad in my shard, all of which are maxed) and its 50/50 if we need to use ackbars ultimate or not.

The falcon is incredibly easy to beat with another Falcon, even weaker and slower than the AI, and HT is also very easily beatable with or without falcon with old as dirt non paywall ships.

If opponent has both then you do probably need one or the other, but it has been more than enough time to unlock the tooth as F2P so idk what to tell you if you don't have it.

We do need more capital ships, and we could use a little rock paper scissors (bugs-BH-rebels) for diversity but otherwise ships is the best part of the game right now for fight mechanics.