Road Ahead Blog
Should March have been a road ahead blog? They’ve mentioned those would be quarterly updates and the last one we had was 11/20.
Forum Discussion
@Wraith_Squadron
The last new content I noticed that i would call new content was the Advanced Fleet Mastery events, and before that the GeoTBs.
I think the challenge tiers count as new content for some, but not for others. I think that I saw someone point out that the actually strategies & bosses involved aren't different - so it's harder, but not "new" to those people. On the other hand, a challenge tier didn't exist and now it does, so it's "new"...it's just not new content because the contents aren't new, only the stats of the enemies are new.
I think in the most technical, nit-picky way you can parse it, the challenge tiers count as new content, but they aren't what players have been looking or asking for.
Now, the GLs might count. With the ticket system, however that works, this might be like a personal raid (an idea suggested here many times), with more shards each repeat. If it's a one time event, it will be new content for a couple hours, then t will be over and irrelevant. So I tend to believe that the GLs will be new content, but still not satisfy the player hunger for new things to do. After all, we who comment on the forum almost certainly play this game 6+ days a week on average, week after week, and for many of us year after year. A couple hours is a tiny drop in a large bucket. So I'm hoping that it's more a personal raid that grants 10 shards at a time.
But even assuming that's true, it only becomes "content" once its unlocked. Gearing up characters isn't "content" and we won't get to play that GL stuff for a long time, most of us. 12 new g13 toons means dropping g13 on half again as many toons as I have g13'd already, and how long have we had g13/relics now? A year? So we're talking about 6 months for me. R7 is even worse. And we can't begin to collect tickets until we have those multiple toons at r7.
So, sure, new content, but if the vast majority of the player base can't access it, then it's not actually new content for them until such time as it actually becomes available.
This is also the mystery that is LS Geo TB: Yep. It's definitely new content, but for most people it's not playable. DS Geo seems to be the sweet spot for my roster. I actually lost an Acklay battle last time - the first time in a long time, but it was because I wasn't taking my strategy seriously enough and suddenly got hit by 3 quick AoEs from 2 Jedi and the Acklay. It was actually good - nothing's automatic. I never get more than one 4/4 win in p4. There's room for growth, but I'm still having fun playing and feeling like I'm accomplishing something.
LS Geo is different. Once I hit p3 I no longer feel like I'm accomplishing anything. And I'm a bit over 5M. It took me a long time to get to 4M, and I would have been instantly toasted with my 4M roster. So that's not new content for those people. It's content-in-waiting.
And that's good. That's fine. I don't complain about that, even if I have more fun with DS Geo. But it's different from a new raid or new game mode that's recurring - not a couple hours once and then forget it, like Epic Confrontations, or an event I can't play because I can't qualify for it.
So people will still hunger for new things to actually spend time playing. And you can quibble over the definition of New Content (I do, I've told people that they're being silly by saying the LS Geo TB isn't new content), but at bottom this isn't about meeting a definition. This is about giving players new things to do.
GL isn't going to do that for the vast majority of people. Only Geo TB has done that, but Geo TB is only around half the time, and the difficulty levels are so different, it's hard to imagine that the people kicking LS are having much fun with DS, and the people who are seriously challenged but beating a lot of encounters and having fun in DS meeting those challenges aren't going to be having much fun in LS. So for a lot of us, that means that the fun part of Geo TB is only around 1/4 of the time.
I'll probably keep playing with or without new content at least through end of September, but every fall and winter things get busy and I wonder if it's time to quit. If I think about that, then surely other serious players also think about quitting. And so we ask for the things that are going to make the game more engaging, make us less likely to quit (since we can't read others' minds and tell CG what would work for others). For most of us chatting about it on the forum, that seems to be something new and interesting that engages the brain. Something that's available much more often than one week a month. Something that requires new strategies and rewards new team compositions. Maybe (although this isn't required) something that is truly new and different (the rumored vehicle combat mode, for instance).
So when people talk about wanting "new content" even though you and I know that we've gotten new things like challenge tiers and Advanced Fleet Mastery events that last a few minutes once every week or two, what they're really be likely to be asking for is something like what I described in that last paragraph.
The last new content I noticed that i would call new content was the Advanced Fleet Mastery events, and before that the GeoTBs.
I think the challenge tiers count as new content for some, but not for others. I think that I saw someone point out that the actually strategies & bosses involved aren't different - so it's harder, but not "new" to those people. On the other hand, a challenge tier didn't exist and now it does, so it's "new"...it's just not new content because the contents aren't new, only the stats of the enemies are new.
I think in the most technical, nit-picky way you can parse it, the challenge tiers count as new content, but they aren't what players have been looking or asking for.
Now, the GLs might count. With the ticket system, however that works, this might be like a personal raid (an idea suggested here many times), with more shards each repeat. If it's a one time event, it will be new content for a couple hours, then t will be over and irrelevant. So I tend to believe that the GLs will be new content, but still not satisfy the player hunger for new things to do. After all, we who comment on the forum almost certainly play this game 6+ days a week on average, week after week, and for many of us year after year. A couple hours is a tiny drop in a large bucket. So I'm hoping that it's more a personal raid that grants 10 shards at a time.
But even assuming that's true, it only becomes "content" once its unlocked. Gearing up characters isn't "content" and we won't get to play that GL stuff for a long time, most of us. 12 new g13 toons means dropping g13 on half again as many toons as I have g13'd already, and how long have we had g13/relics now? A year? So we're talking about 6 months for me. R7 is even worse. And we can't begin to collect tickets until we have those multiple toons at r7.
So, sure, new content, but if the vast majority of the player base can't access it, then it's not actually new content for them until such time as it actually becomes available.
This is also the mystery that is LS Geo TB: Yep. It's definitely new content, but for most people it's not playable. DS Geo seems to be the sweet spot for my roster. I actually lost an Acklay battle last time - the first time in a long time, but it was because I wasn't taking my strategy seriously enough and suddenly got hit by 3 quick AoEs from 2 Jedi and the Acklay. It was actually good - nothing's automatic. I never get more than one 4/4 win in p4. There's room for growth, but I'm still having fun playing and feeling like I'm accomplishing something.
LS Geo is different. Once I hit p3 I no longer feel like I'm accomplishing anything. And I'm a bit over 5M. It took me a long time to get to 4M, and I would have been instantly toasted with my 4M roster. So that's not new content for those people. It's content-in-waiting.
And that's good. That's fine. I don't complain about that, even if I have more fun with DS Geo. But it's different from a new raid or new game mode that's recurring - not a couple hours once and then forget it, like Epic Confrontations, or an event I can't play because I can't qualify for it.
So people will still hunger for new things to actually spend time playing. And you can quibble over the definition of New Content (I do, I've told people that they're being silly by saying the LS Geo TB isn't new content), but at bottom this isn't about meeting a definition. This is about giving players new things to do.
GL isn't going to do that for the vast majority of people. Only Geo TB has done that, but Geo TB is only around half the time, and the difficulty levels are so different, it's hard to imagine that the people kicking LS are having much fun with DS, and the people who are seriously challenged but beating a lot of encounters and having fun in DS meeting those challenges aren't going to be having much fun in LS. So for a lot of us, that means that the fun part of Geo TB is only around 1/4 of the time.
I'll probably keep playing with or without new content at least through end of September, but every fall and winter things get busy and I wonder if it's time to quit. If I think about that, then surely other serious players also think about quitting. And so we ask for the things that are going to make the game more engaging, make us less likely to quit (since we can't read others' minds and tell CG what would work for others). For most of us chatting about it on the forum, that seems to be something new and interesting that engages the brain. Something that's available much more often than one week a month. Something that requires new strategies and rewards new team compositions. Maybe (although this isn't required) something that is truly new and different (the rumored vehicle combat mode, for instance).
So when people talk about wanting "new content" even though you and I know that we've gotten new things like challenge tiers and Advanced Fleet Mastery events that last a few minutes once every week or two, what they're really be likely to be asking for is something like what I described in that last paragraph.
