Ships 2.0 5/22/18 [Mega]

"DarthRevanTheWise;c-1557700" wrote:
Before anything else, I want to thank the developers for trying to make things better! I know we are customers (paying customers for many of us) and that it's a business, but it's also a passion for the players and for many - if not all - of the developers, not just a job for most of them. I want the game to thrive and keep giving fun to all its passionate players

But I agree with many that the ship 2.0 update is likely working against making the game better... I guess one of the best summary I've read so far is that the update made ships not enjoyable anymore for many of those who enjoyed ships before and no more enjoyable for those who didn't enjoy ships before

As someone who enjoyed a lot ships since I came back to the game a bit more than 18 months ago, I am not a fan at all of the ship update - like many others and like all of the players I'm in touch in my ship arena shards and 95% of the players in my group of guilds. There are around the 400 players overall in the guild coalition, and only 2-3 said they enjoy ships because they had never invested in ships before and that now they are on the same level than those who heavily invested, all the others that spoke out said they are not fan at all of ships 2.0....
I was used to play 5-10 ship battles everyday, even after my payout when I had some battles left for fun (I know when everyone in my top ship arena payout have their payouts so I could easily have fun without messing with anyone's payout). And honestly ship battles were fast for anyone that invested enough in them and I didn't have much problem with RNG 95% of the time once I made my pilots all G12 (G12.5 for some as I wanted to fully play ships) (ok, a very few times RNG could make a fight very unbalanced, but most of the times I was able to work around)!I get it that battles could last long early in the game or for those who didn't really invested in ships.

Here is my list of pros and cons from the update... the cons winning largely

PROS:
1) The Ship battle PvE table is very likely going to be a very nice addition
2) reinforcement abilities (very nice idea even if it means we will need to collect new rare materials and choose wisely were to use it, I'm totally fine with the idea, it's the same than with zeta for characters)
3) new synergies (for exemple the idea of a strong synergy between geonosians! we already had some strong synergies, but that makes a lot of sense to work toward more synergies fleets)

CONS:

1) lack of diversity in arena will likely get even worse
Sure a lot of complex skills, but once people figure out what is the best fleet, diversity may exist only as long as people need to gear the pilots of that best fleet. Then everyone will run the same Capital ship & 3+5 ships

2) The unfairness of the update that really tell players who have invested in ships that now they are on the same level than those who just ignored ships!

2.1: the nerf of ships we have worked on only for ship battles
Some nerf I can accept there may have been no other solution... I love reaper (I have him 7* and both pilots G12+), but I can agree about the need to nerf him... and at least Shore and DeathTrooper are amazing in other areas of the game (Dark TB, TB, TW at least, DT in Sith Raid P3 in the Chex Mix Team) so I feel... "ok" about the nerf of reaper.
But other nerfs are far worse in my opinion! I've geared Empire Tie pilot for exemple to G12.5 only because of his ship! Except in TW in back-up squad, I've never used him anywhere else... So I just feel sad about his nerf... seeing new ships or reworked ships that can beat him? Fine, it's sane to bring some changes. That said, I've never had any issue to kill an empire ship on offense... I was just using Vader or Poe most of the time, or keeping him for the end.

2.2:the unfair big equalizer move
The way the things have been done just give the feeling to all the players I've talking to that the update is just a very big equalizer... you have invested a lot in the ships 1.0 ? you have not invested at all in ships? don't worry, you will all be on the same level now, everyone can beat everyone / everyone can struggle a lot against everyone till you work on the new meta ships that none have ever worked on. I only know one player who have all Geonosians at G12 and their ships 7* for exemple but he also has 4 million GP and every characters at 7* and at least G12 (except Wampa and Hoda for the moment), so yes, everyone starts from scratch basically...
I would have loved to see new ships released or some factions reworked like when CG reworked the Nightsisters... in that case, people who invested in ships would still had their advantage over those who ignored ships (which is 100% fair!) and then everyone would have had to choose between working on the new good ships or to prepare to not be competitive again in the future. But with the update? Everyone is instantly on the same level! and that is 100% unfair in my opinion...

MY SUGGESTIONS:
1) back to 5 starting ships, because more ships allow just more diversity and is likely less RNG-dependent (and also because in my opinion more ships is just more fun!). To keep the reinforcement ability to be meaningful, I would allow to call a 6th ship immediately, no need to wait for one of its ships to be destroyed. So like now we can call a reinforcement while having 3 ships alive, we would be able to call a reinforcement while having 5 ships alive
2) keep working on making very strong synergy between ships like the devs did for the geonosians, no problem with reworks on underused ships (because then no one has an instant advantage, except those who already geared these underused ships because they like them). Ideally the aim would be to find a way to make different highly synergized fleets that are evenly powerful. I would love to see one day that one could play Geo/separatist fleet or Galatic Republic fleet or Empire fleet or FO fleet or Resistance fleet or Sith fleet (that one relying on KOTOR addition for exemple). Each fleet would be highly synergized and as potent as another so players could just choose what kind of fleet they want to run.
3) introduce new diverse ships / capital ships

What I will do? well... I will likely keep working on ships and hope things get better in the future... and work on the new meta (whatever it can be)
I'm not expecting to find as much fun as before, but I find the idea of playings with ships one of the best thing in the game! So stopping going hard in ships would mean deleting the game for me... not my plan in the foreseeable future at all

Let's have faith in the Force! Looking forward to seeing Ships 3.0 and now time to gear the geonosians I guess :(