SWGOH State of play
Hello. I'm writing this as a ten year veteran of the game. This is the opinion of a player who has seen the game change, not the opinion of any streamer or YouTuber.
Like many players I've seen SWGOH evolve over the years, with CG making some questionable changes and favorable changes.
Currently it feels like the game is in a spiral of bad choices by the devs. Each one impacting players in various ways from the whalers to the f2p. All affect alike.
Raids - there was once a time we could run all legacy raids simultaneously. That was taken away from us. Gear was replaced with currency, currency, while this was a fairer system for guild members ultimately it impacted the guild by slowing everyone's progress down according to the weakest members abilities in each raid.
Raid style - we went from a four phase legacy raid which required strategy and team testing to a glorified cutscene with specific teams/factions being eligible.
Raid currencies - as mentioned hindered guilds by reducing their spending power on gear according the weakest members ability overall. Mark 3 currency being moved strictly to the newest raid (glorified cut scenes) forcing interaction with the newest of bad content. Every time a new raid has been released, the mk3 currency has been gradually reduced per crate tier compared to previous raid tiers. As a knock of effect raid omnicrons become a irrelevant and pointless investment for players.
Relics - when relics was first released and relic7 was announced, it was advertised with characters unlocking a new ability once achieving this milestone. Content that was announced and quickly forgotten, essentially promised and not delivered. Instead they was replaced with a piece of content that is very annoying overal... datacrones.
Omnicrons - while this was a great addition to the game, what is the point is having them for pve content like raids when the raid will become irrelevant or conquests when there has been no new omnicron additions to expand on this to make them useful let alone desirable. Carth being the only character I can think of that has a conquest omnicron. What is this point in having them for pve. Wasted investment overall.
Marquee characters - currently we are being flooded with marquees. Why? To push era coloseum interaction. Characters that could of easily been used as a new galactic legend or galactic confrontation event. Missed opportunities across the board. Maul(hate fueled) and the new darth vader being a prime example. Could this be a missed opportunity due desperation in player drop off or a missed opportunity created by greed, greed that has seen YouTubers publicly declaring they will no longer be whaling on new content.
Datacrons - yet more content we are forced to interact with regardless of how we view it. Failure to utilise datacrons means you become cannon fodder for you opponent in either grand arena or territory wars. A piece of content that whether you invest in using your wallet or your f2p farmed crystal, content that you will loose. A piece of content that should be optional in pvp, a simple QoL update allowing guilds and players to decide whether we would like to utilise datacrons or not, a simple switch would solve this.
Era coloseum - this had the potential to be a raid revival, the coloseum is more of a raid than any of the cut scene raids we have recieved. The issue lays in the fact we are only able to utilise the era marquees and not our own teams in a separate tab, another issue being that we cannot interact with the coloseum as a guild either. A raid that had ever changing potential, with randomly rotating bosses each day including legacy raid bosses. Instead we received a raid designed out of complacency.
Grand arena - once had cycling conditions enticing an ever changing battlefield. This was replaced with datacrons and omnicros. This can be fixed by retuning board conditions such as specific factions allowed or not per zone, GLs allowed or not per zone. Giving us the ability to decide if we wish to be matchmaked with other players while using datacrons or not.
Territory wars - the higher up the GP brackets your guild ventures, the more likely you are to be flooded with opponents creating GL walls, datacron walls. There is no creativity in defence placement any longer. To fix this we should be limited to a set number of GLs per zone, set number of duplicate teams per zone. Matchmaking should take into account whether as a guild you want to use datacrons or not.
Sandbox - for a long time players have wanted a sandbox mode, somewhere we can pvp live with another player in our guild (with no reward system) just a place to test teams against eachother. A place to test teams in PvE situations and event make ups (no reward system) giving is a place to freely utilise our rosters and assess improvements.
Level cap - for too long we have been stuck with level 85. Yes we got a gear cap, yes we got a relic cap. But with every major update we could of received a new +5 level cap. Why CG decided 85 was good enough instead of 100 or 150 is beyond me.
Fleets - with all the marquee characters being rushed out for era, fleets are still in a condition of most being incomplete or two many capital ships for its available faction.
False advertisement - in Google play there was trailers (no idea if they are still there) that depicted commander tano countering droids blaster fire with saber deflections, we saw kenobi counting general grievous with saber clashes. No such mechanics exist in GoH.
As a result of all these decisions and more by CG has resulted in players deciding the game is no longer for them. Many players out right quiting or simply patiently hoping and praying CG see the error of their ways while slowly loosing moral and desire to continue playing. Like everyone I've loved this game from day one, this being said there is alot that CG needs to accept and change when it comes to what players like rather than forcing us to interact with terrible content which provides a false feedback loop fueling more bad decisions.
Things need to change otherwise we might see the death of a game many of us enjoy and many of us are struggling to maintain the desire to play. We all love starwars, we all have factions we love and hate. But can SWGOH continue in its current state?
