"MasterSeedy;c-1737430" wrote:
@Leytuhas & @NoomiZ ... and @ anyone else who thinks this is terrible:
Are you kidding? This idea rewards investing in lots of diverse toons. Those players who have lots of good toons do better than those who have a few great toons if a couple of those great toons get excluded.
This rewards a different style of play than most play modes. But you get to play Arena every single day. If you like the few-great/meta-toons style of play, you still have Arena literally every freaking day.
I'm of the opinion that more styles of play need to be rewarded. Why? I think it's good business for EA/CG: it increases the fan base if players that prefer a different style of play get their time to shine, get their time to be valuable to their guild.
I'm dependable in my guild, but I don't finish top 3 tank. I have to work my tushy off to finish top 10 Sith (which I usually don't bother to do, because I have a family and other commitments). I also let my kids help me figure out which toons to work on because that creates a little bit of family fun every once in a while even if it means that chasing the meta is a bit harder for me. I've got a much more diverse roster than others in my guild, but I have a ton of g8-g10 toons where others have fewer toons total, but more at g12.
This takes me from dependable, but replaceable/expendable to - if the community vote goes hard against the meta - a key member of the guild.
It also, and I think this is more important than anything, will get people scrambling on guild chat to figure out what the best teams are that we can field without Toon X, Y, or Z.
it gets people talking to each other, maybe collaborating/cooperating a bit more. it gets people figuring out how to use their Sith when Traya is gone or their Resistance with no JTR. In short, the sudden absence of toons is going to have people trying to actively brainstorm new strategies, rather than relying on the same-old-same-old. Creativity! New teams! Trying out that dusty Droid squad! Yes!
The very, very hard part is that a good number of the people who worked hard to get the meta toons will feel cheated. That's sad. I wish that wouldn't happen, but you know that their are enough people investing in the meta that some people are going to feel that way.
But this doesn't make those toons useless. There are all kinds of places to use your meta toons - including in Arena every single day.
This is good for the game, it provides rewards for players who adopt strategies other than chasing the meta, and makes your less valuable guild members more valuable to your cooperative/community success.
Maybe you won't like it. Maybe you'll be one of the folks whose performance in TW drops. But there are a lot of players, and not all of us are meta-or-die. Not all of us are about individual success at the expense of others. Not all of us are only about competition.
This helps provide variety in our experience. It doesn't kill off meta toons. It doesn't make them useless. It just gives other toons - and possibly other players - a chance to come out from under the meta shadow and get their own chance to shine.
Spreading the wealth is a good thing for the 10 million fan player base, even if it's a design choice that doesn't boost your performance specifically.
I personally am on the record on these forums multiple times not advocating against the Arena or the phenomenon of meta toons, but for diversity in play modes. Creativity. Love for all the toons, not just a few.
I would never have predicted this, but I think this is a great experiment.
What it DOES do - however - is take people who spent money and time to get characters to a certain place (oftentimes specifically for TW) and now they may not be able to use those characters (or those team comps) based on the voting of a small, small percentage of the playerbase.
There will be a ton of people who don't read this forum that have no idea why they can't use a certain toon or not.
Also - this doesn't spread the wealth to most of the playerbase. The only people that benefit from this are people in smaller guilds who happen to have the toons that "make it in" geared up. Most of the people in higher guilds (like a lot of the people complaining) will have those toons geared regardless - so it won't matter.
EA Staff
Capital Games Team