The Meta and Arena Shards Punish Progress (Long post)
TL;DR Arena shards make progress (and rewards from progress) almost soley based on comparison to competitive peermates, and not actual progress. I make a team that is better than my old team, but I did it slower than my whale shard, I'm punished, not rewarded even though I made progress.
I wonder how many people are in my boat. So, I want to transition to a Sith team, or maybe a FO Team, anything that isnt my current wiggs+rex... but im behind my competition on them, and by the time I have those teams ready I know my arena shard will have moved on to the next meta, be that phoenix or whatever.
Lots of people complain about the meta, which tbh is a lot cooler than when I started (diversity wise) but there's the still the issue that while the meta includes a lot more teams, youre still not able to farm those teams before they lose their luster (unless youre a whale or an old vet player). And think about this: Maybe you farmed your FO team slowly due to your lack of gear, but I garauntee you you surely are building a team faster and a better team, than probably the majority of the playerbase. Yet your rank drops, and you lose progress!
What's the solution?
In addition to arena shards, which im not saying we need to get rid of, we need a game mode that compares us not to people who are always roughly equal, but the whole playerbase. Why does this solve chasing the meta? Because if you farm a non meta or soon to be outdated team... youre still making progress. If you farm krennic from shipments or R1 from chromiums right now, or are having problems gearing your sith, youre still making progress and your team is recognized as being stronger than it was before even though your rank and rewards dropped because of your shard. I think its important that we feel we make progress when we do progress-like things like buy characters, gear characters, level characters make new teams, even if our competitive peers are doing it faster. Its bizzare that we need to be so rigid in our character choice and gear farming or we actually lose progress (drop rank). We need to stop accepting this. In most games youre method of advancement does not consist entirely of comparison to equally or greater matched peers. Let us take things at a more flexible pace, and still have progress because we are still doing what the game is about: growing our roster.
I get it, the devs need to push their chromium/citadel packs which makes baze or krennic are a lot more enticing since your chaze/krooper arena relevancy lasts you months instead of a couple weeks. But id be a lot more willing to buy R1 from chromiums if it meant anything and wasnt just an outdated team. And I get arena rewarding strategic decisions and money spent. But we can have both. Something to reward hardcore competitors, and something to reward those who don't want to play that hardcore, but are still progressing. Dont punish progress!
And don't forget: We wouldnt need to chase the meta nearly as hard if we didnt have just arena shards. Wouldnt that be fun?
I wonder how many people are in my boat. So, I want to transition to a Sith team, or maybe a FO Team, anything that isnt my current wiggs+rex... but im behind my competition on them, and by the time I have those teams ready I know my arena shard will have moved on to the next meta, be that phoenix or whatever.
Lots of people complain about the meta, which tbh is a lot cooler than when I started (diversity wise) but there's the still the issue that while the meta includes a lot more teams, youre still not able to farm those teams before they lose their luster (unless youre a whale or an old vet player). And think about this: Maybe you farmed your FO team slowly due to your lack of gear, but I garauntee you you surely are building a team faster and a better team, than probably the majority of the playerbase. Yet your rank drops, and you lose progress!
What's the solution?
In addition to arena shards, which im not saying we need to get rid of, we need a game mode that compares us not to people who are always roughly equal, but the whole playerbase. Why does this solve chasing the meta? Because if you farm a non meta or soon to be outdated team... youre still making progress. If you farm krennic from shipments or R1 from chromiums right now, or are having problems gearing your sith, youre still making progress and your team is recognized as being stronger than it was before even though your rank and rewards dropped because of your shard. I think its important that we feel we make progress when we do progress-like things like buy characters, gear characters, level characters make new teams, even if our competitive peers are doing it faster. Its bizzare that we need to be so rigid in our character choice and gear farming or we actually lose progress (drop rank). We need to stop accepting this. In most games youre method of advancement does not consist entirely of comparison to equally or greater matched peers. Let us take things at a more flexible pace, and still have progress because we are still doing what the game is about: growing our roster.
I get it, the devs need to push their chromium/citadel packs which makes baze or krennic are a lot more enticing since your chaze/krooper arena relevancy lasts you months instead of a couple weeks. But id be a lot more willing to buy R1 from chromiums if it meant anything and wasnt just an outdated team. And I get arena rewarding strategic decisions and money spent. But we can have both. Something to reward hardcore competitors, and something to reward those who don't want to play that hardcore, but are still progressing. Dont punish progress!
And don't forget: We wouldnt need to chase the meta nearly as hard if we didnt have just arena shards. Wouldnt that be fun?
