The Whale is Facing Extinction

"WompWompRat;c-1113539" wrote:
I guess you can call me a whale/kraken whatever - but here's my 2 cents on the game since I started back in late Dec (really early Jan was when I started putting in more real time in SWGOH).

Disposable income variance aside, I personally agree that in the beginning it was fun to simply try and figure out the mechanics of the game, who are the best toons to go with each other and work my way up the arena ladder. One of the advantages of being a whale is simply having the ability to pivot and adapt more quickly than my FTP peers. Case in point, I always rode on the back of dark side characters for the first few months, but in the last month I was able to quickly change direction to max out Chaze, Cassian, Jyn, Wiggs etc - and that's always a nice advantage. It's great to be able to get DN, SA, ST quickly. It was fun to be able to get Ashoka maxed out of the gate. But I have to agree that there are only so many advantages of being a whale. A few months ago it was great to have the shiny new toy and run DN + my sith toons to the top of arena. Being able to acquire great mods without extensive farming is also nice. But that advantage goes away over time. Now DN is everywhere and that advantage is gone. As a whale, it's easy to say, oh Zaul is done, now let's just max out Rex quickly and vice versa - but there are still limitations like the omega/zeta ability mat bottleneck that keep whales from going all out when there are so many characters to mix up in the universe.

What I think EA/CG needs to do is if they want to continue to make the game worthwhile for whales or long time FTP players - this game simply needs more to do. Sure, they can pull a doozy and just raise the level caps or mods levels so it lures more whales to buy that competitive advantage, but I frankly think it's just punting over the real issue and that there needs to be more variety and additional game modes to give the whales and long time FTP players more reason to use their toons (and in turn, go and chase or buy whatever to fill their completionist desires).

From my perspective, fleet is getting old. It's taking forever to get the newer ships into the fleet store and into circulation. I invest in my ships just because I want zeta materials. It's not particularly fun for me to be honest, but that's just me.

As for arena, sure it was fun to be untouchable for 4 months on a young shard, but at 85 and after a couple more months after that, it's clear my shard has evolved into a place where most good players (whale or not) can win on offense. The only "whale" thing to do at this point is to either buy more/better mods or maybe gear up some other interesting toons. However, the limited amount of toons that are truly viable in the arena sense kind of makes that moot. Even though I have $ to spend, there's not reason to spend it on a whole new faction (which most whales have anyway) if the end result is the same. Like yesterday a guy ran a full Empire faction for the first time in my top 5 and did quite well. I can see him beating my various arena setups, but at the same time it was easy to beat him back. So there's really no point in me trying to emulate his team (even though I have the same toons leveled up the same way, but with way better mods). There's really no point to spend more if as a whale I already have the stable of meta toons and at the endgame there's no point in buying stuff wholesale if the outcome isn't going to be impacted by defense.

So my feeling is, I agree that this game isn't driven by the whale community (however big or small they are). It's a collective of big, medium and little fish that keep the game funding. 1000 people who spend $5 a day still add up big time and I'd be just as cognizant about making the game relevant for those people as people like me who don't care about dropping more money. That's why I can see why there's probably a reluctance to raise level caps etc. But my belief is if we're going to be in this business quagmire, at the very least take an active role in creating more modes for people to play with.

I'd love to see things like a horde mode when you take a squad as far as you can and get some daily or weekly rewards for it.

It'd be great to have some form of guild arena wars.

Would be nice to maybe have some 3 v 3 modes, because that would mix things up and change the dynamics of those battles.

Or having a different setup where how you position your arena toons will impact how much damage they take. Etc.

I think that'd be a better way to keep the community happy, the cash flowing and allow for the game to continue evolving before things get too stagnant ... and not making the toons that don't make a fundamental change to the way the game plays (since DN) feel like a wash.

I do agree that the game needs more content. Evidently, the developers agree as they are going to be announcing some on Saturday.

But I also think that the amount of time to obtain most of the daily rewards available should also stay the same or preferably go down, as much of the player base is already fatigued. So they should also introduce QOL improvements.

And sadly, I do think their model is whale driven (although I would classify someone who spends $5 per day as a whale). If it wasn't, they would dramatically decrease prices and increase user satisfaction.

I do however think their is another kind of whale who doesn't have as much of a voice on the forums but is still important to their business model- the kind that spends a few hundred dollars and quits within a few months. I say this because I don't see enough big rostered whales in the game to account for much of the estimated $200 million this game has raked in, and because an infographic provided by a consulting firm stated that the average mobile game whale played for 40 days and spent around $350.