Things I think need to be addressed.

I think there are some valid points about balance in the OP.

But a couple of points:

1. Devs I think are doing a good job of getting away from single team meta lemming chase in arena. It's an ongoing project, so far it's working. Multiple developed teams can easily take out JTR. You either have a single team dominant, which makes arena stale and boring and in turn makes the game boring because everybody is farming the same 5 things or you have defensive tradeoffs, which in turn make shards more competive, which in turn means it takes more time to secure spots. You can't have both. Categorically it is impossible. Do you want to be on the lemming path or do you want competitive arenas? If there is a singular team that ftp can easily access *everyone* will have it, how are you going to get top 10 rewards if everyone has it unless you are in one of those shards where a cabal of players conspire to protect a daily, rotating reward order - and how is that even a game?

2. I like playing a lot every day. Nobody says anyone else has to. Why should somebody be able to log on for ten minutes and beat me at things? You want a game designed so a small time investment can yield you top rewards? How does that work - what about the tens of thousands of other players who could also invest their small amount of time - do you really think you would be MORE likely to compete effectively in such a system? You wouldn't. It would be even more pointless for ftp.

"Peempo;c-1424898" wrote:

"Atrreyu;c-1424857" wrote:
Dude quit crying. I'm f2p and am top 20 in arena and I can assure you I run the most unconventional team. Yeah I don't have JTR, but I run with what I have and make the best of it. They want people to spend real money on that type of toons. So if you don't oh well, but crying in the forums won't help your cause. If you're f2p it's best to come to terms that you probably won't get things the first time around. Make peace with that and you'll have fun, the latter is you sulking here on the forums. Savvy

Where is he crying? He's stating legitimate issues with the game, namely having to dedicate 2 infrequent hours daily to arena payouts in order to stay competitive. Add to that the time investment required in tb, and tw.

The point he's clearly making is if you want to remain competitive with your ROSTER it requires a good 3 hrs of game play a day. At the worst and most busy rl times of the day.

I share a shard with yarrg and he's one of the best f2p players I've encountered, so it's not a matter of him "not doing it right", it's just clear cut game issues that he's illustrated.

If it were as clear cut as you say there wouldn t be any argument from anyone yet here we are.

Hello Yarrg, I think you just joined my guild - GotW Relentless!

That aside, I understand the pain of having to commit crazy hours to this game. 2 hours for arena is already mad and that is assuming you have to pay close attention at your last hit, 10 minutes before payout so that nobody bumps you/you can lock your position.

That aside, I don't see it improving any time soon, especially when arena meta is going to be dynamic, if it wasn't already.

"Yarrg;c-1424844" wrote:

"Zombie961;c-1424842" wrote:
That super tight, gotta make time for arena thing I notice is really only for top 20. The most dedicated. Nightsisters hard counter most everything and are good defense, and three hours? I can do my dailies in less than 10 minutes, GW even on manual is less than 20. Events are less than 10. Raids are as much time as you put into them. Only thing left is TB/TW which the former is roughly half an hour or so. The latter maybe an hour at worst. And both of which give you a full 24 hours to do them

To clarify, 3 hours includes an hour each for arena and ship arena. To get top 5, which is really needed to keep up with toon and gear farming for endgame content, that's what is needed. Then an hour for everything else including GW, daily stuff, events, and TB / TW.

You don't need to rank top—5 in both fleet and squad arena to keep up. Depending on your rank drop you don't need 5 battles every day. Some days you can manage with 4 or even 3.
Do your dailies, GW, challenges etc. in between arena battles.

You can auto pit raids (it only takes a minute to initiate). You can take turns in your guild by letting onnly the top 10 ranking at check—in do the actual raids.

I would like to see arena payouts changed to the highest rank you achieve that day. Yes this may sound like, "everyone is a winner" but think about of it this way. If at any time people can claim the first place prize, everyone will be fighting to ensure they get there at some point in the day. Whereas with payouts you need to time your attacks within a certain window and if you can't attack in that window you are praying you don't get bumped too far down.

"Yarrg;c-1424858" wrote:
Not whining, not complaining. Suggesting that the tuning is off if they want to keep large numbers interested.

Here’s the thing...

That’s your assessment based on your own personal experiences with this game. EA has the data available from every player of this game.

Do you really think that they don’t analyze it constantly to see how different changes affect their key metrics?

Don’t you think that if their data supported your assessment that they would have changed something long ago to maximize their own revenues from the game?

"Yarrg;c-1424869" wrote:
I'm in my shard's line chat, been working with them for over a year. Great people, and we do what we can to defend each other. But the opportunity to purchase JRey allowed 50 more people to climb up into the top 10 that hadn't necessarily been grinding and strategizing over the long term...they just ran the credit card instead.

No one here is crying. I'm just pointing out that the binary option to buy JRey or not get her was the first time in this game that the top of arena has been strongly impacted by the f2p-p2p divide.

And here we have the true reason behind your comment. And this logic is flawed. You have no idea if the newcomers with Rey just 'bought' her or were actually strategizing and grinding as you've been. It wasn't hard to figure out what her requirements were going to be, and if you've been a First Order fan, then you probably had everything but the vets and just needed to farm them. With a comment like this, it sounds more like you just got apathetic and expected your payout to be easy and now that it's not and you have to work for it again, you're a little frosty. You can say you just want a dialog, but you want other forum members to validate your position and agree with how wronged you've been by these dastardly P2W'ers.

I content that CLS was far more disruptive to arena than Rey has been. If anything, Rey has cleared out some of the GK / Zarris teams.

I got CLS, got started far too late on FO to get Rey, and drop all the way to 21 or *gasp* 25 sometimes before I start the climb back up to 1 or 2. Our shard chat actually welcomed in a bunch of new players right before Rey and, I don't know about you all, she doesn't seem to hold on defense.

"jcrandall2178;c-1424960" wrote:

"Peempo;c-1424930" wrote:
Exactly. Every shards different, that's why dismissing his gripes outright is just ignorant lol

Laugh all you want. But his whiny butt is quitting the game. While tons of other people make it work.

Quitting a game which important enough for him to make posts on not one, but two message boards.

Best part. Nobody cares. Just gives me entertainment while the commercials are on. Gonna go get my payment with Rey now. Have a good night.

Why are you beeing so snarky and condescending?
I'm not trying to flame you, just curious as to why you find this behaviour an ok way of communicating?

This goes basicly very often to everyone defending the status quo when people sugest something other than the current status qou.