Undersized squad flag rewards

I personally like the differece in score between first and second time attempts.

Setting defenses that won't allow your opponent to get max score for protection bonus or one that can potentially make them trip on a team even if they beat it afterwards is all part of the strategy.

I think it’s more that if you make one mistake, then no matter what you do, you can’t make up for it.
I like being inventive with my offence, while trying to leave something on defence which will be interesting to face.
If I get inventive but get it wrong then I might as well just stop there and then.
There’s no reward for experimentation. I don’t mind the big reward for getting it right first time, but make it at least numerically plausible/possible to recover?

That's what the choices you make in your Defensive setup does for you, it gives you the option to recover by putting in place a Defense that your opponent will struggle with or underestimate - If you choose to go completely experimental on both Offence & Defence then you are choosing to increase your risk of defeat while also gaining experience on those encounters and rolling the dice on potentially getting high banner wins with your experiments.
Part of the game is making good judgements on whether you can beat a particular enemy squad with the squad you are putting in against it, whether that is a full squad or an under-sized one, and people should be rewarded for getting that judgement call right and not for getting it wrong.

As an example in my current GAC matchup I thought I had a low chance of success so I went a bit more experimental on Defence in an attempt to keep slightly more options for Offence. I then made a misjudgement on one of the enemy squads and took 2 attempts to beat it...but one of my experimental defensive squads also took my opponent 2 attempts to beat and because my other battles were reasonably well judged and I'd saved 1 extra strong offensive squad I managed a 6-banner victory.
Some tactics, some judgement, some experiments, and of course some luck too - it's not all about the 1st time victory, it's about the overall approach you take and then sometimes relying on your Defence to help you out.

You usually can't directly "recover" from offense alone, but this just highlights the importance of defensive teams.

When you are matched against someone, try to analyze their rosters a bit, try to guess what they would use for defense, what teams do they need to counter yours and so on.

There's always room for experimetation, but if you risk failing on offense due to trying out new teams, you need to aim for setting a defense that allows you to make mistakes.

I probably just lost a GAC round by underestimating a 79k ewok team - only zeta was Chirp but they had really good mods on the squad and I didn't look at the mods.

Now, they took out 3 of my squads, then left me alone for the rest of the day. Now I've finished clearing their territory and did fairly well, but lost that 1st time bonus against Ewoks. Partly because I lost that, I also accepted a 55 point win against a back-rank squad to get a feat-completion bonus that expired in 10 hours and was worth a lot more than 5 points.

Now if my opponent stumbles but beats a squad on the 2nd chance, those 5 points might be relevant, but if they stumble harder than that, the 5 points are not relevant (I'll def. win), and if they don't stumble on their way to full clear, the 5 points are not relevant (I'll def lose).

Do I like that I lost so many points on my carelessness vs. ewoks? Nope. But if I had beaten the ewoks first try, I never would have finished that feat (getting every last offensive point vs. a good opponent would have been worth 1000 for the guaranteed win, not 250 for completing the feat but losing the match).

So losing that first bout vs. ewoks actually gave me an opportunity to think creatively and try a team I would never have used in order to complete a feat.

I'm not saying you have to be happy about losing a 1st attempt, but there's still a lot you can get out of the format even if you think chances are good you'll lose the round... in fact, it's exactly when you're pretty sure you know how the match will finish that you can step back and say, "Since I know I'm going to win/lose, what can I do creatively that can ?"

Update: Did not lose. Apparently even with all their best teams held back for offense, they didn't have enough left to take on my DR squad (We're neither of us at a level where we have Malak, but I had DR, Bastilla(Fallen), HK, Maul & Thrawn). Looks like they had to use good squads on zCarth, NS, zBroodAlpha squads, and decent ones on Bossk & zKru.

If they'd done my DR squad first, they would maybe have had a chance, but they weren't sure they'd need to clobber everyone, I guess, and now they've blown 3 squads on DR and I still have DR, BF, & Thrawn left (all full health/prot).

But this is still just what I said ... they either stumbled badly, in which case sacrificing just 5 points to get a Feat completed wouldn't matter, or they didn't stumble at all, in which case I was going to lose anyway.

Looking ahead and realizing the 5 points weren't going to be likely to make the difference means I picked up an extra 245 points (net) over what I would have had if I'd used a better squad that didn't get me the feat.

Since whether or not I make it into Aurodium is going to be a really, really close call, those extra 245 points might really, really matter. So I've really helped myself.

Take away message: Think creatively all the time, and look at those feats! You just might be able to gain from experimenting in a way that you didn't realize you could.

Don’t get me started about people with DR ;-)

I will say this - I have had some matches where I was favored or they were favored or that I was sure I was going to get blown out. I lost a match where I was favored because I put my standard D teams that were easy to counter and I got rolled.

Since then, I have started putting crazy but purposeful squads on D and my opponents have stumbled on them and I won one of the matches where I was sure I was going to get blown out and the second is too close to call. So, I think it does encourage inventive play. Just not always on Offense.

"AndyyyB1978;c-1929827" wrote:

There’s no reward for experimentation.

There shouldn't be. It's a competitive game mode....not a practice mode.