Why so late?
Exactly the same as the Thrawn event, we simply do not have enough time to farm a full 7* First Order squad. Statistically, even with full investment, without already having five 6* First Order cha...
Forum Discussion
A few thoughts, none of which will make you feel better. From the way you wrote your questions, I suspect they're mostly rhetorical, anyway, and you really want to vent.
The first principle that you're going to have to accept if you want to enjoy this game is this: if you want to be competitive, you should expect to be ALL IN. You farm every toon, you spend $10-$50 a week on crystals for refreshes to farm gear and shards, you need to 100% keep up with the pace of character release. If you can do that, you can reasonably expect to always be prepared for events that give you as little as a few weeks of notice for what characters you might need to qualify.
If you aren't willing to do that, you need to change your expectations. This is a game about priorities. If your priorities are this game, you'll spend some money on it to stay ready. If it's not that much of a priority, you have to realize that you'll need to make priority calls within the game. One of those MOST IMPORTANT priorities is whether you'll focus on the characters you want, when YOU want them, versus the characters CG/EA wants you to focus on, when THEY want you to focus on them.
Both First Order and Phoenix were pretty weak factions when they came out. First Order got a lame rework (changes to Advantage), and then got a MUCH better rework with the advent of Zetas. FO was actually one of the few teams where you could invest heavily in zetas and get a good payoff. They were arena viable for a while, even against the dreaded triple-cleanse meta. And a few FO characters really shined -- Kylo Ren with a zeta is nearly meta himself in some game modes, FOTP does sick damage and has a great ship, Phasma remains an excellent early-game all-purpose leader and rancor raid team member, and FOO has some interesting special-purpose use in a few raid phases (Rancor, HAAT P1) in addition to his FO synergies.
There's also the odd similarity in how Kylo's Shuttle and the Ghost and the Phantom are theoretically good ships that sat unattainable for some time. Kylo's ship much more so.
But there's also a few MAJOR differences. Phoenix has never been arena viable at the end-game (it is currently a decent team for low-level arena and even GW). Phoenix has not yet gotten a rework. Phoenix doesn't currently have any zeta skills -- and Phoenix was launched after the zeta era began so up until a few weeks ago, you could reasonably believe that they would never get them and would thus be doomed to mediocrity.
Also, and I think this is the most important of all: Phoenix was launched in March 2017 and Thrawn event was in June 2017. First Order characters came out in Dec 2015 through maybe January or February 2016. They've been in game for more than a year and a half. We've had plenty of time to get them, we just didn't know for sure that they'd be used to get another character, but the signs have been there for a long time. Jedi for Yoda, Rebels for Palpatine, Empire for R2, ANH rebels for Luke, Phoenix for Thrawn, and now FO for BB8. You just need to choose where your priority is.
Conclusion: Sorry, you had a lot of time. And if you want a cool new First Order toon (Snoke? and maybe Old Jedi Luke in the vein of the CLS event), you should start farming Resistance now...
The first principle that you're going to have to accept if you want to enjoy this game is this: if you want to be competitive, you should expect to be ALL IN. You farm every toon, you spend $10-$50 a week on crystals for refreshes to farm gear and shards, you need to 100% keep up with the pace of character release. If you can do that, you can reasonably expect to always be prepared for events that give you as little as a few weeks of notice for what characters you might need to qualify.
If you aren't willing to do that, you need to change your expectations. This is a game about priorities. If your priorities are this game, you'll spend some money on it to stay ready. If it's not that much of a priority, you have to realize that you'll need to make priority calls within the game. One of those MOST IMPORTANT priorities is whether you'll focus on the characters you want, when YOU want them, versus the characters CG/EA wants you to focus on, when THEY want you to focus on them.
Both First Order and Phoenix were pretty weak factions when they came out. First Order got a lame rework (changes to Advantage), and then got a MUCH better rework with the advent of Zetas. FO was actually one of the few teams where you could invest heavily in zetas and get a good payoff. They were arena viable for a while, even against the dreaded triple-cleanse meta. And a few FO characters really shined -- Kylo Ren with a zeta is nearly meta himself in some game modes, FOTP does sick damage and has a great ship, Phasma remains an excellent early-game all-purpose leader and rancor raid team member, and FOO has some interesting special-purpose use in a few raid phases (Rancor, HAAT P1) in addition to his FO synergies.
There's also the odd similarity in how Kylo's Shuttle and the Ghost and the Phantom are theoretically good ships that sat unattainable for some time. Kylo's ship much more so.
But there's also a few MAJOR differences. Phoenix has never been arena viable at the end-game (it is currently a decent team for low-level arena and even GW). Phoenix has not yet gotten a rework. Phoenix doesn't currently have any zeta skills -- and Phoenix was launched after the zeta era began so up until a few weeks ago, you could reasonably believe that they would never get them and would thus be doomed to mediocrity.
Also, and I think this is the most important of all: Phoenix was launched in March 2017 and Thrawn event was in June 2017. First Order characters came out in Dec 2015 through maybe January or February 2016. They've been in game for more than a year and a half. We've had plenty of time to get them, we just didn't know for sure that they'd be used to get another character, but the signs have been there for a long time. Jedi for Yoda, Rebels for Palpatine, Empire for R2, ANH rebels for Luke, Phoenix for Thrawn, and now FO for BB8. You just need to choose where your priority is.
Conclusion: Sorry, you had a lot of time. And if you want a cool new First Order toon (Snoke? and maybe Old Jedi Luke in the vein of the CLS event), you should start farming Resistance now...
