16. Worrying too much about Squad Arena (PvP)
There’s something about competition with other people that seems to get everyone’s juices flowing, and so a lot of people get obsessed with this game mode. For newcomers, though, this is usually a mistake. By the way, remember that this isn’t “real” PvP – you are fighting other player teams but the computer is controlling them.
One very smart thing about this game is that PvP is segmented into leaderboards based on when you start, so new players have a chance to be competitive. That said, very quickly the top ranks will become dominated by the players who spend the most money. That’s just how it goes with freemium: you can buy your way to the top.
The rewards from PvP are threefold: Arena tokens, crystals and credits. You get one reward per day, always at 6 pm local time for your PvP area (which is based on the time zone when you registered to play). Now here’s the thing: the rewards scale like this:
- Arena tokens: Quickly go up until you hit rank 200, then slow down a lot. For example, finishing at #200 gives you 700 tokens, finishing at #11 gives you 775. Not much difference.
- Credits: Basically the same. #1 gets 50k, #50 gets 25k. It’s a small amount regardless, though a nice bonus.
- Crystals: The reverse of arena tokens: slow progression until the very top echelons. The difference between #51 and #200 is only 25 crystals. The difference between #6 and #1 is 250 crystals.
Everyone gets all worked up over the crystals, and sure, if you can finish in the #1 spot and get 500 crystals, that will certainly help you advance in the game. But the most important reward here is the arena tokens: 400 tokens equals 5 character shards from Arena shipments. Sure, the #1 guy gets 1000 tokens and you only get 700 tokens at #200. But you also get 100 for free from dailies, so even at #200 you are getting 10 character shards per day. This is what matters most, and it’s not hard to get. Even if you are only rank 500, that’s still 700 tokens per day, which is almost 10 shards per day.
Bottom line: you don’t need to be very high rank in PvP to get good rewards. Don’t sweat it if you can’t get very far up the leaderboard, especially at the start. Also bear in mind that at the very top the competition gets fierce and you have to be prepared to “snipe” right before 6 pm to keep your rank. Many people find this impossible to do because of real life obligations, or just don’t think it’s worth it. I usually try to get into the top 20, but don’t much care beyond that, it’s just not worth worrying about to me. Sometimes I just sit in the top 50. It’s not worth losing sleep over.
17. Not doing Galactic War
This mode opens up at level 40 and is an excellent source of important rewards. There are several good characters you can get in shipments there, and you can also get ability materials, training droids and bonus character shards. GW is also the best source of credits in the game.
This mode matches you up against 12 opponent teams in a row. It can be very frustrating, especially for a new player. Remember that you can retreat and try different teams if one of your characters dies. Expect that you will not be able to complete it every day, or even at all, when you start. Don’t be deterred, just keep doing as much as you can. You’ll get better, and every reward helps.
18. Jumping on the bandwagon
The nature of this sort of game is that certain team build ideas get popular and then very popular and everyone starts chasing the “meta”, only to find two weeks later that it has changed. Avoid this if possible. Make a plan for a team you find fun and interesting and stick with it as much as possible. Try to hold some resources in reserve for when things change, but don’t alter your plan every week or you will drive yourself insane.
19. Being impatient.. in general
Freemium games like this one are deliberately designed with “time gates” for two reasons. First, to slow you down so you don’t progress too quickly, get bored and leave. Second, to tempt you to spend money to bypass the time gates. They are psychologically designed to prey on your impatience. That’s why everything is limited in some way, but with the option of bypassing the limits by spending crystals.
Some spending of crystals makes sense, like I mentioned before. But giving in to impatience too much can quickly cause you to rack up a big bill in this game. Even though it might seem like it takes “forever” to unlock new characters or gain levels, things actually move pretty quickly in this game. The more patient you are, the better value you will get for what you spend.
20. Getting frustrated and giving up
We’ve all been there… it’s exciting at the start, you play a lot, you are constantly leveling, you get new goodies, and then the high wears off, the honeymoon ends, and it’s just not as fun any more. And some aspects of the game get frustrating, such as bad luck with farming shards or getting stuck in GW. Try not to let it get to you, take a break if you need to, and maybe come back to it later. The game is still young and there’s a lot more yet to be added to it.
