Source
r/SWGalaxyOfHeroes•
microteck7

Instant Gratification - The Problem

Rant inc: Instant gratification is the problem with most of us who are getting tired of the game, especially with G12 and TB requirements.

Remember when we started the game and looked forward to collecting characters and exploring new things? Now we think we have to immediately achieve the new tiers and don't want to bother with the journey part.

I am almost to my first G12 and am excited. The guys on my shard with full G12 teams I can still beat and get 1st each day, but I'm trying to remember that the journey can be fun, even when it seems tedious and feels like I'm way behind everyone else.

New content isn't meant to be immediately achieved. It then leaves you waiting on the next high, which will last you minutes again as you panic to instantly achieve new gear, new levels, or whatever it may be.

I remember my first RPG, Dark Age of Camelot, and how much of a grind it was. Lots of the early day RPGs were that way, and for those of who played them we have fond memories of the slow build up.

ENJOY!

Posted Sep 11, 2017, 10:49 PM UTC

2537
Faydark_AUANZGC Inferno•

I too played those old school grinders, Everquest, DaoC and so on.

The difference here is: I never threw away a character in those games, my Necromancer just got better and better as I invested time into it.

In this game, you could sink a month of grinding into a character and then it goes onto the bench never to be used again. Multiply that by 5 for a team. Multiple months invested, rendered "useless" by a newer more OP character or characters introduced.

The game changes so rapidly and so completely that there's no time to enjoy the results of the journey.

22
Fadaar•

magician 4 life

1
Greensparow•

I often see people talking about the grind...... And you know I don't mind grind, and I don't have an issue with people paying to avoid grind.

But in my opinion this game does not have grind.

Grind is when you can achieve a result by putting in more effort, but in this game your effort is capped by your energy and your energy is capped by your wallet.

You cannot possible put in more effort than someone who is paying because they cap your effort. Therefore no grind therefore it's all about the benjamins

1
Faydark_AUANZGC Inferno•

Grind imho is doing something that is dull, boring, unfun, repetitive for lengthy periods of time in order to progress and/or participate in the fun parts of a game.

Nearly all games have some form of grind in them, but the duration of the grind varies wildly - from "fetch quests" for xp, "grinding for xp" in mmo's of old. SWGOH has terrible gear grinds that are only getting worse as the game ages. Not the worst in the world or anything, but certainly it's some of the most unfun gameplay in any game I've played in the past few years.

5
Greensparow•

I definitely agree with that, I just figure I would prefer it if there was the effort vs money differentiation. And to be fair grinding for gear is not boring, it's tops 30 seconds a day, it just takes many days depending on how much you can afford to refresh.....

1
kevlarO_o•

I disagree. A character or team may loose some of it's importance, but they'll always be there, available, waiting... In this game the more you have the better you do and everything you farm/gain will contribute to your success. You may have to swap you arena team, but they'll be there for other content. My Wiggs, Lando, STHan are there, helping me through GW, HAAT and now TB. My Zader is there, quietly awaiting me finish my EE/Tusken SHaman farm to use him in HAAT P2. Before Luke I ran a full Jedi squad. I had to bench everyone except GK, of course. I do better in TB missions with zQGJ, Ezra, JKA, GK and R2 than I do with my rebels. My Zylo is there, sitting in a dark corner, with shitty mods and being used ocasionally in GW. A couple months back this mofo was soloing 3-4 guys and helping me climb in my Arena. The Last Jedi is almost here... He might make it back to the spotlight, he might not... But here's there! Not to mention "old farts" who all of sudden come out of the bottom straight to the top. Raid Han, anyone? This game is about change and it needs that to survive. People are bothered with change. I am as well, specially because in this game if you want to keep up you need to spend at least a bit of money. But last week I saw people freaking out because in their first TB they didn't get a fully crafter gear. WTF? I'm actually impressed that when this TB is over people will be able to already buy a fully crafter g12 piece from TB! C'mon...

1
Polkjio•

i second this - a while ago i was running wiggs (L) with a random assortment of rebels - AA, Lando Sth - spent a lot of time on them -then zetaed Finn and tried to run resistance in the arena etc. when CLS came out i went back to using Wiggs in the team - every character i have leveled up gets used somewhere in the game.

1
Faydark_AUANZGC Inferno•

Geo Soldier, Royal Guard, Phasma, Poggle, IG 86, IG 88, HK 47, Jawa Engineer, Chief Nebit, Luminara just for starters - all of them were "daily users" that now just sit on the bench because they've been superseded. I think I last used GS for something over a year ago now.

I'm not against change. Change is what keeps the game interesting.

I'm just saying that the pace of change, combined with the lengthy grind for gear means that you can only keep a handful of characters "maxed", with more in the "gets the job done, most of the time" and the majority are in the "I'll get around to giving that character the 200 carbs + 100 stun cuffs + raid gear.. oh.... next year or so, maybe".

1
[deleted]•

[removed]

1
ColtonBoreen•

The single biggest problem with this game right now is the gear crunch for lower levels. It's making even veteran players not want to play. I agree that maxing a character should be an achievement. But getting a character to gear 10 shouldn't be this tedious this far into the games life cycle. It's an artificial game lengthener. Even at gear 9 or 10 a character is going to be essentially useless in all game modes now. GW is impossible without 4-5 gear 10-11 teams. Arena requires gear 11 to even have a chance. Every single game in the genres you mentioned had a system to allow people to progress through older content at an accelerated rate. That is what this game so desperately needs. I won't be spending barely anything until that is dealt with. The goal posts are SO far now. So much so that if I were to strictly farm carbantis for the next 6 months I wouldn't even be close to the amount I need to progess the characters I'm stuck on at gear 8 or 9. That's not smart game design, and it will kill this game long term.

20
rW0HgFyxoJhYka•

TLDR: You can do it if you started the game from the beginning and can actually still compete with the whales because of arena ranking that is different for every shard.

Everyone else who started a year later, outta luck.

5
Stillhart•

I agree.

I also think part of the problem is that the bar for "competitive" was set too low before. I don't think they really intended for everyone and their mother to compete for 1st place without spending thousands of dollars. Once they moved the goalposts, you have this combination of lack of instant gratification (like you said) and this (for lack of a less loaded word) entitlement to being a top competitor for little to no money spent.

I think the hubbub will die down in a month or two when people get used to the battle for top 20 instead of the battle for #1. Either that or they'll quit, but the effect is the same: whales will control the top spots and F2P will be content with what they can scrape by with.

DISCLAIMER: I don't agree that this is how it should be. I'm just saying what I'm seeing from the dev's point of view.

4
Destructo11•

I know you said you don't agree with that perspective, but it basically says that F2P games should be P2W, and that large portions of the game should be whale only. In that case, the game is unworthy of playing though, except for the tiny portion of players who want to pay thousands to achieve dominance in a P2W game where victory is basically auctioned off.

2
rW0HgFyxoJhYka•

Most F2P games are P2W. This game is no different.

2
Stillhart•

Objectively speaking, it's not P2W if you can't beat all the F2P people by paying to win. I'm not a whale or even a dolphin but I don't see anything wrong with letting the whales have their temporary advantage given the fact that they're funding my fun.

PvP is just one aspect of the game. Saying the game is unworthy of playing, beside being grammatically silly, really speaks more to what YOU like to do in the game, not the state of the game as a whole.

Would I like to be competing for spot #1 without spending thousands of dollars? Sure would! Am I going to be upset that I will have to settle for 20? Nope, it's just a game. There are plenty of others to keep me busy.

1
rW0HgFyxoJhYka•

Thats BS. Objectively speaking, if you can PAY to get ahead in any area, its pay to win.

Just because some F2P players who are day 0 players who have been grinding arena and staying on top of the best units to max, can beat some whales, has nothing to do with P2W.

Don't confuse P2W with some arbitrary definition to make you feel better about the game being not P2W lol.

PVP is the most important aspect of the game for F2P because it generates the crystals necessary to max your energy to farm what you need compared to every other F2P player or whale. Trying to play that down is not understanding the way this game is designed.

3
Stillhart•

Not sure what you're getting worked up about, you just agreed with me. If you can't get ahead by paying, it's not P2W. Before the G12 bump, that was becoming impossible because of, as you pointed out, all the F2P folks who grinded their way to the top. Now they've put some distance there again. I don't see the disagreement.

2
cjbludog...sipping on Jyn & Juice•

Your entire premise suggests that the game should have no microtransactions at all, and then it would be fair. I'm inferring this bc that's the only possible way you'd remove the paid-advantage. If you do that, there is no game.

You need money to pay people to produce this game. Without microstranactions, we'd all have to pay just to download it, which would reduce the size of the player base significantly, hurting game play. Or, it would be cluttered with ads making a shitty experience (and less players means less ad revenue, see prev point). Or worse - both solutions! Those 2 options combined would produce far less revenue than the current model, hindering development and making the game really stale. All things add up to a dead game.

I don't think you "understand the way this game is designed". It's a microtransaction game. It relies on that revenue to produce the game. Do you think that people who pay should not get anything exclusive or advantageous for their money? You realize games are products that are intended to make money and produce jobs, right? Yes, they are fun but you're supposed to pay for that entertainment one way or another. It's not a goodwill gesture from CG/EA to you. If you don't like it, don't play.

1
wiwtftMy Lobot Friend•

I always wonder how Whales enjoy themselves to be honest. And it's for this reason. I remember as a kid if I found a cheat code to Sim City or something I would have so much fun for a day. Then it ruined the game for me for the rest of time because there was no challenge, nothing to work for, I could just type F-U-N-D-S and get instant money. It broke the game. I feel like just buying your way to everything would have the same impact. If I am not working for anything I am not sure what there is to do in this game.

3
Bemoldar•

I hear you. Diablo 2 was my favorite game growing up and once I discovered D2 Hero Editor most of the characters just seemed... trivial.

1
throwingawaythetvvGG/Chopper/R2•

The problem with the slow build-up is that people feel that they are forced to get the new content because of arena.

2
aimeryakal•

Oh man, I played Asheron's Call (another early MMO) and now it's hard for me to comprehend how many hours I spent grinding monsters for pittances of EXP.

The grind in SWGOH is comparatively small in actual time spent (maybe 30 mins in morning, 1hr in evening if you're doing everything in the game daily) but quite long in overall time to accomplish many goals. I'm working on a Jedi team to replace my droids team with the full knowledge that the team won't be arena ready for another 3-4 months.

1
Destructo11•

I don't think people downloading mobile apps want to play for hours a day- then they would just play WoW or The Old Republic.

2
Bemoldar•

Don't be so sure! There is a negative stigma attached to MMO's, whether warranted or not.

It's 10x easier to justify playing Star Wars on my phone while on the couch with my GF than it is to ignore her while in the other room playing a more involved MMO.

1
Stillhart•

Jedi and droids? Are you sure you don't want to go Nightsisters or Tuscans? lol

1
aimeryakal•

Heh, I don't like rebels (and I don't have CLS) so I'm figuring Jedi with Barriss or Hermit Yoda and GK will probably take and hold arena positions decently well compared with my current droids team.

2
Stillhart•

From what I've read, most teams will be a step up from droids. But Jedi are like... barely a step up. Guess we'll see how that changes when Hyoda hits the streets...

1
aimeryakal•

Yeah, we'll see. But I figure that GK and Barriss will remain useful characters in the future, as will R2 (the lone holdover from my droids team). The jury is out whether Ezra and zQGJ will stay with the team or if I eventually move on to bringing in some new meta characters.

1
mictom•

well, i embrace the grind and like old school JRPGs or other RPGs there is a very certain difference between the grind there/then and the grind here:

there: you grinded for hours to get better

here: you grind for weeks and months to get a slight improvement

therefore, in this special regard, it is hard to compare

1
Pfunk781[MEE]Pfunk•

Aside from what you mentioned they really have created an unsustainable vicious power creep. In order to get people to spend they keep introducing these broken OP characters that render your roster useless and by the time us little people get that said character up and running the next one is on the way. I don't mind being behind but knowing that by the time I get in on the meta it's changed, and not in a good way, but in a stupid unbalanced way

1
muffin80r•

I'm on the same page in terms of difficulty and achievement, but the problem is the gear grind in this game is not fun in any way. You just press a button a few times a day. If it took the same amount of time but there was some level of strategy or challenge involved it might be much more rewarding.

1
kevlarO_o•

I completely agree with you. The road is long and uneven, but in the end it makes it worth it! I played my share of Ultima Online and DAoC as well and I completely understand you! People just want everything right now and then in a month they'll be complaining there isn't enough contente in the game.....

1
Dranem78•

I just never got the concept of pay-to-win, though I can see why people are tempted. I used to play games like Final Fantasy II and III on the SNES and grind up all my characters to Lv. 99 so that I could blast through the last part of the game and just use whatever characters I wanted. This game is a hobby for me and I enjoy gearing and grinding at my own pace but keeping up with my guild requirements. I am completely free to play and can stay in the 50-100 range in arena and I always have something to work towards. If this game ever feels like a job or something I HAVE to spend money on to have fun that is the day I uninstall. I also play that Simpsons Tapped Out game and I treat it like a model kit, slowly adding pieces and keeping up just enough to get new content. My town is huge and I haven't dropped a dime on it, it is very rewarding.

1
Ezrisdadsa'Tis demanded by the gods, it 'tis.•

Amen Not-Jesus! :) I feel exactly this. I want it badly and I wont to complete it all now, but I feel so good when I finally achieve something new. This is how my guild felt a couple weeks ago when we completed our first HAAT. We had been working at it for months, our biggest people left, and yet the majority of us stuck w/ it. We were elated! This is how you should feel when you finally reach that new tier that you worked hard for.

0
timodark77•

Good perspective...it's the journey, rather than the destination, that is often the funniest, most memorable part.

0