It’s not a great time for players of Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes.
Just a few days ago we discussed the upcoming changes in which the developers have decided to revert hard node farms from eight to five, which isn’t a player-friendly move. But, to their credit, the developers found a way to get players to move on from that mess pretty quickly: by announcing a greater one.
It was unveiled on Wednesday that Darth Malak is coming to the game. That’s not a surprise. Heck, even the Darth Revan event ended on a teaser of Malak, the first time an event has done that, so everyone knew that Malak was going to be coming soon. Now, there are players who aren’t that happy about Malak’s arrival because they’re sick and tired of Old Republic content (and understandably so, given that it has been the clear focal point for months and months now). But this figures to be the final Old Republic character coming for a while, and that was seemingly confirmed in the Road Ahead post that didn’t give us many details, but did tell us that we’re going to be moving into a lengthy Clone Wars period. So we are indeed moving away from Old Republic, meaning that those who are sick of that will only have to endure one more.
So if that were the extent of it, that’d be fine. Everyone knew Malak was coming, but the developers have also told us that we’re going to be moving into a completely different era coming up. But… that’s not the extent of it. Far from it. Malak will be coming this weekend, for an event that lasts two days, and will require both Revans and a couple of other characters to all have a galactic power of 17,500+. Let’s break it down briefly.
- He’s coming this weekend. Previously, CG has said that they would give a week’s notice for new events like this. So while they can probably wiggle out of it by saying that this isn’t a legendary or hero’s journey event, it’s still a pretty dirty move to do to the playerbase. But then again, communication is one of the worst aspects of this game, so it shouldn’t be a surprise. There’s no warning; Malak’s coming in two days.
- The event will last two days. And not only that, but the event itself will only last two days (as opposed to seven days for legendary and hero’s journey events). That means that in total, from the time the event was announced to the time the event ends, it will be about a half of a week. There’s literally hardly any time for players to get ready for it… unless they spend money (so there you begin to see the entire motivation behind this move).
- The event will require both Revans. There will be two phases to this event: the first one requires Jedi Knight Revan, and the second one requires Darth Revan. But wait a second: the Darth Revan event just happened not too long ago, and while some free-to-play players were able to get him, it was far from an easy thing to do. So you’re left with a segment of the playerbase that probably has a large percentage of whales. I have no problem with whales (those who pay money) getting things quickest, but this is the first time the game has literally gated a character behind this. Never before has this game done a character unlock that requires a legendary/hero’s journey character that hasn’t returned a second time. And not only that, but the Darth Revan event wasn’t exactly easy for FTP (though it was doable, if one managed their resources incredibly well). So basically if you didn’t pay to unlock Darth Revan the first time around, you’ll miss out here. That’s a messed up model. This game has always provided advantages to the whales, but one of the staples that has helped make it so successful is that free-to-play players have always had the ability to compete, it just may be harder and more intentional farms. But not this time. This is as gated of an event as the game has had.
- The event will require characters at 17,500+ power. In order to do the event, you’ll need both Revans, as well as one character that was required to unlock each of them, at 17,500+ galactic power each. So this is also taking the gear gating to another level. Basically, 17,500+ power means you will either need to gear up the character almost completely (with many characters it will mean gear 12), or you will need to put a zeta on a character that is still solidly geared up. That’s a lot of resources invested. Now, thankfully, there are characters with each that are worth gearing up, so it won’t be wasted investment, but it’s a very hard requirement – one that’s incredibly difficult to meet in two days if you haven’t already been working toward it.
Above all else, I think this is just a sad sign for this game. There have been countless people on Reddit saying that this is the final straw and that they’re about to quit the game, and whether they do or not, this feels like a desperate and obvious money grab from EA/CG. Is this game really doing that poorly? Is this the direction this game is going to take?
Because if it is, I have a feeling many more people are going to be quitting before long. And I may be one of them.
Star Wars Thoughts 