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Hi everyone.
I quickly want to preface this with my reasoning for writing this. It's in my opinion, that there is a common misconception in our community that this game is NOT for new players. I found my experience to be on the contrary..for the most part.
I started playing this game a year ago today, with 6 RL friends. How many of them keep playing? Stay tuned til the end.
Phase 1: Starter Guilds/Learning the Ropes (First few months)
This was the most challenging phase. As I stated above, I started playing this game a year ago with 6 RL friends.
It's nearly impossible to find an up-to-date starter guide online as to how to farm, who to farm and how to get an edge in competitive (without spending thousands of course). Some of my friends quit due to the Starter Guilds being dead, extremely bleak, and it gives the illusion that the game/community is dead or lacking. Which is simply not the case. I had friends tired of always playing everything thus spending crystals on Sim Tickets because you always run out of them in the early levels. Me being the researcher, I would tell them to not spend crystals on sim tickets because apparently we will have thousands of them eventually. Some listened, some didn't, the game was simply taking too much of their time without SIMS.
I managed to convince them all after watching a warrior guide to go for Phoenix first. Then Palp, then Thrawn etc. The Phoenix vs Phoenix arena phases are soooo boring, and lasts wayyy too long. It could be, depending when you start, 3 months of a Phoenix meta until the first EP event comes around. I can assure you, many players quit due to this stale first 3 months of Arena.
So all in all, between the lack of SIM tickets, the dead starter guilds, the stale Phoenix Arena meta and the lack of direction this game gives you without watching countless videos online or searching online for an up to date guide (if there even is one when you happen to start playing the game), these first few months have so many ways to be improved.
My proposed solution? Give out way more SIM tickets, scrap the Starter Guilds, have a better, longer lasting tutorial (perhaps even just put a link to a tutorial video that someone from EA/CG can make themselves). Have the EP, Yoda type legendary events come much more frequently to minimize the length of the boring Phoenix vs Phoenix meta. Or perhaps take the emphasis off of Arena and into Grand Arena?
RL Friends who quit: 2
Phase 2: Ships, Finding a Heroic Guild, the Journey to level 85.
This is when the game becomes much more enjoyable. Myself and 4 RL friends are now still playing. My researching found out that we should try to get 1 toon 7* as soon as possible so that we can leave the terrible Starter guilds and find a guild doing Heroic Pit and Heroic tank raid. This is much harder than it sounds but doable. I managed to find a guild after some in game messaging that would take 3 of us beginner accounts with 1 7* toon each to offer. (Shoutout to xGalacticxTombstonex) My other 2 friends had to find a guild themselves. 1 stuck it out with the starter guilds and eventually joined our guild as well, the other eventually quit due to the difficulty of finding a guild to take him in. I'm sure he didn't try very hard but that's the thing, you have to try very hard to find a guild. Not everyone can be bothered and starter guilds are NOT the solution.
Arena-wise the meta is a lot more fun. Those of us who stuck it out through the Phoenix vs Phoenix meta are now being rewarded with EP + Thrawn teams. It's still a little annoying that its just more mirror matches at the top end of Arena however the rewarding feeling of destroying the Phoenix teams in 30 seconds that once took 4 minutes of mirror matches to win or lose helps hold you over until the next phase of the game.
Ships is fun at first. It's a new and exciting game mode. However that QUICKLY becomes boring. Since everyone farmed Phoenix, basically everyone farms the phoenix ships and once again, its mirror match after mirror match in ship arena. Most of my friends can't be bothered however my researching serving me well again, I convince them to at least try dark side ship farming to get something called "Zeta's". Don't know what they are yet but apparently they're really rare.
Basically, only I actually cared enough to be competitive in ships. Everyone else just farmed the dark side ships for the eventual Zeta's.
Now we are getting Raid Han and General Kenobi shards and the rewards are nice, however Traya is the meta right now. And I want to join a Heroic Sith raid guild. This, is now considerably harder.
RL Friends who quit: 1 (3 total).
Phase 3: Finding an HSTR Guild and the introduction to Paywall (Revan).
Now down to myself and 3 RL friends. We're all in the same guild and enjoying the now (way too late) introduction to the community and spirit of the game. The communication is encouraging, the competitiveness is enjoyable, the discussions over strategy and improving our performances in TW/TB is intriguing. This is when the game really gets enjoyable. Why has it taken us several months to finally experience the full potential of this game? Some of us quit and many of us would have quit if it wasn't for my researching and direction and sheer will (patience) to be great.
Time goes on and myself and 1 of my RL friends decide its time to try and find an HSTR guild that will take us, to try and get g12 pieces + Traya shards. My other 2 RL friends don't care for Traya and decide to just stay in the current guild.
My research tells me that we may be able to find a HSTR guild to take us on if we have at least 1 full team to contribute to the HSTR guild. I decide to go after the newly announced Jedi Revan, my friend goes for Jedi training Rey/Resistance.
For the sake of brevity, I'm just going to summarize that it is EXTREMELY hard to find an HSTR guild to take you on when you're not even level 85 and don't have much to offer. The Jedi Revan paywall was so high, I missed out on him, and those of us who have Palpatine in Arena are now being destroyed and dropping like flies in Arena. The paywall and the release of Jedi Revan is the direct cause for one of my friends quitting and not agreeing with how this game is run, and not rewarding completionist players but just those that spend towards the current Arena meta.
My friend finds a guild who needs help in Phase 1 Hstr. I find a guild who likes my focused roster despite not being lvl 85, under a million GP and not having anything to contribute to Hstr. (Shoutout to Clan of Uncivilized Sass)
It's about now that we realized that this game rewards extremely focused rosters and the rest are to be left in the dust. Nevertheless, I'm still progressing really fast and the game is enjoyable.
RL Friends who quit: 1 (4 total)
Phase 4: 1 Million+ GP, HSTR Guild, lvl 85 - The Full game is Unlocked.
This phase is basically endgame, there is myself and 2 RL friends left playing. We are all between 2 million - 2.5 mill GP at the 1 year mark. We are very much still enjoying the game mostly due to Grand Arena and we now feel like we are "caught up".
The common misconception in this game is that it is IMPOSSIBLE for new players to catch up if they start now. It's something I heard all the time when I started playing a year ago and it's something I still hear all the time today. It's not impossible and it's very much doable.
It just takes A LOT of patience, A LOT of research, A LOT of time spent and lets face it, some money too. Before people start asking, I spent around $50-100 a month on average. So while that definitely helps keep my edge in Arena, it does not allow me to get the newest Meta first time around. It just allows the farm overall a little quicker. The odd stun gun here, the odd shards there.
The only place I think CG/EA need to look at is the first few months of play. If they improve that process, A LOT more new players will stay.
Thanks to everyone who stuck around until the end of this post and I hope someone learned something from this.
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