Fist Supplemental 9.1: Galaxy of Heroes and Incentive Clusters
On Galaxy of Heroes
All-
With the help of some of our GoH crowd it looks like we have a relatively solid method for starting Galaxy of Heroes competitions back up. I told all of you that when I found a mode (or in this case a method) that gave me and my staff some easily validated metrics, I would bring GoH back into the fold. Fortunately, it didn’t take too long to find!
In the next couple of days, I will re-start Galaxy of Heroes competitions for the Squad Arena Battle mode.
Now, these new competitions will be slightly different than what you are used to. Instead of your weekly squad arena ranking, you will be judged on how many Arena battles you win over a two week period.
In order to validate these submissions, two screenshots are required. You will provide a starting screenshot that clearly displays the number of Squad Arena battles you have won. Prior to the end of the competition, you will need to take a second screenshot that also shows your Squad Arena wins.
In the interest of clarity, here is the screenshot I am looking for:
These competitions will award first-level crescents and participation credit. I will keep these running as long as there is interest, and will alternate between Squad Arena and Fleet Arena on a completely random basis to help keep things fresh! Please make sure you pay attention to the competition prompt!
The first two competitions are already approved and begin on 24 June!
Squad Arena Competition 11-24 June
Fleet Arena Competition 25 June-8 July
There will be no incentive CEs awarded for this competition. More on the reason why below.
On Incentive Clusters
As you are all aware, all normal site-supported gaming is based on a multiplayer or cooperative goal that includes at least one other DB member. For the most part, that is the way Clusters of Earth and Clusters of Fire are earned. Single-player gaming is not in line with how we want our system to run. But there were some exceptions, specifically through the use of incentive clusters.
The initial goal of incentive clusters was just that: an added incentive on top of crescents and participation to get people to take part in non-standard gaming competitions. We offer them for our mobile and flash gaming competitions, and for any games that we are testing for eventual site support. With the advent of the possessions system, credits are also awarded for competition participation, winning crescents, AND earning gaming clusters.
A byproduct of the Galaxy of Heroes competition discussion was the fact that this game is inherently a single-player experience, as are our other mobile and flash game competitions. The initial proposal I made involved making Galaxy of Heroes a site-supported platform, and (using the exact same method as the new competition model) allowing members to submit their activities through the site for Clusters of Earth. The concern raised was: if we allow one single player game, we’ll have to allow them all. After discussion the DC agreed this simply wasn’t where we wanted gaming to go.
So what do we do? If we aren’t going to offer clusters for Galaxy of Heroes, but we are for mobile and flash games, is that even remotely fair? No, it isn’t. We already offer rewards for taking part in mobile and flash gaming competitions: crescents, participation credit, and credits. Incentive clusters simply do not have a place in our competition structure, and with possessions that is even more apparent.
Moving forward, the Fist office will no longer offer incentive clusters for any of our gaming competitions. All current competitions that offer incentive clusters will continue to run their course. I’ve said this before: I made a good faith contract with all of you to provide the listed rewards, and I will honor that commitment.
We will continue to provide competition opportunities for you so that you have plenty of chances to win crescents and earn participation credit and funds for cool dossier swag.
As always, I appreciate everyone’s patience, understanding, and candid feedback as we continue to refine and update our systems.
Thanks.
-Drac
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Well done on the quick turnaround in keeping that promise!
Sounds fair. I'm good with how this will be set up.
Well that sucks on no clusters, especially when other games, with teamwork, can get people easy pobs and not havingbti really battle. D3 is one of them. Goh is tough as you get into levels of 70 or higher. I think there should be incentives for high levels in mobile games, especially since many ranks required pobs for promotions. And also, not everyone is a hard core gorefest gamer so these mobile incentives will help folks like me who don't always game get something
Tbh, I spent more time strategizing and talking to DBers regarding GoH while I was levelling it up than I did playing SWTOR on a completely different server than DB folk. The six/seven month grind to 85 is definitely comparable to the effort it would have taken to get a toon to max level back in the day, so it'd be nice to see something along the lines of level PoBs introduced for GoH as well.
As for the clusters... well, I appreciate the attempt to bring some form of consistency to these things, but I do wish we could do more to support all the people who play one of the few active Star Wars games we have available to us at the moment.
What other competitions give you the potential to win first level crescents every two weeks and (apparently) requires 6-7 months to get to the level where that is doable?
Incentive clusters seem pretty minor compared to the farmable first level crescents that seem to frequently go to the same few people.
For this competition type, the level does not necessarily matter. Arena battles generally place you against others at around the same level/Arena rank. So you can still win battles no matter your own personal level over the course of the week.
That being said, for PoB purposes, I do think that perhaps other games (including the mobile) should be awarded PoBs for reaching certain levels. The concept is exactly the same as games like TOR and D3, but allows us to encompass the games and activities that members are currently participating in.
Halc is correct on this Locke (OMG, did I just say Halc is right? Icky icky icky!) This actually should be a pretty level playing field for the crescents. There are ways to "game" it to ensure you're near the top, but if you do that, you're sacrificing in-game rewards.
The issue you're pointing out about the clusters going to the same group of people is something I addressed in my post on the last Fist update - it's the snowball effect of in-game rewards that means that if you played "optimally" from the start, none of us who played inconsistently or randomly will ever catch you in the arena scoreboard (or at least not without exorbitant time and money invested).
I would like to see a PoB introduced as this is still a Star Wars game in the DJB with a group dynamic (both in-game and in Telegram chat) and it takes literally months upon months to hit max level (unless you are literally spending $10,000+ on the game (not a typo - I do mean ten thousand)...which I doubt anyone in this club is doing).