I recently called it quits on Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes. I had been playing it for almost four years. I know I’ve posted about this game before.
This was a game that I had liked for the longest time. However, over the last year or so, they’ve started making some decisions that really didn’t sit well with me.
I mostly enjoyed the Player vs environment (PVE) content. Raids, combat missions, even Territory Battles. I enjoy playing against the game/environment (rather than other people). This is how I feel with most games. The latest content in Galaxy of Heroes felt like a re-skin of old content and they just cranked up the difficulty exponentially. It felt like more of a chore to play it without any sense of Pride or Accomplishment (a jab at this reddit comment from EA - who also makes Galaxy of Heroes).
What I really enjoy are new raids and there hasn’t been a new one in well over a year. And the last raid was just so-so.
I was a fairly competitive player. I usually stayed in the top 30 in Player vs player (PVP) squad and fleet arenas daily.
I was not a Free-to-play (FTP) player. I did spend money on the game. Not a ton. But enough to feel like I was helping show my support to the game. I know that sounds weird. But it’s technically a free game and I wanted to help support a game that I played every day. So I would purchase things here and there. I wasn’t a whale by any means.
Over the last year or so, the developers have made staying competitive really hard. They’ve essentially put these huge paywalls in front of getting the latest/greatest characters in the game. It’s been like that for a while now. Previously, you would only need certain characters unlocked at a very minimum “gear” level to obtain them. If you were smart and read the tea leaves, you could unlock the necessary characters needed. Now, you need the characters unlocked and at an almost maxed level to have them. That’s very unrealistic to do without spending a ton of money. The window to unlock these new super power characters has also shortened from week-long events to weekend-long events.
Now these new character events do come around again. So I could wait for the event to return. I did that with the first of these character events (a Darth Malak event). I didn’t have the necessary characters at a high enough gear level to even enter the event. I did manage to unlock him the second time around. But I came up with an even better idea for the latest of these new character events (a General Anakin event). Why not just stop playing altogether? That’s exactly what I did.
Two weeks ago, a friend and I decided to quit.
I am so happy that I did. It felt like a huge weight was lifted off of my shoulders. I’m no longer checking the game every few hours for new guild orders or free energy. My dinner time hours are no longer occupied by trying to climb in both PVP arenas for the daily payout.
I should have done this sooner. I’m not sure I was really ready to though. I’ve finally had enough.
I have no plans on going back to playing Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes. The game was fun while it lasted. But either I’ve fundamentally changed, or the game has. I feel that we are no longer compatible.
So. What am I doing now to occupy my time? Not a whole lot of new things. I’m just enjoying not having this extra weight on my shoulders. I’ve been reading a bit more, playing a bit more of Hearthstone (single player only) and working on my side project.
It’s really been a refreshing change now that I’ve quit. I am so glad that I did.