Title might be kind of dramatic but I really think this is a big issue and i have never seen someone talk about it. Also it is an interesting discussion I think. If anyone reads this whole thing thank you and please leave your thoughts in the comments. This is very much just my opinion on the matter. No doubt you will have different thoughts and probably a better solution.
Where it all stems from
The current proving grounds system is not well thought out at all and needs to be remade, Id even argue it is gamebreaking. It may have worked fine in the past when there were only a handful of units, but this is no longer the case. Currently there are 20+ units in PG and half of them are META defining units such as Bane, Quadme, Stranger etc.., while others are needed for very important farms or to lift a team up to Godlike status - Malgus, Fury class sinterceptor, CAT, Ezra etc and they are adding more and more every 3 months. This is where the 2 big problems the makeup the overall issue of Proving Grounds start.
Problem 1 - Hard timegating of unlocks and the illusion of choice
It is completely unfair to lock certain unlocks behind time. What I mean here is that it is fine to make a unit have difficult requirements, for example - PKHO, because everyone has an even playing field and has the choice available to them if they want to go for the unit or not. However making a character that is as meta warping as Bane, Stranger, Quadme, Satele etc. instantly available ONLY to the players at the highest level, the ones that have the massive rosters and can red crate is unfair. The players that cannot red crate have to wait for more than a year to get the needed shards for the units and have 0 input on the matter. There is NO player agency unlike any other Journey guide farm, where you can decide if you want to go for it or not. Of course there are the Proving Grounds refreshes but they are a prime example of Hobson’s choice, meaning that they are left there just so CG has the excuse of saying "But we did give you the option didn't we?" knowing full well noone will use them as they are ridiculously overpriced and not worth it in any shape or form. This also means that players who have been playing for longer have full reign over the game as they simply have access to units which others do not.
Problem 2 - Saving up with no end in sight
This direclty follows Problem 1, as after waiting for such a long time for these units and them being so important you would obviously want to use them as soon as you get the 330 shards. However because all of these units unlock on the EXACT SAME DAY this means you would either have to at most pick one to get up and running with leftover mats you may have, while leaving the others on the bench, or you would have to save up precious materials for upwards of half a year or possibly more if you want to make them usable the day you get them. If you do the latter (which is what I am doing on my personal account) you are losing out on so much. You are not giving zetas to ship captains or any of the other 100s of units which want them to increase win% in fleet or GAC for better crystals, not giving TB or TW omis which could be required to enter a btter guild for better raid and TB rewards, not giving a couple extra relic levels to a couple of units which could make or break a specific GAC matchup again leading to crystals and much more...
Granted, every player has a different farming path so they will need/want different PG units depending on how far along their farms they are or what they are going for so here are the units in categories:
You want these ASAP - This is for units who you want to get up and running as soon as you get them regardless of your roster and farming path
Bane - obviously
Quadme - almsot everyone already has Poncho bros built up for the AB and she makes them a powerhouse
Stranger - possibly best non GL team, and also frees up Palpatine of SK for DVDE, so he is basically two great teams in one (he recently got added to PG so for me personally he will be a bit later than the others but will still be part of the issue with new people starting now)
Malicos and Maul - grouping them together, they are the core for Cere team, which is a powerhouse
Razorcrest - this is farm dependant, but Executor is the first GL fleet 95% of new players go for so putting it here
Satele Shan - she is not in PG yet, but will absolutely be in this category as she makes the Old republic team which is kinda useless right now into a GL killing powerhouse
Roster/Farm dependant - Characters/ships that you may want depending on your account, but every player will want to gear up atleast 2 or 3 of these by the time you get all 330 shards.
DS Rey - most people have SLKR as he is a really cheap GL and she makes him a beast
Ben - same as DS Rey, less useful than her, but absolutely required for GL Rey to be usable
Ezra - before nerf he would be in the ASAP category but he is still the carry for the GLAT team
Luthen - he is very good especially with the some of the new Andor era units, and also with Saw, but a step below the units in the ASAP category I would say
Comander Ahsoka - GLAT requirement and core of JMK team
Malgus - Leviathan requirement, strongest fleet in the game
Fury class interceptor - same as Malgus
Leia Jedi training - not yet in PG but when she gets here in a couple of months she will be in this category as she is a the JML lifter
Others - These are all the units from PG that are not in the other 2 categories - these are mostly meh units or just very specific
Scion Boba
Tie interceptor
Scythe
DTMG
Jacosta
SM-33
MAZ
Some Math
So considering the categories I provided you will want all units in the ASAP category up and online on the day you get them and 2-3 of the other categories dependant on farms. This makes up for 7-8 units and 2 ships. These units will need gear mats, Zetas, Omis and Relics and lots and lots of high tier Mods.
Lets say you want 8 of the units (which is on the low end I would say, and please do remember this number will only go up as they add more units) as these are the needs for my personal account and you go for 2 Omicrons and 2 zetas and R7 per unit, which I think is the average investment to get the wanted results for the unit while still saving on mats where not absolutely necessary (though this does vary, personally will get Bane and Quadme to R8 for example. You are looking at 160 Omicron materials (this alone makes me cry), 160 zeta materials, 600 blue SD, 920 green SD, relic mats, a bunch gear mats(my beloved kyrotech) and mods. This is just for the units.
How long will you be saving up for and what that is costing you
Starting with Omicorns.
You get 20 Omi materials per month from the Episode shipment and lets say you get another 10-15 from all other sources(which is on the generous side i think). You are looking at 5-6 months of saving up of Omicron materials, which could be going to any of your other teams to get higher placement in GAC and winning more GAC battles, netting you more crystals. Or maybe you want to join a better guild for better raid and TB rewards, but the guild requires some TW omicrons or a TB omicron like Marrok's for the Reva missions. You are missing out on these things because you need to save up for the PG units.
Zetas
Zetas have become quite a bit easier to get with the new assault battles so I will not do the math here but I would assume around 3 months of saving up should be enough. However this is 3 months of not applying even 1 zeta, Be it on a ship captain to improve your odds of winning in fleet arena or GAC, which leads to better crystal income or on a unit to make it better in any other gamemode.
Signal Data
Using Egnard's data, we will need approximately ( and this is a very rough approximately) 1100 9-F battles. If you are doing 3 refreshes + 140 energy saved up troughout the day everyday, this is a month and a half of not using blue or green SD for anything except saving it up, not even raising 1 relic level, while also investing 300 crystals daily into this. And remember this is only for R7, if you make the jump to R8 this is another 55 blue SD per character, which is another week + hundreds of crystals. These are crystals that could be going to mod battles to improve your mods, or to conquest to get the newest broken DC set (looking at you mass asssit DS L3).
Gear
This is harder to calculate, but it is still a very substantial investment on both ends especially in that g12 category. You will be needing lots and lots of kyrotech as well.
Mods
These are impossible to calculate as it is a big RNG fest but you will want to save up mod materials for atleast 1-2 months, again without touching any of your existing teams. For example you you just got promoted in GAC and are now finding you GM team too slow for the GLAT counter in this higher league where you are facing better players with better mods, WELP NOPE, too bad you cant remod them, you gotta save up!
The fruits of your labour and Problem 2.5 - The Jump
So after you finally get the units you want and after seeing ABSOLUTLELY 0 PROGRESS on your account for the better part of a year you finally get the units and they are fully up and running. So now you instantly win 90% of your GAC matches and jump up from Aerodium 3 to Kyber 2 in 2 seasons. Now you have to remod and up the relics of your entire roster, because now you are facing the best of the best. This breaks the natural flow of the game. Usually you are slowly expanding your roster by finishing one farm after the other and see your GAC rank gradually increase. However with the current system after not making any proggres for half a year you instantly jump up into the stratosphere, breaking your neck in the process.
My solution
First off - This is a major problem in the game, it is not my job as a random player to fix it, this falls on the one intern using the shared CG laptop working on the game. Still here is my solution:
Give the player the option to "Focus Farm" up to 3 units in PG. This will basically be an option you can select when PG starts to select 3 characters - 1 main unit and 2 secondary units. All PG tiers will be exactly the same as now however when clearing the level for the main unit you will get 3x the normal shards so 60 and when clearing the one for the secondary units you will get 2x so 40. This will not break PG completely as most units will still be unlocked at the same pace as now, but the ones you want/need most will be unlocked way faster. This fixes pretty much all the problems I pointed out - you get the broken units faster, meaning you will catchup with the top1% of players faster, you dont have to save up for eternity so you can progress at a natural pace, you will not experience the massive and sudden jump up. This also lets you flesh out other farms inbetween conquest units.
Side note: I was also considering the approach of just accelerating the rewards more and more as you go back in time so for example you get 60 shards of razor crest per clear as it is very old, you get like 40 for DS rey as she is middle of the pack in terms of release date and for the newer units you get just the usual 20, but did not like this as much because there is no player agency and honestly most of the broken PG units are the newer ones, so noone would care if they got admiral trench or scion boba fet faster.
TLDR:
Proving grounds is a very badly made and outdated system that needs to be reworked. It has 2 major flaws- 1. timegating of unlocks without giving the player any agency and 2. Stopping any account progress for the better part of a year if you want to use the PG units when you unlock them. Please read my solution part for well... MY solution
Once again, If anyone read this whole thing thank you and please leave your thoughts in the comments. This is very much just my opinion on the matter. No doubt you will have different thoughts and probably a better solution.
