Guild Ship Frameworks and PVP Flagging

[Infernixx]

Yes but see you have such a nice experience (honestly I have too) on the strength of your community's character. However community character can't be enforced, like a gang springing up in a peaceful neighborhood, bad apples can get in at any time, and in a PvE environment there is nothing you can do to counter them. You can't touch them. You can't stop that tank from stealing, you can't stop that healer from healing that mob.

 

 

PvP however gives a method of enforcement. They can't mess with you because doing so means they have deal with the consequences. Dead people can't grief.

 

Umm....Healers can heal mobs?

[Zoom_VI]

Also, can I just say that the whole Crafting aspect to Guild Conquest items is overly complicated?

*snip*

For one Dark Project/Encryption.

 

Dude its called slow release progression. Just like a wee-bitty guild slowly grinding out the credits to buy the guild ship, you get to slowly grind out your rooms.

[Zoom_VI]

Umm....Healers can heal mobs?

 

you can heal mobs aligned with your faction

[Daekarus]

you can heal mobs aligned with your faction

 

Wow, I have literally never seen this done. Nice little bit of trivia though.

[Infernixx]

Dude its called slow release progression. Just like a wee-bitty guild slowly grinding out the credits to buy the guild ship, you get to slowly grind out your rooms.

 

If the PVP path was equal, I'd agree. But the twitch stream notes state that for downing a Commander, every member of the successful raid gets a full Encryption and it caps out at 12 Encryptions per kill.

 

So, a single Commander kill nets you 8 Encryptions at least and 12 at the most. Unless the respawn timer is...about 7 days...then the PVP path is face-roll easy compared to Crafting.

 

Honestly, does this look fair to you?

[Infernixx]

you can heal mobs aligned with your faction

 

I've never seen that done before. Why would someone do that?

[Daekarus]

Yes but see you have such a nice experience (honestly I have too) on the strength of your community's character. However community character can't be enforced, like a gang springing up in a peaceful neighborhood, bad apples can get in at any time, and in a PvE environment there is nothing you can do to counter them. You can't touch them. You can't stop that tank from stealing, you can't stop that healer from healing that mob.

 

 

PvP however gives a method of enforcement. They can't mess with you because doing so means they have deal with the consequences. Dead people can't grief.

 

If the community were that far gone I would just stop playing. The game is supposed to be fun, I'm not here to teach people what their mama didn't. I've got a backlog of other games I could be playing, many of them single player, where I don't have to give a rat's fart what anyone else does.

Edited August 7, 2014 by Daekarus

[Daekarus]

I've never seen that done before. Why would someone do that?

 

Presumably to keep NPCs that are helping you fight other mobs or players alive. They were trying to imply that it is also done by Imperials trying to stop Pub teams from taking down an Imp boss or vice versa. Scummy behavior if it's true. Proves the saying, "The biggest problem with multiplayer games is the players."

[Zoom_VI]

If the PVP path was equal, I'd agree. But the twitch stream notes state that for downing a Commander, every member of the successful raid gets a full Encryption and it caps out at 12 Encryptions per kill.

 

So, a single Commander kill nets you 8 Encryptions at least and 12 at the most. Unless the respawn timer is...about 7 days...then the PVP path is face-roll easy compared to Crafting.

 

Honestly, does this look fair to you?

 

Yes, because you can't farm commanders, because other people are trying to farm commanders too. Yeah if your guild gets every commander, you will totally be ahead. But you can't do that. You can only go after a commander when you have the right people online at the same time to put the group together, and even then someone else might have already killed your commander, or you might get involved in a pitched PvP battle where nobody can get ahead and walk out with the commander.

 

Kinda like the pylon in the gree event, everyone could line up to deposit their orb, but due to the orb timer only the first three people in line get to deposit before they explode.

Edited August 7, 2014 by Zoom_VI

[BuriDogshin]

You're asking for PvP content to become PvE content. You clearly don't understand that the content was not designed with you in mind.

Since when is burning down a mob for the drop "PvP" ?

 

The Commanders are by definition PvE content. BioWare just decided to make them griefer lures as well, like the Gree Heroics used to be before BioWare got rid of AoE-induced auto-tagging. I expect that when BW figures out that getting ganked isn't any fun for most of the people doing Conquests, they'll change it.

[Daekarus]

Yes, because you can't farm commanders, because other people are trying to farm commanders too. Yeah if your guild gets every commander, you will totally be ahead. But you can't do that. You can only go after a commander when you have the right people online at the same time to put the group together, and even then someone else might have already killed your commander, or you might get involved in a pitched PvP battle where nobody can get ahead and walk out with the commander.

 

Kinda like the pylon in the gree event, everyone could line up to deposit their orb, but due to the orb timer only the first three people in line get to deposit before they explode.

So what you're saying is, you believe the Commanders won't actually be any faster than the crafting because of PvP competition? Wow, I hope you're wrong, because if you aren't nobody is going to have a maxed out ship for a LONG time. You need over 48,000 endgame mats to craft a fully upgraded ship.... you know how long that will take to get doing nothing but running Ops and FPs?

 

The more I hear, the more I think this feature might as well not exist...

Edited August 7, 2014 by Daekarus

[BuriDogshin]

I've never seen that done before. Why would someone do that?

I've done that to keep the released prisoners alive in the KDY FP.

[Infernixx]

Yes, because you can't farm commanders, because other people are trying to farm commanders too. Yeah if your guild gets every commander, you will totally be ahead. But you can't do that. You can only go after a commander when you have the right people online at the same time to put the group together, and even then someone else might have already killed your commander, or you might get involved in a pitched PvP battle where nobody can get ahead and walk out with the commander.

 

Kinda like the pylon in the gree event, everyone could line up to deposit their orb, but due to the orb timer only the first three people in line get to deposit before they explode.

 

We don't know that you can't farm Commanders, but let's say you only get one per day. That's still 8-12 compared to ONE from crafting. I mean, you can't just mission-gather those mats you need to make the Dark Project. Those things are incredibly rare to begin with and once the excess is gone from the GTN( and they already 'are' gone), then that's it. You're just out of luck.

 

It's ridiculous. And if you can get 'two' Commanders in a day, then you're literally halfway to your first Framework. Meanwhile, Crafters are having to go back to lvl 50 Raids and farm them for the mats and hope they get enough to make ONE Dark Project while PVPers are rolling around in Encryptions.

 

You can't tell me that you think that the two paths are fair and balanced. No one is that blind.

Edited August 7, 2014 by Infernixx

[Zoom_VI]

If the community were that far gone I would just stop playing. The game is supposed to be fun, I'm not here to teach people what their mama didn't. I've got a backlog of other games I could be playing, many of them single player, where I don't have to give a rat's fart what anyone else does.

 

More power to you, what I was getting at was that this game's conquest, particularly the commanders are better off under a PvP system. I'm not saying everyone is going to act like what I described in fact 99% of people are honorable, but the thing is there will always be that one guy who is out to ruin everyone else's fun. Such people are very rare, but unfortunately they exist, and if we go with PvE rules, there is absolutely nothing the wider community can do to stop that guy(s) from greifing everyone. Under a PvP ruleset, that guy will just find himself sitting at the respawn all day.

 

Also I know about healing NPC because one of my RL friends used to play on shadowlands, and one time when I was giving him pointers while he was questing on corellia, a (unflagged iirc) sorc came up and started healing all the mobs he was in combat with.

Edited August 7, 2014 by Zoom_VI

[Daekarus]

We don't know that you can't farm Commanders, but let's say you only get one per day. That's still 8-12 compared to ONE from crafting. I mean, you can't just mission-gather those mats you need to make the Dark Project. Those things are incredibly rare to begin with and once the excess is gone from the GTN( and they already 'are' gone), then that's it. You're just out of luck.

 

It's ridiculous. And if you can get 'two' Commanders in a day, then you're literally halfway to your first Framework. Meanwhile, Crafters are having to go back to lvl 50 Raids and farm them for the mats and hope they get enough to make ONE Dark Project while PVPers are rolling around in Encryptions.

 

You can't tell me that you think that the two paths are fair and balanced. No one is that blind.

 

I'm wondering if the Commanders are a weekly spawn. That means the primary source of encryptions would be from Conquest, if I understand rightly, and crafting would still be fairly useless.

[Infernixx]

I'm wondering if the Commanders are a weekly spawn. That means the primary source of encryptions would be from Conquest, if I understand rightly, and crafting would still be fairly useless.

 

If they 'are' a weekly spawn, and I doubt it, then the PVP path is still horribly imbalanced, but not system-breaking. If you can farm those Commanders, then hang it up, people will have a fully opened Guild Ship within a week as long as they can sit on a Commander and endlessly farm him for Encryptions.

 

On my server, if the Commanders can be farmed and each Raid member gets an Encryption for every Commander killed, with 8-12 Encryptions being won with every kill, then the largest Imperial Guilds will get their fully opened Guild Ships first, followed down the line until most of the organized Imperial guilds have what they need and then, maybe, the Imperials might let the Republic players have theirs. Maybe. Maybe not.

 

And yes, there's more than enough Imperials to utterly dominate the pubs and defend Imperial Commanders and kill Republic Commanders at the same time. Our server is that imbalanced.

Edited August 7, 2014 by Infernixx

[Zoom_VI]

We don't know that you can't farm Commanders, but let's say you only get one per day. That's still 8-12 compared to ONE from crafting. I mean, you can't just mission-gather those mats you need to make the Dark Project. Those things are incredibly rare to begin with and once the excess is gone from the GTN( and they already 'are' gone), then that's it. You're just out of luck.

 

It's ridiculous. And if you can get 'two' Commanders in a day, then you're literally halfway to your first Framework. Meanwhile, Crafters are having to go back to lvl 50 Raids and farm them for the mats and hope they get enough to make ONE Dark Project while PVPers are rolling around in Encryptions.

 

You can't tell me that you think that the two paths are fair and balanced. No one is that blind.

 

But you don't know how many you can get a day. You are pulling numbers.

 

I think you are just in shock because there is no precedent for large scale cooperative crafting in SWTOR, right now everything can be crafted by individuals.

Edited August 7, 2014 by Zoom_VI

[Infernixx]

But you don't know how many you can get a day. You are pulling numbers.

 

I think you are just in shock because there is no precedent for large scale cooperative crafting in SWTOR, right now everything can be crafted by individuals.

 

Okay, again, to make Dark Projects, you need rare non-mission-gained mats that drop from 50 HMs and OPs. Once the supply runs out, that's it, you're now required to go do sub-55 content endlessly and hope that you can get enough to make ONE.

 

Meanwhile, a group of 8-12 people can, at the very LEAST, get 8 to 12 times as many with a fraction of the effort. You kill ONE boss and get 8-12 Encryptions, while non-PVPers get to kill bosses in 3 50 Raids and all the bosses in a half-dozen lvl 50 HM FPs and pray you get enough mats to make ONE Encryption.

 

And that's if you can kill ONE Commander in a day's time. Let them be farmable and the imbalance becomes something of a bad joke.

 

I'll tell you this, if Encryptions only dropped off of HM Ops bosses and PVPers were left with Crafting to get theirs, the servers would have melted from all the PVP rage.

[Zoom_VI]

If they 'are' a weekly spawn, and I doubt it, then the PVP path is still horribly imbalanced, but not system-breaking. If you can farm those Commanders, then hang it up, people will have a fully opened Guild Ship within a week as long as they can sit on a Commander and endlessly farm him for Encryptions.

 

This is where the PvP comes into play. You can only farm as long as nobody else feels like stopping you.

 

As for faction population, you can't really do anything about that. However I have been through more than enough OW world campaigns on my pubs to know that even while outnumbered you can still easily deny the imps too. Yeah I can totally see the imps strangleholding their commanders, but there is no way they can pull that off and still stop me from wrecking any of their attempts of downing a commander.

 

Which would interestingly lead to a stalemate, which could seriously hamper the ability to get frameworks which could easily lead to crafting becoming viable.

Edited August 7, 2014 by Zoom_VI

[Infernixx]

This is where the PvP comes into play. You can only farm as long as nobody else feels like stopping you.

 

As for faction population, you can't really do anything about that. However I have been through more than enough OW world campaigns on my pubs to know that even while outnumbered you can still easily deny the imps too. Yeah I can totally see the imps strangleholding their commanders, but there is no way they can pull that off and still stop me from wrecking any of their attempts of downing a commander.

 

Which would interestingly lead to a stalemate, which could seriously hamper the ability to get frameworks which could easily lead to crafting becoming viable.

 

You vastly underestimate how many Imperials are on my server. Most servers are in the same shape. My own guild will get our stuff and I'll hate every minute of that herpa-derp OW PVP and the pubs will do nothing to stop it. They're bystanders on this server.

 

So, not only are they locked out of Commander farming, but Crafting will take them months to open a single room. Because none of those guilds will hit a Leader Board spot.

 

Simply put, the system is horribly imbalanced toward face-roll killing of a possibly farmable Commander mob and favors the strongest faction on each server, while Crafters get a bone thrown to them meant to keep guilds farming sub-55 HMs and Ops.

 

Seriously?

[Daekarus]

But you don't know how many you can get a day. You are pulling numbers.

 

I think you are just in shock because there is no precedent for large scale cooperative crafting in SWTOR, right now everything can be crafted by individuals.

 

While I agree that you're right about pulling numbers from thin air, I don't think there is any question the crafting costs are over the top. You know how many man hours it will take to accumulate the 48600 endgame mats? Even a 500 man guild is going to take... well, assuming it takes 20 minutes to obtain each mat (a very low number), a 500 person guild would need every single member to spend 32.4 hours doing nothing but grinding those mats. A 100 person guild would need every single member to spend 162 hours doing nothing but grinding those mats. No events, no dailies, no bio breaks, and certainly no PvP or wipes. Chances are it will take MUCH longer than that freakishly ideal scenario of 20 minutes per with no delays.

 

I'm sorry, but those are crazy numbers, especially for anything OTHER than a mega-guild. Most small guilds might as well hang up the towel... a 24-man guild with a 16-man team and an 8-man team would have to spend nearly 675 hours each farming under those ideal conditions. That's almost 17 weeks straight of playing 40 hours a week. Hell no.

[Zoom_VI]

Okay, again, to make Dark Projects, you need rare non-mission-gained mats that drop from 50 HMs and OPs. Once the supply runs out, that's it, you're now required to go do sub-55 content endlessly and hope that you can get enough to make ONE.

 

Meanwhile, a group of 8-12 people can, at the very LEAST, get 8 to 12 times as many with a fraction of the effort. You kill ONE boss and get 8-12 Encryptions, while non-PVPers get to kill bosses in 3 50 Raids and all the bosses in a half-dozen lvl 50 HM FPs and pray you get enough mats to make ONE Encryption.

 

And that's if you can kill ONE Commander in a day's time. Let them be farmable and the imbalance becomes something of a bad joke.

I am fully aware of the crafting costs, I hang out with crafters all the time. I spent 4 hours yesterday roaming the PTS just trying to find a commander with no success, I highly doubt commanders are farmable.

 

Besides when did the PvP that you spent the first half of the thread bemoaning turn into "easily farmable"

 

I'll tell you this, if Encryptions only dropped off of HM Ops bosses and PVPers were left with Crafting to get theirs, the servers would have melted from all the PVP rage.

Well this forum is already melting from your personal rage so I don't get your point. Maybe if you use less hasty generalizations and stereotypes I might be able to understand.

[Zoom_VI]

I think I'm going to throw in the towel myself and be "that guy" that tells you that guildships are part and parcel of conquest, and the best way to expand your guildship is going to be through conquest. You might as well start complaining about how the only way to get season rewards is through PvP, because that argument holds as much weight as yours.

[Infernixx]

I am fully aware of the crafting costs, I hang out with crafters all the time. I spent 4 hours yesterday roaming the PTS just trying to find a commander with no success, I highly doubt commanders are farmable.

 

Besides when did the PvP that you spent the first half of the thread bemoaning turn into "easily farmable"

 

 

Well this forum is already melting from your personal rage so I don't get your point. Maybe if you use less hasty generalizations and stereotypes I might be able to understand.

 

I never said that the Commanders weren't farmable. I said it was stupid to force people into PVP when they hate PVP. And no, I'm not angry, I'm frustrated and confused as to who thought this would be a good idea. And as far as I've seen, you haven't come up with 'anything' to refute my points.

 

As for 'hasty generalizations' and 'stereotypes', I can only say 'wat.' Because I'm talking about Crafting versus farming an NPC mob in an OW PVP zone with no apparent mechanisms in place to prevent the larger faction on each server from simply destroying the smaller faction and dominating the entire thing until the larger faction has all the Encryptions they need. Meanwhile, the 'pve' path is farming non-current content for rare mats to make 1, while the pvp path passes them out like candy from a mob that may well be Farmable on live.

 

Meanwhile, all I hear from you is 'can't be helped!' and you're willing to shrug your shoulders and let it go at that. No, no, the system is screwed up, we don't just shrug our shoulders and let it go.

[Brewski]

If the PVP path was equal, I'd agree. But the twitch stream notes state that for downing a Commander, every member of the successful raid gets a full Encryption and it caps out at 12 Encryptions per kill.

 

So, a single Commander kill nets you 8 Encryptions at least and 12 at the most. Unless the respawn timer is...about 7 days...then the PVP path is face-roll easy compared to Crafting.

 

Honestly, does this look fair to you?

I agree the crafting path needs to be balanced. Lowering the mat costs, and providing alternate schematics would be a great way to do so. They've provided variable schematics for most of the other GSH goods, so they can do the same for Dark Projects. If we had others that worked off of other rare mats from other ops and such, that would go a long way towards doing it.

 

Really, the question is not "Will they provide a PvE path" so much as it is "Will they balance the PvE cost to make it a reasonable supplement/alternative"?

 

To be honest, I don't even want it to be equal. I just want it to be close enough to be relevant.