Concerning Mega-Guilds and the Conquest System.

[Jrr_hypernova]

but if you remove the huge mega guilds wont the bigish guilds just beat you anyway? and if you block the than it will be the slightly larger than avrage ones who beat you and so on. you seem to think that theres nothing between mega guild

(which is a load of bull no guild has a million members which is by the way is what mega means)

and the micro guilds which is a load of bull

Edited August 7, 2014 by Jrr_hypernova

[Ratajack]

The winning guilds will have that anyways. I'm conceding that at a certain point and a certain size, there's no chance of anything other than another Mega Guild can challenge the largest Guilds. What my system does is take that into consideration and clear them out from the Leader Board so that other Guilds can take a spot and win something even if they don't have hundreds of active members.

 

Really?

 

I guess we should make sure that any Olympian who wins any event cannot participate in any other events in that Olympics or any of the next three Olympics. After all, it's not fair that the best athletes have a huge advantage over the little guy. The little guy should be able to win that gold, too, even if we have to keep banning everyone better than him until he does.

[mpddispatch]

Really?

 

I guess we should make sure that any Olympian who wins any event cannot participate in any other events in that Olympics or any of the next three Olympics. After all, it's not fair that the best athletes have a huge advantage over the little guy. The little guy should be able to win that gold, too, even if we have to keep banning everyone better than him until he does.

 

Couldnt agree more!!!! Im GM of a guild, which is not huge by any means, and I dont think they should change a thing. If my guild doesnt make the leaderboards then we have something, as a guild no less, to work towards. Some people and their California attitude kill me. If you dont know what I mean by this it makes reference to the California education department wanting to get rid of letter grades to ensure that there were no losers in their system.

[Blakinik]

Honestly the simplest answer is allow for the conquest worlds to be done via faction.

 

From here, guilds that participated in the conquest for their faction would get the bonuses, those that didn't wouldn't. This would allow for both large and small guilds to contribute.

 

If they really wanted to make it 'fair', limit the guild runs weekly - smaller guilds might get to do it multiple times, the larger would have to decide who does the runs. The 'perk' of this is the guilds that are major dorks where a handful of raiders dominate constantly could find that others are dropping out since they want to participate. It would add a 'balance' to the galactic conquest - smaller guilds potentially could be more responsive than larger guilds. It also stops the uber guilds from just hoarding players and makes those that join guilds with their friends as enjoyable if not more so that the large guilds.

 

Either case, I believe this would have the best opportunity for everyone to enjoy the game dynamics.

[Master_Hitsugaya]

Couldnt agree more!!!! Im GM of a guild, which is not huge by any means, and I dont think they should change a thing. If my guild doesnt make the leaderboards then we have something, as a guild no less, to work towards. Some people and their California attitude kill me. If you dont know what I mean by this it makes reference to the California education department wanting to get rid of letter grades to ensure that there were no losers in their system.

 

Sounds like a system where I would have made straight As

 

 

But I think the top 10 for each planet win so times that by x number of planets then that is a lot. My raiding guild has 400ish members in it(with a huge amount of alts) but I can say we will have anywhere between 20-40 players that will play this and they alts so I can say 1 we are not a mega guild 2 we probs fall I between mid size to large size but am sure we will make some of those leader boards.

[Blakinik]

I posted the following to a response in a another thread but it fit better here. I do agree until we see it work for a few weeks we maybe jumping the gun with better ideas, I am hoping this conquest turns out to be a success and a lot of people can have fun doing it. When i look at the current reward system I feel the flaw is you are ask to but int time but have a small chance at any kind of rewards. So why not but a layer in there were once you reach a certain goal you get something and if you finish in the top x you get something on top of that.

 

For Example:

The current personal conquest goal is 35,000 points and the guild rewards for the top 10 guilds are 10 Jawa Junk,1 Gathering Lockbox, 50K credit certificate, and 1 encryption plan

 

So set the guild goal to 350,000 points (that is 10 people at 35,000). Then if the guild earn that many points give them the above rewards. If they finish in the top x (say 10 for this example) , then they get an addition 5 Jawa junk, another 50K Credit Certificate and additional encryption plan. (this can be modified if many ways).

 

By doing this all guilds have a chance of getting some kind of rewards for investing their time into the game (regardless of their size) and for others there are some bragging rights to shoot for.

 

I like this idea - Reminds me of the PVP battles in that you don't need to be the top dog to get rewards if your faction wins. Honestly anything that makes the game fun I would support. Some people have this right whether you like it or not: If people think they do not have a chance they will not even bother trying.

 

All you have to do is look at PVP for an example of this. When your faction is losing, people just burn out the clock (saw one guy was just standing in the corner emoting "picks their nose in boredom."). I see that maybe occurring here - if they are so outgunned people will just say "F-it" and stop participating until Bioware throws out a "Double XP on Planetary Conquest Month!" to get people to bother caring (like they did for GSF and PVP).

[Lord_of_Mu]

Honestly the simplest answer is allow for the conquest worlds to be done via faction.

 

From here, guilds that participated in the conquest for their faction would get the bonuses, those that didn't wouldn't. This would allow for both large and small guilds to contribute.

 

If they really wanted to make it 'fair', limit the guild runs weekly - smaller guilds might get to do it multiple times, the larger would have to decide who does the runs. The 'perk' of this is the guilds that are major dorks where a handful of raiders dominate constantly could find that others are dropping out since they want to participate. It would add a 'balance' to the galactic conquest - smaller guilds potentially could be more responsive than larger guilds. It also stops the uber guilds from just hoarding players and makes those that join guilds with their friends as enjoyable if not more so that the large guilds.

 

Either case, I believe this would have the best opportunity for everyone to enjoy the game dynamics.

 

Absolutely but that doesn't appear to be the way the dev team wants to take the game. So turtle mode crafting it is.

 

On the plus side, in the unlikely event that my spotty at best 4 active member guild ever ranks the top 10 for a guild conquest, I'll have something to laugh about.

Edited August 7, 2014 by Lord_of_Mu

[Aieranda]

Honestly the simplest answer is allow for the conquest worlds to be done via faction.

 

I find this idea intriguing, but slightly modified. Instead of galaxy wide, maybe a single world (new each week, randomly rotating) is set as a "front" in the war, and all guilds/players of either faction can do stuff there to earn points for their faction. The formation of extra shards will take care of the load. Maybe some similar but slightly different rewards for various tasks there.

 

Like warzones, the winning faction gets more that week, and the losing side still gets some lesser amount of rewards. Your own rewards as a player are tiered based on points contributed, possibly at different stages or levels of accomplishment, with a percentage that also feeds guild points earned, and overall faction points earned.

 

Meanwhile, the conquest system continues as normal (currently proposed) on all other eligible worlds.

Edited August 7, 2014 by Aieranda

[RaptureRocker]

Honestly, the best action is to LET THE CONTENT LAUNCH FIRST so we can actually experience it with REAL server guilds and REAL server populations, instead of pretending we know everything already.

[Aieranda]

The devs are not going to be able to dramatically change anything at this point. What we have seen of the previews is pretty darn close to what we're going to get at Subscriber launch of these features.

 

I think it's completely reasonable to have concerns and there's nothing wrong with speculating based on past experiences in similarly released features from other titles. It's best for the devs to hear discussion and ideas now for future releases that will, in turn, take time to develop.

[ThorgrimLutgen]

Remember, most "mega-guilds" are generally full of less than mega players.

 

These places will take any old crap into their ranks.

 

Quality will be far more important than quantity when it comes to stopping them taking over the planets.

 

Personally I have no interest in taking over any planets, but I have a lot of interest in stopping other people. This could be an excellent owPVP idea, then again, could be a pile of crap.

Edited August 7, 2014 by ThorgrimLutgen

[Aries_cz]

Check last nights twitch stream they mention it at one point. You can only have 12 person on the planet conquering it's the max and it was made that way for performance purposes.

http://www.twitch.tv/swtor?sf29420138=1

 

edit: Actually the more I think about it, it's actually more advantageous to be in a small dedicated guild then being in a large guild since not everyone will be able to get in the group to go planet side to conquer. So mega guild or not I don't think it will matter that much.

 

I watched the stream again, but I did not hear it get mentioned. All I heard was Jack Wood saying that they will need about 8 to 10 people to kill commanders (because you cannot solo them) and show off the conquest system, but nothing about limiting number of people conquering planets (except something like "we will not allow more than 12 people on commander", but that was really not well explained and it does not make sense, because commander are in open world, so you cannot limit number of people).

Not to mention, on PTS, nothing stopped us from forming a group of about 20 people and kill stuff like base guards together

[arunav]

Really?

 

I guess we should make sure that any Olympian who wins any event cannot participate in any other events in that Olympics or any of the next three Olympics. After all, it's not fair that the best athletes have a huge advantage over the little guy. The little guy should be able to win that gold, too, even if we have to keep banning everyone better than him until he does.

 

Did you just, even if unintentionally, compare playing SWTOR to the Olympics?

[Elminster_cs]

I really don't know if this could be a problem, some of my guild mates think yes, others no.

There are two side, personally I think that well organized guild with lots of alt if they start "farm" to conquer a planet they can do it, but of course big guild with 50/60+ active player have a very big advantage.

[LanceCorporalDan]

I watched the stream again, but I did not hear it get mentioned. All I heard was Jack Wood saying that they will need about 8 to 10 people to kill commanders (because you cannot solo them) and show off the conquest system, but nothing about limiting number of people conquering planets (except something like "we will not allow more than 12 people on commander", but that was really not well explained and it does not make sense, because commander are in open world, so you cannot limit number of people).

Not to mention, on PTS, nothing stopped us from forming a group of about 20 people and kill stuff like base guards together

 

Yeah I was trying to find that as well. Glad I wasn't alone.

[OddballEasyEight]

Remember, most "mega-guilds" are generally full of less than mega players.

 

 

Hehehe, that's the best line I've heard all week

[DarthDymond]

I watched the stream again, but I did not hear it get mentioned. All I heard was Jack Wood saying that they will need about 8 to 10 people to kill commanders (because you cannot solo them) and show off the conquest system, but nothing about limiting number of people conquering planets (except something like "we will not allow more than 12 people on commander", but that was really not well explained and it does not make sense, because commander are in open world, so you cannot limit number of people).

Not to mention, on PTS, nothing stopped us from forming a group of about 20 people and kill stuff like base guards together

Yeah, you can definitely have more than 12 players at a time contributing points to the Conquest, it's just that the Commanders are apparently designed around only having 12 max fighting them. I would guess there's either an anti-cheesing ability that will "enrage" the Commander if more than 12 enemies attack him, or that only 12 people can get credit for the kill in terms of Conquest points.

 

On the overall topic, I think we need to wait and see whether the number of planets in each Conquest cycle works for the purpose of giving smaller guilds an opportunity to meaningfully participate, or whether BW will need to tweak that number. It seems like adjusting the number is a fairly straightforward change to make though, so I would guess that is the method they'd take if there does seem to be a problem of smaller guilds getting completely crowded out.

(I'm a bit unclear on how many planets are currently planned though, I thought Eric or Jack said that at times all 15 planets/areas would be Conquerable in a single cycle, but on Dulfy's guide it says there are specific cycles and each one only involves 3-4 planets at a time. Not sure if there's inconsistent info coming out, of if that's just a mistake on Dulfy.)

 

This is something I'm guessing they really do need to wait and see before they can set the "right" amount of planets for - since a lot of it is going to depend on whether these mega-guilds end up wanting to actually go toe-to-toe with each other, or if they want to each pick their own separate world to have locked down. That's not something they can really get a read on from the PTS.

[Elminster_cs]

After reading dufly: http://dulfy.net/2014/08/07/swtor-planetary-conquests-guide/

And discover that there is not even a character cap... ok bigger guilds will lead every planet... bad, really bad... expecially with those one that are from nation, like spain, italy and so on, that have really big problem on find new players...

 

Bad system design... really... even if I like the idea, there will not be any competition.

[LanceCorporalDan]

After reading dufly: http://dulfy.net/2014/08/07/swtor-planetary-conquests-guide/

And discover that there is not even a character cap... ok bigger guilds will lead every planet... bad, really bad... expecially with those one that are from nation, like spain, italy and so on, that have really big problem on find new players...

 

Bad system design... really... even if I like the idea, there will not be any competition.

 

And your proposed solution?

[Elminster_cs]

And your proposed solution?

 

Well I'm not a game designer, they are paid for find this kind of thing.

 

In first place a solution can be to divide the planet conquest in "squadron" (you join a squadron on the base how many players/account you have in the guild).

Every guild that lead the squadron will gain the lead of the planet with the other ones.

You can have 3/4 squadron, for example every 20 account you change the squadron you have.

 

Remember that conquer a planet give only achivments and the possibility to use the mount, nothing more.

[Thoronmir]

I confess that I haven't paid much attention to the Conquest issues. My Guild is not exactly small. Not if you look at our roster.

[including "offline" members ... if you ignore the dates they last logged in and how many are designated as someone's alt.]

But I can count on one hand the number of players who actually log in each week for any appreciable time. It seems almost everyone has "taken a break" or "is busy in the summer" or "am just trying this new game ... seriously, I'll be back" or "am dealing with personal stuff" the past few months. So ... it's not likely that our friendly but dwindling band of renown will conquer anything. /teardrop

 

Rather than waste my time researching developer posts and videos and previous threads to glean the nuances of Conquest for myself, I'd rather waste everyone else's time by asking them to spoon-feed me select cutlets of information in response to the following questions about how the system is expected to work so I can better understand the issues and debate in this thread:

 

1. Is this Top 10 Leader Board thingy per planet conquered or for all planets? I.e., if there are 8 planets to be conquered, is there a single list of the Top 10 Guilds, or could it be as many as 80 Guilds (assuming each Guild only conquers one planet)?

 

2. I take it the Top 10 is determined each month? (Grammatically, the only proper answer to this question is, "How should I know? I can't read Thoronmir's mind!" I realize I could have just edited the question to ask, "Is the Top 10 determined each month?" But I decided that is far too explicit and concise for the internet.

 

3. How is the Top 10 determined? From the comments in this thread, it seems like there is a 35k-whatever target for each character, and the Guild with the most members who meet that goal wins ...? /quizzicalshrug

 

4. Would it mean that I'm too much of a college football fan if I admit that, upon reading the OP, my first thought was that all these prophesied "Mega-Guilds" are like the "Super-Conferences" we seem lunging towards, and all the "small Guilds" are the Division 2 (technically now called FCS) of SWTOR? Because FCS has its own championship. Maybe an equitable solution to any actual inequality we see after release is to create "tiers" of Top 10 lists based on Guild size ...?

 

If the OP's prediction proves accurate (in this case, OP meaning "Oracle Post"), the effect would be that some players would be cutting off others from certain rewards. While such results result every time you PvP, in the OP's scenario of a Category 10 Guild-nado (you know ... like a Sharknado ... but with giant guilds), it would like the same players winning every darn time in PvP (maybe that happens too). I'll be curious to see how this aspect of the game works in actual practice.

 

TL;DR: READ THE DARN POST! I spent time writing it!

[LanceCorporalDan]

Well I'm not a game designer, they are paid for find this kind of thing.

 

In first place a solution can be to divide the planet conquest in "squadron" (you join a squadron on the base how many players/account you have in the guild).

Every guild that lead the squadron will gain the lead of the planet with the other ones.

You can have 3/4 squadron, for example every 20 account you change the squadron you have.

 

Remember that conquer a planet give only achivments and the possibility to use the mount, nothing more.

 

Plus the rewards at the end of the week.

 

I would've like planets to be sectioned off. Making it hard for a guild to spread their strength so thin against all of the other guilds. This would give more of a fighting chance to the smaller guilds IMO, and give the rewards based on top 10 and which/how many of these sections are controlled.

Edited August 7, 2014 by LanceCorporalDan

[Elminster_cs]

Plus the rewards at the end of the week.

 

I would've like planets to be sectioned off. Making it hard for a guild to spread their strength so thin against all of the other guilds. This would give more of a fighting chance to the smaller guilds IMO, and give the rewards based on top 10 and which/how many of these sections are controlled.

 

Last but not least, there are rewards to be gained for completing the personal and guild conquest objectives This is a weekly you can do only once per conquest per character. To receive the rewards, you must earn 35,000 points before the time limit (1 week) expires. Once you have completed this weekly, you cannot get it again until the next conquest but you can still contribute points to the guild leaderboards, you just won’t get more rewards for doing so (it is currently unknown if the points above 35k gets transferred to the next Conquest weekly but is unlikely).

 

Nope the guild reward is give to you just if you are in a guild and reach the 35k points. So conquer a planet is useless right now. Just to show off you are big.

 

Yes I agree a sectioned one will improve lot of things... and lot of open word PvP!! This will be AMAZING... but bad engine.. too much coding... too much bla bla bla, we will never see something like this.

 

The solution is to ask big guild to join the last day of the week to take the achivment, paying, than go

[Elminster_cs]

I will try to reply, and maybe I'm wrong:

 

1. Is this Top 10 Leader Board thingy per planet conquered or for all planets? I.e., if there are 8 planets to be conquered, is there a single list of the Top 10 Guilds, or could it be as many as 80 Guilds (assuming each Guild only conquers one planet)?

 

Top 10 is for every planet in the event. Example on the PTS there are three, so three top 10. But from what they have mined there will be max 3/4 planet each time, this mean you will have the planet for a long time... we don't know if you can leave a conquested planet and join the second event.

 

2. I take it the Top 10 is determined each month? (Grammatically, the only proper answer to this question is, "How should I know? I can't read Thoronmir's mind!" I realize I could have just edited the question to ask, "Is the Top 10 determined each month?" But I decided that is far too explicit and concise for the internet.

 

Nope each week at the end of the event, and this guild will conquer the planet they have landed.

 

3. How is the Top 10 determined? From the comments in this thread, it seems like there is a 35k-whatever target for each character, and the Guild with the most members who meet that goal wins ...? /quizzicalshrug

 

Farming point on several way. WZ, WB, FP, MOB, DAILY, ETC.

 

4. Would it mean that I'm too much of a college football fan if I admit that, upon reading the OP, my first thought was that all these prophesied "Mega-Guilds" are like the "Super-Conferences" we seem lunging towards, and all the "small Guilds" are the Division 2 (technically now called FCS) of SWTOR? Because FCS has its own championship. Maybe an equitable solution to any actual inequality we see after release is to create "tiers" of Top 10 lists based on Guild size ...?

 

Because the point you can score are gained in this way a big guild with lot of people doing FP, and so on have really more odds to win.

 

[ivanhedgehog]

It depends on how many Guilds are actually out there and how many Mega Guilds end up forming.

 

Whatever the case may be, if we end up with a situation where the same Guilds end up taking the same spots on the Leader Boards week in and week out, then we'll know for sure that the system isn't balanced. I was merely pointing out the most likely thing to happen(Mega Guilds dominating) based on what I've seen happen in other MMOs.

 

this expansion has the potential to change the whole tone of this game, and not necessarily in a good way. a number of these members of small guilds might just decide to leave rather than trying to compete against mega guilds that can send teams of dedicated. equipped pvpers to deal with the pvp aspects, hardcore raiders for the ops and fp's etc. If this content is not meant for the casuals and small guilds, then they will be facing that much longer a content drought.