Regarding Dark Project mats.

[Sabatus]

why do you need to fill it? Again, there is nothing wrong with having an eternal grind. "Completion" is a far worst scenario for a game. Once there is nothing to do, you don't play anymore. It doesn't matter what content it's tied to, but it, for sure, gives that content PURPOSE now. It shouldn't be too hard to fathom why they would put something like this in the game. To keep people playing...

 

Get it?

 

The last 10 years of western MMO developments say hi...

[MillionsKNives]

why do you need to fill it? Again, there is nothing wrong with having an eternal grind. "Completion" is a far worst scenario for a game. Once there is nothing to do, you don't play anymore. It doesn't matter what content it's tied to, but it, for sure, gives that content PURPOSE now. It shouldn't be too hard to fathom why they would put something like this in the game. To keep people playing...

 

Get it?

 

No, because you're talking out of your ***. The game has survived without guild ships and people are still here, it will survive with people completing the guild ship. The problem with an eternal grind is that no one is going to grind it. People will give up if they feel they are not making any progress, and those who are smart will never attempt it to begin with.

 

You ever wonder why Western players don't play Korean MMOs? The grind. No one likes long arduous grinds with no end in sight. So they don't play it. Hence the move to more casual MMOs where progress can be made even in short play sessions.

Edited August 13, 2014 by MillionsKNives

[Reno_Tarshil]

Yep I'm red faced and have steam coming out my ears..

 

Well at least you admit it.

[MillionsKNives]

why do you need to fill it?

 

And again, to your question of why I need to fill it, I don't. I don't need to fill it, I want to fill it. After all, all this game is a fulfillment of wants. I want to play a Jedi, I want to play a Bounty Hunter, I want to go off and kill things with friends, and make credits, and earn gear, and get a bad*** space cruiser. And it's in BioWare's best interest that they fulfill their players' wants in a way that keeps them playing.

 

I want to fill my space cruiser with a bunch of random crap and then just sit in it. But, I won't spend the next decade doing it.

Edited August 13, 2014 by MillionsKNives

[L-RANDLE]

No, because you're talking out of your ***. The game has survived without guild ships and people are still here, it will survive with people completing the guild ship. The problem with an eternal grind is that no one is going to grind it. People will give up if they feel they are not making any progress, and those who are smart will never attempt it to begin with.

 

You ever wonder why Western players don't play Korean MMOs? The grind. No one likes long arduous grinds with no end in sight. So they don't play it. Hence the move to more casual MMOs where progress can be made even in short play sessions.

This game survived because of the IP. It has very little to do with the content which has been casual from the start.

 

But back to my main piont, so why complain about something that isn't required for progression AND requires a ******** of grinding? It's there for people who want to do it. If the time commitment is too much, then don't do it.

 

The reason I say it's premature is that it looks like room unlocks provide no real value in the grand scheme of "progression", unless you think vanity has progression?

[Pagy]

I want to fill my space cruiser with a bunch of random crap and then just sit in it. But, I won't spend the next decade doing it.

so don't take a decade

 

kill the commanders. it will be easy.

[MillionsKNives]

This game survived because of the IP. It has very little to do with the content which has been casual from the start.

 

If that's why it survived then why do you fear people "completing" the ship? You just said that people will leave if they complete it, but then said that people staying had nothing to do with the content to begin with. You contradict yourself.

 

But back to my main piont, so why complain about something that isn't required for progression AND requires a ******** of grinding? It's there for people who want to do it. If the time commitment is too much, then don't do it.

 

Answered in another post.

 

The reason I say it's premature is that it looks like room unlocks provide no real value in the grand scheme of "progression", unless you think vanity has progression?

 

This sentence makes no sense. Vanity or not, progression or not progression, has nothing to do with whether this is premature.

 

so don't take a decade

 

kill the commanders. it will be easy.

 

We are talking about the cost and time in mats. Do try to keep up.

Edited August 13, 2014 by MillionsKNives

[Pagy]

We are talking about the cost and time in mats. Do try to keep up.

who cares about the mats, kill the commanders. it will be easy. dry those tears.

[L-RANDLE]

so don't take a decade

 

kill the commanders. it will be easy.

.

Or farm credits and buy DPs from the GTN from all those Korean DP Grinders, or buy CM items with real money (sell them for credits and buy DPs from the Korean DP Grinders for instant gratification), or ......

 

Wait..... starting a new guild.....brb

[Shoraan]

1. Fully unlocking the ship will definitely bring a new meaning to "World First" (not like those ops where World First may be achieved during the first week after release).

2. The PvP flagging is silly, because it doesn't encourage owPvP. It doesn't give those who "defend" the commander any ingame benefit at all. Unlike WZs where both groups have the same goal (killing players) we have one group fighting to kill players and another aiming to kill an NPC commander. That's hardly a fair fight, because the group that wants to kill players has nothing to gain from that encounter except for the fun of griefing others. That would be like voidstar with only one round and the defenders would under no circumstances get any rewards from the encounter.

 

They could have designed something like this:

- Group A attacks the base, once they drop an orbital strike on the commander, a server-wide newscast on the fleet is initiated (if that is too much work, a system-message like server-going-down would even suffice).

- The orbital strike has a duration of 10 (or whatever) minutes before the shield drops, thus allowing the opposite faction to organize a defense force.

- If the commander is still alive after x minutes every player of the defending faction that happens to be flagged within a certain radius around the commander gets one encryption, otherwise every flagged player of the attacking faction in the area gets one. (And please deactivate Expertise in these areas.)

 

In that case the defenders would have a legitimate interest other than griefing the attackers.

 

3. Yes, I'm starting to agree that the costs for crafting these seem astronomical (I'm sure I have read most of the posts doing the math), but guilds don't have to farm all the mats themselves, nor do they have to buy all of them from the GTN within 4 weeks. They can mix those options and get encryptions from conquest and commanders. Also, there are 15 rooms and not all of them have to be unlocked at once. These are obviously meant as steps. So, instead of looking at the time it takes to unlock all the rooms, look at the first room and after that, the second. If a large guild can unlock a room in 3 or 4 weeks without spending all their time in classic ops and FE, I'd call that reasonable. They could have their ship fully unlocked within a year.

 

In that scenario crafting only plays a minor role, perhaps only to supply any missing Dark Projects/Encryptions in order to get 50 for one Framework. Let's say a guild finishes a conquest week among the top 10, gets maybe 30 encryptions from 30 guild members who finished their personal conquest, farms a few commanders and gets another 10 encryptions. They only have to craft 10 Dark Projects to get 1 Framework. Rinse and repeat for the second week and you can already unlock your first room.

 

And I'm convinced that there will be plenty of people who run the old content anyway (I see PUG groups for KP and EV for the Weekly all the time on the fleet) and sell the mats on the GTN. People even sell MMG and Isotope-5, although they could probably use them themselves to get better gear. (I doubt that only people in full 180 or better gear sell these.)

 

4. I'm more concerned about the fact that only ten guilds get Encryptions as a reward for the guild conquest. That means in addition to having more manpower to farm the commanders and the mats in classic ops/FE they also get "free" encryptions simply by being in the top 10. Are they tradable? If yes it would even make sense to have an alt in a large guild that is sure to get into the top 10, then send the encryption to your main and fund your smaller guild through that.

[L-RANDLE]

If that's why it survived then why do you fear people "completing" the ship? You just said that people will leave if they complete it, but then said that people staying had nothing to do with the content to begin with. You contradict yourself.

 

 

 

Answered in another post.

 

 

This sentence makes no sense. Vanity or not, progression or not progression, has nothing to do with whether this is premature.

 

 

 

We are talking about the cost and time in mats. Do try to keep up.

Fear something in a video game? I just critted myself laughing....

 

And I didn't contradict myself. "Survived".. past tense.. was due to the IP. As it stands now, the IP isn't enough anymore. There needs to be content that has a purpose. In this case the purpose looks designed to "stretch out" over a longer period of time. One task, in a pond of many to engage certain players/guilds. This is a guild wide unlock.

 

The issue is that people here complaining are the ones that "fear" that they are missing out on something if they don't do it. It's up to guilds and individuals in whether it's "worth it" to do and none of that can be answered UNTIL THE ACTUAL PATCH IS RELEASED(capped for emphasis). i. e. Premature.

 

 

But at the end of the day, regardless of what is released,

Do or do not, there is no try to complain until the devs make it easy mode.

[BuriDogshin]

It almost makes you go, "W'T'F' are they thinking?"

It makes me think some people need to go learn math.

 

Keeping it simple: based on Infernixx' post, and on 8-manning the L50 16m ops in 45 minutes, each Dark Project takes 18 man-hours (MH) of effort running L50 ops. Unlocking a room takes 100 to 300 Dark projects - 1800 to 5400 MH. Sounds like a lot, and it would be: for a single player. But for a guild?

 

Looking at three example guilds with different numbers of active members, the breakdown is like this:

Guild A: 40 active members -> 45 to 135 hours of effort per player per room unlock.

Guild B: 60 active members -> 30 to 90 hours of effort per player per room unlock.

Guild C: 90 active members -> 20 to 60 hours of effort per player per room unlock.

Of course, there are larger and smaller guilds.

 

So what does that mean in terms of time to unlock? Depends on how much time each week people commit, on average. From my experience, it isn't unusual to see people online playing SWTOR 15 hours a week or more; I know of several people who play for over 30 hours a week. How much of that time would they be willing to put into L50 runs to get room unlock mats?

 

If it's only 4 hours a week -- one or two evenings of play -- then Guild A would unlock a room in 11 to 34 weeks, Guild B in 7 to 22 weeks, and Guild C in 5 to 15 weeks. Slow, but that's a causal approach to the effort.

 

But if it's 10 hours a week - for example, 2 hours on 2 weeknights, and two 3-hour weekend sessions -- then Guild A would unlock a room in 4 to 14 weeks, Guild B in 3 to 9, and Guild C in 2 to 6 weeks. That's not bad, really. And 10 hours a week, while not causal, is not that unrealistic either. I think some people spend more time than that posting on the forums.

 

And of course, the guild does not have to earn the mats by running EV and KP: yes, someone has to run them, just like someone has to run missions to bring new credits into the game, but the mats are all tradeable, so you can always just do whatever content or crafting you want and use what you earn to buy the mats.

 

Myself, until 3.0 comes out, I don't really need the proceeds of whatever I do for myself anyway: my toons are all geared well enough for DF/DP HM, and my companions don't really need to be in fully-augmented 180 gear. So I'm willing to direct a large part of the proceeds of my SWTOR activities to unlocking rooms in my stronghold and in the guild flagship. They seems a more worthwhile pursuit -- to me -- than the other things I could do with the credits. If they do not seem so to you, well, don't do it. No one is forcing you to.

[Khevar]

It almost makes you go, "W'T'F' are they thinking?"

This is only my opinion, of course. But I believe they were thinking: "Let's allow people to unlock rooms through crafting, but make it hard enough that more guilds attempt to compete in Conquests"

 

There are 8 commanders. Any guild that can run level 50 operations can fight commanders. Time will tell, but I'd be surprised if all commanders are constantly being camped at all times.

 

If you defeat one commander per day, it's not going to take very long to get the 54 frameworks to unlock every room in the flagship.

[MillionsKNives]

Fear something in a video game? I just critted myself laughing....

 

I'm not the one dooming and glooming what would happen if people completed the guild ship.

 

And I didn't contradict myself. "Survived".. past tense.. was due to the IP. As it stands now, the IP isn't enough anymore. There needs to be content that has a purpose. In this case the purpose looks designed to "stretch out" over a longer period of time. One task, in a pond of many to engage certain players/guilds. This is a guild wide unlock.

 

Anything to back up your doom and gloom? Or just a "hunch"?

 

The issue is that people here complaining are the ones that "fear" that they are missing out on something if they don't do it. It's up to guilds and individuals in whether it's "worth it" to do and none of that can be answered UNTIL THE ACTUAL PATCH IS RELEASED(capped for emphasis). i. e. Premature.

 

Doesn't change the math. Good try though.

 

But at the end of the day, regardless of what is released,

Do or do not, there is no try to complain until the devs make it easy mode.

 

I'm completely unable to decipher this sentence.

[Infernixx]

This is only my opinion, of course. But I believe they were thinking: "Let's allow people to unlock rooms through crafting, but make it hard enough that more guilds attempt to compete in Conquests"

 

There are 8 commanders. Any guild that can run level 50 operations can fight commanders. Time will tell, but I'd be surprised if all commanders are constantly being camped at all times.

 

If you defeat one commander per day, it's not going to take very long to get the 54 frameworks to unlock every room in the flagship.

 

One per day will work out to be about one Framework per two months. This is assuming you're not farming the 6 instances of KP and EV per week, every week. If you do that, then you're looking at 9 Encryptions per week. That's six weeks to get a Framework. That's 3 months to get a room unlocked.

 

That's assuming you can get your guildies to do 3 KPs and EVs per week, every week.

 

That's assuming you can kill a commander every day.

 

Of course, the easiest way to do it would be to place on the Leader Board. Do that and you can get 50 Encryptions in a week's time, assuming 50 Guild members/alts.

 

I'm not going to try and bolster my assessment with logic. There's logic on both sides of the issue. What it boils down to is I don't see my guild, or very many others, putting in 'that much' effort for something so cosmetic. Which is a shame because I like the concept of Guild Conquest. And I realize that the game's been burnt by Dev putting content out that's too easily burned through. But, this is taking it to the other extreme.

 

If it goes live like this, I'll just do my Personal Conquest stuff, ignore the idea of contributing to expanding the guild ship and wait for the Dev to realize that they went too far in the other direction and modify the system to make it more attainable for most players.

 

Because, quite simply, I'm not going to spend millions buying overpriced mats on the GTN, nor am I going to do 6 lvl 50 Ops that I've already done for years for a year or more, week in and week out, just to unlock an empty room.

[Quraswren]

This is only my opinion, of course. But I believe they were thinking: "Let's allow people to unlock rooms through crafting, but make it hard enough that more guilds attempt to compete in Conquests"

 

There are 8 commanders. Any guild that can run level 50 operations can fight commanders. Time will tell, but I'd be surprised if all commanders are constantly being camped at all times.

 

If gamers are expected to put in hundreds of hours you can expect there will be some that camp those guys every time they are available.

 

If you defeat one commander per day, it's not going to take very long to get the 54 frameworks to unlock every room in the flagship.

 

Depends on the number of people camping them. No guild actually trying to finish their ship is going to just let them just slip away to some other guild without trying to get it themselves. It's not a guarentee your group will get the commander unless you control teh planet and then you get what, 2 atempts at most before others can take a shot at them?

 

I still look at all the mats and the cost and it makes me thing W'T'F.

[Zoom_VI]

Of course, the easiest way to do it would be to place on the Leader Board. Do that and you can get 50 Encryptions in a week's time, assuming 50 Guild members/alts.

Then get cracking on that conquest.

 

I'm not going to try and bolster my assessment with logic. There's logic on both sides of the issue. What it boils down to is I don't see my guild, or very many others, putting in 'that much' effort for something so cosmetic. Which is a shame because I like the concept of Guild Conquest. And I realize that the game's been burnt by Dev putting content out that's too easily burned through. But, this is taking it to the other extreme.

So TLDR, I don't want to spend the effort to get something, so I'm going to QQ about not having that something.

[lironBD]

I like 6-manning HM EV. It's fun.

 

4 man or ****

[Infernixx]

Then get cracking on that conquest.

 

 

So TLDR, I don't want to spend the effort to get something, so I'm going to QQ about not having that something.

 

I'm not going to put forth a ridiculous amount of effort for cosmetics. I like the game, but I don't like it 'that much.' I run DF/DP HM once a week per char when I find myself motivated to that and 'that' is for better gear upgrades.

 

And they want my guild to muster 16 people to run 3 versions of KP and EV(and a few false emperor runs) to get the mats that will get me 2% of the way to a single room unlock? They want me to put myself out there in an OW PVP zone as bait for the PVP griefers who's only reason to be there is to make other players angry, to kill an OPs boss that will get 2% of the way to a single room unlock?

 

Do you realize how ridiculous it sounds? How it looks?

 

So, no. I'm not going to do it. I'm frustrated and disappointed, but if I do it, I'll just burn myself out and quit the game for a while and I don't want that to happen.

 

I realize you don't really care and you're just snarking because some people on here don't like me, but I really don't care. You are, for all intents and purposes, irrelevant. You just exist to give me a reason to respond and explain myself better.

 

Feel free to respond so I can post again.

[L-RANDLE]

I'm not the one dooming and glooming what would happen if people completed the guild ship.

 

 

 

Anything to back up your doom and gloom? Or just a "hunch"?

 

 

 

Doesn't change the math. Good try though.

 

 

 

I'm completely unable to decipher this sentence.

What doom gloom? I'm not the one complaining here. You said it yourself, the game is fine with or without ships, so ill ask again why complain?

 

Bad math be Bad dude unless you are a Guild of One? Read this post above. And that doesn't even account for guilds that have been stockpiling this stuff since forever.

 

I'll and many others will have DPs on the GTN on day one. If the time is too much for your subjective needs then buy them or acquire then by other means. Simple...

[Khevar]

One per day will work out to be about one Framework per two months.

Eh? Where does this two months come from? Commanders can drop a completed framework directly.

 

Are you trying to say that killing a commander only has a 1.6% chance to drop a framework?

If gamers are expected to put in hundreds of hours you can expect there will be some that camp those guys every time they are available.

My crystal ball tells me that when 2.9 first goes live, the commanders will be camped frequently. Then, as time goes on, it will be easier to find uncamped commanders.

Edited August 13, 2014 by Khevar

[MillionsKNives]

It makes me think some people need to go learn math.

 

Keeping it simple: based on Infernixx' post, and on 8-manning the L50 16m ops in 45 minutes, each Dark Project takes 18 man-hours (MH) of effort running L50 ops. Unlocking a room takes 100 to 300 Dark projects - 1800 to 5400 MH. Sounds like a lot, and it would be: for a single player. But for a guild?

 

Looking at three example guilds with different numbers of active members, the breakdown is like this:

Guild A: 40 active members -> 45 to 135 hours of effort per player per room unlock.

1215 hours per person to unlock the whole ship, or 50 days of played time.

Guild B: 60 active members -> 30 to 90 hours of effort per player per room unlock.

810 hours per person to unlock the whole ship, or 33 days of played time.

Guild C: 90 active members -> 20 to 60 hours of effort per player per room unlock.

540 hours per person to unlock the whole ship, or 22 days of played time.

Of course, there are larger and smaller guilds.

 

So what does that mean in terms of time to unlock? Depends on how much time each week people commit, on average. From my experience, it isn't unusual to see people online playing SWTOR 15 hours a week or more; I know of several people who play for over 30 hours a week. How much of that time would they be willing to put into L50 runs to get room unlock mats?

 

If it's only 4 hours a week -- one or two evenings of play -- then

That's a little over 5 ops per person per week.

Guild A would unlock a room in 11 to 34 weeks

A little under 27 ops for the guild per week. It would take 4.3 years to unlock the whole thing at that rate.

Guild B in 7 to 22 weeks

40 ops for the guild per week. It would take 2.9 years to unlock the whole thing at that rate.

Guild C in 5 to 15 weeks

60 ops for the guild per week. It would take 1.9 years to unlock the whole thing at that rate.

Slow, but that's a causal approach to the effort.

Yeah, casual...

 

But if it's 10 hours a week - for example, 2 hours on 2 weeknights, and two 3-hour weekend sessions -- then

That's a little over 13 ops per person per week.

Guild A would unlock a room in 4 to 14 weeks

A little under 67 ops for the guild per week. It would take 1.7 years to unlock the whole thing at that rate.

Guild B in 3 to 9

100 ops for the guild per week. It would take 1.1 years to unlock the whole thing at that rate.

Guild C in 2 to 6 weeks.

150 ops for the guild per week. It would take 0.7 years to unlock the whole thing at that rate, or 9.5 months.

That's not bad, really. And 10 hours a week, while not causal, is not that unrealistic either. I think some people spend more time than that posting on the forums.

Do you think you could sustain that many people doing that many runs for that long? This is without taking a break or doing any less than the rate you suggested.

 

And of course, the guild does not have to earn the mats by running EV and KP: yes, someone has to run them, just like someone has to run missions to bring new credits into the game, but the mats are all tradeable, so you can always just do whatever content or crafting you want and use what you earn to buy the mats.

At 10k per purple it would cost 162,000,000 credits to buy enough of the purple materials. But let's be real, they're not going to sell at 10k a piece, I'd imagine they'd be priced at least 100k a piece. That would put it at 1,620,000,000 credits for the purples. Even at 50k a piece it would cost 810,000,000 credits. At 50k a piece it would average to 54,000,000 per room in purple materials. And of course this assumes there are enough materials to buy.

 

Myself, until 3.0 comes out, I don't really need the proceeds of whatever I do for myself anyway: my toons are all geared well enough for DF/DP HM, and my companions don't really need to be in fully-augmented 180 gear. So I'm willing to direct a large part of the proceeds of my SWTOR activities to unlocking rooms in my stronghold and in the guild flagship. They seems a more worthwhile pursuit -- to me -- than the other things I could do with the credits. If they do not seem so to you, well, don't do it. No one is forcing you to.

 

Responses in red. And of course, this still presumes 8 people are running a 16-man ops in 45 minutes.

Edited August 13, 2014 by MillionsKNives

[MillionsKNives]

What doom gloom?

"Completion" is a far worst scenario for a game. Once there is nothing to do, you don't play anymore.

Doom

"Survived".. past tense.. was due to the IP. As it stands now, the IP isn't enough anymore.

Gloom

 

I'm not the one complaining here. You said it yourself, the game is fine with or without ships, so ill ask again why complain?

 

Already answered before. Want to go in circles again?

 

Bad math be Bad dude unless you are a Guild of One? Read this post above. And that doesn't even account for guilds that have been stockpiling this stuff since forever.

 

If you'd like to refute any of my math go ahead. If you think any guild has more than a fraction of the required mats I have a bridge to sell you. You can go ahead and post proof of any guild that has enough though. I'll wait.

 

I'll and many others will have DPs on the GTN on day one. If the time is too much for your subjective needs then buy them or acquire then by other means. Simple...

 

Good good, I'll buy all 2,700 from you then. How much were you looking to sell them for? Something like 1 million credits? I'm sure I've got 2.7 billion credits lying around that could use spending. I hope you have them all up there on day one though. Would be a pity if I had to wait.

Edited August 13, 2014 by MillionsKNives

[Khevar]

At 10k per purple it would cost 162,000,000 credits to buy enough of the purple materials.

Forgive me if my information is outdated. But I believe that at 10k per purple it would cost 486,000,000 credits, even more than your estimates.

 

That's based on Dulfy's list:

 

8,100 Self-Perpetuating Power Cell

16,200 Alien Data Cube

16,200 Biometric Crystal Alloy

8,100 Rakata Energy Node

[MillionsKNives]

Forgive me if my information is outdated. But I believe that at 10k per purple it would cost 486,000,000 credits, even more than your estimates.

 

That's based on Dulfy's list:

 

8,100 Self-Perpetuating Power Cell

16,200 Alien Data Cube

16,200 Biometric Crystal Alloy

8,100 Rakata Energy Node

 

You are correct if you include the blue materials. I specified just the purples.