Is anything going to be done so that guild conquests aren't quantity > quality?

[Darth_Wicked]

Scale? How? What else scales in this game that you think they can do this?

 

You misunderstand or maybe I explained myself poorly earlier.

 

When it comes to BT and Esseles for example, the least they could do is to offer those in its HM treatment for LV50+ characters as part of the Guild Conquests. The flashpoints are already there so why not just use them?

 

Why have LV55's speedrunning a LV10 flashpoint, when there's an alternative with those two?

[azudelphi]

Or simply avoid whatever planet that they're going for that week.

 

After week 1, I made an "avoid list" of guilds that I didn't want ours to have to deal with on our given planet. We couldn't avoid all of them, but it increased our chances of top 10 on the planet we selected. And come the Total Galactic War, there will be 13 planets to conquer... that should give even more chances to avoid these large user totals.

[azudelphi]

You misunderstand or maybe I explained myself poorly earlier.

 

When it comes to BT and Esseles for example, the least they could do is to offer those in its HM treatment for LV50+ characters as part of the Guild Conquests. The flashpoints are already there so why not just use them?

 

Why have LV55's speedrunning a LV10 flashpoint, when there's an alternative with those two?

 

Killing the bonus boss in HM Esseles gives an extra conquest bonus. It might not be the more time efficient of the two, but it's there...

[MillionsKNives]

First of all, a lot of people seem to have missed that the HM version of the Black Talon / Esseless rewards twice as many points, if you kill the bonus boss. So there already is more incentive to do the 50 version than the 10 version.

 

For the point of quantity over quality, I wouldn't mind a solution that someone in another thread proposed which is to have only the highest 10 or 20 or so members count towards the total. I think that would help by incentivizing larger numbers than just lots of people with smaller numbers. If a small group was dedicated they would be able to beat out a large guild that isn't. To still give other members reason to contribute as well you keep the guild reward so that it rewards everyone who participated.

 

I don't think it makes much sense to create a competitive environment where straight numbers decides the winner 90% of the time. The Olympics doesn't take the entire nation's citizenship and add up all their scores, they only take a few of their best to compete. Otherwise China would win all of them.

[azudelphi]

First of all, a lot of people seem to have missed that the HM version of the Black Talon / Esseless rewards twice as many points, if you kill the bonus boss. So there already is more incentive to do the 50 version than the 10 version.

 

For the point of quantity over quality, I wouldn't mind a solution that someone in another thread proposed which is to have only the highest 10 or 20 or so members count towards the total. I think that would help by incentivizing larger numbers than just lots of people with smaller numbers. If a small group was dedicated they would be able to beat out a large guild that isn't. To still give other members reason to contribute as well you keep the guild reward so that it rewards everyone who participated.

 

I don't think it makes much sense to create a competitive environment where straight numbers decides the winner 90% of the time. The Olympics doesn't take the entire nation's citizenship and add up all their scores, they only take a few of their best to compete. Otherwise China would win all of them.

 

My only issue is that limiting it to the top 10, what will likely happen is that a select few will be delegated to just harvesting duties instead of conquest participation in order to maximize the scores of the chosen ones (having them passively crafting).

[JMagee]

For the point of quantity over quality, I wouldn't mind a solution that someone in another thread proposed which is to have only the highest 10 or 20 or so members count towards the total. I think that would help by incentivizing larger numbers than just lots of people with smaller numbers. If a small group was dedicated they would be able to beat out a large guild that isn't. To still give other members reason to contribute as well you keep the guild reward so that it rewards everyone who participated.

 

But there's even a way to beat this system. If a guild has 400 accounts, and was able to collect enough mats to craft a large percentage of their points, they could just move all the mats to those 10-20members. Having access to 20x more mats for crafting will still manifest itself in the scoreboard one way or another.

 

I agree that the conquest weeklies we have seen thus far do seem to heavily incentivize grinding a particular repeatable mission ad infinitum. Or saving lockouts to weekly bosses and simply exchanging 1 member at a time. But conquests should be semi-related to guild size.

 

To the person above, while the example missions you listed are related to space conquest, how does "Complete any Operation Weekly relate to Space, or any ground PvP mission? Some ways to get conquest points are sensible, others are just to cater to people who use certain features. Use GF to complete an operation has nothing to do with Space conquests.

 

We're competing with other guilds on scoreboard. But I could easily never see that guild at all during the week on the conquest planet. If the conquest of the week is space, make the guild have to group up for GSF and win, have them beat other guilds. If the conquest is for Balmorra, only things on Balmorra should give you points. Beating Hammer Station 3 times shouldn't shift the balance of power on Balmorra.

 

It just seems like there are too many ways to get points that aren't related to the planets.

[MillionsKNives]

My only issue is that limiting it to the top 10, what will likely happen is that a select few will be delegated to just harvesting duties instead of conquest participation in order to maximize the scores of the chosen ones (having them passively crafting).

 

That's a valid point. Because crafting relies on consuming limited resources more than time or effort, by combining efforts across the guild to feed mats to them they'd be effectively sidestepping the participation limitation.

 

I can't think of any good solutions that wouldn't require redesigning the way crafting rewards points. Simplest solution I can think of is changing it from repeatable, and rewarding points for crafting X of the items instead.

Edited August 27, 2014 by MillionsKNives

[Khevar]

The basic principle of the "Conquests mini-game" is points. More points === winning. This means that to participate in conquests, you may find yourself making a choice between doing the things you find fun, and doing the things that make more points.

 

Four level 55s, with +100% stronghold bonus could farm SM Battle of Ilum (skipping almost everything) in a few minutes and make 100k per hour easy. Few people would choose to spend their game time doing that. But their competition is probably doing it. So they either decide not to win, or they also do the same.

 

Of course, not winning the Conquests isn't a big deal to me personally. So it doesn't bother me that this mini game is set up this way.

 

But I do find it a frightfully uninspiring way to play the game.

Edited August 27, 2014 by Khevar

[Darth_Wicked]

Killing the bonus boss in HM Esseles gives an extra conquest bonus. It might not be the more time efficient of the two, but it's there...

 

That's something I guess.

[branmakmuffin]

Or are all the future conquests also going to be decided by which guild has more 55s speedrunning a level 10 flashpoint?

As noted by others, what "quality" would you suggest conquests be judge on?

[CaptainDiomedes]

As noted by others, what "quality" would you suggest conquests be judge on?

 

Either make it so that only the top 100 legacies in a guild have their points applied or make it so conquest points are obtained through something actual semi-challenging (like flashpoints completed on your level).

[Brewski]

You can't limit it to just "X" number of players or legacies, as large guilds will still win. The more players you have, the more likely they will be able to get to the total faster anyway. It then just becomes a race dependent on who has the largest number of players able to farm for 24 hours straight every week the second a conquest event starts.

 

Ultimately, if there if you are going to rank winning guilds without having them directly complete in some kind of head to head matchup, it's all going to come down to farming. It's just the way the system was built. I don't see an objective way to judge it otherwise.

[Infernixx]

Either make it so that only the top 100 legacies in a guild have their points applied or make it so conquest points are obtained through something actual semi-challenging (like flashpoints completed on your level).

 

Neither SM nor HM FPs are challenging.

[buckman]

As noted by others, what "quality" would you suggest conquests be judge on?

 

An "easy" PvP challenge tweak would be to only award conquest points for warzone wins. Along with that, the planet would have to be a PvP only one.

[Projawa]

How about: clearing nightmare DF/DP or completing timed nightmare DF/DP runs, yields the highest point gains?

That would balance the scale a tiny bit from quantity towards quality and from massive zerg guilds towards smaller progression guilds. Reward folks for doing what they do best.

Edited August 27, 2014 by Projawa

[azudelphi]

How about: clearing nightmare DF/DP or completing timed nightmare DF/DP runs, yields the highest point gains?

That would balance the scale a tiny bit from quantity towards quality and from massive zerg guilds towards smaller progression guilds. Reward folks for doing what they do best.

 

Again, what does the Dread Fortress have to do with "The Clash in Hyperspace"?

[Brewski]

An "easy" PvP challenge tweak would be to only award conquest points for warzone wins. Along with that, the planet would have to be a PvP only one.

 

How about: clearing nightmare DF/DP or completing timed nightmare DF/DP runs, yields the highest point gains?

That would balance the scale a tiny bit from quantity towards quality and from massive zerg guilds towards smaller progression guilds. Reward folks for doing what they do best.

 

Neither of these changes would affect anything as long as there are low level farming options. 400 member guilds will still overwhelm the points you get from those actions by simply repeat farming the easiest repeatable conquest goals over and over.

 

If you eliminate the low level options, or even make them non-repeatable, you instead exclude all guilds that aren't "hardcore" enough for Nightmare content or high level PvP content, which, lets face it, is most guilds.

 

Conquests were built as farming wars. Minor tweaks to the objectives won't be able to change that, unfortunately.

[DarthTHC]

Sure you can.

 

However, from the limited knowledge I have of Conquests, people are running stuff on a timetable. As such, it is fair to assume that everyone will go for the least time consuming option, NOT the opposite.

 

 

 

Again, the cure is simple: Have the flashpoints scale accordingly, depending on the character level, especially when there's a LV 50 or 55 HM version of it.

 

If there's no such thing, introduce a new challenge, conquest perk or whatever altogether.

 

It's so simple, he can state it in a single sentence. That couldn't take more than, what, 7 man-hours to code?

[ML_DoubleTap]

It's so simple, he can state it in a single sentence. That couldn't take more than, what, 7 man-hours to code?

 

Doesn't KDY already scale to level? The code is there. I don't know why all instanced content in the game doesn't scale.

[MillionsKNives]

Doesn't KDY already scale to level? The code is there. I don't know why all instanced content in the game doesn't scale.

 

KDY doesn't scale to the players. The players scale to KDY.

[azudelphi]

Doesn't KDY already scale to level? The code is there. I don't know why all instanced content in the game doesn't scale.

 

Because KDY was built from the ground up to be that way.

 

The others would have to be reworked / redesigned, changed up for their loot tables, etc...

 

KDY doesn't scale to the players. The players scale to KDY.

 

Also, this technical difference.

Edited August 27, 2014 by azudelphi

[Darth_Wicked]

It's so simple, he can state it in a single sentence. That couldn't take more than, what, 7 man-hours to code?

 

Your words, not mine. Never provided a timetable nor did I delve into its complexity, coding wise.

 

I only brought up that which is factual(!): Both flashpoints are available, hmmmm, since Vanilla(?) as LV50's HM's.

Edited August 27, 2014 by Darth_Wicked

[Kalfear]

What would you suggest exactly? What type of "activity" can you think of that rewards all players who participate AND rewards their guild, that doesn't favor numbers?

 

Well a good start I think (and I like the conquest stuff for most part, excluding the emphases placed on sub par warzone pvp) would be you only get conquest points if your opponents green or higher in level difficulty

 

I gotta admit (even though Im doing it as well) the running through grey flashpoints as a lvl 55 feels exploitive to me.

 

I know its not as this issue had to be known before release

but it does feel less then honorable

 

Doesn't KDY already scale to level? The code is there. I don't know why all instanced content in the game doesn't scale.

 

I agree fully

 

instance flashpoints and heroics should instantly scale to highest (not lowest) level player in group

 

That would solve the 55s running through lvl 10 content issue instantly

Edited August 27, 2014 by Kalfear

[azudelphi]

I agree fully

 

instance flashpoints and heroics should instantly scale to highest (not lowest) level player in group

 

That would solve the 55s running through lvl 10 content issue instantly

 

What about people who want to run a friend through say... Taral V to get them the loot that drops there?

[ALaggyGrunt]

Solution:

Any conquest-related FP should have a Bolster mechanic on it for the short term.

 

Newbies can still contribute to the FP.

Scary people can't do it in 15 minutes or less.

Once the event is over, it goes back to normal.