Solution: Create Guild Size Requirement for Some Conquest Planets

[jboehm]

There is a lot of complaining (and justifiably so) about how the current Conquest system promotes and incentivizes large zerg guilds at the expense of smaller guilds, including those that are made up of hardcore, skilled pve or pvp'ers.

 

My solution is simple: Why don't the devs make it so that some of the week's conquest planets have a guild size requirement?

 

For example, in addition to the regular planets, make it so that each week there is one planet which only allows guilds with 1-50 active accounts, one planet that only allows guilds with 51-200 active accounts, and one planet that only allows guilds with 201-500 active accounts. There could still be other planets with no guild size requirement in addition to these three. This would just ensure that there is at least one option for guilds to compete against other similarly sized guilds, and somewhat nullify the "quantity > quality" complaints about the conquest system.

 

This technology is already in place; the devs could use the system that tallies a guild's active accounts and calculates the guild reputation bonus.

 

Edit:

To further clarify, I believe it'd be best if all three of the planets with a guild size requirement had the same bonuses and objectives.

 

For example, take the first week of conquests. There were three planets with three sets of bonuses and objectives:

Planet A - Flashpoints and Crafting

Planet B - Warzones and Crafting

Planet C - Flashpoints and Warzones

 

Under the system I'm proposing, that week of conquests would've looked like this:

Planet A - Flashpoints and Crafting

Planet B - Warzones and Crafting

Planet C - Flashpoints and Warzones, with Guild Size Requirement of 1-50 active accounts

Planet D - Flashpoints and Warzones, with Guild Size Requirement of 51-200 active accounts

Planet D - Flashpoints and Warzones, with Guild Size Requirement of 201-500 active accounts

Edited September 1, 2014 by jboehm

[Muljo_Stpho]

Some potential comments that could be seen with this unless they're extremely careful about how things are set up:

 

"That planet has exactly the right mix of bonuses that will play best with my guild's strengths, but we've got too many (or not enough) people to be eligible for it."

 

Q: "Why'd you pick a planet with pvp bonuses if you didn't want to compete with warzone farmers?"

A: "We didn't. We just weren't allowed to pick the planet we actually wanted to pick."

 

 

edit: Alternate idea = tiered leaderboards? Don't divide the planets up, just introduce separate rankings on every planet for the three different ranges of active accounts that you listed.

 

That one conquest week with 12 planets (really 14 with the Republic and Imperial versions of Taris and Balmorra being ranked separately) would probably be insane for the system to manage triple the number of leaderboards for though.

Edited September 1, 2014 by Muljo_Stpho

[jboehm]

Some potential comments that could be seen with this unless they're extremely careful about how things are set up:

 

"That planet has exactly the right mix of bonuses that will play best with my guild's strengths, but we've got too many (or not enough) people to be eligible for it."

 

Q: "Why'd you pick a planet with pvp bonuses if you didn't want to compete with warzone farmers?"

A: "We didn't. We just weren't allowed to pick the planet we actually wanted to pick."

 

Thanks for the feedback, Muljo. Although I forgot to mention it in my original post, I thought it'd be best if all three of the planets with a guild size requirement had the same bonuses and objectives.

 

For example, take the first week of conquests. There were three planets with three sets of bonuses and objectives:

Planet A - Flashpoints and Crafting

Planet B - Warzones and Crafting

Planet C - Flashpoints and Warzones

 

Under the system I'm proposing, that week of conquests would've looked like this:

Planet A - Flashpoints and Crafting

Planet B - Warzones and Crafting

Planet C - Flashpoints and Warzones, with Guild Size Requirement of 1-50 active accounts

Planet D - Flashpoints and Warzones, with Guild Size Requirement of 51-200 active accounts

Planet D - Flashpoints and Warzones, with Guild Size Requirement of 201-500 active accounts

[Heal-To-Full]

For example, in addition to the regular planets, make it so that each week there is one planet which only allows guilds with 1-50 active accounts, one planet that only allows guilds with 51-200 active accounts, and one planet that only allows guilds with 201-500 active accounts.

The latter two categories would be pointless.

I don't know about all, but I can tell that I've seen no winning conquest guilds with over 200 active accounts, and many are under 50.

 

"Active" being ones that logged in and scored points that week.

All this would incentivize is either clearing out useless members to compete in a lighter category or padding ranks with useless members for a heavier one.

 

50 active accounts * 4 characters per * 70,000 pts per character = 14,000,000 conquest points.

[Heal-To-Full]

Actually, I just thought about it, and there is a similar but better solution.

 

Designate one of the planets per conquests - usually a moon like Czerka - a "small planet". Then give it a special small planet buff: the points from top 8 contributors are doubled, from contributors 16-24 halved, below 24 reduced even more.

 

That would allow everyone to invade, but give small highly dedicated guilds a distinct advantage over large random ones.

[Tellenn]

Set limits and guilds will play to those limits.

 

Have 56 members. Time to kick 6 so we can compete in the 50 group.

 

Have 100 and want to invite your mate that started playing. Tough we'd have to compete at the bottom of the higher level.

 

Setting conquest limits pretty much enforces guild limits. Guilds would never grow past 50 as your then at a disadvantage unless you can get a big influx in one go wth a guild merge. Even then if you merge 2 guilds of 50+ to make a 100 man guild some are going to get kicked in the process to keep it at 100.

 

Conquest limits are the best idea Ive heard to totally break guilds.

Edited September 3, 2014 by Tellenn

[Danylia]

My solution is simple: Why don't the devs make it so that some of the week's conquest planets have a guild size requirement?

Players would find a way how to "circumvent" the system.