Bioware: Is Crafting to Win™ intended?

[Reno_Tarshil]

They're called the "Hypercrate" pack.

 

Wouldn't those be Bundles then?

[Orizuru]

I'm a bit surprised there haven't been any cases of collusion between large guilds that have the resources to do crafting on the scale that is needed to dominate the leaderboards for planetary conquest.

 

The OP's screenshot clearly shows there were only 2 guilds able to meet the crafting needs on the planet they invaded. Had one guild contacted the other and made an agreement to stop competing and let Guild A have the planet this week if Guild B agrees to let Guild A have the planet next week, they could have only needed a third of the crafting to win and would still have the other 2/3 of their mats for use in future conquests.

 

There probably aren't more than 2 or 3 guilds on each planet in the galaxy for that week who have the resources to compete. So if you figure there are roughly a 12-15 guilds capable of competing with each other at crafting, then why are they wasting mats competing at all. They would all benefit by working together and developing a rotation for who gets to conquest a planet each week. Some simple Do Not Compete agreements between guilds would allow all of them to reduce the amount of crafting they do to conquest a planet, which allows them to save more mats for future weeks as well.

[Domatron]

it was posted earlier

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=763243&highlight=Conquest+crafting

 

and that was before we ever had any competition for a planet

 

He'll pretend this didn't exist, like the last time I posted it.

[swtordrz]

So in actuality after you make a ton of assumptions about our motivations, you agree with us.

 

Listed no assumptions, the truth is out there, people can often agree to the same end without necessarily agreeing to the same means to justify that same end.

Edited October 1, 2014 by swtordrz

[Rambeezy]

Until those of us doing nightmare operations get weekly conquest benefits, I will always agree that crafting is broken and needs serious tweaking. Everyone that doesn't want crafting nerfed continues to point to how the challenge of gathering mats is what makes it balanced in its current state. Well lets consider that yall are right but lets apply that rationale to nightmare operations. Gathering mats takes time yes buy once you have the mats those mats do not have to execute mechanics, perform well in their class etc. For nightmare operations however, you have to gather players that can execute mechanics and perform their class to its highest potential. So if crafting gets rewarded for gathering, shouldnt raiding nightmare be rewarded even more for gathering?

[Domatron]

I'm a bit surprised there haven't been any cases of collusion between large guilds that have the resources to do crafting on the scale that is needed to dominate the leaderboards for planetary conquest.

 

The OP's screenshot clearly shows there were only 2 guilds able to meet the crafting needs on the planet they invaded. Had one guild contacted the other and made an agreement to stop competing and let Guild A have the planet this week if Guild B agrees to let Guild A have the planet next week, they could have only needed a third of the crafting to win and would still have the other 2/3 of their mats for use in future conquests.

 

There probably aren't more than 2 or 3 guilds on each planet in the galaxy for that week who have the resources to compete. So if you figure there are roughly a 12-15 guilds capable of competing with each other at crafting, then why are they wasting mats competing at all. They would all benefit by working together and developing a rotation for who gets to conquest a planet each week. Some simple Do Not Compete agreements between guilds would allow all of them to reduce the amount of crafting they do to conquest a planet, which allows them to save more mats for future weeks as well.

 

The planets rotate, not all are capturable in the same frequency. This week was a choke point if you wanted the meta achievement.

[swtordrz]

You don't even need the jawa junk. Buy Hypercrates, Sell Packs, get enough credits to buy ALOT of mats, even at inflated prices.

 

Right now the least expensive pack on the GTN is 200k, x 24 in a crate = 4.8 million credits. Mats are selling for, on average, about 150k per stack at even the most high demand. So, worst case, that gives you enough credits to buy about 32 stacks of materials, which translates to about 130 war supplies, plus about 25 invasion forces. And last week with 100% conquest bonus that equaled about 230,000 conquest points. So, with a little lead time 4 people willing to spend $40 will add about 1 million pts to your total. Now, what if you have 10 people willing to do so, or 10 people willing to spend $120? If you think there aren't people willing to spend that, or even much, much more, take a look at this article I posted a while back:

 

http://www.wired.com/2012/11/meet-the-whales/all/

 

Could this have any connection behind the strange silence from Bioware?

 

Here is an interesting idea, nerf crafting so people can spend even more in Cartel Market to fund crafting efforts.

[DarthTHC]

They're called the "Hypercrate" pack.

 

So it is the gambling packs? LOL, accusing that of being P2W is completely farcical. It shows a total lack of thought about the process and system. I'll explain. And I'll do so by using reasonable assumptions designed to minimize the $ cost of crafting materials.

 

Each hypercrate, based on my experience (which is admittedly limited) seems to net about 1 stack of green materials. But let's say I'm extremely unlucky over my small sample set and one hypercrate will get you 2 stacks of greens.

 

Each hypercrate seems like it probably nets out to about $35 in real cost. So we'll say that each 2 stacks of materials nets out to $35, or 1 stack for $17.50.

 

Coming around from the other side, let's say that the typical victory in a crafting-bonused conquest comes in at around 7.5 million points. Let's say that 75% of those come from crafting. Let's assume that the guild winning chooses this "P2W" route for half the crafting points. Doing some straightforward math, that means that 2,812,500 points come from this P2W method.

 

With a 100% stronghold bonus and bonuses on crafting items in the conquest, each thing we make gets us 1,000 points. So those P2W points mean we've crafted (rounding up) 2,813 items.

 

The most efficient items to craft in terms of pure number of green raw materials use 24 green items each. To make 2,813 of them, you need 67,512 raw materials, or dividing that by stack size of 99 and rounding up, 682 stacks of green materials.

 

682 stacks of green materials at a cost of $17.50 each stack is $11,935. And remember that my assumptions were designed to make this number lower than it can reasonably be expected to be.

 

Reasonable assumptions and basic math deride the notion that the Jawa Junk found in Cartel Packs is any sort of "P2W" for conquests.

Edited October 1, 2014 by DarthTHC

[Rambeezy]

So it is the gambling packs? LOL, accusing that of being P2W is completely farcical. It shows a total lack of thought about the process and system. I'll explain. And I'll do so by using reasonable assumptions designed to minimize the $ cost of crafting materials.

 

Each hypercrate, based on my experience (which is admittedly limited) seems to net about 1 stack of green materials. But let's say I'm extremely unlucky over my small sample set and one hypercrate will get you 2 stacks of greens.

 

Each hypercrate seems like it probably nets out to about $35 in real cost. So we'll say that each 2 stacks of materials nets out to $35, or 1 stack for $17.50.

 

Coming around from the other side, let's say that the typical victory in a crafting-bonused conquest comes in at around 7.5 million points. Let's say that 75% of those come from crafting. Let's assume that the guild winning chooses this "P2W" route for half the crafting points. Doing some straightforward math, that means that 2,812,500 points come from this P2W method.

 

With a 100% stronghold bonus and bonuses on crafting items in the conquest, each thing we make gets us 1,000 points. So those P2W points mean we've crafted (rounding up) 2,813 items.

 

The most efficient items to craft in terms of pure number of green raw materials use 24 green items each. To make 2,813 of them, you need 67,512 raw materials, or dividing that by stack size of 99 and rounding up, 682 stacks of green materials.

 

682 stacks of green materials at a cost of $17.50 each stack is $11,935.

 

Reasonable assumptions and basic math deride the notion that the Jawa Junk found in Cartel Packs is any sort of "P2W" for conquests.

 

 

I think Karl Marx just rolled over in his grave.

[DarthTHC]

I think Karl Marx just rolled over in his grave.

 

Are you questioning my assumptions, my math, or just making a flippiant comment for the kriff of it? If either of the first 2, please, details.

[TUXs]

So it is the gambling packs? LOL, accusing that of being P2W is completely farcical. It shows a total lack of thought about the process and system. I'll explain. And I'll do so by using reasonable assumptions designed to minimize the $ cost of crafting materials.

 

Each hypercrate, based on my experience (which is admittedly limited) seems to net about 1 stack of green materials. But let's say I'm extremely unlucky over my small sample set and one hypercrate will get you 2 stacks of greens.

 

Each hypercrate seems like it probably nets out to about $35 in real cost. So we'll say that each 2 stacks of materials nets out to $35, or 1 stack for $17.50.

 

Coming around from the other side, let's say that the typical victory in a crafting-bonused conquest comes in at around 7.5 million points. Let's say that 75% of those come from crafting. Let's assume that the guild winning chooses this "P2W" route for half the crafting points. Doing some straightforward math, that means that 2,812,500 points come from this P2W method.

 

With a 100% stronghold bonus and bonuses on crafting items in the conquest, each thing we make gets us 1,000 points. So those P2W points mean we've crafted (rounding up) 2,813 items.

 

The most efficient items to craft in terms of pure number of green raw materials use 24 green items each. To make 2,813 of them, you need 67,512 raw materials, or dividing that by stack size of 99 and rounding up, 682 stacks of green materials.

 

682 stacks of green materials at a cost of $17.50 each stack is $11,935. And remember that my assumptions were designed to make this number lower than it can reasonably be expected to be.

 

Reasonable assumptions and basic math deride the notion that the Jawa Junk found in Cartel Packs is any sort of "P2W" for conquests.

Wow lol! Just...wow...

[Jadescythe]

As shown in previous posts, always maintained there is lack of balance in the Conquest System for all players, crafting tweaking is certainly needed, it is simply that motivations are becoming clearer that larger Guilds have more to "lose" if Conquest System keeps the high grinding element that may fatigue players. For example, on our server, players in one large Guild are kicked from Guild if they do not meet CPs quota, which could easily be achieved through crafting, non-crafters had to keep grinding to keep their spot.

 

Balance system, then see the place of each element within the system, such as PvE, PvP and crafting for the greater good of the entire gaming community, that is all I have advocated, nothing more, nothing less, at the moment crafting is king. As for the primary intentions of others, that remains to be seen, what is left unsaid by Bioware so far is coming through loud and clear.

 

This is a "your right for the wrong reasons" argument. I don't care why this particular person wants crafting balanced, it still needs to be balanced. If Sorcerers had an ability that made them invulnerable to damage if the enemy wasn't within 4 meters of them, that would be pretty broken. Just because ranged classes would benefit most from the ability being nerfed doesn't mean melee classes won't benefit from it as well. There are changes that can be more positive for one group than another and that doesn't mean the change shouldn't be made. Therefore the OP's intentions have no bearing on the need for change.

[DarthTHC]

Wow lol! Just...wow...

 

Wow, indeed! Just who do you think it is that is spending the equivalent of 2 weeks vacation in Hawaii or half an "average" new car to win a conquest via this method?

Edited October 1, 2014 by DarthTHC

[Rambeezy]

Are you questioning my assumptions, my math, or just making a flippiant comment for the kriff of it? If either of the first 2, please, details.

 

I enjoy being fasicious.

[swtordrz]

This is a "your right for the wrong reasons" argument. I don't care why this particular person wants crafting balanced, it still needs to be balanced. If Sorcerers had an ability that made them invulnerable to damage if the enemy wasn't within 4 meters of them, that would be pretty broken. Just because ranged classes would benefit most from the ability being nerfed doesn't mean melee classes won't benefit from it as well. There are changes that can be more positive for one group than another and that doesn't mean the change shouldn't be made. Therefore the OP's intentions have no bearing on the need for change.

 

Very well stated except I did not say "wrong reasons", wholeheartedly agree the community can be better served as a whole regardless of OP intentions by balancing the system for the greater good of all, looking forward to any official Bioware responses.

[TUXs]

Wow, indeed! Just who do you think it is that is spending the equivalent of 2 weeks vacation in Hawaii or half an "average" new car to win a conquest via this method?

No lol, it was shock that you're trying so hard to ignore the reality of the situation, that you spent that much time making up numbers to try to disprove EXACTLY what and how people are wining conquests now. The people winning planets, they are TELLING YOU how they do it. Crafting is 99.99% of it. Resources are of no significance. They buy cartel packs, they sell cartel packs for $, they open packs for resources, this entire thing revolves around the cartel market, buying and selling to make $ for resources....yet you're pretending it doesn't lol. You're pretending resources are somehow limited and running out lol.

[Jadescythe]

So it is the gambling packs? LOL, accusing that of being P2W is completely farcical. It shows a total lack of thought about the process and system. I'll explain. And I'll do so by using reasonable assumptions designed to minimize the $ cost of crafting materials.

 

Each hypercrate, based on my experience (which is admittedly limited) seems to net about 1 stack of green materials. But let's say I'm extremely unlucky over my small sample set and one hypercrate will get you 2 stacks of greens.

 

Each hypercrate seems like it probably nets out to about $35 in real cost. So we'll say that each 2 stacks of materials nets out to $35, or 1 stack for $17.50.

 

Coming around from the other side, let's say that the typical victory in a crafting-bonused conquest comes in at around 7.5 million points. Let's say that 75% of those come from crafting. Let's assume that the guild winning chooses this "P2W" route for half the crafting points. Doing some straightforward math, that means that 2,812,500 points come from this P2W method.

 

With a 100% stronghold bonus and bonuses on crafting items in the conquest, each thing we make gets us 1,000 points. So those P2W points mean we've crafted (rounding up) 2,813 items.

 

The most efficient items to craft in terms of pure number of green raw materials use 24 green items each. To make 2,813 of them, you need 67,512 raw materials, or dividing that by stack size of 99 and rounding up, 682 stacks of green materials.

 

682 stacks of green materials at a cost of $17.50 each stack is $11,935. And remember that my assumptions were designed to make this number lower than it can reasonably be expected to be.

 

Reasonable assumptions and basic math deride the notion that the Jawa Junk found in Cartel Packs is any sort of "P2W" for conquests.

 

I don't even...

 

I mean, if you buy a hypercrate, you'll get AT LEAST 3 million worth of stuff regardless of anything else (with a solid chance of getting 1 item worth 3 million). Easily enough to bolster your Conquest points for the week. Last I checked, those credits could be used to purchase mats, afford crafting missions, etc. but cannot be used to complete a FP. On top of the guaranteed mats they get.

 

Thus why people are saying crafting is the only potential P2W option.

[DarthTHC]

No lol, it was shock that you're trying so hard to ignore the reality of the situation, that you spent that much time making up numbers to try to disprove EXACTLY what and how people are wining conquests now. The people winning planets, they are TELLING YOU how they do it. Crafting is 99.99% of it. Resources are of no significance. They buy cartel packs, they sell cartel packs for $, they open packs for resources, this entire thing revolves around the cartel market, buying and selling to make $ for resources....yet you're pretending it doesn't lol. You're pretending resources are somehow limited and running out lol.

 

I have absolutely no argument that crafting for some (but definitely not all) conquests plays a very significant role in acquiring points. That's not at all what my argument is.

 

You're calling it P2W, as in spending IRL $ nets them a win. I showed you numbers that prove there's no way it can possibly be that. It's literally THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS. Your P2W assertion is farcical. That's my point.

Edited October 1, 2014 by DarthTHC

[DarthTHC]

I don't even...

 

I mean, if you buy a hypercrate, you'll get AT LEAST 3 million worth of stuff regardless of anything else (with a solid chance of getting 1 item worth 3 million). Easily enough to bolster your Conquest points for the week. Last I checked, those credits could be used to purchase mats, afford crafting missions, etc. but cannot be used to complete a FP. On top of the guaranteed mats they get.

 

Thus why people are saying crafting is the only potential P2W option.

 

You just set yourself up because you didn't think through that comment, either.

 

The math I did shows you that it's AT LEAST 341 Hypercrates. In my (again limited) experience, each hypercrate gets you something like 5 speeders, but more interestingly, 2-3 Slicer's Planning Tables. So JUST THAT ONE GUILD that used this "P2W" method would have itself generated over 1,700 speeders, 852 Slicer's Planning Tables, and countless armor sets.

 

JUST ONE GUILD! That totally discounts all the rest of the players who buy Hypercrates for "non P2W" reasons.

 

How many Slicer's Planning Tables are listed on your GTN right now?

 

Not even close to 1% of that? Do you think they're storing all those for later sale? Then the "millions of credits" the rest of that stuff you say they'll get... they don't get.

 

There is absolutely no way you can logically support the Jawa Junk in Cartel Packs being a legitimate P2W method to win Conquest.

Edited October 1, 2014 by DarthTHC

[Jadescythe]

You just set yourself up because you didn't think through that comment, either.

 

The math I did shows you that it's AT LEAST 341 Hypercrates. In my (again limited) experience, each hypercrate gets you something like 5 speeders, but more interestingly, 2-3 Slicer's Planning Tables. So JUST THAT ONE GUILD that used this "P2W" method would have itself generated over 1,700 speeders, 852 Slicer's Planning Tables, and countless armor sets.

 

JUST ONE GUILD! That totally discounts all the rest of the players who buy Hypercrates for "non P2W" reasons.

 

How many Slicer's Planning Tables are listed on your GTN right now?

 

Not even close to 1% of that? Do you think they're storing all those for later sale? Then the "millions of credits" the rest of that stuff you say they'll get... they don't get.

 

There is absolutely no way you can logically support the Jawa Junk in Cartel Packs being a legitimate P2W method to win Conquest.

 

Check the GTN. If all they did was sell the packs, that's 250k a pop easy. I apologize for my underestimate, that's 6 million per hypercrate just for selling the crates.

[DarthTHC]

Check the GTN. If all they did was sell the packs, that's 250k a pop easy. I apologize for my underestimate, that's 6 million per hypercrate just for selling the crates.

 

Hypercrates on my server probably sell for 4 mil each. At that credit value and given the rest of the math I did above WRT number of crafting materials needed for a fraction of the points needed to win a conquest...

 

You're still looking at $500 minimum, each week, just to get a bump (not a guaranteed win).

 

Still implausible, and if it's even happening it's certainly not every winning guild on every planet on every server, or even half that.

[iamef]

I have absolutely no argument that crafting for some (but definitely not all) conquests plays a very significant role in acquiring points. That's not at all what my argument is.

 

You're calling it P2W, as in spending IRL $ nets them a win. I showed you numbers that prove there's no way it can possibly be that. It's literally THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS. Your P2W assertion is farcical. That's my point.

 

I'm going to quote my own reply to you from a few pages back. It's not the Jawa Junk! It's the stuff in the packs or the packs themselves being sold. Here is the real math again:

 

You don't even need the jawa junk. Buy Hypercrates, Sell Packs, get enough credits to buy ALOT of mats, even at inflated prices.

 

Right now the least expensive pack on the GTN is 200k, x 24 in a crate = 4.8 million credits. Mats are selling for, on average, about 150k per stack at even the most high demand. So, worst case, that gives you enough credits to buy about 32 stacks of materials, which translates to about 130 war supplies, plus about 25 invasion forces. And last week with 100% conquest bonus that equaled about 230,000 conquest points. So, with a little lead time 4 people willing to spend $40 will add about 1 million pts to your total. Now, what if you have 10 people willing to do so, or 10 people willing to spend $120? If you think there aren't people willing to spend that, or even much, much more, take a look at this article I posted a while back:

 

http://www.wired.com/2012/11/meet-the-whales/all/

[DarthTHC]

I'm going to quote my own reply to you from a few pages back. It's not the Jawa Junk! It's the stuff in the packs or the packs themselves being sold. Here is the real math again:

 

I see. You're talking about a handful of players in a guild spending a $40 each on the hope that all of their hypercrates will sell and that enough of the right materials are listed on GTN so you might get a ~20% bump in your point total.

 

Definitely more plausible than getting the same bump via Jawa Junk. Still seems like a funky, risky way to go about it.

 

I understand the concept of whales. There aren't enough of them to even put 1 in each winning guild in the game.

Edited October 1, 2014 by DarthTHC

[Jadescythe]

Hypercrates on my server probably sell for 4 mil each. At that credit value and given the rest of the math I did above WRT number of crafting materials needed for a fraction of the points needed to win a conquest...

 

You're still looking at $500 minimum, each week, just to get a bump (not a guaranteed win).

 

Still implausible, and if it's even happening it's certainly not every winning guild on every planet on every server, or even half that.

 

So let's say I have 200 people in my guild and 1/8 of them do this. You're spending $875 as a guild and each member only has to spend $35 once every other month. I would say $35 every other month to win conquest every week seems reasonable. It's not required to do this, it's just an available option. The option that will get things done the easiest and is the only one that doesn't require you to play the game. It's also impossible to achieve the same results that you can get by this method as your time to collect mats/make money, etc. will not allow you to craft as much as you could by selling CM stuff to obtain the mats.

[teclado]

If you get top conquest points, what do you even win anyway? How is it "Crafting to Win" if you don't actually win anything?

 

If you actually care about conquest points and "winning" there, I could understand. But do you really care? If so, why?