Bioware: Is Crafting to Win™ intended?

[DarthTHC]

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.

 

That still assumes that enough of the right crafting materials will be available for them to do this. That's also not the case. I know this because I watch my server religiously for deals on crafting mats that contribute to conquest and many times, not even a full page of some mats is available and those aren't even full stacks.

 

It takes a LOT of stacks of the right mats to win a conquest.

 

I understand the theory of how this P2W scenario plays out now, but I still don't think it's a plausible reality in more than a tiny fraction of cases.

[DarthTHC]

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?

 

You win:

 

A title (assuming you don't already have it).

The ability to ride a Walker on the planet you won for a very short period of time.

The ability to call in an Orbital Strike on the planet you won for a very short period of time.

And the most infinitely valuable item.... epeen points!

[Icestar]

I agree that the crafting has removed the fun in fighting for the top spot.

[Oneirophrenia]

Who cares. If people/guilds want to spend hundreds of millions on crafting invasion force to win a planet for that week, let them at it. Wise up and start running mats missions non-stop so you can profit off of their e-peen driven "machismo" contest.

 

I was watching these two guilds go at it last week while laughing all the way to the bank (or mailbox). It's not as if most of those folks are "nice" either so there's definitely no remorse for taking advantage of the situation.

Edited October 1, 2014 by Oneirophrenia

[DarthTHC]

I agree that the crafting has removed the fun in fighting for the top spot.

 

I don't like PvP.

 

Joe doesn't like Flashpoints.

 

Larry doesn't like Operations.

 

Becky-Sue doesn't like planetary Heroic Quests.

 

Roxanne doesn't like GSF.

 

You don't like Crafting.

 

Good thing the activities are varied and spread around an entire guild, isn't it?

[Thufir_Hawat]

Why can't everyone win? That is the only way to solve this inequality.

[JasonNH]

Good thing the activities are varied and spread around an entire guild, isn't it?

 

It would be if the potential output was relatively in line for all of them.

[branmakmuffin]

Why can't everyone win? That is the only way to solve this inequality.

Would a true Mentat say that? I suspect you are not really Thufir Hawat, but rather a ghola.

[DarthTHC]

Why can't everyone win? That is the only way to solve this inequality.

 

Now there's a feature request. Any guild that has won a planet... can never win that planet again.

 

After all, you only need to win a planet once to get its title, then each planet once to get the overall title, then you're done.

 

Win-sharing for the.... LOSS.

 

Then again, if the NFL implemented the same rule, my home team would have won a SuperBowl by now.

[DarthTHC]

It would be if the potential output was relatively in line for all of them.

 

What's the suggestion there? Cap each type of activity on a per-account basis at the same level?

 

That is, each account can contribute X thousand points via crafting to any of their guilds, or the same X points via PvP, or the same X points via Flashpoints?

 

Personal points can go as high as you want, but guild points are capped by activity type?

[Jadescythe]

What's the suggestion there? Cap each type of activity on a per-account basis at the same level?

 

That is, each account can contribute X thousand points via crafting to any of their guilds, or the same X points via PvP, or the same X points via Flashpoints?

 

Personal points can go as high as you want, but guild points are capped by activity type?

 

Not a cap, a balance of points. So that if I'm putting in, say, 20 hours of play for Conquests, I'll get the same amount of points if I spend those 20 hours doing flashpoints as I would crafting for 20 hours. Which is impossible seeing as I can craft while doing any of the other activities, but cannot both win a warzone and complete a flashpoint at the same time.

[Rambeezy]

Not a cap, a balance of points. So that if I'm putting in, say, 20 hours of play for Conquests, I'll get the same amount of points if I spend those 20 hours doing flashpoints as I would crafting for 20 hours. Which is impossible seeing as I can craft while doing any of the other activities, but cannot both win a warzone and complete a flashpoint at the same time.

 

This makes me wonder why theres only 2 types of conquest objectives (1 time only and repeatable). Crafting is unique to the other objectives and should be somewhere between repeatable and 1 time only.

Edited October 1, 2014 by Rambeezy

[ivanhedgehog]

It

massive snip

 

TL;DR 2: Balance first, nerf crafting as a component of balance. System stays the same until balanced.

 

so what you are saying is, the benefit if it is changed and they benefit if it is not changed.....you dont like them so you will discount anything they say...

 

I am in 2 guilds that finish middle of the leader boards....what both wook and triumph members are saying is absolutely true. crafting is broken.

 

you seem to have an interest in the status quo. the devs need to finish what they started and balance crafting. we were told when FP's were nerfed that it was to balance and bring pve into line with what was intended..the same for pvp. time to finish the balancing.

[Darth-Malice]

Hundreds of replies later and still no official response. They are to afraid to comment on this issue knowing whatever they say will be used against them. Nasty pickle Bioware is in. Maybe they should actually play test things in the future.

[ParagonAX]

I don't like PvP.

 

Joe doesn't like Flashpoints.

 

Larry doesn't like Operations.

 

Becky-Sue doesn't like planetary Heroic Quests.

 

Roxanne doesn't like GSF.

 

You don't like Crafting.

 

Good thing the activities are varied and spread around an entire guild, isn't it?

 

First of all, nobody is saying get rid of crafting. All we want is for the points crafting provides to be brought in line with other activities.

 

Secondly, woah woah woah woah. Hold up. Are you suggesting that people actually like conquest crafting?

 

By conquest crafting, I mean conquest crafting. As in making war supplies / invasion forces. Not crafting actual useful items like armor, mods, enhancements, etc.

 

A. The number of things you can actually do with invasion forces is laughable.

B. Even if you want to use invasion forces (to make the Command Walkers or Orbital Strikes), you are much much better off just buying them for 1/10th (or way less than 1/10th) of the price than incur the mats cost of crafting them yourself.

 

As it stands, the ONLY REASON to craft for conquest is for conquest points.

 

In contrast, all of the other activities you’ve listed have fun factors in them. People enjoy doing them even without the need for conquest. Plus they give conquest points.

 

See the difference?

Edited October 1, 2014 by ParagonAX

[JasonNH]

What's the suggestion there? Cap each type of activity on a per-account basis at the same level?

 

That is, each account can contribute X thousand points via crafting to any of their guilds, or the same X points via PvP, or the same X points via Flashpoints?

 

Personal points can go as high as you want, but guild points are capped by activity type?

 

There are a couple of threads floating around started by ML_DoubleTap that attempt to create some constructive conversation on the matter. There are some interesting ideas in there worth discussing.

 

Conquest Points: Add Daily/Weekly for Crafting

 

Conquest Point Suggestions

 

I think primarily I would just like to see the theme of each week have a greater influence on the end results. Sure, some weeks crafting should be a repeatable objective only limited by ones time and resources, but there is no reason it has to be so every week. I'm not pretending that trying to balance competition with guild sizes and different styles of play is easy, but I would certainly enjoy the conquests more if the theme each week changed from he who crafts the most wins.

[ivanhedgehog]

You keep asserting that P2W stuff. Is there a type of item you can buy from Cartel Market that has a high yield of crafting materials? The gambling packs definitely aren't it, based on my experiences with them.

 

I can buy the hypercrates and sell the packs unopened..that buys a lot of mats

[DarthTHC]

I can buy the hypercrates and sell the packs unopened..that buys a lot of mats

 

That buys a lot of mats in theory. It doesn't buy a lot of the right mats in practice. First, you have to sell the Hypercrates you buy. Then you have to wait until enough of the materials you need are on GTN (it's not even close to an unlimited supply) and not at tens or hundreds of thousands of credits per item (not stack).

 

It's not as easy as people are intimating. Possible? Sure. Likely? Not remotely.

[ivanhedgehog]

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.

 

they arent opening the packs, they are selling them...turning real money into CC into credits into mats....its called money laundering...not a really hard concept. bioware rakes in the real money while watching the demand for credits and mats skyrocket

[DarthTHC]

First of all, nobody is saying get rid of crafting. All we want is for the points crafting provides to be brought in line with other activities.

 

Secondly, woah woah woah woah. Hold up. Are you suggesting that people actually like conquest crafting?

 

By conquest crafting, I mean conquest crafting. As in making war supplies / invasion forces. Not crafting actual useful items like armor, mods, enhancements, etc.

 

A. The number of things you can actually do with invasion forces is laughable.

B. Even if you want to use invasion forces (to make the Command Walkers or Orbital Strikes), you are much much better off just buying them for 1/10th (or way less than 1/10th) of the price than incur the mats cost of crafting them yourself.

 

As it stands, the ONLY REASON to craft for conquest is for conquest points. False. You can craft Universal Prefabs to generate conquest points for some conquests and these serve far greater purpose than just conquest points.

 

In contrast, all of the other activities you’ve listed have fun factors in them. People enjoy doing them even without the need for conquest. Plus they give conquest points.

 

See the difference?

 

Do people like conquest crafting? I can speak from personal experience: Yes. I like to log in to my crafters and watch my guild's point total jump by half a million points on the next refresh over at http://www.swtorconquest.com/ . Others in my guild feel exactly the same way.

 

Besides, you can craft useful things like Universal Prefabs to get Conquest Points. In fact, those things give better points than the War Supplies for at least some of the conquests! And since I like credits and for some unfathomable reason I even like furnishing my Strongholds, yeah, I like that, too.

 

So while I appreciate you attempting to artificially limit crafting for Conquest to War Supplies, I can't agree with that limitation and your subsequent that "these other activities give other rewards, too", because crafting for Conquest does, too.

[DarthTHC]

they arent opening the packs, they are selling them...turning real money into CC into credits into mats....its called money laundering...not a really hard concept. bioware rakes in the real money while watching the demand for credits and mats skyrocket

 

I came to understand that via other posters' subsequent responses. I responded to that, too. TL;DR version of that response is that you're looking at $500 to get a bump (not a guaranteed win) so that seems implausible, too.

[ivanhedgehog]

I came to understand that via other posters' subsequent responses. I responded to that, too. TL;DR version of that response is that you're looking at $500 to get a bump (not a guaranteed win) so that seems implausible, too.

 

I know people that drop more than that on beer for their tailgate parties. try again

[Muljo_Stpho]

This makes me wonder why theres only 2 types of conquest objectives (1 time only and repeatable). Crafting is unique to the other objectives and should be somewhere between repeatable and 1 time only.

 

This implementation of one time objectives is just broken and stupid no matter how you look at it. At the very least they need to change it so that the one time objectives track per character instead of per legacy. But ideally what they actually need to do is to just eliminate the one time objectives completely and find ways to make them work as repeatable objectives (with sufficient limitations built into the conditions to prevent abuse, such as making objectives for specific flashpoints have a list of the names of all of the bosses in the flashpoint instead of triggering on flashpoint completion).

 

As far as crafting is concerned, I think (and I've already said this in a number of other posts scattered around the forums) that what they need to do is change it to give the points for some number of items crafted (10, 25, whatever) instead of giving points for every single item crafted. I also think it would be nice to have more things count for the crafting objective. My idea that I've gone into in other posts would basically have the points awarded at every 30 items crafted but it would have additional conditions stating something along the lines of: item modifications count x1, prefab kits count x2, war supplies count x3. This would open up the core crafting objective included in every conquest week to crafting more items that people would actually have a use for outside of doing it for conquest points, and it would put some limiting factors on the rate at which crafting counts for conquest points.

 

I have similar suggestions outlined in other posts for core pvp and pve objectives to be included by default in every conquest week. I say that the warzone and starfighter participation objectives need to be replaced with one core pvp participation objective which states "complete 3 warzones or starfighter matches, wins count x2." (Some incentive to try to win instead of just trying to get the match to end faster is built into right into the core objective that way. People winning every single match they play would earn conquest points twice for every three matches played while people losing every single match they play would earn conquest points once for every three matches played.) I also think it would be fair to add a repeatable generic pve option as a parallel to these repeatable crafting and pvp options, and one simple idea there might be an objective which awards conquest points for every 10 heroics completed. (Possibly word it to count heroics x1, flashpoints x2, and ops x3 towards such an objective.)

 

On top of a solid basis of core objectives which provide some sort of balanced core options for all play styles, they also need to do more about covering all of the thematic objectives that set the tone for the conquest week. EVERY planet that is up for grabs in the conquests needs to have objectives covering heroics / dailies / weeklies as well as lowbie NPC kills / high level NPC kills / commander kills. Yes, we can earn our points for activities off the conquest target planet and that is well within the intended design of the system. But why the crap does that mean that only 1-2 out of 5 targets actually have objectives related to activity on that planet?

 

edit: Yes, that one crafting themed conquest week also gave points for prefab kits. This was unique for conquests as a whole. The main crafting objective that is included by default in every conquest week currently only gives points for war supplies.

Edited October 1, 2014 by Muljo_Stpho

[branmakmuffin]

I know people that drop more than that on beer for their tailgate parties. try again

Much as I disagree with DarthTHC on other things, your alleged knowledge of how much people people you know supposedly spend on beer for tailgate parties is irrelevant. A tailgate party is nothing like a contest for virtual goods and bragging rights in a computer game.

 

Try again.

[DarthTHC]

I know people that drop more than that on beer for their tailgate parties. try again

 

Do you know people who drop that ingame to win conquest?

 

I'll drop $5k on a guitar, clearly a luxury item since I am far from a professional guitarist, but I've spent zero on Cartel Coins. The willingness to drop money on one luxury item does not indicate a willingness to spend the same or even less on a completely different luxury item.