Bioware: Is Crafting to Win™ intended?

[ParagonAX]

That's all I've seen said, no one coming up with a solution to make sure crafters don't get shut out, just a bunch of crying about how it's unfair.

 

Actually, people have been suggesting solutions in this and other threads. May I suggest you read through the thread in detail. You don't have to, but you should if you want to make blatant accusations like "that's all I've seen said", and using words like "crying".

 

I will quote this for you though:

Unfortunately, there are a number of people who do not agree/recognize that Conquest crafting is a problem. I would like to establish consensus on the issue to ensure any proposed solutions actually solve the problem.

 

As I described here, fixing Conquests will not be a simple nor one-off event; it will be iterative and sequential. There is a quote often ascribed to Einstein that given an hour you should spend 55 minutes defining the problem and only 5 minutes actually solving it. I believe we are very much in the problem definition phase of Conquests, specifically crafting.

 

And, while I can't quantify specific changes for BioWare to make, I could outline a process for them, which would include backtesting changes as well as frequent tweaks. We have already seen them adjust the Flashpoint rewards. Hopefully, more changes or communication is forthcoming - speaking of which anyone from BioWare want to chime in on this thread?

Edited October 3, 2014 by ParagonAX

[Brewski]

That's all I've seen said, no one coming up with a solution to make sure crafters don't get shut out, just a bunch of crying about how it's unfair.

 

I'm a crafter, and I most definitely don't want to see crafting shut out of conquests, yet I also agree that as things stand, crafting is a bit OP in terms of planetary conquest.

 

I suggested (some number of pages ago) that they simply reduce the repeatable crafting rewards and add more one time rewards for crafting specific items. The intention would be to reduce the scale of the difference in point acquisition while still allowing crafting to be both relevant and rewarding. Several other people have offered suggestions as well.

 

So suggestions are out there (although admittedly somewhat hard to find in 71 pages of whinging). No one is really advocating the removal of crafting, just suggesting it be rebalanced in the same way some PvP and PvE conquest goals were rebalanced.

[TUXs]

Again, why nerf crafting? Why not make the other ones equal to crafting? Why is the first inclination to nerf something instead of making the other things the same?

Bioware has spent 2 of the past 3 patches nerfing the "other ones"...I don't believe they did that unintentionally, so I doubt there's any chance at getting the other things reinstated as they were...so we're left with trying to reduce craftings impact.

[Transcendent]

You know, it occurs to me that a majority of the issues lay in the fact the larger guilds have the advantage in conquests. Regardless of how they win (crafting or not), wouldn't the solution be much more simple than nerfing points into the ground on various objectives?

 

Take for example the alternative options open to BioWare;

 

- Add lockouts to Conquests. Your guild wins a planet, and that guilds members all receive a debuff (across the whole legacy so no alt guilds for the following week). In a similar vein to Nightmare Pilgrim. Key is to add it to every member of the guild and across the whole legacy otherwise it's open to exploitation.

 

- Force the winners of a conquest week to go for the same planet the following week. For example 5 planets are up for grabs, the following week the winners of each planet auto invade the same planet, and members of those guilds (including legacy characters) are prevented from invading any other planet.

 

Either of those options do not require nerfing anything, they force the larger guilds to plan ahead or compete directly each week. Either option opens up Conquests a little more for the smaller guilds to compete for planets.

[BlackEyeArtistry]

I think the OP makes a good point. Having crafting give more points then quests or planetary quests is absurd. If anything questing and crafting should be balanced.

[Vegihan]

You know, it occurs to me that a majority of the issues lay in the fact the larger guilds have the advantage in conquests. Regardless of how they win (crafting or not), wouldn't the solution be much more simple than nerfing points into the ground on various objectives?

 

Take for example the alternative options open to BioWare;

 

- Add lockouts to Conquests. Your guild wins a planet, and that guilds members all receive a debuff (across the whole legacy so no alt guilds for the following week). In a similar vein to Nightmare Pilgrim. Key is to add it to every member of the guild and across the whole legacy otherwise it's open to exploitation.

 

- Force the winners of a conquest week to go for the same planet the following week. For example 5 planets are up for grabs, the following week the winners of each planet auto invade the same planet, and members of those guilds (including legacy characters) are prevented from invading any other planet.

 

Either of those options do not require nerfing anything, they force the larger guilds to plan ahead or compete directly each week. Either option opens up Conquests a little more for the smaller guilds to compete for planets.

 

This will just break things more. If you force the winners to duke it out the next week what decides the planet? Also what stops a big guild from holding off one week and let a small get win just to be owned the next week? Plus if they are gimped they may just say I don't care and not try. That hurts the system more.

 

I think they never intended it to be competitive for small guilds. The entry fee alone is a good sign. I think, they wanted to give players a reason to log in and run content with their guild. The more you run the better it looks to Biowares stats on how much content is being played. There have been no suggestions on how to make conquest fair for small guilds that is also fair to large guilds. It is called conquests. Do you take small number of people to conquer an area or do you take an army? Yes a small skilled group can conquer certain areas but rarely will they conquer big areas. The same is true with conquest. A small guild can win but has to choose wisely and be very good.

 

This thread isn't asking Bioware if they intended to favor large guilds but if they intended crafting to be the most efficient way to win? The evidence has been shown that crafting is required to win. I know of no guild who has put out large numbers and done it without a lot of crafting. There is no way for a guild who PVPs constantly or PVE constantly to out score a guild who crafts of the same size. What many of the posters and myself want is equal points for equal work. Yes you can craft while running other content but you shouldn't have too. The other content does provide items other then conquest points but so does crafting. Most of the drops from FP and Ops aren't upgrades anymore and those that are were probably going to be received soon enough even without conquest. Plus to run FPs, WZs, GSF, and Ops there are lockouts and queue times which gate the number that can be run but there is none of that for crafting.

 

As for what Bioware should do to fix this, I have nothing at this time. That is for Bioware to figure out if they see it as an issue. I have my own recommendations but will keep them to myself until I know that Bioware sees it as a problem. If they dont I will just be wasting my time. I do believe that the community has suggestions that could be useful but they are moot without a response from Bioware.

[Rambeezy]

I'm a crafter, and I most definitely don't want to see crafting shut out of conquests, yet I also agree that as things stand, crafting is a bit OP in terms of planetary conquest.

 

I suggested (some number of pages ago) that they simply reduce the repeatable crafting rewards and add more one time rewards for crafting specific items. The intention would be to reduce the scale of the difference in point acquisition while still allowing crafting to be both relevant and rewarding. Several other people have offered suggestions as well.

 

So suggestions are out there (although admittedly somewhat hard to find in 71 pages of whinging). No one is really advocating the removal of crafting, just suggesting it be rebalanced in the same way some PvP and PvE conquest goals were rebalanced.

 

Something like 5k conquest points for crafting the war supply and 10k for crafting the purple. 1 time only per character but repeatable for legacy. So 16 characters making 15k conquest points from crafting = 240k conquest per account. For a guild with 150 accounts that means a possibility of 36 million conquest points. While the possibility for conquest to dominate is still there, the current state in which 336 million conquest points can be achieved under the same circumstances (16 characters for 150 accounts) would be removed.

 

Thoughts?

[ParagonAX]

You know, it occurs to me that a majority of the issues lay in the fact the larger guilds have the advantage in conquests. Regardless of how they win (crafting or not), wouldn't the solution be much more simple than nerfing points into the ground on various objectives?

 

Take for example the alternative options open to BioWare;

 

- Add lockouts to Conquests. Your guild wins a planet, and that guilds members all receive a debuff (across the whole legacy so no alt guilds for the following week). In a similar vein to Nightmare Pilgrim. Key is to add it to every member of the guild and across the whole legacy otherwise it's open to exploitation.

 

- Force the winners of a conquest week to go for the same planet the following week. For example 5 planets are up for grabs, the following week the winners of each planet auto invade the same planet, and members of those guilds (including legacy characters) are prevented from invading any other planet.

 

Either of those options do not require nerfing anything, they force the larger guilds to plan ahead or compete directly each week. Either option opens up Conquests a little more for the smaller guilds to compete for planets.

 

I think your suggestions would make a ton of people rage

 

I think the OP makes a good point. Having crafting give more points then quests or planetary quests is absurd. If anything questing and crafting should be balanced.

 

Indeed.

[Grayseven]

I accidentally knocked off my tinfoil hat and the NSA mind control satellites put a conspiracy in my head.

 

What if...it is indeed intended?

 

Crafting War Supplies takes materials. Gathering materials takes either time or credits. Since most people would rather not spend every waking moment gathering mats, they'll take the easy way out and buy them from the GTN.

 

Making credits easily often involves the Cartel Market. Buy for real money, sell for in-game credits, buy materials. Easy mode. Multiply that by a bunch of guild members.

 

It's a concerted effort to drive CM purchases.

[Psychopyro]

I accidentally knocked off my tinfoil hat and the NSA mind control satellites put a conspiracy in my head.

 

What if...it is indeed intended?

 

Crafting War Supplies takes materials. Gathering materials takes either time or credits. Since most people would rather not spend every waking moment gathering mats, they'll take the easy way out and buy them from the GTN.

 

Making credits easily often involves the Cartel Market. Buy for real money, sell for in-game credits, buy materials. Easy mode. Multiply that by a bunch of guild members.

 

It's a concerted effort to drive CM purchases.

I said that several pages ago... It's not just crafting.. But I'll spell it out again...

 

The only conquest thing fixed was Flashpoints... Since F2P players could do FPs without even having to buy anything, it was cut...

 

People are essentially doing the same thing with the FPs only doing it in OPS... But wait, you either have to sub or buy an OPS pass... So Money for EA

 

PvP is another repeatable, also requires a Pass to repeat it a bunch of times.... Hence MORE money for EA...

 

Crafting, for everything you pointed out, more money for EA....

 

I'm waiting for the GSF nerf bat to hit.... Only reason I can think of that it does not is the fact that the XP passes for it may be selling right now... If those drop off, I expect the bat to hit that as well....

[DawnAskham]

I think your suggestions would make a ton of people rage

 

Want to see rage - change the system so when Tuesday comes, a random roll determines the planet being attacked by each guild.

 

Or even better - auto assign the the top ten on the server from the previous week to one planet, the next ten to the next planet, etc etc.

 

That would cause massive rage with all the collusion and planet swapping guilds just expecting easy wins, though with the crafting points still the way they are, we'd see some really crazy high numbers.

Edited October 5, 2014 by DawnAskham

[ParagonAX]

I accidentally knocked off my tinfoil hat and the NSA mind control satellites put a conspiracy in my head.

 

What if...it is indeed intended?

 

Crafting War Supplies takes materials. Gathering materials takes either time or credits. Since most people would rather not spend every waking moment gathering mats, they'll take the easy way out and buy them from the GTN.

 

Making credits easily often involves the Cartel Market. Buy for real money, sell for in-game credits, buy materials. Easy mode. Multiply that by a bunch of guild members.

 

It's a concerted effort to drive CM purchases.

 

The lack of any BW response on such an hotly debated topic suggest that they have a financial stake in the matter. You are right.

[Zoom_VI]

The amount of tinfoil hatting in this thread is getting ridiculous.

 

I highly doubt BW would be so devious as to set all this up just so they can sell a few more ops passes or hypercrates, particularly since the F2P people are not even the target audience, and the relation you guys are placing on Crafting nukes and Cartel market sales is sketchy at best.

[Liquor]

Firstly, a little show and tell: http://i.imgur.com/qByDWNf.png

 

I did not show that to boast. In fact, most of my guild is sick and tired of Bioware's conquest system, and it's insane preference towards crafting. Some of my guildies were so stressed all week they were dreaming of mats in their sleep. I never want to see another War Supply again.

 

I am showing the screenshot to prove a point: crafting for conquest points is grossly unbalanced.

 

The conquest system does have some merit. I love the fact that there is a different "theme" each week that encourages players of all types to explore content they otherwise would not be inclined to play.

 

However, the fact of the matter is, no matter what "theme", nothing comes close to crafting when a

guild wants to win at conquest.

 

For example, let's do a little maths on last week's Flaspoint Havoc conquest (numbers do not include stronghold bonus):

 

Playing via "theme" aka Flashpoints:

• 2k points per FP daily
  
• 3 dailies per toon
  
• Let's assume another 2k points per toon per day based on one-time completion bonuses for certain flashpoints and bonus bosses
  
• Let's assume another 1k for other misc. activities such as operations weeklies
  
• That gives us a grand total of 9k conquest points per toon per day
  

 

Playing via crafting

• 1k points per War Supply
  
• 5 crafters can be sent out at once per toon
  
• ~50 mins per War Supply
  
• ~28*5 = 140 War Supplies per day per toon
  
• That gives us a grand total of 140k conquest points per toon per day
  

 

9k vs. 140k conquest points per toon per day. The numbers speak for themselves.

 

Now, you may say, crafting takes materials and credits. We get it. But the fact of the matter is:

• No matter which week, no matter what kind of "theme", be it FPs, operations, warzones, non of that matters
  
• The only way to win against an equally determined guild is to craft to victory, not to play the game
  

 

For our victory against Wook, we sank mats and credits totalling ~500 million. I am not complaining about that. We understood what needed to be done and did it.

 

My only question to Bioware: is Crafting to Win™ intended?

 

Can't speedhack crafting, guild complains on official forums . . .

[Psychopyro]

The amount of tinfoil hatting in this thread is getting ridiculous.

 

I highly doubt BW would be so devious as to set all this up just so they can sell a few more ops passes or hypercrates, particularly since the F2P people are not even the target audience, and the relation you guys are placing on Crafting nukes and Cartel market sales is sketchy at best.

 

HAHA! You realize this is EA we are talking about here? There is really no bigger money grabbing game company on the face of the planet (Activision would be second, as they've gotten a little better under Blizzard, but not much)... They'd sell their own mothers for a better bottom line... They had no problem throwing the NCAA under the bus when they had to start PAYING for something they should have been paying for from the beginning... And the Sims? How many of those "games" have they sold with even more "expansions" every 2 months.... And I won't even go on about their new console games and the P2W formula of those with all the buy your level up transactions.

 

People aren't making large leaps here... The writing is on the wall with EA and history more often then not repeats itself...

[Transcendent]

I think your suggestions would make a ton of people rage

 

Good

 

Or even better - auto assign the the top ten on the server from the previous week to one planet, the next ten to the next planet, etc etc.

 

That would cause massive rage with all the collusion and planet swapping guilds just expecting easy wins, though with the crafting points still the way they are, we'd see some really crazy high numbers.

 

That's also a good idea.

 

It places the guilds that want to dominate into the same grouping, but make it the top 15 etc etc so they actually have to try

 

They could just alter the "Craft War Supplies" to a one off 1000 points basic, and make "Craft Invasion Force" a repeatable for 500 points basic. Invasion forces take a lot longer, and you need to have the war supplies in the first place. That would help balance out the crafting vs content side of things.

Edited October 5, 2014 by Transcendent

[ParagonAX]

Can't speedhack crafting, guild complains on official forums . . .

 

Not sure what you are trying to insinuate, but thanks for posting your mature opinions in this thread.

[howieloader]

Or even better - auto assign the the top ten on the server from the previous week to one planet, the next ten to the next planet, etc etc.

 

There should definitely be a tier placement system based on previous week performance... Inb4 "Herp then guilds are just throwing stuff one week to get into a lower bracket the next week derp..."

[Elfa]

Why is this still being discussed and debated?! There is literally nothing constructive that has not already been said.

 

The two sides here will not be swayed in their beliefs and thus we are at a stalemate.

 

Let's agree to disagree and move on.

[Rambeezy]

Why is this still being discussed and debated?! There is literally nothing constructive that has not already been said.

 

The two sides here will not be swayed in their beliefs and thus we are at a stalemate.

 

Let's agree to disagree and move on.

 

Agree to disagree? No, I agree to think these people (who think that crafting to win is intended and/or fair) are crazy. <3

Edited October 6, 2014 by Rambeezy

[oofalong]

The lack of any BW response on such an hotly debated topic suggest that they have a financial stake in the matter. You are right.

 

I am not sure that is the right conclusion; I just don't think there is enough information to make this conclusion. This thread has only be raging for a week. And, BioWare has stated in other threads that Conquests rewards are somewhat fluid.

[Prisoner]

I am not sure that is the right conclusion; I just don't think there is enough information to make this conclusion. This thread has only be raging for a week. And, BioWare has stated in other threads that Conquests rewards are somewhat fluid.

 

Not true. People have been bringing it up in other threads for weeks, here and in the suggestion forum. This is the only thread that's raged for a week though, lmao.

[ParagonAX]

Not true. People have been bringing it up in other threads for weeks, here and in the suggestion forum. This is the only thread that's raged for a week though, lmao.

 

This is correct. The exact same issue was posted by another member of our guild almost a month ago and had no response from BW either.

[ParagonAX]

I am not sure that is the right conclusion; I just don't think there is enough information to make this conclusion. This thread has only be raging for a week. And, BioWare has stated in other threads that Conquests rewards are somewhat fluid.

 

I hope you are right...

 

I just find it mindblowing that BW pays people full-time to manage the forums.

 

"Engaging with fans and building a rapport with them is one of the most important aspects of the job, as I stand somewhat between the studio and the end user. I gather feedback to send to the team and create messaging from the developers to inform the community of various updates." - BW Community Manager

 

Yet the hottest topic by far in general discussion has not received a single yellow post.

Edited October 6, 2014 by ParagonAX

[Zoom_VI]

I hope you are right...

 

I just find it mindblowing that BW pays people full-time to manage the forums.

 

Yet the hottest topic by far in general discussion has not received a single yellow post.

 

so? There is the thread-that-shall-not-be-named over in the PvP section that has over 7.5k replies and never received a single yellow post.