Bioware: Is Crafting to Win™ intended?

[Brewski]

^^this

 

Crafting is the only method a smaller guild has to compete with a larger one, you take it that away and conquests becomes nothing but a function of guild size.

 

I don't see this being relevant. A small guild crafting will still be outpaced by a large guild crafting, and the large guilds trying to win a planet will always craft with the current mechanics. To not do so is to intentionally gimp your chances of winning the planet.

 

Ideally, you are right, in that if the three methods were balanced, crafting would be one method a small guild could use to try and get an advantage over a larger guild who didn't bother to craft. This is just not going to happen as long as you can turn out these numbers.

 

I don't think anyone is arguing that crafting should be nerfed bad enough to be irrelevant. (Well, okay, some people are, but most still want it to be viable.) They are just point out that the numbers involved clearly show crafting is a bit OP right now.

 

It doesn't need to be removed or nerfed. We just need some tweaks.

 

And just for the record, I am a crafter myself, and I'm in a small guild that is not bothering to compete for planetary conquests. We just don't have the numbers or time to put up the kind of point totals you need, so we enjoy the aspects of the GSH/Conquest system we do have access to.

Edited September 29, 2014 by Brewski

[JINeziz]

In what way does that make any sense? They reward most, the one thing that you don't actually need to be playing to do...doesn't that seem backwards?!

 

 

THIS^. This is the problem. He gets it. Who of us enjoys crafting more than both pvp and pve? Conquest Events like "Trade Emporium" were focused on crafting. Thats absolutely fine. But that method shouldnt command the same amount of power on certain planets almost every week. Honestly, I'd be fine if each toon (or even legacy) was capped at the conquest goal for each week. Which varies.

 

This thread isnt about making things easier for any guild. Its about Balancing Crafting to increase individual and group enjoyment of conquest events. We'd rather PLAY our way to victory then CRAFT it.

Edited September 29, 2014 by JINeziz

[Zoom_VI]

If crafting is taken away, the large guilds will be able to win week after week with no effort, as the non-crafting methods of acquiring points are nothing but a function of time and players.

 

Crafting is different, it is a function of resources, specifically resources that cannot be aquire at the rate they are consumed. Unlike warzones, GSF, and PvE, crafting costs something. Even the largest guilds will not be able to sustain crafting in the long run, which is a fact that I am positive spurred the OP to post this. (his guild stands to gain the most from a nerfed crafting system)

 

A small guild taking the time to amass resources could take pot-shots at the largest guilds from time to time under the current system. Take that away, and the conquest leaderboards will be nothing but a ranking of guild size from largest to smallest.

[Grayseven]

If you limit points via crafting though, whether you reduce the points per create a cap, you don't resolve the issue. Large guilds will still be in the driver seat.

 

 

Triumph and WOOK would still win out. Now, I'm not saying they shouldn't necessarily. But on an even playing field, size will win whether it's crafting point or other points.

 

I think they should bag the whole thing. Set a per guild goal, based on total members (with perhaps a curve to account for non active players). If you hit the benchmark, then you win. If there is a leaderboard, it should be % based which will at least give smaller guilds a fighting chance.

 

Guild A has 500 members with a goal of 25000 x 500 = 12500000. If they hit 14000000, they were at 112% to goal

Guild B has 50 members with a goal of 25000 x 50 = 1250000. If they hit 2000000, they were at 160% to goal

 

Still some opportunity to game the system, but it believe each guild should compete for a goal, rather than try to match point for point

 

Would they? Or would the playing field be evened out a bit more if they couldn't sit on their collective backsides queuing crafting all day?

 

In my opinion mind you, crafting is an individual endeavor and yet it provides a disproportionate amount of points when compared to the group oriented goals. If Conquest is about guilds, why would so much emphasis be placed on individual achievement winning the day?

 

Bigger guilds working together will always win. But even in a mid sized guild I find it difficult at time to get people working together. It often times comes down to a solid core of dedicated players making the effort and other players doing their own thing that may or may not help accomplish a conquest goal. I can't begin to imagine trying to "herd cats" in a big guild in order to achieve some of these conquest point totals.

 

But in a Guild styled system, group content should earn more than solo effort.

[JINeziz]

This hits the nail on the head for our guild. We have hit 3rd place twice and been in the top 10 for each conquest. The guildship is 100% unlocked, the stronghold as well. There is really little need for us to be competing for mass conquest points in reality as the interest is fading fast. The money and time we spent unlocking the guildship was very rewarding, but to put forth that effort and money/time toward a title? It just doesn't hold weight.

 

.

 

I get where your coming from. You hv to keep in mind though that for many of us, its not about the prizes or the title that comes from winning...its the COMPETITION itself. ThAt, is whats really enjoyable. Its the whole group coming together and focusing on the same goal to battle against other groups of friends.

 

And succeed or not...the enjoyment is well worth the cost. Bringing balance to crafting would increase that entire purpose by letting all, and giving incentive to all to focus on actual gameplay. Prizes and cost be damned. I enjoy the fight. Flagship only a smart part of the fun, and not even a very functional one...

[Grayseven]

If crafting is taken away, the large guilds will be able to win week after week with no effort, as the non-crafting methods of acquiring points are nothing but a function of time and players.

 

Crafting is different, it is a function of resources, specifically resources that cannot be aquire at the rate they are consumed. Unlike warzones, GSF, and PvE, crafting costs something. Even the largest guilds will not be able to sustain crafting in the long run, which is a fact that I am positive spurred the OP to post this. (his guild stands to gain the most from a nerfed crafting system)

 

A small guild taking the time to amass resources could take pot-shots at the largest guilds from time to time under the current system. Take that away, and the conquest leaderboards will be nothing but a ranking of guild size from largest to smallest.

 

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Resources can be acquired at a much faster rate than consumption for those that know how to acquire them. And trust me, any guild will have at least a few people that know the "best spots" when it comes to acquisition of materials.

 

Large guilds will be able to continue this level of crafting dominance quite easily because there are many avenues open to acquire materials. It takes a coordinated effort, but then that is the point of Conquest, is it not?

[JINeziz]

If they "fix" this it'll only get replaced by the "Bioware: Is being in a 500 member guild an intended prerequisite for a win" threads...

 

 

LOL, you're definitely correct. But at least this problem would be out of the way. Besides, think we all know its about how active a guild's members are, despite the guild total members. And how smart they use their time and how coordinated with their resources. I'd love for BW to fix this current issue so we could move on to that one.

[TUXs]

If crafting is taken away, the large guilds will be able to win week after week with no effort, as the non-crafting methods of acquiring points are nothing but a function of time and players.

Why shouldn't they win? Larger guilds have larger numbers...that's just the way it is. Do you truthfully believe a guild of something like 10 players should be able to compete with like 100? And you think the way for them to compete, isn't by doing more missions, it's by doing more of...nothing? Because "crafting" isn't an activity you participate in, it's merely clicking a button.

 

SIZE matters. 10 dedicated players, no matter what they do, shouldn't be able to surpass a guild of 100 who is also participating, even haphazardly.

[Brewski]

If crafting is taken away, the large guilds will be able to win week after week with no effort, as the non-crafting methods of acquiring points are nothing but a function of time and players.

 

Agreed. But no one is arguing that they should take crafting away. They are only arguing that it needs to be scaled back because it's OP at the moment.

 

I'm actually against a hard cap on crafting well unless you also add a hard cap to PvE and PvP aspects as well. I agree a hard cap will pretty much kill crafting as a viable alternative. All that will happen is that the big guilds will craft the cap and then stop.

 

I would rather see a general reduction in the rewards for repeatable objectives, and the addition of more one-time rewards for crafting to keep the earning potential for a "normal" week of crafting on par with a "normal" week of PvP or PvE play in terms of conquest rewards.

 

Then if a guild wants to stockpile a "spike" for crafting to try and cap a planet, it's still possible. Especially since the other guilds are unlikely to be doing 24/7 crafting like they are doing today.

[DawnAskham]

No but crafting can and will allow a small guild to overtake a large one. I would know. My guild has won on two planets where we where up against guilds well over three times our size, crafting was the only method available to fight them since it is the only method that doesn't entirely scale with guild size.

 

Sure a large guild will still have a crafting advantage but, if you remove viability of crafting, guild size become the one and only determinant of success in conquests. But I'm starting to think that's what the OP wants, since from what I have seen, his guild is the largest on his server.

 

And don't give me the crafting is sustainable crap either. My guild is comprised predominantly of crafters, and we have been having to take down weeks, and once our mats stockpile is entirely gone will likely have to take back-to-back down weeks, simply because the amount of time required to acquire mats (or acquire credits to buy mats with) is significantly more than the time it takes to burn the mats. This is especially true given that War Supplies have no market value.

 

Ah but you and a number of players have missed the elephant in the room....

 

I know a few players who have maxed character slots AND who have plenty of disposable income they are willing to use to 'win' conquest.

 

They simply buy CM Packs by the truckload, sell off stuff they don't want for credits, and keep all the jawa junk stuff to use to buy mats.

 

Add in having an army of alts running missions all the time, and they DO NOT have downtime from week to week.

 

They can and will put up millions of points every week, week after week.

 

So the thread title shouldn't just be Crafting to Win - but Pay to Win as it is possible to generate millions of conquest points through crafting simply by logging in several times a day and NEVER actually playing the game.

 

And that is just dumb.

 

Conquest should require playing the game, and should favor groups coordinated enough to complete group content.

 

Right now it favors those with the most alts who have the time to log on every couple of hours and cycle missions and crafting queues, as well as those willing to spend RL money in the CM.

Edited September 29, 2014 by DawnAskham

[AlienEyeTX]

I think the OP missed an important point. Guilds trying to win should be crafting AND "playing the game." There is no reason not to play the other content while comps are busy crafting. Crafting is one of the components of the system and a balanced attack should work just fine.

[ParagonAX]

I think the OP missed an important point. Guilds trying to win should be crafting AND "playing the game." There is no reason not to play the other content while comps are busy crafting. Crafting is one of the components of the system and a balanced attack should work just fine.

 

Precisely. I personally ran all 3 FP dailies and all of my toons, every single day. We also organized a ton of ops weekly runs and PvP runs.

 

But at the end of the day all that gives minuscule points compared to crafting.

 

5 chars

[Zoom_VI]

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Resources can be acquired at a much faster rate than consumption for those that know how to acquire them. And trust me, any guild will have at least a few people that know the "best spots" when it comes to acquisition of materials.

 

Large guilds will be able to continue this level of crafting dominance quite easily because there are many avenues open to acquire materials. It takes a coordinated effort, but then that is the point of Conquest, is it not?

 

ahahaha, good now how about we think in practical terms.

 

Every single method of gaining conquest points gives advantage to the large guilds. Crafting gives the least advantage.

 

On my server at least, crafting has allowed for several upsets with guilds beating out guilds that hugely outnumber them, if crafting just advantages large guilds then how could those upsets of happened? hmm? What you are claiming something that has not been backed up in the actual game.

 

any guild will have at least a few people that know the "best spots" when it comes to acquisition of materials.

The "best spots" only work if nobody else is also going for those "best spots"

[Jadescythe]

If crafting is taken away, the large guilds will be able to win week after week with no effort, as the non-crafting methods of acquiring points are nothing but a function of time and players.

 

Crafting is different, it is a function of resources, specifically resources that cannot be aquire at the rate they are consumed. Unlike warzones, GSF, and PvE, crafting costs something. Even the largest guilds will not be able to sustain crafting in the long run, which is a fact that I am positive spurred the OP to post this. (his guild stands to gain the most from a nerfed crafting system)

 

A small guild taking the time to amass resources could take pot-shots at the largest guilds from time to time under the current system. Take that away, and the conquest leaderboards will be nothing but a ranking of guild size from largest to smallest.

 

So essentially, you are saying it's better if a guild can stockpile a TON of mats for like 3 weeks and unload all of them for crafting the fourth to try and win a planet?

 

The problem with crafting is that it consumes 0 time. I realize gathering mats, having credits, etc. take time, but as we just established in my previous statement, you can already have them from a previous week. There is nothing that stops you from crafting AND doing flashpoints at the same time. While it's impossible to do both a flashpoint and a warzone at the same time.

 

What this means is that I can make, say, 3 warzones completed equal to a flashpoint completed. Roughly 30 minutes of your time for either. There is no way to balance crafting as my only limitation is number of companions and the time to craft each item. So we have to make something that can be crafted in 30 minutes equal to 1/5th of the points for either 3 warzones or 1 flashpoint since you have 5 companions to make stuff for you. This still leaves things lopsided as I can setup 5 companions to craft 5 items and then log out to do my errands. I can't, however, queue up for 15 warzones or 5 flashpoints and leave.

 

The major problem is that there is 0 downside to crafting in terms of conquest points. I don't have to give up points somewhere else to craft, because it takes no play time. Any other avenue for points requires that I give up other points that I could possibly gain from another activity. This makes it literally impossible to balance crafting.

[JINeziz]

^^this

 

Crafting is the only method a smaller guild has to compete with a larger one, you take it that away and conquests becomes nothing but a function of guild size.

 

See where you're coming from, but incorrect. Even in the big guilds its a select few people who put out MILLIONS of conquest points from crafting. And despite the potential being there, many players in smaller guilds hvnt duplicated the numbers. But they could. All they'd need is the toons, creds, and mats. Not 500 people.

 

And really, in the guilds with 500, do people really think that that means they hv 500 active and separate people? Please... Plenty of people who hv 10+ Alts in one guild. Its about the amount of ACTIVE people, their resources, how organized they are, and how badly they want to win.

[branmakmuffin]

Is that your answer to everything whenever someone makes a constructive suggestion on a game feature that can be improved?

 

People like you are the exact reason why BW does not bother to think it through when coming up with fun content.

If you are content to keep paying to play the game as it is, why should they make changes? If you want to send them a message, your only option is to unsubscribe and tell them why. Enough people do that, they will change it (whatever it is). Venting on the forums (and venting is the main purpose of these forums) might make people feel better, but it's not going to get anything changed. The game is what it is. If it's good enough to play, play it. If it's not, stop playing it. But, again, if venting makes you feel better, vent away.

Edited September 29, 2014 by branmakmuffin

[ML_DoubleTap]

ahahaha, good now how about we think in practical terms.

 

Every single method of gaining conquest points gives advantage to the large guilds. Crafting gives the least advantage.

 

On my server at least, crafting has allowed for several upsets with guilds beating out guilds that hugely outnumber them, if crafting just advantages large guilds then how could those upsets of happened? hmm? What you are claiming something that has not been backed up in the actual game.

 

I would argue that crafting gives the largest advantage to large guilds. The advantage is there, it seems that those large guilds on your server just haven't taken them yet. That doesn't mean that small guilds aren't at a larger disadvantage, it simply means the particular large guilds on your server haven't used the most efficient means to leverage their size. If they organized a large number of people gather mats for a dedicated core of crafters they would blow you out of the water. I doubt your smaller guild has come anywhere close to 40mil points as the OP screenshot displayed. I know that none on our server have. When one method vastly outpaces the others than the size advantage quickly grows with that potential. It's just a matter of using your numbers wisely.

[ML_DoubleTap]

If you are content to keep paying to play the game as it is, why should they make changes? If you want to send them a message, your only option is to unsubscribe and tell them why. Enough people do that, they will change it (whatever it is). Venting on the forums (and venting is the main purpose of these forums) might make people feel better, but it's not going to get anything changed. The game is what it is. If it's good enough to play, play it. If it's not, stop playing it. But, again, if venting makes you feel better, vent away.

 

I'm pretty sure that venting on the forums have resulted in some PvP and PvE objectives being altered already. It does make a difference.

[JINeziz]

That said, I'd like to have a little more emphasis on running group missions in Conquests. My guild is tiny and doesn't have a ship, so it takes forever to get my points, and I'm usually stuck crafting for about 60% of my conquest rewards when I'd rather go out and shoot stuff.

 

THIS^. "SHOOT STUFF". Agreed. Confirmed. Get on it BW.

[branmakmuffin]

I'm pretty sure that venting on the forums have resulted in some PvP and PvE objectives being altered already. It does make a difference.

If it makes you feel better to think so, fine with me.

[Zoom_VI]

The major problem is that there is 0 downside to crafting in terms of conquest points. I don't have to give up points somewhere else to craft, because it takes no play time. Any other avenue for points requires that I give up other points that I could possibly gain from another activity. This makes it literally impossible to balance crafting.

 

Are you high? People have spent entire fortunes on conquest crafting. Crafting costs the most in terms of either credit output or sheer amount of time spent farming nodes. (which you will likely want to shoot yourself if you do the latter for any serious length of time.)

Yet it costs nothing at all to spam flashpoints or to spam warzones. Nothing at all.

[branmakmuffin]

Are you high? People have spent entire fortunes on conquest crafting. Crafting costs the most in terms of either credit output or sheer amount of time spent farming nodes. (which you will likely want to shoot yourself if you do the latter for any serious length of time.)

Yet it costs nothing at all to spam flashpoints or to spam warzones. Nothing at all.

I think we have discovered "No matter what, someone will be unhappy."

[ML_DoubleTap]

Are you high? People have spent entire fortunes on conquest crafting. Crafting costs the most in terms of either credit output or sheer amount of time spent farming nodes. (which you will likely want to shoot yourself if you do the latter for any serious length of time.)

Yet it costs nothing at all to spam flashpoints or to spam warzones. Nothing at all.

 

You included time costs in crafting but left that out of FPs and WZs? The benefit to WZs is that many people get points for something they'd do anyways...something that I think BW should try to replicate in other means of points. However, it still stands that all methods require time, and crafting is the most efficient points/time method. By a large margin.

[Zoom_VI]

I think we have discovered "No matter what, someone will be unhappy."

 

What annoys me is the fact that the OP is nothing but a thinly veiled attempt to change conquest to where his guild can win without effort, as he was apparently upset by how much effort it took to beat a crafting guild.

[TUXs]

Are you high? People have spent entire fortunes on conquest crafting. Crafting costs the most in terms of either credit output or sheer amount of time spent farming nodes. (which you will likely want to shoot yourself if you do the latter for any serious length of time.)

Yet it costs nothing at all to spam flashpoints or to spam warzones. Nothing at all.

Buy some CC's and get all the mats you want...FPs and WZ's take the one thing you can't buy - TIME! That's the cost...time.