Conquest Changes in Fallen Empire

[ludoviccb]

I'm an officer in Hob-Bit on The Shadowlands server. At the highest point, we had slightly over 100 members for conquest, with around 60 of them participating. At the time of our first win for conquest, we were the smallest guild on the server to win a planet.

 

With crafting for around 20% of the conquest points (around 1 mil the first day), we are able to win some planets. But in big fights against guilds with a lot more players, crafting was the only way to be able to compete against 200-300 members guilds.

 

The 4.0 changes in conquest, would make it impossible for my guild to have any chance to win the last planet that we need (Rishi). We just don't have the members for it. Also, all those 1 time reward legacy wide make it mostly useless to have alts since timewise. The fastest ways to get conquest points (from the 4.0 changes) is PvP or Starfighter while doing some objectives, if there are some available, that can be soloed.

[Blakinik]

Just like fiddling with PvP stuff didn't entice non-PvPers to PvP more, this fiddling with Conquest stuff is not going to make players who don't care about Conquest start caring. All it does is change how those who already care go about doing it.

 

I am opposed the crafting changes simply because it is an avenue to advance. Yes it might be over done (I think the fact it can be queued up and done offline may be the driver), but there are crafting-centric guilds as well.

 

But while they are on the tweaking with conquests, could they move the scoring to points scored per member? This would allow for smaller guilds to have a chance (one reason people don't participate that would if they had a chance). In this case, a guild of 500 would need to do 100 times more points than a guild of 5. However if the guild of 500 was truly active, they would still kick butt and take names regardless.

 

My 2 credits

 

Blak

[MeNaCe-NZ]

I am opposed the crafting changes simply because it is an avenue to advance. Yes it might be over done (I think the fact it can be queued up and done offline may be the driver), but there are crafting-centric guilds as well.

 

But while they are on the tweaking with conquests, could they move the scoring to points scored per member? This would allow for smaller guilds to have a chance (one reason people don't participate that would if they had a chance). In this case, a guild of 500 would need to do 100 times more points than a guild of 5. However if the guild of 500 was truly active, they would still kick butt and take names regardless.

 

My 2 credits

 

Blak

 

The last part is flawed because it's much easier to get 5 people active in conquest than it would be to try get 100, 200, 500, whatever people active.

 

Also remember you as a guild of 5 are on cruise mode. I'm in a guild of 500 and know the amount of work my GM and leadership put in to keeping the guild ticking over etc. so they really shouldn't be punished for being larger.

[Paktaii]

PvP and crafting are most certainly NOT the same type of things...apples and oranges...one you need to be actively involved in a group activity for, the other can be done offline entirely.

 

Ahh, so driving around the planets and farming mats can be done offline?

Earning credits, to buy mats from the GTN or sending your companions on a mission, can be done offline?

Sounds interesting, pls, tell me how to do that

 

It´s true that you don´t need to be actively involved in a group activity to farm mats or credits but you have to work for this too.

It´s true that you can craft while you are offline but you have to spend time for farming the mats/credits too.

 

As a crafter, do i get bonus points when my companion has a crit success? PVP-players get a bonus at the most conquest weeks if they win a match.

As a crafter, can i complete a weekly mission to get bonus points when i craft war supplies? PVP and GSF have a weekly and they can be repeated with every char, not like the Invasion Force you can craft once per account(!) for more points.

 

As a player who likes PVP/GSF, can this player craft while she/he does PVP/GSF matches? YES!

 

So, why not just lower the points for crafting instead of taking many players the chance to reach the conquest points?

[Psychopyro]

Or as I've tried to suggest, instead of awarding the points just for "completion" (which as we saw with Battle of Ilum abuse, this meant getting full credit for the flashpoint if you joined a stealth character that had already rushed ahead to the final boss), they could either:

 

A) track boss kills and only award the points when all names on the list have a count of 1 or higher next to them

.

 

They don't even have to do this. Just do with the FPs like they have with everyone since this problem went widespread... Gate each friggin boss.

 

All of the flashpoints since KDY have all been gated behind killing the boss previous. All they have to do is add a wall with a clicky that won't activate till the boss is dead. That's it...

 

I know it's not simple, but how hard can it be really? The FPs won't be solo friendly with the changes making them 65, so just do it already.

[well]

Ahh, so driving around the planets and farming mats can be done offline?

Earning credits, to buy mats from the GTN or sending your companions on a mission, can be done offline?

Sounds interesting, pls, tell me how to do that

 

It´s true that you don´t need to be actively involved in a group activity to farm mats or credits but you have to work for this too.

It´s true that you can craft while you are offline but you have to spend time for farming the mats/credits too.

 

As a crafter, do i get bonus points when my companion has a crit success? PVP-players get a bonus at the most conquest weeks if they win a match.

As a crafter, can i complete a weekly mission to get bonus points when i craft war supplies? PVP and GSF have a weekly and they can be repeated with every char, not like the Invasion Force you can craft once per account(!) for more points.

 

As a player who likes PVP/GSF, can this player craft while she/he does PVP/GSF matches? YES!

 

So, why not just lower the points for crafting instead of taking many players the chance to reach the conquest points?

 

Wait? Your inventory isn't magically filled? No way that is rubbish I say. We all know there is a Magical Flesh Raider that fills it when your offline. Just leave him a BLT and a bottle of vintage wine and no worries. Just make sure the wine is aged at least a week. He is picky.

Good luck on getting some to understand that you put in game time to farm the mats. Or how many stacks it takes to compete.

[jojobanutz]

This change to conquests staggers me

 

In one fell blow it completely destroys any chance of smaller guilds ever managing to grab a planet win occasionally.

 

As it stands now, larger guilds can, if they so wish, have a good chance at going for a planet win every week. Smaller guilds have to plan and stockpile mats etc , in order to attempt a win every 3, 4, 5 or more weeks apart. By removing crafting as a viable conquest point generator, Bio will effectively kill all this 'underlying' conquests activity.

 

I'd also like to point out to those that think crafting for conquests is not a 'group' activity, that it is very much a group activity! Not in the sense that people are in a visble group activity like an OP, or FP, but so what?

 

Planning and arranging a team effort within a guild to enable conquest crafting is deeply involving, requiring motivation, negotiation, credits, and agreement on who does what, etc etc. It builds and develops a very strong relationship between players. All inside the game. Surely this is something to nurture? Not destroy out of hand

 

To be honest, the ham-fistedness of this change says to me one of two things, either this was based on a cusory glance at the subject, and an off the cuff decision. Or, if based on a more thorough examination of the matter, then somebody is in the wrong job!

 

As somebody else mentioned, this reminds me very much of the Cartel Slot Fiasco. Crazy zig-zagging between one extreme and another, with barely a whiff of considered, quality thought apparent, and precious little evidence of any depth of understanding.

Edited September 11, 2015 by jojobanutz

[Muljo_Stpho]

I know it's not simple, but how hard can it be really? The FPs won't be solo friendly with the changes making them 65, so just do it already.

 

Who says they're removing old versions of anything. The new scaled to level cap (presumably movable with future cap changes) tacticals and hard modes are custom built for the way they want group finder to work moving forward (and sure it would be safe to expect flashpoints released in the future to conform to that model), but that doesn't mean that the old level-specific soloable-when-overleveled story modes and hard modes will cease to exist. They just won't be tied to a queue anymore.

 

Bringing up that point though... We could probably expand on the suggested scoring mechanism somewhat... Okay, this might be too many triggers in a row on the high end of this scoring but I don't think their system is set up to do this any other way. Suppose that the objective is a mere 25 points per boss kill in a flashpoint with the clauses that solo/story modes count x1, bolstered tactical mode counts x2, original hard mode counts x3, and bolstered hard mode counts x4. (25 points per boss kill in original story mode or in level synced solo mode (no group finder needed for either of these, and technically the solo mode is only a daily mission anyway unless they change it from how the current solo modes are offered), 50 points per boss kill in bolstered level 65 tactical mode (available in group finder), 75 points per boss kill in original level 50/55/60 hard modes (no group finder), and 100 points per boss kill in bolstered level 65 hard mode (available in group finder). Or something like that. Maybe swap places on tacticals and original hard modes. Maybe set the base to 20 points and separate story and solo as two separate tiers for scoring.

 

I don't know. That's all making this more complicated than it ought to be.

 

But yeah...

 

They don't even have to do this. Just do with the FPs like they have with everyone since this problem went widespread... Gate each friggin boss.

 

All of the flashpoints since KDY have all been gated behind killing the boss previous. All they have to do is add a wall with a clicky that won't activate till the boss is dead. That's it...

 

This sounds like a lot more work involved than what I suggested. (I say set a conquest objective to trigger on boss death, with a clause providing bonus points for higher difficulty kills of course, done. You say go back into the level editor on old flashpoints that lack barriers at any of the boss fights and add in the barriers and the appropriate coding to trigger the barriers, creating assurance through (hopefully) thorough design and testing that shortcuts haven't been taken when a "complete the flashpoint" conquest objective is triggered.)

 

But yeah, if they can do it, that's... a way to go. About the only way anybody is going to get to skip past content and get full credit for a flashpoint that they were only present for the last couple minutes of will be if a group loses a member and re-queues so that some lucky person queues into a flashpoint that's mostly done already.

 

Or... Wait, no... if we're relying on this gating mechanism to prevent content skipping and it's not also making the conquest objective rely on group finder like someone else suggested, people could still just do like in the Battle of Ilum abuse situation and have one person rush through story mode solo and invite people in at the end. The people invited to the group get their mission progress bumped up to match the first person, who already got through all the barriers solo. And then it's just that same situation all over again.

 

Credit per boss nullifies that concern. You kill the boss, you get the points. You don't kill the boss, you don't get the points. You want to get the maximum value out of the flashpoint? You make sure you go through a full run and don't skip anything.

Edited September 11, 2015 by Muljo_Stpho

[tmwfte]

Who says they're removing old versions of anything. The new scaled to level cap (presumably movable with future cap changes) tacticals and hard modes are custom built for the way they want group finder to work moving forward (and sure it would be safe to expect flashpoints released in the future to conform to that model), but that doesn't mean that the old level-specific soloable-when-overleveled story modes and hard modes will cease to exist.

 

Actually the blog seems to suggest that they very much will cease to exist. http://www.swtor.com/blog/operations-and-flashpoints-fallen-empire

 

They're adding a solo mode where your character will be essentially scaled down to the flashpoint's level. "These Solo Mode Flashpoints use a new level sync system that lowers your character’s level and power to the level of the Flashpoint, ensuring that you’re experiencing the content at the difficulty level intended - you never have to skip story content because you’re over-leveled for it!"

 

The story modes are being removed to change them to the tacticals. "Next, most of our Story Mode Flashpoints have been converted to Tactical, meaning you can play them at any level between 10 and 65! These Flashpoints also bolster your character, so you never have to worry about being under-geared or under-leveled, and can play with friends of varying levels."

 

And hard modes are being scaled up. "Hard Mode Flashpoints are getting love as well! All Hard Mode Flashpoints, including the Red Reaper for the first time, will be available starting at Level 50 up to Level 65. There will be a small Bolster to allow different level ranges to play together, but you’ll need to bring a balanced group with a Tank and Healer just as with Hard Mode Flashpoints currently."

 

None of that suggests that the original SM/HM versions are remaining in the game.

[Muljo_Stpho]

None of that suggests that the original SM/HM versions are remaining in the game.

 

None of it suggests that they're even touching them. It all comes across as a "copy-paste" (more or less, the new tacticals would likely need some kolto stations dropped in at the boss arenas) into a new format tailored for a more all-inclusive / level-neutral group finder format, leaving old versions behind to continue collecting the dust they've been collecting since the speed of people zooming through on stuff like double xp weekends and 12x promotions dried up the population for the under-50 group finder options.

 

Options with new parameters and future-proofed standards get dropped in, and then group finder gets tweaked to point to these new tacticals and hard modes instead of any of the old options. That's all that the blog describes as happening.

Edited September 11, 2015 by Muljo_Stpho

[lanawinst]

Your both forgetting that they also lowered personal conquest points too. Making it easier to hit your mark.

 

I do PVE but I don't do GSF/PUG or PVP content, no matter what cool thing it could get me, so that'd be the end of conquests for me. Because, it will not be easier to reach my mark, it will be impossible for a player like me.

 

And here is the proof , with this week conquest as an example:

 

Conquest: Relics of the Gree

• New personal Reward goal: 20,000
  

• Non-repeatable objectives: 10 000 pts total
  Crafting: Invasion Force (2000) & War Supplies : (2000) - Ilum: Rampage (1000) - 2 FP (2000) + 2 FP HM (2000) - Ops : The Gray Secant (1000)
  

• Only repeatable objective available : Ilum heroic missions (500).

 

I would still need 10 000 points. Unless I'm counting this wrong, even if I did every damn operations/FP + the heroic mission every day, it wouldn't be sufficient to reach the personal target of 20 000.

 

Edit for clarity: I didn't add the repeatable Group Finder ops/FP since I'd rather abandon the conquests than having to suffer through it.

Edited September 11, 2015 by lanawinst

[Heat-Wave]

I've given this some more thought, and after playing some PvP tonight, I can see another problem with this...

 

Since crafting is gone, the only thing left to put points up for alts is going to be PvP. Sure, GSF is there, but it hardly pops, so it really is all about the warzones.

 

So now guilds will focus on this, forming premades and farming everyone else. This will remove what little new players were trying PvP to begin with.

 

So all you PvP fans who like this, keep in mind that you may find interest in PvP is lower post 4.0 because of this. Matchmaking is badly broken, putting double premades against random PUGs, it becomes unfun for those who aren't hardcore PvP.

 

So you'll end up playing against the same few people over and over, except when it doesn't pop at all.

 

This is not an improvement.

[Leen_]

Wait? Your inventory isn't magically filled? No way that is rubbish I say. We all know there is a Magical Flesh Raider that fills it when your offline. Just leave him a BLT and a bottle of vintage wine and no worries. Just make sure the wine is aged at least a week. He is picky.

Good luck on getting some to understand that you put in game time to farm the mats. Or how many stacks it takes to compete.

 

ya just to do enough points for ONE character for 25K it took me 96 Damind Crystal, Carbonic Crystal, Upari Crystal and 104 Alien Artifact Fragment, Primeval Artifact Fragment, Primordial Artifact Fragment of each of these mats to just 25K and that took me almost 500K for those mats (give or take had some in inventory but not by much). That's with 100% SH bonus.

Now most of the time i play through the heroics that are offered for the week or flashpoints but on the weeks or characters where i dont want to play (usually case i don't like the character or just don't want to invest 3 hours just running old heroics (nar shaddaa easily can take a hour to 1.5 hours even when rushing through) on more than one character i will use crafting to shore it up like the one i mentioned above.)

This week i put 2 characters through conquest my BH and my sith inquisitor (sorry for spelling if wrong) the bh which i like playing through i when did the heroics each day did the invasion force and did xeno and the 2 flashpoints on HM and am up to 30K without crafting.

Now personally i wish they would the crafting have a limit (say X10) but also make the limit per character not per account that would at least give small guilds with lots of alts a chance but also make it so PVP could win more too. Thought they really do need to add more objectives that don't require u to PVP and if you don't believe me take a look and most of the PVE are a one time only due to player past abuse(and for those who will mention i could earn all my point doing gf flashpoints i have tried that in the past it took WAY too long and a guild mate was on tonight trying to get a standard GF and was in GF for 3 hours waiting for it to pop and it still didn't pop)

 

PVP

<Ilum: Raiding the Republic> one time for rep (have to be close enought to a imp base to very likely get pvp status)

<Ilum: Attacking the Empire> one time for imp (have to be close enought to a rep base to very likely get pvp status)

<Destroy Enemy Commanders> one time (have to be close enought to a rep base to very likely get pvp status)

<Unranked Warzones: The Front Lines> unlimited (win/lose)

<Warzones: Total Domination> unlimited (win)

<Warzones: Critical Missions> unlimited (per character weekly)

<Starfighter: Conquer the Skies> unlimited

<Starfighter: Critical Missions> unlimited

 

PVE

<Operation: The Gray Secant> one time only

<Group Finder: Operations> unlimited (though only 1 per character per day)

<Group Finder: Flashpoints> unlimited (though only 3 per character per day)

<Flashpoint: The Battle of Ilum> one time only

<Flashpoint: The False Emperor> one time only

<Defeat the Guid Patriarch (Hard Mode)> one time only

<Defeat The Sith Entity (Hard Mode)> one time only

<Ilum: Rampage> one time only

<Critical Missions: Galactic Flashpoints> unlimited (per character weekly)

<Ilum: Heroic Missions> unlimited (but only one heroic so one per day so 6 total)

Edited September 11, 2015 by Leen_

[Heat-Wave]

I would still need 10 000 points. Unless I'm counting this wrong, even if I did every damn operations/FP + the heroic mission every day, it wouldn't be sufficient to reach the personal target of 20 000.

 

You're counting it wrong...

 

You can do multiple operations and flashpoints, so long as they are in groupfinder.

 

So you can do a tactical, a 55 HM, and a 60 HM, each day. You would have to log in multiple days and get those to pop multiple times.

[lanawinst]

You're counting it wrong...

 

You can do multiple operations and flashpoints, so long as they are in groupfinder.

 

So you can do a tactical, a 55 HM, and a 60 HM, each day. You would have to log in multiple days and get those to pop multiple times.

 

I don't use groupfinder, I actually avoid it like the plague, so no tactical, 55HM and 60HM for me...

[Heat-Wave]

I don't use groupfinder, I actually avoid it like the plague, so no tactical, 55HM and 60HM for me...

 

Fair enough, in that case, if you don't PvP or GSF, you might as well give up on conquest

[Aries_cz]

The Conquest system is, overall, completely forgettable, and far too over-complicated. The objectives aren't defined clearly at all. The achievements are multiple pages in, under Strongholds. There is no clear way to know what you're supposed to do. There is no clear benefit for doing it. There is no easy way to track progress.

 

Objectives are as clear as they can be, with every one stating "Do this quest here" or "Do this Operation" or "Kill this boss". If that is too difficult for you, then I don§t know what to tell you

[Aries_cz]

I would be interested to see if he does this or at least says he will or why he can't.

 

@TUX - This goes supports my previous points in other topics about how crap this community team is. He makes topics like this and doesn't do a damn thing to participate in the debate what so ever and just comes across as making us think their entire company as a whole ignores us.

 

A simple "Hey guys I've spoken with the dev team about your concerns and at this stage unfortunately it's staying as it is but they said they will monitor it going forward and KoTFE and look at changes then if they might be needed".

 

Many would call such a response a cop out but I would welcome that sort of activity from this supposed community team as it makes it look like THEY are at least doing their job and being that bridge between us and the devs instead of this wholesale ignoring us crap ... it's really quite pathetic.

 

I want a community team that attempts to take part in the community ( or is actually part of it )!

 

Because reactions like that would be knee-jerk reactions.

 

Just because a handful of people on the forum make dozens of topic and whine about change that has not yet been implemented, it doesn't mean the change will be bad, and at most, they would tell you "we will wait and see how it works when actual gameplay data get collated"

[Aries_cz]

I don't use groupfinder, I actually avoid it like the plague, so no tactical, 55HM and 60HM for me...

 

You do not play the content, you do not get rewards.

I am sorry, that that is how it is. You are deliberately making a choice to not participate in the content, and with that choice there are consequences, in this case, no conquest points

[well]

Because reactions like that would be knee-jerk reactions.

 

Just because a handful of people on the forum make dozens of topic and whine about change that has not yet been implemented, it doesn't mean the change will be bad, and at most, they would tell you "we will wait and see how it works when actual gameplay data get collated"

 

So how many made threads whining about crafting?

[AdrianDmitruk]

Because reactions like that would be knee-jerk reactions.

 

Just because a handful of people on the forum make dozens of topic and whine about change that has not yet been implemented, it doesn't mean the change will be bad, and at most, they would tell you "we will wait and see how it works when actual gameplay data get collated"

 

The problem with that is that it typically takes about a year for the present development/community team to react to such changes.

 

It took a year from the launch of conquests until now for Bioware to revisit the role of crafting therein (and their changes will serve to make crafting statistically insignificant, due to the legacy lock).

 

It took about six months to a year for Bioware to admit sorcs were broken in PVP following h2f (they addressed madness first; corruption took a year until finally getting addressed in 3.0).

 

It took Bioware more than a year to address how ezmode smash spec was in PVP, and then they proceeded to completely break it (much like they are doing in conquests now), and it is only now with 4.0 they are trying to address the deficiencies that the overnerf has left the guardian/sentinel (esp. sentinel) ACs with, though such efforts are likely to fail on account of existing utility taxes that those classes must pay (i.e. can't select the new utilities that Bioware is trying to fix the problems with, because existing utilities are already mandatory)

 

Similar situation happened with team bubblestun heals, between 1.2 and 2.0, that was about a year. And then when Bioware removed team bubblestun in 2.0, it left corruption fcked in PVP all the way up to 3.0, which became especially glaring with the introduction of arenas in 2.4.

 

It took Bioware almost a year to acknowledge that the 3.0 ops fcked melee in general; we can argue about their decision to not have new raids in 4.0 but I bet the scaling of the old ops is done partly to give melee an opportunity to be relevant in at-level operations content again (old ops are more melee friendly).

 

I'm sure I could come up with more examples if it wasn't almost 3 am....but the bottom line is that this development team has a history of waiting a catastrophically long time sitting on data when it shows they made a change that turned out to be a big mistake. Eric might have posted that he still wants crafting to be relevant even though "the data" shows it's presently too much, but the problem is once this change goes live, it'll be another year before Bioware even looks at the data again and realizes crafting for conquests is hardly even measurable anymore, since the one-war-supply-per-legacy, combined with lack of dailies or other repeatables for crafting, will render it statistically insignificant.

Edited September 11, 2015 by AdrianDmitruk

[ScarletBlaze]

You do not play the content, you do not get rewards.

I am sorry, that that is how it is. You are deliberately making a choice to not participate in the content, and with that choice there are consequences, in this case, no conquest points

 

Honesty, why would anyone use group finder and deal with the attitudes that are in those groups. I tried it once and no matter if you tell them it was your first flashpoint or not they constantly yell or complain. Not sure about you, a lot of us play to have fun and having a group full of people that complain or yell at you is not fun.

Edited September 11, 2015 by ScarletBlaze

[Aries_cz]

Honesty, why would anyone use group finder and deal with the attitudes that are in those groups. I tried it once and no matter if you tell them it was your first flashpoint or not they constantly yell or complain. Not sure about you, a lot of us play to have fun and having a group full of people that complain or yell at you is not fun.

 

You do know you can form a full group of 4 (or 8 for Ops) out of people you like and still use GF right? Also, not being completely useless helps a lot in preventing people screaming at you (and it is not really that hard to not be completely useless in SM Flashpoints/Ops or in Tacticals)

 

And also, nobody is forcing you to use it, but then do not complain you are losing out on rewards.

[Tealkman]

excellent, when the individual bonuses are not repeatable it make it rather hard to do conquest on anything other than a single char and makes some conquests much more difficult (i.e craft to win). Thus lowering the individual goal supports everyone without hurting the upper limit. removing the craft to win is also a good thing.

 

Yeah, forcing everyone to join big guilds since small guild will not stand a chance to get to the top ten.

[Aricolaris]

The story of our conquest

 

Because of my bad english, I asked one of us for help. Here is a free translation of my post in the german forum. Yes, it sounds crazy. But we had fun. A lot of fun. There are some, who like to reach the goal to conquer a planet, others don`t care. Some would say: I don´t need it, so why should you have a chance? But for us it is important in some way.

 

 

I guess my feelings about the planned changes are best expressed by a short story. It is a story of a dream which is now about to be reduced to ashes.

 

Guilds are, in the first place, meant to be all about fun. Nevertheless, they can also take up a lot of effort. In the end, the best thing is to find a couple of like minded people you like and stick with them. Under this assumption, the three of us founded our own small guild (so that we would at least be safe from non stop invitation to any number of big guilds on a regular basis). Well, the last part only worked in part - there is still a constant stream of people saying "you are so few, why don

't you just join up". Well in the end, we also noticed that bigger guilds always tended to fail after a time, sometimes due to inactivity, sometimes do to inner strive of one kind or another. The three of us, we prevailed. Tiny, but fierce. Allied with other guilds for raiding but indepentend apart from that. We have our own stronghold, our own guild bank - and we are certain that everything we invest in the guild will remain with us and not be torn up at some point when people leave for whatever reasons. So there is just no incentive to change anything about that as we are quite happy with what we have.

 

So much about us, so what is the problem with Conquest.

 

We were actually looking forward the challenge from the start. Completing the personal goal was of cource not hard, but being on the leader board - well not without a ship. Oh. 50 Million credits. Well... really? All in all, conquering a planet seemed like an impossible dream. Well, at least until one of our members (the eyes light up) came up with a plan. How much companions, how much ressources would we need to get to a level were we could compete with larger gilds, assuming that the points necessary for competition were more or less stable over the weeks.

The idea... it looked kind of crazy... but I was kind of inspired by it - as were we all.

 

Well, thus, we had a dream. To conquer a world by ourselves.

 

Well it took quite an effort. We had to grind for weeks on end just to be able to afford our flagship and were so proud when we finally could give it its first drive around the galaxy (as, probably, most guilds are).

After that, it took yet more effort on our part to get our personal strongholds up to spec and get enough characters with enough companions and high enough crafting skill.

 

And of course, the longest part of the grind. Materials. Buying everythin of the GTN or just using companion missions was simply too expensive. It took us weeks of grinding nodes and mobs on all planets of the galaxy to get enough stocks to even think about trying. We got better and faster at it, but nevertheless, it stayed a lot of work. Nevertheless, we also had fun as farming for materials in a group joking in voice comm to keep it from being to dull.

 

Well, our determination was increased as partner guilds told as "well, you are not really competition anyway".

 

After weeks of farming, we threw all our plans out the window. Galactic war. A lot of planets ready to be taken so that we would be able to avoid most of the prime guilds of the server. Emergency session of the guild council on tuesday afternoon - then all out attack on Taris. One week of not that much sleep later and an untold number of flashpoints, gfs matches et cetera, we were the proud conquerors of our first planet. Really really proud having outclassed much larger guilds through coordination and weeks of effort. And yes, that moment was worth every single second of this effort. Every. Single. One.

 

Meanwhile, we are about to conquer our forth planet and larger guilds have begun to take us serious. The galaxy still holds a lot of planets to conquer.

 

But...

 

Well. That's it. End of story. Dream reduced to ashes.

If this changes goes live, without alternatives, without taking guild size into account, our dream will be officially dead.

 

What we did, we did using planning, endurance and weeks and weeks of effort. Iron will to compete against all odds. From now on, that will not be enough. That will not be nearly enough. We can spent as much time running gsf, pvp and flashpoints as we want, we will simply not be able to compete against anyone who has the strength of numbers.

Bigger guilds will be able to crush us without even trying just by running ops and one time achievements. If they take a heart to it, there is nothing left to offset their ability to chain clear the last boss of an operation a couple of times gaining massive amounts of points. Even with a week without sleep, it would probably still not be enough.

 

If all members spent the same amount of effort (which, true, is usually not the case), the larger guild always wins. As of now, we still have the ability to congregate effort of several weeks into one event. Our only option. Now apparently soon to be gone.

 

I'd like to bet that it takes as much effort to prepare a conquest week for six weeks to be able to compete as to win it in one week straight with ten times the number of members. Crafting materials do not grow on trees. So much about crafting beeing done afk or offline. It is simply a different means.

 

As of now, with a lot of effort, small guilds can compete given that larger guild do not also spent several weeks of effort. That will not be the case any longer unless you have massive additional changes you have not told us about yet.

 

As undoubtedly, someone will say that if more people participate, they should rightfully win. Well as their individual effort is not larger than ours, why exactly should that be true?

 

This change is a slap in the face for our small guild as well as other small to medium sized guilds that can, now, only hope that no large guild bothers with conquest enough so that they can pick up the scraps. Wasn't it the plan to make conquest more interesting? How exactly will that work out if a handful of big guilds can dominate the field at will?

 

No one contests, that crafting is very, very powerfull due to being repeatable. But this change is no remedy for that, to say the least. Why is it, that everytime something is a little bit unbalance, you correct by butchering it completely until it is unusable. In what way is that balance? Conquest was not perfect, but at least everybody had a fighting chance given enough effort.

 

Well, if this goes live, our dream will probably die with it.