Conquest Changes in Fallen Empire

[Transcendent]

In looking at our data and in seeing playing feedback, one thing we have noticed is that many Guilds are primarily using the repeatable Crafting objective to gain points for Conquests.

-eric

 

Essentially, it was too expensive to compete consistently, and the smaller guilds will still not be able to compete if they don't have enough characters to compete with. So the change effectively makes it harder for a smaller guild to compete going forward.

 

It would be beneficial to have more planets included with each conquest week - purely so it isn't just the larger guilds competing with each other, or deciding which planet they want to take each week.

[DakhathKilrathi]

GSF is also out of balance. It always turns into a Gunship/Bomber stalemate of people not fighting. And if you don't have any good or maxed ships, well forget it.

 

No it doesn't, and skill matters much more than gear. You might wanna check the guide in my signature and then the other ones in that forum.

[lemonsquare]

Hooray! This is a great change since the mega dues-charging guilds just churn out war supplies like factories and other guilds focusing on actual missions and Ops appear to have little chance to take top slot.

 

In looking at our data and in seeing playing feedback, one thing we have noticed is that many Guilds are primarily using the repeatable Crafting objective to gain points for Conquests. Although we want to include Crafting as an essential part of the Conquest effort, we don’t want that objective to be the “only best answer” to Conquests. Due to this we are making the following changes:

• The Objective “Conquest: War Supplies” is no longer repeatable and is set to reward 2,000 Conquest Points for any Conquest that included that objective.
  

These changes will be reflected in Knights of the Fallen Empire when it launches. Thanks everyone.

-eric

[NeuroniaSW]

Going to be honest Eric that as a casual player I am only vaguely aware of Conquest when I get pop-ups in Warzones and so on. I never got anything for getting Conquest points so I stopped caring about them ages ago.

 

To ge me onboard I'd need to get something like a vehicle, stronghold decorations, Legacy titles and so on.

As is, I will help my new guild with them but will be otherwise disinterested.

[Psychopyro]

That leaves PVP (be it warzones, arenas, or GSF) and crafting as the only repeatable objectives. Following the listed changes, only PVP will be repeatable. Players who want to participate in conquest, but don't want to PVP, are hosed.

 

My guess is that even with the cost changes to PvP gear, metrics show that there is still not enough people PvPing for their tastes. They did not lower point totals enough with the removal of the War Supplies for any other reason then to force PvP.

 

The problem is they are going about getting PvP participation all wrong. Sure PvP is it's own content so to speak, which makes it cheap. But lack of improvements to the system, lack of balance, and lack of decent and fun new maps is the reason people don't PvP. IMO PvP just got worse. Now we are gonna be back to PvE heros running around not doing anything just to get those wonderful conquest points, essentially ruining PvP for people that actually want to PvP for fun and a challenge.

 

And on faction imbalanced servers, this is really going to drive away the PvP players on the low side because they are going to get tired of losing all the time because of people who just.... don't.... care.....

 

Metrics has made some good decisions for this game, but it has also made some really stupid ones... This is a stupid one...

[Psychopyro]

No it doesn't, and skill matters much more than gear. You might wanna check the guide in my signature and then the other ones in that forum.

 

Umm... You must not play on JC. Every friggin Deathmatch is Bombers and Gunships on one side turtleing, and Bombers and Gunships turtling on the other side. And then you get yelled at by your team anytime you get something other then a bomber or gunship.

 

Domination is not much better. Scout caps with bomber following behind, bomber lays out lots of bombs, scout suicides and gets another bomber. Turtle at the nodes, win....

 

And yes gear matters BIG TIME. Honestly it is the one part of the game where P2W actually kinda applies. True a sucky player with the best ship will still be somewhat useless. But if you are just starting out, you are going to die A LOT to people with maxed out ships.

 

I'm not great at GSF. Honestly I hate it. But I can hold my own fairly well. But it's very easy to see just how much having a geared out ship. I have a MUCH harder time on a new character as opposed to ones I have maxed out ships on.

Edited September 8, 2015 by Psychopyro

[DarthZaul]

A good change to crafting, although it is kind of ridiculous that it took an entire year for the devs to realize that conquest is 99% about crafting.

The reason people don't get their personal scores is not because the target score is too high, its because they don't care about conquest at all, because the rewards for it are completely worthless.

[MasterKore]

Alright after reading this I kinda wish you would had looked at the one thing that you had been asking before and that is will this allow medium to small guilds the ability to compete and actually win a conquest. With this change the answer is now no. Why? Well if you take away the crafting aspect being repeatable they will not be able to compete and be beat out by mega guilds using their numbers to over whelm them in the conquest. The crafting being repeatable made them have the ability to compete and show diversity in the game with the different guilds.

 

Now what you are implying IMO and other's, is that you will have done what you said you wouldn't do and force medium and smaller guilds to lose their members to big and mega guilds. Well least the guild masters get their own luxury barge aka guild ship, oh yeah and an extra house aka guild stronghold. Oh you know that same thing that players that have stayed loyal to their guilds have spent credits, time, and CC. You are telling them you ever want to have the badges you can no longer compete or be loyal. Go join that big or mega guild so you can be apart of the conquest and get your encryptions. But wait what makes this more fun is that you will create a new player to become an ENCRYPTION PARASITE lets just call them EPs for short.

 

Let's see what will happen, EP joins mega or big guild with alts and gets conquest points and makes his 20k or 50k on these alts and they have the encryptions and the big/mega guild says hey you where are those encryptions that belong to the guild and they say I'm saving them or they are mine. Boom EP has been born cause they get kicked out return to old guild and give encryptions. You are also creating them as Mercs as well for the highest bidder. so for short we'll call them MEPs. You will screw with our economy. We already now have a few selling these on the GTN but now you will drive the prices up cause being a MEP is a dangerous game and can get many kicked out of raids and vote kicked out of pvp.

 

IMO looking at this from being a guild leader of MMOs since 98 I seen this kind of thing happen before when you have a free market and guild structure that keeps you supposedly by credits and time loyal to them. I say you need to keep the competitive option in repeat in the crafting rewards so that we keep the diversity of smaller guilds and stop servers from having 2 to 4 mega guilds controlling the aspect of the gaming by their consuls or unquestionable leader.

[ScarletBlaze]

I don't like crafting...since about week 3 of Conquests, my contributions have been almost zero because of that. How was that fair to me?

 

And you're still rewarded, it's just not repeatable like it was. Now, you'll likely need to diversify your playstyle...not just craft.

 

Not going to argue with you as it would do no good. Have fun.

[GeorgeWhite]

Well, if you are doing conquest changes...would be cool to see a long requested wz-like 250 & 500 points system for gsf.

[TUXs]

PVE, for all intents and purposes, is not repeatable. The conquest objectives for completing specific flashpoints related to that week's event are once-per-legacy, not just once per toon. Even the "repeatable" PVE objectives have lockouts (such as the requirement that you be eligible for the daily reward).

 

That leaves PVP (be it warzones, arenas, or GSF) and crafting as the only repeatable objectives. Following the listed changes, only PVP will be repeatable. Players who want to participate in conquest, but don't want to PVP, are hosed.

 

How does that encourage diversity of playstyle? Bioware is removing options, not adding them.

It is repeatable, just not the same day. PvE has a plethora of activities that allow you to diversify your activity...PvP only has Warzones. Are you suggesting they disallow PvPers from being able to compete in Conquests? How would that be fair exactly?

 

And this change encourages diversity by making it not 100% Crafting related...which is all it is atm. This change forces players to play to compete, not just buy mats and log off.

[phalczen]

Yeah because the most viable strategy besides crafting right now was play PVP

 

honestly if a world bonus is operations I feel like doing pvp shouldn't net you any points

if a world bonus is pvp then operations shouldnt net you any points. etc etc

 

You can't be serious.

 

So-called hard core pvp'ers probably don't have all their strongholds completed for a full bonus. They likely have at least one, to have a place to put down a legacy cargo hold terminal, but honestly they could just use their guild flagship. Either way, on a non Death Mark week, they'd be getting close to 250 points for a loss and 750 points for a win. For a total of 25,000 points, assuming a 50% win rate, that's still 48 matches to reach the weekly goal. Even if you won every single one, that's still 32 matches. Even if they were all arenas and you completely dominated your opposition, that's still probably 5 minutes at the keyboard time. That works out to be nearly 3 hours of continuous at the keyboard time, actually fighting the enemy, and honestly closer to 8 hours with a more realistic win percentage and a proper mix of warzone types. Even if your guild decides to pick a planet which has a warzone bonus and you have the full 4 stronghold completion bonus, those bonuses only reduce the total to around 22 matches which is still nearly 4 hours of time, continuously at the keyboard, fighting the enemy.

 

How can you possibly compare that amount of effort to pre-crafting a bunch of junk (and that's truly what it is, since it cannot be used for anything except Dark Projects which aren't used much) the Monday night before?

 

Bioware, please do not nerf ground pvp warzone or GSF conquest points any more than you already have.

 

EDIT: By bioware's own data (see 3.3 pvp changes) hardly anyone as of that point had Dark Reaver gear. If you consider owning Dark Reaver gear as a soft marker for being "hard core," then we must conclude the majority of players are casual, and pvp is only a small portion of what they play, so those 22 matches/4 hours get diluted over the entire six days of the conquest cycle.

If this is supposed to be about WAR, and invading and conquering a planet, then I commend players who have the dedication to mount tens of thousands of conquest points via pvp'ing to help their guild. A player who goes out on the front lines for hours on a daily basis to help his guild conquer a planet should be rewarded more than the person who simply buys up green mats by the truckload and sets his companions to craft and racks up millions in conquest points in the first day. And for the record, I've never been outside of bronze tier in ranked pvp and I only own 1 full set of dark reaver across my 4 pvp toons.

 

EDIT 2: re-reading Musco's post I see the total will be lowered to 20k not 25k. That shaves maybe 4-8 matches off the total, depending on bonuses, which is only an hour.

Edited September 8, 2015 by phalczen

[Zoom_VI]

And yes gear matters BIG TIME. Honestly it is the one part of the game where P2W actually kinda applies. True a sucky player with the best ship will still be somewhat useless. But if you are just starting out, you are going to die A LOT to people with maxed out ships..

 

It's not so much as gear as it is with the starter configurations literally being the absolute worst setups possible.

 

ex: Players start with a Novadive that has RFL and Rockets pods. RFL is literally the worst laser in the game even when fully upgraded. Rocket Pods aren't bad but the skill curve is steep and not something a new player is going to be able to use correctly.

 

Also the skill curve in general in GSF is insane. I used to play in back in 2.5-2.6 and taking on 4 players at once and killing all of them is totally doable for a ace. My gunslinger still sports a 90% winrate record with 8:1 KDR.

Seriously GSF needs to have it's skill curve bent the other way.

[Toraak]

Umm... You must not play on JC. Every friggin Deathmatch is Bombers and Gunships on one side turtleing, and Bombers and Gunships turtling on the other side. And then you get yelled at by your team anytime you get something other then a bomber or gunship.

 

Domination is not much better. Scout caps with bomber following behind, bomber lays out lots of bombs, scout suicides and gets another bomber. Turtle at the nodes, win....

 

And yes gear matters BIG TIME. Honestly it is the one part of the game where P2W actually kinda applies. True a sucky player with the best ship will still be somewhat useless. But if you are just starting out, you are going to die A LOT to people with maxed out ships.

 

I'm not great at GSF. Honestly I hate it. But I can hold my own fairly well. But it's very easy to see just how much having a geared out ship. I have a MUCH harder time on a new character as opposed to ones I have maxed out ships on.

 

Sriia is right. Gear doesn't matter anywhere near as much as Skill. a player with experience and skill will perform well in stock ships. And i'm not sure about JC, because I fly on Harb, shadowlands, and ebon Hawk, but those servers do not all end up as Bomber/Gunship fests.

[TUXs]

Not going to argue with you as it would do no good. Have fun.

I'm not trying to argue with you Scarlet...I respect your opinion.

 

I just believe this is a long overdue change...the first few weeks of Conquests, I've never had so much fun, running the repeatable flashpoints at the time. Boring at times, but we all had a purpose and goal as a guild that involved us playing the game together. We had probably 4 groups of 4, all running FPs, players dropping in/out as they needed to...it was just fun to have everyone, despite their skill or gear level, involved. This change doesn't get us back to that, but it beats what we have now imo.

[Psychopyro]

It is repeatable, just not the same day. PvE has a plethora of activities that allow you to diversify your activity...PvP only has Warzones. Are you suggesting they disallow PvPers from being able to compete in Conquests? How would that be fair exactly?

 

And this change encourages diversity by making it not 100% Crafting related...which is all it is atm. This change forces players to play to compete, not just buy mats and log off.

 

Actually, only the daily is repeatable. The completion of the flash point is NOT repeatable. So, PvP players can get however many points they want per day. PvE players are limited to the daily GF and the one time for the FP IF that FP has a one time.

 

Just for instance lets look at Flashpoint Havok:

 

The only repeatable objectives will be PvP and DAILY FP GF.

 

So it has 19k in one times, and essentially. With the GF, 1 character gets the new 20k needed...

 

Now if you have alts, guess what, there is only 1 repeatable daily (worth 1k) for a total of 6k for the week

You have the weekly which is worth 2k. So now we are up to 8k for the week.

You have the Ops GF at 2k per each one. So that's 12k. Plus operation daily, so 6k more...

 

Grand total of 26k... and this is assuming that the character is MAX level and is geared to do ALL of this stuff.

 

Now of course if your character is NOT max, well you can cut the one times in half, no ops, so now you have no choice but to PvP because these are the only repeatables AT ALL.

 

Now this forces people to log on everyday (which most people don't have the time for). If you miss 1 day, you're screwed.

[Psychopyro]

I just believe this is a long overdue change...the first few weeks of Conquests, I've never had so much fun, running the repeatable flashpoints at the time. Boring at times, but we all had a purpose and goal as a guild that involved us playing the game together. We had probably 4 groups of 4, all running FPs, players dropping in/out as they needed to...it was just fun to have everyone, despite their skill or gear level, involved. This change doesn't get us back to that, but it beats what we have now imo.

I wish they'd let us repeat FPs. With the changes to hard modes being 65, it should seriously be considered. The reason it got out of had was because players could skip everything and just go to the end on 1 flashpoint. You (in theory) won't be able to do that anymore.

 

I understand WHY they took it away. But if these changes are really going to work like they said they would, it would bring a reason for guilds to do FPs together again.

[TUXs]

Actually, only the daily is repeatable. The completion of the flash point is NOT repeatable. So, PvP players can get however many points they want per day. PvE players are limited to the daily GF and the one time for the FP IF that FP has a one time.

 

Just for instance lets look at Flashpoint Havok:

 

The only repeatable objectives will be PvP and DAILY FP GF.

 

So it has 19k in one times, and essentially. With the GF, 1 character gets the new 20k needed...

 

Now if you have alts, guess what, there is only 1 repeatable daily (worth 1k) for a total of 6k for the week

You have the weekly which is worth 2k. So now we are up to 8k for the week.

You have the Ops GF at 2k per each one. So that's 12k. Plus operation daily, so 6k more...

 

Grand total of 26k... and this is assuming that the character is MAX level and is geared to do ALL of this stuff.

 

Now of course if your character is NOT max, well you can cut the one times in half, no ops, so now you have no choice but to PvP because these are the only repeatables AT ALL.

 

Now this forces people to log on everyday (which most people don't have the time for). If you miss 1 day, you're screwed.

Understood. Good explanation as well, thank you.

 

My suggestion - ask for repeatable FPs again. They were the first few weeks...but you didn't have to kill any bonus bosses to get points, which made them repeatable in minutes. When Bioware made them non-repeatable, they also made it so that you had to complete the bonus objective (I believe...I may be wrong)...as long as you're required to spend time in there actually running the FPs, I see no reason they shouldn't be repeatable daily.

[AdrianDmitruk]

It is repeatable, just not the same day. PvE has a plethora of activities that allow you to diversify your activity...PvP only has Warzones. Are you suggesting they disallow PvPers from being able to compete in Conquests? How would that be fair exactly?

 

And this change encourages diversity by making it not 100% Crafting related...which is all it is atm. This change forces players to play to compete, not just buy mats and log off.

 

*snip*

 

I'm not trying to argue with you Scarlet...I respect your opinion.

 

I just believe this is a long overdue change...the first few weeks of Conquests, I've never had so much fun, running the repeatable flashpoints at the time. Boring at times, but we all had a purpose and goal as a guild that involved us playing the game together. We had probably 4 groups of 4, all running FPs, players dropping in/out as they needed to...it was just fun to have everyone, despite their skill or gear level, involved. This change doesn't get us back to that, but it beats what we have now imo.

 

Hell, these changes wouldn't be nearly as bad if FPs were made repeatable again.

 

The point is smaller guilds need a way to be able to get everyone online into a group of 4 and be able to do some form of repeatable, grindable content, so they have a chance of competing against larger megaguilds. PVE is constricted by the daily requirements even if it's technically "repeatable," so it cannot fill that role. Presently PVP and crafting are the only activities that can fill the "dedicated smaller guild can outplay larger guild 10 times its size" role.

 

FWIW, I mostly PVP (and yes I enjoy it), but typically I only have enough time over the week to get conquest goal through PVP on 4-5 toons per week. The reduction in points required might help me spread out to 6-8 toons per week, but it does nothing to help my guild compete in conquests. Presently I use crafting to fill in the gaps on the alts I won't otherwise have the time to get to that week, which has the side effect of actually allowing my small guild to actually place in conquests.

 

After 4.0, if these changes are not reverted and/or smaller guilds are not presented with a viable alternative for repeatable sources of points to compete with the larger guilds, I will likely be forced to move a high proportion of my characters into megaguilds, to leach off the megaguilds for encryptions that I can then send back to my home guild. Is that dirty? Yes the fck it is, but small guilds will be left with few alternatives.

Edited September 8, 2015 by AdrianDmitruk

[JattaGin]

@Eric, I approve this change. Thank you.

[TUXs]

I wish they'd let us repeat FPs.

Hell, these changes wouldn't be nearly as bad if FPs were made repeatable again.

We're all in agreement! FPs should be repeatable again...especially, as Adrian pointed out, if they're bumped to 65 for the repeatable ones.

[Raansu]

Hey folks,

 

In Fallen Empire we will be making changes to Conquests so I wanted to let you know about what is being adjusted. One thing that we noticed in looking at Conquests is that not as many players as we would hope are completing their personal targets. We feel this may be because the targets are too high, requiring more time to complete than many players may have available. Because of this we are adjusting the target points for rewards in some Conquests:

• All Conquests which previously required 35,000 target points have had that target number reduced to 20,000.
  
• Titans of Industry will remain at 25,000 target points.
  
• Total Galactic War will remain at 50,000 target points.
  
• Trade Emporium will remain at 25,000 target points.
  

Note that Guilds will still compete, as normal, for the top 10 on each Planet once these targets have been reached.

 

In looking at our data and in seeing playing feedback, one thing we have noticed is that many Guilds are primarily using the repeatable Crafting objective to gain points for Conquests. Although we want to include Crafting as an essential part of the Conquest effort, we don’t want that objective to be the “only best answer” to Conquests. Due to this we are making the following changes:

• The Objective “Conquest: War Supplies” is no longer repeatable and is set to reward 2,000 Conquest Points for any Conquest that included that objective.
  

These changes will be reflected in Knights of the Fallen Empire when it launches. Thanks everyone.

 

-eric

 

Now you should take this opportunity to encourage wpvp through way of actually conquering planets.

[DawnAskham]

Currently every objective which is non-repeatable and not tied to a mission is a once per legacy objective, will this be the same for crafting War Supplies?

 

Also in general the point earning potential most weeks heavily favors PVP, and to a lessor extent GSF, and with crafting pretty much dead, anyone not doing lots of PVP may still find it difficult to hit the weekly target .

 

Will there be changes to allow for more PVE repeatable actives (e.g. repeatable flashpoints, run named operations on multiple characters, kill world boss on multiple characters, run operations on higher difficulties)?

 

Lastly, rewards are still pretty poor for the effort required, and outside of mega guilds going for a win to get the title, I don't see interest in conquest significantly increasing with this change.

Edited September 8, 2015 by DawnAskham

[CaptRogue]

And for people who don't pvp, which is the majority of the other conquests, then they are not contributing and please don't say well pvp. Some people don't like pvp so for those people they have essentially removed them from doing the conquest.

 

When did running Flashpoints, Operations, or killing mobs out in the wilds, or opposite base guards become PvP? Do tell!

Last I checked out of like 15+ conquest objectives 4 at the most were true PvP! Then maybe 2 more if you count GSF. That is NOT majority PvP.

 

The ones complaining about this are most likely the ones who don't want to work for their win. They just want to craft because they can do that while sleeping, afk, running things they WANT to run instead of what is needed for crafting. *smh*

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Wow thanks for announcing these ahead of launch, now I know to dump tons of mats as their value is going to become more or less worthless again.

 

Whilst I agree crafting shouldn't be as it is I think this change doesn't really do anything to improve conquest as a whole and has the negative effect of massively affecting the market for mats ( as it stands, maybe war supplies will actually get more useful uses in KoTFE as might the now redundant mats ).

 

The issue with conquest and people not picking it up as a challenge is mostly due to the rather crappy rewards. If people weren't getting their targets prior to these changes they most likely still aren't going to do so now since only 2/3 of the conquests actually get their target changed and not by a lot.

 

There is still no real incentive for people to go an do what is required to get those scores. I really doubt tons of people weren't doing it before because "big guilds were crafting" and now that they aren't they'll suddenly stop.

Key there being if the big guilds were crafting they were the big guilds and thus probably quite a large number of players who will now most likely lose interest on conquest.

 

So now you get the net result of losing all the crafters and guilds interested AND also the people who weren't interested to begin with. This will basically make conquest even more redundant than it was to begin with.

 

As to people thinking it would give small guilds a boost ... no it won't, not really anyway. Large guilds are large, your guild is small. If it comes solely from just doing content now you pretty much have a **** show against a large guild that will probably outscore you without even trying solely by numbers of people doing their daily content.

At least with crafting small guilds had a chance to save up tons on mats etc. and hit a week hard over multiple toons ( you can craft multi toons at once, you can't pvp multi toons at once ).

Large guilds not even interested in conquest will not beat small guilds trying hard just by activity alone.

 

Basically I don't see ANYTHING positive coming from this change at all, it will kill conquest even more and now have the added effect of really smashing the mats economy which will be interesting ( plus less inclination for some to buy packs for the Jawa stuff and we know they do because people admitted to buying tons during previous conquest topics ).

 

Personally I would have gone down the track of adding more repeatables to other areas and doing other things to balance out against crafting ( maybe more points for things that are repeatable, lowering crafting repeatable points etc. ).

Flashpoints for example were fine regardless of how much people cried about it. The issue there was people basically exploiting the design of the FP to rake up mass points, would have made more sense to fix all those design issues to stop it rather than just stop repeatable FPs. Those that could still be completed fairly easily ... so what?

How is that any different though to operations now where people hold open instances at last boss to basically bypass the whole "beat this operation for these points" and it turns into "beat this boss in 10 minutes for these points".

How about doing something about that? Small guilds should take note of that one because that alone is going to ruin your chances of winning or even ranking conquest.

 

Sorry Bioware, usually I see a lot of smarts in the logic of your decisions making processes but not this time, this change just reeks of little thought put in and is going to have a rather large negative effect.

I see where you're coming from, conquest needed changes to stop crafting being the "i win" factor but this isn't it. This just kills conquest basically.