Conquest Feedback and Upcoming Changes

[ThadiusMoor]

EDIT: Also, do not forget they are trying to bury another thread with 84 pages on this subject by locking the thread and starting this one.

 

Of course they buried that other thread. It's a massively huge public shaming of their obviously trashy update, and contains hundreds of detailed posts that quite literally tear their system into itty bitty trash confetti.

 

They don't want that post showing on the forums because of how massively it exposes the new system as a complete and total flop. That kind of negative publicity is extremely damaging to potential new customers, therefore, they must hide it to cover the enormity of the failure they've triggered.

 

You can find that thread by clicking this link.

 

You can find my assessment of this new system here in that thread.

Scroll to the bottom of the page.

My post is the last on that page.

Edited March 23, 2018 by ThadiusMoor

[Solaece]

When I first heard conquest was being changed I was excited. I assumed that MORE activities would count. If I did not want to gsf I could do something else. Maybe certain planetary quests would be added. The ones few people complete. Or perhaps targets...complete a heroic with this companion. Or run that flash point choosing the dark side or light side.

 

Instead there are fewer choices. For fewer points. I already swapped my subscription to a one month at a time version. Do these people have any idea how the game works? My daughter just bought me the guild wars expansion. So far it's been really fun. Living world with ENTIRE new maps and quests and raids. Since the new year I've been playing there more than here...and only one match counting for PvP??? Really???

 

With this change maybe it'll just be there. I was hoping new things to do in conquest would even it out.

 

This patch is terrible.

[Hautamacky]

Eric,

 

You have broken the game with the last patch and you do not hear what the players want, you ignore the opinions of the players who make much conquest who also understand that building can earn easy points is correct and as one has said You could have just made the points to 100 per supply instead of such a crap as in mom can build with biochemical reserves. Some of the small guilds make many points when supplies are infinite and now and probably forever they can not make any more points.

 

With the current status of the game, there is no reason to play the game for many games.

[ShadowGovernator]

Well... This is going to be one long friggin post, guaranteed.

 

I guess the the first thing I should do is tell you this... You obviously are NOT listening, but that's ok. We tried to get your attention nicely, but that didn't work, so now it's time to tear your post apart and point out the obvious failures directly.

 

Quote: Originally Posted by EricMusco View Post

The Conquest Revamp – Goals

We had a few things in mind that we wanted to address as we moved from the old system into the new one. First and foremost were rewards. This includes ensuring that the new system delivers the rewards you earn, but also increasing the overall rewards for participating in Conquests. Here are is what you receive now when you and your Guild complete a conquest:

 

• A large amount of Credits and CXP via completion of Objectives
  
• Personal rewards, including crafting materials, credits, and more
  
• Invasion rewards, including crafting materials, credits, Encryptions, and more, which is now rewarded to all Guilds who meet the invasion target.
  
• Access to the Fleet vendor which sells special decos and the Master Compendium (Companion Influence boost)
  

 

 

• The credits/CXP is nice, but it's a disguise to hide how bad the system is.
  
• The personal rewards are the same as before, so they aren't special or good compared to before.
  
• The rewards for guild are barely worth the time invested to do the conquest.
  
• The vendor is nice, but hiding it till you complete conquest is kind of dumb.
  

 

Quote: Originally Posted by EricMusco View Post

Here are some of the other areas we were aiming to address:

 

• Objectives and their points – Conquests are meant to be an activity that someone can work on throughout the week as they play the game. Previously, Conquests were very homogenized in that there was very little diversity among each week. We used this opportunity to spread out what objectives were available in each Conquest.
  
• Crafting - Crafting is a key part of Conquests, and we certainly did not want to remove that. However, we know the use of War Supplies and crafting was contributing too much to the overall competition of Conquests. For that reason, we reduced the overall effectiveness of Crafting, but added new functionality to War Supplies that they can be consumed to add Conquest points. Allowing you to get points out of them twice if you want, or you could craft them on one character and then move them to other characters to gain conquest points.
  
• Yield Targets – Competition among different sized Guilds has always been a problem in Conquests. We introduced yield targets to assist in separating out Guilds by various sizes, as they have differing targets and rewards.
  
• Interface – We gave the interface a facelift (as outlined in the other post) to make it easier to find activities you may want to complete.
  

 

 

• You took alot of the core functionality away and made the tasks stupid. It was perfectly fine before. Now, it's just broken and horrible.
  
• Crafting was the core of conquest. Changing it, and thereby making it totally the most expensive aspect of conquest has literally crippled players' ability to do conquest in an efficient and timely manner. So dumb, I can't even understand this change at all.
  
• The conquest yield was fine, and while I like the increases, the effort to get those rewards is so totally out of balance with the rewards themselves, they are not even close to worth trying for.
  
• The interface is goofy and over-thought... The old interface was just fine and people could easily read and use it, but now, they have to really, really read it, and even then, they probably won't understand it quickly or easily.
  

 

 

Quote: Originally Posted by EricMusco View Post

Your Feedback

We never saw this revamp as being a perfect change out of the gates, but it is a first step for us in crafting an improved Conquest system. Your feedback is incredibly valuable as we can immediately start making changes to get things to a great place. Now that you understand what our goals were, let’s talk about the things we are hearing from you.

 

 

Not perfect? Are you high? This system is so broken, you can't even use the word perfect in any context to describe this system. It literally is a disaster and a heap of trash. If you want to convince us you are listening, get rid of this whole system and go back to what we had that was working quite fine before you went and crapped on it and threw it in a trash can.

 

Quote: Originally Posted by EricMusco View Post

Changed / Missing Objectives

This feedback was most commonly expressed from PvP’ers who saw a daily objective for winning a Warzone, but not one for participating. Our plan to combat the old system’s homogenization was to spread out all Objectives. This week may not have participation as an Objective, but it isn’t gone, it is just in a different Conquest. However, this information was not clear and breaks too far from the old system.

 

 

If you leave participation points off conquest for WZ's/FP's/GSF's and only include them in some conquests, then you are still literally crippling the community and making conquest a total waste of time. Either add them in every single conquest or there will never be a point to doing conquest at all. Not everyone wants to be forced to do old content that already sucks in order to get points towards a conquest week that has crappy tasks and includes none of the things those players want to do. Forcing people to play your way will not make people want to play the game at all.

 

Quote: Originally Posted by EricMusco View Post

Plan: We are going to add a repeatable GSF and Warzone Participation Objective into all Conquest weeks. This will go into our next patch (possibly next week).

 

It must be next week. Delaying more than that will simply prove the point that you really aren't listening. Either put it in immediately or don't bother. The longer you delay, the less anyone will care about conquest. Do you really want your community hating you for longer than a week? Do you like it when people think your team is retarded? Fix it before you really do cause your community to think that of your team, if they haven't already.

 

Quote: Originally Posted by EricMusco View Post

Objective Points Too Low

With the rebalance to Conquest Objectives, there is a general sense that completing your Personal Conquest takes too long and by proxy, Guild Invasions as well.

Plan: We are going to lower the Personal Conquest target to 15,000 per week (down from 20,000). We are also adjusting the Planetary Yield Targets to be:

 

• Small is now 200,000 (down from 460,000)
  
• Medium is now 550,000 (down from 1,380,000)
  
• Large is now 1,130,000 (down from 2,530,000)
  
• This will happen in our next patch (possibly next week).
  

 

 

The points values aren't the problem. The objectives that are literally stupid are the problem.

It's becoming obvious you have no clue what is going on, so I'll give you a heads up...

Your conquest objectives are stupid.

Lowering the end-requirements to compliment stupid objectives is only putting a band-aid on a gapping wound.

*shakes head in disbelief*

 

 

Quote: Originally Posted by EricMusco View Post

Crafting Changes Too Harsh

Crafting in Conquests was just too good prior to 5.8. There is a feeling though that we cut a bit too deep on its overall impact to Conquests. The War Supply schematics were combined which made them harder to craft, and their point contribution went down, even with the added functionality of being able to consume them.

Plan: We are going to give it some time and monitor the impact of these changes, and then we will make any needed adjustments in 5.9 or beyond.

 

If you leave this garbage in the game past this week, then it just shows you guys have absolutely no concept of what your community likes and does weekly. Monitor away... Noone is going to throw money down the drain doing the new crafting cause it is stupid. You took something that was perfectly fine and broke the hell out of it. For what? Who the hell knows? No plan to fix it until 5.9 or beyond? Wow... You guys really are dumb. By the time you fix it, noone will care or even bother to look at it again.

 

Quote: Originally Posted by EricMusco View Post

Large Yield Target Rewards Aren’t Good Enough

We are seeing concerns that the Large (and possibly Medium) Yield rewards simply aren’t good enough to warrant the extra points required. That this may cause most Guilds to simply filter down into Small Yields, which is counter-productive to the goal of getting Guilds to split a bit by Guild size.

Plan: This is something we are sensitive to but without seeing actual participation data around Conquests, we are hesitant to make changes just yet. We will monitor in the coming weeks and make any needed changes in 5.9 and beyond.

 

Lol... What's to see? The rewards are garbage compared to the effort required to get them. It is simple as that... What more do you need to know? I can't believe you 'need to monitor the situation' to get a sense of how trashy the rewards are compared to the effort to get them.

 

 

Quote: Originally Posted by EricMusco View Post

New UI Confusion

There definitely is some confusion around the iconography in the new UI, especially for Objectives. For quick reference right now, Yellow icon means infinitely repeatable, Blue means daily repeatable, no icon means once per week.

Plan: With 5.9 we will be adjusting some text along with adding tooltips to ensure that is a bit clearer. We’re also going to be swapping the yellow/blue to be consistent with the rest of the game. In addition, we’ll be adding some additional fly text for Conquest Objective completion.

 

The interface is meh... Compared to the old one, it is actually a down-grade. It isn't intuitive, or readily easy to use or interpret. It looks shiney and new, but once you really, really look at it, it sucks. The old one was 100% better.

 

 

Quote: Originally Posted by EricMusco View Post

Punishing to Alts // Legacy

With the rebalance of Objective points and the reclassification of some Objective types, there is some concern over the ability for a player with multiple characters in a Legacy to be competitive in Conquests. Additionally, there are similar concerns for folks with characters within a Legacy in more than one Guild.

Plan: One initial step to resolve this is the lowering of the Conquest targets as highlighted above. Also, by adding more repeatable Objectives (like PvP participation) as noted, this should give players more ways to gain points and make it easier to achieve targets. Beyond that we will continue to monitor data and your feedback to seek other possible changes in 5.9 and beyond.

 

 

This whole new system is entirely hateful to the idea of alts, just like Galactic Command when that first came out... You guys just can't help yourselves from ruining alt-running, can you? The old system was perfect for alt-ing, but this new system punishes you by totally cutting alts out entirely. Either put it back immediately, or forget ever having people play their alts. I cannot understand how you people continually attack game systems that are alt-friendly and make them the exact opposite to the point that having alts is virtually pointless.

 

 

Quote: Originally Posted by EricMusco View Post

That is most of the major points of feedback we have seen coming in regarding the Conquest revamp, but we know it isn’t everything. Let us know your thoughts on the changes we have planned. Also, even after these changes are out the door please keep your feedback coming. We are committed to getting Conquests to be enjoyable, challenging, and rewarding.

 

Thanks everyone!

 

-eric

 

Overall, I highly doubt your words saying you are listening... This post proves that you actually aren't listening, but rather cherry-picking what you like out and scrapping the rest, just like you did when you trashed the old conquest system and put this major-league failure in its place.

 

If you want to convince us that you are listening, then scrap this new system and bring back the old one. After that, you can spend as long as you like screwing around with your new system, but don't put it back into the game until it actually is BETTER than the old system.

 

Right now, this new system is a piece of trash. Simple as that.

 

//Yes so much this!

 

BioWare says that they are listening – but BioWare only wants to polish the turd that they just pushed out - let me give you a bit of advice there BioWare – no matter how much you polish – it will still be a turd.

Stop wasting time by being stupid idiots – just roll-back 5.8 now.

[Paulsutherland]

Get rid of 5.8! Ya ****ed it up!

[Iryfindel]

While this post is a valiant effort to salvage some of the over-the-top changes, I can not help but feel the "tweaks" currently outlined are done more to appease the angry horde than to actually address the underlying problems

 

Adding repeatable PvP and FP content? If their omission was a bug or an oversight rather than intended this was always a non-issue and therefore a non-measure.

 

Reducing the personal conquest target by 5k? While a step in the right direction is still fails to provide a solution for the shere lack of fun conquest activities. Most repeatable activities are far too grind-y to be enjoyable for longer than an hour. You promised us more things to do but instead it feels like we ended up with less.

 

Un-punishing alts? As far as I can tell, nothing is going to change here. I did not hear a single word about reverting some of the once-per-day-per-legacy activities to once-per-day-per-character. Only that change will give people a reason to play their alts. Running a FP or running an ops, that is fun. Endlessly running BOI or uprisings because it is one of the few infinitely repeatable activities? I really don't want to do that, so I haven't even touched my alts this week.

 

I really wanted to give you guys the benefit of the doubt, allow you time to formulate a plan to address all the current conquest issues. But the changes you outlined for next week are simply too little to make even a dent in the current mess that is conquest. What remains is hanging around, hoping that you will make some more changes with 5.9. I'm sorry but there has been far too much waiting on QOL changes in the past year (remember GC?). My patience has ran out and my sub will remain cancelled. Something which I truely consider a shame, because until 5.8 I was really enjoying the game. Now I feel hard-pressed to find anything fun to do after an hour or two on my main. I have a full-time job, I don't need another when I come home, I just want to have some fun.

Edited March 23, 2018 by Iryfindel

[DzastinBiberi]

Umm...what was wrong with the old Conquest system so that you had to make a new one? Which is worse btw.

 

Anyway, cya in a few months, time to go into offline mode from swtor.

[PorsaLindahl]

When I first heard conquest was being changed I was excited. I assumed that MORE activities would count. If I did not want to gsf I could do something else. Maybe certain planetary quests would be added. The ones few people complete. Or perhaps targets...complete a heroic with this companion. Or run that flash point choosing the dark side or light side.

 

Instead there are fewer choices. For fewer points. I already swapped my subscription to a one month at a time version. Do these people have any idea how the game works? My daughter just bought me the guild wars expansion. So far it's been really fun. Living world with ENTIRE new maps and quests and raids. Since the new year I've been playing there more than here...and only one match counting for PvP??? Really???

 

With this change maybe it'll just be there. I was hoping new things to do in conquest would even it out.

 

This patch is terrible.

 

I was a little excited to when they said that there would be new activities added. A complete lie apparently. We got less activities for a fraction of the point values. The only "new" activity is donating invasion forces, which IMO is a total waste of resources and limits participation to master crafters. I won't be wasting my mats on that garbage.

 

I have yet to renew my sub and since it's now Friday, and we won't hear a peep out of them over the weekend, there better be some tangible information put out today about a patch on Tuesday, complete with what will be repeatable, what will be legacy one-time objectives and what the point values of the Daily/Weekly and Heroics will be. And they better not be these piddly little numbers that they are now.

 

I won't mind it taking 3-4 days to complete my personal goals. That way I'll be able to play alts and get their personals as well. But a 5-6 day grind for just one character's personal is flat out idiotic.

 

And as I mentioned in another post: The resource reward (strategic matrix whatever) is an outdated resource. The rewards need to be brought up to date with the game. Change those to charged matter transubstantiators (1 for small, 2 for medium and 3 for large - that'll get those larger guilds to push for the large invasions if nothing else will).

[megafirstone]

Eric,

 

-Operations need to be once a day per character. It doesnt need to be on the groupfinder but choose it randomly at the reset of the day but not twice in a conquest week. If it is the same operations for conquest and also on the groupfinder then lucky for all the players.

 

-FP, pvp, Gsf repeatable on every character.

 

- You have just killed the crafting. Roll back the crafting system. Instead of combining the grades you better choose a system where add the blue and purple materials (Biochem+bioanalyses+Diplomacy). Roll back the invasion force.

 

-Bring the amount of conquest points earned by doing FP, pvp, gsf, operations back to its original.

 

-The graphic designer did a good job. The only thing i want to change that the one time mission , once a day, and repeatable gets a colour in the background. And when the mission is Completed put the colour off

 

The playerbase is sinking fast and the activity of people also. i have played this game from the beginning and it is the worst update you ever brought. Do you even have people back there that are playing the game?

Now people are playing because of the double CXP/XP week but next week it would be another matter.

For me it is almost the last drop. Maybe i move on to a another MMO and cancel my subscription. It is just up to you!

 

Mega

[MADGWAR]

theres alot wrong here once again you stole from us with recipes we pain for sure there not much but still you just up and took them then on top of that you think just cause someone has alts they want to pvp not this guy havent done a pvp match in 3 yrs cause hate pvp in this game my choice. if yall realy expect to keep people loyal to your brand or even try your new game so on you cant be dumping on them all the time and if you think those change to what you done are better or even a fix your wrong its just as much a joke if you actually played the game you would know that you can dress up a terd to look like a rose but geuss what its still a terd like this patch was Edited March 23, 2018 by MADGWAR

[ShadowGovernator]

Umm...what was wrong with the old Conquest system so that you had to make a new one? Which is worse btw.

 

Anyway, cya in a few months, time to go into offline mode from swtor.

 

The old system was perfection compared to new abomination of a system.

Let’s hope they come to their senses way sooner, so that the offline mode will not have to be necessary for that long a time period – all they have to do - roll-back the old system!

[Thermonuked]

Absolute crap, did you actually read anything that wasnt to do with pvp?

 

we have PERSONAL conquest targets, for each character, but still have legacy wide lock outs, now either those points for the one shot objectives need to apply to EVERY character on that account, or scrap the whole legacy lock out thing.

 

nothing has been mentioned about changing the lock outs at all, if i want to run 16 ops a day for each of my characters, or 16 world bosses, or 16 flashpoints, to get my PERSONAL conquest targets, i should be able to do that

 

edit: forgot to mention, several people in my guild have already left game because of these changes, i expect its the same in a lot of other guilds and its not gonna stop until this mess gets sorted out and fast

Edited March 23, 2018 by Thermonuked

[Shwarzchild]

One positive:

 

After giving it some time I'm really really really liking this interface.

 

I do agree some of the point totals are a bit too low.

 

I do not agree with some that crafting needs to be changed back to what it was previously. I don't mind the crafting changes as much as what looks like most.

[inoutallabout]

While this post is a valiant effort to salvage some of the over-the-top changes, I can not help but feel the "tweaks" currently outlined are done more to appease the angry horde than to actually address the underlying problems

 

Adding repeatable PvP and FP content? If their omission was a bug or an oversight rather than intended this was always a non-issue and therefore a non-measure.

 

Reducing the personal conquest target by 5k? While a step in the right direction is still fails to provide a solution for the shere lack of fun conquest activities. Most repeatable activities are far too grind-y to be enjoyable for longer than an hour. You promised us more things to do but instead it feels like we ended up with less.

 

Un-punishing alts? As far as I can tell, nothing is going to change here. I did not hear a single word about reverting some of the once-per-day-per-legacy activities to once-per-day-per-character. Only that change will give people a reason to play their alts. Running a FP or running an ops, that is fun. Endlessly running BOI or uprisings because it is one of the few infinitely repeatable activities? I really don't want to do that, so I haven't even touched my alts this week.

 

I really wanted to give you guys the benefit of the doubt, allow you time to formulate a plan to address all the current conquest issues. But the changes you outlined for next week are simply too little to make even a dent in the current mess that is conquest. What remains is hanging around, hoping that you will make some more changes with 5.9. I'm sorry but there has been far too much waiting on QOL changes in the past year (remember GC?). My patience has ran out and my sub will remain cancelled. Something which I truely consider a shame, because until 5.8 I was really enjoying the game. Now I feel hard-pressed to find anything fun to do after an hour or two on my main. I have a full-time job, I don't need another when I come home, I just want to have some fun.

 

All really good points, and I hope Bioware listens before all our subs have run out and we choose to not re-up.

[ThadiusMoor]

All really good points, and I hope Bioware listens before all our subs have run out and we choose to not re-up.

 

Since I run by one-time payments, I don't really have an unsubscribe button, however, I have 52 days remains, at the end of which I will not be buying more time. They have that amount of time to revert back to the old system or make this system work exactly as good or better than the old system, which I doubt they will do.

 

52 days Bioware... Tick tock, tick tock...

 

Good luck.

[AdrianDmitruk]

Hey folks,

 

In this thread we want to cover a few things about Conquests: our goals for the revamp, the feedback we are hearing from all of you, and what we are changing (and when). I recommend you start by reading our write-up of the changes that were coming to 5.8. Let’s jump in.

 

The Conquest Revamp – Goals

We had a few things in mind that we wanted to address as we moved from the old system into the new one. First and foremost were rewards. This includes ensuring that the new system delivers the rewards you earn, but also increasing the overall rewards for participating in Conquests. Here are is what you receive now when you and your Guild complete a conquest:

• A large amount of Credits and CXP via completion of Objectives
  
• Personal rewards, including crafting materials, credits, and more
  
• Invasion rewards, including crafting materials, credits, Encryptions, and more, which is now rewarded to all Guilds who meet the invasion target.
  
• Access to the Fleet vendor which sells special decos and the Master Compendium (Companion Influence boost)
  

 

Warning: long post incoming ruins

 

--The credits and CXP for completing objectives are nearly irrelevant compared to the nerfing of conquest points awarded for completing objectives. Please increase point yield for conquest activities at the expense of credits/CXP awarded for such objectives. Most of us have, by now, grudgingly adapted to pre-5.8 CXP rates.

 

--Personal rewards are still vastly more difficult to earn because point yields are so drastically nerfed. I normally cap at least three toons a week, sometimes more; when I played the game more intensively than I do now, I capped more like 6-10 toons a week. I had recently ramped up leveling alts to 70 in preparation for anticipated 5.8 changes, but now it's looking like adding four new level 70 toons in the last week was a waste of time because the nerf bat to conquest point yields frustrated the purpose for which those alts were leveled. And no, they were NOT intended to be craft-and-forgetters; most were duplicates of classes I main so I could spread out my gameplay to get more personal rewards (e.g. instead of getting 60k on my sorc main, get 20k on the sorc, and 20k each on two sages, so cap 3 toons instead of one). It's entirely possible that the only toon that I cap on conquest this week is my level 7 character who popped 200 invasion forces as proof-of-concept (was level 1 and gained levels solely from the XP gain "donating" war supplies), to show how ridiculous level capped toons had been nerfed, that a level 1 could do what level capped toons couldn't through regular gameplay.

 

--Invasion rewards for guilds: The current thresholds seemed calibrated for old point yields; the new guild thresholds are a bit better, but if people still can't make their personal goals, no encryptions and such for the guild if people can't meet personal targets because doing stuff only yields on average maybe an eighth of the points that it used to.

 

--new vendor: One of the other stated purposes of 5.8 was the addition of more credit sinks (increasing GTN tax). Doesn't making this vendor, which sells some very expensive stuff, not visible until (currently ludicrous) conquest goals are met completely neuter the value of such vendor as a credit sink? Also wouldn't making the compendium thingie legacy bound instead of character bound also increase its value as a sink?

 

Here are some of the other areas we were aiming to address:

• Objectives and their points – Conquests are meant to be an activity that someone can work on throughout the week as they play the game. Previously, Conquests were very homogenized in that there was very little diversity among each week. We used this opportunity to spread out what objectives were available in each Conquest.
  
• Crafting - Crafting is a key part of Conquests, and we certainly did not want to remove that. However, we know the use of War Supplies and crafting was contributing too much to the overall competition of Conquests. For that reason, we reduced the overall effectiveness of Crafting, but added new functionality to War Supplies that they can be consumed to add Conquest points. Allowing you to get points out of them twice if you want, or you could craft them on one character and then move them to other characters to gain conquest points.
  
• Yield Targets – Competition among different sized Guilds has always been a problem in Conquests. We introduced yield targets to assist in separating out Guilds by various sizes, as they have differing targets and rewards.
  
• Interface – We gave the interface a facelift (as outlined in the other post) to make it easier to find activities you may want to complete.
  

 

Who cares if conquest is homogenous? Shouldn't we be able to play the content we want to play? After the 5.0 CXP RNG debacle, why in the galaxy should we be at the mercy of RNG as to what content will and will not be viable in any given week? Moreover, as others have pointed out, crafting was only OP during crafting weeks; during non crafting events it was generally restricted to one war supply and one invasion force per legacy. It was useful to catch up an alt on Sunday night but not single handedly vaulting guilds to the top of the board, except for crafting weeks.

 

I'm going to add my voice to those before me who said (paraphrasing here), "If you want to differentiate different conquest events, award big bonuses for doing specific stuff; don't take away the ability for people to conquest playing the game how they want to play the game."

 

Your Feedback

We never saw this revamp as being a perfect change out of the gates, but it is a first step for us in crafting an improved Conquest system. Your feedback is incredibly valuable as we can immediately start making changes to get things to a great place. Now that you understand what our goals were, let’s talk about the things we are hearing from you.

 

This is what PTS is for. You even delayed 5.8 a week because it wasn't ready. Why not use that time to PTS it? Seriously, this whole dumpster fire was easily avoidable. We could've been having this discussion last week in the PTS forum, instead of risking a repeat of Ben watching in horror at 2 minutes of constant "unsub" spam on the twitch stream now.

 

I do hope that it's not too late to rectify that completely unforced error, as 5.0 already did a number on population and I question the game's sustainability if it takes another hit like that.

 

Changed / Missing Objectives

This feedback was most commonly expressed from PvP’ers who saw a daily objective for winning a Warzone, but not one for participating. Our plan to combat the old system’s homogenization was to spread out all Objectives. This week may not have participation as an Objective, but it isn’t gone, it is just in a different Conquest. However, this information was not clear and breaks too far from the old system.

Plan: We are going to add a repeatable GSF and Warzone Participation Objective into all Conquest weeks. This will go into our next patch (possibly next week).

 

(A subsequent Bioware post also clarified that GF FPs and GF Ops should be repeatable as well) --AdrianDmitruk

 

Please specify:

 

1. Point yields for these repeatables? (Are we going to have to do, say, 20 warzones per toon, assuming win% around 50%, to cap a toon, or are we going to have to do 62 warzones per toon to cap?)

2. Are GSF/WZ repeatables infinitely repeatable as before 5.8, or now tied to dailies?

 

Objective Points Too Low

With the rebalance to Conquest Objectives, there is a general sense that completing your Personal Conquest takes too long and by proxy, Guild Invasions as well.

Plan: We are going to lower the Personal Conquest target to 15,000 per week (down from 20,000). We are also adjusting the Planetary Yield Targets to be:

• Small is now 200,000 (down from 460,000)
  
• Medium is now 550,000 (down from 1,380,000)
  
• Large is now 1,130,000 (down from 2,530,000)
  
  • This will happen in our next patch (possibly next week).
    

 

So, you're going to reduce guild expectation thresholds by about 60%. Don't get me wrong, the old thresholds felt like they were balanced around the old system, and old numbers, with the old planetary invasion bonuses, so this reduction is definitely reasonable and appropriate.

 

But you're only going to reduce the personal threshold by 25%? When the point value for most conquest activities has been nerfed so heavily that you're reducing the guild expectations by more than twice that amount?

 

These adjustments should both be approximately in tandem--that would place the personal goal for conquests at about 10k, not 15. Otherwise conquests won't be as rewarding for guilds, especially small ones, to complete (the guild might make the goal, but will have fewer encryptions to show for it because the effect of the disparity forces smaller guilds to concentrate their efforts on fewer toons).

 

Crafting Changes Too Harsh

Crafting in Conquests was just too good prior to 5.8. There is a feeling though that we cut a bit too deep on its overall impact to Conquests. The War Supply schematics were combined which made them harder to craft, and their point contribution went down, even with the added functionality of being able to consume them.

Plan: We are going to give it some time and monitor the impact of these changes, and then we will make any needed adjustments in 5.9 or beyond.

 

Nerf points

 

OR

 

Nerf recipes to make them more difficult/expensive

 

Not both at once--this is pretty straightforward.

 

Edit to add: Also, please restore the deleted Dark Project recipe (the one that used exotic isotope stabilizers, I think...couple other ppl have mentioned it).

 

Large Yield Target Rewards Aren’t Good Enough

We are seeing concerns that the Large (and possibly Medium) Yield rewards simply aren’t good enough to warrant the extra points required. That this may cause most Guilds to simply filter down into Small Yields, which is counter-productive to the goal of getting Guilds to split a bit by Guild size.

Plan: This is something we are sensitive to but without seeing actual participation data around Conquests, we are hesitant to make changes just yet. We will monitor in the coming weeks and make any needed changes in 5.9 and beyond.

 

Couple easy fixes:

 

Update the crafting deco boxes to include grade 9 and 10 crafting nodes

Add 1 CMT to medium yield, 2 CMT to large yield. When 5.9 drops with the new augments, add any new augment mat to large yield only

 

New UI Confusion

There definitely is some confusion around the iconography in the new UI, especially for Objectives. For quick reference right now, Yellow icon means infinitely repeatable, Blue means daily repeatable, no icon means once per week.

Plan: With 5.9 we will be adjusting some text along with adding tooltips to ensure that is a bit clearer. We’re also going to be swapping the yellow/blue to be consistent with the rest of the game. In addition, we’ll be adding some additional fly text for Conquest Objective completion.

 

Please specify if blue triangle means daily repeatable per CHARACTER or daily repeatable per LEGACY. (Preferably everything should be by character.) If there are both per character AND per legacy daily repeatables, please further differentiate them.

 

Punishing to Alts // Legacy

With the rebalance of Objective points and the reclassification of some Objective types, there is some concern over the ability for a player with multiple characters in a Legacy to be competitive in Conquests. Additionally, there are similar concerns for folks with characters within a Legacy in more than one Guild.

Plan: One initial step to resolve this is the lowering of the Conquest targets as highlighted above. Also, by adding more repeatable Objectives (like PvP participation) as noted, this should give players more ways to gain points and make it easier to achieve targets. Beyond that we will continue to monitor data and your feedback to seek other possible changes in 5.9 and beyond.

 

That is most of the major points of feedback we have seen coming in regarding the Conquest revamp, but we know it isn’t everything. Let us know your thoughts on the changes we have planned. Also, even after these changes are out the door please keep your feedback coming. We are committed to getting Conquests to be enjoyable, challenging, and rewarding.

 

Thanks everyone!

 

-eric

 

Again, please publish point yields that we can be expecting for the assorted PVE and PVP daily repeatables that should have been retained in the conquest system but were missing this week. I'm pretty confident it's better to hash this out now than have to endure another dumpster fire next week if we find the groupfinder dailies only award 300 points.

Edited March 23, 2018 by AdrianDmitruk

[Thermonuked]

the only way bioware will take any notice of the playerbase is if we all speak with our cash, if everyone who objects to this abortion of a patch just clicks to cancel their sub it'll let the money grabbing scumbags sit up and take notice

[Kilzeus]

If you were worried about lock abuse and wanted to get rid of last boss kills why did you not make it so that every boss kill in an operation counts? Why do we still only get conquest for doing the easy stuff, there is no incentive to do any harder content like hm or nim ops? Why do you think you know better than the players themselves how we should play the game?

 

If you want to direct activity to some parts of the game give some benefits for that content DON'T hammer rewards for all other content into the ground. This I feel is the biggest issue with Bioware nowadays, the solution is always NERFS and REDUCING REWARDS, why not bring up the rewards from the stuff you feel is neglected?

 

Please run major changes like this through the community, ask our opinion on the forums, use polls etc. and stop thinking you know better how we should play the game. That attitude shines through all your actions now and is alienating to us, the paying customers.

[AdrianDmitruk]

If you were worried about lock abuse and wanted to get rid of last boss kills why did you not make it so that every boss kill in an operation counts? Why do we still only get conquest for doing the easy stuff, there is no incentive to do any harder content like hm or nim ops? Why do you think you know better than the players themselves how we should play the game?

 

If you want to direct activity to some parts of the game give some benefits for that content DON'T hammer rewards for all other content into the ground. This I feel is the biggest issue with Bioware nowadays, the solution is always NERFS and REDUCING REWARDS, why not bring up the rewards from the stuff you feel is neglected?

 

Please run major changes like this through the community, ask our opinion on the forums, use polls etc. and stop thinking you know better how we should play the game. That attitude shines through all your actions now and is alienating to us, the paying customers.

 

I also agree with this.

 

My entire "please publish what the point yields are going to be" mentality a couple of posts above this derives directly from the mistrust that Bioware has earned for its long history of nerfing everything into the ground (and often trying to hide it until the last second, as was the case earlier this week).

[arunav]

If you were worried about lock abuse and wanted to get rid of last boss kills why did you not make it so that every boss kill in an operation counts? Why do we still only get conquest for doing the easy stuff, there is no incentive to do any harder content like hm or nim ops? Why do you think you know better than the players themselves how we should play the game?

 

If you want to direct activity to some parts of the game give some benefits for that content DON'T hammer rewards for all other content into the ground. This I feel is the biggest issue with Bioware nowadays, the solution is always NERFS and REDUCING REWARDS, why not bring up the rewards from the stuff you feel is neglected?

 

Please run major changes like this through the community, ask our opinion on the forums, use polls etc. and stop thinking you know better how we should play the game. That attitude shines through all your actions now and is alienating to us, the paying customers.

 

At this point, I'm basically convinced Austin is purposefully killing their own game, in a way EA can't actually track or notice, i.e. in-game changes that piss everyone off enough to leave.

 

They don't get the funding to make SWTOR what it should or could be, yet still have to work on it and make annual revenue goals, after years of not having the proper staff to do so. BW must know they are selling fans of SWTOR short, and are probably tired of it.

 

So make the game seem like it's lost favor with even hardcore supporters to EA, and Austin is off the hook, free to just focus on Anthem or whatever else EA actually cares about anyway.

 

There's no way BW thought the conquest changes would go over well with players. This is purposeful sabotage.

 

If not, it's staggeringly poor management. I don't think Keith/whoever else makes the final calls on what is developed is that out of touch.

Edited March 23, 2018 by arunav

[guenwivar]

too long get point now i cannot do......

[MADGWAR]

Hey folks,

 

In this thread we want to cover a few things about Conquests: our goals for the revamp, the feedback we are hearing from all of you, and what we are changing (and when). I recommend you start by reading our write-up of the changes that were coming to 5.8. Let’s jump in.

 

The Conquest Revamp – Goals

We had a few things in mind that we wanted to address as we moved from the old system into the new one. First and foremost were rewards. This includes ensuring that the new system delivers the rewards you earn, but also increasing the overall rewards for participating in Conquests. Here are is what you receive now when you and your Guild complete a conquest:

• A large amount of Credits and CXP via completion of Objectives
  
• Personal rewards, including crafting materials, credits, and more
  
• Invasion rewards, including crafting materials, credits, Encryptions, and more, which is now rewarded to all Guilds who meet the invasion target.
  
• Access to the Fleet vendor which sells special decos and the Master Compendium (Companion Influence boost)
  

 

Here are some of the other areas we were aiming to address:

• Objectives and their points – Conquests are meant to be an activity that someone can work on throughout the week as they play the game. Previously, Conquests were very homogenized in that there was very little diversity among each week. We used this opportunity to spread out what objectives were available in each Conquest.
  
• Crafting - Crafting is a key part of Conquests, and we certainly did not want to remove that. However, we know the use of War Supplies and crafting was contributing too much to the overall competition of Conquests. For that reason, we reduced the overall effectiveness of Crafting, but added new functionality to War Supplies that they can be consumed to add Conquest points. Allowing you to get points out of them twice if you want, or you could craft them on one character and then move them to other characters to gain conquest points.
  
• Yield Targets – Competition among different sized Guilds has always been a problem in Conquests. We introduced yield targets to assist in separating out Guilds by various sizes, as they have differing targets and rewards.
  
• Interface – We gave the interface a facelift (as outlined in the other post) to make it easier to find activities you may want to complete.
  

 

Your Feedback

We never saw this revamp as being a perfect change out of the gates, but it is a first step for us in crafting an improved Conquest system. Your feedback is incredibly valuable as we can immediately start making changes to get things to a great place. Now that you understand what our goals were, let’s talk about the things we are hearing from you.

 

Changed / Missing Objectives

This feedback was most commonly expressed from PvP’ers who saw a daily objective for winning a Warzone, but not one for participating. Our plan to combat the old system’s homogenization was to spread out all Objectives. This week may not have participation as an Objective, but it isn’t gone, it is just in a different Conquest. However, this information was not clear and breaks too far from the old system.

Plan: We are going to add a repeatable GSF and Warzone Participation Objective into all Conquest weeks. This will go into our next patch (possibly next week).

 

Objective Points Too Low

With the rebalance to Conquest Objectives, there is a general sense that completing your Personal Conquest takes too long and by proxy, Guild Invasions as well.

Plan: We are going to lower the Personal Conquest target to 15,000 per week (down from 20,000). We are also adjusting the Planetary Yield Targets to be:

• Small is now 200,000 (down from 460,000)
  
• Medium is now 550,000 (down from 1,380,000)
  
• Large is now 1,130,000 (down from 2,530,000)
  
  • This will happen in our next patch (possibly next week).
    

 

Crafting Changes Too Harsh

Crafting in Conquests was just too good prior to 5.8. There is a feeling though that we cut a bit too deep on its overall impact to Conquests. The War Supply schematics were combined which made them harder to craft, and their point contribution went down, even with the added functionality of being able to consume them.

Plan: We are going to give it some time and monitor the impact of these changes, and then we will make any needed adjustments in 5.9 or beyond.

 

Large Yield Target Rewards Aren’t Good Enough

We are seeing concerns that the Large (and possibly Medium) Yield rewards simply aren’t good enough to warrant the extra points required. That this may cause most Guilds to simply filter down into Small Yields, which is counter-productive to the goal of getting Guilds to split a bit by Guild size.

Plan: This is something we are sensitive to but without seeing actual participation data around Conquests, we are hesitant to make changes just yet. We will monitor in the coming weeks and make any needed changes in 5.9 and beyond.

 

New UI Confusion

There definitely is some confusion around the iconography in the new UI, especially for Objectives. For quick reference right now, Yellow icon means infinitely repeatable, Blue means daily repeatable, no icon means once per week.

Plan: With 5.9 we will be adjusting some text along with adding tooltips to ensure that is a bit clearer. We’re also going to be swapping the yellow/blue to be consistent with the rest of the game. In addition, we’ll be adding some additional fly text for Conquest Objective completion.

 

Punishing to Alts // Legacy

With the rebalance of Objective points and the reclassification of some Objective types, there is some concern over the ability for a player with multiple characters in a Legacy to be competitive in Conquests. Additionally, there are similar concerns for folks with characters within a Legacy in more than one Guild.

Plan: One initial step to resolve this is the lowering of the Conquest targets as highlighted above. Also, by adding more repeatable Objectives (like PvP participation) as noted, this should give players more ways to gain points and make it easier to achieve targets. Beyond that we will continue to monitor data and your feedback to seek other possible changes in 5.9 and beyond.

 

That is most of the major points of feedback we have seen coming in regarding the Conquest revamp, but we know it isn’t everything. Let us know your thoughts on the changes we have planned. Also, even after these changes are out the door please keep your feedback coming. We are committed to getting Conquests to be enjoyable, challenging, and rewarding.

 

Thanks everyone!

 

-eric

sorry this is complete joke nomatter how much you dress up a terd its still a terd

[AmityAmy]

It still feels like you are trying to make me do stuff I dont want to do.

These are minor concessions on something that is horrible, it might make it just about bearable but I thought the point was to improve, not screw things up then grudgingly fix a part of what you just broke.

 

Its still a massive disincentive to queue for group PVE content.

It still isnt going to help smaller guilds, if anything they are going to have more problems keeping activity.

As people struggle to keep their contribution up in the bigger guilds who is going to have time to play alts in small ones? Not me for sure and I was doing, very happily.

 

I have been playing this game pretty much exclusively for the best part of 5 years and subbed throughout. i'm now actively looking for a different one, if I find something I like before you fix this ***** then that's one more (reluctantly) gone.

[MorseGod]

Isotope Stabilizers

Now that Dark Projects can only be made using 8 Refined Isotope Stabilizers instead of 4 Exotic Isotope Stabilizers, the Jawa merchant in the Cartel Bazaar should sell the former rather than the latter. I would also suggest that the price be cut in half so that the cost for this element of Dark Project construction remains the same rather than increasing by 100%, given that you have already added extra materials to the schematic and increased the time by 50%.

[Shwarzchild]

I somewhat think this is being blown out of proportion.

 

This isn't as alt unfriendly as it's being made to seem. There are one time one offs like prerviously. Xeno was always a 1 off. TFB probably wasn't in before, but in general specific flashpoints were one offs. So not really a huge change there.

 

You can now repeat the rampage of kill 250 dudes on Ilum (if you can stomach it I can't but thats just me) for me at 743

You can craft an invasion force every day. On whatever character you deem needs it. My point total for it is 1,688.

You can farm the bonus boss of Battle of Ilum every day for 1,688.

You can just complete B of I as many times as you want for 293

You can do the group finder operation daily for 1,688.

Warzone win: 743

You can do one daily Gree Mission every day for 1688

You can do the heroic every day for 743

You can kill 25 guards or base turrets forr 1,125

 

You can get like 9k (or more I don't have full stronghold bonus) conquest points per day on whatever character you may want to spend it on. While you may not be able to do 10 characters a week or more. Capping 1 is easy.. More than 2 might be a stretch which would be where the issue is.

 

If their goal, which it was stated it was, was to slow down the points from conquest because it was unsustainably high then this is a good move. I will agree that the character cap goal per legacy should be set around 3-4 which requires a few tweaks. But a full rollback? Not necessary.

 

Do the rewards need to change? Absolutely. I've been in favor of that forever. The rewards for conquest are awful, and have always been awful outside of titles.

Edited March 23, 2018 by Shwarzchild