Conquest Feedback and Upcoming Changes

[HKtheindomitable]

BioWare, what are you doing?!

 

We told you what's necessary to fix conquest and win us back and you ignored us. Again. Do even care anymore?

 

Have you even looked at the current conquest objectives? Have you thought about the logic of it? It's super awesome that completing one weekly PvP mission gives 7500 points, but what about the other 3 missions?

And then this is once per legacy? Seriously guys?

 

Participation in warzones used to be 250, now it's 85.

Participation in GSF used to be 500, now it's 85.

 

Even with full bonus you'd need ~71 matches to complete conquest. Let's say a match takes 10min on average, that makes 710min, that's almost 12h.

 

Conquest on each char shouldn't take longer than 3, maybe 4 hours. This is a casual game, the average player won't invest a dozen hours per char for this. Yes, the first ~3 chars will have an easier job but even then you need plan ahead and make sure you don't accidently complete something another character needs.

 

BioWare, please explain to me why you thought turning Conquest into an alt unfriendly chore was a good idea? I simply do not see the logic in your decisions.

Do you actually want us to grind for it? Are we being forced to play what you want us to play? Where's our choice?

 

This is a game. Why are you making it difficult to enjoy it? Why do you hate fun?

 

Your new system failed, the numbers are off and the rewards are pathetic compared to the necessary effort.

 

Remove the legacy restrictions and at least double the points for warzones, GSF, flashpoints and uprisings. That'll give you time to come up with a better system.

 

For additional facepalm, look who's trying for Taris this week. Hint: None of the big guilds. Those went for the medium and small planet again. (Darth Malgus)

 

Maybe stop putting so many resources into the Cartel Market and get on making the game itself more attractive again. The better the game, the more people play it and the more they spend money on it. Your longterm strategy should always favour the game itself because that's how you make the most profit. If you instead concentrate on your cartel market, then that source of income will run dry as soon as the players leave the game.

Again, BioWare, what are you doing?

 

... it's like you want this game to fail and end.

 

It's the great Shadow Monster from the Upside Down called E.A. Until it is stopped, it will continue to destroy.

[Darevsool]

Two accounts just cancelled because of this patch. Those of you who are willing to wait, good luck to you.

I have 125 days remaining on my main account

25 days on this one.

 

Here's the reason I gave for both accounts. I don't know if Musco sees cancellation reasons, so I'm posting it here where there's at least a chance of his attention.

 

"I find the lack of attention to the paying subscribers worrying. For both 5.0 and now 5.8 changes were made in direct opposition of long standing gameplay for no reason other than to say that part of the game was changed. It took over 6 months for the damage done by 5.0 to be undone. I'm not willing to wait for another 6 months for the damage to conquest system to be undone."

[Aderes]

I think what we're all trying to say is.... the game isn't fun any more... make it fun again please.

[Suprderk]

I think what we're all trying to say is.... the game isn't fun any more... make it fun again please.

 

I second this. I spent less time here last week than I normally spent in a day before conquest was changed. I enjoyed the competition during crafting weeks and spent a lot of time gearing up for them so we could compete. I'm now like that droid that Luke Skywalker's Uncle almost bought on Tatooine - i have a broken motivator.

[TrixxieTriss]

I think what we're all trying to say is.... the game isn't fun any more... make it fun again please.

 

I third this... Alt unfriendly... plus... so much more that has been making the game less fun over the last 15 months.

[KristoKal]

I belive here on forums, there are lot, I mean really lot of our toughts. Let me highlite it for you guys, YOU MESSED UP, BADLY, this new conquest system is real BS. I loved conquest before 5.8. was one of my main activity in game, Now. I amd done with 1 main and half way done with 1 other and I am done all area weekly, I am pve player, so not mutc left to do, craft 1 invasion per day, grind flashpoints for 325p? Donate invasion forces, 10 of them, I have old stock, but when those run out, what then, I need to spend all my few h per day to collect low tier mats, to be able to craft 10 of them, and then donate.....nononono. Even people like me, who have really limited gaming time, 2-4h per day most, we was able to take part and help our litle guild to stay on top 10, and sometimes even win( craft weeks), now it is impossible, we have hard time to pull off even low tier point target. We have 4 conquest player, well had 4 now we have 0. Those 4 was enough to place us to top 10 each week, we did it multiple alts etc. My sugsestion, if you really wanna push this system, make flashpoints 1000 points any veteran or MM flashpoint, not just random, make weekly character based, not legacy. And do same for pvp players. To be able to do flashpoints repeatetly through day is good thing. But atm, to get personal through flashpoints is, well, how to put it, INSANE, 50 fp to complete personal, whaaaat??!!

[BRKMSN]

Pre 5.8 -- Conquest was another reason to grind (old) content on many characters.

 

Now -- Conquest just isn't appealing

 

 

Changes I was hoping for: More things to do . Specifically, more repeatable things so you can earn points doing the things you like. Honestly, it would have been better if we just got points like we do in the DvL. I know the changes aren't likely finished, but if it stays too slow and grindy, I'm just not going to bother with it. I have better things to do than carefully manage legacy daily repeatable objectives on my alts.

[MorseGod]

I made another thread to inquire about this, and after receiving some feedback which included a comment that the devs probably wouldn't actually read my polite inquiry, I thought I should include the issue here.

 

Makeb [sTAGED WEEKLY] Broken

The conquest objective requiring completion of the [sTAGED WEEKLY] mission cannot be completed because the mission itself cannot be obtained. Apparently, it was removed from the game in patch 4.0, over two years ago, and was never removed or changed as a conquest task.

 

Completing the weekly mission for Makeb on the Activity Finder DOES NOT award credit, nor do the weekly heroics on Makeb. The conquest objective is explicitly tied to missions that no longer exist.

 

While revamping the whole system, it would have made sense to take the opportunity to remove or fix broken objectives, particularly those that have been known for years.

Edited March 28, 2018 by MorseGod

[VirtualMorrigan]

I made another thread to inquire about this, and after receiving some feedback which included a comment that the devs probably wouldn't actually read my polite inquiry, I thought I should include the issue here.

 

Makeb [sTAGED WEEKLY] Broken

The conquest objective requiring completion of the [sTAGED WEEKLY] mission cannot be completed because the mission itself cannot be obtained. Apparently, it was removed from the game in patch 4.0, over two years ago, and was never removed or changed as a conquest task.

 

Completing the weekly mission for Makeb on the Activity Finder DOES NOT award credit, nor do the weekly heroics on Makeb. The conquest objective is explicitly tied to missions that no longer exist.

 

While revamping the whole system, it would have made sense to take the opportunity to remove or fix broken objectives, particularly those that have been known for years.

 

Unbe****inglievable. That really has to be a new low.

[ArkonCh]

Unbe****inglievable. That really has to be a new low.

 

Not really, they are aware of this, they don't care, they just want your money.

Unsub and show them where they can stick it.

[TrixxieTriss]

Not really, they are aware of this, they don't care, they just want your money.

Unsub and show them where they can stick it.

 

Pretty much this ^^^

 

Forum feedback seems to fall on deaf ears, but cancelled sub feed back gets their attention eventually.

[Rheshalea]

Pre 5.8 -- Conquest was another reason to grind (old) content on many characters.

 

Now -- Conquest just isn't appealing

 

 

Changes I was hoping for: More things to do . Specifically, more repeatable things so you can earn points doing the things you like. Honestly, it would have been better if we just got points like we do in the DvL. I know the changes aren't likely finished, but if it stays too slow and grindy, I'm just not going to bother with it. I have better things to do than carefully manage legacy daily repeatable objectives on my alts.

 

I was hoping, as a solo player who can't/don't want to spend all my waking hours ingame, to be able to do Conquest on more than one character without working my behind off.

I had a pipe dream that I, in my solo guild (all my friends who ever played this game have loooong since left) could finally maybe poke my head into the Guild-side of Conquest, even if I had to buy a guild ship for it.

 

I was hoping for different recycled content - revisiting planetary stories and the old bonus series, for example, maybe even the old space-missions, gathering special materials on relevant planets... as in, a proper revamp.

 

Something along the lines of this:

Each character/guild could choose a planet/planet group to focus on. For story/head canon reasons the excuse could be to either help said planet(s) muster up to defend against remnant Valkorian cronies or Iokath droids or whatever - as in, Light side chars can help denizens of those planets, while Dark siders plan on taking over. Not that we really needed a reason for it before, but still.

Activities would relate to the planet(s) focused on - kinda like it's been tied to weekly events like the Gree event, but on a broader scale. Like completing the Heroic missions, the Bonus stories, the CSI(?) ones, the FPs, PvP-areas/WZs and so on, and handing in crafting mats and/or crafted items of the planets' levels. Add special items that can be picked/looted only on those planets so players can't just blow their whole stash for points.

I can't really comment on the Guild Conquests. As I said, I'm a solo player in a solo guild, so I never paid any attention to that aspect - but I could think of a few ideas, maybe - such as a "feud" between Imp and Rep guilds of equal sizes and various challenges pertaining to that. Bonus points for the guild that finishes a certain objective quicker? Bonus points for guild-only groups playing Ops/PvP/FPs, bonus points for killing a feud-guild's player in the PvP instance of a relevant planet?

 

Anyway. I was expecting so much more from this revamp than basically a botched facelift that leaves the originally pretty, but a bit haggard-looking visage resembling a monster more than a person.

Edited March 28, 2018 by Rheshalea

[TerraStomper]

I think patch 5.8a is an improvement over the revamp of conquest introduced with 5.8. It is still very punishing for alts or if the player's Legacy is spread across several guilds. Once a high yield one time per legacy objective is completed on one character It cannot be completed by another. But, this is not unlike what Conquest was prior to 5.8.

 

We now have medium yield daily repeatable conquest objectives (those with the silver-blue-grey mission icons). These coincide with both PvP and PvE daily mission objectives which are per character, each with favorable rewards. However, the player cannot also earn conquest points from them by more than one character in a legacy per day, until they reset. This hampers all players equally across the board as far as Conquest goes. This is also affects large, medium and small guilds alike. It discourages participation. This is bad.

 

I think the gold mission repeatable objectives are a good idea, but I think their point yields are too low. Again, this is punishing alt play, and guild participation. Right now, if I want to get an alt to personal conquest while all other daily and one-time objectives have been done on other characters, I am left with spamming gold conquest objectives with the yields being 513, 325 or 213 points per completion (at 150% SH bonus.) This is a meager amount of points given the time sink required. In other words a heavy grind, and not fun.

 

Suppose all the one time and daily objectives are already done. Under 5.8a Total Galactic War Conquest, I could try to get the alt to personal conquest by doing only the remaining gold objectives as follows:

 

1) Donate 300 Invasion forces: (300/10)x513 = 15,390 points Once the stockpile of invasion forces are gone, this route won't be viable or reasonable. Crafting or purchasing the 50 war supplies to make the 10 invasion forces to donate for 513 points are way too costly given the meager points they earn. Each of the 50 also require 2.5 times the materials then were required prior to 5.8.

 

2) Win Unranked Warzones 28 times: 28x(325 + 213) = 15,064 points. This is viable but not reasonable.to me.

I usually get about as many wins as losses, so it would probably end up more like 20 wins and 20 losses for 15,020 points. 40? Not happening. I would stop on that character once the weekly missions are done and move to another character, passing the personal conquest objective. Getting the PvP daily and weekly rewards on different characters is a better way to spend time.

 

3) Win Ranked Warzones 21 Tunes: 21x(513+213) = 15,234 points. Viable. Unreasonable. Punishing. Given pre-mades I usually lose way more than I win unless I am with a good premade group. These can take time to setup. Again, the daily and weekly ranked rewards are a better motivator than conquest here so I'm likely to stop once those have been met, passing on personal conquest.

 

4) Complete every eligible daily uprising and flashpoint daily over 7 days of conquest: 7 x (4 or 5) x 325 = 9,100 or 11,375 points. 4 is one story uprising, 1 vet uprising, 1 vet flashpoint, and 1 master flastpoint per day. 5 would include a master uprising, which I can no longer queue for, except from the console on fleet. Still this path is neither viable nor reasonable for the Total Galactic War conquest. Sure uprisings and flashpoints can be spammed, but they only yield conquest points if the random daily hasn't been completed yet for that character. Or, unless a particular flashpoint or uprising happens to be gold-repeatable for conquest that week like we've seen with Battle for Ilum. Why were master mode uprisings removed from the Activity Group Finder window?

 

5) Complete and lose 71 Star Fighter or Unranked Warzones: 71*213 = 15,123 points. Viable but not reasonable. And not fun.

 

Going the PvE route with just gold conquest objectives on an alt is the worst way to try to achieve personal Conquest in Total Galactic War. It can't be done. Instead, PvP. Win or lose it is a viable if grinding path to completion.

 

Now, repeat those for your remaining alts. Prior to 5.8 I could usually complete conquest on 7-10 characters per week depending on what my guild wanted to do and the objectives available for the week. Since 5.8 its going to be more like 2 to 4 characters at most achieving personal conquest in a week with the guild getting a spattering of points from from my other alts. Right now, participation in my guild goes way down once the one-time and daily objectives are done. This is not good.

 

While I cannot speak for everyone, I do believe that we, the players, are more frustrated and discouraged by what has been done to SWTOR. I think the 5.8 conquest change was not a positive one overall.

 

Conquest should be fun. Conquest should encourage participation and play. It should not constrict how or what players play. Let them do what they find fun and earn points for the Guild while they do it. From what we've experienced so far, I think 5.8 has broken that for all guild sizes, large, medium, and small alike. 5.8a makes it a little better, but not enough.

[Mdgshorty]

I think what we're all trying to say is.... the game isn't fun any more... make it fun again please.

 

+1 This.

 

Right now as it stands it is not fun. I used to love logging in for conquest and now, I am not even excited about it like I used to be because of these changes.

 

There is a saying do not fix what is not broke. Pre 5.8, it was not perfect, but it was not broken. The only good thing that is good out of the new system is that now all guilds that get their goal, get rewards.

 

Everything else really needs to go back to close to back the way it was. The current system is not even alt friendly. I like being able to get conquest on day one of conquest so I can work on more alts throughout the week.

Edited March 28, 2018 by Mdgshorty

[Quraswren]

I made another thread to inquire about this, and after receiving some feedback which included a comment that the devs probably wouldn't actually read my polite inquiry, I thought I should include the issue here.

 

Makeb [sTAGED WEEKLY] Broken

The conquest objective requiring completion of the [sTAGED WEEKLY] mission cannot be completed because the mission itself cannot be obtained. Apparently, it was removed from the game in patch 4.0, over two years ago, and was never removed or changed as a conquest task.

 

Completing the weekly mission for Makeb on the Activity Finder DOES NOT award credit, nor do the weekly heroics on Makeb. The conquest objective is explicitly tied to missions that no longer exist.

 

While revamping the whole system, it would have made sense to take the opportunity to remove or fix broken objectives, particularly those that have been known for years.

 

Good to know.

Thanks for the attention to detail bioware.

[DaemionMoadrin]

I sometimes wonder if BioWare tests their patches. I mean sure, they say they do.

But then you get nonsensical, unintuitive GUI changes where everyone notices something's not quite right in the first minute and well... one wonders.

 

For example, the current Conquest GUI.

 

We have 27 conquest objectives in a list that can display 6 at the same time. All objectives have the same color and the icons don't differentiate them enough. There's no reason to make each item on the list so large, it's mostly empty space. It would be better to arrange them as tiles, with different colors and icons so people can see at a glance what it is for. You know, like it was before.

Then we have the huge description field that dominates the right side of the menu window. There's no reason to make it that big when it only has to show 4 lines of text, tops. Or if you absolutely need it to be that way for symmetry or because you don't have anything better to put there... then at least add more descriptions.

 

Next is the Guild Invasion tab... uh... you do know that guild names can be longer than 12 characters, right?

The planets show the current leader... but only display the first 12 characters of the guild name. A display that only shows part of the information and forces the user to click on it to get the full view is useless.

Again, half the space is empty and not used.

Could be fixed easily by removing the "Invading" text and replacing it with a colored border around the planet to indicate its status as invasion target. That would leave you the rest of the space for the guild name.

 

I could go on and on about the entire GUI but what's the point when the underlying system is crap? A better GUI wouldn't change that. I do miss the days when you could make your own custom GUI for MMOs though.

 

Btw... to make the new conquest system work as it is supposed to, meaning giving every guild a shot at conquering a planet, you need to make all the planets available every time and switch their value around. Otherwise it's pointless.

 

Removing legacy restrictions, increasing point values etc. has been mentioned already.

[ZeroTypeR]

So basically, CXP for Vanilla story players is getting ignored yet again. Defeats the purpose of creating a Master's Datacron if players only get peanuts. Edited March 28, 2018 by ZeroTypeR

[PorsaLindahl]

I'm going to attempt to be civil in this post. I won't berate the devs. I won't mention how stupid this latest change is. I won't accuse the devs of having bong party during their daily meetings... Anyway... Moving on.

 

First off, the legacy one off needs to be dropped. It's punishing for those with alts.

 

I posted this idea in one of the other threads:

 

All activities should give conquest points. Not only those listed as objectives. It should be along the same lines as DvL where even killing mobs grants some points towards dark or light. Even if it's only 20 points for normal mobs, 30 points for strongs, 50 for elite (gold), 75 for champions (white/gold).

 

Completing non-objective missions could grant conquest points at a rate of 10% of the XP or CXP earned - not base, but at the value of any bonuses purchased through legacy perks (consumable boosts don't apply). This way even those characters at CL300 could benefit from purchasing the command xp boost (There's a good money sink for you).

 

Crafting:

 

While I never seriously crafted for conquest, I can certainly understand the point of view of those who did/do.

 

Tiered War Supplies and Dark Projects. Change the higher tier War Supplies and Dark Projects into MK-2's, so that they require the higher tiered materials to make. Make MK-1's require tier 1-5 materials and MK-2's require tier 6-9. This way, players with low to mid level crew skills can participate, and those with 600 skill won't have to rely on lower tiered resources. The MK-2's could give twice the conquest points of the MK-1's.

[BullitClub]

Seeing people drop from the score zone to the bottom where the ball is in Buttball Quesh version still happening and Bioware refuses to fix this, it compounds the problem with the WZ requirements they changed with this.

 

Either fix the broken maps or delete the obsolete zones.

[ceciltaru]

The only good change with the conquest overhaul, is the fact that small and medium guilds have a viable way to get flagship plans -- all they have to do is hit the guild mark for the planet they are invading, and the following week they should get their rewards. Unless they are trying to get a conqueror title, then its a win for the guild -- closer to unlocking all of the areas in their flagship.

 

The rest of the overhaul has been crap. I work 10-12 hours a day sometimes. the last thing I want to do is come home and chain myself to my PC for 4 or 5 hours. its the biggest reason i never became a hardcore raider in any MMO i played. the rewards are not that appealing for the amount of work required. i realize i'm not that close to maxing out my crafting utility deco's but come on. the increase in flagship blueprints is good based on the planet size but the rest of the rewards are crap.

 

and even with some of the other changes in 5.8a, you didn't touch crafting because you wanted to "wait and see...." well i'm waiting too then. i've got my companions going out filling up on grade 8 and 9 materials hoping you come to your senses and stop requiring a whole bunch of useless low level materials to craft war supplies. again, i don't have time to farm these low level materials all day, its too much of a chore. I want to be playing your game and having fun.

[TUXs]

Just an FYI Keith...

 

Nobody is going to give you another year to fix this mess. You've got weeks...

 

Enough "monitoring"...you screwed it up...revert Conquests to what they were...you made a crappy system worse.

[IanArgent]

Just an FYI Keith...

 

Nobody is going to give you another year to fix this mess. You've got weeks...

 

Enough "monitoring"...you screwed it up...revert Conquests to what they were...you made a crappy system worse.

 

Back the changes out next week. Then sit down and really think about what your goals for CQ are, and how to get casuals to do CQ on multiple alts. This system pleases approximately nobody. The people who only do CQ are busting your chops. The people who dabble are busting your chops. This is awful. This does not need tuning, this needs a ground-up rework.

 

I didn't jump on the Revert The GXP bandwagon because there was something to be salvaged from it, even if it did take too long for you to put in sufficient anti-RNG mitigation and move it to the role of secondary gearing. But that's because it did benefit some people. This doesn't have that excuse. Across the board, every play style and category is strictly worse from making it harder to make personal conquest goals on more than one character.

 

It doesn't help the small guilds get better rewards if no players want to do the work, because the game isn't worth the candle.

[DeannaVoyager]

The new system is really pissing me off. The UI is a mess, and I can't play my alts anymore, because I might acdicentally hit a weekly, which I need for a character in a conquest guild. That also means no more leveling new alts with flashpoints, which is the best way to level.

 

On top of that, and I noticed it on last week already: forcing everyone to go for the same objects and not adjusting respawn timers to 15-30 seconds, is wasting everyone's time. I was just trying to do GSI weekly on Tatooine (the heroic one) but it's impossible because someone else finds the targets faster and my seeker droids no longer detects anything (and yes, I am in the correct area). Ah but wait, you can change instance! Sure - once. Then you'll have to wait until you can do it again.

 

Fortunately it seems my guild has already hit the target, I already have the title from the planet, so I don't have any reason to touch this game again until next week CQ begins (depends on which planet our guild goes for). So thank you for freeing up my time to do other things than play your game Biofail!

Edited March 28, 2018 by DeannaVoyager

[Estelindis]

The only good change with the conquest overhaul, is the fact that small and medium guilds have a viable way to get flagship plans -- all they have to do is hit the guild mark for the planet they are invading, and the following week they should get their rewards. Unless they are trying to get a conqueror title, then its a win for the guild -- closer to unlocking all of the areas in their flagship.

Except that gaining encryptions for guild ships via crafting has been made many times harder due to the crafting changes for invasion forces and dark projects.

[ShadowGovernator]

So no conquest activity during Easter.

How about rolling your broken system back instead?