Conquest Feedback and Upcoming Changes

[Joonbeams]

FEEDBACK:

 

Last night, about 9ish Pacific time, I logged in on Satele. I'm rolling a fresh Shadow which I quickly brought to level 10 then tried to queue for both esseles via GF and also the lowbie warzones. Without getting into quirky details about how I like to re-roll, I don't like to progress my character until I've done both of these things early. In the past, around this same time, it was easy for me to get this all done in one brief sitting. But after waiting >30min for neither to pop, I logged off.

 

Before people say, "it was Easter" and all that, there were about 120+ ppl in my instance on fleet, and about 50+ on Tython. I know these numbers because in the past, this meant a reasonable likelihood of a quick pop on the queues. I will also add that this has been my experience for the past few days. I know the sample size is small, but my anecdotes seem to suggest that there is less lowbie group activity (especially pubs) since these 5.8 changes went through...

[Lhancelot]

FEEDBACK:

 

Last night, about 9ish Pacific time, I logged in on Satele. I'm rolling a fresh Shadow which I quickly brought to level 10 then tried to queue for both esseles via GF and also the lowbie warzones. Without getting into quirky details about how I like to re-roll, I don't like to progress my character until I've done both of these things early. In the past, around this same time, it was easy for me to get this all done in one brief sitting. But after waiting >30min for neither to pop, I logged off.

 

Before people say, "it was Easter" and all that, there were about 120+ ppl in my instance on fleet, and about 50+ on Tython. I know these numbers because in the past, this meant a reasonable likelihood of a quick pop on the queues. I will also add that this has been my experience for the past few days. I know the sample size is small, but my anecdotes seem to suggest that there is less lowbie group activity (especially pubs) since these 5.8 changes went through...

 

I think the devs as well as many players don't care about lowbies/mids tbh. In fact, when I have made threads about them recently (see my sig) as well in the past there are players who like to respond that only end game matters.

 

I find it interesting that tons of time and development go into facets of the game that seem by most accounts unnecessary like the gearing system that existed before our wonderful and exciting RNG system was patched in as well as the awesomely restrictive conquest system we now have that is supposed to actually open up competition for the smaller guilds.

 

Basically a lot of focus goes into things that a large portion of the playerbase scratch and shake their heads over. One thing that seems to be getting left behind is PVP in lower tiers, no doubt.

[MikeCobalt]

If a Player is treated like "Crap" during their first Impressions and on thru their Mid game why would they stay?

End Game, High Level, Powerful, All Knowing. All "Super Hype, Pretentious, Cliché and Trendy" terms. Eventually Everybody will be "End Game" as long as they stay. The First Impression, A trial look around to see if its worth a Subscription and their decisions are all based on that. Pyramid Economics, A lot of people at the bottom looking around, making decisions and that Narrows thru their Mid Game and at the top only the few that continue to pay thru/after the droughts, storms among others, periods of instability on their own part, looking forward, those that make it to the top "And Stay" very small percentage compared to the "Trial Periods", future friends and guild mates plus "Game Supporters" too.

Edited April 2, 2018 by MikeCobalt

[PorsaLindahl]

Well they are not exactly known for the best communication - quite the opposite.

 

They should not monitor the conquest leader boards from guilds that are no longer invading planets.

As those leader boards do not get wiped clean for old conquest data - so monitoring those will give a wrong view.

It's a bug thing.

 

Since they can't communicate with us properly, I decided to return the favor. Any bug reports are going to be severely lacking in information. I'll say this again: I'm no longer a beta tester for this game. That ended the weekend before launch. If something benefits me, I will not report it at all in the future.

 

Paying customers deserve a finished product. If I buy a car I don't expect to have to wait a month for the dealer to put tires on it so I can drive it.

Edited April 2, 2018 by PorsaLindahl

[HKtheindomitable]

1. Devs of billion-dollar corp make sweeping changes and fail to communicate

2. Paying customers "test" the changes, overwhelmingly disapprove, and offer devs feedback

3. Devs either do the opposite of paying customers' suggestions or simply ignore them

4. 1-3 get repeated over and over

5. Paying customers say: "well then, no more feedback, since you're not listening anyway"

6. Paying customers get blamed for game getting worse from not offering devs feedback

7. Devs largely avoid blame

 

Does this sound about right?

 

Not entirely no. Most of that is what is perceived as how things are. Believe what you will.

[ivanhedgehog]

Agreed that 5.9 won't be perfect, but I still feel it's another step in the right direction. I just hope it's not their final step - there is still a ways to go to refine this thing. Mostly indeed revolving around Character/Legacy distinctions. 5.8 was indeed a blow to the population, no doubt, but perhaps future changes can bring some of those people back. Of course, it'd help if the game were marketed at all to bring in new blood. I doubt I'll see a SWTOR ad when I go see Solo

 

As for testing, I understand why they had to push Conquest live for proper testing - this isn't the sort of thing you can work kinks out with a few dozen players on a PTS. However, they could have been much more transparent about their proposed changes before pushing them live. Let us know exactly what their plans were, so we could point out these issues, and maybe could have had 5.9's changes be the starting point instead of dumping 5.8 on people and leaving some wildly unpopular changes in place for a month and a half. Any player here could have told them that 85 points for GSF/WZ is ludicrous, and that having those Win objectives be once/day/Legacy was a Bad Thing. You need to test part of the system live because of the sheer scale of this particular activity, but the planning and implementation could have been a lot better.

 

I'm monitoring Conquest on Star Forge m'self for these first few weeks - taking snapshots of the leaderboards of all three planets and the points earned by players in my guild to see how things go. In hindsight, I should have started tracking such things when changes to Conquest were initially announced for proper before/after glances, but I naively thought they were going to improve Conquest out the gate and that it wouldn't be as bad as it was

 

BW, of course, do have access to global trends in Conquest scoring (or should, if they're managing and storing data properly). Any half-decent data analyst should be able to look at the before/after in aggregate and see what's really going on behind the scenes, at the player, guild, and server levels. This being BioWare, though, that's not a sure thing

 

I am against them intentionally putting out a broken system, spending the next 6 months "fixing" it and acting like that is content. they did it last year and look to be doing it this year. some time in June they will start with "class balancing". another summer of nerfs.

[masterceil]

Just logged in to check Conquest scores. Star Forge saw five guilds that invaded the Large Yield target reach the goal (#6 didn't seem to try, at <300k), all ten guilds on the Leaderboard for the Medium and Small Yields reached goal. Three guilds invading Medium could have made Large, and two guilds invading Small could have - that would have filled the Large Yield's Leaderboard with guilds qualifying for larger rewards, but maybe they thought they couldn't make it

 

Anyway, the top score overall was 3,709,897. Which is a good thing as far as I'm concerned! I'm beyond thrilled that there's no ridiculous crap with dozens (or hundreds) of millions of points due to incessant LO/Craft farming. Lowering the ceiling like this is bloody brilliant, and I seriously hope BW does not revert some of the changes that made it so, despite the angst expressed by a few dozen forum-goers.

 

Again, mine won't be the most popular opinion on the subject, but like anyone else, I'm free to express it, and I want BioWare to know that these changes aren't universally loathed. Conquest is far from perfect right now, and 5.9 won't get it there, but I like the direction it's going since 5.8a.

[HKtheindomitable]

... intentionally putting out a broken system...

 

No. Stop. Just stop.

 

This is where you are entirely wrong. This is a false idea. A false understanding. You have invalidated your opinion.

 

Nobody likes a buggy or inadequate system. However, this is the MMO world. If you don't like having that kind of thing, and want a full finished product immediately, then this isn't the game type for you.

[Joonbeams]

Just logged in to check Conquest scores. Star Forge saw five guilds that invaded the Large Yield target reach the goal (#6 didn't seem to try, at <300k), all ten guilds on the Leaderboard for the Medium and Small Yields reached goal. Three guilds invading Medium could have made Large, and two guilds invading Small could have - that would have filled the Large Yield's Leaderboard with guilds qualifying for larger rewards, but maybe they thought they couldn't make it

 

Anyway, the top score overall was 3,709,897. Which is a good thing as far as I'm concerned! I'm beyond thrilled that there's no ridiculous crap with dozens (or hundreds) of millions of points due to incessant LO/Craft farming. Lowering the ceiling like this is bloody brilliant, and I seriously hope BW does not revert some of the changes that made it so, despite the angst expressed by a few dozen forum-goers.

 

Again, mine won't be the most popular opinion on the subject, but like anyone else, I'm free to express it, and I want BioWare to know that these changes aren't universally loathed. Conquest is far from perfect right now, and 5.9 won't get it there, but I like the direction it's going since 5.8a.

 

Kudos for bringing data to the debate. +1. I'm not surprised by this, but nonetheless it's helpful to the overall debate to have something objective to look at.

 

I guess for me now (if what you report holds up) the question is: is this leading to a decrease in overall activity (logic and anecdotes seem to strongly say yes)? And if so, is this "achievement" above worth that price?

Edited April 2, 2018 by Joonbeams

[PennyAnn]

Kudos for bringing data to the debate. +1. I'm not surprised by this, but nonetheless it's helpful to the overall debate to have something objective to look at.

 

I guess for me now (if what you report holds up) the question is: is this leading to a decrease in overall activity (logic and anecdotes seem to strongly say yes)? And if so, is this "achievement" above worth that price?

 

Very valid question. My guild will not be participating in Conquest at all anymore until it is fixed. That's at least a dozen people or more formerly pretty heavy conquest players who will likely not be playing the game much at all. For me, it was one of the only things keeping me in a game that sees too little new content to remain interesting, and conquest was the only way all the old content was interesting to me. Now I'm on to greener pastures. Congratulations to those who love the new conquest, you will likely get to start playing it alone.

[PorsaLindahl]

Oh yeah! Real smart. Add to the lack of communication like an emo teenager. They can't help us if we don't talk. Guess what, they don't work on your timetable no matter how much money you gave them. I want an expansion every year. That's not realistic.

 

Should communication be better? Yes. But that doesn't justify anyone returning the harm, especially when it's perceived. Not only that, but you really aren't hurting anyone back by withholding bug reports.

 

As far as it being a "finished product": This is an MMO. An MMO is an ongoing product, continually in production. It's not an FPS w/o DLC or SP RPG. If you have issues with the quality of things, you should take it up with E.A. and their inability to properly fund this game. STO has massive game breaking bugs in it with each new content release. WOW has the same too. This is not unique to SWTOR. You will have your finished product when the final piece of content is released.

 

What's the difference between not posting at all or not reporting bugs? Nothing. If I stop posting altogether, then I won't post bug reports either. I'll post at my discretion. Not yours. The only ones who have any control over my posting is me and BW - they can remove my posting privileges if they want. But guess what? They won't get my bug reports that way either. And if you have issues with my point of view, then you should just go to Helen Waite.

 

And by not posting a certain bug, I'm not hurting anyone at all. In fact the bug I was referring to was actually beneficial for me. So I don't care if it never gets fixed.

 

Yeah, it's an ongoing project. But that still doesn't mean it's right for them to put an untested system on the live servers for the general game population to beta test for them so they can spend months ironing out the faults in it. I don't care what other MMO's are doing. I'm not paying them my money for their services, and this isn't "monkey see, monkey do." If you're driving down the road and the guy in front of you drives off a cliff, are you going to follow along like a good little sheep and drive off the cliff, too?

 

As I've stated previously, the old conquest system wasn't perfect. It had it's flaws. But it didn't need a major overhaul to fix those flaws. They could've made some very minor adjustments to fix those flaws.

 

You don't clean a window with a wrecking ball.

[PennyAnn]

More numbers for you:

 

On Satele Shan server:

LARGE YIELD:

Republic Side Taris: 3 guilds made the 1.13mil total points goal. Fourth place got a little over halfway there, fifth place not quite half way, and everyone else didn't even get enough points to meet the SMALL YIELD PLANET requirement (places 6 - 10).

 

Imperial Side Taris: Even worse than Republic side, only 2 guilds hit the minimum points required here. Again, anyone under 4th place didn't even get enough points to hit the minimum on Small Yield Planets.

 

MEDIUM YIELD:

Everyone in the top 10 made the 550,000 goal. Those in First and Second place in this category had enough points to place 4th, 5th, and 6th on the Large Yield planet, but did not invade there.

 

SMALL YIELD:

One of the largest conquest guilds in the game conquered this planet, with enough points to have placed second on the large yield planet, and nearly enough points to have beaten the guild in first place and conquered it... but they invaded the Smallest Yield planet instead. Down through 7th place in fact, these guilds all would have also qualified for rewards on the Medium yield planet, but went for small instead.

 

Anecdotally, my guild who has always been on the top 10 boards with our imperial guild since inception (nearly a year ago now), will no longer be participating in this broken system until it is clear that the developers are truly listening to the player feedback and dealing with the once-per-legacy problems at minimum.

 

We do not wish to give Bioware any indication that this system is better enough to even participate in, and so we will not be hitting the invade button again until the most punishing parts of the system are changed. It's just not fun anymore for too many of us, and for pretty much all of the reasons listed in 200+ pages of feedback that has so far been largely ignored.

 

Those that called for this to be on the PTS before going live were right to request that, or at least I thought so initially. But if they are as tone deaf to PTS players suggesting that a horrible system is horrible, I am not sure it would have many any difference. At least we would have had some warning to use our now obsolete crafting mats, which we didn't even merit a mention in patch notes about or any kind of warning that they were going to be ripping away those schematics from us and making such a drastic change.

 

.

Edited April 2, 2018 by PennyAnn

[ivanhedgehog]

No. Stop. Just stop.

 

This is where you are entirely wrong. This is a false idea. A false understanding. You have invalidated your opinion.

 

Nobody likes a buggy or inadequate system. However, this is the MMO world. If you don't like having that kind of thing, and want a full finished product immediately, then this isn't the game type for you.

 

You cant invalidate an opinion. you have no idea what biowares strategy is to string out swotor subscribers. It is a strategy that worked for 2017, why not 2018? There was absolutely no reason to string out nerfs for the entire summer, much less go into a second year. It isnt like they too any feedback into account. It isnt like they actually communicated with us.

[Exly]

Just logged in to check Conquest scores. Star Forge saw five guilds that invaded the Large Yield target reach the goal (#6 didn't seem to try, at <300k), all ten guilds on the Leaderboard for the Medium and Small Yields reached goal. Three guilds invading Medium could have made Large, and two guilds invading Small could have - that would have filled the Large Yield's Leaderboard with guilds qualifying for larger rewards, but maybe they thought they couldn't make it.

 

I just logged onto the Star Forge and checked, and only 3 guilds made conquest on the large target yield planet, only 2 guilds from the medium planet and 1 from the small planet actually had enough to make their conquest if they had gone for the large yield.

 

That means that only 6 guilds made actually made enough points to score high enough to qualify for the large planet's reward. Maybe you were referring to a different server, but what you said is not true for the Star Forge.

[curulz]

I just logged onto the Star Forge and checked, and only 3 guilds made conquest on the large target yield planet, only 2 guilds from the medium planet and 1 from the small planet actually had enough to make their conquest if they had gone for the large yield.

 

That means that only 6 guilds made actually made enough points to score high enough to qualify for the large planet's reward. Maybe you were referring to a different server, but what you said is not true for the Star Forge.

 

Taris is imp side and pub side, you're probably seeing it from an imp toon where you can't see pub side. Yes, impside Taris only had 3 that qualified for the rewards

[PorsaLindahl]

I just logged onto the Star Forge and checked, and only 3 guilds made conquest on the large target yield planet, only 2 guilds from the medium planet and 1 from the small planet actually had enough to make their conquest if they had gone for the large yield.

 

That means that only 6 guilds made actually made enough points to score high enough to qualify for the large planet's reward. Maybe you were referring to a different server, but what you said is not true for the Star Forge.

 

Not quite accurate:

Those that reached 1,130,000 points (required for the Large Planet) on Star Forge.

• Large (Republic Taris): 5
  
• Large (Imperial Taris): 3
  
• Medium: 3
  
• Small: 2
  

 

You're both partially correct.

Edited April 3, 2018 by PorsaLindahl

[masterceil]

Not quite accurate:

Those that reached 1,130,000 points (required for the Large Planet) on Star Forge.

• Large (Republic Taris): 5
  
• Large (Imperial Taris): 3
  
• Medium: 3
  
• Small: 2
  

 

You're both partially correct.

 

Yes, thank you, I forget that Taris (and Balmorra) is split like that. My bad. I really only play pubside, didn't even think to check impside

[olagatonjedi]

Well they are not exactly known for the best communication - quite the opposite

What is your baseline for communication, and why are we going with your baseline in the first place?

[olagatonjedi]

Very valid question. My guild will not be participating in Conquest at all anymore until it is fixed. That's at least a dozen people or more formerly pretty heavy conquest players who will likely not be playing the game much at all. For me, it was one of the only things keeping me in a game that sees too little new content to remain interesting, and conquest was the only way all the old content was interesting to me. Now I'm on to greener pastures. Congratulations to those who love the new conquest, you will likely get to start playing it alone.

For every 10 players who quir conquests because they can no longer overwhelm with alt play, there are likely 10 players willing to get involved with new conquest because its more fairly balanced for them to participate without relying on alts.

 

As you exodus from conquests, feel free to take the naysaying with you, as though your lack of fun has any bearing on others' fun.

 

Can we be any more primative?

[olagatonjedi]

Yeah, it's an ongoing project. But that still doesn't mean it's right for them to put an untested system on the live servers for the general game population to beta test for them so they can spend months ironing out the faults in it.

Please enlighten us with a way to test a new conqiest system on a PTS that has very limited number of players, even fewer guilds, and won't give any glimpse of how successful a system will be? If you have even taken 5 seconds to consider this, you would realise the live server was the only way to implement it. Just another example of the benefit of thinking things through before giving feedback.

Edited April 3, 2018 by olagatonjedi

[olagatonjedi]

More numbers for you:

 

On Satele Shan server:

LARGE YIELD:

Republic Side Taris: 3 guilds made the 1.13mil total points goal. Fourth place got a little over halfway there, fifth place not quite half way, and everyone else didn't even get enough points to meet the SMALL YIELD PLANET requirement (places 6 - 10).

 

Imperial Side Taris: Even worse than Republic side, only 2 guilds hit the minimum points required here. Again, anyone under 4th place didn't even get enough points to hit the minimum on Small Yield Planets.

What finite conclusions can you draw from this information that shows its a detrimental system?

 

MEDIUM YIELD:

Everyone in the top 10 made the 550,000 goal. Those in First and Second place in this category had enough points to place 4th, 5th, and 6th on the Large Yield planet, but did not invade there.

What finite conclusions can you draw from this information that shows its a detrimental system?

 

SMALL YIELD:

One of the largest conquest guilds in the game conquered this planet, with enough points to have placed second on the large yield planet, and nearly enough points to have beaten the guild in first place and conquered it... but they invaded the Smallest Yield planet instead. Down through 7th place in fact, these guilds all would have also qualified for rewards on the Medium yield planet, but went for small instead.

What finite conclusions can you draw from this information that shows its a detrimental system?

 

Hundreds of speculative conclusions can be drawn from these results, but none of them show whether it's working or not. It could showing that the system isn't working. It could be showing that smaller guilds were reaching for the stars, realized early on they wouldn't be able to compete in Large Yield, and gave up. It could mean it worked because these are true numbers of your competition, so you have a better way to gauge what yield will be best to go after.

 

Everything is too early to tell, and those numbers dont concretely mean anything specifically useful.

[PorsaLindahl]

I will answer with your quip

 

 

 

so tell me, you drew a conclusion from no evidence....is your science teacher shaking their heads at you?

 

You forgot to add this as well for drawing conclusions without evidence.

 

For every 10 players who quir conquests because they can no longer overwhelm with alt play, there are likely 10 players willing to get involved with new conquest because its more fairly balanced for them to participate without relying on alts.

[curulz]

Again, I urge you to read closer. Please point out my conclusion if you can find one.

 

You said that for every 10 people that quit conquest 10 more will likely take their place. Obviously you have only pure speculation to substantiate it. You will continue to parse words about the definition of claim I'm sure, but we both know what you were getting at.

[TrixxieTriss]

1. Devs of billion-dollar corp make sweeping changes and fail to communicate

2. Paying customers "test" the changes, overwhelmingly disapprove, and offer devs feedback

3. Devs either do the opposite of paying customers' suggestions or simply ignore them

4. 1-3 get repeated over and over

5. Paying customers say: "well then, no more feedback, since you're not listening anyway"

6. Paying customers get blamed for game getting worse from not offering devs feedback

7. Devs largely avoid blame

 

Does this sound about right?

 

Seems like a logical conclusion

[Akevv]

For every 10 players who quir conquests because they can no longer overwhelm with alt play, there are likely 10 players willing to get involved with new conquest because its more fairly balanced for them to participate without relying on alts.

 

As you exodus from conquests, feel free to take the naysaying with you, as though your lack of fun has any bearing on others' fun.

 

Can we be any more primative?

 

Where are these mythical 10 people to back fill? In case you haven't noticed, we're down to two US servers. Groups don't fill anymore. It's become difficult to join anything at all via group finder, despite this last, desperate merger. There's nothing left to back fill from. Do you play this game?