Conquest Feedback and Upcoming Changes

[Darev]

Don't hold your breath. I'm still not convinced enough to resub.

 

Also, something that's a concern is will the daily/weekly activities (FPs and PvP) going to be repeatable on alts or if they'll be one-off achievements?

 

Oh, and cutting the personal to 15k isn't enough unless doing the daily + weekly FP and PvP + maybe a few heroics if needed can complete the personal goal. Give us baseline numbers, not what they would be at 150% stronghold bonus.

 

This is actually a good point. The Stronghold bonus is supposed to make things easier, not to be used as a baseline.

[xordevoreaux]

This is the ONLY thing I'll say in defense of Bioware on this horrible patch.

 

Relics of the Gree was NEVER an alt friendly week for getting multiple alts to 20k conquest points.

 

Unless you enjoy endless warzones (now supposedly going to be put back in)

Unless you enjoy endless GSF (now supposedly going to be put back in)

Unless you did lots of Flashpoints (daily GF and Weekly 5 vet FPs/3MM FPs)

 

In today's update Eric didn't mention anything about the points they'd assigned. Looking at the points for the repeatable Ilum flashpoint this week, it's a laughably small amount.

 

 

On to my more "normalized" thoughts on 5.8.

 

You GUTTED crafting weeks. Ok, fine, that was clearly your intention. I think it was wrong, but you did it in a way that also GUTTED the points from crafting during NON-Crafting weeks. The cost of the resources, either by buying on GTN or time spent harvesting on lower level planets is NOT at all worth the reward you get from crafting a single invasion force. Let alone 10 to then turn around and "donate" for a measly amount of points.

 

The way to fix that is to either adjust the points up for invasion force, or revert back to the tiered recipes. I'd like to see the tiered recipes again, they let new players participate while leveling their crafting crew skills. That was ALWAYS a good thing.

 

Splitting the planets up into 3 difficulty levels is only going to hurt the guilds going after small/medium planets. I looked at the list, one of the historically most sought after planets, Rishi, is a medium planet goal.

MOST guilds choose planets based on the titles their guild members need.

 

Neither me nor my officers authorized to invade planets have ever considered titles when deciding which planets to invade.

[BRKMSN]

[*]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.

 

This week's theme is Relics of the Gree. I took a character to the event area and completed one mission from the terminal to complete Critical Missions: Relics f the Gree. I think it's a little strange that players aren't given a reason to actually participate in the event the conquest is themed around. One mission and that's all for today (for all my characters).

 

If you want diversity, maybe consider giving people a reason to do multiple event missions on multiple characters each day. You know, bring some life back to the old content like the CXP bug did to the daily areas a few months ago.

Edited March 22, 2018 by BRKMSN

[MikeCobalt]

Beyond that we will continue to monitor data and your feedback to seek other possible changes in 5.9 and beyond.

 

Thanks everyone!

 

-eric

Considering their past in changing current content systems. This ambiguity, Lack of Responsibility when 5.9 went live

This is Fluff and to me says they're not going to change anything based on what their customers want (Direct Feedback), only what they want. This like other times is just "Stalling". This is another smoke screen.

[PorsaLindahl]

All of the points need to be doubled, at a minimum, or the personal goal needs to be cut by 50%, not 25%. And don't make activities like Daily/Weekly Group Finder FP's or Daily/Weekly PvP/GSF one-off's per legacy. I have characters in multiple guilds, both Imp and Pub. These one-off objectives are pure garbage.

 

And the rewards are so 2 years ago. Bring the rewards up-to-date with the current crafting levels.

[Kyrielan]

I just don't understand why so many players have to be so mean to Eric and the developers. I got the answers I asked for today and I thought Eric did a good job of explaining both what they were going for, what happened, and how they are going to try and fix it.

 

At the risk of getting flamed, Come on people, it's a game. There is no reason to be so hostile to the people whose job it is to bring it to you. Sometimes they goof up, but it's not a grand conspiracy. Maybe I'm a bit naive but I enjoy the game despite some of it's bugs. It's all a process of dealing with it and getting through it. So just deal with it and move on.

Edited March 22, 2018 by Kyrielan

[GrimTheGlutt]

Dont worry, coming soon to a Cartel Market near you...

 

"Superior Conquest Boost"

Use: Increases Conquest points gained by 25% for 2 hours. Cannot be combined with any other conquest Boost. (Cooldown: 1 hour)

 

Cost = 2500 Cartel Coins.

[LG_XxLegacyxX]

The new revamp is killing conquest. The UI is a fine re-imagination, but the Iconography needs to be explained. I know you're working on this, so that's a point I'm glad was taken into consideration. The new objective additions are fine too, and the credit and Command XP rewards for completing objectives is a great incentive to repeat missions. The CQ point yields for some objectives are WAY TOO LOW however. It is a complete turnoff to see crafting literally be stripped of relevance anymore. The amount of REAL WORLD TIME and CREDIT SINK in order to achieve anything with crafting is ludicrous in regards to its worth of CQ point return. I was excited to finally achieve rank 600 in a few of my crafting skills, but the return on investment to craft War Supplies is just not worth it. The fact that I have to have multiple characters with different crafting skills just to make one augment is also a really big turn off as well. I'd appreciate it, if my character could be "independent" and craft his own augments, without Sliced Tech parts from another character, etc.

 

Thanks for hearing me out.

[PorsaLindahl]

I just don't understand why so many players have to be so mean to Eric and the developers. I got the answers I asked for today and I thought Eric did a good job of explaining both what they were going for, what happened, and how they are going to try and fix it.

 

At the risk of getting flamed, Como on people, it's a game. There is no reason to be so hostile to the people whose job it is to bring it to you. Sometimes they goof up, but it's not a grand conspiracy. Maybe I'm a bit naive but I enjoy the game despite some of it's bugs. It's all a process of dealing with it and getting through it. So just deal with it and move on.

 

I, for one, am not mad at Eric. I'm mad at the rocket scientist that thought this up and approved it to go live. Honestly, I would hate to have Eric's job. He fields most of the ire and animosity and I'm surprised he's not a raving drunk after what a lot of people put him though. If I was the CM I would've told them where they could stick that job a long time ago.

[Kyrra_T]

Eric, you are going in the right direction. I do think the things you outlined will help.

 

I do need assurances that you will FIX the bugs in what you did put in. We need to reliably GET the points when we complete a conquest objective.

 

And .. there is no really nice way to say this. You've made it clear WE are the Beta Test for this change and that isn't something that pleases me.

[Ibokagain]

 

You cut the guild scores in more than half but the personal by a mere 25%?

Currently there are 2 easily spammable things: throwing away invasion forces and spamming battle of ilum.

Invasion forces with full SH bonus: 513 points

20000/513=38.99 --> 39 thrown away currently

15000/513=29.23 --> 30 thrown away new

Battle of ilum with full SH bonus: 150 points

20000/150=133.3 --> 134 runs currently

15000/150=100 --> 100 runs currently

Just as i dont like throwing away any invasion forces, i also have no intention of running 100 battle of ilums to cap an alt.

Therefore, unless points for spammable events are increased, conquest is dead to me. Cut credit and cxp rewards if you feel its too generous.

 

Great post one think with the clicking aka donating invasion forces you have to click 10 so it's not 39 or 30 it's 390, and 300 respectfully, again nice post agree completely.

[BRKMSN]

I just don't understand why so many players have to be so mean to Eric and the developers. I got the answers I asked for today and I thought Eric did a good job of explaining both what they were going for, what happened, and how they are going to try and fix it.

 

At the risk of getting flamed, Come on people, it's a game. There is no reason to be so hostile to the people whose job it is to bring it to you. Sometimes they goof up, but it's not a grand conspiracy. Maybe I'm a bit naive but I enjoy the game despite some of it's bugs. It's all a process of dealing with it and getting through it. So just deal with it and move on.

 

I'm sure they think they're helping in their own way. I expect that the devs will get conquest where it needs to be in time. Everybody has different levels of patience.

[SithScorp]

Conquest crafting.....

 

Really? ***!

 

Do you even play the game? Or do you just make decisions to make people mad?

[Quraswren]

Until ALL Conquest Content is Alf-Friendly Conquest is dead to me.

 

Fed up of being incentivised to start ever more Alts because new content is rarer than an honest politician, just to get punished for having Alts when someone at Bioware has another "Dim Bulb" moment.

 

The core concept of this game is predicated on us having and playing Alts - anything you do that punishes that is just counter-productive.

 

I can't believe Bioware are too stupid/ignorant to have failed to learn this lesson from the Command Levels fiasco.

 

All The Best

 

Preach it because bioware will do nothing as right as your post.

[BlazenCage]

Release the alts!

[Darev]

Neither me nor my officers authorized to invade planets have ever considered titles when deciding which planets to invade.

 

How does your guild choose which planet to invade?

 

The ones I've been in take polls via their guild web pages, or input from guild members via other methods. When the members need a certain planet for that Galaxy Conqueror title goal, that's the planet that gets chosen.

 

From some of the feedback I've seen, at least among the subscribers posting, title is a big reason to choose which planet to invade, not the rewards.

[PorsaLindahl]

You cut the guild scores in more than half but the personal by a mere 25%?

Currently there are 2 easily spammable things: throwing away invasion forces and spamming battle of ilum.

Invasion forces with full SH bonus: 513 points

20000/513=38.99 --> 39 thrown away currently

15000/513=29.23 --> 30 thrown away new

Battle of ilum with full SH bonus: 150 points

20000/150=133.3 --> 134 runs currently

15000/150=100 --> 100 runs currently

Just as i dont like throwing away any invasion forces, i also have no intention of running 100 battle of ilums to cap an alt.

Therefore, unless points for spammable events are increased, conquest is dead to me. Cut credit and cxp rewards if you feel its too generous.

 

 

Those numbers are inaccurate.

Battle of Ilum w/150% stronghold bonus: 325 Points

At 20k personal it would take 61.5 runs -> 62 runs.

At 15k personal it would take 46.15 -> 47 runs.

[BRKMSN]

Alright I don't know if this was asked or mentioned.... but....

 

Why are there only 3 targets? I thought with this patch there would be more planets, thus more targets, to help out guilds? How in the world does 3 active targets help anyone? Regardless of the rewards (which are mentioned to be WAY too little of a difference for anyone to bother with), having everyone clumped together on 3 targets basically leaves everyone who doesn't have a large guild out of the running, regardless of the point change. You could triple the amount received and these guilds would STILL not be able to compete.

 

What happened to the idea of having more targets? Why do we have LESS targets now?

 

The idea is that now, you don't need a top 10 finish to earn the guild rewards. You need only to reach the point target based on the planet yield (small, medium, and large yields). So as long as you reach the guild point target, each character that reaches their personal target will also receive the guild reward (which previously required a top 10 finish).

[DragonLadyK]

Hey folks

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).

 

-eric

 

Thank you dear, sweet, zombie Jesus. The q times were killing me. This should get butts back in the seats, as it were.

 

Lowering the overall goal is great, too. Alts are everything.

 

I do love the event dailies giving pts, but I think it is bugged and only giving credit for one daily instead of all of them.

 

PVP week sounds exciting. Hopefully there is GSF week and Flashpoint week, too, so people who level those ways can take advantage of people doing it for conquest to get instaqs. Nobody likes sitting in q. It is all about the bodies, haha.

[Chryptyk]

You have not addressed the issue of point values for objectives. Changing the personal goal to 15K does not do much for people who have a lot of alts, especially when the objectives are once a day per legacy.

 

By definition, a small guild should not be able to beat a large guild. In that you set up a system whereby if your guild made the target yield, they would receive the guild rewards, regardless of placing, is good. However, at the current point values, they will likely NOT hit the target yields. They would only be able hit their personal goal on 1 or 2 toons.

The complaints from small guilds from before the changes that they could not compete still remain with whatever changes you make. Its an unreasonable expectation that they conquer. All you have done is lower point production, and angered everyone.

 

The easiest thing to do would be to restore ALL repeatable objectives at VASTLY larger objective point values, and rotate which planet is small, medium, and large yields for a given week. Also remove the legacy restrictions for ALL GF activities. This will encourage us to play all out alts again and allow us to get points on all of them.

 

By definition, large guilds should win, but with a rotating target yield for the planets, you can encourage them to swap planets each time the same event comes around. Large guilds ARE NOT obligated to take the large yield planet, but will always take whichever one they want, but by rotating the yields for each planet around, you can encourage them to rotate as well.

 

The main thing is make the yields reasonably attainable by all guild regardless of size. The objective point values MUST come up. That you can get guild rewards without placing is a wonderful thing, but if your guild cant even hit the yield because they cannot make the yield value, then the reward become unattainable, and therefore useless to compete.

 

Im in 5 different guilds and allied with many more. Not a single one of them has been happy with the changes. Your proposed changes wont do much to change things because even with the proposed changes, hitting personal goals and target yields will still be difficult.

 

You're losing subs. We're losing members. The best thing to do would be to rollback, but you wont do it. We know that. So you've already lost. Just come to that realization already and just rollback and you just might be able to get a few people back. For those of us remaining, make it easier to attain our goals and yields.

[KendraP]

Those numbers are inaccurate.

Battle of Ilum w/150% stronghold bonus: 325 Points

At 20k personal it would take 61.5 runs -> 62 runs.

At 15k personal it would take 46.15 -> 47 runs.

 

Yeah i got those from a guildie, was just about to change them.

 

The point still stands. I have better things to do than 62 or 47 ilum runs per toon.

Edited March 23, 2018 by KendraP

[Andryah]

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.

you know what.. we can't blame this one on Ben.. this is all Keith here. Which leads me to believe that we will continue to see these sorts of frustrations, poor communications, and slow post-release "adjustments" on any future major content changes, updates, or additions.

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

 

Eric,

 

ALL of the above SHOULD HAVE BEEN DISCLOSED in advance, in your original thread ( http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=945216 )

 

The reasons why you did not do so are a mystery, which leads one to think the studio is making this stuff up as you go along day by day. Now.. why would this be a bad thing? Because the way you continue to disclose after the fact about significant changes like this plays directly into the player(s) belief that you do not communicate well as a studio and are constantly obfuscating as to your actual plans for the game. This is, at the end of the day, a trust issue and the studio continues to fail in this regard.

 

Mind you, I'm not upset about the shoddy way Conquests just got released... but I do empathize with players who are very upset about the state of affairs with the patch this week. My guild will NOT play Conquests at all in it's current state, so we will focus on other activities. Nobody in my guild is inclined to quit over this.... but it does represent strike-TWO to us on the part of the studio (GC release and slow burn to fix was strike-ONE).

 

I understand that changes will be made in the coming weeks/months on Conquests.... but I have to say.. this very much plays out like a repeat of how Galactic Command was released in a poor state and improved at a very slow pace over a period of months.

To fellow players......

 

This mishandling of the Conquests update very much plays out very similar to the way the poor release of GC played out last year...... but we cannot blame Ben for this one. This one is ALL Keith, on Keiths watch. Honestly it now represents a continuing pattern on the part of the studio so I fully expect future major content chances, updates, additions, will be equally troublesome and as such.. players need to set their expectations accordingly if they plan to stick around and continue to play SWTOR

Edited March 23, 2018 by Andryah

[DmdShiva]

It is a complete turnoff to see crafting literally be stripped of relevance anymore. The amount of REAL WORLD TIME and CREDIT SINK in order to achieve anything with crafting is ludicrous in regards to its worth of CQ point return. I was excited to finally achieve rank 600 in a few of my crafting skills, but the return on investment to craft War Supplies is just not worth it.

 

Not only that, it majorly nerfed the ability of crafters to participate significantly in conquest crafting. All the war supplies require grade 8 and 9 intermediate components now. Previously, if a character got to skill 150 on their crafting skill, they could craft the low-level intermediate mats and make war supplies from them, earning conquest points. Now, the best they can do is craft the low-end intermediate mats and feed them to other characters, or have other characters feed them the higher-level intermediate components.

 

Rather than make crafting much more painful, if it was necessary to reduce the effect that wide-open crafting had on conquest, stretch out the goals as one-and-done by character: Conquest goal, craft a war supply or invasion force. Next tier of conquest goal, craft five war supplies or invasion forces, giving twice the conquest points that crafting a single one did. Next tier, craft 25, again giving twice the conquest points that the previous one did. You can stretch the list out as far as needed. The point award for each tier can be fiddled to produce the desired use of crafting to contribute to conquest, and a particular conquest week might not have all of them -- a 'standard' week only has the 'make one' goal; a 'light crafting' week might have the 'make one' and 'make five' goals, and a full-on crafting week would have all of them.

Edited March 23, 2018 by DmdShiva

[Ibokagain]

That may be the intent, it is certainly not working that way for me. I would like an official BioWare clarification on this so that I can write up bug tickets properly.

 

Also, it's a significant difference to those of us who enjoy getting Conquest on alts; it's frustrating to not have a clear idea of what is intended vs. bugged rewards.

 

^ this

[Andryah]

Not only that, it majorly nerfed the ability of crafters to participate significantly in conquest crafting. All the war supplies require grade 8 and 9 intermediate components now. Previously, if a character got to skill 150 on their crafting skill, they could craft the low-level intermediate mats and make war supplies from them, earning conquest points. Now, the best they can do is craft the low-end intermediate mats and feed them to other characters, or have other characters feed them the higher-level intermediate components.

 

Rather than make crafting much more painful, if it was necessary to reduce the effect that wide-open crafting had on conquest, stretch out the goals as one-and-done by character: Conquest goal, craft a war supply or invasion force. Next tier of conquest goal, craft five war supplies or invasion forces, giving twice the conquest points that crafting a single one did. Next tier, craft 25, again giving twice the conquest points that the previous one did. You can stretch the list out as far as needed. The point award for each tier can be fiddled to produce the desired use of crafting to contribute to conquest, and a particular conquest week might not have all of them -- a 'standard' week only has the 'make one' goal; a 'light crafting' week might have the 'make one' and 'make five' goals, and a full-on crafting week would have all of them.

 

See. the core mistake here was years ago when they first released Conquests, and made crafting such an appealing way to attack the effort.

 

They should have made adjustments years ago, and in a series of incremental adjustments so as not to shock the player base with a large change all at once. They did not.. and as such... clawing back crafting now in this patch has a materially aggravating affect on the players.. and that is unprofessional and careless in my view... AND completely avoidable with better planning and incremental adjustments a long time back.

Edited March 23, 2018 by Andryah