Conquest Changes in Game Update 5.9

[olagatonjedi]

GC a success lol, my drink went all over my keyboard and I'm still laughing. Yet you want statics, proofs?

 

Ok here you go Prior to 5.0 Galactic command 11/29/2016 we had 17 servers, all the servers I was on at the time were very active with good population, queue times were excellent. Yet due to all the success that GC had they had to merge all these servers into just 5 servers on 11/08/2017. I'm sure the loss of subs didn't have anything to do with GC (sarc)!

Uh oh, another "number of servers has a direct correlation to success or failure of a single aspect of the game" poster. Sound the alarm. You don't think that server consolidation isnt a dramatic enough change that it may require multiple month or years to plan out. Rhetorical question, I'm sure you hadn't given it the forethought, or afterthought.

 

Oh and they continue to do stuff with GC so it's not really a finished product yet - GC Started in 11/29/16 and still is an ugly pig today.

Dynamic game is dynamic. How profound....lol

 

Considering I've only seen about 3-4 folks that I would assume by their post that like the conquest changes yet everyone else doesn't like it. I'm not quiet sure how doing this will make the game flourish, I'd think it would do quiet the opposite.

Statistics show that people who don't have a problem with something typically dont speak about it (even positively).

[olagatonjedi]

You do know there are a lot of points on a continuum between cakewalk and hard? It's not an either or situation. Something can be easier than hard without being a cakewalk.

Exactly my point. Do you not see the conundrum involved in trying to meet everyones needs when people throw around words that have no validity or supportive data? Multiply that by 150 pages of posts. Now try to balance the game.

[VirtualMorrigan]

Folks, I'm begging, please stop feeding it. It's trolling of the worst type, and it's successfully buried the many valid points made in here.

 

You are correct, this thread is getting damned difficult to read for all the broken record repeats from that one to any and all posts. Arguing for the sake of arguing. Actually we have two candidates of that sort in here.

[olagatonjedi]

Perhaps the difficulty depends on the persons playstyle? only playing the game certain ways made it so you got far fewer characters past the cap. I know as a GSF player I usually only got 1-2 characters to hit the goal per week (if any). So now it takes me (this week) 1 weekly, and 36 matches to hit the 15k goal on 1 character. Before 5.8 It took me about 20 matches (20 matches was taken from a week that required 25k which was normal,). The math from a pure GSF player clearly show's it's much harder now then it was before. I have to do an extra 16 matches to get to 15k then I had to do for 25k before this change.

For the record, my stance is primarily based on getting multiple toons to cap. I do believe the points for single toon capping eed to be reasonable enough that its capable, but not easy as to encourage people to play more than one type of activity.

[HKtheindomitable]

Uh oh, another "number of servers has a direct correlation to success or failure of a single aspect of the game" poster. Sound the alarm. You don't think that server consolidation isnt a dramatic enough change that it may require multiple month or years to plan out. Rhetorical question, I'm sure you hadn't given it the forethought, or afterthought.

 

 

Dynamic game is dynamic. How profound....lol

 

 

Statistics show that people who don't have a problem with something typically dont speak about it (even positively).

 

I wanted to make some profound mocking statement to "disagree". I am unable to do so. I am unable to comprehend the false logic and false understanding that content for games, are made instantaneously. The idea that content is created in only a couple of weeks, rather than the months it takes to make it, is completely lost on me.

[HKtheindomitable]

You are correct, this thread is getting damned difficult to read for all the broken record repeats from that one to any and all posts. Arguing for the sake of arguing. Actually we have two candidates of that sort in here.

 

 

At this point, nobody is going to say anything that wasn't said 3 or 4 times in the first 50 pages.

[olagatonjedi]

They (the players) find tolerable, the way it is right now, because bioware reverted ALL of the aspects that players hated about it, which was, mainly, the RNG factor being the PRIMARY source of endgame gearing.

It is now a superfluous means of gearing as each raid boss now drops specific gear pieces, and you can pick and choose with the UCs if you go the strictly pvp route. It took 6 months to a year, but they fixed ALL of the major mistakes about the new system that NO ONE wanted in the first place.

 

Now, they do another completely unwanted TOTAL revamp, changing an established system for no (publically) known reason, when all they had to do was make a couple of minor changes that, honestly, made sense with the server merges.

 

Implementing the small/medium/large "goal lines" for guilds to get the guild level rewards would have fixed any complaints about it being 'unfair' on how guilds got on the leaderboard.

And, if crafting bombs during crafting weeks were truly that big of a problem, and I don't see that they were, a weekly cap, per toon, of conquest points (similar to the reputation system), could have been implemented.

 

They didn't need to shift any objectives from one category to another, or make any other changes at all.

 

Whatever they rationale was for what we got in 5.8, they certainly "read the room wrong" with what we'd accept.

 

After sticking with the game for that 6-12 month period of them "fixing" the GC crates/gearing (since Musco wants to lump ALL of GC into one category saying it still 'works') no one wants to sit through ANOTHER 6 potential 6 month period for them to "fix" what they broke with 5.8.

The game is dynamic, and ever changing (for better or worse). If people have issues with that fundamental piece of MMOs, they are likely trying to play the wrong games. You are asking an MMO company to remove a piece of the foundation based on a few forum posts largely by the same vocal people. That's like Apple going open source because of all the android owners voicing their displeasure with the iOS. Oh wait, that already happened, and Apple didnt take the bait, and they are still doing ok.

[olagatonjedi]

 

At this point, nobody is going to say anything that wasn't said 3 or 4 times in the first 50 pages.

So true. Can be summed up as:

 

People it affected negatively want changes

People it doesn't affect are indifferent

People it helped are ok with the changes

And lots of people in between.....

With no macro-statistical evidence showing that one population truly has a leg to stand on.

[KendraP]

So true. Can be summed up as:

 

People it affected negatively want changes

People it doesn't affect are indifferent

People it helped are ok with the changes

And lots of people in between.....

With no macro-statistical evidence showing that one population truly has a leg to stand on.

 

The facts remain:

They deliberately left information out of the patch notes.

This was released buggy

It directly hurts those of us they are claiming to help

 

I can continue if you'd like, but I've beaten this horse enough already

[Solaece]

Why on EARTH are you asking US for input on what used to be repeatable and now is not.

 

Don't you KNOW?

 

Who MADE these ridiculous change anyway? Conquest needed a few MORE things to do not LESS.

 

OR could have just been left alone.

[Darevsool]

The game is dynamic, and ever changing (for better or worse). If people have issues with that fundamental piece of MMOs, they are likely trying to play the wrong games. You are asking an MMO company to remove a piece of the foundation based on a few forum posts largely by the same vocal people. That's like Apple going open source because of all the android owners voicing their displeasure with the iOS. Oh wait, that already happened, and Apple didnt take the bait, and they are still doing ok.

 

There's a difference between natural "dynamic" changes that occur over time and sudden sweeping changes that are, essentially, this game's version of SWG's infamous NGE (which caused massive negative player feedback for YEARS to come) where they lost a pretty substantial portion of their players/subscribers.

 

Don't forget, the ones who WANT the game to continue are here arguing about why these changes were bad. That 'vocal minority' you're railing against, if you're lumping me and TUX and the few others you're "debating" in that category, we're not doing that for fun. We're doing it in the hopes that people at bioware wake up and give an honest look at what happened to the game, as a whole because of these changes.

 

The ones who don't post and are irritated, they're already gone and most likely not coming back.

[megafirstone]

Folks, I'm begging, please stop feeding it. It's trolling of the worst type, and it's successfully buried the many valid points made in here.

 

Thank god for the ignore list. Olagatonjedi is the first that is on it

[TrixxieTriss]

Thank god for the ignore list. Olagatonjedi is the first that is on it

 

And I bet the the thread now looks so much smaller and less congested

[Lhancelot]

I mostly PVP. Came back after a long break, right before the conquest changes.

 

Before my break, I could queue lower level PVP and get a pop nearly any time of day. Back then, 65 and then 70 endgame queues also popped, it was mainly mids that were slower especially when the lvl cap got bumped up to 70.

 

Now, lowbies won't pop till midday EST time, mids start even later, and 70s are popping frequently pretty much any time of the day.

 

This is bad. This indicates less people are creating new toons and PVPing when the entry bracket is dead, or players simply understand there is nothing to gain by partaking lower tier PVP.

 

These conquest changes only reinforce this gaming behavior. It is counter productive to discourage players from playing alts, period.

 

I never cared about completing conquest goals personally in the past, it was a neat bonus when it happened and always surprised me TBH, but I can see how detrimental these changes are directly to my gaming experience because less people on alts means less people PVPing.

 

I can only surmise if people are discouraged from doing OPs on alts, crafting on alts, etc., well then many different facets of the game as well as many different types of players too are affected in a negative fashion by these conquest changes.

 

Incentives should be granted not taken away from players on SWTOR regarding Alts and players who like to play many different toons. Options and choices are good!

 

No one likes less options and gameplay choices on a game because restrictions force a certain style of play and this directly pigeonholes the game to a much smaller audience who may enjoy the restrictive gameplay created...

 

How is this hard to understand?

[Keta]

And I bet the the thread now looks so much smaller and less congested

 

Much. Some pages are remarkably short too.

[deizer]

The Conquest system is based around Legacy, so it looks like this:

• Repeatable - Infinitely repeatable on anyone
  
• Daily Repeatable - Once per day, per Legacy
  
• One-time - Can be completed one time, per Legacy, per Conquest
  

 

I think what you are trying to do is get away from last boss lockouts to do this you could change your conquest to give points for all the bosses say each operation boss is work a base of 250 so with a 150% bonus from the housing you would get 375 per boss say the operation for the day is EV you would have 5 bosses so each boss would give you 375 so if you did a full run you would get 1875 which would be fair and you would be able to repeat on your other toons which would allow for alts but at the same time not give you 8k conquest for a 1 boss fight still would be a grind to get to 15k every week but would make the alts useful again. Maybe do a one time for the last boss that was worth a base of 2000 that could only be done once per week per operation so every last boss would be a one time each week to give a little extra to help us achieve the 15k conquest and help make it viable to do pve to get conquest.

 

Also would it be possible to maybe have a discussion with some of the guild leaders on star forge maybe the top 5-10 guilds and talk about some possible changes that we can see on our end I think that it would be beneficial for both sides I know I have noticed that since the changes I have had a lot of guild members unsubscribe and I think this is a concern for you as well as some of our guilds. You can Email me to this account the email is on the account you can find it and I can get something set up I know that we have talked with a lot of the guilds and they are wanting to talk with you. I want to make the talks friendly and not something where people will bite your head off. let me know what you think I am around my email all day so should get it if you email me.

[PennyAnn]

I posted this in the "conquest feedback" thread that is now 97 pages long, 963 replies and has seen little to no response in terms of fixing any of the real problems that have been listed in that feedback. However, here are some numbers from last week's conquest, "Total Galactic War" (of 3 planets):

 

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.

 

.

 

I realize that it doesn't much matter to anyone but us that my guild is not participating in conquest any longer. But 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.

 

But it's a dozen more people that won't be queueing for PvP, GSF, or any other Group Finder activities, because the one and only reason we did that (and repeated old content that way) was for conquest.

 

We don't even merit explanation about why the crafting schematics were changed, just a generalization of the crafting being "too good" in their estimation. We don't merit an explanation about why they changed formerly repeatable objectives into once per legacy objectives, but act like they were always that way. They weren't.

 

At this point, they are dangerously close to not meriting my sub money - paid faithfully to them every single month without fail since December 20, 2011.

 

The one thing that was keeping me interested in the game while waiting for new content is ruined. Many in my guild feel the same way and have unsubbed. I can't speak for anybody outside of my circle, but I suspect a lot of guilds are facing similar situations.

 

The most sad part of all of this is that the feedback is all here. It is all laid out right in front of them. And they are not taking any of it. As such, I will quit trying to give it, even though it was asked for, requested, and got my hopes up that it was actually wanted. Fool me once...

 

.

[Dougvj]

Not sure that this is the best place for this, but just wanted to give my feedback on Death Mark, which just started.

 

While there are some really interesting, and probably cool changes with the addition of Bounty Week to the list of objectives, and some other unique ones, the fact that Heroics have become a daily (and thus once per legacy) objective is insanely stupid. I'm not sure whose idea it was to make this move, but they are an idiot.

 

I have tried to be positive about most changes that have come in this game, giving constructive criticism where I could, and have largely liked how BW has addressed problems as they arose, but this is just unbelievable. I don't understand how any group of people sitting at a conference table discussing possible changes to the system could have thought that players would be fine with changing heroics to being only able to get points from one heroic per day. Heroics were the meat and potatoes of conquest and kept players engaged throughout the day. This is the dumbest change I have seen to the conquest system thus far, and probably the most punishing to alts.

 

I really don't care what tier of points you put them at, but Heroics need to be infinitely repeatable!

[olagatonjedi]

Not sure that this is the best place for this, but just wanted to give my feedback on Death Mark, which just started.

 

While there are some really interesting, and probably cool changes with the addition of Bounty Week to the list of objectives, and some other unique ones, the fact that Heroics have become a daily (and thus once per legacy) objective is insanely stupid. I'm not sure whose idea it was to make this move, but they are an idiot.

Welcome to the conversation. Please explain why its bad for conquest?

Edited April 3, 2018 by olagatonjedi

[Lhancelot]

Welcome to the conversation. Please explain why its bad for conquest?

 

He explained why in his first post.

 

I think your zeal in wanting to start an argument with someone critical of the new conquest system interrupted your comprehension or willingness to read everything he wrote.

[Darevsool]

Not sure that this is the best place for this, but just wanted to give my feedback on Death Mark, which just started.

 

While there are some really interesting, and probably cool changes with the addition of Bounty Week to the list of objectives, and some other unique ones, the fact that Heroics have become a daily (and thus once per legacy) objective is insanely stupid. I'm not sure whose idea it was to make this move, but they are an idiot.

 

I have tried to be positive about most changes that have come in this game, giving constructive criticism where I could, and have largely liked how BW has addressed problems as they arose, but this is just unbelievable. I don't understand how any group of people sitting at a conference table discussing possible changes to the system could have thought that players would be fine with changing heroics to being only able to get points from one heroic per day. Heroics were the meat and potatoes of conquest and kept players engaged throughout the day. This is the dumbest change I have seen to the conquest system thus far, and probably the most punishing to alts.

 

I really don't care what tier of points you put them at, but Heroics need to be infinitely repeatable!

 

It's not JUST that "heroics" are now once per legacy per day, it's that it is ONE heroic per legacy per day.

[streunekatze]

Well with the new week of conquest I still have no drive to do conquest... it just isn't fun anymore. And now only one h2 per day counts to conquest points.

Master Flashpoints take forever to open, even as a tank.

It's getting sad and depressive to me.

 

Well I started a new char doing a dark playthrough, it's more fun.

Edited April 3, 2018 by streunekatze

[Dougvj]

Welcome to the conversation. Please explain why its bad for conquest?

 

As stated in my first post, this both reduces participation in content (heroics) and punishes those trying to do conquest with alts. Unfortunately, with the current changes, the only way to get repeatable points for conquest is through group content that takes far longer than solo content, reducing the number of points that someone can make in a reasonable amount of time. Even the longest of planetary missions (all or most heroics on a single world) takes only 15 or so minutes.

 

By eliminating, or severely restricting, solo content for conquest, the developers have effectively said, 'we don't want you to be able to make your conquest points on more than a couple of characters.'

[NeoBlakkrstal]

Hey folks,

 

With the 5.8a Conquest changes out the door, let’s talk about what we have planned for 5.9. We hope to address concerns over the viability of completing Conquests on alts, points for crafting, and ability to run Operations more frequently. We are going to address this through a few different changes:

• Increasing points gains for Objectives for repeatable and daily repeatable Objectives.
  
• An additional buff for GSF, Warzone, and Flashpoint Participation Objectives.
  
  • The “Play a Flashpoint” Objective is being changed to “Play a Flashpoint or Uprising.”
    

  [*]The “Kill X Enemies” Daily Objective will now be split into three Objectives. Kill 50 / 100 / 150. Additionally, progress on this Objective will not reset everyday (if you killed 40 enemies, it won’t reset back to 0).

  [*]We are going to introduce a new repeatable Daily Objective for completing 3 and 5 Activity Finder Activities (FP, Op, WZ, GSF, Uprising).

  [*]We are introducing a new Daily Repeatable Objective to “Defeat the Final Boss in an Operation.”

  [*]We are introducing a new repeatable Objective for “Craft 50 items."

  • This Objective gives another path for crafters to earn points and is also a mechanism for characters of any level to participate. We will monitor the number of items required to craft closely and will make changes in the future if it is too high, or too low.
    

 

 

The goal of these changes is that if you complete the bigger value one-time Objectives on a given character, you have a lot more ability to earn points via repeatable Objectives. Not only are there more Objectives to work towards, they are worth more points as well. One of our goals is to encourage that you play multiple types of content and so that will always remain the most optimal path to Conquest points. However, these changes will allow a player to more easily get their Conquest points even if they just play one type of content on repeat.

 

As always, keep your feedback coming! We will continue to monitor the state of Conquests and make changes as needed. Thanks everyone.

 

-eric

 

Detailed breakdown of changes:

 

Each Objective falls into one of three categories: Repeatable, Daily Repeatable, and One-time. Inside of each category, there are three point tiers: low, medium and high. Here are the new values (these are base values, without including Stronghold bonus).

 

Repeatable

• Low is now 120, up from 85
  
• Medium is now 180, up from 130
  
• High is now 290, up from 205
  

 

Daily

• Low is now 400, up from 330
  
• Medium is now 600, up from 500
  
• High is now 825, up from 750
  

 

Repeatable Objective Changes

• Complete a Warzone Objective is now worth 180, up from 85
  
• Complete a GSF Match Objective is now worth 180, up from 85
  
• Complete a FP or Uprising is now worth 290, up from 130
  

 

New Objectives

• The “Kill 50 enemies” Daily Objective will be worth 400 points
  
• The “Kill 100 enemies” Daily Objective will be worth 600 points
  
• The “Kill 150 enemies” Daily Objective will be worth 825 points
  
• The “Complete 3 Activity Finder Activities” Daily Objective will be worth 400 points
  
• The “Complete 5 Activity Finder Activities” Daily Objective will be worth 825 points
  
• The “Kill the Final Boss of an Operation” Daily Objective will be worth 825 points
  
• The “Craft 50 Items” Repeatable Objective will be worth 120 points
  

 

PS - Usual disclaimer that these could change prior to 5.9, but I will let you know of any updates I hear.

 

These changes don't even scratch the surface. The point totals are still waaaaay too low. When personal is 15K, once the large, and by large I mean 1000+, objectives are gone, it makes it nearly impossible to get alts to goal. It becomes a grind of low point objectives that keep you from getting more than 1 or 2 alts to goal without spending an incredible amount of time each day grinding away. Give us more high point repeatable objectives if you are truly interested in making conquest more alt friendly.

[NeoBlakkrstal]

By eliminating, or severely restricting, solo content for conquest, the developers have effectively said, 'we don't want you to be able to make your conquest points on more than a couple of characters.'

 

Sure seems that way, doesn't it.