Conquest Changes in Game Update 5.9

[Costello]

You did insinuate it.

 

 

Don't expect someone to accept your opinion if you won't accept theirs. Don't become like He Who Won't Be Mentioned and criticize others opinions and views. Their feedback is just as valid as yours whether you agree with it or not. Somewhere there has to be a middle ground where most can be satisfied.

 

To be clear that was posed as question as to the better system. A system that rewards 30 people for an activity over 1 with many alts. Hence why I prefixed it with 'is it not a better system' then gave two hypotheticals. I never even suggested that sitting in a dark room was a bad thing or was inferior to being in a room full of friend and family in a well lit room. Personally when I'm in a room with friends and family my focus isn't on conquest in a computer game, but thats just me. I find it rude enough when someone checks their facebook page when I'm at the pub with them. So I think if you are cycling through 30 alts to do conquest its best done when you are alone.

 

As for meeting half way, I have fully agreed that the development team has made a number of mistakes in 2017/18. But I can see some merit in these changes to make guild conquest about players and guilds as opposed to alts, likewise to have a hope of a better conquest the system has to be balanced in a way that active participation is better than afk crafting or afk pvp. While rewards have to be inline with how easy they are to obtain so if the system allows you to get 50 rewards each week one on each alt for afk crafting then the reward will be inline with that. While if it takes time and effort to get 1 reward then it can be made more meaningful and brought up to date with the new augment crafting materials. While I seldom quote other people or feel the need to try and belittle their posts or use FACTS or give other people FACTS which are just my opinion.

Edited April 18, 2018 by Costello

[PorsaLindahl]

Thanks a lot for the hint, but quite frankly: I consider that an exploit and don't want to go down that path (I knew the "login-reset"-bug).

 

And the legitimate way of getting points to finish conquest on a char IS a chore and requires planning and thought on which task to do when with which char, which in my book is a disgrace. So like the previous poster (@PorsaLindahl) also explained: it should always only be an exception that me playing char1 has an impact on char2. So the "once per day per legacy" is crap.

 

I agree.

 

I recently posted that I refuse to report bugs like that, even if they are advantageous. But it doesn't mean that I took advantage of them because, to me at least, it is exploiting the system no matter how buggy it is. I guess I'm too honest.

[PorsaLindahl]

To be clear that was posed as question as to the better system.

 

I can understand that. But if you read what you posted from another perspective, it could be interpreted the way PennyAnn interpreted it. Maybe she did take it a little personal. She's pretty passionate about it. That's why I said that it was insinuated - even if it was in a vague sense.

[masterceil]

Re: Costello's argument, I don't think it should be mains vs alts or whatever, but more man-hours invested into Conquest during Conquest. The event lasts 144 hours - Tuesday to Monday. But say your thirty people only put one hour of work into Conquest apiece, and your solo player with 30 alts puts in six hours per day. I would indeed think the person putting 36 hours into it ought take the reward over that other guild that put 30 hours into it. Of course, if that medium-sized guild's players are each willing to put in the kind of work as the one solo guy, their collective 1,080 man-hours would of course blow the guy out of the water, as it should be.

 

I mentioned the total possible hours of Conquest because that's also a factor - I never liked efforts taken outside of the actual Conquest window counting towards the goal. Players defending their efforts in Craftquest will talk about the countless hours they spent each week for many weeks/months gathering mats and crafting Bonded Attachments. They're putting in more than the 144 hours of work and front-loading hundreds of thousands or millions of points to drop in the first few hours of Conquest, which I never thought was fair at all. If there were a way to stop that front-loading of effort, I wouldn't've had a complaint against it. I just believe that Conquest should be something that players vie for within that 144-hour window, not have that 144 hours in addition to the 500 hours they spent in the preceding weeks.

 

Of course, not everybody will agree with that notion. But I've kind of gone off on a tangent. . . TL;DR: It's about the man-hours spent in Conquest, not the bodies in meatspace.

[PorsaLindahl]

Re: Costello's argument, I don't think it should be mains vs alts or whatever, but more man-hours invested into Conquest during Conquest. The event lasts 144 hours - Tuesday to Monday. But say your thirty people only put one hour of work into Conquest apiece, and your solo player with 30 alts puts in six hours per day. I would indeed think the person putting 36 hours into it ought take the reward over that other guild that put 30 hours into it. Of course, if that medium-sized guild's players are each willing to put in the kind of work as the one solo guy, their collective 1,080 man-hours would of course blow the guy out of the water, as it should be.

 

I mentioned the total possible hours of Conquest because that's also a factor - I never liked efforts taken outside of the actual Conquest window counting towards the goal. Players defending their efforts in Craftquest will talk about the countless hours they spent each week for many weeks/months gathering mats and crafting Bonded Attachments. They're putting in more than the 144 hours of work and front-loading hundreds of thousands or millions of points to drop in the first few hours of Conquest, which I never thought was fair at all. If there were a way to stop that front-loading of effort, I wouldn't've had a complaint against it. I just believe that Conquest should be something that players vie for within that 144-hour window, not have that 144 hours in addition to the 500 hours they spent in the preceding weeks.

 

Of course, not everybody will agree with that notion. But I've kind of gone off on a tangent. . . TL;DR: It's about the man-hours spent in Conquest, not the bodies in meatspace.

 

I agree with this completely. I've even stated that all they had to do to combat the frontloading craft bombs was to just put a daily cap on it instead of being infinitely repeatable. It wouldn't stop the frontloading, but it would definitely reduce those bombs of millions of points in the first half hour to a couple of thousand.

Edited April 18, 2018 by PorsaLindahl

[masterceil]

I agree with this completely. I've even stated that all they had to do to combat the frontloading craft bombs was to just put a daily cap on it instead of being infinitely repeatable. It wouldn't stop the frontloading, but it would definitely reduce those millions of points in a half hour to a couple of thousand.

 

Yeah, I'd've been fine with, say, Daily objectives of like one Invasion Force, one Dark Project, 5-10 War Supplies, whatever. But bombs of 80 IFs dropped by 20 alts was just ridiculous.

 

I think limiting them to Daily Objectives like that would actually be better than making War Supplies obnoxiously difficult/expensive to craft. I like to think most Craftquesters would agree.

[PorsaLindahl]

Yeah, I'd've been fine with, say, Daily objectives of like one Invasion Force, one Dark Project, 5-10 War Supplies, whatever. But bombs of 80 IFs dropped by 20 alts was just ridiculous.

 

I think limiting them to Daily Objectives like that would actually be better than making War Supplies obnoxiously difficult/expensive to craft. I like to think most Craftquesters would agree.

 

Not only difficult and expensive, but the changes make it so that only master crafters can do them. Anyone still leveling their crew skills got screwed over because they lack the skill to craft the higher tiered components (bonded attachments, cell grafts, etc.) and now have to purchase them, if they want to craft for conquest.

[olagatonjedi]

all my toons are in my guild. I'm a loyal person. I don't go running off to the biggest baddest thing in town. I have my friends and I play with them. If we win, it's as a team. Not because I was futless and ran off to the big guilds. Thus capping my alts doesn't limit our ceiling, because they're all in the same guild.

Obviously if they are in the same guild, it doesnt cap their ceiling, so let's stay within context. That should've been a given.

 

I don't understand the original question. Just as larger guilds = better chance of winning; more playtime = more toons capped or points gained ASSUMING you put the effort in.

True, as it should be.....to a limit. In the new system, because of the substantial point reductions for many objectives, a player who only contributes with his main toon is limited in how high they can get . This allows competition to remain closer to each other. Will there be outliers? Of course, but now they are few and far between when compared to the old system.

 

So now the goal of alt limitations isn't to keep individuals who took the time and effort to level and equip them from "exploiting," but to keep people from contributing to multiple guilds eh.

I've said this from the start. The alt limitation serves multiple purposes, with those two being at the forefront.

 

I find it an expression of desire to achieve easily over desire to be loyal to the guild personally, but if people cap multiple toons in different guilds, again, it's not hurting your efforts in any way.

It hurts all the competition. But in the new system, the hurt is much less because alt production is limited. Every point that's accumulated affects the competition and placement within the top 10.

 

What are you even getting at with point 2? are we trying to compare dps numbers with conquest caps? dps is damage done PER SECOND. Why don't we try to compute conquest points done per second of playtime? This is just a completely illogical point.

The notion people keep making in favor of alt-use. A small, but vocal number of the population feels 1 person with 30 alts should be capable of manufacturing the conquest productivity of 30 individual players. Basically a guild of 1 person being able to beat a guild of 30. That ratio would be equivalent to 30vs1 in a pvp match. Or 30v1 sustained damage production. In a balanced world/game/event, that should never even be possible, in my common opinion.

[olagatonjedi]

You are making a whole lot of assumptions here, and are pretty much dead wrong about what playing alts looks like. If people are putting in the effort to play that many characters, how is it unfair? Just because you don't have as many alts? If you put the time and effort into leveling them and equipping them and getting them to the point they are able to contribute to conquest (especially crafting, which includes leveling companions) then you should absolutely be able to make use of the work you put into accomplishing that. I wouldn't stop anyone else from being able to do that because I could do it myself. You just choose not to, but that's not anybody else's fault but your own. It's not anybody else's choice but your own. But you are looking to punish people for the choices that YOU made. If you want to talk about unfair, THAT is unfair.

There aren't tiers of alt-play to separate someone with 50 alts from someone with 0 alts. People can't go back in time to create the same kingdom you have, and this game isn't a turn based strategy game, so why can't conquest be based on an equal foundation of primary toon vs primary toon? Oh wait, now it is, which is a positive, balanced change

 

Even so, here's a FACT for you: We had whole groups of people playing alts to win planets for our small guild. It was the only way to compete. We sat in well lit rooms, with our families, laughing, having a good time and PLAYING THE GAME. We played it a lot. We loved it. We supported the game with multiple accounts, cartel purchases, and felt it was well worth our investment. But not anymore.

The way you helped support the game is not the only way people can help the game. Things changed. If you truly appreciate the game and want it to continue, you will find a different way to support it. If not, you dont have to. There are a lot of people who find ways to contribute to whatever cause they support that is different than what they are used to.

[olagatonjedi]

My major gripe(s) about it right now are:

 

1. Once per day, per legacy.
   
2. Points so low that it's become a grind.
   
3. Having to schedule which character(s) I play because of the legacy locks. Not being able to do what I want to do with alts because it may interfere with my character(s) that I've "assigned" for conquest.
   
4. Weeklies should not be legacy locked. If I have the time, and put for the effort to complete those weekly missions, then each and every character that I complete them with should get credit, not just "the first one across the finish line."
   
5. Heroics - one mission from the list per day/per legacy. These need to be reverted back to all missions/daily for all characters.
   

 

I have 37 characters. There were some weeks that I had some extra time and completed 8 characters. I never did more than 10, and only did 10 on one occasion. I never had to worry about if playing character 18 would interfere with character 5.

 

I used to PvP with 6 characters, and played whichever depending on my mood. Now it's down to 1 character if I can even be bothered to even log in and play anymore.

What's wrong with only one toon doing conquest and the rest of your time you do whatever you want, not limiting yourself to only conquest events?

[olagatonjedi]

Somewhere there has to be a middle ground where most can be satisfied.

5.8 and 5.9 is the middle ground

[olagatonjedi]

Re: Costello's argument, I don't think it should be mains vs alts or whatever, but more man-hours invested into Conquest during Conquest. The event lasts 144 hours - Tuesday to Monday. But say your thirty people only put one hour of work into Conquest apiece, and your solo player with 30 alts puts in six hours per day. I would indeed think the person putting 36 hours into it ought take the reward over that other guild that put 30 hours into it. Of course, if that medium-sized guild's players are each willing to put in the kind of work as the one solo guy, their collective 1,080 man-hours would of course blow the guy out of the water, as it should be.

I think BW is smart enough to know the game should take effort, but not be required to be a part-time or full time job.

[Costello]

What's wrong with only one toon doing conquest and the rest of your time you do whatever you want, not limiting yourself to only conquest events?

 

This is kind of where I see it.

 

Maybe its my age, maybe its spending far too many hours at work and other household related activities, which I suspect is similar to many and in no way makes my situation unique. I suspect many people playing given the age of Star Wars and this MMO have jobs and other demands on their time.

 

So from a solely personal view, not in anyway suggesting I speak for anyone but myself, I like the idea that conquest is meaningful activity that has a decentish reward at the end. I don't think the reward at the moment is sufficient, other people do and I am only speaking for myself. I think maybe the rewards were set at the level they were is because if you can get them on 50 alts each week and offered the same reward as say the ranked pvp weekly, pvpers may feel their effort wasn't rewarded as much as it should be.

 

I also rightly or wrong prefer that it has a finite level of contribution by players. I am not in anyway suggesting that its wrong if you want to spend 144 hours a week in game, if you want to spend all that time crafting or sitting afk in PVP warzones, its your game your time your right to play how you want. I don't feel that conquest should be a second job where you come home from work and then start cycling through alts to grind out points.

 

In no way do I think people should not be allowed to treat the game like a second job if they want, if they want to sit around crafting war supplies or running 30 different alts through heroics each week they should. If they found that fun they should be allowed to do that as much as they want. But if its not fun and you don't want to do it and only did it cause of the conquest grind so you could compete against other people that were only doing it because of the conquest grind. Which if that is the case the new conquest system frees people up to play what they find fun and not what the conquest grind tells them they have to.

Edited April 18, 2018 by Costello

[NHBabe]

What's wrong with only one toon doing conquest and the rest of your time you do whatever you want, not limiting yourself to only conquest events?

 

The main issue with only having one of your characters being able to do or make conquest comes down to multiple factors:

 

1) Group activities: OPs, FPs, Uprisings. There are many "elitists" out there that won't take a Gunnery/Arsenal or DPS Sage/Sorcs. People that have those as their main characters are now locked out of many activities and those are the ones that show up on conquest every week. Which particular one changes, but those actual activities are almost on every conquest week.

 

2) What is the bonus for Command that particular day? Is it a group activity like OPs, FP, Uprisings? If so, which class receives the bonus? Is it looking for healers, DPS, Tanks????

 

With the way they've now set-up conquest, and with the class balance changes that happened, BW has made it quite hard for many to actual participate in these group activities. I've seen many people creating Scoundrel/Operatives even though they dislike playing that class because then they could at least use those characters as their main conquest character. If a healer is wanted, they swap to the healing spec. If a DPS is wanted, they swap to Ruffian/Lethality. The end result is people are being forced, and yes they are FORCED if they want to make conquest, into rolling characters they dislike just so they can keep their options open when it comes to group activities. Many will blame it on the "elitist" group but the end result is BW nerfed the DPS specs that fall within the healing tree on Sage/Sorc/Trooper/Mercenary but left Scoundrel/Operative alone. They now stand near the top of the DPS list and still heal just as well as the other two classes.

[PorsaLindahl]

Wow. Seriously? 5 posts back to back. Talk about spam. Glad I don't have to see all the nonsense I'm sure is hidden behind the ignore.

[masterceil]

Many will blame it on the "elitist" group but the end result is BW nerfed the DPS specs that fall within the healing tree on Sage/Sorc/Trooper/Mercenary but left Scoundrel/Operative alone. They now stand near the top of the DPS list and still heal just as well as the other two classes.

 

Scoundrel main here, that's just not true. Scoundrels were nerfed like most other DPS classes.Top parses on a Scoundrel right now is a Ruffian that puts the class third on the board when sorted for max and average on a 2.5mil dummy. In 5.3, top Scoundrel parse was about 11.4k, with average over 9.9k (I personally could do about 10.2k). Now, top is about 10.9k, average a bit over 9.8k (I can do about 10k when RNGsus smiles on me).

 

Ruffian/Lethality is still one of the top classes, but is only 3.45% above overall averaged DPS, rather than the 8.11% it used to be - a pretty massive normalizing nerf. AS/IO used to be 1.19% over the average, Gunnery/Arsenal were at -7.73%, Balance/Madness at -4.61%, and TK/Lightning at -5.47%. Right now, AS/IO is the average, Gunnery Arsenal dipped to -8.97%, Balance/Madness came up a little to -3.95%, and TK/Lightning also dropped, to -6.62%.

 

BW's stated goals were for Sustained Melee classes to do 5% more damage than their baseline 'target DPS' - Ruffian/Lethality is actually below that goal. Ranged Sustained were supposed to be at the target, so AS/IO is where it ought to be. Sages/Sorcs are indeed still screwed, and Ranged Burst was supposed to be 5% below the target, so those two specs are also underperforming.

 

TL;DR: Scoundrels/Operatives were nerfed, not "left alone". Melee is supposed to outperform Ranged (according to BioWare), which Ruffian/Lethality does, but that's no different than pre-5.4 nerfs. Which Ruffian/Lethality were a part of.

 

Also, Sawbones is easily the weakest of the three healers when it comes to burst. Sustained healing is decent (not stupidly OP), but that's not gonna keep a Tank alive while they're getting bent over by NiM Raptus or whatever.

[ivanhedgehog]

1)

3) Operations should be once per character per day. (anything else is unacceptable) and this is coming from someone who never once did lockouts. I'd say make the Operation be fully completed however. To get credit you must kill every boss in the operation.

 

If you put those restrictions, there will be no backfilling. why in the world would I join an in progress raid if I wont get the points? why would I switch to a different character(say a healer) to help the team? would they stop people that backfill pvp matches from getting points?

[KendraP]

Obviously if they are in the same guild, it doesnt cap their ceiling, so let's stay within context. That should've been a given.

That was my context, from my vantage point the new system is far more hurtful than helpful, BECAUSE I'm a small guild, which js supposedly who they were trying to help.

 

Personally i think that is all ******** to appease the crowd and (tinfoil hat moment) much of the aggravation is to increase credit sinks at least partly due to the exploit a few months ago.

 

I run a guild. All my mats and half the credits i earn go to the guild. Ergo, I am jot a rich player. I am fine with that - provided I have a way to do everything I need to for my guildies (the overwhelming majority of whom are hardworking professionals with real lives and families thst do not necessarily have the time to devote 10 hours a day to the game).

 

Since I do have 4 hours a day I am willing to devote to the gsme, I spend much of that time attempting to make my friends' playtime fun, productive, and enjoyable.

 

True, as it should be.....to a limit. In the new system, because of the substantial point reductions for many objectives, a player who only contributes with his main toon is limited in how high they can get . This allows competition to remain closer to each other. Will there be outliers? Of course, but now they are few and far between when compared to the old system.

The players who used to play alts are even more limited in how much we can get, as the spam repeatable objectives are utter nonsense. 300-something points for a Lost Island? How many pugs are even capable of finishing 1 LI... much less 47.

 

And seeing as there are 3 guilds on SS who managed to cap the larger planets last week... I'm going with large guild domination is unchanged or worse - since small guilds can not make up the difference in alts any more.

 

I've said this from the start. The alt limitation serves multiple purposes, with those two being at the forefront.

 

It hurts all the competition. But in the new system, the hurt is much less because alt production is limited. Every point that's accumulated affects the competition and placement within the top 10.

 

This is a player choice plain and simple. They choose which toons and guilds they wish to help. I have guildies who have toons in other guilds. By your logic I shoukd be refusing to play with them since they are helping the competition? (The character I have in mind is one of the ones I mentioned that wants achievements... so he has a toon in one of the larger guilds that came from harby).

 

The notion people keep making in favor of alt-use. A small, but vocal number of the population feels 1 person with 30 alts should be capable of manufacturing the conquest productivity of 30 individual players. Basically a guild of 1 person being able to beat a guild of 30. That ratio would be equivalent to 30vs1 in a pvp match. Or 30v1 sustained damage production. In a balanced world/game/event, that should never even be possible, in my common opinion.

 

If that one person puts in the effort of 30 people, then yes he should get the same reward for that effort. Both before and now, large guilds are utterly dominating, so i hardly see alts as the unbalancing factor. Guild size helps, alts should too. Win by sheer numbers or win by force of exertion, plain and simple. The pvp reference is entirely unfair as (if we insist on making ludicrous arguments for whatever reason) conquest is by nature dependent on sheer numbers - its more akin to running around tattoine trying to kill the other faction. These fights are rarely fair - more often its 8 of one faction gimping some poor lowbie who ended up in the wrong instance somehow.

 

There aren't tiers of alt-play to separate someone with 50 alts from someone with 0 alts. People can't go back in time to create the same kingdom you have, and this game isn't a turn based strategy game, so why can't conquest be based on an equal foundation of primary toon vs primary toon? Oh wait, now it is, which is a positive, balanced change

A large part of swtor has always been encouraging alt play. There are 8 stories to see. The DvL event encouraged those of us who already had a **** ton of alts to make more of them. Even playing the same class a second or third time can feel fundamentally different depending on the choices you make.

 

Considering how much a part of the swtor mindset alts are, I think alts ahould be a contributing factor at least as much as having a large guild.

 

Again more people = more conquest; more alts should mean more conquest, provided in both instances people take the time to do it.

 

Or if we insist on removing alts as a factor (which i personally do not think they should, as alts are strongly encouraged in this game) do as others have suggested and offer rewards in increments of the cap. Then I can deal with it and the single toon players are appeased. Again though, alts have always been a strongly encouraged part of swtor; nerfing them now is the epitome of stupid just as it was with galatic command.

 

The way you helped support the game is not the only way people can help the game. Things changed. If you truly appreciate the game and want it to continue, you will find a different way to support it. If not, you dont have to. There are a lot of people who find ways to contribute to whatever cause they support that is different than what they are used to.

Heres the thing- we are the customers here. If THEY want to keep our support, it THEY want us to continue to desire to keep the game alive, the responsibility for motivating us to stay is at least partially on THEM.

 

I personally, and I am sure many in this discussion, do still contribute (to conquest and everything else). We are unhappy about what has happened and are expressing our opinion and desired changes and questioning THEIR motivation. For us, it is fundamentally a fun time activity - it is their JOB.

 

What's wrong with only one toon doing conquest and the rest of your time you do whatever you want, not limiting yourself to only conquest events?

 

Conquest is, as I have said, a strategy used to motivate players to play certain things. For certain of us conquest is the only reason to do certain activities. This is why I find the decision to limit conquest activities so dumb. Sure flashpoints and bonuses were busier than ever last week... try getting into an Op or PvP.

 

And whats further, to help my guild I need to cap alts. I have to get more points than others because i consider it my responsibility as a leader to lead from the front as it were, and because many of them are simply unable to due to limited play time. Thus, the responsibility for funding guild activities falls lsrgely to me. I have never and will never require gifts for guild membership or that people cap toons to join me. I think they should WANT to contribute because I create a friendly, fun, and welcoming environment for all.

 

To bad BW cant seem to grasp this ideology.

 

This is kind of where I see it.

 

Maybe its my age, maybe its spending far too many hours at work and other household related activities, which I suspect is similar to many and in no way makes my situation unique. I suspect many people playing given the age of Star Wars and this MMO have jobs and other demands on their time.

 

Thats the thing - this directly hurts people like you in particular. Before my friends that enjoy logging in to play pvp for maybe an hour or two could enjoy it and probably contribute by capping at least their main toon.

 

Now? Hahahaha they got screwed because they don't have the 4 hours a day I do.

 

For the record I do have a full time job, just not many familial demands, so I'm around SS from 7-11 pacific.

 

So from a solely personal view, not in anyway suggesting I speak for anyone but myself, I like the idea that conquest is meaningful activity that has a decentish reward at the end. I don't think the reward at the moment is sufficient, other people do and I am only speaking for myself. I think maybe the rewards were set at the level they were is because if you can get them on 50 alts each week and offered the same reward as say the ranked pvp weekly, pvpers may feel their effort wasn't rewarded as much as it should be.

I think we all want conquest to be meaningful with a decentish reward. The biggest conquest reward for alts are encryptions for guild ship expansions. And since this directly hurts the ability of my members to cap toons AND the ability of me to cap alts, it has cut encryption gathering by probably well over half. Possibly as high as 3/4. Its taken me over a year to get this far, under the old system. Now that its me and maybe my one buddy? Whos to say if it will ever happen.

 

I also rightly or wrong prefer that it has a finite level of contribution by players. I am not in anyway suggesting that its wrong if you want to spend 144 hours a week in game, if you want to spend all that time crafting or sitting afk in PVP warzones, its your game your time your right to play how you want. I don't feel that conquest should be a second job where you come home from work and then start cycling through alts to grind out points.

 

And this is what bothers me most. Under the old system it wasn't a grind. By and large, if you just wanted rewards, you could play how you wanted and get there.

 

You're a PvPer? Do pvp, it got reasonable returns.

 

You're an ops player? Do ops, you get conquest for every toon you bring through.

 

Now? Hahaha **** you unless you play how we think you should.

 

In no way do I think people should not be allowed to treat the game like a second job if they want, if they want to sit around crafting war supplies or running 30 different alts through heroics each week they should. If they found that fun they should be allowed to do that as much as they want. But if its not fun and you don't want to do it and only did it cause of the conquest grind so you could compete against other people that were only doing it because of the conquest grind. Which if that is the case the new conquest system frees people up to play what they find fun and not what the conquest grind tells them they have to.

 

Most frequently in the old system, as the guild leader of a small pvp guild from harby, the evening would find me running warzones with the crew while running heroics between matches. This worked well - gsve conquest, funded the guild, everything.

 

Now? Its grindier than ever. To have a chance at so much as encryptions, I HAVE to encourage the grind. Rather than organizing a pvp group for my friends who enjoy it, im begging them to go run a eyeless kill because thats what we need for conquest. And oh? Do you still have time, we can go find this wandering boss in the rakghould tunnel and kill it for more conquest. Oh, you wanted to PvP? I realize you're on limited time so go ahead, but im going to stay here and try to find this boss so we get some encryptions somehow this week.

 

In other words, the changes directly hurt people like you far more than those of us here being the loudest.

Edited April 18, 2018 by KendraP

[masterceil]

If you put those restrictions, there will be no backfilling. why in the world would I join an in progress raid if I wont get the points? why would I switch to a different character(say a healer) to help the team? would they stop people that backfill pvp matches from getting points?

 

Why I'd prefer the solution to be to take the 3,000 points you get for GF Ops now and split it up amongst the 4-7 bosses. Make it something like: Group Finder: Operations (Repeatable, 600 CP) Defeat one boss from the daily Group Finder: Operation.

Explosive Conflict would only be worth 2,400 to Scum and Villainy's 4,200, but nobody likes EC anyway

 

Another solution that would likely be more difficult to implement would be to make each Operations boss a Daily objective for 600 CP or whatever. Once across your legacy, backfillers still get some points, and people that couldn't finish an op for whatever reason, but could do 3-4 bosses still get something for their efforts.

[NHBabe]

Scoundrel main here, that's just not true. Scoundrels were nerfed like most other DPS classes.Top parses on a Scoundrel right now is a Ruffian that puts the class third on the board when sorted for max and average on a 2.5mil dummy. In 5.3, top Scoundrel parse was about 11.4k, with average over 9.9k (I personally could do about 10.2k). Now, top is about 10.9k, average a bit over 9.8k (I can do about 10k when RNGsus smiles on me).

 

Ruffian/Lethality is still one of the top classes, but is only 3.45% above overall averaged DPS, rather than the 8.11% it used to be - a pretty massive normalizing nerf. AS/IO used to be 1.19% over the average, Gunnery/Arsenal were at -7.73%, Balance/Madness at -4.61%, and TK/Lightning at -5.47%. Right now, AS/IO is the average, Gunnery Arsenal dipped to -8.97%, Balance/Madness came up a little to -3.95%, and TK/Lightning also dropped, to -6.62%.

 

BW's stated goals were for Sustained Melee classes to do 5% more damage than their baseline 'target DPS' - Ruffian/Lethality is actually below that goal. Ranged Sustained were supposed to be at the target, so AS/IO is where it ought to be. Sages/Sorcs are indeed still screwed, and Ranged Burst was supposed to be 5% below the target, so those two specs are also underperforming.

 

TL;DR: Scoundrels/Operatives were nerfed, not "left alone". Melee is supposed to outperform Ranged (according to BioWare), which Ruffian/Lethality does, but that's no different than pre-5.4 nerfs. Which Ruffian/Lethality were a part of.

 

Also, Sawbones is easily the weakest of the three healers when it comes to burst. Sustained healing is decent (not stupidly OP), but that's not gonna keep a Tank alive while they're getting bent over by NiM Raptus or whatever.

 

The point being that a Ruffian/Lethality doesn't get spurned for group activities like a Gunnery/Arsenal/TK/Lightning/Balance/Madness. AS/IO I don't bother discussing as if you ask in the forum or even in game, they are few and far between for people that played them in the past or decided to respec to them when the nerfs game about. Scoundrel healing is just as good as Sage/Sorc/Commando/Mercenary. They each bring something different but each can handle healing all group activities. For OPs alone you have 2 healers 99% of the time, even in SM though many can get by with a solo healer, but for the harder OPs there are always two, and Scoundrel/Operative do just fine. There is no backlash if someone is playing the healing or DPS spec for that class, period.

 

Since you brought up the parse; look at the DPS classes that fall under the other healing specs. Where do they fall? Oh, wow, there they are - the bottom of the pile with the exception of AS/IO but again few have even bothered to play that spec as it isn't a very forgiving class.

 

This is the problem with having the focus of conquest with only one character. Which is what I was replying to. I've had all three healing specs for years and have played them all consistently, including their DPS specs for when I've had to for KOTFE/ET or FPs I run alone. I wasn't personally trashing Scoundrel/Operative, I'm just making it clear that if a person is trying to group up and no healer is needed, they better not be on a Sage/Sorc/Mando/Merc as the DPS won't be wanted for the run - and yes, I'm not making that up. There was even a few people in other threads that have tried to get into an OP but the class they play wasn't wanted and the other spec wasn't needed so they were unable to complete their conquest points for that week under this new system. The old system they never had a problem even with being left out of certain activities as they could still do others and get the points needed - which is no longer the case with the points being reduced so much and the crafting changes they made.

 

I hadn't even brought up another main issue with having only ONE character doing conquest and that is crafting.

 

In order to make War Supplies: Invasion Force, it requires 3 characters as you're only allowed one crew profession per character. This is an objective almost every conquest week - whether it be to make the actual invasion force, make the items below that make up the invasion force, or even during crafting weeks themselves when you're supposed to make the prefabs, crystals, and designs.

 

War Supplies - Invasion Force:

1 Infantry Supply = Biochem

1 Armored Vehicle = Armstech, Armormech, Cybertech

1 Starship Weapon = Armstech, Armormech, Cybertech

1 Holocron of Strategy = Artifice, Synthweaving

1 Crystal Capacitor = Artifice, Synthweaving

 

Right there alone BW has made it so that conquest REQUIRES more than one character to be used. Yes you can just make Armored Vehicles/Starship Weapons, or Holocrons and Capacitors over and over again, or even Infantry Supplies, but you'll never be able to combine them into an Invasion Force unless you buy the other items you can't make on your main character or you use MORE THAN ONE character.

 

Prefabs & Designs:

Universal Prefabs:

1 Industrial Prefab = Armormech, Armstech, Cybertech

1 Synthetic Prefab = Artifice, Biochem, Synthweaving

1 Fabricator Crystal = All professions

1 Fabricator Design = All professions

 

Again, BW has made it so the players need to have more than one character being used for conquest as Industrial and Synthetic Prefabs aren't made by all professions the way Crystals & Designs are.

 

If BW wants to move away from Alt's being applicable for conquest, then they need to fix their crafting system and allow each Profession to make ALL the necessary items and not split them by profession any longer.

[masterceil]

The point being that a Ruffian/Lethality doesn't get spurned for group activities like a Gunnery/Arsenal/TK/Lightning/Balance/Madness. AS/IO I don't bother discussing as if you ask in the forum or even in game, they are few and far between for people that played them in the past or decided to respec to them when the nerfs game about. Scoundrel healing is just as good as Sage/Sorc/Commando/Mercenary. They each bring something different but each can handle healing all group activities. For OPs alone you have 2 healers 99% of the time, even in SM though many can get by with a solo healer, but for the harder OPs there are always two, and Scoundrel/Operative do just fine. There is no backlash if someone is playing the healing or DPS spec for that class, period.

 

Since you brought up the parse; look at the DPS classes that fall under the other healing specs. Where do they fall? Oh, wow, there they are - the bottom of the pile with the exception of AS/IO but again few have even bothered to play that spec as it isn't a very forgiving class.

 

This is the problem with having the focus of conquest with only one character. Which is what I was replying to. I've had all three healing specs for years and have played them all consistently, including their DPS specs for when I've had to for KOTFE/ET or FPs I run alone. I wasn't personally trashing Scoundrel/Operative, I'm just making it clear that if a person is trying to group up and no healer is needed, they better not be on a Sage/Sorc/Mando/Merc as the DPS won't be wanted for the run - and yes, I'm not making that up. There was even a few people in other threads that have tried to get into an OP but the class they play wasn't wanted and the other spec wasn't needed so they were unable to complete their conquest points for that week under this new system. The old system they never had a problem even with being left out of certain activities as they could still do others and get the points needed - which is no longer the case with the points being reduced so much and the crafting changes they made.

 

I hadn't even brought up another main issue with having only ONE character doing conquest and that is crafting.

 

In order to make War Supplies: Invasion Force, it requires 3 characters as you're only allowed one crew profession per character. This is an objective almost every conquest week - whether it be to make the actual invasion force, make the items below that make up the invasion force, or even during crafting weeks themselves when you're supposed to make the prefabs, crystals, and designs.

 

War Supplies - Invasion Force:

1 Infantry Supply = Biochem

1 Armored Vehicle = Armstech, Armormech, Cybertech

1 Starship Weapon = Armstech, Armormech, Cybertech

1 Holocron of Strategy = Artifice, Synthweaving

1 Crystal Capacitor = Artifice, Synthweaving

 

Right there alone BW has made it so that conquest REQUIRES more than one character to be used. Yes you can just make Armored Vehicles/Starship Weapons, or Holocrons and Capacitors over and over again, or even Infantry Supplies, but you'll never be able to combine them into an Invasion Force unless you buy the other items you can't make on your main character or you use MORE THAN ONE character.

 

Prefabs & Designs:

Universal Prefabs:

1 Industrial Prefab = Armormech, Armstech, Cybertech

1 Synthetic Prefab = Artifice, Biochem, Synthweaving

1 Fabricator Crystal = All professions

1 Fabricator Design = All professions

 

Again, BW has made it so the players need to have more than one character being used for conquest as Industrial and Synthetic Prefabs aren't made by all professions the way Crystals & Designs are.

 

If BW wants to move away from Alt's being applicable for conquest, then they need to fix their crafting system and allow each Profession to make ALL the necessary items and not split them by profession any longer.

 

As to class viability in Ops, all DPS specs of all classes are viable in all SM/VM content, assuming players know their class. A few of the classes may struggle more in MM Ops, but that's usually not something you're pugging from Fleet. If people are refusing to bring Mercs and Sorcs along for SM/VM Ops, that's them being *****s, and I'd suggest anyone facing that issue to join a guild or otherwise get involved in the larger raiding community and not subject themselves to trolls on Fleet.

 

I'm also familiar with all three healing specs (less so on Merc, but passable). In VM content with a less skilled co-healer, I'll prefer my Sorc every time, because I can't keep up with the burst healing that's often needed in such groups on my Op. Sorcs do have excellent AoE heals and sustain utility (Roaming Mend, bubbles), but can also handle burst. Ops have an edge in AoE heals and sustained (waves, probes), but can't burst as easily - especially since BioWare nerfed TA generation on Op healers.

 

I personally don't know any DPS specs for Sorc or Merc, but the numbers - both on Parsely and what I've seen in my own experience raiding - are sufficient for VM content in the hands of a skilled player. I wouldn't exclude Sorc or Merc DPS from my teams or pugs, and would laugh at those that would. My main point, though, was that you claimed Op DPS wasn't nerfed, which is frustratingly untrue. As a Scoundrel DPS main, the nerf pissed me off, and you struck a nerve

 

As for crafting, I'm not shedding any tears over that - my position on the dominance of Craftquest pre-5.8 is well known. But as far as I know, the recipe for Invasion Forces hasn't been changed - it's always required all five War Supplies. Why complain about this now? An earlier argument against needing all five tiers of Bonded Attachments for each other War Supply is a valid one (to wit, you have to master crafting on the toon now just to get started on War Supplies). But Invasion Forces haven't changed, and I don't think they should. That's the big kahuna of War Supplies, and should indeed take from all other sections of War Supplies to create.

 

Also not against the way Prefabs are set up. I may be biased, having mastered all six crafting skills across my toons, but I like the encouragement for alt play inherent in both crafting Invasion Forces and Prefabs.

Edited April 18, 2018 by masterceil

[olagatonjedi]

The main issue with only having one of your characters being able to do or make conquest comes down to multiple factors:

 

1) Group activities: OPs, FPs, Uprisings. There are many "elitists" out there that won't take a Gunnery/Arsenal or DPS Sage/Sorcs. People that have those as their main characters are now locked out of many activities and those are the ones that show up on conquest every week. Which particular one changes, but those actual activities are almost on every conquest week.

Personally, I have not run into anyone, ever, who has booted me from gf or manually formed conquest events because of my class, and I play them all, in all roles. If that truly happens to people, I would gander that the population of elitists that do that are much smaller than the population that doesnt. Dont let one small group prevent you from accomplishing your goals. Or form your own groups. Perhaps there is another underlying issue as well, but that's another larger conversation.

 

2) What is the bonus for Command that particular day? Is it a group activity like OPs, FP, Uprisings? If so, which class receives the bonus? Is it looking for healers, DPS, Tanks????

Even if conquest was not part of the game, all MMOs face that challenge, because of player preference for the game. So it's not unique to conquest at all. If people dont fill roles, they can't do certain content. At that point, each person involved needs to prioritize their goals. Is the goal to get conquest on a specific toon higher than the goal of just completing conquest on any toon of theirs? Same thing applies to leveling, gearing, pvping, getting to cr300. We all choose to stick with a specific toon we have planned, with the chance nothing happens, or be open to running other toons and have a better chance of having a productive session. Again, this isn't exclusive to conquest.

 

I will say that one way you change elitists opinions on a specific classes performance is to improve your own and publicize the parse. Most of the elitists belief and direction comes from success and seeing the numbers on parses (not that they matter in FPs or smgf ops). So if they see your sorc parsing 10k, they may be more open to including sorcs in their op. All classes are capable of completing all content, so if they aren't letting you in, perhaps they are simply looking for the easiest path, and with that mindset, they are probably ones to avoid anyways.

[Darevsool]

As to class viability in Ops, all DPS specs of all classes are viable in all SM/VM content, assuming players know their class. A few of the classes may struggle more in MM Ops, but that's usually not something you're pugging from Fleet. If people are refusing to bring Mercs and Sorcs along for SM/VM Ops, that's them being *****s, and I'd suggest anyone facing that issue to join a guild or otherwise get involved in the larger raiding community and not subject themselves to trolls on Fleet.

 

I'm also familiar with all three healing specs (less so on Merc, but passable). In VM content with a less skilled co-healer, I'll prefer my Sorc every time, because I can't keep up with the burst healing that's often needed in such groups on my Op. Sorcs do have excellent AoE heals and sustain utility (Roaming Mend, bubbles), but can also handle burst. Ops have an edge in AoE heals and sustained (waves, probes), but can't burst as easily - especially since BioWare nerfed TA generation on Op healers.

 

I personally don't know any DPS specs for Sorc or Merc, but the numbers - both on Parsely and what I've seen in my own experience raiding - are sufficient for VM content in the hands of a skilled player. I wouldn't exclude Sorc or Merc DPS from my teams or pugs, and would laugh at those that would. My main point, though, was that you claimed Op DPS wasn't nerfed, which is frustratingly untrue. As a Scoundrel DPS main, the nerf pissed me off, and you struck a nerve

 

As for crafting, I'm not shedding any tears over that - my position on the dominance of Craftquest pre-5.8 is well known. But as far as I know, the recipe for Invasion Forces hasn't been changed - it's always required all five War Supplies. Why complain about this now? An earlier argument against needing all five tiers of Bonded Attachments for each other War Supply is a valid one (to wit, you have to master crafting on the toon now just to get started on War Supplies). But Invasion Forces haven't changed, and I don't think they should. That's the big kahuna of War Supplies, and should indeed take from all other sections of War Supplies to create.

 

Also not against the way Prefabs are set up. I may be biased, having mastered all six crafting skills across my toons, but I like the encouragement for alt play inherent in both crafting Invasion Forces and Prefabs.

 

The recipe for Invasion Force hasn't changed, but the recipies for the War Supplies that go into the Invasion force did change, dramatically. Each Armored Vehicle/Crystal Capacitor/etc now take probably 6-8 times the number of resources that they used to. The only exception is the biochem versions. Most of the biochem components are the same, but the highest level changed. So, if you make them from scratch, it does take more raw materials to craft invasion force items.

[olagatonjedi]

Scoundrel main here, that's just not true. Scoundrels were nerfed like most other DPS classes.Top parses on a Scoundrel right now is a Ruffian that puts the class third on the board when sorted for max and average on a 2.5mil dummy. In 5.3, top Scoundrel parse was about 11.4k, with average over 9.9k (I personally could do about 10.2k). Now, top is about 10.9k, average a bit over 9.8k (I can do about 10k when RNGsus smiles on me).

 

Ruffian/Lethality is still one of the top classes, but is only 3.45% above overall averaged DPS, rather than the 8.11% it used to be - a pretty massive normalizing nerf. AS/IO used to be 1.19% over the average, Gunnery/Arsenal were at -7.73%, Balance/Madness at -4.61%, and TK/Lightning at -5.47%. Right now, AS/IO is the average, Gunnery Arsenal dipped to -8.97%, Balance/Madness came up a little to -3.95%, and TK/Lightning also dropped, to -6.62%.

 

BW's stated goals were for Sustained Melee classes to do 5% more damage than their baseline 'target DPS' - Ruffian/Lethality is actually below that goal. Ranged Sustained were supposed to be at the target, so AS/IO is where it ought to be. Sages/Sorcs are indeed still screwed, and Ranged Burst was supposed to be 5% below the target, so those two specs are also underperforming.

 

TL;DR: Scoundrels/Operatives were nerfed, not "left alone". Melee is supposed to outperform Ranged (according to BioWare), which Ruffian/Lethality does, but that's no different than pre-5.4 nerfs. Which Ruffian/Lethality were a part of.

 

Also, Sawbones is easily the weakest of the three healers when it comes to burst. Sustained healing is decent (not stupidly OP), but that's not gonna keep a Tank alive while they're getting bent over by NiM Raptus or whatever.

Do you feel certain classes are underperforming, or the players are underutilizing those classes?

 

As has been evidenced many times, most recently with the discovery of how alacrity affects GCD (and the golden ranges), there is still a lot more optimizing that can be done with regards to this game. I'm of the opinion that the players just haven't found the right way to utilize the classes to perform at their intended spot. Part of it is still needing to be tweaked by BW, I'm sure, as well. But please dont be so naive to think that these classes are being played as best as they can, even at this stage of the game.

[NHBabe]

My main point, though, was that you claimed Op DPS wasn't nerfed, which is frustratingly untrue. As a Scoundrel DPS main, the nerf pissed me off, and you struck a nerve

 

Sorry about that. I know all classes got a nerf, just some got them worse than others is all.

 

As for crafting, I'm not shedding any tears over that - my position on the dominance of Craftquest pre-5.8 is well known. But as far as I know, the recipe for Invasion Forces hasn't been changed - it's always required all five War Supplies. Why complain about this now? An earlier argument against needing all five tiers of Bonded Attachments for each other War Supply is a valid one (to wit, you have to master crafting on the toon now just to get started on War Supplies). But Invasion Forces haven't changed, and I don't think they should. That's the big kahuna of War Supplies, and should indeed take from all other sections of War Supplies to create.

 

It was based off of a certain someone that has been very active in this thread questioning why some of us can't do conquest on one toon alone. Crafting for conquest alone shows that you can't just pick one character and be done with it; you have to use more than one character due to the way BW has crafting set-up. I just put that post in my same reply to you as I neglected to put it in my original response back to the post you had originally quoted me from.

 

IF BW's point is to make conquest only applicable for one character, then they'd need to change crafting so that all professions can craft all the items needed for War Supplies: Invasion Forces - instead of spreading the items out over all the professions, or they could allow a character to have all professions.