Hi Charles and Keith! Any new information about conquest and 5.9?

[Costello]

So, I'm a bit confused. Eric went on vacation just two days ago. Before he left, he provided updates about the changes we're making in 5.9 which is scheduled for release on May 1st.

 

We realize some of you are not happy with the changes we made to Conquests and the 5.9 adjustments will help. As we all know, Conquests were broken and preventing players from receiving rewards which caused a lot of unnecessary frustration, extra Engineering work and wasted time for you and Customer Service. It had to be replaced with a newer and maintainable system.

 

Although it'll take a few updates to get it exactly right, we have not had the same issues with rewards, a lot more guilds are receiving rewards, and there is higher participation overall. However, we also acknowledge that it's more difficult for alternate characters to complete their weekly goals which some of the changes in 5.9 will address.

 

We will continue to review the data and your feedback to determine if additional adjustments are needed. I'm not sure that gives you any additional insight, but we need to release 5.9 to identify further changes.

 

--Keith-

 

This is basically what olagatonjedi has been saying.

 

He brought up that Eric had already spoken about conquest when people wanted more communication, in almost the same was as Keith, though Keith's response feels like it has more eye rolls about his confusion and undeserved entitlement of posters on these forums.

 

olagatonjedi mentioned that guilds and people can adapt and continue to play conquest and this isn't the end of the world. Keith has basically said their Metrics are telling them More guilds are doing conquest and getting rewarded for it. Even the small planets this is a fair engagement to hit those yields. And the big point more participation overall. More people are participating in this system than the old one, its more inclusive.

 

The metrics are showing that the new conquest is a success and better than the old conquest for ease of access and how many people are taking the time to participate. So conquest maybe the best thing to happen to the game since Keith took over as its giving more people a reason to participate in content, which they are doing.

 

So if Keith and olagatonjedi aren't the same person, they are on the same wave length.

 

That aside, its clear from what Keith has posted new conquest is good for the game and not going to see massive changes. While people claiming it was the end of the game and doom and gloom were just making it up as its not supported by what Keith has posted. So it does make you wonder if the forums are a very unwelcoming place, where it seems the people that post in support of the new system, which it turns out by the metric (which I haven't seen but going on Keiths post about more rewards and more participation) were supported by the majority of players, were attacked and often labelled in derogatory terms.

[OneHit]

So, I'm a bit confused. Eric went on vacation just two days ago. Before he left, he provided updates about the changes we're making in 5.9 which is scheduled for release on May 1st.

 

We realize some of you are not happy with the changes we made to Conquests and the 5.9 adjustments will help. As we all know, Conquests were broken and preventing players from receiving rewards which caused a lot of unnecessary frustration, extra Engineering work and wasted time for you and Customer Service. It had to be replaced with a newer and maintainable system.

 

Although it'll take a few updates to get it exactly right, we have not had the same issues with rewards, a lot more guilds are receiving rewards, and there is higher participation overall. However, we also acknowledge that it's more difficult for alternate characters to complete their weekly goals which some of the changes in 5.9 will address.

 

We will continue to review the data and your feedback to determine if additional adjustments are needed. I'm not sure that gives you any additional insight, but we need to release 5.9 to identify further changes.

 

--Keith-

 

Which patch do you plan on addressing the fact that often you don't get points for completing an objective? Put in all the tickets you want but if the return time is over a week they don't even bother responding since the week will already be over. And its kinda BS wasting your time already and then you turn Conquest into a huge grind.

 

There is still issues. You just traded some issues for other issues while achieving the true goal. Which is to make conquest a grind cause once again the game is allergic to new content. So every system must be turned into a grind one way or the other. And then you don't want to take any input on it, followed by any criticism.

 

And you guys continue to make decisions that are detrimental to the game despite the community that also works hard to keep this game going.

 

Every year its lets take a different direction while still not fixing the previous issues. This year its no Level cap. Boy that truly sounds like a great idea guys. Instead lets grind out conquest and ignore that fact.

[Master_Morak]

I think olagatonjedi is Keith's non dev handle on the forums. So basically whatever he says is how it is.

 

I hope you are not right - my ignore list protects me from such meaningless posts.

 

My Company has a Code of Conduct which forbids such a behaviour, I hope BW also.

[Akevv]

This is basically what olagatonjedi has been saying.

 

He brought up that Eric had already spoken about conquest when people wanted more communication, in almost the same was as Keith, though Keith's response feels like it has more eye rolls about his confusion and undeserved entitlement of posters on these forums.

 

olagatonjedi mentioned that guilds and people can adapt and continue to play conquest and this isn't the end of the world. Keith has basically said their Metrics are telling them More guilds are doing conquest and getting rewarded for it. Even the small planets this is a fair engagement to hit those yields. And the big point more participation overall. More people are participating in this system than the old one, its more inclusive.

 

The metrics are showing that the new conquest is a success and better than the old conquest for ease of access and how many people are taking the time to participate. So conquest maybe the best thing to happen to the game since Keith took over as its giving more people a reason to participate in content, which they are doing.

 

So if Keith and olagatonjedi aren't the same person, they are on the same wave length.

 

That aside, its clear from what Keith has posted new conquest is good for the game and not going to see massive changes. While people claiming it was the end of the game and doom and gloom were just making it up as its not supported by what Keith has posted. So it does make you wonder if the forums are a very unwelcoming place, where it seems the people that post in support of the new system, which it turns out by the metric (which I haven't seen but going on Keiths post about more rewards and more participation) were supported by the majority of players, were attacked and often labelled in derogatory terms.

 

That's the thing though Costello, the reality of whats happening in game doesn't bear the dev's post out. Prior to 5.8, i could easily manage the back fill of my guild. We held ~600 players for roughly a year. I remove folks weekly, those that haven't logged in for 90 days. Prior to 5.8, it was 20 - 30 folks, and after its been 70 - 90. Some of this was just a downward trend in game play in general, but 5.8 has only accelerated the attrition.

 

I cannot replace the players quickly enough anymore to back fill those that no longer login. I'm basically watching my guild wither, which sucks. The thing is though, its not just me. Its my peers as well. The larger guilds, they'll always have their cadre and perhaps they're diverse enough in their activities that things will keep going for them. The other guilds I associate most with are PvP guilds. With the tank nerf just over the horizon, I fear they're going to go through the same thing as my conquest guild.

 

I've subscribed, I've bought hundreds of dollars of cartel coins, i have a security key, the collector's edition, and so on. I host a voice channel for Discord and I run nooblet groups for operations. I have fed this game my time, energy, and money to try and build a community, and these guys are making my life worse. I really, really, do not appreciate being told "working as intended" because this is my second Star Wars MMO that is withering due to poor management. Galaxies tanked because the developers of that game told us we'd love their New Game Enhancements. We even looked forward to them. When introduced, we were hoodwinked, blindsided by a wholly different game that didn't respect the community that had supported the game up to that point.

 

This direction, how they aren't listening to the customers that they -do- have, its just far too reminiscent of what happened to that game. The community, 97 of 100 voices that have taken their time to find these threads and pour their hearts out, say they don't like the system. When a dev comes around and tells you its fine, its just flat out insulting. I think I've got another month before my sub is done. I quit Galaxies after that NGE business as well. I did stick around to see if anyone came to their senses, but they never did. The major difference between then and now was that this game had been announced. There is -NO- Star Wars MMO, other than this one in current development that we know of. This is it. We have dev's that are feeding their ego versus listening to their community, and we have nowhere to go, nothing to look forward to in an alternate game. Its pretty dismal looking from here...

[Dokar]

This is basically what olagatonjedi has been saying.

 

He brought up that Eric had already spoken about conquest when people wanted more communication, in almost the same was as Keith, though Keith's response feels like it has more eye rolls about his confusion and undeserved entitlement of posters on these forums.

 

olagatonjedi mentioned that guilds and people can adapt and continue to play conquest and this isn't the end of the world. Keith has basically said their Metrics are telling them More guilds are doing conquest and getting rewarded for it. Even the small planets this is a fair engagement to hit those yields. And the big point more participation overall. More people are participating in this system than the old one, its more inclusive.

 

The metrics are showing that the new conquest is a success and better than the old conquest for ease of access and how many people are taking the time to participate. So conquest maybe the best thing to happen to the game since Keith took over as its giving more people a reason to participate in content, which they are doing.

 

So if Keith and olagatonjedi aren't the same person, they are on the same wave length.

 

That aside, its clear from what Keith has posted new conquest is good for the game and not going to see massive changes. While people claiming it was the end of the game and doom and gloom were just making it up as its not supported by what Keith has posted. So it does make you wonder if the forums are a very unwelcoming place, where it seems the people that post in support of the new system, which it turns out by the metric (which I haven't seen but going on Keiths post about more rewards and more participation) were supported by the majority of players, were attacked and often labelled in derogatory terms.

 

It is also possible what he is seeing is an increase in incidental participation and not active participation.

 

If you have more players doing normal activities are triggering conquest activity without actually trying or having any interest in conquest you will increase participation but not satisfaction with the system by those who are actively participating. It is a bit like adding sidewalk traffic to the number of customers your store actually serves each day.

 

Without seeing the actual data it is hard to tell one way or the other.

 

Only time will tell.

[DarthSpuds]

a lot more guilds are receiving rewards,

 

--Keith-

 

Are they the smaller guilds who it was alleged these changes were supposed to help?

 

I'd bet money it isn't.

 

Large guilds are swamping small planets and hitting targets easy.

 

Small Guilds, like the one I am in, now have next to no change at all of hitting the Small Planet threshold.

 

Your changes did the EXACT OPPOSITE of the aims you set out for them - except the delivery of rewards.

 

Under any definition you care to consider, that is called a failure.

 

Surely you could have just re-written the back end to make reward delivery work, and left the rest as it was - more fun, more inclusive and more rewarding than the current version.

 

PS: Why is it the last two year's worth of changes have demonstrated a complete and utter hatred of Alts, given that the nature of the Class Stories (still the best content in the game by far) and the DvL event quite clearly incentivise us all to play Alts?

 

Or is it precisely because those Class Stories are still the bets content in the game that you want to disincentivise Alt Play?

 

All The Best

[Wopr]

You replace a fine working system with a bugged and broken System while your super developers are not able to fix a Problem with the delivery of the conquest rewards (should I laugh or cry?) and then you are confused that your customers don't want to wait a whole month for fixing it.

 

In which world are you living?

 

If our IT Department would bring something live like you with the new conquest system, the responsible project manager would get fire from our Management until it is fixed in hours or days.

 

It is not acceaptable that a adjustment of reward Points would take weeks to implement and deliver, there is something wrong in your whole development process.

 

Working in IT/MIT/IS for over 20 years for large companies like Callaway Golf to Food Makers Co you are 100% correct.

[Costello]

That's the thing though Costello, the reality of whats happening in game doesn't bear the dev's post out. Prior to 5.8, i could easily manage the back fill of my guild. We held ~600 players for roughly a year. I remove folks weekly, those that haven't logged in for 90 days. Prior to 5.8, it was 20 - 30 folks, and after its been 70 - 90. Some of this was just a downward trend in game play in general, but 5.8 has only accelerated the attrition.

 

I cannot replace the players quickly enough anymore to back fill those that no longer login. I'm basically watching my guild wither, which sucks. The thing is though, its not just me. Its my peers as well. The larger guilds, they'll always have their cadre and perhaps they're diverse enough in their activities that things will keep going for them. The other guilds I associate most with are PvP guilds. With the tank nerf just over the horizon, I fear they're going to go through the same thing as my conquest guild.

 

I've subscribed, I've bought hundreds of dollars of cartel coins, i have a security key, the collector's edition, and so on. I host a voice channel for Discord and I run nooblet groups for operations. I have fed this game my time, energy, and money to try and build a community, and these guys are making my life worse. I really, really, do not appreciate being told "working as intended" because this is my second Star Wars MMO that is withering due to poor management. Galaxies tanked because the developers of that game told us we'd love their New Game Enhancements. We even looked forward to them. When introduced, we were hoodwinked, blindsided by a wholly different game that didn't respect the community that had supported the game up to that point.

 

This direction, how they aren't listening to the customers that they -do- have, its just far too reminiscent of what happened to that game. The community, 97 of 100 voices that have taken their time to find these threads and pour their hearts out, say they don't like the system. When a dev comes around and tells you its fine, its just flat out insulting. I think I've got another month before my sub is done. I quit Galaxies after that NGE business as well. I did stick around to see if anyone came to their senses, but they never did. The major difference between then and now was that this game had been announced. There is -NO- Star Wars MMO, other than this one in current development that we know of. This is it. We have dev's that are feeding their ego versus listening to their community, and we have nowhere to go, nothing to look forward to in an alternate game. Its pretty dismal looking from here...

 

I don't doubt your experience for a second.

 

Equally without seeing the metrics and just going by what Keith has said Conquest looks like its good for the game and the players.

 

Its possible those metrics are being misinterpreted to make it seem more favourable than it is, though I can't say Keith seems overly worried by the state of conquest. Some people are not happy is his take on it. If it is a mass exodus, such has either become par for the course through 2017/18 so that its not worth mentioning or they just don't care. This does not appear to be someone rushing to reassure people that things will improve, he appeared confused why he should even have to respond to a thread about conquest. Eric has said conquest will get some tweaks in 5.9 nuff said.

 

So bottom line is, its either good for the game and all is well or its bad for the game and you better get used to it cause its here to stay.

[olagatonjedi]

It is absolutely 100% possible the metrics that forumers are using are not the same metrics that actually measure participation, success, etc. Limited information leads to limited perception.

 

Im not right about everything, but i know business. Numbers drive changes more than emotional outbursts by customers.

Edited April 21, 2018 by olagatonjedi

[DarthSpuds]

It is absolutely 100% possible the metrics that forumers are using are not the same metrics that actually measure participation, success, etc. Limited information leads to limited perception.

 

If, and it is a BIG IF, Bioware is interpreting these metrics correctly it will the very first time they have managed that in the history of the game.

 

That is why the game is in the sorry state it is.

 

All The Best

[Damask_Rose]

Wait?!?! are you a bioware game developer? how do you know what was the causing of their proplems? If my understanding is correct it could have been a proplem with the coding itself.. there for if they had to change the coding they might have to change the whole system! Pesonally I like the new system! On my server there are tones of guilds hitting their goals, so I don't know which server your on but I can see where their coming from. Sit tight and let them get to work, barrading them with doom and gloom doesn't help

 

If conquest is coded properly there would be no reason to redo even a single line of code to change the point value of an objective. Those should just be numbers in a database. All of the point adjustments planned for 5.9 are a minuscule amount of work and could have been done day one when players made it clear they were ridiculously low. Similarly changing an objective's type (i.e. once per day per legacy to once per day per character) should be a trivial task.

[matthobbit]

Sigh, another feedback thread.

 

If you are wondering why players are continuing to provide feedback to proposed 5.9 changes, it is because the proposed changes do very little to allay concerns of unfriendly game design. For instance raising repeatable flashpoint rewards from 130 to 290 = 725 (assuming full SH bonus). This is 21 runs (successful runs) PER TOON which is a terribly incentive to play swtor. I would rather play a different game than sit in queue as a DPS.

 

Forum posters have already given ample feedback regarding ops and conquest. Not only did you remove lockouts being used for conquest, you imposed an incredibly harsh penalty on completing a single op. 1875? While experienced raiders can run a SM op in under an hour, it is nothing more than a punishment to less experienced, smaller guilds that may spend 2-3 hours. If you're going to nerf lockouts as viable ways togain conquest, for the love of God boost the conquest gain to at least 5000.

 

I also get the sneaking suspicion that the same person who designed 5.9 conquest is also reporting the metrics for conquest participation. Conflict of interest?

[olagatonjedi]

If conquest is coded properly there would be no reason to redo even a single line of code to change the point value of an objective. Those should just be numbers in a database. All of the point adjustments planned for 5.9 are a minuscule amount of work and could have been done day one when players made it clear they were ridiculously low. Similarly changing an objective's type (i.e. once per day per legacy to once per day per character) should be a trivial task.

Its well documented hiw poorly the game was optimized from the start. Recent changes have shown effort by the devs to improve balance and stability, including backend changes. Its safe to assume the old system, and likely every aspect of it, was in need of more than just a few lines of code changes.

[KendraP]

Its well documented hiw poorly the game was optimized from the start. Recent changes have shown effort by the devs to improve balance and stability, including backend changes. Its safe to assume the old system, and likely every aspect of it, was in need of more than just a few lines of code changes.

 

Whatever else nothwithstanding, the point is, if he is claiming the reason for the changes was the bug where people weren't getting rewards, surely it took more effort to change everything than to bug fix one issue.

 

As for the 5.9 changes, if they insist they are right and we are still acreaming over nothing, small numbers changes need to be made faster than a month. Its literally just like GC was - go too long without addressing concerns, seem angry or frustrated that loyal paying customers want changes to a despised system they feel has been forced on them and relatively quickly, then claim increased participation despite all in game signs of a decrease.

 

In other words, this is GC part 2.

[Damask_Rose]

Its well documented hiw poorly the game was optimized from the start. Recent changes have shown effort by the devs to improve balance and stability, including backend changes. Its safe to assume the old system, and likely every aspect of it, was in need of more than just a few lines of code changes.

 

Actually recent changes to the game have shown the opposite. Yes, they have attempted to improve things, so they get an A for effort. But a C at best for implementation. It consistently has taken them repeated attempts to fix individual bugs, and they often introduce new ones in those attempts.

 

And as I said in the post you were quoting from - database values don't take any coding at all to change. I wasn't talking about the state of the game as a whole. I was specifically talking about the point values of conquest objectives.

[olagatonjedi]

Whatever else nothwithstanding, the point is, if he is claiming the reason for the changes was the bug where people weren't getting rewards, surely it took more effort to change everything than to bug fix one issue.

 

As for the 5.9 changes, if they insist they are right and we are still acreaming over nothing, small numbers changes need to be made faster than a month. Its literally just like GC was - go too long without addressing concerns, seem angry or frustrated that loyal paying customers want changes to a despised system they feel has been forced on them and relatively quickly, then claim increased participation despite all in game signs of a decrease.

 

In other words, this is GC part 2.

That sounds like the community doesnt understand how mmos and business works, which doesnt surprise me. The game, as advertised, consists of a series of changes, and the customers arent the ones with the data, and arent the ones making the actual changes and interpreting the data (though they think they do)

[olagatonjedi]

Actually recent changes to the game have shown the opposite. Yes, they have attempted to improve things, so they get an A for effort. But a C at best for implementation. It consistently has taken them repeated attempts to fix individual bugs, and they often introduce new ones in those attempts.

 

And as I said in the post you were quoting from - database values don't take any coding at all to change. I wasn't talking about the state of the game as a whole. I was specifically talking about the point values of conquest objectives.

You arent sure of there was a set numeric input, or an algorithm to determine point values, or some other aspect.

[Damask_Rose]

You arent sure of there was a set numeric input, or an algorithm to determine point values, or some other aspect.

 

The optimal way to do those points is in a database. I was leaving room to doubt that the original coders were any good. If the old system had a less than optimal way to manage those numbers, then surely during this revamp, the current team would have scrapped that and switched to a database since the whole point of reworking conquest was backend improvements. Right? Why would they leave in a sub-optimal system when a much better one is available?

[olagatonjedi]

The optimal way to do those points is in a database. I was leaving room to doubt that the original coders were any good. If the old system had a less than optimal way to manage those numbers, then surely during this revamp, the current team would have scrapped that and switched to a database since the whole point of reworking conquest was backend improvements. Right? Why would they leave in a sub-optimal system when a much better one is available?

Im saying the old system may not have been optimal, hence the rework. Hopefully its optimal now, but they still wanted more balance and closer competition, so new values were used. Now they are optimizing the number specifics over time to coincide with their data.

[AlrikFassbauer]

The guild I'm in is small, but very tight & busy. I mean, we often get into the top 10 even although not being that big - simply because we are so busy, then.

 

As far as I understood it, every guild member of a guild in the top 10 - no matter which place - receives rewards as long as the personal goal is reached.

 

This is how I understood it.

[Damask_Rose]

Im saying the old system may not have been optimal, hence the rework. Hopefully its optimal now, but they still wanted more balance and closer competition, so new values were used. Now they are optimizing the number specifics over time to coincide with their data.

 

And what I am saying is that they could have put in the new values for the objectives as soon as they decided to increase them instead of making everyone wait until 5.9. There was no technical reason to make everyone wait a month to put point values close to their original base values. They caused completely unnecessary frustration among their player base.

 

The guild I'm in is small, but very tight & busy. I mean, we often get into the top 10 even although not being that big - simply because we are so busy, then.

 

As far as I understood it, every guild member of a guild in the top 10 - no matter which place - receives rewards as long as the personal goal is reached.

 

This is how I understood it.

 

This is the way it was. Now the only thing that matters is if your guild meets the yield target for the planet you chose to invade. Once you invade, if you meet the minimum target for that planet, all of the guild members that reached their personal goal gets the guild reward whether or not you reach top 10. However, if your guild fails to reach the yield target, no one gets guild rewards even if you win the planet.

Edited April 21, 2018 by Damask_Rose

[peter_plankskull]

Are they the smaller guilds who it was alleged these changes were supposed to help?

 

I'd bet money it isn't.

 

Large guilds are swamping small planets and hitting targets easy.

 

Small Guilds, like the one I am in, now have next to no change at all of hitting the Small Planet threshold.

 

Your changes did the EXACT OPPOSITE of the aims you set out for them - except the delivery of rewards.

 

Under any definition you care to consider, that is called a failure.

 

Surely you could have just re-written the back end to make reward delivery work, and left the rest as it was - more fun, more inclusive and more rewarding than the current version.

Pretty much this, the two largest guilds on satale shan didn't even go for a large yield, and from what I can tell, almost EVERY guild is going into small yields, even the larger ones.

[Andryah]

......the two largest guilds on satale shan didn't even go for a large yield, and from what I can tell, almost EVERY guild is going into small yields, even the larger ones.

 

Not surprised. Low hanging fruit syndrome at work.

 

Players and guilds are generally smart and clever about finding the low hanging fruit and ignoring anything they have to actually climb for unless they absolutely need to. This is where the studio failed in terms of scale/balance... they did not properly scale and balance large/medium/small such that large guilds would see merit in going after the large. They may ultimately fix this.. but I encourage players not to hold their breath on this.

 

That said.. it is not easy to scale and balance in such a manner that players and guilds will not find some way to game something to their advantage. But the studio could have done better here.

Edited April 21, 2018 by Andryah

[olagatonjedi]

And what I am saying is that they could have put in the new values for the objectives as soon as they decided to increase them instead of making everyone wait until 5.9. There was no technical reason to make everyone wait a month to put point values close to their original base values. They caused completely unnecessary frustration among their player base.

Im guessing by the quite that no values are set in stone that they had preliminary values they estimated based on initial data after the release of 5.8, but are honing in on more accurate values through the continued data accumulation. While not a technical reason from a coding standpoint, a reason nevertheless.

[peter_plankskull]

Not surprised. Low hanging fruit syndrome at work.

 

Players and guilds are generally smart and clever about finding the low hanging fruit and ignoring anything they have to actually climb for unless they absolutely need to. This is where the studio failed in terms of scale/balance... they did not properly scale and balance large/medium/small such that large guilds would see merit in going after the large. They may ultimately fix this.. but I encourage players not to hold their breath on this.

 

That said.. it is not easy to scale and balance in such a manner that players and guilds will not find some way to game something to their advantage. But the studio could have done better here.

 

I don't deny a lot of what is going on is your explanation of the situation, but a lot of the problem also consists of how borked the conquest values are. Only six guilds from the three yields have surpassed the large one, not even 10 guilds have met the goal this week, and only one more guild is even "somewhat" close (150k.) A lot of guilds are playing it safe not knowing if they can complete the goal in time, and the rewards are kind of worthless now a days. Hopefully 5.9 with its conquest rework can fix this.