Maintenance: May 10th, 2018

[Lyriel]

I realize how data can be skewed, but what's going on in-game doesn't jive with what a lot of angry forum posters are "seeing" on an anecdotal basis, when Bioware has all of the empirical data. According to their metrics, the changes have been a success because overall participation is up and more guilds are earning rewards than ever before (sorry to the 5% of guilds who had a monopoly on the rewards for the existence of conquest up until the new changes, maybe you're seeing more competition, but that was sort of majorly a big point that Keith brought up a long time ago).

 

There are problems with this.

• We do not know how they define 'participation.' Did accidental credit for the two bugged Gree event boss kills count? I bet it did.
  

• It is based on data from more than one iteration of bugged implementations. Participation in my guild was indeed up this past week - because we could work around the (now verified as) intended limitation on several items. They are killing it (and our participation) with the patch tomorrow.

 

Whether or not it aligns with my personal experience (which it does not) is irrelevant. Their 'data' is not based on a good implementation of their plan. How then can they call it a success, when it has never worked as intended?

Edited May 9, 2018 by Lyriel

[Shadran]

Very well said. Nothing further to add to your points.

 

Sadly, many have made these same points - many offering the same form of dispassionate, constructive feedback as you have. And typically coming from the viewpoint of loving the game and wanting to play it even more. It was all cast aside. Simply put, BW will do what it's going to do regardless - you will either have to take it or leave. Don't expect any bi-directional engagement or explanations from the studio. Don't expect anything other than cryptic "we have data and you don't" messages. On the rare chances, something like that happens - enjoy it as a pleasant surprise. It's beyond frustrating at first. But once you come to grips with this reality, it becomes much easier to just enjoy the game for what it is -- for me, still a fun game worth subbing for -- and not what it could or should be...

 

I made that post with a fair amount of certainty that the same points had been made already, and in no way did I think my thoughts were unique in any regard haha. I just had to say my piece because Conquest was a very big part of the game that I enjoyed doing very much. Now, I'm not saying anything along the lines that I am going to unsub or flip my computer desk over it, but I would be remiss is I didn't voice my displeasure with these conquest changes. That being said, I still maintain that what they have in mind is not too far off from being ideal (to me, anyway). I still enjoy the game and find a lot of value in it, this is not a deal breaker, but if by chance they DO read the feedback, I felt it necessary to say my part

[medicalmanicu]

You have not learned a damn thing from your conquest mess. You did start to fix the problems by allowing alts to be able to have some impact for conquest and now you are going to change that. Are the devs all lost in their own reality? don't you actually follow what is happening in your game? Didn't losing how many paying subs when you first released this mess teach you anything at all? your reasons for what you are doing make no sense what so ever. You say its to help the small guilds but if you have actuallly looked at the data you would notice that the small guilds weren't even able to get on any leader board only the mid and large guilds were. Someone actually realized that and hence you made changes that actually helped smaller guilds...... WHY are you changing it back so that large guilds will be the only guilds to compete on conquest? YOU are making this game a grind and if you continue to do so you won't have to worry about what to do with the game when you release a newer one because this game will be dead.... you have lost how many subscribers over this stupid non-issue and it seems are compelled to continue down that road until you just have free to play people playing your game. The devs need to keep their hands off the damn game and need to quit trying to force everyone to find another game to enjoy ....... WHAT paying person will want to play a game that they have to grind for everything? I have no idea what you people are thinking but you are well on the way to finally finishing this game and burying it from all of your horrible decisions.

[Deathsus]

It is sad to see that you are returning to so much being legacy bound. Limiting players to working one toon per day means that you limit the desire and incentive to log on to play for a sustained period of playing-time in the game. Not to mention you continue to limit small guilds from being competitive at all except to go for the small planet conquest and, at that, they have to grind like crazy to achieve even the small planet conquest goals. This slaps players right in the face that you promised these changes were to "Even the playing field". for conquest. You have developed an awesome game but you obviously don't understand **** about marketing. If you give me little reason to log on and play for a sustained period of time, then it simply doesn't warrant justifying paying a sub fee in order to play for an hour per day. Do you not understand that You need to create incentive for players to log on and stay logged in continuously playing to achieve goals and objectives. If not, They're just going to go find another game to play and spend more time in it. As it is, you've created such a pathetic grind situation to gather mats in order to craft the components that players have to spend way too much time just farming mats and that prevents them from being being able to enjoy the other aspects of the game. It certainly doesn't making attempting conquest goals enjoyable.Bottom line!!! When the game becomes a grind fest players simply lose interest. Give me a reason to do uprisings, Ops, and flashpoints. Give me incentive to play the game! A game that's a huge grind is not a game people are going to continue play. Call Blizzard! They suffered a great deal of loss of players when WOW became a Grind-Fest. Learn from others mistakes. On an additional note - on a matter that I have addressed before is you have allowed GSF and PVP to become a worthless part of the game. Until you address the hacking that goes on all too often. Several of my guildies and those from other guilds have filed tickets with player's Names, times and names of the matches, and the detailed actions that prove the hacking and accompanied Vid's to prove who the hackers are and what they are doing and yet you still do nothing. Your failure to act on this has sent a clear message that you won't do anything and Hackers continue to ruin gameplay for others. You have banned players for taking advantage of your glitches in the game but you do nothing for this malicious behavior. STUPID!

 

Implementing the changes that you are doing in this patch - tying so much to legacy - are going to make it extremely difficult to even make conquest on the small planet. I have held out hope that you would wake up and listen to your subscribers. As it stands and the direction you have chosen, My decision to leave the game when my subscription is up is going to be assured.

[Darevsool]

The forums were quiet (about conquest) for a WEEK while people were grinding out conquest. That was a good thing.

 

Everyone got too many of the tier 10 crafting boxes. Some players got 20 toons worth, or more..."we can't have that."

 

This week might have been the same if they left things alone.

 

 

However, if fixing the good bug is tied to fixing the bad bug (some people losing some of their achievement progress - which in all seriousness, it COULD be) then I understand.

 

I don't like it, but if the two bugs were somehow tied to related code, then I understand it.

[Mdgshorty]

I am going to say this. What are you trying to do and pissing off your playerbase. Since the release of the new conquest system, I have not been liking it.

 

This last week, I have been happier with the changes. And now you are making daily repeatables, once per legacy per day. Granted it may have been bugged, but people were happier with daily repeatables that you were able to do on multiple characters. Now you are taking that away.

 

I play in both a small and big guild and I can see things from both perspectives. In a small guild you can have as many alts while a big one you are limited to alts. Being able to play alts in conquest put both large and small guild on an even playing fields. Limiting stuff to legacy only gives the bigger guilds an advantage. Even when the playing field was evened out, the bigger guild had a better chance. What I see is you are trying to kill smaller guilds and alts. When you take away the ability to play alts for conquest, you take the fun away. If I want to play one or 5 alts for conquest, I should be able to make that choice.

[JattaGin]

You can't offer points for doing heroics and let someone do ONE HEROIC per day for your entire legacy. If a planet had eight heroics, let us run all eight. Tie the conquest points to completing the daily for the planet and up the points.

 

I think it's even better if you have the ILUM heroic mission in the conquest which you can repeat once per day per legacy, but the heroic itself can only be done once per week. That is by far my favourite conquest mission. I love repeating it. Once per conquest.

 

This is deliberate. EA has something in store for SWTOR and it isn't in our interest.

 

More speaks for this claim than against it.

 

Unless the devs make it so that all planets have 3 yield sizes, you will continue to see the slumming giants go after small yield planets to get achievements for particular planets. Not all guilds select planets based off of size or reward yields.

 

I have stated that several times in all the relevant threats. Big guilds conquer PLANETS and don't care for the measly rewards in whatever tier. I have chars in a dozen or so guilds on various servers, from one-man-guilds to 999-members-guilds. I have a good idea about how this works. However, we all know how much BW cares about our feedback. Not that much.

 

You can stop reading here. What follows is a lot of arguing about empirical data and theories and even though I quote aerockyul, I don't necessarily mean my text against him or her. He or she just triggered my response. I don't even consider him or her a BW-defender. Anyway, the text is long since I am at work on a holiday and I am... let's say... not happy about it.

 

Your personal experience and a few friends =/= empirical evidence. It's actually the very definition of anecdotal. Unless you are friends with the entire population on not only yours, but all the other servers.

 

I disagree. Anecdotal would be if this is one random opinion/observation from ONE player which is not backed up by anything or anyone. The last 6 or so weeks have shown very clearly that - without the exception of maybe 3 or 4 nay-sayers - everyone in this forum makes the same observations:

 

Since the conquest revamp, player numbers have dropped again, queue times are much longer again and the overall opinion you read, see and hear about the new conquest is negative. This all together draws a picture which is more than just anecdotal.

 

Empiricism is based on personal experience and observations. Aristotle was (supposedly) the first one who did empirical research during his exile on Lesbos. How? By watching his environment, observing it and describing what he sees. Watching a bird lay an egg is not an anecdotal story. It's empirical observation: "This bird laid an egg. Oh, look, this one, too. And this one."

 

After seeing a couple of different birds all laying eggs, you can start making up a theory: "All birds lay eggs." You prove this theory with your empirical data. Then you publish it. Now, it becomes the truth - until someone else finds empirical evidence that proves you wrong.

 

Now, when ONE player claims: Group queues are much longer than before the conquest revamp, you could say: anecdotal. But a researcher would then go through all e. g. forum posts here and put all the messages together that claim that group queues are much longer than before the conquest revamp. If he (or she) finds a couple of different people claiming exactly that, he (or she) can state a theory, e. g. "Group queues have noticably risen since the conquest revamp." He (or she) can then publish that and argue with the empirical data that he (or she) found.

 

Now it would be the duty of everyone who disagrees to disprove this theory. A falsification can never be in the form of "that's just anecdotal". If you want to disprove something, you need your own empirical data. And not only your own observations, but at least the same amount of data that the theory presented.

 

During the last almost 2 months, we had MANY different observations posted on this forum. Almost all claim the same. We can thus build a theory based on those claims. The numbers are enough for such a theory.

 

And then it would be BW's job to show us their own empirical data that proves us wrong.

 

Then, and only then, can we discuss. Until then, the claim that numbers are going down, queue times are longer, conquest lost a lot of its original fun... is valid empirical data as it's the data that is actually stated. No data whatsoever has been stated that proves the opposite. Neither by BW, nor by the few people still defending it.

 

I realize how data can be skewed, but what's going on in-game doesn't jive with what a lot of angry forum posters are "seeing" on an anecdotal basis, when Bioware has all of the empirical data. According to their metrics, the changes have been a success because overall participation is up and more guilds are earning rewards than ever before (sorry to the 5% of guilds who had a monopoly on the rewards for the existence of conquest up until the new changes, maybe you're seeing more competition, but that was sort of majorly a big point that Keith brought up a long time ago).

 

No. 1. BW does not have ALL the empirical data. Their technical metrics are not the only empirical data out there. 2. Unless any empirical data whatsoever is released by BW, all their claims are zilch. The opposition released empirical data in form of (at least) a lot of different "anecdotes" which, when put together, become empirical data. BW on the other hand has not released ANYTHING whatsoever. They claim that more guilds get rewards, but at the same time EVERYONE can see for themselves the numbers in the guild panels.

 

When only 1 or 2 guilds get e. g. the highest tier per week, this does not speak for their claim. Sure, it might be that there are hundreds of unseen guilds in the lowest tier, but since the 3-tier-system is one of their MAIN ingredients of the new conquest system, this 3-tier-system should prove their claim right, however, just looking at it, proves the contrary. That's a fact from within the game which has been copied here on the forum several times before.

 

Thus, when they claim: More rewards! But without ANY proof and what everyone can see in the game, does NOT look like it, the claim is falsified by the empirical observations of the many. The ONLY way BW can prove their theory right is to back it up with evidence. As long as they don't, the only evidence we have is the empirical observation stated by the players.

 

I do wish they'd lock out guilds of certain sizes from the lower tiers. It's ridiculous to see the slumming giant guilds take small-yield planets and only a few of them go after their proper tiers. One of their stated goals was for smaller guilds to have a way to earn conquest titles/chievos and that goal has failed spectacularly. It's the same giant 5% of all guilds that are dominating the top spots.

 

Now you get a big YES from me. Exactly. And combining the above with this, just double-proves (empirically) that their new conquest system failed. I have stated it several times before: Guilds don't conquer for the rewards, but for the planets. If the guild intends to conquer Ilum next and Ilum is the small tier planet, they go there.

 

BW clearly failed to understand that super obvious part of conquest. And when they did this AND do not provide any empirical data for any of their claims, it makes any possible theories from their side even more unlikely. Let me set up a theory for myself (on purpose a quite stupid one about a topic that quite puzzles me for about a year now):

 

Premise 1: Keith claimed to play this game very actively and with a LOT of alts.

Premise 2: The new conquest system is alt-unfriendly.

Conclusion: Keith doesn't actually play this game.

 

Premise 1 is what Keith has stated before, however, as far as I know, without proof.

Premise 2 is taken straight from the actual conquest system (repeatable objectives once per day per legacy --> alt-unfriendly).

The conclusion is just one possibility, but I chose it on purpose and I claim now that this is the truth. I back this up with all the messages that were posted on this forum since March from people who enjoyed playing conquest and who now claim that it's not enjoyable for them anymore. Especially for people from small guilds - for whom the conquest was supposed to be better now. There are enough messages like that in this thread alone. Keith on the other hand has not commented on how much he enjoys the new conquest system, but he has made adjustments to the system which are just as alt-unfriendly as before, thus this doesn't speak for him actually playing the game.

 

My theory remains now valid until proven wrong. Keith is not actually playing this game.

 

Prove me wrong.

 

Science, baby!

 

For the record, I haven't checked the conquest for the last 2 or 3 weeks. It's not appealing to me anymore. I had participated before pretty much every week for the last I don't know how many years. 'tis a pity.

Edited May 10, 2018 by JattaGin

[AdornedBlood]

So.. 4 hours just to swap the colors on the conquest board?

[Master_Morak]

So.. 4 hours just to swap the colors on the conquest board?

 

what did you expect?

 

There inkompetence is greater than the Rocky Mountains - like Little childs they believe their fail conquest redesign is still the best.

[geofraynils]

Very sad to see offline servers during a EU public holyday. Furthermore in the afternoon - 15h00-18h... .

[Master_Morak]

Very sad to see offline servers during a EU public holyday. Furthermore in the afternoon - 15h00-18h... .

 

And as by all patches in the last time, they are not able to do it the anounced time schedule.

 

Enough is enough, when will there be consequences for the Game Producer and the responsible team leder in the development?

Edited May 10, 2018 by Master_Morak

[Kissakias]

Thursday is a holiday in Europe and it will be in the middle of the day you take down the servers. Thanks for that

 

how many countries have it as holiday?

[kodrac]

Very sad to see offline servers during a EU public holyday. Furthermore in the afternoon - 15h00-18h... .

 

What holiday is that?

[Kissakias]

good that for the achievements fix

what about the NATHEMA FP ?

the 80 beast kills?

the finished runs progression counter in HM ?

[Nightblazer]

I don't care if it's a holiday or not. If it's a major issue like people's achievement progress 100% reset or any other major bug they feel it's important to fix then it needs to be fixed. Should the bug that required today's patch happened, no it shouldn't have, but it's here, and needed to be fixed.

 

Even if it was Christmas day and they needed to take the game offline for 3 or 4 hours to fix an issue that needs to be addressed I wouldn't care. It needs to be done holiday or not.

 

No matter the patch time that they choose, what day, holiday in whatever country, week or weekend or whatever it's always an "inconvenience" to someone, somewhere.

Edited May 10, 2018 by Nightblazer

[Wolfiry]

Did the conquest points get reseted today becasue of the patch?

I assume it was starting over on Tuesday also when new conquest week started.

If that is so what was their thought behind letting that happen?

[Nightblazer]

Did the conquest points get reseted today becasue of the patch?

I assume it was starting over on Tuesday also when new conquest week started.

If that is so what was their thought behind letting that happen?

 

No conquest points didn't get reset. Why would they would reset it? The patch today was to restore achievement progress that got erased for players that lost it and to fix the issue with the daily's not being being per legacy.

Edited May 10, 2018 by Nightblazer

[KendraP]

No conquest points didn't get reset. Why would they would reset it? The patch today was to restore achievement progress that got erased for players that lost it and to fix the issue with the daily's not being being per legacy.

 

Because sometimes these Thursday patches result in resets like that, it happened the time before last. Last week brought us the legacy bug that most of us preferred.

[Nightblazer]

Because sometimes these Thursday patches result in resets like that, it happened the time before last. Last week brought us the legacy bug that most of us preferred.

 

That part I wish didn't change. I liked being able to do daily objectives on each character.

[KendraP]

That part I wish didn't change. I liked being able to do daily objectives on each character.

 

You and me both man

[Wolfiry]

The reason why I am asking is that it seems as the conquest points have been reseted for me on several alts.

[JennyFlynn]

What holiday is that?

Feast of Ascension/Holy Thursday. Lotta people here, in my country at least, have the day off for that so I guess being able to play more than otherwise would have been welcome were it not for maintenance? Hasn't bothered me personally but I assume that's the problem here.

[KendraP]

The reason why I am asking is that it seems as the conquest points have been reseted for me on several alts.

 

I wont be home to check for another 4 hours or so, but I wouldnt be surprised...

[ZeroTypeR]

The sad thing is...this is the ONLY way any of this makes sense to me...they're punishing people for playing too much of their game...I simply can't fathom that...the obvious outcome is people playing other games, which hurts this game...

 

I don't think BW cares anymore, honestly. Even IF they do, their actions say otherwise, which is exactly what I've been paying attention to in recent years.

Edited May 10, 2018 by ZeroTypeR

[geofraynils]

What holiday is that?

 

Ascension - Available in France, Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium surrely more than half of EU pop playing this game, if we only consider people playing the game in one of their main language. If you consider Spain, italie... and the others contry wich can have player on english serv this may be nearest to 4/5 of total EU serv pop i think.

Edited May 11, 2018 by geofraynils