Eric, is this the final version of conquest?

[Lhancelot]

Players that focus on conquest have been providing a lot of feedback for the past couple months. Many still feel 5.9 did not address the punishing affect legacy restrictions has on alts.

 

Are you guys done making changes to conquest with 5.9, or do the players have more to look forward to regarding legacy restrictions being lifted so alts are once again a viable source of conquest?

[SolarSaenz]

Players that focus on conquest have been providing a lot of feedback for the past couple months. Many still feel 5.9 did not address the punishing affect legacy restrictions has on alts.

 

Are you guys done making changes to conquest with 5.9, or do the players have more to look forward to regarding legacy restrictions being lifted so alts are once again a viable source of conquest?

 

Let me see how close I am to the "official" response (if any is even given to this thread).

 

"We will continue to monitor conquest and listen to player feedback and make changes when and/or if appropriate".

[Darevsool]

While I expect a similar response, I too would like to know what any plans are for "immediate" changes are, if any exist.

 

Specifically putting planetary heroics back in the "infinite" category.

 

Leaving the points as they are, the most you can get right now is 8k per day (with 150% SH bonus) JUST by doing heroics. (Imp side NS heroics to set that point value).

If you add in the rampage/kill count that bumps it up to around 11.5k

 

Moving them to the infinite category will allow for people with multiple alts to run them as much as they want, which is one of the biggest things that I, as a person with multiple alts, want to see put back to how it was before 5.8. Or at least as close as can be done with the new system.

 

That being said, I got two toons up to about 10k on Tuesday and didn't have any desire to log in yesterday to complete those two toons.

[ZionHalcyon]

Allow me to help educate anyone coming into this thread and already here.

 

We play an MMO.

 

One of the things it has during the EULA is a warning that gameplay may change over time.

 

What this means is, not just here, but in any MMO, there is no such thing as a 'final version'.

 

Even things and systems that aren't planned to be messed with in the current can be adjusted or changed years down the road if not months.

 

By its very nature that is what an MMO is.

 

So it's kind of silly to ask if anything in an MMO is "final". After all, at launch the eight separate class stories were supposed to be "final" too...

Edited May 17, 2018 by ZionHalcyon

[Lhancelot]

Allow me to help educate anyone coming into this thread and already here.

 

We play an MMO.

 

One of the things it has during the EULA is a warning that gameplay may change over time.

 

What this means is, not just here, but in any MMO, there is no such thing as a 'final version'.

 

Even things and systems that aren't planned to be messed with in the current can be adjusted or changed years down the road if not months.

 

By its very nature that is what an MMO is.

 

So it's kind of silly to ask if anything in an MMO is "final". After all, at launch the eight separate class stories were supposed to be "final" too...

 

Thanks for educating us less educated folk on how a MMO works. Pretty sure you get the "gist" of the thread though, don't you?

 

Chances are Eric and/or Keith get the gist of the thread, which ultimately is the important part.

[TUXs]

Allow me to help educate anyone coming into this thread and already here.

 

We play an MMO.

 

One of the things it has during the EULA is a warning that gameplay may change over time.

 

What this means is, not just here, but in any MMO, there is no such thing as a 'final version'.

 

Even things and systems that aren't planned to be messed with in the current can be adjusted or changed years down the road if not months.

 

By its very nature that is what an MMO is.

 

So it's kind of silly to ask if anything in an MMO is "final". After all, at launch the eight separate class stories were supposed to be "final" too...

Seriously???

[KendraP]

Thanks for educating us less educated folk on how a MMO works. Pretty sure you get the "gist" of the thread though, don't you?

 

Chances are Eric and/or Keith get the gist of the thread, which ultimately is the important part.

 

Sometimes you're too nice, Lhance.

 

To the person you were replying to: yes they make changes over time. However, the game is fundamentally dependent on people paying to play it. It is in their interest, therefore, to keep as many of us happy as possible.

 

They appear to assume thst anyone coming here to complain is simply part of an unhappy minority, and in many cases that is true. However, the feedback from conquest has been overwhelmingly negative, much like it was with GC in early 5.0.

 

Just as they eventually made GC playable I expect eventually conquest will be again too. All I want is to feel like they are pretending to listen to our concerns. We either get no response or a "we hear you but you're wrong."

 

Why are we wrong?

What is the advantage to conquest points being difficult to come by and alts being nerfed to crap?

Where were they trying to go with this - i.e. of they wanted to fix the rewards bug, why pointlessly change thr whole system?

If you decide to make changes, when can we expect them?

And fundamentally:

How do you plan to make conquest alt friendly again? And if you do not plan on this, why?

[Andryah]

Players that focus on conquest have been providing a lot of feedback for the past couple months. Many still feel 5.9 did not address the punishing affect legacy restrictions has on alts.

 

Are you guys done making changes to conquest with 5.9, or do the players have more to look forward to regarding legacy restrictions being lifted so alts are once again a viable source of conquest?

 

See the summer Roadmap http://www.swtor.com/info/news/news-article/20180516

Based on your feedback, we made substantial changes to Galactic Command which is now a very solid secondary gearing system. We are turning our attention to Guilds, their management tools and related competitive features. This includes the Guild Conquest system we rolled out at the end of March 2018 and we’ll continue to refine and improve them for Guilds of all sizes.

 

As I have pointed out in prior posts.... Conquests appears to have always meant to be guild centric... and they clearly are going to continue in that focus.... so I'm not sure they will loosen legacy restrictions.

Edited May 17, 2018 by Andryah

[Lhancelot]

See the summer Roadmap http://www.swtor.com/info/news/news-article/20180516

 

 

As I have pointed out in prior posts.... Conquests appears to have always meant to be guild centric... and they clearly are going to continue in that focus.... so I'm not sure they will loosen legacy restrictions.

 

Thanks for the link here and quotes.

 

With all due respect I don't see what legacy restrictions have to do with a guild-centric ideology. Whether a guild has 10 people or 100, they all have alts that are being punished by the legacy restrictions.

[KendraP]

Thanks for the link here and quotes.

 

With all due respect I don't see what legacy restrictions have to do with a guild-centric ideology. Whether a guild has 10 people or 100, they all have alts that are being punished by the legacy restrictions.

 

I would like to add that the 10 person guild is in fact more dependent on alts for conquest as the 100 person guild has a tenfold advantage under a single toon system.

10×15000=150000 ==> you must have alts cap

100×15000=1500000 ==> you reach cap on multiple tiers without alts at all

[Andryah]

With all due respect I don't see what legacy restrictions have to do with a guild-centric ideology. Whether a guild has 10 people or 100, they all have alts that are being punished by the legacy restrictions.

 

With all due respect.....then please spend some quality time re-reading some of my recent posts, because I have covered this already.

 

Note: I am not trying to persuade anyone to change their views about the legacy restrictions, just offering reasoning as to why I think they went the way they did here. Conquests is clearly about guilds working collectively together .. not individuals (Legacy is all about the individual player) ... and fostering more participation across a guild.. rather than 5 or 10% of guild members doing all the heavy lifting makes sense from the studio perspective. AND.. it could be temporary on the part of the studio... as sort of a forced retraining to guilds as to how they intend conquests to work. The approach does however stick it to solo-Conquest players (solo or less that 5 member guilds). Will this work? Probably not.. given how intractable some players can be about change.

Edited May 17, 2018 by Andryah

[Lhancelot]

With all due respect.....then please spend some quality time re-reading some of my recent posts, because I have covered this already.

 

Note: I am not trying to persuade anyone to change their views about the legacy restrictions, just offering reasoning as to why I think they went the way they did here. Conquests is clearly about guilds working collectively together .. not individuals (Legacy is all about the individual player) ... and fostering more participation across a guild.. rather than 5 or 10% of guild members doing all the heavy lifting makes sense from the studio perspective. AND.. it could be temporary on the part of the studio... as sort of a forced retraining to guilds as to how they intend conquests to work. The approach does however stick it to solo-Conquest players (solo or less that 5 member guilds). Will this work? Probably not.. given how intractable some players can be about change.

 

How does the new system encourage guilds to work collectively together?

 

The only interaction between guilds is competing for conquest points, right? I am no expert on conquest so maybe I am unaware of some facet of conquest you are speaking on...

 

By limiting conquest quests by legacy, it doesn't foster more focus on a guilds participation, it forces the player to focus on one particular character.

 

Removing the legacy restrictions would allow players to focus on multiple toons thus the possibility does exist multiple guilds could be impacted by legacy points gained, this is true.

 

If this is bad, then why are players allowed to join multiple guilds in the first place? Why not restrict players by legacy to one guild then, if the ultimate goal is to stream line all of a players legacy into one specific guild?

 

Sticking legacy restrictions on alts is counterproductive to the very system already incorporated, that being people have alts and are in multiple guilds and have been so since the start of the game.

 

I just fail to see how legacy restrictions benefit players, the game, or guilds.

 

If the issue is that in the old system a guild of 10 was able to compete with a guild of 100 because the 10 man guild did more to earn rewards over the much larger guild then that is a fault of the much less productive 100 man guild.

 

But then, seeing that they did say they wanted to enable smaller guilds to compete with larger guilds, exactly how does this explanation make sense?

 

I just see so many contradictions in what they say, and what they do.

 

In the famous words of Keith Kanning, I am confused.

[silenthc]

Entirely unrelated, but something that has been bothering me for a while and I see daily; it's Kanneg, not Kanning.

[Lhancelot]

Entirely unrelated, but something that has been bothering me for a while and I see daily; it's Kanneg, not Kanning.

 

Thanks.

[SolarSaenz]

Entirely unrelated, but something that has been bothering me for a while and I see daily; it's Kanneg, not Kanning.

 

What? Really? I thought it was Krennic all this time!

[Joonbeams]

With all due respect.....then please spend some quality time re-reading some of my recent posts, because I have covered this already.

 

Note: I am not trying to persuade anyone to change their views about the legacy restrictions, just offering reasoning as to why I think they went the way they did here. Conquests is clearly about guilds working collectively together .. not individuals (Legacy is all about the individual player) ... and fostering more participation across a guild.. rather than 5 or 10% of guild members doing all the heavy lifting makes sense from the studio perspective. AND.. it could be temporary on the part of the studio... as sort of a forced retraining to guilds as to how they intend conquests to work. The approach does however stick it to solo-Conquest players (solo or less that 5 member guilds). Will this work? Probably not.. given how intractable some players can be about change.

 

I get that you're covering the "studio perspective", not necessarily your own opinion. But here's why I think this doesn't even work, even for their alleged objectives.

 

First, it's actually discouraging some guilds that used to conquest from doing conquest now. Not only is this a direct negative effect, but it's also indirectly harmful to the game by the ripple effects created by this decreased conquest activity.

 

Second, let's just follow out their assumed logic:

• We start with the "problem" that conquest is "broken" because: a) only a few large guilds have a chance at the rewards, and b) only a few players within any guild (the 10-15% above) actively do the work for that guild in conquest.
  
• One can't just look at the "problem" however without also looking at the potential upsides of this "broken" system, including: a) large numbers of guilds actively participating (meaning more GTN activity, more group activity etc., and b) the 10-15% who are willing to spend a ton of time in game doing a number of things (again, eg. crafting, PvP, ops, etc.) for their guilds across many many alts.
  
• Implementing a "fix" here that reduces overall guild activity (even if it now hypothetically gives smaller guilds a better chance at something) is worse overall (I'll say this is arguable, but I don't think it really is) by itself. But what is also clear, and was foreseeable, is that big guilds will still be best in conquest anyway - it's just obvious math. So when you add in taking that "10-15%" of active players playing constantly across numerous alts and "restricting" them to one toon essentially, you completely create a gigantic new problem (i.e. overall decline in activity) in the attempt to fix a rather small one.
  

 

Now, given the statements in the roadmap today, I believe the devs get this (and I very much believe it's backed up by 'data'). For example, I've not seen a single example of anyone, big guild/small guild, who thinks the legacy restriction made things better. I've seen countless examples on the contrary, backed up by in game empirical data, and we also know the devs have stated that the goal wasn't to punish alt play. So, many of these crippling changes will be walked back (common sense says so anyway). Still, it was clear up front that at least some of these changes were a bad idea - so again, it's good to see in the roadmap that feedback prior to changes is now being prioritized.

 

Tl;dr - fixes to alleged problems must always be weighed against the potential harms to things that work - a very simple application of the law of unintended consequences (though not quite, because the fallout was foreseeable)...

[KendraP]

Entirely unrelated, but something that has been bothering me for a while and I see daily; it's Kanneg, not Kanning.

 

I'm probably the main perpetrator. Sorry Mr. Kanneg! I dont know why I got the name wrong.

[JattaGin]

Allow me to help educate anyone coming into this thread and already here.

(...)

 

Congratulations! You win the /facepalm of the day. You truly earned this title.

 

To the OP: The roadmap states that they talked a lot with many players, got our feedback and listened to us. The result was the conquest changes of 5.9. So... hmm...

[dryving]

Yeah...as for guilds working together being the goal... our guild of around 15 active members left the game entirely....so in a sense it's "Mission Accomplished". We most certainly worked together into another game. For some of us, we'd been players since launch, and most for 3 or 4 years. These conquest changes were the final straw. The roadmap today had us all saying "Meh....I'll see what they have to offer after the new year...if SWTOR is still around."