If you hate doing conquest, why are you forcing yourself to do it?

[DakhathKilrathi]

Genuine question. The rewards aren't that great, and you'll still get it on an alt or three or four by doing stuff you actually enjoy. Most of the complaints I've seen about the rep reward nerf are about how it makes conquest even grindier than before. And it does, but uh... that's fine? Was always a little weird that you got such an insane amount of points for logging in to click a token. (Btw, combine current reward with the companion influence objective, which is also a click and get points instantly objective, and you're still getting a decent amount so it's not that bad.) 

If you hate conquest as much as it seems like you genuinely do, why keep doing it? Because it seems to me the problem isn't that they reduced the rewards for a single objective. The problem is that most of the player base apparently dislikes doing conquest at all. 

[Traceguy]

There's a lot of aspects to it, but it is a personal goal, and those give both purpose and motivation. In the game where the devs are slow to push out actual content, this is an important aspect to keep people playing the game. And me personally, I'll blow money on the cartel market just to look great on all my alts while doing conquests.

However, that doesn't mean that making conquests harder or longer will have an increased effect on the motivation and attention. If you make your daily goals more mundane and tedious, you're just going to make them bothersome. Conquests were already close to being bothersome. The nerfing of the rep reward just pushed it over the edge.

My biggest goal for over a year now  has been earning nearly 50% or more of the 5,000,000CQP for a guild with inactive players. That was time consuming enough, and I think going forward I'm going to have to quit, which does mean I'll put less time into the game as I don't feel like I'm going to miss the target goal anymore. Just going to miss it automatically. 

  ETA: As the below post states, tech frags. You get 1,000TF per toon per week that completed conquest and hit the 5M invasion goal. That was a nice bonus. Also a great source of Flagship plans and Conq Comms

Edited March 16 by Traceguy

[Inkaine]

You could have seen your answers from the multiple threads on this topic already. Different people have very different needs for conquest.

And no, unlike you claim, I for one don't consider the rewards "not that great". For me, they used to be my reliable income of tech fragments. With 5 toons on lvl80 I could reliably upgrade two legendary implants per week.

None who complain about the changes here said that they "hate" conquest, as you claim. The issue is, that the normal activities we do and that should reward us with activity points (aka conquest points) just don't give any or few. So we have to grind stuff we don't necessarily would have to finish the weeklies.

It takes understanding that people play the game differently. And this understanding would have made this question unnecessary.

[DawnAskham]

The conquest point nerf associated with gaining reputation is just a symptom, not the actual problem.

The actual problem is bolting ongoing grinds to stale, old, dated content - then making changes over time that appear to be designed to pad in ever more time to the grinds while the content stays stale, old, and dated.

Players cope by finding things like the fast and easy objective to gain rep for conquest points to cut down on their overall grinds.

When BS continues to make changes that pad in more time to the grinds, and make the grinds more apparent, push back is expected.

But again, it is symptomatic of larger issues - the unrewarding and grindy nature of the game today coupled with the paltry amount of content added.

 

[Pirana]

Odd question. Please point to where someone mentions their disdain towards the Conquest system. I'm sure there are people out there if you dig deep enough, but that isn't the core issue. It's obvious what they're trying to do, keep the carrot on the stick and forcing people to grind that much more running the same content we've run for years. And just for some clarity, grinding meaning keeping people subscribed and paying their bills.

[captainbladejk]

1 hour ago, DakhathKilrathi said:

 Was always a little weird that you got such an insane amount of points for logging in to click a token.

This right here shows me you don't have any clue what you're talking about and also convinces me the devs could death star a planet irl and people would STILL defend them. The fact that you tried to cite this verifiably false argument shows you are just being disingenuous. In order to generate a rep token to "login and click" I had to actually play the game, be it flashpoints, heroics, daily quests or what have you in order to get that rep token. If I do 10 flashponts and get 10 tokens, It's not simply "clicking for 40k points", it's running 10 flashpoints and whatever else before I ever get the chance to click it. Saying people just "log in and click to get 40k for clicking a token" is no different than saying people "log in to spend op catalysts for their gear" and pretending that's all they did. You still have to do work to get the OP catalysts just like you have to do work to get the token. Whether I spend all 10 of our hypothetical tokens at once, over the course of 10 days, or 10 years, the result is the same amount of rep. Also whether I spend those tokens now or years down the road is irrelevant to the fact I did the 10 flashpoints in order to obtain them.

The reputation objective has sat just fine at 40k for YEARS but just suddenly now I'm expected to believe it's a problem? Yeah no that's not how that works. That's them trying to increase grind and demanding people play longer for less reward. If they thought the reputation objective paid out too much reward for too little effort, they should've mad rep tokens harder to obtain to start with instead of screwing over the rewards. It's the devs creating a problem, blaming the players for the problem they as devs created, then destroying the rewards for players who did no wrong and played the game AS DESIGNED. There is no scenario in which the devs are innocent in this. 

As to why people do the grind it's for a number of reasons. The simplest reason is that it's one of the better consistent sources of tech fragments, and now conquest tokens. Conquest tokens can be used to purchase conquest gear and upgrade it to 340. Or you can trade said conquest tokens to FP1s or Op Catalysts. If you're in a small guild or a solo player that doesn't get to do many OPs if ever, that's your only way of ever seeing anything Rakata. Depending on how many toons you have that's also alot of tech fragments for upgrading implants. I don't mind the conquest system as it's something to do. Would I say it's perfect, of course not as no system is.

Now if they had nerfed the rep objective while simultaneously lowering the amount of points you need to acquire to get rewards, or put in extra objectives to make up the 225k that was stolen and actually bothered to put it in the patch notes, this conversation would be different. But it's the underhanded attempt at a stealth nerf then them trying to dev-splain why they know all and everyone but them is wrong and how we're too dumb to know we're not having fun unless it's their way. 

In any MMO you will have some grind and dirty work to do in order to get to the other stuff you want to do, that's just the nature of the beast. Simply because something isn't a person's favorite thing to do ever doesn't mean they automatically must hate it. I do not hate conquest. What I hate is them trying to pigeonhole me into pvp and starfighter to see any kind of reasonable payout for conquest points. I know it's hard for some people to admit, but there are more people in this game than just them. I have nothing against the folks who enjoy pvp or starfighter and I'm glad they've got their objectives. However there are more people in this game than just them. There needs to be more than just the starfighter and pvp objectives that have any kind of decent payout, and so far for awhile now, especially the last 3 weeks, all the objectives with decent payouts have revolved around trying to force everyone into those modes. And if it came down to me doing starfighter/pvp or the game being shutdown forever, then the game dies with me. The heat death of the universe will happen before I ever set foot into one of those cursed modes. I got enough pvp from my WoW days to last a lifetime. If they think I'm not doing enough grinding and want me to do more, give me objectives I actually want to do. Because all that's going to happen from trying to force me into pvp or starfighter is me canceling my sub and them losing a player that's been here and spent money since closed beta, and me telling all of my friends and guildmates not to renew either. 

[The-Kaitou-Kid]

It's really weird to take people complaining about a nerf as them hating the entire system in question. Conquest is one of the main driving factors for me when playing the game. The content I like to play doesn't have great rewards, so Conquest basically is the reward for that content, and since the objectives for that content were nerfed into the ground several years ago, the rep objective was what helped make up the difference. It allows me to do what I want with the time that I have, and then use the rep objective to finish off. That's no longer possible, so I'll get through what I have time for, realize I'm still 30-40k short, and now I have to go do something else to make up the rest when I wanted to either be done entirely or switch to another character.

 

To imply that means I dislike the entire system is completely disingenuous (or you've given zero thought to why people might have an issue with it). You're not the first person I've seen make that argument and it's incredibly silly in my opinion. If you don't have a problem with it, that's totally fine, but that doesn't mean that other people can't have a legitimate issue with it without hating the entire system.

 

Also good to point out, because I feel like the way you word it here is intentionally misleading, simply clicking a token is the end of the process for the rep advancement, it's not the whole process. There's very few rep lines in the game that you can just get a rep token from "nothing", and longtime players probably have those lines at max rep (which means you get the objective from them, if you weren't aware, you have to actually use the token and you can't use rep tokens for lines you have maxed out). Outside of the limited exceptions, you did content at some point in time to get that rep token. You can argue whether or not that content is "enough" for the points, but I feel like there's a lot of objectives right now that you could make that argument for, especially with how rewarding the content is otherwise. The fact is it's not simply logging in and clicking a button. If you're doing that, it's more than likely that you did content at some point in time to get the token to click on.

[Traceguy]

Those defending broadsword seem to be saying the same thing. "The CQP for rep required no effort".

If I defeat FR3-D0M today,  The "[Weekly] Price of Freedom", will give me a rep token.

• If I use the token today, the effort for that CQP was completing  "[Weekly] Price of Freedom.
• If I use the token tomorrow, the effort for that CQP was completing  "[Weekly] Price of Freedom.

 

 

Edited March 16 by Traceguy

[Thraka]

1 hour ago, DakhathKilrathi said:

Genuine question. The rewards aren't that great, and you'll still get it on an alt or three or four by doing stuff you actually enjoy. Most of the complaints I've seen about the rep reward nerf are about how it makes conquest even grindier than before. And it does, but uh... that's fine? Was always a little weird that you got such an insane amount of points for logging in to click a token. (Btw, combine current reward with the companion influence objective, which is also a click and get points instantly objective, and you're still getting a decent amount so it's not that bad.) 

If you hate conquest as much as it seems like you genuinely do, why keep doing it? Because it seems to me the problem isn't that they reduced the rewards for a single objective. The problem is that most of the player base apparently dislikes doing conquest at all. 

 

Nobody hated conquest until the devs tried to force it to have double grind time. Try again.

 

[TahliahCOH]

We used to only have to get 50K conquest, then it was upped to 100K. The means to achieve this NEW goal included "easy cq" like the rep cq. At the same time, doing GSF and/or PVP would get your cq in record time (we're talking 200K+ here), but for PVE players that's not a draw. I absolutely loathe GSF (yes, even if all I have to do to "earn" the cq is to die), and I hate PVP. Hate it. A lot. So, the cq points are all in the GSF and PVP areas (HUNDREDSK of cq, vs. 5k here and there for solo or non-GSF/PVP players.) The ONLY evening of the HUGE difference between GSF/PVP was the rep cq. We didn't have to just stand there and die for cq, we could pop a cq token or go kill something in the newer zones . . . and still not get NEAR the cq we'd get for doing GSF and/or PVP. Those cq points are crazy out of line with what solo players can EVER get. That rep token pop for 43ishK cq kept us going. We could pop a rep token we EARNED by playing the game and get a teensy amount of cq compared to the 200K you guys get. And we were good with that. I can pop a rep token, kill whatever on whatever new zone to get rep, and still get my cq for my smaller guilds by fleshing it out with crafts, comp gifts, and quick zones like Ziost and CZ.

We never ever got anywhere the near the cq points the GSF/PVP players got, but we got to do our thing and still managed. That is gone now. We have a choice: do the massively outrageously cq awarding GSF/PVP we hate or just quit conquesting. I will quit conquesting before I do GSF and PVP (which will be never), and that means that those of us who were conquesting on multiple toons for far lesser cq points than GSF or PVP just . . . won't.

I have 43 days on my sub, and then I am done if this is not fixed. It's a bridge too far on a bridge that has been gimping my toons' powers, costing them money to Quick Travel, and generally making the QOL in this game nonexistent. I don't NEED to spend real money on this game. And I won't continue to do so unless this is fixed. I've really reached my limit of nerf crazy.

Edited March 16 by TahliahCOH

[ShadowyKai]

Quote

In order to generate a rep token to "login and click" I had to actually play the game, be it flashpoints, heroics, daily quests or what have you in order to get that rep token.

A friend of mine in the game had an interesting take on that whole "You only needed to click a token to get 43,000 points" claim.

He said it was like saying that you can get a Commercial Driver's License in a couple of hours - the length of time required to take the test for the license.

Because the time required to actually learn how to drive a truck somehow "doesn't count."

[captainbladejk]

1 hour ago, ShadowyKai said:

A friend of mine in the game had an interesting take on that whole "You only needed to click a token to get 43,000 points" claim.

He said it was like saying that you can get a Commercial Driver's License in a couple of hours - the length of time required to take the test for the license.

Because the time required to actually learn how to drive a truck somehow "doesn't count."

That's a very good analogy and accurate. It can also be applied to virtually anything else. It may take a doctor 5 minutes to figure out what's wrong with me and prescribe something for it when I go see them, but look at all the medical school and potential years of practice to get there. Some of these people just look for an excuse to white knight for the devs. 

[SteveTheCynic]

1 hour ago, ShadowyKai said:

A friend of mine in the game had an interesting take on that whole "You only needed to click a token to get 43,000 points" claim.

He said it was like saying that you can get a Commercial Driver's License in a couple of hours - the length of time required to take the test for the license.

Because the time required to actually learn how to drive a truck somehow "doesn't count."

Yes but no.  It was still absurdly easy to get one of those tokens:

• Find a planet where rep tokens are world drops and you haven't maxed out the reputation, and go on a killing spree.  (example: Voss)
• Run the Operation Silent Roar (Impside) or Operation Midnight Freedom (Pubside) "rerun space railshooter missions" mission.  It takes a few minutes ("few" == "no more than four") and reliably gives a rep token.

Sure, if you've already maxed out those reps, you're out of luck, but it was, nevertheless, absurdly easy and not at all time-consuming to get those 43K points.

[Shwarzchild]

It's absurd that this change is the one that sends people over the moon. The fact that we don't get any new content doesn't upset people. It's a nerf to a token that upsets people.  The truth is this game does not produce enough new content. That's why you should be unsubscribing. You all are upset over the absolute wrong thing.

[LJ_Gibbs]

8 minutes ago, Shwarzchild said:

It's absurd that this change is the one that sends people over the moon. The fact that we don't get any new content doesn't upset people. It's a nerf to a token that upsets people.  The truth is this game does not produce enough new content. That's why you should be unsubscribing. You all are upset over the absolute wrong thing.

I think we are resigned to the fact we won't ever get a significant amount of real new content.  They've beaten us down to the point we have given up.

 

[MsViolet]

Quote

The fact that we don't get any new content doesn't upset people.

Actually, that IS why people are upset about the nerf to this Conquest Objective.

This has actually been stated a number of times on different threads here about this. The reason that "Advancement : Reputation" was so important to many players was because it gave them a way to skip past a significant amount of the tedious, repetitive grinding needed to reach Conquest point goals.

Without the Objective, we now have to kill a lot more of the mobs that we've already killed thousands of times before, and farm the Heroics that we've already done ad nauseam.

If we had newer, fresher content that we aren't already bored to death with to complete for Conquest Points, then people wouldn't be so upset.

The reason that so many players are ready to unsubscribe over this is because they don't want to have to farm that tiresome old content even more to get the same results they had before.

[captainbladejk]

4 hours ago, SteveTheCynic said:

Yes but no.  It was still absurdly easy to get one of those tokens:

• Find a planet where rep tokens are world drops and you haven't maxed out the reputation, and go on a killing spree.  (example: Voss)
• Run the Operation Silent Roar (Impside) or Operation Midnight Freedom (Pubside) "rerun space railshooter missions" mission.  It takes a few minutes ("few" == "no more than four") and reliably gives a rep token.

Sure, if you've already maxed out those reps, you're out of luck, but it was, nevertheless, absurdly easy and not at all time-consuming to get those 43K points.

Considering you can do the pvp objectives for more than 700k per week for the starfighter objective, and then another 1m each for arena and 1m for warzone I don't buy it. All you have to do is sit and get killed over and over and you get over a full bar for doing nothing. Rep objective gave 301k per week MAX. When pvp objectives give more than double or tripple that I don't want to hear it when those don't require you to actively engage beyond making sure you don't get flagged for AFK. 

With rep tokens I'm required to actively engage to get those and play the game. If say I do 10 flashpoints and get 10 tokens I still did what the game itself required of me and still completed the flashpoints. Whether I cash them out at once or over time is irrelevant to the fact I did the work to make them. If you're concerned about it being too fast to get a rep token, your problem is with the ease of getting the tokens, not the payout. Fix to that is to make the tokens harder to get, not nerfing the rewards. That's literally blaming the players for an "issue" they created. 

So since the rep thing paid out too much by your logic, when are we nerfing the pvp stuff? Now I'm glad that they have objectives they can do for pvp. So where are the objectives that pay similarly for those of us non-pvp players?

[VegaMist]

1 hour ago, captainbladejk said:

All you have to do is sit and get killed over and over and you get over a full bar for doing nothing.

As a frequent PVP-er, thanks, but no thanks - we already have an issue with AFK-ers, and I would hate if more of them joined the matches just to hide in corners. Which is, btw, another one of my concerns regarding the nerf - that people would go to extreme measures like the ones you described to compensate for it.

[captainbladejk]

1 hour ago, VegaMist said:

As a frequent PVP-er, thanks, but no thanks - we already have an issue with AFK-ers, and I would hate if more of them joined the matches just to hide in corners. Which is, btw, another one of my concerns regarding the nerf - that people would go to extreme measures like the ones you described to compensate for it.

I don't want the pvp objectives nerfed. Nor do I really want to see people AFK in pvp for the record. But if they're wanting to be technical about work being done, that's what can happen. However if people are going to appeal to the ignorance of "it only takes 2 or 3 minutes to get a rep token" to justify the nerf, then we may as well have equality across the board and nerf everything. Otherwise it's unfair to everyone else. I hate the double standards some people are pushing of saying the rep was too much, but the pvp stuff isn't. If folks are going to have a standard they need to be consistent with it. 

Simultaneously if it ends up happening because people said it was "no big deal because it paid too much for rep" and it ruins their pvp as a result, I don't feel sorry for them because now they'll know how the rest of us feel. I just hate the hypocrisy of some people going around with this stuff. 

Edited March 17 by captainbladejk

[VegaMist]

26 minutes ago, captainbladejk said:

But if they're wanting to be technical about work being done, that's what can happen.

You're are correct - it will. For all I know, it might be already happening.

And I'm with you on the ignorance - I think we've been on the same page regarding this topic overall.

I also agree that pve objectives should be buffed, even if they return the token to the same value it was before the nerf.

The main reason it was "overrepresented" is because of lack of other options.

[TahliahCOH]

18 hours ago, VegaMist said:

As a frequent PVP-er, thanks, but no thanks - we already have an issue with AFK-ers, and I would hate if more of them joined the matches just to hide in corners. Which is, btw, another one of my concerns regarding the nerf - that people would go to extreme measures like the ones you described to compensate for it.

Some serious PVE conquesters will, most of us will just leave the game. I don't like PVP, but there is no way I am going to destroy if for those players who do like it. Even though that seems to be the goal of this cq rep nerf . . . to drive people who don't like and don't want to do PVP to just sit there to get cq. I read about how much PVP already sucks in this game, and I have no desire at all to make it worse for you guys who enjoy it.

[Sarfux]

because THEY are forcing us to do it for strongholds now....

 

stronghold decorating is my end game and has been for many many years.  I would GLADLY pay a lot of cc to buy one straight up but they tied it to new strongholds now.  i hate it.  what a giant mistake

[arunav]

On 3/16/2024 at 6:47 PM, SteveTheCynic said:

Yes but no.  It was still absurdly easy to get one of those tokens:

• Find a planet where rep tokens are world drops and you haven't maxed out the reputation, and go on a killing spree.  (example: Voss)
• Run the Operation Silent Roar (Impside) or Operation Midnight Freedom (Pubside) "rerun space railshooter missions" mission.  It takes a few minutes ("few" == "no more than four") and reliably gives a rep token.

Sure, if you've already maxed out those reps, you're out of luck, but it was, nevertheless, absurdly easy and not at all time-consuming to get those 43K points.

As has been pointed out in these discussions, there are a lot of veteran players who have all reputation tracks completed except for relatively new ones. These used to include new Galactic Season reputation tracks, and for many are only the 7.x daily areas (Manaan, Ruhnuk, Kessen's Landing). Personally, I only have Kessen's Landing remaining incomplete. 

To get to the 7.x daily areas takes a lot of time. I'm only there on 2 of roughly 25 characters. Though reasons vary among players, I personally found story content since Ossus unrewarding to finish, unlike through 3.x, on all my characters. It just became tedious, with little to no variety between characters, and an unengaging story (though I acknowledge the latter is subjective). There's still no function available to at least skip to 7.0's beginning.  

I personally think the nerf isn't the issue. Rather, the point total for completing Conquest was doubled from 50k to 100k at 7.0's launch with, as far as I remember, nothing to compensate. There are PVE objectives that take a long time to complete, and they yield few points relative to this change. Though I enjoy PVP and GSF, most players don't. This leaves few appealing options, for folks that want to complete Conquest on multiple characters and engage with one of the few remaining systems that keep players engaged and subscribed, despite the lack of SWTOR's budget allowing for a reasonable content and expansion cadence, as is found in what used to be SWTOR's competitors in the MMO market. Games like ESO or FF14 have simply left this one in the dust, sadly. 

Edited March 18 by arunav