Conquest Changes Following 7.4.1

[Toraak]

1 minute ago, captainbladejk said:

If this was an entirely new team I might agree, but it's still the same people under a different company banner. Quite frankly I don't care what they want on this because myself and others are the ones paying their bills and keep their game up. If you've got the majority of your players telling you that you got it wrong, then sorry but you're wrong. And they're absolutely wrong on this, but they're too prideful and arrogant to admit it. 

They do have someone different overlooking Keith now. If you remember correctly he was one of the original developers of Swtor. I forget the name of hand, but Denning or something similar rings a bell.

 

How many are higher up then Keith is other then just that one person? Do any of us actually know?

[captainbladejk]

1 hour ago, Toraak said:

They do have someone different overlooking Keith now. If you remember correctly he was one of the original developers of Swtor. I forget the name of hand, but Denning or something similar rings a bell.

 

How many are higher up then Keith is other then just that one person? Do any of us actually know?

Valid point. I don't remember the names either. Whoever is making these calls really needs to step back and take their fingers out of their ears and listen to what people are telling them before they tank the game even worse than what they've already done. 

[nameinvalidoruna]

4 minutes ago, captainbladejk said:

Valid point. I don't remember the names either. Whoever is making these calls really needs to step back and take their fingers out of their ears and listen to what people are telling them before they tank the game even worse than what they've already done. 

This. The game is going into a horrible direction. Feels like somebody has a 'grand vision' how MMO games should be. The only problem is that reality and most of the players don't share this 'vision'.

Edited April 2 by nameinvalidoruna

[Nee-Elder]

14 minutes ago, Toraak said:

They do have someone different overlooking Keith now. If you remember correctly he was one of the original developers of Swtor. I forget the name of hand, but Denning or something similar rings a bell.

How many are higher up then Keith is other then just that one person? Do any of us actually know?

i think you might be confused and mixing up 2 names ( and history ) .    Anyways....  @JackieKo  can correct me if i'm wrong, but my intel says the current SWTOR Dev/Prod team goes as follows:

1.  @KeithKanneg
2.  @EricMusco
3.   Everyone else  ( which, sadly,  isn't more than a handful of significant coders anymore  ---  However, a couple of them like
   @JoeStramaglia  & @AshleyRuhl  , and even  @BryantWood  recently , are still posting/contributing with as much passion & purpose as EA  allow$ )

*You can see a bit more historical context of DEVS from years past from here--> https://www.swtor.com/info/news/blog?page=20  ...all the way to here--> https://www.swtor.com/info/news/blog

Edited April 2 by Nee-Elder

[Toraak]

8 minutes ago, Nee-Elder said:

i think you might be confused and mixing up 2 names ( and history ) .    Anyways....  @JackieKo  can correct me if i'm wrong, but my intel says the current SWTOR Dev/Prod team goes as follows:

1.  @KeithKanneg
2.  @EricMusco
3.   Everyone else  ( which, sadly,  isn't more than a handful of significant coders anymore  ---  However, a couple of them like
   @JoeStramaglia  & @AshleyRuhl  , and even  @BryantWood  recently , are still posting/contributing with as much passion & purpose as EA  allow$ )

*You can see a bit more historical context of DEVS from years past from here--> https://www.swtor.com/info/news/blog?page=20  ...all the way to here--> https://www.swtor.com/info/news/blog

Your forgetting this from a few Months ago. https://www.swtor.com/info/news/article/20231011

 

I had the name wrong, and I apologize for that, but Rob Denton is definitely in a higher position.

Edited April 2 by Toraak

[Nee-Elder]

9 minutes ago, Toraak said:

Your forgetting this from a few Months ago. https://www.swtor.com/info/news/article/20231011

nah , i remember it vividly ... but... well ...  Let's just say  i only wanted to list the people i believe are directly involved in SWTOR on a day-to-day , patch-to-patch, mandate-to-mandate, etc. .

Again, if  that 'Broadsword' person ( Rob Denton doesn't even have a public forum handle here )  wants to prove me wrong,  i'll happily eat forum crow and hope he'll start to develop GSF.  

Edited April 2 by Nee-Elder

[Traceguy]

  @KeithKanneg @EricMusco, @JoeStramaglia 7.4.1c did nothing to fix the balance you've broken. Can you please confirm you plan on to giving us more than an inch? Infinite heroics cannot offset this amount you've taken away. Not at 5k each.

 

1 hour ago, Darev said:

If I play content running PH4-LNX as a healer, I will, occasionally, get the drops to turn in for the rep. 

That's an isolated incident. Not everyone here can get still earn G.A.M.E. rep. I maxed mine during GS 3. Sooner or later though, that well or yours will run dry, leaving you to look elsewhere for rep.

  

21 minutes ago, Toraak said:

Your forgetting this from a few Months ago. https://www.swtor.com/info/news/article/20231011

 

Well that didn't age well

 

Quote

Keith and I will work closely together to ensure that SWTOR continues to grow, thrive and be the amazing game that you all love. - Rob Denton, CEO Broadsword

 

 

Edited April 2 by Traceguy

[captainbladejk]

1 hour ago, Traceguy said:

  @KeithKanneg @EricMusco, @JoeStramaglia 7.4.1c did nothing to fix the balance you've broken. Can you please confirm you plan on to giving us more than an inch? Infinite heroics cannot offset this amount you've taken away. Not at 5k each.

All of this. I would rather not cancel my sub if it can be helped despite my frustrations. At the same time I will if that's what I have to do. I've enjoyed playing this game over the years and met some cool people in here, made some fun memories with folks. At some point though I have to consider if I'm getting an equal or greater value back in entertainment for what is being asked of my time and money. And if this is all that's going to be done, then the answer even as a founder and long time supporter is no, I'm not. As cliche as it may sound, if I have to cancel my sub after all this time, it won't be because I hate the game, it will be because the game decided it no longer wants me around and left me.

I'm sorry but "just go do heroics" is not an answer. I don't mind doing some of them on occasion, but "just do heroics" does not close that 1.2m point gap in pvp and pve. Right now this gives me less game for the same price and I'm not doing that. I don't know who is calling the shots over there right now but they seriously need to step back and reevaluate. No amount of trying to convince me I'm wrong or "you'll like it if you would just try it" is going to make me want to grind that many heroics. If you're going to do a variety of objectives as you guys at BS are saying, you need a heck of alot more than this. 

[Thraka]

1 hour ago, Toraak said:

oh. I'm not saying it should not have been in the patch notes. Far from it. All I was saying that just because BW was fine with it the way it was, doesn't mean the new Broadsword management was, and since 7.4.1 was one of the very first patches all it's own, they may have wanted to change it.

 

Which is pretty much what several of us have noted: the game is now in the hands of people who do not understand their player base, and they are trying to turn this into every other MMO, a grindfest for sweaty tryhards. That crosses the line into 'not worth paying for', IMO.

[Toraak]

12 minutes ago, Thraka said:

Which is pretty much what several of us have noted: the game is now in the hands of people who do not understand their player base, and they are trying to turn this into every other MMO, a grindfest for sweaty tryhards. That crosses the line into 'not worth paying for', IMO.

This game is nothing like a grindfest MMO. Even with the nerf to the rep tokens getting conquest is so easy to do that it's not that much of a grind. 

 

I can think of 11 impside heroics that are quick and easy. Unless your actually trying to do conquest on massive amounts of characters it won't take that long. I don't play that much pubisde, but for any trooper or smuggler I can think of at least 7-8 easy ones, (take out 3 for jedi classes), and that is without remember 90% of the heroics on republic side.

 

Try playing the old school sandbox MMO's and tell me those weren't a hundred times more grindy then Swtor is. I know SWG sure was, as is shadowbane, WoW, and I'm sure so many others.

[DawnAskham]

Too much 'can't see the forest for the trees' in this thread.

The vast majority of content is old and dated, and the fact the game cannot or will not invest more to produce new content is the problem.

Many of us however are willing to accept the status quo regarding content as the base game and the environment can be fun and enjoyable.

But the constant recycling of decades old content to re-gear or progress something like seasons gets tiring fast, and hard to put out of one's mind.

Add to the above the overwhelmingly negative changes that keep padding in time (CQ raised to 100K, all the cumulative CQ nerfs) or increasing player friction (e.g. a lot of the economic changes) and it is no wonder many of us have unsubscribed.

Arguing this or that objective needs to be changed or what the most optimal compromise should be for the value of using rep tokens for conquest points just misses the point.

If they want my money ever again, they need to find something else to create at least a sense of progression without making it just another obvious time sink to keep players playing decades old dated content.

Maybe new content, maybe alternative progression systems, anything - just no more level cap increases, gear resets, and idiotic systems like seasons that expect me to grind through the same crap over and over, only slower and slower.

 

 

Edited April 2 by DawnAskham

[nameinvalidoruna]

57 minutes ago, captainbladejk said:

As cliche as it may sound, if I have to cancel my sub after all this time, it won't be because I hate the game, it will be because the game decided it no longer wants me around and left me.

This. Also, I am criticizing the game because I like it. I want it to get better, or the very least keep it from getting worse.

21 minutes ago, Toraak said:

This game is nothing like a grindfest MMO. Even with the nerf to the rep tokens getting conquest is so easy to do that it's not that much of a grind.

Perhaps it is not a grindfest today. But guess what, it was even less of a grindfest before the ninja nerf. Unfortunately the direction is clear.

[Thraka]

Just now, Toraak said:

This game is nothing like a grindfest MMO. Even with the nerf to the rep tokens getting conquest is so easy to do that it's not that much of a grind. 

 

I can think of 11 impside heroics that are quick and easy. Unless your actually trying to do conquest on massive amounts of characters it won't take that long. I don't play that much pubisde, but for any trooper or smuggler I can think of at least 7-8 easy ones, (take out 3 for jedi classes), and that is without remember 90% of the heroics on republic side.

 

Try playing the old school sandbox MMO's and tell me those weren't a hundred times more grindy then Swtor is. I know SWG sure was, as is shadowbane, WoW, and I'm sure so many others.

 

Well, I have been playing MMO's since Ultima Online, so this is a swing and a miss. What we tolerated at 20 and 30 is simply not the same as what we will tolerate at 50 and 60. Moving on....

We are not discussing a lack of knowledge. We are discussing the COST of the game, frankly. While it may not YET be full on grindfest, it is definitely heading in that direction. The decisions I am seeing look more like they come from the Brad McQuaid school of MMO design: grindy, heavy handed, 'the players don't know what they want', and worst of all, unannounced. That alone makes it CLEAR this was not done in good faith.

Facts are facts: I get less for my sub now that I did last month or the 24 months before that, period, the end.  I will not pay to get less value, and neither should anyone else.

I have 8 characters, one for each storyline, something SWTOR has always encouraged. I want to get conquest on those characters in the same amount of time I spent on it last month, or the 24 months before. I am not interested in what junior game designers  think, nor are my friends. We already unsubbed, and we are hardly alone.

I don't want to do heroics. It's boring because I have done them all many times before, and they offer almost no progression. I want to do flashpoints or ops, maybe some stronghold deco or space barbie, and be able to hit my conquest in about an hour for each character. Previously, I was able to do so. Now I can't.

Also, I do NOT want to play with toxic randos. I will never queue for any rando content, especially PVP.

If BS stands their ground here, they are going to lose customers. I am unclear why this troubles you. You have already conceded the devs can do what THEY like. Why do you object when players note the devs decisions are unacceptable? 

 

 

[captainbladejk]

1 hour ago, Toraak said:

This game is nothing like a grindfest MMO. Even with the nerf to the rep tokens getting conquest is so easy to do that it's not that much of a grind. 

 

I can think of 11 impside heroics that are quick and easy. Unless your actually trying to do conquest on massive amounts of characters it won't take that long. I don't play that much pubisde, but for any trooper or smuggler I can think of at least 7-8 easy ones, (take out 3 for jedi classes), and that is without remember 90% of the heroics on republic side.

 

Try playing the old school sandbox MMO's and tell me those weren't a hundred times more grindy then Swtor is. I know SWG sure was, as is shadowbane, WoW, and I'm sure so many others.

I really wish people would get it through their heads that not everyone wants to do heroics. It doesn't matter if it's a grind or not, there are people that don't want to partake in that kind of content and it's wrong to punish them for not doing so. I can think of several heroics that are easy, but that doesn't mean I want to spam them every single day. This is point blank the devs punishing people for daring to play the game in a way that they gave people the option to do but suddenly don't like all of a sudden. There are far far too many on these forums that are way too concerned about how other people play the game they pay for even though it's none of their business. As another said, when they pay for my subscription then they can have a say in how I play. Until then they don't get that say. It doesn't matter if I do one character or 100, if I want to do it it's my business and it harms no one. 

There's an old saying I heard once that comes to mind with this situation. If you want to cook a frog and try to toss him into boiling hot water he'll jump out right away. But if you put him in the water and turn the temperature up slowly enough he won't realize he's being cooked until it's too late. As to how it applies to SWTOR, this game may not be as grindy as other games right now, but make enough changes like the foolishness of this rep token nerf and other nerfs and it will be before long. If I want to play something like WoW, I will go play WoW. I don't need this game becoming what amounts to a reskinned version of other grindfest MMOs. I don't mind a bit of grind or I wouldn't be playing this game. What I do mind however is when they demand it become a job in which case that's not happening. I play games for fun and to relax. When they cease to be that then it defeats the purpose of it. Why would I want that? This game isn't WoW or other games and I would prefer to keep that way. I played vanilla WoW for a bit and I'm not interested in that level of grind again. 

Bottom line if they want to keep people playing and want to keep everyone's money they'll listen to the playerbase instead of doubling down and trying to gaslight us into thinking we're wrong. I don't owe them my support or my time simply because the game exists. This game exists by the good graces of customers choosing to fund their game. As another user pointed out it's got nothing to do with knowledge, but everything to do with cost. I am not going to invest my time and money into a game that doesn't give me an equal or greater value back in return on entertainment. If 70% of your customers prefer one thing, and 30% prefer another, if you care about money you will cater to what that 70% wants as your primary focus. This doesn't mean you can never give something to the 30%, what it does mean is that you go where the money is. The game will survive if the 30% walks away, it won't survive if the 70% walks. Business 101, if you want my time and money you have to cater to what I want. It doesn't matter how good you think you did or how good you think you're doing as a business or if you think you deserve my time and money, I am the ultimate judge and jury on whether you will have my time and money or not. Bottom line everyone aside from 2 people is telling them they got it wrong, but apparently they're too stubborn to listen because their egos are getting in the way to put it bluntly. 

As is right now, I am getting less game for the same cost I was paying months ago. It's like $20 at a pizza place getting me 2 large pizzas, 2 things of breadsticks and a 2 liter of soda, then now suddenly they only want to give me a single large pizza and a thing of breadsticks and nothing else. Even if they say "we'll give you 2 things of breadsticks and a single large pizza" it's still less for the same amount of money. Why would I ever agree to that? Or to put it into another perspective, it would be like joining WoW when they gave everyone death knights, demon hunters and monks, then not long after you join they take away Druids and Shamans bringing you back down to 11 classes. Now you're paying for less game than when you first started, which is just foolish. I really don't get what's so hard for people to understand about that. 

[TobarrDaggermoon]

Does it rankle that I have lost 43k conquest points daily yes but like every time they tinker with conquest I could find a way round the nerfs to fit in with my play style. I do not need the instant gratification that some do so getting my flagship unlocked months later is not a problem but being lied to yet again is. This is not the first time they have omitted something from patch notes that they know will anger some players. Why are patch notes not released far earlier so we can absorb the changes? Why do they continue to treat like children? 

[Thraka]

9 minutes ago, TobarrDaggermoon said:

Does it rankle that I have lost 43k conquest points daily yes but like every time they tinker with conquest I could find a way round the nerfs to fit in with my play style. I do not need the instant gratification that some do so getting my flagship unlocked months later is not a problem but being lied to yet again is. This is not the first time they have omitted something from patch notes that they know will anger some players. Why are patch notes not released far earlier so we can absorb the changes? Why do they continue to treat like children? 

What gets me is the gall they had in trying to pretend leaving it out of patch notes was an accident. If it's so important that they will dig in their heels like this, they knew full well it would cause outcry ahead of the change, and so they snuck it in. There is simply no way it was insignificant enough to 'slip their minds' in the patch notes.

 

[captainbladejk]

1 hour ago, Thraka said:

What gets me is the gall they had in trying to pretend leaving it out of patch notes was an accident. If it's so important that they will dig in their heels like this, they knew full well it would cause outcry ahead of the change, and so they snuck it in. There is simply no way it was insignificant enough to 'slip their minds' in the patch notes.

 

And let's not forget the gaslighting afterwards of then going on to say that it's "little work for a big payout" kind of junk and trying to convince everyone else they're wrong. Skipping the PTS and leaving it out of the patch notes both wasn't an "oopsie" that's straight deliberate. Now they're just mad they got caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

[LD_Little_Dragon]

The time/difficulty/reward ratio for pve conquest points is way off.   MM fp and operations, even MM operations, give lousy conquest.  About the only way you get anything decent is by ticking off the social activities, which timewise you're better off spamming veteran fp for (vet flashpoints are faceroll easy and mindnumbingly boring if you're maxed and half-way decent at your class).

43k for rep tokens let you still get conquest while doing HM content. 

Removing that 43k and trying to steer pve players into grindy, timewasting, unchallenging content like heroics and vet flashpoints is not a good sign about the future direction of SWTOR.

[Stradlin]

3 minutes ago, LD_Little_Dragon said:

The time/difficulty/reward ratio for pve conquest points is way off.   MM fp and operations, even MM operations, give lousy conquest.  About the only way you get anything decent is by ticking off the social activities, which timewise you're better off spamming veteran fp for (vet flashpoints are faceroll easy and mindnumbingly boring if you're maxed and half-way decent at your class).

43k for rep tokens let you still get conquest while doing HM content. 

Removing that 43k and trying to steer pve players into grindy, timewasting, unchallenging content like heroics and vet flashpoints is not a good sign about the future direction of SWTOR.

From tomorrow onwards,the  massive disparity between MM FPs&Ops and Planetary heroics will only grow much larger.  Payout for easiest/stealthable planetary heroics will be so good.

 

Edited April 2 by Stradlin

[LD_Little_Dragon]

5 minutes ago, Stradlin said:

From tomorrow onwards,the  massive disparity between MM FPs&Ops and Planetary heroics will only grow much larger.  Payout for easiest/stealthable planetary heroics will be so good.

 

I main stealth, I know all the non-combat (or just one boss to kill) quickie heroics.  Doesn't mean I want to do them all the time.  

A proper rebalancing of conquest points would give a lot more rewards to MM fp and HM/NiM ops. 

Currently conquest punishes players who want to do challenging pve instead of just spamming the stuff that you need zero skill to do and the changes just make the punishment stand out even more.

[Stradlin]

26 minutes ago, LD_Little_Dragon said:

I main stealth, I know all the non-combat (or just one boss to kill) quickie heroics.  Doesn't mean I want to do them all the time.  

I think there's well over 70 planetary missions that can be done in  5 mins or under. Maybe 20-30 that can be done in 2 mins or less. Stealthers in particular are gonna be pretty generously rewarded for both of those minutes.

 

26 minutes ago, LD_Little_Dragon said:

A proper rebalancing of conquest points would give a lot more rewards to MM fp and HM/NiM ops. 

 

Yes, all of the dfifficult group content should have been looked over and given a boost  long ago, 

 

Quote

Currently conquest punishes players who want to do challenging pve instead of just spamming the stuff that you need zero skill to do and the changes just make the punishment stand out even more.

This change about to be launched tomorrow was made to appease enraged mass unsubbing folks who apparently don't even want to do planetaries.  This change will have a huge impact on folks who are somewhat hardcore about conquest and willing to do planetaries. 

All group content needs to be popular enough to happen. Content that doesn't in any decisive way benefit from popularity becomes more popular tomorrow. Content that needs to be popular to even exist  becomes less popular. All of this to make people less angry about their rep tokens. It makes quite a story.

 

@BryantWood

I hope you folks will at least keep a close eye on what this does to popularity of group content. GSF and PvP in particular are huge asks when it comes to amount of people they need.

ps GSF needs more love! Been like 7 years since last time it got anything new. Please give it a seasonal track of its own, or make it part of pvp season!

Edited April 2 by Stradlin

[Thraka]

1 hour ago, captainbladejk said:

And let's not forget the gaslighting afterwards of then going on to say that it's "little work for a big payout" kind of junk and trying to convince everyone else they're wrong. Skipping the PTS and leaving it out of the patch notes both wasn't an "oopsie" that's straight deliberate. Now they're just mad they got caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

They wanted to make sure it was a fait accompli without having to argue in advance.

[TrixxieTriss]

4 hours ago, Thraka said:

Which is pretty much what several of us have noted: the game is now in the hands of people who do not understand their player base, and they are trying to turn this into every other MMO, a grindfest for sweaty tryhards. That crosses the line into 'not worth paying for', IMO.

It’s been in these same hands now for several years. So nothing new. 

[MishaCantu]

So, the resolution for the Reputation nerf is to open up planetary missions and let lowbies under level 10 do the heroic mission and get a whopping extra 350 points? Did I get something wrong or misunderstand?

There was no compromise by even giving half of the 45K back? So, small guilds are still SOL. So be it.

I'll still be spending less time in the game, and when I've had enough, maybe no time at all. 

Edited April 3 by MishaCantu

[LJ_Gibbs]

1 hour ago, MishaCantu said:

So, the resolution for the Reputation nerf is to open up planetary missions and let lowbies under level 10 do the heroic mission and get a whopping extra 350 points? Did I get something wrong or misunderstand?

There was no compromise by even giving half or the 45K back? So, small guilds are still SOL. So be it.

I'll still be spending less time in the game, and when I've had enough, maybe no time at all. 

... and we are supposed to say... Thank you kind sir... may I please have some more.