Conquest Changes Following 7.4.1

[LJ_Gibbs]

16 hours ago, lingburger said:

DEVS DO NOT LISTEN NOR DO THEY CARE WHAT WE SAY.

+1

[LJ_Gibbs]

8 hours 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.

 

It definitely should have been in the patch notes. There is no question about that.

Same people in charge.  The BW people moved over... but the command structure stands.

[Thraka]

14 minutes ago, LJ_Gibbs said:

Same people in charge.  The BW people moved over... but the command structure stands.

You're the second person to say that, and you are probably right, but something feels different. New imperatives, perhaps, from the top? Something changed to have them go down a path they knew would anger people, enough that they tried to sneak it in.

 

[LJ_Gibbs]

1 minute ago, Thraka said:

You're the second person to say that, and you are probably right, but something feels different. New imperatives, perhaps, from the top? Something changed to have them go down a path they knew would anger people, enough that they tried to sneak it in.

 

Been this way for YEARS. 

They do what their "metrics" tell them... and we never see hard data from them... just an "oh trust me"

They... do... not... care.  They NEVER listen.  And when they do... they give us 10% of what they took away back.

Edited April 3 by LJ_Gibbs

[TrixxieTriss]

2 hours ago, MishaCantu said:

So, small guilds are still SOL. So be it.

I am wondering how this is going to affect the 3 low population servers in the game who don’t have very large populations to have large enough guilds.  

This is especially true on Shae Vizla where 5 or 6 guilds hoovered up as many new players as possible early on. And because of credit restrictions imposed on transfers, people can’t even get their small or solo guilds back up & running on SV. It feels like APAC transferred players are once being unfairly affected by poorly thought out changes.

[FrontLineFodder]

18 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

I am wondering how this is going to affect the 3 low population servers in the game who don’t have very large populations to have large enough guilds.  

This is especially true on Shae Vizla where 5 or 6 guilds hoovered up as many new players as possible early on. And because of credit restrictions imposed on transfers, people can’t even get their small or solo guilds back up & running on SV. It feels like APAC transferred players are once being unfairly affected by poorly thought out changes.

I would invite more solo players into my solo guilds on SV, but I'll be switching to FTP soon so...

The reason I create my own solo guild is because I am an altaholic, and my inactive alts (which may not be logged into for a month or more) which most guilds are not friendly towards.

[Ryukomaru]

Well folks.  Complaining on the forums didn't work.

From now on, straight to EA.  Explain to them why the money stopped coming in.

[DeannaVoyager]

7 hours 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.  

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.

This.

They should just remove any harder content from the game if they want to get rid of the playerbase who want to do it, instead of slowly draining it into oblivion. That seems to be what they are aiming for anyhow. 
 

[FrontLineFodder]

@EricMusco

Do you have any comments on the increase in the number of credits that will be generated now Heroics are being used as a replacement to the Advancement: Reputation conquest reward ?

We are already seeing the forums planning out specific heroics to perform in the shortest period of time, that will now be repeated across several characters each day to get them over the Personal Conquest each week.

 

[TrixxieTriss]

3 hours ago, FrontLineFodder said:

I would invite more solo players into my solo guilds on SV, but I'll be switching to FTP soon so...

The reason I create my own solo guild is because I am an altaholic, and my inactive alts (which may not be logged into for a month or more) which most guilds are not friendly towards.

Like many of us have done over the years 👍

[AFadedMemory]

14 hours ago, captainbladejk said:

However I'm being told by certain elements that because they don't like how I farm my points that I'm doing it wrong and my play should be nerfed because they have decided they don't like it, even though it has literally ZERO effect on them.

This depends on what you are doing with the rewards and credits you make (and even then you’re still impacting things by using them at all) If you work the system long enough you don’t need to spend much money on it. Massed farmed free cartel coins and credits that don’t leave the system are quite impactful to BS, EA, and the longevity of swtor. Therefore it does impact everyone. The credit that sellers farm go to the customer then back to them when customers  buy the items farmer sell on the gtn (buy low, sell high, spend free cartel coins) they influence in no small amount what the prices are. (causing inflation and buying things up with there accumulated wealth.) High price and inflation create greater need/willingness to buy credits since it’s cheaper than CC. Thus creating a cycle. The developer start to lose players and profits. When this gets to a certain point the game is retired.

Now you complain that other routes  can generate similar or better results.   1. PvP games per hour is not constant or the same on every server. so no, it can’t consistently do that. Also, we both agree, it’s a garbage mode most player don’t play. You need players for it to be consistent. 2. Heroics where nerfed in the past because it was being exploited 😂 and now it going back because the time it takes is a “huge” deterrent 😂 truthfully BS will mostly have to nerf it again lol because it will be exploited. 

Why don’t they get rid of free cc and exchangeable credits. Those are the oil for the machine my guy.

Edited April 3 by AFadedMemory

[Darviset]

4 hours ago, Ryukomaru said:

Well folks.  Complaining on the forums didn't work.

From now on, straight to EA.  Explain to them why the money stopped coming in.

Let us know how that works out.  I wouldn't hold my breath. : )

[Darviset]

For those of you chomping at the bit to get out there and grind those Heroics. This is the week to do them. Please remember the rotational objectives you're completing before coming back to tout how amazing they were. (Missions: Heroic Pinnacle (82K), Missions: Heroic Eternal (49.5 daily))

Edited April 3 by Darviset

[FrontLineFodder]

57 minutes ago, Darviset said:

For those of you chomping at the bit to get out there and grind those Heroics. This is the week to do them. Please remember the rotational objectives you're completing before coming back to tout how amazing they were. (Missions: Heroic Pinnacle (82K), Missions: Heroic Eternal (49.5 daily))

I wonder how much of that was planned...

delay the patch until this particular objective came around, so it seemed like it "solved" the conquest problem

when in reality it does not.

[Rasyrn]

@EricMusco 

you hid this nerf as much as possible. You received 314 feedback posts. Another topic with a rating of 1 star out of 5 ignored all 314 posts and did what you wanted.

Now I am not interested in talking about what has already taken place.

Answer just one question:
Are you currently feeling happy?

[Traceguy]

14 hours 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.

That's what I'm thinking. Why would I do FPs (Vet or HM) when I can now run heroics non-stop for points? I have more alts than time in the day to run heroics. And with the missing 45k per day, I have to try and earn that back at the very least.

@EricMusco failed by not paying us infinite conquest points for Operation and FP completions. Win or lose, every match of GSF pays 6,000 (with 150% bonus). That seems like a fair deal. Why can't PVE groups get something like that? Doing DF/DP back-to-back can be really draining. And you only get conquest points for 1 operation per day. Make that infinitely repeatable. Make the MM and Vet Flashpoint objective repeatable. In the time it takes to do a FP or an Operation, I could have run multiple heroics.

[Rasyrn]

RIP 35'000 Couquest
RIP 50'000 Conquest
PIR reputation 100'000 Conquest

PIR OPS LB
PIR Priority Targets (no longer OPS gear-related)
RIP OPS for raiding communities (op-1 weekly limit)

We are your 'endgame'.
We are members with 10+ chars.

What you have done for us?
Forcing us to work on 30+ heroics per day? (100'000 / 5'000) * 10+ chars just because we have too short sessions on our 10+ chars?
We do not want to farm your heroics 3 hours every day! It is not we payed for!

[Traceguy]

12 hours 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?

Yes, you missed a lot. This has nothing to do with lowbies under level 10. You can't even do conquests under level 10.

The change allows levels 50-80 to have access to the same objective that levels 10-49 already have.... Infinite Heroics. Also, level 10s don't even have the ability to do most heroics. They would require a carry for everything

Thats 350 base points. With 150% bonus, that's an extra 875 points

Edited April 3 by Traceguy

[PlasmaJohn]

6 hours ago, FrontLineFodder said:

@EricMusco

Do you have any comments on the increase in the number of credits that will be generated now Heroics are being used as a replacement to the Advancement: Reputation conquest reward ?

We are already seeing the forums planning out specific heroics to perform in the shortest period of time, that will now be repeated across several characters each day to get them over the Personal Conquest each week.

 

One must ask what was left out of the latest patch notes.  Perhaps the change to infinitely repeatable also comes with a nerf to credits and tech frag payouts.

[Traceguy]

3 hours ago, Darviset said:

For those of you chomping at the bit to get out there and grind those Heroics. This is the week to do them. Please remember the rotational objectives you're completing before coming back to tout how amazing they were. (Missions: Heroic Pinnacle (82K), Missions: Heroic Eternal (49.5 daily))

 I noticed that. They seem to have coincidentally arrived on the same week they're making heroics more enticing. I would normally knock out  the Heroic Eternal objectives always before this nerf. So it's not going to make much of a difference to me. But I hope others keep that Eternal in mind when comparing points come Monday.

 

2 hours ago, FrontLineFodder said:

delay the patch until this particular objective came around, so it seemed like it "solved" the conquest problem

Probably trying to fool their bosses too. "Look at our statistics! we've solved the offset!"

 

[Darviset]

48 minutes ago, Traceguy said:

@EricMusco failed by not paying us infinite conquest points for Operation and FP completions. Win or lose, every match of GSF pays 6,000 (with 150% bonus). That seems like a fair deal. Why can't PVE groups get something like that? Doing DF/DP back-to-back can be really draining. And you only get conquest points for 1 operation per day. Make that infinitely repeatable. Make the MM and Vet Flashpoint objective repeatable. In the time it takes to do a FP or an Operation, I could have run multiple heroics.

This was my thought exactly...

"Show a little good faith and open up your idea to all areas of the game. I don't wanna do Heroics, but I do wanna run Ops. Make Ops conquest objectives infinitely repeatable. While you're at it, I'm sure there are others that enjoy Flashpoints or Daily/Weekly quest areas. Make these activities infinitely repeatable. Why is your solution pigeon holing people into one activity? What's the harm in opening this up to everyone and the activities that they actually enjoy spending money/game time on?"

[Thraka]

10 hours ago, LJ_Gibbs said:

Been this way for YEARS. 

They do what their "metrics" tell them... and we never see hard data from them... just an "oh trust me"

They... do... not... care.  They NEVER listen.  And when they do... they give us 10% of what they took away back.

Certainly I see what I call "Design by Spreadsheet" in full force, and I agree, it does seem a pattern going back some time. (sigh) Ah, well, whatever the case, it's not for me anymore.

 

[TrixxieTriss]

1 hour ago, Rasyrn said:

Answer just one question:
Are you currently feeling happy?

Simple answer is no 😞

[TheFiveOhFirst]

On 3/28/2024 at 2:23 PM, EricMusco said:

Hey folks,

I am back to talk about the Conquest changes we are planning for 7.4.1c (stay tuned for a post in the next few days with more details on timing for this patch). Thank you again for the feedback since the original change in 7.4.1. It gave us a lot to chew on internally around our change, our goals for Conquests, and the friction that came out in the feedback you were passing on.

Reminder of what changed and why. In 7.4.1 we reduced the amount of Conquest points earned for the “Advancement: Reputation” objective by a fairly substantial amount. The reason we did this was to reduce the need for more reputation tracks in Galactic Seasons and bring it in parity with other objectives given the relatively low effort required. Since you could (assuming you had rep tokens on hand) simply log in and right click a token for thousands of points. 

Now, coming off of that change we definitely heard some places where this had some knock on consequences that we wanted to take into account:

• Low Session Time Options - Whether this is for someone with a lot of alts or just someone on their main who wanted to dip in for a quick session, that Objective did allow a path for someone to be able to get points during short sessions.
• Supplemental Conquest Points - This runs a little parallel to the first point, but having so many points from the rep objective allowed for someone to be able to get their conquests completed generally by playing a variety of content and supplementing it by gaining rep/using rep tokens (aka quick, repeatable method of getting conquest points)
• Capable Across Alts - Again there is a venn diagram with the above 2 points, but, the rep objective was something that was powerful because someone with many alts could simply login (low session time) to bounce across alts as needed throughout the week to complete conquests.
  • One quick aside on this point before we get to the Conquest change. While we were discussing your feedback we noted one point specifically about Daily Areas and alts. Many Daily Areas required a specific amount of crit path progression before you could access them and so this was a friction point for each alt, especially if you have many of them. We are changing this in 7.4.1c so that the requirement to access Daily Areas is now relevant crit path Achievement (instead of crit path completion on the character), meaning they will now effectively unlock across your Legacy instead of character by character. You are of course still free to unlock them naturally on each character via story completion if you wish, this just gives another path to unlocking them.

Ok, so understanding the feedback we heard and some of the problems we wanted to focus in on for 7.4.1c here are the two changes we currently have planned:

• The infinitely repeatable “Complete a Heroic Mission” Conquest Objective is now available at all levels (previously only available from 10-49)
• The “Complete a Heroic Mission” Conquest Objective is now worth 2000 Conquest points (up from 1650). 
  • This is 5000 points for those of you with max Stronghold Bonuses

Previously the infinitely repeatable Heroic Conquest objective was not available to anyone above level 49, so these changes should add another inflow of points to players completing those Heroics now. And we also increased the points players earned from that Objective at the same time to supplement it even further.

Heroic Missions are some of our fastest PvE content in the game. They have the added benefits of being soloable, alt friendly, and can be completed while playing other content such as Daily Areas. We felt targeting Heroics allowed us to address the problems raised from the 7.4.1 change while still requiring a bit more direct engagement. 

All of that said, Conquests is definitely a place we are continuing to pay close attention to and plan to make more changes in the future so keep the feedback coming. Thanks all.

-eric
 

How about more repeatable objectives for FPs?

Can you look at unlocking Star Fortresses across the Legacy? I would love to do this more and it would be a good CQ objective... but it is currently super difficult because it is, at best, tedious to unlock across all of your characters.

[Aoralys]

I see a lot of negativity surrounding this post and I just want to say as an ex-annual subscriber I actually really like the changes implemented.  I subscribed for years but am a strict solo player (I have reasons that no amount of CP incentive is going to change) and some of these changes might actually get me to play more again, like actually earning CP for doing heroics on my main characters.

It seems like there are avenues that each player enjoys and limiting CP too much to any avenue only turns players away from playing at all rather than towards a different avenue of the game.  The Conquest objectives are a great way of giving "finished" characters a reason to keep playing them, so every avenue should have decent CP incentives so people feel like they are making progress no matter what they enjoy doing in the game.  Once a character is capped (level and content-wise), it's hard to want to keep playing because there isn't a real goal driving the player to keep playing.  But Conquest puts goals back on characters that have finished the course of the game. 

If people like doing FP or Ops but don't get enough CP incentive they will turn to doing something else (like not playing at all) instead of the content they enjoy, same with daily areas.  I liked doing heroics but felt I "wasn't making progress" on any character after the first heroic on each planet was completed for the day.  Opening up CP to any heroic will encourage me to play more.  But the same thing should be done for other content too, like daily areas FP, WB, OPs, etc.  That way players don't have to sacrifice "progress" for the content they want to play.  Increasing CP for heroics is definitely a step in the right direction!

I understand the need for the rep CP reduction as it did allow for a "log in, get CP pop, logout" kind of mentality.  So I have no complaints about that, but in addition to making the heroics CP repeatable, there is a lot of other content that players (maybe not myself) enjoy doing and would be encouraged to keep doing throughout the day/week if they actually felt they were making Conquest progress and not sacrificing the time it takes to do the activity for no Legacy/character gain.

Thank you for implementing changes that will increase the fun I have playing this game again!