Guildship for smaller guilds idea

I would love for smaller guilds to participate. They can do that already. In fact, there were a lot of posts around here weeks ago from smaller guilds who are participating because they stepped up and earned the ships. THEY'RE ALREADY COMPETING IN CONQUEST!

My reason for not wanting a lower entry point is nothing good comes of it. Players complaining that they can't achieve a simple goal that is the entry point to a more difficult goal is not indicative of a problem with the game, but a problem with the complaining players.

Let me state this again - a guild ship should be FREE to guilds. I believe the Conquest system is so good, that they should give away the opportunity to try it to ALL guild leaders, for FREE!

A smaller ship, with limited unlocks, and limited hooks, that is also limited in what it can do for "Conquests" would be ideal. It would be a teaser of sorts - allowing players to build points together to reap rewards that they'll be able to sell or save for use in a larger ship. Leave them off the leader boards, but show them where they'd be if they chose to purchase a guild ship.

This system is so engaging to both hardcore and casual players that I can not understand anyone's adversity to allowing more players to participate.

Bioware gives away 1-55 for free, yet they have locked away something that encourages a player to stay, play and buy more...I just don't get it.

"let em work for it if they want it" is just a garbage reply. The fact is, they don't know what they're missing so they really don't give a **** about it. Give it to them, hook them on it, then reel them in. Let them trade the free ship for a bigger one once they've unlocked it - that's a fair trade imo.

Bioware should absolutely give away a Guild Ship to encourage participation in Conquests.

Your own examples betray you.

PVP has unranked and ranked, with both having bolster, with bolstered unranked the place for new players to participate in PVP while building both their skill and their gear. The goal is to encourage participation with the belief that the more who try it, they more will stick with it, which will ultimately enrich the game for all.

Operation have story modes, which through GF even include bolster, so again new players can participate in content while building their skill and gear. Again the goal is to get as broad a base as possible engaged in Operation as the more who try it, the more will stick with it, with is better for everyone.

Both examples you gave allow a new player to start participating and enjoying the content with little to no upfront investment . They both have easy and accommodating entry points designed to pull in players, hook them on the content, and provide ongoing and progressively more difficult challenges to overcome as they improve their play and gear.

The flip side is to create content that locks out any portion of the base and does not have an easy point of access to at least get started such that a large portion of the base collectively goes 'meh'.

That is the type of content that tends to show up on developer metrics as being underutilized, and thus typically given less and less development budget over time as developers can't afford to waste finite budgets on niche content.

If one wants to see Conquest succeed and get future development and continued enhancements, then one should be supportive - at least in general - about anything that entices or encourages higher participation levels.

Conquests have personal rewards (unranked / story equivalent) and guild rewards (hard mode / ranked equivalent)...

Story modes and ranked have bolster - and importantly - reward all participants equally with respect to things like loot / loot chance / commendations.

If PVP and Operations followed the same mechanic as Conquest, players in guilds with ships would get double commendations and loot compared to those in guilds without ships.

I don't see a reason to change the Guild rewards part, but players in guilds without ships are at a disadvantage in obtaining their personal rewards - which they shouldn't be.

An alternative to giving everyone a free ship could be to allow all guilds, even those without ships, the ability to attack a planet and activate objective bonuses.

An alternative to that could be one random planet selected each week per faction which would allow players in guilds without ships / not in guilds access to bonus objectives.

Another alternative could be to eliminate the bonus points for personal awards (so all are on equal footing) and only provide the bonus points to guild points / guild goal.

Players who can do hard and nightmare mode operations get better loot than those who can't, right?

From a rewards standpoint:

Personal rewards are not the same style objective as guild rewards. Personal rewards are based on a more casual approach to getting 35k points. Guild rewards are based on higher end competition where you have to place.

Hard mode operations have different loot tables from story mode operations.

Ranked warzones gives ranked comms; which are different from unranked comms.

Guild Conquests give higher rewards + guild based rewards, personal conquests gives lower rewards and no guild rewards.

But to your point, there is no gating to the personal rewards... so everyone gets to try conquest. Just not everyone has a chance at the leaderboards. Quite frankly, 50 mil is not that bad a gate to have access to the leaderboard... and if you don't have the infrastructure for 50 mil, you don't have the infrastructure to compete... so... it's all a hypothetical wash to change the rules to accommodate people who quite frankly don't stand a chance.

Players who win the planet get better rewards than those that do not, right?

So what exactly is the point to keeping all players from participating on equal foot at least as it pertains to personal rewards?

Again I only support alternatives as I see a game feature I enjoy, and I want to see it broadly accepted such that it is continued to be supported, not abandoned in the future if participation is low.

If by "better rewards" you mean the ability to call in an overpriced orbital strike, ride an overpriced walker ONLY ON PLANET and a title, sure. In terms of actual material rewards, no, not at all. 2-10 is the exact same reward as 1.

I don't want to prevent anyone from participating. I want people to step up and earn the right to participate, as so many other guilds large and tiny have already done, so that they actually have a chance of placing top 10 when they do it. it's there for the taking. Stop imagining reasons why you can't do it and go DO it!

Any guild that can't muster 50 mil is not going to get top 10.

If you cant get the simple amount of 50 mil together then you're not going to be able to compete in conquests anyway. I imagine thats the reason it costs so much to prove you can actually compete.