So...not only did they get rid of Galactic Rampage with the conquest update on PTS...you know the one where they bumped up the points needed to make your personal goal to 50k

 

I noticed just now that for the Pirate Incursion conquest event, that is on both LIVE and PTS (so you can compare them) they took the infinitely repeatable (balmorra & taris) heroic mission points away.

 

 

Still not seeing the "play your way" guys.

They are making it pretty clear that people who play multiple alts or do conquest on more than one character are unwelcomed in this game.

Last week I did over 250k just doing Hammer station over and over. Think about it? Does rampage really matter?

 

Though I think it should stay and doing any heroic that is listed should be repeatable. Just like pvp rewards are repeatable.

 

Getting points will not be the issue it is jumping through the hoops to get there the fastest.

I barely reached 30k on 2 chars (2x15k) and even meeting the conquest goals, I didnt get any reward after the reset.

Last week I did over 250k just doing Hammer station over and over. Think about it? Does rampage really matter?

 

Though I think it should stay and doing any heroic that is listed should be repeatable. Just like pvp rewards are repeatable.

 

Getting points will not be the issue it is jumping through the hoops to get there the fastest.

 

This was more of an informational post, not me attempting another long debate thread.

 

However, the big goal that the devs repeatedly stated was they wanted us to "play your way"

Taking options away does not move the game toward that goal, it restricts the ways players can play to do what they want.

Also, if rampage truly doesn't matter, and I read that as in the points were insignificant, what does it matter if they leave it in?

I wanted to check out the conquest on PTS anyway, so let me post what I found out.

I used lvl 75 jugg with item level 270 (basic trash level with no augments), lvl 50 dps companion, 150% bonus from SH, found all heroics to be still easy as they are on live - no need to use dcds unless I pull several groups at once.

 

I tried the Toxic Bombs Balmorra heroic first, as it is easy to see points there.

Killed first 4 gold mobs - 110 cqp for each = 440 cqp

Did bonus mission for killing 5+6 gold mobs - 815 cqp (they died together in aoe and finished the mission, game then shows the cqp as total) = 1255 cqp

Finished heroic - 625 cqp = 1880 cqp total.

There is no bonus for Dantooine conquest for Balmorra heroics anymore. However the conquest points for objectives that stayed are now 3x higher, so weeklies for Datooine or Ziost give 16250 points (so still about 1/3 of conquest goal)

 

Seeing that, it looks like killing gold (= high xp) mobs can actually be better than just spamming fast to complete heroics. So lets try that theory...

I hopped to Hoth to the heroic A Traitor's Punishment - the one full of Siths, with bonus mission to kill 40 of them, and I made sure I killed each and every single mob there (and got 18 cqp per normal, 55 cqp per silver, 138 cqp per gold and 185 cqp per elite). The quests gave same cqp as the previous heroics, but this time I ended up with 4693 conquest points - almost 10% of the needed conquest total, which is not bad.

 

Together with first quick one I ended with 6573 points (and many gear upgrades).

 

Then I went for fun to Korriban and did the easy heroics there:

Armed and Dangerous - killed everything inside - but noticed I get much less cqp for killing those easy mobs, and got only 1488 cqp for killing everything and finishing the quest. 8061 cqp and went on to the other one:

The Hate Machine - same story as before. But less mobs and most of them were weak, so only 799 cqp, which brought me to 8860 cqp.

 

That is actually nice, the super easy and fast heroics give much less points than the harder ones, and finally stealthers dont have such a big advantage over classes without stealth - they can skip mobs and finish missions faster, but they will have to do much more of them to get the same points as those who cannot choose to skip everything.

 

I remembered that I wanted to check staged bonus quest too, so I went to Ilum (since this heroic is a daily in like half of the conquests anyway). The mobs here gave same conquest points as those on Hoth (though they are not instanced, so Hoth heroic is much nicer in this) and each stage of bonus mission gave 625 cqp similar like on live (killing 15 mobs, destroying 6 speeders, summon and kill elite mob) and I ended up with +5411 cqp (14271 cqp total).

 

So after doing 5 heroics I have almost 30% of conquest done, and as you can see, 2 of those heroics were actually quite bad from cqp point of view. I suppose that on live I would have to do 3-4 planets (including the big mission for running x heroic on specific planet) to reach the conquest goal, which seems fine - the missions are not hard, can be done solo, no super gear required. You can even pick between doing easier ones for less points and harder ones for more points.

 

Doing conquest specific objectives will now probably be a good thing again - on live they feel almost pointless, especially those like 2k for killing MM FP bonus boss, which is much harder and takes more time that running 2 heroics that give the same amount of cqp currently. That is good, as now most of the conquest week dont feel really different from each other, though as usual we could use more objectives and some daily repeatable missions have infinitely repeatable (or maybe x times per day, like gree or rakghoul event missions should have that x set to match the weekly).

 

For people that actually don't feel like they have to run solo and group up with others, the FPs, uprisings and opses will provide much more stronger (silver/gold/elite) mobs worth many conquest points, and running a FP will not be so much about getting the 2375 points for completing it, but about many thousands points they will get from killing the npcs there. I guess running a mm ops will still cap (or almost cap) a character as it is on live now, while easier things like vet flashpoints will have to be run multiple times (which will also help with completing a weekly for them).

 

As for capping multiple toons - if you want to maximize profit, especially early after release to get new conquest materials, you will again have to pay more attention to objectives and plan around them, but it wont be as bad as before - like you can decide you will do Ziost weekly on one toon, Dantooine weekly on other toon, Black hole on third toon and Ossus bosses on fourth toon, and the missing points can be done doing a quick vet FP or a few heroics. Or just by going somewhere and killing a few mobs.. so the objectives will be a good help, but you won't need to keep tabs on them as closely as before we started receiving cqp every time we get xp.

 

Overall I don't see anything really bad here, it is not noticeably harder than it was before, and I fully understand they don't want everyone capping 20+ alts running 6-7 heroics on one planet again and again. The reward from conquest will be worth a lot in first few months after update, and the system in game still allows even solo players to cap 2-3 toons easily, if they want to do so. If player does a group content, it will probably be even easier, but I doubt we will see people capping 10+ toons unless they really grind day and night.

I wanted to check out the conquest on PTS anyway, so let me post what I found out.

I used lvl 75 jugg with item level 270 (basic trash level with no augments), lvl 50 dps companion, 150% bonus from SH, found all heroics to be still easy as they are on live - no need to use dcds unless I pull several groups at once.

 

I tried the Toxic Bombs Balmorra heroic first, as it is easy to see points there.

Killed first 4 gold mobs - 110 cqp for each = 440 cqp

Did bonus mission for killing 5+6 gold mobs - 815 cqp (they died together in aoe and finished the mission, game then shows the cqp as total) = 1255 cqp

Finished heroic - 625 cqp = 1880 cqp total.

There is no bonus for Dantooine conquest for Balmorra heroics anymore. However the conquest points for objectives that stayed are now 3x higher, so weeklies for Datooine or Ziost give 16250 points (so still about 1/3 of conquest goal)

 

Seeing that, it looks like killing gold (= high xp) mobs can actually be better than just spamming fast to complete heroics. So lets try that theory...

I hopped to Hoth to the heroic A Traitor's Punishment - the one full of Siths, with bonus mission to kill 40 of them, and I made sure I killed each and every single mob there (and got 18 cqp per normal, 55 cqp per silver, 138 cqp per gold and 185 cqp per elite). The quests gave same cqp as the previous heroics, but this time I ended up with 4693 conquest points - almost 10% of the needed conquest total, which is not bad.

 

Together with first quick one I ended with 6573 points (and many gear upgrades).

 

Then I went for fun to Korriban and did the easy heroics there:

Armed and Dangerous - killed everything inside - but noticed I get much less cqp for killing those easy mobs, and got only 1488 cqp for killing everything and finishing the quest. 8061 cqp and went on to the other one:

The Hate Machine - same story as before. But less mobs and most of them were weak, so only 799 cqp, which brought me to 8860 cqp.

 

That is actually nice, the super easy and fast heroics give much less points than the harder ones, and finally stealthers dont have such a big advantage over classes without stealth - they can skip mobs and finish missions faster, but they will have to do much more of them to get the same points as those who cannot choose to skip everything.

 

I remembered that I wanted to check staged bonus quest too, so I went to Ilum (since this heroic is a daily in like half of the conquests anyway). The mobs here gave same conquest points as those on Hoth (though they are not instanced, so Hoth heroic is much nicer in this) and each stage of bonus mission gave 625 cqp similar like on live (killing 15 mobs, destroying 6 speeders, summon and kill elite mob) and I ended up with +5411 cqp (14271 cqp total).

 

So after doing 5 heroics I have almost 30% of conquest done, and as you can see, 2 of those heroics were actually quite bad from cqp point of view. I suppose that on live I would have to do 3-4 planets (including the big mission for running x heroic on specific planet) to reach the conquest goal, which seems fine - the missions are not hard, can be done solo, no super gear required. You can even pick between doing easier ones for less points and harder ones for more points.

 

Doing conquest specific objectives will now probably be a good thing again - on live they feel almost pointless, especially those like 2k for killing MM FP bonus boss, which is much harder and takes more time that running 2 heroics that give the same amount of cqp currently. That is good, as now most of the conquest week dont feel really different from each other, though as usual we could use more objectives and some daily repeatable missions have infinitely repeatable (or maybe x times per day, like gree or rakghoul event missions should have that x set to match the weekly).

 

For people that actually don't feel like they have to run solo and group up with others, the FPs, uprisings and opses will provide much more stronger (silver/gold/elite) mobs worth many conquest points, and running a FP will not be so much about getting the 2375 points for completing it, but about many thousands points they will get from killing the npcs there. I guess running a mm ops will still cap (or almost cap) a character as it is on live now, while easier things like vet flashpoints will have to be run multiple times (which will also help with completing a weekly for them).

 

As for capping multiple toons - if you want to maximize profit, especially early after release to get new conquest materials, you will again have to pay more attention to objectives and plan around them, but it wont be as bad as before - like you can decide you will do Ziost weekly on one toon, Dantooine weekly on other toon, Black hole on third toon and Ossus bosses on fourth toon, and the missing points can be done doing a quick vet FP or a few heroics. Or just by going somewhere and killing a few mobs.. so the objectives will be a good help, but you won't need to keep tabs on them as closely as before we started receiving cqp every time we get xp.

 

Overall I don't see anything really bad here, it is not noticeably harder than it was before, and I fully understand they don't want everyone capping 20+ alts running 6-7 heroics on one planet again and again. The reward from conquest will be worth a lot in first few months after update, and the system in game still allows even solo players to cap 2-3 toons easily, if they want to do so. If player does a group content, it will probably be even easier, but I doubt we will see people capping 10+ toons unless they really grind day and night.

 

Toxic Bombs gives almost exactly the same number of points on Live (~1900) with the same bonuses. So CQ rewards for this heroic (and this is true for almost all of the other heroics I have checked) is the same on Live now as it is on the PTS. If you are depending on heroics to get to your point goal it will take at least 3 times as long as it currently does. Not a problem if you aren't doing conquest for a guild but a big problem if you are trying to get encryptions to open up your flagship (which will now take 3 times longer)

 

Another important note is that the second time you do a heroic on the same character in the same week, you gain about 1/3 less points because the bonus missions only count once per week.

 

The number of encryptions gained should be increased to 3 keep it consistent with the current rate of acquisition. Especially since the probability of a small guild reaching its guild goal is substantially reduced.

I'm looking at it in more of a time investment point of view.

 

Right now on live I can get 15k points each and every week by doing, at most, 10 heroics and CZ198 weekly in under an hour.

 

Right now on PTS, I can't do that.

 

 

****afterthought****

 

I know people see some of my posts and groan thinking I'm posting because changes are going to make *MY* gaming sessions more difficult and some suspect I'm being entirely self serving.

 

Honestly, I play two toons at a time. I'm going to be able to reach 50k on each toon, 100k for my own mostly private guild, each night in a couple hours. Hitting the new 500k goal fairly easily.

 

Other small guilds, or other private guilds who don't have people with two accounts and two computers side by side, may not be able to say the same thing.

In this case, it really isn't *ME* that I'm worried about.

Edited September 14, 2019 by Darev

I have a feeling that they have yet to begin checking for conquest on PTS. Yes I do see that its been 50k each week which means we have no chance in HELL to cratt new level 11 gear if our personal weekly is at 50k.....like we all freaking work for a living too lol.....

 

I hope that Eric, and the Devs will speak to this soon!

Play the way we tell you Edited September 14, 2019 by scardera

What is clear is that it was made more difficult to get conquest goal, but what is not clear is why? I'm trying to understand the business reason behind it, such as does it bring in more money to the company?

What is clear is that it was made more difficult to get conquest goal, but what is not clear is why? I'm trying to understand the business reason behind it, such as does it bring in more money to the company?

 

I think their strategy is to get ride of most of the subscribers so that they could cater the remaining minority of elitist players. Solo players, story players, crafter and conquester are not any longer welelcome.

Last week I did over 250k just doing Hammer station over and over. Think about it? Does rampage really matter?

 

Though I think it should stay and doing any heroic that is listed should be repeatable. Just like pvp rewards are repeatable.

 

Getting points will not be the issue it is jumping through the hoops to get there the fastest.

 

That’s not what everyone wants to do and it’s certainly not “play your way” for everyone who likes to do other activities

Play the way we tell you

 

That should be 6.0’s catch phrase

They are making it pretty clear that people who play multiple alts or do conquest on more than one character are unwelcomed in this game.

 

That's right. I began losing my interest in playing when they crushed gearing alts and that was around the same time they destroyed conquest too.

 

The game design now favors people that want a one toon, super grinding gear system that punishes alts. Which is ironic, I mean we can have 5000 toons in our stable.

 

You'd think judging by this alt-gameplay would be encouraged but this is just one more contradiction with the game. Basically don't listen to what they say, listen to what they do.

Edit Report Post Quote

I know that conquest is going to be a grind, and perhaps a lot of newer friendly guilds may dissolve because of the new point system 500k for small, 2 mil for medium and 5 mil for large, it will be mostly the larger guilds getting bigger, and may also force players whom get tired of the grind for conquest out of game. Lol, 50k personal goal, at times I do perhaps that on a total of 3 alts a day to give my guild enough encryptions to try to keep up with the larger guilds whom can do 5 to 10 mil a week easy. Most we have done is about 1.8 million but most of the time it is about 1.4, at moment we are doing medium yield and after expansion, we may have to drop back down to small yield so we can get enough points for the week.

 

 

Not sure what was reasoning for raising the point goals, perhaps it was for less people to participate or perhaps there are too many guild in game and they want to cut down, maybe those are the reasons, because anything else benefits the large guilds whom will just get stronger and perhaps if we have guild vs guild pvp will totally dominate the smaller guilds.

 

do people shouldn't care about having multiple alts then, we are going to perhaps only able to play 1 or 2 to week for conquest, unless you perhaps don't have a life, I like the point counts where they are now,