I realize that 5.9 will do a little to help conquest and any help is good help at this stage. Even if the changes will probably be no where near enough to fix it, I don't think we can wait even for the tiny changes that it will bring.

Seriously, maybe each of the enormous guilds can suffer the loss of a couple dozen subscribers in the mean time, but it is killing small/medium guilds in a way they will not be able to recover. Small guilds really survive on the "key players". My guild lost its top 2 participants from this (and i'm not even sure how many more are planning to leave yet), for which I doubt we can recover. And we still have to wait weeks longer?

The damage caused by the new conquest system is a game EMERGENCY. And I think they need to treat it as such. We need fixes NOW, and come up with some sort of creative way to bring back the lost subscribers. 6 free months of subscription to all returning subscribers who left since the new conquest came out. As it may take 6 months or more of drip-drip-drip fixes to the system to convince those who left that it is worth staying.

The point that the new system greatly favors large guilds is not the real issue, the issue is that it will actually eliminate many small/medium guilds.

I realize that 5.9 will do a little to help conquest and any help is good help at this stage. Even if the changes will probably be no where near enough to fix it, I don't think we can wait even for the tiny changes that it will bring.

 

Seriously, maybe each of the enormous guilds can suffer the loss of a couple dozen subscribers in the mean time, but it is killing small/medium guilds in a way they will not be able to recover. Small guilds really survive on the "key players". My guild lost its top 2 participants from this (and i'm not even sure how many more are planning to leave yet), for which I doubt we can recover. And we still have to wait weeks longer?

 

The damage caused by the new conquest system is a game EMERGENCY. And I think they need to treat it as such. We need fixes NOW, and come up with some sort of creative way to bring back the lost subscribers. 6 free months of subscription to all returning subscribers who left since the new conquest came out. As it may take 6 months or more of drip-drip-drip fixes to the system to convince those who left that it is worth staying.

 

The point that the new system greatly favors large guilds is not the real issue, the issue is that it will actually eliminate many small/medium guilds.

I tend to agree Stellar...this should be fixed next week, completely and fully, not in 5.X...ASAP! It should be an emergency situation.

Sadly, it's not to Bioware...not at all. They'll drag their feet for another 6 months on this, just like they did with CXP/GC...this is just their new excuse for doing nothing.

Agreed. I feel like instead of fixing conquests, 5.8 really rather ruined them for many (most?) people and didn't even fulfill their stated aims for the update. I know a fair few people (well into double digits) who have totally disengaged from conquest and will not participate at all any more, and at least 2 who have not renewed their subs specifically due to these changes. Personally I've gone from working hard on multiple alts to barely sc****** capping on one and it is deeply frustrating to spend a lot of time on an objective (gf hm fp with pugs for example) for a measly amount of points. Even more so now that lot of the things that were previously repeatable on multiple toons aren't any more and that really discourages alting (relevant example for this cq week of fp havoc - the fp weeklies are once per legacy instead of once per toon).

People are upset about this. People are ignoring conquests. People are leaving. The exodus of the unhappy is only going to accelerate the longer this is left. A month is too long to wait to implement a fix, or there will be nobody participating to fix it for.

Their own numbers have shown them that conquest participation is up, as are the rewards going out.

But honestly the last two conquests were fairly "easy". This week is a good test for how those numbers will be affected--there are fewer activities and most of them are locked behind MM flashpoint Bonus Bosses (GF groups almost never want to run them, they are often significantly harder than the normal bosses, MM GF almost never pops anyway so the likelihood of a good group is minimal) and one Op that is not run as often as the others (lack of experience, mostly).

I had no trouble the last two weeks hitting personal but this week I looked at that list and said "nope" and now I'm either going to only level some lowbies or play something else altogether. I'm not running Ilum or warzones 185 times () when none of the guilds I'm in have even chosen to invade due to the obvious uphill battle just to get to 200k.

I must confess I don't get it. Are people really leaving the game because they don't get enough virtual stuff for their virtual time spent? Stuff that, I stress, is only relevant if you plan to keep playing TOR? You should play the game because you enjoy playing the game, and conquest should be a bonus on top of that. If you don't enjoy playing the game, you should go do something you do enjoy.

this should be fixed next week, completely and fully, not in 5.X...ASAP!

5.9 is as soon as possible. Rolling out major systems changes without proper testing is a great way to have to roll back your servers. (Say what you will about BW's testing, at least there's been a marked decrease in servers crashing and having rollbacks and needing extra maintenance over the last year.)

I'm going to repost feedback/experiences I have with New Conquest here in the (faint) hopes the devs are more likely to see it on the first page of a new but relevant thread than they are to see it buried in the middle of the feedback megathread that no one knows if the devs are still reading.

From in-game experience Saturday night, half a week ago:

I had a little encounter on Fleet last night that sums up what is wrong with current conquest system, Bioware's childish insistence on maintaining legacy lockouts from content, and so on:

 

Ops PUG leader: LF 1 tank, 1 heal DP GF

Me (on newly 70 DPS vanguard, no tank gear yet): Fake tank LF DP

Ops PUG leader: We need only a tank and healer, sorry

Me (I know DP can be fake tanked, but didn't push it): Well, I could log to a healer and help you out, but because Bioware fo0ked up the conquest system, I need to do the GF on this character and this character only.

Bystanders on Fleet: ikr, LOL

 

I had no incentive to switch to a healer to help get an op going--even though I would have otherwise been perfectly capable of and eager to heal it--because the conquest points would have been once only on the wrong character if I alted. Worse, I wouldn't have been able to come back later and earn them on the character that did need that source of points.

 

And this is why legacy lockouts on points need to go away. Bioware said in the recent interview they were going to double down and try to skate with adding more one-off sources of points. Well I hope the one-off sources of points increase by seven or eight times so we can play alts. But as last night on fleet showed, even then, having to micromanage which alt gets which points when, instead of simply playing the game, is going to be an unholy nightmare. I have to manage enough stuff at work, Bioware expects me to come home and micromanage conquest appointments for two dozen characters in Google Calendars too?

I eventually gave up for a while and PVPed, and lucked into a drunken redeye op at about 2 AM Pacific. But that was about six hours after I had wanted to run the op, and I was lucky I didn't have to be up too early the next morning.

The edit to add part of that post, that I omitted above, references trying to get into a GF op Sunday night, as I was typing that early Sunday evening while trying to find an op in fleet. Sunday night was much worse:

Well to be fair I've leveled quite a few alts since 5.8 dropped, simply because 5.8 nerfed the everlasting bantha dung out of level cap, group based content.

 

Hell last night I couldn't even do the GF op because the one op forming that was advertised needed a healer, and though I had a healer available, I needed the points on a DPS. If I healed, I wouldn't be able to get the points on the DPS toon later...so I waited. Three hours later, still no second GF op advertised--and I mean no op advertised at all, not just no room for DPS ops.

 

This was between about 9PM-midnight Eastern, btw, so not exactly dead hours. The day before I also had to turn down an op because the role the group needed didn't match the character I needed the conquest points on. Yep, fair to say legacy based conquest has really borked up GF ops and reduced activity levels.

That night, I just logged and went to bed about four hours earlier than I normally do. I spent most of the next day (which I had of from work, btw) forum PVPing instead of playing the game:

But but... they just want you to try different content!

If it wasn't obvious - sarcasm

 

Is it really sarcasm if Musco would say that with a straight face?

 

The irony of course being for me...operations ARE different content, because I'm mainly a PVPer. I'm flexible enough to go to about 60% PVP/40% PVE to "try different content." But there's not much good to say about trying to find different content for three hours in the latter half of prime time, only to find it impossible because 5.8 broke alting, which in turn means no incentive--actually last night was actually more a DISincentive because of legacy based lockouts--to fill the roles necessary to get the "different content" going.

YES EXACTLY. Also, the truth is developing a new conquest system cannot be BAD as it can and will be improved in some if not many ways. DESPITE how much we all hate change period. Also disproves all the nay sayers and such who think there isn't serious development in this game. As if it is in limbo, when it is not!

 

Allegedly it'll get fixed. Soon.™

 

In the meantime, before 5.8 I could get into a PUG op on any role I wanted within a half hour, easily.

 

Last night I had exactly one chance to get into an op, but I would've had to heal it. But because of legacy lockouts, healing it would've meant the conquest points would've been wasted, as I needed the points on a character with no heal spec. Three hours later, as prime time wound down, I still hadn't had a chance to get into the op on the character that needed it.

 

Being frozen out of running an op, that I would've found a group to run easily before 5.8, because the changes to conquest neutered role flexibility, is by definition, BAD.

 

It ain't getting any easier as the population declines, and we're only halfway between the 5.8 dumpster fire and the alleged fixes coming Soon™ in 5.9.

 

No word on a patch 5.8b to get some of these "improvements" that are coming Soon™ into the game on an expedited basis to try to stabilize the population--hell someone published a list of changes (check spoiler tag to see) that are allegedly coming Soon™ that could be patched in next week if the devs cared enough to try to stabilize their failing product.

I definitely hinted at the urgency of a speedy response to declining populations in my last post there. Last night I did a bit of PVP, looked at this week's conquest, and figured, "Nope, don't even give a rat's behind about personal goal this week." Not after how dead last weekend was trying to get the SnV GF Sunday night. Tonight I'm not really sure if I'll be PVPing ingame, or here on the forums.

But I'm definitely in agreement with the OP in my doubts as to whether this game's population can sustain this kind of attrition while we all wait for a half-baked "fix" in 5.9 (that inevitably won't live up to expectations).

They are too busy preparIng for the next big game changing patch which is nerfing tank dps.

They have emotionally moved on from conquest, the silence is deafening and proof of that on their part.

Unfortunately you have to get information regarding the fact they are leaving conquest with legacy restrictions from an interview on youtube instead of the actual SWTOR forums.

Maybe this will change, hence why they have not given a formal declaration in writing on the forums?

I think where BW fails is not in just some design choices for the game, but in the lack of communication above all else.

They asked for feedback, then chose to ignore all the the in depth posts regarding conquest changes.

People wrote with passion and civility after the game was ruined for many of them on why certain changes were bad in 5.8 and whether or not the devs read the feedback is unknown.

If they are still gathering feedback, then a simple post by Eric would go a long way. People just like to know that yes, they have not been forgotten and what they have written has been read and possibly considered.

The lack of communication is unacceptable.

Very disappointed in you BW.

I tend to agree Stellar...this should be fixed next week, completely and fully, not in 5.X...ASAP! It should be an emergency situation.

 

Sadly, it's not to Bioware...not at all. They'll drag their feet for another 6 months on this, just like they did with CXP/GC...this is just their new excuse for doing nothing.

/Agree 100%

I should also add that Bioware shouldn't rely on GF ops queue time metrics™ to measure queue time, because there won't be any. That's not how GF ops are customarily put together.

Nope, instead people look in fleet or Allies chat (the latter being an open-access, player-created channel) for advertisements of newly forming ops and what roles are needed. This process won't show up in the "metrics,™ and what metrics™ do exist will be invalid because the group queues only after all eight members are assembled. Though this is obvious to any player who does operations, we've seen so little evidence that the devs play their own game that a reminder is appropriate.

5.9 is as soon as possible. Rolling out major systems changes without proper testing is a great way to have to roll back your servers. (Say what you will about BW's testing, at least there's been a marked decrease in servers crashing and having rollbacks and needing extra maintenance over the last year.)

The lack of servers crashing is mostly due to far fewer servers...not an increase in quality in any department.

And rolling out major changes without proper testing, is EXACTLY why this is so urgently needed. They didn't test the new conquest out...they launched it live and are going to spend the rest of this year "fixing" it.

5.9 is as soon as possible. Rolling out major systems changes without proper testing is a great way to have to roll back your servers. (Say what you will about BW's testing, at least there's been a marked decrease in servers crashing and having rollbacks and needing extra maintenance over the last year.)

Not sure what you mean, the old conquest system was tested for many years, they could have just re-installed that the second week, that would give oodles of time to fix the new system. On this game, roll backs of the software at least are a huge positive. Rollbacks of player data would not be needed.

Do we no longer get the Stronghold percentage bonus for conquest activities anymore? Or are the points now so low to begin with that the stronghold percentage makes only a minuscule difference? I'm doing conquest on a character on DM where I have the 150% bonus and it's worse than a slog. Removing some of the weeklies is really noticeable & if you don't have crafting (which I don't on this particular character) it's like punishment trying to it as a solo player How can conquest have gotten worse since they made some "improvements" after the initial awfulness of 5.8?

I really wasn't going to bother with conquest anymore but picked up the intro quest once this character hit 70. I shall ignore that quest on any other alts until 5.9 (or before as suggested by op).

Do we no longer get the Stronghold percentage bonus for conquest activities anymore? Or are the points now so low to begin with that the stronghold percentage makes only a minuscule difference? I'm doing conquest on a character on DM where I have the 150% bonus and it's worse than a slog. Removing some of the weeklies is really noticeable & if you don't have crafting (which I don't on this particular character) it's like punishment trying to it as a solo player How can conquest have gotten worse since they made some "improvements" after the initial awfulness of 5.8?

 

I really wasn't going to bother with conquest anymore but picked up the intro quest once this character hit 70. I shall ignore that quest on any other alts until 5.9 (or before as suggested by op).

Bingo

Do we no longer get the Stronghold percentage bonus for conquest activities anymore? Or are the points now so low to begin with that the stronghold percentage makes only a minuscule difference? I'm doing conquest on a character on DM where I have the 150% bonus and it's worse than a slog. Removing some of the weeklies is really noticeable & if you don't have crafting (which I don't on this particular character) it's like punishment trying to it as a solo player How can conquest have gotten worse since they made some "improvements" after the initial awfulness of 5.8?

 

I really wasn't going to bother with conquest anymore but picked up the intro quest once this character hit 70. I shall ignore that quest on any other alts until 5.9 (or before as suggested by op).

I "bolded and blued" the answer to your question (you answered it yourself, actually). The list of points you see for conquest objectives now includes your stronghold bonus (it is no longer figured separately). Whatever it displays is the total points WITH bonus, and yes... those point totals are abysmal.

.