The Guildmaster Hotspot community recently met to discuss ideas and plans for our guilds and wishes for implementation of changes within the game. In this thread, we will share suggestions and reiterate the Quality of Life requests first mentioned in this previous thread. We do, moreover, have a few additions.

Guildmaster Recommendations: July 2020

Community Climate

- The Hotspot community has been happy to see that some known harassers and ToS/CoC offenders have been facing punishment, but would like to reiterate the need for the customer service community to take seriously the reports of harassment, doxxing, and Code of Conduct violations that are submitted by guildmasters (and our guildies). While some improvement is excellent to see, we hope to continue to see improvements in this arena and applaud efforts on this front.

Conquest Changes

- The general consensus is that the conquest changes are good in some ways, but extremely poorly balanced. Guilds with a variety of sizes (little mini-guilds through large yield) have some differences in the specifics of their opinions, but we are agreed on the fact that the balance needs to be adjusted as a serious priority for the developers.

- Small guilds in particular acknowledge that the it allows for more contributions from a smaller member base and allows for conquest not to be especially a source of anxiety, but we as a whole suggest that flagship plan acquisition be divorced from conquest. This allows for small guilds to continue to expand their flagships while preserving the real competition value of conquest, and allows for some "de-nerfing" of conquest without hurting our small guild comrades.

Breaking apart conquest from flagship expansion can reiterate that both conquest and flagship development are meant to be long-term guild goals and collaborative, rather than an “easy win” in either case. On idea that has been supported extensively is to install enemy commanders on PVE instances so that conquest can be separated from flagship upgrades would be an easy way to accomplish this. *Note that this is only relevant if conquest is “de-nerfed" and should not be implemented otherwise.

- One of the key issues that guildmasters are seeing is that, particularly in light of the influx of new Steam players, spam-guilds are spamming invites constantly; speaking personally, I have heard from more players that they are being slammed with invites from the moment they spawn in than I ever have before (and, especially during Double XP, I have heard a *lot* of complaints on this front; they aren't nearly as bad as now).

What is happening is that the spam-guilds are mass-inviting every player on starting worlds, using them to farm conquest (through normal leveling, etc.) until they hit ~level 40, then the players are kicked to make room for new fresh newbies who aren't in the mid or high-level conquest brackets.

In other words, while it's nice that new players are able to succeed in conquest, they are pulling in *massively* more points proportionally through normal play than any level 40+ players. This is not only poor game balance, but is promoting horribly bad behavior among guilds -- new players routinely point out that being spam-invited, or even worse, accepting these sorts of invites only to be kicked a week later by no fault of their own -- is extremely off-putting and makes them wish to seek out other MMOs.

- Corollary to this, we strongly suggest a reinvestment in the idea of planetary conquest and rampages/heroics/missions with extra conquest being restricted to a few planets. Group play has been severely and detrimentally affected by the fact that all planets have rampages and quest/heroic options available for equal levels of conquest, and across guilds, we no longer see friendly community group-ups to attain conquest objectives (bye-bye to conquest worldboss hunts, for instance). Constricting the list of planets with rampages/missions to those relating to the week's conquest (as they were previously) would be wonderful and encourage players to be more social to achieve objectives, rather than the apathy from players we are all perceiving now. Having the same planetary objectives week to week makes for very dull conquest.

- Along similar lines, group content ought to be upscaled in terms of point assignments, probably as part of a general rebalancing. In other words, completing a VM raid should be worth more than ~2x taking a taxi…

Guild Alliances and Channels

- Several members pointed out that in-game guild alliances could be helpful or fun, but it was generally agreed that this has a great amount of room to devolve into popularity contests, and would be difficult to properly maintain/implement. Such alliances instead, we believe, ought to be managed through Discord.

- This having been said, we strongly support some overhauling of the in-game channels in a few, specific ways:

Fix the issue where channels with passwords disappear if their owner is not online.

Implement a little directory of available channels (indicating if a password is required).

Allow channels to be cross-faction. < This one is huge for guilds and we would all be eternally grateful for its implementation.

Quality of Life

- Once again, we continue to plead for the plethora of changes in this thread and have not changed our stances; what follows is an addendum to the thread linked here. Many of our GMs expressed a certain level of regret that not even one of these have yet been addressed either in patches or even discussed in the recent livestream.

To reiterate and add to a few of the points:

o Guildwide permissions for guildbanks: This would be a useful ability for some smaller/egalitarian guilds – one checkbox could set the same permissions across all guild ranks (or, alternatively, a button could be pressed which matches all roles’ guildbank perms to the active view, which then could be altered if GMs wanted).

o Recruiter permission as a role; active recruiter will not only be the GM in the guild lookup. This seems obvious, and as if it's glitched rather than how the feature was supposed to work, given that it's a role permission.

o In-guild customizable awards/medals: Any kind of special designation beyond roles (i.e. guild-chat colors, actual little “medal” icons that can be attached to the roster entry, etc.) so that guilds can award particular people for awards relevant to their communities. E.g. “player of the month” as a persistent “ribbon” attached to someone in the roster where the guild awards such a title.

o Guild languages as a selection in lookups -- especially helpful on Darth Malgus, where there are plenty of "non-server language" Czech, Turkish, Russian guilds, etc. (This would also be really nice in the U.S. to indicate that international members are welcome, and once the in-game guild directory is implemented, will be VERY helpful for people searching for guilds in particular languages).

Forum Fixes to Profile

- The current profile on the forums includes such “useful” information as your ICQ and AIM screen names, but no Discord, for example...

- Expansion and fixing of this would be nice. I haven't seen an ICQ number since roughly 2007, so that's something. Also, AIM doesn't exist any more...

Thank you to staff for your attention and consideration, and thank you to the community in advance for (constructive) discussion sans drama.

I have a small guild consisting of relatives and a few friends and their alts. Unfortunately, I'm the only consistent player as the rest could be described as "seasonal" since they spread their free time playing many games.

The way conquest is set up right now really helps me advance the guild (level and flagship expansion) even if nobody else plays for a few months. I can play very casually during a week, reach the small planetary yield (for the guild) and the personal conquest goal on 8+ characters. That still leaves me plenty of time to work on grindy achievements, character advancement, playing slots, seeker droid stuff, etc... if I'm in the mood.

I can also, if I commit more time each week, reach the medium yield target while reaching the personal goal on 20-30 characters on my own.

If they changed the rampage to the old design, I would have to spend more time worrying about conquest if I want to reach the target and less time enjoying the rest of the game. I also wouldn't be able to earn as many flagship plans as I do currently. So I disagree with changing the rampage system and also with the idea of removing flagship plans from conquest. They have always been a part of conquest and should continue to be a part of it. The current design helps me work on my alts a little every week. If there was no flagship plan at the end, I would have less reason to play alts or even complete conquest.

Please no changes to conquest. I lead a smaller-sized roleplay guild. Advancement, buffs, etc are all nice and needed, but many of us don't play the game heavily outside of roleplay. The current system is the only real way we can easily, viably, expand our flagship and level up the guild.

It's nice right now because it takes little effort; even those who almost exclusively roleplay can still do enough to help the guild progress.

The good news is that with the inclusion of enemy commanders on non-PVP instances, even "me and my alt" guilds would be able to make progress on flagships at an increased rate without having to rely on conquest as a system for guild expansion.

Good luck with that. The large guilds will have them Farmed to sell the frameworks and Encryptions on the GTN.

The good news is that with the inclusion of enemy commanders on non-PVP instances, even "me and my alt" guilds would be able to make progress on flagships at an increased rate without having to rely on conquest as a system for guild expansion.

How would small guilds have easier access? It just means more phases for the large guilds to camp and spawn.

If it's about progression and fair access, make a commander (or multiple )that's a phased sort of 'world boss' like Monolith or something, that way any and every guild can enter and get one framework a week, or something.

Please no changes to conquest.

Untying flagship expansion from conquest would be the only thing I'd be in league with. Otherwise I agree, no changes.

How would small guilds have easier access? It just means more phases for the large guilds to camp and spawn.

 

If it's about progression and fair access, make a commander (or multiple )that's a phased sort of 'world boss' like Monolith or something, that way any and every guild can enter and get one framework a week, or something.

I actually quite like that idea, speaking for myself. I'll definitely bring that up at the next meeting.

That having been said, the problem that small guilds face isn't that they can't unite to bring down commanders; it's reputedly PVP trolling, so eliminating that = significantly reduced issues.

Good luck with that. The large guilds will have them Farmed to sell the frameworks and Encryptions on the GTN.

Certain guilds are already doing that, this will make them, or their GM even richer :/

Certain guilds are already doing that, this will make them, or their GM even richer :/

IF they're already doing that, then why fight or worry about this?

If anything moving them to all PvE instances along with PvP will give them a bigger chance than what they have.

They should leave the plans as a weekly goal for CQ & just add commanders to all instances.

Little guilds will have to want it, to go get it as it is.

They will need to make their goal expanding the ship, stake out the commanders, do commander runs.

It's not gonna fall into their laps. The reason the "big" guilds do it is because someone takes the time to do it.

I put "big" in quotes though as anyone can do it. All it takes is a dedicated group doing commanders for about 20-30min every night they play & they can get the plans.

IF they're already doing that, then why fight or worry about this?

 

If anything moving them to all PvE instances along with PvP will give them a bigger chance than what they have.

 

They should leave the plans as a weekly goal for CQ & just add commanders to all instances.

Little guilds will have to want it, to go get it as it is.

They will need to make their goal expanding the ship, stake out the commanders, do commander runs.

It's not gonna fall into their laps. The reason the "big" guilds do it is because someone takes the time to do it.

I put "big" in quotes though as anyone can do it. All it takes is a dedicated group doing commanders for about 20-30min every night they play & they can get the plans.

If you read the OP's thread they want to remove the Flagship plans from the weekly Conquest reward, and have it exclusively on the commanders which they want to add to the PvE instance as well. Our point is that with no plans available through conquest, and that the large guilds will have the commanders on farm as they do now that small guilds will have no chance (or extremely low at best) to even get encryptions/frameworks.

And no small guilds can't get the time necessary to get encryptions through the commanders exclusively. Getting enough guild mates on at any given time may be an issue for one, not knowing when they spawn will be the 2nd (since the large guilds will know when they killed it last, and will know when to be there to kill it next).

The good news is that with the inclusion of enemy commanders on non-PVP instances, even "me and my alt" guilds would be able to make progress on flagships at an increased rate without having to rely on conquest as a system for guild expansion.

It would have the exact opposite effect. Right now even a small guild can get encryptions and in time expand their guild ship. If the only source would be enemy commanders, small guilds have close to zero chance to get encryptions, and frameworks would be impossible for them. Big guild have more people to camp on commander spots, and even if you'd eliminate the pvp trolling by moving the commanders to pve instance, they are easy to reset and steal by another, bigger group.

Getting encryptions from conquest gives everyone an equal chance to expand their guildship.

If you read the OP's thread they want to remove the Flagship plans from the weekly Conquest reward, and have it exclusively on the commanders which they want to add to the PvE instance as well. Our point is that with no plans available through conquest, and that the large guilds will have the commanders on farm as they do now that small guilds will have no chance (or extremely low at best) to even get encryptions/frameworks.

Yes. They want ship expansion parts removed from conquest, so that conquest has other things involved.

Problem is, large guilds, at least on my server, don't have those commanders on farm.

The ones who actually "farm" those commanders are actual players who do it for credits. Or if it was a conquest objective.

While I don't agree with removing it from conquest rewards, arguing that large guilds have it on farm is not completely factual.

And no small guilds can't get the time necessary to get encryptions through the commanders exclusively. Getting enough guild mates on at any given time may be an issue for one, not knowing when they spawn will be the 2nd (since the large guilds will know when they killed it last, and will know when to be there to kill it next).

Commanders have a 2hrs respawn rate. It is not hard at all to get a commander. 4 people can kill a commander if they know their class. A named commander takes a few more.

If the small guild WANTS to expand their ship, whether now or IF this was implemented, they have to work for it. As everyone else has had to in the past.

You're just making an excuse for these guilds.

If they want it they can make it happen.

Whether by means stated above or alternate ways.

1. Dark project turn in 1:1 ratio. Either craft or buy them.

2. Buy them from the GTN. (Aka farm credits.)

I have seen it so many times, the many excuses for why they can't get encryptions. Yet that's all it is, because small guilds who want those plans, GET those plans.

It goes for the same thing in real life. Make excuses, get nowhere.

Also, I know I will get flak for this. But if a guild is so small it can only average a few plans a week, then yes it will take them a long time & rightly so. Like it or not a guild is a social thing. You join one to engage with other players in mutual enjoyment of the game.

If you want to just be a closed off 2-4 person guild, that is fine but don't expect to get the same things the med or large guilds get that fast.

To fully unlock a guildship, guild needs 54 frameworks. That's 2700 encryptions, or did I miscalculate it? It would definitely be a really really long term goal with the amount of commanders there are and the respawn timer they have...

Your math seems sound to me. 50 encryptions = 1 Framework...50 x 54 = 2700...right? lol

But you don't have to rely wholly on commanders for those. You are forgetting dark projects, and the GTN.

Respawn timer is only 2hrs for non-named commanders & you only need 4 competent players to kill a non-named commander on most planets.

(Remember you only can have 12 in a group for a Commander run anyway, as only 12 drop.)

So it very well can be done.

BUT....I would be an advocate for reducing the frameworks needed for guild ships also. Or better Encryptions to framework rate...maybe only 25 encryptions = a Framework.

 

Commanders have a 2hrs respawn rate. It is not hard at all to get a commander. 4 people can kill a commander if they know their class. A named commander takes a few more.

If the small guild WANTS to expand their ship, whether now or IF this was implemented, they have to work for it. As everyone else has had to in the past.

They have 4 hours respawn rate, plus 6 hours more if it is a named commander. If your guild controls the planet, you can pop the shield earlier than that, but it's very unlikely that a small guild would control any planets. And only 10 planets (20 total in both factions). This change would only benefit big guilds, who can drop the shield early and then sell the frameworks to the guilds who actually need them. Big guilds have everything unlocked already, it's just a credit farm for them.

You're just making an excuse for these guilds.

If they want it they can make it happen.

Whether by means stated above or alternate ways.

1. Dark project turn in 1:1 ratio. Either craft or buy them.

2. Buy them from the GTN. (Aka farm credits.)

 

I have seen it so many times, the many excuses for why they can't get encryptions. Yet that's all it is, because small guilds who want those plans, GET those plans.

It goes for the same thing in real life. Make excuses, get nowhere.

 

Also, I know I will get flak for this. But if a guild is so small it can only average a few plans a week, then yes it will take them a long time & rightly so. Like it or not a guild is a social thing. You join one to engage with other players in mutual enjoyment of the game.

If you want to just be a closed off 2-4 person guild, that is fine but don't expect to get the same things the med or large guilds get that fast.

As a small guild participant, I agree pretty much with all you said. However, I don't see a reason to do as the OP has suggested and change the current system. It's fine and working as intended. Yes, it takes a long time currently, and if I have a problem with that, I can expand the guild roster.

I stand by my earlier statement that Flagship encryptions have always been a part of conquest since it came out and should remain a part of conquest. I'm not the one requesting changes to accommodate my own ideas here. I'm 100% fine with the current flagship expansion system provided through conquest for big and small guilds.

You also get an encryption just for hitting 50k of conquest when your guild makes target.

An encryption of your choice, even.

They have 4 hours respawn rate, plus 6 hours more if it is a named commander. If your guild controls the planet, you can pop the shield earlier than that, but it's very unlikely that a small guild would control any planets. And only 10 planets (20 total in both factions). This change would only benefit big guilds, who can drop the shield early and then sell the frameworks to the guilds who actually need them. Big guilds have everything unlocked already, it's just a credit farm for them.

Incorrect.

Even when they launched, they had a 3hr respawn timer. (Which has now been dropped down to 2hrs, iirc last I killed one & went back & checked. Another GM said it was 2hrs also.)

It's only 6hrs for shield buff. (http://dulfy.net/2014/08/12/swtor-conquest-commanders-locations-guide/)

Again. while some large guilds have players that organize the runs, they have invited pugs & it's like so many of you claim. (Maybe it is on your server, Idk but not all.)

The funny part is so many of you are anti this for small guilds, when it was a collective amount of small-med guilds that actually want this change. lol

Incorrect.

Even when they launched, they had a 3hr respawn timer. (Which has now been dropped down to 2hrs, iirc last I killed one & went back & checked. Another GM said it was 2hrs also.)

It's only 6hrs for shield buff. (http://dulfy.net/2014/08/12/swtor-conquest-commanders-locations-guide/)

 

Again. while some large guilds have players that organize the runs, they have invited pugs & it's like so many of you claim. (Maybe it is on your server, Idk but not all.)

 

 

The funny part is so many of you are anti this for small guilds, when it was a collective amount of small-med guilds that actually want this change. lol

I guess you or the other GM hasn't killed them lately, because the respawn timer is 4 hours, plus 6 hours for the shield to drop.

If you don't believe me, go camp for 2 hours and see if it spawns.

Perhaps a change where if a member is booted - their conquest gains for the last month are also nullified?

I think that's also a good idea!