This is a recommendation for Star Wars The Old Republic (SWTOR) Conquest that is "about Star Wars" -- Republic versus Empire, and everyone has a chance to contribute meaningfully.
Even before changing anything about Conquest, it needs a mission statement.
Players are here for Star Wars -- that's why SWTOR is using the Star Wars intellectual property at all. So what should Conquest be about? Here is our recommendation:
Whether a Guild has a flagship or not, they can still contribute toward Conquest and gain rewards. We assume that "War Supplies" will encompass this and we can imagine they send fleets of smaller support ships or other contributions.
Individuals without a Guild can also participate, but if they are wholly without a Guild, they can only win a planet under very special circumstances.
Category based scoring
In an invasion, there are Logistics, Engagement, and Occupation. We will roughly categorize these as Crafting, Player versus Player, and Player versus Environment gameplay.
At its core, Star Wars is about the Republic versus the Empire. And when a planet is invaded, the entire Sector can be expected to respond. So Conquest will be scored by faction, and at both the Sector level and the Planetary level.
A Sector is Conquered if the primary objective planet and most of the other planets are conquered by the same faction.
A Planet is Conquered if the score from a faction exceeds that of the other faction by a threshold determined by the size of the planet or other narrative factors.
Guilds are entitled to the Conqueror title based on "when the planet was won".
Example:
When is a planet won
The Guilds who can claim the Planetary Conqueror title are the ones who were present "when the planet was won". This pivotal time is recorded under two circumstances:
Example: Suppose that on Day 3, the Republic Guilds secure victory on Hutta at 1pm. If Hutta remains contiguously Secured at 2pm, then at 2pm a Victory Declaration snapshot is taken of the winning Guilds and which Legacies had scores in those Guilds. Points continue to accumulate normally. An announcement is made that Hutta has been won by the Republic... for now.
Now, two things can happen:
If the other faction surges and Hutta falls back into Deadlock, then the Victory Declaration is discarded and another announcement is made that Hutta is disputed once again.
Alternatively, the Republic could continue to hold Hutta until the end of Conquest. Then that Victory Declaration snapshot will be used to determine which Guilds and legacies are Planetary Conquerors. These conditions are aimed at reducing last-minute Guild-hopping by players:
Takeover exploit
Another exploit involves Guilds agreeing to all invade with only one faction and thereby assure everyone the Planetary Conqueror title. When a planet is won too early and/or with an overwhelming score, this is a "Takeover" -- Basically the conquerors encountered negligible resistance and just took control. In such a case, since there was really no conquering per se, no one gets the Planetary Conqueror title.
Although heuristics can be programmed for this, Conquest evaluation by real persons may be required to veto results.
Retreat
- Mission statement for Conquest
- Category based scoring
- Faction based scoring
- When is a planet won
- Takeover exploit
- Retreat
- Rout
- Legacy based scoring
- Diminishing returns scoring
- Guild contribution methodology
- Guild rewards
- Legacy rewards
- Heroic contribution
Even before changing anything about Conquest, it needs a mission statement.
Players are here for Star Wars -- that's why SWTOR is using the Star Wars intellectual property at all. So what should Conquest be about? Here is our recommendation:
Conquest provides a "Star Wars planetary invasion" experienceEach Guild's presence is their flagship. This is the minimum required to win a planet.
Whether a Guild has a flagship or not, they can still contribute toward Conquest and gain rewards. We assume that "War Supplies" will encompass this and we can imagine they send fleets of smaller support ships or other contributions.
Individuals without a Guild can also participate, but if they are wholly without a Guild, they can only win a planet under very special circumstances.
Category based scoring
In an invasion, there are Logistics, Engagement, and Occupation. We will roughly categorize these as Crafting, Player versus Player, and Player versus Environment gameplay.
- Logistics: Donating War Supplies to the Guild
- In order for Crafting contributions to be relevant to players from a variety of levels, the material requirement should not be excessive. We recommend that it be fixed at two (2) Grades below the current. Since Grade 11 materials are the "current Tech Level", War Supplies would be made from Grade 9 materials. That is to say, common gear for troops are not cutting edge technology (the current Grade), but neither are they completely obsolete.
- Lower level players should farm (by gathering or running Crew Skill Missions) whatever materials they can, and use them to barter with Jawa vendors for Grade 9 materials. Then with the Grade 9 materials they can craft War Supplies and optionally combine them into Invasion Forces.
- Guilds with no Flagships can pay Invasion Forces to participate in conquering a planet. Different sectors and planets require different amounts of Invasion Forces. They cannot be Planetary Conquerors no matter what their contribution toward winning a planet.
- Engagement: PvP activities related to the sector or planet being Conquered contribute to this score, including open-world PvP kill counts. The on-rails Space Missions, also fall into this category as the "stories" behind each mission are basically Republic versus Empire.
- Occupation: PvE activities such as Heroics, Flashpoints, Uprisings, Operations, and kill counts which are related to the sector or planet being conquered.
Faction based scoring
At its core, Star Wars is about the Republic versus the Empire. And when a planet is invaded, the entire Sector can be expected to respond. So Conquest will be scored by faction, and at both the Sector level and the Planetary level.
A Sector is Conquered if the primary objective planet and most of the other planets are conquered by the same faction.
A Planet is Conquered if the score from a faction exceeds that of the other faction by a threshold determined by the size of the planet or other narrative factors.
Guilds are entitled to the Conqueror title based on "when the planet was won".
Example:
Suppose that the war front of the week is Hutt Space. The planets involved are Hutta, Nar Shaddaa, Quesh, and Voss so all of them can be invaded. For this particular week, Voss is selected as the primary invasion target.
At the Sector level: For a faction to claim victory, they must win both the primary invasion target (Voss) as well as most of the planets (3 out of 4).
At the Planetary level: Suppose that Hutta is a heavily defended planet and has a threshold of 20%. That means the winning faction must have more than 120% of the losing faction's score to win.
If all the Empire Guilds combined have a score of 200, then:
- Republic Score 25% or less: 0-50 - Routed
- Republic Score 50% or less: 51-100 - Retreating
- Republic Score 99% or less - 101-199 - Losing
- Republic Score 120% or less - 200-240 - Deadlock
- Republic Score over 120% - 241+ - Secured
- If the planet remains Secured for 1 hour, it is considered Won... for now.
When is a planet won
The Guilds who can claim the Planetary Conqueror title are the ones who were present "when the planet was won". This pivotal time is recorded under two circumstances:
- At the end of the Conquest period, if the planet was at least Secured.
- When a planet remains Secured for over one hour.
Example: Suppose that on Day 3, the Republic Guilds secure victory on Hutta at 1pm. If Hutta remains contiguously Secured at 2pm, then at 2pm a Victory Declaration snapshot is taken of the winning Guilds and which Legacies had scores in those Guilds. Points continue to accumulate normally. An announcement is made that Hutta has been won by the Republic... for now.
Now, two things can happen:
If the other faction surges and Hutta falls back into Deadlock, then the Victory Declaration is discarded and another announcement is made that Hutta is disputed once again.
Alternatively, the Republic could continue to hold Hutta until the end of Conquest. Then that Victory Declaration snapshot will be used to determine which Guilds and legacies are Planetary Conquerors. These conditions are aimed at reducing last-minute Guild-hopping by players:
- Anyone who no longer has a toon in the Guild at the time the Win state is recorded does not get the title, even if they left when the planet was Secured.
- Anyone in the Guild who contributed no points (checking Legacy, not the specific toon) at the time the Win state was recorded does not get the title.
Takeover exploit
Another exploit involves Guilds agreeing to all invade with only one faction and thereby assure everyone the Planetary Conqueror title. When a planet is won too early and/or with an overwhelming score, this is a "Takeover" -- Basically the conquerors encountered negligible resistance and just took control. In such a case, since there was really no conquering per se, no one gets the Planetary Conqueror title.
Although heuristics can be programmed for this, Conquest evaluation by real persons may be required to veto results.
Retreat
When a faction is Retreating from a planet (its contribution has declined to 50% of the enemy faction and dropping), a warning is announced server-wide and mail is sent to the Guildmaster.
While a faction is in Retreat, but before it is in a state of Rout, a Guild can completely pull out. They lose all accumulated Conquest immediately, and that loss also means that contribution is also removed from the planetary Conquest score for that planet. If they want to invade again they have to pay the usual costs to initiate Conquest.
This simulates a collapse of the war front and can quickly turn into a Rout if too many Guilds start pulling out instead of bringing in more supplies (Logistics) and fighting harder (Engagement and Occupation).
Rout
When a faction ends Conquest in a state of Rout at a planet, it means the fleet and forces at that planet were seriously damaged. This has expensive consequences for the Guilds involved:
While a faction is in Retreat, but before it is in a state of Rout, a Guild can completely pull out. They lose all accumulated Conquest immediately, and that loss also means that contribution is also removed from the planetary Conquest score for that planet. If they want to invade again they have to pay the usual costs to initiate Conquest.
This simulates a collapse of the war front and can quickly turn into a Rout if too many Guilds start pulling out instead of bringing in more supplies (Logistics) and fighting harder (Engagement and Occupation).
Rout
When a faction ends Conquest in a state of Rout at a planet, it means the fleet and forces at that planet were seriously damaged. This has expensive consequences for the Guilds involved:
- If they had a Flagship
- All sections are checked for damage. A damaged section is inaccessible and must be unlocked again at the usual costs. If all sections are damaged, then the ship itself is checked for complete destruction.
- Larger ships (more sections unlocked) are less likely to suffer total loss, but obviously have more sections to check and can suffer more damage.
- If they did not have a Flagship
- The Guild Bank is completely locked and access to the bank as well as all tabs must be repurchased.
There should really be some ship damage if a faction is forced to Retreat, but whether that is implemented depends on how much it would set back medium Guilds who can't recover from such a credit sink.
We have seen that scoring and rewarding Conquest by toons can lead to undesirable behaviors. Instead of trying to decide how many toons should reasonably be able to complete Conquest in a given week, we remove that issue completely and return the focus to the player. The player is allowed to play however they like, and with whichever toons they like.
When a player earns Conquest points, the points are recorded for the entire Legacy, and tracked not just by Category but by Faction. For example, crafting War Supplies on an Imperial toon would add points to Imperial-Logistics.
While a toon is in a Guild, their points are added to that Guild. So the same player crafting War Supplies on an Imperial toon would add the same points to the Guild's Logistics score; that score is also tracked by the player's Legacy. If that toon has no Guild, they still accumulate a score.
Players can freely come and go from Guilds and retain their score. This allows Guilds to focus their roster at all times on active players rather than being padded with a lot of alts.
If a player removes all their toons from a Guild (or all toons are Kicked from the Guild), their entire Legacy contribution is removed from the Guild and cannot be reassigned to another Guild. It is still retained for end-of-Conquest player-reward calculation.
Obviously there should be a warning when this might happen, and players who want to focus on other toons should instead add more toons to the Guild before removing others.
When a player earns Conquest points, the points are recorded for the entire Legacy, and tracked not just by Category but by Faction. For example, crafting War Supplies on an Imperial toon would add points to Imperial-Logistics.
While a toon is in a Guild, their points are added to that Guild. So the same player crafting War Supplies on an Imperial toon would add the same points to the Guild's Logistics score; that score is also tracked by the player's Legacy. If that toon has no Guild, they still accumulate a score.
Players can freely come and go from Guilds and retain their score. This allows Guilds to focus their roster at all times on active players rather than being padded with a lot of alts.
If a player removes all their toons from a Guild (or all toons are Kicked from the Guild), their entire Legacy contribution is removed from the Guild and cannot be reassigned to another Guild. It is still retained for end-of-Conquest player-reward calculation.
Obviously there should be a warning when this might happen, and players who want to focus on other toons should instead add more toons to the Guild before removing others.
Diminishing returns scoring
In a Star Wars movie, no one individual or ship is so key as to be able to accomplish an invasion single-handed. They can make key contributions through heroic effort, but others are still involved to make it possible. By using diminishing returns, we can simulate this.
The mechanics of diminishing returns also dissuades and diminishes exploitative point farming; the scoring curve helps everyone contribute meaningfully; and it still recognizes the extra effort individuals may put in.
In a Star Wars movie, no one individual or ship is so key as to be able to accomplish an invasion single-handed. They can make key contributions through heroic effort, but others are still involved to make it possible. By using diminishing returns, we can simulate this.
The mechanics of diminishing returns also dissuades and diminishes exploitative point farming; the scoring curve helps everyone contribute meaningfully; and it still recognizes the extra effort individuals may put in.
The flat score can be converted with (for example) a logarithmic or square root function. For purposes of discussion, let's use f(x) as the function.
Guild contribution methodology
At the Guild level, diminishing returns scoring reinforces the idea that two ships are better than one. Showing up to a space battle with three battleships when the opponent has just two is a greater advantage -- unless a single ship has such impenetrable defense and overwhelming firepower that it is worth so much more. And this latter scenario is still possible even with diminishing returns for a Guild that has overwhelming contribution to Conquest.
So diminishing returns supports both large Guilds and small Guilds contributing to Conquest. Large Guilds obviously have an advantage by having more active members, but it is an advantage they earned from building a sizable, loyal, membership.
A Guild's accumulated score in each category is first converted:
Guild Logistics Contribution = f(accumulated Logistics score)
Guild Engagement Contribution = f(accumulated Engagement score)
Guild Occupation Contribution = f(accumulated Occupation score)
At the planetary invasion level, the Faction Logistics score is the combined Guild Logistics Contribution from all Guilds invading that planet. Engagement and Occupation are summed up similarly.
The Faction's Invasion Strength is the total of Faction Logistics + Faction Engagement + Faction Occupation.
However, to prevent Guilds from simply showing up at the last moment to add a massive score in any one area and securing a place as Planetary Conquerors, neither Faction Engagement nor Faction Occupation can exceed Faction Logistics. Logistics also cannot exceed (Engagement + Occupation).
These score caps mean Crafting can be important, but is not allowed to be excessively important because it can be too easy to churn out crafted items.
Example:
If Faction Logistics is 5, Faction Engagement is 7 and Faction Occupation is 4, then Faction Invasion Strength is 5 Logistics + 5 Engagement + 4 Occupation, for a total of 14 because Faction Engagement was capped by Logistics.
Guild rewardsGuild contribution methodology
At the Guild level, diminishing returns scoring reinforces the idea that two ships are better than one. Showing up to a space battle with three battleships when the opponent has just two is a greater advantage -- unless a single ship has such impenetrable defense and overwhelming firepower that it is worth so much more. And this latter scenario is still possible even with diminishing returns for a Guild that has overwhelming contribution to Conquest.
So diminishing returns supports both large Guilds and small Guilds contributing to Conquest. Large Guilds obviously have an advantage by having more active members, but it is an advantage they earned from building a sizable, loyal, membership.
A Guild's accumulated score in each category is first converted:
Guild Logistics Contribution = f(accumulated Logistics score)
Guild Engagement Contribution = f(accumulated Engagement score)
Guild Occupation Contribution = f(accumulated Occupation score)
At the planetary invasion level, the Faction Logistics score is the combined Guild Logistics Contribution from all Guilds invading that planet. Engagement and Occupation are summed up similarly.
The Faction's Invasion Strength is the total of Faction Logistics + Faction Engagement + Faction Occupation.
However, to prevent Guilds from simply showing up at the last moment to add a massive score in any one area and securing a place as Planetary Conquerors, neither Faction Engagement nor Faction Occupation can exceed Faction Logistics. Logistics also cannot exceed (Engagement + Occupation).
These score caps mean Crafting can be important, but is not allowed to be excessively important because it can be too easy to churn out crafted items.
Example:
If Faction Logistics is 5, Faction Engagement is 7 and Faction Occupation is 4, then Faction Invasion Strength is 5 Logistics + 5 Engagement + 4 Occupation, for a total of 14 because Faction Engagement was capped by Logistics.
As long as a Guild participated in Conquest, they will almost certainly receive some reward based on their net Guild Contribution (as calculated above).
The base calculated score is for a faction Win of the planet.
If their faction did not win the Sector, their score is reduced.
If they were not present when the planet was won, their score is reduced.
If the factions were Deadlocked over the planet, the score is reduced.
If their faction Lost the planet, their score is further reduced.
If their faction was in Retreat, their score is further reduced.
If their faction was Routed, their score is not further reduced but there are consequences for a Rout (as indicated above).
The final score becomes Guild currency which is used to buy upgrade components for their flagships (e.g., Flagship Plans) or the various bonuses for Guild members.
The base calculated score is for a faction Win of the planet.
If their faction did not win the Sector, their score is reduced.
If they were not present when the planet was won, their score is reduced.
If the factions were Deadlocked over the planet, the score is reduced.
If their faction Lost the planet, their score is further reduced.
If their faction was in Retreat, their score is further reduced.
If their faction was Routed, their score is not further reduced but there are consequences for a Rout (as indicated above).
The final score becomes Guild currency which is used to buy upgrade components for their flagships (e.g., Flagship Plans) or the various bonuses for Guild members.
There are no longer any planet "size" categories for rewards. Only which planet a Guild wants to conquer.
There are no longer minimum scores for fixed rewards, so small Guilds that participate might still get something. If their participation is merely token (or reduced to practically nothing due to not winning the planet), they may not get back more than it cost them to participate; or possibly nothing at all.
There are no longer minimum scores for fixed rewards, so small Guilds that participate might still get something. If their participation is merely token (or reduced to practically nothing due to not winning the planet), they may not get back more than it cost them to participate; or possibly nothing at all.
Legacy rewards
When players accumulate Conquest points, as mentioned above we separately track points for Republic and Empire. When it is time to calculate Conquest rewards, Republic and Empire scores are separately converted in separate Legacy Conquest scores.
When players accumulate Conquest points, as mentioned above we separately track points for Republic and Empire. When it is time to calculate Conquest rewards, Republic and Empire scores are separately converted in separate Legacy Conquest scores.
Legacy Conquest is not adjusted at all for faction wins or losses. It is treated as a type of net pay or booty collected from various toons in the Legacy. Wins or losses are really meaningful only the Guild level. On the other hand, win or lose, players still get paid.
Unlike Guild Conquest, all scoring categories are pooled together. In this way, we leave players free to choose what they like to do instead of feeling artificial pressure to min-max their Legacy Conquest score. And they can still support specific activities each of their Guilds might want to focus on.
Unlike Guild Conquest, all scoring categories are pooled together. In this way, we leave players free to choose what they like to do instead of feeling artificial pressure to min-max their Legacy Conquest score. And they can still support specific activities each of their Guilds might want to focus on.
Legacy Conquest = f(Logistics + Engagement + Occupation)
Like Guild rewards, this converted score also becomes a currency, and the Republic and Empire shops will have different items that can be purchased. Items may further vary depending on which Sector and which Planets were available for conquest that week (e.g., planet-specific stronghold decorations).
To help smaller Guilds develop, Legacy rewards can include the ability to purchase Guild currency for deposit into Guilds.
To help smaller Guilds develop, Legacy rewards can include the ability to purchase Guild currency for deposit into Guilds.
Heroic contribution
The top-scoring players are awarded additional Legacy Conquest as "heroes" who rose above others in fame and recognition. This is based on their Legacy Conquest score, and completely separate from Guilds and factions or wins and losses.
Heroes are named Planetary Conquerors for all planets won by their faction, whether they were in any Guild or not.
The top-scoring players are awarded additional Legacy Conquest as "heroes" who rose above others in fame and recognition. This is based on their Legacy Conquest score, and completely separate from Guilds and factions or wins and losses.
Heroes are named Planetary Conquerors for all planets won by their faction, whether they were in any Guild or not.
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