Then that's nothing to do with LOST ISLAND Hard Mode -- those people would have trouble in ANY of the Level 50 Hard Modes unless they had already played those on another character. And, I would say, it would be a reasonable restriction, to have at least 1000 primary stat and 12k HP to be able to queue for hard modes - that is readily achievable in level 50 blues, and is just about viable for the 50 HMs if played with care. (All subscribers can now buy Rakata-level gear just for Planetary Comms from the Makeb vendor, so while the removal of the "freebie Tionese set at 50" has impacted new players, it's not too hard to get yourself a Rakata-grade mainhand hilt/barrel and offhand hilt/barrel/armoring at the very least).

Indeed, but for PVP, where Guard works very differently, it has much greater value (because you're basically acting as an extra health pool for the person you're guarding -- although even there, a decent level of mitigation will help a great deal) -- which is probably why this PVP-oriented player -- who incidentally had done none of the Oricon HM Ops -- felt it was OK for PVE also.

Well, yes, but people grind through reputation at very different rates, or even different reputations. For example, I still haven't reached Hero with Czerka, but I stored up enough Gree rep items to hit Legend in 1 week as well, and the Oricon faction maxed up pretty quickly as I took my various level 55s through it. For those that are more casual, if the unlocks relied on Reputation level, they might take an awfully long time to unlock those missions, while the hyperactive would burn through them as fast as ever. It would be better, in my view, to have a series of missions scattered over many worlds, that unlocked day-by-day or week-by-week till they culminated in a "major event", then it would all go quiet again.... for a while.

Indeed, but by 22 you have your single target taunt, and some basic AE threat moves, so using them correctly you can get it back fairly easily if you do lose it. And of course there's the option of Guarding the worst aggro-monger to reduce their threat significantly.

The original Rakghoul Outbreak on Tatooine sort of worked this way, but rather than using Reputation, the extra missions unlocked day-by-day.

Well. Given that any character from 20 to 55 can get most of the missions done every day, including the Story Mode Operation, it doesn't work particularly well for that purpose. Over 13 characters, of whom 6 are in the range 20-40, I have enough reputation items saved up to hit Legend. Not enough Cannisters on any one character to get the Dewback mount, but enough, had I wanted to, to buy the Veractyl, and plenty of Legacy weapons, mostly Lightsaber hilts, in a couple of weeks' time. Oh, and some people already had the "Cure for the Plague" title on Friday -- I was about 2/3 of the way through for the kills last night, so they must have really been grinding. (Incidentally, while you can pick up the missions at 20, killing that initial level 25 mob was, hilariously, far harder than killing the level 20 strong or elite mobs that they triggered, because at level 20 most of my lowbie Sentinel's attacks missed... it got a lot better at 21, but till then it's a darn good thing Treek is a ridiculously good healer).

Agreed It made no sense to me that you would get a reward from THORN for infecting people, unless it turns out that THORN is less about containing the plague than about spreading it....I'm guessing Mr Hyland's infected children are behind all this, especially since we've only seen Holograms of Hyland, even on the news broadcasts... Doctor Lorick, you just weren't thinking big enough....

Well done, but in a (different) PUG 16HM group it was dicey even in my nearly-full-Dread-Forged tank set.

If it's Battle Lord Kreshan, turning him around can be fatal -- he can punt people off the edge, and the only time the tank should not have their back to the console is when sidestepping Kreshan's sweeping gunfire -- which again can do huge damage to the other players if he's been turned the wrong way.

Regarding the OP, it sounds to me as if that is the first FP he has tanked, and he is complaining that he kept losing aggro to the DPS -- which is probably unsurprising if he has only done PVP and Story missions prior to that, and in PVP, taunts are only used to reduce the damage done to friendly players by enemies. While the comments he received are harsh, they appear to have been earned.

^This. There was a Vanguard from one of the PVP-focussed guilds on my server tanking the Eyeless at the weekend, and he was around 41k HP, and bragging about his guild, so I assumed he would do okay. He did indeed do OK on the SM run, but he died pretty quickly on the HM attempt, and as Combat Rez had already been wasted on a DPS that managed to die pretty much as it was pulled, the attempt was a failure. I inspected his gear outside the instance, and it was 69/72 gear with mostly Endurance augments, and only 1 set bonus piece. He then b*tched about the ops group then ragequit...

What's the evidence for this statement? It would be hard to test Crit Chance bonus, but it should be possible to verify "Efficiency" bonuses quite easily, since they state the mission time. So, for example, start with the Ship droid on 0 affection, and see what the mission time for a "Rich Grade 9" mission is, then give enough gifts to get it to 1999 affection, and see if the mission time has changed. If it has, fractional changes work. If it hasn't changed, it's a stepwise function. (Crit Bonus testing would probably involve making a grey item with a short craft time many times over, and seeing what proportion were crits -- but again, distinguishing a 15% crit rate from 15.99% would require a very very large number of samples -- 5,000 of each would only reach the 80% confidence level, and would need about 18,000 of each for 99% confidence. Unfortunately, the Crit Chance bonus matters far more than the Efficiency bonus).

I found that it crashed for me every time if I spacebar'd the conversation, but would (usually) work OK if I let it run through. Regardless, there's clearly a serious problem in the game engine whenever it tries to deal with "Jump to Lightspeed" cutscenes, whether it's The Esseles, Black Talon, or Boarding Party, and it's still around after 2 years.... it might actually be simpler to change the "script" so it's an external view of the ship shooting away than it is to fix the engine.

I had exactly the same experience -- mob name was red even though it was being attacked by about a dozen people, I joined in, companion got the killing blow, and I got the Crimson Rakling achievement. It seems to me that the achievement is ONLY granted to the person that got the killing blow (or their companion did, since the game treats companion damage as your own). It doesn't matter if someone else has "locked" the mob and is able to loot, nor does it seem to matter if someone else in the group got the killing blow (because I grouped up later to try and get the Pale Rakling achievement, and that didn't work). So it's not so much as a bug as a coding error -- did you guys get some intern to work on that one?

It really isn't any more difficult than the other level 50 HM flashpoints now. Prior to 2.0, it was in its' own category, but at 2.0 it was made significantly easier, so that is why the previous gear level recommendation was relaxed. Your problem is more people ignoring the mechanics, not the gear requirement.

Actually. The whole Dread Master mess is your fault if you did the Belsavis Imperial World Storyline. The Republic discussions have no mention of that, nor do the Imperial ones if you didn't do the Belsavis storyline, as with my fresh 55 Powertech.

I agree. It should ALSO, for symmetry, prevent heals on a flagged Friendly player without turning the PVP flag on.

It would make more sense for the Corellia tunnels to be like a sewer system, and the Tatooine one to be a more natural (and drier) cave system. The missions themselves could still be the same.

Unlike Sir Copperfield (or, it seems, yourself), I didn't have to introduce my lowbie alts by saying who I was -- 2 of the 3 aren't even guilded -- and I formed the groups, and had no real problems getting them done. As for the SM Operation, depending on time of day, they'll take anyone of any level, 1 DPS of any level can't do too much to hurt a 16-man Ops group that just wants a warm body to fill the last slot.

OP seems to be saying "You got enough paying subscribers to subsidise 'hardcore' content for 1% or less of the population, go waste some money now so I can feel better about my gameplay!".

Funny, I was able to PUG it on a level 21 Sentinel, a level 29 Sorceror and a level 37 Juggernaut. Maybe people can see you can't play well and don't want to group with you?

Most of those classes/specs have AE moves as part of the basic rotation. If you're really saying you never use Smash, Chain Ligtning, or ANY of the Tank rotations, because they have AE effects that might cause flagging, you're massively gimping yourself, probably to the point of failure. (Oh, and try doing the H4 "silver packs" without AE, you will probably be dead long before you've finished killing them one-by-one with single target moves). That is stupid play, not "smart play". And, your earlier assertion that most other MMOs work that way is also wrong -- most actively require you to flag yourself before you can either attack a flagged enemy player, OR heal a flagged friendly player. This could be easily done via a UI toggle.

Actually, for me, running Windows 8.1 64-bit, I've started getting routine crashes to desktop when switching characters or switching between worlds -- and that never happened prior to a week or 2 ago.

I did this yesterday on my level 37 DPS Juggernaut while grouped with a 37 DPS merc and a 34 Sorc healer. All I did was to switch to Soresu, and the Merc had his DPS companion out. Interrupting the rock throw was the only hard part, although the first of the Champions took a long time because the Sorc was just healing, once he started throwing some DoTs and damage on it all went much faster. TL;DR: Interupt the rock throw, and it's easy. No other clever stuff needed (assuming your gear isn't greens 20 levels out of date). Even if the Healer isn't interrupting, one DPS and the Tank are quite enough to do that.

Sin/Shadow tanks are not as spiky with the damage as they were prior to 2.5, give it a try and see.