The False Emperor has always been my favorite Flashpoint to start with, whether it is Empire or Republic. It nets you an important item in your set (chest), the bonus boss (Sith Entity) provides implants, and HK-47 can drop weapons. The Flashpoint itself is not very difficult, though there are some very hairy pulls when you're first starting out. I mostly agree with the arrangement of the flashpoints listed above, except that I would swap Battle of Ilum and The Esseles in terms of difficulty. If you ran Esseles and you're finding that you're hitting the enrage timer on the last boss, a couple of pieces from Ilum and False Emperor could definitely put you over the lip of what you need. Another important piece of advice I can offer is making sure you have stims, healthpacks, and adrenals. Having biochem is a wonderful tool, if that's the profession you chose. If the GTN is coming up pretty barren, hit up the Medical/Stim Droids that sell Exceptional Medpacks and the stims. All Hard Mode Flashpoints drop Biometric Alloy, if I remember correctly, which is the "rare" ingredient in the rakata-level biochem stuff.

When Toth and Zorn hit soft enrage, they start using their phase moves (scream, ground pound, etc),

Story Mode Denova =/= Hard Mode Denova. There has been no statement in this thread asking for Story Mode to be elevated to the difficulty of Hard Mode. This thread is concerning whether or not the Operation's difficulty should be decreased. I'm sorry your guild had a rough time of it and it's unfortunate that the players no longer want to do that content after that. There are no guilds that went into it for the first time and cleared it flawlessly. A lot of the PTS guilds spent hours figuring out the way to best complete the content. Don't get discouraged. The key to completing the content is being positive and progressive, even if the time period you're working with is different than most. If you only have so many hours to play a night, then it might take longer to complete the content than players that have more time to play with. You've got something to look forward to: an unfinished challenge.

My progression group doesn't step into the old raids as much anymore, except when we're taking an alt or a few new members through to help them experience a taste of end-game and get prepped for running their own groups, but I think they gave a great incentive by providing Black Hole commendations from Nightmare KP. It gives us a reason to revisit it, especially in terms of the earpiece/implant upgrades. That and I still don't have that mount .

Your perception does not equal my intention. When you figure out the difference between the two, I imagine you'll be able to take it for what it is. I believe the thread is a question about whether or not they should nerf Denova. My post addressed that. Your post just seems to be some attempt, albeit poor, at exactly what you've attempted to accuse me of doing: insulting. I'd say stay on topic, but that seems a bit of a stretch. Would you mind explaining to me what is overly difficult about keeping two bosses separate, staying at a certain range from bosses, positioning your tanks correctly, not standing on AoE's, and any of the other mechanics that are involved in the Operation? I'd very much like to hear why it's hard, not just "it's hard". Or have you even stepped into the instance?

I like that there's an incentive to clear Fireband and Stormcaller. Besides the loot and beating the fight, I mean. Plus, when I'm the first one back, I like having that little space of time to bio or grab a drink .

I'd like to see your inclusive list of every person that's unsubscribed from this game. I read the news, too. A lot of transfers have been going on. No one in my guild has quit. I see the same people from other guilds every time I log in. It's nearing the time for finals for college students. College students make up a large portion of game subscribers. I refuse to put on blinders and be totally pessimistic, unlike you. I don't see a developer tag anywhere near or under your name. You're welcome to your opinion, but that's all it is. I acknowledged that, you didn't bother giving me the courtesy of acknowledging mine, which is mostly what I expected out of someone who is near-sighted and opinionated. I think there's a pretty easy answer for that kind of mentality. There's this neat little place on the website where you can remove your credit card information and I believe you can find "Uninstall" in Add/Remove Programs under your Control Panel. Enjoy your day.

Star Wars: The Old Republic is still in its labor pains phase. The game premiered 4 months early, in December. The 1.2 content patch was simply bringing the game up to its release level. It's absolutely presumptuous to say whether or not this game is going to live at this stage. There are trends that all games follow and there are historical references to look for. WoW very nearly died during its launch, thanks to a very substantial amount of bugs and deficiencies within the game. We're lucky that most of our bugs have been minor, instead of gamebreaking: the in-game guild window not working, the loot tables being mixed, a random assignment feature during normal mode Operations, etc. These fire and brimstone speeches have little validity at this point. There are servers that are alive, there are players that don't participate in the forum, and there are some people who are very happy with this game. The naysayers are, usually, the most outspoken and, very frequently, the minority. I have no doubt it's the same way in these forums. People are pulling information based on their opinions, not on facts, as we all do. Server consolidation is still a month or two away, if game history has anything to say about it. Story Mode Denova does not need to be nerfed. The content is not too difficult. Instead of blaming the Operation, players should be looking at themselves, instead. I know, that's a massively logical way to approach it and such things are nearly unheard of, but a player needs to look at him/herself, look at his/her class, and really figure out if s/he knows how to play it properly. After that, s/he needs to find 7 other players who are capable of playing their class and then, after all that, finally learn and correctly apply the mechanics of the fights in the Operation. This is not an attempt to tell people "learn to play". This is me telling players they need to evaluate if they are playing efficiently. Don't blame content and don't blame other players, before you know whether or not you are the weakest link. Denova can be cleared. It's been done. If it's been accomplished by one person, it can be accomplished by another. There is no valid excuse that can say the content is too hard, because that means no one would be able to clear it. This means it boils down to one thing: players. This is a fight that isn't worth picking. This is the same company that released Mass Effect 3 and had a group raise over $80,000, decrying the ending that they chose and demanding a new one, before they even released a statement that said they were going to ELABORATE on the ending. A little bit of whining in the forum is not going to change anything. Let's be progressive, not a bunch of weepy kids who are complaining our playground is too difficult.

My offtank kited Kephess the entire time -- when we were pulling bombadiers to down the walker (took 2 downs, so we only had to deal with 1 bombadier when he jumped down), and then during the last phase where you kill him

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql4_Ubzxc40 Ignore the fact that the person posting the video doesn't realize that there's a tuning device on Korriban for the Imperial players.

Kite him around.

The new Operation is meant to remove the simple "healer + dps spam = win" equation. This content has been thoroughly tested by our peers on the Public Test Server. There have been changes to the Operation, such as an increase in damage done by Fireband and Stormcaller, and there have been tests run on those changes. There's a key thing to remember: The 16-man Hard Mode clear done by Millenium was the result of hard work. I can't remember where exactly I read it (it may have been the thread where they defend their kill and clear), but it took them approximately 50 hours of testing and mechanic tuning so that they could make the World 1st claim when the content went live. My guild does not run on the PTS and I believe we only have one person that actually plays around with the new content when it does come out. When Explosive Conflict launched after the 1.2 patch, we didn't walk into the Op and faceroll over the mobs and the enemies. The DPS, the healers, and the tanks were on point with their jobs. What they weren't on point with was the mechanics. We have a good group of guys who continued to play around with the boss fights until we finally achieved our clear. We upgraded to Hard Mode, where we've been doing one important thing: learning new mechanics. The practice in Hard Mode paid off beautifully in Story Mode, as we went into the Operation tonight and did a 1-1-2-2 clear of the entire Operation. There are guilds on our server that have comparatively better gear than some of our members, but have not yet cleared all of Story Mode in the first place. The answer is simple: you can't just press buttons in a rotation. You have to watch for AoE's, you have to watch for the stage changes, and you have to cumulatively contribute to the group. When we first stepped in, we were amazed at how initially unforgiving the mechanics were. We're very happy with how they work. The point of this <insertcoolstorybro> is this: Nerfing Denova is not the answer. Practice, patience, and the right group of people willing to trudge through the muck of it is.

One of my favorite things about being an Assassin Tank is my ability to cleanse myself. Force Shroud is an amazing ability, especially in Final Boss situations. On Soa, I take zero damage from the lightning balls if my Shroud is up. Against Warlord Kephess, during the Pulse Droid Phase, Shroud can save me from eating dirt if my Force Sprint is down and I'm standing on top of the pulse droid (which isn't so much me tanking, since they can't be taunted). I played both Juggernaut and Assassin to 50, and I just feel like I have a lot more tools and a lot more versatility as an Assassin tank.

PvE people are getting a lot of changes with the 1.2 Update. Here's some clippings from the official word by Georg Zoeller. "- The drop rate for Tionese commendations has been increased from all the existing sources. - Columi can now be acquired, in addition to the existing sources, from the new Lost Island Flashpoint (Hard Mode) and their distribution rate has been slightly increased, mostly through weekly quests. - Rakata can now be acquired, in addition to existing sources, from the final Boss of the new Lost Island Flashpoint (Hard Mode) and the story mode of Operation: Explosive Conflict on Denova." I'm not certain, but there was some post floating around about Columi dropping off every boss of Lost Island up to the last boss, who, as the information above details, drops Rakata. Consider, also, that Hard Mode Flashpoints now have no lockouts, you can go into Lost Island Flashpoint with a 4 person group and farm some Rakata pieces, unless I'm completely missing something or there is, in fact, a lockout. I don't know if it's limited to one type of piece or if it cycles through all tokens. As far as Black Hole commendations are concerned: They provide you with Black Hole gear, which has the same stats as Campaign gear, but lacks the set bonus of Campaign gear (which shares the set bonus with Rakata). Black Hole commendations and Black Hole gear can be earned in a few ways. 1.) Corellia weekly quest provides 6 Black Hole commendations 2.) Weekly Quests for completing Kaon Under Siege/Lost Island Flashpoint provides Black Hole commendations. 3.) Black Hole gear drops off bosses on all difficulties in the new Explosive Conflict Operation. Campaign gear, which has the set bonus that is shared with Rakata, can be earned a couple of different ways, too. 1.) Tokens acquired in Hard Mode Explosive Contact 2.) Drops from the Voss World Boss. The official post says the location has been changed, but I don't know if that means planet or simply grid coordinates. If you want the full read go here.

Tank Classes: Sith Juggernaut, Powertech, Sith Assassin Healer Classes: Sith Inquisitor, Mercenary, Imperial Operative DPS Classes: Everything. The combination of classes that you have is dependent on what you're getting the group together for. It's fairly safe to say that you can't go wrong with a tank and a healer, then working up from there. As for which class is best, that's a never-ending debate. The game is constantly changing.

There is not one piece of evidence to support anything you've written here. Whatever you perceived is what the general world calls opinion. Just because you perceived it, does not mean that I meant it that way. That's another thing that distinguishes your perception of reality from actual reality. I'm also not really sure who you are referring to with the "you are the people" statement. I wasn't aware that anything about me is known. I didn't know I belonged to some unnamed group of people with clearly defined intentions and mindset. This is definitely news! I haven't cried about anything, I'm simply restating all the arguments that have been used in this thread to cry(imagine that!) about the mechanic that Bioware is implementing. I'm afraid you've given the perception that you didn't read or understand all of the original message I posted, which is unfortunate. I'm not aware of any game that exists, as of yet, that has a mechanic where a player logs in and receives items for simply logging in. You'll have to show it to me when it comes out, because that'll be amazing to see. As it stands, I believe that Star Wars: The Old Republic only awards items to players who complete some sort of content, whether it be a mission or something else. I'm really not sure why anyone would play that sort of game and I generally don't like to speculate in such uncovered ground.

The words "you are stupid" are found nowhere within my messages. Continue to troll yourself, please. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure your definition of what's "right" doesn't stop me from getting that piece of gear through commendations alone. You can will it and type it out all you want, but if the game mechanic exists in the game, then there's nothing you can do to stop it. This is the difference between your perception of reality and reality. I'm sorry, because that does suck. I am also taking that quote for my signature, because that is the quintessential display of ignorance, which I have just refuted with, what's known to the world at large, as fact.

Congratulations, sir, you win the internet. Your comparisons are completely irrelevant to the thread as a whole and there was no part of my message that said anything about being entitled. It was actually about how you need to go do work, but you missed that, because you can't think inside the parameters of the word "logic". The little part about paying to be allowed to play means that, yes, in the case that Bioware allows me to receive commendations for gear handed out in raids through doing something like dailies, I do, in fact, have the right to have something you have. I have a level 50. I don't think you should have a level 50 because I did it with another person, which means I did it better. That's your logic at work, by the way. Your comments are also irrelevant because I am an elitist and I refuse to acknowledge any of your nonsense as it's sore for my eyes to look at. Thanks for proving my point, though.

Now, wait just one cotton pickin' minute. If you joined a guild and got taken into Nightmare, Hard, or normal mode and geared up, I want you to drop all your raid gear right now. Drop every single piece of it. You know why? Because I'm a hardcore raider and not one single person who got carried through the entire raid deserves any gear. If you want raid gear, you better find some other people that have the same gear as you and go raid. I refuse to carry you into a raid, so you can sit here in this forum and attempt to **** on people. I also want you to drop your rakata ear pieces and implants. You've made it absolutely clear that dailies are not raid content and are only for casual and solo players. You don't need that gear, if that's the case. You aren't allowed to have it, it's not raid gear. That being said, if you attempt to do any dailies, you are not allowed to invite anyone into your party. That's solo content, you don't get to do it with other people. Now, go get the max number of daily commendations by yourself. What's that? You can't do it? Well, I'm sorry, but you can't wear better gear so that you can fight that elite that keeps killing you over and over again. Nope, I'm sorry, you have to wear social gear. What's that? You didn't play with anyone as you levelled and you have no social points, so you can't ACTUALLY buy any social gear? HOLY ****! Who knew you needed to play with other people to get social gear, but that doesn't matter, because you're totally convinced social gear should be given to solo players. So, that's out. I guess you're just stuck in those greens/blues/oranges that drop off the mobs. If an epic drops, you need to drop it. That's not solo gear, that's raid gear. I don't care that you killed it by yourself, it's purple. Solo players can't have raid gear. You can have flashpoint gear, but you have to go in in greens/blues/oranges. Remember, you aren't allowed to daily quests and you aren't allowed to have purples, because you're a raider, so you don't do daily quests, but you aren't allowed to have purples, because you have to do daily quests or solo story stuff to get purples. That's not allowed. Now, seeing as how I'm a hardcore raider, you have to have Best-in-Slot gear to go on my raid. Well, that sucks for you, because that means that if you've somehow managed to get through this impenetrable logic loop and gotten columi implants and ear pieces, you aren't allowed to go, because you don't have rakata implants and earpieces. That means you aren't a raider, because you aren't elite. End of story. ^ This is the logic brought to the table by the "hardcore" raiders. If any of you so called "raiders" never had to pull your own weight, then you aren't raiders. I estimate this to be every person in this thread who is complaining about the game mechanic. You pay $15 to log into this game and push some buttons. Some other person you've never met in your life and probably never will meet also pays $15 to log into this game and push some buttons. You aren't Bioware. You don't decide who gets what and how they get it. If you don't like that, unsubscribe. No one is FORCING you to play this game, after all. If you don't care and you get this post for the satire that it's meant to be, drive on, friend, drive on. Because I imagine you laughed, instead of wound up being the next youtube video of a 14-year-old kid smashing the computer Mommy and Daddy bought him into oblivion.

Thank you for the well-organized approach to informing players who may not realize the amount of work it takes to properly tend to an MMO after launch. It's easy for players to get tunnel vision about what's going on. The excitement and hype often pulls a veil over the players eyes once the game arrives and they start playing. MMO launches are never flawless. Like your post clearly defines: testing only covers so much. Players often forget that an MMO is a working product. When we see an issue, we do not see that issue in its true form. What we see is visual. What they have to deal with is line after line of complex code. The easiest way to compare this is to visit your favorite website, right click on that page, and then click "view page source". The issue you see is that your companion is laying down on the floor and doesn't want to stand up. Unfortunately, the lines of coding related to that companion aren't so easily narrowed down and, if you've ever written an English paper for a few hours or attempted to fix an HTML problem, you'll know that your eyes/mind can easily overlook a problem that might be blatantly easy to fix. These people are working hard, but they're people: mistakes happen, they miss things. With that said, I'm happy to see that some of the people responding in this thread understand another key thing about these games. When they fix A, F breaks. When they fix F, Z breaks. An MMO is nothing more than a constantly evolving set of code meant to reach a state at which it works for a majority of people a majority of the time. It will never work flawlessly for everyone at the same time, because all gamers are running different specs for their machines. My biggest pet peeve is seeing numerous threads dedicated to: "WHY IS MY BEASTLY MACHINE NOT RUNNING THIS 100% PERFECT." They never want to take into consideration that the issue might be user error. They don't want to turn off their torrent, their 50 web pages open, their 3 messenger services, their music program, Vent & TS running at the same time, or the fact they're running the game in windowed mode. A lot of game lag can be attributed to these things, which I think is one of the most complained about circumstances. The advice I want to offer is this: this is a new game and it's not even two months old. When the game launched and millions of people logged in, the QA and development team received a new, massive influx of bugs and glitches to contend with, along with other issues already on their plate. Changes don't happen overnight and they don't happen in a matter of days. A large amount of the subscription base doesn't use the forums and there are, potentially, a great many things that some of the forum users aren't aware of in terms of bugs. The fixes and the patches will come. It will get better. You just have to be patient and, perhaps the hardest part of all, be a productive player who takes the time to report bugs and glitches, not just complain about them on the forums.

I ran a couple of friends through the lower level Flashpoints on the Republic side (Hammer Station, Athiss, and Mandalorian Raiders) for probably 3 days. I was the one that invited them to the party and I took about 4 different people into the instances, always just the two of us. The flashpoints continuously dropped the same gear for every person that I ran through (whether they were trooper or smuggler or Jedi). For example: on Mandalorian Raiders it was constantly light armor leg piece at the beginning and then a Clan Varad smuggler jacket at the end. I'm a level 50 Jedi Sage.

The PvE tier gear for female Inquisitors are bare midriff chest pieces. That's Tionese-Rakata, since they're all the same armor model with different coloring. It's not just the social gear/security vendor gear.