Forgot to post Archetype managed to get title on the 22nd of november here is a link with time http://imgur.com/3ig12

I believe that, given we ranked 1 on every boss and it therefore can't effect us either way, now is a good time to say that I would fully back a change to the points system to place more emphasis on the final boss of each tier. It makes little sense to me to see guilds ranked below other guilds they beat to the clear. Perhaps this could be introduced next time around. Shah

Denova Nightmare cleared by Archetype. (No PTS as always) Zorn and Toth: 15/11/2012 - 21:39 UTC (GMT) Firebrand and Stormcaller: 15/11/2012 - 22:07pm UTC (GMT) Colonel Vorgath: 15/11/2012 - 22:27pm UTC (GMT) Warlord Kephess: 16/11/2012 - 05:51pm UTC (GMT) Screenshots here and timestamped video to follow as usual. Here's a snippet of video proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fv6cvVKWWhE&feature=youtu.be

I too think the last boss has insufficient weighting.

Terror From Beyond downed for Archetype. 5/5 28/09/2012 17.34 BST - I think it puts us 4th? http://imgur.com/a/aV9c4#3 We have time stamped videos of all too - which will go public soon.

4/5 for Archetype 6:45 BST http://imgur.com/a/KyH7t#0 We have videos of all kills as well.

1 hour 50 minute estimated.

It's clear that this isn't a bug. There's even a route directly into the Kephess room if, like many of us, you really don't care about a few black hole comms in a chest. (Once you find this way it becomes pretty clear BW intended this to be possible.) I think it's actually commendable that this was built in and just left for us to find. By the time the next tier hits we'll have been running Denova Hard for 5 months. A sneaky path round a good chunk of the trash is a blessing. It's been known for quite some time.

F&S was surprisingly simple. We usually use a strategy that sees both bosses faced forward, with healers and tanks stood on the respective bosses, on the wall side of each boss, with the exception of the Firebrand side healer who stands off and kites spheres and missiles. For the solo heal we modified positioning slightly, and had the Stormcaller side tank face him towards the side wall, with the dps stood where the tank usually would (straight forward). I was positioned on Stormcaller, on the side closer to Firebrand. The Firebrand tank was in the usual spot, with the F side dps in LoS of me on the inside of Stormcaller. One dps (balance sage) kited. It was really very easy, and I'm sure there are many ways you could do it.

I don't see the issue with Z&T, as long as the derp is minimal on circles and fearful. Healing either side is considerably easier than healing Stormcaller side on F&S. I suppose I see the difficulty upping with each boss. Still, hopefully someone has already given it a go. I'll probably try tomorrow in our second group.

Turns out to be pretty easy on story mode. Just tried it out of boredom, with no problems. We one shot everything and no deaths. Anyone done this on Hard? My instincts tell me Tanks onwards would be too difficult, but this may just be me getting lazy and unimaginative given how easy healing has been since launch.

4 Defuses is really standard. I think all our kills have been 4 defuses, apart from the odd one which has been 5 (when the three left-most rows were all 5 defuse routes). As long as your tower team don't get bugged out 5 defuses is not a huge deal, just burn harder.

This is demonstrably nonsense, because there have been a wealth of encounters which have been successful and widely loved for their ingenuity and tuning. To say that anyone who criticizes the tuning and mechanics of existing encounters is impossible to please is just not helpful. If you're happy with the standard and quantity of available content, good for you; there are plenty of us who see value in speculating about future improvements, and how best they might be achieved.

One of the things that has come out here is that SWTOR has featured some fairly engaging and interesting encounters in flashpoints. I actually think a number of flashpoints are just flatly better designed than operations encounters. A comparison I've used in the past to demonstrate this is Mentor vs Karagga. The former is manifestly more interesting than the Hutt, who was very disappointing in all regards. A smart way to improve the quality of end game PVE would be to tune level 50 hardmode versions of all of the flashpoints, and create a scale of difficulty through them, with a couple joining Lost Island as tier 2, and others becoming tier 3, and stepping up the tuning accordingly. It would also be nice to see nightmare versions of all the flashpoints, with further scaling. Obviously we also need raid content desperately, but this would be a very nice sweetner. With regard to Terror, my primary hope is for a longer form raid. I'd like to see an at least 8, but ideally 12, boss format. This is preferable in so many ways - perhaps the main one being the sheer epic feel of longer raids - 4 boss raids feel much more like flashpoints. In addition to this the difficulty should ramp up in a fairly linear fashion, climaxing in a highly complex multi phase fight I'm going to remember in 10 years time. Sadly the fairly recent podcast on this topic didn't hint at any of this, and there were signs they're thinking of going in the opposite direction, with short operations and fairly simple encounters to avoid bugs. I hope this doesn't materialize, and some risks are taken.

Bump for the dev post this thread is marked with. It's tough to keep going right now - have to make up challenges like speed runs etc.

In my experience over the last couple of days - during which we have managed to consistently clear - the fight is actually not melee prejudiced in any significant way. Our first kill was with two ranged, but have subsequently done it with melee, and executed correctly there's no difference. With a melee group you just need to kite the boss with the group, rather than holding the boss on the central platform with the group kiting the plasma arcs around the room in some discernible pattern. The way we did it was to pull him to the SW corner (always keeping healer and dps behind him) and then moved the entire group anti-clockwise as the plasma arcs came down. You should be able to place 4 on the South side, then 2 on the East, 4 on the North and finally 1-2 on the West depending on your dps. Done correctly there's no real difference between a melee and ranged composition. The more pertinent question is the enrage timer. Our group is mostly rakata and we hit the enrage (all fire vents and huge arcs) at about 5% on today's kill - nuking that last bit down just in time.

This post is primarily intended to probe the intentions behind some of the core changes to pvp in game update 1.2. Firstly, I'd like to start by saying that I think swtor's pvp is very well designed. The maps are good to excellent (Hutball), and the resolve mechanic is an elegant solution to an old problem. Class balance from launch until 1.2 has been outstanding when considered against comparable MMOs. Game update 1.2 has initiated many changes to pvp, including large scale class balance changes, new gear sets, a new warzone etc. Some of the changes, like the usefulness of Recruit gear to fresh 50s, are instantly comprehensible. Two of the changes, however, seem somewhat incongruous with developer philosophy prior to 1.2. These are: 1) A dramatic reduction in the length of time it takes to kill individual players, and 2) Large scale changes to class balance, rather than tweaking slowly as we have seen before. I would like to ask what the philosophy is behind these changes. Change (1) in particular has struck me since 1.2 hit live servers. In my opinion one of the most appealing aspects of swtor pvp is that it allows for long encounters. In the words of influential pvp broadcaster Taugrim: "SWTOR’s best attribute in PVP" has been "drawn-out fights that allow for tactical gameplay". Since 1.2 hit live, the number of longer fights seem to have reduced, and encounters are more dependent on coordinated focus fire than positioning or longer term tactical choices. Is this change intended, and if so, what is the design philosophy behind it? If this change is unintended, I would suggest moving to equalize the disparity between expertise's damage boost and damage reduction mechanics. This could be achieved either by making the values equal again, or by reducing the gap between them by 50%. Regarding change (2), I will simply ask what the rationale is behind multiple major changes to an already well (not perfectly) balanced game, and suggest that minor tweaking will be a more successful long term policy.