Returning player here, I stopped a few years back and returned about 5 weeks ago. In those 5 weeks I have added a second class to two of my characters so I can use them to tank and heal (sorc/jugg and shadow/sage) as it seems there are plenty of dps and i like playing tank. I have geared both specs on both characters (4 in total) to above 340 with legendary implants on all specs. Here is where I am going to rant. In getting 4 characters to 340+ though doing gf fp's, sm ops runs etc, I have met a significant number of pugs. In all those runs, i have never seen a single DPS follow correct kill order I have only seen 1 dps using interrupts I have only seen 3 dps in fp's who attack adds in boss fights (i mean the ones its necessary to, not stuff like first boss in korriban fp where its ok for dps to ignore them). The same applies to the ops runs, I would estimate about 30-40% of the dps in ops attack adds, even ignoring things like the mind traps in ev final boss, then complaining I wasnt healing them. Or in KP second boss in a 1t 1h group, despite having 6 dps in the group, nobody attacked the stun droid. When playing as tank, I would find myself running around killing standard or silver adds that should be dead 4-5 seconds after spawning in, if DPS was player properly. When playing as healer, I would find myself soloing every add, as even the pug tanks would tunnel-vision the boss. I originally left this game because I was getting bored, a lot of the challenge had been lowered from when I started in 2.0 to when i left just after 5.0. Now coming back, it seems the reduction in difficulty has made it possible for people to just brute force through everything. I saw a thread on this page a few days ago from someone asking for advice for prepping for MM fp's, asking if his gear rating and click abilities randomly would be ok. The thread had a load of people pointing out learning rotation and keybinding. some people claiming that parse is 100% essential for mm fp's (its not). Not a single person mentioned group roles, interrupting, kill order etc. they all went on about damage per second, with no regard to group dynamics. For people wanting advice on playing a dps. if you do the absolute basics, im not talking interrupts or kill order, I mean attack boss adds. If you do the most basic of the dps role, you will be better than 95% of the dps in this game. Rant over.

I am also a returning player from a few years back. I main jugg tank and did some MM fp's over the weekend with green 324's. The difficulty of the bosses is fine, the far more challenging bit is the group. The majority of difficulty is from the apparent lack of knowledge of group roles in the current player base. in the 4 runs I did over the weekend ive seen healers pulling, dps completely ignore adds, no cleansing on associated mechanics, completely ignoring insta-death mechanics etc. Though its not always those people's fault, if my experience playing a sniper a few years back is anything to go by, most "tanks" are not tanks now-a-days so they probably dont expect me to want to pull first, or want to keep the boss in a suitable place instead of running around after adds that should already be dead. I am pretty sure you already know this as you say you are an old player returning, and this used to be common knowledge, but just in case, outside of the obvious group roles: DPS: attack adds, interrupts, kill order (go weak to strong) Healer: cleansing Tank: pulling, positioning, stacking enemies up, turning boss away from group (for cleaves or dps that do more damage from behind).

After pinging 80 and buying some 324 greens I queued my jugg tank for some gf stuff. Get a pop for master athiss. The 2 dps were a sniper and a sin Throughout the entire run, the sniper was pulling and to make sure he could always pull first he would run off to the next pull while there were still 1 or 2 enemies left on the current one. On rare occasions the sniper would not pull. These would be the pulls where a stealth CC would allow the fight to be skipped. On these ones, the sin would stealth, run up to the enemy, then attack rather than CC. Final boss sniper ends up dead from fire and complains the healer was no good. ___________________________________________________________ Got a master mode blood hunt after. everything went mostly well, until the second fight where I had been hit with slow by the red guy and the white lady had put the red circles on everyone. Both the other dps were melee. They both decided to run towards me while I was slowed so couldn't get out the way. With 3 red circles stacked on me I died. Got c-ressed and finished the fight. Then at final boss both dps didnt run to the edge when the droid appeared in the middle. It then occurred to me these 2 may have never done this before. After the 3rd time one of them died, and while lying dead complained at the healer. Luckily the boss has been heavily nerfed, the orange circle seems a whole lot weaker so we beat it eventually. At the end I say "please mention if you are new to the mission, we can explain the fights" The jugg dps then says "do you think your better than us?" healer: "no, just that you might be new to this mission" me: "never mind, I give up" He (and the other dps) caused my death in the second fight, then died to mechanics in the 3rd, but the polite offering of advice gets anger back. ___________________________________________________________ Then I got a vet foundry pop with my tank and 3 dps. During the run, a sorc dps at one point says "I like your level number" Me, with me immature sense of humour said "I dont see any level 69's here" Sorc then tells me "quiet, nobody is talking to you" me: "someones abit tetchy" The sorc then going on a long rant about having played since beta, the most pro gamer ever, everybody else should follow him etc. By now we are at hk fight, the sorc and a sin dps both got killed by the central thing coming down. The sin complains that nobody warned them of an insta-kill mechanic, while the sorc tells me I didnt tank properly if other people are taking damage. We wipe and running back I give an explanation of the fight, and the sin survives, the sorc doesnt join the fight for most of it as he is busy pressing the 4 generators for bonus boss. Once he does join he gets killed by the central console again. I reckon the sorc and sin have not done this before so on the way to bonus boss I explain not to stand in green puddles. The sorc tells me to stop telling him what to do, hes played since beta, hes a pro, we should all listen to him, etc. Get to bonus boss and the merc dps get spat at, moves out of it. sorc get spat at, stays in it but it doesnt do as much damage as it used to so survived. Sin gets spat at, moves out of it. After the sorc has a go at me for not tanking properly as he was taking damage. On the way to final boss, I do the jumps on the boxes/walls to skip what I can, the sin and merc follow, the sorc runs around the columns so pulls some skippable stuff. I dont really care, it doesnt take long to kill things, but the annoying bit is the sorc keeps flaming the 3 of us for running around the enemies instead of killing them. At the final boss, as I still think some people are new I say "hes got a knockback, stay away from the edges." By the time I have written it the merc has pulled and stayed at the starting spot so I dont bother explaining anything else (not that it matters, its been nerfed so much all the mechanics can be ignored). Sorc gets knocked over the edge and killed, the 3 of us finish up. _________________________________________________________ Master boarding party. Things are abit difficult tanking as I have 324 greens and when looking at the dps to see who to guard, both are 343 gear rating. However one is range and one is melee so I guard ranged (if melee rips he will likely be closer to me). Not that it mattered. Whenever I pulled a group, the healer would run through the fight, pull the next group then find somewhere to los them to. Once done, they would sit in whatever los spot they found spam healing themselves so they didnt die. They, seemed to have an issue with my tanking, the fact they were getting hit all the time and I didn't seem to make any effort to peel off the stuff they just pulled and los'd. me: "your right, im not trying to do that. stop pulling and stop dragging things around unnecessarily. I will tank, but I will not baby sit" It made no difference, they continued to run ahead on every pull to get the next group, then backtrack to an los spot, while occasionally complaining I am not leaping in and doing aoe taunt (which has 45s cooldown, I am not going to wait that long between each pull just to protect someone who pulls first). ______________________________________________________ Then there was a call for a tank for TFB SM. I joined, we got started and once we got to second boss I asked the other tank "what stacks do you want to swap at" The other tank, who was also raid lead, said not to bother, its just a burn in SM. I asked "no doom, tank swap, interrupt?" he reiterated its just a dps check and asks me to kite kel. I just kite kel around abit while everybody else kills the other 2, but funnily enough the raid lead is sometimes writing instructions in chat like "interrupt" or "move out of green." Seems doom and interrupt do matter, but we make it through no deaths so w/e Complete the op, completely different to how I was used to. At kephless we even ignore nanites. ______________________________________________________ Seems its not just fp's that have been simplified, its the ops too. I can see why though, of the 3 fp runs I did, only 1 of the dps, the sin from the vet foundry run, followed kill order, all the others just tunnel-vision strongest enemy now, even in boss fights with adds, dps ignore all adds and just attack boss.

Returning to the game after a long time away. I had stopped playing a while back just because I was fed up with the drop in player standards and endless hammer station missions. Unfortunately, it seems none of that has changed. I ran a few heroics with my sniper, jugg tank and shadow tank to remember my keybind layouts and rotations (after re-arranging my skill bars back to how they used to be). Hammer station, hammer station, hammer station, hammer station. In levelling 3 characters from 75 - 80 I only got 2 runs which were not hammer station. A Foundry run with my sniper, the group was a sorc dps and gunslinger, 4th person quit group as soon as the gf popped. At one point I asked how did we get a gunslinger in an imperial fp. This was because I hadn't botherered looking at the new quest for second class and didnt know rep/imp classes have merged. At the bonus big slug boss the sorc just stood in the spit, I thought "oh, here we go" having remembered from the days of 2.0 when that would 3-hit anyone but a tank. the sorc just stood there and was fine, comp healed through it. Final boss does the big pull the whole group in and aoe thing. I roll out as soon as he pulls, remembering how that used to do a lot of damage, the other 2 just stayed there, and lost barely any health. The other non HS run was mando raiders, 2 people quit as soon as it popped and as I was group leader I requeued us. it was my shadow tank and an op dps. We completed the whole mission without the group finder ever popping 2 replacements, even though it was a tactical so any role could join. At the first boss the op is stood next to me, so I tell him to kite the dogs away. he responds "no need" and it turns out he is correct, enraged dogs can now be healed through by a healer companion. At final boss the op ignores the turrets and we end up being shot at from 3 corners. No problem though, as healer comp can cope with that. What annoys me about the whole thing, is they seem to have made group levelling content so weak that all the old stories of bad players are now just the norm. The bad player became the normal player. I havent yet gone into any of the normal trinity flashpoints for fear of what I will find.