Oh, are they coming again like when 4.0 dropped? Cool!

I considered 16man, but it will be too chaotic for those who wan't to watch the cutscenes for example. So for now it's only 8man. As for woice comm, it is TS(TeamSpeak) for now. With my crew we might move to Discord with time, but who knows. Again, thanks for your reply!

Hi, I've made a thread in the General section about helping out those who are new to OPS or struggle to find a group to complete one or just constantly find bad groups. With my crew we offer our help to anyone who wan't to enjoy these OPS in their own pace and wan't to experience them in a calm, but successfull environment. You can find every info in this thread: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=900926 Feel free to post any questions in both topics, I will do my best to answer them in a timely manner. Also suggestions/criticism/advice/tips are more than welcome. Keep them coming!

First of all, thanks for your reply! Yes I thought about posting the detailed thread on the server forum, but I wasn't sure it would get any attention at all. Turned out it didn't get significant attention in the General section either. This is why I offed this topic to bring this to some folks' attention, who can spread the word. Sorry for baiting Also I know that this section of the forum is rarely about asking for help, more like asking for nerfs and give some advice, however I personally picked up tons of info from You as well as from others just by hanging around and I'm aware that you/we are not the ones who could benefit from this system, but those who are really in a struggle. Also I didn't wanted to spam this all over the sections of the forum, but I might go down that road and just go for it Anyway keep the info coming, my crew is open to any helpfull stuff so we can be successfull Thanks!

Sorry for off & necro & advertising beforehand. With my crew we are planning to do SM runs for anyone in need in 5.0, and while I know most of you posting here don't need this, I would much appreciate if you could "spread the word" if you run into anyone who might find it helpful. The details are here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=900926 Also I'm grateful for any input/criticism/help/advice. Thanks and again, sorry for off.

5.0 changes. Added 1 or 2 questions that might pop up. 5.1 changes. Overruled, see 5.2 notes. 5.2 changes. Only on IMP side - see reason on latter page. This way Tyth included - New OPS boss on Iokath. Loot - Free For All, click need if you really need it, but be reasonable, this is still not a gearing run. Ancient Threat offer: Refer to this post over here 2017 End of Year plans: Original post is updated, the plans are in progress. Full info soon. 5.5 changes will be included(new OPS bosses from Gods of the Machine, Umbara MM-FP and any MM FP in general). Keep the questions you have coming, I will do my best to answer and update this thread.

Q&A section. Possible questions:

Wall of text! This is for after November, 08, 2017! This is for those who new to raiding or just want to try the Operations, or to clear up the Mission log. With November coming, I'm trying to get together my crew so we can again offer our help. The plan is that we bring the team to anyone who wants to do an OPS but struggle to find a group or just "scared" or just want to enjoy them in their own pace. With this way we provide a stress free, peaceful experience on Story Mode for free, but only 1 time for a person. Suggestions are more than welcome! As you will see below, we're on the coming Darth Malgus server(previously The Red Eclipse) only so anyone on different servers, feel free to replicate/create a similar system to this. How it works: Contact me via PM here, state your desired OPS, your role, imp or rep and your available date with your toon's name. When everything is set I will contact you in game at the arranged time. What you need to bring: An open mind and your toon with a positive attitude. Why do this: This way we won't be bored that much with the old OPS, YOU get to finish your selected OPS and also both parties will get CXP. Also with this way hopefully more and more folks fall in love with OPS In what way we are different than PuGs? We will do the runs in YOUR pace, so YOU can enjoy these OPS as you wish, with the hope that you will be hooked on them and with the hope that we can show YOU, that with a good group everyone can enjoy this aspect of the game. Rules: Tempting? Still not convinced? Unsure? Ask your questions, I will respond in a timely manner!

While I absolutely agree with you that HHM OPS created a situation that is just stupid and bad, and the tuning of tacticals is all over the place, however going the easy way in this case shouldn't be the solution, I believe. Obviously I'm not the studio and I'm not calling the shots, but I firmly believe that for 5.0 a thorough, thought out process of tuning the end game content would be the best way to go. Even more so regarding the GCXP coming in.

Tuning every HM FP to SOR FP level would be a better way to go. Than it wouldn't be any confusion regarding them. Having the likes of Eseless with a nice DPS check would be awesome. And of course meaningful rewards would be needed. And SM OPS should be tuned to roughly the same level of challenge of HM FPs. And.... this goes a long way and reflects that endgame is a mess currently.

Oh man, when I found out THAT after 4.0 dropped.... BTW it's really fun in a certain way that something labeled as hard have a bolster...

Let's have a look at this, because this tells a story. Here's a crew, they demonstrated that by just 'abusing' the bolster, HM BH is doable. And their tank also soloed BoR. Now is this the bar? Most certainly not. This is the extreme, this is what happens when someone is playing close to 100% of class potential. Again, this is NOT something that everyone should do, but something that can be done. Now I cannot solo stuff and lots of us cannot solo it either. But it is not required from any of us. Now let's just think that, what Visas is doing is 100%, where are we? And where are those who want nerf? Not that it matters, but as I see it, I would feel bad, knowing that there is someone who can solo this and I'm asking for nerfs because I cannot do it with a group. Hard modes are labeled hard for a reason and I doubt that it is too much to ask from someone to know their basics of their class and the encounter in a group instance, with others. Is it really that much to ask? Because HM FPs doesn't require any more than basic understanding of selected class by the 4 people grouped up. No more, no less.

It's OK, but I don't agree that a totally new player jumps into a hard labeled group content to learn stuff and be surprised it's just not going well. I mean what to expect here? One shot everything? And if not the case complain on forums and blame anyone who says to that person to learn the class and the encounter? This is just bad. Agreeing with this.

This is so wrong. If someone wants to learn the FP, q for a tactical not for a HM. Same mechanics, less punishment. Also these mechanics are just simply avoid stuff on the floor. HM means it will be hard and one cannot do it by facerolling on keyboard. One has to know the basics of the game, which are not hard to learn by the way. From there it is just class knowledge. And no, we're not the reason.

We had 2 runs, 1 for each new guy. And yes, we had a "full melee" group. One DPS was a seasoned one, our healer is very good and I was the tank. The 2 bosses was close, but one of the runs were 2 mara and the other run was mara and PT, so AoE was not that much on them. The 2 DPS just simply burned down Valk. They told me this suited for them well and found less trouble. I might wanna try doing it as a DPS to see how it really is

Here's the thing: I didn't read the whole thread, sorry about that. I presume the main issue is with the first boss. However I don't want to talk about that one, but the second one instead. We just introduced 2 guildies to HM BH, one at a time. And we're talking about less than half a year newbies here. They did class stories and stuff, asked questions about things from us, we helped, and we eventually pulled them through HM BH. What I can say is that they did way more than well. So when we downed furball whithout an issue, we had the 2 mandos in front of us. What really worked is, that when we pushed to the 3rd(?) phase, when both the 2 mandos are up, the DPS focused on Valk, the female mando. Took care of her and they moved to the male one. And this is what I recognized, that this can be a solution for anyone who struggles with this fight. This seems odd and not conventional, but it works and it is really easy to do. So anyone who strugles with this one, feel free to use it, it's not a 'eureka' stuff, we didn't chaged the rotation of the world, but we found a way for new players to cope with the fight. With all this said, I presume furball was downed and the issues are with the 2 mandos(it's pretty staight forward fight, but whatever, I can see people having a hard time on this), so here's something to consider. As for Shae Vizla, don't ever stand in front of her, unless you're a tank. That's it

Sorry for not quoting the whole stuff. I get what you're saying. And you're right in the aspect of q times. However, we're talking about hard modes, the names are a great indicator. This cannot be done easily, but it does not require any more that is not reachable by knowing the class(DPS checks). Also if someone's purpose is to play dress up and interrior design, than clearly HM FP is not for those. And if this person comes up to the forums to complain that said content needs to be nerfed, because reasons, that is messed up yo. Those who are interested however, and really wan't to do these content can't do it, and I truly stand by my comment: read the tooltips and practice. Can't do that, don't do HM FP. Plain and simple. Also I would realy welcome seeing story mode FPs coming back, tuned down, and level scaling the players to the FP level. With this people could learn how to tank/heal/dps, the content would not be punishing and it would be relevant a.k.a. planetary level sync. Nerf is just not the answer.

Sorry, I'm not so active on the forums nowadays. At this point, personally I just don't care about the gear at all. I really am don't mind anyone having the best gear reachable with doing solo stuff. I'm fine with the upcoming system as well. Matter of fact I urge anyone to jump into OPS, just because they are fun. When I get bored of this game I will just unsub and leave quietly. However asking that question I quoted and acting like it's holding any relevance at this point in this game is.... just mute for me. But I said my peace/piece, I'm out.

This question... Believe me, I personally don't give 2 craps about raiding gear outside of OPS. I would be 100% fine if raid gear lost the set bonus even in FPs for example. This is such a common misconception that raiders would b**ch if their gear would not work outside of OPS. Especially given the road the game is on.... Like one really need gear outside of OPS.... Understand that most of the raiders doesn't wear their BiS gear to brag about it on fleet, at least those who serious about raiding. Mute point. Dumb question.

That OCD, right? Yep, pretty much all it takes to get going for HM FP.

For this, my solution would be to bring the other FPs to SoR levels. Plain and simple, they labeled as Hard Mode, so all of them should be on the same level and that level should be fine on BH/BoR/LI/Kaon level IMO. No nerf, but buff the others. I'm not trying to be an elitist here, but there is nothing in the flashpoints that cannot be done whit the skillset we have. All it takes is just read the tooltips and one can do that during leveling. And frankly if someone is interested in this game there is no excuse to not now the class at cap level. Maybe it's just me, but during leveling when I get a new skill I read the tooltip and try out that skill, what it does and with this I have a general idea regarding when should I use this. No need to read anything external for this. And with that said, if someone wants to do HM FPs, is it really much to have a general understanding regarding the class? Because all it takes to beat the HM FPs is to know the class. This game is not a rocket science. Uhm, it turned out to be a rant, sorry about this. Zerileth, it is not aimed to you, trust me.

Currently Revan on Story Mode is a dummy fight with avoiding circles. Now I don't ask for overtune it, just add 1-2 mechanics to the SM version to feel a bit more epic and ease up the transition between SM and HM. What this means is at least add the tank swap mechanics to SM as well. Also for the HK phase the adds or the Force Imbued Killshot would be nice. Nothing more, just something meaningful for 2 tanks. Thanks.

Actually before 4.0 OPS drops was like this: Hm: 1 198 and 1 192 token/boss Sm: 1 192 token/boss In the previous iteration where NiM was included the bosses dropped 1 186 token and 1 HM token, which I can't remember the number, maybe 180. So 4.0 introduced the single token/hm boss if not highlighted system. Also what we have now is people running around in 224 and barely can break 3k DPS. And at this point is fine by me, I just reached a point where gear doesn't really matter to me. I'm not a parser, not going for top server parses, and so far my DPS for example wasn't an issue in my mixed rating gear for my raid crew.

The heroic crates are actually a great example. Let's just break it down. For a non pure dps class it means 2 crates, 4 items, right? We have to select 1 crate, that means we get 2 items. Now true that CURRENTLY with the insane xp gain it's quite hard to get a full set in the same rating, because the possibility of over leveling a bracket is high. However what we know so far is that we will get a crate. We don't know how many items will there be in it, but for argument's sake, let's stick with the heroic crates and say 4 gear items. Obviously we can calculate the possible outcomes, but I'm too tired to do that, so lets say 2-3 out of 4 is useble by our class. That's not bad. We can either disintegrate what we don't need, re-eng it(if we can), or just save it for later for offspec. Also there is a possibility that out of the 4 items 4 will be crap to us, but still, we can disintegrate, re-eng, or save it. Not so good outcome but it isn't a disaster. Stat vise let's see what we deal with. The so called disaster scenario that we are missing 1 piece from a full set, from the same rating. Let's say we have a 1 level lower rating for that slot. Heck even 2 level lower. What will be the outcome? OCD kikcs is and we die? No. The DPS output for example will be lower by approximately 10 DPS. Un-noticable, boss won't enrage, this won't cause vipes. Don't believe me? Go check out the Class forums where Bant and Dipstik made tons of calculations for current gear. They even calculated that the difference between a 220 and a 224 relic is 5-6 DPS difference, I dare you to check it out here. Also if for argument's sake it is an item where you don't have anything at all, just by a "comm" one with credits. You'll get more endurance probably and less power, but the meaningfull stat will be the same, or 1 level lower than BiS. Again, having not fully min-maxed is not the end of the world. Especially if someone is not in it for the top parse. Having 1-2 level lower gear won't affect anyone's gameplay. What this means is, that yes getting a full BiS gear will take longer. But it is not the 4000 pound elephant in the room. This RNG is not that. Also we don't know how will this new system function yet, we don't know how many gear items will we get from a crate, so flipping out on this is just stupid, and I'm sorry for saying this. I advise everyone to cool it off, clear your heads and think it over. WHEN 5.0 drops and the system is crap, than I will advise everyone to flip out and rage.

At this point I'm just happy that we get rid of highlighted HMs, that was just bad. Plain and simple. I said this in the other thread, that so far we don't have much info what this new stuff will be, how it will work. Everyone is freaking out of the RNG, which can be understandable to a point. Like I said, I gave it some thought yesterday, and I'm still wondering how can this new stuff work, but I fail to see it as a disaster. To me it's just new stuff, we will get used to it with time. My main concern however is there is no new massive group content at expansion launch, lack of info regarding bug fixes, pointless 5 levels and general tuning of group content. Gearing at this point -after level scale and synced OLD contents- is not a mayor concern for me. But it's just me....