I think debats about how to mathematically prove if 16ppl raids are harder than smaller ones is missing the point. Every raid and guild leader in SW:ToR knows that it is hard enough to get 16 reliable people online at the same time and to have concentrated, but fun raids. Additionally the trash in EV is much harder, but that's not really important. When we were doing 16 man hardmodes and then moved to 8 man, we significantly experienced a drop in difficulty. I can't give you hard numbers, but I have seen it every week. Clearing Karagga's Palace with 8 ppl in hard mode only takes one evening. Please go in there with 16 ppl in same difficulty and tell me, what your experience was. Well, back to topic. I appreciate the recent feedback, but doubt that Bioware will hear us. Maybe they already read this forum thread, maybe not. The game concept was created years ago, when Rift was not out yet and WoW still had 40 man raids. It seems that Bioware wants the game to be so casual friendly that the players with ambitions will get bored a few days after new content was released. Furthermore there seems to be no interest to change the situation. We still don't have realm forums (yes, but forums for pvp/pve..) and no guild halls. It is hard for guilds to organize themselves and get new applications since players don't have a central database where all guilds are indexed (maybe like the armory in WoW or wowprogress there). So, let's say "BoB" wants to join a 16 man raid guild. His only option would be to Google guilds or to ask around in /1 chat - that is most unfortunate...

I still don't get how you are forced into 16 ppl raids if they drop one more item per run or one better item. Let me ask you something: Do you get "forced" to play another class because it deals slightly more damage? I don't think so. Dropping one more item per run or even one better item per run makes such a small difference, that no 8 man raid group is forced to do anything. Well, most of us started with the 13th of December and were max level within 5 days of played time. It was not that fast, but also not slowly... we started doing 16 man groups in mid of January and also had some 8 man runs before. We were slowly since some hardcore guilds on our server were already running EV hardmodes when we started doing our 8 man normals.....

We are a 16 man raiding guild on Darth Revan's Mask and also encounter these bugs in our SOA attempts (mostly in hardmode/nightmare). In addition, we have also seen lightning balls following players into the mind traps.

Hm, interesting point. Yes, 40 man raids like in WoW are defenitely something different. Back then, we had 120 active players with a fixed rotation. But MMOs evolved, and today raiding seems to be something different. It is no longer such a huge event which has to be planned through in every detail and at least days before it happens. Today, this whole thing is more easy to organize. At the moment, the content in SW:ToR is ok. Just remember that WoW had no real raid content when it was released and stuff like MC, BWL etc. came much more later. Bioware is doing ok when it comes to the content. But what makes me suffer is that we run through the two existing dungeons with 16 ppl in normal mode. Then we go hardmode, but the same dungeons again. And then some even do it again in nightmare with twinks or simply have no id... or we do parts of the raids in hardmode and other parts in 8 ppl nightmare. So you see the same content over and over again, but just in various modes. I already got bored of it, and not rewarding 16 man raids even more demotivates us. At least we managed to ninja inv two smaller guilds - this is why we still have enough players to go raiding. Now we are waiting for the new content and hope that Bioware will bring in intelligent changes which make the game more interesting.

What you are saying here is not correct. Nobody would force anyone into 16 ppl raids if 16 ppl raids would get pushed a little bit. 8 man dungeons would not die and would not be disadvantaged. Did you actually read the opening post in this thread? When buffing the 16 man operations slightly, there is no consequence to the 8 man raids. No guild would be forced to get 8 more active players just because one trash mob between the bosses drops one random epic.

Wow, appreciate the recent feedback! This is not what I am saying. None of my suggestions would bring that intensive changes to the game. It would let 8 ppl raids be as they are: Successfull, more easy and not hard to organize. But in the other hand, those guilds being able to run 16 man raid dungeons would get rewarded for their efforts. 8 man raids would not die (and of course I don't want to let them die). My message is, and most of you understood it: Currently, 16 man operations are not rewarding (besiders from prestige, I agree with you there) and they need to have some advantage over 8 ppl raids. Maybe other mounts, as stated before. Or maybe random drops (i can't see how these would destroy 8 ppl raids) when doing the trash. My goal is to make Bioware aware of the situation and not to whine about us failing to run 16 man raids all the time.

I really appreciate your feedback. Yes, this issue is easy to fix in our eyes. Possibility #1 Add random epic drops. Possibility #2 Add a whole 16 ppl dungeon which can not be made with 8 ppl. Possibility #3 Let the encounters drop better gear in 16 man operations.

Hello Bioware, this is some sort of open letter to you. Hopyfully I won't get flamed too much and hopefully there is a chance that you guys read it and welcome my feedback. This letter is about raiding in Star Wars: The old Republic in 16 man operation groups. We are a 4 years old raiding guild with our roots in a well-known MMO which suddenly has pandas We converted to SW:ToR and love the game. We hope that raiding will bring more joy than other MMOs do, and we are willing to invest much time and many ressources into the guild organisation and putting up a decent raid pool. Since the beginning of January, we have been running 8 man and 16 man operations. We think that the raid dungeons are fun and are very much looking forward to seeing the new content in March. But what surprises us is that Bioware seems to have no interest in supporting guilds who run 16 man operation groups. The loot is the same, and it is more difficult to kill the encounters than in the 8ppl mode - although it is the same level of difficulty. Since players see no advantage in going 16 man dungeons, they split up into many small guilds and go 8 man only. They clear the dungeons in hard and nightmare mode and are confident with the loot. We, as one of the few 16 man raiding guilds on Darth Revan's Mask, now encounter huge problems because of this. It is very hard to find more players for our raids, and, in addition, our existing players move away to smaller guilds. Not because we are not good enough, but because they want to have nightmare raids, which are not possible in 16 ppl raids (at least not for us). So, our dilemma... people leave because of various reasons, and others have no interesting in joining for 16 man raids. In our opinion this situation destroys the efforts to establish a culture of raiding in larger group, and players are not rewarded for their efforts when joining 16 man raids. This is an attempt to wake up Bioware and to make them think. Hopefully there is a chance that you hear us and that you begin to ask yourself if you want to let the larger raiding guilds die. Maybe I am being to overdramatic, maybe I am even "whining" in your eyes. But still there is some truth in my report here. Thanks for reading. Best regards Unix PS: Constructive criticism is welcome.