[SUGGESTION] Future Operations: Difficulty Level/Loot Drops

[Chorusgirl]

Separate loot for 8 and 16 isn't the answer, running the same raid twice was not fun.

 

Raiding one night a week kinda sucks too :-/

[arnoldlol]

Not sure why you're telling me this, considering this thread addresses the current issues with raiding. Making fights more difficult is a whole lot more likely than adding completely new loot so we can run content multiple times a week on a lower format.

[Chorusgirl]

Not sure why you're telling me this

 

Was throwing you some thread love.

[RachelAnne]

I am not a fan of the wow raiding system that the OP is trying to suggest for Tor.

 

The endgame content at wow, is pointless. You do the dungeon in easymode, then you advance to normal and then you do it in hardmode. After you are done, you do the same stuff with a different raid size.

 

This leads to 6x doing the same Boss, gearing up for it, farming just for seeing the same boss again that you killed allready 5x. Thats not a good raiding system.

 

 

I very much prefer vanilla and TBC.

 

The first raid was doable for most people, casuals needed longer but could still succeed. After this you went to the second raid tier, once you were done there to the third and the final raid was the hardest and could only be done by very few people. There you had a progress and always content infront of your nose. Where is that today at wow?

 

You play a month and have seen it all, who cares about having all those difficulties if the content is not new or challanging at all.

 

 

It is much better if you have 2 or 3 different dungeons at every tier and with every new tier the difficulty does increase. In that way people have content for many months and dont have to do any dungeon twice.

[arnoldlol]

Was throwing you some thread love.

 

I figured. <3

 

I am not a fan of the wow raiding system that the OP is trying to suggest for Tor.

 

The endgame content at wow, is pointless. You do the dungeon in easymode, then you advance to normal and then you do it in hardmode. After you are done, you do the same stuff with a different raid size.

 

This leads to 6x doing the same Boss, gearing up for it, farming just for seeing the same boss again that you killed allready 5x. Thats not a good raiding system.

 

 

I very much prefer vanilla and TBC.

 

The first raid was doable for most people, casuals needed longer but could still succeed. After this you went to the second raid tier, once you were done there to the third and the final raid was the hardest and could only be done by very few people. There you had a progress and always content infront of your nose. Where is that today at wow?

 

You play a month and have seen it all, who cares about having all those difficulties if the content is not new or challanging at all.

 

 

It is much better if you have 2 or 3 different dungeons at every tier and with every new tier the difficulty does increase. In that way people have content for many months and dont have to do any dungeon twice.

That version of raiding is gone. Devs don't want to dump thousands and thousands of man hours on developing content that's too hard for everyone to see, which is why wow started adding difficulty levels for each content patch. I agree TBC was the best raiding in wow, but I'm guessing that's only because I was at the higher end of raiding and saw the content when it was relevant.

 

BW already has the difficulty settings in place, they just need to beef them up. A lot.

[xyloh]

I do agree that Tionese is pointless...

 

The fact that there is little to no trash loot to offset repair bugs me.

 

I have not done Nightmare mode yet as our guild finally got our last healer to 50, but I hope it's not as disappointing as others are reporting.

 

I do agree my favorite raiding was in TBC where the raids themselves were progressive instead of the same content different difficulties and I do hope to see that progression again as I thought it was the most fair PvE system. Kara>SSC>Hyjal>BT>SW

 

Reasons I like TBC are:

 

• No matter when you rolled a character you see all content gearing up your toon (content never became obsolete or abandoned).
  

• If your guild is geared they can carry you through higher content.

• And most importantly you couldn't buy gear with badges... so you could tell who went through content and who didn't.
  

 

 

Anyhow, I like some/most of your ideas and thank you for the time you've put into your OP!!

 

My 2 Cents

Edited February 15, 2012 by xyloh

[NCGuthwulf]

I applaud Bioware for not making nightmare mode drop better gear.

 

The reward for nightmare is the sense of accomplishment that comes with defeating the hardest thing in the game. This creates a sense of elitism without creating gear elitism. Why is this distinction important? Because bragging rights have a minimal appeal while gear has a direct impact on the game. In fact, gear may have a direct impact on parts of the game that directly affect other players (such as pvp where a character chooses to use a nightmare level weapon on players that have no hope of gaining such a weapon). Before you rebut here, let me say that I can comfortably hit 10% expertise (500) and use my Rakata level main hand for a touch extra damage. I choose to use 9% expertise and stack huge stats on my modded bracers and belt (better than rakata level) and find this works best in pvp.

 

But I digress. The main point of what I am saying is that players should have the choice between fighting stupidly hard content (nightmare as intended, not as designed) or just hard content (hard mode) in order to get the best gear. Any guild that wants to be considered a serious raiding guild would have to show off their videos of them beating nightmare bosses and any guild that wants to be casual but get the best gear would focus on hardmodes.

 

On my server hard modes are done by guilds that work on actually gearing up and doing them. They can be pugged but fights like Bonethrasher and Soa are actually tough. Hard modes took practice. If they are a bit harder, that would be ok. A lot harder, no thanks.

 

Nightmare should be tougher and should continue to be all about bragging rights and not about gear.

 

Thanks,

Guthwulf

Edited February 17, 2012 by NCGuthwulf

[Lerthan]

I agree with most of what the OP said.

 

However I must disagree with the enrage timers. They are a cheap way to try and make the encounter more difficult with out actually needed to change the mechanics of the fight.

 

Honestly the mechanics of the fights need to change depending one what mode you are doing. This has two advantages.

 

One allowing players to get a fresh feeling when doing the Op. Doing the same fight with the exact same mechanics gets old fairly quick. By changing the mechanics and adding some in, it allows the encounter to feel fresh and new when changing difficulties.

 

Less trying to find exploits to beat the boss when you don't have the gear for the boss. Brutallis in Sunwell anybody? Rogue with all dodge gear could tank him and never get hit. It allowed the rest of the raid to focus on doing the mechanics of the fight and not care about the enrage timer he had.

[Valfodr]

-IMO normal should be challeging for well.. normal people who has work, kids and stuff like that.

 

- Hard should be where most raid players are be challenged and have a hard time.

 

- Nightmare should obviously be for the most experienced raiders.

 

This way every gamer group should be pleased and the content last for longer.

 

 

I like this method, honestly.

 

Normal should allow for a couple of mess ups and drop gear that's good, by virtue of it being a more PUG challenge than a guild challenge.

 

Hard mode should drop great gear and be designed for a guild group, and not allow multiple mistakes on a single boss.

 

Nightmare should be the thing that requires a guild group grinding it down to get it just right, with the gear being better than Hard Mode (Not as big of a gap as going normal > Hard) and give additional aesthetics, titles, etc.

 

I just hope I could find a guild willing to do Nightmares.

 

My guild has started clearing hard modes and as a healer I have to say it's really not that much different from Normal. I can't heal the tank for 3 minutes during enrage on Soa, that's about it.

[Chorusgirl]

The reward for nightmare is the sense of accomplishment that comes with defeating the hardest thing in the game. This creates a sense of elitism without creating gear elitism. Why is this distinction important? Because bragging rights have a minimal appeal while gear has a direct impact on the game.

 

I don't think casual players should be able to have the same exact gear as someone who plays 20 hours a week. It's more of a time invested to get a greater reward, that we can show off in game, along with the bragging rights.

 

In fact, gear may have a direct impact on parts of the game that directly affect other players (such as pvp where a character chooses to use a nightmare level weapon on players that have no hope of gaining such a weapon).

 

Even if it's a +2 of any stat on the gear, which is not game breaking, it would still give us a reason to do nightmare content.

 

Nightmare modes should have extra benefits to those that choose to invest the extra time in learning them. You can't even tell if people are doing nightmare modes aside from the mounts and titles for speed runs.

[Gabrielnz]

I think NM should drop the same gear as hard but of a different colour or add something slightly different non stat wise. Also speeders, companion customisations etc

 

I personally feel NM should be all about the skill of the player and not gradually become easier through gear, apart from the soft nerf with a new tier release.

[arnoldlol]

Good input so far guys, keep this thread at the top.

[arnoldlol]

bloop

[Chorusgirl]

I think NM should drop the same gear as hard but of a different colour or add something slightly different non stat wise. Also speeders, companion customisations etc

 

I personally feel NM should be all about the skill of the player and not gradually become easier through gear, apart from the soft nerf with a new tier release.

 

They have been nerfing nightmare modes almost every other week unfortunately. We are still prone to wipes though, if we have people not paying attention to the fight.

[arnoldlol]

bloop

[Leadros]

I Have to fully agree with everything written in the first post, not only does it pleas the customers, it also enhances the time you need for content in a GOOD way.

[OniHouse]

+1 to OP

 

To the 16man raiders: are you telling me you get only 2 rakata pieces on 16m? I'm currently on 10/10 nightmare 8man mode with my assassin tank. Earlier this week I cleared 16m KP Hardmode on my sorcerer and the amount of loot it dropped was way higher then 8m. If I checked every item out the loot timers would almost run out before I was able to select a choice on all items.... and as far I remember that included more rakata loot as well.

 

O btw the fact that you raid 16m instead of 8m which is harder to organize gets compensated by mathematically easier encounters, for example SOA nightmare:

 

 

8-Man Nightmare is mathematically harder. For example take Nightmare Soa;

 

8NM: 2 lightening balls

 

16NM: 3 lightening balls, yet 16 has double the people - why not double the balls then?

 

Mind Trap health is the same for both: 25.5k - should be more than doubled for 16 considering 16man has 11 dps where as 8man has 5.

 

Health difference for phase 3: 630k (16NM) v 320k (8NM) yet 16 has more than double the dps (11 v 5 as stated above).

 

You could also take a 5th healer instead of a 11th dps and still require to do less dps then 8man and have to do even less healing.

 

And I'm not saying 8man is harder then 16man, I know that it is much harder to get 16 good people then 8 good people but you are already getting compensated for that and now you want better gear as well?

 

PS: I've always raided 40 and then 25man in WoW and have never supported 10man loot being the same as 25(currently slightly more tier loot per person) but atleast in wow the 10man fights are easier for multiple reasons and not just because you only need 10 good players.

Edited March 1, 2012 by OniHouse

[Lunablade]

Great post OP and I totally agree with it , we can all see that a lot of players are mentioning nowadays how there is lack of content to do at endgame and current way of gaining gear and progressing throught the raids doesent help this game at all because players just " storm-rush " throught the content because its way to easy and than dont have anything to do at endgame.

 

First of all hm flashpoints shouldnt drop same gear which normal raids drop , flashpoint should drop good gear but only gear which would be good for entry level of raiding and i think that prototype gear should be the one which drops in flashpoints .

 

Than if BW wants to continue with 3 difficulty modes of raiding I think that best thing would be if every mode would give different type of gear :

Normal - tionese

Hard - columi

Nightmare - rakata

 

Also to make raids more interesting bosses on hm and nm should gain some new unique abilities apart from enrage which would make raiding in those modes harder and more interesting.

 

Nice thing would be if we would see also new type of achievements introduced to the game in the way that there would be different ways to kill bosses in raids and even hard mode flashpoints and players which would do those achievements would be rewarded with some cosmetic items like mounts etc for investing more effort in the game and doing encuanters on the harder way.

 

Current design of raid encuanters needs to be changed because most of the fights are based around tank and spank mechanics with no difference in boss fights besides enrage in hm and nm modes and I'm hoping that we will see more variety of encuanter design in the future content.

 

If all those changes mentioned in this thread would be introduced that would only benefit to the game because longetivity of the end-game content would be expanded and more players would have fun in this game in the long run.

Edited March 1, 2012 by Lunablade

[arnoldlol]

Thanks for the support guys.

 

Btw, having full cleared both 8 and 16 nightmare content - there are fights that are easier on 8 and same for 16. Both formats have pros and cons.

 

Also regarding the loot issue people have encountered, that's due to the fact that Master Loot is bugged and gives less loot than if you have it on need/greed. Our 3rd week in operations I believe we switched away from ML because of the bug that disallowed people from being ML'd (which had a workaround, we just didn't want to mess with it) and the difference was astounding. We've been running without ML ever since. 1.1.5 is fixing this though. Not that it matters, the raiders that started with us week 1 are full BiS except for maybe a couple mods.

[Ookiniyasashi]

+4 awesome

[pure_laced]

I votes yes to all of the above!

[arnoldlol]

Yeahhhh

[arnoldlol]

Nice to see Bioware plans to implement... basically everything I said here.

[Eluvius]

Good ideas, I approve.

[alifaraaz]

Looks like most of your wishes are coming true! Well once 1.2 is released anyways. And yeah, I approve of said changes