Hardmode bosses need mechanics not unfairness

[mArchangel]

It's only outrageous because you're making it harder on yourself than necessary. Run easy mode Operations first, then go do some hard mode Flashpoints. The easy mode Ops are easier than hard modes in FPs. If you're fighting something you obviously can't kill before an enrage timer goes off you simply need better gear. It's not hard to get either, normal mode EV is rather easy.

 

Easy mode EV drops Columi gear, just like hard mode FPs. You'll get random armor pieces for a few people each boss (plus other bits). Once you've done it a few times you can target specific hard mode FPs to get the armor pieces people are missing and fill everyone out.

 

Level to 50.

Run daily Belsavis/Ilum quests

Run normal Ops

Run hard mode FPs

Run hard mode Ops

 

PS: Your PS should read "minimum of 126" and not "average gear level of the group around 126" if you want to rant. If everyone can't even be bothered to fill out with easy to get daily quest rewards you don't have any business going off about how hard modes are designed. Anyone not at or above 126 level daily bits is not ready for a hard mode.

 

Yes that my be the reason. I was always under the impression OPS are the last thing to do AFTER you geared up through HM FPs. Hmmmm........in actual fact we discussed it in the guild last night and we will do just that. Try the normal OPS and go back to HM FPs. So yeah, I find the order of things odd, but if it's the way the cookie crumbles in SWTOR we shall just do that. Thanks.

[DarthDemens]

I haven't personally hit an enrage timer in this game - I was basing them on the OP and others in this thread. Can you overcome them if you are on your toes? Sounds like it might be possible.

 

However, it is still a piss poor excuse to design a timer in that changes the entire level of the encounter simply because your DPS missed a cycle.

 

Not only can they be overcome (Its not a 1-shot, it just doubles their damage), for certain of them it can be overcome fairly easily by using some CDs.

[Noggenfog]

dear devs, please dont ever pander to whiney complaints about difficulty filled with ultimatums of cancelling their accounts.

 

If you make this game generalized and easy like wow, the top players will get bored, your competition for content will be lost and they will move on

 

This poster's guild just needs to farm up more gear and play better. Though the invisible lightning orb bug is quite annoying ><

[mArchangel]

dear devs, please dont ever pander to whiney complaints about difficulty filled with ultimatums of cancelling their accounts.

 

If you make this game generalized and easy like wow, the top players will get bored, your competition for content will be lost and they will move on

 

This poster's guild just needs to farm up more gear and play better. Though the invisible lightning orb bug is quite annoying ><

 

hotfix 1.1.1 fixed the issue. We died 15x because of the freeze bug that did not allow DPS to apply damage properly. The enrage timers should still be removed from all boss bar the end bosses in HM FPs. Also the time is too short-I stick to that.

 

And last but not least. To have ENRAGE timers on anything that is not a RAID is still a joke, but that's just me.

 

And don't call me whiner you arrogant person. 'Need to farm up play better' LOL

I beat you in playstyle and quality anytime without even knowing you. LMFAO

 

Bye

[murshawursha]

Enrage timers are a worthless and lazy way to design content in any game. Either I can kill the mob with my group, or I can't. Why should it matter how long it takes me to accomplish my goal? Dead is dead.

 

I'm from EQ2 and that mechanic, while it does exist on some of the higher end content, is used as an obvious timer mechanic and doesn't just wipe you but starts ramping up the difficulty while leaving you a chance if you start executing well.

 

Enrage timers shouldn't exist in any fashion - they aren't fun, they aren't challenging and they bring nothing to the event. Pure Dev Lazy.

 

Haven't read the entire thread, but I agree 100% with this post. Enrage timers are simply artificial difficulty inflators with no other purpose. I hate how it shifts the focus from surviving long enough in order to kill the boss, to killing the boss in order to survive.

[Lularapio]

Hey guys....

 

 

 

 

 

don't need to fight.

 

 

Let's just all agree that this is all a pile of junk that didn't have any reasonable review before being launched.

[urgod]

hotfix 1.1.1 fixed the issue. We died 15x because of the freeze bug that did not allow DPS to apply damage properly. The enrage timers should still be removed from all boss bar the end bosses in HM FPs. Also the time is too short-I stick to that.

 

And last but not least. To have ENRAGE timers on anything that is not a RAID is still a joke, but that's just me.

 

And don't call me whiner you arrogant person. 'Need to farm up play better' LOL

I beat you in playstyle and quality anytime without even knowing you. LMFAO

 

Bye

 

i bet you're the guy who uses his mouse to click skills to lmfao, i agree with the other guy don't give into whiner's who don't wanna challenge themselves because they want ever thing handed to them for free.

[Ileth]

I had leveled a new character last week - with 3 old friends who decided they wanted to try SWTOR, but chose the wrong side so to play with them i had to abandon my trooper and level a bounty hunter.

 

Anyway, we've ran some HM flashpoints as a group of 4 fresh lvl 50s in greens/blues/oranges/some stuff from GTN + epic barrels/hilts from first daily commendations :

Black Talon - haven't seen any enrages

Boarding Party - bonus boss enraged at ~10%, we just nuked it down

D7 - several wipes on bulwark due to enrage, had to figure out we can just ignore small droids.

Kaon - haven't seen any enrages

False Emperor - haven't seen any enrages

Battle for Ilum - haven't seen any enrages

Foundry - will go there tomorrow ^^

 

All in all - if your group encounters a lot of enrages in flashpoints - you got some bad/lazy players. operations gear wont make them better, it will just cover their mistakes - but that's hardly bioware's fault.

[MathigNihilcehk]

It's obvious the issue here is that you're not as experienced or skilled as you think you are. I personally think HM is too easy and should be made a little more difficult. HM is the end-game of end-game, or it should be. It should be only doable with a well equipped and experienced group, not random PUGs, which is what it is right now. Or at least with a PUG it should be a 50/50 chance to finish it.

 

There's not challenge in this game. I forgave the 1-50 easy-mode, but HM is a joke. It's not hard at all.

 

Enough with the PUG bashing... seriously stop it! Forcing others to join x guilds because they are the only groups that will let you do x instances is unfair, and frankly stupid. Giving those who would join bonuses is fair. Making content only they can do is as well. Locking content to them, isn't. And don't they have a nightmare mode? Go do that if your complaining hard isn't hard. Apparently it is the same rewards as hard, but if it'll stop your complaining GO DO THEM.

 

Normal-for new players. Hard-for average players. Nightmare-for Hard-core players

whats the problem? Unless you find nightmare too easy, or they don't offer it, do that.

[MathigNihilcehk]

Haven't read the entire thread, but I agree 100% with this post. Enrage timers are simply artificial difficulty inflators with no other purpose. I hate how it shifts the focus from surviving long enough in order to kill the boss, to killing the boss in order to survive.

 

I think they actually make sense, if they were timed correctly. A tank has to keep aggro. If he doesn't have enough aggro the rest of the group will wipe easily. A Healer has to keep the group healed. If he doesn't heal enough, the group will wipe. The DPS just sits there and looks pretty...

OR

Tank and Healer as above. The DPS have to output enough damage to kill the boss before he enrages. If they don't do enough DPS as DPS the group wipes.

 

This way, any of the trinity can cause a group to wipe. You can also blame the appropriate player for their failure. If he enrages yell at your DPS. If your non tank players get aggro and spike out, yell at your tank. If your tank dies, or the group steadily drains its health, yell at your healer.

 

Now you can all be enemies again and kill each other Instead of yelling at the forums you can yell at your group members. Yeah yeah yeah, you will earn some ignores and eventually become homeless begging for a PUG but hey, you will down that boss eventually...

[flowqz]

Enough with the PUG bashing... seriously stop it! Forcing others to join x guilds because they are the only groups that will let you do x instances is unfair, and frankly stupid. Giving those who would join bonuses is fair. Making content only they can do is as well. Locking content to them, isn't. And don't they have a nightmare mode? Go do that if your complaining hard isn't hard. Apparently it is the same rewards as hard, but if it'll stop your complaining GO DO THEM.

 

Normal-for new players. Hard-for average players. Nightmare-for Hard-core players

whats the problem? Unless you find nightmare too easy, or they don't offer it, do that.

 

 

normal + hardmode + nightmare are all way to easy. i would prefer a difficulty increase in all modes or at least hardmode + nightmare mode.

 

that said if this game isnt easy enough for u than go play wow.

Edited February 3, 2012 by flowqz

[PanzerKing]

normal + hardmode + nightmare are all way to easy. i would prefer a difficulty increase in all modes or at least hardmode + nightmare mode.

 

that said if this game isnt easy enough for u than go play wow.

 

Not that WoW's raids are hard, but I just did HM EV for the first time last night and it was an absolute joke. I almost didn't believe it was on hard mode. Comparing BoT normal to EV HM, BoT was definitely more challenging, and the boss encounters were far better-designed, more elaborate, better-itemized and less buggy.

 

Bioware REALLY needs to step up their game, because the raid content that they have in the game right now is a total farce - mindless trash, bosses devoid of meaningful mechanics and dps/healing requirements that are not remotely difficult.

[IThrowRocks]

So personally I don't know if the hard mode 4 mans are overtuned or not but I don't see how you can't do them with some good gear. Champion gear is extremely easy to obtain. I've been 50 for 10 days and now have 8 champion items. And champion items for the most part have an edge on tier one pve gear.

 

But nonetheless I get what the OP is saying. 4 Man flashes should be where you gear up, not something you need to be geared to do. You can't change the game but my recommendation to you is to start doing pvp dailys. 20 bags a week from pvp dailys/weeklys will go a long way my friend.

 

 

And I want to adress the enrage timer as a mechanic. People say that it is a lazy mechanic that isn't needed. I personally don't think it should be in every fight but I think it is a needed mechanic.

 

The enrage timer helps to create equal responsibility throughout the raid group. Healers and tanks need to be well geared becaues they are what keeps the fight going. The tank needs to stay up and this is the job of these two roles. If the tank messes up he loses aggro or loses mitigation and dies and this will cause a wipe . If the healers slack off the tank will drop or dps can drop and this will/can cause a wipe.

 

What responsibility do the dps have? Don't stand in circles and do damage. But what if they slack off or horribly mess up their rotation or just auto attack? Without an enrage timer there are no consequences. The only consequence is that the tank and healers pick up the slack. Enrage timers keep the dps accountable for having a pulse and keeping their rotations tight.

 

Instead of having the responsibility and accountability held on the tank/healer battery, dps are now being held accountable. Why is this bad?

[Talorra]

The only HM flashpoint fights I've seen the enrage timer on are HK-47 and Bulwark. We still killed them.

 

I'd like to see nightmare mode for flashpoints. We do speed runs on hard modes to help gear our new folks up faster for ops.

[Kaonis]

Enrage timers are a worthless and lazy way to design content in any game. Either I can kill the mob with my group, or I can't. Why should it matter how long it takes me to accomplish my goal? Dead is dead.

 

I'm from EQ2 and that mechanic, while it does exist on some of the higher end content, is used as an obvious timer mechanic and doesn't just wipe you but starts ramping up the difficulty while leaving you a chance if you start executing well.

 

Enrage timers shouldn't exist in any fashion - they aren't fun, they aren't challenging and they bring nothing to the event. Pure Dev Lazy.

 

This is my sentiment exactly.

 

The devs are being lazy with this enrage timer BS, and it's completely unfair that they enrage and insta wipe you in most cases. Even if it's not an insta wipe they still hit for some 15k a hit usually. If your lucky you'll survive one attack then immediately be murdered with the second.

 

The problem with this enrage business is it's completely unfair, and all it does is put pressure on the players to do the strat the devs want us to do, wearing the gear they want us to wear, using the DPS rotations that have been meticulously calculated for optimal performance, and any deviation is punished. This whole mechanic just promotes min/maxing to an extreme I've never seen in an MMO ever.

 

Honestly it's like the devs added enrage for the hard core gamers, while scaling the bosses stats for a casual fight, and in the end the hard cores face roll anyways and complain about it being too easy, and the casuals who would rather not invest the time to figure out the absolute decimal value perfect DPS rotation can't progress.

[Raencloud]

The hard modes are doable without operations gear (Columi gear is obtained via hard modes btw). There are a few difficult fights (Thek? in Battle of Ilum, the bonus droid in Koan are the 2 that really come to mind). They nerfed the end boss of BP so that is definitely doable now with no problem (was still killable before though as well). Have done them all with the following players (any combination of 1 healer, 2 dps, 1 tank - I'm the assassin) in my guild at various gear levels from fresh 50s to mostly full Columi and/or Champion pvp gear:

 

Assassin tank / dps

Operative dps / healer

Marauder dps

Sniper dps

Sorcerer healer

Juggernaut tank

Random any PUG healer

 

Most of the time we are using 2 melee dps making certain fights even harder than they otherwise would be. Just because YOU couldn't kill a boss you tried to kill doesn't mean it's broken. The game is not supposed to reward "time and effort" it's supposed to reward "skilled and strategic" play, which may or may not require time and effort. That is still why pvp is flawed because it's nothing but a time sink. Don't try to turn pve into the same thing.

Edited February 3, 2012 by Raencloud

[PessimiStick]

This is my sentiment exactly.

 

The devs are being lazy with this enrage timer BS, and it's completely unfair that they enrage and insta wipe you in most cases. Even if it's not an insta wipe they still hit for some 15k a hit usually. If your lucky you'll survive one attack then immediately be murdered with the second.

Managing aggro/positioning/picking up adds tests tanks.

Keeping the tank/group alive tests healers.

Enrage timers test DPS.

 

I'm sorry that you want to just snowflake it up with zero accountability.

[Warlyx]

enrage timers exist for just 1 reason , to avoid stacking healers in a raid enviroment.

[Raencloud]

Enrage timers serve more of a purpose than just preventing healer stacking. Often times the difference between beating an enrage timer and wiping to it come down to optimizing your strategy. If you are wasting dps then you are going to struggle. Beating an encounter is more than just not dieing to the mechanics, and if you strip away enrage encounters then the fights become joke worthy. You could simply bring 3 healers and a tank and "eventually" get through anything. Enrage timers add depth to the encounter, because now you can't afford not to be at your best, especially in a very well tuned fight. Furthermore, if you just find that you aren't skilled enough as a group to down it, it always gets easier with gear. That is the essence of what progression is.

[BALORINA]

No, you wouldn't. Because a properly designed encounter would have the mob healing itself at a rate that would preclude you from doing that.

 

You see - there are tons of ways to make an encounter viable without an enrage timer.

 

I very specific DPS threshold (not a timer) is just one of them.

 

This argument has been stated and restated and continues to be a fallacy.

 

If your group is capable of putting out the DPS required to down the encounter (7 healers or not) then you are entitled to do so. Build the encounter to your required thresholds and there are no problems.

 

Assigning a random time limit to something is lazy.

 

 

How is this an option? If your dps is too low to beat the enrage then your dps would be too low to outdamage his heal... so you'd still be here just crying about something else instead.

 

Any soft mechanic enrage doesn't preclude the fact that YOUR group was terrible and any alternative mechanic will STILL beat you and you will cry about that.

 

Often times the enrage timer is due to one dps hitting 111111111 the whole fight knowing there are no dps meters and he can easily get away with it. Then he can post on the boards how enrage timers are horrible as well.

Edited February 3, 2012 by BALORINA

[Loendar]

How is this an option? If your dps is too low to beat the enrage then your dps would be too low to outdamage his heal... so you'd still be here just crying about something else instead.

 

Any soft mechanic enrage doesn't preclude the fact that YOUR group was terrible and any alternative mechanic will STILL beat you and you will cry about that.

 

Often times the enrage timer is due to one dps hitting 111111111 the whole fight knowing there are no dps meters and he can easily get away with it. Then he can post on the boards how enrage timers are horrible as well.

 

Because you are laboring under some misguided opinion that I think that any group should be able to beat any content. That's not what is being said at all and there is no 'crying' being despite your assertion.

 

It is perfectly reasonable to allow any group to attempt any content and they will fail if they don't hit some pre-determined benchmarks for performance (DPS,HPS). They can come back later when they are better geared and have a run at it.

 

My entire point is this: IF you have the DPS (the mob is dying) - you have the HPS (you aren't dying) and you can execute the strats (clicking what needs clicking, moving where you need to move) - then there is ZERO reason to implement an artificial timer telling me that I have to do all of those things in 5 minutes instead of 5 minutes and 10 seconds. Even given that it isn't an auto-wipe in most cases, it changes the entire dynamic of a fight that you are well in control of in, literally, 1 second.

 

If you can't see how that is a bad, punishing mechanic that serves zero upside then I don't think I can explain it to you any clearer.

 

And the whole - full group of healers/fighters argument keeps happening and keeps being incorrect. First - you have a finite number of people you can bring, so you can't just simply 'stack' anything for an 'I win' condition. Secondly, a properly tuned encounter will take into account the DPS required to even lower the mobs health.. set that threshold high enough that the mob is healing faster than your 'weighted' crew is able to do damage. You may not die outright but you will never win. DPS is still required to do their job without an enrage timer.

 

A hard enrage timer changes the entire fight condition - without warning - without purpose - all to punish the player base for not being quite fast enough (MOAR DPS). Every fight in the game is diluted down to how much DPS you can do how fast, and I'm personally tired of that dynamic. Other games are capable of doing without it, so it clearly isn't a required mechanic by any stretch.

 

I don't know how much clearer this could be honestly. It is a lazy timer that imposes an unneeded restriction to progression.

Edited February 3, 2012 by Loendar

[Stirven-San]

I think it is fine. It makes a fight more exciting when you are close to finishing a boss, he enrages, and you have to work extra hard and use every trick you have left to take down the last bit of health before he destroys you all...I think it is fun.

[Merraith]

My entire point is this: IF you have the DPS (the mob is dying) - you have the HPS (you aren't dying) and you can execute the strats (clicking what needs clicking, moving where you need to move) - then there is ZERO reason to implement an artificial timer telling me that I have to do all of those things in 5 minutes instead of 5 minutes and 10 seconds. Even given that it isn't an auto-wipe in most cases, it changes the entire dynamic of a fight that you are well in control of in, literally, 1 second.

 

If it's not an auto wipe, it hasn't changed the entire dynamics of the fight. Many of the bosses you can do up to 10% of their health while it's enraged, including ops ones.

 

Surviving forever is not enough. Healers have to heal certain amounts over certain amounts of times to keep people (especially the tank alive). Dps NEED to be able to do enough damage in a certain amount of time or the fight should become MUCH harder or even impossible as time goes on. Their enrages accomplish this. There's zero difference between your so-called "artificial timer" and the "artificial" big hits a mob hits a tank or other player in the raid for. It's part of the fight. Do the fight. Beat the fight. Dps has to prove they can do it as well.

 

Any dps that could "in theory" do enough damage in 5 minutes 10 seconds should be able to figure out how to improve their damage enough to shave off 10 seconds. They just should be able to do this. Otherwise, you will need more gear, or they will need to be smarter about their rotations, when they're using certain abilities and cooldowns, or even using consumables to help improve their damage. Simple positioning of the raid at times can even help.

[Loendar]

If it's not an auto wipe, it hasn't changed the entire dynamics of the fight. Many of the bosses you can do up to 10% of their health while it's enraged, including ops ones.

 

Surviving forever is not enough. Healers have to heal certain amounts over certain amounts of times to keep people (especially the tank alive). Dps NEED to be able to do enough damage in a certain amount of time or the fight should become MUCH harder or even impossible as time goes on. Their enrages accomplish this. There's zero difference between your so-called "artificial timer" and the "artificial" big hits a mob hits a tank or other player in the raid for. It's part of the fight. Do the fight. Beat the fight. Dps has to prove they can do it as well.

 

Any dps that could "in theory" do enough damage in 5 minutes 10 seconds should be able to figure out how to improve their damage enough to shave off 10 seconds. They just should be able to do this. Otherwise, you will need more gear, or they will need to be smarter about their rotations, when they're using certain abilities and cooldowns, or even using consumables to help improve their damage. Simple positioning of the raid at times can even help.

 

 

Your assertion would hold true if the enrage timer was something you could address or counter because you knew it was coming outside of MOAR DPS - which is clearly what all of you on the side of the timer concept keep spouting. If it were an ability you could interrupt (your big hit) or something you could avoid (hide behind something) then you are placing the onus on the player to figure out the strat.

 

The enrage timer isn't a strat to overcome, it is a hard timer. Something 'bad' happens now. It doesn't matter what you have done up until that point and how well you execute once that timer hits and changes the fight. You may not agree that doubling the DPS and healing that a mob gets in a one second interval changes the dynamics of the fight, but I do.

 

I'm not opposed to timers for events to occur (including the enrage one) if it is something that makes sense in the context of the fight (walls are falling around you, hurry up!) but adding it to every encounter simply because is lazy.

 

And until someone can address how it is possible that other MMO's that have been around forever with dynamic content (EQ1, EQ2, etc) are able to survive without this 'required' mechanic then the concept that it has to exist to fix the things you keep saying is fundamentally flawed. I will agree it is the easiest/laziest way to fix it - but you can't even concede that.

 

I would recommend that everyone who feels this is a required mechanic go fire up a toon on EQ2 (free to play) and level high enough to raid just about anything. There ARE fights where this mechanic exists, don't get me wrong, but they are few and far between. They instead have the players rely on their abilities and skill at grasping the strats to win instead of who DPS's more. It's about time that WoW stop being held up as the 'right way' if this is what it produces.

Edited February 3, 2012 by Loendar

[IThrowRocks]

This is my sentiment exactly.

 

The devs are being lazy with this enrage timer BS, and it's completely unfair that they enrage and insta wipe you in most cases. Even if it's not an insta wipe they still hit for some 15k a hit usually. If your lucky you'll survive one attack then immediately be murdered with the second.

 

The problem with this enrage business is it's completely unfair, and all it does is put pressure on the players to do the strat the devs want us to do, wearing the gear they want us to wear, using the DPS rotations that have been meticulously calculated for optimal performance, and any deviation is punished. This whole mechanic just promotes min/maxing to an extreme I've never seen in an MMO ever.

 

Honestly it's like the devs added enrage for the hard core gamers, while scaling the bosses stats for a casual fight, and in the end the hard cores face roll anyways and complain about it being too easy, and the casuals who would rather not invest the time to figure out the absolute decimal value perfect DPS rotation can't progress.

 

 

So essentially you don’t like hard mode enrage timers because it makes the encounter hard for you? Who would of thought that hard mode was “hard”. Min/maxing is a difficult thing to do and is what you need to do when you are doing something that is challenging (aka hard mode).

 

It doesn’t sound like there is a problem with the game. Sounds like there is a problem with you. They designed a difficulty level for you. Its called normal.