theblaznee Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 It's still lazy having it as the main "hard" thing to beat in harder modes.. Ofcourse there's a need for enrage or a tank and a healer could just complete the whole thing by themselves.. But making hardmode and nightmaremode simply a gear check once you know the mechanics is just lazy.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onnya Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 To those that keep saying "learn to play" and the like, I would like to point out that most people complaining about enrages have done the HM modes, have managed to make it in time (so the skill and the gear are there), but they just don't like it, as it is restricting and you can only do these with a certain group composition or with gear that is better than/equal to what you get from that flashpoint (so what's the point and where's the motivation?). I think it's exactly the opposite of "fun"to have to tell one of your guild mates "you're not coming with us because you are not geared enough or the wrong class/spec", and then you don't do anything because the "right class" is missing at that moment. And you don't even have dual spec... And how is a guild supposed to help its members, if taking a mediocre player along, or a player that is not very well gearerd simply won't let you progress through a HM? Where is the team spirit? In saying "go grind your dailies, get geared, learn how to play and only then we can group"? What I'm trying to say is that debates like this one can go on like forever, because people are (fortunately) different, each of us expect something else from a game and think it's fun to do different things. So, if an MMO like SWTOR wants to get more players or keep those they already have, they should give more options, a little something for everyone. So why not have more options, flashes scaled to the number of players and dual spec? Not to mention that, if one day I really feel like doing somehting solo, why not? If I'm willing to spend 4 hours in HM solo (with my companion), it's better for BW because I spend more time ingame and good for me because I'm doing what I want. This is a win-win situation. From that to enrage timers that wipe a whole group in seconds and make flashes a dps rush...there's a looong looong way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krepid Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 A combat log , target of target and threat display also would be most helpful. If you'd even tried to look you'd realise there was already a target of target shortcut. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onnya Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 If you'd even tried to look you'd realise there was already a target of target shortcut. There is no target of target DISPLAY. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fdzzaigl Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 I just want more fights that depend on mechanics than fights that are just DPS races, Mentor in D7 is a good example of a fight with a great deal of actual mechanics people need to pay attention to while not having to race DPS. It's extremely frustrating when you're doing everything perfectly right, but die at 5-10% because one party member doesn't have much gear yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onnya Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 (edited) It takes 6 days of doing dailies (1 day per piece of modable gear) to fill up all your modables minus belt/bracer if you happen to have those. A very small investment at the GTN will get you a top of the line earring and implantx2. At this point ALL of your gear (minus belt and bracer unless you buy those off the GTN as well) is better than the Tionese gear dropping from HM Flashpoints. QUOTE] IF you have the time and disposition to do all dailies, you will get the following: 17 marks from Belsavis/day; 11 marks from Illum/day and 2 from space mission = 30 marks/day 2 implants + 1 earpiece = 360 marks so you need at least 12 days of grinding for these. True than in the meantime you get some armoring/mod/enhancements, but if you have these, there's not a big difference from the gear you get from HM, as you pointed out yourself....so why bother? You want to do HM modes when the drops DO make a real difference. Edited February 17, 2012 by Onnya Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ImmortalAlien Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 (edited) Enrage timers are actually manageable. It just makes hard modes actually hard as well as require a full group. Without them, things like world bosses on low level worlds can be solo'd, which breaks the purpose of the fights. That said, the majority of the challenge for hard mode flashpoints in SWTOR actually comes from the mechanics of the fight. In straight up tank and spanks, even with an enrage timer, and with the boss having reasonable damage output but not totally overwhelming, the fights are ridiculously easy as there's little people have to worry about outside their standard roles. There's also a few added mechanics in hard mode. False Emperor has done the most changes outside of just a general stat boost for NPC's. If you're having difficulty in hard modes, you should probably ask yourself these questions to understand what the issue is and then work on fixing it: Am I reasonably geared for this? - In general, a player should have a 126 rating on their armor mods with level 50 mods and enhancements, as well as a prototype or artifact belt/wristband combo if they don't have any orange versions of those. If not, it only takes a few days of dailies to get the money and commendations to gear up. Are my teammates reasonably geared for this? - Same conditions and ways to fix as above. Does the team understand the mechanics of the boss fight? - This is absolutely important in hard mode. There can be little misunderstanding on what happens in a boss fight or else failure is guaranteed. This is why a lot of people roll with Black Talon on the Empire side as their first hard mode: the difference in mechanics compared to normal mode is negligible. If there is one person that does not entirely understand how the fight goes, then an explanation must be given by someone who has done the flashpoint in hard mode. Are my teammates and myself doing our jobs right? - It may seem like a trivial thing to worry about, everyone's at 50 so they know their roles and all, but never just assume that people do them. It's an easy way for people to get off track. Never allow anyone other than the main tank to pull. DPS and healers need to make use of their threat dumps and choose the least likely targets to switch to them. For gimmick heavy fights, people need to know what specific job they have. How diverse is the team? - A well rounded team makes a flashpoint easier. Getting one of each main class allows for all the buffs (as well as a generally better chance for loot). The enrage timer railroads the group to having a tank-healer-2DPS group. Some bosses, especially Bulwark, are a blatant DPS check in hard mode because of the enrage timer. The only real way to fix a group of four inquisitors that are doing horribly is most likely to join a new group with more diversity. That said, a group of four inquisitors could be enough to take on a hard mode flashpoint, yet it shouldn't be the first choice of group unless it's something the players are comfortable with. Is the team wiping because of an intended mechanic or bug? - I'll be honest, a lot of the difficulty in hard mode results from bugs. Some total party kill abilities can't be interrupted because of some line of sight issue or something like that. The penultimate boss fight in The Foundry (not the bonus boss or miniboss) can bug out like crazy, with the boss not going to where he's supposed to go and autokilling everyone that's around him when he's not supposed to, as well as soft enraging because the mechanic that's supposed to prevent that stops working. If you wipe because of a bug, just try again or look up ways to circumvent that. Edited February 17, 2012 by ImmortalAlien Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BMBender Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 (edited) Enrage timers are actually manageable. It just makes hard modes actually hard as well as require a full group. Without them, things like world bosses on low level worlds can be solo'd, which breaks the purpose of the fights. I'm afraid I must disagree most fights on hard mode are no 'harder' than they were on normal all you need is your dps to pass the min gear check and gold; free lootZ. Very few have new tricks up sleeves & most of em are not particuarly challenging if your geared for it. That said, the majority of the challenge for hard mode flashpoints in SWTOR actually comes from the mechanics of the fight. In straight up tank and spanks, even with an enrage timer, and with the boss having reasonable damage output but not totally overwhelming, the fights are ridiculously easy as there's little people have to worry about outside their standard roles. the only thing an enrage timer requires is a dps race, leave your brain at home not needed here Edited February 17, 2012 by BMBender Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bionixx Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 Well it was exciting with Vael back in BWL. My favorite fight in Vanilla. Enrage has its place in pretty much every single raid fight be it a soft enrage mechanic or a hard enrage. That being said, it can't be the only mechanic in the fight or it becomes boring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ImmortalAlien Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 (edited) I'm afraid I must disagree most fights on hard mode are no 'harder' than they were on normal all you need is your dps to pass the min gear check and gold; free lootZ. Very few have new tricks up sleeves & most of em are not particuarly challenging if your geared for it. the only thing an enrage timer requires is a dps race, leave your brain at home not needed here Good for you, then. Hard mode is relatively easy once you get the right group of people and some Columni gear. I always get the "Are we on hard mode?" question when I play on False Emperor. Then again, there are those that find hard mode to be ridiculous, as well as having problems with the enrage timer. Some bosses are a given to enrage due to how short their timers are. The two I have always seen enrage even when running with a geared group are the Sith Entity and Bulwark. However, knowing the basic mechanics of both those fights can allow a team to defeat the boss even while it's enraged. Edited February 17, 2012 by ImmortalAlien Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daovin Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 (edited) Enrage timers are actually manageable. It just makes hard modes actually hard as well as require a full group. Without them, things like world bosses on low level worlds can be solo'd, which breaks the purpose of the fights. Pht, I've soloed up to and including Tatooine. Edited February 17, 2012 by Daovin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anstalt Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 Enrage is a lazy tactic for developing hard content, or at least it is lazy in its current form. However, I can't really think of alternatives. I came from LOTRO which basically doesn't have enrage timers. Instead, LOTRO has power instead of force/ammo/energy. My captain had roughly 3k power and it would only regen from empty to full over 3 minutes. This meant that resource management was extremely important and bosses almost had soft enrage timers in that if you were too slow, you'd eventually run out of power. LOTRO also tended to rely heavily on boss mechanics to decide a groups success or failure, whereas TOR is much more brute force. Pretty much every boss boils down to tank and spank + avoid the puddles. LOTRO was much more inventive with their bosses and boss mechanics so your success/failure was based on player skill and knowledge of the fight and not down to a gear check. The flip side is once you know the mechanics and everyone can comply, the boss becomes extremely easy. The main problem I have with TOR's setup is lack of group flexibility. Every single HM is one tank, one healer, two DPS. Thats fine most of the time, but we quite often have a spare tank or healer but we can't take them coz then we'd fail the enrage timers. Who cares if its slow-but-easy with extra tanks/healers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth-Zexus Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 (edited) Here we go with QQ's trying to nerf the *********** game. Just like WoW. I don't think fights revolve around enrage timers.. If you have the proper gear & a good group then you won't even need to worry about that enrage timers period.... Edit* btw, I am a healer & even when I still had greens I could heal through 90% of bosses going enraged. So, yeah. Edited February 17, 2012 by Darth-Zexus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BMBender Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 (edited) Enrage is a lazy tactic for developing hard content, or at least it is lazy in its current form. However, I can't really think of alternatives. I came from LOTRO which basically doesn't have enrage timers. Instead, LOTRO has power instead of force/ammo/energy. My captain had roughly 3k power and it would only regen from empty to full over 3 minutes. This meant that resource management was extremely important and bosses almost had soft enrage timers in that if you were too slow, you'd eventually run out of power. LOTRO also tended to rely heavily on boss mechanics to decide a groups success or failure, whereas TOR is much more brute force. Pretty much every boss boils down to tank and spank + avoid the puddles. LOTRO was much more inventive with their bosses and boss mechanics so your success/failure was based on player skill and knowledge of the fight and not down to a gear check. The flip side is once you know the mechanics and everyone can comply, the boss becomes extremely easy. The main problem I have with TOR's setup is lack of group flexibility. Every single HM is one tank, one healer, two DPS. Thats fine most of the time, but we quite often have a spare tank or healer but we can't take them coz then we'd fail the enrage timers. Who cares if its slow-but-easy with extra tanks/healers? I loved tanking in LOTRO here it's 'yawn" EDIT I'm serious; many fights I can literally watch a few moments of TV in a fight and still our group downs the boss. Thats what enrage timers + dps who meat the gear check get you. Edited February 17, 2012 by BMBender Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlyII Posted February 17, 2012 Author Share Posted February 17, 2012 The biggest issue with enrage is it punishes newer people coming in, or if you have a single person not fully on par with gear/spec/skill and the whole group comes grinding to a halt. Without it, sure if you had a crap DPS dragging you down a bit you could still manage and compensate for it and pull through. however the devs decided 1 person doesn't just drag you down, they sink you to the bottom and keep you there. This doesn't even cover the fact enrage mechanics make for elitist attitudes and causes inflexibility in fights. I've yet to have a fight where someone died for whatever reason, weather the tank was stunned and couldn't taunt, the healer got a nasty lag spike, or just missed a stun to prevent a nasty attack and someone dies, where we have actually pulled through, because every time the boss enrages because we lost precious DPS time. I came from FFXI which was pretty harsh, but honestly the enrage mechanics in this game are the harshest mechanic I've seen in a game to date in punishing players for not getting things "just right". Totally agree Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elyons Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 (edited) Im at the point in these Flashpoints that Im actually proud if my level 50 has good enough gear to withstand the first 20 seconds of an enrage. But in all seriousness, your right and wrong. Enrage times ARE needed for Hardmodes to actually keep them "slightly" hard. Without them (as stated earlier) a Tank and DPS could easily two man them with decently geared healing companions. However, enrage timers shouldn't be a a fallback to sloppy mechanics. FE is the perfect example of a good Hardmode. The final boss has some very good mechanics to boot with the enrage timer, thus it makes it a great challenge for many players. Now Bioware just needs to incorporate more mechanics and less enrage timers - then we'll have the perfect game Edited February 17, 2012 by Elyons Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BMBender Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 (edited) Im at the point in these Flashpoints that Im actually proud if my level 50 has good enough gear to withstand the first 20 seconds of an enrage. But in all seriousness, your right and wrong. Enrage times ARE needed for Hardmodes to actually keep them "slightly" hard. Without them (as stated earlier) a Tank and DPS could easily two man them with decently geared healing companions. However, enrage timers shouldn't be a a fallback to sloppy mechanics. FE is the perfect example of a good Hardmode. The final boss has some very good mechanics to boot with the enrage timer, thus it makes it a great challenge for many players. Now Bioware just needs to incorporate more mechanics and less enrage timers - then we'll have the perfect game uhm FE is probably the easiest HM out there unless your emp then it'd be BT. with high enough dps you can actually kill him before the knock off stage (modable gear not even full columi) even with lower dps you can simply sit in a tunnel and spam aoe heals and catch an interrupt or two EDIT I will say there are some fun fights MENTOR in D7 is by far my favorite with the droid in Karags being a close second Edited February 17, 2012 by BMBender Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sikandar Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 Enrage is a lazy tactic for developing hard content, or at least it is lazy in its current form. However, I can't really think of alternatives. I came from LOTRO which basically doesn't have enrage timers. Instead, LOTRO has power instead of force/ammo/energy. My captain had roughly 3k power and it would only regen from empty to full over 3 minutes. This meant that resource management was extremely important and bosses almost had soft enrage timers in that if you were too slow, you'd eventually run out of power. LOTRO also tended to rely heavily on boss mechanics to decide a groups success or failure, whereas TOR is much more brute force. Pretty much every boss boils down to tank and spank + avoid the puddles. LOTRO was much more inventive with their bosses and boss mechanics so your success/failure was based on player skill and knowledge of the fight and not down to a gear check. The flip side is once you know the mechanics and everyone can comply, the boss becomes extremely easy. The main problem I have with TOR's setup is lack of group flexibility. Every single HM is one tank, one healer, two DPS. Thats fine most of the time, but we quite often have a spare tank or healer but we can't take them coz then we'd fail the enrage timers. Who cares if its slow-but-easy with extra tanks/healers? Hobbit Tanks FTW. Those fights had you actually bring CC, Debuffs, and Buffs to the table. One tank, 4 champs, and 1 healer usually led to disaster not victory. My favorite fights were Balrog (yes in its original 50 min glory), Thrang, Rogmul in Barad Gularan, Mordirith (original iteration), and Remmanaeg (Fornost). Interesting thing about Hard modes in Moria were that you had to run the instance a particular way. Easiest and most overplayed example would be the Grand Stairs. You had 15 minutes after fighting the first miniboss to clear the way to the final boss to preserve hard mode. Similarly in the Forges you had 30 minutes after the first boss to clear the instance. If you failed you did not get the hard mode loot; it gave lesser gear, no chance of the rare drops. Conversely you had something like Warg Pens which was more about endurance than a speed run. The current setup with enrage timers is actually very punitive. In fact with reports of people wiping on adds and then being locked out is in my eyes not working as intended. I don't think anybody here is arguing about the difficulty of enrage timers. We are arguing about the lack of choice enrage timers force people and groups into. I loved my captain in LOTRO from day 1. They could were a veritable swiss army knife (back before Trait Lines forced us into healing). I leveled my Commando as a hybrid in Combat Medic and Gunnery Trees. The enrage timer says no build experimentation for you - pick 1 tree and max it. This is also why I don't think dual spec really solves anything - different rant for a different thread;). That is just one example but I am sure there are many similar stories being realized as more and more are hitting 50 and trying hard modes. Which is why in the last couple of weeks you are seeing more of these threads pop-up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onnya Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 I still don't understand why there are so many people here giving advice on "how to" kill bosses in HM, most of them being: get geared up and get a proper party structure? This is exactly the problem with enrage timers: it's not that we can't do it, but that we are forced to have a certain gear (usually better than what you get from that HM) and to have certain classes in the group. And this is not happening for a few bosses, but for all of them. Why bother do a HM if you already have better gear? And what's the fun of doing HM if you have to leave friends behind because they're not the right class? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xaearth Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 You do understand that without the enrage timers the bosses could be soloed right? And the problem with this is...? Oh right, that would mean we'd have an encounter that someone can actually use skill to overcome, can't have that now can we. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BMBender Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 (edited) Hobbit Tanks FTW. heh in a related note the only fight in LOTRO I can think thats comparable to most boss fights in SWTOR is the turtle fight. And even that one required smart rotations of the debuff/dot. I do wish they would add more fights like D7, bulwork, mentor, pylons, karag, annialation. SOA too if they ever get rid of the bugs is a nice fresh take Edited February 17, 2012 by BMBender Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IThrowRocks Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 There is already a thread where people are crying about enrage timers. Can we not spread this useless discussion to another thread? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BMBender Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 There is already a thread where people are crying about enrage timers. Can we not spread this useless discussion to another thread? More the merrier I say. Look at how many fixes hotfixes and emergency patches pvp whiners got I could stand some pve love Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leegrisham Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 What exactly are we arguing? The fact that there is a mechanic at all or that the mechanic is lame? I think we can all agree that there has to be a mechanic that at least makes the fight increasingly difficult so that team members have to A) Know the fight and mechanic to overcome B) Have the gear to overcome the fight (progression) So if there was say a mechanic (as someone mentioned above) that debuffed healing to the point that everyone would eventually die because they could not be healed if the boss was not killed before that phase. Whats the difference? Its still a gear and DPS check. Like I said I think we can all agree there has to be some mechanic to wiping on a boss a possibilty rather than a bunch of (or just one or two) low gear people just tank a boss for 30 minutes until it finally keels over. If not enrage timers then what? Anyone care to propose solutions to the issue? What is your prefferred mechanic to Enrage timers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ncntbstndr Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 Threads like this make me wonder why I even read the forums. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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