8M and 16M need better balance!

[Baerik]

I'm the guildmaster of a strict 8 man Nightmare Progression guild. We've suffered much outside of the game which has complicated our ability to be competitive but we have still pushed 9/10 NM in the 8man realm with Soa being the only boss we have been unsuccessful in killing.

 

I love challenge, hell I thrive on it. But the level of challenge presented in 8man Nightmare Mode Soa is too ridiculously high given the amount of people available in the Operation.

 

Breaking it down between the two, we see this:

 

In 8 man past Phase 1, you have 2 members targeted by lightning balls, 1 person in a mind trap, and 1 person being thrown around in the Force Cyclone. So at almost any given time, half of your raid is occupied in some fashion.

 

Comparatively with 16 man there are 3 lightning balls, 1 mind trap and 1 force cyclone. Double the amount of people and only one additional person is tied up doing something... this isn't even remotely close to even or equal or even a remote challenge. Just by adding 1 additional mind trap and 1 additional cyclone you go from 5 people occupied to 7, still leaving just over half free to do as they wish. This makes a lot more sense and is considerably more balanced.

 

I understand BW's wish to "reward" people for doing 16 man because it's apparently sooo much harder to get that many people together... but come on! The difference on that fight is negligible to say the least.

 

Either 8 man needs to be nerfed to get more in line with the limitations of the number of people in the group, or 16 man actually needs to be made challenging because the glaring differences are straight up ridiculous.

[Cassp]

More orbs and mind traps for 16's, woo!

[Inzi]

Since the original version of the fight... they have

 

--changed how often mind traps spawn to be further apart

--reduced the chance of getting your healers in the mindtrap/whirlwind 5 times in a row (happened to me, not fun)

--16 man used to have 5 balls spawn in phase 3 in the same amount of space you get in 8 man. It was KIND OF ridiculous.

 

They have nerfed 16 man more harshly than 8 man, sure. I'd even say that 16 man NM Soa is now relatively easier than 8man NM Soa. But 8 man NM Soa isn't difficult--especially now that it's been nerfed down.

[Baerik]

It is difficult, especially when you compare the differences. Not to mention the bugs still present in the fight.

 

5 Lightning balls, yeah that's obviously ridiculous, but the nerfs to 16 dwarf any sort of nerfs that may have happened to 8 man... they just aren't the same and it's not even a question that 16 may or may not be easier.... it plain straight up is.

 

To continue the discussion but put you right in the middle, consider this. In 16 man, with the now reduced back to back targeting of certain abilities there will, more often than not, be a free healer to help keep people up, and top them up before damage. In 8 man, you can have a person go right from lightning ball explosion into force cyclone with no chance for someone to heal due to one healer being stuck in a mind trap and the other being targeted by the second lightning ball in the pair previously mentioned and that is a guaranteed death for the person tossed in the force cyclone (Has killed our attempts at least 10+ times out of the multitude of attempts)

 

The resources available to each when compared with the resource cost during the encounter are extremely skewed, with 8 man basically requiring any and all tools, while 16 man barely makes use of even 3/4.

 

Make 8 man easier or put 16 man where it should be.

Edited March 10, 2012 by Baerik

[kharnedge]

i agree on the 8m vs 16m disparity. Its still pretty bad, maybe not as bad but encounters we can steam roll in 2 8 man groups are tough in 1 16 man group. The only real reason for that can be that 16 ma is overtuned still. Is it as bad as it used to be .... no, do i hope 16 man is as easy or easier then 8 man in 1.2 ..... yes. Just like the devs said its harder to assemble and keep organised 16 people the content should reflect that not punish it. Soa is currently the ONE fight that I have seen that is easier in 16 man.

 

Quick Edit; this is only as of my experience in hard modes, we are a more laid back guild and had some trouble moving from 8 to 16s so we arent really to focused on NM until 1.2.

Edited March 10, 2012 by kharnedge

[kharnedge]

The other thing you seem to be not including is the increase to damage from 8 to 16 man. If 8 man hard if we have a healer in a mind trap or thrown it generally no big deal, in 16 man if 2 are indisposed the tank and ball lightening damage wipes the raid in very short order without smart CDs or "ball poppers" switching to kiting rather then poping. Again i will say that soa is easier in 16 then 8 man in both mode i have done him hard and reg, but every other boss is harder in 16 man then it was in 8 man. All that said the stated design is to have 16s a little easier then 8s so saying that soa is easier in 16 is just saying they finally got one right for us 16 man guilds.

[Baerik]

But they didn't get Soa right... Soa isn't even a challenge on 16 man... it's laughable at best.

 

We joined up with another 8 man guild to try doing 16's and see how it faired, and the only boss who I'll argue was considerably more difficult on 16 man than it was 8 man was Jarg and Sorno simply because both tanks got hit with the carbonizer probe and we weren't expecting it the first time.

 

Other than that everything else proved to be a reasonable shift considering the additional resources at your disposal.

 

Soa needs to have it's difficulty increased on 16 man, or the difficulty reduced on 8 man. But it cannot remain as is.

 

And many people have been quick to point out the glaring amount of bugs still present within the fight, this complicates the difficulty presented in 8 man even further. Not saying bugs don't complicate 16 man... but imo it's considerably easier to deal with seeing as the rest of the fight is a joke in that realm of...."difficulty"

[Hxxr]

Make 8 man easier or put 16 man where it should be.

 

Actually it should be equal.

 

However it never will. Unless space is a problem 16 man will always have the upper hand thanks to more armor debuffs, more healers who each has their own resources and more strong cooldowns in total.

 

It's just that Soa is very badly balanced between 8 and 16 man. I'd consider it almost free loot in one version and almost too hard for the first raid tier in the other.

 

Btw, wasn't the basic raid size 8 man or do I remember that wrong? I have to admit, I didn't watch anything happening in beta but 'small raids' is one bit of information that stuck.

[Narcistic]

Most of you are wasting your breath. People know 8man is more difficult for most fights in the game. There is hard math that can prove it. I have it built out into a spread sheet in fact that shows the DPS required for each fight for each difficulty for each size. I have asked numerous times for a 16 man guild to provide me actual data to work with to prove that 16man is harder then 8man but none can.

 

I think its hilarious how blinded people are after the Dev's have already said TWICE that 8man is meant to be harder then 16man. Because they give 16man some lee way for putting together 16 folks.

 

We were 10/10 NM 8man on our server for over a month prior to the 16man guilds because they got stuck on SOA. The same SOA fight that can be killed with 8-10 folks or less in 16man.

 

We had 2 8man teams, 1 8man team was our main group 10/10 NM. Our 2nd 8man was working their way through Normal to gear up and learn the fights. We had some folks leave and make our 2nd 8man made up of mostly casual players difficult to run. We pulled them into one group to make a 16man and see what all the "harder" fuss was about. We walked through HM 16man EV because these folks never did full normal EV clear and we 1 shot everything, it was an absolute joke. Next week we will be doing Nightmare 16man just to make sure... Tonight we are doing Nightmare 16 Karagga's. We are pretty sure this will be a joke as well. I will fill you all in tomorrow about it and afterwards I will have had done 16man and 8man nightmare Karaggas and I will know which is harder....

 

 

*edit*

 

We quit the argument and trying to show people that 8man is indeed harder because people are so stubborn to the math. Apparently hard data and numbers aren't weighed as much as personal opinions.

Edited March 11, 2012 by Narcistic

[invizion]

Most of you are wasting your breath. People know 8man is more difficult for most fights in the game.

 

I think its hilarious how blinded people are after the Dev's have already said TWICE that 8man is meant to be harder then 16man.

 

 

I've cleared both 8 and 16 in my guild, 16 is overall harder than 8.

 

Foreman crusher hits like a truck on 16 NiM, Jarg and Sorno are challenging on NiM, Annihilation Droid's cannoize 1 shots anyone but a tank on NiM, Karagga seem's harder on NiM.

 

I think its hilarious how blindly people believe everything Dev's say. Pylon's and Soa have been fixed on multiple occasions! You're also disregarding the fact that at the guild summit they admit they got it wrong and 16 is currently harder than 8 man.

 

The dance studio in that other game

 

The 10 and 25 man raiding in that other game was "balanced".....

 

The only fight I've found harder on 8 man was Bonethrasher and you could argue Soa is harder when you have melee DPS, but that's just the nature of the fight and how it was designed.

Edited March 11, 2012 by invizion

[Vortuus]

I've cleared both 8 and 16 in my guild, 16 is overall harder than 8.

 

Foreman crusher hits like a truck on 16 NiM, Jarg and Sorno are challenging on NiM, Annihilation Droid's cannoize 1 shots anyone but a tank on NiM, Karagga seem's harder on NiM.

 

 

Foreman: two tanks on 16. LOL damage with CD usage.

 

J&S: The only fight that presents more difficulty.. on Nightmare only.. on 8 vs. 16. Note on hard this is no longer true, and everything is easier again on 16. The "Plan D" portion of J&S with undergeared people and no snipers provide less leway on this fight than 8. Well geared people or you have 2+ snipers? Again, 16 easier.

 

Anni Droid: Umm.. you can have 2 tanks. Cannonade hits top 2 in threat. Why are you having it hit anyone but a tank?? Quit sucking. Again, easier on 16.

 

And LOL at "seems harder" on Karagga. He's pretty much a roll over on 8 or 16 with a solid strat, just with less chance of hitting enrage on 16 if you carry weak dps. Math is hard.

 

For someone, as you claim, that has cleared everything on 16 and 8 nightmare.. and not aware of any of these facts... I saw only one thing.

 

Grats on being carried. Hope your guildies keep you logs are available.

[dominius]

We quit the argument and trying to show people that 8man is indeed harder because people are so stubborn to the math. Apparently hard data and numbers aren't weighed as much as personal opinions.

 

I know the feeling. After we went 10/10 in 8-Nightmare we recruited some more people and switched to 16-Nightmare just to see if it really was harder. It is not harder;. it is easier. You don't even need 16 people to clear 16-Nightmare stuff. Now that we are 10/10 in 8 & 16 Nightmare we use 16-Nightmare Ops to bring in the people that aren't good enough for 8-Nightmare Ops.

Edited March 11, 2012 by dominius

[Sebasaurus]

I've cleared both 8 and 16 in my guild, 16 is overall harder than 8.

 

Foreman crusher hits like a truck on 16 NiM, Jarg and Sorno are challenging on NiM, Annihilation Droid's cannoize 1 shots anyone but a tank on NiM, Karagga seem's harder on NiM.

 

I think its hilarious how blindly people believe everything Dev's say. Pylon's and Soa have been fixed on multiple occasions! You're also disregarding the fact that at the guild summit they admit they got it wrong and 16 is currently harder than 8 man.

 

The dance studio in that other game

 

The 10 and 25 man raiding in that other game was "balanced".....

 

The only fight I've found harder on 8 man was Bonethrasher and you could argue Soa is harder when you have melee DPS, but that's just the nature of the fight and how it was designed.

 

the way we deal with that is we full burn jarg so he doesn't one shot anyone then let sorno enrage and then just burn him. no one gets 1 shot and you can outheal his damage. I will say again that 16 man is easier.

Edited March 11, 2012 by Sebasaurus

[invizion]

the way we deal with that is we full burn jarg so he doesn't one shot anyone then let sorno enrage and then just burn him. no one gets 1 shot and you can outheal his damage. I will say again that 16 man is easier.

 

This is how we do it, 16 is definitely not easier, it's been stated by Gabe Amatangelo at the guild summit that this is not the case. They INTEND for 16 to be easier but at the moment that is NOT the case.

 

If you seriously think 16 man is easier than 8 man, I'm almost certain you havn't cleared both on nightmare.

Edited March 11, 2012 by invizion

[invizion]

Foreman: two tanks on 16. LOL damage with CD usage.

 

J&S: The only fight that presents more difficulty.. on Nightmare only.. on 8 vs. 16. Note on hard this is no longer true, and everything is easier again on 16. The "Plan D" portion of J&S with undergeared people and no snipers provide less leway on this fight than 8. Well geared people or you have 2+ snipers? Again, 16 easier.

 

Anni Droid: Umm.. you can have 2 tanks. Cannonade hits top 2 in threat. Why are you having it hit anyone but a tank?? Quit sucking. Again, easier on 16.

 

And LOL at "seems harder" on Karagga. He's pretty much a roll over on 8 or 16 with a solid strat, just with less chance of hitting enrage on 16 if you carry weak dps. Math is hard.

 

For someone, as you claim, that has cleared everything on 16 and 8 nightmare.. and not aware of any of these facts... I saw only one thing.

 

Grats on being carried. Hope your guildies keep you logs are available.

 

Can I ask one thing, Why are you acting as if you know everything about this game? you cleared KP 16 nightmare on march 7th.... LOL....

 

FYI, I wasn't implying that I personally was struggling, I was talking from what my guild found "harder" for progression in a 8 vs 16 scenario. My guild cleared them both in 1 night per instance on progression and we've been clearing both in 1 raid night ever since... way before your 7th March clears.

 

There's a reason good players don't post on these forums, its mainly because of misinformed scrubs like you that insist that everyone is wrong because they don't agree with your opinion, even when you're presented with facts that contradict your opinion.

[Narcistic]

All I am saying is that you present me a opinion, a statement, where as I can show you math to back up my accusations.

[invizion]

All I am saying is that you present me a opinion, a statement, where as I can show you math to back up my accusations.

 

And it's been proven many many many times before, that theory crafting is not equal to real world situations.

 

Edit - I'm only talking about nightmare mode, Hardmode and "normal mode" really don't count imo.

Edited March 11, 2012 by invizion

[Vortuus]

FYI, I wasn't implying that I personally was struggling, I was talking from what my guild found "harder" for progression in a 8 vs 16 scenario. My guild cleared them both in 1 night per instance on progression and we've been clearing both in 1 raid night ever since... way before your 7th March clears.

 

 

We finished off the tier taking down Karagga 16 nightmare, we got our "The Infernal" titles and we're heading for our "The Unyielding" titles this week (All on 16 man which has been proven to be harder).

 

^ From your guild website. LOLOLOLOLOL. This was posted this week.. as in you you don't have "the Infernal" yet...

 

LOLOLOLOLOLLOLOL

 

And since you seem to be kind of an internet stalker obsessing with my progress.. I'm sure you know that EV took.. 1 night to clear on 16 NiM, 2nd night trying it (first time with 16) we did it under 1 hour for "the Infernal"

 

Oh ya... and KP took two days... we only had 14 the first day, so we went back with 16 and one shot Fabricator, Karagga... sorry to burst your bubble that our late clear on 16 = more "we're bored with 8's, let's see how hard these 16's are".

 

But grats on being another guild who raids 3-4 days/week for 3-4 hours/night and pretty much gets stuck And I like your claim of 'we cleared everything in 1 night' .. when that's so not true. But good job convincing yourself of your 1 night nightmare clears first time seeing them. When it's still taking you 2 hours to clear EV NiM .. on 16.. well, that's just sad.

 

Go pretend you're pro somewhere else. Non-baddies know how to avoid fire AND your B.S. Maybe your guild will still think you're cool.

 

And has been said.. multiple times in this thread... facts have presented that 8 is harder. Your only counter has been 'nuh-uh, we suck, so we MAKE 16 harder... so ner'. Not exactly the best way to prove your point.

Edited March 12, 2012 by Vortuus

[invizion]

We finished off the tier taking down Karagga 16 nightmare, we got our "The Infernal" titles and we're heading for our "The Unyielding" titles this week (All on 16 man which has been proven to be harder).

 

^ From your guild website. LOLOLOLOLOL. This was posted this week.. as in you you don't have "the Infernal" yet...

 

LOLOLOLOLOLLOLOL

 

And since you seem to be kind of an internet stalker obsessing with my progress.. I'm sure you know that EV took.. 1 night to clear on 16 NiM, 2nd night trying it (first time with 16) we did it under 1 hour for "the Infernal"

 

Oh ya... and KP took two days... we only had 14 the first day, so we went back with 16 and one shot Fabricator, Karagga... sorry to burst your bubble that our late clear on 16 = more "we're bored with 8's, let's see how hard these 16's are".

 

But grats on being another guild who raids 3-4 days/week for 3-4 hours/night and pretty much gets stuck And I like your claim of 'we cleared everything in 1 night' .. when that's so not true. But good job convincing yourself of your 1 night nightmare clears first time seeing them. When it's still taking you 2 hours to clear EV NiM .. on 16.. well, that's just sad.

 

Go pretend you're pro somewhere else. Non-baddies know how to avoid fire AND your B.S. Maybe your guild will still think you're cool.

 

And has been said.. multiple times in this thread... facts have presented that 8 is harder. Your only counter has been 'nuh-uh, we suck, so we MAKE 16 harder... so ner'. Not exactly the best way to prove your point.

 

Cleared 16 nightmare AGES ago, had a few people leave and have only recently replaced them...... then we've had bad luck with serveral weeks of constant bugs that needed an instance reset, hence losing out on the titles. meh excuses and I'm not really bothered on what you think our guild has done compared to what I know we have done.

 

Unfortunately, with the lack of server transfers, we've been pretty much screwed over with members quitting and the majority of our server being polish.. ah well, 1.2 will hopefully be a lot different. Can't wait to see the whining then when the content is expected to actually be challenging:)

 

Edit, FYI, our last 8 man EV NiM clear too 47 minutes exactly with 1 pylon bug, our last 16 man took just over 1 hour.

 

Our KP clear took 1 hour 12 minutes pre 1.1.5 but no title thanks to a bug :/

Edited March 12, 2012 by invizion

[KaptainPlanet]

we are 10/10 nightmare 8 & 16 i think its fine... Just learn the fight and it's an easy 1 shot on nightmare

[Aerro]

We finished off the tier taking down Karagga 16 nightmare, we got our "The Infernal" titles and we're heading for our "The Unyielding" titles this week (All on 16 man which has been proven to be harder).

 

^ From your guild website. LOLOLOLOLOL. This was posted this week.. as in you you don't have "the Infernal" yet...

 

LOLOLOLOLOLLOLOL

 

And since you seem to be kind of an internet stalker obsessing with my progress.. I'm sure you know that EV took.. 1 night to clear on 16 NiM, 2nd night trying it (first time with 16) we did it under 1 hour for "the Infernal"

 

Oh ya... and KP took two days... we only had 14 the first day, so we went back with 16 and one shot Fabricator, Karagga... sorry to burst your bubble that our late clear on 16 = more "we're bored with 8's, let's see how hard these 16's are".

 

But grats on being another guild who raids 3-4 days/week for 3-4 hours/night and pretty much gets stuck And I like your claim of 'we cleared everything in 1 night' .. when that's so not true. But good job convincing yourself of your 1 night nightmare clears first time seeing them. When it's still taking you 2 hours to clear EV NiM .. on 16.. well, that's just sad.

 

Go pretend you're pro somewhere else. Non-baddies know how to avoid fire AND your B.S. Maybe your guild will still think you're cool.

 

And has been said.. multiple times in this thread... facts have presented that 8 is harder. Your only counter has been 'nuh-uh, we suck, so we MAKE 16 harder... so ner'. Not exactly the best way to prove your point.

 

You're bashing 16man... yet you haven't even cleared all the content yet? My alts have the unyielding and the infernal from 16man... 3 weeks ago. You just went 10/10 Nightmare 3 days ago. Congrats.

 

And MY guild does both timed runs on Tuesdays and leaves the rest of the week to farm 8man nightmare on alts. 8man is definitely easier. DEFINITELY. The reason you go into 16man and think its 'oh wow lol so easy' is because you had already cleared it all on 8man. Guess what, the fights DONT change. Nothing changes. Its the same damn strat for every boss fight... so all you did was IMPROVE yourselves. That is why things seemed easier for you.

 

All the current progression lists include 16man ONLY. All the top end guilds raid 16mans only. You can't use yourselves as a top end 8man guild because you only just cleared content a few days ago, months behind everyone else.

 

So yeah, obviously you don't understand anything. Going into content on 16man and learning it then is a lot harder than 8man. Going into 16man and saying its easy after knowing all the strats and being geared makes all of your points moot and pretty much laughable.

 

Nice logic there kid.

[Sebasaurus]

You're bashing 16man... yet you haven't even cleared all the content yet? My alts have the unyielding and the infernal from 16man... 3 weeks ago. You just went 10/10 Nightmare 3 days ago. Congrats.

 

And MY guild does both timed runs on Tuesdays and leaves the rest of the week to farm 8man nightmare on alts. 8man is definitely easier. DEFINITELY. The reason you go into 16man and think its 'oh wow lol so easy' is because you had already cleared it all on 8man. Guess what, the fights DONT change. Nothing changes. Its the same damn strat for every boss fight... so all you did was IMPROVE yourselves. That is why things seemed easier for you.

 

All the current progression lists include 16man ONLY. All the top end guilds raid 16mans only. You can't use yourselves as a top end 8man guild because you only just cleared content a few days ago, months behind everyone else.

 

So yeah, obviously you don't understand anything. Going into content on 16man and learning it then is a lot harder than 8man. Going into 16man and saying its easy after knowing all the strats and being geared makes all of your points moot and pretty much laughable.

 

Nice logic there kid.

 

Lets be honest. This tier was easy. There's nothing challenging at all. And how do you define top end guilds? every guild that has everything full cleared and the titles can be considered one.

[Kagato_Muyo]

Lets be honest. This tier was easy. There's nothing challenging at all. And how do you define top end guilds? every guild that has everything full cleared and the titles can be considered one.

 

 

From a healer's point of view 16man is more difficult than 8man NM - yes, we have titles and clear in a day - whoopdy doo. It's easier for "fails" to be carried in 16man than it is in an 8man - only thing we have to go on is who pulls threat the most since we don't have any DPS meters.

 

Having done 40man then later 10/25 WoW raids, EQ, Eve fleets, and DC:U (lol) - Swtor OP's are by far the most fun and challenging, imo - especially when you've taken down Soa and Karagga while they were both full of bugs/glitches. Remember? before the chest spawned, I'm sure you remember..

[Inzi]

16 is more difficult than 8 man overall. Some fights in 8 man are more difficult for reasons like ball to person ratio on Soa. That being said:

 

NONE OF THEM ARE ACTUALLY HARD.

 

To Mr. Math: There are plenty of "spreadsheeters" out there with amazing math like yours. If 8man requires 1200 dps per person, and 16man requires 1000 dps per person... to hit an enrage... you're missing the point.

 

1) If you're at the enrage timer you're doing it wrong in the first place.

2) Average person's dps should be around 1800 dps right now, we're seeing some a good deal higher. We figured this out using math.

3) Raw dps is rarely the reason you "win" a fight.

 

Here's how I can tell you that 16 man is harder than 8 man:

 

Health bars stay the same--average person has say 18k health. Abilities in 16 man tend to hit twice as many people... for usually 1.5-2 times as much dmg. You have twice as many healers in 16 man so here's some basic math:

 

2 times people x 2 times dmg = 4 times deficit health / 2 times as many healers = 2 times as much healing throughput required per healer. THIS is why 16 man is harder. Because you can't afford to take as much avoidable dmg. The healers simply can't heal you hard or fast enough to keep up with stupid.

 

TL;DR: 8man has a higher margin for idiocy on most fights. This is why 8man is easier.

 

Case Example: My guild cleared 8man Nightmare KP in 2.25 hours THE DAY IT CAME OUT. We took 4 raid nights to clear 16 man, most of this time was spent on Jarg & Sorno whose rail shot would like to laugh at 8man's version of the mechanic.

[Acri]

All operations and every boss are easy across every setting: 8 man, 16 man, normal, hard, or nightmare.

 

Everything should be buffed in nightmare.