We need HM FPs to mean something for people that have gear

[Darianth]

As is stands right now there is no one with even a full set of columi gear to run a HM FP. I think the dalies should award daily comms and the columi comms.

 

It is only hurting FP participation because really no one has a reason to run them unless gearing a companion

 

Either make it with dailies or another incentive is to add the grade 7 crafting materials as a loot drop. Id be happy with that personally.

[illgot]

Here is a reason...

 

run the instance, get the columi gear, take the mods out, put it in orange legacy gear, mail that gear to your alt so when they hit 50 they are starting out with columi/rakata level mods.

 

works great for PvP mods as well.

Edited May 9, 2012 by illgot

[MasterKayote]

Well, they plan to add extra rewards for joining a random group with the 1.3 LFG tool (according to the podcast). Seems to give people in WoW incentive to group. /shrug

 

I do agree OP it seems odd that even on servers with 100+ players hanging around the fleet all the time, most of them level 50, it'd be so difficult to find groups. I definitely think one of the main problems is simply that people dont want to group. In WoW I constantly got players that are way over geared for HMs yet, there they are joining runs to do them.

 

So why? Maybe because I am able to run dailies, solo, get myself some excellent mods from daily vendors or buy the rest off the GTN with the crazy credits I make? Maybe because once I win my Columi chestpiece from HM False Emperor, there is really no reason to run it ever again? All other gear in HM's is horrible, no reason at all, this splits the community up further. Is there gear I can buy for my lower level alts? Yeah sure, incredibly expensive daily commendation ones that doesnt level up with the toon, which is fine, just pointing it out its separated from running instances.

 

Kudos on bringing up yet another problem with grouping in SWTOR, there is no incentive to do so.

[Sirsri]

The HM Flashpoints vary widely in difficulty. A random LFG tool would just aggravate people ("oh, I got HM Lost Island instead of HM BT?!?"...rage quit/logoff) And I just can't imagine awarding a BH token for running HM BT. This might be so outlandish, that I'd quit the game.

 

A better solution is to scale the reward for the heroic FP to the difficulty of the FP, and allow people to pick which challenge they feel comfortable with. Even better than WoW's random HM daily, IMO.

 

BT is the entry-level HM FP, but I'm afraid everyone used it over and over to get their Columni gear(ignoring harder instances), because it is so easy. So let BT stay as-is as far as reward tokens go, and scale higher rewards as the difficulty level of the instance goes up.

 

I wasn't necessarily suggesting a random LFG tool. But a random dungeon as the daily. With everyone having the same one. You need server infrastructure that can handle that though.

 

But yes, some of the FPs are time prohibitive, and some aren't and LI and Koan should probably have their own table table separately until they can be lol powered through.

 

I was more speaking to the general problems instances have, and how there are solutions. They could (and should) normalize some of the difficulty of the hardmodes so they are all roughly consistent in length, that would mean removing trash etc. But I think eliminating some of the running back would tighten up the experience a lot, in both operations and flashpoints, and from there balancing the time requirements would be easier.

[Mallorik]

I wasn't necessarily suggesting a random LFG tool. But a random dungeon as the daily. With everyone having the same one. You need server infrastructure that can handle that though.

 

But yes, some of the FPs are time prohibitive, and some aren't and LI and Koan should probably have their own table table separately until they can be lol powered through.

 

I was more speaking to the general problems instances have, and how there are solutions. They could (and should) normalize some of the difficulty of the hardmodes so they are all roughly consistent in length, that would mean removing trash etc. But I think eliminating some of the running back would tighten up the experience a lot, in both operations and flashpoints, and from there balancing the time requirements would be easier.

 

It does seem that they might understand this, they do have dailies for most hm's now and a new one for the 2 newest fps, and they said they will have rewards for using the random dungeon finder. But the rewards are still meh, they arent enough, the only reason i have ever done any is out of shear boredom and i havent done any of them in ages.

[Mallorik]

I cant believe they just hid this in the flash points section, seems like they are starting to try to hide stuff from the general board.

[Sirsri]

 

Everyone on these forums keeps shouting that all the PvE content is too easy, when the reality of it is that Bioware keeps missing the 'sweet spot'. The early stuff is entirely too easy, and the newer content being introduced is entirely too difficult.

 

I'm not convinced it's actually that much harder mathematically. It's that BioWare didn't provide us tools to figure it out, and so I end up arguing ad nauseum with spreadsheets and simulation tools about how to play the game with some of my guilds under performing players. When you go into denova and have 3 dps doing 1000-1200 dps per fight and one doing 700 it's clear who's doing it wrong, or at least, we think it is, assuming the logs are right and giving the correct info, and allowing for us to adjust for spec capabilities on a given fight etc. story mode EV was easy only because you could walk in with crafted gear, if you went in with blue gear it was probably as hard as denova story mode is.

 

It's BioWare's job to teach you how to play their game and give you the tools to asses if you're doing it properly, not some guy at the memories of xendor desktop raid parser site or MMO mechanics or simucraft the like. This 'community driven learning' that wow has is fine, in wow, because no one really had the info as well presented before wow (though EQ certainly had a theorycrafting community), and the community has both the critical mass to sustain itself and their own styles. But the bar has been raised and relying on the community to do it is the wrong approach when so many players are used to that information being given to them, and given to them correctly the moment a patch hits.

 

But yes, I agree, they seem to be struggling finding what they're trying to tune for. I think that's because there's a big spread between people who found correct theorycrafting (or did their own) and do that, versus people who are making a best guess. Being a biochemist and having access to free adrenals and stims makes a huge difference etc. And it's taken until really the last week or two to see decent log analysis tools that just about anyone can be told how to use so that we can start trying to improve. Where the difference between two people in identical gear with the same tree chosen should be very small (on the order of 10 or 15%) I bet it's a factor of 2. I know even me the first time I hit meters on my main, in dps gear (assassin madness) I pulled 1063, I did 1100 even as deception and I did 1106 on my alt in healing gear but with a dps spec. So clearly I had been doing something wrong (the fact that dummies can't ever be assassinated because they don't drop below 30% health hurts too).

[Ganrax]

They just need to slap on 4-6 Blackhole Commendations to the Hardmode Flashpoint Weekly and extend the requirement to completing 4 or 5 Hardmodes. That will make people run them again and before anyone comes up with the bright idea that this would just be handing out free Blackhole Commendations, they already do that with the weekly quest for the Corellia dailies and all of those quests can be done with 1-2 people in about an hour or less. I haven't needed Hardmodes for months but I still run them from time to time because I'm bored but I haven't seen more than 1-2 pugs a week lately so people absolutely do need an incentive to run them and this should be enough.

[Rashne]

Agree 100000%. I have no, zero, zilch nada reason to run the daily hm FPs on my main, a Rakata geared shadow tank. If I had incentive, like daily comms or if we could use the Tionese/Columi comms for something useful I would run it. I'm not suggesting a whole new set of gear but something like mats or other cool stuff.

 

I am looking forward to the group finder for my alts, but once they are geared, I'll be in the same boat again.

[Mustelidaen]

They just need to slap on 4-6 Blackhole Commendations to the Hardmode Flashpoint Weekly and extend the requirement to completing 4 or 5 Hardmodes. That will make people run them again and before anyone comes up with the bright idea that this would just be handing out free Blackhole Commendations, they already do that with the weekly quest for the Corellia dailies and all of those quests can be done with 1-2 people in about an hour or less. I haven't needed Hardmodes for months but I still run them from time to time because I'm bored but I haven't seen more than 1-2 pugs a week lately so people absolutely do need an incentive to run them and this should be enough.

 

Excellent idea! But I still cringe at the idea of people doing 5 HM BTs to get BH tokens...how can we break this "quick BT HM addiction" which is boring people silly?

 

Idea: To fix this, make the HM FP weekly require 4-5 DIFFERENT FPs to complete. THAT would get people in the groove for doing the gamut of them, and prevent boredom. Wow, I have to say this is a great idea--and easy to put in.

 

I bow to you for this great idea (with my addition). Now let's see if Bioware has the savvy to put this feature in--quickly.

Edited May 9, 2012 by Mustelidaen

[Ismercu]

Just add in a FP finder and I'm sure people will do HM's even if there is no benefit. I have 50's in 2 servers 1 dead 1 alive and im saying no one wants to sit in fleet and form groups, just know that forums are like a 5% of the game and the dedicated players still playing this game want a FP finder. bye.

[goatfoam]

I think that the HM flashpoints should not only award Daily Comms but also more crafting items, more social points, more cosmetic items (mounts, pets, gear) and more credits. If people wanted to run the flashpoints, even without a dungeon finder they'd find a way to run them. People ran them easily enough on LotRO before it went F2P despite having a total subscription base of about 200k, because even when you were raiding there was value in running the other content. In SWTOR, people don't run the content because there's no point once you're at a certain stage (that takes barely any time at all to reach). The dungeon finder won't solve that issue.

 

Once that issue is solved, then add a dungeon finder, by all means. Yes they make it easy to group up. But first give people a reason to want to group up. The key is to make running flashpoints profitable, in a variety of ways, to everybody. Even when they're decked out in the Campaign set.

Edited May 9, 2012 by goatfoam

[Mustelidaen]

Just add in a FP finder and I'm sure people will do HM's even if there is no benefit. I have 50's in 2 servers 1 dead 1 alive and im saying no one wants to sit in fleet and form groups, just know that forums are like a 5% of the game and the dedicated players still playing this game want a FP finder. bye.

 

I, for one, don't want to do HM FPs with no reward.

 

I'm pretty sure an FP finder won't do it by itself. People need the carrot--I've discussed this on several threads and that is the consensus. That's why WoW works and SWTOR doesn't right now. Blizzard/WoW gives just enough carrot in the HM daily. Bioware/SWTOR does not.

 

As for your (claim of) 5% who use these forums. Beyond these forums, people in my guild like the idea of more token incentive for the HM FP dailies--a lot.

Edited May 9, 2012 by Mustelidaen

[Mustelidaen]

I think that the HM flashpoints should not only award Daily Comms but also more crafting items, more social points, more cosmetic items (mounts, pets, gear) and more credits. If people wanted to run the flashpoints, even without a dungeon finder they'd find a way to run them. People ran them easily enough on LotRO before it went F2P despite having a total subscription base of about 200k, because even when you were raiding there was value in running the other content. In SWTOR, people don't run the content because there's no point once you're at a certain stage (that takes barely any time at all to reach). The dungeon finder won't solve that issue.

 

Once that issue is solved, then add a dungeon finder, by all means. Yes they make it easy to group up. But first give people a reason to want to group up. The key is to make running flashpoints profitable, in a variety of ways, to everybody. Even when they're decked out in the Campaign set.

 

Great idea! So for the HM FP weekly quest reward (see above posts), you could choose one of:

Rakata tokens

BH tokens

Social points

Money

A very high-quality lockbox with an item in it

Legacy points

Daily comms

etc.

 

I vote this idea "the quickest, easiest, most fun" way to fix SWTOR that anyone has thought up.

Edited May 10, 2012 by Mustelidaen

[gpwarner]

Not sure if this has been suggested, but I think they just need to add a Nightmare level difficulty to Flashpoints. Just tune them up a bit, and have each boss drop Rakata gear and maybe a black hole commendation or two. Then have a daily / weekly that gives you a few more black hole commendations.

[Lymain]

It's BioWare's job to teach you how to play their game and give you the tools to asses if you're doing it properly, not some guy at the memories of xendor desktop raid parser site or MMO mechanics or simucraft the like. This 'community driven learning' that wow has is fine, in wow, because no one really had the info as well presented before wow (though EQ certainly had a theorycrafting community), and the community has both the critical mass to sustain itself and their own styles. But the bar has been raised and relying on the community to do it is the wrong approach when so many players are used to that information being given to them, and given to them correctly the moment a patch hits.

 

But yes, I agree, they seem to be struggling finding what they're trying to tune for. I think that's because there's a big spread between people who found correct theorycrafting (or did their own) and do that, versus people who are making a best guess. Being a biochemist and having access to free adrenals and stims makes a huge difference etc. And it's taken until really the last week or two to see decent log analysis tools that just about anyone can be told how to use so that we can start trying to improve. Where the difference between two people in identical gear with the same tree chosen should be very small (on the order of 10 or 15%) I bet it's a factor of 2. I know even me the first time I hit meters on my main, in dps gear (assassin madness) I pulled 1063, I did 1100 even as deception and I did 1106 on my alt in healing gear but with a dps spec. So clearly I had been doing something wrong (the fact that dummies can't ever be assassinated because they don't drop below 30% health hurts too).

 

Interesting perspective, but clearly Bioware doesn't care about that, since they can't even get their basic tooltips working correctly

 

But, hypothetically speaking, I wonder if listing the damage per activation/channeling time and the damage per resource cost in tooltips would help at all.

Edited May 10, 2012 by Lymain

[Mustelidaen]

Not sure if this has been suggested, but I think they just need to add a Nightmare level difficulty to Flashpoints. Just tune them up a bit, and have each boss drop Rakata gear and maybe a black hole commendation or two. Then have a daily / weekly that gives you a few more black hole commendations.

 

Good idea, but a lot of developer time. This game appears to be in a downward spiral in need of a quick fix.

[Xarielle]

The reward for doing a Daily HM should be a choice of 2BH/6Columi and 5 Daily Commendations.

[TheRealCandyMan]

The reward for doing a Daily HM should be a choice of 2BH/6Columi and 5 Daily Commendations.

 

Seriously? The current HM flashpoints are meant to get you geared for tier 1 raids, excluding HM LI. Why in the world should the HM flashpoints drop BH tokens so you can get tier 2 stuff?

[Xarielle]

Seriously? The current HM flashpoints are meant to get you geared for tier 1 raids, excluding HM LI. Why in the world should the HM flashpoints drop BH tokens so you can get tier 2 stuff?

 

Important thing about MMO design is to keep people playing as long as possible. By adding no incentive for people who don't need the gear anymore create huge dead zones which affect the community negatively. The fact that you can start raiding without ever stepping into a HM FP makes them barely relevant as is.

[Mustelidaen]

Seriously? The current HM flashpoints are meant to get you geared for tier 1 raids, excluding HM LI. Why in the world should the HM flashpoints drop BH tokens so you can get tier 2 stuff?

 

You haven't read the whole thread. Incidentally, your point is moot--you can already get 6 BH tokens per week through simple dailies that take less than 2 hours total.

 

Do you understand why WoW works so well, and SWTOR is having problems? Go back and read this thread, and heck a bunch of the other main discussion threads about this game. Next, talk to someone with background in marketing. After that, talk to someone with background in economics. Finally, talk to someone with a background in psychology.

 

I know I'm asking a lot, but you are seeing this only through a narrow tunnel vision.

 

We want SWTOR to prosper, and that depends on elements of marketing and economics and psychology even more now than cranking out new software releases. In their respective MMO games, it's elements of marketing and economics and psychology which Blizzard has mastered, and Bioware has not.

 

In simple terms, Blizzard knows where to set the carrot at the end of the stick, and Bioware doesn't.

 

If this all sounds incomprehensible to you, flip back to whatever computer game you are playing and forget about it.

Edited May 10, 2012 by Mustelidaen

[Mustelidaen]

The reward for doing a Daily HM should be a choice of 2BH/6Columi and 5 Daily Commendations.

 

That seems too generous a reward.

 

The idea was to give a reward for the Heroic FP WEEKLY (you have to do several heroics), including the reward option (among others) of a few BH tokens. However, to prevent people from going into "LFG QUICK BT frenzies" to meet the Heroic FP weekly requirement (and boring themselves to death in the process), it was suggested that the requirement would be to do several DIFFERENT heroics for the weekly.

 

I can see I am going to have to write this all up as a formal request to the SWTOR suggestion box, thanking all the contributors to the idea.

[qwinnet]

The disconnect is not just at L50 but when leveling. The gear drops from questing are as good as the ones from the FPs, except for the first couple of FPs. Here are my wishes for FPs:

- Except for the highest levels, reduce the time it takes to complete by 30% - 50%. You shouldn't be able to complete an Op faster than an FP. The highest level FPs should still be tough and take time/effort.

- Provide hard to obtain stuff like relics, off-hands, bracers, belts, recipe drops, really nice mods.

- Create challenging acheivements with some reward like a title or mount for really tough compliations. This alone would be a reason for many geared players to do FPs on off-raiding nights.

[alifaraaz]

agree something similar to what WoW has/did would be good:

 

- Daily FP is random. Not just 'any' FP, because thats why people just grind the **** out of BT all the time. Atleast this way people will be grouping to do all the other FP's more often.

- Weekly FP, could either keep it as it is or make it 3 DIFFERENT FP's per week., but choice of reward: Current columi comms, or like 6 BH comms.

- Keep the Rakghoul one as is - that keeps KuS and LI busy.

 

I would think that alone would be enough incentive for most players to do Flashpoints more often. Along with this, add in rare <5% drop items from certain bosses, such as the speeder from FE Malgus.

 

The achievements quests are good incentive too, but its literally do them all once and job done. Atleast with the weekly rewards a choice of LOTS of Columi comms or a FEW BH comms, any raiders with free time will be doing FP's every week.

[Xarielle]

That seems too generous a reward.

 

The idea was to give a reward for the Heroic FP WEEKLY (you have to do several heroics), including the reward option (among others) of a few BH tokens. However, to prevent people from going into "LFG QUICK BT frenzies" to meet the Heroic FP weekly requirement (and boring themselves to death in the process), it was suggested that the requirement would be to do several DIFFERENT heroics for the weekly.

 

I can see I am going to have to write this all up as a formal request to the SWTOR suggestion box, thanking all the contributors to the idea.

 

2 BH Comms a day is hardly too generous given the price of the BH gear, there would be no HM FP weekly or the weekly would not give BH commendations or if the weekly gave BH commendations lower the daily to 1 commendation. The problem with a weekly quest is that it is weekly. Which means that as the week goes on it becomes increasing more difficult to find a group as many people will prefer just to do the weekly right after reset and be done with it then and there. To fix people spamming the shortest FPs the daily could be randomized ie "DAILY: False Emperor [HARD]". Balancing the rewards is important as you don't want people who can't play every day not being completely outgeared but at the same time you want to encourage people to want to log in every day.