End Game Woes & the LFG Tool without an iLvL ?

[maelstromicus]

Ok, so I doubt if I'm in a complete minority of one here but I have some serious problems with enjoying the game any more.

 

We're a small guild. I mean very small. It's that way on purpose because we got fed up with inane chatter, and just wanted to enjoy each others company and playing/chatting without the more juvenile element. We're happy with the members of our little band. We always have room for more, but we're very selective.

 

However, we all have level 50's. Some of us have more than one Col/Rak geared 50 in various roles from Tank, Healer to dps.

 

We wanted a tool that would enable us to start off with our party of 3-5 people all decently geared and find maybe the other balance of people to do HM OP's with. We wanted a tool that would make sure that their level of gearing was not dissimilar to ours, and therefore give us a reasonable expectation of their skill levels.

 

We're all bitterly disappointed with what the LFG tool gives us. We don't need to do any more HM FP's, level 1 or 2. If your toon is already geared past that point, then what is the point of running more. What else can we do? Well, we could always run yet more dailies for tokens that we no longer need. We could put out shouts in Gen Chat for the missing people for raiding, which as we all know is a thankless task. Perhaps we could make yet more alts, level them to 50, gear them up & then get fed up again.

 

What is so complicated about introducing the HM end game content into the LFG tool, but tie it in with an iLvL system? We all already wear gear that contains an average iLvL, if it's orange then it's the mean of the lvl of the mods/enh's, armouring etc. Surely it's a simple database function and some programming to use that as a filter in the LFG tool.

 

There should already be some sort of iLvL system there anyway. Those of us that use the LFG tool just to get BH comm's on our dailies surely must have come across the scenario of having a pug tank in group who has less HP than our DPS or Healer? or 2/4 people all wearing Col/Rak gear, and the other 2 wearing oranges with 51/52 mods in, tio's and green gear? Newer players not spacebar'ing past chat screens because it's all new to them on a BT/BP/Fou etc run that we've all done countless times. Let the newer players at 50 play with each other via an iLvL system, and us older geared up cynics blast through FP's that bore us in double quick time.

 

I fail to see why those of us in small guilds should be forced to abandon our merry bands and join the few larger guilds that raid simply to do end game content. We don't want to be a part of a bunch of people who we may not have anything in common with simply to do that. It's not equal the way that things are set up at the moment, and yet we all pay the same amount monthly. Surely with the decline in subscription levels, you guys want to keep the loyal players that you do have?

 

Personally, I think that introducing some sort of gear level requirements & putting the end game content into the LFG tool is the only thing that is going to prevent a lot of us from unsubbing, and maybe save this game. As things are going at the moment I'm very close to unsubbing myself which is a huge shame as I love this game and the potential that is has for the future. I really want to continue to sub and play, but FFS give me something to do on my 50's apart from running dailies & daily FP grinding.

 

Apologies for the rant. Needed to get it off my chest and also see if anyone else feels the same.

[Baphomet_x]

Ok, so I doubt if I'm in a complete minority of one here but I have some serious problems with enjoying the game any more.

 

We're a small guild. I mean very small. It's that way on purpose because we got fed up with inane chatter, and just wanted to enjoy each others company and playing/chatting without the more juvenile element. We're happy with the members of our little band. We always have room for more, but we're very selective.

 

However, we all have level 50's. Some of us have more than one Col/Rak geared 50 in various roles from Tank, Healer to dps.

 

We wanted a tool that would enable us to start off with our party of 3-5 people all decently geared and find maybe the other balance of people to do HM OP's with. We wanted a tool that would make sure that their level of gearing was not dissimilar to ours, and therefore give us a reasonable expectation of their skill levels.

 

We're all bitterly disappointed with what the LFG tool gives us. We don't need to do any more HM FP's, level 1 or 2. If your toon is already geared past that point, then what is the point of running more. What else can we do? Well, we could always run yet more dailies for tokens that we no longer need. We could put out shouts in Gen Chat for the missing people for raiding, which as we all know is a thankless task. Perhaps we could make yet more alts, level them to 50, gear them up & then get fed up again.

 

What is so complicated about introducing the HM end game content into the LFG tool, but tie it in with an iLvL system? We all already wear gear that contains an average iLvL, if it's orange then it's the mean of the lvl of the mods/enh's, armouring etc. Surely it's a simple database function and some programming to use that as a filter in the LFG tool.

 

There should already be some sort of iLvL system there anyway. Those of us that use the LFG tool just to get BH comm's on our dailies surely must have come across the scenario of having a pug tank in group who has less HP than our DPS or Healer? or 2/4 people all wearing Col/Rak gear, and the other 2 wearing oranges with 51/52 mods in, tio's and green gear? Newer players not spacebar'ing past chat screens because it's all new to them on a BT/BP/Fou etc run that we've all done countless times. Let the newer players at 50 play with each other via an iLvL system, and us older geared up cynics blast through FP's that bore us in double quick time.

 

I fail to see why those of us in small guilds should be forced to abandon our merry bands and join the few larger guilds that raid simply to do end game content. We don't want to be a part of a bunch of people who we may not have anything in common with simply to do that. It's not equal the way that things are set up at the moment, and yet we all pay the same amount monthly. Surely with the decline in subscription levels, you guys want to keep the loyal players that you do have?

 

Personally, I think that introducing some sort of gear level requirements & putting the end game content into the LFG tool is the only thing that is going to prevent a lot of us from unsubbing, and maybe save this game. As things are going at the moment I'm very close to unsubbing myself which is a huge shame as I love this game and the potential that is has for the future. I really want to continue to sub and play, but FFS give me something to do on my 50's apart from running dailies & daily FP grinding.

 

Apologies for the rant. Needed to get it off my chest and also see if anyone else feels the same.

 

you touch off on a good point...we need a gear filter....pro goes with pro man >.>

[Delorae]

INDEED they need to add some gear requirments for the LFG HMs!

The last group I had, there was a dps assassin with lvl 35-40 gear! 10k health ***..

We wiped on HK-47 in foundry because he enraged >_>

I didn't even know HK had an enrage lol.

 

I think players should have to do some gear preparation before they run into HMs.

Normal modes are there for a reason. Stop torturing your fellow gamers and gear your toon up in lvl 50 gear at least o.o

[Skidrowbro]

Yes, we need something to exclude others from enjoying the game with us and not helping them out. Please make it happen Bioware

[maelstromicus]

INDEED they need to add some gear requirments for the LFG HMs!

The last group I had, there was a dps assassin with lvl 35-40 gear! 10k health ***..

We wiped on HK-47 in foundry because he enraged >_>

I didn't even know HK had an enrage lol.

 

I think players should have to do some gear preparation before they run into HMs.

Normal modes are there for a reason. Stop torturing your fellow gamers and gear your toon up in lvl 50 gear at least o.o

 

Now, that is extreme. I feel your pain old chap.

[Marak]

Yes, we need something to exclude others from enjoying the game with us and not helping them out. Please make it happen Bioware

 

You don't put a 1st grader in an 8th grade Mathletes competition.

[monkgryphon]

You don't put a 1st grader in an 8th grade Mathletes competition.

 

What if that first grader is a really smart prodigy? It's actually a good analogy.

 

A first grader that knows what he's doing with limited experience and supplies will do a lot better than an 8th grader with a few more years of experience and better supplies yet not knowing what he is doing.

 

Bad players will be bad, regardless of their gear.

Edited July 8, 2012 by monkgryphon

[Skirata_Kal]

Yes, we need something to exclude others from enjoying the game with us and not helping them out. Please make it happen Bioware

 

Oh my! This is the second time in about a month that Skid and I agree on something....I'm getting worried!

[Abradax]

What if that first grader is a really smart prodigy? It's actually a good analogy.

 

A first grader that knows what he's doing with limited experience and supplies will do a lot better than an 8th grader with a few more years of experience and supplies yet not knowing what he is doing.

 

Fine, you don't ask a carpenter to build you a house with fisher price tools

[Marak]

What if that first grader is a really smart prodigy? It's actually a good analogy.

 

A first grader that knows what he's doing with limited experience and supplies will do a lot better than an 8th grader with a few more years of experience and supplies yet not knowing what he is doing.

 

Bad players will be bad, regardless of their gear.

 

While true, MMOs are more finitely coded. Enrage timers are in X minutes and everyone needs to average Y DPS. It's just not practical to bring a freshly geared 50 into HM LI because you are expecting your other DPS to be outrageously overgeared.

[monkgryphon]

Fine, you don't ask a carpenter to build you a house with fisher price tools

 

Unless he can do it. I mean, I can probably make a Bird House out of fisher price tools.

[monkgryphon]

While true, MMOs are more finitely coded. Enrage timers are in X minutes and everyone needs to average Y DPS. It's just not practical to bring a freshly geared 50 into HM LI because you are expecting your other DPS to be outrageously overgeared.

 

When my Operative Healer hit 50, I barely had any time doing dailies to get my orange gear better, but was still invited into a HM LI and completed just fine. We even had a fresh 50 tank.

 

Also a lot of DPS is still skill required. However the player placed his skill points, and what sort of sequence of attacks they use. So there is still, bad players will still be bad players.

Edited July 8, 2012 by monkgryphon

[Marak]

When my Operative Healer hit 50, I barely had any time doing dailies to get my orange gear better, but was still invited into a HM LI and completed just fine. We even had a fresh 50 tank.

 

And how geared was the rest of the party? 22k+ health, I imagine. And you still probably wiped a few times.

 

That's not the norm. The norm is tionese/columi geared.

 

And healing is different than DPS. DPS is linear. Healing is not. Enrage timers will hit you if you don't beat them.

Edited July 8, 2012 by Marak

[monkgryphon]

And how geared was the rest of the party? 22k+ health, I imagine. And you still probably wiped a few times.

 

That's not the norm. The norm is tionese/columi geared.

 

The norm is only what you want it to be, and I don't think gearscoring will change much. People will just be sitting in Queues longer if there was a certain score requirement option added.

 

As far as I knew, this game was more casual. So you'll definitely be waiting longer.

Edited July 8, 2012 by monkgryphon

[Marak]

The norm is only what you want it to be, and I don't think gearscoring will change much. People will just be sitting in Queues longer if there was a certain score requirement option added.

 

That's not how averages work and with the LFG tool you have to assume averages.

 

Expecting to be carried is fine if you put your own groups together and pick people to carry you. Being tossed randomly into a group of other people means you have geared people and undergeared people, thus an average.

 

It's simply not possible to do HM LI with the average being "fresh 50s" geared.

[monkgryphon]

That's not how averages work and with the LFG tool you have to assume averages.

 

Expecting to be carried is fine if you put your own groups together and pick people to carry you. Being tossed randomly into a group of other people means you have geared people and undergeared people, thus an average.

 

It's simply not possible to do HM LI with the average being "fresh 50s" geared.

 

Couldn't the average be unbalanced though? One person could easily have the top end score, to offset the average enough from 3 lower ends, and still create a group not so great for what you want to tackle. I'm not really going to argue that 4 ungeared people should be able to do certain things, it's just that Gearscoring wont really help, and it is not foolproof. Communication goes a long way, and the current LFG system is still not quite good enough.

 

The OP wants to play with his small guild for OPs, but doesn't want to wait for them to get the gear like him... that just seems selfish.

Edited July 8, 2012 by monkgryphon

[Gungan]

Fortunately, I haven't had any issues with being grouped with people who were undergeared for the content.

 

I've had a couple of instances where a couple people were pretty awful though.

[Skirata_Kal]

Despite what I said earlier, I do agree that HM LI would be VERY difficult for a group of new 50's (if not darn near impossible). Especially if both dps are melee against LR5. In fact, I wonder what Sniper/Gunslingers do on those fights (neither of mine are 50 yet), since that fight requires mobility yet their best attacks are from cover and the enrage timer on that boss isn't very forgiving.

[Grayseven]

Do you really need a gear score? Isn't it just as easy to glance at their gear and see what they have?

 

A quick insect of the characters you invite in should give you all the information you need about gear.

[Gungan]

Despite what I said earlier, I do agree that HM LI would be VERY difficult for a group of new 50's (if not darn near impossible). Especially if both dps are melee against LR5. In fact, I wonder what Sniper/Gunslingers do on those fights (neither of mine are 50 yet), since that fight requires mobility yet their best attacks are from cover and the enrage timer on that boss isn't very forgiving.

 

They're fine. You don't have to move that often.

[Marak]

Couldn't the average be unbalanced though? One person could easily have the top end score, to offset the average enough from 3 lower ends, and still create a group not so great for what you want to tackle. I'm not really going to argue that 4 ungeared people should be able to do certain things, it's just that Gearscoring wont really help, and it is not foolproof. Communication goes a long way, and the current LFG system is still not quite good enough.

 

The OP wants to play with his small guild for OPs, but doesn't want to wait for them to get the gear like him... that just seems selfish.

 

Maybe that's the compromise. Make a group gearscore. I personally have no problem carrying people if it's doable and I'm on one of my geared characters. But if I'm on a fresh 50 and everyone else is a fresh 50.. I have no expectation that the group should succeed.

[Skidrowbro]

But if I'm on a fresh 50 and everyone else is a fresh 50.. I have no expectation that the group should succeed.

 

You mean how everyone was at one point. Wipe after wipe until they got the gear needed to succeed and now people want to blacklist them? Look, if you want a flawless run to get your precious comms, don't use the tool.

Edited July 8, 2012 by Skidrowbro

[Marak]

You mean how everyone was at one point. Wipe after wipe until they got the gear needed to succeed and now people want to blacklist them?

 

No one is blacklisting anyone. We're not talking about normal HMs here. We're talking about Tier 2 HMs. One should be expected to have obtained Tier 1 gear before going into Tier 2. It's the only reasonable expectation.

[Skidrowbro]

No one is blacklisting anyone. We're not talking about normal HMs here. We're talking about Tier 2 HMs. One should be expected to have obtained Tier 1 gear before going into Tier 2. It's the only reasonable expectation.

 

Yes I do agree with you on that, and my mistake. A fresh 50 should not be able to queue for a T2 but the onus is on Bioware for rushing their LFG tool before the exodus happened

Edited July 8, 2012 by Skidrowbro

[Tsillah]

Yes, we need something to exclude others from enjoying the game with us and not helping them out. Please make it happen Bioware

 

Except that when these others are enjoying themselves, we are not. So why do you feel that the people who actually do their best to gear up should be punished so that others can have fun?

 

 

And a little sidenote: Do people realise that it's probably easier to get BH stuff now than Rakata.

 

We end up with hundres of useless tionese crystals/commendations, I have a couple hundred columi commendations and I have 4 BH items, but other than my crafted ones and the earpiece, I only ever had one Rakata drop on my main. I now have a mix of Columi, Rakata and BH and all because I haven't been able to do much HM Ops yet. I upgraded my off hand from tionese to BH because that was the easiest. Sense it makes none.

 

Gear progression should make more sense on various levels and the LFG tool needs more options and a better reward system.

 

I don't see how a 20-minute BT HM gets the same reward as 2.5 hours of mucking about with people in SM EV because the all of the DPS were undergeared...exaggeration? Nope, I had that experience tonight thank you very much.