Hardmode queue time!

[Mallorik]

Simple fix, give tanks and healers a reason to que. Don't give them extra coms or money. we don't need more dps who shouldn't be tanking or healing ruining groups. The rewards need to be something specific to tanking or healing to get people who want to heal and tank to que more.

 

I don't believe bad dps are the problem, theres been bad dps in mmos since the first mmos. And the ability to boot someone for being bad pretty much fixes the bad dps problem.

[Nempo]

Can I ask you guys what server you are on?

Since I see so many replies about this, or general flaming, and on my server (Red Eclipse) it's... quite different. Ask a question on the fleet? No one flames, you get half a dozen answers right away.

Just wondering if it's all tied to perhaps US-severs, or PvP-servers...?

 

I'm on the Ebon Hawk...questions on Imp Fleet tend to be answered quickly, and some obvious joke answers get thrown out after the correct ones (such as answering with 42).

On the flip side, Rep Fleet is littered with some of the worse trolls that ridicule people asking questions. It is rather polarizing and explains why so many are Imp side on this server (ok that and Imps tend to do the best PvP on the server).

[Nempo]

Simple fix, give tanks and healers a reason to que. Don't give them extra coms or money. we don't need more dps who shouldn't be tanking or healing ruining groups. The rewards need to be something specific to tanking or healing to get people who want to heal and tank to que more.

 

I don't believe bad dps are the problem, theres been bad dps in mmos since the first mmos. And the ability to boot someone for being bad pretty much fixes the bad dps problem.

 

Fix HM com gear for tanks and more would que as well.

[HelinCarnate]

I am not the type that would just leave a bad group. If a dps wants to pull, ignore tactics and generally mess things up, Ill vote kick them first. DPS are so easy to replace, I would rather try my luck with 1 replacement than start another FP and get 2 fresh new DPS.

[HelinCarnate]

I'm on the Ebon Hawk...questions on Imp Fleet tend to be answered quickly, and some obvious joke answers get thrown out after the correct ones (such as answering with 42).

On the flip side, Rep Fleet is littered with some of the worse trolls that ridicule people asking questions. It is rather polarizing and explains why so many are Imp side on this server (ok that and Imps tend to do the best PvP on the server).

 

It all depends on the question too. If its a simple question that you would know the answer to if you paid attention to the tutorials, prepare to be flamed and trolled. If its a complex question that is not easy to answer, people are generally more helpful.

[Einobi]

When is Bioware going to address this? It is silly that a DPS have to sit 30-45min in a queue for a hardmode, and 50% of the time the tank leave the party, and you have to requeue.

 

Yes the q time for dps is ridiculous. I joined fp q and wait and wait until the system log me out automatically due to inactivity. That is not the frustrating part. The frustrating part is you have to log in and join the fp q afresh AGAIN. Now when I am waiting in fp q, I make sure to move around to avoid afk status. How silly.

Edited December 4, 2013 by Einobi

[Mallorik]

Fix HM com gear for tanks and more would que as well.

 

That may help , but I think their reasoning behind the crappy com gear itemization is to make you farm more to piece together what you want, and to give people a reason to get ops gear. If com gear was perfect Tanks would have to do less flash points to get geared out , and have no reason to do ops.

 

And It would have zero effect for tanks like me, tanks most people would want in their groups. Experienced tanks that don't need any of the gear because they already have better, but also have no reason at all to do flash points.

[Lord_of_Mu]

That may help , but I think their reasoning behind the crappy com gear itemization is to make you farm more to piece together what you want, and to give people a reason to get ops gear. If com gear was perfect Tanks would have to do less flash points to get geared out , and have no reason to do ops.

 

And It would have zero effect for tanks like me, tanks most people would want in their groups. Experienced tanks that don't need any of the gear because they already have better, but also have no reason at all to do flash points.

 

Except none of the enhancements provided via comms are good. They're all loaded with endurance and short on the defensive stats. You have to wait for someone doing ops to learn how to make the medium balanced (Endurance vs secondary stat) enhancements before you can replace anything.

 

Which just leaves your mods and armorings to be acquired via flashpoints. After you collect your elite comm bonus, you have no reason to continue to queue because the cost of repairs takes away from your ability to purchase better enhancements.

[Jeweledleah]

Yes the q time for dps is ridiculous. I joined fp q and wait and wait until the system log me out automatically due to inactivity. That is not the frustrating part. The frustrating part is you have to log in and join the fp q afresh AGAIN. Now when I am waiting in fp q, I make sure to move around to avoid afk status. How silly.

 

why do you not do something else while you wait?

 

possibilities are many. you can do dailies, you can do crafting you can do your GTNing, you can chat with guildies, explore, play around with a target dummy, refining your rotation, play around with outfits. its amazing how shorter the wait gets when you are not figuratively watching paint dry.

 

to OP. if you play a tank and run several times a day and your guildies are plying tanks and run several times a day, why oh WHY don't you just trade places, so that you can tank for their dps character, then they can tank for your dps character and bam, all of you get to do what you want nice and quick, while playing with friends?

 

one would think it was an obvious solution?

 

Except none of the enhancements provided via comms are good. They're all loaded with endurance and short on the defensive stats. You have to wait for someone doing ops to learn how to make the medium balanced (Endurance vs secondary stat) enhancements before you can replace anything.

 

Which just leaves your mods and armorings to be acquired via flashpoints. After you collect your elite comm bonus, you have no reason to continue to queue because the cost of repairs takes away from your ability to purchase better enhancements.

 

also, what he said. there is no reason to keep pugging flashpoints for gear when nothing you can get through them is useful. neither coms, not actual gear drops. so yeah the reasoning (they want gearing to take longer, so that you pug more" kinda falls flat there. not to mention.... you could start operations in 66 gear. now that you get 69 gear through basic coms? what's the inducement to pug exactly? it takes too long, you may or may not end up with a good group, you WILL have repair bills even if you don't wipe.

Edited December 4, 2013 by Jeweledleah

[Mallorik]

Except none of the enhancements provided via comms are good. They're all loaded with endurance and short on the defensive stats. You have to wait for someone doing ops to learn how to make the medium balanced (Endurance vs secondary stat) enhancements before you can replace anything.

 

Which just leaves your mods and armorings to be acquired via flashpoints. After you collect your elite comm bonus, you have no reason to continue to queue because the cost of repairs takes away from your ability to purchase better enhancements.

 

So like I said, they need to figure out other insentives to get experienced tanks and healers to que more. giving them great gear only works until they don't need it anyomore, which is like a week in swtor.

Edited December 4, 2013 by Mallorik

[Fidelicatessen]

Exactly.

 

My point wasn't to give more rewards to tanks. My point is that DD's need to learn the absolute basics of how to behave and play properly in a flash point.

 

Maybe there should be a course with tests and stuff before they're allowed to queue. Now THAT would be a code enhancement worth its time in gold!

 

Interesting suggestion! In The Secret World, before you could actually enter any Nightmare Mode dungeons (The HM 55s of TSW), you had to defeat the Guardian. The Guardian had 3 different fights depending on whether your role was healing, tanking, or DPS. The tanking and healing fights required that you knew your role, but they were facerolls compared to the DPS fight. It ensured that everyone in NM mode at least knew how to play their role.

 

Perhaps they should gate 55 HMs this way? It would make it a TON easier on those of us who actually know how to play.

[Mallorik]

Exactly.

 

My point wasn't to give more rewards to tanks. My point is that DD's need to learn the absolute basics of how to behave and play properly in a flash point.

 

Maybe there should be a course with tests and stuff before they're allowed to queue. Now THAT would be a code enhancement worth its time in gold!

 

Ive suggested something like this before. Maybe a tiered certification system, you need to tank 10 lvl 50 fps's to tank a 50 hm, you need 10 lvl 50 hms to tank a lvl 55. same with heals and dps. Wouldn't weed out all of the idiots but it would teach the inexperienced some basics and make life easier in the end game hm's.

[Hassat-Hunter]

And annoy the crap out of you if you just send your alt full 72's... and have to pretty much solo those sm's since they aren't even in the GF anymore. No sollution.

 

To the person complaining gear op ops would be useless to tanks if elite/ultimate got fixed... *Set Bonus* 'Nuff said.

 

So really any more objections on why tanks should suffer even more needlessly in their gearing progression?

[Lord_of_Mu]

So like I said, they need to figure out other insentives to get experienced tanks and healers to que more. giving them great gear only works until they don't need it anyomore, which is like a week in swtor.

 

Offering additional rewards isn't going to prompt me to queue for more flashpoints once I reach my character goals. In fact I'll be switching in my dps alts which will increase the queue times.

 

I still think a solution to the flashpoint queue time issues lay with Companions.

[Brimmer]

When is Bioware going to address this? It is silly that a DPS have to sit 30-45min in a queue for a hardmode, and 50% of the time the tank leave the party, and you have to requeue.

 

Play a tank then. It's pretty much just a DPS that holds aggro. There is nothing for Bioware to address. It's your choice to be unwilling to solve your own problems.

[Hilberian]

I can only concur with my fellow Tanks and the Healers.

 

The majority of DPS is just sooo bad that I can understand every Tank and Healer if s/he does not want to pug anymore. DPS will:

- attack ahead of the tank, thus screwing up Tank's aggro and taking lots of damage, which the Healer has to deal with, straining their energy pool. And no, not all are doing it because they don't know better. Some will say "Sorry" and stop after being told, but other (usually Sents / Maras) will keep going, claiming it is because they can and that otherwise the FP will take ages, the hostile replies you get are just priceless.

- use Taunt if they have the option, completely ruining the tanks threat control, which in a fight where the Tank will need his Taunt for certain mechanic (f.e. the guy with the two dogs in Mando Raiders) might even wipe the group.

- queue up as tank or healer, just because they do not like to wait for a pop, but do not want to tank or heal either, so the whole group has to work harder because Mister DPS feels treated unfairly by the Groupfinder.

 

As an example, a run of Maelstrom Prison last night:

I Tanked and we had a capable Healer, but the DPS? Geezus! We needed 4 Replacement-Queueings, because they either just left the group without a word or because they were dumb and unresponsive. My favourite was a Balance Shadow that used Combat Technique and figured himself the groups Tank, taunting whenever it was off cooldown, using the 30m range of Force in Balance to attack before me, then scattering mobs with Force Wave, so I could run around and collect them again. After he taunted the guy with the Laser Eyes and stood still right in front of him to be two-shotted, I asked him what he was doing there? Got no reply. Of course. And he just kept doing it, when the whole group was following me around the room with the Inquisitors and Terentatek, who had to pull them? ...

He also started ninjaing stuff then and since I usually don't kick for stupidity I finally had a real reason.

 

Or another one, Athiss HM. Again me Tanking (Assassin), a Guildie as Healer, one capable DPS and one Assassin that was just so bad in all respects it was gross. He obviously used the tank tree for whatever reason and of course dropping bosses became a lot harder since he was doing no damage at all (he was also undergeared badly). We had to skip the Bonus boss, would never have worked. The best was, when he died from the ground aoe of the final boss, went to the med center to run back and managed to pull 2 (!!!) of the Sith Champions to us. Luckily by then the boss was dead and we could kill them still.

So, we revived him, which was a mistake. The boss had dropped a Tank-Assassin chest, which was really lovely for me. Yeah... the DPS felt it should belong to him for his invaluable work and ninjaed it. When I told him it was really a ****** behaviour his reply was: "I don't care, FP is over.", I tried to tell him again, and got basically: "Get a life!" Just in much more rude words, then he ignored me.

 

So please, dear DPS, tell me: If that is the kind of behaviour I can expect from the majority of you, why in the Emperor's name should I pug if I don't have to?

And also, if this is how the majority of you behaves if you find a group through the group finder, you can not honestly expect not to get onto every tanks and healers ignore list in a heartbeat. It is no wonder that you sit in queue for hours if no one wants to play with you. And rightfully so.

It has come so far that I already sigh deeply when I see that I got a Sent / Mara in my team because 8 out of 10 times they will jump ahead of you.

 

I have no idea why it is as it is. But it is an empirical fact that out of 10 DPS I get through the GF I should kick 7, I usually don't, but I should. This however does not account for all the DPS-Healers I encountered. That behaviour I do not tolerate and will kick the moment I notice it.

 

Now, a few gifts for Tanks signing up would be nice, but I fear this will only encourage more DPS to feel treated unfairly and queue as Tanks and ruin more FPs then they do already.

 

Conclusion:

The problem is not with the Groupfinder, the problem is that PUGs are a torment to play, and the majority of DPS do all they can to make it so, getting themselves on the Tanks and Healers ignore lists in the process. Meaning that unless that Tank and Healer ALWAYS queue together, that DPS has now TWO - THREE groups he won't be invited to. And with every run in which he shows that behaviour it will be more and more.

Now adding this to the high number of DPS in the game and you know why you have to wait so long for a pop. It is a pretty simple mechanic.

 

- A wall of text from a very frustrated Tank

[morfius]

The only thing I would say (and this is just my observation) is that there are a lot of superstar know-it-all SWTOR players who are complete jerks in FPs. IMO rather than crying like babies and leaving because of a bad DPS, take a moment to whisper to the problem DPS (or other) and explain the problem. I have done this many times and it almost always (95% of the time) works. I have found that bad DPS players are not normally doing it on purpose, they simply did not know good protocol. This applies to the concept of when to need, when to greed and when to pass. Just take a moment to explain and get everyone on the same page before the FP starts. Be a mature player and try to help someone. If they don't listen, then boot them from the team or leave the FP. It sure makes the game more enjoyable than to have so many people pi$$ing and moaning and complaining all the time about "bad" players. It takes only a minute to get everyone on the same page before the FP starts.

 

In other words, the only way to have better players on SWTOR Flashpoints is to help them be better players by educating them.

 

So I have to play to teach players not to have fun... someone forget that teacher is paid job.

There was mentoring systems in some games, maybe teaching is fun for someones, but to force it on all tanks and healers?

And please not mess education with manners, we could (and actually) explain strategy ... but is it ever sane expectation to teach each 2nd or 9th player what exactly basics of it's own class are, what exactly group play is, what is CC, what is kill order, why have to get this basic mob from healer & so on?

Because I have seen so much players (in all roles) that think they are good and miss core knowledge about their classes (tanks that try to chase every mob in pack and loose important ones or go for big one and forgot about others at all or miss where and how to use CDs, healers that don't know rotation and pool management and go out of resource on each battle or never try to act on known damage spikes or not using cleanses, but most of all - DPS not even know why they have interrupt skill and even not bind it)

So you hate to read so much than expect me to read it, to think about it and to give it to you in easy way?

And this on top that you expect me to perform much better (means I have learned my class, my stats, my role & so on) - so I already had to do my "homework" - same you not want to?

Guild members - may try to give framework and point to place to read about class and role, will explain strategy if have lead in group/OPs or explaining ones miss something important.

PUG?

Not going to happen...

[Jeweledleah]

Last i played WoW a couple of months ago queue time for a DPS prime time is 6-9min, in fact i don't think i have waited as long as 9, but my friends tells me thats about the time it takes now days. If there is a shortage of tanks and healers, the bonus system for them kicks in, and wolla! queue time is down by a lot. What you get is a loot box that can contain all sort of things.

 

I am kind a shocked to see the little acceptance that not everyone in this game are good players and some take longer to figure things out. I'd gladly spend time wiping because of a bad healer or a bad DPS to give them time to learn because there was a time where i was not a good player and did struggle a bit learning all the new things. And i bet all of you "pro" people was at some point just one of those people who did not know it all that someone else would ignore because you did a couple of mistakes.

 

I don't mind people who are still learning. vast majority of the time, I'll stick around and help them out. (with exception of the times when i just want to relax and have no patience for it - I still won't be nasty about it, but I will leave)

 

what i do mind, and what makes me queue less and less is people who are jerks, people who are deliberately playing in a way designed to aggravate me, even after I politely ask them to stop. people who think they can tank better than I can, becasue they have 2000 more health (and never you mind that they have neither abilities, not mitigation to actually pull it off), dps who want me to run at their pace whether I or healer are comfortable with it or not (no I don't pull overly slow - but I will wait if I see that healer is low on resources, for them to regen, but even if I ran into a tank that waits just long enough for my 30 stacks of zen to fall off to pull? i STILL don't jump ahead of them).

 

i refuse to tolerate insults, general abuse, primadona behaviors (what you thought only tanks acted like primadonas? dps and healers do it too, all the damn time), etc. I never wanted to be a martyr, and I'm not going to start in a video game.

 

I know I'm not an amazing tank. I'm just about decent if people let me do my job, but when people are deliberately making it harder for me, I cannot always compensate, i cannot always salvage a situation. not a lot of people can. and it makes tanking unfun. it makes it stressful and not worth the bother. not when I can just grab a few friends and tank for them instead. and maker forbid, I may still be learning a flashpoint or to tank on a particular class - oh lordie, its even worse then. people forgive almost nothing to a tank, people expect tanks to just show up in a flashpoint knowing everything. and not only its completely unfair? its unfun

 

I'm not a special snowflake. on the contrary. i will BET you that quite a few tanks feel exactly the way I do.

 

also - since WoW got brought up.

 

2 things. 3 dps for every tank/healer. not 2 - 3. if you need clarification as to what that means? fewer tanks are required.

and - last time I subscribed, I saw more boomkins/ret pallies/fury warriors tanking then I saw actual tanks. because with average difficulty of a dungeon vs average lvl of gear? they could pull that off. the problem is - its actually not fun. not even remotely. even leveling my pally as protection and just almost literally rolling my face on a keyboard because positioning didn't matter, rotation didn't matter, hell i barely even needed a healer, becasue I could just use my holy power on hand of glory for self heals (sorry if I'm getting the names in correctly - its been long enough for my characters not to load on armory anymore, but i hope you get the idea).

 

to easy is just as bad as too hard. arguably - too easy is worse. so yeah. dungeon queues are faster. but is it really better for the game?

Edited December 4, 2013 by Jeweledleah

[morfius]

As i do tank my self in pug's quite often i don't recognize my self in that all pug's are bad. Maybe 1/6 HM's are bad, very bad once maybe 1/8. I can live with that just fine, i accept the fact that everyone need a chance to learn how to play and learn tactics. Non of you are perfect and all of you have made mistakes in this game, and i am going to say it again. If everyone acted like the DPS haters and "roll a tank" trolls in here, there would be no HM's going at all. The community would collapse even more then it already has. And if we switch the roles a bit and say, if everyone had a bit more understanding and acceptance that people need to learn, this community of players would be better off.

 

And sitting down saying that nothing can be done to fix a very serious problem like this is the same as giving up, and if you don't have anything to add instead of just posting troll posts, stop posting cause it is not helping and all it really does is make things worse.

 

May not be very good with all classes in all available roles but still I red and checked how exactly to use each of those I have.

Do you see the issue here - I have made some effort to learn my class and role (and not try to pug with role I don't know yet at least on average level), most of players I met in PUGs have not.

It may be related to prime game time on servers and/or our time zone - but yet good FP PUGs I remember are bellow 1/3.

Add some jerkiness on top and fun part of pugging FPs goes away very fast.

This is one of major reasons for long queues.

 

Next one - grind/reward system - worst idea ever is to punish players that try to play less wanted and most harder role - need some redesign so it will still take some time to gear a tank but will not need twice more and twice long than average DPS. Any additional rewards may be temporal lure for some but are exploitable to the limit - DPS may queue as tank/healer to short queue time and ninja such reward on price of ruining time of 3 other players.

So it has to be very careful done or we are going to have even less randoms in GF... not what you want I think?

 

Third issue with PUGs - population %s - it is similar in any trinity MMOs and will ever be similar - DD are at least 2/3 of population, tanks and healers bellow 1/3 and there is more healers than tanks because of melee/ranged difference, so we have let say 14% tanks 18% healers and 68% dps - GF need 25% tanks, 25% healers and 50% dds to pop - related to those before - we have 4% healers and 54% dps that have to wait in queue.

Only thing that can be done here is to redesign game completely so it is not trinity based or to remove some restriction from trinity roles - 1st is not going to happen ever, 2nd will make rivers of cry from hardcore PvP players (try to imagine a fight against VG tank that do same DPS on same range as gunnery commando and yet have VG tank damage reduction) so it is also hard to imagine.

 

So we have issue - long queue times for some DDs (guilds solve this even for casuals).

We have reasons for this issue (major ones listed above).

To solve issue - you have to first understand the issue, then to get properly the reasons and after that to think how to counter the reasons.

You are still trying to explain that reasons are not valid - so we try to give you some sense.

When you understand what exactly going on... then we can discuss how is possible for developer or player to solve it.

 

Tread is not your private property, you are not only one that read it (no matter are readers write or not) so please don't tell me to post or not.

[morfius]

 

The flaw is that to progress I need to do hard mode content and collect thousands of comms but cannot due to the queue. Only being able to do a few per day means months and months of work to get even to a somewhat minimally acceptable gearing point. WoW's progression for people getting back in was far less problematic. By the time I minimally equip 1 character, at this point, it will be sometime in June 2014 and I have a feeling I will be too far behind to join any of the in-game contacts I have made. Compare this to WoW, took me 2 months to level and gear up to a point where I could sustain raid attendance for the next 4 until guild I was raiding with imploded.

 

SWTOR's gear progression and itemization does not permit this sort of progression and will mean a rotation of players in and out of subscription status.

 

Not good for the game.

 

Not exactly true - gearing a tank properly is a PITA because those mostly crap items... gearing average DPS - maybe a month of SM OPs + some guild FP runs on top of 1 week of starting and daily quests.

Just do CZ opener and weekly once, then do it on Oricon - you will have full or almost full purple 66s set + enough basic comms for 1 relic.

It is more than enough for doing HM FPs & SM OPs - get a friends and or guild and you will be in 69s in a month or even less with some luck (as DPS even not optimal is not so important).

69 is enough for HM OPs if you have good group ... there is your raiding comes.

What exactly favoring pew pew roles have to do with subscriptions?

[morfius]

Offering additional rewards isn't going to prompt me to queue for more flashpoints once I reach my character goals. In fact I'll be switching in my dps alts which will increase the queue times.

 

I still think a solution to the flashpoint queue time issues lay with Companions.

 

No current companion (66s or 69s geared at least) can survive a HM FP - tried them all out of curiosity.

DPS ones survive longer ... so any try in this way may be equal for even longer queue times as DPS.

HK 51 (crafted purple 66s in it's own custom gear) with DAO stile tactics will make more damage and will survive longer than average DPS player I have met in PUGs

So I get my tank, my wife her healer, gear 2 HKs ... and here we go - grind of FPs weekly, for items, money and RE schematics.

No ninjas, no jerks, no under geared players, no CC break, 2 silver mobs insta kills ... just need to have a tactic - stay at range, kill from weak to strong, get out of stupid circle/cone/fire

Try to write a similar one for tanking companion for FPs bosses

 

Be careful what you wish

[MillionsKNives]

Except none of the enhancements provided via comms are good. They're all loaded with endurance and short on the defensive stats. You have to wait for someone doing ops to learn how to make the medium balanced (Endurance vs secondary stat) enhancements before you can replace anything.

 

Which just leaves your mods and armorings to be acquired via flashpoints. After you collect your elite comm bonus, you have no reason to continue to queue because the cost of repairs takes away from your ability to purchase better enhancements.

 

This is somewhat right, but misses the mark. All of the mods from comms and flashpoints are the endurance heavy ones, unlike the DPS pieces. Speaking just from comms (I can't remember exactly what comes in the ones from flashpoints but I never remember liking any of it), only the belt and bracers have the defense mods you want, everything else is absorb. As was mentioned the enhancements are all endurance heavy, but that's the same with the DPS. What's really bad about the enhancements is that there are no Defense/Shield enhancements. All Defense enhancements have Accuracy or Alacrity, which is useless. So you're stuck with all Absorb/Shield enhancements, which means in order to get anywhere close to enough defense (on anything other than an assassin) you need to fill all of your mods with defense, which means lots of grinding. And even then I'm not sure you'll get the ratios you want. At least DPS can find the right stats for their gear through mixing and matching, even if it's not optimized. Tanks take a ton of work to get mediocre results with their stats.

 

Then there's the implants, which have the wrong stats, and aren't even worth using. As a tank, flashpoints aren't really worth doing aside from gearing alts or companions. It's much better to jump straight into OPS where the mods and enhancements are light on endurance and give you the set bonus. There's still the issue with mixing and matching for the right stats, but it's not too much worse than it would be for a DPS, relatively speaking.

Edited December 4, 2013 by MillionsKNives

[gorstram]

This is somewhat right, but misses the mark. All of the mods from comms and flashpoints are the endurance heavy ones, unlike the DPS pieces. Speaking just from comms (I can't remember exactly what comes in the ones from flashpoints but I never remember liking any of it), only the belt and bracers have the defense mods you want, everything else is absorb. As was mentioned the enhancements are all endurance heavy, but that's the same with the DPS. What's really bad about the enhancements is that there are no Defense/Shield enhancements. All Defense enhancements have Accuracy or Alacrity, which is useless. So you're stuck with all Absorb/Shield enhancements, which means in order to get anywhere close to enough defense (on anything other than an assassin) you need to fill all of your mods with defense, which means lots of grinding. And even then I'm not sure you'll get the ratios you want. At least DPS can find the right stats for their gear through mixing and matching, even if it's not optimized. Tanks take a ton of work to get mediocre results with their stats.

 

Then there's the implants, which have the wrong stats, and aren't even worth using. As a tank, flashpoints aren't really worth doing aside from gearing alts or companions. It's much better to jump straight into OPS where the mods and enhancements are light on endurance and give you the set bonus. There's still the issue with mixing and matching for the right stats, but it's not too much worse than it would be for a DPS, relatively speaking.

 

Only way around this is hardmode DF/DP. Those instances drop gear with the correct stats on them.

[ScarletBlaze]

The only thing I would say (and this is just my observation) is that there are a lot of superstar know-it-all SWTOR players who are complete jerks in FPs. IMO rather than crying like babies and leaving because of a bad DPS, take a moment to whisper to the problem DPS (or other) and explain the problem. I have done this many times and it almost always (95% of the time) works. I have found that bad DPS players are not normally doing it on purpose, they simply did not know good protocol. This applies to the concept of when to need, when to greed and when to pass. Just take a moment to explain and get everyone on the same page before the FP starts. Be a mature player and try to help someone. If they don't listen, then boot them from the team or leave the FP. It sure makes the game more enjoyable than to have so many people pi$$ing and moaning and complaining all the time about "bad" players. It takes only a minute to get everyone on the same page before the FP starts.

 

In other words, the only way to have better players on SWTOR Flashpoints is to help them be better players by educating them.

 

When we take a Pug in our guild runs we will try to help those that don't know how. That is not normally the problem. The problem comes when you are trying to help someone and they turn around on you and don't listen or start raging.

 

Those are the ones that create the problems. I doubt many here would mind helping someone willing to listen and wanting to learn, the problem comes from those who start raging on you and making the flashpoint less fun. I am not sure about you but when someone does that it makes the flashpoint more difficult and less enjoyable for everyone involved.

[MillionsKNives]

Only way around this is hardmode DF/DP. Those instances drop gear with the correct stats on them.

 

Could you clarify what you mean? Are you saying that DF/DP are unique among the ops for their stats (aside from the level)? Or are you just reiterating what I said about ops being the best method of getting gear for tanks?