Congratulations. You just killed sm ops

[Kaos_KidSWTOR]

I hate to break it to you guys, but you can get Ultimate Comms from doing HM DF/DP and HM TFB and HM S&V, which of the 4. the easiest one has to be TFB, with DF being next easiest, then S&V and the hardest goes to DP HM. DF HM is almost too easy at 60, as you can burn the corruptors in Draxxus before they get their FIRST Mass Affliction off. Nefra and Grob'thok are both easy as ****, and Czero isnt THAT hard, Brontes is all mechanics that could possibly kill you.

[JouerTue]

I hate to break it to you guys, but you can get Ultimate Comms from doing HM DF/DP and HM TFB and HM S&V, which of the 4. the easiest one has to be TFB, with DF being next easiest, then S&V and the hardest goes to DP HM. DF HM is almost too easy at 60, as you can burn the corruptors in Draxxus before they get their FIRST Mass Affliction off. Nefra and Grob'thok are both easy as ****, and Czero isnt THAT hard, Brontes is all mechanics that could possibly kill you.

 

the problem is that people didn't listen when someone was saying: don't skip first droid on brontes and stay close to your finger or don't go all left on calphayus. im happy the devs took away the comms heroes a way to cheese through content.

[quirmucr]

So you think that if the fights are buggy, they should increase rewards to compensate?

 

Crazy thought here -- perhaps fix bugs instead??[/Q

 

Having done both level 55 df , dp hm and lvl 60 ops i cannot compare the difficulty level in the mechanics as i found the level 60 sm a lot easier.

[FlyinSpaghetti]

I hate to break it to you guys, but you can get Ultimate Comms from doing HM DF/DP and HM TFB and HM S&V, which of the 4. the easiest one has to be TFB, with DF being next easiest, then S&V and the hardest goes to DP HM. DF HM is almost too easy at 60, as you can burn the corruptors in Draxxus before they get their FIRST Mass Affliction off. Nefra and Grob'thok are both easy as ****, and Czero isnt THAT hard, Brontes is all mechanics that could possibly kill you.

 

Someone didn't read the latest patch notes, unless they bugged it and I'm not aware of:

 

http://www.swtor.com/patchnotes

 

The following Operations have had their Commendation rewards revised to coincide with new Level 60 content, and the encounters now reward Basic Commendations instead of Elite Commendations and Elite Commendations instead of Ultimate Commendations:

Scum and Villainy (Story Mode, Hard Mode, Nightmare Mode)

Terror From Beyond (Story Mode, Hard Mode, Nightmare Mode)

Toborro’s Courtyard (Story Mode, Hard Mode)

The Dread Fortress (Story Mode, Hard Mode)

The Dread Palace (Story Mode, Hard Mode)

[verfallen]

I'm on the fence here.

 

Issue is I agree with people on this thread saying "level 55 content shouldn't reward the top tier 60 gear through comms" (as far as comm gear top tier go at least).

 

However it is also true HM Ravager and ToS are not accessible to your average player or anyone that don't have a raid team.

 

Truth is, I hadn't had so few "worthwhile" ops and such to do since 1,0.

 

I have what, weekly yavin, weekly ToS and weekly ravager, HM FP weekly, tactical weekly, + my pvp dailies to do. Thats pretty much it.

 

And any new toon I level have a sodding hard time finding a team for classic ops, 55 and even more 50 (I like getting the one time missions out of the way)

 

TOR has a lot of end game content in the game now, however its pretty much spread through the levels 50 to 60, so we effectively have level 50 people that cannot get their thing going, level 55 with the same trouble, and level 60 who feels there isn't enough ultis opportunities in the game.

 

Weither the solution is to give a very small ammount of ultimates for a total completion of old ops, making them drop deco like mad (this one not sure it would be that big of a success but it could be an alternative if they really don't want ultis in anything else than 60 content) or allow a version of those ops to scale with level and have a lvl 60 version of it I don't know, but I think something needs to be done, and I think the ammounts of ops IN game compared to the ammount of content actually played is an issue.

 

Don't need to be much until more new content for 3,0 stuff is out, but a small bit of ultis as a temporary mesure for at least completing 55 sm (5 or 10 max, in a mission) would be a nice way to keep content alive until a better solution is found.

[SpikeSaber]

Yay, finally they did it.

[Iona_Var]

If your group is competent at all(yeah I know, good luck finding that in an all pug group) you should have zero problems clearing sm ravagers/ToS in 180/186s. The only thing the new comm gear has more of is endurance and in some cases more main stat, but other than that it's sheer garbage that is barely ok for me to give to my companion let alone for me to actually use it.

[Fordbird]

I'm just saying give SOME incentive. Walking through Rishi and Yavin gives you a full set (nearly) of 186 gear via basic comms. Start there. That is the baseline that all level 60's will have upon completion. Add decent mods/enhancements of 186/192 ratings available via basic and elites, respectively. It seems like the only reason to go to fleet now is to pick up weeklies and turn in pvp missions. Even pvp have upgraded set bonus gear for running the exact same content/maps. Do something similar for those of us that also enjoy pve content.

[Izrin]

I think what they should of done, was raise the old 55 sm ops and scale it to lvl 60 then threw in the two new Ops from 3.0 and I do agree finding a pug group took me 2 hours on the fleet to do the Ravagers and we still didn't make it even after 3 change overs this is a pug group. 5 hours total and as far as we got was still to the second boss in 16m GF puggin.

 

I got all my elite gear (192's) but now my problem lies with the ultimate coms they really shorten how to obtain them nothing in the weeklies in the daily area and the GF run only or threw running in one of the new op's door.

 

The reason why I un-subbed was to make a statment am not paying for game to stand around in it where everything around me is basics and am in between and still can't any ultimate's EA really needs to change this so everyone can obtain it, am not saying to make it easier just to make it so everyone can enjoy the group and succeed in it.

[AlrikFassbauer]

And any new toon I level have a sodding hard time finding a team for classic ops, 55 and even more 50 (I like getting the one time missions out of the way)

 

TOR has a lot of end game content in the game now, however its pretty much spread through the levels 50 to 60, so we effectively have level 50 people that cannot get their thing going, level 55 with the same trouble, and level 60 who feels there isn't enough ultis opportunities in the game.

 

My Sage just got level 50 a few weeks ago.

 

I was surprised hbow hard it was to get him through Black Hole, even with the Campaign gear !

 

I believe that anyone who does endgame really forgets how hard it is if you have not much for twinking - I had, in fact, only 1 char at level 50+ !

 

Endgame is the only thing the forum posters here care for; they have already SO many twinks that they don't even realize how it is to have 1-2 chars at level 50 alone !

 

And now they want everything at level 50 to give LESS rewards !

Aka "those who have will be given more; those who don't have will be taken from" aka "The Matthew Effect".

[FlyinSpaghetti]

 

Weither the solution is to give a very small ammount of ultimates for a total completion of old ops, making them drop deco like mad (this one not sure it would be that big of a success but it could be an alternative if they really don't want ultis in anything else than 60 content) or allow a version of those ops to scale with level and have a lvl 60 version of it I don't know, but I think something needs to be done, and I think the ammounts of ops IN game compared to the ammount of content actually played is an issue.

 

Don't need to be much until more new content for 3,0 stuff is out, but a small bit of ultis as a temporary mesure for at least completing 55 sm (5 or 10 max, in a mission) would be a nice way to keep content alive until a better solution is found.

 

Here's what I think they should at least consider planning for the long term:

 

1/ Buff all old 50 & 55 SM ops from EV to DP to 60 (no change in mechanics just straight buffs in HP and damage dealt etc ) when queued for in group finder. That's 7 ops one for every day of the week.

 

2/ Fix the group finder bolster so that players don't lose their bolster when they exit and re-enter instance or dc.

 

3/ Create a new operations tier in group finder i.e. "Classic Operations" for players 50-60 to queue for these boosted and bolstered ops. Give 5 ultimate comms for completion and a different op on rotation each day (35 comms in total) .

 

4/ Make the current operations tier we got exclusive to 60's for ToS and ravagers.

 

 

Also something else they should consider but some may not like is:

 

5/ Consider implementing some way to optionally boost up a phase to 60 via the portrait options for HM or NiM content. Make it so when you boost an old HM/NiM progression op to 60 it drops ultimates and abundant mount/pet/vanity item drops but scale the bosses to be tight for well geared level 60's i.e. for a boosted EV HM the XRR 3 droid would be a really tight DPS + healing race or for gharj not getting out of his pounce would mean insta wipe.

 

Players who burnt out on the old ops might not like point 5 but the idea behind that is to introduce newer players to the older HM and NiM without being over levelled or over geared for them and experience the raids to how they should truly be.

[SBR_QuorTek]

People keep complaining... but the ultimate commendations was never intended to drop off lvl55 content after 3.0

 

Also these ultimate commendations are not really worth it..... Ops has not been ruined at all either...

 

With the new content they should just had given a new type of highend commendations instead though only obtainable from lvl60 content.

 

But people should look at the conten though with bright eyes.. Ultimate commendations has always been from the highest level content... which before 3.0 was lvl55 content such as SnV, TFB, DP and DF, now we are at the level 60 branch... so the level 60 content as was intended would be able to drop highest level of gear... but really by doing tos and rav you would be getting 192 token gear over time which is much better.

 

And don't give me the oh noes the new Ops are too tough... I did with one of my alts that had mostly 168 rating token gear and a couple of 180 token gear just fine, so the requirement and difficulty is not of concern at all, it is all about mechanics that people need to get used to.

 

Also running them as 16man currently make no sense since it seem to be like 8 man drops instead of 16man, but it doesnt really matter because the drops they offer at 8 man is far superior to com rating 198 gear with the exception of the offhands barrel/hilt/armoring.

[Fordbird]

Maybe you're right...maybe sm ops haven't been ruined. It's just that nobody queues for them, won't join a pug, and many can't complete rav/ToS ( I have completed both in 8sm, but that is only 2 per week.) if nobody runs the content, or those that do has been so drastically reduced that 2 hours is mostly insufficient to throw a pug together, how is that not ruined? In other words, if nobody wants to run 4/6 ops available, why? What would YOU consider ruined??

[Soul_of_Flames]

IMO, what they should do to hopefully re-populate old content is to adjust the "weekly classic operations" weekly.

 

Basically, instead of done one of the listed ops in hard or nightmare, it should require you to do ANY 3 of the listed ops in any mode.

 

So, basically make it like Galactic Conflicts where you need 3/3, but change it so you can do it in any mode, not just hard or nightmare.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Nah too faceroll - I like that it forces people to run HM/NiM. Basically it means a chance to pug them at 60 where as that didn't really happen at 55.

 

What SHOULD happen though is there should a GF option for the HM @ 56+

[Fordbird]

Well that's part of the problem...it's not forcing people to pug HM/NiM. Pugs are mostly dead. That's what my beef is about. When you are on fleet now, you don't read lfg xyz...you see 100's of gold spam, people wanting to buy/sell/trade outfits, and trolls. Lfg 16hm TFB/SnV/DF/DP is not or rarely seen. Then after you spend 2+ hours getting these pug HM's together (if ever) you enter the instance and realize immediately why it's a horrible idea to pug a HM anything. I don't care too much about the gear, but many do. They will not run the content with no incentive, which means I can't run the content either.

[FlyinSpaghetti]

Well that's part of the problem...it's not forcing people to pug HM/NiM. Pugs are mostly dead. That's what my beef is about. When you are on fleet now, you don't read lfg xyz...you see 100's of gold spam, people wanting to buy/sell/trade outfits, and trolls. Lfg 16hm TFB/SnV/DF/DP is not or rarely seen. Then after you spend 2+ hours getting these pug HM's together (if ever) you enter the instance and realize immediately why it's a horrible idea to pug a HM anything. I don't care too much about the gear, but many do. They will not run the content with no incentive, which means I can't run the content either.

 

I can see why bioware want to push people into harder content for rewards, if you play some other recent MMO's on the market and compare the difficulty of stuff to this you'll see that this game is a walk in the park to even a lot of normal/story mode content in other MMO's.

 

I do however still think they should at least buff mission rewards and make the basic/elite commendations more useful than just grinding gear with them to give them some longevity, however you shouldn't be able to earn the highest tier comms in abundance from running ops 5 levels below so the removal of ultimates from bosses was the correct action.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

I don't think it's just pugs but the game in general.

 

Take GF - it takes soo long in apac time to pop now if it does at all for level 60 HM FPs or even the new fps in tactical.

 

Participation seems at a lot.

[Fordbird]

I believe this is why they're talking server merges again. The populations are low as a reflection of the player base. There was a time when every instance of fleet was packed. Here's a clue Bioware: whatever you were doing when the servers were full, do that again. If more people continue to leave because you're destroying the content they like, maybe it's you...not them...just sayin.

[KhorneFlakesMilk]

Congratulations dev team! You just killed sm operations. By removing the ultimate comms from all sm operations, you have eliminated the pug groups that so many of us ran daily. The gear from elite vendors is garbage compared to the set bonuses and ultimate gear we had previous to 3.0. Instead, of the casual sm raiders being able to advance in gear progression through ultimate comms, you have given the ultimate a to the hm/progression raiders that will not use it because to them, ultimate gear is garbage. I am seriously beginning to think that you (the dev team) are trying to invent new ways to make this game suck. Very disappointing.

 

Wow, its almost like you have to earn 198 tier gear...oh wait...

[Fordbird]

I don't want 198 gear from 55 ops..I have stated this. I want to run the content. If there are NO incentives for lvl 60's to run TFB/SnV/DF/DP they will not queue or join pugs...that means many of us that just wanna run ops don't have access either....it's almost like you didn't read previous posts b4 you got snippy...oh wait.....

[Soul_of_Flames]

People aren't going to pug HM/NiM TFB/S&V/DF/DP for 10 ultimate comms. Even being as over leveled and overgeared as we are at 60, they still take long enough to do in SM, let alone HM. And with the lacking of coordination that is seen in most pug groups, it would be an extremely rare occasion that you actually finish a successful run.

 

If people are willing to spend that time running HM/NiM in old content... why not instead just spend that time running the new content and getting better rewards for it?

 

There is just no real incentive to run old stuff when there is a larger incentive to do the new stuff.

Edited January 18, 2015 by Soul_of_Flames

[SBR_QuorTek]

People aren't going to pug HM/NiM TFB/S&V/DF/DP for 10 ultimate comms. Even being as over leveled and overgeared as we are at 60, they still take long enough to do in SM, let alone HM. And with the lacking of coordination that is seen in most pug groups, it would be an extremely rare occasion that you actually finish a successful run.

 

If people are willing to spend that time running HM/NiM in old content... why not instead just spend that time running the new content and getting better rewards for it?

 

There is just no real incentive to run old stuff when there is a larger incentive to do the new stuff.

 

They did when you had to do HM/NiM SV or KP for some of the better coms back in the day... also commendations has never been this common before though.

 

But if you do not like it as it is now you could always suggest that ultimate coms only can buy level 55 com gear and introducing a new type of commendations for 60 com gear lol.

 

Anyhow what you want back is the exploit that you could get ultimate commendations for story mode 16man SnV/TFB/DP/DF, ok it is not so bad as the ravagers exploit... but rather harmless no they had no reason to ban people because the com gear suck anyways so instead the fixed it.

[Fordbird]

Why not just give 186 set pieces from these ops? It is not level 60 gear, it is old lvl 55 gear. Pvp got a boost to 168 6 piece set gear for running the exact same content that used to grant lower tiered gear. Do the same with pve. Or something. Anything. People are just not running the content anymore. Doing old ev/ec/kp used to grant ultimate comms..."too tier 55 gear" for ops that could b 3 manned in hm...

[Levram]

Why not just give 186 set pieces from these ops?

 

186 set pieces (Dread Master) is a nightmare difficulty level of gear. The Developer's past policy has been that nightmare rewards (set bonuses, shells, mounts and titles) are never available though any other content channel. The incentive for players to work to improve their gameplay enough that they are able to clear nightmare operations is that they are provided access to rewards that are only available through those boss clears.

 

An advantage of this system is that the rewards are never removed either. I know of plenty of players who were not skilled enough to clear nightmare TFB and S&V at Level 55, but are trying to clear them now at Level 60 for their sets of Kell Dragon (174) shells.

 

If NM rewards were shifted into the HM or SM versions of the operations then the equivalent problem of "no one runs the NM versions anymore" would be created.

 

This is part of the life cycle of an MMO. Old end-game content eventually is played less frequently by the player base as they move onto current end-game content for current rewards. Old content becomes "Classic," just as EV, KP and EC were Classic operations during the 2.0 - 3.0 stretch. TFB, S&V, DF and DP are also now Classic.

 

Personally, I am surprised that after, literally, years of players running TFB and S&V, that people are this upset over not being able to grind them out again for the umpteenth time. There are two brand new SM operations dropping 192 set bonus gear that is heads and tails above 198 commendation gear. On The Shadowlands, at least, there are SM/8 TR and ToS groups that form in Fleet. Players should form SM/8 groups and begin working towards clearing the new operations. There will be wipes, but it's a learning process for all involved. Over time players will perform better at the new mechanics.

 

(And yes, all SM/8 TR and ToS fights are clearable; my guild has cleared both operations every week. They also drop a tonne of unassembled tokens. Clearing all ten bosses nets 13-16 tokens.)

Edited January 18, 2015 by Levram