Getting tired of content difficulty, not because of the actual difficulty, but people

[BrianDavion]

the fact that the HM FP bosses drop useless blue crap on most of them is rediculas,

 

that said IMHO the biggest problem is the story mode operations I've gone through all of Ravagers (not had time to tinker with ToS beyond the first boss) but some of the bosses are just overtuned.

 

in 8 man story mode, Bulo (the second boss with the kegs) Is just a little random and thus a little too hard compareitivly. I don't mind a hard fight Bioware, nut I do find it irriating that in an operation, especially a story mode op, you have one boss that is signfcigently harder then the others. I perfer a little more even a challange

[Bachannal]

the fact that the HM FP bosses drop useless blue crap on most of them is rediculas,

 

that said IMHO the biggest problem is the story mode operations I've gone through all of Ravagers (not had time to tinker with ToS beyond the first boss) but some of the bosses are just overtuned.

 

in 8 man story mode, Bulo (the second boss with the kegs) Is just a little random and thus a little too hard compareitivly. I don't mind a hard fight Bioware, nut I do find it irriating that in an operation, especially a story mode op, you have one boss that is signfcigently harder then the others. I perfer a little more even a challange

 

Yea...to me this is one of the biggest issues. It's not like they have the 1st boss be kind of easy, the next boss less so, and so on...as you would expect. No - they make the 1st boss insanely easy, the next boss egregiously hard, and then everything after that is all pretty much meh.

 

I still haven't gotten past Underlurker personally...then again I've only been in that Op 2 times. 1st time I didn't have my DPS rotation correct, and I was a contributing factor to wiping...the next time, we had a lot of weirdness with the boulders dropping, and adds spawning way too fast (or what SEEMED like way too fast). But 1st boss in ToS? EASY. Sword Squadron....the mechanics themselves aren't too nutty, but if your DPS is even just a little deficient - you can pretty much give up on trying to best them - cuz once that enrage hits, it's doom city. How the hell do you go from crazy easy on boss fight 1 to crazy hard on the very next one?

 

Ravagers...1st boss, a breeze. Bulo? It took me WEEKS to get past him. I was typically the last or one of the last people standing any time I'd face him, but that hardly matters if the rest of your team is dead. All of the other bosses AFTER Bulo though? I personally think the fight mechanics, fight pacing and overall difficulty are less difficult in comparison. Torque? Not that big a deal. Easy mechanic to work around. Master/Blaster? Really not that hard of a fight (on SM). Same with Cortanni and Pearl...I really don't think the fight mechanics are that hard when you compare them to how they treated the Bulo fight.

[Levram]

There is 1 guild across all servers that has even cleared Both of the new HM Operations, let alone "one-shotting" all the new bosses.

 

If you are referring to Sparky HM (The first boss of the first operation) as a catch all for "the new HM operation fights," then yeah, there are quite a few guilds that have cleared that one boss, the first boss, on HM difficulty.

 

If you re-read what you quoted from me, I said that "the RNG elements, when they are handled by skilled players, are not causing unavoidable wipes." I was only contradicting another poster who was claiming that there are too many RNG elements to the new operation fights that cause wipes that are impossible to avoid.

 

My point was that multiple guilds are one-shotting multiple HM operation bosses, therefore the RNG elements are not resulting in unavoidable wipes.

 

My team one-shotted HM Bulo last week, and that fight has several hard-hitting RNG elements to it.

 

I made no comment on whether the HM versions of the new operations are appropriately difficult.

[BrianDavion]

Yea...to me this is one of the biggest issues. It's not like they have the 1st boss be kind of easy, the next boss less so, and so on...as you would expect. No - they make the 1st boss insanely easy, the next boss egregiously hard, and then everything after that is all pretty much meh.

 

I still haven't gotten past Underlurker personally...then again I've only been in that Op 2 times. 1st time I didn't have my DPS rotation correct, and I was a contributing factor to wiping...the next time, we had a lot of weirdness with the boulders dropping, and adds spawning way too fast (or what SEEMED like way too fast). But 1st boss in ToS? EASY. Sword Squadron....the mechanics themselves aren't too nutty, but if your DPS is even just a little deficient - you can pretty much give up on trying to best them - cuz once that enrage hits, it's doom city. How the hell do you go from crazy easy on boss fight 1 to crazy hard on the very next one?

 

Ravagers...1st boss, a breeze. Bulo? It took me WEEKS to get past him. I was typically the last or one of the last people standing any time I'd face him, but that hardly matters if the rest of your team is dead. All of the other bosses AFTER Bulo though? I personally think the fight mechanics, fight pacing and overall difficulty are less difficult in comparison. Torque? Not that big a deal. Easy mechanic to work around. Master/Blaster? Really not that hard of a fight (on SM). Same with Cortanni and Pearl...I really don't think the fight mechanics are that hard when you compare them to how they treated the Bulo fight.

 

 

exactly. eaither Bulo is too hard or the rest of the operation is too easy. I don't mind it if they ramp the difficulty up swith each fight, but when one fight is lopsidedly harder then the others thats kind of a pain

[GopherLuV]

Looked at that thread, looks like most of the people in the thread are posting corrections and that they are less far along than the OP indicated, looking like a lot of the listings were guesses, not posts by members of the guilds. Doing a google search, I see that Death and Taxes got World Second kill of HM Revan a week or two ago, so clears #3, #4, #5 were within the past week? You should really verify stuff and check the source before you start making claims.

Then call me wrong.. i concede... i was going by that thread... I know of one guild that is for sure full clear.. zorz.. i do know of others that are 4/5 on both of them... from multiple servers...

 

The only issue I had was with your false claim that guilds were "1-shotting" the bosses (implying all of the bosses) in the new HM Operations, but you have corrected that:

 

At best, you can still only go by One guild that can "easily mostly one shot" all the bosses in both HM Operations. On that note, here's a quote from Dulfy in that thread:

Yes I never meant that ALL of these bosses were easy nor that any of them are... i'm simply saying that 3/5 in ravagers is on farm for many groups.. 2/5 for others... and i know many are 4/5 in tos (i can't say for sure if people are 1-shotting things in there..) but i know of groups who cruise through 3/5 in ravagers every week and grind away on master/blaster... I also never said anything about the fact that these groups have been grinding these bosses for months now.. and have wiped their fare share of times in order to have the group getting it down so well it's semi-easy... (i do hesitate to say easy... just easier than the first times)

 

I will absolutely say that I feel the SM content is far harder than a casual player wants to deal with.. but that will eventually change as new tiers come out.. The HM is a beautiful hardness IMHO... it's difficult across the board, BUT some of the bosses do kinda need some re-tuning so that groups aren't almost FORCED to stack certain classes... that will not be easy... I can say though that a semi-serious group of raiders with enough effort and the right gearing could pretty easily begin to down 3/5 ravagers and with some more work ToS stuff as well... ALL the fights have some pretty serious DPS checks (most of them requiring over or WELL over 3k dps in order to down them) and some have insane healing checks that require very good/geared healers.. but again, the SM content, yes it's more difficult than an average pug group is gonna be able to pull off.. FPs, terrible difficulty for zero rewards IMO (192 comm gear is absolute trash... only use it as placeholders if i can't craft/buy blue or purple 186 BiS gear..)

[iKlone]

I still can't figure you out... but that's ok...

 

Last night, ran 8m Ravagers with guildies, including 4 people who had never done it. We were all in teamspeak (god does that make all the difference), I was a tank, we wiped maybe 3 times the whole OP, but otherwise it went really smoothly. Two wipes on the second boss, once on the last one, otherwise a clean run.

 

That was fun, but to try it in HM, we'd need much better gear and many more runs to have everyone memorize it. The jump from SM to HM is rather steep in my mind. Maybe that is as it should be, but I am questioning why I'd run it again at this point.

 

I've now cleared it several times on 8m and 16m, I'm now in more 192 (and one 198) than I am 186 (and some of that 192 is the good token gear, the 186 is crafted good stuff, MK-2, etc.) I'm fully augmented on all 14 items in 186.

 

Now what? I can clear it over and over on SM, but that gear isn't quite good enough to do HM, unless perhaps everyone in the OP has it, and that group is harder to put together.

 

ToS is still too broken for my taste...

 

Mmmm.. first raid tier in any game?

 

That gear is fine for HM Rav, ToS isn't broken you just need 8 competent players to kill lurker.

[Alucardess]

I dunno. When we were first working on HM Rav (ie. like 2nd week) Sparky was a pushover. Bulo took us a night to down and then another night to fix mistakes and down cleanly. Ofc, he's been nerfed (as in he no longer does Barrel + Load Lifter + Load Lifter all on one person) so healing is easier. Torque = add dps has to be consistent (one night).

 

Ofc, this sort of difficulty begets the issue of who actually raids. You have the Raiders, to whom SM is just a grind, and the real challenge is HM/NiM, and then you have the casual peeps who in my mind don't actually care about HMs and only want to clear SMs. This reveals a problem. How do you balance SM to the point where HM isn't a huge shock in difficulty. If you balance SMs as a stepping stone for HM, you end up in this situation. If you literally make SM a story walk in the park, you end up with a huge shock change between SM and HM.

 

IMO, DF and DP made people way too complacent. DF and DP SM were released with a starting gear level 2 tiers below the average gear level in the game.

[MeinChurro]

Exactly ever since 3.0, I don't even bother anymore. What is the point. I don't quit out of Operations ever, but yes if one person dies or there is one wipe (it was like that before 3.0 too, but less occurrences in my experiences), everyone just decides "Okay, f**** it let's /leave". The operation is scrapped from then on. I like that the content is difficult and takes coordination to complete, but it is too much for some people. I think my pessimistic attitude since 3.0 has alienated some people I know, who just wanted to do content.. But when I am right that we aren't going to get past second boss because one person rage quits, EVERY SINGLE TIME, I am right.

 

Yeah, yeah, yeah... "go join a guild that runs the content". I don't want to I like the guild I am in, I like the people in it, why should I quit just because I want to occasionally do some PVE content a couple times a week? I remember before 3.0 (and before 16m gf), when I would log in and look every single night for a PUG operation (which were actually going on every night) on fleet. Those were the days.

 

They should bring back 8m gf (At least on PvP servers), make operations easier if you use GF to find it (with some safeguards in place from premade's etc. from abusing it), or just something to revive this part of the game.

Edited February 20, 2015 by MeinChurro

[E-Zekiel]

To echo what others said/somewhat to the point of my original point to kind of re-highlight what I was saying:

 

I don't mind the difficulty. I can deal with it. But the problem is that this level of difficulty causes a lot of people to become quitters with serious defeatist attitudes, and THAT burns me out. It burns me out more than easy content. I like hard content, but if the curve is so bad that it somewhat becomes a seemingly incessant bleating of negativity....that wears on me.

 

RNG is too much of a factor on too many fights. For example:

 

I cleared Rishi hard mode no sweat with an overgeared (aka 192-198) group of guildies. However, I took some lesser-geared friends who technically should be on-part with the rewards, but were not of ideal classes (neither DPSer had a cleanse or self healing)...well, I run into stuff that I can't ignore simply by overgearing it.

 

As an example: The second fight, Obai and Vodd in Rishi. Right? So you have to have people running around collecting balls because you get reamed if they pile on the center. Well here's something BS I kept continuously running into, that I had little to worry about with agroup that had a sorc DPS (meaning they can self heal) and we all overgeared it. Obai drops aggro unpredictably - or at least to me it seems random. He does it just before using several of his attacks, but it's the attack that's predictable, not the wipe itself.

 

So what do I do when my undergeared DPSers are collecting balls, and Obai decides to wipe, instead of to the healer which is kind of to my side, to one of the DPSer's collecting balls, and effectively conals the entire half of the arena they're running around on?

 

If you want to put RNG into a fight, put it into a fight as a way of making it difficult. Not as a way of making it impossible if you get screwed by it. Is it ok to have an element of randomness to a fight? Yes. Is it okay to have an element of randomness into a fight that will usually result in a player's death, and in that same fight, you can't afford to lose a single person? Absolutely not.

 

I also wanted to edit to note that RNG elements causing unavoidable or near unavoidable wipes, at least when it's me referring to them, is mostly in group content. I've found that in operations it's a lot easier to make up for this stuff.

Edited February 20, 2015 by E-Zekiel

[EpleyEpley]

There's a reason you don't run in pugs anymore. The new Operation content is way too difficult for most to complete, and no one wants to put in time. Join a guild and try to find a team to join. This ensures commitment and coordination, two things that are absolutely essential to beat the new ops.

 

People that complain about pugging need to realize that it is NOT the only way to get into an ops group.

[Heat-Wave]

There's a reason you don't run in pugs anymore. The new Operation content is way too difficult for most to complete, and no one wants to put in time. Join a guild and try to find a team to join. This ensures commitment and coordination, two things that are absolutely essential to beat the new ops.

 

People that complain about pugging need to realize that it is NOT the only way to get into an ops group.

 

If a guild and TeamSpeak are required to do the new end game content, then frankly, it is broken. We have GF for ops for a reason, they should be PUGable without TeamSpeak. If they are not, then they are broken.

 

HM is for TeamSpeak and guilds.

 

Even the 60HM FP are beyond most PUGs, and not for reasons of L2P, but for reasons of stupid hard mode for the sake of being hard. I don't find them rewarding to play, even when I beat them. I find them annoying.

 

I am not alone.

 

The defenders here can make all the comments they want, it doesn't change the fact that there is a problem.

[Treeba]

If a guild and TeamSpeak are required to do the new end game content, then frankly, it is broken. We have GF for ops for a reason, they should be PUGable without TeamSpeak. If they are not, then they are broken.

 

HM is for TeamSpeak and guilds.

 

 

When they added ops to the GF I was really hoping it was going to turn into SWTORs version of LFR. In LFR half the raid is afk or completely clueless as to the mechanics and you still win eventually. Every time you wipe you get a stacking buff that increases health, healing and damage by 5% stacking up to 10 times. They actually go in and remove mechanics that require vent-level coordination specifically so it can be cleared easily by a bunch of random people who don't want to talk to each other.

 

I feel like that's what story-mode should be. You can made HM/NIM mode require organization if you really want.

[Pagy]

i think its sad that people want to blame gear so often.

 

the hm fps are easy. with the exception of the rishi bonus, they are all easily pugged by competent players.

 

nerfing instances will only stunt players' development. its a shame most mmo players think they are all amazing even when confronted by glaring facts like hm fps or parses. if youre dying, then its you and your group. look up class guides; take accountability to improve yourself.

[Pagy]

If a guild and TeamSpeak are required to do the new end game content, then frankly, it is broken. We have GF for ops for a reason, they should be PUGable without TeamSpeak. If they are not, then they are broken.

i dont agree with any of this and wouldnt play this easy game you want to see.

[GopherLuV]

i dont agree with any of this and wouldnt play this easy game you want to see.

 

Very much agree... I do think they could use a bit of toning down but in reality it's not that hard... highest DPS check is about 2700 in SM ops (easily easily doable.. was parsing more than that when 3.0 first hit in 180/186 gear) healing is actually a bit tough without some good gear (some of the bosses hit 1 or more targets for 25k+ at a time.. barrels and load lifters on bulo come to mind.. red circles on sword squad but those can be avoided by a competent player..) but not impossible.

 

I think the biggest reason a pug group is going to fail is mechanics issues, before 3.0, any pug group I was in basically ignored ALL mechanics.. they just weren't necessary since you were 3 tiers above the gear requirement for DF/DP SM with just comm gear (which was VERY easy to get...) Now you can buy easy to obtain comm gear but you actually AT the gear level required. It's real endgame again...

 

Some of the things in the new ops could be rebalanced to help out (particularly for melee DPS... they get pretty screwed in a LOT of the bosses, though it's not impossible by any means) but in reality these are very very easy ops to clear in SM with a competent group (which may not be your average pug....). The 16 man versions, yes, they have issues with balance, lag, etc etc, but they did before as well (thus why i never run them....) The new FPs really aren't very hard at all, the bonus boss in rishi, thats a real *****************************************************.. and far harder than it needed to be... But the rest really isn't bad, again with a competent group.

Now, the loot you receive from HM FPs? That's absolute BS, plain and simple.. you gain nothing out of it.. The bosses really should drop 192 gear from all... just random comm 192 pieces from all them. Should also get a few ultimate comms out of doing it (especially the daily random..).. Although, in the end, every bit of commendation gear is still total crap... it's endurance stacked like always.. so.. get some 186/192 mixed comm gear, grind out SM ops for real gear... If you only run pugs, don't... find a guild (don't always have to LEAVE your guild to run with others..) who does pick up guild runs (like.. find some other good players who will hit you up when they are running something etc..).. get some alts to grind out more gear... if you don't wanna grind for gear? why are you running endgame endgame?? run some old endgame, go back to DF/DP or something because BW did something awesome this time.. they made the operations at current level cap difficult thus, fun...

[FerkWork]

i think its sad that people want to blame gear so often.

 

the hm fps are easy. with the exception of the rishi bonus, they are all easily pugged by competent players.

 

nerfing instances will only stunt players' development. its a shame most mmo players think they are all amazing even when confronted by glaring facts like hm fps or parses. if youre dying, then its you and your group. look up class guides; take accountability to improve yourself.

 

Competent Pugs JK but they are few and far between.

Not making an opinion on the difficulty,I have cleared both Ops on SM and all the HM FPs, but I've even seen other guilds especially small new ones struggle on clearig it so even joining a guild doesn't necessary guarantee success. Instead looking for a good guild does. But loot does suck for HM FP. Give me some Manaan Research Data on Manaan and Decos on bonus bosses. Also Recovered Relics as well.

Edited February 21, 2015 by FerkWork

[Sala]

i dont agree with any of this and wouldnt play this easy game you want to see.

Well I happen to agree with he said. You should not need to have a chat program to do the storyline stuff. If you happen to have it, great, but you should not 'need' it.

[JamieKirby]

I like challenge, when the reward equals the challenge, if it doesn't, i don't see the point in it.

 

For example, if you can do a hard mode flashpoint to get a 196 item or a story mode operation to get the same thing....i will always go with the easier content.

 

I HATE challenge, when the reward isn't worth the challenge....but the only time i quit the group is when the group itself is just pathetic......attitude wise.

 

I used to love challenge back in the day, but when it got to the point, where i never got anything for my troubles, i just stopped caring about it, there is always a cheaper alternative to most things and most players tend to take these operations and flashpoint runs way too seriously and have so many hissy fits, it makes a child's tantrum look tame.

 

So yeah, if the tank or healer or any group member is acting like a childish moron, i will leave, it has nothing to do with the difficulty of the content.

 

EDIT: I personally think bioware should bring out a solo mode for all flashpoints and operations as a way of learning the mechanics, since i personally learn things better by doing, instead of watching and reading and having these solo modes that give no gear or commendations and no xp rewards and is used exclusively as a tutorial of sorts of the flashpoints and operations, this also helps avoid all the 'learn the tactics' crap and removes the need of voice chat, all you really need is to know your guild mates and how they play and teamwork is possible, but most tend to just want easy wins.

Edited February 21, 2015 by JamieKirby

[mikegrijsen]

You need to figure out mechanics, and how they function. If you cannot do that, then you will fail. These are not for the casual gamer, that's what Story Mode is for. (barring bugs)

 

Do the rewards for the HM content blow? Pretty much.

 

Other than that. Learn.

 

 

This^^

[Pagy]

Well I happen to agree with he said. You should not need to have a chat program to do the storyline stuff. If you happen to have it, great, but you should not 'need' it.

and you dont "need" it.

 

but when you have new people that are completely unwilling to learn about the fights on their own, yes, voice lets the teaching happen more easily.

[AlrikFassbauer]

i dont agree with any of this and wouldnt play this easy game you want to see.

 

There was a time when voice chat just didn't exist.

 

Nowadays, people are just both too lazy and too impatient to use the chat window for that.

Because, if they did, the OP or FP would go on so much SLOWER.

But that is fully against people's minds who prefer to rush through a thing in order to get Comms.

 

"Just let's go shopping"

"For what ?"

"For Comms !"

 

 

 

Another point is, that there have been quite a lot of threads complaining about "everything has become far too easy now !!!111eleven". Especially regarding KDY and that "tactical FPs" wewre in general "crap" and should be instantly removed because of their lack of difficulty.

And now you have *that* level of difficulty in SM

 

"Be careful what you ask for - because it might be given to you ..."

[Sala]

and you dont "need" it.

 

but when you have new people that are completely unwilling to learn about the fights on their own, yes, voice lets the teaching happen more easily.

 

Perhaps you would like to explain to everyone just how you ran ToS, Ravagers, Blood Hunt HM and Battle of Rishi HM without teamspeak.

 

I for one raid everyday, I havent even seen a pug group that wouldnt boot you if you didnt have voice comm's for these op/fp runs and/or had the achievements to prove you did so that they understood you didnt have to be in comm's.

 

You're something else. Just stop posting and derailing the discussion.

 

1) the rewards do not add up. wether it is gear or commendations.

2) the mechanics are buggy. Underlurker and Cortainni are still buggy. I don't care if people have cleared it. I have cleared it, they're still buggy.

3) 16m modes are twice as hard as 8m modes.

4) ALL other ops have become pretty much worthless and aren't even ran anymore outside of for their storyline mission. Everyone used to run HM TFB, SNV, DF, DP and work on progression and gearing and comm's. Not anymore. Outside of running those ops for the achievement they are now worthless. Meaning this... you have LESS endgame content and options to keep you and your 14 other characters busy and focus'd.

5) the new world boss fight on Yavin is simply ridiculous. I have not seen it done without half of everyone dying, running back and forth from the respawn locations in the middle of an area that dailies are heavily being ran?

6) Accuracy bug has been turned into working as intended. This is simply craziness. I'm not debating that you need accuracy, I'm debating that you need so much of it.

 

Those fights might be slightly easier w/192 elite gear but they are still mechanic heavy, rarely are you going to see anyone run/post for ops for them anymore. Not even the weekly classic ops mission gives out a suitable reward for the work invested to run these ops.

 

I love this game, I loved the new discipline system and I appreciate the hard work done by the team to achieve all of this. That does not mean I will give them a free a pass when I see major issues like this. These issues are all pretty much 2+ months OLD already and for issues that have a major impact on endgame content.

 

Obviously, I'm still here, I still enjoy the game, I would also like to see it not go down the toilet.

Edited February 21, 2015 by Sala

[Ghisallo]

You will be flamed by fanboys until the cows come home, but you're right...

 

There is fun/challenging, then there is frustrating/challenging...

 

I've now been able to clear more of the 3.0 content, being overgeared makes all the difference in the world... but I find that if I am not doing it with guildies, then I'm wasting my time...

 

I've been in GF for a long time now, I find myself going to click on it, only to think, "what's the point, the odds of getting a PUG that can clear HM 60 is low, waste of my time".

 

I guess the question is what the dev's attitude is. I remember a podcast from one of the games I used to play (not WoW) from 2011-2012. The Producer said "we are aware of the complaints about difficulty level but we believe this is a learning curve issue rather than an actual problem with the difficulty."

 

So it is more than possible that the dev's attitude is "people just need to pay attention.". Now does this mean that some PUGs will be downright painful? Yep, some players rather than paying attention to scripts, using that cure their dps spec has....will just play with one hand while eating a sandwich and watching HULU then say "this isn't a job" when someone asks "why didn't you do <insert ridiculously easy task.>"

 

(The following is not meant to be rude at all).

 

Me I am a bigger fan of people learning to play, rising (minimally) to the occassion These games are NOT rocket science. All they require is a modicum of situational awareness and some hand eye coordination. SWTOR is even easier than most tbh.

 

Most of the people I know who have "issues" here inevitably say "this is the only MMO I have ever played. They came here because they liked the SW RPGs. These games had difficulty sliders and I wonder if this contributes to the issue.

 

-However removing the player element the rewards are... Off and need to be addressed.

 

-Also unless you can somehow ensure that you will have more than one person in a group that will have a specific ability in the queue (say cures) you should not require more than one use of that ability at a time.

Edited February 21, 2015 by Ghisallo

[Sala]

There is 1 guild across all servers that has even cleared Both of the new HM Operations, let alone "one-shotting" all the new bosses.

 

If you are referring to Sparky HM (The first boss of the first operation) as a catch all for "the new HM operation fights," then yeah, there are quite a few guilds that have cleared that one boss, the first boss, on HM difficulty.

 

Considering the sub par performance of most P.U.G. players, all Group Finder content should have bolster to carry undergeared players through. Though, even with bolster, most P.U.G. groups would still fail to clear the HM 60 Flashpoints, because your average P.U.G. player cannot follow mechanics. If mechanics were easy to follow, then there would be more than one guild that had cleared both of the new "HM" Operations 3 months after release.

 

As for HM Flashpoint rewards, you all need to realize that top tier gear and even second top tier gear is only designed players who run operations ad nauseam (or buy "gear runs"), not for players who run Flashpoints. Flashpoints have had no role in serious gear progression since the 1.0 days. If you ask the top tier raiders about this, they will say it is a good thing or "how it should be."

 

The same goes for the laughably horrid elite/ultimate comms gear. Your 192 comms gear is "almost" (and that is being generous) as good as 186 operations token drop gear, but if you want the 186 token gear from Nightmare DF/DP, even above level, good luck, the mechanics will still wipe the vast majority of players. In short, top tier raiders do not want players outside of operations to have any properly itemized gear....and BioWare agrees.

 

Thus, you are all correct in stating that the effort and time investment does not justify the rewards outside of guild runs. Does this defeat the purpose of the group finder? Yes, definitely.

 

 

Is content "too hard" since 3.0? I will let the "SM Progression" thread answer that:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=762898

 

 

Fear not though, the development team in charge of designing operation content and associated difficulty do not care that you cannot clear their content. They design their Operations with one guild in mind. They want to make content challenging for that One guild. Do they care that the one guild happens to be leaps and bounds above every other guild in the game? No. They want to spend all their efforts (fruitlessly) to ensure that the one guild remains subscribed by making "HM" ops absurdly difficult for the rest of the vast majority of other Paying subscribers. Better to satisfy the few and displease the many than to satisfy the many and displease the few, amirite?

 

On the bright side (for that one guild at least), since "SM Progression" is now a thing, that one guild can sell "SM" runs for millions of credits.

 

The fact that BioWare has not made adjustments to difficulty curb this practice shows how little they care about the PVE community (and even less about the small PVP Community), outside of an obsessive focus of keeping one guild in the game Almost challenged by the content.

 

You know something is wrong with the difficulty when players are selling runs for STORY MODE content.

 

Excellent summation! Thank you for posting. You're a bit more graceful with everything but you hit the nail right on the head.

[theJudeAbides]

I agree a lot with what the OP and others have said.

 

There is another thing to think about too: With every new expansion, Bioware has to at least HOPE that they're attracting new players. Now, imagine you're a new player, reaching lvl 60 for the first time, and these are the FPs and OPs you have available (because all the previous content is now off the GF). Even if they run the tacticals first, those don't even really help much, since nobody really plays their role anyways and you just ROFLstomp your way through without having to worry about mechanics. So you switch to HM because you figure it'll probably be a bit more difficult but still managable but then...

 

WHAM!!! You hit a HUGE difficulty spike. The difference between Tactical and HM is ridiculous, and for new players, will likely just turn them away. L2P the elitists will say. "Go watch videos and read guides" they'll chant endlessly. Really? I mean, part of the joy in playing these games is the joy of discovery. Of coming to a new challenge, figuring out how to beat it (by yourself/with a group), and then finally beating it. Yet, if you look at some of these mechanics and how little margin of error there is (if any), there's almost no way a new player is going to be able to figure it out unless they just have hours upon hours to while away, which most people don't.

 

Finally, it's pretty obvious that EA/Bioware wants you to join a guild to be able to have a chance at completing these missions. Yes, it's a MMO and grouping is a given, but that doesn't mean I want a have a 2nd job/join a guild (which, mind you, I finally did recently). Why can't I use Group-Finder to run FPs and OPs? As others have said, teamspeak should be a luxury, not a necessity. Yet good luck pugging SM Ops and the new HM Flashpoints.

 

People say the tacticals are too easy, and they're right.

People say the Hard Modes are too hard, and they're right.

Hell, even the SM Ops are probably too hard.

Bioware needs to find a middle ground to bridge the gap between Tactical and HM.

As the OP said, there's a difference between fun/challenging and frustrating/challenging, and BioWare needs to figure this out.