Why the new Operations are threatening to kill the game.

[XORDYH]

But, people forget that raids are not made for pugging. Group Finder operations came with Palace and Fortress, before that, they didnt exist, meaning that Bioware didnt embrace the pugging trends before that.

 

Wrong.

 

Game Update 1.3: Allies

6/26/2012

Highlights

• Group Finder is now available! Players can use this feature to find groups for Flashpoints and Operations!
  

 

http://www.swtor.com/patchnotes/1.3.0/allies

 

We are also renaming the “normal” mode difficulty we have right now to “story” mode to give a better reflection of the difficulty. This is not a mode for guild progression but rather a mode to experience the story and socialize.

 

http://dulfy.net/2012/03/05/swtor-guild-summitlive-blogging/

 

Let the casuals have their casual mode.

[BlueShiftRecall]

I don't agree with this. First of all, entering a SM instance should mean that you are serious about raiding.

 

As a purely casual player (who is also a long time sub) I enter SM GF Fleet OP PUG’s mainly to experience the story and also to have some fun socializing and playing my toons. I don’t do any HM op stuff and have no inclination of ever doing so because I don't have the time to put towards them and honestly I just like having fun with SM. Without these SM's I most likely would have never done them.

 

Also XORDYH above me has some good quotes and yes let me (a filthy casual ) enjoy myself some SM op's!

Edited February 25, 2015 by BlueShiftRecall

[Declan_Vee]

Story mode Ops are perfectly fine, and only require a very moderate level of skill coordination and D/HPS in the recommended gear for them. And can be cleared very casually.

 

What advocates of SM nerfs actually want are:

 

Mechanics which can be completely ignored, completely.

DPS to be free to do 1500 dps or less without consequence.

Healers to have an interactive comfy couch to take a nap mid-fight.

Tanks just want a good read between the odd taunt or not.

And all of them want to farm "Super-Ultimate" comms to buy rating 210 gear so they can go back into the same content to rinse and repeat.

 

But no one wants to say this for some reason....

[tomtrz]

I do not agree with OP.

Learning curve should be present. The current situation is not that operations are so hard, it's the people so bad.

 

It's not entirely their fault. Making faceroll (seriously, most people could just go AFK and you'll still do it) 16 man SM operations with bolster, with overpowered rewards encouraged people to just FARM,FARM,FARM, brainlessly FARM. Tactical flashpoints, 12xp boost etc.

 

You could just get to 60 and clear everything on SM without even knowing basics of your character. Learning curve and progressive difficulty is present in almost every single video game.

 

People could have faceroll storymodes again, but then they will start complaining, that hard mode is too hard and they can't enjoy it etc. because difficulty gap is too big.

If you don't like challenge and want to enjoy story, why won't you just go and open up youtube video? You can even click some buttons, to not fall asleep.

 

This game is not a rocket science, every single healthy person should have enough brain to compete even with hard modes. It's just clicking few buttons, reading skills decriptions and using your senses...

 

If you are not able to do that, well.....that's only your problem, not a game.

[FerkWork]

Eh, I'm indifferent on this. While I agree most of the raids aren't hard (16m just needs to be brought in a few places line to make it equal but even that is doable).

That being said, I have noticed that many people stick to story and have no interest raiding HM so I'm confused why they would be arguing that HM is too hard, Honestly, I've never heard that complaint before except recently among the progression people with the Revan fight but that's different folks. I like to look at everyone's achieves and stuff and see a trend of just SM completion. As for the new ops, I've seen even new guilds still struggle on Bulo and Sword Squadron. The poster above brought up a good point about difficulty is in every game. So inquiry to both sides, what is "casual mode"? Is it based on difficulty (such as some advocating for SM to be) or based on content (Casual is tacticals etc..). As for higher difficulty is good it's hard to say at this point. It could be true and more people play to be better or it could make people leave over difficulty. I don't have an answer and only time will tell. Personally, I don't care about either way as I can down the content.

Also, to the poster referring to HM vs NiM as real progression. If you are alluding to my post in another thread, I don't use the term hard mode in the SWTOR technical sense but rather as a broad term for both HM and NiM.

[JouerTue]

Story mode Ops are perfectly fine, and only require a very moderate level of skill coordination and D/HPS in the recommended gear for them. And can be cleared very casually.

 

What advocates of SM nerfs actually want are:

 

Mechanics which can be completely ignored, completely.

DPS to be free to do 1500 dps or less without consequence.

Healers to have an interactive comfy couch to take a nap mid-fight.

Tanks just want a good read between the odd taunt or not.

And all of them want to farm "Super-Ultimate" comms to buy rating 210 gear so they can go back into the same content to rinse and repeat.

 

But no one wants to say this for some reason....

 

well said.

also even the easiest op, DF? TFB? required a couple of players capable to find their butt, not talking about DP which required 1 skilled tank and 1 good dps, luxury stuff..with this thier we are talking about mechanics that need a guy to know how to pick up a bomb and using it with more than 30'' gap from the next and the rest of the bosses have tactics like:

 

-not going behind the tank, uber basic raiding tactic;

-not standing in cyrcles, since the essels;

-hiding behind a rock during a cast, and find right/left side of a boss, omg if only we did the correct mechanics in calphayus!

 

i really would like to see those comms heroes, deprived of their ''hard'' earned ''full 180'' sets that now QQ, killing kephess in TFB ( that poor boss had his mechanic totally ignored from level 55) with the gear we had and at 50..let's see if you can ignore the nanites or the tank swap and facetank on your sorc.

[Shoraan]

I disagree with this thread. I think operations are supposted to be challenging even on SM. They already made some changes and made those ops slightly easier. For example when casual players complete the operations they can atleast feel some kind of achievement for doing it, since its not as faceroll as previous ops. Would it be fun if u could do SM with ur eyes closed? If you are struggling with something just browse forums, ask other ppl for advice and try to find the solution for problem. I2700 dps req for underlurker is not high. I Can easily do on my alts 3,5k+. People just need more practice and put some effort into it. It is Operation after all, not a flashpoint.

 

Why do you care whether casuals feel some kind of achievement for doing an ops in SM? I can't speak for others, but personally, I don't want to achieve something when entering an ops in Storymode. I want to have fun and experience the content. If I want a challenge I learn a new language or plan a trip to the south pole.

 

As it is now, I simply avoid the new ops, because it doesn't really matter whether I know what to do and when to do it. If only one of the 8 or 16 people doesn't follow the script, it's a wipe.

 

PUGs in DF/DP SM were fun for me, because people were so overgeared that one or two inattentive people in a 16-man group could be carried. Unfortunately it's the nature of PUGs that you hardly get a group together where everyone is progression raid material.

 

My solution to the problem? I don't do the ops.

[davidp_newton]

Why do you care whether casuals feel some kind of achievement for doing an ops in SM? I can't speak for others, but personally, I don't want to achieve something when entering an ops in Storymode. I want to have fun and experience the content. If I want a challenge I learn a new language or plan a trip to the south pole.

 

As it is now, I simply avoid the new ops, because it doesn't really matter whether I know what to do and when to do it. If only one of the 8 or 16 people doesn't follow the script, it's a wipe.

 

PUGs in DF/DP SM were fun for me, because people were so overgeared that one or two inattentive people in a 16-man group could be carried. Unfortunately it's the nature of PUGs that you hardly get a group together where everyone is progression raid material.

 

My solution to the problem? I don't do the ops.

 

This is exactly the problem that the OP was talking about with respect to participation. Make the SM content too hard and PUGs will simply not happen. I agree with those who say that by the end of 3.0 doing PUG operations was too easy with the gear available then. To a degree that is simply a hazard of being at the end of an expansion rather than the start. That said I believe there are three linked problems with the ops on this tier:

 

1. On SM one boss of the ten is vastly harder than the others (Underlurker) due to the DPS check and mechanics check on the same boss and that boss is in the wrong place in the operations. If Revan and/or Coratanni were significantly harder than the other bosses like is the case on HM that would be entirely different. See Styrak on S&V which was a significant step up in DPS requirements, like Underlurker, but is the final boss in the operation.

2. 16 man instance performance on this game is still nowhere near as good as it should be, with the fundamental blame going to the game engine. This is a long-standing and extremely intractable problem. However it is a problem that Bioware needs to at least give the appearance of trying to fix.

3. The loot tables on the operations are still not what they should be, as although the token drop problems have been fixed the non-token gear is still junk.

 

There are also L2P problems in this game and plenty of them. Progression raiders can have a tendency to exaggerate problems that can be solved with L2P, but they are also a real phenomenon as the massive weird people you meet in groupfinder thread attests. A lot of the issues in there come up in flashpoints rather than operations, but I personally have seen stupidly geared people such as a Jedi sage in full strength tanking gear trying to do an operation! The same phenomenon is also a problem in PvP with people in completely inappropriate gear trying to do ranked PvP.

 

How do we solve these issues? Not easy to achieve but in some cases World of Warcraft perhaps has some pointers. Inappropriate gearing can be mitigated by changing the loot system. At a minimum it should be altered so that no one can need on gear which does not have their primary stat on it. That would stymie ninjas and it would also reduce naive bad gearing. Perhaps going further and shifting to WoW's personal loot system would be a possibility as well since that would completely eliminate ninja looting and further mitigate naive bad gearing. Personal loot would be enabled automatically during all groupfinder content, including operations, for non-token gear. For tokens it cannot be reasonable to do it since tokens are equally useful to all advanced classes and specs.

 

The other WoW system that might be helpful is proving grounds-type pre-requisites to queue for harder content. Proving grounds are a test which shows you can at least perform basic tasks for your role, whether ti be DPS, healer or tank. To queue for heroic dungeons, the WoW equivalent of HM FPs, you have to pass the silver proving ground test for your role. Again this would mitigate, but not of course eliminate, stupid behaviour in higher end content. It should include things which require a particular level of DPS/EHPS to be displayed and also include explicit tests for how not to stand in fire and how to get out of telegraphed boss attacks. In SWTOR it would need to be tweaked of course. The tests would need to be account-wide and take into account advanced class mirroring. So if you pass the DPS test on a sage on one server you should never again be DPS tested for either a sage or sorceror on any other server. This would also stop people who have never tanked or healed before selecting those roles simply to get a quick pop on the content. Another thing that would probably be needed is a warning system when pre-mades queue for HM FPs and SM ops. This would work so that if someone has not passed the relevant proving ground requirements a warning pops up for the rest of the group with the name(s) of the player(s) who do not have the relevant proving grounds requirement. If all of the group agrees to take the player(s) anyway they can click to enter the GF queue. Queue entry would only occur if agreement were unanimous, and the names of those who did not click agree would be displayed in chat. The group leader could then sort out the issue either by removing the players who do not meet the proving grounds requirements or removing the players who object. This would allow guilds to carry someone through content if they want to for example.

 

These tests would only be appropriate as a gate for HM FP and SM ops GF queues since they're the places where roles really do matter and people get seriously cheesed off by noobs wrecking the run.

 

For ranked PvP the fix is simple: do not allow people to do it until they have 2018 expertise.

 

If these loot and queue changes were implemented they would go a long way towards addressing the L2P concerns that are real. Of course they wouldn't stop those with two glowing light sticks jumping into fights ahead of the tank at the first opportunity, but there is no way to easily code an objective test to filter people who do that out of the queues. However a lot of those people would probably fail the proving grounds DPS test anyway.

 

Once the L2P concerns are addressed then we move onto the three real issues with this tier that I outline above.

Edited February 25, 2015 by davidp_newton

[Ardarell_Solo]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False-consensus_effect

Have you ever even considered that this applies 100% to everything you're writing in the name of casual players - the spokesperson of which you've appointed yourself to be? Edited February 25, 2015 by Ardarell_Solo

[Icestar]

If they began fixing the bugs they have with the new ops then we can see how players can handle them.

 

They seems to have a fix for Cora the next patch, they should focus on Underlurker aswell.

Edited February 25, 2015 by Icestar

[Shwarzchild]

I have never understood how casual has become synonymous with incapable. What also amazes me is that people expect the end game content to be easy. If the new operations are too hard then the solution is to go down a tier and do other operations. Once those are too easy move up again. To cry for a nerd on content that shouldn't be needed is wrong. Edited February 25, 2015 by Shwarzchild

[Papazmurf]

After running ToS and having *random* success with Underlurker I've of the opinion that if they fixed the bugs people wouldn't be so burned out. As it is currently, you can do things 100% correct and still wipe. There's already so many dynamics in raiding and blaming when stuff goes wrong. It's even worse when it's the game that is wrong.

[Shwarzchild]

After running ToS and having *random* success with Underlurker I've of the opinion that if they fixed the bugs people wouldn't be so burned out. As it is currently, you can do things 100% correct and still wipe. There's already so many dynamics in raiding and blaming when stuff goes wrong. It's even worse when it's the game that is wrong.

 

This is a very real issue, totally agree. Although I'm still unsure if burned out is the right categorization of it all. I do have a feeling that there are people in this game who just want things for as little effort as possible while operating under the ruse that they are "casual". To me casual just means the person doesn't play every day, have any alts, not really looking to have a big time commitment on their plate. That's all fine, but I don't want to lump people in who simply don't do anything but still expect to do everything that the game offers. I hated it at the time, but when Lost Island debuted in its original form groups kicked players for having bad gear. People were pissed about it. Looking back though, it almost forced people to correctly gear themselves and/or learn something. Maybe it's time we as a community get back to holding our brethren to a higher standard.

 

Granted LI did get nerfed, and turned into a joke. So I wouldn't want to completely turn back the clock to then. Another solution would be for the new hard modes, if you beat them 25 times each (I think that's what the current acheivement total is) they get a lockbox of basic gear (beat battle of rishii get hands and feet, so on and so forth), or as a previous poster said put a tutorial in that needs to be passed first involving a basic gear check. What I don't accept, and won't be willing to debate, is casual players, who really are just coat tail riders wanting free passes for everything and refusing to learn anything, making the top end of skilled content available a joke for the people who actually run them regularly.

[Joran-Koon]

So all i hear is people want to be able to cruise by the first 4 bosses of each op, get their weekly, get their comms (which aren't there anymore) and then call it a day. Much like it was in 2.x

 

Going into 3.0, BW said the bar was being raised, and their commitment to that is shown in the removal of "easy ultimates" and full op completion for weekly rewards. The expectation was communicated, the forums and supporting sites to swtor provide the tools you need. Everything is there to help people get better at this game. It is saddening to see that the community would rather cry out in nerf-agony than put some time in for a little self improvement.

[Papazmurf]

This is a very real issue, totally agree. Although I'm still unsure if burned out is the right categorization of it all. I do have a feeling that there are people in this game who just want things for as little effort as possible while operating under the ruse that they are "casual". To me casual just means the person doesn't play every day, have any alts, not really looking to have a big time commitment on their plate. That's all fine, but I don't want to lump people in who simply don't do anything but still expect to do everything that the game offers. I hated it at the time, but when Lost Island debuted in its original form groups kicked players for having bad gear. People were pissed about it. Looking back though, it almost forced people to correctly gear themselves and/or learn something. Maybe it's time we as a community get back to holding our brethren to a higher standard.

 

Granted LI did get nerfed, and turned into a joke. So I wouldn't want to completely turn back the clock to then. Another solution would be for the new hard modes, if you beat them 25 times each (I think that's what the current acheivement total is) they get a lockbox of basic gear (beat battle of rishii get hands and feet, so on and so forth), or as a previous poster said put a tutorial in that needs to be passed first involving a basic gear check. What I don't accept, and won't be willing to debate, is casual players, who really are just coat tail riders wanting free passes for everything and refusing to learn anything, making the top end of skilled content available a joke for the people who actually run them regularly.

 

I get what you're saying and I'm sure there are bunch of people whom all they want is hand outs. I agree with everything you wrote, but the problem isn't necessarily the difficulty as much as it is accessibility.

 

Your use of the word 'casual' is interesting. By your definition I would be a casual player as I've only got one level 60 and he's pretty much the only toon I use. I have two other alts close to 60 and a few others spread around, but that's after 3 years of playing this game. We all know people who have 12+ alts at max level, but not all of those people understand the game as well as I do. I think for the sake of this debate it will be easier to keep the term casual as it is regularly defined in the gamer community; they are people whom casually play games and don't put the time into it become extremely skilled.

 

If we do this, we go back to your original argument of people just not wanting to do what is needed to accomplish OPs. I think a lot of people agree with this, though clearly some do not and I am only talking from the perspective of end game raiders. One of the things I found in progression raiding, especially when getting to HM is that there are people who are just not going to be able to get past the content in their current role no matter how hard they try. They could have all the gear in the world, but they just don't have the wit to 1. do the mechanics properly and 2. when sh*t hits the fan be able to adjust on the fly to the scenario at hand. It's sad, but it's true.

 

We all play the same game and for Bioware the biggest problem for them is trying to keep everyone happy. The idea of loot from raiding and now the cash shops in MMOs operate perpetuate a more fundamental problem of 'haves' and 'have nots'. By just regular nature, smarter players can get through content faster and will generally have more credits. It doesn't mean that John Doe isn't putting effort into raiding or that he isn't playing as much as Jane Doe, they just aren't getting it and therefore will not, except with a stroke of luck, be able to complete certain OPS. When they do complete it, it's still hard to consistently do it again.

 

I have a lot more thoughts on this issue, but I'd like to leave it there with that premise. This is also just my experience of playing the game, but I don't think people think about this enough as for why people wipe and so on. Of course my thoughts on this are likely just a percentage of the overall issues that many people brought up, like people being under geared, being in the wrong gear, or just simply not knowing how to play their roles. My issue is, in those cases I truly believe no tutorial is going to fix that. I mean who reads instructions now a days. People showing up under geared and no knowing what they are doing, that's not a game issue, but a person issue. There were some ideas to prevent that like the guy that mentioned the WoW suggestions for gating content. However, I think what the OP had in mind is the issue for players that I mentioned in the main part of my post, which is that things are too hard for people that are actually trying and wanting to beat OPS content.

[Shwarzchild]

So all i hear is people want to be able to cruise by the first 4 bosses of each op, get their weekly, get their comms (which aren't there anymore) and then call it a day. Much like it was in 2.x

 

Going into 3.0, BW said the bar was being raised, and their commitment to that is shown in the removal of "easy ultimates" and full op completion for weekly rewards. The expectation was communicated, the forums and supporting sites to swtor provide the tools you need. Everything is there to help people get better at this game. It is saddening to see that the community would rather cry out in nerf-agony than put some time in for a little self improvement.

 

This is absolutely correct. It's totally the attitude. And, it's funny, I don't think these people really understand things in my opinion only. They're the same ones who next week will be crying about having nothing to do. I'm at the point where comms mean virtually nothing, and I'm more interested in elite comms for REing purposes than gearing thanks to Yavin givng out 192 comp gear (and this game spits those out like candy). If Bioware nerfs the operations so people can clear them faster then really there won't be anything to do pve style for end game. I wish people would just slow down a bit, but we know that will never happen. We must crush content moar and moar fastest gwaaaaah.

[Shwarzchild]

I get what you're saying and I'm sure there are bunch of people whom all they want is hand outs. I agree with everything you wrote, but the problem isn't necessarily the difficulty as much as it is accessibility.

 

Your use of the word 'casual' is interesting. By your definition I would be a casual player as I've only got one level 60 and he's pretty much the only toon I use. I have two other alts close to 60 and a few others spread around, but that's after 3 years of playing this game. We all know people who have 12+ alts at max level, but not all of those people understand the game as well as I do. I think for the sake of this debate it will be easier to keep the term casual as it is regularly defined in the gamer community; they are people whom casually play games and don't put the time into it become extremely skilled.

 

If we do this, we go back to your original argument of people just not wanting to do what is needed to accomplish OPs. I think a lot of people agree with this, though clearly some do not and I am only talking from the perspective of end game raiders. One of the things I found in progression raiding, especially when getting to HM is that there are people who are just not going to be able to get past the content in their current role no matter how hard they try. They could have all the gear in the world, but they just don't have the wit to 1. do the mechanics properly and 2. when sh*t hits the fan be able to adjust on the fly to the scenario at hand. It's sad, but it's true.

 

We all play the same game and for Bioware the biggest problem for them is trying to keep everyone happy. The idea of loot from raiding and now the cash shops in MMOs operate perpetuate a more fundamental problem of 'haves' and 'have nots'. By just regular nature, smarter players can get through content faster and will generally have more credits. It doesn't mean that John Doe isn't putting effort into raiding or that he isn't playing as much as Jane Doe, they just aren't getting it and therefore will not, except with a stroke of luck, be able to complete certain OPS. When they do complete it, it's still hard to consistently do it again.

 

I have a lot more thoughts on this issue, but I'd like to leave it there with that premise. This is also just my experience of playing the game, but I don't think people think about this enough as for why people wipe and so on. Of course my thoughts on this are likely just a percentage of the overall issues that many people brought up, like people being under geared, being in the wrong gear, or just simply not knowing how to play their roles. My issue is, in those cases I truly believe no tutorial is going to fix that. I mean who reads instructions now a days. People showing up under geared and no knowing what they are doing, that's not a game issue, but a person issue. There were some ideas to prevent that like the guy that mentioned the WoW suggestions for gating content. However, I think what the OP had in mind is the issue for players that I mentioned in the main part of my post, which is that things are too hard for people that are actually trying and wanting to beat OPS content.

 

This is an awesome post. And, I would love to hear what your other thoughts are on things. I enjoyed reading this. Honestly, I consider myself a casual player as well. I have my main, one alt, raid tuesdays and thursdays, and that's pretty much my exposure to the game. In the beginning I was much more hardcore, but now I just don't have the time and I hate that I don't but I digress.

 

The biggest thing you said in there that really piqued my interest is the idea of access. I mentioned this on another thread that I really have taken issue with the group finder. I think it's insanely limiting, and almost pushing people into what should be the hardest content too soon. If they find they can't do it, there just isn't a good way for them to go back a tier and que for dread fortress, or tfb, or if we want to go all the way to the beginning eternity vault or karraga (I know that's extreme). And they can ONLY do 16 man which I think is a bit of a task for a new operations person, or a experienced casual one. In 8 man people just learn more about fights I think, and 16 man can be a bit visually overwhelming. The loot is great, but the experience is kind of lackluster. I'm really unsure of what the solution would be for any of these questions, but man would I love to hear others thoughts.

[DieGhostDie]

As with others, I disagree with the OP, but in a different standpoint.

 

Yes, Story Mode Operations are supposed to be forgiving for players who want to socialize and have fun. I get that. However, if you propose that they should just simply remove mechanics in any shape or form, then unfortunately, you're basically removing the fun of it. I agree with Kalizo here. BioWare's current purpose for 3.0 operations is to be a bit more tougher and to promote a learning curve for all players. Just because Story Mode is the easiest of the three difficulties, it does not mean it should be too easy. Look at it this way, we already have guides (from Dulfy.net, YouTube, and others) present to allow people to learn about mechanics in Story and Hard Mode. Whether if people don't want to read guides is their own prerogative (not saying it is their fault they haven't read guides, but rather, if people keep wiping to mechanic "a" and don't want to rely on outside help, then that most likely leads to a plea of nerfing which is presently common).

 

I also agree with Shwarzchild. If PUG groups can take the time to slow down and look at external help, they would most likely clear operations. However, those that want to face roll content fast and easy are the ones who don't take the time to help others as well as not having the patience for wipes whatsoever.

 

Overall, you should at least put some effort into these new Operations, regardless of difficulty. At least in Hard Mode (or Hardmare), I had to put in twice (or literally thrice) the effort into clearing content in my Friday raid group. I personally don't think Story Mode has that same bearing, but at least some minuscule of effort should be put into it regardless.

Edited February 25, 2015 by DieGhostDie

[FireFoxed]

The real culprit is the removal of ultimate comms from 55 ops. Having pugged the new ops for a month, it's become painfully clear that there is a segment of the playerbase who are just incapable of doing them. While the new ops are a refreshing challenge for me, the lack of rewarding content for them is driving them away. Give them 10 ultimates to clear the old 55 ops and at least they'll still have something to do. Edited February 25, 2015 by FireFoxed

[BlueShiftRecall]

I also agree with Shwarzchild. If PUG groups can take the time to slow down and look at external help, they would most likely clear operations.

 

This. I've had people in RAV and TOS PUGS because I ALWAYS ask before boss fights if everyone knows them and I actually get people who tell me to, "shut up and just start already..." or "Stop wasting time." Alarm bells?

 

The first time I had ever joined either of these new Op's I had read Dulfy's guide multiple times which in all honesty doesn't take much time.

 

Also someone on this forum recently posted video tutorial guides on youtube of these bosses that actually walk you through them! These are just one of the excellent resources that can help you. I don't mind newer players (we were all there once) but newer players who refuse to listen to advice from others really annoy me, don't get me started on players who stand in Mass Barrage on Bulo every time!

[Island_Jedi]

I have been in this game for years, I have downed HM and NIM content, of course I would like the community to get better at the game. The problem is though, can the game afford the experiment of forcing the casual community to be competent raiders. This thread is not about my personal feelings on wanting the casual community to stay in "derpland". It is more about the role the casual community plays in the financing of the game and if they do not get better, if they do not adapt to this new tier of content, what will happen to the game if they leave.

 

SM in a general sense is fine and if I must get specific it is CERTAIN mechanics on CERTAIN boss fights, that are destroying the casual community. When we talk about casual, that group can be split into two additional groups. On the one hand you have the casual competent raider, who can clear sm content and play very well. What defines this first group of players is they're time restraints, NOT they're skill. If this first group of players had more time, they would progress to be HM and NIM raiders. The second group of people are your "storymode warriors" who do not care about skill or watching videos. They simply want to log onto the game after a hard day of work of dealing with jobs, kids, and school, and relax and have fun. This group will never progress into any type of "progression raiding" and they do not want to. You cannot force people to become the players you want them to be.

 

Making the content harder may help more of the first group get into HM's, but it will not change the mentality of the second group, why. The second group has no interest in learning the game properly, they are simply here to faceroll and they are fine with that. If the "progression" raiders have a problem with that, simply avoid raiding with that second group of players and the SM ops if they were nerfed. I used to tell my OP group that I was allergic to the old DF, DP sm ops, because I hated raiding in that mechanic free environment. Now while I hated raiding in that environment, I also understood why we needed those SM's, it was to keep that portion of the community happy and raiding. In essence paying for my experience.

 

Ultimate comm gear is rubbish to a "progression" raider, I laugh when I here people say "lets farm our ultimates, so we are ready for HM". Ultimate gear is crap, so I do not care if pugs have an easy time getting ultimates, they will never get the "good" gear unless they learn the OP's. Why would "progression" raiders care if PUG's are getting ultimates easy, since you know your token gear drops is much more effective in raiding. The only ultimate piece of gear that is considered BIS is the offhand armoring, hilt, barrel and Tanking B MOD's. If a portion of our community gets excited about ultimate comms; that we as progression raiders do not care about, why would we have strong opinions on people getting gear we dont want in the first place. The progression raiders will always be the best geared PVE players in the game, regardless if the "SM warriors" are farming ultimates. Why does it matter if PUG's feel good about they're "Ulti-gear" when the progression community will outgear them anyway with token 192's and vastly outgear them with token 198's. If the gear was as good as the token drops the "progression" community would have a viable argument, but since the "Ulti-gear" is garbage, the "progression" community should not care about what a PUG can acquire gear-wise right now.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Island_Jedi

[FerkWork]

As with others, I disagree with the OP, but in a different standpoint.

...Overall, you should at least put some effort into these new Operations, regardless of difficulty. At least in Hard Mode (or Hardmare), I had to put in twice (or literally thrice) the effort into clearing content in my Friday raid group. I personally don't think Story Mode has that same bearing, but at least some minuscule of effort should be put into it regardless.

 

I was indifferent about this but thinking it over after reading the posts here and maybe just snapping from the last straw of pugs after being so forgiving , I am firmly in the camp of making them cakewalks is bad and encourages bad players to continue to be bad.

 

Example: I never did Xeno before as this is the first time I've been around for Gree read the guide 10 minutes before and was still doing better than most and with too many under geared and more importantly terrible at their class. People refuse to make any effort in practicing their roles. One of the reasons I left my old guild. Too many just think you can wing it or steamroll it guild or no guild. I wanted to learn how to play my Sorc well in Ops, so I read the guides and practiced praticed and still practice everyday.

 

None of the bugs in the new ops can prevent you from clearing it. Lurker is fine it's a DPS check which means practice your rotation more and ask for help. While I would wish Coritanni would stop trying to pull a Bane, leaving phase and coming back in easily fixes it and is a minor inconvenience at best. Learn you class, gear accordingly and of equal importance, play with like minded people and you shall be set.

Edited February 25, 2015 by FerkWork

[Joran-Koon]

Thanks for your backing guys.

 

But Island jedi, You do come up with solid arguments and your statements are actually refreshingly accurate. We can't change the DNA of said groups and we shouldn't have a problem about SM warriors getting their ultimate gear. That all being said, I think there are people in the game and in this thread that aren't seeing a bigger picture.

 

The difficulty set fourth by BW, in my opinion, is mainly to prolong the longevity of the PvE content. This ideology is backed by the slow down of ultimate gear farming. Making the com bought gear literal crap without even a shred of decency (unless your a tank looking for B mods) is a second implementation that provides us evidence of their intent. I, like BW, feel that it would be better to have a game that is a little bit harder but keeps your interest due to challenge and provides a sense of accomplishment rather than a game that I move on from for the simple fact that it was too easy and boring.

If I were BW, i'd want to develop a game for the player who enjoyed the challenge and pushed me, as an employee, to make bigger and better things to challenge the ever growing commitment to the game. Not make something that takes little to no effort to make on my part and little to no effort and your part to clear and get bored with. That's boring for both parties and frankly, not conducive to an environment with its sights set on growth.

 

You were right when you said we can't change the DNA of that "casual" group, (although there will be outliers) what I think is BW is shopping around for a new type of "casual" gamer. Their live streams are said to start containing content with devs in ops and having higher profile twitch streams come into the game as well as ESL affiliation proves to us that BW is trying to reach a new target. They are showing the game's next level to an audience not previously hooked like many of us are. They also said they didn't know how this would look (releasing harder content) and wanted to keep tabs on how the community is feeling about it. That's the reason for this thread as well as Milas's HM progression thread. It's comforting to know that every day more and more guilds are clearing the new harder content and time will only bring more.

 

The title of this thread refers to a "killing of the game" when in fact, what I think you meant was a change to the game. Complacent people are not (and never will be) fans of change. It's not surprising that these people are the same type of people you all remove from your raid teams because they won't get with the times and move forward to help clear content. Like any company, BW is looking to grow this game and they cannot do that if they produce idle content that is clearable by a 4yo. They need to push the boundaries...and they are.

 

We can all say this game to date, has come A LONG way. the first op mechanics were "Don't go down the stairs to quickly". This step is only natural in a game that's growing its player base into an exciting client that the devs are happy to produce content for. Can you imagine if developers actually sign on with BW because swtor builds a reputation for needing top end design for its top end client base?! Our content would be unreal, but we won't get there unless we as a player base strive to the new level they set fourth for us.

[SpikeSaber]

Wow, so much text.

[Papazmurf]

This thread has been a joy to read with people putting a lot of thought into their responses and bringing real experience to the table. I think everyone in this thread, even if they disagree, is like minded about raiding. We may have different approaches but we all want to see a successful game. I guess my pessimistic view is that we are the minority, though I'm sure most of us knew that. When I say the minority I mean the raiders whether they play every day or just log on a few times a week to push through content. (I wish this forum had a quick reply so I could quote everyone easily; I apologize for my laziness). I just don't think a lot of people care to know or learn about mechanics.

 

A poster stated it well above that, for the most part, you just aren't going to change the DNA of lazy people. Maybe not lazy, but people that just use this game as an outlet and mindlessly play it like watching T.V. A lot of people have mentioned watching videos and reading guides to help them with their roles. You have already separated yourself from the majority by doing that. I will say I have never been a proponent of making someone watch a video or read guides to successfully complete content. At the end of the day it is just a game and I should be able to do everything I need to be successful within game. Of course, just like in school or work, the more time you put outside of it, the better you will be at your craft. This game isn't paying us though.

 

That last point, I haven't really seen delved in too much in this thread, but it is valid. The idea that this is a game. The great thing about it is there really is no real wrong way to play a game if you are having fun. This is why so many were upset when the skill tree was lost, even if statistically they were running gimped builds. I think as an online community we need to do a better job of being tolerant of how other people play the game. Of course you need certain skills and a level of cooperation that doesn't allow selfish play in an OPS group, but the point stands. Everything comes back to person A wants it more difficult, person B likes it the way it is, and person C wants it to be easier. The great thing about that is, even with the current state of the game, I'd argue that none of the three are wrong even though they all disagree. So how do you make all three happy? I'll leave that unanswered.

 

Things can always be better, which is why we are having this discussion. Is it the new operations that are killing the game, or is it lack or rewards or feeling of accomplishment for the old operations? Are the new operations really any harder than when TFB came out and the lot of us were doing that at level 50 (I'd argue hell no, but maybe I'm looking through rose tinted glasses). I honestly think the game is no worse than it was back then in terms of OPS. I'd argue a buggy expansion, slot machines, and lack of quality in the updated story telling, which was advertised to be strong point of this MMO, are threatening to kill the game. The raid issues that have been brought up are cyclic imo.

 

Give it a few months. Once more people have the best gear, it'll be easier to carry people through content. Right now you can't do that. Pre 3.0 the player base was so saturated in end game gear that you could carry three people through a raid with 5 competent raiders if you needed to.