Why the new Operations are threatening to kill the game.

[Shoraan]

[...]

That all being said, I think there are people in the game and in this thread that aren't seeing a bigger picture.

 

That sounds almost philosophical.

 

I couldn't care less about a bigger picture. I see this game (and any game) as entertainment. I am aware that somewhere out there competetive gaming exists and some people can even make a living by "playing", although I wouldn't call that playing anymore, but work. Just like "playing soccer" at a level necessary for participation in the World Cup is hard work.

 

The difficulty set fourth by BW, in my opinion, is mainly to prolong the longevity of the PvE content.

They could also reduce XP gain by 90%, or change token drops to low chances, e.g. 10% chance for a token drop, to prolong longevity. I don't know about others, but in my case the current ops has not prolonged the longevity of the content but reduced it to Zero, since I simply do not engage in it.

 

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.

Whether that is their plan or not is not known to me. What I do know is this: My interest in doing ops has simply disappeared.

 

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.

As a progression raider it's natural that your primary interest is ops and how challenging they are. But SWTOR is not only ops. This game offers a lot of different aspects that cater to very different audiences. Story PVE, raid progression, ground PVP, space PVP, crafting and a few others. A lot of people are interested in more than one aspect of the game.

My interest used to be GSF and ops. Now it's only GSF.

 

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.

If their goal is to make this game "Star Wars The Raiding Game" then so be it. It's their game and they can do with it whatever they want. I don't own shares, so I'm not invested in it. As I said before, I see this game as entertainment. If they change the game to something that I don't consider entertaining anymore, I'll just leave (without posting about it in General). I'll pay my monthly fee as long as the entertainment value justifies it.

 

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.

 

Let me use an analogy to illustrate why I think this view is rather limiting:

Let's say I'm a member of a hobby soccer club and we meet regularly to just kick the ball around for some fun. One day the club leadership anounces that we all should practice harder and meet three times a week instead of only once in order to qualify for the regional tournament. What will happen? Some wil say, "Cool idea, let's do it." Others will say, "Eh, you can do that without me." I'd probably be part of the second group. My motive to play in this particular club is to hang out with friends, run around a little and have some fun. If that is not the club's vision anymore, they can follow their new vision without me. There is nothing there that forces me to stay.

 

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.

 

"Top end client base"? Do progression raiders pay more than others? I may be wrong but from what I heard "Top end clients" are usually those that provide the most income.

 

I can see how progression raiders feel about the difficulty of operations. You have your set raid teams and your raid schedules. If you don't down a boss on the first, second, or tenth attempt, you'll just try again until you manage to do it. What you fail to see is that there are people (or at least one person, me) who cannot commit to raid teams and raid schedules. I have no other choice but to rely on pugs.

 

Do you know the differences between bugs and raid teams? Let me name a few (assuming my understanding of raid teams is correct):

Raid teams stick together for a predetermined amount of time for an ops run. Even if they wipe five times in a row, they'll stick around until the raid leaders calls it a night.

Pugs might just fall apart after the first wipe.

Raid teams consist exclusively of people who know what they are doing.

Pugs consist of people who know what they are doing plus an unknown number of people who are just clueless or inattentive.

Raid teams have their set rules regarding loot. As part of a raid team you can be sure to get some loot eventually.

Pugs are purely luck based. If you're unlucky you can go through ten or more runs without a single piece of token gear.

When a Raid team fails they can try on another night and still have all the experience from the first night.

When a Pug group fails, you start at Zero.

 

I care about accomplishment. I also care about frustration. When I log on, my goal is to have fun. After two hours of fruitless attempts, not a single piece of loot and seeing people rage quit and replacements being no better, my tolerance for frustration is at its limit.

 

When a pug group can carry one or two players who stand in bad or only use their basic attack, the chance of success is still high and the risk for total frustration minimal.

 

People claim that the new ops are still puggable. That may very well be. To be honest, I've only tried it a few times. But that was enough frustration to last for a few months if not longer. Whether I ever set foot into the new ops again remains to be seen. As it is now, the only thing that keeps me here is GSF.

[Papazmurf]

Wow, so much text.

 

Yeah and if you actually read any of it you would see that there is a great discussion going on with no flaming on ways to make the game better. I want to say this thread isn't for you if you can't take the time to read through well thought out replies, but you're exactly the type of person being alluded to in this thread judging from your one liner. I'd actually be interested to see your insight, but I'm not sure if you'll be able to address the topic properly with less than a paragraph. I don't know you, but I believe a paragraph is similar to what you would call a 'wall of text'.

[Joran-Koon]

Shoraan m8. Thank you for you time consuming response and pretty post. I wont be doing the same cause /lazy. Also, thank you for that insight on the differences between pugs and raid teams but it really wasn't necessary.

 

Throughout your entire reply you demonstrated that you are one of those who are not of the mindset to get on board with the direction BW is going with their ops. Also, this thread is about ops so when you start bringing in other aspects of the game it deludes what you're actually trying to say. You like GSF, you don't like ops, ok...we know who you are, thank you.

 

You also missed the idea of "premium clients". No where in my post did i mention anything monetary, but more so eluded to the level of commitment to the game they love to play. Any good developer would love to work for a game that has a great community that thrives off their creations. However, for yourself and others, who say "if the entertainment I gain from swtor is worth $15/month or greater, i'll stay. If not i'll move on", you may not be in BW's direction in regards TO RAIDING. Ya there's aspects to the game other than raiding and we all take part in different ways but they haven't made PvP harder, nor GSF, or crafting, or RP'ing. Nothing has gotten harder except raiding. If that level of the game is too high for some, as you're saying it is, then don't do it.

 

You literally are the actual example of the people i was pointing out that BW may be moving away from. If you stay on board cause of the other aspects of this game, cool, its a win for BW. if not, they seem to be looking to new types of clients anyways so you both part ways, it happens.

Halo lost those who loved old school H:CE & H2 because they changed to accommodate for growth and the acquisition of new clientele. Looking back, saying that Halo is gonna die when H3 comes out is ludicrous...as the franchise is still going. Same deal here, old clientele is being swapped out for new ones simply because the game is moving into a new era and that era just so happens to include harder ops.

Your analogy with the football team is right, where the club went a different direction from your own views. you expressed your differences and you moved on to find something that suited you better. The club (like BW) is moving to a position they want to be in, or seems like they want to be in. You will no doubt do the same. If you're still playing the game in a month, cool, i'll see ya around.

 

I literally never write this much on these forums and i apologize to all the others that are usually like me when they see walls of text.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Joran-Koon

[Shwarzchild]

For players who want a taste of operations play at an easier difficulty that fits a small schedule flashpoints are designed for them. Edited February 26, 2015 by Shwarzchild

[Kingsbount]

For players who want a taste of operations play at an easier difficulty that fits a small schedule flashpoints are designed for them.

 

Yeah... If BW didn't rise FP difficulty to OP's difficulty.

[Kacynski]

 

You also missed the idea of "premium clients". No where in my post did i mention anything monetary, but more so eluded to the level of commitment to the game they love to play. Any good developer would love to work for a game that has a great community that thrives off their creations. However, for yourself and others, who say "if the entertainment I gain from swtor is worth $15/month or greater, i'll stay. If not i'll move on", you may not be in BW's direction in regards TO RAIDING.

 

Do you know how many % of a MMO's total population usually raids? It's of course hard to say for sure, but numbers one can find on that topic strongly suggest, that it is somewhere in the single digit or low double digit range, i.e. maybe 10 - 15%. Just look at the ToS and Ravagers progression thread. Last time I checked, there were 5 (five) guilds 10/10 and something like 20 - 25 were 9/10 and another 20 - 25 8/10. That's a total of maybe 50 - 60 Raidgroups who did (and reported their success) the content so far, which amounts to something like 500 people. Even if we multiply this by 10 to account for all the groups that don't care to report their progress we get to a number of 5.000 people doing the new HM ops with some kind of success. And maybe 10.000 more that are >2/10.

 

Are these your "premium clients"? Something like 15.000 out of a Million that log in regularly (as by BW's numbers reported last year). That's 1.5% of the playerbase.

 

Do you believe in all honesty, that these are the people that keep the game going monetary? That BW intentionally should make the game harder to cater to this sub-group of their playerbase. That is maybe the smallest group of any player subset?

 

What the OP says (and I agree with) is: The new difficulty in HM is fine as there is a (although small) subset of players that enjoys it. And the longer we are into the expansion the bigger this group will get eventually. That's what HM progression is for. Whereas when the difficulty of the SM OPs gets into regions where most PuGs (and even some guild raid groups) fail, we have the danger of alienating somewhere between 75-90% of the playerbase from an important part of the content. That cannot be healthy for a game.

[BlueShiftRecall]

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.

 

Excellent description of the different types of casual players! From what I've seen the general consensus of a "casual" player seems to be that they,

- Are players with only a few toons.

- Are F2P

- Just want to face-roll everything

- Don't care at all about achievements

- Do nothing but complain about how hard everything is

- Don't pull their weight in op's or fp's

- Are all KDY graduates

- Are toons only levelled from 12xp or 2xp weekends

- Know nothing about class rotations or their classes in general

- Are rude and never ever listen to advice

- Don't read any guides and go into everything blind

- Expect to be carried through everything by everyone else.

 

These casual player stereotypes like nearly every other stereotypes in general just fuel arguments.When talking about casuals they should not all be classed into the same category, sub-categories people! Yes a lot of them may fall into the above description but then again a lot do not, classifying them as all the same do nothing but fuel the flame especially when the immediate assumption of someone who says they're casual are the above.

Edited February 26, 2015 by BlueShiftRecall

[Joran-Koon]

Do you know how many % of a MMO's total population usually raids? It's of course hard to say for sure, but numbers one can find on that topic strongly suggest, that it is somewhere in the single digit or low double digit range, i.e. maybe 10 - 15%. Just look at the ToS and Ravagers progression thread. Last time I checked, there were 5 (five) guilds 10/10 and something like 20 - 25 were 9/10 and another 20 - 25 8/10. That's a total of maybe 50 - 60 Raidgroups who did (and reported their success) the content so far, which amounts to something like 500 people. Even if we multiply this by 10 to account for all the groups that don't care to report their progress we get to a number of 5.000 people doing the new HM ops with some kind of success. And maybe 10.000 more that are >2/10.

 

Are these your "premium clients"? Something like 15.000 out of a Million that log in regularly (as by BW's numbers reported last year). That's 1.5% of the playerbase.

 

Do you believe in all honesty, that these are the people that keep the game going monetary? That BW intentionally should make the game harder to cater to this sub-group of their playerbase. That is maybe the smallest group of any player subset?

 

What the OP says (and I agree with) is: The new difficulty in HM is fine as there is a (although small) subset of players that enjoys it. And the longer we are into the expansion the bigger this group will get eventually. That's what HM progression is for. Whereas when the difficulty of the SM OPs gets into regions where most PuGs (and even some guild raid groups) fail, we have the danger of alienating somewhere between 75-90% of the playerbase from an important part of the content. That cannot be healthy for a game.

Seriously? lol

 

Of EVERYTHING I've said this is what people are getting hung up on? "premium clients"?

All i am SIMPLY saying is that I believe that BW aims to morph its player base a bit. (1) by calling those who are willing to a higher standard of raiding and (2) inviting new players in who might be intrigued by the new higher level of raiding. Is it healthy for the game? that's what they are watching. They said that from the beginning....that they would watch and like i previously stated, that's what threads like this and milas's are for, to help BW gauge where we sit and how we feel.

 

I am heavily aware that top tier progression guilds hold a very small percentage of the player base however, we'd be foolish if we fail to see the correlation between those players and the level of forum activity and contribution to the community. I feel those are characteristics BW likes seeing in the people who play their game and again, like I said before, seem to be trying to draw that type of crowd in.

 

If anyone follows WoW progression raiding it's like a national sport. A larger percentage of players treat the top percentage like athletes and affiliate themselves with favorite guilds like people would with favorite sports teams. Is that a long way off from where swtor stands? the answer is yes but they have to start somewhere.

 

And some of you might be right. This may not be the best way to get to where they want to go, only time and consideration will tell us that. I for one think that the step taken is a good one and their message seems clear to me. Musco called the team out about getting better with communication. Better live streams. Better cantina tours. Everything BW has done recently is giving the same message, they want to get better. And this level of content, story mode or not, is in line with that philosophy.

[Kacynski]

Seriously? lol

 

Of EVERYTHING I've said this is what people are getting hung up on? "premium clients"?

 

Yeah, that's the bit I got hung upon, because it makes your whole post sound really elitist - with elitist having a bad meaning in this context. I'm sure it is not your intention to come off as such, and that's the very reason I'm pointing this out and give you that feedback.

I do get (I think) what you are saying. That BioWare - by means of upping the difficulty level of HM FPs and operations - is trying to somehow forging their playerbase to become better at their game. And with a bigger playerbase of competent raiders they could go on and develop even more intersting and harder content. While that is a reasonable line of thinking and certainly a line of thought that can be argued, I do not believe it will work out.

 

I'm all for a playerbase that is able to PuG Sword Squadron and Underlurker in its current form. But on my server we just don't have it. We also don't have a playerbase that can PuG HM Bloodhunt or Rishi bonus boss. I think SWTOR is a game that draws most of its appeal from the Star Wars franchise. People enjoy the possibility to become a Jedi or Sith or a Smuggler; they want to be Luke, Palpatine, Darth Maul or Han Solo. Only a small fraction of these people also cares about raid progression.

 

I do not believe that with the audience SWTOR currently has (which is, imho, mostly Star Wars fans and KotoR enthusiasts and not MMO veterans) a strategy of "teaching by punishing" is going to work out. If folks are feeling punished too hard by the difficulty of the new OPs they will just stop doing them.

 

I would guess most of you guys that are arguing in favour of more difficult OPs have a gaming CV that includes a couple of years raiding in at least one MMO. Whereas the typical gaming CV of the average SWTOR player includes things like KotOR I + II, the SIMS and a couple of browser games (wild guess on my side here, but I think you get my argument). What seems ridiculously easy to you is near impossible for someone that only ever played Candy Crush before SWTOR.

 

I know for sure in my guild, where we have 2 guys with raiding experience outside of SWTOR and 2 more guys that played an MMO (without raiding there) before SWTOR. For all other of our 30+ members it's their first MMO or even first online gaming experience. These people are not stupid or lazy and they are willing to learn. And we got them through all other SM OPs so far, but currently we cannot do ToS. And it is a serious source of frustration (for me and for them) if I have to tell them: "Sorry guys, but for ToS you are not going to cut it, if we want to get past the second boss, we need people that are better". And I guess we are far from the only guild where it is like this.

 

What you (the supporters of more difficult OPs) are saying is: Get your act together, know your class, practice on the dummy and practice in OP boss fights. That is fine and certainly the way to success. But what I'm seeing in my guild - with people that are neither stupid or lazy - that this is not going to happen. The typical SWTOR player strifes for the epic Star Wars feeling and not for perfecting his or her gaming skills. Spending a couple of hours on the dummy and weeks of wiping on the 2nd and 3rd boss of an operation is not epic but boring and frustrating for them.

 

So, with that being said, I do think making the OPs (and some HM FPs) more difficult is a disservice to the game, as it alienates the core of the playerbase: Star Wars enthusiasts that want to get an epic story and socialise in the Universum they love.

[Shoraan]

[...]You like GSF, you don't like ops, ok...we know who you are, thank you.

[...]

 

"You think you know me?" (For those that don't understand it, that's a reference to LFG comic.)

 

I may have expressed my views in a way that could have been misunderstood.

 

It's absolutely not true that I don't like ops; quite the opposite actually. What I don't like is entering an ops with a minimal chance of success. I read ops guides. I read class guides about rotations and gearing. I am willing to learn and listen to group leaders in a pug.

 

The issue I have is that I feel like wasting my time when I enter an ops that has a high risk of falling apart after the first wipe because someone rage quits, or when some people do the same mistakes again and again after each wipe and are not willing to learn. The proposed solution of finding a guild and joining a raid group does not work for me due to reasons that have nothing to do with this game.

 

In spring/summer of 2014 I joined a lot of DF/DP groups. That was fun and relaxing, because even if someone missed an interrupt or didn't care to interrupt the corrupters, we could still heal through one Mass Affliction (allowing two MAs meant risking a wipe, but that's how it should be in my opinion). I'm not advocating that they should simply remove all mechanics in SM or even make tactical ops. I agree that this would be rather boring, but there is a vast gap between facerolling (boring) and requiring a flawless run (frustrating in a pug) where fun is to be found. Of course, that area is different for everyone, but don't we already have SM/HM/Nim to account for that?

 

I think - or rather, I hope - that this assessment is accurate:

[...]

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.

 

When that happens I may start doing ops again. If I remember correctly I wasn't here when DF and DP first came out. I took a long break a few months after launch and came back when they announced GSF, and that was a few months after DF/DP arrived. Perhaps the situation was the same back then and pug groups were wiping all the time in the first few months. I guess it was just too much time between the release of DF/DP and the the new ops, so that people may have forgotton what's it like to enter an ops just barely meeting the gear requirements.

 

On a side note, I apologize for listing the differences between pugs and raid groups. That may have sounded too condescending. Stating the obvious may sometimes be necessary to support an argument, but in this case it was obviously not needed.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Shoraan

[Kacynski]

When that happens I may start doing ops again. If I remember correctly I wasn't here when DF and DP first came out. I took a long break a few months after launch and came back when they announced GSF, and that was a few months after DF/DP arrived. Perhaps the situation was the same back then and pug groups were wiping all the time in the first few months. I guess it was just too much time between the release of DF/DP and the the new ops, so that people may have forgotton what's it like to enter an ops just barely meeting the gear requirements.

 

I was there when S&V and TfB have been pugged in 162 comm gear, as well as when the 55 HM FPs had to be done with 148's blue gear (because nothing better was available). It was not at all easy. I did see groups fail at Operator IX, at the Terror and at Styrak. I did see groups disband after the 3rd wipe at General Ortol in Cademimu, because nobody could be bothered to release the shackles. Hammerstation bonus boss was skipped by most groups or left out after one unsuccessful try. But if my memories serve me right there was nowhere a fight remotely comparable to what we have now with Bloodhunt, Sword Squadroon and Underlurker.

 

I think Bulo now is comparable to Operator IX in the old days, which is a degree of difficulty I'm fine with for SM (and I think nowadays quite a few PuGs make it past Bulo). What I do think is out of line for PuG content ist Bloodhunt and Underlurker, which seem a whole level above in difficulty than all other encounters and - according to my experience - are above what a typical PuG can handle. And above from what can be reasonably expected from a PuG, imho.

 

While I have no big problem with 1 FP out of 6 being an outlier in terms of difficulty, I do have a problem with one of the two OPs being out of reach for a big portion of the player base.

[JouerTue]

TFB, SNV and DF/DP had their fair cut of disbands, same as 55 HM FP nerf call threads. i've seen a lot council sm and brontes carrying action, with tanks and a couple of dps doing all the job.

the difficulty in pugging could be due also to a lot of more casual guilds and raiders having sm on ''progress' to gear alts or guild members. the carrying it's still hard, even if it's slowly coming: healing through multiple red crosses and an enraged UL is becoming easier and easier for example..and i see lots of ravagers pugs having success..that op is ''normalizing'' already from a casual pov..

 

and about the comparison between casual raiding and football..you can still have fun wiping at a boss if you see some progress..if you find the right players, it's quite interesting passing some time with them to try different approaches and downing the boss even after several attempts even if it's sm.. i mean if you like the game and like operations it's not written anywhere that you have to clear the op in a night, even if it's a SM PUG..the lockout is weekly and in 2.x with close to zero effort you could lock your toon in DF/DP in a couple of hours, leaving you basicly done on that toon for 6 days..which is certainly not better than having a save on a third boss for the next time you play..

[Shwarzchild]

Yeah... If BW didn't rise FP difficulty to OP's difficulty.

 

There just is no middle ground when it comes to players these days is there? Maybe one poster was right in that I can't see or identify with pug problems because I've been raiding in swtor for three years or however long it's been, and things I consider basic may not be basic at all. But come on, flashpoints are not remotely close to Operations difficulty. There's maybe 1 boss that's tight mechanically in all of them. 2 if you count Manaan's bonus boss. If flashpoints got any easier they'd be tactical facerolls that just simply aren't any fun for people like me (which no matter how large of the population I don't know, but by a detractor's statements the game needs to cater to everyone and that includes people like me). I mean there's got to be a huge problem here if even flashpoints are "too hard".

Edited February 26, 2015 by Shwarzchild

[Alanbra]

I'd have to agree with the OP that the new ops are hurting the game. This is just my own subjective viewpoint, but I joined 4 gf runs of Ravagers this past week: 2 succeeded and 2 failed (badly). I noticed that in the two that succeeded about half the raid were from raiding guilds and were able to provide a core that were able to get through the fights. The other two had more casual players and had most of the problems you'd expect and after a while people would quit. We'd reque and no new members would join. Someone's guildie would be asked, they que up, and instantly they'd join the op.

 

That suggests to me that the majority of the players have given up on the current ops. They're not watching videos on what to do or practicing their parses, they're just avoiding this part of the game.

 

Another thing that seems to me is that when looking at the server forums, there are a lot more "looking for 1 dps and 1 heal for guild team" posts. I know there's always some turnover, but it seems more common now. I've also seen more "Small pub/imp guild looking for other small guilds to run ops" posts. This suggests to me that even players that used to do raids have started avoiding them or have left the game.

 

And this brings me to what I feel is the biggest problem with the new ops: they're just not as much fun. They can be done, but they're not fun to do. None of the dialogue sticks with me like the old ones did. (I have waited 20000 years/ Let Maaaaadness take you /We are more forgiving than the Masters) Now we have red text "Bulo calls drunken pirates to his aid' and "Nice Try".

 

Also, it seems that most of the new fights, and this includes the 60 hm fps/yavin walker/ ancient terror, is that the main mechanic is Don't stand in circles and take extra damage because you'll take unavoidable spike damage later. Also, we'll put smoke/fire in the way to make it harder to see the circles. I know that's overly simplifying it, but the fights just aren't as interesting to me.

 

I know that went on longer than I intended, but as a long time lurker here, it seems that things are not improving for the game and that the new ops are a big part of why that is.

[Shwarzchild]

I'd have to agree with the OP that the new ops are hurting the game. This is just my own subjective viewpoint, but I joined 4 gf runs of Ravagers this past week: 2 succeeded and 2 failed (badly). I noticed that in the two that succeeded about half the raid were from raiding guilds and were able to provide a core that were able to get through the fights. The other two had more casual players and had most of the problems you'd expect and after a while people would quit. We'd reque and no new members would join. Someone's guildie would be asked, they que up, and instantly they'd join the op.

 

 

And this brings me to what I feel is the biggest problem with the new ops: they're just not as much fun. They can be done, but they're not fun to do. None of the dialogue sticks with me like the old ones did. (I have waited 20000 years/ Let Maaaaadness take you /We are more forgiving than the Masters) Now we have red text "Bulo calls drunken pirates to his aid' and "Nice Try"..

 

To your first point - unfortunately that's always been the case with pug runs. Most people who are raiding simply don't want to put up with random players mainly because their attitudes stink 95 percent of the time, and it's insulting / annoying / frustrating to have to put forth the effort to help them when clearly they just don't care. Overall though I find that a lot of problems stem from the group finder being insufficient than with the players themselves if we're talking in strict accessibility terms.

 

Players that want to pug are generally lazy which is a separate point entirely, and one I'm kind of fighting in this thread. Maybe I'm just wearing rose colored glasses, but in the past (probably pre 2.0) I don't remember this being the case attitude wise. Generally pugs were people who were green and wanted to learn the fights and progress if they can over time. What today's players are missing, especially the ones who describe themselves as casual and thus only can pug [which I find insanely false and just totally lazy since it's easy to find a raiding guild that fits their views on playing], is that operations aren't meant to be 100 percent clear able every single run.

 

My problem with the whole discussion over is it too hard or is tuned properly is that players and their expectations, especially those casuals who either are just starting out raiding or just want to experience it a few times and say cool, are so out of whack. They expect to clear everything in the first try without even knowing anything about the fight. Their idea of a story mode operation would be one where you can ignore everything run through it and say well that was cool. It's almost like they would rather space bar the fights to get to the cut scenes per say. I hate that attitude, and I am vehemently against those people who think that's the way a game should be especially for the raiding section to which I am a part of. Story mode was always the introduction that could get a player ready for hard mode. It's not here's a free piece of cake see you later mode. Sorry I'm worked up, I just have some nerd rage built up after seeing things like this from some players.

 

Tl;Dr if the player doesn't want to try to learn something new they shouldn't / cant demand the content they refuse to learn be dumbed down because they refuse to take a step forward, or change their approach / views /what have you.

 

Your second point...it's pretty accurate I think. My favorite operation is dread palace. Man I love that one. The fights were cool for me, and man those dread masters were just awesome villains. I love running those operations more than anything. I also loved way back when Eternity Vault was still heavily played. Soa always felt magnificently epic to me. But these new ops I do agree lack a certain level of flare. I still to this day don't know why I'm even attacking a pirate ship in ravagers. i should probably watch the cut scenes more closely. Overall, yes, they do lack that flair. I think that from a developers side the lack of creativity is what's actually a problem for the game. The difficulty is not.

 

Anyway, that's my probably $2.45 cents worth of opinions.

[Kacynski]

Players that want to pug are generally lazy which is a separate point entirely, and one I'm kind of fighting in this thread. Maybe I'm just wearing rose colored glasses, but in the past (probably pre 2.0) I don't remember this being the case attitude wise. Generally pugs were people who were green and wanted to learn the fights and progress if they can over time. What today's players are missing, especially the ones who describe themselves as casual and thus only can pug [which I find insanely false and just totally lazy since it's easy to find a raiding guild that fits their views on playing], is that operations aren't meant to be 100 percent clear able every single run.

 

I just want to address this part of your post, because I can relate to your point here, but I do think as a general assessment it is not true.

I don't have an issues with OPs (in SM, not to speak about HM) are hard enough to filter out players that want everything served to them on a silver platter, like "space barring through the fights" as you put it. I wouldn't enjoy OPs of such a difficulty grade as probably wouldn't most others posting in this thread.

 

Where I think your assessment of the current situation is not correct is with the degree of difficulty in SM ToS. I do believe it is tuned too tight (SS and UL) to be reasonably doable with a PuG. That has nothing to do with these people being lazy or not willing to learn. The UL will cause a Pug to wipe over and over before they will be able to make it.

 

Emphasis here is on wiping OVER and OVER. An occassional wipe or three, even needing to come back a week later is not what a casual player should complain about. It's the wiping over and over which is stretching the limit and- imho - belongs to HM and above, but should not be a thing in SM. Casual players and PuG do not have either the time, the dedication or the frustration tolerance to cope with wiping over and over. And yet this is what happens at Sword Squadroon and Underlurker (and sometimes Bulo).

 

I do think that the two bosses mentioned are beyond from what a PuG/casual player should have to go through in terms of effort and dedication. If both operations would be at the level of Ravagers, I wouldn't complain. But I honestly think BW missed the mark with Sword Squadroon and Underlurker and the result is just frustration.

 

I think a common misconception most raiders have, is that wiping actually motivates players. That's certainly true for someone dedicated to raiding, the kind of "next week we get it" - spirit. Non raiders do not draw motivation from wiping, for them it is just frustrating and the go "why should I bother next week again?".

[Shwarzchild]

I just want to address this part of your post, because I can relate to your point here, but I do think as a general assessment it is not true.

I don't have an issues with OPs (in SM, not to speak about HM) are hard enough to filter out players that want everything served to them on a silver platter, like "space barring through the fights" as you put it. I wouldn't enjoy OPs of such a difficulty grade as probably wouldn't most others posting in this thread.

 

Where I think your assessment of the current situation is not correct is with the degree of difficulty in SM ToS. I do believe it is tuned too tight (SS and UL) to be reasonably doable with a PuG. That has nothing to do with these people being lazy or not willing to learn. The UL will cause a Pug to wipe over and over before they will be able to make it.

 

Emphasis here is on wiping OVER and OVER. An occassional wipe or three, even needing to come back a week later is not what a casual player should complain about. It's the wiping over and over which is stretching the limit and- imho - belongs to HM and above, but should not be a thing in SM. Casual players and PuG do not have either the time, the dedication or the frustration tolerance to cope with wiping over and over. And yet this is what happens at Sword Squadroon and Underlurker (and sometimes Bulo).

 

I do think that the two bosses mentioned are beyond from what a PuG/casual player should have to go through in terms of effort and dedication. If both operations would be at the level of Ravagers, I wouldn't complain. But I honestly think BW missed the mark with Sword Squadroon and Underlurker and the result is just frustration.

 

I think a common misconception most raiders have, is that wiping actually motivates players. That's certainly true for someone dedicated to raiding, the kind of "next week we get it" - spirit. Non raiders do not draw motivation from wiping, for them it is just frustrating and the go "why should I bother next week again?".

 

Yeah I painted a pretty broad swath of canvas with my assumptions, and I did that out of pure frustration. I'm simply tired of having to simplify and simplify and simplify the part of the game that I want to be challenging. It's just as self serving a premise as the reverse that people who think the opposite (content needs to be easier) hold to their cores. I guess my main fear is that the game becomes so casual, so easy, that it leaves players like me who crave challenging content in the wind. It's already an extremely easy game to boot. I know I'm probably in a much smaller minority than I originally thought, but we're all here too. For me, and i'm assuming that most raiders feel this way, it's not the failures that motivate us. It's the tid bits of progress. It's knowing that there's 3 phases, and we finally conquered the first one. Constalty wiping over and over to the same mechanic does get tiresome. I still do believe it's an attitude problem that the casual players embrace too much. An Op is all about team work, communication, recognizing situations. Pug groups are so individualized that they don't even WANT to try to work together in some instances. I remember I was in dread fortress pug group, and someone hadn't done the fights before so they were asking a question. Two people in the group literally told this person to stop asking questions, and figure it out themselves. It was just like ugh, great. I stuck around for that one wipe, and dipped. Then again, I pugged hard mode dread palace and that took us about 6 hours total. We all stuck with it. We cleared it. Wow what a satisfying feeling that was. So really I'm taking issue with people's attitudes. SS and Lurker may very well be a bit too hard I will admit that, but I think the biggest problem pugs face is poor attitudes, and incorrect expectations.

[JouerTue]

if underlurker was the last boss with weekly at 4th, there wouldn't be any complaints and instead of ''LFM..link achievment'' we'd have ''LFM..need to know how to carry bomb''.

[Declan_Vee]

if underlurker was the last boss with weekly at 4th, there wouldn't be any complaints and instead of ''LFM..link achievment'' we'd have ''LFM..need to know how to carry bomb''.

 

People fail Underlurker becasue they can't tell their left from their right, and because the average dps has never needed to anything better than almost useless. What people should be advertising is "LFM ToS; hold up both your hands with your thumbs out and tell us which one makes an L shape"

[Kacynski]

Yeah I painted a pretty broad swath of canvas with my assumptions, and I did that out of pure frustration. I'm simply tired of having to simplify and simplify and simplify the part of the game that I want to be challenging. It's just as self serving a premise as the reverse that people who think the opposite (content needs to be easier) hold to their cores. I guess my main fear is that the game becomes so casual, so easy, that it leaves players like me who crave challenging content in the wind. It's already an extremely easy game to boot. I know I'm probably in a much smaller minority than I originally thought, but we're all here too. For me, and i'm assuming that most raiders feel this way, it's not the failures that motivate us. It's the tid bits of progress. It's knowing that there's 3 phases, and we finally conquered the first one. Constalty wiping over and over to the same mechanic does get tiresome. I still do believe it's an attitude problem that the casual players embrace too much. An Op is all about team work, communication, recognizing situations. Pug groups are so individualized that they don't even WANT to try to work together in some instances. I remember I was in dread fortress pug group, and someone hadn't done the fights before so they were asking a question. Two people in the group literally told this person to stop asking questions, and figure it out themselves. It was just like ugh, great. I stuck around for that one wipe, and dipped. Then again, I pugged hard mode dread palace and that took us about 6 hours total. We all stuck with it. We cleared it. Wow what a satisfying feeling that was. So really I'm taking issue with people's attitudes. SS and Lurker may very well be a bit too hard I will admit that, but I think the biggest problem pugs face is poor attitudes, and incorrect expectations.

 

To this statement I can completely agree.

 

I think BioWare would need two things actually if they want more people to engage and stick with endgame raiding (or even more, but these two come to my mind).

First they need to do a better job of teaching people their roles. And how certain game mechanics work. I cannot even count anymore how many times I've explained how the threat mechanics works, but still most random people I meet have no idea (and even with guild groups that raid together on a weekly basis I find people that misunderstand it). Also people (without using 3rd party parser) have no idea about the amount of damage or healing they do, there is just no feedback on this directly ingame. With 3.0 all peeps were excited about "how much damage" they do now, because starting from the FA FPs they were overlevelled and overgeared for the content. Ofc. when trash groups in a daily area melt in seconds people assume their damage is great. And they never get confronted with the reality. How should they learn? If they don't even get a chance to see how good (or bad) they really are.

What I could imagine is a kind of color code at the end of an FP where you get red, green, yellow for when your damage was bad, good or sufficient with green meaning you could advance to the next tier, yellow is good to go for the current tier and red means you should step back a tier. Show this only to the players themselves and not to the group. Consistently getting "red" should get more people to think about their skill or gear ....

 

And as a second thing, they need to build up the difficulty level gradually. Why is the second or third boss the hardest in an OP? That doesn't make any sense, imho. Also they need to have mechanics that are forgiving to a degree. What's the point of having the raid wipe if just one person is doing something wrong? That kind of stuff belongs to HM, imho. Just take a failed cross for Underlurker as an example, I think it is too unforgiving. A failed cross means a dead teammember and the whole raid below 50% hp. No PuG is ever going to recover from that, not without being severly overgeared. Have the failed cross do away with 25% hp pool of the raid, this is punishing but will not necessarily wipe the raid. If the second cross fails, people will still wipe. But having a mechanic that causes a wipe when failed once is not the way to go for SM, imho.

 

So, keep the encounters fair and ramp up difficulty step by step. Give the people a chance for success, then there might be much more folks to pug with.

[JouerTue]

People fail Underlurker becasue they can't tell their left from their right, and because the average dps has never needed to anything better than almost useless. What people should be advertising is "LFM ToS; hold up both your hands with your thumbs out and tell us which one makes an L shape"

 

you know what disappoints me? we had our healers heal through rage storm since we didn't really pay attention in hiding and how much damage that cast does, we split dps on adds and all die..then i join a pug and i've to see dps going and going interchanging themselves until i collect all decent players..we need proving grounds..

[SpikeSaber]

When you PUG SM Ops you will have to be ready to carry some of the ppl.

[Shwarzchild]

you know what disappoints me? we had our healers heal through rage storm since we didn't really pay attention in hiding and how much damage that cast does, we split dps on adds and all die..then i join a pug and i've to see dps going and going interchanging themselves until i collect all decent players..we need proving grounds..

 

I've found that when I do pug, we cycle through quite a few dps players. Quite a few.

[Island_Jedi]

People fail Underlurker becasue they can't tell their left from their right, and because the average dps has never needed to anything better than almost useless. What people should be advertising is "LFM ToS; hold up both your hands with your thumbs out and tell us which one makes an L shape"

 

So insulting the player base on the server is going to magically, make them better and fix all the problems they are having in this tier. I think this kind of toxic response is more why the game is in the state it is, then the "casual" players being the "cancer" you make them out to be. Understanding where we are with the game, and working constructively to make it better, is far more beneficial then using insults and namecalling to somehow get people to be "good".

[Shwarzchild]

So insulting the player base on the server is going to magically, make them better and fix all the problems they are having in this tier. I think this kind of toxic response is more why the game is in the state it is, then the "casual" players being the "cancer" you make them out to be. Understanding where we are with the game, and working constructively to make it better, is far more beneficial then using insults and namecalling to somehow get people to be "good".

 

I do think that comment was made in jest. It does highlight the gap between what the raiding community and the casual community gap is. It's an example of one situation where a more experienced raider just throws their hands up in the air and goes "I don't know how to make this any clearer for person x". If the casual community can't do something like stand on the boss's left arm or right arm then just making content easier is a bit more challenging. There have been some good ideas thrown around in here, but if standing out of damage circles or being on the correct side is too difficult then really there's not much to be done outside of just let those people figure out for themselves that the raiding section of the game really isn't for them.