Why the new Operations are threatening to kill the game.

[AlrikFassbauer]

None of the ops or fps (minus blood hunt) is actually HARD they just require focus and understanding. Having things like this is best for casuals because it makes them better and more better players means better pve community. So yes take some time to read up and watch dome videos.

 

Better players = better PvE Community ??? Don't you mix something ?

 

A community imho isn't defined by "being a good player" - a good community is imho defined by (mostly) good communication !

A good player can be an antisocial, egomaniac-jerk - would he make the PvE community better ?

I think no.

 

I rather believe that people who are good at communicating, good at teaching Newbies things and those who keep the threads together rather enhance the Community - instead of those who are the top players, but can't explain their tricks because of their curse of knowledge ...

[Shwarzchild]

Problem is that before 3.0 i was able to complete and have fun in all FP and OP's.

They was fun and challenging (reasonable challenging).

Now we have huge pack of insane mechanics.

Does it provide challenge? Of course!

Does it provide fun? For raiders maybe.

But casual gamers was abandoned.

 

Again i have to make travel in time.

 

Was HM FP fun before 3.0?

Hell yeah they was.

They was provide challenge (and don't give me that crap about faceroll please).

They was FUN.

People are actually PLAYED the freaking GAME, instead of WORKING on it.

Or that is what you calling "faceroll"? When the game actually fun?

 

And who judge about bad and good players?

Raiders?

Don't make me laugh.

Im a good player.

My favorite roles are tanking and healing, becouse they fun.

Healed and tanked all HM FP (and not one time believe me).

 

But follow your logic im a bad tank and healer simply becouse i can't handle this *ss-r*ping mechanics in Blood Hunt or Battle of Rishi (im not talking about Tython first boss becouse its 50/50).

Of course you can say that IM BAD. But do you really think that im the only one who can't do those FP?

Nope.

There's people who think that new content is not balanced.

But they perefer to stay out from forums, becouse they know - they will never be heard.

They will be called noobs and everything else.

 

P.S. Your words about "run tacticals instead of HM" is only proves that im right.

P.P.S. Speaking about "hover mouse on req". New FP can be done in 178 gear rate. If you will provide me video like you and your team are doing Blood Hunt and Battle of Rishi FP in 178 gear - i will take your words seriously. Otherwise you just talking sh**.

 

Clearly you didn't understand a word I said outside of the tone of my post which was admittedly a frustrated one which probably destroyed the message I was trying to get across. Also if you want to call yourself terrible by all means do so.

 

All in all I'm sure I'll just see you read the first sentence, quote me and say "wal" since even spelling WALL is too difficult for some people. Also...it's were not was. I have no idea what " Again I have to travel in time" means. If you time travel that's pretty cool I must admit. (This is me talking sh**) . Basically, I don't take you seriously. But, thank you for writing a really long Haiku.

 

So if you got this far the message of my post was this: A lot of people claim they are casual when they just are lazy. Also, I don't think people have the correct definition of what an operation, or a hard mode flash point is. I think they expect it to be easy as pie when it's not meant to be easy at all regardless of difficulty. Also, this content just debuted. It needs to last a good long while until the next expansion comes out. If it were simple enough to run through easily at this point...4 months after debut....and a very long way away from the next expansion then this game would be in dire straights. I'd be worried at that point.

 

Edit: If you've read any other of my posts I clearly state that balance is important. We all agree that there are some balance issues currently with some bosses in story mode. There's even tons of really good suggestions in here. What my main issue is people's attitudes. If you'd like to go back and read any or all of my posts sans the last frustrated one I think I'm more on the side of finding a middle ground. We raiders who want the challenge will need to sacrifice something, but the so called casuals need to understand that a compromise on this issue is a two way street, and their story for story space bar content idea just isn't viable or ok.

Edited March 4, 2015 by Shwarzchild

[e_nk_ay]

The primary reason there are only a handful of guilds that have cleared HM and why topics like this generate so many polarized responses is simple: this game may have a healthy amount of subs and came back from the dead with the F2P model, but the player base that raids is TINY.

 

Problem is less that things are too easy/too hard, its that the pool of non-terrible players that like to raid isn't large.

[midianlord]

Better players = better PvE Community ??? Don't you mix something ?

 

A community imho isn't defined by "being a good player" - a good community is imho defined by (mostly) good communication !

A good player can be an antisocial, egomaniac-jerk - would he make the PvE community better ?

I think no.

 

I rather believe that people who are good at communicating, good at teaching Newbies things and those who keep the threads together rather enhance the Community - instead of those who are the top players, but can't explain their tricks because of their curse of knowledge ...

 

Someone needs to learn how to debate:

 

The anti-social, egotistical jerks are --thankfully-- the exception, not the rule (granted that we remember them more readily, but that doesn't change the usual reality).

 

Appealing to extremity on the basis of evidence that is almost certainly anecdotal does not make something true, no mater how much you may want to believe it.

 

A good player who is also a good community member will not be a jerk, and lots of these will only enhance/strengthen the community.

 

It goes beyond "good [insert your game's name here] player" and into good gaming-community-member in general, and yes, most of those that I meet are also good players, the two seem to go together.

 

The social ******* are also often hilarious/egregious bads, conversely;

 

Why? Because they use that to try and distract people from how generally useless they are.

[Island_Jedi]

The primary reason there are only a handful of guilds that have cleared HM and why topics like this generate so many polarized responses is simple: this game may have a healthy amount of subs and came back from the dead with the F2P model, but the player base that raids is TINY.

 

Problem is less that things are too easy/too hard, its that the pool of non-terrible players that like to raid isn't large.

 

I think what you mean is, a tiny bit of the population raids progressively. A LOT of people enjoy pugging OP's, but because of Underlurker most pug groups die. That boss fight is tuned stupid for SM. Hell I have seen raid teams wipe on that fight, with mostly guildies. The hidden melee mechanic wrecks a lot of pugs and you only know the adds have a melee attack if you use parsers. Most pugs do not look at combat logs to understand SM, they simply want to finish an OP.

 

Revan is also way too easy for the end-boss of TOS SM, that right there is stupid in the opposite way. Tune underlurker down, tune revan up. You can still leave the weekly as finishing the whole OP, so pugs have to get through Revan for comms. Getting stuck on the last boss would feel much better, then getting stuck on a stupidly tuned mid boss, that is far more of a wall then Revan. At least pugs could gear up better to tackle Revan, if they did it that way.

Edited March 5, 2015 by Island_Jedi

[Tirozulu]

I agree the new ops are much harder then they should be. In SM the Underlurker fight is way to hard. They need to scale back the dps requirements for the fight. Its tuned more like a HM fight. Now my real issue is with HM! BIOWARE said they would not make ops fights class specific, but the new OPS are very class specific. The design of the new ops absolutely SUCKS! I raid with two teams in HM and both teams are very good. My team with 2 Vanguards (9/10) tanks is not as good as my 2nd team, but they are much further along in progression because there group comp has 5 troopers. My other group has 1 trooper (Commando dps 7/10) and its crazy how hard the fights are without trooper heavy teams. This is totally outrageous and Bioware said they would not make the fights class specific!! Every time I see a clear of HM REVAN the team has 5-7 troopers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The new ops need to b fixed to allow every team a chance to clear it notjust teams that have mostly troopers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Edited March 5, 2015 by Tirozulu

[Cicerokid]

First of all, thanks to the majority of posters who have kept this a lively discussion. It seems most of the people here were end game progression raiders, so I'd like to offer a different perspective.

 

It seems that most of the posters here are end game progression raiders. Some want the SM mode to be quite difficult, a sort of proving ground for HM's. Others are worried about the game not being accessible to the larger majority of the player base, and feel the SM modes should be easier for lesser skilled players, especially since they make up the majority of the revenue stream.

 

To me, my gut says, the SM modes should be easier. I don't think it makes good business sense to say we only want elite players, if you aren't elite, go home. A successful business tries to expand customer base, I've never heard a business succeed by saying "we will be better if we get less customers." There are plenty of decent players that have difficulty in the SM modes, so lesser skilled players won't stand a chance. And if they feel like they are not welcomed at all in endgame content, they will eventually leave. Making the SM mode easier will keep revenue flowing, which is needed.

 

I've heard some suggest that the SM modes are proving grounds for the HM's, but I have to question that. Most of the progression raiders are running exclusively in the guild, and they are going to know who can hang and who can't just by looking at their parses, no? I've got to believe the percentage of people that they weed out from SM mode is pretty small, and that there are other methods of weeding players. But that being said, let's assume some validity to that opinion, that some guilds need a beefier SM mode to weed out players. Then how can you reconcile the need these two opposing views?

 

I propose making tactical versions of the ops. Obviously the progression raiders would ignore them, or most of them would, but you could then create an easier version of the op for less elite players. It would also be easier to get a GF pop, meaning you wouldn't have to wait forever. I know many people that went on to running the CZ FP's in HM started out running the tacticals and were thankful the tacticals were there to help them learn the run and get better. This would accomplish this, and would probably make the SM runs more smooth for the elite players.

 

Thanks for hearing me, let's keep the discussion going strong!

[JouerTue]

and tactical ops what would drop? unassembled gear? again, mechanics are a good thing that keep content interesting, ok the majority of them in sm are cyrcles to be avoided, in fact i'm more for having HM tactics in sm with reduced damage, but doesn't mind. the problem is that you level ok with zero dps and zero heals, you do fp and you are ok until tank keeps aggro and healers heal the tank. sm can be done with a few knowing the content..tanks swapping, healers cleansing, a dps executing something( bombs, crystals..follow te marked dps etc.). once you get a fight where all the dps must do things, it's a tragedy.

 

UL the worst fight omg nerf ever, or operator ix, draxus, tanks, are all fights where dps are required to dish some decent numbers while doing something simple like hiding under shiled/behind rock, clicking a console( OMG CHANNEL) it becomes a pug killer. even SS if was tunnelable by deeps would be a lot easier, instead of having to swap lol. these are just bosses exposing the bads, ok they make number and let all the rest pugging experience a success, but they are carried..but i always appreciate seeing an op dps with a very expensive outfit doing zero damage, or healers( who always get it easy) unable to heal at all and i always join only if i have time to spend so it's also nice cycling through replacements until you find competent players and down the boss..

[Dark_Mithrandir]

" There are plenty of decent players that have difficulty in the SM modes, so lesser skilled players won't stand a chance. And if they feel like they are not welcomed at all in endgame content, they will eventually leave. Making the SM mode easier will keep revenue flowing, which is needed.

 

Only that any decent team/player doesnt have any problem with any SM at all.

People should start accepting that they maybe not that "decent" because they reached lvl60 and did lvl55 operations with 5 levels more and 5 times more gear than needed.

We want Star wars old republic be like a Hello Kitty MMO? I dont want.

 

PD: Btw never played hello kitty, it can turn out its harder than SM OPS

Edited March 6, 2015 by Dark_Mithrandir

[Loc_n_lol]

and tactical ops what would drop? unassembled gear?

 

Rishi Maze gear !

[Shwarzchild]

Rishi Maze gear !

 

 

Having a "tactical op" like maybe Toborros Courtyard would be cool actually. TC was always quick, fairly simple, and pretty doable for pugs if I can remember correctly. Maybe take like the first few bosses from each operation, rescale the old stuff to 60, and have players go through them in kind of a fun little mission thing. Maybe have like acheivement quest to kill all the bosses in there you get a new mount. They could drop massassi gear, and maybe the last boss drops a 192 raid piece. Don't offer it in hard mode and make that a secondary group finder que option. As a progression raider that sounds like a fun little thing.

[AlrikFassbauer]

Having a "tactical op" like maybe Toborros Courtyard would be cool actually. TC was always quick, fairly simple, and pretty doable for pugs if I can remember correctly.

 

Indeed. Almost every PUG I did it with suceeded. I had only 2-3 complete failures because of Enrage.

[JouerTue]

Having a "tactical op" like maybe Toborros Courtyard would be cool actually. TC was always quick, fairly simple, and pretty doable for pugs if I can remember correctly. Maybe take like the first few bosses from each operation, rescale the old stuff to 60, and have players go through them in kind of a fun little mission thing. Maybe have like acheivement quest to kill all the bosses in there you get a new mount. They could drop massassi gear, and maybe the last boss drops a 192 raid piece. Don't offer it in hard mode and make that a secondary group finder que option. As a progression raider that sounds like a fun little thing.

 

do you mean flashpoints?

 

i think those should drop better gear..maybe one optimized enhancement or mod like planetary missions do in a certain way or even an unassembled implant/ear like the vigilant.

people whining are the same who are most certainly unable to do the old ops in hm, which give better gear than 186 and probably 192 comms.

[psikofunkster]

Guys do you know how much this new 2 operations have to last as relevant content? 1 year, until next expansion comes on December 2015, you have to be patient they are gonna be nerferd but later, not now....

Thanks for your comprehension.

 

I wish we could have 2 new ops at least every 2 months but this is SWTOR, custom designers is what people people people is asking and tha's what they are gonna to get next.

Edited March 6, 2015 by psikofunkster

[Shwarzchild]

do you mean flashpoints?

 

i think those should drop better gear..maybe one optimized enhancement or mod like planetary missions do in a certain way or even an unassembled implant/ear like the vigilant.

people whining are the same who are most certainly unable to do the old ops in hm, which give better gear than 186 and probably 192 comms.

 

I was just kind of thinking do something like 3 new weekly missions, or maybe 3 new mini operations you could que for in a "operations tier 1" type thing. So first weekly would be something along the lines of "classic all stars" and be Annihilation Droid KRR-3, Jarg and Sorno, and throw in like Zorn and Toth or something. Second weekly would be classic all stars 2 and feature Writhering Horror, Dashrode, and golden fury. all star three would be bestia, nefra, and for fun the infernal council. Just the bosses in each. no trash. gear wise i dunno. give out something decent like one 192 raid piece. some ult comms and like 20k creds

Edited March 6, 2015 by Shwarzchild

[Shwarzchild]

Guys do you know how much this new 2 operations have to last as relevant content? 1 year, until next expansion comes on December 2015, you have to be patient they are gonna be nerferd but later, not now....

Thanks for your comprehension.

 

I wish we could have 2 new ops at least every 2 months but this is SWTOR, custom designers is what people people people is asking and tha's what they are gonna to get next.

 

this times a million. ive tried to say this before to no avail.

[JouerTue]

I was just kind of thinking do something like 3 new weekly missions, or maybe 3 new mini operations you could que for in a "operations tier 1" type thing. So first weekly would be something along the lines of "classic all stars" and be Annihilation Droid KRR-3, Jarg and Sorno, and throw in like Zorn and Toth or something. Second weekly would be classic all stars 2 and feature Writhering Horror, Dashrode, and golden fury. all star three would be bestia, nefra, and for fun the infernal council. Just the bosses in each. no trash. gear wise i dunno. give out something decent like one 192 raid piece. some ult comms and like 20k creds

 

i thought the same sometimes, but i think there will be issues concerning how strictly instanced are ops..i'm not sure copy-paste data from bosses would work

[Cicerokid]

So just to be clear, since I think a few people either misread or didn't understand my point made a few posts back, I proposed making a tactical level operation. This was not meant to replace the storymode, this was meant as it's own unique tier.

I am of the opinion that the storymode runs should be very accessible, so that any player that makes it to the end can have a chance to experience them if they want without going down the road of becoming a professional raider. From reading these posts, many of the progression/professional raiders expressed that they felt the story modes needed to be left at the difficulty levels they are currently at in order for them to essentially weed out players. My own personal view is that isn't likely necessary, especially since most of the voices calling for this also feel that as currently constructed the SM ops are already "faceroll easy" and these people are going to be spending the vast majority of their time in HM modes anyway. But in the spirit of fairness and democracy, let's concede and say that fine, many guilds and progression/professional raiders would fine benefit in being able to use the SM ops to weed players or prep players. Fair enough, then let it be, but you still need to have an option for larger majority of players who would like to try to run an op or two without making running ops and learning ops a full time job. So I proposed making tactical level an option. Far lesser skilled players, and also players without ops experience, could have a chance to experience the op. This just offers more players an outlet, would possibly clean up the SM's in the process. To me, it's a win win.

Someone tried to dismiss based on gear drop? really? Make the gear the same as the other tactical flashpoints. Who ever ran a tactical for the gear? The old cz tacticals used to drop 148 gear, and everyone running it was in at least 162. so back then you gave some gear to lesser used companions and trash sold the rest. now, with the Yavin weeklies, no need to gear the comps, so people would run these to first have a low stress ops experience and secondly for the comms and whatever weekly or stronghold missions they fulfilled, no different than how the tactical fp's function, except this would give people a chance at doing that with the ops, and in a much larger group.

Someone seemed to suggest FP's do the same thing. Not at all, or not anymore than the reverse would hold true. This gives a whole new demographic a chance to experience content they might not, and a chance to experience a larger group. Making the game more accessible to more players helps to keep this game strong, healthy and relevant. I've been playing since the beginning, I love this game, and I want to see it keep going strong. To do that, people need to think bigger than themselves and be inclusive, not exclusive. Thanks again all! Really enjoying the conversation!

[JouerTue]

the problem is that ops require that you have some survival skills and can reach certain dps/hps numbers, while following simple tactics. in sm these numbers are low enough that you can put some time in tactics execution and do some mistakes, without meeting the enrage timer or killing your party.

nothing in the game is challenging enough in solo or 4 people environment, so if you don't have any interest in getting better at your class, you won't meet those numbers, the only thing that's inside from start is avoiding cyrcles and interupt casts principles.

parsing in pugs, i found that you do any boss with 3k dps and 2.5k to 4k hps.

while a healer can push through unsustainable healing if the party is low and boost his numbers with aoe heals, which are the numbers of a casual dps in unaugmented full 186 comms gear? 3k, 3.5k on a dummy with relics+MH?

if this is going to be 2.5k-2k in live..is this enough to clear underlurker( because this is the point:D )?

 

and so which would be the requirements for these suggested tactical ops?

[Kacynski]

which are the numbers of a casual dps in unaugmented full 186 comms gear? 3k, 3.5k on a dummy with relics+MH?

if this is going to be 2.5k-2k in live..is this enough to clear underlurker( because this is the point:D )?

 

and so which would be the requirements for these suggested tactical ops?

 

In SM the Underlurker requires the raid to do a minimum total of 13,100 dps. (4 add waves with 300k each, the boss with 2.6 million, enrage starts 290 seconds into the fight).

With 5 dps + 1 tank, we can assume the tank doing around 1k dps. That leaves 12,100 dps divided by 5 or 2.420 dps to be sustained by each person. That is the mathematical minimum requirement. So, each dps doing 2.5k would be ok, each one doing 2k would be not.

 

I do not think that with unaugmented 186's gear it is possible to do more than 3k dps on the dummy. For sure not if the toon is only wearing comm gear as is, without capping accuracy (I think you can get to around 95% accuracy with 186 comm gear). With optimised 186's 3.5k dps on the dummy is doable, if someone puts effort into it, even more. This basically means that someone with unaugmented gear from the comm vendor does not even have a theoretical chance to beat the dps requirement for the Underlurker, because with a raw dps of 3k, to beat the required number one would need to have an uptime of 80%, which is (imho) completely unrealistic.

 

With 192's, 4pc. setbonus and optmised stat allocation, most people should be able to parse 4k - 4.3k on the dummy. In order to get to the 2.42k requirement this would mean an uptime of around 55 - 60%, which (again imho) seems to be fairly doable.

 

What I am saying is basically that I think the Underlurker is overtuned for the 186's gear requirement. While there are for sure people around that can do it, most people do not stand a chance with that kind of gear. Equipped with everything that can be gotten out of Ravagers it should be fairly doable. But in this way we have a progression of Ravagers -> ToS which at least I do not see advertised as such ingame as to my understanding the intention was to have to equally accessible OPs. But right now this is not the case.

 

 

Tl, Dr: I do not think that a group in 186's does have a chance to beat the Underlurker. A group that is fully equipped from doing a few weeks Ravagers? Yes, this should be doable.

[JouerTue]

Tl, Dr: I do not think that a group in 186's does have a chance to beat the Underlurker. A group that is fully equipped from doing a few weeks Ravagers? Yes, this should be doable.

 

nice reply. i'd like to point out that even a 186nim/180hm mix is enough, since it's the gear a lot of guilds had in the first kills after 3.0 release, but fully augmented and with capable players..as you said, casual guy with comms will have a bad one there.

i still think that fight needs just adds hp reduced..nothing more.

[AlrikFassbauer]

This would explain the problem a more or less new player has reported here http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=800596 under point 2.

[XORDYH]

This would explain the problem a more or less new player has reported here http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=800596 under point 2.

 

The problem that player encountered was pure ignorance from the other players. He was using Group Finder, which means he would get Bolstered inside the Operation, which will give anyone in any gear stats that are better than what you can get from full 186 commendation gear with 186 augments. Gear alone is never ever, under any circumstance, a reason to kick someone from a Group Finder Operation.

Edited March 7, 2015 by XORDYH

[SirGaribaldi]

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.

 

Its people like this... and people who put PVP first over all else that ruin every mmo that ever existed. What these people don't understand is that we had this discussion 3 yrs ago. The conclusion was that "normal" mode OPS would be rebranded as "story mode" OPS to allow for the "majority" of players to complete and enjoy the story content. It seems that those developers who brought the good news back then ahave either been fired, quit, or moved on to other projects and the current set of dev's don't give a crap about their market share of casual gamers. Good luck with trying to make your point .. you would think that after 4 months, someone woulda got the message.

[RDX-TWO]

One thing I have noticed when DF, DP came out I was able to join a Pug raid every night and complete these 2 ops almost every night since multiple groups would form, but since the arrival of these new ops I barely see any ops forming any more. Lucky enough for me I manage to clear them every week with my guild but I also like to gear out my other toons it's extremely hard to find groups. Some people seem to think that it will show people how to raid and SM is not difficult enough or should stay the way they are but I beg to differ slowly people will start to leave since some of the content is not accessible to them and they can't be bothered with it. Bioware is putting itself in a very bad position it's SM content for crying out loud. They should nerf the crap out of these ops and make them accessible to everyone. Edited March 8, 2015 by RDX-TWO