Do something with SM Underlurker already, TOS has been wasting for nearly 4 months

[Zipacnaa]

Underlurker was the final straw for me. After all the misery of 3.0 Underlurker just has to bear the blame for me taking a sabbatical from the game.

 

I don't care much for the fact that to one has to go READ UP, on 3rd party sites none-the-less, these new boss to understand the mechanics.

[Darkwords]

I saw someone trying to get a SM8 Tos together last night and requirements were: "Must show proof of Lurker completion". I laughed my butt off and then I cried...FCS, change that event. BTW, he spammed for that a long, long time hehe. Edited March 27, 2015 by Darkwords

[Ruskaeth]

At least on TRE I see tons of ToS groups getting together on fleet and most of them are successful because people have learned.

 

I don't care much for the fact that to one has to go READ UP, on 3rd party sites none-the-less, these new boss to understand the mechanics.

I have a solution for you: Watch story line videos on youtube. I think watching those is on par with what kind of challenge you are looking for. If you are really extreme, you might dare to watch the operation boss kill videos too. For extra immersion, just get extra keyboard or unplug yours to randomly press 1-5 keys while you watch the kill videos. You know, just like what you do in the game!

Edited March 27, 2015 by Ruskaeth

[AlrikFassbauer]

I have a solution for you: Watch story line videos on youtube. I think watching those is on par with what kind of challenge you are looking for. If you are really extreme, you might dare to watch the operation boss kill videos too. For extra immersion, just get extra keyboard or unplug yours to randomly press 1-5 keys while you watch the kill videos. You know, just like what you do in the game!

 

I see that you are not an Adventure games player. Shame on you. You seemingly have never actually *played* through Monkey Island, DOT or Simon The Sorcerer !

[eartharioch]

At least on TRE I see tons of ToS groups getting together on fleet and most of them are successful because people have learned.

 

 

I have a solution for you: Watch story line videos on youtube. I think watching those is on par with what kind of challenge you are looking for. If you are really extreme, you might dare to watch the operation boss kill videos too. For extra immersion, just get extra keyboard or unplug yours to randomly press 1-5 keys while you watch the kill videos. You know, just like what you do in the game!

 

I think you missed his point -- he wants to be able to play the game with just what comes in the game [and probably official BW material]. I totally agree with that perspective, unfortunately the Internet has made most (all that I can think of) developers too lazy/cheap to actually make fully functioning games since at least the turn of the millennium. MMOs are the worst offenders, but that's to be expected -- it's hard to have "massive" without the masses.

 

It's one thing for walkthroughs to exist and be available for people who *want* to use them, it's sad that people *expect* other people to use them, and it's even sadder that developers leave proper documentation to third parties.

[Ruskaeth]

I think you missed his point -- he wants to be able to play the game with just what comes in the game [and probably official BW material].

I absolutely did not and you can absolutely play it with what comes with the game. How do you think guilds figure out mechanics when there are no guides? Magic? Ability to see the future? Magic 8-ball? Hazy premonitions? Gut feeling?

 

What is this mad sorcery!!

 

No. They have an amazing and unique ability to move their mouse cursor over a buff/debuff on the boss or themselves. Somehow, they also learn not to stand on circle of that color and stand on circle of that color. It's called learning the mechanics. The game tells players everything, absolutely everything. People just have gotten lazy and need an autopilot. It's also a lot more fun to not read guides but to learn on your own or with your team.

 

Claiming that he has to is just magnificent assumption on his part and completely false.

 

I see that you are not an Adventure games player. Shame on you. You seemingly have never actually *played* through Monkey Island, DOT or Simon The Sorcerer !

I think you should get your vision checked out or see/assume again.

Edited March 27, 2015 by Ruskaeth

[Grayseven]

I absolutely did not and you can absolutely play it with what comes with the game. How do you think guilds figure out mechanics when there are no guides? Magic? Ability to see the future? Magic 8-ball? Hazy premonitions? Gut feeling?

 

What is this mad sorcery!!

 

No. They have an amazing and unique ability to move their mouse cursor over a buff/debuff on the boss or themselves. Somehow, they also learn not to stand on circle of that color and stand on circle of that color. It's called learning the mechanics. The game tells players everything, absolutely everything. People just have gotten lazy and need an autopilot. It's also a lot more fun to not read guides but to learn on your own or with your team.

 

Claiming that he has to is just magnificent assumption on his part and completely false.

 

 

I think you should get your vision checked out or see/assume again.

 

The number of elite raid teams that "learn on their own" is a small fraction of a percentage of the player base. The vast majority of players of MMO's fit firmly into the casual player category. Those casuals are the bread and butter of MMO's and as such their needs have to be recognized by game developers.

 

What you consider fun, others do not.

 

As to "learning the mechanics", well, Underlurker's mechanics aren't all that hard. At least, they wouldn't be if it weren't for the crappy engine that causes more failures than bad play does and boss mechanics that highlight those glaring engine issues like Underlurker does.

 

Your elite players aren't running system spec minimum toasters, either.

 

But the real issue here is the fact that Story Mode should not be so tightly tuned that your average MMO gamer has to "step up" their game. Story Mode is for the masses, and the masses can't do it as is plainly evidenced by EA/BW numbers on the percentage of gamers completing ToS. Hard Mode is where players should have to "step up" their game and NiM is there to truly test even the best players.

 

You will never get perfection from the average pug. The average pug doesn't have optimized gear, doesn't know the highest DPS rotation by heart, doesn't instinctively know when they should burn their defensive cooldowns, won't execute a mechanic perfectly every time...and they are why Story Mode exists. It allows those sub-par players to enjoy the content.

 

Current Story Mode tuning locks those players out of ToS. And if you are locking out a large portion of your player base from an end game Story Mode operation, those players might just wander off. It is in the best interest of an MMO to ensure players of all types have some access to every piece of content made in order to get the most bang for the development work done on it.

 

You like a challenge, then do Hard Mode. It's called Hard Mode for a reason.

Edited March 27, 2015 by Grayseven

[Ruskaeth]

I have posted like 20 times Underlurker should be nerfed. That has very little to do with it game actually telling you what to do, which it does.

[Shwarzchild]

All this talk about the underlurker, I'm more shocked that pug groups are passing Sword Squad. That fight to me is way way way more complicated, and way harder than the cave mushroom troll. I almost think that if pugs are regularly clearing SS then sooner rather than later they'll start downing the mushroom head. Maybe we just need patience. I still feel like pug groups should be primarily going through Ravagers instead of ToS, but that's just me. I think Ravagers is just far more forgiving. You can clear Ravagers with 4 dps where only 2 are in the 2k-2.7k range. The last pug group I took through Ravagers I did get everyone into parsec (which was rare, 3 actually went ahead and downloaded it after I told them it wouldn't take long to set up and we were still grouping anyway). 2 of those dps sat around 1.7 avg. One sat around 2.2, and the last sat around 2.6. Tanks were about 1.5-1.8. I threw in my amazingly high 800 dps (can you guess what role I was?) And my co-healer may have been at like 7 dps. Took 3 hours on Wednesday, but we cleared that sucker. Everyone was pumped. They all got some gear, were really satisfied with themselves, and we all moved on to our separate ways.

 

I have yet to get a pug group through ToS. A lot of times the pug groups I put together have a hard time with even Malaphar. Maybe that means that the dps requirements are too high for storymode warriors. I don't really think that's the case as I think Ravagers is far more forgiving mechanically than ToS. So I almost want to say that if you're in a pug group for ToS and you're consistently getting through SS then you should consider yourself doing great. Maybe it means a nerf is appropriate. I'm not sure, but if we rewound the tape I would venture a guess that everyone was complaining about Bulo, and quite possibly Torque. I'm not sure if those were ever nerfed, but people are clearing them regularly now.

 

So my point is are we jumping to conclusions too early? Is it really that we as a community need to just be a little more patient?

[Heal-To-Full]

Simple fact of life: SM should be balanced around what more people can do than can't. Around what everyone should be able to do, without voice, without parsing, without being awesome, just by learning the mechanics.

 

Since the first ops, SM has been a mechanics puzzle, like in adventure games; HM a game of numbers, raid DPS, HPS, TPS; NiM a pursuit of perfection in both powered by optimized gear. Tight DPS races combined with involved mechanics don't belong in SM and GF. It's hard enough for the first-timer, and that's what most pugs are, to do one of the two, involved mechanics or good DPS.

 

Most of the fights in current ops are exactly that, just follow the mechanics and you'll be fine in SM. The Underlurker really stands out in feeling like an easy HM fight rather than a difficult SM fight.

 

 

As an aside, given how broadly the game's audience ranges nowadays, from costumed story roleplayers to Vodka/Paragon kind of crews, it might be appropriate to actually have four levels of raid difficulty rather than three. Or more if you count lolster and NiP separately. Heck, Unreal Tournament had 8 skill levels, and that's probably around the sweet spot.

[Papazmurf]

Declaring it's only a DPS check is one of those times when someone has not thought it through. It can be both, healers and dpses can both compensate on their own way. It's just that if other is not great, it demands more from the other. I have seen pugs where they might have killed it but could not keep up with the healing. I've seen groups where it's solo healed. Granted that the enrage could tolerate one more pack of ads to make it easier for larger part of the community.

 

I have thought this through and I was brought on a run with my under geared healer the first time I completed this. When heals are fine, groups are hitting enrage timers, which is a DPS check. Even without enrage a DPS check comes before any kind of heal check because if DPS aren't getting down the adds in time, even the best healers are going to have a hard time keeping a group up.

 

All roles being equally competent and all cross mechanics being done properly, lack of DPS is what's going to lose this fight.

[Grayseven]

All this talk about the underlurker, I'm more shocked that pug groups are passing Sword Squad. That fight to me is way way way more complicated, and way harder than the cave mushroom troll. I almost think that if pugs are regularly clearing SS then sooner rather than later they'll start downing the mushroom head. Maybe we just need patience. I still feel like pug groups should be primarily going through Ravagers instead of ToS, but that's just me. I think Ravagers is just far more forgiving. You can clear Ravagers with 4 dps where only 2 are in the 2k-2.7k range. The last pug group I took through Ravagers I did get everyone into parsec (which was rare, 3 actually went ahead and downloaded it after I told them it wouldn't take long to set up and we were still grouping anyway). 2 of those dps sat around 1.7 avg. One sat around 2.2, and the last sat around 2.6. Tanks were about 1.5-1.8. I threw in my amazingly high 800 dps (can you guess what role I was?) And my co-healer may have been at like 7 dps. Took 3 hours on Wednesday, but we cleared that sucker. Everyone was pumped. They all got some gear, were really satisfied with themselves, and we all moved on to our separate ways.

 

I have yet to get a pug group through ToS. A lot of times the pug groups I put together have a hard time with even Malaphar. Maybe that means that the dps requirements are too high for storymode warriors. I don't really think that's the case as I think Ravagers is far more forgiving mechanically than ToS. So I almost want to say that if you're in a pug group for ToS and you're consistently getting through SS then you should consider yourself doing great. Maybe it means a nerf is appropriate. I'm not sure, but if we rewound the tape I would venture a guess that everyone was complaining about Bulo, and quite possibly Torque. I'm not sure if those were ever nerfed, but people are clearing them regularly now.

 

So my point is are we jumping to conclusions too early? Is it really that we as a community need to just be a little more patient?

 

Sword Squadron doesn't have frame rate and game engine issues. It doesn't have graphics that bog down even good systems. It's mechanics, while challenging, aren't so tightly tuned that one mistake will cause a wipe. And it doesn't have an RNG factor like the rock locations.

 

For a successful Sword Squadron fight you need a pair of tanks that know their business (and most tanks do), one person who knows the grenade mechanic and its timing and then everyone needs to know the kill order, when to switch DPS and how to stay out of the fire. The hardest part of Sword Squadron is downing them within seconds of each other, which for PuGs without voice comm can be tricky if you get someone not paying attention.

[Papazmurf]

All this talk about the underlurker, I'm more shocked that pug groups are passing Sword Squad. That fight to me is way way way more complicated, and way harder than the cave mushroom troll. I almost think that if pugs are regularly clearing SS then sooner rather than later they'll start downing the mushroom head. Maybe we just need patience. I still feel like pug groups should be primarily going through Ravagers instead of ToS, but that's just me. I think Ravagers is just far more forgiving. You can clear Ravagers with 4 dps where only 2 are in the 2k-2.7k range. The last pug group I took through Ravagers I did get everyone into parsec (which was rare, 3 actually went ahead and downloaded it after I told them it wouldn't take long to set up and we were still grouping anyway). 2 of those dps sat around 1.7 avg. One sat around 2.2, and the last sat around 2.6. Tanks were about 1.5-1.8. I threw in my amazingly high 800 dps (can you guess what role I was?) And my co-healer may have been at like 7 dps. Took 3 hours on Wednesday, but we cleared that sucker. Everyone was pumped. They all got some gear, were really satisfied with themselves, and we all moved on to our separate ways.

 

I have yet to get a pug group through ToS. A lot of times the pug groups I put together have a hard time with even Malaphar. Maybe that means that the dps requirements are too high for storymode warriors. I don't really think that's the case as I think Ravagers is far more forgiving mechanically than ToS. So I almost want to say that if you're in a pug group for ToS and you're consistently getting through SS then you should consider yourself doing great. Maybe it means a nerf is appropriate. I'm not sure, but if we rewound the tape I would venture a guess that everyone was complaining about Bulo, and quite possibly Torque. I'm not sure if those were ever nerfed, but people are clearing them regularly now.

 

So my point is are we jumping to conclusions too early? Is it really that we as a community need to just be a little more patient?

 

I mentioned this in a thread on the suggestions forum, but I will post it here because I think your point lead into my thoughts.

 

Ravagers SM is getting to the point where you can face roll it. Why? Well because everyone is getting over geared for it. The same will happen for ToS. It will get to the point, especially when NiM comes out, where you can have 5-6 extremely over geared people carrying 2-3 people through SM. The problem, if you can even define it as that, is right now everyone has to be on their game and you can't carry even a single bad DPS.

 

People forget wiping on the tanks in SM EC or the Dread Guard in SM TFB (well maybe there just aren't that many of us left who were doing that content at level 50). I think those were just as hard if not harder. I give it about 6 months and it won't be an issue anymore.

[JMagee]

Simple fact of life: SM should be balanced around what more people can do than can't. Around what everyone should be able to do, without voice, without parsing, without being awesome, just by learning the mechanics.

 

I agree. And I think SM Lurker (especially with 5 DPS) is closer than a lot of people will admit that it is. The biggest issue I've run into with the few pug groups I joined for this fight hinged largely on the quality of the players. And I'm sure the things I saw in my experiences are not the same as everyone else and I'm not going to say it's necessarily the fault of the player (because they're aren't many helpful in-game tools to improve rotations/threat gen/healing)

 

But I think there should be a reasonable expectation that you are competent at your class (and again, there's not a lot in game to make people realize they may not know as much as they thought they did).

 

I've seen multiple people in the few pug groups I've done who:

a. Are in no stance/cell/form etc.

b. Are in the wrong stance.

c. Have gear that gives them all sort of random stats. (def/power/etc)

d. Run into energy management issues way too soon.

e. Use attacks that are useless (i.e Explosive Round as a VG)

f. Not being able to hold threat, or actually make an effort to regain control.

 

And it's hard for me to just let this sort of behavior be able to walk through the current Ops in a backpack. I'm sure their behavior is not intentional, but there is a measurable contingent of selfish players who are only interested in doing whatever they want, will not take advice, and bring down the ability of the rest of the group. I think if there was a way to improve the baseline abilities/understandings of players entering operations, the issues on Underlurker would not be as widespread as they are. Way easier said than done though.

Edited March 27, 2015 by JMagee

[Grayseven]

I mentioned this in a thread on the suggestions forum, but I will post it here because I think your point lead into my thoughts.

 

Ravagers SM is getting to the point where you can face roll it. Why? Well because everyone is getting over geared for it. The same will happen for ToS. It will get to the point, especially when NiM comes out, where you can have 5-6 extremely over geared people carrying 2-3 people through SM. The problem, if you can even define it as that, is right now everyone has to be on their game and you can't carry even a single bad DPS.

 

People forget wiping on the tanks in SM EC or the Dread Guard in SM TFB (well maybe there just aren't that many of us left who were doing that content at level 50). I think those were just as hard if not harder. I give it about 6 months and it won't be an issue anymore.

 

10 months of waiting for people to be over geared for a story mode operation is absolutely ridiculous. Story mode operations should be able to be done by the masses in starting raid gear, i.e. 186 gear. Story Mode ops should not require average players to be carried through them.

[Ruskaeth]

I have thought this through and I was brought on a run with my under geared healer the first time I completed this. When heals are fine, groups are hitting enrage timers, which is a DPS check. Even without enrage a DPS check comes before any kind of heal check because if DPS aren't getting down the adds in time, even the best healers are going to have a hard time keeping a group up.

I have thought about it too, and cleared it SM/HM so many times it's silly. I am an alt-a-holic. I clear it as a dps, healer and recently as a tank too (I am bored easily obviously). I never said it's not a DPS check, I said it's both - healing and DPS check. Especially with pugs. Just yesterday there was 10k EHP in a pug. It enraged and did the cross, guess what, healers stayed alive because they knew what to do with defensive cds and three others. Then they were healed while dpsing the enraged boss. So, if there is lack of DPS, healers can carry. Furthermore, if healers are spiffy, they too can DPS while healing. In that way, it's healing check. If you really do know what you are doing, and everyone else too, people take lot less damage and there are good moments for healers to dps too.

Edited March 27, 2015 by Ruskaeth

[Andrellma]

I love people who say "I shouldn't have to read an outside guide to figure the fight out."

 

You don't. There's absolutely nothing stopping you from figuring the fight out on your own, just like those who wrote the guide did.

 

BioWare is not going to hold your hand and tell you how to beat their raid bosses. They're supposed to be figured out through trial and error, even on storymode, or do you really think Eric and Co. personally PM's Zorz and other high end raiding guilds and said "here's how you beat the boss, write guide plz?"

 

No, they figured it out by wiping repeatedly and adjusting their tactics accordingly. There is nothing stopping you from doing the same. Who knows, you may even find a way to beat the boss that actually works better than the guides they write. Probably not, but hey, anything is possible.

 

Also, storymodes should be challenging, if you want to roflstomp content, go run tacticals, where tactics are made up, and roles don't matter. Storymode exists not only as the "normal" difficulty level, but it also acts as a barrier to hardmode content. The fights should (and do) share many of the same mechanics as hardmode (though in hardmode, they hit harder, have added effects, and there are other mechanics to keep track of) to give people an idea of what to expect in harder difficulties, as well as getting people the gear they need for harder content.

 

People like to spout nonsense like "Hardmode prepares for nightmare, story mode is for story only." And that's garbage. Story mode really should be called "normal mode," because it is not ONLY for the story, it is also to prepare people for hardmodes, by dropping gear and teaching mechanics.

 

Underlurker is fine. The DPS requirement is a little tight, but far from unreasonable. As long as everyone is doing their job, killing the adds, and staying out of the stupid, your group, even a pug will down him without much trouble.

[Shwarzchild]

10 months of waiting for people to be over geared for a story mode operation is absolutely ridiculous. Story mode operations should be able to be done by the masses in starting raid gear, i.e. 186 gear. Story Mode ops should not require average players to be carried through them.

 

Maybe I'm being idealistic here. But, there has to come a point where both sides are making sacrifices. If someone doesn't want to join a guild, or start gearing up, or dive into learning their classes, is it fair to dumb down the content so they can get into it and "win" quickly?

 

Also...is 186 really starting raid gear? I'm just playing devil's advocate here. If I were to define "starting" raid gear, I'd say the resurrected pieces are the starting level raid gear. You have comm gear for hardmode flashpoints, and 192 stuff as the beginning raid gear tier. I tend to think that non set bonus pieces are not really raid gear. It could also be argued that 198 comms gear is actually the "starter" set to raid. There's the problem of the tool tip gear suggestions which I don't know, and I know has been discussed ad nausea anyway. I would say that if you want to really get into story mode raids, and give yourself a chance to be successful you should be in at least full 192 comms gear. It may take a bit more time if the player is really really a "solo" non guild type casual player, but really if that's the attitude of the player they should be taking longer to get gear. They have to make that sacrifice. If that person ultimately feels like the gearing is too slow, they can change their own behavior and find a casual guild. There's plenty out there. P-l-e-n-t-y. Not trying to sound factious, but I am trying to kind of put some sort of responsibility for things on the player.

 

To a point though, who remembers how long it took them to beat dread palace or dread fortress on storymode when they first came out? 6months in? I'd actually agree with the notion that they are far more difficult than these new ones, and they took a similar time frame for pugs to clear them completely.

 

All operations require people to carry casuals through. That's the nature of the beast. Who do you think explains the fights to you? Who watches the raid while things are going on and directing you throughout? That person is carrying you. He may be doing it nicely, or offensively, but at the end of the day he's carrying you. If you have a bomb healer who's tossing in like 1k dps and putting out 4k ehps or something he's carrying you too. If another dps is doing 2.9-3.2 and you're doing 1.7...he's carrying you too. It's just the nature of the beast when it comes to content that will require significant levels of team work. If you're new to it, you're going to be carried because you need to be. If you don't want to learn a high powered rotation you're going to need to be carried through. Basically, if you just want to experience stuff, you're going to have to bein a group where people are carrying you. It's not a bad thing, but it is required.

 

At the end of the day this is the hardest content that the pve side of the game offers. It's not supposed to be easy. We all understand and agree that there are some tweaks that should be made here and there. That's not my debate. I agree there. But, you got to realize that if you're only going to run an op for story, not put in any time to learn things, have a loose understanding of the what your walking into, may not have a fully geared toon, or even partially geared toon, you're going to need some help regardless of if you like it or not. If you don't want to be carried then you need to follow the L2P adage. It's only fair, because if the players who put in the time to become good raiders have to end up back tracking to carrying people who just want to experience things and not put in the time, then it should only be fair for the fair weather raiders to make their own sacrifices.

[Heal-To-Full]

Also...is 186 really starting raid gear?

Yes. It says so in the op's description.

/debate

 

It could also be argued that 198 comms gear is actually the "starter" set to raid.

192 gear is the reward for SM raiding.

198 gear is the reward for HM raiding.

 

If people can't consistently clear SM in all 186 with a few 192, or a guild can't clear HM in all 192 with some 198 on guild tanks, then either they suck or the op isn't balanced around the gear it claims to be balanced around.

 

Yes, you can get 198 through months of grinding SM for a few scarce comms on multiple alts, but that's like saving £50 a week off a minimum wage for 10 years to buy a second-hand Rolls-Royce. Possible, doable, occasionally even done, but not their target market and you can't design every road with Rolls-Royces with mind.

[Shwarzchild]

Yes. It says so in the op's description.

/debate

 

 

192 gear is the reward for SM raiding.

198 gear is the reward for HM raiding.

 

If people can't consistently clear SM in all 186 with a few 192, or a guild can't clear HM in all 192 with some 198 on guild tanks, then either they suck or the op isn't balanced around the gear it claims to be balanced around.

 

Yes, you can get 198 through months of grinding SM for a few scarce comms on multiple alts, but that's like saving £50 a week off a minimum wage for 10 years to buy a second-hand Rolls-Royce. Possible, doable, occasionally even done, but not their target market and you can't design every road with Rolls-Royces with mind.

 

 

Very true. I guess I'd prefer to draw a line between say 192 mk1s vs 192mk2s, or 192 set bonus pieces vs non and so on and so forth, but that's just getting too into it when really the debate is that storymode shouldn't be as involved as it currently seems. Maybe these operations are too hard, but maybe I could be right in that in a month, or two months, or three, or whatever, ToS storymode won't be anything to anyone and then we'll all be complaining about haivng nothing to do again.

[Papazmurf]

I have thought about it too, and cleared it SM/HM so many times it's silly. I am an alt-a-holic. I clear it as a dps, healer and recently as a tank too (I am bored easily obviously). I never said it's not a DPS check, I said it's both - healing and DPS check. Especially with pugs. Just yesterday there was 10k EHP in a pug. It enraged and did the cross, guess what, healers stayed alive because they knew what to do with defensive cds and three others. Then they were healed while dpsing the enraged boss. So, if there is lack of DPS, healers can carry. Furthermore, if healers are spiffy, they too can DPS while healing. In that way, it's healing check. If you really do know what you are doing, and everyone else too, people take lot less damage and there are good moments for healers to dps too.

 

I think we agree to an extent, I just think it's more a DPS issue than a heals issue and the heals can be alleviated by the extra DPS getting adds down quicker. If you can heal through enrage I think that's great! I just don't think OPS are meant to get to the enrage point. You do what works though and awesome healers can mean a lot to a raid. I also said all roles being equally competent is where you will find the DPS check.

 

Whatever the issue, you and I don't need to agree on it because we've both been clearing it on multiple toons with different groups. Doesn't seem like I'm seeing that trend for the majority in this thread. All I can hope is if people look at your advice or mine that one solution will work.

[Heal-To-Full]

Very true. I guess I'd prefer to draw a line between say 192 mk1s vs 192mk2s, or 192 set bonus pieces vs non and so on and so forth, but that's just getting too into it when really the debate is that storymode shouldn't be as involved as it currently seems.

Personally I like for SM raiding to be a little more involved. (Though I still think EC, DF and DP were the game's best ops to date, all in all, very structured, with difficult, but sufficiently predictable mechanics.)

 

What I don't like is where this increase in involvement hits.

DP had its Dread Council fight, no cakewalk even on HM and a nightmare on nightmare - but that's different. DC was the last boss fight of an entire expansion, set after the weekly, concluding everything, the end of an era. It should have been hard and it was.

 

The Underlurker on SM is essentially a HM fight in the middle of a SM op. It's not especially hard in HM, it's just HM design in both modes. And this doesn't just affect pugs, most guilds like to do SM on their alts - it's relaxing, it lets people try all three roles, it's good practice for new recruits, it's a time to actually chat in voice chat.

 

You can bring a group of just-hit-60's in 180 gear and clear Ravagers, clear the first two and the last two bosses of TOS... but not the middle two. So it's down to saving lockouts to skip them or swapping toons to get through. Which is a sign of bad design; if you have to make harder than usual bosses, put them at the end.

[thewitchdoctor]

There are plenty of facets of 3.0 that seem 'harder' (used loosely) than 2.X.

 

UL was a beast to learn, and I want to punch Theron and 'Good' Revan in the head for all their stupid remarks at failure. But now that we are past it, I actually like it. It is different.

 

I think the real problem is the reliance on a mechanic that involves the server knowing exactly where you are in relation to the mechanic (rocks falling, AOE, or the cross) rather than too tight a DPS check or heal check. If it was just 'DPS do moar pewpew; healer heal more betterer,' then it wouldn't be such an 'issue.' In my opinion.

[Bachannal]

There are plenty of facets of 3.0 that seem 'harder' (used loosely) than 2.X.

 

UL was a beast to learn, and I want to punch Theron and 'Good' Revan in the head for all their stupid remarks at failure. But now that we are past it, I actually like it. It is different.

 

I think the real problem is the reliance on a mechanic that involves the server knowing exactly where you are in relation to the mechanic (rocks falling, AOE, or the cross) rather than too tight a DPS check or heal check. If it was just 'DPS do moar pewpew; healer heal more betterer,' then it wouldn't be such an 'issue.' In my opinion.

 

Agreed. Add in the fact that, especially when PUGging that you have people with all different pings, one little hiccup and the entire group wipes. For SM, that's kind of ridiculous imo.

[Grayseven]

Maybe I'm being idealistic here. But, there has to come a point where both sides are making sacrifices. If someone doesn't want to join a guild, or start gearing up, or dive into learning their classes, is it fair to dumb down the content so they can get into it and "win" quickly?

 

Also...is 186 really starting raid gear? I'm just playing devil's advocate here. If I were to define "starting" raid gear, I'd say the resurrected pieces are the starting level raid gear. You have comm gear for hardmode flashpoints, and 192 stuff as the beginning raid gear tier. I tend to think that non set bonus pieces are not really raid gear. It could also be argued that 198 comms gear is actually the "starter" set to raid. There's the problem of the tool tip gear suggestions which I don't know, and I know has been discussed ad nausea anyway. I would say that if you want to really get into story mode raids, and give yourself a chance to be successful you should be in at least full 192 comms gear. It may take a bit more time if the player is really really a "solo" non guild type casual player, but really if that's the attitude of the player they should be taking longer to get gear. They have to make that sacrifice. If that person ultimately feels like the gearing is too slow, they can change their own behavior and find a casual guild. There's plenty out there. P-l-e-n-t-y. Not trying to sound factious, but I am trying to kind of put some sort of responsibility for things on the player.

 

To a point though, who remembers how long it took them to beat dread palace or dread fortress on storymode when they first came out? 6months in? I'd actually agree with the notion that they are far more difficult than these new ones, and they took a similar time frame for pugs to clear them completely.

 

All operations require people to carry casuals through. That's the nature of the beast. Who do you think explains the fights to you? Who watches the raid while things are going on and directing you throughout? That person is carrying you. He may be doing it nicely, or offensively, but at the end of the day he's carrying you. If you have a bomb healer who's tossing in like 1k dps and putting out 4k ehps or something he's carrying you too. If another dps is doing 2.9-3.2 and you're doing 1.7...he's carrying you too. It's just the nature of the beast when it comes to content that will require significant levels of team work. If you're new to it, you're going to be carried because you need to be. If you don't want to learn a high powered rotation you're going to need to be carried through. Basically, if you just want to experience stuff, you're going to have to bein a group where people are carrying you. It's not a bad thing, but it is required.

 

At the end of the day this is the hardest content that the pve side of the game offers. It's not supposed to be easy. We all understand and agree that there are some tweaks that should be made here and there. That's not my debate. I agree there. But, you got to realize that if you're only going to run an op for story, not put in any time to learn things, have a loose understanding of the what your walking into, may not have a fully geared toon, or even partially geared toon, you're going to need some help regardless of if you like it or not. If you don't want to be carried then you need to follow the L2P adage. It's only fair, because if the players who put in the time to become good raiders have to end up back tracking to carrying people who just want to experience things and not put in the time, then it should only be fair for the fair weather raiders to make their own sacrifices.

 

The sacrifices are made in Hard Mode. Story Mode should be faceroll easy for Hard Mode raiders, it should be challenging but not impossible for the average shmuck who just isn't prepared as a gamer to go after Hard Mode content for some reason. It's Story Mode. That means it allows the general player base to enjoy and complete it to further the game's story.

 

Story Mode operations are beginning ops. They are there to gear people for the next level and the gear they get from the SM ops should allow them to more easily clear the SM op but should NOT be required to clear said op...especially when the description of the SM op says 186 gear is needed. It doesn't say "186 gear will get you through the first two bosses but won't let you clear the third one, you need 192 gear from Ravagers and the first two bosses of this operation before you stand a chance in Hell of getting past it unless you are an elite raider that clears HM operations in basic gear."

 

Story Mode operations should never require perfection in mechanics or rotation, nor should they require set piece gear. Story Mode ops aren't for challenging geared, HM ops players. They are for the masses comprised of less than elite players to have at least some end game content that isn't solo dailies and various flashpoints. The only time HM raiders should even set foot in SM ops is to get set piece gear and once they and their teams are geared it should be "bye bye SM".

 

You gotta give the less than perfect players something to do at end game, for the health of the game.

 

And people need to stop saying SM DF/DP was harder. It wasn't. Especially considering none of the mechanics involved RNG or could be easily failed because the game engine couldn't handle it.

Edited March 27, 2015 by Grayseven