Too many 1-shot mech in NIM ops

[Slowpokeking]

How would it limit the fight design? By not allowing people to screw up mechanics? That is the purpose of making a nightmare difficulty. You screw up, you die. Plain and simple. Perfect execution of mechanics along with tight DPS and healing checks.

By not using a lot of other interesting mechanics to the fight. EC NIM didn't have much 1-shot mech, was it a failure?

 

 

This sentence doesn't even make sense to me. It sounds like you want things to be dumbed down and made easier (in your words, forgiving to make mistakes). If you want that, do Hard mode and stop complaining about mechanics design in difficulty you can't handle on tier/when its relevant content.

You lack of skills to understand my words, that sucks.

 

Does it makes the fight easier? If Brontes' Reach is not 1-shot but activate instantly after spawn, have larger radius and leaves some nasty debuff if you get hit?

 

Stop showing ur elitist face when you even fail to understand what others mean.

[trendiee]

How would it limit the fight design? By not allowing people to screw up mechanics? That is the purpose of making a nightmare difficulty. You screw up, you die. Plain and simple. Perfect execution of mechanics along with tight DPS and healing checks.

 

 

This sentence doesn't even make sense to me. It sounds like you want things to be dumbed down and made easier (in your words, forgiving to make mistakes). If you want that, do Hard mode and stop complaining about mechanics design in difficulty you can't handle on tier/when its relevant content.

 

Can you really not conceive of challenging mechanics that don't involve a oneshot? There's a huge grey area between hello kitty island and ikaruga.

[Khevar]

Can you really not conceive of challenging mechanics that don't involve a oneshot? There's a huge grey area between hello kitty island and ikaruga.

I think there are a number of non-one-shot mechanics that can be fun, interesting and challenging.

 

That said, I think that one-shot mechanics have a place -- because you cannot overgear them. In this game, due to the way level difference math works, it may be possible to overlevel one-shot mechanics at the >= 10 levels. But at only 5 levels higher, it doesn't really matter how much gear you have.

 

By comparison, the other types mechanics mentioned thus far are more susceptible to overgearing. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I'm also not saying that everything should be one-shot mechanics. But they do have one benefit that alternative mechanics don't -- they're much much harder to ignore.

 

Now, there's something to be said for overgearing allowing a group to make it through previously difficult content. I think this is good and is actually part of the benefit of the "gear grind". SM operations should become faceroll. HM operations should become easier. And NM operations should become within reach for a wide range of endgame players.

 

But NM operations should (in my personal opinion) should never become 'faceroll", (10+ level difference notwithstanding).

Edited September 1, 2015 by Khevar

[DrMeth]

Does it makes the fight easier? If Brontes' Reach is not 1-shot but activate instantly after spawn, have larger radius and leaves some nasty debuff if you get hit?

You tell me.

 

8 people still being alive after reaches, or losing a few people to instant death. You can continue the fight in your situation, it just may take longer/require more DPS or healing, etc (whatever the debuffs may do). In its current state, you lose 2+ people, you wipe and start over (unless you got enough stealth rez or w/e).

 

Sometimes, 1-shot mechanics are implemented in nightmare so no matter how much you overlevel or outgear an instance, certain mechanics still have to be performed. It is not just for the challenge, its to prevent ignoring things in a fight. They basically tell you "you need to do X." If you do not do X, you wipe.

 

An example: You can be level 65 if you want, but you stand in a reach, you will still probably die. You don't kill that first droid, you will still wipe (no matter how high of a level you are). If healers ignore the raptus challenge, you wipe (100% reflected damage after both challenge failures).

[bdatt]

I support one shot mechanics in some HM and all NiM fights because they stand the test of time (ie out leveling and out gearing). I remember the satisfaction of clearing color deletion and am still satisfied it can kill me 5 levels and 6? tiers of gear later.

 

Maybe there should be more of them.

Edited September 1, 2015 by bdatt

[KeyboardNinja]

Then it means the healer class design was a failure, some rebalance work is required.

 

No, it just means that healers have skill variance just like every other role. What you're proposing is literally equivalent to saying that the lowest skill healers should have the same output as the highest skill healers, which is another way of saying that there is no benefit to becoming more skilled in the role. For many, many people, that would make healing extremely boring.

 

If there is no gap between the lowest skill healers and the highest skill healers, then the role is boring and stupid. If there is a gap (as there is today), then you fall back into the quandary regarding non-one-shot mechanics that I mentioned.

 

What if it's much more difficult to avoid the debuff/damage? What if there were more non-damage related skills? Changing the mech is not just replace 1-shot with some damage, but increase the difficulty of avoiding damage.

 

My point is that, as a general rule, non-one-shot mechanics are often ignored by groups with good healers simply because it's easier. It doesn't matter if you make it more difficult to avoid the damage on the hypothetical non-one-shot reaches, because the point I was making is that groups with good healers wouldn't even try to avoid it! They would just group up (probably with a loose formation which avoids taking too much splash while enabling AoE healing) and HPS machine through the damage.

 

Maybe you could prevent this by having the reaches apply a debuff which reduces damage dealt by some absurd level, but that's not a solution which is applicable everywhere. Also it leaves the healers free to turret if they want to, whereas right now EVERYONE has to move.

 

There are many ways such as healing-debuff and set a limit for the healer's maximum healing dealing in 1 fight. It looks you are saying "healers make the fight easy so the best way is to lower their importance by overusing 1-shot".

 

This is the "reduce the gap between low- and high-skill healers" suggestion in disguise. I'm not trying to be elitist here, but that gap exists for a reason. It makes the game interesting because it gives players something to strive for, something to work on, and an avenue for improvement. You can't improve if "entry level" is the same as "max level".

 

ONCE again, nobody is saying 1 shot mech shouldn't exist, but it shouldn't be overused. If ops could only rely on 1 shot to keep difficulty, then it means this game's PVE system has some serious problems.

 

One shot mechanics are, as a general rule, used as a way to force movement and positioning. Movement and positioning add challenge to all roles, but most notably DPS. Think about Doom in Nightmare Dread Guard, where you have to give up a lot of DPS uptime in order to deal with the mechanic, which in turn makes the enrage that much more meaningful. The second phase of NiM Dread Guard was pretty easy to heal even pre-pre-nerf on tier, and I guarantee that every group that even sniffed the third phase would trade off almost any amount of extra second-phase damage for more DPS uptime. Movement mechanics are very important because they make the DPS's job more interesting than just dummy parsing, and to a lesser extent the same with tanks and healers (tanks already have significant movement mechanics, and healers can cheat in all cases).

 

I think that if one-shot mechanics ever become more than just forcing movement/positioning/tanking (the third is exemplified by HM/NiM EC Kephess), then we probably have a problem. As it stands though, that's all they do, and they do that job far better than any form of damage or debuff mechanic could. Just look at how much people cheat with Master-Blaster's non-one-shot mechanics to see an example of this.

 

Also, how many are these "Supergood" healers? if it's only like 5% of the whole healer population, I don't think we should take them too seriously and ignore the rest 95%.

 

Probably far less than 5% of the population. However, I can tell you straight up that the number of people who have cleared any Nightmare Mode bosses is probably less than 1% of the population, and the percentage of people who have cleared entire Nightmare Mode instances is less than 1% of that 1%. We're already in extremely exclusive territory.

 

With the elimination of Nightmare Mode from future content, it's sort of an open question how much Bioware cares about that segment of the player base, but going on the hypothesis that they do care about skill floor/ceiling gaps, one-shot mechanics need to remain.

Edited September 1, 2015 by KeyboardNinja

[Slowpokeking]

You tell me.

 

8 people still being alive after reaches, or losing a few people to instant death. You can continue the fight in your situation, it just may take longer/require more DPS or healing, etc (whatever the debuffs may do). In its current state, you lose 2+ people, you wipe and start over (unless you got enough stealth rez or w/e).

 

But it's much easier to not die in current design. You can't just say the consequence=difficulty. Nobody here thought the Overcharged Beam phase is the toughest in Brontes Encounter because if you fail=raid wipe. Why? Because it's easy to avoid by killing the droids in time.

 

Sometimes, 1-shot mechanics are implemented in nightmare so no matter how much you overlevel or outgear an instance, certain mechanics still have to be performed. It is not just for the challenge, its to prevent ignoring things in a fight. They basically tell you "you need to do X." If you do not do X, you wipe.

 

Why should an ops be designed mainly for overleved or outgeared ppl? Overleveled and outgeared people should be doing ops that matches their level/gear mainly. Shouldn't an ops be designed for ppl at level/gear? So you think blacktalon SM shouldn't be soloable for high level players?

 

An example: You can be level 65 if you want, but you stand in a reach, you will still probably die. You don't kill that first droid, you will still wipe (no matter how high of a level you are). If healers ignore the raptus challenge, you wipe (100% reflected damage after both challenge failures).

 

Why should we care much about ppl with 10 levels higher? The ops was not designed for them mainly.

Edited September 1, 2015 by Slowpokeking

[Slowpokeking]

No, it just means that healers have skill variance just like every other role. What you're proposing is literally equivalent to saying that the lowest skill healers should have the same output as the highest skill healers, which is another way of saying that there is no benefit to becoming more skilled in the role. For many, many people, that would make healing extremely boring.

 

If there is no gap between the lowest skill healers and the highest skill healers, then the role is boring and stupid. If there is a gap (as there is today), then you fall back into the quandary regarding non-one-shot mechanics that I mentioned.

 

 

This is the "reduce the gap between low- and high-skill healers" suggestion in disguise. I'm not trying to be elitist here, but that gap exists for a reason. It makes the game interesting because it gives players something to strive for, something to work on, and an avenue for improvement. You can't improve if "entry level" is the same as "max level".

 

Maybe you could prevent this by having the reaches apply a debuff which reduces damage dealt by some absurd level, but that's not a solution which is applicable everywhere. Also it leaves the healers free to turret if they want to, whereas right now EVERYONE has to move.

 

 

No, I'm saying that there shouldn't be too much of a gap between these players, if most of the encounters can be run with 1 DPS if he/she is good enough, then there surely are problem with the class design. Sure skilled healers should be very good, but having them heal through anything that's not 1 shot is not right.

 

 

 

My point is that, as a general rule, non-one-shot mechanics are often ignored by groups with good healers simply because it's easier. It doesn't matter if you make it more difficult to avoid the damage on the hypothetical non-one-shot reaches, because the point I was making is that groups with good healers wouldn't even try to avoid it! They would just group up (probably with a loose formation which avoids taking too much splash while enabling AoE healing) and HPS machine through the damage.

 

It's obviously a problem of class design, Bioware certainly didn't ask for this.

 

 

Probably far less than 5% of the population. However, I can tell you straight up that the number of people who have cleared any Nightmare Mode bosses is probably less than 1% of the population, and the percentage of people who have cleared entire Nightmare Mode instances is less than 1% of that 1%. We're already in extremely exclusive territory.

 

With the elimination of Nightmare Mode from future content, it's sort of an open question how much Bioware cares about that segment of the player base, but going on the hypothesis that they do care about skill floor/ceiling gaps, one-shot mechanics need to remain.

 

Then it shouldn't be brought up AT ALL since it's just very few elite players. As long as the game is still hard to most of the players, it's fine. Your whole point is "1-2% of the healers can heal through almost everything so none 1-shot mech are easy to ppl".

Edited September 1, 2015 by Slowpokeking

[Gyronamics]

But it's much easier to not die in current design. You can't just say the consequence=difficulty. Nobody here thought the Overcharged Beam phase is the toughest in Brontes Encounter because if you fail=raid wipe. Why? Because it's easy to avoid by killing the droids in time.

 

Why should an ops be designed mainly for overleved or outgeared ppl? Overleveled and outgeared people should be doing ops that matches their level/gear mainly. Shouldn't an ops be designed for ppl at level/gear? So you think blacktalon SM shouldn't be soloable for high level players?

 

Why should we care much about ppl with 10 levels higher? The ops was not designed for them mainly.

 

You are talking as if you did the content when it was relevant.

 

Did you really?

 

Did you reeeeaaaaaalllly.

 

And from that position you want to lecture NiM players that the mechanics are not suitable (for you) for disorganised players overlevelling and overgearing it a long time afterwards.

 

What was wrong with sticking to asking for help when you got stuck on mechanics you couldn't do.

Edited September 1, 2015 by Gyronamics

[Khevar]

Why should an ops be designed mainly for overleved or outgeared ppl? Overleveled and outgeared people should be doing ops that matches their level/gear mainly. Shouldn't an ops be designed for ppl at level/gear? So you think blacktalon SM shouldn't be soloable for high level players?

You're twisting words here.

 

Nobody has suggested that ops should be "designed mainly for overleveled or outgeared ppl". I'm pretty sure that nobody believes they SHOULD be designed that way.

 

However, the one-shot mechanics helps the NM content to remain relevant longer.

 

This is the same argument we had in the other thread. You think that just because they're old, players should not be challenged by it at all. You've stated that people who like challenge should be restricted exclusively to the latest content.

 

This is that same argument, but with a new coat of paint.

Edited September 1, 2015 by Khevar

[Slowpokeking]

You're twisting words here.

 

Nobody has suggested that ops should be "designed mainly for overleveled or outgeared ppl". I'm pretty sure that nobody believes they SHOULD be designed that way.

 

So are they ignore-able or not to outleveled players shouldn't be a concern at all.

 

I've soloed HM LI a few times months ago, Project Sav-Rak is a bigger trouble to me now due to the 1 shot mech and jumping could result in enrage if u didn't do well. The droid and Lorrick are pretty much a faceroll now, shall we say Sav-Rak was designed better than the droid and Lorrick because it brought more trouble to level 60s? No, because they were not designed for 60s. What matters is how hard/interesting they were to 50s.

 

However, the one-shot mechanics helps the NM content to remain relevant longer.

 

This is the same argument we had in the other thread. You think that just because they're old, players should not be challenged by it at all. And that people who like challenge should be restricted exclusively to the latest content.

 

This is that same argument, but with a new coat of paint.

 

What do you mean longer?

 

Let me make it clear to you.

 

What makes an ops remain relevant longer have nothing to do with the difficulty, it's the drop that matters. Why are ppl still running 50-55 NIM ops today? For the mount/decor/pet drop. Also, many many 1-shot encounters get very easy with higher level/gear.

 

I think the challenge should be matched with the drop, what's wrong for it?

Edited September 1, 2015 by Slowpokeking

[FerkWork]

I feel like we are all being trolled. No one can be this dense, right?

 

Can't wait for all Ops to be relevant. Should be fun times.

[Slowpokeking]

I feel like we are all being trolled. No one can be this dense, right?

 

Can't wait for all Ops to be relevant. Should be fun times.

 

Actually, you people are dense enough to believe 1-shot is the only way to make things hard.

[Khevar]

What makes an ops remain relevant longer have nothing to do with the difficulty, it's the drop that matters.

Says the person who argued that level 55 NM operations should be "faceroll" just so you could get the rewards.

 

Ops can also be relevant for people who were unable to clear them when they were current, but still like a challenge, and are happy to finally clear them with a bit of overgearing and overleveling.

 

Ops can also be relevant for people who are bored with running two latest operations 100 times over, want to add some variety, but still like having some challenge.

 

Rewards are but ONE reason why an operation can be relevant.

[shyroman]

Actually, you people are dense enough to believe 1-shot is the only way to make things hard.

 

One shots are the only way to make it difficult for everyone while making it not completely impossible for most people, like KBN explained.

[DrMeth]

Actually, you people are dense enough to believe 1-shot is the only way to make things hard.

And you are dense enough to think that any input from a player that never did ANY of the nightmare content in its relevancy would should be taken but with a grain of salt. You are complaining about mechanics in nightmare ops 5 levels below and 3-4 tiers over geared. That on its own says a lot.

 

And no one believe that one shots are the only way to make things hard. Unless of course if they can't:

 

A) Do the mechanic

B) Fail to do the mechanic, or

C) Suck at doing the mechanic

Edited September 1, 2015 by DrMeth

[FerkWork]

Actually, you people are dense enough to believe 1-shot is the only way to make things hard.

 

Just as I thought

[theBrayn]

I'm still stuck trying to figure out how the OP doesn't realize there's a difference between Warlord Kephess and Kephess the Undying... One is a standard Trandoshan and the other is a revitalized version using cybernetics and sith alchemy. Their character models are even completely different.

 

Warlord Kephess

 

Kephess the Undying

 

When Kephess shows back up on the Brontes phase as a clone he even uses a subset of his powers as Kephess the Undying. The powers Styrak and Brontes use on the council fight aren't exactly the same but very similar.

[KeyboardNinja]

Prefixing… Let's tone down the "didn't do nightmare content when it was relevant" rhetoric. I understand what y'all are trying to say, but I think we can shoot down the points without resorting to an appeal to authority (where by "authority" I mean on-tier NiM experience).

 

No, I'm saying that there shouldn't be too much of a gap between these players, if most of the encounters can be run with 1 DPS if he/she is good enough, then there surely are problem with the class design. Sure skilled healers should be very good, but having them heal through anything that's not 1 shot is not right.

 

There is a limit to what can be solo healed. As I said, I haven't done the Master-Blaster soft enrage, and I honestly don't believe that I can. I've also never solo healed HM Revan's first floor, and I am relatively certain that it is actually numerically impossible (you would need to sustain over 8k effective HPS during the HK phase, which lasts about 90 seconds with good DPS).

 

One of the things to keep in mind is that there is always a tension, with any mechanic, of where in the group you want to place the burden of that mechanic. Is there some complicated positioning you can use to reduce incoming damage? Great! But can you just heal through that damage and hence increase your DPS uptime? Different groups with different strengths will handle those things in different ways.

 

One of the primary ways that DPS are challenged in this game is forcing them to deal with mechanics, notably positioning, within a hard time limit. Revan's Core burn is an excellent example of this, where you need to deal with the heartbeat and the aberrations while keeping your DPS high enough to beat the soft enrage. Imagine if, instead of knocking you off the platform, the aberrations just did a crudton of damage to any player who wasn't facing them directly. I can guarantee that the primary strat for dealing with the Core burn would be to just heal through that damage (as long as it didn't exceed ~60 stack HP).

 

Would there be groups that killed it by doing the mechanic? Sure. But the world first clears would have come through just healing the damage. This is partially due to the skill gap between the world's best healers and those who are merely adequate, but it's also due to the difficulty of the other mechanics in the fight when held up in comparison to what you would be asking the healers to do.

 

One shot mechanics not only serve as a level of difficult in and of themselves, but they magnify the difficulty of every other mechanic! This is their purpose. The reaches in NiM Dread Masters aren't really that hard… unless you're pushing hard to beat the second phase DPS check. Doom in NiM Dread Guard isn't really that problematic unless you're coming up tight against that third phase enrage. Dropping to the floor in NiM Raptus barely even qualifies as "trivial"… except for the extra damage you take as a consequence (pushing load to the healers) and the fact that it can take a healer out of the fight for a time. Heave isn't difficult to heal in HM Revan (even during the Core burn)… until you have to heal it while simultaneously managing the aberration facing.

 

All mechanics accentuate each other, but one-shot mechanics provide an absolute baseline floor to a fight. They provide a mechanic that you can't "shift" to another area of your raid group. You're forced to deal with it, and thus they provide the literal structure that the rest of the difficulty builds upon.

 

It's obviously a problem of class design, Bioware certainly didn't ask for this.

 

With 204 main hands, 10/10 can be three DPSed. Even pre-nerf and pre-204, Zorz came very close to 7 manning 10/10 (as in, they needed about 25k more damage total on the Core… they cleared 9/10 with no problem). Is that a problem of class design too?

 

A good assassin tank can reduce their damage on almost any fight relative to a poor assassin tank (assuming both are baseline executing all mechanics) by 40-50%. Is that bad class design? Or is it just skill ceiling?

 

Clearly there is a balance here. You don't want the best players in the world to be untouchable gods who can solo any content. But at the same time, you need every class and role to have room to improve and grow. Things to strive for. Challenges to achieve. This is very complex to achieve, and I think Bioware has struck a good balance. One-shot mechanics are an important part of that balance.

 

Then it shouldn't be brought up AT ALL since it's just very few elite players. As long as the game is still hard to most of the players, it's fine. Your whole point is "1-2% of the healers can heal through almost everything so none 1-shot mech are easy to ppl".

 

You're talking about Nightmare Mode. This is already less than 1% of the playerbase. Most of the one-shot mechanics are confined to the hardest bosses of each tier, which shrink down to the 1% of the 1%. If you're going to talk about content which is definitionally restricted to that kind of world-leading subset (at least on tier), then you absolutely need to consider their skill ceiling.

[Slowpokeking]

And you are dense enough to think that any input from a player that never did ANY of the nightmare content in its relevancy would should be taken but with a grain of salt. You are complaining about mechanics in nightmare ops 5 levels below and 3-4 tiers over geared. That on its own says a lot.

 

And no one believe that one shots are the only way to make things hard. Unless of course if they can't:

 

A) Do the mechanic

B) Fail to do the mechanic, or

C) Suck at doing the mechanic

 

I said I don't do much(compare to SM and HM), not I didn't do. Now you are twisting others' words again, sigh.

[Slowpokeking]

One shots are the only way to make it difficult for everyone while making it not completely impossible for most people, like KBN explained.

So EC NIM was a failure because it's not "difficult for everyone while making it not completely impossible for most people" other than the minefield?

Edited September 1, 2015 by Slowpokeking

[Slowpokeking]

Says the person who argued that level 55 NM operations should be "faceroll" just so you could get the rewards.

 

Ops can also be relevant for people who were unable to clear them when they were current, but still like a challenge, and are happy to finally clear them with a bit of overgearing and overleveling.

 

Ops can also be relevant for people who are bored with running two latest operations 100 times over, want to add some variety, but still like having some challenge.

 

Rewards are but ONE reason why an operation can be relevant.

 

That's very very few people, sure they might try it once but never again after finished it, that's not being relevant.

 

Rewards are pretty much the reason why people run ops, you can try to remove drop/achievement from ToS and let's see will 95% of the ppl do it or not.

Edited September 1, 2015 by Slowpokeking

[KeyboardNinja]

So EC NIM was a failure because it's not "difficult for everyone while making it not completely impossible for most people"?

 

There seem to be a fairly large set of one-shots in EC NiM. Kwerty listed most of them, but there are several others that he missed (including positioning on the droid in Minefield, holding the Drouks together, getting the Kephess droids to 8 stacks, having everyone in melee on the second set of droids, etc).

 

Rewards are pretty much the reason why people run ops, you can try to remove drop/achievement from ToS and let's see will 95% of the ppl do it or not.

 

Except rewards aren't even in the equation for why I run ops. HM Revan drops literally nothing that I can use (even the deco). Doesn't even slightly reduce my enjoyment of the boss. (for that matter, basically this entire tier is like that now; I can't get anything useful or any vanity item that I don't already have, but I still raid)

Edited September 1, 2015 by KeyboardNinja

[Slowpokeking]

I'm still stuck trying to figure out how the OP doesn't realize there's a difference between Warlord Kephess and Kephess the Undying... One is a standard Trandoshan and the other is a revitalized version using cybernetics and sith alchemy. Their character models are even completely different.

 

Warlord Kephess

 

Kephess the Undying

 

When Kephess shows back up on the Brontes phase as a clone he even uses a subset of his powers as Kephess the Undying. The powers Styrak and Brontes use on the council fight aren't exactly the same but very similar.

 

Yes, and there are difference between the Dread Master Brontes/Styrak and their Force ghost.

[Slowpokeking]

There seem to be a fairly large set of one-shots in EC NiM. Kwerty listed most of them, but there are several others that he missed (including positioning on the droid in Minefield, holding the Drouks together, getting the Kephess droids to 8 stacks, having everyone in melee on the second set of droids, etc).

 

A large set?

The Drouks got close is not 1-shot.

Even Kephess droids can be taken down even at 8 stacks.

 

The only real one shot mech I remember is the minefield one.