Single Player Operations.

[TriggerBlade]

Okay so hear me out before Operation players get mad at me.

 

I don't do Operations, mostly because I play solo or on occasion quest with a friend. After leveling from 1 to 65, I saw a few times that certain quest contained spoilers for story elements found in Operations. The mission terminal even stated this for a few. This however means that those who don't normally do Operations do not get to experience these key moments that warrants being called a spoiler. So here's my idea.

 

Give the ability to do single player Operations, but to fill out the missing slots, let us bring ALL of our vanilla companions into the instance. There are many times I question from a story perspective as to why we can only have one companion out at a time. After the dozens of games Bioware has made, this is the first I've seen where your party is this limited. Allowing Operation slots to be filled by companions would permit a great chance to fight like a team(Especially Havoc Squad) and would allow those who aren't hardcore Operation players to experience the story elements.

 

So basically the run down.

 

Requirements:

Must be the established required level.

 

Must have unlocked all class companions.

 

Must complete class chapters that would chronologically occur before the operation.

 

Treek and HK support optional.

 

Changes:

 

Each companion will be forced into a role suitable to their character.

 

Stats of mobs and bosses will be adjusted based on level.

 

Boss and mob health reduced to allow solo runs to go by at a reasonable pace to experience the story.

 

Loot will either be unobtainable or have a reduced spawn chance to avoid making group gear runs utterly pointless.

 

Players will temporarily get all companions back for pre-Fallen Empire Operations if Fallen Empire has been started.

 

(Optional) Allow the ability to run with one friend to fill even more slots with their companions.

 

Super special wishlist directed at devs:

 

Please let stronghold decorations drop for these solo runs.

 

So what do you all think? Any additions, changes or subtractions that any of you have?

 

I'll note, because I always see this argument when it comes to new or changed features, that this will not cause a balancing issue. As described above, things will be altered to make doing a normal Operation desirable to those who like doing them.

Edited November 27, 2015 by TriggerBlade

[Leklor]

Interesting idea.

Another alternative would be to offer a "Revan-like" alternative for story-relevant Ops bosses (Thinking of the Dread War Arc bosses like Kephess and the Dread Masters).

[Andrellma]

Wait...All of our companions?

 

You do realize that we have like...30 someodd companions now, right?

[TriggerBlade]

Wait...All of our companions?

 

You do realize that we have like...30 someodd companions now, right?

 

Well I was thinking more of the vanilla companions, plus support for Treek and HK. Seeing as the Operations that were mentioned as spoilers happen BEFORE Fallen Empire. I'll edit the original post to reflect this.

 

Interesting idea.

Another alternative would be to offer a "Revan-like" alternative for story-relevant Ops bosses (Thinking of the Dread War Arc bosses like Kephess and the Dread Masters).

 

I did find the Solo Revan fight to be very enjoyable, and it would be in a similar manner, just instead of Lana, Theron, Satele, etc. It would be the vanilla companions.

Edited November 27, 2015 by TriggerBlade

[MayhemofChaonus]

I've been tossing this idea around in my head for some time now, I just figured it would start a flame war seeing as the MMO fans are already touchy about all the solo mode stuff. I wholeheartedly agree with this idea and think we should have many opportunities to utilize multiple companions or our entire crew of companions at certain points in our class story (or for certain quests in the DLC story arcs, such as the Pre-Dread War and Dread War Operations) It always bugged the hell outta me when I could only use all my companions in one quest in the trooper story for one fight. Like srsly come on BW, we're supposed to be Havoc Squad, we work and fight as a team (or at least we should) more often then to destroy a superweapon...

 

Even then for that fight they weren't my companions, they were champions who looked and sounded like my companions. I should have all their quickbars on hand to give them orders (I mean I am their *********** commanding officer right? RIGHT!?!) Even in other stories like SW, JK, BH, Smug, IA there are quests (mostly chapter finales) where it would make lorical sense for us to be commanding/leading/fighting with multiple or ALL of our companions as a combat unit. Of course difficulty of these quests should be scaled to match or it's just a roflstomp fest, but judging by how BW didn't have a problem altering some pretty tough Heroic 4's to Heroic 2+ difficulty level, that shouldn't be a valid excuse they can throw back at us. I would also like for Solo mode FP's to incorperate this idea. Howabout, instead of dropping some random Jesus droid that can spam heal-to-full skills, tank mobs of elites and put ops-level dps players to shame, howabout BioWare Devs you do something that fits with the lore, and lets us use multiple companions during Solo Mode Flashpoints.

 

It would make much sense and to be honest, I don't hate the idea of working together with my companions to complete normally difficult content as much as I passionately hate being carried by the droid Messiah (srsly, I mean, he even descends from the sky, are you trying to mock Christianity or something? Because that's almost what it's starting to feel like). I think in general for any "solo mode" content the goto solution should be to match the gameplay with the lore and let us make a balanced group out of our companions. You can even limit the number of companions (those numbers depending on the difficulty of the content) we can have active in these instances and how many of each combat role we can have, including our role (e.g. 1 heal comp, 1 dps comp, one tank comp, and the dps player for a Solo FP, 1 heal comp, 4 dps comps, 2 tank comps, and 1 healer player for a Solo Operation). Of course these solo modes should likely have nerfed or altered enemies and mechanics to reflect that it is 1 intelligent player commanding multiple less intelligent A.I's and not a group of 4, 6 or 8 intelligent players.

 

These solo mode operations primary purpose would be for story progression and NOT gear progression, as regular ops are for gear progression, so as long as the only rewards were non-gear items (mounts, decorations, credits, data crystals ect) there wouldn't be an issue with operations and raiding being dead because everyone is soloing for gear runs. I really can't see anything wrong with this idea, and I pray Bioware instutes it as soon as possible, especially that part about doing the same for Solo FP's I really, really hate the Jesus droid. I hate it so much I would even settle for an option to deactivate it or send it away! Please Bioware, takes these ideas to heart!

[CrutchCricket]

I'm surprised this topic hasn't been flamed to the ground by elitist raiders yet. But since some enthusiasm remains:

 

The problem with simply getting NPCs to fill in the roles (be the companion or otherwise) is there's no easy way to account for the unique mechanics of some fights. I'm by no means an expert, I've only done DF/DP because the Oricon chain forced me to. But some of those boss encounters require more than just tanks tanking and heals healing. How would you get the NPC party to move the right way during the Brontes Giant *** Clockwise Lightning Beam of Doom™ phase, for example, while also killing all the things they're supposed to along the way? You don't need to design games to realize AI pathing is always a *****, you see it all the time just playing. Or for DP, how hard would it be to program them to move off flashing tiles during the, uhm... flashing tile Dread Master fight (I don't know which one it is, I've only done it twice lol)?

 

They would need to essentially script every fight down to the T. Not an easy task I'd imagine. And even if they did it, at best you just have the Revan fight in SoR all over again- rather dull scripted NPC fights you could well just AFK for (and now pretty much have to since level sync ruined it).

 

I'm not opposed to the idea. But plopping down godlike NPCs to pick up the slack doesn't seem like it works out very well. What I was thinking a few weeks ago instead is, why should special mechanics be the sole domain of group content? I think they can just as easily design solo bosses that require more than wailing on them for ten minutes to succeed. Stick those in "solo mode operations" and I think you have something.

[Leklor]

I'm surprised this topic hasn't been flamed to the ground by elitist raiders yet. But since some enthusiasm remains:

 

The problem with simply getting NPCs to fill in the roles (be the companion or otherwise) is there's no easy way to account for the unique mechanics of some fights. I'm by no means an expert, I've only done DF/DP because the Oricon chain forced me to. But some of those boss encounters require more than just tanks tanking and heals healing. How would you get the NPC party to move the right way during the Brontes Giant *** Clockwise Lightning Beam of Doom™ phase, for example, while also killing all the things they're supposed to along the way? You don't need to design games to realize AI pathing is always a *****, you see it all the time just playing. Or for DP, how hard would it be to program them to move off flashing tiles during the, uhm... flashing tile Dread Master fight (I don't know which one it is, I've only done it twice lol)?

 

They would need to essentially script every fight down to the T. Not an easy task I'd imagine. And even if they did it, at best you just have the Revan fight in SoR all over again- rather dull scripted NPC fights you could well just AFK for (and now pretty much have to since level sync ruined it).

 

I'm not opposed to the idea. But plopping down godlike NPCs to pick up the slack doesn't seem like it works out very well. What I was thinking a few weeks ago instead is, why should special mechanics be the sole domain of group content? I think they can just as easily design solo bosses that require more than wailing on them for ten minutes to succeed. Stick those in "solo mode operations" and I think you have something.

 

Well I think the idea is really not to have any challenging content, just a way to experience the story without needing to learn tactics, rotations and stuff. Maybe change the bosses when fighting them solo to "Puzzle bosses". Take something like the two phases of Solo Revan where you must free your companions to resume the battle and expand on that. Have some switches to flip before the boss become damageable, and similar mechanics.

[CrutchCricket]

Well I think the idea is really not to have any challenging content, just a way to experience the story without needing to learn tactics, rotations and stuff. Maybe change the bosses when fighting them solo to "Puzzle bosses". Take something like the two phases of Solo Revan where you must free your companions to resume the battle and expand on that. Have some switches to flip before the boss become damageable, and similar mechanics.

Again, I've only done the Oricon ops but if the rest of them are like that, story within the actual op is literally zero. Inside the instance you kill boss after boss with some trash in between and that's it. The final boss has a cutscene intro but otherwise there's nothing. If you've been around the game or the forums long enough you know ops is serious business. You think they're going to have the spacebar argument for 8-16 people?

 

The problem with the orb fight in Revan is that a) the mechanic itself isn't very enjoyable but mostly b) it's not "you and your team are beating on a boss" but more like "a bunch of NPCs are fighting, and also you're there." Turning every op boss into this won't have the effect you want.

 

I think we agree about more engaging mechanics for solo fights. Hence why I said mechanics, possibly of the puzzle variety shouldn't be the sole domain of group content. But I don't think the concept of you + seven NPCs works. I can get behind "commanding a squad" though, if you take a page from Mass Effect for it, namely the suicide mission of ME2. Design a boss fight where advantages or handicaps can apply depending on how you deploy various squadmates to do certain things. Their success/failure can be calculated mechanically with stock cutscenes showing the effect (for example the boss has automated defenses and you can send a companion to hack them and turn them on your side. If you send say, Mako she does it no problem, if you send Skadge it's a hilarious failure). You can maybe have some additional NPC support during the fight itself as well. But seven NPCs is too much because it means you, the player don't need to be there.

Edited November 28, 2015 by CrutchCricket

[branmakmuffin]

f you've been around the game or the forums long enough you know ops is serious business.

I hope you are joking/exaggerating, because if you are not, you lost it, right there.

[CrutchCricket]

I hope you are joking/exaggerating, because if you are not, you lost it, right there.

Oh I'm sorry, are you saying there isn't a hardcore gang of elitists that will rage till the cows come home if you even think of suggesting something that has a remote chance of making content or rewards a smidge more accessible? Shall we dig up some threads about the Architect Wings?

 

Maybe they're mostly gone now since there aren't any new ops, but don't kid yourself. Epeen must be measured. You can either do so with raids or PVP. Pick your poison.