Let's assume for a moment, no more nim gear drops ever.

[Reno_Tarshil]

What would you consider an acceptable alternative?

 

Decorations?

 

Mounts?

 

Cosmetic Fluff?

[HiltoftheDragon]

What would you consider an acceptable alternative?

 

Decorations?

 

Mounts?

 

Cosmetic Fluff?

 

I dont consider any of that acceptable.

 

It needs to drop the correct loot. What point is there to run the content if the reward isnt even remotely close to the trouble you took to get it. If they cant fix it or re-adjust it then remove the nim modes from the game. The nim loot that drops from the weekly hm op will easily take its place, if it hasnt already.

 

Just my 2 cents.

Edited December 14, 2015 by HiltoftheDragon

[Uruare]

Pretty much anyone saying that they want challenge actually just mean that they want better stuff than someone else.

 

If raiding didn't offset the best gear in the game, almost nobody works ever bother again. Why? It's not actually that fun.

 

It's a chore and often a hassle sometimes offset by good company that makes the annoyance bearable.

 

A lot of raiders will talk a good game about comradery and the joy of succeeding as a team, but watch how many vanish or turn into rabid shriekers of the fancy gear is no longer the carrot on the stick.

 

And there, the truth can be seen.

[Ghisallo]

What people need to understand is that NiM served a different purpose with this expac.

 

The expac was not about existing players. It was about lowering the bar to entry for new players while minimizing the loss of existing players, on the cheap. Especially with their "oh sorry. That was a typo we kept up for months" explanation its pretty clear that the only reason for NiM tagged raids to be yet another strand to string certain subcultures in the game along and keep them subbed up through December and into January.

The lack of gear other than a main hand that is an RNG drop is because it is simply the cheapest way to create this strand.

 

People should even, imo bother debating "if they don't....". Eric already said there are NO PLANs in the foreseeable future for new PvE content. What's the point of us bothering to debate anymore? At best we MIGHT see something next fall. In any NiM raider going to last that long to see the OP's initial question of " if they don't..." Answered?

[Jerba]

I want NiM to drop at least the same gear as the highlighted HM. That way, if we are still missing a few pieces, we have the choice to either run highlighted HM, or do nightmare progression. It's much more fun to run more difficult content, than rerunning the HM content over and over just to finish gearing up.

 

But to answer the OP's question, I want something that rewards running the same operation multiple time. A title or achievement is completed after the first run but since it looks like we'll be running this content for months to come, it needs to have longevity.

Mounts are not that good of an idea IMO because then we need to run it only 8 times but what's even worse is once someone has the mount, he has to keep running the operation to help get everyone else the mount. This should be pretty self-evident but I've met plenty of players who just care about their own character and will leave the guild as soon as they have received their share of the loot, knowing they will not receive another loot for the next few weeks.

 

The only long-lasting item IMO are decorations because you can unlock them 50 times, and sell them on the GTN if you have them all or don't care about decorations. But right now, there aren't really that many NiM decorations, or players were able to get them prior to 4.0. If BioWare can add new, awesome nightmare decorations that would be a big incentive but even then, we have to question if it's worth the repair costs (and potentially the NiM crystal materials) to run it.

Having more Dark Matter Catalysts drop, or some other form of credits/items to help pay repair costs would be a good motivation to run NiM.

[Jerba]

If raiding didn't offset the best gear in the game, almost nobody works ever bother again.

Totally agree with that statement. We (=my raid group) may be raiders, but above all, we are progression players. We do whatever we can to get the best gear. If it means running a flashpoint, we will run a flashpoint; if it means crafting, we'll farm the materials and craft it, if it means running EV HM because it is highlighted, we will run EV HM even though it is so easy we don't enjoy doing it.

 

I wouldn't say that raiding is not fun; I have fun raiding because of the players in my group. And I'd say that is true for any group activity. If you don't find raiding fun, it's probably because you don't enjoy running with your group, and it's not about the raids themselves.

Back on topic, I'm not really sure what's the point in running operations when there's no progression attached to it since progression (be it gear or otherwise) is our main motivation. Being able to loot decorations or farm credits is a form of progression I guess but it is not nearly as nice as gettting better gear or achievos.

Edited December 14, 2015 by Jerba

[davidp_newton]

What would you consider an acceptable alternative?

 

Decorations?

 

Mounts?

 

Cosmetic Fluff?

 

More new content. More new content. More new content. THAT is what is needed and quickly.

 

This NiM drops debacle has merely been the last straw and trigger for a lot of people. The fact that they felt the need to respond with that announcement about the announcement of a warzone shows you just how bad this has been. They didn't respond as quickly as with the companion nerf, so it can't have been quite as bad as that, but they did attempt to put the fire out. Unfortunately for them the attempt to put the fire out has at best done nothing and at worst actually exacerbated the situation. It has confirmed that new PvP content is still at least five months off (given the 16 week patch cadence they seem to be adopting with KotFE). It has also confirmed that they haven't even started working on new multiplayer PvE content. Whoops.

 

The fundamental problem that Bioware is now facing is that things have gone beyond their control. Again Keyboardninja summed it up very eloquently:

 

"The sad thing is, at this point, we're all just venting. Nothing we say can really change anything. Even if the leadership at Bioware reads through this thread and has a complete change of heart. Even if they decided right now that they need to get an op out as soon as possible, and put a heavier priority on end game group content, it wouldn't make a difference.

 

The die was cast six months ago. Maybe eight months ago. They made the decision to abandon their multiplayer endgame and focus almost exclusively on solo content. They could reverse that decision, but the lead time is immense. It takes a long, long time to create and balance an operation. Operation bosses are far more demanding in terms of mechanics and uniqueness than anything else in the game, meaning that it often isn't just a matter of scripting things on top of the existing engine. …"

 

"The sad reality is that the community cannot wait this long. Bioware may even realize that now, but it's too late. They're committed. 4.0 is the NGE of SWTOR, and even if they wanted to go back, it would take them long enough to do so that no one who remained to see it would care one way or another."

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=8694364&postcount=893

 

I said that we need more new content and quickly. As Keyboardninja's post I have quoted above shows the lead-times that they have for proper multiplayer PvE content simply don't allow this to happen. THAT is what has caused this to go beyond Bioware's control. They literally CANNOT REACT FAST ENOUGH to sort this out. The die is cast. The bet is made. They've gone all-in for the sabaac pot and suddenly realised their cards add up to more than 23.

 

Their fancy "metrics" were interpreted to say that raiders are a very small proportion of the player community. They are now finding out that raiders are NOT such a small proportion of the player community. Raiders have certainly never been a majority of the community, but Bioware has completely misjudged the size of the raider community. More importantly they have completely ignored the importance of the raider and high-end PvP communities to the fan sites and promotion of this game.

 

Another very, very, very telling statistic can be found here:

 

=HM&metric=Toons"]http://ixparse.com/stats/?boss=&mode[]=HM&metric=Toons

 

Characters recorded in HM operations using Starparse during the period 30/11/2015–06/12/2015 131, 255

 

Characters recorded in HM operations using Starparse during the period 07/12/2015–13/12/2015 56,971

 

The 131,000 number was significantly higher than previous weeks as it had been around 100,000 for about the 4 weeks prior to that. However even compared to 100,000 or so going down to 55,000 or so is a huge, huge drop and is statistically significant. That is a reduction of 57% in activity compared to the previous week and a reduction of 43% compared to average activity over the four weeks prior to that. You don't get those kinds of drops from random fluctuations in activity. You don't get those kinds of drops from attritional decline as people gradually become bored with an expansion. That is lots and lots and lots of people stopping playing the game during a one week period. Remember that this is statistics from the Starparse website and that Starparse does not produce a census of people doing HM raiding as more people HM raid then do HM raiding with Starparse running. That means the absolute drop in numbers will be worse than the Starparse website shows. It does have to be said that this is characters and not accounts, but still it is bad.

 

TLDR we've reached the tipping point for this game's PvE endgame community and it is too late for Bioware to do anything about it. Bioware have fundamentally misjudged the situation with this game and they are going to pay a heavy price for it. Heck they've even managed to make the situation even worse for themselves by pissing off their crafters and cartel market users with rollbacks on three servers! That's quite the feat.

[Ghisallo]

Pretty much anyone saying that they want challenge actually just mean that they want better stuff than someone else.

 

If raiding didn't offset the best gear in the game, almost nobody works ever bother again. Why? It's not actually that fun.

 

It's a chore and often a hassle sometimes offset by good company that makes the annoyance bearable.

 

A lot of raiders will talk a good game about comradery and the joy of succeeding as a team, but watch how many vanish or turn into rabid shriekers of the fancy gear is no longer the carrot on the stick.

 

And there, the truth can be seen.

 

Preface, I am not a NiM raider....

 

Well that was certainly a cynical statement with more than a little inflated sense of moral superiority.

 

First... Most people are not NiM mode raiders. The raids in order to have the increased level of difficulty REQUIRE more gear. As such most raiders don't look at the gear, they look at their team. NiM is different but guess what, that is something the games created.

 

Why? These games, even f2p games, require people to keep playing to keep paying. They can only make a finite amount of content so they asked "how do we make this work?". There are MANY studies by places as reputable as UCal Berkeley showing they tapped into the Pavlovian Response and how it causes the release of things like dopamine in the brain. So they created progressive content, that has a gear grind. The progression not only works via level but group size. They also tap into the hardwired " effort = reward" part of human psychology...however this is simply an augmentation, of the main design paradigm I describe above because it really doesn't kick in as a practical matter, until THIS expansions version of NiM.

 

So now we reach KotFE NiM you reach NiM. What you miss is that before in this game NiM had its own gear period, not simply a potential RNG drop. You needed to grind it off the earlier mobs to be able to kill the later mob. This created an expectation among these players. No different, from a logically analysis of the psycholog, than the Story Player who has an expectation that a BW game will have story. You might make a MORAL judgement that one has more value over the other.

 

Now I have no doubt some people may well think like you claim BUT most don't because it never even enters their brain because the gear is required to simply do the content because of the model's design. The only time it becomes an issue is when people measure their worth in a game, saddly, by looking at how shiny some pixels are.

 

Oh and before you say that the above model is dead...the two most successful MMORPGs period right now in terms of active subscribers, one yes on the way down but the other growing, use this model. All the other ones where people sit in an Ivory Tower proclaiming "that model is dead" are no where near as successful in terms of # of servers, active players etc.

[JouerTue]

there's no point..it's dead content, HC raiders left way before 4.0. if any new nim is going to come out there will be no one able to clear it, and probably the same for a new HM, unless it will be EV/KP level, because nobody will write a guide, or a dps spec guide and the playerbase will whine for anything that will require more than basic attack or no healer companion.

[Stradlin]

Whole point of absolute top tier gear is to enable one wearing them to be able to go after bigger and bigger fishes. It is basically game design ABC. What on earth does anyone not doing NiM even need the best-in-slot gear for?

[Divona]

Another very, very, very telling statistic can be found here:

 

=HM&metric=Toons"]http://ixparse.com/stats/?boss=&mode[]=HM&metric=Toons

 

Characters recorded in HM operations using Starparse during the period 30/11/2015–06/12/2015 131, 255

 

Characters recorded in HM operations using Starparse during the period 07/12/2015–13/12/2015 56,971

 

The 131,000 number was significantly higher than previous weeks as it had been around 100,000 for about the 4 weeks prior to that. However even compared to 100,000 or so going down to 55,000 or so is a huge, huge drop and is statistically significant. That is a reduction of 57% in activity compared to the previous week and a reduction of 43% compared to average activity over the four weeks prior to that. You don't get those kinds of drops from random fluctuations in activity. You don't get those kinds of drops from attritional decline as people gradually become bored with an expansion. That is lots and lots and lots of people stopping playing the game during a one week period. Remember that this is statistics from the Starparse website and that Starparse does not produce a census of people doing HM raiding as more people HM raid then do HM raiding with Starparse running. That means the absolute drop in numbers will be worse than the Starparse website shows. It does have to be said that this is characters and not accounts, but still it is bad.

 

I found same data and posted other thread bit earlier. It does look really bad. We also have to take into account that there was dps nerf and its even more tighter dps check for NiM than it was before. But still that huge drop for HM ops does tell alot. Add also thousand or more suspended and wiped accounts (not perma banned) who not all of them actually duped items but were victims buying those from GTN.

I'm actually thinking that Bioware will be planning some very serious meetings if not today then this week for sure. This can lead to population disaster just before christmas time and it is very bad timing aswell. We all know in January after christmas celebration there will be always activity drops when long vacation will be over.

Question remains will this game recover from such high spike drop or not. So many bugs are still not fixed adds up the frustration.

[FerkWork]

No one cares about the gear but rather their asinine logic in doing so. Why gear our toons after clearing content? Simple put it was the very least we can do something at the very least with no new content as a way to pass time. Plus with more gear we can get higher numbers parsing to again pass the time.

 

In the end it doesn't matter what it drops, but rather that this content is staler than moldy bread. Gearing up gave us a extra month distraction for BW to get its stuff together. However, the fact that there is not even plans for new group content in this MMO because it's going cheapo route is a far bigger issue.

[Haruen]

Most people aren't NiM, so most people don't care.

 

As someone who doesn't do it, it seems pretty stupid it doesn't drop there. They really should put it back.

 

But, unlike some of the nonsense on this thread, I don't see it killing the game if they don't.

[FerkWork]

Most people aren't NiM, so most people don't care.

 

As someone who doesn't do it, it seems pretty stupid it doesn't drop there. They really should put it back.

 

But, unlike some of the nonsense on this thread, I don't see it killing the game if they don't.

 

Correct. Lack of repeatable content for everyone will destroy this game. Which is happening right now

[Frenesi]

All the people who say "oh you just want better gear, you don't run it for fun" miss one important thing.

 

There is no fun in regrinding ops you did to the death a few years ago. Don't you get it? It's all the same, old, tired content. You can't have fun in something you are already bored with by definition.

 

Now, when this thought is inside your head, add lack of proper gear on top of it.

[Uruare]

Totally agree with that statement. We (=my raid group) may be raiders, but above all, we are progression players. We do whatever we can to get the best gear. If it means running a flashpoint, we will run a flashpoint; if it means crafting, we'll farm the materials and craft it, if it means running EV HM because it is highlighted, we will run EV HM even though it is so easy we don't enjoy doing it.

 

I wouldn't say that raiding is not fun; I have fun raiding because of the players in my group. And I'd say that is true for any group activity. If you don't find raiding fun, it's probably because you don't enjoy running with your group, and it's not about the raids themselves.

Back on topic, I'm not really sure what's the point in running operations when there's no progression attached to it since progression (be it gear or otherwise) is our main motivation. Being able to loot decorations or farm credits is a form of progression I guess but it is not nearly as nice as gettting better gear or achievos.

 

All fair enough. I've nothing against raiders general, though those that act like the gear isn't a major part of why they're bothering at all make me facepalm a lot.

[Frenesi]

Most people aren't NiM, so most people don't care.

 

As someone who doesn't do it, it seems pretty stupid it doesn't drop there. They really should put it back.

 

But, unlike some of the nonsense on this thread, I don't see it killing the game if they don't.

 

It will not kill the game. EA will always find ways to reanimate it.

 

What it will kill is the community around this game. Guide-writers. Theory crafters. Streamers. Most of them are already gone, or considering it.

 

And if you plan to say something like "oh, but they are just a minority, they are not a community at all" - lol. They ARE the community. They are the only producers of content outside of game. Ever went to google something you didn't know? 90% chances are, you used their work. Everybody else are just in for the ride. Without those people there will be nothing but this forum.

[Pagy]

A lot of raiders will talk a good game about comradery and the joy of succeeding as a team, but watch how many vanish or turn into rabid shriekers of the fancy gear is no longer the carrot on the stick.

 

And there, the truth can be seen.

this is a video game after all; why is wanting a reward and objects to collect such a bad thing?

[Uruare]

Preface, I am not a NiM raider....

 

Well that was certainly a cynical statement with more than a little inflated sense of moral superiority.

 

First... Most people are not NiM mode raiders. The raids in order to have the increased level of difficulty REQUIRE more gear. As such most raiders don't look at the gear, they look at their team. NiM is different but guess what, that is something the games created.

 

Why? These games, even f2p games, require people to keep playing to keep paying. They can only make a finite amount of content so they asked "how do we make this work?". There are MANY studies by places as reputable as UCal Berkeley showing they tapped into the Pavlovian Response and how it causes the release of things like dopamine in the brain. So they created progressive content, that has a gear grind. The progression not only works via level but group size. They also tap into the hardwired " effort = reward" part of human psychology...however this is simply an augmentation, of the main design paradigm I describe above because it really doesn't kick in as a practical matter, until THIS expansions version of NiM.

 

So now we reach KotFE NiM you reach NiM. What you miss is that before in this game NiM had its own gear period, not simply a potential RNG drop. You needed to grind it off the earlier mobs to be able to kill the later mob. This created an expectation among these players. No different, from a logically analysis of the psycholog, than the Story Player who has an expectation that a BW game will have story. You might make a MORAL judgement that one has more value over the other.

 

Now I have no doubt some people may well think like you claim BUT most don't because it never even enters their brain because the gear is required to simply do the content because of the model's design. The only time it becomes an issue is when people measure their worth in a game, saddly, by looking at how shiny some pixels are.

 

Oh and before you say that the above model is dead...the two most successful MMORPGs period right now in terms of active subscribers, one yes on the way down but the other growing, use this model. All the other ones where people sit in an Ivory Tower proclaiming "that model is dead" are no where near as successful in terms of # of servers, active players etc.

 

Why is reality automatically deemed to be cynical when it's stated bluntly?

 

Put HM FP grade gear as the highest in the game and have it drop the same in raids as in HM FP's; how many people would raid?

 

It's hilarious to me that the whole premise assumes that I'm just being cynical, or for that matter that I'm about to declare the wow-like model to be dead.

 

Those that actually wanted challenge and something fun and maybe tricky to do with their pals could still totally raid, but if there weren't speedboat rewards for it, how many do you suppose would hit that content?

 

Because I'm going to bet that close to none would be the truth, as the content itself, minus the allure of having things non-raiders won't get, isn't actually all that much to write home about.

 

There's nothing wrong with being a raider or desiring progression in the fourth of power advancement. I'm not making any moral statements at all; there aren't many to be made on something so trivial as gameplay preferences.

 

What there is, is a great deal of BS and illusion surrounding the whole concept is why anyone raids.

 

Those that lovet because of what it is and for the company they're in while doing it also don't tend to need special rewards and digital achievements to get together and play monopoly or pinochle or go fish with friends.

 

NiM raider or not, ask your very own self what in this game; any game; you world actually enjoy doing if special rewards weren't attached to it.

 

That'll tell you exactly which things you actually enjoy on their own merits and which you anticipate the reward of even if you might not like doing whatever it is.

 

Raiding isn't really designed to be likeable content for many people. It's not really attractive to most players on its own merits, and those games you referenced as indications that the model is alive and well demonstrate all the proof I need of that.

 

LFR, anyone? Even here we have SM ops in the groupfinder.

 

Why is that? Why are there extra rewards for doing that stuff?

 

The answers to these questions are all really miserable simple.

 

It's because most people wouldn't do that stuff without the allure of the rewards. Keeping people hustling after dat BiS gear only to make it irrelevant come the next expansion and Star the treadmill over again IS the model.

 

Take a good, hard look on that treadmill.

 

How far would you run on it if there was no carrot on a stick?

 

What's left when the carrot is taken out if the pitcher is the game itself.

 

That'd what you're doing. That'd the game, that treadmill.

 

Ponder that, if you will.

[davidp_newton]

I found same data and posted other thread bit earlier. It does look really bad. We also have to take into account that there was dps nerf and its even more tighter dps check for NiM than it was before. But still that huge drop for HM ops does tell alot. Add also thousand or more suspended and wiped accounts (not perma banned) who not all of them actually duped items but were victims buying those from GTN.

I'm actually thinking that Bioware will be planning some very serious meetings if not today then this week for sure. This can lead to population disaster just before christmas time and it is very bad timing aswell. We all know in January after christmas celebration there will be always activity drops when long vacation will be over.

Question remains will this game recover from such high spike drop or not. So many bugs are still not fixed adds up the frustration.

 

I saw that and I should have linked to your post after that paragraph. Didn't quote all of my sources and that was wrong.

 

However moving on from that there is another aspect to the Starparse data that is very, very interesting as well. I said that the dramatic decline in HM ops participation was statistically significant and not the sort of decline of people getting bored with participating in something. What IS that kind of decline of people stopping doing something due to boredom is the SM ops figures.

 

SM ops participation figures peaked during the period 26/10/2015–01/11/2015 at 131,812. The following weeks saw these figures:

 

• 125,550
  
• 104,948
  
• 86,442
  
• 71,767
  
• 65,159
  
• 52,506
  

 

Now if someone were to jump on these figures and claim that fewer people are doing HM ops than SM ops they would be smoking something pretty serious. The fact that people doing SM ops are far, far less likely to be running a parser program than people doing HM ops must be borne in mind when looking at the absolute numbers. However the trend is irrefutable. The first week after peak sees a 4% decline. This is then followed by 16%, 17%, 16%, 9% and 22% declines from week to week. Last week's activity of 52,506 is 38% of peak activity. Just before the expansion dropped the SM ops participation figures hovered between 35,000 and 40,000 or so for four weeks. So if 37,500 is taken as a rough average and compared is to 52,500 we get last week with about 40% extra SM ops activity compared to before the expansion dropped.

 

Again that is not flattering to Bioware at all. Looking at the trend it can be seen that things were reasonably stable for the first two weeks of the expansion, followed by significant losses for the next 3 weeks, then a slowing of the decline. Finally last week showed another, even more dramatic decline. That can't be easily attributed to the same cause as the HM ops plummet last week, but I suspect that when taken in context even the SM ops participation numbers were affected by the snapping of the patience of the higher-tier ops community.

[Kintosi]

So, here's a thought.

 

To run NiM modes on level, you needed best in slot gear. That's obvious. The problem is you needed to run NiM to get best in slot. Thus begins a vicious cycle. If HM drops the BiS gear, and NiM still requires BiS and still provides a challenge, that's seems like a good setup to me. Toss all of the cosmetic carrots (decos, speeders, maybe some shiny armor shells or crystals) into NiM as guaranteed drops like gear is in HMs, and make at least some of those carrots exclusive to NiM. Think about the ranked pvp rewards. Those gear shells are some of the coolest in the game, and offer no stats whatsoever. And yet people rage about earning them every single pvp season. Have NiM become the ranked mode of pve. Problem solved.

[Ghisallo]

Why is reality automatically deemed to be cynical when it's stated bluntly?

 

Put HM FP grade gear as the highest in the game and have it drop the same in raids as in HM FP's; how many people would raid?

 

It's hilarious to me that the whole premise assumes that I'm just being cynical, or for that matter that I'm about to declare the wow-like model to be dead.

 

Those that actually wanted challenge and something fun and maybe tricky to do with their pals could still totally raid, but if there weren't speedboat rewards for it, how many do you suppose would hit that content?

 

Because I'm going to bet that close to none would be the truth, as the content itself, minus the allure of having things non-raiders won't get, isn't actually all that much to write home about.

 

There's nothing wrong with being a raider or desiring progression in the fourth of power advancement. I'm not making any moral statements at all; there aren't many to be made on something so trivial as gameplay preferences.

 

What there is, is a great deal of BS and illusion surrounding the whole concept is why anyone raids.

 

Those that lovet because of what it is and for the company they're in while doing it also don't tend to need special rewards and digital achievements to get together and play monopoly or pinochle or go fish with friends.

 

NiM raider or not, ask your very own self what in this game; any game; you world actually enjoy doing if special rewards weren't attached to it.

 

That'll tell you exactly which things you actually enjoy on their own merits and which you anticipate the reward of even if you might not like doing whatever it is.

 

Raiding isn't really designed to be likeable content for many people. It's not really attractive to most players on its own merits, and those games you referenced as indications that the model is alive and well demonstrate all the proof I need of that.

 

LFR, anyone? Even here we have SM ops in the groupfinder.

 

Why is that? Why are there extra rewards for doing that stuff?

 

The answers to these questions are all really miserable simple.

 

It's because most people wouldn't do that stuff without the allure of the rewards. Keeping people hustling after dat BiS gear only to make it irrelevant come the next expansion and Star the treadmill over again IS the model.

 

Take a good, hard look on that treadmill.

 

How far would you run on it if there was no carrot on a stick?

 

What's left when the carrot is taken out if the pitcher is the game itself.

 

That'd what you're doing. That'd the game, that treadmill.

 

Ponder that, if you will.

 

Let me think... it is not cynical to IMMEDIATELY attack other players and their motives. I was trying to be polie their...I am 2 hours after winding down from a 12 hour shift dealing with the dregs of society now... if you wish I can be less diplomatic.

 

Regardless the rest of your post completely IGNORES the fact that the developers of MMORPGs. going back to 1999, created the carrot and stick, Raids and gear grind that you now try to blame the players for. It is so ignorant of the history, development and even contemporary state of the genre that it is almost laughable.

 

I would completely understand if you were railing against the status quo that is not only enabled by the devs of the genre but you do not do that, you try to divert your ire to players who have over 20 years been given, and still are, a certain expectation.

 

You also completely miss my point. You are NOT playing a b2p game. You are playing a subscription based game with a f2p option. Guess what, a subscription based game, even a f2p game requires a carrot and stick psychological model. A b2p game can get away not worrying about that...but oh wait... the ONE b2p MMO in the world. GW2, just failed and had to go f2p because it was losing extreme amounts of money.

 

I know it completely sucks that these games care more about making money than specific niches of play but here is the problem. An MMO requires a steady revenue stream of some sort. The b2p model of a SP RPG model does not work for an MMO that has to keep a persistent world operating virtually 24/7.

 

It sucks but real life financial concerns impact game design. Your entire response here dodges and ignores that actual logical arguments I raise to in the end attack player and not the companies that created a model to make money. Get back to me when you are willing to address facts and not dodge them because above all you did is make fiat statements.

 

Sorry I do not debate with people who fail to actually support their argument with even a veil of data but instead repeat unsupported assertions.

[MillionsKNives]

So, here's a thought.

 

To run NiM modes on level, you needed best in slot gear. That's obvious. The problem is you needed to run NiM to get best in slot. Thus begins a vicious cycle. If HM drops the BiS gear, and NiM still requires BiS and still provides a challenge, that's seems like a good setup to me. Toss all of the cosmetic carrots (decos, speeders, maybe some shiny armor shells or crystals) into NiM as guaranteed drops like gear is in HMs, and make at least some of those carrots exclusive to NiM. Think about the ranked pvp rewards. Those gear shells are some of the coolest in the game, and offer no stats whatsoever. And yet people rage about earning them every single pvp season. Have NiM become the ranked mode of pve. Problem solved.

 

At least for previous tiers, the content was balanced around the idea that you would only be starting with all HM gear. So having NiM gear wasn't necessary to clear NiM. This can be attested to by the fact that people actually cleared it.

 

There's also the mechanic that the bosses to get harder as you go into the ops, so this means that there is an internal gear progression with the ops itself. As you hit harder fights you have more NiM gear to help you with them. So by the time you get to the final boss you're only missing a piece or two.