This is what happens if you 'streamline' leveling content...

[De-mu-noki]

Just had the weirdest flashpoint run in a long time. Cademimu. Tactical. one Marauder level 37, a Sorcerer level 37 and a Mercenary level 24, all three specced dd, and me in my 65 assassin tank.

Basically, their gear was abysimal. the level 37ens had everything, from 52 to 98 rating, some parts (gloves) missing.

the Mercenary tried healing and was, despite his gear, of the most use: he had no helmet, rating 18 legs and a level 8 mainhand and no offhand

Also, the Sorc thought he was meele, going in close to the boss and rarely using his ranged abilities

And im not even starting on the stats in those items, everything was mixed there

needless to say, we failed. a lot.

this is what happens if you force the players to rush lowlevel content. they dont have the time to get PROPER gear or understand the stats they need, the style of their class and so on

But, in the end, after about an hour of failing, we managed to get through

[Holocron]

Totally agree. I had one toon at 60, and ran 3 dallies with two friends, and when we were done I was 65. It was crazy fast, and if someone didn't know their class already then they would certainly not have had enough experience in playing it yet. I can see why pug groups are becoming a real issue in regards to completing content.

[Skaara]

I commend you for trying and trying and trying until you finally got them through it. I just drop group as soon as I see low levels anymore as I don't feel it's worth the effort. After enough times of killing bosses by myself with my vengeance jugg and just healing myself with healing stations while everyone dies and just runs back I gave up. Never again.

[ekwalizer]

Let's not forget massive over-leveling on all planets. Without quests graying out you end up at like level 30 before you leave Planet 3 (Taris/Balmorra), where you are supposed to leave at like level 20. The toon I am running up now is level 40 and isn't finished with Nar Shaddaa. I am only doing purple quests and H2s (which I am soloing). I'm on track to be level 65 long before the end of Chapter 2 - and I suspect even before I land on Hoth.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm still having fun with it, and I hate to be "that guy" but this new leveling system is out of control and the H2s are so easy that they may as well drop the 2 from the name.

[Skaara]

Let's not forget massive over-leveling on all planets. Without quests graying out you end up at like level 30 before you leave Planet 3 (Taris/Balmorra), where you are supposed to leave at like level 20. The toon I am running up now is level 40 and isn't finished with Nar Shaddaa. I am only doing purple quests and H2s (which I am soloing). I'm on track to be level 65 long before the end of Chapter 2 - and I suspect even before I land on Hoth.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm still having fun with it, and I hate to be "that guy" but this new leveling system is out of control and the H2s are so easy that they may as well drop the 2 from the name.

 

They should really drop the heroic part as well and just call them weeklies. I'm not sure how something is "heroic" when it's so easy. I don't even care anymore if they are easy but at least refer to them as what they are.

Edited December 20, 2015 by Skaara

[HiltoftheDragon]

To be perfectly honest with you....this is the very reason why i do not run any more fp's or tacticals in any pug what so ever.

 

I know this is the wrong way to handle this. I should in fact be diving into this content and helping these folks out but its always fruitless and just becomes a huge mess of a failpoint instead of a some what successful flashpoint.

 

In fact, nobody in the guild runs these for the very same issue. Something about the whole system needs to change but i just dont have the answer for that at the moment.

[Calinaph]

To be perfectly honest with you....this is the very reason why i do not run any more fp's or tacticals in any pug what so ever.

 

I know this is the wrong way to handle this. I should in fact be diving into this content and helping these folks out but its always fruitless and just becomes a huge mess of a failpoint instead of a some what successful flashpoint.

 

In fact, nobody in the guild runs these for the very same issue. Something about the whole system needs to change but i just dont have the answer for that at the moment.

 

Totally agree. While I actually enjoy most of the changes that came with 4.0, and while I support the concept of no arbitrary restrictions to content, something needs to change with Flashpoints (and to a lesser extent, operations). There whole concept of "tactical" flashpoints fail because of terrabads. Would a 10-50, 50 - 60, 60-64 and 65 bracket system help do you think?

Edited December 20, 2015 by Calinaph

[Kaedusz]

Just had the weirdest flashpoint run in a long time. Cademimu. Tactical. one Marauder level 37, a Sorcerer level 37 and a Mercenary level 24, all three specced dd, and me in my 65 assassin tank.

Basically, their gear was abysimal. the level 37ens had everything, from 52 to 98 rating, some parts (gloves) missing.

the Mercenary tried healing and was, despite his gear, of the most use: he had no helmet, rating 18 legs and a level 8 mainhand and no offhand

Also, the Sorc thought he was meele, going in close to the boss and rarely using his ranged abilities

And im not even starting on the stats in those items, everything was mixed there

needless to say, we failed. a lot.

this is what happens if you force the players to rush lowlevel content. they dont have the time to get PROPER gear or understand the stats they need, the style of their class and so on

But, in the end, after about an hour of failing, we managed to get through

 

I am boosting such people through tactical fps almost on a daily basis.

 

Thanks for the laugh.

 

Anyway i enjoy this. The old style of doing none HM fps was getting old and boring. This is funnier. I am even getting a kick out of insulting the ones who fail in a remarkable way.

This is what we get with Overpowered companions which are letting scrubs go through content unscathed.

Edited December 20, 2015 by Kaedusz

[BlazeTomahawk]

Maybe they believed all the stuff on the forums awhile back about gear being useless due to level sync?

[Halinalle]

Don't get me wrong, I'm still having fun with it, and I hate to be "that guy" but this new leveling system is out of control and the H2s are so easy that they may as well drop the 2 from the name.

 

Have you done them all on character without datacrons and presence bonuses?

[ekwalizer]

Have you done them all on character without datacrons and presence bonuses?

 

I see where you are going with this, and I'll take that bet. I'm LL50 on all North American servers, so I'll use one of my Euro toons. I have a level 58 on TRE, where I am only LL18. I have no toons here above level 58, but I do have all 4 class buffs.

 

My class: IO Merc, level 58

Gear: Blue 172s - and no relics.

Companion: Mako Heals

Presence: 645

Influence: Rank 4

Datacrons: Total 7; All Dromund Kass, All Hutta, 1 Balmorra

 

Alderaan: The Lanar Question H2 involves a lot of combat.

 

Result: Took some damage that Mako easily healed through. Easily cleared multi-mob pulls including Golds and Silvers, and multi-silver pulls. Just to make my point the only ability I used to kill everything was Rapid Shots, to include the 3-stage bonus boss.

[hooty]

...this is what happens if you force the players to rush lowlevel content. they dont have the time to get PROPER gear or understand the stats they need, the style of their class and so on.

 

Nobody is "forcing" players to rush low level content. Players do that by choice. You can't force people to L2P well or gear well. It's not necessarily a matter of time. They have to want to do it, and the have to have the means to do it. Some players are self-taught, they figure things out well enough on their own. But the game is geared more towards casual players now, and a lot of those players are not self-teachers. They need good advice and good examples. Be that teacher.

 

I was just talking to a guy yesterday, he was about level 30. About to give up on doing tacticals because they were "too hard". I see this regularly. It's not a new phenomenon, but is more common now. His questions were mostly about boss fights. I started with the basics;

 

1) what an interrupt is and when to use it. part of this is making sure you can see target's castbar

2) what telegraphs are and what to do when you are in one (move)

3) what the kolto stations are and when to use them. part of this is making sure you can see the groups HP

4) what CC is and when to use it (good to know though not typically useful in boss fights)

 

Better gear and ability usage are great too, but the above kinds of things are much quicker ways to improve performance. I often see a player change from dead weight to contributor in minutes, just from learning these kinds of basics.

 

What to do when you meet a level capped player who's rotation is the '1' key and spacebar? I haven't figured that one out yet. Maybe just kindly suggest that FPs aren't a good fit for them.

[Callaron]

Have you done them all on character without datacrons and presence bonuses?

 

I'll second that, since I've actually done that the other day. Even the Korriban Heroics are muuuch harder when you don't have an uber Legacy to help you out.

 

I can see why so many people were outraged by the companion nerfs. It would've reduced newer players to relying completely on others, while the veterans still cruised through them. Well, the ones who were still learning the game would have some difficulty anyway, I finished them, even if it was slowly.

Edited December 20, 2015 by Callaron

[ekwalizer]

I'll second that, since I've actually done that the other day. Even the Korriban Heroics are muuuch harder when you don't have an uber Legacy to help you out.

 

I can see why so many people were outraged by the companion nerfs. It would've reduced newer players to relying completely on others, while the veterans still cruised through them.

 

Look 2 posts above yours. Although I suppose later tonight I can roll a brand new toon on a server where I have no legacy at all and make the same point.

Edited December 20, 2015 by ekwalizer

[Skaara]

I'll second that, since I've actually done that the other day. Even the Korriban Heroics are muuuch harder when you don't have an uber Legacy to help you out.

 

I can see why so many people were outraged by the companion nerfs. It would've reduced newer players to relying completely on others, while the veterans still cruised through them.

 

Meh, I did this too by creating a f2p account just so I could try with a lvl 1 legacy and it was still easy. More challenging than a loaded legacy ... sure. Anywhere near considered "challenging" ... nope. Especially the Korriban ones. I would bet money I could strip off all my gear except my weapon on a lvl 1 legacy and still beat them playing one handed.

[Shwarzchild]

If there was one thing I missed from 1.0 it was that flash points in the leveling process were almost needed so players were introduced to their roles in group content earlier. Whether it actually made a difference I have no idea but I'd like to think it had a positive effect. I loathe tactical flash points in general. While they were a decent idea to combat the low pop that the group finders would bring it ended up being terrible to group play. Kdy I thought was an interesting idea as well but again just didn't truly help. If I could think of anything that would truly help people my ideas would center around training instances where players could go in with a companion and face off against different enemies that would highlight the need to use different abilities and have pop up instructions on when to use things. More over the ability wouldn't be trained until that instance completed.

 

Secondly I'd have had two game modes where from the start you picked hybrid group play and solo mode. Akin to pvp server or pve server to a degree. At the end of the day though it's the player that chooses to learn or not. The game having instances of actual difficulty would help a lot too. I remember back when being stuck on the collicoid queen and having to figure things out on my end and then later on bosses like from the mission the things czerka found or on voss the one eyed herald guy or earth thanaton. Those were good experiences for a newbie at the time. Now it's just a Zerg fest all over which is inherently a foundation new players can't stand on for elder game activities.

Edited December 20, 2015 by Shwarzchild

[jstankaroslo]

I see where you are going with this, and I'll take that bet. I'm LL50 on all North American servers, so I'll use one of my Euro toons. I have a level 58 on TRE, where I am only LL18. I have no toons here above level 58, but I do have all 4 class buffs.

 

My class: IO Merc, level 58

Gear: Blue 172s - and no relics.

Companion: Mako Heals

Presence: 645

Influence: Rank 4

Datacrons: Total 7; All Dromund Kass, All Hutta, 1 Balmorra

 

Alderaan: The Lanar Question H2 involves a lot of combat.

 

Result: Took some damage that Mako easily healed through. Easily cleared multi-mob pulls including Golds and Silvers, and multi-silver pulls. Just to make my point the only ability I used to kill everything was Rapid Shots, to include the 3-stage bonus boss.

 

The Lanar Question -it was one of the tougher but enjoyable H4 before 4.0. I loved it. I remember when I managed to solo it just 2 levels above. Those were the times. Its a shame all this is now so meh.

 

The Fall of Locust comes to mind.

 

I think I'll try to make a thread about great H4s that are gone forever transformed into those meh "heroic"2s

Edited December 20, 2015 by jstankaroslo

[GalacticKegger]

On the other end of the spectrum, my 32 Sage cleared Taral V in solo mode. No biggie except that I dismissed Qyzen, and (other than making the initial attacks to get fights started) never fired a shot and never had to heal. Force Speed ftw! My immortal GSI droid cleared the entire Flashpoint for me. All I had to do was grab another mob and kite them past the droid, then grab another mob and kite them past the droid ... rinse & repeat for 2 hours and 10 minutes.

 

Pathetic, and quite to the OP's point. The advanced leveling game now either plays itself, or (in the case of leveling tacticals) is effectively unplayable. Neither fosters an OJT environment for mentoring a player who wants to learn. At least not for the first 50 levels, which is 75% of the game's content - closer to 85% if you include end game respins.

 

I'm building a killer gaming rig for Christmas. After which I plan on recording some of these solo mode GSI droid boss fights and posting them on Youtube. For those who once enjoyed running flashpoints between planets and HMs as part of the level and gear progression challenge, well ... SWTOR is no longer that game. Even though the expansion's marketing hype touting the game's reinvention attempts to convince us otherwise.

 

It's like Bioware is trying to condition their fan base into those morbidly obese passengers on the BuynLarge starliner Axiom from the movie 'Wall-E' who are totally oblivious to what's happening around them. They see and hear "try blue ... it's the new red" on their fat person chair HUDs and respond with church chorus' of oohs and aahs. Also pathetic.

 

Bioware should have left level-appropriate alone and merely added a level-sync/tactical mode option. This way they could have had both balls instead of trying to sugar coat the one they have left. They lose that last one and the game is neutered entirely.

Edited December 20, 2015 by GalacticKegger

[SootyTX]

Nobody is "forcing" players to rush low level content. Players do that by choice. You can't force people to L2P well or gear well. It's not necessarily a matter of time. They have to want to do it, and the have to have the means to do it. Some players are self-taught, they figure things out well enough on their own. But the game is geared more towards casual players now, and a lot of those players are not self-teachers. They need good advice and good examples. Be that teacher.

 

I was just talking to a guy yesterday, he was about level 30. About to give up on doing tacticals because they were "too hard". I see this regularly. It's not a new phenomenon, but is more common now. His questions were mostly about boss fights. I started with the basics;

 

1) what an interrupt is and when to use it. part of this is making sure you can see target's castbar

2) what telegraphs are and what to do when you are in one (move)

3) what the kolto stations are and when to use them. part of this is making sure you can see the groups HP

4) what CC is and when to use it (good to know though not typically useful in boss fights)

 

Better gear and ability usage are great too, but the above kinds of things are much quicker ways to improve performance. I often see a player change from dead weight to contributor in minutes, just from learning these kinds of basics.

 

What to do when you meet a level capped player who's rotation is the '1' key and spacebar? I haven't figured that one out yet. Maybe just kindly suggest that FPs aren't a good fit for them.

 

So much this

 

How about, as members of the veteran community, we take some time to actually pass on knowledge, teach those that really don't know? I commend the OP for sticking with it, I hope he was able to pass on useful advice as he did so. And I utterly condemn the poster that makes fun of players that are struggling, that thinks its fun to bully and humiliate, as he is nothing but a coward.

[Darkwords]

I stopped doing tacts and heroics period. Nothing could make me do them again with the way things are lol.

[Cakellene]

None of them did heroics for blue gears?

[ekwalizer]

None of them did heroics for blue gears?

 

Wait, you expect all these "new and casual" players to put some effort into their gaming experience?

[Katahn]

For the longest time I tried teaching people the mechanics of flashpoints: CC, not standing in red circles, kill adds first, etc. A few listened and appreciated. Most of the rest either didn't listen at all or were actively hostile to the idea that they needed to do anything except rush in while rolling their faces across the keyboard.

 

The new flashpoint system is terrible and I am starting to lose interest in the game as a whole. My new sith sorcerer healer might as well be DPS specced for all the healing I ever need to do. Solo it just is never an issue and I won't do the current "tactical" flashpoints. Bolster isn't making up for people who have no experience with needing to care about group-content. Bolster is also not compensating for not having passive and active abilities that a formerly level 40+ flashpoint expected people to have. Adding a few kolto stations isn't good enough.

 

My sith sorcerer is now level 52 and hasn't finished chapter 1 of the original story yet. He's on Nar Shaddaa doing the last pre-chapter-finale fight story mission. No doubt he'll hit 65 long before finishing chapter 2 at this rate. This is only doing purple "story" missions and the planet's heroics (although I skipped Alderaan's and am doing Nar's again, they're less of a hassle).

 

I really miss doing regular flashpoints, but the new system means it is almost always torture. It's less hassle to just go in and solo them in tactical mode if I want a challenge. Maybe it is just time for me to move on. I just hope that BW can fix this mess soon. I really want to love a SW game you know?

[Shirvington]

I made this suggestion just the other day. One way to address tactical "difficulty" is to allow people to queue into smaller groups and run with their companions. Not solo mode, but 2 people with 2 comps or 3 people with 1 comp. It allows all groups to have a healer if necessary and gets tacts to pop even faster. I recommend this as an option, so people can decide if they want to run with 4 humans total or fewer.

[Ghost_Spectre]

Totally agree. I had one toon at 60, and ran 3 dallies with two friends, and when we were done I was 65. It was crazy fast, and if someone didn't know their class already then they would certainly not have had enough experience in playing it yet. I can see why pug groups are becoming a real issue in regards to completing content.

 

I started leveling a new Knight alt. When I left Tython, I reached 22nd level after doing all the missions on the world. While I did use a 25% xp increase buff, I wasn't expecting to end up at that level even with 2x XP running. When I visited all the crafting trainers I ended up reaching 24th level and I've not even reached the capitol planet yet! They've had to buff the XP given because the last time I leveled an alt on the starter planet, I didn't reach any where near the level I did with this toon. That's just crazy and I believe it is contributing to the problem when the OP and you are pointing out.