Devs - Here's a Concise List of VERY Quick Fixes for Heroics Needing Tweaked

[LordArtemis]

It would be a shame, IMO, to see that fixed, as it is one of the few things I think that promotes grouping, a REAL promotion of grouping benefit at this point.

 

At the same time I would not want to see damage to the in game economy of course.

 

At any rate, I find it amusing that some folks would argue back and forth over the merits of an obviously beneficial fix IMO. It is one thing to present an opinion against it...nothing wrong with that....it is quite another to bark at each other over the issue.

[KevinQCowart]

Here is my even more concise list

 

1. Remove all enemy CC

2. Make enemies do 2-3 times more damage

[Lil_Fusion]

Taris

 

Mutations: Instance the zone or decrease respawn timer of Irradiated Rakghouls from 300 seconds to 60 seconds.

 

This is the biggest one I think of, I generally just skip it now because it's always got like 20 people per instance if there is more than 1 waiting around.

Edited February 18, 2016 by Lil_Fusion

[DataBeaver]

The credits issue (too much) comes from a bug with the Heroic bonus rewards:

Since 4.0, every player in a heroic group is rewarded not only only for completing the bonus in his own quest log, but also receive AGAIN the credit reward (which he just received already) each time other players in the group complete their own bonus mission.

So basically with group of 4 peoples doing bonus objectives, they receive 4X more credits than intended. That is what need to be fixed.

IIRC there has always been some kind of reward for helping a team member complete their bonus mission, though I don't remember exactly how it used to relate to the reward for completing your own bonus mission.

[Elysith]

IIRC there has always been some kind of reward for helping a team member complete their bonus mission, though I don't remember exactly how it used to relate to the reward for completing your own bonus mission.

 

Social points

[IanArgent]

Social points

 

Also XP.

[PorsaLindahl]

Yes, min/max your time for maximum efficiency is good, but that shouldn't mean they should stop making other content at least worth doing. At the moment there is 0 reason to do these heroics above, they however, should still be VIABLE at least.

 

On a side note... great list OP... and thank you for taking the time to make it.

 

Reason: Alliance Faction.

Reason: Leveling a character.

Reason: Credits.

Reason: Conquest.

Reason: Some people may actually enjoy doing them.

Reason: Why not?

 

Maybe you see no reason to do them, but the dozens of other people I see while doing them at all hours of the day would probably disagree with your sentiment.

[MiloUto]

Hi friends,

 

It's great we have heroics since 4.0 being a viable way to grind comms, credits, boxes, companion gifts, gear, etc., etc., etc. However, there are a good two dozen or more on both Imperial/Republic sides that are absolutely not worth doing for one reason or another including slow respawns, insufficient objective clickies, and so on. I know it is not a huge issue for many, and it really isn't, but some of these changes can be made just by a simple change of a single number in a respawn timer.

 

So, Eric & Tait/Devs, here's a very quick series of fixes that could be made to bring these on par with the others. I've bolded those that really, really do need just a minute of attention:

 

Republic Heroics:

Alderaan

• Into the Killik Warrens: Reduce spikes needed from 8 to 4.
  

Balmorra

• Hit 'Em Where They Live: Reduce sniper group respawn timer from 300 seconds to 60 seconds.
  
• Justice for the Lost: Reduce Elite groups that drop the codes respawn timers from 300+ seconds to 60 seconds.
  

Belsavis

• The Stasis Generator: Remove 1-2 packs of NPCs not guarding the 4 stasis generators.
  

Coruscant

• The Face Merchants: Reduce respawn timers of NPCs outside heroic entrance from 300 seconds to 60 seconds. Additionally, reduce number of NPCs for exterior bonus from 15 to 10.
  

Makeb

• Savage Skies: Needs completely reworked. Number of steps to complete heroic is the same time one would spend on 6-8 other heroics. Number of NPCs also needs to be decreased.
  
• All Makeb Heroics: Bonuses need to grant credit rewards on par with other heroics (12k-18k depending).
  

Nar Shaddaa

• Blood Money: Decrease number of Pit/Infamous Fighters from 10 to 8.
  
• The Morgukai: Either remove the stun/slow grenade from the silvers or the hard stun from the golds. Too many stuns/slows at once.
  

Taris

• Mutations: Instance the zone or decrease respawn timer of Irradiated Rakghouls from 300 seconds to 60 seconds.
  

Tatooine

• Down the Hole: Reduce respawn timer of War-Master Rhigoth from 300 seconds to 60 seconds.
  
• A Jawa's Concern: Move Padawan body/heroic transport closer to cave entrance.
  

Voss

• Cyber Mercenaries: Decrease number of enemies in heroic area to a reasonable number (far too many packs) and the bonus should reflect the decrease.
  
• Not Afraid Enough: Decrease number of Tribesmen/Mawvorr needed from 10 each to 8 each.
  

 

Imperial Heroics:

Alderaan

• The Lanar Question: Reduce number of forces from 25 to 20 and Smugglers from 15 to 10 or 12.
  
• Shock Doctrine: Remove cooldown timer of special mission item to place mark on corpses.
  
• Sabotage: Remove a SIGNIFICANT number of NPC packs from heroic area. Far too many packs of silvers/golds.
  

Belsavis

• Breakthrough: Reduce 1-2 golds in each pack to a silver.
  

Dromund Kaas

• Possessed Hunter: Instance OR reduce Valen Korik's respawn timer from 900 seconds to 60 seconds!!! What about a clicky like the Mando one? I would love a clicky, or as you have listed
  

Hoth

• Joint Training: Reduce respawn timers of Talz War Veteran and Talz Taskmaster from 300 seconds to 60 seconds. Additionally, several NPC types do not count towards the Republic and Talz forces, but are Republic and Talz forces!
  
• The Big Find: Reduce Jedi respawn timers from 300 seconds to 60 seconds.
  
• A Traitor's Punishment: Reduce the number of knockbacks/stuns from Sith. Every pack stuns/knocks back. Not worth the time currently.
  
• Static: Remove 2-3 NPC packs or reduce length of tunnel to main cavern.
  

Makeb

• All Makeb Heroics: Bonuses do not currently reward credits, need to be added to give comparable 12k-18k credits as other heroics do.
  

Nar Shaddaa

• A Pound of Flesh: Reduce number of Exchange Members needed from 30 to 20 and reduce number of Organ Shipments destroyed from 8 to 6.
  
• Hunger of the Vrblthers: Reduce number of pylons needed for 2nd stage from 12 to 4.
  
• Building a Better Beast: Remove 1-3 NPC packs that don't have a Breeder within.
  

Taris

• Spilling Chemicals: Reduce number of barrels from 10 to 6 or change respawn rate from 300 to 60 seconds.
  

 

To those that take the time to read this, thanks!

 

/signed

 

Thank you OP for all of your efforts. So many great was to clean this system up.

[IanArgent]

My concern isn't so much the reduction of enemy count to defeat as to make sure the enemies (or pickups) are available to anyone who wants to do the heroic without waiting out an excessive respawn timer.

[branmakmuffin]

Auto-complete all heroics upon assignment.

[Anytwosooted]

Alderaan - Pressure Points

 

The Champion mob has too many HP, especially since it spawns in the same area as a group of mobs with a fast respawn

[Vhaegrant]

That is what I said, not sure what you meant, unless you're just agreeing with me?

 

The OP's point is that we have ended up in a situation where most people seem to be doing JUST that, running only the easy ones, with the others ignored. Beyond a single run for the achievements, why would anyone want to run the others? There isn't anything interesting or unique about most of them.

I don't see anything wrong with having to make a decision over what content you run to get the best return on your time.

As to a reason to run them, like pretty much every other MMO out there there's a certain element of rerunable content, you run it multiple times for the Alliance crates, the credits, the crystals, the reputation, conquest points.

I did just that, prior to 4.0 coming out, because we didn't know at the time what level sync would do. So I took my best geared 60 on each side and went and did every heroic, for the achievements in case they weren't soloable post 4.0.

 

Of course I didn't know then what I know now, I could have waited, but I didn't care to take the chance.

 

Side note: Other than obtaining alliance boxes, heroics are STILL dead content, to me at least. I don't need the credits and my main toons on each faction have long been at 20 rep with each alliance member. I might run 5 or 10 a week on 1 or 2 toons while waiting for ops to form, but that's about it.

You don't need the credits so that makes it dead content!? Lucky you, but by that definition pretty much all of the game is dead content

Part of the issue with the Heroic respawn times is that so many people are running them now that there are queues forming at certain points. That indicates to me that most people view them as good ways of raising their credits.

I didn't say it was hard, or challenging, I said it was annoying... I don't play games to be annoyed.

 

I get the use of stuns and knockbacks when I'm doing operations, but solo heroics? Thanks but no thanks... It is just annoying.

Why is it annoying? because you refuse to adapt your playstyle and use tactics that allow you to minimise or remove the element of stuns and knockbacks?

Having played through the KotFE chapters a few times now, it's only running the Heroics that reminds me I have more than a basic attack and AoE on my quickbar.

Technically they're not solo heroics. They were always intended for 2 man or 4 man groups, the heroics that are stacked with the most interrupts and cc wielding mobs are the 4 man. If you run through them with a competent group you can eradicate the stuns and such by using your own cc abilities, and having a sequence of takedowns. You can solo them, it's not that difficult with the level sync and bolster in place, but once again you need to change your rotation to get through them in the most efficient manner.

Ahh, the "if you have trouble with this, you must suck as a player" comment...

 

Rest assured I'm fully able to use all my abilities to deal with this stupidity... I just don't choose to, and I suspect most other people don't, it is out of place.

I'm sorry but I find it very difficult to take your argument seriously when you say you want a challenge, and have the ability to deal with mobs that require you to alter your rotation... but you don't want to because it's inconvenient.

 

It's not out of place in a game that expects you to press buttons for it to set obstacles in the way that require you to press the buttons in a different order.

 

I'm sorry there just aren't that many ways in the English language to refer to the transition from a state of ignorance to a state of knowledge than use the word 'Learn'. I don't know why it's seen as offensive, it should be part of the natural flow of a game that it introduces elements in the regular gameplay that players will need to use in the harder content. There's nothing elitist about that.

 

Aside from the stuns and knockback issue I do feel the OP has two valid points, but even those can be moderated by player choices:

 

1) Republic and Imperial heroics do not feel balanced. I'll be up front and say I have not sat down and compared a list of heroics side by side, it is purely on how I feel when running through them. The Republic seem to have far more heroics that occur in an open world environment with players fighting over mobs and resources.

The easy answer to this is to run the heroics on Imperial character only It was a similar issue I felt to the early expansion areas, Black Hole, Section X and Makeb always felt smoother to run on my Imperial characters.

 

2) Respawn times are inconsistent. This obviously only applies to the open world heroics, but some areas seem to respawn their mobs and resources far faster than others.

Again there are many player fixes for this, the most obvious one is not to run them just focus on the instanced heroics. Jump over to another phase if available and see if the heroic objective is available. If someone else is waiting on the same spawn group up. Avoid them at peak play times.

Edited February 19, 2016 by Vhaegrant

[LordArtemis]

Again, I think the items the OP mentioned exist as nuisances, not difficulties, and I expect most folks would likely welcome the adjustments.

 

I think it is silly to argue against what would likely be a very positive QoL change...just as silly as prior arguments of that type.

[Vhaegrant]

Again, I think the items the OP mentioned exist as nuisances, not difficulties, and I expect most folks would likely welcome the adjustments.

 

I think it is silly to argue against what would likely be a very positive QoL change...just as silly as prior arguments of that type.

It would appear the OP, like myself hadn't run some of the missions recently.

Ran 'Hunger of the Vrblithers' this morning and you only have to knock out 4 generators. I suspect the devs made this change when they were cleaning up the area loot issue with that quest.

 

I'm not sure why you feel the need to moderate a discussion on a forum, as long as the participants remain polite and on topic.

 

Of the OPs concerns I think the most relevant would be the imbalance between the two factions, but that's pretty much always been the case. Specifically with heroics it wasn't really an issue because there was very little reason to run them. Now they are a cash cow if you want to milk it for all it's worth it makes more sense to run them on an Imperial character.

 

I'm not sure why all heroics should have parity with each other. Part of the intelligence test of making the most credits from them is to figure out which are worth running and which you can ignore. Even then if you are not just after the credits they offer a variety of rewards you may be interested in that makes them worth running. Far more worthwhile than they have ever been to date.

 

Spawn times have always been an issue with MMOs. I'm not sure the original intent behind them is anything more than to limit the farming potential. As the devs seem to have eased their collective foots off the credit brake by flooding the game with easy credits I'm not sure you need to have such high respawn timers. That said I did 'The Big Find' the other day and didn't think the Jedi were taking 5 mins to spawn, once round the central column and they were already respawning.

 

We have the issue of knockbacks and stuns. I'm sorry if some found my comment of 'Learn to play' offensive, I find it hard to think of any other way to express the opportunity the game gives you to apply the abilities and utilities your discipline gives you. Some Disciplines have it easier than others sure, but even on characters that don't have access to stealth or long duration crowd control I've not had an issue with the content in question. It's actually refreshing to have to think about how I'm going to approach a situation rather than just AoE and let the companion healer keep me standing.

 

And lastly lets not forget that Heroics are not originally intended for solo play. They are there for pairs and groups to play through. It's a shame that due to the linear nature of SWTOR the existing heroics have probably been underutilised, in hindsight it would probably have been more beneficial to have not bothered with them as group content and instead made more Flashpoints.

Edited February 19, 2016 by Vhaegrant

[FlyingUsPoo]

With the exception of those that have mobs that don't count, the rest of the OP list would serve to make an already easy game easier. All of the heroics are optional. Nothing in the list is game breaking to either a new comer or a veteran player. For end-game, heroics are merely one way to get the alliance boxes, albeit the faster one at the moment (unless you are flush with crystals on multiple toons). For the leveling people, they are a way to gear up. In any case, they are not in the story line and they are totally optional.

 

I'll grant you that timers are annoying, but waiting around for triggers is a well known delaying tactic in games, both MMOs and open world single player. The current setup being no exception. To that end, I cant tell you how many times I've invited people to make a party in Mutations, Face Merchants and all the others that have slow repawns and had those invitations declined. If people want to wait around and compete for resources, seeing who's fastest on the attack, that isn't a developer problem.

 

In my opinion the issue is the Heroics are too easy. 99.9% of them are solo-able, not requiring 2 people as their title would suggest. Only 1 of them comes close, (False History) and that one is doable if you have phase walk or some other fast moving skill that doesn't require a target.

 

Finally, the heroics from the fleet mission point are weekly quests.. If you aren't able to parcel out the quests over the course of seven days, you might just have another goal in mind.

[nanamaryjj]

Done a heroic on Alderaan last night, that was beyond frustrating, perhaps someone will remember it's name.

You have to tag corpses of either organa or Jedi.

Bad enough it's such a small area with lots of competition. But to add insult to injury, upon killing mobs (since I'm ranged) some one would rush in and use item on mobs I had killed

At one point, when I pulled, I had two people standing right next to the mobs whilst I was fighting so they could instant tag them

That place 100% needs instanced, it was at the Elysium taxi if that helps anyone with the name of the heroic

[FlyingUsPoo]

Done a heroic on Alderaan last night, that was beyond frustrating, perhaps someone will remember it's name.<snip>

Shock Doctrine

An way to try to get that one done is to tag them as you kill them by moving the token to a numbered slot and let your comp hold the rest. You can also use that invite option on people that are standing around...

Edited February 19, 2016 by FlyingUsPoo

[nanamaryjj]

Shock Doctrine

An way to try to get that one done is to tag them as you kill them by moving the token to a numbered slot and let your comp hold the rest. You can also use that invite option on people that are standing around...

 

I did have it on a numbered slot already and was also attempting to do as you suggested, healer comp not really big at holding agro

Also I do ask if people wanna team up, especially on non instanced ones, and 99% of the time people don't want to group

[Vhaegrant]

Done a heroic on Alderaan last night, that was beyond frustrating, perhaps someone will remember it's name.

You have to tag corpses of either organa or Jedi.

Bad enough it's such a small area with lots of competition. But to add insult to injury, upon killing mobs (since I'm ranged) some one would rush in and use item on mobs I had killed

At one point, when I pulled, I had two people standing right next to the mobs whilst I was fighting so they could instant tag them

That place 100% needs instanced, it was at the Elysium taxi if that helps anyone with the name of the heroic

It is indeed Shock Doctrine.

 

I've got a Mercenary, Sniper and a couple of Sorcerers and I can't find any of their abilities that have a minimum range. Why didn't you just move closer to the mobs?

[JabbaWabbA]

make everything easier

[DawnAskham]

Heroics are already too easy and provide too many credits (particularly the bonus payouts when grouped).

 

A tuning pass to reasonable balance all heroics with each other, which would mostly involve reducing spawn timers and a few reductions in quantities required for objectives, should also include a credit payout pass to reduce the credits / hour (at a minimum, ensure changes to spawns / objectives do not increase credits / hour even further).

 

We certainly don't need even more two minute heroics to run for crazy amounts of credits with little to no effort required.

Edited February 19, 2016 by DawnAskham

[ZeridanShear]

Well glad this spawned some discussion

 

To be honest, as I said in the post, this is not a huge issue nor do I view it as one - but it's a generally quick QOL fix.

 

I'd just like to point out one quick thing though: Difficulty is not equal to standing around waiting on a respawn. If that is considered 'difficult' or 'a challenge' to some, I'd really love to hear how that's perceived.

 

Take the two Republic Balmora heroics I listed: How is it challenging to stand around waiting for finish the quest when there are only enough snipers around for one person (or group) to complete it. It requires 8 Snipers and there aren't even enough for two groups to finish without having to stand around for 5 minutes waiting on respawns. Justice for the Lost? Well, there's 4 golds that drop the needed mission item - except it's not guaranteed and all 4 are on 5+minute respawn timers. All in all, not a challenge, just needs fixed.

 

Dromund Kaas - Possessed Hunter. How is standing around for 10+ minutes a 'challenge'? It's excessively long and while I'm happy to listen to other views, I haven't heard one yet that justifies the waiting around doing absolutely nothing.

 

Republic Makeb - Savage Skies. 6 or more steps to complete a heroic where no other heroic even comes close to it. And, in all, it takes longer to do it for LESS reward than every other heroic.

 

I'm not advocating they all be exactly equal, just that, in some cases, the respawn rates and mission objective vs. number of enemies available needs to be examined.

[DataBeaver]

Mutations on Taris is just about impossible to complete. I zoned in and saw no less than four players standing around in the initial room, trying to grab the pair of irradiated rakghouls there. Naturally that was the only instance of Taris.

 

Make the heroics harder for all I care, but let the difficulty come from fighting powerful enemies rather than competing against other players in a reaction test.

[LordArtemis]

Well, I for one think most folks would welcome the changes as very positive QoL adjustments.

[Eurydemus]

The biggest QoL change BioWare can introduce is a reduction in spawn times (both quest item objectives and mobs). It's absurd to have to sit around for five to ten minutes waiting for something to respawn or become clickable again. That one weekly on Taris where have to run around destroying generators is just painful because it takes nearly five minutes for each generator to become active again.

 

Shared tags on quest mobs would also be nice instead of forcing players of the same faction to become adversarial. The Dromund Kaas Hunter weekly is probably the worst offender, in my view.