Underlurker...need rework/nerf ?

[violascarletia]

Doing this boss for 5 hours, 3 grous and all failed and disbanded.....

Even I form my own group in fleet...

It really out of the difficulty of GF in my opinion....

 

if all 50lv ppl....must even not impossible...

[Rithoma]

What was the problem? If it was rage storm or the cross, people just need to pull themselves together and focus a bit more than usual in SM ops. If it was enrage, then have you tried to bring 5 DPS and only 1 Tank? If yes, then your were just really, really unlucky to get so many bad DPS in your group.

 

I agree that this boss is definitely more difficult than most bosses. But I don't think it needs a nerf. Bug fixes and improved FPS performance it would definitely need though.

[Sunnybeamgirl]

The green graphic of where to stand behind the rock during rage storm is bugged. Choose the position behind the rock based on LOS and that should fix things.

 

Underlurker doesn't need a nerf. We cleared it last night with only 1 wipe - the first wipe was the one where we discovered the graphical bug that 4.1 introduced. After that, it was fine.

 

Underlurker is a dps and mechanics check for the rest of the op. The cross was already nerfed bigtime for story mode and even rage storm was nerfed somewhat. Underlurker should be doable by most groups if they do the mechanics and follow instructions. Wipes are what happen when people beat on the boss instead of prioritizing adds, fail to hide during rage storm, or don't even attempt the cross mechanics.

[Pietrastor]

I agree that this boss is definitely more difficult than most bosses. But I don't think it needs a nerf. Bug fixes and improved FPS performance it would definitely need though.

If majority of the pugs can't clear it, it needs a nerf. Hard cold uncomfortable truth.

[Maelicbod]

If majority of the pugs can't clear it, it needs a nerf. Hard cold uncomfortable truth.

 

Hardly any truth here. Operations aren't intended to be face rollled. If you aren't good at the game, the game shouldn't be brought down to your level so you can clear it. Too much of that has already gone on in SWTOR.

[Pietrastor]

Hardly any truth here. Operations aren't intended to be face rollled. If you aren't good at the game, the game shouldn't be brought down to your level so you can clear it. Too much of that has already gone on in SWTOR.

Need I remind you one of the 2 main reasons Timed Ops event got cancelled was disastrous participation numbers in TOS lol? It doesn't matter whether I'm a "filthy casual" or a super-elite NiM raider and what you think of my skills one way or another. If the content is too hard for casual majority = wasted content in terms of MMO developement. HM & NiM raiders will directly suffer from it too if casual participation numbers go down because BW won't develop ANY new Operations if the majority of its participants (which is casuals) don't participate.

 

Ohh... Wait... Is it just me or indeed they did NOT develop a new Operation ever since TOS? You sure you wanna play the 'skills' card?

 

This is not Pillars of Eternity or an indie old-school hack'n'slash that can target niche core audience with high skills and remain profitable. It's an MMO with bloated budget and rocky history that can't afford to cater to a niche audience to sustain itself, it needs to target widely.

Edited February 18, 2016 by Pietrastor

[JouerTue]

the problem could be the bugged rocks during rage storm. if enrage was the cause of wiping you need to pug better players. it's not completely well scaled as HP for 65, it could have the health pool reduced on the boss, but more than having a low damage rage storm, and a close to zero damage wrong cross, i can't imagine further nerfing the fight..changing the adds with some chapter X style 3k hp sky troopers maybe..it's SM after all, who cares if even the worst player can do it..

[LudhaninRolgge]

If majority of the pugs can't clear it, it needs a nerf. Hard cold uncomfortable truth.

 

I disagree. When you see the majority of PuG, you see people with 105% accuracy, A mod, unoptimized enhancements, no augments and who press buttons when they light up. What the game needs is not nerfing "harder" content (if UL sm is even considered hard these days), but teaching better to those people how to play, force them to pass proving grounds before being able to queue for or even to enter an operation. The game doesn't need to be dumbed down anymore, it needs its player to become better.

[Nic__]

Need I remind you one of the 2 main reasons Timed Ops event got cancelled was disastrous participation numbers in TOS lol? It doesn't matter whether I'm a "filthy casual" or a super-elite NiM raider and what you think of my skills one way or another. If the content is too hard for casual majority = wasted content in terms of MMO developement. HM & NiM raiders will directly suffer from it too if casual participation numbers go down because BW won't develop ANY new Operations if the majority of its participants (which is casuals) don't participate.

 

Ohh... Wait... Is it just me or indeed they did NOT develop a new Operation ever since TOS? You sure you wanna play the 'skills' card?

 

This is not Pillars of Eternity or an indie old-school hack'n'slash that can target niche core audience with high skills and remain profitable. It's an MMO with bloated budget and rocky history that can't afford to cater to a niche audience to sustain itself, it needs to target widely.

 

Well first where did all the defensiveness come from? No one insulted you or your skill level so I have no idea where those comments popped up from.

 

As far as the timed run event it was not done due to the failure by BW to free the content of bugs that could drasticly influence such an event. The reason also that people were doing ToS was due to the difficulty of the content at THAT time since then walkers has been nerfed 2-3 times and underlurker has been nerfed even more.

 

I also have to strongly disagree with your idea that all content that is not constantly being done by everyone being a waste of development time. Difficult content is needed in a game, not just MMOs but all games, it gives players goals to work for and milestones to complete. How satisfied were you when you got the achievement for reaching lvl 10 on your first character? Probably a momentary smile that quickly faded. Why? Because it took you only minutes of invested time. When a player completes a fight that they have wiped to 3-4 times (be it ops, fps or class story) they have that sense of satisfaction because they had to work for it.

 

I don't disagree that the current bugs in the game make the fight much more difficult for people new to the fight but are we really going to call for nerfs on bugged content now instead of fixes to that content?

 

Tldr: Nothing worth having comes easy, while a nerf to underlurker will mean more groups clear it what about the groups where sm is their progression? It's not the hardcore elites that honestly care, they will always be clearing sm easily, it's the semi casuals who are losing their field to the "filthy casuals" who want everything nerfed.

Edited February 18, 2016 by Nic__

[Kufuffelupagus]

If majority of the pugs can't clear it, it needs a nerf. Hard cold uncomfortable truth.

 

buff pugs

[Rithoma]

If majority of the pugs can't clear it, it needs a nerf. Hard cold uncomfortable truth.

 

There are 9 operations now for lvl 65. That means 8 days there are easy operations on groupfinder and then 1 day there is a slightly tougher one. What is the big deal? You don't need this operation for story purposes, because you have the solo option for that. There is no unique gear hidden behind this boss. You can get those pieces from other operations as well. There are plenty of bosses that one can kill all the time. I think it is a good thing that there is at least one slightly more difficult one, because when someone kills it there is at least for this boss a bit of a feeling of having achieved something that is not fed to you with a spoon.

[Loki_]

I guess you are saying that the spirit of Revan needs to auto revive any dead players after every cross as long as one group member survives like 3rd floor portal.

 

SM to hard for plebs.

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

If majority of the pugs can't clear it, it needs a nerf. Hard cold uncomfortable truth.

 

 

As a HM end game raider, as much as I dislike the notion, made even more so by the fact that it was already nerfed for sm, it's a hard argument to deny. Underlurker has always been one of my least favorite fights. It's always been buggy in one way or another, there is a random "near" one **** mechanic [random raid member gets nailed for a ton of damage that there is no way to avoid most times], and given the server registering member locations during cross has often been spotty at best. You shouldn't have to jump for the server to recognize where you are at a key moment. You don't have to do it normally, so if it is an issue there than it is a inherent design flaw. When I pug this in SM, which at this point is very rare, there is simply nothing to gain by doing ToS SM anymore once you're in mostly in 224 [or even 220], ULer seems to always be hit and miss in terms of wipes. In a group of end game raiders this is rarely a problem. Therefore there is really only one conclusion to come to IMO.

 

Call it what you will, casuals, baddies, people who can't tell left from right, if this continually seems to be a problem for most average pug groups, who seem to more or less get thru the rest of the operation successfully, than nerfing the fight IN SM shouldn't meet with resisitance. There is no reason an end-game progression raider should give two shyts about a SM operation because there Is no reason a season progression/end-game raid group should be doing SM operations except right out of the gate when the group is first established, or new raid group members join the group and need a quick gear up to get them up to par gear-wise for HM/NiM raiding. SM raid groups are not end-game raid groups. They are raid groups preparing for end game raiding. This is not to say that established groups doing SM raid operations are not raid groups, they are, they are simply not end-game raid groups in the traditional sense, although that may very well be their intent and are simply gearing up/learning those operations for that purpose. A work in progress if you will.

 

I for one as an end game raider could give a rat's *** if they nerf a single boss in a SM Operation. When my group first started doing Underlurker he was a pain in the *** and gave us a great deal of trouble. We eventually got passed it and it joined the list of boss farms like the others, but it was no easier for us [in fact it was harder because it was pre-nerf] out the gate than it is for anyone else. It was definately the fight we never expected to go easy even when it did.

 

Until such a time as I stop seeing with great regularity the spams on fleet " ToS - Starting at Underlurker" [which means in most cases the previous attempt ended at Underlurker because the group fell apart there], clearly there is something amiss in design and something is not attuned correctly for the level of the average player doing SM pugs.

This can't be only an issue of skill. If you've completed ULer in HM and yet still find a pug group wipes on him in a SM pug, there has to be some root problem causing this. Its certainly happened to me even after I'd completed ULer in hm multiple times. Certainly one person or two doesn't make the group, but it just goes to show that even those who have the skill and experience, can't over come the inherent design flaws causing many sm groups to still wipe at Underlurker.

 

If nerfing SM Underlurker again will solve this issue for average pug groups, I could care less. Not going to effect me anyways.

 

Was the same thing with the comp power level issue throughout post 4.0. If you were an end-game level raider, the comp issue should not have in any way effected you pre-nerf or post-nerf anyways if you were worth your salt. I could solo Heroic Star Fortresses whatever level the comp was at, the better heals simply made it a bit easier, but it played no decisive role whatsoever in the outcome.

 

SM Operations are for your average player. HM/NIM Operations are for raiders.

[JouerTue]

time challenge was suspended thanks to cora resetting, not certainly because of difficulty. we had raiders at the time..

[gabigool]

Personally, I disagree with the notion that Underlurker can pose a challenge for skilled groups. It does not. Underlurker has some very specific mechanics and it is a fight that is unforgiving to people that do not do them properly.

 

While the cross used to have some issues, a skilled group knew how to ensure those issues did not occur.

 

While the green areas used to occasionally appear in the incorrect location, a skilled group knew how to be in the correct location regardless of the green.

 

I used to watch a group in my guild on twitch struggle with the HM version of this fight and listen to them complain over and over about how buggy the fight was, and how if it wasn't for the bugs they would have beaten it. I was bored the next day and went through the VoD and out of something like 15 or 16 pulls, I didn't see a single pull where someone didn't cause their own death by doing something wrong. SM is much the same way, although at a lower skill cap.

 

All that said, I do think the tuning of this boss in particular is way off. But I think the tuning of a lot of bosses is way off. I'm not sure who's in charge of this stuff over at BW but they need to be replaced. I think proper tuning would be for Rage Storm to have a single tick at the end of the channel that is a ~50k hit, replace the cross with a circle and either reduce UL's HP or extend the enrage timer by 30 seconds.

 

While I'd love to see the overall trend of SM operations to be a bit more in line with EC-ish difficulty, as long as they are not, UL is mistuned. If the game wants to create an army of skill-less players the SM content needs to be clearable by skill-less players. Just because it's a bad decision doesn't give BW the right to implement it poorly.

[silvershadows]

I disagree. When you see the majority of PuG, you see people with 105% accuracy, A mod, unoptimized enhancements, no augments and who press buttons when they light up. What the game needs is not nerfing "harder" content (if UL sm is even considered hard these days), but teaching better to those people how to play, force them to pass proving grounds before being able to queue for or even to enter an operation. The game doesn't need to be dumbed down anymore, it needs its player to become better.

 

This x100000000000

 

Underlurker Storymode (which is all GF can do anyway) isn't even remotely hard.

[Rekkakuski]

all bosses are hard to pugs.. Seen Sparky enraged at 40% via GF with my tank

[Pietrastor]

time challenge was suspended thanks to cora resetting, not certainly because of difficulty. we had raiders at the time..

 

And because next to no one did TOS, for obvious Underlurker reason.

 

I know you guys will have a lot of questions so let me hit some of what has come up so far.

 

Why not play Temple of Sacrifice?

Two reasons for this. First, it was a numbers game. Only a fraction of the players who are in Ops at 60 are in ToS and so we wanted to make sure the first round was accessible to as many people as possible. Second, our plan was that the finals (the second round) would be played in ToS so that the Revan encounter was a part of the tournament finale.

 

Edited February 19, 2016 by Pietrastor

[Nic__]

And because next to no one did TOS, for obvious Underlurker reason.

 

People weren't doing ToS more because of the bugs than any issues with difficulty. Underlurker was had more bugs that BW had to actually call an exterminator before they could get to the code. It was also the difference of 4 bosses in Rav before the bugged one or 2 in ToS before the bugged one, since. Most of us were trying to gear our toons then we choose the OP we could get double the bosses killed before we rolled the dice on the bugged boss that week.

[DawnAskham]

Need more information....

 

Currently, UL has bugged graphics for the rocks during the rage storm - if this is the issue for the OPs difficulties, then its a bug fix that needs to occur, not a nerf / rework of the encounter.

 

If it isn't just the bug issue, then it really depends on whether the OPs problem is an outlier or closer to the norm.

 

If it's just the OP's group, then the OP needs to find a better group and / or step up their own game.

 

If it's more the norm that groups struggle and can't complete the encounter, then it may need a nerf / rework.

 

And as it is SM - who gives a crap how easy they make it as long as average pug group are successful and continue participating in Operations, and harder versions exist for those that wish to challenge themselves.

Edited February 19, 2016 by DawnAskham

[Perloin]

If majority of the pugs can't clear it, it needs a nerf. Hard cold uncomfortable truth.

 

I think they should introduce the mode Stupid Easy...

[Ambramotte]

. What the game needs is not nerfing "harder" content, but teaching better to those people how to play, force them to pass proving grounds before being able to queue for or even to enter an operation. The game doesn't need to be dumbed down anymore, it needs its player to become better.

 

This , so much this. I'm hoping the champion thingy they're introducing will help with this.

 

Basically there is a spiral of suck that a lot of players are stuck in and I think B/W could help introduce something that would gently & gradually incentive them to get better.

[wainot-keel]

time challenge was suspended thanks to cora resetting, not certainly because of difficulty. we had raiders at the time..

 

It was both reasons.

Ravagers was the op chosen for the event because ToS had a disastrous clear rate. Which means if this hadnt been the case, they could have made the event with ToS instead of Ravagers. But no, one op bugged, the other a "casual" serial killer...

[Kyuuu]

Underlurker certainly has its issue and bugs, but that is not the problem the problem is the people, I see people fail basic mechanics in easy things like EV and KP then those same people wonder why their HM EV/KP failed, people dont like doing mechanics or learning them I see more ignoring them even when told not and what to do to then those willing to actual learn. which is unforgivable imo, some of the mechanics to underlurker are tied to server side and client sync issue, that are still not truely fixed but there are work around and when done right and the dps dont suck is perfectly clear-able

[Renata_Roselli]

Underlurker is fine. People just need to not be bad at the game. It's called learning your rotation, learning placement, learning basic skills. It's fairly easy.