Are ops/raids outdated?

[Khevar]

Because there are different mechanics?

I find this position of yours highly suspect.

 

When you and I argued a few months ago (pre 4.0) about the fact that NM modes had "too many one-shot mechanics", you talked about running NM EC Kephess with 3-4 people. This means that the 10-level difference allowed you to completely ignore the mechanic of interrupting the three droids with calibrating shot.

 

When someone is 10 levels over content, mechanics are a non-issue.

 

You're trying to say that "NM mode has different mechanics", but you want to run them 10 levels over so you can IGNORE those mechanics.

 

You're not being honest here.

Edited March 23, 2016 by Khevar

[MuskyBoy]

I really do not understand what you are saying. Regardless of whether its by "achievement" or tier it would still need to be implemented and would (if tuned correctly) be only accessible (completed) by the elite PVErs in the game.

[IanArgent]

Yeah so what? Those ops at their original level won't drop good gears.

 

I'm too lazy even for SM now, I only do last boss run now.

 

So you want the gear, but don't want to work for it. That's not how things go - you want the end-game gear, you do the end-game gear treadmill at the end-game difficulty.

[VegasTheLost]

So you want the gear, but don't want to work for it. That's not how things go - you want the end-game gear, you do the end-game gear treadmill at the end-game difficulty.

 

He don't want that. He want tactical ops where he can ignore every mechanic and he wants top end gear and everything for it.

[xkcurtisx]

i absolutely love the SALT here, keep up the work bois!

[IanArgent]

I will admit to vaguely wanting to see the ops "cut down" to 4-man FPs (hard and TFP). The thing is, I would want that done "right," by adjusting the trash mobs to be the proper difficulty for a FP, the mechanics of the boss fights redone, and the rewards appropriate for flashpoints. I would also like to see all the current flashpoints have a story-mode difficulty put in.

 

The thing is, I know those are both somewhat selfish requests, and that there are much more important things to spend limited resources on. And I don't want rewards not commensurate with the effort - the reward in this case would be "doing the mission." So it really irks me when people say "I want to be able to do the Op/FP content in easy mode so I can do it in smaller groups," and then follows up with "because I want to cheat the gear treadmill." That means that when I say "I want to do the group content in smaller groups, so I can run my character through that part of the story," people think I'm trying to cover up my real motives. I hate the gear treadmill; it leads to a logic loop of "you have to have to do the raid to get the gear you need to do the raid," as Penny Arcade has noted a couple of times; and it only "works" in the raiding ecology anyway; and to a lesser extent in the PvP ecology, except that the gear treadmill in PvP is a lot less demanding, and a lot easier to run through, in this game. I probably have enough WZ comms on my legacy to put together a set of PvP legacy-bound armor if I cared to, just from doing 4X recruitment twice; but I'll probably end up converting them to companion gifts or jawa scrap instead.

[VegasTheLost]

So it really irks me when people say "I want to be able to do the Op/FP content in easy mode so I can do it in smaller groups," and then follows up with "because I want to cheat the gear treadmill."

 

Let's think outside of the box for a minute and re-phrase it: I wan't to spend a night with Taylor Swift but she HAS TO come to me wanting to do it and I reserve my every right to flip out if she doesn't come to me while I'm home doing zero effort for this night. OK, maybe I wash my teeth but in that case Taylor have to bring some beers and pizza. And if this doesn't happen still I sue the world for not making it happen.

[Slowpokeking]

So you want the gear, but don't want to work for it. That's not how things go - you want the end-game gear, you do the end-game gear treadmill at the end-game difficulty.

 

Come on, right now you can form a pug to get top tier gear. If I want end-game gear, I would have praised this system over and over again.

[Slowpokeking]

I find this position of yours highly suspect.

 

When you and I argued a few months ago (pre 4.0) about the fact that NM modes had "too many one-shot mechanics", you talked about running NM EC Kephess with 3-4 people. This means that the 10-level difference allowed you to completely ignore the mechanic of interrupting the three droids with calibrating shot.

 

When someone is 10 levels over content, mechanics are a non-issue.

 

You're trying to say that "NM mode has different mechanics", but you want to run them 10 levels over so you can IGNORE those mechanics.

 

You're not being honest here.

No, you can't ignore it when you are 3-4 men it. The damage would till overpower your team mostly. Even at a full group it's better to avoid it. Most of the minefield mechanic still works. You need a really good group if you want to 3-4 men it. Even the first boss is going to provide some difficulty. I've failed on HM tank bosses with a 7 men group in 3.0 before.

 

I prefer these content to be enjoyable and on acceptable difficulty level for pugs.

[Eldren]

No, you can't ignore it when you are 3-4 men it. The damage would till overpower your team mostly. Even at a full group it's better to avoid it. Most of the minefield mechanic still works. You need a really good group if you want to 3-4 men it. Even the first boss is going to provide some difficulty. I've failed on HM tank bosses with a 7 men group in 3.0 before.

 

I prefer these content to be enjoyable and on acceptable difficulty level for pugs.

 

It's possible that some in this thread may have a difficult time understanding what you're actually asking for, because the way you write is difficult to parse. I'm assuming English isn't your first language?

 

I still don't know what you're asking for. You... want old content rehashed for level 65 difficulty so people can experience how difficult it was back when 50 was the level cap, and you want it to drop items commensurate with end-game difficulty? Is that what you're asking for?

 

Help us out here, man.

[Max_Killjoy]

It's possible that some in this thread may have a difficult time understanding what you're actually asking for, because the way you write is difficult to parse. I'm assuming English isn't your first language?

 

I still don't know what you're asking for. You... want old content rehashed for level 65 difficulty so people can experience how difficult it was back when 50 was the level cap, and you want it to drop items commensurate with end-game difficulty? Is that what you're asking for?

 

Help us out here, man.

 

I still can't tell what he's really pushing for, either -- it seems to constantly shift, maybe even with some deliberate evasion of directly addressing the question. He says something, but then his arguments seem to be directly counter to the thing he's just said.

Edited March 23, 2016 by Max_Killjoy

[Slowpokeking]

It's possible that some in this thread may have a difficult time understanding what you're actually asking for, because the way you write is difficult to parse. I'm assuming English isn't your first language?

 

I still don't know what you're asking for. You... want old content rehashed for level 65 difficulty so people can experience how difficult it was back when 50 was the level cap, and you want it to drop items commensurate with end-game difficulty? Is that what you're asking for?

 

Help us out here, man.

I think this system would be the best.

 

Old content to stay at their level.

If there is still no new content, create a "heroic mode" which will set these ops at level 65, but have their difficulty rebalanced to two tier, like EV KP EC for Tier 1 and SNV DF DP for Tier 2 for people to do it.

Edited March 23, 2016 by Slowpokeking

[IanArgent]

Come on, right now you can form a pug to get top tier gear. If I want end-game gear, I would have praised this system over and over again.

 

Then stop talking about gear. Seriously - it's not helping you present an understandable argument for wanting Ops to be at less than level-cap difficulty; because no matter how you slice it, you look like you want to cheat the gear treadmill.

 

Here's the way I see your argument, when I'm being charitable and reading it in the best possible light:

 

You want more people to be able to pug (older) hard mode Ops, by reducing the base difficulty level. If it's easier to do those hard-mode Ops, then more people will pug them.

 

Except that's very much against the current design direction of the game, where no matter the age of the content, difficulty tags mean everything should be at about the same level of difficulty.

[IanArgent]

It's possible that some in this thread may have a difficult time understanding what you're actually asking for, because the way you write is difficult to parse. I'm assuming English isn't your first language?

 

I still don't know what you're asking for. You... want old content rehashed for level 65 difficulty so people can experience how difficult it was back when 50 was the level cap, and you want it to drop items commensurate with end-game difficulty? Is that what you're asking for?

 

Help us out here, man.

 

Emphasis added. That's what they did by bumping the "level" of all ops to 65. It is (nominally) as difficult today to do a launch-available op as it was at launch to do the op. Example: the game launched with 4 operations scaled to be challenging at the level cap of 50. Today those operations are scaled to be challenging at a level cap of 65. In both time windows, the challenge level is calibrated to the "current" level cap.

[Slowpokeking]

Then stop talking about gear. Seriously - it's not helping you present an understandable argument for wanting Ops to be at less than level-cap difficulty; because no matter how you slice it, you look like you want to cheat the gear treadmill.

 

Here's the way I see your argument, when I'm being charitable and reading it in the best possible light:

 

You want more people to be able to pug (older) hard mode Ops, by reducing the base difficulty level. If it's easier to do those hard-mode Ops, then more people will pug them.

 

Except that's very much against the current design direction of the game, where no matter the age of the content, difficulty tags mean everything should be at about the same level of difficulty.

But some people are accusing me for gear greedy so I got to make it clear, on the other hand, gear is the most important part for people to run the ops. We shouldn't ignore it.

 

The current design got huge problem, different HM/NIM ops' difficulty was totally different. But they drop the same gear, so it makes the hard ones basically pointless to a lot of people and make some achievement very very hard to do. If they really want to make this system work well, the difficulty between different HM/NIM ops need to be re-balanced to 1-2 tier.

[Slowpokeking]

Emphasis added. That's what they did by bumping the "level" of all ops to 65. It is (nominally) as difficult today to do a launch-available op as it was at launch to do the op. Example: the game launched with 4 operations scaled to be challenging at the level cap of 50. Today those operations are scaled to be challenging at a level cap of 65. In both time windows, the challenge level is calibrated to the "current" level cap.

 

But they weren't designed to be on the same level of difficulty, if you want to rescale them you need to rebalance them.

[IanArgent]

But they weren't designed to be on the same level of difficulty, if you want to rescale them you need to rebalance them.

 

You'll get no disagreement from me that they ought to be retuned to actually be the L65 difficulty they're claiming to be. But; there's always going to be "more difficult" and "less difficult" Ops, just as there are "more difficult" and "less difficult" FPs and heroics. The progression of difficulty makes sense if it's older to newer, with that difficulty increase being provided by more complicated mechanics and "bigger" enemies.

 

But that's not what you're actually saying - you're saying they should be reset and relabeled to be "L50/55/60" difficulty, because Reasons That Don't Make Sense. Operations are end-game content - tune the difficulty broadly to level cap, and then within that broad category, the older ops can be easier than the new ones. Which is, from what I can tell, what is actually happening - the launch ops are easier than the RotHC ops which are easier than Oricon, on to the hardest operation being Temple of Sacrifice.

[Slowpokeking]

You'll get no disagreement from me that they ought to be retuned to actually be the L65 difficulty they're claiming to be. But; there's always going to be "more difficult" and "less difficult" Ops, just as there are "more difficult" and "less difficult" FPs and heroics. The progression of difficulty makes sense if it's older to newer, with that difficulty increase being provided by more complicated mechanics and "bigger" enemies.

 

But that's not what you're actually saying - you're saying they should be reset and relabeled to be "L50/55/60" difficulty, because Reasons That Don't Make Sense. Operations are end-game content - tune the difficulty broadly to level cap, and then within that broad category, the older ops can be easier than the new ones. Which is, from what I can tell, what is actually happening - the launch ops are easier than the RotHC ops which are easier than Oricon, on to the hardest operation being Temple of Sacrifice.

Yes, but the gap between EV and TOS is wayyyy toooo huge for them to drop the same gear. THIS is why it didn't work.

 

I said without new content, it should be option for people to choose, to do them at original level or do them as heroics at rebalanced difficulty.

 

Operations are end game content, it doesn't mean every of them must stay at end level. See the difference?

[IanArgent]

Yes, but the gap between EV and TOS is wayyyy toooo huge for them to drop the same gear. THIS is why it didn't work.

 

I said without new content, it should be option for people to choose, to do them at original level or do them as heroics at rebalanced difficulty.

 

Operations are end game content, it doesn't mean every of them must stay at end level. See the difference?

 

Your solution to "EV is too easy" is "EV should be made easier." That doesn't make any kind of sense. EV should be made HARDER if it's too easy to drop end-game gear (which I'm not going to necessarily agree with, since I haven't played it.) Operations should be scaled to end-game difficulty because they are as-designed end-game content. If EV is too easy, it should be made harder.

[Khevar]

No, you can't ignore it when you are 3-4 men it.

Sorry, I was mistaken. You mentioned 6-manning it here, not 3-4 manning it:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=829321&page=9

 

But my point still stands. During a 3.x NM EC run, you let the Kephess droids get to a FULL SET OF 10 STACKS of Calibrating Shot, but was still able to kill it.

 

You have to put that into perspective. If you weren't 10 levels over content, that would have been a wipe. Why? Because the mechanic is that at 10 stacks the droid becomes invulnerable and cannot be damaged.

 

The fact that you were able to kill it at 10 stacks means that you DIDN'T have to interrupt calibrating shot. You didn't have to worry about that mechanic.

 

So the fact that you try and tell me "NM is better because it has different mechanics" seems like an intentional prevarication on your part. You want to run the content while being overleveled so you can IGNORE the mechanics.

 

So I ask again. Why not run SM? The NM mechanics aren't present. They encounters are easier. They can be undermanned. It's the same bosses, the same environment, the same cutscenes.

Edited March 23, 2016 by Khevar

[Slowpokeking]

Your solution to "EV is too easy" is "EV should be made easier." That doesn't make any kind of sense. EV should be made HARDER if it's too easy to drop end-game gear (which I'm not going to necessarily agree with, since I haven't played it.) Operations should be scaled to end-game difficulty because they are as-designed end-game content. If EV is too easy, it should be made harder.

 

I didn't say EV should be made easier, EV should be made harder if it drops top tier gear, but others could be nerfed to be put on the same level of difficulty.

 

They were designed as end-game content, but when people were done with them and left or move on, it's going to be different situation. That's what I'm talking about, the lifespan of MMO content.

[Slowpokeking]

Sorry, I was mistaken. You mentioned 6-manning it here, not 3-4 manning it:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=829321&page=9

 

But my point still stands. During a 3.x NM EC run, you let the Kephess droids get to a FULL SET OF 10 STACKS of Calibrating Shot, but was still able to kill it.

 

You have to put that into perspective. If you weren't 10 levels over content, that would have been a wipe. Why? Because the mechanic is that at 10 stacks the droid becomes invulnerable and cannot be damaged.

 

The fact that you were able to kill it at 10 stacks means that you DIDN'T have to interrupt calibrating shot. You didn't have to worry about that mechanic.

 

So the fact that you try and tell me "NM is better because it has different mechanics" seems like an intentional prevarication on your part. You want to run the content while being overleveled so you can IGNORE the mechanics.

 

So I ask again. Why not run SM? The NM mechanics aren't present. They encounters are easier. They can be undermanned. It's the same bosses, the same environment, the same cutscenes.

 

Yes, you STILL CAN do it but it does matter because it will make the fight a lot harder and longer if you have tried it, even with a full group that's what we are trying to not make it happen.

 

NIM mech isn't that hard or 1 shot deal when you are overleveled, but it still exists and people want to avoid it. See the point?

[Khevar]

NIM mech isn't that hard or 1 shot deal when you are overleveled, but it still exists and people want to avoid it. See the point?

No, I really don't see the point.

 

1. I ask: "Why not do SM?"

2. You say: "Different mechanics in NM"

3. You say: "That are not a big deal when you are overleveled"

 

???

 

Why is "having different mechanics" a draw for NM if you are overleveled and can ignore them?

 

So I ask again: Why not do SM instead?

Edited March 23, 2016 by Khevar

[IanArgent]

I didn't say EV should be made easier, EV should be made harder if it drops top tier gear, but others could be nerfed to be put on the same level of difficulty.

 

They were designed as end-game content, but when people were done with them and left or move on, it's going to be different situation. That's what I'm talking about, the lifespan of MMO content.

 

Not everyone is done with them. You're projecting your own boredom on other players. They're as relevant today to new players as they were at launch to founders.

[Slowpokeking]

Not everyone is done with them. You're projecting your own boredom on other players. They're as relevant today to new players as they were at launch to founders.

 

So they could gather some level 50/55 alts or take off their gears to try it. Nobody is stopping them. There are also many people want to run what they couldn't run before when most of the raiders have moved on, why should these ops be kept out from players?.

 

Shall we keep the old hard content for 10 people's fun and keep the rest of them from it?

Edited March 23, 2016 by Slowpokeking