Are ops/raids outdated?

[Slowpokeking]

You know, if you had said you wanted the statted gear, that's one thing. High-end statted gear is mechanically useful, to the point of requirement for the very hardest fights. I may dislike the gear treadmill game design, but I see how it works as a ramp-up mechanism.

 

But Cosmetic gear/decos/achievements? No. That's purely bragging rights; to show the world you did the very hardest content in the game. If anything, the fact that the NiM achievements were watered down while they raised the level cap but not the difficulty is a problem.

 

(Note, I will very likely NEVER get the NiM achievements and other rewards; so it's not like I'm asking to keep tht for myself).

 

Not much, you can buy them if you have money. As for achievement, it's simply a "passport" to run this ops with pugs, isn't it ironic?

 

As a person who had played NIM with pugs, I will say, don't rely on achievement to judge a person's skill/experience.

[IanArgent]

Not much, you can buy them if you have money. As for achievement, it's simply a "passport" to run this ops with pugs, isn't it ironic?

 

As a person who had played NIM with pugs, I will say, don't rely on achievement to judge a person's skill/experience.

 

Given the prices I've seen quoted (pre-4.0, admittedly) getting that much money is at least a small achievement. With the increase in difficulty since 4.0; is selling a NiM run still a thing?

 

At any rate, I doubt that being able to blind-pug a NiM Ops is all that desirable.

[Crossward]

I don't need any of them maybe other than Brontes' mount, pls don't try to make a straw-man on me.

 

Otherwise I can say you are the same "I've had my fun and got bored on them, but YOU NOOBS aren't gonna touch on it!"

 

But...that's not a straw man. That's the argument exactly.

 

You DO want to make all of the NiM modes easier so you can get the decorations and cosmetics. That's exactly what you want.

 

And yes, I've had my fun and I continue to have fun with them. I'm having more fun with them than before, in fact, because I joined during DF/DP and never got to experience NiM EC and SnV when they were relevant. I and the people I raid with put in the time and dedication to do the content at the highest level of difficulty, and that should be the only way to acquire these rewards.

 

I missed Baron Deathmark's Walker, but I don't want it to be available on the Ranked Vendor. I didn't get Deposer of the Dread Masters (damn you, Council!) but i don't want it to come back. Those things are gone forever--I can't get them back. You, and anyone else, CAN get the 224 loot and the cosmetics you want. I want you to get them! All you have to do is put in the effort.

[Slowpokeking]

Given the prices I've seen quoted (pre-4.0, admittedly) getting that much money is at least a small achievement. With the increase in difficulty since 4.0; is selling a NiM run still a thing?

 

At any rate, I doubt that being able to blind-pug a NiM Ops is all that desirable.

 

No, the decors can be sold.

 

It's not really blindfold, even EC NIM at 3.0 require you to follow the route, maybe other than the tank bosses, unless you kill firebrand first.

[Crossward]

Given the prices I've seen quoted (pre-4.0, admittedly) getting that much money is at least a small achievement. With the increase in difficulty since 4.0; is selling a NiM run still a thing?

 

At any rate, I doubt that being able to blind-pug a NiM Ops is all that desirable.

 

From what I've gathered, NiM DP and SnV runs are about 70m. Wings and Crest are 150+, and even then its a gamble if they want to do it.

 

I'm actually of the mind that this is desirable player behavior (I'm biased though--I've sold NiM runs in the past). The content is still being cleared at the highest difficulty level by 7-15 players who are skilled enough to carry someone. They're performing exceptionally well to get someone through, and getting a lot of money in exchange. The content is still being respected. Functionally, its no different than carrying someone's undergeared alt along.

[Slowpokeking]

But...that's not a straw man. That's the argument exactly.

 

You DO want to make all of the NiM modes easier so you can get the decorations and cosmetics. That's exactly what you want.

And you DOn't want NIM to go down because you don't want "NOOBS to touch on any of these" right?

 

And yes, I've had my fun and I continue to have fun with them. I'm having more fun with them than before, in fact, because I joined during DF/DP and never got to experience NiM EC and SnV when they were relevant. I and the people I raid with put in the time and dedication to do the content at the highest level of difficulty, and that should be the only way to acquire these rewards.

And I want my fun as well, what's wrong for that? I wouldn't stick on the same content and call it "challenge" if I was a raider. Why didn't you go seek new challenge?

 

I missed Baron Deathmark's Walker, but I don't want it to be available on the Ranked Vendor. I didn't get Deposer of the Dread Masters (damn you, Council!) but i don't want it to come back. Those things are gone forever--I can't get them back. You, and anyone else, CAN get the 224 loot and the cosmetics you want. I want you to get them! All you have to do is put in the effort.

 

It doesn't matter, some people want it back and they have the right to ask for it.

 

By what effort? EV HM in 65 isn't really harder than EC NIM in 3.0, nor does EC NIM drop any useful gear, only decor and mount.

[IanArgent]

No, the decors can be sold.

 

It's not really blindfold, even EC NIM at 3.0 require you to follow the route, maybe other than the tank bosses, unless you kill firebrand first.

 

By blind-pug, I meant running it with whoever you could grab off of the fleet promenade or in group finder. Seems to me that should be something you have to put together a planned group for; one who is used to working together.

 

At any rate, we seem to have come to the point of difference in first principles. I (and others) do not believe that Ops content should "age out" of being "end-game difficulty" content. You do not. REgardless of why that is (and I think I'm getting where you're coming from; but even if I agreed with your goals of having a less granular difficulty choice, your proposed implementation is wrong); that's the stopping point for me. The situation that existed from RotHC's raise of the level cap and 4.0's raise of all Ops difficulty to the current level cap should not have, IMO - they should have rescaled the launch ops to the level cap every time they raised the level cap.

[Khevar]

I'm going to focus on this part of your post:

But they have different mechanics and it's fun to challenge.

I'm sorry, but I just don't believe you. I think you're saying this because you think it will help move the argument in a direction that will benefit you, not because you actually feel this way.

 

You've expressly stated in so many words, that old NM ops should be "faceroll"

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=8383357#post8383117

 

So no. It's not remotely believable that you want to run NM ops because "it's fun to challenge"

 

Also note that you've expressed (several times in this thread) that these old operations should be at their original level. This means that NM EC would be 15 levels below. At that point, you could could run that instance completely solo (as long as you temporarily had another player to make an ops group), and ignore every mechanic.

 

And I do mean EVERY mechanic could be ignored at that point. There would be zero challenge of any kind whatsoever.

 

So again. It's not remotely believable that you want to run NM ops because "it's fun to challenge"

Edited March 23, 2016 by Khevar

[Slowpokeking]

By blind-pug, I meant running it with whoever you could grab off of the fleet promenade or in group finder. Seems to me that should be something you have to put together a planned group for; one who is used to working together.

 

At any rate, we seem to have come to the point of difference in first principles. I (and others) do not believe that Ops content should "age out" of being "end-game difficulty" content. You do not. REgardless of why that is (and I think I'm getting where you're coming from; but even if I agreed with your goals of having a less granular difficulty choice, your proposed implementation is wrong); that's the stopping point for me. The situation that existed from RotHC's raise of the level cap and 4.0's raise of all Ops difficulty to the current level cap should not have, IMO - they should have rescaled the launch ops to the level cap every time they raised the level cap.

I've failed on the tanks and minefield with a 7-8 men group before because they didn't know how to do it. Trust me they are not that easy like you've thought.

 

They do age out if there were new ops keep coming out, with much higher tier gear and levels. SWTOR didn't follow this route because it didn't have the resource/focus to put on the new ops, so it had to rely on old ops to keep the interest.

 

The reason is quite simple, because the majority of the MMO couldn't beat the top level content, the small elite group would not stop at the ones they've took down. So when new raid are keep coming out, the developers tone down the old ones for more people to enjoy, otherwise these raid would be wasted since so few people had enjoyed them. Also if there are 10-12 ops at same level, it would be a big headache to balance the difficulty and put reasonable gears in these ops.

 

YES we need to respect the raiders, so there should be top new challenge keep coming out for them, but it doesn't mean all of those should stay at this level of difficulty because they are going to move on.

Edited March 23, 2016 by Slowpokeking

[Crossward]

And you DOn't want NIM to go down because you don't want "NOOBS to touch on any of these" right?

 

Darn right. I want them to get gear in story mode, then get better in hard mode, and then finally challenge themselves in NiM and get those wings, dread enhanced rancors, and TITAN-6 containment vehicles! That's exactly what I want.

[Slowpokeking]

I'm going to focus on this part of your post:

 

I'm sorry, but I just don't believe you. I think you're saying this because you think it will help move the argument in a direction that will benefit you, not because you actually feel this way.

 

You've expressly stated in so many words, that old NM ops should be "faceroll"

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=8383357#post8383117

 

So no. It's not remotely believable that you want to run NM ops because "it's fun to challenge"

 

Also note that you've expressed (several times in this thread) that these old operations should be at their original level. This means that NM EC would be 15 levels below. At that point, you could could run that instance completely solo (as long as you temporarily had another player to make an ops group), and ignore every mechanic.

 

And I do mean EVERY mechanic could be ignored at that point. There would be zero challenge of any kind whatsoever.

 

So again. It's not remotely believable that you want to run NM ops because "it's fun to challenge"

 

Didn't I also say

 

"Faceroll does not mean to ignore all the mechanics, even EV/KP/EC have some mechanics to be noticed. Actually TFB to DP got a lot of 1-shot mech. "?

 

It means the ops got a lot easier than before but you still need to follow certain route. Also after I've tried some NIM, I found it's quite challenging at a toned downed level.

 

I don't know, the minefield doesn't seem to matter for level. Even if you can solo, it would be quite different.

[Slowpokeking]

Darn right. I want them to get gear in story mode, then get better in hard mode, and then finally challenge themselves in NiM and get those wings, dread enhanced rancors, and TITAN-6 containment vehicles! That's exactly what I want.

 

But these ops are not targeted for the majority. You are asking so many people to try this old ops with full effort that few had tried even during its prime?

 

It's just like saying people should still form a full 40 men raid and try 6-7 hours in MC during WotLK.

[Crossward]

That's exactly what I'm asking. Bioware clearly agrees that this is way things should be going. It's up to you to convince others that this isn't the correct path.

 

As for the WoW comparison, like I said in an earlier post, I actually think WoW missed the mark by making its older operations solo-able. If everyone has a rare mount, no one does. For an apples-to-apples comparison, they recently boosted MC up to current level over in WoW, as well as introducing scaled dungeons, and those have achieved extremely favorable responses from the players. This is the direction WoW is starting to go too, and I for one thing its great.

[MuskyBoy]

I'm convinced Slow is a troll trying to keep his thread alive. His arguments are vague, pointless and in all honest quite stupid. Perhaps he works for Bioware Austin.

[Slowpokeking]

That's exactly what I'm asking. Bioware clearly agrees that this is way things should be going. It's up to you to convince others that this isn't the correct path.

 

As for the WoW comparison, like I said in an earlier post, I actually think WoW missed the mark by making its older operations solo-able. If everyone has a rare mount, no one does. For an apples-to-apples comparison, they recently boosted MC up to current level over in WoW, as well as introducing scaled dungeons, and those have achieved extremely favorable responses from the players. This is the direction WoW is starting to go too, and I for one thing its great.

 

Bioware did it simply because no new content to offer, and right now it's not a good system like I've said.

 

It's not rare anymore, it's been kept by the raiders for years, what's wrong for people to grab it and give the raiders to live? It was their choice to go solo and get it, it means they want it and who are you to blame them for decreasing the value of your mount? You should go chase the new mount, new title and beat new challenge rather than ask to keep the difficulty of old content.

 

Wasn't level 100 MC a special event for the 10 years anniversary? It only lasts for a little while.

[Slowpokeking]

That's exactly what I'm asking. Bioware clearly agrees that this is way things should be going. It's up to you to convince others that this isn't the correct path.

 

As for the WoW comparison, like I said in an earlier post, I actually think WoW missed the mark by making its older operations solo-able. If everyone has a rare mount, no one does. For an apples-to-apples comparison, they recently boosted MC up to current level over in WoW, as well as introducing scaled dungeons, and those have achieved extremely favorable responses from the players. This is the direction WoW is starting to go too, and I for one thing its great.

 

I checked the game guide again, MC is still 60.

[Obnxs]

Sorry I once enjoyed most of the ops, but right now it just feels quite boring to gather 8 ppl to do these old ones. Especially when you need to wait for certain classes(tank mostly) and stop when some others took a break/left it. Modern gamers prefer quicker content that doesn't require much time to gather a group. Sure Bioware didn't release new ops, but I think current ops style also require some work. Like removing the tank-dps-heal trio from all the ops or make all classes be able to do all three roles and reduce the size of ops group.

 

Short answer; yes.

 

Longer answer; yes and the 4/8/16 man groupings that STILL rely on the holy trinity doesn't help one little bit. 4 man groups was a poor design choice from the get go. You can't reduce the number of available spots for THE most played role in ANY game and expect a healthy dungeon system. At the very least they need to revisit group size. Optimally, they need to revisit group size, institute cross server LFG, AND remove the reliance on the holy trinity. That is, if they want it to be an MMO......but they don't, so they won't.

[Crossward]

http://www.wowhead.com/news=244626/wows-10th-anniversary-november-21-january-6

 

For a while, Molten Core was scaled up to 90 for the 10th anniversary. That's what I'm referring to. It was super fun, too

[Slowpokeking]

http://www.wowhead.com/news=244626/wows-10th-anniversary-november-21-january-6

 

For a while, Molten Core was scaled up to 90 for the 10th anniversary. That's what I'm referring to. It was super fun, too

I'm not against such thing, but if you rescale it forever, that's different, people are going to try it but lose interest shortly and there are new raid/xpc keep coming out.

[gabigool]

As for the WoW comparison, like I said in an earlier post, I actually think WoW missed the mark by making its older operations solo-able. If everyone has a rare mount, no one does. For an apples-to-apples comparison, they recently boosted MC up to current level over in WoW, as well as introducing scaled dungeons, and those have achieved extremely favorable responses from the players. This is the direction WoW is starting to go too, and I for one thing its great.

 

But see it's not a big deal when there is new content to do. This game does not do that.

 

Personally I found it a good distraction to go solo older Raid Instances to try to farm a mount or a cool looking transmog.

 

If swtor treated endgame with even 10% of the respect WoW showed it, there would be many, many more subscribers here.

[Slowpokeking]

But see it's not a big deal when there is new content to do. This game does not do that.

 

Personally I found it a good distraction to go solo older Raid Instances to try to farm a mount or a cool looking transmog.

 

If swtor treated endgame with even 10% of the respect WoW showed it, there would be many, many more subscribers here.

 

Yes, old content needs to be put to rest at some point rather than stick with the same difficulty.

 

It's not SWTOR didn't want to treat us like that, it's that Bioware didn't have enough resources to, if they had they wouldn't stick on these old ops. The 2.0 cycle was the best one because we are keep getting new ops/stronghold/GSF.

Edited March 23, 2016 by Slowpokeking

[Slowpokeking]

I also play GW2, I will say why it's acceptable for them to do level sync.

 

Because even Arah, the toughest dungeon, was puggable especially now. It's a bit painful but totally doable. Still, the dungeons were silent after they've nerfed the rewards.

 

In SWTOR, some of the ops aren't like that, they require more people and much more effort to take it down, trying to pug it is just asking for a lot of repair fees. Only few people were able to do it during 2.0. The number is further reduced now. So it's gonna stay dead or will die with time passing if you think it's still alive now.

 

Same with why did WOW rescale dungeons but not the raids.

[Eldren]

If swtor treated endgame with even 10% of the respect WoW showed it, there would be many, many more subscribers here.

 

Sometimes it's good to compare games to other games in a similar genre (MMOs in this case), sometimes it isn't.

 

In this case, it isn't.

 

SWTOR was a "viable competitor" for World of Warcraft in the subscription-only market for under a year. Part of this was the weird power WoW has to just perpetually draw people back in for no discernible reason, even when no radical alterations to WoW's core gameplay have occurred (the last major, game-changing feature they implemented in WoW was the Raid Finder difficulty at the end of Cataclysm). Many people don't want to pay for more than one subscription game a month.

 

The other part was a relatively shallow endgame, not because WoW's is "better", just because there's more of it. No MMO will ever catch up to the sheer amount of raids WoW has, and it'll be impressive if a design studio can come close to challenging the lead in experience Blizzard has in MMO design. WoW is 12 years old now. That it can STILL remain subscription-only without Blizzard Entertainment's overlords at Activision-Blizzard telling them they have to go F2P is an accomplishment all on its own.

 

This game could not survive solely on micro-transactions from the Cartel Market. I don't know if those would even cover the cost of server maintenance, much less development of new content on a monthly basis (something even WoW hasn't managed). It's blazing a new path in maintaining a fully playable F2P game with enough incentives to make some want to subscribe, whether that's expansion content, the extra levels, or just frustration with the quality-of-life that comes with being a Free to Play customer (and it's frustrating; I was Preferred when I returned this past weekend due to having been an initial subscriber at release, and I immediately set about spending accumulated Cartel Coins on more inventory, a mount other than the STAP I had, and a couple other things).

 

The days of sub-only MMOs are on the way out. It's increasingly just not a long-term profitable model since games like SWTOR are showing you can have AAA quality without ongoing subscription fees, instead supplementing in-game currency you gain by just playing for free, or by using only occasional expenditures.

 

This is one of many reasons why this game is likely to continue for a few years yet. When it invariably DOES shut down, well... nothing lasts forever, and Disney won't miss out on revenue from a Star Wars game: we'll have another if SWTOR ever shuts down.

[Slowpokeking]

Sometimes it's good to compare games to other games in a similar genre (MMOs in this case), sometimes it isn't.

 

In this case, it isn't.

 

SWTOR was a "viable competitor" for World of Warcraft in the subscription-only market for under a year. Part of this was the weird power WoW has to just perpetually draw people back in for no discernible reason, even when no radical alterations to WoW's core gameplay have occurred (the last major, game-changing feature they implemented in WoW was the Raid Finder difficulty at the end of Cataclysm). Many people don't want to pay for more than one subscription game a month.

 

The other part was a relatively shallow endgame, not because WoW's is "better", just because there's more of it. No MMO will ever catch up to the sheer amount of raids WoW has, and it'll be impressive if a design studio can come close to challenging the lead in experience Blizzard has in MMO design. WoW is 12 years old now. That it can STILL remain subscription-only without Blizzard Entertainment's overlords at Activision-Blizzard telling them they have to go F2P is an accomplishment all on its own.

 

This game could not survive solely on micro-transactions from the Cartel Market. I don't know if those would even cover the cost of server maintenance, much less development of new content on a monthly basis (something even WoW hasn't managed). It's blazing a new path in maintaining a fully playable F2P game with enough incentives to make some want to subscribe, whether that's expansion content, the extra levels, or just frustration with the quality-of-life that comes with being a Free to Play customer (and it's frustrating; I was Preferred when I returned this past weekend due to having been an initial subscriber at release, and I immediately set about spending accumulated Cartel Coins on more inventory, a mount other than the STAP I had, and a couple other things).

 

The days of sub-only MMOs are on the way out. It's increasingly just not a long-term profitable model since games like SWTOR are showing you can have AAA quality without ongoing subscription fees, instead supplementing in-game currency you gain by just playing for free, or by using only occasional expenditures.

 

This is one of many reasons why this game is likely to continue for a few years yet. When it invariably DOES shut down, well... nothing lasts forever, and Disney won't miss out on revenue from a Star Wars game: we'll have another if SWTOR ever shuts down.

Yes you know it, I believe you can also see that less people would like to raid now because you need to make schedule and rely on other people, the trinity system added more restriction. That's why even WOW is bleeding.

 

At such situation, I don't think it's wise to keep the old NIM ops' difficulty now.

[IanArgent]

See, I actually agree that reliance on the combat trinity is bad game design. But derating the ops do you can brute force the mechanics is not the way to fix that. Doing a proper tactical conversion at end game difficulty is.