The IP-CPT health nerf is not enough.

[Elvarania]

The health nerf on IP-CPT is not enough to make the encounter more accessible. The health of the boss is not the problem. The problem is the sheer amount of mechanics, damage, animations and clutter on the screen. Despite the health nerf, the DPS requirements to burn the droid adds is still required which means we still have to bring 6 DPS and 2 healers (unless we're in the top 1% of teams). The RNG is absolutely insane; if someone gets 4x large grenades in a row they are basically dead if they are not in range of a healer. There is so much on the screen that it's really difficult to tell what the hell is going on, with your new 'friendly' expanding debuffs. 

If you really want to nerf this boss, just reduce the large grenade damage, or even remove one grenade. Or make clicking the consoles a non-channel and just a simple click without wasting a GCD. I actually think this boss is a good challenge, and is probably one of the hardest bosses implemented in the game, but it is way too hard for a first boss in the only new Ops content in several years. Watchdog and Kanoth are so much easier by comparison, and (despite doing it in PUGs), Dominique is arguably easier than IP-CPT. 

This is not to mention that we've had no word since 2021 of a Master version of R-4 Anomaly. If the intention is to keep R-4 Veteran as hard as it is, please give a slightly more kind nerf to IP, and, dare I say it, buff Watchdog and Kanoth!

This insane difficulty on the first boss of your new raid is alienating teams, causing contention in gearing PUGs/later bosses, and alienating the vast majority of your playerbase. I know people who can't even kill Lady Dominique on SM. Imagine them trying the first boss on Veteran and thinking they have a chance, lol. I understand the difficulty might be to stop people doing a 'Nefra 2.0', but all you have done is force a 'Lockout Dealer' system where people spam discord and, at worse, sell locks to other people. Coupled with the insane fact that R-4 is the only way to gear up past 330+, I have no idea what the devs are smoking. Probably Nihrot

[DeannaVoyager]

2 hours ago, Elvarania said:

The health nerf on IP-CPT is not enough to make the encounter more accessible. The health of the boss is not the problem. The problem is the sheer amount of mechanics, damage, animations and clutter on the screen. Despite the health nerf, the DPS requirements to burn the droid adds is still required which means we still have to bring 6 DPS and 2 healers (unless we're in the top 1% of teams). The RNG is absolutely insane; if someone gets 4x large grenades in a row they are basically dead if they are not in range of a healer. There is so much on the screen that it's really difficult to tell what the hell is going on, with your new 'friendly' expanding debuffs. 

If you really want to nerf this boss, just reduce the large grenade damage, or even remove one grenade. Or make clicking the consoles a non-channel and just a simple click without wasting a GCD. I actually think this boss is a good challenge, and is probably one of the hardest bosses implemented in the game, but it is way too hard for a first boss in the only new Ops content in several years. Watchdog and Kanoth are so much easier by comparison, and (despite doing it in PUGs), Dominique is arguably easier than IP-CPT. 

This is not to mention that we've had no word since 2021 of a Master version of R-4 Anomaly. If the intention is to keep R-4 Veteran as hard as it is, please give a slightly more kind nerf to IP, and, dare I say it, buff Watchdog and Kanoth!

This insane difficulty on the first boss of your new raid is alienating teams, causing contention in gearing PUGs/later bosses, and alienating the vast majority of your playerbase. I know people who can't even kill Lady Dominique on SM. Imagine them trying the first boss on Veteran and thinking they have a chance, lol. I understand the difficulty might be to stop people doing a 'Nefra 2.0', but all you have done is force a 'Lockout Dealer' system where people spam discord and, at worse, sell locks to other people. Coupled with the insane fact that R-4 is the only way to gear up past 330+, I have no idea what the devs are smoking. Probably Nihrot

 

I don't mind the grenades that much, but it's a problem when they go to same person over and over again. That person is out of DCD's really fast, and if they are supposed to take the droids in next phase, rip...  Since it's most likely not an option to add a grace period on whoever gets the grenade so that they won't get more of them, I agree on nerfing the damage from grenades and droids. 

 

 

[DarthEndonae]

The grenades can be dealt with just fine as is. I haven't personally healed it, but as far as I know, the HPS requirement is not very intense when grenades are going out. The Enforcer phase is where things get a bit crazier.

That said, I do agree that a simple HP nerf to IP-CPT is insufficient. The boss does not require 2 tanks for enough of the fight while adding DPS makes it considerably easier. The Enforcer droids need to hit much harder with their basic attack but overall HP needs to be reduced so that a more standard composition is viable and required. IP-CPT needs to have some sort of powerful basic attack and tank swap mechanic as well so that tanks are actually required for the entire fight. Alternatively, the Enforcer droids could be present for the entire fight and have much higher HP, but just be shielded when IP-CPT is down. 

[xxSHOONYxx]

A lot new or newer people in the game got used to the game being just too easy from the get go and lack the knowledge or progression that requieres to be or get good at the game. You can effortlesly get to level 80 without the basic knowledge of interrupting, stepping out of aoe or dps while moving. The drive and willinges for people to get good at this game at least when it comes to pve has been absent for a long time.

Half of the difficulty when it comes to new ops is because people basically don't know how to do them. Once that knowledge is more widespread it becomes way easier, and if everyone calls for nerfs just because they can't kill something they don't know how it works it will make that fight a borefest once you actually know what to do in that fight. It can be very frustrating if you are not the one making mistakes, but that is why you are part of a team, you need to help others or others help you to get better at the fight. Discuss with your team how to improve, make strategies that work for you, your team, your team composition, and once you kill that boss the feel of acomplishment you will get will be a thousand times better than if the boss was easy and pratically delivered to you in a silver platter. I saw several teams in twitch trying to get the apex kill before 7.0 launched, and those that were able to, the happiness they were showing when they did it was countagious, i was not part of the team or knew them but i was actually happy for them when they finally did it.
I wouldn't mind a IP-CPT nerf if it gives an introdution to the new hm op for more people since it is a hm op after all, but it is also supossed to be the "hardest op" right now, which might be outside of gods. For people that are having a hard time in r4 and not at old legacy nim level, they should start there before heading into r4 hm, legacy nim are easy now with the health reduction they recieved. 

I don't want to sound elitist or gatekeep anyone, i would actually be very happy if more pople want to get better and get all the clears they want and the op comunity gets bigger. But before asking for more nerfs look at how the hp nerf will affect the fight. IP-CPT has already way too much downtime that the boss gets shielded because you can't over push it, maybe with the health nerf more groups can bring tanks to take care of the droids even if the droids have to be alive while ip-cpt goes down, tanks will be able to keep them on them for longer and easier

Edited October 1, 2022 by xxSHOONYxx

[Chryptyk]

The point is SM is supposed to be a SM and a HM is supposed to be a HM.  That you're saying legacy NiM is easier than HM R4 is a problem.  Legacy HMs are also easier than SM R4.  So yeah, nerfs are in order.  Waiting to do it is just alienating more and more people.  People gave it a try, some people can do it.  The vast majority cannot.  Since we've been bleeding off so many people, nerfs should be introduced quickly so more people can do R4 to get people back into it.

 

It's also highly insulting that the loot of SM R4 is absolutely useless for people who are in 330 gear (everyone that has been prog raiding since 7.0).  It needs to be able to be upgraded beyond 330 or be higher in level.  We know the mechs of R4 are where the real roadblock is, so why not give people better gear?  That little extra might be the slack they need to get clears.

[xxSHOONYxx]

The operation is getting nerfed though, easier dominique and hallway in sm and in hm ip-cpt hp nerf, but the post is asking for even more nerfs before people can test those nerfs.

In my own opinion, r4 hm might be harder than nim legacy  because nim legacy now with the health nerf they got on 7.1, everything melts and dies easily. For R4 sm i think it is sm level, but old sm level. Before sm ops had actual mechanics, some teams had to actually progress though them, they were not a freebie. And because of that the avarage player back then was better than it is now, because the avarage player now was not taught how to play the game with how everyhing has become so easy from story missions to sm ops. I don't think making everything easy is the solution to some people to not quit, if people quit because there is someting they can't beat easily is bioware designe philosophy's fault that made everything easy  in previous expansions. I don't remember if i read it on an article or saw it on a youtube video a few months back about why now most game cater to everything being easy and the pushback elder ring had with having no easy difficulty level. And the article said that devs now make everything easy to actually take advantage of it's players, push them into a sense of instant gratification and taking no work to get what they want so when they are in front of a road block, call it requiering skill or grinding, things like... microtransactions...  are more likely to be bought, just pull out the credit card and probblem solved for them. There are people that are buying/aquiring 63 hypercrates to get a full r4 hm clear. Who in their right mind would buy 340.200 cartel coins or aquiered that many through other means for an operation run, those people were decieved by how everything in games are pushing them to just pull out the credit card, or second option is that they are just filthy rich. The skill gap between the "low skill" and the "high skill" players is getting bigger every time, and that is an issue imo. 

About the gear, it is not insulting to me. The issue is that some people just grinded out nim nefra forever to get 330 gear when it was not intended to be the way to gear to 330, if nim nefra would have given just coins like before or r4 now the story would be different. I Would have rather that to be the system, not to gatekeep gear just for a selected group, but to encourage others to do harder content.  Even in single player games you don't get the best weapons armors or cosmetics at the begining of the game, you get them at the end when the game is harder. Those that were not able to do legacy nim ops in 7.0 could get to 330 now in a sm operation. Those that had 330 gear thanks to clearing full nim operations and not just nefra, that i know of at least have either clear dominique hm already or progging it. In a personal way, i wouldn't mind if sm would give gear like 332 or 334, but at the same time i also want people to just learn their class and get better and not expect everything to be easy or handed to them in a silver platter. Bioware did everything possible to not help the newer players to learn the game and their class like they should have with all the difficulty nerfs and lack of motivation for people to engage and learn harder diffculty content since 4.0 till 7.0, but even with all of that i still firmly believe that once more knowledge is shared with the community about r4  it will become easier for everyone. And for those that want to get better at their class, there are GREAT places to learn how your class works like in the discord SWTOR Theorycrafters, where they teach you how to gear correctly, what stats to have, and several people are always willing to answer your question of the spec you want to learn (the only thing they will get upset about is if you ask about something that is already pinned in the chat of the spec you are asking about, so before asking check the pins). In my own experience those elitist a*holes that everyone talks about or is scared of them are usually not the top players, but those that aspire to be top players and are not so they have to belittle others to feel better about themselves