Veteran-Flashpoints "Black Talon/ Esseless"

[Sylvannai]

We know that the PTS phase is ongoing and the team is focused on the fixes and improvements.

And the Subject of Black Talon and Esseless was also brought up a few Weeks ago.

But goodness gracious, isn't it possible to just take those Flashpoints off the activity stream when it comes to Veteran?.

It can't be that four 80's characters from 28 Flashpoints get this (*censored*) Fp of all things (Black Talon/Imp).

Most of the time, these FPs are not even entered, but understandably people leave the group in advance and accept the ban because nobody wants to run these Flashpoints in Veteran.

[ThanderSnB]

It's pretty bad when you get them multiple times in a row. Most times if everyone is 80 everyone spacebars, but often times there's a new player that wants to watch everything and kill all the mobs one group at a time (rather than running to elevator to AoE everything at once). When this happens, Esseles takes like 45 minutes to get through. Removing them from the random queue would be fine for now, but ideally, they would remove cutscenes from veteran. Maybe they can figure out some way to keep the light side/dark side choices, but the rest of them can be removed. Another option would be to remove most of the trash mobs, so it's just cutscenes and boss fights. That would speed things up quite a bit. If they did this, they could have the bonus boss automatically enabled.

[Sylvannai]

It's correct. 45 minutes is quite enough.
We did it once for two new players in a fellow guild who requested this.

It's just nerve-wracking when, like once in my case, you play through with three people who are level 80, one with level 30, gets Black Talon, logs onto another character with level 80 and what does the activity finder get?: Black Talon

Somehow the fuse will soon blow in your head. ^^

Delisting first would probably be the best option at this point (due to work on 7.2).

[JediQuaker]

If - and it's a big IF - it's done 'right' Esseles can be fairly quick - at least as compared to some others.

Quick tips:

- SPACEBAR through the cutscenes. You can spacebar quite rapidly too.

- as mentioned above, mount up (vehicle) and drive to the next elevator, agroing all the mobs along the way. Then AOE at the elevator.

- select the option to evacuate the engineers into space to get the bridge open. A small DS tick, but it then skips the whole 'disable the generators' bit.

- there are also a few places where you can simply run around mobs without agroing them, such as just before you drop down the hole near the end.

[SteveTheCynic]

On 11/25/2022 at 12:30 AM, ThanderSnB said:

If they did this, they could have the bonus boss automatically enabled.

Or just require the button pushing (for BT) at the end.  For SLS, the bonus boss is triggered by button pushing anyway.

[StormForceDax]

On 11/24/2022 at 7:08 PM, Sylvannai said:

We know that the PTS phase is ongoing and the team is focused on the fixes and improvements.

And the Subject of Black Talon and Esseless was also brought up a few Weeks ago.

But goodness gracious, isn't it possible to just take those Flashpoints off the activity stream when it comes to Veteran?.

It can't be that four 80's characters from 28 Flashpoints get this (*censored*) Fp of all things (Black Talon/Imp).

Most of the time, these FPs are not even entered, but understandably people leave the group in advance and accept the ban because nobody wants to run these Flashpoints in Veteran.

These are the only FP's I run in Vet mode. 

Only difference is I run them as a solo player. Removing them from group finder is an option, but personally I would just remove group finder. The reward for group finder is marginal at best. Far to many players come away with no gear as it rolled for, the level 80 crate gear is below the rating I have anyway, same as world bosses. Seems to course far more grief than it worth here on the forums.

[DeannaVoyager]

My personal solution to fix the problem: 

When you get a pop for vet fps, check the levels of the players. If there are people below lvl 50 in the suggested group, decline. Wait a moment before q'ing again. If the previous group pops again, put that lowbie on ignore until you get a new group for something else. You may still get BT or Esseles with higher level group, but the chances are lower, and higher level players usually skip the convos too. 

 

 

[TonyTricicolo]

I think it's about time they remove that silly penalty for leaving flashpoints. 

[fordpre]

I'd settle for an option for veteran or master mode flashpoints to have speeded up or dialog when you queue. If you want the story go solo it in story mode!

 

[jedimasterjac]

It’s frankly silly that HMFPs have, from their inception, still used dialogue. Just not necessary. 

[SteveTheCynic]

1 hour ago, fordpre said:

I'd settle for an option for veteran or master mode flashpoints to have speeded up or dialog when you queue. If you want the story go solo it in story mode!

OK, but how do I play solo-mode Hammer Station?

[Otowi]

Yeah, Esseless, and BT can be really painfull... Had one Vet Esseless, where all were above lvl 70, and I thought it would be easy, right? Wrong this one person had never done Esseless, and wanted too see all cutscenes, but also pulling all mobs, as he thought that was a bonus objective for some reason... Didn't even get half way through before two bailed, then I bailed shortly after that.

These FP's are long enough as is, but with all the convos it takes even longer. I mean the story is ok on both sides, but I feel like this should have been part of the main story line, and used as an early introduction to FP's, but that boat is long gone...

[DWho]

11 minutes ago, Otowi said:

Yeah, Esseless, and BT can be really painfull... Had one Vet Esseless, where all were above lvl 70, and I thought it would be easy, right? Wrong this one person had never done Esseless, and wanted too see all cutscenes, but also pulling all mobs, as he thought that was a bonus objective for some reason... Didn't even get half way through before two bailed, then I bailed shortly after that.

These FP's are long enough as is, but with all the convos it takes even longer. I mean the story is ok on both sides, but I feel like this should have been part of the main story line, and used as an early introduction to FP's, but that boat is long gone...

BT and Esseles were exactly that, an introduction to flashpoints for low level characters (they were intended to be done by characters at or just above the starter level of Coruscant) and were story heavy because that was how the game was at the time. Them becoming end game content is something that happened much later. It's easier to just increase the hp of the opponents, apparently, than to develop suitable content for the character levels involved. Somewhere around 4.0 (maybe 3.0, I don't recall exactly) all flashpoints were "upgraded" to end game content and Group Finder was introduced to take the place of "introduction to flashpoints" so newish players who hadn't established connections to other players yet could have some hope of getting together a group to play them.

[raikme]

I think ALL conversations should be removed in Veteran and Master flashpoints.  

Wanna watch the story? Great, there's the story mode.

[FlameYOL]

I don't think SWTOR is in a position of removing content from group finder when content barely gets added to it.

[Otowi]

15 hours ago, DWho said:

BT and Esseles were exactly that, an introduction to flashpoints for low level characters (they were intended to be done by characters at or just above the starter level of Coruscant) and were story heavy because that was how the game was at the time. Them becoming end game content is something that happened much later. It's easier to just increase the hp of the opponents, apparently, than to develop suitable content for the character levels involved. Somewhere around 4.0 (maybe 3.0, I don't recall exactly) all flashpoints were "upgraded" to end game content and Group Finder was introduced to take the place of "introduction to flashpoints" so newish players who hadn't established connections to other players yet could have some hope of getting together a group to play them.

Oh I know that, but they were never part of the main quest line to get to the capital worlds, you had to speak to an NPC to start it. Had they instead made it so that you were lead to the NPC to play them, it would have been a better way of introducing FP's to the player base.

Most new players don't know thay you can pick up the quest before you turn and run to to the transport that takes you to the capital planets directly.

Edited November 29, 2022 by Otowi

[DWho]

1 hour ago, Otowi said:

Oh I know that, but they were never part of the main quest line to get to the capital worlds, you had to speak to an NPC to start it. Had they instead made it so that you were lead to the NPC to play them, it would have been a better way of introducing FP's to the player base.

Most new players don't know thay you can pick up the quest before you turn and run to to the transport that takes you to the capital planets directly.

True, when they put them on "terminals" they became something to farm rather than something to enjoy running through. When flashpoints and heroics became primarily farming content, I pretty much stopped playing most group content (farming content in a group is something that just doesn't appeal to me). Having to pick them up on the planet where they were supposed to be run made them feel like part of the storyline, even if they were only loosely tied to it. The "terminal" effect broke that part of the "immersion". At this point they should just make all flashpoints soloable with different difficulties (sort of like KotFE Chapters - but properly balanced) even if they have to remove some of the more complex mechanics (they did do that with Esseles when they removed the bonus boss switches that required two players to click them simultaneously). Lack of new content has been the problem and I wish it were possible to return the flashpoints to their original levels rather than have them all be end game, but without new content, we're stuck with what we have.

Edited November 29, 2022 by DWho
Corrected Black Talon to Esseles per SteveThe Cynic

[SteveTheCynic]

1 hour ago, Otowi said:

Most new players don't know thay you can pick up the quest before you turn and run to to the transport that takes you to the capital planets directly.

The NPC has a standard yellow-triangle mission-giver marker, so I'd hope that new players might at least be a little curious about what the mission on offer is...

[SteveTheCynic]

4 minutes ago, DWho said:

(they did do that with Black Talon when they removed the bonus boss switches that required two players to click them simultaneously)

That was Esseles, not Black Talon.  The BT bonus is kill 20 foes(1), then kill 40 more foes, then push four buttons one after another, then fight the boss.

(1) I'm not 100% sure of the numbers, but the second is definitely twice the first.

EDIT: and the switches are still there in Story mode, but you only have to press one.

Edited November 29, 2022 by SteveTheCynic
left out a bit

[Toraak]

18 hours ago, DWho said:

BT and Esseles were exactly that, an introduction to flashpoints for low level characters (they were intended to be done by characters at or just above the starter level of Coruscant) and were story heavy because that was how the game was at the time. Them becoming end game content is something that happened much later. It's easier to just increase the hp of the opponents, apparently, than to develop suitable content for the character levels involved. Somewhere around 4.0 (maybe 3.0, I don't recall exactly) all flashpoints were "upgraded" to end game content and Group Finder was introduced to take the place of "introduction to flashpoints" so newish players who hadn't established connections to other players yet could have some hope of getting together a group to play them.

Partially true. All of the original FP's were meant to be endgame content when you hit max level at 50 back at launch. The last boss of MM FP's gave out a Columni piece of gear which was the same as a story mode Operations token.

Edited November 29, 2022 by Toraak

[DarthSpekulatius]

1 hour ago, Toraak said:

Partially true. All of the original FP's were meant to be endgame content when you hit max level at 50 back at launch. The last boss of MM FP's gave out a Columni piece of gear which was the same as a story mode Operations token.

or to write it how it actually was: no max level endgame grinder was ever meant to be in most Story mode FPs, they were meant to spend time in the HM version of the FPs and not bother the little ones with their degeneracy.

[Otowi]

5 hours ago, SteveTheCynic said:

The NPC has a standard yellow-triangle mission-giver marker, so I'd hope that new players might at least be a little curious about what the mission on offer is...

True, but the main quests are the purple triangle along with the planetary mission lines, so they may well assume that it's not interesting being yellow...

[fordpre]

On 11/28/2022 at 10:46 PM, SteveTheCynic said:

OK, but how do I play solo-mode Hammer Station?

Which is why I said you can have an option to disable dialog. If everyone in the group agrees to dialog fine, group them and go if not the rest of us that have done in numerous times can queue for a group without dialog.

[warrico]

yes, please just remove them from the veteran queue (or allow us to blacklist 1 without penalizing us)

[DarthCasus]

Been saying it for years, make tiers with different rewards for specific flashpoints and have matchmaking roll people queued for higher tiered ones into lower tiered but with higher rewards if queue goes on too long. Here's an idea:

Veteran: Narrative > Core > Hardcore

Master Mode: T1 > T2 > T3

Narrative Vets would keep conversations but upward of that in Vet and Core would keep Light or Dark decisions or re-enable the DvL toggle (please, give it back..) for flashpoints to auto-grant the points without initiating dialogue. 

It was said that they wanted player feedback, like @EricMusco asked for (in this thread btw) on player perception of length/difficulty/satisfaction, so feel free to voice your opinions. The player base has LONG been in agreement over certain portions of FP content. We know the pug killers, we know the super long, we know the quick fixes. Take some time to let the devs know and maybe we'll get something good out of it since Bioware seems willing to work on some of these things.