Tonight my group had a lot of difficulty just finding a flashpoint that we could all run. At 50, trying to do a HM, we first tried HM Esseles and couldn't get past first boss. That's on us. Then we headed to Taral 5, only to realize we couldn't just zone in and run it because half the group hadn't done the stupid Jedi Prisoner questline yet. This also eliminated Maelstrom Prison. So we head back to the Dropship Launcher and discover that none of those flashpoints had HMs. Okay. So we headed to Ilum, but discovered that for some reason one of our group members couldn't get the feeder quest for HM Battle for Ilum. Okay, so we ran False Emperor, but only after dealing with a bug that prevented half the group from entering the HM. We ran FE, and couldn't get past HK-47's enrage (our bad).

Even with our inability to kill certain bosses, it still just sucked trying to find a FP we could even run. It took us over an hour just to get started on FE. You know what I'd love to see? The removal of all the stupid feeder quests that prevent you from entering the FP. Either (1) remove them entirely and make each FP freely enterable, (2) tell us in the Codex where each starter NPC is, or (3) station the only NPC you need to enter RIGHT BY THE ZONE LINE. HM FPs are challenging enough without all the extra BS you deal with just trying to zone in. We almost gave up the whole enterprise just trying to enter a freaking FP. Why are there these barriers to entry? In every other MMO, you just zone in. Story (in the form of the feeder quests) shouldn't trump gameplay, BioWare.

Man, I feel bad for bioware. On one hand you have people saying there isn't enough to do, on another you have people saying take out stuff to do because its too hard. So tell me, who the hell do they listen to? Their customers? LOL

But ya, if you find HM fp hard, you are doing it wrong

Then we headed to Taral 5, only to realize we couldn't just zone in and run it because half the group hadn't done the stupid Jedi Prisoner questline yet. This also eliminated Maelstrom Prison.

You do not actually have to have completed the main story questline to do the instance on Hard. As long as you have the main story quest to do the instance, you can drop the Normal Mode version of the Flashpoint quest (and only the flashpoint quest, not the main story quest) than the NPC outside the instance will give you the Hard Mode version of the Flashpoint quest. You can also have someone share the Hard Mode version if you are having issues getting the NPC to give the quest. But, again, you still need to have the main story quest progressed to the stage where you need the flashpoint, and the Hard version does indeed progress the main story quest. You will need to do the first instance before you can do the second one though. I'm an Imperial player, so I don't know the names of the quests/instances for Republic, but I've done this for several chars for Boarding Party/The Foundry and Directive 7.

While the OP made some mistakes (you should have been able to to Talal V or FE, but you are not to blame for that), he has a very valid point.

The management of normal and hard mode FPs is very very bad and its easy to get confused about it. I have struggled myself at the beginning when i hit 50 and experience that other players need to be instructed how to properly enter a HM FP if there is a story quest attached (Ilum, FE, D7, Boarding Party, Foundry).

This is one of the many things that are clearly just quick and dirty implemented in this game

The management of normal and hard mode FPs is very very bad and its easy to get confused about it. I have struggled myself at the beginning when i hit 50 and experience that other players need to be instructed how to properly enter a HM FP if there is a story quest attached (Ilum, FE, D7, Boarding Party, Foundry).

Well, Ilum, FE, and BP are only a pain if you have the normal version due to a quest. And technically, that could be an issue with any of the others as well. You could have an old undone BT in your journal. If you don't have the mission, you won't have the normal version of the instance and you can get the hard mode just fine.

Foundry and D7, they both require you to have a quest and progress far enough into it to be able to do them. So those two can be a bit of a pain. Seems like about 1 in 3 chance anytime you try to do the Foundry in a PUG situation than one of the player's picked up hasn't done BP as part of the quest and therefore cannot do the Foundry. And D7 you can do pretty easily, but finding the right droid to get Immediate Vengeance can be a bit of a pain.

Is this difficult or inconvenient? lol..

Esseles? Isn't that Republic equivalent of Black Talon? Your problems are bigger than you think if you can't finish BT HM...

OP, the fact that you couldn't get in is actually a good thing. These kinds of "feeder" quests are there to force you to be at a certain level before you go into the flashpoint. Making you do some quests firsts and get some gear through those quests not only improves your ability to do the flashpoint, it reinforces that the flashpoint is something more special than a heroic quest that you just round up a bunch of people for while questing. If you can't coordinate enough to find the quest-giver and get into the instance, you likely won't be able to coordinate enough to defeat the fight mechanics.

Personally, I think there need to be MORE of those feeder quests, not less. Ideally, just to unlock hardmodes you'd have to run each instance on normal AND do a chain of quests that drops a full set of lvl 50 blue/orange gear.

Personally, I think there need to be MORE of those feeder quests, not less. Ideally, just to unlock hardmodes you'd have to run each instance on normal AND do a chain of quests that drops a full set of lvl 50 blue/orange gear.

Um no thank you. Normal mode 50s are useless, except Kaon, cause they don't drop loot near or better than what you can mod good ole orange with daily mods. There is no reason to force me to get every fp done at normal just to enter hm on all of my alts. While everyone should finish normal mode once in their lifetime, just to know what to expect roughly, limiting that to char is just a waste of time.

If anything normal 50s should have their loot table adjusted to make it worth running and actually prepare new people for hms, which they dont do by any means right now.

Is this difficult or inconvenient? lol..

 

Esseles? Isn't that Republic equivalent of Black Talon? Your problems are bigger than you think if you can't finish BT HM...

Esseles is actually one of the hardest hm on republic side. Ironfist has a headshot attack that deals 10-15k dmg on a 2 s cast time with a 6-10s cd.

I agree with the OP.

I'm running my healer guildmate through normal Foundry right now so that he is eligible for the HM, and yesterday I had to run my marauder guildmate through both BP and then Foundry (despite the fact that he's done BP HM 3 or 4 times).

I still have no clue how to get people inside D7, HM or Normal.

This is particularly frustrating for our pint-sized guild. We've only got 5 50's, so having 1 or 2 not eligible for a FP means no run

I agree with the OP.

 

I'm running my healer guildmate through normal Foundry right now so that he is eligible for the HM, and yesterday I had to run my marauder guildmate through both BP and then Foundry (despite the fact that he's done BP HM 3 or 4 times).

You don't have to do Foundry normal to do the hardmode. Simply open the journal, dump the normal version of the flashpoint, and pick up the hard mode from the guy by the entrance. And it isn't doing BP that qualifies you for the Foundry, but doing the Call to Arms mission and advancing it sufficiently, which involves doing BP, either normal or hard.

Speaking of Call to Arms, it'd actually be nice if that were required to have in order to qualify for BP. That way, anyone who has done BP at least once would qualify for the Foundry.

I still have no clue how to get people inside D7, HM or Normal.

There's a droid in the SW outer ring of the main base that gives a mission called Immediate Vengeance. Believe you can pick it up on Ilum as well. With that, you are good to go for either version. If you want to do the hard mode right away, just dump the normal version (but keep Immediate Vengeance) and pick up the hard mode from the mission giver near the entrance of the flashpoint.

This is particularly frustrating for our pint-sized guild. We've only got 5 50's, so having 1 or 2 not eligible for a FP means no run

The only one that would slow you down is the Foundry. All the rest can be done as hard modes right away, with the minor hassle of maybe having to pick up Immediate Vengeance for D7.

That said, it would be nice if there was a Call to Arms quest giver near the BP entrance and an Immediate Vengeance one right next to the D7 entrance.

^ You are awesome.

Thanks for all the info, this will make my life a lot easier.

I still wish the system weren't so convoluted. Once you hit 50 or complete your class quest, or something, all the NPCs outside all the FPs should activate.

I still wish the system weren't so convoluted. Once you hit 50 or complete your class quest, or something, all the NPCs outside all the FPs should activate.

I think the inconsistency doesn't help either.

D7 requires you to pick up a mission before it can be done, even though it has no follow up.

But Kaon, Battle of Ilum, and BP don't. However, to do the Foundry, you've got to advance the mission sufficiently. This though doesn't apply to False Emperor, which is to Battle of Ilum as Foundry is to Boarding Party. And who knows how it'll be with the Kaon follow up, when that gets added. Will it be like BP/Foundry or like BoI/FE?

They need to pick one method and consistently apply it to all the HMs.

Tonight my group had a lot of difficulty just finding a flashpoint that we could all run. At 50, trying to do a HM, we first tried HM Esseles and couldn't get past first boss. That's on us. Then we headed to Taral 5, only to realize we couldn't just zone in and run it because half the group hadn't done the stupid Jedi Prisoner questline yet. This also eliminated Maelstrom Prison. So we head back to the Dropship Launcher and discover that none of those flashpoints had HMs. Okay. So we headed to Ilum, but discovered that for some reason one of our group members couldn't get the feeder quest for HM Battle for Ilum. Okay, so we ran False Emperor, but only after dealing with a bug that prevented half the group from entering the HM. We ran FE, and couldn't get past HK-47's enrage (our bad).

 

Even with our inability to kill certain bosses, it still just sucked trying to find a FP we could even run. It took us over an hour just to get started on FE. You know what I'd love to see? The removal of all the stupid feeder quests that prevent you from entering the FP. Either (1) remove them entirely and make each FP freely enterable, (2) tell us in the Codex where each starter NPC is, or (3) station the only NPC you need to enter RIGHT BY THE ZONE LINE. HM FPs are challenging enough without all the extra BS you deal with just trying to zone in. We almost gave up the whole enterprise just trying to enter a freaking FP. Why are there these barriers to entry? In every other MMO, you just zone in. Story (in the form of the feeder quests) shouldn't trump gameplay, BioWare.

It doesn't make sense to you that you need to complete normal before you can do hard mode? Seriously?

It doesn't make sense to you that you need to complete normal before you can do hard mode? Seriously?

You don't need to.

You do not actually have to have completed the main story questline to do the instance on Hard.

And if you have a mix of people who've done the 1st flashpoint (Taral V) of that set and people who haven't, and people who've done it dropped the jedi quest to free up space while leveling... it can be confusing even getting people into Taral V

You can also have someone share the Hard Mode version if you are having issues getting the NPC to give the quest.

Is this difficult or inconvenient? lol..

 

Esseles? Isn't that Republic equivalent of Black Talon? Your problems are bigger than you think if you can't finish BT HM...

here you can clearly see who was playing the game, and who was only rushing to 50.

I did every Flashpoint during the leveling. And i have no problems at all to find these, or to do these on normal or hard.

Just because some are simply not able to do some easys quests, everything to be changed? Just want the easy way: NPC, Hard, Go, Loot.

In my opinion, every flashpoint should be unlocked by a questchain. No entry for these who dont want, or arnt able to do this.

Is this difficult or inconvenient? lol..

 

Esseles? Isn't that Republic equivalent of Black Talon? Your problems are bigger than you think if you can't finish BT HM...

Comparing the easiest HM flashpoint with one of the hardest is not really smart. In case you dont know, Esseles is not compareable with BT, just because the HS Guy is insane.

As far as i know BT is even soloable. Good luck trying this with Essles.....

here you can clearly see who was playing the game, and who was only rushing to 50.

I did every Flashpoint during the leveling. And i have no problems at all to find these, or to do these on normal or hard.

Esseles is actually one of the hardest hm on republic side. Ironfist has a headshot attack that deals 10-15k dmg on a 2 s cast time with a 6-10s cd.

Interrupt?...easy.

here you can clearly see who was playing the game, and who was only rushing to 50.

 

I did every Flashpoint during the leveling. And i have no problems at all to find these, or to do these on normal or hard.

 

 

Just because some are simply not able to do some easys quests, everything to be changed? Just want the easy way: NPC, Hard, Go, Loot.

 

In my opinion, every flashpoint should be unlocked by a questchain. No entry for these who dont want, or arnt able to do this.

 

 

 

 

Comparing the easiest HM flashpoint with one of the hardest is not really smart. In case you dont know, Esseles is not compareable with BT, just because the HS Guy is insane.

 

As far as i know BT is even soloable. Good luck trying this with Essles.....

Soloing BT normal is pretty easy...so is normal essles. As long as you are a healer, they are all simple.

Yes, Ironfist is the hardest boss to solo...but he's still really simple. Heal yourself and every once in a while hit him. takes a really long time, but it's still pretty easy.

Just like the 2nd boss of BT is a pain due to your companion not moving out of fire.

Soloing Hardmode doesn't work, due to enrage timers.

Soloing BT normal is pretty easy...so is normal essles. As long as you are a healer, they are all simple.

 

Yes, Ironfist is the hardest boss to solo...but he's still really simple. Heal yourself and every once in a while hit him. takes a really long time, but it's still pretty easy.

 

Just like the 2nd boss of BT is a pain due to your companion not moving out of fire.

 

Soloing Hardmode doesn't work, due to enrage timers.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=329379

Doing BT HM daily 2 man

 

Me Jugger vengence + DPS pet

Friend Powertech + Healing Pet

 

takes around 15-20 min

Good luck trying this in Esseles .

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=329379

 

 

Good luck trying this in Esseles .

The poster was talking about soloing it, not doing it in a group of two

I have no idea if you can duo HM Esseles...my highest republic character is in his teens.

As for duo'ing HM BT, idk why you would (other than to see if it was possible)....if you can duo it in less than 20 min (like the poster claims), then there's nothing you could possibly need from there including the daily/weekly quests.

It's possible to duo many HM's, not just BT.