Will the average player continue to play a game where they can't complete new content or have access to top end gear?

That's the question BW should be pondering. It doesn't matter if the top 10% of players who run orginized raids find the game easy. That's what nightmare mode is for, to get extra gear as a reward for running extra hard content.

Most of the people who play this game are casual. The casual player should be able to complete operation and hard mode flashpoints with their friends. They should eventually be able to complete hard mode operations to get top rated gear after a month or two of gear progression.

The current state of the game restricts the average casual player, by far the majority, from having access to end game content and gear.

The best players and best raiders should have a challenge. For them we have nightmare mode and yes, I agree, it should be really hard. Much harder then it is now. The problem is hard mode ops. The top players want it to be elite player exclusive transistion grounds and the casual player wants access to the best gear.

Hard mode, has to be casual friendly. Why? I'll tell you why, because people will not play a game where they are excluded and in a game like this, gear is everything. The same goes for rated warzones. If you restrict average players from the best gear. They wil not praticipate for very long. Who would?

Many casual people hung on just long enough to see some of the changes made in 1.2. What did they see? They saw that they will not be doing the new operation. They see that very soon they will be given a warzone rating and will be told they can't have PvP gear if they don't add up to the pro player.

IMO, BW has gone the wrong direction with this update. I think it will effect the overall player base and we will see a huge dip in subscribers. BW should have made nightmare modes harder and the new hard mode operation accessible.

Everything I have said is anecdotal, am I right? What are your opinions on the new content and will people stay to play it? I don't think they will.

I apologize, but everything you wrote is irrelevant. Eternity vault and Karagga's are doable by folks in tionese/light Columni or Champion geared players on normal mode, rewarding them with Columni gear. Hard mode is doable by mostly Columni players, rewarding Rakata, and Nightmare continues from there.

PVP endgame content is accessible by everyone and anyone.. Rewarding you based on your persistence.. You can easily do better than those who have better gear than yourself.

Explosive conflict is hard, as it should be, to satisfy those willing to work hard enough to get the next level tier of items.

Again, I have no idea where you are coming from. Good day

I apologize, but everything you wrote is irrelevant. Eternity vault and Karagga's are doable by folks in tionese/light Columni or Champion geared players on normal mode, rewarding them with Columni gear. Hard mode is doable by mostly Columni players, rewarding Rakata, and Nightmare continues from there.

 

PVP endgame content is accessible by everyone and anyone.. Rewarding you based on your persistence.. You can easily do better than those who have better gear than yourself.

 

Explosive conflict is hard, as it should be, to satisfy those willing to work hard enough to get the next level tier of items.

 

 

Again, I have no idea where you are coming from. Good day

I was talking about 1.2 content.

Also wasn't looking for snide comments. Was looking for responses an opinions and elaboration on why you think what you do and explain it thoroughly.

As stated I wanted to know what people's opinions where and why. I don't care if you just disagree. If you do disagree, please keep it relevant to what I said at least and stay on the topic of 1.2 content and what direction it is headed.

Thanks for coming

PVP endgame content is accessible by everyone and anyone.. Rewarding you based on your persistence.. You can easily do better than those who have better gear than yourself.

Replying to the relevant part of your post.

I never said someone couldn't beat some who is in better gear. Right now PvP rewards are based on persistence. Take a look at war hero stuff, ratings come into play soon and gear will have a rating restriction. Do you think people will continue to play when restricted from the best gear? I don't think they will, who would?

I agree with the original poster. The new HM flashpoint is not pug friendly. I made the mistake of pugging dps for it today and gave up after 2.5 hours of wiping and 2 trips to the repair bot. It is frustrating since I complete it with relative ease in guild groups. The pug group did make it to the end boss in that 2.5 hours, but it was grueling and not in the least bit enjoyable.

The new raid is harder than the previous raids in Hard mode and probably even nightmare. It will not be experienced by the vast majority of players tuned the way it currently is. My guild is having some trouble even on story mode despite completing the previous tier on nightmare. As a result, the guild is already seeing a higher rate of attrition in its raider ranks and the bench of the guild is not deep enough to suffer too many additional losses. As a result, I would not be surprised if in a couple of more weeks that we either will not be able to field a raid group or will need to start clearing EV and KP again to gear new recruits intead of working on the new content

I believe the developers over corrected from previous tiers perceived ease

It doesn't matter what the dev's do. At first all people complained about was everything was too easy and how boring the game was.

Now Bioware gives more challenging content at the next tier and now its too hard.

The issue isn't content difficulty, The issue is an entitled and whiny community that is never happy. So instead of being super excited about having to go back and run T1 HM FP's and HM/NM Ops to get more gear or find a better Operation group to run with people sit on the fleet alt tabbed and complain on the forums.

This game will never be perfect, No game will ever be perfect. just shut up and enjoy the ride.

As far as I know, the PvP items that are restricted by rating are fluff (mounts, gear with different appearances but the same stats). It will be far easier to get War Hero gear with ranked tokens, but you can do ranked matches without having a high rating.

As far as PvE goes, I think the Black Hole gear is really nice for people who aren't able/willing to jump right into Explosive Conflict Hard Mode. It opens up a new avenue for progression regardless of whether you've been farming hard mode operations or not.

Biovat, thank you for the enlightening reply. The issue is the difficulty. The game went from being at difficulty level 1 to a difficulty level of say around 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. My view is that maybe they should have settled on something lower like a difficulty level of say 5.

This isnt my first MMO, nor am I new to raiding. My opinion is that they over reacted to a vocal minority that thought the game was too easy. At the end of the day it is a game and with the difficulty set the way it currently is it is not an enjoyable one to me.

So i will play out the couple of months I have left on my six month subscription and then probably go back to playing my old MMO.

As far as black hole gear, at least it is decently itemized, but people will just end up buying the pieces to pull the mods out to put in their old tier of gear to keep the set bonuses, which is the same reason augmented gear is worthless to almost anyone not running HM EC.

Because everyone in wow has access to heroic gear right?

And everyone in wow has access to the highest tier arena gear right?

And they can all get this gear without raiding or pvping or putting in any work right?

And if they can't get this gear without putting in the work, and people will quit in droves like you claim, then why is it still the most successful game ever, and still has more than 5 times the subscribers as the next highest mmo.

So obviously bioware should 100% ignore the best company role model they have and do what you and a vocal minority think they should do eh?

I disagree with the notion that Hard Mode operations need to be accessible to everyone. It's called Hard Mode for a reason, and the gear it rewards is for completing the challenging content. For those who want to experience the raid there's Story Mode, which currently is intended to take place after participation in the last tier of raids and acquisition of some of that gear.

I've never understood the notion that everyone needs the best gear available. If a player is not completing the hard content then what does it matter if their mods are 61 or 58? The mobs in the Corellia dailies or the easier operations or the flashpoints die just the same. Hell, now anyone can get top tier looks (War Hero at least) and just slot whatever mods they want, so looking cool isn't even a reason. The gear exists to make progressively harder content feasible and to provide a sense of accomplishment with a modicum of exclusivity for the efforts.

You've stated that Nightmare Mode should be the realm of the more hardcore segment of the player base. Out of curiosity have you done Nightmare at all? In both Eternity Vault and Karagga's Palace the Nightmare difficulty gave, with few notable exceptions, the exact same rewards as Hard difficulty. There's currently no word from the developers that this is likely to change with Explosive Conflict. But if they did give gear, say mod level 63 gear, then would the argument lobbied against Hard being exclusive not simply be extended to Nightmare? That's gear everyone can't get after all, so need the devs make it more accessible and add a Double Nightmare mode?

I'm not trying to put words in your mouth so forgive me if it seems that way. I can sympathize with where you're coming from on the basis that the current Story Mode does not provide any upgrades over the last generation of operations and is harder. I would be fine with Story giving 60 mods, hard 62, and nightmare 65, or something along those lines, so that even people with Rakata get upgrades from new content. But I don't feel that the top tier of gear needs to be accessible to everyone, since it's unnecessary to completion of the rest of the game.

As far as PvP is concerned, I've stated a lot of issues I have with post-1.2 PvP. One of them is that the gear acquisition is a slippery slope where the winners keep getting better geared and winning more handily(and I say this as a winner most of the time). However you have the wrong information about gear. War Hero gear, currently the highest available, does not require a certain rating level (or even a certain valor level I'm fairly certain but don't quote me on that). What does require a certain rating is the (Rated) version of the crafted War Hero cosmetic set, which is a different color than the regular War Hero cosmetic (that doesn't require any rating). Is it not fair that someone with a high rating distinguish themselves in a warzone with something as small as a different color on the same armor with the same stats? I think that's quite fair, and the colors should honestly be made less horrid.

I cleared sinestra etc. and was 5/8 dragon soul heroic a couple of months ago when i stopped playing. I don't mind heroic content being hard, but I was discussing story mode EC. Story mode is not supposed to be harder than the previous tiers nightmare mode imo.

Also, from what I recall WoW added LFR to let everyone see the current tier of content and get the current set bonuses even if people are not great players and do not run with a guild. So if they were to follow WoWs example, then they should be adding a LFR mode for EC or maybe that was the difficulty level that story mode was supposed to equate to, which would make sense as SM=LFR HM=NM WoW and then Nightmare=Heroic WoW

Good thread Reryn and I can see where youre coming from with it.

I do like that BW upped difficulty of the raids but on other hand I dont think that everything is well balanced and in my opinion is not good that many paying customers of this game will be locked out of the new content and will not be able to experience it since I seen that even ops groups of rakata geared players are strugling now in the story mode.

It would be much better if BW would do what Blizzard is doing with their raids , aka have story mode which would be mode for the beginners and new players to MMO where they would be able to progress and experience and have a chance to see the content of new ops.

Have hard mode which would be in fact mode maded for cordinated groups of players and guilds to progress which would be accesible but with balanced difficulty so that they would still be challenging and which would reward players with highest tiers of loot .

And have nightmare ops for the players which seek hardest and most challenging content possible and something to brag about and make this mode rly challenging and make some special rewards for this type of players like some unique cool looking mounts and special items like legendaries so that they would have something for show off .

Also should be mentioned here how the new 1.2 raid design is not good in any way to newcomers to this game and rerollers or players which have been absent for whatever reason since those groups of players are locked out of the new content because many guilds dont do anymore previous tier of ops and also demand from the players to have tier 1 rakata gear to even step into tier 2 ops.

So maybe BW should consider to also implement what Blizzard did in the way that players in that game can have access to previous tier of raid gear and purchase it with hard mode commendations.

It doesn't matter what the dev's do. At first all people complained about was everything was too easy and how boring the game was.

 

Now Bioware gives more challenging content at the next tier and now its too hard.

 

The issue isn't content difficulty, The issue is an entitled and whiny community that is never happy. So instead of being super excited about having to go back and run T1 HM FP's and HM/NM Ops to get more gear or find a better Operation group to run with people sit on the fleet alt tabbed and complain on the forums.

 

This game will never be perfect, No game will ever be perfect. just shut up and enjoy the ride.

I'm in a progressive raid guild, we complete the content regardless and we get the gear.

It isn't an issue of whiny players. If average players lack the skill to have access to similar gear as the better players. They aren't going to play the game. I think the nightmare modes should be xponentially tougher and reward same stat items with different appearances and/or titles. I have many friends that I don't raid with who aren't the best players. They are fun and they are friends, but why would they stick around in a game that they can't complete almost all of the content? The have already quit, people are leaving in droves, it's plainly obvious. The question is why these people are leaving? Well from my experience people leave because they are locked out of content because they can't complete it. Some where OK with just completing hard modes. Before They could sometimes muster out a hard mode and get gear, in 1.2 they cannot. In the end, it's better to piss of and loose the top 10% then the middle 70%.

I understand that you want to be rewarded for your skill or whatever, but without the massively in your MMO, you will find that it isn't so much fun anymore.

Some people on these forums act as if they are some sort of elite medieval nobles. They have a table full of delicious raid gear. They think the average commoner should be content with fighting the dogs for the scraps that fall to the floor laugh haughtily and pronounce they should be happy they got anything! Plebs!

I disagree with the notion that Hard Mode operations need to be accessible to everyone. It's called Hard Mode for a reason, and the gear it rewards is for completing the challenging content. For those who want to experience the raid there's Story Mode, which currently is intended to take place after participation in the last tier of raids and acquisition of some of that gear.

I have done several bosses on nightmare mode. Don't do it a lot.

I agree about the challenge and the difficulty of doing operations. My point is people are not going to stick around or be content with sub tier items. Nightmare is the true hard mode in this game. The hard mode is more of a normal mode for people who have the right gear. It's a good naming convention because it makes the average player feel like they have accomplished something.

Why couldn't you run the nightmare modes with hard mode gear, wouldn't it be more challenging that way? It is the challenge that you say you want right?

Facts are that if the average person can't get access to top tier gear. They will not play this game. It doesn't matter that people feel they should have better gear or that they deserve better gear. If the average person people cannot obtain it, they will not play the game. If most of the average players leave the game, we will not have a game for much longer. At least not a game that gets very much attention.

WoW is a good example to look to. The vast majority of people play PVE in WoW and the raid content isn't too hard, the average person can and does complete their raid content. The same isn't true in SWTOR even before 1.2. The only people in my old guild of 200+ who stuck around are 3-4 of the good raiders and 2 guys who play warzones.

You got 3 difficulties...Story, Hard, and Nightmare. Story for those of you who just cant dedicate the time or cant play as well (Casuals) Hard for people like me who play more and have a decent skillset (Average) and Nightmare for the elitists with top end rigs and equal skill.

When they release a new raid they'll nerf this and you'll be able to bring casuals in to pick up that gear. Where do the middle ground players get to go if they nerf Hardmode so casuals can get it? I cant goto Nightmare, and obviously wont be going down to Story. So why should I feel less accomplishment because some people just cant hack it? Hard Mode EC isnt that hard at all, if you cant handle it you just cant handle it...Wait til you get better at the game instead of asking for it to be dumbed down. Do some research, figure your class out...20 minutes of reading on the forums or a theory crafting site wont kill a casual, nor will watching a 10 minute video on a boss on Youtube. But having to do anything outside the game is wrong I guess...thats not why casuals play...it's also the exact reason they dont get Hardmode down and dont deserve the gear....

Personally, I liked the state of the game before 1.2. The poster has made some very valid points regarding the current status of the game. "Story" mode Denova far exceeds the difficulty "hard mode" operations. This has effectively gated the majority of the playerbase from participating in the new operation. Because the game does not promote heavy community partying throughout the leveling process, players are less likely to organize for difficult raids unless they are in a raid-centric guild.

This is evidenced by myself standing in republic fleet that was populated by over 118 people and being unable to find a tank to do a four man hardmode. Most casual players quickly lose interest in the new content and roll alts as promoted by legacy. The problem with this is that many of the leveling planets repeat the same quests and the class quests only comprise a small % of the leveling experience.

Even while leveling alts, players are exposed to roughly the same experience unless they play cross faction -which effectively cuts them off from their familiar communities.

There are no "alternate" leveling planets like in wow, where you had the choice of 3-4 or even 5 different zones that you could level in.

Now rated warzones are coming, operations are requiring more organization and actual raiding guilds, and the majority of players are

-barred from new content due to difficulty

-forced to replay rehashed material while leveling through the "new" legacy system which offers fluff options and race reskins

-running repetitive dailies

Also with the community info from the new patch, the new updates are sending most players BACK to belsavis for dailies on a planet they are already sick and tired of.

For a casually centered game, this direction and the failure to expand the game at lower levels will strangle TOR. TOR can't hope to compete with already established raiding games like RIFT, which just launched 1.8 with an amazing content patch that blows almost all of the raiding content aside from maybe WOW out of the water.

With WoW and RIFT so established in "raiding" and wow holding the title for ranked PVP with guildwars 2 coming shortly to welcome PVPers, where does SWTOR come in?

Bioware released TOR with the idea of the 4th story pillar, but where are the new companions, the same-sex relationships, character customizations, interactive environments, expansions on lore and alternate leveling planets with new stories?

Instead we are getting more raids and ranked WZs.

The info leading to patch 1.5 simply brings 2 new flashpoints and 2 new operations + 2 small quesh-like planets with dailies to the table.

Where is the companion expansion and continued story arcs? At this rate we can't even hide helmets on companions or put their hoods down when RIFT 1.8 came out with a full wardrobe customization system that lets you look anyway you want and its not even an RP game.

TOR was such a huge project with a massive budget, yet it released feeling 5 years behind its time.

On top of that, instead of getting more story, we are getting the gear and progression carrot that is seen in every other MMO when TOR doesn't even have a strong basis on raiding.

Classes have been super simplified to the holy trinity of tank, dps, heal. Advanced classes almost have no flexibility in how they are built, requiring almost 31 points in every effective build while RIFT's soul buidler allows you to mix and match over 32 classes while still gaining better class balance than TOR (evidenced by classes like scrapper being completely unplayable in PVE).

TOR was supposed to expand on story, yet we are all sitting at the epilogue gaining more and more "progression" content a la WoW.

If I wanted to play a progression game with AAA raiding why would I even be on TOR when there are games that are already established for it.

I fear for the direction of TOR. It was supposed to carve a niche out with story, yet instead of getting a constant stream and future vision of a never expanding story... we are getting ranked WZs and more raid content. We are getting the same development cycle seen in games that already do the same thing TOR is now shifting to do. The content in the other games is also better, with better supporting systems.

Soa was bugged 2 months after launch and we are getting more raids and not chapter expansions? Companions are leaving us hanging for people drawn to story and yet we are getting massive PVP changes on a weekly basis when Gw2 is about to release as a complete PVP mmo?

What is TOR trying to do? Does this game even have an identity?

it's also the exact reason they dont get Hardmode down and dont deserve the gear....

I disagree. If you complete hard modes, you're probably a pretty good player. The average player had a hard time with the old hard modes. EC is even tougher.

People will and are leaving the game in disgust now. If I wasn't a decent player and couldn't attain top tier gear and be locked out of parts of the game, I would leave also.

It's not about what people deserve, it's the ability to emphasize with people who aren't as talented as yourself. No one likes being relegated to the newbie tier. It's a matter of making the gear attainable to the average player or be content with just letting those people go.

I disagree. If you complete hard modes, you're probably a pretty good player. The average player had a hard time with the old hard modes. EC is even tougher.

 

People will and are leaving the game in disgust now. If I wasn't a decent player and couldn't attain top tier gear and be locked out of parts of the game, I would leave also.

 

It's not about what people deserve, it's the ability to emphasize with people who aren't as talented as yourself. No one likes being relegated to the newbie tier. It's a matter of making the gear attainable to the average player or be content with just letting those people go.

EV and KP Hardmodes can be walked through with Tionese gear and the crafted Rakata pieces...most casuals dont even know those exist... Everyone wants something they dont need to work for so they can say they're just as good as everyone else. What we need to fix is this self entitled attitude most players have. This whole I pay 15 dollars a month for this I should get everything I want is wrong. You pay 15 dollars a month to play, if they continuously nerf down content to the point the upper 50%, yes I'll say 50, feel as if theres no reason to raid why will they stay? You said something about the upper 10% being in NiM. Ok fine, now the other 40% of the average players are doing EC Story with ease. They've done NiM and HM EV and KP. The other 50% got Story mode so they could see the content, and get lower tier gear until they're good enough to step into the harder content.

But its not about getting better at the game is it? It's about getting the gear you want now without having to work for it like everyone that's better than you has...

EV and KP Hardmodes can be walked through with Tionese gear and the crafted Rakata pieces...most casuals dont even know those exist... Everyone wants something they dont need to work for so they can say they're just as good as everyone else. What we need to fix is this self entitled attitude most players have. This whole I pay 15 dollars a month for this I should get everything I want is wrong. You pay 15 dollars a month to play, if they continuously nerf down content to the point the upper 50%, yes I'll say 50, feel as if theres no reason to raid why will they stay? You said something about the upper 10% being in NiM. Ok fine, now the other 40% of the average players are doing EC Story with ease. They've done NiM and HM EV and KP. The other 50% got Story mode so they could see the content, and get lower tier gear until they're good enough to step into the harder content.

 

But its not about getting better at the game is it? It's about getting the gear you want now without having to work for it like everyone that's better than you has...

I would appreciate that you keep your insults to your self in the future.

Did I ever say anyone should be given something or not having to work for it?

I never said anyone should be given anything.

As for the other parts you tried to rationalize... EV and KP hard modes are doable in Tionese and crafted gear. Not by the average player though.

I also disagree that 50% of the player base is currently complete hard mode operations, that's far from the truth. Of course that part is purely speculation on both of us, although if you look around at most 50's standing around on the fleet, they are not wearing mostly rakatta and campaign gear, so it's pretty safe to say that your argument isn't valid.

There was no insult to you, and even if there were I'd probably find it justified. Goto Anchorhead around 9pm, get onto the fleet and start checking people's gear. Most are in Rakata. Which would mean if we use that server as a base, most people are seeing HM EV and KP, and at least Story Mode EC. But we cant really use that arguement as alot of the people that may not be could very well be alts that arent meant to be geared like their mains are.

So it's OK to insult me?

Everyone who isn't in Rakatta is an alt?

I disagree about anchorhead, although I will go check it out.

The biggest impediment to raiding is not gear : it''s voice communication.

As to Explosive Conflict, the story mode is what you move onto after finishing EV/KP on HM. So it's

EV/KP normal -> EV/KP Hardmode -> EC Normal -> EV/KP Nightmare -> EC Hardmode

The biggest impediment to raiding is not gear : it''s voice communication.

 

As to Explosive Conflict, the story mode is what you move onto after finishing EV/KP on HM. So it's

 

EV/KP normal -> EV/KP Hardmode -> (EV/KP Nightmare) EC Normal ->EC Hardmode

Fixed

But that's not to say that EC is on the same difficulty as EV and KP NiM. Only the gear progression is similar.