Star Wars: The Old Republic is still in its labor pains phase. The game premiered 4 months early, in December. The 1.2 content patch was simply bringing the game up to its release level. It's absolutely presumptuous to say whether or not this game is going to live at this stage.

There are trends that all games follow and there are historical references to look for. WoW very nearly died during its launch, thanks to a very substantial amount of bugs and deficiencies within the game. We're lucky that most of our bugs have been minor, instead of gamebreaking: the in-game guild window not working, the loot tables being mixed, a random assignment feature during normal mode Operations, etc.

These fire and brimstone speeches have little validity at this point. There are servers that are alive, there are players that don't participate in the forum, and there are some people who are very happy with this game. The naysayers are, usually, the most outspoken and, very frequently, the minority. I have no doubt it's the same way in these forums. People are pulling information based on their opinions, not on facts, as we all do. Server consolidation is still a month or two away, if game history has anything to say about it.

Story Mode Denova does not need to be nerfed. The content is not too difficult. Instead of blaming the Operation, players should be looking at themselves, instead. I know, that's a massively logical way to approach it and such things are nearly unheard of, but a player needs to look at him/herself, look at his/her class, and really figure out if s/he knows how to play it properly. After that, s/he needs to find 7 other players who are capable of playing their class and then, after all that, finally learn and correctly apply the mechanics of the fights in the Operation.

This is not an attempt to tell people "learn to play". This is me telling players they need to evaluate if they are playing efficiently. Don't blame content and don't blame other players, before you know whether or not you are the weakest link.

Denova can be cleared. It's been done. If it's been accomplished by one person, it can be accomplished by another. There is no valid excuse that can say the content is too hard, because that means no one would be able to clear it. This means it boils down to one thing: players.

This is a fight that isn't worth picking. This is the same company that released Mass Effect 3 and had a group raise over $80,000, decrying the ending that they chose and demanding a new one, before they even released a statement that said they were going to ELABORATE on the ending. A little bit of whining in the forum is not going to change anything. Let's be progressive, not a bunch of weepy kids who are complaining our playground is too difficult.

These fire and brimstone speeches have little validity at this point. There are servers that are alive, there are players that don't participate in the forum, and there are some people who are very happy with this game. The naysayers are, usually, the most outspoken and, very frequently, the minority. I have no doubt it's the same way in these forums. People are pulling information based on their opinions, not on facts, as we all do. Server consolidation is still a month or two away, if game history has anything to say about it

It is declining.

Layoffs at EA.

Server loads are almost light for every server.

Anyone in a guild can just look at their roster to reassure themselves people are leaving the game.

Posts from BW about how people aren't leaving, they just aren't playing as many hours a week.

The game is in serious decline, if you can't see that, it's because you see only what you want to see.

Time will tell.

It is declining.

 

Layoffs at EA.

 

Server loads are almost light for every server.

 

Anyone in a guild can just look at their roster to reassure themselves people are leaving the game.

 

Posts from BW about how people aren't leaving, they just aren't playing as many hours a week.

 

The game is in serious decline, if you can't see that, it's because you see only what you want to see.

 

Time will tell.

I'd like to see your inclusive list of every person that's unsubscribed from this game.

I read the news, too.

A lot of transfers have been going on.

No one in my guild has quit. I see the same people from other guilds every time I log in.

It's nearing the time for finals for college students. College students make up a large portion of game subscribers.

I refuse to put on blinders and be totally pessimistic, unlike you. I don't see a developer tag anywhere near or under your name. You're welcome to your opinion, but that's all it is. I acknowledged that, you didn't bother giving me the courtesy of acknowledging mine, which is mostly what I expected out of someone who is near-sighted and opinionated.

I think there's a pretty easy answer for that kind of mentality. There's this neat little place on the website where you can remove your credit card information and I believe you can find "Uninstall" in Add/Remove Programs under your Control Panel.

Enjoy your day.

Pretty much agree with everything you said Andex.

I'm a student, I've got exams coming and coursework deadlines, so I'm playing a lot less than I used to. Some of my mates and guildies have quit to focus on studies too.

My ex guild disbanded, people got very inactive pre 1.2 and just never picked up again. So I joined a new guild, and that's just be growing since I joined.

My server (Legions of Lettow) has been consistantly more active (180 -230) on fleet at peak times compared to what it was a month ago.

I'm not.gonna.repeat my entire views about the pros and cons of making the content easier. As I've aired those views in this thread before. However I should state I just cleared 16m Denova last night, and I'm a raider, so the 3rd and 4th boss were fun but not challenging in my eyes. However the first and second, they kinda were.

Maybe I just needed a wake up call back to real raiding and that's why boss 1 and 2 were. Difficult, but I wouldn't say so. If I had to make a choice, I would nerf Boss 1 and 2 a little bit. Not so they're piss easy, but so the complainers can beat them and progress a little further in. As it stands boss 1 feels like a gate keeper keeping bad players from loot lol. And boss 2, once the visual bugs get fixed, maybe increase the enrage timer a bit and they should be fine.

Keep boss 3 and 4 as they are. Otherwise the gap between Story and Hard will become too much for new guilds who want to progress and learn. Afterall good guilds don't spawn on trees.

Yes many of the guilds are from WoW, and many are ex WoW raiders coming together forming new guilds.

But many are still new players, who need a solid progression ladder to improve themselves. And that will not happen if Story Denova gets nerfed too much.

This is not an attempt to tell people "learn to play". This is me telling players they need to evaluate if they are playing efficiently. Don't blame content and don't blame other players, before you know whether or not you are the weakest link.

It really sounds like L2Play to me. Along with dump your friends if they need to L2Play. Then add in a bit of keep playing the content even if you don't like it for good measure. Nevermind it being a long winded pompous insult revolving around an absurd notion that if one person can beat a raid it's not too hard.

It really sounds like L2Play to me. Along with dump your friends if they need to L2Play. Then add in a bit of keep playing the content even if you don't like it for good measure. Nevermind it being a long winded pompous insult revolving around an absurd notion that if one person can beat a raid it's not too hard.

Your perception does not equal my intention. When you figure out the difference between the two, I imagine you'll be able to take it for what it is. I believe the thread is a question about whether or not they should nerf Denova. My post addressed that. Your post just seems to be some attempt, albeit poor, at exactly what you've attempted to accuse me of doing: insulting.

I'd say stay on topic, but that seems a bit of a stretch.

Would you mind explaining to me what is overly difficult about keeping two bosses separate, staying at a certain range from bosses, positioning your tanks correctly, not standing on AoE's, and any of the other mechanics that are involved in the Operation?

I'd very much like to hear why it's hard, not just "it's hard". Or have you even stepped into the instance?

We're finally 4/4 in Denova. I'll say this, we were a middle of the pack WoW guild. The kinds that killed 25m Lich King in normal at about 15% buff but stalled around Putricide/Lich King in 25m Heroic.

We were able to beat each encounter within a few tries each including I think 4 tries on Kephess. IMO, that means the story mode content is well tuned. Its on par with Hardmode EV/KP and maybe just a smidge tougher. I would hope they wait a bit before they nerf the content. The patch isn't even a month old!

Honestly, if you've done any WoW raiding since WOTLK on, none of the mechanics should be new. Maybe the puzzle boss but the new part is the easiest part of that fight. It still boils down to killing streaming adds and occasional burst dps phases on larger, quick-enrage adds with a final phase boss with a threat reset. Standard fare.

Enjoy the challenge. If it were too easy, those "leaving" over difficulty would leave anyway in a few weeks claiming "nothing to do BW!" MMO players are impossible to please.

I personally found Denova challenging but not unduly so, I'm glad to see this level of challenge in a normal mode.

I wouldn't be against an easier "raid finder" type mode but I'm glad the challenge level for the 1.2 raid at its starting difficulty is as high as it is.

One of WoWs great mistakes was making all of its previous content irrelevant after each new patch, if the difficulty is this hard and you need gear from previous ops to even attempt it then people will continue running the older ops which creates a vibrant end game community. Much preferable in my opinion to a few million people constantly running the same raid tier each week with a few dozen other raids sitting empty.....

I personally found Denova challenging but not unduly so, I'm glad to see this level of challenge in a normal mode.

 

I wouldn't be against an easier "raid finder" type mode but I'm glad the challenge level for the 1.2 raid at its starting difficulty is as high as it is.

 

One of WoWs great mistakes was making all of its previous content irrelevant after each new patch, if the difficulty is this hard and you need gear from previous ops to even attempt it then people will continue running the older ops which creates a vibrant end game community. Much preferable in my opinion to a few million people constantly running the same raid tier each week with a few dozen other raids sitting empty.....

My progression group doesn't step into the old raids as much anymore, except when we're taking an alt or a few new members through to help them experience a taste of end-game and get prepped for running their own groups, but I think they gave a great incentive by providing Black Hole commendations from Nightmare KP. It gives us a reason to revisit it, especially in terms of the earpiece/implant upgrades.

That and I still don't have that mount .

You guys just don't listen, at all.

 

I don't doubt that if people put the time in they would eventually get the first boss down just like I did.

 

What you guys seem to refuse to understand is that some people, dare I say most people, just don't find that to be fun. Since these people play games to have fun it really makes no sense for them to spend their night not having fun in the name of "earning" their gear.

 

So instead they will find something they do find fun to do, even if that is another game.

 

Then, and this is the part you guys really need to understand, the devs are going to see that nobody is running the raids and do something about it. The first option will be a across the board nerf into the ground of all modes. Ala WoW, Rift, etc. The next option will be to cut back on raid content and concentrate on content the "casuals" will actually play.

 

The best thing for raiders is that the story mode thing works and keeps enough of the population using the raids so that hard mode can stay as is for the raiders. Demanding that story mode be for raiders as well isn't going to end well for raiders.

I like what this guy said theres too many hard cores posting in this thread saying too keep story mode as hard as a hardmode.. You simply have no concept of casual gamers i manage to get maybe 1 - 3 hours a night online 3 - 5 times a week if im lucky. Most of which is crafting and dailys and we try to arramge a guild run 3 times a week thats if the 20 odd people in our guild ever all show up when schedualled to do so. We dont get angry becuase thats casual guilds, its just a shame when we tried for instance the new flashpoint on hm that we blew out so massivly on the first boss that the majority of the guild now refuses to do the new end game content. We did story mode but as said its pretty easy and the loot isnt very good to warrent doing it more than once for practice.. which is maybe exactly what story mode needs to be.

All im saying is that maybe we casual gamers have no concept of the hardcore guilds and visa versa

I like what this guy said theres too many hard cores posting in this thread saying too keep story mode as hard as a hardmode.. You simply have no concept of casual gamers i manage to get maybe 1 - 3 hours a night online 3 - 5 times a week if im lucky.

 

All im saying is that maybe we casual gamers have no concept of the hardcore guilds and visa versa

Story Mode Denova =/= Hard Mode Denova. There has been no statement in this thread asking for Story Mode to be elevated to the difficulty of Hard Mode. This thread is concerning whether or not the Operation's difficulty should be decreased.

I'm sorry your guild had a rough time of it and it's unfortunate that the players no longer want to do that content after that. There are no guilds that went into it for the first time and cleared it flawlessly. A lot of the PTS guilds spent hours figuring out the way to best complete the content.

Don't get discouraged. The key to completing the content is being positive and progressive, even if the time period you're working with is different than most. If you only have so many hours to play a night, then it might take longer to complete the content than players that have more time to play with. You've got something to look forward to: an unfinished challenge.

I agree with everything except, that, people wont just stop raiding. They will quit. The servers where getting bare before with the current level of difficulty. Since BW went with making the ops harder, that pretty much killed the game.

Let me get this straight. You think KP and EV were too hard to begin with?

I think it's a challenge, and I like that aspect of it.

I don't like that it drops Rakata and Black Hole Coms though. It's not consistent with the difficulty. Each boss should at least have a chance to drop the next tier of gear.

Let me get this straight. You think KP and EV were too hard to begin with?

That's not even close to how it read to me.

I can only assume the OP was talking only about story mode EC, so let me interpret from that angle. I think, honestly that EV/KP normal mode were nearly perfect, for their intended audience. They required you to start thinking about positioning, movement, and some amounts of coordination. KP increased that, especially on Bonethrasher, J&S and Fabricator. Here's the thing. I think that the story modes shouldn't be a major step up from Tier 1 to Tier 2 as so many here are arguing. Minor? Sure, but right now, it's a pretty significant step up from even HM for rewards that are not worth that.

Story modes should be for 3 things. 1. To see the story. 2. To introduce new people to the raid game. And 3. To allow people to gear up to the point that they can go join up with a progression guild if they want to, without being a lead weight around their neck.

1 and 2 are about the fun and coolness factor of the "big" fights, and that's why EC needs to be PUG friendly. I think I've only seen one person in the several threads about this claim that they did it as the intended audience, and they were a "casual" guild in appropriate gear, not a true pug. Most of those yelling are neglecting to mention their own gear and progression level, or are obviously overgeared for the content.

#3 is about the long term health of the raiding game. If you don't have a path like this, you end up with an increasingly small subset of the population growing more and more distant from the larger, more casual/new player crowd (but with some "diamonds in the rough" who WOULD make good raiders), with nearly no way to bridge the gap. And being forced to inbreed recruit. Many games make this mistake.

Casual raid forces may, but PUGs will almost definitely not run the Ops enough times to get everyone geared out in the gear, so the next tier can't be balanced around being fully kitted in the previous stuff (with the possible exception of EC and columi since it's obtainable from FPs sans MH - LI?).

Bah, this ended up being much longer and windier than I anticipated, and I think I still missed something.

I think it's a challenge, and I like that aspect of it.

 

I don't like that it drops Rakata and Black Hole Coms though. It's not consistent with the difficulty. Each boss should at least have a chance to drop the next tier of gear.

Rakata is the next "tier" above Columi. Story mode EV/KP drops Columi > Story mode EC drops Rakata. How this isn't fair is beyond me.

If they nerf Story Mode bosses in EC - then they need to lower the loot.

Right now it's black hole commendations and rakata gear.

Make it drop the same as nightmare EV/KP if you want it nerfed to be easier than the previous tier.

No more black hole comms from chests or bosses and one piece of Rakata with an exotech piece or something.

If you aren't going to do hard mode, then you don't need the gear do you?

You can't have everything handed to you for free, you have to work for it. This holds true in ALL areas of life and video games. Even in wow, the pathetically easy raid finder drops gear that really isn't worth it for people who are doing normal and heroics. You can't even begin to access gear that good unless you are actually raiding.

In life just because a class in school is too hard, you can't get it nerfed because you can't get a passing grade. You can't just have money handed to you because you are poor and don't like it.

Grow up. You can't have everything you want delivered to you on a silver platter and then fed to you by someone using a golden spoon.

A large portion of the player base is semi-casual, for many due to real-life constraints like work and kids.

I think story-mode should be within reach of the majority of 50s with decent gear (columi+some rakata) for the purpose of enjoying the new content, you would think retaining the monthly payment from these players would be incentive enough. Right now it is WAY too hard. We dont want access to the best possible gear, make it drop columi and keep the good stuff locked away on hard and nightmare... we just want to have some slice of the fun.

If you're so cool as to beat this in columi wearing an eye-patch then cool, hard and nightmare mode should be designed for you where hard mode is very hard and nightmare requires the perfect class composition and top-notch players with top-notch gear.

You cannot be serious... story mode too hard? It's easy mode as is. Pugs are running them and downing them without breaking a sweat. My guild busted thorugh 4/4 HM and I've been part of 4/4 story mode pug runs on my alts. If a pug group who have never met or played together before can blow through a raid in one night, there is absolutely no excuse for anyone else to not do the same. I'm sorry but I'm going to have to agree with the rest of the sentiment in this thread and say, L2P or have your guildies/friends learn their class. If they nerfed it and made it any easier, you may as well just go into the instance, click a button, and collect loot. We even had one of our healers switch into a dps spec with healing gear for ***** n giggles to try out another healer in 16m. We still blew through the raid in no time.

If you're telling me random pugs and people screwing around playing a spec they've never played before and in completely inappropiate gear can down content and you can't. I'm afraid the problem isn't the content.

Many will come into this place wipe a half a dozen times and just quit raiding.

.

That's just crazy. I think it's perfectly valid to want a "story mode" where you can kill the bosses and see the content without being a "hardcore" guild, but being able to down every raid boss you encounter in 6 or fewer tries isn't raiding. Players that get frustrated that easily should realize that they don't enjoy raiding (there's nothing wrong with that) and find something else to do wiith their time. If they truly just want to see the story elements and the pretty scenery, they can wait until 1.3 comes out, get overgeared, and then go back and see the 1.2 raid content.

Also note that I don't even think that the 1st boss is the hardest one. I think that depending on your Ops composition, the 2nd fight (with the two tanks) can be significantly harder.

That's just crazy. I think it's perfectly valid to want a "story mode" where you can kill the bosses and see the content without being a "hardcore" guild, but being able to down every raid boss you encounter in 6 or fewer tries isn't raiding. Players that get frustrated that easily should realize that they don't enjoy raiding (there's nothing wrong with that) and find something else to do wiith their time. If they truly just want to see the story elements and the pretty scenery, they can wait until 1.3 comes out, get overgeared, and then go back and see the 1.2 raid content.

 

Also note that I don't even think that the 1st boss is the hardest one. I think that depending on your Ops composition, the 2nd fight (with the two tanks) can be significantly harder.

Story Mode Denova is NOT DIFFICULT. It is far more mechanic heavy than KP and EV, but as long as people can follow instructions, even pugs, undergeared players and casuals can get through it just fine.

People who actually enjoy raiding would rather have a challenge, learn the fight, and overcome that challenge. That's what raiding is about, it's not about just blowing through the content. There's no sense of accomplishment there.

You cannot be serious... story mode too hard? It's easy mode as is. Pugs are running them and downing them without breaking a sweat. My guild busted thorugh 4/4 HM and I've been part of 4/4 story mode pug runs on my alts. If a pug group who have never met or played together before can blow through a raid in one night, there is absolutely no excuse for anyone else to not do the same. I'm sorry but I'm going to have to agree with the rest of the sentiment in this thread and say, L2P or have your guildies/friends learn their class. If they nerfed it and made it any easier, you may as well just go into the instance, click a button, and collect loot. We even had one of our healers switch into a dps spec with healing gear for ***** n giggles to try out another healer in 16m. We still blew through the raid in no time.

 

If you're telling me random pugs and people screwing around playing a spec they've never played before and in completely inappropiate gear can down content and you can't. I'm afraid the problem isn't the content.

I'm going to try and not troll this post, but what server are you on that pugs are "downing this without breaking a sweat", and how many guilds are 4/4 HM on this op already? It's customary for some bravado and even some exaggeration to make its way into a post like this but I'm skeptical as to its accuracy.

I'm going to try and not troll this post, but what server are you on that pugs are "downing this without breaking a sweat", and how many guilds are 4/4 HM on this op already? It's customary for some bravado and even some exaggeration to make its way into a post like this but I'm skeptical as to its accuracy.

Same type of mantra that we seen in another MMO. Likely the same type of player that goes around claiming "the game is too easy" while posting on an avatar that has no hardmode achievements to back it up.

I've dabbled in HM EC and storymode EC. Storymode EC is currently overtuned and will be nerfed. It requires far much attention to mechanics and if left the way it is, will starve the majority of the playerbase of end-game content until at least 1.3.

Progression is like a staircase. Storymode EV to KP is decent step. Storymode KP to Storymode EC is like having to climb a 6 foot ladder to get to the next step. This will cause a number of 1.1 raiders to reevaluate if TOR's operations are for them or not. While some of the more elitist raiders will not see a problem with that, I personally would rather have a significant portion of the playerbase see the content than not - it ensures that more content will be created in the future.

Progression is like a staircase. Storymode EV to KP is decent step. Storymode KP to Storymode EC is like having to climb a 6 foot ladder to get to the next step.

It took my guild way more than a week to clear EV on normal mode.

It took us way more than a week to clear KP on normal mode.

We cleared EC on story mode in a week, and it wasn't particularly difficult. We made it way harder than it needed to be by doing the first 3 bosses on 16 man (and would have had the 4th down if our main tank didn't need to log off)-- Bioware still hasn't fixed the 8/16 man balance.

To give you an idea of how NOT hardcore my guild is: I've wiped 30+ times on the 2nd boss in the new HM FP with two different groups (all guild members), the majority of us in full Rakata. I still haven't killed him.

If we can clear EC in story mode in a week, I just can't imagine it's overtuned. I'm sorry, I hate the false-bragging-by-claiming-the-content-is-easy tactic as much as the next guy, and it bugs me to know some of you are going to think that's what I'm doing, but... it really, truly isn't hard.