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We seriously need a item rating requirement on Mastermode Flashpoint


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This is getting to be serious problem for me, quite a few times when i queue up for group finder master mode, i get teamed up with either a low item rating lvl 70 team or even worse; one or more players below level 70. In some cases this causes one (or more) player to leave the group straight away depending on what flashpoint it is, lets say its Korriban incursion, where the second boss has a really nasty soft-enrage and causes a ton of group wide damage if it's not killed within a certain time.

 

What i don't understand is how this is suppose to work when a low item rating player is doing this and because of either he's item rating or low level can't produce enough dps that is required? Bolstering does not seem to fix this problem at all. I cannot understand if's a problem with item rating or a problem that the player actually sucks and can't produce enough dps.

 

Now what bothers me even more is that Bioware seems to understand this concept in the new flashpoints "Crisis on umbara" where there is a item rating requirement to even enter the flashpoint on master mode.

 

Why don't we have a item rating requirement on master mode flashpoints?

Edited by No-self
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Now what bothers me even more is that Bioware seems to understand this concept in the new flashpoints "Crisis on umbara" where there is a item rating requirement to even enter the flashpoint on master mode.

 

Why don't we have a item rating requirement on master mode flashpoints?

 

Umbara has been out like 2 weeks? I would assume it was easier to implement on one new flashpoint, and try it out for a bit, than implement across the board and risk screwing things up. If they feel the gear requirement is successful, I'd expect a broader implementation to happen. Just not in 2 weeks.

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Now what bothers me even more is that Bioware seems to understand this concept in the new flashpoints "Crisis on umbara" where there is a item rating requirement to even enter the flashpoint on master mode.

 

Why don't we have a item rating requirement on master mode flashpoints?

 

Because Umbara is tuned for that. All other FP's have bolster which is more than enough. If a group fails in a HM FP it's not a gear nor a level issue.

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Objection! I rolled a new toon on a new server, no support from "mothership" server, did a bunch of HMs with an average item rating of 233. No big deal, its a skill issue, not a gear issue.

 

Back when I was helping my guild with DvL back in 4.0, I started tanking HM flashpoints at LVL 50 with lvl 50 gear and we cleared some of the intermediate-to-hard ones (We left BH/BoR till later, but I certainly did Korriban/Tython/LI/KUS underlevel and undergear, incl bonus bosses).

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I don't think that all flashpoints should have a gear requirement on Master mode, however, it would idea to expand the current pool with a few more, Blood Hunt and Battle of Rishi, to name two would be a good start. Perhaps Bioware with their numbers and data could see which flashpoints are often started but not finished and add them to the pool of flashpoints with a gear requirement?
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As others have said, it's skill not gear. They don't need to implement gear requirements, they need to implement some kind of feedback system so players can see how they are doing without opening a 3rd party program (starparse).
That definitely is an excellent idea! Some kind of "item rating <-> boss <-> discipline <-> DPS/HPS/TPS" thing connected with a corresponding boss requirement. It would give a player immediate feedback about whether or not he is actually contributing or being carried.

 

Problem is: not gonna happen (effort), and I suspect many players would just get desillusioned by it or ignore it completely, because it is not "casual", but rather the opposite.

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As it was already mentioned the old Master Mode FPS (new is only Umbara) have bolster, there were numerous videos of people beating the bosses naked, only with weapons equiped so that they can use abilities. This means that gear is not an issue in Master Mode FPS, but Skill!

 

Nevertheless this does not get rid of the incompetence in the FPS and I also agree there should be something implemented that will show the players what and who is the problem. This was great in WoW where the dps/hps stats were visible for the entire group and people knew whom to blame right away.

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As others have said, it's mostly about skill rather than gear. If I'm a tank, I can make up for substandard heals. If I'm DPS, I can make up for a substandard DPS. If I'm a heals, I can make up for a substandard tank. But I cannot do it when we are missing one of those roles entirely.

 

Thus, I would very much like it if the devs locked roles in MM GF to spec rather than just advanced class. There's nothing worse than getting to Sav-Rak and finding out that your heals is not, in fact, a heals - they just forgot to uncheck the box in GF. And then they refuse to respec.

 

A lot of people since 4.0 (and the advent of koltos) don't seem to understand that yes, you do need a trinity to do MM FP's.

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It is skill and it is gear that's needed.

 

The only way to learn MM FPs is to play them and if a new player rocks up in less than adequate gear he gets spanked and everybody else gets annoyed. The newbie gets put off playing them and the other players start being wary of trying to teach them. Yes, there are guilds willing to teach players but not every guild is doing the same things all the time which leaves GF.

 

So a gear check would buffer out people who are just wasting their own time and/or expecting to be carried.

 

Maybe after a certain amount of completions the restrictions could be lifted for a given player, that may or not be difficult to implement though.

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Putting a gear requirement on most flashpoints would only annoy players with alts or on new servers. I can pull my weight in any role, on most classes, underlevelled and udergeared. Publicly-visible DPS meters will just spill the prog raiding community attitudes out into flashpoints and fewer people will want to try, but some kind of skill / effeciency check is a good idea.

 

What kind? I don't know. At least a quarter of my SWTOR time I spend on operatives, and naturally that involves keeping 2x koltos on everyone, cleansing the tank because everyone seems to forgotten they have one of those, and doing other non-DPSy things. Metrics alone won't cut it, and I don't know what will.

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By all means let's continue to find ways to further reduce the amount of players in the GF pool.

 

Gear is a crutch and requiring it of people says more about your own play than anything else.

 

Now what elitists with this attitude SHOULD be asking for is a GF that counts how many times in the last ten games did the dps stand in bad circles, how many times did a tank allow a cleave/conal/moveable-AOE to hit anyone else, and how many times a healer never touched their cleanse ability. Or how many times in general you've disconnected, afk'd for long periods of time without explanation, quit abruptly, or been kicked from a group. Or how many times the player strayed from the secret shortcuts or pulled a mob with a razor thin margin for skipping exactly like Bioware intended. Or how many times the player didn't skip the bonus, just as Bioware intended. Or didn't smash their spacebar in a thousand pieces every moment the screen goes into cinematic mode. Or how many times the player didn't chastise and ostracize other players' abilities solely on gear and/level, the two things that matter the least in clearing bolstered content.

 

All things that contribute more to bad groups then the assumed baddie who is on his 29th alt but pulls threat from higher leveled and better geared gods of SWTOR and somehow, against all odds, might know a thing or two about the flashpoint they've completed dozens of times on multiple classes. Holy mother of the force, if that jack*** comes into my flashpoint with an average 230 item rating or he's not level 70, I will kick him immediately.

Edited by aerockyul
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Gear never is the problem since all FPs are bolstered.

The problem is, if you don't already know a lot bout the game and trinity gameplay, there is no feedback at all whether you are doing things right or not.

Tactical/veteran FPs are on one hand too easy as one or two capable player suffices to finish any boss alone and on the other hand they don't really teach any mechanics in a way that people really learn to deal with them, for the most part they are just ignored.

There is no feedback that maybe yourdamage, healing or tanking is lacking, like dying, being overwhelmed by trash or bosses. It just doesn't matter, Kolto stations rule and mindless AoE on everything just like in solo questing nowadays, threat everywhere, it works wonderful. Tanks or Healers are mostly unnecessary and in case of tanks even more a hindrance than an advantage and their role ignored even if they are there.

But how and where players are to learn to play it then, how the group dynamic in trinity groups works differently and what to do when mindless AoE doesn't suffice.

 

Instead of a gear requirement that is almost impossible to scale anyway with the HC FP (except of Umbara) being open to run from level 50 on, if the player knows what he does all HC FPs, including Bloodhunt are doable without problems, there should be some sort of proving ground before you are able to queue for any role.

 

Scenarios for all three roles, to test if players are able to deal with voids, adds, movement and stuff while still doing what their role needs to do. That may include a DPS or heal check to some degree as something to test how well the tank holds threat or knows when to to taunt or not, how to use his def CDs.

Because in the end the enemies have to die and the group/tank survive of course.

It would be the player alone with NPCs, not some potentially toxic idiots, learning what is important and how well prepared s/he is for the level of difficulty.

 

No one there, that can carry you along by doing way more than his share, just you and a sort of challenge like Eternal Championship for each role.

That would teach players what is important and to be expected in general and in case they are not ready yet, shows it to them before they are berated by others.

Edited by Khaleijo
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yeah, proving grounds would be a much better solution than gear requirement. there's a huge amount of people who have almost full 248 but struggle to do 4k dps, healers who cast one heal every 20 seconds and tanks who just tunnel on one thing and ignore everything else going on.
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Umbara has been out like 2 weeks? I would assume it was easier to implement on one new flashpoint, and try it out for a bit, than implement across the board and risk screwing things up. If they feel the gear requirement is successful, I'd expect a broader implementation to happen. Just not in 2 weeks.

 

The sensible way to do it would be to have a framework (or something similar), on which to hang the details. If they went through creating it from scratch and nothing (or little) is re-usable that's madness from a programming/design point of view.

 

If they have used a framework system it should be relatively easy to port the details from the existing flashpoint into it.

 

If they haven't, then maybe next time they should develop a framework system for future use ... it'd make creating/adding new group content much easier (and therefore quicker).

 

But this is BW .... who knows what thought processes are used.

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Because Umbara is tuned for that. All other FP's have bolster which is more than enough. If a group fails in a HM FP it's not a gear nor a level issue.

 

This. If you don't know your foot from your buttocks, no amount of gear will save you. If you know what you're doing, 230s are more than enough, probably less than that.

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@No-self (or anyone who supports No-self's position),

 

Question: what item rating would you require for HMFPs?

 

Think about your answer carefully. Remember two things:

 

#1 Characters of level 50+ can join HMFPs. Back when level 50 was the cap, the best gear available was something like rating 156.

 

#2 But let's assume that you also want the level requirements raised to 70 as well. So, the gear you get from CM crates in tier 1 are 228 and 230. Considering that rating of gear is what is intended for SM Ops (even though there is a bolster their too), I find it difficult to accept that one would need gear better than what one can get from the content.

 

So what would be a good item rating for HMFPs?

  • 200 (the lowest rating from grade 9 crafted and what you get from playing through KOTFE)
  • 220 (the lowest grade 10 crafted; prototype/blue quality, and what one should have by the end of the single player story)
  • 224 (the highest rating from last expansion and level cap)?

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As others have said, it's skill not gear. They don't need to implement gear requirements, they need to implement some kind of feedback system so players can see how they are doing without opening a 3rd party program (starparse).

 

 

I wonder, because I healed BH on 234 op (no problem, only extra fun), but went to Korriban Incursion with a 244+ op and I couldn't overheal the final boss dmg for the life of me (the attack when we hang in the air, then he throws us all back).

 

Edit: Everyone was fully healed, then insta dropped to ca25% health, then got wiped in a few seconds. I imagine I'm supposed to do magic for that time. :rak_02:

Edited by Johrun
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I wonder, because I healed BH on 234 op (no problem, only extra fun), but went to Korriban Incursion with a 244+ op and I couldn't overheal the final boss dmg for the life of me (the attack when we hang in the air, then he throws us all back).

 

Edit: Everyone was fully healed, then insta dropped to ca25% health, then got wiped in a few seconds. I imagine I'm supposed to do magic for that time. :rak_02:

 

I think that is a frontal cone attack or something that the boss does, it deals significant damage the tank and perhaps everyone else that is standing in front? The tank can kite the boss for a while after that AoE damage to enable you to catch up on the group, that prevents the Ravage + AoE cone from happening until tank gets rooted or stops kiting.

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Well i can partially agree with people in the thread that it is in some way skill that is the issue, sure, but concider that a level 50 player has only reached about halvway through the skilltree/talenttree and are missing alot of key element, like active and passive skills, to perform an optimal dps rotation, there is no freaking way that a level 50 can perform on par with a level 70 top tier geared player, doesn't mather how skilled he or her is or if he or her has bolstering. If a level 50 could perform as a level 70 toptier geared player, gearing and leveling is essentially useless in terms of pve content and gearing.

 

In a flashpoint like korriban incursion, where the damagerequirement is important to be able to down the second droidboss before it starts to spew out rockets on everyone, these missing talent and skills on a level 50 dps is going (in a majority of the cases) to cause a wipe, i have seen it many, many times.

 

I can take a step back on my argument that mastermode flashpoints needs a item level requirement, but the fact remains that when i join a group for korriban, blood hunt, or any other enrageoriented-need to have good damage output-flashpoints, when a below level 70 dps is the group, there is not enough dps to complete it.

 

The problem might be skill-related, the problem might be gear-related, the problem might be missing talent, probably it's a combination of all of them and it's my belief that something needs to be done to fix this issue.

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Well i can partially agree with people in the thread that it is in some way skill that is the issue, sure, but concider that a level 50 player has only reached about halvway through the skilltree/talenttree and are missing alot of key element, like active and passive skills, to perform an optimal dps rotation, there is no freaking way that a level 50 can perform on par with a level 70 top tier geared player, doesn't mather how skilled he or her is or if he or her has bolstering. If a level 50 could perform as a level 70 toptier geared player, gearing and leveling is essentially useless in terms of pve content and gearing.

...

 

The bold part is actually the case in SWTOR.

Until you are going to step into content without bolster, speaking Veteran and Master mode operations, gear is of no concern at all, as long as you have anything in your gear slots and the level is just a silly number in the end.

 

Of course a skilled well playing level 50 is not able to parse the same numbers than a equally skilled level 70 with top gear, but the difference is way smaller than you think and the level 50 knowing what he does, will out parse any level 70 who is having no clue. The difference is like with a level 70 that has the item level of what boost the bolster gives to a top geared high end NIM raider. And you just don't need NIM level gear or player skill to clear the Master mode FPs, the difference is, the NIM player is able to carry the group while the other would have a hard time trying.

Same with a level 50, knowing how to play the class/role he is fully capable to do his share, maybe even a 120% performance, but he can't compensate for someone doing only 50% or less. But in the end he shouldn't have to carry anyone.

 

All classes have most of their important abilities for the rotation by level 50, there are very few skills you get afterwards and most of them are kind of passive like CD reductions or are defensive and movement related.

Yes, they help to perform better once you have them, but the margin isn't that big.

 

Especially with so many RND players in GF that just use their basic attacks like an assassin in Rakata yesterday building up his procs but never ever using them and always standing in front of the enemies. The operative staying on range using his few rifle attacks and so on, there are numerous examples everyone regularly running GF is able to tell of.

But there is also the fact, often enough it's still enough (came through Rakata without wipes it just took ages). Though I admit rarely with those bosses you mentioned, if there isn't a very good DPS player to carry them. But as said before there should be no need to carry others that much in the first place. All have to do their part and any level 50 knowing how to play his class is very well capable of that.

Edited by Khaleijo
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If a level 50 could perform as a level 70 toptier geared player, gearing and leveling is essentially useless in terms of pve content and gearing.

In bolstered content, yes, level and gear are pretty much irrellevant.

Case in point:

In a flashpoint like korriban incursion, where the damagerequirement is important to be able to down the second droidboss before it starts to spew out rockets on everyone, these missing talent and skills on a level 50 dps is going (in a majority of the cases) to cause a wipe, i have seen it many, many times.

The droid requires ~12.8k dps.

This is a parse of someone basically only spamming tracer missile doing 6.5k dps, so more than half of the required damage. And it was done after the arsenal nerf.

So you want to tell me a bolstered, well played level 50 can't do that? :rolleyes:

 

Seriously, people have been complaining on the soft enrage timer on this boss since it came out. And back then, if memory serves, you had to have ~5k dps to beat it. Also back then, a Merc spamming RAPID SHOTS did almost 2k dps. It's not a gear or level issue, believe me. I have proven this time and again, most times even with videos on it, like this. And yes, this was 4.0, who cares? You can throw sh*t in Biowares direction all you want, but the scaling isn't that bad that this wouldn't still hold true.

 

I can take a step back on my argument that mastermode flashpoints needs a item level requirement, but the fact remains that when i join a group for korriban, blood hunt, or any other enrageoriented-need to have good damage output-flashpoints, when a below level 70 dps is the group, there is not enough dps to complete it.

As outlined above, you actually only need average dps. Problem is, most people in group finder are bad. REALLY bad.

 

The problem is that the game doesn't give you any feedback on how good or bad you're doing. In order to see this in actual numbers, you need a third party programm.

Edited by Torvai
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In bolstered content, yes, level and gear are pretty much irrellevant.

 

Yup, as I said before, during the DvsL event I went with my lvl 50 Shadow tank and managed to do Lost Island Master Mode.

 

The droid requires ~12.8k dps.

This is a parse of someone basically only spamming tracer missile doing 6.5k dps, so more than half of the required damage. And it was done after the arsenal nerf.

So you want to tell me a bolstered, well played level 50 can't do that? :rolleyes:

 

Seriously, people have been complaining on the soft enrage timer on this boss since it came out. And back then, if memory serves, you had to have ~5k dps to beat it. Also back then, a Merc spamming RAPID SHOTS did almost 2k dps. It's not a gear or level issue, believe me. I have proven this time and again, most times even with videos on it, like this. And yes, this was 4.0, who cares? You can throw sh*t in Biowares direction all you want, but the scaling isn't that bad that this wouldn't still hold true.

 

As outlined above, you actually only need average dps. Problem is, most people in group finder are bad. REALLY bad.

 

The problem is that the game doesn't give you any feedback on how good or bad you're doing. In order to see this in actual numbers, you need a third party programm.

 

As I said in the "Feedback on 242 gear limit" I know that the gear limit is not a 100% guarantee that you get good people as gear is really irrelevant in the game now due to Bolster. HOWEVER casual players are not exactly bothering to get 248 gear (not even 242 avg) so that means if the limit is set the casuals just wont get it. Sure, some bad ppl will eventually get rank 300 and start getting 246 and will be over 242 but its still a good way to ensure you get "raiders" or at least people with some idea into the FPS.

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As I said in the "Feedback on 242 gear limit" I know that the gear limit is not a 100% guarantee that you get good people as gear is really irrelevant in the game now due to Bolster. HOWEVER casual players are not exactly bothering to get 248 gear (not even 242 avg) so that means if the limit is set the casuals just wont get it. Sure, some bad ppl will eventually get rank 300 and start getting 246 and will be over 242 but its still a good way to ensure you get "raiders" or at least people with some idea into the FPS.

 

You are probably right, a lot of players would be simply locked out of the FPs. But among them would also be a lot of players that aren't that bad or with a few pointers are well able to run the content without much problems.

 

I would prefer a method which makes a broader audience fit for the FPs. There are few enough running HC FPs currently, no need to diminish their numbers even further. Better bring something into the game to prepare more players for this sort of (group) content.

 

As a side node very few raiders I know are even interested in flashpoints at all, as those don't really pose a challenge or are for groups too small. Since the nerf of the decoration drops, there just isn't much of interest in there, if anything at all. Except for maybe farming CXP in Hammerstation.

And don't forget you are able to get 242 gear running only KP and EV, which are not hard to play at all. Even for casuals (casual in terms of interest into the game mechanics and rotations, not time spent) .

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