I asked Jesse Sky (Lead Flashpoints and Operations Designer) what kind of gear players should be in to attempt Story Mode and what kinds of rewards they'll receive for doing so. He said that the gear requirements for Story Mode are similar to those for Story Mode Explosive Conflict. It's balanced for Columi and drops Rakata, but will also speed up the acquisition of Black Hole gear. Hard Mode is balanced for players who have geared past Hard Mode Explosive Conflict.

That's kind of interesting...so Storymode wont be much harder than SM EC? And yet HM Terror requires to be geared in Campaign gear.

Though I guess if people want to do HM Terror they don't have to do EC HM as long as they gear up in Blackhole gear. Since you can pretty much get BiS gear without touching Campaign.

Still kind of odd though, I would have thought the natural step for Storymode Terror would be to drop Campaign and Blackhole. I guess this is something to do with not restricting too many people from being able to do it without gearing up.

So, from a story perspective, why would an imperial player want to stop what the Dread Masters are doing?

 

 

Especially as we likely freed them on Belsavis.

While content is nice and dandy and somewhat expected... it`s not very starwarsy. Can we expect Klingon looking NPC`s in 1.5 and Avengers in 1.6?

I mean.. from all the lore possibilities, or timeline possible solutions... all you could come up with was a worm...

That's kind of interesting...so Storymode wont be much harder than SM EC? And yet HM Terror requires to be geared in Campaign gear.

Though I guess if people want to do HM Terror they don't have to do EC HM as long as they gear up in Blackhole gear. Since you can pretty much get BiS gear without touching Campaign.

 

Still kind of odd though, I would have thought the natural step for Storymode Terror would be to drop Campaign and Blackhole. I guess this is something to do with not restricting too many people from being able to do it without gearing up.

I think what she meant was the new raid storymode is tuned for Black Hole gear and drops Campaign gear... and hard mode of it will drop the new Tier of loot.

If they don't do that, they're shooting themselves in the face with stupidity.

Some people are never satisfied, just ignore folks like this.

no are u serious. I have waited patiently for new fp, raid content and new wz's and in 5 months all I got was... an event? And thats suppose to keep me playing. I wanted this game for 4 years, (really after Kotor 2). And they came out with a bang, i was shocked and was like yeah look at these guys. Then nothing, and more nothing. They have the release of 2 major games GW 2 and MoP, and nothing still. I heard about this upcoming content during E3 in May! Gimme something anything, give me a time table of release a couple weeks a month. My guess is just like the HK droid that I was super stoked about last month and haven't heard anything about since that I'll wait for F2P so they can make more money off it.

Am glad you love the game, I do too. Loved it since the beta defended it even to today from people trying to get me back in other MMO's. But the content is stale and the game is too new with not enough to do to have this large of breaks in content. In 2-3 years it won't be ok, but it won;'t kill it either. But right now they have to get the content, with minimum bugs out as fast as possible. I don't want to hear we lost people, and have new. I work in the military and that's a way of life and were not allowed to use it as an excuse. Just give me something a time table anything, oh the PTR should be up in a couple weeks, we hope to get this to you by Xmas, or 2016 anything, soon to me means 2 weeks, soon to them is with in the next 3 years it seems. Leave it to EA to screw up another perfect title Red Alert, Warhammer, Command and Conquer ...etc

Nah I think she meant Story mode to be doable in Columi/Rakata.

Considering its name it had to be made that way. No....

Story mode should be for casual players.

I think the EC Story Mode is a tough cookie for most groups especially if you are not geared enough see above.

So I agree that the Campaign should not drop from Story Mode.

Hopefully the new Nightmare Tiers will also come, starting with EC sometime in October, and hopefully to be followed by the promised revamp to EV and KP. EV has so much potential IMO if new mechanics where to be presented as promised.

I asked Jesse Sky (Lead Flashpoints and Operations Designer) what kind of gear players should be in to attempt Story Mode and what kinds of rewards they'll receive for doing so. He said that the gear requirements for Story Mode are similar to those for Story Mode Explosive Conflict. It's balanced for Columi and drops Rakata, but will also speed up the acquisition of Black Hole gear. Hard Mode is balanced for players who have geared past Hard Mode Explosive Conflict.

Is this the same designer that thinks/claims LI HM is balanced for tionese?

things i am worried about: Campain level requirements for HM should mean the story mode drops campain level gear. After all that is what progression means .. that you progress from one tier to the next. My worry as a PVE player on a PVE server is that to be honest EC HM isnt exactly a walk in the park (i have gotten to all but kephess and more then half of the guildies i got that far with no longer play the game). So guilds who have lost a large population because people who felt the raiding was too easy for them have already left ... so i seriously hope that the content is not so hard its off putting at very least on SM.

 

I know your all gonna QQ ... i don't care i don't plan to follow the comments of this thread.

 

But the problem with this game is there isnt enough content and the content that comes out takes too freaking long to come out and you can only raid so many days a week. EV and KP are already worthless to most do them once maybe twice with OP team to get yourself geared enough for SM EC then fumble through HM EC unless your in a really good guild of super elitists.

 

Hoping this new raid isnt gonna be nearly as silly. SM EC seems to be like you need some BH to beat enrage timers .... are we to expect the same level of stupidity on this raid? ... when you say balanced for full campain gear do you mean its doable in rakata with BH mods? .... what tier gear will the new raid drop on SM? campain / mk1-3?

will SM be easier or harder then EC HM ?

 

i guess all this doesnt really matter until the content is launched ... but keep in mind there are more people who are in hardcore guilds who arent beating HM EC then there are elite groups who are. They need content too, and with free to play the number of people who cant handle the content gets increased.

 

(FYI its not me that sucks .... my sorc healer can hit over 1k on aoe and nearly 8k on single target crits 40% crit chance and 80% multiplier .... but you cant play ALL the characters in the raid at the same time)

I know you said you won't follow the comments on this thread. But some of your points did bug me and I did not want them unaddressed.

SM dropping campaign != progression. Yes, SM tends to be interesting when it first comes out. This is really because of its newness. It's not puggable immediately, but good, organized guilds tend to be able to clear it the first week its out. Which does mean, no, you do not need black hole gear to beat the enrage timers in SM. I'm trying not to sound condescending, but if you're running into enrage issues in SM your DPS have serious issues. Every week I do alt and fresh 50 runs of SM EC, with about 10-12 people, in 16 story.

Not all guilds are farming EC HM. But the guilds that are aren't elitist. My guild has been farming it for awhile, and we're the furthest thing from elitist. It's something I, as the guildmaster, do not tolerate. The other guilds (on my server) who are clearing it are the same way, except maybe one. I really wish people would stop propogating this opinion. It implies that if you clear content, there must be something wrong with the personality of the players in the guild. It simply isn't true.

EC HM isn't a walk in the park. But it's very doable if i) you stat your class properly; ii) you understand your class; and iii) you have some raid awareness.

The biggest problem with people downing content (who say don't run parses) think they're doing it right, but they are misinformed. I've helped many players on my server who were in disbelief when they actually linked up to a parser. We theory crafted together and they started hitting respectable numbers.

At this point, if you're not clearing EC HM there is a problem with your guild. Address it now. It will only get worse in TFB HM.

Thank you for the confirmation on SM Terror From Beyond gear.

Can we get information on the HM Terror From Beyond (and future NM Denova) gear set?

From the datamining and the previews, it appears that it will likely be 150 rating / 63 mod level gear.

Will it be craftable at all? Can you RE it for materials and patterns? Will there be new commendations?

In my opinion, having the best-in-slot pieces from HM Terror from Beyond (and NM Denova) be purchaeable / BOE creates a situation where it is too easy for progression groups to gear up completely (leading to a more rapid consumption of content) and trivializes gear progression for players not running the content.

One possible solution to this would be to make 150 pieces all BOP, but can be RE'ed for mats and the chance to learn the 146 version of the pattern. This makes crafters and groups running the content able to continue unlocking recipes to gear their alts/recruits up or to make money, but does not trivialize gear progression.

126 - Tionese: craftable, commendations

136 - Columi: craftable, commendations

140 - Rakata: not craftable, no comms

146 - Black Hole / Campaign: craftable, commendations

150 - New set - ???

I asked Jesse Sky (Lead Flashpoints and Operations Designer) what kind of gear players should be in to attempt Story Mode and what kinds of rewards they'll receive for doing so. He said that the gear requirements for Story Mode are similar to those for Story Mode Explosive Conflict. It's balanced for Columi and drops Rakata, but will also speed up the acquisition of Black Hole gear. Hard Mode is balanced for players who have geared past Hard Mode Explosive Conflict.

....I don't get it. Shouldn't story mode prepare players of the Hard Mode of the same operation? I assume by "speeding up...Black Hole gear", it just means by a result of having another avenue to obtain black hole commendations.

To be honest, the whole gearing process is just really restrictive if you have any alts. To be effective in PVP, you have to grind warzones for Battlemaster Pieces, then grind even more for War Hero pieces. Not that bad for just one character, but for multiple characters it's a chore.

PVE gear is just as bad, but requires picking up some columni gear to even start looking at getting Rakata. (Enrage timers really do not help for this.) Plus the fact that Tionese gear is barely an upgrade, and that's all you can get from most Flashpoints.

Of course, this is the problem when gear is just divided into tiers, and you don't really have different sets of equal but different gear. And of course, nightmare mode not offering the next tier. I don't understand why Nightmare Mode EV or Karraga doesn't drop Campaign gear.

Tbh, I'm satisfied but not over the moon. It wasn't enough content considering the amount of time. I'm not too bothered about big raids if they simply made them more frequent and yeah maybe with more options, such as The Eye (TK), short, but great. (Obviously there was SSC too though)

There's room to improve and I think if you're not satisfied there's nothing wrong with quitting and then just seeing how it goes in future and maybe return. Myself I'm not that hard to please. I've been fortunate to not run into much annoying bugs and the lag wasn't fun and wasn't acceptable but has been greatly improved recently.

In short I'd be happy with 1 new raid of 5 bosses every 4 months if they're interesting and challenging enough. EC was a great step in the right direction, and I hope they continue to learn and improve. I'll stay subbed cause I'm having fun, but if I wasn't having fun, then yeah I'd quit and just keep my eye out for future improvements.

....I don't get it. Shouldn't story mode prepare players of the Hard Mode of the same operation? I assume by "speeding up...Black Hole gear", it just means by a result of having another avenue to obtain black hole commendations.

 

To be honest, the whole gearing process is just really restrictive if you have any alts. To be effective in PVP, you have to grind warzones for Battlemaster Pieces, then grind even more for War Hero pieces. Not that bad for just one character, but for multiple characters it's a chore.

 

PVE gear is just as bad, but requires picking up some columni gear to even start looking at getting Rakata. (Enrage timers really do not help for this.) Plus the fact that Tionese gear is barely an upgrade, and that's all you can get from most Flashpoints.

 

Of course, this is the problem when gear is just divided into tiers, and you don't really have different sets of equal but different gear. And of course, nightmare mode not offering the next tier. I don't understand why Nightmare Mode EV or Karraga doesn't drop Campaign gear.

Why ev and kp nim is not dropping campaign? lol. Becouse they're easy as hell.

I just asked a question; how are you satisfied? Do you think the lag spikes are acceptable? Do you think 5 bosses are enough to keep you occupied for 6 months? Are you satisfied with the current "cadence" of content being released?

 

If you are; Great; personally I am not; So I posted my complaint (to be of course attacked by those of you who are (or atleast pretend to be) happy)

 

As I said way above; All I want is for Bioware to make epic Raids; I don't think it is going to happen so I will be cancelling my account and my wifes account (which I had been paying for despite not playing for the past 1.5 months because I 'believed' they would deliver on the next raid and wanted to continue to support their development)

 

I am not posting to you fanboys; but to SWTOR Community Managers; The Raids Need to be More EPIC, Multiple Wings; more than 5 bosses, I loved the Kephess HM Encounter in that it was actually tuned and fun to play; but the fact that EC only had 4 bosses overshadowed how good of a job you did on that one Encounter. Farming 4 bosses for 6 months isn't fun and isn't a good investment of my time. Maybe I will come back in a year so I can play these 5 bosses and the 5 new bosses you guys create in that time; it may take me 3-4 weeks to catch up; clear it, but those will be a good few weeks.

 

To the fan boys; enjoy your 5 bosses; I know it will be fun the first time through; I question how much fun it will be on the 50th ;-)

Ditto! This game was a gold mine waiting to be harvest. Potential like none other. The Kotor series was outstanding and awarded correctly. You can take an average coffee cup put Star Wars on it and you can charge $3 more and it will fly off the shelf. It was highly anticipated loved and talk about highly amongst the Beta users. They dropped 2 new raids, 2 fp's, a community event, and a new WZ in about the first 100 days more or less. A great pace to shoot out new content for a brand new MMORPG. Then... nothing, and more nothing. Lots of videos! Showed us TFB, a HK droid all the intentions of exciting us, and they were. And then nothing, and more nothing. They corrected their own mistake and breed life into the game that was feeling very much like it was in stall. And then NOTHING! This is an unacceptable business model for a brand new MMO, its not a first person RPG with community perks. And if it is they need to advertise it as such

I agree if this is another 4-5 boss op I'll be extremely disappointed Am not looking for a raid that takes all week, but how bout a raid that can hold my interest and give me sometime to learn it and expose it, preferably this takes a little longer then 2 weeks. Its hard enough to continue to play a game that I force myself to log in to so I can grab about a million credits for carrying and gear one person through EC HM and knocking out some rated bg's that really don't mean anything at the moment. Give us a reason to play.

And here's my chance, challenge and dare to the Developers from a loyal and still paying customer that will defend this game. When, give me a time frame, a month, with in 2 months will we see even the PTR, and I promise I will not hold you to this, you will not hear from my lawyer if it doesn't happen. Just for once give me an answer that is not soon or immediate future. I DARE YOU

I think they want story accessible to most raiders so you should imagine there are two sets of progression (sort of):

Story EV/KP -> Story Denova ->Story TFB

HM EV/KP -> HM Denova -> HM TFB

The wrinkle would be the nightmare modes, but I guess they are technically going to be in the set of progression as HM where NiM Denova is an alternate to HM TFB and NiM KP/EV are not really in the progression grind.

....I don't get it. Shouldn't story mode prepare players of the Hard Mode of the same operation? I assume by "speeding up...Black Hole gear", it just means by a result of having another avenue to obtain black hole commendations.

 

To be honest, the whole gearing process is just really restrictive if you have any alts. To be effective in PVP, you have to grind warzones for Battlemaster Pieces, then grind even more for War Hero pieces. Not that bad for just one character, but for multiple characters it's a chore.

 

PVE gear is just as bad, but requires picking up some columni gear to even start looking at getting Rakata. (Enrage timers really do not help for this.) Plus the fact that Tionese gear is barely an upgrade, and that's all you can get from most Flashpoints.

 

Of course, this is the problem when gear is just divided into tiers, and you don't really have different sets of equal but different gear. And of course, nightmare mode not offering the next tier. I don't understand why Nightmare Mode EV or Karraga doesn't drop Campaign gear.

So, from a story perspective, why would an imperial player want to stop what the Dread Masters are doing?

 

 

Especially as we likely freed them on Belsavis.

Because they are a threat to the empire and you serve the emperor?

problem is Denova as it stands right now if that's their intended progression Denova is a bit too hard. if story mode is supposed to be all about letting people just see and experiance the content then Denova needs to be re-examined. by all means keep your hard modes nice and hard but story modes should be easy eneugh to just get through and see at the end even if your not an experianced raider.

"Story mode will be available for players who just want to see the sights, but it’s no walk in the park." from the blog post pretty much says, it should be easy, but not afk-mode easy like WoW LFR.

Having said that, I do think EC SM should be nerfed just a little bit AFTER Terror has been released

I asked Jesse Sky (Lead Flashpoints and Operations Designer) what kind of gear players should be in to attempt Story Mode and what kinds of rewards they'll receive for doing so. He said that the gear requirements for Story Mode are similar to those for Story Mode Explosive Conflict. It's balanced for Columi and drops Rakata, but will also speed up the acquisition of Black Hole gear. Hard Mode is balanced for players who have geared past Hard Mode Explosive Conflict.

If story mode Terror is only going to drop rakata gear, then at least throw the players a bone with it and have the final boss drop campaign boots. There needs to be another way for people to get campaign boots, other then from nightmare pilgrim.

Also is there going to a new tier of gear above blackhole gear, that matches the HM Terror gear (but without the set bonus) available from vendors (either a higher cost of blackhole comms per item, or a new comm)?

so was the nightmare explosive conflict scrapped?

because you mysteriously don't mention it and about 2 weeks ago you were saying that it was not.

so was the nightmare explosive conflict scrapped?

because you mysteriously don't mention it and about 2 weeks ago you were saying that it was not.

Its totally mysterious that in a blog about a Terror from Beyond Nim EC isn't mentioned.

As you yourself point out they mentioned quite recently that its still under development. Another dev post has stated that Nim Ec will be coming after TFB.

I asked Jesse Sky (Lead Flashpoints and Operations Designer) what kind of gear players should be in to attempt Story Mode and what kinds of rewards they'll receive for doing so. He said that the gear requirements for Story Mode are similar to those for Story Mode Explosive Conflict. It's balanced for Columi and drops Rakata, but will also speed up the acquisition of Black Hole gear. Hard Mode is balanced for players who have geared past Hard Mode Explosive Conflict.

Story Terror is balanced for Columi?? Really?? If you can't put out Ops any faster, at least make the available content harder. This is so frustrating....happy to sub but waiting 5 months for new content is driving me away...

Story Terror is balanced for Columi?? Really?? If you can't put out Ops any faster, at least make the available content harder. This is so frustrating....happy to sub but waiting 5 months for new content is driving me away...

Story mode is designed for people who merely want to play the raid to look at the raid content and watch the story. HM TFB is available for those who want more of a challenge.

Thank you for the confirmation on SM Terror From Beyond gear.

 

Can we get information on the HM Terror From Beyond (and future NM Denova) gear set?

 

From the datamining and the previews, it appears that it will likely be 150 rating / 63 mod level gear.

 

Will it be craftable at all? Can you RE it for materials and patterns? Will there be new commendations?

 

In my opinion, having the best-in-slot pieces from HM Terror from Beyond (and NM Denova) be purchaeable / BOE creates a situation where it is too easy for progression groups to gear up completely (leading to a more rapid consumption of content) and trivializes gear progression for players not running the content.

 

One possible solution to this would be to make 150 pieces all BOP, but can be RE'ed for mats and the chance to learn the 146 version of the pattern. This makes crafters and groups running the content able to continue unlocking recipes to gear their alts/recruits up or to make money, but does not trivialize gear progression.

 

126 - Tionese: craftable, commendations

136 - Columi: craftable, commendations

140 - Rakata: not craftable, no comms

146 - Black Hole / Campaign: craftable, commendations

150 - New set - ???

My guess is it's either the Hazmat or Denova, both 63 gear, sets that were datamined back when 1.2 came out.

Hazmat - http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/gear?n=hazmat#

Denova - http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/gear?n=denova#

Hazmat shares the set names with Black Hole it looks like (i.e. Bulwark, Boltblaster's), while the Denova gear shares the traditional set names (i.e War Leader's, Combat Tech).

My guess would be TFB HM drops Hazmat and EC NiM will drop Denova.