The fight is not hard at all.

 

You can't just go in and pewpew, kill, loot.

 

You need to learn the mechanics and how to deal with them properly.

 

If you can't do that it's not because you are casual, it's because you either don't care enough to try and be good or you can't be good.

 

The mechanics aren't hard, there is no "dance" as you put it.

 

The fight has been severely nerfed in multiple ways on the PTS since it was first released and I killed it in every form.

 

There is about 1/3 the incoming damage it had when it was originally on the pts, it has a minute longer enrage timer, it is way more relaxed.

 

Just because you couldn't beat it by trying to brute force your way through it doesn't mean it can't be beaten.

This is the problem with the state of the game. People tell this stuff to the developers.

You are trying to say that you completed the first encounter while taking three times the damage and a minute less on the enrage timer?

You're a liar.

Pre 1.2: WE NEED HARDER ENDGAME

After 1.2: WE NEED EASIER ENDGAME

This is the problem with the state of the game. People tell this stuff to the developers.

 

You are trying to say that you completed the first encounter while taking three times the damage and a minute less on the enrage timer?

 

You're a liar.

Why is he a liar if he's stating what's true?

I went in tonight with a pug group with most people having tionese/columi combo gear and oneshotted first boss (Yeah, it was normal mode), 2nd boss needed a bit of getting used to but after that no more than 3 or 4 wipes, which imo for a pug group is not bad considering the gear we had.

So if they're going to make this easier, might as well make it a Heroic 4

The fights aren't that hard on story mode and pretty predictable even yes the first boss. Take a look at your raid and figure out who is doing what wrong and fix it. Nine times out of ten if the people griping about raid difficulty just did this, they would find themselves succeeding alot more.

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.

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.

Then WHY are they playing an MMORPG? I really do not get that, why do you play a game that is made to challenge you if you do not WANT a challenge? Maybe the synapses in my brain are broken or something but it just doesn't make sense to me at all. I mean there are many other games out there that will give you that experience you want, so why play the one type of game that isn't supposed to hand it to you?

Keep in mind a LOT of the guilds doing higher end content were using stuff like 2 sorc/sages as a crutch. The guilds that could do stuff like EV Hard/Nightmare with 2 scoundrels or a scoundrel and a commando are doing great right now, even if they switch to sages. (we're one of those. We cleared pretty much everything with scoundrel healers, so all the strategies we had to use before to just barely pull off a win, make it a joke even if we use the nerfed healers now).

We've completed EC Story with some people in the group still using orange daily gear (though most were in rekata, only a few were full). One of the "top" guilds on our server that cleared all the nightmare mode stuff super quickly and had the titles before anyone else, were relying on stuff like 4 sage healers and only ranged DPS in 1.1 to get anything done. Anyone who played TOR more than 10 hours a week could get the nightmare mode titles.

Even hard mode EC's first boss is easier than the nightmare content used to be if you were to use scoundrel healers in 1.1.

Most of EC is actually execution. So worse scenario, you'll wipe a lot until you get your first win, but after that you wont have much trouble.

We ARE having trouble on the hardmode enrage timers (surviving is not a problem), but again, our DPSe are not fully geared. Worse come to worse we'll wait a few weeks, fill up on Black Hole gear, and that will solve that problem (we're a semi-casual guild, so not really expecting to clear all content with 1.1 gears, which is fine).

If you think first boss is hard.....

wait until the LAST BOSS

Also using sorc/op combo

Did first boss it took us a more then a few tries and finally got it down on normal... It's all about getting used to the situation once the tanks have it down and the dps can maintain a good dmg speed on em then the boss is easy. I won't ask for a nerf ppl just need to get used to the situation.

2nd boss was a little trickier because 1 tank wasn't doing as well as the other in terms of kiting blue shields or handling the dmg and switches properly so we switched them around and boom boss went down with only 1 person dying.

Overall I would say if anything to nerf it would be to reduce trash I hate wasting craptastic time on trash and making each wipe to walk back to the boss is annoying especially trying to learn the boss strat without reading up about it beforehand.

To Bioware dev's : Thanks for making a more challenging instance but maybe for casuals you could dumb down the fights a little for them on normal mode but also reducing loot to maybe columi or giving black hole commendations only rather than rakata stuff. If ppl want it challenging and fun then HM/NM is for the hardcores.

This is Tier 2. It should be hard. I doubt you went into HM EV and KP for the first time and cleared them, if you are a 'casual guild'.

You should consider SM of the new content equal to the HM of the old content, and I would say that it's at about that level.

Just a reminder that WoW went in this direction.

 

3 Million Unsubs later, they nerfed the then current raid tier (firelands) HARD, then later released the LFR tool and 3 easy 5-mans that crap epic loot of the item-level needed to hit the final raid raid tier. They also gave people free level-cap characters, mounts, etc if they resubbed. And you got D3 for free if you bought a year-long sub so their numbers wouldn't further decrease.

 

Catering to grognards kills your MMO. Sorry.

<3

that's all.

Then WHY are they playing an MMORPG? I really do not get that, why do you play a game that is made to challenge you if you do not WANT a challenge? Maybe the synapses in my brain are broken or something but it just doesn't make sense to me at all. I mean there are many other games out there that will give you that experience you want, so why play the one type of game that isn't supposed to hand it to you?

Because contrary to what you seem to believe the content prior to raiding doesn't require wiping a bunch of times till you figure it out. Worse case you get a friend help you with a class quest.

But again, your answer seems to be to have 90% of the population go play something else. Which is all great and all except for the servers will shut down and you won't be playing either.

It is sort of hard to be called "story mode", but then the loot in there is really good as well. I think if they ever decide to nerf it, it'll have to be after nightmare comes out. I'm not sure it needs any nerfing though. I cleared the place tonight, and every fight was just all about learning the tactics. There wasn't any insanely intense healing needed, or difficult enrage timers, or anything like that. You just need the raid to understand the mechanics. We made mistakes and wiped several times, and we were fairly well geared, but it all came down to just knowing the tactics, as it should. Once we had them sorted out, and people made less mistakes, the bosses were really easy. If even guilds are having trouble with the first boss on your server, well.. you have pretty poor guilds. It was an incredibly easy fight. So easy and boring that I actually had to think real hard to remember what that fight was.

 

I will admit that the last boss might be a bit overtuned for pugs. There's a pretty big dps-check in there, though it can be helped with some well-timed stuns. But I don't want the place to be nerfed yet. I want pugs to experience the instance as it is, and know the feeling of downing a hard boss. Casual guilds should definitely be able to beat every boss in there, no question. I think the name "story mode" is quite dumb, because it's not like you go in there to just watch some cinematics. If one likes story and doesn't like raiding.. I suggest youtube. Arguing that even people that don't like raiding and don't want to learn encounters should be able to beat it seems really stupid, but I guess that's bioware's fault for coming up with "story mode." If it was still just normal mode people wouldn't make this argument.. or at least it'd be easier to dismiss it.

I have to disagree with you on that, I think the last boss is by far the easiest one of the entire op. It took us 5-6 trys for first two, 4 for puzzle, and 2 for last boss.

Because contrary to what you seem to believe the content prior to raiding doesn't require wiping a bunch of times till you figure it out. Worse case you get a friend help you with a class quest.

 

But again, your answer seems to be to have 90% of the population go play something else. Which is all great and all except for the servers will shut down and you won't be playing either.

What I believe is that content should be challenging not that 90% of the population should go play something else. In fact some content in many other MMOs before raiding DID require you to die a bunch of times to complete it, or to figure out what you were doing wrong. It taught you how to properly play your class and to pay attention to what is going on. That is gone now, allowing people to faceroll their way to 50, or for some who can't even manage that to call a level 50 friend in to do it for them while they autofollow, and then walk into a tier 2 raid expecting to do the same. If it doesn't require some effort what is the point of having it there anyway? If, spending a half hour to an hour learning what is supposed to be the one of the harder encounters in a game is to much for people where the **** is it going to end?

Let's try something:

Let's say that yes, raids are to hard right now so we nerf it down a bit or a lot depending on your viewpoint. We get one of the guilds or pugs or whatever it is to try it.

"Well we beat Story mode pretty easily, let's try hard mode"

They get *********** DESTROYED.

They come back here and state, hard mode is to hard it needs to be easier.

Since story-mode isn't difficult enough anymore to challenge the player and make him think and react to prepare him or her for hard-mode Bioware has a few choices:

A: Make story-mode harder -> the guilds go back to not finishing story-mode and quit or complain or whatever

B: Ignore them -> .... actually I don't see a downside to this one

C: Nerf hard-mode down so it is doable for the "Casual Player" -> and soon to follow nerfing Nightmare-mode and so on and so forth.

tl;dr: Game is easy enough with some effort, make it any easier and it will not require any effort.

I'm just going to go out and say it...

New Content and better gear which mean a higher difficulty.

It's going to be like RIFT all over again; T1 Raids were hard until you learned the mechs then was a farmfest. T2 Hammerknell comes out and guilds can't get past the first boss.

Hardcore guilds get up to 6th boss in first day on my server(RIFT's Raids were way more unforgiving than SWTORS as well).

Basically learn the mechs, plan a strat. Wipe until you get it...this is how progression works.

This is the problem with the state of the game. People tell this stuff to the developers.

 

You are trying to say that you completed the first encounter while taking three times the damage and a minute less on the enrage timer?

 

You're a liar.

No he isn't a liar. His guild did it, our guild did it, 3 or 4 other guilds did it, etc. Just because you cannot do it now, doesn't make us liars, it just means your raid comp is less skilled.

On the PTS when it was first available, the enrage timer was a whole minute less. The dmg was more significant. They already nerfed it TWICE based on our feedback that story mode was overtuned for the target audience. It isn't now.

You can almost ignore the mechanics and push through it with ease. The only boss that can give people a little bit of trouble is the last one on Story, and even then it isn't too difficult when you learn what you are supposed to do.

Just a reminder that WoW went in this direction.

 

3 Million Unsubs later, they nerfed the then current raid tier (firelands) HARD, then later released the LFR tool and 3 easy 5-mans that crap epic loot of the item-level needed to hit the final raid raid tier. They also gave people free level-cap characters, mounts, etc if they resubbed. And you got D3 for free if you bought a year-long sub so their numbers wouldn't further decrease.

 

Catering to grognards kills your MMO. Sorry.

Normal firelands on release was a joke, only Rag was a little complicated. Heroic mode, only Beth, Bale and Rag gave people trouble. They then nerfed it some and it was even more of a joke. Before then was even easier instances on normal and heroic, BOT and BWD. Seriously, none of the fights were complicated, including Sinestra.

WoW did those things to bring players back that moved onto different games. It was a marketing scheme only, not because they piddled people away by making things too hard.

It either needs nerfed or raiding for "casuals" is over in this game.

 

Not everyone considers wiping all night trying to learn the dance steps as fun. Many will come into this place wipe a half a dozen times and just quit raiding.

 

Then when it's down to 5% of the population raiding it won't make sense to devote a bunch of devs to that content.

i wonder what the casuals will do at lvl 50 then

im assuming,if the casuals leave this games probably goin free to play since it doesnt really seem to appeal to anyone other then casuals

Then WHY are they playing an MMORPG? I really do not get that, why do you play a game that is made to challenge you if you do not WANT a challenge? Maybe the synapses in my brain are broken or something but it just doesn't make sense to me at all. I mean there are many other games out there that will give you that experience you want, so why play the one type of game that isn't supposed to hand it to you?

You refuse to see the point. You are making this argument from "this is the way it ought to be" and that scans fine for those of us who raid regularly. The "normal" or "story" mode is to entice the more casual player to participate in Ops. Having solid, across the board participation in Ops makes it easier to walk in and make an argument for more Ops at the high end...and more nightmare mode stuff.

Hard core raiders (read here, us) are outnumbered 9/1. That means the casual players will get what they want by dint of sheer numbers.

As for the rest of your post...people play MMO's for any number of reasons. E.g.

1. To escape their wretched, everyday lives.

2. To be a different person than yourself.

3. To play (at whatever level of difficulty) with friends.

A challenge is not necessarily the primary concern of the casual MMO player, and in fact, I suspect that "challenge" is way down on the list of reasons for casual players. That is why being a developer of an MMO is a thankless and unforgiving job at times, having to strike the balance between disparate groups of human beings, all that play for different reasons.

As for me? Bring it on, I want to learn hard fights and my role in them. Yes, challenge is one of my primary gaming reasons for raiding. But you act as if this is the way it should be for everyone...and that just isn't reasonable.

JC

You refuse to see the point. You are making this argument from "this is the way it ought to be" and that scans fine for those of us who raid regularly. The "normal" or "story" mode is to entice the more casual player to participate in Ops. Having solid, across the board participation in Ops makes it easier to walk in and make an argument for more Ops at the high end...and more nightmare mode stuff.

 

Hard core raiders (read here, us) are outnumbered 9/1. That means the casual players will get what they want by dint of sheer numbers.

 

As for the rest of your post...people play MMO's for any number of reasons. E.g.

 

1. To escape their wretched, everyday lives.

 

2. To be a different person than yourself.

 

3. To play (at whatever level of difficulty) with friends.

 

A challenge is not necessarily the primary concern of the casual MMO player, and in fact, I suspect that "challenge" is way down on the list of reasons for casual players. That is why being a developer of an MMO is a thankless and unforgiving job at times, having to strike the balance between disparate groups of human beings, all that play for different reasons.

 

As for me? Bring it on, I want to learn hard fights and my role in them. Yes, challenge is one of my primary gaming reasons for raiding. But you act as if this is the way it should be for everyone...and that just isn't reasonable.

 

JC

I just really see it as a very slippery slope.

And what about those people who have no desire to do that?

 

 

 

The dance as I put it is the learning the mechanics and how to deal with them.

They realize they're genetic garbage and go do something less demanding than Denova storymode (rofl), which they enjoy instead? Or better yet, they go learn fundamental raiding skills in KP and EV, to the extent that is possible.

If they don't want to learn fight mechanics but instead just beat on a (loot) piñata... then why don't they just go whack a dummy in the fleet? Honestly. You make it out as if anything even remotely resembling a challenge is a sin. Welfare(state?) equating loser-factory much?

i think it's fine.

We only beat the first boss one night and try the second boss the other night but i feel the challenge is reasonable.

the night we tried the second boss, the two tank, we didn't know jack about what to do and just try to read the debuff and open our eyes, at the end of the night, we have i think a solid strat in place and next night, with practice it will fall (unless there is a special something happening at low HP)

it may mean we will no clean the raid the first week, which is totally fine, and normal. I remember vanilla/TBC where we would down a new boss every week or every two weeks, working slowly toward the end boss and getting ready to move to the next tier.

Don't be in a hurry to destroy everything, enjoy the ride, the learning. And i disagree with what someone say. You can wipe all night and yet, spend an excellent, fun evening with friend.

Nope, the difficulty of Storymode is fine.

Totaly doeable with Full-Columi gear.

We downed the first boss in our seconds try, without reading up a guide or playing before on the PTS.

Yes the tankboss is a little bit tricky and sort of a "blocker" but the other two are fine tuned as well.

Also the healnerf is fine.

We played through this raid with two sage heals and it was not realy a problem.

Of course if someone stands in voidzones or you just have a bad healer then this would be a problem.

But I like the nerf, now you can see who is a good healer and who is a bad one!

I'm in a casual guild, I regard myself a casual player. And it's not only a time issue but a skill issue as well, I'm at best a mediocre player (tunnel vision, slow reaction times, poor manual dexterity). I think me and my guildies adequately represent the target audience for Story Mode.

Having said all that, we tried Explosive Conflict last night and could kill the first boss(es) on the fifth try, if I recall correctly. It's actually quite an intuitive fight, the only thing that might be tough to figure out without a guide is the requirement to switch tanks every time they leap to each other. I don't have time to keep looking at my debuff bar during fights But 1) not standing in red target markers should be elementary 2) the game warns you with BIG RED LETTERS to stay away from Toth when he goes berserk.

It's absolutely doable, watch a quick video guide (there's a good one that is a whole 5 minutes long) if you want to speed up the learning process. I was one of the tanks, in full Columi (with crafted Rakata belt and armguards), and we could down them even after one of the healers - two Sage healers, btw, just re-learning their stuff after the nerfs - died after eating up two doses of spikes right at the end when the bosses were around 5%. No need to nerf it, it's actually a very forgiving fight as we made some mistakes during the process (me being out of range to taunt the other boss when we had to switch etc.) and still beat them.

Difficulty is fine for both, nice to actually have a challenge of an evening rather than rolling through it in a day. None of us have full Rakata and so far its been difficult yet entertaining.

+ rep to Bioware. (If only my client would stop crashing!)

We're still less than a week into the new content. I'd hold out a little with the nerf cries until we have a better feel for the thing.

 

I agree that the healer nerfs probably contribute a lot to the enhanced difficulty.

The healer nerfs were insignificant. I healed as a sorc for all the encounters on 8 hard mode on the PTS, and I didn't notice anything meaningful other than I had to manage my force better.