Not to bash on anyone, but it's interesting to me to see it point-blank stated that if the best gear doesn't come out of the hardest raid difficulties, people will blow them off as a waste of time.

 

This in contrast to the oft-stated position of many that they want the challenge.

I'd be direly interested in finding out just how many dedicated raiders actually -are- interested in the challenge, and would pursue heightened difficulty even if the rewards weren't escalated for it, in contrast to those that use such as a smokescreen.

The drivel about wanting a challenge is just a smokescreen - those kind of players are not happy unless there's content only they can do with rewards only they can get. If everyone can get it they are not interested, no matter how challenging it is.

The drivel about wanting a challenge is just a smokescreen - those kind of players are not happy unless there's content only they can do with rewards only they can get. If everyone can get it they are not interested, no matter how challenging it is.

It reduces levels of engagement. If you do harder content with the same reward basis that you could get from doing it at a much easier level with less time investment there is definitely a decrease in satisfaction. Like levelling, the drive to hit the next level makes doing the bonus quests killing dozens of enemies add something with the weighty xp reward. At max level with the reduced incentive (only a small amount of legacy xp) that satisfaction goes down. They all contribute to layers of engagement. If you strip them away then damn right as a retention mechanism its effectiveness decreases. P

eople do weigh things. Most people while levelling will not go back and do grey bonus series they may have missed even if it was group stuff and would still present a challenge. Because their level of satisfaction would go down with not getting any worthwhile xp or potential gear rewards that contribute to their progression. Its the same thing.

I've gotta say on the note that there shouldn't be gear that only players who raid a lot can get seems a bit simple for my liking. I enjoyed in WoW when i would see a player with gear better than me because that guild had managed a Raid that my guild hadn't even started yet.

It furthermore made me want to do these raids and push myself to be a better player so i could get this gear and hopefully actually have better gear than that player. I think thats what kept Wow alive so long for me was actually wanting to build my character up and not have it easy mode through out and just get bored of it instantly like i did in cata.

Id rather not compare this to wow but its the only other MMO i have played so its gonna have to do. I agree Nightmare mode should be a very big challenge i love a challenging fight especially when it makes everyone work there hardest to earn what they want i think that will keep the game alive more than just having everyone cruise through it with ease.

I think what the OP is trying to say is that yes casual players should be able to do Normal Mode and have a bit of a challenge with Hard Mode but Nightmare mode should be tuned to Hardcore raiding. I myself would love to see these changes implemented.

I've gotta say on the note that there shouldn't be gear that only players who raid a lot can get seems a bit simple for my liking. I enjoyed in WoW when i would see a player with gear better than me because that guild had managed a Raid that my guild hadn't even started yet

Aye just on that note I remember TBC. It was silly how good a driving force attunements were. Even unlocking one boss felt like something and with more or less all the content in a couple months in the drive to actually go for content rather than dips of cleared content-farm-clear-contet-farm was the best time i ever had. Even if there was a big eight month gap between content there was satisfaction because the pursuit was there.

Definitely a restrictive model fro a modern MMO, if they did stuff like attunements in TOR the legacy system would be a good way to share them across characters (while keeping them in to do for story reasons if the player wanted). Everything is shifting to an 'equal access' thing in MMOs now. On paper a good thing... but its stripping away the plateus and the uphill travel that drives RPG gameplay. When RPGs becomes flat is the day they cease to be RPGs.

I am no longer in a postion to hardcore raid, family etc means it is all very much casual but becuase I have been a hardcore player in the past and am casual now i can see this sitiuation from both sides.

I agree with 99% of the Op comments but it doesn't surprise me lots of the replies have taken an agressive stance that top tear loot should be only marginally better than the easy to attain stuff. It could be taken as a very basic I dont want other people to have better than me regardless of if they are prepared to work harder.

In reality the only place this is an issue is with player in raid gear having an unfair advantage in PVP and that should be solvable by the proper implementation of expertise.

The really should be more of a gear spread at lvl 50, the dailies provide in 3-4 days a full set of gear that is equal to all the drops in hard mode FP except the columni peice from the last boss and all the none columni peices in normal ops, - that probably wasn't a good idea.

only 1 gear set for HM and NM ops and tionese =126, comuni = 136 Rakata 140 i feel columni should be 146 and there should be a t4 at 156.

The drivel about wanting a challenge is just a smokescreen - those kind of players are not happy unless there's content only they can do with rewards only they can get. If everyone can get it they are not interested, no matter how challenging it is.

I'm afraid that's a fallacy (circular reasoning). If the content is challenging, then almost by definition not everyone can surpass it. Just thought it amusing.

The harder you make it for players to gear up, the less players you have and retain, and the less new players you get. That's especailly true if hardcore nolifers are not your target audience to start with.

This is not EQ1. This game is targetted at casual players, not people who spend 40 hours a week raiding.

So you want to make 16man Nightmare harder then 8man Nightmare? As it stands we will consider Normal mode Damage a 1, Hard mode Damage a 2, Nightmare Damage a 3. And the reason for this is because the gear is the same so the damage for 16man Nightmare cannot exceed that of 8man Nightmare and vice versa.

SOA

As it stands now:

8Man Group - 1 MT/1 OT // 4 DPS // 2 Healers

Phase 1 Ground- Lightning Casts.

Phase 2 Platforming- Nothing Special.

Phase 3 Ground- 1 Mindtrap, 1 Person being flung, 2 Orbs.

Phase 4 Platforming- Nothing Special.

Phase 5 Ground- 1 Mindtrap, 2 Orbs.

Damage Level: 3

Soa Health Pool(Estimated/Rounded): 1,100,000 HP.

Mind Trap Health Pool: 25,000 HP.

Let's say the Tank/OT's damage is not counted and your relying on DPS solely for the damage output variables, each DPS has to put out 275,000 damage minimum if each carried their own weight.

In Phase 3, 3 people out of the 8 people in the raid are breaking orbs, being thrown, mind trapped.

In Phase 5, 3 people out of your 8 people are breaking orbs (DPS loss on boss during shield phase), in a mind trap (if your group didn't get it down in time or switch for shield phase).

In truth the only person you can lose and afford the death is your OT. And even then in Phase 5 if your MT gets yanked by a Mind Trap, Game Over try again. In reality losing 1-2 people for most guilds is a wipe and start over.

SOA

As it stands now:

16Man Group: 1 MT/1 OT // 10 DPS // 4 Healers

Phase 1 Ground- Lightning Casts.

Phase 2 Platforming- Nothing Special.

Phase 3 Ground- 1 Mindtrap, 1 Person being flung, 3 Orbs.

Phase 4 Platforming- Nothing Special.

Phase 5 Ground- 1 Mindtrap, 2 Orbs.

Damage Level: 3

As you can see above there is only 1 mechanic that changes.

Soa Health Pool(Estimated/Rounded): 2,080,000 HP.

Mind Trap Health Pool: 25,000 HP.

Let's say the Tank/OT's damage is not counted and your relying on DPS solely for the damage output variables, each DPS has to put out 208,000 damage minimum if each carried their own weight.

In Phase 3, 4 people out of the 16 people in the raid are breaking orbs, being thrown, mind trapped.

In Phase 5, 3 people out of your 16 people are breaking orbs (DPS loss on boss during shield phase), in a mind trap (if your group didn't get it down in time or switch for shield phase).

In truth you could lose 2 DPS (8/10 DPS left) at the very beginning of the fight and each DPS would then only have to put out 260,000 still 15,000 shy of an 8man raid comp. So even with doubled the DPS you are still only putting out 260,000 per DPS compared to an 8man of 275,000 per DPS. You still have double the healers despite the damage level remaining a solid 3 same as 8man. I have seen guilds down 16man nightmare soa with only 6-7 people left alive. That would equate out to a 8man guild being able to down nightmare soa final phase with only 4-5 people alive.

How to change this to make 16man as difficult or more difficult then 8man:

1.)Soa 16 Nightmare Health pool would have to be: 2,750,000 HP.

To be harder then 8man he would need: 3,000,000 HP to 3,200,000 HP.

(2,750,000/10= 275,000 per DPS. Same as 8man)

2.)Different gear.

Health pools for this fight would have to exceed 23k-24k for non tank characters and 25k-29k for tank characters. 4.5k Orb tick + Orb Explosion for 8k (Current) 12.5k + 4.5k Orb tick (to account for server/client lag) 17k(Current).

So you make it harder and scale it up with 16man. 5.5k Orb Tick + Orb Explosion for 10k= 15.5k + 5.5k (to account for server/client lag) 21k.

3.) More Mechanics. Instead of placing pools on the outside at phase 1. Maybe he wouldn't be in a static position and you'd have to kite and move your raid group. Maybe 2 Mind traps instead of 1. Or increase the health on the mindtraps to 75k and increase the time between mind traps. 4 balls in phase 3 and 3 in phase 5. 1 Ball in each corner of the room.

I know the usual answers to what I posted above "Yeah well you don't run 16man" or "The rooms the same size for 16man and 8man" Well your right, you are very much correct. But last I remember there is no clipping in this game so in reality you can all group up and stack and make your 16man as small as a 8man because you don't have to watch for any debuffs on you. Just have to watch for your name to be called and you move.

Anyways my 2 cents and to put things in perspective for people wanting 16man to be as hard or harder and to see how much work would have to be done.

The crowd of hardcore players - usually teenagers, it's mostly those who don't actually work for a living who drone about "you have to work hard" or "you have to earn" gear in a game - are too much of a drain on dev resources. But they are actally poison too. The harder you make it for players to gear up, the less players you have and retain, and the less new players you get. That's especailly true if hardcore nolifers are not your target audience to start with.

 

This is not EQ1. This game is targetted at casual players, not people who spend 40 hours a week raiding.

Hah. The ol' 'they must be teenagers... and they play like.... 20 hours a day man! I SPEAK FOR CASUALZ!' non-argument. Sad that people dont really have anything to say in response to legitimate criticisms aside from this tired fallacy.

Hah. The ol' 'they must be teenagers... and they play like.... 20 hours a day man! I SPEAK FOR CASUALZ!' non-argument. Sad that people dont really have anything to say in response to legitimate criticisms aside from this tired fallacy.

If all you wanted was challenge and prestige, you'd be happy with titles. But no, you want a) better gear and b) to make sure the people with less time don't get the same gear.

If all you wanted was challenge and prestige, you'd be happy with titles. But no, you want a) better gear and b) to make sure the people with less time don't get the same gear.

 

That makes you poison for a game that's not focused on a few no-lifers.

Unfortunately, even the title timed runs are very easy, having been one-shotted by many guilds.

Agree. There's three dificulties for a reason, they should be miles apart and offer different rewards. Personally i wouldnt be bothered if the rewards eg loot were better - id be happy with fancy titles and speeders etc.

However everythign in life you are rewarded based on performance. Nightmare mode should be stupidly hard and have nice things for those who complete it.

Hard should be a solid challenge for most guilds but do-able after weeks of trying for casual players, and a nice challenge for uber hardcore.

Normal should be easy enough for everyone to complete eventually, so nobody's missing on on content techinically.

Agree with the OP.

Raids content should be made more difficult. It should provide a sense of achievement for the time and effort required to get them. Having three tiers of diffculty, BW should made a distinct change in difficulty.

As for the reward system, I do have a different opinion.

Gear should have some distinct advantage in different scenarios (PVE raiding contents and PVP).

Expertise increase the effectiveness for PVP, could a similar stat be added to awarded for PVE raid contents gear, where these gears increase the effectiveness in higher difficulties such as HM and NMM instances.

For the casual, they could still experience the content in Normal mode, with similar stats. Where as raiders, we would not seems to be some sort of elitist that show we could demolish world mobs more effective than them.

The gear obtained in HM would effectively tier us to take on higher content (providing a constant gear chase to take on insane challenges where time and dedicate is required).

In summary, I am asking for an additional stat to be added on PVE raid content gears to tackle higher difficulty without increasing the ability to differentiate the causals and hardcore raiders in world encounters.

However everythign in life you are rewarded based on performance. Nightmare mode should be stupidly hard and have nice things for those who complete it.

 

Hard should be a solid challenge for most guilds but do-able after weeks of trying for casual players, and a nice challenge for uber hardcore.

 

Normal should be easy enough for everyone to complete eventually, so nobody's missing on on content techinically.

Want work? Get a job. This is a game, not life. It should not exclude people who already work for a living and simply want to enjoy a game.

Nice post OP. Well thought out and said. I used to be a hardcore raider 5 nights a week and have since gone to a more relaxed raiding with my friends 2 nights a week which I enjoy.

For those of you complaining about OP wanting to be superior because they can devote more time to it you are wrong. That is the whole point of the multiple difficulties. It allows for your play style to come through. Just want to experience the content? Run normal. Want to devote long hours a week and struggle and finally beat the hardest fights? Run nightmare. That is the point of this system, and it should reward those who spend more time on it. Having two difficulties drop the same gear doesn't make sense. It doesn't directly affect you aside from I NEED THE BEST GEAR I HAS TO HAVE IT!!! Get over it you should be having fun whether you are getting gear or not otherwise you are wasting your time.

Personally though I have never liked the idea of different "difficulty switches" you turn on or off. The only system I liked was Ulduar when the hard modes were done by fighting the boss a different way. As OP said increased difficulty should not just equate to more damage and more health. If it were my choice, I would release one difficulty and then have it made easier once the new content was out. It always keeps you one step behind if you are more casual but it still lets you experience everything.

We all have the nostalgia from our own "greatest" raids, but I truly miss having separate raids (etc 8 and 16 are different raids) or raids on short lockouts (ZA timed runs). It lets you have variety and is more fun imo. (I know you can just say run EV 16 and run KP 8, problem solved, but its not the same.)

I have my own share of complaints and frustration with bugs but I ask myself I am being greedy? We always want more stuff and then aren't happy with what we get. I can see this game becoming great after 5 years of fixes and new features, but should we wait that long? For now I will keep playing and having fun.

Want work? Get a job. This is a game, not life. It should not exclude people who already work for a living and simply want to enjoy a game.

Yes it is a game. But in case you hadnt noticed there are myriad examples of games that have things behind a hard difficulty and they arent all MMOs. Games are activities that are pursued. The 'this game woudl be a job' argument doesnt hold water.

Nice post OP. Well thought out and said. I used to be a hardcore raider 5 nights a week and have since gone to a more relaxed raiding with my friends 2 nights a week which I enjoy.

 

For those of you complaining about OP wanting to be superior because they can devote more time to it you are wrong. That is the whole point of the multiple difficulties. It allows for your play style to come through. Just want to experience the content? Run normal. Want to devote long hours a week and struggle and finally beat the hardest fights? Run nightmare. That is the point of this system, and it should reward those who spend more time on it. Having two difficulties drop the same gear doesn't make sense. It doesn't directly affect you aside from I NEED THE BEST GEAR I HAS TO HAVE IT!!! Get over it you should be having fun whether you are getting gear or not otherwise you are wasting your time.

 

Personally though I have never liked the idea of different "difficulty switches" you turn on or off. The only system I liked was Ulduar when the hard modes were done by fighting the boss a different way. As OP said increased difficulty should not just equate to more damage and more health. If it were my choice, I would release one difficulty and then have it made easier once the new content was out. It always keeps you one step behind if you are more casual but it still lets you experience everything.

 

We all have the nostalgia from our own "greatest" raids, but I truly miss having separate raids (etc 8 and 16 are different raids) or raids on short lockouts (ZA timed runs). It lets you have variety and is more fun imo. (I know you can just say run EV 16 and run KP 8, problem solved, but its not the same.)

 

I have my own share of complaints and frustration with bugs but I ask myself I am being greedy? We always want more stuff and then aren't happy with what we get. I can see this game becoming great after 5 years of fixes and new features, but should we wait that long? For now I will keep playing and having fun.

I miss it when content was just content to. Made it fee like part of the world. Now with difficulties just kind of feels like they're designed to make you regrind on several different levels rather than (as per the design) letting people play on the skillset threshold they want.

Especially agree on the gear thing, noone says it has to be huge gear differences (that would exacerbate gear inflation stupidly so) but just so that the reward basis is scaled with what your doing. Exactly the same principle as levelling quests at the appropriate level vs grey quests.

As for one difficulty, as I stated I would prefer that to, but the only real argument against it I found myself somewhat agreeing with is if you want an accessible endgame on that front you have to have huge gear gaps to make it workable. More skilled players do it in lesser gear, other players gear up to eventually overcome it. Over tiers that would become pretty huge and contributes to the mechanisms such as in WOW where content is purposely made irrelevent. If TOR could do difficulties with minor gear differences (where T1 nightmare gear is no worse than T2 hard) I think it could be kept more cohesive and less grindy by letting people catch up viably on other difficulties while keeping it all relevent.

I think its sad that just because the topic is 'raiding' you have all these people coming out of the woodwork with useless stereotypes to demean any legitimate criticism. Apparently if you raid your a 15 year old in their parents basement who plays 20 hours a day. It'd be a laughable argument if it wasnt used so widely. Kind of offensive considering the argument that for any decently challenging content the implicit view is that for these 'casual 99%' are too moronic to attempt it. Thats the truly offensive thing in my view, the view that most of the playerbase is idiots and alien to engaging gameplay.

As for one difficulty, as I stated I would prefer that to, but the only real argument against it I found myself somewhat agreeing with is if you want an accessible endgame on that front you have to have huge gear gaps to make it workable. More skilled players do it in lesser gear, other players gear up to eventually overcome it. Over tiers that would become pretty huge and contributes to the mechanisms such as in WOW where content is purposely made irrelevent. If TOR could do difficulties with minor gear differences (where T1 nightmare gear is no worse than T2 hard) I think it could be kept more cohesive and less grindy by letting people catch up viably on other difficulties while keeping it all relevent.

 

I think its sad that just because the topic is 'raiding' you have all these people coming out of the woodwork with useless stereotypes to demean any legitimate criticism. Apparently if you raid your a 15 year old in their parents basement who plays 20 hours a day. It'd be a laughable argument if it wasnt used so widely. Kind of offensive considering the argument that for any decently challenging content the implicit view is that for these 'casual 99%' are too moronic to attempt it. Thats the truly offensive thing in my view, the view that most of the playerbase is idiots and alien to engaging gameplay.

Yeah, I think the increased mechanics over health for difficulties settings would make it so they could implement small gear gaps. I also hate the stereotype that the player base is generally stupid, but sadly I think it has become that way but only because new players are being taught easy ways without explaining everything and then they come to expect it. So I guess making the game more accessible to casual players is creating more casual players.

Side note: These time stamps make no sense

Kanana, you are quite offensive. Labeling hardcore gamers as no-lifers, teenagers, etc. is at best trolling and at worst an insult.

Our guild is under the top 10 - 15 world, top 5 eu. Yet we do not have a single person you are describing - all of us are working or studying, the age is 24 in average.

Personally, I am 26 years old and work at least 40 hours a week and party much on the weekends. We currently need 1-2 days for 10/10 NM 16 man and do maximal raid 4 days a 4 hours in progress.

We are aware that not everybody can or want to raid 4x times a week , but we can afford to be present at 3 of those 4 days in progress times.

Please take that to heart and overthink your prejudice of hardcore gamers.

Kanana, you are quite offensive. Labeling hardcore gamers as no-lifers, teenagers, etc. is at best trolling and at worst an insult.

 

Our guild is under the top 10 - 15 world, top 5 eu. Yet we do not have a single person you are describing - all of us are working or studying, the age is 24 in average.

 

Personally, I am 26 years old and work at least 40 hours a week and party much on the weekends. We currently need 1-2 days for 10/10 NM 16 man and do maximal raid 4 days a 4 hours in progress.

 

We are aware that not everybody can or want to raid 4x times a week , but we can afford to be present at 3 of those 4 days in progress times.

 

Please take that to heart and overthink your prejudice of hardcore gamers.

I was actually going to post something similar to this. It simply isn't productive for this dissolve into name calling where people call raiders basement dwellers who need to get a job and on the flip side casual players being referred to as people who want to be rewarded without putting in any effort.

If anything this thread shows that these stereotypes are far too simplistic and almost meaningless as labels. There has been support from a broad spectrum of players, casual, hardcore and even those in-between, for the suggested changes. Opposition and criticism of the suggested changes has mostly come from more casual players but I have absolutely no doubt that there are raiders out there would not agree with the changes that I and others have proposed. That these players have not posted in disagreement in this thread does not mean that they do not exist.

I would urge people coming from both sides of this argument to really think about what you are saying and to make compelling arguments for your case rather than resort to childish name calling. Resorting to insults is essentially an indicator that your argument has no substance or foundation. You are doing a disservice to the view you are trying to promote by resorting to this kind of behaviour.

Although I can see the point of view being held by the OP, what people need to understand is that the opinion and POV of a hardcore progression guild raid leader does not necessarily reflect the general opinions and values of everyone else playing the game, especially the vast population of casual gamers who really cares little for progression raiding and instead enjoys other aspects of the game including but not limited to:

-instanced and competitive PVP

-open world PVP

-crafting

-exploration and collecting

-raising alts

-storyline immersion and role-playing

-social and guild aspects

-mentoring or assisting under-levels

-using the game as a medium to connect with friends and family

-other options I have not mentioned

The OP directs his post as if endgame progression is the "end to all" to SWTOR's success. The reality of it is, yes SWTOR is not a raid-centric game like Word of Warcraft or RIFT.

I was a player who came from a hardcore progression guild in RIFT, people don't know the meaning of hard until they have gotten up to akylios and spend a good 60-80 wipes in one week just to get him to 20%. That is hardcore raiding.

Speaking from the perspective of RIFT, RIFT is an extremely successful hardcore progression game that caters to veteran and competitive raiders.

SWTOR has a very broad audience appeal and as a player who enjoys multiple aspects of the game outside of just raiding, this game is a very nice change of pace for me in comparison to RIFT which became so hardcore that it essentially became a job without a paycheck.

I personally DO NOT think that SWTOR needs to become a raid centric game in order to maintain it's success. Although I do not speak for them or necessarily reflect their ideals, I believe that the developer games have a semblance of my understanding concerning this as well.

Examples of this include the extreme effort put into the voice acting and multiple storylines, lore immersion, and the hyped legacy system that promotes the incentive to role multiple alternate characters in order to experience a varying degree of story content.

One can say you have not really experienced all of SWTOR until you have raised a 50 of each class and seen how everything in the story universe ties together. While this playstyle may not suit everyone, the options for new content are there.

With such a story driven campaign system, hype on legacy, and the introduction of new content that ties into story and conclusive events, it is safe to assume that SWTOR will not become a "raid-centric" game any time soon.

That focus may change in the future as Bioware and the developers master their own world building tools.

I will agree that operations are fun, but the problem with creating a raid centric game and upping the difficulty of the content is that is LOCKS END-GAME CONTENT TO ALL BUT AN ELITE FEW OF THE COMMUNITY.

I think this fact in combination with evidence that the player base of SWTOR is comprised from a large amount of people that have not necessarily come from raiding MMOs leads the developers to (rightfully) believe that creating a "raid-centric" game is not in the best interest of the majority population.

Many players have come from star wars galaxies and may have rolled characters that have never even seen combat, let alone raid mechanics.

The raids and operations, the ease of gaining gear and equipment, is directed at allowing the ENTIRE community to enjoy raids and operations without having to dedicate their entire focus of game enjoyment on a raiding guild, DKP system, and other forms of rules most actively seen in "raid-centric" games.

Even the destiny gear distribution system screams "casual" friendly, and although it might not be ideal for progression guilds, it is idea for pick up group communities trying to casually enjoy content without dealing with raid politics or "point systems" like suicide kings or DKP.

While I agree that hard content and options for hardcore raiders should be implemented in the game, a player should not have to be FORCED to conform to this standard in order to enjoy all the content.

This is where nightmare mores and insane versions of the content come in that should reward hardcore players with cosmetic items (such as speeders, unique items, slightly more powerful stuff but only minimally more powerful) in order to appease that elite handful of players.

However, the general direction of the game and focus of SWTOR should not cater towards that minority community. The option to do content of that difficulty should always be optional and not give extreme rewards or result in story or game progression that implies that the rest of the communities is forced to rise to that level in order to enjoy endgame at all.

I personally like the layout of raids, the ease of gearing to experience content and see that the big challenge that bioware faces with a community friendly model is to push out content fast enough to keep the general population from being bored.

The incentive to roll alts for legacy and not just focus on an endgame 50 is one of the many strategies that Bioware has employed to keep players interested in the game.

I like SWTOR as it is, and yes improvements can be made and the hardcore players should have options, but I don't think a large amount of manpower needs to be dedicated to them.

I do agree with bugfixes as being priority one to eliminate bad taste and unfairness in the game. Yea community service is terrible, but those guys are probably outsourced and swamped by requests.

Most of the MAJOR problems in the game will likely be fixed in time.

I think it is important for Bioware not to delve too deeply into posts like the OPs and not model their game strictly for the enjoyment of hardcore players, as this would destroy the community, promote elitism, and take the focus away from the story driven magic and already successful casual model that is currently keeping players filling the servers.

I will agree that operations are fun, but the problem with creating a raid centric game and upping the difficulty of the content is that is LOCKS END-GAME CONTENT TO ALL BUT AN ELITE FEW OF THE COMMUNITY.

This I don't really agree with. Essentially your post seems to be grounded in your experience in Rift high end raiding and assumes that we are asking for a similar raiding environment to be established in SW:TOR but this is simply not the case. The raiding system is fundamentally different and it boils down to the thing we have been talking about quite extensively in this thread - SW:TOR has 3 difficulty modes to work with. Rift simply did not have this feature in any form.

We are not asking that end game content be locked to an elite few. My post and several others have basically indicated that the normal modes of said content are very well tuned and offer just about every play the chance to experience the content. I even state in my post that hard mode also should be a point of aspiration for even the casual raider and something that can be accomplished by the casual raider with time and effort. Nightmare mode however should represent a significantly higher challenge for the people that want that challenge. This takes absolutely nothing away from the casual player's capacity to tackle end game content. All this does is use a system that is already in place to try and satisfy two different audiences with divergent interests.

I would really like for someone using this argument to explain how making the higher difficulty modes more difficult detracts from their ability to enjoy end game content - I simply don't see it. Using the existing capacity to differentiate difficulty in end game content actually opens up end game content to a broader audience in total than simply saying raid content should be designed either for the casual or for the hardcore raider.

The incentive to roll alts for legacy and not just focus on an endgame 50 is one of the many strategies that Bioware has employed to keep players interested in the game.

To me this feels like an especially poor strategy if this is truly what they are aiming to do. For one thing the legacy system is not even active at present so the incentive is currently non-existent. Even when the legacy system is implemented the incentive of playing through what are the same quests, apart from the storyline, just to unlock a few new races or other legacy vanity items will not keep players interested. I am not even talking about hardcore raiders with this - I simply don't see how such a weak incentive and repetitive content can keep long term subscriptions.

Worse still is the fact that the leveling process is for the most part solo oriented content. If rolling alts is the content that is intended to keep players active and even if this were to actually work - which I firmly believe it would not - it would render the strong multi-player emphasis of the end game obsolete. This would be a major design problem in an MMO given that such games are inherently geared toward groups of players rather than individuals.

What's wrong with noticably higher difficulty per tier?

Sounds good to me. Everyone can enjoy a more difficult experience if they choose to.

Same in real life. This is why sports teams have a Freshman/JV/Varsity type setup.

Higher difficulty and better gear (or game experience in this case).

What does Varsity (Nightmare) have over Freshman (normal)?

1. better geared individuals (gotten from normal/hard)

2. tougher individuals (more hps from gear)

3. tougher mobs/teams (more plays, more difficult playsets/strats)

4. individuals have more experience with the environment (better overall knowledge on how to work as a team)

i don't see anything wrong with this.

affects all individuals the same

gears everyone the same

if this was the progression then there wouldn't be any talk of "casual" vs. "hardcore".

the statement would be irrelevant.

work your way through normal.

get geared up.

gear and experience necessary to complete next step

gear and experience necessary to complete final step

unfortunately, other MMOs have the 3 steps in SEPARATE raiding areas and not the exact SAME raid and mobs.

I think that's where SWTOR/BW went wrong and thus we are all confused as to the vision of the gear progression as compared to the 3 levels of difficulty.

other MMOs you gear up and move through the raid content and unlock other areas by gaining experience in the zone and slowly getting gear (and implement CRAFTING in to MAKING the next tier of gear). instead ... BOOM ... here's some gear! instant gratification!

SWTOR is somewhat of a hodgepodge/all-over-the-place and doesn't seem to be thought out very well in this regard.

"hey! are you done? do it AGAIN but HARDER!"

WHAT?