I really do not see the point of having the normal mode be a pre-requisite for level 50s in order for them to do the hard mode of said flash points. Right now it just seems to be a five to fifteen (depending if you can speeder through mobs) minute time sink to run level 50 players through the normal modes to unlock the hard mode.

What? I did D7 and FE both without having done normal.

Pretty sure you never had to do normal mode in order to do the hard mode. Jumped straight into Battle of Ilum, Directive 7, and False Emperor on hard mode without doing normal mode although I did have to do the small Role-play quest then drop it once you get to the point where you have to clear the instance on normal.

As others have said, you do not need to have done the normal modes. You need to have cancelled all the norlam mode quests though.

 

Foundry may be an exception.

Foundry probably just requires that boarding party be completed, on normal or hard. I know completing False Emp on hard gave me credit for that questline.

The whole method of choosing normal and hard mode is @#$@# retarded, and its no wonder there are constantly people asking how to do it, wondering why it isn't working, trying to figure out which quests to get and which quests to abandon..

 

seriously, who the hell thought up this system and thought it was a good idea? What the what is wrong with just having the leader toggle NORMAL/HARD by right clicking himself? You know, like every SANE game does?

 

Want to do BP hardmode?

First you need the intro quest (level 30 something and grey to you!) which is on some random @#$$ bot in the fleet.

Then you gotta travel to the other ship and talk to the moff.

That automatically gives you the [Group] boarding party for normal mode.

Then you have to ABANDON that quest, but NOT abandon the intro quest that led you to it.

THEN you can get boarding party on hard mode quest.

 

What a ridiculous crock. Same thing applies to Directive 7. So dumb.