The Question I Messed Up at the Vancouver Community Cantina Event

Your point is completely valid, and it's not like one should expect to never hit a ceiling in terms of gear advancement ever again. However, gear advancement in this MMO specifically has been designed to be far too fast compared to the rate of content releases, even under ideal circumstances. I have a few ideas on how that could be changed, but I'd prefer not to get into that topic unless it seems like the conversation as a whole needs to move in that direction.

Perhaps it does need to be brought into the discussion though. Maybe we need to be engaging the development team in a discussion about not just progression tracks for raiders and non-raiders, but on how gear progression as a whole could be better made to work the content release schedule so the it takes longer before players hit that point where they feel like they're just going to be spinning their wheels for the next six months.

I believe you are wrong on that. People already solo H-2s and H-4s, yet people still group for them. People already solo lvl 50 hard mode flashpoints, yet people still group for them. People already solo lvl 55 story mode flashpoints, yet people still group for them. People 4 man ops, yet people still form full groups for them.

Some people will always test their abilities on harder and harder challenges. There is no tiered solo content. Until they make hard mode and nightmare mode solo instances, soloing group content will have to do. People don't stop running story mode and hard mode ops just because other people are clearing nightmare.

I might be missing the forest for the trees here, but it seems the only way to do that (i.e. slowing gear progression without increasing the pace of content release) would be to make the end-game content more difficult.

While NM content is plenty hard enough, that only applies to the very highest tier of gear. To really slow down gear progression, the other aspects of end-game would need to be harder.

Prior to 2.0, there was a distinction between "Tier 1 Flashpoints and Operations (EV/KP)" and "Tier 2 Flashpoints (LI) and Operations (EC)". It was my hope that this distinction would continue, with both Tier 1 and Tier 2 content added to end-game. Instead, things moved in the opposite direction.

More recently, the devs are focusing on tactical flashpoints. This is beneficial for dps with long queue times, but hardly challenging. Perhaps HM versions of these will be added later that require the trinity, but I'm not holding my breath.

Now, with bolster in SM operations, another stage of gearing has been removed. The devs are moving towards easier, not harder.

I also think that having the best gear come as loot drops might be a mistake: if you make the best gear available solely via comms then you can control exactly how long it will take a player to complete a set.

Interesting.

It is true that it can be quick to gear up a toon with drops. Any guild that has DF / DP on farm can get someone in full 78s in a single day. And for dps / heals, doing it again a week later would get BiS.

Are you suggesting to remove the carrot-on-a-stick for operations? Or to replace gear drops with something else?

Right... so... where do you draw the line?

Because people do solo H2's. I can solo all of them. So I never group for them.

And people do solo some of the H4's. I can solo some of them and I never group for the ones I solo.

If I could solo a 55 hardmode, why would I ever group for it? I have a 0% chance of getting grouped with a bad seed, poor attitude player if I solo. As I add more players to that mix (who aren't guild-mates or on my friend list), the chances of me having a bad experience increases exponentially. I would absolutely solo them if I could.

So where do you draw the line? How much group content do you want to be solo-able? How far into it?

You've already said that people can solo Story Mode 55's. Isn't that enough for you? If not, why not and how far do you want to go?

...instead of 180/Ultimate gear you could have the bosses drop 174 rated gear (mid-tier), thus adding to the progression so raiders can improve via loot drops, but the best gear comes via comms, takes the RNG out of the equation in terms of BIS upgrading and allows the devs to control exactly how long it will take raiders to fill out a full set.

I don't think there should be any artificial barriers. People should be able to solo as much as their skill and gear allows. It's not an issue that affects me since I'll never have the best gear, and I really don't care that I don't. Someone asked why a solo player would want/need better gear, and the answer is that they make their own challenges by soloing group content. Harder content that benefits from better gear is not exclusive to raids unless artificial barriers are created.

Your argument is that no one will group if it is possible for someone to solo it. If that is the case, then why is there any group content at all? If no one wants to do it for the group experience, why do so many people ask for more? Clearly quite a few people enjoy the grouping aspect of group quests and continue to enjoy grouping for that content despite other people soloing it.

It sounds to me like at heart, you are a solo player. Perhaps you are in denial Since you said you'd prefer to solo lvl 55 HM flashpoints, some have been done, so give it a try. You might decide you enjoy it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4I_dLBtRqI

Ok, as the Guildmaster of a nightmare level progression guild, I have to say that this idea would kill any interest that my guildmates, as well as the other top progression players that I know on my server, would have in the game.

We strive to clear the hardest content in the game for both the enjoyment of the challenge and because of the best-in-slot gear that is dropped only from the unassembled token drops from those bosses. We strive to gear every one of the eight members of our team into full BiS gear because that gear is, essentially, needed to clear the next hardest tier of content to come.

There would be no point in even running a nightmare mode operation for gear if it did not drop the absolute best version that was possible to obtain. Why would we waste our time in nightmare operations dropping mid-tier gear when that time would be better spent farming out 16-man story mode operations as an 8-man team to load up on Ultimate Commendations to buy the best gear in the game?

As well, the idea that buying the best gear with commendations would permit the developers to control the amount of time it would take to gear out characters is false. It would actually take as little as a few weeks to get a character into full BiS gear if it was able to be purchased with commendations. You simply run all your Alts through every story mode operation available, max them all out with 150 Ultimate Commendations, buy all the appropriate gear pieces for your Main, and then transfer all the items over with legacy gear. You Main spends their commendation on implants, relics and their ear piece and they're done with their gear progression...with only story mode operations.

Under the current system, it takes a minimum of 16 lockouts (i.e. four months) to fully gear an 8-man team. Everyone needs two implants and two relics, both of which are bind-on-pickup, so there are no shortcuts (assuming the 16-man version of the content prevents an 8-man team from clearing it, which hard mode Nefra failed to do.)

As a final point, assuming you are running operations in a set team, guild or otherwise, and the bosses have stable loot tables (looking at you hard mode Nefra and Bestia), there is no RNG in terms of BiS upgrades under the current system. You know exactly what token drops off of which boss and what gear those tokens can be turned in for. For the team as a whole, there is no RNG.