Congratulations. You just killed sm ops

Well that's part of the problem...it's not forcing people to pug HM/NiM. Pugs are mostly dead. That's what my beef is about. When you are on fleet now, you don't read lfg xyz...you see 100's of gold spam, people wanting to buy/sell/trade outfits, and trolls. Lfg 16hm TFB/SnV/DF/DP is not or rarely seen. Then after you spend 2+ hours getting these pug HM's together (if ever) you enter the instance and realize immediately why it's a horrible idea to pug a HM anything. I don't care too much about the gear, but many do. They will not run the content with no incentive, which means I can't run the content either.

I can see why bioware want to push people into harder content for rewards, if you play some other recent MMO's on the market and compare the difficulty of stuff to this you'll see that this game is a walk in the park to even a lot of normal/story mode content in other MMO's.

I do however still think they should at least buff mission rewards and make the basic/elite commendations more useful than just grinding gear with them to give them some longevity, however you shouldn't be able to earn the highest tier comms in abundance from running ops 5 levels below so the removal of ultimates from bosses was the correct action.

I don't think it's just pugs but the game in general.

Take GF - it takes soo long in apac time to pop now if it does at all for level 60 HM FPs or even the new fps in tactical.

Participation seems at a lot.

I believe this is why they're talking server merges again. The populations are low as a reflection of the player base. There was a time when every instance of fleet was packed. Here's a clue Bioware: whatever you were doing when the servers were full, do that again. If more people continue to leave because you're destroying the content they like, maybe it's you...not them...just sayin.

Wow, its almost like you have to earn 198 tier gear...oh wait...

I don't want 198 gear from 55 ops..I have stated this. I want to run the content. If there are NO incentives for lvl 60's to run TFB/SnV/DF/DP they will not queue or join pugs...that means many of us that just wanna run ops don't have access either....it's almost like you didn't read previous posts b4 you got snippy...oh wait.....

People aren't going to pug HM/NiM TFB/S&V/DF/DP for 10 ultimate comms. Even being as over leveled and overgeared as we are at 60, they still take long enough to do in SM, let alone HM. And with the lacking of coordination that is seen in most pug groups, it would be an extremely rare occasion that you actually finish a successful run.

If people are willing to spend that time running HM/NiM in old content... why not instead just spend that time running the new content and getting better rewards for it?

There is just no real incentive to run old stuff when there is a larger incentive to do the new stuff.

They did when you had to do HM/NiM SV or KP for some of the better coms back in the day... also commendations has never been this common before though.

But if you do not like it as it is now you could always suggest that ultimate coms only can buy level 55 com gear and introducing a new type of commendations for 60 com gear lol.

Anyhow what you want back is the exploit that you could get ultimate commendations for story mode 16man SnV/TFB/DP/DF, ok it is not so bad as the ravagers exploit... but rather harmless no they had no reason to ban people because the com gear suck anyways so instead the fixed it.

Why not just give 186 set pieces from these ops? It is not level 60 gear, it is old lvl 55 gear. Pvp got a boost to 168 6 piece set gear for running the exact same content that used to grant lower tiered gear. Do the same with pve. Or something. Anything. People are just not running the content anymore. Doing old ev/ec/kp used to grant ultimate comms..."too tier 55 gear" for ops that could b 3 manned in hm...

186 set pieces (Dread Master) is a nightmare difficulty level of gear. The Developer's past policy has been that nightmare rewards (set bonuses, shells, mounts and titles) are never available though any other content channel. The incentive for players to work to improve their gameplay enough that they are able to clear nightmare operations is that they are provided access to rewards that are only available through those boss clears.

An advantage of this system is that the rewards are never removed either. I know of plenty of players who were not skilled enough to clear nightmare TFB and S&V at Level 55, but are trying to clear them now at Level 60 for their sets of Kell Dragon (174) shells.

If NM rewards were shifted into the HM or SM versions of the operations then the equivalent problem of "no one runs the NM versions anymore" would be created.

This is part of the life cycle of an MMO. Old end-game content eventually is played less frequently by the player base as they move onto current end-game content for current rewards. Old content becomes "Classic," just as EV, KP and EC were Classic operations during the 2.0 - 3.0 stretch. TFB, S&V, DF and DP are also now Classic.

Personally, I am surprised that after, literally, years of players running TFB and S&V, that people are this upset over not being able to grind them out again for the umpteenth time. There are two brand new SM operations dropping 192 set bonus gear that is heads and tails above 198 commendation gear. On The Shadowlands, at least, there are SM/8 TR and ToS groups that form in Fleet. Players should form SM/8 groups and begin working towards clearing the new operations. There will be wipes, but it's a learning process for all involved. Over time players will perform better at the new mechanics.

(And yes, all SM/8 TR and ToS fights are clearable; my guild has cleared both operations every week. They also drop a tonne of unassembled tokens. Clearing all ten bosses nets 13-16 tokens.)