Congratulations. You just killed sm ops

100*

*only for those who didnt exploit Ravagers.

My biggest problem with the change is that because I don't have a steady schedule, I can't do Ops in a progression guild. That forces me to find PUGs doing ultimate content. Unfortunately, most PUGs are extremely bad at coordination and there's no way of knowing if it's worth the time until you actually pull the boss. And sadly if the PUG manages to seem even the least bit promising, most players ragequit after 3 pulls.

I haven't been able to complete a ultimate content since patch release. I no longer need elites but my progression has stopped on my raid toon. So now I'm just playing alts =/.

and this is mostly because it's over one year that the causal player rofl stomps all the available endgame content

it took 5-6 wipes for a pug who oneshotted the walkers to start hiding behind the *********** rocks, and their minds axploded while trying to understand that burning the boss/ignoring adds doesn't mean you don't have to hide behind the *********** rocks one last freaking time..or 5 wipes needed to have half of the dps stop using AOE skills on torque? really? it's exactly like when people kept failing interupting a single mob on draxus. until healers overgeared and become able to heal through 2-3 MA there was a huge failing rate at that boss.

The ultimate commendations where the carrot for us to continue to play the old raids. With how the newer two raids are bugged on both encounters and loot the ultimate commendations from the older raids was our constellation prize for sitting threw hours of aggravation at the hands of this current update, sorry its not a expansion compared to other games I have played in the past. Twice last night while trying to pug Ravager 's we where forced to drop down to 8 man so that we could continue with 16 man. Torque, buddy your health is not in proportion that it should be for 16 man content.

Only reason this week we are seeing a few more operations being run for older content is because most are involved for conquest points. And those are being run in 8 man anyways because there is no loot anyone needs and most people continually cap out on basic or elite each week before even raiding. So unlike player verse player which rewards people commendations for gear win or lose, player verse environment took a hit.

In my guild we have about 3-4 people that show up to our raids on a regular basis, but like this guy said....it takes about 30min-an hour to get people who want to roll an 8man sm LvL 60 Raid -- forget about 16man. This isn't counting the nights where we can't put together a full group because most casuals do not want to run this content.

Exactly what I'm saying. I'm not whining about the lack of ultimate coms. I'm whining about the lack of people interested in participating in the vast majority of available SM content because of lack of incentive. Give them/us back our carrot for not BiS gear and fleet will repopulate and I/we can run the content we enjoy with like minded players whom we also enjoy.

I agree with you there needs to be a carrot, but a different carrot.

Developers are great in destroying value. Despite having fairly good (in terms of story and mechanics wise interesting and fairly bug free and properly tuned) content available they are happy not just to throw them away but even break them (for example Explosive Conflict Nightmare mode Warlord Kephess' Siege Droids phase). Bioware has shown signs of myopia not just now (change of the cool down of interrupts and cleansing) but in the past too (eliminating 8 vs 8 ranked war zones resulted in the balancing problems (one such example: operatives/scoundrels became the healers for ranked)).
The good news is that Bioware has the tool to keep the full PvE player base interested. The bad news is that Bioware's track record at execution is far from perfect. Therefore I think that the proper way is not that older content get buffed/reworked at each time the level cap is increased, rather using a reversed bolster[1] system. This way there is less chance of introducing new bug(s).

Both at level 50 and 55 there were 5 tiers of gear and one could expect the same will be true for level 60. These were:

• tier 5 without set bonus: Xenotech (126) and Energized (126) / Black Market (162) / Massassi (192)
• tier 5 with set bonus: Tionese (126) / Arkanian (162) / Resurrected (192)
• tier 4 without set bonus: Exotech (136) / Verpine (168) / Deciver (198)
• tier 4 with set bonus: Columi (136) / Underworld (168) / Revanite (198)
• tier 3 without set bonus: NA / Shadowed (174) / TBA
• tier 3 with set bonus: Rakata (140) / Kell Dragon (174) / TBA
• tier 2 without set bonus: Black Hole (146) / Oriconian (180) / TBA
• tier 2 with set bonus: Campaign (146) / Dread Forged (180) / TBA
• tier 1 without set bonus: Hazmat (150) / Dread Touched (186) / TBA
• tier 1 with set bonus: Dread Guard (150) / Dread Master (186) / TBA

With the reversed bolster system in place the loot would be:
Tier 5:

• Story mode operations: Eternity Vault, Karagga's Palace, Terror from Beyond, Scum and Villainy, Golden Fury, Dread Fortress, Dread Palace, The Ravagers, Temple of Sacrifice

Tier 4:

• Hard mode operations: Eternity Vault, Karagga's Palace, Terror from Beyond, Scum and Villainy, Golden Fury, The Ravagers, Temple of Sacrifice

Tier 3:

• Story mode operation: Explosive Conflict, TBA
• Nightmare mode operation: Eternity Vault, Karagga's Palace, Terror from Beyond, Scum and Villainy, The Ravagers, Temple of Sacrifice

Tier 2:

• Hard mode operations: Explosive Conflict, Dread Fortress, Dread Palace, TBA

Tier 1:

• Nightmare mode operations: Explosive Conflict, Dread Fortress, Dread Palace, TBA

Also to keep the progression groups' interest new limited time available "untainted" achievements would be introduced. The achievement would be obtainable as long as the highest currently available gear tier matches the highest available tier at the time of the introduction of a given ops.

The reverse bolster system would also make it possible for everyone to enjoy each and every operations as they were originally intended.

[1] Reversed bolster system: the accuracy, critical chance, critical multiplier, activation speed, damage reduction, defence chance, shield chance and shield absorption would be kept at current value, while bonus damage, bonus healing, health would be scaled down to be at the same percentage of the maximum attainable at the current level cap (in other words Revanite would scale down to Underworld for level 55 and Columi for level 50 operations and flash points). This way the grinding element of the game would remain intact but keep the players sane (so for example there would be no need to change out pieces with accuracy to reach the required 110% force/tech accuracy).
Having older content with reverse bolster system shouldn't be mandatory. Rather it should be introduced as a new difficulty tier beside the existing (six for operations, two for flash points) ones.



As many have already noted casual players keep the game alive:
If one check out the world progression threads it's quite clear that the casual players cross finance the nightmare mode content:

• Dread Fortress (NiM) 8-Man World Progression Tracking
  
  Quote: Originally Posted by insaneric

  Click Here for the Dread Fortress Nightmare Mode 8-Man Progression Tracking Tool
  Fifty-two participating groups (416 players).
• 16-man NiM Dread Fortress Progression Tracking
  
  Quote: Originally Posted by OSUKirkland

  16-man Dread Fortress Nightmare Mode - Progression Tracking
  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...3c&usp=sharing
  Sixteen participating groups (256 players).
• Dread Palace (NiM) 8-Man World Progression Tracking
  
  Quote: Originally Posted by insaneric

  Click Here for the Dread Palace Nightmare Mode 8-Man Progression Tracking Tool
  Eighteen participating groups (144 players).
• 16-man NiM Dread Palace Progression Tracking
  
  Quote: Originally Posted by OSUKirkland

  16-man Dread Palace Nightmare Mode - Progression Tracking
  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...3c&usp=sharing
  Six participating groups (96 players).

Therefore any comments suggesting that these players must get better instead of complaining for too tough content is rather short sighted as if this part of the population decides not to finance the game (with subscription and Cartel Coin purchasing) because it isn't fun for them any more the remaining revenue from progression players would not be enough to finance the game's existence. During the past eighteen months Bioware has managed to let down the overwhelming majority of it's customers (PvP players, casual PvE players, progression players and surprisingly even some role players).

Regarding the change in commendation rewards:
My personal experience was that most PUGs were muscling trough Scum and Villainy Hard Mode (to my great surprise the players suddenly learned not to mess with other team's opponents at Operations Chief - this was causing numerous wipes before 3.0 story mode runs) for easy Ultimate Commendations and only a few touched other operations. Considering the difficulty of each boss I think that the changes in rewards are not in line with the difficulty of the encounters for PUGs. Therefore I suggest the following changes:

• hard mode Operator IX still drops ultimate commendations
• hard mode The Terror from Beyond on 16 mode still drops ultimate commendations if Grasping Tentacles one shot level 60 players (as they do level 55 ones)
• hard mode Corruptor Zero drops one ultimate commendation (for being wiped by team members not caring about the Concussion Mine)
• hard mode Brontes still drops ultimate commendations
• nightmare mode Nefra does not drop ultimate commendation
• nightmare mode Terror from Beyond and Scum and Villainy still drop ultimate commendations

I do know that hard mode Dread Fortress can be cleared with a good group (consisting of players having the Gate Crasher and/or Conquerer of the Dread Fortress title(s)) well under 30 minutes, however most PUGs are made of different players. In fact most PUGs wiped by Energy Spheres in phase 2. On the other hand hard mode Dread Council encounter is one of the easiest level 55 hard mode operation boss fight if the damage dealers are not overzealous in first and third phases.

The fleets got much quieter since the patch (well some fleets were already dead silent while others just made large step in that direction). It isn't a good sign considering that this is an MMO after all.

Just scale everything to 60. Or at least let the raid leader have a new option to choose whether he wants to make the instance "classic" (lvl 55) with current commendation set up, or made into lvl 60 for ulti content, for all raids.

The more the developers touch an older content the more they break. See Raptus healing challenge for example, Bioware has managed to break a not that old operation. Imagine what would happen if they need to understand an older operation. It's quite possible that compared to these redone ones the two current level 60 would look like flawless products... Therefore it is better that the players are scaled down to old content (as an option) than the other way around.