GF issues are getting out of hand

You misunderstand, I don't have a problem with your use of it. I did much the same thing when I was doing my progression raiding. I was just calling out the "lost 3 players from the queue', since that's not what happened. You can thrash around rationalizing and justifying all you like, and try to throw insinuations about my motivations, but that doesn't change the disingenuous claim made in your post.

Lol - I had completely forgotten this one. We used to do it a lot for FP rally when we really needed the CQ points. It's only handful of fps you can't really do with a companion, and if those popped, we just came out and walked into something else instead. We couldn't q for a replacement as then it wouldn't have been a guild group, but it's an option now I guess. Cheers for the reminder.

I've been that 4th player joining right before the last boss.
it's a fantastic feeling!

This made me lol so much. The last one of these I was in a group with was also "chat toxic" causing all the issues by trying to los everything, blaming everyone but himself, then rage quitting. Once he left, the rest of us finished the FP with my companion and it was a really nice run.
I wonder if the toxic twits do it deliberately so they can film the rage they get. If some genuinely have no clue, there should be a barrier to entering FPs via the GF such as having to complete a FP tutorial or x number of solo flashpoints first so they know the basics.

I will now only run Hammer Station via the group finder, I used to queue groupfinder for any random FP with a couple of rl friends when they played so we only had to deal with one rando, but now I just don't bother.

yes, sometimes it's great to hop in on the last boss

On a side note, everytime I see the title, I think it's someone complaining about their girlfriend....lol
"GF issues are getting out of hand" time to call in doctor ruth

The reality is that it is far easier to complete most FPs with a lvl 50 companion in the last slot than it is a bad player.

This all started with 4.0, when they made it possible to blaze through the story and companions OP. One could feasibly just basic attack through everything and never die. This is exacerbated spotlit when there's a new influx of players. It's because of Onslaught, the latest Disney fanon Star Wars movie, and the pandemic. The game used to teach you how to play your class, as there were certain points in the game you could not advance beyond if you didn't know how to use a crucial ability. Dumbing down the game resulted in an increase in unskilled players in harder content.

They could dynamically scale the class missions so they are still challenging, or they could gate FPs behind the point you're at in the story. The latter is probably easier than the former for the devs to implement.

The rewards do scale up: They give more Renown Points. Most people don't pay attention to this though. It's probably not enough of an incentive anyway.

I commend you. I no longer have the patience for that.

I ask at the start of VM FPs if anyone's new. I'll explain the fights. I warn at the start of MM FPs that I have the expectation they're familiar with VM and if not, to go back and get some experience. Most of the time, people are honest about their inexperience in VM. Every now and then I get silence and they're exposed by the first boss or they outright lie and get called out when discovered.

This is the problem: Newbs are so afraid of being reprimanded or more commonly and worse, raged at, they'd rather attempt to hide, when it's nearly inevitable that their lack of skill will show at some point, because they are so damn afraid of exposing themselves, getting raged at or kicked immediately, so they just hope they can get carried and not discovered. They'd rather risk a blow to their self-esteem and being embarrassed for looking stupid than learning. I fear for our future as a species.

One time I got a queue for Red Reaper with a bunch of newbs. I wasn't paying attention to the queue and just entered the FP. (Yes, that's on me.) They were 3 DPS and I found out they each had just come off their starter planet...three. We were all new at one time, so I decided to give them a chance. The game needs new players to survive and grow.

After lecturing them about queueing for content appropriate to their skill level, I took the time to teach them their role. I explained target priority, interrupting, using CC, LoS, and of course, boss fights. What did I get for taking the time to give these guys a live tutorial? I got reported to a guild officer, because I got stern with them when they weren't listening. Ingrates.

That's the last time I take the time to teach someone the bare basics. Explaining the final boss's shield mechanic mid-fight, when it became apparent they obviously didn't understand the pre-fight explanation...I was ready to throw myself into the chasm. I'm not a schoolteacher. I'm here to relax and have fun, not work! That experience really soured me on teaching newbs more than just boss fights and encounter mechanics. I found a great series of videos that explains each role of the trinity. They can watch those and if they still don't understand something, ask questions then. Of course there's no time for this during an FP, so I just tell them to follow my lead, maybe explain an element or two of FP basics like target priority and LoS, but I offer links to the videos afterwards if they want.

Because you are not ready. MMOs are fundamentally all the same, but they have things that make them different from one another, from a gameplay perspective. It's sort of like when you get a new car. You have to get a feel for how the vehicle handles, where all the controls are, and adjust your seat and mirrors compared to your old one.


DPS has always been the most popular role. Healers have always been in demand in group content. DPS are like the singer and lead guitarist of a band. They both can develop a huge ego, get all the attention, and think the group falls apart without them. The tank is the drummer. He or she dictates the pace of the fights and (usually) coordinates the group. Healer is the bassist. He or she is the life (literally) and soul of the group. They're the glue that keeps everyone together. You need all of them to succeed, but there tend to be more conflicts with DPSs than the other two...and it's a lot harder to find a good drummer or bassist than it is singer or guitarist.

Showing what FP will be rolled won't work. Players will just decline until it's something they want. They can already do this by selecting from the queue list, but then they don't get the weekly reward. Well, too bad. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

This is essentially dumbing down FPs. I don't agree with this.

I'm not? Interesting, so Taunts work differently here, or have different effects, well, they do in PvP? Nope, this is more "I want a perfect group every time, but can't be bothered to make one" than anything like a legit rationale. Just as you have no idea if a player is ready or not, neither does the game. So what does the game use to make the "Not Ready" determination? Some players are definitely not ready, others are, and some of them may even be better than anyone you know.

It's not like we can use gear for a determination of skill level, I've seen properly geared players that were carried to it by their guild, and had no clue about mechanics. I mean, if you don't know to move out of the laser in TBC, do you really have any justification for harping on other players. This is something I've actually seen happen, btw, not some hypothetical pulled out of thin air, and that's an empirical "you", not trying to single you out specifically. Achievement, nope, just as easily carried. So there's no reliable metric for the game to determine skilled or not. If you want total control of who's in your group, form a group from your guild/friend's list.

I don't agree with your assertion, balancing tuning so relative difficulty is similar across all instances within a given queue grouping (e.g. vet vs MM) would not 'dumb down' FPs, nor would balancing rewards to length / time.

I certainly didn't say they should nerf all instances down to the same tuning point as the easiest / least challenging, that would be 'dumbing down'.

I simply stated that having two instances in the same queue where fights in one can be completed quickly while standing in bad while another takes minutes and has a high risk of failure and / or where the boss / mobs can 100-0 a player in seconds (unavoidable - I don't mean ignoring the mechanic) is poor design, and should be changed.

Personally, I believe instances such as HS and RR should be buffed a bit while SOME (not all) fights in SOME (not all) instances should be toned down (less boss HP, less 'lets put the boss into an immunity state for the nth time so the fight goes on forever' mechanics, less boss damage - especially in vet with no guarantee of tanks / healers, and again unavoidable damage, not damage like standing in orbitals or fire or whatever).

Also I'd be all for something like FPs that got progressively more difficult, but for the current content we have, that ship seemed to sail a long time ago when they decided to make everything have a role neutral version, scaled them all to the same level, and put them in one queue with the same daily reward.

I'd also support something like requiring completion (via legacy achievement) of story / vet mode of a given FP before being able to queue for MM, but again, they (developers) seem to want to make everything accessible to all players even if the players are not ready / qualified, so no idea if they would even consider something like this.

So since we have very little in the way of progressive checks to move up in harder difficulty, and since the game doesn't challenge players while leveling, and since flashpoint tuning is all over the place, I just queue up and decline over and over when its a bunch of lowbies (or sub 75s in MM, which I rarely queue outside of premade groups), and / or drop if its an instance I dislike because of tuning / length and / or because the other players are clearly new or worse, bads.

Every time I read this header, i keep reading it as; Girl Friend issues are getting out of hand.