(If there is already a post about this I apolgize)

 

I’m not a MMO veteran. TOR is my first one and I still have a lot to learn. I’m leveling a scoundrel and I think I’m doing a pretty good job. Currently at lvl 27, I’ve spent more time doing FP and heroics than anything else (Athiss has been forever engrained in my brain). I feel my gear is pretty good and my crit heals are regularly 1,300+ (not sure if that’s good either but….). I have a long way to go until 50 but I feel if I continue doing what I’m doing, I should have a good healer by the then.

 

The problem is I’ve been told that when you reach it, you hit a big wall that’s almost impossible to get over. That groups don’t want first timers with them during their OPS, even in SM, because of lack of familiarity with fights and not having good enough gear.

 

So I have a question, how does a brand new lvl 50 get experience/gear from the OPS, if no one helps them? I do hear about dailies, but like I said I’m new, so I don’t know much about them. I also know a little bit about guilds but I’m afraid there might be too much of a commitment. I also heard you need a voice chat. I checked out Vent but don't know anything about it either....

 

Can someone give me advice on what I can do now/later to get over this wall? I’ve read a lot about the endgame OPS and would love to be able to do them. It sounds like the best part of this game!

 

Thanks

Get in a good raiding guild.

 

I have 3 50's and still have yet to do some of the advanced operations because I am not active enough in my guilds or just am not on when raids occur. I have never completed TFB, and finished EC only once with my 50 Marauder. (This explains why I am full Rakata only on my assassin and partial Rakata on my Marauder).

 

As far as SM operations go, you can get in with guild runs or even PUGs. KP and EV are pretty straightforward once you've run them once or twice, and you can access them from the group finder.

 

I ALWAYS tell people upfront whether I am new to the raid or not, and it helps a lot. Same with flashpoints. I have a relatively new 50 tank, and it is really hard getting better gear even with HM flashpoints. I find that UNLESS I say upfront I am a new tank, people just quit the group if there is a wipe or any hint of a wipe.

 

There are always jerks who abuse noobs, but that's true of anything in life. 99% of SWTOR players I've been teamed with are very helpful and fun.

Also depends on what server you are on, PVE servers tend to have a lot of guilds interested in end game PVE content, but RP servers have a bottle neck effect where there are only 5-10 top end guilds for PVE end game while PVP servers have a very very limited end game scope. generally speaking, it shouldn't be hard to find a casual end game guild to run SM then HM ops. Most of that stuff is pretty trivial now a days.

You're going to get several answers, so here's mine. Research. Don't go into any OPS without learning the basics of the boss fights. That being said, joining a guild with "newcomer" gearing run is another option for gear. The last and more solo friendly options is Group Finder/Black Hole comms. There are plenty of guilds out there with friendly people willing to teach new players the ropes of the content.

 

As with Voice Chat, not a necessity for the SM content if you know the fights, but it does help. Though, if you plan to run the HM OPS, then I would say Voice Chat is a must. Any guild worth a darn will have a voice chat server and I'm will to bet, if you ask, they will also teach you how to use the software.

 

Lastly, if you are new to an OPS or FP, please say so as soon as it is forming or starting up. You'll find some players that will boot you quickly, but I'm willing to bet there are far more people who will take the time to teach you also.

Groups just don't want ppl that don't know what they're doing.

 

There are numerous youtube videos out there with walkthroughs for all the operations boss fights, on every difficulty. Read/watch the tutorials and you'll have a huge leg up.

 

Also, if you're unsure let others lead and keep up with them. There are often set paths people walk in ops to avoid various fights and nothing pisses a group off more than a person who is constantly lagging behind/running and aggroing everything that can be easily skipped.

 

There are also guilds of every type. Many will bring along a new person and teach them the fights. We do it all the time. It is sooo much easier to do it on voice comms though as you can give instructions during the fights and it's much faster than typing.

Edited March 25, 2013 by Infalliable

As it is currently, you get free Tionese gear at 50 so it shouldn't be that much of an issue. Of course you can't do hard mode operations in that gear but you can do all the hard mode flash points and the story mode of Eternity Vault and Karagga's Palace. Once you do those a few times you should have the gear needed to go further. Edited March 25, 2013 by Jack_Deth

find a guild..if you just join groups in general chat you will have the problems you fear. grab a guild which uses voice chat and you'll be fine. and do your dailies so you'll grab BH gear. and augment anything you have so they'll get an erection about how pro you behave

I would honestly peg Warzones as the single best avenue for getting your name out there and becoming known, with the eventual goal of being invited to OPs when a guild needs a pug, or pug needs an extra, etc. Its' what I did with my first toon on 2 different servers, and people vouching for me even though I was in unaugmented pvp gear got me invites. (Also War Hero destroys Tionesse gear as far as fresh 50s go.)

 

For one they provide upfront experience, you're not smashing braindead quest mobs, or being overleveled and clearing flashpoint bosses, you'll be playing against actual players many of whom on your own class. So you'll start to see first hand on a game by game basis how you stand up to others like you, what classes are doing what, etc. Short of leveling up a class yourself the single best way to get a feel for it is playing against it in pvp. Which will help greatly in all aspects of gameplay as you become more familiar with which classes can do what.

 

Second, every match you'll be with 15 other players. Many of whom are alts of players from well-established guilds. As far as exposure goes, that's the most people you'll probably ever be playing with at one time. Not only that but over time you'll be matched and become familiar players from a wide-range of levels (1-49) unlike PvE content where you're limited by planet, or groupfinder level-range.

 

It doesn't even matter if your server is RP, or PvE either.. Lowie warzones give amazing experience, and break up the monotony of planet quests for veteran players, so they're almost always active.

 

You don't even have to treat every game like a resume or worry about winning the leaderboards. Simply using the Warzones to find better rotations and try out established specs will be a benefit in and of itself. But if you consistently play warzones and frequently play and speak with the same players. Your friendslist will grow exponentially compared to if you had just solo-quested and did flashpoints. And at the end of the day meeting other players is the single best way to become a part of guilds/groups.

Edited March 26, 2013 by FROIDBUSTER

The game was really awful about that prior to the free Tionese gear. Basically, you'd get to 50, and either join a guild or get cursed at every time you joined a PUG for missions, and those PUGs would always want to skip all the stuff that would get you equipped so they wouldn't have to curse at you. It was pretty awful, and for that reason, I abandoned most of my characters upon finishing the solo missions.

 

With the free Tionese gear, things turned around sharply, and now you start the game at least decently equipped (although still oddly short one item... why Bioware, why give me 99 commendations to buy 100 commendations worth of stuff?), so you can jump in with most PUGs without too much trouble, and handle Ilum with fewer wipes.

 

They may be undoing all that with the new patch, I don't know. Personally, I'll fool around with the new content for a bit, and if it's dull, I'll just go back to abandoning characters after finishing story mode... after 50, there's no level progression, so it becomes a game of running the same missions over and over, trying desperately to get that next geegaw that will raise your stats by a point or two. It becomes math, and math is boring.

Just be able to listen and do what you are told to do and you're welcome to any ops group I'm leading. I'd pick a person who can take orders over a person who have watched some walkthrough any time. Just last night I actually had a guy who said he was a first-timer but had watched a video about the ops (in KP pug) and we explained the fight in Jarg and Sorno anyway and made the 2 groups (left group and right group) and when the fight starts, this guy attacks the wrong boss and stops reading chat (where I tried to tell him to attack the other guy).

From my perspective this is not true at all,I'm sure it may happen at times tho.

 

I recently healed my first two story mode Operations and they were both pugs and I even told them it was my first time healing an OP. after i was in the OP than i mentioned I know the fights from a dps point of view that made them even happier.I was a lil over geared tho as well.

 

Reality most prefer experiance but there are plenty who want to run Operations bad enough they will spend the time to explain things or may have chat client available for pugs to use.

 

It's a matter of finding the right people that understand we all were new to it at some point.

 

I'm curious what server you are on and if your in a guild?

 

If your on jedi covenant,you should message me I might be able to help

If you're not hard core yourself then it's a social guild not a raiding guild that you should join. Maybe my server is more friendly and I try to keep in group with guildees but I've never seen anyone kicked out of a group due to poor gear, poor gear can mean a bad player (doing silly stuff, refusing to listen to advice etc) which is a different story.

 

The tionese stuff helps, and you can gear a lot on solo activity, doing daily missions is the key for a first time 50, you need to be building commendations up for rakata earpieces, implants and campaign/dreadguard relics.

 

Pug ops can be very hit and miss, I'd stay clear unless you have at least half the team as guildees you know are good players.

(although still oddly short one item... why Bioware, why give me 99 commendations to buy 100 commendations worth of stuff?)

 

Glad to know I'm not the only one who was frustrated by that. As it turns out though, the free pvp gear you get at level 50 comes with some good stats (aside from the expertise which is pointless in pve) so you can use some of that in a pinch. I'm modding up Lord Kallig's Double-Bladed Lightsaber so I can re-equip it when its viable :-p

Personally due to it being only a few weeks until RoTHC, if you're about or have dinged 50 recently I wouldn't rush into heavily gearing for stuff just yet and try to save as many comms as you can of all types.

 

Not only black hole and hazmat will be dropping like candy in pre 55 endgame content but any comms you acquire now will get converted to classic comms, it could mean the difference between starting levelling those 5 extra levels in a few campaign pieces instead of columi.

Glad to know I'm not the only one who was frustrated by that. As it turns out though, the free pvp gear you get at level 50 comes with some good stats (aside from the expertise which is pointless in pve) so you can use some of that in a pinch. I'm modding up Lord Kallig's Double-Bladed Lightsaber so I can re-equip it when its viable :-p

 

the new endgame stuff is kind of a way to get rid of that bottle neck. get the implants, relics, etc from the pvp gear and equip them and get the rest of the gear from the tionese vendor. I just end up selling that gear anyway since i've got stockpiles of columi, rakatta, and blackhole gear sitting in cargo bays in legacy armour waiting for my guys to get to lvl 50. I'm right now working on my 9th lvl 50 so it's a little bit different.

 

In the begining when you reached 50 you needed probably 3 to 4 weeks of grinding dailies, (including space) to get enough commendations to buy/loot the item modifications to be able to do most of the HM FP's, Also the story mode lvl 50 Fp's would drop tionese gear, and commendations as well and you could do those pretty easily with the green gear from correlia.

Thanks a ton for the advice and I appreciate all of it! I did have a good experience last night doing Cademimu for the first time. The guys were patient as heck. We did have a wipe but I don’t think it was my fault (those dogs hit hard!).

 

I do have a question though. I’ve been focusing on mods more than the gear itself. For instance, instead of upgrading whole pieces of armor/weapons, I’ll just upgrade the mods it has. If I get an item I can’t use, but it has an enhancement I can, I’ll strip it instead of sale it. Do worry, I’ll never need on an item just cause it has a mod I can use. Wise or not?

 

Also, I started playing when the only west coast PVE server available was Harbinger so that's were I'm at.

Thanks a ton for the advice and I appreciate all of it! I did have a good experience last night doing Cademimu for the first time. The guys were patient as heck. We did have a wipe but I don’t think it was my fault (those dogs hit hard!).

 

I do have a question though. I’ve been focusing on mods more than the gear itself. For instance, instead of upgrading whole pieces of armor/weapons, I’ll just upgrade the mods it has. If I get an item I can’t use, but it has an enhancement I can, I’ll strip it instead of sale it. Do worry, I’ll never need on an item just cause it has a mod I can use. Wise or not?

 

Also, I started playing when the only west coast PVE server available was Harbinger so that's were I'm at.

 

that's good because you can keep the same look and just upgrade the mods, if you're doing all the side missions you'll get more than enough commendations to keep your armour and weapons up to date. well if the item has the stats that you need then you can need on it. just be careful that if you've got multiple players make sure it's for your role. so if your a commando and there's a vanguard as well don't need on his tank gear, and he shouldn't need if its healer or dps gear for your character. if your the only one with aim in the group then anything with aim is valid for you to need on.

The problem for me is mainly for KP, EC, and TFB when you don't know the fights. If you don't have a mic or one of the popular voice chat programs to hear how they go, some if not all of the boss fights are tedious to type out sometimes. Like others are saying, go online and watch some videos of the operations.

Most people would rather you know them instead of wiping 15 times while learning what not to do.

you don't have anything to worry about. use the group finder, and run karragas palace, and eternity vault. also before that run a hard mode flashpoint or 2. youll run into some people who are what youre worried about but if youre running those, then you are there to get gear, and to learn. most people will understand that, and work with you. plus by the time you hit 50 people are going to be so overgeared its gonna be ridiculous. even more of a joke than to run in mostly dread and campaign. so itll be a great place for you to start. also read up on explosive conflict, and terror from beyond so you know what to look for, and expect in the fights. its a whole lot of fun, and in my opinion a thousand times better than leveling. especially once you start doing hm and nightmare, and all that. my phone is all jacked up so i cant use caps for some reason.