What we have so far:

 

September 26th, 2012 Terror From Beyond Game Update 1.4 START TFB

April 9th, 2013 Update 2.0: Scum and Villainy START S&V

June~ 2013 Terror From Beyond NiM mode 9 MONTHS LATER (9 months...)

(?) Scum and Villainy NiM mode ~3 MONTHS LATER (S&V looks pretty good at least we did not have to wait 9 months lol...).

 

Hopefully things will go faster from this point forward.

 

What if we had SM, HM and NiM in one game update or if that is too much to ask from their staff? The next major patch they give us something new instead of a rehash? I do not play WoW but isn't this how they do it in that game: one raid finder, one normal mode and one heroic mode all in the same package?

Edited May 24, 2013 by paowee

What if we had SM, HM and NiM in one game update or if that is too much to ask from their staff? The next major patch they give us something new instead of a rehash? I do not play WoW but isn't this how they do it in that game: one raid finder, one normal mode and one heroic mode all in the same package?

 

That is generally how they do it, but with a few caveats.

 

1 -- They gate LFR so that every x weeks a new set of bosses opens. Mostly this is because it's easier to get people together for 3 bosses and gives the casuals plenty of time to get one tank and spank down and move on to the next. (This is no joke, the LFR bosses generally mechanics do not matter.)

 

2 -- Heroics are locked until you clear the raid on normal. This isn't an issue for serious progression guilds, they clear the content the first week and move right into Heroics. Regular guilds don't really go Normal -> Heroic, some may try but generally you have the guilds that clear normals fast and go right into Heroic and the guilds that may eventually see a heroic or two down by the time the next patch is out.

 

3 -- The WoW dev team is gigantic compared to the SWTOR one, I won't make excuses since I'd prefer there to be NiM launching with the raid itself, but as long as the new mechanics really up the ante I'm fine as it stands now. The 2.0 re-balance of TFB was lenient in my opinion, going onto PTS soon to look at the NiM fights, hope they really up the challenge factor.

 

Also some of the tiers in WoW last for a really REALLY long time, for example ICC was released on Dec 8 2009, the next real raid came with Cata release on Dec 7 2010. A whole year with a raid. The same thing happened with Dragon Soul (which was a terrible raid to begin with) releasing on November 29 2011, with the first of the raids in MoP opening September 25 2012, and the remaining raids opening over a month after that. At least this strings it out a bit and takes the "Heroics 2nd week" impetus off the serious raiders. It has a lot wrong with it, but it also works out in some ways.

This is done so that the hardcore raiders don't clear the current hardest content in the game the second week it's out and have to wait 6 months or longer to get another challenge.

 

What happens here is a new Ops with SM that's really to challenging for a PUG to realistically do (Explosive Conflict SM launch last year) and a HM that, honestly, is very difficult in the gear available (Explosive Conflict HM same time)

 

Then (once everyone that could do the SM and has been trying to grind the HM, and starting to succeed) they release the NM, while adjusting down the SM so it's easier and adjusting the gear that SM drops to get more people into the HM and the hardcore players move on to the NM. This is also released with a slightly more difficult raid SM and HM (TfB last fall) so the cycle starts over.

 

This way there is a fresh challenge for Ops every 3 months or so without having to actually make a new Op. Casuals can eventually PUG all the SMs, the dev's have more time on the new Ops without everyone screaming for new content ALL THE TIME, and most hardcore raiders can get the latest challenge on farm (just before it gets boring) in time for the next mode or Op.

 

I should point out that I was keeping up with HM and NM from launch until last Dec. my schedule doesn't let me raid regular enough anymore so if this a little out of date I apologize but that's what it seemed like to me when I was doing Ops regular.

yeah Im starting to get sick of them releasing nightmare modes so spread out. I would rather get nightmare mode same time as HM and then get some actual new content later on down the road. Honestly I hate it when mmos recycle old content over and over again and unfortunately bioware has been doing it for a while now. Please BW stop recycling and give us something NEW

This is done so that the hardcore raiders don't clear the current hardest content in the game the second week it's out and have to wait 6 months or longer to get another challenge.

but if the next content is tuned hard enough, then even if the hardcore raiders have cleared the content in 2 weeks, they still have to get gear for the next tier's patch.. so they'd still have to farm it right?

 

for example HM SnV was tuned in such a way that, my guild for example did it in DG gear............... with very few Arkanian pieces. HM SnV was not tuned right imo. Maybe they will make it worthy for hardcore raiders in NiM mode?

Edited May 25, 2013 by paowee

I think they should use S+V as a model of how to release content - HM comes out - 6-8 weeks later NiM comes out.

 

I like the challenge of NiM, but I do not think it should be a gearing issue, so there should be time to farm loot from the HM before going into NiM.

 

I would absolutely hate if NiM and HM came out at the same time, with the same lockout, especially. You'd have to decide whether you want to compete for top progression or put it off another week so you can gear up.

 

So again, I'd rather they do what they are doing here for S+V - and I applaud them on getting the content out so fast after the new raid came out (two NiM modes, pretty soon after).

but if the next content is tuned hard enough, then even if the hardcore raiders have cleared the content in 2 weeks, they still have to get gear for the next tier's patch.. so they'd still have to farm it right?

 

for example HM SnV was tuned in such a way that, my guild for example did it in DG gear............... with very few Arkanian pieces. HM SnV was not tuned right imo. Maybe they will make it worthy for hardcore raiders in NiM mode?

 

I also wanted to add HM shouldn't be that big a challenge. NiM is the challenge for "hardcore" raiders. While I'm not sure many people actually struggled with HM S+V, I do know that some guilds have more trouble than others ;p

I think that they wait to deploy NiM so that they can see what mechanics would make it NiM vs HM

well PTS is up and unfortunately lock outs got xferred too....

well PTS is up and unfortunately lock outs got xferred too....

 

Yeah this is about as stupid as it comes, what do they want testing NiM the people who can't clear HM?