Greetings from Zorz! As we get ready for SoR, we are looking to do something pretty ambitious and new to us: we want to produce operations guides for the new content. We've heard the news that the new hardmode is going to be harder than we've seen in RotHC. We know a lot of people are excited by that, but many are apprehensive, too. We feel there was a lack of high quality guides released in a timely manner for the last tier of content, and are worried the same will happen this next tier. We feel we can help out the community by producing the most professional, most useful guides we can.

To that end we're looking for input from the community. What makes guide useful to you? What is annoying when you watch guides? Simply put, what do you look for in an operations guide?

We've seen a lot of styles of guides ( video with text, video of commentary, written guides with inserted pictures, written guides with video of tricky mechanics, etc) and we're having trouble deciding on which format we like best. If the community prefers one over the others, that's the one we'll go with. We just mainly need to know what people like.

Are spliced together videos from multiple POV's helpful, or are complete videos from each better? Should we put diagrams in the video, or explanations of the mechanics as they happen? If there's something you've wanted to see in an operations guide, let us know, and if we like it we'll try to make it happen.

Please leave your feedback with what you want to see!

Join the discussion on reddit link found here

Some sort of visual representation of mechanics, that could be a screenshot of the map overlay with some text or figures, or even simple drawings could work. In addition to that, I think multiple video PoVs with text commentary would be great, specially when there are special mechanics that is dealt by different group members. Full video is not important, only snippets would be more than enough.

However, I think this might be too much work for anyone to do. In the end you are doing the community a great favor, and we can't ask you for more than you would want to do.

Depending on how much work you want to do, it's good to keep in mind that people learn in different ways. Some learn best with a video of the whole fight; some like maps and diagrams; some can picture the mechanics as long as you give explicit written direction; some can work with just a screenshot of something rather than watching a long video.

Since you are looking for what people want, here is what I like to see:

* A diagram if a fight needs people to be in certain positions (e.g. Terror from Beyond)

* Written explanation of main mechanics and if possible, the order of the mechanics for the whole fight (e.g. list of what happens in each Draxus phase- but not necessarily what the group should do as there is flexibility in that). This is most important for me personally because I like to read specific instructions.

* At least one video of the fight- if I want to find a PoV for a specific role I can usually find it somewhere on the Internet if not in the guide I'm looking at. I like it to be of the whole fight.

If you go ahead with making the guides, thank you for your contribution, because anything is appreciated.

There's always plenty of videos out there and it always ends up in most people not watching them all the way through, because they're long, or not knowing what to look at.

Diagrams seem to be the hardest to find and take the least time to grasp. If I was pugging and I had to tell people what to do, a series of diagrams would be perfect - not as taxing as text and not as finicky to fish small detail out of as a video. There's a reason "executive summaries" - explaining complex things from scratch - are almost exclusively done as slideshows. They're not perfect every time, but by far most of the time.

So if you can take the time, that would be the way to go, IMHO.

Thank you for looking to make a substantial contribution to the entire SWTOR operation community with your guides.

Any accurate information, even if it's not in an ideal format to satisfy everyone, is a resource that players can turn to when attempting to understand what they are experiencing in a fight.

Since the new hard mode operation are being marketed as "really hard," the more details you can include on each mechanic, the better. With a full write-up of each mechanic, skilled players will be able to find the key information they are looking for and devise strategies that will work for the composition of their team.

For example, these would be the details that I would look for in a mechanic summary:

[Attack name]

• Description: Slam from [enemy name]
  
• Style: X meter long, Y meter wide non-tracking marked cleave
  
• Application: 1.5 second cast, then instant
  
• Timing: Repeats every 15 seconds
  
• Damage Output: Ak-Bk on tank, Xk-Yk on DPS / healer
  
• Damage Sub-divisions: 1 hit
  
• Damage Type: Kinetic
  
• Effects: None.
  

As for guide style, my preference is for a written guide with appropriate screenshots and diagrams to explain complicated maneuvers (a picture is worth a thousand words). This makes the information easy to refer back to, and to refer others to, rather than a timestamp in a video.

At least one video showing the entirety of the fight is also key. My preference is for a very wide-angle healer perspective as they tend to move the least and therefore can provide a good view of the action occurring around them. A tank perspective would be my next preference if two PoV videos are presented.

Imo a few important things would be:

- PoV video from the whole fight from a tank, healer and dps perspective

I really like dulfy vids in her guides but they just lack some parts where a DPS or tank PoV would be better

- Damage abilities cast by boss

Is something AoE or single target? Is the ability ranged/melee or force/tech? Whats the premitigated damage? You get the idea. I know most is also covered in other forum threads but its all scattered across multiple posts.

EDIT: A bit like Levram is proposing but than with adding a little bit more information like I proposed above

- Enrage timer:

I often hear people saying; There is no enrage timer on <insert DF/DP boss name>. Quite often this statement is false and it is actually there although I agree it might be hard to reach enrage timers on certain bosses in DF/DP HM. There are casual guilds around who will meet those enrage timers provided mechanics don't kill them.

- Loot drops

Duh .... also include the comms gains (even bigger duh).

- Diagrams for positioning

This is really really helpfull indeed. A picture is saying more than 1000 words. I still know the platformnumbers of dulfies The Terror from Beyond guide by heart lol.

- Specific tips and tricks for classes

I liked the latest addition to dulfy guides a lot. In short her guide gave advice how to treat a certain add/phase as a class. As an example: Shadow resilience on dismantlers.

All in all this might create quite a big guide with information which is not wanted by all types of people. Therefore I suggest to have at least 3 parts in the guide. The pure guide itself, numbers part with the damage information and finishing off with the class specific tips/tricks/cheeses.

Regarding people who are not wanting to read guides and figure it out all alone go ahead. Its not Zorz nor Dulfies responsability to help you force your guild to not read guides. Else go look for a guild who is likeminded

When you describe your mechanic, you can add a special Color.

Tank mechanic in Blue like Tank swap in ops, Aggro drop, ...

DPS mechanic in Red like Burning phase

Healer mechanic in Green: Cleansing, Heal intensive Phase

Overal Mechanic stays in normal color.

This way a long boss fight with a lot of explanation will be shorter if you just read your roll only.

Concise listing of mechanics (you can and should elaborate further down). Spliced video is fun, but unnecessary. Pick a player who has a good perspective (doesn't need to be the same from fight to fight) and post that. If you're really feeling awesome, post four videos: tank, healer, melee and ranged DPS. Diagrams are terrific for fights where they make sense (eg Tyrans definitely yes, Council probably not).

After listing video perspectives, mechanics list, enrage timer, etc… I like to see a linear description of the boss, broken down by phase as relevant. This is where you elaborate on mechanics, comment on what is easy or hard, talk about what abilities allow cheesing or simplify things, ways to take advantages of classes, recommendations, etc.

In short, Dulfy's format is actually extremely good and well refined. It doesn't have quite everything I want (her tanking information is usually inaccurate or simply absent), but it's a solid structure.

Good to hear you're considering this! I can't think of anyone better than Zorz to do it.

Turn off nameplates in videos and screenshots.

Namesplates are fine, and even good to see them. If the nameplate used by players is only their name.

But when it's something like Most Malevolent Darth Devious of the Merciless Legion of World Destroyers Painful Death Bringers blah.. blah.. blah... then it's garbage. The tank and two melees and all you see is a blue blur on your screen. It sucks.

When raiding with my guild, I sometimes ask them to tone down their nameplates, but it gets tiresome. I know I have the option of not seem those at all, but that's not want I want. Only the name it's good.

[Attack name]

• Description: Slam from [enemy name]
  
• Style: X meter long, Y meter wide non-tracking marked cleave
  
• Application: 1.5 second cast, then instant
  
• Timing: Repeats every 15 seconds
  
• Damage Output: Ak-Bk on tank, Xk-Yk on DPS / healer
  
• Damage Sub-divisions: 1 hit
  
• Damage Type: Kinetic
  
• Effects: None.
  

 

 

At least one video showing the entirety of the fight is also key. My preference is for a very wide-angle healer perspective as they tend to move the least and therefore can provide a good view of the action occurring around them. A tank perspective would be my next preference if two PoV videos are presented.

We are working with This as our info graph currently and as much relevant information we feel is needed will be there.

Currently we have the following planned

1) http://gyazo.com/de9d2961c4f53bcdf2a641b1b88e3d97 infograph of sorts

2) PoV from each perspective

3) Tips and suggestions per boss.

Concise listing of mechanics (you can and should elaborate further down). Spliced video is fun, but unnecessary. Pick a player who has a good perspective (doesn't need to be the same from fight to fight) and post that. If you're really feeling awesome, post four videos: tank, healer, melee and ranged DPS. Diagrams are terrific for fights where they make sense (eg Tyrans definitely yes, Council probably not).

 

After listing video perspectives, mechanics list, enrage timer, etc… I like to see a linear description of the boss, broken down by phase as relevant. This is where you elaborate on mechanics, comment on what is easy or hard, talk about what abilities allow cheesing or simplify things, ways to take advantages of classes, recommendations, etc.

If there are bosses similar to Tyrans I'm sure we'll have something how to position correctly and make the movement as flawless as possible.

We will be doing everything linear ( Phase 1 - Phase 2 ( stuff new to phase 2) - phase 3 ( stuff new) with time stamps so people can visualize.

We will also have a section towards "cheeses" ( Use force shroud here to avoid this), Hydraulics Override will ignore all of this.

The one thing I'm somewhat worried about is the way we approach fights is much different than most and at times we may overlook things. As our philosophy is to clear content as fast as possible our approach is generally not the best (way we used to tank NM Council.)

With all this said if the community has stuff they believe is helpful in our guides once they are published feel free to share. There is almost never a "best" way to approach a boss fight.

Our plans currently are to get accessible, knowledgeable, well written guides out. I'm sure our initial ones won't be pretty but with anything there is room for improvement.

Turn off nameplates in videos and screenshots.

Having nameplates on is more useful because it allows the viewer to see the position of other roles/classes in the operation group. It allows the viewer to tell at a glance:

Which person running around is the tank, and what class are they?

Are the healers standing in the same place as the ranged DPS?

If the boss requires kiting (ala Council Raptus) which class was chosen to do the kiting?

Etc.

The one thing I'm somewhat worried about is the way we approach fights is much different than most and at times we may overlook things. As our philosophy is to clear content as fast as possible our approach is generally not the best (way we used to tank NM Council.)

 

With all this said if the community has stuff they believe is helpful in our guides once they are published feel free to share. There is almost never a "best" way to approach a boss fight.

 

Our plans currently are to get accessible, knowledgeable, well written guides out. I'm sure our initial ones won't be pretty but with anything there is room for improvement.

Guides are always about inspiration and ideas, not dogmatic instruction. When my guild was working on NiM DP, we generally derived our strategies from a combination of our own ideas and fragments of ideas we saw in other people's videos. For example, our Tyrans pattern is mostly derived from the one Zorz uses, but with slight variations on the tanking/melee positioning. Our Council tanking strategy was inspired by hmd Magenta's video (not the cheese part, but the bit they do with Bestia prior to the cheese that no one cared to comment on) and UWA's strategy, but is on the whole unique. Our Calphayus strategies (can you call it that?) were inspired by Dulfy's write-up, but with revisions that we found easier and more streamlined with our group. Our CZ strategy was partially inspired by Dulfy's, but mostly derived from various ideas we had in the HM tier. Our Brontes burn phase positioning is very similar to Trillpug's. The list goes on, and the only commonality is that we don't do any boss in exactly the same way that some other group does it, because our group (as with any other group) is comprised of different people. I think that pretty much everyone would be able to tell the same story with their own strategies.

There is always another way to do a boss, and even just subtle variations on an existing strategy can make the world of difference between a group's ability to execute and complete failure. Writing up the way you do a boss fight and why you do it that way (as well as ideas you may have had for doing it differently with a different composition) is the best way to kick-start readers on that all important process of devising and customizing their own strategies. I know that you guys have done a ton of experimentation and thought carefully about the way you clear a boss; getting an inside look at the thought behind the things you do will be the most valuable aspect of your guides.

I like to have something to read that goes through the overall fight tactics but then also have each fight from the pov's of the 3 roles.

As for a video of the fight imo the best ones i have seen were done quite a while ago from a guild called tempest when we were trying to do TFB and SnV HM (yeah i said it was awhile ago) the vids they made were really really helpful

whenever way u guys choose to go, i think zorz are the best ones to do a guide for 3.0 ops

The one thing I'm somewhat worried about is the way we approach fights is much different than most and at times we may overlook things.

I would only worry about overlooking things if that means you leave out a mechanic from your guide, or do not fully describe one. This could arise if your team is able to completely ignore a mechanic due to killing something fast enough that the mechanic doesn't occur (e.g. a specific attack from an add that you kill quickly).

As long as you include an accurate description of all the mechanics in a fight, each person reading your guides will be able to fully understand what to expect and they can then decide how best to tackle those mechanics with their team's composition and skill level.

I wouldn't worry about trying to accommodate everyone in your description of "how we clear this fight." Obviously any intelligent user of your guides will be able to determine if they're able to pull off the same strategy, and if not, they will make appropriate adjustments based on their understanding of the mechanics.

Great you're doing this, thanks in advance for your efforts! Nice you're asking the community for input even more!

I think the format (video, graphs, texts) depends on the type of boss and it's best to do it pragmatically in the way that suits the particular bost best rather than bind oneself to a strict format. I'm sure you guys know exactly when to do what.

On a side note: I find screenshots of the room (zoomed out as far as possible) very helpful, paired with the map. You can then mark key positions on both. That's the one thing I'd say is helpful for every fight.

What I also find helpful "in the field" is dividing the guide in two parts:

1. A detailed decription of phases and mechanics, details on attacks, positioning etc.

2. Very short writeup that onlys lists phases and specific things to do with key things for different roles, i.e. burn phases, incoming damage spikes and maybe "cheese"-Todos. 2. is something that only helps you, if you've already read 1. and then serves as a quick check-list.

(Dulfy used to do it the other way round in some guides, but that was not optimal, since you sometimes couldn't unterstand the short version, before you had read the long version and/or the short version was not as short as it could have been, if you had put the detailed description first.)

And finally: If you're text/screens/diagrams are so good that people actually don't have to watch the video to get the strategy i.e. can chose to do that as an optional illustration of the strat, that'd be awesome.

Can't wait to see the first one, gogogo! :-)

My pet peeve: guides that exist only in video format. If there's no subtitles, it's even worse. I'm fluent in written English but often have trouble with recognizing spoken words, especially if the speaker has a heavy accent. Not to mention people who are actually deaf or whose computers may not be able to play back audio. Videos also make it hard to stop and go over some piece of information to better absorb it, or keep the guide open on another screen for quick reference while doing the operation. Please include all information in text and/or static images.

Describe auditory cues that the bosses might give before each move. Most guides completely ignore those, but they are often the first warning for an incoming attack. Not everyone may be able to utilize them, but they can be invaluable for some.

Describe auditory cues that the bosses might give before each move. Most guides completely ignore those, but they are often the first warning for an incoming attack. Not everyone may be able to utilize them, but they can be invaluable for some.

I love all the audio queues that are put into the game. There is a good amount of information that is presented though sound in boss fights, often tied to add spawns, DoT applications and mechanic triggers.