Not a single one of them is worth the time or effort it takes just to find people to group with, and 4-mans aren't worth the time it takes to do them. Here's why.

 

1. It's been implied that Heroic's are extra content, and no one's making you do them. This is far from true. In order to get enough commendations for gear or mods, you have to do Heroics. The drop rate for those commendations and the amount you get from regular quests is next to nothing. On some planets, this is not that big a deal. But on others, like Balmorra Empire side, ALL of the Heroics are 4-mans. And outside the starter zones, there are 4+ every planet.

 

2. Heroics are not designed to be done solo, in more ways than one. Before 1.2, most Heroics could be soloed simply by stripping off all gear with durability on it and suicide-running through mobs to get to whatever object needed to be grabbed or whatever button needed to be pushed. The companion could be used as bait if need be. But, BioWare went and made it so none of those things could be picked up while in combat, and also made it so that members of mob groups would respawn after only a few minutes if the entire group was not killed.

 

Dailies should be designed to be done quickly and given rewards directly related to the effort it takes to do them. 2-3 commendations out of the 120 I want to get for an earpiece after spending two solid hours finding a group and running the Heroic comes nowhere near worth my effort. Also, BioWare, I don't know what customers you're trying to cater to, but I'm willing to bet the ones who play the 7-8 hours a day you're expecting do not make up the majority of your player base. Why? Because the ones who make enough money to have cash to blow on a monthly subscription for a video game have actual jobs. I work ten hour days, five days a week, not counting the time it takes me to drive home, work out, shower, dinner, and then there's the six hours of sleep I need to function as a productive non-violent member of society. This leaves three hours tops on weekdays for me to play your game, and that's if I decide I want to play SWTOR. And this is coming a single mid-20s male.

 

According to this http://www.theesa.com/facts/gameplayer.asp the average gamer is middle-aged. The average middle-aged person has a full time job, spouse, kids, and all that mess. Those people screwing around on the Internet 7-8 hours a day are frowned upon. The stereotypical gamer is an overweight greasy sack of crap hiding out in a basement while screaming for Mom to bring down more Cheetos. Nobody wants to be that guy, because everybody laughs at that guy. Also, that guy is also the stereotypical Internet troll, and you don't want them. They're ugly and smell funny.

 

When I log into SWTOR, I have one of three goals: Level an alt, run some PvE or PvP, or grind dailies. I only play maybe four hours tops, including weekends. Either I'll get bored and decide to find something else to do with my day, or I'll get stuck on something and grow too frustrated to play anymore. But every time, without fail, literally since the day I got into Early Access, it takes a minimum of an hour to get a group for a 4-man. I have a guild, my server population is high, I use General chat, I use your LFG tool, I'm nice, polite, courteous, patient, acting like the well-groomed Southern gentleman Daddy beat into me, and that's how long it takes me to scrape up three people to help out. It's just not worth it, and it truly saddens me, because I want it to be.

 

Suggested fixes: Give people more reason to do them, other than being self-entitled completionists like me. Up the reward to 5 commendations. Hide datacrons inside them, I've seen that done a few times already. Get rid of that respawn thing, or increase the timer. Give companions a considerable buff, especially tanks and healers. Not enough to let us faceroll God and every angel He has, but enough so that one can sub for another player if need be.

 

You can keep the out-of-combat restriction, I always figured that was intended anyway.

Edited April 19, 2012 by Malles

As far as the vast majority of levelling H4s are concerned... just 2-man them.

 

We just need a group finder so we can queue and then get on with doing other things.

Edited April 19, 2012 by Aurojiin

In the time it took you to write this essay, you could have done several heroics.

 

Find a guild/friends to run them with. That's what I do, I get through them quickly and getting 3 dailies in the time it takes to normally get one is well worth it. I don't see how it takes you 2-3 hours for a heroic, I can get every daily done in Belsavis, Ilum AND Corellia in under that time.

 

I do agree that SWTOR desperately needs an LFG tool though.

So far I've leveled 3 toons to 50 by skipping all Heroic, Flashpoint and Space Mission quests, they are not required.

 

However in saying this you will always be 2-3 levels lower then the content you are killing and sometimes the elites will absolutely pound you, just use stuns/cc and be creative with your kills and I don't think you'll have many issues.

Edited April 20, 2012 by Xterminatz

While I sympathize with your predicament. I feel the 4m heroics are fine. You need a guild my friend. Active guild=np doing dailies.

This is coming from a 10hour per day guy 30yr old who rides the bus to save money. Jogs 2 miles after work and cooks dinner for the house.

If I have time, you have time.

To the OP: Get ready to get flamed!

 

Especially because of the "I'm normal and have a job and you should cater to normal people" comment.

 

NErd rage, commense.

2 hours for findiing a group for daily heroics? Now that sounds excessive, most of the time I catch a lfm before I finish solo ones, if I don't catch up a guildy or 2 to do with.

 

Now as far as leveling goes, I never run them, you don't need ALL mods up to date all the time, solo content is easy. Why are you implying you need that many comms for leveling I have no idea. Just run through normal quests, bonus series or a space mission or 2 if you're getting underlevel, and its all fine.

 

Also you do NOT need 4 people for 4 man heroics, if you have one healing capable class you can two man all of them. Don't be exclusive on group composition, run with less than 4 people if you have to, instead of waiting. I won't wait for half an hour for a healer if I know I can pop out healer pet or get another dps and nuke through the content with no issues.

 

The stereotypical gamer is an overweight greasy sack of crap hiding out in a basement while screaming for Mom to bring down more Cheetos. Nobody wants to be that guy, because everybody laughs at that guy. Also, that guy is also the stereotypical Internet troll, and you don't want them. They're ugly and smell funny.

 

See you just lost all credibility right there by insulting hardcore gamers. I'm a hardcore gamer; I'm also a full-time student at a 4 year university with a double major. I'm a NCAA Division 1 (albeit far from the top) student-athlete. And I get on an hour or two a day to finish dailies and raid on the weekends with my guild. So fix your **** before you around insulting hardcore gamers.

 

As to your OP, no you don't have to do them to get the commendations, except for the few daily commendations if you want to do those. The whole point of an MMO is to be able to socialize and play with other people. Sometimes that takes time to find. Go the the space station and ask. If you don't want to put up with it and decide you're going to solo an entire game alone you should just go back to KotOR where you won't have to "waste" your money on a subscription.

 

Good day.

Edited April 20, 2012 by MAFIAxMaverick

The heroic quests while leveling up are completely optional. If you cannot form a group immediately or by the end of your quests on the planet, just skip them and move on, you aren't missing anything.

 

The daily heroic quests are all soloable by Assasin/Shadows. The rewards are really lacking, I don't even have motivation to solo them anymore let alone wait and get a group to clear them.

I'm on a mid population server with in a small guild, and I never have any issues finding groups for stuff.

In the time it took you to write this essay, you could have done several heroics.

.

 

I wish this were true, but is not. I, as an example, work nights and play for an hour or two after I get home, about 3am EST. I have often tried getting groups for the daily commendation missions, broadcasting on the general channel for the entire time I was doing the single person missions, and not recieved even one response. On the leveling planets I have often had the same results while leveling my alts, very few people around that want to do the heroic 4s, or even the heroic 2s.

 

Still, I don't fullly agree with the OP. The single person missions take very little time to do, and give quite a bit of money to boot. Two to three commendations doesn't seem all that low to me for the H2 and H4 missions, its the cost of the earpieces and the implants that is ridiculous, especially compared to what you can buy off the GTN with all the money from the dailies. If I remember right its 200 commendations for an earpiece, which if you are getting 7k per Barsaivis daily, would have you earning 1.4 million credits before you got enough commendations. Assuming you are only doing the single person of course. Just too pricey in commendations compared to what you would pay for a purple with an augment slot.

Chasing the Shadow is totally worth it, at least once a week to complete the Weekly. As a bonus, the last fight of it is actually very fun. Of course, even Chasing the Shadow doesn't actually require 4 of you - I did it with 2 (Sawbones+ DPS Sage) on my first attempt although it was definitely quicker and easier with 3.