Hello,

 

Not going to beat around the bush on this...

 

Hardmode flashpoints should only be available to those who have done the storymode. Back in the day, for those of you who remember, you had to complete Taral V/ Boarding Party and Maelstrom Prison/The Foundry storymode (along with the pertaining story chain) before you could even do the heroic. This needs to be brought back for ALL flashpoints. Everybody should complete the storymode at least once on their Legacy. The new achievement system should be able to stop players from queving/entering a hardmode flashpoint that they have yet to complete on storymode. A player would not have to do this on every single character in their legacy. It just needs to be done at least once....hence, adding a gating system that is unlocked via the achievement system.

 

Group finder needs to have an overall minimum gear rating system implemented for hardmode flashpoints. It is not fair for any player, more specifically ME, to have to tank/dps/heal (all exceptionally geared) a hardmode flashpoint with a group who has 1 or 2 people who have all level 35-40 gear on. A tank with 12k hp? *****, please. Vote kick>requeve>wait....Aint nobody got time for that. I do not have the luxury of screening my group prior to everybody clicking ready. An overall gear rating system is needed. However, a skilled player doesn't need the crappy tionese gear to do a hardmode flashpoint. But to beat enrage timers, a certain level of gear is required....and that level of gear isn't futt bucking level 35-40! Bioware, your introductory to group finder at 50 fails your free to play audience who do not have artifact equipment authorization unlocked. Unmoddifiable equivelants needs to be made available for fresh 50 free to play players who do not have this unlock. Yes, they COULD go purchase superior quality level 50 items...but why should they have to go purchase a marked up P.O.S. on the GTN when in turn, you ended up giving MY fresh 50 subscribed characters free gear.

 

With that being said, I'm tired of educating people in hardmode flashpoints who haven't even done storymode....and I'm tired of having to waste people's time because some douche ignores/new player doesn't know the fact that they do need SOME gear to even attempt a hardmode flashpoint. When I say waste people's time, I literally mean that...having to sit and wait for a replacement healer/dps/tank is wasting people's time...and when I say people's, I really mean just ME.

Edited April 6, 2013 by Payday-Massacre
Sentence Fragment

Good to know it's only wasting your time, here I thought it was my time being wasted, but as your post pointed out I needn't worry as it is only your time.

Guilds need hardmodes for gear progression. Making everyone do the story mode flashpoints that aren't even lvl 55 is a slap in the face to those guilds. I've never done quite a few of the new flashpoints on live, but I went into the PTS and burned through all the HM's. Why should I have to do Cademimu on storymode first? It doesn't even make any sense. People would just solo the lvl 27 flashpoint quickly and jump into the HM still not knowing the mechanics. Its just a poorly thought out idea. Edited April 6, 2013 by bbare

People would just solo the lvl 27 flashpoint quickly and jump into the HM still not knowing the mechanics. Its just a poorly thought out idea.

 

Yeah. I've boosted a couple of my husband's characters through low level Flashpoints and I only a have a faint idea of the mechanics for most of them because of Orbital Strike and Shiv. You could take a group of four level 55s, push through Hammer Station in ten minutes and go on to the Hardmode version with no knowledge of tactics.

 

You could make a quiz at the beginning of the Flashpoint, but who's going to sit around and a take quiz every time?

I think you are missing the point that the OP was trying to make (even though he was not very tactful).

I agree that it gets frustrating to have to teach and carry *significantly* under prepared and under geared players all the time. I don't see why it would be too much to ask to require a player to do SM FP first on their legacy somewhere. If it is a prerequisite for HM then the spawn timers would likely improve some. Also the min gear req. is not too much to ask. I don't think the OP is making outlandish suggestions as he is addressing the issue of the severely under geared. Last week I entered a HM FP with 2 players that we're UNDER 12k hp... For HM! Oh hell No! The Free tionese gear is acceptible, but sporting those 45 mods in a HM is not. Furthermore I don't think it is in appropriate to require a SM FP run through prior to HM.

 

I'm all for helping and teaching new people, but it does get old seeing unprepared and undergeared players in *HM* FPs. If you want to run it like that with your guild, go for it, but don't expect others in GF to give you a warm welcome with anything less than tionese gear and some knowledge of the FP.

 

The ideas have merit, but I doubt it will happen.

Edited April 6, 2013 by ChicagoBearsFan

for the first part - I'm doing this completely voluntarily. I plan to complete all FPs in story mode before I go hard mode even if I'm suffering from that because of not getting HM daily rewards (5 BH comms). It seems only naturally to me. I have still 2 SM FPs to do this way.

One, teeny tiny problem with this, at least as far as needing legacy story mode FPs. There are FP's where getting a group can take a long time simply because no one is running them much anymore at the Story Mode level. I was intending to do all the FP's on story mode, but after a few days of doing other things while queues stubbornly refused to pop I said screw it, and just jumped into hard modes.

 

So far they haven't been that hard.* At least I wouldn't worry about it much as long as all major gear slots are filled with appropriate gear at 112-120 rating or so.

 

* Not that hard for someone with raiding experience in an almost identical MMO who knows that if you're going to go noob it up in a PUG it's usually best to do it as a ranged dps, so that if you screw up there's a decent chance that the worst that happens to the rest of the group is that they have to waste a few seconds rezzing your sorry behind.

 

Of course the problem is that learning how to not wipe the group as a DPS won't always teach you what you need to know to tank an encounter.

 

But hey, wipes are educational right? As long as you don't do more than 2 in a row, cause, ya' know, timers and whatnot.

 

In any case I think one of the fundamental truths of MMOs is that if you want to always have decent tanking and healing you have to do the tanking and healing yourself.

* Not that hard for someone with raiding experience in an almost identical MMO who knows that if you're going to go noob it up in a PUG it's usually best to do it as a ranged dps, so that if you screw up there's a decent chance that the worst that happens to the rest of the group is that they have to waste a few seconds rezzing your sorry behind.

 

That and it's not that hard to do a little read up on the fights before hand. I don't mean while you're sitting in the queue, but more of a "Hey, I've hit 50 and want to do some Flashpoints? What do I need to know to not die horribly and be muderated by my fellow players?" but that does also require a measure of personal responsibility and Googling skills that some people appear to lack or do not wish to employ on a game.

Hardmodes are too easy to force people to only play if they have done it before in storymode.

 

I dont like to team up with people in recruit gear or greens becasue i know we will see the bosses enrage, so i can understand your desire for a gear requirement, but that is a PUG issue.

 

If you dont want to group with new players or teach people what to do, then dont PUG anymore.

One, teeny tiny problem with this, at least as far as needing legacy story mode FPs. There are FP's where getting a group can take a long time simply because no one is running them much anymore at the Story Mode level. I was intending to do all the FP's on story mode, but after a few days of doing other things while queues stubbornly refused to pop I said screw it, and just jumped into hard modes.

 

So far they haven't been that hard.* At least I wouldn't worry about it much as long as all major gear slots are filled with appropriate gear at 112-120 rating or so.

 

* Not that hard for someone with raiding experience in an almost identical MMO who knows that if you're going to go noob it up in a PUG it's usually best to do it as a ranged dps, so that if you screw up there's a decent chance that the worst that happens to the rest of the group is that they have to waste a few seconds rezzing your sorry behind.

 

Of course the problem is that learning how to not wipe the group as a DPS won't always teach you what you need to know to tank an encounter.

 

But hey, wipes are educational right? As long as you don't do more than 2 in a row, cause, ya' know, timers and whatnot.

 

In any case I think one of the fundamental truths of MMOs is that if you want to always have decent tanking and healing you have to do the tanking and healing yourself.

 

Firstly, if everybody is required to do storymode, it would not be that hard to find a group. Secondly, your point only refers to players who are raiders or have mmo experience. The free to play and the allure of Star Wars has drawn a fresh crowd of players who have no experience what so ever.

 

Regardless, not every noob is getting the expansion, and from what I have gathered, the majority of the player base that preordered are subscribers with a few alts and actual experience. The initial days of gear grinding at 55 will be a breath of fresh air.

 

Good to know it's only wasting your time, here I thought it was my time being wasted, but as your post pointed out I needn't worry as it is only your time.

 

Some people tend to get pissy when a poster feels the need to speak on behalf of the community. As you can see, I successfully stayed away from saying "Some of us feel...." and "Our time is being wasted". From what I have seen on the forums, it is best for one to speak on his/her behalf.

 

 

 

Guilds need hardmodes for gear progression. Making everyone do the story mode flashpoints that aren't even lvl 55 is a slap in the face to those guilds. I've never done quite a few of the new flashpoints on live, but I went into the PTS and burned through all the HM's. Why should I have to do Cademimu on storymode first? It doesn't even make any sense. People would just solo the lvl 27 flashpoint quickly and jump into the HM still not knowing the mechanics. Its just a poorly thought out idea.

 

Wait, we have NEW flashpoints on live?! ZOMG. /slap. Since you have not completed a few of the flashpoints, your arguement is void. A 55 soloing Cademimu would steam roll the trash...but that same 55 would have 10-15 seconds of boss encounter time. 10-15 seconds to get an IDEA since mechanics are slightly different when comparing storymode and hardmodes...yeah you're right, that makes absolutely no sense. /slap

Hardmodes are too easy to force people to only play if they have done it before in storymode.

 

I dont like to team up with people in recruit gear or greens becasue i know we will see the bosses enrage, so i can understand your desire for a gear requirement, but that is a PUG issue.

 

If you dont want to group with new players or teach people what to do, then dont PUG anymore.

 

You, Sir/Madam, are absolutely right. However, you are seeing this issue from, assuming, a member of a large guild's view point. Yes it is my fault for pugging since I would rather be in a guild with a few members who I know/respect. With in game scheduling conflicting with real life, my dozen 50s rely on a PUG to get the daily hardmodes complete.

I don't see how anyone finds this to be unreasonable. I'm pretty sure this was the way it was at launch. A legacy wide unlock sounds pretty reasonable to me (maybe have a system that grandfathers people who've done the HM in, or if you have certain achievements on your legacy that you can skip the SMs, like I'm pretty sure if you have a toon who's a Warstalker, you can probably handle the mechanics of HM D7).

 

Requiring SM FPs would mean more groupfinder pops while leveling and this is a good thing. Secondly, doing more FPs while leveling makes you a better player than if you don't because you learn your class much better than if you simply do class/planet quests (which are all ridiculously easy) or PvP (which is a very different play style than FPs). They also drop better leveling gear than pretty much anything else, plus you get the planetary comms, and this makes leveling faster. You learn group etiquette, manners, etc and what will be expected of you when you get to 50. You also get to know people on your server a bit better, can expand your friends list, find a guild that fits you, etc. Learning the boss mechanics are a plus for HM's but that's not the only benefit.

 

And if you don't want to do the FPs because they arent your thing, you probably won't want to do the HMs either.

 

When I leveled my main (tank Shadow), the bulk of leveling that I did was through flashpoints (and class quests and some PvP). Having never tanked in an MMO before, this experience was incredibly valuable and I was able to learn how to use my class, how to hold aggro, how all of the boss fights worked, how to approach pulls, what you can/should skip, etc. These are skills that are helpful to learn when you're moving from FPs to HMs and into Ops.

 

I think the gear rating minimum would be nice also. I don't mind being with fresh 50s in Tionese and Recruit gear but absolutely no reason you should have greens or empty relic slots as a level 50 or should have mostly Tionese and expect strangers to carry you through Lost Island HM. Also, something to check specs would be nice for people leveling (nothing worse than getting healed by someone who queued as a healer, is a DPS and doesnt bother respeccing for the FP).

I agree with the OP in that a certain level of ability needs to be required before allowing access to a hardmode FP or OPS.

I see 3 different places that make a player have this minimum level of ability

1. Gear

2. Familiarity with FP/OPS

3. Familiarity with class

 

Since you can't force a minimum on 3, the alternative is to apply a minimum on either 1 or 2 or both. I have played on LOTRO since it came out, even WoW for a bit. Both of these have "gates" for accessing progressively more difficult content.

WoW uses both 1 and 2, and uses number 3 to trim the herd. You can still fail if you can't play well.

 

LOTRO combines both 1 and 2 into one. It sets the gear you gain from ez (story) mode with tags, so without that gear on, you can't access tougher content. It also requires you to have completed "wings" in order to get to the toughest content.

 

This is called Progression. Each step you need to show minimum competence before moving on to the next level.

 

If new gear came with a tag, that would solve both issues with hm/ops gearing AND ability.

 

The gear itself is already in place.

Tionese should be purchaseable and be required to start sm fp

Columni would be required to start HM fp.

Rakata would be required to start SM ops.

Campaign would be required to start HM ops.

Hazmat/dread guard would be top end gear for running nightmare content.

 

That is a simple fix that can be implemented without a whole lot of changes to any of the current conent.

 

This can be applied to PVP easily as well, if they implemented seperate pvp levels.

 

my 2 creds

The gear itself is already in place.

Tionese should be purchaseable and be required to start sm fp

Columni would be required to start HM fp.

Rakata would be required to start SM ops.

Campaign would be required to start HM ops.

Hazmat/dread guard would be top end gear for running nightmare content.

 

Sorry what?!

 

You need gear that only drops in HM FPs to do SM FPs?

You need gear that only drops in HM EV/KP and SM TFB/EC to do SM Ops?

You need gear that only drops in HM EC to do HM EV/KP?

You need gear from HM TFB/NiM EC to run NiM EV/KP?

 

That would require a degree of re-tuning content, completely overhauling the gear drops and is all complete irrelevant tomorrow when 2.0 hits.

Aint nobody got time for that.[/Quote]

This is the only thing I took from this post.