Jump to content

Lost Island HM should have better loot.


Recommended Posts

  • Replies 399
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I don't see any Tionese tanks surviving the last fight with Lokin too well (tank is gonna eat some satchels), so I don't agree the mission is designed for that level of gear. This mission is listed as a Hard level 2, so theoretically everybody will be in full Columi before they walk in. If the mobs dropped Rakata-level amoring, mods, and enhancements the loot would be better balanced.

 

A good tank should get less than 2 satchel charges. They are very easy to dodge. If the mobs dropped Rakata-level armoring, mods, and enhancements it would make everything but EC obsolete.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A good tank should get less than 2 satchel charges. They are very easy to dodge. If the mobs dropped Rakata-level armoring, mods, and enhancements it would make everything but EC obsolete.

 

LoS kite around the Kolto tanks and never get a single one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't see any Tionese tanks surviving the last fight with Lokin too well (tank is gonna eat some satchels), so I don't agree the mission is designed for that level of gear. This mission is listed as a Hard level 2, so theoretically everybody will be in full Columi before they walk in. If the mobs dropped Rakata-level amoring, mods, and enhancements the loot would be better balanced.

 

Did it on my Jugg in full recruit the day he turned 50. Granted the rest of the group was in better gear, but it's not impossible to do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

He mentioned that Lost Island is balanced very tightly for a group in Tionese-quality gear, but that because the boss mechanics are heavily execution-based, many players prefer to overgear for it.

 

Can you clarify that you mean Lost Island HARD MODE is balanced for TIONESE level players??

 

Are we playing the same game? I was with a guild-only group of players who are pretty decent in full or nearly full columi and we had a difficult time with the enrage timer on LR-5 in the few times we even got it down to 5-10%. Granted we didn't have the mechanics down perfectly, but I find that hard to swallow as we did really well those few instances yet we still wiped due to the enrage. We're not the most hardcore group of folks, but we have had significant trouble downing just that first boss, never mind the rest.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I talked with Jesse Sky (Lead Flashpoints and Operations Designer) about the difficulty of Lost Island and its rewards, and he shared his insight about these questions.

 

He mentioned that Lost Island is balanced very tightly for a group in Tionese-quality gear, but that because the boss mechanics are heavily execution-based, many players prefer to overgear for it. Small mistakes can easily wipe the group, so bringing Ops level gear is great insurance, even if it isn't required. The loot quality reflects this - players who take the risk of going in with Tionese and Columi gear will be rewarded. Players with Ops level gear are likely there for the Black Hole Commendations right now.

 

That's not to say that we won't be re-examining gear progression going forward. It just happened that when Lost Island was released (1.2), it made sense to us to offer new players and alternate route to the Rakata chest and Columi main hand while infusing the weekly Flashpoint missions with a bit more challenge for players who had geared past most Flashpoints.

 

Agree with it or not, this has to hands down be the best response to a question I've seen since Georg Z last posted. The answer tells us what the devs were thinking and why they did what they did.

 

The community may or may not agree that the content can be completed as the devs say it was designed, but that is far less relevant to me than the meat of the answer.

 

Please, keep good, thorough, informative answers like this coming!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I talked with Jesse Sky (Lead Flashpoints and Operations Designer) about the difficulty of Lost Island and its rewards, and he shared his insight about these questions.

 

He mentioned that Lost Island is balanced very tightly for a group in Tionese-quality gear, but that because the boss mechanics are heavily execution-based, many players prefer to overgear for it. Small mistakes can easily wipe the group, so bringing Ops level gear is great insurance, even if it isn't required. The loot quality reflects this - players who take the risk of going in with Tionese and Columi gear will be rewarded. Players with Ops level gear are likely there for the Black Hole Commendations right now.

 

That's not to say that we won't be re-examining gear progression going forward. It just happened that when Lost Island was released (1.2), it made sense to us to offer new players and alternate route to the Rakata chest and Columi main hand while infusing the weekly Flashpoint missions with a bit more challenge for players who had geared past most Flashpoints.

 

If that's the case, then the enrage timers are probably a bit too tight. Enrage timers, especially in small group dungeons are a pure dps/gear check. They rarely promote good mechanical execution....and are the primary reason players prefer to "overgear" the instance.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If that's the case, then the enrage timers are probably a bit too tight. Enrage timers, especially in small group dungeons are a pure dps/gear check. They rarely promote good mechanical execution....and are the primary reason players prefer to "overgear" the instance.

LR-5 has a soft enrage at 3 minutes.

 

He has 389,304 health at start.

 

This works out to 2162 dps between the tank, melee and ranged dps.

 

As long as the team brings someone with an armor reduction debuff (and there are several classes that have it, including melee), that should be doable with a tank and 2 dps with Tionese gear if they execute the fight perfectly.

 

The only old MOX parse I have of a boss fight back when my commando dps was in Tionese was on False Emperor. I hit 750 on the Malgus fight, which has a lot of downtime. And this was with an average rotation without the 4-piece set bonus (free HiB). A properly executed LI fight uses my HiB and DR when moving, so it doesn't have near the downtime of the Malgus fight. I could have hit 850 on an LR-5 fight in full Tionese on a well-executed fight.

 

If the other dps hit 850 as well, that leaves 462 dps for the tank -- easily doable in Tionese.

 

And the enrage isn't a one-shot either. The plasma balls drop faster at full size and the grates all have lava. If LR-5 is around 5-10% when he enrages, it is still possible to dps him down.

 

However, at that level of gear, all it takes is one mistake:

Miss an incinerate -> wipe

Miss a plasma arc -> overtax healer probably a wipe

Drop an electric coil on the tank -> wipe

Fail to gather and aoe adds -> wipe

etc.

etc.

 

The soft enrage timer can still be beat as long as you have the mechanics down.

 

But as I've said before, give 4 unskilled players a full set of Best In Slot Campaign/Black Hole gear and tell them to run LR-5. They will wipe.

 

It's a mechanics check. It takes skill.

 

EDIT:

I would also say that most people that have issues with LR-5 wipe before the enrage timer. Heck, I died 14 times on LR-5 before I beat him, at anywhere from 30% to 70% health. It wasn't until I ran the fight with someone who taught me what to do that I beat him.

Edited by JeffKretz
Link to comment
Share on other sites

snip

 

Your initial math did not count the dps time taken away having to deal with adds. I'm not saying its impossible (I'm quite certain it is) Its just not realistic for players of average to above average skill level. My main point is, if their goal was to focus on mechanics, then enrage timers should not be the primary "fail" condition of the encounter....not executing on said mechanics should be (I.E. Incenerates, adds, lightning, fire grates)

 

Edit: Enrage timers should only exist for 2 reasons:

 

1) To prevent stacking of healers (something that is not an issue in a 4 man dungeon)

2) To provide a raw gear check in a tank and spank type fight

 

Any other reason is just lazy design, imo.

Edited by Thuggy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I talked with Jesse Sky (Lead Flashpoints and Operations Designer) about the difficulty of Lost Island and its rewards, and he shared his insight about these questions.

 

He mentioned that Lost Island is balanced very tightly for a group in Tionese-quality gear, but that because the boss mechanics are heavily execution-based, many players prefer to overgear for it. Small mistakes can easily wipe the group, so bringing Ops level gear is great insurance, even if it isn't required. The loot quality reflects this - players who take the risk of going in with Tionese and Columi gear will be rewarded. Players with Ops level gear are likely there for the Black Hole Commendations right now.

 

That's not to say that we won't be re-examining gear progression going forward. It just happened that when Lost Island was released (1.2), it made sense to us to offer new players and alternate route to the Rakata chest and Columi main hand while infusing the weekly Flashpoint missions with a bit more challenge for players who had geared past most Flashpoints.

 

Please tell Jesse Sky that while tight tuning and execution-based mechanics are all well and good, your game engine and/or its client/server communication system does a terrible job of making sure things happen the way a player might expect. L5 is the worst, when as the tank I try to move him so my group doesn't have to stand in stuff, he gets herky jerky on the screen, then doesn't move, then sets the group on fire because I wasn't in range to interrupt him. I've killed him before, several times, but this crap where it just stands there not casting or doing anything for long periods until he gets back to incinerate in his rotation is maddeningly aggravating.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I talked with Jesse Sky (Lead Flashpoints and Operations Designer) about the difficulty of Lost Island and its rewards, and he shared his insight about these questions.

 

He mentioned that Lost Island is balanced very tightly for a group in Tionese-quality gear, but that because the boss mechanics are heavily execution-based, many players prefer to overgear for it. Small mistakes can easily wipe the group, so bringing Ops level gear is great insurance, even if it isn't required. The loot quality reflects this - players who take the risk of going in with Tionese and Columi gear will be rewarded. Players with Ops level gear are likely there for the Black Hole Commendations right now.

 

That's not to say that we won't be re-examining gear progression going forward. It just happened that when Lost Island was released (1.2), it made sense to us to offer new players and alternate route to the Rakata chest and Columi main hand while infusing the weekly Flashpoint missions with a bit more challenge for players who had geared past most Flashpoints.

 

Please tell Jesse Sky that while tight tuning and execution-based mechanics are all well and good, your game engine and/or its client/server communication system does a terrible job of making sure things happen the way a player might expect. L5 is the worst, when as the tank I try to move him so my group doesn't have to stand in stuff, he gets herky jerky on the screen, then doesn't move, then sets the group on fire because I wasn't in range to interrupt him. I've killed him before, several times, but this crap where it just stands there not casting or doing anything for long periods until he gets back to incinerate in his rotation is maddeningly aggravating.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Your initial math did not count the dps time taken away having to deal with adds. I'm not saying its impossible (I'm quite certain it is) Its just not realistic for players of average to above average skill level. My main point is, if their goal was to focus on mechanics, then enrage timers should not be the primary "fail" condition of the encounter....not executing on said mechanics should be (I.E. Incenerates, adds, lightning, fire grates)

 

Edit: Enrage timers should only exist for 2 reasons:

 

1) To prevent stacking of healers (something that is not an issue in a 4 man dungeon)

2) To provide a raw gear check in a tank and spank type fight

 

Any other reason is just lazy design, imo.

This is a fair point, and I was mainly just throwing numbers around because I like them.

 

:)

 

According to the Jesse Sky info that Allison gave us, the instance was balanced "very tightly" for Tionese-quality gear. Based on my personal experience with the LR-5 fight in particular, I read that as "executed perfectly without a single flub"

 

It would be interesting, if my group gets a wild hair up our collective fundamental aperatures, to spend the Tionese commendations that have collected in the bank and re-gear 4 of us and see if we could beat the fight. I'll bet we wipe a bunch of times as we currently run LR-5 sloppy (being overgeared). But once we bang the sloppy out of it, I'll think we could pull it off.

 

That said, I believe the enrage timer isn't really the issue with this fight mainly because I don't see people complaining about "getting him to 5% every time." Most threads about LR-5 involve people wiping far earlier than the enrage.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I talked with Jesse Sky (Lead Flashpoints and Operations Designer) about the difficulty of Lost Island and its rewards, and he shared his insight about these questions.

 

He mentioned that Lost Island is balanced very tightly for a group in Tionese-quality gear, but that because the boss mechanics are heavily execution-based, many players prefer to overgear for it. Small mistakes can easily wipe the group, so bringing Ops level gear is great insurance, even if it isn't required. The loot quality reflects this - players who take the risk of going in with Tionese and Columi gear will be rewarded. Players with Ops level gear are likely there for the Black Hole Commendations right now.

 

That's not to say that we won't be re-examining gear progression going forward. It just happened that when Lost Island was released (1.2), it made sense to us to offer new players and alternate route to the Rakata chest and Columi main hand while infusing the weekly Flashpoint missions with a bit more challenge for players who had geared past most Flashpoints.

 

I've often seen responses from developers like the one above from those at Blizzard, justification for the decisions made. I also often wonder whether the developers themselves actually run the completed FP's/OP's with fellow employees or pug as it's expected from partcipants. If Jesse Sky believed HM LI should be completed in Tionese then he geared this flashpoint for the 1% of players who are capable. Everyone I know in game has completed HM LI in a minimum of Columi gear, and I am of the opinion that in this Flashpoint (as good and enjoyable as it was) the reward does not equal the effort. I hope that with future development the fact that reward equals effort is kept in mind for what was essentially a mini raid.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I feel the devs did a good job balancing LI and it drops appropriate loot. I just leveled an alt to 50 on my server as sniper lethality dps and the second I dinged I did a HM LI run. I was able to do it easily while wearing green questing loot with some blues. I also got lucky and every boss dropped sniper loot. The hm fps and operations are relatively easy its all about executing and doing your job right. As long as you continue your rotation and you don't stand in stuff you should be fine. The loot is plenty good for the difficultly.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lost Island is my fav. HM, mainly because it is such a pain! I play it each night because I like the challenge, not that it's really tough but it requires a bit of teamwork and common sense.

 

I've had some nights with decently geared groups which after a few wipes end pretty early on, and i've had group with 1 or 2 players who have never done the FP before going through it with no wipes at all.

 

You also get 'All types' in HM LI. I've had the full BH healers who just havn't been able to keep people healed, I've had the DPS in Recruit Gear, the Tank who moans about there being melee in the group and quits etc. etc.

 

A Rakata Chest-Piece and Mainhand Weapon are good rewards, leave everything how it is please! ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I feel the devs did a good job balancing LI and it drops appropriate loot. I just leveled an alt to 50 on my server as sniper lethality dps and the second I dinged I did a HM LI run. I was able to do it easily while wearing green questing loot with some blues. I also got lucky and every boss dropped sniper loot. The hm fps and operations are relatively easy its all about executing and doing your job right. As long as you continue your rotation and you don't stand in stuff you should be fine. The loot is plenty good for the difficultly.

 

The thing is most likely you could of died, or not been there at all and if your group was bh/camp gear would of been fine 3 manning it. I have done it with people in green and blue questing gear, dps and healers and been successful, but the overall gear level of the group was far beyond tionnese.

 

I say it isnt to difficult, and doesnt need a nerf, but i think a group full of people just being in tionese would be extremely tough, unless you had certain classes only.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I talked with Jesse Sky (Lead Flashpoints and Operations Designer) about the difficulty of Lost Island and its rewards, and he shared his insight about these questions.

 

He mentioned that Lost Island is balanced very tightly for a group in Tionese-quality gear, but that because the boss mechanics are heavily execution-based, many players prefer to overgear for it. Small mistakes can easily wipe the group, so bringing Ops level gear is great insurance, even if it isn't required. The loot quality reflects this - players who take the risk of going in with Tionese and Columi gear will be rewarded. Players with Ops level gear are likely there for the Black Hole Commendations right now.

 

That's not to say that we won't be re-examining gear progression going forward. It just happened that when Lost Island was released (1.2), it made sense to us to offer new players and alternate route to the Rakata chest and Columi main hand while infusing the weekly Flashpoint missions with a bit more challenge for players who had geared past most Flashpoints.

 

Can you please post a video of Lost Island being done from start to finish by a group in TIonese gear?

 

Can you please post numbers for how often this happens in the real world?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The thing is most likely you could of died, or not been there at all and if your group was bh/camp gear would of been fine 3 manning it. I have done it with people in green and blue questing gear, dps and healers and been successful, but the overall gear level of the group was far beyond tionnese.

 

I say it isnt to difficult, and doesnt need a nerf, but i think a group full of people just being in tionese would be extremely tough, unless you had certain classes only.

 

Shadow tank, Sentinel, Commando and Scoundrel have by far been the easiest group I have done LI in. You really have to have min of 2 interrupters for that mob. Running thru with my 5 different 50s, it is doable in lower gear only if you have the right classes and the right people. We currently are farming it working our members thru it to get the unlock for the speeders. But once people get the unlock it is the one place they dont wish to go back to.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That said, I believe the enrage timer isn't really the issue with this fight mainly because I don't see people complaining about "getting him to 5% every time." Most threads about LR-5 involve people wiping far earlier than the enrage.

 

As a fully-geared tank, sometimes I will PUG HM LI just for (masochistic) fun. About 50% of random groups that I get through groupfinder have severe problems with lack of DPS - LR-5's enrage will kick in with 20-30% of the bosses' health remaining, despite the fact that my HP has never dipped below 70% and none of the group members have gone down. After two or three runs like that, I will announce "I don't think this is going to happen with this group" and then leave.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As a fully-geared tank, sometimes I will PUG HM LI just for (masochistic) fun. About 50% of random groups that I get through groupfinder have severe problems with lack of DPS - LR-5's enrage will kick in with 20-30% of the bosses' health remaining, despite the fact that my HP has never dipped below 70% and none of the group members have gone down. After two or three runs like that, I will announce "I don't think this is going to happen with this group" and then leave.

 

I have experienced that exact problem. Mechanics perfect...DPS is terrible.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


×
×
  • Create New...