The ramp up between 55 HM's, 60 tacticals (if there is sucha thing) and 60 HM's is ridiculou and still out of balance. I can heal like a house-a-fire and yet, after 20 mins of listening to the bang-bang,. bang-bang of the Manaan boss (and now with serious headache), and 50k repair bills if the tank isn't experienced...or whatever...what is the ramp up in diffuclty between 55 hms, the tacticals (which I can do with one hand) and the 60 hm's. I'm sick of wiping on content I should be able to at least work at but compete in 186's. Or is 186 purple gear like wearing a bathrobe?

The change in difficulty is too demanding and a lot of people are getting discouraged or just don't have time (they have lives). So maybe you did throw a bone to the hard core players...and the pvpers, now that I, as a healer, have a longer cooldown on my cleanse and can cleanse less than before (what's the point?)

It seems that you favor changes for pvpers to the detriment of pve'ers. And many of us are not liking these changes or doing well with them at all.

I've heard people in my guild say they're going back to wow, and frankly, about half our Swtor group has already vacated back to wow. I just re-downloaded ESO.

I don't see a lot of hope for this game. Some op bosses are punishing in the extreeme if you're melee, which doesn't square with being a jedi knight, a foundationa feature of the game. Now I have to spec a certain way just to be viable, instead of taking the "utilities" I want, which is what I THOUGHT you were trying to discourage. Instead, you've made it worse. More cookie-cutter.

I'm grossly disappointed and I daresay I am not alone. I won't cheat to get there, but it seems like withotu cheating, getting there is a job, something I'd prefer to get paid for, thank you. The frustration is driving us to having to choose to play with people who can do content, instead of people we like, unless we're playing for stuff we already have. none of it is good.

fwiw, another 3year sub here.

Maybe you like the hard core pvp set and the hard core pve set, but aren't they mostly the ones that cheated just a week ago? So, get rid of us for not having a bridge between ridiculously easy and punishingly hard, and get rid of them for finding the solution; cheating.

Seems like you took part in creating the problem If there was a bridge between the two content levels., maybe not so many people whould have exploited (I didn't). Look it up.

I don't know if it's possible to balance out the needs of pvp and pve in one set of classes, and I am not sure I like what has happened to our communities (what's left of them since these changes). Seems the whole thing is in tatters and people are at one another's throats. We're either frazzled trying to keep up with punishing mechanics, or cheaters.

lastly, but not least importantly, why are you removing Ultimates from Nightmare TFB and SNV. Those two ops are candidates, it would seem, to retain their ultimate comms. Maybe in reduced numbers. But not removed completely. They aren't *that* easy. To compare the rewards of NiM TFB to those of Story Mode DF is ludicrous.

Balance is one thing Bioware seems not to be able to find anywhere in the galaxy. As for me and many others, when we do find more balance elsewhere, we're likely jumping ship. I've never threatened it before. But it's time. You guys need to work this out and remember that the top 10% is not your only player base, neither is the bottom 50% (who don't pay). And you can't please everyone. Pick someone and make it right by them. Right now, what you have is meh everything and excellent nothing.

my $.03 worth.

Don't agree with this at all. I'm enjoying the new HM FP's because they are somewhat of a challenge.

I cleared all of them on my first try, with a few wipes on Manaan, all apart from Manaan in PUG groups (Manaan was a guild run with 4 people who had never done the FP before).

I'm geared in 186 (optimized and augmented) with a couple of 192 pieces.

I'm far from a hardcore player (4/5 and 2/5 on the new Ops, though only run each one once or twice so far).

Any easier and the FP's would be no real challenge now and a cakewalk as soon as people know the tactics and have better gear, which will happen soon anyway.

We had months and months of speedrunning through ridiculously easy SM ops and HM FP's before 3.0 with everyone overgeared, let's enjoy actually having to work to complete the content for a month or two.

Also, the 55 HM's were also a challenge when they first came and people weren't geared and learning the tactics. Yes Manaan is very difficult in comparrison to the others, but not impossible. Tacticals are so easy as to be no fun which is why I never, ever run them, unless I feel like I want to chance my luck and hope to win a decoration/mount.

TLDR It's fine as it is, experience and gear progression will rebalance them in a few weeks/months anyway and they'll be boring, no-challenge speed runs soon enough, without having to nerf them straight away.

I am disinclined to speak on depths of Manaan since the first PUG I got everyone quit before we got to the first mob once they realized it was that FP.

But I went tank with a Jug and I am literally afraid to queue because I never tanked before. TO my credit I made sure to get some above-average gear so I don't drop like a leave the moment I agro anything.

Anyways, I did Assault on Thyton and Korriban Incursion and to be honest. I couldn't tell if it was a HM or a tactical. Maybe the other players were just that good. But the fight fights weren't too hard. There were no wipes. I followed instructions to the letter and we pretty much ran though the HMs like there were tacticals.

For depths of Manaan, I think if the DPS suck then its a lost cause. Everyone should have full 186 gear. The right side of my tank is fully augmented. It's expensive but I don't want to be a burden to my team.

In all honesty, the biggest problem with "dungeons" easy or hard is the players. The people who know the fight just want to run through with NP. If it's a HM FP why do you want to faceroll? If the healer suk or the tank is under-geared then the run will be impossible.

I stayed away from HM FPs because I was scared; not of the difficulty but of players. So far I have tanked all the level 55 HMs and the only wipe was the Mandalorian raiders because the healer suxed bad and I didn't have my fully 186 gear and the idiots insisted on doing the bonus boss when clearly we couldn't beat it.

I told them to move on but the idiot DPS keep trying to tank, gets himself killed, cussed out the healer, which caused her to quit and that was that lol. We could have finished it if we just skipped the bonus boss.

Anyways, maybe Manaan is the exception? I mena yesterday we killed Jensyn in like 2 minutes on the HM. I was like *** happen ? Why he died so quickly? Apparently someone expelled a deadly fart in the room and he died of asphyxiation.

My impression was that they scaled down the difficulty level of the HMs so that people like me can play. I guess I don't suk as much as I thought I did, or I was carried through by more skilled players.

Don't get me wrong. I am not for difficult content. I leave all difficulty and frustrations at work. When I go home, I must relax and unwind. But for me as a newly inexperienced tank to run several HM FPs without wipes (except the Manaan which I have yet to do) suggests to me that the difficulty was scaled.

The 60 HMs were a kick in the pants to a complacent player base. These flashpoints require you to pay attention to the gear you wear, the cooldowns you hit, and the rotations you execute. They simply aren't faceroll content.

The collective gear of the community is improving, however, so these HMs are well within puggable difficulty now. Success of course depends on everyone pulling their own weight, so there is always an opportunity to get a moron in GF. Such is life.

With the exception perhaps of the first boss of Tython, I am happy with the difficulty of the bosses of the HMs ever since they implementated the silver mob fix.

its all about if u go into them '''drunk'' or ''clean''

just focus and all will go well

finish yesterday rakata HM with a lvl 59 player and the bonus

as i said, just focus to your objectives and all go well

As a tank I dont find them particularly hard, just miserable as nearly every second pack/boss has abilities that cause you to constantly lose control of your character and therefore the fight.

Either that or constant aggro resets.

Manaan first and last boss are a good example, you dont ever really feel like you're controlling the fight, you're just getting slammed/thrown around the place like a sack of crap.

The whole skill of a tank is supposed in your ability to control the flow of the fight while minimising the damage you (and your party) take, but in a lot of the current HM content I just dont feel like my input is that important (more just a case of my healer keeping me up while I'm stunned/knocked back/etc)

Here's an idea. Don't level to 60 and jump right into a HM FP without upgrading all of your gear to 186 or better. If you have a full group in 186 and better and fail, someone if not everyone is failing hard.

A bunch of you leveled up brand new characters and have no idea how to play them. You should not be able to complete something labeled as hard, if you don't even know how to properly play your character. End of story.

Maybe they should make a CB mode...

sorry couldnt resist

remember when Lost Island hit now that was good HM content so people stop complaining and get good

Lost island rewarded a *********** set bonus piece you couldnt get anywhere else. That was worth trying hard. The level 60 HMs just award random garbage gear and garbage comms.

Here's an idea. Don't level to 60 and jump right into a HM FP without upgrading all of your gear to 186 or better. If you have a full group in 186 and better and fail, someone if not everyone is failing hard.

The recommended gear is 178. 186 is supposed to be overkill.

The ramp up between 55 HM's, 60 tacticals (if there is sucha thing) and 60 HM's is ridiculou and still out of balance.

I think they want to chase the players away with the 3.0 content. This game used to be all about having fun, queueing up with groupfinder and have a good time.

Now everyone have to study the bosses and ops like it is a exam to complete it and not everyone wants to do that, we want to be able to run content like we are used to in this game. It is to late to "increase difficulty" to attract new players, if that is the strategy they are aiming for. They need to check their data how many of the groupfinder teams actually completes the content they signed up for, HM FPs and OPS.

I wish they had tested the 3.0 content more and released when it was ready

It is a Hard Mode for a reason. even mobs require (sometimes. depends on the group) a CC and groups that know the flashpoint and know how to play their toons.

I have managed to successfully tank, heal and dps all the hard modes. so it can be done if you slow down and think fights through.

I love how they made this new stuff so that you cant just face roll through it..that some level of thought and gear is actually important..

i fail to see the purpose of having hardmodes if they arent hard.

and the lvl 60 hardmodes...they aren't hard. i completed them all the first week with no guide.

this generation hates any sort of adversity. keep trying, get better at dps, healing and tanking. instead of looking for mom/dad to save you, why dont you play the game and get better?

this is not a "lol u suck" post, and im not sure why anyone would be upset at being told they need to get better. if you're having difficulty with these instances, then hone your skills on tacticals and develop yourself. we all started as bad players...so put the practice and effort in and you'll get better too.

I think they want to chase the players away with the 3.0 content. This game used to be all about having fun, queueing up with groupfinder and have a good time.

 

Now everyone have to study the bosses and ops like it is a exam to complete it and not everyone wants to do that, we want to be able to run content like we are used to in this game. It is to late to "increase difficulty" to attract new players, if that is the strategy they are aiming for. They need to check their data how many of the groupfinder teams actually completes the content they signed up for, HM FPs and OPS.

 

I wish they had tested the 3.0 content more and released when it was ready

No they want the content to last longer. And this is working as you can see the casual bob players are going to struggle and so they should because HM is meant to be hard and even EC when it came out was a nice operation and finally they bought us ravagers and ToS to a good standard of content that required skill to complete even though some of the bugs can really annoy people but still the content this cycle is perfect and I hope all future content is as hard and fun.

The new HM fps are stupidly easy once you get through them the first time. Doh dont stand in this, move around during that. Mind dumbing boring. Now an encounter that will last the ages was LI. Wickedly fun and challenging. Must have wiped 100 times before my group downed it.

Also for the ones saying the new ops are hard need a reality check, raiding isnt for everyone nor should it be. Yes UL is bugged to high hell but he is still doable after x amounts of tries. Those 45k hits are no joke. Personally I like the challenge the new raids/hms present.

The problem I Think is we have different people with different expectations of what hardmode flashpoint should be, and the current implementation isn't very satisfying for either...

Either HM flashpoints are meant to give new level 60 players enough gear to start doing more serious content (SM ops), providing a moderate increase in challenge compared to the leveling tacticals and solo play. That sounds like something worth playing.

But if this is the case, the flashpoints are far too hard with trash that can take out half a tank's health within one second of pulling and mobs that can 2 shot a healer or dps.

OR, maybe HM flashpoints are meant to be an alternative way of challenging yourself for players of above average skill who don't have time to do ops. I can appreciate that too.

But in that case the rewards are just not sufficient.

So yeah... I'm not sure what they can do to help, but HM FPs are in a pretty bad spot atm. Maybe bring back tier 1 / tier 2 HMs ? Tier 1 could have the same rewards as the current HM FPs but lowered difficulty, Tier 2 could bring better rewards (massassi piece on every boss, resurrected on last boss, a few ultimates at the end ?), and keep or even increase the difficulty ?

raiding isnt for everyone nor should it be.

Progression raiding, sure. I think SM raiding should be for everyone. Mostly everyone. The game was more fun during the 12xp endless farm than it has been since SoR.

I expect nightmare mode to be a nightmare, hard mode to be quite hard, and story mode to be easy. The dread ops were nicely balanced this way. Right now it feels like hard mode is a nightmare, SM is kinda hard, and I don't wanna know what nightmare mode is going to be like...

The recommended gear is 178. 186 is supposed to be overkill.

I don't know what gave you that idea. The tooltip still says item level 148, because BioWare is full of fail. Dulfy had a guide or write up stating recommended is 186 with some 192s. The end boss drops 192 gear so that should tell you that you should have the next tier below that, which is 186. The trouble is, players are going in there with 168s, no augments, and sometimes worse relics. Many times on a character they haven't learned how to play properly.

I don't know what gave you that idea. The tooltip still says item level 148, because BioWare is full of fail. Dulfy had a guide or write up stating recommended is 186 with some 192s. The end boss drops 192 gear so that should tell you that you should have the next tier below that, which is 186. The trouble is, players are going in there with 168s, no augments, and sometimes worse relics. Many times on a character they haven't learned how to play properly.

"186 with some 192s" problem is that you need to do those FPs to get the 192s. if that's whats needed for those FPs then they are in fact too hard. I think part of the problem though is that you have the difficulty level increase combined with the nerf to healers. it's a nasty double punch that has left people reeling

I don't know what gave you that idea.

Well... The fact they drop 184 rating gear, and this :

Galactic Conflicts]Repeatable - This mission can be repeated in the future.

 

Aid the Republic by completing three of the following missions on the hard difficulty mode.

 

[HARD] Flashpoint: Assault on Tython

[HARD] Flashpoint: Korriban Incursion

[HARD] Flashpoint: Depths of Manaan

[HARD] Flashpoint: Legacy of the Rakata

 

[Recommended Gear]

Item Rating 178

Here's an idea. Don't level to 60 and jump right into a HM FP without upgrading all of your gear to 186 or better. If you have a full group in 186 and better and fail, someone if not everyone is failing hard.