It's far easier than it should have been, IMO.

I think they are harder than most previous HMs when done on tier, personally.

... It's just that they feel stupidly easy and undertuned because they came after NiM S&V/TfB, which are unarguably more challenging.

I suppose it's mostly this.

It was in line with the relative difficulty of HM S&V and TfB. Maybe a bit harder (the coordination checks are tougher in DF/DP than in S&V/TfB). I honestly think they did a very good job of balancing them. It's just that they feel stupidly easy and undertuned because they came after NiM S&V/TfB, which are unarguably more challenging.

This.

One thing I observed, admittedly as an outsider to NiM TFB and SnV is that for the guilds that went through it, those ops were very much a watershed for DPS. Those guilds then went into the current tier not only overgeared because they were in (some of them) full 75s, but also having gotten the skills to really pump out absolutely insane DPS. From there, one thing I definitely noticed in the current tier is that really good DPS just covers a multitude of sins.

Well not sins so much, but it really trivializes alot of the mechanics. Draxus is a cake walk if you can take the dangerous adds down quickly. Corrupter Zero might as well not even be a fight with good DPS. On Brontes really good DPS means you don't get a third set of fingers, means you minimize the time spent in the orb phase at the end of phase 2, means the fingers in phase three die really quickly, and means the soft enrage is never really that bad. On Bestia really high DPS means the adds more or less die as they spawn and you never get in a hairy situation in phase 3 with two monsters up. When my group first started that fight if we weren't properly focusing our DPS we were probably going to wipe due to the larvae. Now we don't have to coordinate as much. Calphayus mechanics are a joke with high DPS (with high DPS you only ever get one sphere per phase, and of course every add dies ridiculously quickly). Raptus is more of a healing check but obviously really high DPS (who can basically turret on that fight) means the boss simply doesn't last as long. On council really high DPS means less thundering blasts and deathmarks, means you don't have to blow an inspire on Brontes/Styrak so can save it for the soft enrage, means the soft enrage is pretty short.

All of that to say that really high NiM level DPS (i.e. the kind you needed to get through NiM TFB and especially SnV) made the current tier really really easy because all you had to learn were the mechanics, which were also lighter than NiM TFB and SnV. My group didn't progress through NiM in the last tier (we basically had to reform an entire guild just as those Nightmares came out, so spent pretty much all that time building a good 16 man group), and while we found we could get the mechanics, pumping out that really high DPS came much slower.

So yes, for those groups who went through it I have no trouble believing that you find the current tier pretty easy. For those of us who didn't, I can't speak for everyone but my group has found it a fun challenge, and as mentioned a big step up over HM SnV and TFB. In the interim we've also solidified much better on our DPS and as a group and are looking forward to trying out these NiMs.

i was thinking about it and i think you can split your raid in a way so no single affliction will go out and no one will die from debuff but your group will have to be very well coordinated. I think other mechanics like healing adds and inability to heal if someone is under shield might be more difficult then handling corruptors which at any give them is no more then 4 so in 8 man raid you barely can do it ... its might be one of the bosses that 16man might be easier to handle.

Yeah I feel like 16 man is going to be a lot easier. You essentially divide the raid up into interrupt teams, focus down the corrupters when they spawn then deal with the boss (in phases 3 and 5), focus down the healing add, then the corrupter in phase 6 and 9. Gives tanks time to properly get threat on the guardians of the fortress anyway. The subteroths are going to be the real pains to be honest, but still pretty doable. The nice thing about 16 man is you have so many more options for splitting your personnel.

these changes are good, first because guilds that "really deserve" the titles will be the only ones with them, like most people say, Dragonslayer or Warstalker lose its magic when 3-5 months later everyone has it because they out gear the content. because its not outgearing it with 1 tier, its 2 tiers, usually most groups that got dragonslayer now, went in with full 78 Gear, Lets remember when most guilds (first guilds) got it, i think we got it at 3rd week?, probably first guilds got between 3-5 weeks, that's enough maybe to get half group with 50% 75s gear.

In other words content that was cleared by people on 71 gear + titles with 71 mix 75, should not reward people doing it with BiS 78s. they are giving more than 2 months timeframe for this title (since DP is in 2 months and its not on that patch) so i assume its like 3-4 months, this will let at least most guild get "mostly" BiS with current set gear and clearing it still being a "challenge" but not outgearing it.

the nim/hm debuff its fine, in my opinion after new gear dropped, i never came back to nim, the fights were too hard to run through new people or recruits for achievements or glowing gear for pretty much no incentive, considering new tiers will drop better gear and nim gear is just "cosmetic", removing the buff will allow most of the guilds to get their cheevos and cool gear and watch the content. I dont see where this hurts anyone, with 3-4 months the "hardcore and semi-hardcore" raiders will be satisfied for their titles / gear, and this let more casual guilds see the content that the rest of us wont touch anyways and even practice harder mechanics to get better.

Just not a fan of these changes for a couple reasons.

While I appreciate the separate lockouts and the effort to do that, I don't think their changes didn't need to go any further than that. Everyone understands the nature of titles and that something like Infernal is completely worthless today, much as it was even before 2.0 well before even the time that everyone was comm'ing up Black Hole gear. Did we really need dev resources dedicated to a system to lock out titles and essentially endorse players having bragging rights? My opinion, is no. Some might say, "Well this will make some titles NOT worthless." Sure, I suppose, but is that really the most important thing they could be doing?

Bottom line for me is I'd prefer to see the supposedly limited resources of the devs spent elsewhere than on a tier of play that so few players (relative to the total population) experience. It seems wasteful to invest more in such a small segment of play, particularly given the challenging and time consuming terms that many groups set up to gate participation into those levels of play in the first place. People value their time and don't want it wasted, so they set up those gates to screen out bad players. Even with the way the game is now, a lot of people don't want to bring inexperienced, new, or potential trainees into Hard Mode, much less Nightmare Mode. Now that it's going to be an exclusive time frame window, you'll see even more efforts by a certain sector of some players to hedge out other players from getting it done, instead of helping each other. I suppose at least the gear and the mounts may still drop, but the gear always will become irrelevant someday, eventually. It will just make organizing future runs have one less incentive to revisit old content, and gee, I would think that enticing players to revisit content from time to time or with an alt would be one way to keep a few more people around. I just don't think this game needed to spend its limited resources on what is likely to become another way for players to just talk smack and exclude each other.

Let's get on with entirely new operations already instead of trying to prolong the life of existing ops even further beyond previous operations' life spans with gimmicks. I'm not saying a new operation would be out in 2.7 had these small changes not been done, but what if the efforts spent here are potentially setting back the new operation another few weeks or months than it otherwise could? Or what if this effort detracts from the quality of other content releases of all types? That's my two cents for Bioware on this one. You use limited resources and challenging tech in Q&A all the time. It's a head-scratcher as to why these features were worth those limited resources. Maybe it's easy programming, but I'm sure staff time was spent on the idea, discussion, planning, and designing the implementation (when to release it, suggesting and discussing how long to do it, monitoring the metrics for it to turn it off, etc...). Maybe spend a little of that time making the ambient setting of the game more vibrant, fluid, and alive which everyone traveling the galaxy would see, instead of worrying whether or not 5% of the player base gets an exclusive title?

these changes are good, first because guilds that "really deserve" the titles will be the only ones with them, like most people say, Dragonslayer or Warstalker lose its magic when 3-5 months later everyone has it because they out gear the content. because its not outgearing it with 1 tier, its 2 tiers, usually most groups that got dragonslayer now, went in with full 78 Gear, Lets remember when most guilds (first guilds) got it, i think we got it at 3rd week?, probably first guilds got between 3-5 weeks, that's enough maybe to get half group with 50% 75s gear.

 

In other words content that was cleared by people on 71 gear + titles with 71 mix 75, should not reward people doing it with BiS 78s. they are giving more than 2 months timeframe for this title (since DP is in 2 months and its not on that patch) so i assume its like 3-4 months, this will let at least most guild get "mostly" BiS with current set gear and clearing it still being a "challenge" but not outgearing it.

 

the nim/hm debuff its fine, in my opinion after new gear dropped, i never came back to nim, the fights were too hard to run through new people or recruits for achievements or glowing gear for pretty much no incentive, considering new tiers will drop better gear and nim gear is just "cosmetic", removing the buff will allow most of the guilds to get their cheevos and cool gear and watch the content. I dont see where this hurts anyone, with 3-4 months the "hardcore and semi-hardcore" raiders will be satisfied for their titles / gear, and this let more casual guilds see the content that the rest of us wont touch anyways and even practice harder mechanics to get better.

I think some teams are going to find it a bit tougher in the future with the ongoing DPS nerfs to scale back the top parsing ACs to be closer to the average parsing ACs. Gone are the days of 3 FFB/OS casts lighting up the board every 45 seconds, to name just one.

I kind of like it. Something to shoot for and if I don't get it in time I don't get it.

What I would like though is the option to turn nightmare power back on, even if it doesn't provide the title any more since we know there will be a drought of content before whatever we get next. If guilds are almost killing it and the removal of the buff suddenly makes it trivial then they're out of content prematurely.

Bottom line for me is I'd prefer to see the supposedly limited resources of the devs spent elsewhere than on a tier of play that so few players (relative to the total population) experience.

I don't know the figures, but i am sure not a lot of population will kill Dread Council HM at current gear levels. Lets say its 10% and i think i am very generous here.

If BW follows your thinking, why bother with HMs if ONLY 10% of population will ever complete it? Lets stay with story mode only ops and then limited resources will be better spend on few more flashpoints that is done on daily basis by way more people then hard mode operations.

Some people like that change, some don't. I think its a really good idea and incentive for some other groups/guilds to try this little bit harder to get that title.

Title looses its "shine" as people get it some time after once they over gear it. And there is no distinction between those who have the skills to get it and those that have the (over)gear to get it.

With this change if you really will try (like I will) to get this title and if you will eventually do it (like i doubt i will ), it will be one that i will be happy to display. As you said, there is no pride in having Infernal title as everyone has it now ... with this change it will not be everyone that has it no matter what level of gear they have.

What I would like though is the option to turn nightmare power back on, even if it doesn't provide the title any more since we know there will be a drought of content before whatever we get next. If guilds are almost killing it and the removal of the buff suddenly makes it trivial then they're out of content prematurely.

While i like the idea, there is just not reason to have it in place really. If you over gear it there is no reason to switch it back on. As you would already have NiM gear (or better) having bosses do more damage and have higher health pools will change nothing as mechanics stay the same. Imaging buff like this on EV or Karaga NiM - it would make no difference. Sure TFB and S&V would probably still make a difference but they who runs it now other then groups that want to get a mount and if that's the case there is no incentive to switch that power back on.

It only makes sense if the new HMs gona be so hard that you can't beat it without the gear from DF/DP Nim. If it will be another DF/DP HM lvl of difficulty than it's stupid, still a lot of guild trying to prorgress in TFB/S&V Nim, but with a nerfed version they might not care at all.

I imagine they want the NiM ops to be playable for more people, because quite frankly, all that work tuning the op, with new mechanics, new gear (like they did for tfb/sv nim), etc only for a very small group of players it seems like a waste of resources.

This way, the top players will have the chance to get the titles to show off and, later on, some more will be able to fully clear them while they're still worth clearing.

Most started their progress on DF/DP hm with 72s. Very few with 75s. And that was okay. Would have been bad if not so very few had 75s for DF/DP hm ?

Because like it's been pointed out, if the new mechanics are still there, people shouldn't think "oh noez, now anyone can faceroll nim bosses" That won't happen. Stormcaller/Firebrand hm still wipe groups with 72/78 because of mechanics

What I would like though is the option to turn nightmare power back on, even if it doesn't provide the title any more since we know there will be a drought of content before whatever we get next. If guilds are almost killing it and the removal of the buff suddenly makes it trivial then they're out of content prematurely.

I think the number of guilds that will be in the situation of "almost clearing it" while Nightmare Power is on, but then have little difficulty in clearing it once Nightmare Power is turned off will be very, very small. These would be guilds that are missing DPS checks but are able to execute on the mechanics properly.

While some of the nightmare boss DPS checks can be the harshest of mistresses (looking at you The Terror From Beyond,) I believe that it is a lack of proper execution of mechanics that prevents the large majority of guilds from clearing nightmare content. Therefore, even with Nightmare Power turned off, I think nightmare mechanics will remain a significant challenge for almost all players who haven't yet cleared.

As was provided in an example in an above post, Firebrand and Stormcaller as well as Kephess in nightmare Explosive Conflict still chew up and spit out 72/78 geared groups with aplomb.

What I do appreciate about the developers turning off Nightmare Power is that it should encourage more people to try nightmare content and improve their skills. I know that tanking nightmare Stormcaller and needing to taunt Firebrand's Incinerate Amour onto myself while properly positioning Double Destruction taught me how to taunt swap flawlessly. That's a skill I take into Dread Fortress and Dread Palace every week.

Some thoughts/suggestions:

1. I like the time-limited titles. Something good to shoot for.

2. I understand but am personally not pleased by nerfing the difficulty at the same time the title goes away. Could there at least be a way to activate the higher difficulty (but maybe not have a shot at the title)?

Background: I'm in a very small progression guild that's typically server 4th to 6th. We progress slower than the really top tier guilds, and we have occasional (sometimes lengthy) lapses for attendance/replacement issues. The guild [before I was active] had warstalker shortly before 2.0, and we got from beyond shortly after 2.4 (but still with all 72 mainhands, though we did have other 78 pieces; mid-August to September was one of the lapses).

I think we have a decent shot at the title, but I can also see the possibility of us nearly being done with Brontes and then it being immediately easy. Mechanics + output checks are much harder than just mechanics (which can still be challenging on their own, of course). I don't have that big a problem with nerfing it so more can try, but I'd like to still be able to do the harder mode with my guild if we don't quite get it down in time.

3. A guild member had a very interesting suggestion. I'm not wedded to this, and think the time-limited titles are fine, but it's a very good suggestion for the purpose of keeping old content fresh:

a. Have the harder difficulty available after the timer, either as a choice, or just as the only option.

b. When you enter, if you are level 55 and all your gear & mods are level 81 at most [and you chose the harder difficulty option, if relevant], you get the buff and can get the title; putting on anything higher than 81 removes the buff. (Possibly a different title if you want to keep the time-limited one exclusive, or even just some sort of achievement.)

Or something of that sort. To get overly complicated, you could even add a "down-level me to 55 while in this op" option to keep more achievements available, but still roughly as challenging, essentially forever. I wasn't around for EC personally, but if there were an option to go into EC with 63 gear, choose an option to make the group down-leveled to 50, and try for a title that you couldn't get otherwise, I know I (and various other people) would be interested. Without the carrot of a title or achievement or something, it's hard to motivate a full group to go do something like that. Even players who already had the original [again, possibly different] title would be interested, but on other toons.

Just not a fan of these changes for a couple reasons.

 

While I appreciate the separate lockouts and the effort to do that, I don't think their changes didn't need to go any further than that. Everyone understands the nature of titles and that something like Infernal is completely worthless today, much as it was even before 2.0 well before even the time that everyone was comm'ing up Black Hole gear. Did we really need dev resources dedicated to a system to lock out titles and essentially endorse players having bragging rights? My opinion, is no. Some might say, "Well this will make some titles NOT worthless." Sure, I suppose, but is that really the most important thing they could be doing?

 

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I don't think the point of this change was necessarily a bragging rights thing. I believe at it's base the change is a way to make NiM more accessible after the initial race and the top guilds are through it. If it was simply for bragging rights, I suppose I'd agree that the dev resources could have been better spent. But, I think it's more to do with temporarily gating the content to the best of the best and then opening it a bit to others for gear progression. Like others said above very few went into DF/DP in min/max KD gear. Dropping difficulty after the initial push will open up more gear progression for guilds that aren't at that peak position.

Heya,

 

I just wanted to take an opportunity to clarify some things regarding Nightmare Mode in 2.7, and more specifically Nightmare Power, as we've been seeing a bit of confusion here and there regarding the system and our plans for it.

 

First of all, while we don't have *exact* dates, guilds can expect to have on the order of a couple of months to get their Nightmare Power clear before the buff goes away. Dread Fortress' Nightmare Power will not expire before 2.8, and we will monitor progress throughout the Operation and will make sure there is plenty of notice before it is removed. What Nightmare Mode will be post Nightmare Power is still up for discussion, but again we’ll make sure to communicate it clearly before it happens.

 

Second, Nightmare Mode with the Nightmare Power buff active will be balanced to the same deliciously devious difficulty level as the other Nightmare Modes you all know and love.

 

Third, we can confirm that the balance currently up on PTS is not final and quite subject to change.

 

Thanks everyone for showing up and testing/streaming on the PTS! The feedback has already been invaluable.

Hi MattP,

Pardon the black magic necromancy. SWTOR is my first MMO (never played WoW). I'm new to NIM and still trying to prog, but stuff keeps changing every couple of months, which makes me feel like all the prog I did in 6.0 was a false accomplishment. Some NIM stability would be nice.

Whatever happened to rescaling NIM operations back to their OG level? The rumor-mill said scaling ops down to 50/55 broke operations, but never specifically said how. Is the goal to eventually get them back there? If so, would you ever consider bringing back Nightmare Power (perhaps one different raid per week, or something like "SNV will have Nightmare Power for the month of August")? You guys are recycling old ranked rewards, so it seems fitting to do the same for NIM. It would also give your inner circle/testers something to do other than spamming the forums talking about how easy NIM was in 6.0 and 5.10.

If the goal is not to put old raids back to 50 and 55, then why are they level 70? Is it so that you can leave the operation untouched, and just deflate player stats to a 5.x value? If so, can you tell us which 5.x gear rating we are scaled down to? Some folks are saying we are iR 248, but I have no idea if they are pulling that out of their arse, or if they know something I do not.

Personally, I would like to see raids at their OG level. It would give a feel of authenticity and permanency, not subject to some whim, or change in wind direction.

Sincerely,

A frustrated "NiM" (wink wink kek) raider

Whatever happened to rescaling NIM operations back to their OG level? The rumor-mill said scaling ops down to 50/55 broke operations, but never specifically said how.

Probably because of adverse effects of how Level Sync works.

If the goal is not to put old raids back to 50 and 55, then why are they level 70? Is it so that you can leave the operation untouched, and just deflate player stats to a 5.x value? If so, can you tell us which 5.x gear rating we are scaled down to? Some folks are saying we are iR 248, but I have no idea if they are pulling that out of their arse, or if they know something the rest of us plebs do not.

I wouldn't like to say where they are pulling it from, but my analysis of an ordinary Gunnery Commando's stats on Zakuul, a synced-to-70 area ("EMPH" means "Endurance, Mastery, Power, Health") might help assess what pre-6.0 IR we are at:

Just checked something. I'm level 75, IR 283 with 7 stacks of Veteran's Edge, standing on Zakuul (and therefore synced to level 70).

 

In my character sheet, I'm showing 3929 Power, 7809 Mastery and 8553 Endurance. All these stats are showing *yellow*, meaning that they are below their 'natural' level, which implies they are clipped.

 

The tooltips?

* Mastery: 1000 base plus 8532 bonus = 9532 total (clipped to 7809)

* Endurance: 900 base plus 11678 bonus = 12578 total (clipped to 8553)

* Power: 0 base plus 5224 bonus = 5224 total (clipped to 3929)

 

Health is 126068 "live" made up of:

* 52295 base

* 124274 bonus (8553 Endurance ==> +11195 and Skills/Buffs ==> +13079)

* 176569 total.

* Clipped to 126068.

 

So, this confirms a couple of things:

* Health is clipped (to a different value than you'd expect from the character's level/gear/bonuses/Endurance, that is)

* The full set of EMPH stats are still clipped.

 

And it adds:

* The "From Endurance" part of health is very, very close to exactly 13 points of Health per point of Endurance.

* Specifically, 13.00070151.

* The tiny fraction difference corresponds to *six* extra Health points from I don't know quite where.

 

I then took off all my gear:

* Mastery 1140 as 1000 base plus 140 bonus from ... somewhere. (50 = 5% from the "Force Valor" class buff?)

* Endurance 993 as 900 base plus 93 bonus including 450 = 5% from the "Fortification" class buff

* Power 3929 as 0 base plus 0 bonus.

 

There you have it, folks. Zero plus zero is 3929.

 

Bounce to Fleet. Power is now zero.

Bounce back to Zakuul. Power is back to 3929 with zero stacks of Veteran's Edge.

Back to Fleet. Put gear on, take gear off. Power back to zero.

Bounce back to Zakuul. Power is back to 3929 with zero stacks of Veteran's Edge.

 

I watched Power as I added gear on Zakuul. It moved exactly not at all. It appears that in level-synced content, your Power is determined as a specific value that is entirely independent of anything you can change. It will be interesting to see if it changes when I rank up my stacks of VE.

 

Final conclusion, it's significantly more complicated than we thought, and it's more than somewhat confusing.

Since then, that character has raised her IR to 290 so that she has 11 stacks of VE, and her Power on Zakuul is still 3929, while her Endurance (8859) and Health (130737) are higher than back then. Her clipped Mastery is the same at 7809.

On the other hand, the analysis is complicated by going to post-KotET Iokath, which is *also* synced to level 70:

* Endurance = 7577

* Mastery = 6881

* Power = 3231

* Health = 112228

Conclusion: my conclusion in the quoted text was right, but in spades. It is, indeed, significantly more complicated than we thought, and very confusing. Furthermore, the only way to progress the exploration is to screenshot your Character panel showing the stats the next time you're in a NiM Operation to see how the numbers look, and then compare them to known values for a level 70 wearing different gear in the 230-258 range.

EDIT:: Oh, and don't forget the reports of Veteran's Edge not working in MM Ops.

Almost tempting to play an iR 258 level 70 and exit area during trash so as not to level up during NIM raid.

PS - I mean to put more emphasis in my original post to bring back Nightmare Power as an event or weekly.

The original plan was to rescale everything to the OG level, but that's too challenging to balance considering the new set bonuses and tacticals. On PTS, I was able to 2 man every single NIM when it was scaled like this like it was story content. Therefore, to solve this, they scaled to lvl 70 instead, which proved to be better, but IMO, scaling to 75 again was the play.

The reintroduction of NIM power essentially does nothing for the community except give more access to the exclusive titles. By this point, top raiders would still easily clear it like its nothing, and the people who are complaining about the content being too hard as it is now will only rage even harder.

We need to stop focusing on the re-balance of 6-year-old content, and instead, pray for new challenging and fun content to come out.

We need to stop focusing on the re-balance of 6-year-old content, and instead, pray for new challenging and fun content to come out.

For god's sake yes, please.