In the last State of the Game, the devs mentioned that after Makeb settled down a little, they wanted to take some time to focus on "quality of life" stuff — little fixes and improvements to make the overall experience better, that had to be delayed while they spent time stabilizing the core game in 2012.

 

My first suggestion was to let us change our companions' combat roles, so that people can use whatever character they like best rather than the most effective one (aka, healer).

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

PROBLEMS WITH HEROIC MISSIONS WHILE LEVELING

 

 

Next I'd like to suggest changes to Heroic 2 / Heroic 4 missions during the leveling process. I came to SWTOR several months ago, and I have leveled 4 characters to 50 so far to see the class stories. In my experience, these are the problems with Heroic missions:

• Many people advertise for a group in General Chat for, literally, hours without ever getting the mission done. Thus, new players feel confused and frustrated and learn to begin ignoring Heroic missions, rather than finding them exciting.
  
• Heroics become extremely punishing to inexperienced players as you reach higher-level planets, to the point of being perceived as impossible
  
• Heroics are very punishing to errors, causing experienced players to outright avoid them for fear of encountering inexperienced players who mess everything up
  
• Again, due to the inexperience of new players, attempting Heroics without a Tank and, especially, without a Healer will usually lead to endless wipes and everyone qutting. But if you try to wait for an actual dedicated Healer or Tank to be leveling solo on a planet, you'll outlevel the planet before finding a group.
  
• Unlike solo missions, which are a guaranteed payout in XP, credits, and gear for the time invested, Heroic missions with a 'bad' group can and will cost you money via repairs and waste your play time with absolutely no gain outside some trivial mob XP
  
• Even if the group is successful, it's often very difficult to find a full group all in the same area where the mission occurs. So you must wait long periods for people to travel across huge planets. Or, you waste your Quick Travel on 1 mission. Or, you've detoured off your soloing in a very inconvenient way for a reward that doesn't compensate you.
  
• Joining even one Heroic group means losing your hour-long Damage spot in the Group Finder queue.
  

 

All of these problems are then weighed against the completely useless reward a Heroic mission provides — worse than equivalent-level Group Finder drops or spending your coms on vendor mods. Or 3 commendations. Three? Who cares?

 

Most players quickly come to understand that the Risk:Reward and Time:Reward payouts of Heroic missions are just too poor to be worth it, and just dump the mission the second they see Heroic in the title. Those who persevere are unwittingly hurting themselves by bothering.

 

Now, for some players, just doing the mission is fun — inefficiency / failure is not an issue. This was my perspective with my first 50, because I just wanted to see everything. But it was very, very difficult. I wasted hours and hours of play time trying to round up planetary groups, sitting through wipe after wipe, and teaching every new group everything about CC and kill order over and over again. It was exhausting. I gave up on subsequent characters.

 

One can argue, "So what? It's good if some content is hard. It's good if some content is exclusive to only dedicated players." I can agree with that, but leveling content is not an appropriate place. Rather than teaching people... well, anything... it just quickly conditions players to avoid Heroics like plague and focus on easy, reliable, rewarding Solo missions.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

 

I believe a better goal for leveling content is to say: "We created all these cool Heroic side-missions, enemies, and stories. We did all this voice acting and cutscene work for Heroic missions. People should be seeing this content while leveling up."

 

I don't have a perfect answer, though. All solutions that I think of have some downsides. But here's some ideas to work with:

• Just nerf the missions. Stop balancing them for Tank/Heal/DPS, and balance them with the assumption they will be run by 4x DPS who can't use CC properly. This is sad, but on the other hand, leveling players would actually see and complete them.
  
• Don't nerf the missions. In exchange, significantly (and I mean, significantly) increase the XP and rewards. If Heroic missions had a payout commensurate with their hassle, they would be more likely to get done — and get volunteers.
  
• Don't nerf the missions, and don't bribe people. Just make it easy to get a group together, and not-inconvenient to do the mission: let people queue for specific Heroic missions in their level range. If every group was guaranteed a Healer (and preferably a Tank), it would be much more likely to succeed even with inexperienced players.
   
  Then, cut out the "waste of time" factor: teleport them to the nearest outpost by the mission instance when their queue pops, and let them teleport back to "Previous Location" when it's over.
  

 

All of these solutions are imperfect, of course, and I'm sure the forum community will be happy to point this out in detail.

 

But, I hope that something can be done. Many Heroic missions are really cool, or have great plot points. I hope they can be made more accessible, so that Heroics become a normal part of the leveling process people look forward to, rather than a rare anomaly you accidentally complete.

I agree that they should take a look at how heroic missions work.

 

Haha one idea popped into my head.

 

What if all missions could scale, and if you were in a group, you could switch to "heroic mode" and the enemies in all your phases would get a bit harder. So if you were 2 players in a group and switched on heroic mode, all your phases would become heroic +2's. And so on.

 

So if you were playing solo and just wanted to play casually and still se all the content, you could because all missions would be at normal. But then if you have a group (2,3, or 4) you can choose to switch on heroic mode and the phase would scale to howerer many your are in the group, and fight tougher mobs and maybe gets some rewards.

 

Edit: Realized this would not really work in Area heroics though (not outside phases at all really), unless they start to use more advanced phasing mechanics. Maybe if they always had differently scaled instances up at all times.

Edited April 23, 2013 by Wallner

Honestly, I hope they don't do anything with the Heroic missions while leveling. There are several reasons I state this:

 

1. Heroics can already be completed by 1-2 people. This goes as far back as release, when I knew one guy who managed to solo most Heroic 4s. Its even easier now with Adaptive armors and the ease of getting Planetary comms.

 

2. Heroics on leveling planets, like Flashpoints, offer a means to teach people new to MMOs or just new to their Class, how to effectively work with others in a group. This is what MMO's are about. Without the Heroic 2/4, and most players needing to at least group with 1 other person the game would be 1 step closer to a FPS game.

 

3. Consider them mini-flashpoints. Easier and faster to get a group for a heroic on most planets than finding a group in Group Finder (class dependent most days), and see #2 above.

 

4. You don't have to do them. You can easily skip them and not lose anything, and if you have 4 toons at 50, one would assume you have done them already and know the story they bring.

I recognize that this isn't the majority of players, but you have to understand OP that many players can complete Heroics now SOLO. Making them easier just means that they would become solo quests for skilled players. They would also be very boring. Increasing the rewards substantially could backfire by having high levels use them as ghetto dailies for cash.

 

Heroics work well on the larger servers and I don't think major changes are warranted.

Honestly, I hope they don't do anything with the Heroic missions while leveling. There are several reasons I state this:

 

1. Heroics can already be completed by 1-2 people. This goes as far back as release, when I knew one guy who managed to solo most Heroic 4s. Its even easier now with Adaptive armors and the ease of getting Planetary comms.

 

2. Heroics on leveling planets, like Flashpoints, offer a means to teach people new to MMOs or just new to their Class, how to effectively work with others in a group. This is what MMO's are about. Without the Heroic 2/4, and most players needing to at least group with 1 other person the game would be 1 step closer to a FPS game.

 

3. Consider them mini-flashpoints. Easier and faster to get a group for a heroic on most planets than finding a group in Group Finder (class dependent most days), and see #2 above.

 

4. You don't have to do them. You can easily skip them and not lose anything, and if you have 4 toons at 50, one would assume you have done them already and know the story they bring.

 

This!

 

I agree that they can be frustrating sometimes but they are the best tool in the game to teach people the basics of playing in a group and the best way to play their class. I honestly don't think they need changing, although I wouldn't grumble at a higher reward

Honestly, I hope they don't do anything with the Heroic missions while leveling. There are several reasons I state this:

 

1. Heroics can already be completed by 1-2 people. This goes as far back as release, when I knew one guy who managed to solo most Heroic 4s. Its even easier now with Adaptive armors and the ease of getting Planetary comms.

 

2. Heroics on leveling planets, like Flashpoints, offer a means to teach people new to MMOs or just new to their Class, how to effectively work with others in a group. This is what MMO's are about. Without the Heroic 2/4, and most players needing to at least group with 1 other person the game would be 1 step closer to a FPS game.

 

3. Consider them mini-flashpoints. Easier and faster to get a group for a heroic on most planets than finding a group in Group Finder (class dependent most days), and see #2 above.

 

4. You don't have to do them. You can easily skip them and not lose anything, and if you have 4 toons at 50, one would assume you have done them already and know the story they bring.

 

There's always that guy who misses the entire point of a post and, despite obvious notification from the OP that he has accounted for "that guy's" point of view and is partly describing what is wrong with it, insists on posting his super special version just so we have an example of the point of view the OP feels is short-sighted and misinformed. Let's raise a glass to that guy. No one does it quite the way you do!

Also, I'd like one person to post a Youtube video of them completing a typical 4 man heroic solo without skipping most of the content, and at suggested level. This way we can educate newcomers on how to go about this. It would be a gigantic favor to the community, so don't hold back!

Cancrizans, your sig's the funniest thing I've seen all evening lol.. 0% sense, 100% fun.

 

Anyway yeah I don't get the whole "you can solo that" argument when discussing grouping for heroics. Well if you can solo the heroics then clearly that's a problem.

Heroic missions and FPs are an introduction to group play in SWTOR. They are a precursor to later HM FPs and Ops. They are meant to be challenging to teach inexperienced players how to perceive and overcome the challenges they present while working with a group.

 

I admit there could be a better way to find a group, but calling out in General chat is a tried an true of MMOs. I have no trouble finding groups for any Heroics except late night on higher level planets when there are only 18 other players on. Heck, a lot of times I just look at General chat the moment I log in and see multiple people calling out for Heroics. I just whisper them and go. It's not that hard.

 

And BTW, a complete rework of how a core part of group missions work is not exactly a QoL improvement. That's more like a full out expansion.

 

The 2-man and 4-man Planetary Heroics don't really strike me as having been designed for Pick Up Groups. As the OP states they are not a good return on time when it comes to XP, cash or rewards, especially when a player could be burning through solo missions on their rush to max level.

 

They seem to sit there for players who are lucky to have real life friends playing through the game with them at the same time. Or, are in a large enough guild that it is easy to find another guildie on the same planet. And in this respect they are pitched at a reasonable return, you get to do more content than just level specific Flashpoints all the time. Quite a few of the players I know who are in this lucky situation complain more about the solo content they are forced into.

 

I think for the balance of the game and considering how much more of the levelling system is weighted in favour of the solo player the 2 man and 4 man heroics are about as functional as you could expect.

 

- To make them any easier for casual players would hurt the very player base they have been included for, those who are lucky to have a premade group for levelling.

 

- To give them more rewards would sway their importance as they are repeatable content.

 

- To list them individually in Group Finder would be just as infuriating as trying to get a group together over General chat.

 

It's unfortunate that so much content is gated by the need to have a levelling system in place. It always strikes me as a great irony that players rush through levelling content to hit max level and then complain that there is no content for them in endgame.

 

Maybe one day the balance will be struck that you are max level from day one and all the content is considered endgame

 

More specifically to the OP I would suggest that Bioware has done everything that they can to make the Planetary Heroic missions available to players (I believe that the Group Finder has the option to queue for Planetary destinations already).

 

Players on the other hand could do more to find a levelling guild, other players they like on at similar times, real life friends to group up with so that they can see all the content

The 2-man and 4-man Planetary Heroics don't really strike me as having been designed for Pick Up Groups. As the OP states they are not a good return on time when it comes to XP, cash or rewards, especially when a player could be burning through solo missions on their rush to max level.

 

They seem to sit there for players who are lucky to have real life friends playing through the game with them at the same time. Or, are in a large enough guild that it is easy to find another guildie on the same planet. And in this respect they are pitched at a reasonable return, you get to do more content than just level specific Flashpoints all the time. Quite a few of the players I know who are in this lucky situation complain more about the solo content they are forced into.

 

Oh, BS. I do Heroics almost exclusively with PUGs and I mostly solo. I only have one real friend who plays this game and even when we duo, we pick up other players to do 4 man Heroics.

 

Also, Heroics reward the best looking modable, non-CM gear in the game. Sure you can rush through all the solo stuff and ignore the Heroics but you are missing out on some of the best looking gear that you don't have to pay for. They also reward quite a big chunk of XP. That's why I always find myself outleveling planets before I even get there.

 

Heroics are fine as they are.

 

Edited April 24, 2013 by Blackavaar

Eh, I dunno. I tried this game a looong time ago (didn't make it far at all) but since coming back to server merges I don't find I have to wait too long if I decide to do Heroics. Maybe this is a product of leveling as a healer, but it's been fairly painless and I usually find a mix of inexperienced people (like me) and experienced ones in the groups. Having done several up to level 24, we only wiped once that I can think of.

 

I'd prefer they not be dumbed down, because I like to keep practicing as a healer as I level, so I don't hit max level and have no idea how to heal a group vs. healing just myself/my AI friend.

 

... I would love to change companion roles, though. Mako is like my BH's lil sis (I even used the same face, had no idea when I made her) so I'd love to keep using her as my regular. WIth both of us healers, though, it makes stuff unnecessarily slow. =/

Don't nerf the missions. In exchange, significantly (and I mean, significantly) increase the XP and rewards. If Heroic missions had a payout commensurate with their hassle, they would be more likely to get done — and get volunteers.

 

Don't nerf the missions, and don't bribe people. Just make it easy to get a group together, and not-inconvenient to do the mission: let people queue for specific Heroic missions in their level range. If every group was guaranteed a Healer (and preferably a Tank), it would be much more likely to succeed even with inexperienced players.

 

I would like to see a blend of these two suggestions, plus a little more. Right now, if you want to level entirely through group content then you're probably just doing flashpoints (for reasons stated in the OP). It would be nice if we could queue for level appropriate flashpoints and level appropriate heroic missions at the same time, get an instant warp at the beginning and end (just like group finder does with flashpoints), and queue for heroics when we don't have the quest yet (people who want to watch the cutscenes before/after the mission could use their holo).

 

With this, along with increased rewards, all those tanks and healers leveling on flashpoints alone would have just as much incentive to queue for heroics as they would flashpoints. This would also encourage some players (like me!) to roll a tank/healer just to level in group content alone. The only thing holding me back right now is that it would require you to do the same flashpoints so many times and it just gets boring. Not to mention, I have already run them to death on my 50s.

...

 

Don't nerf the missions, and don't bribe people. Just make it easy to get a group together, and not-inconvenient to do the mission: let people queue for specific Heroic missions in their level range. If every group was guaranteed a Healer (and preferably a Tank), it would be much more likely to succeed even with inexperienced players.

 

Then, cut out the "waste of time" factor: teleport them to the nearest outpost by the mission instance when their queue pops, and let them teleport back to "Previous Location" when it's over.

 

...

This is a TERRIFIC idea.

 

I have to say this again: This is a TERRIFIC idea.

Oh, BS. I do Heroics almost exclusively with PUGs and I mostly solo. I only have one real friend who plays this game and even when we duo, we pick up other players to do 4 man Heroics.[/Quote]

 

I'm not saying you can't PUG them. But, from the way they are scattered through the quest hubs and the disparity between the number of Heroics to the number of regular quests, it always felt more like a choice. You solo the content or you get a small group together and just do the Heroics. If you had a premade group there was just about enough content per planet to get an evenings play in along with a level appropriate flashpoint and then you could do the same the following day as it was all repeatable.

I tend to forget most of my levelling on the four characters I consider my main was done in the time between the slump of population and the second server consolidation so getting others to do a planetary Heroic was a struggle at best. Now with healthier server populations and most planets having multiple instances the time factor may not be as considerable.

 

Also, Heroics reward the best looking modable, non-CM gear in the game. Sure you can rush through all the solo stuff and ignore the Heroics but you are missing out on some of the best looking gear that you don't have to pay for. They also reward quite a big chunk of XP. That's why I always find myself outleveling planets before I even get there. [/Quote]

 

No argument from me on this one, although it is highly subjective as to what 'Best looking' means If I had any issue it would be with the highly specific nature of some of the gear rewards. There's a 4 Man Heroic on Imperial Taris, Highway to Destruction, that has an Elite Marksman Shrieker Blaster Pistol reward that I would really like for my Gunslinger, in fact make that two.

 

Heroics are fine as they are.

 

They certainly are.

 

Although, given their repeatable nature it would be nice to see an endgame difficulty version so there was something to go back and do on all the planets.

Edited April 24, 2013 by Vhaegrant

The OP makes a fundamentally erroneous assumption, namely that because he finds flaws with Heroics such flaws are either inherent or that the majority of players agree with him.

 

I see no reason to make any of the changes suggested. As others have noted, based on the amount of LFG/LMF traffic in General chat for Heroics, plenty of people do them.

I agree that doing heroics is not as worth as the solo missions. Problems to find a group can happen mostly on 40+ planets or bonus series heroics. In the worst case combination of both. I gave up on completing those, because the time I'd spend with that is not worth the reward. On lower lvl planets this problem is not that significant, but I agree with OP that with my 2nd character I'd probably wouldn't go through all of them again.

The OP makes a fundamentally erroneous assumption, namely that because he finds flaws with Heroics such flaws are either inherent or that the majority of players agree with him.

 

I see no reason to make any of the changes suggested. As others have noted, based on the amount of LFG/LMF traffic in General chat for Heroics, plenty of people do them.

I think the OP has made a strong case.

 

I've taken 9 toons to level 50 and 3 of them to 55 over the past year. And in all this time I have run very few Heriocs on any of them, mostly because it is inconvenient to get a group together. Just because you see people spamming LFG in gen chat doesn't mean they're all getting groups together.

 

Sounds like you are making a fundamentally erroneous assumption yourself. What makes you think YOUR opinion coincides with the majority?

 

And note, his idea of:

1. Using the group finder to queue for specific heroics,

2. Being transported to them, and

3. Being returned to your original location after

 

will HELP players run more Heriocs. I see no downside to this.

 

Tell me, how is this in ANY WAY bad for the game? Why try and torpedo this idea?

Cancrizans, your sig's the funniest thing I've seen all evening lol.. 0% sense, 100% fun.

 

Anyway yeah I don't get the whole "you can solo that" argument when discussing grouping for heroics. Well if you can solo the heroics then clearly that's a problem.

 

Hehe ya, that was from the pre- launch forums, the thread grew to epic proportions and there were a lot of hilarious guesses as to what Mr. Battlebug actually meant. I think the best guess was that he wanted to be able to unsheath the lightsaber without turning on the beam, so you could do so afterwards for effect. Kind of like in two stages.

 

I can't see any valid reason for the antagonism towards the OP's suggestions. They are both flexible and provide a variety of solutions, from changing the nature of heroics to simply making it easier to find a group for them. No one can rationally argue that the latter would be a bad idea, so I am going to chalk most of the negativity up to the old "we wanna act cool by being the guys who do it the hard way...and like it just that way" syndrome. And to the guy above who insists that the OP is basing their post on an erroneous assumption, I would suggest he consider the possibility that judging the number of times heroics get completed compared to the number of people who would like to complete them and cannot waste more time LFG by catching the occasional glimpse of who may be asking for a heroic group when you hang out in some random planet's chat for a few minutes is probably not a terribly accurate means of getting information.

Edited April 24, 2013 by Cancrizans

Honestly, I hope they don't do anything with the Heroic missions while leveling. There are several reasons I state this:

 

1. Heroics can already be completed by 1-2 people. This goes as far back as release, when I knew one guy who managed to solo most Heroic 4s. Its even easier now with Adaptive armors and the ease of getting Planetary comms.

 

2. Heroics on leveling planets, like Flashpoints, offer a means to teach people new to MMOs or just new to their Class, how to effectively work with others in a group. This is what MMO's are about. Without the Heroic 2/4, and most players needing to at least group with 1 other person the game would be 1 step closer to a FPS game.

 

3. Consider them mini-flashpoints. Easier and faster to get a group for a heroic on most planets than finding a group in Group Finder (class dependent most days), and see #2 above.

 

4. You don't have to do them. You can easily skip them and not lose anything, and if you have 4 toons at 50, one would assume you have done them already and know the story they bring.

 

i agree..i never had problems with them and if you nerf them they'd stop to be heroics..and everyone would just solo that content which is supposed to introduce you to group mechanics. i've done a couple of heroics before starting doing flashpoints because i was enjoying groups, and wanted more.

 

teleporting you to the heroic area would add , to the lfg traffic ,those people who want to do the mission but are on the other side of the planet when they see the message. not significant number for the work needed i think.

and if you like the look of the gear you can come back some level later :-)

Edited April 24, 2013 by JouerTue
dssd

To OP:

 

Every Heroic+4 mission can be completed on level solo by a healer or shadow/assassin tank. Other tanks can complete Heroic+4 missions when they are 1-3 levels higher than the mission level. DPS toons can complete Heroic+4 missions when they are 3-5 levels higher than the mission level (ie when the mission is still green).

 

Heroic+2 missions are solo content, no matter what class you are.

 

The only exception are the Heroics which require several buttons to be pressed at the same time.

 

Anyway, that is why you see no tanks or healers queue for the Heroic missions on planets. Tanks and healers already completed them solo, without the hassle of having to bang head on table when that random DPS guy again does something stupid and then rolls Need on gear meant for the tank or healer. Doing the Heroics solo means you are guaranteed to get the loot, and it also means you have to focus and use your brain slightly instad of the usual (but slow) grind.

 

Such is life. DPS toons rush through regular content like a hot knife through butter. Tanks and healers also walzes through regulard content without any sweat, it just takes more time, time which they could just as well spend on soloing Heroics.

To OP:

 

Every Heroic+4 mission can be completed on level solo by a healer or shadow/assassin tank. Other tanks can complete Heroic+4 missions when they are 1-3 levels higher than the mission level. DPS toons can complete Heroic+4 missions when they are 3-5 levels higher than the mission level (ie when the mission is still green).

 

Heroic+2 missions are solo content, no matter what class you are.

Perhaps you're a better player than me, but I did not find this true at all. My first character was an Assassin and I ran Darkness spec for soloing. Heroic 4's ate me alive, and I kept my gear fairly up-to-date with commendation mods and Flashpoint drops.

 

Likewise, Heroic 2's always took a great deal of effort on my pure-DPS characters.

 

And I have a fairly good understanding of the game. For the average player leveling through for the first few times, or just the totally-average player in general, these tasks are going to be seen as flatly impossible. I still see people advertising for help with "solo" class missions.

 

As well, saying "Wait until you're 5 levels above it" — I don't think that's how the content is intended to be handled. It's like saying, "You don't need Group Finder. Just wait until you're 8 levels above the bosses and solo the Flashpoint. Plus, you get all the drops for yourself!" [noparse][/noparse]

 

I would rather see a system that encourages people to play together, not use work-arounds to trivialize or exploit group content alone.

Edited April 24, 2013 by SW_display_name

There's always that guy who misses the entire point of a post and, despite obvious notification from the OP that he has accounted for "that guy's" point of view and is partly describing what is wrong with it, insists on posting his super special version just so we have an example of the point of view the OP feels is short-sighted and misinformed. Let's raise a glass to that guy. No one does it quite the way you do!

 

yeah well That guy is right.

 

This is a general discussion thread, not in the suggestion forums. That guy is just pointing out all the real and good reasons this is not a needed change.

Honestly, I hope they don't do anything with the Heroic missions while leveling. There are several reasons I state this:

 

1. Heroics can already be completed by 1-2 people. This goes as far back as release, when I knew one guy who managed to solo most Heroic 4s. Its even easier now with Adaptive armors and the ease of getting Planetary comms.

What skilled players can do, does not translate to what most players can do. I believe it's good for a game to offer challenging content to skilled players, but I don't think group-oriented missions the game feeds you in the leveling process is the right place to make that division.

 

2. Heroics on leveling planets, like Flashpoints, offer a means to teach people new to MMOs or just new to their Class, how to effectively work with others in a group. This is what MMO's are about. Without the Heroic 2/4, and most players needing to at least group with 1 other person the game would be 1 step closer to a FPS game.

This is flatly false, though. People don't learn from these. They learn that Heroics are hard, and they avoid them. It falls into 2 categories:

1. Your Heroic group has a Tank or, especially, a Healer. You can lumber around without CC doing anything you want. You still win.
   
2. You Heroic group does not have a Healer, or even a Tank spec. You must use CC and medpacs precisely and will wipe multiple times until people drop group and run away or complete it by zerging / accidentally winning.
   

 

So it's either very easy and DPS doesn't learn anything about group dynamics, or extremely hard and DPS still doesn't learn anything about group dynamics. Further, making Heroics more accessible wouldn't hurt people learning how to work in groups — they'd be joining more Heroic groups, not avoiding them.

 

3. Consider them mini-flashpoints. Easier and faster to get a group for a heroic on most planets than finding a group in Group Finder (class dependent most days), and see #2 above.

Also completely wrong in my experience. I have spent days (not hours, days) trying to find groups for Bonus Series heroics before giving up. Group Finder pops within 30 minutes to 1 hour, even as pure Damage.

 

Also, with Group Finder you're basically guaranteed to win because you have a balanced group created for you. Planetary Heroics are not so fortunate right now.

 

4. You don't have to do them. You can easily skip them and not lose anything, and if you have 4 toons at 50, one would assume you have done them already and know the story they bring.

I already addressed all of this and I'm starting to think you didn't really read what I wrote. [noparse][/noparse]

 

This a suggestion for the game itself, not my personal benefit. Therefore, what I have or have not done is irrelevant. Likewise, I already stated that since the content is there, it should be seen — meaning "just skip them", the current solution, is exactly what I'm trying to improve.

Well, I have found that as you level, it's only the later planets (repub side), like Alderaan- onwards where it may be difficult. I was on day 1 of pre release and I was the 3rd guy on Tatooine I think lol, we ran a couple two mans and that was that.

 

I am really, really astonished at how many people there are on low level planets in this game, it has encouraged me to get back to leveling some of my alts. In other games, even LotRO, there is not the same level of people leveling. Grats to Swtor on that level.

 

So, in leveling some alts through Tarsis and Nar Shadaa on the weekend, I found it easiest to just quest and join groups when someone else is LFG. I may post, nobody looks at the group finder from what I can tell, at least I've never been invited via that, but mostly I just run around doing other stuff and get to the heroics when other people are doing them. I am on Harbinger and there seems to be a healthy # of people looking to do them on every planet I go to.

 

As to the end rewards, I would like at least one planetary com in addition to the gear you get. As it stands you get 3 coms or a choice of loot for most of them. With oranges being so cheap on the GTN why would you pick an empty orange unless it really appeals to you? So the reward choices are not what they could be. Credits and EXP wise though they are well worth it. I haven't run into too many heroics that take that much longer than a couple of normal unconnected quests would, but the rewards justify taking the time to do them.

 

If you are a healer with a mez appropriate to the environment you can easily solo heroic 2s. If you have healer companion you might be able to, I don't know.