In almost any other (good) MMO with an LFG dungeon function, it ensures that you get a Tank, a Healer, and the rest are DPS. But this game has no such safeguards. Majority of the time, the Flashpoint queue offers you a group of 4 DPS, or 3 DPS and 1 Tank, or 3 DPS and 1 Healer. In my opinion and to put it simply: This sucks.

 

Here is what I would love to happen: The group finder does not pop until it has 1 Tank, 1 Healer, 2 DPS. Every time. Simple as that. I feel that it's better to wait half an hour for that than to repeatedly re-queue hoping to find it yourself, or suffer through a terribly put-together group.

 

Thanks.

For HM FP, the group finder only pops when it finds a tank+heals+2dps.

The Tactical FP are supposedly designed to be completed by any combination of 4 players, however the balance is not very good and some tactical go better with a healer.

In almost any other (good) MMO with an LFG dungeon function, it ensures that you get a Tank, a Healer, and the rest are DPS. But this game has no such safeguards. Majority of the time, the Flashpoint queue offers you a group of 4 DPS, or 3 DPS and 1 Tank, or 3 DPS and 1 Healer. In my opinion and to put it simply: This sucks.

 

Here is what I would love to happen: The group finder does not pop until it has 1 Tank, 1 Healer, 2 DPS. Every time. Simple as that. I feel that it's better to wait half an hour for that than to repeatedly re-queue hoping to find it yourself, or suffer through a terribly put-together group.

 

Thanks.

 

You know, there was a time where that was exactly what would happen, but some ppl complained for too long queues...

 

So, they made Tacticals which pop no matter the team composition. Kind of a hit it or miss it situation if you ask me, but... Gotta roll with what we have, I guess.

Another solution is...OMG...communication, cooperation, and using the tools the group has.

 

• Use Crowd Control instead of just rushing into masses of trash and DO NOT break that CC
  
• Figure out if one member is best suited to tanking (heavy armor, more defensive cooldowns, etc) and let that player play by engaging first.
  
• characters with healing ability regardless of spec should throw a heal now and again, can't DPS when you're dead.
  

 

Groups of 4 DPS - unless they are all sentinels/marauders and/or slingers/snipers, have tools to tank and/or heal.

 

Sages/Sorcs, Mandos/Mercs, Scoundrels/Operatives all have tools to heal even if they are not specced as healing and throwing the occasional heal can make a big difference.

 

Guards/Juggs, PTs/Vans, Shads/Sins all have tools to "tank" even if they are not specced as tank and throwing the occasional taunt and using a defensive cooldown can make a big difference.

And yet another complaint about tacticals not having the "Trinity."

 

Tacticals are designed for any of the 4 roles.

 

If you want the "Trinity" queue up for Hard Modes.

I have basically the same compaints as the OP. Look, I've been in several tacticals so far, and most of them have been successful, a couple pretty impressive considering the idiocy the group finder can come up with. A lot of them have been because the group communicated well, or because one person knew a lot of good strategies for avoiding some fights and allowing the group to conserve their strength for the harder fights.

 

But I do agree with the OP that being able to set some filters would be nice. Going through a flashpoint and having nothing but DPS every time get's annoying.

In almost any other (good) MMO with an LFG dungeon function, it ensures that you get a Tank, a Healer, and the rest are DPS. But this game has no such safeguards. Majority of the time, the Flashpoint queue offers you a group of 4 DPS, or 3 DPS and 1 Tank, or 3 DPS and 1 Healer. In my opinion and to put it simply: This sucks.

 

Here is what I would love to happen: The group finder does not pop until it has 1 Tank, 1 Healer, 2 DPS. Every time. Simple as that. I feel that it's better to wait half an hour for that than to repeatedly re-queue hoping to find it yourself, or suffer through a terribly put-together group.

 

Thanks.

 

Since launch and up to a few months ago, SWTOR followed this systen in 95% of cases. But then they decided to make all flashpoints "tactical" (i.e. doable by any group comp). Trouble is, they are not. They overtuned the old content, and haven't bothered to address it yet. I find that any but a 1+1+2 setup will invariably end in a messy pile of dead bodies, unless the FP is relatively easy, and the DPS are all progression raiders or something of the sort.

You could roll a tank or healer and stop joining the legion of DPS that logjams the GF queue. I love playing any of my tanks or healers as I get either instant pops or less than 5 minutes max. Hate playing my DPS in group content. Though I may get a faster pop than before 4.0 when the GF actually worked the way you wish it would now, it will always be with all DPS, two of which will be guaranteed to not know what they're doing.

So for quite a while the GF worked exactly like you wanted. It was useless. There are very few tanks (and to a lesser extent healers) that want to Que with random groups. As a community the attitude in-game towards tanks got quite bad, it was a tank's responsibility to know every mechanic of every fight in every FP as well as to agro every single mob inside those. I tried tanking FPs several times and was met with vitriol and scorn in every time (not always my fault although some of it was), so I stopped tanking for quite a while. currently Tanking is a fairly thankless roll in PUGs so a good tank will find a guild that appreciates them and run content with the guild, not through GF.

 

Bioware eventually took notice of the problem and created KDY, the first tactical FP, one that could be run by 4 DPS. It was absurdly popular (In that people ran it at least, not sure how many liked it exactly). So the next round of FPs were all introduced as tacticals and these were actually pretty great, generally fairly well balanced so that 4 DPS could get through them but would need to use kolto stations and be clever about it or die once or twice, but still clear the content.

 

Then 4.0 hit and they went all-in on tactical FPs. And to be honest, with a little bit of tuning it could be great, no 2+ hours waiting on a well-populated server in GF ques, decent rewards instead of the old Need/Greed crap there used to be.

 

Honestly this iteration is pretty sweet with one exception: a healer is almost required for these tacticals. They have the damage set to a point where any poor tank who actually tries to get/hold agro on any seriously sized pack of mobs dies quite quickly (just what we needed right? one less reason to Que as a tank). I'm not talking about the boss fights, I'm honestly quite happy with how all but a few of those are tuned, but the trash mobs are killers these days. And while I have happy memories of the fun I had killing many bosses, there are few trash mobs I think of when I think of all the fun and interesting fights in this game.

I'm a founder returning player and all i can say is that this is the worst LFG system i ever seen in a mmo. For the love of the Force.

When i saw it i was hopping the there will be a check square for people that want to play with trinity....of course it isn't.

 

I LOVE to do instances while lvling but i HATE this system so much.

The only thing i can do right now is to enter the "queue-leave-queue" bucle until a decent team (tank+heal+dps) pops....

 

For the Force BioWare destroy this system...

Edited January 2, 2016 by Vertrayer

I'm a founder returning player and all i can say is that this is the worst LFG system i ever seen in a mmo. For the love of the Force.

When i saw it i was hopping the there will be a check square for people that want to play with trinity....of course it isn't.

 

I LOVE to do instances while lvling but i HATE this system so much.

The only thing i can do right now is to enter the "queue-leave-queue" bucle until a decent team (tank+heal+dps) pops....

 

For the Force BioWare destroy this system...

 

Tacticals have been around for a while now. What's so hard to understand that they are not role specific?

 

The problem with them now isn't the roles, it's the players. Undergeared/underskilled players are queuing up for them and can't pull their own. 4 level 60+ dps can faceroll practically any TFP. Some are harder than others, sure, but they can be done.

 

Trinites (Tank + Heals + DPSx2) are in the HM LFG.

Edited January 2, 2016 by PorsaLindahl

Re-read my post please

 

I said that i LOVE to do instances while leveling.

And the only instances i can enter as a low lvl char during lvling process are these "tacticals"...

And yeah...i'm undergeared.....because i'm leveling.....

Seriously the " undergeared people" is your argument?...come on

 

If there was only a filter for people who want to play with a trinity party...but it isn't, so i will continue queue-leaving until a normal party pops...sadly but it's the only option that BioWare offers to me.

And no...those Kolto things doesn't serve to me

 

And even all said, this system allows players that aren't tank or heal specced to queue as a tank or heal...

Come on...this is like WoW WotLK old system, the difference is that one was fixed 5+ years ago...

Edited January 2, 2016 by Vertrayer

I really think Bioware needs to take a look at the mechanics of some of the flashpoints that are listed in tactical and either remove them from the tactical list or nerf the encounters to the point where tank and healer aren't required.

And yet another complaint about tacticals not having the "Trinity."

 

Tacticals are designed for any of the 4 roles.

 

If you want the "Trinity" queue up for Hard Modes.

 

Right on the money. But look at these complaint posts about tacticals. If they can't work through a tactical, they are in no way shape or form ready for Hard Mode Flashpoints. LoL

 

Edited January 3, 2016 by knowmyname

And yet another complaint about tacticals not having the "Trinity."

 

Tacticals are designed for any of the 4 roles.

 

If you want the "Trinity" queue up for Hard Modes.

 

1) Hard modes are restricted to lvl 50+, and if you're below 65 the truth is you're most likely being carried by others in your group.

2) Yes, tacticals are designed to be role-neutral (they aren't really at the moment, but that's not the point). But what about people who WANT to practice playing their role properly (they didn't pick healer or tank spec for no reason, after all) and aren't ready for hard modes yet?

 

I think the OP's complaints are valid, and shouldn't be dismissed so easily. I suggested a solution several times: bring the trinity flashpoints back AS AN OPTION, without removing the tacticals. Those who like trinity can queue for old-fashioned FP and wait out long queues, those who like tacticals can queue for them and get their quick pops, those who don't care can queue for both. Everybody wins, I think.

 

Until that happens, though, the only solution I see is to pug for tacticals in the fleet chat, the old-fashioned way, and then queue for the FP when the group is already formed. I've occasionally seen people doing just that on the Shadowlands, no idea how successful they were in getting a group together.

Edited January 3, 2016 by Styxian

I dont want to think!!! I charge and smash then die because the noob healer didnt heal me and the retar- tank didnt tank good enough,

 

Rabble Rabble Rabble Rablle

Edited January 7, 2016 by nospmiS

The tactical Group finder problem is not 1 simple solution, basically BW had to change group finder because finding a trinity for the flashpoints you could group for did not provide many results, there just is not enough tanks and healers in the game for a trinity while levelling.

 

Add the fact that BW created the tactical KDY which proved a "success" I am guessing that more people grouped for the tactical because it was quick pops rather than normal flashpoints. So BW decided to make all flashpoints SM tacticals but this has created a new problems.

 

Now the first problem is the fact that while KDY was designed from the bottom up to be a role neutral flashpoint the others were not and were designed around the Trinity, just adding a heal station at a boss or reducing the boss health or attack power does not make these role neutral.

 

The second problem is the fact that level 15 characters are put in groupfinder for flashpoints they should not be, yes there is a bolster in effect but that only affects your stats or health pool, by the time a character gets to blood hunt you really need all of your abilities and procs/passives to pull any sort of DPS worth anything, a level 15 cannot even pull a half decent rotation as their more powerful moves come later in the game.

 

Now as for "fixes" (I say fixes because I still think tacticals for SM is the way to go) are not completely straight forward or simple.

 

1) BW need to take a detailed look at all of the flashpoints, find out their mechanics and adjust anything that may prove a problem to a group with no trinity.

 

2) Also BW should "restrict" what flashpoints players can group for while levelling so for instance a level 15 character can only group for flashpoints up to say Aithis or Mandalorian Raiders (while still being elligable for the daily rewards even though they cannot group for anything higher) then increasing the flashpoints in bands until they hitthe point where every flashpoint is open to them.

Until that happens, though, the only solution I see is to pug for tacticals in the fleet chat, the old-fashioned way, and then queue for the FP when the group is already formed.

 

I agree with you op - most of my gametime pre 4.0 was q'g for FP's using GF. I much prefer the trinity dynamic to tactical. I like Styxian's suggestion above - while I doubt we'll ever get a 'trinity' button on GF, I can't imagine it would be terribly hard to form a trinity group on fleet through chat. Good suggestion.

It's a player issue, not a tactical flashpoint tuning issue.

 

Use all your abilities, including CCs, stuns, and interrupts. As a fun fact, CC is useless if your team breaks it immediately. You can not face roll tactical flashpoints. They require tactics and communication, and more often than not, use of all your abilities to make them work.

 

If you don't like going into tactical groups the way the GF builds them, form your own groups.

 

Players just don't want to work for it. Building groups is too hard, so the game must do it for me! As a dps, I only want to pew pew pew, not blow a GCD on a defensive or a CC!

It's a player issue, not a tactical flashpoint tuning issue.

 

Use all your abilities, including CCs, stuns, and interrupts.

 

I agree to an extent. Hypothetical - GF puts toghether 4 level 15 dps. They probably will not have all the tools/skills they need to do what you describe.

 

Heck, a GF group I was in of mid-high level toons recently couldn't come close to defeating the bonus boss on Malestrom Prison (Ancient Maelstrom Flayer). Not saying it isn't possible, but having a trinity group, or at least a healer, would make it much easier!

Edited January 7, 2016 by tharbison

They just need to bring back the tiers again.

 

A level 15 dps should not be popping up in my False Emperor team.

They just need to bring back the tiers again.

 

A level 15 dps should not be popping up in my False Emperor team.

 

What is the problem?

 

Ok, if nobody wants to use DCDs, CC, stuns, interrupts... yeah, tank and healer are required + everyone must be clearly overleveled compared to originally intended level range.

Re-read my post please

 

I said that i LOVE to do instances while leveling.

And the only instances i can enter as a low lvl char during lvling process are these "tacticals"...

And yeah...i'm undergeared.....because i'm leveling.....

Seriously the " undergeared people" is your argument?...come on

 

If there was only a filter for people who want to play with a trinity party...but it isn't, so i will continue queue-leaving until a normal party pops...sadly but it's the only option that BioWare offers to me.

And no...those Kolto things doesn't serve to me

 

And even all said, this system allows players that aren't tank or heal specced to queue as a tank or heal...

Come on...this is like WoW WotLK old system, the difference is that one was fixed 5+ years ago...

 

What he was talking about is level 50 characters in level 35 gear, or worse level 65 characters in level 50 gear. That being said, IMO this issue is more about the players than anything else. I have had many good experiences with non-level capped, even undergeared characters, because the player was well versed in both his/her character and how to do well in groups.

 

Specifically, when I play a 65 and end up in a tactical group with sub-50s I will use CC and advise the players to not break it. When CC is not broken the trash is cake. I explain (if needed) to kill weak to strong; and if a given player continues to "follow the tank" (usually me) I will kill weak to strong. And if a player refuses to abide SOP, I kick them out, or I quit...tacticals are a dime a dozen.

 

 

2) Yes, tacticals are designed to be role-neutral (they aren't really at the moment, but that's not the point). But what about people who WANT to practice playing their role properly (they didn't pick healer or tank spec for no reason, after all) and aren't ready for hard modes yet?

The only thing stopping them from doing so is their own lack of communication. If you want to learn to tank, tacticals are a great way to do that, but you need to tell the group you are new to tanking and to take it easy. If your group refuses to abide by that, then you have a few options:

 

#1: treat it as a challenge - as a tank, even in good groups, you should expect group members to draw agro once in a while. Working on your TPS in a worst case scenario will improve your TPS in a good scenario

 

#2: switch to DPS spec, and learn another time - obviously the group is unwilling to let you learn so don't try.

 

#3: leave the group - again tacticals are a dime a dozen.

 

1) BW need to take a detailed look at all of the flashpoints, find out their mechanics and adjust anything that may prove a problem to a group with no trinity.

 

2) Also BW should "restrict" what flashpoints players can group for while levelling so for instance a level 15 character can only group for flashpoints up to say Aithis or Mandalorian Raiders (while still being elligable for the daily rewards even though they cannot group for anything higher) then increasing the flashpoints in bands until they hitthe point where every flashpoint is open to them.

 

I agree 100%

 

What is the problem?

 

Ok, if nobody wants to use DCDs, CC, stuns, interrupts... yeah, tank and healer are required + everyone must be clearly overleveled compared to originally intended level range.

 

The problem is that as it stands, really low level characters do not even have those abilities. Furthermore, even if they are used perfectly, that is no guarantee that a low level character will survive. I remember a recent tactical FP: mid-40s, low-50s, me at 65, and a 17, in red reaper. The 17 died on EVERY boss fight and a lot of trash pulls. Even though he had a level 65's health pool, if he ever got attacked, he was dead before anyone could do anything.

I just came back like a week ago, I started a new character and as pre 4.0, I'm doing the fp-s in story order

(esseles, hammer station, athiss, mandalorian raiders so far)

I can't speak for other flashpoints, but the only thing I noticed is that the trash hit a little bit too hard. They are managable, especially if everyone in group follows kill order, and use cc, dcd skills and as I remember we had one total wipe in one of the first pulls at hammer station. Yet, IMO, these should be required in HM fp-s, not tactical ones, because this could really alienate new players from fp-s that are less skilled or are low lvl and don't have the right skills yet.

And nothing prepares them for this difficulty level, because unlike fp-s, the heroics and story quests don't require them to do anything, so there is a HUGE difficulty gap between flashpoints and open world content.

 

Oh and in all the FPs I ve done so far we were 4 dps except athiss, where a player queued as dps could heal (and he was really good, just for the record)

Edited January 8, 2016 by lilathrone

I just came back like a week ago, I started a new character and as pre 4.0, I'm doing the fp-s in story order

(esseles, hammer station, athiss, mandalorian raiders so far)

I can't speak for other flashpoints, but the only thing I noticed is that the trash hit a little bit too hard. They are managable, especially if everyone in group follows kill order, and use cc, dcd skills and as I remember we had one total wipe in one of the first pulls at hammer station. Yet, IMO, these should be required in HM fp-s, not tactical ones, because this could really alienate new players from fp-s that are less skilled or are low lvl and don't have the right skills yet.

And nothing prepares them for this difficulty level, because unlike fp-s, the heroics and story quests don't require them to do anything, so there is a HUGE difficulty gap between flashpoints and open world content.

 

Oh and in all the FPs I ve done so far we were 4 dps except athiss, where a player queued as dps could heal (and he was really good, just for the record)

 

If TFP's didn't follow similar mechanics as the HM's, then once these newbies hit 50, they'll queue up a HM and get asked "everyone know the fp?" and they'll answer "yes" and then, BAM, they're clueless because now they have to use cc's dcd's and interrupts, but don't know the circumstances to use them because they never had to before.

 

As far as difficulty of TFP's vs. Open World, they're supposed to be significantly more difficult. That's why they require a group (in most cases).

 

I haven't done any of the solo modes other than Forged Alliance, but if the others are like that, then players don't learn anything except Mr. GodBot-WalkingDeathStar will take care of everything. All they need to do is follow behind and collect loot.