This is an honest question, I'm leveling into the late 40s on my current character and am in the early 50s on some alts and I notice that from 48+ (when SM False Emperor / Ilum open up) my Group Finder pops tend to have a lot of level 55s in them.

 

This seems to induce an XP penalty (not verified, but the bar 'seems' to move a lot slower after a run with a 55), and honestly it usually makes the run boring / too fast / too easy and somewhat rushed. And they are often obsessed with shotcutting everything and skipping bonuses.

 

But, I don't want to jump to conclusions or be unfair. Is there some sort of actual tangible benefit to still running HM 50 FPs at 55? And SM 50 FPs?

 

I just want to understand what's drawing them in, since during most of the leveling process players in my group were within 2-3 levels of me in most FPs and I lose interest in 'old' FPs once I'm high enough level for 'new' ones that drop better gear.

Its for fun and to be fair, you probably would do the same thing. Plus if you don't need the gear from HM Fps, they can use it either for alts or their companions.

Before I better geared up for 55 HM FPs, I ran 50 HM FPs so that I could get Basic Commendations and equivalent loot. Questing to 55 from 50 didn't quite equip me correctly for 55 HM FPs so I had to go back and do 50 HM FPs. It may have been partially my fault because I didn't really gear up for end-game before RotHC came out.

Lvl 50 FP's give 15 basic commendations for the first completion (10 from GF + 5 from the daily mission) per day, these are used to purchase Arkanian relics and schematics for items which are better than their Black Market equivalent. Running a 50 FP with a 55 dps with Arkanian gear results in a run of 10-15 min, far better than doing 15 Makeb dailies for the same reward.

All possible reasons I can think about:

- just to run FP, for fun, and doesn't uncheck those options

- to get daily reward from finder/quest for lvl50

- for gear. Just because someone dinged 55 doesn't mean he's already in full 55 gear. That would be especially true for ops and people that didn't ding 50 pre-2.0.

- for achievements

- for healers and tanks, to learn on "easy mode", where their mistakes won't always cause wipe.

- to help pre-55 friend

- it's a big world. I'm sure there might be one or two guys doing it just to annoy 'lowbies'

For fun , credits and achievements, its easy to get to lvl 55 without ever doing a single flashpoint. Plus if you are new to them, lvl 55 will help guarentee success and most likely let you need on all the gear (if class specific).

Well, False Emperor/Foundry have the HK parts. Other than that, it might be people that don't feel very confident in their skills and don't want to become an anecdote in one of those 'terrible group finder experiences' threads ;p And you get some basic comms as well. Or achievement hunters.

When I did False Emperor for the HK part, the tank was dragging us through it at incredible speed and since they always selected 'pass' on the items, I wonder if they weren't just doing for the achievements. Or a good deed for the day? Who knows

my Group Finder pops tend to have a lot of level 55s in them.

 

Pretty sure that level 55's can't que for level 50 FP's.

Pretty sure that level 55's can't que for level 50 FP's.

 

They can.

Pretty sure that level 55's can't que for level 50 FP's.

 

Pretty sure we can and do. Half the time I don't even take loot, for me it's getting achievements done.

They can.

 

Yeah I was thinking of lvl 50 ops.. my bad

Pretty sure we can and do. Half the time I don't even take loot, for me it's getting achievements done.

 

And sometimes it's to see the story that you've never seen before - I'd never actually done Lost Island, so running it at 55 was a way of seeing content I hadn't seen before. Normally when I do a Level 550 FP on my level 55 Scoundrel, it's with my guild and lower level characters who need a hand, but there are a few that character hasn't done yet and I want to pick up the achievements for it.

I'm doing it obsessively now because of the achievements ... and I help people along the way.

OK, thanks guys. I find it incredibly annoying personally (because it oversimplifies / overspeeds the content for me), but it sounds like there are also a lot of fair reasons for them to be doing it so I'll try to be more patient about it instead of raging.

I did it on my Shadow for the one time GF mission that came out with ROTHC. You HAVE to queue for all the FPs to get credit for that mission and I got tired of it popping up every time I queued. Since it's gone I probably will not queue for anymore SM FPs sub 55 but I will still queue for HMs since I can gear my companions with drops from those.

 

As chance would have it, I queued with a level 48 healer and a level 50 dps while my wife and I were both level 55. FP went by in a breeze even after the lower dps dropped group.

I also noticed this when i was leveling my alt tank to 55... very annoying as i got much less XP, while I was doing them purely for XP (had camp/DG gear)

 

But it has an easy solution... if you see that 55's are in the queue - you decline... after 2-3 pop you can see the names of non 55 players and whisp them, explaining that if they play with 55's they get much less XP. Everyone usually agrees to create a premade group of non 55's and you can do the FP for full XP.

 

Other option you LFG on the fleet for the same level of people (+-1/2 level) you are for maximum XP benefit.

I did for a week or so to get the 15 basic comms to get the relics faster since I turned my pt into a tank post 2.0

I ran em a lot because when I quit my sage was in full Columi gear and it was not fun healing the 55 HMs in it (It was doable but painful) and some of the BH/Hazmat gear I got from 50 FPs and NiM KP/EV really went a long way in getting me into a better position to heal 55 hardmodes.

I have four 55s, run lvl 50s HMs daily for basic commendations. Recipes cost 150 basic comms, after all, and doing one lvl 50 hm is faster than bunch of dailies.

 

Also, remember, with 55s the flashpoint with bonus boss will be over under 30 minutes, and under 15 minutes if without. So even if you get less xp with 55s your general time-to-xp-gain ratio is still much better.

Also, remember, with 55s the flashpoint with bonus boss will be over under 30 minutes, and under 15 minutes if without. So even if you get less xp with 55s your general time-to-xp-gain ratio is still much better.

But it's boring. It's like I'm not even there. It may be faster "XP / hour" I guess — you may have a point, I don't have actual comparison data — but then so would using a bot program to grind mobs while I sleep. But that's not fun and I'm not playing the game, so I don't consider that a viable method.

 

I understand now that you have fair reasons to be there, so I don't wish for BioWare to block you out or anything. I just wish they could somehow... I don't know... let 55s in without making the content and lowbies feel trivial.

It's bad game design when the best way to get basic commendations, a game currency used to buy stuff a level 55 needs, is to run level 50 content.

 

I've never seen any other MMO where the best way to grind gear for a new level cap after an expansion, was to grind content intended for the previous level cap.

its easier to grind 55 hm fp's then it is to grind 50 hm fp for gear/comms

 

55 hm fp your getting 2 black market drops plus 18 elite comms the first time i came into these in black hole gear augmented and was able to get full black market in about 2 weeks

 

the basic gear you can obtain commendations by doing makeb dailies gsi dailies and other dailies so there really is no need to grind 50 hm fp's

its easier to grind 55 hm fp's then it is to grind 50 hm fp for gear/comms

 

55 hm fp your getting 2 black market drops plus 18 elite comms the first time i came into these in black hole gear augmented and was able to get full black market in about 2 weeks

 

the basic gear you can obtain commendations by doing makeb dailies gsi dailies and other dailies so there really is no need to grind 50 hm fp's

 

Oh my gods. Seriously? Do you actually think we are talking about basic commendations armor here?

 

You don't get arkanian relics by doing level 55 hm flashpoints ever.

You need basic commendations for them.

 

Same for certain crafting schematics.

 

And while it is also true that you can get basic commendations doing Makeb dailies and so on, the fact remains it takes many many many many times more time to gather the same amount of commendations through those than what you get by doing a level 50 hm once a day.

 

So the fact remains, that the most efficient way to get certain items needed by level 55 is to keep grinding level 50 content, which is bad game design.

Also social points....the 55s have only one conversation, so it's 6 points per run, if you are lucky. The 50s have more conversation options, and, in normal mode, they can be steamrolled without a single problem.

 

There are also the planetary comms reward, that can be used to equip the alts in Makeb blue mods

its easier to grind 55 hm fp's then it is to grind 50 hm fp for gear/comms

 

55 hm fp your getting 2 black market drops plus 18 elite comms the first time i came into these in black hole gear augmented and was able to get full black market in about 2 weeks

 

the basic gear you can obtain commendations by doing makeb dailies gsi dailies and other dailies so there really is no need to grind 50 hm fp's

 

Breaking news, implants and earpieces that come from Basic Comms Recipes are better than Underworld and can be equipped at lvl 53, when lvl 55hms are not yet available, And they are BoE, so you can send it to alts, friend, guildies or sell it. Isotope-5 that is needed for those recipes also is sold for basic comms, which is 35 per vial.

 

The only other source of this material I've seen is killing Toborro's Golden Fury (once a week, or twice if you manage to find a group that can kill it on hardmode, and getting lucky with roll on top of that) or getting lucky with seeker droid. Thus, lvl 55 crafters will always run lvl 50 flashpoints, even after they got relics and recipes, just to grind comms for materials.

 

Also, as someone mentioned, Arkanium relics are sold for basic comms, not elite or ultimate ones. And those relics do not drop from lvl 55 fps, they drop in ops, and even if you do ops, you still need to rely on RNG, because if dps/heal relic drops and you are a tank, it is useless for you.

 

And as many people said before, getting 15 basic comms (group finder reward +Galactic Conflicts daily) from a single flashpoint is faster and more fun than doing 15 dailies.

 

Though I wish xp penalty was that harsh on 50s. it is not like lvl 50 mobs are grey for lvl 55s. Other leveling flashpoints(and since 2.0 lvl 50 hms are leveling flashpoints too!) do not punish players with five lvl difference.

Edited May 5, 2013 by PaniMauser