IMHO this is really stupid. EV and KP nightmare were removed because they were deemed too easy compared to the remaining nim operations and therefore would be silly to offer top tier gear from them. Now, with nightmare mode failing to drop the gear it is meant to, the only opportunity to obtain 224 gear is the highlighted hard mode each week. This means, the single most sought after piece of PVE gear is now obtainable for the first time in the game's history getting dropped from the easiest final boss of any operation to date in a difficulty setting that is EASIER THAN NIGHTMARE would have been (assuming it maintained the same patterns as other operations). Not only that...if they wanted to offer the 224 mainhand as a drop, there are 2 other bosses which could have provided a more reasonable challenge for the most important piece of PVE gear in the game.

After this week even casual groups can easily be full 224s begging the question, what really remains for the PVE players who continued to stick around. As we saw at the end of 3.0, overgearing can greatly simplify operation checks for dmg healing and mitigation-scaling everything to 65 simply won't be enough to keep even the nightmare operations from quickly becoming too easy.

This is the first thing that made me legitimately think about unsubscribing and uninstalling.

We had talked about it and joked around but I think none of us ever actually expected them to seriously put EV into the rotation. I really didn't think they could be this stupid, and/or the direction of the game would ever go this far.

I understand that the devs of this game have a long history of approaching tuning with massive, opposite direction shifts - i.e. "Ops too easy? Here's HM Revan" or "Orbital Strike too OP for single target? Let's make it useless for all situations." etc.

But to me this signals a shift further in the other direction than the last major iteration of operations play.

I'm literally stunned that someone thought this was even a rational idea, let alone a good one.

It has nothing to do with "earning" or "elite" or anything - and I know those comments are coming this week. It's just stupid to put the single most effective piece of gear on a pug-farmable pinata 3 weeks into release. Moronic.

I agree EV and KP should have been left out of the rotation. That said, if you're raiding to gear at this point in the game you're probably doing it wrong.

I raid just to raid and gear because it's something else to do, but will be avoiding the inevitable "LFM locked to HM Soa" that I'm sure is already happening since I don't care that much.

is this a bad thing tho? If anything it means there will be new ops early next year that will require 224 as SM, IF not, then I don't understand BW's thinking.

I sincerely doubt we'll be seeing an operation release in the middle of KOTFE season 1 chapters. I could be pleasantly surprised, but at this point Bioware has earned and deserves no trust on the operations content release schedule considering they left us in DF/DP for so long, then lied about never doing it again and left us in ToS/Rav for a near equally unacceptable time period.

Best to go into 4.0 with the mindset that loot/gear really isn't even a thing, and you'll be less disappointed. With simplified mainstat, fewer mod types, plentiful instant-60 tokens, and the best gear dropping from EV HM, the gear farm for many guilds will be over this week. Maybe with 5.0 Bioware will just take things to the logical conclusion and bolster everything so we can skip the pretense of gear mattering at all: the only goal of ops will be to have fun and demonstrate skill by getting clears.

The problem for Bioware is that I don't think there are many outside of a small group of dedicated raiders that will be motivated to keep playing minus the gear grind.

Ah, yes, Elitists complaining again ...

I'm really starting to think thats what it is in this case.

Who cares who has some 224 gear. It's not like there is a reason to show it off or even give a rats arse about what some other gamer got in a raid of the week.

EV is the raid of the week. Is it a easier? Sure is. Enjoy.

I'm really starting to think thats what it is in this case.

 

Who cares who has some 224 gear. It's not like there is a reason to show it off or even give a rats arse about what some other gamer got in a raid of the week.

 

EV is the raid of the week. Is it a easier? Sure is. Enjoy.

there are no elitists left in this game, the elitists quit when NiM ToS/Rav was scrapped.

the people you see complaining are simply slightly to moderately better players than you and are experiencing what you'll hit in about a month - boredom. The content is easy, the repeatable incentives to play it aren't there, and none of it is a fresh experience because much of it is just as easy now as it was pre 4.0 with some of it being even easier. For those who actually find it hard you can pay credits to craft the ***** crystal that will number crutch you through nightmare.

Best to go into 4.0 with the mindset that loot/gear really isn't even a thing, and you'll be less disappointed. With simplified mainstat, fewer mod types, plentiful instant-60 tokens, and the best gear dropping from EV HM, the gear farm for many guilds will be over this week. Maybe with 5.0 Bioware will just take things to the logical conclusion and bolster everything so we can skip the pretense of gear mattering at all: the only goal of ops will be to have fun and demonstrate skill by getting clears.

 

The problem for Bioware is that I don't think there are many outside of a small group of dedicated raiders that will be motivated to keep playing minus the gear grind.

Well Technically even if a person has gotten every drop, they would still need a 224 Chest Armoring and Implant

On the bright side, at this point we may have finally Sorcs doing the same amount of DPS as AP with a 192 MH XD

there are no elitists left in this game, the elitists quit when NiM ToS/Rav was scrapped.

If by some miraculous way all these regular gamers clear HM and get the gear. More power to them. IF someone has a problem with one gamers getting easy loot when it was also easy for them, I see no real argument against it happening.

SNIP///.

Snipped for irrelevance to the issue at hand.

There isn't a single reason EV shouldn't be in the weekly raid finder. It's easy but really, few HM are really Hard and since gear doesn't mean jack these days but in raids, Let gamers get it when it comes around once a week.

Who cares who has some 224 gear. It's not like there is a reason to show it off or even give a rats arse about what some other gamer got in a raid of the week.

For me, it is less of a problem of casuals getting BiS gear (though I do find that sad) but more that BioWare is killing any progression. Progression is a core feature of MMOs because it is the main thing that motivates players - be it getting to max level, getting better gear, completing achievements, collecting another mount, pet or decoration or just getting more credits. With all the changes, the only remaining motivation to play the game is to have fun.

There will still be some guild groups that get their enjoyment from playing together with friends and not from loot but they might as well do it in a different game that offers more content.

I really do hope that us getting another operation was not just an empty promise but that they are already in the middle of developing it. At this point, it is the only thing to look forward to.

Yea, HM EV needed to be far more difficult. Gharj's Pounce should nearly one shot if not mitigated by a CD. Lava should tick harder and faster. Council DPS check should be tighter (right now my guild sets it to 16m with 8 of us for extra loot). Some of us are killing 3 council members before enrage...

If EV HM is an introduction to HM, that's great, but don't have it drop the MH weapon if you're going to do so. And don't have it drop top tier gear.

The gear doesn't bother me, it annoys me that my Pub and Imp raid teams are planning on making me run EV 10+ times this week to farm it to death. The main problem I see is a lack of direction being presented by the Dev team towards operations in general. Without the continuation of NiM level content being released, we're stuck with 5 operations having a difficulty that the rest don't have. This creates a weird space where some operations don't offer a tier beyond HM and no way to gain the higher gear rank. To close this void, they're introduced the "Highlighted Operation", while an interesting idea to bridge the gap it ultimately fails as none of the operations are close to evenly tuned.

Outside of gear, the current setup has removed almost any sense of reward and achievement from the Operations. As it stands, some of the hardest fights in the game offer the exact same rewards as bosses that you can button smash with 7 pugs and still win. Currently the only allure to doing bosses that offer a greater challenge is a sense of completion and an achievement. While some might say that is enough, I disagree. In previous tiers with NiM, not only could you get that sense of completion and achievement, you'd be rewarded with exclusive vanity items and titles. While the tougher boss encounters in the game still offer vanity items, it's only to a small extent, that for the most part, doesn't feel worthwhile.

As an example, we have Soa and Coratanni. These two bosses In HM drop the exact same token piece, yet the disparity in difficulty between them is immense. The only reason anyone would do Coratanni over Soa is to complete their achievement. Literally, that's it. Coratanni doesn't drop anything special or give any cool title to players who've beaten the fight. All you get is a nearly worthless Rocket deco (because let's be honest, the market is still flooded with from exploiters). This creates a situation where once you beaten Coratanni, there isn't an incentive to perfect your strategy to beat the boss or even bother farming it. So you're left with this feeling of having done something worthwhile, but not really getting anything to show for it.

Is there a solution, you bet there is. Is there any chance the devs will actually address this disparity/do anything about it, it's unlikely at best. We all know what the current focus of the game is on. While it's hard for raiders and guilds to accept, it might be time to let go of the idea that we'll ever have a balanced raiding system that actually offers any kind of meaningful progression.

Unfortunate, yes. Reality, yes.

The gear doesn't bother me, it annoys me that my Pub and Imp raid teams are planning on making me run EV 10+ times this week to farm it to death.

This. When easily farmable content provides the best quality loot, you have a major issue.

For me, it is less of a problem of casuals getting BiS gear (though I do find that sad) but more that BioWare is killing any progression.

1) Why do you find it sad? I mean, what's that 'filthy casuals' attitude uprise on forums lately?

2) There is no progression in 4.0 and nearest future. As far as my knowledge goes, every bit of raiding content was re-cleared in 4.0 already. And that's only two weeks have passed. People estimate new ops be anywhere from couple of months to an year from now, if happen at all.

So, some good raiders who know tacts and have it on tips of their fingers went grinding and parsing and eventually cleared ALL raiding content we have to date. How long will it take for some more casual/less organised groups to do the same? Another question - will it be hard at all with that nightmare crystal buff?

Bioware, you got it wrong. Nightmare buff used to buff content, not players. I demand 20% buff to everything on some craftable thingy.

Now that would have been some progression.

/thread