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Does the Game Breed Bad FP and Subsequently Ops Habits?


MystyqeofXev

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(Preface, I come from a predominantly WoW background. Both H (and above) raiding and M + dungeons (around M 17-21).

 

*************

 

As a player who levels predominantly through GF, I've noticed many bad habits, in both Vet and Master FPs. Including, but not limited to:

 

1) Lack of use of defensives

2) Lack of awareness of location ("standing in stupid" we called it in WoW)

3) Lack of interrupts

4) Lack of CC / Breaking CC

 

The above are accelerated by a desire to skip everything and speed - run to the end. (Even to the point of ignoring objectives so people can sit on fleet waiting for the next GF to pop). While problems can be mitigated by level 75's in the group, fast-forward to MM FP's and any non-TC level OP where the above can potentially wipe the raid.

 

I've had guild leaders talk about "DPS" while raid members were dying to simple mechanics. (This is in raids where there is one DPS check near the end)

 

I certainly can't be alone in this, however, I equally don't have a ready answer.

 

Thoughts?

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Yes.

 

And doing stupid is only part of the problem. It can be even worse, if you make the mistake of explaining the basic mechanics to someone new. There will be at least one person in the group posting "omg's" and "it's only HS" and all the other bad excuses to do stupid in group content. If you are unlucky and have two of those kind of people in the group, you will mostly likely be kicked, or at least verbally abused. If you don't skip cutscenes fast enough, you might get kicked. If you choose "wrong" option in dialogue, you will be verbally abused and possibly kicked. And so on.

 

This mentality started with 6.0, and it got even worse with Steam launch. I used to level everything with GF flashpoints, but the attitude and skill level of people is horrible now. They can't even do HS without wiping at least once, so trying something more difficult with GF pugs would just be a complete waste of time.

 

Best chance to do flashpoints and ops now is to find a guild and/or a few friends to run with. Or use GF with a friend, so that you can kick the jerks first. You can see pretty early in any FP if the rest of the group has brain or not and what their attitude is like.

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As a player who levels predominantly through GF, I've noticed many bad habits, in both Vet and Master FPs. Including, but not limited to:

 

1) Lack of use of defensives

2) Lack of awareness of location ("standing in stupid" we called it in WoW)

3) Lack of interrupts

4) Lack of CC / Breaking CC

 

Thoughts?

I made an argument similar to this recently in a post from someone complaining about VM FPs with 4 DPS. I tried to point out that VM Flashpoints can be used as good training for using defensive skills and self damage mitigation and/or healing.

 

Because, these are things I've noticed as well. I think that the levelling process, and many VM FPs, are simply too easy. People get used to just rolling through with no concern for defense, interrupts, CCs, etc. Then, when they get to something harder, like SOV as a great example, they can't handle it.

 

For example, I was doing the Feast's boss fight on Corellia last night. It took a couple of mentions in chat (and an initial wipe) to get people to simply interrupt the boss's attacks. 🙄

 

Unfortunately, I don't think there's much to be done about it. The best idea is to join a guild or a group of friends where you can try to work on these aspects.

But if you are doing mostly GF VM FPs, you'll need to suck it up (or stop), basically. 😏

Edited by JediQuaker
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Most content can be done casually (especially story content), and most players are casual. If you want to only group with people who try as hard as you do, then do as the others suggested and find a guild, friends, or other means of grouping like minded people to do content with.

 

I mostly do pvp and the majority of players in unranked warzones similarly don't use their skillset optimally (like popping their dcds at 1% health, just to die and respawn with them on CD for example). That's just how it is. There's a tier of content right above story where you just have to learn to live with it - veteran fps, unranked warzones, SM ops, etc. I just try to remember that a lot of these players could be new to the content, and if I wanted a different experience my options exist through my guild or simply moving up in difficulty.

 

And the "speed to the end" mentality isn't going anywhere unless mobs in fps start dropping tech frags. I would imagine almost all people queue for fps for the loot and not the general experience of running Hammer Station for the millionth time.

Edited by waisting
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who try as hard as you do

 

I don't consider myself an "elite player", a "basement dwelling neckbear", or ' "tryhard".

 

As to your point regarding "new" players, * I * am new, with less than three months in game. These mistakes are being committed by LEGENDARY players.

 

You suggest I group with Like-Minded people, shouldn't that apply to them as well?

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Most content can be done casually (especially story content), and most players are casual. If you want to only group with people who try as hard as you do ....

This is not a matter of "try hard", it's more just a basic knowledge of how to play. That is to say, we're not suggesting that everyone needs to min/max everything, or fine tune a 'rotation', or get the BiS armor etc, but a basic understanding of the game and it's core mechanics should be a 'no brainer'. 🙂

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I didn't actually mean "try as hard as you do" in a negative way but yeah I see how it could be construed that way. I try harder in unranked warzones than most of my teammates. It's not a bad thing. I just prefer to win. Some of my teammates are only there for conquest / seasons points / whatever.

 

"Legendary" just means completing the original 8 class stories, the easiest content in the game. It's just a time commitment and is no indication of player ability.

 

You can't change other players. That's just the way it is. You can change the way you group up though, or the level of difficulty you queue for. Queue for master mode fps, ranked pvp, or find a group for HM ops and you'll find the general player pool are more like minded.

 

They could increase difficulty for Flashpoints to force players to use their defensive skills. But they already tried releasing a slightly more challenging FP in Spirit of Vengeance, which they had to nerf multiple times due to many players finding it too challenging even in story mode.

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who try as hard as you do

 

I don't consider myself an "elite player", a "basement dwelling neckbear", or ' "tryhard".

 

As to your point regarding "new" players, * I * am new, with less than three months in game. These mistakes are being committed by LEGENDARY players.

 

You suggest I group with Like-Minded people, shouldn't that apply to them as well?

 

I mean, you are here complaining about casuals being... casuals.

 

Let's be honest here. You want to do harder levels of FP's and Ops and you're upset that people haven't learned how to use simple mechanics that everyone should know how to use.

Because they're casuals and haven't done the harder content.

 

Legendary status is nothing but proof that you've played the game long enough. That doesn't mean you know how to play it effectively at higher levels.

 

Hell, I'm Legendary and I basically never touch group content at all. I only do class stories and storymode FP's. I don't need to know most mechanics used in harder modes.

(Doesn't mean I don't know how, just means I don't need to bother, since I'm playing storymode with an invincible robot helping me)

 

No, the issue here is most likely the steep ramp-up and the lack of tutorials for said ramp-up.

I mean, ideally, other players should be the tutorials. Players like you, who know the content and mechanics, should be the ones helping new players (and yes, you can be new to content even if you've been here since launch) figure out how to use said mechanics when they get to difficulties levels where they need to start using them.

But, usually people just leave and barf over the forums about how bad people are in random GF.

 

Any multiplayer content in any game where you pair up with randoms is going to be filled with "idiots" who don't know how to play.

Either because they refuse to learn or because they're new to this specific type of content (despite them being "veterans" to the game).

 

 

Personally, I tried out an Operation once during GS, and it was fun... but only because we had one guy (or gal, don't know) who actually took the time before each encounter to tell us what to do and where to stand/not stand.

And even then, I personally failed a few times because it's a lot of information to absorb for someone who's never played the content before.

But for someone like you, who's played through it several times, most of those things would seem super-obvious and I understand that you'd be upset about the noobs standing in the wrong place and whatnot.

 

And this wasn't even on any harder levels. It was just your bog-standard operation (see, I don't even know what the difficulties are called for ops, I'm that new to it, despite playing since 2011). And we still nearly wiped once because a few of us were new and failed to do the right thing at the right time.

But again, this "leader" who helped us was very understanding and patient, and I appreciate that so much. It made the whole experience much better for me.

 

But I can imagine that a lot of people just turn off chat entirely when people start yelling at them about how dumb they are and such during group content. And they won't figure anything out because they won't see anything anyone writes to them unless possibly if you whisper it.

(Not saying you do that, just that it happens a lot)

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I didn't actually mean "try as hard as you do" in a negative way but yeah I see how it could be construed that way. I try harder in unranked warzones than most of my teammates. It's not a bad thing. I just prefer to win. Some of my teammates are only there for conquest / seasons points / whatever.

 

"Legendary" just means completing the original 8 class stories, the easiest content in the game. It's just a time commitment and is no indication of player ability.

 

You can't change other players. That's just the way it is. You can change the way you group up though, or the level of difficulty you queue for. Queue for master mode fps, ranked pvp, or find a group for HM ops and you'll find the general player pool are more like minded.

 

They could increase difficulty for Flashpoints to force players to use their defensive skills. But they already tried releasing a slightly more challenging FP in Spirit of Vengeance, which they had to nerf multiple times due to many players finding it too challenging even in story mode.

 

This. So much this.

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The reason for the disparity is because there is no barrier to success beyond time sinks.

If success for difficult content were incentivized, in addition to having a narrow margin for error (say, 5% or less), then much like WoW, a majority of players would simply repeatedly fail the harder difficulties and never pursue them.

 

But to incentivize difficult content requires a worthwhile incentive, and a mere title means little to most gamers these days.

 

Plus, incentivizing skilled and coordinated play leads to the emergence of segregation and intolerance for inferiority, being defined by the disparity between the degree of available or disposable time, in addition to classic darwinist selection pressures.

Only "The Best" would win, and there is a finite amount of those.

 

This environment is not accepted within large swaths of the current mainstream society and community, being ostracized by the majority of participants with the rallied cries of "Toxicity" and "Elitism".

So now we have communities laden with excessive amounts of mediocrity, and the pursuit of the inclusive bell-curved average where all participants are guaranteed rewards, divorced from any required effort or merit.

 

Get used to it.

This culture isn't going anywhere fast.

In fact, it's not going anywhere at all.

Stagnation and revelry within mundane mediocrity is the new norm, celebrated as progress by adherents.

As history has shown, eventually the current norms will go extinct from selection pressures and be once again replaced by the time-tested merit of strife.

Edited by Odinmo
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About time someone brought this up.

 

I gave up trying to find a group oh about around 2010 or thereafter forget which. Anyway I made the mistake of mentioning was DEAF and was treated with abusive comments and toxic hate that I just gave up trying to do any sort of FP/OPS.

 

Just concentrated on getting all stories and get Legendary status for both SF and SS servers. One thing I like about having a Legacy is the Legacy Storage where you can put your assets in and delete characters and start over with different names.

 

I quit World of Warcraft over this very issue of hatred against the DEAF. I guess it must be normal now to show any sort of toxic hate against anyone who is not considered to be "normal".

 

Reminds of this Historical Phrase: "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed/cursed to repeat it".

 

I remember back when Star Wars Galaxy was active, being deaf was not a problem, heck was even part of Unity (Beta Guild) and was a Alpha Tester (I told them was deaf and they did not mind that at all). During my time with SWG the guild had like 40 deaf folks playing. We had a lot of fun... PVP, Dungeons, you name it we did everything.

 

The Force is one

The Force is unity

The Force is not a tool

Those who serve the Force respect the Balance of Light and Dark.

The Pure Light Side is False

The Pure Dark Side is False

There is no Peace if one cannot respect the Balance of Light and Dark side of the Force

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1. There is no way for a solo player to learn the game mechanic.

The solo story contents should be easy, but there should be boss fights designed to force all classes to use their interrupt and cleanse abilities. Only the Consular final boss fight requires us to use interrupt if I remember correctly.

I had no idea what interrupt/cleanse/sleep are for because I had zero need to use them in my solo play through.

 

2. No knowledge requirement for clearing most FP.

I asked instruction when I knew nothing so I learned interrupt/cleanse/sleep/don't stand in stupid relatively fast even though I played with pug groups 95% of the time.

Many people don't care because even if they suck, people can get through most FP as long as they are not being an active jerk. They got ignored and continue to be bad at game.

Many people don't care because their instruction will be taken granted, or worse, back fire because people who suck don't think they suck. They keep quiet and simply get the FP done.

 

I think Ops are slightly better because most of them need some cooperation and most of the pug groups with new people I've got were willing to learn. Even though sometimes the learning curve was long, but hey, that's good in my book.

 

In short, the game is designed that if you don't join or don't want to join an active guild, you are pretty much left alone to learn in the dark even if you want to and GF isn't exactly a good teacher.

 

PS: Solo story mode SoV was broken. It was way more difficult than VM SoV. It shouldn't be like that. It shows that the devs know NOTHING about game balance and difficulty scaling.

Edited by eabevella
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TBH I have never been a fan of multiple difficulty levels in MMOs. Making a raid super easy so you don't need to even think is not fun. Making raid super hard so that only a very small percentage of players can complete it seems like an incredible waste of development resources. It's a design philosophy that separates players instead of bringing us together.
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TBH I have never been a fan of multiple difficulty levels in MMOs. Making a raid super easy so you don't need to even think is not fun. Making raid super hard so that only a very small percentage of players can complete it seems like an incredible waste of development resources. It's a design philosophy that separates players instead of bringing us together.

 

I'm the opposite, multiple difficulties is the right way to go. Story mode lets everyone, including the most casual of casuals, have a chance to see the content.

 

HM/Veteran Mode lets people who are more than casual, and have spent time actually learning how to play, do the content without being bored out of their skulls.

 

NiM/Master Mode lets the players who now find HM faceroll easy keep on playing and challenging themselves.

 

Setting everything at one difficulty level would not bring players together like you think. It would just keep players who for one reason or the other can't reach the skill levels needed for HM from doing the content. It would also be more likely that players doing MM level type content ... would just leave.

Edited by LD_Little_Dragon
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As stated before find a good guild or group of people to run these with.

 

Another situation is that some individuals have ran these FP and Ops too many times that they are only running it for the conquest points or rewards so they are skipping parts of it.

 

It is best just to run them with friends and or guild. Now that is not to say you will never find a good group in PUGS but it is an extremely rare occurrence.

 

I would also ask which type of FP or Ops are you doing? If it is story then most of those are doing that for the above reasons. For the harder ones you might be able to find a better group but most of those are done by guilds. You might want to check around for a guild that does these on a regular occurrence.

Edited by casirabit
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For a brief time, Whirled of Stardraft introduced a solo arena, where you were forced to play your archetype (DPS, Heals, Tank), in order to access certain in-game content.

 

Obviously many people failed (especially healers because the AI companions were stupid, and the event was a tad over tuned), so Smak-ti-vision Wizard removed the requirement.

 

THEN they introduced an event where you had to pass a trial to get a certain look for your legendary weapon. (This was during the "Region" expansion). Of course there was a segment that wanted to BUY the look, and not all events were tuned equally.

 

Thankfully they stuck to their proverbial guns on that one, however, the Legendary's went away with the next expansion.

 

EDIT: The arena on Zakuul is a good example of mechanics, placement, movement, target switching, et al. It's still a shadow compared to raids in Whirled of Starcraft (Where the paradigm is 'cover the floor in bad') but at least you're forced to interrupt, move, and not just PEW PEW

Edited by MystyqeofXev
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Well the game/story is easy. People who haven't played other games typically have no reason to even bother with interrupts, moving etc.

 

I was raiding back in EQ and I know all about interrupts etc, but the bottom line is that people will not know WHAT to interrupt and what's really important to move out of until... you actually tell them. And unless someone is taking the time to do that in random pugs, well yeah, people will die.

 

I mean, how many people have died on the Emperor fight because they didn't know how to interrupt the big attack in the knight story? I'll raise my hand to that because, frankly, it's NEVER mattered before as long as you had your companion on heals.

 

So, sure, it can be a bad habit for master FPs and Ops, but it's really down to communication - if you tell people what they have to avoid and interrupt, they will be much more likely to listen.

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So, sure, it can be a bad habit for master FPs and Ops, but it's really down to communication - if you tell people what they have to avoid and interrupt, they will be much more likely to listen.

 

If you tell? How? Do you pug much? I tend to get stuck with the speedy gonzales types all the time now. Even when it's obvious someone doesn't know the flashpoint they just jump into fights without giving you anytime to so much as type 'attack x then b'. You're lucky if they let you explain the mechanics after a wipe instead of just ragequitting.

 

Guild groups might be better, but only if you can hear. Even for flashpoints it's all 'get on voice' rather than people being willing to read the one or two sentances that are all you need to type to explain most fights.

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Guild groups might be better, but only if you can hear. Even for flashpoints it's all 'get on voice' rather than people being willing to read the one or two sentances that are all you need to type to explain most fights

 

This. People who have been playing ** YEARS ** need basic explanations. (Like "don't stand in red circles")

 

My old raid lead (Bless her heart) after wipe: "Don't do X, make sure {equivalent to stims} are up, tanks on you."

 

You were EXPECTED:

 

1) Know the fight. If you haven't done it - watch a video

2) Have all buffer items

3) Be in vent

4) NOT TALK in vent once pull starts (<-- Boggles my mind the chat that goes on, AS WE WIPE AND AFTERWARDS) other than call outs (Boss mechanic happening, or somebody out there flapping).

 

You'd think I was asking for the moon and the stars, or speaking in a different language when I mention interrupts. Look, I'm no NiM raider (yet), but doggone.

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This. People who have been playing ** YEARS ** need basic explanations. (Like "don't stand in red circles")

 

Here's the thing, though... you can play a game like this for years without ever touching this specific content.

So, having seniority does not mean you're not a complete noob when it comes to the basics of this particular content.

 

My old raid lead (Bless her heart) after wipe: "Don't do X, make sure {equivalent to stims} are up, tanks on you."

 

You were EXPECTED:

 

1) Know the fight. If you haven't done it - watch a video

2) Have all buffer items

3) Be in vent

4) NOT TALK in vent once pull starts (<-- Boggles my mind the chat that goes on, AS WE WIPE AND AFTERWARDS) other than call outs (Boss mechanic happening, or somebody out there flapping).

 

You'd think I was asking for the moon and the stars, or speaking in a different language when I mention interrupts. Look, I'm no NiM raider (yet), but doggone.

 

That's nice and all, but again... this is ok for guilds, but this thread was about randos.

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About time someone brought this up.

 

I gave up trying to find a group oh about around 2010 or thereafter forget which. Anyway I made the mistake of mentioning was DEAF and was treated with abusive comments and toxic hate that I just gave up trying to do any sort of FP/OPS.

 

Just concentrated on getting all stories and get Legendary status for both SF and SS servers. One thing I like about having a Legacy is the Legacy Storage where you can put your assets in and delete characters and start over with different names.

 

I quit World of Warcraft over this very issue of hatred against the DEAF. I guess it must be normal now to show any sort of toxic hate against anyone who is not considered to be "normal".

 

Reminds of this Historical Phrase: "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed/cursed to repeat it".

 

I remember back when Star Wars Galaxy was active, being deaf was not a problem, heck was even part of Unity (Beta Guild) and was a Alpha Tester (I told them was deaf and they did not mind that at all). During my time with SWG the guild had like 40 deaf folks playing. We had a lot of fun... PVP, Dungeons, you name it we did everything.

 

The Force is one

The Force is unity

The Force is not a tool

Those who serve the Force respect the Balance of Light and Dark.

The Pure Light Side is False

The Pure Dark Side is False

There is no Peace if one cannot respect the Balance of Light and Dark side of the Force

 

I have to say, from what I've heard (not actually playing it myself), the WoW community is especially toxic.

 

Not saying that SWTOR isn't toxic, but I don't think it's even near the same level as WoW.

 

I'm pretty sure you can play group content here and mention your deafness without getting much hate. (Granted, mostly because people don't read the chat, but still).

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This waters down to a few simple points:

 

1: Majority of players have no clue what they are doing - button masher syndrome.

2: Monkey See Monkey Do - they see players half assed speed running - they half assed do the content.

3: You invite Randoms - you get Randoms - expecting anything more than that is on you.

 

Solution - get a private group - work it out.

Problem solved.

 

Expecting a total stranger to run at your level - is stupid.

Common sense - yes - know the job - yeah - know the FP/Op - of course.

 

But you are giving people waaaay to much credit in expecting them to know the "things"

 

If you don't have the patience to build a group - then get ready for disappointment.

 

Saw this rampant behavior in FFXIV Dungeons/Raids.

 

People are not casual...they are inherently LAZY.

With an attention span of a goldfish. Excuses they come up with is - I ran this 1000 times - my response is always - so your a retard. Got it. Don't care if its wrong to call them that - the fact is - if your not going to do the job right - **** and stay out. But alas - randoms - so go private.

Thankfully the number of people I've encountered thus far are usually nice.

Not hearing that from my guildmates tho. :(

 

This discussion is a good place to find people who want to do FP's/Op's right - get organized.

Better yet - teach people. (Eager student here - and I HATE SPEEDRUNNING)

Granted they have to listen - good luck on that one.

Just my 2 cents - with scars from the hell that FFXIV put me through.

Edited by kage_goomba
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I have to say, from what I've heard (not actually playing it myself), the WoW community is especially toxic.

 

Not saying that SWTOR isn't toxic, but I don't think it's even near the same level as WoW.

 

I'm pretty sure you can play group content here and mention your deafness without getting much hate. (Granted, mostly because people don't read the chat, but still).

 

I have played Wow and a lot of them are toxic (and this does not just refer to group play, just all around) and SWTOR is not on the same level. That is one of the reasons I left Wow, not to mention some other problems they are having right now.

Edited by casirabit
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