1.2 and raiding - does it really matter if it's not challenging?

[Deleted]

I lead a world top 20 16 man raiding guild and as is the case with many guilds in our position, we're hanging on for 1.2 to see whether this game has true potential or if it is condemned forever to the casual depths of scrubville.

When you look at the (unofficial) world rankings you can quite clearly see that not many guilds have actually cleared 16 man nightmare. There are many complaints by top guilds, us included, that the content is far too easy. But from what I have seen, most guilds in SWToR are actually really, really bad. Even the ones who claim to be raiding guilds and are trying to organise. They can usually scrape through EV 16 man nightmare, then just grind to a halt in KP.

At the minute there's probably (average) less than 1 guild per server that has cleared all of the content. With that said, why the hell should bioware listen to our complaints about the content being too easy if we're in a very small minority?

Maybe they'll surprise us in 1.2, but my gut feeling is that it's going to be a complete shambles.

A lot of the top guilds will disband in this case, but I doubt Bioware will care much. There's too many Star Wars fanboys happy to run around all day doing WZs and flashpoints for months on end.

;_;

[Roxinius]

lol this thread theres more then 3 guilds on my server including mine that has cleared Nightmare mode it honestly sounds like you're just talking out your ass want a challenge go for the times titles as far a diff its their first tier of raiding they know what is working and what isnt

[Thrax]

#Firstworldproblems

On a serious note. Hardcore raiding is pretty much on a downward trend here and on that other mmo, thanks to nerfs and whatnot. There is also an issue of balance, perhaps once the logs come out and people start comparing parses and all. We'll see which classes are OP making the content relatively easier. And if all classes are capable of x amount of average dps than maybe they will boost the health percentages or narrow enrage timers depending on community feedback.

As for guilds, I for one know we're having attendance problems just because the game is so stale at max level. People are just leveling alts or not playing at all. Perhaps that contributes to the few guilds participating in harder content.

Lastly, I'd say PVE is quite unpolished right now. Along with combat game play issues. All of that needs to be looked into before the tuning is done, imo.

[Vrachara]

I'm interested, how does it compare to WoW in raiding terms? WoW Hardcore vs TOR Nightmare?

Also, what's with hc raiding hate/dissing? Not raiding anymore myself, but never understood people who hated it.

[Mayia]

I lead a world top 20 16 man raiding guild and as is the case with many guilds in our position, we're hanging on for 1.2 to see whether this game has true potential or if it is condemned forever to the casual depths of scrubville.

When you look at the (unofficial) world rankings you can quite clearly see that not many guilds have actually cleared 16 man nightmare. There are many complaints by top guilds, us included, that the content is far too easy. But from what I have seen, most guilds in SWToR are actually really, really bad. Even the ones who claim to be raiding guilds and are trying to organise. They can usually scrape through EV 16 man nightmare, then just grind to a halt in KP.

At the minute there's probably (average) less than 1 guild per server that has cleared all of the content. With that said, why the hell should bioware listen to our complaints about the content being too easy if we're in a very small minority?

Maybe they'll surprise us in 1.2, but my gut feeling is that it's going to be a complete shambles.

A lot of the top guilds will disband in this case, but I doubt Bioware will care much. There's too many Star Wars fanboys happy to run around all day doing WZs and flashpoints for months on end.

;_;

You cleared nightmare mode yet? just because normal mode is easy doesn't mean the nightmare mode designs aren't
It would be like saying raid finder is the only raid option in wow.

[Pejo]

You cleared nightmare mode yet? just because normal mode is easy doesn't mean the nightmare mode designs aren't
It would be like saying raid finder is the only raid option in wow.

I lead a world top 20 16 man raiding guild

My guess is yes. My guild is also ripping through NM but haven't cleared it yet. I agree that it is only first tier tho.

[vizzle]

You cleared nightmare mode yet? just because normal mode is easy doesn't mean the nightmare mode designs aren't
It would be like saying raid finder is the only raid option in wow.

Did you even read the post? Jesus.

[Shamburger]

I don't know what you're trying to say...
You pretty much answered you're own questions, if there was even one in there.
All I read was,
Q: First tier of content is easy.
Yes.
Q: Waiting for tier 2 to see if engame is hardcore enough for me.
Yes
Q: If it's not the 1% of guild that feel like me will quit.
Yes
Q: BW does not care if these people quit
Probably yes.

Did I get the just of it?

Edit~ Since apparently you have to have cleared NMM in order to have an opinion on raiding.... Yes I am indeed 10/10 NMM as of 02/15/12...

[Vrachara]

You cleared nightmare mode yet? just because normal mode is easy doesn't mean the nightmare mode designs aren't
It would be like saying raid finder is the only raid option in wow.

Quite obvious from his post that he has (or at least, is saying he has).

[BeingRepressed]

It's pretty funny you brag that you're in a world top 20 guild when there is absolutely no way to track the progress of all the guilds in TOR. Have an overinflated ego?

Nightmare mode in this game is not particularly challenging for top guilds coming from WoW. In terms of difficulty, nightmare EV/KP is roughly on par with WoW's HM ToC.

[Ghobe]

You cleared nightmare mode yet? just because normal mode is easy doesn't mean the nightmare mode designs aren't
It would be like saying raid finder is the only raid option in wow.

Nightmare isn't all that difficult. It's only 10% harder than hard modes. Bosses get 10% more health, all their attacks hit 10% harder, and some of their skills actually hurt that are only a minor inconvenience on hard(i.e. Soa's aoe damage during the platform stages does over 400 on nightmare while only about 250 on hard...iirc). Right now as it stands, the content is "easy" in the same sense that DS in WoW is "easy". That is, once you're experienced with the mechanics and have the gear, the fights turn into a joke. However, it's virtually impossible to tune it to be ready for this while allowing gear progression as well(though I guess with Nightmare only offering speed titles, I suppose it could focus on becoming that). And if you hadn't heard yet, Bioware is asking for hardcore raiding guilds to become part of the beta test crew for the 1.2 raids in order to tune it before it goes live. I don't know if you've already done this, but my guild is scrambling together for it.

And quite honestly, I really am surprised at the very small number of guilds that have accomplished downing nightmare modes...especially when you consider the large number of guilds with normal modes and even hard modes downed. The hardest part of this tier has been the bugs(i'm looking at you multi-tap lightning balls!)

[Forsedar]

I agree that content is easy. 16man Infernal and Unyielding right here. Waiting for 1.2 to see if things will kick up a notch, if not then I will keep waiting. MC was a joke when it first came out. Remember ZG? BWL was the first time we had 'issues'.

[ZeroEdgeir]

I agree that content is easy. 16man Infernal and Unyielding right here. Waiting for 1.2 to see if things will kick up a notch, if not then I will keep waiting. MC was a joke when it first came out. Remember ZG? BWL was the first time we had 'issues'.

And half those issues in BWL were due to bugs due to improper (see: No PTR) testing. Was buggy as all hell for a good month or more.

[Deleted]

Currently I run a top 30 world SWTOR hardcore raiding guild

I lead a world top 20 16 man raiding guild

First of all, congratulations on getting from top 30 to top 20. I'm curious though, what is a "top 20 guild"? Is it the 20th best guild? Wouldn't you then say "our guild is #20 in the world"? Is it a guild which could either be the 20th best or any spot above that? Confusing. Oh well, anyways...

and as is the case with many guilds in our position, we're hanging on for 1.2 to see whether this game has true potential or if it is condemned forever to the casual depths of scrubville.

A game which caters to a few tens of thousands of "top hard core raiders" with it's impossibly hard raids wouldn't really have potential, seeing as though people wouldn't play it, so by definition your comment above is a bit paradoxical.

When you look at the (unofficial) world rankings you can quite clearly see that not many guilds have actually cleared 16 man nightmare.

About that, I was wondering where you got the "top 30" and "top 20" numbers from. Was there a site somewhere?

There are many complaints by top guilds, us included, that the content is far too easy. But from what I have seen, most guilds in SWToR are actually really, really bad. Even the ones who claim to be raiding guilds and are trying to organise. They can usually scrape through EV 16 man nightmare, then just grind to a halt in KP.

At the minute there's probably (average) less than 1 guild per server that has cleared all of the content.

My guild has four people and 16 characters in it. We don't do operations and we rarely even do flashpoints. I guess we're one of those "really, really bad most guilds".

With that said, why the hell should bioware listen to our complaints about the content being too easy if we're in a very small minority?

You know what, I think you hit the nail on the head there. Why indeed?

Maybe they'll surprise us in 1.2, but my gut feeling is that it's going to be a complete shambles.

A lot of the top guilds will disband in this case

That's OK. As long as there are guilds, there will be "top guilds". I mean, if you can in any way compare guilds and differentiate between them, and place them in some kind of order of "topness", then there's always going to be "top guilds". Hence, no need to worry if a lot of them disband.

but I doubt Bioware will care much.
There's too many Star Wars fanboys happy to run around all day doing WZs and flashpoints for months on end.

I'm pretty sure BioWare will care much. They'll just care much about people who appreciate their game as a whole - this includes running around all day doing warzones and flashpoints for months on end - and not much about snobby gamer elitists who look down upon everyone else as well as the game they're playing.

[Vrachara]

What's with the hostility towards the OP? He's just wondering if people think some hardcore content will be introduced. Considering he's even saying he's happy with that content being Nightmare mode, it doesn't have anything to do with the rest of you who are casual and proud of it, so why do you give a shit, not to mention enough so to throw insults at him?

Personally, I don't raid anymore, but the game having hardcore raiding gives it depth and it gives the raiding progression something to look forward to (something other than "oh cool, now we can kill the same boss with different combat values!"). Progression should be about content, not difficulty and loot. Imo, the whole normal/hc/nightmare and 8/16 modes are bollox and there should just be different raids and different difficulties, with the raiding progression having a difficulty curve. Basically the TBC model.

You wanna say that model doesn't work? Bullshit. Look at Vanilla and TBC, they worked just fine. The issue is the "raid or die" mentality. The problem never was, never is and never will be that raids are inaccessible. It's that there's nothing to do outside them. Right now we have accessible as fuck raids in TOR and most people will still tell you there's jack shit to do at 50 and the game's pretty much dead at endgame.

Throw out the stupid difficulty and size settings, put in a bit of extra work combined with the time you saved doing that crap and make some separate sized raids. Make those raids accessible at start and getting harder as they go along. Now you have a raiding system that lasts longer and I should emphasize, it lasts longer for that majority of players who are not super-hardcore as those guys will burn through it either way, that's what they're dedicated to. Now that you have a raiding system that lasts a while, use the extra time you got with that to build some actual non-raid content. And there you have it. A decent fucking MMO. Funny thing is, even though this idea results in hardcore raiding, it's the casuals who profit most from it. Too bad most of them are too short sighted and focused on their hate of the raiders to notice that or we might actually get a decent MMO or two on the market.

[Tore]

Every Nightmare Mode fight is pretty damn easy so far. The only one my guild got hung up on at all was Soa which took us a week and a some change, and most of our wipes were due more to encounter bugs than the challenge of the fight. Karagga took us one night and three pulls the next. Every other Nightmare Mode boss we killed same-day as first pull.

We haven't done the 2-hour titles because when we tried the bugs were making us rage. We were trying KP and around the 1 hour mark we were pulling Heavy Fabricator. We wiped and ran back. Guess what happened on the run back? Foreman Crusher fucking respawned. The dead boss was no longer dead and we couldn't skip him. He didn't despawn upon entering combat. He was back up like we never killed him.

So we did the normal thing, Exit Area and reset all instances. But you know what? Apparently resetting your instances invalidates your 2-hour timer. Yep, resetting fucks the Achievement. We rage quit after that and called the night.

And EV, that bug-ridden place? Yeah, you have to reset all instances when you get the Soa missing-platform-pieces bug. So you get that bug and you can't get the achievement.

The 1.2 raid better rock my freaking world. More of these stupid bugs and I wont be able to justify sticking around.

[Starry101]

I lead a world top 20 16 man raiding guild and as is the case with many guilds in our position, we're hanging on for 1.2 to see whether this game has true potential or if it is condemned forever to the casual depths of scrubville.

When you look at the (unofficial) world rankings you can quite clearly see that not many guilds have actually cleared 16 man nightmare.

I would bet most guilds don't even bother finding third party sites to update their progression. I know on our server that there are guild that have killed that content that don't show up on any lists. Until there is something concrete to track progression, I don't think you can claim to be world top 20 guild.

[atrixx]

I personally think BioWare made the mistake of trying to copy the new model WOW is following. Lower number of encounters/bosses in exchange for having the ability to kill them 2 to 3 times a week at different difficulty levels. My guild went from WOW to SWTOR. Our biggest gripe with WOW raiding is that in BC we had the *PERFECT* raiding model that flowed. You started in Kara - regardless. You then progressed through the content depending on where the guilds were. Many focused on doing Tier 5 even when Tier 6 was out. Almost everyone still started in Kara even when the main raiding team was clearing BT/MH. Then in Wrath it turned to crap. Instead of having several unique encounters and a solid progression trail...you got to do the same bosses twice a week. However, early on we still got a good number of bosses per tier. Well...TOC was horrible, but ICC snapped back. Then in Cata we were locked in to just a few bosses with multiple difficulty levels and told to treat them all as different 'bosses" essentially. Sorry. After killing the same boss, regardless of difficulty, over and over again multiple times per weeks get boring. We packed up and left after Patch 4.1.

We went into SWTOR with high hopes and really loved the game at first. However, the raiding content was too easy. We blasted through normal modes, as any organized guild should, and then started one shotting stuff in Hard Mode. People were upset and tired of doing the same bosses twice per week again like in WOW. People got fed up and stopped playing.

SWTOR has enormous potential, but it isn't there yet. For end game players coming from WOW, it isn't extensive enough yet...but it is a young game. In a year, it'll be a better game to go to ... AS LONG AS... BioWare forces players to go through proper raid progression like you had to in BC. There should be no ability for a player to hit 50 and suddenly going into the latest end game raid. They need to make it to where you must go through all preceding raid content first. IT won't happen though. The new crafting items in 1.2 will likely trump what the current raids drop and allow people to skip.

For now, our guild is back playing WOW but our SWTOR accounts are still active. There just isn't much for end game players right now. Being gone from WOW for 6+ months allows us to go back there and stay entertained for a bit. I'm excited to see the vast changes with 1.2 for the game and it'll really determine if we go back and raid again. I love BioWare, but I'm just not feeling the end game there. I also have to laugh at people getting all the serious about World Top whatever for 16-man raiding. There is no easy way to track and it is essentially an honor system. At the end of the day, who cares? We don't see many 16-man teams progressing because there really is no point. Same loot in 8-man. Why deal with more potential for issues if you don't have to. We started out as a 16-man and dropped to 8-man teams. Much easier to manage...even though we were a 25-man guild on WOW. The whole raiding system on SWTOR is just too young yet for anyone to take it too seriously.

[Forsedar]

I would bet most guilds don't even bother finding third party sites to update their progression. I know on our server that there are guild that have killed that content that don't show up on any lists. Until there is something concrete to track progression, I don't think you can claim to be world top 20 guild.

There is an unofficial list on the forums where people post their progression. If you're a hardcore progression oriented guild- you bet you would want your achievements to go unnoticed. I'm sorry, but those who don't post information relating their 'accomplishments' means whatever they achieved wasn't justifiable enough to post. But I do agree they cannot claim to be 'world top 20'. On that list, there are 30 guilds that have cleared all Nightmare mode content on 16man. The list doesn't go past 30 (15 US, 15 EU). So yes, claiming to be in the top 20 is a little dramatic.


Edit: Though I do give you the benefit of the doubt, because we cleared content before the supposed '#3 US guild' and have 16man 'Unyielding' which MOST of those guilds do not have.

[Ghobe]

I'll verify your concern about gear becoming easy to grab with the upcoming crafting changes. I don't really like what I'm hearing. Right now the best crystals in the game are based at +41, and many many color crystals are becoming available for everyone at +41 with 1.2 if not 1.1.5. Not to mention we're getting barrel and armoring removals as well...and something to make the crafting professions desirable to even raiders. I'm pretty worried that all the time I've invested in gear at this point(near full rakata, like 3 pieces left to get) is going to mean all of about jack squat. Which I guess I don't care tooooo much due to new raids, but I'd hate for this to be the model going forward of every content patch allowing every casual to run around in gear that was hard-earned just the week prior, especially with them coming out every 2-3 months.