Hutball was definitely my favorite part of the game when I used to play. Is it easy to find games still or does it take awhile? The point capture one from release was okay (with the two ships you had to shoot down) but the third one which had an attacking and a defending team was really not fun.
skype: rtschutter
+1
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
Hutball was definitely my favorite part of the game when I used to play. Is it easy to find games still or does it take awhile? The point capture one from release was okay (with the two ships you had to shoot down) but the third one which had an attacking and a defending team was really not fun.
I started out not liking voidstar like you (the attack and defend one), but it grew on me, especially after I had some stealth alts.
But the gree one is really the unfun one now, IMO.
Games seem to be easy enough to queue into during the day, but at night when I'm playing they're harder than ever to get in to. Bioware said something about maybe opening up warzones to free to play, but they haven't updated on that recently.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
Oh they aren't open to free to play? I don't know if I am willing to pay for it just to play some huttball. You would think having purchased the game on release would give some kind of benefit now that it's free to play. Or maybe it does and I just don't know what it is. Well it's a shame anyhow.
Oh they aren't open to free to play? I don't know if I am willing to pay for it just to play some huttball. You would think having purchased the game on release would give some kind of benefit now that it's free to play. Or maybe it does and I just don't know what it is. Well it's a shame anyhow.
If youve spent any money on this game at all then you dont have a F2P account, you have a preferred account which comes with a whole host of benefits.
Oh they aren't open to free to play? I don't know if I am willing to pay for it just to play some huttball. You would think having purchased the game on release would give some kind of benefit now that it's free to play. Or maybe it does and I just don't know what it is. Well it's a shame anyhow.
Well it's not that you can't, it's that you're limited to 3 games per week. You can buy weekly unlocks on the GTN (I think they are about 60k on the GTN? At least on Jedi Covenant), so if all you wanted to do was warzones you could still do it free to play, you'd just have to farm enough credits to buy the weekly unlocks.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
+2
CorehealerThe ApothecaryThe softer edge of the universe.Registered Userregular
Hutball was definitely my favorite part of the game when I used to play. Is it easy to find games still or does it take awhile? The point capture one from release was okay (with the two ships you had to shoot down) but the third one which had an attacking and a defending team was really not fun.
I started out not liking voidstar like you (the attack and defend one), but it grew on me, especially after I had some stealth alts.
But the gree one is really the unfun one now, IMO.
Games seem to be easy enough to queue into during the day, but at night when I'm playing they're harder than ever to get in to. Bioware said something about maybe opening up warzones to free to play, but they haven't updated on that recently.
As a F2P Preferred scrub, that:
So I'll just wait and see. World PvP has always been more my preference anyways and it's hardly a thing at all in SWTOR, even in the places ostentatiously designated for said PvP, like Ilum.
So, my Bounty Hunter has reached lvl 42 and is about finished with Hoth.
Minor spoilers for Bounty Hunter Hoth quest:
YES! Greatest companion so far. Weird, I really like the Bounty Hunter companions and for a change they all seem to like me even if I'm light-sided. (well, light-sided... "Basically I'll do anything for money, but there's no reason to be a dick about it"-sided more like it.)
What's the best way to find a guild that fits me?
Is there some site/tool that tries (and succeeds) to keep a list of guilds and their flavor?
I'm looking for a more Casual - Social guild, rather than a Casual - Progress one.
If that makes any sense.
My SwtOR schedule is pretty irregular, and when I am able to play I prefer to pick what I do. (I.e. I don't like being locked into one role because that's what my "main" did at some point.)
I'm also not a huge fan of Casual guilds who claim to be Social, when in reality they are very Progress oriented.
So, my Bounty Hunter has reached lvl 42 and is about finished with Hoth.
Minor spoilers for Bounty Hunter Hoth quest:
YES! Greatest companion so far. Weird, I really like the Bounty Hunter companions and for a change they all seem to like me even if I'm light-sided. (well, light-sided... "Basically I'll do anything for money, but there's no reason to be a dick about it"-sided more like it.)
Don't worry, your last companion
is terrible. I have yet to meet anyone who actually likes the Bounty Hunter's last companion.
PSN|AspectVoid
0
FreiA French Prometheus UnboundDeadwoodRegistered Userregular
looks like it's time for a new thread. someone needs to make it since I'm moving on to greener pastures (and also I never finished that OP).
So, my Bounty Hunter has reached lvl 42 and is about finished with Hoth.
Minor spoilers for Bounty Hunter Hoth quest:
YES! Greatest companion so far. Weird, I really like the Bounty Hunter companions and for a change they all seem to like me even if I'm light-sided. (well, light-sided... "Basically I'll do anything for money, but there's no reason to be a dick about it"-sided more like it.)
Don't worry, your last companion
is terrible. I have yet to meet anyone who actually likes the Bounty Hunter's last companion.
About the last one...
I played a LS-BH and I don't mind him much really. I mean, he fills your crew's 'jackass-requirement' nicely if you aren't playing one yourself.
The problem with the last one is that he's last. All the other four are so much more interesting, and then you get that one and...why bother? Dullocity.
the problem with him is that there's no context provided for why you actually let him join your crew. He's not helpful ever and continues to threaten to eat you even after he joins. Gault is kind of in the same boat but he at least isn't a complete asshole and there's the whole 'making both of us money' angle.
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
the problem with him is that there's no context provided for why you actually let him join your crew. He's not helpful ever and continues to threaten to eat you even after he joins. Gault is kind of in the same boat but he at least isn't a complete asshole and there's the whole 'making both of us money' angle.
Nah, Gault made sense:
You were all "Time to die duder" and hes all "How about we just kill my clone and I'll work for you and we can both be rich?" And youre all like "Yeah okay"
the problem with him is that there's no context provided for why you actually let him join your crew. He's not helpful ever and continues to threaten to eat you even after he joins. Gault is kind of in the same boat but he at least isn't a complete asshole and there's the whole 'making both of us money' angle.
Nah, Gault made sense:
You were all "Time to die duder" and hes all "How about we just kill my clone and I'll work for you and we can both be rich?" And youre all like "Yeah okay"
Im pretty sure those were direct quotes.
Gault is
the one companion I most wanted to kill. I had killed all my bounties prior. The idea was that my BH didn't want any witnesses while she was on the rise, makes it easier to sneak up on people. But noooo, I had to let Gault join my crew? I left him naked in my ship and won't even let him do crew missions. If I can't kill him, then he's never leaving the ship.
the problem with him is that there's no context provided for why you actually let him join your crew. He's not helpful ever and continues to threaten to eat you even after he joins. Gault is kind of in the same boat but he at least isn't a complete asshole and there's the whole 'making both of us money' angle.
Nah, Gault made sense:
You were all "Time to die duder" and hes all "How about we just kill my clone and I'll work for you and we can both be rich?" And youre all like "Yeah okay"
Im pretty sure those were direct quotes.
Gault is
the one companion I most wanted to kill. I had killed all my bounties prior. The idea was that my BH didn't want any witnesses while she was on the rise, makes it easier to sneak up on people. But noooo, I had to let Gault join my crew? I left him naked in my ship and won't even let him do crew missions. If I can't kill him, then he's never leaving the ship.
ObiFettUse the ForceAs You WishRegistered Userregular
edited August 2013
I ignore Skadge. He was just doing his job (although in a dickish way) so I can't be too mad at him. Its not like he forced my BH to act completely out of character like Gault did.
ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
Gault was...well, the first impression was not good.
I played a bounty hunter to 25, free to play. Tatooine was incredibly frustrating. Let me tell you, as a level 24 bounty hunter, it's not easy to sneak through a tusken raider camp.
So the numerous times I died against Gault were ever-more infuriating, and then he somehow pulled another bullshit trick out of his ass for yet another pointless fight, and then I finally cornered him...and my only responses when he offers to work for me are, "Sure." "Okay." "Fine."
This is one of those times where the necessity of being an MMO became painfully obvious, because if it had been a single-player game, you know there would be an option to put that little coward down.
like, it just seems nonsensical that your BH would let the premier con-man and swindler in space just like, join her crew rather than just offing him and collecting the money, especially after he's led you on this obnoxious chase across tattooine. I feel like they should've written in some circumstance that made him seem more sympathetic if they were eventually going to have him join the crew
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
0
CorehealerThe ApothecaryThe softer edge of the universe.Registered Userregular
edited August 2013
If Bounty Hunters were droids, here's how I'd imagine they'd explain their failure to kill you know who on Tatooine, and my new JK's reaction:
Gault was...well, the first impression was not good.
I played a bounty hunter to 25, free to play. Tatooine was incredibly frustrating. Let me tell you, as a level 24 bounty hunter, it's not easy to sneak through a tusken raider camp.
So the numerous times I died against Gault were ever-more infuriating, and then he somehow pulled another bullshit trick out of his ass for yet another pointless fight, and then I finally cornered him...and my only responses when he offers to work for me are, "Sure." "Okay." "Fine."
This is one of those times where the necessity of being an MMO became painfully obvious, because if it had been a single-player game, you know there would be an option to put that little coward down.
I suggest you complain to the general public, then, as their constant complaining is why Bioware removed the ability to kill/miss companions in TOR.
Really? I had no idea they did that.
When I got Gault it was just like emp123 said; it made much more sense "back in the day".
I really just wanted the creds, so I took what basically amounted to a bribe to spare him. Why kill him to get some credits today when he promises much more tomorrow?
Anyway, do people really hate Gault that much? I liked the chase. It was a challenge. What's the point in taking the easy bounties...I want to be rich and famous, and what better way than taking down the hardest targets?
Skadge just felt tacked on. If I really needed a tank at that point, for some reason, I'd just use Blizz. So much cuter! I guess Skadge is there if your BH is a total jerkface, and needs to hang out with other jerkfaces, since none of the other companions are hardcore tools.
+2
ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
Gault was...well, the first impression was not good.
I played a bounty hunter to 25, free to play. Tatooine was incredibly frustrating. Let me tell you, as a level 24 bounty hunter, it's not easy to sneak through a tusken raider camp.
So the numerous times I died against Gault were ever-more infuriating, and then he somehow pulled another bullshit trick out of his ass for yet another pointless fight, and then I finally cornered him...and my only responses when he offers to work for me are, "Sure." "Okay." "Fine."
This is one of those times where the necessity of being an MMO became painfully obvious, because if it had been a single-player game, you know there would be an option to put that little coward down.
I suggest you complain to the general public, then, as their constant complaining is why Bioware removed the ability to kill/miss companions in TOR.
Oh, I understand that much.
I also understand sunken costs: once they made the decision to remove killing off companions, they can't go back and add or change fully-voiced assets to make that part less irritating very easily.
But I won't lie. At that point I basically had to ragequit for the rest of the night.
Still a lot of helpfull people in Flashpoints, giving sages tips on rotation, trying more than once to take down the bonus boss, etc.
but also more ppl whining in WZ chat that the team isn't steamrolling the enemy. I don't get the pride in giving up.
0
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
I have had good experiences in flashpoints, and I have had horrible experiences in flashpoints.
Just the other day, I was in cademimu as sniper on the imp side. It started out pretty rocky, it seemed like the healer was struggling and a couple of times the other DPS died, and on at least one occasion the tank died too. So it felt like undergeared healer and/or inexperienced tank, but I didn't say a word until the boss with the "arresting" droid came up. We were near the beginning of the fight, when the droid first becomes active, when the tank immediately gets frozen. Now I've done this FP a lot of times as a tank, so for me when I'm tanking right up next to the boss, I watch the "Activate droid" channel closely and as soon as it's over I move, whether I am 'under arrest' or not. So my thought is: we should have explained this boss fight, the tank hasn't done this FP. In the group chat I say, "[Tank], is this your first time here?" meaning to explain the fight if he needed it. The tank's response was, "The only thing I'm first at is telling you to STFU." And I'm taken aback and kinda mad. But I think, you know what, don't stoop to that level. You were trying to help out and he's the one that just lashed out from no where, don't react the angry way he wants you to. So I said, "It's ok if it's your first time, we just need to know so that we can explain the fights to you. "
So next boss up is the wookie boss, and I've done this one a bunch of times a lot of different ways, and I know that you can make all the ugnaught adds disappear if all dps and healer stand on the shuttle, and the tank taunts the boss to the back of the shuttle. If you take the boss anywhere else the adds will still appear and you have to spend a really long time trying to kill them all without the wookie's flamethrower on them. So I say, "taunt the boss to the back of the shuttle and you'll get no adds." The healer says, "Taunt the boss to here" (meaning the shuttle). The tank taunts the boss to the front of the shuttle. So I say, "You get zero adds if you taunt him to the back, but whatever." and we finish that fight, and predictably have to spend a silly amount of time killing the pig men. FYI, not a lot of people realize you can take the boss to the very back of the shuttle to completely erase the mobs and never have to kill them, so even if you aren't inexperienced it might be new information. To me it's good information to share with randoms to make their lives easier on the fight. Especially seeing as how the ugnaughts are the most annoying things.
Next up is the bonus boss. This is the boss that pulls you in, throws out an electrocution AOE around himself that slows anyone who gets pulled in so they take a lot of damage trying to escape. Our tank happened to be a juggernaut, and having done this boss on my guardian a lot, the way I always escape the AOE is to guardian leap to the healer who's secured behind the railing or behind the box. Minimum damage to myself, and as a bonus the healer gets a short damage and threat reduction buff. So we're half way through the fight and I notice the tank is taking a hell of a lot of damage from the slowly walking through the AOE. So I say, "Friendly leap to the healer to avoid the damage." He ignores me, and after the fight the healer says, "he wasn't taking any damage.", to which I say "he was at half health." Then the healer says, "I've had about enough of you! One more word out of you and I'm leaving." I say, "I'm trying to help" and he says something like "you aren't helping!" Now I'm really mad because all this time the tank has basically been shit to the healer by taking unnecessary damage, failing to taunt mobs when he lost threat, while I've been doing things like trying to CC droids where I could to minimize damage, and pushing mobs off cliffs and so forth. So I said the only ugly thing I'd said during the FP, and I really wish I'd have kept my mouth shut but I was irritated at this point so I said, "Fine, I won't say another word, I'll just let the tank wipe us next time." Well only the final boss was left, obviously he'd have to have been really careless to wipe us at that point, so it was just me saying something that made me look foolish.
And that's why I hate running FPs on the Imp side.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
Reached lvl 50 on my Bounty Hunter, did get all my companions to 10000 except for the obvious last one. Didn't do any Flashpoints this time, but had a lot of problems with the Rock-Eaters Heroic on Voss (final boss). Tank and 1 DPS were underlevelled, but with staggered interrupts we could have done it, but it didn't work out.
Hope to finish the main story for my BH next session, but my card runs out Wednesday and I'm debating whether to renew or not. (Trooper and Agent still to do, think I'll reroll my agent though. She's lvl 18, but first levels go quick... but I still have other games untouched.)
The telltale sign on most Flashpoints via Group Finder whether it's going to be good or not to me is pretty simple: Do people say even the simplest "hello" or anything when starting? I'm usually too busy to do much chatting, but a bit of friendliness, even when things are not going well, usually makes things a lot better.
I've been in some horribly geared groups lately, tanks and healers with shit gear when I'm dps and dps with shit gear when I'm the tank. As much as I dislike taking twice as long to kill stuff (in Mando Raiders I had the first boss down before the second pet was down and I have a 66 hilt), at least when I'm tanking I only have to worry about the healer not being able to keep up. My most recent fp was on my marauder who is a mix of 66s and 69s and not only was I pulling off the tank (jug) the operative healer wouldn't even throw dots on me.
But I think the worst group I was in this week was a story mode Foundry run. I was tanking (38-39 assassin) with a merc healer (level 41) and a merc and assassin dps. Now I know the second boss is hard, definitely harder than the final boss, but the healer was consistently at full heat by the first time the core thing came down. I say consistently because it took us 6 attempts. I tried to tell the healer hey, build up the cylinder charges before we start the fight, kolto missile is your friend and try to cast the 1.5s heal before the 2.5s heal, also the no heat cool down thing is super helpful, but he didn't listen so the other merc had to heal too.
Okay, fine be bad, I most likely won't have to see you again anyway and I tried to help.
Conversely, my guild is currently trying to progress through the NiM raids and while we have downed the first boss in both TFB and SV and was very close to downing Titan 6, this week we had only 3 of our 10 dps at above 2k dps (2 others were close). One of them was 200dps above a tank.
Now, we had known for a while that some of these people consistently put up terrible numbers but they wanted to go and we had spots to fill so we took them. And it's not like they're poorly geared, they all have at least 69 main hands (and I'm only saying that because I'm not 100% sure they all had 72 main hands because I'm pretty sure they did) and we weren't having any trouble with the mechanics of the fights so they're not incapable but man was their dps terrible (and honestly we have no problem carrying people through hard mode, but if if you want to raid nightmare you need to step your game up, nightmare is significantly more challenging than hard mode).
So we called them out. Its super awkward to do, you don't want to turn anyone off from playing but they can continue to hold back 9+ other people, but at the same time this is a game and the primary goal should be to have fun and being yelled at or being perceived as bad kind of runs contra to that. Anyway, we had all the dps in the raid (and anyone who wants to run NiM) post 5 minute parses to the forums so those who are lacking can compare and see what they're doing and what we're doing (we use torparse).
Fortunately these people have all responded very well and most were surprised by how slight changes in the way they play can lead to drastic increases in dps. The guy who was putting up about 1400 dps? Now he's putting up about 1900 (I think he hit about 2100 on the dummy). I just wish pugs responded the same way (although I understand the multitude of reasons as to why they don't).
The Makeb expansion added HM Athiss, Cadmimu, Hammer Station, and Mandalorian Raiders (all much higher level than they used to be). The patch that just dropped today is adding two completely new end-game flashpoints, both SM and HM versions.
CorehealerThe ApothecaryThe softer edge of the universe.Registered Userregular
I moved my Jugg over to JC to hang with Cam and company and have lately been active on my Vette clone smugglar and my puppy murdering JK pub side. I intend to play through the rest of IA later, and only stopped because I hit a bit of a slow point on Hoth leveling wise and the story quests suddenly got harder. Also I am an altaholic.
All my old Shadowlands characters are pretty much mothballed at this point, the only finished story being Inquisitor (which I might go through again).
Posts
I started out not liking voidstar like you (the attack and defend one), but it grew on me, especially after I had some stealth alts.
But the gree one is really the unfun one now, IMO.
Games seem to be easy enough to queue into during the day, but at night when I'm playing they're harder than ever to get in to. Bioware said something about maybe opening up warzones to free to play, but they haven't updated on that recently.
If youve spent any money on this game at all then you dont have a F2P account, you have a preferred account which comes with a whole host of benefits.
Well it's not that you can't, it's that you're limited to 3 games per week. You can buy weekly unlocks on the GTN (I think they are about 60k on the GTN? At least on Jedi Covenant), so if all you wanted to do was warzones you could still do it free to play, you'd just have to farm enough credits to buy the weekly unlocks.
As a F2P Preferred scrub, that:
So I'll just wait and see. World PvP has always been more my preference anyways and it's hardly a thing at all in SWTOR, even in the places ostentatiously designated for said PvP, like Ilum.
Minor spoilers for Bounty Hunter Hoth quest:
Is there some site/tool that tries (and succeeds) to keep a list of guilds and their flavor?
If that makes any sense.
My SwtOR schedule is pretty irregular, and when I am able to play I prefer to pick what I do. (I.e. I don't like being locked into one role because that's what my "main" did at some point.)
I'm also not a huge fan of Casual guilds who claim to be Social, when in reality they are very Progress oriented.
Don't worry, your last companion
About the last one...
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Nah, Gault made sense:
Im pretty sure those were direct quotes.
Gault is
Really? More than Skadge? Man, fuck that guy.
So the numerous times I died against Gault were ever-more infuriating, and then he somehow pulled another bullshit trick out of his ass for yet another pointless fight, and then I finally cornered him...and my only responses when he offers to work for me are, "Sure." "Okay." "Fine."
This is one of those times where the necessity of being an MMO became painfully obvious, because if it had been a single-player game, you know there would be an option to put that little coward down.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
I suggest you complain to the general public, then, as their constant complaining is why Bioware removed the ability to kill/miss companions in TOR.
When I got Gault it was just like emp123 said; it made much more sense "back in the day".
Oh, I understand that much.
I also understand sunken costs: once they made the decision to remove killing off companions, they can't go back and add or change fully-voiced assets to make that part less irritating very easily.
But I won't lie. At that point I basically had to ragequit for the rest of the night.
but also more ppl whining in WZ chat that the team isn't steamrolling the enemy. I don't get the pride in giving up.
Just the other day, I was in cademimu as sniper on the imp side. It started out pretty rocky, it seemed like the healer was struggling and a couple of times the other DPS died, and on at least one occasion the tank died too. So it felt like undergeared healer and/or inexperienced tank, but I didn't say a word until the boss with the "arresting" droid came up. We were near the beginning of the fight, when the droid first becomes active, when the tank immediately gets frozen. Now I've done this FP a lot of times as a tank, so for me when I'm tanking right up next to the boss, I watch the "Activate droid" channel closely and as soon as it's over I move, whether I am 'under arrest' or not. So my thought is: we should have explained this boss fight, the tank hasn't done this FP. In the group chat I say, "[Tank], is this your first time here?" meaning to explain the fight if he needed it. The tank's response was, "The only thing I'm first at is telling you to STFU." And I'm taken aback and kinda mad. But I think, you know what, don't stoop to that level. You were trying to help out and he's the one that just lashed out from no where, don't react the angry way he wants you to. So I said, "It's ok if it's your first time, we just need to know so that we can explain the fights to you.
So next boss up is the wookie boss, and I've done this one a bunch of times a lot of different ways, and I know that you can make all the ugnaught adds disappear if all dps and healer stand on the shuttle, and the tank taunts the boss to the back of the shuttle. If you take the boss anywhere else the adds will still appear and you have to spend a really long time trying to kill them all without the wookie's flamethrower on them. So I say, "taunt the boss to the back of the shuttle and you'll get no adds." The healer says, "Taunt the boss to here" (meaning the shuttle). The tank taunts the boss to the front of the shuttle. So I say, "You get zero adds if you taunt him to the back, but whatever." and we finish that fight, and predictably have to spend a silly amount of time killing the pig men. FYI, not a lot of people realize you can take the boss to the very back of the shuttle to completely erase the mobs and never have to kill them, so even if you aren't inexperienced it might be new information. To me it's good information to share with randoms to make their lives easier on the fight. Especially seeing as how the ugnaughts are the most annoying things.
Next up is the bonus boss. This is the boss that pulls you in, throws out an electrocution AOE around himself that slows anyone who gets pulled in so they take a lot of damage trying to escape. Our tank happened to be a juggernaut, and having done this boss on my guardian a lot, the way I always escape the AOE is to guardian leap to the healer who's secured behind the railing or behind the box. Minimum damage to myself, and as a bonus the healer gets a short damage and threat reduction buff. So we're half way through the fight and I notice the tank is taking a hell of a lot of damage from the slowly walking through the AOE. So I say, "Friendly leap to the healer to avoid the damage." He ignores me, and after the fight the healer says, "he wasn't taking any damage.", to which I say "he was at half health." Then the healer says, "I've had about enough of you! One more word out of you and I'm leaving." I say, "I'm trying to help" and he says something like "you aren't helping!" Now I'm really mad because all this time the tank has basically been shit to the healer by taking unnecessary damage, failing to taunt mobs when he lost threat, while I've been doing things like trying to CC droids where I could to minimize damage, and pushing mobs off cliffs and so forth. So I said the only ugly thing I'd said during the FP, and I really wish I'd have kept my mouth shut but I was irritated at this point so I said, "Fine, I won't say another word, I'll just let the tank wipe us next time." Well only the final boss was left, obviously he'd have to have been really careless to wipe us at that point, so it was just me saying something that made me look foolish.
And that's why I hate running FPs on the Imp side.
Hope to finish the main story for my BH next session, but my card runs out Wednesday and I'm debating whether to renew or not. (Trooper and Agent still to do, think I'll reroll my agent though. She's lvl 18, but first levels go quick... but I still have other games untouched.)
The telltale sign on most Flashpoints via Group Finder whether it's going to be good or not to me is pretty simple: Do people say even the simplest "hello" or anything when starting? I'm usually too busy to do much chatting, but a bit of friendliness, even when things are not going well, usually makes things a lot better.
But I think the worst group I was in this week was a story mode Foundry run. I was tanking (38-39 assassin) with a merc healer (level 41) and a merc and assassin dps. Now I know the second boss is hard, definitely harder than the final boss, but the healer was consistently at full heat by the first time the core thing came down. I say consistently because it took us 6 attempts. I tried to tell the healer hey, build up the cylinder charges before we start the fight, kolto missile is your friend and try to cast the 1.5s heal before the 2.5s heal, also the no heat cool down thing is super helpful, but he didn't listen so the other merc had to heal too.
Okay, fine be bad, I most likely won't have to see you again anyway and I tried to help.
Conversely, my guild is currently trying to progress through the NiM raids and while we have downed the first boss in both TFB and SV and was very close to downing Titan 6, this week we had only 3 of our 10 dps at above 2k dps (2 others were close). One of them was 200dps above a tank.
Now, we had known for a while that some of these people consistently put up terrible numbers but they wanted to go and we had spots to fill so we took them. And it's not like they're poorly geared, they all have at least 69 main hands (and I'm only saying that because I'm not 100% sure they all had 72 main hands because I'm pretty sure they did) and we weren't having any trouble with the mechanics of the fights so they're not incapable but man was their dps terrible (and honestly we have no problem carrying people through hard mode, but if if you want to raid nightmare you need to step your game up, nightmare is significantly more challenging than hard mode).
So we called them out. Its super awkward to do, you don't want to turn anyone off from playing but they can continue to hold back 9+ other people, but at the same time this is a game and the primary goal should be to have fun and being yelled at or being perceived as bad kind of runs contra to that. Anyway, we had all the dps in the raid (and anyone who wants to run NiM) post 5 minute parses to the forums so those who are lacking can compare and see what they're doing and what we're doing (we use torparse).
Fortunately these people have all responded very well and most were surprised by how slight changes in the way they play can lead to drastic increases in dps. The guy who was putting up about 1400 dps? Now he's putting up about 1900 (I think he hit about 2100 on the dummy). I just wish pugs responded the same way (although I understand the multitude of reasons as to why they don't).
did they add any new small group stuff in the 'expansion?' Or is it just the same fps tuned for slightly higher levels
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
(And Tauntaunnnnnnnnnnns!!!!!!!!)
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
Remarkable Circumference for Empire
Rigorous Scholarship for Republic
Although I think most everyone merged with another guild on Shadowlands
All my old Shadowlands characters are pretty much mothballed at this point, the only finished story being Inquisitor (which I might go through again).
Would you have time tonight to invite?
Rigorous Scholarships is still around although it's not very active right now. It's just me and a couple of other people keeping the lights on.
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
Kuvala on the Republic