How Many Modes Does an Operation Need?

Date: Mar 21, 2012 | Written by http://swtor.junkiesnation.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2012/03/operations-square-mode.jpg | Posted Under: Article, Column, Featured Article | DISQUS With Us: 15 comments

In a recent interview at the Guild Summit Georg Zoeller had this to say:

Georg Zoeller: (Source) I don’t think three Operations is optimal; you probably want to go at least four or five but that’s not necessarily my call. That is Gabe’s call and everyone else who is involved, but we need to build a nice state of endgame. We’re building up and yes, at some point you have the discussion “which point do we have an accessibility problem?” You need to be able to get new blood in there.

If you’re not sure what he’s talking about, they announced that the 3 modes for Operations will now be Story Mode, Hard Mode, and Nightmare Mode. The 1.2 Legacy Patch will release a new Operation that has a Story Mode and a Hard Mode only. Sometime in the future, most likely 1.2.1 or 1.2.2, Nightmare Mode will be released as well.

In addition to this they will be adding new mechanics to Hard Mode (not new animations), and Nightmare Mode will also have additional mechanics beyond Hard Mode. They said that Nightmare needed to be a nightmare. If you missed my article, The Heroes of MMO’s, I talk about some of the changes that needed to be made and are in fact currently in the pipeline for release.

What’s amazing about Georg’s statement is that he recognizes and sees that the range of player skill and need for challenge can’t be neatly quantified by three simple degrees. That in fact to reach everyone equally they need a more diverse scaling method to satisfy all of their players. I for one am truly impressed with that level of foresight and open mindedness.

But what about you guys? What do you think of having possibly four to five different Modes for Operations? Keep in mind that all Operations are intended to be on the same lockout except for Story Mode (the easiest setting), so you’d only be doing one “difficult” Ops each week. Leave a comment below telling us what you think!

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters…

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Tags: bioware, dev, georg zoeller, guild summit, hard mode, mode, nightmare mode, operation, ops, skeleton jack, story mode

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TrivanDK

I agree, that the fact that they have realized that the current (pre. 1.2) Operation mode settings need to be twisted is great news.

But I would rather have them send time on fixing the 16 man version, and adding a 24 man version, before looking into having 4 mode settings (story, normal, hard & nightmare)

Again – pre 1.2 – 16 man offers the same loot as 8 man, and is significant easier – leading to almost all guilds runs 8 man Operations – which in our guild have lead to small sub-guilds within the guild… we started at 60 man raid in EQ, then 40 in WOW, then down to 25 – and now 8 is the number (since 16 man is kinda broke) – yeah ok 40-60 man was ALOT – and made just organizing the raid the hard part – but to me both 8 and 16 man is taking the MM out of MMO in terms of raiding…

My vote would be: Stick with the 3 versions from 1.2 – Story (those everybody can do) – Hard (which is Hard, but possible for the avg. raider) – and then Nightmare (for those ultra hardcore) – of course 3 different loot tiers

Then make 16man the optimal Operation size – with 8man and 24man option for those who prefer that

TrivanDK – 15 years of MMO – played them all……
- Skeleton Jack
  
  I don’t think you will ever see them move to a 24man model as it would require even more work, resources, Q&A, etc…
  
  They also stated that the difficulty levels will drop different levels of gear, so you won’t be farming “nightmare” gear in “hard” modes.
  
  Personally, I think more than 3 modes would be a good move, but I don’t see them actually allocating the additional resources to make that happen.
  - TrivanDK
    
    hmm I cant see making a 24man version would require more work than say, make a 4th mode – as always it can be done in many ways – good or bad
    (a 4th mode would prob. mean a new set of gear, tier 3,5 or whatever, where a 24 version could / would be same loot as the mode you are in)
    
    Not knowing your background Mr. Skeleton – I would assume that you enjoy raiding? – if so – do you feel that the 8man version “does it for you”?
    
    Yeah I certainly do not miss EQ’s 60man, and I can live without 40man – but 8man?…yeah I know I can try and convince my guild to run 16man instead – and I really hope 16man will be a “real” option after 1.2
    
    Agree – at the end of the day it all comes down to resources – Bioware has 100% time to give out – so how many %’s do you allocate to each tasks…. I would assume most would rather have a new wing with 3 new bosses – than a 4th mode (which lock you out off the 3 others)
    - Skeleton Jack
      
      The issue with a 24 man raid is that they can build an infrastructure behind the scenes to scale existing content (GW2 already has this system and WoW is also deveolping similar systems). 8/16 man don’t scale in a straight linear path, they have two totally different sets of base numbers. But then they just tweak them up for higer difficulties.
      
      For 24 man however you would have have an entirely different set of base numbers. Which that would require more resources, more Q&A, etc… It’s a lot more work than just adding a different difficulty settings for an existing Ops.
      
      I’ve been playing MMO’s since EQ and I love raiding. 8man however does not do it for me and feels like a jip. As to making 16man viable, they’ve stated before that the 16man was supposed to be easier than 8man (it isn’t). So I don’t know what their direction will be in regard to that for the future.
Slowmo_1

I am sick and tired of all the MMO’s taking the same content and making multiple modes of it to satisfy everyone. This to me feels lazy, and makes us as raiders bored with the content before we get to the top gear levels. If they make 4 versions of the same raid, assuming you have to get the gear from story to be able to complete normal and so on, then how freaking bored are we going to be by the time we’re running NiM?

WoW had it right in vanilla and even in TBC with 5mans, then 15 (UBRS which eventually was changed to 10) 20 mans (ZG) and T1, T2, and T3 content all being different. How bored would we have gotten if all they had done was add a hard mode and a nightmare mode to Molten Core? This system of forcing us to run the same freaking content in multiple modes is going to harm their end game raiding subscribers.
- It not all about you
  
  Three modes is perfect. “story” which is normal, Hard and then nightmare. There does not need to be more. Doing the content on a level that everyone who wants to see it can is also a great idea. One thing I am tired of is people like this idiot, that seem to think all raids should cater only to him and only this type should see the content. Newsflash, this elitest bullshit doesn’t work, even Blizzard woke up and realized that if more players get to see ALL the content then more people will keep playing. Evident by the fact that WOTLK raids were the pinnacle of their success and when they opted to cater to the hardcore first in Cata, people jumped ship.
  
  If you really want to feel elitest in your raiding.. go to Rift, they still separate their content based on the number of players that get to go in the raid. 10 mans for 3 of the raids, 20 mans for the other 3. Will that let you feel the superiority you clearly want to hold over everyone else? My guess is no, you would still find something to bitch about.
  - Skeleton Jack
    
    I don’t think we need to be at each other’s throats.
    
    TBC had (arguably) the best raid design in the amount of content and the challenge provided. However they did miss the ball on the more casual players. And due to the varying degrees of skill out there, making scalable content accessible to everyone is honestly the smartest move. MMO’s are not going to move away from that concepts as it appeals to the largest % of the player base as a whole.
    - Raids are not just for the few
      
      As far as raid content, yes TBC had a good amount. Though, they took the next step in WOTLK. Allowing both raid sizes to explore the same content and opening it up to that many more people. Then even farther by adding a second level to the raids with a “hard” mode. All players should have access to all of the content.
      - Skeleton Jack
        
        Agreed in that multiple modes are the answer. But LK was also a lot of failures. Many think that Ulduar was the most interesting method of deploying hard modes yet they did away with it. Also with the Arena Raid (forget the name) having to do 4 raids each week of the exact same content was horrific at best. LK wasn’t the next step as much as it was the growing pains required to move on to the next step. I’d actually say CATA was the next step with streamlined LFR, Normal, and Heroic modes. But at this point we’re arguing semantics as we both seem to agree with one another.
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=696932311 Maria Zelenskaya
    
    I think it is important for hardcore players to feel special. They put a lot of time and effort into the game and for that they deserve a reward. Seeing new content is a great motivation for gamers. So I personal think there should be no modes at all. Instead there should be a line of operations/quests with increasing difficulty. Maybe this way noobs will never see everything the game has to offer, but at least they will be motivated to take on more challenging tasks and improve their gaming skills.
Masonmccabe

Y modes for ops is enough in my opinion. 4 or 5 modes is just too much. My personal feeling about having multiple ops is the rewards. For story mode the gear rating should be the same if not just a minor start difference from hard mode FP gear. Hard mode gear should at least have a different color scheme than story mode gear. Nightmare mode gear should be completely new gear models with flashy bells and whistles. The bells and whistles for NM gear (along with a completely revamped look from other modes) would be nothing more than cosmetic, but it would set those players apart who were willing to sacrifice alot of time to conquer the hardest content available.

The trouble with creating very challenging content is that ‘hard core raiders’ execute fights to perfection much faster than they used to, so fights like Lady Vash-j and Kael don’t pose a challenge any more. There is basically a gear requirement, skill requirement, and perfect execution for the hardest bosses. making ops groups smaller makes it easier to coordinate everyone as well. Making new MMO content challenging to the current ‘hard core raiders’ is going to bw the real challenge for the dev teams.
Darkbrew

I don’t think three modes are enough. If you look at Wow they technically have 3 modes for their raids (LFR, Normal and Hard Mode), but as the tier progresses they gradually nerf the normal and hard modes so more people can clear the content. So even in that game three modes isn’t really enough.
- Skeleton Jack
  
  Agreed. I follow WoW a little bit still and it always sounds weird hearing how Heroics got nerfed so other guilds can clear them… If they can’t clear them then they can’t clear them. They still have 2 other modes that can clear. 4 modes would probably be optimal from both a player standpoint and a business cost standpoint.
Tankadin

They can add 7 modes of difficulty for all I care. Unless
they add a solo mode it doesn’t matter, because you can’t put a group together to
save your life. Maybe work on an LFG system first BioWare before adding more
content and difficulty mode to the game. Just a thought.
- ocping
  
  I also think they should address the issue of server populations before anything else. There’s no point working on a gazillion modes satisfying a full spectrum of players from retard to hardcore when there’s hardly anyone to fill up even 1 ops.

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