"Of Bugs and Men" or "Why Level 60 Hard Mode Flashpoints were virtually Worthless"

If you've been partaking in Shadow of Revan for the past week-and-a-half, you should by now be accustomed to the sheer amount of bugs which were present in the vanilla patch. Some were minor, of course, but others were - and still are - game-breaking.

For those of you who weren't a part of the early access, Rishi and Yavin had their own bugs which meant that you were very lucky to be able to complete two certain quests: "Jungle's Bounty" and "The Enemy Within". For the first, you'd need to collect a bunch of meat and stick it on a tree, and for the second, you were simply meant to kill the bad guy in a long drawn-out fight.

Except that neither worked properly for many people to begin with. For the first, the tree would bug out and only be clickable in certain instances, and the second bugged out with a crucial mechanic that meant that your allies would be trapped permanently in whirlwinds and unable to help or heal you as they could not be freed. Curiously, it is still possible to bug out this fight so that this mass whirlwind stun is never even applied, but this obviously is not the proper way to do it.

Thankfully, both of those were fixed, meaning that they are no longer any problem at all. So what else remains?

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In Strongholds, you could not place any Prefab Decorations purchased from the Droids or any pet and mount outside of Shadow and the last two shipments of Cartel packs. Now, the prefab decorations have been fixed but the pets and mounts are still gone. This is a fairly minor one, but it's still rather annoying to know that, if you accidentally remove your prized Tundra Tauntaun from your Stronghold by changing the layout it is sitting on, you will be unable to place it down again. Not a real-life case study, just an example I thought up.

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Ravagers and Temple of Sacrifice - the new Raids - would occasionally (9/10 times) not grant any loot on the final bosses, but thankfully that is fixed now. Again, minor but still a nuisance to have gone through both Operations only to not have opportunity to at least see all the loot.

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Now we move on to perhaps the biggest of the still in-existence issues.

The Level 60 Hard Modes are fantastic. Don't get me wrong on this, I absolutely love them; the challenge is 'just right', you're kept on your toes a great deal, and Manaan is still a pain in the proverbial. I do have to say I take issue with the fact that every boss drops Basic commendations. Y'know, the standard "Daily" commendation that anyone can get very easily? These should not be dropping from 60 Hard Mode Flashpoints, which obviously require more capability than Dailies. The only Elite Commendations you can get are when you finish the Flashpoint (x2) and with the Daily Group Finder mission (x16!). The last boss has a chance to drop a random Massassi (192 rating, no set bonus) piece that may be usable by your character if you're lucky.

There's also a Weekly that gives 10 Elites and 10 Ultimates, but there's a serious problem. This will not update whenever you complete a level 60 Hard Mode as it claims.

So let's move on to the older Hard Modes; the 55s. The bosses in these all grant 2 Elite commendations. Add in the four you get for completing the "Secondary Objectives" (none for actually defeating the Bonus Boss) mission and the one you get for just completing the Flashpoint, and you can get a maximum of eleven Elite commendations over the course of one 55 Hard Mode, which could be duoed with two well-geared people back at 55 anyway (Tank and DPS both with Heal companions). At 60, you still need to have one person in Tank gear, but it's still ridiculously easy. Bearing in mind also that - unlike with the 60 Hard Modes - you can gain the maximum number of Elites as many times in the day across one character as you feel like - or until you reach the 200 limit. Whilst it still drops Black Market gear, the very fact you can earn so many Elites over the course of 20 minutes means that if you do it enough times you can eventually just "pick and choose" the exact Massassi piece you want from the Vendor.

Oh, and the "level 60 Hard Mode Weekly"? This actually updates for the 55 Hard Modes.

Thus, apart from Achievements and the hope of getting a free Massassi piece, level 60 Hard Modes are actually pretty damn worthless for the time being, simply because level 55 Hard Modes have so much more going for them; the bosses drop Elite comms, you can do them with two people and don't need to wait for Group Finder, and the fact that they count towards the Weekly. This should not be the case. People don't expect to have to do the old content over the new content simply because it offers better loot. If anything, 55s should drop Basics and the 60s should drop Elites! 2 Elites per 60 Hard Mode (without the Group Finder) is - quite frankly - appalling, and I hope that this is fixed soon.

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All this makes me wonder how they tested the new Expansion in the Closed Beta. There are ways they could have opened it up - lock story content but make the planets available; instant boost to 60 with gear; only Flashpoints available - whilst still keeping the "hardcore" stuff on the Closed PTS (raids; story). At least this way, they would have been able to stress-test Rishi and Yavin - Yavin handles best with 20-or-so people, and anything after that causes it to lag severely - and perhaps there might have been people willing to enter the 55s as a joke. Even if the granting of Elites is intentional, the fact that the Weekly counts for the 55s and not for the 60s is severely broken.

If these issues were not present on the Closed Beta - as many claim for The Enemy Within - then that beggars the question; exactly what did they do in the transition phase that caused all these issues to appear..?

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This really is a rant post, for which I apologise. Bugs are to be expected - it is an MMO, after all - but when they become almost game-breaking in style even after the transition to Live from the PTS? That should not be right.

Update: Although the Level 55 Hard Mode Flashpoints still qualify for the Level 60 Weekly, the Commendation drops have since been reversed; whilst you still get 4 Elite Commendations for completing the Bonus Mission quest in the Level 55 Flashpoints, all the bosses in those now drop Basic Comms, whilst in the Level 60 Flashpoints, the bosses now all drop Elite Commendations.