4Box Problem: How do y'all handle the extra mobs in group quest instances?

Hey Y'all!

This is the first time I've encountered this (I think mainly because I was 2Boxing previously)... I was just doing "Tearing Apart the Foe" on Nar Shaddaa, where you have to kill the 4 Ukabi Lieutenants, and I got my buttocks handed to me on a silver platter. So, I looked for some YouTube videos on how folks have handled the quest and I noticed people were soloing it. Then I realized that there were additional mobs in my instance that weren't in the YouTube videos (where people were soloing).

So, I reconfigured my groups for testing and figured out that when I've got 3 or 4 members to my group, the game drops Elites and extra Strongs into the instance that aren't there for 1 or 2 players. Has anybody else ecountered this? I'm just wondering if it's this way for every group quest instance or just specific quests. I'm afraid it's going to be the latter. If so, does anybody have advice on how to handle it?

I'm running a group member from each category (SW Tank, BH Off-Tank, SI Healer, IA Off-Healer) and it's way too hard to try and handle the extra mobs, atm. So, for the time-being, I'm just gonna try splitting into 2 man groups when I hit quest instances. But man, that's gonna suck!

Thanks Everyone!
-Moo

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Originally Posted by Memooselah

Has anybody else ecountered this?

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Yes, I have - when grouping with others (I only 2-box). When you zone in you see a message like "Enemy reinforcements arriving!" or something. That is because the zone changes when you have 3/4 in your group. It's designed this way to make full groups have to work just as hard as 1/2 man groups.

As for boxing them, your best bet is to get another level or two. I usually save all Heroic 4s for the end of a planet, when I'm done with other quests. Sometimes the Heroic has gone grey, but not always. It's much easier then. Levels really matter in this game.

Thanks for the reply! But that's kind of my problem. These aren't Heroic quests. They're just regular quests, not even storyline quests. I think I may have to either rework how I'm doing my keymaps (particularly Crowd Control), or my group make up. Doing four different classes against this stuff is rough! But, I'm gonna try to stick it out and see if I can figure out something...

Thanks Again!
-Moo

In general, a balanced four man unit is more than 4x stronger than a solo player.
At least in most other MMO type games.

In theory, with a tank, healer and a pair of DPS...
You'll be able to handle far more mobs than as a fraction of the group.

I'm not saying that is the case in SW:toR...

But it would make sense if it were.

I think their scaling algorithm is a bit weird; most of the time its ok, but sometimes I run into instances that just go crazy. Once or twice it was so bad that I split off into two groups... Generally its doable, though, and I just go with it. I'm not running a classic group tho, meh. I guess their trying to make it challenging for groups of players...but really, if their going to do that, they should at least consider the composition of the group in their algorithm as opposed to just going crazy with dropping in elites. [i.e. theres not a big difference between 3 players and 4 players that i've noticed, for instance]

I can handle normal quests even if extra mobs spawn. But I have 3 sorcs and a round-robin CC so I just CC. Sometimes I CC the visible mobs then kill the ones that spawn first.
However for story line quests since I have to run through them for each char anyway I always go in groups of two characters. I once encountered around 40 extra mobs.

And I can confirm the scaling algorithm is really weird. From a technical perspective I am pretty sure I can say, that Bioware has a really bad development /QA team. Some stuff is really bad and one doesnt need to see the code to condemn it :)

My work around is just do these quest 2 at a time if I’m on a 4 man team. I ran into one instancewhere I was suppose to fight an elite and found myself not only fighting the elite, but 5 Strongs. Like balrog78 states the games difficulty scaling algorithm is a joke.

edit* fixed typos

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Originally Posted by Kimchee

My work around is just do these quest 2 at a time if I’m on a 4 man team. I ran into one instancewhere I was suppose to fight an elite and found myself not only fighting the elite, but 5 Strongs. Like balrog78 states the games difficulty scaling algorithm is a joke.
edit* fixed typos

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more XP, more loot - problem ?

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Originally Posted by Bloodcloud

more XP, more loot - problem ?

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I bow to your superior boxing skills.


Lord knows I got ROFL-stomped by the 5 strongs. it wasnt even funny. Think my main only lasted for a second or so when he got pounded by the elite and 5 strongs.

There are some rough spots and tuning that needs to be done still. The two specific spots I remember: Balmorra in the north west part in the toxic swamp area. There are groups of two strong mobs that can stack DOT's. I remember getting there and dying in about 5 seconds to four different DOT's stacked 3 deep and these guys were two levels lower than me. I didn't have a healer companion, not that it would have helped but I learned to avoid these guys at all costs.

After that, because I was a bit OCD on getting every quest done, I found myself 2-8 levels above everything until Corellia and Illum. Illum was the next spot. I was in a story zone to challenge some alien guy and take over their group for the empire. Inside were two strong healer mobs that would chain heal each other. I'll admit that it took me about 40 minutes before I figured out how to kill them without help. But it was jarring to go from being able to solo 2-3 elite mobs to a brick wall of just 2 strong mobs. I did my fair share of bitching in /guild about it. Got laughed at, but all of 2 days later, someone else was in the exact same spot pissing on the carpet, just like I was.

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Originally Posted by Kimchee

I bow to your superior boxing skills.
Lord knows I got ROFL-stomped by the 5 strongs. it wasnt even funny. Think my main only lasted for a second or so when he got pounded by the elite and 5 strongs.

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hmm, thats bad. I haven't had any bad luck like this so far.
Did you try to two man it with companions ?