its for roleplay purpose,
the greatest strenght of SWTOR was his leveling, his immersion due to the fact that all the quest are scripted, fully voiced etc ...(IIRC that was one of the biggest part of the budget)
I understand that with all thoses expansion you should have option to speedrun the lvl 1-50 or even 60.
but i think that should only be it: OPTIONS. not default settings...
so yea sure normal quest does not give as much credits as spamming LFG/unscripted flashpoint or heroic .
but imo they bring an insane value in RP/immersion... ²
probleme is: right now it look like they are also indirectly the greatest issue for RP/immersion regarding your main class quest or even planet story arc quest. because you become just way to powerfull.
during my SW story it only strongly bother me for the final fight because i was the classic cliché of the edgy DS sith warrior. so stomping everyone wasn t that big of a deal, "i was simply a stronger force user".... until this final fight,because they kept saying me how epic it would be, how powerfull he is bla bla bla ... and i kill him in 3 skill ...
And just like for the SW: i dont think it would bother me for my sith inquisitor sorcerer too because again: force user ... up until i face challenge that the lore keep calling difficult. ²²²
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²again i think that for certain class doing side quest are verry important like:
-bounty hunter for the bounty and fame,
- the consular or jedi for the "protect the weak and defenceless" vibe
and for other it doesn t fit that much like the imperial agent who have a mission.
²²²aside from all that, this issue really show have balancing difficulty si important, moreover on a game so reliant on immersion/story:
if you rollface on all the content you really overestimate the true (lore) strenght fo your character, to the point where if you get defeated you will only understand it as artificial difficulty comming from game mechanics and not the lore :
because the strenght of your character during your progression is completly disconnected from the strenght the IG world perceive you.
ex: i could take on the entire dark concil with my SW ... but if the game had a "sandbox tool" alowing me to hit them, the game surely will make it so that i got OneShot by them...
=> due to the poor difficulty balance: the strength of my character is not in synch with the game.
having my character breath heavily when i just use 3 buttons to beat the boss was enraging ... it was like the game took my character out of my hand and arbitrary force me to acknowledge that my character is having a hard time....
on a mmo so focused on story, lore and immersion .... it s kind of a big black mark ...
but anyway. i digress.
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so there arent ANY way to slow down exp gain ?
i mean ... back int he day the probleme was "no end game content"
and here you are telling me to skip 95% of the game content if i do not want to be overleveled ?
a content that took a huge part on their budget ? (surely doing the voiceover of all thoses quest cost money)
nah~they must be a way!
else: if a bioware/EA guys pass here: please concidere doing what i said above (and surely what other said before me):
go back to the old day with the OPTION, to go super fast. like:
-------------------------------
"exp difficulty setting"
-normal: normal exp gain
-story: fast exp gain allowing you to only do story quest to stay on level.
-event: benefit from the story exp difficulty, plus the current exp (x12?) event .(this option is only available during thoses said event)
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or simpler:
- lock exp. so that you can finish your planet without gaining 10 level and ruining your future progression.
nb: dam i sure should stop making wall of text for something that could be written in a few lines ... sorry
edit:
it simply show me that "level scaling" do not work.
if i was lvl 70 but the level scaling was good enouth for me to still have a challenge then they wouldn t be any issue (remmeber that in any mmo this is the primary purpose of levelscalling) add to that the fact that companion are op
"roleplaying" as a bounty hunter (aka: non force user) able to wreck anyone in my story quest will simply be EXTREMLY WORST than with a sith. because you can always underestimate a sith power, up until the final fight where the game/lore will slap you back into how powerfull you are suppose to be lore-wise.(ex: heavy breathing during SW final battle or more caucious/less cocky choices before the fight "if i die...." )
tl;dr
finishing my warrior story shown me that even if i skip all the quest since Taris: i was still obliterating everything .
my bounty hunter will do all the quest/bounty he come into. and i do not want to RUIN my class quest with a "whatch out ! he is super famous and powerfull, prepare yourself before facing him" *kill him in less than 5 sec with 99% of my Hp left... and alone*