It makes no sense from a DESIGN perspective. If the game was designed in a way where you could do this 'grind' type of leveling anywhere, then sure- it would make sense. This type of leveling isn't old either(this is how you do it in EQ). I would even prefer this type of leveling if the entire galaxy was converted to allow grind leveling this way. But unfortunately, it's not. This game has a leveling system more similar to WoW, and as such, you detract from that system by exploiting areas that were not designed for this sort of gameplay. And btw. Grind leveling is much more fun when the mobs are actually hard. They are a joke in this game.

I never did this, as I always interpreted this as essentially skipping the leveling process by mass killing things in 1 spot? If that's the case... How can anyone possibly think this is good for the integrity of the game world? BioWare did a great thing here. People need to utilize the in game systems: WZ's, FP's, & missions to level to allow quicker queue times and a chance for players to actually socialize and group. You guys outta wipe out everything that players exploit. Stuff like this makes new players lose faith and doesn't help bring people to the game. And we don't need an explanation. Just do it, ignore these other people that don't have half a sense as to how bad something like this is in the grand scheme of things.

So the dude tries something for the first time then quits in a pvp setting? I get it if this was a PVE setting...If the guy doesn’t care to learn or question then should we care to help and keep these people around? Most people that try any new pvp for the first time get their *** kicked. But your friend must be so good that it’s the game’s fault and not his.

Could be many reasons for that. How many concurrent players do nim ops v.s. current totals? How many players are capable of doing nim ops vs people that aren’t? For players that stay subscribing vs people that don’t- what % of both groups are actual raiders? For people that play the game hardcore v.s. people that don’t- what % are raiders from each group? What’s the % of people that run NIM content vs those that haven’t run NIM content that want to? Are nim ops player numbers the way they are because content has been so stale? And if so, how do these numbers compare to games that are as content stale vs those that aren’t? Do games with the highest hardcore raider counts also have the largest of populations? Do games with low raider populations also have low overall server populations? What about just the current raider % populations in a game like WoW. How much money & development time went into raid development v.s. other areas of the game? How does this data compare to how other mmo’s prioritize content development? What about an MMO gameplay structure with no raids. How do those server populations fare compared to SWTOR? I work with metrics every day and you have to consider everything. Rarely something “is” or “isn’t” behind the “justification” of a blanket statement. In reality swtor is very hard to compare to other games because the game is so different from others. Most of it’s development focus ‘overall’ went into the story & voice acting which isn’t common for others in the industry. Metrics are more of a guidepost.

Passive aggressiveness aside you mustn't have read everything I wrote. Can't say I blame you, it's a wall of text that needs a TLDR. That being said- I'm not saying things have to be one way or another. Just saying there needs to be balance. And yes there should be more incentive for players to engage in social interaction. This is how people connect and play together. People that play together are typically more motivated to keep doing so. Right now there isn't a lot of incentive for me to engage with other players while leveling and the game isn't challenging enough from a solo standpoint for me to forego group content all together.

If everything was free and easy there wouldn’t be anyone here. The best & most populated games had some level of challenge. From the start. This game no longer has that. It did, but a myriad of changes over the years have made that experience too easy. I think the problem here is companion gearing, mission difficulty changes, and auto bolster need some tuning. Or maybe we can get a simple slider to change the difficulty. When players are forced to reach out to other players to progress they will do so. I’ve seen too many games destroyed by this ‘lets make it for everyone mentality’. It’s impossible because it’s unrealistic and unbelievable in the mind’s eye of the player, and most importantly it starts sectioning off different social groups in the game to the point where they don’t interact anymore, killing one of the biggest tenets of an online game.. I saw Ultima Online lose the majority of it’s player base when they decided to add trammel, which effectively added a new continent into their sandbox that disallowed pvp. At the time, this seemed like a good thing. Yay we’re no longer going to get ganked at balrogs or crossroads! Nope. This change ended up pissing off more people than it actually helped. So the pvp people left, and then most of the pve folks left as there was too large a void from everyone else that left. It killed the fear and excitement that so many people didn’t realize they wanted. It’s ok now- people figured this out and guess what servers are the most populated now? The player-driven emulated ones that don’t include trammel. I saw Everquest slowly dwindle down over the years. Everquest started to embrace ‘instancing’ of raid/group content in a persistent world where instancing wasn’t even a thing yet. Everquest was also very immersive as instant travel was impossible and if you wanted to get anywhere quick you had to get a port or buff from a player. Yep- you were forced to socialize to do anything. The community as a result was VERY connected. We still are. The player had to compete against other players for raid, group, and quest content as nothing was instanced. Raids were insane. 72 people or more in a raid with no comms. There hasn’t been an experience to match it after these 20 years. Anywho, now DBG makes timelocked progression servers and they’ve been bringing back old-school mechanics. The most populated of these is a player driven classic eq recreation called project1999. It’s been going so strong for 10 years now and is more populated than it’s ever been. No carebear mechanics. Full contested non-instanced mmo. WoW- Blizzard snagged a few folks from the top EQ guild of Fires of Heaven and gave them design positions for their new mmo. WoW is essentially an EQ clone dumbed down with a solid franchise name behind it and the hype was real in 2004. WoW captured us with it’s balance and smooth functionality, but after 2010 it’s been in decline. They’ve recognized some mistakes- flying everywhere actually requires hefty unlocks now as to not diminish the value/size of the world as much. I haven’t kept up much with wow and any EQ player i’ve met will tell you, there’s not much to remember anyways. Wow hasn’t left memories the same way EQ did 20 years later. The risk vs reward paradigm simply doesn’t compare. EQ2- Around the same time as WoW, EQ2 was released. Graphically amazing, voiced over characters and quest npc’s just like SWTOR, but it ran like ****. I think it still runs bad. People stuck with WoW. (Wow was smooth and ran well even on dialup) SWG- Didn’t play it, but wasn’t surprised at the fallout as SOE was doing a grreat job running EQ1 & 2 into the ground. Pantheon Rise of the Fallen- Developers and community that generally want a new mmo with oldschool-difficult mechanics. Now the mmo industry is at the point where we have to throw money at people to get them to do the right thing. There’s a lot more. Not just mmo’s. If anything can be learned it’s that easier isn’t better. There’s too many variables that must be considered else you risk displacing entire communities who are the ones that keep things alive.

I xferred against my better judgement from SS>SF. More players. Same queue times in pvp and pve.Tons of RPers.

Haha. Mindreader! That’s where I was headed. Oh well.

Yeah I’m not buying this story. We had a massive guild in 1.0 days where no one had problems with content. There was an occasional ask for help killing a boss here or there. After that entire guild collapsed, and subsequently the server, other guilds I’ve joined showed similar behavior. This was consistent over the years, until content became so easy you’d never see that occasional request for help. There definitely was never a majority of people clamoring that content was too hard. If anything it could have been tuned to be more difficult back then to encourage more grouping. This was all back when there were 50 or so servers.. Now with only 2 left in NA. I suppose it could be telling of the current playerbase as all the people actually looking for a challenge are long gone...

Agreed.

Hold up a sec. The solo story content was way more challenging from 1.0 until a few expansions in. You'd have people asking for help from other players to finish certain fights. Initially, the content WAS intended to be difficult/challenging or what have you. The point that's not being grasped here is that content is so easy it's boring, which ultimately isn't going to motivate ANY replay value. Another issue adding to the pile of why the population has been in decline over the years. I've personally had friends quit right off the bat and not give the game a chance due to content being an absolute pushover. It really sets a bad tone. Makes experienced gamers feel like this thing was made for a 6 year old to play.

We need more voidstar.

Agree. Prefer Huttball>Arenas. Would be cool to get the majority's take on this.

I remember when it was first brought around. Many of us disgruntled types recognized that it was a bad thing from the get-go. I'd rather be charged up front for content, not force-fed content and expected to pay for it via RNG in a Casino-like store. If we use the mentality of "Well it keeps the game afloat", then when will it end? I don't even necessarily disagree with you here. I've done it myself. But would it not be more ethical for EA/Bioware to offer a different monetization strategy that actually helps the game grow and become a better place that keeps people logged in and logging back in? Because right now population wise it appears the worst I've seen which implies the status-quo is not good for this game's presence as an MMO. Even though we currently have populated servers- there aren't many more servers that can be merged. This trend can't be good for the game if it continues. How many more years will we have a Galaxy set in The Old Republic if it does? Do you think another version of it will pop up with Disney in command in our lifetime? I think the server mergers and population of the game speaks for itself in this regard. I think largely, the cartel market is responsible for this- EA/Bioware's dependency thereof or maybe the lack of world-content as a result. Some of the best looking stuff the game has to offer is offered in an RNG casino store. Instead of gathering my pals and strategizing how to get some amazing looking thing in the game's world (or in this case, galaxy), I am now faced with an item of similar value or aesthetic appeal- in a store that only accepts $$$. I think this market is devaluing the Galaxy as people no longer need to turn to only it when they have the itch to look the best. This hurts the multiplayer play. All the above being said, there's definitely been some tuning since I last played to the market that makes it less unethical. I'm definitely not up to speed with any current roadmaps or spotlights with EA/Bioware's current plans here. Final thoughts- I think EA/Bioware would see massive success with a pledge system that's similar to Star Citizens. They release a concept and people pledge towards it. At least you know what you're getting. If you think it's a scam you're wrong. That game has now surpassed SWTOR's development costs. Almost entirely funded by people pledging money. Granted, even though it's been in development forever, CIG is delivering on their tech goals and the community as whole is sympathetic as CIG is delivering a breadth and scale that's never been seen before in a video game. They have the most transparent development process ever seen. For SWTOR, this type of thing could go towards revitalizing the player base. Ditch most of the development time allocated towards the cartel market and come up with a separate subscription service or a service that direct charges whoever in the community wants to invest in making this thing better. This game has a serious community behind it who haven't been utilized properly. I know I'm not the only one who would kick out some serious cash for some world-building and revitalization to the player base. Just need a plan.

To put it another way- my character doesn't feel as connected to the differing worlds anymore and everything feels a bit less believable. Think of Cantinas! Cantinas are useless from a social standpoint. People may log out in them, but xp feels quick enough regardless and I find myself not caring about the xp bonus as much as I did back in 1.0. If Cantinas could be used in a way where people are motivated to go to them to form groups or whatever then a Cantina gains value. Instead of giving 0 ***** I give 1 ****. Players benefit from increased social interaction>interaction motivates friendships>friends form groups more often>people have a reason to log in the next day = the galaxy feels a little bigger.