Suggestion for a Master/Apprentice group system

[BigRedBeard]

That didn't exactly work out well in WZ's so I see no problem with it. If that system had worked we wouldn't have the brakets. If you are referring to PVP-Servers where you could have open world battles on planets like Tatooine and Hoth. Well sadly, if a 50 is wandering around the contested zones, you were at risk for being ganked anyway. But if you meant just Ilum, I highly doubt the level 50 bump will make the lowbie all that better since they will be missing out on quite a few powers.

 

Now if you mean a situation where you're in the middle of a fight with someone your level in open world pvp and a 50 runs in invites the person your battling and bumps them up to 50, I honestly don't see that happening. Since if anything, the 50 would probably just run in and kill you rather than waste time inviting another player just to make it easier for them to kill you. Don't get me wrong, I see where you're coming from. But I don't see it as reason enough to not include this system.

 

Once again, I totally agree. All you would have to do to totally negate mid fight level bumps from higher level players is to make it so that you can't invite someone in the middle of a fight. Also, low level players apprenticed up to higher levels are never as tough as someone actually at that level. In PVP they would barely be a challenge. It was that way in City of Heroes and Champions.

[Ashyel]

I have to say I love TOR, early game flaws and all but the grouping aspect needs work. I came from City of Heroes and a feature they had that I think TOR would benefit greatly with is a Sidekick/Exemplar system. While I can see the risks of low level players playing with high level ones, its actually the reverse situation that I think would be great. Having high level players team up with low level players.

 

For those who've not played CoH, high level players can run missions with low level players, but they are reduced in level to that of the group leader. They still get xp equivalent to what they would earn fighting mobs at their level.

 

Ex) Level 14 leader

Level 40 player

 

Player fights as a level 14 against level 14 mobs, but enemies give level 40 exp.

 

I've constantly found myself at odds with friends because we may outlevel each other when we are playing solo. This system would make it possible to still play with friends and not hinder our own progress.

 

Another suggestion to this would be allowing players to participate in side quest convo's even if they completed the quest. I'm not saying let them repeat the quest, but at least let them participate in the dialogue portions so they can still feel like part of the team and gain social points.

 

Thoughts community?

I like the idea. One issue though:

 

Gaining experience from monsters way below your level is a bad idea.

 

For example: There's a spot in Tatooine where you can basically go from level 25-35 in hours by power leveling. If you could do that post level 35 by syncing to a lowbie's level, that's kind of broken and boring for all involved. Players would just find the optimum place the level and bore themselves to death.

 

Depending on how legacies turn out, it might be an idea to gain a little bit of legacy EXP when synced to a lowbie, but that's about it. Or have a conversion system for commendations so you can convert 5 Coruscant commendations into 1 Correllia commendation so you're not totally wasting your time fighting on Coruscant.

 

Besides, you usually want to help your friend reach your level so you can play together unsynced. Gaining EXP would make that harder to do.

 

Edit: Oh, and no bolstering of a lowbie up to a high level player. It should only decrease your level, not raise it.

Edited February 7, 2012 by Ashyel

[Ringko]

I loved the sidekick/exemplar system in CoH.

 

/thumbsup

[Slightlycampana]

Posting my support of this feature.

 

SWTOR is turning out to be a largely single player game for me, because I can't play with my friend. We initially planned to play our characters together, but he levels way faster than I do, so that hasn't been possible.

[Utamon]

This suggestion gets my vote.

 

I came from EQ2 with its mentoring system and its a fantastic system to keep friends playing together who have different amounts of game time available. Certainly in our small group we would play as a group much much more if some kind of mentoring system were present.

 

P

[hayeth]

I like the idea. One issue though:

 

Gaining experience from monsters way below your level is a bad idea.

 

For example: There's a spot in Tatooine where you can basically go from level 25-35 in hours by power leveling. If you could do that post level 35 by syncing to a lowbie's level, that's kind of broken and boring for all involved. Players would just find the optimum place the level and bore themselves to death.

 

Depending on how legacies turn out, it might be an idea to gain a little bit of legacy EXP when synced to a lowbie, but that's about it. Or have a conversion system for commendations so you can convert 5 Coruscant commendations into 1 Correllia commendation so you're not totally wasting your time fighting on Coruscant.

 

Besides, you usually want to help your friend reach your level so you can play together unsynced. Gaining EXP would make that harder to do.

 

Edit: Oh, and no bolstering of a lowbie up to a high level player. It should only decrease your level, not raise it.

 

Hmm, I hadn't considered that. Your suggestions might actually work better. So maybe not bolster up lowbies but only drop the high levels to the lower leveled players. That would certainly keep the pvp issue out of the picture. And I kind of like the idea of earning Legacy exp instead of regular exp. My only real concern is making the system something that would encourage high level players to do this.

 

Also I love the idea of a commendation converter. Kind of surprised one wasn't put in game.

[Mironov]

This is a very good system, found in a games such as CoX, CO, EQ2, FFXI etc.

 

I would love to see it here and the sooner the better, as it becomes harder and harder to find a group to do heroics\flashpoints, despite belonging to a clan and having a friends, as everyone has they own levelling speed.

 

 

The system should lets us bolster up \ level down to the person, chosen by a team leader. Any person will still gets his\her own amount of XP as if played at they actual level. also for such a deed a decent amount of SP are in order.

For 50 lvl, who cannot get an XP any more, make them get a double of a money drop from what they usual gain.

 

Also, since in this game, a gear is slightly more important, then in CoX or CO, I think the drops needs to be dynamical as well. If a team dropped an item, then this item for a level 10 player should be seen as a lvl 10 item, while for a lvl 34 player - as a lvl 34 item. It is not hard to implement, given that every item in the game has it's versions spanned across the levels.

After a person gets the item, it's stats become permanent.

 

This feature (along with dual spec) should greatly alleviate a waiting time for a team building and a hefty deal of fun when a person will be able to team up with his\her friends or guildmates no matter the level and all parties have they interest in it.

 

World bosses are easily solved by a "giant monster" mechanic, found in CoX.

This mechanic makes a monster deal the damage to anyone according to they level.

 

I think the same mechanic should help in world PvP as well. So if a lvl 20 player meets a lvl 40 player, the former will deal to the latter the damage as if he were a lvl 40 and vice versa.

[BigRedBeard]

I like the idea. One issue though:

 

Gaining experience from monsters way below your level is a bad idea.

 

For example: There's a spot in Tatooine where you can basically go from level 25-35 in hours by power leveling. If you could do that post level 35 by syncing to a lowbie's level, that's kind of broken and boring for all involved. Players would just find the optimum place the level and bore themselves to death.

 

Depending on how legacies turn out, it might be an idea to gain a little bit of legacy EXP when synced to a lowbie, but that's about it. Or have a conversion system for commendations so you can convert 5 Coruscant commendations into 1 Correllia commendation so you're not totally wasting your time fighting on Coruscant.

 

Besides, you usually want to help your friend reach your level so you can play together unsynced. Gaining EXP would make that harder to do.

 

Edit: Oh, and no bolstering of a lowbie up to a high level player. It should only decrease your level, not raise it.

 

I personally don't really see a problem with bolstering a lowbie up or a max toon down. What if you want to play a flashpoint with three of your friends at a higher level? As far as getting XP for doing low level missions or kills, I'm fine with getting extra money instead.

 

The side kicked version of the missions should offer level appropriate item drops and money though. I don't see any reason why not. It's not like the regular story rewards are ever as good as the flashpoints anyway. It would give higher level players incentive to help out guild mates and not punish you for playing 3 hours with your friend 20 levels below instead of at your own missions.

 

I don't really care if people want to bore themselves to death. You can't stop people from doing things to themselves. It only punishes everyone else when you do. Besides, why would you want to power level past your whole story? Seriously go play WoW if you don't like the story.

[hayeth]

I personally don't really see a problem with bolstering a lowbie up or a max toon down. What if you want to play a flashpoint with three of your friends at a higher level? As far as getting XP for doing low level missions or kills, I'm fine with getting extra money instead.

 

The side kicked version of the missions should offer level appropriate item drops and money though. I don't see any reason why not. It's not like the regular story rewards are ever as good as the flashpoints anyway. It would give higher level players incentive to help out guild mates and not punish you for playing 3 hours with your friend 20 levels below instead of at your own missions.

 

I don't really care if people want to bore themselves to death. You can't stop people from doing things to themselves. It only punishes everyone else when you do. Besides, why would you want to power level past your whole story? Seriously go play WoW if you don't like the story.

 

I think the main problem with that is loot being based around what the enemy is + its level. I could also see a lot of trouble being caused by this. So instead of regular xp they just get Legacy xp. Also, as I stated in the first post, side missions once completed shouldn't be allowed to be completed again. How can you save/destroy something again and again. The only part that should be repeatable would be the conversation so high level players can still participate when playing with low level players rather than stand around waiting for the low level player to go through the cutscene

[Mattybizzle]

Hayeth, this needs to be seen by BioWare - Consider this my signature. Taking into account how much they've learned from other titles, I'm surprised they didn't lift this from CoX. It'd be perfect; A Master and Apprentice/Padawan system.

 

Without this mechanic, the game will suffer. It helps expand the game so much, allowing people to participate more and experience more content without making it less challenging. I left City of Heroes just before SWTOR was released, so I'm relatively up to date with the goings on over there.

 

For example, taking a level 50 character in CoH and doing a level 15 Task Force (Flashpoints and Heroics, essentially) was still a challenge. Your powers got Exemplared down to level 18 (enhancements were too, but that's more complicated) so you still saw some advantages, but nothing that tipped the scales too much in your favor. That being said, I don't know how they'd exemplar gear in SWTOR. As mentioned elsewhere in the topic, CoH is based on enhancements in powers. Reducing the Rank of your individual powers down to what you would have at level 20 if you were participating in a level 15 Flashpoint may be a step in the right direction. I think gear should be left as is, with you being exemplared to the level of the mission. That would give a fairer advantage, I reckon.

 

Of course with SWTOR exemplaring should be more of a choice. Players should be able to choose whether they want to steamroll a mission or not.

 

- Hephaestus (SWTOR - Rogue Moon Server), Baltoro (CoX - Union Server)

[Bohlareon]

I endorse having a Mentoring system in the game. I find myself with a ton of characters I want to play stuck at different groups of friends levels. If I want to play that character, I would risk outleveling the group of friends I want to stick with. By allowing mentoring, I could solo my hearts desire and bring it back down to my more casual friends level so grouping and roles needed could still be fulfilled.

 

COH's system was great, but I think I liked EQ2's a little more. It allowed your gear to be brought down to the person you were mentoring's level and it felt very even and fair.

 

Great thread!

[Sapphix]

Glad to find this post so I didn't have to make one.

 

I agree, a bolster system for lower levels to quest/flashpoint with higher levels would be great.

 

I also would like to see a reverse-bolster system that would allow higher levels to play with lower levels. This would give the higher levels a challenge and not feel like they are running people through lower content. It could also increase the XP gain from lower levels - instead of higher levels gaining XP they could gain legacy and/or social points.

 

A bolster and reverse bolster system also has the potential to solve some LFG problems on lower populated servers.

[Sadare]

Id love to see sidekicking in game, COH was fabulous and is still the best teaming game out there can sidekick, exhemp and do stuff at appropiate levels also the missions where always clear on screen so folks could kno wwhere they where going doing. COH maybve getting on a bit but it still has alot going for it, UI, Icon (for costume changes) Sidekicking, GLOBAL CHAT , taht be handy as well talking to guildies on the evil side while playing the good side, talking and social are alot more promeint with the global chat channels on COH then seein the general of SW.

 

SW could go alot better in getting the grouping and getting teams if global chat was introduced , cross faction.

[hayeth]

Thank you everyone for the continued support. Lets try to get some stars on this topic!

[Mironov]

I really hope they will make something like that.

This suggestion is worth asking in the next Q&A session!

[JWagner]

I've seen this in other games.

 

And I know how much it can hurt my exp to have a higher-level friend join me on a planet to catch up to him.

 

Essentially, scale down the player so they are equal to my level, so I don't get penalized, but keep it so they don't gain more exp then they'd normally get going solo?

 

I think it would work, except the whole exp might need alot of work. We can always just block exp on the scaled down player while they are helping the other.

[Stenrik]

I support this. I play with a couple real life friends, but I kept finding myself outleveling because we all have different schedules. Now I'm 10 levels higher and the only thing I can do with them on an equal level is PVP (though we can't even duel at an equal level).

 

Sure I can help run them through stuff but it's not the same.

Edited February 14, 2012 by Stenrik

[donetello]

I fully support this idea.

 

You could add some daily or weekly quest rewards with social points, commendations or prototype level and above materials to make it more attractive to encourage the 50s and other higher levels to help train up more padawans/apprentice.

Edited February 14, 2012 by donetello

[Sknn]

\signed, also what would be cool would have the master\apprentice system to reflect at least the side, so imperial = apprentice and Repulbic = Padawan.

[LordCrisp]

Well... The up-leveling part i don't like at all... don't really see a point to an RPG if you don't have a reason to level up your character...

 

BUT...! I really miss the mentor function from EQ2 where you chose to mentor your friend or whoever you wanna mentor and then you get downgraded to their lvl (stats and gear alike)

 

I makes it so much easyer to run around and have fun with friends no matter lvl...

 

My suggestion to how it should work exp wise is just to let the high lvl one get legacy exp... that at least for me would be enough since you're already playing with a friend and having fun.. don't care about getting gear and whatever since i'm not leveling anyways, so i'm not missing anything gear wise...

 

REALLY REALLY hope that Bioware notices this suggestion and find it to be a good idea

Edited March 22, 2012 by LordCrisp

[Helishron]

I second, or 56th, this motion! I am a bit of a relaxed player and dont play every day like my freinds. It would be great for them to group with me and help me our or for me to group with them and help them out with their missions without feeling like anyone of use was being gimped to much.

 

Like others have said COH and EQ2 have great mentor systems and i think that something like this needs to be put in the game to help improve the social aspect of the game.

[Suzume_Bachi]

I wholeheartedly agree.

 

We desperately need a master/apprentice system like the exemplar/sidekick system of CoH.

 

This would greatly facilitate grouping with friends and guildies.