canofbutter Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Quests not marked as heroic or group should be able to be completed at their specified level. Several "bosses" for class quests or other solo quests require over-leveling or grouping to complete. I love a challenge and certainly don't always want victory to be a given, but traveling ahead to new planets to level on side quests or grouping up with another player because of a boss gate in the class quest or other solo quest that is at your current level and overpowered doesn't provide "challenge" it provides annoyance and grind. Quests that are not heroic, flashpoints, etc should not have overpowered bosses (e.g. Apprentice Loell, Sabotage the Gormak, Marcovic, Valis, etc). Overleveling breaks the "feel" of the story progression - an important aspect of the class quests, especially. Bosses like this need to be "toned down" a little so that it is possible to continue and complete quest at its specified level. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HelinCarnate Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) I have played quite a few cass quests and so far, none of them require you to be higher level. Granted some are difficult and some people may need help, but that does not make it a requirement. Edited February 7, 2012 by HelinCarnate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canofbutter Posted February 7, 2012 Author Share Posted February 7, 2012 Well that's good for you, I suppose - it wouldn't be such an issue if resurrect times after a few dozen deaths weren't so freaking long as well. Given the very large number of LFG requests I see for these bosses in particular, I would guess that for most average players the difficulty is not reasonable to play the game as intended and keep level continuity. One should not have to be a near-perfect player just to progress through the stories in the game. Leave forming perfect strategy to PvP, Heroics, and Flashpoints - solo quests should be geared more toward more average players. Apprentice Loell is a great example of this - killing this mob is part of a solo quest, yet is a level 35 champion with over 77k hp - that's not reasonable. Unlike "traditional" games, there's no way to lower a difficulty setting if you're not a super-awesome-elite-best-of-the-best RPG player just to move on. This balance is more and more important as you approach the end of the story as you run out of feasible ways to over-level (due to the level 50 cap and lack of additional planets) and the planets are SO sparsely populated on some servers that you can't even find a group to help in that way. This attitude alienates casual players big time. I don't even consider myself all that casual, though I'm probably more "average" than anything. It's a great way to shrink your user base down to near nothing if you halt progression near the end of the solo game. Hardcore players can find enough challenge in Heroics, Flashpoints, PvP, etc. Those aren't part of solo stories (class story or planet story arcs) and if a particular Heroic or Flashpoint is too much for your group, it's probably more about the make-up of the group than the difficulty of the quest. Unlike most MMOs that have come before SWTOR, the story matters, and being able to play it reasonably matters too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freor Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 This attitude alienates casual players big time. While you may not mean it that way, I don't think it's fair to treat casual players as less skilled people. At least for me, "casual" = less playtime/more random playtimes, but it just means they level/progress slower - not that they are worse players. I would say that storyline difficulty depends on class, but I'd also think they have balanced them knowing what tools players have in their use, compared to normal quests which all 4 base classes do. Only playing sage (consular) and guardian (knight) atm myself, havent had any major problems. In fact, I find most of the encounters way too easy. That said, would be cool if there was a way to "adjust" the difficulty a little, so people don't get stuck while also giving the option for "hard mode" fighting for those of us that need it. Feel free to check the sig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canofbutter Posted February 7, 2012 Author Share Posted February 7, 2012 Fair point about casual vs. less skilled, you can read "less skilled" in place of casual in my above comments. I'd support an ability to reduce difficulty in non-group PvE exchange for say fewer credits in drops or making rare/high quality items less common (e.g. if a prototype item usually has a 0.1% chance to drop, make it 0.05% if you are playing an "easy" mode). I've played most of the Guardian (Knight) quests as well as the planet republic series quests and although most encounters are extremely easy, there are instances like the ones I mentioned above that are VERY jarring, unbalanced, and I found impossible without taking unusual measures like grouping-up or over-leveling. Given the very large number of LFG requests I see on most of these quests as well, it is very safe to say that a large number of people have the same problem. In many cases these fights aren't even close - it's not like I'm dying with the boss at 10% health or something - in which case a stim, chance from crits, medpacks, better cooldown management, etc would help. No, in most of these cases when at the appropriate level the fight ends with the boss having more than 50% of its health left (85%+ with Loell) - even with the best gear I and my companion can equip. I've even thrown a large number of credits toward respec'ing my skill tree in various ways to help with the fights - they go no better. It's possible I and the people asking for help are just not "getting it", but there's no indication whatsoever on how to do better - you can interrupt boss abilities, push, stasis, use med packs, build focus/manage resource, hit with powers not on cool down, time stacked abilities, use barriers, use heroic moment when needed, etc and still fail spectacularly when at level with these guys. If even given all that, your strategy has to be even more perfect, the boss is overpowered. That has been the case for me for all the bosses I mentioned above. If Bioware logs all the fight actions, they'll be able to see how people are fighting, and if they are generally seeing the same problems (like how Marcovic hit for nearly 1/4 of your hp with one of his abilities that you may not be able to interrupt if you already interrupted something else recently and you kick isn't available yet). Winning against bosses should require you to only be ok at the game maybe even just be "somewhat good" - you shouldn't have to be perfect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freor Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) If you do all those things that you listed and still fail, yeah, I'd have to agree the bosses in question might be lil hard. Looking forward to try em on my guardian for sure It's quests like those where difficulty scaling would work best imho. Having said that, so many of the requests to make content even easier than it is now, comes from people who are just used to button smashing. Like, no idea/interest to use interupts, LoS, cc, not interested upgrading gear and so on. While I'm not against making content accessible to all, I do find it a bit extreme to scale content for them, and make rest suffer from ridiculously easy encounters. Hence why I'd like the option to adjust difficulty. Your point about scaling loot as well is very good. I didn't put that in my original suggestion to avoid getting flamed for "ruling people out of loot" etc, but definitely something i could support as well. Edit: Btw, use paragraphs. You have many good points and thoughts but reading wall of text makes most people skip them Edited February 7, 2012 by Freor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DTuloJr Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 The problem isn't necessarily that the bosses are "too difficult", it's that the Jedi Knight class is a piece of paper. It's as if armor does not exist on us at all, especially compared to our companions (such as Kira, in LIGHT armor, who typically comes out with 1/5 the damage *I* do). At some point, BWA nerfed us (possibly during later stages of Beta), beefed up mobs, and, it sometimes feels, turned off armor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drake_Hound Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 The problem isn't necessarily that the bosses are "too difficult", it's that the Jedi Knight class is a piece of paper. It's as if armor does not exist on us at all, especially compared to our companions (such as Kira, in LIGHT armor, who typically comes out with 1/5 the damage *I* do). At some point, BWA nerfed us (possibly during later stages of Beta), beefed up mobs, and, it sometimes feels, turned off armor. Nah all classes suffers from that later on , go to ilum , you hardly see people running around without a healer companion. That one has been severly nerfed too. Best example is heroic 2 on both bonus , 3 selfhealing droids make soloing that crap near impossible , npc has in many cases been overbuffed and our companions over nerfed. Thus the less skilled suffered cause some of the idiotic drama Kings and queens , keep making up the phrase it is a mmo , so make everything hard so people have to party forever. Sorry this is 2012 and with the huge new generation of gamers , who want to be selfreliant. The developer just missed the cue and idea of this . Don't worry they will Soon sing another tune, once this month is over . And realise they made a mistake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AsheraII Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) Agree on Apprentice Loell. For the rest: try leveling a Sniper in the Marksman tree: every mission feels like a heroic, with your abysmal tank companions dying on every pull in a matter of seconds. Without either medpack abuse or spending a fortune on grenades, you just won't make it against any packs sized bigger than 3 mobs. WTB a melee-tanking companion for Snipers, with AOE agro and a medium self-heal on a 1-minute cooldown. Edited February 7, 2012 by AsheraII Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mcfondles Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) I love the level of difficulty in this game! BUT I do think that some classes have an easier time than other classed.. and ranged classes will always have an easier time than melee classes. With that said I choose melee classes like assassins for the challenge.. and I go deception for the challenge.. Sure I could go darkness and never die.. But I like the challenge of struggling to kill the enemy before they have the time to kill me.. So I for one wouldn't change anything about the difficulty.. Maybe just make things a little more challenging for ranged classes (I got bored on my bounty hunter and stopped playing him.. it's just way too easy) Edited February 7, 2012 by Mcfondles Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RowanThursday Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 /me mutters "&^&@ing Lightspring", and agrees. Also, the Sith Inquisitor's end-of-act-one confrontation (as spoiler-free as I can get it). I appreciate that the game should be challenging, not disputing that... *but*, to avoid story-train-wrecking, the 'barriers' shouldn't be on class quests, because if player a decides to have to give up and go to another planet to grind first, or what-have-you, then it messes with the story progression. At the very least, there shouldn't be sadistic decisions like whoever decided that dying in Lightspring would reset the entire instance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FoxNemhauser Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) (e.g. Apprentice Loell, Sabotage the Gormak, Marcovic, Valis, etc) Bosses like this need to be "toned down" a little so that it is possible to continue and complete quest at its specified level. I would only agree with the "Apprentice Loell" but since it's not in the class quest line I won't. If I recall correctly it's not even a normal quest, it's just a bonus stage from a quest. Nothing bad will happen if you skip that boss, you will lose a small amount of experience and credits, that is all. I'm glad that there are bosses that require something more than just pressing random attack buttons. You might also need to have better gear and/or switch to a different companion. I duo'ed that quest, not because it was hard but someone was near that boss waiting for help. I'm not sure if I could solo it but I know that my friend who plays a tank did. I also remember the "Sabotage the Gormak", I did it with a healing companion, I think I had to pop a med kit too, but overall I did the quest without dying. And again, it's not a class quest so I'm fine with it. I had no idea who Marcovic and Valis were so I googled/youtubed them - I do know that i've soloed them and since I don't recall them then they were not problematic (I guess I could have died, it happened to me before, but I was certainly not wiping on them constantly). If I was to nit pick on the difficulty: the jedi knight class quest on Hoth, the one that has entrance around those mini volcanos. When you go inside, there is a gold elite on the left side (after you take the elevator down) and once you start fighting with that elite - another gold elite shows up. I was unable to finish them off, my healer could not handle the damage dealt and I was unable to burn any of those elites fast enough, even when I was a couple levels above them. Fortunatelly they were not on the way to the main quest so I eventually skipped them. I tried it with Kira but to no avail and my t7 was not geared so I did not bother with him. A tank was probably needed there (main or companion). I was still fine with them being there. ---- One more thing - what kind of quality is your gear? Since early 15 I always made sure to wear at least blue on level gear (there were lots of purples on the way) - for myself and for the companions I played with (kira/doc). I'm asking that because I saw some players dying frequently and after inspecting their gear - I always knew why - they were wearing green gear that was couple levels behinds, sometimes even without relics/implants. Edited February 7, 2012 by FoxNemhauser Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canofbutter Posted February 7, 2012 Author Share Posted February 7, 2012 Even for bonus quests, if it indicates it's solo, it should be solo-able. I don't think nerfing their abilities is the right move, there are weaknesses in how armor and companion AI work, as well as the amount of HP they're given. Instead of a boss having good tactics and AI, they just pump up their HP to compensate. Lowering the HP would still force you to learn good tactics (like interrupting, breaking from from incapacitating effects, etc) without death being a near certainty for anyone who isn't perfect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canmore Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 i havent found anything my level that abit of forethought and a good med pack cant fix . maybe make friends with a biochem guy who could throw a few prototype packs your way , or god forbid group with a friend . most classes can CC use it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canofbutter Posted February 7, 2012 Author Share Posted February 7, 2012 This problem isn't fixed by "I'm awesome - so if you're not, go group up". That was the whole point of this thread. Why should a given class, advanced class, or skill tree be so weak that the only option is to group up for solo quests. I like grouping Heroics and Flashpoints, and I do quite well when I do. Pumping up on stims and medpacks helps, but not always and even those should not be required to finish off a boss - they should be what's there to give lesser-skilled players an "edge" to move on with the story quests. Besides, at least on the server I use, grouping is rarely an option - I went through 3 whole planets from levels 35-48 without hardly seeing a single other person online there. I have a backlog of over a dozen Heroics I still haven't done because I couldn't find a group. This game may be an MMO, but the way the single player content is set up it can almost be considered KOTOR 3. I want to know what happens in these stories, and I don't want to break my suspension of disbelief just because Bioware figured they needed to weed out players by skill level at various stages of the single player campaign. Add more nightmare flashpoints or go solo a Heroic if you like an overwhelming challenge, but overpowering bosses at any level will simply drive away lower skilled players that should be making Bioware money and funding the updates and additions for the high-skill players that often don't care about anything other than PvP anyway. I've had two friends already quit playing over this never even paid for an additional month after buying the base game - it's why I'm bringing it up at all. These people were not that low-skilled with most other games - they'd play on "normal" difficulty in Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Skyrim, etc with few to no problems, yet felt completely overwhelmed by major points in this game. Heck, even I play Skyrim on "master" difficulty with very few issues and I have been having trouble with this game at several of the above mentioned points. If Bioware doesn't want to drive off lower-skilled players and lose money they need to balance the challenge for the high-skilled hardcore gamers while making sure lower-skilled players can still enjoy the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canmore Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 This problem isn't fixed by "I'm awesome - so if you're not, go group up". That was the whole point of this thread. Why should a given class, advanced class, or skill tree be so weak that the only option is to group up for solo quests. I like grouping Heroics and Flashpoints, and I do quite well when I do. Pumping up on stims and medpacks helps, but not always and even those should not be required to finish off a boss - they should be what's there to give lesser-skilled players an "edge" to move on with the story quests. Besides, at least on the server I use, grouping is rarely an option - I went through 3 whole planets from levels 35-48 without hardly seeing a single other person online there. I have a backlog of over a dozen Heroics I still haven't done because I couldn't find a group. This game may be an MMO, but the way the single player content is set up it can almost be considered KOTOR 3. I want to know what happens in these stories, and I don't want to break my suspension of disbelief just because Bioware figured they needed to weed out players by skill level at various stages of the single player campaign. Add more nightmare flashpoints or go solo a Heroic if you like an overwhelming challenge, but overpowering bosses at any level will simply drive away lower skilled players that should be making Bioware money and funding the updates and additions for the high-skill players that often don't care about anything other than PvP anyway. I've had two friends already quit playing over this never even paid for an additional month after buying the base game - it's why I'm bringing it up at all. These people were not that low-skilled with most other games - they'd play on "normal" difficulty in Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Skyrim, etc with few to no problems, yet felt completely overwhelmed by major points in this game. Heck, even I play Skyrim on "master" difficulty with very few issues and I have been having trouble with this game at several of the above mentioned points. If Bioware doesn't want to drive off lower-skilled players and lose money they need to balance the challenge for the high-skilled hardcore gamers while making sure lower-skilled players can still enjoy the game. hmm i think what your saying is we should get to use an additional companion when solo . aka kotor 3 , you know id like that , but sections of the game would have the same difficulty as hello kitty . now if you say a solo player can add an extra companion in herioc areas only , that would work and id like it , but really its kinda missing the point of being an mmo lol i mean i would love to play the game totally as kotor 3 but i dought it would happen =) i loved dragon age origins , have the ultimate edition but would it make a good mmorpg , i loved the game but...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canofbutter Posted February 7, 2012 Author Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) I'm not really saying that adding another companion would be a good idea - as most general areas would pretty much just let you sit back and watch - which is no fun at all. Heroics are fine as they are - I've played a few and like how they feel with when grouped (as is expected). Just down the solo quest boss HP (yes even for "bonus" quests, since the rewards are usually so paltry) and tweak the armor - especially heavy armor - which just feels like paper - there's almost no point to armor rating - I'm yet to see any real difference in how hard I'm hit whether I have 300 armor or 0. Edited February 7, 2012 by canofbutter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sabarok Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 If there's a quest that's supposed to be soloable and you're on level and can't solo it, file a ticket so the devs know to look into that quest. My healer spec Sorc never had any problems with the class quest. From 30+, I was even averaging 2 levels below every quest, and there was only 1 boss that I wasn't able to solo while 2 levels below. I think it was a level 45 quest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canofbutter Posted February 7, 2012 Author Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) I file a ticket, they told me to come here. If that's your skill level, then I'm impressed - it's apparently not mine (or maybe Guardian's really underpowered) and it's not what I see from most of the people I encounter. Edited February 7, 2012 by canofbutter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freor Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Could be a guardian issue yeah. I also leveled first toon from 30ish to 45 while being 3-4 levels below the quests, with very few problems. Few deaths on really hard encounters, but in the end everything was doable solo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auzirix Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 It's not just a Guardian thing. It's the DPS potential of certain quest mobs, such as the Gormak Tech Guard on Voss, which hits harder than any elite you run into up until then but is only a strong mob. The problem is you will be questing as normal, then you'll run into these quests that are extremely hard for (I'm guessing) certain classes. I've been playing a Scoundrel and I've run into this more than a few times. It's not a matter of making everything in the game easy, it's a matter of balancing the damage for these few quest NPCs so it doesn't feel like you hit road-blocks while questing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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