Single player Flashpoints

[Ekemeister]

These are already in the game! They are called class quest and there are about 50+ of them. The only difference between these and multiplayer flashpoints is they can't be repeated.

 

I'd love a hardmode version of the storyline btw.

 

It'd be awesome to do some of personal tasks a Dark Council member (SI). Or maybe take on one of the GAthering missions personally, running some of the Underworld Trading missions in person would be marvelous! Such as making sure a hutt wins by poisoning all the other gladiators in the slave pit. Or showing up to protect a client or smuggle goods. This would give some repeatable side stories and would be easy to update or add content to later.

Edited February 15, 2012 by Ekemeister

[bordendl]

This is actually done in Aion now. There is an instance that they made in group and single player mode. The rewards are very different but it is super fun.

[Timesplitter]

BW already made single player flashpoints. They're called "Baldur's Gate", "KoTOR", and "Mass Effect". Mass Effect 3 comes out soon and is amazing. Try the demo!

 

I personally would hope for more MULTIPLAYER content in my MMO. Such as multiplayer space combat before wanting content that completely defeats the purpose of me having to pay a subscription.

 

This

[Riotus]

Then why not simply ask for content that scales to group size? From solo all the way to raid? You know, kind of like every other MMO made in the past 5 years does.

 

Hmm not quite familure with any mmos that scale to group size. Wouldnt that be somewhat difficult to balance?

 

I think the main problem would be boss mechanics... a boss against one human and say 3 companions would not be able to have mechanics like fire on the ground and whatnot without a re-write of the companion AI.... So pretty much all bosses would only be tank n' spank

[Amdramnar]

The major difficulty is you would have to keep three companions gear up to date, it can be hard enough to remember to update you current companion. Going back to an earlier companion and you start thinking "He used to be a lot better" before you realize, you have not updated his gear in 15 levels.

 

This would get to be expensive and more often than not, half your group would be dying each encounter makeing for huge downtime.

[Riotus]

BW already made single player flashpoints. They're called "Baldur's Gate", "KoTOR", and "Mass Effect". Mass Effect 3 comes out soon and is amazing. Try the demo!

 

I personally would hope for more MULTIPLAYER content in my MMO. Such as multiplayer space combat before wanting content that completely defeats the purpose of me having to pay a subscription.

 

Hmmmm i guess i missed the meeting where everyone agreed that if i pay a monthly fee for a game i must be forced to play it as multiplayer....

 

last i checked ive pretty much soloed 90% in swtor, only grouping in pugs to do flashpoints and the occasional pvp.

 

If you find the multiplayer lacking in swtor, you could always go back to wow.

[Riotus]

The major difficulty is you would have to keep three companions gear up to date, it can be hard enough to remember to update you current companion. Going back to an earlier companion and you start thinking "He used to be a lot better" before you realize, you have not updated his gear in 15 levels.

 

This would get to be expensive and more often than not, half your group would be dying each encounter makeing for huge downtime.

 

Yea for this reason i think the only viable way to implement this would be to put it at lvl 50. By then u have so many alderaan commendations you can easily gear all your companions.

[rvhausen]

I think it'd be a hoot to have more than one companion at your side.

 

It feels really silly when your Trooper says "Havoc Squad, move out!", and it's just you and Elara standing there.

[loudernoises]

I think it'd also help alleviate the generally formulaic max level experiences that seem to crop up in most MMOs. Not saying there's anything wrong with character progression but it does feel like a grind sometimes. Basically trying to expand on content in the games that's already in place but with a twist. Boss mechanics would definitely need adjusting of course.

[HanzoV]

Hmmmm i guess i missed the meeting where everyone agreed that if i pay a monthly fee for a game i must be forced to play it as multiplayer....

 

Ha, good point. Since I'm paying a monthly fee, I'll be damned if I'm gonna play any way other than the way I want.

[Riotus]

Ha, good point. Since I'm paying a monthly fee, I'll be damned if I'm gonna play any way other than the way I want.

 

To each his own my friend, to each his own.

[gregordunbar]

I would be 100% for it in THIS game. The community is totally lacking and most of my guildmates have canceled so I wouldnt be playing with anyone I care about anyway.

 

PuGs and a full companion group, its the same thing in my eyes with only one small difference...no worring about a ninja.

[loudernoises]

I'm not sure I understand the whole MMORPG = grouping mentality. Personally, for me, MMOs are about freedom to choose what your gameplay consists on a day to day basis. Just because on Tuesday I chose to run a FP with my companions because that's fun for ME doesn't mean I won't choose to run a FP the following Tuesday with friends/ guild mates. My experiences that I choose to pay for have no bearing on the experiences someone else pays for and vice versa.

 

Needless to say, I derailed myself in my own thread. Sorry about that.

 

Back to the discussion!!

Edited February 15, 2012 by loudernoises

[ferroz]

There's a class quest where you can adventure with all your companions at the same time?

Isn't that part of the class quest line for the

trooper? They do their last missions with all of havoc squad or something like that?

[Beyorn]

I would love this but for no other reason then more companion interaction. Also I would like to farm them for some orange gear that isn't so butt ugly (Counselor here ;D).

[Spawn_of_Santa]

Hmm not quite familure with any mmos that scale to group size. Wouldnt that be somewhat difficult to balance?

 

City of Heroes does this quite well. You not only can change the difficulty of your missions (from one level below you to 4 levels above you) but you can also change how the game sees you as far as team size (from a single character to a team of 8).

 

So basically, if you're feeling particularly masochistic (or your hero/villain is a total bad-***), you can set the game so the mobs are 4 levels above you & spawn as though you're on a team of eight--even if you're solo). Granted, this only works for instanced areas of course but there are many such areas in SWTOR where that would work fine.

 

But back to the original post: Excellent idea!

 

Like somebody else said earlier in the thread, I would immediately sub for another year if I could have all of my companions out at one time & do a solo FP (or heck, just being able to solo a 4-man Heroic at the level I get it would be awesome).

[SpankyMcFlych]

Considering how terribad the pet ai is in this game (how they managed to make their pets even dumber then wow pets I don't know, but they did) I think this would probably be doomed to fail.

 

Or beyond the pet ai, can you imagine taking an elevator with 3 pets out? Or how often you'd have to stop and wait or resummon a pet because it got stuck on a piece of terrain?

 

The inherent weakness of tank pets would make the content built for this incredibly toned down as well. Which would mean a player tank + healpet + 2 dps would absolutely murder it.

[ptwonline]

The major difficulty is you would have to keep three companions gear up to date, it can be hard enough to remember to update you current companion. Going back to an earlier companion and you start thinking "He used to be a lot better" before you realize, you have not updated his gear in 15 levels.

 

This would get to be expensive and more often than not, half your group would be dying each encounter makeing for huge downtime.

 

This is an issue while leveling up. It's not so much of an issue at level 50 when you don't have much else to do except work on tertiary things anyway like affection levels, social rank, and in this case companion gear.

 

The danger of this kind of system is that if it works well and people can (even with more time and effort) get the same rewards, then the multiplayer version of the same content will be largely abandoned. That's because generally speaking, people prefer to do things themselves instead of the time/hassle/judgement from getting or being in a group.

 

Look at GW1. For the most part people just did everything they could by themselves with their own companions unless they absolutely had no choice but to get help from others. Sure some people always did prefer to group, but for the most part it was solo play everywhere you looked.

[Dirtybomb]

1. Because it's an MMO, not a MGO (Must Group Online)

2. Finding a group sometimes takes too long

3. Sometimes relying on bots is better than relying on people

4. Not everyone plays MMO strictly for the 'multiplayer'

5. There is already solo content (or content that can be solo'd), why not more?

...

I could keep going.

 

Can't say I would spend a lot of time on this type of FP if it were available, but I see no reason why they couldn't put it in. Wouldn't hurt me. Of course they would either have to (1) make a considerable improvement to the companion AI or (2) give us enough space on our UI to be able to micromanage all of our companions at once.

 

I wouldn't support this, however, if it meant taking away dev resources from dealing with the existing issues or creating more group content.

[Clarian]

The danger of this kind of system is that if it works well and people can (even with more time and effort) get the same rewards, then the multiplayer version of the same content will be largely abandoned. That's because generally speaking, people prefer to do things themselves instead of the time/hassle/judgement from getting or being in a group.

 

If you're right and people prefer to solo stuff, then is the abandonment of multi-player really any great loss?

[HanzoV]

Can't say I would spend a lot of time on this type of FP if it were available, but I see no reason why they couldn't put it in. Wouldn't hurt me. Of course they would either have to (1) make a considerable improvement to the companion AI or (2) give us enough space on our UI to be able to micromanage all of our companions at once.

I wouldn't support this, however, if it meant taking away dev resources from dealing with the existing issues or creating more group content.

 

See, that's just the thing, I don't think it would take a great deal of time/resources. Mind you, I'm not a game developer, but since the companion system already exists, as do flashpoints, it look's like it would be slight tweaking to allow us to access existing flashpoints AND allow us to summon multiple companions.

 

I'm not about robbing Peter to pay Paul; everyone should get their preferred content at some point.

Edited February 15, 2012 by HanzoV

[LaManoNera]

Hmm not quite familure with any mmos that scale to group size. Wouldnt that be somewhat difficult to balance?

 

 

CoH, LoTRO, CO, Rift, STO, WAR, GW 2, etc.

 

People are talking about choice, so scaling content is the best way to make everyone happy. But the last thing this game needs is more exclusively single player content.

[loudernoises]

CoH, LoTRO, CO, Rift, STO, WAR, GW 2, etc.

 

People are talking about choice, so scaling content is the best way to make everyone happy. But the last thing this game needs is more exclusively single player content.

 

The thing is, it's not content exclusive to single players. As it stands right now, all FPs and group quests are available to groups consisting of players. All this idea does is add more dimension to content that's already in-game. It's not taking anything away from those people who choose to experience things that are already in place for them to experience right now.

 

Actually, while being single players story driven, SWTOR can be levelled with other people as well. The argument that SWTOR is already focused on single player enough seems to come up quite a lot. Any of the content in game can be experienced with a group, if you choose to do so.

Edited February 15, 2012 by loudernoises

[el_pinko_grande]

I think this is a great idea, as well. I'd love to use my companions. And the companion AI never struck me as bad, but I also never use tank companions, and that seems to be where most of the complaints lie.

[el_pinko_grande]

Oh, and this would require more development time, but having your companions talk to each other during these FPs would rule. I'm imagining all the horrible things Vette and Jaesa would say to each other if you're romancing them both.