Horizontal scaling, a new type of progression.

[federdr]

nice idea, please listen Bioware, just a little.

[Trispast]

I like the idea, some of the boss fights in this game are great, it would be a huge waste to see them ignored.

[alexzk]

Good idea, at least time spending here will have sence, unlike now, why should I grind best if it will be new lelvel cap soon and best will be common.

Unique and best things must be unique and best. I quit 3 games already just because of it - each couple months there is new level cap and new gear and new time spend for the same grind. Excuse me but when to play? :/ (SWTOR looked promising until i hit 50 - now I see same grind )

 

However horizontal scale brings new problem for developers - if we have static gear how to add new content? Well, you will have to think a lot here, instead adding more xp and power to boss you will have to develope new killing tactics and abilities for mobs.

And dont be scared - people will not complain it is too hard just because they will kill for titles and fun and not for better gear. Actually I think it will take months before people will want something new. Because each new run is same hard as before on the same boss.

 

Also you can expand game by adding new skills to class tree (aka new lvl cap) but it can be learned only by doing activities. For example, If you killed hard boss or killed 200 enemy trooppers in one day you've learned new tactics. But level remains 50 in fact. Important to have couple alternatives like you can learn A through killing boss or B and C doing pvp. And better to get those random like RE do now especially for PVP skills or by long-long quest. Also you can unlock +1 skill into existing tree if you closed all OPs during 4 days for example. You can repeat it next month again up-to 3 times - so we have 3 lvl caps.

 

And next bosses may relay on those new skills added, like you can beat him using A or B and C. So ultimate new content can be explorered by "skilled" person in both sences.

Something like "Dragon Slayer passive - now You can see the weakness of Dragons. Outgoing dmg to dragons is increased by 200%". or "Assasin defence - by fighting assasins you've learned their technique, +2% to defence chance".

It can be mixex, for example if you're biochem 400 and killed rakghoul champion you learn new recipe - adrenal of rakghoul rage etc. If you survived under continous attack of 5 ppl during 1 minute you've unlocked "infinite calm = +50% defence chance for 15 secs", a lot of to imagine here. You see the point.

 

Old characters will have some advantages over new but not big or usefull in some situations only. Almsot same as current legacy system do. Maybe it can be added to legacy not to single class tree. Your choise.

Edited June 12, 2012 by alexzk

[Defdaddy]

Like someone said before there are pro's and con's to both.

 

Frankly, I am growing tired of hearing people complain about a "PvP grind". This PvP grind is virtually non-existant unless you are grinding War Hero right now before ranked Warzones are implemented due to having to convert WZ comms. The difference between War Hero and Battlemaster is MINIMAL.

 

As the community seems to agree it is not difficult to get full BM in a week. If you cant deal with getting your butt kicked for a week before playing on an even level then I am surprised you play MMO's at all. The QQ'ing has never been louder and it has never been easier to get battlemaster.

 

And honestly as a voice of reason I still had fun PvP'ing when I first became 50 and I was grinding Gear Bags which took ALOT longer to gear up. PvP is all about adapting, when PvP actually was grinding for gear I still managed to be a positive force on my team (be the turret defender on alderaan), Kite players away from objective points and help finish off players with low health in a group fight and focus on getting into a good passing position in Huttball. If you have protection get out of LoS and SPAM the Hell out of it---that is a great help to your team and you dont need gear to do it and Help with Stuns.

 

All of the above is fun and very helpful to the team. Stop expecting to do what you did and play the same way as levels 40 - 49. Believe it or not that week or so of getting your *** kicked WILL make you a better player and LETS BE HONEST. 50 PvP requires far more skill and tactics as a tea, to be successfull then the low brackets typical everyman just try to smash who is in front of you.

Edited June 12, 2012 by Defdaddy

[alexzk]

yes, that's a key point "when u got 50" [1st time]

 

I made my first char on other server at Feb. It was fun before 50 and after. Next char after legacy update I was a bit lazy to gear. When I re-rolled to other server and made same char as 1st I'm just borried to do same things again. Like 2nd job.

 

And some people want to play 8 characters...

If they will do level 52 and some WH-2 set and same grind for it, I will not do. It's enough for me of current 3 times. I don't want to do that each couple months :/ I want fair equal fight That is fun.

Edited June 12, 2012 by alexzk

[Pavixx]

Like someone said before there are pro's and con's to both.

 

Frankly, I am growing tired of hearing people complain about a "PvP grind". This PvP grind is virtually non-existant unless you are grinding War Hero right now before ranked Warzones are implemented due to having to convert WZ comms. The difference between War Hero and Battlemaster is MINIMAL.

 

As the community seems to agree it is not difficult to get full BM in a week. If you cant deal with getting your butt kicked for a week before playing on an even level then I am surprised you play MMO's at all. The QQ'ing has never been louder and it has never been easier to get battlemaster.

 

And honestly as a voice of reason I still had fun PvP'ing when I first became 50 and I was grinding Gear Bags which took ALOT longer to gear up. PvP is all about adapting, when PvP actually was grinding for gear I still managed to be a positive force on my team (be the turret defender on alderaan), Kite players away from objective points and help finish off players with low health in a group fight and focus on getting into a good passing position in Huttball. If you have protection get out of LoS and SPAM the Hell out of it---that is a great help to your team and you dont need gear to do it and Help with Stuns.

 

All of the above is fun and very helpful to the team. Stop expecting to do what you did and play the same way as levels 40 - 49. Believe it or not that week or so of getting your *** kicked WILL make you a better player and LETS BE HONEST. 50 PvP requires far more skill and tactics as a tea, to be successfull then the low brackets typical everyman just try to smash who is in front of you.

The PvP "grind" is about a week long atm. I find 1 week is a fair investment to be geared. My concern is with vertical scaling. What happens when a new tier comes out? And the next?

When you keep up with vertical scaling, its not so bad. Its when you level an alt and there are 8 tiers of gear to work through before you are relevant.

[Pavixx]

This thread is a pipe dream btw.

BW won't read the thread and nobody in the MMO business would stick out their neck to attempt this model.

 

WoW is a proven model and its currently generating profit for BW so why change it?

[alexzk]

This thread is a pipe dream btw.

BW won't read the thread and nobody in the MMO business would stick out their neck to attempt this model.

 

WoW is a proven model and its currently generating profit for BW so why change it?

 

Bcs people don't like it. Those who likes returned back to the WoW. My friend paid account in about Feb. Right now account changed 3 players and all 3 returned to WoW finally. I dont think it will be ever extended.

Edited June 12, 2012 by alexzk

[alrun]

I am a horizontal level player. I do like beating puzzles and they should be a challenge.

I do like warzones 10-49 as there we already have a horizontal scaling.

 

But I have noticed I am different from other players as well - there are players out there that NEED their EPEEN.

They need their gear and they go out to farm gear. They do not care about a challenge but care for gear looted.

 

Those players you won't hook with a horizontal scaling / they want content to be trivialized and gain loot to show off.

 

horizontal warzones and flash points in addition to the other stuff would be great.

[lordniah]

I agree completely with the OP and with Traugrim. Spending the end game grinding for gear is not fun. On the other hand, I wish there was better looking armor in this game.

[Majspuffen]

But I have noticed I am different from other players as well - there are players out there that NEED their EPEEN.

They need their gear and they go out to farm gear. They do not care about a challenge but care for gear looted.

 

To me, this sounds like a silly issue but I guess that it is an actuall issue. I do not doubt that there are people out there who really wants to perform better than others because they have spent time and effort in the game. I'm not sure how many they are, nor could I fully understand their opinions since I've never played with someone who desired such "power". Most people I play with want balance more than anything else and in vertical scaling, there can be no balance!

 

I do think that moddable gear can satisfy most of the e-peen cravings. Have an armor with a certain model/colour that shows that you've beaten the hardest boss in the game. It may cause them to lose some customers but in the long run, I think they'll gain more. A lot of people are tired of the wow-model of releasing content. Lord knows I am. Before this game was released, the one thing I praised more than anything else was the fact that warzones wouldn't be cross-server. It was a huge difference from wow and thus far (in spite of low population) I've enjoyed it far more than cross-server battlegrounds. My point here is that they did something different from wow and I as a customer loved it. If you disagree I ask you to keep your opinions to yourself, I don't want this thread to derail into a discussion whether cross server warzones is a good or bad idea. There are plenty of threads on that subject.

 

What this game should have been from the get go was: 1-49: vertical co-op. 50: Horizontal sandbox.

 

Yes. The levelling process should be seen as a flight of stairs and once you reach the top, you'll want a broad selection of things to do in order to continue your adventure. When I first completed Mass Effect I was kinda baffled by the fact that the game ended. I wanted to continue to explore the galaxy! That's how SWTOR's "end" should be like. Right now, when a player reaches level 50 there's Ilum to explore, with its own story that leads into two flashpoints, and the black hole area which.. is a bit lacklustre in comparison. Nevertheless, the game is young and bioware should focus on adding more content in ADDITION to the old content, not to REPLACE old content.

 

I agree completely with the OP and with Traugrim. Spending the end game grinding for gear is not fun. On the other hand, I wish there was better looking armor in this game.

 

Hihi.. well.. that's off-topic and very subjective. I agree with you, however. The end game armor in most cases looks like crap and I'd rather see a dozen recoloured versions of gear you obtain through levelling that actually looks good ... but again, off-topic!

[Indrani]

Great Topic and I fully and whole heartedly agree.

 

Get rid of the Gear-Wars and switch to more Vanity Item rewards.

People still will go for Raiding and Hard Mode Dungeons if they get unique looking Gear. Gear is a Status-Symbol. It doesn't have to be powerful in order to be attractive. My experience in MMOs is that people see it this way: Rare = Awesome.

Powerful or not, becomes suddenly a secondary reason.

 

Also something I often heard in many many many conversations with Hard-Core WoW Raiders:

Raider: "You know I don't really like Raiding anymore"

Q: "Why are you doing it then...?"

Raider: "Because I need the gear!"

Q: "Why do you need the gear?"

Raider: "So I can go Raid!"

 

In other Words he does something he hates, just so he can get things that help him continue doing that thing he hates so much.

 

Saw this Conversation plenty of times. The reason they hate it isn't really the Raiding as such. The reason they hate it is the Grind. It's a Chore, and not fun. Simple as that.

 

And eventually they will cancle their Sub.

 

Watch Sandox Games. They have much lower Sub Numbers, yes I agree. But their Fan Base is incredibly dedicated and failthful to their MMO of choice (not to mention less Nerd-Ragers, Maybe has to do with the fact that one needs a little bit more of a mature mind for a Sandbox MMO then you need for a Theme-Park MMO).

Problem is: Sandboxes take a lot of effort and work and dedication. And they're often complicated to get into (It's a long term thing, not just for the quick fun). Many people will just quit before they even get the hang out of it, because they're too lazy and impatient (In EVE they call this process "The Idiot Filter". While I don't really agree with this ugly term, I can't deny that it has it's truth to it after all).

 

As someone else in this Topic already mentioned: the closest to this idea we have currently is probably EVE Online. It's by far not perfect, but it's the best choice for every Sci-Fi fan that also loves the Sandbox Concept.

 

I love Star Wars very much. And ToR is a solid and exciting MMO. I will keep my Sub, of course, for the Love of Star Wars. But I find myself going back to EVE Online the longer the more. Why?

Because the Gear-War in ToR just destroys the experience.

 

I don't know if this is the main reason why people also keep quitting WoW. However, the people in our Guilds that quit WoW are all saying they quit because they're tired of the Gear-Grind and having to repeat that with every new Expansion.

 

Please take this matter serious BioWare.

 

For the Sake of this nice MMO, take the Original-Post serious! It's a great idea and I feel it's the way to go for all future MMOs.

 

Thank you for bringing up this wonderful Topic.

 

- Indrani

[Majspuffen]

I don't know if this is the main reason why people also keep quitting WoW. However, the people in our Guilds that quit WoW are all saying they quit because they're tired of the Gear-Grind and having to repeat that with every new Expansion.

 

I think a lot of people leave WoW in search of something new. In the last 5-6 years MMORPGs have come and gone and most of them literally copy WoW's formula in addition to tweaks and perks that could be considered unique. These things WoW end up copying because they were good ideas. They take the area loot from SWTOR, as an example.

 

Bioware really delivered on their fourth pillar. The story is amazing and I don't think anyone can argue that the levelling experience in this game isn't fantastic. But the levelling progress is vertical, and as such if you are level 30 you cannot really play with a friend you invited to the game until both of you reach end game. If you reach end game before your friend then there will be a gear gap between the two of you. If the two of you play together you'll end up carrying your friend which isn't fun for either of you, and you'll trivialize the content so that your friend cannot get the chance to experience the challenge you went through. It's so blindingly obvious to me and I can't see why SWTOR copied this formula.

 

The problem is community. My own guild died, we were a small guild and everyone but two have left (me and another). I'm considering going back to wow even though I like this game so much more. Why? Because my old guild in wow hasn't disbanded. If I go back I'll have people to talk to and play with. Community is so damn important and vertical scaling is the culprit that seperates it.

 

For the Sake of this nice MMO, take the Original-Post serious! It's a great idea and I feel it's the way to go for all future MMOs.

 

Thank you for bringing up this wonderful Topic.

 

- Indrani

 

Thank you :> ... I don't expect anything like this to make it into the game, especially not since I have to contineously bump this thread inbetween. But I hope and dream ^^ hope and dream.

Edited June 17, 2012 by Majspuffen

[alexzk]

Best PVP game EVER created by humanity is the Chess. Just think about ...

 

And everybody has equal "gear" when it starts. So why all MMO do in other way? Just bcs faster to implement?

[Majspuffen]

Bumping my own thread.

 

Now with the group finder, I yearn for horizontal scaling even more. I realize that I have evolved as a gamer and I don't care for the grind at all anymore. Yesterday when I queued up, I wanted a social experience. I ended up in Taral V with a group. I said Hi and I think another person may have said Hi as well, and then that was it. Everyone ran like we were supposed to know what we were doing in order to not waste time. I.e, by skipping every mob and even the first mini-boss on the path towards the base.

 

It was then that I realized that these people would no doubt want to skip cutscenes and such as well, and there was zero conversation in the group. I was reminded by WoW far too much, so I quit the group. I'm not oblivious as to why it is like this, people need to run their instances in order to get gear so they can raid with their friends. It's a necessity, albeit not a fun one, wherein the problem lies. Doing an instance once and knowing that you can do it again is a lot more satisfying than doing an instance once and knowing that you'll need to do it again.

 

I think Bioware has a great concept for instances with The Black Talon and The Esseles. I'd say Flashpoints could be adventure maps that you do at your own leisure. During my time in SWTOR I haven't played many flashpoints, heck, I defeated both Karaggas Palace and Eternity Vault in nightmare mode (in pvp gear mind you, as a healer) and I still haven't beaten all flashpoints on hardmode yet! So when I play a flashpoint I typically do it for two reasons; The challenge (which is diminished and removed by gear) and the cutscenes (because story is bioware's selling point in this game). I don't run flashpoints for gear, unless it's a moddable piece of equipment that I want to alter the looks of my character. Yet, it is because of gear and vertical scaling that the fun from flashpoints is well... simply not there for a player like me.

 

I don't think there is anyone out there who enjoys the flashpoint grind. The sense of achievement is something you can enjoy, I guess, but the labor? There are other ways to gain that sense of achievement. Imagine what Bioware could do with crafting if the game was scaling horizontally. No piece of equipment would ever become bad. Perhaps crafting could be an incentive to go into specific flashpoints? Who knows. I don't know. SWTOR is scaling vertically and as much as I wish otherwise I doubt they'll ever going to change that. But I can always wish?

Edited July 5, 2012 by Majspuffen

[Completeness]

I agree with this for PvP. PvP should be all about player skill and not level or gear.

 

For PvE I disagree. Call me a loot whore, but experience and gear is the driving force that makes me play the game.

[Majspuffen]

Leaving this thread with another vid made by Taugrim where he talks some more about SWTOR and where he thinks it went wrong and why it should scale horizontally;

 

Well worth watch.

[Shingara]

I understand how it works in theory due to auto leveling pvp does basically the same thing, But how would you adjust the difficulty of harder content / tactical diffuculty and how would you contend with things like lag and latency and even how comp specs would define the skill level of the person.

[DivineLuster]

I agree with this system 100%. I think that Bioware did a great job with a vertical scaling system 1-49 but now to be unique and make all variance of players feel equal they should have level 50 as Horizontal scaling. I have alot of suggestions/ideas that can help bioware with horizontal scaling content that i will post soon. I realise that some level 50 players will be abit upset however this will be an investment process, in which you have to give some to receive more. Please bioware listen to your customers and community we are all in this together.

 

By the way one of the main reasons why World of Warcraft became so successfull is because they were the firstto really milk the current MMORPG structure, now its over,its been done and its time for something new and thats why this community is here in hopes for starwars base game to entertain us like no other.

I dont want to lose interest in such a great game because once i do i cant go back.

Edited October 3, 2012 by DivineLuster

[Kushluk_]

A lot of what has been said in this post is worth the dev's consideration. The game has been made and some things are too difficult to impliment at this point. However, I like the idea of implimenting horizontal scaling into the endgame. Since there is a lot of scaled gear out right now it may be best to leave it alone so as not to upset the people who slaved away to get it. But let's not add any additional tiers. Starting now, have the top tier gear be the standard of highest achievable stats. Any new gear introduced in future content will be cosmetic or will have new set bonuses (but not higher stats). An exception to this should be pvp which should follow horizontal scaling to the letter. No more gear superiority in pvp, matches should be won with skill and tactics, not statistics and luck. Make pvp rewards cosmetic and achievement based.

 

In conclusion, we are not rats in a B.F. Skinner box. We shouldn't need a dangling reward (new tier gear) to play a game. We should want to play the game because it is fun, 'nuff said.

[MorgonKara]

Yup I agree OP. THE WOW model of never-ending gear inflation kinda stinks IMHO. It also ruins crafting at endgame. I think all we would really need are rare cosmetic items and skins like; armor, weapons, crystals, pets, vehicles, decorations and so forth. Progression can come with any increase in lvl cap from expansions.

Of course it will never happen because producers all think that MMOs have to copy WOW to be successful, but i think that a lot of MMO gamers really just want a chance to make their characters unique or get that rare prestigious item.

Edited October 9, 2012 by MorgonKara

[AboB]

Pass. My stuff is likely better than your stuff.

If not, well damn. Guess I have something to work towards.

[Majspuffen]

Here's another food for thought. A pvp issue and how the system shoots itself in the foot.

 

In theory, the fastest way to gear up in this game is to play Ranked Warzones, because they award Ranked PvP commendations. Anyone who's been playing PvP since 1.2 knows that it takes a hell of a lot of time to gear up in full War Hero through normal Warzones.

 

However, let's look at the appeal of Rated Warzones. I can bet that every serious team for RWZs are not running them in order to gear up. Bringing undergeared players to your game puts your team at a disadvantage, and any loss you get is a smudge on your rating. So what is it that a PvP guild looks for when it comes to RWZs? Ironically, they are looking for people that already have full War Hero.

 

This suggests that the appeal of having high rating is stronger than the appeal of getting new gear.

[-Kaelis-]

FOR PVP:

 

<Text> This suggests that the appeal of having high rating is stronger than the appeal of getting new gear.

 

Indeed.

 

I stopped playing PvP in this game with the introduction of even higher expertise stats in 1.2, as did many of my friends. Most of them have since stopped playing altogether as well (even one who was a diehard PvPer from launch day).

 

Gear progression in PvP is a byproduct of tiered content in WoW and really should be left in that game as it has absolutely nothing to do with PvP itself. The most enjoyable PvP models are always skill based with the inclusion of accessible power-ups, such as has been the rule of thumb in FPS deathmatch since Quake 2. That model is still vastly superior to what Blizzard introduced into WoW PvP in that every player enters on equal terms. People still play against each other in those types of games 15 years later. The core game design hasn't changed much for modern FPS either. Mostly, new modes of play or variations on older modes of play are introduced in addition to making the games more visually appealing, but the core of "either shoot the other guy first or more accurately" is still the rule of thumb.

 

I took a 3.5 month break from SWTOR and recently came back to finish out the story content. In the time I was away, I mostly played a team vs team FPS with different scenario objectives. It rocked. I got the fun of PvP back for a while without gear spoiling the balance. By the way, I totally understand the differences between an FPS and a game like SWTOR in terms of character skills - it doesn't matter.

 

Even late in the development cycle, SWTOR devs stated emphatically that there would be no PvP stat included in the game. On release day, there was expertise. PvP prior to 50 was great. Once you hit 50, the fun was sucked out of the room as the guys who got there before you and got their expertise laden gear first decended upon you like a flock of vultures and tore you apart with no real chance for you to win. After 1.2, that just got worse, same as it did when Blizzard rolled out the Season 2 arena gear in WoW some years back.

 

The notion of "gear progression" in PvP is one of the worst ideas ever inflicted upon the WoW PvP community, aside from allowing constant stun locks from multiple sources and then calling it "an important aspect of pvp gameplay." What it really did was to make skillful play irrelevant and rewarded those who had more time than skill. The same happened here in SWTOR, regardless of what some supposedly "hardcore" PvP players in our community might wish to think otherwise.

 

 

FOR PVE:

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

 

Gear comes with progression but it should never drive progression as it does with the vertical scaling, tiered content model.

 

This was a major problem for WoW and is a major flaw in the game design for SWTOR, especially since the production focus was so heavily oriented towards story-based content. Imagine what your game design crew could do without the added headache of rebalancing (and the testing cycle that comes with it) for all new gear associated with new tiered content. That certainly takes up a lot of production time and, thus, money.

 

I had initially hoped that the Bioware team would learn from their extensive experience with D&D game systems, which formed the base rule sets for the game designs of their older, and still wildly popular, games such as Baldur's Gate and Knights of the Old Republic. I had hoped that, while SWTOR was taking MMO design elements from WoW, the design team would avoid the the gear inflation which ultimately makes later gear content completely drive the game instead of simply complimenting the character's skills and abilities. Once you start down that path, the only way to go is up.

 

As an example, let's look at the game which popularized this model, and which Bioware drew heavily from for mechanics:

 

The difference in gear driven power between the original content and the first expansion in WoW was absolutely mind-boggling. A character fully geared in Tier 3 (lucky bastich he would have been to have the time and support for that back then) had an upper limit of around 3.5k HP and a caster at that gear level would have, at best, a modest +130 spell damage from gear. In contrast, a lvl 60 in moderately powerful gear freely accessible to a new lvl 60 would have less than 2k HP max with no bonuses to damage from gear.

 

The average character reaching the starting area in the first expansion would thus have around 2k HP and no additional damage granted from gear. To give the players who were lucky enough to have raid gear back then, the development team went with a middle of the road approach to incentivise their participation in the new content. As such, within the first hour or two of reaching the starting area in Outland, the player was given access to gear which was only slithly less powerful than the most powerful gear available from raid content up to Tier 2, including caster characters being presented with a staff which gave them about 90 spellpower from that one item alone (comparable to the bonus damage granted on some Tier 3 raid weapons). As the player completed the first area in the new expansion, their character power level from gear would be comparable to that granted from Tier 2 raid gear expect that it had vastly superior stamina and armor bonuses, which translates into higher health and taking less damage, which also translates into normal creatures doing more damage and having higher health and armor to challenge the player.

 

By the time the character has completed the second area in the first expansion, he or she will have little or no gear remaining from the original game equipped, including high-level raid gear. The character rapidly scales in power with the new gear drops in order to make the old obsolete as well as to incentivize their continued play because the development team went on the premise that better gear = fun (though this isn't strictly necessary).

 

Long story short, by the time a player reached level 70 in the first expansion, they typically had between 7k and 8k HP with somewhere around 400 bonus damage in baseline gear. Now translate this into successive expansions with this same baseline power incrementation from gear. Cataclysm ratcheted the baseline power up even more than WotLK did. The stats given by the gear are what drive WoW now, not the character's base skills and abilities.

 

This leads to a constant grind for tiered gear (even the unofficial tiers) which seriously detracts from the fun of playing the game and sharply limits replayability, which is something Bioware was banking on by investing so heavily in story-based content. To enjoy this style of play, you would have to be a bit masochistic. Most of us play for entertainment, not to log into a second job that we happen to pay for the privilege of performing.

 

A far better future for SWTOR would be to break ranks with WoW itemization design and go its own way, which it is already on the path to doing, seemingly reluctantly.

 

Lastly, I would like to reiterate that SWTOR released with much more end-game content than WoW did back in 2004. Two raid-type instances for SWTOR as compared to none for WoW. End-game (large group, raid-type content) isn't all there is once a character reaches max level unless you embrace the tiered content model and force yourself into that corner.

 

I believe we can do better.

[Quething]

Another advantage of horizontal scaling not yet mentioned is the lower bar to understanding the entire endgame, in addition to the lower bar for participating.

 

Look at what happens to a fresh 50 in SWTOR right now. You go back to the Fleet, and suddenly your map fills up with quest offer markers. Which one do you take first? The game wouldn't let you talk to that Gree ambassador lady if you weren't able to actually do the quest, right? Your log fills up with "operations" and "hard modes" and what's up with these "dalies," for that matter?

 

There's absolutely no guidance whatsoever for what order you're supposed to do these things in, or how to know when you're ready for any of them. If you have some MMO experience you probably know you're not ready for most of it, because you know that gearing is a thing and you're not geared, but there's no indication of what's first or what exactly is required for what comes after. You just have to have a good guild or ask in General "ok I'm 50, now what do I do" and hope somebody feels like not being a jerk.

 

With horizontal scaling it wouldn't matter. You could do any level 50 quest as soon as you got it. No more spending months between picking up the Denova quest and actually getting to the instance, at which point you've completely forgotten the story thread that brought you there in the first place.