SWTOR Won't Last, Unless Leveling Is Revamped To Be Closer To WoW's Leveling

[Shadysketchy]

Basically, leveling in this game is awful. It's fun from 1-30ish, but then for 31-50 it just becomes a hyper-grind, and is overall just not something I'd ever like to do again. No amount of Voice Acting, or any attempt at making an engaging story will ever make up for the fact that 31-49 is nothing but moving from point A, to point B, across an empty, linear path; which I can't even call World, because it's broken up into small chunks to be "Planets", which are broken up into even smaller chunks, that require Flight Paths/Shuttles/Rocket Tram/etc. to get from one to the other.

 

I played World of Warcraft from 2005-2011, and throughout that time, I leveled eleven (11) characters from one to max; as well as a DK from 55-80 (they start at 55, and 80 was the cap then). My record time for doing this is 2 days, 22 hours /played time, which took place over 5 days real time; a nice, quick, fun ride to level cap.

 

I only leveled one character to 50 (max level) in SWTOR; and I never intend to do it again, with the current leveling process. The overall time investment is not the real issue here; it only took me 103 hours, aka 4 days, 9 hours /played time, to get to 50 in SWTOR, that took place over 9 days real time (only 4 days longer than my powerlevel record in WoW). I could probably do it in just under 4 days, if I skipped all the Dialogue; but that's not the point. The issue is that I didn't enjoy any of that, after about level 30.

 

Now, take something into consideration — I have all the free time in world; most people do not. Most SWTOR players either have school, or work, which significantly cuts their available time to waste, and means that 9 days for me is probably at least double (18 days), for them; and much longer yet, for many players.

 

Honestly though, even with that; the time investment is still not the issue. The problem is that its unenjoyable, for a plethora of reasons, with the only good parts being the Story, Voice Acting, and if one likes the IP; Star Wars.

 

Here's some (note, some, not all) of the bad points, about leveling in SWTOR:

 

- It is slow, especially for 30-50

 

- It consists mostly of moving from Point A to Point B

 

- SWTOR feels old, including the leveling (more detailed explaination in my signature)

 

- You have to either Solo your way from 1-50, or halt leveling entirely, to spam various chats, in the hope you get a group — not at all like WoW's leveling, which can be done with others, at will, with LFD

 

- The "world" you traverse feels empty, stale, and unfinished

 

- The "world" is split up into Planets which take too long to get from one to the other

 

- The "world", once you're on a Planet, is often split up into much smaller areas. This does vary, from zone to zone, however; with Nar Shadaa probably being the worst offender, and Hoth feeling the most like an MMORPG zone

 

- Phasing that goes to the effort of separating you from the rest of the Server, without changing the environment, like WoW's phasing

 

- No variation in quests; even WoW has a little bit of variation

 

- Your Class' story gets put on the backburner at level 10, and becomes less and less of a focal point, as you get higher

 

- It's too easy; admittedly, this seems to be a problem with the genre, these days, not only SWTOR

 

- There's very little sense of progression. With your pet basically playing half the game for you, it's just harder to notice that your new Spells are making you any better or more versatile. Even the mounts in SWTOR scale up by only 10%, an increase in speed that's hardly even recognizable

 

- I don't really see the point in PvPing pre-level cap in any game, but if you do decide to PvP before you're 50, you're just going to get wasted by the 50s, because BioWare thought putting level 50s in the same bracket as level 10s was a good idea

 

- No matter what Class you roll — You are a pet Class

 

There's more reasons, but I think that gets the point across. This kind of awful leveling system is just unattractive to new players, many of whom will probably never even reach 50 before unsubscribing; and equally unattractive to people who want to roll a new Class. Legacy may effect the latter, if it gives significant Experience Gain increases, but I have to judge the product as it stands now, not as it may stand once they get around to adding new parts.

 

TL;DR, I think SWTOR's leveling process is awful; World of Warcraft's is not. What do you think?

[Kaphik]

WoW's leveling was so much fun it took them six years of constant work to change it, and now it's utterly meaningless. You outlevel zones before you finish them, as well as instances. It's all a rush to get to endgame where you start the monotonous grind of points you need for more gear. SWTOR is way more fun.

 

Remember the good old days of WoW when leveling was a big part of the game experience, and not just a waste of time until you got to the "real game"?

Edited December 26, 2011 by Kaphik

[Netwar]

Basically, leveling in this game is awful. It's fun from 1-30ish, but then for 31-50 it just becomes a hyper-grind, and is overall just not something I'd ever like to do again. No amount of Voice Acting, or any attempt at making an engaging story will ever make up for the fact that 31-49 is nothing but moving from point A, to point B, across an empty, linear path; which I can't even call World, because it's broken up into small chunks to be "Planets", which are broken up into even smaller chunks, that require Flight Paths/Shuttles/Rocket Tram/etc. to get from one to the other.

 

I played World of Warcraft from 2005-2011, and throughout that time, I leveled eleven (11) characters from one to max; as well as a DK from 55-80 (they start at 55, and 80 was the cap then). My record time for doing this is 2 days, 22 hours /played time, which took place over 5 days real time; a nice, quick, fun ride to level cap.

 

I only leveled one character to 50 (max level) in SWTOR; and I never intend to do it again, with the current leveling process. The overall time investment is not the real issue here; it only took me 103 hours, aka 4 days, 9 hours /played time, to get to 50 in SWTOR, that took place over 9 days real time (only 4 days longer than my powerlevel record in WoW). I could probably do it in just under 4 days, if I skipped all the Dialogue; but that's not the point. The issue is that I didn't enjoy any of that, after about level 30.

 

Now, take something into consideration — I have all the free time in world; most people do not. Most SWTOR players either have school, or work, which significantly cuts their available time to waste, and means that 9 days for me is probably at least double (18 days), for them; and much longer yet, for many players.

 

Honestly though, even with that; the time investment is still not the issue. The problem is that its unenjoyable, for a plethora of reasons, with the only good parts being the Story, Voice Acting, and if one likes the IP; Star Wars.

 

Here's some (note, some, not all) of the bad points, about leveling in SWTOR:

 

- It is slow, especially for 30-50

 

- It consists mostly of moving from Point A to Point B

 

- SWTOR feels old, including the leveling (more detailed explaination in my signature)

 

- You have to either Solo your way from 1-50, or halt leveling entirely, to spam various chats, in the hope you get a group — not at all like WoW's leveling, which can be done with others, at will, with LFD

 

- The "world" you traverse feels empty, stale, and unfinished

 

- The "world" is split up into Planets which take too long to get from one to the other

 

- The "world", once you're on a Planet, is often split up into much smaller areas. This does vary, from zone to zone, however; with Nar Shadaa probably being the worst offender, and Hoth feeling the most like an MMORPG zone

 

- Phasing that goes to the effort of separating you from the rest of the Server, without changing the environment, like WoW's phasing

 

- No variation in quests; even WoW has a little bit of variation

 

- Your Class' story gets put on the backburner at level 10, and becomes less and less of a focal point, as you get higher

 

- It's too easy; admittedly, this seems to be a problem with the genre, these days, not only SWTOR

 

- There's very little sense of progression. With your pet basically playing half the game for you, it's just harder to notice that your new Spells are making you any better or more versatile. Even the mounts in SWTOR scale up by only 10%, an increase in speed that's hardly even recognizable

 

- I don't really see the point in PvPing pre-level cap in any game, but if you do decide to PvP before you're 50, you're just going to get wasted by the 50s, because BioWare thought putting level 50s in the same bracket as level 10s was a good idea

 

- No matter what Class you roll — You are a pet Class

 

There's more reasons, but I think that gets the point across. This kind of awful leveling system is just unattractive to new players, many of whom will probably never even reach 50 before unsubscribing; and equally unattractive to people who want to roll a new Class. Legacy may effect the latter, if it gives significant Experience Gain increases, but I have to judge the product as it stands now, not as it may stand once they get around to adding new parts.

 

TL;DR, I think SWTOR's leveling process is awful; World of Warcraft's is not. What do you think?

 

 

You're wrong on so many things that I don't even know where to begin.

[sevev]

Dude, you are flat out lying... I played WOW from December 2004 until now.. leveling was never easy into game. Not until they added heirloom gear and questing add one were created. Prior to that it took a long time to get from 1 to 60.

 

In wow we all farmed quests, or spammed trade chat to get help for the molton core chain quest..

He'll we spammed trade looking for brd groups just to get the starting quest for the chain.

 

 

You want power leveling in swtor.. it nit going to be added...

Just go back to wow..

 

Wow is still a great game to play.

[Leadslinger]

I could agree on one point, when i reached belsavis there was just so much running. To get from 1 quest hub to another it would take 5min on my speeder and inbetween there is nothing.

 

Plus you had to go around a million walls just to get to your point, you will always be walking the same path to get to a certain point cause there are so many blockades. The world design is definitely forceful.

Edited December 26, 2011 by Leadslinger

[Aquiraj]

Leveling is the least of this games problems. Though it is a little sad to see 50's running around already...especially when I saw some before the official launch day during the early access.

[StormDragonlord]

Granted I'm only 19, but I half-agree with you, everytime you go to a Planet it divides into smaller sectors that you have to travel through a lot, and it is a little bit annoying and I also agree fully on the companion, although you may opt to not use him, he's just too good, there are A LOT of areas where there are a lot of cluttered mobs with Blue Crystal mobs or sometimes 2 BC mobs and 3 little, that for you to take them on all alone is not easy, also I think they balanced the leveling around you having a companion to help.

[Lienwyn]

You're wrong on so many things that I don't even know where to begin.

 

Because he's not wrong. I'd rather play Lineage 2.

[wixxkruppel]

Leveling in swtor is already way too fast. It's very apparent you don't even know the meaning of the word grind.

 

Instead of bothering to actually play the game, just go buy someone's L50 account or cry/whine until all characters start at L50.

 

/solved

 

Btw, leveling is the LEAST of this game's problems. The real problem that WILL hurt this game badly is the low server population cap (resulting in ghost town servers within 3-6 months). You can forget about server merges due to retarded name constraints.

Edited December 26, 2011 by wixxkruppel

[Shadysketchy]

WoW's leveling was so much fun it took them six years of constant work to change it, and now it's utterly meaningless. You outlevel zones before you finish them, as well as instances. It's all a rush to get to endgame where you start the monotonous grind of points you need for more gear. SWTOR is way more fun.

 

Remember the good old days of WoW when leveling was a big part of the game experience, and not just a waste of time until you got to the "real game"?

 

In Vanilla, the motto was "The game starts at 60"; it was never any different in regards to the focus on endgame.

 

Vanilla's leveling did feel more meaningful, but it was also less fun. Endgame content should be hard, and competitive, but leveling should just be fun. Fun leveling is the one thing Blizzard got right with Cataclysm

[Nightrode]

WoW's leveling was so much fun it took them six years of constant work to change it, and now it's utterly meaningless. You outlevel zones before you finish them, as well as instances. It's all a rush to get to endgame where you start the monotonous grind of points you need for more gear. SWTOR is way more fun.

 

Remember the good old days of WoW when leveling was a big part of the game experience, and not just a waste of time until you got to the "real game"?

 

What he said. You think WoW leveling is fun? You're absolutely nuts.

 

90% of what you said in the post was completely subjective and opinionated. I'd take what little you said with a grain of salt but most of it isn't a big deal anyway or just a minor issue.

 

To me, it seems you're the type of player who likes kill, smash, kill everything 24/7 with no dialogue or flavor added to any quest. I would expect this from people who commonly play the call of duty series.

 

I'm only level 29 so I can't experience the part of the game you've had yet but most of your complaints are simply opinions so there's no reason to debate at all.

[Hellickson]

roll bread

[Nemmar]

 

Here's some (note, some, not all) of the bad points, about leveling in SWTOR:

 

- It is slow, especially for 30-50

 

- It consists mostly of moving from Point A to Point B

 

- SWTOR feels old, including the leveling (more detailed explaination in my signature)

 

- You have to either Solo your way from 1-50, or halt leveling entirely, to spam various chats, in the hope you get a group — not at all like WoW's leveling, which can be done with others, at will, with LFD

 

- The "world" you traverse feels empty, stale, and unfinished

 

- The "world" is split up into Planets which take too long to get from one to the other

 

- The "world", once you're on a Planet, is often split up into much smaller areas. This does vary, from zone to zone, however; with Nar Shadaa probably being the worst offender, and Hoth feeling the most like an MMORPG zone

 

- Phasing that goes to the effort of separating you from the rest of the Server, without changing the environment, like WoW's phasing

 

- No variation in quests; even WoW has a little bit of variation

 

- Your Class' story gets put on the backburner at level 10, and becomes less and less of a focal point, as you get higher

 

- It's too easy; admittedly, this seems to be a problem with the genre, these days, not only SWTOR

 

- There's very little sense of progression. With your pet basically playing half the game for you, it's just harder to notice that your new Spells are making you any better or more versatile. Even the mounts in SWTOR scale up by only 10%, an increase in speed that's hardly even recognizable

 

- I don't really see the point in PvPing pre-level cap in any game, but if you do decide to PvP before you're 50, you're just going to get wasted by the 50s, because BioWare thought putting level 50s in the same bracket as level 10s was a good idea

 

- No matter what Class you roll — You are a pet Class

 

There's more reasons, but I think that gets the point across. This kind of awful leveling system is just unattractive to new players, many of whom will probably never even reach 50 before unsubscribing; and equally unattractive to people who want to roll a new Class. Legacy may effect the latter, if it gives significant Experience Gain increases, but I have to judge the product as it stands now, not as it may stand once they get around to adding new parts.

 

TL;DR, I think SWTOR's leveling process is awful; World of Warcraft's is not. What do you think?

 

This post is one huge lie. I dont think a single point corresponds to the truth.

 

OP, if you already found your perfect game... why are you here?

[Honelith]

Thread is irrelevant until SWTOR has been out for a couple of years to allow them to refine and add features...

[Rikalonius]

It took me 12 gaming days to reach 60 when I played Wow,about six months after launch. I'm looking at around 7 game days to make it to 50. Point = fail to see it.

[Asamitai]

Basically, leveling in this game is awful. It's fun from 1-30ish, but then for 31-50 it just becomes a hyper-grind, and is overall just not something I'd ever like to do again. No amount of Voice Acting, or any attempt at making an engaging story will ever make up for the fact that 31-49 is nothing but moving from point A, to point B, across an empty, linear path; which I can't even call World, because it's broken up into small chunks to be "Planets", which are broken up into even smaller chunks, that require Flight Paths/Shuttles/Rocket Tram/etc. to get from one to the other.

 

I played World of Warcraft from 2005-2011, and throughout that time, I leveled eleven (11) characters from one to max; as well as a DK from 55-80 (they start at 55, and 80 was the cap then). My record time for doing this is 2 days, 22 hours /played time, which took place over 5 days real time; a nice, quick, fun ride to level cap.

 

I only leveled one character to 50 (max level) in SWTOR; and I never intend to do it again, with the current leveling process. The overall time investment is not the real issue here; it only took me 103 hours, aka 4 days, 9 hours /played time, to get to 50 in SWTOR, that took place over 9 days real time (only 4 days longer than my powerlevel record in WoW). I could probably do it in just under 4 days, if I skipped all the Dialogue; but that's not the point. The issue is that I didn't enjoy any of that, after about level 30.

 

Now, take something into consideration — I have all the free time in world; most people do not. Most SWTOR players either have school, or work, which significantly cuts their available time to waste, and means that 9 days for me is probably at least double (18 days), for them; and much longer yet, for many players.

 

Honestly though, even with that; the time investment is still not the issue. The problem is that its unenjoyable, for a plethora of reasons, with the only good parts being the Story, Voice Acting, and if one likes the IP; Star Wars.

 

Here's some (note, some, not all) of the bad points, about leveling in SWTOR:

 

- It is slow, especially for 30-50

 

- It consists mostly of moving from Point A to Point B

 

- SWTOR feels old, including the leveling (more detailed explaination in my signature)

 

- You have to either Solo your way from 1-50, or halt leveling entirely, to spam various chats, in the hope you get a group — not at all like WoW's leveling, which can be done with others, at will, with LFD

 

- The "world" you traverse feels empty, stale, and unfinished

 

- The "world" is split up into Planets which take too long to get from one to the other

 

- The "world", once you're on a Planet, is often split up into much smaller areas. This does vary, from zone to zone, however; with Nar Shadaa probably being the worst offender, and Hoth feeling the most like an MMORPG zone

 

- Phasing that goes to the effort of separating you from the rest of the Server, without changing the environment, like WoW's phasing

 

- No variation in quests; even WoW has a little bit of variation

 

- Your Class' story gets put on the backburner at level 10, and becomes less and less of a focal point, as you get higher

 

- It's too easy; admittedly, this seems to be a problem with the genre, these days, not only SWTOR

 

- There's very little sense of progression. With your pet basically playing half the game for you, it's just harder to notice that your new Spells are making you any better or more versatile. Even the mounts in SWTOR scale up by only 10%, an increase in speed that's hardly even recognizable

 

- I don't really see the point in PvPing pre-level cap in any game, but if you do decide to PvP before you're 50, you're just going to get wasted by the 50s, because BioWare thought putting level 50s in the same bracket as level 10s was a good idea

 

- No matter what Class you roll — You are a pet Class

 

There's more reasons, but I think that gets the point across. This kind of awful leveling system is just unattractive to new players, many of whom will probably never even reach 50 before unsubscribing; and equally unattractive to people who want to roll a new Class. Legacy may effect the latter, if it gives significant Experience Gain increases, but I have to judge the product as it stands now, not as it may stand once they get around to adding new parts.

 

TL;DR, I think SWTOR's leveling process is awful; World of Warcraft's is not. What do you think?

 

Please tell me you're not playing past the free 30 days?

[Idiots]

you didnt play wow in 2005. seeing as how the leveling was so painfully slow, no one had max level alts unless you were some bad kid who wasnt good enough to raid in top end guilds or run for hwl/gm. wows leveling did not become easy(only because ******* like you want an easy non challenging game) until wrath. if you like simple unbalanced games that feed the idiot masses, then go back to wow. you will not be missed.

[scrynen]

 

I'm only level 29 so I can't experience the part of the game you've had yet but most of your complaints are simply opinions so there's no reason to debate at all.

 

As you get higher up you have to walk ridiculous amounts to do quests. Seriously, like 60% of the length it takes to do the quest is walking from the quest giver to the quest point back to the quest giver. There are these huge stretches of nothingness, and it starts to get really really old.

[jinxsters]

1st vanilla wow was a total grind as well

 

shows you did not play wow at launch u just a bandwagoned on the game

 

2nd the game has 50s and it has been lil over week out so levelen is fine

 

3rd all quests in all mmos are gona be the same thru out the game seems you are burned out of MMOs bro so go play your console for a bit then play this.

 

4th anyone that plays the same game hrs and hrs is due to get bored at some point.

 

hell today it took me awhile to get into quest mode

[KnikesBlack]

Thanks for your thorough reasoning as to why you dislike these parts of the game. I agree, leveling got repetitive really fast. Even in SWG, grinding mobs for hours on end was for some reason more enjoyable than this.

 

Brace yourself for the onslaught of fanbois who will defend this game to the death. I can't really blame them though. After investing so much hope into this game, most people really WANT to believe it is the best thing since sliced bread.

[Lienwyn]

In Vanilla, the motto was "The game starts at 60"; it was never any different in regards to the focus on endgame.

 

Vanilla's leveling did feel more meaningful, but it was also less fun. Endgame content should be hard, and competitive, but leveling should just be fun. Fun leveling is the one thing Blizzard got right with Cataclysm

 

Every game since World of Warcraft was about the end game (and the end game is why many of those MMOs failed).

 

As long as developers keep being idiots and copying World of Warcraft and themepark fundamentals, they will ALWAYS fail. Final Fantasy XI all the way...too bad Square-Enix completely butchered Final Fantasy XIV.

[Shadysketchy]

Leveling in swtor is already way too fast. It's very apparent you don't even know the meaning of the word grind.

 

Instead of bothering to actually play the game, just go buy someone's L50 account or cry/whine until all characters start at L50.

 

/solved

 

Btw, leveling is the LEAST of this game's problems. The real problem that WILL hurt this game badly is the low server population cap (resulting in ghost town servers within 3-6 months). You can forget about server merges due to retarded name constraints.

 

I'm already level 50, why would I buy someone else's level 50?

[Shammus]

*note to self* leveling isn't fun, when you're sitting there going I CAN'T WAIT TO GET TO 50 , or I can't wait to get out of this zone.

 

I'm guilty of this, and if you're feeling this way then you aren't really experiencing the game like it should be experienced.

 

I've been bored with the bounty hunter since beta, but commited to leveling one.. with an assassin next on the list (at least I think)

 

Leveling doesn't take that long @ all, I work 3 days a week, and only log on for those days maybe an hour @ most then I grind thurs-fri-sat.

 

I'm level 47.. and I've done ALOT of space missions, and alot of pvp, I'm positive I could be 50 right now.. on taris I did a /played this weekend and was at 72 hours played.

 

That's 3 days of total in game time i'm not even sure that wow is that quick.

[Netwar]

Because he's not wrong. I'd rather play Lineage 2.

 

Saying WoW leveling is better is prolly the worst insult to swtor.

 

 

/facepalm

 

 

 

But yeah, it's only an opinion.

[Veneric]

In Vanilla, the motto was "The game starts at 60"; it was never any different in regards to the focus on endgame.

 

Vanilla's leveling did feel more meaningful, but it was also less fun. Endgame content should be hard, and competitive, but leveling should just be fun. Fun leveling is the one thing Blizzard got right with Cataclysm

 

Cataclysm leveling wasn't fun, just had a bit more activity that time round but by large leveling was a filler whereas in this game it is not. SWTOR leveling far outpaces WoW in terms of enjoyment and pacing. I think you're just trolling personally, and can't wait to see you gone by late January.