Why scaling should not be optional

[Faelandaea]

So what?

 

Exactly. So what? Scaling is not an issue. Neither is grouping as a result of scaling.

Edited September 27, 2015 by Faelandaea

[Max_Killjoy]

Exactly. So what? Scaling is not an issue. Neither is grouping as a result of scaling.

 

Zoom. That was the point going over your head.

 

Are you just not getting it, or are you trolling, or what?

 

The people who want scaling to be optional don't care if there are "plenty" of other people who will group with them, they don't want to group with those people. It doesn't matter why.

 

Right now they have the option of doing certain parts of the content without a group, and if scaling becomes universal, then they will no longer have that option.

 

Automatic scaling is absolutely the issue here, and so is the loss of the option to not group.

Edited September 27, 2015 by Max_Killjoy

[MillionsKNives]

The only one relevant is the one that is relevant to this topic. If you want to argue the intent of why they had it the way it is for the past 3.5 years then go make a topic about that.

This topic is clearly about the sclaing option that is likely coming with 4.0 thus any intent on the developers behalf has to be around why they are changing it.

 

It's relevant because they're changing it from that to this, and apparently their new intent is important to you guys, so the old intent should be too.

 

So you think by intent I meant how they intended for me to play the game yet you think intent by your definition was a waste of time arguing? How does that even make sense? The how is the mechanics of the change basically which is more or less the bread and butter of the entire topic - if that's a waste of time why are you here?

 

The mechanic is the bread and butter of the topic, their intent is not. Their game mechanics let me play a ranged class in melee range and do just fine, even though their intent is for ranged classes to be played at range. I can run ops with less than 8 players even though the devs intended for it to be played with 8. Should I be punished for disobeying the devs' intent?

 

I think if you go back over my posts it's clear I am talking about possible reasons for why they are changing the content when I speak of intent, not how they are intending on changing it. One would think this was obvious.

 

You've been talking about why as well, but you've also repeatedly brought up how they "intend" for the mechanics to function. Whether they intend for people to be doing god mode. Whether they intended for rewards. These things are related to the why, but they are different intents. One is what and one is why.

 

Sounds familiar?

 

Then why did you do the exact same thing in the post above hmm?

 

Indeed, hence why I originally put those two sentences together. I can guess too and come to different conclusions. I wasn't actually using my guess to support my stance though, just pointing out why yours doesn't either.

 

Cool, let's hear them then.

 

They changed their minds, there's new management that thinks differently, they believe their metrics are indicating they should change it, EA told them to, or maybe aliens told them to.

 

Sure it does, we don't even know this change is factual so if you truly believe that one shouldn't base ones arguments on "opinion and conjecture" then this isn't the argument ( or the forums really ) for you, move along.

 

I'll slightly rephrase that it doesn't make a good supporting argument. Facts make good supporting arguments, guesses do not. They do make good arguments though.

 

Because it's a reward? Why reward for anything for mediocrity? The content itself should be reward enough, the fact you got to do it in god mode and got to see what you choose to not group up and do. You know ... have fun. As far as I know you don't have to be rewarded to have fun.

 

Why not reward mediocrity, the game already does in a lot of scenarios? What do you care? How does it affect you?

 

That's your opinion though, you're not basing your own argument on opinion are you? According to you then that argument isn't very well supported at all.

 

Correct, opinions aren't supporting my argument, they make up my argument. What isn't my opinion is that there are a number of people who prefer it the way it is, that it's part of what makes this game fun for them. That there are many other RPGs that work exactly the same way. That despite being able to do the content later in god mode for the same exact rewards, there are still people who will group up for both heroics and flashpoints while leveling, "as the devs intended it"

 

My opinion is that giving you anything, beyond the fun of doing the content itself, as a reward for god mode is pretty silly. You didn't earn a thing.

 

What do you care if they do get rewarded though? Why is it a negative if they do?

 

Also you can't really bring story into it because you are effectively also time traveling back to do the content as well. I don't really see that explained in the story so this all exists outside of the story.

 

Fair enough. The game mechanics still have you progressing through the game, even though strictly speaking you're not doing the quest now but in the past. Even with the change I would say that it still isn't accounting for the fact that we're time traveling, otherwise you'd lose your abilities too.

 

No, you can choose to not do it. No one is holding a gun to your head and saying "go run that content in a group right now!". Also no ones rewards are removed, if you had done it before you get to keep those rewards.

 

Again, you're forced to do it with scaling if you don't want to be punished for having the rewards removed, assuming your proposed implementation. You said it yourself you think rewards should be removed for "god mode".

 

Why should they be able to go back and do group content in god mode and get rewarded for it? It's god mode ... no one should be rewarded for anything god mode related.

 

Why not? They earned god mode, and while in god mode they still did the content. It's not like they are sitting on fleet expecting the content to do itself.

[Faelandaea]

Snipped.

 

I didn't miss any point. I never said I was against scaling being optional - and you clearly understood that from my prior posts. I was very clearly (and correctly, as usual) addressing the camp of people that are freaking out about if it is implemented. You knew this, so now who is trolling? LOL.

 

P.S. - nowhere has any announcement been made of any intention to scale anything, so really this entire thread is nothing but a troll fest, if folks want to get technical about it.

Edited September 27, 2015 by Faelandaea

[Max_Killjoy]

I didn't miss any point. I never said I was against scaling being optional - and you clearly understood that from my prior posts. I was very clearly (and correctly, as usual) addressing the camp of people that are freaking out about if it is implemented. You knew this, so now who is trolling? LOL.

 

You, evidently.

 

 

As someone who is an expert on Flashpoints, my professional opinion is that down-scaling is necessary and should be put in without option.

Edited September 27, 2015 by Max_Killjoy

[TUXs]

You, evidently.

Doh! Well done lol.

[branmakmuffin]

I didn't miss any point. I never said I was against scaling being optional - and you clearly understood that from my prior posts. I was very clearly (and correctly, as usual) addressing the camp of people that are freaking out about if it is implemented. You knew this, so now who is trolling? LOL.

 

P.S. - nowhere has any announcement been made of any intention to scale anything, so really this entire thread is nothing but a troll fest, if folks want to get technical about it.

Posters like the guy you were replying to prefer to set their hair on fire and make wild assumptions. Their favorite man is the Straw Man.

 

As you say, we have no certain knowledge that there will be any scaling outside of FPs (aside from the few people who claim to have ... Forbidden Insider Knowledge, which they can't share, of course).

Edited September 27, 2015 by branmakmuffin

[SithKoriandr]

Show me where it says the revamped FPs wont drop those things?

 

What challenge is there in being 60 and in 192/196 gear and facerolling a level 30 FP?

 

nice try but if you really want a challenge then you should embrace the scaling

 

but again i am just playing devil's advocate

 

But I enjoyed face rolling through the level 30 FP on my Lvl 50+ just to feel all powerful hero of the galaxy like!

[Transcendent]

Doh! Well done lol.

 

It was a particularly smart post

 

Be interesting to see how they decide to implement Operations / Flashpoint scaling, and to see if they leave an option in there to run the old content as it is now, with the same rewards as it is now, without any scaling. Making it optional.

 

If BioWare haven't thought this change through properly, because that content is still relevant to me even if I'm 40 levels above it, not as they assume it dwindles into insignificance. It's the very same ethos with planetary scaling if they decide to go down that road, I may decide to level a character to 60 via PvP and then decide to run the story to get my ship and see how everything pans out. If that option is removed, then they are essentially saying you're no longer allowed to do that and they'll downscale you so you can't simply just enjoy the story on your own terms.

[sentientomega]

Exactly, and to be able to over-level for everything except the level cap content (60 now, 65 later) is a kind of a must-have, at least for me; if not for that, I'd never've been able to beat the Inq chapter 3 boss on my first ever char almost two years ago.

 

Having been able to smash the other old chapter 3 bosses at level 58 with 172s is pure bliss...

Edited September 27, 2015 by sentientomega

[Faelandaea]

Posters like the guy you were replying to prefer to set their hair on fire and make wild assumptions. Their favorite man is the Straw Man.

 

As you say, we have no certain knowledge that there will be any scaling outside of FPs (aside from the few people who claim to have ... Forbidden Insider Knowledge, which they can't share, of course).

 

Agreed. Until something comes out officially, this is just one of those conspiracy theory freak-out threads.

[Jeweledleah]

Agreed. Until something comes out officially, this is just one of those conspiracy theory freak-out threads.

 

something has already came out officially though. the scaling of flashpoints and ops.

[TravelersWay]

I'm more talking about the player who does want to group but can't find a group. If this forces more like minded groupers in to that players path ( people from all levels ) then that player has more chance of getting a group and doing the content than they otherwise would have had now.

 

Also if there are more people on korriban doing LFG for a heroic then there is more chance someone who may not have been interested in grouping might give it a go. It certainly isn't going to decrease the amount of players doing grouped content.

 

But is it really going to do that? If people are going to be inclined to group, then scaling isn't going to be any less of an issue if it was optional. People who are just running class stories are going to be fairly close to level, so a level disparity won't be aa problem. If someone is running all the content, they are not very likely to end up grouped with someone just running class stories.

 

Why would high level characters be coming back to low level planets? New rewards for the repeatable content? Well then, an optional level scaling system isn't going to change that either. To help a low level buddy? Again, optional works just fine in the absence of a bonafide mentoring system.

 

Should an over-leveled character get the same rewards as someone playing in scaled mode? Certainly not, but there's no reason why those over-leveled characters can't get the same rewards that are given out now for the content. I would say that especially now with the appearance tabs. Now people can go back and grab stuff that they liked from that old content and throw it in one of the tabs. I know I've been thinking about going back to the first couple of flashpoints for that very reason - to get all 5he drops specific to those FPs, but I would only be willing to do so via a non-scaled method.

[Lecaja]

If we can still pick up experience this might be a very cool thing. Even without 12xp it's very hard staying within seven levels of the class story content, if they do something like this I can do all the content I want and still get rewards for doing it.

[Faelandaea]

something has already came out officially though. the scaling of flashpoints and ops.

 

Well since not a single person will link the official source, even though more than one soul in this thread has asked for such a link, it is easy to see why some of us call BS on such a theory. I skimmed the dev tracker - http://www.swtor.com/community/devtracker.php , which is where this information would be posted, and saw nothing on this. I may have missed it, though. If someone can provide the link to the dev post in the dev tracker about this then I'll consider myself corrected.

 

If we can still pick up experience this might be a very cool thing. Even without 12xp it's very hard staying within seven levels of the class story content, if they do something like this I can do all the content I want and still get rewards for doing it.

 

Now this would be cool I think. In FFXIV when you go into a lower level dungeon you get synch'd to the dungeon's level range, and if you are not max level, you get XP from it. It's great for leveling. They even have dailies based on this which helps promote higher level players helping lower levels by joining,. and it keeps the lower level queues more active.

 

And if you ARE max level already and doing the dailies for these, you still get perks like money and seals - the FFXIV version of our current commendations (which will be crystals once 4.0 hits)

Edited September 28, 2015 by Faelandaea

[sentientomega]

Well since not a single person will link the official source, even though more than one soul in this thread has asked for such a link, it is easy to see why some of us call BS on such a theory. I skimmed the dev tracker - http://www.swtor.com/community/devtracker.php , which is where this information would be posted, and saw nothing on this. I may have missed it, though. If someone can provide the link to the dev post in the dev tracker about this then I'll consider myself corrected.

 

 

 

Now this would be cool I think. In FFXIV when you go into a lower level dungeon you get synch'd to the dungeon's level range, and if you are not max level, you get XP from it. It's great for leveling. They even have dailies based on this which helps promote higher level players helping lower levels by joining,. and it keeps the lower level queues more active.

 

And if you ARE max level already and doing the dailies for these, you still get perks like money and seals - the FFXIV version of our current commendations (which will be crystals once 4.0 hits)

 

You just have to know where to look: http://www.swtor.com/blog/operations-and-flashpoints-fallen-empire

 

I think the solo-mode FPs may be for exactly that, it depends on the XP we get from them. I like that converting the other FPs to tactical gives us more variety with what we can queue for.

 

But under no circumstances will I just hit the GF button, I'm going to find a group, vet them for misanthropy/incompetence, then queue once it's made.

[Faelandaea]

And that is a smart way to play indeed. And thank you for the link. Most of the info I get are from the Dev tracker here. i am VERY surprised they didn;t tak about this there as well or at least say "Hey new update posted here". Ah well.

 

Okay so I officially stand corrected. Thank you.

 

Now, after reading that article (again, many thanks for the link) ... if I am reading this right - you guys still have your god mode. Here is why: That article says yes, you will be level synch'd, but in all solo mode flashpoints you get that nifty GSI droid. That means - yes - God Mode. Even when doing the FPs that were my level as I was progressing through Reven, I actually had to fight to keep up with the droid. Greedy bastard would kill everything in sight in one-shot. I'd have dismissed him for a challenge, but with 16 characters to level i very much welcomed the boost.

 

It seems this VERY VERY important point was missed in this entire thread. In SWTOR, solo mode always means GSI droid which means you will be blowing through stuff as quickly as if you were a level 60 stepping on level 10's without the synch.

Edited September 28, 2015 by Faelandaea

[Max_Killjoy]

Yeah, because having the droid do all the work really is the same has stomping the NPCs yourself...

 

The only reason I ever used the droid is because the content of Prelude and SoR was set up to in such a way that it was necessary unless you were going to waste time grouping it.

 

Going back to do old content, and then needing the droid? No thanks, I'll just not go do the content.

 

 

Meanwhile, I've been doing Bounty Week stuff, and if the down-bolstering means that we have to fight though the local mobs every time we go out to track down or fight a Kingpin because BW put the search areas right in the middle of low-level crap that we SHOULD be able to brush aside at level 60+... then no more Bounty Week for me.

Edited September 28, 2015 by Max_Killjoy

[Faelandaea]

Well the point was people were worried about not being able to go back and farm on their own for items and stuff they want. Now they are able to. That's the entire thing in this thread from what I am seeing - people worrying they can't go back and farm lower level FPs. They still can, and just as easily. And droid or not you still get all the loot.

 

As for Prelude and SoR - you didn't need the droid OR a group to do it even if you were at level. I found that out the hard way. Many times I would level, and when you level, the droid goes away. Too many of those times I forgot this, and after leveling I hit the next group. They died slower, but I pulled through just fine. I'd usually get through a bunch of pulls before realizing, "Oh, hey, my droid's gone. huh. I must have leveled."

 

The article I was linked to - looks like this ONLY effects OPs and FPs. Did I miss something with this lower-level planet bit?

 

Long story short, though - no one cares about stomping on mobs. They just want to keep farming stuff they felt they were unable to get when they were less geared/prepared to do so.

 

My question is - when you level synch - do you lose skills like in FFXIV? Or are your skills just scaled down? (Example, level 61 skill no longer available to use if doing a level 50 FP? Or is level 61 skill just scaled down but still usable?).

Edited September 28, 2015 by Faelandaea

[sentientomega]

And that is a smart way to play indeed. And thank you for the link. Most of the info I get are from the Dev tracker here. i am VERy surprised they didn;t tak about this there as well or at least say "Hey new update posted here". Ah well.

 

Okay so I officially stand corrected. Thank you.

 

Now, after reading that article (again, many thanks for the link) ... guess what. You guys still have your god mode. Here is why: That article says yes, you will be level synch'd, but in all solo mode flashpoints you get that nifty GSI droid. That means - yes - God Mode. Even when doing the FPs that were my level as I was progressing through Reven, I actually had to fight to keep up with the droid. Greedy bastard would kill everything in sight in one-shot. I'd have dismissed him for a challenge, but with 16 characters to level i very much welcomed the boost.

 

It seems this VERY VERY important point was missed in this entire thread. In SWTOR, solo mode always means GSI droid which means you will be blowing through stuff as quickly as if you were a level 60 stepping on level 10's without the synch.

 

Thank you, though it might take too long to form that kind of a group, especially as the misanthropes may be very good at hiding it until you're actually in the instance, facing off with enemies.

 

Not exactly god-mode, especially if you level in the middle of a fight, the droid buggers off somewhere lol; I've also had a comp tank go down because the GSI droid woke up and smelled the coffee too late to heal them, so they're definitely not perfect.

 

Fortunately though, only my ranged dps will have tanks, everyone else will have healers, once we get the all-roles from 4.0.

 

I really hope we don't get the GSI droid to take on our travels to other worlds, unless the down-scaling is all universal (btw, if you get flag or get flagged, the GSI droid should bugger off), because in the FPs is quite enough; I like to kill/dismantle some enemies myself...

[Faelandaea]

Okay i am lost. The info I am reading is referring to FPs and OPs, but what is this about traveling to lower level planets? Did I miss something in the blogs?

 

If this IS the case, I agree with Max that Bounties would either have to be redone or it can end up messy.

Edited September 28, 2015 by Faelandaea

[sentientomega]

No, I was saying so in the event that it was extended to planets.

[Max_Killjoy]

Well the point was people were worried about not being able to go back and farm on their own for items and stuff they want. Now they are able to. That's the entire thing in this thread from what I am seeing - people worrying they can;t go back and farm lower level FPs. They still can, and just as easily. And droid or not you still get all the loot.

 

I don't farm them, I almost always do them to go back and see the content I had to skip at-level -- and stomp some skulls while I'm at it.

 

And yes, it had to be skipped at-level, and I've already explained more than once why -- it's locked behind the group barrier, and I've lost patience with the 90% of group experience in MMOs that's been all trouble and no fun.

 

As I stated before -- To be blunt, some of us have spent too long, too many times, waiting around for a bunch of people who randomly happen to want to do the same mission, with a real chance each time that one or more of them will turn out to be belligerent, clueless, spastic, under-leveled, terribly-geared, rushed, screaming at first-timers to hit the spacerbar, distracted by some real-world issue they should have dealt with instead of starting the mission, and/or a *********** ninja-looter.

 

We'd rather just over-level and then go do a tour of the content we missed.

 

 

If it becomes "find a group" or "use the droid", then seeing the content isn't worth it.

 

Eventually, if this keeps happening, the game isn't going to be worth the sub fees, and I guess I'll be done with the last video game I bother playing.

[Faelandaea]

Ah, okay. I had to ask because Max mentioned something about that as well and I think a couple other souls did also. had me searching Blogs and Dev Trackers LOL.

 

EDIT: @Max - the Droid is just for folks who want to get through quickly. You can solo FPs with no problem at all. Like I said, many times my droid took off and I didn't even notice.I was too focused on my companion and myself to babysit a droid which doesn't even appear in the UI anyway, and if something isn't in my UI, then it isn't important enough to keep track of for heals, etc.

Edited September 28, 2015 by Faelandaea

[SelinaH]

Well the point was people were worried about not being able to go back and farm on their own for items and stuff they want. Now they are able to. That's the entire thing in this thread from what I am seeing - people worrying they can't go back and farm lower level FPs. They still can, and just as easily. And droid or not you still get all the loot.

The issue for people concerned about farming lower-level items is whether solo FPs will grant the same rewards as group versions. Currently, with no deleveling it is trivially easy to solo many group FPs, even in Hard Mode. This may not be possible after scaling is implemented.

 

I have seen a bit of grumbling about scaling Flashpoints, but there seems to be a lot more anger concerning the rumors of open-world planetary scaling.