Level synch = Revival of SWTOR

[Lord_Robert]

I specifically asked about class or planetary quests - Heroics are like dailies and have always been repeatable...there's nothing "new" descaling brings to a player.

 

The quests you speak of, the ones I've skipped, have always been there waiting...why would I go do them now when they're difficult vs. when they were easy to do? Why are people pretending this opens up new content for players??? It doesn't...it hasn't added anything but frustration.

 

No, you asked about planetary content, of which heroics, side-missions planetary quest-lines and so forth are all a part. That is what I replied to.

And the reason to do them now? Because they give rewards relevant to your level, not the adjusted one, but the real one.. That's reason enough for me.

 

And I'm not frustrated but overjoyed...

 

But as with the other person I replied to, let's agree to disagree.. I fully respect that you are not thrilled with this.. And I hope you respect that I am..

 

----

 

What makes me reply to these posts are when people imply that nothing is gained by anybody with these changes.. That simply isn't true.. A lot of people post on this board either way.. Some dislike the changes and others, like me, like them.. a lot.. For those of us, who like the change, much is gained.. So implying that nothing is gained by anybody is untrue in the extreme.. Some people may not like said gains or they may not consider them worthwhile, but that does not mean these gains are not real.

Edited October 1, 2015 by Lord_Robert

[TUXs]

No, you asked about planetary content, of which heroics, side-missions planetary quest-lines and so forth are all a part. That is what I replied to.

 

What makes me reply to these posts are when people imply that nothing is gained by anybody with these changes.. That simply isn't true.. A lot of people post on this board either way.. Some dislike the changes and others, like me, like them.. a lot.. For those of us, who like the change, much is gained.. So implying that nothing is gained by anybody is untrue in the extreme.. Some people may not like said gains or they may not consider them worthwhile, but that does not mean these gains are not real.

You're correct, I said content. I should have said "aside from heroics", because nothing new is being added. There's literally nothing you can do because of this change, that you couldn't do without it.

 

For the few gains, there are just as many losses. This change severely impacts solo players. I'm not one...I love group content and I'll be happy to use this new feature...but I'm not blind to the impact it has on others.

 

This needs to be optional.

[CmdrShpd]

I agree with the OP. I'm specifically looking forward to grouping up to take down world bosses again as well as random heroics. Also, I find the grind from level 50-60 to be fairly tedious after having done the standard progression of quests a few times. I can now hopefully find some alternative routes to get these to level 60 that I have perhaps not done as many times.

[SelinaH]

I would of course still like to see official answers to how they're actually going to address things like bonus series sections of a planet, dread seed areas, bounty/rakghoul event scaled spawns, and anything else that we can think of that might send us back to a lower level planet like certain class and companion missions, the GSI heroics, the seeker droid / macrobinocular questlines, etc. I'm curious to see whether they've changed the levels of everything to match the planet's original level range or if they've defined level sync to scale to different levels for different level-range regions of the map or whatever else.

I'd like details on these as well.

[Sarfux]

Great post! Yes. It seems it will make the game relevant again. The more emotion filled responses and people go away or truly sit down and see, the more they will like it. Those that don't, will leave. Great post!

[mmmbuddah]

__________________________________________________

 

Pros:

 

1. A new way to level up

If you roll X toon and you are exhausted of passing through Makeb, Rishi and Yavin IV. You are finally given an opportunity to level up either by playing tons of flashpoints which people actually queue for or revisiting the old planets and take up quests you haven't seen before.

 

2. Content again relevant

SWTOR is one of the largest, if not the largest, MMO when it comes to solo content. I don't think any other MMO can compete with the amount of quests SWTOR has. On top of that almost all of them are fully animated and voiced. It's highly doubtful any MMO will try that again, so we should cherish every moment with SWTOR.

But the problem with our game is when people level up because they are mostly interested in the class story which in understandable. However, after level 50 the path is always through the same quests that you have already seen unless you choose to grind pvp/flashpoints (if you are lucky to see people queueing up). Zillions of quests wait for you on the older planets that haven't been touched in a while or at all. Newcomers have never seen them. It will be something new to discover and listen to. Now you can come back and profit from doing the missions you haven't known about rather than to grind the same missions on the endgame planets.

 

3. Incentive to do Heroics. The old content that is almost like new

Heroics like any other missions on the old planets were mostly forgotten and abandoned by the majority of players. Otherwise, we would have seen the old planets with better populations but we don't. Even though people can one-shoot mobs, the majority is not interesting in coming back to do quests which give them laughable rewards. Why would anyone who is not an achievement hunter or "immersion seeker" spend his precious time on the quests that give him 1/8 of credits that potentially could be gained by doing a single daily? Scaling turns the tables of what we can do with our time in SWTOR. New players that usually couldn't get a group for heroics will be able to finally find a group. Yes, they occasionally could get some guy with lvl 60 to help out but it was rare and entirely missing the intention of the heroics by getting carried through.

 

4. Helping out your friends or newcomers

Instead of blasting everything before friends or newcomers open fire, they will take an active part in their quests and will get used to their new class. Their gameplay experience will become much more pleasant. You could always make a new character and support your friends with him but what if your friends outleveled your new character? How many new character people can make for the pure purpose of helping out people? Now you take your fav character with you and enjoy the friend's quest as it was intended to do.

 

5. PVP servers and the problem of ganking

New pvp players getting ganked by people at the level cap seemed completely unfair and unfun. This change gives new players a slight chance to compete.

 

6. RP friendly.

All that negative talk about how downscaling is not RP friendly is bantha poodoo. "I'm Dark Lord of the Sith. How can I be beaten by padawans on X planet". Yet the same Dark Lord struggles with mere frogs or padawans on new planets. How's that make sense to the reasoning posted in the quote? It doesn't. Before scaling down you were Dark Lord of the SIth/Jedi Master or a highly skilled non-Force use who one-shot Jedi Masters/Darths on Alderaan but had more difficulty to beat a single lurker on Yavin IV. How's that make sense? Level-syncs actually give the depth to RP more than their lack of.

 

7. Reasonable level-sync.

As it was proven in the livestream, despite the fact that you are downscaled, you are still superior to the mobs which don't deal that much damage to you. Musco casually clicking his three skills wrecked a mob. The difference is that you won't be able to one-shoot everything in your sight like a god.

__________________________________________________

 

Cons:

 

1. You won't be able to one-shoot mobs.

Getting achievements such as "kill X mobs" will be more time-consuming. Other than that, you will be still able to solo side missions but it won't be bursting through the map like it is now. However, instead of getting 1k credits and a useless piece of green gear as your rewad that you sell for 500 credits, the quest will give you now adequate rewards for your level. All in all, that drawback has its advantage.

__________________________________________________

 

Final Score: 7:1

__________________________________________________

 

Verdict: Downscaling wins

 

Why the hell would I go do lvl 18 heroics on my 60 characters only to get 50 credits and crap lvl 18 gear? I would rather just do dailies.

[TUXs]

Great post! Yes. It seems it will make the game relevant again. The more emotion filled responses and people go away or truly sit down and see, the more they will like it. Those that don't, will leave. Great post!

So your conclusion is "people who don't like it can leave"? Sarfux...I expect better from you...very disappointed.

 

Making it optional appeals to all players.

[Bobs_YourUncle]

You could have done every single one of those examples without descaling. As for challenges...you could have used legacy punches only, gone in without armor, or with weak armor...just because you have always opted to not make it challenging for yourself, doesn't justify making it mandatory for all.

 

Yep there are solutions for a couple of the examples I gave, but not everything and not the most important for me. The main thing is level relevant rewards, credits, comms, gear, and xp. Its an addition to the game with very little negative impact to others. Some frustration in not being able to run straight through mobs on old planets (though according to the example in the stream, you are still overleveled enough to sneak by them pretty easily and those speeders that are hard to get knocked off of). Acheivement hunters, those going back to get the datacrons, some other things, yeah they'll have to spend a bit more time killing mobs that get in their way at times. Again, imo, not a big deal. The positives far outweigh any negatives from my perspective. Is there a reason it has to be mandatory? Hell if I know, I don't really care if they make it optional, but its hardly a huge deal. We need more griping about OWPvP rewards and PVP content if you ask me lol.

[SelinaH]

For the few gains, there are just as many losses. This change severely impacts solo players. I'm not one...I love group content and I'll be happy to use this new feature...but I'm not blind to the impact it has on others.

Pretty much this. The change will be wonderful for me when I'm running old content with my friends. However, I tend to solo quite a bit more than I group (my friends are not always online and available). So for me, a non-optional level sync ends up being a net loss, as it's likely to make my solo activities that much more irritating and time-consuming.

 

And I'm one of the people who'd been advocating for a mentoring system for years.

[branmakmuffin]

You don't RP, do you?

 

Many locations on low-lvl planets are great for RP sessions. Take a walk into Tython mountains with your padawan. Go on search of ancient artifacts into Belsavis tombs. Sneak into sand people village. Go feed your enemy to sarlacc. Free a hostage from pirate den. And so on.

 

There are a lot of great location populated with enemy mobs. When they are grey, they ignore you, unless you step on them. So you can have your RP session uninterrupted even in the middle of heroic area.

Oh, yeah, it's great for immersion: "See those monsters over there? Well, I have killed so many of them that they now have racial memory of it so even their descendants leave me alone, unless I get too close for too long, then their self-preservation instinct flies out the window."

 

Level sync is actually better for RP.

Edited October 1, 2015 by branmakmuffin

[Bobs_YourUncle]

Why the hell would I go do lvl 18 heroics on my 60 characters only to get 50 credits and crap lvl 18 gear? I would rather just do dailies.

 

You get level relavent rewards. If you are actually a 60, you'll get xp, credits, and gear for level 60

[EnkiduNineEight]

Alliance points?

 

I do not have the full details of the new system, but you will b basically farming reputation points for your alliance to get it maxxed up, gain certain companions, etc as far as I have gathered. I've not looked at the other message boards where all the info can be found too much myself. But you'll be revisiting the old planets for this Alliance stuff.

 

Its also somewhat illy, IMO, because you'll be rubbing shoulders with people 5+ years in the past.

[skarlson]

This only applies if you only leveled after 12x XP came into being. If you leveled before then you have done all of those world missions because it was required to level high enough to move on in the class missions. Many of those people have done those missions multiple times and don't want to do them again hence the appeal of 12x XP. Either this or they skipped them and leveled in PVP and flashpoints because they didn't WANT to do the world missions OR the class stories they just wanted a level 60 to gear for end game content.

 

Both cases will constitute the majority of people at least those I know with multiple characters or few characters and thus your theory this will make end game missions relevant holds absolutely no water. Personally this is just another straw of many and the camel's back is broken. They have time to implement systems no one wants and warn people for calling others what they are who are inciting people knowingly but they don't have time to fix servers with dangerously low populations likely because they expect you to grind all that you leave behind to PAY for a transfer due to biofails ineptitude and inability to keep people playing such as the hundreds of millions or in some cases literally BILLIONS of credits put into strongholds.

 

They don't have time to actually fix PVP or make new PVP maps. They don't have time to ban known cheaters who have made hundreds of millions of credits through duplication bugs and blatantly brag about how bioware will do nothing with the proof being they are STILL playing. They do have time to churn out another ugly repainted cartel market item though. Their priorities are not giving you a good game it is bilking you for every dollar they can before you finally leave for good. I'm done as I'm one of the last people who logs into yet another guild I have watched die. Over 200 members who just stopped playing. That isn't counting the people who transferred servers in the hopes of better PVP again due to all the people who left the game on their current server nor is it counting the # of people who transferred TO the very selfsame servers searching for better PVP which was only a temp fix.

 

POT5 and Bastion were THE places to be for PVP with people transferring to them to obtain a healthy ranked environment now look at them. They are barely holding on as people move to another server, AGAIN, in hopes that this time the fix will be permanent and not temp and people won't eventually leave the game as happened on the prior two servers AND on whatever servers they left to go to POT5 and Bastion before that. Even the PVERs are gone or transferring such that operations rarely if ever happen. Bioware is #epicfail.

[aeterno]

It's good for the new/returning after launch players.

 

For us "old guard" it mainly telegraphs that the "Alliances" are the same as conquests: scorecard for old content made "relevant". Yaaaaaaaay....

[Sarfux]

Great post! Yes. It seems it will make the game relevant again. The more emotion filled responses and people go away or truly sit down and see, the more they will like it. Those that don't, will leave. Great post!

[Sarfux]

Pretty much this. The change will be wonderful for me when I'm running old content with my friends. However, I tend to solo quite a bit more than I group (my friends are not always online and available). So for me, a non-optional level sync ends up being a net loss, as it's likely to make my solo activities that much more irritating and time-consuming.

 

And I'm one of the people who'd been advocating for a mentoring system for years.

 

and perhaps this is the start of a future mentoring system. Ever think of that?

[Quraswren]

SNIP..

Level sync is actually better for RP.

 

I don't see how that is.

 

My level 60 battle master going back to Nar shaddaa and facing a level 20 sith wanna be should not have our mastery skill, crit, dodge, parry, power, surge or really anything similar to the point where I need to care about him.

 

down scaling makes little sense in RP much less from a leveling game perspective.

 

Other than it needing to be a game feature that is offered but not forced.

Edited October 1, 2015 by Quraswren

[Mavery]

OP makes a great point and I agree with it 100%.

 

One of the problems that western MMOs have had in recent years (so I'm talking about the "WoW Era") is new expansions = old content doesn't matter. BW has made a concerted effort to make all of their pre-existing content matter (and now, including old heroics).

 

I really don't get why people want to redo old content with no challenge (by extension, I don't understand why people like one-shotting low levels in PvP). There is no fun in one-shotting weak mobs. Now you can go back to old planets, at a reasonable level, and redo content (if you wish, you do not have to) and you won't be falling asleep at the keyboard for boredom.

 

Making old content relevant = good. It gives you more things to do, more ways to accumulate commendations (or crystals as they are being renamed). It's nothing but good vibes, man.

[PavSalco]

Why the hell would I go do lvl 18 heroics on my 60 characters only to get 50 credits and crap lvl 18 gear? I would rather just do dailies.

This is a valid question in the current circumnstances. That's the precise reason many 60 level characters don't bother with doing anything else than dailies/pvp/gsf/operations/reputation farming. After 4.0 your question won't be valid anymore. I used the term "scaled rewards" in my original post. It has been explained in the stream or you can look it up on dulfy's summary. The scaled rewards mean that once you finish any side mission on the planet, you will get experience, credits and gear adequate for your true level. Instead of getting 50 credits and crap lvl 18 gear, you will get 10k credits and lvl 60 gear for your 60 character. If you find that gear worse than your current one, I bet you will be able to sell it for additional 2k-3k.

Edited October 1, 2015 by PavSalco

[TUXs]

OP makes a great point and I agree with it 100%.

 

One of the problems that western MMOs have had in recent years (so I'm talking about the "WoW Era") is new expansions = old content doesn't matter. BW has made a concerted effort to make all of their pre-existing content matter (and now, including old heroics).

 

I really don't get why people want to redo old content with no challenge (by extension, I don't understand why people like one-shotting low levels in PvP). There is no fun in one-shotting weak mobs. Now you can go back to old planets, at a reasonable level, and redo content (if you wish, you do not have to) and you won't be falling asleep at the keyboard for boredom.

 

Making old content relevant = good. It gives you more things to do, more ways to accumulate commendations (or crystals as they are being renamed). It's nothing but good vibes, man.

Aside from heroics, what old content can you repeat? It's not class missions...it's not planetary quests...those are all once and done quests.

 

And you don't need to "get it"...you're welcome to play whatever way you like, just accept that not everyone is like you. I want all you guys to be forced into PvP all the time...would that be ok? I mean, if you're on the opposite faction, what fun can it possibly be going into any area killing NPCs that are no challenge at all to you? There's no fun in killing an NPC that can't beat you. You should be flagged for PvP so you won't be falling asleep at the keyboard for boredom of doing your PvE rotation.

 

I can be just as absurd.

[Tsillah]

This change severely impacts solo players. I'm not one...I love group content and I'll be happy to use this new feature...but I'm not blind to the impact it has on others.

 

I think the impact isn't as big as some seem to think. Flash Points get solo modes. That means you can solo them. Heroics..we'll see how many are still H4 but H2s can be done with your companion...and listen to this...your companion will be automatically geared and you can choose the role they play so it will be easier to do a lot of content solo because you always have a geared companion of the correct role you need most for the fight you're in.

 

I'm sure that for some it will be an adjustment but at the same time I don't believe it will be as bad as some describe.

[Jerqa]

In response to a few posts ....

 

The reason they gave us 12x XP was so that folks can get to end game quickly to be ready for the new expansion if they wanted to. Not because people "hate" doing old content. I'm leveling my 15th character now and I am using the White Acute Module just so I won't out level the planets as I do all of the quests. I am *still* out leveling the content and that is frustrating for me.

 

I play with a gaming group. We've been together for years playing multiple online games. We are very happy with this coming change. We'll be able to group and quest together now anytime without someone who's higher level and/or end-game one shotting everything and ruining other players gameplay and everyone will earn experience properly for their level. We've been wanting something like this for a long time for this game.

 

We are happy.

[NSStember]

3 alpha numerics

 

G W 2

 

Exactly why I love this idea for TOR.

[TUXs]

I think the impact isn't as big as some seem to think. Flash Points get solo modes. That means you can solo them. Heroics..we'll see how many are still H4 but H2s can be done with your companion...and listen to this...your companion will be automatically geared and you can choose the role they play so it will be easier to do a lot of content solo because you always have a geared companion of the correct role you need most for the fight you're in.

 

I'm sure that for some it will be an adjustment but at the same time I don't believe it will be as bad as some describe.

I hope you're right. I'm looking forward to it...I just understand why some people wouldn't be. Making it optional would have been the right thing to do.

[branmakmuffin]

I hope you're right. I'm looking forward to it...I just understand why some people wouldn't be. Making it optional would have been the right thing to do.

No, as explained elsewhere it would be the wrong thing to do.