Level synch = Revival of SWTOR

[Nikonthenet]

I don't know what some people are talking about...and clearly neither do they!

 

I watched on the Stream yesterday a LV60 character, whilst level-scaled to Lv18 on Kaas(i think it was) -DESTROY- enemies in a HEORIC Area...and so can you. -Go watch the stream, get informed before posting drivel on these forums.

 

'Level Scaling' is exactly what this game needs, so once again we can all play this MMO together meaningfully -OR- Solo content if you prefer.

 

What I saw on the stream was both playstyles getting what they want.

-WELL DONE BIOWARE! I can't wait to play KOTFE

[Cavadus]

Agree with the OP wholeheartedly. 10/10. Aside from removing levels and classes entirely this is one of the best ideas they've ever had.

[Nikonthenet]

Exactly.

 

People either did or didn't that lower-planet content already -- this isn't going to get anyone else to go back and do that same content now, if they weren't before.

 

Actually, I'm often out there responding to peoples requests for group/help. I've done some of the low-level missions on Kaas too many times than I care to remember. Exception proves the rule and all that

 

This change will only encourage a more friendly, cooperative approach to the game. While those intent on playing alone, may still do so.

[Max_Killjoy]

I don't know what some people are talking about...and clearly neither do they!

 

I watched on the Stream yesterday a LV60 character, whilst level-scaled to Lv18 on Kaas(i think it was) -DESTROY- enemies in a HEORIC Area...and so can you. -Go watch the stream, get informed before posting drivel on these forums.

 

'Level Scaling' is exactly what this game needs, so once again we can all play this MMO together meaningfully -OR- Solo content if you prefer.

 

What I saw on the stream was both playstyles getting what they want.

-WELL DONE BIOWARE! I can't wait to play KOTFE

 

"Both getting what they want" would be to make scaling optional.

[Uruare]

I would say these people greatly outnumbers the people that actually did everything from the old content. Bioware wouldn't have made such a decision without backing that up with the numbers from their database.

 

 

That's exactly why many people don't bother with them currently. For the same reason people didn't bother with HM flashpoints in 3.0. Why would they do content that drops inferior loot when they can spend a bit more time in Ravagers and get optimized gear and more commendations? INCENTIVE is one of the main reasons why people are interested in doing the content.

 

 

To put it in your own words: Instead of taking 30 minutes to get 30k credits from all side missions on Balmorra, you can make it in 2 hours with much higher credit reward.

 

When you reach level 60, you potentially have other characters to level up. As I said earlier, post-50 level is very repetitive. I agree that going back to the old planets might take more time to level up but it's not grinding chorde with spacbarring the cutscene you have seen every time on other toons. Going back is optional and provides the variety in leveling up.

 

 

 

Yet GW2 works great with its downscaling system.

 

 

Perhaps. That's why I said "slightly more fair".

 

 

I gave Yavin IV as an example. I buy that RP explanation with creatures enhanced by the influence of the dark side. But let's take another planet that is just a regular planet with regular animals. How about Makeb for example? Why a cute frog would deal massive damage to Dark Lord while Korslugs from Korriban with their sharp teeth do zero harm? Anyway, isn't Korriban statured in the dark side with all these tombs, dark side users and ghosts?

 

 

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/BwgU6sY.jpg

 

Oh, don't thank me too profusely. You weren't relevant to begin with and still can't manage to actually say anything of substance.

 

Carry on. You'll only hurt yourself in the end, and I like watching people faceplant. Ith elps me meet my schadenfreude quotas.

[Transairion]

watched on the Stream yesterday a LV60 character, whilst level-scaled to Lv18 on Kaas(i think it was) -DESTROY- enemies in a HEORIC Area...and so can you. -Go watch the stream, get informed before posting drivel on these forums

.

 

Yes, a dev account "destroyed" a single silver mob in one shot then fought two golds and stayed above 95% health the whole time. In a level 14 Heroic on the 2nd planet for Imperials. I wouldn't call it challenging at level regardless, buuuuut...

 

There's every chance an actual player who tries that will not only not oneshot the silver, they'll get killed by the golds. There's no way to know until we get more evidence from, well, real players. PTS players ideally, but they aren't allowed to say.

 

Dev's can do a lot of stuff, on another livestream they laser-eye oneshot all the mobs in their way, pretty sure that's not gonna be a feature anytime soon.

[Codedrago]

You could have at least read the first two points. The side missions have the new purpose of being an alternative for the solo endgame stuff. I completely understand and support the need of experience boosts for the class stories and the main planetary quests. People don't like when the meaningful story is interrupted by typical MMO duties where they need to grind experience to level up. Eventually when they go back from grinding to the meaningful story they already forget what it is all about. Side missions used to be means to level up between your class stories in the vanilla game. Currently they are sitting there forgotten. After KotFE they get the new purpose to be viable again as an alternative to level up post-50 level. Instead of forcing yourself through Makeb/Oricon and Rishi/Yavin IV, you get the wide range of other quests you can pick up and be rewarded meaningfully on top of it.

 

 

Revival not in sense that it will bring hordes of people but that the current playerbase will regularly revisit the old planets, so these planets won't feel that much empty and useless.

 

It would be worth mentioning that Eric mentioned in the stream that apparently you can level up good enough soley on the class and primary missions

[Terro_Fett]

So much misunderstanding about level sync.

 

Firstly, if you outlevel content now you will still outlevel it. You are scaled down only the minimum amount to prevent the content from turning grey. What this means is, Alderaan content caps at Lv 32. At level 37 you hit the "grey area" where no no longer gain xp, credits, etc from doing anything there. After 4.0 you will be scaled down to 36, one level before the content turns grey. In addition you still retain a good chunk of stats from your gear and your skills maintain their training level. So even though you are lvl 36, you are going to be notably stronger than a regular 36.

 

Also, mobs are still easy even when at level. Right now Yavin is a max level planet, and I can still throw music on and half-afk through the entire set of dailies there. It isn't hard even tho its level 60, these rescaled areas will be no harder than Yavin is right now, and probably much easier due to the +4 levels you will still maintain while doing it.

 

Now the plus side. You are REWARDED for this scaling! While your level is scaled down to non-trivialize the content, the rewards are scaled up to make them relevant to your actual level. At level 65 when you go back to an old planet to do the dailies/heroics/etc under the level sync system, you will be rewarded as-if you were doing a 65 daily area. You will get relevant xp, credits, comms, etc. to your actual level.

 

This is actually a win

Edited October 1, 2015 by Terro_Fett

[SelinaH]

You could have at least read the first two points.

You could have at least read the actual arguments against non-optional implementation.

 

Your good points are lost when they're highlighted against your blatantly biased misrepresentation of the opposing viewpoint.

[Terro_Fett]

This scaling thing really is kind of funny, if not ironic.

 

First, Bioware gives subs 12xp so everyone can race to the end.

 

Now, they're giving us 'scaling' (reverse bolster?) so we can go back & do all the stuff we skipped using 12xp.

 

Personally, I think it sounds pretty slick. It gives you lots of options at endgame which you didn't have previously. I mean now, say you like Hoth and want to hang out there for a while. It's kind of pointless since you can faceroll everything. With scaling, it creates a challenging environment on a planet you enjoy playing.

It doesn't just provide challenge, it rewards you for the challenge. By going back to a planet and doing the content (under the level sync system), the quest rewards are scaled up as if they were at-level content for you. So if your not max level you will gain xp towards leveling up your actual level, the quest rewards (credits, comms, etc) will also scale to what is appropriate for your actual level

Edited October 1, 2015 by Terro_Fett

[Zakua]

This scaling thing really is kind of funny, if not ironic.

 

First, Bioware gives subs 12xp so everyone can race to the end.

 

Now, they're giving us 'scaling' (reverse bolster?) so we can go back & do all the stuff we skipped using 12xp.

 

Personally, I think it sounds pretty slick. It gives you lots of options at endgame which you didn't have previously. I mean now, say you like Hoth and want to hang out there for a while. It's kind of pointless since you can faceroll everything. With scaling, it creates a challenging environment on a planet you enjoy playing.

 

 

Nailed it for me!

 

I was all sorts of bent during the stream yesterday when it was announced, maybe (obviously) a few to many beers behind the initial rage. After I came to my senses I realized "wow, I can totally hang out on Tat now and have fun" running around having good fights with rewards. It also occurred to me that all my other lvl 60 toons who never even took a glance at any side quests due to 12x XP now had a **** load of content to do.

 

And lets be honest here....Eric isn't exactly the best SWTOR player and he had no issue dispatching those NPCs in the Kaas heroic area....Scaling will be just fine IMO.

 

It really is cool, we now have the entire games content at our finger tips with relevant rewards

[Lord_Robert]

Exactly.

 

People either did or didn't that lower-planet content already -- this isn't going to get anyone else to go back and do that same content now, if they weren't before.

 

This is simply not true. I, for one, am going to be spending plenty of time on the old planets..

Why?

 

I don't have to go through the post-55 grind on the same 2-3 planets anymore. I can take my numerous alts through varied leveling paths after the class-missions...

 

I don't have to repeatedly grind the same old dailies all the time anymore... I have many different and varied areas, in which I can spend my time..

 

Yes, I blew through these planets leveling up.. Because I was (and will be) enjoying the experience of a connected class-story (many times over). Now I can do the planetary story lines, after I finish my class story.. The bonus series.. The side quests (maybe a bit less interesting, but hey, it's variety.), the heroics.... And they all give me rewards suitable for my max level toon...

 

I can even gather, while I'm doing it and get something out of it, I can use..

 

Absolutely brilliant in my opinion..

 

And no, I don't speak for anybody but myself.. But you said that nobody would go back and behold.. I just proved you wrong.. ;-)

Edited October 1, 2015 by Lord_Robert

[TUXs]

This scaling thing really is kind of funny, if not ironic.

 

First, Bioware gives subs 12xp so everyone can race to the end.

 

Now, they're giving us 'scaling' (reverse bolster?) so we can go back & do all the stuff we skipped using 12xp.

 

Personally, I think it sounds pretty slick. It gives you lots of options at endgame which you didn't have previously. I mean now, say you like Hoth and want to hang out there for a while. It's kind of pointless since you can faceroll everything. With scaling, it creates a challenging environment on a planet you enjoy playing.

What class or planetary content can you repeat on Hoth?

[Lord_Robert]

What class or planetary content can you repeat on Hoth?

 

There are some heroic quests, if nothing else... (And who knows, they may very well add dailies)

 

And for those people, who have toons on which they never did the planetary-, side- or bonus-quests, they're right there waiting... And worth your time rewards-wise.

[Quraswren]

There are some heroic quests, if nothing else... (And who knows, they may very well add dailies)

 

Which you can do from a terminal from fleet and get teleported there. An optional level scaling could have been connected to that and not forced all across the board.

 

And for those people, who have toons on which they never did the planetary-, side- or bonus-quests, they're right there waiting... And worth your time rewards-wise.

 

If they start KotFE, planetary, side and bonus quests are gone. There is no going back and doing those. No reward at all.

[TUXs]

There are some heroic quests, if nothing else... (And who knows, they may very well add dailies)

 

And for those people, who have toons on which they never did the planetary-, side- or bonus-quests, they're right there waiting... And worth your time rewards-wise.

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.

[Jedi_riches]

Actually I think they gave us 12x xp mainly because they wanted as many subs as possible ready to do KoTFE at launch and a sudden influx of sub money.

[Honako]

I'm all for the forced "level synch"

 

I just hope this means class quests still give good XP when you out level them.

[Bobs_YourUncle]

Seriously, who'll go back for the specific purpose of doing content we've done several times over already? The 12x allowed us to not having to do all the old crap again.

 

People who are new and haven't don't the heroics several times over if at all, don't have the time or desire to do the standard endgame content. Altoholics to farm up some quick basic comms for gearing alts. Probably a number of other reasons. Not everyone fits into your mold.

[Daewan]

I'm totally okay with level sync. I don't really see a problem, it would be cool if it was optional but I can see why they didn't go that way. It sucks for the people who wanted something different, I get that, but I won't support the sheer nastiness and the constant attempts to overpower the forums.

 

When it is released, if the actual playerbase hates it - not just the forum regulars, but the actual playerbase - they will probably change it, just like they did with the White Acute Module and the leveling costs. Since I don't care one way or another, I'm willing to try it out. I know my characters will be fine either way.

 

I'm looking forward to finding out how it works in play. It will probably be awesome.

[Bobs_YourUncle]

Why are people pretending this opens up new content for players??? It doesn't...it hasn't added anything but frustration.

 

Because it actually does. Its just not content you're interested in. Maybe anything but frustration for you, but not in general. This opens up a lot of stuff for a lot of people. Personally, I skipped heroics mostly because I didn't have time to find a group, and by the time I could solo it, the rewards were irrelevant. Now I can go back and have a ton of new stuff open to me personally, if not the basic quest as its the same and was always available, the rewards themselves are new and now they'll be a touch challenging, I like a bit of challenge. Now when i'm walking through dummond kaas doing my story as a level 30 or whatever when it takes you back, or sitting in my SH and a low level asks for help with a heroic, I have more incentive to actually help them and do it.

[Lord_Robert]

Which you can do from a terminal from fleet and get teleported there. An optional level scaling could have been connected to that and not forced all across the board.

 

I guess it's true that taste cannot truly be discussed.. I love the level-scaling and you do not.. I think it adds great variety and you do not.. Let us agree to disagree.

 

 

If they start KotFE, planetary, side and bonus quests are gone. There is no going back and doing those. No reward at all.

Hmm.. I was under the impression that only the class missions became unreachable... I'll have to read up on that.. Still, with 40 alts, not all of them will ever make it to KOTFE.. So I still consider it a win.. for me.. I fully accept that not everybody will see it that way.

[Darevsool]

So much misunderstanding about level sync.

 

Firstly, if you outlevel content now you will still outlevel it. You are scaled down only the minimum amount to prevent the content from turning grey. What this means is, Alderaan content caps at Lv 32. At level 37 you hit the "grey area" where no no longer gain xp, credits, etc from doing anything there. After 4.0 you will be scaled down to 36, one level before the content turns grey. In addition you still retain a good chunk of stats from your gear and your skills maintain their training level. So even though you are lvl 36, you are going to be notably stronger than a regular 36.

 

Also, mobs are still easy even when at level. Right now Yavin is a max level planet, and I can still throw music on and half-afk through the entire set of dailies there. It isn't hard even tho its level 60, these rescaled areas will be no harder than Yavin is right now, and probably much easier due to the +4 levels you will still maintain while doing it.

 

Now the plus side. You are REWARDED for this scaling! While your level is scaled down to non-trivialize the content, the rewards are scaled up to make them relevant to your actual level. At level 65 when you go back to an old planet to do the dailies/heroics/etc under the level sync system, you will be rewarded as-if you were doing a 65 daily area. You will get relevant xp, credits, comms, etc. to your actual level.

 

This is actually a win

 

If that's how it is going to work, I'm not agreeing with it being a positive.

For me, the entire point of skipping stuff to go back to it at max level is to trivialize the mobs so I don't waste time with them getting datacrons or doing old heroics for the reward items, or for farming mats.

 

What takes 10 minutes of taxi flight and driving on my mount to get to nodes and harvest them, ignoring the mobs, will now take longer since the mobs won't ignore me and it'll take longer to kill them.

[TUXs]

Because it actually does. Its just not content you're interested in. Maybe anything but frustration for you, but not in general. This opens up a lot of stuff for a lot of people. Personally, I skipped heroics mostly because I didn't have time to find a group, and by the time I could solo it, the rewards were irrelevant. Now I can go back and have a ton of new stuff open to me personally, if not the basic quest as its the same and was always available, the rewards themselves are new and now they'll be a touch challenging, I like a bit of challenge. Now when i'm walking through dummond kaas doing my story as a level 30 or whatever when it takes you back, or sitting in my SH and a low level asks for help with a heroic, I have more incentive to actually help them and do it.

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.

[Muljo_Stpho]

Which would only work on Heroics that are behind an instance wall. The heroics that are in open world would be much harder to set up in that manner.

 

While there could be something weird / unexpected about the functionality of it since it's clearly not just implemented as a buff/debuff like other examples we could get into, this does not appear to be true.

 

We transition from eastern to western Ilum and pick up the Gree event bolster without having to enter an instance or go through a load screen. Exhaustion zones are another example of an effect that's picked up and lost automatically when entering / exiting certain areas. And on a similar note to that, there are examples like the radiation leak near the engines in the Theoretika or the burning effect picked up when walking through a lot of fires in the game. There are places with odd effects that aren't necessarily helpful or harmful like the cold air up on a specific peak on Hoth. There's the GSI bolster that we can choose to pick up on Makeb. It's all stuff that can be applied and lost without needing to go through a load screen.

 

So why would it be a farfetched notion that maybe this level sync system might be capable of being something that they can define by region?

 

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.